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+gracious way, and the school teacher led them to a garden bench and
+begged them to be seated.
+
+"The day is lovely," she said, "and I always find my garden more
+cheerful than the house. Grandfather's illness makes the house
+unpleasant for strangers, too."
+
+Louise was surprised at this frank reference, and Uncle John coughed to
+hide his embarrassment.
+
+"I--I hope the invalid is--is improving," he said, doubtful whether he
+should say anything on the delicate subject or not.
+
+"He is always the same, sir," was the quiet response. "I suppose they
+have told you that grandfather is a madman? Our great trouble is well
+known in this neighborhood."
+
+"He is not dangerous. I suppose?" hazarded Uncle John, remembering the
+brutal bellowing.
+
+"Oh, not at all. He is fully paralyzed from his waist down, poor
+grandfather, and can do no harm to anyone. But often his outbreaks are
+unpleasant to listen to," continued the girl, deprecatingly, as if
+suddenly conscious that they had overheard the recent uproar.
+
+"Has he been--this way--for long?" inquired Louise.
+
+"His mind has been erratic and unbalanced since I can remember,"
+answered Ethel, calmly, "but he first became violent at the time Captain
+Wegg died, some three years ago. Grandfather was very fond of the
+Captain, and happened to be with him at the time of his sudden death.
+The shock drove him mad."
+
+"Was he paralyzed before that time?" asked Louise, earnestly.
+
+"No; but the paralysis followed almost immediately. The doctor says that
+a blood vessel which burst in the brain is responsible for both
+afflictions."
+
+The pause that followed was growing awkward when Uncle John said, with
+an evident effort to change the subject:
+
+"This is a fine old homestead."
+
+"It is, indeed," responded Ethel, brightly, "and it enjoys the
+distinction of being one of the first houses built in the foothills. My
+great-grandfather was really the first settler in these parts and
+originally located his cabin where the mill now stands. 'Little Bill
+Thompson,' he was called, for he was a small, wiry man--very different
+from grandfather, who in his prime was a powerful man of over six feet.
+Little Bill Hill and Little Bill Creek were named after this pioneer
+great-grandsire, who was quite successful raising flocks of sheep on the
+plateau. Before he died he built this house, preferring the location to
+his first one."
+
+"The garden is beautiful," said Louise, enthusiastically. "And do you
+teach in the little brick school-house across the way?"
+
+"Yes. Grandfather built it years ago, without dreaming I would ever
+teach there. Now the county supports the school and pays me my salary."
+
+"How long have you taught?"
+
+"For two years. It is necessary, now that grandfather is disabled. He
+has a small income remaining, however, and with what I earn we get along
+very nicely."
+
+"It was very good of you to assist in getting our house ready for us,"
+said Louise. "We might have found things in sorry condition but for your
+kindness."
+
+"Oh, I enjoyed the work, I assure you," replied Ethel. "As it is my
+vacation, it was a real pleasure to me to have something to do. But I
+fear my arrangement of your pretty furniture was very ungraceful."
+
+"We haven't altered a single thing," declared Louise. "You must have
+found it a tedious task, unpacking and getting everything in shape."
+
+"Tom and Nora were good help, because they are fond of me and seem to
+understand my wishes; and Peggy McNutt brought me some men to do the
+lifting and rough work," explained Ethel.
+
+"Have you known Hucks and his wife long?" asked Uncle John.
+
+"Since I can remember, sir. They came here many years ago, with Captain
+Wegg."
+
+"And has Thomas always smiled?" Louise inquired.
+
+"Always," was the laughing reply. "It's an odd expression--isn't it?--to
+dwell forever on a man's face. But Tom is never angry, or hurt or
+excited by anything, so there is no reason he should not smile. At the
+time of Captain Wegg's death and poor grandfather's terrible affliction,
+Old Hucks kept right on smiling, the same as ever; and perhaps his
+pleasant face helped to cheer us all."
+
+Louise drew a long breath.
+
+"Then the smile is a mask," she said, "and is assumed to conceal the
+man's real feelings."
+
+"I do not think so," Ethel answered, thoughtfully. "The smile is
+habitual, and dominates any other expression his features might be
+capable of; but that it is assumed I do not believe. Thomas is a
+simple-minded, honest-hearted old fellow, and to face the world
+smilingly is a part of his religion. I am sure he has nothing to
+conceal, and his devotion to his blind wife is very beautiful."
+
+"But Nora--how long has she been blind?"
+
+"Perhaps all her life; I cannot tell how long. Yet it is wonderful how
+perfectly she finds her way without the aid of sight. Captain Wegg used
+to say she was the best housekeeper he ever knew."
+
+"Did not his wife keep house for him, when she was alive?"
+
+"I do not remember her."
+
+"They say she was most unhappy."
+
+Ethel dropped her eyes and did not reply.
+
+"How about Cap'n Wegg?" asked Uncle John. "Did you like him? You see,
+we're mighty curious about the family, because we've acquired their old
+home, and are bound to be interested in the people that used to
+live there."
+
+"That is natural," remarked the little school teacher, with a sigh.
+"Captain Wegg was always kind to me; but the neighbors as a rule thought
+him moody and bad-tempered." After a pause she added: "He was not as
+kind to his son as to me. But I think his life was an unhappy one, and
+we have no right to reprove his memory too severely for his faults."
+
+"What made him unhappy?" asked Louise, quickly.
+
+Ethel smiled into her eager face.
+
+"No one has solved that problem, they say. The Captain was as silent as
+he was morose."
+
+The detective instinct was alive in Louise. She hazarded a startling
+query:
+
+"Who killed Captain Wegg?" she demanded, suddenly.
+
+Another smile preceded the reply.
+
+"A dreadful foe called heart disease. But come; let me show you my
+garden. There are no such roses as these for miles around."
+
+Louise was confident she had made progress. Ethel had admitted several
+things that lent countenance to the suspicions already aroused; but
+perhaps this simple country girl had never imagined the tragedy that had
+been enacted at her very door.
+
+She cordially urged Ethel Thompson to spend a day with them at the farm,
+and Uncle John, who was pleased with the modesty and frankness of the
+fair-haired little school teacher, earnestly seconded the invitation.
+
+Then he thought of going home, and the thought reminded him of Dan.
+
+"Do you know," he inquired, "where I could buy a decent horse?"
+
+The girl looked thoughtful a moment; then glanced up with a bright
+smile.
+
+"Will you buy one off me?" she asked.
+
+"Willingly, my dear, if you've an animal to sell."
+
+"It's--it's our Joe. He was grandfather's favorite colt when his trouble
+came upon him. We have no use for him now, for I always ride or drive my
+pony. And grandmother says he's eating his head off to no purpose; so
+we'd like to sell him. If you will come to the barn I'll introduce
+you to him."
+
+Joe proved on inspection to be an excellent horse, if appearances were
+to be trusted, and Ethel assured Mr. Merrick that the steed was both
+gentle and intelligent.
+
+"Do you use that surrey?" inquired Uncle John, pointing to a neat
+vehicle that seemed to be nearly new.
+
+"Very seldom, sir. Grandmother would like to sell it with the horse."
+
+"It's exactly what I need," declared Mr. Merrick. "How much for Joe and
+his harness, and the surrey?"
+
+"I'll go and ask what grandmother wants."
+
+She returned after a few minutes, stating a figure that made Uncle John
+lift his brows with a comical expression.
+
+"A hundred dollars! Do you take me for a brigand, little girl? I know
+what horses are worth, for I've bought plenty of 'em. Your Joe seems
+sound as a dollar, and he's just in his prime. A hundred and fifty is
+dirt cheap for him, and the surrey will be worth at least seventy-five.
+Put in the harness at twenty-five, and I'll give you two-fifty for the
+outfit, and not a cent more or less. Eh?"
+
+"No, indeed," said Ethel. "We could not get more than a hundred dollars
+from anyone else around here."
+
+"Because your neighbors are countrymen, and can't afford a proper
+investment. So when they buy at all they only give about half what a
+thing is actually worth. But I'll be honest with you. The price I offer
+is a good deal less than I'd have to pay in the city--Hutchinson would
+charge me five hundred, at least--and I need just what you've got to
+sell. What do you say, Miss Ethel?"
+
+"The price is one hundred dollars, Mr. Merrick."
+
+"I won't pay it. Let me talk with your grandmother."
+
+"She does not see anyone, sir."
+
+Louise looked up sharply, scenting another clue.
+
+"Isn't she well, dear?" she asked in smooth tones.
+
+"She looks after grandfather, and helps Aunt Lucy with the housework."
+
+"Well, come, Louise; we'll go home," said Uncle John, sadly. "I'd hoped
+to be able to drive this fine fellow back, but Dan'll have to groan an'
+balk all the way to the farm."
+
+Ethel smiled.
+
+"Better buy at my price, Mr. Merrick," she suggested.
+
+"Tell you what I'll do," he said, pausing. "I'll split the difference.
+Take two hundred and well call it a bargain."
+
+"But I cannot do that, sir."
+
+"It will help pay you for the hard work of fixing up the house," he
+rejoined, pleadingly. "Your bill wasn't half enough."
+
+"My bill?" wonderingly.
+
+"The one I paid McNutt for your services."
+
+"I made no charge, sir. I could not accept anything for a bit of
+assistance to a neighbor."
+
+"Oh! Then McNutt got it, did he?"
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Merrick. I told Peggy I would not accept
+payment."
+
+"H-m. Never mind. We're not going to quarrel, little neighbor. May I
+hitch Joe to the surrey?"
+
+"If you like. I'll help you."
+
+Uncle John led Joe from his stall and together they harnessed the horse
+to the surrey. The girl knew better than the man how to buckle the
+straps properly, while Louise stood by helplessly and watched the
+performance.
+
+Then Uncle John went for old Dan, whom he led, rickety buggy and all,
+into the Thompson stable.
+
+"I'll send Hucks over to get him, although we might as well knock him in
+the head," he said as he unharnessed the ancient steed. "Now then,
+Louise, hop in."
+
+"You'll be sure to come over Thursday, for the day, Miss Thompson?"
+asked Louise, taking Joe's reins from her uncle's hands.
+
+"I'll not forget such a delightful engagement, be sure."
+
+Uncle John had his pocketbook out, and now he wadded up some bills and
+thrust them into the little school teacher's hand.
+
+"Drive ahead, Louise," he called. "Good morning, my dear. See you on
+Thursday."
+
+As the vehicle rolled out of the yard and turned into the highway, Ethel
+unrolled the bills with trembling fingers.
+
+"If he has dared--!" she began, but paused abruptly with a smile of
+content.
+
+The rich man had given her exactly one hundred dollars.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS.
+
+On Wednesday afternoon McNutt drove the sad-eyed sorrel mare over to the
+Wegg farm again. He had been racking his brain for a way to get more
+money out of the nabob, for the idea had become a veritable passion with
+him and now occupied all his thoughts.
+
+That very morning an inspiration had come to him. Among other
+occupations he had at one time adopted that of a book-agent, and by dint
+of persistent energy had sold numerous copies of "Radford's Lives of the
+Saints" to the surrounding farmers. They had cost him ninety cents a
+copy and he had sold them at three dollars each, netting a fine profit
+in return for his labor. The books were printed upon cheap paper,
+fearfully illustrated with blurred cuts, but the covers were bound in
+bright red with gold lettering. Through misunderstandings three of these
+copies had come back to him, the subscribers refusing to accept them;
+and so thorough had been his canvassing that there remained no other
+available customers for the saintly works. So Peggy had kept them on a
+shelf in his "office" for several years, and now, when his eye chanced
+to light upon them, he gave a snort of triumph and pounced upon them
+eagerly. Mr. Merrick was a newcomer. Without doubt he could be induced
+to buy a copy of Radford's Lives.
+
+An hour later McNutt was on his mission, the three copies, which had
+been carefully dusted, reclining on the buggy seat beside him. Arrived
+at the Wegg farm, he drove up to the stile and alighted.
+
+Louise was reading in the hammock, and merely glanced at the little man,
+who solemnly stumped around to the back door with the three red volumes
+tucked underneath his arm. He had brought them all along to make his
+errand "look like business."
+
+"Where's the nabob?" he asked blind Nora.
+
+"What's that, Mr. McNutt?" she inquired, as if puzzled. She knew his
+voice, as she did that of nearly everyone with whom she had ever been
+brought in contact.
+
+"Why, the nabob; the boss; Mr. Merrick."
+
+"Oh. He's in the barn with Tom, I guess."
+
+McNutt entered the barn. Uncle John was seated upon an overturned pail
+watching Old Hucks oil Joe's harness. The agent approached him with a
+deferential bow.
+
+"Sir," said he, "you'll 'scuse my comin' agin so soon to be a-botherin';
+but I hev here three copies of Radford's famis wucks on the Lives o' the
+Saints, in a edishun dee looks----"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A edishun dee looks, which means extry fine. It's a great book an'
+they's all out'n print 'cept these three, which I hain't no doubt many
+folks would be glad to give their weight in gold fer, an' some over."
+
+"Stand out of the light, McNutt."
+
+The agent shifted his position.
+
+"Them books, sir----"
+
+"Oh, take 'em away."
+
+"What!"
+
+"I don't read novels."
+
+McNutt scratched his head, perplexed at the rebuff. His "dee looks"
+speech had usually resulted in a sale. An idea flashed across his
+brain--perhaps evolved by the scratching.
+
+"The young lady, sir--"
+
+"Oh, the girls are loaded with books," growled the nabob.
+
+The agent became desperate.
+
+"But the young lady in the hammick, sir, as I jest now left, says to
+tell ye she wants one o' these books mighty bad, an' hopes you'll buy it
+for her eddificationing."
+
+"Oh; she does, eh?"
+
+"Mighty bad, sir."
+
+Uncle John watched Thomas polish a buckle.
+
+"Is it a moral work?" he asked.
+
+"Nuthin' could be moraler, sir. All 'bout the lives o'--"
+
+"How much is it?"
+
+"Comes pretty high, sir. Three dollars. But it's--"
+
+"Here. Take your money and get out. You're interrupting me."
+
+"Very sorry, sir. Much obleeged, sir. Where'll I leave the book?"
+
+"Throw it in the manger."
+
+McNutt selected a volume that had a broken corner and laid it carefully
+on the edge of the oat-bin. Then he put his money in his pocket and
+turned away.
+
+"Morn'n' to ye, Mr. Merrick."
+
+"Stop a bit," said Uncle John, suddenly.
+
+The agent stopped.
+
+"I believe I paid you ten dollars for Miss Ethel Thompson's services. Is
+that correct?"
+
+"Ye--yes, Mr. Merrick."
+
+McNutt's heart was in his shoes and he looked guiltily at his accuser,
+the pale blue eyes bulging fearfully.
+
+"Very well; see that she gets it."
+
+"Of course, Mr. Merrick."
+
+"And at once. You may go."
+
+McNutt stumped from the barn. He felt that a dreadful catastrophe had
+overtaken him. Scarcely could he restrain the impulse to sob aloud. Ten
+dollars!--Ten dollars gone to the dogs as the result of his visit to the
+nabob that morning! To lose ten dollars in order to gain three was very
+bad business policy. McNutt reflected bitterly that he would have been
+better off had he stayed at home. He ought to have been contented with
+what he had already made, and the severe manner the nabob had used in
+addressing him told the agent plainly that he need not expect further
+pickings from this source.
+
+In the midst of his despair the comforting thought that Ethel would
+surely refuse the money came to sustain him; so he recovered somewhat
+his former spirits. As he turned the corner of the house he observed
+Louise still reading in the hammock.
+
+In some ways McNutt was a genius. He did not neglect opportunities.
+
+"Here's my las' chance at these idjits," he muttered, "an' I'll learn
+thet nabob what it costs, to make Marsh McNutt stand out'n his light."
+
+Then he hastened over to the hammock.
+
+"'Scuse me, miss," said he, in his most ingratiating voice. "Is yer
+uncle 'round anywheres?"
+
+"Isn't he in the barn?" asked the girl, looking up.
+
+"Can't find him, high ner low. But he ordered a book of me t'other
+day--'Radford's Lives o' the Saints'--an' perhaps you'll take it an' pay
+me the money, so's I kin go home."
+
+Louise gazed at the man musingly. He was one of the people she intended
+to pump for information concerning the mystery of Captain Wegg, and she
+must be gracious to him in order to win his good-will and induce him to
+speak freely. With this thought in mind she drew out her purse
+and asked:
+
+"How much were you to be paid for the book?"
+
+"Three dollars, miss."
+
+"Here is the money, then. Tell me--your name is McNutt, isn't it?--how
+long have you lived in this place?"
+
+"All my life, miss. Thank 'e, miss. Good day to ye, miss."
+
+He placed the book in the hammock beside her.
+
+"Don't go, please." said the girl. "I'd like you to tell me something
+about Captain Wegg, and of his poor wife who died, and--"
+
+"Nuther time, miss, I'll be glad to. Ye'll find me in my orfice, any
+time. Jest now I'm in the dumdest hurry ye ever knew. Good day to ye,
+miss," he repeated, and stumped quickly to the buggy awaiting him. Next
+moment he had seized the reins and was urging the sorrel mare along the
+stony lane at her best pace.
+
+Louise was both astonished and disappointed, but after a little thought
+she looked after the departing agent with a shrewd smile.
+
+"He's afraid to talk," she murmured, "and that only confirms my
+suspicions that he knows more than he cares to tell."
+
+Meantime McNutt was doing his best to get away from the premises before
+the discovery was made that he had sold two "Lives of the Saints" to one
+family. That there might be future consequences to follow his deception
+never occurred to him; only the immediate necessity for escape
+occupied his mind.
+
+Nor were his fears altogether groundless. Turning his head from time to
+time for a glance behind, he had seen Mr. Merrick come from the barn
+with a red book in his hand and approach the hammock, whereupon the
+young lady arose and exhibited a second book. Then they both dropped the
+books and ran into the lane and began shouting for him to stop--the
+man's voice sounding especially indignant and imperative.
+
+But McNutt chose to be deaf. He did not look around again, and was
+congratulating himself that he would soon be out of earshot when a
+sudden apparition ahead caused the mare to halt abruptly. It also caused
+the cold chills to run down the agent's back. Beth and Patsy had stepped
+into the lane from a field, being on their way home from their
+daily walk.
+
+"They're calling to you, sir," said Patsy to the agent. "Didn't you hear
+them?"
+
+"I--I'm a little deaf, miss," stammered McNutt, who recognized the young
+ladies as Mr. Merrick's nieces.
+
+"I think they wish you to go back," remarked Beth, thoughtfully watching
+the frantic waves of Uncle John's chubby arms and Louise's energetic
+beckonings. They were too far off to be heard plainly, but their actions
+might surely be understood.
+
+McNutt with reluctance looked over his shoulder, and a second shudder
+went through him.
+
+"I hain't got time to go back," he said, as an inspiration came to him;
+"but I guess you kin do jest as well. This book here," picking up the
+last of the three from the seat, "I offered to sell yer uncle fer five
+dollars; but he wanted it fer four. I ain't no haggler, you understan',
+so I jest driv away. Now Mr. Merrick has changed his mind an' is willin'
+to give five fer it; but there ain't nuthin' small about me. Ef you
+gals'll jest give me the four dollars ye kin take the book to yer uncle,
+with my compliments; an' I won't hev t' go back. I'm in a
+drea'ful hurry."
+
+Patsy laughed at the little man's excited manner.
+
+"Fortunately I have some money with me," she said; "but you may as well
+take the five dollars, for unless Uncle had been willing to pay it he
+would not have called you back."
+
+"I think so, myself, miss," he rejoined, taking the money and handing
+her the volume.
+
+Uncle John and Louise, glaring at the distant group, saw the third red
+book change hands, and in answer to their renewed cries and gestures
+Patsy waved the "Lives of the Saints" at them reassuringly and came on
+at a brisk walk, followed by Beth.
+
+McNutt slapped the sorrel with the ends of the reins so energetically
+that the mare broke into a trot, and before the girls had come within
+speaking distance of their uncle, the agent was well out of sight and
+exulting in the possession of eleven dollars to pay for his morning's
+work. Even if Ethel accepted that ten, he reflected, he would still be a
+dollar ahead. But he was sure she would tell him to keep it; and he'd
+"jest like to see thet air nabob git a penny back agin."
+
+Meantime Uncle John's wrath, which was always an effervescent quality
+with the little gentleman, had changed to wonder when he saw his nieces
+approaching with the third red-and-gold book. Louise was leaning against
+the rail fence and laughing hysterically, and suddenly a merry smile
+appeared and spread over her uncle's round face as he said:
+
+"Did you ever hear of such an audacious swindle in all your born days?"
+
+"What will you do, Uncle?" asked the girl, wiping the tears of merriment
+from her eyes. "Have the man arrested?"
+
+"Of course not, my dear. It's worth the money just to learn what talents
+the fellow possesses. Tell me, Patsy," he continued, as the other nieces
+joined them, "what did you pay for your book?"
+
+"Five dollars. Uncle. He said--"
+
+"Never mind what he said, my dear. It's all right. I wanted it to add to
+my collection. So far I've got three 'Lives of the Saints'--and I'm
+thankful they're not cats, or there'd be nine lives for me to
+accumulate."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE MYSTERY DEEPENS.
+
+Ethel Thompson came over the next day, as she had promised, and the
+sweet-faced, gentle school-mistress won the hearts of Uncle John's three
+nieces without an effort. She was the eldest of them all, but her
+retired country life had kept her fresh and natural, and Ethel seemed no
+more mature than the younger girls except in a certain gravity that
+early responsibility had thrust upon her.
+
+Together the four laughing, light-hearted maids wandered through the
+pines, where the little school-ma'am showed them many pretty nooks and
+mossy banks that the others had not yet discovered. By following an
+unsuspected path, they cut across the wooded hills to the waterfall,
+where Little Bill Creek made a plunge of twenty feet into a rocky basin
+below. In spite of the bubbles, the water here showed clear as crystal,
+and the girls admiringly christened it the "Champagne Cup." They shed
+their shoes and stockings and waded in the pool, enjoying the sport with
+shrieks of merry laughter--more because they were happy than that there
+was anything to laugh at.
+
+Afterward they traced the stream down to a lovely glade a half mile
+above Millville, where Ethel informed them the annual Sunday-school
+picnic was always held, and then trailed across the rocky plateau to the
+farm. By the time they reached home their appetites were well sharpened
+for Mary's excellent luncheon, and the afternoon was devoted to rest
+under the shady pines that grew beside the house.
+
+It was now, when they felt thoroughly acquainted and at ease in one
+another's society, that the girls indulged in talks concerning events in
+their past, and Ethel was greatly interested in the nieces' recital of
+their recent trip abroad with Uncle John. They also spoke frankly of
+their old life together at Elmhurst, where Aunt Jane, who was Uncle
+John's sister, had congregated her three nieces for the purpose of
+choosing from among them one to inherit her vast estates. It seemed no
+source of regret to any of them that a boy, Kenneth Forbes, had finally
+succeeded to Aunt Jane's property, and this may be explained by the fact
+that Uncle John had at that interesting juncture appeared to take charge
+of the nieces. It was quite evident that the eccentric but kindly old
+fellow had succeeded in making these three girls as happy as their
+dispositions would allow them to be.
+
+After the most interesting phases of their personal history had been
+discussed, the nieces began, perhaps unconsciously, to draw from Ethel
+her own story. It was simple enough, and derived its interest mainly
+from the fact that it concerned their new friend. Her parents had both
+passed away while she was young, and Ethel had always lived with her
+father's father, big Will Thompson, a man reputed very well-to-do for
+this section, and an energetic farmer from his youth.
+
+Old Will had always been accused of being unsociable and considering
+himself above the neighboring farmers; and it was true that Bob West,
+the implement dealer, was his only associate before Captain Wegg
+arrived. A casual acquaintance with the Millville people might easily
+explain this.
+
+With the advent of the Weggs, however, a strong friendship seemed to
+spring up between the retired sea captain and the bluff, erratic old
+farmer, which lasted until the fatal day when one died and the other
+became a paralytic and a maniac.
+
+"We have always thought," said Ethel, "that the shock of the Captain's
+death unsettled my grandfather's mind. They had been sitting quietly in
+Captain Wegg's room one evening, as they were accustomed to do, when
+there was a sudden fall and a cry. Thomas ran in at once, and found
+grandfather raving over the Captain's dead body. The old seaman had
+heart disease, it seems, and had often declared he would die suddenly.
+It was a great blow to us all, but especially to Joe."
+
+Her voice softened at this last remark, and Patsy exclaimed,
+impulsively:
+
+"Tell us about Joe Wegg. Did you like him?"
+
+"Yes," said Ethel, simply; "we were naturally thrown much together in
+our childhood, and became staunch friends. Grandpa often took me with
+him on his visits to the Weggs, and sometimes, but not often, the
+Captain would bring Joe to see us. He was a quiet, thoughtful boy; much
+like his mother, I imagine; but for some reason he had conceived an
+intense dislike for his father and an open hatred for this part of the
+country, where he was born. Aside from these morbid notions, Joe was
+healthy-minded and frank and genuine. Had he been educated in any other
+atmosphere than the gloomy one of the Wegg household I am sure Joe's
+character would have been wholly admirable, and I have never blamed the
+boy much for his peculiarities. Captain Wegg would not permit him to go
+to school, but himself attended to such instructions as Joe could
+acquire at home, and this was so meager and the boy so ambitious that I
+think it was one cause of his discontent. I remember, when I was sent to
+school at Troy, that Joe sobbed for days because he could not have the
+same advantages. He used to tell me wonderful stories of what he would
+accomplish if he could only get out into the world.
+
+"When he implored his father to let him go away, Captain Wegg used to
+assure Joe that he would some day be rich, and there was no need of his
+preparing himself for either a business or a profession; but that did
+not satisfy Joe's ambition, as you may imagine. And, when the end came,
+scarcely a dollar of money could be found among the Captain's
+possessions, and no other property than this farm; so it is evident he
+deceived his son for some selfish purpose.
+
+"Joe was at last free, and the only thing I reproach him for is going
+away without a word to me or any of his friends. I heard, indirectly, of
+his working his way through a technical school, for he was always crazy
+about mechanics, and then he went to New York and I lost all further
+trace of him."
+
+"What do you suppose became of Captain Wegg's money?" asked Louise.
+
+"I've no idea. It is a singular thing that most of my grandfather's
+savings disappeared at the same time. On account of his mental condition
+he can never tell us what became of his little fortune; but luckily the
+returns from the farm, which we rent on shares, and my own salary as
+teacher of the district school, enable us to live quite comfortably,
+although we must be economical."
+
+"Why, it's really a romance!" cried Patsy, who had listened eagerly.
+
+"There are many romances in real life," added Beth, in her
+undemonstrative way.
+
+Louise said nothing, but her heart was throbbing with excitement
+engendered by the tale, which so strongly corroborated the suspicions
+she had begun to entertain. When Ethel had gone home Louise still
+deliberated upon this fascinating mystery, and her resolve grew to force
+some sort of an explanation from the smiling lips of Old Hucks. For the
+sole available witness of that fatal night's tragedy, when one strong
+man died and another was driven mad, was Thomas Hucks. The old servitor
+was also in a position to know much of the causes leading up to the
+catastrophe, he having been the confidential retainer of Captain Wegg
+for many years. Hucks must speak; but the girl was wise enough to
+realize that he would not do so unless urged by coaxing or forced by
+strategy. There was doubtless good reason why the old man had remained
+silent for three years. Her plan was to win his confidence. Interest him
+in Joe's welfare, and then the truth must come out.
+
+The frankly related story of Ethel had supplied Louise with the motive
+for the crime, for that a crime had been committed she was now doubly
+sure. Captain Wegg had money; old Will Thompson had money; both were
+well-to-do men. In a retired country district, where there were no
+banks, it was reasonable to suppose they kept large sums of money on
+hand, and the knowledge of this fact had tempted some one to a dreadful
+deed. Captain Wegg had been killed and old Thompson perhaps injured by a
+blow upon the head from which he had never recovered. Any suspicion the
+fair young detective may have entertained that Thompson himself had
+killed his friend was eradicated by the fact that he had been robbed at
+the same time.
+
+Louise had originally undertaken her investigation through curiosity and
+a desire to amuse herself by unveiling the mystery. Now she began to
+reflect that she was an instrument of justice, for a discovery of the
+truth might restore a fortune to poor Joe Wegg, now struggling with the
+world, and put sweet Ethel Thompson in a position where the necessity
+for her to teach school would be abolished. This thought added a strong
+impulse to her determination to succeed.
+
+Sunday afternoon the girl took blind Nora for a long drive through the
+country, taking pains to explain to her all the points of interest they
+came to, and delighting the old woman with her bright chatter. Louise
+had been kind to Nora from the beginning, and her soft, sympathetic
+voice had quite won the poor creature's heart.
+
+On the way home, in the delightful summer twilight, the girl dexterously
+led the conversation toward Nora's past history.
+
+"Was Thomas a sailor when you married him?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, miss. He were bos'n on Cap'n Wegg's schooner the 'Lively Kate,'
+an' I were livin' with Miss Mary, as come to be Mrs. Wegg arterward."
+
+"Oh, I see. And were you blind then, Nora?"
+
+"No, miss. I went blind arter our great trouble come to us."
+
+"Trouble? Oh, I'm so sorry, dear. What was it?"
+
+The old woman was silent for a time. Then she said:
+
+"I'd better not mention it, I guess. Thomas likes to forgit, an' when I
+gets cryin' an' nervous he knows I've been thinkin' 'bout the
+old trouble."
+
+Louise was disappointed, but changed the subject adroitly.
+
+"And Miss Mary, who was afterward Mrs. Wegg. Did you love her, Nora?"
+
+"Indeed I did, child."
+
+"What was she like?"
+
+"She were gentle, an' sweet, an' the mos' beautiful creetur in
+all--in--in the place where we lived. An' her fambily was that proud an'
+aristocratic thet no one could tech 'em with a ten-foot pole."
+
+"I see. Did she love Captain Wegg?"
+
+"Nat'rally, sense she married of him, an' fit all her fambily to do it.
+An' the Cap'n were thet proud o' her thet he thought the world lay in
+her sweet eyes."
+
+"Oh. I had an idea he didn't treat her well," remarked the girl,
+soberly.
+
+"That's wrong," declared Nora, promptly. "Arter the trouble come--fer it
+come to the Weggs as well as to Tom an' me--the Cap'n sort o' lost heart
+to see his Mary cry day arter day an' never be comforted. He were hard
+hit himself, ye see, an' that made it a gloomy house, an' no mistake."
+
+"Do you mean after you moved here, to the farm?"
+
+"Yes, deary."
+
+"I hear Captain Wegg was very fond of Ethel's grandfather," continued
+Louise, trying to find an opening to penetrate old Nora's reserve.
+
+"They was good friends always," was the brief reply.
+
+"Did they ever quarrel, Nora?"
+
+"Never that I knows of."
+
+"And what do you suppose became of their money?" asked the girl.
+
+"I don't know, child. Air we gettin' near home?"
+
+"We are quite near, now. I wish you would open your heart to me, and
+tell me about that great trouble, Nora. I might be able to comfort you
+in some way."
+
+The blind woman shook her head.
+
+"There's no comfort but in forgettin'," she said; "an' the way to forgit
+ain't to talk about it."
+
+The unsatisfactory result of this conversation did not discourage
+Louise, although she was sorry to meet with no better success. Gradually
+she was learning the inside history of the Weggs. When she discovered
+what that "great trouble" had been she would secure an important clue in
+the mystery, she was sure. Nora might some time be induced to speak more
+freely, and it was possible she might get the desired information from
+Old Hucks. She would try, anyway.
+
+A dozen theories might be constructed to account for this "great
+trouble." The one that Louise finally favored was that Captain Wegg had
+been guilty of some crime on the high seas in which his boatswain, Old
+Hucks, was likewise implicated. They were obliged to abandon the sea and
+fly to some out-of-the-way corner inland, where they could be safely
+hidden and their whereabouts never discovered. It was the knowledge of
+this crime, she conjectured, that had ruined sweet Mrs. Wegg's life and
+made her weep day after day until her guilty husband became surly and
+silent and unsociable.
+
+Louise now began to cultivate Thomas, but her progress was slow. Patsy
+seemed to be the old man's favorite, and for some reason he became glum
+and uncommunicative whenever Louise was around. The girl suspected that
+Nora had told her husband of the recent conversation, in spite of her
+assertion that she wished to avoid all reference to their great trouble.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THREE AMATEUR DETECTIVES.
+
+Puzzling her brain what to do next, Louise suddenly decided to confide
+her secret to her two cousins. Not that she considered them capable of a
+greater success than she could herself accomplish, but they might prove
+valuable assistants in the capacity of lieutenants. She had great
+respect for Beth's calm judgment and keen intuitions, and Patsy had a
+way of accomplishing difficult things with ease.
+
+The two girls listened to Louise with expressions of mingled wonder and
+amusement while she confided to them her first suspicions that Captain
+Wegg had been murdered, and then the bits of information she had
+gathered to strengthen the surmise and assure her she was justified in
+her efforts to untangle the web of mystery.
+
+"You see, my dears," she explained, impressively, as the three lounged
+upon the grass in the shade of the right wing of the house, "there is a
+very interesting story about these people that ought to guide us
+directly to a solution of the puzzle. A roving sea captain marries a
+girl of good family in spite of the opposition of her relatives. His
+boatswain, a confidential servant, marries the girl's maid. The next
+thing we know is that a 'great trouble' causes them to flee--doubtless
+some crime committed by the captain. It may have been robbery, or
+perhaps piracy on the high seas; who knows? Anyhow, he steals away to
+this forsaken spot, far from the sea or the railroads, and builds a fine
+house on a worthless farm, showing that he has money, but that
+retirement is his main object. Here the Weggs make no friends: but the
+wife cries her eyes out until she dies miserably, leaving a son to the
+tender mercies of a wicked father. So fearful is he of discovery that he
+will not allow the boy to go to school, but tries to educate
+him himself."
+
+"Probably the captain's real name was not Wegg, at all," suggested
+Patsy, entering into the spirit of the relation.
+
+"Probably not, dear. He would assume some name, of course, so that it
+might be more difficult to trace him," answered Louise. "But now--mark
+me well, girls!--a Nemesis was on the track of this wicked sinner. After
+many years the man Captain Wegg had wronged, or stolen from, or
+something, discovered his enemy's hiding place. He promptly killed the
+Captain, and probably recovered the money, for it's gone. Old Thompson,
+Ethel's grandfather, happened to be present. The murderer also took his
+money, and--"
+
+"Oh, Louise! That isn't reasonable," objected Beth, who had been
+following the story carefully.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because you are making the wronged party as wicked as the man who
+wronged him. When the avenger found his enemy he might force him to give
+up his ill-gotten gains; I agree with you there; but he wouldn't be
+liable to rob old Thompson, I'm sure."
+
+"Beth is right," said Patsy, stoutly.
+
+"But old Thompson lost his money at the same time, you know; at least
+his money could never be found afterward. And I'm sure he was dealt some
+blow on the head that made him crazy," answered Louise, positively.
+
+They thought that over.
+
+"I believe I can explain it, girls," said Beth, presently. "The avenger
+found Captain Wegg, all right--just as Louise has said--and when he
+found him he demanded a restitution of his money, threatening to send
+the criminal to jail. That would be very natural, wouldn't it? Well,
+Captain Wegg had spent a good deal of the money, and couldn't pay it all
+back; so Ethel's grandfather, being his friend, offered to makeup the
+balance himself rather than see his friend go to prison. That accounts
+for the disappearance of all the money."
+
+"If that is so," observed Patsy, "I don't see why the man, having got
+his money back, should murder one and knock the other on the head."
+
+It way a puzzle, they all acknowledged, and after discussing the matter
+from every conceivable standpoint they were no nearer an explanation.
+That's the way with mysteries; they're often hard to understand.
+
+"The only thing that occurs to me as being sensible," said Louise,
+finally, "is that after the money was paid over they got into a quarrel.
+Then the avenger lost his temper and committed the murders."
+
+"This talk about an avenger is all guess work," asserted Beth, calmly.
+"I don't believe the facts point to an avenger at all."
+
+"But the old crime--the great trouble--"
+
+"Oh, we'll allow all that," returned Beth; "and I don't say that an
+avenger wouldn't be the nicest person to exact retribution from the
+wicked captain. But avengers don't always turn up, in real life, when
+they ought to, girls; so we mustn't be too sure that one turned up in
+this case."
+
+"But now else can you account for the captain's murder?" objected
+Louise.
+
+"Well, some one else might know he had money, and that Ethel's
+grandfather had money, too," was the reply. "Suppose the robbery and
+murder had nothing to do with the old crime at all, but that the
+murderer knew this to be a deserted place where he could make a good
+haul without being discovered. The two old men sat in the right wing,
+quite unsuspicious, when----"
+
+"When in walks Mr. Murderer, chokes the captain, knocks his friend on
+the brain-box, and makes off with the money!" continued Patsy,
+gleefully. "Oh, girls, I'm sure we've got it right this time."
+
+Louise reflected a moment.
+
+"This country is almost a wilderness," she mused, aloud, "and few
+strangers ever come here. Besides, a stranger would not know positively
+that these two men had money. If we abandon the idea of an avenger, and
+follow Beth's clue, then the murderer is still right here in Millville,
+and unsuspected by any of his neighbors."
+
+"Oh, Louise!" with startled glances over their shoulders.
+
+"Let us be sensible, reasoning girls; not silly things trying to figure
+out possible romances," continued Louise, with a pretty and impressive
+assumption of dignity. "Do you know, I feel that some angel of
+retribution has guided us to this lonely farmhouse and put the idea into
+my head to discover and expose a dreadful crime."
+
+"Succotash!" cried Patsy, irrelevantly. "You're romancing this minute,
+Louise. The way you figure things out I wouldn't be surprised if you
+accused me, or Uncle John, any time during the next half hour. Adopting
+your last supposition, for the sake of argument, I'm interested to know
+what inhabitant of sleepy old Millville you suspect."
+
+"Don't get flighty, Patricia," admonished Beth. "This is a serious
+matter, and Louise is in earnest. If we're going to help her we mustn't
+talk rubbish. Now, it isn't a bad suggestion that we ought to look
+nearer home for the key to this mystery. There's old Hucks."
+
+"Hucks!"
+
+"To be sure. No one knew so well as he the money affairs of the two men
+who were robbed."
+
+"I'm ashamed of you," said Patsy.
+
+"And the man's smile is a mask!" exclaimed Louise.
+
+"Oh, no!" protested Patsy.
+
+"My dear, no person who ever lived could smile every minute, winter and
+summer, rain or shine, day and night, and always have a reason for
+the smile."
+
+"Of course not," agreed Beth. "Old Hucks is a curious character. I
+realized that when I had known him five minutes."
+
+"But he's poor," urged Patsy, in defense of the old man. "He hasn't a
+penny in the world, and McNutt told me if we turned Thomas and Nora away
+they'd have to go to the poorhouse."
+
+"That is no argument at all," said Louise, calmly. "If we consider the
+fact that Old Hucks may be a miser, and have a craving for money without
+any desire to spend it, then we are pretty close to a reason why he
+should bide his time and then murder his old master to obtain the riches
+he coveted. Mind you, I don't say Hucks is guilty, but it is our duty to
+consider this phase of the question."
+
+"And then," added Beth, "if Hucks should prove to be a miser, it is easy
+to guess he would hide his wealth where he could secretly gloat over it,
+and still continue to pose as a pauper."
+
+"I don't believe it," said Patsy, stoutly.
+
+"You'll never make a successful detective if you allow your personal
+feelings to influence you," returned Louise. "I, too, sincerely hope
+that Thomas is innocent; but we are not justified in acquitting him
+until we have made a careful investigation and watched his actions."
+
+"I'm quite sure he's connected with the mystery in some way," said Beth.
+"It will do no harm to watch Old Hucks, as Louise suggests."
+
+"And you might try to pump him, Patsy, and see if you can get him to
+talk of the murder. Some careless remark might give us just the clue we
+need and guide us to the real criminal. That would free Thomas from all
+suspicion, you see."
+
+"But why do you ask me to do this?" demanded Patsy. "Thomas and I are
+good friends, and I'd feel like a traitor to try to get him to confess
+a murder."
+
+"If he is innocent, you have done no harm," said her eldest cousin; "and
+if he is guilty you don't want him for your friend."
+
+"He likes you, dear," added Beth, "and perhaps he will tell you frankly
+all we want to know. There's another person, though, Louise, who might
+tell us something."
+
+"Who is that?"
+
+"The little man with the golf-ball eyes; McNutt."
+
+"Now, there's some sense in suspecting him," exclaimed Patsy. "We know
+he's a robber, already, and a man who is clever enough to sell Uncle
+John three 'Lives of the Saints' would stick at nothing, I'm sure."
+
+"He hasn't enough courage to commit a great crime," observed Beth.
+
+"But he may be able to give us some information," Louise asserted; "so I
+propose we walk over to the town tomorrow morning and interview him."
+
+This was promptly agreed to, for even Patsy, the least enthusiastic
+detective of the three, was eager to find some sort of a solution of the
+Wegg mystery. Meantime they decided to watch Old Hucks very carefully.
+
+Beth happened to be present when Uncle John paid Thomas his weekly wage
+that evening, and was interested to notice how the old man's hand
+trembled with eagerness as he took the money.
+
+"How much are you accustomed to receive?" Uncle John had asked.
+
+"Nothing 'tall, sir, since Cap'n Wegg died," was the reply. "We was glad
+enough to have a home, Nora an' me, 'thout 'spectin' wages."
+
+"And there was no one here for you to serve," mused Uncle John. "But in
+Captain Wegg's day, how much did he give you?"
+
+Thomas hesitated, and his smile wavered an instant.
+
+"My old master was also my old friend," said he, in a low voice; "an' I
+ast him fer little money because my needs were little."
+
+"Well, the conditions are now different," remarked Uncle John,
+carelessly; "and while you are in my employ you shall have your wages
+regularly. Will ten dollars a week be satisfactory?"
+
+"Oh, sir!"
+
+"And five for Nora."
+
+"You are too good, sir. I--I--"
+
+"Never mind, Thomas. If you want more at any time let me know."
+
+It was then, as the old man took the fifteen dollars extended to him,
+that Beth noted a flash in the mild blue eyes and a trembling of the
+horny hands. Hucks was very glad to get the money; there was little
+doubt of that.
+
+She spoke of this incident to Louise, and the following morning they
+tested the man again. All three girls being present, Beth tendered Old
+Hucks two dollars, saying it was intended as a slight mark of her
+appreciation of his attention. Thomas demurred at first, but on being
+urged took the money with the same eager gesture he had before
+displayed. Louise followed with a donation of a like sum, and Patsy gave
+the old man still another two dollar bill. This generosity so amazed him
+that tears stood in his eyes as he tried to thank them all. It was
+noticed that the smile did not give way even to the tears, although it
+was tinged with a pathetic expression that proved wonderfully affecting.
+He concealed the offerings with a stealthy motion, as if ashamed of his
+weakness in accepting them, and then hurried away to his work.
+
+"Well," said Louise, when they were alone, "is Thomas a miser or not?"
+
+"He clutched the money almost as if he loved it," observed Beth, in a
+musing and slightly regretful tone.
+
+"But think how poor he has been," pleaded Patsy, "and how destitute both
+he and Nora are yet. Can we blame him for being glad to earn something
+substantial at last?"
+
+Somehow that did not seem to explain fully the old man's behavior, and
+the girl who had championed him sighed and then gave a sudden shiver as
+she remembered the awful suspicion that had fallen upon this strange
+individual. If the proof must be accepted that Hucks had miserly
+instincts, had not Beth accidentally stumbled upon a solution of the
+whole mystery?
+
+But Patsy would not believe it. If Thomas' open countenance lied, it was
+hard to put faith in any one.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE BAITING OF PEGGY M'NUTT.
+
+By this time the three nieces were so thoroughly impressed with the
+importance of the task they had undertaken that more ordinary things
+failed to interest them. Louise longed to solve the mystery. Beth wanted
+to punish the wrongdoers. Patsy yearned to exonerate the friends whom
+she imagined unjustly accused. Therefore the triple alliance for
+detective purposes was a strong one.
+
+By mutual agreement they kept the matter secret from Uncle John, for
+they realized what a triumph it would be to surprise the old gentleman
+with proofs of their cleverness. To confide in him now would mean to
+invite no end of ridicule or good natured raillery, for Uncle John had
+not a grain of imagination or romance in his nature and would be unable
+to comprehend the delights of this secret investigation.
+
+Because he was in the dark the significant looks and unnatural gravity
+of his nieces in the succeeding days puzzled the poor man greatly.
+
+"What's wrong, girls?" he would ask. "Aren't you happy here? Do you miss
+anything you'd like? Is it too quiet and dull at Millville to suit you?"
+
+"Oh, no!" they would exclaim. "We are having a splendid time, and would
+not leave the farm for anything."
+
+And he often noticed them grouped in isolated places and conversing in
+low, eager tones that proved "something was up." He felt somewhat
+grieved that he was not their confidant, since these girls and their
+loyal affection for him constituted the chief joy of his life. When he
+put on his regulation fishing costume and carried his expensive rod and
+reel, his landing net and creel to the brook for a day's sport, he could
+no longer induce one of his girls to accompany him. Even Patsy pleaded
+laughingly that she had certain "fish to fry" that were not to be found
+in the brook.
+
+Soon the three nieces made their proposed visit to McNutt, their idea
+being to pump that individual until he was dry of any information he
+might possess concerning the Wegg mystery. They tramped over to the
+village after breakfast one morning and found the agent seated on the
+porch before his little "office," by which name the front room of his
+cottage was dignified. He was dressed in faded overalls, a checked shirt
+and a broad-brimmed cheap straw hat. His "off foot," as he called it
+with grim humor, was painted green and his other foot was bare and might
+have been improved in color. Both these extremities rested on the rail
+of the porch, while McNutt smoked a corncob pipe and stared at his
+approaching visitors with his disconcerting, protruding eyes.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. McNutt," said Louise, pleasantly. "We've come to see
+if you have any books to sell."
+
+The agent drew a long breath. He had at first believed they had come to
+reproach him for his cruel deception; for although his conscience was
+wholly dormant, he had at times been a bit uneasy concerning his
+remarkable book trade.
+
+"Uncle is making a collection of the 'Lives of the Saints.'" announced
+Patsy, demurely. "At present he has but three varieties of this work,
+one with several pages missing, another printed partly upside down, and
+a third with a broken corner. He is anxious to secure some further
+variations of the 'dee looks' Lives, if you can supply them."
+
+Peggy's eyes couldn't stare any harder, so they just stared.
+
+"I--I hain't got no more on hand," he stammered, fairly nonplussed by
+the remarkable statement.
+
+"No more? Oh, how sad. How disappointed we are," said Beth.
+
+"We were depending so much on you. Mr. McNutt," added Louise, in a tone
+of gentle reproach.
+
+McNutt wiggled the toes of his good foot and regarded them reflectively.
+These city folks were surely the "easiest marks" he had ever
+come across.
+
+"Ef ye could wait a few days," he began, hopefully, "I might----"
+
+"Oh, no; we can't possibly wait a single minute," declared Patsy.
+"Unless Uncle can get the Saints right away he will lose interest in the
+collection, and then he won't care for them at all."
+
+McNutt sighed dismally. Here was a chance to make good money by fleecing
+the lambs, yet he was absolutely unable to take advantage of it.
+
+"Ye--ye couldn't use any duck eggs, could ye?" he said, a sudden thought
+seeming to furnish him with a brilliant idea.
+
+"Duck eggs?"
+
+"I got the dum-twistedest, extry fine lot o' duck eggs ye ever seen."
+
+"But what can we do with duck eggs?" inquired Beth, wonderingly, while
+Patsy and Louise tried hard not to shriek with laughter.
+
+"W'y, set 'em under a hen, an' hatch 'em out."
+
+"Sir," said Beth, "I strongly disapprove of such deceptions. It seems to
+me that making a poor hen hatch out ducks, under the delusion that they
+are chickens, is one of the most cruel and treacherous acts that
+humanity can be guilty of. Imagine the poor thing's feelings when her
+children take to water! I'm surprised you could suggest such a wicked
+use for duck eggs."
+
+McNutt wiggled his toes again, desperately.
+
+"Can't use any sas'frass roots, can ye?"
+
+"No, indeed; all we crave is the 'Lives of the Saints.'"
+
+"Don't want to buy no land?"
+
+"What have you got to sell?"
+
+"Nuth'n, jest now. But ef ye'll buy I kin git 'most anything."
+
+"Don't go to any trouble on our account, sir; we are quite content with
+our splendid farm."
+
+"Shoo! Thet ain't no good."
+
+"Captain Wegg thought it was," answered Louise, quickly seizing this
+opening. "Otherwise he would not have built so good a house upon it."
+
+"The Cap'n were plumb crazy," declared the agent, emphatically. "He
+didn't want ter farm when he come here; he jest wanted to hide."
+
+The girls exchanged quick glances of intelligence.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why?" repeated McNutt. "Thet's a thing what's puzzled us fer years,
+miss. Some thinks Wegg were a piret; some thinks he kidnaped thet pretty
+wife o' his'n an' took her money; some thinks he tried to rob ol' Will
+Thompson, an' Will killed him an' then went crazy hisself. There's all
+sorts o' thinks goin' 'round; but who _knows_?"
+
+"Don't you, Mr. McNutt?"
+
+The agent was flattered by the question. As he had said, the Weggs had
+formed the chief topic of conversation in Millville for years, and no
+one had a more vivid interest in their history than Marshall McMahon
+McNutt. He enjoyed gossiping about the Weggs almost as much as he did
+selling books.
+
+"I never thought I had no call to stick my nose inter other folkses
+privit doin's," he said, after a few puffs at the corncob pipe. "But
+they kain't hide much from Marsh McNutt, when he has his eyes open."
+
+Patsy wondered if he could possibly close them. The eyelids seemed to be
+shy and retiring.
+
+"I seen what I seen," continued the little man, glancing impressively at
+his attentive audience. "I seen Cap'n Wegg livin' without workin', fer
+he never lifted a hand to do even a chore. I seen him jest settin'
+'round an' smokin' his pipe an' a glowerin' like a devil on ev'ryone
+thet come near. Say, once he ordered me off'n his premises--me!"
+
+"What a dreadful man," said Patsy. "Did he buy any 'Lives of the
+Saints?'"
+
+"Not a Life. He made poor Ol' Hucks fetch an' carry fer him ev'ry
+blessid minnit, an' never paid him no wages."
+
+"Are you sure?" asked Louise.
+
+"Sure as shootin'. Hucks hain't never been seen to spend a cent in all
+the years he's been here."
+
+"Hasn't he sold berries and fruit since the Captain's death?"
+
+"Jest 'nough to pay the taxes, which ain't much. Ye see, young Joe were
+away an' couldn't raise the tax money, so Ol' Hucks had to. But how they
+got enough ter live on, him an' Nora, beats me."
+
+"Perhaps Captain Wegg left some money," suggested Patsy.
+
+"No; when Joe an' Hucks ransacked the house arter the Cap'n's death they
+couldn't find a dollar. Cur'ous. Plenty o' money till he died, 'n' then
+not a red cent. Curiouser yet. Ol' Will Thompson's savin's dis'peared,
+too, an' never could be located to this day."
+
+"Were they robbed, do you suppose?" asked Louise.
+
+"Nat'rally. But who done it? Not Ol' Hucks, fer he's too honest, an'
+hasn't showed the color of a nickel sense. Not Joe; 'cause he had to
+borrer five dollars of Bob West to git to the city with. Who then?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Louise, slowly, "some burglar did it."
+
+"Ain't no burglers 'round these parts."
+
+"I suppose not. Only book agents," remarked Beth.
+
+McNutt flushed.
+
+"Do ye mean as I did it?" he demanded, angrily. "Do ye mean as I killed
+Cap'n Wegg an' druv 01' Will crazy, an' robbed the house?"
+
+His features were fairly contorted, and his colorless eyes rolled
+fearfully.
+
+"If you did," said Beth, coolly, "you would be sure to deny it."
+
+"I kin prove a alybi," answered the little man, calming down somewhat.
+"I kin prove my ol' woman had me locked up in the chicken-coop thet
+night 'cause I wouldn't split a lot o' cordwood thet were full o'
+knots." He cast a half fearful glance over his shoulder toward the
+interior of the cottage. "Next day I split 'em," he added, mildly.
+
+"Perhaps," said Louise, again, "someone who knew Captain Wegg in the
+days before he came here followed him to his retreat and robbed and
+murdered him."
+
+"Now ye've hit the nail on the head!" cried the agent, slapping his fat
+thigh energetically. "Thet's what I allus claimed, even when Bob West
+jest shook his head an' smiled sort o' superior like."
+
+"Who is Bob West?" asked Louise, with interest.
+
+"He's our implement man, an' hardware dealer. Bob were the on'y one o'
+the Millville folks thet could git along with Cap'n Wegg, an' even he
+didn't manage to be any special friend. Bob's rich, ye know. Rich as
+blazes. Folks do say he's wuth ten thousan' dollars; but it don't set
+Bob up any. He jest minds his business an' goes on sellin' plows an'
+harvesters to the farmers an' takin' notes fer 'em."
+
+"And you say he knew Captain Wegg well?" inquired Patsy.
+
+"Better 'n' most folks 'round here did. Once er twicet a year the Cap'n
+'d go to Bob's office an' set around an' smoke his pipe. Sometimes Bob
+would go to the farm an' spend an' ev'nin'; but not often. Ol' Will
+Thompson might be said to be the on'y friend the Cap'n really
+hankered fer."
+
+"I'd like to meet Mr. West," said Louise, casting a shrewd look at her
+cousins. For here was another clue unearthed.
+
+"He's in his store now." remarked McNutt, "Last buildin' on the left. Ye
+can't miss it."
+
+"Thank you. Good morning, sir."
+
+"Can't use any buttermilk er Dutch cheese?"
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+McNutt stared after them disconsolately. These girls represented so much
+money that ought to be in his pockets, and they were, moreover,
+"innercent as turtle doves"; but he could think of no way to pluck their
+golden quills or even to arrest their flight.
+
+"Well, let 'em go," he muttered. "This thing ain't ended yit."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+BOB WEST, HARDWARE DEALER.
+
+A few steps down the little street brought the girls to the hardware
+store, quite the most imposing building in town. They crossed the broad
+platform on which stood samples of heavy farm machinery and entered a
+well-stocked room where many articles of hardware and house furnishings
+were neatly and systematically arranged.
+
+The place seemed deserted, for at that time of day no country people
+were at Millville; but on passing down the aisle the visitor approached
+a little office built at the rear of the store. Behind the desk Bob West
+sat upon his high stool, gravely regarding his unusual customers over
+the rims of his spectacles.
+
+"Good morning," said Louise, taking the lead. "Have you a stew pan?"
+
+The merchant left the office and silently walked behind the counter.
+
+"Large or small, miss?" he then asked.
+
+The girls became interested in stew pans, which they were scarcely able
+to recognize by their official name. Mr. West offered no comment as they
+made their selection.
+
+"Can you send this to the Wegg farm?" asked Louise, opening her purse to
+make payment.
+
+West smiled.
+
+"I have no means of delivering goods," said he; "but if you can wait a
+day or two I may catch some farmer going that way who will consent
+to take it."
+
+"Oh. Didn't Captain Wegg purchase his supplies in the village?" asked
+the girl.
+
+"Some of them. But it is our custom here to take goods that we purchase
+home with us. As yet Millville is scarcely large enough to require a
+delivery wagon."
+
+The nieces laughed pleasantly, and Beth said:
+
+"Are you an old inhabitant, Mr. West?"
+
+"I have been here thirty-five years."
+
+"Then you knew Captain Wegg?" Louise ventured.
+
+"Very well."
+
+The answer was so frank and free from embarrassment that his questioner
+hesitated. Here was a man distinctly superior to the others they had
+interviewed, a man of keen intellect and worldly knowledge, who would be
+instantly on his guard if he suspected they were cross-examining him. So
+Louise, with her usual tact, decided to speak plainly.
+
+"We have been much interested in the history of the Wegg family," she
+remarked, easily; "and perhaps it is natural for us to speculate
+concerning the characters of our predecessors. It was so odd that
+Captain Wegg should build so good a house on such a poor farm."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And he was a sea captain, who retired far from the sea, which he must
+have loved."
+
+"To be sure."
+
+"It made him dissatisfied, they say, as well as surly and unsociable;
+but he stuck it out even after his poor wife died, and until the day of
+the murder."
+
+"Murder?" in a tone of mild surprise.
+
+"Was it not murder?" she asked, quickly.
+
+He gave his shoulders a quiet shrug.
+
+"The physician pronounced it heart disease, I believe."
+
+"What physician?"
+
+"Eh? Why, one who was fishing in the neighborhood for trout, and staying
+at the hotel. Old Dr. Jackson was in Huntington at the time, I
+remember."
+
+The girls exchanged significant glances, and West noted them and smiled
+again.
+
+"That murder theory is a new one to me," he said; "but I see now why it
+originated. The employment of a strolling physician would give color to
+the suspicion."
+
+"What do you think, sir?" asked Patsy, who had been watching the man's
+expression closely.
+
+"I? What do I think? Why, that Captain Wegg died from heart disease, as
+he had often told me he was sure to do in time."
+
+"Then what made old Mr. Thompson go mad?" inquired Beth.
+
+"The shock of his friend's sudden death. He had been mentally unbalanced
+for some time previous--not quite mad, you understand, but showing by
+his actions at times that his brain was affected."
+
+"Can you explain what became of their money?" asked Louise, abruptly.
+
+West gave a start, but collected himself in an instant and covered the
+action with another shrug.
+
+"I cannot say what become of their money," he answered.
+
+It struck both Beth and Louise that his tone indicated he would not,
+rather than that he could not say. Before they had time to ask another
+questioned he continued:
+
+"Will you take the saucepan with you, then, or shall I try to send it in
+a day or so?"
+
+"We will take it, if you please," answered Louise. But as he wrapped it
+into a neat parcel she made one more effort.
+
+"What sort of a young man was Joseph Wegg?"
+
+"Joe? A mere boy, untried and unsettled. A bright boy, in his way, and
+ambitious to have a part in the big world. He's there now, I believe."
+
+He spoke with an air of relief, and handed Louise the parcel.
+
+"Thank you, young ladies. Pray call again if I can be of service to
+you," he added, in a brisker tone.
+
+They had no recourse but to walk out, which they did without further
+words. Indeed, they were all three silent until they had left the
+village far behind and were half way to the farm.
+
+Then Patsy said, inquiringly:
+
+"Well, girls?"
+
+"We have progressed," announced Louise, seriously.
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"Several things are impressed upon my mind," replied the girl. "One is
+McNutt's absurd indignation when he thought we hinted that he was the
+murderer."
+
+"What do you make of that?" queried Patsy.
+
+"It suggests that he knows something of the murder, even if he is
+himself wholly innocent. His alibi is another absurdity."
+
+"Then that exonerated Old Hucks," said Patsy, relieved.
+
+"Oh, not at all. Hucks may have committed the deed and McNutt knows
+about it. Or they might have been partners in the crime."
+
+"What else have you learned, Louise?" asked Beth.
+
+"That the man West knows what became of the money."
+
+"He seems like a very respectable man," asserted Patsy.
+
+"Outwardly, yes; but I don't like the cold, calculating expression in
+his eyes. He is the rich man of this neighborhood. Do you suppose he
+acquired a fortune honestly in this forsaken district, where everyone
+else is poor as a church mouse?"
+
+"Seems to me," said Patsy, discontentedly, "that the plot thickens, as
+they say in novels. If we interview many more people we shall find
+ourselves suspecting an army."
+
+"Not at all, my dear," replied Louise, coldly. "From our present
+knowledge the murder lies between the unknown avenger and Hucks, with
+the possibility that McNutt is implicated. This avenger may be the
+stranger who posed as a physician and said Captain Wegg died of heart
+disease, in order to prevent the simple people from suspecting a murder.
+His fishing was all a blind. Perhaps McNutt was his accomplice. That
+staring scarecrow would do anything for money. And then we come to the
+robbery. If Hucks did the murder he took the money, and perhaps West,
+the hardware dealer, knows this. Or West may have arrived at the house
+after the mysterious stranger committed the deed, and robbed the two
+men himself."
+
+"And perhaps he didn't," said Patsy, skeptically. "Do you know, girls,
+I'd like to find Joe Wegg. He could put us right, I'm sure."
+
+"Joe!"
+
+"Yes. Why don't we suspect him of something? Or Ethel; or old Nora?"
+
+"Do be sensible, Patsy," said Beth, impatiently.
+
+But Louise walked on a way in silence. Presently she remarked:
+
+"I'm glad you mentioned Joe Wegg. The boy gives me an idea that may
+reconcile many conflicting suspicions."
+
+"In what way, Louise?"
+
+"I'll tell you when I've thought it out," she replied.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE MAJOR IS PUZZLED.
+
+Ethel came frequently to visit the girls at the Wegg farm, and at such
+times Uncle John treated her with the same affectionate consideration he
+bestowed upon his nieces, and made her so cordially welcome that the
+little school teacher felt entirely at her ease. The girls did not
+confide to Ethel their investigation of the Wegg mystery, but in all
+other matters gave her their full confidence. Together they made
+excursions to the Falls, to the natural caves on the rocky hill called
+Mount Parnassus, or rowed on the lake, or walked or drove, as the mood
+seized them. But mostly they loved the shade of the pines and the broad
+green beside the quaint mansion Captain Wegg had built, and which now
+contained all the elements of a modern summer home.
+
+Once Louise asked Ethel, casually, if she knew what "great trouble" had
+come to Hucks and his wife in their early life, but the girl frankly
+answered that the old people had never referred to anything of the kind
+in her presence.
+
+Finally a telegram announced the arrival of Major Doyle to join the
+party at the farm. Patsy was in the seventh heaven of delight, and drove
+Joe over to the Junction to meet her father on the arrival of the
+morning train.
+
+The Major was a prime favorite with all the party and his coming infused
+new life into the household. He was the type of educated, polished,
+open-hearted Irish gentleman it is always a delight to meet, and Uncle
+John beamed upon his brother-in-law in a way that betokened a hearty
+welcome. It was a source of much satisfaction to lug the Major over the
+farm and prove to him how wise Mr. Merrick had been in deciding to spend
+the summer on his own property; and the Major freely acknowledged that
+he had been in error and the place was as charming as anyone could wish.
+It was a great treat to the grizzled old warrior to find himself in the
+country, away from every responsibility of work, and he promised himself
+a fortnight of absolute rest, with the recreation of beholding his
+beloved Patsy as often as he pleased.
+
+Of course, the girl would tell her father about the Wegg mystery, for
+Patsy had a habit of telling him everything; therefore the cousins
+decided to take the Major freely into their confidence, so as to obtain
+the benefit of his opinion. That could not be done the first day, of
+course, for on that day Uncle John insisted on displaying the farm and
+afterward carrying the Major a willing prisoner to watch him fish in the
+brook. But on the following morning the girls surrounded Patsy's father
+and with solemn faces recounted their suspicions, the important clues
+they had unearthed, and their earnest desire to right the great wrong
+that had been done by apprehending the criminal.
+
+The Major smoked his after breakfast cigar and listened attentively. The
+story, told consecutively, was quite impressive. In spite of his long
+experience in buffeting the world, the old soldier's heart was still as
+simple as that of a child, and the recital awakened his sympathies
+at once.
+
+"'Tis evident, me children," said he, in his quaint way, "that you've
+shtumbled on the inside of a crime that doesn't show on the outside.
+Many of the things you mention are so plain that he who runs may read;
+but I've remarked that it's just the things ye don't suspect in real
+life that prove to be the most important."
+
+"That is true, Major," commented Louise. "At first it was just to amuse
+ourselves that we became amateur detectives, but the developments are so
+startling and serious that we now consider it our duty to uncover the
+whole dreadful crime, in the interests of justice."
+
+"Just so," he said, nodding.
+
+"But I'm sure Old Hucks is innocent!" declared Patsy, emphatically.
+
+"Then he is," asserted the Major; "for Patsy's always right, even when
+she's wrong. I've had me eye on that man Hucks already, for he's the
+merriest faced villain I ever encountered. Do you say he's shy with
+you girls?"
+
+"He seems afraid of us, or suspicious, and won't let us talk to him,"
+answered Beth.
+
+"Leave him to me," proposed the Major, turning a stern face but
+twinkling eyes upon the group. "'Twill be my task to detect him. Leave
+him to me, young women, an' I'll put the thumb-screws on him in
+short order."
+
+Here was the sort of energetic confederate they had longed for. The
+Major's assurance of co-operation was welcome indeed, and while he
+entered heartily into their campaign he agreed that no mention of the
+affair ought to reach Uncle John's ears until the case was complete and
+they could call upon the authorities to arrest the criminal.
+
+"It's me humble opinion," he remarked, "that the interesting individual
+you call the 'avenger' was put on the trail by someone here--either
+Thomas Hucks, or the timber-toed book agent, or the respectable hardware
+man. Being invited to come and do his worst, he passed himself as a
+docther on a fishing excursion, and having with deliberate intent
+murthered Captain Wegg, got himself called by the coroner to testify
+that the victim died of heart disease. A very pretty bit of
+scoundrelism; eh, me dears?"
+
+"But the robber--who do you think he was?" asked Louise.
+
+"That I've still to discover. You inform me that Hucks is eager for
+money and acts like a miser. I've seen the time I was eager for money
+meself, and there's not a miserly hair on me bald head. But exceptions
+prove the rule. I'll watch our smiling Thomas and make a report later."
+
+Within half an hour he was telling Hucks a funny story and slapping the
+old man upon the back as familiarly as if he had known him for years. He
+found an opportunity that same day to give Thomas a dollar in return for
+a slight service, and was amazed at the eagerness with which the coin
+was clutched and the earnestness of the thanks expressed. It really did
+seem as if the man was fond of money. But when the Major tried to draw
+Hucks into speaking of his past history and of Captain Wegg's singular
+life and death, the old fellow became reserved at once and evaded the
+inquiries most skillfully.
+
+That night, as the Major strolled in the orchard to smoke his last cigar
+after all the others had retired to bed, he noticed Hucks leave the back
+door of the lean-to with a parcel under his arm and pass hurriedly
+around the barn. After a little hesitation he decided to follow the man,
+and crept stealthily along in the shadow of the trees and buildings
+until he found himself at the edge of the berry-patch that was in the
+rear of the outbuildings. But there he paused irresolutely, for Thomas
+had completely disappeared.
+
+The Major was puzzled, but decided to watch for the man's return. So he
+took a position where he could watch the rear door of the house and
+smoked patiently for nearly an hour before Hucks returned and let
+himself quietly in.
+
+He said nothing to the girls next day of this mysterious proceeding, but
+on the following night again took his station in the orchard to watch.
+
+Sure enough, as soon as the house was quiet the old servant came out
+with a bundle underneath his arm; but this time he led his blind wife by
+the other hand.
+
+The Major gave a low whistle and threw away his cigar. The night was so
+dark that he had little difficulty in following the aged pair closely
+enough to keep their shadowy forms in sight, without the risk of being
+discovered. They passed around the barn and along a path that led
+through the raspberry bushes back of the yard. There were several acres
+of these bushes, and just now they were full-leaved and almost shoulder
+high. The path wound this way and that, and branched in several
+directions. Twice the Major thought he had lost his quarry, but was
+guided aright by their soft footfalls. The ground dipped here and there,
+and as they entered one of the hollows Major Doyle was startled to
+observe the twinkle of a dim light ahead. A minute later he saw the
+outlines of a little frame building, and within this Old Hucks and Nora
+presently disappeared.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE MAN IN HIDING.
+
+Cautiously the Major approached the cabin, which seemed to have been
+built as a place for the berry pickers to assemble and pack their fruit.
+It was constructed of rough boards and had a little window in the side
+nearest the dwelling house and a door on the opposite side.
+
+Creeping near to the window the Major obtained a clear view of the
+interior. Upon a dilapidated wicker settee, which had one end propped
+with a box, partially reclined the form of a man whose right arm was in
+splints and supported by a sling, while his head was covered with
+plasters and bandages. The man's back was toward the window, but from
+his slender form and its graceful poise the Major imagined him young.
+
+Old Nora held the left hand of this mysterious person in a warm clasp,
+bending now and then to press a kiss upon it, while Hucks busied himself
+opening the parcel he had brought and arranging various articles of food
+on a rickety stand at the head of the couch. The old man's smile was
+more benevolent and cheery than ever, and his actions denoted that
+strange, suppressed eagerness the Major had marked when he had taken
+the money.
+
+The three spoke little, and in tones so low that the spy outside the
+window failed to catch them. Soon the injured man began to eat, feeding
+himself laboriously with his left hand. But his hunger was quickly
+satisfied, and then he lay back wearily upon his pillows, while Nora
+tenderly spread a coverlet over him.
+
+After this the old couple did not linger long. Hucks poured some water
+from a jug into a tumbler, glanced around the little room to see that
+everything was in order, and then--after he and Nora had both kissed the
+bandaged forehead--blew out the candle and retired.
+
+The Major crouched low in the berry bushes until the couple had passed
+by; then he rose and thoughtfully followed after them.
+
+Whatever Patsy's father might have thought of the Wegg farm mystery
+before, this adventure convinced him that the girls were not altogether
+foolish in imagining a romance connected with the place. And,
+notwithstanding Patsy's loyal defense of Old Hucks, he was evidently
+tangled up in the affair to a large extent, and could explain if he
+chose much that was now puzzling the girl detectives.
+
+After careful thought the Major decided to confide in Uncle John, at
+this juncture, rather than in the nieces; since the latest developments
+were more fitted for a man's interference.
+
+By good fortune the girls had an engagement the next day, and set out
+together in the surrey to visit Ethel Thompson and lunch with her in the
+rose bower, which was the pride of the little school teacher's garden.
+As soon as they were gone the Major hunted up Uncle John and said:
+
+"Come with me, sir."
+
+"I won't," was the brisk reply; "I'm going fishing, and whoever wishes
+my society must come with me."
+
+"You'll not catch anything fishing, but you're very liable to catch
+something if you follow my lead," said the Major, meaningly.
+
+"What's up, Gregory?"
+
+"I'm not sure what it is, John." And then he carefully explained his
+discovery that an injured man was occupying the cabin in the berry
+patch, and seemed to be the object of the Hucks' tender care.
+
+"It's the secrecy of the thing that astounds me most, sir," he added.
+"If all was open and above board, I'd think little enough of it."
+
+Uncle John's kindly interest was at once aroused, and he proposed that
+they go directly to the cabin and interview the man in hiding. Hucks
+being at the time busy in the barn, the two men sauntered into the berry
+patch without being observed, and then walked briskly along the winding
+paths until they sighted the building.
+
+Pausing at the window, they saw the man still reclining upon his cot,
+and holding in his left hand a book--one of Patsy's, the Major
+observed--which he was quietly engaged in reading. Then they moved
+around to the door, which Uncle John pushed open.
+
+Without hesitation, the two men entered and stood gazing down upon the
+strange occupant of the place.
+
+"Good morning," said Mr. Merrick, while the Major nodded a greeting.
+
+The man half arose, moving stiffly.
+
+"Pardon me, sirs," he said, rather startled at the interruption; "I
+regret that I am physically unable to receive you with more courtesy."
+
+The Major gazed into the partially bandaged face with a glimmer of
+awakening recognition.
+
+"H-m! Ha! If I'm not mistaken," said he, "it's Joseph Wegg."
+
+"Oh; is it?" asked Uncle John, looking upon the young man curiously.
+"What's happened to you, Joseph?"
+
+"Just an automobile accident, sir. The steering gear broke, and we went
+over an embankment."
+
+"I see."
+
+"Are you Mr. Merrick, sir."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I owe you an apology for intruding upon your premises in this way, and
+beg you to forgive the seeming impertinence. But I've been rather
+unlucky of late, sir, and without this refuge I don't know what would
+have become of me. I will explain, if you will permit me."
+
+Uncle John nodded.
+
+"After I had squandered the money you paid me, through Major Doyle, for
+this farm, in a vain endeavor to protect a patent I had secured, I was
+forced to become a chauffeur to earn my livelihood. I understand
+automobiles, you know, and obtained employment with a wealthy man who
+considered me a mere part of his machine. When the accident occurred,
+through no fault of mine, I was, fortunately, the only person injured;
+but my employer was so incensed over the damage to his automobile that
+he never even sent to inquire whether I lived or died. At a charity
+hospital they tried to mend my breaks and tinker up my anatomy. My
+shoulder-blade was shattered, my arm broken in three places, and four
+ribs were crashed in. The wounds in my head are mere abrasions of the
+scalp, and not serious. But it has taken me a long time to mend, and the
+crowded, stuffy hospital got on my nerves and worried me. Being
+penniless and friendless, I wrote to Thomas and asked him if he could
+find a way to get me to the old farm, for I never imagined you would
+yourself take possession of the deserted place you had bought.
+
+"Thomas and Nora have cared for me since I was born, you know, and the
+old man was greatly distressed by the knowledge of my sad condition. He
+did not tell me you were here, for fear I would hesitate to come, but he
+sent me the money you had given him and Nora for wages, together with
+all that the young ladies had kindly given him. I was thus enabled to
+leave the hospital, which I had come to detest, and journey to my old
+home. I arrived at the Junction on a night train, and Thomas met me with
+your surrey, drove me here under cover of darkness, and concealed me in
+this out-of-the-way place, hoping you would not discover me.
+
+"I regret that I was thus foisted upon you, believe me, sir; but, being
+here, I have no means of getting away again. Thomas Hucks has had little
+worldly experience, and cannot realize the full extent of the imposition
+he has practiced. He feeds me from your table, and is hoarding up his
+money for me against the time I shall have recovered sufficiently to
+leave. I think that is the full explanation, Mr. Merrick."
+
+Again Uncle John nodded.
+
+"How are you?" he asked.
+
+"Doing finely, sir. I can walk a little, and my appetite is improving.
+The doctors said my shoulder would never be very strong again, but I'm
+beginning to hope they were mistaken. My ribs seem all right, and in
+another ten days I shall remove the splints from my arm."
+
+"You have no medical attendance?"
+
+"Not since I left the hospital. But I imagine this pure, bracing air is
+better for me than a dozen doctors," was the cheerful reply.
+
+"And what are your future plans?"
+
+The young man smiled. He was little more than a boy, but his questioner
+noticed that he had a fine manly face and his eye was clear and
+steadfast.
+
+"Nothing further than to get to work again as soon as I am able to
+undertake it," he said.
+
+Uncle John looked thoughtfully, and drummed with his finger upon the
+little table.
+
+"Joseph," he remarked, presently, "I bought this farm at a price
+altogether too small, considering its value."
+
+The boy flushed.
+
+"Please do not say that!" he exclaimed, hastily. "I am well aware that I
+virtually robbed you, and my only excuse is that I believed I would win
+my fight and be able to redeem the place. But that is over now, and you
+must not think that because I am ill and helpless I am an object
+of charity."
+
+"Phoo!" said the little man; "aren't you accepting charity from Old
+Hucks?"
+
+"But he stands as a second father to me. He is an old retainer of my
+family, and one of my ambitions is to secure a home for him and Nora in
+their old age. No; I do not feel at all embarrassed in accepting money
+or assistance from Thomas."
+
+"Young man," said Uncle John, sternly, "one of the follies of youth is
+the idea of being independent of the good-will of your fellow-creatures.
+Every person who lives is dependent on some other person for something
+or other, and I'll not allow you to make a fool of yourself by refusing
+to let me take you in hand. Your brain is affected--"
+
+"It is not!"
+
+"You are mentally unbalanced, and need a guardian. That's me. You are
+helpless and cannot resist, so you're my prisoner. Dare to defy me, dare
+to oppose my wishes in any way, and I'll have you put in a
+straight-jacket and confined in a padded cell. Understand me, sir?"
+
+Joseph Wegg looked into the little man's round face until the tears
+filled his own eyes and blurred his vision.
+
+"Won't you protect me, Major Doyle?" he asked, weakly.
+
+"Not I," said the Major, stoutly. "This brother-in-law of mine, who
+connected himself with me without asking permission, is a perfect demon
+when 'roused, and I'll not meddle with any opposition to his desires. If
+you value your life and happiness, Joseph Wegg, you'll accept Mr.
+Merrick as a guardian until he resigns of his own accord, and then it's
+likely you'll wish he hadn't."
+
+"I don't deserve----" began the young man, brokenly; but Uncle John
+quickly interrupted him.
+
+"No one deserves anything," said he; "but everyone gets something or
+other, nevertheless, in this vale of tears. If you'll kindly remember
+that you've no right to express an opinion in the presence of your
+guardian, we'll get along better together. Now, then, you're going to
+leave here, because the place is not comfortable. My guests fill every
+room in my house, so you can't go there. But the hotel in Millville is a
+cheerful-looking place, and I've noticed some vine-covered windows that
+indicate pleasant and sunny rooms. Major, go and tell Hucks to hitch
+that groaning, balky Daniel to the ancient buggy, and then to drive this
+young man over to the hotel. We'll walk."
+
+The Major started at once, and Uncle John continued: "I don't know
+whether this arrangement suits you or not, Joseph, but it suits me; and,
+as a matter of fact, it's none of your business. Feel able to take
+a ride?"
+
+The boy smiled, gratefully.
+
+"Yes, indeed, Mr. Merrick," said he, and was shrewd enough not to
+venture a word of thanks.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A MATTER OF SPECULATION.
+
+Old Hucks, still smiling, but dreadfully nervous over the discovery of
+Joe, and Mr. Merrick's sudden activity in the boy's behalf, speedily
+harnessed Daniel and induced the reluctant steed to amble down the path
+to the cabin. Leaning on Uncle John's arm, the invalid walked to the
+buggy and was assisted to mount to the seat beside Thomas. Then away
+they started, and, although Dan obeyed Hucks more willingly than any
+other driver, the Major and Uncle John walked 'cross-lots and reached
+the hotel a good fifteen minutes in advance of the equipage.
+
+The Millville Hotel depended almost entirely for patronage upon the
+commercial travelers who visited the place periodically to sell goods to
+the merchants, and these did not come too often, because trade was never
+very energetic and orders never very large. Bob West boarded at the
+hotel, and so did Ned Long, a "farm hand," who did sundry odd jobs for
+anyone who needed him, and helped pay his "keep" by working for Mrs.
+Kebble when not otherwise engaged.
+
+Mrs. Kebble was the landlady, and a famous cook. Kate Kebble, a
+slatternly girl of sixteen, helped her mother do the work and waited on
+the table. Chet Kebble, the landlord, was a silent old man, with
+billy-goat whiskers and one stray eye, which, being constructed of
+glass, usually assumed a slanting gaze and refused to follow the
+direction of its fellow. Chet minded the billiard-room, which was mostly
+patronized Saturday nights, and did a meager business in fire insurance;
+but he was "so eternal lazy an' shifless," as Mrs. Kebble sharply
+asserted, that he was considered more a "hanger-on" of the establishment
+than its recognized head.
+
+The little rooms of the hotel were plainly furnished but maintained with
+exceptional neatness.
+
+The one in the east corner of the second floor met with the approval of
+Uncle John and the Major, and was promptly engaged. It was cheerful and
+sunny, with outlooks on the lake and the village, and contained a lounge
+as well as the bed.
+
+When the invalid arrived, he was assisted to this apartment and
+installed as its permanent occupant.
+
+"Any baggage?" asked Mr. Merrick.
+
+"There's a small trunk lying at the Junction," said Joe; "but it
+contains little of importance."
+
+"Well, make yourself at home, my boy, and get well at your leisure,"
+remarked Uncle John. "Mrs. Kebble has promised to look after you, and
+the Major and I will stop in now and then and see how you progress."
+
+Then he went out, engaged Nick Thorne to go to the Junction for the
+boy's trunk, and selected several things at the store that he thought
+might be useful to the invalid. Afterward he marched home again beside
+the Major, feeling very well pleased with his morning's work.
+
+When the girls reached home late in the afternoon, they were thrown into
+a state of great excitement by the news, briefly related by their uncle,
+that Joseph Wegg had returned to Millville "considerably smashed" by an
+automobile accident, and was now stopping at the village hotel
+for repairs.
+
+They refrained from making remarks upon the incident until they were
+alone, when the secret council of three decided to make Joe Wegg's
+acquaintance as soon as possible, to discover what light the young man
+might be able to throw upon the great mystery.
+
+"Do you know, girls," said Louise, impressively, "it almost seems as if
+fate had sent Joe Wegg here to be an instrument in the detection of the
+murderer and robber of his poor father."
+
+"If Joe knew about it, why didn't he track the villain down himself?"
+inquired Patsy.
+
+"Perhaps he hasn't suspected the truth," said Beth. "Often those who are
+closely concerned with such tragedies do not observe the evidences of
+crime as clearly as outsiders."
+
+"Where did you get that information?" demanded Patsy.
+
+"From one of Anna Doyle Oppenheim's detective stories," answered Beth,
+seriously. "I've been reading up on such things, lately."
+
+"Detective stories," said Louise, reflectively, "are only useful in
+teaching us to observe the evidences of crime. This case, for example,
+is so intricate and unusual that only by careful thought, and following
+each thread of evidence to its end, can we hope to bring the criminal
+to justice."
+
+"That seems to me conceited," observed Miss Doyle, composedly.
+"Detective stories don't have to stick to facts; or, rather, they can
+make the facts to be whatever they please. So I don't consider them as
+useful as they are ornamental. And this isn't a novel, girls; it's
+mostly suspicion and slander."
+
+"You don't seem able to be in earnest about anything," objected Beth,
+turning a little red.
+
+"But I try to be." said Patricia.
+
+"We are straying from the subject now under discussion," remarked
+Louise. "I must say that I feel greatly encouraged by the sudden
+appearance of the Wegg boy. He may know something of his father's former
+associates that will enable us to determine the object of the murder and
+who accomplished it."
+
+"Captain Wegg was killed over three years ago," suggested Miss Doyle,
+recovering easily from her rebuff. "By this time the murderer may have
+died or moved to Madagascar."
+
+"He is probably living within our reach, never suspecting that justice
+is about to overtake him," asserted Louise. "We must certainly go to
+call upon this Wegg boy, and draw from him such information as we can. I
+am almost certain that the end is in sight."
+
+"We haven't any positive proof at all, yet," observed Patsy, musingly.
+
+"We have plenty of circumstantial evidence," returned Beth. "There is
+only one way to explain the facts we have already learned, and the
+theory we have built up will be a hard one to overthrow. The flight of
+Captain Wegg to this place, his unhappy wife, the great trouble that old
+Nora has hinted at, the--"
+
+"The great trouble ought to come first," declared Louise. "It is the
+foundation upon which rest all the mysterious occurrences following, and
+once we have learned what the great trouble was, the rest will be
+plain sailing."
+
+"I agree with you," said Beth; "and perhaps Joseph Wegg will be able to
+tell us what the trouble was that ruined the lives of his parents, as
+well as of Old Hucks and his wife, and caused them all to flee here to
+hide themselves."
+
+It was not until the following morning that the Major found an
+opportunity to give the confederates a solemn wink to indicate he had
+news to confide to them. They gathered eagerly on the lawn, and he told
+them of the finding of Joe Wegg in the isolated cabin, and how old
+Thomas and Nora, loving the boy as well as if he had been their own
+child, had sacrificed everything to assist him in his extremity.
+
+"So ye see, my avenging angels, that ye run off the track in the Hucks
+matter," he added, smiling at their bewildered faces.
+
+Patsy was delighted at this refutation of the slanderous suspicions that
+Thomas was a miser and his smiling face a mask to hide his innate
+villainy. The other girls were somewhat depressed by the overthrow of
+one of their pet theories, and reluctantly admitted that if Hucks had
+been the robber of his master and old Will Thompson, he would not have
+striven so eagerly to get enough money to send to Joe Wegg. But they
+pointed out that the old servant was surely hiding his knowledge of
+Captain Wegg's past, and could not be induced to clear up that portion
+of the mystery which he had full knowledge of. So, while he might be
+personally innocent of the murder or robbery, both Beth and Louise were
+confident he was attempting to shield the real criminal.
+
+"But who is the real criminal?" inquired Patsy.
+
+"Let us consider," answer Louise, with the calm, businesslike tone she
+adopted in these matters. "There is the strolling physician, whom we
+call the Unknown Avenger, for one. A second suspect is the man McNutt,
+whose nature is so perverted that he would stick at nothing. The third
+suspicious individual is Mr. Bob West."
+
+"Oh, Louise! Mr. West is so respectable, and so prosperous," exclaimed
+Patsy.
+
+"It's a far jump from McNutt to West," added Beth.
+
+"Leaving out Hucks," continued Louise, her eyes sparkling with the
+delightful excitement of maintaining her theories against odds, "here
+are three people who might have been concerned in the robbery or murder.
+Two of them are under our hands; perhaps Joseph Wegg may be able to tell
+us where to find the third."
+
+They pleaded so hard with the Major to take them to call upon the
+injured youth that very day, that the old gentleman consented, and,
+without telling Uncle John of their plans, they drove to Millville in
+the afternoon and alighted at the hotel.
+
+The Major went first to the boy's room, and found him not only very
+comfortable, but bright and cheerful in mood.
+
+"At this rate, sir," he said, smilingly, "I shall be able to discharge
+my guardian in quick time. I'm twice the man I was yesterday."
+
+"I've brought some young ladies to call upon you," announced the Major.
+"Will you see them?"
+
+Joe flushed at first, remembering his plastered skull and maimed
+condition. But he could not well refuse to receive his callers, whom he
+guessed to be the three girls Old Hucks had praised to him so highly.
+
+"It will give me great pleasure, sir," he replied.
+
+An invalid is usually of interest to women, so it is no wonder that the
+three young ladies were at once attracted by the bright-faced boy, who
+reclined upon his couch before the vine-covered windows. They thought of
+Ethel, too, and did not marvel that the girl grieved over the loss of
+this friend of her childhood.
+
+Joe had to recount the adventure with the automobile, which led to his
+injuries, and afterward give an account of his life at the hospital.
+That led, naturally, to the timely assistance rendered him by the
+faithful Thomas, so that Louise was able to broach the subject nearest
+her heart.
+
+"We have been greatly interested in your old servants--whom we acquired
+with the farm, it seems--and all of us admire their simplicity and
+sincerity," she began.
+
+"Nora is a dear," added Beth.
+
+"And Thomas is so cheerful that his smile is enough to vanquish any
+attack of the blues," said Patsy.
+
+"The Hucks are the right sort, and no mistake," declared the Major,
+taking his cue from the others.
+
+This praise evidently delighted the boy. They could have found no more
+direct way to win his confidence.
+
+"Nora was my mother's maid from the time she was a mere girl," said he;
+"and Thomas sailed with my father many years before I was born."
+
+They were a little surprised to hear him speak so frankly. But Louise
+decided to take advantage of the opening afforded her.
+
+"Nora has told us that some great trouble came to them years ago--a
+trouble that also affected your own parents. But they do not wish to
+talk about it to us."
+
+His face clouded.
+
+"No, indeed," said he. "Their loving old hearts have never recovered
+from the blow. Would you like to know their history? It is a sad story,
+and pitiful; but I am sure you would understand and appreciate my old
+friends better after hearing it."
+
+Their hearts fairly jumped with joy. Would they like to hear the story?
+Was it not this very clue which they had been blindly groping for to
+enable them to solve the mystery of the Wegg crime? The boy marked their
+interest, and began his story at once, while the hearts of the three
+girls sang-gladly: "At last--at last!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+JOE TELLS OF "THE GREAT TROUBLE."
+
+"As a young man, my father was a successful sea captain," said the boy,
+"and, before he was thirty, owned a considerable interest in the ship he
+sailed. Thomas Hucks was his boatswain,--an honest and able seaman in
+whom my father became much interested. Hucks was married, and his wife
+was an attendant in the employ of Hugh Carter, a wealthy ship chandler
+of Edmunton, the port from which my fathers ship sailed. Thomas had some
+difficulty in enjoying his wife's society when on shore, because old
+Carter did not want him hanging around the house; so Captain Wegg
+good-naturedly offered to intercede for him.
+
+"Carter was a gruff and disagreeable man, and, although my father had
+been a good customer, he refused his request and threatened to discharge
+Nora, which he did. This made Captain Wegg angry, and he called upon
+Mary Carter, whose especial attendant Nora had been, to ask her to take
+the girl back. Mary was a mild young lady, who dared not oppose her
+father; but the result of the interview was that the sea captain and
+Mary Carter fell mutually in love. During the next two or three years,
+whenever the ship was in port, the lovers frequently met by stealth at
+the cottage of Mrs. Hucks, a little place Thomas had rented. Here my
+father and mother were finally married.
+
+"Meantime Nora had a son, a fine young chap, I've heard; and presently
+my mother, who had a little fortune of her own, plucked up enough
+courage to leave her father's roof, and took up her abode in a pretty
+villa on the edge of a bluff overlooking the sea. Nora came to live with
+her again, bringing her child, and the two women were company for one
+another while their husbands were at sea.
+
+"In course of time my mother had two children, a girl and a boy, and
+because the Hucks boy was considerably older than they, he took care of
+them, to a great extent, and the three youngsters were always together.
+Their favorite playground was on the beach, at the foot of the bluff,
+and before young Tom was ten years old he could swim like a duck, and
+manage a boat remarkably well. The Wegg children, having something of
+their mother's timid nature, perhaps, were not so adventurous, but they
+seldom hesitated to go wherever Tom led them.
+
+"One day, while my mother was slightly ill and Nora was attending to
+her, Tom disobeyed the commands that had been given him, and took his
+younger companions out on the ocean for a ride in his boat. No one knows
+how far they went, or exactly what happened to them; but a sudden squall
+sprang up, and the children being missed, my mother insisted, ill as she
+was, in running down to the shore to search for her darlings. Braving
+the wind and drenched by rain, the two mothers stood side by side,
+peering into the gloom, while brave men dared the waves to search for
+the missing ones. The body of the girl was first washed ashore, and my
+mother rocked the lifeless form in her arms until her dead son was laid
+beside her. Then young Tom's body was recovered, and the horror
+was complete.
+
+"When my father arrived, three days later, he not only found himself
+bereaved of the two children he had loved so tenderly, but his young
+wife was raving with brain fever, and likely to follow her babies to the
+grave. During that terrible time, Nora, who could not forget that it was
+her own adventurous son who had led all three children to their death,
+went suddenly blind--from grief, the doctors said.
+
+"My father pulled his wife back to life by dint of careful nursing; but
+whenever she looked at the sea she would scream with horror; so it
+became necessary to take her where the cruel sound of the breakers could
+never reach her ears. I think the grief of Thomas and Nora was scarcely
+less than that of my own parents, and both men had suffered so severely
+that they were willing to abandon the sea and devote their lives to
+comforting their poor wives. Captain Wegg sold all his interests and his
+wife's villa, and brought the money here, where he established a home
+amid entirely different surroundings. He was devoted to my mother, I
+have heard, and when she died, soon after my birth, the Captain seemed
+to lose all further interest in life, and grew morose and unsociable
+with all his fellow-creatures.
+
+"That, young ladies, is the story of what Thomas and Nora call their
+'great trouble'; and I think it is rightly named, because it destroyed
+the happiness of two families. I was born long after the tragedy, but
+its shadow has saddened even my own life."
+
+When the boy had finished, his voice trembling with emotion as he
+uttered the last words, his auditors were much affected by the sad tale.
+Patsy was positively weeping, and the Major blew his nose vigorously and
+advised his daughter to "dry up an' be sinsible." Beth's great eyes
+stared compassionately at the young fellow, and even Louise for the
+moment allowed her sympathy to outweigh the disappointment and chagrin
+of seeing her carefully constructed theory of crime topple over like the
+house of cards it was. There was now no avenger to be discovered,
+because there had been nothing to avenge. The simple yet pathetic story
+accounted for all the mystery that, in her imagination, enveloped the
+life and death of Captain Wegg. But--stay!
+
+"How did your father die?" she asked, softly.
+
+"Through a heart trouble, from which he had suffered for years, and
+which had obliged him to lead a very quiet life," was the reply. "That
+was one of the things which, after my mother's death, helped to sour his
+disposition. He could not return to the sea again, because he was told
+that any sudden excitement was likely to carry him off; and, indeed,
+that was exactly what happened."
+
+"How is that, sir?" asked the Major.
+
+"It is more difficult to explain than the first of the story," replied
+the boy, thoughtfully gazing through the window; "perhaps because I do
+not understand it so well. Our simple life here never made much of an
+inroad into my father's modest fortune; for our wants were few; but
+Captain Wegg was a poor man of business, having been a sailor during all
+his active life. His only intimate friend--an honest, bluff old farmer
+named Will Thompson--was as childish regarding money matters as my
+father, but had a passion for investments, and induced my father to join
+some of his schemes. Mr. Thompson's mind was somewhat erratic at times,
+but keen in some ways, nevertheless. Fearing to trust his judgment
+entirely, my father chose to lean upon the wisdom and experience of a
+shrewd merchant of Millville, named Robert West."
+
+"The hardware dealer?" asked Louise, impulsively.
+
+"Yes; I see you have met him," replied Joseph Wegg, with a smile at the
+eager, pretty face of his visitor. "Bob West was a prosperous man and
+very careful about his own investments; so he became a sort of business
+adviser to my father and Mr. Thompson, and arbitrated any differences of
+opinion they might have. For several years, due to West's good offices,
+the two oddly mated friends were successful in their ventures, and added
+to their capital. Finally West came to them himself with a proposition.
+He had discovered a chance to make a good deal of money by purchasing an
+extensive pine forest near Almaquo, just across the border in Canada.
+West had taken an option on the property, when he found by accident that
+the Pierce-Lane Lumber Company was anxious to get hold of the tract and
+cut the timber on a royalty that would enable the owners to double their
+investment."
+
+"Howld on a jiffy!" cried the Major, excitedly. "Did I understand you to
+say the Pierce-Lane Lumber Company?"
+
+"That was the firm, sir. I used to overhear my father and Will Thompson
+talking about this matter; but I must admit my knowledge is somewhat
+imperfect, because I never was allowed to ask questions. I remember
+learning the fact that West had not enough money to swing his option,
+and so urged his friends to join him. Relying upon West's judgment, they
+put all their little fortunes into the deal, although Thompson grumbled
+at doing so, because he claimed he had another investment that was
+better, and this matter of West's would prevent him from undertaking it.
+The Almaquo tract was purchased, and a contract made with the lumber
+company to cut the timber and pay them a royalty of so much a thousand
+feet. Yet, although the prospects for profit seemed so good, I know that
+for some reason both my father and Thompson were dissatisfied with the
+deal, and this may be accounted for by the fact that every penny of
+their money was tied up in one investment. West used to come to the
+house and argue with them that the property was safe as the Bank of
+England, and then old Will would tell him how much more he could have
+made out of another investment he had in mind; so that a coolness grew
+up between West and the others that gradually led to their estrangement.
+
+"I can well remember the evening when Bob West's pretty financial bubble
+burst. Thompson and my father were sitting together in the right wing,
+smoking solemnly, and exchanging a few words, as was their custom, when
+West arrived with a while face, and a newspaper under his arm. I was in
+the next room, lying half asleep upon the sofa, when I heard West cry
+despairingly: 'Ruined--ruined--ruined!' I crept to the half-opened
+door, then, and looked in. Both men were staring, open-mouthed and
+half-dazed, at West, who was explaining in a trembling voice that a
+terrible forest fire had swept through the Almaquo section and wiped out
+every tree upon the property. He had the full account in the newspaper,
+and had begun reading it, when my father uttered a low moan and tumbled
+off his chair to the floor.
+
+"Will Thompson gave a wild cry and knelt beside him.
+
+"'My God! he's dead, Bob,--he's dead!--and you've killed him with your
+good news!' he screamed, already raving; and then Old Hucks ran in just
+in time to prevent the madman from throttling West, for his fingers were
+even then twined around Bob's throat. There was a desperate struggle,
+and I remember that, scared as I was, I joined Thomas in trying to pull
+Thompson off his prey. But suddenly old Will threw up his arms and
+toppled backward, still raving like a demon, but unable to move his body
+from the waist downward. West helped us to put him in bed, and said he
+was paralyzed, which afterward proved to be the truth. Also, his mind
+was forever gone; and I think it was father's death that did that,
+rather than the loss of his money."
+
+They were all staring, white-faced, at the speaker. Most of the mystery
+was being cleared away; indeed, there was now little of mystery
+remaining at all.
+
+"West hurried after a doctor," continued Joe, who was almost as much
+absorbed in his story as were his listeners, and spoke in a reflective,
+musing way, "and he succeeded in finding one who was stopping for a few
+days at the hotel. Poor Bob was very kind to us in our trouble, and I
+never heard him mention a word about his own losses, which must have
+been severe. After the funeral was over, and I found I had nothing to
+inherit but the farm, I decided to go to the city and make my way there,
+as I had long wished to do. West gave me a little money to start me on
+my way, and the rest of my story is not very interesting to anybody.
+Major Doyle knows something of it, after the time when I got through my
+technical school by working as a servant to pay for my instruction. I'm
+a failure in life, so far, young ladies; but if you'll not bear that
+against me I'll try to do better in the future."
+
+"Good!" cried the Major, approvingly, as he took the boy's left hand in
+both his own and pressed it. "You're developing the right spirit,
+Joseph, me lad, and we'll think no more about the sadness of the past,
+but look forward to the joy of your future."
+
+"Of course," said Patsy, nodding gravely; "Joe Wegg is bound to be a
+great man, some day."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE LOCKED CUPBOARD.
+
+Louise and Beth returned to the farm in dismal silence. Every prop had
+been knocked from beneath their carefully erected temple of mystery. Now
+there was no mystery at all.
+
+In a few words, Joe Wegg had explained everything, and explained all so
+simply and naturally that Louise felt like sobbing with the bitterness
+of a child deprived of its pet plaything. The band of self-constituted
+girl detectives had been "put out of business," as Patsy said, because
+the plain fact had developed that there was nothing to detect, and never
+had been. There had been no murder, no robbery, no flight or hiding on
+the part of the Weggs to escape an injured enemy; nothing even
+mysterious, in the light of the story they had just heard. It was
+dreadfully humiliating and thoroughly disheartening, after all their
+earnest endeavor to investigate a crime that had never been committed.
+
+Uncle John rallied his nieces on their somber faces at the dinner table,
+and was greatly amused when the Major, despite the appealing looks
+directed at him, gave Mr. Merrick a brief resume of the afternoon's
+developments.
+
+"Well, I declare!" said the little man, merrily; "didn't I warn you,
+Louise, not to try to saddle a murder onto my new farm? How you foolish
+girls could ever have imagined such a carnival of crime in connection
+with the Weggs is certainly remarkable."
+
+"I don't know about that, sir," returned the Major, seriously. "I was
+meself inoculated with the idea, and for a while I considered meself and
+the girls the equals of all the Pinkertons in the country. And when ye
+come to think of it, the history of poor Captain Wegg and his wife, and
+of Nora and Thomas as well, is out of the ordinary entirely, and,
+without the explanation, contained all the elements of a
+first-class mystery."
+
+"How did you say the Weggs lost their money?" inquired Uncle John,
+turning the subject because he saw that it embarrassed his nieces.
+
+"Why, forest fires at Almaquo, in Canada, burned down the timber they
+had bought," replied the Major. "And, by the way, John, you're
+interested in that matter yourself, for the Pierce-Lane Lumber Company,
+in which you own a lot of stock, had contracted to cut the timber on
+a royalty."
+
+"How long ago?"
+
+"Three years, sir."
+
+"Well, we've been cutting timber at Almaquo ever since," said Mr.
+Merrick.
+
+Louise dropped her fork with a clatter, disclosing, in this well-bred
+young lady, an unusual degree of excitement.
+
+"Then there _is_ something to detect!" she cried.
+
+"Eh? What do you mean?" inquired her uncle.
+
+"If you've been cutting timber at Almaquo for three years, the trees
+couldn't have burned down," Louise declared, triumphantly.
+
+"That is evident," said the Major, dryly. "I've had it in me mind,
+Louise, to take that matter up for investigation; but you are so imbued
+with the detective spirit that there's no heading you off a trail."
+
+"Before the dessert comes on," announced Uncle John, impressively, "I
+want to make a statement. You folks have tried your hands at the
+detective business and made a mess of it. Now it's my turn. I'll be a
+detective for three days, and if I don't succeed better than you did,
+young women, we'll mingle our tears in all humility. Eh, Major?"
+
+"Put me in the bunch, sir," said the old soldier, "I was as bad as any
+of them. And go ahead in your own way, if ye like. It's me humble
+opinion, John, that you're no Sherlock Holmes; but ye won't believe it
+'til ye satisfy yourself of the fact."
+
+Next morning the loungers around Sam Cotting's store were thrown into a
+state of great excitement when "the nabob" came over from the Wegg farm
+and held the long-distance telephone for more than an hour, while he
+talked with people in New York. The natives knew that their telephone,
+which was built into a small booth at one end of the store--next the
+post-office boxes--was part of a system that made it possible for one to
+talk to those in far away cities. Often the country people would eye the
+mysterious-looking instrument with awe and whisper to each other of its
+mighty powers; but no one had ever before used it to telephone farther
+than the Junction, and then only on rare occasions.
+
+"It'll cost a heap o' money, Sam," said McNutt, uneasily, while Uncle
+John was engaged in his remarkable conversation. They could see him in
+the booth, through the little window.
+
+"It will, Mac," was the solemn reply. "But the fool nabob may as well
+spend it thet way as any other. It's mighty little of his capital er
+surplus gits inter _my_ cash-drawer; 'n' thet's a fact."
+
+Uncle John came from the booth, perspiring, but smiling and happy. He
+walked across the street to see Joe Wegg, and found the youth seated in
+a rocking-chair and looking quite convalescent. But he had company. In a
+chair opposite sat a man neatly dressed, with a thin, intelligent face,
+a stubby gray moustache, and shrewd eyes covered by horn-rimmed
+spectacles.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Merrick," said Joe, cheerily; "this is Mr. Robert
+West, one of the Millville merchants, who is an old friend of
+our family."
+
+"I've heard of Mr. West, and I'm glad to meet him," replied Uncle John,
+looking at the other calmly, but not offering to shake hands. "I believe
+you are the president and treasurer of the Almaquo Timber Tract Company,
+are you not?"
+
+Joseph looked startled, and then embarrassed, as he overheard the
+question. West, without altering his position of careless ease, glanced
+over the rims of his glasses at the speaker.
+
+"I am the humble individual you refer to, Mr. Merrick," he said,
+briefly.
+
+"But the Almaquo timber all burned down." remarked Joe, thinking an
+explanation was needed.
+
+"That's a mistake," returned Mr. Merrick. "My company has paid Mr. West,
+as treasurer of his company, more than fifty thousand dollars during the
+last three years."
+
+West's jaw dropped.
+
+"Your company!" he exclaimed, as if mystified.
+
+"Yes; I own the controlling interest in the Pierce-Lane Lumber Company,
+which has the contract to cut your timber," answered Mr. Merrick.
+
+The hardware dealer slowly arose and glanced at his watch.
+
+"I must get back to my store," he said. "You are somewhat in error about
+your company, Mr. Merrick; but I suppose your interests are so large and
+varied that you cannot well keep track of them. Good morning, sir. I'll
+see you again soon, Joe. Glad you're improving so rapidly. Let me know
+if I can do anything to help you."
+
+With these quiet words, he bowed and left the room, and when he had
+gone, Joe said, in a deprecating tone:
+
+"Poor Bob must be very unhappy about having lost my father's money in
+that speculation, for he advocated the plan very strongly, believing it
+was a good investment. I'm afraid your mistake about paying him all that
+money upset him. Don't mind if he was a little brusque, sir. Bob West is
+a simple, kindly man, whom my father fully trusted. It was he that
+loaned me the money to get away from here with."
+
+"Tell me," said Uncle John, thoughtfully, "did your father receive stock
+in the Almaquo Timber Tract Company in exchange for his money?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I have seen it in the steel cupboard," replied Joe.
+
+"Where is that?"
+
+"Why, it is the cupboard in the right wing of our house, which was the
+Captain's own room. It was one of his whims, when he built, to provide
+what he called his 'bank.' You may have noticed the wooden doors of a
+cupboard built into the stone wall, sir?"
+
+"Yes; I occupy the room."
+
+"Behind the wooden doors are others of steel. The entire cupboard is
+steel-lined. Near the bottom is a sliding-plate, which, when pushed
+aside, discovers a hidden drawer--a secret my father never confided to
+anyone but me. He once told me that if his heart trouble earned him off
+suddenly I ought to know of the existence of this drawer; so he showed
+me how to find it. On the day after his death I took the keys, which he
+always carried on a small chain around his neck and concealed underneath
+his clothing, and opened the cupboard to see if I could find anything of
+value. It is needless to say, I could not discover anything that could
+be converted into a dollar. The Captain had filled the cupboard with old
+letters and papers of no value, and with relics he had brought from
+foreign lands during his many voyages. These last are mere rubbish, but
+I suppose he loved them for their association. In the secret drawer I
+found his stock in the timber company, and also that of old Will
+Thompson, who had doubtless left it with my father for safekeeping.
+Knowing it was now worthless, I left it in the drawer."
+
+"I'd like to see it," announced Uncle John.
+
+Joe laughed.
+
+"I've lost the keys," he said.
+
+"How's that, my lad?"
+
+"Why, on the day of the funeral the keys disappeared. I could never
+imagine what became of them. But I did not care to look in the cupboard
+a second time, so the loss did not matter."
+
+Mr. Merrick seemed thoughtful.
+
+"I suppose I own that cupboard now," he remarked.
+
+"Of course," said Joe. "But without the keys it is not serviceable. If
+you drill through the steel doors you destroy their security."
+
+"True; but I may decide to do that."
+
+"If you do, sir, I'd like you to clear out the rubbish and papers and
+send them to me. They are family matters, and I did not intend to sell
+them with the place."
+
+"You shall have them, Joe."
+
+"Just underneath the left end of the lower shelf you will find the
+sliding steel plate. It slides toward the front. In the drawer you will
+find the worthless stock and a picture of my mother. I'd like to keep
+the picture."
+
+"You shall, Joseph. How are you getting on?"
+
+"Why, I'm a new man, Mr. Merrick, and today I'm feeling as strong as a
+buffalo--thanks to your kind guardianship."
+
+"Don't overdo, sir. Take it easy. There's a young lady coming to see you
+today."
+
+"Ethel!" the boy exclaimed, his face turning crimson.
+
+"Yes," returned Uncle John, tersely. "You've treated that girl
+shamefully, Joseph Wegg. Try to make proper amends."
+
+"I never could understand," said Joe, slowly, "why Ethel refused to
+answer the letter I wrote her when I went away. It explained
+everything, yet--"
+
+"I'll bet the farm against your lame shoulder she never got your
+letter," declared Uncle John. "She thought you left her without a word."
+
+"I gave it to McNutt to deliver after I was gone. But you say she's
+coming today?"
+
+"That is her intention, sir."
+
+Joe said nothing more, but his expressive face was smiling and eager.
+Uncle John pressed the boy's hand and left him, promising to call
+again soon.
+
+"Now, then," muttered the little millionaire, as he walked down the
+street, "to beard the lion in his den."
+
+The den proved to be the hardware store, and the lion none other than
+Robert West. Mr. Merrick found the merchant seated at his desk in the
+otherwise deserted store, and, with a nod, helped himself to the only
+other chair the little office contained.
+
+"Sir," said he, "I am here to demand an explanation."
+
+"Of what?" asked West, coldly.
+
+"Of your action in the matter of the Almaquo Timber Tract Company. I
+believe that you falsely asserted to Captain Wegg and Mr. Thompson that
+the timber had burned and their investment was therefore worthless. The
+news of the disaster killed one of your confiding friends and drove the
+other mad; but that was a consequence that I am sure you did not intend
+when you planned the fraud. The most serious thing I can accuse you of
+is holding the earnings of the Wegg and Thompson stock--and big earnings
+they are, too--for your own benefit, and defrauding the heirs of your
+associates of their money."
+
+West carefully balanced a penholder across his fingers, and eyed it with
+close attention.
+
+"You are a queer man, Mr. Merrick," he said, quietly. "I can only excuse
+your insults on the grounds of ignorance, or the fact that you have been
+misinformed. Here is the newspaper report of the Almaquo fire, which I
+showed my friends the night of Captain Wegg's sudden death." He took a
+clipping from a drawer of the desk and handed it to Uncle John, who read
+it carefully.
+
+"As a matter of fact," continued West, "you are not cutting that portion
+of the Almaquo tract which this fire refers to, and which Thompson and
+Wegg were interested in, but the north half of the tract, which they had
+never acquired any title to."
+
+"I suppose the stock will show that," suggested Mr. Merrick.
+
+"Of course, sir."
+
+"I will look it up."
+
+West smiled.
+
+"You will have some trouble doing that," he said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Wegg and Thompson had transferred their entire stock to me before one
+died and the other went mad," was the quiet reply.
+
+"Oh, I see." The lie was so evident that Uncle John did not try to
+refute it.
+
+"I am rather busy, Mr. Merrick. Anything more, sir?"
+
+"Not today. Bye and bye, Mr. West."
+
+He marched out again and climbed into his buggy to drive home. The
+interview with Bob West had made him uneasy, for the merchant's cold,
+crafty nature rendered him an opponent who would stick at nothing to
+protect his ill-gotten gains. Uncle John had thought it an easy matter
+to force him to disgorge, but West was the one inhabitant of Millville
+who had no simplicity in his character. He was as thoroughly imbued with
+worldly subtlety and cunning as if he had lived amid the grille of a
+city all his life; and Mr. Merrick was by no means sure of his own
+ability to unmask the man and force him to make restitution.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE COURT'N OF SKIM CLARK.
+
+By this time the summer was well advanced, and the rich people at the
+Wegg farm had ceased to be objects of wonder to the Millville folk. The
+girls were still regarded with curious looks when they wandered into the
+village on an errand, and Mr. Merrick and Major Doyle inspired a certain
+amount of awe; but time had dulled the edge of marvelous invasion and
+the city people were now accepted as a matter of course.
+
+Peggy McNutt was still bothering his head over schemes to fleece the
+strangers, in blissful ignorance of the fact that one of his neighbors
+was planning to get ahead of him.
+
+The Widow Clark was a shrewd woman. She had proven this by becoming one
+of the merchants of Millville after her husband's death. The poor man
+had left an insurance of five hundred dollars and the little frame
+building wherein he had conducted a harness shop. Mrs. Clark couldn't
+make and repair harness; so she cleared the straps and scraps and
+wax-ends out of the place, painted the interior of the shop bright
+yellow, with a blue ceiling, erected some shelves and a counter and
+turned part of the insurance money into candy, cigars, stationery, and a
+meager stock of paper-covered novels.
+
+Skim, her small son, helped her as far as he was able, and between them
+they managed things so frugally that at the end of eight years the widow
+still had her five hundred dollars capital, and the little store had
+paid her living expenses.
+
+Skim was named after his uncle, Peter Skimbley, who owned a farm near
+Watertown. The widow's hopeful was now a lank, pale-faced youth of
+eighteen, whose most imposing features were his big hands and a long
+nose that ended in a sharp point. The shop had ruined him for manual
+labor, for he sat hunched up by the stove in winter, and in summer hung
+around Cotting's store and listened to the gossip of the loungers. He
+was a boy of small conversational powers, but his mother declared that
+Skim "done a heap o' thinkin' that nobody suspected."
+
+The widow was a good gossip herself, and knew all the happenings in the
+little town. She had a habit of reading all her stock of paper-covered
+novels before she sold them, and her mind was stocked with the mass of
+romance and adventure she had thus absorbed. "What I loves more'n eat'n'
+or sleep'n'," she often said, "is a rattlin' good love story. There
+don't seem to be much love in real life, so a poor lone crittur like me
+has to calm her hankerin's by a-readin' novels."
+
+No one had been more interested in the advent of the millionaire at the
+Wegg farm than the widow Clark. She had helped "fix up" the house for
+the new owner and her appreciative soul had been duly impressed by the
+display of wealth demonstrated by the fine furniture sent down from the
+city. She had watched the arrival of the party and noticed with eager
+eyes the group of three pretty and stylishly dressed nieces who
+accompanied their rich uncle. Once or twice since the young ladies had
+entered her establishment to purchase pens or stationery, and on such
+occasions the widow was quite overcome by their condescension.
+
+All this set her thinking to some purpose. One day she walked over to
+the farm and made her way quietly to the back door. By good fortune she
+found blind Nora hemming napkins and in a mood to converse. Nora was an
+especially neat seamstress, but required some one to thread her needles.
+Mary the cook had been doing this, but now Mrs. Clark sat down beside
+Nora to "hev a little talk" and keep the needles supplied with thread.
+
+She learned a good deal about the nieces, for old Nora could not praise
+them enough. They were always sweet and kind to her and she loved to
+talk about them. They were all rich, too, or would be; for their uncle
+had no children of his own and could leave several millions to each one
+when he died.
+
+"An' they're so simple, too," said the old woman; "nothin' cityfied ner
+stuck-up about any on 'em, I kin tell ye. They dresses as fine as the
+Queen o' Sheba, Tom says; but they romp 'round just like they was borned
+in the country. Miss Patsy she's learnin' to milk the cow, an' Miss Beth
+takes care o' the chickens all by herself. They're reg'lar girls, Marthy
+Clark, an' money hain't spiled 'em a bit."
+
+This report tended to waken a great ambition in the widow's heart. Or
+perhaps the ambition had already taken form and this gossip confirmed
+and established it. Before she left the farm she had a chance to
+secretly observe the girls, and they met with her full approval.
+
+At supper that evening she said to her hopeful:
+
+"Skim, I want ye to go courtin'."
+
+Skim looked up in amazement.
+
+"Me, ma?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, you. It's time you was thinkin' of gittin' married."
+
+Skim held his knife in his mouth a moment while he thought over this
+startling proposition. Then he removed the cutlery, heaved a deep sigh,
+and enquired:
+
+"Who at, ma?"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Who'll I go courtin' at?"
+
+"Skim, you 'member in thet las' book we read, 'The Angel Maniac's
+Revenge,' there was a sayin' that fate knocks wunst on ev'ry man's door.
+Well, fate's knockin' on your door."
+
+Skim listened, with a nervous glance toward the doorway. Then he shook
+his head.
+
+"All fool fancy, ma," he remarked. "Don't ye go an' git no rumantic
+notions out'n books inter yer head."
+
+"Skim, am I a fool, er ain't I?"
+
+"'Tain't fer me ter say, ma."
+
+"Fate's knockin', an' if you don't open to it, Skim, I'll wash my hands
+o' ye, an' ye kin jest starve to death."
+
+The boy looked disturbed.
+
+"What's aggrivatin' of ye, then?" he enquired, anxiously.
+
+"A millionaire is come right under yer nose. He's here in Millville,
+with three gals fer nieces thet's all got money to squander an's bound
+to hev more."
+
+Skim gave a low whistle.
+
+"Ye don't mean fer me to be courtin' at them gals, do ye?" he demanded.
+
+"Why not? Yer fambly's jest as respectible as any, 'cept thet yer Uncle
+Mell backslided after the last revival, an' went to a hoss race. Yer
+young, an' yer han'some; an' there's three gals waitin' ready to be won
+by a bold wooer. Be bold, Skim; take fate by the fetlock, an' yer
+fortun's made easy!"
+
+Skim did not reply at once. He gulped down his tea and stared at the
+opposite wall in deep thought. It wasn't such a "tarnal bad notion,"
+after all, and so thoroughly impressed was he with his own importance
+and merit that it never occurred to him he would meet with any
+difficulties if he chose to undertake the conquest.
+
+"Peggy says marri'ge is the mark of a fool; an' Peggy married money,
+too," he remarked slowly.
+
+"Pah! money! Mary Ann Cotting didn't hev but a hundred an' forty
+dollars, all told, an' she were an old maid an' soured an' squint-eyed
+when Peggy hitched up with her."
+
+"I hain't seen nuthin' o' the world, yit," continued Skim, evasively.
+
+"Ner ye won't nuther, onless ye marry money. Any one o' them gals could
+take ye to Europe an' back a dozen times."
+
+Skim reflected still farther.
+
+"Courtin' ought to hev some decent clothes," he said. "I kain't set in
+the nabob's parlor, with all thet slick furnitur', in Nick Thorne's
+cast-off Sunday suit."
+
+"The cloth's as good as ever was made, an' I cut 'em down myself, an'
+stitched 'em all over."
+
+"They don't look like store clothes, though," objected Skim.
+
+The widow sighed.
+
+"Tain't the coat that makes the man, Skim."
+
+"It's the coat thet makes decent courtin', though," he maintained,
+stubbornly. "Gals like to see a feller dressed up. It shows he means
+business an' 'mounts to somethin'."
+
+"I give Nick Thorne two dollars an' a packidge o' terbacker fer them
+clotlies, which the on'y thing wrong about was they'd got too snug fer
+comfert. Nick said so himself. But I'll make a bargain with ye, Skim. Ef
+you'll agree to give me fifty dollars after yer married, I'll buy ye
+some store clothes o' Sam Cotting, to do courtin' in."
+
+"Fifty dollars!"
+
+"Well, I've brung ye up, hain't I?" "I've worked like a nigger, mindin'
+shop." "Say forty dollars. I ain't small, an' ef ye git one o' them city
+gals, Skim, forty dollars won't mean no more'n a wink of an eye to ye."
+
+Skim frowned. Then he smiled, and the smile disclosed a front tooth
+missing.
+
+"I'll dream on't," he said. "Let ye know in the mornin', ma. But I won't
+court a minite, mind ye, 'nless I git store clothes."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+A LOST CAUSE.
+
+The boy's musings confirmed him in the idea that his mother's scheme was
+entirely practical. He didn't hanker much to marry, being young and
+fairly satisfied with his present lot; but opportunities like this did
+not often occur, and it seemed his bounden duty to take advantage of it.
+
+He got the "store clothes" next day, together with a scarlet necktie
+that was "all made up in the latest style," as Sam Cotting assured him,
+and a pair of yellow kid gloves "fit fer a howlin' swell." Skim wasn't
+sure, at first, about the gloves, but capitulated when Sam declared they
+were "real cityfied."
+
+In the evening he "togged up," with his mother's help, and then walked
+over to the Wegg farm.
+
+Beth answered the knock at the door. The living room was brightly
+lighted; Uncle John and the Major were playing checkers in a corner and
+Patsy was softly drumming on the piano. Louise had a book and Beth had
+been engaged upon some fancy-work.
+
+When the door opened Skim bobbed his head and said:
+
+"Evenin', mom. I've come a-visitin'."
+
+Beth conquered an inclination to smile.
+
+"Won't you come in?" she said, sweetly.
+
+"Thankee; I will. I'm Skimbley Clark, ye know; down t' the village. Ma
+keeps a store there."
+
+"I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Clark. Allow me to introduce to you my
+uncle and cousins," said the girl, her eyes dancing with amusement.
+
+Skim acknowledged the introductions with intense gravity, and then sat
+down upon a straight-backed chair near the piano, this being the end of
+the room where the three girls were grouped. Uncle John gave a chuckle
+and resumed his game with the Major, who whispered that he would give a
+dollar for an oil painting of Mr. Clark--if it couldn't be had for less.
+
+Louise laid down her book and regarded the visitor wonderingly. Patsy
+scented fun and drew a chair nearer the group. Beth resumed her
+embroidery with a demure smile that made Skim decide at once that "he
+picked the pretty one."
+
+Indeed, the decision did justice to his discretion. Beth De Graf was a
+rarely beautiful girl and quite outshone her cousins in this respect.
+Louise might be attractive and Patsy fascinating; but Beth was the real
+beauty of the trio, and the most charming trait in her character was her
+unconsciousness that she excelled in good looks.
+
+So Skim stared hard at Beth, and answered the preliminary remarks
+addressed to him by Patsy and Louise in a perfunctory manner.
+
+"Won't you take off your gloves?" asked Louise, soberly. "It's so warm
+this evening, you know."
+
+The boy looked at his hands.
+
+"It's sech a tarnal job to git 'em on agin," he replied.
+
+"Don't put them on, then," advised Patsy. "Here in the country we are
+allowed to dispense with much unnecessary social etiquette."
+
+"Air ye? Then off they come. I ain't much stuck on gloves, myself; but
+ma she 'lowed that a feller goin' courtin' orter look like a sport."
+
+A chorus of wild laughter, which greeted this speech, had the effect of
+making Skim stare at the girls indignantly. He couldn't find anything
+funny in his remark; but there they sat facing him and uttering
+hysterical peals of merriment, until the tears ran down their cheeks.
+
+Silently and with caution he removed the yellow gloves from his hands,
+and so gave the foolish creatures a chance "to laugh out their
+blamed giggle."
+
+But they were watching him, and saw that he was disconcerted. They had
+no mind to ruin the enjoyment in store for them by offending their
+guest, so they soon resumed a fitting gravity and began to assist the
+youth to forget their rudeness.
+
+"May I ask," said Patsy, very graciously, "which one of us you intend to
+favor with your attentions?"
+
+"I ain't much used to sech things," he replied, looking down at his big
+hands and growing a little red-faced. "P'raps I hadn't orter tell,
+before the rest o' ye."
+
+"Oh, yes; do tell!" pleaded Louise. "We're so anxious to know."
+
+"I don't s'pose it's right clever to pick an' choose when ye're all by,"
+said Skim, regaining confidence. "But ma, she 'lowed thet with three
+gals handy I orter git one on 'em, to say the least."
+
+"If you got more than one," remarked Beth, calmly, "it would be
+illegal."
+
+"Oh, one's enough," said Skim, with a grin. "Peggy says it's too many,
+an' a feller oughtn't to take his gal out'n a grab-bag."
+
+"I should think not, indeed," returned Patsy. "But here are three of us
+openly displayed, and unless you turn us all down as unworthy, it will
+be necessary for you to make a choice."
+
+"What foolishness are you girls up to now?" demanded Uncle John,
+catching a stray word from the other corner while engaged in a desperate
+struggle with the Major.
+
+"This is a time for you to keep quiet, Uncle," retorted Patsy, merrily.
+"We've got important things to consider that are none of your affairs,
+whatever."
+
+Skim reflected that he didn't want this one, except as a last resort.
+She was "too bossy."
+
+"When I started out," he said, "I jest come a-courtin', as any feller
+might do thet wasn't much acquainted. But ef I've got to settle down to
+one o' ye--"
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"Oh, you must really take one at a time, you know," asserted Louise.
+"It's the only proper way."
+
+"Then I'll start on thet dark-eyed one thet's a sewin'," he said,
+slowly.
+
+Beth looked up from her work and smiled.
+
+"Go ahead, Mr. Clark," she said, encouragingly. "My name is Beth. Had
+you forgotten it?"
+
+"Call me Skim," he said, gently.
+
+"Very well, Skim,--Now look here, Patsy Doyle, if you're going to sit
+there and giggle you'll spoil everything. Mr. Clark wants to court, and
+it's getting late."
+
+"P'raps I've went fur enough fer tonight," remarked Skim, uneasily.
+"Next time they'll leave us alone, an' then----"
+
+"Oh, don't postpone it, please!" begged Beth, giving the boy a demure
+glance from her soft brown eyes. "And don't mind my cousins. I don't."
+
+"These things kain't be hurried," he said. "Si Merkle courted three
+weeks afore he popped. He tol' me so."
+
+"Then he was a very foolish man," declared Patsy, positively. "Just look
+at Beth! She's dying to have you speak out. What's the use of waiting,
+when she knows why you are here?"
+
+By this time Skim had been flattered to the extent of destroying any
+stray sense he might ever have possessed. His utter ignorance of girls
+and their ways may have been partly responsible for his idiocy, or his
+mother's conviction that all that was necessary was for him to declare
+himself in order to be accepted had misled him and induced him to
+abandon any native diffidence he might have had. Anyway, the boy fell
+into the snare set by the mischievous young ladies without a suspicion
+of his impending fate.
+
+"Miss Beth," said he, "ef yer willin', I'll marry ye; any time ye say. I
+agreed t' help Dick Pearson with the harvestin', but I'll try to' git
+Ned Long to take my place, an' it don't matter much, nohow."
+
+"But I couldn't have you break an engagement," cried Beth, hastily.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Oh, it wouldn't be right, at all. Mr. Pearson would never forgive me,"
+she asserted.
+
+"Can't ye--"
+
+"No; not before harvest, Skim. I couldn't think of it."
+
+"But arterward--"
+
+"No; I've resolved never to marry after harvest. So, as you're engaged,
+and I don't approve of breaking engagements, I must refuse your
+proposition entirely."
+
+Skim looked surprised; then perplexed; then annoyed.
+
+"P'raps I didn't pop jest right," he murmured, growing red again.
+
+"You popped beautifully," declared Patsy. "But Beth is very peculiar,
+and set in her ways. I'm afraid she wouldn't make you a good
+wife, anyhow."
+
+"Then p'raps the gal in blue----"
+
+"No;" said Louise. "I have the same prejudices as my cousin. If you
+hadn't been engaged for the harvest I might have listened to you; but
+that settles the matter definitely, as far as I am concerned."
+
+Skim sighed.
+
+"Ma'll be mad as a hornet ef I don't get any of ye," he remarked, sadly.
+"She's paid Sam Cotting fer this courtin' suit, an' he won't take back
+the gloves on no 'count arter they've been wore; an' thet'll set ma
+crazy. Miss Patsy, ef yo' think ye could----"
+
+"I'm sure I couldn't," said Patsy, promptly. "I'm awfully sorry to break
+your heart, Skim, dear, and ruin your future life, and make you
+misanthropic and cynical, and spoil your mother's investment and make
+her mad as a hornet. All this grieves me terribly; but I'll recover from
+it, if you'll only give me time. And I hope you'll find a wife that will
+be more congenial than I could ever be."
+
+Skim didn't understand all these words, but the general tenor of the
+speech was convincing, and filled him with dismay.
+
+"Rich gals is tarnal skeerce in these parts," he said, regretfully.
+
+Then they gave way again, and so lusty was the merriment that Uncle John
+and the Major abandoned their game and came across the room to discover
+the source of all this amusement.
+
+"What's up, young women?" asked their Uncle, glancing from their
+laughing faces to the lowering, sullen one of the boy, who had only now
+begun to suspect that he was being "poked fun at."
+
+"Oh, Uncle!" cried Patsy; "you've no idea how near you have been to
+losing us. We have each had an offer of marriage within the last
+half hour!"
+
+"Dear me!" ejaculated Uncle John.
+
+"It shows the young man's intelligence and good taste," said the Major,
+much amused. "But is it a Mormon ye are, sir, to want all three?"
+directing a keen glance at Skim.
+
+"Naw, 'tain't," he returned, wholly disgusted with the outcome of his
+suit. "All three got as't 'cause none of 'em's got sense enough t' know
+a good thing when they seen it."
+
+"But I do," said the Major, stoutly; "and I maintain that you're a good
+thing, and always will be. I hope, sir, you'll call 'round and see me in
+Baltimore next year. I'll not be there, but ye can leave your card, just
+the same."
+
+"Please call again, sir," added Uncle John; "about October--just before
+snow flies."
+
+The boy got up.
+
+"I don't keer none," he said, defiantly. "It's all ma's fault, gittin'
+me laughed at, an' she won't hear the last of it in a hurry, nuther."
+
+"Be gentle with her, Skim," suggested Beth, softly. "Remember she has to
+face the world with you by her side."
+
+Having no retort for this raillery, which he felt rather than
+understood, Skim seized his hat and fled. Then Patsy wiped the tears
+from her eyes and said:
+
+"Wasn't it grand, girls? I haven't had so much fun since I was born."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE TRAP IS SET.
+
+Uncle John was forced to acknowledge to his nieces that his boast to
+unmask Bob West within three days was mere blustering. If he
+accomplished anything in three weeks he would consider himself
+fortunate. But he had no wish to conceal anything from the girls, so he
+told them frankly of his interview with the hardware merchant, and also
+what Joe Wegg had said about the stock in the locked cupboard. They
+were, of course, greatly interested in this new phase of the matter and
+canvassed it long and eagerly.
+
+"The man is lying, of course," said Patsy, "for Captain Wegg and poor
+Mr. Thompson could not transfer their stock to West after that fatal
+night when he brought to them the news of the fire."
+
+"I believe the stock is still in this cupboard," declared Uncle John.
+
+"Unless West stole the keys and has taken it away," suggested Louise.
+
+"I'm sure he did not know about the secret drawer," said her uncle.
+"Probably he stole the keys and searched the cupboard; if he had found
+the stock he would have left the keys, which would then be of no further
+use to him. As he did not find the stock certificates, he carried the
+keys away, that he might search again at his leisure. And they've never
+yet been returned."
+
+"Why, John, ye're possessed of the true detective instinct," the Major
+remarked, admiringly. "Your reasoning is at once clever and
+unassailable."
+
+"I wonder," mused Beth, "if we could tempt Mr. West to come again to
+search the cupboard."
+
+"He will scarcely venture to do that while we are here," replied Uncle
+John.
+
+"I said 'tempt him,' Uncle."
+
+"And what did you mean by that expression, Beth?"
+
+"I'll think it over and tell you later," she returned, quietly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ethel Thompson would have shown Joe Wegg how much she resented his
+leaving Millville without a word to her, had she not learned from Mr.
+Merrick the boy's sad condition. Knowing her old friend was ill, she
+determined to ignore the past and go to him at once, and Uncle John knew
+very well there would be explanations to smooth away all the former
+misunderstandings.
+
+Joe was now aware of the fact that his letter to Ethel had never reached
+its destination, so, as soon as the girl had arrived and the first
+rather formal greetings were over, he sent Kate Kebble to McNutt's to
+ask the agent to come over to the hotel at once.
+
+The girl returned alone.
+
+"Peggy says as he can't come," she announced.
+
+"Why not?" asked Joe.
+
+"Says he's jest painted his off foot blue an' striped it with red, an'
+it hain't dried yit."
+
+"Go back," said Joe, firmly. "Tell Peggy he's in trouble, and it's
+likely to cost him more than a new coat of paint for his foot if he
+doesn't come here at once."
+
+Kate went back, and in due time the stump of McNutt's foot was heard on
+the stairs. He entered the room looking worried and suspicious, and the
+stern faces of Ethel and Joe did not reassure him, by any means. But he
+tried to disarm the pending accusation with his usual brazen
+impertinence.
+
+"Nice time ter send fer me, this is, Joe," he grumbled. "It's gittin' so
+a feller can't even paint his foot in peace an' quiet."
+
+"Peggy," said Joe, "when I went away, three years ago, I gave you a
+letter for Miss Ethel. What did you do with it?"
+
+Peggy's bulging eyes stared at his blue foot, which he turned first one
+side and then the other to examine the red stripes.
+
+"It's this way, Joe," he replied; "there wa'n't no postige stamp on the
+letter, an' Sam Cotting said it couldn't be posted no way 'thout
+a stamp."
+
+"It wasn't to be sent through the post-office," said the boy. "I gave
+you a quarter to deliver it in person to Miss Ethel."
+
+"Did ye, Joe? did ye?"
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+"Cur'ous," said McNutt, leaning over to touch the foot cautiously with
+one finger, to see if the paint was dry.
+
+"Well, sir!"
+
+"Well, Joe, there's no use gittin' mad 'bout it. Thet blamed quarter ye
+giv me rolled down a crack in the stoop, an' got lost. Sure. Got lost as
+easy as anything."
+
+"Well, what was that to me?"
+
+"Oh, I ain't blamin' you," said Peggy; "but 'twere a good deal to me, I
+kin tell ye. A whole quarter lost!"
+
+"Why didn't you take up a board, and get it again?"
+
+"Oh, I did," said McNutt. cheerfully. "I did, Joe. But the money was all
+black an' tarnished like, by thet time, an' didn't look at all like
+silver. Sam he wouldn't take it at the store, so my ol' woman she 'lowed
+she'd polish it up a bit. Ye know how sort o' vig'rous she is, Joe. She
+polished that blamed quarter the same way she jaws an' sweeps; she
+polished it 'til she rubbed both sides smooth as glass, an' then Sam
+wouldn't take it, nuther, 'n' said it wasn't money any more. So I
+drilled two holes in it an' sewed it on my pants fer a 'spender butt'n."
+
+"But why didn't you deliver the letter?"
+
+"Did ye 'spect I'd tramp way t' Thompson's Crossing fer nuthin'?"
+
+"I gave you a quarter."
+
+"An' it turned out to be on'y a 'spender butt'n. Be reason'ble, Joe."
+
+"Where is the letter?"
+
+"'Tain't a letter no more. It's on'y ol' fambly papers by this time.
+Three years is----"
+
+"Where is it? By thunder, Peggy, if you don't answer me I'll put you in
+jail for breach of trust!"
+
+"Ye've changed, Joe," sadly. "Ye ain't no more like----"
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Behind the lookin'-glass in my sett'n-room."
+
+"Go and get it immediately, sir!"
+
+"Ef I hev to cross thet dusty road twic't more, I'll hev to paint all
+over agin, an' thet's a fact."
+
+"Ethel," said Joe, with the calmness of despair, "you'll have to
+telephone over to the Junction and ask them to send a constable here
+at once."
+
+"Never mind," cried McNutt, jumping up hastily; "I'll go. Paint don't
+cost much, nohow."
+
+He stumped away, but on his return preferred to let Kate carry the
+soiled, torn envelope up to the young folks. The letter had palpably
+been tampered with. It had been opened and doubtless read, and the flap
+clumsily glued down again.
+
+But Ethel had it now, and even after three years her sweet eyes dimmed
+as she read the tender words that Joe had written because he lacked the
+courage to speak them. "My one great ambition is to win a home for us,
+dear," he had declared, and with this before her eyes Ethel reproached
+herself for ever doubting his love or loyalty.
+
+When she rode her pony over to the Wegg farm next day Ethel's bright
+face was wreathed with smiles. She told her girl friends that she and
+Joe had had a "good talk" together, and understood each other better
+than ever before. The nieces did not tell her of their newly conceived
+hopes that the young couple would presently possess enough money to
+render their future comfortable, because there were so many chances that
+Bob West might win the little game being played. But at this moment
+Ethel did not need worldly wealth to make her heart light and happy, for
+she had regained her childhood's friend, and his injuries only rendered
+the boy the more interesting and companionable.
+
+Meantime Uncle John had been busily thinking. It annoyed him to be so
+composedly defied by a rascally country merchant, and he resolved, if he
+must fight, to fight with all his might.
+
+So he wired to his agent in New York the following words:
+
+"What part of the Almaquo timber tract burned in forest fire three years
+ago?"
+
+The answer he received made him give a satisfied grunt.
+
+"No forest fires near Almaquo three years ago. Almadona, seventy miles
+north, burned at that time, and newspaper reports confounded the names."
+
+"Very good!" exclaimed Uncle John. "I've got the rascal now."
+
+He issued instructions to the lumber company to make no further payments
+of royalties to Robert West until otherwise advised, and this had the
+effect of bringing West to the farm white with rage.
+
+"What do you mean by this action, Mr. Merrick?" he demanded.
+
+"We've been paying you money that does not belong to you for three
+years, sir," was the reply. "In a few days, when my investigations are
+complete, I will give you the option of being arrested for embezzlement
+of funds belonging to Joseph Wegg and the Thompsons, or restoring to
+them every penny of their money."
+
+West stared.
+
+"You are carrying matters with a high hand, sir," he sneered.
+
+"Oh, no; I am acting very leniently," said Uncle John.
+
+"Neither Joe nor the Thompsons own a dollar's interest in the Almaquo
+property. It is all mine, and mine alone."
+
+"Then produce the stock and prove it!" retorted Mr. Merrick,
+triumphantly.
+
+At that moment Louise interrupted the interview by entering the room
+suddenly.
+
+"Oh, Uncle," said she, "will you join us in a picnic to the Falls
+tomorrow afternoon? We are all going."
+
+"Then I won't be left behind," he replied, smiling upon her.
+
+"We shall take even Thomas and Nora, and come home late in the evening,
+by moonlight."
+
+"That suits me, my dear," said he.
+
+West stood silent and scowling, but as the girl tripped away she saw him
+raise his eyes and glance slyly toward the cupboard, for they were in
+the right wing room.
+
+"Mr. Merrick," he resumed, in a harsh voice; "I warn you that if your
+company holds up the payment of my royalties it will break the contract,
+and I will forbid them to cut another tree. You are doubtless aware that
+there are a dozen firms willing to take your place and pay me higher
+royalties."
+
+"Act as you please, sir," said Uncle John, indifferently. "I believe you
+are face to face with ruin, and it won't matter much what you do."
+
+West went away more quietly than he had come, and the girls exclaimed,
+delightedly:
+
+"The trap is set, Uncle!"
+
+"I think so, myself," he rejoined. "That picnic was a happy thought,
+Louise."
+
+Early the next afternoon they started out with hammocks and baskets and
+all the paraphernalia of a picnic party. The three girls, Nora and Uncle
+John squeezed themselves into the surrey, while the Major and Old Hucks
+rode after them in the ancient buggy, with Dan moaning and groaning
+every step he took. But the old horse moved more briskly when following
+Joe, and Hucks could get more speed out of him than anyone else; so he
+did not lag much behind.
+
+The procession entered Millville, where a brief stop was made at the
+store, and then made its exit by the north road. West was standing in
+the door of his hardware store, quietly observing them. When they
+disappeared in the grove he locked the door of his establishment and
+sauntered in the direction of the Pearson farm, no one noticing him
+except Peggy McNutt, who was disappointed because he had intended to go
+over presently and buy a paper of tacks.
+
+When the village was left behind, Uncle John drove swiftly along,
+following the curve of the lake until he reached a primitive lane that
+he had discovered formed a short cut directly back to the Wegg farm. Old
+Thomas was amazed by this queer action on the part of the picnic party,
+but aside from blind Nora, who had no idea where they were, the others
+seemed full of repressed eagerness, and in no way surprised.
+
+The lane proved very rocky though, and they were obliged to jolt slowly
+over the big cobble stones. So Beth and Patsy leaped out of the surrey
+and the former called out:
+
+"We will run through the forest, Uncle, and get home as soon as you do."
+
+"Be careful not to show yourselves, then," he replied. "Remember our
+plans."
+
+"We will. And don't forget to tie the horses in the thicket, and warn
+Thomas and Nora to keep quiet until we come for them," said Patsy.
+
+"I'll attend to all that, dear," remarked Louise, composedly. "But if
+you girls are determined to walk, you must hurry along, or you will keep
+us waiting."
+
+The nieces had explored every path in the neighborhood by this time, so
+Beth and Patsy were quite at home in the pine forest. The horses started
+up again, and after struggling along another quarter of a mile a wheel
+of the surrey dished between two stones, and with a bump the axle struck
+the ground and the journey was promptly arrested.
+
+"What shall we do now?" asked Uncle John, much annoyed, as the party
+alighted to examine the wreck.
+
+"Send Thomas back to the village for another wheel" suggested the Major.
+
+"Not today!" cried Louise. "We mustn't appear in the village again this
+afternoon, on any account. It is absolutely necessary we should keep out
+of sight."
+
+"True," agreed Uncle John, promptly. "Thomas and Nora must picnic here
+all by themselves, until nearly midnight. Then they may drive the buggy
+home, leading Daniel behind them. It will be time enough tomorrow to get
+a new buggy wheel, and the broken surrey won't be in anybody's way until
+we send for it."
+
+If Old Hucks thought they had all gone crazy that day he was seemingly
+justified in the suspicion, for his master left the baskets of good
+things to be consumed by himself and Nora and started to walk to the
+farm, the Major and Louise accompanying him.
+
+"We mustn't loiter," said the girl, "for while West may wait until
+darkness falls to visit the farm, he is equally liable to arrive at any
+time this afternoon. He has seen us all depart, and believes the house
+deserted."
+
+But they were obliged to keep to the lane, where walking was difficult,
+and meantime Patsy and Beth were tripping easily along their woodland
+paths and making much better progress.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+CAUGHT.
+
+"We're early," said Beth, as they came to the edge of the woods and
+sighted the farm house; "but that is better than being late."
+
+Then she stopped suddenly with a low cry and pointed to the right wing,
+which directly faced them. Bob West turned the corner of the house,
+tried the door of Uncle John's room, and then walked to one of the
+French windows. The sash was not fastened, so he deliberately opened it
+and stepped inside.
+
+"What shall we do?" gasped Patsy, clasping her hands excitedly.
+
+Beth was always cool in an emergency.
+
+"You creep up to the window, dear, and wait till you hear me open the
+inside door," said she. "I'll run through the house and enter from the
+living-room. The key is under the mat, you know."
+
+"But what can we do? Oughtn't we to wait until Uncle John and father
+come?" Patsy asked, in a trembling voice.
+
+"Of course not. West might rob the cupboard and be gone by that time.
+We've got to act promptly, Patsy; so don't be afraid."
+
+Without further words Beth ran around the back of the house and
+disappeared, while Patsy, trying to control the beating of her heart,
+stole softly over the lawn to the open window of Uncle John's room.
+
+She could not help looking in, at the risk of discovery. Bob West--tall,
+lean and composed as ever--was standing beside the cupboard, the doors
+of which were wide open. The outer doors were of wood, panelled and
+carved; the inner ones were plates of heavy steel, and in the lock that
+secured these latter doors were the keys that had so long been missing.
+Both were attached to a slender silver chain.
+
+As Patsy peered in at the man West was engaged in deliberately examining
+packet after packet of papers, evidently striving to find the missing
+stock certificates. He was in no hurry, believing he would have the
+house to himself for several hours; so he tumbled Captain Wegg's
+souvenirs of foreign lands in a heap on the floor beside him, thrusting
+his hand into every corner of the cupboard in order that the search
+might be thorough. He had once before examined the place in vain; this
+time he intended to succeed.
+
+Presently West drew a cigar from his pocket, lighted it, and was about
+to throw the match upon the floor when the thought that it might later
+betray his presence made him pause and then walk to the open window. As
+he approached, Patsy became panic-stricken and, well knowing that she
+ought to run or hide, stood rooted to the spot, gazing half appealingly
+and half defiantly into the startled eyes of the man who suddenly
+confronted her.
+
+So for a moment they stood motionless. West was thinking rapidly. By
+some error be had miscounted the picnic party and this girl had been
+left at home. She had discovered his intrusion, had seen him at the
+cupboard, and would report the matter to John Merrick. This being the
+case, it would do him no good to retreat without accomplishing his
+purpose. If once he secured the stock certificates he could afford to
+laugh at his accusers, and secure them he must while he had the
+opportunity.
+
+So clearly did these thoughts follow one another that West's hesitation
+seemed only momentary. Without a word to the girl he tossed the match
+upon the grass, calmly turned his back, and started for the
+cupboard again.
+
+But here a new surprise awaited him. Brief as had been his absence,
+another girl had entered the room. Beth opened the door even as West
+turned toward the window, and, taking in the situation at a glance, she
+tiptoed swiftly to the cupboard, withdrew the keys from the lock and
+dropped them noiselessly into a wide-mouthed vase that stood on the
+table and was partially filled with flowers. The next instant West
+turned and saw her, but she smiled at him triumphantly. "Good afternoon,
+sir," said the girl, sweetly; "can I do anything to assist you?"
+
+West uttered an impatient exclamation and regarded Beth savagely.
+
+"Is the house full of girls?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, no; Patsy and I are quite alone," she replied, with a laugh. "Come
+in, Patsy dear, and help me to entertain our guest," she added.
+
+Patsy came through the window and stood beside her cousin. The man
+stared at them, bit his lip, and then turned again to the cupboard. If
+he noted the absence of the keys he did not remark upon the fact, but
+with hurried yet thorough examination began anew to turn over the
+bundles of papers.
+
+Beth sat down and watched him, but Patsy remained standing behind her
+chair. West emptied all the shelves, and then after a pause took out his
+pocket knife and began tapping with its end the steel sides of the
+cupboard. There was no doubt he suspected the existence of a secret
+aperture, and Beth began to feel uneasy.
+
+Slowly the man worked his way downward, from shelf to shelf, and began
+to sound the bottom plates, wholly oblivious of the fascinated gaze of
+the two young girls. Then a sudden gruff ejaculation startled them all,
+and West swung around to find a new group of watchers outside the
+window. In the foreground appeared the stern face of John Merrick.
+
+The scene was intensely dramatic to all but the singular man who had
+been battling to retain a fortune. West knew in an instant that his
+attempt to secure the certificates was a failure. He turned from the
+cupboard, dusted his hands, and nodded gravely to the last arrivals.
+
+"Come in, Mr. Merrick," said he, seating himself in a chair and removing
+his hat, which he had been wearing. "I owe you an apology for intruding
+upon your premises in your absence."
+
+Uncle John strode into the room angry and indignant at the fellow's cool
+impertinence. The Major and Louise followed, and all eyes centered upon
+the face of Bob West.
+
+"The contents of this cupboard," remarked the hardware merchant, calmly,
+"belong to the estate of Captain Wegg, and can scarcely be claimed by
+you because you have purchased the house. You falsely accused me the
+other day, sir, and I have been searching for proof that the Almaquo
+Timber Tract stock is entirely my property."
+
+"Have you found such proof?" inquired Mr. Merrick.
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"And you say the stock was all issued to you?"
+
+West hesitated.
+
+"It was all transferred to me by Captain Wegg and Will Thompson."
+
+"Does the transfer appear upon the stock itself?"
+
+"Of course, sir."
+
+"In that case," said Uncle John, "I shall be obliged to ask your pardon.
+But the fact can be easily proved."
+
+He walked to the open cupboard, felt for the slide Joe had described to
+him, and drew it forward. A small drawer was behind the orifice, and
+from this Mr. Merrick drew a packet of papers.
+
+West gave a start and half arose. Then he settled back into his chair
+again.
+
+"H-m. This appears to be the stock in question," said Uncle John. He
+drew a chair to the table, unfolded the documents and examined them with
+deliberate care.
+
+The nieces watched his face curiously. Mr. Merrick first frowned, then
+turned red, and finally a stern, determined look settled upon his
+rugged features.
+
+"Take your stock, Mr. West," he said, tossing it toward the man; "and
+try to forgive us for making fools of ourselves!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+MR. WEST EXPLAINS.
+
+A cry of amazed protest burst from the girls. The Major whistled softly
+and walked to the window.
+
+"I find the stock properly transferred," continued Uncle John, grimly
+conscious that he was as thoroughly disappointed as the girls. "It is
+signed by both Wegg and Thompson, and witnessed in the presence of a
+notary. I congratulate you, Mr. West. You have acquired a fortune."
+
+"But not recently," replied the hardware dealer, enjoying the confusion
+of his recent opponents. "I have owned this stock for more than three
+years, and you will see by the amount endorsed upon it that I paid a
+liberal price for it, under the circumstances."
+
+Uncle John gave a start and a shrewd look.
+
+"Of course you did," said he. "On paper."
+
+"I have records to prove that both Captain Wegg and Will Thompson
+received their money," said West, quietly. "I see it is hard for you to
+abandon the idea that I am a rogue."
+
+There could be no adequate reply to this, so for a time all sat in moody
+silence. But the thoughts of some were busy.
+
+"I would like Mr. West to explain what became of the money he paid for
+this stock," said Louise; adding: "That is, if he will be so courteous."
+
+West did not answer for a moment. Then he said, with a gesture of
+indifference:
+
+"I am willing to tell all I know. But you people must admit that the
+annoyances you have caused me during the past fortnight, to say nothing
+of the gratuitous insults heaped upon my head, render me little inclined
+to favor you."
+
+"You are quite justified in feeling as you do," replied Uncle John,
+meekly. "I have been an ass, West; but circumstances warranted me in
+suspecting you, and even Joseph Wegg did not know that the Almaquo stock
+had been transferred to you. He merely glanced at it at the time of his
+father's death, without noticing the endorsement, and thought the fire
+had rendered it worthless. But if you then owned the stock, why was it
+not in your possession?"
+
+"That was due to my carelessness," was the reply. "The only notary
+around here is at Hooker's Falls, and Mr. Thompson offered to have him
+come to Captain Wegg's residence and witness the transfer. As my
+presence was not necessary for this, and I had full confidence in my
+friends' integrity, I paid them their money, which they were eager to
+secure at once, and said I would call in a few days for the stock. I did
+call, and was told the notary had been here and the transfer had been
+legally made. Wegg said he would get the stock from the cupboard and
+hand it to me; but we both forgot it at that time. After his death I
+could not find it, for it was in the secret drawer."
+
+"Another thing, sir," said Uncle John. "If neither Wegg nor Thompson was
+then interested in the Almaquo property, why did the news of its
+destruction by fire shock them so greatly that the result was Captain
+Wegg's death?"
+
+"I see it will be necessary for me to explain to you more fully,"
+returned West, with a thoughtful look. "It is evident, Mr. Merrick, from
+your questions, that some of these occurrences seem suspicious to a
+stranger, and perhaps you are not so much to be blamed as, in my
+annoyance and indignation, I have imagined."
+
+"I would like the matter cleared up for the sake of Ethel and Joe," said
+Mr. Merrick, simply.
+
+"And so would I," declared the hardware dealer. "You must know, sir,
+that Will Thompson was the one who first led Captain Wegg into investing
+his money. I think the Captain did it merely to please Will, for at that
+time he had become so indifferent to worldly affairs that he took no
+interest in anything beyond a mild wish to provide for his son's future.
+But Thompson was erratic in judgment, so Wegg used to bring their
+matters to me to decide upon. I always advised them as honestly as I was
+able. At the time I secured an option on the Almaquo tract, and wanted
+them to join me, Will Thompson had found another lot of timber, but
+located in an out-of-the-way corner, which he urged the Captain to join
+him in buying. Wegg brought the matter to me, as usual, and I pointed
+out that my proposed contract with the Pierce-Lane Lumber Company would
+assure our making a handsome profit at Almaquo, while Thompson had no
+one in view to cut the other tract. Indeed, it was far away from any
+railroad. Wegg saw the force of my argument, and insisted that Thompson
+abandon his idea and accept my proposition. Together we bought the
+property, having formed a stock company, and the contract for cutting
+the timber was also secured. Things were looking bright for us and
+royalty payments would soon be coming in.
+
+"Then, to my amazement, Wegg came to me and wanted to sell out their
+interests. He said Thompson had always been dissatisfied because they
+had not bought the other tract of timber, and that the worry and
+disappointment was affecting his friend's mind. He was personally
+satisfied that my investment was the best, but, in order to sooth old
+Will and prevent his mind from giving way, Wegg wanted to withdraw and
+purchase the other tract.
+
+"I knew there was a fortune in Almaquo, so I went to New York and
+mortgaged all I possessed, discounting a lot of notes given me by
+farmers in payment for machinery, and finally borrowing at a high rate
+of interest the rest of the money I needed. In other words I risked all
+my fortune on Almaquo, and brought the money home to pay Wegg and
+Thompson for their interest. The moment they received the payment they
+invested it in the Bogue tract--"
+
+"Hold on!" cried Uncle John. "What tract did you say?"
+
+"The Bogue timber tract, sir. It lies--"
+
+"I know where it lies. Our company has been a whole year trying to find
+out who owned it."
+
+"Wegg and Thompson bought it. I was angry at the time, because their
+withdrawal had driven me into a tight corner to protect my investment,
+and I told them they would bitterly regret their action. I think Wegg
+agreed with me, but Will Thompson was still stubborn.
+
+"Then came the news of the fire at Almaquo. It was a false report, I
+afterward learned, but at that time I believed the newspapers, and the
+blow almost deprived me of reason. In my excitement I rushed over to
+Wegg's farm and found the two men together, whereupon I told them I
+was ruined.
+
+"The news affected them powerfully because they had just saved
+themselves from a like ruin, they thought. Wegg was also a sympathetic
+man, in spite of his reserve. His old heart trouble suddenly came upon
+him, aggravated by the excitement of the hour, and he died with scarcely
+a moan. Thompson, whose reason was tottering long before this, became
+violently insane at witnessing his friend's death, and has never since
+recovered. That is all I am able to tell you, sir."
+
+"The Bogue tract," said Uncle John, slowly, "is worth far more than the
+Almaquo. Old Will Thompson was sane enough when insisting on that
+investment. But where is the stock, or deed, to show they bought that
+property?"
+
+"I do not know, sir. I only know they told me they had effected the
+purchase."
+
+"Pardon me," said the Major. "Have you not been through this cupboard
+before?"
+
+West looked at him with a frown.
+
+"Yes; in a search for my own stock," he said. "But I found neither that
+nor any deed to the Bogue property. I am not a thief, Major Doyle."
+
+"You stole the keys, though," said Louise, pointedly.
+
+"I did not even do that," said West. "On the day of the funeral Joe
+carelessly left them lying upon a table, so I slipped them into my
+pocket. When I thought of them again Joe had gone away and I did not
+know his address. I came over and searched the cupboard unsuccessfully.
+But it was not a matter of great importance at that time if the stock
+was mislaid, since there was no one to contest my ownership of it. It
+was only after Mr. Merrick accused me of robbing my old friends and
+ordered my payments stopped that I realized it was important to me to
+prove my ownership. That is why I came here today."
+
+Again a silence fell upon the group. Said Uncle John, finally:
+
+"If the deed to the Bogue tract can be found, Joe and Ethel will be
+rich. I wonder what became of the paper."
+
+No one answered, for here was another mystery.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+PEGGY HAS REVENGE.
+
+Joe Wegg made a rapid recovery, his strength returning under the
+influence of pleasant surroundings and frequent visits from Ethel and
+Uncle John's three nieces. Not a word was hinted to either the invalid
+or the school teacher regarding the inquiries Mr. Merrick was making
+about the deed to the Bogue timber lands, which, if found, would make
+the young couple independent. Joe was planning to exploit a new patent
+as soon as he could earn enough to get it introduced, and Ethel
+exhibited a sublime confidence in the boy's ability that rendered all
+question of money insignificant.
+
+Joe's sudden appearance in the land of his birth and his generally
+smashed up condition were a nine days' wonder in Millville. The gossips
+wanted to know all the whys and wherefores, but the boy kept his room in
+the hotel, or only walked out when accompanied by Ethel or one of the
+three nieces. Sometimes they took him to ride, as he grew better, and
+the fact that Joe "were hand an' glove wi' the nabobs" lent him a
+distinction he had never before possessed.
+
+McNutt, always busy over somebody else's affairs, was very curious to
+know what had caused the accident Joe had suffered. Notwithstanding the
+little affair of the letter, in which he had not appeared with especial
+credit, Peggy made an effort to interview the young man that resulted in
+his complete discomfiture. But that did not deter him from indulging in
+various vivid speculations about Joe Wegg, which the simple villagers
+listened to with attention. For one thing, he confided to "the boys" at
+the store that, in his opinion, the man who had murdered Cap'n Wegg had
+tried to murder his son also, and it wasn't likely Joe could manage to
+escape him a second time. Another tale evolved from Peggy's fertile
+imagination was that Joe, being about to starve to death in the city,
+had turned burglar and been shot in the arm in an attempt at
+housebreaking.
+
+"Wouldn't be s'prised," said the agent, in an awed voice, "ef the p'lice
+was on his track now. P'raps there's a reward offered, boys; let's keep
+an eye on him!"
+
+He waylaid the nieces once or twice, and tried to secure from them a
+verification of his somber suspicions, which they mischievously
+fostered.
+
+The girls found him a source of much amusement, and relieved their own
+disappointment at finding the "Wegg Mystery" a pricked bubble by getting
+McNutt excited over many sly suggestions of hidden crimes. They knew he
+was harmless, for even his neighbors needed proof of any assertion he
+made; moreover, the investigation Uncle John was making would soon set
+matters right; so the young ladies did not hesitate to "have fun" at the
+little agent's expense.
+
+One of McNutt's numerous occupations was raising a "patch" of
+watermelons each year on the lot back of the house. These he had
+fostered with great care since the plants had first sprouted through the
+soil, and in these late August days two or three hundreds of fine, big
+melons were just getting ripe. He showed the patch with much pride one
+day to the nieces, saying:
+
+"Here's the most extry-fine melling-patch in this county, ef I do say it
+myself. Dan Brayley he thinks he kin raise mellings, but the ol' fool
+ain't got a circumstance to this. Ain't they beauties?"
+
+"It seems to me," observed Patsy, gravely, "that Brayley's are just as
+good. We passed his place this morning and wondered how he could raise
+such enormous melons."
+
+"'Normous! Brayley's!"
+
+"I'm sure they are finer than these," said Beth.
+
+"Well, I'll be jiggered!" Peggy's eyes stared as they had never stared
+before. "Dan Brayley, he's a miser'ble ol' skinflint. Thet man couldn't
+raise decent mellings ef he tried."
+
+"What do you charge for melons, Mr. McNutt?" inquired Louise.
+
+"Charge? Why--er--fifty cents a piece is my price to nabobs; an' dirt
+cheap at that!"
+
+"That is too much," declared Patsy. "Mr. Brayley says he will sell his
+melons for fifteen cents each."
+
+"Him! Fifteen cents!" gasped Peggy, greatly disappointed. "Say,
+Brayley's a disturbin' element in these parts. He oughter go to jail fer
+asking fifteen cents fer them mean little mellings o' his'n."
+
+"They seem as large as yours," murmured Louise.
+
+"But they ain't. An' Brayley's a cheat an' a rascal, while a honester
+man ner me don't breathe. Nobody likes Brayley 'round Millville. Why,
+on'y las' winter he called me a meddler--in public!--an' said as I shot
+off my mouth too much. Me!"
+
+"How impolite."
+
+"But that's Dan Brayley. My mellings at fifty cents is better 'n his'n
+at fifteen."
+
+"Tell me," said Patsy, with a smile, "did you ever rob a melon-patch,
+Mr. McNutt?"
+
+"Me? I don't hev to. I grow 'em."
+
+"But the ones you grow are worth fifty cents each, are they not?"
+
+"Sure; mine is."
+
+"Then every time you eat one of your own melons you eat fifty cents. If
+you were eating one of Mr. Brayley's melons you would only eat
+fifteen cents."
+
+"And it would be Brayley's fifteen cents, too," added Beth, quickly.
+
+Peggy turned his protruding eyes from one to the other, and a smile
+slowly spread over his features.
+
+"By jinks, let's rob Brayley's melling-patch!" he cried.
+
+"All right; we'll help you," answered Patsy, readily.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" remonstrated Louise, not understanding.
+
+"It will be such fun," replied her cousin, with eyes dancing merrily.
+"Boys always rob melon-patches, so I don't see why girls shouldn't. When
+shall we do it, Mr. McNutt?"
+
+"There ain't any moon jest now, an' the nights is dark as blazes. Let's
+go ternight."
+
+"It's a bargain," declared Patsy. "We will come for you in the surrey at
+ten o'clock, and all drive together to the back of Brayley's yard and
+take all the melons we want."
+
+"It'll serve him right," said Peggy, delightedly. "Ol' Dan called me a
+meddler onc't--in public--an' I'm bound t' git even with him."
+
+"Don't betray us, sir," pleaded Beth.
+
+"I can't," replied McNutt, frankly; "I'm in it myself, an' we'll jest
+find out what his blame-twisted ol' fifteen-cent mellings is like."
+
+Patsy was overjoyed at the success of her plot, which she had conceived
+on the spur of the moment, as most clever plots are conceived. On the
+way home she confided to her cousins a method of securing revenge upon
+the agent for selling them the three copies of the "Lives of
+the Saints."
+
+"McNutt wants to get even with Brayley, he says, and we want to get even
+with McNutt. I think our chances are best, don't you?" she asked.
+
+And they decided to join the conspiracy.
+
+There was some difficulty escaping from Uncle John and the Major that
+night, but Patsy got them interested in a game of chess that was likely
+to last some hours, while Beth stole to the barn and harnessed Joe to
+the surrey. Soon the others slipped out and joined her, and with Patsy
+and Beth on the front seat and Louise Inside the canopy they drove
+slowly away until the sound of the horse's feet on the stones was no
+longer likely to betray them.
+
+McNutt was waiting for them when they quietly drew up before his house.
+The village was dark and silent, for its inhabitants retired early to
+bed. By good fortune the sky was overcast with heavy clouds and not even
+the glimmer of a star relieved the gloom.
+
+They put McNutt on the back seat with Louise, cautioned him to be quiet,
+and then drove away. Dan Brayley's place was two miles distant, but in
+answer to Peggy's earnest inquiry if she knew the way Beth declared she
+could find it blind-folded. In a few moments Louise had engaged the
+agent in a spirited discussion of the absorbing "mystery" and so
+occupied his attention that he paid no heed to the direction they had
+taken. The back seat was hemmed in by side curtains and the canopy, so
+it would be no wonder if he lost all sense of direction, even had not
+the remarks of the girl at his side completely absorbed him.
+
+Beth drove slowly down the main street, up a lane, back by the lake road
+and along the street again; and this programme was repeated several
+times, until she thought a sufficient distance had been covered to
+convince the agent they had arrived at Brayley's. They way was pitch
+dark, but the horse was sensible enough to keep in the middle of the
+road, so they met with no accident more than to jolt over a stone
+now and then.
+
+But now the most difficult part of the enterprise lay before them. The
+girls turned down the lane back of the main street and bumped over the
+ruts until they thought they had arrived at a spot opposite McNutt's own
+melon patch.
+
+"What's wrong?" asked the agent, as they suddenly stopped with a jerk.
+
+"This ought to be Brayley's," said Beth; "but it's so dark I'm not
+certain just where we are."
+
+McNutt thrust his head out and peered into the blackness.
+
+"Drive along a little," he whispered.
+
+The girl obeyed.
+
+"Stop--stop!" said he, a moment later. "I think that's them contwisted
+fifteen-cent mellings--over there!"
+
+They all got out and Beth tied the horse to the fence. Peggy climbed
+over and at once whispered:
+
+"Come on! It's them, all right."
+
+Through the drifting clouds there was just enough light to enable them
+to perceive the dark forms of the melons lying side by side upon their
+vines. The agent took out his big clasp knife and recklessly slashed one
+of them open.
+
+"Green's grass!" he grumbled, and slashed another.
+
+Patsy giggled, and the others felt a sudden irresistible impulse to join
+her.
+
+"Keep still!" cautioned McNutt. "Wouldn't ol' Dan be jest ravin' ef he
+knew this? Say--here's a ripe one. Hev a slice."
+
+They all felt for the slices he offered and ate the fruit without being
+able to see it. But it really tasted delicious.
+
+As the girls feasted they heard a crunching sound and inquired in low
+voices what it was.
+
+McNutt was stumping over the patch and plumping his wooden foot into
+every melon he could find, smashing them wantonly against the ground.
+The discovery filled them with horror. They had thought inducing the
+agent to rob his own patch of a few melons, while under the delusion
+that they belonged to his enemy Brayley, a bit of harmless fun; but here
+was the vindictive fellow actually destroying his own property by the
+wholesale.
+
+"Oh, don't! Please don't, Mr. McNutt!" pleaded Patsy, in frightened
+accents.
+
+"Yes, I will," declared the agent, stubbornly. "I'll git even with Dan
+Brayley fer once in my life, ef I never do another thing, by gum!"
+
+"But it's wrong--it's wicked!" protested Beth.
+
+"Can't help it; this is my chance, an' I'll make them bum fifteen-cent
+mellings look like a penny a piece afore I gits done with 'em."
+
+"Never mind, girls," whispered Louise. "It's the law of retribution.
+Poor Peggy will be sorry for this tomorrow."
+
+The man had not the faintest suspicion where he was. He knew his own
+melon patch well enough, having worked in it at times all the summer;
+but he had never climbed over the fence and approached it from the rear
+before, so it took on a new aspect to him from this point of view, and
+moreover the night was dark enough to deceive anybody.
+
+If he came across an especially big melon McNutt would lug it to the
+carriage and dump it in. And so angry and energetic was the little man
+that in a brief space the melon patch was a scene of awful devastation,
+and the surrey contained all the fruit that survived the massacre.
+
+Beth unhitched the horse and they all took their places in the carriage
+again, having some difficulty to find places for their feet on account
+of the cargo of melons. McNutt was stowed away inside, with Louise, and
+they drove away up the lane. The agent was jubilant and triumphant, and
+chuckled in gleeful tones that thrilled the girls with remorse as they
+remembered the annihilation of McNutt's cherished melons.
+
+"Ol' Dan usu'lly has a dorg," said Peggy, between his fits of laughter;
+"but I guess he had him chained up ternight."
+
+"I'm not positively sure that was Brayley's place," remarked Beth; "it's
+so very dark."
+
+"Oh, it were Brayley's, all right," McNutt retorted. "I could tell by
+the second-class taste o' them mellings, an' their measley little size.
+Them things ain't a circumstance to the kind I raise."
+
+"Are you sure?" asked Louise.
+
+"Sure's shootln'. Guess I'm a jedge o' mellings, when I sees 'em."
+
+"No one could see tonight," said Beth.
+
+"Feelin's jest the same," declared the little man, confidently.
+
+After wandering around a sufficient length of time to allay suspicion,
+Beth finally drew up before McNutt's house again.
+
+"I'll jest take my share o' them mellings," said Peggy, as he alighted.
+"They ain't much 'count, bein' Brayley's; but it'll save me an' the ol'
+woman from eatin' our own, or perhaps I kin sell 'em to Sam Cotting."
+
+He took rather more than his share of the spoils, but the girls had no
+voice to object. They were by this time so convulsed with suppressed
+merriment that they had hard work not to shriek aloud their laughter.
+For, in spite of the tragic revelations the morrow would bring forth,
+the situation was so undeniably ridiculous that they could not resist
+its humor.
+
+"I've had a heap o' fun," whispered McNutt. "Good night, gals. Ef ye
+didn't belong to thet gum-twisted nabob, ye'd be some pun'kins."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. McNutt. Good night."
+
+And it was not until well on their journey to the farm that the girls
+finally dared to abandon further restraint. Then, indeed, they made the
+grim, black hills of the plateau resound to the peals of their
+merry laughter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+GOOD NEWS AT LAST.
+
+It was on the morning following this adventure that Uncle John received
+a bulky envelope from the city containing the result of the
+investigation he had ordered regarding the ownership of the Bogue tract
+of pine forest. It appeared that the company in which he was so largely
+interested had found the tract very valuable, and had been seeking for
+the owners in order to purchase it or lease the right to cut the timber.
+But although they had traced it through the hands of several successive
+owners the present holders were all unknown to them until Mr. Merrick's
+information had furnished them with a clue. A year ago the company had
+paid up the back taxes--two years overdue--in order to establish a claim
+to the property, and now they easily succeeded in finding the record of
+the deed from a certain Charles Walton to Jonas Wegg and William
+Thompson. The deed itself could not be found, but Uncle John considered
+the county record a sufficient claim to entitle the young folks to the
+property unless the ownership should be contested by others, which was
+not likely.
+
+Uncle John invited Ethel and Joe to dine with him that evening, and Mary
+was told the occasion merited the best menu she could provide. The young
+folks arrived without any idea of receiving more than a good dinner and
+the pleasure of mingling with the cordial, kindly household at the farm;
+but the general air of hilarity and good fellowship pervading the family
+circle this evening inspired the guests with like enthusiasm, and no
+party could be merrier than the one that did full justice to Mary's
+superior cookery.
+
+One of the last courses consisted of iced watermelon, and when it
+appeared the three girls eyed one another guiltily and then made frantic
+attempts to suppress their laughter, which was unseemly because no one
+but themselves understood the joke. But all else was speedily forgotten
+in the interest of the coming ceremony, which Mr. Merrick had carefully
+planned and prepared.
+
+The company was invited to assemble in the room comprising the spacious
+right wing, and when all were seated the little gentleman coughed to
+clear his throat and straightway began his preamble.
+
+He recited the manner in which Captain Wegg and Will Thompson, having
+money to invest, were led into an enterprise which Bob West had
+proposed, but finally preferred another venture and so withdrew their
+money altogether from the Almaquo tract.
+
+This statement caused both Joe and Ethel to stare hard, but they said
+nothing.
+
+"Your grandfather, Ethel," continued the narrator, "was much impressed
+by the value of another timber tract, although where he got his
+information concerning it I have been unable to discover. This piece of
+property, called the Bogue tract, was purchased by Wegg and Thompson
+with the money they withdrew from Almaquo, and still stands in
+their name."
+
+Then he recounted, quite frankly, his unjust suspicions of the hardware
+dealer, and told of the interview in which the full details of this
+transaction were disclosed by West, as well as the truth relating to the
+death of Captain Wegg and the sudden insanity and paralysis of old
+Will Thompson.
+
+Joe could corroborate this last, and now understood why Thompson had
+cried out that West's "good news" had killed his father. He meant, of
+course, their narrow escape from being involved in West's supposed ruin,
+for at that time no one knew the report of the fire was false.
+
+Finally, these matters being cleared up, Uncle John declared that the
+Pierce-Lane Lumber Company was willing to contract to cut the timber on
+the Bogue property, or would pay a lump sum of two hundred thousand
+dollars for such title to the tract as could be given. He did not add
+that he had personally offered to guarantee the title. That was an
+unnecessary bit of information.
+
+You may perhaps imagine the happiness this announcement gave Joe and
+Ethel. They could scarcely believe the good news was true, even when the
+kindly old gentleman, with tears in his eyes, congratulated the young
+couple on the fortune in store for them. The Major followed with a happy
+speech of felicitation, and then the three girls hugged the little
+school teacher rapturously and told her how glad they were.
+
+"I think, sir," said Joe, striving to curb his elation, "that it will be
+better in the end for us to accept the royalty. Don't you?"
+
+"I do, indeed, my boy," was the reply. "For if our people make an offer
+for the land of two hundred thousand you may rest assured it is worth
+much more. The manager has confided to me in his letter that if we are
+obliged to pay royalties the timber will cost us nearly double what it
+would by an outright purchase of the tract."
+
+"In that case, sir," began Joe, eagerly, "we will--"
+
+"Nonsense. The company can afford the royalty, Joe, for it is making a
+heap of money--more than I wish it were. One of my greatest trials is to
+take care of the money I've already made, and--"
+
+"And he couldn't do it at all without my help," broke in the Major.
+"Don't ye hesitate to take an advantage of him, Joseph, if ye can get
+it--which I doubt--for Mr. Merrick is most disgracefully rich already."
+
+"That's true," sighed the little millionaire. "So it will be a royalty,
+Joe. We are paying the same percentage to Bob West for the Almaquo
+tract, but yours is so much better that I am sure your earnings will
+furnish you and Ethel with all the income you need."
+
+They sat discoursing upon the happy event for some time longer, but Joe
+had to return to the hotel early because he was not yet strong enough to
+be out late.
+
+"Before I go, Mr. Merrick," he said, "I'd like you to give me my
+mother's picture, which is in the secret drawer of the cupboard. You
+have the keys, now, and Ethel is curious to see how my mother looked."
+
+Uncle John went at once to the cupboard and unlocked the doors. Joe
+himself pushed the slide and took out of the drawer the picture, which
+had lain just beneath the Almaquo stock certificates.
+
+The picture was passed reverently around. A sweet-faced, sad little
+woman it showed, with appealing eyes and lips that seemed to quiver even
+in the photograph.
+
+As Louise held it in her hand something induced her to turn it over.
+
+"Here is some writing upon the back," she said.
+
+Joe bent over and read it aloud. It was in his father's handwriting.
+
+"'Press the spring in the left hand lower corner of the secret drawer.'"
+
+"Hah!" cried Uncle John, while the others stared stupidly. "That's it!
+That's the information we've been wanting so long, Joseph!"
+
+He ran to the cupboard, even as he spoke, and while they all thronged
+about him thrust in his hand, felt for the spring, and pressed it.
+
+The bottom of the drawer lifted, showing another cavity beneath. From
+this the searcher withdrew a long envelope, tied with red tape.
+
+"At last, Joseph!" he shouted, triumphantly waving the envelope over his
+head. And then he read aloud the words docketed upon the outside:
+"'Warranty Deed and Conveyance from Charles Walton to Jonas Wegg and
+William Thompson.' Our troubles are over, my boy, for here is the key to
+your fortune."
+
+"Also," whispered Louise to her cousins, rather disconsolately, "it
+explains the last shred of mystery about the Wegg case. Heigh-ho! what a
+chase we've had for nothing!"
+
+"Not for nothing, dear," replied Patsy, softly, "for we've helped make
+two people happy, and that ought to repay us for all our anxiety
+and labor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A knock was heard at the door, and Old Hucks entered and handed Mr.
+Merrick a paper.
+
+"He's waiting, sir," said he, ambiguously.
+
+"Oh, Tom--Tom!" cried Joe Wegg, rising to throw his arms around the old
+man's neck, "I'm rich, Tom--all my troubles are over--and Mr. Merrick
+has done it all--for Ethel and me!"
+
+The ever smiling face of the ancient retainer did not change, but his
+eyes softened and filled with tears as he hugged the boy close to
+his breast.
+
+"God be praised. Joe!" he said in a low voice. "I allus knew the
+Merricks 'd bring us luck."
+
+"What the devil does this mean?" demanded Uncle John at this juncture,
+as he fluttered the paper and glared angrily around.
+
+"What is it, dear?" inquired Louise.
+
+"See for yourself," he returned.
+
+She took the paper and read it, while Patsy and Beth peered over her
+shoulder. The following was scrawled upon a sheet of soiled stationery:
+
+
+"John Merrak, esquare, to
+  Marshall McMahon McNutt, detter.
+
+"To yur gals Smashin' 162 mellings at 50 cents a one
+  .....................$81.00
+    Pleas remitt & save trouble."
+
+The nieces screamed, laughing until they cried, while Uncle John
+spluttered, smiled, beamed, and then requested an explanation.
+
+Patsy told the story of the watermelon raid with rare humor, and it
+served to amuse everybody and relieve the strain that had preceded the
+arrival of McNutt's bill.
+
+"Did you say the man is waiting, Thomas?" asked Uncle John.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Here--give him five dollars and tell him to receipt the bill. If he
+refuses, I'll carry the matter to the courts. McNutt's a rascal, and a
+fool in the bargain; but we've had some of his melons and the girls have
+had five dollars' worth of fun in getting them. But assure him that this
+squares accounts, Thomas."
+
+Thomas performed his mission.
+
+McNutt rolled his eyes, pounded the floor with his stump to emphasize
+his mingled anger and satisfaction, and then receipted the bill.
+
+"It's jest five more'n I 'spected to git, Hucks," he said with a grin.
+"But what's the use o' havin' nabobs around, ef ye don't bleed 'em?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This story is one of the delightful "Aunt Jane Series" in which are
+chronicled the many interesting adventures in the lives of those
+fascinating girls and dear old "Uncle John." The other volumes can be
+bought wherever books are sold. A complete list of titles, which is
+added to from time to time, is given on page 3 of this book.
+
+(_ Complete catalog sent free on request._)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY
+
+A Book of Poems
+
+by Edwin Arlington Robinson
+
+
+
+[Note on text:  Italicized words or phrases are capitalized.
+Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation
+is indented two spaces.  Some obvious errors may have been corrected.]
+
+
+
+               To
+               the memory of
+               WILLIAM EDWARD BUTLER
+
+
+
+
+
+Several of the poems included in this book are reprinted
+from American periodicals, as follows:  "The Gift of God",
+"Old King Cole", "Another Dark Lady", and "The Unforgiven";
+"Flammonde" and "The Poor Relation"; "The Clinging Vine";
+"Eros Turannos" and "Bokardo"; "The Voice of Age"; "Cassandra";
+"The Burning Book"; "Theophilus"; "Ben Jonson Entertains
+a Man from Stratford".
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+     Flammonde
+     The Gift of God
+     The Clinging Vine
+     Cassandra
+     John Gorham
+     Stafford's Cabin
+     Hillcrest
+     Old King Cole
+     Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford
+     Eros Turannos
+     Old Trails
+     The Unforgiven
+     Theophilus
+     Veteran Sirens
+     Siege Perilous
+     Another Dark Lady
+     The Voice of Age
+     The Dark House
+     The Poor Relation
+     The Burning Book
+     Fragment
+     Lisette and Eileen
+     Llewellyn and the Tree
+     Bewick Finzer
+     Bokardo
+     The Man against the Sky
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY
+
+
+
+
+
+Flammonde
+
+
+
+     The man Flammonde, from God knows where,
+     With firm address and foreign air,
+     With news of nations in his talk
+     And something royal in his walk,
+     With glint of iron in his eyes,
+     But never doubt, nor yet surprise,
+     Appeared, and stayed, and held his head
+     As one by kings accredited.
+
+     Erect, with his alert repose
+     About him, and about his clothes,
+     He pictured all tradition hears
+     Of what we owe to fifty years.
+     His cleansing heritage of taste
+     Paraded neither want nor waste;
+     And what he needed for his fee
+     To live, he borrowed graciously.
+
+     He never told us what he was,
+     Or what mischance, or other cause,
+     Had banished him from better days
+     To play the Prince of Castaways.
+     Meanwhile he played surpassing well
+     A part, for most, unplayable;
+     In fine, one pauses, half afraid
+     To say for certain that he played.
+
+     For that, one may as well forego
+     Conviction as to yes or no;
+     Nor can I say just how intense
+     Would then have been the difference
+     To several, who, having striven
+     In vain to get what he was given,
+     Would see the stranger taken on
+     By friends not easy to be won.
+
+     Moreover, many a malcontent
+     He soothed and found munificent;
+     His courtesy beguiled and foiled
+     Suspicion that his years were soiled;
+     His mien distinguished any crowd,
+     His credit strengthened when he bowed;
+     And women, young and old, were fond
+     Of looking at the man Flammonde.
+
+     There was a woman in our town
+     On whom the fashion was to frown;
+     But while our talk renewed the tinge
+     Of a long-faded scarlet fringe,
+     The man Flammonde saw none of that,
+     And what he saw we wondered at--
+     That none of us, in her distress,
+     Could hide or find our littleness.
+
+     There was a boy that all agreed
+     Had shut within him the rare seed
+     Of learning.  We could understand,
+     But none of us could lift a hand.
+     The man Flammonde appraised the youth,
+     And told a few of us the truth;
+     And thereby, for a little gold,
+     A flowered future was unrolled.
+
+     There were two citizens who fought
+     For years and years, and over nought;
+     They made life awkward for their friends,
+     And shortened their own dividends.
+     The man Flammonde said what was wrong
+     Should be made right; nor was it long
+     Before they were again in line,
+     And had each other in to dine.
+
+     And these I mention are but four
+     Of many out of many more.
+     So much for them.  But what of him--
+     So firm in every look and limb?
+     What small satanic sort of kink
+     Was in his brain?  What broken link
+     Withheld him from the destinies
+     That came so near to being his?
+
+     What was he, when we came to sift
+     His meaning, and to note the drift
+     Of incommunicable ways
+     That make us ponder while we praise?
+     Why was it that his charm revealed
+     Somehow the surface of a shield?
+     What was it that we never caught?
+     What was he, and what was he not?
+
+     How much it was of him we met
+     We cannot ever know; nor yet
+     Shall all he gave us quite atone
+     For what was his, and his alone;
+     Nor need we now, since he knew best,
+     Nourish an ethical unrest:
+     Rarely at once will nature give
+     The power to be Flammonde and live.
+
+     We cannot know how much we learn
+     From those who never will return,
+     Until a flash of unforeseen
+     Remembrance falls on what has been.
+     We've each a darkening hill to climb;
+     And this is why, from time to time
+     In Tilbury Town, we look beyond
+     Horizons for the man Flammonde.
+
+
+
+
+The Gift of God
+
+
+
+     Blessed with a joy that only she
+     Of all alive shall ever know,
+     She wears a proud humility
+     For what it was that willed it so,--
+     That her degree should be so great
+     Among the favored of the Lord
+     That she may scarcely bear the weight
+     Of her bewildering reward.
+
+     As one apart, immune, alone,
+     Or featured for the shining ones,
+     And like to none that she has known
+     Of other women's other sons,--
+     The firm fruition of her need,
+     He shines anointed; and he blurs
+     Her vision, till it seems indeed
+     A sacrilege to call him hers.
+
+     She fears a little for so much
+     Of what is best, and hardly dares
+     To think of him as one to touch
+     With aches, indignities, and cares;
+     She sees him rather at the goal,
+     Still shining; and her dream foretells
+     The proper shining of a soul
+     Where nothing ordinary dwells.
+
+     Perchance a canvass of the town
+     Would find him far from flags and shouts,
+     And leave him only the renown
+     Of many smiles and many doubts;
+     Perchance the crude and common tongue
+     Would havoc strangely with his worth;
+     But she, with innocence unwrung,
+     Would read his name around the earth.
+
+     And others, knowing how this youth
+     Would shine, if love could make him great,
+     When caught and tortured for the truth
+     Would only writhe and hesitate;
+     While she, arranging for his days
+     What centuries could not fulfill,
+     Transmutes him with her faith and praise,
+     And has him shining where she will.
+
+     She crowns him with her gratefulness,
+     And says again that life is good;
+     And should the gift of God be less
+     In him than in her motherhood,
+     His fame, though vague, will not be small,
+     As upward through her dream he fares,
+     Half clouded with a crimson fall
+     Of roses thrown on marble stairs.
+
+
+
+
+The Clinging Vine
+
+
+
+     "Be calm?  And was I frantic?
+      You'll have me laughing soon.
+     I'm calm as this Atlantic,
+      And quiet as the moon;
+     I may have spoken faster
+      Than once, in other days;
+     For I've no more a master,
+      And now--'Be calm,' he says.
+
+     "Fear not, fear no commotion,--
+      I'll be as rocks and sand;
+     The moon and stars and ocean
+      Will envy my command;
+     No creature could be stiller
+      In any kind of place
+     Than I...  No, I'll not kill her;
+      Her death is in her face.
+
+     "Be happy while she has it,
+      For she'll not have it long;
+     A year, and then you'll pass it,
+      Preparing a new song.
+     And I'm a fool for prating
+      Of what a year may bring,
+     When more like her are waiting
+      For more like you to sing.
+
+     "You mock me with denial,
+      You mean to call me hard?
+     You see no room for trial
+      When all my doors are barred?
+     You say, and you'd say dying,
+      That I dream what I know;
+     And sighing, and denying,
+      You'd hold my hand and go.
+
+     "You scowl--and I don't wonder;
+      I spoke too fast again;
+     But you'll forgive one blunder,
+      For you are like most men:
+     You are,--or so you've told me,
+      So many mortal times,
+     That heaven ought not to hold me
+      Accountable for crimes.
+
+     "Be calm?  Was I unpleasant?
+      Then I'll be more discreet,
+     And grant you, for the present,
+      The balm of my defeat:
+     What she, with all her striving,
+      Could not have brought about,
+     You've done.  Your own contriving
+      Has put the last light out.
+
+     "If she were the whole story,
+      If worse were not behind,
+     I'd creep with you to glory,
+      Believing I was blind;
+     I'd creep, and go on seeming
+      To be what I despise.
+     You laugh, and say I'm dreaming,
+      And all your laughs are lies.
+
+     "Are women mad?  A few are,
+      And if it's true you say--
+     If most men are as you are--
+      We'll all be mad some day.
+     Be calm--and let me finish;
+      There's more for you to know.
+     I'll talk while you diminish,
+      And listen while you grow.
+
+     "There was a man who married
+      Because he couldn't see;
+     And all his days he carried
+      The mark of his degree.
+     But you--you came clear-sighted,
+      And found truth in my eyes;
+     And all my wrongs you've righted
+      With lies, and lies, and lies.
+
+     "You've killed the last assurance
+      That once would have me strive
+     To rouse an old endurance
+      That is no more alive.
+     It makes two people chilly
+      To say what we have said,
+     But you--you'll not be silly
+      And wrangle for the dead.
+
+     "You don't?  You never wrangle?
+      Why scold then,--or complain?
+     More words will only mangle
+      What you've already slain.
+     Your pride you can't surrender?
+      My name--for that you fear?
+     Since when were men so tender,
+      And honor so severe?
+
+     "No more--I'll never bear it.
+      I'm going.  I'm like ice.
+     My burden?  You would share it?
+      Forbid the sacrifice!
+     Forget so quaint a notion,
+      And let no more be told;
+     For moon and stars and ocean
+      And you and I are cold."
+
+
+
+
+Cassandra
+
+
+
+     I heard one who said:  "Verily,
+      What word have I for children here?
+     Your Dollar is your only Word,
+      The wrath of it your only fear.
+
+     "You build it altars tall enough
+      To make you see, but you are blind;
+     You cannot leave it long enough
+      To look before you or behind.
+
+     "When Reason beckons you to pause,
+      You laugh and say that you know best;
+     But what it is you know, you keep
+      As dark as ingots in a chest.
+
+     "You laugh and answer, 'We are young;
+      O leave us now, and let us grow.'--
+     Not asking how much more of this
+      Will Time endure or Fate bestow.
+
+     "Because a few complacent years
+      Have made your peril of your pride,
+     Think you that you are to go on
+      Forever pampered and untried?
+
+     "What lost eclipse of history,
+      What bivouac of the marching stars,
+     Has given the sign for you to see
+      Millenniums and last great wars?
+
+     "What unrecorded overthrow
+      Of all the world has ever known,
+     Or ever been, has made itself
+      So plain to you, and you alone?
+
+     "Your Dollar, Dove and Eagle make
+      A Trinity that even you
+     Rate higher than you rate yourselves;
+      It pays, it flatters, and it's new.
+
+     "And though your very flesh and blood
+      Be what your Eagle eats and drinks,
+     You'll praise him for the best of birds,
+      Not knowing what the Eagle thinks.
+
+     "The power is yours, but not the sight;
+      You see not upon what you tread;
+     You have the ages for your guide,
+      But not the wisdom to be led.
+
+     "Think you to tread forever down
+      The merciless old verities?
+     And are you never to have eyes
+      To see the world for what it is?
+
+     "Are you to pay for what you have
+      With all you are?"--No other word
+     We caught, but with a laughing crowd
+      Moved on.  None heeded, and few heard.
+
+
+
+
+John Gorham
+
+
+
+     "Tell me what you're doing over here, John Gorham,
+     Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you're not;
+     Make me laugh or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight
+     Are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot."--
+
+     "I'm over here to tell you what the moon already
+     May have said or maybe shouted ever since a year ago;
+     I'm over here to tell you what you are, Jane Wayland,
+     And to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so."--
+
+     "Tell me what you're saying to me now, John Gorham,
+     Or you'll never see as much of me as ribbons any more;
+     I'll vanish in as many ways as I have toes and fingers,
+     And you'll not follow far for one where flocks have been before."--
+
+     "I'm sorry now you never saw the flocks, Jane Wayland,
+     But you're the one to make of them as many as you need.
+     And then about the vanishing.  It's I who mean to vanish;
+     And when I'm here no longer you'll be done with me indeed."--
+
+     "That's a way to tell me what I am, John Gorham!
+     How am I to know myself until I make you smile?
+     Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you,
+     And a little more as if you meant to stay a little while."--
+
+     "You are what it is that over rose-blown gardens
+     Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun;
+     You are what it is that with a mouse, Jane Wayland,
+     Catches him and lets him go and eats him up for fun."--
+
+     "Sure I never took you for a mouse, John Gorham;
+     All you say is easy, but so far from being true
+     That I wish you wouldn't ever be again the one to think so;
+     For it isn't cats and butterflies that I would be to you."--
+
+     "All your little animals are in one picture--
+     One I've had before me since a year ago to-night;
+     And the picture where they live will be of you, Jane Wayland,
+     Till you find a way to kill them or to keep them out of sight."--
+
+     "Won't you ever see me as I am, John Gorham,
+     Leaving out the foolishness and all I never meant?
+     Somewhere in me there's a woman, if you know the way to find her.
+     Will you like me any better if I prove it and repent?"
+
+     "I doubt if I shall ever have the time, Jane Wayland;
+     And I dare say all this moonlight lying round us might as well
+     Fall for nothing on the shards of broken urns that are forgotten,
+     As on two that have no longer much of anything to tell."
+
+
+
+
+Stafford's Cabin
+
+
+
+     Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man;
+     And something happened here before my memory began.
+     Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame
+     And all we have of them is now a legend and a name.
+
+     All I have to say is what an old man said to me,
+     And that would seem to be as much as there will ever be.
+     "Fifty years ago it was we found it where it sat."--
+     And forty years ago it was old Archibald said that.
+
+     "An apple tree that's yet alive saw something, I suppose,
+     Of what it was that happened there, and what no mortal knows.
+     Some one on the mountain heard far off a master shriek,
+     And then there was a light that showed the way for men to seek.
+
+     "We found it in the morning with an iron bar behind,
+     And there were chains around it; but no search could ever find,
+     Either in the ashes that were left, or anywhere,
+     A sign to tell of who or what had been with Stafford there.
+
+     "Stafford was a likely man with ideas of his own--
+     Though I could never like the kind that likes to live alone;
+     And when you met, you found his eyes were always on your shoes,
+     As if they did the talking when he asked you for the news.
+
+     "That's all, my son.  Were I to talk for half a hundred years
+     I'd never clear away from there the cloud that never clears.
+     We buried what was left of it,--the bar, too, and the chains;
+     And only for the apple tree there's nothing that remains."
+
+     Forty years ago it was I heard the old man say,
+     "That's all, my son."--And here again I find the place to-day,
+     Deserted and told only by the tree that knows the most,
+     And overgrown with golden-rod as if there were no ghost.
+
+
+
+
+Hillcrest
+
+         (To Mrs. Edward MacDowell)
+
+
+
+     No sound of any storm that shakes
+     Old island walls with older seas
+     Comes here where now September makes
+     An island in a sea of trees.
+
+     Between the sunlight and the shade
+     A man may learn till he forgets
+     The roaring of a world remade,
+     And all his ruins and regrets;
+
+     And if he still remembers here
+     Poor fights he may have won or lost,--
+     If he be ridden with the fear
+     Of what some other fight may cost,--
+
+     If, eager to confuse too soon,
+     What he has known with what may be,
+     He reads a planet out of tune
+     For cause of his jarred harmony,--
+
+     If here he venture to unroll
+     His index of adagios,
+     And he be given to console
+     Humanity with what he knows,--
+
+     He may by contemplation learn
+     A little more than what he knew,
+     And even see great oaks return
+     To acorns out of which they grew.
+
+     He may, if he but listen well,
+     Through twilight and the silence here,
+     Be told what there are none may tell
+     To vanity's impatient ear;
+
+     And he may never dare again
+     Say what awaits him, or be sure
+     What sunlit labyrinth of pain
+     He may not enter and endure.
+
+     Who knows to-day from yesterday
+     May learn to count no thing too strange:
+     Love builds of what Time takes away,
+     Till Death itself is less than Change.
+
+     Who sees enough in his duress
+     May go as far as dreams have gone;
+     Who sees a little may do less
+     Than many who are blind have done;
+
+     Who sees unchastened here the soul
+     Triumphant has no other sight
+     Than has a child who sees the whole
+     World radiant with his own delight.
+
+     Far journeys and hard wandering
+     Await him in whose crude surmise
+     Peace, like a mask, hides everything
+     That is and has been from his eyes;
+
+     And all his wisdom is unfound,
+     Or like a web that error weaves
+     On airy looms that have a sound
+     No louder now than falling leaves.
+
+
+drawing-room and say how d'you do to God, Mark was allowed to go to
+church in his ordinary clothes and after church to play at whatever he
+wanted to play, so that he learned to regard the assemblage of human
+beings to worship God as nothing more remarkable than the song of birds.
+He was too young to have experienced yet a personal need of religion;
+but he had already been touched by that grace of fellowship which is
+conferred upon a small congregation, the individual members of which are
+in church to please themselves rather than to impress others. This was
+always the case in the church of Nancepean, which had to contend not
+merely with the popularity of methodism, but also with the situation of
+the Chapel in the middle of the village. On the dark December evenings
+there would be perhaps not more than half a dozen worshippers, each one
+of whom would have brought his own candle and stuck it on the shelf of
+the pew. The organist would have two candles for the harmonium; the
+choir of three little boys and one little girl would have two between
+them; the altar would have two; the Vicar would have two. But when all
+the candle-light was put together, it left most of the church in shadow;
+indeed, it scarcely even illuminated the space between the worshippers,
+so that each one seemed wrapped in a golden aura of prayer, most of all
+when at Evensong the people knelt in silence for a minute while the
+sound of the sea without rose and fell and the noise of the wind
+scuttling through the ivy on the walls was audible. When the
+congregation had gone out and the Vicar was standing at the churchyard
+gate saying "good night," Mark used to think that they must all be
+feeling happy to go home together up the long hill to Pendhu and down
+into twinkling Nancepean. And it did not matter whether it was a night
+of clear or clouded moonshine or a night of windy stars or a night of
+darkness; for when it was dark he could always look back from the valley
+road and see a company of lanthorns moving homeward; and that more than
+anything shed upon his young spirit the grace of human fellowship and
+the love of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE WRECK
+
+
+One wild night in late October of the year before he would be thirteen,
+Mark was lying awake hoping, as on such nights he always hoped, to hear
+somebody shout "A wreck! A wreck!" A different Mark from that one who
+used to lie trembling in Lima Street lest he should hear a shout of
+"Fire! or Thieves!"
+
+And then it happened! It happened as a hundred times he had imagined its
+happening, so exactly that he could hardly believe for a moment he was
+not dreaming. There was the flash of a lanthorn on the ceiling, a
+thunderous, knocking on the Vicarage door. Mark leapt out of bed;
+flinging open his window through which the wind rushed in like a flight
+of angry birds, he heard voices below in the garden shouting "Parson!
+Parson! Parson Trehawke! There's a brig driving in fast toward Church
+Cove." He did not wait to hear more, but dashed along the passage to
+rouse first his grandfather, then his mother, and then Emma, the Vicar's
+old cook.
+
+"And you must get soup ready," he cried, standing over the old woman in
+his flannel pyjamas and waving his arms excitedly, while downstairs the
+cuckoo popped in and out of his door in the clock twelve times. Emma
+blinked at him in terror, and Mark pulled off all the bedclothes to
+convince the old woman that he was not playing a practical joke. Then he
+rushed back to his own room and began to dress for dear life.
+
+"Mother," he shouted, while he was dressing, "the Captain can sleep in
+my bed, if he isn't drowned, can't he?"
+
+"Darling, do you really want to go down to the sea on such a night?"
+
+"Oh, mother," he gasped, "I'm practically dressed. And you will see
+that Emma has lots of hot soup ready, won't you? Because it'll be much
+better to bring all the crew back here. I don't think they'd want to
+walk all that way over Pendhu to Nancepean after they'd been wrecked, do
+you?"
+
+"Well, you must ask grandfather first before you make arrangements for
+his house."
+
+"Grandfather's simply tearing into his clothes; Ernie Hockin and Joe
+Dunstan have both got lanthorns, and I'll carry ours, so if one blows
+out we shall be all right. Oh, mother, the wind's simply shrieking
+through the trees. Can you hear it?"
+
+"Yes, dearest, I certainly can. I think you'd better shut your windows.
+It's blowing everything about in your room most uncomfortably."
+
+Mark's soul expanded in gratitude to God when he found himself neither
+in a dream nor in a story, but actually, and without any possibility of
+self-deception hurrying down the drive toward the sea beside Ernie and
+Joe, who had come from the village to warn the Vicar of the wreck and
+were wearing oilskins and sou'westers, thus striking the keynote as it
+were of the night's adventure. At first in the shelter of the holm-oaks
+the storm seemed far away overhead; but when they turned the corner and
+took the road along the valley, the wind caught them full in the face
+and Mark was blown back violently against the swinging gate of the
+drive. The light of the lanthorns shining on a rut in the road showed a
+field-mouse hurrying inland before the rushing gale. Mark bent double to
+force himself to keep up with the others, lest somebody should think, by
+his inability to maintain an equal pace that he ought to follow the
+field-mouse back home. After they had struggled on for a while a bend of
+the valley gave them a few minutes of easy progress and Mark listened
+while Ernie Hockin explained to the Vicar what had happened:
+
+"Just before dark Eddowes the coastguard said he reckoned there was a
+brig making very heavy weather of it and he shouldn't be surprised if
+she come ashore tonight. Couldn't seem to beat out of the bay noways, he
+said. And afterwards about nine o'clock when me and Joe here and some
+of the chaps were in the bar to the Hanover, Eddowes come in again and
+said she was in a bad way by the looks of her last thing he saw, and he
+telephoned along to Lanyon to ask if they'd seen her down to the
+lifeboat house. They reckoned she was all right to the lifeboat, and old
+man Timbury who do always go against anything Eddowes do say shouted
+that of course she was all right because he'd taken a look at her
+through his glass before it grew dark. Of course she was all right.
+'She's on a lee shore,' said Eddowes. 'It don't take a coastguard to
+tell that,' said old man Timbury. And then they got to talking one
+against the other the same as they belong, and they'd soon got back to
+the same old talk whether Jackie Fisher was the finest admiral who ever
+lived or no use at all. 'What's the good in your talking to me?' old man
+Timbury was saying. 'Why afore you was born I've seen' . . . and we all
+started in to shout 'ships o' the line, frigates, and cavattes,' because
+we belong to mock him like that, when somebody called 'Hark, listen,
+wasn't that a rocket?' That fetched us all outside into the road where
+we stood listening. The wind was blowing harder than ever, and there was
+a parcel of sea rising. You could hear it against Shag Rock over the
+wind. Eddowes, he were a bit upset to think he should have been talking
+and not a-heard the rocket. But there wasn't a light in the sky, and
+when we went home along about half past nine we saw Eddowes again and he
+said he'd been so far as Church Cove and should walk up along to the
+Bar. No mistake, Mr. Trehawke, he's a handy chap is Eddowes for the
+coastguard job. And then about eleven o'clock he saw two rockets close
+in to Church Cove and he come running back and telephoned to Lanyon, but
+they said no one couldn't launch a boat to-night, and Eddowes he come
+banging on the doors and windows shouting 'A Wreck' and some of us took
+ropes along with Eddowes, and me and Joe here come and fetched you
+along. Eddowes said he's afeard she'll strike in Dollar Cove unless
+she's lucky and come ashore in Church Cove."
+
+"How's the tide?" asked the Vicar.
+
+"About an hour of the ebb," said Ernie Hockin. "And the moon's been up
+this hour and more."
+
+Just then the road turned the corner, and the world became a waste of
+wind and spindrift driving inland. The noise of the gale made it
+impossible for anybody to talk, and Mark was left wondering whether the
+ship had actually struck or not. The wind drummed in his ears, the
+flying grit and gravel and spray stung his face; but he struggled on
+hoping that this midnight walk would not come to an abrupt end by his
+grandfather's declining to go any farther. Above the drumming of the
+wind the roar of the sea became more audible every moment; the spume was
+thicker; the end of the valley, ordinarily the meeting-place of sand and
+grass and small streams with their yellow flags and forget-me-nots, was
+a desolation of white foam beyond which against the cliffs showing black
+in the nebulous moonlight the breakers leapt high with frothy tongues.
+Mark thought that they resembled immense ghosts clawing up to reach the
+summit of the cliff. It was incredible that this hell-broth was Church
+Cove.
+
+"Hullo!" yelled Ernie Hockin. "Here's the bridge."
+
+It was true. One wave at the moment of high tide had swept snarling over
+the stream and carried the bridge into the meadow beyond.
+
+"We'll have to get round by the road," shouted the Vicar.
+
+They turned to the right across a ploughed field and after scrambling
+through the hedge emerged in the comparative shelter of the road down
+from Pendhu.
+
+"I hope the churchyard wall is all right," said the Vicar. "I never
+remember such a night since I came to Nancepean."
+
+"Sure 'nough, 'tis blowing very fierce," Joe Dunstan agreed. "But don't
+you worry about the wall, Mr. Trehawke. The worst of the water is broken
+by the Castle and only comes in sideways, as you might say."
+
+When they drew near the gate of the churchyard, the rain of sand and
+small pebbles was agonizing, as it swept across up the low sandstone
+cliffs on that side of the Castle. Two or three excited figures shouted
+for them to hurry because she was going to strike in Dollar Cove, and
+everybody began to scramble up the grassy slope, clutching at the
+tuffets of thrift to aid their progress. It was calm here in the lee;
+and Mark panting up the face thought of those two princesses who were
+wrecked here ages ago, and he understood now why one of them had
+insisted on planting the tower deep in the foundation of this green
+fortress against the wind and weather. While he was thinking this, his
+head came above the sky line, his breath left him at the assault of the
+wind, and he had to crawl on all fours toward the sea. He reached the
+edge of the cliff just as something like the wings of a gigantic bat
+flapped across the dim wet moonlight, and before he realized that this
+was the brig he heard the crashing of her spars. The watchers stood up
+against the wind, battling with it to fling lines in the vain hope of
+saving some sailor who was being churned to death in that dreadful
+creaming of the sea below. Yes, and there were forms of men visible on
+board; two had climbed the mainmast, which crashed before they could
+clutch at the ropes that were being flung to them from land, crashed and
+carried them down shrieking into the surge. Mark found it hard to
+believe that last summer he had spent many sunlit hours dabbling in the
+sand for silver dollars of Portugal lost perhaps on such a night as this
+a hundred years ago, exactly where these two poor mariners were lost. A
+few minutes after the mainmast the hull went also; but in the nebulous
+moonlight nothing could be seen of any bodies alive or dead, nothing
+except wreckage tossing upon the surge. The watchers on the cliff turned
+away from the wind to gather new breath and give their cheeks a rest
+from the stinging fragments of rock and earth. Away up over the towans
+they could see the bobbing lanthorns of men hurrying down from Chypie
+where news of the wreck had reached; and on the road from Lanyon they
+could see lanthorns on the other side of Church Cove waiting until the
+tide had ebbed far enough to let them cross the beach.
+
+Suddenly the Vicar shouted:
+
+"I can see a poor fellow hanging on to a ledge of rock. Bring a rope!
+Bring a rope!"
+
+Eddowes the coastguard took charge of the operation, and Mark with
+beating pulses watched the end of the rope touch the huddled form below.
+But either from exhaustion or because he feared to let go of the
+slippery ledge for one moment the sailor made no attempt to grasp the
+rope. The men above shouted to him, begged him to make an effort; but he
+remained there inert.
+
+"Somebody must go down with the rope and get a slip knot under his
+arms," the Vicar shouted.
+
+Nobody seemed to pay attention to this proposal, and Mark wondered if he
+was the only one who had heard it. However, when the Vicar repeated his
+suggestion, Eddowes came forward, knelt down by the edge of the cliff,
+shook himself like a bather who is going to plunge into what he knows
+will be very cold water, and then vanished down the rope. Everybody
+crawled on hand and knees to see what would happen. Mark prayed that
+Eddowes, who was a great friend of his, would not come to any harm, but
+that he would rescue the sailor and be given the Albert medal for saving
+life. It was Eddowes who had made him medal wise. The coastguard
+struggled to slip the loop under the man's shoulders along his legs; but
+it must have been impossible, for presently he made a signal to be
+raised.
+
+"I can't do it alone," he shouted. "He's got a hold like a limpet."
+
+Nobody seemed anxious to suppose that the addition of another rescuer
+would be any more successful.
+
+"If there was two of us," Eddowes went on, "we might do something."
+
+The people on the cliff shook their heads doubtfully.
+
+"Isn't anybody coming down along with me to have a try?" the coastguard
+demanded at the top of his voice.
+
+Mark did not hear his grandfather's reply; he only saw him go over the
+cliff's edge at the end of one rope while Eddowes went down on another.
+A minute later the slipknot came untied (or that was how the accident
+was explained) and the Vicar went to join the drowned mariners,
+dislodging as he fell the man whom he had tried to save, so that of the
+crew of the brig _Happy Return_ not one ever came to port.
+
+It would be difficult to exaggerate the effect upon Mark Lidderdale of
+that night. He was twelve years old at the time; but the years in
+Cornwall had retarded that precocious development to which he seemed
+destined by the surroundings of his early childhood in Lima Street, and
+in many ways he was hardly any older than he was when he left London. In
+after years he looked back with gratitude upon the shock he received
+from what was as it were an experience of the material impact of death,
+because it made him think about death, not morbidly as so many children
+and young people will, but with the apprehension of something that
+really does come in a moment and for which it is necessary for every
+human being to prepare his soul. The platitudes of age may often be for
+youth divine revelations, and there is nothing so stimulating as the
+unaided apprehension of a great commonplace of existence. The awe with
+which Mark was filled that night was too vast to evaporate in sentiment,
+and when two days after this there came news from Africa that his father
+had died of black-water fever that awe was crystallized indeed. Mark
+looking round at his small world perceived that nobody was safe.
+To-morrow his mother might die; to-morrow he might die himself. In any
+case the death of his grandfather would have meant a profound change in
+the future of his mother's life and his own; the living of Nancepean
+would fall to some other priest and with it the house in which they
+lived. Parson Trehawke had left nothing of any value except Gould's
+_Birds of Great Britain_ and a few other works of ornithology. The
+furniture of the Vicarage was rich neither in quality nor in quantity.
+Three or four hundred pounds was the most his daughter could inherit.
+She had spoken to Mark of their poverty, because in her dismay for the
+future of her son she had no heart to pretend that the dead man's money
+was of little importance.
+
+"I must write and ask your father what we ought to do." . . . She
+stopped in painful awareness of the possessive pronoun. Mark was
+unresponsive, until there came the news from Africa, which made him
+throw his arms about his mother's neck while she was still alive. Mrs.
+Lidderdale, whatever bitterness she may once have felt for the ruin of
+her married life, shed fresh tears of sorrow for her husband, and
+supposing that Mark's embrace was the expression of his sympathy wept
+more, as people will when others are sorry for them, and then still more
+because the future for Mark seemed hopeless. How was she to educate him?
+How clothe him? How feed him even? At her age where and how could she
+earn money? She reproached herself with having been too ready out of
+sensitiveness to sacrifice Mark to her own pride. She had had no right
+to leave her husband and live in the country like this. She should have
+repressed her own emotion and thought only of the family life, to the
+maintenance of which by her marriage she had committed herself. At first
+it had seemed the best thing for Mark; but she should have remembered
+that her father could not live for ever and that one day she would have
+to face the problem of life without his help and his hospitality. She
+began to imagine that the disaster of that stormy night had been
+contrived by God to punish her, and she prayed to Him that her
+chastisement should not be increased, that at least her son might be
+spared to her.
+
+Mrs. Lidderdale was able to stay on at the Vicarage for several weeks,
+because the new Vicar of Nancepean was not able to take over his charge
+immediately. This delay gave her time to hold a sale of her father's
+furniture, at which the desire of the neighbours to be generous fought
+with their native avarice, so that in the end the furniture fetched
+neither more nor less than had been expected, which was little enough.
+She kept back enough to establish herself and Mark in rooms, should she
+be successful in finding some unfurnished rooms sufficiently cheap to
+allow her to take them, although how she was going to live for more than
+two years on what she had was a riddle of which after a month of
+sleepless nights she had not found the solution.
+
+In the end, and as Mrs. Lidderdale supposed in answer to her prayers,
+the solution was provided unexpectedly in the following letter:
+
+     Haverton House,
+
+     Elmhurst Road,
+
+     Slowbridge.
+
+     November 29th.
+
+     Dear Grace,
+
+     I have just received a letter from James written when he was at the
+     point of death in Africa. It appears that in his zeal to convert
+     the heathen to Popery he omitted to make any provision for his wife
+     and child, so that in the event of his death, unless either your
+     relatives or his relatives came forward to support you I was given
+     to understand that you would be destitute. I recently read in the
+     daily paper an account of the way in which your father Mr. Trehawke
+     lost his life, and I caused inquiries to be made in Rosemarket
+     about your prospects. These my informant tells me are not any too
+     bright. You will, I am sure, pardon my having made these inquiries
+     without reference to you, but I did not feel justified in offering
+     you and my nephew a home with my sister Helen and myself unless I
+     had first assured myself that some such offer was necessary. You
+     are probably aware that for many years my brother James and myself
+     have not been on the best of terms. I on my side found his
+     religious teaching so eccentric as to repel me; he on his side was
+     so bigoted that he could not tolerate my tacit disapproval. Not
+     being a Ritualist but an Evangelical, I can perhaps bring myself
+     more easily to forgive my brother's faults and at the same time
+     indulge my theories of duty, as opposed to forms and ceremonies,
+     theories that if carried out by everybody would soon transform our
+     modern Christianity. You are no doubt a Ritualist, and your son has
+     no doubt been educated in the same school. Let me hasten to give
+     you my word that I shall not make the least attempt to interfere
+     either with your religious practices or with his. The quarrel
+     between myself and James was due almost entirely to James'
+     inability to let me and my opinions alone.
+
+     I am far from being a rich man, in fact I may say at once that I am
+     scarcely even "comfortably off" as the phrase goes. It would
+     therefore be outside my capacity to undertake the expense of any
+     elaborate education for your son; but my own school, which while it
+     does not pretend to compete with some of the fashionable
+     establishments of the time is I venture to assert a first class
+     school and well able to send your son into the world at the age of
+     sixteen as well equipped, and better equipped than he would be if
+     he went to one of the famous public schools. I possess some
+     influence with a firm of solicitors, and I have no doubt that when
+     my nephew, who is I believe now twelve years old, has had the
+     necessary schooling I shall be able to secure him a position as an
+     articled clerk, from which if he is honest and industrious he may
+     be able to rise to the position of a junior partner. If you have
+     saved anything from the sale of your father's effects I should
+     advise you to invest the sum. However small it is, you will find
+     the extra money useful, for as I remarked before I shall not be
+     able to afford to do more than lodge and feed you both, educate
+     your son, find him in clothes, and start him in a career on the
+     lines I have already indicated. My local informant tells me that
+     you have kept back a certain amount of your father's furniture in
+     order to take lodgings elsewhere. As this will now be unnecessary I
+     hope that you will sell the rest. Haverton House is sufficiently
+     furnished, and we should not be able to find room for any more
+     furniture. I suggest your coming to us next Friday. It will be
+     easiest for you to take the fast train up to Paddington when you
+     will be able to catch the 6.45 to Slowbridge arriving at 7.15. We
+     usually dine at 7.30, but on Friday dinner will be at 8 p.m. in
+     order to give you plenty of time. Helen sends her love. She would
+     have written also, but I assured her that one letter was enough,
+     and that a very long one.
+
+     Your affectionate brother-in-law,
+
+     Henry Lidderdale.
+
+Mrs. Lidderdale would no doubt have criticized this letter more sharply
+if she had not regarded it as inspired, almost actually written by the
+hand of God. Whatever in it was displeasing to her she accepted as the
+Divine decree, and if anybody had pointed out the inconsistency of some
+of the opinions therein expressed with its Divine authorship, she would
+have dismissed the objection as made by somebody who was incapable of
+comprehending the mysterious action of God.
+
+"Mark," she called to her son. "What do you think has happened? Your
+Uncle Henry has offered us a home. I want you to write to him like a
+dear boy and thank him for his kindness." She explained in detail what
+Uncle Henry intended to do for them; but Mark would not be enthusiastic.
+He on his side had been praying to God to put it into the mind of Samuel
+Dale to offer him a job on his farm; Slowbridge was a poor substitute
+for that.
+
+"Where is Slowbridge?" he asked in a gloomy voice.
+
+"It's a fairly large place near London," his mother told him. "It's near
+Eton and Windsor and Stoke Poges where Gray wrote his Elegy, which we
+learned last summer. You remember, don't you?" she asked anxiously, for
+she wanted Mark to cut a figure with his uncle.
+
+"Wolfe liked it," said Mark. "And I like it too," he added ungraciously.
+He wished that he could have said he hated it; but Mark always found it
+difficult to tell a lie about his personal feelings, or about any facts
+that involved him in a false position.
+
+"And now before you go down to tea with Cass Dale, you will write to
+your uncle, won't you, and show me the letter?"
+
+Mark groaned.
+
+"It's so difficult to thank people. It makes me feel silly."
+
+"Well, darling, mother wants you to. So sit down like a dear boy and get
+it done."
+
+"I think my nib is crossed."
+
+"Is it? You'll find another in my desk."
+
+"But, mother, yours are so thick."
+
+"Please, Mark, don't make any more excuses. Don't you want to do
+everything you can to help me just now?"
+
+"Yes, of course," said Mark penitently, and sitting down in the window
+he stared out at the yellow November sky, and at the magpies flying
+busily from one side of the valley to the other.
+
+     The Vicarage,
+
+     Nancepean,
+
+     South Cornwall.
+
+     My dear Uncle Henry,
+
+     Thank you very much for your kind invitation to come and live with
+     you. We should enjoy it very much. I am going to tea with a friend
+     of mine called Cass Dale who lives in Nancepean, and so I must stop
+     now. With love,
+
+     I remain,
+
+     Your loving nephew,
+
+     Mark.
+
+And then the pen must needs go and drop a blot like a balloon right over
+his name, so that the whole letter had to be copied out again before his
+mother would say that she was satisfied, by which time the yellow sky
+was dun and the magpies were gone to rest.
+
+Mark left the Dales about half past six, and was accompanied by Cass to
+the brow of Pendhu. At this point Cass declined to go any farther in
+spite of Mark's reminder that this would be one of the last walks they
+would take together, if it were not absolutely the very last.
+
+"No," said Cass. "I wouldn't come up from Church Cove myself not for
+anything."
+
+"But I'm going down by myself," Mark argued. "If I hadn't thought you'd
+come all the way with me, I'd have gone home by the fields. What are you
+afraid of?"
+
+"I'm not afraid of nothing, but I don't want to walk so far by myself.
+I've come up the hill with 'ee. Now 'tis all down hill for both of us,
+and that's fair."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Mark, turning away in resentment at his friend's
+desertion.
+
+Both boys ran off in opposite directions, Cass past the splash of light
+thrown across the road by the windows of the Hanover Inn, and on toward
+the scattered lights of Nancepean, Mark into the gloom of the deep lane
+down to Church Cove. It was a warm and humid evening that brought out
+the smell of the ferns and earth in the high banks on either side, and
+presently at the bottom of the hill the smell of the seaweed heaped up
+in Church Cove by weeks of gales. The moon, about three days from the
+full, was already up, shedding her aqueous lustre over the towans of
+Chypie, which slowly penetrated the black gulfs of shadow in the
+countryside until Mark could perceive the ghost of a familiar landscape.
+There came over him, whose emotion had already been sprung by the
+insensibility of Cass, an overwhelming awareness of parting, and he
+gave to the landscape the expression of sentiment he had yearned to give
+his friend. His fear of seeing the spirits of the drowned sailors, or as
+he passed the churchyard gate of perceiving behind that tamarisk the
+tall spectre of his grandfather, which on the way down from Pendhu had
+seemed impossible to combat, had died away; and in his despair at losing
+this beloved scene he wandered on past the church until he stood at the
+edge of the tide. On this humid autumnal night the oily sea collapsed
+upon the beach as if it, like everything else in nature, was overcome by
+the prevailing heaviness. Mark sat down upon some tufts of samphire and
+watched the Stag Light occulting out across St. Levan's Bay, distant
+forty miles and more, and while he sat he perceived a glow-worm at his
+feet creeping along a sprig of samphire that marked the limit of the
+tide's advance. How did the samphire know that it was safe to grow where
+it did, and how did the glow-worm know that the samphire was safe?
+
+Mark was suddenly conscious of the protection of God, for might not he
+expect as much as the glow-worm and the samphire? The ache of separation
+from Nancepean was assuaged. That dread of the future, with which the
+impact of death had filled him, was allayed.
+
+"Good-night, sister glow-worm," he said aloud in imitation of St.
+Francis. "Good-night, brother samphire."
+
+A drift of distant fog had obliterated the Stag Light; but of her
+samphire the glow-worm had made a moonlit forest, so brightly was she
+shining, yes, a green world of interlacing, lucid boughs.
+
+_Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,
+and glorify your Father which is in heaven._
+
+And Mark, aspiring to thank God Who had made manifest His protection,
+left Nancepean three days later with the determination to become a
+lighthouse-keeper, to polish well his lamp and tend it with care, so
+that men passing by in ships should rejoice at his good works and call
+him brother lighthouse-keeper, and glorify God their Father when they
+walked again upon the grass, harking to the pleasant song of birds and
+the hum of bees.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SLOWBRIDGE
+
+
+When Mark came to live with Uncle Henry Lidderdale at Slowbridge, he was
+large for his age, or at any rate he was so loosely jointed as to appear
+large; a swart complexion, prominent cheek-bones, and straight lank hair
+gave him a melancholic aspect, the impression of which remained with the
+observer until he heard the boy laugh in a paroxysm of merriment that
+left his dark blue eyes dancing long after the outrageous noise had died
+down. If Mark had occasion to relate some episode that appealed to him,
+his laughter would accompany the narrative like a pack of hounds in full
+cry, would as it were pursue the tale to its death, and communicate its
+zest to the listener, who would think what a sense of humour Mark had,
+whereas it was more truly the gusto of life.
+
+Uncle Henry found this laughter boisterous and irritating; if his nephew
+had been a canary in a cage, he would have covered him with a
+table-cloth. Aunt Helen, if she was caught up in one of Mark's
+narratives, would twitch until it was finished, when she would rub her
+forehead with an acorn of menthol and wrap herself more closely in a
+shawl of soft Shetland wool. The antipathy that formerly existed between
+Mark and his father was much sharper between Mark and his uncle. It was
+born in the instant of their first meeting, when Uncle Henry bent over,
+his trunk at right angles to his legs, so that one could fancy the
+pelvic bones to be clicking like the wooden joints of a monkey on a
+stick, and offered his nephew an acrid whisker to be saluted.
+
+"And what is Mark going to be?" Uncle Henry inquired.
+
+"A lighthouse-keeper."
+
+"Ah, we all have suchlike ambitions when we are young. I remember that
+for nearly a year I intended to be a muffin-man," said Uncle Henry
+severely.
+
+Mark hated his uncle from that moment, and he fixed upon the throbbing
+pulse of his scraped-out temples as the feature upon which that dislike
+should henceforth be concentrated. Uncle Henry's pulse seemed to express
+all the vitality that was left to him; Mark thought that Our Lord must
+have felt about the barren fig-tree much as he felt about Uncle Henry.
+
+Aunt Helen annoyed Mark in the way that one is annoyed by a cushion in
+an easy chair. It is soft and apparently comfortable, but after a minute
+or two one realizes that it is superfluous, and it is pushed over the
+arm to the floor. Unfortunately Aunt Helen could not be treated like a
+cushion; and there she was soft and comfortable in appearance, but
+forever in Mark's way. Aunt Helen was the incarnation of her own
+drawing-room. Her face was round and stupid like a clock's; she wore
+brocaded gowns and carpet slippers; her shawls resembled antimacassars;
+her hair was like the stuff that is put in grates during the summer; her
+caps were like lace curtains tied back with velvet ribbons; cameos leant
+against her bosom as if they were upon a mantelpiece. Mark never
+overcame his dislike of kissing Aunt Helen, for it gave him a sensation
+every time that a bit of her might stick to his lips. He lacked that
+solemn sense of relationship with which most children are imbued, and
+the compulsory intimacy offended him, particularly when his aunt
+referred to little boys generically as if they were beetles or mice. Her
+inability to appreciate that he was Mark outraged his young sense of
+personality which was further dishonoured by the manner in which she
+spoke of herself as Aunt Helen, thus seeming to imply that he was only
+human at all in so far as he was her nephew. She continually shocked his
+dignity by prescribing medicine for him without regard to the presence
+of servants or visitors; and nothing gave her more obvious pleasure than
+to get Mark into the drawing-room on afternoons when dreary mothers of
+pupils came to call, so that she might bully him under the appearance of
+teaching good manners, and impress the parents with the advantages of a
+Haverton House education.
+
+As long as his mother remained alive, Mark tried to make her happy by
+pretending that he enjoyed living at Haverton House, that he enjoyed his
+uncle's Preparatory School for the Sons of Gentlemen, that he enjoyed
+Slowbridge with its fogs and laburnums, its perambulators and
+tradesmen's carts and noise of whistling trains; but a year after they
+left Nancepean Mrs. Lidderdale died of pneumonia, and Mark was left
+alone with his uncle and aunt.
+
+"He doesn't realize what death means," said Aunt Helen, when Mark on the
+very afternoon of the funeral without even waiting to change out of his
+best clothes began to play with soldiers instead of occupying himself
+with the preparation of lessons that must begin again on the morrow.
+
+"I wonder if you will play with soldiers when Aunt Helen dies?" she
+pressed.
+
+"No," said Mark quickly, "I shall work at my lessons when you die."
+
+His uncle and aunt looked at him suspiciously. They could find no fault
+with the answer; yet something in the boy's tone, some dreadful
+suppressed exultation made them feel that they ought to find severe
+fault with the answer.
+
+"Wouldn't it be kinder to your poor mother's memory," Aunt Helen
+suggested, "wouldn't it be more becoming now to work harder at your
+lessons when your mother is watching you from above?"
+
+Mark would not condescend to explain why he was playing with soldiers,
+nor with what passionate sorrow he was recalling every fleeting
+expression on his mother's face, every slight intonation of her voice
+when she was able to share in his game; he hated his uncle and aunt so
+profoundly that he revelled in their incapacity to understand him, and
+he would have accounted it a desecration of her memory to share his
+grief with them.
+
+Haverton House School was a depressing establishment; in after years
+when Mark looked back at it he used to wonder how it had managed to
+survive so long, for when he came to live at Slowbridge it had actually
+been in existence for twenty years, and his uncle was beginning to look
+forward to the time when Old Havertonians, as he called them, would be
+bringing their sons to be educated at the old place. There were about
+fifty pupils, most of them the sons of local tradesmen, who left when
+they were about fourteen, though a certain number lingered on until they
+were as much as sixteen in what was called the Modern Class, where they
+were supposed to receive at least as practical an education as they
+would have received behind the counter, and certainly a more genteel
+one. Fine fellows those were in the Modern Class at Haverton House,
+stalwart heroes who made up the cricket and football teams and strode
+about the playing fields of Haverton House with as keen a sense of their
+own importance as Etonians of comparable status in their playing fields
+not more than two miles away. Mark when everything else in his school
+life should be obliterated by time would remember their names and
+prowess. . . . Borrow, Tull, Yarde, Corke, Vincent, Macdougal, Skinner,
+they would keep throughout his life some of that magic which clings to
+Diomed and Deiphobus, to Hector and Achilles.
+
+Apart from these heroic names the atmosphere of Haverton House was not
+inspiring. It reduced the world to the size and quality of one of those
+scratched globes with which Uncle Henry demonstrated geography. Every
+subject at Haverton House, no matter how interesting it promised to be,
+was ruined from an educative point of view by its impedimenta of dates,
+imports, exports, capitals, capes, and Kings of Israel and Judah.
+Neither Uncle Henry nor his assistants Mr. Spaull and Mr. Palmer
+believed in departing from the book. Whatever books were chosen for the
+term's curriculum were regarded as something for which money had been
+paid and from which the last drop of information must be squeezed to
+justify in the eyes of parents the expenditure. The teachers considered
+the notes more important than the text; genealogical tables were exalted
+above anything on the same page. Some books of history were adorned with
+illustrations; but no use was made of them by the masters, and for the
+pupils they merely served as outlines to which, were they the outlines
+of human beings, inky beards and moustaches had to be affixed, or were
+they landscapes, flights of birds.
+
+Mr. Spaull was a fat flabby young man with a heavy fair moustache, who
+was reading for Holy Orders; Mr. Palmer was a stocky bow-legged young
+man in knickerbockers, who was good at football and used to lament the
+gentle birth that prevented his becoming a professional. The boys called
+him Gentleman Joe; but they were careful not to let Mr. Palmer hear
+them, for he had a punch and did not believe in cuddling the young. He
+used to jeer openly at his colleague, Mr. Spaull, who never played
+football, never did anything in the way of exercise except wrestle
+flirtatiously with the boys, while Mr. Palmer was bellowing up and down
+the field of play and charging his pupils with additional vigour to
+counteract the feebleness of Mr. Spaull. Poor Mr. Spaull, he was
+ordained about three years after Mark came to Slowbridge, and a week
+later he was run over by a brewer's dray and killed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+WHIT-SUNDAY
+
+
+Mark at the age of fifteen was a bitter, lonely, and unattractive boy.
+Three years of Haverton House, three years of Uncle Henry's desiccated
+religion, three years of Mr. Palmer's athletic education and Mr.
+Spaull's milksop morality, three years of wearing clothes that were too
+small for him, three years of Haverton House cooking, three years of
+warts and bad haircutting, of ink and Aunt Helen's confident purging had
+destroyed that gusto for life which when Mark first came to Slowbridge
+used to express itself in such loud laughter. Uncle Henry probably
+supposed that the cure of his nephew's irritating laugh was the
+foundation stone of that successful career, which it would soon be time
+to discuss in detail. The few months between now and Mark's sixteenth
+birthday would soon pass, however dreary the restrictions of Haverton
+House, and then it would be time to go and talk to Mr. Hitchcock about
+that articled clerkship toward the fees for which the small sum left by
+his mother would contribute. Mark was so anxious to be finished with
+Haverton House that he would have welcomed a prospect even less
+attractive than Mr. Hitchcock's office in Finsbury Square; it never
+occurred to him that the money left by his mother could be spent to
+greater advantage for himself. By now it was over £500, and Uncle Henry
+on Sunday evenings when he was feeling comfortably replete with the
+day's devotion would sometimes allude to his having left the interest to
+accumulate and would urge Mark to be up and doing in order to show his
+gratitude for all that he and Aunt Helen had conferred upon him. Mark
+felt no gratitude; in fact at this period he felt nothing except a kind
+of surly listlessness. He was like somebody who through the carelessness
+of his nurse or guardian has been crippled in youth, and who is
+preparing to enter the world with a suppressed resentment against
+everybody and everything.
+
+"Not still hankering after a lighthouse?" Uncle Henry asked, and one
+seemed to hear his words snapping like dry twigs beneath the heavy tread
+of his mind.
+
+"I'm not hankering after anything," Mark replied sullenly.
+
+"But you're looking forward to Mr. Hitchcock's office?" his uncle
+proceeded.
+
+Mark grunted an assent in order to be left alone, and the entrance of
+Mr. Palmer who always had supper with his headmaster and employer on
+Sunday evening, brought the conversation to a close.
+
+At supper Mr. Palmer asked suddenly if the headmaster wanted Mark to go
+into the Confirmation Class this term.
+
+"No thanks," said Mark.
+
+Uncle Henry raised his eyebrows.
+
+"I fancy that is for me to decide."
+
+"Neither my father nor my mother nor my grandfather would have wanted me
+to be confirmed against my will," Mark declared. He was angry without
+knowing his reasons, angry in response to some impulse of the existence
+of which he had been unaware until he began to speak. He only knew that
+if he surrendered on this point he should never be able to act for
+himself again.
+
+"Are you suggesting that you should never be confirmed?" his uncle
+required.
+
+"I'm not suggesting anything," said Mark. "But I can remember my
+father's saying once that boys ought to be confirmed before they are
+thirteen. My mother just before she died wanted me to be confirmed, but
+it couldn't be arranged, and now I don't intend to be confirmed till I
+feel I want to be confirmed. I don't want to be prepared for
+confirmation as if it was a football match. If you force me to go to the
+confirmation I'll refuse to answer the Bishop's questions. You can't
+make me answer against my will."
+
+"Mark dear," said Aunt Helen, "I think you'd better take some Eno's
+Fruit Salts to-morrow morning." In her nephew's present mood she did not
+dare to prescribe anything stronger.
+
+"I'm not going to take anything to-morrow morning," said Mark angrily.
+
+"Do you want me to thrash you?" Uncle Henry demanded.
+
+Mr. Palmer's eyes glittered with the zeal of muscular Christianity.
+
+"You'll be sorry for it if you do," said Mark. "You can of course, if
+you get Mr. Palmer to help you, but you'll be sorry if you do."
+
+Mr. Palmer looked at his chief as a terrier looks at his master when a
+rabbit is hiding in a bush. But the headmaster's vanity would not allow
+him to summon help to punish his own nephew, and he weakly contented
+himself with ordering Mark to be silent.
+
+"It strikes me that Spaull is responsible for this sort of thing," said
+Mr. Palmer. "He always resented my having any hand in the religious
+teaching."
+
+"That poor worm!" Mark scoffed.
+
+"Mark, he's dead," Aunt Helen gasped. "You mustn't speak of him like
+that."
+
+"Get out of the room and go to bed," Uncle Henry shouted.
+
+Mark retired with offensive alacrity, and while he was undressing he
+wondered drearily why he had made himself so conspicuous on this Sunday
+evening out of so many Sunday evenings. What did it matter whether he
+were confirmed or not? What did anything matter except to get through
+the next year and be finished with Haverton House?
+
+He was more sullen than ever during the week, but on Saturday he had the
+satisfaction of bowling Mr. Palmer in the first innings of a match and
+in the second innings of hitting him on the jaw with a rising ball.
+
+The next day he rose at five o'clock on a glorious morning in early June
+and walked rapidly away from Slowbridge. By ten o'clock he had reached a
+country of rolling beech-woods, and turning aside from the high road he
+wandered over the bare nutbrown soil that gave the glossy leaves high
+above a green unparagoned, a green so lambent that the glimpses of the
+sky beyond seemed opaque as turquoises amongst it. In quick succession
+Mark saw a squirrel, a woodpecker, and a jay, creatures so perfectly
+expressive of the place, that they appeared to him more like visions
+than natural objects; and when they were gone he stood with beating
+heart in silence as if in a moment the trees should fly like
+woodpeckers, the sky flash and flutter its blue like a jay's wing, and
+the very earth leap like a squirrel for his amazement. Presently he came
+to an open space where the young bracken was springing round a pool. He
+flung himself down in the frondage, and the spice of it in his nostrils
+was as if he were feeding upon summer. He was happy until he caught
+sight of his own reflection in the pool, and then he could not bear to
+stay any longer in this wood, because unlike the squirrel and the
+woodpecker and the jay he was an ugly intruder here, a scarecrow in
+ill-fitting clothes, round the ribbon of whose hat like a chain ran the
+yellow zigzag of Haverton House. He became afraid of the wood,
+perceiving nothing round him now except an assemblage of menacing
+trunks, a slow gathering of angry and forbidding branches. The silence
+of the day was dreadful in this wood, and Mark fled from it until he
+emerged upon a brimming clover-ley full of drunken bees, a merry
+clover-ley dancing in the sun, across which the sound of church bells
+was being blown upon a honeyed wind. Mark welcomed the prospect of
+seeing ugly people again after the humiliation inflicted upon him by the
+wood; and he followed a footpath at the far end of the ley across
+several stiles, until he stood beneath the limes that overhung the
+churchyard gate and wondered if he should go inside to the service. The
+bells were clanging an agitated final appeal to the worshippers; and
+Mark, unable to resist, allowed himself to flow toward the cool dimness
+within. There with a thrill he recognized the visible signs of his
+childhood's religion, and now after so many years he perceived with new
+eyes an unfamiliar beauty in the crossings and genuflexions, in the
+pictures and images. The world which had lately seemed so jejune was
+crowded like a dream, a dream moreover that did not elude the
+recollection of it in the moment of waking, but that stayed with him
+for the rest of his life as the evidence of things not seen, which is
+Faith.
+
+It was during the Gospel that Mark began to realize that what was being
+said and done at the Altar demanded not merely his attention but also
+his partaking. All the services he had attended since he came to
+Slowbridge had demanded nothing from him, and even when he was at
+Nancepean he had always been outside the sacred mysteries. But now on
+this Whit-sunday morning he heard in the Gospel:
+
+_Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world
+cometh and hath nothing in me._
+
+And while he listened it seemed that Jesus Christ was departing from
+him, and that unless he were quick to offer himself he should be left to
+the prince of this world; so black was Mark's world in those days that
+the Prince of it meant most unmistakably the Prince of Darkness, and the
+prophecy made him shiver with affright. With conviction he said the
+Nicene Creed, and when the celebrating priest, a tall fair man, with a
+gentle voice and of a mild and benignant aspect, went up into the pulpit
+and announced that there would be a confirmation in his church on the
+Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mark felt in this
+newly found assurance of being commanded by God to follow Him that
+somehow he must be confirmed in this church and prepared by this kindly
+priest. The sermon was about the coming of the Holy Ghost and of our
+bodies which are His temple. Any other Sunday Mark would have sat in a
+stupor, while his mind would occasionally have taken flights of
+activity, counting the lines of a prayer-book's page or following the
+tributaries in the grain of the pew in front; but on this Sunday he sat
+alert, finding every word of the discourse applicable to himself.
+
+On other Sundays the first sentence of the Offertory would have passed
+unheeded in the familiarity of its repetition, but this morning it took
+him back to that night in Church Cove when he saw the glow-worm by the
+edge of the tide and made up his mind to be a lighthouse-keeper.
+
+_Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,
+and glorify your Father which is in heaven._
+
+"I will be a priest," Mark vowed to himself.
+
+_Give grace, O heavenly Father, to all Bishops and Curates that they may
+both by their life and doctrines set forth thy true and lively word, and
+rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments._
+
+"I will, I will," he vowed.
+
+_Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that
+truly turn to him. Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden,
+and I will refresh you._
+
+Mark prayed that with such words he might when he was a priest bring
+consolation.
+
+_Through Jesus Christ our Lord; according to whose most true promise,
+the Holy Ghost came down as at this time from heaven with a sudden great
+sound, as it had been a mighty wind, in the likeness of fiery tongues,
+lighting upon the Apostles, to teach them and to lead them to all
+truth;_
+
+The red chasuble of the priest glowed with Pentecostal light.
+
+_giving them both the gift of divers languages, and also boldness with
+fervent seal constantly to preach the Gospel unto all nations; whereby
+we have been brought out of darkness and error into the clear light and
+true knowledge of thee, and of thy Son Jesus Christ._
+
+And when after this proper preface of Whit-sunday, which seemed to Mark
+to be telling him what was expected of his priesthood by God, the quire
+sang the Sanctus, _Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and with all
+the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore
+praising thee, and saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven
+and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord most High.
+Amen_, that sublime proclamation spoke the fullness of his aspiring
+heart.
+
+Mark came out of church with the rest of the congregation, and walked
+down the road toward the roofs of the little village, on the outskirts
+of which he could not help stopping to admire a small garden full of
+pinks in front of two thatched cottages that had evidently been made
+into one house. While he was standing there looking over the trim
+quickset hedge, an old lady with silvery hair came slowly down the road,
+paused a moment by the gate before she went in, and then asked Mark if
+she had not seen him in church. Mark felt embarrassed at being
+discovered looking over a hedge into somebody's garden; but he managed
+to murmur an affirmative and turned to go away.
+
+"Stop," said the old lady waving at him her ebony crook, "do not run
+away, young gentleman. I see that you admire my garden. Pray step inside
+and look more closely at it."
+
+Mark thought at first by her manner of speech that she was laughing at
+him; but soon perceiving that she was in earnest he followed her inside,
+and walked behind her along the narrow winding paths, nodding with an
+appearance of profound interest when she poked at some starry clump and
+invited his admiration. As they drew nearer the house, the smell of the
+pinks was merged in the smell of hot roast beef, and Mark discovered
+that he was hungry, so hungry indeed that he felt he could not stay any
+longer to be tantalized by the odours of the Sunday dinner, but must go
+off and find an inn where he could obtain bread and cheese as quickly as
+possible. He was preparing an excuse to get away, when the garden wicket
+clicked, and looking up he saw the fair priest coming down the path
+toward them accompanied by two ladies, one of whom resembled him so
+closely that Mark was sure she was his sister. The other, who looked
+windblown in spite of the serene June weather, had a nervous energy that
+contrasted with the demeanour of the other two, whose deliberate pace
+seemed to worry her so that she was continually two yards ahead and
+turning round as if to urge them to walk more quickly.
+
+The old lady must have guessed Mark's intention, for raising her stick
+she forbade him to move, and before he had time to mumble an apology and
+flee she was introducing the newcomers to him.
+
+"This is my daughter Miriam," she said pointing to one who resembled her
+brother. "And this is my daughter Esther. And this is my son, the Vicar.
+What is your name?"
+
+Mark told her, and he should have liked to ask what hers was, but he
+felt too shy.
+
+"You're going to stay and have lunch with us, I hope?" asked the Vicar.
+
+Mark had no idea how to reply. He was much afraid that if he accepted he
+should be seeming to have hung about by the Vicarage gate in order to be
+invited. On the other hand he did not know how to refuse. It would be
+absurd to say that he had to get home, because they would ask him where
+he lived, and at this hour of the morning he could scarcely pretend that
+he expected to be back in time for lunch twelve miles and more from
+where he was.
+
+"Of course he's going to stay," said the old lady.
+
+And of course Mark did stay; a delightful lunch it was too, on chairs
+covered with blue holland in a green shadowed room that smelt of dryness
+and ancientry. After lunch Mark sat for a while with the Vicar in his
+study, which was small and intimate with its two armchairs and
+bookshelves reaching to the ceiling all round. He had not yet managed to
+find out his name, and as it was obviously too late to ask as this stage
+of their acquaintanceship he supposed that he should have to wait until
+he left the Vicarage and could ask somebody in the village, of which by
+the way he also did not know the name.
+
+"Lidderdale," the Vicar was saying meditatively, "Lidderdale. I wonder
+if you were a relative of the famous Lidderdale of St. Wilfred's?"
+
+Mark flushed with a mixture of self-consciousness and pleasure to hear
+his father spoken of as famous, and when he explained who he was he
+flushed still more deeply to hear his father's work praised with such
+enthusiasm.
+
+"And do you hope to be a priest yourself?"
+
+"Why, yes I do rather," said Mark.
+
+"Splendid! Capital!" cried the Vicar, his kindly blue eye beaming with
+approval of Mark's intention.
+
+Presently Mark was talking to him as though he had known him for years.
+
+"There's no reason why you shouldn't be confirmed here," the Vicar said.
+"No reason at all. I'll mention it to the Bishop, and if you like I'll
+write to your uncle. I shall feel justified in interfering on account of
+your father's opinions. We all look upon him as one of the great
+pioneers of the Movement. You must come over and lunch with us again
+next Sunday. My mother will be delighted to see you. She's a dear old
+thing, isn't she? I'm going to hand you over to her now and my youngest
+sister. My other sister and I have got Sunday schools to deal with. Have
+another cigarette? No. Quite right. You oughtn't to smoke too much at
+your age. Only just fifteen, eh? By Jove, I suppose you oughtn't to have
+smoked at all. But what rot. You'd only smoke all the more if it was
+absolutely forbidden. Wisdom! Wisdom! Wisdom with the young! You don't
+mind being called young? I've known boys who hated the epithet."
+
+Mark was determined to show his new friend that he did not object to
+being called young, and he could think of no better way to do it than by
+asking him his name, thus proving that he did not mind if such a
+question did make him look ridiculous.
+
+"Ogilvie--Stephen Ogilvie. My dear boy, it's we who ought to be ashamed
+of ourselves for not having had the gumption to enlighten you. How on
+earth were you to know without asking? Now, look here, I must run. I
+expect you'll be wanting to get home, or I'd suggest your staying until
+I get back, but I must lie low after tea and think out my sermon. Look
+here, come over to lunch on Saturday, haven't you a bicycle? You could
+get over from Slowbridge by one o'clock, and after lunch we'll have a
+good tramp in the woods. Splendid!"
+
+Then chanting the _Dies Irae_ in a cheerful tenor the Reverend Stephen
+Ogilvie hurried off to his Sunday School. Mark said good-bye to Mrs.
+Ogilvie with an assured politeness that was typical of his new found
+ease; and when he started on his long walk back to Slowbridge he felt
+inclined to leap in the air and wake with shouts the slumberous Sabbath
+afternoon, proclaiming the glory of life, the joy of living.
+
+Mark had not expected his uncle to welcome his friendship with the Vicar
+of Meade Cantorum; but he had supposed that after a few familiar sneers
+he should be allowed to go his own way with nothing worse than silent
+disapproval brooding over his perverse choice. He was surprised by the
+vehemence of his uncle's opposition, and it must be added that he
+thoroughly enjoyed it. The experience of that Whit-sunday had been too
+rich not to be of enduring importance to his development in any case;
+but the behaviour of Uncle Henry made it more important, because all
+this criticism helped Mark to put his opinions into shape, consolidated
+the position he had taken up, sharpened his determination to advance
+along the path he had discovered for himself, and gave him an immediate
+target for arrows that might otherwise have been shot into the air until
+his quiver was empty.
+
+"Mr. Ogilvie knew my father."
+
+"That has nothing to do with the case," said Uncle Henry.
+
+"I think it has."
+
+"Do not be insolent, Mark. I've noticed lately a most unpleasant note in
+your voice, an objectionably defiant note which I simply will not
+tolerate."
+
+"But do you really mean that I'm not to go and see Mr. Ogilvie?"
+
+"It would have been more courteous if Mr. Ogilvie had given himself the
+trouble of writing to me, your guardian, before inviting you out to
+lunch and I don't know what not besides."
+
+"He said he would write to you."
+
+"I don't want to embark on a correspondence with him," Uncle Henry
+exclaimed petulantly. "I know the man by reputation. A bigoted
+Ritualist. A Romanizer of the worst type. He'll only fill your head with
+a lot of effeminate nonsense, and that at a time when it's particularly
+necessary for you to concentrate upon your work. Don't forget that this
+is your last year of school. I advise you to make the most of it."
+
+"I've asked Mr. Ogilvie to prepare me for confirmation," said Mark, who
+was determined to goad his uncle into losing his temper.
+
+"Then you deserve to be thrashed."
+
+"Look here, Uncle Henry," Mark began; and while he was speaking he was
+aware that he was stronger than his uncle now and looking across at his
+aunt he perceived that she was just a ball of badly wound wool lying in
+a chair. "Look here, Uncle Henry, it's quite useless for you to try to
+stop my going to Meade Cantorum, because I'm going there whenever I'm
+asked and I'm going to be confirmed there, because you promised Mother
+you wouldn't interfere with my religion."
+
+"Your religion!" broke in Mr. Lidderdale, scornful both of the pronoun
+and the substantive.
+
+"It's no use your losing your temper or arguing with me or doing
+anything except letting me go my own way, because that's what I intend
+to do."
+
+Aunt Helen half rose in her chair upon an impulse to protect her brother
+against Mark's violence.
+
+"And you can't cure me with Gregory Powder," he said. "Nor with Senna
+nor with Licorice nor even with Cascara."
+
+"Your behaviour, my boy, is revolting," said Mr. Lidderdale. "A young
+Mohawk would not talk to his guardians as you are talking to me."
+
+"Well, I don't want you to think I'm going to obey you if you forbid me
+to go to Meade Cantorum," said Mark. "I'm sorry I was rude, Aunt Helen.
+I oughtn't to have spoken to you like that. And I'm sorry, Uncle Henry,
+to seem ungrateful after what you've done for me." And then lest his
+uncle should think that he was surrendering he quickly added: "But I'm
+going to Meade Cantorum on Saturday." And like most people who know
+their own minds Mark had his own way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MEADE CANTORUM
+
+
+Mark did not suffer from "churchiness" during this period. His interest
+in religion, although it resembled the familiar conversions of
+adolescence, was a real resurrection of emotions which had been stifled
+by these years at Haverton House following upon the paralyzing grief of
+his mother's death. Had he been in contact during that time with an
+influence like the Vicar of Meade Cantorum, he would probably have
+escaped those ashen years, but as Mr. Ogilvie pointed out to him, he
+would also never have received such evidence of God's loving kindness as
+was shown to him upon that Whit-sunday morning.
+
+"If in the future, my dear boy, you are ever tempted to doubt the wisdom
+of Almighty God, remember what was vouchsafed to you at a moment when
+you seemed to have no reason for any longer existing, so black was your
+world. Remember how you caught sight of yourself in that pool and shrank
+away in horror from the vision. I envy you, Mark. I have never been
+granted such a revelation of myself."
+
+"You were never so ugly," said Mark.
+
+"My dear boy, we are all as ugly as the demons of Hell if we are allowed
+to see ourselves as we really are. But God only grants that to a few
+brave spirits whom he consecrates to his service and whom he fortifies
+afterwards by proving to them that, no matter how great the horror of
+their self-recognition, the Holy Ghost is within them to comfort them. I
+don't suppose that many human beings are granted such an experience as
+yours. I myself tremble at the thought of it, knowing that God considers
+me too weak a subject for such a test."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Ogilvie," Mark expostulated.
+
+"I'm not talking to you as Mark Lidderdale, but as the recipient of the
+grace of God, to one who before my own unworthy eyes has been lightened
+by celestial fire. _Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, O Lord._ As for
+yourself, my dear boy, I pray always that you may sustain your part,
+that you will never allow the memory of this Whitsuntide to be obscured
+by the fogs of this world and that you will always bear in mind that
+having been given more talents by God a sharper account will be taken of
+the use you make of them. Don't think I'm doubting your steadfastness,
+old man, I believe in it. Do you hear? I believe in it absolutely. But
+Catholic doctrine, which is the sum of humanity's knowledge of God and
+than which nothing more can be known of God until we see Him face to
+face, insists upon good works, demanding as it were a practical
+demonstration to the rest of the world of the grace of God within you.
+You remember St. Paul? _Faith, Hope, and Love. But the greatest of these
+is Love._ The greatest because the least individual. Faith will move
+mountains, but so will Love. That's the trouble with so many godly
+Protestants. They are inclined to stay satisfied with their own
+godliness, although the best of them like the Quakers are examples that
+ought to make most of us Catholics ashamed of ourselves. And one thing
+more, old man, before we get off this subject, don't forget that your
+experience is a mercy accorded to you by the death of our Lord Jesus
+Christ. You owe to His infinite Love your new life. What was granted to
+you was the visible apprehension of the fact of Holy Baptism, and don't
+forget St. John the Baptist's words: _I indeed baptize you with water
+unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I. He
+shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose fan is in
+his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat
+into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire._
+Those are great words for you to think of now, and during this long
+Trinitytide which is symbolical of what one might call the humdrum of
+religious life, the day in day out sticking to it, make a resolution
+never to say mechanically _The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the
+love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all
+evermore. Amen._ If you always remember to say those wonderful words
+from the heart and not merely with the lips, you will each time you say
+them marvel more and more at the great condescension of Almighty God in
+favouring you, as He has favoured you, by teaching you the meaning of
+these words Himself in a way that no poor mortal priest, however
+eloquent, could teach you it. On that night when you watched beside the
+glow-worm at the sea's edge the grace of our Lord gave you an
+apprehension, child as you were, of the love of God, and now once more
+the grace of our Lord gives you the realization of the fellowship of the
+Holy Ghost. I don't want to spoil your wonderful experience with my
+parsonic discoursing; but, Mark, don't look back from the plough."
+
+Uncle Henry found it hard to dispose of words like these when he
+deplored his nephew's collapse into ritualism.
+
+"You really needn't bother about the incense and the vestments," Mark
+assured him. "I like incense and vestments; but I don't think they're
+the most important things in religion. You couldn't find anybody more
+evangelical than Mr. Ogilvie, though he doesn't call himself
+evangelical, or his party the Evangelical party. It's no use your trying
+to argue me out of what I believe. I know I'm believing what it's right
+for me to believe. When I'm older I shall try to make everybody else
+believe in my way, because I should like everybody else to feel as happy
+as I do. Your religion doesn't make you feel happy, Uncle Henry!"
+
+"Leave the room," was Mr. Lidderdale's reply. "I won't stand this kind
+of talk from a boy of your age."
+
+Although Mark had only claimed from his uncle the right to believe what
+it was right for him to believe, the richness of his belief presently
+began to seem too much for one. His nature was generous in everything,
+and he felt that he must share this happiness with somebody else. He
+regretted the death of poor Mr. Spaull, for he was sure that he could
+have persuaded poor Mr. Spaull to cut off his yellow moustache and
+become a Catholic. Mr. Palmer was of course hopeless: Saint Augustine of
+Hippo, St. Paul himself even, would have found it hard to deal with Mr.
+Palmer; as for the new master, Mr. Blumey, with his long nose and long
+chin and long frock coat and long boots, he was obviously absorbed by
+the problems of mathematics and required nothing more.
+
+Term came to an end, and during the holidays Mark was able to spend most
+of his time at Meade Cantorum. He had always been a favourite of Mrs.
+Ogilvie since that Whit-sunday nearly two months ago when she saw him
+looking at her garden and invited him in, and every time he revisited
+the Vicarage he had devoted some of his time to helping her weed or
+prune or do whatever she wanted to do in her garden. He was also on
+friendly terms with Miriam, the elder of Mr. Ogilvie's two sisters, who
+was very like her brother in appearance and who gave to the house the
+decorous loving care he gave to the church. And however enthralling her
+domestic ministrations, she had always time to attend every service;
+while, so well ordered was her manner of life, her religious duties
+never involved the household in discomfort. She never gave the
+impression that so many religious women give of going to church in a
+fever of self-gratification, to which everything and everybody around
+her must be subordinated. The practice of her religion was woven into
+her life like the strand of wool on which all the others depend, but
+which itself is no more conspicuous than any of the other strands. With
+so many women religion is a substitute for something else; with Miriam
+Ogilvie everything else was made as nearly and as beautifully as it
+could be made a substitute for religion. Mark was intensely aware of her
+holiness, but he was equally aware of her capable well-tended hands and
+of her chatelaine glittering in and out of a lawn apron. One tress of
+her abundant hair was grey, which stood out against the dark background
+of the rest and gave her a serene purity, an austere strength, but yet
+like a nun's coif seemed to make the face beneath more youthful, and
+like a cavalier's plume more debonair. She could not have been over
+thirty-five when Mark first knew her, perhaps not so much; but he
+thought of her as ageless in the way a child thinks of its mother, and
+if any woman should ever be able to be to him something of what his
+mother had been, Mark thought that Miss Ogilvie might.
+
+Esther Ogilvie the other sister was twenty-five. She told Mark this
+when he imitated the villagers by addressing her as Miss Essie and she
+ordered him to call her Esther. He might have supposed from this that
+she intended to confer upon him a measure of friendliness, even of
+sisterly affection; but on the contrary she either ignored him
+altogether or gave him the impression that she considered his frequent
+visits to Meade Cantorum a nuisance. Mark was sorry that she felt like
+that toward him, because she seemed unhappy, and in his desire for
+everybody to be happy he would have liked to proclaim how suddenly and
+unexpectedly happiness may come. As a sister of the Vicar of the parish,
+she went to church regularly, but Mark did not think that she was there
+except in body. He once looked across at her open prayer book during the
+_Magnificat_, and noticed that she was reading the Tables of Kindred and
+Affinity. Now, Mark knew from personal experience that when one is
+reduced to reading the Tables of Kindred and Affinity it argues a mind
+untouched by the reality of worship. In his own case, when he sat beside
+his uncle and aunt in the dreary Slowbridge church of their choice, it
+had been nothing more than a sign of his own inward dreariness to read
+the Tables of Kindred and Affinity or speculate upon the Paschal full
+moons from the year 2200 to the year 2299 inclusive. But St. Margaret's,
+Meade Cantorum, was a different church from St. Jude's, Slowbridge, and
+for Esther Ogilvie to ignore the joyfulness of worshipping there in
+order to ponder idly the complexities of Golden Numbers and Dominical
+Letters could not be ascribed to inward dreariness. Besides, she wasn't
+dreary. Once Mark saw her coming down a woodland glade and almost turned
+aside to avoid meeting her, because she looked so fay with her wild blue
+eyes and her windblown hair, the colour of last year's bracken after
+rain. She seemed at once the pursued and the pursuer, and Mark felt that
+whichever she was he would be in the way.
+
+"Taking a quick walk by myself," she called out to him as they passed.
+
+No, she was certainly not dreary. But what was she?
+
+Mark abandoned the problem of Esther in the pleasure of meeting the
+Reverend Oliver Dorward, who arrived one afternoon at the Vicarage with
+a large turbot for Mrs. Ogilvie, and six Flemish candlesticks for the
+Vicar, announcing that he wanted to stay a week before being inducted to
+the living of Green Lanes in the County of Southampton, to which he had
+recently been presented by Lord Chatsea. Mark liked him from the first
+moment he saw him pacing the Vicarage garden in a soutane, buckled
+shoes, and beaver hat, and he could not understand why Mr. Ogilvie, who
+had often laughed about Dorward's eccentricity, should now that he had
+an opportunity of enjoying it once more be so cross about his friend's
+arrival and so ready to hand him over to Mark to be entertained.
+
+"Just like Ogilvie," said Dorward confidentially, when he and Mark went
+for a walk on the afternoon of his arrival. "He wants spiking up. They
+get very slack and selfish, these country clergy. Time he gave up Meade
+Cantorum. He's been here nearly ten years. Too long, nine years too
+long. Hasn't been to his duties since Easter. Scandalous, you know. I
+asked him, as soon as I'd explained to the cook about the turbot, when
+he went last, and he was bored. Nice old pussy cat, the mother. Hullo,
+is that the _Angelus_? Damn, I knelt on a thistle."
+
+"It isn't the _Angelus_," said Mark quietly. "It's the bell on that
+cow."
+
+But Mr. Dorward had finished his devotion before he answered.
+
+"I was half way through before you told me. You should have spoken
+sooner."
+
+"Well, I spoke as soon as I could."
+
+"Very cunning of Satan," said Dorward meditatively. "Induced a cow to
+simulate the _Angelus_, and planted a thistle just where I was bound to
+kneel. Cunning. Cunning. Very cunning. I must go back now and confess to
+Ogilvie. Good example. Wait a minute, I'll confess to-morrow before
+Morning Prayer. Very good for Ogilvie's congregation. They're stuffy,
+very stuffy. It'll shake them. It'll shake Ogilvie too. Are you staying
+here to-night?"
+
+"No, I shall bicycle back to Slowbridge and bicycle over to Mass
+to-morrow."
+
+"Ridiculous. Stay the night. Didn't Ogilvie invite you?"
+
+Mark shook his head.
+
+"Scandalous lack of hospitality. They're all alike these country clergy.
+I'm tired of this walk. Let's go back and look after the turbot. Are you
+a good cook?"
+
+"I can boil eggs and that sort of thing," said Mark.
+
+"What sort of things? An egg is unique. There's nothing like an egg.
+Will you serve my Mass on Monday? Saying Mass for Napoleon on Monday."
+
+"For whom?" Mark exclaimed.
+
+"Napoleon, with a special intention for the conversion of the present
+government in France. Last Monday I said a Mass for Shakespeare, with a
+special intention for an improvement in contemporary verse."
+
+Mark supposed that Mr. Dorward must be joking, and his expression must
+have told as much to the priest, who murmured:
+
+"Nothing to laugh at. Nothing to laugh at."
+
+"No, of course not," said Mark feeling abashed. "But I'm afraid I
+shouldn't be able to serve you. I've never had any practice."
+
+"Perfectly easy. Perfectly easy. I'll give you a book when we get back."
+
+Mark bicycled home that afternoon with a tall thin volume called _Ritual
+Notes_, so tall that when it was in his pocket he could feel it digging
+him in the ribs every time he was riding up the least slope. That night
+in his bedroom he practised with the help of the wash-stand and its
+accessories the technique of serving at Low Mass, and in his enthusiasm
+he bicycled over to Meade Cantorum in time to attend both the Low Mass
+at seven said by Mr. Dorward and the Low Mass at eight said by Mr.
+Ogilvie. He was able to detect mistakes that were made by the village
+boys who served that Sunday morning, and he vowed to himself that the
+Monday Mass for the Emperor Napoleon should not be disfigured by such
+inaccuracy or clumsiness. He declined the usual invitation to stay to
+supper after Evening Prayer that he might have time to make perfection
+more perfect in the seclusion of his own room, and when he set out about
+six o'clock of a sun-drowsed morning in early August, apart from a faint
+anxiety about the _Lavabo_, he felt secure of his accomplishment. It was
+only when he reached the church that he remembered he had made no
+arrangement about borrowing a cassock or a cotta, an omission that in
+the mood of grand seriousness in which he had undertaken his
+responsibility seemed nothing less than abominable. He did not like to
+go to the Vicarage and worry Mr. Ogilvie who could scarcely fail to be
+amused, even contemptuously amused at such an ineffective beginning.
+Besides, ever since Mr. Dorward's arrival the Vicar had been slightly
+irritable.
+
+While Mark was wondering what was the best thing to do, Miss Hatchett, a
+pious old maid who spent her nights in patience and sleep, her days in
+worship and weeding, came hurrying down the churchyard path.
+
+"I am not late, am I?" she exclaimed. "I never heard the bell. I was so
+engrossed in pulling out one of those dreadful sow-thistles that when my
+maid came running out and said 'Oh, Miss Hatchett, it's gone the five
+to, you'll be late,' I just ran, and now I've brought my trowel and left
+my prayer book on the path. . . ."
+
+"I'm just going to ring the bell now," said Mark, in whom the horror of
+another omission had been rapidly succeeded by an almost unnatural
+composure.
+
+"Oh, what a relief," Miss Hatchett sighed. "Are you sure I shall have
+time to get my breath, for I know Mr. Ogilvie would dislike to hear me
+panting in church?"
+
+"Mr. Ogilvie isn't saying Mass this morning."
+
+"Not saying Mass?" repeated the old maid in such a dejected tone of
+voice that, when a small cloud passed over the face of the sun, it
+seemed as if the natural scene desired to accord with the chill cast
+upon her spirit by Mark's announcement.
+
+"Mr. Dorward is saying Mass," he told her, and poor Miss Hatchett must
+pretend with a forced smile that her blank look had been caused by the
+prospect of being deprived of Mass when really. . . .
+
+But Mark was not paying any more attention to Miss Hatchett. He was
+standing under the bell, gazing up at the long rope and wondering what
+manner of sound he should evoke. He took a breath and pulled; the rope
+quivered with such an effect of life that he recoiled from the new force
+he had conjured into being, afraid of his handiwork, timid of the
+clamour that would resound. No louder noise ensued than might have been
+given forth by a can kicked into the gutter. Mark pulled again more
+strongly, and the bell began to chime, irregularly at first with
+alternations of sonorous and feeble note; at last, however, when the
+rhythm was established with such command and such insistence that the
+ringer, looking over his shoulder to the south door, half expected to
+see a stream of perturbed Christians hurrying to obey its summons. But
+there was only poor Miss Hatchett sitting in the porch and fanning
+herself with a handkerchief.
+
+Mark went on ringing. . . .
+
+Clang--clang--clang! All the holy Virgins were waving their palms.
+Clang--clang--clang! All the blessed Doctors and Confessors were
+twanging their harps to the clanging. Clang--clang--clang! All the holy
+Saints and Martyrs were tossing their haloes in the air as schoolboys
+toss their caps. Clang--clang--clang! Angels, Archangels, and
+Principalities with faces that shone like brass and with forms that
+quivered like flames thronged the noise. Clang--clang--clang! Virtues,
+Powers, and Dominations bade the morning stars sing to the ringing.
+Clang--clang--clang! The ringing reached up to the green-winged Thrones
+who sustain the seat of the Most High. Clang--clang--clang! The azure
+Cherubs heard the bells within their contemplation: the scarlet Seraphs
+felt them within their love. Clang--clang--clang! The lidless Eye of God
+looked down, and Miss Hatchett supposing it to be the sun crossed over
+to the other side of the porch.
+
+Clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang--clang. . . .
+
+"Hasn't Dorward come in yet? It's five past eight already. Go on
+ringing for a little while. I'll go and see how long he'll be."
+
+Mark in the absorption of ringing the bell had not noticed the Vicar's
+approach, and he was gone again before he remembered that he wanted to
+borrow a cassock and a cotta. Had he been rude? Would Mr. Ogilvie think
+it cheek to ring the bell without asking his permission first? But
+before these unanswered questions had had time to spoil the rhythm of
+his ringing, the Vicar came back with Mr. Dorward, and the congregation,
+that is to say Miss Hatchett and Miss Ogilvie, was already kneeling in
+its place.
+
+Mark in a cassock that was much too long for him and in a cotta that was
+in the same ratio as much too short preceded Mr. Dorward from the
+sacristy to the altar. A fear seized him that in spite of all his
+practice he was kneeling on the wrong side of the priest; he forgot the
+first responses; he was sure the Sanctus-bell was too far away; he
+wished that Mr. Dorward would not mutter quite so inaudibly. Gradually,
+however, the meetness of the gestures prescribed for him by the ancient
+ritual cured his self-consciousness and included him in its pattern, so
+that now for the first time he was aware of the significance of the
+preface to the Sanctus: _It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty,
+that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O
+Lord, Holy Father, Almighty Everlasting God._
+
+Twenty minutes ago when he was ringing the church bell Mark had
+experienced the rapture of creative noise, the sense of individual
+triumph over time and space; and the sound of his ringing came back to
+him from the vaulted roof of the church with such exultation as the
+missal thrush may know when he sits high above the fretted boughs of an
+oak and his music plunges forth upon the January wind. Now when Mark was
+ringing the Sanctus-bell, it was with a sense of his place in the scheme
+of worship. If one listens to the twitter of a single linnet in open
+country or to the buzz of a solitary fly upon a window pane, how
+incredible it is that myriads of them twittering and buzzing together
+should be the song of April, the murmur of June. And this Sanctus-bell
+that tinkled so inadequately, almost so frivolously when sounded by a
+server in Meade Cantorum church, was yet part of an unimaginable volume
+of worship that swelled in unison with Angels and Archangels lauding and
+magnifying the Holy Name. The importance of ceremony was as deeply
+impressed upon Mark that morning as if he had been formally initiated to
+great mysteries. His coming confirmation, which had been postponed from
+July 2nd to September 8th seemed much more momentous now than it seemed
+yesterday. It was no longer a step to Communion, but was apprehended as
+a Sacrament itself, and though Mr. Ogilvie was inclined to regret the
+ritualistic development of his catechumen, Mark derived much strength
+from what was really the awakening in him of a sense of form, which more
+than anything makes emotion durable. Perhaps Ogilvie may have been a
+little jealous of Dorward's influence; he also was really alarmed at the
+prospect, as he said, of so much fire being wasted upon poker-work. In
+the end what between Dorward's encouragement of Mark's ritualistic
+tendencies and the "spiking up" process to which he was himself being
+subjected, Ogilvie was glad when a fortnight later Dorward took himself
+off to his own living, and he expressed a hope that Mark would perceive
+Dorward in his true proportions as a dear good fellow, perfectly
+sincere, but just a little, well, not exactly mad, but so eccentric as
+sometimes to do more harm than good to the Movement. Mark was shrewd
+enough to notice that however much he grumbled about his friend's visit
+Mr. Ogilvie was sufficiently influenced by that visit to put into
+practice much of the advice to which he had taken exception. The
+influence of Dorward upon Mark did not stop with his begetting in him an
+appreciation of the value of form in worship. When Mark told Mr. Ogilvie
+that he intended to become a priest, Mr. Ogilvie was impressed by the
+manifestation of the Divine Grace, but he did not offer many practical
+suggestions for Mark's immediate future. Dorward on the contrary
+attached as much importance to the manner in which he was to become a
+priest.
+
+"Oxford," Mr. Dorward pronounced. "And then Glastonbury."
+
+"Glastonbury?"
+
+"Glastonbury Theological College."
+
+Now to Mark Oxford was a legendary place to which before he met Mr.
+Dorward he would never have aspired. Oxford at Haverton House was merely
+an abstraction to which a certain number of people offered an illogical
+allegiance in order to create an excuse for argument and strife.
+Sometimes Mark had gazed at Eton and wondered vaguely about existence
+there; sometimes he had gazed at the towers of Windsor and wondered what
+the Queen ate for breakfast. Oxford was far more remote than either of
+these, and yet when Mr. Dorward said that he must go there his heart
+leapt as if to some recognized ambition long ago buried and now abruptly
+resuscitated.
+
+"I've always been Oxford," he admitted.
+
+When Mr. Dorward had gone, Mark asked Mr. Ogilvie what he thought about
+Oxford.
+
+"If you can afford to go there, my dear boy, of course you ought to go."
+
+"Well, I'm pretty sure I can't afford to. I don't think I've got any
+money at all. My mother left some money, but my uncle says that that
+will come in useful when I'm articled to this solicitor, Mr. Hitchcock.
+Oh, but if I become a priest I can't become a solicitor, and perhaps I
+could have that money. I don't know how much it is . . . I think five
+hundred pounds. Would that be enough?"
+
+"With care and economy," said Mr. Ogilvie. "And you might win a
+scholarship."
+
+"But I'm leaving school at the end of this year."
+
+Mr. Ogilvie thought that it would be wiser not to say anything to his
+uncle until after Mark had been confirmed. He advised him to work hard
+meanwhile and to keep in mind the possibility of having to win a
+scholarship.
+
+The confirmation was held on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed
+Virgin. Mark made his first Confession on the vigil, his first Communion
+on the following Sunday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE POMEROY AFFAIR
+
+
+Mark was so much elated to find himself a fully equipped member of the
+Church Militant that he looked about him again to find somebody whom he
+could make as happy as himself. He even considered the possibility of
+converting his uncle, and spent the Sunday evening before term began in
+framing inexpugnable arguments to be preceded by unanswerable questions;
+but always when he was on the point of speaking he was deterred by the
+lifelessness of his uncle. No eloquence could irrigate his arid creed
+and make that desert blossom now. And yet, Mark thought, he ought to
+remember that in the eyes of the world he owed his uncle everything.
+What did he owe him in the sight of God? Gratitude? Gratitude for what?
+Gratitude for spending a certain amount of money on him. Once more Mark
+opened his mouth to repay his debt by offering Uncle Henry Eternal Life.
+But Uncle Henry fancied himself already in possession of Eternal Life.
+He definitely labelled himself Evangelical. And again Mark prepared one
+of his unanswerable questions.
+
+"Mark," said Mr. Lidderdale. "If you can't keep from yawning you'd
+better get off to bed. Don't forget school begins to-morrow, and you
+must make the most of your last term."
+
+Mark abandoned for ever the task of converting Uncle Henry, and pondered
+his chance of doing something with Aunt Helen. There instead of
+exsiccation he was confronted by a dreadful humidity, an infertile ooze
+that seemed almost less susceptible to cultivation than the other.
+
+"And I really don't owe _her_ anything," he thought. "Besides, it isn't
+that I want to save people from damnation. I want people to be happy.
+And it isn't quite that even. I want them to understand how happy I am.
+I want people to feel fond of their pillows when they turn over to go to
+sleep, because next morning is going to be what? Well, sort of
+exciting."
+
+Mark suddenly imagined how splendid it would be to give some of his
+happiness to Esther Ogilvie; but a moment later he decided that it would
+be rather cheek, and he abandoned the idea of converting Esther Ogilvie.
+He fell back on wishing again that Mr. Spaull had not died; in him he
+really would have had an ideal subject.
+
+In the end Mark fixed upon a boy of his own age, one of the many sons of
+a Papuan missionary called Pomeroy who was glad to have found in Mr.
+Lidderdale a cheap and evangelical schoolmaster. Cyril Pomeroy was a
+blushful, girlish youth, clever at the routine of school work, but in
+other ways so much undeveloped as to give an impression of stupidity.
+The notion of pointing out to him the beauty and utility of the Catholic
+religion would probably never have occurred to Mark if the boy himself
+had not approached him with a direct complaint of the dreariness of home
+life. Mark had never had any intimate friends at Haverton House; there
+was something in its atmosphere that was hostile to intimacy. Cyril
+Pomeroy appealed to that idea of romantic protection which is the common
+appendage of adolescence, and is the cause of half the extravagant
+affection at which maturity is wont to laugh. In the company of Cyril,
+Mark felt ineffably old than which upon the threshold of sixteen there
+is no sensation more grateful; and while the intercourse flattered his
+own sense of superiority he did feel that he had much to offer his
+friend. Mark regarded Cyril's case as curable if the right treatment
+were followed, and every evening after school during the veiled summer
+of a fine October he paced the Slowbridge streets with his willing
+proselyte, debating the gravest issues of religious practice, the
+subtlest varieties of theological opinion. He also lent Cyril suitable
+books, and finally he demanded from him as a double tribute to piety and
+friendship that he should prove his metal by going to Confession.
+Cyril, who was incapable of refusing whatever Mark demanded, bicycled
+timorously behind him to Meade Cantorum one Saturday afternoon, where he
+gulped out the table of his sins to Mr. Ogilvie, whom Mark had fetched
+from the Vicarage with the urgency of one who fetches a midwife. Nor was
+he at all abashed when Mr. Ogilvie was angry for not having been told
+that Cyril's father would have disapproved of his son's confession. He
+argued that the priest was applying social standards to religious
+principles, and in the end he enjoyed the triumph of hearing Mr. Ogilvie
+admit that perhaps he was right.
+
+"I know I'm right. Come on, Cyril. You'd better get back home now. Oh,
+and I say, Mr. Ogilvie, can I borrow for Cyril some of the books you
+lent me?"
+
+The priest was amused that Mark did not ask him to lend the books to his
+friend, but to himself. However, when he found that the neophyte seemed
+to flourish under Mark's assiduous priming, and that the fundamental
+weakness of his character was likely to be strengthened by what, though
+it was at present nothing more than an interest in religion, might later
+on develop into a profound conviction of the truths of Christianity,
+Ogilvie overlooked his scruples about deceiving parents and encouraged
+the boy as much as he could.
+
+"But I hope your manipulation of the plastic Cyril isn't going to turn
+_you_ into too much of a ritualist," he said to Mark. "It's splendid of
+course that you should have an opportunity so young of proving your
+ability to get round people in the right way. But let it be the right
+way, old man. At the beginning you were full of the happiness, the
+secret of which you burnt to impart to others. That happiness was the
+revelation of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you as He dwells in all
+Christian souls. I am sure that the eloquent exposition I lately
+overheard of the propriety of fiddle-backed chasubles and the
+impropriety of Gothic ones doesn't mean that you are in any real danger
+of supposing chasubles to be anything more important relatively than,
+say, the uniform of a soldier compared with his valour and obedience
+and selflessness. Now don't overwhelm me for a minute or two. I haven't
+finished what I want to say. I wasn't speaking sarcastically when I said
+that, and I wasn't criticizing you. But you are not Cyril. By God's
+grace you have been kept from the temptations of the flesh. Yes, I know
+the subject is distasteful to you. But you are old enough to understand
+that your fastidiousness, if it isn't to be priggish, must be
+safeguarded by your humility. I didn't mean to sandwich a sermon to you
+between my remarks on Cyril, but your disdainful upper lip compelled
+that testimony. Let us leave you and your virtues alone. Cyril is weak.
+He's the weak pink type that may fall to women or drink or anything in
+fact where an opportunity is given him of being influenced by a stronger
+character than his own. At the moment he's being influenced by you to go
+to Confession, and say his rosary, and hear Mass, and enjoy all the
+other treats that our holy religion gives us. In addition to that he's
+enjoying them like the proverbial stolen fruit. You were very severe
+with me when I demurred at hearing his confession without authority from
+his father; but I don't like stolen fruit, and I'm not sure even now if
+I was right in yielding on that point. I shouldn't have yielded if I
+hadn't felt that Cyril might be hurt in the future by my scruples. Now
+look here, Mark, you've got to see that I don't regret my surrender. If
+that youth doesn't get from religion what I hope and pray he will get
+. . . but let that point alone. My scruples are my own affair. Your
+convictions are your own affair. But Cyril is our joint affair. He's
+your convert, but he's my penitent; and Mark, don't overdecorate your
+building until you're sure the foundations are well and truly laid."
+
+Mark was never given an opportunity of proving the excellence of his
+methods by the excellence of Cyril's life, because on the morning after
+this conversation, which took place one wet Sunday evening in Advent he
+was sent for by his uncle, who demanded to know the meaning of This.
+This was a letter from the Reverend Eustace Pomeroy.
+
+     The Limes,
+
+     38, Cranborne Road,
+
+     Slowbridge.
+
+     December 9.
+
+     Dear Mr. Lidderdale,
+
+     My son Cyril will not attend school for the rest of this term.
+     Yesterday evening, being confined to the house by fever, I went up
+     to his bedroom to verify a reference in a book I had recently lent
+     him to assist his divinity studies under you. When I took down the
+     book from the shelf I noticed several books hidden away behind, and
+     my curiosity being aroused I examined them, in case they should be
+     works of an unpleasant nature. To my horror and disgust, I found
+     that they were all works of an extremely Popish character, most of
+     them belonging to a clergyman in this neighbourhood called Ogilvie,
+     whose illegal practices have for several years been a scandal to
+     this diocese. These I am sending to the Bishop that he may see with
+     his own eyes the kind of propaganda that is going on. Two of the
+     books, inscribed Mark Lidderdale, are evidently the property of
+     your nephew to whom I suppose my son is indebted for this wholesale
+     corruption. On questioning my son I found him already so sunk in
+     the mire of the pernicious doctrines he has imbibed that he
+     actually defied his own father. I thrashed him severely in spite of
+     my fever, and he is now under lock and key in his bedroom where he
+     will remain until he sails with me to Sydney next week whither I am
+     summoned to the conference of Australasian missionaries. During the
+     voyage I shall wrestle with the demon that has entered into my son
+     and endeavour to persuade him that Jesus only is necessary for
+     salvation. And when I have done so, I shall leave him in Australia
+     to earn his own living remote from the scene of his corruption. In
+     the circumstances I assume that you will deduct a proportion of his
+     school fees for this term. I know that you will be as much
+     horrified and disgusted as I was by your nephew's conduct, and I
+     trust that you will be able to wrestle with him in the Lord and
+     prove to him that Jesus only is necessary to salvation.
+
+     Yours very truly,
+
+     Eustace Pomeroy.
+
+     P.S. I suggest that instead of £6 6s. 0d. I should pay £5 5s. 0d.
+     for this term, plus, of course, the usual extras.
+
+The pulse in Mr. Lidderdale's temple had never throbbed so remarkably
+as while Mark was reading this letter.
+
+"A fine thing," he ranted, "if this story gets about in Slowbridge. A
+fine reward for all my kindness if you ruin my school. As for this man
+Ogilvie, I'll sue him for damages. Don't look at me with that expression
+of bestial defiance. Do you hear? What prevents my thrashing you as you
+deserve? What prevents me, I say?"
+
+But Mark was not paying any attention to his uncle's fury; he was
+thinking about the unfortunate martyr under lock and key in The Limes,
+Cranborne Road, Slowbridge. He was wondering what would be the effect of
+this violent removal to the Antipodes and how that fundamental weakness
+of character would fare if Cyril were left to himself at his age.
+
+"I think Mr. Pomeroy is a ruffian," said Mark. "Don't you, Uncle Henry?
+If he writes to the Bishop about Mr. Ogilvie, I shall write to the
+Bishop about him. I hate Protestants. I hate them."
+
+"There's your father to the life. You'd like to burn them, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, I would," Mark declared.
+
+"You'd like to burn me, I suppose?"
+
+"Not you in particular."
+
+"Will you listen to him, Helen," he shouted to his sister. "Come here
+and listen to him. Listen to the boy we took in and educated and clothed
+and fed, listen to him saying he'd like to burn his uncle. Into Mr.
+Hitchcock's office you go at once. No more education if this is what it
+leads to. Read that letter, Helen, look at that book, Helen. _Catholic
+Prayers for Church of England People by the Reverend A.H. Stanton._ Look
+at this book, Helen. _The Catholic Religion by Vernon Staley._ No wonder
+you hate Protestants, you ungrateful boy. No wonder you're longing to
+burn your uncle and aunt. It'll be in the _Slowbridge Herald_ to-morrow.
+Headlines! Ruin! They'll think I'm a Jesuit in disguise. I ought to have
+got a very handsome sum of money for the good-will. Go back to your
+class-room, and if you have a spark of affection in your nature, don't
+brag about this to the other boys."
+
+Mark, pondering all the morning the best thing to do for Cyril,
+remembered that a boy called Hacking lived at The Laurels, 36, Cranborne
+Road. He did not like Hacking, but wishing to utilize his back garden
+for the purpose of communicating with the prisoner he made himself
+agreeable to him in the interval between first and second school.
+
+"Hullo, Hacking," he began. "I say, do you want a cricket bat? I shan't
+be here next summer, so you may as well have mine."
+
+Hacking looked at Mark suspicious of some hidden catch that would make
+him appear a fool.
+
+"No, really I'm not ragging," said Mark. "I'll bring it round to you
+after dinner. I'll be at your place about a quarter to two. Wait for me,
+won't you?"
+
+Hacking puzzled his brains to account for this generous whim, and at
+last decided that Mark must be "gone" on his sister Edith. He supposed
+that he ought to warn Edith to be about when Mark called; if the bat was
+not forthcoming he could easily prevent a meeting. The bat however
+turned out to be much better than he expected, and Hacking was on the
+point of presenting Cressida to Troilus when Troilus said:
+
+"That's your garden at the back, isn't it?"
+
+Hacking admitted that it was.
+
+"It looks rather decent."
+
+Hacking allowed modestly that it wasn't bad.
+
+"My father's rather dead nuts on gardening. So's my kiddy sister," he
+added.
+
+"I vote we go out there," Mark suggested.
+
+"Shall I give a yell to my kiddy sister?" asked Pandarus.
+
+"Good lord, no," Mark exclaimed. "Don't the Pomeroys live next door to
+you? Look here, Hacking, I want to speak to Cyril Pomeroy."
+
+"He was absent this morning."
+
+Mark considered Hacking as a possible adjutant to the enterprise he was
+plotting. That he finally decided to admit Hacking to his confidence was
+due less to the favourable result of the scrutiny than to the fact that
+unless he confided in Hacking he would find it difficult to communicate
+with Cyril and impossible to manage his escape. Mark aimed as high as
+this. His first impulse had been to approach the Vicar of Meade
+Cantorum, but on second thoughts he had rejected him in favour of Mr.
+Dorward, who was not so likely to suffer from respect for paternal
+authority.
+
+"Look here, Hacking, will you swear not to say a word about what I'm
+going to tell you?"
+
+"Of course," said Hacking, who scenting a scandal would have promised
+much more than this to obtain the details of it.
+
+"What will you swear by?"
+
+"Oh, anything," Hacking offered, without the least hesitation. "I don't
+mind what it is."
+
+"Well, what do you consider the most sacred thing in the world?"
+
+If Hacking had known himself, he would have said food; not knowing
+himself, he suggested the Bible.
+
+"I suppose you know that if you swear something on the Bible and break
+your oath you can be put in prison?" Mark demanded sternly.
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+The oath was administered, and Hacking waited goggle-eyed for the
+revelation.
+
+"Is that all?" he asked when Mark stopped.
+
+"Well, it's enough, isn't it? And now you've got to help him to escape."
+
+"But I didn't swear I'd do that," argued Hacking.
+
+"All right then. Don't. I thought you'd enjoy it."
+
+"We should get into a row. There'd be an awful shine."
+
+"Who's to know it's us? I've got a friend in the country. And I shall
+telegraph to him and ask if he'll hide Pomeroy."
+
+Mark was not sufficiently sure of Hacking's discretion or loyalty to
+mention Dorward's name. After all this business wasn't just a rag.
+
+"The first thing is for you to go out in the garden and attract
+Pomeroy's attention. He's locked in his bedroom."
+
+"But I don't know which is his bedroom," Hacking objected.
+
+"Well, you don't suppose the whole family are locked in their bedrooms,
+do you?" asked Mark scornfully.
+
+"But how do you know his bedroom is on this side of the house?"
+
+"I don't," said Mark. "That's what I want to find out. If it's in the
+front of the house, I shan't want your help, especially as you're so
+funky."
+
+Hacking went out into the garden, and presently he came back with the
+news that Pomeroy was waiting outside to talk to Mark over the wall.
+
+"Waiting outside?" Mark repeated. "What do you mean, waiting outside?
+How can he be waiting outside when he's locked in his bedroom?"
+
+"But he's not," said Hacking.
+
+Sure enough, when Mark went out he found Cyril astride the party wall
+between the two gardens waiting for him.
+
+"You can't let your father drag you off to Australia like this," Mark
+argued. "You'll go all to pieces there. You'll lose your faith, and take
+to drink, and--you must refuse to go."
+
+Cyril smiled weakly and explained to Mark that when once his father had
+made up his mind to do something it was impossible to stop him.
+
+Thereupon Mark explained his scheme.
+
+"I'll get an answer from Dorward to-night and you must escape to-morrow
+afternoon as soon as it's dark. Have you got a rope ladder?"
+
+Cyril smiled more feebly than ever.
+
+"No, I suppose you haven't. Then what you must do is tear up your sheets
+and let yourself down into the garden. Hacking will whistle three times
+if all's clear, and then you must climb over into his garden and run as
+hard as you can to the corner of the road where I'll be waiting for you
+in a cab. I'll go up to London with you and see you off from Waterloo,
+which is the station for Green Lanes where Father Dorward lives. You
+take a ticket to Galton, and I expect he'll meet you, or if he doesn't,
+it's only a seven mile walk. I don't know the way, but you can ask when
+you get to Galton. Only if you could find your way without asking it
+would be better, because if you're pursued and you're seen asking the
+way you'll be caught more easily. Now I must rush off and borrow some
+money from Mr. Ogilvie. No, perhaps it would rouse suspicions if I were
+absent from afternoon school. My uncle would be sure to guess,
+and--though I don't think he would--he might try to lock me up in my
+room. But I say," Mark suddenly exclaimed in indignation, "how on earth
+did you manage to come and talk to me out here?"
+
+Cyril explained that he had only been locked in his bedroom last night
+when his father was so angry. He had freedom to move about in the house
+and garden, and, he added to Mark's annoyance, there would be no need
+for him to use rope ladders or sheets to escape. If Mark would tell him
+what time to be at the corner of the road and would wait for him a
+little while in case his father saw him going out and prevented him, he
+would easily be able to escape.
+
+"Then I needn't have told Hacking," said Mark. "However, now I have told
+him, he must do something, or else he's sure to let out what he knows. I
+wish I knew where to get the money for the fare."
+
+"I've got a pound in my money box."
+
+"Have you?" said Mark, a little mortified, but at the same time relieved
+that he could keep Mr. Ogilvie from being involved. "Well, that ought to
+be enough. I've got enough to send a telegram to Dorward. As soon as I
+get his answer I'll send you word by Hacking. Now don't hang about in
+the garden all the afternoon or your people will begin to think
+something's up. If you could, it would be a good thing for you to be
+heard praying and groaning in your room."
+
+Cyril smiled his feeble smile, and Mark felt inclined to abandon him to
+his fate; but he decided on reflection that the importance of
+vindicating the claims of the Church to a persecuted son was more
+important than the foolishness and the feebleness of the son.
+
+"Do you want me to do anything more?" Hacking asked.
+
+Mark suggested that Hacking's name and address should be given for Mr.
+Dorward's answer, but this Hacking refused.
+
+"If a telegram came to our house, everybody would want to read it. Why
+can't it be sent to you?"
+
+Mark sighed for his fellow-conspirator's stupidity. To this useless clod
+he had presented a valuable bat.
+
+"All right," he said impatiently, "you needn't do anything more except
+tell Pomeroy what time he's to be at the corner of the road to-morrow."
+
+"I'll do that, Lidderdale."
+
+"I should think you jolly well would," Mark exclaimed scornfully.
+
+Mark spent a long time over the telegram to Dorward; in the end he
+decided that it would be safer to assume that the priest would shelter
+and hide Cyril rather than take the risk of getting an answer. The final
+draft was as follows:--
+
+     Dorward Green Lanes Medworth Hants
+
+     Am sending persecuted Catholic boy by 7.30 from Waterloo Tuesday
+     please send conveyance Mark Lidderdale.
+
+Mark only had eightpence, and this message would cost tenpence. He took
+out the _am_, changed _by 7.30 from Waterloo_ to _arriving 9.35_ and
+_send conveyance_ to _meet_. If he had only borrowed Cyril's sovereign,
+he could have been more explicit. However, he flattered himself that he
+was getting full value for his eightpence. He then worked out the cost
+of Cyril's escape.
+
+                                                s.   d.
+Third Class single to Paddington                1    6
+Third Class return to Paddington (for self)     2    6
+Third Class single Waterloo to Galton           3   11
+Cab from Paddington to Waterloo                 3    6?
+Cab from Waterloo to Paddington (for self)      3    6?
+Sandwiches for Cyril and Self                   1    0
+Ginger-beer for Cyril and Self (4 bottles)           8
+                                               ________
+Total                                          16    7
+
+The cab of course might cost more, and he must take back the eightpence
+out of it for himself. But Cyril would have at least one and sixpence
+in his pocket when he arrived, which he could put in the offertory at
+the Mass of thanksgiving for his escape that he would attend on the
+following morning. Cyril would be useful to old Dorward, and he (Mark)
+would give him some tips on serving if they had an empty compartment
+from Slowbridge to Paddington. Mark's original intention had been to
+wait at the corner of Cranborne Road in a closed cab like the proverbial
+postchaise of elopements, but he discarded this idea for reasons of
+economy. He hoped that Cyril would not get frightened on the way to the
+station and turn back. Perhaps after all it would be wiser to order a
+cab and give up the ginger-beer, or pay for the ginger-beer with the
+money for the telegram. Once inside a cab Cyril was bound to go on.
+Hacking might be committed more completely to the enterprise by waiting
+inside until he arrived with Cyril. It was a pity that Cyril was not
+locked in his room, and yet when it came to it he would probably have
+funked letting himself down from the window by knotted sheets. Mark
+walked home with Hacking after school, to give his final instructions
+for the following day.
+
+"I'm telling you now," he said, "because we oughtn't to be seen together
+at all to-morrow, in case of arousing suspicion. You must get hold of
+Pomeroy and tell him to run to the corner of the road at half-past-five,
+and jump straight into the fly that'll be waiting there with you
+inside."
+
+"But where will you be?"
+
+"I shall be waiting outside the ticket barrier with the tickets."
+
+"Supposing he won't?"
+
+"I'll risk seeing him once more. Go and ask if you can speak to him a
+minute, and tell him to come out in the garden presently. Say you've
+knocked a ball over or something and will Master Cyril throw it back. I
+say, we might really put a message inside a ball and throw it over. That
+was the way the Duc de Beaufort escaped in _Twenty Years After_."
+
+Hacking looked blankly at Mark.
+
+"But it's dark and wet," he objected. "I shouldn't knock a ball over on
+a wet evening like this."
+
+"Well, the skivvy won't think of that, and Pomeroy will guess that
+we're trying to communicate with him."
+
+Mark thought how odd it was that Hacking should be so utterly blind to
+the romance of the enterprise. After a few more objections which were
+disposed of by Mark, Hacking agreed to go next door and try to get the
+prisoner into the garden. He succeeded in this, and Mark rated Cyril for
+not having given him the sovereign yesterday.
+
+"However, bunk in and get it now, because I shan't see you again till
+to-morrow at the station, and I must have some money to buy the
+tickets."
+
+He explained the details of the escape and exacted from Cyril a promise
+not to back out at the last moment.
+
+"You've got nothing to do. It's as simple as A B C. It's too simple,
+really, to be much of a rag. However, as it isn't a rag, but serious, I
+suppose we oughtn't to grumble. Now, you are coming, aren't you?"
+
+Cyril promised that nothing but physical force should prevent him.
+
+"If you funk, don't forget that you'll have betrayed your faith and
+. . ."
+
+At this moment Mark in his enthusiasm slipped off the wall, and after
+uttering one more solemn injunction against backing out at the last
+minute he left Cyril to the protection of Angels for the next
+twenty-four hours.
+
+Although he would never have admitted as much, Mark was rather
+astonished when Cyril actually did present himself at Slowbridge station
+in time to catch the 5.47 train up to town. Their compartment was not
+empty, so that Mark was unable to give Cyril that lesson in serving at
+the altar which he had intended to give him. Instead, as Cyril seemed in
+his reaction to the excitement of the escape likely to burst into tears
+at any moment, he drew for him a vivid picture of the enjoyable life to
+which the train was taking him.
+
+"Father Dorward says that the country round Green Lanes is ripping. And
+his church is Norman. I expect he'll make you his ceremonarius. You're
+an awfully lucky chap, you know. He says that next Corpus Christi, he's
+going to have Mass on the village green. Nobody will know where you
+are, and I daresay later on you can become a hermit. You might become a
+saint. The last English saint to be canonized was St. Thomas Cantilupe
+of Hereford. But of course Charles the First ought to have been properly
+canonized. By the time you die I should think we should have got back
+canonization in the English Church, and if I'm alive then I'll propose
+your canonization. St. Cyril Pomeroy you'd be."
+
+Such were the bright colours in which Mark painted Cyril's future; when
+he had watched him wave his farewells from the window of the departing
+train at Waterloo, he felt as if he were watching the bodily assumption
+of a saint.
+
+"Where have you been all the evening?" asked Uncle Henry, when Mark came
+back about nine o'clock.
+
+"In London," said Mark.
+
+"Your insolence is becoming insupportable. Get away to your room."
+
+It never struck Mr. Lidderdale that his nephew was telling the truth.
+
+The hue and cry for Cyril Pomeroy began at once, and though Mark
+maintained at first that the discovery of Cyril's hiding-place was due
+to nothing else except the cowardice of Hacking, who when confronted by
+a detective burst into tears and revealed all he knew, he was bound to
+admit afterward that, if Mr. Ogilvie had been questioned much more, he
+would have had to reveal the secret himself. Mark was hurt that his
+efforts to help a son of Holy Church should not be better appreciated by
+Mr. Ogilvie; but he forgave his friend in view of the nuisance that it
+undoubtedly must have been to have Meade Cantorum beleaguered by half a
+dozen corpulent detectives. The only person in the Vicarage who seemed
+to approve of what he had done was Esther; she who had always seemed to
+ignore him, even sometimes in a sensitive mood to despise him, was full
+of congratulations.
+
+"How did you manage it, Mark?"
+
+"Oh, I took a cab," said Mark modestly. "One from the corner of
+Cranborne Road to Slowbridge, and another from Paddington to Waterloo.
+We had some sandwiches, and a good deal of ginger-beer at Paddington
+because we thought we mightn't be able to get any at Waterloo, but at
+Waterloo we had some more ginger-beer. I wish I hadn't told Hacking. If
+I hadn't, we should probably have pulled it off. Old Dorward was up to
+anything. But Hacking is a hopeless ass."
+
+"What does your uncle say?"
+
+"He's rather sick," Mark admitted. "He refused to let me go to school
+any more, which as you may imagine doesn't upset me very much, and I'm
+to go into Hitchcock's office after Christmas. As far as I can make out
+I shall be a kind of servant."
+
+"Have you talked to Stephen about it?"
+
+"Well, he's a bit annoyed with me about this kidnapping. I'm afraid I
+have rather let him in for it. He says he doesn't mind so much if it's
+kept out of the papers."
+
+"Anyway, I think it was a sporting effort by you," said Esther. "I
+wasn't particularly keen on you until you brought this off. I hate pious
+boys. I wish you'd told me beforehand. I'd have loved to help."
+
+"Would you? I say, I am sorry. I never thought of you," said Mark much
+disappointed at the lost opportunity. "You'd have been much better than
+that ass Hacking. If you and I had been the only people in it, I'll bet
+the detectives would never have found him."
+
+"And what's going to happen to the youth now?"
+
+"Oh, his father's going to take him to Australia as he arranged. They
+sail to-morrow. There's one thing," Mark added with a kind of gloomy
+relish. "He's bound to go to the bad, and perhaps that'll be a lesson to
+his father."
+
+The hope of the Vicar of Meade Cantorum and equally it may be added the
+hope of Mr. Lidderdale that the affair would be kept out of the papers
+was not fulfilled. The day after Mr. Pomeroy and his son sailed from
+Tilbury the following communication appeared in _The Times_:
+
+     Sir,--The accompanying letter was handed to me by my friend the
+     Reverend Eustace Pomeroy to be used as I thought fit and subject to
+     only one stipulation--that it should not be published until he and
+     his son were out of England. As President of the Society for the
+     Protection of the English Church against Romish Aggression I feel
+     that it is my duty to lay the facts before the country. I need
+     scarcely add that I have been at pains to verify the surprising and
+     alarming accusations made by a clergyman against two other
+     clergymen, and I earnestly request the publicity of your columns
+     for what I venture to believe is positive proof of the dangerous
+     conspiracy existing in our very midst to romanize the Established
+     Church of England. I shall be happy to produce for any of your
+     readers who find Mr. Pomeroy's story incredible at the close of the
+     nineteenth century the signed statements of witnesses and other
+     documentary evidence.
+
+     I am, Sir,
+
+     Your obedient servant,
+
+     Danvers.
+
+
+     The Right Honble. the Lord Danvers, P.C.
+
+     President of the Society for the Protection of the English Church
+     against Romish Aggression.
+
+     My Lord,
+
+     I have to bring to your notice as President of the S.P.E. C.R.A.
+     what I venture to assert is one of the most daring plots to subvert
+     home and family life in the interests of priestcraft that has ever
+     been discovered. In taking this step I am fully conscious of its
+     seriousness, and if I ask your lordship to delay taking any
+     measures for publicity until the unhappy principal is upon the high
+     seas in the guardianship of his even more unhappy father, I do so
+     for the sake of the wretched boy whose future has been nearly
+     blasted by the Jesuitical behaviour of two so-called Protestant
+     clergymen.
+
+     Four years ago, my lord, I retired from a lifelong career as a
+     missionary in New Guinea to give my children the advantages of
+     English education and English climate, and it is surely hard that I
+     should live to curse the day on which I did so. My third son Cyril
+     was sent to school at Haverton House, Slowbridge, to an educational
+     establishment kept by a Mr. Henry Lidderdale, reputed to be a
+     strong Evangelical and I believe I am justified in saying rightly
+     so reputed. At the same time I regret that Mr. Lidderdale, whose
+     brother was a notorious Romanizer I have since discovered, should
+     not have exercised more care in the supervision of his nephew, a
+     fellow scholar with my own son at Haverton House. It appears that
+     Mr. Lidderdale was so lax as to permit his nephew to frequent the
+     services of the Reverend Stephen Ogilvie at Meade Cantorum, where
+     every excess such as incense, lighted candles, mariolatry and
+     creeping to the cross is openly practised. The Revd. S. Ogilvie I
+     may add is a member of the S.S.C., that notorious secret society
+     whose machinations have been so often exposed and the originators
+     of that filthy book "The Priest in Absolution." He is also a member
+     of the Guild of All Souls which has for its avowed object the
+     restoration of the Romish doctrine of Purgatory with all its
+     attendant horrors, and finally I need scarcely add he is a member
+     of the Confraternity of the "Blessed Sacrament" which seeks openly
+     to popularize the idolatrous and blasphemous cult of the Mass.
+
+     Young Lidderdale presumably under the influence of this disloyal
+     Protestant clergyman sought to corrupt my son, and was actually so
+     far successful as to lure him to attend the idolatrous services at
+     Meade Cantorum church, which of course he was only able to do by
+     inventing lies and excuses to his father to account for his absence
+     from the simple worship to which all his life he had been
+     accustomed. Not content with this my unhappy son was actually
+     persuaded to confess his sins to this self-styled "priest"! I
+     wonder if he confessed the sin of deceiving his own father to
+     "Father" Ogilvie who supplied him with numerous Mass books, several
+     of which I enclose for your lordship's inspection. You will be
+     amused if you are not too much horrified by these puerile and
+     degraded works, and in one of them, impudently entitled "Catholic
+     Prayers for Church of England People" you will actually see in cold
+     print a prayer for the "Pope of Rome." This work emanates from that
+     hotbed of sacerdotal disloyalty, St. Alban's, Holborn.
+
+     These vile books I discovered by accident carefully hidden away in
+     my son's bedroom. "Facilis descensus Averni!" You will easily
+     imagine the humiliation of a parent who, having devoted his life to
+     bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathen, finds that his own
+     son has fallen as low as the lowest savage. As soon as I made my
+     discovery, I removed him from Haverton House, and warned the
+     proprietor of the risk he was running by not taking better care of
+     his pupils. Having been summoned to a conference of missionaries in
+     Sydney, N.S.W., I determined to take my son with me in the hope
+     that a long voyage in the company of a loving parent, eager to help
+     him back to the path of Truth and Salvation from which he had
+     strayed, might cure him of his idolatrous fancies, and restore him
+     to Jesus.
+
+     What followed is, as I write this, scarcely credible to myself;
+     but however incredible, it is true. Young Lidderdale, acting no
+     doubt at the instigation of "Father" Ogilvie (as my son actually
+     called him to my face, not realizing the blasphemy of according to
+     a mortal clergyman the title that belongs to God alone), entered
+     into a conspiracy with another Romanizing clergyman, the Reverend
+     Oliver Dorward, Vicar of Green Lanes, Hants, to abduct my son from
+     his own father's house, with what ultimate intention I dare not
+     think. Incredible as it must sound to modern ears, they were so far
+     successful that for a whole week I was in ignorance of his
+     whereabouts, while detectives were hunting for him up and down
+     England. The abduction was carried out by young Lidderdale, with
+     the assistance of a youth called Hacking, so coolly and skilfully
+     as to indicate that the abettors behind the scenes are USED TO SUCH
+     ABDUCTIONS. This, my lord, points to a very grave state of affairs
+     in our midst. If the son of a Protestant clergyman like myself can
+     be spirited away from a populous but nevertheless comparatively
+     small town like Slowbridge, what must be going on in great cities
+     like London? Moreover, everything is done to make it attractive for
+     the unhappy youth who is thus lured away from his father's hearth.
+     My own son is even now still impenitent, and I have the greatest
+     fears for his moral and religious future, so rapid has been the
+     corruption set up by evil companionship.
+
+     These, my lord, are the facts set out as shortly as possible and
+     written on the eve of my departure in circumstances that militate
+     against elegance of expression. I am, to tell the truth, still
+     staggered by this affair, and if I make public my sorrow and my
+     shame I do so in the hope that the Society of which your lordship
+     is President, may see its way to take some kind of action that will
+     make a repetition of such an outrage upon family life for ever
+     impossible.
+
+     Believe me to be,
+
+     Your lordship's obedient servant,
+
+     Eustace Pomeroy.
+
+The publication of this letter stirred England. _The Times_ in a leading
+article demanded a full inquiry into the alleged circumstances. _The
+English Churchman_ said that nothing like it had happened since the days
+of Bloody Mary. Questions were asked in the House of Commons, and
+finally when it became known that Lord Danvers would ask a question in
+the House of Lords, Mr. Ogilvie took Mark to see Lord Hull who wished to
+be in possession of the facts before he rose to correct some
+misapprehensions of Lord Danvers. Mark also had to interview two
+Bishops, an Archdeacon, and a Rural Dean. He did not realize that for a
+few weeks he was a central figure in what was called THE CHURCH CRISIS.
+He was indignant at Mr. Pomeroy's exaggeration and perversions of fact,
+and he was so evidently speaking the truth that everybody from Lord Hull
+to a reporter of _The Sun_ was impressed by his account of the affair,
+so that in the end the Pomeroy Abduction was decided to be less
+revolutionary than the Gunpowder Plot.
+
+Mr. Lidderdale, however, believed that his nephew had deliberately tried
+to ruin him out of malice, and when two parents seized the opportunity
+of such a scandal to remove their sons from Haverton House without
+paying the terminal fees, Mr. Lidderdale told Mark that he should recoup
+himself for the loss out of the money left by his mother.
+
+"How much did she leave?" his nephew asked.
+
+"Don't ask impertinent questions."
+
+"But it's my money, isn't it?"
+
+"It will be your money in another six years, if you behave yourself.
+Meanwhile half of it will be devoted to paying your premium at the
+office of my friend Mr. Hitchcock."
+
+"But I don't want to be a solicitor. I want to be a priest," said Mark.
+
+Uncle Henry produced a number of cogent reasons that would make his
+nephew's ambition unattainable.
+
+"Very well, if I can't be a priest, I don't want the money, and you can
+keep it yourself," said Mark. "But I'm not going to be a solicitor."
+
+"And what are you going to be, may I inquire?" asked Uncle Henry.
+
+"In the end I probably _shall_ be a priest," Mark prophesied. "But I
+haven't quite decided yet how. I warn you that I shall run away."
+
+"Run away," his uncle echoed in amazement. "Good heavens, boy, haven't
+you had enough of running away over this deplorable Pomeroy affair?
+Where are you going to run to?"
+
+"I couldn't tell you, could I, even if I knew?" Mark asked as tactfully
+as he was able. "But as a matter of fact, I don't know. I only know that
+I won't go into Mr. Hitchcock's office. If you try to force me, I shall
+write to _The Times_ about it."
+
+Such a threat would have sounded absurd in the mouth of a schoolboy
+before the Pomeroy business; but now Mr. Lidderdale took it seriously
+and began to wonder if Haverton House would survive any more of such
+publicity. When a few days later Mr. Ogilvie, whom Mark had consulted
+about his future, wrote to propose that Mark should live with him and
+work under his superintendence with the idea of winning a scholarship at
+Oxford, Mr. Lidderdale was inclined to treat his suggestion as a
+solution of the problem, and he replied encouragingly:
+
+     Haverton House,
+
+     Slowbridge.
+
+     Jan. 15.
+
+     Dear Sir,
+
+     Am I to understand from your letter that you are offering to make
+     yourself responsible for my nephew's future, for I must warn you
+     that I could not accept your suggestion unless such were the case?
+     I do not approve of what I assume will be the trend of your
+     education, and I should have to disclaim any further responsibility
+     in the matter of my nephew's future. I may inform you that I hold
+     in trust for him until he comes of age the sum of £522 8s. 7d.
+     which was left by his mother. The annual interest upon this I have
+     used until now as a slight contribution to the expense to which I
+     have been put on his account; but I have not thought it right to
+     use any of the capital sum. This I am proposing to transfer to you.
+     His mother did not execute any legal document and I have nothing
+     more binding than a moral obligation. If you undertake the
+     responsibility of looking after him until such time as he is able
+     to earn his own living, I consider that you are entitled to use
+     this money in any way you think right. I hope that the boy will
+     reward your confidence more amply than he has rewarded mine. I need
+     not allude to the Pomeroy business to you, for notwithstanding your
+     public denials I cannot but consider that you were as deeply
+     implicated in that disgraceful affair as he was. I note what you
+     say about the admiration you had for my brother. I wish I could
+     honestly say that I shared that admiration. But my brother and I
+     were not on good terms, for which state of affairs he was entirely
+     responsible. I am more ready to surrender to you all my authority
+     over Mark because I am only too well aware how during the last year
+     you have consistently undermined that authority and encouraged my
+     nephew's rebellious spirit. I have had a great experience of boys
+     during thirty-five years of schoolmastering, and I can assure you
+     that I have never had to deal with a boy so utterly insensible to
+     kindness as my nephew. His conduct toward his aunt I can only
+     characterize as callous. Of his conduct towards me I prefer to say
+     no more. I came forward at a moment when he was likely to be sunk
+     in the most abject poverty, and my reward has been ingratitude. I
+     pray that his dark and stubborn temperament may not turn to vice
+     and folly as he grows older, but I have little hope of its not
+     doing so. I confess that to me his future seems dismally black. You
+     may have acquired some kind of influence over his emotions, if he
+     has any emotions, but I am not inclined to suppose that it will
+     endure.
+
+     On hearing from you that you persist in your offer to assume
+     complete responsibility for my nephew, I will hand him over to your
+     care at once. I cannot pretend that I shall be sorry to see the
+     last of him, for I am not a hypocrite. I may add that his clothes
+     are in rather a sorry state. I had intended to equip him upon his
+     entering the office of my old friend Mr. Hitchcock and with that
+     intention I have been letting him wear out what he has. This, I may
+     say, he has done most effectually.
+
+     I am, Sir,
+
+     Yours faithfully,
+
+     Henry Lidderdale.
+
+To which Mr. Ogilvie replied:
+
+     The Vicarage,
+
+     Meade Cantorum,
+
+     Bucks.
+
+     Jan. 16.
+
+     Dear Mr. Lidderdale,
+
+     I accept full responsibility for Mark and for Mark's money. Send
+     both of them along whenever you like. I'm not going to embark on
+     another controversy about the "rights" of boys. I've exhausted
+     every argument on this subject since Mark involved me in his
+     drastic measures of a month ago. But please let me assure you that
+     I will do my best for him and that I am convinced he will do his
+     best for me.
+
+     Yours truly,
+
+     Stephen Ogilvie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WYCH-ON-THE-WOLD
+
+
+Mark rarely visited his uncle and aunt after he went to live at Meade
+Cantorum; and the break was made complete soon afterward when the living
+of Wych-on-the-Wold was accepted by Mr. Ogilvie, so complete indeed that
+he never saw his relations again. Uncle Henry died five years later;
+Aunt Helen went to live at St. Leonard's, where she took up palmistry
+and became indispensable to the success of charitable bazaars in East
+Sussex.
+
+Wych, a large village on a spur of the Cotswold hills, was actually in
+Oxfordshire, although by so bare a margin that all the windows looked
+down into Gloucestershire, except those in the Rectory; they looked out
+across a flat country of elms and willow-bordered streams to a flashing
+spire in Northamptonshire reputed to be fifty miles away. It was a high
+windy place, seeming higher and windier on account of the numbers of
+pigeons that were always circling round the church tower. There was
+hardly a house in Wych that did not have its pigeon-cote, from the great
+round columbary in the Rectory garden to the few holes in a gable-end of
+some steep-roofed cottage. Wych was architecturally as perfect as most
+Cotswold villages, and if it lacked the variety of Wychford in the vale
+below, that was because the exposed position had kept its successive
+builders too intent on solidity to indulge their fancy. The result was
+an austere uniformity of design that accorded fittingly with a landscape
+whose beauty was all of line and whose colour like the lichen on an old
+wall did not flauntingly reveal its gradations of tint to the transient
+observer. The bleak upland airs had taught the builders to be sparing
+with their windows; the result of such solicitude for the comfort of the
+inmates was a succession of blank spaces of freestone that delighted
+the eye with an effect of strength and leisure, of cleanliness and
+tranquillity.
+
+The Rectory, dating from the reign of Charles II, did not arrogate to
+itself the right to retire behind trees from the long line of the single
+village street; but being taller than the other houses it brought the
+street to a dignified conclusion, and it was not unworthy of the noble
+church which stood apart from the village, a landmark for miles, upon
+the brow of the rolling wold. There was little traffic on the road that
+climbed up from Wychford in the valley of the swift Greenrush five miles
+away, and there was less traffic on the road beyond, which for eight
+miles sent branch after branch to remote farms and hamlets until itself
+became no more than a sheep track and faded out upon a hilly pasturage.
+Yet even this unfrequented road only bisected the village at the end of
+its wide street, where in the morning when the children were at school
+and the labourers at work in the fields the silence was cloistral, where
+one could stand listening to the larks high overhead, and where the
+lightest footstep aroused curiosity, so that one turned the head to peep
+and peer for the cause of so strange a sound.
+
+Mr. Ogilvie's parish had a large superficial area; but his parishioners
+were not many outside the village, and in that country of wide pastures
+the whole of his cure did not include half-a-dozen farms. There was no
+doctor and no squire, unless Will Starling of Rushbrooke Grange could be
+counted as the squire.
+
+Halfway to Wychford and close to the boundary of the two parishes an
+infirm signpost managed with the aid of a stunted hawthorn to keep
+itself partially upright and direct the wayfarer to Wych Maries. Without
+the signpost nobody would have suspected that the grassgrown track thus
+indicated led anywhere except over the top of the wold.
+
+"You must go and explore Wych Maries," the Rector had said to Mark soon
+after they arrived. "You'll find it rather attractive. There's a disused
+chapel dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin and St. Mary Magdalene. My
+predecessor took me there when we drove round the parish on my first
+visit; but I haven't yet had time to go again. And you ought to have a
+look at the gardens of Rushbrooke Grange. The present squire is away. In
+the South Seas, I believe. But the housekeeper, Mrs. Honeybone, will
+show you round."
+
+It was in response to this advice that Mark and Esther set out on a
+golden May evening to explore Wych Maries. Esther had continued to be
+friendly with Mark after the Pomeroy affair; and when he came to live at
+Meade Cantorum she had expressed her pleasure at the prospect of having
+him for a brother.
+
+"But you'll keep off religion, won't you?" she had demanded.
+
+Mark promised that he would, wondering why she should suppose that he
+was incapable of perceiving who was and who was not interested in it.
+
+"I suppose you've guessed my fear?" she had continued. "Haven't you?
+Haven't you guessed that I'm frightened to death of becoming religious?"
+
+The reassuring contradiction that one naturally gives to anybody who
+voices a dread of being overtaken by some misfortune might perhaps have
+sounded inappropriate, and Mark had held his tongue.
+
+"My father was very religious. My mother is more or less religious.
+Stephen is religious. Miriam is religious. Oh, Mark, and I sometimes
+feel that I too must fall on my knees and surrender. But I won't.
+Because it spoils life. I shall be beaten in the end of course, and I'll
+probably get religious mania when I am beaten. But until then--" She did
+not finish her sentence; only her blue eyes glittered at the challenge
+of life.
+
+That was the last time religion was mentioned between Mark and Esther,
+and since both of them enjoyed the country they became friends. On this
+May evening they stood by the signpost and looked across the shimmering
+grass to where the sun hung in his web of golden haze above the edge of
+the wold.
+
+"If we take the road to Wych Maries," said Mark, "we shall be walking
+right into the sun."
+
+Esther did not reply, but Mark understood that she assented to his
+truism, and they walked on as silent as the long shadows that followed
+them. A quarter of a mile from the high road the path reached the edge
+of the wold and dipped over into a wood which was sparse just below the
+brow, but which grew denser down the slope with many dark evergreens
+interspersed, and in the valley below became a jungle. After the bare
+upland country this volume of May verdure seemed indescribably rich and
+the valley beyond, where the Greenrush flowed through kingcups toward
+the sun, indescribably alluring. Esther and Mark forgot that they were
+exploring Wych Maries and thinking only of reaching that wide valley
+they ran down through the wood, rejoicing in the airy green of the
+ash-trees above them and shouting as they ran. But presently cypresses
+and sombre yews rose on either side of the path, and the road to Wych
+Maries was soft and silent, and the serene sun was lost, and their
+whispering footsteps forbade them to shout any more. At the bottom of
+the hill the trees increased in number and variety; the sun shone
+through pale oak-leaves and the warm green of sycamores. Nevertheless a
+sadness haunted the wood, where the red campions made only a mist of
+colour with no reality of life and flowers behind.
+
+"This wood's awfully jolly, isn't it?" said Mark, hoping to gain from
+Esther's agreement the dispersal of his gloom.
+
+"I don't care for it much," she replied. "There doesn't seem to be any
+life in it."
+
+"I heard a cuckoo just now," said Mark.
+
+"Yes, out of tune already."
+
+"Mm, rather out of tune. Mind those nettles," he warned her.
+
+"I thought Stephen said he drove here."
+
+"Perhaps we've come the wrong way. I believe the road forked by the ash
+wood above. Anyway if we go toward the sun we shall come out in the
+valley, and we can walk back along the banks of the river to Wychford."
+
+"We can always go back through the wood," said Esther.
+
+"Yes, if you don't mind going back the way you came."
+
+"Come on," she snapped. She was not going to be laughed at by Mark, and
+she dared him to deny that he was not as much aware as herself of an
+eeriness in the atmosphere.
+
+"Only because it seems dark in here after that dazzling sunlight on the
+wold. Hark! I hear the sound of water."
+
+They struggled through the undergrowth toward the sound; soon from a
+steep wooded bank they were gazing down into a millpool, the surface of
+which reflected with a gloomy deepening of their hue the colour but not
+the form of the trees above. Water was flowing through a rotten sluice
+gate down from the level of the stream upon a slimy water-wheel that
+must have been out of action for many years.
+
+"The dark tarn of Auber in the misty mid region of Weir!" Mark
+exclaimed. "Don't you love _Ulalume_? I think it's about my favourite
+poem."
+
+"Never heard of it," Esther replied indifferently. He might have taken
+advantage of this confession to give her a lecture on poetry, if the
+millpool and the melancholy wood had not been so affecting as to make
+the least attempt at literary exposition impertinent.
+
+"And there's the chapel," Mark exclaimed, pointing to a ruined edifice
+of stone, the walls of which were stained with the damp of years rising
+from the pool. "But how shall we reach it? We must have come the wrong
+way."
+
+"Let's go back! Let's go back!" Esther exclaimed, surrendering to the
+command of an intuition that overcame her pride. "This place is
+unlucky."
+
+Mark looking at her wild eyes, wilder in the dark that came so early in
+this overshadowed place, was half inclined to turn round at her behest;
+but at that moment he perceived a possible path through the nettles and
+briers at the farther end of the pool and unwilling to go back to the
+Rectory without having visited the ruined chapel of Wych Maries he
+called on her to follow him. This she did fearfully at first; but
+gradually regaining her composure she emerged on the other side as cool
+and scornful as the Esther with whom he was familiar.
+
+"What frightened you?" he asked, when they were standing on a grassgrown
+road that wound through a rank pasturage browsed on by a solitary black
+cow and turned the corner by a clump of cedars toward a large building,
+the presence of which was felt rather than seen beyond the trees.
+
+"I was bored by the brambles," Esther offered for explanation.
+
+"This must be the driving road," Mark proclaimed. "I say, this chapel is
+rather ripping, isn't it?"
+
+But Esther had wandered away across the rank meadow, where her
+meditative form made the solitary black cow look lonelier than ever.
+Mark turned aside to examine the chapel. He had been warned by the
+Rector to look at the images of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Mary
+Magdalene that had survived the ruin of the holy place of which they
+were tutelary and to which they had given their name. The history of the
+chapel was difficult to trace. It was so small as to suggest that it was
+a chantry; but there was no historical justification for linking its
+fortunes with the Starlings who owned Rushbrooke Grange, and there was
+no record of any lost hamlet here. That it was called Wych Maries might
+show a connexion either with Wychford or with Wych-on-the-Wold; it lay
+about midway between the two, and in days gone by there had been
+controversy on this point between the two parishes. The question had
+been settled by a squire of Rushbrooke's buying it in the eighteenth
+century, since when a legend had arisen that it was built and endowed by
+some crusading Starling of the thirteenth century. There was record
+neither of its glory nor of its decline, nor of what manner of folk
+worshipped there, nor of those who destroyed it. The roofless haunt of
+bats and owls, preserved from complete collapse by the ancient ivy that
+covered its walls, the mortar between its stones the prey of briers, its
+floor a nettle bed, the chapel remained a mystery. Yet over the arch of
+the west door the two Maries gazed heavenward as they had gazed for six
+hundred years. The curiosity of the few antiquarians who visited the
+place and speculated upon its past had kept the images clear of the ivy
+that covered the rest of the fabric. Mark did not put this to the credit
+of the antiquarians; but now perceiving for the first time these two
+austere shapes of divine women under conditions of atmosphere that
+enhanced their austerity and unearthliness he ascribed their freedom
+from decay to the interposition of God. To Mark's imagination, fixed
+upon the images while Esther wandered solitary in the field beyond the
+chapel, there was granted another of those moments of vision which
+marked like milestones his spiritual progress. He became suddenly
+assured that he would neither marry nor beget children. He was
+astonished to find himself in the grip of this thought, for his mind had
+never until this evening occupied itself with marriage or children, nor
+even with love. Yet here he was obsessed by the conviction of his finite
+purpose in the scheme of the world. He could not, he said to himself, be
+considered credulous if he sought for the explanation of his state of
+mind in the images of the two Maries. He looked at them resolved to
+illuminate with reason's eye the fluttering shadows of dusk that gave to
+the stone an illusion of life's bloom.
+
+"Did their lips really move?" he asked aloud, and from the field beyond
+the black cow lowed a melancholy negative. Whether the stone had spoken
+or not, Mark accepted the revelation of his future as a Divine favour,
+and thenceforth he regarded the ruined chapel of Wych Maries as the
+place where the vow he made on that Whit-sunday was accepted by God.
+
+"Aren't you ever coming?" the voice of Esther called across the field,
+and Mark hurried away to rejoin her on the grassgrown drive that led
+round the cedar grove to Rushbrooke Grange.
+
+"It's too late now to go inside," he objected.
+
+They were standing before the house.
+
+"It's not too late at all," she contradicted eagerly. "Down here it
+seems later than it really is."
+
+Rushbrooke Grange lacked the architectural perfection of the average
+Cotswold manor. Being a one-storied building it occupied a large
+superficial area, and its tumbling irregular roofs of freestone, the
+outlines of which were blurred by the encroaching mist of vegetation
+that overhung them, gave the effect of water, as if the atmosphere of
+this dank valley had wrought upon the substance of the building and as
+if the architects themselves had been confused by the rivalry of the
+trees by which it was surrounded. The owners of Rushbrooke Grange had
+never occupied a prominent position in the county, and their estates had
+grown smaller with each succeeding generation. There was no conspicuous
+author of their decay, no outstanding gamester or libertine from whose
+ownership the family's ruin could be dated. There was indeed nothing of
+interest in their annals except an attack upon the Grange by a party of
+armed burglars in the disorderly times at the beginning of the
+nineteenth century, when the squire's wife and two little girls were
+murdered while the squire and his sons were drinking deep in the Stag
+Inn at Wychford four miles away. Mark did not feel much inclined to
+blunt his impression of the chapel by perambulating Rushbrooke Grange
+under the guidance of Mrs. Honeybone, the old housekeeper; but Esther
+perversely insisted upon seeing the garden at any rate, giving as her
+excuse that the Rector would like them to pay the visit. By now it was a
+pink and green May dusk; the air was plumy with moths' wings, heavy with
+the scent of apple blossom.
+
+"Well, you must explain who we are," said Mark while the echoes of the
+bell died away on the silence within the house and they waited for the
+footsteps that should answer their summons. The answer came from a
+window above the porch where Mrs. Honeybone's face, wreathed in
+wistaria, looked down and demanded in accents that were harsh with alarm
+who was there.
+
+"I am the Rector's sister, Mrs. Honeybone," Esther explained.
+
+"I don't care who you are," said Mrs. Honeybone. "You have no business
+to go ringing the bell at this time of the evening. It frightened me to
+death."
+
+"The Rector asked me to call on you," she pressed.
+
+Mark had already been surprised by Esther's using her brother as an
+excuse to visit the house and he was still more surprised by hearing her
+speak so politely, so ingratiatingly, it seemed, to this grim woman
+embowered in wistaria.
+
+"We lost our way," Esther explained, "and that's why we're so late. The
+Rector told me about the water-lily pool, and I should so much like to
+see it."
+
+Mrs. Honeybone debated with herself for a moment, until at last with a
+grunt of disapproval she came downstairs and opened the front door. The
+lily pool, now a lily pool only in name, for it was covered with an
+integument of duckweed which in twilight took on the texture of velvet,
+was an attractive place set in an enclosure of grass between high grey
+walls.
+
+"That's all there is to see," said Mrs. Honeybone.
+
+"Mr. Starling is abroad?" Esther asked.
+
+The housekeeper nodded.
+
+"And when is he coming back?" she went on.
+
+"That's for him to say," said the housekeeper disagreeably. "He might
+come back to-night for all I know."
+
+Almost before the sentence was out of her mouth the hall bell jangled,
+and a distant voice shouted:
+
+"Nanny, Nanny, hurry up and open the door!"
+
+Mrs. Honeybone could not have looked more startled if the voice had been
+that of a ghost. Mark began to talk of going until Esther cut him short.
+
+"I don't think Mr. Starling will mind our being here so much as that,"
+she said.
+
+Mrs. Honeybone had already hurried off to greet her master; and when she
+was gone Mark looked at Esther, saw that her face was strangely flushed,
+and in an instant of divination apprehended either that she had already
+met the squire of Rushbrooke Grange or that she expected to meet him
+here to-night; so that, when presently a tall man of about thirty-five
+with brick-dust cheeks came into the close, he was not taken aback when
+Esther greeted him by name with the assurance of old friendship. Nor was
+he astonished that even in the wan light those brick-dust cheeks should
+deepen to terra-cotta, those hard blue eyes glitter with recognition,
+and the small thin-lipped mouth lose for a moment its immobility and
+gape, yes, gape, in the amazement of meeting somebody whom he never
+could have expected to meet at such an hour in such a place.
+
+"You," he exclaimed. "You here!"
+
+By the way he quickly looked behind him as if to intercept a prying
+glance Mark knew that, whatever the relationship between Esther and the
+squire had been in the past, it had been a relationship in which
+secrecy had played a part. In that moment between him and Will Starling
+there was enmity.
+
+"You couldn't have expected him to make a great fuss about a boy," said
+Esther brutally on their way back to the Rectory.
+
+"I suppose you think that's the reason why I don't like him," said Mark.
+"I don't want him to take any notice of me, but I think it's very odd
+that you shouldn't have said a word about knowing him even to his
+housekeeper."
+
+"It was a whim of mine," she murmured. "Besides, I don't know him very
+well. We met at Eastbourne once when I was staying there with Mother."
+
+"Well, why didn't he say 'How do you do, Miss Ogilvie?' instead of
+breathing out 'you' like that?"
+
+Esther turned furiously upon Mark.
+
+"What has it got to do with you?"
+
+"Nothing whatever to do with me," he said deliberately. "But if you
+think you're going to make a fool of me, you're not. Are you going to
+tell your brother you knew him?"
+
+Esther would not answer, and separated by several yards they walked
+sullenly back to the Rectory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ST. MARK'S DAY
+
+
+Mark tried next day to make up his difference with Esther; but she
+repulsed his advances, and the friendship that had blossomed after the
+Pomeroy affair faded and died. There was no apparent dislike on either
+side, nothing more than a coolness as of people too well used to each
+other's company. In a way this was an advantage for Mark, who was having
+to apply himself earnestly to the amount of study necessary to win a
+scholarship at Oxford. Companionship with Esther would have meant
+considerable disturbance of his work, for she was a woman who depended
+on the inspiration of the moment for her pastimes and pleasures, who was
+impatient of any postponement and always avowedly contemptuous of Mark's
+serious side. His classical education at Haverton House had made little
+of the material bequeathed to him by his grandfather's tuition at
+Nancepean. None of his masters had been enough of a scholar or enough of
+a gentleman (and to teach Latin and Greek well one must be one or the
+other) to educate his taste. The result was an assortment of grammatical
+facts to which he was incapable of giving life. If the Rector of
+Wych-on-the-Wold was not a great scholar, he was at least able to repair
+the neglect of, more than the neglect of, the positive damage done to
+Mark's education by the meanness of Haverton House; moreover, after Mark
+had been reading with him six months he did find a really first-class
+scholar in Mr. Ford, the Vicar of Little Fairfield. Mark worked
+steadily, and existence in Oxfordshire went by without any great
+adventures of mind, body, or spirit. Life at the Rectory had a kind of
+graceful austerity like the well-proportioned Rectory itself. If Mark
+had bothered to analyze the cause of this graceful austerity, he might
+have found it in the personality of the Rector's elder sister Miriam.
+Even at Meade Cantorum, when he was younger, Mark had been fully
+conscious of her qualities; but here they found a background against
+which they could display themselves more perfectly. When they moved from
+Buckinghamshire and the new rector was seeing how much Miriam
+appreciated the new surroundings, he sold out some stock and presented
+her with enough ready money to express herself in the outward beauty of
+the Rectory's refurbishing. He was luckily not called upon to spend a
+great deal on the church, both his predecessors having maintained the
+fabric with care, and the fabric itself being sound enough and
+magnificent enough to want no more than that. Miriam, though shaking one
+of those capable and well-tended fingers at her beloved brother's
+extravagance, accepted the gift with an almost childish determination to
+give full value of beauty in return, so that there should not be a
+servant's bedroom nor a cupboard nor a corridor that did not display the
+evidence of her appreciation in loving care. The garden was handed over
+to Mrs. Ogilvie, who as soon as May warmed its high enclosures bloomed
+there like one of her own favourite peonies, rosy of face and fragrant,
+ample of girth, golden-hearted.
+
+Outside the Rectory Mark spent most of his time with Richard Ford, the
+son of the Vicar of Little Fairfield, with whom he went to work in the
+autumn after his arrival in Oxfordshire. Here again Mark was lucky, for
+Richard, who was a year or two older than himself and a student at
+Cooper's Hill whence he would emerge as a civil engineer bound for
+India, was one of those entirely admirable young men who succeed in
+being saintly without any rapture or righteousness.
+
+Mark said one day:
+
+"Rector, you know, Richard Ford really is a saint; only for goodness'
+sake don't tell him I said so, because he'd be furious."
+
+The Rector stopped humming a joyful _Miserere_ to give Mark an assurance
+of his discretion. But Mark having said so much in praise of Richard
+could say no more, and indeed he would have found it hard to express in
+words what he felt about his friend.
+
+Mark accompanied Richard on his visits to Wychford Rectory where in
+this fortunate corner of England existed a third perfect family. Richard
+was deeply in love with Margaret Grey, the second daughter, and if Mark
+had ever been intended to fall in love he would certainly have fallen in
+love with Pauline, the youngest daughter, who was fourteen.
+
+"I could look at her for ever," he confided in Richard. "Walking down
+the road from Wych-on-the-Wold this morning I saw two blue butterflies
+on a wild rose, and they were like Pauline's eyes and the rose was like
+her cheek."
+
+"She's a decent kid," Richard agreed fervently.
+
+Mark had had such a limited experience of the world that the amenities
+of the society in which he found himself incorporated did not strike his
+imagination as remarkable. It was in truth one of those eclectic,
+somewhat exquisite, even slightly rarefied coteries which are produced
+partly by chance, partly by interests shared in common, but most of all,
+it would seem, by the very genius of the place. The genius of Cotswolds
+imparts to those who come beneath his influence the art of existing
+appropriately in the houses that were built at his inspiration. They do
+not boast of their privilege like the people of Sussex. They are not
+living up to a landscape so much as to an architecture, and their voices
+lowered harmoniously with the sigh of the wind through willows and
+aspens have not to compete with the sea-gales or the sea.
+
+Mark accepted the manners of the society in which good fortune had set
+him as the natural expression of an inward orderliness, a traditional
+respect for beauty like the ritual of Christian worship. That the three
+daughters of the Rector of Wychford should be critical of those who
+failed to conform to their inherited refinement of life did not strike
+him as priggish, because it never struck him for a moment that any other
+standard than theirs existed. He felt the same about people who objected
+to Catholic ceremonies; their dislike of them did not present itself to
+him as arising out of a different religious experience from his own; but
+it appeared as a propensity toward unmannerly behaviour, as a kind of
+wanton disregard of decency and good taste. He was indeed still at the
+age when externals possess not so much an undue importance, but when
+they affect a boy as a mould through which the plastic experience of his
+youth is passed and whence it emerges to harden slowly to the ultimate
+form of the individual. In the case of Mark there was the revulsion from
+the arid ugliness of Haverton House and the ambition to make up for
+those years of beauty withheld, both of which urged him on to take the
+utmost advantage of this opportunity to expose the blank surface of
+those years to the fine etching of the present. Miriam at home, the
+Greys at Wychford, and in some ways most of all Richard Ford at
+Fairfield gave him in a few months the poise he would have received more
+gradually from a public school education.
+
+So Mark read Greek with the Vicar of Little Fairfield and Latin with the
+Rector of Wych-on-the-Wold, who, amiable and holy man, had to work
+nearly twice as hard as his pupil to maintain his reserve of
+instruction. Mark took long walks with Richard Ford when Richard was
+home in his vacations, and long walks by himself when Richard was at
+Cooper's Hill. He often went to Wychford Rectory, where he learnt to
+enjoy Schumann and Beethoven and Bach and Brahms.
+
+"You're like three Saint Cecilias," he told them. "Monica is by Luini
+and Margaret is by Perugino and Pauline. . . ."
+
+"Oh, who am I by?" Pauline exclaimed, clapping her hands.
+
+"I give it up. You're just Saint Cecilia herself at fourteen."
+
+"Isn't Mark foolish?" Pauline laughed.
+
+"It's my birthday to-morrow," said Mark, "so I'm allowed to be foolish."
+
+"It's my birthday in a week," said Pauline. "And as I'm two years
+younger than you I can be two years more foolish."
+
+Mark looked at her, and he was filled with wonder at the sanctity of her
+maidenhood. Thenceforth meditating upon the Annunciation he should
+always clothe Pauline in a robe of white samite and set her in his
+mind's eye for that other maid of Jewry, even as painters found holy
+maids in Florence or Perugia for their bright mysteries.
+
+While Mark was walking back to Wych and when on the brow of the first
+rise of the road he stood looking down at Wychford in the valley below,
+a chill lisping wind from the east made him shiver and he thought of the
+lines in Keats' _Eve of St. Mark_:
+
+    _The chilly sunset faintly told_
+    _Of unmatured green vallies cold,_
+    _Of the green thorny bloomless hedge,_
+    _Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge,_
+    _Of primroses by shelter'd rills,_
+    _And daisies on the aguish hills._
+
+The sky in the west was an unmatured green valley tonight, where Venus
+bloomed like a solitary primrose; and on the dark hills of Heaven the
+stars were like daisies. He turned his back on the little town and set
+off up the hill again, while the wind slipped through the hedge beside
+him in and out of the blackthorn boughs, lisping, whispering, snuffling,
+sniffing, like a small inquisitive animal. He thought of Monica,
+Margaret, and Pauline playing in their warm, candle-lit room behind him,
+and he thought of Miriam reading in her tall-back chair before dinner,
+for Evensong would be over by now. Yes, Evensong would be over, he
+remembered penitently, and he ought to have gone this evening, which was
+the vigil of St. Mark and of his birthday. At this moment he caught
+sight of the Wych Maries signpost black against that cold green sky. He
+gave a momentary start, because seen thus the signpost had a human look;
+and when his heart beat normally it was roused again, this time by the
+sight of a human form indeed, the form of Esther, the wind blowing her
+skirts before her, hurrying along the road to which the signpost so
+crookedly pointed. Mark who had been climbing higher and higher now felt
+the power of that wind full on his cheeks. It was as if it had found
+what it wanted, for it no longer whispered and lisped among the boughs
+of the blackthorn, but blew fiercely over the wide pastures, driving
+Esther before it, cutting through Mark like a sword. By the time he had
+reached the signpost she had disappeared in the wood.
+
+Mark asked himself why she was going to Rushbrooke Grange.
+
+"To Rushbrooke Grange," he said aloud. "Why should I think she is going
+to Rushbrooke Grange?"
+
+Though even in this desolate place he would not say it aloud, the answer
+came back from this very afternoon when somebody had mentioned casually
+that the Squire was come home again. Mark half turned to follow Esther,
+but in the moment of turning he set his face resolutely in the direction
+of home. If Esther were really on her way to meet Will Starling, he
+would do more harm than good by appearing to pry.
+
+Esther was the flaw in Mark's crystal clear world. When a year ago they
+had quarrelled over his avowed dislike of Will Starling, she had gone
+back to her solitary walks and he conscious, painfully conscious, that
+she regarded him as a young prig, had with that foolish pride of youth
+resolved to be so far as she was concerned what she supposed him to be.
+His admiration for the Greys and the Fords had driven her into jeering
+at them; throughout the year Mark and she had been scarcely polite to
+each other even in public. The Rector and Miriam probably excused Mark's
+rudeness whenever he let himself give way to it, because their sister
+did not spare either of them, and they were made aware with exasperating
+insistence of the dullness of the country and of the dreariness of
+everybody who lived in the neighbourhood. Yet, Mark could never achieve
+that indifference to her attitude either toward himself or toward other
+people that he wished to achieve. It was odd that this evening he should
+have beheld her in that relation to the wind, because in his thoughts
+about her she always appeared to him like the wind, restlessly sighing
+and fluttering round a comfortable house. However steady the
+candle-light, however bright the fire, however absorbing the book,
+however secure one may feel by the fireside, the wind is always there;
+and throughout these tranquil months Esther had always been most
+unmistakably there.
+
+In the morning Mark went to Mass and made his Communion. It was a
+strangely calm morning; through the unstained windows of the clerestory
+the sun sloped quivering ladders of golden light. He looked round with
+half a hope that Esther was in the church; but she was absent, and
+throughout the service that brief vision of her dark transit across the
+cold green sky of yester eve kept recurring to his imagination, so that
+for all the rich peace of this interior he was troubled in spirit, and
+the intention to make this Mass upon his seventeenth birthday another
+spiritual experience was frustrated. In fact, he was worshipping
+mechanically, and it was only when Mass was over and he was kneeling to
+make an act of gratitude for his Communion that he began to apprehend
+how he was asking fresh favours from God without having moved a step
+forward to deserve them.
+
+"I think I'm too pleased with myself," he decided, "I think I'm
+suffering from spiritual pride. I think. . . ."
+
+He paused, wondering if it was blasphemous to have an intuition that God
+was about to play some horrible trick on him. Mark discussed with the
+Rector the theological aspects of this intuition.
+
+"The only thing I feel," said Mr. Ogilvie, "is that perhaps you are
+leading too sheltered a life here and that the explanation of your
+intuition is your soul's perception of this. Indeed, once or twice
+lately I have been on the point of warning you that you must not get
+into the habit of supposing you will always find the onset of the world
+so gentle as here."
+
+"But naturally I don't expect to," said Mark. "I was quite long enough
+at Haverton House to appreciate what it means to be here."
+
+"Yes," the Rector went on, "but even at Haverton House it was a passive
+ugliness, just as here it is a passive beauty. After our Lord had fasted
+forty days in the desert, accumulating reserves of spiritual energy,
+just as we in our poor human fashion try to accumulate in Lent reserves
+of spiritual energy that will enable us to celebrate Easter worthily, He
+was assailed by the Tempter more fiercely than ever during His life on
+earth. The history of all the early Egyptian monks, the history indeed
+of any life lived without losing sight of the way of spiritual
+perfection displays the same phenomena. In the action and reaction of
+experience, in the rise and fall of the tides, in the very breathing of
+the human lungs, you may perceive analogies of the divine rhythm. No, I
+fancy your intuition of this morning is nothing more than one of those
+movements which warn us that the sleeper will soon wake."
+
+Mark went away from this conversation with the Rector dissatisfied. He
+wanted something more than analogies taken from the experience of
+spiritual giants, Titans of holiness whose mighty conquests of the flesh
+seemed as remote from him as the achievements of Alexander might appear
+to a captain of the local volunteers. What he had gone to ask the Rector
+was whether it was blasphemous to suppose that God was going to play a
+horrible trick on him. He had not wanted a theological discussion, an
+academic question and reply. Anything could be answered like that,
+probably himself in another twenty years, when he had preached some
+hundreds of sermons, would talk like that. Moreover, when he was alone
+Mark understood that he had not really wanted to talk about his own
+troubles to the Rector at all, but that his real preoccupation had been
+and still was Esther. He wondered, oh, how much he wondered, if her
+brother had the least suspicion of her friendship with Will Starling, or
+if Miriam had had the least inkling that Esther had not come in till
+nine o'clock last night because she had been to Wych Maries? Mark,
+remembering those wild eyes and that windblown hair when she stood for a
+moment framed in the doorway of the Rector's library, could not believe
+that none of her family had guessed that something more than the whim to
+wander over the hills had taken her out on such a night. Did Mrs.
+Ogilvie, promenading so placidly along her garden borders, ever pause in
+perplexity at her daughter's behaviour? Calling them all to mind, their
+attitudes, the expressions of their faces, the words upon their lips,
+Mark was sure that none of them had any idea what Esther was doing. He
+debated now the notion of warning Miriam in veiled language about her
+sister; but such an idea would strike Miriam as monstrous, as a mad and
+horrible nightmare. Mark shivered at the mere fancy of the chill that
+would come over her and of the disdain in her eyes. Besides, what right
+had he on the little he knew to involve Esther with her family?
+Superficially he might count himself her younger brother; but if he
+presumed too far, with what a deadly retort might she not annihilate his
+claim. Most certainly he was not entitled to intervene unless he
+intervened bravely and directly. Mark shook his head at the prospect of
+doing that. He could not imagine anybody's tackling Esther directly on
+such a subject. Seventeen to-day! He looked out of the window and felt
+that he was bearing upon his shoulders the whole of that green world
+outspread before him.
+
+The serene morning ripened to a splendid noontide, and Mark who had
+intended to celebrate his birthday by enjoying every moment of it had
+allowed the best of the hours to slip away in a stupor of indecision.
+More and more the vision of Esther last night haunted him, and he felt
+that he could not go and see the Greys as he had intended. He could not
+bear the contemplation of the three girls with the weight of Esther on
+his mind. He decided to walk over to Little Fairfield and persuade
+Richard to make a journey of exploration up the Greenrush in a canoe. He
+would ask Richard his opinion of Will Starling. What a foolish notion!
+He knew perfectly well Richard's opinion of the Squire, and to lure him
+into a restatement of it would be the merest self-indulgence.
+
+"Well, I must go somewhere to-day," Mark shouted at himself. He secured
+a packet of sandwiches from the Rectory cook and set out to walk away
+his worries.
+
+"Why shouldn't I go down to Wych Maries? I needn't meet that chap. And
+if I see him I needn't speak to him. He's always been only too jolly
+glad to be offensive to me."
+
+Mark turned aside from the high road by the crooked signpost and took
+the same path down under the ash-trees as he had taken with Esther for
+the first time nearly a year ago. Spring was much more like Spring in
+these wooded hollows; the noise of bees in the blossom of the elms was
+murmurous as limes in June. Mark congratulated himself on the spot in
+which he had chosen to celebrate this fine birthday, a day robbed from
+time like the day of a dream. He ate his lunch by the old mill dam,
+feeding the roach with crumbs until an elderly pike came up from the
+deeps and frightened the smaller fish away. He searched for a
+bullfinch's nest; but he did not find one, though he saw several of the
+birds singing in the snowberry bushes; round and ruddy as October apples
+they looked. At last he went to the ruined chapel, where after
+speculating idly for a little while upon its former state he fell as he
+usually did when he visited Wych Maries into a contemplation of the two
+images of the Blessed Virgin and St. Mary Magdalene. While he sat on a
+hummock of grass before the old West doorway he received an impression
+that since he last visited these forms of stone they had ceased to be
+mere relics of ancient worship unaccountably preserved from ruin, but
+that they had somehow regained their importance. It was not that he
+discerned in them any miraculous quality of living, still less of
+winking or sweating as images are reputed to wink and sweat for the
+faithful. No, it was not that, he decided, although by regarding them
+thus entranced as he was he could easily have brought himself to the
+point of believing in a supernatural manifestation. He was too well
+aware of this tendency to surrender to it; so, rousing himself from the
+rapt contemplation of them and forsaking the hummock of grass, he
+climbed up into the branches of a yew-tree that stood beside the chapel,
+that there and from that elevation, viewing the images and yet unviewed
+by them directly, he could be immune from the magic of fancy and
+discover why they should give him this impression of having regained
+their utility, yes, that was the word, utility, not importance. They
+were revitalized not from within, but from without; and even as his mind
+leapt at this explanation he perceived in the sunlight, beyond the
+shadowy yew-tree in which he was perched, Esther sitting upon that
+hummock of grass where but a moment ago he had himself been sitting.
+
+For a moment, as if to contradict a reasonable explanation of the
+strange impression the images had made upon him, Mark supposed that she
+was come there for a tryst. This vanished almost at once in the
+conviction that Esther's soul waited there either in question or appeal.
+He restrained an impulse to declare his presence, for although he felt
+that he was intruding upon a privacy of the soul, he feared to destroy
+the fruits of that privacy by breaking in. He knew that Esther's pride
+would be so deeply outraged at having been discovered in a moment of
+weakness thus upon her knees, for she had by now fallen upon her knees
+in prayer, that it might easily happen she would never in all her life
+pray more. There was no escape for Mark without disturbing her, and he
+sat breathless in the yew-tree, thinking that soon she must perceive his
+glittering eye in the depths of the dark foliage as in passing a
+hedgerow one may perceive the eye of a nested bird. From his position he
+could see the images, and out of the spiritual agony of Esther kneeling
+there, the force of which was communicated to himself, he watched them
+close, scarcely able to believe that they would not stoop from their
+pedestals and console the suppliant woman with benediction of those
+stone hands now clasped aspiringly to God, themselves for centuries
+suppliant like the woman at their feet. Mark could think of nothing
+better to do than to turn his face from Esther's face and to say for her
+many _Paternosters_ and _Aves_. At first he thought that he was praying
+in a silence of nature; but presently the awkwardness of his position
+began to affect his concentration, and he found that he was saying the
+words mechanically, listening the while to the voices of birds. He
+compelled his attention to the prayers; but the birds were too loud. The
+_Paternosters_ and the _Aves_ were absorbed in their singing and
+chirping and twittering, so that Mark gave up to them and wished for a
+rosary to help his feeble attention. Yet could he have used a rosary
+without falling out of the yew-tree? He took his hands from the bough
+for a moment and nearly overbalanced. _Make not your rosary of yew
+berries_, he found himself saying. Who wrote that? _Make not your rosary
+of yew berries._ Why, of course, it was Keats. It was the first line of
+the _Ode to Melancholy_. Esther was still kneeling out there in the
+sunlight. And how did the poem continue? _Make not your rosary of yew
+berries._ What was the second line? It was ridiculous to sit astride a
+bough and say _Paternosters_ and _Aves_. He could not sit there much
+longer. And then just as he was on the point of letting go he saw that
+Esther had risen from her knees and that Will Starling was standing in
+the doorway of the chapel looking at her, not speaking but waiting for
+her to speak, while he wound a strand of ivy round his fingers and
+unwound it again, and wound it round again until it broke and he was
+saying:
+
+"I thought we agreed after your last display here that you'd give this
+cursed chapel the go by?"
+
+"I can't escape from it," Esther cried. "You don't understand, Will,
+what it means. You never have understood."
+
+"Dearest Essie, I understand only too well. I've paid pretty handsomely
+in having to listen to reproaches, in having to dry your tears and stop
+your sighs with kisses. Your damned religion is a joke. Can't you grasp
+that? It's not my fault we can't get married. If I were really the
+scoundrel you torment yourself into thinking I am, I would have married
+and taken the risk of my strumpet of a wife turning up. But I've treated
+you honestly, Essie. I can't help loving you. I went away once. I went
+away again. And a third time I went just to relieve your soul of the sin
+of loving me. But I'm sick of suffering for the sake of a myth, a
+superstition."
+
+Esther had moved close to him, and now she put a hand upon his arm.
+
+"To you, Will. Not to me."
+
+"Look here, Essie," said her lover. "If you knew that you were liable to
+these dreadful attacks of remorse and penitence, why did you ever
+encourage me?"
+
+"How dare you say I encouraged you?"
+
+"Now don't let your religion make you dishonest," he stabbed. "No man
+seduces a woman of your character without as much goodwill as deserves
+to be called encouragement, and by God _is_ encouragement," he went on
+furiously. "Let's cut away some of the cant before we begin arguing
+again about religion."
+
+"You don't know what a hell you're making for me when you talk like
+that," she gasped. "If I did encourage you, then my sin is a thousand
+times blacker."
+
+"Oh, don't exaggerate, my dear girl," he said wearily. "It isn't a sin
+for two people to love each other."
+
+"I've tried my best to think as you do, but I can't. I've avoided going
+to church. I've tried to hate religion, I've mocked at God . . ." she
+broke off in despair of explaining the force of grace, against the gift
+of which she had contended in vain.
+
+"I always thought you were brave, Essie. But you're a real coward. The
+reason for all this is your fear of being pitchforked into a big bonfire
+by a pantomime demon with horns and a long tail." He laughed bitterly.
+"To think that you, my adored Essie, should really have the soul of a
+Sunday school teacher. You, a Bacchante of passion, to be puling about
+your sins. You! You! Girl, you're mad! I tell you there is no such thing
+as damnation. It's a bogey invented by priests to enchain mankind. But
+if there is and if that muddle-headed old gentleman you call God really
+exists and if he's a just God, why then let him damn me and let him give
+you your harp and your halo while I burn for both. Essie, my mad foolish
+frightened Essie, can't you understand that if you give me up for this
+God of yours you'll drive me to murder. If I must marry you to hold you,
+why then I'll kill that cursed wife of mine. . . ."
+
+It was his turn now to break off in despair of being able to express his
+will to keep Esther for his own, and because argument seemed so hopeless
+he tried to take her in his arms, whereupon Mark who was aching with the
+effort to maintain himself unobserved upon the bough of the yew-tree
+said his _Paternosters_ and _Aves_ faster than ever, that she might have
+the strength to resist that scoundrel of Rushbrooke Grange. He longed to
+have the eloquence to make some wonderful prayer to the Blessed Virgin
+and St. Mary Magdalene so that a miracle might happen and their images
+point accusing hands at the blasphemer below.
+
+And then it seemed as if a miracle did happen, for out of the jangle of
+recriminations and appeals that now signified no more than the noise of
+trees in a storm he heard the voice of Esther gradually gain its right
+to be heard, gradually win from its rival silence until the tale was
+told.
+
+"I know that I am overcome by the saving grace of God," she was saying.
+"And I know that I owe it to them." She pointed to the holy women above
+the door. The squire shook his fist; but he still kept silence. "I have
+run away from God since I knew you, Will. I have loved you as much as
+that. I have gone to church only when I had to go for my brother's sake,
+but I have actually stuffed my ears with cotton wool so that no word
+there spoken might shake my faith in my right to love you. But it was
+all to no purpose. You know that it was you who told me always to come
+to our meetings through the wood and past the chapel. And however fast I
+went and however tight I shut myself up in thoughts of you and your love
+and my love I have always felt that these images spoke to me
+reproachfully in passing. It's not mere imagination, Will. Why, before
+we came to Wych-on-the-Wold when you went away to the Pacific that I
+might have peace of mind, I used always to be haunted by the idea that
+God was calling me back to Him, and I would run, yes, actually run
+through the woods until my legs have been torn by brambles."
+
+"Madness! Madness!" cried Starling.
+
+"Let it be madness. If God chooses to pursue a human soul with madness,
+the pursuit is not less swift and relentless for that. And I shook Him
+off. I escaped from religion; I prayed to the Devil to keep me wicked,
+so utterly did I love you. Then when my brother was offered
+Wych-on-the-Wold I felt that the Devil had heard my prayer and had
+indeed made me his own. That frightened me for a moment. When I wrote to
+you and said we were coming here and you hurried back, I can't describe
+to you the fear that overcame me when I first entered this hollow where
+you lived. Several times I'd tried to come down before you arrived here,
+but I'd always been afraid, and that was why the first night I brought
+Mark with me."
+
+"That long-legged prig and puppy," grunted the squire.
+
+Mark could have shouted for joy when he heard this, shouted because he
+was helping with his _Paternosters_ and his _Aves_ to drive this
+ruffian out of Esther's life for ever, shouted because his long legs
+were strong enough to hold on to this yew-tree bough.
+
+"He's neither a prig nor a puppy," Esther said. "I've treated him badly
+ever since he came to live with us, and I treated him badly on your
+account, because whenever I was with him I found it harder to resist the
+pursuit of God. Now let's leave Mark out of this. Everything was in your
+favour, I tell you. I was sure that the Devil. . . ."
+
+"The Devil!" Starling interrupted. "Your Devil, dear Essie, is as
+ridiculous as your God. It's only your poor old God with his face
+painted black like the bogey man of childhood."
+
+"I was sure that the Devil," Esther repeated without seeming to hear the
+blasphemy, "had taken me for his own and given us to each other. You to
+me. Me to you, my darling. I didn't care. I was ready to burn in Hell
+for you. So, don't call me coward, for mad though you think me I was
+ready to be damned for you, and _I_ believe in damnation. You don't. Yet
+the first time I passed by this chapel on my way to meet you again after
+that endless horrible parting I had to run away from the holy influence.
+I remember that there was a black cow in the field near the gates of the
+Grange, and I waited there while Mark poked about in this chapel, waited
+in the twilight afraid to go back and tell him to hurry in case I should
+be recaptured by God and meet you only to meet you never more."
+
+"I suppose you thought my old Kerry cow was the Devil, eh?" he sneered.
+
+She paid no attention, but continued enthralled by the passion of her
+spiritual adventure.
+
+"It was no use. I couldn't come by here every day and not go back. Why,
+once I opened the Bible at hazard just to show my defiance and I read
+_Her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much._ This must be
+the end of our love, my lover, for I can't go on. Those two stone Maries
+have brought me back to God. No more with you, my own beloved. No more,
+my darling, no more. And yet if even now with one kiss you could give me
+strength to sin I should rejoice. But they have made my lips as cold as
+their own, and my arms that once knew how to clasp you to my heart they
+have lifted up to Heaven like their own. I am going into a convent at
+once, where until I die I shall pray for you, my own love."
+
+The birds no longer sang nor twittered nor cheeped in the thickets
+around, but all passion throbbed in the voice of Esther when she spoke
+these words. She stood there with her hair in disarray transfigured like
+a tree in autumn on which the sunlight shines when the gale has died,
+but from which the leaves will soon fall because winter is at hand. Yet
+her lover was so little moved by her ordeal that he went back to
+mouthing his blasphemies.
+
+"Go then," he shouted. "But these two stone dolls shall not have power
+to drive my next mistress into folly. Wasn't Mary Magdalene a sinner?
+Didn't she fall in love with Christ? Of course, she did! And I'll make
+an example of her just as Christians make an example of all women who
+love much."
+
+The squire pulled himself up by the ivy and struck the image of St. Mary
+Magdalene on the face.
+
+"When you pray for me, dear Essie, in your convent of greensick women,
+don't forget that your patron saint was kicked from her pedestal by your
+lover."
+
+Starling was as good as his word; but the effort he made to overthrow
+the saint carried him with it; his foot catching in the ivy fell head
+downward and striking upon a stone was killed.
+
+Mark hesitated before he jumped down from his bough, because he dreaded
+to add to Esther's despair the thought of his having overheard all that
+went before. But seeing her in the sunlight now filled again with the
+voices of birds, seeing her blue eyes staring in horror and the nervous
+twitching of her hands he felt that the shock of his irruption might
+save her reason and in a moment he was standing beside her looking down
+at the dead man.
+
+"Let me die too," she cried.
+
+Mark found himself answering in a kind of inspiration:
+
+"No, Esther, you must live to pray for his soul."
+
+"He was struck dead for his blasphemy. He is in Hell. Of what use to
+pray for his soul?"
+
+"But Esther while he was falling, even in that second, he had time to
+repent. Live, Esther. Live to pray for him."
+
+Mark was overcome with a desire to laugh at the stilted way in which he
+was talking, and, from the suppression of the desire, to laugh wildly at
+everything in the scene, and not least at the comic death of Will
+Starling, even at the corpse itself lying with a broken neck at his
+feet. By an effort of will he regained control of his muscles, and the
+tension of the last half hour finding no relief in bodily relaxation was
+stamped ineffaceably upon his mind to take its place with that afternoon
+in his father's study at the Lima Street Mission which first inspired
+him with dread of the sexual relation of man to woman, a dread that was
+now made permanent by what he had endured on the bough of that yew-tree.
+
+Thanks to Mark's intervention the business was explained without
+scandal; nobody doubted that the squire of Rushbrooke Grange died a
+martyr to his dislike of ivy's encroaching upon ancient images. Esther's
+stormy soul took refuge in a convent, and there it seemed at peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE SCHOLARSHIP
+
+
+The encounter between Esther and Will Starling had the effect of
+strengthening Mark's intention to be celibate. He never imagined himself
+as a possible protagonist in such a scene; but the impression of that
+earlier encounter between his mother and father which gave him a horror
+of human love was now renewed. It was renewed, moreover, with the light
+of a miracle to throw it into high relief. And this miracle could not be
+explained away as a coincidence, but was an old-fashioned miracle that
+required no psychical buttressing, a hard and fast miracle able to
+withstand any criticism. It was a pity that out of regard for Esther he
+could not publish it for the encouragement of the faithful and the
+confusion of the unbelievers.
+
+The miracle of St. Mary Magdalene's intervention on his seventeenth
+birthday was the last violent impression of Mark's boyhood.
+Thenceforward life moved placidly through the changing weeks of a
+country calendar until the date of the scholarship examination held by
+the group of colleges that contained St. Mary's, the college he aspired
+to enter, but for which he failed to win even an exhibition. Mr. Ogilvie
+was rather glad, for he had been worried how Mark was going to support
+himself for three or four years at an expensive college like St. Mary's.
+But when Mark was no more successful with another group of colleges, his
+tutors began to be alarmed, wondering if their method of teaching Latin
+and Greek lacked the tradition of the public school necessary to
+success.
+
+"Oh, no, it's obviously my fault," said Mark. "I expect I go to pieces
+in examinations, or perhaps I'm not intended to go to Oxford."
+
+"I beg you, my dear boy," said the Rector a little irritably, "not to
+apply such a loose fatalism to your career. What will you do if you
+don't go to the University?"
+
+"It's not absolutely essential for a priest to have been to the
+University," Mark argued.
+
+"No, but in your case I think it's highly advisable. You haven't had a
+public school education, and inasmuch as I stand to you _in loco
+parentis_ I should consider myself most culpable if I didn't do
+everything possible to give you a fair start. You haven't got a very
+large sum of money to launch yourself upon the world, and I want you to
+spend what you have to the best advantage. Of course, if you can't get a
+scholarship, you can't and that's the end of it. But, rather than that
+you should miss the University I will supplement from my own savings
+enough to carry you through three years as a commoner."
+
+Tears stood in Mark's eyes.
+
+"You've already been far too generous," he said. "You shan't spend any
+more on me. I'm sorry I talked in that foolish way. It was really only a
+kind of affectation of indifference. I'm feeling pretty sore with myself
+for being such a failure; but I'll have another shot and I hope I shall
+do better."
+
+Mark as a last chance tried for a close scholarship at St. Osmund's Hall
+for the sons of clergymen.
+
+"It's a tiny place of course," said the Rector. "But it's authentic
+Oxford, and in some ways perhaps you would be happier at a very small
+college. Certainly you'd find your money went much further."
+
+The examination was held in the Easter vacation, and when Mark arrived
+at the college he found only one other candidate besides himself. St.
+Osmund's Hall with its miniature quadrangle, miniature hall, miniature
+chapel, empty of undergraduates and with only the Principal and a couple
+of tutors in residence, was more like an ancient almshouse than an
+Oxford college. Mark and his rival, a raw-boned youth called Emmett who
+was afflicted with paroxysms of stammering, moved about the precincts
+upon tiptoe like people trespassing from a high road.
+
+On their first evening the two candidates were invited to dine with the
+Principal, who read second-hand book catalogues all through dinner, only
+pausing from their perusal to ask occasionally in a courtly tone if Mr.
+Lidderdale or Mr. Emmett would not take another glass of wine. After
+dinner they sat in his library where the Principal addressed himself to
+the evidently uncongenial task of estimating the comparative fitness of
+his two guests to receive Mr. Tweedle's bounty. The Reverend Thomas
+Tweedle was a benevolent parson of the eighteenth century who by his
+will had provided the money to educate the son of one indigent clergyman
+for four years. Mark was shy enough under the Principal's courtly
+inquisition, but poor Emmett had a paroxysm each time he was asked the
+simplest question about his tastes or his ambitions. His tongue
+appearing like a disturbed mollusc waved its tip slowly round in an
+agonized endeavour to give utterance to such familiar words as "yes" or
+"no." Several times Mark feared that he would never get it back at all
+and that Emmett would either have to spend the rest of his life with it
+protruding before him or submit it to amputation and become a mute. When
+the ordeal with the Principal was over and the two guests were strolling
+back across the quadrangle to their rooms, Emmett talked normally and
+without a single paroxysm about the effect his stammer must have had
+upon the Principal. Mark did his best to reassure poor Emmett.
+
+"Really," he said, "it was scarcely noticeable to anybody else. You
+noticed it, because you felt your tongue getting wedged like that
+between your teeth; but other people would hardly have noticed it at
+all. When the Principal asked you if you were going to take Holy Orders
+yourself, I'm sure he only thought you hadn't quite made up your mind
+yet."
+
+"But I'm sure he did notice something," poor Emmett bewailed. "Because
+he began to hum."
+
+"Well, but he was always humming," said Mark. "He hummed all through
+dinner while he was reading those book catalogues."
+
+"It's very kind of you, Lidderdale," said Emmett, "to make the best of
+it for me, but I'm not such a fool as I look, and the Principal
+certainly hummed six times as loud whenever he asked me a question as
+he did over those catalogues. I know what I look like when I get into
+one of those states. I once caught sight of myself in a glass by
+accident, and now whenever my tongue gets caught up like that I'm
+wondering all the time why everybody doesn't get up and run out of the
+room."
+
+"But I assure you," Mark persisted, "that little things like that--"
+
+"Little things like that!" Emmett interrupted furiously. "It's all very
+well for you, Lidderdale, to talk about little things like that. If you
+had a tongue like mine which seems to get bigger instead of smaller
+every year, you'd feel very differently."
+
+"But people always grow out of stammering," Mark pointed out.
+
+"Thanks very much," said Emmett bitterly, "but where shall I be by the
+time I've grown out of it? You don't suppose I shall win this
+scholarship, do you, after they've seen me gibbering and mouthing at
+them like that? But if only I could manage somehow to get to Oxford I
+should have a chance of being ordained, and--" he broke off, perhaps
+unwilling to embarrass his rival by any more lamentations.
+
+"Do forget about this evening," Mark begged, "and come up to my room and
+have a talk before you turn in."
+
+"No, thanks very much," said Emmett. "I must sit up and do some work.
+We've got that general knowledge paper to-morrow morning."
+
+"But you won't be able to acquire much more general knowledge in one
+evening," Mark protested.
+
+"I might," said Emmett darkly. "I noticed a Whitaker's almanack in the
+rooms I have. My only chance to get this scholarship is to do really
+well in my papers; and though I know it's no good and that this is my
+last chance, I'm not going to neglect anything that could possibly help.
+I've got a splendid memory for statistics, and if they'll only ask a few
+statistics in the general knowledge paper I may have some luck
+to-morrow. Good-night, Lidderdale, I'm sorry to have inflicted myself on
+you like this."
+
+Emmett hurried away up the staircase leading to his room and left his
+rival standing on the moonlit grass of the quadrangle. Mark was turning
+toward his own staircase when he heard a window open above and Emmett's
+voice:
+
+"I've found another Whitaker of the year before," it proclaimed. "I'll
+read that, and you'd better read this year's. If by any chance I did win
+this scholarship, I shouldn't like to think I'd taken an unfair
+advantage of you, Lidderdale."
+
+"Thanks very much, Emmett," said Mark. "But I think I'll have a shot at
+getting to bed early."
+
+"Ah, you're not worrying," said Emmett gloomily, retiring from the
+window.
+
+When Mark was sitting by the fire in his room and thinking over the
+dinner with the Principal and poor Emmett's stammering and poor Emmett's
+words in the quad afterwards, he began to imagine what it would mean to
+poor Emmett if he failed to win the scholarship. Mark had not been so
+successful himself in these examinations as to justify a grand
+self-confidence; but he could not regard Emmett as a dangerous
+competitor. Had he the right in view of Emmett's handicap to accept this
+scholarship at his expense? To be sure, he might urge on his own behalf
+that without it he should himself be debarred from Oxford. What would
+the loss of it mean? It would mean, first of all, that Mr. Ogilvie would
+make the financial effort to maintain him for three years as a commoner,
+an effort which he could ill afford to make and which Mark had not the
+slightest intention of allowing him to make. It would mean, next, that
+he should have to occupy himself during the years before his ordination
+with some kind of work among people. He obviously could not go on
+reading theology at Wych-on-the-Wold until he went to Glastonbury. Such
+an existence, however attractive, was no preparation for the active life
+of a priest. It would mean, thirdly, a great disappointment to his
+friend and patron, and considering the social claims of the Church of
+England it would mean a handicap for himself. There was everything to be
+said for winning this scholarship, nothing to be said against it on the
+grounds of expediency. On the grounds of expediency, no, but on other
+grounds? Should he not be playing the better part if he allowed Emmett
+to win? No doubt all that was implied in the necessity for him to win a
+scholarship was equally implied in the necessity for Emmett to win one.
+It was obvious that Emmett was no better off than himself; it was
+obvious that Emmett was competing in a kind of despair. Mark remembered
+how a few minutes ago his rival had offered him this year's Whitaker,
+keeping for himself last year's almanack. Looked at from the point of
+view of Emmett who really believed that something might be gained at
+this eleventh hour from a study of the more recent volume, it had been a
+fine piece of self-denial. It showed that Emmett had Christian talents
+which surely ought not to be wasted because he was handicapped by a
+stammer.
+
+The spell that Oxford had already cast on Mark, the glamour of the
+firelight on the walls and raftered ceiling of this room haunted by
+centuries of youthful hope, did not persuade him how foolish it was to
+surrender all this. On the contrary, this prospect of Oxford so
+beautiful in the firelight within, so fair in the moonlight without,
+impelled him to renounce it, and the very strength of his temptation to
+enjoy all this by winning the scholarship helped him to make up his mind
+to lose it. But how? The obvious course was to send in idiotic answers
+for the rest of his papers. Yet examinations were so mysterious that
+when he thought he was being most idiotic he might actually be gaining
+his best marks. Moreover, the examiners might ascribe his answers to ill
+health, to some sudden attack of nerves, especially if his papers to-day
+had been tolerably good. Looking back at the Principal's attitude after
+dinner that night, Mark could not help feeling that there had been
+something in his manner which had clearly shown a determination not to
+award the scholarship to poor Emmett if it could possibly be avoided.
+The safest way would be to escape to-morrow morning, put up at some
+country inn for the next two days, and go back to Wych-on-the-Wold; but
+if he did that, the college authorities might write to Mr. Ogilvie to
+demand the reason for such extraordinary behaviour. And how should he
+explain it? If he really intended to deny himself, he must take care
+that nobody knew he was doing so. It would give him an air of
+unbearable condescension, should it transpire that he had deliberately
+surrendered his scholarship to Emmett. Moreover, poor Emmett would be so
+dreadfully mortified if he found out. No, he must complete his papers,
+do them as badly as he possibly could, and leave the result to the
+wisdom of God. If God wished Emmett to stammer forth His praises and
+stutter His precepts from the pulpit, God would know how to manage that
+seemingly so intractable Principal. Or God might hear his prayers and
+cure poor Emmett of his impediment. Mark wondered to what saint was
+entrusted the patronage of stammerers; but he could not remember. The
+man in whose rooms he was lodging possessed very few books, and those
+few were mostly detective stories.
+
+It amused Mark to make a fool of himself next morning in the general
+knowledge paper. He flattered himself that no candidate for a
+scholarship at St. Osmund's Hall had ever shown such black ignorance of
+the facts of every-day life. Had he been dropped from Mars two days
+before, he could scarcely have shown less knowledge of the Earth. Mark
+tried to convey an impression that he had been injudiciously crammed
+with Latin and Greek, and in the afternoon he produced a Latin prose
+that would have revolted the easy conscience of a fourth form boy.
+Finally, on the third day, in an unseen passage set from the Georgics he
+translated _tonsisque ferunt mantelia villis_ by _having pulled down the
+villas (i. e. literally shaved) they carry off the mantelpieces_ which
+he followed up with translating _Maeonii carchesia Bacchi_ as the _lees
+of Maeonian wine (i.e. literally carcases of Maeonian Bacchus)_.
+
+"I say, Lidderdale," said Emmett, when they came out of the lecture room
+where the examination was being held. "I had a tremendous piece of luck
+this afternoon."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"Yes, I've just been reading the fourth Georgics last term, and I don't
+think I made a single mistake in that unseen."
+
+"Good work," said Mark.
+
+"I wonder when they'll let us know who's got the scholarship," said
+Emmett. "But of course you've won," he added with a sigh.
+
+"I did very badly both yesterday and to-day."
+
+"Oh, you're only saying that to encourage me," Emmett sighed. "It sounds
+a dreadful thing to say and I ought not to say it because it'll make you
+uncomfortable, but if I don't succeed, I really think I shall kill
+myself."
+
+"All right, that's a bargain," Mark laughed; and when his rival shook
+hands with him at parting he felt that poor Emmett was going home to
+Rutland convinced that Mark was just as hard-hearted as the rest of the
+world and just as ready to laugh at his misfortune.
+
+It was Saturday when the examination was finished, and Mark wished he
+could be granted the privilege of staying over Sunday in college. He had
+no regrets for what he had done; he was content to let this experience
+be all that he should ever intimately gain of Oxford; but he should like
+to have the courage to accost one of the tutors and to tell him that
+being convinced he should never come to Oxford again he desired the
+privilege of remaining until Monday morning, so that he might
+crystallize in that short space of time an impression which, had he been
+successful in gaining the scholarship, would have been spread over four
+years. Mark was not indulging in sentiment; he really felt that by the
+intensity of the emotion with which he would live those twenty-four
+hours he should be able to achieve for himself as much as he should
+achieve in four years. So far as the world was concerned, this
+experience would be valueless; for himself it would be beyond price. So
+far as the world was concerned, he would never have been to Oxford; but
+could he be granted this privilege, Oxford would live for ever in his
+heart, a refuge and a meditation until the grave. Yet this coveted
+experience must be granted from without to make it a perfect experience.
+To ask and to be refused leave to stay till Monday would destroy for him
+the value of what he had already experienced in three days' residence;
+even to ask and to be granted the privilege would spoil it in
+retrospect. He went down the stairs from his room and stood in the
+little quadrangle, telling himself that at any rate he might postpone
+his departure until twilight and walk the seven miles from Shipcot to
+Wych-on-the-Wold. While he was on his way to notify the porter of the
+time of his departure he met the Principal, who stopped him and asked
+how he had got on with his papers. Mark wondered if the Principal had
+been told about his lamentable performance and was making inquiries on
+his own account to find out if the unsuccessful candidate really was a
+lunatic.
+
+"Rather badly, I'm afraid, sir."
+
+"Well, I shall see you at dinner to-night," said the Principal
+dismissing Mark with a gesture before he had time even to look
+surprised. This was a new perplexity, for Mark divined from the
+Principal's manner that he had entirely forgotten that the scholarship
+examination was over and that the candidates had already dined with him.
+He went into the lodge and asked the porter's advice.
+
+"The Principal's a most absent-minded gentleman," said the porter. "Most
+absent-minded, he is. He's the talk of Oxford sometimes is the
+Principal. What do you think he went and did only last term. Why, he was
+having some of the senior men to tea and was going to put some coal on
+the fire with the tongs and some sugar in his cup. Bothered if he didn't
+put the sugar in the fire and a lump of coal in his cup. It didn't so
+much matter him putting sugar in the fire. That's all according, as they
+say. But fancy--well, I tell you we had a good laugh over it in the
+lodge when the gentlemen came out and told me."
+
+"Ought I to explain that I've already dined with him?" Mark asked.
+
+"Are you in any what you might call immediate hurry to get away?" the
+porter asked judicially.
+
+"I'm in no hurry at all. I'd like to stay a bit longer."
+
+"Then you'd better go to dinner with him again to-night and stay in
+college over the Sunday. I'll take it upon myself to explain to the Dean
+why you're still here. If it had been tea I should have said 'don't
+bother about it,' but dinner's another matter, isn't it? And he always
+has dinner laid for two or more in case he's asked anybody and
+forgotten."
+
+Thus it came about that for the second time Mark dined with the
+Principal, who disconcerted him by saying when he arrived:
+
+"I remember now that you dined with me the night before last. You should
+have told me. I forget these things. But never mind, you'd better stay
+now you're here."
+
+The Principal read second-hand book catalogues all through dinner just
+as he had done two nights ago, and he only interrupted his perusal to
+inquire in courtly tones if Mark would take another glass of wine. The
+only difference between now and the former occasion was the absence of
+poor Emmett and his paroxysms. After dinner with some misgivings if he
+ought not to leave his host to himself Mark followed him upstairs to the
+library. The principal was one of those scholars who live in an
+atmosphere of their own given off by old calf-bound volumes and who
+apparently can only inhale the air of the world in which ordinary men
+move when they are smoking their battered old pipes. Mark sitting
+opposite to him by the fireside was tempted to pour out the history of
+himself and Emmett, to explain how he had come to make such a mess of
+the examination. Perhaps if the Principal had alluded to his papers Mark
+would have found the courage to talk about himself; but the Principal
+was apparently unaware that his guest had any ambitions to enter St.
+Osmund's Hall, and whatever questions he asked related to the ancient
+folios and quartos he took down in turn from his shelves. A clock struck
+ten in the moonlight without, and Mark rose to go. He felt a pang as he
+walked from the cloudy room and looked for the last time at that tall
+remote scholar, who had forgotten his guest's existence at the moment he
+ceased to shake his hand and who by the time he had reached the doorway
+was lost again in the deeps of the crabbed volume resting upon his
+knees. Mark sighed as he closed the library door behind him, for he knew
+that he was shutting out a world. But when he stood in the small silver
+quadrangle Mark was glad that he had not given way to the temptation of
+confiding in the Principal. It would have been a feeble end to his first
+denial of self. He was sure that he had done right in surrendering his
+place to Emmett, for was not the unexpected opportunity to spend these
+few more hours in Oxford a sign of God's approval? _Bright as the
+glimpses of eternity to saints accorded in their mortal hour._ Such was
+Oxford to-night.
+
+Mark sat for a long while at the open window of his room until the moon
+had passed on her way and the quadrangle was in shadow; and while he sat
+there he was conscious of how many people had inhabited this small
+quadrangle and of how they too had passed on their way like the moon,
+leaving behind them no more than he should leave behind from this one
+hour of rapture, no more than the moon had left of her silver upon the
+dim grass below.
+
+Mark was not given to gazing at himself in mirrors, but he looked at
+himself that night in the mirror of the tiny bedroom, into which the
+April air came up sweet and frore from the watermeadows of the Cherwell
+close at hand.
+
+"What will you do now?" he asked his reflection. "Yet, you have such a
+dark ecclesiastical face that I'm sure you'll be a priest whether you go
+to Oxford or not."
+
+Mark was right in supposing his countenance to be ecclesiastical. But it
+was something more than that: it was religious. Even already, when he
+was barely eighteen, the high cheekbones and deepset burning eyes gave
+him an ascetic look, while the habit of prayer and meditation had added
+to his expression a steadfast purpose that is rarely seen in people as
+young as him. What his face lacked were those contours that come from
+association with humanity; the ripeness that is bestowed by long
+tolerance of folly, the mellowness that has survived the icy winds of
+disillusion. It was the absence of these contours that made Mark think
+his face so ecclesiastical; however, if at eighteen he had possessed
+contours and soft curves, they would have been nothing but the contours
+and soft curves of that rose, youth; and this ecclesiastical bonyness
+would not fade and fall as swiftly as that.
+
+Mark turned from the glass in sudden irritation at his selfishness in
+speculating about his appearance and his future, when in a short time he
+should have to break the news to his guardian that he had thrown away
+for a kindly impulse the fruit of so many months of diligence and care.
+
+"What am I going to say to Ogilvie?" he exclaimed. "I can't go back to
+Wych and live there in pleasant idleness until it's time to go to
+Glastonbury. I must have some scheme for the immediate future."
+
+In bed when the light was out and darkness made the most fantastic
+project appear practical, Mark had an inspiration to take the habit of a
+preaching friar. Why should he not persuade Dorward to join him?
+Together they would tramp the English country, compelling even the
+dullest yokels to hear the word of God . . . discalced . . . over hill,
+down dale . . . telling stories of the saints and martyrs in remote inns
+. . . deep lanes . . . the butterflies and the birds . . . Dorward
+should say Mass in the heart of great woods . . . over hill, down dale
+. . . discalced . . . preaching to men of Christ. . . .
+
+Mark fell asleep.
+
+In the morning Mark heard Mass at the church of the Cowley Fathers, a
+strengthening experience, because the Gregorian there so strictly and so
+austerely chanted without any consideration for sentimental humanity
+possessed that very effect of liberating and purifying spirit held in
+the bonds of flesh which is conveyed by the wind blowing through a grove
+of pines or by waves quiring below a rocky shore.
+
+If Mark had had the least inclination to be sorry for himself and
+indulge in the flattery of regret, it vanished in this music. Rolling
+down through time on the billows of the mighty Gregorian it were as
+grotesque to pity oneself as it were for an Arctic explorer to build a
+snowman for company at the North Pole.
+
+Mark came out of St. John's, Cowley, into the suburban prettiness of
+Iffley Road, where men and women in their Sunday best tripped along in
+the April sunlight, tripped along in their Sunday best like newly
+hatched butterflies and beetles. Mark went in and out of colleges all
+day long, forgetting about the problem of his immediate future just as
+he forgot that the people in the sunny streets were not really
+butterflies and beetles. At twilight he decided to attend Evensong at
+St. Barnabas'. Perhaps the folk in the sunny April streets had turned
+his thoughts unconsciously toward the simple aspirations of simple
+human nature. He felt when he came into the warm candle-lit church like
+one who has voyaged far and is glad to be at home again. How everybody
+sang together that night, and how pleasant Mark found this
+congregational outburst. It was all so jolly that if the organist had
+suddenly turned round like an Italian organ-grinder and kissed his
+fingers to the congregation, his action would have seemed perfectly
+appropriate. Even during the _Magnificat_, when the altar was being
+censed, the tinkling of the thurible reminded Mark of a tambourine; and
+the lighting and extinction of the candles was done with as much
+suppressed excitement as if the candles were going to shoot red and
+green stars or go leaping and cracking all round the chancel.
+
+It happened this evening that the preacher was Father Rowley, that
+famous priest of the Silchester College Mission in the great naval port
+of Chatsea. Father Rowley was a very corpulent man with a voice of such
+compassion and with an eloquence so simple that when he ascended into
+the pulpit, closed his eyes, and began to speak, his listeners
+involuntarily closed their eyes and followed that voice whithersoever it
+led them. He neither changed the expression of his face nor made use of
+dramatic gestures; he scarcely varied his tone, yet he could keep a
+congregation breathlessly attentive for an hour. Although he seemed to
+be speaking in a kind of trance, it was evident that he was unusually
+conscious of his hearers, for if by chance some pious woman coughed or
+turned the pages of a prayer-book he would hold up the thread of his
+sermon and without any change of tone reprove her. It was strange to
+watch him at such a moment, his eyes still tightly shut and yet giving
+the impression of looking directly at the offending member of the
+congregation. This evening he was preaching about a naval disaster which
+had lately occurred, the sinking of a great battleship by another great
+battleship through a wrong signal. He was describing the scene when the
+news reached Chatsea, telling of the sweethearts and wives of the lost
+bluejackets who waited hoping against hope to hear that their loved ones
+had escaped death and hearing nearly always the worst news.
+
+"So many of our own dear bluejackets and marines, some of whom only
+last Christmas had been eating their plum duff at our Christmas dinner,
+so many of my own dear boys whom I prepared for Confirmation, whose
+first Confession I had heard, and to whom I had given for the first time
+the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
+
+He spoke too of what it meant in the future of material suffering on top
+of their mental agony. He asked for money to help these women
+immediately, and he spoke fiercely of the Admiralty red tape and of the
+obstruction of the official commission appointed to administer the
+relief fund.
+
+The preacher went on to tell stories from the lives of these boys,
+finding in each of them some illustration of a Christian virtue and
+conveying to his listeners a sense of the extraordinary preciousness of
+human life, so that there was no one who heard him but was fain to weep
+for those young bluejackets and marines taken in their prime. He
+inspired in Mark a sense of shame that he had ever thought of people in
+the aggregate, that he had ever walked along a crowded street without
+perceiving the importance of every single human being that helped to
+compose its variety. While he sat there listening to the Missioner and
+watching the large tears roll slowly down his cheeks from beneath the
+closed lids, Mark wondered how he could have dared to suppose last night
+that he was qualified to become a friar and preach the Gospel to the
+poor. While Father Rowley was speaking, he began to apprehend that
+before he could aspire to do that he must himself first of all learn
+about Christ from those very poor whom he had planned to convert.
+
+This sermon was another milestone in Mark's religious life. It
+discovered in him a hidden treasure of humility, and it taught him to
+build upon the rock of human nature. He divined the true meaning of Our
+Lord's words to St. Peter: _Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build
+my church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it._ John was
+the disciple whom Jesus loved, but he chose Peter with all his failings
+and all his follies, with his weakness and his cowardice and his vanity.
+He chose Peter, the bedrock of human nature, and to him he gave the keys
+of Heaven.
+
+Mark knew that somehow he must pluck up courage to ask Father Rowley to
+let him come and work under him at Chatsea. He was sure that if he could
+only make him grasp the spirit in which he would offer himself, the
+spirit of complete humility devoid of any kind of thought that he was
+likely to be of the least use to the Mission, Father Rowley might accept
+his oblation. He would have liked to wait behind after Evensong and
+approach the Missioner directly, so that before speaking to Mr. Ogilvie
+he might know what chance the offer had of being accepted; but he
+decided against this course, because he felt that Father Rowley's
+compassion might be embarrassed if he had to refuse his request, a point
+of view that was characteristic of the mood roused in him by the sermon.
+He went back to sleep for the last time in an Oxford college, profoundly
+reassured of the rightness of his action in giving up the scholarship to
+Emmett, although, which was characteristic of his new mood, he had by
+this time begun to tell himself that he had really done nothing at all
+and that probably in any case Emmett would have been the chosen scholar.
+
+If Mark had still any doubts of his behaviour, they would have vanished
+when on getting into the train for Shipcot he found himself in an
+otherwise empty third-class smoking carriage opposite Father Rowley
+himself, who with a small black bag beside him, so small that Mark
+wondered how it could possibly contain the night attire of so fat a man,
+was sitting back in the corner with a large pipe in his mouth. He was
+wearing one of those square felt hats sometimes seen on the heads of
+farmers, and if one had only seen his head and hat without the grubby
+clerical attire beneath one might have guessed him to be a farmer. Mark
+noticed now that his eyes of a limpid blue were like a child's, and he
+realized that in his voice while he was preaching there had been the
+same sweet gravity of childhood. Just at this moment Father Rowley
+caught sight of someone he knew on the platform and shouting from the
+window of the compartment he attracted the attention of a young man
+wearing an Old Siltonian tie.
+
+"My dear man," he cried, "how are you? I've just made a most idiotic
+mistake. I got it into my head that I should be preaching here on the
+first Sunday in term and was looking forward to seeing so many
+Silchester men. I can't think how I came to make such a muddle."
+
+Father Rowley's shoulders filled up all the space of the window, so that
+Mark only heard scattered fragments of the conversation, which was
+mostly about Silchester and the Siltonians he had hoped to see at
+Oxford.
+
+"Good-bye, my dear man, good-bye," the Missioner shouted, as the train
+moved out of the station. "Come down and see us soon at Chatsea. The
+more of you men who come, the more we shall be pleased."
+
+Mark's heart leapt at these words, which seemed of good omen to his own
+suit. When Father Rowley was ensconced in his corner and once more
+puffing away at his pipe, Mark thought how ridiculous it would sound to
+say that he had heard him preach last night at St. Barnabas' and that,
+having been much moved by the sermon, he was anxious to be taken on at
+St. Agnes' as a lay helper. He wished that Father Rowley would make some
+remark to him that would lead up to his request, but all that Father
+Rowley said was:
+
+"This is a slow train to Birmingham, isn't it?"
+
+This led to a long conversation about trains, and slow though this one
+might be it was going much too fast for Mark, who would be at Shipcot in
+another twenty minutes without having taken any advantage of his lucky
+encounter.
+
+"Are you up at Oxford?" the priest at last inquired.
+
+It was now or never; and Mark took the opportunity given him by that one
+question to tell Father Rowley twenty disjointed facts about his life,
+which ended with a request to be allowed to come and work at Chatsea.
+
+"You can come and see us whenever you like," said the Missioner.
+
+"But I don't want just to come and pay a visit," said Mark. "I really do
+want to be given something to do, and I shan't be any expense. I only
+want to keep enough money to go to Glastonbury in four years' time. If
+you'd only see how I got on for a month. I don't pretend I can be of any
+help to you. I don't suppose I can. But I do so tremendously want you
+to help me."
+
+"Who did you say your father was?"
+
+"Lidderdale, James Lidderdale. He was priest-in-charge of the Lima
+Street Mission, which belonged to St. Simon's, Notting Hill, in those
+days. St. Wilfred's, Notting Dale, it is now."
+
+"Lidderdale," Father Rowley echoed. "I knew him. I knew him well. Lima
+Street. Viner's there now, a dear good fellow. So you're Lidderdale's
+son?"
+
+"I say, here's my station," Mark exclaimed in despair, "and you haven't
+said whether I can come or not."
+
+"Come down on Tuesday week," said Father Rowley. "Hurry up, or you'll
+get carried on to the next station."
+
+Mark waved his farewell, and he knew, as he drove back on the omnibus
+over the rolling wold to Wych that he had this morning won something
+much better than a scholarship at St. Osmund's Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHATSEA
+
+
+When Mark had been exactly a week at Chatsea he celebrated his
+eighteenth birthday by writing a long letter to the Rector of Wych:
+
+     St. Agnes' House,
+
+     Keppel Street,
+
+     Chatsea.
+
+     St. Mark's Day.
+
+     My dear Rector,
+
+     Thank you very much for sending me the money. I've handed it over
+     to a splendid fellow called Gurney who keeps all the accounts
+     (private or otherwise) in the Mission House. Poor chap, he's
+     desperately ill with asthma, and nobody thinks he can live much
+     longer. He suffers tortures, particularly at night, and as I sleep
+     in the next room I can hear him.
+
+     You mustn't think me inconsiderate because I haven't written
+     sooner, but I wanted to wait until I had seen a bit of this place
+     before I wrote to you so that you might have some idea what I was
+     doing and be able to realize that it is the one and only place
+     where I ought to be at the moment.
+
+     But first of all before I say anything about Chatsea I want to try
+     to express a little of what your kindness has meant to me during
+     the last two years. I look back at myself just before my sixteenth
+     birthday when I was feeling that I should have to run away to sea
+     or do something mad in order to escape that solicitor's office, and
+     I simply gasp! What and where should I be now if it hadn't been for
+     you? You have always made light of the burden I must have been, and
+     though I have tried to show you my gratitude I'm afraid it hasn't
+     been very successful. I'm not being very successful now in putting
+     it into words. I know my failure to gain a scholarship at Oxford
+     has been a great disappointment to you, especially after you had
+     worked so hard yourself to coach me. Please don't be anxious about
+     my letting my books go to the wall here. I had a talk about this
+     with Father Rowley, who insisted that anything I am allowed to do
+     in the district must only be done when I have a good morning's work
+     with my books behind me. I quite realize the importance of a
+     priest's education. One of the assistant priests here, a man called
+     Snaith, took a good degree at Cambridge both in classics and
+     theology, so I shall have somebody to keep me on the lines. If I
+     stay here three years and then have two years at Glastonbury I
+     don't honestly think that I shall start off much handicapped by
+     having missed both public school and university. I expect you're
+     smiling to read after one week of my staying here three years! But
+     I assure you that the moment I sat down to supper on the evening of
+     my arrival I felt at home. I think at first they all thought I was
+     an eager young Ritualist, but when they found that they didn't get
+     any rises out of ragging me, they shut up.
+
+     This house is a most extraordinary place. It is an old
+     Congregational chapel with a gallery all round which has been made
+     into cubicles, scarcely one of which is ever empty or ever likely
+     to be empty so far as I can see! I should think it must be rather
+     like what the guest house of a monastery used to be like in the old
+     days before the Reformation. The ground floor of the chapel has
+     been turned into a gymnasium, and twice a week the apparatus is
+     cleared away and we have a dance. Every other evening it's used
+     furiously by Father Rowley's "boys." They're such a jolly lot, and
+     most of them splendid gymnasts. Quite a few have become
+     professional acrobats since they opened the gymnasium. The first
+     morning after my arrival I asked Father Rowley if he'd got anything
+     special for me to do and he told me to catalogue the books in his
+     library. Everybody laughed at this, and I thought at first that
+     some joke was intended, but when I got to his room I found it
+     really was in utter confusion with masses of books lying about
+     everywhere. So I set to work pretty hard and after about three days
+     I got them catalogued and in good order. When I told him I had
+     finished he looked very surprised, and a solemn visit of inspection
+     was ordered. As the room was looking quite tidy at last, I didn't
+     mind. I've realized since that Father Rowley always sets people the
+     task of cataloguing and arranging his books when he doubts if they
+     are really worth their salt, and now he complains that I have
+     spoilt one of his best ordeals for slackers. I said to him that he
+     needn't be afraid because from what I could see of the way he
+     treated books they would be just as untidy as ever in another week.
+     Everybody laughed, though I was afraid at first they might consider
+     it rather cheek my talking like this, but you've got to stand up
+     for yourself here because there never was such a place for turning
+     a man inside out. It's a real discipline, and I think if I manage
+     to deserve to stay here three years I shall have the right to feel
+     I've had the finest training for Holy Orders anybody could possibly
+     have.
+
+     You know enough about Father Rowley yourself to understand how
+     impossible it would be for me to give any impression of his
+     personality in a letter. I have never felt so strongly the absolute
+     goodness of anybody. I suppose that some of the great mediæval
+     saints like St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua must have been
+     like that. One reads about them and what they did, but the facts
+     one reads don't really tell anything. I always feel that what we
+     really depend on is a kind of tradition of their absolute
+     saintliness handed on from the people who experienced it. I suppose
+     in a way the same applies to Our Lord. I always feel it wouldn't
+     matter a bit to me if the four Gospels were proved to be forgeries
+     to-morrow, because I should still be convinced that Our Lord was
+     God. I know this is a platitude, but I don't think until I met
+     Father Rowley that I ever realized the force and power that goes
+     with exceptional goodness. There are so many people who are good
+     because they were born good. Richard Ford, for example, he couldn't
+     have ever been anything else but good, but I always feel that
+     people like him remain practically out of reach of the ordinary
+     person and that the goodness is all their own and dies with them
+     just as it was born with them. What I feel about a man like Father
+     Rowley is that he probably had a tremendous fight to be good. Of
+     course, I may be perfectly wrong and he may have had no fight at
+     all. I know one of the people at the Mission House told me that,
+     though there is nobody who likes smoking better than he or more
+     enjoys a pint of beer with his dinner, he has given up both at St.
+     Agnes merely to set an example to weak people. I feel that his
+     goodness was with such energy fought for that it now exists as a
+     kind of complete thing and will go on existing when Father Rowley
+     himself is dead. I begin to understand the doctrine of the treasury
+     of merit. I remember you once told me how grateful I ought to be to
+     God because I had apparently escaped the temptations that attack
+     most boys. I am grateful; but at the same time I can't claim any
+     merit for it! The only time in my life when I might have acquired
+     any merit was when I was at Haverton House. Instead of doing that,
+     I just dried up, and if I hadn't had that wonderful experience at
+     Whitsuntide in Meade Cantorum church nearly three years ago I
+     should be spiritually dead by now.
+
+     This is a very long letter, and I don't seem to have left myself
+     any time to tell you about St. Agnes' Church. It reminds me of my
+     father's mission church in Lima Street, and oddly enough a new
+     church is being built almost next door just as one was being built
+     in Lima Street. I went to the children's Mass last Sunday, and I
+     seemed to see him walking up and down the aisle in his alb, and I
+     thought to myself that I had never once asked you to say Mass for
+     his soul. Will you do so now next time you say a black Mass? This
+     is a wretched letter, and it doesn't succeed in the least in
+     expressing what I owe to you and what I already owe to Father
+     Rowley. I used to think that the Sacred Heart was a rather material
+     device for attracting the multitude, but I'm beginning to realize
+     in the atmosphere of St. Agnes' that it is a gloriously simple
+     devotion and that it is human nature's attempt to express the
+     inexpressible. I'll write to you again next week. Please give my
+     love to everybody at the Rectory.
+
+     Always your most affectionate
+
+     Mark.
+
+Father Rowley had been at St. Agnes' seven or eight years when Mark
+found himself attached to the Mission, in which time he had transformed
+the district completely. It was a small parish (actually of course it
+was not a parish at all, although it was fast qualifying to become one)
+of something over a thousand small houses, few of which were less than a
+century old. The streets were narrow and crooked, mostly named after
+bygone admirals or forgotten sea-fights; the romantic and picturesque
+quarter of a great naval port to the casual glance of a passer-by, but
+heartbreaking to any except the most courageous resident on account of
+its overcrowded and tumbledown condition. Yet it lacked the dreariness
+of an East End slum, for the sea winds blew down the narrowest streets
+and alleys, sailors and soldiers were always in view, and the windows of
+the pawnbrokers were filled with the relics of long voyages, with idols
+and large shells, with savage weapons and the handiwork of remote
+islands.
+
+When Mark came to live in Keppel Street, most of the brothels and many
+of the public houses had been eliminated from the district, and in their
+place flourished various clubs and guilds. The services in the church
+were crowded: there was a long roll of communicants; the civilization of
+the city of God was visible in this Chatsea slum. One or two of the lay
+helpers used to horrify Mark with stories of early days there, and when
+he seemed inclined to regret that he had arrived so late upon the scene,
+they used to tease him about his missionary spirit.
+
+"If he can't reform the people," said Cartwright, one of the lay
+helpers, a tall thin young man with a long nose and a pleasant smile,
+"he still has us to reform."
+
+"Come along, Mark Anthony," said Warrender, another lay helper, who
+after working for seven years among the poor had at last been charily
+accepted by the Bishop for ordination. "Come along. Why don't you try
+your hand on us?"
+
+"You people seem to think," said Mark, "that I've got a mania for
+reforming. I don't mean that I should like to see St. Agnes' where it
+was merely for my own personal amusement. The only thing I'm sorry about
+is that I didn't actually see the work being done."
+
+Father Rowley came in at this moment, and everybody shouted that Mark
+was going to preach a sermon.
+
+"Splendid," said the Missioner whose voice when not moved by emotion was
+rich in a natural unction that encouraged everyone round to suppose he
+was being successfully humorous, such a savour did it add to the most
+innutritious chaff. Those who were privileged to share his ordinary life
+never ceased to wonder how in the pulpit or in the confessional or at
+prayer this unction was replaced by a remote beauty of tone, a plangent
+and thrilling compassion that played upon the hearts of all who heard
+him.
+
+"Now really, Father Rowley," Mark protested. "Do I preach a great deal?
+I'm always being chaffed by Cartwright and Warrender about an alleged
+mania for reforming people, which only exists in their imagination."
+
+Indeed Mark had long ago grown out of the desire to reform or to convert
+anybody, although had he wished to keep his hand in, he could have had
+plenty of practice among the guests of the Mission House. Nobody had
+ever succeeded in laying down the exact number of casual visitors that
+could be accommodated therein. However full it appeared, there was
+always room for one more. Taking an average, day in, day out through the
+year, one might fairly say that there were always eight or nine casual
+guests in addition to the eight or nine permanent residents, of whom
+Mark was soon glad to be able to count himself one. The company was
+sufficiently mixed to have been offered as a proof to the sceptical that
+there was something after all in simple Christianity. There would
+usually be a couple of prefects from Silchester, one or two 'Varsity
+men, two or three bluejackets or marines, an odd soldier or so, a naval
+officer perhaps, a stray priest sometimes, an earnest seeker after
+Christian example often, and often a drunkard who had been dumped down
+at the door of St. Agnes' Mission House in the hope that where everybody
+else had failed Father Rowley might succeed. Then there were the tramps,
+some who had heard of a comfortable night's lodging, some who came
+whining and cringing with a pretence of religion. This last class was
+discouraged as much as possible, for one of the first rules of the
+Mission House was to show no favour to any man who claimed to be
+religious, it being Father Rowley's chief dread to make anybody's
+religion a paying concern. Sometimes a jailbird just released from
+prison would find in the Mission House an opportunity to recover his
+self-respect. But whoever the guest was, soldier, sailor, tinker,
+tailor, apothecary, ploughboy, or thief, he was judged at the Mission
+House as a man. Some of the visitors repaid their host by theft or
+fraud; but when they did, nobody uttered proverbs or platitudes about
+mistaken kindness. If one lame dog bit the hand that was helping him
+over the stile, the next dog that came limping along was helped over
+just as freely.
+
+"What right has one miserable mortal to be disillusioned by another
+miserable mortal?" Father Rowley demanded. "Our dear Lord when he was
+nailed to the cross said 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what
+they do.' He did not say, 'I am fed up with these people I have come
+down from Heaven to save. I've had enough of it. Send an angel with a
+pair of pincers to pull out these nails.'"
+
+If the Missioner's patience ever failed, it was when he had to deal with
+High Church young men who made pilgrimages to St. Agnes' because they
+had heard that this or that service was conducted there with a finer
+relish of Romanism than anywhere else at the moment in England. On one
+occasion a pietistic young creature, who brought with him his own lace
+cotta but forgot to bring his nightshirt, begged to be allowed the joy
+of serving Father Rowley at early Mass next morning. When they came back
+and were sitting round the breakfast table, this young man simpered in a
+ladylike voice:
+
+"Oh, Father, couldn't you keep your fingers closed when you give the
+_Dominus vobiscum_?"
+
+"Et cum spiritu tuo," shouted Father Rowley. "I can keep my fingers
+closed when I box your ears."
+
+And he proved it.
+
+It was a real box on the ears, so hard a blow that the ladylike young
+man burst into tears to the great indignation of a Chief Petty Officer
+staying in the Mission House, who declared that he was half in a mind to
+catch the young swab such a snitch on the conk as really would give him
+something to blubber about. Father Rowley evidently had no remorse for
+his violence, and the young man went away that afternoon saying how
+sorry he was that the legend of the good work being done at St. Agnes'
+had been so much exaggerated.
+
+Mark wrote an account of this incident, which had given him intense
+pleasure, to Mr. Ogilvie. Perhaps the Rector was afraid that Mark in his
+ambition to avoid "churchiness" was inclining toward the opposite
+extreme; or perhaps, charitable and saintly man though he was, he felt a
+pang of jealousy at Mark's unbounded admiration of his new friend; or
+perhaps it was merely that the east wind was blowing more sharply than
+usual that morning over the wold into the Rectory garden. Whatever the
+cause, his answering letter made Mark feel that the Rector did not
+appreciate Father Rowley as thoroughly as he ought.
+
+     The Rectory,
+
+     Wych-on-the-Wold.
+
+     Oxon.
+
+     Dec. 1.
+
+     My dear Mark,
+
+     I was glad to get your long and amusing letter of last week. I am
+     delighted to think that as the months go by you are finding work
+     among the poor more and more congenial. I would not for the world
+     suggest your coming back here for Christmas after what you tell me
+     of the amount of extra work it will entail for everybody in the
+     Mission House; at the same time it would be useless to pretend that
+     we shan't all be disappointed not to see you until the New Year.
+
+     On reading through your last letter again I feel just a little
+     worried lest, in the pleasure you derive from Father Rowley's
+     treatment of what was no doubt a very irritating young man, you may
+     be inclined to go to the opposite extreme and be too ready to laugh
+     at real piety when it is not accompanied by geniality and good
+     fellowship, or by an obvious zeal for good works. I know you will
+     acquit me of any desire to defend extreme "churchiness," and I have
+     no doubt you will remember one or two occasions in the past when I
+     was rather afraid that you were tending that way yourself. I am not
+     in the least criticizing Father Rowley's method of dealing with it,
+     but I am a trifle uneasy at the inordinate delight it seems to have
+     afforded you. Of course, it is intolerable for any young man
+     serving a priest at Mass to watch his fingers all the time, but I
+     don't think you have any right to assume because on this occasion
+     the young man showed himself so sensitive to mere externals that he
+     is always aware only of externals. Unfortunately a very great deal
+     of true and fervid piety exists under this apparent passion for
+     externals. Remember that the ordinary criticism by the man in the
+     street of Catholic ceremonies and of Catholic methods of worship
+     involves us all in this condemnation. I suppose that you would
+     consider yourself justified, should the circumstances permit (which
+     in this case of course they do not), in protesting against a
+     priest's not taking the Eastward Position when he said Mass. I was
+     talking to Colonel Fraser the other day, and he was telling me how
+     much he had enjoyed the ministrations of the Reverend Archibald
+     Tait, the Leicestershire cricketer, who throughout the "second
+     service" never once turned his back on the congregation, and, so
+     far as I could gather from the Colonel's description, conducted
+     this "second service" very much as a conjuror performs his tricks.
+     When I ventured to argue with the Colonel, he said to me: "That is
+     the worst of you High Churchmen, you make the ritual more important
+     than the Communion itself." All human judgments, my dear Mark, are
+     relative, and I have no doubt that this unpleasant young man (who,
+     as I have already said, was no doubt justly punished by Father
+     Rowley) may have felt the same kind of feeling in a different
+     degree that I should feel if I assisted at the jugglery of the
+     Reverend Archibald Tait. At any rate you, my dear boy, are bound to
+     credit this young man with as much sincerity as yourself, otherwise
+     you commit a sin against charity. You must acquire at least as much
+     toleration for the Ritualist as I am glad to notice you are
+     acquiring for the thief. When you are a priest yourself, and in a
+     comparatively short time you will be a priest, I do hope you won't,
+     without his experience, try to imitate Father Rowley too closely in
+     his summary treatment of what I have already I hope made myself
+     quite clear in believing to be in this case a most insufferable
+     young man. Don't misunderstand this letter. I have such great hopes
+     of you in the stormy days to come, and the stormy days are coming,
+     that I should feel I was wrong if I didn't warn you of your
+     attitude towards the merest trifles, for I shall always judge you
+     and your conduct by standards that I should be very cautious of
+     setting for most of my penitents.
+
+     Your ever affectionate,
+
+     Stephen Ogilvie.
+
+
+     My mother and Miriam send you much love. We miss you greatly at
+     Wych. Esther seems happy in her convent and will soon be clothed as
+     a novice.
+
+When Mark read this letter, he was prompt to admit himself in the
+wrong; but he could not bear the least implied criticism of Father
+Rowley.
+
+     St. Agnes' House,
+
+     Keppel Street,
+
+     Chatsea.
+
+     Dec. 3.
+
+     My dear Mr. Ogilvie,
+
+     I'm afraid I must have expressed myself very badly in my last
+     letter if I gave you the least idea that Father Rowley was not
+     always charity personified. He had probably come to the conclusion
+     that the young man was not much good and no doubt he deliberately
+     made it impossible for him to stay on at the Mission House. We do
+     get an awful lot of mere loafers here; I don't suppose that anybody
+     who keeps open house can avoid getting them. After all, if the
+     young man had been worth anything he would have realized that he
+     had made a fool of himself and by the way he took his snubbing have
+     re-established himself. What he actually did was to sulk and clear
+     out with a sneer at the work done here. I'm sorry I gave you the
+     impression that I was triumphing so tremendously over his
+     discomfiture. By writing about it I probably made the incident
+     appear much more important than it really was. I've no doubt I did
+     triumph a little, and I'm afraid I shall never be able not to feel
+     rather glad when a fellow like that is put in his place. I am not
+     for a moment going to try to argue that you can carry Christian
+     charity too far. The more one meditates on the words, and actions
+     of Our Lord, the more one grasps how impossible it is to carry
+     charity too far. All the same, one owes as much charity to Father
+     Rowley as to the young man. This sounds now I have written it down
+     as if I were getting in a hit at you, and that is the worst of
+     writing letters to justify oneself. What I am trying to say is that
+     if I were to have taken up arms for the young man and supposed him
+     to be ill-used or misjudged I should be criticizing Father Rowley.
+     I think that perhaps you don't quite realize what a saint he is in
+     every way. This is my fault, no doubt, because in my letters to you
+     I have always emphasized anything that would bring into relief his
+     personality. I expect that I've been too much concerned to draw a
+     picture of him as a man, in doing which I've perhaps been
+     unsuccessful in giving you a picture of him as a priest. It's
+     always difficult to talk or write about one's intimate religious
+     feelings, and you've been the only person to whom I ever have been
+     able to talk about them. However much I admire and revere Father
+     Rowley I doubt if I could talk or write to him about myself as I do
+     to you.
+
+     Until I came here I don't think I ever quite realized all that the
+     Blessed Sacrament means. I had accepted the Sacrifice of the Mass
+     as one accepts so much in our creed, without grasping its full
+     implication. If anybody were to have put me through a catechism
+     about the dogma I should have answered with theological exactitude,
+     without any appearance of misapprehending the meaning of it; but it
+     was not until I came here that its practical reality--I don't know
+     if I'm expressing myself properly or not, I'm pretty sure I'm not;
+     I don't mean practical application and I don't mean any kind of
+     addition to my faith; perhaps what I mean is that I've learnt to
+     grasp the mystery of the Mass outside myself, outside that is to
+     say my own devotion, my own awe, as a practical fact alive to these
+     people here. Sometimes when I go to Mass I feel as people who
+     watched Our Lord with His disciples and followers must have felt. I
+     feel like one of those people who ran after Him and asked Him what
+     they could do to be saved. I feel when I look at what has been done
+     here as if I must go to each of these poor people in turn and beg
+     them to bring me to the feet of Christ, just as I suppose on the
+     shores of the sea of Galilee people must have begged St. Peter or
+     St. Andrew or St. James or St. John to introduce them, if one can
+     use such a word for such an occasion. This seems to me the great
+     work that Father Rowley has effected in this parish. I have only
+     had one rather shy talk with him about religion, and in the course
+     of it I said something in praise of what his personality had
+     effected.
+
+     "My personality has effected nothing," he answered. "Everything
+     here is effected by the Blessed Sacrament."
+
+     That is why he surely has the right without any consideration for
+     the dignity of churchy young men to box their ears if they question
+     his outward respect for the Blessed Sacrament. Even Our Lord found
+     it necessary at least on one occasion to chase the buyers and
+     sellers out of the Temple, and though it is not recorded that He
+     boxed the ears of any Pharisee, it seems to me quite permissible to
+     believe that He did! He lashed them with scorn anyway.
+
+     To come back to Father Rowley, you know the great cry of the
+     so-called Evangelical party "Jesus only"? Well, Father Rowley has
+     really managed to make out of what was becoming a sort of
+     ecclesiastical party cry something that really is evangelical and
+     at the same time Catholic. These people are taught to make the
+     Blessed Sacrament the central fact of their lives in a way that I
+     venture to say no Welsh revivalist or Salvation Army captain has
+     ever made Our Lord the central fact in the lives of his converts,
+     because with the Blessed Sacrament continually before them, Which
+     is Our Lord Jesus Christ, their conversion endures. I could fill a
+     book with stories of the wonderful behaviour of these poor souls.
+     The temptation is to say of a man like Father Rowley that he has
+     such a natural spring of human charity flowing from his heart that
+     by offering to the world a Christlike example he converts his
+     flock. Certainly he does give a Christlike example and undoubtedly
+     that must have a great influence on his people; but he does not
+     believe, and I don't believe, that a Christlike example is of any
+     use without Christ, and he gives them Christ. Even the Bishop of
+     Silchester had to admit the other day that Vespers of the Blessed
+     Sacrament as held at St. Agnes' is a perfectly scriptural service.
+     Father Rowley makes of the Blessed Sacrament Christ Himself, so
+     that the poor people may flock round Him. He does not go round
+     arguing with them, persuading them, but in the crises of their
+     lives, as the answer to every question, as the solution of every
+     difficulty and doubt, as the consolation in every sorrow, he offers
+     them the Blessed Sacrament. All his prayers (and he makes a great
+     use of extempore prayer, much to the annoyance of the Bishop, who
+     considers it ungrammatical), all his sermons, all his actions
+     revolve round that one great fact. "Jesus Christ is what you need,"
+     he says, "and Jesus Christ is here in your church, here upon your
+     altar."
+
+     You can't go into the little church without finding fifty people
+     praying before the Blessed Sacrament. The other day when the "King
+     Harry" was sunk by the "Trafalgar," the people here subscribed I
+     forget how many pounds for the widows and children of the
+     bluejackets and marines of the Mission who were drowned, and when
+     it was finished and the subscription list was closed, they
+     subscribed all over again to erect an altar at which to say Masses
+     for the dead. And the old women living in Father Rowley's free
+     houses that were once brothels gave up their summer outing so that
+     the money spent on them might be added to the fund. When the Bishop
+     of Silchester came here last week for Confirmation he asked Father
+     Rowley what that altar was.
+
+     "That is the ugliest thing I've ever seen," he said. But when
+     Father Rowley told him about the poor people and the old women who
+     had no money of their own, he said: "That is the most beautiful
+     thing I've ever heard."
+
+     I am beginning to write as if it was necessary to convince you of
+     the necessity of making the Blessed Sacrament the central feature
+     of the religious life to-day and for ever until the end of the
+     world. But, I know you won't think I'm doing anything of the kind,
+     for really I am only trying to show you how much my faith has been
+     strengthened and how much my outlook has deepened and how much more
+     than ever I long to be a priest to be able to give poor people
+     Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
+
+     Your ever affectionate
+
+     Mark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE DRUNKEN PRIEST
+
+
+Gradually, Mark found to his pleasure and his pride that he was
+becoming, if not indispensable to Father Rowley (the Missioner found no
+human being indispensable) at any rate quite evidently useful. Perhaps
+Father Rowley though that in allowing himself to rely considerably upon
+Mark's secretarial talent he was indulging himself in a luxury to which
+he was not entitled. That was Father Rowley's way. The moment he
+discovered himself enjoying anything too much, whether it was a cigar or
+a secretary, he cut himself off from it, and this not in any spirit of
+mortification for mortification's sake, but because he dreaded the
+possibility of putting the slightest drag upon his freedom to criticize
+others. He had no doubt at all in his own mind that he was perfectly
+justified in making use of Mark's intelligence and energy. But in a
+place like the Mission House, where everybody from lay helper to casual
+guest was supposed to stand on his own feet, the Missioner himself felt
+that he must offer an example of independence.
+
+"You're spoiling me, Mark Anthony," he said one day. "There's nothing
+for me to do this evening."
+
+"I know," Mark agreed contentedly. "I want to give you a rest for once."
+
+"Rest?" the priest echoed. "You don't seriously expect a fat man like me
+to sit down in an armchair and rest, do you? Besides, you've got your
+own reading to do, and you didn't come to Chatsea as my punkah walla."
+
+Mark insisted that he was getting along in his own way quite fast
+enough, and that he had plenty of time on his hands to keep Father
+Rowley's correspondence in some kind of order.
+
+"All these other people have any amount to do," said Mark. "Cartwright
+has his boys every evening and Warrender has his men."
+
+"And Mark Anthony has nothing but a fat, poverty-stricken, slothful
+mission priest," Father Rowley gurgled.
+
+"Yes, and you're more trouble than all the rest put together. Look here,
+I've written to the Bishop's chaplain about that confirmation; I
+explained why we wanted to hold a special confirmation for these two
+boys we are emigrating, and he has written back to say that the Bishop
+has no objection to a special confirmation's being held by the Bishop of
+Matabeleland when he comes to stay here next week. At the same time, he
+says the Bishop doesn't want it to become a precedent."
+
+"No. I can quite understand that," Father Rowley chuckled. "Bishops are
+haunted by the creation of precedents. A precedent in the life of a
+bishop is like an illegitimate child in the life of a respectable
+churchwarden. No, the only thing I fear is that if I devour all your
+spare time you won't get quite what you wanted to get by coming to live
+with us."
+
+He laid a fat hand on Mark's shoulder.
+
+"Please don't bother about me," said Mark. "I get all I want and more
+than I expected if I can be of the least use to you. I know I'm rather
+disappointing you by not behaving like half the people who come down
+here and want to get up a concert on Monday, a dance on Tuesday, a
+conjuring entertainment on Wednesday, a street procession on Thursday, a
+day of intercession on Friday, and an amateur dramatic entertainment on
+Saturday, not to mention acting as ceremonarius on Sunday. I know you'd
+like me to propose all sorts of energetic diversions, so that you could
+have the pleasure of assuring me that I was only proposing them to
+gratify my own vanity, which of course would be perfectly true. Luckily
+I'm of a retiring disposition, and I don't want to do anything to help
+the ten thousand benighted parishioners of Saint Agnes', except
+indirectly by striving to help in my own feeble way the man who really
+is helping them. Now don't throw that inkpot at me, because the room's
+quite dirty enough already, and as I've made you sit still for five
+minutes I've achieved something this evening that mighty few people
+have achieved in Keppel Street. I believe the only time you really rest
+is in the confessional box."
+
+"Mark Anthony, Mark Anthony," said the priest, "you talk a great deal
+too much. Come along now, it's bedtime."
+
+One of the rules of the Mission House was that every inmate should be in
+bed by ten o'clock and all lights out by a quarter past. The day began
+with Mass at seven o'clock at which everybody was expected to be
+present; and from that time onward everybody was so fully occupied that
+it was essential to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Guests who came down
+for a night or two were often apt to forget how much the regular workers
+had to do and what a tax it put upon the willing servants to manage a
+house of which nobody could say ten minutes before a meal how many would
+sit down to it, nor even until lights out for how many people beds must
+be made. In case any guest should forget this rule by coming back after
+ten o'clock, Father Rowley made a point of having the front door bell to
+ring in his bedroom, so that he might get out of bed at any hour of the
+night and admit the loiterer. Guests were warned what would be the
+effect of their lack of consideration, and it was seldom that Father
+Rowley was disturbed.
+
+Among the guests there was one class of which a representative was
+usually to be found at the Mission House. This was the drunken
+clergyman, which sounds as if there was at this date a high proportion
+of drunken clergymen in the Church of England; but which means that when
+one did come to St. Agnes' he usually stayed for a long time, because he
+would in most cases have been sent there when everybody else had
+despaired of him to see what Father Rowley could effect.
+
+About the time when Mark was beginning to be recognized as Father
+Rowley's personal vassal, it happened that the Reverend George Edward
+Mousley who had been handed on from diocese to diocese during the last
+five years had lately reached the Mission House. For more than two
+months now he had spent his time inconspicuously reading in his own
+room, and so well had he behaved, so humbly had he presented himself to
+the notice of his fellow guests, that Father Rowley was moved one
+afternoon to dictate a letter about him to Mark, who felt that the
+Missioner by taking him so far into his confidence had surrendered to
+his pertinacity and that thenceforth he might consider himself
+established as his private secretary.
+
+"The letter is to the Lord Bishop Suffragan of Warwick, St. Peter's
+Rectory, Warwick," Father Rowley began. "My dear Bishop of Warwick, I
+have now had poor Mousley here for two months. It is not a long time in
+which to effect a lasting reformation of one who has fallen so often and
+so grievously, but I think you know me well enough not to accuse me of
+being too sanguine about drunken priests. I have had too many of them
+here for that. In his case however I do feel justified in asking you to
+agree with me in letting him have an opportunity to regain the respect
+due to himself and the reverence due to his priesthood by being allowed
+once more to the altar. I should not dream of allowing him to officiate
+without your permission, because his sad history has been so much a
+personal burden to yourself. I'm afraid that after the many
+disappointments he has inflicted upon you, you will be doubtful of my
+judgment. Yet I do think that the critical moment has arrived when by
+surprising him thus we might clinch the matter of his future behaviour
+once and for all. His conduct here has been so humble and patient and in
+every way exemplary that my heart bleeds for him. Therefore, my dear
+Bishop of Warwick, I hope you will agree to what I firmly trust will be
+the completion of his spiritual cure. I am writing to you quite
+impersonally and informally, as you see, so that in replying to me you
+will not be involving yourself in the affairs of another diocese. You
+will, of course, put me down as much a Jesuit as ever in writing to you
+like this, but you will equally, I know, believe me to be, Yours ever
+affectionately in Our Blessed Lord.
+
+"And I'll sign it as soon as you can type it out," Father Rowley wound
+up.
+
+"Oh, I do hope he will agree," Mark exclaimed.
+
+"He will," the Missioner prophesied. "He will because he is a wise and
+tender and godly man and therefore will never be more than a Bishop
+Suffragan as long as he lives. Mark!"
+
+Mark looked up at the severity of the tone.
+
+"Mark! Correct me when I fall into the habit of sneering at the
+episcopate."
+
+That night Father Rowley was attending a large temperance demonstration
+in the Town Hall for the purpose of securing if possible a smaller
+proportion of public houses than one for every eighty of the population,
+which was the average for Chatsea. The meeting lasted until nearly ten
+o'clock; and it had already struck the hour when Father Rowley with Mark
+and two or three others got back to Keppel Street. There was nothing
+Father Rowley disliked so much as arriving home himself after ten, and
+he hurried up to his room without inquiring if everybody was in.
+
+Mark's window looked out on Keppel Street; and the May night being warm
+and his head aching from the effects of the meeting, he sat for nearly
+an hour at the open window gazing down at the passers by. There was not
+much to see, nothing more indeed than couples wandering home, a
+bluejacket or two, an occasional cat, and a few women carrying jugs of
+beer. By eleven o'clock even this slight traffic had ceased, and there
+was nothing down the silent street except a salt wind from the harbour
+that roused a memory of the beach at Nancepean years ago when he had sat
+there watching the glow-worm and decided to be a lighthouse-keeper
+keeping his lamps bright for mariners homeward bound. It was of streets
+like Keppel Street that they would have dreamed, with the Stag Light
+winking to port, and the west wind blowing strong astern. What a
+lighthouse-keeper Father Rowley was! How except by the grace of God
+could one explain such goodness as his? Fashions in saintliness might
+change, but there was one kind of saint that always and for every creed
+spoke plainly of God's existence, such saints as St. Francis of Assisi
+or St. Anthony of Padua, who were manifestly the heirs of Christ. With
+what a tender cynicism Our Lord had called St. Peter to be the
+foundation stone of His Church, with what a sorrowful foreboding of the
+failure of Christianity. Such a choice appeared as the expression of
+God's will not to be let down again as He was let down by Adam. Jesus
+Christ, conscious at the moment of what He must shortly suffer at the
+hands of mankind, must have been equally conscious of the failure of
+Christianity two thousand years beyond His Agony and Bloody Sweat and
+Crucifixion. Why, within a short time after His life on earth it was
+necessary for that light from heaven to shine round about Saul on the
+Damascus road, because already scoffers, while the disciples were still
+alive, may have been talking about the failure of Christianity. It must
+have been another of God's self-imposed limitations that He did not give
+to St. John that capacity of St. Paul for organization which might have
+made practicable the Christianity of the master Who loved him. _Woman,
+behold thy son! Behold thy mother!_ That dying charge showed that Our
+Lord considered John the most Christlike of His disciples, and he
+remained the most Christlike man until twelve hundred years later St.
+Francis was born at Assisi. St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Dominic, if
+Christianity could only produce mighty individualists of Faith like
+them, it could scarcely have endured as it had endured. _And now abideth
+faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is
+charity._ There was something almost wistful in those words coming from
+the mouth of St. Paul. It was scarcely conceivable that St. John or St.
+Francis could ever have said that; it would scarcely have struck either
+that the three virtues were separable.
+
+Keppel Street was empty now. Mark's headache had been blown away by the
+night wind with his memories and the incoherent thoughts which had
+gathered round the contemplation of Father Rowley's character. He was
+just going to draw away from the window and undress when he caught sight
+of a figure tacking from one pavement to the other up Keppel Street.
+Mark watched its progress, amused at the extraordinary amount of trouble
+it was giving itself, until one tack was brought to a sharp conclusion
+by a lamp-post to which the figure clung long enough to be recognized as
+that of the Reverend George Edward Mousley, who had been tacking like
+this to make the harbour of the Mission House. Mark, remembering the
+letter which had been written to the Bishop of Warwick, wondered if he
+could not at any rate for to-night spare Father Rowley the
+disappointment of knowing that his plea for re-instatement was already
+answered by the drunken priest himself. He must make up his mind
+quickly, because even with the zigzag course Mousley was taking he would
+soon be ringing the bell of the Mission House, which meant that Father
+Rowley would be woken up and go down to let him in. Of course, he would
+have to know all about it in the morning, but to-night when he had gone
+to bed tired and full of hope for temperance in general and the
+reformation of Mousley in particular it was surely right to let him
+sleep in ignorance. Mark decided to take it upon himself to break the
+rules of the house, to open the door to Mousley, and if possible to get
+him upstairs to bed quietly. He went down with a lighted candle, crept
+across the gymnasium, and opened the door. Mousley was still tacking
+from pavement to pavement and making very little headway against a
+strong current of drink. Mark thought he had better go out and offer his
+services as pilot, because Mousley was beginning to sing an
+extraordinary song in which the tune and the words of _Good-bye, Dolly,
+I must leave you_, had got mixed up with _O happy band of pilgrims_.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Mousley, you mustn't sing now," said Mark taking hold of
+the arm with which the drunkard was trying to beat time. "It's after
+eleven o'clock, and you're just outside the Mission House."
+
+"I've been just outside the Mission House for an hour and three
+quarters, old chap," said Mr. Mousley solemnly. "Most incompatible thing
+I've ever known. I got back here at a quarter past nine, and I was just
+going to walk in when the house took two paces to the rear, and I've
+been walking after it the whole evening. Most incompatible thing I've
+ever known. Most incompatible thing that's ever happened to me in my
+life, Lidderdale. If I were a superstitious man, which I'm not, I should
+say the house was bewitched. If I had a moment to spare, I should sit
+down at once and write an account of my most incompatible experience to
+the Society of Psychical Research, if I were a superstitious man, which
+I'm not. Yes. . . ."
+
+Mr. Mousley tried to focus his glassy eyes upon the arcana of
+spiritualism, rocking ambiguously the while upon the kerb. Mark murmured
+something more about the need for going in quietly.
+
+"It's very kind of you to come out and talk to me like this," the
+drunken priest went on. "But what you ought to have done was to have
+kept hold of the house for a minute or two so as to give me time to get
+in quietly. Now we shall probably both be out here all night trying to
+get in quietly. It's impossible to keep warm by this lamp-post. Most
+inadequate heating arrangement. It is a lamp-post, isn't it? Yes, I
+thought it was. I had a fleeting impression that it was my bedroom
+candle, but I see now that I was mistaken, I see now perfectly clearly
+that it is a lamp-post, if not two. Of course, that may account for my
+not being able to get into the Mission House. I was trying to decide
+which front door I should go in by, and while I was waiting I think I
+must have gone in by the wrong one, for I hit my nose a most severe blow
+on the nose. One has to remember to be very careful with front doors. Of
+course, if it was my own house I should have used a latch-key instanter;
+for I inevitably, I mean invariably, carry a latch-key about with me and
+when it won't open my front door I use it to wind my watch. You know,
+it's one of those small keys you can wind up watches with, if you know
+the kind of key I mean. I'd draw you a picture of it if I had a pencil,
+but I haven't got a pencil."
+
+"Now don't stay talking here," Mark urged. "Come along back, and do try
+to come quietly. I keep telling you it's after eleven o'clock, and you
+know Father Rowley likes everybody to be in by ten."
+
+"That's what I've been saying to myself the whole evening," said Mr.
+Mousley. "Only what happened, you see, was that I met the son of a man
+who used to know my father, a very nice fellow indeed, a very
+intellectual fellow. I never remember spending a more intellectual
+evening in my life. A feast of reason and a flowing bowl, I mean soul,
+s-o-u-l, not b-o-u-l. Did I say bowl? Soul. . . . Soul. . . ."
+
+"All right," said Mark. "But if you've had such a jolly evening, come in
+now and don't make a noise."
+
+"I'll come in whenever you like," Mr. Mousley offered. "I'm at your
+disposition entirely. The only request I have to make is that you will
+guarantee that the house stays where it was built. It's all very fine
+for an ordinary house to behave like this, but when a mission house
+behaves like this I call it disgraceful. I don't know what I've done to
+the house that it should conceive such a dislike to me. I say,
+Lidderdale, have they been taking up the drains or something in this
+street? Because I distinctly had an impression just then that I put my
+foot into a hole."
+
+"The street's perfectly all right," said Mark. "Nothing has been done to
+it."
+
+"There's no reason why they shouldn't take up the drains if they want
+to, I'm not complaining. Drains have to be taken up and I should be the
+last man to complain; but I merely asked a question, and I'm convinced
+that they have been taking up the drains. Yes, I've had a very
+intellectual evening. My head's whirling with philosophy. We've talked
+about everything. My friend talked a good deal about Buddhism. And I
+made rather a good joke about Confucius being so confusing, at which I
+laughed inordinately. Inordinately, Lidderdale. I've had a very keen
+sense of humour ever since I was a baby. I say, Lidderdale, you
+certainly know your way about this street. I'm very much obliged to me
+for meeting you. I shall get to know the street in time. You see, my
+object was to get beyond the house, because I said to myself 'the house
+is in Keppel Street, it can dodge about _in_ Keppel Street, but it can't
+be in any other street,' so I thought that if I could dodge it into the
+corner of Keppel Street--you follow what I mean? I may be talking a bit
+above your head, we've been talking philosophy all the evening, but if
+you concentrate you'll follow my meaning."
+
+"Here we are," said Mark, for by this time he had persuaded Mr. Mousley
+to put his foot upon the step of the front door.
+
+"You managed the house very well," said the clergyman. "It's
+extraordinary how a house will take to some people and not to others.
+Now I can do anything I like with dogs, and you can do anything you like
+with houses. But it's no good patting or stroking a house. You've got to
+manage a house quite differently to that. You've got to keep a house's
+accounts. You haven't got to keep a dog's accounts."
+
+They were in the gymnasium by now, which by the light of Mark's small
+candle loomed as vast as a church.
+
+"Don't talk as you go upstairs," Mark admonished.
+
+"Isn't that a dog I see there?"
+
+"No, no, no," said Mark. "It's the horse. Come along."
+
+"A horse?" Mousley echoed. "Well, I can manage horses too. Come here,
+Dobbin. If I'd known we were going to meet a horse I should have brought
+back some sugar with me. I suppose it's too late to go back and buy some
+sugar now?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Mark impatiently. "Much too late. Come along."
+
+"If I had a piece of sugar he'd follow us upstairs. You'll find a horse
+will go anywhere after a piece of sugar. It is a horse, isn't it? Not a
+donkey? Because if it was a donkey he would want a thistle, and I don't
+know where I can get a thistle at this time of night. I say, did you
+prod me in the stomach then with anything?" asked Mr. Mousley severely.
+
+"No, no," said Mark. "Come along, it was the parallel bars."
+
+"I've not been near any bars to-night, and if you are suggesting that
+I've been in bars you're making an insinuation which I very much resent,
+an insinuation which I resent most bitterly, an insinuation which I
+should not allow anybody to make without first pointing out that it was
+an insinuation."
+
+"Do come down off that ladder," Mark said.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Lidderdale. I was under the impression for the
+moment that I was going upstairs. I have really been so confused by
+Confucius and by the extraordinary behaviour of the house to-night,
+recoiling from me as it did, that for the moment I was under the
+impression that I was going upstairs."
+
+At this moment Mr. Mousley fell from the ladder, luckily on one of the
+gymnasium mats.
+
+"I do think it's a most ridiculous habit," he said, "not to place a
+doormat in what I might describe as a suitable cavity. The number of
+times in my life that I've fallen over doormats simply because people
+will not take the trouble to make the necessary depression in the floor
+with which to contain such a useful domestic receptacle you would
+scarcely believe. I must have fallen over thousands of doormats in my
+life," he shouted at the top of his voice.
+
+"You'll wake everybody up in the house," Mark exclaimed in an agony.
+"For heaven's sake keep quiet."
+
+paper by mice at Schloss Lischnitz. And this was what it had come to,
+her "Song of Songs."
+
+It held out no message of hope now; it was no refuge for the future. No
+faithful Eckart, no guide to dizzy golden heights. It was a mere
+derelict, used up though never used, a time-honoured bit of lumber
+that one drags about without knowing why--an extinguished light, a
+masterpiece of wisdom that had become meaningless.
+
+Shrugging her shoulders, she hastily gathered together the disarranged
+rolls of paper and tried to thrust one inside the other, regardless of
+how they came--she was in such a hurry!
+
+"I can arrange them some time later," she thought, dimly conscious that
+she would never take the trouble.
+
+Adele came with the box. She seemed to have been a remarkably long time
+getting it. Her eyes kept wandering guiltily to the clock, and her
+answers were absent-minded. Then she threw back the lid, and Lilly
+threw the score into the bottom of the box. Its yawning depths seemed
+to cry out for further booty. There lay the dresses spread out on the
+bed. Her row of shoes stood by the washstand. Hats, blouses, veils,
+lace wraps, silk petticoats--all were waiting as much as to say, "Take
+us too!"
+
+For a moment she closed her eyes with a moan, remembering the one and
+only sacrifice he had asked of her. But it must be done--both their
+futures depended on it.
+
+"Frau Laue will hide them for me, and afterwards Frau Laue can keep
+them," she thought.
+
+Then, with a rapid resolve, she made a dash at the clothes, and
+gathered up blindly anything and everything she could lay hands on.
+She seized even the gold-coroneted ivory brushes, the three-winged
+hand-mirror, the bromide, the recipe for the summer storage of her
+furs, and a dozen other little indispensable articles of the toilette.
+
+And jewels were not forgotten! "_He_ may want money later," she
+thought.
+
+Meanwhile Adele had been sent out for a four-wheeler, and again it was
+ages before she came back. The porter helped to carry down the trunk,
+and Adele held the hat-boxes in her free hand. One last caress of the
+bullfinch's grey-green wings, a kiss on the small monkey's velvety
+snout, and the door closed behind her for ever.
+
+"Will not the _gnädige Frau_ leave an address?" Adele inquired. How sly
+she looked!
+
+"Later on I will write to you, dear Adele, and I hope you may come and
+live with me again."
+
+"Dear Adele" did not respond, but glanced down the street expectantly.
+
+A few minutes afterwards, as Lilly drove along the canal, she saw from
+the cab window a smart yellow-striped hired motor whiz past from the
+opposite direction. Richard was inside. She recognised him as he
+flashed by. Red as a lobster, his head slanting, he stared past her,
+with wild and searching glances, at the house that she had just left.
+
+She hurriedly directed her driver to turn into a side street, for she
+had no desire to meet him till her fate with regard to the world had
+been decided. But in a few minutes she heard, with a beating heart, the
+same clatter of wheels that had died away in the distance coming behind
+her, and drawing nearer and nearer. The yellow side of the motor had
+almost shot beyond her, when the word "Stop!" brought it to a
+standstill, and at the same moment her cab drew up too.
+
+Richard confronted her with his hand on the door-handle: "Where are you
+going?"
+
+His voice rose to a feminine shrillness. Above his high starched collar
+his throat worked up and down convulsively.
+
+She felt perfectly calm and mistress of the situation.
+
+He appeared to her now a poor, helpless shadow of a creature, he who so
+long had been her lord and master.
+
+"Please let me drive on, Richard," she said. "I have said good-bye to
+you by letter. I wanted a few things, and have been to fetch them. Why
+should we annoy each other further?"
+
+"Turn round!" he said, grinding his teeth. "Turn round!"
+
+"Why should I turn round?"
+
+"I say you shall! You know where your home is. I will not allow you to
+knock about the world by yourself any longer, God knows what mayn't
+happen to you. Driver, turn round!"
+
+The driver, with his red face, looked inquiringly at his fare before
+obeying.
+
+"Really, Richard, I alone have the control of this cab, and of my
+future proceedings--as you have control of yours."
+
+"What rot! If you are thinking about the American heiress, she may go
+to the deuce for all I care. But _you_--you _must_ come back. You must!
+you shall!"
+
+He grasped with both hands the hem of her skirt as if he would drag her
+out of the cab by her clothes.
+
+"I beg you to come back.... I can't sleep, I can't work.... I have got
+so used to you.... If it had come off, I should have joined you again
+directly the wedding was over. And everything in your rooms is as you
+left it that you have seen for yourself. Peterle won't eat, Adele says,
+and Adele is moped. She says she simply can't exist without you. I'll
+give you twenty thousand--no, thirty thousand--marks a year for life.
+Mother won't mind.... She understands ... for, you know, I've given up
+the idea of marrying for good; that need never worry you again.... And
+you may come to the office when you like.... And you shall have the
+carriage instead of a hired one. I'll have the telephone put on between
+your flat and the stable. Or perhaps you'd prefer a motor-car? If so,
+you shall have one, ten thousand times better than this."
+
+He had played his trump-card. What dreams of earthly grandeur could
+exceed a motor-car? He paused and, kneeling on the step, stared hard
+into her face to see the effect of his speech.
+
+She saw clearly that she would never be free of him unless she told him
+the truth. She was sorry for him, but it was her duty.
+
+"Look here, Richard. All that you offer me is no good to me now, for I
+love another man who can give me far more than you can--far, far more!"
+
+"What! What! You've caught a young Vanderbilt?" he exclaimed in jealous
+rage. "Well, I must say I never suspected that side to your character."
+
+"No, dear Richard; it's not a young Vanderbilt. On the contrary, he is
+so poor that he lives from hand to mouth. But, all the same, he and I
+are engaged, and as his future wife I must ask you to leave me free to
+do as I like."
+
+His jaw dropped, his eyes grew round; he reeled back against the hind
+wheel of the yellow car.
+
+"Drive on!" called Lilly to the cabman.
+
+She leaned back in her corner with a sigh of relief, and yet with a
+slight sense of guilt at having got rid so lightly of the old love.
+
+The whole way she heard the puffing of a slowly progressing motor
+behind her, and when she descended from the cab, Richard got out of his
+motor at a little distance, but near enough for her to see an
+expression in his eyes like that of a whipped dog.
+
+She ran up the four flights of stairs as if pursued by furies,
+forgetting all about her box. A moment afterwards the cabman came up,
+panting under its weight, and when she offered him his fare he declined
+to take the money.
+
+"The gentleman downstairs," he said, "has already settled everything."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It was the evening of the next day. The carriage, which was bearing
+Lilly to the most dreaded interview of her life, drew up at the door of
+the Unter den Linden Restaurant, which had been a favourite haunt of
+the _beaumonde_ for generations. Although Lilly had not been there for
+a long time, she knew every inch of it. She knew, too, the giant
+commissionaire, Albert, who stood at the entrance and laid his hand
+respectfully on his braided cap. It was he who of old used to apprise
+her of the approach of the handsome officer of Hussars. With downcast
+eyes and her head pressed against Konrad's shoulder, she glided past
+him, trusting that he no longer remembered her.
+
+"Uncle, this is Lilly!"
+
+An old gentleman below middle height, with bow legs, and in an
+ill-fitting lounge-jacket and limp collar, came swaggering out of a
+private room and held out to her a broad fleshy hand, the skin of which
+was as loose and brown as a dog-skin glove. She cast a shy,
+scrutinising glance at this all-powerful person, whom she had pictured
+as a man of commanding presence and iron will, and who, after all, was
+only a shaky, corpulent, rather common-looking dwarf.
+
+Then, as she told herself that her own and Konrad's happiness depended
+on her conduct now and during the next hour or two, she felt the old
+paralysing nervousness which had not troubled her much of late years
+come over her. When suffering from these attacks she became as wooden
+as a doll, and could do nothing but smile inanely, and hardly knew how
+to pronounce her own name.
+
+The old uncle, too, seemed frozen into silence at the first sight of
+her. He scanned her from head to foot, and from foot to head, and
+nearly forgot to invite her into the private room.
+
+This room, with its gold Japanese wall-paper, its carnation silk
+hangings, its blue Persian rugs, and high-backed sofa, was as familiar
+to her as everything else in the place. Many a festive midnight hour
+had she caroused away here with Richard and his chance acquaintances at
+the time when it was still his ambition to hobnob with the _crême de la
+crême_ of fast society.
+
+An immaculately shaved waiter took her brocaded evening coat and lace
+scarf, and measured her as he did so with an eye that seemed to say,
+"Surely I must have seen _you_ before?"
+
+That was an agonising moment.
+
+The old uncle, who had never ceased to regard her stealthily with awed
+but grim glances, pulled himself together and said:
+
+"Well, now we are going to have a jolly time together, children ...
+cosy and friendly--eh? Jolly cosy."
+
+Lilly bowed.
+
+Her bow was a stiff enough inclination of the head, apparently, to
+increase the bandy-legged old gentleman's reverent esteem for her. He
+seemed puzzled and ill at ease, trampled restlessly about the room,
+toyed with the gold charms that dangled from his watch-chain, and
+nodded two or three times at Konrad in solemn appreciation.
+
+Then they seated themselves at the gleaming white table, which was a
+mass of glittering cut-glass and flowers. Round the bronze lamp, with
+its claws and dainty iris stem--Lilly remembered it well--hung a
+festoon of lilac orchids, which must have cost an immense sum.
+Evidently this slovenly old rascal understood the art of good living.
+
+Lilly saw herself reflected in a mirror as she sat in her place on the
+sofa, a radiant picture of composure and distinction. She had chosen a
+sunray pleated black Liberty silk dress with a bodice of Chantilly
+lace, which, despite its costliness, clung in the simplest lines
+gracefully about her neck and shoulders. An innocent masculine mind
+might easily believe that such a costume could be bought anywhere
+between San Francisco and St. Petersburg, or Cape Town and Christiania,
+for two hundred marks.
+
+She had wisely left her jewellery at home. Only the slender gold chain,
+which she generally wore with a low bodice, encircled in maidenly
+unpretentiousness her high transparent collar.
+
+She looked like a strictly reared young gentlewoman of quality making
+her first _dêbut_ in the great world, full of shyness and curiosity.
+
+Konrad occupied the chair on her right. The third place, nearest the
+door, his uncle had retained for himself.
+
+From the moment he sat down to table he seemed to be in his element. He
+growled and issued orders, and found fault with everything.
+
+"Look here, my boy," he said to the waiter as he placed the _hors
+d'[oe]uvres_ in front of him, "do you call that the correct decanter for
+port wine? Don't you know that if port wine doesn't sparkle in the
+decanter it assuages thirst?"
+
+Intimidated by his bullying tone, the waiter was going off for another
+decanter, but Konrad's uncle declared he couldn't spare the time, he
+must have a "starter" straight away.
+
+"I am still feeling a little stiff," he said apologetically, "I am
+unaccustomed to entertaining such very beautiful and at the same time
+stand-offish ladies."
+
+Lilly felt a stab at her heart.
+
+Her lover's eyes met hers with a glance full of reproach and
+encouragement which said: "You mustn't be so silent. You must try to be
+nice to him." And in the same mute language she answered humbly and
+deprecatingly: "I cannot; _you_ talk for both of us."
+
+And then he began in his anxiety to converse as if he had been
+paid to entertain the company. He described the antiques which his
+uncle had collected in his castle on the Rhine, referred to threatened
+American competition, passed on to Italy and the evils of the Lex
+Pacca--goodness only knew what topic he didn't touch on.
+
+It was quite an illuminating little discourse, which his uncle appeared
+to follow with modified interest, as he squinted across at Lilly and
+smacked his lips while he let morsels of tunny in oil slip down his
+throat.
+
+Suddenly he said, "All very well, my son. Highly instructive and
+proper. But I wonder if you could not be equally enlightening on the
+subject of what sort of whisky they provide here?"
+
+Konrad sprang up to look for the bell, but his uncle pulled him back.
+
+"Stop! stop! This is my private entertainment. The port wine is for
+you. And a beautiful woman, after all, is a beautiful woman, even when
+she is someone else's beautiful wife. So here's to the health of our
+beauty."
+
+That sounded very like sarcasm. Was it his intention to make game of
+her before finally rejecting her claims?
+
+"Permit me," he continued, "to give you my congratulations. You have
+worked wonders already with the boy.... He dances prettily to your
+piping--eh?"
+
+Now she was bound to make some answer.
+
+"I don't pipe and he doesn't dance," she said, with an effort. "We are
+neither of us light-hearted enough for that."
+
+"Ah, that's a nasty one for me," he laughed; but his laugh sounded
+cross and irritable.
+
+"Lilly meant no harm," interposed Konrad, coming to her rescue. "And
+certainly the time of stress that we are passing through at present is
+not easy. If it were not for the help she gives me daily with her
+understanding and kindness of heart, I am not sure that I could
+struggle on."
+
+"Very good, very good," he replied; "or perhaps I should say, very
+pitiable. But your old uncle hasn't had as much as one pretty look or
+speech from her yet as a seal of our future relationship."
+
+"Oh, that's what he wants, is it?" thought Lilly; and she raised her
+glass to his, and sought to mollify him with a coquettish little
+shamefaced smile.
+
+It filled him with evident satisfaction. He twirled his pointed beard,
+and ogled her familiarly with his twinkling eyes, as if he wished to
+elicit a sign of secret understanding betwixt them.
+
+"Thank God, perhaps he's not so very formidable after all!" she
+thought, and gave a sigh of deep relief that the ice was broken at
+last.
+
+When the waiter came back, a lively discussion ensued between him and
+Konrad's uncle as to the brands of whisky the hotel boasted.... The
+debate ended in the manager of the establishment appearing on the
+scene, and offering to go down into the cellar himself to search for a
+bottle, which he thought he had somewhere, bearing the label of a
+certain celebrated firm, and the date of a certain famous year.
+
+Not till this important matter was settled did the old gentleman again
+devote his attention to his fair future niece-in-law.
+
+"I am an old mud-lark," he said. "I have done business in guano, train
+oil, Australian pitch, ship grease, and other such unclean things. So
+you can't wonder at my wishing to refresh myself for once in a way with
+an appetising object like yourself, dear ungracious lady. All I require
+is a little return of my interest."
+
+"Ah well, then, I'll just be impudent," thought Lilly. And aloud she
+said: "You know, Herr Rennschmidt, I am sitting here trembling
+in my shoes like a poor, unlucky candidate for an examination! I
+implore you"--she raised her clasped hands towards him--"don't play
+cat-and-mouse with me."
+
+Now she had struck the right note and given him the opening he desired.
+
+"Her lips are unsealed at last!" he exclaimed, beaming. "And I say,
+Konrad, what pretty lips she has! I like those long teeth that make the
+upper lip say to the lower, 'If you won't kiss when I do, I'll have a
+separation.' Do you see what I mean, Konrad, you dullard?"
+
+Lilly could not help laughing heartily, and at once they were on the
+best of terms. Even Konrad's dear, haggard face lighted up for a moment
+with a reassuring smile which did her heart good. For his sake she
+could almost have thrown herself under his uncle's feet, so dearly did
+she love him. And with a feeling of rising triumph she thought, "I'll
+just show him how awfully nice I can be to the old curmudgeon."
+
+It was not so difficult, after all. When she looked at his round,
+puckered, mischievous old face, with the keen shrewd grey eyes and the
+beautifully waved snow-white wig--it was actually a wig peaked on the
+forehead and brushed into two outstanding curls over his ears like a
+judge's--she felt more and more that he was a good and tried comrade,
+with whom she had often had good times in the past. And yet she had
+certainly never met him before.
+
+He had a masterful air of breeding about him, despite his plebeian
+exterior. His choice of the menu was simply admirable. The 'sixty-eight
+Steinberger, which flowed into the crystal glasses like liquid amber,
+suited the blue trout to such perfection that it might have been their
+native element; and the sweet-bread patties _à la Montgelas_ were
+worthy accompaniments. Neither Richard nor any of his crew understood
+so well the gourmet's art.
+
+If only he had not drunk whisky so perpetually in between!
+
+"My brain has been so deadened by money-making," he said in
+justification, "I am obliged to give it a fillip now and then, or it
+would become completely dulled."
+
+With the punch _à la romaine_, a brief and vivacious debate arose as to
+the merits of certain American drinks, in which Lilly, with her
+extensive knowledge of bars and beverages, scored. She even knew the
+exact ingredients of her host's speciality, the "South Sea Bowl," in
+which sherry, cognac, angostura bitters, with the yolks of eggs and
+Château d'Yquem, or, if necessary, moselle, contributed to make a fiery
+mixture. She went so far as to offer to prepare this curious mixture
+for him after dinner with the skill of an expert, so that he would have
+to confess he had never drunk anything more delicious between Singapore
+and Melbourne.
+
+Konrad, who obviously had never suspected her genius in this direction,
+listened to her with an amazement that filled her with pride. She
+telegraphed to him one secret signal after the other, asking, "Aren't
+you pleased? Am I not being very, very nice to him?"
+
+But somehow he would not respond. He was silent and absent-minded, and
+it often seemed as if he did not belong to the party.
+
+"Well, he may dream if he likes," she thought blissfully. "I'll look
+after our interests."
+
+Thus every minute the friendship between her and the old worldling grew
+apace.
+
+By the time they had got to the wild-duck and the dark glowing
+burgundy, which slid down their throats like warm caresses, she had
+already begun to call him "dear uncle." He, on his side, declared over
+and over again that he was "totally wrapped up in his dear, dear little
+Lilly."
+
+So this was the test, the cruel probation, which she had dreaded with
+all her soul, through which she had expected to come dissected and
+unmasked, with every rag of concealment rudely torn off!
+
+When she thought of how differently things were turning out, she could
+hardly contain herself for glee. There sat the mighty, dreaded peril,
+whose money-bags meant victory or defeat, a little wild beast tamed,
+who squeezed her fingers in his repulsive shrivelled hands and fawned
+on her for a smile.
+
+He was undoubtedly quite amusing, especially when he told good stories.
+
+What a lot of scandal he had gathered in the Colonies! In one evening
+he told more anecdotes than she had heard for a year. There was, for
+example, the story of the German Governor, Herr von So-and-So--she had
+once met him herself at Uhl's--who took up his duties abroad with a
+suite consisting of secretary, valet, and cook. In six months the cook
+came and said, "Herr Governor, I am----" He gave her two thousand marks
+and said, "Here you are, but keep quiet." Then she went to the
+secretary and said, "Herr Müller, I am----" He gave her three hundred
+marks and said, "Not a word." Then she went to the valet and said,
+"Johann, I'm so far gone, we'd better marry." After three months the
+valet came to the Governor and said, "Your Excellency, the hussy took
+us all in. The child is black!" And many another yarn followed of the
+same sort. In short, she nearly died of laughing.
+
+"Konrad, why don't you laugh? Laugh, dearest."
+
+And then he really did smile, but his eyes remained grave and his brow
+tense.
+
+When the champagne came, they drank each other's health again, and
+kissed. The touch of those thick sensual old lips was horrible, but to
+ensure her future happiness it had to be endured. She was going to give
+Konrad a kiss too, but he declined it. Still worse, he tried to prevent
+her drinking so much.
+
+"She ought to be more careful," he urged. "Please, uncle, don't fill up
+her glass so often. We never drink so much as this."
+
+The other two laughed at him.
+
+"He always was a bit of a muff," jeered his old uncle, "and never knew
+what was good. He's not good enough for you, Lilly; you ought to have a
+fellow like me--not a prig. He's like a mute at a funeral."
+
+But she saw no joke in this.
+
+"You shan't abuse my darling Konni, you old wretch! Go on telling your
+old chestnuts. _Allons_! Fire away!"
+
+No, not a word should be breathed against her dear, sweet Konni!
+
+So uncle started telling good stories again. This time he related them
+in pigeon-English, that gibberish which the Chinese and other
+interesting inhabitants of the far East use as a medium of
+communication with the white sahibs. "Tom and Paddy in the Tea-house";
+"The virtuous spinster Miss Laura"; "The Guide and the Bayadere." Each
+was received with a box of the ears.
+
+"But we mustn't let Konni hear any more, uncle dear. Konni might be
+corrupted."
+
+So saying, she inclined her left ear very close to dear uncle's lips,
+and made with her hollowed hand between them a "whispering-tube," which
+was the custom of "the crew" when any of them wanted to flirt unheard,
+or do anything else particularly outrageous.
+
+It would be a sad mistake to suppose that she was in the least abashed
+or unequal to giving as good as she got. The general's "lullabies" were
+spicy enough, and she had learned from "the crew" much that was of
+unquestionable origin and questionable taste. For such an appreciative
+audience as uncle proved to be, it was worth while doing one's best.
+But the innocent Konrad had to submit to his ears being stuffed up with
+the wadding on which the Colville apples had been served.
+
+After the coffee, uncle challenged her to keep her promise about
+brewing the South Sea Bowl, her vaunted knowledge of which, of course,
+had been mere brag.
+
+She would show him! He shouldn't scoff at her a second time. A variety
+of bottles were brought; besides the sherry and the angostura, an old,
+sweet liqueur. It was a pity, uncle thought, to mix such good things,
+and he took two or three glasses of the latter neat, and she followed
+his example.
+
+The tiresome eggs broke at the wrong place, it was true, and emptied
+their contents on her dress and the carpet. But what did that matter?
+It merely increased the fun ... and dear old uncle was paying for
+everything. To make up for the eggs smashing, the blue flame of the
+alcohol-lamp leapt up merrily as high as the orchids, as high as the
+ceiling.... She would have loved to lick up the flames, as the witches
+did.
+
+"Your luck, Konni!--_our_ luck, Konni!"
+
+"Don't drink it," she heard him say, and his voice sounded harder than
+usual. Indeed, she hardly recognised it as his voice at all.
+
+"Muff!" she laughed, and thrust out her tongue at him. "Muff!"
+
+"Don't drink it!" the warning voice said again. "You are not used to
+it."
+
+_She_ not used to drinking! How dared he say so? This was an insult to
+her honour; yes, an insult to her honour.
+
+"How do you know what I am used to? I am used to plenty of things you
+don't guess.... Here, on this seat where I am sitting now, I have sat
+more than once--more than ten times--and have drunk ten times more."
+
+"Dearest heart, you don't know what you are saying. It isn't true."
+
+Once more his voice sounded gentle and soothing, as if he were
+reproving a naughty child.
+
+"How dare you say it isn't true? Do you take me for an impostor? I
+suppose you think I am not at home in swell places like this!... Pooh!
+Shall I give you a proof? I can--I can!... You'll find my name
+scratched at the foot of this lamp. Look and you'll find it.... 'Lilly
+Czepanek ... Lilly Czepanek.' Look! Look, I say!"
+
+He had started to his feet, his face rigid, and fixed his eyes in
+horror on the polished silver mirror of the lamp, on which was a jumble
+of scribbled hieroglyphics. He could not distinguish amongst them the
+L. C. for which he was looking till she came to his assistance. Here,
+no; there, no. The letters swam into one another. It was like trying to
+catch hold of the goldfish in the aquarium.
+
+Hurrah! here it was. That was it--"L. v. M." and the coronet above. For
+in those days she had often had the audacity to call herself by the
+forbidden title as a temporary adornment.
+
+"Now, do you see, Konni, that I was right? Now you won't mind how much
+I drink, will you, you dear, precious little muff?"
+
+Utterly crushed by the proof, he sank back in his chair without a
+single word.
+
+His uncle and Lilly went on drinking and laughing at him.
+
+At this moment she happened to catch sight of herself in the glass.
+Through a billowy haze she beheld a flushed, puffy face with
+dishevelled hair falling about it from under a crooked hat, and two
+deeply marked lines running from mouth to chin. It was not a pleasing
+spectacle, and she was a little disturbed at it; but before she could
+distress herself further, the old uncle claimed her attention with a
+new joke.
+
+"Do you know, Lilly dear, how the Chinese sing 'Die Lorelei'?"
+
+Before she had heard a syllable she went into a fit of giggles. He
+crossed his bandy legs and played a prelude on the side of his foot as
+if it were a banjo, "Ping, pang, ping"; and then he began in a cracked,
+nasal, gurgling voice, drawling his "l's."
+
+
+           "O, my belong too much sorry
+            And can me no savy, what kind;
+            Have got one olo piccy story,
+            No won't she go outside my mind."
+
+
+When he came to the second verse:
+
+
+           "Dat night belang dark and colo"
+
+
+he heightened the effect by tearing the wig from his head, and now he
+looked for all the world like an old nodding mandarin, with his slits
+of eyes and his polished bare ivory skull.
+
+It was fascinatingly and overwhelmingly funny. Never in her life had
+she seen such a mirth-provoking, side-splitting piece of clowning. You
+could have died of envy if you hadn't been Lilly Czepanek, the renowned
+mimic and impersonator, who, when the spirit moved her, had only to
+open her lips to rouse a tornado of applause.
+
+Her incomparable _repertoire_ had been growing rusty for too long. "La
+belle Otéro" was not yet stale, and Tortajada was dancing her ravishing
+dances, while Matchiche was just becoming the rage.
+
+All you had to do was to tilt your hat a little further back, to raise
+your black skirt--the _dessous_ was part of what had been brought away
+yesterday, and would not have disgraced a Saharet--and then you were
+off!
+
+And she was off! Off like a whirlwind over the carpet, slippery with
+the yolks of eggs that she had spilt. Hop, skip--olé! olé! Yes, you
+must shout "Olé!" and clap your hands. "Olé-é-é----"
+
+Dear uncle bawled; the floor rocked in great waves.... Lamps and
+mirrors danced with her. All hell seemed to be let loose.
+
+"Konni, why don't you shout 'Olé'? ... Don't be so down ... Olé!"
+
+"Uncle, you will have this on your conscience!"
+
+What did he mean by saying that? Why was he sobbing? Why did he stand
+there as white as the tablecloth?
+
+"Olé--ol-é-é-é!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Towards noon Lilly awoke in a rapture of joy.
+
+The formidable uncle had been won--the last obstacle cleared from her
+path--the future lay spread out at her feet like a land of milk and
+honey. The probation looked forward to with such anxiety and terror had
+turned out, after all, only a delightful spree. What a mountebank and
+buffoon that shrewd old man of the world was, who probably had ground
+women's hearts under his heel as indifferently as he crunched walnuts.
+When she tried, however, to review the events of the previous evening
+she felt a slight dismay at nothing emerging from her blurred memory
+but the sounds of song and uproarious laughter, just as it used to be
+in that other life when she had spent the night in mad revels with
+Richard and his friends.
+
+As the mist lifted a little, she saw a deadly white face petrified by
+pained surprise, heard an exclamation that was half a sob and half a
+groan, and saw herself, sobbing too, kneeling before someone who pushed
+her away with his hands.
+
+Had that happened, or had she dreamed it?
+
+And she had danced and sung so beautifully! She had exhibited her art
+at its best. Could there have been anything displeasing in it? Had she,
+perhaps, gone a little too far in her high spirits?
+
+Her anxiety grew. She sprang out of bed, and her one thought was that
+she must go to him instantly.
+
+At twelve the bell rang.
+
+That was Konrad; it must be Konrad. But, when she flew to the lobby
+door to throw herself into his arms with a cry of joy and relief, she
+found that she was standing face to face with his uncle, who stood
+twirling his hat in his horrid fingers, and looked at her with a
+significant smile that she did not like at all.
+
+"Is it to come all over again--the probation," she thought, "or is it
+now only coming off for the first time?"
+
+"How do you do?" died in her throat. She let him in without speaking. A
+sensation of faintness came over her, as if she were going to fall
+backwards through the wall into her room.
+
+It was the old man who opened the door and walked in, with the air of
+an acquaintance who knew his way about.
+
+"Where is Konrad?"
+
+"Konrad?" he repeated, and scratched the silk band of his wig with his
+little finger. "I've something to say about Konrad."
+
+He drew out his glittering watch, with its massive chain, and studied
+the hands.
+
+"I make it just ten minutes past twelve. By now he will be on his way
+to the station--most probably he has started."
+
+"Is he ... going away?" she stammered, while her breath began to fail
+her.
+
+"Yes, yes. He is going away.... We settled that last night.... He needs
+a change."
+
+"It's nonsense," she thought; "how can he go away for a change without
+me?"
+
+But she put a restraint on herself and asked casually, "Where is he
+thinking of going so suddenly?"
+
+"Oh! he's taking a little trip abroad hardly worth speaking about. It
+seemed a favourable opportunity. A double cabin was going begging on
+the steamer leaving--er--never mind where!... an outside cabin, you
+know; on the promenade deck; pleasantest position, you know; no
+splashing, and lots of air.... One wants plenty of air, especially
+during those four days in the Red Sea."
+
+Then she was right. Her suspicions that the probation of her character
+and intentions was only to begin seriously now were being verified.
+
+"What takes people to the Red Sea, uncle dear?" she asked, with her
+most ingenuous smile.
+
+"Yes, what takes them to the Red Sea? Four thousand years ago the
+ancient Jews asked the same question, and everyone asks it to-day when
+he finds himself sweltering there. But still, if you want to go to
+India, you must pass through the Red Sea.... And I want to go to India
+once more. I've been quite long enough trotting about the pavements at
+home. And as our Konrad is overworked--you'll admit he is, child--I
+have talked him into coming to travel with me a bit. For in cases like
+this I believe change of scene is the best remedy. Do you see?"
+
+Lilly felt a lump rise in her throat as if all the links of his gold
+watch-chain were choking her.
+
+"This joke isn't in the best of taste," she thought; "and God knows
+what he means by it."
+
+But whether she liked it or not, she had to play at the game. "Konrad
+might have had the grace to come and say goodbye to me prettily," she
+replied, pouting a little, as if a journey to Potsdam or Dresden was in
+question.
+
+"Well, you see, child, that's what he wanted to do, of course. But I
+said to him, 'Look here, my boy, farewells are far too exciting and
+unnerving, and may bring on apoplexy.' He agreed, and left it to me to
+put matters straight with you."
+
+"Well, by all means let us put matters straight," she answered, with
+the patronising smile that such a farce merited.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," she thought, "if he were not waiting
+outside in the cab for a signal to come in."
+
+"Uncle" placed his smart panama hat beside him on the floor, leaned his
+short body back in Frau Laue's red plush arm-chair, and affected an
+expression of distress and sympathy.
+
+What an old clown he was! It mystified her more than anything that he
+seemed so absolutely to have forgotten the alliance they had entered
+into on the previous evening. But perhaps this was only part of the
+probation farce.
+
+"If it were only a question of me, my dear," he went on, "it wouldn't
+matter. I honestly confess I'm mad about you--'wrapped up,' as I said
+last night. I have met womenfolk in all parts of the globe, and it's as
+clear to me as palm-oil that you are made of the choicest materials
+it's possible to find. But there are people, you know, who take life
+seriously and cherish grand illusions.... people who have no notion
+that a human being must be a human being. They think they are something
+extra, and expect life to afford them extra titbits. And then come
+disappointments, of course ... reproaches, despair ... tearing of hair,
+wringing of hands. I'm blowed if he didn't try to thrash me last
+night!"
+
+"Whom are you talking about?" asked Lilly, becoming every moment more
+uneasy.
+
+"Just as if I had led you on into the little overshooting of the mark!
+No, no ... that's not my way. I don't lay man-traps. And so I told him
+ten times over. The misfortune is, that you and I understood each other
+too well. You and I are in the same line of business.... We two are
+like two old colleagues."
+
+"We two ...? You and I?" gasped Lilly in frigid amazement.
+
+"Yes, you and I, my dear child. Don't have a fit--you and I; you and I.
+It's true that you are a splendid beauty of twenty-five, and I am a
+damned old fool of sixty.... But life has tarred us with the same
+brush. How am I to explain it to you?... Have you ever hunted for
+diamonds? I don't mean at the jeweller's. I'll lay a wager you know
+that way of hunting them. Well, a diamond lies embedded in hard rock,
+in tunnels ... so-called blue ground. If you find a blue-ground
+tunnel, you may imagine what it is; you just sit in it. Once I went
+diamond-hunting with a party of twenty, day and night, week after week.
+The blue ground was there all right, but the diamonds had been washed
+out of it. Do you follow me? The fine ground is still in both of us;
+but what made it fine the devil has in the meantime walked off with."
+
+"Why do you tell me all this?" Lilly asked. Tears of bewilderment
+sprang to her eyes, for this couldn't possibly have anything to do with
+the probation.
+
+"Now, child, I'll tell you why.... There are people who when they have
+given their word think there is no going back on it. They must swallow
+whatever they've put in their mouths, even if it's a strychnine
+pill.... My opinion, on the contrary, is that no one ought deliberately
+to plunge into misfortune--neither he nor you. And since the quickest
+method is to wash the wool while it's on the sheep, I've come to you to
+make a little proposition. See, here's a cheque-book. You know what
+cheque-books are, I expect. On the right side are printed figures from
+five hundred upwards: All the figures that make the amount bigger than
+the sum inscribed on the cheque are cut off, in case a little swindler
+should take it into his head with one little stroke of the pen to cheat
+one out of a little hundred thousand. Well now, look here. This cheque
+is signed and dated; the figures alone want to be filled in. I should
+never permit myself to offer you a certain sum, but I should like you
+to say what you think would be a decent provision for your future."
+
+He tore the cheque out and laid it on the table in front of her.
+
+"Thank Heaven," thought Lilly, "I had nothing to be afraid of! My heart
+need not have misgiven me."
+
+Who could be so blind as not to see through this clumsy trick whereby
+he intended to put to the test her unselfishness about money? So she
+did not send the old man about his business, as she might with justice
+have done, if such a proposal had been made to her seriously, but she
+took the cheque off the table, smiling, tore it carefully to atoms, and
+flipped them one after the other into his face.
+
+He fidgeted about in his arm-chair.
+
+"Allow me," he said; "please allow me ..."
+
+"No! Such scurvy little jokes I certainly will not allow, dear uncle,"
+she replied.
+
+"But you are declining a fortune, my child. Think what you are doing.
+We've upset the tenor of your life. We have, as it were, cast you on
+the gutter. That you shan't perish there is our responsibility. And if
+you think you will lower yourself in his eyes by accepting, I can swear
+to you he knows nothing about it; and never will, I'll swear too."
+
+She only smiled.
+
+His small slits of eyes grew bright and hard. Suddenly they began to
+threaten her.
+
+"Or ... is it your intention not to give up the good boy--to hang his
+promise like a halter about his neck?... Are you one of that kind, eh?"
+
+"No. I am not one of that kind."
+
+Her smile reached far beyond him. It flew to greet the beloved who
+soon, very soon now, would be ascending the stairs; for surely he
+couldn't have patience to wait there outside in the cab much longer.
+
+"His promise is his own. He's never given it. And if he had wanted to I
+would never have let him. And even if what you said just now was true,
+he might go away if he liked, and come back again, and I would not
+write to him or meet him, or remind him in any way of what he is and
+always will be to me as long as I live. But I know that it is _not_
+true. He loves me, and I love him. And take care, uncle, not to play so
+low down with his future wife as to offer her blank cheques and such
+disgraceful proposals. If I were to tell him, you would find yourself
+all at once a lonely old man whose fortune might go to endow a home for
+lost dogs."
+
+He was obliged to see at last what a blunder he had committed. He
+jumped from his seat, evidently annoyed at his mistake, and ejaculated
+an irritable "Bah!" as he began to pace the room, jingling the charms
+on his watch-chain. Once or twice he murmured something that sounded
+like "A hangman's job." But she couldn't have heard right.
+
+At last he seemed to arrive at a decision. He stopped close in front of
+her, laid his repulsive hands on her shoulders and said, suddenly
+becoming affectionate and familiar again:
+
+"Listen, sweetheart, girlie, pretty one. Something has to be done. We
+can't shirk the point. There must be a conclusion. If only I weren't
+such a damned mangy old hound and hadn't to consider the dear boy's
+feelings in the matter, things would be simple enough. I should merely
+say, 'Come along with me to the nearest registry-office. But hurry up;
+I haven't time to waste!' Don't stare! Yes--me. I'd ask you to marry
+_me_. You wouldn't have reason to regret it. But Konrad--you must see
+yourself it won't do--won't do. It would be a fatal mistake from
+beginning to end. He is a rising man. He wants to climb to the top; he
+is still blessed with faith, and you haven't any left. You fell too
+early into the great sausage-machine which minces us all sooner or
+later into average meat.... You wouldn't be happy with him long. You
+couldn't keep up to him. You'd drag on him like a dead weight, and
+would always be conscious of it. As for last night's revelation, which
+opened his eyes, I don't lay so much stress on that. It's not a
+question of what the coastline looks like--sand or palms, it's all the
+same--but it's the interior that counts. And there I see waste land,
+burnt-up scorched deserts; no birds flying across it; no ground in
+which confidence can strike root. Child, creep into any shelter life
+offers you, cling to those who have brought you to this pass; but let
+the boy go. He is not made for you. Be honest; haven't you long ago
+said so yourself?"
+
+Ah, so this was what he meant! It was not a probation, but the end--the
+end!
+
+She gazed into vacancy. She seemed to hear steps growing fainter; one
+after the other they slowly died away, like _his_ footsteps when at
+break of day he had softly stolen downstairs.
+
+But this was final. They had died away for ever.
+
+A dull sense of disappointment gnawed at her heart. That was all. The
+worst would come later, as she knew by experience.
+
+And then she saw a vision of herself dancing and yelling, laughing at
+foul jests, with her hat awry and her skirts held high--a drunken
+wanton! She, the "lofty-minded saint" with the "brow divine," a drunken
+wanton--nothing more and nothing less.
+
+Now she knew why he had stood there with his face as white as the
+tablecloth--why that sobbing groan of pain had burst from his lips. And
+it was pity for him as much as shame of herself that made of this
+moment a boiling hell.
+
+"How is he bearing it?" she asked, stammering.
+
+"You can guess how," he replied, "but I believe I shall pull him
+through."
+
+"Oh, uncle ... I ... didn't ... I didn't want to do it ..." she cried,
+sobbing.
+
+"I know, child; I know. He told me all."
+
+For an instant her wounded pride flamed up within her. She stooped, and
+gathering together a handful of the bits of torn paper, she held them
+out to him on her open palm.
+
+"And you dared to offer me _that_?"
+
+"What was I to do, my dear? And what am I to do with you now?"
+
+"Pah!" and she struck at him with both hands, but the next moment she
+threw her arms round his neck and wept on his shoulder. Perhaps her
+cheek touched the very place which Konrad last night might have wetted
+with his tears!
+
+He began to reason with her again. He made suggestions for her future.
+He would help her to begin a new life, and provide tier with the means
+to cultivate her brilliant histrionic talents; she should come out on
+the stage or the concert platform. But she shook her head.
+
+"Too late, uncle.... Waste land--didn't you say so yourself?--ground
+where no confidence can take root. I might aspire to be a music-hall
+star, but honestly I don't think it would pay."
+
+"Cursed hounds!" he growled.
+
+"Who are cursed hounds?"
+
+"You know well enough, my child."
+
+She reflected a moment as to whom he could mean. Then she said:
+
+"There was only one ... no, two, and then afterwards one more ... and
+then two more who didn't count."
+
+"Well, that seems to me to be plenty, dear."
+
+He patted her cheeks and smiled kindly, and somehow she did not find
+his fingers repulsive any more.
+
+She felt that she must smile too, though she began crying again
+directly.
+
+Konrad's uncle prepared to take his departure, and she clung on tightly
+to his shoulder. She couldn't bear to let him go. He was the last link
+with her vanished dream of happiness.
+
+"What message shall I take him?" he asked.
+
+She drew herself erect. Her eyes widened. She wanted to pour out the
+full flood of her grief. Her shattered and squandered love sought for
+winged words which should bear it to him, sanctified and hallowed anew.
+But no words came.
+
+She looked wildly round the room, as if from some quarter of it help
+must come. The portraits of defunct actors smiled down on her; once so
+eloquent, they were dumb now dumb as her own frozen soul. The specimen
+lamp-shade in its frame greeted her, presaging a future to be passed at
+Frau Laue's side.
+
+"I have nothing to say," she faltered. Then she thought of something
+after all. "Ask him ... ask him, please, why he didn't come himself to
+say good-bye. I know that he is not a coward."
+
+Uncle made one of his queerest faces.
+
+"As you have been so astoundingly sensible, little woman, I'll tell you
+the secret. He wanted to come and say good-bye--most dreadfully, of
+course. And I promised him that I'd try and bring you to the station."
+
+In an instant she was making a dash for her straw hat.
+
+"Stop!"
+
+He had laid his hand on her arm. The short, squat figure seemed to grow
+taller.
+
+"You won't go."
+
+"What? Konni is expecting me, wants to speak to me? And I am not to
+go?"
+
+"I say again, 'You won't go.' If you are the plucky girl I take you
+for, you will not spoil your work of sacrifice. For, depend upon it, if
+once he sees you again you'll hang on to each other for evermore."
+
+The straw hat slipped from her hand.
+
+"Then ... tell him ... I shall always love him, always and always, that
+he will be my last thought on earth.... And ... I don't know what else
+to say."
+
+He silently made his way out of the room.
+
+And then she broke down.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+The world wagged on, calmly, merrily, busily, as if nothing had
+happened, as if nowhere on the ocean of life a lost happiness was
+drifting every minute farther and farther away, as if no forsaken and
+abandoned human child cowered in a corner, staring with despairing eyes
+helplessly at the floor.
+
+Frau Laue tapped at her lamp-shades, the fried potatoes frizzled
+in the fat-lined pan; the stove in the lobby smoked, and the frowsy
+poor-people's odour exhaled a welcome to all who came within its
+radius. She did not cry her heart out of her body, as she had done
+after her expulsion from the castle. She neither lapsed into a dazed
+apathy nor wrestled desperately with fate. Instead, she felt that a
+grey yawning void stretched before her endlessly, the silence of which
+was broken now and then by a shrill cry of almost animal longing and
+despair, a sense of feeble submission to the inevitable, a
+consciousness of being incarcerated without hope of escape, a baffled
+slipping down into life's dark depths, a dreary death unmarked by grace
+or dignity.
+
+Between to-day and to-morrow--the to-morrow that seemed to beckon from
+every corner--Lilly's tearless eyes saw the railings of the bridge that
+her feet had tested on the way home from "Rosmersholm." And, as she
+stared into space, she beheld the dark, purple-flecked waters rolling
+languidly on far below, and heard the iron chains clank under her feet.
+
+This sound grew into a perpetual sing-song that accompanied everything
+she did, floated over and swallowed up everything that the eventless
+days brought forth. It pierced her brain, hammered in her temples, and
+throbbed painfully in every nerve and pore of her body.
+
+Only one word was set to this haunting melody, and that was "Die."
+Yes--die. What could be simpler? What more irresistible?
+
+Die! not to-day; but to-morrow perhaps, or the day after. Something
+might happen yet. A letter might come, or he himself. Or if not this,
+who could know that fate was not holding some other miracle of good
+fortune up its sleeve?
+
+So it was worth while living to-day, to drag through its countless
+hours of deadly monotony.
+
+Then one evening, a week after Konrad's sudden departure, Frau Laue
+appeared in Lilly's room at an unaccustomed hour. Her manner denoted
+determination.
+
+"Now look here, Lilly dear," she began. "Things can't go on like this.
+If you were crying your heart out I shouldn't say anything. But, as you
+are acting now, matters will never mend. There is only one sensible
+course that you can take; you must return to your Herr Dehnicke. If he
+had any inkling of how things were going with you here, trust him, he
+would have come and taken you away long ago. So I tell you plainly,
+either you sit down and write him a nice letter or I shall leave my
+work in the lurch and go straight off to his office to-morrow morning.
+He'll pay my expenses fast enough."
+
+Lilly felt a strong impulse to turn the old woman out of the room, but
+she was too depressed to do more than turn away from her with impotent
+distaste.
+
+"I haven't too much time to spare now," Frau Laue continued; "the dozen
+must be completed before bedtime.... But you can make your mind easy as
+to one thing. If he is not here by ten o'clock to-morrow, he'll be here
+by twelve, for I shall have gone to fetch him. Good-night, Lilly dear."
+
+In melancholy scorn she sent a scoffing laugh after Frau Laue. This,
+then, was the stroke of good fortune which fate had in store for the
+morrow? Once more she was to cringe to man's puerile supremacy, and
+live in enervating servitude--vegetate amidst fleeting and unprofitable
+pleasures in a perfumed lethargy, or be goaded by ennui and disgust to
+walk the streets.
+
+Yet, if he came the next day, she knew she would not have the power to
+resist. Richard would only have to look at her with that whipped-dog
+expression, which was something quite new for him, and the mere thought
+of which filled her with a shamefaced tenderness, and she would throw
+her arms round his neck and have a good cry on his shoulder.
+
+Was it worth waiting another to-morrow for that? No; better to die
+to-day.
+
+To-day! A feeling of ecstasy came over her. She ran about the room,
+with folded hands, weeping and exulting. She would be a heroine like
+Isolde, a martyr for her love.
+
+And there the railings of the bridge were waiting ready for her. How
+they would creak and groan when she set her feet on them!
+
+Now the sing-song in her head was so loud that she thought it must kill
+her. The air resounded with a whirl of tones. The walls echoed them.
+The noise of the street, the capital's roar of traffic, all sang ...
+"Die--die--die!"
+
+She pulled off her evening wrapper and dressed herself to go out. At
+first she thought of putting on one of the badly fitting dresses
+because they were connected with Konrad, but her heart failed her.
+
+"Die beautifully," Hedda Gabler had said.
+
+"If only I had his photograph that I might take a farewell look into
+his eyes," she thought. But she had nothing but his letters and a few
+verses. They should accompany her on her last walk.
+
+They lay at the bottom of the leather trunk, which was still concealed
+in Frau Laue's box-room, though there had long been no one from whom it
+was necessary to conceal it. As she rummaged in its depths to find the
+little packet, she put her hand by accident on the roll of old music
+manuscript.
+
+She looked tenderly at the yellow-stained sheet into which the rest was
+fitted. She was no longer vexed with her "Song of Songs," and did not
+despise it, as on that ill-fated morning when she had hunted it up
+again; the morning on which she had gone out to break her vow to
+Konrad.
+
+Now once more it was a dear, precious possession, not a guide,
+philosopher, and friend, not a miracle-working sacred relic, but just
+an old keepsake which we treasure and water with our tears because it
+is a bit of our own life.
+
+And a bit of our own blood!
+
+For there were still those dark stains on the paper. Her blood had
+fallen on it when she set forth on life's journey, and now that the
+journey was ending the deep waters should wash the blood-stains away.
+
+With the score lying in her lap, she looked beyond it into the
+sorrowful past. It seemed to her as if mists were lifting and curtains
+were being drawn aside, and she saw the path that she had trodden
+winding backwards at her feet, like a clearly defined boundary.
+
+She had been weak and often stupid. Her own interests and the main
+chance she had never considered. Every man who had entered her life had
+been able to do what he liked with her. Not once had she barred her
+soul, shown fight, or exercised to the full the sovereignty of her
+beauty. She had only been eager to oblige and to love and be kind to
+everyone. In reward, she had been hunted and bullied and dragged
+through the mud all her life long. Even the one man who had respected
+her had gone away without saying good-bye.
+
+"But I've never hated anybody," she thought. "And no matter what I have
+suffered, or how I have transgressed, I have always been able to feel
+there was something in me out of the common, and this at the last seems
+as if it had been a gift from Heaven."
+
+Did it not really seem as if this "Song of Songs," which now lay before
+her, defaced, stained, and rotted, like her own career, had been all
+along blessing and absolving her the presiding genius she had believed
+it to be as a child, and fancied it afterwards during the rapture of
+her abandonment to her love for Konrad?
+
+"Yes, you shall come too," she said. "You shall die when I die."
+
+And she carefully wrapped the battered papers together. Then she found
+the letters, and read them through two or three times, but without
+taking in what she read.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+The clock struck twelve as she stepped softly out on to the landing.
+Frau Laue was asleep. She met no one on the stairs, and unseen walked
+into the street.
+
+Since her flight to Konrad that memorable night she had not been out
+alone in the streets so late. Everything looked as if she saw it for
+the first time: the long rows of houses bathed in crude light, the
+trolleys of the electric trams in between, and the gliding figures of
+night-revellers.
+
+A numbing terror seized her. Her legs felt wooden, as if stilts were
+screwed on to them, propelling her forward whether she would or not,
+without rest; and her heels tapped ceaselessly on the pavement,
+carrying her nearer and nearer her goal. Whenever she met anyone she
+felt an impulse to hide herself, fancying that it would be noticed
+where she was going. For this reason she dived into dark back-streets,
+which were unevenly paved and where fading lime-trees scattered their
+drops of rain. She passed straggling brick buildings inhospitably shut
+in behind high back-garden walls; slaughter-houses and factories; and
+all the time her heels went tap-tap-tap, as if she had a pedometer
+attached to them, registering every inch which shortened her road.
+
+She tried to remember other short-cuts to her bridge, but couldn't find
+them, and gave up the attempt.
+
+"What thou doest, let it be done quickly," she had read somewhere. So
+she pressed forward with clenched teeth.
+
+The Engelbecken was dark and deserted; yellow lights were reflected
+dimly in its unfathomable waters. "Here it would be easier," she
+thought, breathless from the oppression at her heart. But, shuddering,
+she retreated from the grass slopes. The bridge must be somewhere over
+there to the north-west. Fate had ordained that she should go to the
+bridge.
+
+It was still a long way off, quite an hour's walk. She came into more
+frequented ways. The rows of lights in front of the dancing saloons,
+where prostitutes caroused, cast their garish beams like finger-posts
+into the night. Cabs were waiting there, and sounds of revelry came
+from within. Forwards, forwards--always forwards! Hot, garlic-laden
+fumes were wafted to her nostrils from a cellar-café that kept its
+doors open. When had she smelt something like that before? Why, of
+course, when Frau Redlich was cooking the sausages for her son's
+farewell dinner.
+
+In front of her a hose as thick as her wrist sent a cleansing
+shower-bath over the street. What did that hissing, gurgling sound
+remind her of? Why, of course, of old Haberland watering the lawn with
+the old-fashioned sprinkler. And then all at once the thought shot
+through her brain: "None of this is really happening. I am lying in bed
+between the bookcases, and behind me the hanging lamp that I took down
+is smoking ... and this is all in an old novel that I am reading, while
+Frau Asmussen has luckily gone to sleep after taking her medicine."
+
+A growing tumult called her back to actual life. She had reached the
+heart of the city, the spot where the whirl of Berlin's never-flagging
+nightly dissipations reaches its height. She came to the Spittelmarkt,
+and onwards the huge Leipziger Strasse unrolled its chain of lights
+like a pearl necklace. Buried in a mist of silver, dotted with the
+glimmering red lanterns of night cafés and cabarets, it was like a
+brilliant picture toned down with sepia.
+
+The numb feeling in Lilly's legs increased. She walked, and was hardly
+conscious that she moved at all. She only felt the tremendous force of
+her heart-beats, which made her whole body vibrate like a mill.
+
+In the Friedrichstrasse there were nearly as many people about as by
+day. Young men pursued their smiling quarry, and the lamplight was
+reflected in the silk hose of the tripping _grisettes_.
+
+"Once submerged in this sort of world," Lilly thought with a gruesome
+envy, "and one is disturbed by no sense of wounded honour or suicidal
+impulses."
+
+Ah! but on the other side of this bright, laughing, jostling crowd came
+peace and darkness again, in the shelter of which you might die unseen
+and unknown.
+
+Through the noise she still heard her heels tapping. Why shouldn't she
+go into some café, she asked herself? Even if someone saw her, what did
+it matter? It would give her one miserable quarter of an hour's
+breathing space. Lights, mirrors, velvet seats, blue cigarette-smoke, a
+clink of crystal, a pricking in her parched throat. Just once--once
+more ... not a quarter ... but a whole hour, and one more poor little
+bit of life would be hers, which could do no one else any harm. But she
+could find no justification for such a cowardly action, and determined
+that her last walk should be disgraced by no such weakness. And she
+went on, on and on.
+
+The merry vortex of the Kranzlerecke was left behind; the daggers of
+light stabbed her no more. Lilly hardly knew where she was going. Most
+likely she was in one of those quiet cross-streets which led to the
+north-west end. The middle of the deserted street glistened with
+puddles. The rainy autumnal wind came sweeping along between the
+houses, and the cold lamplight was reflected in their dark windowpanes.
+Everything round her here seemed lifeless and extinct; only a human
+phantom glided forth at intervals, and cats chased each other
+noiselessly into obscurity.
+
+Lilly shivered, and clasped the score tighter in her arms. As she tried
+to catch a sight of her reflection in the glass window of a florist's,
+the blinds of which were not drawn down, she started. There she saw
+stiff branches of evergreen laurels and cypresses encircling a bust of
+the Kaiser; that recalled something strongly to her mind. What was it?
+Ah! of course. They reminded her of the Clytie which reigned on the
+pretentious private staircase of Liebert & Dehnicke's, smiling and
+dreaming. Lilly Czepanek would never now ascend that green-shaded
+stairway, either as a penitent or a triumphant sinner.
+
+She had chosen a better way, which led more directly to the great goal.
+
+She came to a bridge, and crossed it quickly. That other bridge, with
+the iron palisade, which sung her such alluring cradle-songs, was
+further away in the open, buried in darkness and silence.
+
+"You overflow with a superfluity of love ... three kinds of love: love
+emanating from the heart, the senses, and from compassion. One kind
+everybody has; two are dangerous; all three lead to ruin!"
+
+Who had said that?
+
+Why, to be sure, her first flame--that poor consumptive lecturer on the
+history of art, whom she and Rosalie Katz had clubbed together to send
+to the promised land, the land which she herself had never seen. He had
+spoken of the blue haze of the olives, of fields of shining asphodel,
+and the black sirocco sea.
+
+"Fields of shining asphodel." What sort of fields could they be, fields
+of asphodel?
+
+The foreign word sounded strange, and oh, how full of enchantment! But
+her heels still went tap-tap, and the cradle-song of the palisade
+thundered in between.
+
+A man addressed her: "Would she ...?"
+
+She shook him off as if he had been a reptile.
+
+Then she remembered another warning that had been given her, also
+divided into three heads--whose was that? Oh, now she recollected: Dr.
+Pieper's. It came back to her, every word and sentence of the pompous
+utterance sounding in her ears as clearly as if it had been spoken only
+yesterday, "There are three things to beware of: Exchange no
+superfluous glances; demand no superfluous rendering of accounts; make
+no superfluous confessions."
+
+"If I had not exchanged superfluous glances I should have seen my
+promised land. If I had not superfluously demanded a rendering of
+account, I should never have been kicked out of Lischnitz. And if I had
+not made superfluous confessions...."
+
+Well, what then?
+
+"Konni! Konni!" she wailed. A shudder of yearning overwhelmed her
+painfully, and restrained her wandering thoughts.
+
+She walked on, staggering. Fresh lines of street vanished in mist, and
+at one spot a grass lawn reared its unevenly clipped hedge.
+
+"What sort of fields could they be, fields of shining asphodel?"
+
+Ah! here was the bridge. The bridge!
+
+Like a thief in the night it loomed in the darkness, above the wide,
+deserted spaces, where the lights of thousands of street-lamps dwindled
+into infinitesimal sparks. Somewhere in the dark sky shone the mild
+face of a full-moon. It was the illuminated clock of a railway station,
+the shadowy outline of which was swallowed up by the darkness. The
+hands pointed to half-past one.
+
+Lilly saw it all dimly, as through a haze. She had sunk, paralysed with
+terror, against the corner of the wall, which she had intended to turn.
+Her heart throbbed so convulsively that she thought she must fall down
+dead.
+
+"No; I can't do it!" she said to herself. And then came her own answer:
+"But I can--I will!"
+
+She tried to stagger a few steps further, on to the bridge where the
+railings seemed to be waiting for her in malice; but her legs refused
+to carry her. The singing in her head rose to a roar of thunder. She
+stood hesitating on the dark, forsaken spot; with both hands she
+struggled to tear the score and crumple it into a ball, but it would
+not yield. Her "Song of Songs" was stronger than she was. Then, all at
+once, her feet began to move as if of their own accord, and took her
+step by step beyond the lamp-post to the railings. Yes, now the chains
+of the palisade were between her fingers. She could see nothing of the
+water below but a dark slimy shimmer. So murky was it that even the
+lamps were not reflected in it.
+
+Now all she had to do was to jump--and it would be over.
+
+"Yes, I'll do it! I'll do it!" a voice within her cried.
+
+But "The Song of Songs" must go first. It would be in the way, and
+hinder her climbing over the railings.
+
+She threw it. A white flash, a splash below, harsh and shrill, which
+made her shake in every limb, as if her face had been slapped. And when
+she heard it, she knew instantly that she would never do it. No, never!
+Lilly Czepanek was no heroine. No martyr to her love was Lilly
+Czepanek. No Isolde, who finds in the will not to exist the highest
+form of self-existence. But she was only a poor exploited and plundered
+human creature who must drag on through life as best she could. She
+would not go back to the old round of degrading dissipations, however
+much Richard might look like a whipped dog. Of that she was determined;
+and she began forthwith to review the few possibilities left of her
+earning an honest living.
+
+Perhaps all would come right in the end, though she could not disguise
+the fact that she had completely lost her zeal for work, and was never
+likely to find it again. All she asked was to be allowed to live in
+peace and the exercise of virtue. Did not millions of human beings
+think there was nothing better?
+
+She cast one more searching glance at the sullenly rolling river in
+which "The Song of Songs" had found its grave, and then turned and
+walked away.
+
+
+                           *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+In the business circles of Berlin there was a flutter of surprise the
+following spring when the papers announced that Herr Richard Dehnicke,
+senior partner of the well-known old firm of Liebert & Dehnicke, art
+bronze manufacturers, had married Lilly Czepanek, a notorious beauty of
+the _demimonde_. The announcement added that the pair had taken up
+their quarters temporarily in Southern Italy. Those who knew her were
+not surprised--they said that they had always felt Lilly Czepanek was a
+dangerous woman.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+http://bencrowder.net/books/mtp. Volunteers: Hilton
+Campbell, Ben Crowder, Meridith Crowder, Eric Heaps, Tod
+Robbins, Dave Van Leeuwen.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+JOSEPH SMITH
+AS
+SCIENTIST
+
+A CONTRIBUTION TO
+MORMON PHILOSOPHY
+
+BY
+
+John A. Widtsoe, A. M., Ph. D.
+
+
+THE GENERAL BOARD
+YOUNG MEN'S MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT
+ASSOCIATIONS
+SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
+1908
+
+
+
+
+Copyright
+1908
+by John A. Widtsoe.
+
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+
+In the life of every person, who receives a higher education, in or
+out of schools, there is a time when there seems to be opposition
+between science and religion; between man-made and God-made knowledge.
+The struggle for reconciliation between the contending forces is not
+an easy one. It cuts deep into the soul and usually leaves scars that
+ache while life endures. There are thousands of young people in the
+Church to-day, and hundreds of thousands throughout the world, who are
+struggling to set themselves right with the God above and the world
+about them. It is for these young people, primarily, that the
+following chapters have been written.
+
+This volume is based on the conviction that there is no real
+difference between science and religion. The great, fundamental laws
+of the Universe are foundation stones in religion as well as in
+science. The principle that matter is indestructible belongs as much
+to theology as to geology. The theology which rests upon the few basic
+laws of nature is unshakable; and the great theology of the future
+will be such a one.
+
+"Mormonism" teaches and has taught from the beginning that all
+knowledge must be included in the true theology. Because of its
+comprehensive philosophy, "Mormonism" will survive all religious
+disturbances and become the system of religious faith which all men
+may accept without yielding the least part of the knowledge of nature
+as discovered in the laboratories or in the fields. The splendid
+conceptions of "Mormonism" concerning man and nature, and man's place
+in nature are among the strongest testimonies of the divine nature of
+the work founded by Joseph Smith, the Prophet.
+
+This little volume does not pretend to be a complete treatment of
+"Mormon" philosophy; it is only a small contribution to the subject.
+There is room for elaboration and extension in this field for many
+generations to come. The attempt has been made to sketch, briefly, the
+relation of "Mormonism" to some features of modern scientific
+philosophy, and to show that not only do "Mormonism" and science
+harmonize; but that "Mormonism" is abreast of the most modern of the
+established views of science, and that it has held them many years--in
+some cases before science adopted them. The only excuse for the scant
+treatment of such an important subject is that it is as extensive as
+the duties of a busy life would allow. In the future, the subject may
+be given a fuller treatment.
+
+Some readers may urge that "the testimony of the Spirit," which has
+been the final refuge of so many Christians, has received little
+consideration in the following chapters. This is due to the avowed
+purpose of the work to harmonize science and religion, on the basis of
+accepted science. "Mormonism" is deeply and rationally spiritual; the
+discussion in this volume is confined to one phase of Gospel
+philosophy.
+
+The majority of the following chapters were originally published in
+the _Improvement Era_ for 1903-1904 as a series of articles bearing
+the main title of this book. These articles are here republished with
+occasonal changes and additions. The new chapters have been cast into
+the same form as the original articles. The publication as independent
+articles will explain the apparent lack of connection between the
+chapters in this book. The statements of scientific facts have been
+compared very carefully with standard authorities. However, in
+popularizing science there is always the danger that the
+simplification may suggest ideas that are not wholly accurate. Those
+who have tried this kind of work will understand and pardon such
+errors as may appear. However, corrections are invited.
+
+My thanks are due and cheerfully given the management of the
+_Improvement Era_ for the help and encouragement given. I am under
+especial obligations to Elder Edward H. Anderson, the associate editor
+of the _Era_, to whose efforts it is largely due that this volume has
+seen the light of day. I desire to render my thanks also to the
+committee appointed by the First Presidency to read the manuscript,
+Elders George Albert Smith, Edward H. Anderson and Joseph F. Smith,
+Jr.
+
+This volume has been written in behalf of "Mormonism." May God speed
+the truth!
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+  Chapter I. Joseph's Mission and Language
+
+THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF THE UNIVERSE.
+
+  Chapter II. The Indestructibility of Matter
+  Chapter III. The Indestructibility of Energy
+  Chapter IV. The Universal Ether
+  Chapter V. The Reign of Law
+
+THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNIVERSE.
+
+  Chapter VI. The New Astronomy
+  Chapter VII. Geological Time
+  Chapter VIII. Organized Intelligence
+
+THE LAWS GOVERNING THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+  Chapter IX. Faith
+  Chapter X. Repentance
+  Chapter XI. Baptism
+  Chapter XII. The Gift of the Holy Ghost
+  Chapter XIII. The Word of Wisdom
+
+THE DESTINY OF EARTH AND MAN.
+
+  Chapter XIV. The Law of Evolution
+  Chapter XV. The Plan of Salvation
+
+THE REGION OF THE UNKNOWN.
+
+  Chapter XVI. The Sixth Sense
+
+THE FORCE OF FORCES.
+
+  Chapter XVII. The Nature of God
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+  Chapter XVIII. Joseph Smith's Education
+  Chapter XVIV. A Summary Restatement
+  Chapter XX. Concluding Thoughts
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+  Chapter XXI. The Testimony of the Soil
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+Chapter I.
+
+JOSEPH'S MISSION AND LANGUAGE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Scientific discussions not to be expected in the Prophet's
+work.]
+
+The mission of Joseph Smith was of a spiritual nature; and therefore,
+it is not to be expected that the discussion of scientific matters
+will be found in the Prophet's writings. The revelations given to the
+Prophet deal almost exclusively with the elucidation of so-called
+religious doctrines, and with such difficulties as arose from time to
+time in the organization of the Church. It is only, as it appears to
+us, in an incidental way that other matters, not strictly of a
+religious nature, are mentioned in the revelations. However, the
+Church teaches that all human knowledge and all the laws of nature are
+part of its religious system; but that some principles are of more
+importance than others in man's progress to eternal salvation.[A]
+While on the one hand, therefore, it cannot reasonably be expected
+that Joseph Smith should deal in his writings with any subject
+peculiar to natural science, yet, on the other hand, it should not
+surprise any student to find that the Prophet at times considered
+matters that do not come under the ordinary definition of religion,
+especially if they in any way may be connected with the laws of
+religion. Statements of scientific detail should not be looked for in
+Joseph Smith's writings, though these are not wholly wanting; but
+rather, we should expect to find general views of the relations of the
+forces of the universe.
+
+[Footnote A: "And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as
+they were and as they are to come."--Doctrine and Covenants, 93:24.
+
+"Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be
+instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the
+law of the Gospel, in all things that pertain unto the Kingdom of God,
+that are expedient for you to understand;
+
+"Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth;
+things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly
+come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the
+wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are
+on the land, and a knowledge also of countries and kingdoms,
+
+"That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to
+magnify the calling, whereunto I have called you, and the mission with
+which I have commissioned you."--Doctrine and Covenants, 88:78-80.
+
+"And verily, I say unto you, that it is my will that you should hasten
+to translate my Scriptures, and to obtain a knowledge of history, and
+of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this
+for the salvation of Zion."--Doctrine and Covenants, 93:53.
+
+"It (theology) is the science of all other sciences and useful arts,
+being in fact the very foundation from which they emanate. It includes
+philosophy, astronomy, history, mathematics, geography, languages, the
+science of letters, and blends the knowledge of all matters of fact,
+in every branch of art and research.......All that is useful, great
+and good, all that is calculated to sustain, comfort, instruct, edify,
+purify, refine or exalt intelligences, originated by this science, and
+this science alone, all other sciences being but branches growing out
+of this, the root."--Pratt, Key to Theology, chap. 1.]
+
+[Sidenote: Man must not expect direct revelation in matters that he
+can solve for himself.]
+
+It is not in harmony with the Gospel spirit that God, except in
+special cases, should reveal things that man by the aid of his natural
+powers may gain for himself. The Lord spoke to the Prophet as
+follows:--"Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I
+would give it unto you, when you took no thought, save it was to ask
+me; but, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your
+mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will
+cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel
+that it is right."[A] Such a doctrine makes it unreasonable to look to
+the Prophet's work for a gratuitous mass of scientific or other
+details, which will relieve man of the labor of searching out for
+himself nature's laws. So well established is this principle that in
+all probability many of the deepest truths contained in the writings
+of Joseph Smith will not be clearly understood, even by his followers,
+until, by the laborious methods of mortality, the same truths are
+established. It is even so with the principles to be discussed in the
+following papers. They were stated seventy years ago, yet it is only
+recently that the Latter-day Saints have begun to realize that they
+are identical with recently developed scientific truths; and the world
+of science is not yet aware of it. However, whenever such harmony is
+observed, it testifies of the divine inspiration of the humble,
+unlearned boy prophet of the nineteenth century.
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants 9:7, 8.]
+
+[Sidenote: The absence of the language, details and methods of science
+in the Prophet's writings proves him unfamiliar with the written
+science of his day.]
+
+The Prophet Joseph does not use the language of science; which is
+additional proof that he did not know the science of his day. This may
+be urged as an objection to the assertion that he understood
+fundamental scientific truths, but the error of this view is easily
+comprehended when it is recalled that the language of science is made
+by men, and varies very often from age to age, and from country to
+country. Besides, the God who spoke to Joseph Smith, says, "These
+commandments were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the
+manner of their language, that they might come to understanding."[A]
+If God had spoken the special language of science, the unlearned
+Joseph Smith would not, perhaps, have understood. Every wise man
+explains that which he knows in the language of those to whom he is
+speaking, and the facts and theories of science can be quite easily
+expressed in the language of the common man. It is needless to expect
+scientific phraselogy in the writings of Joseph Smith.
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants 1:24.]
+
+Scientific details are almost wholly wanting in the writings of Joseph
+Smith. Had the Prophet known the science of his day, his detailed
+knowledge would have been incorporated somehow in his writings. The
+almost complete absence of such scientific detail as would in all
+probability have been used, had the Prophet known of it, is additional
+testimony that he did not get his information from books.
+
+Finally, another important fact must be mentioned. Men in all ages
+have speculated about the things of the universe, and have invented
+all kinds of theories to explain natural phenomena. In all cases,
+however, these theories have been supported by experimental evidence,
+or else they have been proposed simply as personal opinions. Joseph
+Smith, on the contrary, laid no claim to experimental data to support
+the theories which he proposed, nor did he say that they were simply
+personal opinions, but he repeatedly asserted that God had revealed
+the truths to him, and that they could not, therefore, be false. If
+doctrines resting upon such a claim can be shown to be true, it is
+additional testimony of the truth of the Prophet's work.
+
+[Sidenote: Purpose of the following chapters.]
+
+In the following chapters it will be shown, by a series of
+comparisons, that, in 1833, or soon thereafter, the teachings of
+Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, were in full harmony with the most
+advanced scientific thought of today, and that he anticipated the
+world of science in the statement of fundamental facts and theories of
+physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology.
+
+
+
+
+THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF THE UNIVERSE.
+
+Chapter II.
+
+THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Until recent days many believed that matter could be
+created or destroyed.]
+
+It was believed by the philosophers of ancient and mediaeval times,
+especially by those devoted to the study of alchemy, that it was
+possible through mystical powers, often of a supernatural order, to
+annihilate matter or to create it from nothing. Men with such powers
+transcended all known laws of nature, and became objects of fear,
+often of worship to the masses of mankind. Naturally enough, the
+systems of religion became colored with the philosophical doctrines of
+the times; and it was held to be a fundamental religious truth that
+God created the world from nothing. Certainly, God could do what his
+creatures, the magicians, were able to do--that part of the reasoning
+was sound.
+
+In support of this doctrine, attention was called to some of the
+experiences of daily life. A piece of coal placed in a stove, in a
+short time disappear--it is annihilated. From the clear air of a
+summer's day raindrops start--created out of nothing. A fragment of
+gold placed in contact with sufficiently strong acids, disappears--it
+is destroyed.
+
+[Sidenote: Matter is eternal, its form only can be changed.]
+
+Towards the end of the eighteenth century, facts and laws of chemistry
+were discovered, which enabled scientists to follow in great detail
+the changes, visible or invisible, to which matter in its various
+forms is subject. Then it was shown that the coal placed in a stove
+unites with a portion of the air entering through the drafts, and
+becomes an invisible gas, but that, were this gas collected as it
+issues from the chimney, it would be found to contain a weight of the
+elements of the coal just equal to the weight of the coal used. In a
+similar manner it was shown that the raindrops are formed from the
+water found in the air, as an invisible vapor. The gold dissolved in
+the acid, may be wholly recovered so that every particle is accounted
+for. Numerous investigations on this subject were made by the most
+skillful experimenters of the age, all of which showed that it is
+absolutely impossible to create or destroy the smallest particle of
+matter; that the most man can do is to change the form in which matter
+exists.
+
+After this truth had been demonstrated, it was a necessary conclusion
+that matter is eternal, and that the quantity of matter in the
+universe cannot be diminished nor increased. This great
+generalization, known as the law of the Persistence of Matter or Mass,
+is the foundation stone of modern science. It began to find general
+acceptance among men about the time of Joseph Smith's birth, though
+many religious sects still hold that God, as the Supreme Ruler, is
+able at will to create matter from nothing. The establishment of this
+law marked also the final downfall of alchemy and other kindred occult
+absurdities.
+
+[Sidenote: Mormonism teaches that all things are material.]
+
+No doctrine taught by Joseph Smith is better understood by his
+followers than that matter in its elementary condition is eternal, and
+that it can neither be increased nor diminished. As early as May,
+1833, the Prophet declared that "the elements are eternal,"[A] and in
+a sermon delivered in April, 1844, he said "Element had an existence
+from the time God had. The pure principles of element are principles
+which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and reorganized,
+but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 93:33.]
+
+[Footnote B: The Contributor, Vol. 4, p. 257.]
+
+It is thus evident that from the beginning of his work, Joseph Smith
+was in perfect harmony with the fundamental doctrine of science; and
+far in advance of the religious sects of the world, which are, even at
+this time, slowly accepting the doctrine of the persistence of matter
+in a spiritual as well as in a material sense.
+
+Mormonism has frequently been charged with accepting the doctrine of
+materialism. In one sense, the followers of Joseph Smith plead yes to
+this charge. In Mormon theology there is no place for immateralism;
+i.e. for a God, spirits and angels that are not material. Spirit is
+only a refined form of matter. It is beyond the mind of man to
+conceive of an immaterial thing. On the other hand, Joseph Smith did
+not teach that the kind of tangible matter, which impresses our mortal
+senses, is the kind of matter which is associated with heavenly
+beings. The distinction between the matter known to man and the spirit
+matter is very great; but no greater than is the difference between
+the matter of the known elements and that of the universal ether which
+forms one of the accepted dogmas of science.
+
+Science knows phenomena only as they are associated with matter;
+Mormonism does the same.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF ENERGY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: All forms of energy may be converted into each other.
+Energy can not be destroyed.]
+
+It is only when matter is in motion, or in the possession of energy,
+that it is able to impress our senses. The law of the
+indestructibility and convertibility of energy, is of equal
+fundamental value with that of the indestructibility of matter. A
+great variety of forces exist in nature, as, for instance,
+gravitation, electricity, chemical affinity, heat and light. These
+forces may all be made to do work. Energy, in fact, may be defined as
+the power of doing work. In early days these forces were supposed to
+be distinct and not convertible, one into the other, just as gold and
+silver, with our present knowledge, are distinct and not convertible
+into other elements.
+
+In the early part of the nineteenth century students of light and heat
+began to demonstrate that these two natural forces were different
+manifestations of one universal medium. This in turn led to the
+thought that possibly these forces, instead of being absolutely
+distinct, could be converted one into the other. This idea was
+confirmed in various experimental ways. Sir Humphrey Davy, about the
+end of the eighteenth century, rubbed together two pieces of ice until
+they were nearly melted. Precautions had been taken that no heat could
+be abstracted from the outside by the ice. The only tenable conclusion
+was that the energy expended in rubbing, had been converted into heat,
+which had melted the ice. About the same time, Count Rumford, a
+distinguished American, was superintending the boring of a cannon at
+the arsenal at Munich, and was forcibly struck with the heating of the
+iron due to this process. He, like Davy, believed that the energy of
+the boring instruments had been converted into the heat.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The Conservation of Heat--Stewart, pp. 38, 39.]
+
+From 1843 to 1849, Dr. Joule of Manchester, England, published the
+results of experiments on the relation between mechanical energy and
+heat. Dr. Joule attached a fixed weight to a string which was passed
+over a pulley, while the other end was connected with paddles moving
+in water. As the weight descended, the paddles were caused to revolve;
+and it was observed that, as the weight fell and the paddles revolved,
+the water became warmer and warmer. Dr. Joule found further that for
+each foot of fall, the same amount of heat energy was given to the
+water. In fact, he determined that when a pound weight falls seven
+hundred and seventy two feet it gives out energy enough to raise the
+temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.[A] This
+experiment, frequently repeated, gave the same result and established
+largely the law of the convertibility of energy.
+
+[Footnote A: The Conservation of Energy--Stewart, pp. 44, 45. Recent
+Advances in Physical Science--Tait, pp. 63, 65.]
+
+About the same time, it was shown that light can be converted into
+heat; and later it was proved that electricity may be changed into
+heat or light. In all these cases it was found that the amount of
+energy changed was exactly equal to the amount of energy produced.
+
+Thus, by countless experiments, it was finally determined that energy
+is indestructible; that, when any form of energy disappears, it
+reappears immediately in another form. This is the law of the
+persistence of force or energy. In more recent days, it has been
+suggested that all known forces are variations of a great universal
+force, which may or may not be known. The very nature of force or
+energy is not understood. In the language of Spencer, "By the
+persistence of force, we really mean the persistence of some cause
+which transcends our knowledge and conception."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: First Principles, Spencer, 4th ed., p. 200.]
+
+It need hardly be explained that energy cannot exist independently of
+matter; and that the law of the persistence of matter is necessary for
+the existence of the law of persistence of force.
+
+[Sidenote: Universal intelligence, comparable to universal energy is
+indestructible, according to Joseph Smith.]
+
+Joseph Smith was not a scientist; and he made no pretense of solving
+the scientific questions of this day. The discussion relative to the
+convertibility of various forms of energy was in all probability not
+known to him. Still, in his writings is found a doctrine which in all
+respects resembles that of the conservation of energy.
+
+Joseph Smith taught, and the Church now teaches, that all space is
+filled with a subtle, though material substance of wonderful
+properties, by which all natural phenomena are controlled. This
+substance is known as the Holy Spirit. Its most important
+characteristic is intelligence. "Its inherent properties embrace all
+the attributes of intelligence."[A] The property of intelligence is to
+the Holy Spirit what energy is to the gross material of our senses.
+
+[Footnote A: Key to Theology, P. P. Pratt, 5th ed., p. 40.]
+
+In one of the generally accepted works of the Church, the energy of
+nature is actually said to be the workings of the Holy Spirit. The
+passage reads as follows: "Man observes a universal energy in
+nature--organization and disorganization succeed each other--the
+thunders roll through the heavens; the earth trembles and becomes
+broken by earthquakes; fires consume cities and forests; the waters
+accumulate, flow over their usual bounds, and cause destruction of
+life and property; the worlds perform their revolutions in space with
+a velocity and power incomprehensible to man, and he, covered with a
+veil of darkness, calls this universal energy, God, when it is the
+workings of his Spirit, the obedient agent of his power, the
+wonder-working and life-giving principle in all nature."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Compendium, Richards and Little, 3rd ed., p. 150.]
+
+In short, the writings of the Church clearly indicate that the various
+forces of nature, the energy of nature, are only manifestations of the
+great, pervading force of intelligence. We do not understand the real
+nature of intelligence any better than we understand the true nature
+of energy. We only know that by energy or intelligence gross matter is
+brought within reach of our senses.
+
+Intelligence or energy was declared by Joseph Smith in May, 1833, to
+be eternal: "Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or
+made, neither indeed can be."[A] In the sermon already referred to the
+Prophet said, "The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither
+will it have an end."
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 93:29.]
+
+These quotations, and many others to which attention might be called,
+show clearly that Joseph Smith taught the doctrine that the energy of
+the universe can in nowise be increased or diminished, though, it may
+manifest itself in various forms.
+
+The great Latter-day prophet is thus shown to be in harmony with the
+second fundamental law of science. It is not a valid objection to this
+conclusion to say that Joseph Smith did not use the accepted terms of
+science. Words stand only for ideas; the ideas are essential. The
+nomenclature of a science is often different in different lands, and
+is often changed as knowledge grows.
+
+It is hardly correct to say that he was in harmony with the law; the
+law as stated by the world of science was rather in harmony with him.
+Let it be observed that Joseph Smith enunciated the principle of the
+conservation of the energy, or intelligence as he called it, of the
+universe, in May, 1833, ten years before Dr. Joule published his
+famous papers on energy relations, and fifteen or twenty years before
+the doctrine was clearly understood and generally accepted by the
+learned of the world. Let it be also remembered that the unlearned boy
+from the backwoods of New York state, taught with the conviction of
+absolute certainty that the doctrine was true, for God had revealed it
+to him.
+
+If God did not reveal it to him, where did he learn it, and whence
+came the courage to teach it as an eternal truth?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+THE UNIVERSAL ETHER.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The modern theory of light was established only about the
+year 1830.]
+
+The nature of light has been in every age a fascinating subject for
+study and reflection. Descartes, the French mathematician and
+philosopher, advanced the hypothesis that light consists of small
+particles emitted by luminous bodies, and that the sensation of light
+is produced by the impact of these particles upon the retina of the
+eye. Soon after this emission or corpuscular theory had been proposed,
+Hooke, an English investigator of great note, stated publicly that the
+phenomena of light, as he had observed them, led him to the belief
+that the nature of light could best be explained on the assumption
+that light was a kind of undulation or wave in some unknown medium,
+and that the sensation of light was. produced when these waves struck
+upon the retina of the eye. This new hypothesis, known as the theory
+of undulations, after the great Isaac Newton had declared himself in
+favor of the corpuscular theory, was finally adjudged by the majority
+of students to be erroneous.
+
+About the year 1800, more than a century after the days of Descartes,
+Hooke and Newton, an English physician, Dr. Thomas Young, who had long
+experimented on the nature of light, asserted that the emission theory
+could not explain many of the best known phenomena of light. Dr. Young
+further claimed that correct explanations could be made only by the
+theory of waves of undulation of an etherial medium diffused through
+space, and presented numerous experimental evidences in favor of this
+view. This revival of the old theory of undulation met at first with
+violent opposition from many of the greatest scientific minds of the
+day. Sometime after Dr. Young's publication, a French army officer,
+Augustine Fresnel, undertook the study of the nature of light, and
+arrived, almost independently, at the conclusion stated by Dr. Young.
+Later, other investigators discovered light phenomena which could be
+explained only on the undulatory hypothesis, and so, little by little,
+the new theory gained ground and adherents.
+
+Still, even as late as 1827, the astronomer Herschel published a
+treatise on light, in which he appeared to hold the real merit of the
+theory of undulations in grave doubt.[A] Likewise, the Imperial
+Academy at St. Petersburg, in 1826, proposed a prize for the best
+attempt to relieve the undulatory theory of light of some of the main
+objections against it.[B] It was several years later before the great
+majority of the scientific world accepted the theory of undulations as
+the correct explanation of the phenomena of light.
+
+[Footnote A: History of the Inductive Sciences, Whewell, 3rd edition,
+Vol. II, p. 114.]
+
+[Footnote B: Loc. cit., 117.]
+
+[Sidenote: A subtle substance, the ether, fills all space.]
+
+In brief, this theory assumes that a very attenuated, but very
+elastic, substance, called the ether, fills all space, and is found
+surrounding the ultimate particles of matter. Thus, the pores of wood,
+soil, lead, gold and the human body, are filled with the ether. It is
+quite impossible by any known process to obtain a portion of space
+free from it. A luminous body is one in which the ultimate particles
+of matter, the atoms or molecules, are moving very rapidly, and thus
+causing disturbances in the ether, similar to the disturbances in
+quiet water when a rock is thrown into it; and, like the water wave,
+proceeding from the point of disturbance, so the ether waves radiate
+from the luminous body into space. When a wave strikes the retina of
+the eye, the sensation of light is produced. This new-found ether was
+soon used for the explanation of other natural phenomena.
+
+[Sidenote: Light, heat, electricity and other forces are forms of
+ether motion.]
+
+The nature of heat had long been discussed when the world of science
+decided in favor of the undulatory theory of light. One school held
+that the sensation of heat was caused by the cannonading of heat
+particles by the heated body; the other school, with few adherents,
+insisted that heat was simply a form of motion of the ether already
+adopted in the theory of light. The later discoveries of science
+proved with considerable certainty that the undulatory theory of heat
+is right, but it was well towards the middle of the last century
+before the emission theory of heat lost its ground. In fact,
+Dr.Whewell, in the third edition of his classic book on the _History
+of Inductive Sciences_, published in 1859, says that the undulatory
+theory of heat "has not by any means received full confirmation;"[A]
+and Dr. John Tyndall, in a book published in 1880, says, that the
+emission theory "held its ground until quite recently among the
+chemists of our own day."[B] Today, the evidences of modern science
+are overwhelmingly in favor of the undulatory theory of heat.
+
+[Footnote A: Vol. II, p. 184.]
+
+[Footnote B: Heat, A Mode of Motion, Tyndall, 6th ed., p. 38.]
+
+The wonderful developments of the last century, in electricity and
+magnetism, led to much speculation concerning the nature of the subtle
+electrical and magnetic forces. The most popular theories for many
+years were those that presupposed various electrical and magnetic
+fluids, which could be collected, conducted, dispersed and otherwise
+controlled. In 1867, the eminent English mathematician, Clerk Maxwell,
+proposed the theory that electrical and magnetic phenomena were simply
+peculiar motions of the ether, bearing definite relationship to light
+waves. Later researches, one result of which is the now famous
+Roentgen or X-rays, have tended to confirm Maxwell's theory. A recent
+text-book on physics, of unquestioned authority,[A] states that the
+ether theory of electricity and magnetism is now susceptible of direct
+demonstration; and another eminent authority frankly states that "when
+we explain the nature of electricity, we explain it by a motion of the
+luminiferous ether."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Lehrbuch der Physik, Riecke, (1896), 2ter Band, p. 315.]
+
+[Footnote B: Popular Lectures and Addresses, Kelvin (1891) Vol. 1,
+page 334.]
+
+Other recent discoveries have hinted at the possibility of matter
+itself being only the result of peculiar forms of this all-pervading
+substance, the luminiferous ether. The properties of the element
+radium, and other radioactive elements, as at present understood,
+suggest the possibility of a better understanding of the nature of the
+ether, and of its relation to the world of phenomena.
+
+[Sidenote: The existence of the ether is a certainty of science.]
+
+That the present knowledge of the world of science compels a faith in
+an all-pervading substance, of marvelous properties, and of intimate
+relationship to all forms of energy, is shown by the following
+quotations from Lord Kelvin, who is generally regarded as the world's
+greatest physicist: "The luminferous ether, that is the only substance
+we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we are sure of, and that is
+the reality and substantiality of the luminiferous ether." "What can
+this luminiferous ether be? It is something that the planets move
+through with the greatest ease. It permeates our air; it is nearly in
+the same condition, so far as our means of judging are concerned, in
+our air and in the interplanetary space." "You may regard the
+existence of the luminiferous ether as a reality of science." "It is
+matter prodigiously less dense than air--of such density as not to
+produce the slightest resistance to any body going through it."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Kelvin's Lectures, Vol. 1, pp. 317, 334, 336, 354.]
+
+The theory of the ether is one of the most helpful assumptions of
+modern science. By its aid the laws of energy have been revealed.
+There is at the present time no grander or more fundamental doctrine
+in science than that of the ether. The nature of the ether is, of
+course, far from being clearly understood, but every discovery in
+science demonstrates that the hypothetical ether stands for an
+important reality of nature. Together with the doctrines of the
+indestructibility of matter and energy, the doctrine of the ether
+welds and explains all the physical phenomena of the universe.
+
+Joseph Smith, in a revelation received on December 27, 1832, wrote:
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith taught space is filled with a substance
+comparable to the ether of science.]
+
+"The light which now shineth, which giveth you light, is through him
+who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth
+your understandings; which light proceedeth forth from the presence of
+God to fill the immensity of space. The light which is in all things:
+which is the law by which all things are governed: even the power of
+God."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, section 88:11-13.]
+
+This quotation gives undoubted evidence of the prophet's belief that
+space is filled with some substance which bears important relations to
+all natural phenomena. The word substance is used advisedly; for in
+various places in the writings of Joseph Smith, light, used as above
+in a general sense, means spirit,[A] and "all spirit is matter, but it
+is more fine and pure."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 84:45.]
+
+[Footnote B: Ibid, 131:7.]
+
+True, the passage above quoted does not furnish detailed explanation
+of the Prophet's view concerning the substance filling all space, but
+it must be remembered that it is simply an incidental paragraph in a
+chapter of religious instruction. True, also, the Prophet goes farther
+than some modern scientists, when he says that this universal
+substance bears a controlling relation to all things; yet, when it is
+recalled that eminent, sober students have suggested that the facts of
+science make it possible to believe that matter itself is simply a
+phenomenon of the universal ether, the statement of the "Mormon"
+prophet seems very reasonable. The paragraph already quoted is not an
+accidental arrangement of words suggesting an idea not intended by the
+prophet, for in other places, he presents the idea of an omnipresent
+substance binding all things together. For instance, in speaking of
+the controlling power of the universe he says:
+
+"He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all
+things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all
+things, and is through all things, and is round about all things."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Ibid, 88:41.]
+
+That Joseph Smith does not here have in mind an omnipresent God, is
+proved by the emphatic doctrine that God is personal and cannot be
+everywhere present.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Ibid, 130:22.]
+
+Lest it be thought that the words are forced, for argument's sake, to
+give the desired meaning, it may be well to examine the views of some
+of the persons to whom the Prophet explained in detail the meanings of
+the statements in the revelations which he claimed to have received
+from God.
+
+Parley P. Pratt, who, as a member of the first quorum of apostles, had
+every opportunity of obtaining the Prophet's views on any subject,
+wrote in considerable fullness on the subject of the Holy Spirit, or
+the light of truth:
+
+"As the mind passes the boundaries of the visible world, and enters
+upon the confines of the more refined and subtle elements, it finds
+itself associated with certain substances in themselves invisible to
+our gross organs, but clearly manifested to our intellect by their
+tangible operations and effects." "The purest, most refined and subtle
+of all these substances--is that substance called the Holy Spirit."
+"It is omnipresent." "It is in its less refined particles, the
+physical light which reflects from the sun, moon and stars, and other
+substances; and by reflection on the eye makes visible the truths of
+the outward world."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Key to Theology, 5th ed., pp. 38-41.]
+
+Elder C. W. Penrose, an accepted writer on Mormon doctrine, writes,
+"It is by His Holy Spirit, which permeates all things, and is the life
+and light of all things, that Deity is everywhere present. * * By that
+agency God sees and knows and governs all things."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Rays of Living Light, No. 2, p. 3.]
+
+Such quotations, from the men intimately associated or acquainted with
+the early history of the Church, prove that Joseph Smith taught in
+clearness the doctrine that a subtle form of matter, call it ether or
+Holy Spirit, pervades all space; that all phenomena of nature,
+including, specifically, heat, light and electricity, are definitely
+connected with this substance. He taught much else concerning this
+substance which science will soon discover, but which lies without the
+province of this paper to discuss.
+
+By the doctrine of the ether, it is made evident all the happenings in
+the universe are indelibly inscribed upon the record of nature. A word
+is spoken. The air movements that it causes disturbs the ether. The
+ether waves radiate into space and can never die. Anywhere, with the
+proper instrument, one of the waves may be captured, and the spoken
+word read. That is the simple method of wireless telegraphy. It is
+thus that all our actions shall be known on the last great day. By the
+ether, or the Holy Spirit as named by the Prophet, God holds all
+things in His keeping. His intelligent will radiates into space, to
+touch whomsoever it desires. He who is tuned aright can read the
+message, flashed across the ether ocean, by the Almighty. Thus, also,
+God, who is a person, filling only a portion of space is, by His power
+carried by the ether, everywhere present.
+
+The ether of science though material is essentially different from the
+matter composing the elements. So, also, in Mormon theology, is the
+Holy Spirit different from the grosser elements. In science there is a
+vast distinction between the world of the elements, and that of the
+ether; in theology, there is an equally great difference between the
+spiritual and material worlds. Though the theology of Joseph Smith
+insists that immaterialism is an absurdity, yet it permits no
+overlapping of the earthly and the spiritual.
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith stated the existence of a universe-filling
+substance before science had generally accepted it.]
+
+It must not be overlooked that the broad statement of this doctrine
+was made by Joseph Smith, at least as early as 1832, at a time when
+the explanation of light phenomena on the hypothesis of a universal
+ether was just beginning to find currency among learned men; and many
+years before the same hypothesis was accepted in explaining the
+phenomena of heat and electricity.
+
+The idea of an influence pervading the universe is not of itself new.
+Poets and philosophers of all ages have suggested it in a vague,
+hesitating manner, without connecting it with the phenomena of nature,
+but burdening it with the greatest absurdity of religion or
+philosophy, that of immaterialism. Joseph Smith said the doctrine had
+been taught him by God, and gave it to the world unhesitatingly and
+rationally. The men of science, to whom Joseph Smith appears only as
+an imposter, and who know nothing of his writings, have later
+discovered the truth for themselves, and incorporated it in their
+books of learning.
+
+Had Joseph Smith been the clever imposter that some claim he was, he
+probably would not have dealt in any way with the theories of the
+material world, at least would not have claimed revelations laying
+down physical laws; had he been the stupid fool, others tell us he
+was, his mind would not have worried itself with the fundamental
+problems of nature.
+
+However that may be, it is certain that Joseph Smith, in the broad and
+rational statement of the existence of an omnipresent, material though
+subtle substance, anticipated the workers in science. In view of that
+fact, it is not improbable that at some future time, when science
+shall have gained a wider view, the historian of the physical sciences
+will say that Joseph Smith, the clear-sighted, first stated correctly
+the fundamental physical doctrine of the universal ether.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+THE REIGN OF LAW.
+
+
+In the seventh book of the _Republic of Plato_[A] occurs the following
+passage:
+
+[Footnote A: Golden Treasury edition, pp. 235, 236.]
+
+[Sidenote: The realities of nature are known by their effects.]
+
+"Imagine a number of men living in an underground cavernous chamber,
+with an entrance open to the light, extending along the entire length
+of the cavern, in which they have been confined, from childhood, with
+their legs and necks so shackled, that they are obliged to sit still
+and look straight forward, because their chains render it impossible
+for them to turn their heads round; and imagine a bright fire burning
+some way off, above and behind them, and an elevated roadway passing
+between the fire and the prisoners, with a low wall built along it,
+like the screens which conjurers put up in front of their audiences,
+and above which they exhibit their wonders. Also figure to yourself a
+number of persons walking behind the wall, and carrying with them
+statues of men and images of other animals, wrought in wood and stone
+and all kinds of materials, together with various other articles,
+which overtop the wall; and, as you might expect, let some of the
+passers-by be talking, and the others silent.
+
+"Let me ask whether persons so confined could have seen anything of
+themselves or of each other, beyond the shadows thrown by the fire
+upon the part of the cavern facing them? And is not their knowledge of
+the things carried past them equally limited? And if they were able to
+converse with one another, would they not be in the habit of giving
+names to the objects which they saw before them? If their prison house
+returned an echo from the part facing them, whenever one of the
+passers-by opened his lips, to what could they refer the voice, if not
+to the shadow which was passing? Surely such person would hold the
+shadows of those manufactured articles to be the only realities."
+
+With reference to our absolute knowledge of the phenomena of nature,
+this splendid comparison is as correct today as it was in the days of
+Plato, about 400 B. C.; we are only as prisoners in a great cave,
+watching shadows of passing objects thrown upon the cavern wall, and
+reflecting upon the real natures of the things whose shadows we see.
+We know things only by their effects; the essential nature of matter,
+ether and energy is far from our understanding.
+
+[Sidenote: The progress of science rests on the law of cause and
+effect.]
+
+In early and mediaeval times, the recognition of the fact that nature
+in its ultimate form is unknowable, led to many harmful superstitions.
+Chief among the fallacies of the early ages was the belief that God at
+will could, and did, cause various phenomena to appear in nature,
+which were contrary to all human experience. As observed in chapter 4,
+a class of men arose who claimed to be in possession of knowledge
+which made them also able, at will, to cause various supernatural
+manifestations. Thus arose the occult sciences, so called,--alchemy,
+astrology, magic, witchcraft, and all other similar abominations of
+the intellect. Such beliefs made the logical study of nature
+superfluous, for any apparent regularity or law in nature might at any
+time be overturned by a person in possession of a formula of the black
+art or a properly treated broomstick.
+
+While such ideas prevailed among the majority of men, the rational
+study of science could make little progress. In the march of the ages
+as the ideas of men were classified, it began to be understood that
+the claims of the devotees of the mystical arts not only could not be
+substantiated but were in direct opposition to the known operations of
+nature. It became clear to the truthseekers, that in nature a given
+cause, acting upon any given object, providing all surrounding
+conditions be left unchanged, will always produce the same effect.
+Thus, coal of a certain quality, brought to a high temperature in the
+presence of air, will burn and produce heat; a stick held in water at
+the right angle will appear crooked; iron kept in contact with
+moisture and air, at the right temperature, will be changed into rust;
+sunlight passed through a glass prism will be broken into rainbow
+colors; ordinary plants placed in a dark cellar will languish and die.
+No matter how often trials are made, the above results are obtained;
+and today it is safe to assert that in the material world no relation
+of cause and effect, once established, has failed to reappear at the
+will of the investigator. As this principle of the constancy in the
+relations between cause and effect was established, the element of
+chance in natural phenomena, with its attendant arts of magic, had to
+disappear. It is now well understood by intelligent persons that the
+law of order controls all the elements of nature.
+
+It is true that the cause of any given effect may, itself, be the
+effect of other causes, and that the first cause of daily phenomena is
+not and probably cannot be understood. It is also true that very
+seldom is the mind able to comprehend why certain causes, save the
+simpler ones, should produce certain effects. In that respect we are
+again nothing more than Plato's cave prisoners, seeing the shadows of
+ultimate realities. However, the recognition of the principle of the
+invariable relation between cause and effect was a great onward stride
+in the intellectual development of the world.
+
+[Sidenote: Laws of nature are man's simplest expression of many
+related facts.]
+
+Now, as men began to investigate nature with her forces, according to
+the new light, numerous relations of the forces were discovered--in
+number far beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Then it was
+found necessary to group all facts of a similar nature, and invent, if
+possible, some means by which the properties of the whole group might
+be stated in language so simple as to reach the understanding. Thus
+came the laws of nature.
+
+For instance, men from earliest times observed the heavenly bodies and
+the regularity of their motions. Theories of the universe were
+invented which should harmonize with the known facts. As new facts
+were discovered, the theories had to be changed and extended. First it
+was believed that the earth was fixed in mid-space, and sun and stars
+were daily carried around it. Hipparchus improved this theory by
+placing the earth not exactly in the center of the sun's circle.
+Ptolemy, three hundred years later, considered that the sun and moon
+move in circles, yearly, around the earth, and the other planets in
+circles, whose centers again described circles round the earth.
+Copernicus simplified the whole system by teaching that the earth
+rotated around its axis, and around the sun. Keppler next showed that
+the earth moved around the sun in certain curves termed ellipses.
+Finally, Newton hit upon the wide-embracing law of gravitation, which
+unifies all the known facts of astronomy.[A] All the earlier laws were
+correct, so far as they included all the knowledge of the age in which
+they were proposed, but were insufficient to include the new
+discoveries.
+
+[Footnote A: See The Grammar of Science, Pearson, pp. 117, 118.]
+
+Laws of nature are, therefore, man's simplest and most comprehensive
+expression of his knowledge of certain groups of natural phenomena.
+They are man-made, and subject to change as knowledge grows; but, as
+they change, they approach or should approach more and more nearly to
+the perfect law. Modern science is built upon the assumption that the
+relations between cause and effect are invariable, and that these
+relations may be grouped to form great natural laws, which express the
+modes by which the forces of the universe manifest themselves.
+
+[Sidenote: A miracle is a law not understood.]
+
+In this matter, science is frankly humble, and acknowledges that the
+region of the unknown is far greater than that of the known. Forces,
+relations and laws may exist as yet unknown to the world of science,
+which, used by a human or superhuman being, might to all appearances
+change well-established relations of known forces. That would be a
+miracle; but a miracle simply means a phenomenon not understood, in
+its cause and effect relations. It must also be admitted that men
+possess no absolute certainty that though certain forces, brought into
+a certain conjunction a thousand times, have produced the same effect,
+they will continue to do so. Should a variation occur, however, that
+also must be ascribed to an inherent property of the forces or
+conditions, or the existence of a law not understood.[A] There can be
+no chance in the operations of nature. This is a universe of law and
+order.
+
+[Footnote A: The Credentials of Science, the Warrant of Faith, Cooke,
+pp. 169, 170.]
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith taught the invariable relation of cause and
+effect.]
+
+Were it not for the sake of the completeness of the argument running
+through these chapters, it would be unnecessary to call attention to
+the fact that Joseph Smith in a very high degree held views similar to
+those taught by science relative to cause and effect, and the reign of
+law.
+
+From the beginning of his career, the Prophet insisted upon order, or
+system, as the first law in the religion or system of philosophy which
+he founded.[A] Moreover, the order which he taught was of an
+unchangeable nature, corresponding to the invariable relation between
+cause and effect. He wrote, "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in
+heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings
+are predicated; and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by
+obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."[B] No text book in
+science has a clearer or more positive statement than this, of the
+fact that like causes have like effects, like actions like results.
+The eternal nature of natural law is further emphasized as follows:
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 28:13; 132; 8.]
+
+[Footnote B: Doctrine and Covenants, 130:20, 21.]
+
+"If there be bounds set to the heavens, or to the seas: or to the dry
+land, or to the sun, moon or stars; all the times of their
+revolutions; all the appointed days, months, and years, and all the
+days of their days, months, and years, and all their glories, laws,
+and set times, shall be revealed, in the days of the dispensation of
+the fullness of times, according to that which was ordained in the
+midst of the Council of the Eternal God of all other Gods before this
+world was."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 121:30-32.]
+
+Those who may be inclined to believe that this doctrine was taught in
+a spiritual sense only, should recall that Joseph Smith taught also
+that spirit is only a pure form of matter,[A] so that the principles
+of the material world must have their counterparts in the spiritual
+world. Besides, in the last quotation reference is made to such
+material bodies as sun, moon, and stars. In other places, special
+mention is made of the fact that the material universe is controlled
+by law. For instance:
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 131:7.]
+
+"All kingdoms have a law given: and there are many kingdoms; * * * *
+and unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are
+certain bounds also and conditions. * * * * And again, verily I say
+unto you, he hath given a law unto all things by which they move in
+their times and their seasons; and their courses are fixed; even the
+courses of the heavens and the earth, which comprehend the earth and
+all the planets."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 88:36-33, 42, 43.]
+
+This also is a clear, concise statement of law and its nature, which
+is not excelled by the definitions of science. There can be no doubt
+from these quotations, as from many others that might be made, that
+Joseph Smith based his teachings upon the recognition that law
+pervades the universe, and that none can transcend law. In the
+material world or in the domain of ether or spirit, like causes
+produced like effects--the reign of law is supreme.
+
+[Sidenote: "The law also maketh you free."]
+
+Certainly the claim cannot be made that Joseph Smith anticipated the
+world of science in the recognition of this important principle; but
+it is a source of marvel that he should so clearly recognize and state
+it, at a time when many religious sects and philosophical creeds chose
+to assume that natural laws could be set aside easily by mystical
+methods that might be acquired by anyone. In some respects, the
+scientific test of the divine inspiration of Joseph Smith lies here.
+Ignorant and superstitious as his enemies say he was, the mystical
+would have attracted him greatly, and he would have played for his own
+interest upon the superstitious fears of his followers. Instead, he
+taught doctrines absolutely free from mysticism, and built a system of
+religion in which the invariable relation of cause and effect is the
+cornerstone. Instead of priding himself, to his disciples, upon his
+superiority to the laws of nature, he taught distinctly that "the law
+also maketh you free."[A] Herein he recognized another great
+principle--that freedom consists in the adaptation to law, not in the
+opposition to it.
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 98:8.]
+
+However, whatever else the Prophet Joseph Smith was, he most certainly
+was in full harmony with the scientific principle that the universe is
+controlled by law.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNIVERSE.
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+THE NEW ASTRONOMY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The laws of the motions of the heavenly bodies have been
+learned very slowly.]
+
+From the dawn of written history, when the first men, watching through
+the nights, observed the regular motions of the moon and stars,
+humanity has been striving to obtain a correct understanding of the
+relation of the earth to the. First it was believed that the sun,
+moon, and stars revolved in circles around the earth (which for a time
+was supposed to be flat instead of spherical). The great Greek
+philosopher, Hipparchus, after observing the movements of the heavenly
+bodies, suggested that the earth was not exactly in the middle of the
+circles. Three hundred years later, Ptolemy discovered a number of
+facts concerning the movements of the sun, moon and planets, which
+were unknown to Hipparchus, and which led him to suggest that the sun
+and moon move in circles around the earth, but that the planets move
+around the earth in circles, whose centres again move around the
+earth. This somewhat complex theory explained very well what was known
+of astronomy in the days of the ancients. In fact, the views of
+Ptolemy were quite generally accepted for 1300 years.
+
+About 1500, A. D., Copernicus, a Dutch astronomer, having still more
+facts in his possession than had Ptolemy, concluded that the simplest
+manner in which the apparent movements of the sun, moon, and planets
+could be explained, was to assume that the sun is the center of the
+planetary system, and that the earth, with the moon and planets,
+revolves according to definite laws around the sun. This theory,
+supported by numerous confirmatory observations, was generally
+accepted by astronomers, and really did explain very simply and
+clearly many of the facts of planetary motion.
+
+Fifty years after the death of Copernicus, the celebrated astronomer,
+Kepler, proposed extensions and improvements of the Copernican
+doctrine, which made the theory that the planets revolve about the sun
+more probable than ever before. He suggested first that the planets
+move around the sun in closed curves, resembling flattened circles,
+and known as ellipses. By assuming this to be true, and assisted by
+other discoveries, he was also able to state the times required by the
+planets for their revolutions around the sun, and the velocity of
+their motions at different times of the year. Later investigations
+have proved the great laws proposed by Copernicus and Kepler to be
+true; and from their days is dated the birth of modern astronomy.
+
+[Sidenote: The law of gravitation is universal and explains many of
+the motions of celestial bodies.]
+
+After the laws of the motions of the planets had been determined, it
+was only natural that men should ask themselves what forces were
+concerned in these motions. The ancient philosophers had proposed the
+idea that the sun attracts all heavenly bodies, but the suggestion had
+not been accepted by the world at large. However, after the
+discoveries of Kepler, the English, philosopher Newton advanced the
+theory that there is in the universe an attractive force which
+influences all matter, beyond the limits of known space. He further
+proved that the intensity of this force varies directly with the
+product of the attractive masses, and inversely, with the square of
+the distances between them--that is, the greater the bodies the
+greater the attraction; the greater the distance between them, the
+smaller the attraction. This law of gravitation has been verified by
+repeated experiments, and, taken in connection with the astronomical
+theories of Copernicus and Kepler, has made celestial mechanics what
+they are today.
+
+By the aid of the law of gravitation, many astronomical predictions
+have been fulfilled. Among the most famous is the following incident:
+
+In the early part of the last century, astronomers noticed that the
+motions of the planet Uranus did not agree with those derived from
+calculations based upon the law of gravitation. About 1846, two
+investigators, M. Leverrier, of France, and Mr. Adams of England,
+stated, as their opinion, that the discordance between theory and
+observation in the case of the motions of Uranus, was due to the
+attraction of a planet, not yet known, and they calculated by means of
+the law of gravitation, the size and orbit of the unknown planet. In
+the fall of 1846, this planet was actually discovered and named
+Neptune. It was found to harmonize with the predictions made by the
+astronomers before its discovery.
+
+During the days of Newton, the question was raised if the celestial
+bodies outside of the solar system obey the law of gravitation. Among
+the stars, there are some which are called double stars, and which
+consist of two stars so near to each other that the telescope alone
+can separate them to the eye. In 1803, after twenty years of
+observation, William Herschel discovered that some of these couples
+were revolving around each other with various angular velocities. The
+son of William Herschel continued this work, and many years later, he
+discovered that the laws of motion of these double stars are the same
+as those that prevail in the the solar system.[A] This result
+indicated not only the universality of the law of gravitation, but
+also the probability that all heavenly bodies are in motion.
+
+[Footnote A: History of the Inductive Sciences, Whewell, 3rd ed. Vol.
+I, pp. 467-469.]
+
+[Sidenote: The invention of the spectroscope laid the foundation of
+the new astronomy.]
+
+Then, early in the nineteenth century, a new method of research began
+to be developed, which was destined to form a new science of
+astronomy. It had long been known that white light when passed through
+a glass prism is broken into a colored spectrum, with colors similar
+to those observed in the rainbow. Now it was discovered that when
+white light passes through vapors of certain composition, dark lines
+appear in the spectrum, and that the position of the lines varies with
+the chemical composition of the vapors. By the application of these
+principles, it was shown, towards the middle of the last century, that
+the chemical composition of the heavenly bodies may be determined.
+Later,it was discovered that by noting the positions of the dark lines
+in the spectrum, it could be known when a star or any heavenly body is
+moving, as also the direction and amount of its motion. These
+unexpected discoveries led to a study of the heavens from the
+spectroscopic point of view, which has resulted in a marvelous advance
+in the science of astronomy.
+
+[Sidenote: All heavenly bodies are in motion.]
+
+It has been determined that all heavenly bodies are in motion, and
+that their velocities are great compared with our ordinary conceptions
+of motion. Most of the stars move at the rate of about seven miles per
+second, though some have a velocity of forty-five miles, or more, per
+second. Many stars, formerly thought to be single, have been resolved
+into two or more components. The rings of Saturn have been proved to
+consist of small bodies revolving about the planet in obedience to
+Kepler's law.[A] Clusters of stars have been found that move through
+space as one body, as possible counterparts of the planetary
+system.[B] It has been demonstrated, further, that the sun itself,
+with its planets, is moving through space at a very rapid rate.
+Professor Simon Newcomb, perhaps the greatest astronomer of the day,
+says, "The sun, and the whole solar system with it, have been speeding
+their way toward the star of which I speak (Alpha Lyrae) on a journey
+of which we know neither the beginning nor the end. During every
+clock-beat through which humanity has existed, it has moved on this
+journey by an amount which we cannot specify more exactly than to say
+that it is probably between five and nine miles per second. The
+conclusion seems unavoidable that a number of stars are moving with a
+speed such that the attraction of all the bodies of the universe could
+never stop them."[C] In brief, the new astronomy holds that all
+heavenly bodies are in motion, and that the planetary system is but a
+small cluster of stars among the host of heaven. Further, it has
+weighed the stars, measured the intensity of their light, and
+determined their chemical composition, and it affirms that there are
+suns in the heavens, far excelling our sun in size and lustre, though
+built of approximately the same elements.
+
+[Footnote A: See C. G. Abbott, Report of Smithsonian Institution, for
+1901, pp. 153-155.]
+
+[Footnote B: Light Science for Leisure Hours, Proctor, pp. 42-52.]
+
+[Footnote C: The Problems of Astronomy, S. Newcomb, Science, May 21,
+1897.]
+
+[Sidenote: The solar system is only one of many.]
+
+Sir Robert Ball expresses his views as follows: "The group to which
+our sun belongs is a limited one. This must be so, even though the
+group included all the stars in the milky way. This unnumbered host is
+still only a cluster, occupying, comparatively speaking, an
+expressibly small extent in the ocean of infinite space. The
+imagination will carry us further still--it will show us that our star
+cluster may be but a unit in a cluster of an order still higher, so
+that a yet higher possibility of movement is suggested for our
+astonishment."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The Story of the Sun, R. S. Ball, pp. 360, 361.]
+
+Another eminent astronomer expresses the same idea briefly but
+eloquently: "It is true that from the highest point of view the sun is
+only one of a multitude--a single star among millions--thousands of
+which, most likely, exceed him in brightness, magnitude and power. He
+is only a private in the host of heaven."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The Sun, C. A. Young, p. 11.]
+
+And still another student of the stars propounds the following
+questions: "Does there exist a central sun of the universe? Do the
+worlds of Infinitude gravitate as a hierarchy round a divine focus?
+Some day the astronomers of the planets which gravitate in the light
+of Hercules (towards which constellation the solar system is moving)
+will see a little star appear in their sky. This will be our sun,
+carrying us along in its rays; perhaps at this very moment we are
+visible dust of a sidereal hurricane, in a milky way, the transformer
+of our destinies. We are mere playthings in the immensity of
+Infinitude."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Popular Astronomy, C. Flammarion, p. 309.]
+
+[Sidenote: Scientists believe that heavenly bodies are inhabited by
+living, thinking beings.]
+
+It is not strange that men who have learned to look at the universe in
+this lofty manner should go a step farther, beyond the actually known,
+and suggest that some of these countless heavenly bodies must be
+inhabited by living, thinking beings. Sober, thoughtful truthseekers,
+who never advance needlessly a new theory, have suggested, in all
+seriousness, that other worlds than ours are peopled. For instance,
+"What sort of life, spiritual and intellectual, exists in distant
+worlds? We can not for a moment suppose that our little planet is the
+only one throughout the whole universe on which may be found the
+fruits of civilization, warm firesides, friendship, the desire to
+penetrate the mysteries of creation."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The Problems of Astronomy, S. Newcomb.]
+
+Such, then, is in very general terms the view of modern astronomy with
+reference to the constitution of the universe. Most of the information
+upon which this view rests has been gathered during the last fifty
+years.
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith taught that all heavenly bodies are in
+motion.]
+
+Joseph Smith was doubtlessly impressed with the beauty of the starry
+heavens, and, in common with all men of poetical nature, allowed his
+thoughts to wander into the immensity of space. However, he had no
+known opportunity of studying the principles of astronomy, or of
+becoming familiar with the astronomical questions that were agitating
+the thinkers of his day. Naturally, very little is said in his
+writings that bears upon the planetary and stellar constitution of the
+universe; yet enough to prove that he was in perfect harmony with the
+astronomical views developed since his day.
+
+First, he believed that stellar bodies are distributed throughout
+space. "And worlds without number have I created."[A] "And there are
+many kingdoms; for there is no space in which there is no kingdom."[B]
+He is further in harmony with modern views in that he claims that
+stars may be destroyed, and new ones formed. "For, behold, there are
+many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power."[C] "And as
+one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof, even so shall
+another come."[D]
+
+[Footnote A: Book of Moses, 1:33.]
+
+[Footnote B: Doctrine and Covenants, 88:37.]
+
+[Footnote C: Book of Moses, 1:35.]
+
+[Footnote D: Doctrine and Covenants, 1:38.]
+
+At the time that Joseph Smith wrote, there was considerable discussion
+as to whether the laws of the solar system were effective with the
+stars. The Prophet had no doubts on that score, for he wrote, "And
+unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are
+certain bounds also and conditions."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 88:38.]
+
+Likewise, his opinions concerning the motions of celestial objects
+were very definite and clear. "He hath given a law unto all things by
+which they move in their times and seasons; and their courses are
+fixed; even the courses of the heavens and the earth, which comprehend
+the earth and all the planets. The earth rolls upon her wings, and the
+sun giveth his light by day, and the moon giveth her light by night,
+and the stars also giveth their light, as they roll upon their wings
+in glory, in the midst of the power of God."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 88:43, 45.]
+
+In another place the same thought is expressed. "The sun, moon or
+stars; all the times of their revolutions; all the appointed days,
+months, and years, and all the days of their days, months, and years,
+and all their glories, laws, and set times, shall be revealed."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 121:30, 31.]
+
+The two revelations from which these quotations are made, were given
+to the Prophet in 1832 and 1839 respectively, many years before the
+fact that all celestial bodies are in motion was understood and
+accepted by the world of science.
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith taught that the solar system is only one of
+many--in advance of the astronomers of his day.]
+
+The accepted conception that groups or clusters of stars form systems
+which revolve around some one point or powerful star, was also clearly
+understood by Joseph Smith, for he speaks of stars of different orders
+with controlling stars for each order. "And I saw the stars that they
+were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of
+God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it: and the
+Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the
+great one is Kolob because it is near unto me--I have set this one to
+govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which
+thou standest."[A] That the governing star, Kolob, is not the sun is
+evident, since the statement is made later in the chapter that the
+Lord showed Abraham "Shinehah, which is the sun." Kolob, therefore,
+must be a mighty star governing more than the solar system; and is
+possibly the central sun around which the sun with its attendant
+planets is revolving. The other great stars near Kolob are also
+governing stars, two of which are mentioned by name Oliblish and
+Enish-go-ondosh, though nothing is said of the order or stars that
+they control. The reading of the third chapter of the _Book of
+Abraham_ leaves complete conviction that Joseph Smith taught that the
+celestial bodies are in great groups, controlled (under gravitational
+influence) by large suns. In this doctrine, he anticipated the world
+of science by many years.
+
+[Footnote A: Book of Abraham, chapter 3.]
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith taught that other worlds are inhabited.]
+
+It is perhaps less surprising to find that Joseph Smith believed that
+there are other peopled worlds than ours. For instance, "The reckoning
+of God's time, angel's time, prophet's time, and man's time, is
+according to the planet on which they reside,"[A] which distinctly
+implies that other planets are inhabited. Another passage reads, "The
+angels do not reside on a planet like this earth, but they reside in
+the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 130:4.]
+
+[Footnote B: Loc. cit., verses 6 and 7. See also 88:61.]
+
+While the idea that the planets and stars may be inhabited is not at
+all new, yet it is interesting to note that Joseph Smith taught as an
+absolute truth that such is the case. Probably no other philosopher
+has gone quite that far.
+
+These brief quotations go to show that the doctrines of the Prophet of
+the Latter-day Saints are in full accord with the views that
+distinguish the new astronomy. It is also to be noted that in
+advancing the theories of universal motion among the stars, and of
+great stars or suns governing groups of stars, he anticipated by many
+years the corresponding theories of professional astronomers.
+
+In various sermons the Prophet dealt more fully with the doctrines
+here set forth and showed more strongly than is done in his doctrinal
+writings, that he understood perfectly the far reaching nature of his
+astronomical teachings.
+
+Did Joseph Smith teach these truths by chance? or, did he receive
+inspiration from a higher power?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+GEOLOGICAL TIME.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The history of the world written in the rocks.]
+
+God speaks in various ways to men. The stars, the clouds, the
+mountains, the grass and the soil, are all, to him who reads aright,
+forms of divine revelation. Many of the noblest attributes of God may
+be learned by a study of the laws according to which Omnipotent Will
+directs the universe.
+
+Nowhere is this principle more beautifuly illustrated and confirmed
+than in the rocks that constitute the crust of the earth. On them is
+written in simple plainness the history of the earth almost from that
+beginning, when the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
+Yet, for centuries, men saw the rocks, their forms and their
+adaptations to each other, without understanding the message written
+in them. Only, as the wonderful nineteenth century approached, did the
+vision open, and the interpretation of the story of the rocks become
+apparent.
+
+[Sidenote: Water and heat among the shaping forces of the earth.]
+
+How the earth first came into being has not yet been clearly revealed.
+From the first, however, the mighty forces which act today, have
+shaped and fashioned the earth and prepared it for man's habitation.
+Water, entering the tiny cracks of the rocks, and expanding as, in
+winter, it changed to ice, crumbled the mighty mountans; water,
+falling as rain from the clouds, washed the rock fragments into the
+low-lying places to form soil; the water in mighty rivers chiseled the
+earth with irresistible force, as shown by the Grand Canyon of the
+Colorado. The internal heat of the earth, aided by the translocation
+of material by water, produced large cracks in the earth's crust,
+through which oceans of molten matter flowed and spread themselves
+over the land; the same heat appeared in volcanoes, through which were
+spurted liquid earth, cinders and foul gases; as the earth heat was
+lost, the crust cooled, contracted and great folds appeared,
+recognized as mountains, and as time went on, many of the mountains
+were caused to sink and the ocean beds were brought up in their stead.
+Wonderful and mighty have been the changes on the earth's surface
+since the Lord began its preparation for the race of men.
+
+[Sidenote: The geological history of the earth is in many chapters.]
+
+In the beginning, it appears that water covered the whole earth. In
+that day, the living creatures of earth dwelt in the water, and it was
+the great age of fishes and other aquatic animals. Soon the first land
+lifted itself timidly above the surface of the ocean, and formed
+inviting places for land animals and plants. Upon the land came,
+first, according to the story of the rocks, a class of animals known
+as amphibians, like frogs, that could live both in water and on land.
+Associated with these creatures were vast forests of low orders of
+plants, that cleared the atmosphere of noxious gases, and made it fit
+for higher forms of life. Then followed an age in which the
+predominating animals were gigantic reptiles, a step higher than the
+amphibians, but a step lower than the class of Mammals to which man
+belongs. During the age of these prehistoric monsters, the earth was
+yet more fully prepared for higher life. Following the age of
+reptiles, came the age of mammals, which still persists, though, since
+the coming of man upon the earth, the geological age has been known as
+the age of man.
+
+This rapid sketch of the geological history of the earth does very
+poor justice to one of the most complete, wonderful and beautiful
+stories brought to the knowledge of man. The purpose of this chapter
+is not, however, to discuss the past ages of the earth.
+
+It is, of course, readily understood that such mighty changes as those
+just described, and the succession of different kinds of organic life,
+could not have taken place in a few years. Vast periods of time must
+of necessity have been required for the initiation, rise, domination
+and final extinction of each class of animals. A year is too small a
+unit of measurement in geological time; a thousand years or, better, a
+million years, would more nearly answer the requirements.
+
+[Sidenote: The earth is probably millions of years old.]
+
+It is possible in various ways to arrive at a conception of the age of
+the earth since organic life came upon it. For instance, the gorge of
+the Niagara Falls was begun in comparatively recent days, yet, judging
+by the rate at which the falls are now receding, it must have been at
+least 31,000 years since the making of the gorge was first begun, and
+it may have been nearly 400,000 years.[A] Lord Kelvin, on almost
+purely physical grounds, has estimated that the earth cannot be more
+than 100,000,000 years old, but that it may be near that age.[B] It
+need not be said, probably, that all such calculations are very
+uncertain, when the actual number of years are considered; but, all
+human knowledge, based upon the present appearance of the earth and
+the laws that control known phenomena, agree in indicating that the
+age of the earth is very great, running in all probability into
+millions of years. It must have been hundreds of thousands of years
+since the first life was placed upon earth.
+
+[Footnote A: Dana's New Text Book of Geology, p. 375.]
+
+[Footnote B: Lectures and Addresses, vol. 2, p. 10.]
+
+[Sidenote: The war concerning the earth's age has helped theology and
+science.]
+
+When these immense periods of time were first suggested by students of
+science, a great shout of opposition arose from the camp of the
+theologians. The Bible story of creation had been taken literally,
+that in six days did the Lord create the heavens and the earth; and it
+was held to be blasphemy to believe anything else. The new revelation,
+given by God in the message of the rocks, was received as a man-made
+theory, that must be crushed to earth. It must be confessed likewise
+that many of the men of science, exulting in the new light, ridiculed
+the story told by Moses, and claimed that it was an evidence that the
+writings of Moses were not inspired, but merely man-made fables.
+
+The war between the Mosaic and the geological record of creation
+became very bitter and lasted long, and it led to a merciless
+dissection and scrutiny of the first chapter of Genesis, as well as of
+the evidence upon which rests the geological theory of the age of the
+earth. When at last the din of the battle grew faint, and the smoke
+cleared away, it was quickly perceived by the unbiased on-lookers,
+that the Bible and science had both gained by the conflict. Geology
+had firmly established its claim, that the earth was not made in six
+days of twenty-four hours each; and the first chapter of Genesis had
+been shown to be a marvelously truthful record of the great events of
+creation.
+
+[Sidenote: The word day in Genesis refers to indefinite time periods.]
+
+Moses, in the first chapter of Genesis, enumerates the order of the
+events of creation. First, light was brought to the earth and was
+divided from darkness, "and the evening and the morning were the first
+day." Then the firmament was established in the midst of the waters,
+"and the evening and the morning were the second day." After each
+group of creative events, the same expression occurs, "and the evening
+and the morning were the third [fourth, fifth, and sixth] days." Those
+who insisted upon the literal interpretation of the language of the
+Bible maintained that the word day, as used in Genesis 1, referred to
+a day of twenty-four hours, and that all the events of creation were
+consummated by an all-powerful God in one hundred and forty-four
+earthly hours. An examination of the original Hebrew for the use of
+the word translated "day" in Genesis, revealed that it refers more
+frequently to periods of time of indefinite duration.[A] When this
+became clear, and the records of the rocks became better known, some
+theologians suggested, that as we are told that a thousand years are
+as one day to God, the day of Genesis 1 refers to periods of a
+thousand years each. This did not strengthen the argument. The best
+opinion of today, and it is well-nigh universal, is that the Mosaic
+record refers to indefinite periods of time corresponding to the great
+divisions of historical geology.
+
+[Footnote A: Compare The Mosaic Record of Creation, A. McCaul, D. D.,
+p. 213.]
+
+Even as late as the sixties and seventies of the last century this
+question was still so unsettled as to warrant the publication of books
+defending the Mosaic account of creation.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: For instance Aids to Faith, containing McCaul's most able
+discussion. The Origin of the World, J. W. Dawson.]
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith's teachings concerning creation found in the
+Book of Abraham.]
+
+In 1830, certain visions, given to the Jewish lawgiver Moses, were
+revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith. These visions are now
+incorporated with other matter in the Pearl of Great Price, under the
+title, The Book of Moses. In chapter two of this book is found an
+account of the creation, which is nearly identical with the account
+found in Genesis 1. The slight variations which occur tend only to
+make the meaning of the writer clearer. In this account, the
+expression "and the evening and the morning were the first [etc.]
+day," occurs just as it does in the Mosaic account in the Bible. In
+1835, certain ancient records found in the catacombs of Egypt fell
+into the hands of Joseph Smith, who found them to be some of the
+writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt. The translation of these
+records is also found in the Pearl of Great Price, under the title,
+The Book of Abraham. In the fourth and fifth chapters of the book is
+found an account of the creation according to the knowledge of
+Abraham. The two accounts are essentially the same, but the Abrahamic
+version is so much fuller and clearer that it illumines the obscurer
+parts of the Mosaic account. We shall concern ourselves here only with
+the variation in the use of the word "day."
+
+[Sidenote: The Book of Abraham conveys the idea that the creative
+periods included much time.]
+
+In Genesis 1:5 we read, "And God called the light Day, and the
+darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the
+fist day." The corresponding period is discussed in the Book of
+Abraham 4:5 as follows: "And the Gods called the light Day, and the
+darkness they called Night. And it came to pass that from the evening
+until the morning they called night; and from the morning until the
+evening they called day; _and this was the first, or the beginning, of
+that which they called night and day."_
+
+It is to be noted that in Abraham's version names were given to the
+intervals between evening and morning, and morning and evening; but
+absolutely nothing is said about a _first_ day: the statement is
+simply made, that this was the beginning of the alternating periods of
+light and darkness which _they,_ the Gods, had named night and day.
+According to this version, the first creative period occupied an
+unknown period of time.
+
+In Genesis 1:8 it further says: "And God called the firmament Heaven.
+And the evening and the morning were the second day."
+
+The corresponding passage in the Book of Abraham 4:8, reads, "And the
+Gods called the expanse Heaven. And it came to pass that it was from
+evening until morning that they called night; and it came to pass that
+it was from morning until evening that they called day, and this was
+_the second time that they called night and day."_
+
+Here it must be noted that nothing is said about a second day. It is
+said that it was the second time that _they_ called day--which leaves
+the second creative period entirely indefinite so far as time limits
+are concerned.
+
+In Genesis 1:13, it reads, "and the evening and the morning were the
+third day."
+
+In Abraham 4:13, the corresponding passage reads, "And it came to pass
+that they numbered the days; from the evening until the morning they
+called night; and it came to pass, from the morning until the evening
+they called day; and it was the third time."
+
+Here it is explicitly stated that the Gods numbered the days;
+evidently, they counted the days that had passed during the third
+creative period, and it was the third time that the numbering had been
+done. Again, the third creative period is left indefinite, as to time
+limits.
+
+Gen. 1:19, reads, "And the evening and the morning were the fourth
+day."
+
+Correspondingly, in Abraham 4:19, is found, "And it came to pass that
+it was from evening until morning that it was night; and it came to
+pass that it was from morning until evening that it was day; and it
+was the fourth time."
+
+This quotation from Abraham, standing alone, would be somewhat
+ambiguous, for it might indicate that it was the fourth time that the
+periods between evening and morning, and morning and evening were
+called night and day. In the light of previous passages, however, the
+meaning of the passage becomes clear. Certainly there is nothing in
+the verse to confine the fourth creative period within certain time
+limits.
+
+The fifth day in Genesis closes as does the fourth; and the fifth time
+in Abraham closes as does the fourth. The remarks made concerning the
+fourth creative period apply to the fifth.
+
+Concerning the sixth creative period, Gen. 1:31, says, "And God saw
+everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the
+evening and the morning were the sixth day."
+
+Of the same period Abraham says, "And the Gods said: We will do
+everything that we have said, and organize them; and behold, they
+shall be very obedient. And it came to pass that it was from morning
+until evening that they called night; and it came to pass that it was
+from evening until morning that they called day; and they numbered the
+sixth time."
+
+As in the previous periods, the sixth ended by the Gods numbering the
+days of the creative period; the sixth period, like those preceding,
+being indeterminate as to time.
+
+Repeated reading and study of the Abrahamic account, as revealed
+through Joseph Smith, make it certain beyond doubt that the intent is
+to convey the idea that the creative periods included much time, and
+that, at the end of each period, the measure of night and day, was
+applied to the period, in order that its length might be determined.
+Whether or not the different creative periods represented days to the
+mighty beings concerned in the creation, we do not know, and it
+matters little to the argument of this article.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The writer understands the creation, reported in Abraham,
+4th chapter, to be spiritual in its nature; but he also believes that
+this spiritual account is a perfect picture of the actual material
+creation. If chapter 4 of Abraham represents the Gods planning
+creation, the measuring of time becomes easily understood. It then
+means, "How long will it take to accomplish the work?" All this,
+however, has no bearing upon the present argument.]
+
+Now, then, we must remember that Joseph Smith made this translation
+long before the theologians of the world had consented to admit that
+the Mosaic days meant long periods of time; and long before geology
+had established beyond question that immense time periods had been
+consumed in the preparation of the earth for man.
+
+Joseph Smith, the humble, unlearned, despised boy, unfamiliar with
+books and the theories of men, stated with clear and simple certainty,
+if his works be read with the eye of candid truth, this fundamental
+truth of geological science and the Bible, long before the learned of
+the world had agreed upon the same truth.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: It may be remarked that other geological doctrines were
+taught by the Prophet, that science has since confirmed. One of these
+was discussed by Dr. J.E. Talmage in the Improvement Era, Vol. 7, p.
+481.]
+
+Standing alone, this fact might be called a chance coincidence, a
+result of blind fate. But recalling that it is one of many similar and
+even more striking facts, what shall be said, Has ever impostor dared
+what Joseph Smith did? Has ever false prophet lived beyond his
+generation, if his prophecies were examined? Shall we of this foremost
+age accept convincing, logical truth, though it run counter to our
+preconceived notions? Glorious were the visions of Joseph the Prophet;
+unspeakable would be our joy, should they be given to us.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+ORGANIZED INTELLIGENCE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: A complete philosophy must consider living beings.]
+
+The student of the constitution of the universe must take into account
+living beings. Plants, animals and men are essentially different from
+the mass of matter. The rock, apparently, is the same forever; but the
+plant has a beginning, and after a comparatively short existence dies.
+Animals and men, likewise, begin their earthly existence; then, after
+a brief life, die, or disappear from the immediate knowledge of living
+things.
+
+Man, the highest type of living things, differs from the rock,
+moreover, in that he possesses the power to exercise his will in
+directing natural forces. Animals and even plants seem to possess a
+similar power to a smaller degree. The rock on the hillside is pulled
+downward by gravitation, but can move only if the ground is removed
+from beneath it by some external force. Man, on the other hand, can
+walk up or down the hill, with or against the pull of gravity.
+
+[Sidenote: Science teaches that all phenomena may be referred to
+matter and ether in motion.]
+
+Modern science refers all phenomena to matter and motion; in other
+words, to matter and force or energy. In this general sense, matter
+includes the universal ether, and force includes any or all of the
+forces known, or that may be known, to man.
+
+To illustrate: the electrician develops a current of electricity,
+which to the scientist is a portion of the universal ether moving in a
+certain definite manner. When the vibrations of the ether are caused
+to change, light, or magnetism or chemical affinity may result from
+the electricity. In every case, matter is in motion. The ear perceives
+a certain sound. It is produced by the movements of the air. In fact,
+sounds are carried from place to place by great air waves. The heat of
+the stove is due to the rapid vibration of the molecules in the iron
+of the stove, which set up corresponding vibrations in the ether.
+
+In nature no exceptions have been found to the great scientific claim
+that all natural phenomena may be explained by referring them to
+matter in motion.[A] Variations in the kind of matter and the kind of
+motion, lead to all the variations found in the universe.
+
+[Footnote A: Tyndall, Fragments of Science, I. chaps. I and II.]
+
+[Sidenote: Life is a certain form of motion.]
+
+By many it has been held that life and its phenomena transcend the
+ordinary explanations of nature. Yet, those who have learned, by
+laborious researches, that the fundamental ideas of the universe are
+only eternal matter, eternal energy and the universe-filling medium,
+the ether, find it very difficult to conceive of a special force of
+life, which concerns itself solely with very limited portions of
+matter, and is wholly distinct from all other natural forces.
+
+To the student of science it seems more consistent to believe that
+life is nothing more than matter in motion; that, therefore, all
+matter possesses a kind of life; and that the special life possessed
+by plants, animals and man, is only the highest or most complex motion
+in the universe. The life of man, according to this view, is
+essentially different from the life of the rock; yet both are certain
+forms of the motion of matter, and may be explained ultimately by the
+same fundamental conceptions of science. Certainly, such an idea is
+more beautifully simple than that of a special force of life, distinct
+from all other natural forces.
+
+It is argued by those who uphold this view, that the simple forces of
+nature are converted by living things into the higher forces that
+characterize life. For instance, to keep the human body, with its
+wonderful will and intelligence, in health, it is necessary to feed
+it. The food is actually burned within the body. The heat thus
+obtained gives to the man both physical and intellectual vigor. It
+would really appear, therefore, that heat, which is a well known,
+simple physical force, may be converted by the animal body into other
+and more complex forces, or modes of motion, such as the so-called
+life force.
+
+[Sidenote: A certain organization characterizes life.]
+
+Naturally, should science class life as the highest or most complex of
+the modes of material motion, the question would arise concerning the
+manner in which this conversion were made possible. The answer must be
+that the ultimate particles of the matter composing the living thing
+are so arranged or organized that the great natural forces may be
+converted into life force. It is possible by passing heat through
+certain substances to make them luminous, thus converting heat into
+light; by employing a dynamo, mechanical energy may be converted into
+electrical energy; by coiling a wire around a rod of soft iron,
+electricity may be converted into magnetism. In short, it is well
+understood in science, that by the use of the right machines one form
+of energy may be changed into another. It is generally assumed, that
+the human body is so organized that the forces of heat, light and
+undoubtedly others, may be converted into higher forms, peculiar to
+living things.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Compare, Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philiosophy, chap.
+XVI. Pearson, Grammar of Science, pp. 404-407. Dolbear, Matter, Ether
+and Motion, chap. XI, pp. 294-297.]
+
+[Sidenote: Protoplasm, a highly organized body, is always associated
+with life.]
+
+To substantiate this view, it may be recalled that the fundamental
+chemical individual in living thing is a very complex, unstable
+substance known as protoplasm. No living cell exists without the
+presence of this substance. It is far from being known well, as yet,
+but enough is known to enable science to say that it is composed of
+several elements, so grouped and regrouped as to transcend all present
+methods of research.[A] By means of this highly organized body, it is
+assumed that the ordinary forces of nature are worked over and made
+suited for the needs of the phenomena of life.
+
+[Footnote A: Pearson, Grammar of Science, p. 408.]
+
+The existence of the complex life-characteristic substance protoplasm,
+renders probable the view that living things, after all, differ from
+the rest of creation only in the kind and degree of their
+organization, and that life, as the word is ordinarily used, depends
+upon a certain kind or organization of matter,[A] which leads to a
+certain kind of motion.
+
+[Footnote A: Tyndall, Fragments of Science. II, chaps. IV and VI.]
+
+As to the origin of the special organization called life, science has
+nothing to say. Science is helpless when she deals with the beginning
+of things. The best scientific explanation of life is that it is a
+very complex mode of motion occasioned by a highly complex
+organization of the matter and ether of the living body.
+
+There are still some students who prefer to believe in the existence
+of a special vital force, which is not subject to the laws that govern
+other forces. This view, however, is so inconsistent with the modern
+understanding of the contents of the universe that it has few
+followers.
+
+[Sidenote: The modern conception of life is very recent.]
+
+The view that life is a special organization by which the great
+natural forces are focussed and concentrated, so as to accomplish the
+greatest works, necessarily implies a belief in the modern laws of
+nature. Since modern science is of very recent development it was
+quite improbable for such a conception of life to have been held
+clearly before modern times. In fact it is within the last thirty or
+forty years that these views have found expression among scientific
+investigations.
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith taught the universality of life.]
+
+As observed in chapters two and three, Joseph Smith taught that the
+energy of matter or of ether is a form of intelligence. If, according
+to this doctrine, matter and ether are intelligent; then life also
+must reside in all matter and ether. Hence everything in the universe
+is alive. Further, since all force is motion, universal motion is
+universal life. The difference between rock, plant, beast and man is
+in the amount and organization of its life or intelligence. For
+instance, in harmony with this doctrine, the earth must possess
+intelligence or life. In fact the Prophet says "the earth......shall
+be sanctified; yea, notwithstanding it shall die, it shall be
+quickened again, and shall abide the power by which it is
+quickened."[A] The statement that the earth shall die and shall be
+quickened again, certainly implies that the earth possess life,
+though, naturally, of an order wholly different from that of men or
+other higher living things.
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants 88:25, 26.]
+
+[Sidenote: Man is coexistent with God.]
+
+It is an established "Mormon" doctrine that man is coexistent with
+God. Note the following statements: "Ye were also in the beginning
+with the Father." "Man was also in the beginning with God.
+Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither
+indeed can be."[A] "Yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more
+intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before,
+they shall have no end, they shall exist after for they are
+eternal."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants 93:23 and 29.]
+
+[Footnote B: Book of Abraham 3:19.]
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith taught that man is organized from matter,
+spirit and intelligence.]
+
+In the account of the Creation, given in the Book of Abraham, it is
+clearly stated that the Gods organized the earth and all upon it from
+available materials, and as the fitting climax to their labors they
+"went down to organize man in their own image, in the image of Gods to
+form him."[A] The creation of man was in part at least the
+organization of individuals from eternal materials and forces. The
+nature of that organization is made partly clear by the Prophet when
+he says "The spirit and the body are the soul of man."[B] The spirit
+here referred to may be compared to the ether of science, vibrating
+with the force of intelligence, which is the first and highest of the
+many forces of nature. The body, similarly, refers to the grosser
+elements, also fired with the universal energy--intelligence. The word
+_Soul,_ in the above quotation, means man as he is on earth and is
+used as in Genesis. Man, according to this, is composed of matter; the
+spirit which may be likened to ether, and energy. The organization of
+man at the beginning of our earth history, was only the clothing of
+the eternal spiritual man with the matter which constitutes the
+perishable body. In confirmation of this view note another statement,
+"For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element,
+inseparably connected, receiveth a fullness of joy, and when
+separated, man can not receive a fullness of joy."[C] Here also it is
+taught that man is composed of matter, spirit and energy.
+
+[Footnote A: Book of Abraham, 4th chap. (Note verse 27.)]
+
+[Footnote B: Doctrine and Covenants 88:15.]
+
+[Footnote C: Doctrine and Covenants 93:33 and 34.]
+
+[Sidenote: Intelligence is universal.]
+
+President Brigham Young has left an interesting paragraph that
+confirms the statement that according to "Mormon" doctrine, all matter
+is intelligent, and that man is superior only because of his higher
+organization. "Is this earth, the air and the water, composed of
+life.....?......If the earth, air and water, are composed of life is
+there any intelligence in this life?....Are those particles of matter
+life; if so, are they in possession of intelligence according to the
+grade of their organization?......We suggest the idea that there is an
+eternity of life, an eternity of organization, and an eternity of
+intelligence from the highest to the lowest grade, every creature in
+its order, from the Gods to the animalculae."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The Resurrection, p. 3. Ed. of 1884.]
+
+[Sidenote: Spirit unaided knows matter with difficulty.]
+
+The statement that man can receive a fullness of joy only when spirit
+and element are united, is of itself a scientific doctrine of high
+import. This is a world of matter; and a spiritual man, that is one
+made only of the universal ether, would not be able to receive fully
+the impressions that come from the contact of element with element. To
+enjoy and understand this world, it is necessary for the spirit to be
+clothed with matter. The ether or spirit world is not within our
+immediate view; and it is probable that the material world is far away
+from purely spiritual beings.
+
+[Sidenote: God is the Master-builder.]
+
+This whole doctrine means that God is the organizer of worlds, and all
+upon them. He is not the Creator of the materials and forces of the
+universe, for they are eternal; He is the master buidler who uses the
+simple elements of nature for his purposes. It is also plain that,
+according to "Mormon" doctrine, there is no special life force. The
+intelligence residing in a stone is in quality, as far as it goes, the
+same as the intelligence possessed by man. But, man is so organized
+that a greater amount of intelligence, a fullness of it, centers in
+him, and he is as a consequence essentially and eternally different
+from the stone. President Young also said, "The life that is within us
+is a part of an eternity of life, and is organized spirit, which is
+clothed upon by tabernacles, thereby constituting our present being,
+which is designed for the attainment of further intelligence. The
+matter comprising our bodies and spirits has been organized from the
+eternity of matter that fills immensity."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Journal of Discourses, vol. 7:285. (Brigham Young.)]
+
+[Sidenote: A lower intelligence cannot become a higher intelligence
+except by disorganization.]
+
+This doctrine does not permit of the interpretation that a lower
+intelligence, such as that of an animal, may in time become the
+intelligence of a man. "It remaineth in the sphere in which I, God,
+created it."[A] The horse will ever remain a horse, though the
+intelligence of the animal may increase. To make any of the
+constituent parts or forces of an animal, part of the intelligence of
+a man, it would be necessary to disorganize the animal; to organize
+the elements into a man, and thus to begin over again.
+
+[Footnote A: Book of Moses 3:9.]
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith anticipated science in the modern conception
+of life.]
+
+Men, beasts and plants--those beings that possess the higher life,
+differ from inanimate nature, so called, by a higher degree of
+organization. That is the dogma of "Mormonism," and the doctrine of
+science. About 1831 Joseph Smith gave this knowledge to the world; a
+generation later, scientific men arrived independently at the same
+conclusion.
+
+[Sidenote: The thinkers and writers of Mormonism have taught the
+foregoing doctrine of life.]
+
+The thinkers and writers of "Mormonism" have more or less directly
+taught the same doctrine. Apostle Orson Pratt believed that the body
+of man, both spiritual and earthly, was composed of atoms or ultimate
+particles--of the Holy Spirit for the spiritual body and material
+elements for the mortal body. It has already been shown that the Holy
+Spirit of "Mormonism" may be compared with the ether of science,
+vibrating with the greater force of the universe--intelligence. For
+instance: "The intelligent particles of a man's spirit are by their
+peculiar union, but one human spirit."[A] "Several of the atoms of
+this spirit exist united together in the form of a person."[B]
+Undoubtedly Elder Pratt believed that the living man is simply
+organized from the elements and elementary forces of the universe.
+
+[Footnote A: Absurdities of Immaterialism, ed. 1849, p. 26.]
+
+[Footnote B: Ibid, p. 29.]
+
+Perhaps the best and safest exposition of the philosophy of
+"Mormonism" is Parley P. Pratt's Key to Theology. In it he states
+definitely that the spirit of man is organized from the elementary
+Holy Spirit. "The holiest of all elements, the Holy Spirit, when
+organized in individual form, and clothed upon with flesh and bones,
+contains, etc."[A] That the earthly body was likewise organized is
+equally plain for he says "At the commencement--the elements--were
+found in a state of chaos."[B] Then man was "moulded from the earth as
+a brick."[C] Again, "The spirit of man consists of an organization of
+the elements of spiritual matter,"[D] which finds entrance into its
+tabernacle of flesh. In another place he defines creation by asking
+"What is creation? Merely organization...... The material of which
+this earth was made always did exist, and it was only an organization
+which took place during the time spoken of by Moses."[E]
+
+[Footnote A: Key to Theology, 5th ed., p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote B: Ibid, p. 49.]
+
+[Footnote C: Ibid, p. 51.]
+
+[Footnote D: Ibid, p. 131.]
+
+[Footnote E: Roberts, Mormon Doctrine of Deity, pp. 278, 279.]
+
+Numerous other authorities might be quoted to prove that the above is
+the "Mormon" view.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: See especially the Prophet Joseph Smith's Sermon,
+Contributor, vol. 4, pp. 256-268.]
+
+In this chapter the intention has not been to explain fully the
+doctrines of Joseph Smith relating to the nature of man, but to call
+attention to the fact that the present scientific conception of the
+nature of living things is the same as that of "Mormonism." That
+"Mormonism" goes farther than science, and completes the explanation,
+is to the credit of the Prophet.
+
+It must not be forgotten that in stating the doctrine that man is
+organized from the eternal elements and elementary forces of the
+universe, in such a way as to produce the phenomena of higher life,
+Joseph Smith anticipated the workers in science by nearly a
+generation.
+
+How wonderful was this boy-prophet of "Mormonism," if all this was
+orginated within his own mind! At every point of contact, the sanest
+of modern philosophy finds counterpart in the theological structure of
+the Gospel as taught by Joseph Smith. Is the work divine?
+
+
+
+
+THE LAWS GOVERNING THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+FAITH.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Faith is the assurance of the existence of "things not
+seen."]
+
+For the government of the individual the first principle in Mormon
+theology is faith. Joseph Smith defined faith in the words of the
+Apostle Paul, "Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for; the
+evidence of things not seen." To this the Prophet added "From this we
+learn that faith is the assurance which men have of things which they
+have not seen."[A] On this principle, with this definition, many young
+persons who have ventured upon the sea of unbelief have wrecked the
+religion of their childhood; for, the human mind, in some stages of
+its development, is disinclined to accept as knowledge anything that
+can not be sensed directly.
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, Lecture I, verses 8, 9.]
+
+Nowadays, the young doubter who can not accept as the foundation of
+his religion "things which he has not seen," usually turns for comfort
+and future growth to the results of science. There he finds truths
+upon truths, glorious in their beauty and susceptibility to direct and
+unmistakeable proof; and soon he declares that in so-called natural
+science, there is no need of faith, for, if a person has only advanced
+far enough, every concern of science may be known through one, two or
+several senses.
+
+[Sidenote: Such faith lies at the formation of science.]
+
+It is true that in the beginning of science no faith seems to be
+required; for every statement is based on experiments and observations
+that may be repeated by every student; and nothing is "taken on
+trust." As the deeper parts of science are explored, however, it is
+soon discovered that in science as in theology, a faith in "things
+that can not be seen," is an essential requisite for progress. In
+fact, the fundamental laws of the great divisions of science deal with
+realities that are wholly and hopelessly beyond the reach of man's
+five senses.
+
+[Sidenote: The molecules are beyond man's direct senses.]
+
+An exposition of the fundamental conception of chemical science will
+illustrate the nature of scientific faith. A fragment of almost any
+substance may easily be divided into two or three pieces by a stroke
+of a hammer. Each of the pieces may be broken into smaller pieces and
+this process of division continued until the powder is as fine as
+dust. Still, each particle of the dust may be divided again and again,
+if we only have instruments fine enough to continue the process. A
+question which philosophy asked itself near its beginning was: Is it
+possible to keep on dividing the dust particles forever, or is there a
+particle so small that it can not be divided again? Neither science
+nor abstract philosophy has yet been able to answer this question
+fully. However, science has learned that if such a process of division
+occurs, in course of time a particle will be obtained which is so
+small that if it is divided or broken, the fragments will no longer be
+of the same nature as the original substance. These smallest particles
+in which the properties of the original substance inhere, are known as
+_molecules._ Thus a molecule of sugar, when broken, falls into the
+elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen; of salt, into sodium and
+chlorine and of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
+
+The size of such a molecule can not be comprehended by the human mind;
+its smallness seems infinite. The mortal eye, though aided by the most
+powerful miscroscopes of modern days could not distinguish a sugar
+molecule or even a pile of thousands of them; placed on the tongue,
+there would be no sensation of sweetness; though it were hurled
+against our body with the velocity of lightning we should not feel the
+impact. To all our senses, the molecule is wholly unknown and no doubt
+shall remain so while the earth is as it is. Yet, no fact is better
+established than the existence of the realities that we interpret as
+molecules. Their relative weights and other properties have been
+securely determined. The existence of such a particle is as certain as
+is the existence of the sun in the high heavens.
+
+[Sidenote: Science teaches the composition of the directly unknowable
+molecules.]
+
+Not only does science teach the existence of molecules; it looks
+within them and reveals their composition. For instance, a molecule of
+the sugar known as glucose, and used by candy makers, is made up of
+six particles of the element carbon, twelve of the element hydrogen
+and six of the element oxygen. The particles of carbon in the glucose
+molecule are so small that if one were divided it would no longer be
+carbon; the same with the particles of hydrogen and oxygen: if divided
+they would change into something else--into what is not yet known to
+man. These smallest particles are called _atoms_ of the elements
+charcoal, hydrogen and oxygen. If instead of an atom of carbon,
+hydrogen and oxygen, we write C, H, O, the composition of a molecule
+of glucose would be written C_{6}H_{12}O_{6}. These are also
+indisputable facts of science. If the molecules are far beyond the
+range of our senses, the atoms are of course much further removed from
+the known world.
+
+[Sidenote: Science teaches the arrangements of the atoms within the
+molecules.]
+
+But the chemist does not stop here. He is able to state accurately how
+the invisible, unsensed atoms are arranged within the unknowable
+molecule. In nature are found several glucose-like sugars, the
+molecules of which contain the same numbers of carbon, hydrogen and
+oxygen atoms. The varying properties of these sugars have been found
+to result from the different arrangements of the atoms within the
+molecules. The structure of the molecules of three of the most common
+sugars are as follows:
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+       I                 II                  III
+    DEXTROSE [A]      LAEVULOSE [A]       GALACTOSE [A]
+    H2=C-OH           H2=C-O H             H2=C-OH
+       |                 |                    |
+    HO-C-H           H O-C-H               HO-C H
+       |                 |                    |
+    HO-C-H           H O-C-H                 HC-OH
+       |                 |                    |
+     H-C-O-H           H C-O H               HC-OH
+       |                 |                    |
+    HO-C-H               C=O               HO-CH
+       |                 |                    |
+     H-C=O             H C=O                H-C=O
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+[Footnote A: Dextrose and laevulose combine to form ordinary cane or
+beet sugar. Dextrose and galactose combine to form the sugar found in
+milk.]
+
+Referring to the above diagrams it will be observed that although each
+arrangement contains the same number of atoms, yet, because of the
+difference in arrangement, they are far from being identical. In fact,
+the difference in the properties of the sugars may be referred to the
+arrangement of the atoms in the molecules. This truth is one of the
+most splendid achievements of modern science. All the facts, here
+briefly outlined, are included in the atomic hypothesis, which is the
+foundation of the modern science of chemistry.
+
+[Sidenote: Science requires a strong faith in "things not seen."]
+
+Science asks us to believe in the existence of particles, unknowable
+to our senses, the molecules; then to believe in still smaller
+particles, the atoms, which make up the molecules but whose relative
+weights and general properties have been determined. Here, a faith is
+required in "things that can not be seen," and in the properties of
+these things. True, the scientist does not pretend to describe the
+atoms in detail, he does not need to do that to establish the
+certainty of their existence. He looks upon them as ultimate causes of
+effects that he may note with his physical senses. Does theology
+require more? Does any sane man in asking us to believe in God, for
+instance, attempt to describe him in detail?
+
+The scientist goes farther than this, however, for he asks us not only
+to have faith in the invisible, untasteable, unfeelable atoms, but
+also in the exact manner in which these atoms are arranged within the
+molecule. True, it is claimed, only, that the relative arrangement is
+known, yet the faith required still leads us far beyond the simple
+faith in atoms. Has any man asked us to believe that he can describe
+the structure of God's dwelling? No principle taught by Joseph Smith
+requires a larger faith than this.
+
+[Sidenote: The conception of the ether requires large faith.]
+
+Not only in chemistry are such transcendent truths required. The
+fundamental conception of physics requires, if possible, a larger
+faith. The explanations of modern physics rest largely upon the
+doctrine of the universal ether. This ether is everywhere present,
+between the molecules and atoms; in fact the things of the universe
+are, as it were, suspended in the ocean of ether. This ether is so
+attenuated that it fills the pores of the human body without
+impressing itself upon our consciousness, yet some of its properties
+indicate that its elasticity is equal to that of steel. As shown in
+chapter 5, the most eminent scientists of the day declare that the
+existence of this world-ether is one of the few things of which men
+may be absolutely sure. Yet the ether cannot be seen, heard, tasted,
+smelled or felt. To our senses it has neither weight nor substance. To
+believe the existence of this ether requires a faith which is
+certainly as great as the greatest faith required by Mormon theology.
+
+Numerous other illustrations might be cited, without greatly
+emphasizing the truth that the great fundamental doctrines of science
+require a great faith in realities that are beyond the reach of our
+senses.
+
+[Sidenote: Faith comes slowly and naturally.]
+
+The great foundations of science have not come as a "great wakening
+light," but have come slowly, through a process of normal, guided
+growth. The first experiment was made, from which a simple conclusion
+was drawn; the second experiment furnished a second conclusion; the
+two results combined produced a third conclusion, and so on through
+thousands of experiments and conclusions, until the brilliant
+conceptions of modern science were attained. In short, the scientist
+works very simply by careful observation of nature, "the earth and its
+fullness," and by as careful reasoning from the observed facts. The
+mind builds noble structures of the materials the senses bring. The
+same method may be employed in gaining faith in the principles of
+theology; and the Apostle Paul tells us distinctly that the
+righteousness of God is revealed from "faith to faith," and that the
+eternal power of God and the Godhead and "the invisible things of Him
+from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by
+the things that are made." The scientist, likewise, begins with the
+things that are made and proceeds "from faith to faith," gaining "here
+a little, and there a little," until a faith is reached which, to him
+who has not followed its growth, may seem absurd in its loftiness.
+
+[Sidenote: Science cannot progress without faith.]
+
+Certainly, no man can progress in science unless he has faith in the
+great inductions of scientific men. Faith is as indispensable for
+scientific progress as for theological advancement. In both cases it
+is the great principle of action.
+
+This subject merits more extended discussion, but the exposition of
+the nature of faith is outside the argument running through these
+chapters. It must be sufficient to remark again that Mormonism is
+strictly scientific in stating as the first principle of the guidance
+of the individual, that of faith in unseen things; for that is the
+basic principle for the beginner in modern science.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Read for a fuller exposition, We walk by Faith,
+Improvement Era, Volume 3, p. 561.]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+REPENTANCE.
+
+
+The second principle for the government of the individual, according
+to Mormon theology, is repentance. So commonly has this principle been
+discussed from its relation to moral law that its counterpart in all
+human effort has often been overlooked.
+
+[Sidenote: Repentance follows faith.]
+
+To repent is first to turn from old practices. Thus, he who violates
+any of God's laws renders himself liable to certain punishment, but,
+if he repents, and sins no more, the punishments are averted.
+Naturally, such a change of heart and action can come only after faith
+has been established. No man will change a habit without a
+satisfactory reason. In fact, all the actions of men should be guided
+by reason. Repentance then is a kind of obedience or active faith; and
+is great in proportion to the degree of faith possessed by the
+individual. Certainly, the repentance of no man can transcend his
+faith, which includes his knowledge.
+
+[Sidenote: Scientific repentance follows scientific faith.]
+
+So it is in science. For centuries, wounds of the body were treated
+according to certain methods, assumed to be correct; and, especially
+in time of war, large numbers of the patients died. Then it was found
+that low forms of life--the bacteria--infected the wounds, and caused
+the high mortality. This led to the antiseptic treatment in surgery,
+which destroys germ life, and leaves the wound absolutely clean. As a
+consequence the mortality from flesh and other wounds has diminished
+remarkably. The medical profession repented, or turned away, from its
+former methods, and the reward was immediately felt. However, before
+antisceptic surgery was finally and fully established, faith in the
+practice had to be awakened among the members of the profession. A
+chemist, making refined analysis may apply a certain factor, assumed
+to be correct in his calculations, but in reality incorrect. As a
+result, the determinations are wrong. When later, the correct factor
+is discovered, and applied, the results of the work become correct.
+Repentance from the previous error, changes the chemist's work from
+wrong to right. In fact, in any department of knowledge, when it is
+discovered that a law of nature has been violated, it becomes
+necessary, if further progress is desired, to cease the violation.
+Should a scientist persist in violation of a known law, he knows that
+the consequences, great or small will certainly follow.
+
+[Sidenote: Repentance means adopting new habits; not simply turning
+from old ones.]
+
+To repent is more than to turn from incorrect practices. It implies
+also the adoption of new habits. The man who has turned from his sins,
+may learn of a law, which he has never violated, yet which if obeyed,
+means progress for him. If he does not follow such a law, but remains
+neutral in its presence, he certainly is a sinner. To repent from such
+sin, is to obey each higher law as it appears. In the spiritual life,
+it is impossible for the person who desires the greatest joy to remain
+passive in the presence of new principles. He must embrace them; live
+them; make them his own.
+
+Not only must the worker in science turn from scientific error; he
+must also accept new science as it is discovered. When the chemist,
+working with the best known analytical methods, learns that a more
+rapid or more accurate method has been found, he must adopt the new
+fact, in order to make the results of his work more accurate. When the
+chemists of a hundred years ago learned of the atomic hypothesis, it
+became necessary to adopt it, in order to insure more rapid progress
+in chemistry. Those who failed to accept the new doctrine worked in
+greater darkness, and made no material progress. Newton's doctrine of
+gravitation opened a new method of investigating the universe. Those
+who did not adopt it were soon outdistanced by their more active
+colleagues.
+
+In every such case, the obedience yielded to the new knowledge is a
+kind of repentance. When a person, in religion or science, ceases to
+break law, he ceases from active evil; when he accepts a new law, he
+ceases from passive evil. No repentance can be complete which does not
+cease from both active and passive evil.
+
+[Sidenote: Repentance is active faith.]
+
+Viewed in this manner, then, repentance is obedience to law and is
+active faith. The law, before it is obeyed, must be understood--that
+is, faith must precede repentance. Therefore, the obedience yielded
+can increase only with the knowledge or faith of the individual. As
+the Prophet Joseph Smith stated it, "No man can be saved in ignorance"
+and "a person is saved no faster than he gains intelligence."
+
+Repentance is as truly the second principle of action for individuals,
+in the domain of science as of theology.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI.
+
+BAPTISM.
+
+
+A repentant man turns from previous violation of law, and accepts
+every new law that may be revealed to him. Repentance is obedience;
+and the repentant person is always ready to obey righteous laws.
+
+Baptism is one of the laws of the Kingdom of God. "Except ye repent
+and be baptized ye can in nowise enter the Kingdom of God." The
+repentant person must of necessity accept this law with the others
+with which he may be familiar.
+
+[Sidenote: The equivalent of baptism found in science.]
+
+Students of science, who agree that faith and repentance have a place
+in science, frequently assert that the equivalent of baptism is not
+found in external nature. This claim may be proved false by examining
+the nature of law.
+
+The chemist must frequently produce the gas hydrogen. To do it, an
+acid must be poured upon fragments of certain metals. In thus
+producing the gas, the chemist obeys law. The astronomer who studies
+the stars discovers that by using a piece of glass properly ground,
+his powers of vision appear to be strengthened. He therefore prepares
+such lenses for his telescopes, and thus obeys law. The surgeon uses
+antisceptics in the treatment of wounds because he has learned that
+such application will destroy germ life, and thus the surgeon obeys
+law. The electrician has found that by winding a wire in a certain
+manner around iron and rotating it near a magnet, electric currents
+are set up. He builds dynamos according to such principles, and thus
+shows his obedience to law.
+
+It must be noted that the scientist does not know just _why_ acid
+added to metal produces hydrogen, or _why_ a certain curved lens
+brings the stars nearer; or _why_ certain chemicals destroy low forms
+of life or _why_ wire wound in a certain way when rotated in the
+magnetic field will produce electricity. Nature requires, without
+volunteering an explanation, that to produce hydrogen, see the stars,
+destroy germs and produce the electric current, certain invariable
+laws must be obeyed.
+
+Baptism is essentially of the same nature. To enter the Kingdom of
+God, a person must be baptized. Just _why_ baptism should be the
+ordinance that opens the door, no man knows. It undoubtedly has high
+symbolic value; but the symbolism might be expressed in many other
+ways. All that man can do is to obey.
+
+[Sidenote: It is unreasonable to do only what is fully understood.]
+
+Men say at times that they will do nothing which they do not fully
+understand, and therefore they will not be baptized. It would be as
+unreasonable for a man to say that because he does not fully
+understand why a certain winding of the wire is necessary to produce
+electricity he will not produce this wonderful natural force. All
+theology and all science contain laws that must be obeyed in order to
+obtain certain results, although the full reasons for the required
+combinations are not understood.
+
+He who is baptized, enters the Kingdom of God. He who throws acid on
+metal enters the kingdom of hydrogen; he who grinds the lens right,
+enters the kingdom of the stars; he who uses antisceptics right,
+enters the kingdom of lower life, and he who winds the wire correctly,
+enters the kingdom of electricity. Yielding obedience to any of these
+various laws, is a form of baptism, which gives entrance to a kingdom.
+
+[Sidenote: Baptism is obedience to law.]
+
+The essential virtue of baptism is obedience to law. The prime value
+of any natural law is attained only after obedience has been yielded
+to it. Baptism is conformity to certain details in entering God's
+Kingdom. Scientific baptism is conformity to certain details in
+entering the kingdom of science. Only by baptism can a man attain
+salvation; only by using lenses of the right curvature can a man view
+the stars. Religious success does not rest in the degree to which
+every law is explained; but rather in the degree to which all known
+laws are obeyed. Scientific success does not rest upon the degree to
+which every law is explained; but rather in the degree to which every
+discovered law is obeyed and applied for man's advancement.
+
+In science and in theology man must be content "to see through a
+glass, darkly." Until the essential nature of infinitude itself shall
+be understood, man must be content to learn to use unexplained laws.
+Science is the great explainer, but she explains relations and not the
+absolute foundations of phenomena.
+
+After faith or knowledge has been obtained, the alpha and omega of
+religious or scientific progress is obedience. The cry of universal
+nature is, Obedience!
+
+Viewed rationally, therefore, the baptism taught in theology is an
+ordinance which has its counterpart in every department of science.
+Joseph Smith was strcitly scientific in classing baptism as the third
+great principle governing human action.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The gift of the Holy Ghost is a gift of intelligence.]
+
+Baptism by water is insufficient to open the door to God's Kingdom.
+The Gift of the Holy Ghost, obtained by the laying on of Hands by one
+having authority, completes the ordinance. Not only Joseph Smith, but
+the Savior Himself taught distinctly that to enter the Kingdom of God,
+a person must be baptized by water and by fire; and the promise is
+given that those are "baptized by water for the remission of sins,
+shall receive the Holy Ghost."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 84:63, 64.]
+
+Jesus, speaking to His disciples, taught that "the Comforter, which is
+the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach
+you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I
+have said unto you."[A] This clearly implies that the promised gift is
+essentially a gift of increased intelligence with the added power that
+results from a more intelligent action. That this is the Mormon view
+of the effect of the Gift of the Holy Ghost may be amply demonstrated
+from the standard works of the Church and from the writings of the
+leading interpreters of Mormon doctrine. Parley P. Pratt in the Key to
+Theology says, "It quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases,
+enlarges, expands and purifies all the natural passions and affection
+* * * *. It develops and invigorates all the faculties of the physical
+and intellectual man."[B] The Prophet Joseph Smith declared "This
+first Comforter or Holy Ghost has no other effect than pure
+intelligence. It is * * * * powerful in expanding the mind,
+enlightening the understanding, and storing the intellect with present
+knowledge."[C] Concisely expressed, therefore, Joseph Smith and the
+Church he restored, teach that the Gift of the Holy Ghost, is a gift
+of "intelligence."
+
+[Footnote A: John 14:26.]
+
+[Footnote B: Key to Theology, 5th ed., pp. 101, 102.]
+
+[Footnote C: History of the Church, Vol. III, p. 380.]
+
+[Sidenote: Science furnishes an equivalent of the gift of the Holy
+Ghost.]
+
+If the equivalents of faith, repentance and baptism are irrevocable
+laws for the individual who studies science, the question arises, Is
+there also, a scientific equivalent for the Gift of the Holy Ghost?
+Even a superficial view of the matter will reveal such an equivalent.
+To use again the illustrations employed in the preceding chapter, if
+the chemist has obeyed natural law in producing hydrogen, that is, has
+been baptized into the kingdom of hydrogen, he may by the proper use
+and study of the gas obtained, add much to his knowledge. He may learn
+that it is extremely light; that it forms an explosive mixture with
+air; that it will destroy many vegetable colors, and will burn with an
+almost invisible flame. Thus, the possession of the gas enlarges the
+knowledge and develops the intelligence of the scientist. Is not this
+another form of the Gift of the Holy Ghost?
+
+The man who is baptized into the kingdom of heavenly bodies by
+grinding the lenses right, is enabled to learn many new facts
+concerning the nature and motions of celestial bodies; and thus
+receives intelligence. He who obediently winds the wire correctly
+around the iron core, may generate a current of electricity with which
+many mighty works may be accomplished. Do not these men, as their
+intelligences are expanded, receive a Gift of the Holy Ghost, as a
+reward for their obedience to the demands of nature?
+
+It would be possible to carry the comparisons into every scientific
+action without strengthening the argument. In science, if a person has
+faith, repentance and is baptized, that is obeys, he will receive
+added intelligence, which is the equivalent of the Gift of the Holy
+Ghost as taught in theology. The four fundamental laws for the
+guidance of the individual are identical in Mormon theology, and in
+modern science.
+
+Just why the laying on of hands should be necessary to complete the
+ordinance of baptism is not known, any more than the reasons are known
+for the results that follow the numberless relations that may be
+established by mortal man. However, the dogma of the Gift of the Holy
+Ghost, is logically the fourth step in attaining scientific salvation.
+
+Thus, each of the minor laws of Mormonsim might be investigated, and
+be shown to have a scientific counterpart. For the purpose of this
+volume, however, a more extended consideration of the laws governing
+the actions of the individual, is unnecessary.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+THE WORD OF WISDOM.
+
+
+It has already been remarked that the nature of the mission of Joseph
+Smith made it unlikely that references to scientific matters, and much
+less to isolated scientific facts, obtainable by proper methods of
+experimentation should be found in the writings of the Prophet.
+Nevertheless, in a revelation given March 8, 1883, statements are made
+that can now be connected with facts of science, not generally or not
+at all known, at the time the revelation was received.
+
+"Inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, it is
+not good, * * * strong drinks are not for the belly but for the
+washing of your bodies."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 89:5, 7.]
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrine that alcohol is injurious to man is
+scientific.]
+
+At the time this was written, many persons believed that the use of
+alcoholic drinks was injurious to human health; but more, especially
+among the uneducated classes, held quite the opposite opinion. Since
+that day, the question concerning the value of alcohol in any form has
+been greatly agitated, and much new light has been obtained. This is
+not the place to examine this famous controversy, but a few quotations
+from authoritative books, which are not controversial in their nature,
+will show the coincidence between the position of science, and the
+doctrine of Joseph Smith, in respect to this matter.
+
+The _United States Dispensatory_ (17th ed.) speaks of the medicinal
+properties of alcohol as follows, "It is irritant even to the skin,
+and much more so to the delicate organs; hence, the various abdominal
+inflammations that are so frequent in habitual drunkards. A single
+dose of it, if large enough, may produce death. The nervous symptoms
+caused by alcohol show that it has a very powerful and direct
+influence upon the nerve-centers. The arterial pressure and the
+pulse-rate are both increased by moderate doses of alcohol, by a
+direct influence upon the heart itself. * * * Taken habitually in
+excess, alcohol produces the most deplorable results, and is a very
+common cause of fatal maladies."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Page 129, art., Alcohol Ethylicum.]
+
+Dr. W. Gilman Thompson in his authoritative book on _Practical
+Dietetics,_ speaking of the constant use of alcoholic beverages, says,
+"The use of alcohol in any shape is wholly unnecessary for the use of
+the human organism in health. * * * * The lifelong use of alcohol in
+moderation does not necessarily shorten life or induce disease in some
+persons, while in others it undoubtedly produces gradual and permanent
+changes which tend to weaken vital organs so that the resistance of
+the body to disease is materially impaired. * * * * Many persons
+should be particularly warned against the use of alcohol. * * * *
+Although alcohol is such a strong force-producer and heat-generator,
+its effect in this direction is very soon counter-balanced by its
+stronger influence in lowering the general tone of the nervous system
+and in producing positive degeneration in the tissues."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Pages 206, 207.]
+
+The recent newspaper statements that alcohol has been shown to be a
+food are based on a complete misunderstanding. The experiments
+demonstrated that alcohol is burned within the body--which is the
+simplest manner in which the body can rid itself of the alcohol.
+
+No more authoritative opinions on this subject can be found than those
+contained in the two volumes from which quotations have been made--and
+the strongest opinions are not quoted. In spite of the isolated claims
+made for alcohol, the fact remains that the knowledge of the world
+indicates that alcohol is a poison to the human system; that it is not
+"for the belly." However, the value of the external use of alcohol,
+for various purposes, has never been denied. On the contrary almost
+every up to date practitioner recommends the external use of alcohol,
+as for instance after baths for lowering the temperature of fever
+patients. In this matter, then, Joseph Smith was in perfect harmony
+with the latest results of science. It is strange that he, unlearned
+as he was, should have stated what is now known as truth, so clearly
+and simply, yet so emphatically, more than seventy years ago, before
+the main experiments on the effect of alcohol on the human organsim
+had been made.
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrine that tobacco is injurious to man is
+scientific.]
+
+"And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is
+not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle, to
+be used with judgment and skill."[A] Although tobacco has been used
+for several centuries by civilized man, the real cause of the effect
+which it has upon the human body was not understood until the early
+part of the last century. In 1809, a chemist separated from tobacco an
+active principle, in an impure state, some of the properties of which
+he observed. In 1822, two other chemists succeeded in isolating the
+same principle, in a pure condition, and found it to be a colorless,
+oily liquid, of which two to eight per cent is found in all tobacco.
+This substance has been called nicotine; later investigations have
+shown it to be one of the most active poisons known. Tobacco owes its
+activity entirely to this poison."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 89:8.]
+
+[Footnote B: Wormley, Micro-chemistry of Poisons, 2nd ed., pp. 434,
+435.]
+
+The intensely poisonous nature of nicotine is illustrated by a number
+of cases on record. One drop placed on the tongue of a cat caused
+immediate prostration, and death in seventy-eight seconds. A smaller
+drop was placed on the tongue of another cat, which resulted in death
+after two minutes and a half. A third cat to which a similar quantity
+had been administered was dead after seventy-five seconds. A man who
+was accustomed to smoking took a chew of tobacco, and after a quarter
+of an hour accidently swallowed the mass. An hour later he became
+unconscious and died. In another case, in which an ounce of tobacco
+had been swallowed, death resulted in seven hours. In still another
+case, one ounce of tobacco was boiled in water, and the solution drunk
+as an remedy for constipation. The patient died in three quarters of
+an hour.[A] These, and numerous other cases, illustrate the intensely
+poisonous nature of tobacco. The evil effects of the repeated use of
+small amounts of tobacco, in smoking or chewing are also well
+understood.
+
+[Footnote A: Ibid, pp. 436, 437.]
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith probably did not know the poisonous nature of
+tobacco in 1833.]
+
+It was in 1828, about five years before Joseph Smith's doctrine with
+respect to tobacco was given, that nicotine was obtained in a pure
+state. Many years later the chemists and physiologists learned to
+understand the dangerous nature of the tobacco poison. It does not
+seem probable that Joseph Smith had heard of the discovery of nicotine
+in 1833; the discovery was announced in a German scientific journal,
+and in those days of few newspapers, scientific news, even of public
+interest, was not made generally known as quickly as is the case
+today. In fact, Hyrum Smith, the brother of the Prophet, on May 29,
+1842, delivered a sermon upon the Word of Wisdom in which he says,
+"Tobacco is a nauseous, stinking, abominable thing;"[A] but nothing
+worse, thus basing his main objection to it on the revealed word of
+the Lord. Had Joseph and his associates been familiar with the
+isolation of nicotine and its properties, they would undoubtedly have
+mentioned it in sermons especially directed against the use of
+tobacco. In any case, at a time when it was but vaguely known that
+tobacco contained a poisonous principle, it would have been extremely
+hazardous for the reputation of an impostor to have claimed a
+revelation from God, stating distinctly the injurious effects of
+tobacco.
+
+[Footnote A: The Contributor, vol. iv., p. 13; Improvement Era, Vol.
+4. pp. 943-9.]
+
+It should also be noted that Joseph Smith says that when tobacco is
+used for bruises and all sick cattle, it should be used with judgment
+and skill, thus impressing caution even in the external application of
+the herb. This is fully borne out by facts, for it has been found that
+"the external application of tobacco to abraded surfaces, and even to
+the healthy skin, has been attended with violent symptoms, and even
+death."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Wormley, Micro-chemistry of Poisons, p. 436.]
+
+In the matter of the chemistry and physiological action of tobacco,
+then, the Prophet, in 1833, was in full accord with the best knowledge
+of 1908. In the emphasis of his doctrine, he even anticipated the
+world of science.
+
+"And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 89:9.]
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrine that tea and coffee are injurious to man is
+scientific.]
+
+When this statement was made, in 1833, the meaning of the expression
+hot drinks was not clearly understood. Many believed that the only
+meaning of the above statement was that drinks that are hot enough to
+burn the mouth should not be used. Others, however, claimed for the
+doctrine a deeper meaning. To settle the difficulty, appeal was made
+to Joseph Smith who explained that tea, coffee and similar drinks were
+meant by the expression hot drinks. From that time on, the Church has
+taught that tea and coffee should not be used by mankind.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: See The Contributor, vol. iv. p. 13; Improvement Era, vol
+4, pp. 943-9.]
+
+In the year 1821, several chemists isolated from coffee a bitter
+principle, of peculiar properties, which was named caffein. In 1827,
+the same substance was found to occur in tea. Numerous analysis show
+that there are between one and two per cent of caffein in coffee, and
+between three and six percent in tea. Later investigations have shown
+that caffein belongs to the vegetable poisons, and that its poisonous
+action is very strong.
+
+Among the medical properties of caffein are the following, "in doses
+of three to five grains, it produces a peculiar wakefulness--after a
+dose of twelve grains, it produces intense physical restlessness and
+mental anxiety. Upon the muscles it acts as a powerful poison--it is
+used in medicines as a brain and heart stimulant."[A] Fatal cases of
+poisoning are also on record.
+
+[Footnote A: U. S. Dispensatory, 17th ed., pp. 278 and 279.]
+
+Caffein is not in any sense a food, but, as a stimulant, must be
+classed with tobacco, opium and other similar substances. Owing to its
+action on the heart and circulation, the body becomes heated, and in
+that sense a solution of caffein is a "hot drink." The use of tea and
+coffee in health is now generally condemned by the best informed
+persons in and out of the medical profession. Dr. W. Gilman Thompson
+says, "The continuance of the practice of drinking coffee to keep
+awake soon results in forming a coffee or tea habit, in which the
+individual becomes a slave to the beverage. * * * Muscular tremors are
+developed, with nervousness, anxiety, dread of impending evil,
+palpitation, heartburn, dyspepsia and insomnia. * * * It produces
+great irritability of the whole nervous system and one may even
+overexcite the mind."[A] While it is true that one cup of coffee or
+tea does not contain enough caffein to injure the system, yet the
+continual taking of these small doses results in a weakening of the
+whole system, that frequently leads to premature death.
+
+[Footnote A: Practical Dietetics, p. 199.]
+
+The U. S. Consular and Trade Report for January, 1906,[A] warns
+against the use of coffee in the following words, "The important
+connection between consumption of coffee and epilepsy which deserves
+to be known everywhere, serves as a warning to be extremely careful
+with coffee made of beans containing caffein, and at any rate,
+children should be deprived of it entirely, otherwise their health
+will be exposed to great danger."
+
+[Footnote A: Page 249.]
+
+Besides caffein, both tea and coffee contain an astringent known as
+tannic acid. In coffee this substance is present only in small
+quantity, but in tea from four to twelve per cent occurs. Tannic acid
+is the substance found in oak bark, and has the property of making
+animal tissues hard--that is, makes leather of them. The habitual tea
+drinker subjects the delicate lining of the stomach and intestines to
+the action of this powerful drug.
+
+Without going into further details, it is readily seen that the
+teachings of Joseph Smith, in 1833, in relation to the value of tea
+and coffee in human drinks, harmonizes with the knowledge of today.
+Moreover, he was in advance, in the certainty of his expressions, of
+the scientists of his day. It is true that caffein had been found in
+coffee and tea a few years before the revelation of 1833, but the
+physiological action of the drug was not known until many years
+afterwards. Besides, as in the case of tobacco, the Church leaders in
+speaking against the use of tea and coffee did not mention the
+poisonous principle that had recently been discovered in them; thus
+revealing their ignorance of the matter.
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrines regarding the values of herbs and fruits
+harmonize with recent scientific truths.]
+
+"And again, * * * all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the
+constitution, nature, and use of man. Every herb in the season
+thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used
+with prudence and thanksgiving."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants 89:10, 11.]
+
+This doctrine, which seems self-evident now, also evidences the divine
+inspiration of the Prophet Joseph. At the time this revelation was
+given, food chemistry was not understood; and, in fact, it was not
+until about 1860, that the basis upon which rests our knowledge of
+food chemistry, was firmly established. We now know that every plant
+contains four great classes of compounds: mineral substances, fats,
+sugars and starches, and protein, or the flesh-forming elements. We
+further know that no plant can live and grow without containing these
+groups of nutrients. It is also well understood that these substances
+are necessary for the food of the animal body, and that animal tissues
+are, themselves, composed of these groups, though in different
+proportions. In short, it has long been an established fact of science
+that any plant that does not contain a poisonous principle, may by
+proper cooking be used as a food for man.
+
+When Joseph Smith wrote, this was a daring suggestion to make, for
+there was absolutely no fact aside from popular experience, upon which
+to base the conclusion. The qualifying phrase, "all wholesome herbs,"
+undoubtedly refers to the existence of classes of plants like coffee,
+tea, tobacco, etc., which contain some special principle injurious to
+the health.
+
+[Sidenote: The doctrine concerning the use of meats is scientific.]
+
+"Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord,
+have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they
+are to be used sparingly; and it is pleasing unto me that they should
+not be used only in times of winter, or of cold, or of famine."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 89:12, 13.]
+
+The breadth of this doctrine lies in the fact that it is not
+absolutely forbidden to eat meat, as in all probability a fanatic,
+guided by his own wisdom, might have done; yet it must be observed,
+the implication is clear that it is possible for man to live without
+meat. Vegetarianism had been taught and practiced long before the days
+of Joseph Smith; but there had been no direct, positive proof that
+plants contain all the substances necessary for the sustenance of
+life. As stated above, it is now known that every class of nutritive
+substance found in meat is also found in plants. This is in full
+harmony with the implied meaning of Joseph Smith in the statement
+regarding the abstaining from meat.
+
+[Sidenote: The distinction between the values of grains is also
+scientific.]
+
+"All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the
+staff of life. * * * All grain is good for the food of man, as also
+the fruit of the vine, that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the
+ground or above the ground. Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for
+the ox, and oats for the horse, and rye for the fowls and for swine,
+and for all beasts of the field, and barley for all useful animals,
+and for mild drinks, as also other grain."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 89:14, 16 and 17.]
+
+The first part of this teaching, that all grain can be used by man and
+beast, corresponds to the earlier statement that all wholesome plants
+may be used by man. The latter part respecting the best grain for
+certain classes of animals, is of a different nature and merits
+special consideration. As already mentioned, all plants and plant
+parts contain four great groups of nutritive substances. The relative
+proportions of these grains are different in different plants or plant
+parts. For instance, wheat contains about 71.9 per cent of starch and
+sugar; corn, 70.2 per cent; oats, 59.7 per cent; rye, 72.5 per cent;
+and barley, 69.8 per cent. Wheat contains about 11.9 per cent of
+protein or the flesh-forming elements; corn, 11.4 per cent; oats, 11.8
+per cent; rye, 10.6 per cent; and barley 12.4 per cent.[A] It has
+further been demonstrated that a man or beast doing heavy work,
+requires a larger proportion of starch and sugar in his dietary than
+does one which has less work to do. Likewise, different classes of
+animals require different proportions of the various nutrients, not
+only through life but at the various periods of their lives. This
+principle has been recognized so fully that during the last
+thirty-five or forty years the attention of experimenters has been
+directed toward the elucidation of laws which would make known the
+best combinations of foods for the various classes of farm animals, as
+well as for man. It must also be remarked that recent discoveries in
+science are showing more deep-seated differences in the composition of
+grains, than those here mentioned, as also corresponding differences
+in various classes of animals. Science will soon throw more light on
+this subject, and in all probability will confirm the views of Joseph
+Smith, with respect to the grain best adapted to certain animals.
+
+[Footnote A: The Feeding of Animals, Jordan, p. 424.]
+
+A thoughtful reading of the above quotation clearly shows that Joseph
+Smith recognized the fundamental truth of food chemistry; namely, that
+while all plants contain the elements necessary for animal growth, yet
+the proportions of these elements are so different as to make some
+plants better adapted than others to a certain class of animals. That
+the "Mormon" prophet should have enunciated this principle from twenty
+to thirty years in advance of the scientific world, must excite wonder
+in the breast of any person, be he follower or opponent of Joseph
+Smith.
+
+The discussion of the important statements made in section 89 of the
+book of _Doctrine and Covenants,_ might be elaborated into a volume.
+The merest outline has been given here. The physiological teachings of
+the prophet concerning work, cleanliness and sleep, might also be
+considered with profit.
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith anticipated the world of science in the word
+of wisdom.]
+
+To summarize the contents of this chapter: Joseph Smith clearly
+recognized and taught the physiological value of alcohol, tobacco,
+anticipated the tea and coffee, at a time when scientific world of
+science discoveries were just beginning to reveal the active
+principles of these commodities. The probability is that he knew
+nothing of what the world of science was doing in this direction, at
+the time the doctrine was taught. Joseph Smith clearly recognized and
+taught the fundamental truths of food chemistry, and the food relation
+of vegetable products to man, nearly a generation before scientists
+had arrived at the same doctrine. Whence came his knowledge?
+
+
+
+THE DESTINY OF EARTH AND MAN.
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+THE LAW OF EVOLUTION.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Whence? Where?]
+
+To every intelligence the question concerning the purpose of all
+things must at some time present itself. Every philosophical system
+has for its ultimate problem the origin and the destiny of the
+universe. Whence? Where?--the queries which arise before every human
+soul, and which have stimulated the truth-seekers of every age in
+their wearisome task of searching out nature's laws. Intelligent man
+cannot rest satisfied with the recognition of the forces at work in
+the universe, and the nature of their actions; he must know, also, the
+resultant of the interaction of the forces, or how the whole universe
+is affected by them; in short, man seeks the law of laws, by the
+operation of which, things have become what they are, and by which
+their destiny is controlled. This law when once discovered, is the
+foundation of religion as well as of science, and will explain all
+phenomena.
+
+[Sidenote: The only rational philosophy is based on science.]
+
+It was well toward the beginning of the last century before
+philosophical doctrines rose above mere speculation, and were based
+upon the actual observation of phenomena. As the scientific method of
+gathering facts and reasoning from them became established, it was
+observed that in all probability the great laws of nature were
+themselves controlled by some greater law. While many attempts have
+been made to formulate this law, yet it must be confessed, frankly,
+that only the faintest outline of it is possesesd by the world of
+science.
+
+The sanest of modern philosophers, and the one who most completely
+attempted to follow the method of science in philosophical writings,
+was Herbert Spencer. Early in his life, he set himself the task of
+constructing a system of philosophy which should be built upon man's
+reliable knowledge of nature. A long life permitted him to realize
+this ambition. Though his works are filled with conclusions which
+cannot be accepted by most men, yet the facts used in his reasoning
+are authentic. By the world at large, the philosophy of Herbert
+Spencer is considered the only philosophy that harmonizes with the
+knowledge of today.
+
+[Sidenote: All things are continually changing.--This is the
+foundation of evolution.]
+
+After having discussed, with considerable fullness, the elements of
+natural phenomena, such as space, time, matter, motion and force, Mr.
+Spencer concludes that all evidence agrees in showing that "every
+object, no less than the aggregate of objects, undergoes from instant
+to instant some alteration of state."[A] That is to say that while the
+universe is one of system and order, no object remains exactly as it
+is, but changes every instant of time.
+
+[Footnote A: First Principles, p. 287.]
+
+In two directions only can this ceaseless change affect an object; it
+either becomes more complex or more simple; it moves forward or
+backward; it grows or decays. In the words of Spencer, "All things are
+growing or decaying, accumulating matter or wearing away, integrating
+or disintegrating."[A] This, then, is the greatest known fundamental
+law of the universe, and of all things in it--that nothing stands
+still, but either progresses (evolution), or retrogrades
+(dissolution). Now, it has been found that under normal conditions all
+things undergo a process of evolution; that is, become more complex,
+or advance.[B] This, in its essence, is the law of evolution, about
+which so much has been said during the last fifty years. Undoubtedly,
+this law is correct, and in harmony with the known facts of the
+universe. It certainly throws a flood of light upon the phenomena of
+nature; though of itself, it tells little of the force behind it, in
+obedience to which it operates.
+
+[Footnote A: Loc. cit., p. 292.]
+
+[Footnote B: Loc. cit., p. 337.]
+
+Spencer himself most clearly realized the insufficiency of the law of
+evolution alone, for he asks, "May we seek for some all-pervading
+principle which underlies this all pervading process!"[A] and proceeds
+to search out this "all-pervading principle" which at last he
+determines to be the persistence of force--the operation of the
+universal, indestructible, incomprehensible force, which appears as
+gravitation, light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity
+and in other forms.[B]
+
+[Footnote A: First Principles, p. 408.]
+
+[Footnote B: Loc. cit., p. 494.]
+
+[Sidenote: Evolution does not admit a final death.]
+
+A natural question now is, Is there any limit to the changes undergone
+by matter, and which we designate as evolution? "Will they go on
+forever? or will there be an end to them?"[A] As far as our knowledge
+goes, there is an end to all things, a death which is the greatest
+known change, and as far as human experience goes, all things tend
+toward a death-like state of rest. That this rest is permanent is not
+possible under law of evolution; for it teaches that an ulterior
+process initiates a new life; that there are alternate eras of
+evolution and dissolution. "And thus there is suggested the conception
+of a past during which there have been successive evolutions analogous
+to that which is now going on; and a future during which successive
+other such evolutions may go on ever the same in principle but never
+the same in concrete result."[B] This is practically the same as
+admitting eternal growth.
+
+[Footnote A: Loc. cit., p. 496.]
+
+[Footnote B: Loc. cit., p. 550.]
+
+The final conclusion is that "we can no longer contemplate the visible
+creation as having a definite beginning or end, or as being isolated.
+It becomes unified with all existence before and after; and the force
+which the universe presents falls into the same category with space
+and time, as admitting of no limitation in thought."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Loc. cit., p. 564.]
+
+[Sidenote: Spirit and matter are alike.]
+
+It is interesting to note the conclusion concerning spirit and matter,
+to which Mr. Spencer is led by the law of evolution. "The materialist
+and spiritualist controversy is a mere war of words, in which the
+disputants are equally absurd--each thinking that he understands that
+which it is impossible for any man to understand. Though the relation
+of subject and object renders necessary to us these antithetical
+conceptions of spirit and matter; the one is no less than the other to
+be regarded as but a sign of the Unknown Reality which underlies
+both."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: First Principles, pp. 570 and 572.]
+
+While the law of evolution, as formulated by Spencer and accepted by
+the majority of modern thinkers, is the nearest approach to the truth
+possessed by the world of science, yet there is no disposition on the
+part of the writer to defend the numerous absurdities into which
+Spencer and his followers have fallen when reasoning upon special
+cases.
+
+[Sidenote: Evolution and natural selection do not necessarily go
+together.]
+
+Many years before Mr. Spencer's day, it had been suggested, vaguely,
+that advancement seemed to be the great law of nature. Students of
+botany and zoology were especially struck by this fact, for they
+observed how animals and plants could be made to change and improve
+under favorable conditions, by the intervention of man's protection.
+In 1859, Mr. Charles Darwin published a theory to account for such
+variation, in which he assumed that there is a tendency on the part of
+all organisms to adapt themselves to their surroundings, and to change
+their characteristics, if necessary, in this attempt. He further
+showed that in the struggle for existence among animals and plants,
+the individual best fitted for its environment usually survives. These
+facts, Mr. Darwin thought, led to a process of natural selection, by
+which, through long ages, deep changes were caused in the structure of
+animals. In fact, Darwin held that the present-day plants and animals
+have descended from extinct and very different ancestors.[A] The
+experiences of daily life bear out the assertion that organic forms
+may be changed greatly--witness the breeding of stock and crops,
+practiced by all intelligent farmers--and all in all the theory seemed
+so simple that numerous biologists immediately adopted it, and began
+to generalize upon it. Having once accepted the principle that the
+present-day species have descended from very unlike ancestors, it was
+easy to assume that all organic nature had descended from one common
+stock. It was claimed that man, in a distant past, was a monkey; still
+earlier, perhaps, a reptile; still earlier a fish, and so on. From
+that earliest form, man had become what he is by a system of natural
+selection. In spite of the absence of proofs, such ideas became
+current among the scientists of the day. In this view was included, of
+course, the law of evolution or growth, and thus, too, the law became
+associated with the notion that man has descended from the lower
+animals. In fact, however, the law of evolution is just as true,
+whether or not Darwin's theory of natural selection be adopted.
+
+[Footnote A: Origin of Species, p. 6.]
+
+In justice to Darwin, it should be said that he in nowise claimed that
+natural selection was alone sufficient to cause the numerous changes
+in organic form and life; but, on the contrary, held that it is only
+one means of modification.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Origin of Species, p. 6; also Darwin and After Darwin
+Romanes, Vol. II. pp. 2-6.]
+
+Professor Huxley, who, from early manhood, was an eminent and ardent
+supporter of the Darwinian hypothesis frankly says, "I adopt Mr.
+Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, subject to the production of proof
+that physiological species may be produced by selective breeding; and
+for the reason that it is the only means at present within reach of
+reducing the chaos of observed facts to order."[A] After writing a
+book to establish the descent of man from apes, Professor Huxley is
+obliged to confess that "the fossil remains of man hitherto discovered
+do not seem to take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid
+form, by the modification of which he has, probably, become what he
+is."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Man's Place in Nature, p. 128.]
+
+[Footnote B: Loc. cit., p. 183.]
+
+This is not the place to enter into this famous controversy. The
+relation of the theory of natural selection to the law of evolution is
+not established; that man and the great classes of animals and plants
+have sprung from one source is far from having been proved; that the
+first life came upon this earth by chance is as unthinkable as ever.
+Even at the present writing, recent discoveries have been reported
+which throw serious doubt upon natural selection as an all-sufficient
+explanation of the wonderful variety of nature. The true scientific
+position of the Darwinian hypothesis is yet to be determined.
+
+The moderate law of evolution which claims that all normal beings are
+advancing, without asserting that one form of life can pass into
+another, is, however, being more and more generally accepted, for it
+represents an eternal truth, of which every new discovery bears
+evidence.
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith taught the law of eternal growth--evolution.]
+
+Were it not that the law of evolution is of such fundamental value in
+the understanding of natural phenomena, it would hardly be expected
+that the calling of Joseph Smith would necessitate any reference to
+it. Besides, upwards of fifteen years elapsed after the martyrdom of
+Joseph and Hyrum Smith before the world of science conceived the
+hypothesis. One of the leading doctrines of the Church resembles the
+spirit of the law of universal growth so nearly that one is forced to
+believe that the great truth embodied by this doctrine is the truth
+shadowed forth by the law of evolution.
+
+The doctrine of God, as taught by Joseph Smith, is the noblest of
+which the human mind can conceive. No religion ascribes to God more
+perfect attributes than does that of the Latter-day Saints. Yet the
+Church, asserts that God was not always what he is today. Through
+countless ages he has grown towards greater perfection, and at the
+present, though in comparison with humankind, he is omniscient and
+omnipotent, he is still progressing. Of the beginning of God, we have
+no record, save that he told his servant Abraham, "I came down in the
+beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Book of Abraham, 3:21.]
+
+As told by Joseph Smith, in May, 1833, John the Apostle said of God,
+Jesus Christ, "And I, John, saw that he received not of the fulness at
+first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness;
+and thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not of the
+fulness at first."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 93:12-14.]
+
+[Sidenote: Man will develop until he becomes like God.]
+
+Man, likewise, is to develop until, in comparison with his present
+condition, he becomes a God. For instance, in speaking of the
+salvation to which all men who live correct lives shall attain, the
+Prophet says, "For salvation consists in the glory, authority,
+majesty, power and dominion which Jehovah possesses;"[A] and in
+another place, "Then shall they be Gods, because they have no end;
+therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they
+continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject
+unto them. Then shall they be Gods, because they have all power."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, Lectures on Faith, 7:8.]
+
+[Footnote B: Doctrine and Covenants, 132:20.]
+
+That this is not a sudden elevation, but a gradual growth, is evident
+from many of the writings of Joseph Smith, of which the following are
+illustrations. "He that receiveth light and continueth in God,
+receiveth more light, and that light groweth brighter and brighter
+until the perfect day."[A] "For if you keep my commandments you shall
+receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father;
+therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace."[B]
+
+[Footnote A: Ibid., 50:24.]
+
+[Footnote B: Ibid., 93:20.]
+
+In various sermons Joseph Smith enlarged upon the universal principle
+of advancement, but few of them have been preserved for us. In a
+sermon delivered in April, 1844, the following sentences occur, "God
+himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits
+enthroned in yonder heavens. You have got to learn how to be Gods
+yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods
+have done before you; namely, by going from one small degree to
+another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to
+grace, from exaltation to exaltation."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Contributor, vol. 4, pp. 254 and 255.]
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Smith anticipated science in the statement of the
+law of evolution.]
+
+The preceding quotations suffice to show that with regard to man,
+Joseph Smith taught a doctrine of evolution which in grandeur and
+extent surpasses the wildest speculations of the scientific
+evolutionist. Yet Joseph Smith taught this doctrine as one of eternal
+truth, taught him by God. There can be no doubt that the truth behind
+Spencer's law of evolution, and the doctrine taught by the "Mormon"
+prophet, are the same. The great marvel is that Joseph Smith, who knew
+not the philosophies of men, should have anticipated by thirty years
+or more the world of science in the enunciation of the most
+fundamental law of the universe of living things.
+
+[Sidenote: Animals are subject to evolution.]
+
+Now, it is true that Joseph Smith did not extend this law to the lower
+animals; but it must be remembered that his mission on earth was to
+teach a system of redemption for men. Yet, it is an interesting
+observation that he taught that men and animals had a spiritual
+existence, before they were placed on earth. "For I, the Lord God,
+created all things of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they
+were naturally upon the face of the earth. And out of the ground made
+I, the Lord God, to grow every tree, naturally, that is pleasant to
+the sight of man; and man could behold it. And it became also a living
+soul. For it was spiritual in the day that I created it; for it
+remaineth in the sphere in which I, God, created it."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Book of Moses, 3:5 and 9. See also Doctrine and
+Covenants, 29:31, 32.]
+
+If, in common with men, animals and plants were created spiritually,
+it may not be an idle speculation that the lower forms of life will
+advance, in their respective fields, as man advances in his. However,
+a statement in the above quotation must not be overlooked, "It
+remaineth in the sphere in which I, God, created it." This would
+preclude any notion that by endless development a plant may become an
+animal, or that one of the lower classes of animals become a high
+animal, or a man. Is not this the place where, perhaps, the evolution
+of science has failed? All things advance, but each order of creation
+within its own sphere. There is no jumping from order to order. The
+limits of these orders are yet to be found.
+
+Spencer's belief that one period of evolution follows another[A] is
+brought strongly to mind in contemplating the doctrine of Joseph Smith
+that man, and other things, had first a spiritual existence, now an
+earthly life, then a higher existence after death. Is not the
+parallelism strong--and may it not be that here, also, the "Mormon"
+prophet could have shown the learned philosopher the correct way?
+
+[Footnote A: First Principles, p. 550.]
+
+[Sidenote: God is the compelling power of evolution.]
+
+Finally, one other suggestion must be made. Spencer, after a long and
+involved argument, concludes (or proves as he believes) that the great
+law of evolution is a necessity that follows from the law of the
+persistence of force. In chapter two of this series, the scientific
+conception of the persistence of force was identified with the
+operations of the Holy Spirit, as taught by Joseph Smith. This Spirit
+is behind all phenomena; by it as a medium, God works his will with
+the things of the universe, and enables man to move on to eternal
+salvation, to advance, and become a God; every law is of necessity a
+result of the operation of this Spirit. Here, again, the "Mormon"
+prophet anticipated the world of science; and his conceptions are
+simplier and more direct than those invented by the truth-seekers, who
+depended upon themselves and their own powers.
+
+Marvelous is this view of the founder of "Mormonism." Where did he
+learn in his short life, amidst sufferings and persecution such as few
+men have known, the greatest mysteries of the universe!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+THE PLAN OF SALVATION.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Why am I on earth?]
+
+In the preceding chapter the law of evolution was shown to be the
+cementing law of nature, which explains the destiny of man. To live is
+to change, and (if the change is right) to grow. Through all the ages
+to come righteous man will increase in complexity and will grow
+towards a condition of greater knowledge, greater power and greater
+opportunity.
+
+While the great law of evolution may be quite sufficient for the
+general survey, it does not explain the special conditions amidst
+which organized intelligences find themselves. Man asks, Why am I on
+earth? Science is silent. Up to the present time, many scientific men
+have not found it necessary to postulate an intelligent force behind
+the phenomena of nature, which would explain our earthly existence.
+
+The Mormon answer to this question lies in the Mormon doctrine of the
+plan of salvation. There can be no attempt to harmonize the Mormon
+plan with that of science, for science has none; but, that the Mormon
+plan of salvation is strictly scientific, and rests upon the
+irrevocable laws of the universe can certainly be demonstrated.
+
+[Sidenote: Perfection comes only when matter, spirit and intelligence
+are associated.]
+
+Fundamental, in the doctrines of Joseph, is the statement that all
+intelligence is eternal; and that God at the best is the organizer of
+the spirits of men. The ether of science has been compared with the
+Holy Spirit of Mormonism. The spirit body may be likened to an ether
+body of man, and is the condition of his original existence. From the
+original condition, at man's spiritual birth, under the law of
+evolution he has steadily grown in complexity, which means in power.
+
+In the universe are recognized ether or spirit, force or intelligence,
+and matter. Matter may act upon the ether and the ether upon matter;
+but ether acts most effectively upon ether, and matter upon matter.
+The original man, in whom intelligence and other forces acted through
+a purely spiritual or ether body, could impress matter and be
+impressed by it only in part. The man was imperfect because he did not
+touch directly the world of matter, and could know only in part the
+phenomena of the material world, which forms an integral part of the
+universe. In the words of Joseph Smith, "Spirit and element
+inseparably connected, receiveth a fullness of joy, and when
+separated, man can not receive a fullness of joy."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, 93:33, 34.]
+
+For man's perfection, it then became necessary that his spiritual body
+should be clothed with a material one, and that he should become as
+familiar with the world of matter, as he had become with the world of
+spirit. God, as the supreme intelligence, who desired all other
+spirits to know and become mighty, led in the formulation of the plan,
+whereby they should obtain knowledge of all the contents of the
+universe.
+
+[Sidenote: The fall of Adam necessary to perfect intelligence.]
+
+For the purpose of perfecting the plan, a council of the Gods, or
+perfected intelligences was called. It was decided to organize an
+earth from available materials, and place the spirits on it, clothed
+with bodies of the grosser elements. An essential function of
+intelligence is free agency; and that the spirits might have the
+fullest opportunity to exercise this agency in their earthly career,
+they were made to forget the events of their spiritual existence. To
+learn directly the nature of grossest matter, the earth bodies of
+necessity were made subject to the process of the disintegration
+called death.
+
+To make possible the subjection of eternal, spiritual organized
+intelligences to perishable, material structures, certain natural laws
+would naturally be brought into operation. From the point of view of
+the eternal spirit, it might mean the breaking of a law directed
+towards eternal life; yet to secure the desired contact with matter,
+the spirit was compelled to violate the law. Thus, in this earth life,
+a man who desires to acquire a first hand acquaintance with magnetism
+and electricity, may subject himself to all kinds of electric shocks,
+that, perhaps, will affect his body injuriously; yet, for the sake of
+securing the experience, he may be willing to do it. Adam, the first
+man, so used natural laws that his eternal, spiritual body became
+clothed upon with an earthly body, subject to death. Then in begetting
+children, he was able to produce earthly bodies for the waiting
+spirits.
+
+According to this doctrine, the socalled Fall of Adam was
+indispensable to the evolving of organized intelligences that should
+have a complete acquaintance with all nature, and a full control over
+their free agencies. If laws were broken, it was done because of the
+heroism of the first parents, and not because of their sinfulness.
+
+Mormon theology does not pretend to say in what precise manner Adam
+was able to secure his corruptible body; neither is science able to
+answer all the "whys" suggested by recorded experiences. The doctrines
+of Joseph Smith maintain, however, that the events connected with the
+introduction of organized intelligences on this earth, were in full
+accord with the simple laws governing the universe. That the Mormon
+view of this matter, so fundamental in every system of theology, is
+rational, can not be denied.
+
+[Sidenote: The atonement was in harmony with natural law.]
+
+However, the bodies given to the spirits continued for only a few
+years; then they were disorganized in death. Adam's work had been done
+well. After the death of the mortal body, the spirit was still without
+a permanent body of matter, that would complete his contact with the
+elements of the universe. Therefore, it was necessary to bring other
+laws into operation, that would reorganize these dead material bodies
+in such a way that they would no longer be subject to the forces of
+disorganization, death and decay. The eternal spiritual body, united
+with this eternal material body, then constituted a suitable home for
+eternal intelligence, whereby it might be able, under the law of
+evolution to attain the greatest conceivable knowledge and power.
+
+The personage who directed the laws that cancelled the necessary work
+of Adam, and made the corruptible body incorruptible was the Savior,
+Jesus Christ. As Adam, by his personal work, made the earth career
+possible for all who succeeded him; so Jesus, by His personal work,
+made it possible for the spirits to possess immortal material bodies.
+
+Conditions that may be likened to the atonement are found in science.
+Suppose an electrical current, supplying a whole city with power and
+light, is passing through a wire. If for any reason the wire is cut
+the city becomes dark and all machines driven by the current cease
+their motion. To restore the current, the ends of the broken wire must
+be reunited. If a person, in his anxiety to restore the city to its
+normal conditions, seizes the ends of the wire with his bare hands,
+and unites them, he probably will receive the full charge of the
+current in his body. Yet, as a result, the light and power will return
+to the city; and one man by his action, has succeeded in doing the
+work for many.
+
+The actual method by which Jesus was enabled to make mortal bodies
+immortal, is not known to us. Neither can we understand just why the
+shedding of the Savior's blood was necessary for the accomplishment of
+this purpose. Like the work of Adam, the exact nature of the atonement
+is unknown. Still, throughout this plan of Salvation, every incident
+and accomplished fact are strictly rational. There is no talk of a
+God, who because of his own will, and in opposition to natural laws,
+placed man on earth.
+
+[Sidenote: Earth life is a link in man's evolution.]
+
+The presence of organized intelligences in earth is simply a link in
+the evolution of man. The plan of salvation is the method whereby the
+evolution of man is furthered. The intelligence who conforms to the
+Plan, at last attains salvation, which means eternal life and endless
+development, directed by the free agency of an organized intelligence
+clothed with an incorruptible body of spirit and matter.
+
+Can any other system of theology produce an explanation of the
+presence of man on earth, which connects earthly life with the time
+before and the time after, on the basis of the accepted laws of the
+universe?
+
+Flawless seems the structure reared by the Mormon Prophet. Had he been
+an imposter, human imperfection would have revealed itself
+somewhere.[A]
+
+[Footnote A: It must not be assumed that in this chapter has been
+given a full account of the Mormon doctrine of the Atonement. These
+essays are not in any sense a full exposition of Mormon theology.]
+
+
+
+
+THE REGION OF THE UNKNOWN.
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+THE SIXTH SENSE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The six senses, need help to reorganize many phenomena of
+nature.]
+
+The five senses are the great gateways through which all the knowledge
+why the natives fight shy of it; and they say there’s a lot of
+treasure buried there.”
+
+“I expect it’s being a ‘spooky’ place, as you say is one reason these
+men selected it,” commented Mr. Pauling. “They probably knew they
+would not be disturbed. But how do you account for the fact that they
+found a few natives there whom they killed according to Smernoff’s
+story?”
+
+“Most likely smugglers or political refugees,” replied Rawlins, “Every
+time there’s a row in Santo Domingo a bunch of the natives clear out
+to save their skins and a place like this would suit ’em first rate.
+And there’s always a crowd of smugglers knocking about. Or they may
+have been fishermen or settlers from some of the others islands—from
+over Porto Rico or St. Thomas way, who didn’t know the reputation of
+the Cay.”
+
+“Say,” said Tom, who had been listening attentively as Rawlins had
+been speaking. “If there’s treasure there perhaps we can find it.
+Wouldn’t that be great?”
+
+His father laughed. “If there’s any treasure there it’s what the men
+we are after have brought there,” he declared. “And if any was there
+before they’ve probably found it. No, Son, every island and cay in the
+West Indies has treasure on it, if we believe the natives.”
+
+“Well, some of ’em really do have and some of it’s been found,” said
+Rawlins. “First time I was down here I was diving for a crowd who were
+searching for treasure.”
+
+“Did they get it?” asked Frank.
+
+“I’ll say they did!” replied the diver. “Got it out of an old
+wreck—old galleon they said it was. I don’t know how much, but big
+piles of old gold and silver coins all stuck together with coral and
+old bronze bells and cannon. I’ve often wondered if they got it all. A
+storm came up so we couldn’t work and we had to clear out. They said
+they were coming back, but I don’t think they ever did, and I’ve been
+meaning to have another look myself, but never got around to it. It’s
+not far from here either. Over close to the Santo Domingo coast.”
+
+“Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Frank. “Let’s go over and try for it now!”
+
+“This isn’t a treasure hunt, Frank,” Mr. Pauling reminded him. “We’ve
+far more important matters on hand. Uncle Sam isn’t paying us to hunt
+old galleons.”
+
+“Oh, hang it!” ejaculated Tom in disappointed tones. “That’s what I
+call rotten. Here we are with a submarine and a diver and suits and
+all and right near a sunken galleon with millions and millions of
+dollars on it for all we know, and we can’t even hunt for it. It makes
+me sick.”
+
+Mr. Pauling laughed. “You’ll never do for the Service if you’re so
+easily sidetracked,” he declared. “Of course I understand how
+fascinating such a story is to you boys, but business is business,
+treasure or no treasure.”
+
+“We’ll have to go up and take a squint now,” declared Rawlins a moment
+later. “We don’t want to bump into the rocks.”
+
+With the engines stopped the submarine was slowly raised until her
+periscope broke through the surface and Rawlins announced that the Cay
+was within half a mile.
+
+“We can’t run into shoal water blind,” he said. “And if we go in with
+our eye out they’ll spot us perhaps. I’d like to wait until night, but
+then the old tramp wouldn’t be wallowing along to drown the sound of
+our screw. What shall it be, Mr. Pauling?”
+
+“I think we’d better risk running in with the periscope out,” he
+replied. “Of course, as you say, there _is_ a risk of being seen,
+but if we’re on the other side of the point and they don’t expect us
+it’s a much smaller chance than we’d take by running in at night. It’s
+highly probable that they maintain a pretty close watch and some one
+is at the instruments constantly and they’d be certain to pick us up.
+Yes, if you keep your periscope low and go slowly, so as not to make a
+white wake, I think we can risk it.”
+
+So, under half speed and with the slender periscope barely projecting
+above the water, the submarine edged slowly in towards the Cay, until
+in about five fathoms of water, when Rawlins brought her to a stop and
+let her slowly sink until she rested on the sandy bottom.
+
+“Well, we’re here,” he announced cheerfully, “About three hundred
+yards from a nice smooth beach. Now, how about going ashore?”
+
+“Better wait until dark,” suggested Mr. Henderson. “A diver coming out
+of the sea is easily seen and would be helpless until he took off his
+suit. I would advise laying that copper communication wire and getting
+everything in readiness for a scouting party after dark.”
+
+All agreed that this was the wisest plan and so, donning his suit,
+Rawlins entered the air-lock and carrying a coil of copper wire
+slipped into the sea, paying out the wire as he walked slowly towards
+the shore. He was strongly tempted to sneak to land among the rocks of
+a nearby point and have a look about on his own account, but knowing
+that if anything went wrong he would be to blame for having disobeyed
+orders, he regretfully refrained and having crawled as close to shore
+as he dared without showing himself above the surface he weighted the
+remainder of the coil with coral and returned to the submarine.
+
+Before he had taken ten steps he halted in his tracks, listening half
+incredulously, every nerve and sense alert, for in his ears he had
+heard the rough, guttural voices he knew so well. For the time being
+he had forgotten that he wore the receiving set and the sound of human
+voices coming to him so unexpectedly and suddenly under water startled
+him.
+
+To be sure, the voices sounded faint and far away, but that they were
+voices and voices of men speaking in Russian or some similar tongue
+there could be no doubt.
+
+“Confound it!” he muttered to himself. “Why the dickens didn’t I learn
+Russian! Wonder if they’re hearing it on the sub!”
+
+But he could not ask. He realized that if he could hear the others
+they might hear him if he attempted to speak to his friends and with
+this thought another flashed through his mind. Suppose the boys should
+not hear the Russians and should speak to him! Or suppose, without
+stopping to think, they too should hear the voices and ask him if he
+did! In either case the enemy would be forewarned and on the alert.
+The only thing was to make all haste to the submarine and warn those
+upon it to listen and not to speak into the transmitters. Without
+waiting to hear more, Rawlins hurried as rapidly as possible to the
+submarine, climbed into the air-lock and soon reappeared among his
+friends.
+
+“Did you hear them?” he asked the moment he entered the door.
+
+“No, hear who?” demanded Mr. Henderson.
+
+“Those Bolsheviks,” replied Rawlins, “I heard ’em not five minutes
+ago. I didn’t dare call you or say anything for fear they’d hear me
+and I was nervous as a cat fearing you fellows might call into the
+transmitter and they’d hear.”
+
+“We’ve been right at the instruments and didn’t hear a thing,”
+declared Tom. “Gosh, but it’s funny you got ’em and we didn’t.”
+
+“They were pretty faint and far off,” said Rawlins. “Maybe they were
+out of your range.”
+
+“No, I guess it’s that same old effect of the sounds inside the
+helmet,” said Tom. “Remember, up in New York, we could always hear
+under water better than ashore.”
+
+“Well, I don’t think it makes much difference,” declared Mr. Pauling,
+“but it proves they’re here or near here. You’d better take some one
+ashore with you to-night, Rawlins. Whom would you select?”
+
+“Guess it’ll have to be Smernoff,” replied Rawlins. “I’ll need some
+one who can savvy Russian more than anything else.”
+
+“Do you think you can trust him?” asked Mr. Henderson. “You’re taking
+a risk with him alone on that Cay in the dark and with his old-time
+friends and comrades there.”
+
+“Sure, I’m taking a risk,” agreed Rawlins with a grin, “but a diver’s
+always taking risks—been taking them ever since I was knee high—and
+a few more or less don’t cut any ice. Anyway, I don’t believe Smernoff
+will turn traitor. You see, he looks upon me as a sort of hero—saving
+his life and all, and besides, he’s as keen on evening up scores with
+this bunch as any of us. He’s got everything to win and nothing to
+lose by betting on us and my experience is that if it’s an even toss
+up with a fellow he’ll chip in with the side that he’ll gain the most
+with.”
+
+“That’s sound philosophy,” chuckled Mr. Pauling. “I don’t think
+there’s any danger with Smernoff and of course there’s the advantage
+that he can use a diving suit.”
+
+The time dragged slowly until sundown and as soon as darkness fell
+Rawlins summoned the Russian and prepared to go ashore on his
+dangerous mission.
+
+“Just as soon as you get ashore, or even before, try this wired
+wireless,” Tom admonished him. “Then we’ll know if it works. It’s too
+bad you can’t keep it fastened to your set while you sneak over the
+island, but that’s impossible.”
+
+Then, showing Rawlins how to snap the wire onto his set, the boys bade
+him good-by and the two men entered the air-lock. For a long time
+after they had left, those upon the submarine sat silent, the boys
+listening at their receivers, the men thinking deeply and in their
+minds planning their moves should Rawlins locate the camp of the
+“reds.” At last, after what seemed an interminable time, Tom heard
+Rawlins’ voice rather thin and faint, coming in over the wire.
+
+“Safe ashore,” he said, “and talking mighty low. Can you get me all
+right?”
+
+“Hear you finely,” replied Tom. “We’ll stick right here. Good luck!”
+
+Minute after minute dragged by, the little clock upon the bulkhead
+ticked off an hour and no sound or word came from shore. What had
+happened? Had Rawlins found the camp? Had he been seen and captured?
+Was he even now struggling for his life? Had Smernoff betrayed him?
+The suspense was nerve-racking. It anything happened to Rawlins, if he
+failed to return, their quest would come to an abrupt end. They
+depended upon him for guidance, for advice, for diving. Never until
+now did any of them realize to what an extent everything depended upon
+him.
+
+“If he’s not back soon I’ll take a landing party ashore,” declared Mr.
+Pauling. “We’ve got arms and a dozen men and more. I can’t stand this
+uncertainty much longer. They’ve been gone an hour and a half. I’m
+sorry he took Smernoff. I——”
+
+At that moment Frank heard the long-hoped-for voice. “Coming back!”
+was all it said.
+
+“Well, he’s safe at all events!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling fervently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE FIGHT WITH THE OCTOPUS
+
+
+A few moments later Rawlins appeared with Smernoff close behind him.
+
+“Gone!” Rawlins announced before a question could be asked. “Cleared
+out bag and baggage. We went over every inch of the Cay and there’s
+not a living soul on it. Just too late.”
+
+“Jove, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. “Looks as if they’re
+bound to be a jump ahead of us. Lord alone knows where they’ve gone.”
+
+“You’re dead wrong there!” declared Rawlins. “The Lord’s not the only
+one knows. We know.”
+
+The others leaped to their feet. “Are you serious?” cried Mr. Pauling,
+hardly able to believe Rawlins’ statements. “What do you mean by that,
+Rawlins?”
+
+“Where are they?” demanded Mr. Henderson. “_How_ do you know?”
+
+“You bet I’m serious,” declared Rawlins. “Heard ’em talking. Last of
+’em was just leaving and I had one devil of a time stopping old
+Smernoff from running amuck and doing up the bunch single-handed.
+They’ve gone over to Santo Domingo where the Grand Panjandrum stops.”
+
+“Well, for Heaven’s sake, begin at the beginning and tell us what
+happened,” cried Mr. Pauling. “First you announce they’ve all gone and
+then you talk about hearing them and knowing their plans. Make a
+sensible consecutive story of it, Rawlins.”
+
+“All right,” grinned the diver, seating himself. “We got ashore all
+right and I called the boys and heard them—say you must have been
+shouting, Tom—and then we took off the suits, tucked ’em out of sight
+among the brush and started overland, Smernoff leading. Found a nice
+spot overlooking the beach and there was a bunch of men standing by a
+pile of dunnage and jabbering away to beat the band. Old Smernoff
+wanted to butt right in and clean up the crowd, but I managed to stop
+him. Thought he’d spoil the game by yelling or something. Well, after
+I’d got him quieted down we sneaked in close—they were so blamed busy
+gassing away they wouldn’t have seen us if we’d walked in and said
+‘how-de-do.’ Got close enough so Smernoff could understand them and
+told him not to try to translate, but just to take it all in and tell
+me later. I thought at first of coming back and reporting, but I could
+see they were just ready to clear out and knew they’d be gone before
+we could get over here and back and decided the talk was more
+important so hung on. Pretty soon up bobs their sub—I could tell her
+by that smashed conning tower—and a boat comes ashore and takes off
+the bunch. Then the sub clears out and we are alone.”
+
+“Well, what did Smernoff tell you?” demanded Mr. Henderson as Rawlins
+concluded.
+
+“I was coming to that,” went on the diver. “There were so many talking
+at once he didn’t get it all, but he got enough. He says they had word
+this morning or this afternoon—he isn’t sure which—that their sub
+had been attacked and was being followed by a destroyer, and a sub,
+but that the sub—meaning us—had been done for. And they were talking
+a lot about him—I expect he was so busy listening to that part he
+couldn’t get all the rest—swearing vengeance on him for betraying
+them. They knew about his getting away and doing up a few ‘reds’ in
+New York—though how the dickens they got the news beats me, and one
+of the men from the sub—he’d come ashore in a diving suit to see if
+the coast was clear—was telling them how Smernoff and his mate had
+betrayed the sub in the East River and the narrow escape they’d had.
+Funny how they got the idea old Smernoff did that when really they
+deserted him. Anyhow they were mad as hornets when their nest’s been
+poked by a kid and at the same time they didn’t dare wait for the
+destroyer to come up, so all hands decided to pack up and go over to
+Santo Domingo. It seems they’ve a place all ready over there close to
+the big chief’s and had been planning to move for some time. Now, just
+where that is I don’t know, but Smernoff says they talked about a cave
+and I heard one of ’em say something about Caña Honda. Over Caña Honda
+way there are lots of caves so I’ve got a hunch the whole shooting
+match are beating it for over that way.”
+
+“You’ve done a good night’s work, Rawlins!” cried Mr. Pauling. “You
+did quite right in listening rather than notifying us. All we wanted
+of this crowd was information—it’s the head of the gang we’re
+after—and we’ve got what we want, or nearly what we want—without
+capturing or alarming them, which is a big point. Always keep the
+other fellow guessing in this game is a good thing to remember—let
+him think he’s safe and he’ll be less careful. I imagine you are right
+about the locality, your hunches have proved very accurate so far, so
+let us get under way for Caña Honda.”
+
+“No hurry,” declared Rawlins. “Those chaps won’t be over there until
+morning and I don’t want to take any chances of bumping into them or a
+reef at night. We can get started and loaf along a little later, but
+we want to be dead careful or they’ll hear us. They think we’re at the
+bottom of the Caribbean so we’ll let ’em keep on thinking so. If they
+are at Caña Honda we won’t have much trouble finding them. We can
+either pick them up by radio or spot them by smoke. They can’t cook
+without fire and where there’s fire there’s smoke. My plan would be to
+wait until nearly daylight and then start and take it easy and
+submerge before we get in sight of Caña Honda. Then slip in, find a
+good hiding place and do our hunting in small boats or afoot after
+dark. A sub’s a mighty poor sort of thing to go moseying around with.
+If we locate them we can slip off, notify Disbrow and corral the whole
+bunch.”
+
+For a few moments Mr. Pauling was silent, thinking deeply.
+
+“Yes,” he assented at last. “That will be the best plan. No use in
+rushing matters to such an extent that we overdo it. And I quite agree
+with you in regard to tracing them. As you say, a submarine is too
+clumsy and large a craft for scouting—it’s too easily seen or heard.”
+
+Everything being thus arranged, the submarine was raised to the
+surface, anchored securely and the occupants retired. The boys,
+however, got little sleep, for they were nervous and excited and
+filled with expectation of thrilling adventures to come.
+
+As soon as the first faint streaks of dawn showed upon the horizon,
+the anchor was hauled in and, swinging her bow towards the dim, black
+bulk that marked the mountains of Santo Domingo to the westward, the
+submarine slipped silently from Trade Wind Cay.
+
+Hour after hour they moved steadily across the calm blue sea and as
+they drew ever nearer to the big island the boys gazed upon it with
+wonder. They had never dreamed that an island could be so large. They
+had imagined, from the tiny dot that represented Santo Domingo in
+their geographies, that it would be a low, flat spot somewhat like the
+Bahamas, but a little larger, and now before them, they saw what
+appeared to be a continent. As far as eye could see on either hand the
+forest-covered hills stretched away. Inland and up from the shores
+rose tier after tier of mountains, the farthest nearly two miles in
+height and half-hidden in clouds, and between them were immense
+valleys, deep ravines and wide plateaus. And everywhere, from sea to
+topmost mountain peaks, the vivid green of forest and jungle, broken
+only by a few isolated patches of light-green sugar cane upon the
+lower hill slopes or in the valleys.
+
+“Jiminy!” exclaimed Tom. “That _is_ an island!”
+
+“I’ll say ’tis!” agreed Rawlins. “Mighty fine one too.”
+
+“It’s beautiful—but awfully wild-looking,” declared Frank. “Is it
+full of Indians and wild animals?”
+
+Rawlins laughed heartily. “Wildest animals are the natives,” he
+assured them, “and the old Spaniards killed off the last poor Indian
+over two hundred years ago.” Then, a moment later, he continued: “By
+the way, speaking of Spaniards, that old galleon I told you about is
+right over yonder. See that line of reefs? Well, she’s just on the
+outer edge of those in about 20 to 25 fathoms.”
+
+“Oh, Gosh! why won’t Dad let us stop and go down to it?” cried Tom.
+
+“Say, perhaps he will!” exclaimed Frank jubilantly. “He wouldn’t
+before, but now he’s in no hurry—they can’t go in shore until
+dark—and I’ll bet he’d just as lief wait out here as anywhere else.
+Let’s ask him.”
+
+At first Mr. Pauling refused to listen to the boys’ pleading, but when
+Rawlins pointed out that they had time to kill and added that he
+personally would like to have a look at the old wreck, Tom’s father
+yielded.
+
+“Very well then,” he agreed, “but don’t waste any time. We’ll expect
+you to bring up a fortune, Rawlins. Let us know when you go down so we
+can see the fun.”
+
+“And for heaven’s sake take care of yourself,” added Mr. Henderson.
+“If anything happens to you where will we be?”
+
+“Oh, I’ll be safe enough,” laughed Rawlins. “I’m safer under water
+than on top any day.”
+
+“Come on then!” cried Tom, “let’s get our suits ready.”
+
+“No, boys, you’re not going down here,” declared Rawlins. “Too deep.”
+
+“Oh, confound it all!” cried Frank. “Everything has to be spoiled.
+What’s the use if we can’t go down to the old wreck?”
+
+“You can look through the underseas ports and watch me,” Rawlins
+reminded them. “Honest, I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but this is
+real diving. I’ll have to use my regulation suit here too. Too deep
+for those self-contained ones.”
+
+For a time the disappointed boys sulked, but presently, realizing that
+there were limits to what they could expect to do and also realizing
+that they were more than fortunate to be able to watch Rawlins as he
+investigated the old galleon, their high spirits returned and they
+became as interested, excited and enthusiastic as ever.
+
+The submarine was now close to the spot where Rawlins stated the wreck
+had been before and he busied himself getting out his suit, oiling and
+testing the air pump and making everything ready while the submarine
+slowed down and came to a stop.
+
+“It’s a heap easier now—with a submarine,” said Rawlins, as he slid
+back the heavy metal cover to the thick glass port. “We can look about
+a bit and locate the wreck before I go down. Last time it took us
+nearly a month to find it. You see, it’s too deep to see bottom from
+the surface and—look here, boys—ever see anything prettier than
+that?”
+
+The boys crowded to the small port and stared out It was like the
+sea-gardens at Nassau multiplied and glorified a thousandfold. The
+submarine was now submerged and floating at a slight angle a few
+fathoms above the bottom and her powerful electric lights, such as
+Rawlins used in his sub-sea photography, were casting a brilliant beam
+of soft greenish light upon the ocean floor and the marvelous growths
+which covered it. The boys, dry and safe within the submarine, could
+scarcely believe they actually were gazing at the bottom of the sea.
+It was more like some strange and marvelous painting or, as Tom said,
+like the models on exhibition in the American Museum. It was all
+unreal, weird, beautiful, unbelievable. On all sides was a dim, green
+void, with half-revealed forms, shadowy outlines and indistinct
+objects showing through it as through a heavy green curtain, while the
+beam of light, stabbing through the water gave the effect of the
+curtain being drawn aside to disclose the beauties and wonders behind
+it. Back and forth in this light clear space flitted gaudy fishes;
+fishes of grotesque form; fishes with long, trailing opalescent-hued
+fins; fishes large and fishes small; and once the boys cried out in
+momentary alarm and drew quickly back from the glass as an ugly
+hammer-headed shark, six feet or more in length, bumped his
+clumsy-looking head against the port.
+
+“Gosh! Mr. Rawlins, aren’t you afraid to go down among those fellows?”
+cried Tom.
+
+“Not in the least,” Rawlins assured him. “They won’t touch a man in a
+diving suit—come up and rub their backs against him or stare at him,
+but never anything else. They’re a blamed nuisance at times—get in a
+man’s way, but we can drive ’em off by hitting them. Look, there’s a
+moray!”
+
+As he spoke, an immense greenish, snake-like eel wriggled past so
+closely the boys could see his throbbing gills.
+
+“They’re worse than sharks,” Rawlins told them. “Bite anything and
+savage as tigers. Good to eat though.”
+
+But the boys found the other wonders and beauties even more
+interesting than the fishes. Gigantic cup-shaped sponges grew upwards
+for six or seven feet. Immense sea-fans and sea-plumes formed a forest
+that might have been of futuristic palms. Huge orange, green and
+chocolate domes of brain corals were piled like titanic many-colored
+fruits. There were great toadstool-like mushroom corals of lavender,
+pink and yellow and everywhere, above all, the wide-branching,
+tree-like madrepores or stag-horn corals of dull fawn-brown. Back and
+forth among this forest under the sea darted schools of tiny
+jewel-like fishes; great pink conchs crawled slowly about; a little
+flock of butterfly squids shot past, gleaming like bits of burnished
+metal in the light; ugly long-legged giant spider crabs scuttled into
+their shelters among the corals and everywhere the ocean’s floor was
+dotted with huge starfishes, brilliant sponges, big black,
+sea-cucumbers and crabs and shells by hundreds.
+
+“Jove, it’s the most wonderful sight I’ve ever seen!” declared Mr.
+Henderson who, with Mr. Pauling, was also gazing at this wonderland
+beneath the sea.
+
+“Yes, simply marvelous!” agreed the other. “Boys, I’m mighty glad I
+gave in. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. No wonder you’re
+fascinated by a diver’s life, Rawlins!”
+
+“But I want to see that wreck!” cried Tom. “Do you suppose it’s gone?”
+
+“Ought to be pretty close to it by now,” said Rawlins. “Yes, there
+’tis! See it, boys? Look, over beyond that big bunch of sea-fans!”
+
+The boys strained their eyes in the direction Rawlins pointed, but
+could see nothing that even remotely resembled a wreck.
+
+“No, I can’t see it,” admitted Tom, at last.
+
+“Neither can I,” said Frank.
+
+“Why it’s plain as can be,” declared Rawlins. “Can’t miss it.” Then,
+an idea occurring to him, he burst into a hearty laugh. “Why, I
+suppose you’re looking for a ship!” he cried. “Masts and stern and
+rails and all! Nothing like that, boys. This old hooker’s been down
+here a couple of hundred years and more. She’s just a mass of coral
+now. See that sort of mound there—that one with that lop-sided
+stag-horn coral growing out of one side?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I see that,” declared Tom. “Is that the wreck?”
+
+“I’ll say ’tis,” Rawlins assured him. “Well, we’re near enough. Too
+bad we can’t let the old sub down to the bottom, but it’s too rough. I
+guess she’ll be pretty steady here though—isn’t any current or those
+sea-rods would be waving.”
+
+“But I don’t understand how you can go down with life-lines and things
+when the submarine is under water,” said Frank. “I thought we’d have
+to be on the surface.”
+
+“And I don’t see why it makes any difference about the suits, no
+matter how deep it is,” added Tom.
+
+“I don’t use life-lines and ‘things’ when I’m diving from a sub,”
+explained Rawlins. “In the first place they’re no use. When a fellow
+goes down from the surface he can’t be seen and so he has to have a
+signal line and a rope for hauling him up. But down here I can come
+back to the sub whenever I please and just climb into the air-lock on
+the ladder, and if I want to signal I can do it without any line—just
+wave my hands—as you can see me all the time. The airhose runs from a
+connection in the air-lock and I carry a light line along just as a
+safeguard and have a man in the air-lock holding it. Of course I
+_could_ go down in one of the self-contained suits, but the
+pressure’s pretty big down here and it’s no fun working in one of them
+when the pressure outside is just about the limit of what I can get
+with the oxygen generators. It’s different with the air—I don’t have
+to bother with that—the pump looks after it.”
+
+“Oh, I understand,” declared Frank, “but who’s going to tend the line
+for you?”
+
+“Sam,” replied Rawlins. “He’s worked with me before and he’s a
+wonderful diver and swimmer. You see the pressure in the air-lock is
+the same or even a little more than outside and it takes a chap who’s
+used to deep-sea diving to stand that. Sam could go down here without
+a suit—but not for long of course—pressure’s too great. Well, so
+long. Keep your eyes on the wreck and you’ll see me out there among
+the fishes in a minute.”
+
+Rawlins entered the air-lock with Sam and presently the boys saw
+him—a grotesque, clumsy figure in the baggy diving suit and big round
+helmet—laboriously making his way along the bottom almost below them.
+Turning, he waved his hand reassuringly and then resumed his way
+towards the coral-encrusted wreck.
+
+“Doesn’t he look funny!” cried Tom, “leaning way forwards and half
+swimming along, and aren’t those bubbles coming up from his
+escape-valve pretty? Say, it must be fun to be way down there. Gosh, I
+wish we could have gone!”
+
+“It takes years of practice to enable a man to stand that pressure,”
+his father informed him, “and even expert professional divers cannot
+keep it up long. If you boys should go down here you’d probably be
+terribly injured—your ear drums burst and perhaps your eyes ruptured.
+A diver begins in shoal water and gradually goes deeper and deeper and
+Rawlins has been at it since he was a youngster.”
+
+“Yes,” commented Mr. Henderson, “and some men never can dive. Divers
+are born not made.”
+
+“Well it’s the next best thing to be able to watch him,” said Frank
+philosophically. “Oh, look, Tom, he’s nearly at the wreck!”
+
+Rawlins was, as Frank said, close to the mound of coral and sea-growth
+that he had told the boys was the wreck of the old galleon and a
+moment later they saw him stoop and begin working with the heavy
+crowbar he carried.
+
+Breathessly the boys watched, thrilled with the idea of thus seeing a
+deep-sea diver at work and speculating on whether he would find
+treasure. Then they saw Rawlins suddenly start back, almost losing his
+balance and in recovering himself the crowbar dropped to the ocean’s
+floor. The next instant Tom uttered a frightened, horrified cry. From
+among the mass of corals a long, snake-like object had shot forth and
+had whipped itself around Rawlins’ body like a living rope. They saw
+Rawlins grasp it, strain at it, and then, before the white-faced,
+terrified watchers in the submarine fully realized what was taking
+place, another and another of the livid, serpent-like things were
+writhing and coiling about the diver.
+
+“It’s an octopus!” cried Mr. Pauling.
+
+“Oh, oh! He’ll be killed!” screamed Frank. “Oh, isn’t it terrible?”
+
+But they were helpless, powerless to aid. All they could do was to
+gaze fascinated and terror-stricken at the awful tragedy, the fearful
+struggle taking place there at the bottom of the sea before their very
+eyes.
+
+And now they could see the loathsome creature itself. Its great pulpy
+body, now pink, now blue, now green; its huge, lusterless, unwinking
+eyes—an enormous creature whose sucker-clad tentacles encircled
+Rawlins in a grip of steel, binding his signal line and making it
+useless, reaching about as if to grasp the air-hose, swaying like
+serpents about to strike before his helmet. Madly the diver was
+fighting for his life, bracing himself against the corals, grappling
+with the slimy tentacles, wrenching his hands and arms free. Then the
+terrified, breathless watchers gazing at the nightmare-like scene saw
+Rawlins lift his arm and through the water they saw the blade of his
+sheath knife flashing in the beam of light. Again and again he brought
+it slashing down, hacking, stabbing at the clinging tentacles. Bits of
+the writhing flesh dropped off at the blows and a cloud of inky water
+that shot from the repulsive creature’s syphon for a moment obscured
+the scene. But the savage blows, the slashing cuts, the lopped-off
+tentacles seemed not to affect the giant devil fish in the least and
+slowly, steadily, inexorably Rawlins was being drawn closer and closer
+to the cruel eyes, the soft toad like body and the wicked, parrot-like
+beak.
+
+The boys screamed aloud, the men muttered under their breath. Members
+of the crew, attracted by the frightened cries, rushed to the port and
+peered horrified at the terrible scene being enacted under the sea.
+
+Rawlins’ fate seemed sealed, he was now bound fast by the eight
+tentacles, even the hand with the knife was wrapped around by the
+relentless, sucker-armed things.
+
+And then, from below the submarine, a strange shape darted through the
+water—a dark form which, for an instant, the boys took for some huge
+fish.
+
+Straight towards the struggling diver it sped and as the light fell
+upon it the boys shouted and yelled, the men cheered, for it was no
+fish but a man! A man, naked and black, swimming at utmost speed—Sam
+the negro hurrying to Rawlins’ aid!
+
+Hardly had those at the ports realized it was Sam before he was at the
+scene of battle. For a brief instant he poised motionless above the
+diver and his antagonist and then, quickly and gracefully as a seal,
+he plunged straight down at the octopus. There was a flash of steel in
+the light, the water was blackened with the polyp’s ink. Through the
+thick, murky, discolored water only confused, rapidly moving forms
+were visible and scarcely breathing, those within the submarine gazed
+and waited. Would Sam be able to kill the creature? Could he hold out
+long enough to win the battle? Could he free Rawlins?
+
+Then as the water cleared and the light once more penetrated the
+depths, rousing cheers went up from the watchers, they laughed
+hysterically, tears rolled down their cheeks, for slowly, painfully
+but surely, Sam was coming back, while behind him, half dragging
+himself along, but apparently uninjured, was Rawlins. Upon the bottom
+where he had stood a shapeless squirming, pulpy mass was all that
+remained of the octopus and about it, swarmed voracious fishes
+snapping at the dying, flaccid tentacles. The battle was over. Rawlins
+was safe. Sam had won. Naked, armed only with a knife, he had attacked
+the monster of the sea, had literally hacked it to bits and had
+returned unharmed.
+
+“Gosh!” cried Tom. “Gosh!” and unable to say another word, utterly
+overcome, he slumped down upon a cushioned seat faint from the strain
+he had undergone.
+
+Frank swayed unsteadily and sank down beside his chum while Mr.
+Pauling and the others wiped their wet brows, licked their dry lips
+and grasped one another’s hands in silent thanksgiving, too overcome
+to speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+LOST
+
+
+Long before they had recovered from their fright, from the strain and
+the reaction, Rawlins appeared, his face pale, but with its habitual
+cheerful grin and half-carrying Sam.
+
+“I’ll say that was a close call!” he exclaimed, as he placed the negro
+on a seat. “Say, get some brandy or whisky quick! Sam’s all in.”
+
+As the others crowded about, laughing, congratulating, expressing
+their relief and joy at his escape and forcing liquor between Sam’s
+blue lips, Rawlins was busily chafing and rubbing the man’s cold body
+and limbs, slapping his chest and back and giving orders.
+
+“Get some hot coffee,” he commanded, “and blankets. He’ll be all right
+soon. Went to pieces in the air-lock—couldn’t help me off with the
+suit and had a devil of a time with it. Bully boy, Sam! There, old
+sport, how do you feel?”
+
+A sickly smile spread over Sam’s haggard features.
+
+“Ah’s all right, Chief,” he whispered. “Did Ah finish tha’ sea-cat,
+Chief?”
+
+“I’ll say you did!” cried Rawlins. “Cut him clean in two! Blamed lucky
+for me too. Here, take this coffee!”
+
+Sam gulped down the steaming coffee and was wrapped in the blankets
+and slowly the color came back to his lips and he took deep, long
+breaths.
+
+“You’re all right now,” declared Rawlins. “Be fit as ever and ready
+for another scrap with an octopus before dinner. Say, Sam, I
+can’t——” Rawlins swayed, his face went white as a sheet and he
+grasped wildly at a stanchion. Willing hands seized him and carried
+him to a couch where, for five minutes, they worked feverishly over
+him before he opened his eyes and regained consciousness.
+
+“By Jove, but you’ve got grit!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. “Nerviest
+thing I ever saw! Imagine going through that horror and then bringing
+Sam in and tending to him before you gave in! Rawlins, old man, you’re
+a marvel!”
+
+Rawlins grinned and rose to a sitting posture.
+
+“Guess I was a bit knocked out and shaken,” he admitted. “I’ll say
+it’s no sport fighting a darned octopus!” and then, with a whimsical
+smile, “Say, I’ll be able to make a corking film of an octopus next
+time. I thought that last one of mine was a peach, but it didn’t have
+enough pep to it. Never thought when I invented that rubber beast I’d
+ever get in a scrap with a real one.”
+
+“Oh, it was terrible!” cried Tom. “How can you joke about it?”
+
+“Easy to laugh as to cry,” replied Rawlins. “All’s well that ends
+well, you know. I guess you’re glad you didn’t go down now.”
+
+“You bet we are!” declared Frank. “Gee! I don’t believe I’ll ever go
+down again. I’d imagine there were devil fish waiting for me
+everywhere. Ugh!”
+
+“Never had to tackle one before,” said Rawlins, “and I’ve been diving
+for years. Well, I guess I’m O.K. I’ll get busy on that wreck again.”
+
+“Not for one minute!” said Mr. Pauling decisively. “You’ll just forget
+that wreck—at least as long as you are with me. If you feel all right
+we’ll get out of here as quick as we can and get some fresh air—I’m
+stifling and my heart’s still beating like a trip hammer.”
+
+“Well, I suppose you’re the boss,” grinned Rawlins, “but it’s a shame
+to clear out with that old galleon and a lot of loot so handy.”
+
+“Bother the galleon and her loot!” burst out Mr. Henderson. “No more
+nonsense on this trip. We’ve had enough of under-sea work to last a
+lifetime.”
+
+Ten minutes later, the submarine was floating on the surface and
+standing in the bright warm sunshine on deck, with the placid blue sea
+about and the rich green island beyond, the boys could scarcely
+believe that they had really undergone such a frightful experience. It
+seemed like some unreal, horrible nightmare, but the round raw spots
+on Rawlins’ hands where the creature’s suckers had gripped him were
+proof of the reality of the battle, and every time the boys thought of
+it they shuddered and cold chills ran up and down their spines.
+
+Rawlins made little of it, joking and laughing as if such matters were
+of everyday occurrence, while Sam, fully recovered from the effects of
+his daring rescue, refused to be considered a hero and was ill at ease
+and embarrassed whenever a word of praise or commendation was
+expressed.
+
+Very soon Santo Domingo was so close that Rawlins advised running
+submerged and, pointing out a low valley-like expanse extending far
+into the hills, declared it to be the entrance to Caña Honda Bay. With
+the periscope just visible above the sea, and hugging the shores as
+closely as they dared, the submarine was run slowly into the narrow
+opening while the boys, stationed at their instruments, listened for
+the faintest hint of a whirring screw in their vicinity. But no sound
+broke the silence under the sea and no sign of another craft was seen.
+
+Well up the bay and behind a densely wooded point the sub-sea craft
+was run into a smaller bay and then, emerging, Rawlins piloted her
+through a crooked river-like channel until safely screened back of a
+low sandy beach covered with a grove of coconut trees.
+
+“We’re pretty safe here, I think,” he announced. “I came here once
+with a party of scientists and we camped here when we were on that
+trip looking for the wreck yonder. If the 'reds’ are hanging out near
+here they’ll be over the other side of the bay, I think. Those hills
+over there are full of caves and it’s a wild country. Just the place
+for such a gang. We can keep an eye on the entrance and the channel
+from here and go snooping around after dark and maybe pick up a radio
+message or see a fire or smoke.”
+
+“You’ve selected an ideal spot,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “Safe harbor,
+fresh coconuts, a nice beach for bathing and safely hidden. I don’t
+know how we could get on without you, Rawlins.”
+
+“Well, if I hadn’t got the crazy idea of coming down here you wouldn’t
+have been here,” the diver reminded him. “So you couldn’t have been
+without me. But I’m mighty glad I’ve helped a little.”
+
+“How about fresh water?” asked Mr. Henderson. “Ours is getting pretty
+low, you know.”
+
+“There’s a stream back on the mainland—just over by that point,”
+replied Rawlins, “and there’s a sort of inner harbor here too—fine
+place for fishing and hunting, though of course we can’t hunt—and
+beyond that a big mangrove swamp that runs clean around to the
+opposite side of the bay. By going through that we could sneak over
+around the caves without being seen. Devil of a place to get through,
+though—regular labyrinth. A man would get lost there in a jiffy
+without a compass.”
+
+It was now nearly sundown and preparations were at once made for the
+night.
+
+It was agreed that no time was to be lost. That as soon as darkness
+came Rawlins and Mr. Pauling with one of the boys should go out in a
+boat carrying a receiving instrument and the resonance coil while the
+others remained in the submarine and listened for any sounds or
+messages which might come to them.
+
+“The trouble is we cannot communicate safely,” remarked Mr. Pauling.
+“That’s the one great shortcoming of this radio. Any one within range
+can hear. I don’t know much about the technical end as you know, but I
+can see that the man who invents a method of communicating by wireless
+secretly, or so others can’t hear him, will make his fortune and
+revolutionize the science.”
+
+“You’re quite right,” agreed Mr. Henderson. “That’s why it will never
+take the place of wire telegraphy or telephone—that is, until such a
+discovery as you suggest is made. However, the very fact that it’s not
+possible to keep messages secret at present is to our advantage now.
+It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, you know.”
+
+“We’ll hope we don’t need to communicate,” said Rawlins. “I don’t see
+why we should. If we hear anything and locate the gang we can come
+back here, slip away and call Disbrow. We’re in no shape to make an
+attack by ourselves.”
+
+“I’d like to know why not?” demanded Tom. “We could turn the gun on
+’em and we’ve got rifles and pistols and everything.”
+
+“Sure,” laughed Rawlins. “I suppose we’d pick up that two-inch gun and
+lug it over in the small boat and dump it down in their front yard
+while they looked on. No, Son, if they got wise to us being here
+they’d either clean out by their sub or scatter in the bush or go for
+us tooth and nail. A crowd that don’t hesitate to try to torpedo us
+isn’t going to stop at a scrap and the Lord alone knows how many of
+’em there are.”
+
+“Rawlins is right,” declared Mr. Pauling. “If we locate them we must
+plan to make a concerted raid, surrounding them on all sides and with
+a large enough force to make resistance useless. The man we want may
+or may not be there, but we must be absolutely sure to get him if he
+is. If he gives us the slip our troubles will have just commenced.”
+
+“Yes, I suppose that’s so,” admitted Tom. “Gosh, I hope we do find
+them.”
+
+Everything was now in readiness, the night was inky black, not a
+glimmer of light showed upon the submarine and silently embarking in
+the small boat, Rawlins, Mr. Pauling, Tom and two of the crew pushed
+off and were instantly swallowed up in the darkness.
+
+Sitting at his instruments and listening for any chance sound or
+message was dull work for Frank and his mind was constantly on what
+Tom and the others might be doing. Once, very faint and far away, he
+thought he heard the whirring sound of a screw, but Bancroft, who
+listened in at Frank’s request, declared he did not believe it was.
+
+“At any rate,” he said, “if 't is, it’s a long way off. Maybe some
+ship outside the bay.”
+
+Then followed absolute silence. Bancroft, at the regular instruments,
+picked up some dot and dash messages flying back and forth between
+passing ships and the big station at Santo Domingo City, but there was
+nothing suspicious, nothing that hinted of the proximity of the men
+they sought. Slowly the time dragged on, hour after hour passed by.
+Frank yawned and almost dozed while sitting at the instruments. Would
+the boat never return? Had they heard or seen anything? How, Frank
+wondered, could Rawlins find his way in such dense blackness? Would
+they get lost in the swamp he had mentioned? Suppose they never
+returned? Perhaps they might be captured or killed by the outlaws. The
+thought startled him. It had not occurred to him before that there was
+any danger. But once that current of thought was started it ran riot
+in his brain. He grew nervous, excited, worried, and Bancroft could
+not cheer him or disabuse him of the premonition that something
+serious had happened.
+
+“Oh, you’d hear ’em, if anything happened,” declared the operator.
+“They’d call you or something. If they were discovered there’d be no
+need of keeping quiet. Trouble is, your nerves aren’t over the
+excitement of this afternoon yet. Cheer up. They’re all right. No news
+is good news, you know.”
+
+“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” admitted Frank, “but just the same I’m
+worried.”
+
+Then to his ears came a faint sound; before he could grasp its meaning
+he heard footsteps overhead and a moment later Rawlins and Tom
+descended the ladder with Mr. Pauling close behind them and Mr.
+Henderson, who had been keeping watch on deck, bringing up the rear.
+
+“Gee, I’m glad you’re back!” cried Frank. “I thought sure something
+had happened to you! Did you find them?”
+
+“Not a sign!” replied Rawlins. “Don’t believe they’ve got over here
+yet.”
+
+“Gosh, but it was black!” exclaimed Tom, “and weird. What did you
+think could happen to us?”
+
+Frank, rather ashamed of his unwarranted fears, tried to explain, but
+Rawlins laughed.
+
+“Don’t you worry over anything of that sort,” he told him. “We can
+take care of ourselves.”
+
+“And, as Bancroft said, if anything went wrong we’d let you know,”
+said Mr. Pauling. “Remember, all of you, if you have trouble or are
+attacked or anything goes wrong don’t hesitate to call for help or
+give information. Safety first is the rule and it’s better to lose the
+game by having the rascals hear us than to come to grief ourselves. I
+should never forgive myself if anything serious happened to any of us
+through lack of communicating with the means at hand, regardless of
+the results as far as catching the criminals is concerned.”
+
+“Didn’t you hear anything on the detector?” asked Tom.
+
+“Nothing but the splash of your oars when you came and went and, yes,
+I heard something once I thought was a screw, but is was too faint to
+be sure and Mr. Bancroft didn’t think it was.”
+
+“Funny,” commented Mr. Pauling. “Of course we didn’t go very far—it
+was slow work getting about in the dark—and we had to turn back as
+the moon began to rise. They are either not here or else were not
+talking through their instruments. To-morrow night we’ll have an hour
+longer and can go farther.”
+
+“I think the very fact that they were not conversing by radio proves
+one of two things,” declared Mr. Henderson. “Either the submarine has
+not 'come within speaking distance or else all are ashore together
+when there would be no need of talking by wireless. I imagine that, as
+they know the destroyer is looking for them, and are aware that we or
+those on the destroyer have some form of under-sea radio, they would
+be very cautious about using it and would do so only when absolutely
+necessary.”
+
+“Yes, and they’ll lay low for a while too,” said Rawlins. “They know
+about the raid in New York and about Smernoff’s escape and they wont
+try any of their tricks for a time you can bet. They’ll just listen
+and say nothing and wait until the excitement blows over. It’ll be
+like stalking a deer to find ’em.”
+
+“Yes, or like looking for a needle in a haystack,” agreed Mr. Pauling,
+“although I should not be surprised if they are occupying one of those
+caves you mention. Our best plan will be to make a thorough search and
+trust to luck.”
+
+The night passed uneventfully and the boys awoke the next morning
+feeling as if the adventures of the previous days were all a dream.
+Nothing could be done during the day and so, after breakfast, they
+paddled to the beach, had a splendid swim, gathered coconuts to their
+hearts’ content and came back to lunch with hearty appetites. In the
+afternoon they went with the two boats to the stream for fresh water
+and the boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves wandering about in the
+jungle while the men filled the casks. They had never been in a
+tropical forest before and they were filled with wonder at every turn.
+The enormous trees, with their wide-spreading buttress-like roots and
+the drapery of lianas; the great, broad-leaved air plants and gay
+orchids; the innumerable palms and brilliant flowers were fascinating.
+They exclaimed with delight at the gaudy butterflies, the tiny humming
+birds and bright-plumaged tanagers and were tremendously interested in
+the hosts of big busy ants carrying bits of leaves in their jaws and
+moving across the forest floor in an endless procession. Rawlins told
+them these were “drougher ants” and stated that the scientists with
+whom he had visited the spot before said they used the bits of leaves
+for propagating a species of fungus in their nests—“sort of ants’
+mushrooms” as he put it—on which they fed.
+
+Once the boys were puzzled by a shrill, rather pretty song which
+seemed to issue from the sky and in vain they searched for the singer
+until Frank’s sharp eyes spied a tiny atom perched on the topmost leaf
+of a tall palm—a very midget of a bird—a diminutive humming bird no
+larger than a bumblebee, whose fluttering wings and trembling throat
+proved him to be the singer. Again, they were startled by harsh,
+discordant cries and were just in time to see a flock of green and red
+parrots winging swiftly away from a tree where they had been feeding.
+It was all very novel and strange and to the boys, who for so long had
+been confined to the submarine. It was a most delightful change, and
+even after the casks had been filled and the boats were ready to
+depart they insisted on remaining, telling the men to come back just
+before sundown.
+
+With nightfall, the small boat again started forth on its search,
+Frank this time going with the party while Tom remained on board, but
+once again they returned unsuccessful.
+
+The following day Rawlins suggested going for a fishing trip and with
+the two boys rowed up through the narrow, winding channel to the inner
+harbor and for several hours caught fish as fast as they could bait
+their hooks and drop them into the dark water.
+
+Then, with enough fish and to spare, Rawlins rowed them into the
+dismal mangrove swamp among the maze of trunks, aerial roots and
+winding channels. This was another new and wonderful experience to the
+boys. It was low tide and between the densely growing mangroves the
+mud was exposed and with countless brilliant scarlet and yellow crabs
+scuttling about everywhere, across the mud, up and down the tree
+trunks, over the roots, even on the overhanging branches. Many of the
+trees with their sprawling roots were overgrown with oysters and the
+boys gathered half a boatload of the bivalves. Rawlins too showed them
+how the mangroves spread and grew by means of the roots descending
+from the branches, how the slender but tough cable like roots
+supported the trees and bound all together into a compact mass and how
+the trees, ever growing out into the water and accumulating mud and
+drift about them, formed land.
+
+“Some day,” he declared, “this whole swamp will be dry land. After the
+mangroves come black-jacks and sea-grapes, then palms and other trees,
+and at last it will be all forest. I’ve seen lots of places like
+that.”
+
+There was bird life in plenty in the swamp too. Green and blue herons,
+white egrets and scarlet-faced white ibis that flapped up at the
+boat’s approach and stared curiously at the intruders, uttering
+half-frightened, hoarse croaks like giant frogs.
+
+“Say, it would be fine hunting here,” declared Frank when, a little
+later, a flock of tree ducks whirred up and perched upon the trees
+within easy gunshot. “It’s too bad we can’t shoot. Roast duck would go
+fine for a change.”
+
+“I’ll say it would,” agreed Rawlins, “but a fellow could hear a
+gunshot miles off here and it would give us away in a minute.”
+
+Night after night the boat left the submarine, ever going farther and
+farther in its search, but without results, and each day the boys
+amused themselves by exploring the adjoining woods and swamps,
+sometimes with Rawlins, and sometimes by themselves.
+
+At first Mr. Pauling had objected to the two youngsters going off
+alone, but after they had promised always to carry a compass and to be
+very careful he consented, on the condition that they did not go far
+and always took along their radio set.
+
+“Not only that you may use it in case of real need,” he explained,
+“but also as it is always possible that you may hear messages.
+Remember and don’t use the set unless absolutely compelled to, but
+don’t hesitate if in danger or lost.”
+
+On their first two excursions they enjoyed themselves hugely. They had
+caught plenty of fish, explored a small island in the swamp and found
+a colony of egrets and herons and had even seen a few of the
+wonderful, pink, roseate spoonbills. Also, they had been terribly
+startled when a big broad snout broke through the water a few yards
+from the boat and with a terrific bellow plunged out of sight.
+
+Rawlins laughed heartily when they told of this. “Just a manatee or
+seacow,” he said. “Perfectly harmless creatures and usually very shy.
+I’ll bet he was more frightened than you two boys.”
+
+On the third day, hoping to again catch sight of a manatee, and intent
+on exploring another small island they had seen, the boys set forth in
+high spirits, taking along a lunch and planning to be away until
+afternoon. Rawlins had planned to go with them, promising to show them
+an alligator’s nest, but at the last minute changed his mind and
+decided to tramp inland and ascend a high hill with the hopes of
+sighting smoke which might divulge the presence of the men they
+sought.
+
+For a time all went well with the boys. They paddled to the portion of
+the swamp they had already visited, took compass bearings and
+continued on their way. They found the island they had sighted and
+spent several hours exploring it and, finding a pleasant sandy beach
+on the farther side, decided to eat lunch there. Returning to their
+boat they rowed around to the beach and, seated in the shade of the
+trees, ate their midday meal while laughing and joking over the clumsy
+pelicans diving and fishing in an open area of water a short distance
+away. Suddenly, from beyond a thick grove of mangroves, came the
+startling bull-like bellow of a manatee.
+
+“Come on!” cried Tom. “Let’s go and find him. He’s just back of that
+point. If we sneak up on him carefully we’ll see him!”
+
+Hurrying to the boat they tumbled in and rowed as silently as possible
+to the point and peered beyond. There was no sign of a manatee, but
+ever-widening ripples on the calm water showed where some creature had
+been a few moments before and presently, from up a narrow lane of
+water, they heard a snort and a short bellow again.
+
+“He’s gone up that channel,” declared Frank in a whisper. “Come along!
+He’s bound to come up. Gee! I _would_ like to see one. Mr.
+Rawlins says they’re eight or ten feet long and with skin like an
+elephant.”
+
+Paying little heed to where they were going the two interested and
+excited boys, keen on their chase of the elusive manatee, paddled up
+the winding channel among the mangroves while ever just beyond, they
+could hear the snorts or the rumbling bellow of the creature they were
+following.
+
+Presently they swung around a bunch of the trees and found themselves
+upon a small lake-like lagoon several hundred acres in extent and
+surrounded by the mangrove swamp.
+
+“I’ll bet he’s in here,” declared Tom. “Let’s sit still and watch.”
+
+Taking in their oars the boys sat motionless, gazing about the
+tranquil surface of the lagoon and watching for the expected
+appearance of the sea-cow.
+
+Suddenly Frank gripped Tom’s arm. “Look!” he whispered. “There he is.
+See, crawling up on that mud bank!”
+
+“Gosh! that’s so,” agreed Tom and fascinated, the two boys watched as
+a big, bulky, black creature emerged from the dark still water and
+slowly and with great effort drew himself onto the wet mud flat among
+the trees.
+
+“Jimmy, isn’t he a queer beast!” exclaimed Frank in an undertone.
+“Looks like a seal; and what a funny head!”
+
+“I wish we were closer,” whispered Tom. “Don’t you suppose we could
+sneak nearer?”
+
+“Well, we can try,” agreed Frank. “We’ve seen all we can from here and
+if we do scare him we can see the way he dives. Come on.”
+
+Very cautiously, the boys slipped their oars into the water and
+silently edged the boat closer and closer to the unsuspecting
+creature.
+
+They had reached a point within a few rods of the manatee when the
+clumsy beast suddenly lifted his head, peered at them with his tiny
+eyes in a way which Tom afterwards said reminded him of Smernoff, and
+so quickly the boys could hardly follow his movements plunged into the
+water.
+
+“Gosh!” exclaimed Tom, “I didn’t suppose he could move so quickly. Oh,
+say, here he comes! Look!”
+
+The water where the manatee had drawn himself ashore was shallow and
+as he strove to reach deep water, frightened out of his few wits by
+the unexpected sight of the human beings, his broad back broke through
+the surface like the bottom of a capsized boat and to the boys’
+excited minds he seemed headed directly for them.
+
+Although Rawlins had assured them that manatees were gentle harmless
+creatures, yet here, alone in the big, silent, mysterious swamp, the
+huge beast seemed fraught with danger to the excited boys and they
+were fully convinced that he was attacking them. Grabbing the oars
+they strove frantically to get out of his way, but the boat was heavy
+and clumsy, the boys were frightened and in their mad efforts to avoid
+the oncoming sea-cow Frank’s oar slipped from the rowlocks, he lurched
+backwards and before he could recover himself or cry out he plunged
+overboard. Had Tom not been so terribly frightened he would have
+roared with laughter at the sight, for as Frank fell he pushed the
+boat aside and was now floundering about in water up to his waist,
+struggling madly to regain the boat while the manatee, absolutely
+crazy with fright at the splash and the appearance of the boy, tried
+to turn and escape in another direction and in his blind rush bumped
+into Frank’s legs and knocked him yelling and screaming head over
+heels.
+
+But at the time there was nothing humorous in the situation to either
+boy. To Frank, startled by the manatee in the first place and shocked
+and frightened at his unexpected plunge, the poor bewildered creature
+was a terrifying monster bent on destroying him, while to Tom, equally
+scared, the manatee’s sudden turn and collision with Frank appeared as
+a deliberate attack. But it was all over in an instant. The manatee
+gained deep water and disappeared and Frank, covered with mud and
+dripping with the water, wallowed to the boat and pulled himself in.
+
+“Whew!” he exclaimed as he caught his breath. “That _was_ a
+narrow escape!”
+
+Then for the first time Tom became sensible. “Say, I don’t believe he
+was after us at all!” he declared. “He was just frightened half to
+death. Golly, but you look scared!”
+
+“So would you if you’d been overboard with that big beast in the water
+alongside of you knocking you down,” responded Frank. “Come on, I’ve
+had enough of this, let’s go back.”
+
+“All right,” agreed Tom, “Hello, where did we come in?”
+
+As he glanced about he realized for the first time that he was not
+sure of his bearings. A dozen and more openings showed among the
+mangroves and try as he might he could not tell which was the one by
+which they had entered the lagoon.
+
+For an instant Frank looked about. “Over there,” he declared
+positively. “I remember that funny-shaped tree.”
+
+“All right then,” replied Tom, “I thought for a minute we were lost.”
+
+Feeling sure they were right the boys pulled into the narrow channel,
+chatting and laughing over their adventure until suddenly Tom stopped
+rowing and glanced about.
+
+“Say, this isn’t the place we came in,” he declared. “We never passed
+here. Look ahead—those stumps are right in the middle of the channel
+and we’d have seen them sure.”
+
+“Golly, I believe you’re right!” agreed Frank, “Say, we’ll have to go
+by compass.”
+
+Dropping his oars he reached into his pocket and slowly a strange
+expression of wonder, amazement, surprise and fright overspread his
+face.
+
+“It’s gone!” he said in an awe-struck tone. “It’s lost! Gosh, Tom, it
+must have dropped out of my pocket when I went overboard!”
+
+“Jiminy, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Tom. “But you needn’t be so
+frightened, we can go back and start over again.”
+
+“Yes, but suppose we can’t find the right lead?” objected Frank. “Then
+we will be in a pretty fix!”
+
+“Oh, we can find it,” declared Tom reassuringly. “If necessary we can
+try every one until we get the right one.”
+
+Turning their boat the boys pulled rapidly back to the lagoon and
+after a careful survey decided on another channel.
+
+“Hurrah, this _is_ right!” cried Frank after they had rowed some
+distance, “I remember that clump of reeds. We’re all right.”
+
+But after they had rowed steadily for an hour the two boys began to
+have doubts.
+
+“We ought to be out by that island by now,” declared Tom. “I’m
+beginning to think we’re wrong again.”
+
+“I was just getting that same way myself,” admitted Frank. “Say, if we
+don’t look out it’ll be dark before we get out of here.”
+
+“Well we can use the radio,” suggested Tom.
+
+“Not unless we have to,” replied Frank. “We still have time to go back
+and—hello, there’s the island now!”
+
+Glancing over his shoulder Tom saw that they had reached a bend in the
+waterway and beyond it loomed a wooded island. For a moment he gazed
+at it.
+
+“That’s not the island,” he announced. “Look, it’s got palms on it.”
+
+“Jehoshaphat, so it has!” exclaimed Frank. “Say, Tom, we’re lost.
+We’ll have to use the radio.”
+
+“Yes, I guess we will,” agreed Tom, “if we go back to that lagoon now
+we’ll never get out until after dark and Dad’ll be worried to death.”
+
+As he spoke, he uncovered the radio apparatus while Frank got out the
+small portable aerial and erected it over the boat, dropping the
+ground wire over the side into the water.
+
+Tom picked up the instruments, turned on the rheostat and was about to
+call into the microphone when his jaw dropped, his eyes seemed about
+to pop from his head and his hand shook.
+
+“What on earth’s the matter?” cried Frank, alarmed at the strange
+expression which had come over Tom’s face. “You look as if you’d seen
+a ghost.”
+
+“Hssh!” whispered Tom in a shaky voice. “I near them! I heard those
+Russians! Gosh, Frank! they must be close by!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+PRISONERS
+
+
+At Tom’s astounding announcement Frank sank limply onto a thwart. But
+the next instant he was up, and seizing the resonance coil, hastily
+connected it to the set in place of the aerial.
+
+“Now signal or tell me when you get them,” he said, as, holding the
+coil horizontally, he commenced moving it in a wide circle. For a time
+Tom was silent, motionless, listening with every sense and nerve taut;
+then, as the coil pointed to the right, he raised his hand.
+
+“There!” he whispered.
+
+Presently he took off his phones. “It’s no use listening,” he declared
+“we can’t tell what they’re saying. Oh, thunder, why isn’t Smernoff
+here?”
+
+“Well, we can call to the folks and tell them and they can let
+Smernoff listen,” said Frank.
+
+“Silly!” cried Tom petulantly. “If we called them, these Russians
+would hear and either clear out or shut up. And, besides, I don’t
+believe they could hear them on the submarine. I’ll bet that’s been
+the trouble all along. They���ve been too far off.”
+
+“Well, what can we do then?” demanded Frank. “If we call for help to
+get back, these fellows will hear us too. We’re in a nice fix just
+from chasing that confounded old manatee. First we get lost and then
+we hear this talking and can’t even tell about it.”
+
+“We might row along until we lose these fellows and then call the
+sub,” suggested Tom, “if we get so far away we can’t hear them the
+chances are they can’t hear us. Come on.”
+
+There seemed nothing else to do and so, choosing a channel that led
+away from the direction whence the sounds had come, the boys rowed
+steadily for some time. Then they ceased rowing and picking up the
+coil Frank held it while Tom listened at the set.
+
+For a space no sounds came to his ears and then he started so
+violently that Frank was almost upset.
+
+“Gosh all crickety, Frank!” he exclaimed. “Something’s wrong. They
+sound nearer than ever.”
+
+Puzzled and not knowing what to do, the boys sat motionless and
+speechless. They seemed to be surrounded by the voices coming from
+both directions.
+
+“Hello,” ejaculated Frank presently, “We’re moving. Look at those
+trees!”
+
+Tom glanced up. It was perfectly true, the trees were slowly but
+steadily slipping past them. They were drifting with the current.
+
+“It must be the tide,” declared Tom. “If ’tis we’ll be out of here
+soon and if we reach the bay——”
+
+“Hurrah, there’s the bay now!” cried Frank.
+
+A few hundred yards ahead they saw the sheet of open water through the
+trees and with light hearts grasped the oars and started to row
+forwards, but before they had taken a stroke Tom uttered a smothered
+cry, grasped Frank’s arm and pointed a trembling finger at the open
+water visible through a space between the mangroves.
+
+“Look, Frank! Look!” he whispered
+
+Less than two hundred yards distant, plainly visible and moored close
+to the edge of the swamp was a big submarine! No second glance was
+needed to verify Tom’s first suspicions; the shattered conning tower
+left no doubt as to the craft’s identity.
+
+Frank was too surprised and dumbfounded to speak and stood gazing with
+unbelieving eyes at the submarine so near to them and so totally
+unexpected.
+
+“Quick!” whispered Tom. “If we don’t watch out we’ll be drifting in
+sight on that open water. Grab a root or a branch while I push the
+boat in.”
+
+Seizing his oars, Tom pushed and pulled, forcing the boat close to the
+trees until Frank could grasp one of the swaying, descending roots and
+made the boat’s painter fast to it.
+
+“No wonder we heard ’em,” remarked Tom when the boat was secured.
+“That creek must turn around a corner and we didn’t notice it. Say,
+what are we going to do now? We can’t wait here all night and we don’t
+know where to go and we can’t call our folks without those fellows on
+this sub hearing us.”
+
+“And if we could call your father or Mr. Rawlins we couldn’t tell them
+where this submarine is because we don’t know ourselves,” replied
+Frank.
+
+“It’s awful funny we should find it by getting lost after they’ve been
+hunting for it night after night,” said Tom, “and now what good does
+it do? I don’t see but what we’ll have to go back the way we came and
+trust to luck.”
+
+“Huh!” snorted Frank, “and get lost worse than ever. If this sub came
+in here there must be deep water leading to sea and if we could sneak
+out we’d be sure to find the entrance to the bay and then we could
+call our people or hunt along the shore till we found that beach with
+the coconut grove.”
+
+“Yes, and a swell chance we have of sneaking out!” Tom reminded him.
+“Just as soon as we went out of here they’d spot us, sure.”
+
+“Well we’ll have to wait until dark, that’s all,” said Frank
+resignedly. “Of course they’ll worry, but like as not they’ll call for
+us and we may hear ’em. Then if these chaps hear, it wont be our
+fault. I know your father said not to hesitate to use radio if we had
+to, but he didn’t think we’d be alongside this submarine when we
+needed to. It’s not going to hurt us to wait here a while and we may
+see something.”
+
+Tom’s sharp “Hisst!” caused Frank to wheel about. A small boat was now
+beside the submarine and several men were climbing into it. Presently
+they pushed off, the men took to the oars and to the boys’ horror and
+amazement the boat headed directly toward their hiding place.
+
+“Gosh now it’s all up!” whispered Tom in terrified tones, “if they
+spot us or our boat it’ll be good night for us!”
+
+Breathlessly the boys crouched in their craft, shaking with fright,
+while nearer and nearer came the boat from the submarine. Then, when
+the two trembling boys felt that their hour had come, that in another
+instant they must be seen, the other boat swung to one side and
+disappeared in a narrow channel among the mangroves not fifty feet
+from where the boys were concealed. In a few moments the sound of the
+oars and the voices of the men grew faint in the distance and the boys
+raised themselves and with relieved, fast-beating hearts exchanged
+glances.
+
+“Did you see them?” exclaimed Tom. “My, weren’t they a tough looking
+lot!”
+
+“Regular pirates!” agreed Frank. “Did you see that big fellow with the
+red beard?”
+
+“You bet, and that thin one with the upturned blonde mustache! Gosh,
+he looked like the Crown Prince of Germany!”
+
+“That dark man was the worst,” declared Frank. “That Indian or nigger
+or whatever he was—the one with the earrings. Gee, I’d hate to have
+them get us.”
+
+“I never knew Russians were such ugly looking people,” said Tom, “and
+I thought they were all light. That fellow with the earrings was
+almost as black as Sam.”
+
+“They’re not all Russians,” Frank reminded him. “Don’t you remember
+Mr. Henderson and your father saying they were ‘reds’ from every point
+of the world and that the big chief of the lot isn’t even a German
+although he worked for Germany. And there was that man that died in
+New York, he was Irish.”
+
+“Yes, that’s so,” agreed Tom, “but say, let’s get out of here now.
+They’re gone and maybe we can sneak away. I don’t believe any one’s
+aboard the sub.”
+
+“Well, I do,” replied Frank, “I vote we turn back and see if we can’t
+find another channel that leads out below here. We can tell the right
+way to go by the tide flowing.”
+
+“Golly, that’s so,” assented Tom. “All right, but we’ve got to be
+careful.”
+
+Unfastening the boat, the two boys pulled slowly up the creek against
+the current, searching the mangroves on either side for an opening
+through which the tide was flowing. At last they sighted one and with
+elated minds turned into it. As they pulled along, Tom noticed that
+the mangroves were giving place to other trees, that the soft mud
+banks had changed to sand and that the shores were getting higher.
+
+“We must be getting out of the swamp,” declared Tom. “See! the banks
+are high and there are trees. We’ll soon be out.”
+
+The stream they were following was now running with quite a swift
+current and the boys noticed several side branches or smaller creeks
+flowing into it. They had just passed one of these and were about to
+turn a bend when with one accord they stopped rowing, their eyes grew
+wide with fright and they sat listening breathlessly. From ahead had
+come the sounds of human voices! Just around the bend were men!
+
+To go on meant certain discovery. What should they do? For a brief
+instant they had thought it might be some of their own party, but the
+next second they knew better, for the words that came to them were in
+a harsh guttural tongue—the same tongue they had so often heard
+through their receivers.
+
+Then, a sudden desire, an overwhelming curiosity to see the speakers,
+to learn where they were and what they were doing swept over Tom. With
+signs he motioned to Frank and an instant later they had run their
+boat into the side creek, had beached it noiselessly upon a narrow
+strip of soft earth and like snakes were wiggling silently up the bank
+among the trees. For some strange psychological reason they were no
+longer afraid; no longer did thoughts of the risk they ran enter their
+heads. Their entire thoughts were centered on seeing these men, on
+learning what they could, for they realized instinctively that they
+had stumbled upon the secret of the gang’s hiding place, that they had
+found what their friends had been searching for night after night and
+that, did they ever regain their own submarine, their knowledge would
+be invaluable.
+
+But they were cautious. They had no intention of being either seen or
+heard and before they reached the summit of the bank they carefully
+raised their heads and peered between the bases of the trees beyond.
+They had no means of knowing what lay beyond that bank. It might be
+open land, it might be brush or woods or it might be water. They knew,
+however, that the men must be close at hand and yet, when they peered
+through, they could scarcely repress surprised exclamations at what
+they saw.
+
+Within a dozen yards, a boat was lying beside the bank of the stream
+and just beyond, beneath a wide-spreading tree, two men stood talking.
+
+One was the big, red-bearded fellow the boys had seen in the boat as
+it left the submarine. The other, who half leaned upon a repeating
+rifle and who wore an immense automatic pistol at his belt, was tall,
+well-built and most striking in appearance. He was dressed in light,
+neat clothes and leather puttees; a broad-brimmed Panama hat was on
+his head, his face was tanned but clean shaven, except for a small,
+sharply upturned, iron-gray mustache, and in one eye he wore a
+monocle.
+
+So totally unlike his companions was he that the boys almost gasped in
+astonishment. There was nothing about him, nothing in his appearance,
+that spoke of lawlessness, of a thug or a criminal. Indeed, he was a
+most distinguished-looking gentleman, such a figure as one might
+expect to see at a meeting of scientists, at some state function, at a
+directors’ meeting in some bank or business house.
+
+But when he spoke the disillusionment was complete. His voice had the
+strangest sound the boys had ever heard. It was cold, grating,
+inexpressibly cruel and sent shivers down the boys’ backs as they
+listened. What he was saying they could not grasp, but that he was
+angry, that he was reprimanding the giant before him, the boys could
+tell by his tones, the hard reptilian glitter of his light gray eyes
+and by the expression of the red-bearded fellow.
+
+The latter, with hat in hand, fairly cowered before the other. His
+head was bent, his eyes downcast, his face and neck were flushed
+scarlet and his replies came in a low, humble, apologetic tone.
+
+Those in the waiting boat were silent, only the two uttered a single
+word. For a space the boys watched, fascinated, and then it occurred
+to Tom that they must get away, that somehow they had taken the wrong
+channel and that if they were to escape unseen they must leave at
+once, retrace their way to where they had seen the submarine and from
+there try to reach the entrance to the bay.
+
+Touching Frank’s arm, Tom signaled for him to withdraw and as silently
+as they had come the two boys slipped down the bank, shoved their boat
+noiselessly into the water and crept into it.
+
+With fast beating hearts they paddled towards the larger stream and
+had almost reached it, when, without warning, a flock of white ibis
+flapped up before them and with harsh croaks of alarm perched upon the
+topmost branches of the trees.
+
+The boys’ blood seemed to freeze in their veins and their hearts to
+cease beating. Would the men suspect something or somebody was near?
+Would they sweep down on the boys?
+
+Instantly, at the hoarse cries of the birds, the voices beyond the
+point had ceased and the boys knew the men were listening, straining
+their ears for a suspicious sound. To go on would be to court
+disaster. The least rattle of oars or squeal of rowlocks would be
+heard and even if no sound issued from the boat the slightest movement
+would again arouse the ibis overhead. There was nothing to do but
+wait, wait with panting, throbbing lungs and heart-racking fears for
+what might happen next.
+
+But the boys did not have long to wait. From beyond the intervening
+bank came the rattle of an oar, a sharp, gruff order, the splash of
+water. The men were coming! To remain where they were meant capture!
+There was but one thing to be done and that was to turn and pull as
+fast as they were able into the small creek in the one faint hope that
+the others might pass it by and look for the cause of the birds’
+fright upon the main stream. Quickly the boat was swung round and with
+deadly terror lending strength to their arms, the boys pulled
+frantically into the trees that formed an archway over the tiny
+waterway. But their ruse was in vain. The noise of the splashing oars
+had been heard. The disturbed water of the stream told the story of
+their flight to their enemies. Scarcely a score of yards had been
+covered when the boys heard the other boat following, heard the rough
+Slavic voices, and the frightened cries of the ibis. Madly they pulled
+and then, so close that the boys could not avoid it had they wished,
+the creek came to an abrupt end in a mass of foliage.
+
+Before the boys knew it was there they had bumped into it. Frank’s hat
+was swept off by a branch, sharp twigs and thorns tore their flesh,
+the boat rocked and grated, and realizing they were trapped the boys
+screamed in terror. Then, ere they grasped what had happened, their
+boat had shot through the screen of branches, they were in open water
+and looking back they saw the fallen trees which had spanned the
+creek. Before them the stream turned sharply to one side. Only a dozen
+strokes of the oars would bring them to the bend. They had almost
+reached it when shouts and curses came from beyond the fallen trees,
+they heard a crashing of the branches, the sharp reports of revolvers
+rang out and bullets whistled past the boys’ heads.
+
+The next moment the boat shot around the point and, driven to
+desperation, thinking only of outdistancing their pursuers, the boys
+rowed like mad, giving no heed to direction, no attention to their
+surroundings. Then they suddenly realized that the sounds of their
+pursuers had ceased, that there were no shouts, no splashing of oars,
+no rattle of wood on wood. What had happened? Why had the others
+abandoned the chase?
+
+And then it dawned upon Frank.
+
+“Gee Christopher!” he exclaimed under his breath, “that fallen tree
+saved us, Tom! Their big boat couldn’t get through. We’re safe!”
+
+“Gosh, I guess you’re right!” whispered Tom while the two still
+continued to row. “But I’m not sure we’re safe. There may be another
+way in here and perhaps they’ve gone around to cut us off. Say, we’ve
+got to row like the dickens and try to get so far they won’t find us!”
+
+“Yes, but we’re lost!” declared Frank. “We haven’t any idea where we
+are!”
+
+“I know it,” admitted Tom, “but we can’t help that now. After we’ve
+gone farther we’ll stop and call our folks. Those chaps back there
+can’t hear us and if their sub does, it won’t make any difference now.
+They know we’re here and we’ve got to get out.”
+
+For fully half an hour they toiled on. Their breath came in gasps,
+their arms ached, their hands were blistered and raw, but they dared
+not stop. Then, when they felt they could go no farther, their boat
+shot out from the mangroves and they found themselves floating on a
+broad lagoon.
+
+“Hurrah!” cried Frank, “we’re back where we saw the manatee!”
+
+“Golly, so we are!” agreed Tom. “Well, I’m going to use the radio now
+and see if we can get our people.”
+
+But all attempts to get their submarine proved fruitless. Over and
+over again they called. Hopefully and patiently Tom listened while
+Frank moved the resonance coil about, but not a sound came through the
+receivers.
+
+“It’s no use,” declared Tom at last. “We can’t get them. What on earth
+will we do?”
+
+“All we can do is to go on,” replied Frank in dejected tones. “It’s
+almost dark, we may find our way by luck.”
+
+“I can’t row another stroke,” declared Tom. “I’m all in. We might just
+as well lie here and rest, at least until the moon comes up. We can’t
+go on in the dark through these creeks.”
+
+“Yes, I suppose so,” agreed Frank who, now the excitement was over,
+felt utterly exhausted. “We’re as safe here as anywhere.”
+
+Drawing in their oars the two lonely, tired and hungry boys threw
+themselves in the bottom of the boat and too weary even to talk lay
+gazing up at the stars. The boat rocked gently to the tiny ripples on
+the lagoon; from the swamps came the droning chant of frogs and
+insects; fireflies flitted by like tiny meteors; the water lapped
+soothingly against the boat’s planks and lulled by the sounds and the
+soft night air the boys slept.
+
+Tom was the first to awake. For an instant he lay still, dazed, not
+remembering where he was and dimly aware of a strange, monotonous,
+resonant sound that somehow seemed to vibrate and throb through his
+brain, the boat and the night air.
+
+He nudged Frank. “Wake up!” he half whispered, “wake up! The moon’s
+out and we’ve got to be going on.”
+
+Then, as Frank sleepily opened his eyes and yawned, Tom spoke again.
+
+“Hear that noise?” he asked. “What is it?”
+
+Frank, now wide awake, sat up. He too heard the sound, a noise so
+unlike anything else he had ever heard that he felt cold shivers
+chasing up and down his spine.
+
+“I—I don’t know!” he stammered. “It’s uncanny—perhaps it’s a frog or
+a night bird or something. Say, where are we?”
+
+Then, for the first time, Tom noticed their surroundings. No longer
+were they on the lagoon. On either side, rose tall trees looming black
+and gigantic against the moonlit sky and by the glint of the light
+upon the ripples the boys could see that the narrow waterway ran
+swiftly.
+
+“Crickey, we’ve drifted while we were asleep!” cried Frank. “Now we
+_are_ lost.”
+
+“Well, we’re drifting with the tide anyway,” said Tom, trying bravely
+to be cheerful. “And it’s bound to take us out somewhere to open
+water.”
+
+“Yes, only it may be coming in and not going out,” said Frank. “What
+time is it? My watch stopped when I fell overboard.”
+
+Tom pulled out his watch and examined it’s luminous dial. “Gosh, it’s
+after eleven!” he exclaimed. “Say, we must have slept four or five
+hours.”
+
+“There’s that noise again!” cried Frank. “What on earth is it? It
+seems to come from all around and say—— Gee, look there, Tom! What’s
+that?”
+
+Startled, Tom glanced about. Far ahead between the trees he could see
+a ruddy glow.
+
+“Golly, it’s a fire!” he exclaimed in frightened tones. “Let’s get
+out. It may be those Russians again. Perhaps it’s their camp.”
+
+“And the noise comes from there!” stammered Frank. “It’s dreadful!”
+
+Hurriedly grasping their oars the boys pulled, trying their utmost to
+swing the boat’s bow around, but it was of no use. The current was
+running like a millrace and despite their utmost endeavors they were
+being swept irresistibly towards the fire and that weird, uncanny,
+hair-raising sound.
+
+Nearer and nearer they swept. Now they could see the ruddy light upon
+the water ahead. They could even see the flames dancing among the
+trees and the resonant, throbbing boom rose and fell in terrifying
+cadence through the night. Then, between the throbbing beats, the boys
+heard voices; but not the harsh guttural voices of the “reds.” It was
+even worse, for the sounds borne to the boys—frightened,
+terror-stricken and helpless in their drifting boat—savored of
+savages. They were high-pitched, yet musical, rising and falling; one
+moment dying to a low murmur, the next rising to a blood-curdling
+wail.
+
+Absolutely paralyzed, the boys sat and stared at the light and the
+fire they were approaching. What was it? Through their minds flashed
+stories of cannibals, visions of savage Indians, and yet Rawlins had
+assured them there were no Indians upon the island. But surely these
+could be nothing else. Those sounds—dimly, to Tom’s mind came
+memories of a similar sound he had once heard—yes—that was it—an
+Indian tom-tom at a Wild West show. They _must_ be savages! Yes,
+now he could see them, wild, naked, dancing, leaping figures;
+whirling, gyrating about the fire now less than two hundred yards
+ahead and within fifty feet of the Lank. Frank had seen them also. He
+too knew they must be savages. Would they be seen? Would the dancing,
+prancing fiends detect them as they swept through that circle of light
+upon the water or were they too busy with their dancing to notice
+them? Now the drum roared in deafening, booming notes, filling the
+surrounding forest with its echoes and the savage chant of the
+prancing figures sent chills over the cowering boys. Just ahead was
+the expanse of water illuminated by the red glare. In a moment they
+would be in it. Close to the bank the boys saw canoes drawn ashore,
+big dug-outs, crude primitive craft. Yes, there _were_ Indians in
+Santo Domingo, Rawlins must have been mistaken. Now they were in the
+firelight. They held their breaths and then a moaning hopeless groan
+issued from the boys’ lips. Their boat slowed down; before they
+realized what had happened they were caught in an eddy and the next
+instant their craft bumped with a resounding thud against one of the
+canoes.
+
+The boys’ senses reeled. They were wedged fast between the dugouts in
+the brilliant light from the fire and before a cry could escape them,
+before they could move, two half-naked, awful creatures, hideously
+painted and with threatening, waving clubs came dashing down the bank.
+
+The boys knew their last minute had come. The savages had seen them.
+Resistance would be hopeless. They were too frightened, too frozen
+with mortal terror to move or even scream.
+
+The next second the naked fiends were upon them. Powerful hands seized
+legs and feet and unresisting, limp, almost unconscious with dread
+thoughts of their fate, they were borne triumphantly towards the fire
+and the ring of terrifying figures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RADIO TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+As the sun dipped towards, the mountains to the west and the boys did
+not return, Mr. Pauling became worried.
+
+“I was a fool to permit them to go off alone,” he declared to Mr.
+Henderson. “Even with a compass they might go astray in the swamp.
+Boys are always careless and they do not realize the danger of getting
+lost.”
+
+“Oh, I wouldn’t worry yet,” replied the other. “They have their radio
+sets along and would call us if they had any difficulties. Bancroft
+has been listening for the past hour and nothing’s come in.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” rejoined Tom’s father, “but if they don’t turn up soon
+I shall start after them.”
+
+Rawlins, who had returned from his scouting trip and had reported that
+he had been unsuccessful in seeing a sign of smoke across the bay, now
+approached.
+
+“I hardly think they’re in trouble,” he said, “I I’d suggest calling
+them before starting a search, provided they don’t arrive. They can
+hear much farther than they can send and I don’t believe our messages
+could be heard by the gang in the sub. We’ve been several miles around
+the bay and know those rascals are not near.”
+
+“Yes, we can do that,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “Even if they should hear,
+it is of little consequence in comparison with getting word to the
+boys. I’m about ready to abandon the attempt to locate the men anyway.
+Our information is too indefinite to rely upon.”
+
+As time slipped by and still there was no sign of the missing boys and
+no word came by radio, Mr. Pauling became terribly worried and even
+Rawlins’ optimism became shaken.
+
+Finally, as the afternoon shadows lengthened, Tom’s father could stand
+it no longer and he told Bancroft to call their names and see if he
+could get in touch with them. But when, after fifteen minutes, the
+operator reported that no response had been received Mr. Pauling grew
+frantic.
+
+“Something’s happened,” he declared. “They’ve either gone too far to
+hear or to reply or they’ve been drowned or have met with some
+accident. We must set out on a search at once.”
+
+Accordingly, the boat was manned, a radio set was placed in it and Mr.
+Pauling, Rawlins and Bancroft embarked, leaving Mr. Henderson, who was
+the only remaining member of the party who understood radio, in charge
+of the submarine. Sam also went along, for, as Rawlins explained, he
+had eyes like a cat and at Mr. Henderson’s suggestion Smernoff was
+included.
+
+“You may hear those rascals talking,” he said, “and if you do you’ll
+need him.”
+
+Rawlins remembered hearing the boys speak of the island they wished to
+explore and knew more or less the direction they had gone. It was no
+easy matter to find an island in the swamp largely by guesswork, but
+luck favored and just before dark they sighted the higher trees and
+firm land of the island where the boys had lunched. Calling
+frequently, both by voice and by radio, the searching party pulled
+around the island and came to the beach. Something white upon the sand
+attracted Rawlins’ attention and landing they found the paper
+wrappings of the boys’ lunch.
+
+“They stopped here to eat,” announced the diver. “Now the question is
+in which direction they went. They might have gone up any one of these
+creeks or they might have started for the mainland. It’s all
+guesswork.”
+
+It was now dusk and the swamp was black with impenetrable shadows, but
+as they circled around the swamp in vague hopes of finding some clue
+or of hearing the boys by the radio instruments, Sam’s sharp eyes
+caught sight of a bunch of water plants.
+
+“Tha’ boat parsed by here, Chief,” he announced, pointing to the
+bruised and bent stems. “Ah’m sure of that, Chief.”
+
+Rawlins examined the plants carefully. “Yes, either their boat or some
+other,” he agreed. “We’ll follow up this channel.”
+
+By the time they reached the open lagoon it was pitch dark and their
+only hope lay in getting in touch with the boys by radio.
+
+“If we don’t look out we’ll get lost ourselves,” announced Rawlins.
+“You watch the compass, Quartermaster, and keep track of our course
+and the bearings.”
+
+“Aye, aye, Sir,” replied the old sailor, and once more the boat
+proceeded through the black swamp, Rawlins peering ahead and
+occasionally shouting, Bancroft constantly speaking into the
+instruments and listening at the receivers and Mr. Pauling, nearly mad
+with worry, fears and regrets.
+
+For hour after hour they continued, following waterway after waterway,
+traversing lagoon after lagoon, forcing their way through the dense
+swamps to the mainland of the island and even emerging on the broad
+calm bay.
+
+“If they’re lost and unable to get back they’ll probably camp,” said
+Rawlins. “They have matches and can make a fire. In fact they’ve sense
+enough to think of making a fire for a signal. I believe it will be a
+good plan to go ashore; I’ll ascend a hill, and Sam can climb a tree
+and look about. If there’s a fire anywhere in sight we should see it.”
+
+All agreed this was a good plan and accordingly the boat was headed
+towards the nearest point and at last grated upon the rocks. With Sam,
+Rawlins pushed into the brush, stumbling over roots, bumping into
+trees in the darkness, barking shins and tearing clothes, but
+steadfastly clambering up the steep slope until they reached the
+summit. Selecting a tall palm, Sam proceeded to “walk” up the trunk in
+the native Indian fashion and soon reached the huge leafy top.
+
+Straddling the base of an immense frond, he slowly and carefully swept
+the horizon with his eyes. From his lofty perch, nearly one hundred
+feet above the earth and fully two hundred feet above the water, the
+entire swamp, the numerous lagoons and even the broad bay lay spread
+before him like a map. Although the moon would not rise until
+midnight, yet the sky was bright with myriads of stars which cast a
+faint glow upon the water and served to distinguish; it from the
+darker masses of mangroves and land. At first he could see nothing
+that resembled the glow of a fire, but after several minutes his eyes
+detected a faint light among the trees several miles away and
+apparently on the mainland across the bay.
+
+As he watched, the spot grew brighter, it took on a pinkish tint and
+seemed to spread, until at last, it was a distinct ruddy light which
+he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt was a fire. Carefully taking
+bearings by the stars and the dark masses of the swamp, he slid to the
+ground.
+
+“Tha’s a fire yonder, Chief,” he announced. “Ah’ seed it plain an’
+clear, an’ it’s just started, Chief. Ah seed it fla’in’ up an’
+a-makin’ brighter all the time. Ah reckon tha’ young gentlemens ’s
+a-makin’ it fo’ a signal, Chief.”
+
+“That’s blamed good news!” exclaimed Rawlins. “You say it’s over on
+the other side of the bay and you’ve got its bearings. All right,
+we’ll get over there, but how the deuce those kids got across the bay
+without knowing it, stumps me.”
+
+Reaching the boat, Rawlins reported their success and with all
+possible speed the boat was pulled through the winding channels of the
+swamp in the direction Sam indicated. But it is one thing to take a
+sight and bearings from a tree top on a hillside and quite another
+matter to follow those bearings and directions through a mangrove
+swamp filled with twisting, devious channels. How Sam could manage to
+keep the general course at all was little short of marvelous, but as
+the boat turned bend after bend, doubled on its track, found its way
+blocked and made detours, the Bahaman never missed his general sense
+of direction, and at last the searching party emerged from the swamp
+and on the broad expanse of the bay.
+
+Sam glanced about, squinted at the stars and indicated the course to
+follow. As they rowed swiftly across the bay towards the opposite
+shores, Rawlins spoke.
+
+“Say!” he exclaimed. “It may not be the boys after all. I’ve been
+puzzling all along how they could get over there and I’m beginning to
+think it’s those chaps we’re after and not the boys.”
+
+“Jove! you’re right,” cried Mr. Pauling, “and, good Lord! perhaps
+they’ve found the boys and taken them prisoners! If the boys used
+their radio to call us the others may have heard it and located them.
+What an addle-headed fool I’ve been to take such risks! No wonder we
+haven’t heard them or got them. Probably they’re helpless—bound and
+gagged and those devils are chuckling to themselves as they hear our
+calls and are luring us into a trap.”
+
+“Well, if they’ve touched those kids I’ll say there’ll be some
+rough-house work when we step into that trap,” declared Rawlins, “and
+they’ll find they’ve bitten off a darned sight bigger hunk than they
+can swallow without choking. We’ve got arms, I slipped ’em in the
+boat, and we’re no crew of tenderfeet. Sam’s some little scrapper and
+the quartermaster was champion middle-weight of the Atlantic squadron,
+old Smernoff’s itching for a fight with those whiskered friends of
+his, and I guess you and Bancroft can take care of yourselves and I’m
+no quitter myself.”
+
+“Yes, yes, Rawlins,” replied Mr. Pauling, “but you forget that if they
+have the boys they can protect themselves by threatening harm to Tom
+and Frank. They can make their own terms and they are ruthless
+beasts.”
+
+“Well, Mr. Pauling, don’t let’s cross our rivers till we get to ’em,”
+said the diver. “We don’t know if the boys are prisoners yet. We’ll go
+easy and find out how the land lays first. Remember we can see their
+fire and what’s going on a long time before they can spot us. That’s
+the worst of a fire. The other fellow can see you, but you can’t see
+the other fellow.”
+
+“Yes, but the great trouble is, if we call for the boys by radio we’ll
+warn our enemies instead,” Mr. Pauling reminded him.
+
+“If they _are_ prisoners it won’t be any use hollering for them,”
+replied Rawlins sagely. “I guess the best plan is just to lie low,
+keep quiet and sneak in. If the boys are alone and it’s their fire
+we’ll find them just as well without calling and if it’s the ‘reds’
+fire and the boys are not there we’ll spring a surprise.”
+
+A few minutes later the boat had gained the shelter of the trees
+beyond the bay and, still guided by Sam’s almost uncanny instinct or
+skill, they pushed into the nearest channel among the mangroves. On
+this side of the bay, however, there was much more open water; the
+trees were more scattered, and, instead of being made up of
+innumerable creeks flowing through dense masses of mangroves, the
+swamp consisted of large lake-like expanses dotted and interrupted by
+narrow belts and isolated clumps of trees.
+
+They had proceeded for an hour or more and felt that they must be
+approaching the spot where Sam had seen the fire when they noticed
+that the darkness was less dense, that there was a subdued light upon
+the water, and that the clumps of trees were sharper and clearer.
+
+“Hanged if the moon isn’t rising!” exclaimed Rawlins. “Crickey, it
+must be near midnight.”
+
+Mr. Pauling looked at his watch. “It’s after eleven,” he announced.
+“We’ve been searching for five hours.”
+
+“I’ll say those kids are some little travelers!” declared Rawlins.
+“They must have thought they were rowing for a bet to get clean over
+here.”
+
+“Ah 'spec’ tha’ tide made to help them, Chief,” remarked Sam. “It
+makes right strong an’ po’ful up these creeks.”
+
+“Yep, that must have been it,” agreed Rawlins. “Hadn’t thought of it
+before, I’ll bet they got caught in a strong current and couldn’t pull
+against it. Hello! What the——”
+
+Instantly the men stopped rowing. From far away, as if from the air
+itself, came a low throbbing vibration, a sound felt rather than
+heard, and those in the boat stared at one another questioningly.
+
+“Thunder!” suggested Mr. Pauling, in a low tone.
+
+Rawlins shook his head. “Nix,” he replied crisply. “Thunder doesn’t
+keep up like that and it doesn’t throb that way. Sounds to me more
+like a ship’s screw half out of water.”
+
+“Some bird then,” suggested Mr. Pauling. “Bittern or owl, perhaps.”
+
+“I’ll say it’s _some_ bird—if ’tis a bird!” exclaimed Rawlins.
+“What is it, Sam?”
+
+The quartermaster spat into the water and before the Bahaman could
+reply he remarked: “’Course 'taint possible, Sir; but if I was
+a-hearin’ o’ that 'ere soun’ an’ was in the South Seas 'stead o’ here
+in the West Injies—I’d say as how ’twas a tom-tom, Sir—you knows
+what I means, Sir—savage drum such as they uses for a-havin’ of a
+cannibal feast, Sir.”
+
+“Well we’re not in the South Seas,” returned Rawlins, “and there
+aren’t any cannibals here. Say, what the devil’s the matter with you,
+Sam?”
+
+It was no wonder Rawlins asked. The Bahaman was staring open-mouthed
+across the water, his eyes rolling, his face drawn and awful fear
+depicted upon his black features.
+
+“Here, wake up! Seen a ghost?” cried Rawlins, shaking the negro
+roughly. Sam’s jaws came together, he licked his dry lips and in
+terror-striken, shaking tones murmured, “Voodoo!”
+
+Something in his tones, in the way he pronounced the one word, sent
+shivers down his hearers’ backs.
+
+“Voodoo?” repeated Rawlins, recovering himself. “What in thunder are
+you talking about?”
+
+“Ah knows it!” replied the negro, in a hoarse whisper. “Tha’s the
+devil dance! Yaas, Sir, tha’s Voodoo goin’ on!”
+
+“Well, I’ll be sunk!” ejaculated the diver. “A Voodoo dance! By glory!
+I didn’t think they had ’em over here. I’ve heard of 'em in Martinique
+and Haiti, but I never took much stock in the yarns. Are you sure,
+Sam?”
+
+The cowering negro had sunk to his knees in the boat. All the
+long-dormant superstition of his race, the soul-racking fear of the
+occult and supernatural which was the heritage of his African
+ancestors had been stirred into being by the throbbing pulsations
+borne through the night, and he was an abject, terror-stricken
+creature.
+
+Rawlins jerked him to athwart. “Brace up, you fool nigger!” he
+commanded. “No one’s hurting you yet! You’re a blamed coward, Sam!
+What if ’tis Voodoo? What in thunder are you scared of?”
+
+Slowly the negro came back to his senses; shaking like a leaf, sickly
+ashen with fright, he steadied himself. “Ah aint 'fraid,” he
+stuttered, his tones belying his words. “Ah was jus’ flustrated,
+Chief. But Ah don’t mek to meddle with Voodoo, Chief. Better go back,
+Chief.”
+
+“You bet your boots we’ll go back—not!” declared Rawlins. “I’d like
+right well to see a Voodoo as you call it. And if there’s any folks
+around here—black or white, tame or savage, we’re out to find ’em and
+have a pow-wow with ’em. Maybe the boys saw their fire and made for
+it, and maybe the fire’s nothing to do with the tom-tom, and more
+likely than all it’s not a devil dance at all but just those blamed
+Bolsheviks having a vodka spree all on their own—celebrating the
+boys’ capture or something. Come on, men, let’s get a move on.”
+
+“Perhaps we’d better try to call the boys,” suggested Mr. Pauling.
+“Your hint that they may have seen the fire, or that they may have
+heard the drum is reasonable, but they are cautious and might be near,
+hesitating to approach the fire or the sound. The noise of that
+drum—supposing it should be the ‘reds’ and not from a negro
+dance—would prevent others from hearing us.”
+
+“Sure, that’s a good idea,” agreed Rawlins. “Maybe they’re near, right
+now.”
+
+As Rawlins spoke, Bancroft was adjusting his instruments and the next
+instant gave an exultant cry.
+
+“I hear ’em!” he announced.
+
+Then: “Tom! Frank!” he called into the microphone. “Can you hear me?
+It’s Bancroft! We’re near! We can hear a drum and are making for a
+fire! Where are you? Can you see the fire or hear the noise?”
+
+Faint and thin, but clearly distinguishable, now the throbbing rumble
+of the drum had ceased, Bancroft heard Tom’s voice.
+
+“We hear!” it said. “Come quick! We don’t know where we are, but we’re
+here by the fire—we’re prisoners—a lot of savages have us!”
+
+Bancroft, in a strained voice, repeated the words.
+
+“Good Lord!” cried Mr. Pauling, “they’re captives of those crazy
+devil-worshipers.”
+
+“Attaboy!” yelled Rawlins. “Lift her, boys! Pull for your lives!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE DEVIL DANCERS
+
+
+Perhaps the two terrified boys swooned, perhaps they were literally
+frightened out of their wits. Neither could ever be sure, but
+whichever it was, everything was a blank from the moment when they
+felt the hands of the savage figures grasp them until they found
+themselves surrounded on every side by a ring of half-naked men and
+women in the full glare of a huge fire under immense trees.
+
+But they were unharmed, not even bound, and as they realized this
+their courage in a measure returned and they glanced about, still
+terribly frightened, shaking as if with ague, and marveling that they
+were still alive.
+
+Then for the first time they realized that their captors were not
+Indians. They were hideously daubed with paint to be sure, they were
+nearly nude, but they were not bedecked with feathers and their black
+skins and wooly heads left no doubt as to their identity. They were
+negroes, mostly coal black, but a few were brown or even yellow and
+the dazed, scared boys looked upon them with uncomprehending
+amazement. To them, negroes were civilized, harmless, good-natured
+people and why these blacks should be acting in this savage manner was
+past all understanding.
+
+And still more puzzling was the fact that they were talking together
+in a strange, unintelligible jargon. To the boys’ minds, all colored
+people spoke English—either with the broad soft accent of the
+American negro or the slurring, drawling dialect of the West Indians,
+and yet here were blacks chattering shrilly in some totally different
+tongue.
+
+The boys felt as if they had been bereft of their senses, as if, by
+some magic, they had been transported to the middle of darkest Africa
+and they wondered vaguely if their fears and worries had driven them
+mad and the whole thing was a hallucination.
+
+But at this moment four more blacks arrived and to the boys’ further
+amazement deposited their radio sets upon the smooth, hard-beaten
+earth beside them. These were real; they seemed somehow to link the
+boys with the outside world, with civilization, and at sight of them
+the boys knew they were not dreaming, were not mad.
+
+And the little cases with their black fiber panels and shining
+nickel-plated knobs and connections had a strange effect upon the
+circle of negroes also. With low murmurs and sharp ejaculations they
+drew a step farther from the boys and looked furtively at the
+instruments, while the men who had brought them from the boat leaped
+nimbly away the instant they had set them down as if afraid the
+harmless things might bite them.
+
+“Gosh!” murmured Tom, finding his voice at last. “They’re afraid of
+us!”
+
+“I believe they are,” responded Frank, who, finding that the
+savage-looking crowd seemed of no mind to harm them, had regained
+confidence.
+
+Scarcely knowing why he did so, Tom reached forward, connected the
+batteries and turned the rheostat. The result was astounding. As the
+tiny filament in the bulb glowed at his touch an awed “Wahii!” arose
+from the negroes, and with one accord they retreated several yards.
+
+“Say, we’ve got ’em going!” exclaimed Tom jubilantly. “They’re as much
+afraid of us as we are of them. It all gets me, Frank. I wonder——”
+
+What Tom wondered Frank never knew, for at this moment the surrounding
+blacks uttered a weird wailing cry and flung themselves upon the
+ground.
+
+“Gee!” ejaculated Frank, “look there.”
+
+Over the prostrated blacks, approaching through a lane between their
+bodies, came an amazing, fantastic, awful figure. Naked, save for a
+loin cloth, painted to resemble a skeleton, with great horns bound to
+his head and with a cow’s tail dragging behind him, he came prancing
+and leaping towards the fire and the boys, shaking a rattle in one
+hand and waving a horse-tail in the other.
+
+Speechless with wonder, the boys gazed at him. They realized that he
+was the leader of the crowd, a chief probably, and in his fantastic
+garb they recognized a faint resemblance to pictures they had seen of
+wild African tribesmen, but that such a being should be here—here in
+an island in the West Indies and only a few miles from railways,
+cities, great sugar mills, wireless stations and even their own
+submarine, seemed incredible, monstrous, absolutely unbelievable—as
+dream-like and amazing as the savage-looking figures who had captured
+them.
+
+But they had little time to think. Suddenly the tom-tom burst forth in
+thunderous sounds, deep, sonorous, blood-curdling, savage, wild, and
+to the deafening “turn—turn, turn, turn—turn—turn, turn, turn,” the
+huge horned figure pranced and danced about the two boys, chanting a
+wailing song, keeping time to his steps with his gourd-rattle and
+shaking and waving his horse-tail.
+
+Nearer and nearer he circled, stooping low, leaping high, working
+himself into a frenzy; twisting, swaying, contorting, while,
+fascinated, almost hypnotized, the two boys watched speechless and
+rooted to the spot. Then, so abruptly that the boys jumped, the drum
+ceased, the dancing figure halted as if arrested in mid-air, with one
+foot still raised, and then, with a wild yell, he darted towards the
+boys.
+
+With a startled cry they cowered away. Surely, they thought, he was
+about to seize them, to kill them. But the next instant the man
+stooped, and grasping the shining copper resonance coil whirled it
+about, facing the ring of negroes and waving the coil about his head,
+while, upon the copper wire, the firelight gleamed and scintillated as
+though living flames were darting from it.
+
+And then a marvelous, a miraculous thing happened. As the gigantic
+negro slowly swung the coil, a great hush fell upon the others and
+clear and distinct in the silence a voice seemed to issue from the
+black box upon the ground.
+
+“Tom! Frank!” came the words.
+
+At the sounds, pandemonium broke loose. With a wild, terrified scream
+the horned man flung down the coil and with a tremendous bound burst
+through the circle of onlookers who, screaming and yelling, turned and
+fled in every direction. In a breath, the boys were alone. Alone by
+the fire and their instruments while, crouching behind trees, flat on
+the ground, wailing like lost souls, the negroes watched from a
+distance with wildly rolling eyes and terror-stricken faces.
+
+But the boys at the time gave little heed to this. At the sound of
+their names from the receiver they had been galvanized to life and
+action. Their friends were near, they were calling them! They were
+saved! Leaping to the coil, Frank grabbed it up and moved it slowly,
+until again to Tom’s anxious ears came the sound of a human voice.
+“It’s Bancroft!” came the words. “We’re near! We can hear a drum and
+are making for a fire. Where are you? Can you see the fire or hear the
+noise?”
+
+“Can we?” muttered Tom, his sense of humor coming to him even in his
+excitement. “I’ll say we can, as Rawlins says.”
+
+Then, scarcely daring to hope that he could send his voice through
+space by the coil, he adjusted the sending instruments and called into
+the transmitter.
+
+“We hear!” he cried. “Come quick! We don’t know where we are, but
+we’re here by the fire—we’re prisoners—a lot of savages have us!”
+
+Breathlessly Tom listened. Had they heard? Would the resonance
+coil—that marvelous instrument which had worked the miracle—act as a
+sending antenna? Tom wondered why they had never tried it, why they
+had been so stupid, why it had never occurred to them. Had Bancroft
+heard? Would they come? All this flashed through his mind with the
+speed of light. And then came another thought. Of course they’d come.
+Even if they had not heard they would come. Bancroft had said they
+were making for the fire. They would be there anyway and as Tom
+realized this a tremendous load lifted from his mind. Whether or not
+their coil had served to send the waves speeding through the ether,
+they were sure of being rescued. But the next instant a still greater
+joy thrilled him. Again from the receiver came Bancroft’s voice. “Hold
+fast!” it said, “we’re coming! We hear you!” Even Frank had heard.
+
+The boys’ tensed strained nerves gave way. The coil dropped from
+Frank’s hand, he staggered to Tom’s side and, throwing their arms
+around each other, the two burst into wild hysterical laughter.
+Suddenly they were aware of some one speaking near them. In their wild
+delight, the terrific reaction, they had forgotten their captors, had
+forgotten the weird dancer whose act had saved them. But at the low
+moaning voice close to them they came back to earth with a start and
+wheeled about. Within a few paces, his head bobbing up and down
+against the ground, flat on his stomach, was the giant negro, and from
+his lips, muffled by their contact with the earth, came the pleading
+wail which had roused the boys.
+
+“What on earth does he want?” asked Tom, who could make nothing of the
+words.
+
+“I don’t know, but he’s scared to death like all the others,” replied
+Frank, “and I don’t wonder. That voice from the phones was enough to
+scare any savage. I think he’s begging forgiveness or something.”
+
+“Gosh! I wish he understood English,” said Tom, and then, in a louder
+voice, “Here, get up!” he ordered. “Can you speak English?”
+
+Slowly and hesitatingly the man raised his wooly head and with wildly
+rolling eyes gazed fearfully at the boys. His lips moved, his tongue
+strove to form words, but no sound came from him. So abject, so
+thoroughly terror-stricken was his appearance that the boys really
+pitied him, but now, at last, he had found his voice again.
+
+“Messieu’s!” he pleaded. “Messieu’s! Moi pas save. Moi ami, Beke. Ah!
+Ai! Beke no un’stan’. Moi spik Eenglees liddle. Moi mo’ sorry! Moi
+fren’ yes! Moi no mek harm Messieu’s! Ai, Ai! Moi mek dance, moi
+people mek fo’ Voodoo! No mek fo’ harm Beke! Pa’donez Moi, Messieu’s!”
+
+“Gosh, I can’t get it!” exclaimed Tom. “He’s asking us to forgive him
+and wants to be friends, but what he means by ‘Beke’ and ‘Voodoo’ and
+those other words I don’t know. But I’m willing to be friends.” Then,
+addressing the still groveling negro, “All right!” he said. “Get up.
+You’re forgiven. We’ll be friends. But stop bumping your head on the
+ground and take off those horns. You give me the shivers.”
+
+Whether the devil-dancer understood more than half of Tom’s words is
+doubtful, but he grasped the meaning and with unutterable relief upon
+his black face he grinned and tearing off his fantastic headdress cast
+it into the flames and rose slowly to his feet.
+
+As he did so, his watching companions also rose and edged cautiously
+from their hiding places, but still keeping a respectful distance and
+eyeing the black radio sets with furtive, frightened glances. Very
+evidently, to their minds, these white boys were powerful Obeah men,
+they possessed magic of a sort not to be despised or molested, and
+with the primitive man’s simple reasoning they felt that to propitiate
+such powerful witch doctors was the only way to insure their own
+safety. Although, to the boys, they had appeared savages yet, had Tom
+and Frank happened upon them at any other time, they would have found
+nothing at all savage about them. Indeed, they would never have had
+reason to think them other than happy-go-lucky, good-natured colored
+folk, harmless and as civilized as any of the West Indian peasantry,
+for they were merely French West Indian negroes, and aside from the
+fact that they spoke only their native Creole patois were
+indistinguishable from others of their race. But like the majority of
+the French negroes they were at heart firm believers in Voodoo and
+Obeah and when worked into a fanatical frenzy at one of these African
+serpent-worshiping orgies they became temporarily transformed to
+fiendish savages, reverting to all the wild customs and ways of their
+ancestors and drawing the line only at actual cannibalism.
+
+But of all this the boys knew nothing. They did not dream that such
+people or such customs existed, and they could not fathom the reasons
+or understand what to them were the mysterious and almost incredible
+sights they had witnessed.
+
+And of a far more important matter the boys were equally ignorant. Had
+they but known, they would have thanked their lucky stars that they
+had stumbled upon the Voodoo dancers and, had they been able to
+understand and speak Creole and thus been able to converse with the
+negroes, they would have made a discovery which, would have amazed
+them even more than the savage dance and the remarkable results
+brought about by their radio instruments.
+
+But being unable to carry on any but the most limited conversation,
+the boys sat there by the fire waiting for the sound of the expected
+boat and surrounded by the colored folk who now had discarded their
+paint and fantastic garb and were clothed in calico and dungaree. Even
+the chief, or rather the Obeah man, was now so altered in appearance
+that the boys could scarcely believe he was the same being who had
+pranced and danced with waving horse-tail and rattlebox before them
+and when, timidly and half apologetically, he brought them a tray
+loaded with fruit and crisp fried fish with tiny rolls of bread
+wrapped in banana leaves, they decided that it must all have been some
+sort of a masquerade and that their imaginations had filled them with
+unwarranted and ridiculous fears.
+
+They were terribly hungry and never had food been more welcome; both
+boys ate ravenously.
+
+“He’s a good old skate after all!” declared Tom, nodding towards the
+big negro who sat near. “I guess they were just trying to scare us.”
+
+“Well, they succeeded all right,” replied Frank. “Say, I thought we
+were going to be roasted and eaten when they grabbed us.”
+
+“Yes, but our radio scared them a lot worse,” said Tom. “Gosh! that
+_was_ wonderful, the way the old boy grabbed up the coil and
+those words came in just right. I’ll bet Dad’s worried though. We
+ought to call them and tell them we’re all right.”
+
+“Golly, that’s so!” agreed Frank. “I’d forgotten we hadn’t.”
+
+Still munching a mouthful of food, Frank rose to pick up the coil, but
+at that instant several of the negroes jumped up, their voices rose in
+excited tones and they turned wondering faces toward the waterside. At
+the same instant the boys distinctly heard the splash of oars.
+
+“They’re here!” yelled Tom, and with one accord the two rushed towards
+the landing place.
+
+Before they had reached it a boat shot from the shadows, its keel
+grated on the beach and Mr. Pauling and Rawlins leaped out, each with
+a rifle in his hands, while behind them, armed and ready for battle,
+came Sam, Bancroft, the quartermaster and Smernoff.
+
+But as the shouting, laughing boys dashed toward them, free and
+unharmed, the gun dropped from Mr. Pauling’s hand and clattered on the
+pebbles and the next instant he was clasping the boys in an embrace
+like a bear’s.
+
+Behind the boys, gathered in little knots and chattering excitedly
+like a flock of parrots, the surprised negroes had gathered at the
+edge of the forest and as Rawlins stared at them and then at the boys
+a puzzled expression was on his face.
+
+“Say, what’s the big idea?” he demanded, as the boys capered and
+danced about, talking and laughing. “You said you were the prisoners
+of savages and here you are free as birds and no sign of a savage.
+Just a bunch of ordinary niggers. It gets me!”
+
+“But we thought they were savages,” Tom tried to explain. “And we
+_were_ prisoners.”
+
+Then in hurried, disjointed sentences the two boys related the gist of
+their story while the others listened in amazement.
+
+“Hello!” cried Rawlins. “Is this the old Bally-hoo coming?”
+
+As Rawlins spoke, the big negro was approaching and with a rather
+sickly grin on his face he spoke to the new arrivals in his odd jargon
+of Creole and broken English.
+
+“Yep, I guess so!” grinned Rawlins. “Here you, Sam. You’ve lived in
+the French Islands. Can you understand this bird?”
+
+Sam, still suspicious and with the memory of Voodoo and devil dancers’
+tom-toms in his mind, stepped forward.
+
+“Yas, sir, Chief,” he replied, “Ah can talk Creole, Chief.”
+
+“Well, get busy and spiel then,” Rawlins ordered him. “Ask him what he
+says first and then we’ll give him the third degree for a time.”
+
+Rapidly Sam spoke to the other in Martinique patois and at the sounds
+of his native tongue the other’s face brightened.
+
+“He says he’s sorry,” Sam informed the waiting men and boys. “He says
+he’s a mos’ good friend an’ tha’ young gentlemen were safe from
+molestation, Chief. He says he an’ his people were makin’ to have a
+spree, Chief, an’ thought as how the young gentlemen were enemies, at
+the first, Sir. He mos’ humbly arsks yo’ pardon an’ forgiveness,
+Chief.”
+
+“All right,” said Rawlins. “He’s forgiven. Ask him if we can stop here
+for the night and if he has anything to eat. I’m famished and I’ll bet
+the others are. It’s nearly morning.”
+
+In reply to Sam’s queries the negro, who Sam now informed them was
+named Jules, assured them that everything was at their disposal and
+with quick orders in patois he sent a number of the women scurrying
+off to prepare food. Leading the way, he guided the party to a cluster
+of neat, wattled huts in a small clearing and told them to make
+themselves at home.
+
+Then, the first excitement of their meeting over, the boys began to
+give an intelligible and sane account of their adventures.
+
+As they told of the submarine and their spying on the men Mr. Pauling
+uttered a sharp exclamation and Rawlins made his characteristic
+comment.
+
+“I’ll say you had nerve!” he cried. “Too bad they saw you though. Now
+they know we’re here.”
+
+“Not necessarily,” declared Mr. Pauling. “They may have seen that the
+boat contained merely two boys and they may have thought them natives
+or from some vessel. They probably know where the destroyer is and
+they imagine our submarine is lying at the bottom of the Caribbean. In
+that case they would hardly connect Tom and Frank with members of the
+Service. Unless they have heard our calls tonight I doubt if the boys’
+presence alarmed them.”
+
+“That may be so,” admitted Rawlins, “and by the same token if they
+heard us to-night it wouldn’t scare ’em. They’d think ’twas some of
+the boys’ friends searching for ’em, same as ’twas. We didn’t say
+anything that would give them a hint and radio’s too common nowadays
+to mean much—as long as it’s not under-sea stuff. By glory! Perhaps
+we can get ’em yet. Can you find that place again, boys?”
+
+“I don’t see how we can,” replied Tom. “We were too scared to notice
+where we went and we haven’t any idea where we drifted with the tide
+while we slept.”
+
+“That’s dead rotten luck,” commented Rawlins. “But by the Great Horn
+Spoon we can find ’em if they’re here! This swamp’s not so
+everlastingly big and a sub can’t hide in a mud puddle. I’ll bet my
+hat to a hole in a doughnut we find ’em!”
+
+“But who do you suppose that man on the bank was?” asked Tom. “He
+didn’t look like a ‘red’ or a Russian or a crook. He looked like a
+real gentleman.”
+
+Mr. Pauling hesitated a moment. “Boys,” he said, lowering his voice,
+“that was the man that of all men we want. That was the head, the
+brains, the power of the whole vast organization. The man who has
+schemed to overturn nations and carry a rave of fire and blood around
+the world! He is the arch fiend, the greatest criminal, the most
+coldly cruel and unscrupulous being alive! He is the incarnation of
+Satan himself!”
+
+The boys’ eyes were round with wonder. “Gosh!” exclaimed Tom. “Gosh!”
+
+“Jehoshaphat!” cried Frank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SMERNOFF PAYS HIS DEBT
+
+
+While the boys had been relating the story of their astonishing
+experience, Sam had been talking with Jules and other members of the
+village. Now, as some of the women approached bearing trays of food
+for the strangers, he rose and, accompanied by Jules, walked over to
+the hut where the boys and the others were seated.
+
+“Ah been havin’ a extended conversationin’ with Mr. Jules,” the
+Bahaman announced, in his odd stilted manner which invariably amused
+the boys, “an’ Ah’s fo’med the opinion that th’ info’mation he’s
+imparted is mos’ highly important an’ wo’thy o’ consideration, Chief.”
+
+“Yes, well, what is it, Sam?” inquired Mr. Pauling as he helped
+himself to the smoking viands.
+
+But at Sam’s first words Mr. Pauling, and even the famished Rawlins,
+forgot all about their hunger and the appetizing food before them, for
+the Bahaman’s story was to the effect that Jules and his fellow French
+West Indians were just as keen on getting the “reds” as were Mr.
+Pauling and his party. According to Jules’ tale, a number of their
+friends and members of their families had settled on Trade Wind Cay
+and had been living a peaceful happy life, raising goats, fishing and
+cultivating tiny garden plots, when a party of white men had arrived
+and without warning or reason had butchered the West Indians and
+burned their homes, exactly as Smernoff had described when questioned
+in New York.
+
+It was not this story of cold-blooded massacre which was of such
+intense interest to the Americans, but the Fact that Jules calmly
+informed them that he not only knew where the “devil boat” was hidden,
+but that he could actually lead them to the cave where the murderers
+lived.
+
+“Phew!” whistled Rawlins. “I’ll say you tumbled into the right camp,
+boys! So old Frenchy here’s into their hangout! If that isn’t the
+all-firedest piece of luck! Lead us to ’em, old sport, lead us to
+’em!”
+
+“By Jove! if it’s true everything is coming our way,” declared Mr.
+Pauling, “but let’s be absolutely sure first. Ask him how he knows his
+friends were killed, Sam. And why he has not complained to the
+authorities and demanded justice. Ask him why, if it is true and he
+knows where these men live, he has not tried to avenge his friends’
+death. Ask him what they look like, tell him to describe some of them
+and the ‘devil boat’ as he calls it.”
+
+Sam turned and began talking to Jules and the others in patois.
+
+“Well, true or not I’m going to have grub,” declared Rawlins. “I don’t
+eat with my ears, though; I’m almost sorry I can’t, I’m that hungry.”
+
+For several minutes the negroes chattered and gesticulated, their
+voices often rising excitedly and vehemently. Then, at last, Sam
+seemed to be satisfied and addressing Mr. Pauling explained that Jules
+said that two men had escaped from the Cay. They had been fishing and
+when returning, saw the massacre and realizing resistance was hopeless
+got away from the place in their boats unseen. He then went on to
+state that Jules had complained to the Dominican authorities, but had
+been laughed at; strange negro squatters—in the minds of the
+Dominicans—were of too little consequence to bother with and had no
+legal standing; and moreover, Trade Wind Cay did not belong to Santo
+Domingo. In fact, it was a port of No Man’s Land claimed by Haiti,
+Santo Domingo, the Dutch and a British corporation and its real
+ownership had never been settled. Jules and his followers had never
+avenged their friends merely because they feared to injure any white
+man knowing that summary arrest, a farcical trial and death would
+follow and so, as the next best thing, they had worked spells, had
+placed Obeah and had danced Voodoo in the vain hope of bringing
+disaster on their enemies. Indeed, Jules declared that their dance of
+that night had been for this purpose and that when the boys had first
+arrived the negroes had felt sure that their heathen gods had
+delivered their enemies into their hands, but that the “devil box” had
+spoken in English and they knew their enemies used another tongue.
+
+Jules’ description of the submarine was too accurate to leave room for
+doubt that he had seen it and the boys, at least, were convinced that
+he had seen the “reds” when Sam repeated Jules’ description of the
+red-bearded giant, the dark man with the earrings, the thin fellow
+with the Kaiser-like mustache, and several others.
+
+“I’ll say he’s got a line on ’em, all right!” declared Rawlins, as Sam
+finished his translation of Jules’ description and statements, “and by
+glory! I’d hate to be in their shoes if these buckos ever get their
+hands on ’em. Say, did you notice that one of the bunch he described
+would be Smernoff to a ‘T.’ Wonder if any of ’em recognized him?”
+
+“By Jove!” ejaculated Mr. Pauling. “I hope not, I’d forgotten he was
+one of the murderers. If they see him and recognize him we’ll be
+looked upon as spies and enemies. Better run down and warn him,
+Rawlins. He’s in the boat, asleep probably. Tell him to keep his face
+hidden or to daub it with mud; or anything and tell the quartermaster
+to see that he does it.”
+
+Rising slowly and stretching himself as if nothing unusual had
+occurred, Rawlins strolled off towards; the landing place while Mr.
+Pauling kept Jules and his friends busy with questions and suggesting
+plans by which they could aid the Americans.
+
+When the negroes discovered that Mr. Pauling and his friends were
+looking for the murderers and would make them prisoners if found, they
+were highly delighted, and Jules assented instantly to guiding the
+Americans to the cave and the submarine and offered to bring a number
+of his men along to help.
+
+They were still discussing these plans and Rawlins had almost reached
+the edge of the clearing when a shot rang out, there was a savage
+yell, and the next moment Smernoff appeared at the edge of the trees,
+waving a pistol in his hand and backing away as if from an unseen
+assailant.
+
+The next instant, he leveled his pistol, there was a flash, another
+report and then, before the wondering onlookers could move, before
+they could utter a cry, a figure hurled itself from behind a tree.
+There was a flash of descending steel, a dull thud, and the Russian
+plunged forward on the ground. Standing over him, whirling his
+bloodstained machete about his head and yelling in fiendish glee was a
+huge gaunt negro.
+
+With two bounds Rawlins was upon the man from behind; before another
+blow could fall he had pinioned his arms in a vise-like grip and as
+the others raced towards the scene of the tragedy Rawlins struggled
+and strained to wrest the deadly machete from the negro’s grasp.
+
+Mr. Pauling was the first to reach Smernoff’s side. That the fellow
+was mortally wounded was evident at a glance. Across neck and shoulder
+extended a deep, gaping gash that had almost severed the head, but the
+man was still breathing and Mr. Pauling bent over him.
+
+Suddenly the Russian’s piglike eyes opened and into them flashed a
+look of such malignant, unspeakable hatred that Mr. Pauling drew back.
+As he did so, the gasping, dying man hissed a curse between his
+blood-covered lips, and with a last superhuman effort drew up his arm,
+aimed the pistol at Mr. Pauling’s head and pulling the trigger dropped
+back dead. So close to Mr. Pauling’s face was the weapon that the
+blast of blazing powder singed his hair and filled his eyes with
+acrid, smarting smoke and burnt powder and with a hoarse, choking cry
+he reeled backward. But before the horror-stricken boys could cry out
+he was upon his feet, wiping his eyes, coughing, shaken, but unhurt.
+Death had missed him by the fraction of an inch, by a split second.
+Smernoff had waited a thousandth of a second too long to wreak his
+treachery; death had robbed him of his vengeance; life had flown from
+him at the very instant he had pressed the trigger and he had paid his
+debt without adding another to his long list of crimes.
+
+It had all happened in the twinkling of an eye. From the moment when
+Smernoff’s first shot had startled them until he had breathed his
+last, not half a minute had elapsed and now all was over. The negro
+who had settled his score with the murderer of his family no longer
+resisted Rawlins, but stood regarding the mutilated body of the
+Russian with much the same expression that a hunter might wear when he
+has brought down a tiger or a lion. Sam was trying to convince Jules
+that Smernoff was a prisoner who had escaped; Bancroft and the boys
+were hovering about Mr. Pauling striving to make sure that he was not
+even scratched; and Rawlins was explaining matters to the
+quartermaster who had come from the boat on the run at sound of the
+shots.
+
+“I’ll say he was a dirty skunk!” declared Rawlins, “And I thought he
+was straight and reformed. Guess once a ‘red’ always a ‘red.’ Blamed
+if I ain’t sorry I didn’t let him drift. By glory! for all we know
+he’s been tipping his friends off by radio or something. Well, that’s
+that for him.”
+
+Then, turning towards the negro executioner, he gave that individual
+the surprise of his life by slapping him heartily on the back.
+
+“Guess you saved us the trouble!” he cried to the amazed man who had
+expected nothing short of being summarily killed for taking a white
+man’s life. “Here, shake!”
+
+Although the negro understood not a single word, yet Rawlins’ tones
+and gestures were unmistakable and with a surprised grin he seized the
+diver’s outstretched hand and pressed it firmly.
+
+“I guess he’ll be a good boy to have along with us,” Rawlins
+commented, as he picked up Smernoff’s pistol and pocketed it.
+
+“Rum lot, them Russians,” remarked the quartermaster as he spat
+contemptuously into the bushes and regarded Smernoff’s body
+impartially. “I never trusted of him, Sir, and I kept me weather eye
+on him. I’m thinkin’ he no more than got his reward, Sir.”
+
+The boys, now that they were convinced that Mr. Pauling was unharmed,
+glanced at the dead Russian and turned away with a shudder.
+
+“Just the same I’m rather sorry for him,” declared Frank. “Of course
+he was a beast and tried to kill you, Mr. Pauling, but somehow it
+seems terrible to see a man cut down that way!”
+
+“Death’s a terrible thing in any form,” said Mr. Pauling as he led the
+boys away. “But don’t waste pity on him, Frank. He was a murderer many
+times over and would have ended on the gallows or in the electric
+chair if he had not met death here. He richly deserved his fate and
+you cannot blame the negro for killing him. I thank God that his dying
+effort to murder me was frustrated by his own violence.”
+
+Sleep was out of the question after the exciting events and the final
+tragedy of the night, and now the first faint light of dawn was
+showing in the east.
+
+“We’ll start as soon as it’s light enough,” announced Mr. Pauling.
+“Jules and a few of his men will go along. He’d like to send a crowd,
+but they’re of no use. They have no arms and I have no intention of
+taking any chances or undue risks. I wish to locate the submarine and
+the hiding place of these men. There is a remote possibility that we
+may take them unawares or find but a few there, but I trust mainly to
+locating them, then sending for Disbrow and his bluejackets and
+attacking the rascals’ lair with an overwhelming force.”
+
+“Well, of course you know best,” assented Rawlins. “But personally,
+I’d like to take along this bunch of wild men and sail into those
+‘reds.’ I’d back these bush niggers with machetes against any
+sneaking, bomb-throwing Bolsheviks that ever grew whiskers.”
+
+“Undoubtedly,” smiled Mr. Pauling, “but I’m not leading any party into
+peril with the boys along.”
+
+“Yes, you’re dead right there,” agreed Rawlins earnestly. “Some one
+would most likely get hurt and we can’t risk the boys. Well, any time
+you say the word, I’m ready.”
+
+Half an hour later, the party set forth. Jules with four men—among
+them the powerful negro who had cut down Smernoff—led the way in a
+narrow dugout and Rawlins chuckled as he noticed that every man
+carried a naked, razor-edged machete beside him and that two were
+armed with old muzzle-loading guns. Unknown to Mr. Pauling, he had
+slipped Jules the Russian’s pistol and he felt confident that, should
+occasion arise, the Martinicans would, as he put it, “give the ‘reds’
+some jolt.”
+
+Silently as ghosts, the West Indians paddled through the waterways of
+the vast swamp, following, with unerring instinct, the channels and
+leads they knew, but leaving the white men hopelessly confused as to
+the direction in which they were traveling.
+
+They had proceeded steadily for more than two hours, the sun was high
+in the heavens and the boys were wondering how on earth they could
+have drifted so far while they slept, when Jules’ canoe swung sharply
+to the left, his men ceased paddling and an instant later it grated
+upon a low clay bank with the boat close behind it.
+
+With a signal for silence and caution, Jules stepped ashore, gave a
+few whispered orders to his men, and led the way up a narrow, almost
+invisible trail.
+
+Close at his heels followed Rawlins, Mr. Pauling, the two boys and
+Sam, while the quartermaster and Bancroft remained in the boat beside
+the canoe in which Jules had left two of his men.
+
+“Guess there won’t be any fighting just yet,” Rawlins remarked to
+himself. “Just a bit of scouting likely.”
+
+Noiselessly as shadows the negroes slipped along the trail with the
+leather-shod white men striving to make as little sound as possible
+and ever climbing higher and higher up the steep hillside. Finally,
+after ten minutes’ steady walking, Jules halted, crouched down and
+crawled forward on all fours, signaling for the others to do the same.
+
+As they reached his side they found themselves at the summit of a high
+hill with a precipitous side facing the swamp and thus leaving an
+unobstructed view of all below and before them, while they were
+effectually hidden among the dense growth of ferns and broad-leaved
+plants.
+
+Jules pointed and in a low whisper muttered “devil boat!” Hemmed in by
+the labyrinth of mangroves and winding channels, and apparently
+completely surrounded by the swamps, was a large lagoon and towards
+the side nearest them a large dark object loomed above the placid
+water.
+
+All this they took in at a single glance. Before them, there upon this
+hidden lagoon within the fastnesses of the mangrove swamps, was the
+long-sought submarine.
+
+“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed Rawlins under his breath. “Blamed
+if the darned sub isn’t sunk!”
+
+“Sunk?” repeated Mr. Pauling inquiringly. “What do you mean?”
+
+“Don’t you see?” muttered the diver. “She’s wrecked, sunk, on the
+bottom. Look how she’s keeled over. Must be full of water! Look at
+that smashed conning tower; the hatch is open and the water’s half
+over it. Say, I’ll bet that shot of mine bumped ’em more than I
+thought. Must have ripped things loose. How the dickens they got in’s
+a puzzle to me. Must have had emergency hatches or bulkheads or
+something. Whatever ’twas the old sub’s done for now. Say, they’re
+trapped! They can’t get away! I’ll say that’s luck! By glory, we’ve
+got ’em right by the neck!”
+
+“You’re right,” affirmed Mr. Pauling, after carefully scrutinizing the
+submarine. “She’s evidently deserted and useless. Yes, they’re
+certainly trapped—that is, unless they clear out overland. As soon as
+we locate them we can summon Disbrow and make the raid. They certainly
+cannot escape by water.”
+
+Elated at the thought that luck was with them, that the “reds” were
+marooned, and that within a short time they would be on their way home
+with their prisoners, the party followed Jules down the hill to the
+boats.
+
+“Now for the big secret!” remarked Rawlins as they embarked. “If old
+Uncle Tom here’s got the right dope we’ll be there in time to look in
+on ’em at breakfast. Hope they’ll be at home.”
+
+Jules grinned, chuckled, and significantly patted his keen-edged
+machete. Only now and then could he grasp the meaning of an English
+word, but he knew, with the African’s primitive instinct, what the
+diver was talking about. He had proved the accuracy of his statements
+by showing them the “devil boat” and he rejoiced to think that he
+would soon see the murderers of his friends led away as captives to
+meet their just punishment.
+
+“You bet!” nodded Rawlins as he noted Jules’ gesture, “I’ll say you’d
+like to use that pig-sticker, old boy; but hold your horses. Don’t go
+losing your head and rushing in where angels fear to tread and
+spilling the beans before they’re ready to serve. Just make him savvy
+that, Sam!”
+
+“He say he understand, Chief,” replied the Bahaman when he had, after
+some difficulty, translated Rawlins’ speech into the limited
+vocabulary of Martinique Creole. “He say he mos’ careful an’
+circum-spec’, Chief. He quite assimilate the importance of carry in’
+out yo’ comman’s mos’ precisely, Chief. Ah’ve impressed it upon he an’
+he nex’ fr’ens. Yaas, Sir, Ah’ni sure he quite comprehen’s, Chief.”
+Tom chuckled. “You _are_ funny, Sam!” he exclaimed. “If you use
+as big words in patois as you do in English I’ll bet he didn’t
+comprehen’ a bit.”
+
+But whether or not Jules understood the importance of being
+cool-headed and obeying orders, it was certain that he had assimilated
+the necessity of proceeding with caution and in silence and his
+upraised hand and low “Psst!” warned the boys that even whispers must
+cease. Very slowly and carefully, avoiding the least splashing of
+paddles, bending low as they passed beneath overhanging branches, the
+negroes crept along the narrow channel—a slender ribbon of water
+scarcely wide enough to accommodate the boats—until, when it seemed
+as if they could go no farther, the canoe slipped into a mass of lily
+pads and reeds and Jules, stepping into the shallow water, drew it
+silently upon a shelving bank. When all had disembarked, he turned,
+crouched low, squirmed through the fringe of underbrush and with the
+others at his heels came out into fairly open forest. Once more he led
+them along a game trail, but this time the way led up a gently sloping
+ridge and in a few moments he came to a halt.
+
+Creeping forward, he beckoned to the Americans, while his negro
+companions melted into the shadows. Before them was a narrow valley
+with a small stream flowing through the center and directly across
+from where they lay among the bushes was a conical hill, its farther
+side lapped by the waters of a small semicircular bay or estuary that
+cut deeply into the land. Along the banks of the stream were
+cultivated lands; plots of banner-leaved plantains and bananas, small
+gardens of cassava, beans, yams and corn; numerous fruit trees and the
+dark foliage of coffee; while upon the sides of the hill were groves
+of coppery-tinted cacao trees with here and there lofty coconut palms
+towering over all. Half-hidden in the greenery, the roofs fallen in
+and evidently deserted, were the remains of once large buildings; a
+stone bridge spanned the stream, and at the edge of the bay were the
+tumble-down remnants of a dock.
+
+Evidently, at some former time, the place had been a well-kept and
+prosperous plantation, but now everything appeared abandoned and
+deserted, although the gardens were carefully cultivated and attended
+to.
+
+“Humph!” muttered Rawlins. “Don’t look as if our friends lived there.”
+
+Jules whispered a few words to Sam.
+
+“He says as how tha’ men mek they abidin’ place in the hill yonder,
+Chief,” interpreted the Bahaman.
+
+“In the hill?” murmured Mr. Pauling. “Ah, of course, in a cave! But
+where _is_ the cave?”
+
+Sam put the question to Jules.
+
+“Tha’s the entrance, Chief, tha’ dark spot beyon’ tha’ clump of
+cabbage pa’m, Chief,” announced Sam in whispers.
+
+“Well, I’d like to have a closer squint at it,” declared Rawlins. “I
+vote we go over and say ‘howdy’ to ’em.”
+
+“Odd that there’s no sign of life or smoke,” commented Mr. Pauling. “I
+don’t see a soul. Surely they must have a boat.”
+
+“He says as how tha’ boat goes out an’ in tha’ cave by water, Chief,”
+explained Sam. “Tha’s a’ openin’ on tha’ water side also, Sir.”
+
+“Foxy old guys, eh?” muttered the diver. “Don’t intend to be caught in
+there like rats in a trap. Well, I won’t rest easy till I know they’re
+there. I’ve a hunch our birds have flown.”
+
+“You’ll never get there without being seen—that is, if there are any
+men about,” declared Mr. Pauling.
+
+“Not down this way, I admit,” replied Rawlins. “But we can sneak down
+around the head of the valley, keep back of those thick rose-apple
+trees that make that hedge above the yam field and work around the
+base of the hill until—— Thunderation! What’s that?”
+
+From just beyond the brow of the hill, cutting through the clear
+water, leaving a tiny trail of bubbles behind it, a small object was
+moving swiftly from the land across the bay. The next instant it was
+gone.
+
+“Shark!” declared Mr. Pauling.
+
+“Shark nothing!” cried Rawlins leaping up. “It’s another sub! I’ll be
+jiggered if they haven’t cleared out! Given us the slip! Come on,
+who’s afraid! Atta boy! I’m going to that cave!”
+
+Before any one could stop him, the diver had burst through the foliage
+and was tearing down the hillside and so contagious is excitement
+that, without stopping to think, Mr. Pauling dashed after him with the
+boys close behind, while Jules and his men, thinking apparently that
+the signal for an attack had been given, sprang from their hiding
+places, and with waving, flashing machetes and blood-curdling shouts
+bounded down the slope with the quartermaster, blowing like a porpoise
+and crashing through the brush like a herd of elephants, bringing up
+the rear.
+
+The sudden appearance of the company, the flashing blades, the savage
+yells, the glint of sun on rifle and pistol would have proved most
+disconcerting to any one lurking in the valley or the caves, while the
+noise made by the two-hundred-pound sailor lumbering through the dense
+undergrowth must have sounded like the onslaught of a score of men. In
+fact, it was the sudden rush, the surprise, the reckless charge which
+Rawlins had counted on to win the day, for he had seen the value of
+such tactics on the Flanders battle front and on one occasion, with
+but two companions, had captured a German machine gun and crew without
+a scratch, by just such methods.
+
+To reach the bottom of the hill, dash across the valley, cross the
+bridge and rush up the short slope to the mouth of the cave took less
+time than to tell of it, but before the bridge was gained Jules and
+his men were beside Rawlins, Mr. Pauling was at his heels, and the
+boys were but a few paces in the rear. Heedless of shots that might
+come from the cave at any instant, Rawlins and the half-crazed negroes
+tore up the slope, dodged back of the palms, and with a yell leaped
+into the cavern with upraised blades and cocked weapons. But not a
+shot echoed through the rocky chamber, not a blow was struck, not a
+voice answered Rawlins’ demand for surrender. The cave was empty,
+deserted, silent as the tomb!
+
+For an instant Rawlins stood gaping about, while the negroes lowered
+their weapons, drew back a step as though afraid, and jabbered
+excitedly among themselves. Then the diver grabbed off his hat, hurled
+it on the floor of the cave and swore volubly and vehemently.
+
+“Of all the rotten luck!” he cried as Mr. Pauling and the others
+reached the cave panting and out of breath. “They’ve gone! Vamoosed!
+Cleared out! Given us the slip! That _was_ a sub we saw. Another
+one. They were wise to us.”
+
+As he spoke, he strode into the cave and the next instant gave a
+shout. “Look here!” he yelled. “Regular hang-out! Electric lights,
+beds, billiard tables, and by Jiminy! even a phonograph and a piano!”
+
+It was perfectly true. Just within the entrance of the cavern, a heavy
+curtain was hung across and beyond this the great, vaulted,
+subterranean chamber was furnished with every luxury and convenience.
+There were no partitions—merely draperies and curtains of rich
+tapestry, satin and plush, but no palace on earth could boast such a
+ceiling with its vast arches, its thousands of gleaming, snow-white
+and cream-tinted stalactites and no millionaire’s mansion ever had
+such walls of scintillating, multicolored dripstone that gleamed and
+sparkled like myriads of jewels in the light of the clusters of
+incandescent lamps.
+
+The floor, covered with upjutting stalagmites, had been chiseled and
+chipped smooth, leaving the shorter columns as supports for tables,
+stands for rare vases and beautiful statuary, while the great columns
+where stalactites and stalagmites joined were surrounded by luxurious
+cushioned seats and hung with pictures. At one side was a grand piano,
+in a corner was a Victrola, and in two smaller chambers were brass
+beds and luxurious bedroom furnishings. At every step the boys and
+their elders exclaimed in wonder and admiration at the luxury and
+richness of the furnishings of the great cavern. Beyond the first hall
+was a smaller, narrower chamber, equipped with a huge range and the
+latest cooking and kitchen devices; beyond this was a small connecting
+cave where a dynamo and gasoline motor were installed, while far
+overhead, in the most remote corner, was a tiny aperture in the roof.
+Presently Rawlins, who had been nervously and hurriedly searching
+everywhere in the hopes of routing out at least one member of the
+gang, gave a ringing cry which instantly brought the others to his
+side.
+
+“There’s the secret to the place!” he announced triumphantly, pointing
+down from a ledge of rock whereon he stood. “There’s their get-away.
+I’ll say, they’re clever!”
+
+At this spot, the floor of the cabin came to an abrupt end, dropping
+in a sheer precipice some fifty feet to a huge pool of dark blue
+water. But from the verge of the wall a slender ladder led down, its
+foot resting on a narrow ledge of rock in which several large
+ringbolts were set. Scattered upon the ledge were coils of rope,
+tackle blocks, a broken oar, some wire cables and other boat-gear,
+while beyond, and so perfectly reflected in the glass-like pool that
+it appeared like a complete circle, was an arched opening with a
+sunlit strip of water visible through it.
+
+“Get the idea?” asked Rawlins, as the others gazed about. “There’s
+their dock and there’s where they came in and went out with their sub.
+But not with that big one that’s knocked galley west out in the
+lagoon. No, this old boy lived in some style I’ll say—didn’t practice
+all the socialist Bolshevist stuff he preached, I guess—and had his
+own private sub, instead of a limousine, tied up handy at his back
+door. Hello! There’s a paper down there! By crickey! perhaps they
+dropped something!”
+
+Hurrying nimbly down the ladder, Rawlins stooped, picked up the bit of
+paper which had caught his eyes and a mystified, puzzled look spread
+over his face. Slowly and with an odd expression he climbed the
+ladder.
+
+“Hanged if that don’t beat all!” he declared, as he gained the top and
+extended the paper towards Mr. Pauling. “It’s a letter, and I’ll be
+swizzled if it isn’t addressed to you!”
+
+“What?” exclaimed Mr. Pauling as he took the envelope. “By Jove! This
+_is_ amazing!”
+
+Ripping open the envelope Mr. Pauling drew forth a single sheet of
+paper. One glance sufficed to read all that was upon it, for there was
+but a single line.
+
+    “Good luck in your search. Sorry not home to receive you.
+    Remember Mercedes.”
+
+There was no signature, but none was needed. The words were
+typewritten and the machine which had printed them was the one which
+had typed the inflammatory, revolutionary Bolshevist propaganda which
+had flooded the States.
+
+Once more the arch criminal had slipped through their fingers. But it
+had been a close shave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TRAMP
+
+
+“Looks as if the game’s up,” commented Rawlins, when he too had read
+the brief message. “Guess they held the last trump. Well, I suppose we
+might as well be getting back to our folks—they’ll begin to think
+we’re lost as well as the boys.”
+
+“Yes,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “There’s nothing more we can do until we
+get some hint or clue to where they’ve flown. But we’ll have to
+destroy this lair before we leave. It seems a terrible waste and a
+shame to do it, but I don’t intend having them come back after we go.
+We can bring some explosives from the submarine and blow the place
+up.”
+
+“No need to do that,” declared Rawlins. “Just tell Jules and his gang
+here to help themselves and there won’t be much left for the
+Bolsheviks, if they do come back. When they get through looting they
+can build a rattling big fire in here and that’ll finish it. It’s
+limestone and after it’s heated it’ll crumble to bits.”
+
+“Good idea!” replied the other. “Sam, tell Jules that he and his men
+are welcome to anything they want in the cave. But make him promise to
+build a huge fire inside after they’ve taken what they want.”
+
+As Sam interpreted this to Jules, the latter’s eyes fairly bulged with
+wonder and a wide grin spread across his countenance as it gradually
+dawned upon him that the white man had made him a present of all these
+treasures. Already, in his mind’s eye, he could picture the dusky
+belles of his village strutting about in gowns of silk and satin
+brocades, he could see their earthen jars and battered iron pots
+giving way to those shiny cooking utensils, he could imagine how
+dressed up his huts would be with those deeply cushioned chairs, the
+pictures and the statues.
+
+“I’ll say he’ll’ be heap big chief now,” chuckled Rawlins, as he saw
+Jules’ eyes roaming greedily over the furnishings as if at a loss what
+to seize first. “And say, won’t it be a scream when some chap comes
+along and finds a bunch of French West Indian niggers all dolled out
+with billiard tables, grand pianos and marble Venuses!”
+
+Then, a sudden whimsical idea seized him, and grasping Jules’ arm, he
+exclaimed, “Here, old sport, come along and see what you think about
+this for a devil box.”
+
+As he spoke, he led the negro towards the Victrola, but at the words
+“devil box” the black’s eyes took on a frightened look and he drew
+back.
+
+“Oh, it’s all right!” Rawlins assured him, “it won’t bite.”
+
+Still hesitating, but somewhat reassured by the diver’s tones, and
+putting on a brave front, Jules accompanied Rawlins and stood silently
+watching as the latter wound up the machine, placed a record under the
+needle and set it in motion. But as the first sounds of a singer’s
+voice burst from the horn, Jules uttered a frightened yell and leaped
+away.
+
+Every one burst into a hearty roar of laughter and the negro, with a
+hasty terrified glance about, halted in his precipitate retreat,
+ashamed to exhibit his fear before the white men. Then, with the odd,
+quizzical, half-puzzled, half-frightened and wholly wondering
+expression of an ape, he leaned forward, turning his head first to one
+side and then the other as he listened to the song, peering at the
+mahogany cabinet as if expecting to see the hidden singer step out at
+any moment. But finding that nothing happened and that the others
+seemed in no dread of the affair, he drew nearer and nearer,
+absolutely fascinated by this new form of witchcraft. Never in his
+life had he beheld a phonograph, and while he realized that the
+“Bekes,” as he called the whites, were capable of performing almost
+any miracle or of making most marvelous and incomprehensible things,
+yet this, he was sure, was something quite beyond their power and must
+be some most powerful form of Obeah. But evidently the “devil” or
+whatever it contained was most securely imprisoned and compelled to
+serve the white men, and when he saw that Sam was not in the least
+afraid, and even picked up and examined the flat, round objects that
+Rawlins drew from the cabinet, he decided that this particular devil
+was even harmless to men of his own color. Here indeed was a treasure.
+With this he would be truly a king and he could imagine what a
+sensation he would create when, in the light of the Voodoo fire, he
+ordered the devil in the box to sing and talk and produce music.
+
+His fears had now completely vanished and, drawing close to the
+instrument, he stood absolutely fascinated as Rawlins placed record
+after record in the machine.
+
+“Tell him to try it himself, Sam,” said Rawlins, and very reluctantly
+and gingerly Jules obeyed Sam’s instructions, wound the crank, placed
+a record, and uttered a yell of mingled triumph and delight as he
+found the imprisoned devil obeyed him as readily as it did the
+American.
+
+“Well, he’s all set up for life,” laughed Rawlins. “All the rest of
+the whole shooting match can go to blazes as far as he’s concerned.
+He’ll wear the blamed thing out making it work overtime. But let’s be
+going. Sam, tell Jules he and his bunch’ll have to show us the way out
+of here. I’m all twisted and couldn’t find the bay in a month of
+Sundays.”
+
+But Jules absolutely refused to leave. He had no intention of giving
+his new acquisition any opportunity of getting away and, as the
+Americans departed, following the other negroes whom Jules had ordered
+to guide them to the bay, the old fellow was squatting on his haunches
+at the mouth of the cavern, a broad grin on his wrinkled black face
+while, from within, came the strains of the overture from Faust.
+
+“Pretty good ringer for old Mephisto himself!” chuckled Rawlins, as
+they scrambled down the hill towards the boats.
+
+Pushing through the water plants and into the narrow channel, the
+canoe, followed by the boat, moved rapidly among the mangroves. Soon a
+wider waterway was reached, and for a time this was followed, then
+they slipped into a small lagoon completely encircled by an apparently
+impenetrable barrier of trees, but, without hesitation, the negroes
+headed their craft across the little lake. With swinging strokes of
+their paddles they urged their craft forwards with redoubled speed and
+then, with a sharp cry of warning to the white men behind them, they
+crouched low in their dug-out. Straight for the dense foliage shot the
+canoe, there was a swaying of low-growing branches, the negroes’ craft
+disappeared from sight and the next instant the boat had slipped
+through the screen of leaves and was floating on open water in a dark,
+tunnel-like passage through the trees. Just ahead was the canoe, with
+the negroes again paddling forward.
+
+“Well I’ll be hanged!” cried Rawlins, “so this is their front gate,
+eh? Wonder how the dickens they ever found it!”
+
+Straight as a canal, the channel led and five minutes later a second
+wall of foliage blocked the way. But, as before, the canoe was urged
+ahead and crashed through the barrier followed by the boat. As the
+last branches swayed back into place behind them, the boys and their
+companions glanced about in surprise. They were floating upon the
+broad waters of the bay; an unbroken line of close-growing trees
+without a trace of opening stretched in their rear and far ahead they
+could see the row of palms upon the bar which marked the hiding place
+of their submarine.
+
+“Well, I’ll be shot!” cried Rawlins, as he swept his eyes about.
+“We’ve passed this place a dozen times and never knew it. No wonder we
+couldn’t find their hang-out. Why, I thought that was all solid land!”
+
+A moment later they were pulling, across the open bay. The Martinicans
+had vanished as if by magic in the dark green foliage and two miles
+away were their waiting friends.
+
+Half an hour afterwards they were clambering aboard their sub-sea
+craft and regaling the amazed and wondering Henderson with the story
+of their adventures, their discoveries and the escape of the men,
+while below, the quartermaster, surrounded by his mates, was relating
+a yarn which put the Arabian Nights to shame.
+
+“All gold an’ jools b’ cripes!” he declared. “With a gran’ pianner an’
+a funnygraf an’ electric lights. Aw, I ain’t yarnin’, ye can ask Mr.
+Rawlins—an’ statooary like them youse sees up to the art muse’ms, an’
+velvet curtains. Soak me if 'twan’t a reg’lar joint! Fit fer a king
+that’s what ’twas, an’ I’ll be blowed if Mr. Pauling didn’t up an’
+give the whole bloomin’ outfit to a bunch o’ wild Frenchy niggers!
+Struck me fair 'tween wind and water to hear him a-doin’ of it! Blow
+me if it didn’t, an’ then up an’ tol’ ’em to burn the blessed place
+after they was done lootin’ of it! But say! You’d ’a’ bust your-sel’s
+laffin to a-seen that old gazooks of a nigger a-squattin’ on his black
+hams in his ragged dungarees a-grinnin’ like a bloomin gorilla an’
+a-listenin’ to gran’ opery!”
+
+“Aw, stow it, Bill!” yawned one of the engineers. “Tell that gaff to
+the marines. Why didn’t ye cop some o’ them things if they was there?”
+
+The quartermaster snorted. “I aint no bloody thief o’ a greasy wiper!”
+he replied contemptuously. “Think I’d a-got myself in Dutch by
+a-swipin’ stuff under Mr. Pauling’s nose? But jes’ the same I did
+bring along a bit o’ a sooveeneer. Look a-here, you sons o’ sea
+cooks!” Fumbling in his blouse, the quartermaster drew forth a
+glittering object and placed it on the mess table triumphantly.
+
+“Holy mackerel! Stow me if 'taint a ring!” exclaimed one of the men.
+“An’ a reg’lar shiner in it! What youse goin’ to do with it, mate?
+Give it to your best girl?”
+
+“None o’ your business,” retorted the quartermaster pocketing the
+ring. “An’ mind youse don’ go blowin’ the gaff neither. I picked her
+up ’longside o’ one o’ the beds an’ none the wiser. Might as well be a
+havin’ it as one o’ them black monkeys.”
+
+While Bill was thus entertaining the crew, the boys and their friends
+on deck were still talking, retelling their stories, putting and
+answering innumerable questions and gradually imparting a coherent
+account of all that had transpired to Mr. Henderson.
+
+Presently Rawlins grasped Tom’s arm and pointed towards the hills
+across the bay.
+
+“Look there!” he exclaimed. “There goes the last of the Panjandrum’s
+palace!”
+
+The others turned at the diver’s words and saw a thick column of smoke
+rising in curling blue clouds against the green jungle.
+
+“Guess old Jules made quick work of looting it.” continued Rawlins.
+“Say, I can just see the old boy and his mates dancing and prancing
+around to the music of that phonograph and watching the place go up in
+smoke. Must do their hearts good! Wonder if they’ll learn to play
+billiards or hammer jazz music out of that piano!”
+
+“Well, let’s get down to business,” suggested Mr. Pauling, when the
+laughter over Rawlins’ quaint conceit had subsided. “I suppose we’d
+better notify Disbrow and leave here. No use of delaying longer. The
+trail is blind now.”
+
+“I vote we all turn in early and light out to-morrow morning,”
+suggested the diver. “I’m dead tired myself and the boys must be all
+in. They haven’t slept since night before last, you know, and it’s
+pretty near sundown now. How about grub, too?”
+
+This seemed the wisest plan, and as Bancroft sat at his instruments
+rapidly sending a cipher message to the destroyer the steward served a
+belated but hearty meal.
+
+“He’s received the message, Sir,” announced the operator as he joined
+the others. “Here’s his reply.”
+
+“H-m-m!” said Mr. Pauling, as he glanced over the apparently
+meaningless figures and letters. “He’ll stand in and wait for us in
+the morning. Hasn’t seen any signs of a sub, or anything suspicious.”
+
+Now that their appetites were satisfied and the excitement was over
+all realized how tired, exhausted and sleepy they were and gladly
+sought their bunks at an early hour.
+
+It seemed to Rawlins that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he
+awoke with a start, the sound of a shout still ringing in his ears.
+For a brief instant he thought he had been dreaming and then, as the
+cry again echoed through the night, he realized it was no dream, that
+something was amiss, and wide awake leaped to the floor.
+
+The next instant he uttered a yell of shock and surprise. Instead of
+landing on the rubber mat his feet had plunged into cold water!
+
+“Get up! Wake! Hustle!” he screamed at Bancroft who occupied the other
+bunk. “The boat’s full of water!”
+
+Without waiting, he dashed from the room, shouting and yelling,
+switching on lights and starting the alarm gong as he plunged,
+splashing, through the water that covered the steel plates of the
+floors.
+
+Instantly all was in an uproar. Hoarse shouts and cries came from the
+crews’ quarters. The boys, with frightened faces and still rubbing
+dazed and sleep-filled eyes, rushed from their cabin with Mr. Pauling
+and Mr. Henderson at their heels and through the din of the clanging
+gong, the excited questions and warning shouts, Rawlins, with the
+quartermaster by his side, hustled the men and boys up the ladder to
+the deck, checking them off one by one as they passed.
+
+“All up?” demanded Rawlins as a drowsy oiler stumbled through the
+fast-rising water to the foot of the ladder.
+
+“Aye, aye, Sir!” responded the old sailor. “Better be gettin’ aloft,
+Sir.”
+
+The water was now up to the men’s hips and as they reached the outer
+air Rawlins and the quartermaster found the waves lapping the edges of
+the deck. But perfect order prevailed. The two boats were manned and
+ready and as Rawlins and the sailor sprang into them the men bent to
+the oars and a few moments later the boats’ keels grated on the sand
+beach under the ghostly palms.
+
+“I’ll say we’re lucky!” were Rawlins first words. “Wonder what in
+blazes burst loose!”
+
+But no one could offer an explanation. The man who had been on watch
+and whose cry had roused Rawlins declared that the first thing he had
+noticed had been that the submarine was settling. The engineers
+insisted that no sea-cock or valve had been left open. There had been
+no blow, shock or explosion and, huddled together on the beach,
+shivering and shaken, the men and the boys waited for the dawn.
+Presently a fire was started and the survivors, glad of its warmth in
+the chill night air, gathered close about it, discussing the disaster,
+surmising as to its cause and thanking their stars that they had all
+escaped and that help was not far away.
+
+“If we don’t turn up, Disbrow will suspect something is wrong and send
+a boat in,” declared Mr. Pauling. “We won’t have to wait here many
+hours.”
+
+“Perhaps we could call him,” suggested Mr. Henderson. “Are those radio
+instruments still in the boats?”
+
+“One is.” replied Rawlins. “I noticed it as we came ashore.”
+
+“But we haven’t any aerial,” said Tom. “The resonance coil was on
+board the submarine.”
+
+“I don’t think it matters,” his father assured him. “Disbrow’s sure to
+investigate.”
+
+“For that matter, we can row out and meet them,” suggested Rawlins.
+“We’ve got perfectly good boats.”
+
+“Of course,” agreed Mr. Henderson, “although it would be more risky
+than waiting here. Disbrow might not sight us and then we’d be worse
+off.”
+
+“Yes, we’ll wait here a reasonable time at any rate,” declared Mr.
+Pauling, “Ah, I believe it’s getting lighter.”
+
+Very soon the eastern sky grew bright and presently there was enough
+light to distinguish surrounding objects clearly.
+
+“There she is!” exclaimed Rawlins, pointing towards the spot where
+their submarine had been moored. “Didn’t go clear under. Too shallow
+for her.”
+
+Above the water, the top of the submarine’s conning tower was visible
+with the slender aerial wires faintly discernible in the soft morning
+light.
+
+“We’re all right!” declared the diver. “We can get that aerial off the
+sub, rig it up between a couple of these palms and get the destroyer
+here in double quick time. But I _would_ like to know what sunk
+the old tub.”
+
+Acting on Rawlins’ suggestion, the boats rowed over to the wreck and
+the men busied themselves stripping the aerial from the submarine. By
+the time this was accomplished it was broad daylight and the warm sun
+was shining brightly upon the water and beach.
+
+“Sam,” said Rawlins, turning to the Bahaman who, up to his waist in
+water on the submarine’s deck, was unfastening a wire. “What do you
+think of diving down and having a look around. I’m blamed anxious to
+know how the old sub got full of water.”
+
+“All right, Chief,” grinned the negro, dropping the wire and stripping
+off his scanty garments. “Ah’ll mos’ surely ascertain, Chief.”
+
+The next instant he had plunged off the deck and all waited
+expectantly for his reappearance. After what seemed a tremendously
+long interval his wooly head bobbed up close to the stern and shaking
+the water from his eyes he swam easily to the submerged deck and
+pulled himself up.
+
+“Tha’s nothin’ wrong this side, Chief,” he announced as he recovered
+his breath. “Ah’ll go down tha’ other side an’ have a look.”
+
+Presently he rose, felt his way along the deck with the water to his
+armpits and reaching a point near the bow again dove.
+
+Again he reappeared near the stern and the satisfied grin upon his
+face assured Rawlins that he had news.
+
+“Yaas, Sir!” he announced as he drew himself onto the boat. “Ah foun’
+it, Chief. Tha’ a big hole aft, Chief. Looks like it been bored in
+tha’ plates, Chief.”
+
+“Well, what in thunder!” cried Rawlins. “Come on, Sam, I’m going to
+have a look. Show me where ’tis. I’m no fish like you, but I can stay
+down long enough for that.”
+
+Poising himself on the boat’s thwart with Sam beside him, Rawlins
+waited for the word and together the two figures, one white, one
+black, plunged into the sea.
+
+Presently the two heads bobbed up side by side and breathing hard
+Rawlins scrambled into the boat.
+
+“I’ll say it’s bored!” he exclaimed. “Burned! Cut clean through with
+an acetylene torch!”
+
+The others fairly gasped with amazement.
+
+“But how _could_ any one burn a hole through steel,—under
+water?” cried Tom.
+
+“Easy!” retorted Rawlins. “A good torch’ll burn as well under water as
+in air. Used right along by divers. It’s those blasted, dumbfoozled
+‘reds’! I can see it all now. They sneaked down here in that little
+sub of theirs, laid on the bottom, sent a diver out with a torch and
+burned the hole. Thought they’d drown us like rats in a trap—blame
+their dirty hides!”
+
+“By jove! it doesn’t seem possible,” declared Mr. Pauling. “I’m
+surprised, they——”
+
+His words were cut short by a shout from Rawlins. “Look there!” he
+fairly screamed, leaping up, and pointing towards the bay. “Look at
+’em! The low down, sneaking swine!”
+
+All turned instantly towards the bay and at the sight which greeted
+them jaws gaped, eyes grew round with wonder and hoarse exclamations
+of anger, amazement and chagrin arose from a dozen throats.
+
+Traveling swiftly seaward through the calm water was a small
+submarine, her deck just awash, and standing upon her superstructure
+and waving their hands in derisive farewell were two men. One was
+heavily built with a huge red beard, the other slender, immaculate in
+white flannels and with a stiffly upturned, iron-gray mustache.
+
+The next moment they disappeared in the hatch. An instant later only
+the conning tower showed above the water and ere the amazed onlookers
+could recover from their astonishment the placid bay stretched
+unbroken even by a ripple to the distant shores.
+
+Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson exchanged rapid glances.
+
+“It was!” muttered Mr. Pauling in a low voice.
+
+The other nodded. “Absolutely!” he rejoined.
+
+Rawlins, who for once had been rendered absolutely speechless with
+surprise, anger and chagrin now found his voice.
+
+“Lively, men!” he shouted. “Get that aerial up quick! We’ll nab those
+devils yet! Get a message to Disbrow to go for ’em! Drop depth bombs
+or anything else! He can’t be far off.”
+
+At his bidding, thoroughly aroused to the necessity for action, the
+men fell to work. Hastily the antennae from the submarine was rushed
+ashore. Up the palms scrambled Sam and a sailor and in an incredibly
+short space of time the slender wires were stretched between the
+lopped-off tops of the lofty trees and the boys adjusted their
+instruments. Excitedly they called the destroyer and presently sharp,
+and clear, came back the answering call.
+
+“Tell him to watch for a sub,” ordered Mr. Pauling. “Don’t bother over
+cipher. Give it to them in English. Tell him she’s just slipped out.
+If he sights her sink her, disable her, anything! Drop depth bombs if
+necessary!”
+
+Then, as the boys hurriedly and excitedly flashed these orders to the
+destroyer and the “dee dee dee dah dee” (“we understand”) came back,
+Mr. Pauling continued. “Now tell him our sub has sunk. Have him send a
+cutter for us and tell him to hustle.”
+
+Slowly the minutes slipped by. Breathlessly, filled with excitement,
+those upon the beach beneath the palms listened, expecting each moment
+to hear the distant boom of a gun, the low rumbling roar of an
+exploding depth bomb. But no sound broke the low swish of the palm
+fronds and the soft lapping of the waves upon the sand.
+
+An hour went by and then, from the direction of the bay, came the
+faint staccato beat of a motor’s exhaust and a moment later a trim
+navy cutter came into view. Shouting and waving their hands, those
+upon the beach attracted the cutter’s attention, it spun around, came
+swiftly towards them and ten minutes later was headed seaward leaving
+the sunken submarine deserted and alone.
+
+A mile or two offshore, steaming in great circles, was the lean, gray
+destroyer and as those in the cutter ran up the gangway and gained the
+decks Disbrow met them.
+
+“Seen anything of that sub!” demanded Mr. Pauling, ignoring the
+officer’s cheery greeting.
+
+“Not a sign,” declared the commander. “Had men aloft and been swinging
+in circles ever since we got your message. Haven’t sighted a craft of
+any sort since daylight. Only thing we’ve seen was an old Dutch tramp
+over by Trade Wind Cay.”
+
+Rawlins, who had just reached the deck, sprang forward.
+
+“Dutch tramp!” he cried. “What did she look like? Did you board her?”
+
+“Of course not!” replied Disbrow icily. “Why should we? Ordinary tramp
+painted pea-soup color with bands two blue and one yellow, on her
+funnel.”
+
+“I’ll say she’s not an ordinary tramp!” exclaimed the diver. “If she
+is, what the blazes is she hangin’ around there for? She was there a
+week ago—we saw her—and Dutch tramps or any other tramps don’t hang
+around Trade Wind Cay for a week! Rotten luck you didn’t board her!”
+
+“Humph!” snorted Disbrow. “I’d get myself in a pretty mess if I
+boarded every steamer I saw. It’s none of my business if a Dutchman
+wants to kill time cruising about here. The sea’s free.”
+
+“Yes, and I’m beginning to think some naval men are blamed idiots!”
+cried Rawlins, overcome with excitement. “I know one that boarded a
+square-head fishing smack and didn’t think ’twas any of his business
+because she was a Bahaman schooner. Darned near finished us on account
+of it, too!”
+
+The commander flushed scarlet. “If you’re going to insult me!” he
+began; but Mr. Pauling interposed.
+
+“Here, here, boys!” he exclaimed. “Don’t get excited. We all make
+mistakes and we’re dealing with most elusive and resourceful
+scoundrels. Rawlins has a hunch of some sort, Disbrow, and his hunches
+are usually, right. Now what it is, Rawlins? The sooner we get to an
+understanding the quicker we can act.”
+
+“Sorry, old man!” apologized the diver, extending his hand to Disbrow
+who instantly grasped it. “Was a bit jumpy, I guess. But that tramp’s
+got to be overhauled. I’ve an all-fired hunch she’s part of the game.
+They deserted a sub once and took to a schooner and I’ll bet my last
+dollar to a plugged cent that that tramp’s just waiting for ’em now.”
+
+Disbrow wheeled and gave a crisp order and the next moment the
+destroyer, throbbing and shaking like a leaf, a huge wave rising high
+above her sharp bows, was tearing like an express train towards Trade
+Wind Cay.
+
+As they neared the little islet and rounded its jutting point, Rawlins
+gave a cheer. Wallowing slowly along, her rust-streaked sides rising
+and falling to the ocean swell, was the tramp, with the flag of the
+Netherlands fluttering at her stern and the blue and yellow stripes
+plainly visible on her funnels.
+
+Up to the destroyer’s mast fluttered a string of bunting, but the
+Dutchman paid not the slightest heed, continuing placidly on his
+course.
+
+“Confound him!” exploded Rawlins. “Doesn’t mean to stop, eh?”
+
+“Run alongside and hail him,” quietly ordered Mr. Pauling. “I’ll take
+all responsibility if there’s any trouble. But we’ll board that chap
+if we have to fire on him.”
+
+There was no need of any such drastic measures, however. As the
+destroyer came near and Disbrow’s hail through the megaphone reached
+those upon the tramp, a huge, burly figure appeared upon the bridge,
+waved an arm in assent and a moment later the ill-kept vessel lay
+motionless, as the cutter from the destroyer bobbed alongside. Over
+the tramp’s wall-like sides dangled a rope ladder and followed by
+Rawlins and Mr. Pauling a white clad ensign ran nimbly up and leaped
+over the battered iron rails.
+
+At the break of the bridge-deck the ponderous man lounged upon the
+rail awaiting them, a big pipe projecting from an enormous yellow
+mustache, a weather-beaten cap upon his tow-colored hair and greasy,
+faded blue garments hanging loosely on his immensely fat figure.
+Placidly, with pale, expressionless blue eyes, he watched the officer
+and the civilians approach and as they drew near slowly withdrew the
+pipe from his mouth.
+
+“Vat you vellers vant?” he demanded in thick greasy tones. “Vat vor
+you sthob mine shib?”
+
+The boyish ensign touched his cap. “Compliments of Commander Disbrow,
+Sir,” he announced. “His orders are to have a look at your papers and
+search the ship if we think necessary. Are you the captain?”
+
+The Dutchman drew himself up in what was a ludicrous attempt at
+dignity. “Yah, me der gapdain!” he rumbled. “But vat de deffil you
+vellers link? Dondt you know dot der var vas over? Vat vor you vant to
+see mine babers, eh?”
+
+“Just as a matter of form, Captain,” replied the ensign crisply.
+“Won’t take a minute.”
+
+For a space, the fat skipper eyed the other suspiciously. “Ach! All
+right,” he exclaimed at last. “Gum on! Dis vay an’ pe tarn qvick apout
+id!”
+
+Rolling like a barge in a gale, the Dutchman led the way across the
+deck and into his disorderly cabin under the bridge. Then, rummaging
+among papers and letters, he drew out a package snapped together with
+rubber bands and handed it to the ensign.
+
+“Seem to be all right,” commented Mr. Pauling, as he glanced over the
+officer’s shoulder with Rawlins beside him. “‘Steamship _Van
+Doerck_, 11,345 tons, general cargo, Rotterdam for St. Thomas,
+Hirschfelt, master and owner.’ Don’t see anything suspicious there,
+Rawlins. Last cleared from Curacao. Health and port papers O. K. Guess
+your hunch was wrong this time.”
+
+Rawlins scratched his head and looked sheepish, but there was still a
+questioning, puzzled expression in his eyes. “Maybe,” he admitted,
+“but I’d like to have a look at his crew. Just ask him to line ’em up
+on deck, Ensign.”
+
+At first, the Dutchman vehemently objected, but finally, with a
+muttered curse in his native tongue at the pigheadedness of the
+Yankees, he ordered his second officer to summon all hands on deck.
+
+Carefully Rawlins, Mr. Pauling and the ensign went along the line of
+dirty faces, checking them off by name in accordance with the ship’s
+papers, but they were all there, no more, no less.
+
+“No use looking under hatches,” declared the ensign who began to feel
+that he had made a fool of himself. “They haven’t been up for a week,
+I’ll swear.” Then, as an afterthought, he added sarcastically, “Don’t
+suppose you’d care to search the engine room and bunkers?”
+
+“I’ll say I will!” exclaimed Rawlins, and without another word hurried
+aft.
+
+A few minutes later he reappeared, grimy, perspiring and greasy.
+
+“Nothing doing there!” he announced. “Say, ask the old boy what he’s
+been hanging around here a week for.”
+
+Reluctantly the ensign put the question.
+
+“None of your tamt pizness!” replied the skipper. “Put id’s no segret.
+Ve drobt a sbar offerboard in der night an ve been hunding vor id. Ve
+vasn’t here vor a veek—id vas night before ladst ve gum pack.”
+
+Rawlins raised his eyebrows. “All right, Ensign,” he said. “Guess it’s
+a false alarm. Might as well be going.”
+
+“Sorry to have troubled you, Captain,” said the ensign, touching his
+cap. “Expect you’re not the ship we were looking for.”
+
+The skipper’s only reply was a low, rumbling bellow from his chest and
+stumping up the ladder to the bridge he jerked the bell for “stand
+by.”
+
+No sooner were the boarding party again on the destroyer than Rawlins
+beckoned Mr. Pauling aside.
+
+“You may think I’m an ass, Mr. Pauling,” remarked the diver. “But
+there’s something crooked about that Dutchman. He’s a blamed liar in
+the first place, because you know as well as I do he was here six days
+ago. In the second place, can you imagine wasting even two days
+steaming along and hunting for a lost spar, and how the blazes could
+he lose a spar? The sea’s been like glass.”
+
+Mr. Pauling smiled. “You’re unduly suspicious, Rawlins,” he declared.
+“I admit the tramp was here a week ago and we saw her, but he may have
+gone on and then come back two days ago searching for a spar or he may
+have lied just because he wouldn’t give us the satisfaction of telling
+us his business. No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him. If
+you suspect every ship we see we’ll have our hands full and every
+nation in the world will be after our scalps.”
+
+“Well, Mr. Pauling,” replied Rawlins, “I hope you won’t be insulted if
+I say so and I don’t mean it that way; but you’re no seaman and you
+may be a mighty good detective on land, but you’re not when aboard
+ship. That old whale of a Dutchy has been anchored there and hasn’t
+been hunting for a blamed thing! And what’s more, he hasn’t been in
+Curacao for a year!”
+
+“What?” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “How do you know? Explain yourself,
+Rawlins.”
+
+“If that cockey little ensign hadn’t been so stuck on himself, he’d
+have noticed it,” declared the diver. “Why, the anchor chains were
+thick with wet mud, the steam winch was still hot, there was mud and
+water on deck and some of the crew had fresh mud on their jumpers.
+What’s more, the fires in her furnaces hadn’t been going an hour.
+They’d been banked and the ashes were still on the plates where they’d
+been raked out. That old hooker hadn’t been under way half an hour
+when we came up. And now how do I know she hadn’t been at Curacao?
+I’ll tell you. The papers looked all right, I’ll admit—Curacao stamps
+and signatures and everything O. K. But they were dead crooked, I’ll
+say! They were a whole year old!”
+
+“Jove!” ejaculated Mr. Pauling, beginning to be convinced that Rawlins
+had grounds for his suspicions. “How do you know? I saw nothing
+wrong.”
+
+Rawlins chuckled. “No, and the old guy didn’t expect you would. He or
+his friends are darned clever birds, but they slipped up on those
+papers. They’d changed the date under the signatures, but they forgot
+about the stamps—they were canceled with a rubber stamp and the date
+was ’21 not ’22!”
+
+“Rawlins!” cried Mr. Pauling. “I’ll take it all back! You’re a
+wonder—told you you should be in the Service. What’s your idea?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know just where the Dutchy comes in with those reds,”
+admitted Rawlins, “but I’ll bet they’re cahoots somehow. I think we’d
+better follow the boys’ motto—hear everything, see everything and say
+nothing and keep the other fellow guessing—I’d suggest we trail the
+old porpoise and see if he _does_ go to St. Thomas. If he does,
+we’ll bob up there too. I’m ready to follow along his wake if he
+wallows round the world, but St. Thomas is an American port and we can
+do pretty near anything we like there. If we hang around we may get a
+line on something. We’ve had pretty good luck all together and I’ve
+got a hunch we’re ‘hot’, as they used to say when we played hunt the
+thimble.”
+
+A few moments later Mr. Pauling was speaking to the commander in the
+privacy of the latter’s cabin.
+
+“You’ll make for St. Thomas, Disbrow,” he said. “Keep that tramp
+within sight, but don’t let her think we’re following her. No, don’t
+ask questions, I don’t really know myself. Rawlins has a hunch, and so
+far his hunches have come mighty near being right. I’m backing them to
+the limit.”
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+By A. HYATT VERRILL
+
+  THE RADIO DETECTIVES
+  THE RADIO DETECTIVES UNDER THE SEA
+  THE RADIO DETECTIVES SOUTHWARD BOUND
+  THE RADIO DETECTIVES IN THE JUNGLE
+  THE DEEP SEA HUNTERS
+  THE BOOK OF THE MOTOR BOAT
+  ISLES OF SPICE AND PALM
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    MASTERPIECES
+    IN COLOUR
+    EDITED BY - -
+    T. LEMAN HARE
+
+    INGRES
+
+    (1778-1867)
+
+
+    “MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR” SERIES
+
+        ARTIST.                        AUTHOR.
+    VELAZQUEZ.                     S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    REYNOLDS.                      S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    TURNER.                        C. LEWIS HIND.
+    ROMNEY.                        C. LEWIS HIND.
+    GREUZE.                        ALYS EVRE MACKLIN.
+    BOTTICELLI.                    HENRY B. BINNS.
+    ROSSETTI.                      LUCIEN PISSARRO.
+    BELLINI.                       GEORGE HAY.
+    FRA ANGELICO.                  JAMES MASON.
+    REMBRANDT.                     JOSEF ISRAELS.
+    LEIGHTON.                      A. LYS BALDRY.
+    RAPHAEL.                       PAUL G. KONODY.
+    HOLMAN HUNT.                   MARY E. COLERIDGE.
+    TITIAN.                        S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    MILLAIS.                       A. LYS BALDRY.
+    CARLO DOLCI.                   GEORGE HAY.
+    GAINSBOROUGH.                  MAX ROTHSCHILD.
+    TINTORETTO.                    S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    LUINI.                         JAMES MASON.
+    FRANZ HALS.                    EDGCUMBE STALEY.
+    VAN DYCK.                      PERCY M. TURNER.
+    LEONARDO DA VINCI.             M. W. BROCKWELL.
+    RUBENS.                        S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    WHISTLER.                      T. MARTIN WOOD.
+    HOLBEIN.                       S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    BURNE-JONES.                   A. LYS BALDRY.
+    VIGÉE LE BRUN.                 C. HALDANE MACFALL.
+    CHARDIN.                       PAUL G. KONODY.
+    FRAGONARD.                     C. HALDANE MACFALL.
+    MEMLINC.                       W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE.
+    CONSTABLE.                     C. LEWIS HIND.
+    RAEBURN.                       JAMES L. CAW.
+    JOHN S.                        SARGENT. T. MARTIN WOOD.
+    LAWRENCE.                      S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    DÜRER.                         H. E. A. FURST.
+    MILLET.                        PERCY M. TURNER.
+    WATTEAU.                       C. LEWIS HIND.
+    HOGARTH.                       C. LEWIS HIND.
+    MURILLO.                       S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    WATTS.                         W. LOFTUS HARE.
+    INGRES.                        A. J. FINBERG.
+           _Others in Preparation._
+
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE I.--LA VIERGE À L’HOSTIE
+
+    (In the Louvre)
+
+    This picture of “La Vierge à l’Hostie” is a repetition, with
+    variations, of another painted by Ingres in 1840 for the Czar
+    Nicholas, in which he had represented on either side of the
+    Virgin the two patron saints of Russia, St. Nicholas and St.
+    Alexander. In the Louvre picture, which is signed “J. Ingres,
+    1854,” the two saints have been replaced by two angels. Probably
+    in no other picture from his hand is the artist’s passionate
+    admiration for Raphael so clearly displayed.]
+
+
+
+
+    INGRES
+
+    BY A. J. FINBERG
+
+
+    ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
+    REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR
+
+    [Illustration: IN SEMPITERNUM.]
+
+    LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
+    NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    Plate
+
+       I. La Vierge à l’Hostie      Frontispiece
+             In the Louvre
+
+                                            Page
+      II. Madame Rivière                      14
+             In the Louvre
+
+     III. Mademoiselle Rivière                24
+             In the Louvre
+
+      IV. L’Apotheose d’Homere                34
+             In the Louvre
+
+       V. M. Bertin                           40
+             In the Louvre
+
+      VI. Chérubini                           50
+             In the Louvre
+
+     VII. Le Duc d’Orléans                    60
+             Musée de Versailles
+
+    VIII. Jeanne d’Arc                        70
+             In the Louvre
+
+
+
+
+Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was born on the 29th August 1778, at
+Montauban. A stranger birthplace for a great artist could hardly be
+found. All the passion not absorbed in the material cares of life
+there turns to fanaticism. Religious hatred runs high. The municipal
+elections are fought out on religious grounds. Protestant and Roman
+Catholic hate but do not know one another. Each family lives for
+itself and by itself. A visit is said to be considered as an
+indiscretion. And nature there does nothing to soften the heart or the
+manners of man. The soil is dusty on the surface and hard to dig. The
+local colour is sombre, the general aspect of things sad. In the cold,
+dull light the forms detach themselves without grace or sympathy. The
+people have squat, thick-set figures, with round heads and heavy jaws.
+Their souls are as sombre and hard as their faces. They have ardour,
+but it is all concentrated and suppressed, burning within them like a
+brazier without flames. They show an extreme eagerness for work and
+gain; a silent obstinacy is the leading trait of their character.
+Ingres’ mother belonged to these parts and to this race, and from her
+he seems to have derived a part of his stormy and inflexible, his
+unquiet and haughty genius.
+
+Ingres’ father came from Toulouse. Little more than three miles
+separate Toulouse from Montauban, but the chain of little hills which
+throws off, to the left, the river Garonne, and to the right the Tarn
+and the Aveyron, serves as the dividing line of two profoundly
+different regions and races. In contrast with the sterile and rocky
+regions of the North, the plains of Languedoc, with their great river
+and verdant meadows, seem a land of joy and enchantment. It was at
+Toulouse, with its courts of love, its floral fêtes, its contests of
+song and poetry, that Ingres’ father was born. If we may judge from
+the portrait which Ingres painted of him (it is preserved at the
+Museum of Montauban), his father must have been an uncommon man. As we
+see him in this portrait he has a fine forehead, with big black eyes,
+and a look full of frankness and penetration. The evidence of this
+portrait is confirmed by the following letter, written by Ingres
+towards the end of his life, to a gentleman who had asked him for
+information about his father:--
+
+    “Sir,--Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres was born at Toulouse (in 1734):
+    his father, whom I saw in my childhood, was a master tailor; he
+    lived to a great age. My father when he was very young entered
+    the Academy of Toulouse. He had as master, I believe, M. Lucas,
+    a celebrated sculptor, a professor of the said Academy. Later he
+    went to Marseille, then settled at Montauban and married my
+    mother, Anne Moulet, on 12th August 1777. He was very much loved
+    and appreciated by the leading families of the city and by Mgr.
+    de Breteuil, the Bishop of Montauban, of whom he made a large
+    medallion in profile. This bishop employed my father a great
+    deal at his palace and in his country house, situated near
+    the city.
+
+    “My father was born with a rare genius for the fine arts. I say
+    the fine arts because he executed painting, sculpture, and even
+    architecture with success. I saw him construct an important
+    building in our principal street.
+
+    “If M. Ingres had had the same advantages which he gave his
+    son, of going to Paris to study under the greatest of our
+    masters, he would have been the first artist of his time. My
+    father, who drew perfectly, painted also in miniature. He also
+    painted views of the country from nature....
+
+    “Nothing came amiss to him. In sculpture his work ranged from
+    the sphinxes and figures of abbés reading, which were placed in
+    gardens, to the colossal statues of Liberty which he was forced
+    to improvise in our temples for the Republican fêtes. He made
+    with the greatest facility ornaments of all kinds, with which
+    he decorated most tastefully the buildings of his time....
+    Finally, he attracted everybody by his lovable character, his
+    goodness, his eminently artistic tastes. Every one was anxious
+    to enjoy his society.
+
+    “He often went to Toulouse, his native place, to renew his
+    strength, so to speak, in that large and beautiful city, almost
+    as rich then in monuments of art as Rome, which it greatly
+    resembles. He loved to find himself again with the friends of
+    his youth, all distinguished artists. He took me often with him
+    in these short journeys.
+
+    “Without being a musician, my father adored music, and sang
+    very well with a tenor voice. He gave me his taste for music
+    and made me learn to play the violin. I succeeded well enough
+    with it to be admitted into the orchestra of the Grand Theatre
+    of Toulouse, where I played a concerto of Viotti with
+    success....”
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE II.--MADAME RIVIÈRE
+
+    (In the Louvre)
+
+    This portrait of “Madame Rivière” is one of the most characteristic
+    works of Ingres’ first period--the period (1800-1806) of that six
+    years’ weary wait to depart for Rome which the bankruptcy of the
+    public exchequer compelled the young artist to submit to. In a list of
+    his works executed immediately before his first portrait of
+    “Bartolini,” painted in 1805, Ingres mentions the portraits of “M.
+    Rivière, Madame Rivière, and their ravishing daughter.” This fixes the
+    date of these three portraits as about 1804. These are often spoken of
+    by French critics as typical specimens of the artist’s “Pre-Raphaelite
+    manner.” All three portraits are now in the Louvre.]
+
+In this glowing eulogy of his father there is doubtless a certain
+amount of pious exaggeration. The man was a true Toulousian, a fine
+singer, an occasional performer on the violin, an improviser in
+everything, with a natural gift for drawing and a plastic sense common
+among his compatriots. That he would have been “one of the first
+artists of his time” if he had had the advantage of studying in Paris
+is manifestly absurd. His work shows a want of vigour, of
+originality, of invention. He had a certain correctness of eye and
+skill of hand, with some taste for arrangement and effect. That was
+sufficient for the plaster decorations with which he was mainly
+occupied, and even for the little portraits in miniature or red chalk
+which he undertook. But he could not go beyond this, and the only
+attempt to paint an important picture which he made marks clearly the
+limits of his talent. His private life was somewhat irregular. He was
+a great lover of the fair sex, and towards the end of his life his
+wife was compelled to leave his home.
+
+From the father, then, we may say, Ingres inherited the penetrating
+vivacity of his sight, the agile suppleness and surety of his fingers,
+and a certain voluptuous tendency which is particularly noticeable in
+his nudes; while his immense powers of work, his obstinacy and
+pugnacity, came from his mother.
+
+At a very early age his father began to teach him drawing and music.
+He first achieved success as a violinist in the salon of the bishop,
+but he was at least equally precocious with his pencil. Towards the
+age of twelve he was taken to Toulouse. He was at first placed with
+the painter Vigan, and worked under his direction at the Académie
+Royale. Then he went to the atelier of Roques, where he made rapid
+progress. It was in Roques’s studio that Ingres was converted to what
+he called “the religion of Raphael.” Roques had brought back with him
+from Rome a number of copies of the works of the great painters of the
+Renaissance, among them one of Raphael’s “Vierge à la Chaise.” Ingres
+was so impressed by the beauty of this work that he is said to have
+burst into tears before it. The instruction at the Toulouse Academy,
+with its insistence on minute accuracy of drawing, also had a great
+influence on his future career. At the end of his life Ingres, when
+talking of his early studies at Toulouse, was fond of affirming that
+he was still “what the little Ingres of twelve years had been.”
+
+At the age of eighteen he was sent to Paris, and had the good
+fortune--it was his own expression--to be admitted to the studio of
+Louis David. He quickly gained the esteem of his master, and is said
+to have been employed to paint the accessories in David’s famous
+portrait of Madame Récamier. But their good understanding did not last
+long. Ingres competed for the Grand Prix de Rome in 1799, and David
+awarded the prize to Granger, an older pupil of his, while Ingres, to
+his great indignation, was only awarded the second prize. His picture
+was burnt during the Commune. The following year Ingres carried off
+the prize. The subject was “Achilles receiving in his Tent the Envoys
+of Agamemnon.” Flaxman, the English sculptor and illustrator of Homer,
+spoke so flatteringly of Ingres’ picture that, according to M.
+Delaborde, his master’s hostility was still further increased. This
+painting, which is still preserved at the École des Beaux-Arts, shows
+the young man’s power of vivid and accurate drawing and his respect
+for the teachings of his master. But under its external conformity to
+David’s principles it is possible to trace the germs of an originality
+which was soon to separate the pupil, almost in spite of himself, from
+the school of his master. For while David admitted the direct
+imitation of nature only in his portraits and studies of the nude, he
+insisted on giving the first place to the search for the grand style
+in his historical compositions.
+
+Already in this picture we see that Ingres was constitutionally
+incapable of sacrificing on any grounds his unconscious desire to
+imitate closely, of copying nature. In vain he tries to force himself
+to attain “style” in the group he has imagined. His group is not
+harmoniously arranged. It has no vital unity. Each of the figures
+appeared detached from the others; but they are drawn individually
+with so much realistic exactitude that the whole has the bizarre
+aspect of a photograph of an assembly of artists’ models trying
+different poses in a studio.
+
+As M. de Wyzewa has well said, the young painter had received from
+heaven at his birth a defect and a quality which remained intimately
+connected with each other. The defect was a total absence of
+imagination, invention, or aptitude to raise himself above the reality
+directly offered to the painter by the sight present to his eyes; and
+the quality--the very excess of which was the inevitable cause of the
+defect I have just denoted--the quality was a marvellous, an
+absolutely exceptional power of seeing, of understanding, and of
+reproducing that reality. No painter has ever had a more exact vision
+of the human figure, nor hands more skilful to fix in its entirety on
+the paper or the canvas what his eyes saw. A Holbein even, with all
+the fidelity of his realism, was still troubled in his observation of
+the model by a shade of æsthetic idealism, by the preoccupation of
+an example to be followed, or by a new process to employ: between
+Dominique Ingres and his model, so long as he had this model in front
+of his eyes, no consideration of any kind could interpose itself. The
+painter was as possessed by his vision, as hypnotised by it, and he
+was forced to copy it without changing anything. He carried away,
+indeed, as the result of his stay in David’s studio, a body of
+doctrines to which he remained on the whole faithful all his life, but
+nature had given him gifts which were entirely different from those
+which were needed to put these doctrines into practice. And this
+explains why this great man, in the ignorance he always remained in of
+the real source of his originality and greatness, presents to us
+to-day the paradox of having been the most naturalistic of French
+painters, while obstinately attempting to make himself the most
+idealistic.
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE III.--MADEMOISELLE RIVIÈRE
+
+    (In the Louvre)
+
+    This is the portrait of the “ravishing daughter” of Monsieur and
+    Madame Rivière already referred to.]
+
+Having gained the much-coveted Prix de Rome, Ingres ought to have
+started at once for Italy. But the state of the public treasury was so
+miserable at this period of wars and internal crises that the young
+painter had to remain in Paris for five years before the funds for his
+journey were forthcoming. He was allotted apartments, together with
+other artists, in a deserted Capuchin convent in Paris, where he
+resumed his studies and undertook any work that was offered to him.
+The only official encouragement he received was an order to paint two
+portraits of Napoleon. The first of these portraits was finished in
+1805--the “Bonaparte, First Consul,” for the town of Lille; the
+second, of “Napoleon, Emperor,” for the Hôtel des Invalides, was
+finished in the following year. To those years of anxious suspense
+belong the first ideas of many of the works which were afterwards to
+make him famous. The dominant influences noticeable in his designs are
+said to be the works of Flaxman and the paintings on antique Greek
+vases. The neighbouring studio at the convent was occupied by de Gros,
+who was engaged upon a series of immense canvases consecrated to the
+glory of Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. It was filled with Oriental
+bric-à-brac, damascened arms, costumes, Persian rugs, Turkish pipes,
+and hangings of gold and silk--everything, in short, which would help
+the artist to paint the accessories of his pictures. It was in this
+studio that Ingres probably painted the studies of Eastern carpets,
+mosaics, &c., which are still preserved at the Museum of Montauban,
+and which he used afterwards in the “Odalisques.” But the real
+strength of his personality is best seen in the series of portraits
+Ingres painted at this time. The first was a portrait of his father,
+who came to visit him in Paris in 1801. As was his custom, he worked
+on this in the following years, which explains the date, 1804,
+inscribed upon the painting. It was exhibited at the Salon in 1806,
+and is now at Montauban. Then he painted the portrait of himself which
+is now at the Museum of Chantilly. These were followed by the three
+portraits of the Rivière family, now in the Louvre. Two of these,
+those of the mother and daughter, have been reproduced in the present
+volume.
+
+Towards the end of 1806 Ingres was at length supplied with the
+necessary funds to proceed to Rome. Once established in the Villa
+Medici fortune began to smile on him. He received several important
+official commissions. His talent also found private appreciators. The
+General Miollis, a fanatical admirer of Virgil; M. de Norvins, M.
+Marcotte; ladies like Madame de Lavalette, Madame Forgeot, and Madame
+Devauçay, gave him orders for portraits and pictures. Joachim Murat,
+then King of Naples, also took an interest in the young painter who
+had been born in the same province as himself. He commissioned the
+“Dormeuse de Naples” and the “Grande Odalisque,” and invited him to
+his Court to paint portraits of the members of his family.
+
+So flourishing did the young artist’s affairs look that he resolved to
+face the responsibilities of marriage. He authorised a friend, a M.
+Loréal, an employé of the French Government in Rome, to find him a
+wife. M. Loréal’s choice fell upon a Mlle. Magdaleine Chapelle, a
+young Frenchwoman of about the same age as the artist, who was then
+acting as cashier in a café at Guéret. M. Boyer d’Agen has recently
+published a letter from the young fiancée to her sister announcing the
+approaching marriage. It is dated 30th August 1813. She starts by
+saying that just as she was beginning to despair of ever finding a
+suitable husband “they had written to her from Rome saying they had
+found exactly what she wanted.” “You can judge of the pleasure the
+news gave me,” she exclaims quite frankly, “and it made me feel ten
+years younger, so that I now look only twenty years of age.” She
+promises to send her sister a portrait of her future husband on
+another occasion, but says that for the present she must be satisfied
+with a verbal description. “He is a good-looking young man. I always
+said my husband must be handsome.” “He is a painter--not a
+house-painter, but a great painter of history, a great talent. He
+earns from ten to twelve thousand livres a year. You see that with
+that we shall not die of hunger. He has a good character, and is very
+gentle. He is neither a drinker, a gambler, nor a rake. He has no
+faults. He promises to make me very happy, and I love to believe he
+will.”
+
+The writer of this charming letter was married to the artist about
+three months after it was written. The marriage was arranged entirely
+by the friends of the young couple. They had not set eyes on each
+other before Ingres went to the city gates to meet his affianced
+bride. They met near the Tomb of Nero. It was there that Ingres first
+took the hand of the partner who was to caress and console him during
+the next thirty-five years. This charming and laughing “fille à Madame
+Angot” turned out to be the admirable companion which every artist
+dreams of but so rarely possesses: one who will share all his hopes,
+but never his doubts; who believes and admires, smiles and is patient,
+and accepts all sacrifices for the glory of the one she loves.
+
+Almost immediately after his marriage Ingres’ luck changed. Murat was
+overthrown in 1814. His successor refused all the pictures that had
+been commissioned from Ingres, and those which had been finished were
+sold although the artist had not been paid for them. In a letter to
+his friend Gelibert, dated 7th July 1818, Ingres complains that he has
+been able to put nothing aside, that he has to live, as it were,
+from day to day. He admits he has several orders on hand for pictures,
+but “as I paint only to paint well, I take a long time over them, and
+consequently earn little.” His chief resource was the making of chalk
+or pencil portraits, for which his usual price was twenty-five francs.
+But after each portrait, as his wife told a friend in after years,
+Ingres declared that he would not do any more, that he was a painter
+of history, not a draughtsman of the faces of the middle classes.
+“Nevertheless,” she added, “it was necessary to live, and M. Ingres
+took up his pencil again.” But as even this slender resource began to
+fail him at Rome, he resolved to leave that city and take up his
+residence at Florence, where his friend Bartolini, the sculptor, was
+already settled.
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE IV.--L’APOTHEOSE D’HOMERE
+
+    (In the Louvre)
+
+    This large and famous picture was commissioned to fill the
+    ceiling of one of the galleries of the Louvre. It is signed
+    “Ingres pingbat, anno 1827.” It cost the master more research
+    and trouble than any of his other works. This is proved by the
+    number of painted studies, some of them superior to the finished
+    picture itself, and the repeated references to it in his letters
+    and note-books. Homer is being crowned by Victory, and the two
+    beautiful female figures seated at his feet represent the
+    _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. Around Homer are the painters,
+    sculptors, and musicians whom the artist wished to glorify. “To
+    his great regret,” he said he felt compelled to exclude Goethe,
+    because he found too many “faults” in his writings. But
+    Shakespeare and Pope were admitted. In his last version of this
+    subject, made in 1865, Shakespeare was also finally expelled.]
+
+To this period of Ingres’ first sojourn in Rome (from the end of 1806
+to 1820) belong some of the artist’s finest and most personal works.
+We must give the first place to his portraits. The delicious portrait
+of Madame Aymon, known as “La Belle Zélie” (now in the Museum of
+Rouen), was immediately followed by what is on all hands regarded as
+his most beautiful work of this kind. This is the “Madame Devauçay,”
+of the Museum of Chantilly. It is an admirable example of Ingres’
+wonderful power of concentration and absorption in the thing seen.
+Disdaining the help of accessories, he draws all his inspiration from
+the face and figure of his model. He seizes the personality of his
+sitter with so much completeness and such perfect sympathy and
+understanding, and places it on the canvas with so much authority and
+power, that the portrait of the individual takes on all the scope of a
+permanent and absolute type. The portrait of “Madame de Sénonnes” (now
+in the Museum of Nantes), which was painted about 1810, has the same
+intensity of spirit as the “Madame Devauçay,” and the same exquisite
+perfection of modelling and design. It is also marked by greater ease
+and freedom of handling, a sign of the young master’s growing
+confidence in his own genius. It is generally regarded as Ingres’
+masterpiece of feminine portraiture.
+
+The well-known “Œdipus and the Sphinx” was painted in 1808, while
+the artist was still a pensioner of the School of Rome. It is hard for
+us to understand the horror and dislike which this picture provoked
+among the leading spirits of the school of David. What seems to us a
+typical example of classic art struck the official representatives of
+Classicism as the work of a revolutionary. In his report on this
+picture, M. Lethière, the director of the School of Rome, regrets that
+M. Ingres, in spite of his talent, has failed to grasp the secret of
+the “grand and noble style of the great masters of the Roman school.”
+To appreciate the originality and daring of this work, we must compare
+the figure of Œdipus with that of the Roman heroes in David’s “Rape
+of the Sabines.” David’s figures are all cast in the same mould. All
+the particularities of the individual model are ruthlessly eliminated.
+When we turn from the vague and empty generalisations of David,
+Regnault, Gérard and Girodet, and look at the narrow forehead, the
+pugnacious upper lip, the prominent cheek-bones, the deep-sunk eye and
+the bushy eyebrows of Ingres’ figure, we may begin to understand
+that the gulf which yawns between the two kinds of Idealism--the
+abstract idealism of the Davidian school and the concrete idealism of
+Ingres--is quite as wide and impassable as that which separates them
+both from Romanticism and Naturalism.
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE V.--M. BERTIN
+
+    (In the Louvre)
+
+    This portrait represents the famous “Bertin ainé, the director
+    of the _Journal des Débats_.” It is signed “J. Ingres, pinxit
+    1832,” and was exhibited at the Salon of 1833.]
+
+The “Œdipus” was followed, in 1808, by the “Seated Bather” (now in
+the Louvre); in 1811, by “Jupiter and Thétis” (now at the Museum of
+Aix), a curiously Flaxman-like design; in 1812, by the “Dream of
+Ossian” (now at Montauban); and in 1814, by a scene of real life, “The
+Pope officiating among the Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel” (now in
+the Louvre). In this marvellous picture the artist has for once
+avoided the painful task of invention which he habitually imposed upon
+himself. He abandoned himself completely to the imperious suggestion
+of what was actually before his eyes. The truth, life, and richness of
+colour and tone of this little picture have led some of his recent
+admirers to speak of it as the most complete and perfectly balanced of
+all the artist’s works.
+
+The “Grande Odalisque,” exhibited at the Salon of 1819, but painted in
+1814, brought to a close for the time the admirable series of nude
+female figures which the artist had begun during his first years in
+Rome. His wonderful sketches of the “Venus Anadyomene” and the
+“Source” had already been painted, but the canvases remained
+unfinished in his studio, the first till 1848, the second till 1858.
+
+His love of female beauty reveals itself again in the principal figure
+of the picture he sent to the Salon in 1819. This was the “Roger
+delivering Angelica,” a scene borrowed from the tenth song of
+Ariosto’s “Roland Furieux.” The picture is now in the Louvre. The
+young knight, mounted on a hippogriff, pierces with his lance a marine
+monster who was about to devour the beautiful young woman who is
+chained to the rocks. The figure of the young knight, his curious
+steed, and the strange monster which is being killed, provoked the
+anger and ridicule of the Academic party. In its quaint details the
+influence of Perugino and of the earlier Florentine and Tuscan
+painters was clearly noticeable. This was one of the first signs in
+nineteenth-century art of the Gothic revival and of that stream of
+tendency which came afterwards to be described as pre-Raphaelitism.
+The epithet “Gothic” was freely used as a term of reproach against
+Ingres’ picture. But the lovely figure of Angelica was a distinct
+creation of the painter’s own genius.
+
+In the “Francesca da Rimini” of the same year (now in the Museum of
+Angers) the same pre-Raphaelite tendencies are even more strongly
+pronounced. The figures of the two lovers might easily have been
+designed by Rossetti or Madox Brown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All these works in which the master’s genius had approved itself with
+so much originality and fire had left their author to vegetate in
+poverty and obscurity, while the mediocrities around him had risen
+rapidly towards fortune and celebrity. Ingres was now anxious to
+return to Paris, but his meagre resources would not allow it. Then,
+tired of his hardships, and feeling that the social atmosphere of Rome
+was not favourable to him, he rejoined his friend Bartolini at
+Florence, hoping thus, among new surroundings, to re-establish his
+compromised career. His hopes were falsified. The four years passed in
+Florence (1820-1824) brought him only a fresh supply of hardships and
+mortifications. Less hospitable than Rome, Florence brought him only
+two commissions for portraits, those of M. and Mme. Leblanc
+(1823-1824); but it was here that he met M. de Pastoret, who was
+instrumental in getting him the commission which brought the artist
+his first striking and definitive success. M. de Pastoret was so
+pleased with Ingres’ “Entry of Charles V. into Paris” (painted in
+1821) that he obtained for him a commission from the Minister of the
+Interior for a large picture of “The Vow of Louis XIII.” for the
+Cathedral of Montauban. This was begun in Florence in 1821 and
+finished in 1824, in which year it figured in the Salon of Paris. It
+was one of his pictures with which Ingres was most satisfied. It is
+also one of the first in which the influence of Raphael, which was to
+play such a large part in all his future work, is conspicuous. In a
+letter written in 1821, Ingres said that he was sparing no pains to
+make the picture “Raphaelesque and his own.” There is really more of
+Raphael in it than Ingres. The general arrangement of the design
+reminds one at once of Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” “The Sistine
+Madonna,” and the “Mass of Bolsena.” The figure of the Madonna is a
+sort of amalgam of Raphael’s various Madonnas. There is also an
+evident want of faith and religious enthusiasm in the picture. It
+marked the subjection of the artist to the Academical party which he
+had fought till then with so much violence and bitterness. The public
+which had frowned upon his vigorously personal and original works
+hailed this able imitation with enthusiasm. The master’s period of
+probation was at an end, and he returned in triumph to Paris to become
+the leader of the Academic party against the rising tide of
+Romanticism.
+
+Ingres’ life was henceforward free from the material cares which had
+hampered his early career. The Parisians declared that such a picture
+as the “Vow of Louis XIII.” was too good to be buried in the
+provinces. The State wanted to retain it for Notre Dame or
+Val-de-Grace, and offered the artist a much larger sum of money for it
+than had been agreed upon. But Ingres refused these flattering offers.
+He was determined that Montauban should have it as an offering of his
+filial affection. The picture was taken there from Paris. The artist
+was entertained at a banquet given by the Municipality. Flattering
+speeches were made, and the artist departed with the cheers of his
+admirers ringing in his ears. And then the Archbishop, objecting to
+the nakedness of the infant Jesus and the two amorini holding the
+tablet, refused to permit the picture to be brought into the
+Cathedral. The artist’s friends were indignant; Ingres himself was
+furious. But prayers and threats could not move the Archbishop. It was
+only when large gilt fig-leaves had been placed to cover up the
+innocent nakedness of the charming little figures that he would allow
+the canvas to be hung in his church.
+
+In 1824 Ingres was nominated Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. In
+1825 he was elected to the Institute. Charles X. commissioned him
+to paint his portrait in the royal robes, and to decorate one of the
+ceilings of the Louvre. At the end of 1829 he was made professor at
+the École des Beaux-arts.
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE VI.--CHÉRUBINI
+
+    (In the Louvre)
+
+    This “portrait picture” was begun in Rome in 1839, but was only
+    finished in Paris in 1842. The painter’s first intention was to
+    represent only the figure of Chérubini, but afterwards he had
+    the canvas enlarged to make room behind the musician for the
+    figure of the “Muse of lyrical poetry, mother of the sacred
+    hymns.” It is doubtful whether this addition is an improvement.]
+
+“The Apotheosis of Homer,” the subject chosen for the Louvre ceiling,
+was begun and finished within the short space of a single year. The
+amount of work involved in making the preparatory studies and carrying
+through a work of such importance was enormous, and Ingres had never
+before displayed so much energy and decision. The conception of the
+picture was a noble one. It was to represent the spiritual ties which
+bind one generation of human beings to the other; to insist on the
+debt which each worker in the field of art and thought owes to his
+predecessors; to celebrate the real immortality of genius by showing
+the incessant action which it exerts on all the individuals who are
+successively born and developed by its influence. We must confess that
+Ingres has found a worthy plastic formula to express his highly
+abstract conception. He shows us the poets, painters, sculptors,
+philosophers, and great patrons of the arts grouped round the seat of
+the old blind poet. Each individual face, each gesture and pose, has
+been studied and thought out patiently, and executed with masterly
+skill. The terrible problem of grouping together so many different
+personalities and so many costumes of widely differing periods has
+been faced and overcome. The whole produces an effect of incomparable
+simplicity and grandeur.
+
+In no part of the pictures are Ingres’ marvellous powers of
+realisation more clearly displayed than in the three purely
+symbolical figures of the Winged Victory who places the crown of gold
+upon the forehead of the poet, and those representing the _Odyssey_
+and the _Iliad_ who sit at his feet. What a distance separates these
+figures, full of feminine charm and of exuberant life, from the cold
+allegories of the other painters of his time! Look at the queenly
+grace of the Victory; the disdainful lips, the contracted nostrils of
+the proud woman, with hands nervously crossed upon her knee, who sits
+on the poet’s right; and the dreamer who sits on his left, with her
+mantle wrapped round her, her hand upon her chin, her half-closed eyes
+dreaming of the far-away adventures of Ulysses.
+
+This picture remained in the place for which it was destined for about
+twenty years. Then it was replaced by an excellent copy made by three
+of the master’s pupils, Dumas and the brothers Baize, and the
+original was hung in the Louvre, where it could be better seen and
+admired by the public and more carefully studied by the painters.
+
+Such a display of his powers disarmed even the many enemies which
+Ingres had made. But the artist was never satisfied. He thought he had
+not attained the supreme and definitive expression of his genius. He
+thought he could do better, that he could express himself with more
+force, more persuasive energy and warmth, in his next work. This was a
+religious scene commissioned for the Cathedral of Autun--the
+“Martyrdom of St. Symphorian.”
+
+Before this work was finished he painted yet another of those superb
+portraits which he himself professed to regard as a waste of time, but
+which posterity values more highly than the allegorical and religious
+subjects to which he devoted himself with such fierce energy and
+consuming ardour. This was the portrait of “Bertin ainé,” which was
+exhibited at the Salon of 1833, and is now in the Louvre. The old man,
+with turbulent grey hair, with keen penetrating eyes, with wary mouth,
+seated so squarely in his chair with his hands on his knees--the whole
+bodily and spiritual presence of the man is placed so vividly upon the
+canvas that we seem to know him more intimately than we know our
+friends.
+
+After being repainted several times, the “Martyrdom of St Symphorian”
+was exhibited at the Salon the year after the portrait of M. Bertin
+had appeared there. Instead of bringing Ingres a more complete victory
+than his “Homer,” it brought him an unexpected check. To us, living as
+we do in a perfect anarchy of taste, it is rather difficult to
+understand why this picture should have scandalised and alarmed the
+artists and public of the time. The artist was accused of
+exaggeration, of an abuse of power. Since Michael Angelo they had
+never seen in painting such muscles as those of the arms and legs of
+the lictors who are taking the saint to his place of torture. The
+whole effect, Ingres’ critics said, was forced and improbable. They
+did not understand that the artist had deliberately intended to force
+the contrast between the bestiality of the murderers and the moral
+superiority of their victim.
+
+In spite of its want of atmosphere and other shortcomings, the picture
+is a moving and impressive one. There is nothing vulgar in those too
+robust figures. The face of the young martyr, illuminated with faith,
+and the fanatical exaltation of the mother, form the two moral centres
+of the drama. Between them the curiosity and emotion of the crowd are
+divided. Some gaze in stupor at this woman who sends her son to
+torture. They do not understand that she sees him already in glory,
+crowned with celestial beatitudes. Others are indignant with her, like
+the young man who picks up a stone to throw at her, or like the
+soldier behind the centurion who turns towards her a face full of
+astonishment and irritation. A young woman presses her child in her
+arms in shuddering protestation. Others look at the man who is about
+to die for his faith. Their sentiments oscillate between hostility,
+compassion, indifference, and horror. The women are grieved. An old
+man takes his head in his hands, confounded by such inconceivable
+folly. And, dominating them all, the centurion on horseback gives the
+order to march to the place of execution.
+
+The learned construction of such a crowded scene, the nobility and
+expressiveness of the figures, the fine treatment of drapery, the
+virile energy of the drawing, the sober and restrained colouring, and,
+above all, that indefinable beauty which genius stamps on all its
+creations, might well have silenced the adverse criticisms with which
+the artists and the public assailed this picture.
+
+Ingres suffered from these criticisms to a quite unreasonable extent.
+“I do not belong to this apostate century,” he exclaimed. He could not
+understand people’s objections, nothing could console him, and he
+cursed his epoch and the injustice of the public. He swore he would
+never exhibit at the Salon again. He wished to flee from Paris. He
+accepted as a deliverance the appointment of Director of the Academy
+of France in Rome, shut his studio, dismissed his pupils, and with an
+indignant and bitter spirit he quitted Paris again for the Eternal
+City.
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE VII.--LE DUC D’ORLÉANS
+
+    (Musée de Versailles)
+
+    This grave and dignified portrait of the Duke of Orleans was
+    ordered by the King in 1842. It is remarkable for the minuteness
+    and care with which all the details of the uniform and the
+    accessories are rendered.]
+
+But if Ingres doubted of human justice, he never doubted about his
+art. He devoted himself to it with renewed passion and enthusiasm.
+“The day I quitted Paris,” he wrote to one of his friends, “I broke
+for ever with everything that has to do with the public. Henceforth I
+will paint entirely for myself. I belong at last to myself, and I will
+belong only to myself.”
+
+But, as a fact, neither Ingres’ influence nor prestige suffered from
+the want of success of his “St. Symphorian.” As director of the French
+Academy at Rome he remained the guide, counsellor, and example of all
+the young talents of his time. His proud ideal could not fail to
+attract the enthusiasm of his younger contemporaries. His teaching and
+example were helpful to others besides the painters. What was
+essential in his doctrines was applicable to all the arts: to music,
+which moved him so profoundly; and to sculpture--for did he not use
+his pencil and brush like a chisel?
+
+Official favour also followed him in his angry retreat. The Duke of
+Orleans ordered a small historical picture from him, which gave him an
+immense deal of trouble but was at the same time a source of glorious
+compensation. He produced “Stratonice,” one of the most successful of
+his works.
+
+The tragedy of which Stratonice was the heroine had haunted his
+imagination for years. He had meditated long on the subject, but had
+always conceived the picture on a large scale. Unfortunately, the
+picture had to be the same size as Paul Delaroche’s “Death of the Duke
+of Guise,” to which it was to serve as pendant, and Ingres was
+constrained to transform his grandiose conception into a miniature.
+Ingres took six years to paint what he called his “grand historical
+miniature.” And it is to be somewhat regretted that in his anxiety for
+archæological exactitude he invited the collaboration of the architect
+Hittorf. Hittorf was full of his rather excessive theories about the
+polychromatic architecture of the ancients. He imposed his ideas so
+completely on the unfortunate artist that he was permitted to paint
+the background of the picture. Hence the debauch of local colour, of
+coloured mosaics and bronzes, which threatens almost to swamp the
+figures. And what is worse, later archæologists have not failed to
+discover flaws in the pedantic architect’s too insistent
+details--strange anachronisms like that of placing well-known
+Pompeiian frescoes on the walls of the palace of Antiochus, together
+with motives borrowed from Greek vases at least four hundred years
+earlier in date. The example of this picture has had an important
+effect on the French school.
+
+But in spite of these defects, the picture imposes itself on the
+imagination. The hopeless tragedy of the situation is admirably
+expressed without a trace of theatrical exaggeration. We see a young
+man, suffering from a grave and mysterious malady, extended upon his
+bed of suffering. The physician called in by his despairing father
+stands beside him and examines him. The father himself, overcome with
+grief, bows his head over his son’s couch. At this moment in the
+chamber of death a young woman enters. She is young, charming, and
+melancholy. She is the second wife of the heart-broken father, the
+mother-in-law of the dying son. And as she walks through the room with
+languishing steps the physician guesses the horrible truth. The man on
+the bed is dying of love. By signs which cannot deceive him, the man
+of science has divined the dreadful passion of the son for his
+father’s wife. Such was, in fact, the history of Stratonice. The
+second wife of Seleucus Nicanor was loved by Antiochus, the king’s son
+by his first marriage. The doctor, Erasistratus, having surprised this
+secret, declared that the young man would certainly die if Stratonice
+was not given to him, and his father’s love was great enough to
+enable him to make this sacrifice.
+
+No other artist than Ingres could have placed this poignant drama on
+canvas without exciting ridicule. “Stratonice” was exhibited by the
+Duke of Orleans in one of the galleries of the Pavilion of Marsan, and
+the public were freely admitted to see it. All the visitors were
+enchanted with it. The dramatic character of the subject was not
+displeasing to the Parisian public, and the artists admired the
+delicate taste, the pathetic grace, and the impeccable style of the
+workmanship. Above all, the charm of the _svelte_ and supple figure of
+the heroine, her head bowed under the weight of her culpable beauty,
+touched all hearts.
+
+Another small picture, known indifferently as “The Odalisque with the
+Slave” or the “Small Odalisque,” was finished about the same time as
+the “Stratonice.” This was painted for the artist’s friend M.
+Marcotte, but is now in the Louvre. In the “Odalisque” as in the
+“Stratonice” we find a profusion of the details dear to Hittorf, but
+the figure of the beautiful Circassian curled up on the rich carpet of
+the harem is a masterpiece of plastic form. In this lovely body the
+artist has symbolised something of that perverse melancholy, that
+dangerous voluptuousness, which has found such moving expression in
+some of Baudelaire’s poems.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the spring of 1841 Ingres returned to Paris. He found his
+reputation increased by the success of the “Stratonice.” His brother
+artists hailed him as their leader. A banquet was offered to him by
+all the artists present in the capital, painters, sculptors, and
+architects, the only prominent absentee being Eugène Delacroix, the
+leader of the Romantics. Delacroix did not wish to participate in the
+triumph of his rival, and this triumph, so unanimously accorded, only
+served to widen the breach between the two masters. Henceforth the
+struggle between them became more bitter. Each party pursued the other
+without mercy, neither disdaining to use any kind of weapon that came
+to hand.
+
+Fortified by the homage offered to him, Ingres returned to his work
+with renewed ardour. The King asked him to paint a portrait of the
+Duke of Orleans, and Ingres, grateful for the Duke’s kindness with
+regard to the “Stratonice,” took much more pains over this portrait
+than he usually took with commissions of this kind. This was the last
+male portrait that Ingres painted, with the exception of a small
+monochrome medallion of the Prince Jéròme Napoléon, which he executed
+in 1855. But, on the other hand, he became the favourite painter of
+the exalted dames of the Monarchy of July and of the Second Empire,
+though very much against his will, for he regarded portrait-painting
+as a waste of time, and wished to devote himself entirely to his grand
+historical and religious compositions. Nevertheless, he painted some
+fine portraits of beautiful women--Madame d’Haussonville in 1845,
+Madame Frédéric Reisat in 1846, Madame James de Rothschild in 1848,
+Madame Gonse and Madame Moitessier in 1852, the Princess de Broglie in
+1853, a second half-length portrait (the first was a full-length) of
+Madame Moitessier in 1856, and finally, in 1859, that of his second
+wife.
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--JEANNE D’ARC
+
+    (In the Louvre)
+
+    The picture of “Joan of Arc assisting at the Consecration of
+    Charles VII. in the Cathedral of Reims” was painted for the
+    gallery of Versailles, but is now in the Louvre. It is signed
+    “J. Ingres, 1854.” The figure, the maid’s squire, standing
+    immediately behind the kneeling priest, is said to be a portrait
+    of the artist himself.]
+
+Soon after the portrait of the Duke of Orleans was finished he
+received another royal commission, the “Jesus among the Doctors,”
+which the Queen Marie-Amélie wished to present to the Château de Bizy.
+The work, badly conceived at the beginning, was still unfinished when
+the Revolution drove from France the patroness who had commissioned
+it. It remained almost forgotten in a corner of the artist’s studio
+till 1862, when Ingres decided to finish it and present it to the
+museum of his natal city. Of all Ingres’ productions, it is perhaps
+the only one where the inspiration and execution both seem feeble.
+
+While he had been still in Rome, in 1839, Ingres had received from the
+Duc de Luynes a commission to decorate the great room at the Château
+of Dampierre with two large mural paintings representing “The Age of
+Gold” and “The Age of Iron.” He was delighted with the commission, as
+he was always dreaming of reviving the great traditions of decorative
+painting. He made numberless studies for these subjects, many of them
+among the most beautiful of his drawings. But as the painting had to
+be done actually on the walls at Dampierre, the work progressed very
+slowly. Years flew by, and the artist’s enthusiasm cooled. The noble
+Duke and the sensitive and proud painter could not get along well
+under the same roof. Ingres thought himself slighted on one occasion
+(in 1850) and brusquely threw up the commission, leaving his work
+unfinished. There exists of this gigantic work only a sketch at
+Dampierre, an infinite number of drawings at the Museum of Montauban,
+and a little painting executed from these drawings in 1862, a very
+feeble representation of what the definitive work would have been. As
+for “The Age of Iron,” we have only the preliminary studies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As if to revenge himself for the loss of his promised masterpiece,
+Ingres now took up again a number of the works he had sketched in his
+youth and set himself to finish them or repaint them. He also busied
+himself painting replicas of others which had passed out of his hands
+but with which he was not entirely satisfied. He painted thus a
+repetition of the “Apotheosis of Homer,” adding a number of fresh
+figures and substituting others for some of the poets and artists of
+his first choice. After much anxious reflection and discussion with
+his pupils, he decided to banish Shakespeare, as he had already
+banished Goethe, from the group of the immortals. He also painted
+replicas of his “Sistine Chapel,” of “Roger delivering Angelica,” and
+variations of his “Œdipus” and “Stratonice.” He also painted four
+or five slightly different versions of the figure of the Virgin in his
+early picture of the “Vow of Louis XIII.” One of these developed into
+a picture of “The Virgin between St. Nicholas and St. Alexander”--a
+subject the Emperor of Russia had asked him to treat. We find another
+version of the same type in “The Virgin with the Host,” which forms
+one of our illustrations. In no other work of Ingres is his passionate
+admiration of Raphael more clearly displayed.
+
+One of the new works which caused the liveliest sensation was “The
+Birth of Venus” or “Venus Anadyomene.” This had been begun forty years
+before, at the time of the early “Bathers” and “Odalisque.” The
+beautiful white body of the goddess detaches itself from the
+harmonious blue of the sea and sky, and groups of amorini flutter
+round and caress her youthful form. One of these delicious attendants
+offers her a mirror, another kisses the feet of the young goddess,
+while a third embraces her knees. It would be difficult to imagine
+anything more graciously tender or more natural than the infantile
+figures.
+
+The “Venus Anadyomene” was finished in 1848; in 1851 Ingres painted
+his “Jupiter and Antiope,” and two years later he painted his
+“Apotheosis of Napoleon I.,” a large subject for the decoration of one
+of the ceilings of the Hôtel de Ville, at Paris. This was
+unfortunately destroyed by fire in the troubled days of the Commune in
+1871. In 1854 his “Joan of Arc assisting at the Consecration of
+Charles VII.” was painted for the gallery of Versailles.
+
+We have now reached the last years of the artist’s laborious life.
+They were as busy as his earlier years, but they were crowned with
+honour and glory. In 1855 all Europe flocked to Paris to see the
+Universal Exhibition. The life-work of Ingres was gathered together in
+a special gallery. It produced an immense impression. All criticisms
+of detail fell before the magnificent affirmation of the artist’s
+individual ideal. One of the grand medals was given to him by the
+unanimous votes of the artists, and the Emperor made him an officer of
+the Legion of Honour.
+
+Then, in the following year, as if to crown his career by the
+evocation of a supreme masterpiece, Ingres finished the “Source,” a
+subject which had been begun at the same time as the “Venus
+Anadyomene.” This beautiful figure was not a passing vision which had
+animated the brush of the aged painter; it was indeed the daughter of
+his dreams, an emanation of his own soul, the slow growth of long
+meditations, and which, at last, incarnated itself in an immortal
+form. This calm and adorable figure seems a souvenir of our long-lost
+innocence. That is perhaps why we love it so, and why we bless the
+artist to whom we owe this divine dream.
+
+Ingres died in 1867. He had finished his task, had spoken the last
+word of his austere but profoundly human genius.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ingres has been spoken of as an ancient Greek lost and bewildered in
+our modern times. Such a view of his character is misleading. Like all
+the great creators, he expressed the aspirations of his race and his
+times. He was not only the child of his century and his country, but
+he represented them both in their classic reaction and in their
+impulse towards Romanticism. But the two tendencies were so nicely
+balanced in his temperament that he offended the extremists of both
+parties. He paid in his lifetime for his detachment from parties, for
+his exalted aims and sublime courage, but he reaps his reward from
+posterity. The creator of the immortal figures of Œdipus, the
+Odalisque, Angelica, Stratonice, and the Source to-day takes
+unquestioned rank among the great masters not only of French but of
+European art.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+The authoritative French accounts of Ingres’ life and work (from which
+the foregoing sketch has been compiled) are:--
+
+    _Comte Henri Delaborde._--Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa
+    doctrine (1870).
+
+    _Charles Blanc._--Ingres (1870).
+
+    _Henry Lapauze._--L’Œuvre de Ingres (in “Melanges sur l’Art
+    Français,” 1905).
+
+    _Jules Momméja._--Ingres (“Les Grands Artistes” series).
+
+    _T. de Wyzewa._--L’Œuvre peint de Jean-Dominique Ingres
+    (1907).
+
+    _Boyer d’Agen._--Ingres d’apres une Correspondence inédite
+    (1909).
+
+
+      The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London
+               The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+     UNCLE WIGGILY IN WONDERLAND
+
+     [Illustration]
+
+     UNCLE WIGGILY SERIES
+
+     by Howard R. Garis
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+     _UNCLE WIGGILY BEDTIME STORIES_
+
+     Uncle Wiggily in Wonderland
+
+     By HOWARD R. GARIS
+
+     Author of "SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL," "DICKIE AND NELLIE
+     FLIPTAIL," "UNCLE WIGGILY'S AIRSHIP," THE DADDY SERIES, ETC.
+
+     ILLUSTRATED BY EDWARD BLOOMFIELD
+
+     A. L. Burt Company
+     Publishers
+     New York
+
+
+
+
+THE FAMOUS BED TIME STORIES
+
+Books intended for reading aloud to the Little Folks at night. Each
+volume contains colored illustrations, and a story for every night in
+the month. The animal tales send the children to bed with happy dreams.
+
+
+BEDTIME ANIMAL STORIES By HOWARD R. GARIS
+
+     SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL
+     JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL
+     LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE WIBBLEWOBBLE
+     JACKIES AND PEETIE BOW-WOW
+     BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES PIGG
+     JOIE, TOMMIE AND KITTIE KAT
+     CHARLIE AND ARABELLA CHICK
+     NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL
+     BULLY AND BAWLY NO-TAIL
+     NANNIE AND BILLIE WAGTAIL
+     JOLLIE AND JILLIE LONGTAIL
+     JACKO AND JUMPO KINKYTAIL
+     CURLY AND FLOPPY TWISTYTAIL
+     TOODLE AND NOODLE FLAT-TAIL
+     DOTTIE AND WILLIE FLUFFTAIL
+     DICKIE AND NELLIE FLIPTAIL
+
+
+UNCLE WIGGILY BEDTIME STORIES By HOWARD R. GARIS
+
+     UNCLE WIGGILY'S ADVENTURES
+     UNCLE WIGGILY'S TRAVELS
+     UNCLE WIGGILY'S FORTUNE
+     UNCLE WIGGILY'S AUTOMOBILE
+     UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE
+     UNCLE WIGGILY'S AIRSHIP
+     UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE COUNTRY
+     UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS
+     UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM
+     UNCLE WIGGILY'S JOURNEY
+     UNCLE WIGGILY'S RHEUMATISM
+     UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
+     UNCLE WIGGILY IN WONDERLAND
+     UNCLE WIGGILY IN FAIRYLAND
+
+For sale at all bookstores or sent prepaid on receipt of price, 75 cents
+per volume, by the publishers
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd Street New York City
+
+_Copyright, 1921, by R. F. Fenno & Company_
+
+UNCLE WIGGILY IN WONDERLAND
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter                                          Page
+
+        I Uncle Wiggily and Wonderland Alice        9
+
+       II Uncle Wiggily and the March Hare         16
+
+      III Uncle Wiggily and the Cheshire Cat       23
+
+       IV Uncle Wiggily and the Dormouse           30
+
+        V Uncle Wiggily and the Gryphon            37
+
+       VI Uncle Wiggily and the Caterpillar        44
+
+      VII Uncle Wiggily and the Hatter             50
+
+     VIII Uncle Wiggily and the Duchess            56
+
+       IX Uncle Wiggily and the Cook               63
+
+        X Uncle Wiggily and the Baby               69
+
+       XI Uncle Wiggily and the Mock Turtle        76
+
+      XII Uncle Wiggily and the Lobster            83
+
+     XIII Uncle Wiggily and Father William         89
+
+      XIV Uncle Wiggily and the Magic Bottles      96
+
+       XV Uncle Wiggily and the Croquet Ball      102
+
+      XVI Uncle Wiggily and the Do-Do             108
+
+     XVII Uncle Wiggily and the Lory              115
+
+    XVIII Uncle Wiggily and the Puppy             122
+
+      XIX Uncle Wiggily and the Unicorn           129
+
+       XX Uncle Wiggily and Humpty Dumpty         136
+
+      XXI Uncle Wiggily and the Looking Glass     143
+
+     XXII Uncle Wiggily and the White Queen       150
+
+    XXIII Uncle Wiggily and the Red Queen         157
+
+     XXIV Uncle Wiggily and Tweedledum            164
+
+      XXV Uncle Wiggily and Tweedledee            171
+
+     XXVI Uncle Wiggily and the Tear Pool         178
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+UNCLE WIGGILY AND WONDERLAND ALICE
+
+
+Once upon a time, after Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice bunny rabbit
+gentleman, had some funny adventures with Baby Bunty, and when he found
+that his rheumatism did not hurt him so much as he hopped on his red,
+white and blue striped barber pole crutch, the bunny uncle wished he
+might have some strange and wonderful adventures.
+
+"I think I'll just hop along and look for a few," said Uncle Wiggily to
+himself one morning. He twinkled his pink nose, and then he was all
+ready to start.
+
+"Good-bye, Nurse Jane! Good-bye!" he called to his muskrat lady
+housekeeper, with whom he lived in a hollow stump bungalow. "I'm going
+to look for some wonderful adventures!" He hopped down the front steps,
+with his red, white and blue striped crutch under one paw, and his tall,
+silk hat on his head. "Good-bye, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy!"
+
+"Good-bye!" answered Nurse Jane. "I hope you have some nice
+adventures!"
+
+"Thanks, I wish you the same," answered Uncle Wiggily, and away he went
+over the fields and through the woods. He had not hopped very far,
+looking this way and that, before, all of a sudden, he came to a queer
+little place, near an old rail fence. Down in one corner was a hole,
+partly underground.
+
+"Ha! That's queer," said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "That looks just like
+the kind of an underground house, or burrow, where I used to live. I
+wonder if this can be where I made my home before I moved to the hollow
+stump bungalow? I must take a look. Nurse Jane would like to hear all
+about it."
+
+So Uncle Wiggily, folding back his ears in order that they would not get
+bent over and broken, began crawling down the rabbit hole, for that is
+what it really was.
+
+It was dark inside, but the bunny uncle did not mind that, being able to
+see in the dark. Besides, he could make his pink nose twinkle when he
+wanted to, and this gave almost as much light as a firefly.
+
+"No, this isn't the burrow where I used to live," said Uncle Wiggily to
+himself, when he had hopped quite a distance into the hole. "But it's
+very nice. Perhaps I may have an adventure here. Who knows?"
+
+And just as he said that to himself, Uncle Wiggily saw, lying under a
+little table, in what seemed to be a room of the underground house, a
+small glass box.
+
+"Ha! My adventure begins!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I'll open that glass
+box and see what is in it."
+
+So the bunny uncle raised the cover, and in the glass box was a little
+cake, made of carrots and cabbage, and on top, spelled out in pink
+raisins, were the words:
+
+                             "EAT ME!"
+
+"Ha! That's just what I'll do!" cried jolly Uncle Wiggily, and, never
+stopping to think anything might be wrong, the bunny gentleman ate the
+cake. And then, all of a sudden, he began to feel very funny.
+
+"Oh, my!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I hope that cake didn't belong to my
+nephew, Sammie Littletail, or Johnnie or Billie Bushytail, the squirrel
+brothers. One of them may have lost it out of his lunch basket on his
+way to school. I hope it wasn't any of their cake. But there is surely
+something funny about it, for I feel so very queer!"
+
+And no wonder! For Uncle Wiggily had suddenly begun to grow very large.
+His ears grew taller, so that they lifted his tall silk hat right off
+his head. His legs seemed as long as bean poles, and as for his whiskers
+and pink, twinkling nose, they seemed so far away from his eyes that he
+wondered if he would ever get them near enough to see to comb the one,
+or scratch the other when it felt ticklish.
+
+"This is certainly remarkable!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder what made
+me grow so large all of a sudden? Could it have been the cake which gave
+me the indyspepsia?"
+
+"It was the cake!" cried a sudden and buzzing voice, and, looking around
+the hole Uncle Wiggily saw a big mosquito. "It was the cake that made
+you grow big," went on the bad biting bug, "and I put it here for you to
+eat."
+
+"What for?" asked the bunny uncle, puzzled like.
+
+"So you would grow so big that you couldn't get out of this hole," was
+the answer. "And now you can't! This is how I have caught you! Ha! Ha!"
+and the mosquito buzzed a most unpleasant laugh.
+
+"Oh, dear!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder if I am caught? Can't I get
+out as I got in?"
+
+Quickly he hopped to the front of the hole. But alas! Likewise
+sorrowfulness! He had grown so big from eating the magical cake that he
+could not possibly squeeze out of the hole through which he had crawled
+into the underground burrow.
+
+"Now I have caught you!" cried the mosquito. "Since we could not catch
+you at your soldier tent or in the trenches near your hollow stump
+with rivets for a wooden handle, and copper fish-hooks and net-weights.
+
+[Illustration: OUTER FACE OF A FOUNDATION-WALL AT TELLO, BUILT BY
+UR-BAU, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA.--Déc. en Chald., pl. 51.]
+
+The ornaments were very numerous, the wealthy wearing bead-necklaces
+of agate and lapis-lazuli, the poorer contenting themselves with paste
+or shell, while silver finger-rings and copper arm-rings were not
+uncommon. A very typical class of grave-furniture consisted of palettes
+or colour-dishes, made of alabaster, often of graceful shape, and
+sometimes standing on four feet. There is no doubt as to their use, for
+colour still remains in many of them, generally black and yellow, but
+sometimes a light rose and a light green. Since all other objects in
+the graves were placed there for the personal use of the dead man, we
+may infer that colour was employed at that period for painting the body.
+
+No difference in age appears to have separated the two classes of
+burial, for the offerings are alike in each, and the arrangement
+of the bodies is the same. Why there should have been a difference
+in custom it is difficult to say. It might be inferred that the
+sarcophagus was a mark of wealth, were it not that the offerings they
+contain are generally more scanty than in the mat-burials. Whatever
+may be the explanation there is little doubt that they belong to the
+same race and period. Moreover, we may definitely connect the graves
+with the buildings under which they are found, for in some of them
+were seal-cylinders precisely similar to others found in the _débris_
+covering the houses, and the designs upon them resemble those on
+sealings from the strata of ashes in the upper surface of the mounds.
+The seals are generally of shell or limestone, rarely of harder
+stone, and the designs represent heroes and mythological beings in
+conflict with animals. The presence of the sealings and seal-cylinders,
+resembling in form and design those of the early period at Tello, in
+itself suggests that Fâra marks the site of an early Sumerian town.
+This was put beyond a doubt by the discovery of clay tablets in six
+of the houses,[19] where they lay on the clay floor beneath masses
+of charred _débris_ which had fallen from the roof; beside them were
+objects of household use, and in one room the remains of a charred
+reed-mat were under them. The tablets were of unbaked clay, similar in
+shape to early contracts from Tello, and the texts upon them, written
+in extremely archaic characters, referred to deeds of sale.
+
+There is thus no doubt as to the racial character of the inhabitants of
+this early settlement. The discovery of a brick inscribed with the name
+of Khaladda, patesi of Shuruppak, proved that Fâra was the site of the
+ancient city which later tradition regarded as the scene of the Deluge.
+Khaladda's inscription is not written in very archaic characters, and
+he probably lived in the time of the kings of Sumer and Akkad. We may
+thus infer that Shuruppak continued to exist as a city at that period,
+but the greater part of the site was never again inhabited after the
+destruction of the early town by fire. We have described its remains
+in some detail as they are our most valuable source of information
+concerning the earliest Sumerians in Babylonia. Until the objects
+that were found have been published it is difficult to determine
+accurately its relation in date to the earlier remains at Tello. A few
+fragments of sculpture in relief were discovered in the course of the
+excavations, and these, taken in conjunction with the cylinder-seals,
+the inscribed tablets, and the pottery, suggest that no long interval
+separated its period from that of the earliest Sumerians of history.
+
+[Illustration: ABÛ HATAB after Andrae and Noeldeke]
+
+A less exhaustive examination of the neighbouring mounds of Abû Hatab
+was also undertaken by Drs. Andrae and Noeldeke. This site lies to
+the north of Fâra, and, like it, is close to the Shatt el-Kâr.[20]
+The southern part of the tell could not be examined because of the
+modern Arab graves which here lie thick around the tomb of the Imâm
+Sa'îd Muhammad. But the trenches cut in the higher parts of the mound,
+to the north and along its eastern edge, sufficed to indicate its
+general character.[21] Earlier remains, such as were found at Fâra,
+are here completely wanting, and it would appear to be not earlier
+than the period of the kings of Sumer and Akkad. This is indicated by
+bricks of Bûr-Sin I., King of Ur, which were discovered scattered in
+_débris_ in the north-west part of the mound, and by the finding of
+case-tablets in the houses belonging to the period of the dynasties of
+Ur and Isin.[22] The graves also differed from those at Fâra, generally
+consisting of pot-burials. Here, in place of a shallow trough with
+a lid, the sarcophagus was formed of two great pots, deeply ribbed
+on the outside; these were set, one over the other, with their edges
+meeting, and after burial they were fixed together by means of pitch
+or bitumen. The skeleton is usually found within lying on its back or
+side in a crouching position with bent legs. The general arrangement
+of drinking-cups, offerings, and ornaments resembles that in the Fâra
+burials, so that the difference in the form of the sarcophagus is
+merely due to a later custom and not to any racial change. Very similar
+burials were found by Taylor at Mukayyar, and others have also been
+unearthed in the earlier strata of the mounds at Babylon.
+
+The majority of the houses at Abû Hatab appear to have been destroyed
+by fire, and, in view of the complete absence of later remains, the
+tablets scattered on their floors indicate the period of its latest
+settlement. It thus represents a well-defined epoch, later than that
+of the mounds at Fâra, and most valuable for comparison with them. At
+neither Fâra nor Abû Hatab were the remains of any important building
+or temple disclosed, but the graves and houses of the common people
+have furnished information of even greater value for the archaeologist
+and historian. Another mound which should provide further material for
+the study of this earliest period is Bismâya, the site of the city
+at Adab, at which excavations were begun on December 25, 1903 by the
+University of Chicago and continued during the following year.[23] The
+mound of Hêtime to the west of Fâra, may, to judge from the square
+bricks and fragments of pot-burials that are found there, date from
+about the same period as Abû Hatab. But it is of small extent and
+height, the greater part being merely six or seven feet above the
+plain, while its two central mounds rise to a height of less than
+fourteen feet.
+
+Such are the principal early Sumerian mounds in the region of the Shatt
+el-Kâr and the Shatt el-Hai. Other mounds in the same neighbourhood may
+well prove to be of equally early dates; but it should be noted that
+some of these do not cover Sumerian cities, but represent far later
+periods of occupation. The character of the extensive mound of Jidr to
+the east of Fâra and Abû Hatab is doubtful; but the use of lime-mortar
+in such remains as are visible upon the surface indicates a late epoch.
+A number of smaller tells may be definitely regarded as representing a
+settlement in this district during Sassanian times. Such are Dubâ'i,
+which, with two others, lies to the south of Fâra, and Bint el-Mderre
+to the east; to the same period may be assigned Menêdir, which lies
+to the north-east, beyond Deke, the nearest village to Fâra. This
+last mound, little more than a hundred yards long, covers the site of
+a burial-place; it has been completely burrowed through by the Arabs
+in their search for antiquities, and is now covered with fragments of
+sarcophagi. The mounds of Mjelli and Abû Khuwâsîj to the west of Fâra
+are probably still later, and belong to the Arab period.
+
+It will have been noted that all the Sumerian mounds described or
+referred to in the preceding paragraphs cover cities which, after being
+burned down and destroyed in a comparatively early period, were never
+reoccupied, but were left deserted. Lagash, Umma, Shuruppak, Kisurra,
+and Adab play no part in the subsequent history of Babylonia. We may
+infer that they perished during the fierce struggle which took place
+between the Babylonian kings of the First Dynasty and the Elamite
+kings of Larsa. At this time city after city in Sumer was captured and
+retaken many times, and on Samsu-iluna's final victory over Rîm-Sin, it
+is probable that he decided to destroy many of the cities and make the
+region a desert, so as to put an end to trouble for the future. As a
+matter of fact, he only succeeded in shifting the area of disturbance
+southwards, for the Sumerian inhabitants fled to the Sea-country on
+the shores of the Persian Gulf; and to their influence, and to the
+reinforcements they brought with them, may be traced the troubles of
+Samsu-iluna and his son at the hands of Iluma-ilu, who had already
+established his independence in this region. Thus Samsu-iluna's policy
+of repression was scarcely a success; but the archaeologist has reason
+to be grateful to it. The undisturbed condition of these early cities
+renders their excavation a comparatively simple matter, and lends a
+certainty to conclusions drawn from a study of their remains, which is
+necessarily lacking in the case of more complicated sites.
+
+Another class of Sumerian cities consists of those which were not
+finally destroyed by the Western Semites, but continued to be important
+centres of political and social life during the later periods of
+Babylonian history. Niffer, Warka, Senkera, Mukayyar, and Abû Shahrain
+all doubtless contain in their lower strata remains of the early
+Sumerian cities which stood upon their sites; but the greater part of
+the mounds are made up of ruins dating from a period not earlier than
+that of the great builders of the Dynasty of Ur. In Nippur, during the
+American excavations on this site, the history of Ekur, the temple of
+the god Enlil, was traced back to the period of Shar-Gani-Sharri and
+Narâm-Sin;[24] and fragments of early vases found scattered in the
+_débris_ beneath the chambers on the south-east side of the Ziggurat,
+have thrown valuable light upon an early period of Sumerian history.
+But the excavation of the pre-Sargonic strata, so far as it has yet
+been carried, has given negative rather than positive results. The
+excavations carried out on the other sites referred to were of a
+purely tentative character, and, although they were made in the early
+fifties of last century, they still remain the principal source of our
+knowledge concerning them.
+
+[Illustration: WARKA after Loftus]
+
+Some idea of the extent of the mounds of Warka may be gathered from
+Loftus's plan. The irregular circle of the mounds, marking the later
+walls of the city, covers an area nearly six miles in circumference,
+and in view of this fact and of the short time and limited means at
+his disposal, it is surprising that he should have achieved such good
+results. His work at Buwârîya, the principal mound of the group (marked
+A on the plan), resulted in its identification with E-anna, the great
+temple of the goddess Ninni, or Ishtar, which was enormously added to
+in the reign of Ur-Engur. Loftus's careful notes and drawings of the
+facade of another important building, covered by the mound known as
+Wuswas (B), have been of great value from the architectural point of
+view, while no less interesting is his description of the "Cone Wall"
+(at E on the plan), consisting in great part of terra-cotta cones,
+dipped in red or black colour, and arranged to form various patterns on
+the surface of a wall composed of mud and chopped straw.[25] But the
+date of both these constructions is uncertain. The sarcophagus-graves
+and pot-burials which he came across when cutting his tunnels and
+trenches are clearly contemporaneous with those at Abû Hatab, and
+the mound may well contain still earlier remains. The finds made in
+the neighbouring mounds of Senkera (Larsa), and Tell Sifr, were also
+promising,[26] and, in spite of his want of success at Tell Medîna, it
+is possible that a longer examination would have yielded better results.
+
+[Illustration: MUKAYYAR after Taylor]
+
+The mounds of Mukayyar, which mark the site of Ur, the centre of the
+Moon-god's cult in Sumer, were partly excavated by Taylor in 1854 and
+1855.[27] In the northern portion of the group he examined the great
+temple of the Moon-god (marked A on the plan), the earliest portions
+of its structure which he came across dating from the reigns of Dungi
+and Ur-Engur. Beneath a building in the neighbourhood of the temple (at
+B on the plan) he found a pavement consisting of plano-convex bricks,
+a sure indication that at this point, at least, were buildings of
+the earliest Sumerian period, while the sarcophagus-burials in other
+parts of the mound were of the early type. Taylor came across similar
+evidence of early building at Abû Shahrain,[28] the comparatively small
+mound which marks the site of the sacred city of Eridu, for at a point
+in the south-east side of the group he uncovered a building constructed
+of bricks of the same early character.
+
+At Abû Shahrain indeed we should expect to find traces of one of the
+earliest and most sacred shrines of the Sumerians, for here dwelt
+Enki, the mysterious god of the deep. The remains of his later temple
+now dominates the group, the great temple-tower still rising in two
+stages (A and B) at the northern end of the mound. Unlike the other
+cities of Sumer, Eridu was not built on the alluvium. Its situation
+is in a valley on the edge of the Arabian desert, cut off from Ur and
+the Euphrates by a low pebbly and sandstone ridge. In fact, its ruins
+appear to rise abruptly from the bed of an inland sea, which no doubt
+at one time was connected directly with the Persian Gulf; hence the
+description of Eridu in cuneiform literature as standing "on the shore
+of the sea." Another characteristic which distinguishes Eridu from
+other cities in Babylonia is the extensive use of stone as a building
+material. The raised platform, on which the city and its temple stood,
+was faced with a massive retaining wall of sandstone, no doubt
+obtained from quarries in the neighbourhood, while the stairway (marked
+D on the plan) leading to the first stage of the temple-tower had been
+formed of polished marble slabs which were now scattered on the surface
+of the mound. The marble stairs and the numerous fragments of gold-leaf
+and gold-headed and copper nails, which Taylor found at the base of
+the second stage of the temple-tower, attest its magnificence during
+the latest stage of its history. The name and period of the city now
+covered by the neighbouring mound of Tell Lahm, which was also examined
+by Taylor, have not yet been ascertained.
+
+[Illustration: ABÛ SHAHRAIN after Taylor]
+
+It will thus be seen that excavations conducted on the sites of the
+more famous cities of Sumer have not, with the single exception of
+Nippur, yielded much information concerning the earlier periods of
+history, while the position of one of them, the city of Isin, is still
+unknown. Our knowledge of similar sites in Akkad is still more scanty.
+Up to the present time systematic excavations have been carried out
+at only two sites in the north, Babylon and Sippar, and these have
+thrown little light upon the more remote periods of their occupation.
+The existing ruins of Babylon date from the period of Nebuchadnezzar
+II., and so thorough was Sennacherib's destruction of the city in 689
+B.C., that, after several years of work, Dr. Koldewey concluded that
+all traces of earlier buildings had been destroyed on that occasion.
+More recently some remains of earlier strata have been recognized, and
+contract-tablets have been found which date from the period of the
+First Dynasty. Moreover, a number of earlier pot-burials have been
+unearthed, but a careful examination of the greater part of the ruins
+has added little to our knowledge of this most famous city before the
+Neo-Babylonian era. The same negative results were obtained, so far
+as early remains are concerned, from the less exhaustive work on the
+site of Borsippa. Abû Habba is a far more promising site, and has been
+the scene of excavations begun by Mr. Rassam in 1881 and 1882, and
+renewed by Père Scheil for some months in 1894, while excavations were
+undertaken in the neighbouring mounds of Deir by Dr. Wallis Budge in
+1891. These two sites have yielded thousands of tablets of the period
+of the earliest kings of Babylon, and the site of the famous temple of
+the Sun-god at Sippar, which Narâm-Sin rebuilt, has been identified,
+but little is yet accurately known concerning the early city and its
+suburbs. The great extent of the mounds, and the fact that for nearly
+thirty years they have been the happy hunting-ground of Arab diggers,
+would add to the difficulty of any final and exhaustive examination. It
+is probably in the neighbourhood of Sippar that the site of the city of
+Agade, or Akkad, will eventually be identified.
+
+Concerning the sites of other cities in Northern Babylonia,
+considerable uncertainty still exists. The extensive mounds of Tell
+Ibrâhîm, situated about four hours to the north-east of Hilla, are
+probably to be identified with Cutha, the centre of the cult of Nergal,
+but the mound of 'Akarkûf, which may be seen from so great a distance
+on the road between Baghdad and Falûja, probably covers a temple and
+city of the Kassite period. Both the cities of Kish and Opis, which
+figure so prominently in the early history of the relations between
+Sumer and Akkad, were, until quite recently, thought to be situated
+close to one another on the Tigris. That Opis lay on that river and not
+on the Euphrates is clear from the account which Nebuchadnezzar II. has
+left us of his famous fortifications of Babylon,[29] which are referred
+to by Greek writers as "the Median Wall" and "the Fortification of
+Semiramis."
+
+The outermost ring of Nebuchadnezzar's triple line of defence consisted
+of an earthen rampart and a ditch, which he tells us extended from
+the bank of the Tigris above Opis to a point on the Euphrates within
+the city of Sippar, proving that Opis is to be sought upon the former
+river. His second line of defence was a similar ditch and rampart which
+stretched from the causeway on the bank of the Euphrates up to the city
+of Kish. It was assumed that this rampart also extended to the Tigris,
+although this is not stated in the text, and, since the ideogram for
+Opis is once rendered as Kesh in a bilingual incantation,[30] it seemed
+probable that Kish and Opis were twin cities, both situated on the
+Tigris at no great distance from each other. This view appeared to find
+corroboration in the close association of the two places during the
+wars of Eannatum, and in the fact that at the time of Enbi-Ishtar they
+seem to have formed a single state. But it has recently been shown that
+Kish lay upon the Euphrates,[31] and we may thus accept its former
+identification with the mound of El-Ohêmir where bricks were found
+by Ker Porter recording the building of E-meteursagga, the temple of
+Zamama, the patron deity of Kish.[32] Whether Opis is to be identified
+with the extensive mounds of Tell Manjûr, situated on the right bank
+of the Tigris in the great bend made by the river between Samarra and
+Baghdad, or whether, as appears more probable, it is to be sought
+further down stream in the neighbourhood of Seleucia, are questions
+which future excavation may decide.[33]
+
+The brief outline that has been given of our knowledge concerning the
+early cities of Sumer and Akkad, and of the results obtained by the
+partial excavation of their sites, will have served to show how much
+still remains to be done in this field of archaeological research. Not
+only do the majority of the sites still await systematic excavation,
+but a large part of the material already obtained has not yet been
+published. Up to the present time, for instance, only the briefest
+notes have been given of the important finds at Fâra and Abû Hatab.
+In contrast to this rather leisurely method of publication, the plan
+followed by M. de Morgan in making available without delay the results
+of his work in Persia is strongly to be commended. In this connection
+mention should in any case be made of the excavations at Susa, since
+they have brought to light some of the most remarkable monuments of
+the early Semitic kings of Akkad. It is true the majority of these had
+been carried as spoil from Babylonia to Elam, but they are none the
+less precious as examples of early Semitic art. Such monuments as the
+recently discovered stele of Sharru-Gi, the statues of Manishtusu,
+and Narâm-Sin's stele of victory afford valuable evidence concerning
+the racial characteristics of the early inhabitants of Northern
+Babylonia, and enable us to trace some of the stages in their artistic
+development. But in Akkad itself the excavations have not thrown much
+light upon these subjects, nor have they contributed to the solution
+of the problems as to the period at which Sumerians and Semites first
+came in contact, or which race was first in possession of the land. For
+the study of these questions our material is mainly furnished from the
+Sumerian side, more particularly by the sculptures and inscriptions
+discovered during the French excavations at Tello.
+
+It is now generally recognized that the two races which inhabited Sumer
+and Akkad during the early historical periods were sharply divided
+from one another not only by their speech but also in their physical
+characteristics.[34] One of the principal traits by which they may
+be distinguished consists in the treatment of the hair. While the
+Sumerians invariably shaved the head and face, the Semites retained the
+hair of the head and wore long beards. A slight modification in the
+dressing of the hair was introduced by the Western Semites of the First
+Babylonian Dynasty, who brought with them from Syria the Canaanite
+Bedouin custom of shaving the lips and allowing the beard to fall
+only from the chin; while they also appear to have cut the hair short
+in the manner of the Arabs or Nabateans of the Sinai peninsula.[35]
+The Semites who were settled in Babylonia during the earlier period,
+retained the moustache as well as the beard, and wore their hair long.
+While recognizing the slight change of custom, introduced for a time
+during the West Semitic domination, the practice of wearing hair and
+beard was a Semitic characteristic during all periods of history. The
+phrase "the black-headed ones," which is of frequent occurrence in the
+later texts, clearly originated as a description of the Semites, in
+contradistinction to the Sumerians with their shaven heads.
+
+[Illustration: LIMESTONE FIGURE OF AN EARLY SUMERIAN PATESI, OR HIGH
+OFFICIAL.--Brit. Mus., No. 90929; photo. by Messrs. Mansell & Co.]
+
+Another distinctive characteristic, almost equally striking, may
+be seen in the features of the face as represented in the outline
+engraving and in the sculpture of the earlier periods. It is true
+that the Sumerian had a prominent nose, which forms, indeed, his most
+striking feature, but both nose and lips are never full and fleshy
+as with the Semites. It is sometimes claimed that such primitive
+representations as occur upon Ur-Ninâ's bas-reliefs, or in Fig. 1 in
+the accompanying block, are too rude to be regarded as representing
+accurately an ethnological type. But it will be noted that the same
+general characteristics are also found in the later and more finished
+sculptures of Gudea's period. This fact is illustrated by the two
+black diorite heads of statuettes figured on the following page. In
+both examples certain archaic conventions are retained, such as the
+exaggerated line of the eyebrows, and the unfinished ear; but nose and
+lips are obviously not Semitic, and they accurately reproduce the same
+racial type which is found upon the earlier reliefs.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Fig. 2. Figures of early Sumerians,
+engraved upon fragments of shell, which were probably employed for
+inlaying boxes, or for ornamenting furniture. Earliest period: from
+Tello.--Déc., pl. 46, Nos. 2 and 1.]
+
+A third characteristic consists of the different forms of dress
+worn by Sumerians and Semites, as represented on the monuments. The
+earliest Sumerians wore only a thick woollen garment, in the form of a
+petticoat, fastened round the waist by a band or girdle. The garment is
+sometimes represented as quite plain, in other cases it has a scolloped
+fringe or border, while in its most elaborate form it consists of
+three, four, or five horizontal flounces, each lined vertically and
+scolloped at the edge to represent thick locks of wool.[36] With the
+later Sumerian patesis this rough garment has been given up in favour
+of a great shawl or mantle, decorated with a border, which was worn
+over the left shoulder, and, falling in straight folds, draped the body
+with its opening in front.[37] Both these Sumerian forms of garment
+are of quite different types from the Semitic loin-cloth worn by
+Narâm-Sin on his stele of victory, and the Semitic plaid in which he is
+represented on his stele from Pir Hussein.[38] The latter garment is a
+long, narrow plaid which is wrapped round the body in parallel bands,
+with the end thrown over the left shoulder. It has no slit, or opening,
+in front like the later Sumerian mantle, and, on the other hand, was
+not a shaped garment like the earlier Sumerian flounced petticoat,
+though both were doubtless made of wool and were probably dyed in
+bright colours.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3--Fig. 4--Fig. 5--Later types of Sumerians, as
+exhibited by heads of male statuettes from Tello. Figs. 4 and 5 are
+different views of the same head, which probably dates from the age of
+Gudea; Fig. 3 may possibly be assigned to a rather later period.--In
+the Louvre; Cat. Nos. 95 and 93.]
+
+Two distinct racial types are thus represented on the monuments,
+differentiated not only by physical features but also by the method
+of treating the hair and by dress. Moreover, the one type is
+characteristic of those rulers whose language was Sumerian, the other
+represents those whose inscriptions are in the Semitic tongue. Two
+apparent inconsistencies should here be noted. On the Stele of the
+Vultures, Eannatum and his soldiers are sculptured with thick hair
+flowing from beneath their helmets and falling on their shoulders.
+But they have shaven faces, and, in view of the fact that on the same
+monument all the dead upon the field of battle and in the burial mounds
+have shaven heads, like those of the Sumerians assisting at the burial
+and the sacrificial rites, we may regard the hair of Eannatum and his
+warriors as wigs, worn like the wigs of the Egyptians, on special
+occasions and particularly in battle. The other inconsistency arises
+from the dress worn by Hammurabi on his monuments. This is not the
+Semitic plaid, but the Sumerian fringed mantle, and we may conjecture
+that, as he wrote his votive inscriptions in the Sumerian as well as in
+the Semitic language, so, too, he may have symbolized his rule in Sumer
+by the adoption of the Sumerian form of dress.
+
+It is natural that upon monuments of the later period from Tello
+both racial types should be represented. The fragments of sculpture
+illustrated in Figs. 6 and 7 may possibly belong to the same monument,
+and, if so, we must assign it to a Semitic king.[39] That on the left
+represents a file of nude captives with shaven heads and faces, bound
+neck to neck with the same cord, and their arms tied behind them.
+On the other fragment both captive and conqueror are bearded. The
+latter's nose is anything but Semitic, though in figures of such small
+proportions carved in relief it would perhaps be rash to regard its
+shape as significant. The treatment of the hair, however, in itself
+constitutes a sufficiently marked difference in racial custom. Fig.
+8 represents a circular support of steatite, around which are seated
+seven little figures holding tablets on their knees; it is here
+reproduced on a far smaller scale than the other fragments. The little
+figure that is best preserved is of unmistakably Semitic type, and
+wears a curled beard trimmed to a point, and hair that falls on the
+shoulders in two great twisted tresses; the face of the figure on his
+left is broken, but the head is clearly shaved. A similar mixture of
+types upon a single monument occurs on a large fragment of sculpture
+representing scenes of worship,[40] and also on Sharru-Gi's monument
+which has been found at Susa.[41]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Fig. 7.--Fig. 8.--Examples of sculpture of the
+later period, from Tello, representing different racial types--_Déc.,_
+pl. 26, Figs. 10_b_ and 10_a_; pl. 21, Fig. 5.]
+
+At the period from which these sculptures date it is not questioned
+that the Semites were in occupation of Akkad, and that during certain
+periods they had already extended their authority over Sumer. It is not
+surprising, therefore, that at this time both Sumerians and Semites
+should be represented side by side upon the monuments. When, however,
+we examine what is undoubtedly one of the earliest sculptured reliefs
+from Tello the same mixture of racial types is met with.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 9--Fig. 10--Fig 11--Fragments of a circular
+bas-relief of the earliest period, from Tello, sculptured with a scene
+representing the meeting of two chieftains and their followers. The
+different methods of treating the hair are noteworthy.--In the Louvre;
+Cat. No. 5.]
+
+The object is unfortunately broken into fragments, but enough of them
+have been recovered to indicate its character. Originally, it consisted
+of two circular blocks, placed one upon the other and sculptured on
+their outer edge with reliefs. They were perforated vertically with
+two holes which were intended to support maces, or other votive
+objects, in an upright position. The figures in the relief form two
+separate rows which advance towards one another, and at their head
+are two chiefs, who are represented meeting face to face (Fig. 9). It
+will be noticed that the chief on the left, who carries a bent club,
+has long hair falling on the shoulders and is bearded. Four of his
+followers on another fragment (Fig. 10) also have long hair and beards.
+The other chief, on the contrary, wears no hair on his face, only on
+his head, and, since his followers have shaven heads and faces,[42] we
+may conjecture that, like Eannatum on the Stele of the Vultures, he
+wears a wig. All the figures are nude to the waist, and the followers
+clasp their hands in token of subordination to their chiefs.
+
+The extremely rude character of the sculpture is a sufficient
+indication of its early date, apart from the fact that the fragments
+were found scattered in the lowest strata at Tello. The fashion of
+indicating the hair is very archaic, and is also met with in a class
+of copper foundation-figures of extremely early date.[43] The monument
+belongs to a period when writing was already employed, for there are
+slight traces of an inscription on its upper surface, which probably
+recorded the occasion of the meeting of the chiefs. Moreover, from a
+fifth fragment that has been discovered it is seen that the names and
+titles of the various personages were engraved upon their garments.
+The monument thus belongs to the earliest Sumerian period, and, if we
+may apply the rule as to the treatment of the hair which we have seen
+holds good for the later periods, it would follow that at this time the
+Semite was already in the land. The scene, in fact, would represent
+the meeting of two early chieftains of the Sumerians and Semites,
+sculptured to commemorate an agreement or treaty which they had drawn
+up.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 12.--Limestone panel sculptured in relief, with
+a scene representing Gudea being led by Ningishzida and another god
+into the presence of a deity who is seated on a throne.--In the Berlin
+Museum; _cf. Sum. und Sem._, Taf. VII.]
+
+By a similar examination of the gods of the Sumerians, as they are
+represented on the monuments, Professor Meyer has sought to show that
+the Semites were not only in Babylonia at the date of the earliest
+Sumerian sculptures that have been recovered, but also that they were
+in occupation of the country before the Sumerians. The type of the
+Sumerian gods at the later period is well illustrated by a limestone
+panel of Gudea, which is preserved in the Berlin Museum. The sculptured
+scene is one that is often met with on cylinder-seals of the period,
+representing a suppliant being led by lesser deities into the presence
+of a greater god. In this instance Gudea is being led by his patron
+deity Ningishzida and another god into the presence of a deity who was
+seated on a throne and held a vase from which two streams of water
+flow. The right half of the panel is broken, but the figure of the
+seated god may be in part restored from the similar scene upon Gudea's
+cylinder-seal. There, however, the symbol of the spouting vase is
+multiplied, for not only does the god hold one in each hand, but three
+others are below his feet, and into them the water falls and spouts
+again. Professor Meyer would identify the god of the waters with Anu,
+though there is more to be said for M. Heuzey's view that he is Enki,
+the god of the deep. We are not here concerned, however, with the
+identity of the deities, but with the racial type they represent. It
+will be seen that they all have hair and beards and wear the Semitic
+plaid, and form a striking contrast to Gudea with his shaven head and
+face, and his fringed Sumerian mantle.[44]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 13. Figure of the seated god on the cylinder-seal
+of Gudea.--_Déc.,_ p 293.]
+
+A very similar contrast is represented by the Sumerian and his gods
+in the earlier historical periods. Upon the Stele of the Vultures,
+for instance, the god Ningirsu is represented with abundant hair, and
+although his lips and cheeks are shaved a long beard falls from below
+his chin.[45] He is girt around the waist with a plain garment, which
+is not of the later Semitic type, but the treatment of the hair and
+beard is obviously not Sumerian. The same bearded type of god is found
+upon early votive tablets from Nippur,[46] and also on a fragment of
+an archaic Sumerian relief from Tello, which, from the rudimentary
+character of the work and the style of the composition, has been
+regarded as the most ancient example of Sumerian sculpture known. The
+contours of the figures are vaguely indicated in low relief upon a
+flat plaque, and the interior details are indicated only by the point.
+The scene is evidently of a mythological character, for the seated
+figure may be recognized as a goddess by the horned crown she wears.
+Beside her stands a god who turns to smite a bound captive with a heavy
+club or mace. While the captive has the shaven head and face of a
+Sumerian, the god has abundant hair and a long beard.[47]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Fig. 15. Votive tablets from Nippur, engraved
+with scenes of worship.--Cf. Hilprecht, _Explorations_, p. 475, and
+_Old Bab. Inscr._, II., pl. xvi.]
+
+Man forms his god in his own image, and it is surprising that the gods
+of the Sumerians should not be of the Sumerian type. If the Sumerian
+shaved his own head and face, why should he have figured his gods with
+long beards and abundant hair and have clothed them with the garments
+of another race? Professor Meyer's answer to the question is that
+the Semites and their gods were already in occupation of Sumer and
+Akkad before the Sumerians came upon the scene. He would regard the
+Semites at this early period as settled throughout the whole country,
+a primitive and uncultured people with only sufficient knowledge of
+art to embody the figures of their gods in rude images of stone or
+clay. There is no doubt that the Sumerians were a warrior folk, and
+he would picture them as invading the country at a later date, and
+overwhelming Semitic opposition by their superior weapons and method
+of attack. The Sumerian method of fighting he would compare to that
+of the Dorians with their closed phalanx of lance-bearing warriors,
+though the comparison is not quite complete, since no knowledge of
+iron is postulated on the part of the Sumerians. He would regard the
+invaders as settling mainly in the south, driving many of the Semites
+northward, and taking over from them the ancient centres of Semitic
+cult. They would naturally have brought their own gods with them, and
+these they would identify with the deities they found in possession of
+the shrines, combining their attributes, but retaining the cult-images,
+whose sacred character would ensure the permanent retention of their
+outward form. The Sumerians in turn would have influenced their Semitic
+subjects and neighbours, who would gradually have acquired from them
+their higher culture, including a knowledge of writing and the arts.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 16--Sumerian deities on an archaic relief from
+Tello.--_Déc._, pl. 1, Fig. 1.]
+
+It may be admitted that the theory is attractive, and it certainly
+furnishes an explanation of the apparently foreign character of the
+Sumerian gods. But even from the archaeological side it is not so
+complete nor so convincing as at first sight it would appear. Since the
+later Sumerian gods were represented with full moustache and beard,
+like the earliest figures of Semitic kings which we possess, it would
+naturally be supposed that they would have this form in the still
+earlier periods of Sumerian history. But, as we have seen, their lips
+and cheeks are shaved. Are we then to postulate a still earlier Semitic
+settlement, of a rather different racial type to that which founded
+the kingdom of Kish and the empire of Akkad? Again, the garments of
+the gods in the earliest period have little in common with the Semitic
+plaid, and are nearer akin to the plainer form of garment worn by
+contemporary Sumerians. The divine headdress, too, is different to the
+later form, the single horns which encircle what may be a symbol of the
+date-palm,[48] giving place to a plain conical headdress decorated with
+several pairs of horns.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 17--Fig. 18--Fig. 19--Earlier and later forms of
+divine headdresses. Figs. 17 and 18 are from the obverse of the Stele
+of the Vultures, fragments C and B; Fig. 19, the later form of horned
+headdress, is from a sculpture of Gudea.--_Déc._, pl. 4, and pl. 26,
+No. 9.]
+
+Thus, important differences are observable in the form of the earlier
+Sumerian gods and their dress and insignia, which it is difficult to
+reconcile with Professor Meyer's theory of their origin. Moreover,
+the principal example which he selected to illustrate his thesis,
+the god of the central shrine of Nippur, has since been proved never
+to have borne the Semitic name of Bêl, but to have been known under
+his Sumerian title of Enlil from the beginning.[49] It is true that
+Professor Meyer claims that this point does not affect his main
+argument;[50] but at least it proves that Nippur was always a Sumerian
+religious centre, and its recognition as the central and most important
+shrine in the country by Semites and Sumerians alike, tells against any
+theory requiring a comparatively late date for its foundation.
+
+Such evidence as we possess from the linguistic side is also not in
+favour of the view which would regard the Semites as in occupation
+of the whole of Babylonia before the Sumerian immigration. If that
+had been the case we should naturally expect to find abundant traces
+of Semitic influence in the earliest Sumerian texts that have been
+recovered. But, as a matter of fact, no Semitism occurs in any text
+from Ur-Ninâ's period to that of Lugal-zaggisi with the single
+exception of a Semitic loan-word on the Cone of Entemena.[51] In spite
+of the scanty nature of our material, this fact distinctly militates
+against the assumption that Semites and Sumerians were living side
+by side in Sumer at the time.[52] But the occurrence of the Semitic
+word in Entemena's inscription proves that external contact with some
+Semitic people had already taken place. Moreover, it is possible
+to press the argument from the purely linguistic side too far. A
+date-formula of Samsu-iluna's reign has proved that the Semitic speech
+of Babylonia was known as "Akkadian,"[53] and it has therefore been
+argued that the first appearance of Semitic speech in the country
+must date from the establishment of Shar-Gani-sharri's empire with
+its capital at Akkad.[54] But there is little doubt that the Semitic
+kingdom of Kish, represented by the reigns of Sharru-Gi, Manishtusu
+and Urumush, was anterior to Sargon's empire,[55] and, long before the
+rise of Kish, the town of Akkad may well have been the first important
+centre of Semitic settlement in the north.
+
+[Illustration: FRAGMENT OF SUMERIAN SCULPTURE REPRESENTING SCENES OF
+WORSHIP BEFORE THE GODS.--_In the Louvre; Déc. en Chald., pl._ 23.]
+
+It would thus appear that at the earliest period of which remains or
+records have been recovered, Semites and Sumerians were both settled in
+Babylonia, the one race in the north, the other southwards nearer the
+Persian Gulf. Living at first in comparative isolation, trade and war
+would gradually bring them into closer contact. Whether we may regard
+the earliest rulers of Kish as Semites like their later successors,
+is still in doubt. The character of Enbi-Ishtar's name points to his
+being a Semite; but the still earlier king of Kish, who is referred
+to on the Stele of the Vultures, is represented on that monument as a
+Sumerian with shaven head and face.[56] But this may have been due to a
+convention in the sculpture of the time, and it is quite possible that
+Mesilim and his successors were Semites, and that their relations with
+the contemporary rulers of Lagash represent the earlier stages in a
+racial conflict which dominates the history of the later periods.
+
+Of the original home of the Sumerians, from which they came to the
+fertile plains of Southern Babylonia, it is impossible to speak with
+confidence. The fact that they settled at the mouths of the great
+rivers has led to the suggestion that they arrived by sea, and this
+has been connected with the story in Berossus of Oannes and the other
+fish-men, who came up from the Erythraean Sea and brought religion and
+culture with them. But the legend need not bear this interpretation;
+it merely points to the Sea-country on the shores of the Gulf as the
+earliest centre of Sumerian culture in the land. Others have argued
+that they came from a mountain-home, and have cited in support of their
+view the institution of the ziggurat or temple-tower, built "like
+a mountain," and the employment of the same ideogram for "mountain"
+and for "land." But the massive temple-tower appears to date from the
+period of Gudea and the earlier kings of Ur, and, with the single
+exception of Nippur, was probably not a characteristic feature of the
+earlier temples; and it is now known that the ideogram for "land" and
+"mountain" was employed in the earlier periods for foreign lands, in
+contradistinction to that of the Sumerians themselves.[57] But, in
+spite of the unsoundness of these arguments, it is most probable that
+the Sumerians did descend on Babylonia from the mountains on the east.
+Their entrance into the country would thus have been the first of
+several immigrations from that quarter, due to climatic and physical
+changes in Central Asia.[58]
+
+Still more obscure is the problem of their racial affinity. The
+obliquely set eyes of the figures in the earlier reliefs, due mainly
+to an ignorance of perspective characteristic of all primitive art,
+first suggested the theory that the Sumerians were of Mongol type; and
+the further developments of this view, according to which a Chinese
+origin is to be sought both for Sumerian roots and for the cuneiform
+character, are too improbable to need detailed refutation. A more
+recent suggestion, that their language is of Indo-European origin
+and structure,[59] is scarcely less improbable, while resemblances
+which have been pointed out between isolated words in Sumerian and in
+Armenian, Turkish, and other languages of Western Asia, may well be
+fortuitous. With the Elamites upon their eastern border the Sumerians
+had close relations from the first, but the two races do not appear
+to be related either in language or by physical characteristics.
+The scientific study of the Sumerian tongue, inaugurated by
+Professors Zimmern and Jensen, and more especially by the work of M.
+Thureau-Dangin on the early texts, will doubtless lead in time to more
+accurate knowledge on this subject; but, until the phonetic elements of
+the language are firmly established, all theories based upon linguistic
+comparisons are necessarily insecure.
+
+In view of the absence of Semitic influence in Sumer during the
+earlier periods, it may be conjectured that the Semitic immigrants
+did not reach Babylonia from the south, but from the north-west,
+after traversing the Syrian coast-lands. This first great influx of
+Semitic nomad tribes left colonists behind them in that region, who
+afterwards as the Amurru, or Western Semites, pressed on in their turn
+into Babylonia and established the earliest independent dynasty in
+Babylon. The original movement continued into Northern Babylonia, and
+its representatives in history were the early Semitic kings of Kish and
+Akkad. But the movement did not stop there; it passed on to the foot of
+the Zagros hills, and left its traces in the independent principalities
+of Lulubu and Gutiu. Such in outline appears to have been the course
+of this early migratory movement, which, after colonizing the areas
+through which it passed, eventually expended itself in the western
+mountains of Persia. It was mainly through contact with the higher
+culture of the Sumerians that the tribes which settled in Akkad were
+enabled later on to play so important a part in the history of Western
+Asia.
+
+
+[1] In point of time, the work of Loftus and Taylor (see below, pp.
+32 ff.) preceded that of De Sarzec, but the results obtained were
+necessarily less complete. It would be out of place in the present
+volume to give any account of excavations in Assyria, as they have only
+an indirect bearing on the period here treated. For a chronological
+sketch of the early travellers and excavators, see Rogers, "History of
+Babylonia and Assyria," vol. i. pp. 100 ff., who also gives a detailed
+account of the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions; cf. also
+Fossey, "Manuel," I., pp. 6 ff. For a similar chronological treatment,
+but from the archaeological side, see the sections with which Hilprecht
+prefaces his account of the Nippur excavations in "Explorations in
+Bible Lands," pp. 7 ff.
+
+[2] See above, p. 11.
+
+[3] Cf. "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," Pt. XVI., pl. 36, l. 4 f.;
+as written here the name might also be read Lagarum or Lagadil. That
+Lagash is the correct reading is proved by the fragment of a duplicate
+text published in Reisner, "Sum.-Bab. Hymnen," pl. 126, No. 81, where
+the final character of the name is unmistakably written as _ash_; cf.
+Meissner, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1907, col. 385.
+
+[4] Separate mounds in the group were referred to by De Sarzec under
+the letters A-P, P', and V. For the account of the diggings and their
+results, see E. de Sarzec and Léon Heuzey, "Découvertes en Chaldée"
+("Description des fouilles" by De Sarzec; "Description des monuments"
+by Heuzey; "Partie épigraphique" by Amiaud and Thureau-Dangin), Paris,
+1884-1906; see also Heuzey, "Une Villa royale chaldéenne," and "Revue
+d'Assyriologie," _passim_.
+
+[5] The plate opposite p. 20 illustrates the way in which Gudea's
+gateway has been worked into the structure of the Parthian Palace. The
+slight difference in the ground-level of the two buildings is also
+clearly shown.
+
+[6] See the plate opposite p. 26.**
+
+[7] From the nature of this building Amiaud christened the mound the
+"Tell de la Maison des Fruits."
+
+[8] A description of these buildings is given in Chap. IV., pp. 90 ff.**
+
+[9] Cf. "Zeits. für Assyr." II., pp. 406 ff.
+
+[10] Cf. Messerschmidt, "Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler," p. v. f.,
+pl. 1 ff.
+
+[11] The name is still often transcribed as Gishkhu or Gishukh; for
+the reading Umma, supplied by a Neo-Babylonian vocabulary, see "Cun.
+Texts," XII., pl. 28, Obv., l. 7, and cf. Hrozný, "Zeits. für Assyr."
+XX. (1907), pp. 421 ff. For its identification with Jôkha, see Scheil,
+"Rec. de trav.," XIX., p. 63; cf. also XXI., p. 125.
+
+[12] Cf. "Mitteil. der Deutsch. Orient-Gesellschaft," No. 16, p. 20 f.
+Dr. Andrae adds valuable notes on other mounds he visited during this
+journey.
+
+[13] See below, p. 33 f.
+
+[14] See "Mitteil. der Deutsch. Orient-Gesellschaft," No. 15, p. 9 ff.
+
+[15] _Op. cit._, No. 17, p. 4 ff.
+
+[16] Each section of a trench is also given a letter, so that such a
+symbol as IV. _b_ or XII. _x_ indicates within very precise limits the
+_provenance_ of any object discovered. The letter A on the plan marks
+the site of the house built by the expedition.
+
+[17] This form of brick is characteristic of the Pre-Sargonic period;
+cf. p. 91.
+
+[18] The positions of some of the larger ones, which were excavated in
+the northern part of the mounds, are indicated by black dots in the
+plan.
+
+[19] The houses with the clay tablets were found in trenches VII., IX.,
+XIII., and XV.
+
+[20] In the folding map Fâra has been set on the right bank of the
+Shatt el-Kâr, in accordance with Loftus's map published in "Travels and
+Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana." From Andrae's notes it would seem
+that Abû Hatab, and probably Fâra also, lie on the east or left bank.
+But the ancient bed of the stream has disappeared in many places, and
+is difficult to follow, and elsewhere there are traces of two or three
+parallel channels at considerable distances apart, so that the exact
+position of the original bed of the Euphrates is not certain at this
+point.
+
+[21] In the plan the trenches and excavated sites are lettered from A
+to K. The figures, preceded by a cross, give in metres and centimetres
+the height of the mound at that point above the level of the plain.
+
+[22] Itûr-Shamash, whose brick-inscription furnished the information
+that Abû Hatab is the site of the city Kisurra, is to be set towards
+the end of this period; see below, Chap. XI., and cf. p. 283 f., n. 1.
+
+[23] See the extracts from the "Reports of the Expedition of the
+Oriental Exploration Fund (Babylonian Section) of the University of
+Chicago," which were issued to the subscribers.
+
+[24] See below, Chap. IV., pp. 85 ff.
+
+[25] See "Chaldaea and Susiana," pp. 174 ff. and 188 f.
+
+[26] Op. cit., pp. 244 ff., 266 ff.
+
+[27] See his "Notes on the ruins of Mugeyer" in the _Journal of the
+Royal Asiatic Society_, 1855, pp. 260 ff., 414 f.
+
+[28] See his "Notes on Abû Shahrein and Tel el-Lahm," _op. cit._, p.
+409. The trench which disclosed this structure, built of uninscribed
+plano-convex bricks laid in bitumen, was cut near the south-eastern
+side of the ruins, between the mounds F and G (see plan), and to the
+north-east of the gulley.
+
+[29] See Weissbach, "Wâdī Brîssā," Col. VI., ll. 46 ff., and cf. pp. 39
+ff.
+
+[30] The incantation is the one which has furnished us with authority
+for reading the name of Shirpurla as Lagash (see above, p. 17, n. 3).
+It is directed against the machinations of evil demons, and in one
+passage the powers for good inherent in the ancient cities of Babylonia
+are invoked on behalf of the possessed man. Here, along with the names
+of Eridu, Lagash, and Shuruppak, occurs the ideogram for Opis, which
+is rendered in the Assyrian translation as _Ki-e-shi_, _i.e._ Kesh, or
+Kish (cf. Thompson, "Devils and Evil Spirits," vol. i., p. 162 f.)
+
+[31] See above, p. 9.
+
+[32] See George Smith, "Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch.," III., p. 364, and cf.
+Thureau-Dangin, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1909, col. 205 f.
+
+[33] The fact that in an early Babylonian geographical list ("Cun.
+Inscr. West. Asia," Vol. IV., pl. 36, No. 1) the name of Opis is
+mentioned after a number of Sumerian cities, is no indication that the
+city itself, or another city of the same name, was regarded as situated
+in Sumer, as suggested by Jensen (cf. "Zeits. für Assyr.," XV., pp. 210
+ff.); the next two names in the list are those of Magan and Melukhkha.
+
+[34] For the fullest treatment of this subject, see Meyer, "Sumerier
+und Semiten in Babylonien" (Abh. der Königl. Preuss. Akad. der
+Wissenschaft., 1906).
+
+[35] Cf. Herodotus, III., 8.
+
+[36] The women of the earlier period appear to have worn a modified
+form of this garment, made of the same rough wool, but worn over
+the left shoulder (see below, p. 112, Fig. 43). On the Stele of the
+Vultures, Eannatum, like his soldiers, wears the petticoat, but this
+is supplemented by what is obviously a separate garment of different
+texture thrown over the left shoulder so as to leave the right arm
+free; this may have been the skin of an animal worn with the natural
+hair outside (see the plate opposite p. 124).
+
+[37] A very similar fringed mantle was usually worn by the Sumerian
+women of the later period, but it was draped differently upon the body.
+Pressed at first over the breasts and under each arm, it is crossed at
+the back and its ends, thrown over the shoulders, fall in front in two
+symmetrical points; for a good example of the garment as seen from the
+front, see below, p. 71.
+
+[38] See below, p. 245, Fig. 59.
+
+[39] Remains of an inscription upon Fig. 6 treat of the dedication
+of a temple to the god Ningirsu, and to judge from the characters it
+probably does not date from a period earlier than that of Gudea.
+
+[40] See the plate facing p. 52, and cf. p. 68 f.
+
+[41] See below, Chap. VIII., pp. 220 ff.
+
+[42] According to the traces on the stone the figure immediately behind
+the beardless chief has a shaven head and face, like his other two
+followers in Fig. 3. The figure on the right of this fragment wears
+hair and beard, and probably represents a member of the opposite party
+conducting them into the presence of his master.
+
+[43] See "Déc. en Chaldée," pl. 1 _bis_, Figs. 3-7.
+
+[44] The fact that on seals of this later period the Moon-god is
+represented in the Sumerian mantle and headdress may well have been a
+result of the Sumerian reaction, which took place under the kings of Ur
+(see below, p. 283 f.).
+
+[45] See below, p. 131, Fig. 46.
+
+[46] See p. 49. In Fig. 14 the hair and beard of the god who leads the
+worshipper into the presence of the goddess is clearer on the original
+stone. In Fig. 15 the locks of hair and long beards of the seated gods
+are more sharply outlined; they form a striking contrast to the figures
+of Sumerians, who are represented as pouring out libations and bringing
+offerings to the shrine.
+
+[47] See p. 50, Fig. 16.
+
+[48] Cf. Langdon, "Babyloniaca," II., p. 142; this explanation is
+preferable to treating the crowns as a feathered form of headdress.
+The changes in the dress of the Sumerian gods, and in the treatment
+of their beards, appear to have taken place in the age of the later
+Semitic kings of Kish and the kings of Akkad, and may well have been
+due to their influence. The use of sandals was certainly introduced by
+the Semites of this period.
+
+[49] See Clay, "The Amer. Journ. of Semit. Lang, and Lit.," XXIII., pp.
+269 ff. In later periods the name was pronounced as Ellil.
+
+[50] Cf. "Nachträge zur aegyptischen Chronologie," p. 44 f., and
+"Geschichte des Altertums," Bd. I., Hft. II., p. 407.
+
+[51] See Thureau-Dangin, "Sum. und Akkad. Königsinschriften," p. 38,
+Col. I., l. 26; the word is _dam-kha-ra_, which he rightly takes as
+the equivalent of the Semitic _tamkhara_, "battle" (cf. also Ungnad,
+"Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1908, col. 63 f.).
+
+[52] In this respect the early Sumerian texts are in striking contrast
+to those of the later periods; the evidence of strong Semitic influence
+in the latter formed the main argument on which M. Halévy and his
+followers relied to disprove the existence of the Sumerians.
+
+[53] See Messerschmidt, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1905, col. 268 ff.; and
+cf. King, "Chronicles," I., p. 180, n. 3.
+
+[54] See Ungnad, op. cit., 1908, col. 62 ff.
+
+[55] See below, Chap. VII. f.
+
+[56] See below, p. 141, Fig. 48.
+
+[57] See above, p. 14, n. 1.
+
+[58] See further, Appendix I.
+
+[59] Cf. Langdon, "Babyloniaca," I., pp. 225 f., 230, 284 ff., II.,
+p. 99 f. The grounds, upon which the suggestion has been put forward,
+consist of a comparison between the verb "to go" in Sumerian, Greek,
+and Latin, an apparent resemblance in a few other roots, the existence
+of compound verbs in Sumerian, and the like; but quite apart from
+questions of general probability, the "parallelisms" noted are scarcely
+numerous enough, or sufficiently close, to justify the inference drawn
+from them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+THE AGE AND PRINCIPAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION
+
+
+Considerable changes have recently taken place in our estimate of
+the age of Sumerian civilization, and the length of time which
+elapsed between the earliest remains that have been recovered and the
+foundation of the Babylonian monarchy. It was formerly the custom to
+assign very remote dates to the earlier rulers of Sumer and Akkad,
+and although the chronological systems in vogue necessitated enormous
+gaps in our knowledge of history, it was confidently assumed that
+these would be filled as a result of future excavation. Blank periods
+of a thousand years or more were treated as of little account by many
+writers. The hoary antiquity ascribed to the earliest rulers had in
+itself an attraction which outweighed the inconvenience of spreading
+the historical material to cover so immense a space in time. But
+excavation, so far from filling the gaps, has tended distinctly to
+reduce them, and the chronological systems of the later Assyrian
+and Babylonian scribes, which were formerly regarded as of primary
+importance, have been brought into discredit by the scribes themselves.
+From their own discrepancies it has been shown that the native
+chronologists could make mistakes in their reckoning, and a possible
+source of error has been disclosed in the fact that some of the early
+dynasties, which were formerly regarded as consecutive, were, actually,
+contemporaneous. Recent research on this subject has thus resulted in
+a considerable reduction of the early dates, and the different epochs
+in the history of Sumer and Akkad, which were at one time treated as
+isolated phenomena, have been articulated to form a consistent whole.
+But the tendency now is to carry the reaction rather too far, and to
+compress certain periods beyond the limits of the evidence. It will be
+well to summarize the problems at issue, and to indicate the point at
+which evidence gives place to conjecture.
+
+In attempting to set limits to the earlier periods of Sumerian history,
+it is still impossible to do more than form a rough and approximate
+estimate of their duration. For in dealing with the chronology of
+the remoter ages, we are, to a great extent, groping in the dark.
+The material that has been employed for settling the order of the
+early kings, and for determining their periods, falls naturally into
+three main classes. The most important of our sources of information
+consists of the contemporary inscriptions of the early kings
+themselves, which have been recovered upon the sites of the ancient
+cities in Babylonia.[1] The inscriptions frequently give genealogies
+of the rulers whose achievements they record, and they thus enable
+us to ascertain the sequence of the kings and the relative dates at
+which they reigned. This class of evidence also makes it possible to
+fix certain points of contact between the separate lines of rulers
+who maintained an independent authority within the borders of their
+city-states.
+
+A second class of material, which is of even greater importance for
+settling the chronology of the later Sumerian epoch, comprises the
+chronological documents drawn up by early scribes, who incorporated in
+the form of lists and tables the history of their own time and that of
+their predecessors. The system of dating documents which was in vogue
+was not a very convenient one from the point of view of those who used
+it, but it has furnished us with an invaluable summary of the principal
+events which took place for long periods at a time. The early dwellers
+in Babylonia did not reckon dates by the years of the reigning king,
+as did the later Babylonians, but they cited each year by the event
+of greatest importance which took place in it. Such events consisted
+in the main of the building of temples, the performance of religious
+ceremonies, and the conquest of neighbouring cities and states. Thus
+the dates upon private and official documents often furnish us with
+historical information of considerable importance.
+
+But the disadvantages of the system are obvious, for an event might
+appear of great importance in one city and might be of no interest
+to another situated at some distance from it. Thus it happened that
+the same event was not employed throughout the whole country for
+designating a particular year, and we have evidence that different
+systems of dating were employed in different cities. Moreover, it would
+have required an unusually good memory to fix the exact period of a
+document by a single reference to an event which took place in the year
+when it was drawn up, more especially after the system had been in use
+for a considerable time. Thus, in order to fix the relative dates of
+documents without delay, the scribes compiled lists of the titles of
+the years, arranged in order under the reigns of the successive kings,
+and these were doubtless stored in some archive-chamber, where they
+were easily accessible in the case of any dispute arising with regard
+to the date of a particular year. It is fortunate that some of these
+early Sumerian date-lists have been recovered, and we are furnished
+by them with an outline of Sumerian history, which has the value of
+a contemporary record.[2] They have thrown light upon a period of
+which at one time we knew little, and they have served to remove more
+than one erroneous supposition. Thus the so-called Second Dynasty of
+Ur was proved by them to have been non-existent, and the consequent
+reduplication of kings bearing the names of Ur-Engur and Dungi was
+shown to have had no foundation in fact.
+
+From the compilation of lists of the separate years it was but a step
+to the classification of the reigns of the kings themselves and their
+arrangement in the form of dynasties. Among the mass of tablets
+recovered from Niffer has been found a fragment of one of these early
+dynastic tablets,[3] which supplements the date-lists and is of the
+greatest value for settling the chronology of the later period. The
+reverse of the tablet gives complete lists of the names of the kings
+who formed the Dynasties of Ur and Isin, together with notes as to
+the length of their respective reigns, and it further states that the
+Dynasty of Isin directly succeeded that of Ur. This document fixes
+once for all the length of the period to which it refers, and it is
+much to be regretted that so little of the text has been recovered.
+Our information is at present confined to what is legible on part of
+one column of the tablet. But the text in its complete form must have
+contained no less than six columns of writing, and it probably gave
+a list of various dynasties which ruled in Babylonia from the very
+earliest times down to the date of its compilation, though many of the
+dynasties enumerated were doubtless contemporaneous. It was on the
+base of such documents as this dynastic list that the famous dynastic
+tablet was compiled for the library of Ashurbani-pal at Nineveh, and
+the existence of such lengthy dynastic records must have contributed to
+the exaggerated estimate for the beginnings of Babylonian history which
+have come down to us from the work of Berossus.
+
+A third class of material for settling the chronology has been found
+in the external evidence afforded by the early historical and votive
+inscriptions to which reference has already been made, and by tablets
+of accounts, deeds of sale, and numerous documents of a commercial
+and agricultural character. From a study of their form and material,
+the general style of the writing, and the nature of the characters
+employed, a rough estimate may sometimes be made as to the time at
+which a particular record was inscribed, or the length of a period
+covered by documents of different reigns. Further, in the course of the
+excavations undertaken at any site, careful note may be made of the
+relative depths of the strata in which inscriptions have been found.
+Thus, if texts of certain kings occur in a mound at a greater depth
+than those of other rulers, and it appears from an examination of the
+earth that the mound has not been disturbed by subsequent building
+operations or by natural causes, it may be inferred that the deeper
+the stratum in which a text is found the earlier must be the date to
+be assigned to it. But this class of evidence, whether obtained from
+palaeographical study or from systematic excavation, is sometimes
+uncertain and liable to more than one interpretation. In such cases it
+may only be safely employed when it agrees with other and independent
+considerations, and where additional support is not forthcoming, it is
+wiser to regard conclusions based upon it as provisional.
+
+The three classes of evidence that have been referred to in the
+preceding paragraphs enable us to settle the relative order of many
+of the early rulers of Babylonia, but they do not supply us with
+any definite date by means of which the chronology of these earlier
+ages may be brought into relation with that of the later periods of
+Babylonian history. In order to secure such a point of connection,
+reliance has in the past been placed upon a notice of one of the early
+rulers of Babylonia, which occurs in an inscription of the last king of
+the Neo-Babylonian empire. On a clay cylinder of Nabonidus, which is
+preserved in the British Museum, it is stated that 3200 years elapsed
+between the burial of Narâm-Sin's foundation-memorial in the temple of
+the Sun-god at Sippar, and the finding of the memorial by Nabonidus
+himself when digging in the temple's foundations.[4] Now Narâm-Sin was
+an early king of Akkad, and, according to later tradition, was the son
+of the still more famous Sargon I. On the strength of the figure given
+by Nabonidus, the approximate date of 3750 B.C. has been assigned to
+Narâm-Sin, and that of 3800 B.C. to his father Sargon; and mainly on
+the basis of these early dates the beginning of Sumerian history has
+been set back as far as 5000 and even 6000 B.C.[5]
+
+The improbably high estimate of Nabonidus for the date of Narâm-Sin
+has long been the subject of criticism.[6] It is an entirely isolated
+statement, unsupported by any other reference in early or late texts;
+and the scribes who were responsible for it were clearly not anxious
+to diminish the antiquity of the foundation-record, which had been
+found at such a depth below the later temple's foundations, and
+after so prolonged a search. To accept it as accurate entailed the
+leaving of enormous gaps in the chronological schemes, even when
+postulating the highest possible dates for the dynasties of Ur and
+Babylon. An alternative device of partially filling the gaps by the
+invention of kings and even dynasties[7] was not a success, as their
+existence has since been definitely disproved. Moreover, the recent
+reduction in the date of the First Dynasty of Babylon, necessitated
+by the proof that the first three dynasties of the Kings' List were
+partly contemporaneous, made its discrepancy with Nabonidus's figures
+still more glaring, while at the same time it furnished a possible
+explanation of so high a figure resulting from his calculations. For
+his scribes in all good faith may have reckoned as consecutive a
+number of early dynasties which had been contemporaneous.[8] The final
+disproof of the figure is furnished by evidence of an archaeological
+and epigraphic character. No such long interval as twelve or thirteen
+hundred years can have separated the art of Gudea's period from that
+of Narâm-Sin; and the clay tablets of the two epochs differ so little
+in shape, and in the forms of the characters with which they are
+inscribed, that we must regard the two ages as immediately following
+one another without any considerable break.
+
+By rejecting the figures of Nabonidus we cut away our only external
+connection with the chronology of the later periods, and, in order to
+evolve a scheme for earlier times we have to fall back on a process
+of reckoning from below. Without discussing in detail the later
+chronology, it will be well to indicate briefly the foundations on
+which we can begin to build. By the aid of the Ptolemaic Canon, whose
+accuracy is confirmed by the larger List of Kings and the principal
+Babylonian Chronicle, the later chronology of Babylon is definitely
+fixed back to the year 747 B.C.; by means of the eponym lists that for
+Assyria is fixed back to the year 911 B.C. Each scheme controls and
+confirms the other, and the solar eclipse of June 15th, 763 B.C., which
+is recorded in the eponymy of Pûr-Sagale, places the dead reckoning for
+these later periods upon an absolutely certain basis. For the earlier
+periods of Babylonian history, as far back as the foundation of the
+Babylonian monarchy, a chronological framework has been supplied by the
+principal List of Kings.[9] In spite of gaps in the text which render
+the lengths of Dynasties IV. and VIII. uncertain, it is possible,
+mainly by the help of synchronisms between Assyrian and Babylonian
+kings, to fix approximately the date of Dynasty III. Some difference
+of opinion exists with regard to this date, but the beginning of the
+dynasty may be placed at about the middle of the eighteenth century B.C.
+
+With regard to Dynasty II. of the King's List it is now known that it
+ruled in the Sea-country in the region of the Persian Gulf, its earlier
+kings being contemporary with the close of Dynasty I. and its later
+ones with the early part of Dynasty III.[10] Here we come to the first
+of two points on which there is a considerable difference of opinion.
+The available evidence suggests that the kings of the Sea-country never
+ruled in Babylon, and that the Third, or Kassite, Dynasty followed
+the First Dynasty of Babylon without any considerable break.[11] But
+the date 2232 B.C., which probably represents the beginning of
+the non-mythical dynasties of Berossus,[12] has hitherto played a
+considerable part in modern schemes of chronology, and, in spite of the
+fact that no amount of ingenuity can reconcile his dynasties with those
+of history, there is still a strong temptation to retain the date for
+the beginning of Dynasty I. of the Kings' List as affording a fixed
+and certain point from which to start calculations. But this can only
+be done by assuming that some of the kings of the Sea-country ruled
+over the whole of Babylonia, an assumption that is negatived by such
+historical and archaeological evidence as we possess.[13] It is safer
+to treat the date 2232 B.C. as without significance, and to follow the
+evidence in confining the kings of the Sea-country to their own land.
+If we do this we obtain a date for the foundation of the Babylonian
+monarchy about the middle of the twenty-first century B.C.
+
+[Illustration: Brit. Mus., No. 86261.--Brit. Mus., No. 86260.--THE
+BLAU MONUMENTS.]
+
+The second important point on which opinion is not agreed, concerns
+the relation of the First Dynasty of Babylon to that of Isin. From the
+Nippur dynastic list we know the duration of the dynasties of Ur and
+Isin, and if we could connect the latter with the First Dynasty of
+Babylon, we should be able to carry a fixed chronology at least as far
+back as the age of Gudea. Such a point of connection has been suggested
+in the date-formula for the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit's reign,
+which records a capture of Isin; and by identifying this event with
+the fall of the dynasty, it is assumed that the kings of Isin and of
+Babylon overlapped for a period of about ninety-nine years. In a later
+chapter the evidence is discussed on which this theory rests, and it is
+shown that the capture of Isin in Sin-muballit's seventeenth year had
+nothing to do with the dynasty of that name, but was an episode in the
+later struggle between Babylon and Larsa.[14] We thus have no means of
+deciding what interval, if any, separated the two dynasties from one
+another, and consequently all the earlier dates remain only approximate.
+
+The contract-tablets dating from the period of the Dynasty of Isin,
+which have been found at Nippur, are said to resemble closely those
+of the First Babylonian Dynasty in form, material, writing, and
+terminology.[15] It would thus appear that no long interval separated
+the two dynasties from one another. We have seen that the foundation
+of the Babylonian monarchy may be set in about the middle of the
+twenty-first century B.C., and by placing the end of the Dynasty
+of Isin within the first half of that same century we obtain the
+approximate dates of 2300 B.C. for the Dynasty of Isin, and 2400 B.C.
+for the Dynasty of Ur. It is true that we know that the Dynasty of
+Ur lasted for exactly one hundred and seventeen years, and that of
+Isin for two hundred and twenty-five years and a half, but until we
+can definitely connect the Dynasty of Isin with that of Babylon, any
+attempt to work out the dates in detail would be misleading. We must be
+content to await the recovery of new material, and meanwhile to think
+in periods.
+
+There is evidence that Ur-Engur established his rule in Ur, and founded
+his dynasty in the time of Ur-Ningirsu, the son of Gudea of Lagash. We
+may therefore place Gudea's accession at about 2450 B.C. This date is
+some thirteen hundred years later than that assigned to Narâm-Sin by
+Nabonidus. But the latter, we have already seen, must be reduced, in
+accordance with evidence furnished by Tello tablets, which are dated
+in the reigns of the intermediate patesis of Lagash. If we set this
+interval at one hundred and fifty years,[16] we obtain for Narâm-Sin
+a date of 2600 B.C., and for Shar-Gani-Sharri one of 2650 B.C. For the
+later Semitic kings of Kish, headed by Sharru-Gi, one hundred years is
+not too much to allow;[17] we thus obtain for Sharru-Gi the approximate
+date of 2750 B.C. It is possible that Manishtusu, King of Kish, was the
+contemporary of Urukagina of Lagash, but the evidence in favour of the
+synchronism is not sufficiently strong to justify its acceptance.[18]
+By placing Urukagina at 2800 B.C., we obtain for Ur-Ninâ an approximate
+date of 3000 B.C., and for still earlier rulers such as Mesilim, a date
+rather earlier than this.[19] It is difficult to estimate the age of
+the early graves, cylinder-seals and tablets found at Fâra, but they
+cannot be placed at a much later period than 3400 B.C. Thus the age
+of Sumerian civilization can be traced in Babylonia back to about the
+middle of the fourth millennium B.C., but not beyond.
+
+It must be confessed that this is a reduction in the date usually
+assigned to the earliest relics that have been recovered of the
+Sumerian civilization, but its achievements are by no means belittled
+by the compression of its period of development. It is not suggested
+that this date marks the beginning of Sumerian culture, for, as we
+have noted, it is probable that the race was already possessed of
+a high standard of civilization on their arrival in Babylonia. The
+invention of cuneiform writing, which was one of their most noteworthy
+achievements, had already taken place, for the characters in the
+earliest inscriptions recovered have lost their pictorial form.
+Assuming the genuineness of the "Blau Monuments," it must be admitted
+that even on them the characters are in a comparatively advanced stage
+of development.[20] We may thus put back into a more remote age the
+origin and early growth of Sumerian culture, which took place at a time
+when it was not Sumerian.
+
+In the concluding chapter of this volume an estimate is given to
+the extent to which Sumerian culture influenced, either directly or
+indirectly, other races in Asia, Egypt, and the West. In such matters
+the interest attaching to the Sumerian original is largely derived
+from its effects, and its study may be undertaken mainly with the view
+of elucidating a later development. But one department of Sumerian
+activity forms a striking exception to this rule. The arts of sculpture
+and engraving, as practised by the Sumerians, are well worthy of study
+on their own account, for while their work in all periods is marked by
+spirit and originality, that of the later time reaches a remarkable
+standard of excellence. The improvement in technique observable in
+the later period may largely be due to the influence of Semitic work,
+which was derived from Sumer and reacted in its turn on the parent
+stem. But the original impulse to artistic production was of purely
+Sumerian origin, and it is possible to trace the gradual development
+of its products from the rudest reliefs of the archaic period to the
+finished sculpture of Gudea's reign.[21] The character of the Semitic
+art of Akkad was secondary and derivative, though the Semites certainly
+improved on what they borrowed; in that of the Sumerians the seeds
+of its later excellence may be detected from the beginning. The most
+ancient of the sculptured reliefs of the Sumerians are very rudely
+cut, and their age is attested not only by their primitive character,
+but also by the linear form of the writing which is found upon them.
+These, owing to their smaller size, are the best preserved, for the
+later reliefs, which belong to the period when Sumerian art reached its
+fullest development, are unfortunately represented only by fragments.
+But they suffice to show the spirit which animated these ancient
+craftsmen, and enabled them successfully to overcome difficulties
+of technique which were carefully avoided by the later sculptors of
+Assyria. To take a single instance, we may note the manner in which
+they represented the heads of the principal figures of a composition in
+full-face, and did not seek to avoid the difficulty of foreshortening
+the features by a monotonous arrangement in profile. A good example
+of their bolder method of composition is afforded by the relief of a
+god, generally identified with Ningirsu, which dates from the epoch
+of Gudea; he is seated upon a throne, and while the torso and bearded
+head are sculptured full-face, the legs are in profile.[22] On another
+fragment of a relief of the same period, beautifully cut in alabaster
+but much damaged by fire, a goddess is represented seated on the knees
+of a god. The rendering of the group is very spirited, for while the
+god gazes in profile at his wife, she looks out from the sculpture
+curving her body from the hips.[23]
+
+[Illustration: DIORITE STATUE OF GUDEA, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA,
+REPRESENTED AS THE ARCHITECT OF THE TEMPLE OF GATUMDUG.--In the Louvre;
+Déc. en Chald., pl. 14.]
+
+In neither instance can it be said that the sculptor has completely
+succeeded in portraying a natural attitude, for the head in each case
+should be only in three-quarter profile, but such attempts at an
+unconventional treatment afford striking evidence of the originality
+which characterized the work of the Sumerians. Both the sculptures
+referred to date from the later Sumerian period, and, if they were the
+only instances recovered, it might be urged that the innovation should
+be traced to the influence of North Babylonian art under the patronage
+of the kings of Akkad. Fortunately, however, we possess an interesting
+example of the same class of treatment, which undoubtedly dates from
+a period anterior to the Semitic domination. This is afforded by a
+perforated plaque, somewhat similar to the more primitive ones of
+Ur-Ninâ,[24] engraved in shallow relief with a libation-scene. The
+figure of a man, completely nude and with shaven head and face, raises
+a libation-vase with a long spout, from which he is about to pour water
+into a vase holding two palm leaves and a flowering branch.[25] The
+goddess in whose honour the rite is being performed is seated in the
+mountains, represented as in later times by a number of small lozenges
+or half circles. While her feet and knees are in profile, the head is
+represented full-face, and the sculptor's want of skill in this novel
+treatment has led him to assign the head a size out of all proportion
+to the rest of the body. The effect is almost grotesque, but the work
+is of considerable interest as one of the earliest attempts on the
+part of the Sumerian sculptors to break away from the stiff and formal
+traditions of the archaic period. From the general style of the work
+the relief may probably be dated about the period of Eannatum's reign.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 20. Perforated plaque engraved with a scene
+representing the pouring out of a libation before a goddess.--In the
+Louvre; Cat. No. 11.]
+
+The Sumerians did not attain the decorative effect of the Assyrian
+bas-reliefs with which the later kings lined the walls of their
+palaces. In fact, the small size of the figures rendered them suitable
+for the enrichment of stelæ, plaques, basins and stone vases, rather
+than for elaborate wall sculptures, for which in any case they had not
+the material. The largest fragment of an early bas-relief that has been
+recovered appears to have formed the angle of a stone pedestal, and is
+decorated with figures in several registers representing ceremonies of
+Sumerian worship.[26] In the upper register on the side that is best
+preserved is a priest leading worshippers into the presence of a god,
+while below is a crouching figure, probably that of a woman who plays
+on a great lyre or harp of eleven cords, furnished with two uprights
+and decorated with a horned head and the figure of a bull. On the side
+in the upper row is a heavily bearded figure on a larger scale than
+the rest, and the mixture of Sumerian and Semitic types in the figures
+preceding him suggests that the monument is to be assigned to the
+period of Semitic domination, under the rule of the kings of Kish or
+Akkad. But it is obviously Sumerian in character, resembling the work
+of Gudea's period rather than that of Narâm-Sin.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Fragments of sculpture belonging to the best
+period of Sumerian art.--_Déc._, pl. 25, Figs. 4 and 6.]
+
+The perfection of detail which characterized the best work of the
+Sumerian sculptors is well illustrated by two fragments of reliefs,
+parts of which are drawn in outline in the accompanying blocks. The one
+on the left is from a bas-relief representing a line of humped cattle
+and horned sheep defiling past the spectator. It is badly broken,
+but enough is preserved to show the surprising fidelity with which
+the sculptor has reproduced the animal's form and attitude. Though
+the subject recalls the lines of domestic animals upon the Assyrian
+bas-reliefs, the Sumerian treatment is infinitely superior. The same
+high qualities of design and workmanship are visible in the little
+fragment on the right. Of the main sculpture only a human foot remains;
+but it is beautifully modelled. The decorative border below the foot
+represents the spouting vase with its two streams of water and two
+fish swimming against the stream. A plant rises from the vase between
+the streams, the symbol of vegetation nourished by the waters.[27] The
+extreme delicacy of the original shows to what degree of perfection
+Sumerian work attained during the best period.
+
+The use of sculpture in relief was also most happily employed for
+the decoration of basins or fountains. The most elaborate of those
+recovered, unhappily represented by mutilated fragments only, was
+decorated on the outside with a chain of female figures passing from
+hand to hand vases of spouting water.[28] Better preserved are the
+remains of another basin, which was set up by Gudea in Ningirsu's
+temple at Lagash. Rectangular in shape, each corner was decorated with
+a lion. The head, drawn in the accompanying block, is a fine piece
+of sculpture, and almost stands out from the corner, while the body,
+carved in profile on the side of the basin, is in low relief. In this
+portrayal of a lion turning its head, the designer has formed a bold
+but decorative combination of relief with sculpture in the round.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Limestone head of a lion which decorated
+the corner of a basin set up by Gudea in Ningirsu's temple at Lagash
+(Shirpurla).--Déc., pl. 24, Fig. 3.]
+
+The most famous examples of Sumerian sculpture are the statues of
+Gudea, and the rather earlier one of Ur-Bau, which, however, lose
+much of their character by the absence of their heads. It is true
+that a head has been fitted to a smaller and more recently found
+figure of Gudea;[29] but this proves to be out of all proportion to
+the body--a defect that was probably absent from the larger statues.
+The traditional attitude of devotion, symbolized by the clasping of
+the hands over the breast, gives them a certain monotony; but their
+modelling is superior to anything achieved by the Babylonians and
+Assyrians of a later time.[30] Thus there is a complete absence of
+exaggeration in the rendering of the muscles; the sculptor has not
+attempted by such crude and conventional methods to ascribe to his
+model a supernatural strength and vigour, but has worked direct from
+nature. They are carved in diorite, varying in colour from dark green
+to black, and that so hard a material should have been worked in
+the large masses required, is in itself an achievement of no small
+importance, and argues great technical skill on the part of the
+sculptors of the later period.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 23.--Upper part of a female statuette of diorite,
+of the period of Gudea or a little later.--_Déc_., pl. 24 _bis_, Fig.
+2.]
+
+For smaller figures and statuettes a softer stone, such as white
+limestone, alabaster, or onyx, was usually employed, but a few in
+the harder stone have been recovered. The most remarkable of these
+is a diorite statuette of a woman, the upper part of which has been
+preserved. The head and the torso were found separately, but thanks to
+their hard material they join without leaving a trace of any break.
+Here, as usual, the hands are crossed upon the breast, and the folds of
+the garment are only indicated under the arms by a few plain grooves
+as in the statues of Gudea. But the woman's form is visible beneath the
+stuff of her garment, and the curves of the back are wonderfully true.
+Her hair, undulating on the temples, is bound in a head-cloth and falls
+in the form of a chignon on the neck, the whole being secured by a
+stiff band, or fillet, around which the cloth is folded with its fringe
+tucked in.
+
+The drawing in Fig. 23 scarcely does justice to the beauty of the face,
+since it exaggerates the conventional representation of the eyebrows,
+and reproduces the texture of the stone at the expense of the outline.
+Moreover, the face is almost more striking in profile.[31] The nose,
+though perfectly straight, is rather large, but this is clearly a
+racial characteristic. Even so, the type of female beauty portrayed is
+singularly striking, and the manner in which the Sumerian sculptor has
+succeeded in reproducing it was not approached in the work of any later
+period. Another head from a female statuette, with the hair dressed in
+a similar fashion, is equally beautiful. The absence of part of the
+nose tends to give it a rather less marked ethnographic character, and
+probably increases the resemblance which has been claimed for it to
+types of classical antiquity.[32]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Limestone head of a female statuette belonging
+to the best period of Sumerian art.--_Déc._, pl. 25, Fig. 2.]
+
+The art of casting in metal was also practised by the Sumerians, and
+even in the earliest period, anterior to the reign of Ur-Ninâ, small
+foundation-figures have been discovered, which were cast solid in
+copper. In fact, copper was the metal most commonly employed by the
+Sumerians, and their stage of culture throughout the long period of
+their history may be described as a copper age, rather than an age of
+bronze. It is true that the claim is sometimes put forward, based on
+very unsatisfactory evidence, that the Sumerian metal-founders used not
+only tin but also antimony in order to harden copper, and at the same
+time render it more fusible;[33] and it is difficult to explain the
+employment of two ideograms for the metal, even in the earlier periods,
+unless one signified bronze and the other copper.[34] But a careful
+analysis by M. Berthelot of the numerous metal objects found at Tello,
+the dates of which can be definitely ascertained, has shown that, even
+under the later rulers of Lagash and the kings of Ur, not only votive
+figures, but also tools and weapons of copper, contain no trace of tin
+employed as an alloy.[35] As at Tello, so at Tell Sifr, the vessels and
+weapons found by Loftus are of copper, not bronze.[36] The presence of
+an exceedingly small proportion of elements other than copper in the
+objects submitted to analysis was probably not intentional, but was due
+to the necessarily imperfect method of smelting that was employed.
+
+[Illustration: CLAY RELIEF STAMPED WITH THE FIGURE OF THE BABYLONIAN
+HERO GILGAMESH, HOLDING A VASE FROM WHICH TWO STREAMS OF WATER FLOW.
+_Brit. Mus., No._ 21204.]
+
+[Illustration: FRAGMENT OF LIMESTONE SCULPTURED IN RELIEF WITH VASES
+FROM WHICH STREAMS OF WATER FLOW. _Brit. Mus., No._ 95477]
+
+No trace has yet been found of any mould used by the Sumerians in the
+process of casting metal, but we may assume that clay was employed both
+for solid and hollow castings. While many figures of the same form have
+been found, no two are exactly alike nor of quite the same proportions,
+so that it may be inferred that a mould was never used a second time,
+but that each was broken in order to remove the casting. The copper
+foundation-figures usually take the form of nails, terminating with
+the bust of a female figure, and they were set in a socket beneath
+stone foundation-inscriptions which they support. Later, votive
+objects, cast in copper, represent male figures, bearing on their heads
+the builder's basket, in which is clay for the sacred bricks of the
+temple's foundation; or they consist of great cones or nails supporting
+a recumbent bull,[37] or clasped by the kneeling figure of a god.[38]
+Large figures of wood were sometimes covered with thin plates of copper
+joined by a series of small nails or rivets, as is proved by the horn
+of a bull of natural size, which has been discovered at Tello.[39]
+But hollow castings in copper of a considerable size have also been
+found. A good example is the bull's head, figured in the accompanying
+block, which probably dates from a period not later than the close
+of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty. Its eyes are inlaid with mother-of-pearl and
+lapis-lazuli, and a very similar method of inlaying is met with in the
+copper head of a goat which was found at Fâra.[40]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 25--One of a series of copper female
+foundation-figures with supporting rings, buried in a structure of
+unburnt brick beneath stone foundation-records. From Tello; period of
+Ur-Ninâ. _Déc._, pl. 2 _ter_, Fig. 3.]
+
+A far simpler process of manufacture was employed for the making
+of votive figures of terra-cotta, which, in order of development,
+preceded the use of metal for this purpose, though they continued to
+be manufactured in considerable quantities during the later periods.
+Here the mould, in a single piece, was cut in stone or some other hard
+material,[41] and the clay, after being impressed into it, was smoothed
+down on the back by hand. The flat border of clay left by the upper
+surface of the mould, was frequently not removed, so that the figures
+are sometimes found standing out from a flat background in the manner
+of a sculptured plaque, or bas-relief. In the period of Gudea, the
+mould was definitely used as a stamp, thus returning to the original
+use from which its later employment was developed. Interesting examples
+of such later stamped figures include representations of a god wearing
+a horned headdress, to which are added the ears of a bull, and of a
+hero, often identified with Gilgamesh, who holds a vase from which two
+streams of water flow.[42] The clay employed for the votive figures is
+extremely fine in quality, and most of them are baked to a degree of
+hardness resembling stone or metal.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 26-27.--Heads of a bull and a goat cast in copper
+and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, lapis-lazuli, etc. The bull's head was
+found at Tello, and that of the goat at Fâra.--_Déc._, pl. 5 _ter_,
+Fig. 2; _Zeits. für Ethnol._, 1901, p. 163.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 28. Stamped terra-cotta figure of a bearded god,
+wearing the horned headdress, to which are attached the ears of a bull.
+Period of Gudea.--_Déc._, pl. 39, Fig. 3.]
+
+The art of inlaying was widely practised by the Sumerians, who not
+only treated metal in this way, but frequently attempted to give more
+expression or life to stone statues by inlaying the white of the eye
+with mother-of-pearl or shell, and representing the pupil and iris by
+lapis-lazuli or bitumen. A similar method was employed to enrich votive
+stone figures of animals, and to give a varied and polychrome effect to
+vases carved in stone. The finest example of this class of work is a
+libation-vase of Gudea made of dark green steatite, which was dedicated
+by him to his patron deity Ningishzida. The vase has a short projecting
+spout running up from the base and grooved, so as to allow only a small
+stream of liquid to escape during the pouring of a libation. Its scheme
+of decoration is interesting as it affords an excellent example of the
+more fantastic side of Sumerian art, inspired by a large and important
+section of the religious belief. The two intertwined serpents, whose
+tongues touch the point where the liquid would leave the vase, are
+modelled from nature, but the winged monsters on each side well
+illustrate the Sumerian origin of later Babylonian demonology.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 29. Scheme of decoration from a libation-vase of
+Gudea, made of dark green steatite and originally inlaid with shell.
+_Déc._, pl. 44, Fig. 2; cf. Cat., p. 281.]
+
+It is probable that such composite monsters, with the bodies and
+heads of serpents and the wings and talons of birds, were originally
+malevolent in character, but here, like the serpents, they are
+clearly represented as tamed, and in the service of the god to whom the
+vase was dedicated. This is sufficiently proved by the ringed staffs
+they carry,[43] their modified horned headdresses, and their carefully
+twisted locks of hair. They were peculiarly sacred to Ningishzida and
+in Fig. 12 they may be seen rising as emblems from his shoulders.
+The rich effect of the dark green steatite was originally enhanced
+by inlaying, for the bodies of the dragons are now pitted with deep
+holes. These were no doubt originally inlaid with some other material,
+probably shell, which has been found employed for this purpose in a
+fragment of a vase of a very similar character.
+
+[Illustration: IMPRESSION OF A CYLINDER-SEAL ENGRAVED WITH SCENES
+REPRESENTING AN EARLY BABYLONIAN HERO, PROBABLY GILGAMESH, IN CONFLICT
+WITH A LION.--_Brit. Mus., No._ 89147.]
+
+[Illustration: IMPRESSION OF A CYLINDER-SEAL ENGRAVED WITH A SCENE
+REPRESENTING GILGAMESH AND EA-BANI IN CONFLICT WITH BULLS IN A WOODED
+AND MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY.--_Brit. Mus., No._ 89308.]
+
+[Illustration: IMPRESSION OF A CYLINDER-SEAL ENGRAVED WITH A SCENE
+REPRESENTING MYTHOLOGICAL BEINGS, BULLS, AND LIONS IN CONFLICT.--_Brit.
+Mus., No._ 89538.]
+
+In the same category with the monsters on the vase we may class the
+human-headed bulls, of which small sculptured figures, in a recumbent
+attitude, have been found at Tello; these were afterwards adopted by
+the Assyrian kings, and employed as the colossal guardians of their
+palace door-ways. The extent to which this particular form of composite
+monster was employed for religious and decorative purposes may be seen
+on the cylinder-seals, upon which in the earlier period it represents
+the favourite device. Examples are frequently found in decorative
+combinations, together with figures of early bearded heroes, possibly
+to be identified with Gilgamesh, and with a strange creature, half-man
+and half-bull, resembling the later descriptions of Ea-bani, who strive
+with lions and other animals.[44] Gudea's catalogue of the temple
+furniture and votive objects, with which he enriched E-ninnû, throws
+light upon the manner in which Sumerian art reflected this aspect of
+the Sumerian religion. Some of the legends and beliefs may well have
+been derived from Semitic sources, but the imagery, which exerted so
+strong an influence upon the development of their art, may probably be
+traced to the Sumerians themselves.
+
+The engraving upon cylinder-seals during the Sumerian period appears
+to have been done generally by hand, without the help of a drill
+or a revolving tool.[45] Outline engraving with the point was also
+practised, that on stone having probably preceded the use of the
+bas-relief,[46] but it continued to be employed in the later periods
+for the decoration of metal and shell. The finest example of metal
+engraving is the silver vase of Entemena, around which is incised in
+outline a decorative band, consisting of variations of the emblem of
+Lagash, arranged beneath a row of seven calves. But the largest number
+of designs engraved in outline have been found, not upon stone or
+metal, but upon shell. It is an interesting fact that among the smaller
+objects found by M. de Sarzec at Tello, there is not a single fragment
+of ivory, and it would seem that this material was not known to the
+earliest inhabitants of Babylonia, a fact which has some bearing on
+the disputed question of their relations to Egypt, and to the earlier
+stages of Egyptian culture.[47]
+
+From the earliest period at Lagash fragments of shell were employed
+in place of ivory, and the effect produced by it is nearly the same.
+Certain species of great univalves or conch-shells, which are found
+in the Indian Ocean, have a thick core or centre, and these furnished
+the material for a large number of the earliest cylinder-seals. Small
+plaques or lozenges could also be obtained from the core by sectional
+cutting, while the curved part of the shell was sometimes employed
+for objects to which its convex form could be adapted. The numerous
+flat lozenges that have been found are shaped for inlaying furniture,
+caskets, and the like, and curved pieces were probably fitted to others
+of a like shape in order to form small cups and vases. Each piece is
+decorated with fine engraving, and in nearly every instance the outline
+is accentuated by the employment of a very slight relief. The designs
+are often spirited, and they prove that even in the earliest periods
+the Sumerian draughtsman had attained to a high standard of proficiency.
+
+One of the most interesting engraved fragments that have been recovered
+consists of a slightly curved piece of shell, which probably formed
+part of a small bowl or cup. The rest of the side seems to have been
+built up of pieces of similar shape, held together by bitumen, or,
+more probably, fitted to a metal lining by rivets through holes in the
+shell. The scene engraved upon the fragment represents a lion seizing a
+bull in a thicket of shrubs or high flowering plants. Though the group
+upon the fragment is complete in itself, there are indications that it
+formed only part of a more elaborate composition.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 30--Convex panel of shell from the side of a cup,
+engraved with a scene representing a lion attacking a bull; early
+Sumerian period. _Déc._, pl. 46, No. 3; cf. Cat. p. 189]
+
+For in the space on the right of the fragment behind the lion's mane
+are engraved two weapons. The upper one is a hilted dagger with its
+point towards the lion; this may be compared with the short daggers
+held by the mythological beings resembling Ea-bani upon one of
+Lugal-anda's seals, with which they are represented as stabbing lions
+in the neck.[48] Below is a hand holding a curved mace or throwing
+stick, formed of three strands bound with leather thongs or bands of
+metal, like that held by Eannatum upon the Stele of the Vultures.[49]
+It is, therefore, clear that on the panel to the right of the lion and
+bull a king, or patesi, was represented in the act of attacking the
+lion, and we may infer that the whole of the cup was decorated with a
+continuous band of engraving, though some of the groups in the design
+may have been arranged symmetrically, with repetitions such as are
+found upon the earlier cylinder-seals.
+
+The position of the lion upon the fragment, represented with luxuriant
+mane and with head facing the spectator, and the vigour of the design
+as a whole combined with certain inequalities of treatment, have
+suggested a comparison with the lions upon the sculptured mace-head
+of Mesilim. The piece has, therefore, been assigned to the epoch of
+the earlier kings of Kish, anterior to the period of Ur-Ninâ.[50] It
+may perhaps belong to the rather later period of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty,
+but, even so, it suffices to indicate the excellence in design and
+draughtsmanship attained by the earlier Sumerians. In vigour and
+originality their representations of animals were unequalled by those
+of the later inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria, until shortly
+before the close of the Assyrian empire. But the Sumerian artists only
+gradually acquired their skill, and on some of the engraved fragments
+recovered it is possible to trace an advance on earlier work. The
+designs in the accompanying blocks have been selected as illustrating,
+to some extent, the change which gradually took place in the treatment
+of animal forms by the Sumerians.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Fig. 32.--Fig. 33. Three fragments of
+shell engraved with animal forms, which illustrate the growth of a
+naturalistic treatment in Sumerian design.--_Déc._, pl. 46, Nos. 4, 5,
+and 8.]
+
+Of the three designs, that on the left is engraved upon a convex piece
+of shell, thin as the shell of an egg; it represents a lion-headed
+eagle which has swooped down upon the back of a human-headed bull and
+is attacking him with mouth and claws. The subject resembles that
+found upon the most primitive Sumerian cylinder-seals, and its rough
+and angular treatment is sufficient indication of the very archaic
+character of the work. The central panel resembles in shape that of
+the lion and the bull.[51] The design represents a leaping ibex with
+flowering plants in the background, and the drawing is freer and less
+stiff than that of the animals on the silver vase of Entemena.[52]
+Some archaic characteristics may still be noted, such as the springing
+tufts of hair at the joints of the hind legs; but the general treatment
+of the subject marks a distinct advance upon the archaic conventions
+of the earlier fragment. The third design is that of a leaping kid,
+engraved upon a flat piece of shell and cut out for inlaying. Here the
+drawing is absolutely true to nature, and the artist has even noted the
+slight swelling of the head caused by the growing horns.
+
+The Sumerians do not appear to have used complete shells for engraving,
+like those found on Assyrian and Aegean sites. A complete shell has
+indeed been recovered, but it is in an unworked state and bears a
+dedicatory formula of Ur-Ningirsu, the son and successor of Gudea.
+Since it is not a fine specimen of its class, we may suppose that it
+was selected for dedication merely as representing the finer shells
+employed by the workmen in the decoration of the temple-furniture. The
+Sumerians at a later period engraved designs upon mother-of-pearl.
+When used in plain pieces for inlaying it certainly gave a more
+brilliant effect than shell, but to the engraver it offered greater
+difficulties in consequence of its brittle and scaly surface. Pieces
+have been found, however, on which designs have been cut, and these
+were most frequently employed for enriching the handles of knives
+and daggers. The panels in the accompanying blocks will serve to
+show that the same traditional motives are reproduced which meet us
+in the earlier designs upon fragments of shell and cylinder-seals.
+They include a bearded hero, the eagle attacking the bull, a hero
+in conflict with a lion, the lion-headed eagle of Lagash, a winged
+lion, a lion attacking an ibex, and a stag. Even when allowance is
+made for the difficulties presented by the material, it will be seen
+that the designs themselves rank far below those found upon shell.
+The employment of mother-of-pearl for engraving may thus be assigned
+to a period of decadence in Sumerian art when it had lost much of its
+earlier freshness and vigour.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Fig. 35.--Fig. 36.--Fig. 37. Four panels of
+mother-of pearl, engraved with Sumerian designs, which were employed
+for inlaying the handles of daggers. They belong to a period of
+decadence in Sumerian art.--In the Louvre; Cat. Nos. 232 ff.]
+
+The above brief sketch of the principal forms and productions of
+Sumerian art may serve to vindicate the claim of the Sumerians to a
+place among the more artistic races of antiquity. Much oriental art is
+merely quaint, or interesting from its history and peculiarities, but
+that of the Sumerians is considerably more than this. Its sculpture
+never acquired the dull monotony of the Assyrian bas-reliefs with their
+over-elaboration of detail, intended doubtless to cloak the poverty
+of the design. Certain conventions persisted through all periods, but
+the Sumerian sculptor was never a slave to them. He relied largely on
+his own taste and intelligence, and even the earliest work is bold and
+spirited. After centuries of independent development fresh vigour was
+introduced by the nomad Semitic races who settled in the north, but in
+the hands of the later Semites the Sumerian ideals were not maintained.
+For the finest period of Babylonian art we must go back to a time some
+centuries before the founding of the Babylonian monarchy.
+
+
+[1] These have been collected and translated by Thureau-Dangin
+in "Les Inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad," the German edition of
+which, published under the title "Die sumerischen und akkadischen
+Königsinschriften" in the _Vorderasiatische Bibliothek_, includes the
+author's corrections and an introduction; a glossary to subjects of
+a religious character, compiled by Langdon, is added to the German
+edition of the work.
+
+[2] Cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften," pp. 228 ff., where the
+lists are restored from dates on early tablets; for the earlier
+date-formulæ from tablets, see pp. 224 ff.
+
+[3] See Hilprecht, "Mathematical, Metrological, and Chronological
+Tablets," p. 46 f., pl. 30, No. 47.
+
+[4] Cf. "Cun. Inscr. West. Asia," V., pl. 64, Col. II., ll. 54-65.
+
+[5] Hilprecht formerly placed the founding of Enlil's temple and the
+first settlement at Nippur "somewhere between 6000 and 7000 B.C.,
+possibly even earlier" (cf. "Old Babylonian Inscriptions chiefly from
+Nippur," Pt. II., p. 24.)
+
+[6] See Lehmann-Haupt, "Zwei Hauptprobleme," pp. 172 ff., and Winckler,
+"Forschungen," I., p. 549; "Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament"
+(3rd ed.), I., p. 17 f., and "Mitteil. der Vorderas. Gesellschaft,"
+1906, I., p. 12, n. 1; cf. also Thureau-Dangin, "Rev. d'Assyr.," IV.,
+p. 72, and "Rec. de tabl.," p. ix.
+
+[7] Cf. Radau, "Early Babylonian History," pp. 30 ff., 215 ff.
+
+[8] Cf. King, "Chronicles," I., p. 16. This explanation is preferable
+to Lehmann-Haupfs emendation of the figures, by which he suggests that
+a thousand years were added to it by a scribal error. The principle of
+emending the figures in these later chronological references is totally
+unscientific. For the emenders, while postulating mechanical errors in
+the writing of the figures, still regard the calculations of the native
+scribes as above reproach; whereas many of their figures, which are
+incapable of emendation, are inconsistent with each other.
+
+[9] For references, see King, "Chronicles," I., p. 77. n. 1.
+
+[10] _Op. cit._, pp. 93 ff.
+
+[11] _Op. cit._, Chap. IV. f. Meyer also adopts this view ("Geschichte
+des Altertums," Bd. I., Hft. II., p. 340 f.).
+
+[12] Cf. "Chronicles," I., pp. 90 ff.
+
+[13] The purely arbitrary character of the assumption is well
+illustrated by the different results obtained by those who make it.
+By clinging to Berossus's date of 2232 B.C., Thureau-Dangin assigns
+to the second dynasty of the Kings' List a period of 168 years of
+independent rule in Babylon (cf. "Zeits. für Assyr.," XXI., pp. 176
+ff., and "Journal des savants," 1908, pp. 190 ff.), and Ungnad 177
+years ("Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1907, col. 638, 1908, col. 63 ff.).
+Lehmann-Haupt, in his suggested reconciliation of the new data with
+his former emendation of the Bavian date, makes the period 80 years
+("Klio," 1908, pp. 227 E). Poebel, ignoring Berossus and attempting
+to reconcile the native chronological notices to early kings, makes
+it 160 years (cf. "Zeits. für Assyr.," XXI., pp. 162 ff.). The latest
+combination is that proposed by Schnabel, who accepts the date of 2232
+B.C. for both the system of Berossus and that represented by the Kings'
+List, but places the historical beginning of the First Dynasty in 2172
+B.C.; this necessitates a gap of 120 years between Dynasties I. and
+III. ("Mitteil. der Vorderas. Gesellschaft," 1908, pp. 241 ff.). But
+all these systems are mainly based on a manipulation of the figures,
+and completely ignore the archaeological evidence.
+
+[14] See below, Chap. XI., pp. 313 ff.
+
+[15] Cf. Hilprecht, "Math., Met., and Chron. Tabl.," p. 55, n. 1.
+
+[16] Thureau-Dangin would assign only one hundred years to this period
+(cf. "Journal des savants," 1908, p. 201).
+
+[17] The period may well have been longer, especially if Manishtusu
+should prove to have been the contemporary of Urukagina.
+
+[18] See below, pp. 176, n. 2, 209 f.
+
+[19] For a list of the kings and rulers of Sumer and Akkad with their
+approximate dates, see the List of Rulers at the end of the volume.
+
+[20] See the plate opposite p. 62. The objects have been previously
+published by Hayes Ward in "Proc. Amer. Orient. Soc.," Oct., 1885, and
+"Amer. Journ. Arch.," vol. iv. (1888), pp. 39 ff. They subsequently
+found their way into a London sale-room, where they were bought as
+forgeries and presented as such to the British Museum.
+
+[21] Our knowledge of Sumerian art is mainly derived from the finds at
+Tello, since the objects from other early sites are not yet published.
+For its best and fullest discussion, see Heuzey's descriptions in
+"Découvertes en Chaldée," his "Catalogue des antiquités chaldéennes,"
+"Une Villa royale chaldéenne," and the "Revue d'Assyriologie"; cf. also
+Perrot and Chipiez, "Histoire de l'art," vol. ii. The finest examples
+of Semitic art have been found at Susa (see De Morgan, "Mémoires de la
+Délégation en Perse," _passim_). A scientific treatment of the subject
+is adopted by Meyer in "Sumerier und Semiten," but he is inclined to
+assign too much credit to the Semite, and to overestimate his share in
+the artistic development of the two races.
+
+[22] See below, p. 267, Fig. 66.
+
+[23] See the photographic reproduction in "Déc. en Chaldée," pl. 22,
+Fig. 5.
+
+[24] For the use of these perforated sculptures, see below, p. 110 f.
+
+[25] The rite is represented upon other Sumerian monuments such as the
+Stele of the Vultures (see below, p. 140). Heuzey suggests that the
+liturgy may have forbidden the loss of the libation-water, the rite
+symbolizing its use for the profit of vegetation; cf. "Catalogue des
+antiquités chaldéennes," p. 118.
+
+[26] See the plate opposite p. 52.
+
+[27] Cf. Heuzey, "Déc. en Chaldée," p. 218; "Catalogue," p. 149.
+
+[28] See "Déc. en Chaldée," pl. 24, Fig. 4, pp. 216 ff.
+
+[29] See the plate opposite p. 268.
+
+[30] For the seated statue of Gudea as the architect of Gatumdug's
+temple, see the plate opposite p. 66; and for descriptions of the
+statues, see Chap. IX., p. 269 f.
+
+[31] See the very beautiful drawing in outline which Heuzey prints on
+the title-page of his Catalogue.
+
+[32] Cf. Heuzey, "Déc. en Chaldée," p. 158.
+
+[33] It should be noted that of the seven objects from Nippur and
+other south-Babylonian sites which were submitted to analysis by Herr
+Otto Helm in Danzig, only two contained a percentage of tin (cf.
+"Zeitschrift für Ethnologie," 1901, pp. 157 ff.). Of these a nail (_op.
+cit._, p. 161) is from a stratum in Nippur, dated by Prof. Hilprecht
+himself after 300 A.D. The "stilusartige Instrument," which, like the
+nail, contained over five per cent, of tin, was not found at Nippur,
+but is said to have come from a mound about thirty miles to the south
+of it. Nothing is therefore known with accuracy as to its date. The
+percentage of antimony in the other objects is comparatively small, and
+the dates assigned to them are not clearly substantiated. These facts
+do not justify Hilprecht's confident statement in "Explorations," p.
+252. Meyer also credits the earliest Sumerians with using bronze beside
+copper, and he describes the axe-heads and arm-rings found in the early
+graves as of bronze (cf. "Geschichte des Altertums," Bd. I., Hft. II.,
+p. 416 f.); but he also describes the little foundation-figures from
+the oldest stratum at Tello as of bronze, whereas analysis has proved
+them to be copper.
+
+[34] This point is made by Sayce (cf. "The Archaeology of the Cuneiform
+Inscriptions," p. 59 f.), who, however, holds the definite opinion that
+nothing of bronze has been discovered on the earlier sites (_op. cit._,
+p. 55 f.).
+
+[35] Cf. Berthelot, "La chimie au moyen âge," tome I., Appendix IX., p.
+391 f.; "Introduction à l'étude de la chimie," p. 227 f., and Heuzey
+in "Déc. en Chaldée," p. 238; antimony is said to have been known and
+used by itself, though not as an alloy (Berthelot, "Introd.," p. 223),
+but there is no proof of the date of the fragment from Tello, which was
+analysed. It may be added that the votive figures of Gudea's reign,
+which are preserved in the British Museum and are usually regarded as
+of bronze (cf. the plate opposite p. 272), should, since they came from
+Tello, be more accurately described as of copper.
+
+[36] See Loftus, "Chaldaea and Susiana," p. 268 f., who describes
+all the objects as of copper. One of the knives excavated by Loftus
+was subsequently analysed and found to be copper (see "Report of the
+British Assoc.," Nottingham, 1893, p. 715); this analysis was confirmed
+by that of Dr. J. H. Gladstone (published in the "Proc. Soc. Bibl.
+Arch.," vol. xvi., p. 98 f.). A careful analysis of the metal objects
+found by members of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft at Fâra in 1902
+and 1903, and styled by them as bronze (see "Mitteilungen," No. 17, p.
+6), would probably result in proving the absence of any alloy.
+
+[37] See the blocks on p. 256.
+
+[38] See the plate opposite p. 272.
+
+[39] See "Déc. en Chaldée," pl. 45, Fig. 1.
+
+[40] See Fig. 27, and cf. Hilprecht, "Explorations," p. 539 f.
+
+[41] Like the brick-stamps, they may sometimes have been made of clay
+burnt to an extreme hardness.
+
+[42] See the stamped figure published on the plate opposite p. 72 from
+a terra-cotta in the British Museum.
+
+[43] The ringed staff occurs as a sacred emblem upon cylinder-seals,
+and is sometimes carried by heroes (cf. p. 82, Fig. 34). A colossal
+example of one, made of wood and sheathed in copper, was found at Tello
+by De Sarzec (see Heuzey, "Rev. d'Assyr.," IV., p. 112, and "Déc. en
+Chaldée," pl. 57, Fig. 1), but the precise use and significance of the
+object has not been determined.
+
+[44] See the plate opposite p. 76, and see below, p. 174 f.
+
+[45] It should be noted that a few of the early cylinder-seals found
+at Fâra Andrae considers to have been engraved with the help of the
+wheel (see "Mitteil. der Deutsch. Orient-Gesellschaft," No. 17, p. 5).
+The suggestion has also been made that, on the introduction of harder
+stones, the cutting tool may have been tipped with a flake of corundum;
+cf. Hayes Ward, "Cylinders and other Oriental Seals," p. 13.
+
+[46] For early examples, see above, p. 49.
+
+[47] See further, Chap. XII.
+
+[48] See below, p. 175.
+
+[49] See the plate opposite p. 124.
+
+[50] See Heuzey, "Catalogue," p. 387.
+
+[51] See above, p. 79, Fig. 30.
+
+[52] See above, p. 78, and below, p. 167 f.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS IN SUMER; THE DAWN OF HISTORY AND THE RISE OF
+LAGASH
+
+
+In their origin the great cities of Babylonia were little more
+than collections of rude huts constructed at first of reeds cut in
+the marshes, and gradually giving place to rather more substantial
+buildings of clay and sun-dried brick. From the very beginning it would
+appear that the shrine of the local god played an important part in the
+foundation and subsequent development of each centre of population.
+Of the prehistoric period in Babylonia we know little, but it may be
+assumed that, already at the time of the Sumerian immigration, rude
+settlements had been formed around the cult-centres of local gods.
+This, at any rate, was the character of each town or city of the
+Sumerians themselves during the earliest periods to which we can trace
+back their history. At Fâra, the most primitive Sumerian site that has
+yet been examined, we find the god Shuruppak giving his own name to the
+city around his shrine, and Ningirsu of Lagash dominates and directs
+his people from the first. Other city-gods, who afterwards became
+powerful deities in the Babylonian pantheon, are already in existence,
+and have acquired in varying degrees their later characters. Enki of
+Eridu is already the god of the deep, the shrine of Enzu or Nannar in
+the city of Ur is a centre of the moon-cult, Babbar of Larsa appears
+already as a sun-god and the dispenser of law and justice, while the
+most powerful Sumerian goddess, Ninni or Nanâ of Erech, already has her
+shrine and worshippers in the city of her choice.
+
+By what steps the city-gods acquired their later characters it is
+impossible now to say, but we may assume that the process was a
+gradual one. In the earlier stages of its history the character of
+the local god, like that of his city, must have been far more simple
+and primitive than it appears to us as seen in the light of its later
+development. The authority of each god did not extend beyond the limits
+of his own people's territory. Each city was content to do battle on
+his behalf, and the defeat of one was synonymous with the downfall of
+the other. With the gradual amalgamation of the cities into larger
+states, the god of the predominant city would naturally take precedence
+over those of the conquered or dependent towns, and to the subsequent
+process of adjustment we may probably trace the relationships between
+the different deities and the growth of a pantheon. That Enki should
+have been the god of the deep from the beginning is natural enough
+in view of Eridu's position on an expanse of water connected with
+the Persian Gulf. But how it came about that Ur was the centre of a
+moon-cult, or that Sippar in the north and Larsa in the south were
+peculiarly associated with the worship of the sun, are questions
+which cannot as yet be answered, though it is probable that future
+excavations on their sites may throw some light upon the subject.
+
+In the case of one city excavation has already enabled us to trace the
+gradual growth of its temple and the surrounding habitations during a
+considerable portion of their history. The city of Nippur stands in a
+peculiar relation to others in Sumer and Akkad, as being the central
+shrine in the two countries and the seat of Enlil, the chief of the
+gods. Niffer, or Nuffar, is the name by which the mounds marking its
+site are still known. They have been long deserted, and, like the sites
+of many other ancient cities in Babylonia and Assyria, no modern town
+or village is built upon them or in their immediate neighbourhood. The
+nearest small town is Sûk el-'Afej, about four miles to the south,
+lying on the eastern edge of the Afej marshes, which begin to the
+south of Niffer and stretch away to the west. The nearest large town
+is Dîwânîya, on the left bank of the Euphrates twenty miles to the
+south-west. In the summer the marshes in the neighbourhood of the
+mounds consist of pools of water connected by channels through the
+reed-beds, but in the spring, when the snows have melted in the Taurus
+and the mountains of Kurdistan, the flood-water converts the marshes
+into a vast lagoon, and all that meets the eye are isolated date-palms
+and a few small hamlets built on rising knolls above the water-level.
+
+Although, during the floods, Niffer is at times nearly isolated, the
+water never approaches within a considerable distance of the actual
+mounds. This is not due to any natural configuration of the soil, but
+to the fact that around the inner city, the site of which is marked by
+the mounds, there was built an outer ring of habitations at a time when
+the enclosed town of the earlier periods became too small to contain
+the growing population. The American excavations, which have been
+conducted on the site between the years 1889 and 1900, have shown that
+the earliest area of habitation was far more restricted than the mounds
+which cover the inner city.[1] In the plan on p. 88 it will be seen
+that this portion of the site is divided into two parts by the ancient
+bed of the Shatt en-Nîl. The contours of the mounds are indicated by
+dotted lines, and each of them bears a number in Roman figures. Mound
+III. is that which covered E-kur, the temple of Enlil, and it was
+around the shrine, in the shaded area upon the plan, that the original
+village or settlement was probably built. Here in the lowest stratum
+of the mound were found large beds of wood-ashes and animal bones, the
+remains of the earliest period of occupation.
+
+[Illustration: Early Babylonian plan of the temple of Enlil at Nippur
+and its enclosure, drawn upon a clay tablet dating from the first half
+of the second millennium B.C. The labels on the plan are translated
+from notes on the original.--Cf. Fisher, "Excavations at Nippur," I.,
+pl. 1.]
+
+It is difficult to trace through all its stages the early growth of
+the city, but it would seem that the shrine in the centre of the town
+was soon raised upon an artificial mound to protect it during periods
+of inundation. Moreover, as at Fâra, the original settlement must
+have expanded quickly, for even below the mounds to the south-west
+of the Shatt en-Nîl, strata have been found similar in character to
+those under the temple-mound, as well as bricks and wells of the
+pre-Sargonic period. In reconstructing the plan of the later areas
+occupied by the temple and its enclosure, considerable assistance has
+been obtained from an ancient plan of the temple, drawn upon a clay
+tablet that was found at Nippur. From the form of the characters
+inscribed upon it, it does not appear to date from an earlier period
+than the first half of the second millennium B.C., but it may well
+be a copy of an older original since the form of its temple-enclose
+appears to agree with that in the time of Narâm-Sin as revealed by
+the excavations. In it the position of E-kur is marked at one end
+of a great enclosure surrounded by an irregular wall. The enclosure
+is cut by a canal or sluice, on the other side of which stood
+temple-storehouses.
+
+[Illustration: NIPPUR: The inner city after Fischer]
+
+The position of gates in the wall are marked, and it will be noted that
+a large stream, labelled the Euphrates, washes its upper side, while on
+its other sides are terraces and moats. These details are incorporated
+in the accompanying plan, but their suggested relation to the remains
+uncovered in the course of the excavations is largely conjectural.
+Moreover the period in the temple's history represented by the tablet
+is not certainly established, and some of the details such as the
+ground-plan of the temple itself may reproduce its later form.
+
+The most striking feature in the temple-area, which was uncovered in
+the course of the excavations, is the great temple-tower, or ziggurat,
+erected by Ur-Engur, and faced by him with kiln-baked bricks bearing
+his name and inscription.[2] The ziggurat in its later and imposing
+form was built by him, though within its structure were found the
+cores of earlier and smaller towers, erected by Narâm-Sin and during
+the pre-Sargonic period. In fact, Ur-Engur considerably altered the
+appearance of the temple. In addition to building the ziggurat, he
+raised the level of the inner court above Narâm-Sin's pavement, and he
+straightened the course of the outer wall, using that of Narâm-Sin as
+a foundation where it crossed his line. His wall also included mounds
+XII. and V., in the latter of which many of the temple-archives have
+been found. During the Kassite period these were stored in buildings in
+mound X., across the Shatt en-Nîl in the area included within the inner
+city during the later periods. An alteration in the course of the river
+from the north-east to the south-west side of the temple area probably
+dates from the period of Samsu-iluna, who upon a cone found in _débris_
+in the temple-court records that he erected a dam and dug out a new
+channel for the Euphrates. His object in doing so was probably to bring
+a supply of water within reach of the later extension of the city on
+the south-west side.
+
+The excavations on the site of Nippur and its temple have illustrated
+the gradual increase in the size of a Sumerian city, and the manner in
+which the temple of the city-god retained its position as the central
+and most important building. The diggings, however, have thrown little
+light upon the form the temple assumed during periods anterior to the
+Dynasty of Ur. In fact, we do not yet know the form or arrangement of
+an early Sumerian temple; for on early sites such as Fâra, Surghul,
+and Bismâya, the remains of no important building were uncovered,
+while the scanty remains of Ningirsu's temple at Tello date from the
+comparatively late period of Ur-Bau and Gudea. On the latter site,
+however, a number of earlier constructions have been discovered, and,
+although they are not of a purely religious character, they may well
+have been employed in connection with the temple service. Apart from
+private dwellings, they are the only buildings of the early Sumerians
+that have as yet been recovered, and they forcibly illustrate the
+primitive character of the cities of this time.
+
+The group of oldest constructions at Tello was discovered in the
+mound known as K, which rises to a height of seventeen metres above
+the plain. It is the largest and highest after the Palace Tell, to
+the south-east of which it lies at a distance of about two hundred
+metres.[3] Here, during his later excavations on the site, M. de
+Sarzec came upon the remains of a regular agricultural establishment,
+which throw an interesting light upon certain passages in the early
+foundation-inscriptions referring to constructions of a practical
+rather than of a purely religious character. It is true the titles of
+these buildings are often difficult to explain, but the mention of
+different classes of plantations in connection with them proves that
+they were mainly intended for agricultural purposes. Their titles are
+most frequently met with in Entemena's records, but Ur-Ninâ refers
+by name to the principal storehouse, and the excavations have shown
+that before his time this portion of the city had already acquired its
+later character. Here was situated the administrative centre of the
+sacred properties attached to the temples, and possibly also those
+of the patesi himself. It is true that the name of Ningirsu's great
+storehouse does not occur upon bricks or records found in the ancient
+structures upon Tell K, but it is quite possible that this was not
+a name for a single edifice, but was a general title for the whole
+complex of buildings, courts and outhouses employed in connection
+with the preparation and storage of produce from the city's lands and
+plantations.
+
+[Illustration: SOUTH-EASTERN FACADE OF A BUILDING AT TELLO, ERECTED BY
+UR-NINA, KING OF SHIRPURLA.--_Déc. en Chald._, pl. 54.]
+
+At a depth of only two and a half metres from the surface of the tell
+M. de Sarzec came upon a building of the period of Gudea, of which
+only the angle of a wall remained. But, unlike the great Palace Tell,
+where the lowest diggings revealed nothing earlier than the reign of
+Ur-Bau, a deepening of his trenches here resulted in the recovery
+of buildings dating from the earliest periods in the history of the
+city. In accordance with the practice of the country, as each new
+building had been erected on the site, the foundations of the one it
+had displaced were left intact and carefully preserved within the new
+platform, in order to raise the building still higher above the plain
+and form a solid substructure for its support. To this practice we owe
+the preservation, in a comparatively complete form, of the foundations
+of earlier structures in the mound. At no great depth beneath
+Gudea's building were unearthed the remains of Ur-Ninâ's storehouse.
+Comparatively small in size, it is oriented by its angles, the two
+shorter sides facing north-west and south-east, and the two longer
+ones south-west and north-east, in accordance with the normal Sumerian
+system.[4] It was built of kiln-baked bricks, not square and flat like
+those of Gudea or of Sargon and Narâm-Sin, but oblong and plano-convex,
+and each bore the mark of a right thumb imprinted in the middle of its
+convex side. A few of the bricks that were found bear Ur-Ninâ's name in
+linear characters, and record his construction of the "House of Girsu,"
+while one of them refers to the temple of Ningirsu. These may not
+have been in their original positions, but there is little doubt that
+the storehouse dates from Ur-Ninâ's reign, and it may well have been
+employed in connection with the temple of the city-god.
+
+Built upon a platform composed of three layers of bricks set in
+bitumen, the walls of the building were still preserved to the height
+of a few feet. It is to be noted that on none of the sides is there a
+trace of any doorway or entrance, and it is probable that access was
+obtained from the outside by ladders of wood, or stairways of unburnt
+brick, reaching to the upper story. At D and E on the plan are traces
+of what may have been either steps or buttresses, but these do not
+belong to the original building and were added at a later time. The
+absence of any entrance certainly proves that the building was employed
+as a storehouse.[5] Within the building are two chambers, the one
+square (A), the other of a more oblong shape (B). They were separated
+by a transverse passage or corridor (C), which also ran round inside
+the outer walls, thus giving the interior chamber additional security.
+The double walls were well calculated to protect the interior from damp
+or heat, and would render it more difficult for pillagers to effect an
+entrance. Both in the chambers and the passages a coating of bitumen
+was spread upon the floor and walls. Here grain, oil, and fermented
+drink could have been stored in quantity, and the building may also
+have served as a magazine for arms and tools, and for the more precious
+kinds of building material.
+
+[Illustration: TELLO: Store-House of Ur-Ninâ.]
+
+Around the outside of the building, at a distance of about four metres
+from it, are a series of eight brick bases, two on each side, in a
+direct line with the walls.[6] On these stood pillars of cedar-wood, of
+which the charred remains were still visible. They probably supported
+a great wooden portico or gallery, which ran round the walls of the
+building and was doubtless used for the temporary storage of goods and
+agricultural implements. On the north-east side of the building a brick
+pavement (F) extended for some distance beyond the gallery, and at the
+southern angle, within the row of pillars and beneath the roof of the
+portico, was a small double basin (G) carefully lined with bitumen.
+At a greater distance from the house were two larger basins or tanks
+(I and K), with platforms built beside them of brick and bitumen (J
+and L); with one of them was connected a channel or water-course (M).
+At a later time Eannatum sunk a well not far to the west of Ur-Ninâ's
+storehouse, and from it a similar water-course ran to a circular basin;
+a large oval basin and others of rectangular shape were found rather
+more to the north. These, like Ur-Ninâ's tanks, were probably employed
+for the washing of vessels and for the cleansing processes which
+accompanied the preparation and storage of date-wine, the pressing
+of oil, and the numerous other occupations of a large agricultural
+community.
+
+A still earlier building was discovered at a depth of five metres below
+that of Ur-Ninâ, but it is more difficult to determine the purpose to
+which it was put. It was built upon a solid platform (C), which has the
+same orientation as Ur-Ninâ's storehouse and rises above the ground
+level marked by the remains of a brick pavement (D). It is strange that
+the building itself is not in the centre of the platform and for some
+unknown reason was set at a slight angle to it. It consists of two
+chambers, each with a doorway, the smaller chamber (A) on a level with
+the platform, the larger one (B) considerably below it, from which it
+must have been reached by a ladder. At intervals along the surface of
+the walls were cavities lined with bitumen, which may have supported
+the wooden columns of a superstructure, or possibly the supports of
+an arched roof of reeds. It is possible that we here have a form of
+religious edifice, but the depth of the larger chamber suggests that,
+like Ur-Ninâ's building, it was employed as a sort of store-house or
+treasure-chamber.
+
+[Illustration: TELLO: Building anterior to Ur-Ninâ after De Sarzec]
+
+The bricks of the building were small and plano-convex, with
+thumb-impressions and without inscriptions, so that it is impossible
+to recover the name of its builder. But the objects found at the same
+deep level indicate a high antiquity, and present us with a picture of
+some of the inhabitants of the country at a time when this building,
+which was one of the oldest constructions at Lagash, stood upon the
+surface of the mound. The circular relief, sculptured with the meeting
+of the chieftains,[7] was found in fragments near the building.
+Another archaic piece of sculpture of the same remote period, which
+was also found in the neighbourhood, represents a figure, crowned
+with palm-branches; one hand is raised in an attitude of speech or
+adoration, and on the right are two standards supporting what appear
+to be colossal mace-heads. The sex of the figure is uncertain, but it
+may well be that of a woman; the lines below the chin which come from
+behind the ear, are not necessarily a beard, but may be intended for a
+thick lock of hair falling over the right shoulder. The scene probably
+represents an act of worship, and an archaic inscription on the field
+of the plaque appears to record a list of offerings, probably in honour
+of Ningirsu, whose name is mentioned together with that of his temple
+E-ninnû. It is interesting to note that in this very early age the
+temple of the city-god of Lagash already bore its later name.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Archaic plaque from Tello, engraved in low
+relief with a scene of adoration. In an inscription on the stone, which
+appears to enumerate a list of offerings, reference is made to Ningirsu
+and his temple E-ninnû.--_Déc._, pl. 1 _bis_, Fig. 1.]
+
+The earliest written records of the Sumerians which we possess, apart
+from those engraved upon stone and of a purely votive character,
+concern the sale and donation of land, and they prove that certain
+customs were already in vogue with regard to the transfer of property,
+which we meet with again in later historical periods. A few such
+tablets of rounded form and fashioned of unburnt clay were found
+at Lagash on Tell K, and slightly below the level of Ur-Ninâ's
+building;[8] they may thus be assigned to a period anterior to his
+reign. Others of the same rounded form, but of baked clay, have been
+found at Shuruppak. It is a significant fact that several of these
+documents, after describing the amount of land sold and recording
+the principal price that was paid for it, enumerate a number of
+supplementary presents made by the buyer to the seller and his
+associates.[9] The presents consist of oxen, oil, wool and cloth, and
+precisely similar gifts are recorded on the Obelisk of Manishtusu.[10]
+It would thus appear that even in this early period the system of land
+tenure was already firmly established, which prevailed in both Sumer
+and Akkad under the earlier historical rulers.
+
+From the Shuruppak tablets we also learn the names of a number of early
+rulers or officials of that city, in whose reigns or periods of office
+the documents were drawn up. Among the names recovered are those of
+Ur-Ninpa, Kanizi and Mash-Shuruppak, but they are given no titles on
+the tablets, and it is impossible to say whether their office preceded
+that of the patesi, or whether they were magistrates of the city who
+were subordinate to a ruler of higher rank. Another of these early
+deeds of sale is inscribed, not upon a tablet, but on the body of a
+black stone statuette that has been found at Tello.[11] From the text
+we learn that the buyer of the property was a certain Lupad, and the
+figure is evidently intended to represent him. Although it was found
+on the site of Lagash, and the text records a purchase of land in that
+city, it is remarkable that Lupad is described as a high official
+of the neighbouring city of Umma, which was the principal rival of
+Lagash during the greater part of its history. The archaic character
+of the sculpture, and the early form of writing upon it, suggest a
+date not much later than that of Ur-Ninâ, so that we must suppose the
+transaction took place at a period when one of the two rival cities
+acknowledged the suzerainty of the other. Unlike other Sumerian figures
+that have been recovered, Lupad's head has a slight ridge over the
+brow and below the cheek-bones. This has been explained by Heuzey as
+representing short hair and beard, but it more probably indicates the
+limits of those portions of the head and face that were shaved.[12]
+Thus Lupad presents no exception to the general Sumerian method of
+treating the hair.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Figure of Lupad, a high official of the city
+of Umma, inscribed with a text recording a purchase of land in Lagash
+(Shirpurla); from Tello.--In the Louvre; cf. Comptes rendus, 1907, p.
+518.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig 40.--Statue of Essar, King of Adab, preserved in the
+Imperial Ottoman Museum at Constantinople; from Bismâya.]
+
+In order to assign a date to such figures as that of Lupad, it is
+necessary, in the absence of other evidence, to be guided entirely by
+the style of the sculpture and the character of the writing. Several
+such figures of archaic Sumerian type have been recovered, and three
+of them represent kings who ruled in different cities at this early
+period. The finest of these is a standing figure of Esar, King of Adab,
+which was found in the course of the American excavations at Bismâya,
+and is now preserved in the Imperial Ottoman Museum at Constantinople.
+Its discoverers claimed that it was the earliest example of Sumerian
+sculpture known,[13] but it may be roughly placed at about the time of
+Ur-Ninâ's dynasty. A second king is represented by two fragments of a
+statuette from Tello, inscribed in archaic characters with a dedicatory
+text of E-abzu, King of Umma,[14] while the third is a seated figure
+of a king of the northern city or district of Ma'er, or Mari, and is
+preserved in the British Museum.[15] The same uncertainty applies to
+the date of Ur-Enlil, a patesi of Nippur, whose name is mentioned on
+one of the fragments of votive vases from that city which were found
+together on the south-east side of the temple-tower.[16] As in the case
+of Esar, King of Adab, we can only assign these rulers approximately to
+the period of the earlier rulers of Lagash.
+
+It is in the city of Lagash that our knowledge of Sumerian history may
+be said to begin. The excavation of the site has yielded an abundance
+of material from which it is possible to arrange her rulers for long
+periods in chronological order, and to reconstruct the part they played
+in conflicts between the early city-states. It is true that some of her
+earlier kings and patesis remain little more than names to us, but with
+the accession of Ur-Ninâ we enter a period in which our knowledge of
+events is continuous, so far at least as the fortunes of the city were
+concerned. With the growth of her power it is also possible to trace in
+some detail the relations she maintained with other great cities in the
+land.
+
+[Illustration: Emblems of the city of Lagash (Shirpurla) and of the god
+Ningirsu. The upper drawing represents a perforated plaque dedicated
+to Ningirsu by Ur-Ninâ. Below is a brick stamped with the figure of
+Imgig, the lion-headed eagle of Ningirsu.--In the Louvre; Cat. No. 7
+and _Déc._, pl. 31 _bis_, No. 1.]
+
+At the earliest period of which we have any historical records it
+would appear that the city of Kish exercised a suzerainty over Sumer.
+Here there ruled at this time a king named Mesilim, to whom Lagash,
+and probably other great cities in the south, owed allegiance. During
+his reign a certain Lugal-shag-engur was patesi of Lagash, and we
+have definite record that he acknowledged Mesilim's supremacy. For a
+votive mace-head of colossal size has been found at Tello, which bears
+an inscription stating that it was dedicated to Ningirsu by Mesilim,
+who had restored his great temple at Lagash during the time that
+Lugal-shag-engur was patesi of that city.[17] The text, the brevity of
+which is characteristic of these early votive inscriptions, consists
+of but a few words, and reads: "Mesilim, King of Kish, the builder of
+the temple of Ningirsu, deposited this mace-head (for) Ningirsu (at the
+time when) Lugal-shag-engur (was) patesi of Lagash." In spite of its
+brevity the importance of the inscription is considerable, since it
+furnishes a synchronism between two early rulers of Sumer and the North.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Mace-head, dedicated to Ningirsu, the god
+of Lagash (Shirpula), by Mesilim, King of Kish, at the time of
+Lugal-shag-engur, patesi of Lagash.--_Déc._, pl 1 _ter_, No. 2; Cat. No
+4.]
+
+The weapon itself, upon which it is engraved, IS also noteworthy. As
+may be inferred from its colossal size the mace was never intended
+for actual use in battle, but was sculptured by Mesilim's orders with
+the special object of being dedicated in the temple of the god. It
+is decorated with rudely-carved figures of lions, which run around
+it and form a single composition in relief. The lions are six in
+number, and are represented as pursuing and attacking one another.
+Each has seized the hind-leg and the back of the one which precedes
+it; they thus form an endless chain around the object, and are a most
+effective form of decoration. Unlike the majority of mace-heads, that
+of Mesilim is not perforated from top to bottom. The hole for receiving
+the handle of the weapon, though deep, is not continued to the top of
+the stone, which is carved in low relief with a representation of a
+lion-headed eagle with wings outspread and claws extended. Looked at
+from above, this fantastic animal appears as an isolated figure, but
+it is not to be separated from the lions running round the side of the
+mace-head. In fact, we may see in the whole composition a development
+of the symbol which formed the arms of the city of Lagash, and was
+the peculiar emblem of the city-god Ningirsu.[18] In the latter, the
+lion-headed eagle grasps two lions by the back, and in Mesilim's sacred
+mace we have the same motive of a lion-headed eagle above lions. It
+was, indeed, a peculiarly appropriate votive offering for an overlord
+of Lagash to make. As suzerain of Lagash, Mesilim had repaired the
+temple of Ningirsu, the city-god; the colossal mace-head, wrought
+with a design taken from the emblem of the city and its god, was thus
+a fitting object for his inscription. By depositing it in Ningirsu's
+temple, he not only sought to secure the favour of the local god by his
+piety, but he left in his city a permanent record of his own dominion.
+
+Of Lugal-shag-engur we know as yet nothing beyond his name, and the
+fact that he was patesi of Lagash at the time of Mesilim, but the
+latter ruler has left a more enduring mark upon history. For a later
+patesi of Lagash, Entemena, when giving a historical summary of the
+relations which existed between his own city and the neighbouring city
+of Umma, begins his account with the period of Mesilim, and furnishes
+additional testimony to the part which this early king of Kish played
+in the local affairs of southern Babylonia.[19] From Mesilim's own
+inscription on the mace-head, we have already seen that he interested
+himself in the repair of temples and in fostering the local cults
+of cities in the south; from Entemena's record we learn that his
+activities also extended to adjusting the political relations between
+the separate states. The proximity of Umma to Lagash brought the two
+cities into constant rivalry, and, although they were separated by the
+Shatt el-Hai,[20] their respective territories were not always confined
+to their own sides of the stream. During the reign of Mesilim the
+antagonism between the cities came to a head, and, in order to prevent
+the outbreak of hostilities, Mesilim stepped in as arbitrator, possibly
+at the invitation of the two disputants. The point at issue concerned
+the boundary-line between the territories of Lagash and Umma, and
+Mesilim, as arbitrator, drew up a treaty of delimitation.
+
+The form in which the record of the treaty is cast is of peculiar
+interest, for it forcibly illustrates the theocratic feeling of these
+early peoples. It is in accordance with their point of view that the
+actual patesis of Lagash and Umma are not named, and the dispute is
+regarded as having been adjusted by the gods. The deity who presided
+over the conference, and at whose invitation the treaty is stated
+to have been made, was Enlil, "the king of the lands." Owing to his
+unique position among the local gods of Babylonia, his divine authority
+was recognized by the lesser city-gods. Thus it was at his command
+that Ningirsu, the god of Lagash, and the city-god of Umma fixed the
+boundary. It is true that Mesilim, the King of Kish, is referred to by
+name, but he only acted at the word of his own goddess Kadi, and his
+duties were confined to making a record of the treaty which the gods
+themselves had drawn up. We could not have a more striking instance
+of the manner in which the early inhabitants of Babylonia regarded
+the city-gods as the actual kings and rulers of their cities. The
+human kings and patesis were nothing more than ministers, or agents,
+appointed to carry out their will. Thus, when one city made war upon
+another, it was because their gods were at feud; the territory of
+the city was the property of the city-god, and, when a treaty of
+delimitation was proposed, it was naturally the gods themselves who
+arranged it and drew up its provisions.
+
+We are enabled to fix approximately the period of Mesilim by this
+reference to him upon the cone of Entemena, but we have no such means
+of determining the date of another early ruler of the city of Kish,
+whose name has been recovered during the American excavations on the
+site of Nippur. Three fragments of a vase of dark brown sandstone have
+been found there, engraved with an inscription of Utug, an early patesi
+of Kish. They are said to have been found in the strata beneath the
+chambers of the great temple of Enlil on the south-east side of the
+ziggurat, or temple-tower.[21] It would be rash to form any theory as
+to the date of the vase solely from the position in which the fragments
+are said to have been discovered, but the extremely archaic forms
+of the characters of the inscription suggest that it dates from the
+earliest period of Babylonian history. Moreover, Utug is termed upon
+it patesi, not king, of Kish, suggesting that he ruled at a time when
+Kish had not the power and influence it enjoyed under Mesilim. The
+hegemony in Sumer and Akkad constantly passed from one city to another,
+so that it is possible that Utug should be set after Mesilim, when
+the power of Kish had temporarily declined. But as the characters of
+Utug's inscription are far more archaic than those of Mesilim, we may
+provisionally set him in the period before Kish attained the rank of a
+kingdom in place of its patesiate. But how long an interval separated
+Utug from Mesilim there is no means of telling.
+
+[Illustration: LIMESTONE FIGURES OF EARLY SUMERIAN RULERS.--_Brit.
+Mus., Nos._ 22470 _and_ 90828.]
+
+On the assumption that Utug ruled in this early period, we may see in
+the fragments of his vase from Nippur, evidence of the struggles by
+which the city of Kish attained the position of supremacy it enjoyed
+under Mesilim. For Utug's vase was not carried to Nippur as spoil from
+Kish, but was deposited by Utug himself in the temple of Enlil, in
+commemoration of a victory he had achieved over the land of Khamazi. We
+here learn the name of one of the enemies with whom Kish had to fight
+in the early stages of its existence as an independent city-state, and
+we may conjecture that many more such battles had to be fought and won
+before its influence was felt beyond the boundaries of Akkad by the
+Sumerian cities in the south. The fact that after his victory Utug
+deposited the vase at Nippur as a thank-offering proves that in his
+time the shrine of Enlil was already regarded as the central sanctuary
+of Babylonia. Zamama, the god of Kish, had achieved the victory over
+Khamazi, but Enlil, as the supreme lord of the world, was entitled
+to some recognition and gratitude, and also probably to a share of
+the spoil. From one line of the inscription upon Utug's vase we may
+perhaps infer that his father's name was Bazuzu, but, as no title
+follows the name, he is not to be reckoned as a patesi of Kish. We may
+thus conclude that Utug did not succeed his father upon the throne.
+Whether he was a usurper or succeeded some other relative, and whether
+he followed up his military successes by founding at Kish a powerful
+dynasty to which Mesilim may have belonged, are among the questions
+which may perhaps be answered as the result of future excavation in
+Northern Babylonia.
+
+It is probable that the early supremacy which Kish enjoyed during the
+reign of Mesilim continued for some time after his death. At any rate,
+the names of two other early rulers of that city are known, and, as
+they both bear the title of king, and not patesi, we may conclude that
+they lived during a period of the city's prosperity or expansion. The
+name of one of these kings, Urzage, occurs upon a broken vase of white
+calcite stalagmite, which was found at Nippur, approximately in the
+same place as the vase of the patesi Utug.[22] The inscription upon
+the vase records the fact that it was dedicated by Urzage to Enlil,
+"king of the lands." and his consort Ninlil, "the lady of heaven and
+earth." The end of the text is wanting, but we may conjecture that,
+like his earlier predecessor Utug, the king dedicated the vase in the
+temple of Enlil, at Nippur, in gratitude for some victory over his
+enemies. We may thus see in the dedication of the vase further evidence
+of the continued prosperity of Kish, though it is clear that it only
+maintained its position among the other great cities of the land by
+force of arms. The name of the other early king of Kish, Lugal-tarsi,
+is known to us from a short inscription upon a small tablet of
+lapis-lazuli preserved in the British Museum.[23] The text records the
+building of the wall of the enclosure, or outer court, of a temple
+dedicated to Anu and the goddess Ninni, but, as its provenance is
+unknown, it is impossible to base any argument upon it with reference
+to the extent of the influence exerted by Kish during the reign of
+Lugal-tarsi.[24] Such are the few facts which have come down to us
+with regard to the earliest period of the supremacy of Kish. But the
+fortunes of the city were destined to undergo a complete change, in
+consequence of the increase in the power of Lagash which took place
+during the reign of Eannatum. Before we describe the transfer of power
+from the north to Sumer, it will be necessary to retrace our steps to
+the point where we left the history of that city, during the time that
+Mesilim was ruling in the north.
+
+The names of the successors of Lugal-shag-engur, Mesilim's
+contemporary, upon the throne of Lagash have not yet been recovered,
+and we do not know how long an interval separated his reign from
+that of Ur-Ninâ, the early king of Lagash, from whose time so many
+inscriptions and archaeological remains have been recovered at
+Tello.[25] It is possible that within this period we should set
+another ruler of Lagash, named Badu, to whom reference appears to be
+made by Eannatum upon the famous Stele of the Vultures. The passage
+occurs in the small fragment that has been preserved of the first
+column of the text engraved upon the stele,[26] the following line
+containing the title "King of Lagash." The context of the passage is
+not preserved, but it is possible that the signs which precede the
+title are to be taken as a proper name, and in that case they would
+give the name of an early ruler of the city. In favour of this view we
+may note that in the text upon an archaic clay tablet found below the
+level of Ur-Ninâ s building at Tello[27] the name Badu occurs, and,
+although it is not there employed as that of a king or patesi, the
+passage may be taken as evidence of the use of Badu as a proper name in
+this early age.
+
+Assuming that Badu represents a royal name, it may be inferred from
+internal evidence furnished by Eannatum's inscription that he lived
+and reigned at some period before Ur-Ninâ. The introductory columns of
+Eannatum's text appear to give a brief historical summary concerning
+the relations which were maintained between Lagash and the neighbouring
+city of Umma in the period anterior to Eannatum's own reign. Now the
+second column of the text describes the attitude of Umma to Lagash
+in the reign of Akurgal, Ur-Ninâ's son and successor; it is thus a
+natural inference that Badu was a still earlier ruler who reigned at
+any rate before Ur-Ninâ. Whether he reigned before Lugal-shag-engur
+also, there are no data for deciding. It will be noted that Eannatum
+calls him "king" of Lagash, not "patesi," but the use of these titles
+by Eannatum, as applied to his predecessors, is not consistent, and,
+that he should describe Badu as "king," is no proof that Badu himself
+claimed that title. But he may have done so, and we may provisionally
+place him in the interval between the patesi Lugal-shag-engur and
+Ur-Ninâ, who in his numerous texts that have been recovered always
+claims the title of "king" in place of "patesi," a fact that suggests
+an increase in the power and importance of Lagash.[28] To the same
+period we may probably assign Enkhegal, another early king of Lagash,
+whose name has been recovered on an archaic tablet of limestone.[29]
+
+It is possible that Ur-Ninâ himself, though not a great soldier, did
+something to secure, or at least to maintain, the independence of his
+city. In any case, we know that he was the founder of his dynasty, for
+to neither his father Gunidu, nor to his grandfather Gursar, does he
+ascribe any titular rank. We may assume that he belonged to a powerful
+Sumerian family in Lagash, but, whether he obtained the throne by
+inheritance from some collateral branch, or secured it as the result
+of a revolt within the city, is not recorded. It is strange that in
+none of his numerous inscriptions does he lay claim to any conquest
+or achievement in the field. Most of his texts, it is true, are of
+a dedicatory character, but, to judge from those of other Sumerian
+rulers, this fact should not have prevented him from referring to
+them, had he any such successes to chronicle. The nearest approach to
+a record of a military nature is that he rebuilt the wall of Lagash.
+It is therefore clear that, though he may not have embarked on an
+aggressive policy, he did not neglect the defence of his own city.
+But that appears to have been the extent of his ambition: so long as
+the fortifications of the city were intact, and the armed men at her
+disposal sufficient for the defence of Lagash herself and her outlying
+territory, he did not seek to add to his own renown or to the city's
+wealth by foreign conquest. The silence of Entemena with regard to
+the relations of Lagash to Umma at this period is not conclusive
+evidence that Mesilim's treaty was still in force, or that the peace he
+inaugurated had remained unbroken. But Entemena's silence fully accords
+with that of Ur-Ninâ himself, and we may infer that, in spite of his
+claims to the royal title, he succeeded in avoiding any quarrel with
+his city's hereditary foe. Ur-Ninâ's attitude towards the city-state
+upon his own immediate borders may be regarded as typical of his policy
+as a whole. The onyx bowl which he dedicated to the goddess Bau may
+possibly have been part of certain booty won in battle,[30] but his
+aim appears to have been to devote his energies to the improvement of
+his land and the adornment of his city. It is therefore natural that
+his inscriptions[31] should consist of mere catalogues of the names of
+temples and other buildings erected during his reign, together with
+lists of the statues he dedicated to his gods, and of the canals he cut
+in order to increase the material wealth of his people.
+
+But, while Ur-Ninâ's policy appears to have been mainly of a domestic
+character, he did not fail to maintain relations with other cities
+in the sphere of religious observance. That he should have continued
+in active communication with Nippur, as the religious centre of the
+whole of Babylonia, is what we might infer from the practice of the
+period, and we may probably trace to this fact his dedication to Enlil
+of one of the canals which was cut during his reign. A more striking
+instance of the deference paid by Ur-Ninâ to the god of another city
+may be seen in his relations to Enki, the Sumerian prototype of the
+god Ea. When Ur-Ninâ planned the rebuilding of the temple E-ninnû, he
+appears to have taken precautions to ensure the success of his scheme
+by making a direct appeal to Enki, the city-god of Eridu. On a diorite
+plaque that has been found at Tello[32] he records the delivery of his
+prayer to Enki, that in his character of Chief Diviner he should use
+his pure reed, the wand of his divination, to render the work good and
+should pronounce a favourable oracle. The temple of Enki in the city
+of Eridu, near the shore of the Persian Gulf, was one of the earliest
+and most sacred of Sumerian shrines, and we may perhaps picture Ur-Ninâ
+as journeying thither from Lagash, in order to carry his petition in
+person into the presence of its mysterious god.
+
+Of the deities of Lagash to whose service Ur-Ninâ appears especially
+to have devoted himself, the goddess Ninâ, whose name he bore within
+his own, was one of the most favoured. For one of the chief claims to
+distinction that he puts forward is that he built her temple at Lagash;
+and although, unlike the later great builder Gudea, he gives in his
+inscriptions few details of his work, we may conclude that he lavished
+his resources upon it. He also boasts that he made a statue of Ninâ,
+which he no doubt set up within her temple, and one of his canals he
+dedicated to her. Her daughter Ninmar was not neglected, for he records
+that he built her temple also, and he erected a temple for Gatumdug,
+Ninâ's intercessor, and fashioned a statue of her. Another group of
+Ur-Ninâ's buildings was connected with the worship of Ningirsu, the
+city-god of Lagash, whose claims a ruler, so devoted to the interests
+of his own city as Ur-Ninâ, would naturally not have ignored.
+
+A glance at his texts will show that Ur-Ninâ more than once describes
+himself as the builder of "the House of Girsu," a title by which he
+refers to E-ninnû, the great temple dedicated to Ningirsu, since it
+stood in that quarter of the city which was named Girsu and was by
+far its most important building.[33] He also built E-pa, a sanctuary
+closely connected with E-ninnû and the worship of Ningirsu. This temple
+was added to at a later date by Gudea, who installed therein his
+patron god, Ningishzida, and set the nuptial gifts of Bau, Ningirsu's
+consort, within its shrine; it is possible that Ur-Ninâ's onyx bowl,
+which was dedicated to Bau, and the fragments of other bowls found
+with it,[34] were deposited by Ur-Ninâ in the same temple. Of other
+deities in Ningirsu's entourage, whom Ur-Ninâ singled out for special
+veneration, may be mentioned Dunshagga, Ningirsu's son, and Uri-zi, the
+god whose duty it was to look after Ningirsu's _harîm_. Among lesser
+temples, or portions of temples, which were built or restored by him
+was the Tirash, where on the day of the New Moon's appearance it was
+the custom to hold a festival in honour of Ningirsu; while another act
+of piety which Ur-Ninâ records was the making of a statue of Lugal-uru,
+the god from whose festival one of the Sumerian months took its name.
+In this connection, mention may also be made of the god Dun-...,[35]
+whom Ur-Ninâ describes as the "God-king," since he stood in a peculiar
+relation to Ur-Ninâ and his family. He became the patron deity of the
+dynasty which Ur-Ninâ founded, and, down to the reign of Enannatum II.,
+was the personal protector of the reigning king or patesi of Lagash.[36]
+
+For the construction of his temples Ur-Ninâ states that he fetched
+wood from the mountains, but unlike Gudea in a later age, he is not
+recorded to have brought in his craftsmen from abroad. In addition
+to the building of temples, Ur-Ninâ's other main activity appears
+to have centred in the cutting of canals; among these was the canal
+named Asukhur, on the banks of which his grandson Eannatum won a
+battle. That the changes he introduced into the canalization of the
+country were entirely successful may be inferred from the numerous
+storehouses and magazines, which he records he built in connection
+with the various temples,[37] and by his statement that when he added
+to the temple of Ningirsu he stored up large quantities of grain
+within the temple-granaries. In fact, from the inscriptions he has
+left us, Ur-Ninâ appears as a pacific monarch devoted to the worship
+of his city-gods and to the welfare of his own people. His ambitions
+lay within his own borders, and, when he had secured his frontier, he
+was content to practise the arts of peace. It was doubtless due to
+this wise and far-seeing policy that the resources of the city were
+husbanded, so that under his more famous grandson she was enabled
+to repel the attack of enemies and embark upon a career of foreign
+conquest. Ur-Ninâ's posthumous fame is evidence that his reign was a
+period of peace and prosperity for Lagash. His great-grandson Entemena
+boasts of being his descendant, and ascribes to him the title of King
+of Lagash which he did not claim either for himself or for his father
+Enannatum I., while even in the reign of Lugal-anda offerings continued
+to be made in connection with his statue in Lagash.[38]
+
+We are not dependent solely on what we can gather from the inscriptions
+themselves for a knowledge of Ur-Ninâ. For he has left us sculptured
+representations, not only of himself, but also of his sons and
+principal officers, from which we may form a very clear picture of the
+primitive conditions of life obtaining in Sumer at the time of this
+early ruler. The sculptures take the form of limestone plaques, roughly
+carved in low relief with figures of Ur-Ninâ surrounded by his family
+and his court.[39] The plaques are oblong in shape, with the corners
+slightly rounded, and in the centre of each is bored a circular hole.
+Though they are obviously of a votive character, the exact object for
+which they are intended is not clear at first sight. It has been, and
+indeed is still, conjectured that the plaques were fixed vertically to
+the walls of shrines,[40] but this explanation has been discredited by
+the discovery of the plaque, or rather block, of Dudu, the priest of
+Ningirsu during the reign of Entemena. From the shape of the latter,
+the reverse of which is not flat but pyramidal, and also from the
+inscription upon it, we gather that the object of these perforated
+bas-reliefs was to form horizontal supports for ceremonial mace-heads
+or sacred emblems, which were dedicated as votive offerings in the
+temples of the gods.[41] The great value of those of Ur-Ninâ consists
+in the vivid pictures they give us of royal personages and high
+officials at this early period.
+
+[Illustration: PLAQUE OF UR-NINA, KING OF SHIRPURLA, ENGRAVED WITH
+REPRESENTATIONS OF THE KING AND HIS FAMILY--_In the Louvre; Déc. en
+Chald., pl._ 2 (_bis_).]
+
+[Illustration: PLAQUE OF DUDU, PRIEST OF NINGIRSU DURING THE REIGN OF
+ENTEMENA, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA.--_In the Louvre; Déc. en Chald., pl._ 5
+(_bis_).]
+
+The largest of the plaques[42] is sculptured with two separate scenes,
+in each of which Ur-Ninâ is represented in a different attitude and
+with a different occupation, while around him stand his sons and
+ministers. In the upper scene the king is standing; he is nude down
+to the waist and his feet are bare, while around his loins he wears
+the rough woollen garment of the period,[43] and upon his shaven head
+he supports a basket which he steadies with his right hand. The text
+engraved beside the king, in addition to giving his name and genealogy,
+records that he has built the temple of Ningirsu, the abzu-banda which
+was probably a great laver or basin intended for the temple-service,
+and the temple of Ninâ; and it has been suggested that the king is
+here portrayed bearing a basket of offerings to lay before his god or
+goddess. But the basket he carries is exactly similar to those borne by
+labourers for heaping earth upon the dead as represented upon the Stele
+of the Vultures,[44] and baskets have always been used in the east by
+labourers and builders for carrying earth and other building-materials.
+It is therefore more probable that the king is here revealed in the
+character of a labourer bearing materials for the construction of the
+temples referred to in the text. The same explanation applies to the
+copper votive figures of a later period which are represented bearing
+baskets on their heads. In a similar spirit Gudea has left us statues
+of himself as an architect, holding tablet and rule; Ur-Ninâ represents
+himself in the still more humble rôle of a labourer engaged in the
+actual work of building the temple for his god.
+
+Behind the king is a little figure intended for the royal cup-bearer,
+Anita, and facing him are five of his children. It is usually held
+that the first of these figures, who bears the name of Lidda and is
+clothed in a more elaborate dress than the other four, is intended for
+the king's eldest son.[45] But in addition to the distinctive dress,
+this figure is further differentiated from the others by wearing long
+hair in place of having the head shaved. In this respect it bears
+some resemblance to an archaic statuette, which appears to be that
+of a woman;[46] and the sign attached to Lidda's name, engraved upon
+the stone, is possibly that for "daughter," not "son." It is thus
+not unlikely that we should identify the figure with a daughter of
+Ur-Ninâ. The other figures in the row are four of the king's sons,
+named Akurgal, Lugal-ezen, Anikurra and Muninnikurta. A curious point
+that may be noted is that the height of these figures increases as
+they recede from the king. Thus the first of the small figures, that
+of Akurgal, who succeeded Ur-Ninâ upon the throne, is represented as
+smaller than his brothers, and it has been suggested in consequence
+that he was not the king's eldest son,[47] a point to which we will
+return later. In the scene sculptured upon the lower half of the plaque
+the king is represented as seated upon a throne and raising in his
+right hand a cup from which he appears to be pouring a libation. We may
+probably see in this group a picture of the king dedicating the temple
+after the task of building was finished. The inscription records the
+fact that he had brought wood from the mountains, doubtless employed
+in the construction of the temples, a detail which emphasises the
+difficulties he had overcome. The cup-bearer who stands behind the
+throne is in this scene, not Anita, but Sagantug, while the figure
+facing the king is a high official named Dudu, and to the left of Dudu
+are three more of the king's sons named Anunpad, Menudgid, and Addatur.
+
+[Illustration: Fig 43.--Early Sumerian figure of a women, showing the
+Sumerian dress and the method of doing the hair.--_Déc., pl_ 1 _ter_,
+No 3.]
+
+A smaller plaque, rather more oval in shape than the large one
+figured on the plate facing p. 110, but like it in a perfect state of
+preservation, gives a similar scene, though with less elaboration of
+detail. According to its inscription this tablet also commemorates
+the building of Ningirsu's temple. Here the king carries no basket,
+but is represented as standing with hands clasped upon the breast,
+an attitude of humility and submission in the presence of his god.
+In other respects both the king and the smaller figures of his sons
+and ministers are conceived as on the larger plaque. A small figure
+immediately behind the king is Anita, the cup-bearer, and to the
+left of Anita are the king's son Akurgal and a personage bearing
+the name Barsagannudu. In the upper row are two other small figures
+named Lugal-ezen and Gula. Now from the largest plaque we know
+that Lugal-ezen was a son of Ur-Ninâ; thus the absence of such a
+description from Gula and Barsagannudu is not significant, and it is
+a fair assumption that both these, like Lugal-ezen, were sons of the
+king. But it is noteworthy that of the four figures the only one that
+is specifically described as a "son" of Ur-Ninâ is Akurgal.
+
+[Illustration: Plaque of Ur-Ninâ, King of Lagash (Shirpurla),
+sculptured with representations of himself, his cup-bearer, Anita, and
+four of his sons.--_Déc., pl._ 2 _bis_, No. 2; Cat. No. 9.]
+
+Another of Ur-Ninâ's plaques is not completely preserved, for the right
+half is wanting upon which was the figure, or possibly two figures, of
+the king. On the portion that has been recovered are sculptured two
+rows of figures, both facing the right. The first in the lower row is
+Anita, the cup-bearer; then comes a high official named Banar; then
+Akurgal, distinguished by the title of "son," and on the extreme left
+Namazua, the scribe. Of the four figures preserved in the upper row,
+the two central ones are Lugal-ezen and Muninnikurta, both of whom bear
+the title of "son," as on the largest of the three plaques. The reading
+of the names upon the figures on the right and left is uncertain, but
+they are probably intended for officials of the court. The one on the
+left of the line is of some interest, for he carries a staff upon his
+left shoulder from which hangs a bag. We may perhaps regard him as the
+royal chamberlain, who controlled the supplies of the palace; or his
+duty may have been to look after the provisions and accommodation for
+the court, should the king ever undertake a journey from one city to
+another.[48]
+
+[Illustration: Fig 45.--Portion of a plaque of Ur-Ninâ, King of Lagash
+(Shirpurla), sculptured with representations of his sons and the high
+officials of his court.--_Déc., pl._ 2 _ter_, No. 1; in the Imperial
+Ottoman Museum.]
+
+While Ur-Ninâ's sons upon the smaller plaques are all roughly of the
+same size, we have noted that the similar figures upon the largest
+plaque vary slightly in height. It has been suggested that the
+intention of the sculptor was to indicate the difference in age between
+the brothers, and in consequence it has been argued that Akurgal,
+who succeeded Ur-Ninâ upon the throne of Lagash, was his fifth, and
+not his eldest, son. This inference has further been employed to
+suggest that after Ur-Ninâ's death there may have followed a period of
+weakness within the state of Lagash, due to disunion among his sons;
+and during the supposed struggle for the succession it is conjectured
+that the city may have been distracted by internal conflicts, and, in
+consequence, was unable to maintain her independence as a city-state,
+which she only succeeded in recovering in the reign of Eannatum, the
+son and successor of Akurgal.[49] But a brief examination of the theory
+will show that there is little to be said for it, and it is probable
+that the slight difference in the height of the figures is fortuitous
+and unconnected with their respective ages. It may be admitted that a
+good deal depends upon the sex of Lidda, who, on the largest plaque,
+faces the standing figure of Ur-Ninâ. If this is intended for a son of
+the king, his richer clothing marks him out as the crown-prince; but,
+even so, we may suppose that Akurgal was Ur-Ninâ's second son, and that
+he succeeded to the throne in consequence of Lidda having predeceased
+his father. But reasons have already been adduced for believing that
+Lidda was a daughter, not a son, of Ur-Ninâ. In that case Akurgal
+occupies the place of honour among his brothers in standing nearest
+the king. He is further differentiated from them by the cup which he
+carries; in fact, he here appears as cup-bearer to Lidda, the office
+performed by Anita and Saguntug for the king.
+
+That the crown-prince should be here represented as attending his
+sister may appear strange, but, in view of our imperfect knowledge
+of this early period, the suggestion should not be dismissed solely
+on that account. Indeed, the class of temple votaries, who enjoyed
+a high social position under the Semitic kings of the First Dynasty
+of Babylon, probably had its counterpart at the centres of Sumerian
+worship in still earlier times; and there is evidence that at the time
+of the First Dynasty, the order included members of the royal house.
+Moreover, tablets dating from the close of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty show the
+important part which women played in the social and official life of
+the early Sumerians.[50] Thus it is possible that Ur-Ninâ's daughter
+held high rank or office in the temple hierarchy, and her presence
+on the plaque may have reference to some special ceremony, or act of
+dedication, in which it was her privilege to take the leading part
+after the king, or to be his chief assistant. In such circumstances it
+would not be unnatural for her eldest brother to attend her. In both
+the other compositions Lidda is absent, and Akurgal occupies the place
+of honour. In the one he stands on a line with the king immediately
+behind the royal cup-bearer, and he is the only royal son who is
+specifically labelled as such; in the other he is again on a line with
+the king, separated from Anita, the cup-bearer, by a high officer of
+state, and followed by the royal scribe. In these scenes he is clearly
+set in the most favoured position, and, if Lidda was not his sister but
+the crown-prince, it would be hard to explain the latter's absence,
+except on the supposition that his death had occurred before the
+smaller plaques were made. But the texts upon all three plaques record
+the building of Ningirsu's temple, and they thus appear to have been
+prepared for the same occasion, which gives additional weight to the
+suggestion that Lidda was a daughter of Ur-Ninâ, and that Akurgal was
+his eldest son.
+
+But, whether Akurgal was Ur-Ninâ's eldest son or not, the evidence of
+at least the smaller of the two complete plaques would seem to show
+that he was recognized as crown-prince during the lifetime of his
+father, and we may infer that he was Ur-Ninâ's immediate successor.
+For an estimate of his reign we must depend on references made to him
+by his two sons. It has already been mentioned that the early part of
+the text engraved upon the Stele of the Vultures appears to have given
+an account of the relations between Lagash and Umma during the reigns
+preceding that of Eannatum,[51] and in a badly preserved passage in
+the second column we find a reference to Akurgal, the son of Ur-Ninâ.
+The context is broken, but "the men of Umma" and "the city of Lagash"
+are mentioned almost immediately before the name of Akurgal,[52] and
+it would appear that Eannatum here refers to a conflict which took
+place between the two cities during the former's reign. It should be
+noted that upon his Cone[53] Entemena makes no mention of any war at
+this period, and, as in the case of Ur-Ninâ's reign, his silence might
+be interpreted as an indication of unbroken peace. But the narratives
+may be reconciled on the supposition either that the conflict in
+the reign of Akurgal was of no great importance, or that it did not
+concern the fertile plain of Gu-edin. It must be remembered that the
+text upon the Cone of Entemena was composed after the stirring times
+of Eannatum, Entemena's uncle, and the successes won by that monarch
+against Umma were naturally of far greater importance in his eyes than
+the lesser conflicts of his predecessors. It is true that he describes
+the still earlier intervention of Mesilim in the affairs of Lagash
+and Umma, but this is because the actual stele or boundary-stone set
+up by Mesilim was removed by the men of Umma in Eannatum's reign, an
+act which provoked the war. The story of Mesilim's intervention, which
+resulted in the setting up of the boundary-stone, thus forms a natural
+introduction to the record of Eannatum's campaign; and the fact that
+these two events closely follow one another in Entemena's text is not
+inconsistent with a less important conflict being recorded by the Stele
+of the Vultures as having taken place in the reign of Akurgal.
+
+The only other evidence with regard to the achievements of Akurgal
+is furnished by the titles ascribed to him by his two sons. Upon
+the Stele of the Vultures,[54] Eannatum describes him as "king" of
+Lagash, and from this passage alone it might be inferred that he was
+as successful as his father Ur-Ninâ in maintaining the independence
+of his city. But in other texts upon foundation-stones, bricks, and a
+small column, Eannatum describes him only as "patesi," as also does
+his other son Enannatum I. It should be noted that in the majority
+of his inscriptions Eannatum claims for himself the title of patesi,
+and at the end of one of them, in which he has enumerated a long list
+of his own conquests, he exclaims, "He (_i.e._ Eannatum) is the son
+of Akurgal, the patesi of Lagash, and his grandfather is Ur-Ninâ,
+the patesi of Lagash."[55] That he should term Ur-Ninâ "patesi" does
+not accord with that ruler's own texts, but, if Eannatum himself had
+been merely a patesi at the beginning of his reign, and his father
+had also been one before him, he may well have overlooked the more
+ambitious title to which his grandfather had laid claim, especially
+as this omission would enhance the splendour of his own achievements.
+It is also possible that at this time the distinction between the two
+titles was not so strictly drawn as in the later periods, and that
+an alteration in them did not always mark a corresponding political
+change.[56] However this may be, the subsequent conflicts of Eannatum
+suggest that Lagash had failed to maintain her freedom. We may assume
+that the North had once more interfered in the affairs of Sumer, and
+that Kish had put an end to the comparative independence which the city
+had enjoyed during Ur-Ninâ's reign.
+
+
+[1] For an account of the excavations at Nippur and their results, see
+Hilprecht, "Explorations in Bible Lands," pp. 289 ff., and Fisher,
+"Excavations at Nippur," Pt. I. (1905), Pt. II. (1900).
+
+[2] At a later period this was converted into a Parthian fortress.
+
+[3] See the plan of Tello on p. 19.
+
+[4] For example, compare the orientation of Enlil's temple on p. 88.
+
+[5] It has been compared to the granaries of Egypt as depicted in
+wall-paintings or represented by models placed in the tombs; cf.
+Heuzey, "Une Villa royale chaldéenne,"--p. 9 f.
+
+[6] See H, H on plan.
+
+[7] See above, p. 45 f.
+
+[8] Cf. Heuzey, "Une Villa royale," p. 24.
+
+[9] Cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Recueil de tablettes chaldéennes," p. i. f.,
+Nos. 1 ff., 9 ff., and "Rev. d'Assyr.," VI., pp. 11 ff.
+
+[10] See below, Chap. VII., p. 206 f.
+
+[11] Cf. Heuzey and Thureau-Dangin, "Comptes rendus de l'Acad. des
+Inscriptions," 1907, pp. 516 ff. The head of the figure had been found
+many years before by M. de Sarzec, and was published in "Déc. en
+Chald.," p. 6 _ter_, Figs. 1 _a_ and _b_.
+
+[12] Cf. Meyer, "Sum. und Sem.," p. 81, n. 2.
+
+[13] Cf. Banks, "Scientific American," Aug. 19, 1905, p. 137, and
+"Amer. Journ. Semit. Lang.," XXI., p. 59.
+
+[14] "Déc. en Chald.," pl. 5, No. 3.
+
+[15] See the plate opposite p. 102. The king of Ma'er's figure is the
+one on the right.
+
+[16] Cf. Hilprecht, "Old Bab. Inscr.," II., pl. 44, No. 96, and
+Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften," p. 158 f.
+
+[17] See Heuzey, "Revue d'Assyr.," IV., p. 109; cf.
+"Königsinschriften," p>. 160 f.
+
+[18] See the blocks on p. 98. A variant form of the emblem occurs on
+the perforated block of Dudu (see the plate facing p. 110). There the
+lions turn to bite the spread wings of the eagle, indicating that the
+emblem is symbolical of strife ending in the victory of Lagash (cf.
+Heuzey, "Cat.," p. 121).
+
+[19] See the Cone of Entemena, "Déc. en Chald.," p. xlvii.;
+and cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Rev. d'Assyr.," IV., pp. 37 ff., and
+"Königsinschriften," pp. 36 ff. Entemena's sketch of the early
+relations of Lagash and Umma precedes his account of his own conquest
+of the latter city; see below, p. 164 f.
+
+[20] See above, pp. 11, 21 f.
+
+[21] See Hilprecht, "Old Babylonian Inscriptions," Pt. II., p. 62, pl.
+46, No. 108 f., and Pt. I., p. 47.
+
+[22] See Hilprecht, _op. cit._, Pt. II., p. 51, pl. 43, No. 93;
+cf. Winckler, "Altorientalische Forschungen," I., p. 372 f., and
+Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften," p. 160 f.
+
+[23] See "Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum," Pt. III., pl.
+1, and cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Rev. d'Assyr.," IV., p. 74, and
+"Königsinschriften," p. 160 f. For a photographic reproduction of the
+tablet, see the plate facing p. 218.
+
+[24] Since the central cult of Ninni and of Anu was at Erech, it is
+possible that Lugal-tarsi's dedication implies the subjection of Erech
+to Kish at this period.
+
+[25] See above, pp. 91 ff.
+
+[26] "Déc. en Chaldée," p. xl.; cf. Thureau-Dangin,
+"Königsinschriften," p. 10 f.
+
+[27] See Thureau-Dangin, "Recueil de tablettes chaldéennes," p. 1, pl.
+1, No. 1.
+
+[28] It has been suggested that the title lugal, "king," did
+not acquire its later significance until the age of Sargon
+(Shar-Gani-sharri), but that it was used by earlier rulers as
+the equivalent of the Semitic belu, "lord" (cf. Ungnad, "Orient.
+Lit.-Zeit.," 1908, col. 64, n. 5). But, in view of the fact that
+Mesilim bore the title, it would seem that in his time it already
+conveyed a claim to greater authority than that inherent in the word
+patesi. The latter title was of a purely religious origin; when borne
+by a ruler it designated him as the representative of his city-god, but
+the title "king" was of a more secular character, and connoted a wider
+dominion. But it must be admitted that some inconsistencies in the use
+of the titles by members of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty seem to suggest that
+the distinction between them was not quite so marked as in the later
+periods.
+
+[29] See Hilprecht, "Zeits. für Assyr.," XI., p. 330 f.; and
+Thureau-Dangin, _op. cit._, XV., p. 403.
+
+[30] See Heuzey, "Rev. d'Assyr.," IV., p. 106. A fragment of a similar
+bowl, probably of the same early period, is definitely stated in the
+inscription upon it to have been set aside for Bau as a part of certain
+spoil.
+
+[31] They are collected and translated by Thureau-Dangin,
+"Königsinschriften," pp. 2 ff.
+
+[32] "Découvertes en Chaldée," p. xxxvii., No. 10.
+
+[33] See above, p. 90 f. Other divisions of Lagash were Ninâ,
+Uru-azagga and Uru.
+
+[34] See above, p. 107.
+
+[35] The reading of the second half of the name is uncertain. The two
+signs which form the name were provisionally read by Amiaud as Dun-sir
+("Records of the Past," N.S., I., p. 59), and by Jensen as Shul-gur
+(cf. Schrader's "Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek," Bd. III., Hft. 1, p.
+18 f.); see also Thureau-Dangin, "Rev. d'Assyr." III., p. 119, n. 5,
+and Radau, "Early Bab. Hist.," p. 92, n. 18.
+
+[36] See below, pp. 168 f., 177.
+
+[37] For a description of his principal storehouse or magazine, the
+remains of which have been found at Tello, see above, pp. 91 ff.
+
+[38] See below, p. 169.
+
+[39] See the opposite plate and the illustrations on p. 113 f.
+
+[40] Cf. Meyer, "Sumerier und Semiten," p. 77.
+
+[41] Dudu's block was probably let into solid masonry or brickwork,
+while the plaques of Ur-Ninâ would have rested on the surface of altars
+built of brick; cf. Heuzey, "Découvertes en Chaldée," p. 204.
+
+[42] See the plate opposite p. 110.
+
+[43] See above, p. 41 f.
+
+[44] See the plate opposite p. 138.
+
+[45] So, for instance, Radau, "Early Bab. History," p. 70.
+
+[46] The figure, which is in the Louvre, was not found at Tello, but
+was purchased at Shatra, so that its provenance is not certain.
+
+[47] See Radau, _op. cit._, p. 70, and cp. Genouillac, "Tablettes
+sumériennes archaïques," p. xi.
+
+[48] See the similar figure on a fragment of shell, illustrated on p.
+41.
+
+[49] Cf. Radau, "Early Bab. History," p. 71.
+
+[50] Cf. Genouillac, "Tablettes sumériennes archaïques," pp. xxii. ff.
+
+[51] See above, p. 105.
+
+[52] "Déc. en Chaldée," p. xl., Col. II.
+
+[53] _Op. cit._, p. xlvii.
+
+[54] Col. II., l. 9.
+
+[55] "Déc. en Chaldée," p. xliii., Col. VIII.
+
+[56] See above, p. 106, n. 1.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+WARS OF THE CITY-STATES; EANNATUM AND THE STELE OF THE VULTURES
+
+
+When the patesiate of Lagash passed from Akurgal to his son Eannatum
+we may picture the city-state as owing a general allegiance to Akkad
+in the north. Nearer home, the relations of Lagash to Umma appear to
+have been of an amicable character. Whatever minor conflicts may have
+taken place between the two cities in the interval, the treaty of
+Mesilim was still regarded as binding, and its terms were treated with
+respect by both parties. The question whether Eannatum, like Akurgal,
+had had some minor cause of disagreement with the men of Umma at the
+beginning of his reign depends upon our interpretation of some broken
+passages in the early part of the text engraved upon the Stele of the
+Vultures.[1] The second column deals with the relations of Umma and
+Lagash during the reign of Akurgal, and the fourth column concerns the
+reign of Eannatum. The name of neither of these rulers is mentioned
+in the intermediate portion of the text, which, however, refers to
+Umma and Lagash in connection with a shrine or chapel dedicated to the
+god Ningirsu. It is possible that we have here a continuation of the
+narrative of the preceding column, and in that case we should assign
+this portion of the text to the reign of Akurgal, rather than to the
+early part of the reign of his successor. But it may equally well refer
+to Eannatum's own reign, and may either record a minor cause of dispute
+between the cities which was settled before the outbreak of the great
+war, or may perhaps be taken in connection with the following columns
+of the text.
+
+These two columns definitely refer to Eannatum's reign and describe
+certain acts of piety which he performed in the service of his gods.
+They record work carried out in E-ninnû, by which the heart of
+Ningirsu was rejoiced; the naming and dedication of some portion of
+E-anna, the temple of the goddess Ninni; and certain additions made
+to the sacred flocks of the goddess Ninkharsag. The repetition of the
+phrase referring to Ninni's temple[2] suggests a disconnected list
+of Eannatum's achievements in the service of his gods, rather than a
+connected narrative. The text in the fifth column continues the record
+of the benefits bestowed by him upon Ningirsu, and here we may perhaps
+trace a possible cause of the renewal of the war with Umma. For the
+text states that Eannatum bestowed certain territory upon Ningirsu and
+rejoiced his heart; and, unless this refers to land occupied after
+the defeat of Umma, its acquisition may have been resented by the
+neighbouring city. Such an incident would have formed ample excuse for
+the invasion of the territory of Lagash by the injured party, though,
+according to the records of Eannatum himself and of Entemena, it would
+appear that the raid of the men of Umma was unprovoked. But, whatever
+may have been the immediate cause of the outbreak of hostilities, we
+shall see reason for believing that the war was ultimately due to the
+influence of Kish.
+
+The outbreak of the war between Umma and Lagash is recorded concisely
+in the sixth column of the inscription upon the Stele of the Vultures,
+which states that the patesi of Umma, by the command of his god,
+plundered[3] Gu-edin, the territory beloved of Ningirsu. In this
+record, brief as it is, it is interesting to note that the patesi of
+Umma is regarded as no more than the instrument of his city-god, or
+the minister who carries out his commands. As the gods in a former
+generation had drawn up the treaty between Lagash and Umma, which
+Mesilim, their suzerain, had at the command of his own goddess engraved
+upon the stele of delimitation, so now it was the god, and not the
+patesi, of Umma, who repudiated the terms of that treaty by sending
+his army across the border. Gu-edin, too, is described, not in its
+relation to the patesi of Lagash, but as the special property of
+Ningirsu, the opposing city-god. We shall see presently that Eannatum's
+first act, on hearing news of the invasion, was quite in harmony with
+the theocratic feeling of the time.
+
+The patesi who led the forces of Umma is not named by Eannatum upon the
+Stele of the Vultures, but from the Cone of Entemena[4] we learn that
+his name was Ush. In the summary of events which is given upon that
+document it is stated that Ush, patesi of Umma, acted with ambitious
+designs, and that, having removed the stele of delimitation which had
+been set up in an earlier age by Mesilim between the territories of the
+respective states, he invaded the plain of Lagash. The pitched battle
+between the forces of Umma and Lagash, which followed the raid into the
+latter's territory, is recorded by Entemena in equally brief terms. The
+battle is said to have taken place at the word of Ningirsu, the warrior
+of Enlil, and the destruction of the men of Umma is ascribed not only
+to the command, but also to the actual agency, of Enlil himself. Here,
+again, we find Enlil, the god of the central cult of Nippur, recognized
+as the supreme arbiter of human and divine affairs. The various
+city-gods might make war on one another, but it was Enlil who decreed
+to which side victory should incline.
+
+In the record of the war which Eannatum himself has left us, we are
+furnished with details of a more striking character than those given
+in Entemena's brief summary. In the latter it is recorded that the
+battle was waged at the word of Ningirsu, and the Stele of the Vultures
+amplifies this bald statement by describing the circumstances which
+attended the notification of the divine will. On learning of the
+violation of his border by the men of Umma and the plundering of his
+territory which had ensued, Eannatum did not at once summon his troops
+and lead them in pursuit of the enemy. There was indeed little danger
+in delay, and no advantage to be gained by immediate action. For Umma,
+from its proximity to Lagash, afforded a haven for the plunderers
+which they could reach in safety before the forces of Lagash could be
+called to arms. Thus Eannatum had no object in hurrying out his army,
+when there was little chance of overtaking the enemy weighed down with
+spoil. Moreover, all the damage that could be done to Gu-edin had no
+doubt been done thoroughly by the men of Umma. In addition to carrying
+off Mesilim's stele, they had probably denuded the pastures of all
+flocks and cattle, had trampled the crops, and had sacked and burnt
+the villages and hamlets through which they had passed. When once
+they and their plunder were safe within their own border, they were
+not likely to repeat the raid at once. They might be expected to take
+action to protect their own territory, but the next move obviously lay
+with Lagash. In these circumstances Eannatum had no object in attacking
+before his army was ready for the field, and his preparations for war
+had been completed; and while the streets of Lagash were doubtless
+re-echoing with the blows of the armourers and the tramp of armed men,
+the city-gates must have been thronged with eager groups of citizens,
+awaiting impatiently the return of scouts sent out after the retreating
+foe. Meanwhile, we may picture Eannatum repairing to the temple of
+Ningirsu, where, having laid his complaint before him, he awaited the
+god's decision as to the course his patesi and his people should follow
+under the provocation to which they had been subjected.
+
+It is not directly stated in the text as preserved upon the stele
+that it was within E-ninnû Eannatum sought Ningirsu's counsel and
+instructions; but we may assume that such was the case, since the god
+dwelt within his temple, and it was there the patesi would naturally
+seek him out. The answer of the god to Eannatum's prayer was conveyed
+to him in a vision; Ningirsu himself appeared to the patesi, as he
+appeared in a later age to Gudea, when he gave the latter ruler
+detailed instructions for the rebuilding of E-ninnû, and granted him
+a sign by which he should know that he was chosen for the work. Like
+Gudea, Eannatum made his supplication lying flat upon his face; and,
+while he was stretched out upon the ground, he had a dream. In his
+dream he beheld the god Ningirsu, who appeared to him in visible form
+and came near him and stood by his head. And the god encouraged his
+patesi and promised him victory over his enemies. He was to go forth to
+battle and Babbar, the Sun-god who makes the city bright, would advance
+at his right hand to assist him. Thus encouraged by Ningirsu, and with
+the knowledge that he was carrying out the orders of his city-god,
+Eannatum marshalled his army and set out from Lagash to attack the men
+of Umma within their own territory.
+
+The account of the battle is very broken upon the Stele of the
+Vultures,[5] but sufficient details are preserved to enable us to
+gather that it was a fierce one, and that victory was wholly upon the
+side of Lagash. We may conjecture that the men of Umma did not await
+Eannatum's attack behind their city-walls, but went out to meet him
+with the object of preventing their own fields and pastures from being
+laid waste. Every man capable of bearing arms, who was not required for
+the defence of two cities, was probably engaged in the battle, and the
+two opposing armies were doubtless led in person by Eannatum himself
+and by Ush, the patesi of Umma, who had provoked the war. The army of
+Lagash totally defeated the men of Umma and pursued them with great
+slaughter. Eannatum puts the number of the slain at three thousand six
+hundred men, or, according to a possible reading, thirty-six thousand
+men. Even the smaller of these figures is probably exaggerated, but
+there is no doubt that Umma suffered heavily. According to his own
+account, Eannatum took an active part in the fight, and he states that
+he raged in the battle. After defeating the army in the open plain,
+the troops of Lagash pressed on to Umma itself. The fortifications had
+probably been denuded of their full garrisons, and were doubtless held
+by a mere handful of defenders. Flushed with victory the men of Lagash
+swept on to the attack, and, carrying the walls by assault, had the
+city itself at their mercy. Here another slaughter took place, and
+Eannatum states that within the city he swept all before him "like an
+evil storm."
+
+[Illustration: PORTION OF THE "STELE OF VULTURES," SCULPTURED WITH
+SCENES REPRESENTING EANNATUM, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA, LEADING HIS TROOPS
+IN BATTLE AND ON THE MARCH.--_In the Louvre; Déc. en Chald., pl._ 3
+(_bis_).]
+
+The record of his victory which Eannatum has left us is couched in
+metaphor, and is doubtless coloured by Oriental exaggeration; and the
+scribes who drew it up would naturally be inclined to represent the
+defeat of Umma as even more crushing than it was. Thus the number of
+burial-mounds suggests that the forces of Lagash suffered heavily
+themselves, and it is quite possible the remnant of Umma's army rallied
+and made a good fight within the city. But we have the independent
+testimony of Entemena's record, written not many years after the fight,
+to show that there is considerable truth under Eannatum's phrases; and
+a clear proof that Umma was rendered incapable of further resistance
+for the time may be seen in the terms of peace which Lagash imposed.
+Eannatum's first act, after he had received the submission of the city,
+was to collect for burial the bodies of his own dead which strewed
+the field of battle. Those of the enemy he would probably leave where
+they fell, except such as blocked the streets of Umma, and these he
+would remove and cast out in the plain beyond the city-walls. For we
+may conclude that, like Entemena, Eannatum left the bones of his foes
+to be picked clean by the birds and beasts of prey. The monument on
+which we have his record of the fight is known as the Stele of the
+Vultures from the vultures sculptured upon the upper portion of it.
+These birds of prey are represented as swooping off with the heads and
+limbs of the slain, which they hold firmly in their beaks and talons.
+That the sculptor should have included this striking incident in his
+portrayal of the battle is further testimony to the magnitude of the
+slaughter which had taken place. That Eannatum duly buried his own dead
+is certain, for both he and Entemena state that the burial-mounds which
+he heaped up were twenty in number; and two other sculptured portions
+of the Stele of the Vultures, to which we shall presently refer, give
+vivid representations of the piling of the mounds above the dead.
+
+The fate of Ush, the patesi of Umma, who had brought such misfortune
+on his own city by the rash challenge he had given Lagash, is not
+recorded; but it is clear he did not remain the ruler of Umma. He
+may have been slain in the battle, but, even if he survived, he was
+certainly deprived of his throne, possibly at the instance of Eannatum.
+For Entemena records the fact that it was not with Ush, but with a
+certain Enakalli, patesi of Umma, that Eannatum concluded a treaty of
+peace.[6] The latter ruler may have been appointed patesi by Eannatum
+himself, as, at a later day, Ili owed his nomination to Entemena on
+the defeat of the patesi Urlumma. But, whether this was so or not,
+Enakalli was certainly prepared to make great concessions, and was
+ready to accept whatever terms Eannatum demanded, in order to secure
+the removal of the troops of Lagash from his city, which they doubtless
+continued to invest during the negotiations. As might be expected, the
+various terms of the treaty are chiefly concerned with the fertile
+plain of Gu-edin, which had been the original cause of the war. This
+was unreservedly restored to Lagash, or, in the words of the treaty, to
+Ningirsu, whose "beloved territory" it is stated to have been. In order
+that there should be no cause for future dispute with regard to the
+boundary-line separating the territory of Lagash and Umma, a deep ditch
+was dug as a permanent line of demarcation. The ditch is described as
+extending "from the great stream" up to Gu-edin, and with the great
+stream we may probably identify an eastern branch of the Euphrates,
+through which at this period it emptied a portion of its waters into
+the Persian Gulf. The ditch, or canal, received its water from the
+river, and, by surrounding the unprotected sides of Gu-edin, it formed
+not only a line of demarcation but to some extent a barrier to any
+hostile advance on the part of Umma.
+
+On the bank of the frontier-ditch the stele of Mesilim, which had been
+taken away, was erected once more, and another stele was prepared by
+the orders of Eannatum, and was set up beside it. The second monument
+was inscribed with the text of the treaty drawn up between Eannatum and
+Enakalli, and its text was probably identical with the greater part of
+that found upon the fragments of the Stele of the Vultures, which have
+been recovered; for the contents of that text mark it out as admirably
+suited to serve as a permanent memorial of the boundary. After the
+historical narrative describing the events which led up to the new
+treaty, the text of the Stele of the Vultures enumerates in detail the
+divisions of the territory of which Gu-edin was composed. Thus the
+stele which was set up on the frontier formed in itself an additional
+security against the violation of the territory of Lagash. The course
+of a boundary-ditch might possibly be altered, but while the stele
+remained in place, it would serve as a final authority to which appeal
+could be made in the case of any dispute arising. It is probably in
+this way that we may explain the separate fields which are enumerated
+by name upon the fragment of the Stele of the Vultures which is
+preserved in the British Museum,[7] and upon a small foundation-stone
+which also refers to the treaty.[8] The fields there enumerated either
+made up the territory known by the general name of Gu-edin, or perhaps
+formed an addition to that territory, the cession of which Eannatum may
+have exacted from Umma as part of the terms of peace. While consenting
+to the restoration of the disputed territory, and the rectification
+of the frontier, Umma was also obliged to pay as tribute to Lagash a
+considerable quantity of grain, and this Eannatum brought back with him
+to his own city.
+
+In connection with the formal ratification of the treaty it would
+appear that certain shrines or chapels were erected in honour of
+Enlil, Ninkharsag, Ningirsu and Babbar. We may conjecture that this
+was done in order that the help of these deities might be secured for
+the preservation of the treaty. According to Entemena's narrative,[9]
+chapels or shrines were erected to these four deities only, but the
+Stele of the Vultures contains a series of invocations addressed not
+only to Enlil, Ninkharsag, and Babbar, but also to Enki, Enzu, and
+Ninki,[10] and it is probable that shrines were also erected in their
+honour. These were built upon the frontier beside the two stelæ of
+delimitation, and it was doubtless at the altar of each one of them
+in turn that Eannatum and Enakalli took a solemn oath to abide by the
+terms of the treaty and to respect the frontier. The oaths by which
+the treaty was thus ratified are referred to upon the Stele of the
+Vultures[11] by Eannatum, who invokes each of the deities by whom he
+and Enakalli swore, and in a series of striking formulæ calls down
+destruction upon the men of Umma should they violate the terms of the
+compact. "On the men of Umma," he exclaims, "have I, Eannatum, cast the
+great net of Enlil! I have sworn the oath, and the men of Umma have
+sworn the oath to Eannatum. In the name of Enlil, the king of heaven
+and earth, in the field of Ningirsu there has been..., and a ditch has
+been dug down to the water level.... Who from among the men of Umma
+by his word or by his ... will go back upon the word (that has been
+given), and will dispute it in days to come? If at some future time
+they shall alter this word, may the great net of Enlil, by whom they
+have sworn the oath, strike Umma down!"
+
+Eannatum then turns to Ninkharsag, the goddess of the Sumerian city of
+Kesh, and in similar phrases invokes her wrath upon the men of Umma
+should they violate their oath. He states that in his wisdom he has
+presented two doves as offerings before Ninkharsag, and has performed
+other rites in her honour at Kesh, and turning again to the goddess, he
+exclaims, "As concerns my mother, Ninkharsag, who from among the men
+of Umma by his word or by his ... will go back upon the word (that has
+been given), and will dispute it in days to come? If at some future
+time they shall alter this word, may the great net of Ninkharsag, by
+whom they have sworn the oath, strike Umma down!" Enki, the god of the
+abyss of waters beneath the earth, is the next deity to be invoked,
+and before him Eannatum records that he presented certain fish as
+offerings; his net Eannatum has cast over the men of Umma, and should
+they cross the ditch, he prays that destruction may come upon Umma by
+its means. Enzu, the Moon-god of Ur, whom Eannatum describes as "the
+strong bull-calf of Enlil," is then addressed; four doves were set as
+offerings before him, and he is invoked to destroy Umma with his net,
+should the men of that city ever cross Ningirsu's boundary, or alter
+the course of the ditch, or carry away the stele of delimitation.
+Before Babbar, the Sun-god, in his city of Larsa, Eannatum states that
+he has offered bulls as offerings, and his great net, which he has cast
+over the men of Umma, is invoked in similar terms. Finally, Eannatum
+prays to Ninki, by whom the oath has also been taken, to punish any
+violation of the treaty by wiping the might of Umma from off the face
+of the earth.
+
+The great stele of Eannatum, from the text upon which we have taken
+much of the description of his war with Umma, is the most striking
+example of early Sumerian art that has come down to us, and the
+sculptures upon it throw considerable light upon the customs and
+beliefs of this primitive race. The metaphor of the net, for example,
+which is employed by Eannatum throughout the curses he calls down
+upon Umma, in the event of any violation of the treaty, is strikingly
+illustrated by a scene sculptured upon two of the fragments of the
+stele which have been recovered. When complete, the stele consisted of
+a large slab of stone, curved at the top, and it was sculptured and
+inscribed upon both sides and also upon its edges. Up to the present
+time seven fragments of it have been recovered during the course of
+the excavations at Tello, of which six are in the Louvre and one is
+in the British Museum; these are usually distinguished by the symbols
+A to G.[12] Although the fragments thus recovered represent but a
+small proportion of the original monument, it is possible from a
+careful study of them to form a fairly complete idea of the scenes
+that were sculptured upon it. As we have already noted, the monument
+was a stele of victory set up by Eannatum, and the two faces of
+the slab are sculptured in low relief with scenes illustrating the
+victory, but differing considerably in character. On the face the
+representations are mythological and religious, while on the back they
+are historical. It might very naturally be supposed that the face of
+the stele would have been occupied by representations of Eannatum
+himself triumphing over his enemies, and, until the text upon the
+stele was thoroughly deciphered and explained, this was indeed the
+accepted opinion. But it is now clear that Eannatum devoted the front
+of the stele to representations of his gods, while the reverse of the
+monument was considered the appropriate place for the scenes depicting
+the patesi and his army carrying out the divine will. The arrangement
+of the reliefs upon the stone thus forcibly illustrates the belief of
+this early period that the god of the city was its real ruler, whose
+minister and servant the patesi was, not merely in metaphor, but in
+actual fact.
+
+Upon the largest portion of the stele that has been recovered,
+formed of two fragments joined together,[13] we have the scene which
+illustrates Eannatum's metaphor of the net. Almost the whole of this
+portion of the monument is occupied with the figure of a god, which
+appears of colossal size if it is compared with those of the patesi and
+his soldiers upon the reverse of the stele. The god has flowing hair,
+bound with a double fillet, and, while cheeks and lips are shaved,
+a long beard falls in five undulating curls from the chin upon the
+breast. He is nude to the waist, around which he wears a close-fitting
+garment with two folds in front indicated by double lines. It was at
+first suggested that we should see in this figure a representation
+of some early hero, such as Gilgamesh, but there is no doubt that we
+should identify him with Ningirsu, the city-god of Lagash. For in his
+right hand the god holds the emblem of Lagash, the eagle with outspread
+wings, clawing the heads of two lions; and the stele itself, while
+indirectly perpetuating Eannatum's fame, was essentially intended to
+commemorate victories achieved by Ningirsu over his city's enemies.
+This fact will also explain the rest of the scene sculptured upon the
+lower fragment. For the god grasps in his right hand a heavy mace,
+which he lets fall upon a net in front of him containing captive
+foes, whose bodies may be seen between its broad meshes struggling
+and writhing within it. On the relief the cords of the net are
+symmetrically arranged, and it apparently rises as a solid structure
+to the level of the god's waist. It thus has the appearance of a cage
+with cross-bars and supports of wood or metal. But the rounded corners
+at the top indicate that we may regard it as a net formed of ropes and
+cordage. That it should rise stiffly before the god may be partly due
+to the imperfect knowledge of perspective characteristic of all early
+art, partly perhaps to the desire of the sculptor to allow the emblem
+of Lagash, grasped in the god's left hand, to rest upon it; unless
+indeed the emblem itself is a part of the net, by means of which the
+god is holding it up. In any case the proximity of the emblem to the
+net is not fortuitous. Within the net are the foes of Lagash, and with
+the mace in his right hand Ningirsu is represented as clubbing the head
+of one of them which projects from between the meshes.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Part of the Stele of the Vultures, sculptured
+with a scene representing Ningirsu clubbing the enemies of Lagash
+(Shirpurla), whom he has caught in his net.--Fragments D and E,
+Obverse; _Déc._, pl. 4 _bis_.]
+
+
+The metaphor of the net, both of the fisherman and the fowler,
+is familiar in the poetical literature of the Hebrews, and it is
+interesting to note this very early example of its occurrence among the
+primitive Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia.[14] In the text engraved
+upon the Stele of the Vultures Eannatum, as we have already seen, seeks
+to guard the terms of his treaty by placing it under the protection of
+the nets of Enlil and of other deities. He states that he has cast upon
+the men of Umma the nets of the deities by whom he and they have sworn,
+and, in the event of any violation of their oath, he prays that the
+nets may destroy them and their city.[15] Thus the meshes of each net
+may in a sense be regarded as the words of the oath, by the utterance
+of which they have placed themselves within the power of the god whose
+name they have invoked. But the scene on the front of the stele is not
+to be regarded as directly referring to this portion of the text, nor
+is the colossal figure that of Enlil, the chief god of Babylonia. For
+his destruction of the men of Umma is merely invoked as a possible
+occurrence in the future, while the god on the stele is already engaged
+in clubbing captives he has caught; and, whether the net of Ningirsu
+was referred to in a missing portion of the text or not, the fact that
+the figure on the stele grasps the emblem of Lagash is sufficient
+indication that Ningirsu and not Enlil, nor any other deity, is
+intended. Thus the face of the stele illustrates the text of Eannatum
+as a whole, not merely the imprecatory formulæ attached to the treaty
+with Umma. It refers to the past victories of Ningirsu in his character
+as the city-god of Lagash.
+
+The representation of Ningirsu clubbing his enemies forms only a
+portion of a larger scheme which occupied the whole of the upper part
+of the Stele of the Vultures. Though his is the principal figure of
+the composition, it is not set in the centre of the field but on the
+extreme right, the right-hand edge of the fragments illustrated on
+p. 131 representing the actual edge of the stele. On the left behind
+the god and standing in attendance upon him was a goddess, parts of
+whose head and headdress have been recovered upon a fragment from the
+left edge of the stele.[16] She wears a horned crown, and behind her
+is a standard surmounted by an emblem in the form of an eagle with
+outspread wings. She is sculptured on a smaller scale than the figure
+of Ningirsu, and thus serves to indicate his colossal proportions; and
+she stood on a fillet or lintel, which cuts off the upper register
+from a second scene which was sculptured below it. The fragment of the
+stele in the British Museum[17] preserves one of Ningirsu's feet and a
+corner of the net with the prisoners in it, and both are represented
+as resting on the same fillet or lintel. This fragment is a piece of
+some importance, for, by joining two other pieces of the stele in the
+Louvre,[18] it enables us to form some idea of the scene in the lower
+register. Here, too, we have representations of deities, but they are
+arranged on a slightly different plan. We find upon the fragment from
+the right of the stele (C) part of the head and headdress of a goddess
+very like that in the register above. Here she faces to the left, and
+on another fragment (F), which joins the British Museum fragment upon
+the left, is a portion of a very complicated piece of sculpture. This
+has given rise to many conjectures, but there appears to be little
+doubt that it represents the forepart of a chariot. We have the same
+curved front which is seen in the chariot of Eannatum upon the reverse
+of the stele, and the same arrangement of the reins which pass through
+a double ring fixed in the front of the chariot and are hitched over
+a high support. Here the support and the front of the chariot are
+decorated with a form of the emblem of Lagash, the spread eagle and
+the lions, and we may therefore conclude that the chariot is that of
+Ningirsu; indeed, on the left of the fragment a part of the god's plain
+garment may be detected, similar to that which he wears in the upper
+register. He is evidently standing in the chariot, and we may picture
+him riding in triumph after the destruction of his foes.
+
+A close analogy may thus be traced between the two scenes upon the
+front of the stele and the two upper registers upon the back. In the
+latter we have representations of Eannatum on foot leading his warriors
+to battle, and also riding victoriously in a chariot at their head.
+On the front of the stele are scenes of a similar character in the
+religious sphere, representing Ningirsu slaying the enemies of Lagash,
+and afterwards riding in his chariot in triumph. It may also be noted
+that the composition of the scenes in the two registers upon the face
+of the stone is admirably planned. In the upper register the colossal
+figure of Ningirsu with his net, upon the right, is balanced below on
+the left by his figure in the chariot; and, similarly, the smaller
+figure or figures above were balanced by the ass that drew Ningirsu's
+chariot, and the small figure of a goddess who faces him.
+
+There are few indications to enable us to identify the goddesses who
+accompany Ningirsu. If the figures in both registers represent the same
+divine personage the names of several goddesses suggest themselves. We
+might, perhaps, see in her Ningirsu's wife Bau, the daughter of Anu, or
+his sister Ninâ, the goddess of the oracle, to whose service Eannatum
+was specially devoted, or Gatumdug, the mother of Lagash. But the
+military standard which accompanies the goddess in the upper scene, and
+the ends of two darts or javelins which appear in the same fragment
+to rise from, or be bound upon, her shoulders, seem to show that the
+upper goddess, at any rate, is of a warlike character. Moreover, in
+another inscription, Eannatum ascribes a success he has achieved in war
+to the direct intervention of the goddess Ninni,[19] proving that she,
+like the later Babylonian and Assyrian goddess Ishtar, was essentially
+the goddess of battle. It is permissible, therefore, to see in the
+upper goddess, sculptured upon the face of the Stele of the Vultures,
+a representation of Ninni, the goddess of battle, who attends the
+city-god Ningirsu while he is engaged in the slaughter of his foes. In
+the lower register it is possible we have a second representation of
+Ninni, where she appears to welcome Ningirsu after the slaughter is at
+an end. But though the headdresses of the two goddesses are identical,
+the accompanying emblems appear to differ, and we are thus justified in
+suggesting for the lower figure some goddess other than Ninni, whose
+work was finished when Ningirsu had secured the victory. The deity most
+fitted to gladden Ningirsu's sight on his return would have been his
+faithful wife Bau, who was wont to recline beside her lord upon his
+couch within the temple E-ninnû. We may thus provisionally identify the
+goddess of the lower register with Bau, who is there portrayed going
+out to meet the chariot of her lord and master upon his return from
+battle.
+
+Perhaps the scenes which are sculptured upon the back of the Stele of
+the Vultures are of even greater interest than those upon its face,
+since they afford us a picture of these early Sumerian peoples as they
+appeared when engaged in the continual wars which were waged between
+the various city-states. Like the scenes upon the face of the stele,
+those upon the back are arranged in separate registers, divided one
+from the other by raised bands, or fillets, stretching across the face
+of the monument and representing the soil on which the scenes portrayed
+above them took place. The registers upon the back are smaller than
+those on the face, being at least four in number, in place of the
+two scenes which are devoted to Ningirsu and his attendant deities.
+As might be expected, the scenes upon the back of the stele are on a
+smaller scale than those upon the face, and the number and variety of
+the figures composing them are far greater. Little space has been left
+on the reverse of the stone for the inscription, the greater part of
+which is engraved on the front of the monument, in the broad spaces
+of the field between the divine figures. Of the highest of the four
+registers upon the reverse four fragments have been recovered,[20] one
+of which (A) proves that the curved head of the stele on this side
+was filled with the representations of vultures, to which reference
+has already been made.[21] The intention of the sculptor was clearly
+to represent them as flying thick in the air overhead, bearing off
+from the field of battle the severed heads and limbs of the slain.
+The birds thus formed a very decorative and striking feature of the
+monument, and the popular name of the stele, which is derived from
+them, is fully justified. In the same register on the left is a scene
+representing Eannatum leading his troops in battle.[22] and we there
+see them advancing over the bodies of the slain; while from the extreme
+right of the same register we have a fragment representing men engaged
+in collecting the dead and piling them in heaps for burial.[23] We may
+conjecture that the central portion of the register, which is missing,
+portrayed the enemies of Eannatum falling before his lance. In the
+register immediately below we find another representation of Eannatum
+at the head of his troops. Here, however, they are not in battle array
+but on the march, and Eannatum, instead of advancing on foot, is riding
+before them in his chariot.[24]
+
+The sculptured representations of Eannatum and his soldiers, which
+are preserved upon these fragments, are of the greatest importance,
+for they give a vivid picture of the Sumerian method of fighting,
+and supply detailed information with regard to the arms and armour
+in use at this early period. We note that the Sumerians advanced to
+the attack in a solid phalanx, the leading rank being protected by
+huge shields or bucklers that covered the whole body from the neck to
+the feet, and were so broad that, when lined up in battle array, only
+enough space was left for a lance to be levelled between each; the
+lance-bearers carried as an additional weapon an axe, resembling an
+adze with a flat head. From the second register, in which we see the
+army on the march, it is clear that no shield was carried by the rank
+and file for individual protection; the huge bucklers were only borne
+by men in the front rank, and they thus served to protect the whole
+front of an attacking force as it advanced in solid formation. In the
+scene in the upper register two soldiers are sculptured behind each
+shield, and in each gap between the shields six lances are levelled
+which are grasped firmly in both hands by the soldiers wielding them.
+The massing of the lances in this fashion is obviously a device of the
+sculptor to suggest six rows of soldiers advancing one behind the other
+to the attack. But the fact that each lance is represented as grasped
+in both hands by its owner proves that the shields were not carried by
+the lance-bearers themselves, but by soldiers stationed in the front,
+armed only with an axe. The sole duty of a shield-bearer during an
+attack in phalanx was clearly to keep his shield in position, which was
+broad enough to protect his own body and that of the lance-bearer on
+his right. Thus the representation of two soldiers behind each buckler
+on the Stele of the Vultures is a perfectly accurate detail. As soon
+as an attack had been successfully delivered, and the enemy was in
+flight, the shield-bearers could discard the heavy shields they carried
+and join in the pursuit. The light axe with which they were armed was
+admirably suited for hand-to-hand conflicts, and it is probable that
+the lance-bearers themselves abandoned their heavy weapons and had
+recourse to the axe when they broke their close formation.
+
+Both Eannatum and his soldiers wear a conical helmet, covering the
+brow and carried down low at the back so as to protect the neck, the
+royal helmet being distinguished by the addition at the sides of
+moulded pieces to protect the ears. Both the shields and the helmets
+were probably of leather, though the nine circular bosses on the face
+of each of the former may possibly have been of metal. Their use was
+clearly to strengthen the shields, and they were probably attached to
+a wooden framework on the other side. They would also tend to protect
+the surface of the shields by deflecting blows aimed at them. The royal
+weapons consisted of a long lance or spear, wielded in the left hand,
+and a curved mace or throwing-stick, formed of three strands bound
+together at intervals with thongs of leather or bands of metal. When
+in his chariot on the march, the king was furnished with additional
+weapons, consisting of a flat-headed axe like those of his soldiers,
+and a number of light darts, some fitted with double points. These last
+he carried in a huge quiver attached to the fore part of his chariot,
+and with them we may note a double-thonged whip, doubtless intended for
+driving the ass or asses that drew the vehicle. It is probable that the
+soldiers following Eannatum in both scenes were picked men, who formed
+the royal body-guard, for those in the battle-scene are distinguished
+by the long hair or, rather, wig, that falls upon their shoulders
+from beneath their helmets,[25] and those on the march are seen to be
+clothed from the waist downwards in the rough woollen garment similar
+to that worn by the king. They may well have been recruited among
+the members of the royal house and the chief families of Lagash. The
+king's apparel is distinguished from theirs by the addition of a cloak,
+possibly of skin,[26] worn over the left shoulder in such a way that it
+leaves the right arm and shoulder entirely free.
+
+Considerable light is thrown upon the burial customs of the Sumerians
+by the scene sculptured in the third register, or section, on the
+reverse of the stele of Eannatum. Portions of the scene are preserved
+upon the fragments C and F, which we have already noted may be
+connected with each other by means of the fragment G, preserved in
+the British Museum. In this register we have a representation of the
+scenes following the victory of Eannatum, when the king and his army
+had time to collect their dead and bury them with solemn rites and
+sacrifices beneath huge tells or burial-mounds. It will be remembered
+that a fragment of the top register portrays the collection of the
+dead upon the battlefield; here, on the left, we see the mounds in
+course of construction, under which the dead were buried.[27] The dead
+are quite nude, and are seen to be piled up in rows, head to head and
+feet to feet alternately. The two corpses at the base are sculptured
+lying flat upon the ground, and, as the tell rises, they appear to
+be arranged like the sticks of a fan. This arrangement was doubtless
+due to the sculptor's necessity of filling the semi-circular head of
+the tell, and does not represent the manner in which the corpses were
+actually arranged for burial. We may conclude that they were set out
+symmetrically in double rows, and that the position of every one was
+horizontal, additional rows being added until sufficient height had
+been attained.
+
+[Illustration: PORTION OF THE "STELE OF VULTURES," SCULPTURED WITH A
+SCENE REPRESENTING THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD AFTER A BATTLE.--_In the
+Louvre; photo, by Messrs. Mansell & Co._]
+
+Two living figures are sculptured on the fragment, engaged in the work
+of completing the burial. They are represented as climbing the pile
+of corpses, and they seem to be helping themselves up by means of a
+rope which they grasp in their right hands. On their heads they carry
+baskets piled up with earth, which they are about to throw upon the top
+of the mound. In the relief they appear to be climbing upon the limbs
+of the dead, but it is probable that they began piling earth from below
+and climbed the sides of the mound as it was raised. The sculptor has
+not seen how to represent the sides of the tell without hiding his
+corpses, so he has omitted the piled earth altogether, unless, indeed,
+what appears to be a rope which the carriers hold is really intended
+for the side of the mound in section. It has been suggested that the
+carriers are bearing offerings for the dead, but the baskets appear to
+be heaped with earth, not offerings, and the record in the text upon
+the stele, that Eannatum piled up twenty burial-mounds after his battle
+with the men of Umma, is sufficient justification for the view that the
+scene represents one of these mounds in course of construction.
+
+[Illustration: Part of the Stele of the Vultures, sculptured with a
+sacrificial scene which took place at the burial of the dead after
+battle. The fragments represents the head of a bull, which is staked
+to the ground and prepared for sacrifice. The foot and robe probably
+belonged to a figure of Eannatum, who presided at the funeral
+rites.--Fragment F, Reverse; _Déc.,_ pl. 4 _ter_.]
+
+The continuation of the scene upon the other two fragments,[28] proves
+that the burial of the dead was attended with elaborate funeral rites,
+and the offering of sacrifices. To the right of the workers engaged
+in piling up the burial-mound may be seen a bull lying on his back
+upon the ground, and bound securely with ropes to two stout stakes
+driven into the soil close to its head and tail. He is evidently the
+victim, duly prepared for sacrifice, that will be offered when the
+burial-mound has been completed. In the field above the bull are
+sculptured other victims and offerings, which were set out beside the
+bull. We see a row of six lambs or kids, decapitated, and arranged
+symmetrically, neck to tail, and tail to neck. Two large water-pots,
+with wide mouths, and tapering towards the base, stand on the right
+of the bull; palm-branches, placed in them, droop down over their
+rims, and a youth, completely nude, is pouring water into one of them
+from a smaller vessel. He is evidently pouring out a libation, as we
+may infer from a similar scene on another early Sumerian relief that
+has been recovered.[29] Beyond the large vessels there appear to be
+bundles of faggots, and in the field above them are sculptured a row
+of growing plants. These probably do not rise from the large vessels,
+as they appear to do in the sculpture, but form a separate row beyond
+the faggots and the vessels. At the head of the bull may be seen the
+foot and part of the robe of a man who directs the sacrifice. As in all
+the other registers upon the reverse of the stele Eannatum occupies a
+prominent position, we may conclude that this is part of the figure of
+Eannatum himself. He occupies the centre of the field in this register,
+and presides at the funeral rites of the warriors who have fallen in
+his service.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Part of the Stele of the Vultures, which was
+sculptured with a scene representing Eannatum deciding the fate of
+prisoners taken in battle. The point of the spear, which he grasped in
+his left hand, touches the head of the captive king of Kish.--Fragments
+C and F, Reverse; _Déc.,_ pl. 3 and 4 _ter_.]
+
+Of the last scene that is preserved upon the Stele of the Vultures very
+little remains upon the fragments recovered, but this is sufficient
+to indicate its character. Eannatum was here portrayed deciding the
+fate of prisoners taken in battle. Of his figure only the left hand
+is preserved; it is grasping a heavy spear or lance by the end of the
+shaft as in the second register. The spear passes over the shaven heads
+of a row of captives, and at the end of the row its point touches the
+head of a prisoner of more exalted rank, who faces the king and raises
+one hand in token of submission. A fragment of inscription behind the
+head of this captive gives the name "Al-[...], King of Kish," and it
+may be concluded with considerable probability that these words form
+a label attached to the figure of the chief prisoner, like the labels
+engraved near the head of Eannatum in the two upper registers, which
+describe him as "Eannatum, champion of the god Ningirsu." There is
+much more to be said for this explanation than for the possibility
+that the words formed part of an account of a war waged by Eannatum
+against Kish, which has been added to the record of his war with Umma.
+According to such a view the stele must have been larger than we have
+supposed, since it would have included additional registers at the
+base of the reverse for recording the subsequent campaigns and their
+illustration by means of reliefs. The monument would thus have been
+erected to commemorate all the wars of Eannatum. But that against
+Umma would be the most important, and its record, copied directly
+from the text of the treaty, would still occupy three quarters of the
+stone. Moreover, we should have to suppose that the scribe slavishly
+copied the text of the stele of delimitation even down to its title,
+and made no attempt to assimilate with it the later records, which
+we must assume he added in the form of additional paragraphs. Such a
+supposition is extremely unlikely, and it is preferable to regard the
+words behind the prisoner's head as a label, and to conclude that the
+connected text of the stele ended, as it appears to do, with the name
+and description of the stone, which is engraved as a sort of colophon
+upon the upper part of the field in the fourth register.
+
+According to this alternative we need assume the existence of no
+registers other than those of which we already possess fragments, and
+the conception and arrangement of the reliefs gains immensely in unity
+and coherence. On the obverse we have only two registers, the upper one
+rather larger than the one below, and both devoted, as we have seen, to
+representations of Ningirsu and his attendant goddesses. The reverse
+of the stone, divided into four registers, is assigned entirely to
+Eannatum, who is seen leading his troops to the attack, returning in
+his chariot from the field of battle, performing funeral rites for his
+dead soldiers, and deciding the fate of captives he has taken. Thus the
+reliefs admirably illustrate the description of the war with Umma, and
+we may conclude that the Stele of the Vultures was either the actual
+stele of delimitation set up by Eannatum upon the frontier, or, as is
+more probable, an exact copy of its text, embellished with sculptures,
+upon a stone which Eannatum caused to be carved and set up within
+his own city as a memorial of his conquest. Indeed, we may perhaps
+make the further assumption that the stele was erected within the
+temple of Ningirsu, since it commemorates the recovery of Gu-edin, the
+territory that was peculiarly his own. The Stele of the Vultures, with
+its elaborate and delicate relief, would have been out of place upon
+the frontier of Gu-edin, where, we may conjecture, the memorial stone
+would have been made as strong and plain as possible, so as to offer
+little scope for mutilation. But, if destined to be set up within the
+shelter of Ningirsu's temple in Lagash, the sculptor would have had no
+restriction placed upon his efforts; and the prominent place assigned
+to Ningirsu in the reliefs, upon the face of the memorial, is fully in
+keeping with the suggestion that the Stele of the Vultures at one time
+stood within his shrine.
+
+In favour of the view that the monument was not the actual stele of
+delimitation we may note that towards the close of its text some
+four columns were taken up with lists of other conquests achieved
+by Eannatum. But in all "kudurru-inscriptions," or boundary-stones,
+which were intended to safeguard the property or claims of private
+individuals, the texts close with a series of imprecations calling
+down the anger of the gods upon any one infringing the owner's rights
+in any way. Now in general character the text upon the Stele of the
+Vultures closely resembles the "kudurru-inscriptions," only differing
+from them in that it sets out to delimit, not the fields and estates
+of individuals, but the respective territories of two city-states.
+We should therefore expect that, like them, it would close with
+invocations to the gods. Moreover, the Cone of Entemena, the text of
+which was undoubtedly copied from a similar stele of delimitation, ends
+with curses, and not with a list of Entemena's own achievements. But if
+the short list of Eannatum's titles and conquests be omitted, the text
+upon the Stele of the Vultures would end with the series of invocations
+to Enlil and other deities, to which reference has already been made.
+We may therefore conclude that the original text, as engraved upon the
+stele of delimitation, did end at this point, and that the list of
+other conquests was only added upon the memorial erected in Ningirsu's
+temple.
+
+Apart from the interest attaching to the memorial itself, this point
+has a bearing upon the date of the conquest of Umma in relation to the
+other successful wars conducted by Eannatum in the course of his reign.
+It might reasonably be urged that the subjugation of the neighbouring
+city of Umma would have preceded the conquest of more distant lands and
+cities, over which Eannatum succeeded in imposing his sway. In that
+case we must assume that the list of conquests upon the Stele of the
+Vultures was added at a later date. On the other hand, it is equally
+possible that the war with Umma took place well on in Eannatum's
+reign, and that, while the patesi and his army were away on distant
+expeditions, their ancient rival Umma refrained from taking advantage
+of their absence to gain control of the coveted territory of Gu-edin.
+Both cities may for years have respected the terms of Mesilim's treaty,
+and Lagash, while finding scope elsewhere for her ambition, may have
+been content to acquiesce in the claims of independence put forward
+by her nearest neighbour. Thus the list of Eannatum's conquests may
+well have been engraved upon the Stele of the Vultures at the time
+the treaty with Umma was drawn up. In accordance with this view we
+shall see there are reasons for believing that several of Eannatum's
+conquests did take place before his war with Umma, and it is quite
+possible to assign to this earlier period the others that are mentioned
+in the list.
+
+The conquest of Kish stands in close relation to that of Umma, for,
+apart from the portrayal of the king of Kish as a captive upon the
+Stele of the Vultures, there is a passage in the main body of the
+inscription which would seem to connect the outbreak of war between
+Umma and Lagash with the influence of that city. In the broken passage
+recording the encouragement given to Eannatum by Ningirsu after the
+raid of Gu-edin, the names of Umma and Kish occur together, and the
+context of the passage suggests that Ningirsu here promises his patesi
+victory over both these cities.[30] We may, therefore, conjecture that
+the ambitious designs described by Entemena as actuating Ush, the
+patesi of Umma, in raiding the territory of Lagash, were fostered by
+the city of Kish. It is probable that Eannatum had already given proof
+of his qualities as a military leader, and had caused the king of Kish
+to see in Lagash a possible rival for the hegemony which the North had
+long enjoyed. To sow dissension between her and her neighbour Umma,
+would have appeared a most effective method of crippling her growing
+power, and it is possible that the king of Kish not only promised his
+support, but furnished a contingent of his own soldiers to assist in
+the attack. The representation of the captive king of Kish upon the
+Stele of the Vultures may possibly be interpreted as proving that he
+led his troops in person, and was captured during the battle. But the
+relief is, perhaps, not to be taken too literally, and may merely
+symbolize the defeat of his forces along with those of Umma, and his
+failure to render them any effective aid. On the other hand, in a text
+engraved upon one of his foundation-stones,[31] Eannatum boasts that
+he added the kingdom of Kish to his dominions: "Eannatum, patesi of
+Lagash, by the goddess Ninni who loves him, along with the patesiate of
+Lagash was presented with the kingdom of Kish." It would seem that in
+this passage Eannatum lays claim, not only to have defeated Kish, but
+also to exercising suzeranity over the northern kingdom.
+
+With Eannatum's victory over Kish we must probably connect the success
+which he achieved over another northern city, Opis. For towards the
+end of the text upon the foundation-stone referred to above, these
+achievements appear to be described as a single event, or, at least,
+as two events of which the second closely follows and supplements the
+first. In the course of the formulæ celebrating the principal conquests
+of his reign, Eannatum exclaims: "By Eannatum was Elam broken in the
+head, Elam was driven back to his own land; Kish was broken in the
+head, and the king of Opis was driven back to his own land."[32] When
+referring to the victory over Opis in an earlier passage of the same
+inscription, Eannatum names the king who attacked him, and, although he
+does not give many details of the war, it may be inferred that Opis was
+defeated only after a severe struggle. "When the king of Opis rose up,"
+the text runs, "Eannatum, whose name was spoken by Ningirsu, pursued
+Zuzu, king of Opis, from the Antasurra of Ningirsu up to the city of
+Opis, and there he smote him and destroyed him."[33] We have already
+seen reasons for believing that the king of Kish took an active part in
+Umma's war with Lagash, and shared her defeat; and we may conjecture
+that it was to help and avenge his ally that Zuzu, king of Opis,
+marched south and attacked Eannatum. That he met with some success at
+first is perhaps indicated by the point from which Eannatum records
+that he drove him back to his own land. For the Antasurra was a shrine
+or temple dedicated to Ningirsu, and stood within the territory of
+Lagash, though possibly upon or near the frontier. Here Eannatum met
+the invaders in force, and not only dislodged them, but followed up his
+victory by pursuing them back to their own city, where he claims that
+he administered a still more crushing defeat. It is possible that the
+conquest of Ma'er, or Mari, took place at this time, and in connection
+with the war with Opis and Kish, for in one passage Eannatum refers to
+the defeat of these three states at the Antasurra of Ningirsu. Ma'er
+may well have been allied with Kish and Opis, and may have contributed
+a contingent to the army led by Zuzu in his attack on Lagash.
+
+[Illustration: PORTION OF A BLACK BASALT MORTAR BEARING AN INSCRIPTION
+OF EANNATUM, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA.--_Brit. Mus., No._ 90832_; photo, by
+Messrs. Mansell & Co._]
+
+It is interesting to note that Kish and the king of Kish represented
+the most dreaded enemies of Lagash, at least during a portion of the
+reign of Eannatum. For on a mortar of black basalt which is preserved
+in the British Museum,[34] Eannatum, after recording that he has
+dedicated it to Ninâ, "the Lady of the Holy Mountain," prays that
+no man may damage it or carry it away; and he then adds the petition,
+"May the King of Kish not seize it!" This ejaculation is eloquent of
+the dread which the northern kingdom inspired in the cities of the
+south, and we may see in it evidence of many a raid during which the
+temples of Lagash had been despoiled of their treasures. We may well
+ascribe the dedication of the altar and the cutting of the inscription
+to the early part of Eannatum's reign; at any rate, to a period before
+the power of Kish was broken in the south; and, if we are right in
+this supposition, the mortar may perhaps serve to date another group
+of Eannatum's campaigns. For in a passage on the second side of this
+monument it appears to be recorded that he had conquered the cities
+of Erech and Ur. The passage follows the invocations set forth by
+Eannatum upon the other side, in the course of which he prays that no
+one shall remove the mortar, or cast it into the fire, or damage it in
+any way; and it might be argued that the lines were an addition made
+to the original text of dedication at a considerably later period.
+In that case the passage would afford no proof that the conquest of
+Ur and Erech preceded that of Kish. But both sides of the monument
+have the appearance of having been engraved by the same hand, and we
+are probably justified in assuming that the whole of the inscription
+was placed upon the vessel at the time it was made. We may thus
+provisionally place the conquest of Ur and Erech before that of Kish.
+Further, in his foundation-inscriptions, Eannatum groups his conquest
+of Ur and Erech with that of Ki-babbar, "the place of the Sun-god," a
+term which may with considerable probability be identified with Larsa,
+the centre of the cult of the Sun-god in Southern Babylonia. It would
+thus appear that Eannatum conquered these cities, all situated in the
+extreme south of Babylonia at about the same period, and probably in
+the early part of his reign.
+
+An indication that we are right in placing the southern conquests
+of Eannatum before the war with Umma may, perhaps, be seen in the
+invocations to deities engraved upon the Stele of the Vultures with
+which Eannatum sought to protect his treaty. In the course of the
+invocations Eannatum states that he has made offerings to the goddess
+Ninkharsag in the city of Kesh, to Enzu, the Moon-god, in Ur, and to
+Babbar, the Sun-god, in Larsa. These passages we may assume refer to
+offerings made by Eannatum in his character of suzerain, and, if this
+view is correct, we must conclude that the conquest of these cities
+had already taken place. The invocation to Enki perhaps presupposes
+that Eridu also was in the hands of Eannatum at this time, a corollary
+that would almost necessarily follow, if the three neighbouring cities
+of Ur, Erech, and Larsa had fallen before his arms. Accordingly, the
+list of gods by whom Eannatum and the men of Umma swore to preserve
+the treaty becomes peculiarly significant. They were selected on
+political as much as on purely religious grounds, and in their combined
+jurisdiction represented the extent of Eannatum's dominion in Sumer
+at the time. That a ruler should be in a position to exact an oath by
+such powerful city-gods was obviously calculated to inspire respect
+for his own authority, while the names of the gods themselves formed
+a sufficient guarantee that divine punishment would surely follow any
+violation of the treaty. The early successes gained by Eannatum, by
+which he was enabled to exercise suzerainty over the principal cities
+of Southern Babylonia, may well have been the cause of his arousing the
+active hostility of Kish and Opis. When he had emerged victorious from
+his subsequent struggle with the northern cities, we may assume that he
+claimed the title of king, which he employs in place of his more usual
+title of patesi in certain passages in the text of his treaty with Umma.
+
+The other conquests recorded in the inscriptions of Eannatum fall into
+two groups. In all the lists of his victories that have come down
+to us--on the Stele of the Vultures, the foundation-stones, and the
+brick-inscriptions--the defeat of Elam is given the first place. This
+is probably not to be taken as implying that it was the first in order
+of time. It is true that the order in which the conquered districts
+and cities are arranged is generally the same in the different lists,
+but this is not invariably the case. Apart from differences caused by
+the omission or insertion of names, the order is sometimes altered;
+thus the conquest of Arua is recorded before that of Ur on the Stele
+of the Vultures, whereas on the foundation-stones this arrangement
+is reversed. It would, therefore, be rash to assume that they were
+enumerated in the order of their occurrence; it is more probable that
+the conquered states and districts are grouped on a rough geographical
+basis, and that these groups are arranged according to the importance
+attaching to them. That Elam should always be mentioned first in the
+lists is probably due to the fact that she was the hereditary enemy
+of the cities of Sumer and Akkad, whose rulers could never be sure of
+immunity from her attacks. The agricultural wealth of Babylonia offered
+a tempting prey to the hardy tribes who dwelt among the hills upon the
+western border of Elam, and the dread of the raider and mountaineer,
+experienced by the dweller in the plain, is expressed by Eannatum in
+his description of Elam as "the mountain that strikes terror."[35]
+
+That in their conflict with Eannatum the Elamites were, as usual, the
+aggressors, is clear from the words of the record upon his longer
+foundation-inscription--"by Eannatum was Elam broken in the head, Elam
+was driven back to his own land."[36] In other passages referring to
+the discomfiture of the Elamites, Eannatum adds the formula that "he
+heaped up burial-mounds," a phrase which would seem to imply that the
+enemy were only defeated with considerable loss.[37] It is not unlikely
+that we may fix the field of battle, upon which the forces of Elam were
+defeated, on the banks of the Asukhur Canal, which had been cut two
+generations before by Ur-Ninâ, Eannatum's grandfather; at least, the
+canal gives its name to a battlefield which is mentioned immediately
+before the name of Elam in one of the lists of conquests. It would thus
+seem that the Elamites were engaged in raiding the territory of Lagash
+when Eannatum fell upon them with his army and drove them northwards
+and across the Tigris.
+
+Closely associated with Eannatum's success against the Elamites were
+his conquest of Shakh, of a city the reading of the name for which is
+unknown, and probably also of a land or district which bore the name of
+Sunanam. The conquest of this last place is only mentioned in a broken
+passage upon the Stele of the Vultures,[38] between the names of Elam
+and Shakh, and that of the unknown city, so that little can be inferred
+with regard to it. Shakh, on the other hand, whenever it is referred
+to in the inscriptions of Eannatum, follows immediately after the name
+of Elam, and it was not improbably a district on the Elamite frontier
+which Eannatum ravaged during his pursuit of the invaders. The city
+with the unknown name[39] was evidently a place of some importance,
+for not only was it governed by a patesi, but when its conquest is
+mentioned in the lists details are usually given. The interpretation
+of a phrase recording its patesi's action with regard to the emblem of
+the city is not quite certain, but it would appear that on the approach
+of Eannatum he planted it before the city-gate. The context would
+seem to imply that this was intended as an act of defiance, not of
+submission, for Eannatum states that he conquered the city and heaped
+up burial-mounds. The site of the city, like its name, is unknown, but
+since the records referring to it always follow those concerning Elam,
+we may provisionally regard it as having lain in the direction of the
+Elamite frontier.
+
+The remaining group of Eannatum's conquests comprise the victories he
+achieved over Az, Mishime, and Arua. The first of these places was
+a city ruled by a patesi, whom Eannatum slew when he captured and
+destroyed it. It was formerly regarded as situated in the neighbourhood
+of the Persian Gulf, but the grounds on which this view was held have
+proved inadequate.[40] Moreover, Eannatum's references to Mishime and
+Arua do not assist us much in determining their positions, for he
+merely states that he destroyed and annihilated them. In a passage
+upon the Stele of the Vultures, however, a reference to the land of
+Sumer follows closely upon a record of the conquest of Arua,[41]
+which perhaps is an indication that all three places should be
+sought in Southern Babylonia. We are thus without data for settling
+definitely the region in which this group of cities lay, and we are
+equally without information as to the period of his reign in which
+Eannatum captured or destroyed them. The fact that they are mentioned
+last in the lists is no proof that they were among his most recent
+conquests; it may merely be due to their relatively small importance.
+In support of this suggestion we may note that in the longest of his
+foundation-inscriptions Eannatum refers to them once only, while his
+successes against Elam and the northern cities are celebrated in two or
+three separate passages.
+
+From the preceding discussion of the campaigns of Eannatum it will have
+been seen that during his reign a considerable expansion took place
+in the power and influence of Lagash. From being a city-state with
+her influence restricted to her own territory, she became head of a
+confederation of the great Sumerian cities, she successfully disputed
+with the northern cities the hegemony in Babylonia, and she put a check
+upon the encroachments of Elam, the hereditary foe of Sumer and Akkad
+alike. According to the view of Eannatum's conquests which has been
+put forward, the first expansion of the city's influence took place
+southwards. The cities of Ur, Erech, Larsa, Kesh, and probably Eridu,
+had already become her vassal states, before Kish and Opis attempted to
+curtail her growing power; and in the war which followed it is probable
+that we may see a struggle between the combined forces of Sumer on the
+one hand, and those of Akkad on the other. One of the most important
+episodes in this conflict was the war with Umma, since the raid by the
+men of that city into the territory of Lagash furnished the occasion
+for the outbreak of hostilities. The issue of the conflict placed
+Lagash in the position of the leading city in Babylonia. The fact that
+from this time forward Eannatum did not permanently adopt the title of
+"king" in his inscriptions, may perhaps be traced to his preference for
+the religious title of "patesi," which emphasized his dependence upon
+his own city-god Ningirsu.
+
+The military character of Eannatum is reflected in his inscriptions,
+which in this respect form a striking contrast to those of his
+grandfather, Ur-Ninâ. While the earlier king's records are confined
+entirely to lists of temples and other buildings, which he erected or
+restored in Lagash and its neighbourhood, the texts of Eannatum are
+devoted almost exclusively to his wars. From a few scattered passages,
+however, we gather that he did not entirely neglect the task of adding
+to and beautifying the temples in his capital. Thus he built a temple
+for the goddess Gatumdug, and added to other buildings which were
+already standing in Ur-Ninâ's time. But his energies in this direction
+were mainly devoted to repairing the fortifications of Lagash, and to
+putting the city in a complete state of defence. Thus he boasts that
+he built the wall of Lagash and made it strong. Since Ur-Ninâ's time,
+when the city-wall had been thoroughly repaired, it is probable that
+the defences of the city had been weakened, for Eannatum also records
+that he restored Girsu, one of the quarters of the city, which we
+may suppose had suffered on the same occasion, and had been allowed
+to remain since then in a partly ruined condition. In honour of the
+goddess Ninâ he also records that he rebuilt, or perhaps largely
+increased, the quarter of the city which was named after her, and he
+constructed a wall for the special protection of Uru-azagga, another
+quarter of Lagash. In fact, the political expansion, which took place
+at this period in the power of Lagash, was accompanied by an equally
+striking increase in the size and defences of the city itself.
+
+During the reign of Eannatum it is clear that the people of Lagash
+enjoyed a considerable measure of prosperity, for, although they were
+obliged to furnish men for their patesi's army, the state acquired
+considerable wealth from the sack of conquered cities, and from the
+tribute of grain and other supplies which was levied upon them as a
+mark of their permanent subjection. Moreover, the campaigns could not
+have been of very long duration, and, after the return of the army
+on the completion of a war, it is probable that the greater part of
+it would be disbanded, and the men would go back to their ordinary
+occupations. Thus the successful prosecution of his foreign policy by
+Eannatum did not result in any impoverishment of the material resources
+of his people, and the fertile plains around the city were not left
+untilled for lack of labour. Indeed, it would appear that in the
+latter part of his reign he largely increased the area of land under
+cultivation. For in his longer foundation-inscriptions, after recording
+his principal conquests, he states: "In that day Eannatum did (as
+follows). Eannatum, ... when his might had borne fruit, dug a new canal
+for Ningirsu, and he named it Lummadimdug." By the expression "when his
+might had borne fruit," it is clear that Eannatum refers to the latter
+part of his reign, when he was no longer obliged to place his army
+incessantly in the field, and he and his people were enabled to devote
+themselves to the peaceful task of developing the material resources of
+their own district in Sumer.
+
+Another canal, which we know was cut by Eannatum, was that
+separating the plain of Gu-edin from the territory of Umma, but this
+was undertaken, not for purposes of irrigation, but rather as a
+frontier-ditch to mark the limits of the territory of Lagash in that
+direction. There is little doubt, however, that at least a part of its
+stream was used for supplying water to those portions of Gu-edin which
+lay along its banks. Like the canal Lummadimdug, this frontier-ditch
+was also dedicated to Ningirsu, and in the inscription upon a small
+column which records this fact, the name of the canal is given as
+Lummagirnuntashagazaggipadda. But this exceedingly long title was only
+employed upon state occasions, such as the ceremony of dedication; in
+common parlance the name was abbreviated to Lummagirnunta, as we learn
+from the reference to it upon Entemena's Cone. It is of interest to
+note that in the title of the stone of delimitation, which occurs upon
+the Stele of the Vultures, reference is made to a canal named Ug-edin,
+the title of the stone being given as "O Ningirsu, lord of the crown
+..., give life unto the canal Ug-edin!" In the following lines the
+monument itself is described as "the Stele of Gu-edin, the territory
+beloved of Ningirsu, which I, Eannatum, have restored to Ningirsu"; so
+that it is clear that the canal, whose name is incorporated in that
+of the stele, must have had some connection with the frontier-ditch.
+Perhaps the canal Ug-edin is to be identified with Lummagirnunta,
+unless one of the two was a subsidiary canal.
+
+For the supply of his principal irrigation-canal with water after the
+period of the spring-floods, Eannatum did not depend solely upon such
+water as might find its way in from the river, before the surface
+of the latter sank below the level of the canal-bed; nor did he
+confine himself to the laborious method of raising it from the river
+to his canal by means of irrigation-machines. Both these methods of
+obtaining water he doubtless employed, but he supplemented them by the
+construction of a reservoir, which should retain at least a portion of
+the surplus water during the early spring, and store it up for gradual
+use in the fields after the water-level in the river and canals had
+fallen. In the passage in his foundation-inscription, which records
+this fact, he says: "For Ningirsu he founded the canal Lummadimdug
+and dedicated it to him; Eannatum, endowed with strength by Ningirsu,
+constructed the reservoir of Lummadimdug, with a capacity of three
+thousand six hundred _gur_ of water."[42] It is true that his reservoir
+was not of very imposing dimensions, but its construction proves that
+Eannatum or his engineers had studied the problem of irrigation in a
+scientific spirit, and had already evolved the method of obtaining
+a constant water-supply which is still regarded as giving the best
+results.
+
+[Illustration: BRICK OF EANNATUM, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA, RECORDING HIS
+GENEALOGY AND CONQUESTS, AND COMMEMORATING THE SINKING OF WELLS IN
+SHIRPURLA.--_Brit. Mus., No._ 85977; _photo, by Messrs. Mansell & Co._]
+
+Smaller canals were possibly dug during Eannatum's reign for supplying
+water to those quarters of Lagash which he improved or added to; and
+we also know that, where canalization was impracticable, he obtained
+water by sinking wells. Within the enclosure of Ningirsu's temple, for
+instance, he constructed a well for supplying the temple with water,
+and some of the bricks have been recovered which lined the well on the
+inside.[43] On these he inscribed his name beside those of the gods
+by whom he had been favoured; and, after giving a list of his more
+important conquests, he recorded that he had built the well in the
+spacious forecourt of the temple, and had named it Sigbirra, and had
+dedicated it to Ningirsu. From the reference to his conquests in the
+inscription upon the bricks, it is clear that the sinking of the well,
+like the cutting of the irrigation-canal Lummadimdug, took place in the
+later years of Eannatum's reign.
+
+The phrase with which the well-inscription of Eannatum ends may be
+taken as indicating the measure of prosperity to which the state of
+Lagash attained under his rule. "In those days," it says, "did Ningirsu
+love Eannatum." But Eannatum's claim to remembrance rests, as we have
+seen, in a greater degree upon his military successes, by means of
+which he was enabled to extend the authority of Lagash over the whole
+of Sumer and a great part of Akkad. He proved himself strong enough at
+the same time to defend his empire from the attack of external foes,
+and it is probable that, after his signal defeat of the Elamites, he
+was not troubled by further raids from that quarter. Three times in
+the course of his inscriptions he states that "by Eannatum, whose name
+was uttered by Ningirsu, were the countries broken in the head," and
+it would appear that his boast was justified. The metaphor he here
+employs is taken from the heavy battle-mace, which formed an effective
+weapon in the warfare of the period. It may be seen in use in the scene
+sculptured upon the principal monument of Eannatum's reign, where
+Ningirsu himself is portrayed as breaking the heads of his foes. This
+representation of the city-god of Lagash, one of the finest examples of
+early Sumerian sculpture, in itself admirably symbolizes the ambition
+and achievements of the ruler in whose reign and by whose order it was
+made.
+
+
+[1] "Déc. en Chaldée," p. xl.; cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften,"
+pp. 10 ff.
+
+[2] With the lower part of Col. IV. (pl. xl.), ll. 5-8, cf. Col. V.,
+ll. 23-29.
+
+[3] Literally, "devoured.".
+
+[4] Col. I., ll. 10 ff. ("Déc. en Chaldée," p. xlvii.).
+
+[5] Obv., Col. VII. (lower part) and Col. VIII. ff.
+
+[6] Cone-Inscription, Col. I., ll. 32 ff.
+
+[7] "Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum," Pt. VII., pl. 1 f., No.
+23580.
+
+[8] "Déc. en Chaldée," p. xliv., Galet E.
+
+[9] Cone-Inscription, Col. II., ll. 11-18.
+
+[10] Cf. Obv., Col. XIX.-XXII., and Rev., Col. III.-V.
+
+[11] Obv., Col. XVI.--Rev., Col. V.
+
+[12] The fragments A-F have been published in "Déc. en Chaldée" on the
+following plates: Plate 4, A, B, and C, Obverse (it should be noted
+that on the plate the letters B and C should be interchanged); Plate 3,
+A, B, and C, Reverse (the letters B and C are here placed correctly);
+Plate 4 (bis), D and E, Obverse; Plate 3 (bis), D and E, Reverse; Plate
+4 (ter), F, Obverse and Reverse. The fragment G, which connects C with
+F, is published in "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," Pt. VII., pl. 1.
+
+[13] These are known by the symbols D and E; see p. 131, Fig. 46. In
+the course of its transport from Tello to Constantinople the upper part
+of fragment D was unfortunately damaged, so that the god's brow, and
+his eye, and the greater part of his nose are now wanting (see "Déc.
+en Chaldée," pl. 4 bis). In the block the missing portions have been
+restored from a squeeze of the fragment taken at Tello by M. de Sarzec
+(cf. "Déc.," p. 194 f.).
+
+[14] Cf. Heuzey, "Rev. d'Assyr.," III., p. 10. Its first adoption by
+the Semites is seen on the recently discovered monument of Sharru-Gi,
+an early king of Kish; see below, Chap. VIII., p. 220 f.
+
+[15] See above, p. 128 f.
+
+[16] The fragment is known as B; "Déc. en Chaldée," pl. 4 (see above,
+p. 129, n. 1). For her headdress, see above, p. 51, Fig. 18.
+
+[17] Fragment G; see above, p. 129, n 1.
+
+[18] Fragments C and F; see above, p. 129, n. 1.
+
+[19] "Déc. en Chaldée," p. xliii., Galet A, Col. V. f.
+
+[20] These are numbered A, D (which is joined to E), and B; see above,
+p 129, n. 1.
+
+[21] See above, p. 125.
+
+[22] See the plate facing p. 124.
+
+[23] Fragment B, Reverse (see above, p. 129, n. 1).
+
+[24] See the plate facing p. 124.
+
+[25] See above, p. 43.
+
+[26] See above, p. 42, n. 1.
+
+[27] Fragment C, Reverse; see the plate facing p. 138.
+
+[28] The remains of this scene upon fragment F are figured in the text;
+for the fragment G, see "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," Pt. VII., pl. 1.
+
+[29] See above, p. 68, Fig. 20.
+
+[30] See Obv., Col. VI., ll. 25 ff., Col. VII., ll. 1 ff.
+
+[31] Foundation-stone A, Col. V., l. 23--Col. VI., l. 5; "Déc.," p.
+xliii.
+
+[32] See Col, VI., ll. 6 ff.
+
+[33] See Col. IV., ll. 25 ff.
+
+[34] See the opposite plate.
+
+[35] Foundation-stone A, Col. III., l. 13.
+
+[36] Col. VI., ll. 6 ff.
+
+[37] The phrase is not to be taken to mean that Eannatum buried the
+bodies of the slain Elamites, though it may be a conventional formula
+employed to describe any important battle. It may be noted that
+Entemena definitely states that he left the bones of his enemies to
+bleach in the open plain, and this was probably the practice of the
+period. Each side would bury its own dead to ensure their entrance into
+the Underworld.
+
+[38] Rev., Col. VI., l. 10--Col. VII., l. 3.
+
+[39] The name is expressed by the conflate sign, formed of the signs
+URU and A, the phonetic reading of which is unknown.
+
+[40] The name of the place was formerly read in a short inscription
+engraved upon a mace-head of Gudea, and it was supposed to be described
+in that passage as lying near the Persian Gulf; cf. Heuzey, "Rev.
+Arch.," vol. xvii. (1891), p. 153; Radau, "Early Bab. Hist.," pp. 81,
+191. But the syllable as occurs in that text without the determinative
+for "place," and it is rather to be interpreted as part of the name of
+the mountain from which Gudea obtained the breccia for his mace-head;
+and the mountain itself is described as situated on "the Upper Sea,"
+i.e. the Mediterranean, see below, p. 270 f.
+
+[41] See "Rev.," Col. VIII.
+
+[42] Foundation-stone A, Col. VII., ll. 3 ff.
+
+[43] For one of the inscribed bricks from the well, see the plate
+opposite p. 154.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE CLOSE OF UR-NINÂ'S DYNASTY, THE REFORMS OF URUKAGINA, AND THE FALL
+OF LAGASH
+
+
+Eannatum was the most famous and powerful member of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty,
+and it is probable that his reign marks the zenith of the power of
+Lagash as a city-state. We do not know the cause which led to his
+being succeeded upon the throne by his brother Enannatum I., instead
+of by a son of his own. That the break in the succession was due to
+no palace-revolution is certain from a reference Enannatum makes to
+his brother in an inscription found by Koldewey at El-Hibba,[1] where,
+after naming Akurgal as his father, he describes himself as "the
+beloved brother of Eannatum, patesi of Lagash." It is possible that
+Eannatum had no male issue, or, since his reign appears to have been
+long, he may have survived his sons. We may indeed conjecture that his
+victories were not won without considerable loss among his younger
+warriors, and many cadets of the royal house, including the king's
+own sons, may have given their lives in the service of their city and
+its god. Such may well have been the cause of the succession passing
+from the direct line of descent to a younger branch of the family.
+That Enannatum followed, and did not precede his brother upon the
+throne is proved by the reference to him in the El-Hibba text already
+referred to; moreover, he himself was succeeded by his own immediate
+descendants, and a reference to his reign upon the Cone of Entemena
+follows in order of time the same ruler's record concerning Eannatum.
+The few inscriptions of his reign, that have been recovered at Tello
+and El-Hibba, are of a votive rather than of an historical character,
+and, were it not for the historical summaries upon Entemena's Cone and
+an inscribed plaque of Urukagina, we should be without data for tracing
+the history of Sumer at this period. As it is, our information is in
+the main confined to the continued rivalry between Lagash and her near
+neighbour Umma, which now led to a renewal of active hostilities.
+
+We have already seen that, in spite of the increase in the power of
+Lagash during the reign of Eannatum, the city of Umma had not been
+incorporated in its dominion, but had succeeded in maintaining an
+attitude of semi-independence. This is apparent from the terms of the
+treaty, by which the men of Umma undertook not to invade the territory
+of Lagash; and, although they paid a heavy tribute in corn to Eannatum,
+we may assume that they were ready to seize any opportunity that
+might present itself of repudiating the suzerainty of Lagash. Such
+an opportunity they may have seen in the death of their conqueror
+Eannatum, for after the accession of his brother we find them repeating
+the same tactics they had employed during the preceding reign under
+the leadership of their patesi, Ush. Enakalli, with whom Eannatum had
+drawn up his treaty, had been succeeded on the throne by Urlumma. In
+his cone-inscription Entemena gives no indication as to whether there
+was any interval between the reign of Enakalli and that of Urlumma.
+But from a small tablet of lapis-lazuli in the "Collection de Clercq,"
+we gather that the latter was Enakalli's son, and, therefore, probably
+his direct successor upon the throne.[2] The little tablet was employed
+as a foundation-memorial, and a short inscription upon it records the
+building of a temple to the god Enkigal by Urlumma, who describes
+himself as the son of Enakalli. Each ruler bears the title of "king" in
+the inscription, and, although the reading of the sign following the
+title is uncertain, there is little doubt that we should identify the
+Urlumma and Enakalli of the tablet with the two patesis of Umma who are
+known to have borne these names.
+
+Urlumma did not maintain his father's policy, but, following Ush's
+example, marshalled his army and made a sudden descent upon the
+territory of Lagash. His raid appears to have been attended with even
+greater violence than that of his predecessor. Ush had contented
+himself with merely removing the stele of delimitation set up by
+Mesilim, but Urlumma broke that of Eannatum in pieces by casting it
+into the fire, and we may assume that he treated Mesilim's stele in the
+same way.[3] The shrines, or chapels, which Eannatum had built upon the
+frontier and had dedicated to the gods whom he had invoked to guard the
+treaty, were now levelled to the ground. By such acts Urlumma sought
+to blot out all trace of the humiliating conditions imposed in earlier
+years upon his city, and, crossing the frontier-ditch of Ningirsu,
+he raided and plundered the rich plains which it had always been the
+ambition of Umma to possess.
+
+It is probable that Urlumma's object in breaking the treaty was not
+merely to collect spoil from the fields and villages he overran, but to
+gain complete possession of the coveted plain. At least, both Entemena
+and Urukagina record that the subsequent battle between the forces
+of Umma and Lagash took place within the latter's territory, which
+would seem to imply that Urlumma and his army did not retreat with
+their plunder to their own city, but attempted to retain possession of
+the land itself. Enannatum met the men of Umma in Ugigga, a district
+within the temple-lands of Ningirsu, where a battle was fought, which,
+in Urukagina's brief account, is recorded to have resulted in Umma's
+defeat. Entemena, on the other hand, does not say whether Lagash was
+victorious, and his silence is possibly significant, for, had his
+father achieved a decided victory, he would doubtless have recorded
+it. Moreover, Urlumma continued to give trouble, and it was only in
+the reign of Entemena himself that he was finally defeated and slain.
+We may, therefore, conclude that Enannatum did no more than check
+Urlumma's encroachments, and it is not improbable that the latter
+retained for the time a considerable portion of the territory which
+Lagash had enjoyed for several generations.
+
+Few other facts are known of the reign of Enannatum I. We gather that
+he sent men to the mountains, probably of Elam, and caused them to fell
+cedars there and bring the trunks to Lagash; and from the cedar-wood
+thus obtained he constructed the roof of a temple, which appears to
+have been dedicated to Ningirsu. The temple we may probably identify
+with Ningirsu's famous temple E-ninnû, whence we have recovered a
+mortar, which Enannatum prepared and presented that it might be used
+for pounding onions in connection with the temple-ritual. Another
+object dedicated to Ningirsu, which dates from this period, is
+preserved in the British Museum, and furnishes us with the name of a
+minister in the service of Enannatum. This is a limestone mace-head,[4]
+carved with the emblem of Lagash, and bearing an inscription from which
+we learn that it was deposited in the temple E-ninnû by Barkiba,[5]
+the minister, to ensure the preservation of the life of Enannatum,
+"his king." It would appear from this record that, although Enannatum
+himself adopted the title of "patesi," which he ascribes also to his
+father Akurgal, it was permissible for his subordinates to refer to
+him under the title of "king." That "patesi" was, however, his usual
+designation may be inferred not only from his own inscriptions, but
+from the occurrence of the title after his name upon a deed of sale
+drawn up on a tablet of black stone,[6] which probably dates from his
+reign. From this document, as well as from a text inscribed upon clay
+cones found by Koldewey at El-Hibba,[7] we also learn that Enannatum
+had a son named Lummadur,[8] in addition to Entemena. It should be
+noted that neither on the clay cones nor on the tablet of black stone
+is the name of Enannatum's father recorded, so that the suggestion has
+been made that they should be referred to Enannatum II., rather than to
+Enannatum I. But the adornment of the temple E-anna, recorded on the
+cones, is referred to in the clay-inscription of Enannatum I., which,
+like the cones, was found at El-Hibba.[9] It is reasonable therefore to
+assign the cone-inscription also to Enannatum I., and to conclude that
+Lummadur was his son, rather than the son and possible successor of
+Enannatum II. The cone-inscription records the installation of Lummadur
+by his father as priest in E-anna, when that temple had been adorned
+and embellished in honour of the goddess Ninni. Since Enannatum was
+succeeded upon the throne of Lagash by Entemena, we may assume that
+Lummadur was the latter's younger brother.
+
+One of the first duties Entemena was called upon to perform, after
+ascending the throne, was the defence of his territory against further
+encroachments by Urlumma. It is evident that this ruler closely
+watched the progress of events in Lagash, and such an occasion as the
+death of the reigning patesi in that city might well have appeared
+to him a suitable time for the renewal of hostilities. The death of
+the great conqueror Eannatum had already encouraged him to raid and
+occupy a portion of the territory held up to that time by Lagash,
+and, although Eannatum had succeeded in holding him to some extent in
+check, he only awaited a favourable opportunity to extend the area of
+territory under his control. Such an opportunity he would naturally
+see in the disappearance of his old rival, for there was always the
+chance that the new ruler would prove a still less successful leader
+than his father, or his accession might give rise to dissension among
+the members of the royal house, which would materially weaken the
+city's power of resistance. His attack appears to have been carefully
+organized, for there is evidence that he strengthened his own resources
+by seeking assistance from at least one other neighbouring state. His
+anticipation of securing a decided victory by this means was, however,
+far from being realized. Entemena lost no time in summoning his forces,
+and, having led them out into the plain of Lagash, he met the army
+of Urlumma at the frontier-ditch of Lummagirnunta, which his uncle
+Eannatum had constructed for the defence and irrigation of Gu-edin,
+the fertile territory of Ningirsu. Here he inflicted a signal defeat
+upon the men of Umma, who, when routed and put to flight, left sixty
+of their fellows lying dead upon the banks of the canal.[10] Urlumma
+himself fled from the battle, and sought safety in his own city.
+But Entemena did not rest content with the defeat he had inflicted
+upon the enemy in the field. He pursued the men of Umma into their
+own territory, and succeeded in capturing the city itself before its
+demoralized inhabitants had had time to organize or strengthen its
+defence. Urlumma he captured and slew, and he thus put an end to an
+ambitious ruler, who for years had undoubtedly caused much trouble
+and annoyance to Lagash. Entemena's victory was complete, but it was
+not won without some loss among his own forces, for he heaped up
+burial-mounds in five separate places, which no doubt covered the
+bodies of his own slain. The bones of the enemy, he records, were left
+to bleach in the open plain.
+
+[Illustration: MARBLE GATE-SOCKET BEARING AN INSCRIPTION OF ENTEMENA,
+PATESI OF SHIRPURLA.--_Brit. Mus., No._ 90932_; photo, by Messrs.
+Mansell & Co._]
+
+Entemena now proceeded to annex Umma, and he incorporated it within
+the state of Lagash and reorganized its administration under officers
+appointed by himself. As the new patesi of Umma he did not appoint
+any native of that city, but transferred thither an official of his
+own, who held a post of considerable importance in another town
+under the suzerainty of Lagash. The name of the official was Ili,
+and at the time of the annexation of Umma he was acting as sangu, or
+priest, of the town, the name of which has been provisionally read as
+Ninab or Ninni-esh. Though the reading of the name of the place is
+still uncertain, it would appear to have been situated in Southern
+Babylonia, and to have been a place of some importance. A small tablet
+in the Louvre mentions together certain men of Erech, of Adab and of
+Ninni-esh,[11] and, when Lugal-zaggisi enumerates the benefits he had
+conferred on the cities of Southern Babylonia over which he ruled, he
+mentions Umma and Ninni-esh together, after referring to Erech, Ur, and
+Larsa.[12] We may, therefore, conclude with some probability that the
+city in which Ili was at this time acting as priest was situated not
+far from Umma. It was under the control of Lagash, and doubtless formed
+part of the empire which Eannatum had bequeathed to his successors upon
+the throne. Ili is described as the priest, not the patesi, of the
+city, and it is possible that his office included the control of its
+secular administration. But in view of the importance of the place, it
+is unlikely that it was without a patesi.
+
+The installation of Ili in the patesiate of Umma was accompanied by
+some degree of ceremonial. It would appear that his appointment did not
+take place immediately after the capture of the town, but that a short
+interval elapsed between the close of the war and the inauguration
+of the new government. Meanwhile, Entemena himself had returned to
+Lagash, and it was to that city that he summoned Ili into his presence.
+He then set out with Ili from Girsu, and, when Umma was reached, he
+formally installed him at the head of the government, and conferred on
+him the title of patesi. At the same time he dictated his own terms to
+the people of Umma, and commissioned Ili to see that they were duly
+carried out. In the first place he restored to Lagash the territory
+to which she had always laid claim, and the ancient frontier-ditches,
+which had been filled up or had fallen in, he caused to be repaired. In
+addition to reasserting the traditional rights of Lagash, he annexed
+new land in the district of Karkar, since its inhabitants had taken
+part in the recent rebellion, and had probably furnished an important
+contingent for the army of Urlumma. He gave directions to Ili to
+extend the two principal frontier-ditches, dedicated to Ningirsu and
+Ninâ respectively, within the territory of Karkar; and, with the
+large supply of forced labour which he exacted from his newly annexed
+subjects, he strengthened the defences of his own territory, and
+restored and extended the system of canals between the Euphrates and
+the Tigris. But Entemena did not content himself with exacting land
+and labour only from the conquered city. He imposed a heavy tribute in
+corn, and it was probably one of Ili's most important duties as patesi
+to superintend its collection and ensure its punctual transfer into the
+granaries of Lagash.
+
+In order to commemorate the conquest and annexation of Umma, Entemena
+caused a record of his victory to be drawn up, which he doubtless
+had engraved upon a stone stele similar to those prepared in earlier
+times by Mesilim and Eannatum. This stele, like the earlier ones,
+was probably set up upon the frontier to serve as a memorial of his
+achievements. Fortunately for us, he did not confine the records to
+his own victories, but prefaced them with an epitomized account of
+the relations which had existed between Lagash and Umma from the time
+of Mesilim until his own day. Other copies of the inscription were
+probably engraved upon stone and set up in the cities of Umma and
+Lagash, and, in order to increase still further the chances in favour
+of the preservation of his record, he had copies inscribed upon small
+cones of clay. These last were of the nature of foundation-memorials,
+and we may conclude that he had them buried beneath the buildings he
+erected or repaired upon the frontier-canals, and also perhaps in the
+foundations of temples within the city of Lagash itself. Entemena's
+foresight in multiplying the number of his texts, and in burying them
+in the structure of his buildings, was in accordance with the practice
+of the period; and in his case the custom has been fully justified.
+So far as we know, his great stone stelæ have perished; but one of
+the small clay cones [13] has been recovered, and is among the most
+valuable of the records we possess of the early history of Sumer.
+
+It is possible that the concluding paragraphs of the text were given
+in a fuller form upon the stone stelæ than we find them upon the cone;
+but, so far as the historical portion of the record is concerned,
+we have doubtless recovered the greater part, if not the whole, of
+Entemena's record. The stelæ may have been engraved with elaborate
+curses, intended to preserve the frontier-ditch from violation, and,
+though these have been omitted in the shorter version of the text,
+their place is taken by the brief invocation and prayer with which the
+record concludes. Entemena here prays that if ever in time to come
+the men of Umma should break across the boundary-ditch of Ningirsu or
+the boundary-ditch of Ninâ, in order to lay violent hands upon the
+territory of Lagash, whether they be men of the city of Umma itself or
+people from the lands round about, then may Enlil destroy them, and may
+Ningirsu cast over them his net, and set his hand and foot upon them.
+And, should the warriors of his own city be called upon to defend it,
+he prays that their hearts may be full of ardour and courage. It was
+not many years before Lagash was in sore need of the help which is here
+invoked for her by Entemena.
+
+Apart from the cone recording the conquest of Umma, the inscriptions
+of Entemena do not throw much light upon the military achievements
+of his reign. Three fragments of a limestone vase have been found at
+Nippur in the strata beneath the temple of Enlil on the south-east side
+of the ziggurat, or temple-tower, bearing on their outer surface a
+votive inscription of Entemena.[14] From these we gather that the vase
+was dedicated to Enlil as a thank-offering after some victory. The
+fragmentary character of the inscription prevents us from identifying
+the enemy who was subdued on this occasion; but we shall probably be
+right in taking the passage as referring, not to the conquest of Umma,
+but to the subjugation of some other district. In fact, we may regard
+the vase as evidence that Entemena attempted to retain his hold upon
+the empire which Eannatum had founded, and did not shrink from the
+necessity of undertaking military expeditions to attain this object. In
+further support of this view we may perhaps cite a reference to one of
+the cities conquered by Eannatum, which occurs upon a votive text drawn
+up in Entemena's reign, though not by the patesi himself. The text in
+question is stamped upon the perforated relief of Dudu, chief priest
+of Ningirsu,[15] which at one time formed the support of a colossal
+ceremonial mace-head dedicated in the temple of Ningirsu at Lagash.
+
+The material of which the block is composed is dark in colour,
+comparatively light in weight, and liable to crack; it consists of
+a mixture of clay and bitumen, and may have been formed by nature
+or produced artificially.[16] While this substance was still in a
+pliant state the block was formed from it, and the designs with the
+inscription were impressed by means of a stamp. According to the
+inscription, this bituminous substance was brought by Dudu to Lagash
+from one of the cities which had been conquered by Eannatum and
+incorporated within his empire. The fact that Dudu should have caused
+the substance to be procured from the city in question suggests that
+friendly relations existed between it and Lagash at the time; it is
+quite possible that it had not, meanwhile, secured its independence,
+but still continued to acknowledge the suzerainty of the latter city.
+The only other references to a foreign city in the texts of Entemena
+occur upon his two principal building inscriptions,[17] which include
+among the list of his buildings the erection of a great laver for the
+god Enki, described as "King of Eridu." We may perhaps see in this
+record a further indication that at least the southern portion of
+Eannatum's empire still remained in his nephew's possession.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Fig 50.--Fig 51.--Details from the engravings
+upon Entemena's silver vase. The upper group represents the emblem of
+Lagash; in the lower groups ibexes and stags are substituted for the
+lions.--_Déc._, pl 43 _bis_; Cat. No. 218.]
+
+The high-priest, Dudu, whose portrait is included in the designs upon
+the plaque already referred to, appears to have been an important
+personage during the reign of Entemena, and two inscriptions that have
+been recovered are dated by reference to his period of office. One
+of these occurs upon the famous silver vase of Entemena, the finest
+example of Sumerian metal work that has yet been recovered. The vase,
+engraved in outline with variant forms of the emblem of Lagash,[18]
+bears an inscription around the neck, stating that Entemena, patesi
+of Lagash, "the great patesi of Ningirsu," had fashioned it of
+pure silver and had dedicated it to Ningirsu in E-ninnû to ensure
+the preservation of his life. It was deposited as a votive object
+in Ningirsu's temple, and a note is added to the dedication to the
+effect that "at this time Dudu was priest of Ningirsu." A similar
+reference to Dudu's priesthood occurs upon a foundation-inscription
+of Entemena recording the construction of a reservoir for the supply
+of the Lummadimdug Canal, its capacity being little more than half
+that of the earlier reservoir constructed by Eannatum. Since the
+canal was dedicated to Ningirsu, the reference to Dudu was also here
+appropriate. But such a method of indicating the date of any object
+or construction, even though closely connected with the worship or
+property of the city-god, was somewhat unusual, and its occurrence
+in these texts may perhaps be taken as an indication of the powerful
+position which Dudu enjoyed.[19] Indeed, Enlitarzi, another priest of
+Ningirsu during Entemena's reign, subsequently secured the throne of
+Lagash. Entemena's building-inscriptions afford further evidence of
+his devotion to Ningirsu, whose temple and storehouses he rebuilt and
+added to. Next in order of importance were his constructions in honour
+of the goddess Ninâ, while he also erected or repaired temples and
+other buildings dedicated to Lugal-uru, and the goddesses Ninkharsag,
+Gatumdug, and Ninmakh. Such records suggest that Entemena's reign, like
+that of Eannatum, was a period of some prosperity for Lagash, although
+it is probable that her influence was felt within a more restricted
+area.[20] By his conquest and annexation of Umma, he more than made up
+for any want of success on the part of his father, Enannatum I., and,
+through this victory alone, he may well have freed Lagash from her most
+persistent enemy throughout the reign of his immediate successors.
+
+[Illustration: SILVER VASE DEDICATED TO THE GOD NINGIRSU BY ENTEMENA,
+PATESI OF SHIRPURLA.--_In the Louvre; Déc. en Chald., pl._ 43 (_bis_).]
+
+With Enannatum II., the son of Entemena, who succeeded his father upon
+the throne, the dynasty founded by Ur-Ninâ, so far as we know, came
+to an end.[21] The reign of Entemena's son is attested by a single
+inscription engraved upon a door-socket from the great store-house of
+Ningirsu at Lagash, his restoration of which is recorded in the text.
+There then occurs a gap in our sequence of royal inscriptions found at
+Tello, the next ruler who has left us any records of his own, being
+Urukagina, the ill-fated reformer and king of Lagash, under whom the
+city was destined to suffer what was undoubtedly the greatest reverse
+she encountered in the long course of her history. Although we have
+no royal texts relating to the period between the reigns of Enannatum
+II. and Urukagina, we are fortunately not without means for estimating
+approximately its length and recovering the names of some, if not all,
+of the patesis who occupied the throne of Lagash in the interval. Our
+information is derived from a number of clay tablets, the majority of
+which were found in the course of native diggings at Tello after M.
+de Sarzec's death.[22] They formed part of the private archive of the
+patesis of Lagash at this time, and are concerned with the household
+expenses of the court and particularly of the harîm. Frequently these
+tablets of accounts make mention of the reigning patesi or his wife,
+and from them we have recovered the names of three patesis--Enetarzi,
+Enlitarzi, and Lugal-anda[23]--who are to be set in the interval
+between Enannatum II. and Urukagina. Moreover, it has been pointed out
+that the inscriptions upon most of the tablets end with a peculiar form
+of figure, consisting of one or more diagonal strokes cutting a single
+horizontal one; and a plausible explanation has been given of these
+figures, to the effect that they were intended to indicate the date
+of the tablet, the number of diagonal strokes showing at a glance the
+year of the patesi's reign in which the text was written, and to which
+the accounts refer. A considerable number of such tablets have been
+examined, and by counting the strokes upon them it has been concluded
+that Enetarzi reigned for at least four years, Enlitarzi for at least
+five years, and Lugal-anda for at least seven years.[24]
+
+The relative order of these three patesis may now be regarded as
+definitely fixed, and, though it is possible that the names of others
+are missing which should be set within the period, the tablets
+themselves furnish indications that in any case the interval between
+Enannatum II. and Urukagina was not a long one. It had for some
+time been suspected that Enlitarzi and Lugal-anda lived at about
+the same period, for a steward named Shakh was employed by the wife
+of Enlitarzi as well as by Barnamtarra, the wife of Lugal-anda.[25]
+This inference has now been confirmed by the discovery of a document
+proving that Lugal-anda was Enlitarzi's son; for a clay cone has been
+found, inscribed with a contract concerning the sale of a house, the
+contracting parties being the family of Lugal-anda, described as
+"the son of Enlitarzi, the priest," and the family of Barnamtarra,
+Lugal-anda's future wife.[26] Moreover, we have grounds for believing
+that Lugal-anda was not only the last of the three patesis whose names
+have been recovered, but was Urukagina's immediate predecessor. An
+indication that this was the case may be seen in the fact that the
+steward Eniggal, who is frequently mentioned in tablets of his reign,
+was also employed by Urukagina and his wife Shagshag. Confirmation
+of this view has been found in the text upon a tablet, dated in the
+first year of Urukagina's reign as king, in which mention is made of
+Barnamtarra, Lugal-anda's wife.[27] This only leaves an interval before
+the reign of Enlitarzi, in which Enetarzi, the remaining patesi, is to
+be set.
+
+That this was not a long period is clear from the fact that Enlitarzi
+himself occupied the throne soon after Enannatum II., an inference
+we may draw from a double date upon a sale-contract, dated in the
+patesiate of Entemena, patesi of Lagash, and in the priesthood of
+Enlitarzi, chief priest of Ningirsu.[28] There can be no doubt of the
+identity of Enlitarzi, the priest here referred to, with Enlitarzi, the
+patesi, for the wife of the priest, who is mentioned in the contract,
+bears the same name as the wife of the patesi.[29] Since, therefore,
+Enlitarzi already occupied the high position of chief priest of
+Ningirsu during the reign of Entemena, it is reasonable to conclude
+that his reign as patesi was not separated by any long interval
+from that of Entemena's son and successor. The internal evidence
+furnished by the texts thus supports the conclusion suggested by an
+examination of the tablets themselves, all of which are distinguished
+by a remarkable uniformity of type, consisting, as they do, of baked
+clay tablets of a rounded form and written in a style which closely
+resembles that of Urukagina's royal inscriptions. The interval between
+the death of Entemena and Urukagina's accession was thus a short one,
+and the fact that during it no less than four patesis followed one
+another in quick succession suggests that the period was one of unrest
+in Lagash.
+
+Like Enlitarzi, Enetarzi also appears to have been chief priest of
+Ningirsu before he secured the throne; at least we know that a priest
+of that name held office at about this period. The inscription from
+which this fact may be inferred is an extremely interesting one,[30]
+for it consists of the earliest example of a letter or despatch that
+has yet been found on any Babylonian site. It was discovered at Tello
+during the recent excavations of Commandant Cros, and, alike in the
+character of its writing and in its general appearance, it closely
+resembles the tablets of accounts from the patesis' private archive, to
+which reference has already been made. The despatch was written by a
+certain Lu-enna, chief priest of the goddess Ninmar, and is addressed
+to Enetarzi, chief priest of the god Ningirsu. At first sight its
+contents are scarcely those which we should expect to find in a letter
+addressed by one chief priest to another. For the writer informs his
+correspondent that a band of Elamites had pillaged the territory of
+Lagash, but that he had fought with the enemy, and had succeeded in
+putting them to flight. He then refers to five hundred and forty of
+them, whom he probably captured or slew. The reverse of the tablet
+enumerates various amounts of silver and wool, and certain royal
+garments, which may have formed part of the booty taken, or recaptured,
+from the Elamites; and the text ends with what appears to be a
+reference to the division of this spoil between the patesi of Lagash
+and another high official, and with directions that certain offerings
+should be deducted for presentation to the goddess Ninmar, in whose
+temple the writer was chief priest.
+
+That a chief priest of Ninmar should lead an army against the enemies
+of Lagash and should send a report of his success to the chief priest
+of Ningirsu, in which he refers to the share of the spoil to be
+assigned to the patesi, may be regarded as an indication that the
+central government of Lagash was not so stable as it once had been
+under the more powerful members of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty. The reference
+to Enetarzi suggests that the incursion of the Elamites took place
+during the reign of Enannatum II. We may thus conclude that the last
+member of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty did not possess his father's ability to
+direct the affairs of Lagash and allowed the priests of the great
+temples in the city to usurp many of the privileges which had hitherto
+been held by the patesi. It is probably to this fact that the close
+of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty may be traced. The subsequent struggle for the
+patesiate appears to have taken place among the more important members
+of the priesthood. Of those who secured the throne, Enlitarzi, at
+any rate, was succeeded by his son, by whom, however, he may have
+been deposed,[31] and no strong administration appears to have been
+established, until Urukagina, abandoning the traditions of both the
+priesthood and the patesiate, based his government on the support he
+secured from the people themselves. Such appears to have been the
+course of events at this time, although the paucity of our historical
+materials renders it impossible to do more than hazard a conjecture.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 52. Fig 53.--Impression of a seal of Lugal-anda,
+patesi of Lagash (Shirpurla), engraved with the emblem of Lagash, and
+with figures of animals, heroes, and mythological creatures. Below is a
+reconstruction of the cylinder-seal, indicating its size.--See Allotte
+de la Fu e, _Rev. d'Assyr._, Vol. VI., No. 4, pl. i.]
+
+In addition to the tablets of accounts concerning the household
+expenditure of the patesis, and the letter to Enetarzi from Lu-enna,
+the principal relics of this period that have come down to us are
+numbers of clay sealings, some of which bear impressions of the
+seals of the patesi Lugal-anda, his wife Barnamtarra, and his
+steward Eniggal. They afford us no new historical information, but
+are extremely valuable for the study of the artistic achievements
+and religious beliefs of the Sumerians.[32] From the traces upon
+their lower sides, it is clear that they were employed for sealing
+reed-baskets or bundles tied up in sacking formed of palm-leaves and
+secured with cords. In consequence of the rough character of the
+lumps of clay, no single one presents a perfect impression, but, as
+several examples of each have been found, it is possible in some cases
+to reconstruct the complete design and to estimate the size of the
+original seal. In the accompanying blocks reproductions are given of
+the designs upon the cylinder-seals of Lugal-anda which can be most
+completely restored. The principal group of figures in the larger of
+the two consists of two rampant lions in conflict with a human-headed
+bull and a mythical and composite being, half-bull and half-man, whose
+form recalls the description of Ea-bani in the legend of Gilgamesh. To
+the left of the inscription is the emblem of Lagash, and below is a row
+of smaller figures consisting of two human-headed bulls, two heroes and
+a stag. The figures on the smaller cylinder represent the same types,
+but here the emblem of Lagash is reduced to the eagle without the
+lions, which was peculiarly the emblem of Ningirsu. The mythological
+being who resembles Ea-bani is repeated heraldically on each side of
+the text in conflict with a lion.
+
+The occurrence of this figure and those of the
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 54. Fig. 55.--Impression of a seal of Lugal-anda,
+sandy for half a mile out; there was just light enough to distinguish
+where the paler green commenced. The darkness grew rapidly as they
+walked; the last faint reflection of sunset faded on the gray sea. An
+unusual silence possessed them after the exuberance of the evening. They
+stopped now and again to shake the little pebbles out of their shoes.
+All was black when they reached the village. The beach was full of
+wickerwork crab-pots, and the headless divided forms of skate and
+dog-fish loomed uncannily from the poles on which they hung. They were
+the crab-fishers’ bait. Only a stray mongrel represented the village,
+which already slept. The sea was mournful and gloomy; its pitchy
+blackness, over which the sky hinged like a half-raised gray lid, was
+relieved only by its own broken lines of foam, which sometimes rolled
+in six deep, looking exactly like streaks of phosphorescence on a dark
+wall, and adding weirdness to the forlorn desolation of the scene. There
+was no other line of light either on sea or land; the lonesome sea
+tossed sleeplessly in its agony, howling and crying.
+
+They turned back, interchanging companions. During the walk Mrs.
+Wyndwood suddenly asked Matthew if his wife knew where he was: he said,
+“No”; sometimes his brother Billy did; Billy lived with her: his man
+forwarded all letters from his studio. After a long pause he added that
+practically he had been separated from his wife for years. Eleanor
+murmured again, “Poor woman,” and he was too shame-stricken to look her
+in the face, and to read that the sympathy was for him. They relapsed
+into silence, and indeed conversation was difficult.
+
+The night had grown wilder, the wind blew more fiercely, drenching their
+faces with salt spray, whirling them round and round and almost lifting
+them off their feet. But the clouds were driven off and the
+star-sprinkled heaven was revealed, majestic.
+
+Near the house Mrs. Wyndwood and Matthew Strang stopped to admire the
+sublime spectacle, sheltering themselves from the gale in a niche in the
+cliff; the other two had already gone round the craggy projection which
+hid the house.
+
+They watched the mad cavalry charge of creaming billows; watched them
+break, thundering and throwing their spray heavenwards like a continuous
+play of white fountains all along the line of march. To the right,
+beyond the village whence they had come, where the cliff jutted out at
+its lowest level, a ghostly fountain leaped again and again sheer over
+the top of the cliff with a crashing and splashing that was succeeded by
+the long-receding moan of the back-drawn wave soughing through the
+rattling pebbles.
+
+Her face, flushed with the passion of the storm, showed divinely in the
+dim starlight; beneath her wrap her bosom, panting from the walk in the
+teeth of the wind, heaved with excitement; the gale had dishevelled her
+hair. They scarcely spoke; the organ-roll of the sea crashed
+majestically like the bass in some savage symphony of the winds.
+
+Now at last the moon leaped out, framed in a weird cloud-rack; the
+moonlight played on her loveliness and made it wonderful.
+
+She moved slightly forward. “The cliff is too damp to lean upon,” she
+murmured.
+
+Audaciously he slipped a trembling arm against the rock and let her form
+rest against that. She scarcely seemed conscious of him; she was
+watching the rampant, seething waters, volleying their white jets
+skyward with a crash of cannon that outroared the wind; her scarlet lips
+were parted eagerly; the dreamy light had gone from her eyes; they
+flashed fire.
+
+“Oh, I could dare to-night!” she cried.
+
+The wind blew her tresses into his face; the perfume of them stung his
+blood. Her loveliness was maddening him. So close! so close! Oh, to
+shower mad kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her hair! What did it matter,
+there on that wild beach alone with the elements! He had been so near
+death; who would have recked if he had been dead now, tossed in that
+welter of waters?
+
+The waves broke with a thousand thunders, the white fountains flew at
+the stars; they seemed alive, exultant, frenzied with the ecstasy of
+glorious living. Oh, for life--simple, sublime--the keen, tingling,
+savage life of Vikings and sea-robbers in the days before civilization,
+in the full-blooded days when men loved and hated fiercely, strenuously,
+wrenching through rapine and slaughter the women they coveted. Ah,
+surely he had some of their blood; it ran in his veins like fire; he was
+of their race, despite his dreamings. He was his father’s son, loving
+the storm and the battle.
+
+The wind wailed; it was like the cry of his tortured heart, his yearning
+for happiness. It rose higher and higher. A bat flew between them and
+the moon. Eleanor nestled to him involuntarily; her face was very near
+to his. It gleamed seductively; there was no abashment, only alluring
+loveliness; the fire in her eyes kindled him now not to the secondary
+life of Art, but to the primary life of realities. Could she not hear
+his heart beat? Yes, surely the storm of the elements had passed into
+her blood, too. Her face was ardent, ecstatic. His arm held her tight.
+Oh, to stake the world on a kiss!
+
+The moon was hidden again; they were alone in the mad, dim night; the
+complexities of Society were far away. They looked at each other, and
+through her eyes he seemed to see heaven.
+
+A star fell overhead. It drew her eyes away a moment to watch its fiery
+curve. He felt the spell was broken. The wind shrieked with an eldritch
+cry, like the mocking threnody of his thwarted hope. He had a shuddering
+remembrance of Mad Peggy. And straightway he saw her weird figure
+dashing round the crag in the darkness--a shawl over her head, and a
+lovely face, at once radiant and frenzied, gleaming from between its
+dusky folds. His heart almost stopped, a superstitious thrill froze his
+hot blood. Never to be happy! Ah, God! never! never! To thirst and
+thirst, and nothing ever to quench his thirst!
+
+Mrs. Wyndwood started forward. “Oh, there you are, Olive!”
+
+The figure threw passionate arms round her. “Comfort me, darling; I am
+engaged.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the happier Herbert had spoken. And Olive had listened shyly,
+humbly, with tears, full of an exquisite uplifting emotion, akin to the
+exaltation of righteousness, at the thought of giving herself to this
+man, of living her life with and for the one true soul in the world.
+
+They stood close to the hoary rim of the black welter; dusky figures,
+wind-rocked and spray-drenched, a little apart from each other, the
+shining house in the background.
+
+“And when did you begin to think of me--in that way?” she faltered.
+
+“I never thought of you in any other. But that night when Matthew
+arrived, when you sat nid-nodding in the grandfather’s chair, you
+maddened me; you were adorable! the contrast was exquisite. To think of
+you--a wilful little misanthrope--to think of that glorious, wayward
+creature fading away till she suited the chair. Oh, it was too--”
+
+He broke off. Passion robbed him of words. He moved nearer--she drew
+back.
+
+“Oh, but will you still”--she hesitated, shy of the word--”love me when
+I do suit the chair?”
+
+“I shall always see you as you were then.”
+
+She laughed with a half-sob.
+
+“And just then,” she confessed deliciously, fluttering even now like a
+bird in the net, “I was beginning to get frightened of you. I felt you
+growing upon me, shadowing the horizon like the roc in the _Arabian
+Nights_. And the pain of the world was outside--in the great black
+night--calling to me in my slough of luxury.”
+
+“You witch! Veil those eyes or I shall kiss them.”
+
+She retreated.
+
+“And why were you frightened of me?” he asked, tenderly.
+
+She said, humbly, in little shy jerks: “I felt like in the sea this
+morning--one little atom, and the whole world against me, and my own
+weakness most of all.... I had prided myself on my swimming, and here
+was I being dragged under ... just like other girls ... a victim to the
+same ridiculous passion.”
+
+“You delightful, candid creature! With me as the object?”
+
+“Don’t be flippant now, Herbert.” How delicious his name sounded; it
+made amends for the rebuke! “You do understand me. Marriage is a second
+birth--voluntary, this time. It means accepting the universe, which was
+thrust upon one unasked.”
+
+“It means making the best of it.”
+
+“Oh, surely it means more. It means passing it on to others. But I
+surrender. I cannot live without you.”
+
+“Olive!”
+
+He sprang to take her, but she eluded him. “Look! the moon is covered up
+again.”
+
+“I only want to see your face.”
+
+“Don’t talk like other men, though I have fallen like other girls.”
+
+“No, you are always yourself, Olive--I have dreamed of this moment. I
+would not have it otherwise--except perhaps with you in the
+grandfather’s chair and a poke bonnet.”
+
+“Now you are _your_self. This is such a conventional ending to a
+holiday, we must preserve what originality we can.” She was recovering
+her spirits.
+
+“A conventional ending! Why, it’s a most romantic incongruous match. It
+beats the comedy. I shall burn it.”
+
+“No, let’s produce it--it wouldn’t cost much.”
+
+“I am not worthy of you, Olive,” he said, with a quiver in his voice. “I
+have nothing.”
+
+“Oh! When you have my heart!”
+
+“My queen of girls! But what of your relatives?”
+
+A gleam of fun passed across her wet face. She had her droll look of
+mischief.
+
+“You are all of them. I was of age long ago--I am awfully old, you
+know--you take me with your eyes open--”
+
+“I can’t; yours dazzle me.”
+
+“That’ll do for the comedy,” she laughed, gleefully. “Still, if you do
+want me, there are only you and I to consider.”
+
+“Only we two,” he murmured.
+
+“We two,” she repeated, and her eyes were suffused with tender moisture.
+
+There was a delicious silence. He tried to take her hand. This time she
+abandoned it to him; a wave of moral emotion lifted her to the stars.
+
+The wind wailed, the black sea crashed white at their feet, its whirling
+brine blinded their eyes as with salt tears.
+
+“Isn’t it curious?” she said, as they moved back a little, hand in hand.
+
+“What, dearest?”
+
+“That you and I should be made happier by our common perception of the
+unhappiness of life?”
+
+“Queer girl!” he thought. But he only squeezed her hand.
+
+“The Catechism is right,” she went on, thoughtfully, proceeding to
+misquote it. “The waves are too strong. It’s no use fighting against
+your sex or your station. Do your duty in that state of life in which it
+has pleased God to call you. But I would have that text taught to the
+rich exclusively, not to the poor. The poor should be encouraged to
+ascend; the rich should be taught contentment. Else their strength for
+good is wasted fruitlessly.” And the electric current of love generated
+by those close-pressed palms flashed to her soul the mission of a life
+of noble work hand in hand.
+
+Herbert scarcely heard her. The glow of her lovely face, the flashes of
+feeling that passed over it, the tears that glistened on her
+eyelashes--these absorbed his senses. Her generalizations were only a
+vague, exquisite music. He lifted her hand and held it passionately to
+his lips. She murmured, beseechingly:
+
+“You will never disappoint me, Herbert?”
+
+“My darling!” And he strove to draw her nearer and press his first kiss
+upon those bewitching lips.
+
+“Oh! there’s a star falling,” she cried, and slipped from his hold, a
+beautiful Diana, virgin as the white spray and tameless as the night.
+
+She had disappointed Herbert. He was puzzled. But as she disappeared
+round the cliff in quest of the others, a smile of triumphant content
+curled round his boyish lips.
+
+“That’s the last touch of piquancy,” he murmured, as he chased her round
+the crag.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ELEANOR WYNDWOOD
+
+
+Two days after Herbert’s engagement, Matthew Strang left Devonshire on
+the plea of a death in the family.
+
+A letter from Billy had indeed brought the news that Rosina’s father was
+no more. Matthew had never thought untenderly of old Coble; the mountain
+of a man had acted generously after his lights, and now that his genial
+roar had passed into the eternal silence, the pathos of death softened
+his son-in-law towards his memory and towards the bereaved daughter.
+Nevertheless, Matthew’s plea was only a pretext. He had no intention of
+intruding upon Rosina. After her recent reception of him he had no
+reason to suppose a visit would be welcome. The letter from Billy had
+included no message from her, except a request, superfluously and
+irritatingly formal, that she should be allowed to give house-room to
+her aunt Clara, who had gone to live with old Coble when his daughter
+married. His reply to Billy contained warmly sympathetic reference to
+the loss of old Coble, and expressed his joy at the prospect of
+receiving Miss Coble.
+
+His real reason for fleeing from Devonshire was his discovery of his
+real feeling towards Mrs. Wyndwood. When the frenzy of the stormy night
+had merged in the sober reflections of the mild morning, he shuddered to
+think how near he had gone to forfeiting her respect, to insulting her
+by the revelation of a dishonorable passion. To continue in her daily
+society would have been too great a torment, aggravated, as it must have
+been, by the sight of Herbert’s happiness. Perhaps the rude reminder of
+his domestic shackles contained in Billy’s letter strengthened his
+resolve to tear himself away. Courtesy compelled him to leave behind him
+an invitation to the ladies to take tea one day at his studio, which
+neither had ever seen. How could he snap abruptly the links he had
+forged with this delightful twain?
+
+He threw himself with ardor into work, trying to soothe his pain by
+expressing it in Art, as a woman sheds it away in tears. He toiled at a
+symbolic picture to illustrate Rossetti’s sonnet, “Love’s Fatality.”
+
+    “Love shackled with Vain-longing, hand to hand.”
+
+He put the figures in a vague landscape, but did not study his models in
+the open, for he now had a desire to produce that fatness of effect
+suggested by a concentrated studio light instead of the dry flatness
+which the open air always diffused. He no longer pinned himself to
+technical theories, finding by experience that he only invented them
+afterwards to justify the procedure his instinct dictated for any
+particular picture. But his progress with “Love’s Fatality” was slow and
+unsatisfactory. He was feeling about, as it were, for a new manner
+worthy of her who inspired it. He wrote her once telling her that it was
+on the easel, and reminding her and Miss Regan of their promise to visit
+him on their return from Devonshire, and he had from her an
+answer--elegantly indited on dainty, crested paper, delicately
+scented--which he held often to his lips with a rankling, gnawing pain
+of unsatisfied and unspoken desire. She wrote that she was very anxious
+to see the picture, and also to be back in town, for she was weary of
+the country with its monotony, its lack of the complex thrill of
+civilization. Not that the town held much to enthral her. Fortunately
+Olive had consented to the Paris project; the girl did not want to marry
+before next summer, and rather hailed the idea of a farewell
+quasi-bachelor Bohemian period of art and liberty. What she, Eleanor,
+would do when she lost Olive Heaven only knew. And then came the wail of
+world-weariness which his ear had caught already in the first stages of
+their acquaintanceship. He interpreted it in the light of his own blank
+unrest, but to imagine her hungering for him as he hungered for her was
+impossible to his reverent passion. That she admired and liked him he
+could not doubt; and in one or two instants of mutual electricity he had
+dared to think that Herbert was right, and that she loved him. But his
+diffidence could never cherish the hope for more than a few seconds; and
+even if she indeed loved him, he felt that her delicacy, her finer, more
+ethereal ethical sense would preserve her from the wistful images that
+tortured him. It was the memory of her unhappy marriage to which her
+sadness must be due; no doubt, too, her life lacked love, though she
+might not be consciously aware of it.
+
+When she at last came to see the picture, he was startled to find her
+alone, and the bearer of a message of apology from Miss Regan. His
+studio being, so to speak, a place of business, he was not unused to
+receive ladies in connection with commissions, but his poor, agonized
+heart--that had so ached to see her again--pulsed furiously with mad
+hope as her stately figure, clad in widow-like black that set off her
+beauty in novel lights, moved slowly about the great studio, admiring
+pictures which he would have hidden from her in the days when he thought
+of her more as a spiritual critic than a woman. Now, even though she
+stood before him making remarks, he was too distraught to catch the
+purport of her criticisms. He followed her about in a haze, a dream,
+speaking, replying, and feeling all the while as if it was all part of a
+game of make-believe, and in a moment the thin pretence would be thrown
+off and she would be in his arms. But the moments passed, the haze
+cleared, and he realized that he was entertaining a fashionable,
+self-possessed lady, wrapped up in artistic interest, with no apparent
+relation to the woman who had flushed with the passion of the sea and
+the winds on that night of stress and storm.
+
+His mind flew back from her bodily presence to picture her leaning
+against his arm, and the memoried vision seemed incredible. She was
+unapproachably demure in her black-silk gown. Over the shoulders she
+wore a short black-velvet cape embroidered in jet, with a beaded fringe,
+finished off with a filmy black lace reaching just below the waist. When
+she threw it back, Matt saw the great puff sleeves of her gown and a
+turned-down collar that combined with them to give an old-world feeling.
+At her throat was a soft ruche of black chiffon. And from this monotone
+of black the blond skin of the throat and face rose dazzling, crowned by
+a small pink bonnet, of shamrock shape, entirely composed of roses, with
+a lace-and-jet butterfly fluttering over it. Now and then she pointed
+out something with a long black-gloved forefinger. Her left hand held a
+dainty little book, that looked--like herself--poetry. How far away she
+seemed, standing thus at his side! He was in a fever of chills and
+heats.
+
+She stopped longest before his unfinished picture of “Love’s Fatality.”
+He heard her approving his conception of
+
+    “Love shackled with Vain-longing, hand to hand,”
+
+but, even as her ravishing lips spoke golden words of praise, his vain
+longing to kiss them admonished him how feebly his symbols expressed the
+heart-sickness he was feeling. The longer he heard the music of her
+lauding voice, the more those gray eyes kindled below the pink bonnet in
+adoration of his genius, the more his disgust with the picture grew; and
+when a chance word of hers reminded him that the subject had already
+been treated in the last Academy, he determined to destroy his work the
+moment she was gone, though he had always been aware of the little skied
+picture which had drawn Miss Regan’s eccentric attention. The last
+vestiges of his hope of her love died as she discussed “Love’s
+Fatality,” with apparent unconsciousness that to him, at least, the
+picture stood for something personal; her aloofness was exacerbating.
+The heats of his fever died; only the chill was left.
+
+He gave her some tea, and became gradually aware that she was abnormally
+loquacious and vivacious. He remembered to ask after Miss Regan’s
+health, and was told that Olive was bright and gay, with only rare
+reactions of pessimism. Mrs. Wyndwood wondered dolefully again what she
+would do when Olive was married. His heart, bolder than his lips, beat
+“Come to me. Come to me.” But she did not seem to catch its appeal,
+though his eyes spoke, too. In his embarrassment he turned over the
+pages of the dainty little book she had laid down on the table. He
+started at finding it a new volume of Harold Lavender’s poems, and when
+on the fly-leaf he read “To Eleanor” his face twitched noticeably.
+
+“Ah, that was the book Mr. Lavender wrote about in the letter that
+Primitiva lost,” she said, quickly. “It’s just out to-day.”
+
+“I see he calls you Eleanor,” he observed, tonelessly.
+
+“Yes,” she responded, smiling, “that is a poetic license. Besides, it is
+a screen. There are so many Eleanors.”
+
+That sounded true to his bitter mood. There were indeed so many
+Eleanors, all in contradiction. He kept turning over the leaves in
+silent jealousy.
+
+“Ah, that is a very pretty one you have there,” she said, lightly. “It
+might suggest a subject to you. Read it aloud, it’s only ten lines.”
+
+Fuming inwardly at the suggestion that the dapper poet of sugar-plums
+and the hero of the nougat, whom he mentally classed with Roy as an
+interloper, could afford him any inspiration, and further incensed by
+the command to read the fellow’s verses, he gabbled through the little
+poem, which extended over two deckle-edged, rough, creamy pages.
+
+“ROSALIND READING AN OLD ROMANCE
+
+    “I watch her dainty rose-bud mouth,
+     That trembles with the exquisite
+     And wondrous tide that steals from it
+     Of song, redolent of the South;
+     While o’er her April countenance,
+     The music of the quaint romance,
+     The sweeter for a sense of pain,
+     Sends sun and shade; and lost in dream,
+     Her sweet eyes softly flash and gleam
+     With golden smiles and diamond rain.”
+
+“I hope she read it better than that,” laughed Mrs. Wyndwood,
+mirthfully.
+
+“Well, she couldn’t make the fourth line scan anyhow,” he said.
+
+“Oh, you mean ‘redolent.’ That’s another poetic license.”
+
+“And Rosalind seems to be another,” he said, surlily.
+
+“Oh no, I’m not Rosalind. I haven’t a dainty rose-bud mouth. Mine is a
+full-grown rose at least.” And her laugh showed the white teeth gleaming
+against the red lips.
+
+Her arch laughing face so close to his across the little tea-table
+tantalized him intolerably.
+
+“It is a red, red rose,” he whispered, hoarsely, half rising and bending
+over as if to survey it.
+
+“Beware of the thorn!” she laughed, nervously, drawing back
+involuntarily. “And to think that but for the coast-guard who found
+Primitiva’s letter,” she rattled on hastily, “some other fair lady would
+have had the honor of the dedication.”
+
+“One of the other Eleanors, perhaps,” he said, sulkily, sinking back
+into his chair.
+
+“Poor Primitiva!” she cried, in unabated hilariousness and intensified
+volubility. “Oh, she’s been such fun. You know Olive has brought her to
+London. She begged her away from her father, to the excessive joy of
+Primitiva, who has become her devoted slave. The other night Olive took
+her to the theatre with us and would have her in the box. She had been
+wrought up to a wild excitement, and when she got inside the theatre and
+looked round at the festive company she drew a deep breath of rapture.
+She said she liked it very much. Long before the orchestra struck up,
+Olive discovered that Primitiva imagined she was already in complete
+enjoyment of the play, and that to sit in the theatre was all in all.
+Only one thing marred Primitiva’s pleasure. She was looking round
+furtively for your cousin, and at last asked where Mr. Herbert sat;
+not, it transpired, because of his position as Olive’s _fiancé_, but
+because she had heard us talk of Herbert as writing a play, and imagined
+he was an inseparable adjunct of the theatre. Of course, she doesn’t
+know even now that there are more theatres than one. When the overture
+struck up she was surprised and delighted by this unexpected addition to
+the pleasures of the evening. The rising of the curtain was the climax
+of her astonishment and her transport. The action of the piece--a
+melodrama, purposely chosen for her behoof by our sportive friend,
+experimenting upon her freshness--seized her from the start, and kept
+her riveted. The fall of the first curtain, and the arrest of the
+innocent man for the murder, left her weeping bitterly. ‘It isn’t real,
+you little goose!’ Olive said, to pacify her. ‘Isn’t it?’ Primitiva
+replied, opening her brimming trustful eyes to their widest. She gave a
+little sobbing laugh. ‘And I thought they was all alive!’ Then she rose
+to go, and was astonished to hear that there was more. Alas! it would
+have been better had she gone. When the hero’s wife, visiting the hero
+in prison, kissed him, Primitiva inquired if the actor and actress were
+really married, and learning that they were not, was too disgusted to
+sympathize any further with their misfortunes. It revolted her,”
+concluded Mrs. Wyndwood, taking up her teacup with an air of preparing
+for the resumption of sips, “that a man who was not a woman’s husband
+should kiss her.” And her face gleamed more tantalizing than ever under
+the roses of her bonnet.
+
+His fingers dented the teaspoon they fidgeted with; it seemed
+intolerable that his life should be spoiled by acceptance of the moral
+stand-point of this simple creature. He with his artistic agonies and
+his complex sorrows and his high imaginings to be squeezed into the same
+moral moulds as Primitiva! He refused to see the humor of her. The girl
+had no more interest for him than that irritating Roy. It was maddening
+to have Eleanor sitting there in cold blood, the Honorable Mrs.
+Wyndwood, an irreproachable widow in black, talking abstractly of
+kisses. Then the tense string of expectation snapped; the apathy that he
+felt in the presence of Rosina invaded him--he stirred his tea
+listlessly, awaiting the moment of her departure. As she talked on,
+loquacious to the end, prattling of Erle-Smith and Beethoven, and
+Swinburne, his apathy quickened into impatience; he longed for her to be
+gone. His hidden fingers played a tattoo on the side of his chair. She
+bade him good-bye at last; she would not see him again for many months,
+unless he came to Paris.
+
+“I always run over to do the Salon,” he answered, indifferently.
+
+When he had seen her, stately and stiff, to her carriage, and his
+studio-door had shut him in again, he ripped up the canvas with his old
+sailor’s knife in a paroxysm of fury. His eye caught the silver regatta
+cup standing proudly upon the piano. He felt like dashing it down; then
+it occurred to him how fine and bitter a revenge it would be upon her
+and humanity at large to fill it with poison and drain it to the dregs.
+But he only threw himself upon a couch in a passion of sobs, such as had
+not shaken him since childhood. The great picturesque room, which the
+autumn twilight had draped in dusk, was ineffably dreary without her;
+his heart seemed full of dust, and tears were a blessed relief in the
+drought. They probably saved him from ending his empty life there and
+then.
+
+He rallied, and began other pictures, but he could do nothing with them.
+He refused commissions for portraits, hating the imposition of subject,
+and fearful of exposing his restlessness to a stranger’s gaze. The
+return of the world to town renewed social solicitations, but he felt he
+was wearing his heart on his sleeve, and declined to parade it through
+drawing-rooms. Despite this gain of time, the weeks passed without any
+definite product. He was searching, but he could not find. One day he
+would sit down and fix in charcoal some rough suggestions for a greater
+symbolic picture than that which he had destroyed; but the next day he
+would be working up his recollections of Devonshire night-scenery,
+trying by a series of tentative touches on a toned canvas to evolve the
+romantic mystery of those illumined villages niched in the cliffs, or of
+the moon making a lovely rippling path across the dark lonely sea, as
+Eleanor had made across his life; while a day or so after he would
+discard these thinly painted shadowy night-pieces, and, painting
+straight from the shoulder, “impasto” his canvas with brutal blobs of
+paint that at a distance merged into the living flow of red sunlit
+water.
+
+And always this rankling, gnawing pain of unsatisfied and unspoken
+desire. No man could work with that at his breast. And her rare letters
+did not allay it, though they spoke no word of love, but were full of
+enthusiasm for the free student life in Paris, the glorious
+_camaraderie_, the fun of dining occasionally for a few centimes in tiny
+_crémeries_, and going to the People’s Theatre off the Boulevard
+Montparnasse, where they gave a bonus of _cerises à l’eau de vie_
+between the pieces. Oh, if she had only been younger, less staled by
+life! If she could only begin over again. If she only had the energy of
+Olive, who started work at the Academy at the preternatural hour of
+eight A.M. But she had lost the faculty of beginnings, she feared, and
+she made but poor progress in sculpture. That was the undercurrent of
+these gay letters, the characteristic note of despondency.
+
+Rosina held out no hand of reconciliation. His only contact with her was
+through Billy, who paid him one visit to escort “Aunt Clara” over the
+studio. His wife had, it transpired, held forth so copiously and
+continuously upon its glories that the poor creature had plucked up
+courage to ask to see it, and Rosina, who had evidently concealed the
+breach with her famous husband, had besought Billy to convoy her. And so
+one day these two routed out the sick lion from the recesses of his den.
+
+The appearance of Miss Clara Coble was as much a shock as a surprise to
+Matthew Strang. In the nine years or so since she had assisted at his
+wedding--an unimportant but not disagreeable personage, tall and
+full-blooded as her brother, she had decayed lamentably. She was now an
+ungainly old maid, stooping and hollow-eyed, with crows’ feet and
+sharpened features. She had a nervous twitch of the eyelids, her head
+drooped oddly, and her conversation was at times inconsecutive to the
+verge of fatuity. From the day of her birth to the day of his death
+Coble had thought of her as his little sister, and he never realized
+the tragedy of her spinsterhood, of her starved nature, though under his
+very eye she had peaked and pined in body and soul.
+
+But it leaped to the painter’s eye at the first sight of her, and her
+image remained in his brain, infinitely pathetic.
+
+The ugliness that in earlier days would have averted his eyes in
+artistic disgust, drew him now in human pity. He grew tenderer to Rosina
+at the thought that she was harboring this wreck of femininity. It
+rejoiced him to think how much “Aunt Clara” was enjoying this visit to
+his grandeurs; he listened with pleased tolerance to her artless
+babble--in her best days she had always had something of her brother’s
+big simplicity--as she told tale after tale out of school, repeating the
+colossal things her poor brother had said about his son-in-law’s genius
+and wealth, recounting how Coble had thus become the indirect hero of
+the Temperance Bar, and unconsciously revealing--what was more
+surprising to the painter--the pride with which Rosina had always
+written home (and still spoke to her aunt) about her husband and his
+fashionable friends and successes. And poor Miss Coble expanded in the
+atmosphere of the great man, which she had never hoped to breathe. Her
+cadaverous cheek took a flush, she held her head straighter on her
+shoulders. He felt that, after all, it was worth while being famous if
+he could give such pleasure to simple souls by his mere proximity. The
+fame he had sold his body and soul for was a joyless possession; happy
+for him if it could yet give joy to others.
+
+Billy told him that Ruth Hailey was in Paris at the Hotel Windsor with
+Mrs. Verder, preparatory to the long Antipodean tour, and suggested that
+he might call upon her when he went over to see the Salon if she was
+still there. Matthew wrote down the address, but said he didn’t think he
+should go over that year. Billy looked disappointed; he had been about
+to suggest accompanying his brother. Life at Camden Town, he intimated
+fretfully, had resumed its dead-alive routine, and he glanced towards
+Miss Coble as if to imply that her advent had not brightened the
+domestic table.
+
+When the visitors left, Matthew put them into a cab and drove with them
+a little way to purchase presents for the children. There was a doll
+for Clara and a box of animals for Davie. To Rosina he did not venture
+to send even a message. At a word from her he would have gone to her,
+but he had no stomach to cope with her tantrums.
+
+This new reminder of home left him more depressed than before. It was
+impossible to concentrate himself upon his work, even in the presence of
+models. They were an unprofitable expense, and he dismissed them and
+brooded over the ruins of his life. Without Eleanor Art was impossible,
+he felt. True Art he could not produce without her inspiration, and
+false Art was falseness to her and a vile slavery.
+
+Insomnia dogged his nights, and when he slept it was but to suffer under
+harassing dreams fantastically compounded of his early struggles. These
+dreams never touched his later life; many of them dealt oppressively
+with the bird-shop, and he had often to clean endless shades with
+chamois leather, smashing one after the other under the rebuking but
+agonizingly unintelligible “Pop! Pop! Pop!” of “Ole Hey,” though he felt
+sure Tommy, the young Micmac errand-boy, had cracked them beforehand.
+And what added to the sleeper’s agony was that these breakages would
+have to be made good to the Deacon from his scanty wage, or, worse, he
+would be discharged and unable to send the monthly subsidy to Cobequid
+Village. The anguish and anxiety were quite as harassing as though the
+troubles were real.
+
+He made one desperate excursion into Society--it was the delightful
+dinner-party of a gifted fellow-artist whose cultured and beautiful wife
+had always seemed to him the ideal hostess. And a pretty and guileless
+girl, full of enthusiasm for Art and Nature and the life that was
+opening out before her, fell to his escorting arm; she was visibly
+overpowered by her luck and charmingly deferential; at first his
+responsive smile was bitter, but his mood lightened under her engaging
+freshness and the champagne he imbibed recklessly.
+
+But the next morning’s reaction, aggravated by the headache of
+indigestion, plunged him into more tenebrous glooms. But for the
+unkindly fates he might have sat with such a wife, host and hostess of
+such a gathering. He pictured Eleanor receiving his guests, and in his
+factitious happiness he gathered the poor and the despised to his
+hearth. The images of suicide resurged. He saw it on the
+bills:--“Suicide of a Popular Painter.” Why not? The position was
+hopeless; were it not best to throw it up? How the world would stare! No
+one would understand the reason. Rosina would still remain unknown,
+irrelevant to the situation. And his eyes filled with tears, in the
+bitter luxury of woe.
+
+But he did not commit suicide, and all that the world, or that minute
+portion of it which talks Art, wondered at, was why Matthew Strang was
+unrepresented when the Academy opened in May. It leaked out that he had
+been ill, and there were sympathetic paragraphs which were not
+altogether misinformed, for these sleepless or dream-tortured nights had
+brought on nervous prostration and acute headaches. That ancient
+blood-poisoning, too, had left its traces in his system, and when he was
+worried and overwrought his body had to pay again the penalty of
+unforgiven physical error.
+
+Again, as in those far-off days, he thought of a sea-voyage to his
+native village; it dwindled down to crossing the Channel. As the opening
+of the Salon drew nearer and nearer, he felt more and more strongly that
+he must not miss the Exhibition. It was part of a painter’s education.
+There was no need to see Eleanor Wyndwood; by remaining on the
+fashionable side of the river the chances were he would not even come
+across her casually in the few days of his stay. No, there was nothing
+to apprehend. And besides, it began to be increasingly borne in upon him
+that it was his duty to look up Ruth Hailey; she had called upon him at
+Camden Town, and etiquette demanded that he should return the call. What
+had she and Rosina talked about? he wondered dully. If he did not go
+soon, she might be off to Australia, and the opportunity of seeing his
+ancient playmate would probably recur nevermore.
+
+And so a bright May morning saw him arrive in the capital of Art,
+breakfast hastily at the Grand Hotel, and--drive straight to the Latin
+Quarter. Other climes, other thoughts, and the gayety of the Boulevards,
+with their green trees and many-colored kiosks, had begun to steal into
+his spirit, and his gloomy apprehension of danger to dissipate in the
+crisp sunny air. Why should he not see Eleanor Wyndwood?
+
+And then he discovered that he did not know her address, that she wrote
+from the English Ladies’ Art Club; he hunted out the place, but the
+concierge told him she was not there, and gave him the address of the
+Academy most of the ladies attended, but this was the hour of
+_déjeuner_, and monsieur would probably not find them there till the
+afternoon. He grew downcast again, and, dismissing the cab, he sauntered
+on foot towards the Academy, trying to kill time. He dropped into a tiny
+restaurant close by to get a cup of coffee; it was decorated by studies
+from the nude, evidently accepted in payment for dinners; and the
+ceiling had a central decoration that reminded him of his own crude
+workmanship in the sitting-room of that hotel in New Brunswick. He sat
+down at a little table facing the only lady customer, a dashing
+Frenchwoman, the warm coloring of whose handsome model’s face showed
+between a great black-plumed hat and a light-blue bow, and who paused
+between her spoonfuls of apple-stew to chant joyously, “Coucou, coucou,
+fal la, la, la, la.” A decadent poet with a leonine name sipped
+absinthe, a spectacled Dane held forth intermittently on the bad faith
+of England towards Denmark at the commencement of the century, a Scotch
+painter discoursed on fly-fishing, and exhibited a box of trout-flies,
+and one or another paused from time to time to hum, “Coucou, coucou, fal
+la, la, la, la,” in sympathy with the gay refrain. Hens fluttered and
+clucked about the two sunlit tables, and a goat wandered around, willing
+to eat.
+
+Matthew Strang fed the hens and was taken by the humors of the quarter,
+into which he had scarcely penetrated before, knowing mainly the other
+side of the water. Perceiving him looking at her pictures, the stout
+smiling proprietress, whose homely face, minus her characteristic smile,
+flared in paint on a wall, protruding from a scarlet-striped bodice,
+asked him in very loud tones if he would like to see her collection, and
+straightway haled him up-stairs to her salon, which was hung thickly
+with meritorious pictures, upon whose beauties she held a running
+comment, astonishing Matthew by the intelligence of her criticisms.
+“This represents a hawthorn, monsieur, which blossoms in the spring.
+This was done by a Dane who is dead. The King of Denmark offered him a
+commission, but he would not work for him, because he was a
+revolutionary--in painting only, you understand, an Impressionist. That
+is a copy of the one in the Luxembourg. I paid two hundred francs to
+have it made, because I love the original so. Oh yes, it is a very good
+copy. My landlord offered me four hundred for it, but I prefer to live
+in a little apartment, surrounded by my pictures. As you say, I am an
+amateur of pictures. There are more here in my bedroom,” and she ushered
+him in, apologizing for the bed not being made. Then she told him her
+history. She was a widow with an only son, who was _beau garçon_. Ah,
+she was beautiful herself when she had twenty years. Her son was to be
+an artist. Matthew Strang feelingly hoped the boy would become a great
+artist; inwardly he wondered wistfully why he himself had not been
+blessed with an art-loving mother. And then in a curious flash of
+retrospective insight he recognized for the first time the essential
+artistic elements in his mother’s character, stifled by a narrow
+creed--her craving for the life of gay cities, her Pagan anger at Abner
+Preep’s bow-legs! What a pity she had not been born in this freer
+artistic atmosphere, which indeed her ancestors must have breathed,
+though their blood had been crossed with German and Scotch, as if to
+produce his own contradictory temperament. In London, he thought,
+artistic connoisseurship was the last thing one would look for in small
+shopkeepers. In a softer mood he repaired to the Academy, which was
+entered through a pair of large folding doors that gave upon a stone
+corridor. He passed through this passage and came out under a sloping
+porch, with broken trellis-work at one side and an untidy tree. At the
+top of a flight of stone steps that descended thence, he was stopped by
+a block of young American fellows in soft felt hats, who motioned him to
+stand still, and, to his astonishment and somewhat melancholy amusement,
+he found himself part of a group about to be photographed by a pretty
+young lady student in the sunny, dusty court-yard below.
+
+The group she had posed stretched all down the steps, and consisted
+mainly of models--male and female. There were Italian women, dusky and
+smiling, some bareheaded, some hooded, and a few pressing
+infants--literal olive-branches--to their bosoms. There was an Italian
+girl of fourteen with a mustache, who was a flare of color in her green
+velvet apron and gorgeous trailing head-dress. There were Frenchwomen
+with coquettish straw hats, and a child in a Tam o’ Shanter; there was a
+Corsican in a slouch-hat, with coal-black hair and a velvet jacket to
+match, and a little Spanish boy in a white hat. Thrown in as by way of
+artistic contrast with all this efflorescence of youth was a doddering,
+pathetic old man with a spreading gray beard and flowing gray locks; and
+there were young lady students of divers nationalities--Polish, Greek,
+Dutch, and American--curiously interspersed in the motley group which
+stretched right down the stone steps between the stone balustrades that
+terminated in stone urns spouting disorderly twigs. Behind the pretty
+photographer were the terra-cotta walls of the sculpture atelier, which,
+high beyond her head, were replaced by long, green-glazed windows, into
+which a pink lilac-bush, tiptoeing, tried to peep; around her were
+stools, dumb-bells, damaged busts, a headless terra-cotta angel with
+gaping trunk and iron stump, nursing a squash-faced cherub, and
+dismantled packing-cases swarming with sportive black kittens; and
+facing her a great blackened stone head of Medusa stared from a
+red-brick pedestal, awful with spiders’ webs across the mouth and
+athwart the hollow orbits and in the snaky hair covered with green moss;
+and towering over her head and dominating the court-yard stood a
+colossal classical statue, tarnished and mutilated, representing a huge
+helmeted hero, broken-nosed and bleared, sustaining a heroine, as
+armless but not so beautiful as the Venus de Milo, doing a backward
+fall. But the sun shone on the dusty litter and the mess and the lumber,
+and the lilac-bush blossomed beautifully, and over all was the joy of
+youth and Art and the gayety of the spring. Matthew Strang felt an
+ancient thrill pass through his sluggish veins. To be young and to
+paint--what happiness! His eyes moistened in sympathy with the scene.
+The models were redolent of Art--the very children breathed Art, the
+babes sucked it in. Art was a republic, and everybody was equal in
+it--the doughtiest professor and the meanest model, the richest amateur
+and the penurious youth starving himself to be there. There was nothing
+in the world but Art--it was the essence of existence. There were people
+who lived for other things, but they did not count. Oh, the free brave
+life! He was glad to be photographed as part and parcel of all this
+fresh aspiration; it revivified him; he had a superstitious sense that
+it was symbolic.
+
+The group scattered, dismissed by the “Merci” of the pretty
+photographer; and Matthew, descending the steps, asked her if Mrs.
+Wyndwood worked in her atelier. She did not know, but she guessed from
+his description it must be the aristocratic-looking lady who had dropped
+in once or twice in Miss Regan’s company. Miss Regan came regularly
+every morning at eight o’clock, but not at all in the afternoon, when
+she worked at home. Miss Regan’s own studio was in an Impasse about ten
+minutes away; probably her friend lived with her. Heartily thanking his
+informant, he betook himself thither. He found the Impasse in a prosaic,
+grimy street, amid which the charming, if battered bass-relief of Venus
+with Cupids over its entrance, struck an unexpected note of poetry,
+which was intensified by the little Ionic portico with classic bronze
+figures between its pillars that faced him as he passed through the
+corridor. Leafy trees and trellised plants added rusticity to the poetry
+of the sunny, silent, deserted court-yard, so curiously sequestered amid
+the surrounding squalor. The windows of many studios gave upon it, and
+the backs of canvases showed from the glass annexes for _plein air_
+study. But as he passed under the pretty, natural porch of embowering
+foliage that led to the door of the studio he sought, his heart beat as
+nervously at the thought of again facing the Hon. Mrs. Wyndwood as when,
+in his young days, he had first saluted the magnificent uncle whose name
+he bore. He had an inward shrinking: was it wise to expose himself to
+the perturbation of another interview with this cold, stately creature,
+the image of whom, passing graciously to her carriage, was still vivid
+to him? But he could not go back now. He knocked at the door.
+
+Eleanor opened the door--a radiant, adorable apparition in a big white
+clay-smeared blouse with a huge serviceable pocket. He had never
+imagined her thus; he was as taken aback by her appearance as she by his
+presence. He stared at her in silence, as she stood there under the
+overarching greenery, with gold flecks of sunlight on her hair. But both
+recovered themselves in a moment; the sight of her in this homely
+artistic costume knocked her off the pedestal of fashion and propriety
+on which his mental vision had posed her; she became part of that brave
+young democracy of Art he had just left; and there was a charming
+_camaraderie_ in the gay laugh with which, withdrawing her long white
+hands beyond reach of his proffered glove, and exhibiting them piquantly
+clay-covered, she cried, “Can’t shake.”
+
+The seriousness of the imagined meeting vanished in a twinkling. He
+looked at her dancing eyes, the sweet, red mouth smiling with a gleam of
+lustrous teeth: he had an audacious inspiration.
+
+“Well, then there’s nothing for it but--” he said, smiling back, and
+finished the sentence by kissing her. Instantly her eyelids drooped,
+half-closing; her lips responded passionately to his.
+
+They were withdrawn in a moment before he could realize what he had
+done, or the wonderful transformation in their relations.
+
+“In the open air!” she cried, horrified, and ran within. He followed
+her, closing the door; his heart beat tumultuously now. Nothing could
+undo that moment. A wilderness of talk could not have advanced matters
+so far.
+
+Through the tall glass roof of the airy studio the sun streamed in rays
+of dusty gold, dappling the imaginative clay models in their wet
+wrappings, the busts, fountains, serpents, rock-work, witches, that
+variegated the shelves, and lent an air of fantasy and poetry, extruding
+the tedious commonplace of plebeian existence, and harmonizing with the
+joyous aloofness of the scene in the court-yard its sense of existence
+in and for itself, by souls attuned to Art and dedicate to loveliness.
+
+Mrs. Wyndwood stood, saucily beautiful, leaning against a shelf, with
+one hand in the pocket of her blouse, and rubbing the clay of the other
+against the sides of what looked like a tin baking-dish filled with
+plaster-pie. How harmonious was that tilt to her nose! He had never
+noticed before how delightfully it turned up. She smiled roguishly.
+
+“Imprudent creature! Suppose Olive had been in!”
+
+The great moment was taken in a livelier key than he had ever dreamed.
+
+“But _you_ were out,” he said, trying to respond to her lightness,
+though he trembled in every limb. He made a movement towards her. She
+shrank back against the shelf.
+
+“Don’t!” she cried, gayly, “you’ll spoil your gloves.”
+
+He dabbled them magnificently in a heap of plaster of Paris and advanced
+nearer.
+
+“Now you’ll spoil my blouse,” she cried, moving hastily away to dip her
+hands in a bowl of water.
+
+He tore off the gloves and threw them on the floor.
+
+“Is that a challenge?” she laughed, drying her hands, but the laughter
+died in a gurgle. He had stopped her breath. She did not struggle, but
+lay in his arms silent like a tired, lovely child--at rest, at last, her
+happy face pressed to his. “Oh, my dear,” she murmured, cooingly. “And
+all those months you never kissed me once!”
+
+“I did not dare,” he answered, with a pang of remorse. “You gave me no
+hint that you--that you cared for me.”
+
+A beautiful blush blossomed and faded on her face. “But you should have
+understood. I needed the touch.” And her face nestled closer against
+his.
+
+Even now it seemed dream-like that this marvellous happiness should be
+his; that this fastidious complex creature of fashionable London whom he
+had dared to love should be pillowing her perfumed head on the shoulder
+of the man who in his laborious and wretched youth had wheeled a
+bird-stuffer’s barrow through Whitechapel. His life lay behind him like
+a steep, arduous hill rising to this celestial cloudland.
+
+“If I had only known,” he said, brokenly. “Oh, how I loved you that
+night of the storm!”
+
+“And how I adored you,” she confessed deliciously. “You were so brave,
+so manly that day. You saved Olive’s life, you saved her for me and for
+Herbert. Oh, how noble! We none of us thanked you, it was all laughter
+and badinage, but you were my hero, my true, great, strong, simple man.”
+
+And her lips sought his humbly, her eyes swimming in tears.
+
+“Let me kiss you now for your brave deed. Ah, how I was afraid when
+Herbert, looking through his glass, cried out that something had
+happened to Olive, that you had swum back for her. I felt my life
+growing dark. Suppose I had lost you both.”
+
+And her mobile face grew tragic at the thought. He held her tighter.
+
+“Eleanor! It is so good to be with you!” he articulated in a hoarse
+whisper that was half a sob.
+
+Her tragic features lightened to a winsome, reproachful smile.
+
+“And when I came to your studio, Matthew, you gave me ... tea!”
+
+“If I had only known, if I had only dared!”
+
+“You must dare with a woman.”
+
+Her arms had been resting on his shoulders--she threw them around his
+neck.
+
+“Oh, my Master--now and ever.”
+
+Conscience slipped into paradise. He unwound her arms.
+
+“You forget my--secret.”
+
+She moved her chin bewitchingly upward.
+
+“You have sealed my lips.”
+
+He kissed them again. “And you can love me despite that? I am not worthy
+of such a sacrifice.”
+
+Her bosom heaved beneath the blouse, her eyes kindled with the old
+spiritual fire, her voice rang passionately.
+
+“You _are_ worthy! Life has been too cruel to you--you need a woman’s
+heart to cherish you, you shall not be starved of the sunshine, you
+shall work in happiness. Ah! that is what I have learned here in this
+happy, liberal air. Art is the child of joyful labor--it is the sunshine
+of life. You are sad, miserable, and it harrows my heart. Oh, if I can
+bring joy and peace to the soul of a man like you, if I can indeed
+inspire your Art, my wretched life will not have been wasted. You have
+told me that I could, tell it me again.”
+
+“You, and you only, can bring me joy and peace.”
+
+She caressed his hair with a tender, protective hand. “My Matthew!” she
+murmured.
+
+“And you, Eleanor,” he faltered, tremulously; “I shall not make you
+unhappy?”
+
+“I shall be happier than I have ever been,” and her arms stole round him
+again in simple trust.
+
+“Ah, I was forgetting. Life owes _you_ happiness, too. If I dared to
+think I could bring you forgetfulness of the past!”
+
+She shuddered. Her arms unlaced themselves of their own accord. She
+dropped into a chair before the table and laid them across the
+moulding-dish, and buried her head in her hands. He stood by helpless,
+torn by emotions, waiting till the flood of bitter memories should have
+spent itself, watching her shoulders quivering, and the sunlight lying
+on her hair like a consecration.
+
+“Oh, Douglas!” she was moaning. “Did I do you wrong? Did I do you wrong?
+But I meant the best; I always meant the best, God knows. And you cannot
+chide me now you are dead and cold, and it is all so long ago.”
+
+He shivered nervously. Truly women were incomprehensible, he thought. No
+man could follow the leaps and turns of their emotions. They were a
+higher, more ethereal order of being. But he reverenced her for her
+loyalty to the unworthy dead, her punctilious self-torture, even while
+he envied the man who had been privileged to call her “wife.”
+
+He touched her hair reverently--there where the sunshine rested.
+
+“Don’t cry, dear Eleanor.”
+
+A great burst of sobbing shook her. “Oh, life is so difficult!” He bent
+down beside her, ineffably pitiful.
+
+“We are going to make it easier for one another,” he said, gently. His
+hair touched hers. She turned her tear-flecked face, and their lips met.
+“We are going to begin over again,” he murmured. She stifled her sobs
+like a soothed child, and sprang up with a smile struggling through
+rain-clouds.
+
+“Yes, with you I can begin over again, Master,” and she looked into his
+face with her naïve, beseeching trustfulness.
+
+“This is a new life already,” he said, touching her blouse. She gave a
+laugh of childish joy.
+
+“Yes! yes! This is a new life--the past is dead--this is my neophyte’s
+robe. Ah, it changes one, this Paris, does it not? I am an artist, and
+you are my Master. It is you who have awakened me to Art! Oh, I knew
+this would happen. That wonderful old woman! She’s a fortune-teller in
+Bethnal Green--the Duchess of Portsdown gave me her address--and after
+you were so cold to me when I came to your studio in London, I went to
+see her. Such a queer, wrinkled hag, and such a dingy, wretched room, up
+such a dirty flight of stairs--oh, I was afraid! But she was marvellous!
+She knew I was a widow--that I had been married unhappily--that I was a
+fashionable lady--though I went in my oldest clothes, and hid my rings
+in my purse for fear of their being stolen. Oh! by-the-way, where have I
+put them?” He found them and she slipped them on. “And she said I should
+love again and be loved. You should have seen her wicked old eyes as she
+spoke of love--they were like live coals. And then she predicted that I
+should marry again and lead a long and happy life with a dark man,
+distinguished and rich, who should inspire me to a new faith. Isn’t it
+marvellous?” She took his hand and smoothed the wrist caressingly.
+
+“It is you who have inspired me to a new faith,” he answered,
+tremulously. “It is you who have awakened me to Art. Do you know what
+happened to me this morning when I went to seek you out? I, too, was
+reborn.”
+
+He told her the auspicious incident--how he had been photographed as
+part of the fresh young art-life.
+
+She clapped her jewelled hands.
+
+“It is providential--foreordained. We are to be happy.”
+
+“Happy!” He shivered with sudden foreboding. “Another prophetess
+declared I was never to be happy,” he said, sadly. “To thirst, and to
+thirst, and never to quench my thirst!”
+
+“Oh, that is all superstitious nonsense!” she cried, vehemently. “You
+_must_ be happy; you _shall_ be happy; the world must not lose your Art;
+_I_ will save it.”
+
+Her face was glorified.
+
+“But the cost to yourself,” he faltered.
+
+“I will pay the price. You love me. For me to ruin your life--_that_
+would be sin.”
+
+She drew his head to her bosom and smoothed back the curly hair from his
+forehead.
+
+“My dear, my dear,” she murmured.
+
+He gulped back the lump in his throat. “No, this is not sin. You have
+redeemed me; I never felt so at peace with all things,” he said, in low,
+religious tones. “Oh, we will shame the world--we will live high and
+true. Our happiness shall radiate to all that sorrows and suffers. Our
+home shall be the home of Art. It shall stand open to all the young
+artists striving faithfully in poverty--it shall be a centre of
+blessing. Suffering has made me morose, now I feel at one with my kind,
+longing to do my truest work. Oh, God bless you, my dear.”
+
+A startled look of alarm had come into her face. She loosed her embrace
+of him.
+
+“But, Matt! We cannot have a home.”
+
+He had a chill of apprehension, which even the sweetness of that first
+clipping of his name could not counteract.
+
+“But we love each other!”
+
+She waved her hands agitatedly. “The world would spurn me--”
+
+“We will spurn the world.”
+
+“Oh, but you are not thinking! Who would come to the house? How is it to
+be a centre of blessing?”
+
+“We will win the world’s respect. What! You and I! Are we not strong
+enough? You, with your noble past--I, who come from nothing and have won
+_you_.”
+
+“You talk like a dreamer, a poet, and I love you for it. But you do not
+know the world--how it ignores the realities of things.”
+
+“Oh, I know the canting hypocrisy that puts its faith in shows, and
+honors loveless marriage. I will teach it to respect a home of love, and
+the work that is its fruit. You are right, happiness is the mother of
+Art. Oh, how I shall work now, my dear!”
+
+“You may overtop Raphael; you will never be a Royal Academician.”
+
+“What has my private life to do with Art?”
+
+“Nothing with Art, but everything with English Art. You will lose your
+R.A.”
+
+“I shall gain you.”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“Why not gain both?”
+
+“Ah, but you say it is impossible!”
+
+“I do not say so. What need is there to wear our hearts upon our
+sleeves?” She touched his sleeve now, insinuating caressing fingers.
+“Darling, don’t you see how hard it would be for me to bear--I am not a
+man. The worst of the scorn would be for me. Society is very hard upon
+those who will not be unconventional in secret. I have not your courage
+and strength. You will not shame me.”
+
+He weakened.
+
+“Oh, I am thoughtless,” he said, and stood miserable, unconscious of the
+caressing fingers.
+
+Then his brow lightened.
+
+“Nobody knows I’m married. If we came back and set up house together,
+people would think we had been married abroad.”
+
+She put her hands to her face with a desperate gesture. “Oh, but I could
+not bear Olive to know.”
+
+His heart leaped. “Has Herbert told her I’m married?”
+
+“No, she doesn’t know.”
+
+“He is a fine fellow.”
+
+“But she would be sure to learn it one day--it would leak out.”
+
+“Then she would keep the secret.”
+
+She shook her head. “You don’t know Olive,” she said from between her
+palms. “She is hard on women. I would have sat to you ages ago, only I
+was afraid of her sneers. I wouldn’t have her know for worlds. I used to
+think her sexless.”
+
+“But now that she is to be married--”
+
+“She will be more conventional than ever.”
+
+He tossed back his hair, impatiently. “Then we must dispense with
+Olive.”
+
+For a long time she did not reply. He thought his harshness towards her
+friend had set her crying again. He gently forced her hands from her
+face. It was flushed and pain-stricken.
+
+“Forgive me. I have hurt you,” he said, in contrition.
+
+“No, you do not understand. And Olive has been so good to me. She takes
+charge of all my affairs--” She hesitated. “I don’t even know what my
+income is, or”--with a pathetic engaging smile--”whether I have an
+income at all. And I’m afraid I spend a great deal.”
+
+He straightened his shoulders. “I am very glad of that. I will work for
+you. I can wring gold from the world.” Rapid calculations flashed
+through his mind--already he regretted his last year’s inactivity, the
+destruction of his picture.
+
+She was blushing adorably. “No, I could not take anything from you ...
+if we lived apart. No, no.”
+
+“Not from me? Oh, Eleanor. Then we must make our home together.”
+
+“But don’t I tell you that is impossible?” she said, almost pettishly,
+on the brink of tears. “The world would get to know the truth. There is
+that Ruth Hailey you spoke of, who knows your brother, and who through
+her connection with Linda Verder gets brought into contact with all
+sorts of people. And your wife would hear of it, too. Unscrupulous
+persons would egg her on to move. There would be blackmailing,
+everything sordid and horrible.” She shuddered violently.... “Oh, you do
+not know the world--you have lived with your eyes shut, fixed on inward
+visions.”
+
+He opened them now, startled to find himself lectured for want of
+worldliness by this ethereal creature. She dissipated his uneasy
+bewilderment by a swift transition, her face dimpled itself with
+reassuring smiles. She pulled the little curly lock at his forehead with
+a fascinating tug.
+
+“Don’t be such a hot-headed Quixote, dear. There is time enough to plan
+out the future. Circumstances may change--” Her face saddened. “The poor
+creature may be taken ... and your idea may seem more plausible when I
+have got used to it--you come with a rush and a crash--like those waves
+that night.” She smiled wistfully. “And I am only a woman, and timid.
+Can’t you see I have been frightened to death all this last half-hour?”
+
+“Frightened of me?”
+
+“No,” with a pathetic smile. “Frightened of Olive. Twenty times I
+thought I caught her footsteps.”
+
+“What if she does come! She won’t be surprised to see me here.”
+
+“No, but I have a plan. It will be safest if she doesn’t know you’re in
+Paris at all. You must leave me at once.”
+
+His heart sank. “But when do I see you?”
+
+“Next Sunday evening.”
+
+“A whole week?” The sunlight seemed gone.
+
+“On Sunday morning Olive goes to Brussels for a few days--she’s only
+waiting to finish that statuette of Fate, isn’t it weird? All those
+things there are Olive’s handiwork; how clever she is! I only do the
+menial work of pouring in the plaster. It saves money, because--”
+
+“Yes, yes,” he interrupted, impatiently. “And on Sunday evening?”
+
+“You will call for me here--say about seven--you will take me to dinner,
+somewhere quiet in this great free Paris.” She made a great circle with
+her arms, as if enjoying the elbow-room. “And then--” she smiled
+intoxicatingly, “then we can talk over the future.” Her eyes looked
+heavenly promise. He caught her in his arms. This time she struggled
+away.
+
+“No, no! She may be back at any moment. I hear footsteps. You must go.”
+
+She pushed him towards the door.
+
+“Mayn’t I write?”
+
+“No, Olive would see the letter.”
+
+The footsteps passed by.
+
+He looked back in reluctant farewell, as he fumbled at the door-handle.
+She was close behind him.
+
+She opened her arms, and his head was on her breast again. “Oh, my dear,
+my dear,” she murmured, “it is hard to wait.”
+
+Then she pushed him outside, her face grown spiritual again in its
+anxiety, and she slammed the door, and he reeled like a drunken man.
+
+Her last look haunted him--soulful, alluring, intoxicating. He was
+almost sobbing with happiness. Heaven had been kind to him at last. The
+balmy air of the court-yard fanned his brow. He walked on aimlessly, in
+a beatific dream, past the beautiful Ionic portico, through the
+corridor, into the street, no longer grimy, and so on to the Boulevards.
+
+How happy the world was! How the sunshine streamed with its dancing
+motes! How gay the kiosks with their dainty posters and the piquant
+designs of great caricaturists laughing from the front pages of the
+illustrated journals! How light-hearted those bourgeois drinking red
+wine at the _al fresco_ tables! What a jolly, bulbous-nosed old cabman
+that was who hailed him, not knowing he had quicksilver in his veins,
+and must needs give his limbs to lively motion. He sauntered on at
+random, buoyant, treading on sunbeams, a song at his heart, breathing in
+the sense of the spacious, airy city that sparkled in the spring
+sunshine, mother of nimble spirits; he crossed the river, glittering in
+a long sweep, with Notre Dame rising on its island in picturesque
+antiquity; the book-stalls on the quays thrilled him with a remembrance
+of the joys of reading; he strode on humming a merry tune, the bustle of
+traffic was a musical accompaniment to it; he stopped at a great leafy
+square, alive with pedestrians, to watch the limpid water leaping from a
+beautiful fountain; around him were the seductive programmes of
+theatres, eloquent of artistic acting, of fine comedy, of poetic
+tragedy. He strolled along, absorbing noble buildings, and churches, and
+splendid public monuments. How fair life was, how marvellously
+compacted! Gladness was at the heart of all things.
+
+The city passed into his soul as never before; its radiant message of
+elegance, proportion, style, sanity, unity, lucidity, exquisite
+sensibility to the material, balanced by an æsthetic delight in ideas,
+and the spirit of gayety all over; henceforth, thanks to Eleanor, he
+would be of it, following Art for the joy of Art, out of the happiness
+of the soul, sun-clear, without stagnant vapors of discontent, those
+fits of spleen bred of foggy, uncouth London; he would be fixed at last,
+swinging steadily on a pivot of happiness, a lover of life and a
+praiser thereof. All its sweetness had been diverted from him--it had
+passed to others. Now at last he would be self-centred. He rambled on,
+he crossed the Pont Passy, and saw the old city rising quaint and steep
+in wooded terraces. Oh, love and life! Oh, life and love! Why had people
+besmirched the Creation with soilures of cynicism, plaguing the air with
+pessimistic laments, graceless grunts of swine nosing garbage?
+
+What good times he had had himself, he who had won fame and gold while
+still young! And how ungraciously he had accepted these gifts of the
+gods, mewling and whining like a sulky child. Surely he deserved that
+hell allotted in Dante for those who had wilfully lived in sadness. The
+gracious romance of life--that was what his Art should henceforth
+interpret. He began to dream beautiful masterpieces, and they reminded
+him that he had come to see the Salon. He retraced his steps towards the
+Champs Elysées, watching the endless procession of elegant equipages
+rolling steadily to and from the Bois, with their panorama of luxurious
+women. He entered the Salon; the pictures delighted him, the crowd
+enraptured him, a young girl’s face stirred him to a mood of paternal
+benediction; he met Edward Cornpepper, A.R.A., there, and felt the
+little man was his dearest friend. Cornpepper introduced him to his
+newly-acquired wife, who said the Exhibition was indecent.
+
+“You are right, my dear, there isn’t a decent picture here,” Cornpepper
+chuckled, grimacing to adjust his monocle, and feeling his round beard.
+“Ichabod! The glory is departed from Paris. The only chaps who can paint
+nowadays are the Neo-Teutonic school. The Frenchmen are played out--they
+have even lost their taste. They bought a picture of mine last year, you
+remember. I palmed off the rottenest thing I’d ever done on ’em. It’s in
+the Luxembourg--you go and see it, old man, and you tell me if I’m not
+right. Now, mind you do! Ta, ta, old fellow. Sorry you’re not in the
+Academy this year--but it’s a good advertisement for you. I think I
+shall be ill myself next year. But we mustn’t talk shop. Good-bye, old
+man. Oh, by-the-way, I hear your cousin’s engaged to an heiress. It’s
+true, is it? Lucky beggar, that Herbert! Better than painting, eh? Ha!
+ha! ha! But I knew he’d never do anything. Didn’t he win the Gold Medal,
+eh? Ho! ho! ho! Well, au revoir. Don’t forget the Luxembourg. You don’t
+want to wait till I’m dead and in the Louvre, what? Thanks for a
+pleasant chat, and wish you better.”
+
+Matthew shook his hand for the third time with unabated affection. What
+a clever fellow Cornpepper was, and what a pretty wife he had got!
+
+He went to his hotel to dine. The court-yard was gay with lounging,
+lolling visitors, the fountain in the centre leaped and sparkled with
+changing colors, like an effervescence of the city. Far into the night
+he sat out on the balcony of his gilt-skied, many-mirrored bedroom,
+gazing at the beautiful Boulevards stretching serenely away in the
+moonlight between their gigantic edifices.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RUTH HAILEY
+
+
+How he lived through the rest of the week he never definitely
+remembered. He would have willingly given the days away, but, as they
+had to be filled up somehow, they left confused recollections of
+theatres and ballets, of rencontres with random acquaintances, of riding
+on tiny tram-cars to see the Zoological Garden in the Bois de Boulogne,
+of wandering in a rag-fair, of reading modern French poetry, of visiting
+the ateliers of French painters whom he knew, and sympathizing with
+their grumbles against the Institute and the distribution of
+decorations, while wondering inwardly why these overgrown school-boys
+languished and died for lack of a bit of ribbon. What could a man want
+in life but to paint and to love? State recognition? Bah! The artist was
+always an Anarchist. He stood alone, self-centred.
+
+He hobnobbed with students, too, in his new sympathy with youth and art,
+and--a distinguished visitor--was taken through the great ateliers with
+their rainbow-colored dados of palette-scrapings and the announcements
+in every European language that new-comers must pay for drinks. He
+gladly accepted a ticket for a students’ ball on the Saturday night; it
+had been postponed for a few weeks through the death of a beloved
+professor. He had heard much of these balls, but had never seen one, and
+he counted upon it to while away that last intolerable night between him
+and his happiness.
+
+Several times during the week he had thought of going to see Ruth Hailey
+in accordance with the duty that on the other side of the Channel had
+seemed so pressing, but he shrank instinctively from the raking up of
+memories of the old unhappy days at this joyous crisis; he was not in
+the mood for extraneous emotion. Nevertheless on the Saturday afternoon,
+partly for want of anything better to do, partly to keep up to himself
+the pretence that she was at least one of the motives that brought him
+to Paris, and partly to ascertain if she had spoken to people in England
+about his wife, he set out to pay the long-projected visit. He would
+feel how the ground lay, discover if she had innocently betrayed him to
+anybody who might touch Mrs. Wyndwood’s circle--which might be awkward
+if in a possible compromise Eleanor should ever decide to live with him
+in ostensible marriage.
+
+He had a dim, unformed idea of appealing to Ruth for silence, but he did
+not really meditate invoking her sympathies; she was on the eve of
+departing for the Antipodes--was perhaps already gone.
+
+He found her hotel--it was in the Rue de Rivoli. A waiter took up his
+name and forthwith brought back word that Mademoiselle would see
+Monsieur Strang.
+
+His heart was throbbing curiously as he mounted the stairs and stood
+outside her door. The quick, irregular clack, clack of a type-writer
+responded like an echo. He was ushered into a large plainly-furnished
+sitting-room. His first vision was of a tall comely lady in a grayish
+gown, writing at a table opposite the door; but this was effaced by the
+slimmer figure of a younger woman approaching from the right, with a
+smile of welcome and an extended hand. A moment later her smile had
+faded, and her hand was on her heart, soothing its flutter. He was
+shaken to his depths; behind all the bodily changes he saw the little
+girl-friend of his childhood; and, indeed, the purity of her limpid,
+truthful gaze was undimmed.
+
+“Ruth!” he cried in alarm, moving forward as if to sustain her.
+
+She drew herself up, rigid and frozen; then her face relaxed, suffused
+by a wan smile and a returning flood of carmine. She held out her hand
+with a nervous laugh.
+
+“How are you, Mr. Strang? I thought it was Billy, and to see you instead
+startled me.”
+
+As he took the little hand and looked into her face, maturer than its
+years, though it had not lost its olden charm, especially in the
+complexion, which was marvellously pure and soft, registering every
+slightest change of thought and feeling in dainty flickers of rose
+across its delicate fairness, his soul was invaded by a rush of tender
+memories, incongruously jostling in his brain: the thrills and raptures
+of boyhood, the joys of coasting down the slopes, and snaring rabbits
+and shooting partridges; the glow of skating; the delicious taste of the
+home-made cakes; the songs and hymns of childhood, the firelight casting
+shadows on the dusky walls, while his mother read the Bible; the drone
+of the fusty-coated preacher in the little wooden meeting-house; the
+thwacking of the dancers’ feet in the barn, the odors of hay and the
+lowing of cattle; the gleam of the yellow-tipped mullein by the wayside
+and the smell of the wild flowers in the woods; the note of the
+whippoorwill in the forest at twilight; the long cranes floating over
+the summer marshes; the buzz of fresh young voices in McTavit’s
+school-room. All these came back--dear and desirable, steeped in tears,
+softened by distance to a pensive beauty, like bawling choruses heard
+from afar across still water, inextricably interwoven with all the
+pieties of childhood, the simple sense of God and truth and honor and
+righteousness.
+
+He stood holding her hand, oblivious of the present, in a whirling chaos
+of ancient images that melted his soul to childish tenderness, and
+brought back to it the child’s clear, unquestioning perception of
+spiritual ideas which had grown shadowy in the atmosphere of salons and
+studios and fashionable churches, that stereoscopic vision of the saint
+and the child which sees the spiritual solid. But Ruth disengaged her
+fingers at last, blushing under the kindly smile of the comely lady.
+
+“This is Mr. Matthew Strang, Linda,” she said. “Mr. Strang, let me
+introduce you to Mrs. Verder.”
+
+He bowed: “Oh, I have heard of Linda Verder,” he said, smiling.
+
+“And I have heard more of Matthew Strang,” she replied, beamingly.
+
+“That is scarcely possible,” he murmured.
+
+She laughed with a bird-like trill. “Oh, I wasn’t alluding merely to
+your public career, though our sweet Ruth has gotten a whole album full
+of newspaper-cuttings about that. But it is of you yourself and your
+childhood that I have heard so much. So you see I _have_ the advantage
+of you. But you will excuse me, I know; I have to go out. You needn’t
+bother about those letters, dear. We’re nearly through with them.” And
+with an affectionate nod to Ruth and a beneficent smile to Matthew, she
+left the room. He was reddening: he was beginning to feel uncomfortable
+under Mrs. Verder’s smiles, which in their insinuation of old
+sweetheartship made it certain that Ruth had never mentioned his
+marriage to her friend even; to hear that the forgotten Ruth had been
+following his career all those years gave him an odd pathetic shiver.
+She and Billy--and Heaven knew what others--were sunning themselves in
+the mere reflected rays of that fame which had left him cold.
+
+She stood away from him, shy and equally embarrassed, the blood ebbing
+and flowing in the pure, soft cheek.
+
+“Won’t you sit down?” she said at last.
+
+“Oh, thank you!” he replied, and took a distant chair.
+
+She sat down behind her type-writer, facing him. There was a silence.
+She was the first to break it.
+
+“I was so sorry to read you were ill.”
+
+“Oh, it was nothing,” he murmured.
+
+“I am so pleased we hadn’t left--we are sailing next Tuesday. It is so
+good of you to come and see me, with the many claims that you must have
+on your time.”
+
+“It is a pleasure to be reminded of old times. I was sorry I missed you
+the time you called at my house,” he said, awkwardly.
+
+“I was very sorry, too.”
+
+“But you know I work at my studio,” he explained, trying not to flush.
+“There is no room at home.”
+
+“Yes, I know. But I didn’t care to call there and interrupt your work.
+Billy showed me the little room where you used to work in the olden
+days. I thought it real nice of you to turn it into a study for him, and
+to take care of him as you are doing. He sent me a story of his. No; it
+wasn’t very good, poor fellow!” she added, seeing the question in his
+face. “Rather too full of passionate love-making.”
+
+“Not published?”
+
+“No--in manuscript. I returned it to him type-written. He was
+enraptured. He said it was like seeing himself in print.”
+
+“Ah! we are not so used to the type-writer as you Americans.”
+
+“It is coming in fast, though; even into your slow, old country, if you
+consider it yours,” she added, slyly. “I am delighted to see how many
+offices the new-fangled machine has crept into; in two years it will be
+in every business office.”
+
+“Why delighted? Have you or Mrs. Verder shares in the patent?”
+
+“No, no,” she said, gently. “Don’t you see it is a new occupation for
+women?”
+
+He smiled.
+
+“Ah, I remember. That’s your hobby.”
+
+“Oh, not hobby, Mr. Strang, not hobby. It is my life-work. But I can’t
+expect you to sympathize with these sordid, practical things,” she said,
+smiling. “Your life is devoted to the gospel of the Beautiful.”
+
+“Oh, but I do sympathize,” he cried, remorsefully. “I think it is very
+fine of you.”
+
+She shook her head, her smile fading.
+
+“You don’t--you can’t. You are outside the circle of the material
+worries of the poor; or, what is worse, the genteel. And nobody but a
+woman can know the tragic pettiness of the life-struggle for single
+girls--the stifled aspirations, the abortive longings, the tears in the
+night. Christ would have understood. But He was not a man.”
+
+He saw the blur of emotion veil her eyes ere she turned her head hastily
+away. He felt his own sight growing dim; an understratum of his
+consciousness admired the flow of her language, and divined platform
+experiences. He had never before thought of her as clever.
+
+She recovered herself in a moment, and resumed, playfully:
+
+“No, if you were a black-and-white artist you would have sketched Mrs.
+Verder with corkscrew ringlets and crying for trousers. We do want the
+Franchise and the right to dress as we please, but these are only
+incidental aspects of the movement for the independence of women, though
+they lend themselves most readily to caricature. The woman of the future
+is simply the working woman. All we really want is to make girls
+economically independent of marriage; able to choose their mates from
+love instead of selling themselves for a home.”
+
+He could not meet her frank eyes; he was suddenly reminded of his own
+marriage. What would this stainless soul think of him if she knew he had
+sold himself, or--worse--if she knew why he had come to her this
+afternoon? He murmured, surveying the carpet, that he knew life was hard
+for girls, but that he hoped she at least had not been unhappy.
+
+“I? Oh! I’ve been as happy as the next girl, though I’ve had my trials,”
+she said, cheerily, between smiles and tears. “But I am grateful to God
+for them, else I should never have learned to sympathize as I do, and I
+should not have served the Master. My life might have been wasted in
+mere happiness.”
+
+Mere happiness! The phrase went through him like a sword.
+
+“But _you_ had no need to work for a living,” he said, dubiously.
+
+“Indeed I had! I had nothing.”
+
+“You had a father.”
+
+“Of a kind. But I quarrelled with him. You heard that, of course.”
+
+He had heard of it, of course, but her affairs had made trivial dints
+upon his consciousness.
+
+“Why did you quarrel with him?” he asked.
+
+Her face became a crimson mask. She lowered her head.
+
+“Oh--I beg your pardon,” he stammered in distress. “Of course I had no
+right to ask.”
+
+She was silent, her fingers nervously picking out letters on the
+type-writer. Then her eyes met his unflinchingly again.
+
+“No, in a way you have a right to ask,” she said, uneasily. “I don’t see
+why I shouldn’t tell you--it’s so long ago. You know I became the
+Deacon’s book-keeper?”
+
+He nodded, wondering.
+
+“He made me keep all his accounts. I learned all about his affairs.
+Well, one day, looking over the books, I made a discovery.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+She hesitated. Her face was still fiery. The image of the mumbling,
+quid-chewing Deacon, with the roundabout methods of arriving at his
+point, rose vivid to his memory. He remembered his childish strain to
+understand “Ole Hey’s” good advice. Pop! Pop! Pop! It was like the
+clack, clack, clack of the type-writer under Ruth’s nervous, unconscious
+fingers. But what was this she was saying to the accompaniment of the
+erratic automatic music?
+
+“I discovered that he was cheating you, or rather your sister and Abner
+Preep, that he had always bamboozled your father, that the mortgage was
+more than paid off long before, aside from the work he had gotten out of
+your brothers and sisters.” She paused, then hastened on with a lighter
+tone. “So, of course, being a foolish, hot-headed girl, I wouldn’t stay
+any longer in his house unless he repaid you, and equally of course he
+refused, knowing I wouldn’t make a scandal, and so I went off to the
+only relative I had in the world--my mother’s sister in Portland, Maine.
+She was too poor to give me more than food and shelter. But my knowledge
+of book-keeping soon got me a place in a store. And ever since I have
+earned my own bread, Heaven be thanked.”
+
+She was not looking at him now; her fingers were still lightly tapping
+the letters into combinations that spelled only embarrassment. “Perhaps
+I oughtn’t to have told you--but you won’t take action now, will you?”
+
+“No, seeing that the money has been paid!” he cried, hoarsely, with a
+sudden intuition. He sprang up agitatedly. “You sent us all that money
+anonymously--from Maine!”
+
+Her head drooped lower. “Oh, I felt I oughtn’t to say anything,” she
+cried in vexation.
+
+“But you did, didn’t you?”
+
+“It was such a trifle, anyhow,” she said, deprecatingly.
+
+“It was a fortune then--five hundred dollars!”
+
+“I could do no less. There was no other call for the money I earned in
+those first few years, while my aunt still lived. And I thought that
+perhaps--” He came towards her. “That perhaps--that perhaps it might
+help you in your career--my aunt corresponded with my poor mother’s
+friends in Cobequid Village--I knew how you were slaving and sending
+money to your folks.”
+
+“God bless you, Ruth.”
+
+“I hope it was a little help to you, Matt.” He thrilled under the name,
+spoken for the first time. “I have often liked to think it was--that I
+had a wee finger in the making of a great artist.”
+
+Her words cut him to the heart. How could he tell her that her money had
+come too late? He was about to murmur something, but she stopped him.
+
+“No, don’t answer me for fear you should dispel my illusion. It has been
+such a joy to me when I read about your rapid rise to say to myself:
+‘Ah, perhaps _we_ know something.’ But half the joy was in the secrecy;
+now you have found me out, don’t take away the relics of my pleasure.”
+
+“But why should you bother to read things about me?” he murmured, only
+half sincerely, for another and more agitating suspicion was fast
+germinating in his breast.
+
+She flashed a quick glance up at him as he stood over her, then looked
+down again indifferently, her sweet mouth quivering. “Oh, why should I
+not be proud of knowing, if only in boyhood, the only great man our
+township ever produced?”
+
+But he had now been trained in woman’s looks. Rosina and Eleanor had
+taught him much, and the thought that was borne in upon him now--the
+conviction that Ruth, too, loved him, that she had always cherished her
+childish affection, though his own had been swamped by his craving for
+Art--was not the complacent conviction of a coxcomb. It was a chilling
+agony. It pierced his breast like a jagged icicle. He had an appalling
+sense as of responsibility for a ruined life. The image of “Aunt Clara”
+flashed suddenly before him--careworn, faded, broken-down, unlovely. Was
+that to be the end of Ruth--the sweet playmate, the great soul?
+
+“And you, too, have done something in life,” he said, as if to reassure
+himself, trying to curve his trembling lips to a smile.
+
+She looked up frankly at him. “In so far as I have been able to help
+Linda to help other girls.”
+
+“And do you meditate--helping Linda all your life?”
+
+“With God’s help.”
+
+“Even,” he essayed to smile again, “even if you marry?”
+
+“Oh, but I won’t marry,” she said, quickly, and kept her face bravely
+raised to his, though the tell-tale rose was coming and going on her
+transparent skin.
+
+“Not even”--his smile was a ghastly caricature--”to spite the
+caricaturists?”
+
+She smiled a faint response. “Not even for that. Has not Linda
+sacrificed herself on that altar? It’s true she’s a widow, but still--”
+
+He could not help asking the question: “But why won’t you marry?”
+
+“Because I don’t want to. Is that a woman’s reason?” And she smiled
+again.
+
+“Ruth!” he cried, frenziedly, in a strange mixture of emotions. “I am
+not worthy to kneel to you!”
+
+She opened her eyes, wondering: “Because I prefer celibacy? Because my
+life is happy enough as it is; because, thanks to Mrs. Verder, it is
+sufficiently filled with activity and movement?”
+
+“Oh, if it is, if it is!” he cried, almost hysterically.
+
+“Certainly it is. You men are all so mistaken about women. Marriage may
+be a necessity for some women, but not for all--oh, thank God! not for
+all. It may be harder for Linda, who has known a husband’s love--but for
+me? Oh, I am perfectly happy.” She rose and moved away from him, and
+began to walk restlessly up and down, talking rapidly. “It is perfectly
+absurd, this making marriage and happiness synonyms. Novels end with
+marriage, and that is called a happy ending. Good heavens! It is quite
+as often an unhappy beginning! If you had seen the things I have seen,
+heard the tales women have told me! Even the women you would imagine the
+most enviable are full of worries. Why, look at your own wife, Mr.
+Strang, who has everything to make her happy.” And her lips parted in a
+faint smile.
+
+He turned his face away. “Did she also tell you tales of woe?” he said,
+with a forced laugh.
+
+“Well, not precisely woe, but plenty of anxiety about the children, and
+about the dishonesty of her helps, and she seemed rather poorly, too. I
+hope you left her strong and well.”
+
+“Thank you,” he murmured, flushing.
+
+“How proud she is of you,” Ruth went on. “I was so glad to find that she
+really appreciated you. I had often wondered. And it isn’t only on
+account of your importance, Matthew Strang! She told me you were
+goodness itself, which, of course, I knew, and that you had long wished
+her to move to a better neighborhood, only she was afraid to put you to
+expense. What a good woman she must be! And so pretty too!”
+
+“Do you think so?” he muttered. His face was still averted.
+
+“Yes, and I seem to remember her in your earliest pictures. She’s the
+woman in ‘Motherhood,’ isn’t she?”
+
+“I think she sat for the figure,” he said, hesitatingly. “I couldn’t
+afford models then. I wish you weren’t going so soon. I should so like
+to do a sketch of you--something to remember you by.”
+
+She shook her head. “We have so much to do this week. I shouldn’t have
+time.”
+
+“I am sorry. Perhaps we shall never meet again,” he said in low tones.
+“I never even had a photograph of you--I could do a sketch from that.”
+
+“I don’t think I have any. You did a sketch of me once,” she reminded
+him, “but I’m not going to give you that. That’s precious--an example
+of your first manner.” The gay note in her voice sounded rather
+strained. “Don’t you remember? You sent it me when you first went to
+Halifax, please don’t remember how many years ago.”
+
+But he did remember. And he remembered, too, how he had sent it her as a
+slight return for the _Arabian Nights_. He had lost her gift (through
+the carelessness of Jack Floss) very soon after, but she cherished his
+still.
+
+He moved to her side, watching her rummage among heaps of papers. He saw
+the backs of two photographs, and picked them up. One was a portrait of
+Linda Verder, the other of himself.
+
+“Both public celebrities,” she said, with a little confused laugh. “I’ve
+never attained to the shop-windows, so naturally I am scarcer.” She
+continued her search, and at last turned up something. “Ah, there’s an
+old one--or rather a young one. Me at sixteen! Goodness, to think I’ve
+still got that!”
+
+His flaccid nerves sent fresh moisture to his eyes as he gazed at the
+simple picture of the sweet, delicate, girlish face, with large eyes
+luminous with dreams, looking out shyly upon life in a sort of wistful
+wonder and expectation, unconscious, unprophetic of the blank years when
+eyes grow dim with sudden unsought tears.
+
+His voice was broken as he said: “Thank you. This is the picture I would
+most have wished to have. Henceforward I shall think of you, earnest,
+truthful, aspiring ... as you have thought of me all these years. And
+now I suppose I must not keep you any longer from your duties.”
+
+“Oh, they are nothing. It is your time that is precious, I know. I am
+rejoiced to have had this glimpse of you in your fame and happiness. I
+shall always remember this afternoon. Good-bye, Mr. Strang.” She held
+out her hand.
+
+He put his, with the portrait, behind his back. “No, I won’t,” he said,
+petulantly. “Not if you call me that.”
+
+She dropped her hand with a sad smile.
+
+“You see I belong to the rejected, Matt.”
+
+He quivered as at a thrust.
+
+“No, you are of the elect, of the saints of this earth.”
+
+Her smile took on the wistfulness of her early portrait. They stood
+looking at each other in a tender embarrassment.
+
+“Oh, by-the-way, Matt, you will not mind my speaking of her ... she
+belongs to me a little as well as to you, you know ... I went to see
+your poor mother before I left for Europe.”
+
+He shuddered.
+
+“Did she recognize you?” he said, in a half-whisper.
+
+She shook her head. Her face was drawn with the pain of the memory. “But
+she is quite gentle, except when she quotes texts. They give her simple
+housework to do--it provides a vent for her activity ... marriages are
+not always happy, you see.” A wan smile flitted across her features. “I
+shall go to see her again. Poor creature! I forgot her when I called you
+happy. The thought of her must always sadden you.”
+
+He would not trust his voice to reply. He transferred the photograph to
+his left hand, and held out the right in silence. She put her hand into
+his.
+
+“Good-bye, Matt; perhaps forever.”
+
+He struggled to speak.
+
+“Good-bye, Ruth.” He bent nearer. “May I not kiss you ... for auld lang
+syne?”
+
+She withdrew her hand. Her voice was tremulous and low. “We are not
+playmates now, Matt.”
+
+He held up the photograph.
+
+“Then I will kiss the girl I used to know.”
+
+He pressed his lips reverentially to it.
+
+She smiled sadly.
+
+“Good-bye again, dear Matt. God bless you.”
+
+He hurried from the room, overwhelmed with emotion. The door closed upon
+him, and he leaned against the balustrade for a moment to recover
+himself.
+
+Clack! clack! clack! clack! clack!
+
+It was the steady, business-like clatter of determined work. She had
+taken up the burden of Duty again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MASTER
+
+
+He half groped his way down the stairs. In this mist of tears all things
+were obscured, even the image of Eleanor Wyndwood.
+
+No, one thing was clear--the figure of the sweet Puritan woman with her
+simple righteousness.
+
+He emerged into the Rue de Rivoli with its pretentious architecture, its
+glittering shop windows, its bustle of life; across the road the gardens
+of the Tuileries stretched away in the sunshine; but the gentle figure
+stood between him and Paris. He tried to shake her off, to think of the
+transcendent raptures that awaited him on the morrow; he tried to see
+Eleanor’s face steadily, but it was all wavering lines like a reflection
+in storm-shaken water. He bethought himself of selecting the secluded
+restaurant and hiring the private room for the dinner, but the figure of
+Ruth resurged, blotting Eleanor’s out. He took out her photograph and
+kissed it again. “She’s a little angel,” he cried, aloud. And then, from
+that chaos of ancient memories, freshly stirred up, came like an echo
+Mad Peggy’s cry, “She’s a little angel....” A girl passing him laughed
+in his face, and he put away the portrait, flushing and chilled to the
+marrow.
+
+He told himself he must soak himself in Paris and forget her. He walked
+towards the Grand Boulevards, trying vainly to absorb and assimilate the
+gayety of the streets. He returned to his hotel and dressed, and dined
+with dainty dishes and sparkling wines, such as Herbert himself would
+have recommended. But the quivering roots of his being had been laid
+bare; his soul vibrated with intangible memories, and the image of Ruth
+still possessed his imagination--the candid eyes, the pure skin. As ever
+his soul was touched through the concrete.
+
+After dinner he wandered about the gay city, adding the red of his
+cigar-tip to the feverish dusk athrob with a myriad stars above and a
+myriad lights below; the soft spring air was charged with the
+pleasurable hum of ceaseless pedestrians; the theatres and music-halls
+and dancing places blazoned themselves upon the night; the great
+restaurants flared within and without, their pavement tables thronged
+with light-hearted men and pretty women, gossiping, laughing, clinking
+glasses. Women, everywhere women. They looked out even from the
+illustrated papers of the illumined kiosks. The shining city seemed to
+waft an incense of pleasure up to the stars; to breathe out an aroma of
+sinless voluptuousness that rose like a thank-offering for life. His
+heart expanded to all this happiness; he felt himself being caught up by
+the great joyous wave, and Eleanor Wyndwood’s face came back, radiant
+and seductive. But Ruth Hailey was still at his side, and ever and anon
+he saw her as in her later guise--stern, sorrowful, negativing; she
+stood out against the whole city.
+
+He seated himself before one of the innumerable little marble
+_guéridons_. He was at the cross-roads of the great arteries dominated
+by the fulgent façade of the Opera House, where he could watch the
+perpetual currents of gladsome life. He observed the countless couples
+with emotion, striving to concentrate himself on the thought of his
+imminent happiness, when the love that sustained the world and made it
+sustainable should be his at last; when he should become as other men,
+living the natural life of the race and the sexes in sympathetic fusion.
+But the figure of Ruth Hailey stood firm amid the swirling crowds, and
+her pure eyes shamed his thought, and filled his breast with an aching
+tenderness for the poor human atoms he had deserted--for Rosina, for
+Billy, for “Aunt Clara”--for whom there was no happiness and no natural
+life. He fought against this obsession of Ruth’s spirit, he struggled to
+fix his vision on the glitter and the gayety, but he had to see her
+standing like a rock or a tower, four-square against smiling,
+treacherous seas.
+
+But if he went back to Rosina in honorable acknowledged union, then
+farewell to Society! To take her about with him was out of the
+question; she would be more unhappy than he in those high glacial
+latitudes of humanity. Well, what was Society to him? He could shake it
+off as easily as the Micmac of his childhood shook off the clothes of
+Christendom. To be shut out from Society were no privation for him. He
+had the advantage of his fellow-artists, who sacrificed at its shrine
+and were sacrificed to it. He could couch on fir boughs, he had lived on
+bread and water. This constant concern with wines and cookery, with
+couches and carriages; this gorging and gormandizing and
+self-pampering--did it add dignity to life? Was it worth the hecatomb of
+hearts and souls offered up for it--this low luxury of the higher
+classes? Was not simplicity the note of greatness--in life as in Art?
+And howsoever simple the complex comfort of their lives might seem to
+those born to it, was it for artists to imitate this lowest side of the
+upper classes, especially if it frittered away their Art? Was it for
+Bohemia to ape Philistia, and for Art--the last of the rebels against
+the platitudinization of life--to bow the knee and swear allegiance to
+the vulgar ideals of fashion? They had drawn him even from boyhood,
+these showy ideals; from the days when he had peered wistfully into the
+cricket-ground at Halifax. But he was done with boyhood now.
+
+Ah, but if he went back to Rosina--and the new thought struck a chill as
+of graveyard damps--it was all over with his Art. That, just beginning
+to revive under the inspiration of Eleanor Wyndwood, would be a sheer
+impossibility under the daily oppression of Rosina with her kitchen
+horizon. His imagination would be clogged with the vapors of cabbage.
+And of the old bad work he had had enough. He would retire from Art as
+from Society, and the Exhibitions should know him no more. He would go
+out of the business; that was all it was, he told himself with a bitter
+smile. His fame was a bauble, a bagatelle. For all it mattered to him it
+might have been his dead uncle, Matthew Strang, whose name was on the
+lips of strangers. There was still work in the world for an honest man
+to do; he remembered again that his hands could wield more than the
+brush; besides, he had a little capital now, Rosina had still her
+income. Perhaps they would go back to Nova Scotia and buy a farm. They
+would sow and reap, far from the glare of cities, and the sweet, simple
+sun and rain would bless the work of their hands. His life would be
+joyless, but perchance his soul would be at peace.
+
+Yes, but to give up Art! Art, which was the meaning of his life!
+Rosina’s life stood for nothing. It was out of all proportion to give up
+his for hers. Had he not suffered enough? Had he not already expiated
+his marriage, the hapless union he had entered into when distracted by
+illness and disgrace and hunger, when perhaps his whole future had
+hinged--such were the tragi-whimsical turns of life--on his reluctance
+to change his last two dollars?
+
+He rose and walked about restlessly through the glistening streets.
+Everywhere restaurants, open-air tables, men, women. He wandered to
+Montmartre. More restaurants, more couples, cafés, cabarets, queer
+entertainments: _Le Chat Noir, Le Rat Mort_, the red sails of the famous
+Mill turning tirelessly, lights, gayety, women, always women, of all
+shades of prettiness and piquancy, with rosy cheeks and lips not always
+painted, and eyes that could shine without bismuth. He walked back
+through the Grand Boulevards--they were one flush of life.
+
+But the reasoning was inexorable. He had sacrificed Rosina to his Art;
+Art had slipped through his fingers, but Rosina remained none the less
+sacrificed. Now his Art must be sacrificed to Rosina--the atonement was
+logical. That was not a surrender, he told himself angrily, to Ruth
+Hailey’s view of life--a view whose narrowness he and everybody around
+him had outgrown. He refused to recognize, in the face of this radiant
+Paris, that each human soul came into the world to sacrifice its
+happiness to other human souls. That seemed to him a preposterous
+paradox rather than a solution; a world of reciprocal whipping-boys was
+an absurdity, and, at any rate, if such were the scheme of creation, it
+did not work at all with the gross run of mankind, to say nothing of
+animals. The only reason for going back to Rosina must be honestly to
+fulfil his side of the bargain. She had done her part, he must do his.
+That his return to her meant the ruin of his life and his life-work was
+not her concern; these larger issues were too wide for her
+comprehension; she loved her husband and she desired him. That was
+enough. He owed himself to her, and to shirk his obligation was as
+dishonorable as to disown a debt. He had paid off the Stasborough
+store-keeper, although absolved by bankruptcy; he must be equally
+honorable with Rosina, though his life had been bankrupted. Practically
+his Art had always been sacrificed to her; it was her pettiness that had
+driven him to produce in haste for the market, so as to escape
+indebtedness to her; well, let the sacrifice be consummated.
+
+He had come to the Place de la Concorde--it seemed a fairy-land of
+romantic lights, a dance of fire-flies; it wooed him towards the calm
+and solitude of the river. He leaned on the parapet and saw the sombre,
+fire-shot water stretching away in marvellously solemn beauty, hushed
+and lonely, its many-twinkling perspective of green and red and yellow
+gleams palpitating in the air dim with a yearning poetry. He felt the
+presence of Ruth Hailey at his side; she looked like the photograph now;
+he held her little hand and gazed into her candid eyes. Good God! This
+girl had loved him all those long years, and would be hopelessly
+faithful even unto death.
+
+But if he went back to Rosina, what of Eleanor Wyndwood? Would he spoil
+her life, too? and more culpably than he had spoiled Ruth Hailey’s? He
+sighed wearily; it was impossible to do wrong and have the result
+simple. Life was so intercomplicated. But he had been honest with
+Eleanor, thank heaven; she knew the truth about his life; he would be
+honest with her to the end. He would tell her the truth now. The same
+noble, uncalculating simplicity that had accorded him friendship, that
+had been ready to give him love, would bear her triumphantly through the
+new trial. He remembered her brave words: “If I did not suffer I should
+think I had not grown.” Perhaps there would be consolation for both in
+the thought that she remained unsullied before the world.
+
+He crossed the river, and his mood changed. He got towards the Latin
+Quarter, and wandered into the “Boule Miche” amid the students’
+restaurants, where young humanity sat in its couples again, amorous and
+gay; every place was full within and without, and there was the gurgle
+of liquids with the sounds of singing and laughter; he was back again
+amid the blithe, insouciant, easy-going life of the eternal
+undergraduate, with the local variation of bocks; rakish young men
+danced through the restaurants arm in arm in tipsy merriment; poets with
+lack-lustre visages and tumbled hair imbibed vermouth, clinking glasses
+with their mistresses; the smoky air vibrated with irresponsible gayety;
+it was full of invitations to careless happiness, joyous levity,
+forgetfulness of an austere view of life. Puritanism seemed a form of
+dementia, asceticism a sunless folly. The atmosphere gained upon him. He
+tossed off a bock, then walked recklessly past Mrs. Wyndwood’s studio.
+The whole court-yard was in darkness, but he thought of to-morrow night,
+and it glowed as with bonfires of joy. He resolved to sup famously. He
+jumped into a victoria and drove to a fashionable restaurant. It was
+near midnight; the theatres had emptied, but the streets were only the
+fuller. He passed through rooms full of dazzling women in gorgeous
+evening costumes, sipping champagne; women, always women: the city
+blossomed with them like roses. He ordered some oysters and chablis, and
+forgot to eat; opposite him a self-conscious celebrity of the
+footlights, blazing with diamonds, held her court, surrounded by a bevy
+of dandies; behind him a black-eyed _demi-mondaine_ in red playfully
+rapped her cavalier’s knuckles; at the next table the exuberant
+liveliness of a supper party diverted him; he drank, drank, listening
+greedily to the gay repartees. Life should be joy, joy, joy, he thought.
+That was what modern life lacked, gray with problems, wrinkled with
+thought. These people lived--lived in splendid insolence under the
+midnight sun. There was a touch of bigness that appealed to him in their
+arrogant vitality. Society was an organized insipidity, afraid of life.
+
+The figure of Ruth Hailey rose rebuking; he paid the bill and went out.
+
+But his heart cried, ached for happiness. Ah, no! He could not give up
+so young; go into a living grave. He roved the Boulevards again. The
+beautiful city solicited him, rouged and perfumed, clad in shining
+garments, with star-gemmed hair. But the virginal figure of Ruth Hailey,
+with sweet shy eyes, stood against the city. Paris seemed garish beside
+her.
+
+He was fluctuating again. It seemed as if the simple girl would draw him
+away from all the joys of life. Was there no means of ridding himself of
+her haunting presence? A grotesque mask looked out of a cab. Ah! the
+fancy ball! He had forgotten. That would lay the ghost of his disordered
+imagination. He felt in his pocket and found the ticket; he hastened to
+the scene of revelry. A clatter of cabs and a blaze of lights--he had
+arrived.
+
+The first glimpse within was exhilarating, provoking, dazzling,
+overwhelming; he had a confused sense of a hall of a thousand lights and
+mirrors, reeking with scent and heat, reverberant with music and shrieks
+and laughter, white with the whirling gleam of semi-nude women, and
+motley with the rainbow hues and multiplied reflections of male
+masqueraders; a mad, joyous orgy, the diabolical medley of a glittering,
+tinselled pantomime and an opium-eater’s nightmare. Ah, here was
+oblivion of Ruth Hailey at last, and he eagerly took up a position on a
+raised platform that ran along the side of the gigantic ball-room,
+trying to catch the contagion of the scene, and ready to rush into the
+heart of the devil-may-care jollity. The gleeful, palpitating pageant--a
+twisted, tangled kaleidoscopic rally of riotous color and flesh
+tones--tore past him, dancing, leaping, shrieking, wantoning, clowning,
+kissing, uncouth as the gargoyles of Notre Dame and brilliant as the
+midnight Boulevard: Japanese figures and demons, gladiators in cuirasses
+and bathing drawers, Gallic warriors in skins, brawny barbarians in
+blankets, Amazons with brass breasts, a savage in a girdle of
+fig-leaves, a real Samoan girl with coal-black hair in the convoy of her
+Russian lover in a tall white hat, a boy as a German girl, and an
+elderly woman as a gendarme with orange blossoms in her hair; one man
+with a helmet crowned by a black cat, and another with a mock broken
+head, reddened bandages, and a hideous stream of blood on his
+shirt-front. And women--always women; a few masked, but most bare-faced,
+shining with flowers and flesh; models of all sorts and conditions, some
+with artistic dresses designed by their favorite students, some with
+tarnished gaudery; blondes, brunettes of every nationality--French,
+English, Greek, Italian, Creoles, Negresses, diversely dowered; frail
+anæmic women, fervid gypsy-like women, saucily splendid women, soft
+sleepy women with languorous black eyes, sweet lily-like women, big
+blowzy women, tall febrile women, little demoniac women, all content to
+take life as a flash of leaping flame flickering out to an early
+darkness. And as they danced and laughed and romped and shouted, the fun
+rose to hysterical frenzy; four masked men bore the queen of the models,
+sinuous in complete fleshings, niched in an outspread gigantic fan;
+before it a Druid and a Bacchante danced backward; behind it seethed a
+vast picturesque procession of women mounted on their cavaliers’
+shoulders, smoking cigarettes and waving lighted red and green lanterns;
+at its sides girls pirouetted frantically, foot in mouth; the brazen
+orchestra clanged--the procession defiled, frolicking, round and round
+the hall, roaring a students’ marching chorus; a wave of hysteria ran
+through the assembly, mighty, magnetic, compulsive; and Matthew Strang
+waved his arms and shouted and sang with the best. Joy, joy, joy, this
+was your true artistic interpretation of life. Away with this modern
+morbidity! He was one in soul with all the great artists, all the
+Masters who had had their royal way in life. O royal Eleanor! O rare
+Eleanor! fit mate for a mighty artist! Then supper came, and he fought
+for some in the balconies, amid the roar of voices, and the rattle of
+knives, and the shouts for the maddened waiters, and the indescribable
+exhalations of food and wine and smoke and hot air and scented flesh.
+The half-deserted dancing floor was littered with champagne capsules,
+bits of lanterns, ends of cigarettes, fragments of dresses, spangles,
+morsels of fur. After supper the frolic grew more intoxicating, the
+gayety more reckless; sweet demure-looking girls gave themselves to
+high-kicking and lascivious movement; they obliged with the _danse du
+ventre_; in a corner a woman turned somersaults from sheer
+light-heeledness, a bashi-bazouk trundled a hoop through the centre of
+the room, a band of fifty dancers with joined hands ran amuck among the
+yelling crowd. Matthew Strang’s senses ached with the riot of color and
+the rollick of figures and the efflorescence of femininity, and the
+tohu-bohu of this witches’ sabbath. And then a strange ancient thought
+struck him afresh--the same grotesque thought that after his father’s
+death had weighed upon his childhood: very soon all these scintillating,
+whirling figures would lie still and cold, frozen in death. They
+suddenly became nothing but marionettes in a clock-work mechanism
+destined to run down. And then the girlish form that had hovered mistily
+in his neighborhood throughout all the tumultuous hours grew clear
+again, and against this pandemoniac background the inexorable figure of
+Ruth Hailey rose, simple and virginal, with sweet shy eyes.
+
+When he came back to consciousness of the revellers, they had formed a
+human amphitheatre, an inner circle lying on the ground, and the next
+squatting, and the next kneeling, and the next half standing, and the
+last but one erect, and the last of all surmounted by shouldered girls,
+and in the centre of this human amphitheatre a beautiful young nude
+model with ruddy brown hair struck graceful attitudes. The cold blue
+light of dawn fell through a semicircular window overhead and mingled
+weirdly with the yellowish electric light, lending a strange, wan,
+unearthly hue to all these painted, perspiring faces.
+
+The atmosphere seemed unbearably mephitic. He sallied shamefacedly into
+the street. It was Sunday morning, stainless and fresh and blue. The
+sunrise brooded over the sleeping gray-etched city in sacred splendor.
+The sun was like a gigantic bowl of pure gold with a refracted cover
+separated from it by a rift of cloud. Around it the sky was dappled with
+lines and splashes and a ring or two of pale sulphur, ending to the
+south in a narrow gulf of green. And all this loveliness of color was
+spread on two amorphous islands of amber-gray in an ocean of pale-blue
+sky, across which a few fleecy clouds sailed swan-like.
+
+He had a perception of the divine, speaking through the silence of
+beauty. And the world was asleep or at riot.
+
+Ah! this should have been the message of his Art. Each morn the sunrise
+spoke its flaming word unheard; it was the artist’s function to stir the
+world to the perception of the sublimity and poetry that lay all around
+unheeded; to uplift its eyes to the loveliness of realities, realities
+solid as rocks, yet beautiful as dreams; visionary and tangible; the
+great verities of sun and sea and forest, of righteousness and high
+thinking; beautiful and elemental.
+
+Too late! Too late! Art was over now. Not to his hand had the mission
+been given; once he had thought to feel the sacred fire in his bosom;
+but he knew now that the mission was not for him. He had failed.
+
+The great streets stretched under the blue dawn bathed in sacred
+freshness. The stir of night was passing into the stir of morning. The
+sleepy yawn of returning revellers was met by the sleepy yawn of
+early-risen artisans. Two horrible hags of rag-pickers, first astir of
+Parisians, were resting their baskets on a bench; he heard them
+rapturously recalling the excellence of the soup they had made from the
+bones, picked clean by dogs, that they had gathered from the citizens’
+ash-pans.
+
+Ah, not all the world was gay. He had been surveying only the sparkling
+bubbles and froth of Paris. Below flowed the sober, orderly, industrious
+civic life, with its bottom dregs of misery. All the great cities were
+full of dolorous figures, every by-way and alley swarmed with sickly
+faces, pale fruits of a congested civilization. He had always kept his
+eye on those happier than he; now he was reminded of how much more than
+the man in the street he had drawn in the lottery of the fates. He
+remembered the saying of a street scavenger he had come across in his
+days of destitution. “I’m neither hungry nor dry, so what have I to
+grumble about, mate?” What, indeed, had he, Matthew Strang, to grumble
+about? There did not seem to be enough happiness to go round. Who was
+he, to be selected for a special helping? Who was he more than his mate
+the scavenger, more than any other of the human souls he had met in his
+diversified career, more than his fellow-lodgers in the slums of Holborn
+or Halifax, or his fellow-passengers on board _The Enterprise_, or the
+blind woman who caned chairs in the basement of the house of the
+Rotherhithe bird-stuffer? Why should he be happy?
+
+It was like a new thought, luminous and arrestive. And then it flashed
+upon him that all this glitter of gayety that had dazzled his covetous
+eyes, even if it were not half an illusion, was infinitely subdivided;
+each person could only have a minute share in the overwhelming total,
+and even this quantum of joy must be alloyed with the inevitable
+miseries of the human lot. This was the fallacy that in London, too, had
+added the sting of envy to his unhappiness; he had lumped together all
+the pleasure and splendor and happiness of the capital, forgetting that
+though it could all be lacked by one man, it could not be possessed by
+one. And to look at life from the outside was childish--it was like
+reading paragraphs about people in the newspapers. How happy he himself
+loomed in biographical summaries! Poor Rosina! Poor Aunt Clara! Poor
+Billy! What happiness for these?
+
+They were foolish, fretful creatures, all of them; in the jargon of the
+drawing-rooms, bourgeois, vulgar, impossible, too low even for the
+stigma of “suburban”; but their lives were as important to them as his
+life to him. Each soul was the centre of its own world. If he could
+understand them, and they could not understand him, the gain was to him.
+He was strong, therefore he must supplement their weakness; not because
+of any ethics or theology, simply because he was stronger. For sheer
+pity he must give up his life to theirs; sacrifice his Art to their
+happiness. He must adapt himself to their points of view, since they
+could not adapt themselves to his; if for Rosina the world turned on the
+price of beef, he must teach himself to be interested in the price of
+beef. He had found it easy enough on the day when they had gone
+a-marketing together at Halifax. He saw her as then, buoyant, youthful,
+gay, even pretty; was it not he who had made her shrewish, sorrowful,
+unlovely? How nobly reticent she had been about his neglect of her!
+Coble had died thinking her ideally happy, boastfully proud of his
+son-in-law. And after all, there was an excellent side to her economical
+instincts; she did not long for diamonds and dinner-parties like the
+wives of other artists; nay, wiser, perhaps, than he, she had known how
+to content herself with her own station. Even Tarmigan must have
+approved of her as an artist’s wife. Yes, he must go back to her and
+his children, not out of any deference to the marriage-tie, but as
+individual to individuals.
+
+He arrived at his hotel. To his astonishment it was in full
+illumination; he heard the strains of dance-music from within. He peeped
+into the magnificent dining-room; it was become a ball-room, and sober
+couples were waltzing. Women, always women; irreproachable this time;
+elegant in shimmering silks. The world of fashion was dancing
+there--dancing on behalf of a charity.
+
+He wavered again; this was the world he was leaving forever, the world
+of soft things, the world of thought and pleasant speech, the world of
+art and books and music, the caressing world that praised pictures, and
+the makers thereof: the world of Eleanor Wyndwood. But the fight was
+over; in every sense, he told himself, the fight was over. He must go to
+Eleanor and tell her that happiness was not for either; she would be
+strong and fine, she would strengthen him in his obedience to the higher
+voice. But oh--and her face swam up vivid again--would not the very
+sight of her weaken him, shatter his resolve? And perhaps, too, the
+sight of him would weaken even her. No, they must never meet again; that
+was the simplest, the least painful for both.
+
+He gave instructions that he was to leave by the first morning train; he
+mounted to his room and packed up; then he wrote to Eleanor.
+
+     DEAREST ELEANOR,--Forgive me that I must cause you pain. I can only
+     hope it will prove to have saved you greater pain in the future.
+     But, my dear, I must not pretend it is from any unselfish desire to
+     save you from sacrificing yourself to my happiness, as you in your
+     generous nobility have been ready to do, that I have resolved never
+     to see you again. I am leaving Paris at once. When I tell you the
+     reason I know that it will ease your pain, and that your noble
+     nature will approve and forgive. I am going back to my wife. I have
+     thought it over and see that I have no option. I have been
+     forgetting that in return for her helping me to Art, I vowed to
+     love, cherish, and protect her. If I cannot love her--if I can only
+     love you, if the thought of you will always be like music to me,
+     though I must never see you again in the flesh--I must at least do
+     my best to make her happy. This is not only a farewell to you, it
+     is a farewell to Art. Without you to inspire it, my Art is dead. I
+     retire from the long contest broken-hearted.
+
+Yours so truly,
+
+MATTHEW STRANG.
+
+     P.S.--I dared not trust myself to come and tell you this. It would
+     have been a useless trial for both of us. You will be happier
+     without me and all the suffering my selfish passion must have
+     brought upon you. Forget me. God bless you.
+
+He descended to the court-yard and dropped the letter into the box. Then
+he sat outside on his balcony and watched the great gleaming Boulevards
+as they woke to the new day.
+
+He was too early at the station, and the train tarried. The porters
+leisurely wheeled in the luggage. Sleepy passengers straggled up, armed
+with gayly illustrated papers broad with Gallic buffoonery.
+
+Oh, the agony of that last quarter of an hour, when Paris beckoned him
+with its finger of morning sunlight, when Art cried to him from a
+thousand happy ateliers, calling him to come back and be happy in the
+great work he felt he had been about to do at last; when Love shone like
+a purple haze veiling the world in poetic dream, and sang to him like an
+angel’s voice, and witched him back with the eyes and the hair and the
+lips of Eleanor Wyndwood!
+
+But the train was going at last, and he must take his seat in his
+first-class compartment. It was his second defeat, his second farewell
+to Art, bitterer, crueller by a thousand-fold than the first, when he
+had sailed home again penniless, broken in soul and body. Then, at
+least, home was a tender recollection. Now--! And he had been so near
+the goal of happiness, the cup had been at his very lips. Never to be
+happy--never, never! The sudden shriek of the engine sounded sardonic.
+The train moved on, bearing Matthew Strang from all the sweetness and
+savor of life. In the great ocean of existence wherein men struggle for
+happiness he had gone down--like his father.
+
+But, like his father, he had gone down wrapped in his flag.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stage of the world is not adapted for heroic attitudes, unless the
+curtain be dropped on the instant.
+
+To pass, after a tedious day-long journey, from the vivid boulevards to
+the gray dreariness of a poor London suburb on a Sunday evening was
+already a chill to the artistic mind; to find that the wife into whose
+arms he had come to fall in dramatic contrition was not only out, but
+gone to church with Aunt Clara and little Clara, was to be further
+reminded of the essentially inartistic character of life in general, and
+of its especial narrowness in church-going districts.
+
+But he stooped down to kiss little Davie, who, by reason of the
+servant’s “Sunday out,” had opened the door and explained these things
+to him. He saw that the child had a little wooden mannikin in his hand,
+and was sucking it.
+
+“Don’t suck that, Davie,” he said.
+
+“There ain’t no paint to spoil,” Davie urged, gravely. “It’s all gone.”
+
+Matthew carried both the little men down-stairs on his shoulder. In the
+kitchen he found Billy moping by the fire--profiting by the absence of
+the servant to enjoy the only fire Rosina’s economy permitted at this
+season of the year--but sunk so deep in a black reverie that he did not
+raise his head at the unwonted footsteps.
+
+A wave of protective love, almost paternal, flooded Matthew’s soul; he
+laid his hand on poor Billy’s head as in benediction. Nevermore would
+they be parted, nevermore.
+
+“Billy,” he said, softly.
+
+The young man started violently, and looked up.
+
+“I’ve come back, Billy,” he said, tenderly.
+
+“So I see,” replied Billy, ungraciously.
+
+He was stung to the quick, but he controlled his pain; he saw this was
+part of his atonement.
+
+“I’ve come to make it up with Rosina. I’m not going away again,” he went
+on gently, his hand on Billy’s shoulder.
+
+“And what’s the use of that?” Billy snapped. “Even if she makes it up
+with you, she’ll break out again in a few days. I know her.”
+
+He set down the child with a sigh, and drew a chair to his brother’s
+side. Davie climbed trustfully on his knee. The kettle was singing, and
+a plump gray cat purred in the fender.
+
+“Besides,” Billy went on, “you’ve always said you couldn’t live here--it
+was necessary to live at your studio.”
+
+“I know; but I am giving up the studio.”
+
+Billy turned whiter than usual.
+
+“What’s happened?” he cried in alarm.
+
+“Nothing in particular.”
+
+“Then I suppose you are going to turn me out of my workroom?”
+
+“No, no, Billy. I am giving up painting altogether.”
+
+Billy’s eyes dilated in horror, as on the night when his mother had
+dragged him out of bed to trudge the frozen fields.
+
+“Are you mad?” he gasped.
+
+Something of his awe sent a shiver through his brother.
+
+“Perhaps I am,” said Matthew.
+
+He fell silent.
+
+Billy regarded him furtively. The minutes dragged on. Matthew looked at
+his watch--getting on for seven. Eleanor Wyndwood would have been
+dressing for him--he saw her matchless loveliness. Another few minutes,
+and his kisses would have been on her lips--those lips that had lain on
+his in what was already an enchanted, hazy dream rather than a waking
+memory.
+
+“Perhaps I _am_ mad,” he muttered again, as he sat waiting for Rosina
+instead. And then he caught sight of the little figure Davie was
+sucking, and began to laugh boisterously.
+
+Billy was terrified.
+
+“You can have the studio back if you like,” he said, soothingly; the
+cripple’s tones became protective in their turn. “I can write
+anywhere--and, after all, what’s the use of my writing?--nobody will
+take what I write.”
+
+“I can write kisses,” interposed Davie, looking up proudly.
+
+“What does he mean, Billy?” said Matthew.
+
+“Oh, he used to put crosses at the end of the letter when Rosina wrote
+to poor old Coble--kisses to his grandfather, you know.”
+
+“He’s a angel now,” said Davie, gravely.
+
+“What’s that you’re sucking?” Billy responded, sternly. “You know you
+mustn’t.”
+
+He took it away, and Davie set up a howl till pacified by a penny.
+
+“It’s an image of a preacher, Matt,” Billy explained. “I forget his
+name. He died last year--Rosina used to go and hear him. She said he
+gave her great comfort. These images are sold in thousands. What a
+ludicrous thing popular religion is!”
+
+Matthew laughed, but there was a tear for Rosina in the laughter.
+
+“By-the-way,” he said, suddenly, “did old Coble leave her any money?”
+
+“Yes--but a few thousand dollars was all there was when his estate was
+wound up. He couldn’t have expected to crack up, for he made no
+provision whatever for Aunt Clara.”
+
+“Then Rosina is keeping her?”
+
+“Yes, I suppose so.”
+
+“How does she reconcile that with her economy?” he thought, with an
+added throb of tenderness. The kettle sang on; the cat purred; he had a
+flash of hope--he might grow to love her yet. But he thought of Eleanor
+Wyndwood, and the hope died. They would have been on their way now to
+their restaurant--sitting close together, driving through the flashing
+streets. Oh, was he not mad to be here?
+
+“What are you doing all alone?” he thought. “My love, my first love and
+my last, you who believed in me, who were ready to sacrifice yourself to
+me?”
+
+“Did you go to see Ruth Hailey?” asked Billy, suddenly.
+
+Eleanor’s face vanished. He put his hand to his breast-pocket, and drew
+out the portrait with the sweet, shy eyes.
+
+“Yes,” he said, tremulously, “and she gave me this.”
+
+Billy took the photograph and kissed it.
+
+“God bless you!” he said.
+
+Davie pricked up his ears.
+
+“You’re not in love with her?” Matthew asked, lightly, with a sudden
+apprehension.
+
+“I?--I know better than to be in love with any woman,” said Billy,
+sadly, as he returned the portrait. “Only in my stories can I love and
+be loved.”
+
+“It was she who sent us that mysterious money,” said Matthew, and told
+him the story. Billy listened in surprise and emotion.
+
+“God bless you, Ruth!” he said again.
+
+“What is that God?” interrupted Davie.
+
+The brothers looked at each other, embarrassed.
+
+“Ask mummy; she’ll tell you,” said Matthew, at last.
+
+“Mummy did tell me, but I can’t ’derstand.” He sat there wondering.
+“When does God sleep?”
+
+The sudden blare and boom of a Salvationist procession saved reply. The
+blatant clangor passed, died. They waited for Rosina.
+
+Presently they heard the returning church party descending into the
+area, so as not to soil the white upper-steps. He had kissed her before
+she was aware of his presence, as she stepped across the kitchen
+threshold, red-edged prayer-book in hand. After that her sullenness was
+only half-hearted. He said he had come to supper. By the time they had
+sat down to it a reconciliation had been patched up. Warned by Billy’s
+reception of his determination, he did not even break it to her yet.
+Thus tamely passed off the great renunciation scene--the crisis of his
+life--like everything else in his life, unlike what he had imagined
+beforehand. Rosina did not even understand what this home-coming meant
+to him. He pleaded that Davie, who did not want to go to sleep, should
+be allowed to stay up to supper, but this request was not granted.
+
+“Mummy, when does God go to sleep?” the persistent Davie remembered to
+ask as she was leading him from the room.
+
+“God never sleeps,” replied Rosina, sternly, and haled him to bed.
+
+Matthew pondered the immense saying, so glibly spoken, as he waited for
+her to return. “Aunt Clara,” pouch-eyed and wan, her head nodding
+queerly with excitement at the great man’s presence, was laying the
+supper in the warm kitchen, where the servant would not resume
+possession till ten; little Clara was at her task of Bible reading.
+Billy drowsed on his chair, exhausted. The fire glowed red; the cat was
+still stretched in the warmth. Something in the scene thrilled him with
+a sense of restful kinship with it, half sweet, half sad; a sense of
+being more really at home than in delicate drawing-rooms; the old homely
+kitchen far away on the borders of the forest sent out subtle links,
+binding his childhood to the manhood that had come at last.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This half-and-half-ness was typical of the new life which began that
+night, and which on the morrow was sealed and consecrated by the
+characteristically self-deceptive message from Eleanor: “You are right.
+We have chosen the highest.” It was a life full of petty pricks and
+every-day worries. But if it was not so grandiosely heroic as he had
+intended, neither was the consequence to his Art as he had foreseen.
+
+He has not given up Art. Neither Rosina nor Billy would permit that
+folly, and Eleanor’s brief letter had a postscript of inspiring protest.
+He had meant to sacrifice Art and Happiness, but only the latter
+sacrifice was accepted. For unhappiness drove him back to his
+studio--where the “Angelus” hung now like an inspiration. From the
+glooms and trials of the daily routine in this prosaic home, with its
+faithful but narrow-souled mistress, who knew not what was passing in
+her husband’s mind, nor at what cost he had made her happy, and who
+would not even agree to live in some beautiful country spot which would
+have softened life for him--from this depressing household, with its
+unsprightly children, its cheerless pensioner, its querulous cripple
+resenting the very hand that fed him, he escaped to the little
+whitewashed studio to find in his Art oblivion of the burden of life.
+
+And now, at last, his true life--work was begun. Removed from the
+sapping cynicism of the Club conscience, from the drought of
+drawing-room disbelief, from the miasma of fashionable conversation,
+from the confusing cackle of critics; saved from the intrigue with Mrs.
+Wyndwood, that would have distracted his soul and imposed an extra need
+for money-making; withdrawn from the feverish rush of fashion and the
+enervating consumption of superfluous food and drink; exempted from
+keeping up a luxurious position purchased by scamped, soulless pictures;
+able to work without the whims of sitters or patrons, without regard to
+prices--for Rosina’s income, augmented by her very considerable
+hoardings and by his balance, supplemented by the proceeds of the sale
+of his studio effects and
+
+[Illustration: “SOMETHING IN THE SCENE THRILLED HIM WITH A SENSE OF
+RESTFUL KINSHIP”]
+
+ancient pictures, the whole doubled by Rosina’s economic administration,
+was amply sufficient for every rational need--Matthew Strang began at
+last, without underthought of anything but Art, in this homely
+environment to which his soul was native, to express his own inmost
+individuality, to produce faithfully and finely the work it was in him
+to do.
+
+Solitary, silent, sorrowful, strong; not chattering about his ideas and
+his aims, indifferent to fame or the voice of posterity, striving for
+self-approbation and rarely obtaining it, touching and retouching,
+breaking the rules of the schools in obedience to his own genius, he
+toiled on in his humble studio, seeking the highest, with no man and no
+woman to inspire, encourage, or praise. He had been saved from Love and
+Happiness, and sent back into sympathy with all that works and suffers.
+And thus the note that had trembled faintly and then died out in his
+work was struck strong and sure at last--the note of soul. To his
+accurate science and his genius for the decorative, which are two of the
+factors of great Art, was now added the spiritual poetry which is the
+last and rarest. For he was master of his soul at last.
+
+He had absorbed life sufficiently--he had toiled and hungered; he had
+feasted and made merry; he had sorrowed and endured; he had sinned and
+suffered; he had known the lust of life and the pride of the eye; he had
+known Love--the love of the soul and the love of the senses; he had
+known the heartache of baffled ambition and the dust and ashes of
+achievement. What he had wanted he had not got; by the time he had got
+it he had not wanted it; whatever he had set out to do he had not done,
+and whatever he had done he had not foreseen. And out of all this
+travail of the soul was born his Art--strong, austere, simple.
+
+In the five or six years since he died to the world he has finished as
+many big pictures, and has made studies for others, besides a host of
+minor things. He has not exhibited any of the larger pictures in the
+Academy; three have been presented quietly to provincial and suburban
+galleries where the People comes. Only one with some of the smaller
+things has been sold for money, and this but to appease Rosina; it was
+one more sacrifice of his individuality to hers. It is true there are
+expenses for models and materials, and he has now two more children, but
+it jars upon him to ask money for work that expresses and conceals the
+tragic secrets of his inmost being. Nor does he care to have his
+pictures shut away amid the other furniture of luxurious mansions.
+Still, he has learned enough to know that life cannot be lived ideally.
+And, moreover, the event has taught him again the contrariety of life;
+for his eccentricity, leaking out slowly, has enhanced the fame to which
+he is indifferent, and, aided by a legend of mysterious saturnine
+seclusion, has raised his market value to such a point that he need only
+sell an occasional picture. One dealer in particular is anxious to give
+him his own price for a picture. Matthew Strang will probably part with
+one to him some day, but he does not know that the dealer is acting for
+Lady Thornton, the wealthy and celebrated society leader and convert,
+though he knows and is glad that Eleanor Wyndwood found both happiness
+and spiritual peace when, a few months after her friend Olive Regan’s
+marriage to Herbert Strang, that ever-charming and impressionable lady
+was led to the altar by the handsome and brilliant Sir Gilbert Thornton,
+and went over with him to Roman Catholicism. With the same earnestness
+with which she had passed from her native orthodoxy to the Socialism of
+Gerard Brode, and thence to the spirituality of Dolkovitch, she had slid
+by a natural transition from the sensuous art atmosphere of Matthew
+Strang’s world into the sensuous spirituality of Catholicism as soon as
+his influence had been replaced by the ascendency of another male mind.
+He was not asked to the wedding, and the invitation to Olive’s, reaching
+him in the days when the first darkness of isolation was upon him, he
+had left unanswered.
+
+And just as he has given his Art freely to the world, so, under the
+inspiration of Tarmigan’s memory, he gives his services freely at
+Grainger’s and other humble art-schools as encourager of every talent
+that aspires under discouragement; teaching it to be itself and nothing
+else, for the artist gives to the world and is not asked for, creating
+the taste he satisfies, and Art is not Truth nor Beauty, but a
+revelation of beautiful truth through the individual vision. It is the
+artist’s reaction to the stimulus of his universe, whether his universe
+be our common world seen for itself or through antecedent art, or a
+private world of inward vision: for while the philosophers are
+quarrelling about abstract truth, the artist answers Pilate’s question
+through his own personality. The beauty which Matthew Strang’s art
+reveals, though he experiments in many styles, with unequal results, is
+mainly tragic. For others the gay, the flippant, the bright--let those
+from whose temperament these things flow interpret the joyousness and
+buoyancy and airy grace of existence. For others the empty
+experimentation in line and color. It is all Art--in the house of Art
+are many mansions. He has come to the last of the three stages of so
+many artists, who pass from the fever to do everything, through a period
+of intolerance for all they cannot do, into a genial acceptance of the
+good in all schools. But, unassuming as he has always been, he is yet
+sometimes shaken by righteous indignation when he sees tawdry art--art
+that is the response to the stimulus of no universe but the artificial
+studio-universe of models and posings and stage-properties--enthroned
+and fêted at the banquet of life; and sometimes an unguarded word
+flashes out before his pupils, but he always repents of his railings,
+feeling it is his to work, not to judge; to do the one simple thing that
+his hand findeth to do.
+
+One of his pictures is of a woman looking out to sea with hopeless eyes;
+there is a mocking glory of sunset in the sky. This is called “The Pain
+of the World.” The title was due to Olive’s exclamation that night in
+Devonshire. The figure is his mother’s, come back to him in his own
+solitude--the image of her standing thus in the asylum at Halifax could
+not be effaced from his soul; it had to find expression in his Art.
+
+As he worked at it, with the brutal aloofness of the artist, studying
+lights and shadows, values and effects, gradations and tones, he
+wondered whether the artist were a cold-blooded monster, or a divinely
+appointed alchemist sent to transmute the dross of the world’s pain to
+the gold of Art for the world’s pleasure; a magician to cover up the
+rawness of life, as kindly Nature covers up the naked earth with grass,
+or throws the purple light of dream over all that is dead--over the
+centuries that are past or our youth that is gone; a Redeemer, whose
+beautiful perception of pathos and tragedy robs the grave of its
+victory, and plucks Death of its sting, so that no man suffereth or
+travaileth without contributing to the raw stuff of life of which Art is
+woven by the souls dowered with the pangs and privileges of
+Over-Consciousness. Each man, it sometimes seemed to him, dimly, had to
+pay so much in sorrow and pain; and in return for that he drew from the
+common human fund the comprehension of life and the consolation of Art,
+new sympathies and new delights, music and books and pictures, that only
+lived through the rich variety of human destinies; mystic atmospheres
+and minor scales, meaningless to souls that had not suffered or
+inherited the capacity to suffer. Some--generally the stupid--paid
+little in pain and sorrow; and some--as in his own case--much. But so
+long as the account showed a balance to the general good, it was not for
+the soul that was sacrificed to complain. It was, perhaps, even a
+privilege to subserve the common good. Life was so arranged that virtue
+could not be sure of personal reward, and this uncertainty was just what
+made virtue possible. Under no other scheme of things could the soul
+enjoy the privilege of virtue. To have suffered, as he himself had done,
+by the institution of marriage, both as child and husband; to have been
+a victim to the general laws which safeguard human society; to have been
+cut in two by the flaming swords of the cherubim, which turn every way
+to keep the way of the Tree of Life--all this did not, he thought, give
+him the right to blaspheme existence. And the artist at least extracted
+a soul of good from all things evil.
+
+Some such reflections--not clear, but all confused and blurred, for he
+was no syllogism-building philosopher, but an artist whose profoundest
+thought sprang always from the concrete image before him--came to him
+again when he was working at his famous picture “The Persecutors,”
+inspired by an episode in Billy’s life, though Billy does not know. It
+is simply children tormenting an old man. The old man is one of the
+world’s wrecks; the children know not what they do. But the pathos of
+the picture is overwhelming; it purifies by pity and terror. This is the
+profit to the world of Billy’s life.
+
+Matthew Strang knows, with the same secret assurance that sent him out
+to fight, and strengthened him in the long struggle, that this picture
+will live, that the gods have answered his boyish prayer for
+immortality. But at moments when Billy is moping or in pain, or when the
+artist foresees the gabble of magazines and drawing-rooms about his
+work, the chatter of fashionable parrots, and the analysis of his
+“second manner” by glib, comfortable critics, he wonders whether the
+picture or the immortality is worth the price.
+
+But, stronger than those driven by their Over-Consciousness to express
+in artistic shapes the futility of life, he does not dwell eternally on
+the tears of things; and his picture simply entitled “A Woman” is
+perhaps his masterpiece. For when he painted it that sunrise in Paris
+was still vivid to him, and the light in Ruth Hailey’s eyes, and that
+fire of love in Eleanor Wyndwood’s; these things were in the eternal
+order, too, as truly as the ugliness and the sordid realities. The
+simplest human life was packed with marvels of sensation and emotion,
+haloed with dreams and divine illusions. To have been a child, to have
+sung and danced, to have eaten and played, to have seen woods and
+waters, to have grown to youth and to manhood, to have dreamed and
+aspired, to have labored and hoped--all this happiness had been his
+while he was looking for happiness, just as Art had been his in Nova
+Scotia, while he had been struggling to get to it in England.
+
+And so to-day he yearns to paint the poetry of the Real--not with the
+false romantic glamour which had witched his youth, though even his
+youth had had a hankering after the Real, just as his maturity retains a
+love for the mystic. That gilded unreality to which his Art would have
+gravitated, had he found happiness with the sentimental Eleanor in her
+atmosphere of fashion, will be replaced by the beauty that even when
+mystic is based on Truth. He needed no woman’s inspiration, nor the
+stimulus of cultured cliques. Alone he faces the realities of life and
+death without intervening veils of charming illusion, no longer craving
+to filter the honest sunlight through stained cathedral windows or to
+tarnish the simplicity of the grave with monumental angels. Aspiring now
+to paint London, he wanders through the gray streets, as in his days of
+hunger, but now the grotesque figures no longer seem outside the realm
+of serious Art, or mere picturesque arrangements of line and color. To
+his purged vision, that still lacks humor, they touch the mysteries and
+the infinities, passing and disappearing like ghosts on a planet of
+dream: solitude has brought him a sense of the universal life from which
+they flow, and he fancies the function of Art should be to show the
+whole in every part, the universal through the particular. And so he
+longs to paint the beauty that lies unseen of grosser eyes, the poetry
+of mean streets and every-day figures, to enrich and hallow life by
+revealing some sweep of a great principle that purifies and atones.
+
+In “The Old Maid” he has painted the portrait of “Aunt Clara” with Davie
+on her knee, revealing the wistful, imprisoned, maternal instinct he
+detected one day in her sunken eyes as she fondled his little Davie.
+What makes this presentation of ugliness Art is not merely the breathing
+brush-work, but the beauty of his own pity which the artist has added to
+the Nature he copied. With the falsely aristocratic in Art or life he
+has lost sympathy: to him to be honest and faithful is to belong to the
+only aristocracy in the world--and the smallest. Sometimes he dreams of
+some great Common Art--for all men, like the sky and the air, which
+should somehow soften life for all. And dreaming thus he somewhat frets
+against the many limitations of his own Art--as once in his callow
+boyhood when he set out to write that dime novel--and against its lapsed
+influence in modern life, wishing rather he had been a great poet or a
+great musician. Only music and poetry, he feared while toiling at the
+“Old Maid,” could express and inspire modern life; the impulse that had
+raised the cathedral had been transformed into the impulse that built
+the grand hotel, fitted throughout with electrical conveniences; in the
+visible arts landscape and portraiture alone seemed to find response
+from the modern mind, the one by its revelation of the beauty of the
+world, the other by its increasing subtlety of psychological insight.
+Painting had begun with religion, religion had led to technique, then
+religion had drifted away from painting, and then technique had become a
+religion. But technique ought not to be thought of separately except by
+the student; to the artist the spiritual and the material came as one
+conception, as metre comes with the poet’s thought. The spirit must be
+brought back to painting--this modern accuracy of tones and forms was
+but the channel for it. But it could no longer be conveyed through the
+simple images of a popular creed to which all men vibrated: to-day there
+was no such common chord for the artist to touch. Even this picture of
+“The Old Maid” might be unintelligible without its title, and risked
+denunciation as literary. And the greatest picture could be seen by but
+few.
+
+But repining is useless; there is only one thing he can do, and he must
+do it--a small thing in the span of the cosmos and the sweep of the
+ages, but to be done ere he goes down to the kindred dust. But before
+death comes he has doubtless other things to suffer--all these spiritual
+agonies have seared the body in which early privations and sickness had
+already left the seeds of premature infirmity. His children are growing
+up, too, bringing new fears and problems.
+
+And yet his life is not all unhappy--work is his anodyne, and there is
+an inner peace in the daily pain, because it is the pain that his soul
+has chosen, in willing slavery to its own yoke.
+
+But life is too long for ideals; the unending procession of the days
+depresses the finest enthusiasm. Sometimes when the domestic horizon is
+dark, or when his body is racked with pain, he rebels against the rôle
+thrust upon him in the world’s workshop, and against the fate that
+mocked at his free-will, and made of him a voluntary instrument for the
+happiness of Rosina and Herbert, turning his every action to
+undreamed-of issues; and then he longs for the life that he had found so
+hollow, the life of gay talk, and rustling dresses, and wine, and woman,
+and song. And in such moments as these--when the natural human instinct
+for happiness, yearning sunward, breaks through all the strata of
+laborious philosophy and experience--he remembers that men call him “The
+Master,” and then he seems to hear the sardonic laughter of Mad Peggy,
+as he asks himself what Master he has followed in his sacrifice, or what
+Master, working imperturbably, moulds human life at his ironic,
+inscrutable will.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
+
+Miss O’Reilly’s hair chamelon-colored=> Miss O’Reilly’s hair
+chameleon-colored {pg}
+
+painter always trod giugerly=> painter always trod gingerly {pg 400}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACKY THE CROW
+
+By Thornton W. Burgess
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I: Blacky The Crow Makes A Discovery
+
+Blacky the Crow is always watching for things not intended for his sharp
+eyes. The result is that he gets into no end of trouble which he could
+avoid. In this respect he is just like his cousin, Sammy Jay. Between
+them they see a great deal with which they have no business and which it
+would be better for them not to see.
+
+Now Blacky the Crow finds it no easy matter to pick up a living when
+snow covers the Green Meadows and the Green Forest, and ice binds the
+Big River and the Smiling Pool. He has to use his sharp eyes for all
+they are worth in order to find enough to fill his stomach, and he will
+eat anything in the way of food that he can swallow. Often he travels
+long distances looking for food, but at night he always comes back to
+the same place in the Green Forest, to sleep in company with others of
+his family.
+
+Blacky dearly loves company, particularly at night, and about the time
+jolly, round, red Mr. Sun is beginning to think about his bed behind
+the Purple Hills, you will find Blacky heading for a certain part of
+the Green Forest where he knows he will have neighbors of his own kind.
+Peter Rabbit says that it is because Blacky's conscience troubles him
+so that he doesn't dare sleep alone, but Happy Jack Squirrel says that
+Blacky hasn't any conscience. You can believe just which you please,
+though I suspect that neither of them really knows.
+
+As I have said, Blacky is quite a traveler at this time of year, and
+sometimes his search for food takes him to out-of-the-way places. One
+day toward the very last of winter, the notion entered his black head
+that he would have a look in a certain lonesome corner of the Green
+Forest where once upon a time Redtail the Hawk had lived. Blacky knew
+well enough that Redtail wasn't there now; he had gone south in the fell
+and wouldn't be back until he was sure that Mistress Spring had arrived
+on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest.
+
+Like the black imp he is, Blacky flew over the tree-tops, his sharp eyes
+watching for something interesting below. Presently he saw ahead of him
+the old nest of Red-tail. He knew all about that nest. He had visited
+it before when Red-tail was away. Still it might be worth another visit.
+You never can tell what you may find in old houses. Now, of course,
+Blacky knew perfectly well that Redtail was miles and miles, hundreds
+of miles away, and so there was nothing to fear from him. But Blacky
+learned ever so long ago that there is nothing like making sure that
+there is no danger. So, instead of flying straight to that old nest, he
+first flew over the tree so that he could look down into it.
+
+Right away he saw something that made him gasp and blink his eyes. It
+was quite large and white, and it looked--it looked very much indeed
+like an egg! Do you wonder that Blacky gasped and blinked? Here was snow
+on the ground, and Rough Brother North Wind and Jack Frost had given no
+hint that they were even thinking of going back to the Far North. The
+idea of any one laying an egg at this time of year! Blacky flew over to
+a tall pine-tree to think it over.
+
+“Must be it was a little lump of snow,” thought he. “Yet if ever I saw
+an egg, that looked like one. Jumping grasshoppers, how good an egg
+would taste right now!” You know Blacky has a weakness for eggs. The
+more he thought about it, the hungrier he grew. Several times he almost
+made up his mind to fly straight over there and make sure, but he didn't
+quite dare. If it were an egg, it must belong to somebody, and perhaps
+it would be best to find out who. Suddenly Blacky shook himself. “I must
+be dreaming,” said he. “There couldn't, there just couldn't be an egg at
+this time of year, or in that old tumble-down nest! I'll just fly away
+and forget it.”
+
+So he flew away, but he couldn't forget it. He kept thinking of it all
+day, and when he went to sleep that night he made up his mind to have
+another look at that old nest.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II: Blacky Makes Sure
+
+   “As true as ever I've cawed a caw
+    That was a new-laid egg I saw.”
+
+“What are you talking about?” demanded Sammy Jay, coming up just in time
+to hear the last part of what Blacky the Crow was mumbling to himself.
+
+“Oh nothing, Cousin, nothing at all,” replied Blacky. “I was just
+talking foolishness to myself.” Sammy looked at him sharply. “You aren't
+feeling sick, are you, Cousin Blacky?” he asked. “Must be something
+the matter with you when you begin talking about new-laid eggs, when
+everything's covered with snow and ice. Foolishness is no name for it.
+Whoever heard of such a thing as a new-laid egg this time of year.”
+
+“Nobody, I guess,” replied Blacky. “I told you I was just talking
+foolishness. You see, I'm so hungry that I just got to thinking what I'd
+have if I could have anything I wanted. That made me think of eggs, and
+I tried to think just how I would feel if I should suddenly see a great
+big egg right in front of me. I guess I must have said something about
+it.”
+
+“I guess you must have. It isn't egg time yet, and it won't be for a
+long time. Take my advice and just forget about impossible things. I'm
+going over to Farmer Brown's corncrib. Corn may not be as good as eggs,
+but it is very good and very filling. Better come along,” said Sammy.
+
+“Not this morning, thank you. Some other time, perhaps,” replied
+Blacky.
+
+He watched Sammy disappear through the trees. Then he flew to the top
+of the tallest pine-tree to make sure that no one was about. When he was
+quite sure that no one was watching him, he spread his wings and headed
+for the most lonesome corner of the Green Forest.
+
+“I'm foolish. I know I'm foolish,” he muttered. “But I've just got to
+have another look in that old nest of Redtail the Hawk. I just can't get
+it out of my head that that was an egg, a great, big, white egg, that I
+saw there yesterday. It won't do any harm to have another look, anyway.”
+
+Straight toward the tree in which was the great tumble-down nest of
+Redtail the Hawk he flew, and as he drew near, he flew high, for Blacky
+is too shrewd and smart to take any chances. Not that he thought that
+there could be any danger there; but you never can tell, and it is
+always the part of wisdom to be on the safe side. As he passed over the
+top of the tree, he looked down eagerly. Just imagine how he felt when
+instead of one, he saw two white things in the old nest--two white
+things that looked for all the world like eggs! The day before there had
+been but one; now there were two. That settled it in Blacky's mind; they
+were eggs! They couldn't be anything else.
+
+Blacky kept right on flying. Somehow he didn't dare stop just then. He
+was too much excited by what he had discovered to think clearly. He had
+got to have time to get his wits together. Whoever had laid those eggs
+was big and strong. He felt sure of that. It must be some one a great
+deal bigger than himself, and he was of no mind to get into trouble,
+even for a dinner of fresh eggs. He must first find out whose they were;
+then he would know better what to do. He felt sure that no one else knew
+about them, and he knew that they couldn't run away. So he kept right on
+flying until he reached a certain tall pine-tree where he could sit and
+think without being disturbed.
+
+“Eggs!” he muttered. “Real eggs! Now who under the sun can have moved
+into Redtail's old house? And what can they mean by laying eggs before
+Mistress Spring has even sent word that she has started? It's too much
+for me. It certainly is too much for me.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III: Blacky Finds Out Who Owns The Eggs
+
+Two big white eggs in a tumbledown nest, and snow and ice everywhere!
+Did ever anybody hear of such a thing before?
+
+“Wouldn't believe it, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes,” muttered
+Blacky the Crow. “Have to believe them. If I can't believe them, it's of
+no use to try to believe anything in this world. As sure as I sit here,
+that old nest has two eggs in it. Whoever laid them must be crazy to
+start housekeeping at this time of year. I must find out whose eggs they
+are and then--”
+
+Blacky didn't finish, but there was a hungry look in his eyes that would
+have told any who saw it, had there been any to see it, that he had
+a use for those eggs. But there was none to see it, and he took the
+greatest care that there should be none to see him when he once again
+started for a certain lonesome corner of the Green Forest.
+
+“First I'll make sure that the eggs are still there,” thought he, and
+flew high above the tree tops, so that as he passed over the tree in
+which was the old nest of Red-tail the Hawk, he might look down into it.
+To have seen him, you would never have guessed that he was looking for
+anything in particular. He seemed to be just flying over on his way to
+some distant place. If the eggs were still there, he meant to come back
+and hide in the top of a near-by pine-tree to watch until he was sure
+that he might safely steal those eggs, or to find out whose they were.
+
+Blacky's heart beat fast with excitement as he drew near that old
+tumble-down nest. Would those two big white eggs be there? Perhaps
+there would be three! The very thought made him flap his wings a little
+faster. A few more wing strokes and he would be right over the tree. How
+he did hope to see those eggs! He could almost see into the nest now.
+One stroke! Two strokes! Three strokes! Blacky bit his tongue to keep
+from giving a sharp caw of disappointment and surprise.
+
+There were no eggs to be seen. No, Sir, there wasn't a sign of eggs in
+that old nest. There wasn't because--why, do you think? There wasn't
+because Blacky looked straight down on a great mass of feathers which
+quite covered them from sight, and he didn't have to look twice to know
+that that great mass of feathers was really a great bird, the bird to
+whom those eggs belonged.
+
+Blacky didn't turn to come back as he had planned. He kept right on,
+just as if he hadn't seen anything, and as he flew he shivered a little.
+He shivered at the thought of what might have happened to him if he had
+tried to steal those eggs the day before and had been caught doing it.
+
+“I'm thankful I knew enough to leave them alone,” said he. “Funny I
+never once guessed whose eggs they are. I might have known that no one
+but Hooty the Horned Owl would think of nesting at this time of year.
+And that was Mrs. Hooty I saw on the nest just now. My, but she's big!
+She's bigger than Hooty himself! Yes, Sir, it's a lucky thing I didn't
+try to get those eggs yesterday. Probably both Hooty and Mrs. Hooty were
+sitting close by, only they were sitting so still that I thought they
+were parts of the tree they were in. Blacky, Blacky, the sooner you
+forget those eggs the better.”
+
+Some things are best forgotten As soon as they are learned. Who never
+plays with fire Will surely not get burned.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV: The Cunning Of Blacky
+
+Now when Blacky the Crow discovered that the eggs in the old tumble-down
+nest of Redtail the Hawk in a lonesome corner of the Green Forest
+belonged to Hooty the Owl, he straightway made the best of resolutions;
+he would simply forget all about those eggs. He would forget that he
+ever had seen them, and he would stay away from that corner of the Green
+Forest. That was a very wise resolution. Of all the people who live in
+the Green Forest, none is fiercer or more savage than Hooty the Owl,
+unless it is Mrs. Hooty. She is bigger than Hooty and certainly quite as
+much to be feared by the little people.
+
+All this Blacky knows. No one knows it better. And Blacky is not one
+to poke his head into trouble with his eyes open. So he very wisely
+resolved to forget all about those eggs. Now it is one thing to make a
+resolution and quite another thing to live up to it, as you all know.
+It was easy enough to say that he would forget, but not at all easy
+to forget. It would have been different if it had been spring or early
+summer, when there were plenty of other eggs to be had by any one smart
+enough to find them and steal them. But now, when it was still winter
+(such an unheard-of time for any one to have eggs!), and it was hard
+work to find enough to keep a hungry Crow's stomach filled, the thought
+of those eggs would keep popping into his head. He just couldn't seem to
+forget them. After a little, he didn't try.
+
+Now Blacky the Crow is very, very cunning. He is one of the smartest
+of all the little people who fly. No one can get into more mischief and
+still keep out of trouble than can Blacky the Crow. That is because he
+uses the wits in that black head of his. In fact, some people are unkind
+enough to say that he spends all his spare time in planning mischief.
+The more he thought of those eggs, the more he wanted them, and it
+wasn't long before he began to try to plan some way to get them without
+risking his own precious skin.
+
+“I can't do it alone,” thought he, “and yet if I take any one into my
+secret, I'll have to share those eggs. That won't do at all, because
+I want them myself. I found them, and I ought to have them.” He quite
+forgot or overlooked the fact that those eggs really belonged to Hooty
+and Mrs. Hooty and to no one else. “Now let me see, what can I do?”
+
+He thought and he thought and he thought and he thought, and little by
+little a plan worked out in his little black head. Then he chuckled. He
+chuckled right out loud, then hurriedly looked around to see if any one
+had heard him. No one had, so he chuckled again. He cocked his head
+on one side and half closed his eyes, as if that plan was something he
+could see and he was looking at it very hard. Then he cocked his head on
+the other side and did the same thing.
+
+“It's all right,” said he at last. “It'll give my relatives a lot of
+fun, and of course they will be very grateful to me for that. It won't
+hurt Hooty or Mrs. Hooty a bit, but it will make them very angry. They
+have very short tempers, and people with short tempers usually forget
+everything else when they are angry. We'll pay them a visit while the
+sun is bright, because then perhaps they cannot see well enough to catch
+us, and we'll tease them until they lose their tempers and forget all
+about keeping guard over those eggs. Then I'll slip in and get one and
+perhaps both of them. Without knowing that they are doing anything of
+the kind, my friends and relatives will help me to get a good meal. My,
+how good those eggs will taste!”
+
+It was a very clever and cunning plan, for Blacky is a very clever and
+cunning rascal, but of course it didn't deserve success because nothing
+that means needless worry and trouble for others deserves to succeed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V: Blacky Calls His Friends
+
+When Blacky cries “Caw, caw, caw, caw!” As if he'd dislocate his jaw,
+His relatives all hasten where He waits them with a crafty air. They
+know that there is mischief afoot, and the Crow family is always ready
+for mischief. So on this particular morning when they heard Blacky
+cawing at the top of his lungs from the tallest pine-tree in the Green
+Forest, they hastened over there as fast as they could fly, calling to
+each other excitedly and sure that they were going to have a good time
+of some kind.
+
+Blacky chuckled as he saw them coming. “Come on! Come on! Caw, caw, caw!
+Hurry up and flap your wings faster. I know where Hooty the Owl is, and
+we'll have no end of fun with him,” he cried.
+
+“Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!” shouted all his relatives in great glee.
+“Where is he? Lead us to him. We'll drive him out of the Green Forest!”
+
+So Blacky led the way over to the most lonesome corner of the Green
+Forest, straight to the tree in which Hooty the Owl was comfortably
+sleeping. Blacky had taken pains to slip over early that morning and
+make sure just where he was. He had discovered Hooty fast asleep, and
+he knew that he would remain right where he was until dark. You know
+Hooty's eyes are not meant for much use in bright light, and the
+brighter the light, the more uncomfortable his eyes feel. Blacky knows
+this, too, and he had chosen the very brightest part of the morning to
+call his relatives over to torment poor Hooty. Jolly, round, bright Mr.
+Sun was shining his very brightest, and the white snow on the ground
+made it seem brighter still. Even Blacky had to blink, and he knew that
+poor Hooty would find it harder still.
+
+But one thing Blacky was very careful not to even hint of, and that was
+that Mrs. Hooty was right close at hand. Mrs. Hooty is bigger and even
+more fierce than Hooty, and Blacky didn't want to frighten any of the
+more timid of his relatives. What he hoped down deep in his crafty heart
+was that when they got to teasing and tormenting Hooty and making the
+great racket which he knew they would, Mrs. Hooty would lose her temper
+and fly over to join Hooty in trying to drive away the black tormentors.
+Then Blacky would slip over to the nest which she had left unguarded and
+steal one and perhaps both of the eggs he knew were there.
+
+When they reached the tree where Hooty was, he was blinking his great
+yellow eyes and had fluffed out all his feathers, which is a way he has
+when he is angry, to make himself look twice as big as he really is. Of
+course, he had heard the noisy crew coming, and he knew well enough what
+to expect. As soon as they saw him, they began to scream as loud as
+ever they could and to call him all manner of names. The boldest of them
+would dart at him as if to pull out a mouthful of feathers, but took
+the greatest care not to get too near. You see, the way Hooty hissed and
+snapped his great bill was very threatening, and they knew that if once
+he got hold of one of them with those big cruel claws of his, that would
+be the end.
+
+So they were content to simply scold and scream at him and fly around
+him, just out of reach, and make him generally uncomfortable, and they
+were so busy doing this that no one noticed that Blacky was not joining
+in the fun, and no one paid any attention to the old tumble-down nest
+of Redtail the Hawk only a few trees distant. So far Blacky's plans were
+working out just as he had hoped.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI: Hooty The Owl Doesn't Stay Still
+
+   Now what's the good of being smart
+   When others do not do their part?
+
+If Blacky the Crow didn't say this to himself, he thought it. He knew
+that he had made a very cunning plan to get the eggs of Hooty the Owl,
+a plan so shrewd and cunning that no one else in the Green Forest or on
+the Green Meadows would have thought of it. There was only one weakness
+in it, and that was that it depended for success on having Hooty the
+Owl do as he usually did when tormented by a crowd of noisy Crows,--stay
+where he was until they got tired and flew away.
+
+Now Blacky sometimes makes a mistake that smart people are very apt to
+make; he thinks that because he is so smart, other people are stupid.
+That is where he proves that smart as he is, he isn't as smart as he
+thinks he is. He always thought of Hooty the Owl as stupid. That is, he
+always thought of him that way in daytime. At night, when he was waked
+out of a sound sleep by the fierce hunting cry of Hooty, he wasn't so
+sure about Hooty being stupid, and he always took care to sit perfectly
+still in the darkness, lest Hooty's great ears should hear him and
+Hooty's great eyes, made for seeing in the dark, should find him. No,
+in the night Blacky was not at all sure that Hooty was stupid.
+
+But in the daytime he was sure. You see, he quite forgot the fact that
+the brightness of day is to Hooty what the blackness of night is to him.
+So, because Hooty would simply sit still and hiss and snap his bill,
+instead of trying to catch his tormentors or flying away, Blacky called
+him stupid. He felt sure that Hooty would stay right where he was now,
+and he hoped that Mrs. Hooty would lose her temper and leave the nest
+where she was sitting on those two eggs and join Hooty to help him try
+to drive away that noisy crew.
+
+But Hooty isn't stupid. Not a bit of it. The minute he found out that
+Blacky and his friends had discovered him, he thought of Mrs. Hooty and
+the two precious eggs in the old nest of Redtail the Hawk close by.
+
+“Mrs. Hooty mustn't be disturbed,” thought he. “That will never do at
+all. I must lead these black rascals away where they won't discover Mrs.
+Hooty. I certainly must.”
+
+So he spread his broad wings and blundered away among the trees a little
+way. He didn't fly far because the instant he started to fly that whole
+noisy crew with the exception of Blacky were after him. Because he
+couldn't use his claws or bill while flying, they grew bold enough to
+pull a few feathers out of his back. So he flew only a little way to a
+thick hemlock-tree, where it wasn't easy for the Crows to get at him,
+and where the light didn't hurt his eyes so much. There he rested a few
+minutes and then did the same thing over again. He meant to lead
+those bothersome Crows into the darkest part of the Green Forest and
+there--well, he could see better there, and it might be that one of them
+would be careless enough to come within reach. No, Hooty wasn't stupid.
+Certainly not.
+
+Blacky awoke to that fact as he sat in the top of a tall pine-tree
+silently watching. He could see Mrs. Hooty on the nest, and as the noise
+of Hooty's tormentors sounded from farther and farther away, she settled
+herself more comfortably and closed her eyes. Blacky could imagine that
+she was smiling to herself. It was clear that she had no intention of
+going to help Hooty. His splendid plan had failed just because stupid
+Hooty, who wasn't stupid at all, had flown away when he ought to have
+sat still. It was very provoking.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII: Blacky Tries Another Plan
+
+   When one plan fails, just try another;
+   Declare you'll win some way or other.
+
+People who succeed are those who do not give up because they fail the
+first time they try. They are the ones who, as soon as one plan fails,
+get busy right away and think of another plan and try that. If the thing
+they are trying to do is a good thing, sooner or later they succeed. If
+they are trying to do a wrong thing, very likely all their plans fail,
+as they should.
+
+Now Blacky the Crow knows all about the value of trying and trying. He
+isn't easily discouraged. Sometimes it is a pity that he isn't, because
+he plans so much mischief. But the fact remains that he isn't, and he
+tries and tries until he cannot think of another plan and just has to
+give up. When he invited all his relatives to join him in tormenting
+Hooty the Owl, he thought he had a plan that just couldn't fail. He felt
+sure that Mrs. Hooty would leave her nest and help Hooty try to drive
+away his tormentors. But Mrs. Hooty didn't do anything of the kind,
+because Hooty was smart enough and thoughtful enough to lead his
+tormentors away from the nest into the darkest part of the Green Forest
+where their noise wouldn't bother Mrs. Hooty. So she just settled
+herself more comfortably than ever on those eggs which Blacky had hoped
+she would give him a chance to steal, and his fine plan was quite upset.
+
+Not one of his relatives had noticed that nest. They had been too busy
+teasing Hooty. This was just as Blacky had hoped. He didn't want them to
+know about that nest because he was selfish and wanted to get those eggs
+just for himself alone. But now he knew that the only way he could get
+Mrs. Hooty off of them would be by teasing her so that she would lose
+her temper and try to catch some of her tormentors. If she did that,
+there would be a chance that he might slip in and get at least one of
+those eggs.
+
+He would try it.
+
+For a few minutes he listened to the noise of his relatives growing
+fainter and fainter, as Hooty led them farther and farther into the
+Green Forest. Then he opened his mouth.
+
+“Caw, caw, caw, caw!” he screamed. “Caw, caw, caw, caw! Come back,
+everybody! Here is Mrs. Hooty on her nest! Caw, caw, caw, caw!”
+
+Now as soon as they heard that, all Blacky's relatives stopped chasing
+and tormenting Hooty and started back as fast as they could fly. They
+didn't like the dark part of the Green Forest into which Hooty was
+leading them. Besides, they wanted to see that nest. So back they came,
+cawing at the top of their lungs, for they were very much excited. Some
+of them never had seen a nest of Hooty's. And anyway, it would be just
+as much fun to tease Mrs. Hooty as it was to tease Hooty.
+
+“Where is the nest?” they screamed, as they came back to where Blacky
+was cawing and pretending to be very much excited.
+
+“Why,” exclaimed one, “that is the old nest of Redtail the Hawk. I know
+all about that nest.” And he looked at Blacky as if he thought Blacky
+was playing a joke on them.
+
+“It was Redtail's, but it is Hooty's now. If you don't believe me, just
+look in it,” retorted Blacky.
+
+At once they all began to fly over the top of the tree where they could
+look down into the nest and there, sure enough, was Mrs. Hooty, her
+great, round, yellow eyes glaring up at them angrily. Such a racket!
+Right away Hooty was forgotten, and the whole crowd at once began to
+torment Mrs. Hooty. Only Blacky sat watchful and silent, waiting for
+Mrs. Hooty to lose her temper and try to catch one of her tormentors. He
+had hope, a great hope, that he would get one of those eggs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII: Hooty Comes To Mrs. Hooty's Aid
+
+No one can live just for self alone. A lot of people think they can,
+but they are very much mistaken. They are making one of the greatest
+mistakes in the world. Every teeny, weeny act, no matter what it is,
+affects somebody else. That is one of Old Mother Nature's great laws.
+And it is just as true among the little people of the Green Forest and
+the Green Meadows as with boys and girls and grown people. It is Old
+Mother Nature's way of making each of us responsible for the good of all
+and of teaching us that always we should help each other.
+
+As you know, when Blacky the Crow called all his relatives over to the
+nest where Mrs. Hooty was sitting on her eggs, they at once stopped
+tormenting Hooty and left him alone in a thick hemlock-tree in the
+darkest part of the Green Forest. Of course Hooty was very, very glad
+to be left in peace, and he might have spent the rest of the day there
+sleeping in comfort. But he didn't. No, Sir, he didn't. At first he gave
+a great sigh of relief and settled himself as if he meant to stay. He
+listened to the voices of those noisy Crows growing fainter and fainter
+and was glad. But it was only for a few minutes.
+
+Presently those voices stopped growing fainter. They grew more
+excited-sounding than ever, and they came right from one place. Hooty
+knew then that his tormentors had found the nest where Mrs. Hooty was,
+and that they were tormenting her just as they had tormented him. He
+snapped his bill angrily and then more angrily.
+
+“I guess Mrs. Hooty is quite able to take care of herself,” he
+grumbled, “but she ought not to be disturbed while she is sitting on
+those eggs. I hate to go back there in that bright sunshine. It hurts my
+eyes, and I don't like it, but I guess I'll have to go back there. Mrs.
+Hooty needs my help. I'd rather stay here, but--”
+
+He didn't finish. Instead, he spread his broad wings and flew back
+towards the nest and Mrs. Hooty. His great wings made no noise, for they
+are made so that he can fly without making a sound. “If I once get hold
+of one of those Crows!” he muttered to himself. “If I once get hold of
+one of those Crows, I'll--” He didn't say what he would do, but if
+you had been near enough to hear the snap of his bill, you could have
+guessed the rest.
+
+All this time the Crows were having what they called fun with Mrs.
+Hooty. Nothing is true fun which makes others uncomfortable, but somehow
+a great many people seem to forget this. So, while Blacky sat watching,
+his relatives made a tremendous racket around Mrs. Hooty, and the more
+angry she grew, the more they screamed and called her names and darted
+down almost in her face, as they pretended that they were going to fight
+her. They were so busy doing this, and Blacky was so busy watching them,
+hoping that Mrs. Hooty would leave her nest and give him a chance to
+steal the eggs he knew were under her, that no one gave Hooty a thought.
+
+All of a sudden he was there, right in the tree close to the nest! No
+one had heard a sound, but there he was, and in the claws of one foot he
+held the tail feathers of one of Blacky's relatives. It was lucky, very
+lucky indeed for that one that the sun was in Hooty's eyes and so he had
+missed his aim. Otherwise there would have been one less Crow.
+
+Now it is one thing to tease one lone Owl and quite another to tease two
+together. Besides, there were those black tail feathers floating down
+to the snow-covered ground. Quite suddenly those Crows decided that they
+had had fun enough for one day, and in spite of all Blacky could do
+to stop them, away they flew, cawing loudly and talking it all over
+noisily. Blacky was the last to go, and his heart was sorrowful. However
+could he get those eggs?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX: Blacky Thinks Of Farmer Brown's Boy
+
+“Such luck!” grumbled Blacky, as he flew over to his favorite tree to do
+a little thinking. “Such luck! Now all my neighbors know about the nest
+of Hooty the Owl, and sooner or later one of them will find out that
+there are eggs in it. There is one thing about it, though, and that
+is that if I can't get them, nobody can. That is to say, none of my
+relatives can. I've tried every way I can think of, and those eggs are
+still there. My, my, my, how I would like one of them right now!”
+
+Then Blacky the Crow did a thing which disappointed scamps often
+do,--began to blame the ones he was trying to wrong because his plans
+had failed. To have heard him talking to himself, you would have
+supposed that those eggs really belonged to him and that Hooty and Mrs.
+Hooty had cheated him out of them. Yes, Sir, that is what you would have
+thought if you could have heard him muttering to himself there in the
+tree-top. In his disappointment over not getting those eggs, he was
+so sorry for himself that he actually did feel that he was the one
+wronged,--that Hooty and Mrs. Hooty should have let him have those eggs.
+
+Of course, that was absolute foolishness, but he made himself believe
+it just the same. At least, he pretended to believe it. And the more he
+pretended, the angrier he grew. This is often the way with people who
+try to wrong others. They grow angry with the ones they have tried to
+wrong. When at last Blacky had to confess to himself that he could think
+of no other way to get those eggs, he began to wonder if there was some
+way to make trouble for Hooty and Mrs. Hooty. It was right then that he
+thought of Farmer Brown's boy. Blacky's eyes snapped. He remembered how,
+once upon a time, Farmer Brown's boy had delighted to rob nests. Blacky
+had seen him take the eggs from the nests of Blacky's own relatives and
+from many other feathered people. What he did with the eggs, Blacky had
+no idea. Just now he didn't care. If Farmer Brown's boy would just
+happen to find Hooty's nest, he would be sure to take those eggs, and
+then he, Blacky, would feel better. He would feel that he was even with
+Hooty.
+
+Right away he began to try to think of some way to bring Farmer Brown's
+boy over to the lonesome corner of the Green Forest where Hooty's nest
+was. If he could once get him there, he felt sure that Farmer Brown's
+boy would see the nest and climb up to it, and then of course he would
+take the eggs. If he couldn't have those eggs himself, the next best
+thing would be to see some one else get them.
+
+Dear me, dear me, such dreadful thoughts! I am afraid that Blacky's
+heart was as black as his coat. And the worst of it was, he seemed to
+get a lot of pleasure in his wicked plans. Now right down in his heart
+he knew that they were wicked plans, but he tried to make excuses to
+himself.
+
+“Hooty the Owl is a robber,” said he. “Everybody is afraid of him.
+He lives on other people, and so far as I know he does no good in the
+world. He is big and fierce, and no one loves him. The Green Forest
+would be better off without him. If those eggs hatch, there will be
+little Owls to be fed, and they will grow up into big fierce Owls, like
+their father and mother. So if I show Farmer Brown's boy that nest and
+he takes those eggs, I will be doing a kindness to my neighbors.”
+
+So Blacky talked to himself and tried to hush the still, small voice
+down inside that tried to tell him that what he was planning to do was
+really a dreadful thing. And all the time he watched for Farmer Brown's
+boy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X: Farmer Brown's Boy And Hooty
+
+Farmer Brown's boy had taken it into his head to visit the Green Forest.
+It was partly because he hadn't anything else to do, and it was partly
+because now that it was very near the end of winter he wanted to see how
+things were there and if there were any signs of the coming of spring.
+Blacky the Crow saw him coming, and Blacky chuckled to himself. He had
+watched every day for a week for just this thing. Now he would tell
+Farmer Brown's boy about that nest of Hooty the Owl.
+
+He flew over to the lonesome corner of the Green Forest where Hooty and
+Mrs. Hooty had made their home and at once began to caw at the top of
+his voice and pretend that he was terribly excited over something.
+
+“Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!” shouted Blacky. At once all his relatives
+within hearing hurried over to join him. They knew that he was
+tormenting Hooty, and they wanted to join in the fun. It wasn't long
+before there was a great racket going on over in that lonesome corner of
+the Green Forest.
+
+Of course Farmer Brown's boy heard it. He stopped and listened. “Now
+I wonder what Blacky and his friends have found this time,” said he.
+“Whenever they make a fuss like that, there is usually something to see
+there. I believe I'll so over and have a look.”
+
+So he turned in the direction of the lonesome corner of the Green
+Forest, and as he drew near, he moved very carefully, so as to see all
+that he could without frightening the Crows. He knew that as soon as
+they saw him, they would fly away, and that might alarm the one they
+were tormenting, for he knew enough of Crow ways to know that when they
+were making such a noise as they were now making, they were plaguing
+some one.
+
+Blacky was the first to see him because he was watching for him. But
+he didn't say anything until Farmer Brown's boy was so near that he
+couldn't help but see that nest and Hooty himself, sitting up very
+straight and snapping his bill angrily at his tormentors. Then Blacky
+gave the alarm, and at once all the Crows rose in the air and headed for
+the Green Meadows, cawing at the top of their lungs. Blacky went with
+them a little way. The first chance he got he dropped out of the flock
+and silently flew back to a place where he could see all that might
+happen at the nest of Hooty the Owl.
+
+When Farmer Brown's boy first caught sight of the nest and saw the Crows
+darting down toward it and acting so excited, he was puzzled.
+
+“That's an old nest of Red-tail the Hawk,” thought he. “I found that
+last spring. Now what can there be there to excite those Crows so?”
+
+Then he caught sight of Hooty the Owl. “Ha, so that's it!” he exclaimed.
+“Those scamps have discovered Hooty and have been having no end of fun
+tormenting him. I wonder what he's doing there.”
+
+He no longer tried to keep out of sight, but walked right up to the
+foot of the tree, all the time looking up. Hooty saw him, but instead of
+flying away, he snapped his bill just as he had at the Crows and hissed.
+
+“That's funny,” thought Farmer Brown's boy. “If I didn't know that
+to be the old nest of Redtail the Hawk, and if it weren't still the
+tail-end of winter, I would think that was Hooty's nest.”
+
+He walked in a circle around the tree, looking up. Suddenly he gave a
+little start. Was that a tail sticking over the edge of the nest? He
+found a stick and threw it up. It struck the bottom of the nest, and out
+flew a great bird. It was Mrs. Hooty! Blacky the Crow chuckled.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI: Farmer Brown's Boy Is Tempted
+
+   When you're tempted to do wrong
+   Is the time to prove you're strong.
+   Shut your eyes and clench each fist;
+   It will help you to resist.
+
+When a bird is found sitting on a nest, it is a pretty sure sign that
+that nest holds something worth while. It is a sign that that bird has
+set up housekeeping. So when Farmer Brown's boy discovered Mrs. Hooty
+sitting so close on the old nest of Redtail the Hawk, in the most
+lonesome corner of the Green Forest, he knew what it meant. Perhaps I
+should say that he knew what it ought to mean.
+
+It ought to mean that there were eggs in that nest.
+
+But it was hard for Farmer Brown's boy to believe that. Why, spring
+had not come yet! There was still snow, and the Smiling Pool was still
+covered with ice. Who ever heard of birds nesting at this time of year?
+Certainly not Farmer Brown's boy. And yet Hooty the Owl and Mrs. Hooty
+were acting for all the world as feathered folks do act when they have
+eggs and are afraid that something is going to happen to them. It was
+very puzzling.
+
+“That nest was built by Red-tail the Hawk, and it hasn't even been
+repaired,” muttered Farmer Brown's boy, as he stared up at it. “If
+Hooty and his wife have taken it for their home, they are mighty poor
+housekeepers. And if Mrs. Hooty has laid eggs this time of year, she
+must be crazy. I suppose the way to find out is to climb up there. It
+seems foolish, but I'm going to do it. Those Owls certainly act as if
+they are mighty anxious about something, and I'm going to find out what
+it is.”
+
+He looked at Hooty and Mrs. Hooty, at their hooked bills and great
+claws, and decided that he would take a stout stick along with him. He
+had no desire to feel these great claws. When he had found a stick to
+suit him, he began to climb the tree. Hooty and Mrs. Hooty snapped their
+bills and hissed fiercely. They drew nearer. Farmer Brown's boy kept a
+watchful eye on them. They looked so big and fierce that he was almost
+tempted to give up and leave them in peace. But he just had to find out
+if there was anything in that nest, so he kept on. As he drew near it,
+Mrs. Hooty swooped very near to him, and the snap of her bill made an
+ugly sound. He held his stick ready to strike and kept on.
+
+The nest was simply a great platform of sticks. When Farmer Brown's boy
+reached it, he found that he could not get where he could look into it,
+so he reached over and felt inside. Almost at once his fingers touched
+something that made him tingle all over. It was an egg, a great big egg!
+There was no doubt about it. It was just as hard for him to believe
+as it had been for Blacky the Crow to believe, when he first saw those
+eggs. Farmer Brown's boy's fingers closed over that egg and took it
+out of the nest. Mrs. Hooty swooped very close, and Farmer Brown's boy
+nearly dropped the egg as he struck at her with his stick. Then Mrs.
+Hooty and Hooty seemed to lose courage and withdrew to a tree near by,
+where they snapped their bills and hissed.
+
+Then Farmer Brown's boy looked at the prize in his hand. It was a big,
+dirty-white egg. His eyes shone. What a splendid prize to add to his
+collection of birds' eggs! It was the first egg of the Great Horned Owl,
+the largest of all Owls, that he ever had seen.
+
+Once more he felt in the nest and found there was another egg there.
+“I'll take both of them,” said he. “It's the first nest of Hooty's that
+I've ever found, and perhaps I'll never find another. Gee, I'm glad
+I came over here to find out what those Crows were making such a fuss
+about. I wonder if I can get these down without breaking them.”
+
+Just at that very minute he remembered something. He remembered that he
+had stopped collecting eggs. He remembered that he had resolved never to
+take another bird's egg.
+
+“But this is different,” whispered the tempter. “This isn't like taking
+the eggs of the little song birds.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII: A Tree-Top Battle
+
+   As black is black and white is white,
+   So wrong is wrong and right is right.
+
+There isn't any half way about it. A thing is wrong or it is right, and
+that is all there is to it. But most people have hard work to see this
+when they want very much to do a thing that the still small voice
+way down inside tells them isn't right. They try to compromise. To
+compromise is to do neither one thing nor the other but a little of
+both. But you can't do that with right and wrong. It is a queer thing,
+but a half right never is as good as a whole right, while a half wrong
+often, very often, is as bad as a whole wrong.
+
+Farmer Brown's boy, up in the tree by the nest of Hooty the Owl in
+the lonesome corner of the Green Forest, was fighting a battle. No, he
+wasn't fighting with Hooty or Mrs. Hooty. He was fighting a battle right
+inside himself. It was a battle between right and wrong. Once upon a
+time he had taken great delight in collecting the eggs of birds, in
+trying to see how many kinds he could get. Then as he had come to know
+the little forest and meadow people better, he had seen that taking the
+eggs of birds is very, very wrong, and he had stopped stealing them. He
+bad declared that never again would he steal an egg from a bird.
+
+But never before had he found a nest of Hooty the Owl. Those two big
+eggs would add ever so much to his collection. “Take 'em,” said a
+little voice inside. “Hooty is a robber. You will be doing a kindness to
+the other birds by taking them.”
+
+“Don't do it,” said another little voice. “Hooty may be a robber, but
+he has a place in the Green Forest, or Old Mother Nature never would
+have put him here. It is just as much stealing to take his eggs as to
+take the eggs of any other bird. He has just as much right to them as
+Jenny Wren has to hers.”
+
+“Take one and leave one,” said the first voice.
+
+“That will be just as much stealing as if you took both,” said the
+second voice. “Besides, you will be breaking your own word. You said
+that you never would take another egg.”
+
+“I didn't promise anybody but myself,” declared Farmer Brown's boy
+right out loud. At the sound of his voice, Hooty and Mrs. Hooty, sitting
+in the next tree, snapped their bills and hissed louder than ever.
+
+“A promise to yourself ought to be just as good as a promise to any one
+else. I don't wonder Hooty hisses at you,” said the good little voice.
+
+“Think how fine those eggs will look in your collection and how proud
+you will be to show them to the other fellows who never have found a
+nest of Hooty's,” said the first little voice.
+
+“And think how mean and small and cheap you'll feel every time you look
+at them,” added the good little voice. “You'll get a lot more fun if
+you leave them to hatch out and then watch the little Owls grow up and
+learn all about their ways. Just think what a stout, brave fellow Hooty
+is to start housekeeping at this time of year, and how wonderful it is
+that Mrs. Hooty can keep these eggs warm and when they have hatched
+take care of the baby Owls before others have even begun to build their
+nests. Besides, wrong is wrong and right is right, always.”
+
+Slowly Farmer Brown's boy reached over the edge of the nest and put
+back the egg. Then he began to climb down the tree. When he reached the
+ground he went off a little way and watched. Almost at once Mrs. Hooty
+flew to the nest and settled down on the eggs, while Hooty mounted guard
+close by.
+
+“I'm glad I didn't take 'em,” said Farmer Brown's boy. “Yes, Sir, I'm
+glad I didn't take 'em.”
+
+As he turned back toward home, he saw Blacky the Crow flying over the
+Green Forest, and little did he guess how he had upset Blacky's plans.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII: Blacky Has A Change Of Heart
+
+Blacky The Crow isn't all black. No, indeed. His coat is black, and
+sometimes it seems as if his heart is all black, but this isn't so. It
+certainly seemed as if his heart was all black when he tried so hard to
+make trouble for Hooty the Owl. It would seem as if only a black heart
+could have urged him to try so hard to steal the eggs of Hooty and Mrs.
+Hooty, but this wasn't really so. You see, it didn't seem at all wrong
+to try to get those eggs. Blacky was hungry, and those eggs would have
+given him a good meal. He knew that Hooty wouldn't hesitate to catch
+him and eat him if he had the chance, and so it seemed to him perfectly
+right and fair to steal Hooty's eggs if he was smart enough to do so.
+And most of the other little people of the Green Forest and the Green
+Meadows would have felt the same way about it. You see, it is one of
+the laws of Old Mother Nature that each one must learn to look out for
+himself.
+
+But when Blacky showed that nest of Hooty's to Farmer Brown's boy with
+the hope that Farmer Brown's boy would steal those eggs, there was
+blackness in his heart. He was doing something then which was pure
+meanness. He was just trying to make trouble for Hooty, to get even
+because Hooty had been too smart for him. He had sat in the top of a
+tall pine-tree where he could see all that happened, and he had chuckled
+wickedly as he had seen Farmer Brown's boy climb to Hooty's nest and
+take out an egg. He felt sure that he would take both eggs. He hoped so,
+anyway.
+
+When he saw Farmer Brown's boy put the eggs back and climb down the tree
+without any, he had to blink his eyes to make sure that he saw straight.
+He just couldn't believe what he saw. At first he was dreadfully
+disappointed and angry. It looked very much as if he weren't going to
+get even with Hooty after all. He flew over to his favorite tree to
+think things over. Now sometimes it is a good thing to sit by oneself
+and think things over. It gives the little small voice deep down inside
+a chance to be heard. It was just that way with Blacky now.
+
+The longer he thought, the meaner his action in calling Farmer Brown's
+boy looked. It was one thing to try to steal those eggs himself, but it
+was quite another matter to try to have them stolen by some one against
+whom Hooty had no protection whatever.
+
+“If it had been any one but Hooty, you would have done your best to have
+kept Farmer Brown's boy away,” said the little voice inside. Blacky
+hung his head. He knew that it was true. More than once, in fact many
+times, he had warned other feathered folks when Farmer Brown's boy had
+been hunting for their nests, and had helped to lead him away.
+
+At last Blacky threw up his head and chuckled, and this time his chuckle
+was good to hear. “I'm glad that Farmer Brown's boy didn't take those
+eggs,” said he right out loud. “Yes, sir, I'm glad. I'll never do such
+a thing as that again. I'm ashamed of what I did; yet I'm glad I did
+it. I'm glad because I've learned some things. I've learned that Farmer
+Brown's boy isn't as much to be feared as he used to be. I've learned
+that Hooty isn't as stupid as I thought he was. I've learned that while
+it may be all right for us people of the Green Forest to try to outwit
+each other we ought to protect each other against common dangers. And
+I've learned something I didn't know before, and that is that Hooty the
+Owl is the very first of us to set up housekeeping. Now I think I'll go
+hunt for an honest meal.” And he did.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV: Blacky Makes A Call
+
+  Judge no one by his style of dress;
+  Your ignorance you thus confess.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+“Caw, caw, caw, caw.” There was no need of looking to see who that was.
+Peter Rabbit knew without looking. Mrs. Quack knew without looking. Just
+the same, both looked up. Just alighting in the top of a tall tree was
+Blacky the Crow. “Caw, caw, caw, caw,” he repeated, looking down at
+Peter and Mrs. Quack and Mr. Quack and the six young Quacks. “I hope I
+am not interrupting any secret gossip.”
+
+“Not at all,” Peter hastened to say. “Mrs. Quack was just telling me
+of the troubles and clangers in bringing up a young family in the Far
+North. How did you know the Quacks had arrived?”
+
+Blacky chuckled hoarsely. “I didn't,” said he. “I simply thought there
+might be something going on I didn't know about over here in the pond
+of Paddy the Beaver, so I came over to find out. Mr. Quack, you and Mrs.
+Quack are looking very fine this fall. And those handsome young Quacks,
+you don't mean to tell me that they are your children!”
+
+Mrs. Quack nodded proudly. “They are,” said she.
+
+“You don't say so!” exclaimed Blacky, as if he were very much surprised,
+when all the time he wasn't surprised at all. “They are a credit to
+their parents. Yes, indeed, they are a credit to their parents. Never
+have I seen finer young Ducks in all my life. How glad the hunters with
+terrible guns will be to see them.”
+
+Mrs. Quack shivered at that, and Blacky saw it. He chuckled softly. You
+know he dearly loves to make others uncomfortable. “I saw three hunters
+over on the edge of the Big River early this very morning,” said he.
+
+Mrs. Quack looked more anxious than ever. Blacky's sharp eyes noted
+this.
+
+“That is why I came over here,” he added kindly. “I wanted to give you
+warning.”
+
+“But you didn't know the Quacks were here!” spoke up Peter.
+
+“True enough, Peter. True enough,” replied Blacky, his eyes twinkling.
+“But I thought they might be. I had heard a rumor that those who go
+south are traveling earlier than usual this fall, so I knew I might find
+Mr. and Mrs. Quack over here any time now. Is it true, Mrs. Quack, that
+we are going to have a long, hard, cold winter?”
+
+“That is what they say up in the Far North,” replied Mrs. Quack. “And it
+is true that Jack Frost had started down earlier than usual. That is
+how it happens we are here now. But about those hunters over by the Big
+River, do you suppose they will come over here?” There was an anxious
+note in Mrs. Quack's voice.
+
+“No,” replied Blacky promptly. “Farmer Brown's boy won't let them. I
+know. I've been watching him and he has been watching those hunters. As
+long as you stay here, you will be safe. What a great world this would
+be if all those two-legged creatures were like Farmer Brown's boy.”
+
+“Wouldn't it!” cried Peter. Then he added, “I wish they were.”
+
+“You don't wish it half as much as I do,” declared Mrs. Quack.
+
+“Yet I can remember when he used to hunt with a terrible gun and was as
+bad as the worst of them,” said Blacky.
+
+“What changed him?” asked Mrs. Quack, looking interested.
+
+“Just getting really acquainted with some of the little people of the
+Green Forest and the Green Meadows,” replied Blacky. “He found them
+ready to meet him more than halfway in friendship and that some of them
+really are his best friends.”
+
+“And now he is their best friend,” spoke up Peter.
+
+Blacky nodded. “Right, Peter,” said he. “That is why the Quacks are safe
+here and will be as long as they stay.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV: Blacky Does A Little Looking About
+
+   Do not take the word of others
+   That things are or are not so
+   When there is a chance that you may
+   Find out for yourself and know.
+    --Blacky the Crow.
+
+Blacky the Crow is a shrewd fellow. He is one of the smartest and
+shrewdest of all the little people in the Green Forest and on the Green
+Meadows. Everybody knows it. And because of this, all his neighbors have
+a great deal of respect for him, despite his mischievous ways.
+
+Of course, Blacky had noticed that Johnny Chuck had dug his house deeper
+than usual and had stuffed himself until he was fatter than ever before.
+He had noticed that Jerry Muskrat was making the walls of his house
+thicker than in other years, and that Paddy the Beaver was doing the
+same thing to his house. You know there is very little that escapes the
+sharp eyes of Blacky the Crow.
+
+He had guessed what these things meant. “They think we are going to have
+a long, hard, cold winter,” muttered Blacky to himself. “Perhaps they
+know, but I want to see some signs of it for myself. They may be only
+guessing. Anybody can do that, and one guess is as good as another.”
+
+Then he found Mr. and Mrs. Quack, the Mallard Ducks, and their children
+in the pond of Paddy the Beaver and remembered that they never had come
+down from their home in the Far North as early in the fall as this. Mrs.
+Quack explained that Jack Frost had already started south, and so they
+had started earlier to keep well ahead of him.
+
+“Looks as if there may be something in this idea of a long, hard, cold
+winter,” thought Blacky, “but perhaps the Quacks are only guessing,
+too. I wouldn't take their word for it any more than I would the word
+of Johnny Chuck or Jerry Muskrat or Paddy the Beaver. I'll look about a
+little.”
+
+So after warning the Quacks to remain in the pond of Paddy the Beaver
+if they would be safe, Blacky bade them good-by and flew away. He headed
+straight for the Green Meadows and Farmer Brown's cornfield. A little of
+that yellow corn would make a good breakfast.
+
+When he reached the cornfield, Blacky perched on top of a shock of corn,
+for it already had been cut and put in shocks in readiness to be carted
+up to Farmer Brown's barn. For a few minutes he sat there silent and
+motionless, but all the time his sharp eyes were making sure that no
+enemy was hiding behind one of those brown shocks. When he was quite
+certain that things were as safe as they seemed, he picked out a plump
+ear of corn and began to tear open the husks, so as to get at the yellow
+grains.
+
+“Seems to me these husks are unusually thick,” muttered Blacky, as he
+tore at them with his stout bill. “Don't remember ever having seen them
+as thick as these. Wonder if it just happens to be so on this ear.”
+
+Then, as a sudden thought popped into his black head, he left that ear
+and went to another. The husks of this were as thick as those on the
+first. He flew to another shock and found the husks there just the same.
+He tried a third shock with the same result.
+
+“Huh, they are all alike,” said he. Then he looked thoughtful and for a
+few minutes sat perfectly still like a black statue. “They are right,”
+ said he at last. “Yes, Sir, they are right.” Of course he meant Johnny
+Chuck and Jerry Muskrat and Paddy the Beaver and the Quacks. “I don't
+know how they know it, but they are right; we are going to have a long,
+hard, cold winter. I know it myself now. I've found a sign. Old Mother
+Nature has wrapped this corn in extra thick husks, and of course she has
+done it to protect it. She doesn't do things without a reason. We are
+going to have a cold winter, or my name isn't Blacky the Crow.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI: Blacky Finds Other Signs
+
+   A single fact may fail to prove you either right or wrong;
+   Confirm it with another and your proof will then be strong.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+After his discovery that Old Mother Nature had wrapped all the ears
+of corn in extra thick husks, Blacky had no doubt in his own mind that
+Johnny Chuck and Jerry Muskrat and Paddy the Beaver and the Quacks were
+quite right in feeling that the coming winter would be long, hard and
+cold. But Blacky long ago learned that it isn't wise or wholly safe to
+depend altogether on one thing.
+
+“Old Mother Nature never does things by halves,” thought Blacky, as he
+sat on the fence post on the Green Meadows, thinking over his discovery
+of the thick husks on the corn. “She wouldn't take care to protect the
+corn that way and not do as much for other things. There must be other
+signs, if I am smart enough to find them.”
+
+He lifted one black wing and began to set in order the feathers beneath
+it. Suddenly he made a funny little hop straight up.
+
+“Well, I never!” he exclaimed, as he spread his wings to regain his
+balance. “I never did!”
+
+“Is that so?” piped a squeaky little voice. “If you say you never did, I
+suppose you never did, though I want the word of some one else before I
+will believe it. What is it you never did?”
+
+Blacky looked down. Peeping up at him from the brown grass were two
+bright little eyes.
+
+“Hello, Danny Meadow Mouse!” exclaimed Blacky. “I haven't seen you for a
+long time. I've looked for you several times lately.”
+
+“I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it at all,” squeaked Danny. “You'll
+never see me when you are looking for me. That is, you won't if I can
+help it. You won't if I see you first.”
+
+Blacky chuckled. He knew what Danny meant. When Blacky goes looking
+for Danny Meadow Mouse, it usually is in hope of having a Meadow Mouse
+dinner, and he knew that Danny knew this. “I've had my breakfast,” said
+Blacky, “and it isn't dinner time yet.”
+
+“What is it you never did?” persisted Danny, in his squeaky voice.
+
+“That was just an exclamation,” explained Blacky. “I made a discovery
+that surprised me so I exclaimed right out.”
+
+“What was it?” demanded Danny.
+
+“It was that the feathers of my coat are coming in thicker than I ever
+knew them to before. I hadn't noticed it until I started to set them in
+order a minute ago.” He buried his bill in the feathers of his breast.
+“Yes, sir,” said he in a muffled voice, “they are coming in thicker than
+I ever knew them to before. There is a lot of down around the roots of
+them. I am going to have the warmest coat I've ever had.”
+
+“Well, don't think you are the only one,” retorted Danny. “My fur never
+was so thick at this time of year as it is now, and it is the same way
+with Nanny Meadow Mouse and all our children. I suppose you know what it
+means.”
+
+“What does it mean?” asked Blacky, just as if he didn't have the least
+idea, although he had guessed the instant he discovered those extra
+feathers.
+
+“It means we are going to have a long, hard, cold winter, and Old Mother
+Nature is preparing us for it,” replied Danny, quite as if he knew all
+about it. “You'll find that everybody who doesn't go south or sleep all
+winter has a thicker coat than usual. Hello! There is old Roughleg the
+Hawk! He has come extra early this year. I think I'll go back to warn
+Nanny.” Without another word Danny disappeared in the brown grass. Again
+Blacky chuckled. “More signs,” said he to himself. “More signs. There
+isn't a doubt that we are going to have a hard winter. I wonder if I
+can stand it or if I'd better go a little way south, where it will be
+warmer.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII: Blacky Watches A Queer Performance
+
+   This much to me is very clear:
+   A thing not understood is queer.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+Blacky the Crow may be right. Again he may not be. If he is right, it
+will account for a lot of the queer people in the world. They are not
+understood, and so they are queer. At least, that is what other people
+say, and never once think that perhaps they are the queer ones for not
+understanding.
+
+But Blacky isn't like those people who are satisfied not to understand
+and to think other people and things queer. He does his best to
+understand. He waits and watches and uses those sharp eyes of his and
+those quick wits of his until at last usually he does understand.
+
+The day of his discovery of Old Mother Nature's signs that the coming
+winter would be long, hard and cold, Blacky paid a visit to the Big
+River. Long ago he discovered that many things are to be seen on or
+beside the Big River, things not to be seen elsewhere. So there are few
+clays in which he does not get over there.
+
+As he drew near the Big River, he was very watchful and careful, was
+Blacky, for this was the season when hunters with terrible guns were
+abroad, and he had discovered that they were likely to be hiding along
+the Big River, hoping to shoot Mr. or Mrs. Quack or some of their
+relatives. So he was very watchful as he drew near the Big River, for
+he had learned that it was dangerous to pass too near a hunter with a
+terrible gun. More than once he had been shot at. But he had learned by
+these experiences. Oh, yes, Blacky had learned. For one thing, he had
+learned to know a gun when he saw it. For another thing, he had learned
+just how far away one of these dreadful guns could be and still hurt the
+one it was pointed at, and to always keep just a little farther away.
+Also he had learned that a man or boy without a terrible gun is quite
+harmless, and he had learned that hunters with terrible guns are tricky
+and sometimes hide from those they seek to kill, so that in the dreadful
+hunting season it is best to look sharply before approaching any place.
+
+On this afternoon, as he drew near the Big River, he saw a man who
+seemed to be very busy on the shore of the Big River, at a place where
+wild rice and rushes grew for some distance out in the water, for just
+there it was shallow far out from the shore. Blacky looked sharply for a
+terrible gun. But the man had none with him and therefore was not to be
+feared. Blacky boldly drew near until he was able to see what the man
+was doing.
+
+Then Blacky's eyes stretched their widest and he almost cawed right out
+with surprise. The man was taking yellow corn from a bag, a handful at
+a time, and throwing it out in the water. Yes, Sir, that is what he was
+doing, scattering nice yellow corn among the rushes and wild rice in the
+water!
+
+“That's a queer performance,” muttered Blacky, as he watched. “What is
+he throwing perfectly good corn out in the water for? He isn't planting
+it, for this isn't the planting season. Besides, it wouldn't grow in the
+water, anyway. It is a shame to waste nice corn like that. What is he
+doing it for?”
+
+Blacky flew over to a tree some distance away and alighted in the top
+of it to watch the queer performance. You know Blacky has very keen eyes
+and he can see a long distance. For a while the man continued to scatter
+corn and Blacky continued to wonder what he was doing it for. At last
+the man went away in a boat. Blacky watched him until he was out of
+sight. Then he spread his wings and slowly flew back and forth just
+above the rushes and wild rice, at the place where the man had been
+scattering the corn. He could see some of the yellow grains on the
+bottom. Presently he saw something else. “Ha!” exclaimed Blacky.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII: Blacky Becomes Very Suspicious
+
+   Of things you do not understand,
+      Beware!
+   They may be wholly harmless but--
+      Beware!
+   You'll find the older that you grow
+   That only things and folks you know
+    Are fully to be trusted, so
+      Beware!
+     --Blacky the Crow.
+
+That is one of Blacky's wise sayings, and he lives up to it. It is one
+reason why he has come to be regarded by all his neighbors as one of the
+smartest of all who live in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadow. He
+seldom gets into any real trouble because he first makes sure there
+is no trouble to get into. When he discovers something he does not
+understand, he is at once distrustful of it.
+
+As he watched a man scattering yellow corn in the water from the shore
+of the Big River he at once became suspicious. He couldn't understand
+why a man should throw good corn among the rushes and wild rice in the
+water, and because he couldn't understand, he at once began to suspect
+that it was for no good purpose. When the man left in a boat, Blacky
+slowly flew over the rushes where the man had thrown the corn, and
+presently his sharp eyes made a discovery that caused him to exclaim
+right out.
+
+What was it Blacky had discovered? Only a few feathers. No one with eyes
+less sharp than Blacky's would have noticed them. And few would have
+given them a thought if they had noticed them. But Blacky knew right
+away that those were feathers from a Duck. He knew that a Duck, or
+perhaps a flock of Ducks, had been resting or feeding in there among
+those rushes, and that in moving about they had left those two or three
+downy feathers.
+
+“Ha!” exclaimed Blacky. “Mr. and Mrs. Quack or some of their relatives
+have been here. It is just the kind of a place Ducks like. Also some
+Ducks like corn. If they should come back here and find this corn, they
+would have a feast, and they would be sure to come again. That man who
+scattered the corn here didn't have a terrible gun, but that doesn't
+mean that he isn't a hunter. He may come back again, and then he may
+have a terrible gun. I'm suspicious of that man. I am so. I believe he
+put that corn here for Ducks and I don't believe he did it out of the
+kindness of his heart. If it was Farmer Brown's boy I would know that
+all is well; that he was thinking of hungry Ducks, with few places where
+they can feed in safety, as they make the long journey from the Far
+North to the Sunny South. But it wasn't Farmer Brown's boy. I don't like
+the looks of it. I don't indeed. I'll keep watch of this place and see
+what happens.”
+
+All the way to his favorite perch in a certain big hemlock-tree in the
+Green Forest, Blacky kept thinking about that corn and the man who
+had seemed to be generous with it, and the more he thought, the more
+suspicious he became. He didn't like the looks of it at all.
+
+“I'll warn the Quacks to keep away from there. I'll do it the very first
+thing in the morning,” he muttered, as he prepared to go to sleep. “If
+they have any sense at all, they will stay in the pond of Paddy the
+Beaver. But if they should go over to the Big River, they would be
+almost sure to find that corn, and if they should once find it, they
+would keep going back for more. It may be all right, but I don't like
+the looks of it.”
+
+And still full of suspicions, Blacky went to sleep.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX: Blacky Makes More Discoveries
+
+   Little things you fail to see
+   May important prove to be.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+One of the secrets of Blacky's success in life is the fact that he never
+fails to take note of little things. Long ago he learned that little
+things which in themselves seem harmless and not worth noticing may
+together prove the most important things in life. So, no matter how
+unimportant a thing may appear, Blacky examines it closely with those
+sharp eyes of his and remembers it.
+
+The very first thing Blacky did, as soon as he was awake the morning
+after he discovered the man scattering corn in the rushes at a certain
+place on the edge of the Big River, was to fly over to the pond of Paddy
+the Beaver and again warn Mr. and Mrs. Quack to keep away from the Big
+River, if they and their six children would remain safe. Then he got
+some breakfast. He ate it in a hurry and flew straight over to the Big
+River to the place where he had seen that yellow corn scattered.
+
+Blacky wasn't wholly surprised to find Dusky the Black Duck, own cousin
+to Mr. and Mrs. Quack the Mallard Ducks, with a number of his relatives
+in among the rushes and wild rice at the very place where that corn had
+been scattered. They seemed quite contented and in the best of spirits.
+Blacky guessed why. Not a single grain of that yellow corn could Blacky
+see. He knew the ways of Dusky and his relatives. He knew that they must
+have come in there just at dusk the night before and at once had found
+that corn. He knew that they would remain hiding there until frightened
+out, and that then they would spend the day in some little pond where
+they would not be likely to be disturbed or where at least no danger
+could approach them without being seen in plenty of time. There they
+would rest all day, and when the Black Shadows came creeping out from
+the Purple Hills, they would return to that place on the Big River to
+feed, for that is the time when they like best to hunt for their food.
+
+Dusky looked up as Blacky flew over him, but Blacky said nothing, and
+Dusky said nothing. But if Blacky didn't use his tongue, he did use his
+eyes. He saw just on the edge of the shore what looked like a lot of
+small bushes growing close together on the very edge of the water. Mixed
+in with them were a lot of the brown rushes. They looked very harmless
+and innocent. But Blacky knew every foot of that shore along the Big
+River, and he knew that those bushes hadn't been there during the
+summer. He knew that they hadn't grown there.
+
+He flew directly over them. Just back of them were a couple of logs.
+Those logs hadn't been there when he passed that way a few days before.
+He was sure of it.
+
+“Ha!” exclaimed Blacky under his breath. “Those look to me as if they
+might be very handy, very handy indeed, for a hunter to sit on. Sitting
+there behind those bushes, he would be hidden from any Duck who might
+come in to look for nice yellow corn scattered out there among the
+rushes. It doesn't look right to me. No, Sir, it doesn't look right to
+me. I think I'll keep an eye on this place.”
+
+So Blacky came back to the Big River several times that day. The second
+time back he found that Dusky the Black Duck and his relatives had left.
+When he returned in the afternoon, he saw the same man he had seen
+there the afternoon before, and he was doing the same thing,--scattering
+yellow corn out in the rushes. And as before, he went away in a boat.
+
+“I don't like it,” muttered Blacky, shaking his black head. “I don't
+like it.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX: Blacky Drops A Hint
+
+   When you see another's danger
+   Warn him though he be a stranger.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+Every day for a week a man came in a boat to scatter corn in the rushes
+at a certain point along the bank of the Big River, and every day Blacky
+the Crow watched him and shook his black head and talked to himself and
+told himself that he didn't like it, and that he was sure that it was
+for no good purpose. Sometimes Blacky watched from a distance, and
+sometimes he flew right over the man. But never once did the man have a
+gun with him.
+
+Every morning, very early, Blacky flew over there, and every morning he
+found Dusky the Black Duck and his flock in the rushes and wild rice at
+that particular place, and he knew that they had been there all night,
+He knew that they had come in there just at dusk the night before, to
+feast on the yellow corn the man had scattered there in the afternoon.
+
+“It is no business of mine what those Ducks do,” muttered Blacky to
+himself, “but as surely as my tail feathers are black, something is
+going to happen to some of them one of these days. That man may be
+fooling them, but he isn't fooling me. Not a bit of it. He hasn't had
+a gun with him once when I have seen him, but just the same he is a
+hunter. I feel it in my bones. He knows those silly Ducks come in here
+every night for that corn he puts out. He knows that after they have
+been here a few times and nothing has frightened them, they will be
+so sure that it is a safe place that they will not be the least bit
+suspicious. Then he will hide behind those bushes he has placed close to
+the edge of the water and wait for them with his terrible gun. That is
+what he will do, or my name isn't Blacky.”
+
+Finally Blacky decided to drop a hint to Dusky the Black Duck. So the
+next morning he stopped for a call. “Good morning,” said he, as Dusky
+swam in just in front of him. “I hope you are feeling as fine as you
+look.”
+
+“Quack, quack,” replied Dusky. “When Blacky the Crow flatters, he hopes
+to gain something. What is it this time?”
+
+“Not a thing,” replied Blacky. “On my honor, not a thing. There is
+nothing for me here, though there seems to be plenty for you and your
+relatives, to judge by the fact that I find you in this same place every
+morning. What is it?”
+
+“Corn,” replied Dusky in a low voice, as if afraid some one might
+overhear him. “Nice yellow corn.”
+
+“Corn!” exclaimed Blacky, as if very much astonished. “How does corn
+happen to be way over here in the water?”
+
+Dusky shook his head. “Don't ask me, for I can't tell you,” said he. “I
+haven't the least idea. All I know is that every evening when we arrive,
+we find it here. How it gets here, I don't know, and furthermore I don't
+care. It is enough for me that it is here.”
+
+“I've seen a man over here every afternoon,” said Blacky. “I thought he
+might be a hunter.”
+
+“Did he have a terrible gun?” asked Dusky suspiciously.
+
+“No-o,” replied Blacky.
+
+“Then he isn't a hunter,” declared Dusky, looking much relieved.
+
+“But perhaps one of these days he will have one and will wait for you to
+come in for your dinner,��� suggested Blacky. “He could hide behind these
+bushes, you know.”
+
+“Nonsense,” retorted Dusky, tossing his head. “There hasn't been a sign
+of danger here since we have been here. I know you, Blacky; you are
+jealous because we find plenty to eat here, and you find nothing. You
+are trying to scare us. But I'll tell you right now, you can't scare us
+away from such splendid eating as we have had here. So there!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI: At Last Blacky Is Sure
+
+   Who for another conquers fear
+   Is truly brave, it is most clear.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+It was late in the afternoon, and Blacky the Crow was on his way to the
+Green Forest. As usual, he went around by the Big River to see if that
+man was scattering corn for the Ducks. He wasn't there. No one was to be
+seen along the bank of the Big River.
+
+“He hasn't come to-day, or else he came early and has left,” thought
+Blacky. And then his sharp eyes caught sight of something that made him
+turn aside and make straight for a certain tree, from the top of which
+he could see all that went on for a long distance. What was it Blacky
+saw? It was a boat coming down the Big River.
+
+Blacky sat still and watched. Presently the boat turned in among the
+rushes, and a moment later a man stepped out on the shore. It was the
+same man Blacky had watched scatter corn in the rushes every day for a
+week. There wasn't the least doubt about it, it was the same man.
+
+“Ha, ha!” exclaimed Blacky, and nearly lost his balance in his
+excitement. “Ha, ha! It is just as I thought!” You see Blacky's sharp
+eyes had seen that the man was carrying something, and that something
+was a gun, a terrible gun. Blacky knows a terrible gun as far as he can
+see it.
+
+The hunter, for of course that is what he was, tramped along the shore
+until he reached the bushes which Blacky had noticed close to the water
+and which he knew had not grown there. The hunter looked out over the
+Big River. Then he walked along where he had scattered corn the day
+before. Not a grain was to be seen. This seemed to please him. Then he
+went back to the bushes and sat down on a log behind them, his terrible
+gun across his knees.
+
+“I was sure of it,” muttered Blacky. “He is going to wait there for
+those Ducks to come in, and then something dreadful will happen. What
+terrible creatures these hunters are! They don't know what fairness is.
+No, Sir, they don't know what fairness is. He has put food there day
+after day, where Dusky the Black Duck and his flock would be sure to
+find it, and has waited until they have become so sure there is no
+danger that they are no longer suspicious. He knows they will feel so
+sure that all is safe that they will come in without looking for danger.
+Then he will fire that terrible gun and kill them without giving them
+any chance at all.
+
+“Reddy Fox is a sly, clever hunter, but he wouldn't do a thing like
+that. Neither would Old Man Coyote or anybody else who wears fur or
+feathers. They might hide and try to catch some one by surprise. That is
+all right, because each of us is supposed to be on the watch for things
+of that sort. Oh, dear, what's to be done? It is time I was getting home
+to the Green Forest. The Black Shadows will soon come creeping out from
+the Purple Hills, and I must be safe in my hemlock-tree by then. I would
+be scared to death to be out after dark. Yet those Ducks ought to be
+warned. Oh, dear, what shall I do?”
+
+Blacky peered over at the Green Forest and then over toward the Purple
+Hills, behind which jolly, round, red Mr. Sun would go to bed very
+shortly. He shivered as he thought of the Black Shadows that soon would
+come swiftly out from the Purple Hills across the Big River and over the
+Green Meadows. With them might come Hooty the Owl, and Hooty wouldn't
+object in the least to a Crow dinner. He wished he was in that
+hemlock-tree that very minute. Then Blacky looked at the hunter with his
+terrible gun and thought of what might happen, what would be almost sure
+to happen, unless those Ducks were warned. “I'll wait a little while
+longer,” muttered Blacky, and tried to feel brave. But instead he
+shivered.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII: Blacky Goes Home Happy
+
+   No greater happiness is won
+   Than through a deed for others done.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+Blacky sat in the top of a tree near the bank of the Big River and
+couldn't make up his mind what to do. He wanted to get home to the big,
+thick hemlock-tree in the Green Forest before dusk, for Blacky is afraid
+of the dark. That is, he is afraid to be out after dark.
+
+“Go along home,” said a voice inside him, “there is hardly time now for
+you to get there before the Black Shadows arrive. Don't waste any more
+time here. What may happen to those silly Ducks is no business of yours,
+and there is nothing you can do, anyway. Go along home.”
+
+“Wait a few minutes,” said another little voice down inside him. “Don't
+be a coward. You ought to warn Dusky the Black Duck and his flock that a
+hunter with a terrible gun is waiting for them. Is it true that it is
+no business of yours what happens to those Ducks? Think again, Blacky;
+think again. It is the duty of each one who sees a common danger to warn
+his neighbors. If something dreadful should happen to Dusky because
+you were afraid of the dark, you never would be comfortable in your own
+mind. Stay a little while and keep watch.”
+
+Not five minutes later Blacky saw something that made him, oh, so glad
+he had kept watch. It was a swiftly moving black line just above the
+water far down the Big River, and it was coming up. He knew what that
+black line was. He looked over at the hunter hiding behind some bushes
+close to the edge of the water. The hunter was crouching with his
+terrible gun in his hands and was peeping over the bushes, watching that
+black line. He, too, knew what it was. It was a flock of Ducks flying.
+
+Blacky was all ashake again, but this time it wasn't with fear of being
+caught away from home in the dark; it was with excitement. He knew that
+those Ducks had become so eager for more of that corn, that delicious
+yellow corn which every night for a week they had found scattered in the
+rushes just in front of the place where that hunter was now hiding, that
+they couldn't wait for the coming of the Black Shadows. They were so
+sure there was no danger that they were coming in to eat without waiting
+for the Black Shadows, as they usually did. And Blacky was glad. Perhaps
+now he could give them warning.
+
+Up the middle of the Big River, flying just above the water, swept the
+flock with Dusky at its head. How swiftly they flew, those nine big
+birds! Blacky envied them their swift wings. On past the hidden hunter
+but far out over the Big River they swept. For just a minute Blacky
+thought they were going on up the river and not coming in to eat, after
+all. Then they turned toward the other shore, swept around in a circle
+and headed straight in toward that hidden hunter. Blacky glanced at him
+and saw that he was ready to shoot.
+
+Almost without thinking, Blacky spread his wings and started out from
+that tree. “Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!” he shrieked at the top of his
+lungs. “Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!” It was his danger cry that everybody
+on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest knows.
+
+Instantly Dusky turned and began to climb up, up, up, the other Ducks
+following him until, as they passed over the hidden hunter, they were so
+high it was useless for him to shoot. He did put up his gun and aim at
+them, but he didn't shoot. You see, he didn't want to frighten them so
+that they would not return. Then the flock turned and started off in
+the direction from which they had come, and in a few minutes they were
+merely a black line disappearing far down the Big River.
+
+Blacky headed straight for the Green Forest, chuckling as he flew. He
+knew that those Ducks would not return until after dark. He had saved
+them this time, and he was so happy he didn't even notice the Black
+Shadows. And the hunter stood up and shook his fist at Blacky the Crow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII: Blacky Calls Farmer Brown's Boy
+
+Blacky awoke in the best of spirits. Late the afternoon before he had
+saved Dusky the Black Duck and his flock from a hunter with a terrible
+gun. He wasn't quite sure whether he was most happy in having saved
+those Ducks by warning them just in time, or in having spoiled the plans
+of that hunter. He hates a hunter with a terrible gun, does Blacky. For
+that matter, so do all the little people of the Green Forest and the
+Green Meadows.
+
+So Blacky started out for his breakfast in high spirits. After
+breakfast, he flew over to the Big River to see if Dusky the Black Duck
+was feeding in the rushes along the shore. Dusky wasn't, and Blacky
+guessed that he and his flock had been so frightened by that warning
+that they had kept away from there the night before.
+
+“But they'll come back after a night or so,” muttered Blacky, as he
+alighted in the top of a tree, the same tree from which he had watched
+the hunter the afternoon before. “They'll come back, and so will that
+hunter. If he sees me around again, he'll try to shoot me. I've done all
+I can do. Anyway, Dusky ought to have sense enough to be suspicious of
+this place after that warning. Hello, who is that? I do believe it is
+Farmer Brown's boy. I wish he would come over here. If he should find
+out about that hunter, perhaps he would do something to drive him away.
+I'll see if I can call him over here.”
+
+Blacky began to call in the way he does when he has discovered something
+and wants others to know about it. “Caw, caw, caaw, caaw, caw, caw,
+caaw!” screamed Blacky, as if greatly excited.
+
+Now Farmer Brown's boy, having no work to do that morning, had started
+for a tramp over the Green Meadows, hoping to see some of his little
+friends in feathers and fur. He heard the excited cawing of Blacky and
+at once turned in that direction.
+
+“That black rascal has found something over on the shore of the Big
+River,” said Farmer Brown's boy to himself. “I'll go over there to
+see what it is. There isn't much escapes the sharp eyes of that black
+busybody. He has led me to a lot of interesting things, one time and
+another. There he is on the top of that tree over by the Big River.”
+
+As Farmer Brown's boy drew near, Blacky flew down and disappeared below
+the bank. Fanner Brown's boy chuckled. “Whatever it is, it is right down
+there,” he muttered.
+
+He walked forward rapidly but quietly, and presently he reached the edge
+of the bank. Up flew Blacky cawing wildly, and pretending to be scared
+half to death. Again Farmer Brown's boy chuckled. “You're just making
+believe,” he declared. “You're trying to make me believe that I have
+surprised you, when all the time you knew I was coming and have been
+waiting for me. Now, what have you found over here?”
+
+He looked eagerly along the shore, and at once he saw a row of low
+bushes close to the edge of the water. He knew what it was instantly.
+“A Duck blind!” he exclaimed. “A hunter has built a blind over here from
+which to shoot Ducks. I wonder if he has killed any yet. I hope not.” He
+went down to the blind, for that is what a Duck hunter's hiding-place
+is called, and looked about. A couple of grains of corn just inside
+the blind caught his eyes, and his face darkened. “That fellow has been
+baiting Ducks,” thought he. “He has been putting out corn to get them to
+come here regularly. My, how I hate that sort of thing! It is bad enough
+to hunt them fairly, but to feed them and then kill them--ugh! I wonder
+if he has shot any yet.”
+
+He looked all about keenly, and his face cleared. He knew that if that
+hunter had killed any Ducks, there would be tell-tale feathers in the
+blind, and there were none.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV: Farmer Brown's Boy Does Some Thinking
+
+Farmer Brown's boy sat on the bank of the Big River in a brown study.
+That means that he was thinking very hard. Blacky the Crow sat in the
+top of a tall tree a short distance away and watched him. Blacky was
+silent now, and there was a knowing look in his shrewd little eyes. In
+calling Farmer Brown's boy over there, he had done all he could, and he
+was quite satisfied to leave the matter to Farmer Brown's boy.
+
+“A hunter has made that blind to shoot Black Ducks from,” thought Farmer
+Brown's boy, “and he has been baiting them in here by scattering corn
+for them. Black Ducks are about the smartest Ducks that fly, but if they
+have been coming in here every evening and finding corn and no sign of
+danger, they probably think it perfectly safe here and come straight
+in without being at all suspicious. To-night, or some night soon, that
+hunter will be waiting for them.
+
+“I guess the law that permits hunting Ducks is all right, but there
+ought to be a law against baiting them in. That isn't hunting. No, Sir,
+that isn't hunting. If this land were my father's, I would know what to
+do. I would put up a sign saying that this was private property and no
+shooting was allowed. But it isn't my father's land, and that hunter has
+a perfect right to shoot here. He has just as much right here as I have.
+I wish I could stop him, but I don't see how I can.”
+
+A frown puckered the freckled face of Farmer Brown's boy. You see, he
+was thinking very hard, and when he does that he is very apt to frown.
+
+“I suppose,” he muttered, “I can tear down his blind. He wouldn't know
+who did it. But that wouldn't do much good; he would build another.
+Besides, it wouldn't be right. He has a perfect right to make a blind
+here, and having made it, it is his and I haven't any right to touch
+it. I won't do a thing I haven't a right to do. That wouldn't be honest.
+I've got to think of some other way of saving those Ducks.”
+
+The frown on his freckled face grew deeper, and for a long time he sat
+without moving. Suddenly his face cleared, and he jumped to his feet. He
+began to chuckle. “I have it!” he exclaimed. “I'll do a little shooting
+myself!” Then he chuckled again and started for home. Presently he began
+to whistle, a way he has when he is in good spirits.
+
+Blacky the Crow watched him go, and Blacky was well satisfied. He didn't
+know what Farmer Brown's boy was planning to do, but he had a feeling
+that he was planning to do something, and that all would be well.
+Perhaps Blacky wouldn't have felt so sure could he have understood what
+Farmer Brown's boy had said about doing a little shooting himself.
+
+As it was, Blacky flew off about his own business, quite satisfied that
+now all would be well, and he need worry no more about those Ducks.
+None of the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows knew
+Farmer Brown's boy better than did Blacky the Crow. None knew better
+than he that Farmer Brown's boy was their best friend. “It is all right
+now,” chuckled Blacky. “It is all right now.” And as the cheery whistle
+of Farmer Brown's boy floated back to him on the Merry Little Breezes,
+he repeated it: “It is all right now.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV: Blacky Gets A Dreadful Shock
+
+   When friends prove false, whom may we trust?
+   The springs of faith are turned to dust.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+Blacky the Crow was in the top of his favorite tree over near the Big
+River early this afternoon. He didn't know what was going to happen, but
+he felt in his bones that something was, and he meant to be on hand to
+see. For a long time he sat there, seeing nothing unusual. At last he
+spied a tiny figure far away across the Green Meadows. Even at that
+distance he knew who it was; it was Farmer Brown's boy, and he was
+coming toward the Big River.
+
+“I thought as much,” chuckled Blacky. “He is coming over here to drive
+that hunter away.”
+
+The tiny figure grew larger. It was Farmer Brown's boy beyond a doubt.
+Suddenly Blacky's eyes opened so wide that they looked as if they were
+in danger of popping out of his head. He had discovered that Farmer
+Brown's boy was carrying something and that that something was a gun!
+Yes, Sir, Farmer Brown's boy was carrying a terrible gun! If Blacky
+could have rubbed his eyes, he would have done so, just to make sure
+that there was nothing the matter with them.
+
+“A gun!” croaked Blacky. “Farmer Brown's boy with a terrible gun! What
+does it mean?”
+
+Nearer came Farmer Brown's boy, and Blacky could see that terrible gun
+plainly now. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. “Perhaps he is going
+to shoot that hunter!” thought Blacky, and somehow he felt better.
+
+Farmer Brown's boy reached the Big River at a point some distance below
+the blind built by the hunter. He laid his gun down on the bank and went
+down to the edge of the water. The rushes grew very thick there, and
+for a while Farmer Brown's boy was very busy among them. Blacky from
+his high perch could watch him, and as he watched, he grew more and more
+puzzled. It looked very much as if Farmer Brown's boy was building a
+blind much like that of the hunter's. At last he carried an old log
+down there, got his gun, and sat down just as the hunter had done in his
+blind the afternoon before. He was quite hidden there, excepting from a
+place high up like Blacky's perch.
+
+“I--I--I do believe he is going to try to shoot those Ducks himself,”
+ gasped Blacky. “I wouldn't have believed it if any one had told me. No,
+Sir, I wouldn't have believed it. I--I--can't believe it now. Farmer
+Brown's boy hunting with a terrible gun! Yet I've got to believe my own
+eyes.”
+
+A noise up river caught his attention. It was the noise of oars in a
+boat. There was the hunter, rowing down the Big River. Just as he had
+done the day before, he came ashore above his blind and walked down to
+it.
+
+“This is no place for me,” muttered Blacky. “He'll remember that I
+scared those Ducks yesterday, and as likely as not he'll try to shoot
+me.”
+
+Blacky spread his black wings and hurriedly left the tree-top, heading
+for another tree farther back on the Green Meadows where he would be
+safe, but from which he could not see as well. There he sat until the
+Black Shadows warned him that it was high time for him to be getting
+back to the Green Forest.
+
+He had to hurry, for it was later than usual, and he was afraid to be
+out after dark. Just as he reached the Green Forest he heard a faint
+“bang, bang” from over by the Big River, and he knew that it came from
+the place where Farmer Brown's boy was hiding in the rushes.
+
+“It is true,” croaked Blacky. “Farmer Brown's boy has turned hunter.”
+ It was such a dreadful shock to Blacky that it was a long time before he
+could go to sleep.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI: Why The Hunter Got No Ducks
+
+The hunter who had come down the Big River in a boat and landed near
+the place where Dusky the Black Duck and his flock had found nice yellow
+corn scattered in the rushes night after night saw Blacky the Crow leave
+the top of a certain tree as he approached.
+
+“It is well for you that you didn't wait for me to get nearer,” said the
+hunter. “You are smart enough to know that you can't play the same trick
+on me twice. You frightened those Ducks away last night, but if you try
+it again, you'll be shot as surely as your coat is black.”
+
+Then the hunter went to his blind which, you know, was the hiding-place
+he had made of bushes and rushes, and behind this he sat down with his
+terrible gun to wait and watch for Dusky the Black Duck and his flock.
+
+Now you remember that farther along the shore of the Big River was
+Farmer Brown's boy, hiding in a blind he had made that afternoon. The
+hunter couldn't see him at all. He didn't have the least idea that any
+one else was anywhere near. “With that Crow out of the way, I think I
+will get some Ducks to-night,” thought the hunter and looked at his gun
+to make sure that it was ready.
+
+Over in the West, jolly, round, red Mr. Sun started to go to bed behind
+the Purple Hills, and the Black Shadows came creeping out. Far down
+the Big River the hunter saw a swiftly moving black line just above the
+water. “Here they come,” he muttered, as he eagerly watched that black
+line draw nearer.
+
+Twice those big black birds circled around over the Big River opposite
+where the hunter was crouching behind his blind. It was plain that
+Dusky, their leader, remembered Blacky's warning the night before. But
+this time there was no warning. Everything appeared safe. Once more the
+flock circled and then headed straight for that place where they hoped
+to find more corn. The hunter crouched lower. They were almost near
+enough for him to shoot when “bang, bang” went a gun a short distance
+away.
+
+Instantly Dusky and his flock turned and on swift wings swung off and
+up the river. If ever there was a disappointed hunter, it was the one
+crouching in that blind. “Somebody else is hunting, and he spoiled
+my shot that time,” he muttered. “He must have a blind farther down.
+Probably some other Ducks I didn't see came in to him. I wonder if he
+got them. Here's hoping that next time those Ducks come in here first.”
+
+He once more made himself comfortable and settled down for a long wait.
+The Black Shadows crept out from the farther bank of the Big River.
+Jolly, round red Mr. Sun had gone to bed, and the first little star was
+twinkling high overhead. It was very still and peaceful. From out in the
+middle of the Big River sounded a low “quack”; Dusky and his flock were
+swimming in this time. Presently the hunter could see a silver line on
+the water, and then he made out nine black spots. In a few minutes those
+Ducks would be where he could shoot them. “Bang, bang” went that gun
+below him again. With a roar of wings, Dusky and his flock were in the
+air and away. That hunter stood up and said things, and they were not
+nice things. He knew that those Ducks would not come back again that
+night, and that once more he must go home empty-handed. But first he
+would find out who that other hunter was and what luck he had had, so he
+tramped down the shore to where that gun had seemed to be. He found the
+blind of Farmer Brown's boy, but there was no one there. You see, as
+soon as he had fired his gun the last time, Farmer Brown's boy had
+slipped out and away. And as he tramped across the Green Meadows toward
+home with his gun, he chuckled. “He didn't get those Ducks this time,”
+ said Farmer Brown's boy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII: The Hunter Gives Up
+
+Blacky The Crow didn't know what to think. He couldn't make himself
+believe that Farmer Brown's boy had really turned hunter, yet what else
+could he believe? Hadn't he with his own eyes seen Farmer Brown's boy
+with a terrible gun hide in rushes along the Big River and wait for
+Dusky the Black Duck and his flock to come in? And hadn't he with his
+own ears heard the “bang, bang” of that very gun?
+
+The very first thing the next morning Blacky had hastened over to the
+place where Farmer Brown's boy had hidden in the rushes. With sharp eyes
+he looked for feathers, that would tell the tale of a Duck killed. But
+there were no feathers. There wasn't a thing to show that anything so
+dreadful had happened. Perhaps Farmer Brown's boy had missed when he
+shot at those Ducks. Blacky shook his head and decided to say nothing to
+anybody about Farmer Brown's boy and that terrible gun.
+
+You may be sure that early in the afternoon he was perched in the top of
+his favorite tree over by the Big River. His heart sank, just as on the
+afternoon before, when he saw Farmer Brown's boy with his terrible gun
+trudging across the Green Meadows to the Big River. Instead of going to
+the same hiding place he made a new one farther down.
+
+Then came the hunter a little earlier than usual. Instead of stopping at
+his blind, he walked straight to the blind Farmer Brown's boy had first
+made. Of course, there was no one there. The hunter looked both glad and
+disappointed. He went back to his own blind and sat down, and while he
+watched for the coming of the Ducks, he also watched that other blind to
+see if the unknown hunter of the night before would appear. Of course
+he didn't, and when at last the hunter saw the Ducks coming, he was sure
+that this time he would get some of them.
+
+But the same thing happened as on the night before. Just as those Ducks
+were almost near enough, a gun went “bang, bang,” and away went the
+Ducks. They didn't come back again, and once more a disappointed hunter
+went home without any.
+
+The next afternoon he was on hand very early. He was there before Farmer
+Brown's boy arrived, and when he did come, of course the hunter saw him.
+He walked down to where Farmer Brown's boy was hiding in the rushes.
+“Hello!” said he. “Are you the one who was shooting here last night and
+the night before?”
+
+Farmer Brown's boy grinned. “Yes,” said he.
+
+“What luck did you have?” asked the hunter.
+
+“Fine,” replied Farmer Brown's boy.
+
+“How many Ducks did you get?” asked the hunter.
+
+Farmer Brown's boy grinned more broadly than before. “None,” said he. “I
+guess I'm not a very good shot.”
+
+“Then what did you mean by saying you had fine luck?” demanded the
+hunter.
+
+“Oh,” replied Farmer Brown's boy, “I had the luck to see those Ducks and
+the fun of shooting,” and he grinned again.
+
+The hunter lost patience. He tried to order Farmer Brown's boy away. But
+the latter said he had as much right there as the hunter had, and the
+hunter knew that this was so. Finally he gave up, and muttering
+angrily, he went back to his blind. Again the gun of Farmer Brown's boy
+frightened away the Ducks just as they were coming in.
+
+The next afternoon there was no hunter nor the next, though Farmer
+Brown's boy was there. The hunter had decided that it was a waste of
+time to hunt there while Farmer Brown's boy was about.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII: Blacky Has A Talk With Dusky The Black Duck
+
+   Doubt not a friend, but to the last
+   Grip hard on faith and hold it fast.
+   --Blacky the Crow.
+
+Every morning Blacky the Crow visited the rushes along the shore of
+the Big River, hoping to find Dusky the Black Duck. He was anxious, was
+Blacky. He feared that Dusky or some of his flock had been killed, and
+he wanted to know. You see, he knew that Farmer Brown's boy had been
+shooting over there. At last, early one morning, he found Dusky and his
+flock in the rushes and wild rice. Eagerly he counted them. There were
+nine. Not one was missing. Blacky sighed with relief and dropped down on
+the shore close to where Dusky was taking a nap.
+
+“Hello!” said Blacky.
+
+Dusky awoke with a start. “Hello, yourself,” said he.
+
+“I've heard a terrible gun banging over here, and I was afraid you or
+some of your flock had been shot,” said Blacky.
+
+“We haven't lost a feather,” declared Dusky. “That gun wasn't fired at
+us, anyway.”
+
+“Then who was it fired at?” demanded Blacky.
+
+“I haven't the least idea,” replied Dusky.
+
+“Have you seen any other Ducks about here?” inquired Blacky.
+
+“Not one,” was Dusky's prompt reply. “If there had been any, I guess we
+would have known it.”
+
+“Did you know that when that terrible gun was fired there was another
+terrible gun right over behind those bushes?” asked Blacky.
+
+Dusky shook his head. “No,” said he, “but I learned long ago that where
+there is one terrible gun there is likely to be more, and so when I
+heard that one bang, I led my flock away from here in a hurry. We didn't
+want to take any chances.”
+
+“It is a lucky thing you did,” replied Blacky. “There was a hunter
+hiding behind those bushes all the time. I warned you of him once.”
+
+“That reminds me that I haven't thanked you,” said Dusky. “I knew there
+was something wrong over here, but I didn't know what. So it was a
+hunter. I guess it is a good thing that I heeded your warn-ing.”
+
+“I guess it is,” retorted Blacky dryly. “Do you come here in daytime
+instead of night now?”
+
+“No,” replied Dusky. “We come in after dark and spend the night here.
+There is nothing to fear from hunters after dark. We've given up coming
+here until late in the evening. And since we did that, we haven't heard
+a gun.”
+
+Blacky gossiped a while longer, then flew off to look for his breakfast;
+and as he flew his heart was light. His shrewd little eyes twinkled.
+
+“I ought to have known Farmer Brown's boy better than even to suspect
+him,” thought he. “I know now why he had that terrible gun. It was to
+frighten those Ducks away so that the hunter would not have a chance to
+shoot them. He wasn't shooting at anything. He just fired in the air to
+scare those Ducks away. I know it just as well as if I had seen him do
+it. I'll never doubt Farmer Brown's boy again. And I'm glad I didn't say
+a word to anybody about seeing him with a terrible gun.”
+
+Blacky was right. Farmer Brown's boy had taken that way of making
+sure that the hunter who had first baited those Ducks with yellow corn
+scattered in the rushes in front of his hiding place should have no
+chance to kill any of them. While appearing to be an enemy, he really
+had been a friend of Dusky the Black Duck and his flock.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX: Blacky Discovers An Egg
+
+Blacky is fond of eggs, as you know. In this he is a great deal like
+other people, Farmer Brown's boy for instance. But as Blacky cannot keep
+hens, as Farmer Brown's boy does, he is obliged to steal eggs or else
+go without. If you come right down to plain, everyday truth, I suppose
+Blacky isn't so far wrong when he insists that he is no more of a thief
+than Farmer Brown's boy. Blacky says that the eggs which the bens lay
+belong to the hens, and that he, Blacky has just as much right to take
+them as Farmer Brown's boy. He quite overlooks the fact that Farmer
+Brown's boy feeds the biddies and takes the eggs as pay. Anyway, that
+is what Farmer Brown's boy says, but I do not know whether or not the
+biddies understand it that way.
+
+So Blacky the Crow cannot see why he should not help himself to an egg
+when he gets the chance. He doesn't get the chance very often to steal
+eggs from the hens, because usually they lay their eggs in the henhouse,
+and Blacky is too suspicious to venture inside. The eggs he does get are
+mostly those of his neighbors in the Green Forest and the Old Orchard.
+But once in a great while some foolish hen will make a nest outside the
+henhouse somewhere, and if Blacky happens to find it the black scamp
+watches every minute he can spare from other mischief for a chance to
+steal an egg.
+
+Now Blacky knows just what a rogue Farmer Brown's boy thinks he is, and
+for this reason Blacky is very careful about approaching Farmer Brown or
+any other man until he has made sure that he runs no risk of being shot.
+Blacky knows quite as well as any one what a gun looks like. He also
+knows that without a terrible gun, there is little Farmer Brown or any
+one else can do to him. So when he sees Farmer Brown out in his fields,
+Blacky often will fly right over him and shout “Caw, caw, caw, ca-a-w!”
+ in the most provoking way, and Fanner Brown's boy insists that he has
+seen Blacky wink when he was doing it.
+
+But Blacky doesn't do anything of this kind around the buildings of
+Farmer Brown. You see, he has learned that there are doors and windows
+in buildings, and out of one of these a terrible gun may bang at any
+time. Though he has suspected that Farmer Brown's boy would not now try
+to harm him, Blacky is naturally cautious and takes no chances. So when
+he comes spying around Farmer Brown's house and barn, he does it when
+he is quite sure that no one is about, and he makes no noise about it.
+First he sits in a tall tree from which he can watch Farmer Brown's
+home. When he is quite sure that the way is clear, he flies over to the
+Old Orchard, and from there he inspects the barnyard, never once making
+a sound. If he is quite sure that no one is about, he sometimes drops
+down into the henyard and helps himself to corn, if any happens to be
+there. It was on one of these silent visits that Blacky spied something
+which he couldn't forget. It was a box just inside the henhouse door.
+In the box was some hay and in that hay he was sure that he had seen an
+egg. In fact, he was sure that he saw two eggs there. He might not have
+noticed them but for the fact that a hen had jumped down from that box,
+making a terrible fuss. She didn't seem frightened, but very proud. What
+under the sun she had to be proud about Blacky couldn't understand, but
+he didn't stay to find out. The noise she was making made him nervous.
+He was afraid that it would bring some one to find out what was going
+on. So he spread his black wings and flew away as silently as he had
+come.
+
+As he was flying away he saw those eggs. You see, as he rose into the
+air, he managed to pass that open door in such a way that he could
+glance in. That one glance was enough. You know Blacky's eyes are very
+sharp. He saw the hay in the box and the two eggs in the hay, and that
+was enough for him. From that instant Blacky the Crow began to scheme
+and plan to get one or both of those eggs. It seemed to him that he
+never, never, had wanted anything quite so much, and he was sure that he
+would not and could not be happy until he succeeded in getting one.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX: Blacky Screws Up His Courage
+
+If out of sight, then out of mind. This is a saying which you often
+hear. It may be true sometimes, but it is very far from true at other
+times. Take the case of Blacky. He had had only a glance into that nest
+just inside the door of Farmer Brown's henhouse, but that glance had
+been enough to show him two eggs there. Then, as he flew away toward the
+Green Forest, those eggs were out of sight, of course. But do you think
+they were out of mind? Not much! No, indeed! In fact, those eggs were
+very much in Blacky's mind. He couldn't think of anything else. He
+flew straight to a certain tall pine-tree in a lonely part of the Green
+Forest. Whenever Blacky wants to think or to plan mischief, he seeks
+that particular tree, and in the shelter of its broad branches he keeps
+out of sight of curious eyes, and there he sits as still as still can
+be.
+
+“I want one of those eggs,” muttered Blacky, as he settled himself in
+comfort on a certain particular spot on a certain particular branch of
+that tall pine-tree. Indeed, that particular branch might well be called
+the “mischief branch,” for on it Blacky has thought out and planned most
+of the mischief he is so famous for. “Yes, sir,” he continued, “I want
+one of those eggs, and what is more, I am going to have one.”
+
+He half closed his eyes and tipped his head back and swallowed a couple
+of times, as if he already tasted one of those eggs.
+
+“There is more in one of those eggs than in a whole nestful of Welcome
+Robin's eggs. It is a very long time since I have been lucky enough
+to taste a hen's egg, and now is my chance. I don't like having to go
+inside that henhouse, even though it is barely inside the door. I'm
+suspicious of doors. They have a way of closing most unexpectedly.
+I might see if I cannot get Unc' Billy Possum to bring one of those eggs
+out for me. But that plan won't do, come to think of it, because I can't
+trust Unc' Billy. The old sinner is too fond of eggs himself. I would be
+willing to divide with him, but he would be sure to eat his first, and
+I fear that it would taste so good that he would eat the other. No. I've
+got to get one of those eggs myself. It is the only way I can be sure of
+it.
+
+“The thing to do is to make sure that Farmer Brown's boy and Farmer
+Brown himself are nowhere about. They ought to be down in the cornfield
+pretty soon. With them down there, I have only to watch my chance and
+slip in. It won't take but a second. Just a little courage, Blacky, just
+a little courage! Nothing in this world worth having is gained without
+some risk. The thing to do is to make sure that the risk is as small as
+possible.”
+
+Blacky shook out his feathers and then flew out of the tall pine-tree
+as silently as he had flown into it. He headed straight toward Farmer
+Brown's cornfield. When he was near enough to see all over the field, he
+dropped down to the top of a fence post, and there he waited. He didn't
+have long to wait. In fact, he had been there but a few minutes
+when he spied two people coming down the Long Lane toward the cornfield.
+He looked at them sharply, and then gave a little sigh of satisfaction.
+They were Farmer Brown and Farmer Brown's boy. Presently they reached
+the cornfield and turned into it. Then they went to work, and Blacky
+knew that so far as they were concerned, the way was clear for him to
+visit the henyard.
+
+He didn't fly straight there. Oh, my, no! Blacky is too clever to do
+anything like that. He flew toward the Green Forest. When he knew that
+he was out of sight of those in the cornfield, he turned and flew over
+to the Old Orchard, and from the top of one of the old apple-trees he
+studied the henyard and the barnyard and Farmer Brown's house and the
+barn, to make absolutely sure that there was no danger near. When he was
+quite sure, he silently flew down into the henyard as he had done many
+times before. He pretended to be looking for scattered grains of corn,
+but all the time he was edging nearer and nearer to the open door of
+the henhouse. At last he could see the box with the hay in it. He walked
+right up to the open door and peered inside. There was nothing to be
+afraid of that he could see. Still he hesitated. He did hate to go
+inside that door, even for a minute, and that is all it would take to
+fly up to that nest and get one of those eggs.
+
+Blacky closed his eyes for just a second, and when he did that he seemed
+to see himself eating one of those eggs. “What are you afraid of?” he
+muttered to himself as he opened his eyes. Then with a hurried look in
+all directions, he flew up to the edge of the box. There lay the two
+eggs!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI: An Egg That Wouldn't Behave
+
+   If you had an egg and it wouldn't behave
+    Just what would you do with that egg, may I ask?
+   To make an egg do what it don't want to do
+    Strikes me like a difficult sort of a task.
+
+All of which is pure nonsense. Of course. Who ever heard of an egg
+either behaving or misbehaving? Nobody. That is, nobody that I know,
+unless it be Blacky. It is best not to mention eggs in Blacky's presence
+these days. They are a forbidden topic when he is about. Blacky is apt
+to be a little resentful at the mere mention of an egg. I don't know as
+I wholly blame him. How would you feel if you knew you knew all there
+was to know about a thing, and then found out that you didn't know
+anything at all? Well, that is the way it is with Blacky the Crow.
+
+If any one had told Blacky that he didn't know all there is to know
+about eggs, he would have laughed at the idea. Wasn't he, Blacky,
+hatched from an egg himself? And hadn't he, ever since he was big
+enough, hunted eggs and stolen eggs and eaten eggs? If he didn't know
+about eggs, who did? That is the way he would have talked before his
+visit to Farmer Brown's henhouse. It is since then that it has been
+unwise to mention eggs.
+
+When Blacky saw the two eggs in the nest in Farmer Brown's henhouse how
+Blacky did wish that he could take both. But he couldn't. One would be
+all that he could manage. He must take his choice and go away while the
+going was good. Which should he take?
+
+It often happens in this life that things which seem to be unimportant,
+mere trifles in themselves, prove to be just the opposite. Now, so far
+as Blacky could see, it didn't make the least difference which egg he
+took, excepting that one was a little bigger than the other. As a matter
+of fact, it made all the difference in the world. One was brown and very
+good to look at. The other, the larger of the two, was white and also
+very good to look at. In fact, Blacky thought it the better of the
+two to look at, for it was very smooth and shiny. So, partly on this
+account, and partly because it was the largest, Blacky chose the white
+egg. He seized it in his claws and started to fly with it, but somehow
+he could not seem to get a good grip on it. He fluttered to the ground
+just outside the door, and there he got a better grip. Just as old
+attracted the attention of that nobleman, who took him from the gang
+of convicted malefactors, with whom, under strict supervision, he hoed
+and delved under the blazing sun, and befriended him. It did not pay
+to befriend William Parsons. He stole one of the best horses belonging
+to his benefactor, and, going upon those early colonial roads, soon
+accumulated, as a highwayman, a sufficient sum to buy himself a
+passage back to old England.
+
+By fraud, backed up with consummate assurance, he obtained £70 at his
+port of landing, and came at once to London. A scheme for plundering
+his sister, who by this time had succeeded to her aunt's legacy
+of £25,000, then engaged his attention. He hatched a plot with a
+discharged footman, for that man to pose as a gentleman of fortune, and
+to make advances to her, and even to forcibly carry her off and marry
+her against her will, if needs were. Some women servants were also in
+the plot, and were even given duly signed bonds in £500 and lesser
+sums, to lend their aid. The footman and Parsons were, in the event of
+this scheme proving successful, to share the £25,000 in equal parts.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM PARSONS.]
+
+By a mere accident, the plot was discovered in a milliner's shop in the
+West End, where a lady friend of Miss Parsons had pointed out to her a
+finely dressed gentleman, "who was going to marry Miss Parsons." This
+led to enquiries, and an exposure of the whole affair.
+
+The last resource of this thorough-paced scoundrel was the road. He
+chiefly affected the western suburbs and Hounslow Heath, and it was
+in a robbery on that widespreading waste that he was captured. He
+had obtained information that a servant, with a valise containing a
+large sum in notes and gold, was to leave town and meet his master at
+Windsor; and so set out to lie in wait for him. But he had already
+been so active on the Heath that his face was too well known, and he
+was recognised at Brentford by a traveller who had suffered from him
+before. Following him into Hounslow Town, this former victim suddenly
+raised an alarm and caused him to be seized. Taken to the "Rose and
+Crown" inn, Parsons was recognised by the landlord and others, as one
+who had for some time scoured the Heath and committed robberies. His
+pistols were taken from him, and he was committed to Newgate, and in
+the fulness of time tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The
+efforts of his family connections were again used to save him from the
+gallows, and themselves from the stigma of it; but his career was too
+notorious for further leniency, and he was hanged at Tyburn on February
+11th, 1751.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM PAGE
+
+
+"There is always room on top" has long been the conclusive reply to
+complaints of overcrowding in the professions. However many duffers may
+already be struggling for a bare livelihood in them, there yet remains
+an excellent career for the recruit with energy and new methods. The
+profession of highwayman aptly illustrates the truth of these remarks.
+It was shockingly over-crowded in the middle of the eighteenth century,
+even though the duffers were generally caught in their initial efforts
+and hanged; and really it is wonderful where all the wealth came from,
+to keep such an army of "money-changers" in funds.
+
+William Page, who for twelve years carried on a flourishing practice
+in the "Stand and Deliver!" profession, was one of those few who
+lived very near the top of it. His name is not so familiar as those
+of Du Vall, Hind, Maclean, or Turpin, but not always do the really
+eminent come down to us with their eminence properly acknowledged.
+He was born about 1730, the son of a bargeman to a coal merchant at
+Hampton-on-Thames. The bargeman was unfortunately drowned at Putney
+in 1740, and his widow was reduced to eking out a meagre livelihood
+by the distilling of waters from medicinal herbs. She is described
+as "a notable industrious woman," and certainly it was not from her
+example that William learned the haughty and offensive ways that
+would not permit him long to keep any of the numerous situations he
+took, after leaving the Charity School at Hampton, where he acquired
+what small education he had. He started life as tapster's boy at
+the "Bell" alehouse, in his native town, and thence changed to
+errand-boy in the employment of "Mr. Mackenzie," apothecary. Soon his
+youthful ambition took him to London, where he obtained a situation
+in the printing-office of Woodfall, in Little Britain, who became in
+after-years notorious as printer of the "Letters of Junius"; but "that
+business being too great a confinement for his rambling temper, he
+left it, and went footboy to Mr. Dalrymple, Scots Holland warehouse in
+London."
+
+He rapidly filled the situations of footman to one Mr. Hodges, in
+Lincoln's Inn Fields; porter to a gentleman in Cork Street, and footman
+to Mr. Macartney in Argyle Buildings. He then entered the service
+of the Earl of Glencairn, but left that situation to become valet
+to a certain Captain Jasper. Frequently discharged for "his proud
+and haughty spirit, which would not brook orders from his masters,"
+and prevented him, on the other hand, being on good terms with his
+fellow-servants, he at last found himself unable to obtain another
+place. This was a sad time for William Page. In service he had learned
+extravagant habits, the love of fine clothes and the fascination of
+gambling; but his arrogant ways had brought him low indeed.
+
+"Being by such means as these extremely reduced in his circumstances,
+without money, without friends, and without character, he could think
+of no better method of supplying his wants, and freeing himself from
+a servile dependency, than by turning Collector on the Highway. This
+he imagined would not only take off that badge of slavery, the livery
+he had always worn with regret, but would set him on a level with
+gentlemen, a figure he was ever ambitious of making."
+
+His first steps were attended with some difficulty, for he laboured
+under the disadvantage, at the moment of coming to this decision, of
+having no money in his pockets; and to commence highwayman, as to begin
+any other business or profession, it was necessary to have a small
+capital, for preliminary expenses. But a little ingenuity showed him
+the way. Pistols and a horse were the tools of his trade, and pistols,
+of course, first. A servant of his acquaintance knew a person who had
+a brace of pistols to sell, and Page took them, "to show a friend on
+approval." He then hired a horse for deferred payment, and with the
+pistols went out and immediately and successfully robbed the Highgate
+coach. Thus, with the £4 he in this manner obtained, he paid for the
+pistols and settled with the livery-stable keeper for his horse-hire.
+In another day or two he had touched the wayfaring public for a sum
+sufficient to purchase a horse of his own; and thus commenced his
+twelve-years' spell of highway adventure, in which, although he had
+many exciting experiences, he was arrested only once before the final
+escapade that brought him to the gallows.
+
+An early freak of his was the robbing of his former master, Captain
+Jasper, on Hounslow Heath. The Captain was crossing the ill-omened
+place with a lady in a post-chaise, when Page rode up, bade the
+postilion stop, and ordered the Captain to deliver.
+
+"That may be, sir," retorted the Captain angrily, "but not yet," and,
+pulling out a pistol, fired at him. His aim was not good, but he hit
+somebody: none other, indeed, than his own postilion, who was struck in
+the back, "and wounded very much."
+
+Then said Page, "Consider, sir, what a rash action you have been guilty
+of. You have killed this poor fellow, which I would not have done for
+the world. And now, sir, I repeat my orders, and if you refuse any
+longer to comply, I will actually fire upon you."
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM PAGE.]
+
+The Captain then snapped his second pistol at him, but it missed fire.
+Page then swore he would shoot the lady; intending to do nothing of the
+kind, but only to alarm the Captain the more. But in Captain Jasper
+our highwayman had met sterner stuff than common, and the gallant
+soldier, the better to protect her, forthwith sat himself in her lap.
+On Page continuing to declare he would shoot him, the Captain leapt out
+of the chaise at him, and at that moment Page fired, but with intention
+to miss, and the shot passed harmlessly by. Again the Captain pulled
+the trigger of his pistol, and again it missed fire.
+
+Then Page declared his ultimatum: "You must now surrender, or I
+absolutely will shoot you." Whereupon the Captain, having done all he
+possibly could, delivered up his gold watch and ten or eleven guineas.
+Page then demanded his sword, but he quite rightly, as a soldier,
+demurred to such a humiliation.
+
+"You may see by my cockade I am an officer, and I would sooner part
+with my life and soul than with my sword," he bravely declared.
+
+Page generously acknowledged his spirit. "I think myself," he said,
+"thou art the bravest fellow that ever crossed these plains, but thou
+art an obstinate fellow; and so, go about your business."
+
+He introduced some interesting novelties into the well-worn business.
+The chief of these was the distinctly bright idea of driving from
+London in a phaeton with a pair of horses and at some lonely spot
+disguising himself with a wig and another suit of clothes. Then,
+saddling one of the horses and leaving the phaeton, he would carefully
+emerge upon the high road and hold up coaches, post-chaises, or
+solitary equestrians. This accomplished, he returned to his phaeton,
+harnessed the horse again, resumed his former attire, and drove back to
+town, like the gentleman of fashion and leisure he pretended to be. One
+day, pursuing this highly successful programme, he was nearly undone by
+the action of some countryfolk who, finding an abandoned phaeton and
+one horse strangely left in a coppice, went off with it. The simple
+people, making along the road with this singular treasure-trove, were
+themselves followed by some unlucky travellers whom Page had just
+robbed, and violently denounced as confederates. Page was fully equal
+to the occasion. Nearly stripping himself, and casting his clothes down
+a convenient well, he returned to London in that plight and declared
+himself to have been treated like the man in the Scriptures, who
+"fell among thieves"; although it does not appear that the traveller
+in question had a carriage. His phaeton had been stolen, and himself
+robbed and left almost naked.
+
+This precious story was fully believed, and the country people
+themselves stood in some considerable danger. They were flung into
+prison and would no doubt have been convicted had Page appeared against
+them. This he, for obvious reasons, refused to do, and they found
+themselves at liberty once more, resolved to leave any other derelict
+carriages they might chance to see severely alone.
+
+Page, in course of time, married a girl of his native town. She could
+not long remain ignorant of his means of livelihood, and earnestly
+begged him to leave the road and take to honest work. Few, however,
+quitted the highway except for the "three-legged mare" at Tyburn, and
+the one- or two-legged mares of other places; and he held on his way.
+Now and again he would disappear for a time, after some particularly
+audacious exploit, to reappear when the excitement it had caused was
+over. On one of these occasions he shipped to Barbados and Antigua,
+stayed there for seven or eight months, and then returned to England,
+desperately in want of money. The line of least resistance indicated
+the road once more.
+
+His first exploit after this reappearance was the robbing of one Mr.
+Cuffe, north of Barnet. The traveller, being driven along the road
+alone and unarmed in a post-chaise, had no choice but to surrender his
+purse, and held it out from the window at arm's length. But Page's
+horse, not being used to this kind of business, shied violently, and
+Page thereupon ordered the postilion to dismount and hand it him, which
+he did, and he then gracefully and at leisure retired.
+
+On his return to town, leading this high-mettled horse down Highgate
+Hill, Page was followed by three men on horseback, who, having heard
+of this robbery down the road, suspected he might be the man. They
+immediately planned how they were to take him, and then, one of them
+riding quietly up, said, "Sir, I have often walked my horse up Highgate
+Hill, but never down; but since you do, I will also, and bear you
+company."
+
+Page readily agreed, without the least suspicion of any design against
+him, and so they entered into a very friendly conversation. After
+walking in this manner some little distance, the gentleman finding a
+fit opportunity, keeping a little behind, suddenly laid hold of his
+arms and pinioned them so tightly behind him that he was not able to
+stir; seeing which, the other two, then on the opposite side of the
+road, crossed over and secured him beyond any possibility of escape.
+They found in his pockets four loaded pistols, a powder-horn, and some
+bullets, a crape mask, and a curious and ingenious map himself had
+drawn, showing all the main roads and cross roads for twenty miles
+round London.
+
+They then took him before a Justice of the Peace at Highgate, who
+put many searching questions, without gaining any information. He
+was, however, committed to Clerkenwell Bridewell, and was afterwards
+examined by none other than Henry Fielding, magistrate and novelist.
+Sent from the Old Bailey to stand his trial at Hertford Assizes, he
+was acquitted for lack of exact evidence, although every one was fully
+satisfied of his guilt, for, however strange the times, they were not
+so strange that honest gentlemen carried such a compromising collection
+of things about with them on the roads.
+
+His narrow escape did not disturb him, and he was soon again on his
+lawless prowls. On Hounslow Heath he robbed a Captain of one of the
+Guards regiments, and was pursued into Hounslow town by that officer,
+shouting "Highwayman!" after him. No one took any notice. Page got
+clear away, and afterwards boasted of having, the following night at a
+theatre in London, sat next the officer, who did not recognise him.
+
+An interlude followed in the activities of our high-spirited
+highwayman. He and an old acquaintance struck up a more intimate
+friendship over the tables of billiard-rooms in London, and there they
+entered into an alliance, with the object of rooking frequenters of
+those places. But their returns were small and precarious, and did not
+even remotely compare with the rich harvest to be gathered on the road,
+to which he accordingly returned.
+
+It was Page's ill-fortune to meet with several plucky travellers, who,
+like Captain Jasper, would not tamely submit to be robbed, and resisted
+by force of arms. Among them was Lord Downe, whose post-chaise he,
+with a companion, one day stopped at Barnet. Presenting his pistol, he
+issued the customary orders, but, to his surprise, Lord Downe himself
+drew a pistol, and discharged it with such excellent aim, that Page
+was shot in the body, and bled very copiously. His companion's horse,
+alarmed at the shot, grew restive, and thus his friend was for a while
+unable to come to his aid. Page, however, again advanced to the attack;
+but my lord was ready with another pistol, and so the highwaymen
+thought it best to make off. They hurried to London, and Page sought
+a doctor, who found the wound so dangerous, that he refused to treat
+him without consultation. The other doctor, immediately on arriving,
+recognised Page, and asked him how he came by the wound; to which Page
+replied, that he had received it in a duel he had just fought.
+
+"I will extract the ball," replied the doctor; "but," he added
+significantly, "I do not wish to see your face again, for I believe you
+fought that duel near Barnet."
+
+Shortly after his recovery from this untoward incident, he and one
+ally, Darwell, by name, an old schoolfellow, waiting upon chance
+on Shooter's Hill, met two post-chaises, in one of which was a
+"supercargo" belonging to the East India Company, and in the other a
+person, who is simply described as a "gentleman."
+
+Page's accomplice opened the encounter by firing a pistol, to which
+the supercargo replied in like manner; but with a better aim, for the
+bullet tore away a portion of his coat, under the armpit. A second
+shot from the highwayman was also ineffective. Then Page rode up and
+attacked the other chaise. A desperate fusillade followed; but the only
+damage done was that Page's horse was slightly wounded. At last, the
+post-chaise travellers having expended all their ammunition, the two
+highwaymen compelled them to alight, and the postilions to dismount;
+and then, having bound the hands of all of them with rope, they ordered
+these unfortunate persons, on peril of their lives, to remain on
+that spot for one hour. They then returned to the chaises, removed
+the travelling trunks, and, carrying them off on horseback, hid them
+securely.
+
+Then they hastened back to London. The next morning, in two chaises,
+they returned to the spot, and in security brought back the trunks,
+which contained, not only a large amount of money, but a mass of
+important documents belonging to the East India Company.
+
+A reward of forty guineas was offered, by advertisement in the
+newspapers of the time, for the return of the documents, "and no
+questions asked." The advertisers themselves, by so doing, risked a
+fine of £50 for compounding a felony; but, in any case, the reward was
+never claimed, although Page carefully returned the papers anonymously.
+
+The fact which at last cut the knot of William Page's existence was
+the robbing of Captain Farrington in 1757, on Blackheath. Among other
+things the Captain was compelled to render to this Cæsar of the roads
+was a gold repeater watch. Hotly pursued, Page gave the hue-and-cry a
+long chase for it, and finally, arriving at Richmond, had himself and
+his exhausted horse ferried across to Twickenham.
+
+Soon after, finding the south of England ringing uncomfortably with
+the fame of his doings, he took ship for Scotland, but landed at
+Scarborough, where, at the fashionable spa, he gambled heavily and
+strutted awhile as a man of considerable fortune. But he must have
+been at last really alarmed and prepared to consider turning over
+a new leaf, for he went north to see his former master, the Earl
+of Glencairn, who, he thought, would be able to recommend him to
+employment in the plantations. The Earl, however, received him coldly,
+and he came south again, to resume his chosen profession, in company
+with Darwell, whom he had by constant alternate threats and persuasions
+seduced from the reformed life he was leading and the respectable
+situation he held, to take up again this hazardous calling.
+
+Together they scoured the road to Tonbridge, Darwell forming, as it
+were, a rearguard. Page was pursued beyond Sevenoaks by five mounted
+men armed with pistols, and a blunderbuss, who dashed past Darwell,
+and after a struggle seized his leader, who presently escaped again.
+In their return, disappointed, they made a prisoner of Darwell, who,
+suspecting something of the kind would happen, had already thrown
+away his pistols. In spite of his indignant protestations that he was
+a private gentleman, and would not endure such an outrage, he was
+searched and a part of Captain Farrington's watch was found upon him,
+with the maker's name and most of the distinguishing marks more or less
+carefully obliterated. Questioned closely, he declared he had picked
+it up upon the road. As for the highwayman they had just now nearly
+captured, he knew nothing of him: had never set eyes on him before.
+
+But, in spite of these denials, Darwell was taken off in custody and
+examined before a magistrate, who so plied him with questions, threats
+of what would happen to him if he continued obstinate, and promises of
+clemency if he would make discovery of his companion, that he at last
+turned King's evidence. During the interval, he was lodged in Maidstone
+gaol.
+
+A fortnight later, Page was arrested in one of their old haunts in
+London, the "Golden Lion," near Grosvenor Square. He was at first taken
+to Newgate, but afterwards remitted to Maidstone, and tried there for
+the robbery of Captain Farrington. Convicted and sentenced to death, he
+was hanged on Penenden Heath, April 6th, 1758.
+
+
+
+
+ISAAC DARKIN, _ALIAS_ DUMAS
+
+
+Isaac Darkin was the son of a cork-cutter in Eastcheap, and was born
+about 1740; too late to appear in the stirring pages of Alexander
+Smith or Charles Johnson, in which he would have made, we may be sure,
+an admired figure. All those who knew him, on the road or in the
+domestic circle, agreed that he was a handsome fellow; and travellers,
+in particular, noticed his taking ways. These were first displayed
+in 1758, when he robbed Captain Cockburn near Chelmsford. No less
+taking, in their own especial way, were the police of the neighbourhood
+in that time, for they speedily apprehended Isaac, and lodged him
+in Springfield gaol. He was duly arraigned at the next assizes, and
+no fewer than eight indictments were then preferred against him. He
+pleaded guilty to the robbing of Captain Cockburn, but not guilty on
+the other counts; and was, after a patient trial, found guilty on the
+first and acquitted on the others. He was then sentenced to death, but
+was eventually respited on account of his youth, and finally pardoned
+on condition that he enlisted in the 48th Regiment of foot, then
+serving in the West Indies, at Antigua. Drafted with others aboard a
+ship lying in the lower reaches of the Thames, presently to set sail
+for that distant shore, he effected his escape, almost at the moment
+of up-anchor, by dint of bribing the captain of a merchant vessel
+lying alongside, to whom he promised so much as a hundred pounds to
+help him out. He was smuggled aboard the merchantman, and so cunningly
+disguised that when a search-party, suspecting his whereabouts, boarded
+the ship, and searched it, even to the hold, they did not recognise
+him in a particularly rough and dirty sailor who was swearing nautical
+oaths among the ship's company on deck. So the transport-vessel sailed
+without him, and he, assuming the name of Dumas, rioted all through
+the West of England, robbing wealthy travellers and gaily spending his
+takings on what he loved best: fine clothes and fine ladies. He was so
+attentive to business that he speedily made a name for himself, the
+name of a daring votary of the high toby. This reputation rendered
+it politic on his part to enlist in the Navy, so that in case of
+being arrested for highway robbery, he could prove himself to have a
+respectable occupation, that would help to discredit the charge of
+being a highwayman.
+
+He soon became a valued recruit, and was promoted to midshipman; and
+it is quite likely that if he had been sent on active service he would
+have distinguished himself in a more reputable career than that in
+which he was so soon to die. But his duties kept him for considerable
+periods in port, and he seems to have had ample leave from them; for
+we find him hovering near Bath and gaily robbing the wealthy real or
+imagined invalids going to, or returning from, the waters.
+
+On the evening of June 22nd, 1760, he fell in with Lord Percival,
+travelling by post-chaise over Clarken Down, near Bath, and robbed him
+of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen guineas—my lord could not positively
+swear to the exact amount. He then made off in the gathering twilight,
+and galloped across country, to Salisbury Plain and the little village
+of Upavon, where he was arrested in a rustic alehouse, and sent
+thence to Salisbury gaol. At his trial he indignantly denied being a
+highwayman, or that he was an Englishman. He declared his name was
+Dumas, that he had lately come from Guadaloupe, where he had taken
+a part in the late military operations; and said that the so-styled
+"suspicious behaviour" and damaging admissions he was charged with,
+when arrested at the inn, were merely the perplexities of a foreigner,
+when suddenly confronted by hostile strangers.
+
+This special pleading did not greatly deceive judge or jury, but
+the prosecution broke down upon a technical detail, and Darkin was
+acquitted; not, however, without an affecting address to the prisoner
+from the judge, Mr. Justice Willmott, who urged him to amend his ways,
+while there was yet time.
+
+It is thus quite sufficiently evident that, although the Court was
+bound to acquit the prisoner, no one had the least doubt of his
+guilt. His narrow escape does not appear to have impressed Darkin,
+or "Dumas"; but he was anxious enough to be off, as we learn from a
+contemporary account of the proceedings, in which it is quaintly said:
+"He discovered great Impatience 'till he had got off his Fetters and
+was discharged, which was about five o'clock in the evening, when he
+immediately set out for London in a post-chaise."
+
+The fair ladies of Salisbury sorrowed when he was gone. They had
+been constant in visiting him in prison, and had regarded him as a
+hero, and Lord Percival as a disagreeable hunks. The hero-worship he
+received is properly noted in the account of his life, trial, and
+execution, issued in haste from an Oxford press in 1761, shortly after
+the final scene had been enacted. In those pages we read: "During
+Mr. Dumas' imprisonment at Salisbury, we find his sufferings made a
+deep impression upon the tender Hearts of the Ladies, some of whom,
+having visited him in his Confinement, his obliging Manner, genteel
+Address, lively Disposition, and whole Deportment so struck them that
+his Fame soon became the Discourse of the Tea Table; and at the happy
+Termination of His Affair with my Lord Percival, produced between them
+the following Copy of Verses:
+
+    Joy to thee, lovely Thief! that thou
+      Hast 'scaped the fatal string,
+    Let Gallows groan with ugly Rogues,
+      _Dumas_ must never swing.
+
+    Dost thou seek Money?—To thy Wants
+      Our Purses we'll resign;
+    Could we our Hearts to guineas coin
+      Those guineas all were thine.
+
+    To Bath in safety let my lord
+      His loaded Pockets carry;
+    Thou ne'er again shall tempt the Road,
+      Sweet youth! if thou wilt marry.
+
+    No more shall niggard travellers
+      Avoid thee—We'll ensure them:
+    To us thou shalt consign thy Balls
+      And Pistol; we'll secure 'em.
+
+    Yet think not, when the Chains are off,
+      Which now thy Legs bedeck,
+    To fly: in Fetters softer far
+      We'll chain thee by the Neck."
+
+But in the short space of six weeks from his acquittal at Salisbury and
+his triumphal exit in a post-chaise for London, he was again arrested
+on a charge of highway robbery, this time for robbing a Mr. Gammon at
+Nettlebed, on the road to Oxford. Committed to trial at Newgate, he was
+transferred to Oxford gaol, and tried there on March 6th. He had up
+to now been phenomenally fortunate, but things at this crisis looked
+a great deal more serious. He acknowledged "he had experienced many
+narrow scrapes, but never such a d—d one as this," and he was presently
+found guilty and condemned to death, this time without any extenuating
+circumstances being found.
+
+Isaac Darkin was what in our times would be called a "superior person."
+Slang he disdained to use, bad language was anathema to him; and if
+he did, indeed, condescend to describe a person of mean understanding
+as "a cake," or "a flat," that was the most he permitted himself. His
+delicacy was so great that he never mentioned a "robbery," a "robber,"
+or a "highwayman," but spoke instead of persons who had been "injured,"
+or of "the injured parties." And as he was so nice in his language, so
+he was particular in his dress and deportment. As an eulogist of him
+said, not without a little criticism: "He was possessed of too great
+a share of pride for his circumstances in life, and retained more of
+it to the last than was becoming in a person in his unhappy situation.
+He had a taste for elegance in every respect; was remarkably fond of
+silk stockings, and neat in his linen; had his hair dressed in the most
+fashionable manner every morning; his polished fetters were supported
+round his waist by a sword-belt, and tied up at his knees with ribbon."
+
+Although but the son of a cork-cutter, he had lived, in the estimation
+of his contemporaries, like a gentleman. Like a gentleman he spent
+his last days, and if he did indeed seem to boast a little when, a
+few days before his execution, he declared he had been nine times in
+gaol, and seven times tried on a capital charge, that was merely a
+pardonable professional exaggeration. His claim to have gleaned over
+six hundred guineas from the road has, on the other hand, the look of
+an under-estimate. The rumbustious fellows of a hundred years earlier
+would have thought that very bad business; they often took much more
+in a single haul. But times were changing, and not for the better, from
+the highwaymen's point of view.
+
+Isaac Darkin died like a gentleman, without apparent fear, and without
+bravado, at Oxford, on March 23rd, 1761, and was at that time, as
+himself remarked, without apparent pathos or truckling to weak
+sentiment, "not twenty-one."
+
+
+
+
+JAMES MACLAINE, THE "GENTLEMAN" HIGHWAYMAN
+
+
+The career of James Maclean, or Maclaine, shows that it was not really
+difficult to become a "gentleman" highwayman. Born at Monaghan in 1724,
+he was the second son of Lauchlin Maclaine, a Presbyterian minister,
+who, although settled in Ireland, was a Scotsman of unmixed Scottish
+blood, and of undoubted Scottish sympathies. There are plenty of
+materials for a life of his son James, the highwayman, for the story
+of his career had a remarkable attraction for all classes of people
+at the time when he went to die at Tyburn, in 1750; and consequently
+the "Lives" and "Memoirs" of him are numerous. There are also several
+portraits of him, most of them showing a distinctly Scottish type of
+countenance, but not one solving the mystery of his extraordinary
+fascination for women. Indeed, the full-length portrait of him
+engraved in Caulfield's _Remarkable Characters_, in which he is styled
+"Macleane, the Ladies' Hero," shows a heavy-jowled person, with dull,
+yet staring fish-like eyes; exactly the kind of person who might be
+expected to create an unfavourable impression. Perhaps the artist
+does him an injustice, but none of the several artists and engravers
+who have handed down to us their respective versions of his features
+have succeeded in imparting the slightest inkling of good looks to him,
+and few of the portraits agree with one another. He was tall above
+the average, as the various prints show; and he wore fine clothes. It
+was these exceedingly fine feathers, and the fashionable resorts he
+affected, that gave him the distinction of "gentleman" highwayman; and
+it is to be feared that his exquisite dress, in larger measure than the
+quality of his manners, influenced the ladies of 1750, who wept over
+his fate just as the equally foolish women of 1670 had wept over the
+hanging of Du Vall.
+
+[Illustration: JAMES MACLAINE.
+
+  _From a contemporary Portrait._]
+
+The Ordinary of Newgate saw nothing remarkable in Maclaine. He speaks
+of him as "in person of the middle-size, well-limbed, and a sandy
+complexion, a broad, open countenance pitted with the small-pox, but
+though he was called the _Gentleman Highwayman_, and in his dress and
+equipage very much affected the fine gentleman, yet to a man acquainted
+with good breeding, and that can distinguish it from impudence and
+affectation, there was very little in his address or behaviour that
+could entitle him to the character."
+
+[Illustration: MACLAINE, THE LADIES' HERO.]
+
+Archibald, the elder brother of this fashionable hero, was an entirely
+respected and blameless person, who entered the Church, and was pastor
+of the English community at The Hague for forty-nine years, from 1747
+to 1796.
+
+James, the future knight of the road, was intended by his father for
+a merchant; but that pious father died when James was eighteen years
+of age, and so the youthful "perfect master of writing and accompts,"
+as he is styled, instead of proceeding, as intended, to a Scottish
+merchant in Rotterdam, received a modest inheritance, with which he
+immediately took himself off to Dublin, where he lost or expended it
+all inside twelve months, in dissipation, after the example of the
+Prodigal Son in the Scriptures.
+
+Only, unfortunately for him, when the money was gone, and he would,
+given the opportunity, perhaps have returned, like that illustrious
+exemplar, from his husks and his harlots, to partake of the fatted
+calf, there was no father, no home, and no fatted calf to which he
+might return.
+
+But he had still some relatives left in Monaghan, and he thought he
+might be received by them. In this he was altogether mistaken when he
+tried to put it to the proof, and was reduced almost to the point of
+starvation there, when he attracted the attention of a gentleman, who
+offered him a footman's place in his service. He did not keep this
+situation long. He was too impudent to his master, and too patronising
+towards the other servants. He was discharged, and for a time subsisted
+upon a scanty allowance from his brother.
+
+In this extremity he found a gentleman of Cork, a "Colonel F——n," who
+was confiding enough to engage him as butler. But he apparently did not
+make a good butler; and was, moreover, discovered making away with his
+master's property, and discharged. We next find him in London, thinking
+of joining the Irish Brigade in the French service; but abandoning
+the idea from conscientious scruples against being employed in Popish
+surroundings. Maclaine had a very tender conscience and a timid nature,
+and what with his religious scruples and the fear of being shot (to
+which he does not allude, but which was very vivid to him), he had to
+abandon the notion of wearing a fine uniform, which we may suspect had
+originally given him the impulse to a military life.
+
+[Illustration: JAMES MACLAINE.]
+
+Maclaine did not at this period keep very reputable society; but
+was in 1746 again occupying a position with the forgiving "Colonel
+F——n." The Colonel seems to have, on this second occasion, found
+him an undesirable servant; whereupon, "being prepossessed with the
+perfections of his person," he proposed to enlist in Lord Albemarle's
+troop of horseguards. The Colonel, as an old soldier, thought this, no
+doubt, the best thing, and, with an advance of ten pounds, bade him go
+where glory waited him.
+
+Maclaine accordingly enlisted. He had visions of being seated on a
+prancing steed—"steed" being the superlative of "horse"—and, dressed in
+something with plenty of blue or scarlet and gold in it, taking part
+in ceremonial processions and escorts. Unhappily, soon after he had
+enlisted, he heard that the troop was to proceed at once to Flanders
+on active service, and hurriedly got, somehow, out of the dangerous
+position.
+
+He then made some attempt to settle down and live respectably, for he
+married the daughter of a Mr. Maclagen, a horse-dealer in the Oxford
+Road—the Oxford Street of to-day. His wife brought a small dowry of
+£500, and with this they set up business in the grocery and chandlery
+way in Welbeck Street. Unhappily for any views he may have entertained
+of a settled life as a tradesman, his wife died in 1748. It appeared
+then that the business had not prospered, or that their style of living
+had been beyond their means, for the stock and furniture were then
+found to be worth only £85.
+
+Maclaine's first idea after this domestic catastrophe was one very
+prevalent at that time: the notion of posing as a gentleman of fortune
+and of fashion, with the object of ensnaring the affections of some
+susceptible young lady of means and marrying her for her money. He
+accordingly realised all his effects, and, placing his two infant
+daughters in the care of his mother-in-law, burst upon the town as one
+of the elegants of the day.
+
+A needy neighbour, like himself a tradesman, Plunkett by name, who had
+failed as a chemist, was induced by this hopeful widower to act a part
+as his footman, and together they frequented places of fashionable
+assemblage, both in London and at Tunbridge Wells, on the look-out for
+heiresses. But the game was shy, and meanwhile the small capital of
+£85 was fast melting away. Fine clothes were ten times more expensive
+in that age than the finest clothes of to-day, and although it was
+possible to obtain a good deal on credit, it was not at all workable to
+visit Vauxhall and such expensive places, and to cut a dash there, for
+any considerable time on so inconsiderable a capital.
+
+It was Plunkett who at this stage of affairs, when their funds were
+nearly exhausted, suggested the road as a place where money might
+usually be had for the asking.
+
+"A brave man," said Plunkett, "cannot want. He has a right to live, and
+need not want the conveniences of life. While the dull, plodding, busy
+knaves carry cash in their pockets, we must draw upon them to supply
+our wants. Only impudence is necessary, and the getting better of a
+few idle scruples. Courage is scarcely necessary, for all we have to
+deal with are mere poltroons." But when poltroon meets poltroon, when
+the timid traveller, ready to hand over his purse on demand, cannot do
+so because the coward highwayman dare not reach out and take it, what
+happens? It is an embarrassing moment, whose fortunes are (or were)
+determined only by chance.
+
+Plunkett did not know the manner of man he had to deal with until they
+had taken the road together. He had always seemed a bold, swaggering
+fellow, and big enough in all conscience; but when it came to highway
+robbery he was a helpless companion.
+
+Their first affair was with a grazier, going home from Smithfield with
+the proceeds of his day's business in his pocket. Plunkett, suddenly
+enlightened as to Maclaine's want of nerve, took the conduct of the
+incident firmly in hand at once, or the results might have been
+disastrous for both. He took £60 from the grazier, while Maclaine
+looked on and spoke no word, inwardly in greater fear than he, and
+ready, had there been any sign of resistance, to fly.
+
+Their next attempt was to stop and rob a coach on the St. Albans road.
+
+It was agreed that Maclaine should stop the coachman and present his
+pistol on one side, while Plunkett did the same on the other. But
+although he rode up several times, intending to challenge the Jehu with
+the traditional cry of the bold and fearless fellows who did the like
+every night, his heart failed him; so Plunkett had to carry it off
+as best he could, while Maclaine sat shivering with cowardice in the
+background, in spite of the "Venetian mask" that covered the upper part
+of his face and concealed his identity sufficiently well.
+
+But Plunkett, as may have been already gathered, was a man with
+sufficient resolution for two, and although Maclaine was quaking with
+terror on every occasion, he brought him in some fashion up to the
+scratch in a long series of robberies. They frequently hired or stabled
+horses at Hyde Park Corner, and thence rode out for a day and a night
+upon Hounslow Heath, or elsewhere.
+
+"In all this while," we learn, he scarcely ever thought of his
+daughters, "and seldom visited his mother-in-law." O villain!
+
+When in town, he had lodgings on the first floor over a shop in St.
+James's Street, and presented a gorgeous figure to morning callers.
+He was even more gorgeous in the evening, when he frequented places
+of public entertainment, and obtained the freedom of some fashionable
+houses. But the morning picture he presented will probably suffice. He
+then wore a crimson damask banjan, a silk shag waistcoat turned with
+lace, black velvet breeches, white silk stockings, and yellow morocco
+slippers.
+
+On one exceptional occasion, Plunkett and Maclaine went as far as
+Chester, and did good business on the way; but their best haul was on
+Shooter's Hill, where they stopped and robbed an official of the East
+India Company of a large sum.
+
+With his share of the plunder, Maclaine took a little holiday on the
+Continent, and visited his brother at The Hague, probably astonishing
+that worthy man by his sudden magnificence. He then returned and
+rejoined Plunkett.
+
+Horace Walpole wrote at different times several accounts of how he was
+once stopped by these brothers-in-arms. It was a moonlight night, in
+the beginning of November 1749, nearly a year before Maclaine's career
+was brought to a close, that Horace was returning from Holland House,
+Kensington, to London. The hour was ten o'clock, the place Hyde Park.
+What trifles, or what amount of money Messrs. Maclaine and Plunkett
+took on this occasion we are not told; for Walpole does not take his
+correspondents so completely and voluminously into his confidence over
+this affair as he generally did. He only tells them, and us, that the
+pistol of "the accomplished Mr. Maclean," as he calls him, went off—by
+accident, he is careful to say—and that the bullet passed so close as
+to graze the skin beneath his eye and stun him. The bullet then went
+through the roof of the carriage.
+
+The incident that so nearly brought the life of Horace Walpole to
+an untimely end, and might thus have left the world much poorer in
+eighteenth-century gossip, was conducted, as he tells us, "with the
+greatest good-breeding on both sides." He further adds that the reason
+of Maclaine being out that night and taking a purse _that_ way was, he
+had only that morning been disappointed of marrying a great fortune. It
+does not seem at all an adequate reason; but that was the eighteenth
+century and this is the twentieth, and perhaps we cannot see eye to eye
+on all these matters.
+
+But, at any rate, Maclaine afterwards behaved very nicely about the
+articles he had taken; sending a note to Walpole as soon as ever he had
+returned to his lodgings, in which he made his excuses, if not with
+the witty grace of a Voiture, at least expressed in a manner ten times
+more natural and easily polite. He declared that, had the bullet found
+its billet in Walpole's head, he would certainly have put one through
+his own. Then, in a postscript, which, like the postscripts in letters
+written by feminine hands, contained the whole substance of and reason
+for the letter, Maclaine added that he would be pleased to meet the
+gentleman at Tyburn (O ominous tryst!) at twelve at night, where the
+gentleman might purchase again any trifles he had lost.
+
+There, if not particularly elsewhere, Maclaine seems to have indeed
+proved himself, in one brief moment, a "gentleman" highwayman. You
+see the argument passing in his mind. The trifles were indeed trifles
+intrinsically, but they might have had some sentimental worth, of old
+or new association, that would have made the loss of them a grievous
+thing to their rightful owner. Well, then, if that owner liked to
+ransom them for a trifling sum, here was his chance. A very considerate
+offer.
+
+But Horace Walpole did not accept the rendezvous. Possibly he doubted
+the honour of a highwayman met at such a spot.
+
+The "gentleman highwayman" resented criticism, as will be seen by
+the following story: Maclaine frequented Button's Coffee House, in
+Russell Street, Covent Garden, and paid particular attention to the
+barmaid there, daughter of the proprietor. The attentions of such a
+fine gentleman as he appeared to be were very flattering to the girl,
+and very noticeable to other frequenters of the house, one of whom,
+a certain Mr. Donaldson, knew Maclaine, and took the opportunity of
+warning the girl's father of his real character. The father in his turn
+cautioned his daughter, and foolishly let slip the name of the person
+who had warned him; and she, of course, passed on the information to
+the engaging Maclaine.
+
+On the next occasion when Donaldson visited Button's, and while he was
+sitting in one of the boxes, Maclaine entered, and in a loud voice, and
+the pronounced Irish brogue that was ever on his tongue, said: "Mr.
+Donaldson, I wish to spake to you in a private room."
+
+Mr. Donaldson, being unarmed, and naturally afraid of being alone with
+such a man as he knew Maclaine to be, said that as there could not
+possibly be anything pass between them that the whole world was not
+welcome to know, he begged leave to decline the invitation.
+
+"Very well," rejoined Maclaine, "we shall meet again."
+
+A day or so later, as Mr. Donaldson was walking near Richmond in the
+evening, he saw Maclaine on horseback, approaching him; but fortunately
+at that moment a gentleman's carriage appeared, and Maclaine rode
+after it; Donaldson hastening into the protection that the streets
+of Richmond town afforded. It is probable that, but for this timely
+diversion, Maclaine would have shot the man who dared tell the truth
+about him.
+
+But the end of the alliance of Maclaine and Plunkett was now at hand.
+On June 26th, 1750, at two o'clock in the morning, they stopped the
+Salisbury stage on Turnham Green. The courage of the coach passengers
+was at a low ebb at that unconscionable hour, and they suffered
+themselves to be robbed, without making the least resistance. They
+numbered five men and one woman. The men were bidden step out, and,
+doing so, were searched and robbed at leisure. A Mr. Higden had an
+exceptionally fine waistcoat, and had to part with even that to
+Maclaine, who was a connoisseur in waistcoats. A Mr. Lockyer also was
+constrained to give up a wig. From the lady was taken "only what she
+chose to give." Here, at any rate, is a faint sweet relic of an older
+courtesy.
+
+As an afterthought, Maclaine went back for two or three of the
+portmanteaux stored away in the hoot.
+
+They then, riding off westward, met the Earl of Eglinton, travelling in
+his post-chaise. He had an escort of two mounted servants, but as they
+were over half a mile behind at the time, he might equally well have
+been travelling alone.
+
+[Illustration: MACLAINE AND PLUNKETT ROBBING THE EARL OF EGLINTON ON
+HOUNSLOW HEATH.]
+
+Maclaine, riding up to the postboy, threatened him with a pistol and
+told him to stop instantly; but, at the same time, was sufficiently
+cautious to so place himself that the occupant of the post-chaise would
+be unable to fire at him without hitting the postboy. The highwaymen
+were, as a rule, exceedingly well-informed persons; and Maclaine knew
+perfectly well that Lord Eglinton carried a blunderbuss with him, and
+had the reputation of always being ready and willing to use it.
+
+But in the strategic position he had taken up, he was quite safe, and
+meanwhile Plunkett had advanced from the rear and taken his lordship
+completely by surprise. He threatened, indeed, instantly to shoot him,
+if he did not throw the blunderbuss away; and my lord flung the weapon
+from him at once, as though it had been red-hot. Plunkett then took
+seven guineas from him.
+
+Maclaine was not behindhand, and seized his lordship's overcoat and the
+blunderbuss which was lying upon the heath. He was a frugal person,
+and in that particular did credit to his Scots ancestry. A curious
+old print shows this robbery, famous in its day, and in it Maclaine
+and Plunkett do certainly look most awe-inspiring in their attitudes:
+Maclaine, in particular, being apparently engaged in pushing his pistol
+through the postboy's head. But that is doubtless artistic licence.
+
+Maclaine did a very foolish thing when he returned to his St. James's
+Street rooms, early that same day. He sent for a Jew dealer to come and
+make an offer for some clothes he wished to sell; none other, in fact,
+than those he had taken from the coach, and when they were shortly
+advertised as having been stolen, the mischief was done. As if that
+were not folly enough, Maclaine's frugality had led him also to remove
+the gold lace from one of the stolen coats and to offer it for sale.
+He chanced to take it to the very laceman who had recently sold it.
+His arrest was then a matter of course. Equally of course, he strongly
+protested against the indignity of a "gentleman" being arrested for
+theft, and then he broke down and wept in "a most dastardly and
+pusillanimous manner, whimpering and crying like a whipt schoolboy."
+
+Maclaine declared that the absconded Plunkett had left the clothes with
+him, in part satisfaction of a debt he owed, and that he, Maclaine, was
+to have sold them for what they would fetch, as part liquidation of the
+debt.
+
+Any so-called confession he might have made, he now declared
+impossible. What should a gentleman like himself know of highway
+robbery? "It is true enough that when first apprehended, the surprise
+confounded me and gave me a most extraordinary shock. It caused a
+delirium and confusion in my brain which rendered me incapable of being
+myself, or knowing what I said or did. I talked of robberies as another
+man would do in talking of stories; but, my Lord, after my friends had
+visited me in the Gate-house, and had given me some new spirits, and
+when I came to be re-examined before Justice Lediard, and was asked
+if I could make any discovery of the robbery, I then alleged I had
+recovered my surprise, that what I had talked of before concerning
+robberies was false and wrong, and was entirely owing to a confused
+head and brain."
+
+He called nine witnesses to character; among them Lady Caroline
+Petersham, who is represented in a curious print of the trial at the
+Old Bailey, under examination.
+
+The elegant Maclaine stands prominently in the dock handsomely attired,
+but, alas! heavily fettered, with his laced hat under his left arm.
+One hand holds his lengthy written defence, the other is affectedly
+spread over his breast, in gentlemanly protestation of his being an
+injured person. His is a tall, upstanding figure; but he appears, by
+the evidence of the print, to have had a face like a pudding: and the
+majority of the counsel seated at a table in front of him are shown
+regarding it with easily understood curiosity and astonishment.
+
+One of the dignified persons on the bench is represented addressing
+Lady Caroline: "What has your Ladyship to say in favour of the
+Prisoner at y^e Bar?"
+
+[Illustration: MACLAINE IN THE DOCK.]
+
+With a dramatic gesture, she replies: "My Lord, I have had the Pleasure
+to know him well: he has often been about my House, and I never lost
+anything."
+
+In spite of this cloud of witness, our gentleman was convicted, and
+that with the utmost dispatch, for the jury returned their verdict of
+"guilty" without leaving the box.
+
+The time between his condemnation and execution was spent in an
+affectation of repentance, that does not read very pleasantly. He
+suddenly found himself a great sinner, and indeed revelled luxuriantly
+in the discovery. But there was not the true note of abasement and
+conviction in all this; for he went among his fellow-criminals like
+a superior person, and offered them consolation from the rarefied
+heights of his "gentility," that must have been excessively galling to
+them. Their profanity and callousness shocked him profoundly. Probably
+their behaviour was not less profane when he, condemned to die for
+misdeeds similar to their own, presumed to lecture them on the error of
+their ways. But preaching was in his blood, and would find expression
+somehow, and he found excuse for his almost consistent lack of courage
+on the road in the moral reflection that it was conscience made a
+coward of him. But conscience did not prevent him sharing in the swag
+when the enterprise was carried through.
+
+He said it was true that, since he had entered upon the highway, he
+had never enjoyed a calm and easy moment; that when he was among ladies
+and gentlemen they observed his uneasiness, and would often ask him
+what was the matter, that he seemed so dull. And his friends would tell
+him that surely his affairs were under some embarrassment; "But they
+little suspected," said he, "the wound I had within."
+
+He protested in a good cause he believed there was not a man of greater
+natural courage than himself, but that in every scheme of villainy
+he put Plunkett on the most hazardous post. "There," said he, "I was
+always a coward—my conscience"——always that sickly, unconvincing
+iteration. But the insistence of conscience that Plunkett should always
+be placed in the way of the bullets is at least amusing.
+
+Walpole tells how Maclaine had rooms in St. James's Street, opposite
+White's Club, and others at Chelsea. Plunkett, he says, had rooms in
+Jermyn Street. Their faces were as well known in and about St. James's
+as that of any of the gentlemen who lived in that quarter, who might
+also be in the habit of going upon the road, if the truth were known
+about everybody. Maclaine, he said, had quarrelled, very shortly
+before his arrest, with an army officer at the Putney Bowling Green.
+The officer had doubted his gentility, and Maclaine challenged him to
+a duel, but the exasperating officer would not accept until Maclaine
+should produce a certificate of the noble birth he claimed.
+
+"After his arrest," says Walpole, "there was a wardrobe of clothes,
+three-and-twenty purses, and the celebrated blunderbuss found at his
+lodgings, besides a famous kept-mistress." Walpole concluded he would
+suffer, and as he wished him no ill, he did not care to follow the
+example of all fashionable London, and go to see him in his cell. He
+was almost alone in his thus keeping away. Lord Mountfield, with half
+White's Club at his heels, went to Newgate the very first day. There,
+in the cell, was Maclaine's aunt, crying over her unhappy nephew. When
+those great and fashionable frequenters of White's had gone, she asked,
+well knowing who they were, but perhaps not fully informed of their
+ways, beyond the fact that they gambled extravagantly: "My dear, what
+did the Lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any of
+them?"
+
+"Was it not admirable?" asks Walpole; adding, "but the chief personages
+who have been to comfort and weep over their fallen hero are Lady
+Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe: I call them 'Polly' and 'Lucy,' and
+asked them if he did not sing: 'Thus I stand like the Turk with his
+doxies around'?"
+
+In that last passage, Walpole refers to Gay's _Beggar's Opera_, written
+in 1716 and produced in 1728; a play written around an imaginary
+highwayman, "Captain Macheath," who might very well have stood for
+Maclaine himself. Polly and Lucy were two of Macheath's friends in the
+opera.
+
+We have Walpole's own authority for the otherwise almost incredible
+statement that three thousand people went to see Maclaine in his cell,
+the first Sunday after he was condemned. He fainted away twice with the
+heat of the cell. "You can't conceive the going there is to Newgate,
+and the prints that are published of the malefactors and the memoirs
+of their lives and deaths, set forth with as much parade as Marshal
+Turenne's."
+
+The fatal October 3rd came at last, when he was to die. A curious
+etched print published at the time, at the small price of threepence,
+entitled "Newgate's Lamentation, or the Ladies' Last Farewell of
+Maclaine," shows the parting, and bears the following verses:
+
+    Farewell, my friends, let not your hearts be fill'd,
+    My time is near, and I'll with calmness yield.
+    Fair ladies now, your grief, I pray, forbear,
+    Nor wound me with each tender-hearted tear.
+
+    Mourn not my fate; your friendships have been kind,
+    Which I in tears shall own, till breath's resign'd.
+    Oh! may the indulgence of such friendly love,
+    That's been bestowed on me, be doubled from above.
+
+Thus fortified, and giving his blessing, for what it might be worth, he
+went to Tyburn diligently conning his prayer-book all the way, and not
+once glancing at the crowds.
+
+[Illustration: NEWGATE'S LAMENTATION; OR, THE LADIES' FAREWELL TO
+MACLAINE.]
+
+To the constable who had arrested him, and who now came to beg his
+forgiveness, he replied earnestly: "I forgive you, and may God bless
+you, and your friends; may He forgive my enemies and receive my soul."
+And then he was turned off, and died quite easily. There was a great
+sale for the many more or less truthful lives of him hawked round the
+gallows.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN POULTER, _ALIAS_ BAXTER
+
+
+The story of John Poulter is one of the saddest that here present
+themselves to be recorded. He was born at Newmarket, of poor parents,
+and was given a sufficient schooling for his station. At thirteen
+years of age he was taken into service in the stables of the Duke of
+Somerset, and remained there for six years, leaving with an excellent
+character for smartness and industry. He then went into the employ of
+Colonel Lumley, and was on three occasions sent to France, in charge
+of racehorses; always giving complete satisfaction. But this slight
+experience of foreign travel seems to have unsettled him, and he craved
+for adventures under alien skies. We next find him, accordingly,
+sailing on a Bristol merchant ship and voyaging to the West Indies, to
+the American Colonies, and to Newfoundland; seeing life in a humble but
+effective way.
+
+Returning to England at last, and, sailor-like—or at any rate, like
+sailors of those times—falling at once into abandoned company, he
+met, at Lichfield on February 1749, a dissolute set of persons living
+disreputably upon their wits; among them a certain John Brown, alias
+Dawson, who, with an experience of the highway trade, easily persuaded
+the adventurous Poulter to join him and his associates.
+
+Brown, Poulter, and company, fully armed, then set out to prey upon
+all and sundry; devoting themselves more particularly to thefts from
+houses. At Lichfield, while one diverted the attention of the landlord
+of the "George" inn, another rifled a chest and stole a sum of money
+and many valuable articles. At Chester, Poulter distinguished himself
+by stealing some black plush that he fancied might make him a fine
+stylish waistcoat; and sent off at once to a tailor, to call at the
+"Black Dog" inn, where he and the gang were lodging, that he might
+be measured, and enabled to appear forthwith as a person of elegance
+and distinction. We may here fitly pause a moment to admire, or to
+be astonished at, the child-like vanity and delight in fine clothes
+displayed by nearly all the highwaymen at that time. They could not
+resist seizing every and any opportunity that offered, of dressing
+themselves in the best that could be obtained.
+
+Unfortunately, the manners of a highwayman were not exactly those of
+a gentleman. There was something overdone in the affected elegance of
+deportment, a certain exaggeration and a decided "loudness" that made
+reflective people suspicious. Thus, the tailor to whom Poulter sent
+for his stolen plush to be made up was not altogether satisfied with
+his strange customer, and when a pistol that Poulter carried in his
+pocket went off accidentally during the process of measurement, he was
+convinced that a person who carried loaded firearms in this manner was
+not only a dangerous, but also a suspicious, person. The bullet had
+harmlessly sped into the ceiling, but the tailor was unnerved by the
+incident, and Poulter, rather lamely apologetic, endeavoured to explain
+away this concealed armoury by accusing Brown of putting crackers
+in his pockets. As for the tailor, he hurried off to the Mayor with
+the story that a dangerous person, evidently a highwayman, had taken
+lodgings in the city, and was one of a queer gang, whose suspicious
+movements had already attracted attention. The Mayor sent some trusty
+emissaries to examine Poulter and his associates, but they had already
+taken the alarm, and had embarked at Parkgate for Ireland.
+
+Poulter had already had enough of this criminal life, and, tired of
+adventure of all kinds, desired nothing better than to settle down to
+some business. He accordingly, in the name of Baxter, took a small
+alehouse in Dublin, and, entirely dissociating himself from his
+companions for a time, did a comfortable and fairly prosperous trade,
+averaging five barrels a week. Here he might have continued, and would
+have been glad to do so, only for a most unfortunate circumstance.
+
+There were at that time a number of Irish rogues in London, obtaining a
+hazardous livelihood, chiefly by picking pockets, but not disdaining
+any form of villainy that might promise to be profitable. General
+Sinclair was robbed of a gold watch by one or other of this gang, as he
+was leaving a party at Leicester House, and William Harper and Thomas
+Tobin, two suspicious characters, were arrested for being concerned,
+and taken to the Gatehouse at Westminster, whence they were presently
+rescued by their gang, to the number of a couple of dozen; all of them
+making off to Ireland.
+
+This affair would not appear to concern Poulter in any way, engaged
+as he was at Dublin in earning an honest livelihood; but it had a
+very tragical result on his fortunes. Among the fugitives was one
+James Field, who had known Poulter in London; and he, as ill-fortune
+would have it, chanced one day to walk down that Dublin Street where
+Poulter's inn was situated. By the accursed malevolence of fate,
+Poulter himself happened at that moment to be standing at the door of
+his house. Field immediately recognised him and stopped to enquire
+what his old confederate was doing. He drank there and wished him good
+day, but soon after brought all that escaped gang of scoundrels to the
+spot; and there, much to Poulter's dismay, they established themselves,
+day by day, making his inn, once so respectable and well-conducted, a
+byword for riotous drinking, and the haunt of characters that it would
+be flattery to describe as merely "suspicious." Field and others were
+actually taken into custody there. Decent trade deserted the inn, and,
+despairing of being rid of the scoundrels, whom he dared not forbid the
+house, lest they should turn upon and denounce him, he absconded across
+Ireland to Cork, where he at first contemplated taking another inn.
+He at last, however, settled upon Waterford, and took an inn there,
+remaining for six months, when he was induced to return to Dublin by
+his former brewer, who, sorry to have lost a good customer by Poulter's
+enforced flight, wanted him back.
+
+He eventually settled two miles outside Dublin, at an inn called the
+"Shades of Clontarf," looking upon the sea; and became part innkeeper,
+part fisherman, and led a very happy, honest, and contented life,
+making, moreover, an average profit of £3 a week.
+
+But here he was found towards the close of 1751 by Tobin, who foisted
+himself and a dissolute woman companion upon the unfortunate man.
+Poulter generously received them, but earnestly implored Tobin not
+to bring his evil associates into the neighbourhood. He wanted, he
+declared, to live an honest life, and to be done with the past. Tobin
+assured him he would not appear in the neighbourhood again; but in a
+few days he was back at Clontarf, with a select company of rascals, and
+from that time the unhappy Poulter knew no peace. His determination
+to lead a respectable life they took as a direct challenge to, and
+slur upon, themselves. There is nothing that so greatly enrages the
+habitual criminal as the reclamation of one of his own kind, and it is
+doubtless the influence of hardened evil-doers that prevents many a
+criminal, really disgusted with crime, from reforming. These wretches
+set themselves deliberately to ruin Poulter. They practically lived
+at his house, and, as had been done before, they soon changed the
+character of it from a decent alehouse to a thieves' boozing-ken, to
+which the police-officers came at once when they wanted to find some
+bad character, or to trace stolen property. Poulter was a mere cipher
+under his own roof.
+
+But they were not content with wrecking his trade: they must needs
+blast that good character he had been so patiently acquiring. They did
+it by making him out a smuggler. Six pounds of tea and twelve yards of
+calico and muslin placed secretly in his boat, and information then
+lodged with the Revenue officers, was sufficient. Poulter's boat was
+seized and condemned, and Poulter himself, convinced that he would not
+be able to establish his innocence, fled from the scene and hurried
+aboard a vessel bound for Bristol, where he landed penniless. There, in
+Bristol streets, he met two early criminal acquaintances, Dick Branning
+and John Roberts, and as there seemed to be no likelihood of being
+allowed to live within the law, he agreed to take part with them and a
+number of confederates, whose headquarters were at Bath, in a campaign
+of highway and other robberies.
+
+Their operations were of the most roving description. By way of
+Trowbridge, they made for Yorkshire, raiding the country as they went
+with all manner of rogueries. Nothing came amiss. At Halifax they
+netted twenty-five guineas from a clergyman by an eighteenth-century
+ancestor of the thimble-rigging fraud, called "pricking in the
+belt." At last they found themselves at Chester: place of evil omen
+for Poulter. There, at the house of a confederate, they heard on
+the evening of their arrival of a train of pack-horses laden with
+Manchester goods, due to pass that night. Watch had been kept upon
+them, said the confederate, and a man would point out to our friends
+which, among all the animals of the pack-horse train, was best worth
+robbing of his load. It would be best, he said, to do the work on the
+country road, and to take the horse into a field.
+
+As it happened, they pitched upon the wrong horse, and got only a
+load of calamancoes, fabrics woven of wool with an admixture of silk,
+popular in those times; but the pack contained over a thousand yards,
+and they cut it off after some difficulty in the dark, and got away
+safely with it; although greatly alarmed by the horse's loud neighing
+when he found himself separated from his companions.
+
+The robbers went off at once out of the neighbourhood, and that same
+night reached a village near Whitchurch, eighteen or twenty miles
+distant. There they obliterated all distinguishing marks on the goods,
+and divided them.
+
+At Grantham, which Poulter and Tobin next favoured with a visit, they
+relieved a credulous farmer of fifteen guineas by the "pricking in the
+belt" device. At Nottingham several of the accomplices met, but they
+had bad luck, and Poulter went on the sneak and stole a silver tankard,
+without a lid, from the "Blackamoor's Head" inn: and that was all the
+scurvy town of Nottingham yielded them. They then made for Yorkshire,
+where they remained for a considerable period, and then left, only
+because their widespread thefts of all kinds made a continued stay
+dangerous. York, Durham, and the north, including Newcastle, comprised
+a tour then undertaken.
+
+They then made their way to Bath, the general rendezvous of the
+gang, and thence in what Poulter calls "three sets," or gangs, moved
+independently and by easy stages into Devonshire: attending the
+cattle-fair at Sampford Peverell, with marked success to themselves,
+and grievous loss to the farmers and graziers there assembled. Thence
+they moved on to Torrington and Exeter, and so back again to Bath,
+where twelve of them met at Roberts's house.
+
+Poulter and two confederates named Elgar and Allen then went into the
+north of England again, attending fairs, horse-races and cock-fighting
+matches on the sharping lay; winning about £30 or £40 at cards.
+Returning to Bath, and being looked upon with suspicion, living as
+they were with a number of riotous men in Roberts's house, they hit
+upon the dodge of passing for smugglers, and thus at once explaining
+their association and enlisting public sympathy. Every one, except the
+Revenue officers, was in those times well-affected towards smugglers.
+
+They were not only at considerable pains, but at great expense also, to
+create this impression. "We used," says Poulter, in his confessions,
+"to give seven shillings a pound for tea, and sell it again for four
+shillings and sixpence, on purpose to make people believe we were
+smugglers."
+
+While they were thus staying at Bath, they would go now and then to a
+fair, and try "the nob," or "pricking in the belt." If that did not
+succeed, they would buy a horse or two, give IOU's for the money and
+false addresses, and then sell the horses again. "This," says Poulter,
+"is called 'masoning.'"
+
+This was followed by a raid into Dorset. A visit of the gang to
+Blandford races was highly successful. They attended numerously, and
+while some robbed the booths, others devoted their attention to the
+sportsmen, and yet others lightened the pockets of the crowds engrossed
+in watching the cock-fighting. They wound up a glorious day by dining
+in style at the "Rose and Crown," and there chanced upon the best luck
+of all those gorgeous hours: finding a portmanteau from which they took
+eighteen guineas, four broad pieces, and diamonds, jewels, and clothes
+to a great amount. Many of these articles were taken to London by
+Poulter, and sold there to Jews in Duke's Place, Aldgate, on behalf of
+self and partners. The proceeds were duly divided at Roberts's house at
+Bath.
+
+The next activities of these busy rogues were at Corsham, near Bath.
+They then appeared at Farringdon in Berkshire, and there robbed the
+Coventry carrier. Newbury and Bristol then suffered from them. At last,
+they grew so notorious in the West of England that they judged it only
+prudent to alter their methods for a time, and to devote themselves
+exclusively to horse-stealing: an art they had not hitherto practised
+with any frequency.
+
+An amusing incident was that in which Poulter robbed a man of £20. The
+foolish fellow, an utter stranger, had been rash enough to display his
+money to Roberts one night in a country alehouse. It had just been paid
+to him, he said. "And it will presently be taken from you," Roberts
+might truly have retorted. But he merely in a sly manner drew Poulter's
+attention, who later followed the man and presenting a metal tinder-box
+to his head, roared out, "Your money or your life." The tinder-box in
+the darkness looked so like a pistol that the money was meekly handed
+over.
+
+Poulter then went off to Trowbridge, in company with a new recruit,
+Burke by name, an Irishman, who had been confidential ostler to
+Roberts, and was now advanced to full membership of this body of
+raiders. Meeting a post-chaise near Clarken Down, Burke proposed to
+attack it, but Poulter would agree only on condition that no violence
+were used. Poulter then led the attack, but in the darkness put his
+hand with accidental force through the window, and cut it severely.
+In doing so, his pistol went off, and Burke thinking it was the
+occupant of the chaise who had fired, replied with his own firearms.
+Fortunately, no one was hit.
+
+The chaise was occupied by Dr. Hancock and his little girl. Poulter
+took up the child and kissed her, and then, setting her down, robbed
+the Doctor of one guinea and a half in gold, six shillings, a gold
+watch, and some clothes: a booty not worth all the trouble, and
+certainly not by a long way worth the further trouble the affair was
+presently to bring.
+
+After seeing the post-chaise disappear in the darkness, Poulter and his
+companion made their way to a neighbouring inn, and coolly displayed
+their takings to the landlord and his wife, who appear to have been,
+if not actual confederates, at least better disposed to self-revealed
+robbers than honest innkeepers should be. The landlady gave the
+highwaymen a bag for the clothes, and the landlord, when they lamented
+the fact of all their powder and ball being fired off, obligingly
+removed the charge from his loaded fowling-piece, and melted down two
+pewter spoons for casting into bullets. The landlady, when Poulter and
+Burke asked her if these preparations for arming did not alarm her,
+said: "No, they are not the first pistols I have seen loaded by night
+in this kitchen." Evidently an inn that the solitary and unarmed
+traveller with money about him should avoid.
+
+She added thoughtfully that, after this robbery, they had better travel
+as far away as they could, that night from the spot. She would send
+them any news.
+
+They then left, and, taking a horse they chanced to see in an adjacent
+meadow, proceeded to Exeter, where they sold the stolen articles to a
+receiver.
+
+It was not more than three weeks later when Poulter was arrested on
+suspicion of being concerned in the robbery of Dr. Hancock. He was
+thrown into Ilchester gaol, brought to trial, and condemned to death.
+He made a full confession and disclosed the names of no fewer than
+thirty-one of his associates, their places of meeting, and their
+methods. He was not only anxious to save his life by thus turning
+evidence against the gang, but he was genuinely wearied of the manner
+of life into which he had been hounded.
+
+Many members of the gang, he said, lived to all appearances
+respectably. Their general meeting-place was Bath. He added that it was
+on every account desirable that the messenger to the police at Bath,
+entrusted with these disclosures, should keep all these things secret,
+except to the Mayor; but some one had gossiped, for within one hour
+of his arrival those revelations were the talk of the town, and the
+names of those implicated in them were freely mentioned. The next day
+they were even printed, in accounts of the disclosures hastily struck
+off and sold in the streets. The very natural result was that most of
+the persons named escaped before justice could lay hands upon them. A
+list of nineteen not taken, and twelve in various gaols all over the
+country, is printed in the _Discoveries_.
+
+Dr. Hancock's property was found and returned to him. His conduct
+was one of the most astonishing features in this amazing case, and
+reflected considerable discredit upon him; for although he visited
+Poulter in Ilchester gaol, before the trial, and assured the prisoner
+that although he was obliged to be a prosecutor, he would bear lightly
+upon the facts, and would in the event of a conviction use his best
+efforts to obtain the Royal pardon, he treacherously used every effort
+to secure his being hanged. There seems to have been no motive for this
+double-dealing, except his own natural duplicity. His treachery was
+thorough, for he even used his influence with the judge to obtain a
+shortening of the period between sentence and execution.
+
+The trial and the revelations made by Poulter excited keen and
+widespread public interest, and the lengthy pamphlet account of
+them, entitled "The Discoveries of John Poulter, otherwise Baxter,
+apprehended for robbing Dr. Hancock on Clarken Down, near Bath," had a
+large and long-continued sale. A copy of the fourteenth edition, issued
+in 1769, fourteen years later, is in the British Museum library.
+
+He was respited for six weeks, in consideration of the further
+disclosures he was to make, or of any evidence he might be required
+to give, and in this time, so moving was his tale, and so useful was
+the information he had given, that the corporations of Bath, Bristol,
+Exeter, and Taunton, together with numerous private gentlemen of
+considerable influence, petitioned that he might be reprieved. It is
+probable that these efforts would have been successful; but Poulter was
+an unlucky man, and at this particular crisis in his affairs happened
+in some way to rouse the ill-will of the gaoler, who was never tired,
+in all those days of suspense, of assuring him that he would certainly
+be hanged, and serve him right!
+
+It is not surprising that, under these circumstances, the unhappy
+Poulter endeavoured to escape. With, the aid of a fellow-prisoner,
+committed to gaol for debt, he forced an iron bar out of a window, and
+the two, squeezing through the opening, broke prison at nightfall of
+Sunday, February 17th, 1755. They intended to make for Wales. All that
+night they walked along the country roads, Poulter with irons on his
+legs as far as Glastonbury, where he succeeded in getting them removed.
+When day came, they hid in haystacks, resuming their flight when
+darkness was come again. They next found themselves at Wookey, near
+Wells, much to their dismay, having intended to bear more towards the
+north-west. Poulter was by this time in a terribly exhausted condition,
+and his legs and ankles were so sore and swollen from the effects of
+being chafed with the irons he had walked with for ten miles, that it
+was absolutely necessary he should rest. He did so at an alehouse until
+two o'clock in the afternoon, and was about to leave when a mason at
+work about the place entered, and recognised him. Calling his workmen
+to help, he secured Poulter, who was then taken back to Ilchester.
+Nine days of his respite were left, but a strong and murderous animus
+was displayed against this most unfortunate of men, and it was decided
+to hang him out of hand. The execution could not, however, take place
+earlier without a warrant from London, and the trouble and expense of
+sending an express messenger to the local Member of Parliament, then
+in town, demanding his instant execution, were incurred, in order to
+cut shorter his already numbered days. The messenger must have been
+phenomenally speedy, for he is said to have returned with the warrant
+within twenty-four hours; and Poulter was at once taken out of his cell
+and hanged, February 25th, 1755.
+
+
+
+
+PAUL LEWIS
+
+
+Paul Lewis, who was, like Nicholas Horner, the son of a clergyman,
+was born at Hurst-monceaux, in Sussex, and was originally put to the
+profession of arms, and became an officer of artillery. The usual
+career of gambling and debauchery, so productive of highwaymen, led
+him first into difficulties with his creditors, and then caused him to
+desert from the army. He left one service only to enter another, for
+he joined the navy, and rose from the rank of midshipman to that of
+lieutenant.
+
+[Illustration: PAUL LEWIS.]
+
+None doubted his courage, nor, on the other hand, was there any
+mistaking his depravity. He robbed his brother officers of the small
+sum of three guineas, and made off with that meagre amount to begin the
+life of the road in the neighbourhood of Newington Butts. He levied
+contributions from a gentleman travelling in a chaise on this spot,
+but this, his initial effort, resulted in his capture. The plea of an
+_alibi_ set up for him, however, secured his acquittal. Later he was
+seized at night by a police-officer while in the act of robbing a Mr.
+Brown, whose horse he had frightened by discharging a pistol. Mr.
+Brown was flung violently to the ground, and Lewis was in the act of
+going over his pockets when Pope, the police-officer, who had been on
+the look-out for him, secured him, after a struggle.
+
+Lewis was duly sentenced to death at the ensuing Sessions.
+
+The Newgate Calendar, recounting all these things, says: "Such was the
+baseness and unfeeling profligacy of this wretch that when his almost
+heart-broken father visited him for the last time in Newgate, and put
+twelve guineas into his hand to repay his expenses, he slipped one of
+the pieces of gold into the cuff of his sleeve by a dexterous sleight,
+and then, opening his hand, showed the venerable and reverend old man
+that there were but eleven; upon which his father took another from his
+pocket, and gave it him to make the number intended. Having then taken
+a last farewell of his parents, Lewis turned to his fellow-prisoners,
+and exultingly exclaimed: "I have flung the old fellow out of another
+guinea!"
+
+Lewis said he would die like a man of honour; no hangman should put a
+halter round his neck. He would rather take his own life. But this he
+had not, after all, sufficient courage to do. A knife he had secreted
+in his pillow fell out one day, either by accident or design, and was
+taken away from him. He was executed at Tyburn on May 4th, 1763, aged
+twenty-three.
+
+
+
+
+THE WESTONS
+
+
+The careers of George and Joseph Weston read like the imaginings of a
+romantic novelist, and, indeed, Thackeray adopted some of the stirring
+incidents of their lives in his unfinished novel, _Denis Duval_.
+
+George Weston was born in 1753, and his brother Joseph in 1759; sons
+of George Weston, a farmer, of Stoke, in Staffordshire. Early in 1772,
+George was sent to London, where a place in a merchant's office had
+been secured for him, and there he was fortunate enough to be promoted
+to the first position, over the heads of all the others, upon the death
+of the chief clerk, eighteen months later. He was then in receipt of
+£200 a year, and on that amount contrived to take part pretty freely
+in the gaieties and dissipations of Vauxhall and similar resorts.
+At this period he introduced his brother Joseph to town, and also
+began a series of peculations in the office, in order to support the
+extravagances into which a passion for gambling and "seeing life" had
+led him. When he could no longer conceal his defalcations, he fled to
+Holland, and Joseph, suspected of complicity, was obliged to leave
+London.
+
+Within three months George had returned to England in disguise. He made
+his way to Durham and there entered the service of a devout elderly
+lady of the Methodist persuasion. Pretending to have adopted the
+religious convictions of George Whitefield's followers, he affected the
+religious life, with the object of marrying the lady and securing her
+ample fortune. But he was recognised on the very eve of the wedding,
+and exposed. He then fled southward, with as much of the old lady's
+money and valuables as he could manage to secure at the moment.
+
+But he speedily lost nearly all his plunder in backing outsiders at
+York and Doncaster races, and entered Nottingham with only one guinea.
+There he fell in with a company of strolling players, managed by one
+James Whiteley, who offered him the post of leading gentleman. He
+accepted it, and under the name of Wilford, remained with them a little
+while.
+
+It was not a distinguished troupe, which perhaps accounts for his
+having been so promptly given a leading part in it. It consisted of
+two runagate apprentices, a drunken farrier, a stage-struck milliner,
+two ladies whose characters it were well not to study too closely, the
+manager's wife, a journeyman cobbler, a little girl seven years of age,
+and a stage-keeper, who alternated his stage-keeping with acting and
+barbering.
+
+The theatre was a decrepit and almost roofless barn, and the stage
+consisted of loose boards propped up on empty barrels; while the
+scenery and the curtains were chiefly dilapidated blankets.
+Barn-storming in such pitiful circumstances did not suit our
+high-minded hero, who soon made his way to Manchester, where he became
+a schoolmaster, and a leading member of a local club, where he read
+the papers and conducted himself with such a show of authority that
+the parson, the lawyer, and the apothecary, who had before his coming
+disputed for pre-eminence over their fellow-members, yielded before his
+masterful ways. He shortly became High Constable, and soon began to
+abuse the position by blackmailing innkeepers and forging small drafts
+upon them. The more timid and easy-going submitted for a while to
+this, but others resented it in the very practical way of taking steps
+to secure his arrest. George then obeyed the instinct of caution and
+disappeared.
+
+About the year 1774 the brothers met at a fair in Warwickshire, where
+Joseph had been playing the game of "hiding the horse," and had hidden
+three so effectively from their owners that he was presently able
+to sell them, unsuspected, for over £70. They then had thoughts of
+purchasing a farm, and travelled to King's Lynn, where, in the name of
+Stone, they lodged some time with a farmer. Pretending to be riders
+(_i.e._ travellers) to a London distiller, they wormed themselves into
+the confidence of the farmer and appointed him local agent for the
+non-existent firm, showing him tricks by which he would be able to
+water down the spirits he was to receive, and so cheat the retailers.
+On the strength of these confidences, they borrowed over a hundred
+pounds, and then decamped, leaving only their "sample bottles" of
+brandies and rums behind.
+
+They thought it wise to travel far, and so made their way into
+Scotland, and in the name of Gilbert took a small farm, where they
+remained for only a few months, leaving secretly and at night with all
+the movables, and with two geldings belonging to a neighbour.
+
+Cumberland had next the honour of affording them shelter. In October
+1776 they were apprehended on a charge of forgery at Bishop's Castle,
+Shropshire, and must have received an altogether inadequate sentence,
+or perhaps escaped, for they are next found in Ireland, in the
+following summer, at Baltinglass, county Wicklow. They were shortly
+afterwards at Dublin, frequenting the clubs under the name of Jones.
+There they met a noted plunger of that time, one "Buck" English, and
+fooled him in the highest degree; cheating at hazard, and obtaining
+money from him in exchange for forged bills and drafts. At length,
+after a fierce quarrel with English, who fought with George in the
+Dublin streets and wounded him in the right hand, the Westons left for
+Holyhead. Landing there with plenty of ready money, they toured Wales
+at leisure; Joseph as "Mr. Watson," and George as his valet.
+
+In May 1778 they were at Tenby. On leaving the inn, where they had
+stayed and run up a bill of £30, they paid the landlord with a forged
+cheque and departed grandly with the change, in a post-chaise and
+four. They then visited Brecon and Bideford; George now posing as
+master, in the name of Clark, and Joseph acting as Smith, his valet.
+Next they are found at Sutton Coldfield, then on the Sussex and Kentish
+coasts, where they purchased a vessel and became known to the fishermen
+of Folkestone, Deal, and Dover as the "Gentlemen Smugglers," trading
+between those parts and Dunkirk. They did very well, too, until an
+interfering Revenue cutter chased them and forced them to run their
+craft ashore.
+
+After this exciting episode, they made their way to London, and led a
+fashionable life, strongly flavoured with gambling and forgery. George
+took a house in Queen Anne Street, and the two "commenced gentlemen,"
+as we are told; George passing for a wealthy squire of sporting tastes.
+Hounds and whippers-in were almost daily at the door in the morning,
+and at night the rooms were filled with callow young men about town,
+attracted by the brilliant card-parties given—at which, it is scarcely
+necessary to add, they were thoroughly rooked.
+
+The brothers lived here in great style, on the proceeds of forgery and
+cheating at cards. They induced a lady next door to lend a sideboard
+full of valuable silver plate, on the pretence that their own had not
+arrived from the country, and sold it; and, advertising largely that
+they were prepared to purchase plate, jewellery, and annuities, did, in
+fact, make several such purchases, paying for them in worthless bills.
+A good deal of the property thus obtained was stored at a residence
+they had hired at Beckenham, in the name of Green.
+
+At length warrants were issued against them, and they fled to Scotland.
+At Edinburgh they posed as merchants trading with Holland, and acted
+the part with such complete success that they secured a considerable
+amount of credit. After forging and cashing numerous acceptances, they
+left for Liverpool, where, in the guise of "linen merchants," they
+repeated their Edinburgh frauds; and then, transferring themselves
+to Bristol, they became "African merchants." There they did a little
+privateering with one Dawson, but that, being legalised piracy, did not
+appeal to these instinctive criminals, to whom crime was a sport, as
+well as a livelihood.
+
+London called them irresistibly, and they responded.
+
+Riding up to town from Bristol to Bath, and then along the Bath Road,
+they overtook the postboy in the early hours of January 29th, 1781,
+driving the mail-cart with the Bristol mails, between Slough and
+Cranford Bridge, and bidding him "good night," passed him. Arriving at
+the "Berkeley Arms," Cranford Bridge, they halted for refreshment, and
+then turned back, with the object of robbing the mail.
+
+George took a piece of black crape from his pocket and covered his face
+with it; and then they awaited the postboy.
+
+Halting him, George ordered him to alight, and when he meekly did so,
+seized and bound him, and then flung him into a field. The two then
+drove and rode off to Windmill Lane, Sion Corner, and thence on to the
+Uxbridge road, through Ealing, and up Hanger Hill to Causeway Lane.
+There, in "Farmer Lott's meadow," they rifled the contents of the cart
+and took the bags bodily away.
+
+Having disposed the mails carefully about their persons, they hurried
+off on horseback for London, to a house in Orange Street, near
+Piccadilly, where they were well known. The bags proved to contain
+between ten and fifteen thousand pounds, in notes and bills.
+
+A clever plan for immediately putting a great part of the notes in
+circulation was at once agreed upon; and in the space of an hour or
+two, George left the house fully clothed in a midshipman's uniform,
+with Joseph following him dressed like a servant. They went to the
+"White Bear," in Piccadilly, and, hiring a post-chaise, set out upon
+what was nothing less than a hurried tour of the length and breadth of
+England; tendering notes at every stage, and taking gold in exchange.
+By way of Edgeware, they went to Watford, Northampton, Nottingham,
+Mansfield, Chesterfield, Sheffield, York, Durham, Newcastle, and
+Carlisle. Thence they returned, on horseback, by way of Penrith,
+Appleby, Doncaster, Bawtry, and Retford, to Tuxford, where they
+arrived February 1st. Putting up for a much-needed rest there, with an
+innkeeper well known to them, they were informed that the Bow Street
+runners had only that day passed through, in search of them, and had
+gone towards Lincoln.
+
+Early in the morning, the Westons resumed their express journey, making
+for Newark, where they were favoured by some exclusive information from
+an innkeeper friend, which enabled them narrowly to escape the runners,
+who had doubled back from Lincoln.
+
+Thence, post-haste, they went to Grantham, Stamford, and Huntingdon, to
+Royston, halting two hours on the way at the lonely old inn known as
+"Kisby's Hut."
+
+At Ware they took a post-chaise and four, and hurried the remaining
+twenty miles to London; arriving at the "Red Lion," Bishopsgate, at
+eleven o'clock on the night of February 2nd. The officers of the law
+were not remiss in the chase, and were at the "Red Lion" only one hour
+afterwards.
+
+Once in London, the brothers separated; Joseph taking another
+post-chaise, and George a hackney-coach. They were traced to London
+Bridge, but there all track of them vanished.
+
+Meanwhile, the Post Office had issued a long and detailed notice of
+the robbery, and had offered a reward of two hundred pounds for the
+apprehension of the guilty person, or persons:
+
+[Illustration: [++] Post Office logo.]
+
+                                 "General Post Office, Jan. 29th, 1781.
+
+     "The Postboy bringing the Bristol Mail this morning from
+     Maidenhead was stop't between two and three o'clock by a single
+     Highwayman with a crape over his face between the 11th and 12th
+     milestones, near to Cranford Bridge, who presented a pistol to
+     him, and after making him alight, drove away the Horse and Cart,
+     which were found about 7 o'clock this morning in a meadow field
+     near Farmer Lott's at Twyford, when it appears that the greatest
+     part of the letters were taken out of the Bath and Bristol Bags,
+     and that the following bags were entirely taken away:—
+
+     Pewsy.
+     Ramsbury.
+     Bradford.
+     Henley.
+     Cirencester.
+     Gloucester.
+     Ross.
+     Presteign.
+     Fairford.
+     Aberystwith.
+     Carmarthen.
+     Pembroke.
+     Calne.
+     Trowbridge.
+     Wallingford.
+     Reading.
+     Stroud.
+     Ledbury.
+     Hereford.
+     Northleach.
+     Lechlade.
+     Lampeter.
+     Tenby.
+     Abergavenny.
+     Newbury.
+     Melksham.
+     Maidenhead.
+     Wantage.
+     Wotton-under-Edge.
+     Tewkesbury.
+     Leominster.
+     Cheltenham.
+     Hay.
+     Cardigan.
+     Haverfordwest.
+
+     "The person who committed this robbery is supposed to have had an
+     accomplice, as two persons passed the Postboy on Cranford Bridge
+     on Horseback prior to the Robbery, one of whom he thinks was the
+     robber; but it being so extremely dark, he is not able to give
+     any description of their persons.
+
+     "Whoever shall apprehend and convict, or cause to be apprehended
+     and convicted, the person who committed this Robbery will be
+     entitled to a reward of TWO HUNDRED POUNDS, over and above the
+     Reward given by Act of Parliament for apprehending Highwaymen;
+     or if any person, whether an Accomplice in the Robbery or
+     knoweth thereof, shall make Discovery whereby the Person who
+     committed the same may be apprehended and brought to Justice,
+     such discoverer will upon conviction of the party be entitled to
+     the Same Reward of TWO HUNDRED POUNDS and will also receive His
+     Majesty's most gracious Pardon.
+
+                          "By Command of the Postmaster-General,
+
+                                                     "ANTH. TODD, Sec."
+
+It was soon ascertained that the Westons were the robbers, and careful
+descriptions of them were at once circulated:
+
+     "George Weston is about twenty-nine years of age, five feet seven
+     inches high, square-set, round-faced, fresh-coloured, pitted
+     with small-pox, has a rather thick nose, his upper lip rather
+     thick, his hair of lightest brown colour, which is sometimes
+     tied behind, and at other times loose and curled; has much the
+     appearance of a country dealer, or farmer. One of his thumb-nails
+     appears, from an accident, of the shape of a parrot's bill, and
+     he is supposed to have a scar on his right hand, from a stroke
+     with a cutlass."
+
+The younger brother was just as closely described:
+
+     "Joseph Weston is about twenty-three years of age, five feet
+     nine inches high, slender made, of a fair and smooth complexion,
+     genteel person, has grey eyes and large nose with a scar upon it;
+     his hair is of a light brown colour, sometimes tied behind, at
+     other times loose and curled; his voice is strong and he speaks
+     a little through his nose; has a remarkable small hand and long
+     fingers."
+
+While these descriptions were staring from every blank wall, George
+and Joseph were hiding, in disguise, in the Borough. They had a large
+amount of money, realised by their tremendous exertions over that
+long journey, and they added judiciously to their store by carrying on
+their business of lending money on plate and jewellery, and paying for
+the articles in the remaining notes stolen from the Bristol mail. The
+famous "Perdita" Robinson was one of those victimised in this way; and,
+as a contemporary account says, "lost her diamond shoebuckles which a
+certain Heir Apparent presented her with."
+
+It was in October 1781, when paying for some lottery tickets in
+Holborn, with stolen notes, that George and Joseph became acquainted
+with two pretty girls, cousins, employed as milliners near Red Lion
+Square. George gallantly bought some shares for them, and in the
+evening took them to Vauxhall Gardens. The delighted girls were told
+the two gentlemen were Nabobs just returned from India; and, dazzled
+with the wealth they flung about, readily consented to go and live with
+them. They were soon, accordingly, all four in residence in a fine
+house near Brompton; George adopting the name of "Samuel Watson," and
+Joseph passing as "William Johnson."
+
+They left Brompton for a while and migrated to Winchelsea, where they
+took the "Friars," a fine house with beautifully wooded grounds. The
+foremost furnishers in London, Messrs. Elliot & Co., of 97, New Bond
+Street, were given orders for furniture, cutlery, and a generous supply
+of plate, and from other firms they procured horses and carriages,
+finally establishing themselves at the mansion in December 1781.
+While in residence there the ladies conducted themselves with such
+propriety, and the gentlemen appeared so distinguished and so wealthy,
+that they soon moved in the best society of the neighbourhood. It did
+not, apparently, take long in those times, or in the neighbourhood
+of Winchelsea, for strangers to obtain a footing in local society,
+for all this short-lived social splendour began in December, and
+ended in the middle of the following April. The last, sealing touch
+of respectability and recognition was when George was elected
+churchwarden of the parish church in Easter 1782. From that pinnacle
+of parochial ambition, however, he and his were presently cast down,
+for Messrs. Elliot & Co., growing anxious about their unpaid bills
+for goods delivered, sent two sheriff's officers down to Winchelsea
+to interview the brothers. The officers met them at Rye on horseback,
+and endeavoured to arrest Joseph. When he refused to surrender, they
+tried to dismount him, but the two brothers overawed them by presenting
+pistols, and escaped; making their way back to Winchelsea, and thence
+travelling at express speed to London, in their own handsome chariot.
+Their identity with the Westons and the robbers of the mail was
+revealed in that encounter with the sheriff's officers, one of whom
+had observed George's peculiarly distorted thumb-nail. Information was
+thereupon given, and a redoubled search begun.
+
+They went at once to their old hiding-place in the Borough, and might
+again have escaped detection had they been sufficiently careful. But,
+gambling for high stakes at the "Dun Horse," they quarrelled violently,
+and in the hearing of the ostler used some remarks that led him to
+suspect them. He communicated his suspicions to the police at Bow
+Street, and although they appear to have become uneasy and to have
+then left the Borough, they were traced on April 17th to Clements'
+Hotel, in Wardour Street. Mr. Clark, the officer sent to arrest them,
+met Mrs. Clements at the entrance and asked if two gentlemen of the
+description he gave were in the house. She said she would see, and went
+and warned them. Down they came, and, with pistols cocked and presented
+at him, walked past as he was standing in the passage, and, without
+a word, into the street. Once out of the house, they ran swiftly up
+Wardour Street, into Oxford Street, and then doubled into Dean Street
+and into Richmond Buildings. Unfortunately for them, this proved to
+be a blind alley, and an unpremeditated trap. They hurried out again,
+but already the mob was coming down the street after them, and they
+had only reached Broad Street when they were overtaken. Both fired
+recklessly upon the crowd; no one but a butcher-boy being hit, and he
+only slightly grazed under the left ear.
+
+George was then knocked down by a carpenter, with a piece of wood. The
+carpenter, we learn, "afterwards jumping upon him, kept him down till
+his pistols were taken away."
+
+Meanwhile Joseph had been vanquished in an equally unsportsmanlike way
+by a carrier, "who had a large stick, with which he beat him about the
+legs."
+
+George was then pitched neck and crop, and still struggling, into a
+hackney coach; but Joseph, being more tractable, was permitted to walk
+to Bow Street, where, on being searched, he was found to have £240 in
+his pockets, all in bank-notes that had been stolen from the mail.
+
+On the day of their arrest they gave a bill of sale to one Lucius
+Hughes, who disposed of plate to the amount of £2,500, at the price of
+old silver; and jewels to the value of £4,000 were said to have been
+sold to a Jew in St. Mary Axe.
+
+After a preliminary examination, the brothers were committed to
+separate prisons: Joseph to Tothill Fields Bridewell, and George to the
+New Prison. They behaved with great insolence to the Bench, and seemed
+to build much upon the postboy having died since the robbery. In court
+they actually told Clark, who had arrested them, he was fortunate in
+still having his brains in his skull that morning. Their coachman and
+footman, attending upon them in the court, in livery, made an imposing
+show. They were then remanded, and their wenches were in the meanwhile
+arrested at Brompton, and appeared in court on the next hearing. No
+evidence being forthcoming against them, they were discharged; but the
+Westons were duly committed for trial, which began on May 15th, 1782.
+
+They made a brave appearance in the dock, George being dressed quietly
+but fashionably, in black, with his hair finely curled in the latest
+style; while Joseph, whose taste was not so subdued, was radiant in a
+scarlet coat with gold buttons, and hair "queued à l'Artois."
+
+The trial was unexpectedly postponed, on the application of counsel
+for the prosecution, owing to the death of Samuel Walker, and the
+difficulty of collecting sufficient evidence; and so they were taken
+back to Newgate. There they led a life typical of prison-life all
+over England in those days. They entertained their fellow-prisoners,
+gambled, and drank, and received their friends. They had plenty of
+money, and as Newgate was then no ill place for those whose pockets
+were well furnished, they were provided with every luxury that money
+could buy. Unfortunately, however, they were heavily ironed: the one
+circumstance that seared the souls of those gallant fellows. But, in
+spite of these encumbering circumstances, they dreamt of liberty, and a
+well-planned attempt to escape was made on July 2nd, the day before the
+opening of the new sessions.
+
+Their faithful young women took breakfast with them that morning, and
+then left, whereupon one of the brothers called Wright, the warder on
+duty at the time, and asked him to get a bottle of port and make a bowl
+of negus for some expected company. He then handed him a guinea.
+
+Wright had no sooner gone about this business than they slipped off
+their fetters, which they had secretly and with much labour, filed
+through. Then they calmly awaited the return of Wright, with the bowl.
+It was too large to go through the hatch of their locked and bolted
+door, as they had foreseen, and Wright was persuaded to unlock and open
+the door and bring it in. When he had done so, the jovial highwaymen
+hospitably invited him to take the first drink, and while he was
+engaged in thus pleasing himself and themselves at the same time, they
+made suddenly at him and pushed him violently over; then slamming the
+door and fastening it securely upon him.
+
+[Illustration: THE WESTONS ESCAPING FROM NEWGATE.]
+
+An old woman who sold porter and such-like plebeian drinks to the
+meaner prisoners, was at the head of the stone stairs up which they
+then rushed, and stood still with amazement at sight of them, whereupon
+they overset her and her cans, and then, by a short passage-way, came
+to the outer door. They were each armed with a pistol, which their
+thoughtful girls had smuggled into their cell. Escaping with them were
+also one Lepierre, a suspected spy, and a certain Francis Storey.
+
+The warder whose post was at this doorway was at that moment washing
+down the steps. At once the fugitives flung themselves upon him, and
+downed him as he shouted "Stop thief!" The cry was heard, and by the
+time the Westons had emerged upon the street, they were followed by
+a "runner," John Owens by name. The brothers very cleverly separated;
+Owens following George, who ran into Newgate Street, doubled into
+Warwick Lane, and made for Newgate Market. Here, however, he was felled
+by the fist of a market-porter, but struggled again to his feet, and
+desperately resisted until Owens and a crowd of excited spectators
+arrived and dragged him back to Newgate.
+
+Joseph was not more fortunate, and had only reached Cock Lane when his
+flight also was stopped by a market-porter, one John Davis, who flung
+down a sack of peas in his path. This Joseph easily avoided, but Davis
+then laid hold of him by the collar.
+
+"Let go!" said the highwayman, "or I will shoot you."
+
+The porter did not let go, and Joseph fired and hit him in the neck.
+But Davis held on until the crowd closed in, and Joseph also was soon
+in his cell again.
+
+So, too, was Lepierre, who was taken in Newgate Street. Storey was more
+successful, and escaped altogether, although he had fetters on his
+legs. The crowd, seeing him calmly walking along, thought he was being
+re-conducted to gaol, and so did not interfere with him.
+
+The brothers were brought to trial on July 6th, 1782, charged with
+robbing the Bristol mail near Cranford Bridge, on January 29th, 1781.
+Over a hundred witnesses appeared for the prosecution, among them,
+people who had been given stolen notes by them. But the postboy,
+Samuel Walker, having died, the prosecution failed.
+
+They were then charged with forgery in respect of the notes and bills
+stolen: George being convicted and sentenced to death. Joseph was
+acquitted, but was then charged in the third instance with maliciously
+wounding John Davis, for which he was found guilty and condemned. They
+were executed at Tyburn on September 3rd, 1782.
+
+Clothed quietly but fashionably in black, they went to the place
+of execution in two carts, in company with several other condemned
+criminals, but held themselves haughtily apart, as "gentlemen" should.
+They refused the ministrations of the Ordinary, declaring themselves
+to be Roman Catholics; and died firmly, and without any appearance of
+contrition.
+
+
+
+
+JACK RANN: "SIXTEEN-STRING JACK"
+
+
+John Rann, better known as "Sixteen-string Jack," was born in the
+neighbourhood of Bath, midway in the eighteenth century. As a boy he
+earned a meagre but honest living by peddling articles of everyday
+household consumption in the villages round about. He and his
+donkey were well remembered in after years, and aroused the envious
+anticipations of other small boys who, reckless of the appointed end
+of highwaymen, looked forward to some happy day when they too might
+perhaps blossom out from such obscure beginnings into such fame as his.
+He was but twelve years of age when his handsome face attracted the
+attention of a lady prominent in the neighbourhood. She offered him
+a situation, and he gratefully accepted. A little later we find him
+in London, occupied as a stable-helper in Brooke's Mews. From that he
+became a postilion, and then an officer's servant. About the year 1770
+he was coachman to a gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Portman
+Square, and was at one time in the service of the Earl of Sandwich.
+In this situation he obtained the nickname of "Sixteen-string Jack,"
+from the bunches of eight parti-coloured ribbons he gaily wore at the
+knees of his breeches; but by some intimates it was supposed that these
+"sixteen strings" were a covert allusion to his having been sixteen
+times arrested and charged, but on as many occasions acquitted. Such
+were the legends that enwrapped the career of him whom Dr. Johnson
+described as "above the common mark" in his line.
+
+It was this love of finery that led to the undoing of Jack Rann,
+but before it sent him down into the company of those who lived by
+their wits, employed in unlawful enterprises, it raised him to better
+situations. For Rann was a tall, smart fellow, and good clothes well
+became him.
+
+But flowered-satin waistcoats, and full-skirted damasked coats of silk,
+elaborately embroidered, are not paid for out of a coachman's wages,
+and Rann soon found himself deeply in debt. And, moreover, of what
+possible use are brave costumes, but to flaunt and flourish about in?
+And when you do so flourish, you must needs go the pace altogether.
+There were excellent companions in those places to which Rann most
+resorted, as a gentleman of fashion, at Vauxhall, and elsewhere; and
+there were the card-tables, where he had a passing run of luck; and
+there were the women. In spite of being pitted somewhat with the
+small-pox, he was still a handsome fellow, and he played the very Cupid
+with the girls.
+
+All these items totted up to a very costly sum-total, and the
+gaming-tables did not long stand him in good stead. At the moment when
+he was in the sorest straits, he became acquainted with three men:
+Jones, Clayton, and Colledge (this last known as "Eight-string Jack"),
+in whose company he very speedily grew more and more reckless, and at
+last was dismissed from his situation with a long-suffering nobleman,
+and refused a character. Thus turned adrift upon the world, he began,
+with those three companions, a career of pocket-picking, and thence
+drifted by easy stages into the society of highwaymen and of receivers
+of stolen goods.
+
+In these circles there moved at that time a certain Eleanor Roche,
+originally a milliner's apprentice, but who, from a somewhat
+unfortunate friendship with an officer of the Guards, had declined upon
+the condition of "fence," and generally, the fair friend and ally of
+the nimble-fingered, and the speakers with travellers on the highways.
+Jack Rann was a free-lover. Pretty faces, rosy lips, infallibly
+attracted him, and although he loved his Nelly best, he scarce knew the
+meaning of faithfulness.
+
+But to Ellen Roche, "Sixteen-string Jack" was her own Jack, her hero;
+and when once she had met him, she had eyes for none other.
+
+Rann was first in custody in April 1774, at the Old Bailey, in
+company with two others, named Clayton and Shepherd, on a charge of
+robbing William Somers and Mr. Langford on the highway. All three
+were acquitted, but on May 30th Rann was at Bow Street, charged
+with robbing Mr. John Devall of his watch and money, near the ninth
+milestone on the Hounslow Road. It was the watch brought him there.
+The gallant Rann had brought it back with him from the road—just as
+the hunter, home from the hill, returns with the day's spoil to his
+domestic circle. He handed it to Ellen, who in turn sent out a certain
+Catherine Smith to offer it in pledge with the nearest pawnbroker. The
+pawnbroker, distrustful man, sent for the police, who, seeing at once
+that Catherine Smith was merely an intermediary, apprehended Rann and
+Ellen.
+
+"Sixteen-string Jack" made a proud, defiant figure in the dock before
+Sir John Fielding. He was dressed not only in, but in advance of
+the fashion. He was in irons, but the grimness of those fetters was
+disguised in the blue satin bows in which they were tricked out, and in
+his fine coat he carried a nosegay as big as a birch-broom. Beside him,
+but not so collected as he, stood Ellen, charged with receiving.
+
+Ellen Roche had, indeed, lost her nerve altogether when Catherine Smith
+deposed to having been told by her how Rann was expected home that
+evening with some money; that he returned about ten o'clock, when Roche
+told her he had brought ten guineas and a watch, and that she was sent
+out to pawn the watch. Crying, and hardly aware of what she was doing,
+Ellen at the first hearing owned that Rann had given her the watch, and
+the two were thereupon committed.
+
+At the trial, after having had plenty of time for reflection, she
+stoutly declared that she never before had set eyes upon him, and that
+her former evidence was a mistake!
+
+Jack himself carried it off bravely, and, indeed, insolently. "I know
+no more of the matter than you do," he replied to Sir John Fielding,
+and added impudently, "nor half so much, neither."
+
+The prosecution, on some technicality, broke down, and the pair were
+released. They celebrated the happy occasion by dining extravagantly
+and then spending the evening at Vauxhall, where Rann was the gayest of
+the gay, and returned home with two watches and three purses.
+
+An absurd burglary charge brought him into the dock again, that July.
+The watch discovered him half-way through the window of a house in
+which lodged one Doll Frampton, and not only hauled him out, but
+marched him off to prison; but it appeared that he was only keeping an
+appointment to supper with the weary Doll, who, tired of waiting for
+him, had gone to bed. The Bench, assured of as much by the shameless
+minx herself, dismissed the charge, and, in addition to some pertinent
+remarks about this unconventional method of entry, gave him some
+excellent advice on conduct. Although Rann had escaped so far, Sir John
+Fielding said, his profession was perfectly well known, and he urged
+the prisoner to leave his evil courses while yet there was time.
+
+So far from paying attention to this well-meant discourse, Rann put
+in an appearance the next Sunday, not with Doll, but with Ellen, at
+Bagnigge Wells, then a famous place for dining and drinking. They
+drove thither in a carriage and dressed—in the slang phrase—"up to the
+nines." Jack was splendid in a scarlet coat, tambour waistcoat, white
+silk stockings, and a laced hat. Of course there flew at his knees the
+already famous sixteen strings.
+
+[Illustration: JACK RANN.]
+
+He was by nature boastful, and when the drink was in him bragged
+without restraint or ordinary prudence. On this occasion he drank
+freely, and, with an oath, declared himself a highwayman. Rather more
+of a pickpocket, perhaps. The company trembled: some sought the way
+out. "No fear, my friends," quoth he, "this is a holiday." Then he
+fell to quarrelling, and presently lost a ring from his finger, and
+declared those present had stolen it. Then again his mood changed.
+"'Tis no matter," he exclaimed; "'tis but a hundred guineas gone,
+and one evening's work will replace it." Then, growing more drunken
+and incapable, they threw him out, and he was not in a fit condition
+to resist. So, Ellen—the gentle Ellen—scratching the faces of the
+foremost, as they were put out, they drove back to their lodgings near
+Covent Garden.
+
+"Fine treatment for a gentleman!" he hiccupped; and indeed a gentleman
+he considered himself. But his highwayman's takings, large though they
+occasionally were, did not keep pace with his gentlemanly expenses.
+Debts accumulated, and sheriff's officers dogged his footsteps. He was
+arrested for a debt of £50, and thrown into the Marshalsea prison; but
+so much of a hero had he already become among those of his calling that
+they clubbed together and liquidated the debt; and handsome Jack was
+again free.
+
+The sheriff's officers he affected to regard as low, churlish fellows,
+but they would not be denied. His creditors were soon after him again,
+and he was arrested when drinking in an alehouse in the then suburban
+Tottenham Court Road. He shrank with horror from the touch of the two
+"vulgar" bailiffs, but there was little help for it. He must pay up, or
+be taken up. His drinking-companions found between them three guineas,
+and he gave up his watch. Together, these involuntary contributions
+made up more than the amount due. The bailiffs, on their part, agreed
+to refund the balance when Rann was sufficiently in funds to redeem the
+ticker; and cordiality then reigned. "Lend me five shillings," said
+Rann to the bailiffs, "and I will treat you to a bowl of punch." They
+fell in with the proposal, and a merry carouse ensued. Such were the
+manners and customs of about a hundred and forty years ago.
+
+Still, in the course of this merry evening, the subject of the manner
+peculiar to bailiffs recurred to our Jack and rankled. "You have not,"
+he grumbled, "treated me like a gentleman. When Sir John Fielding's
+people come after me, they only hold up a finger, beckon, and I follow
+like a lamb. There's your proper civility!"
+
+It was soon after this that he visited Barnet races, fashionably
+dressed; with waistcoat of blue satin trimmed with silver, and other
+finery to match. Crowds followed him, eager to set eyes upon so
+famous a person. Shortly afterwards, with perhaps some melancholic
+foreshadowing of approaching doom, he attended a public execution at
+Tyburn. In spite of opposition, he thrust through the ring formed by
+the constables round the gallows. "For," said he, "perhaps it is very
+proper I should be a spectator on this occasion." Why, he did not say,
+but the inference was understood by some of the crowd.
+
+In September 1774 he was arrested, together with one William Collier,
+for a robbery on the Uxbridge road, and brought the next Wednesday
+before Sir John Fielding, when Dr. Bell, chaplain to the Princess
+Amelia, gave evidence that, between three and four o'clock in the
+afternoon of Monday, when taking horse-exercise near Ealing, he
+observed two men of mean (!) appearance and suspicious looks, who rode
+past him. Presently, one of them—he thought it was Rann—turned his
+horse's head and demanded his money. "Give it me," he said, "and take
+no notice, or I'll blow your brains out!"
+
+Dr. Bell handed over one shilling and sixpence, all he had about him,
+and a common watch in a tortoiseshell case. So much tremendous bluster,
+so paltry a booty: so poor a thing for which to throw away a life. For
+that day's doings served to bring Rann to the gallows.
+
+That evening, Ellen Roche and her servant took the watch to pawn
+with one "Mr. Cordy," in the Oxford Road, or, as we should now say,
+Oxford Street. Cordy was a suspicious man. He communicated with the
+watchmaker, Grigman by name, of Russell Street, Covent Garden, who had
+made it for Dr. Bell, who, when called upon, told how he had parted
+with it.
+
+The next day, Jack Rann and his doxy were arrested, and with them
+Collier and Ellen Roche's servant, Christian Stewart. They all figured
+in Bow Street dock, and later appeared on trial at the Old Bailey.
+
+[Illustration: "SIXTEEN-STRING JACK" AND ELLEN ROCHE IN THE DOCK.]
+
+Handsome Jack was no less a dandy on this occasion than he had been on
+others, and he took the centre of the stage in his drama with a fine
+air. To be sure, there were none who envied him the principal part. He
+was dressed in pea-green coat and waistcoat, with unblemished white
+buckskin breeches, and again his hat was silver-laced. He stood
+there with every assurance of acquittal, and had taken thought to order
+a splendid supper, wherewith to entertain his friends that evening,
+to celebrate his release. But, as the grey day wore on, he grew less
+confident. Dr. Bell's evidence was again taken, and a Mr. Clarke told
+how, going to Miss Roche's lodging on that Monday night of the robbery,
+he found two pairs of men's boots there, in a wet and dirty condition,
+having evidently been worn that day. A Mr. Haliburton also swore that
+he had waited at Miss Roche's lodgings that night until Rann and
+Collier arrived.
+
+William Hills deposed that he was servant to the Princess Amelia. He
+had observed Rann, whom he knew well by sight, ascend the hill at
+Acton, about twenty minutes before the robbery was committed.
+
+This spot would be about where the Police Station now stands, in the
+main road: less troubled nowadays with highwaymen than with electric
+tram-cars.
+
+In the end, Rann was found guilty and sentenced to die. Collier was
+also found guilty, but recommended to mercy, and was afterwards
+respited. Ellen Roche was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation,
+and her servant was acquitted.
+
+Thus the supper grew cold and was not eaten. The brave figure moved in
+pea-green glory to his prison cell, and hoped there for a rescue that
+never came. His last days were full-packed with the revelry the lax
+prison regulations of the age permitted, and on Sunday, October 23rd,
+he had seven girls to dine with him in gaol; and he the gayest of the
+party. "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Or, at
+any rate, in a month's time. So, with an air and a jest, behold him
+on the fatal day, November 30th, 1774, the most admired figure in the
+three-miles' journey from Newgate to Tyburn. Was it the cold November
+air made him shiver, or the shadow of death, as, ladies' man to the
+last, he raised his hat to the crowded windows lining Holborn and
+thought how he would never come back? Whatever it was, it was no more
+than involuntary: for, arrived at the fatal tree, he ended manfully in
+his finery and his famous sixteen strings.
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT FERGUSON—"GALLOPING DICK"
+
+
+Robert Ferguson, who in after life became famous as "Galloping Dick,"
+was a native of Hertfordshire. His father, a gentleman's servant,
+proposed a like career for him, and had a mental picture of his son
+gradually rising from the position of stable-boy, in which he was
+placed, to that of coachman. In such respectable obscurity would Robert
+have lived and died, had his own wild nature not pioneered a career
+for him. He had proved a dull boy at school, but proud, and out of
+school-hours showed a strange original spirit of daring, so that he was
+generally to be found captaining his fellows in some wild exploit.
+
+As a stable-boy, however, he proved efficient and obedient, and was
+found presentable enough to take the postilion's place when the regular
+man had fallen ill, on the eve of the family's journey to London in
+their chariot. He performed that task to the satisfaction of every one,
+but the other servant recovered, and the lad was obliged to return to
+his stables and work in shirt sleeves or rough stable-jacket, instead
+of titupping in beautifully white buckskin breeches, silk jacket, and
+tall beaver hat, on one of the leading horses that drew the carriage
+to town. The return to an inferior position through no fault of his
+own was a bitter disappointment, and he determined to seek another
+situation.
+
+Oddly enough, at this juncture of affairs, a neighbouring lady who was
+in want of a postilion chanced to ask the family who employed young
+Robert what had become of their smart young man, and, when informed of
+the situation, engaged him.
+
+At this time he was close upon twenty years of age. Described as being
+by no means handsome, he was of a cheerful and obliging temperament,
+and might have long retained the post, had his employer not discovered
+him in a discreditable love-affair with one of the maid-servants.
+He was dismissed, but soon found another situation: but he never
+afterwards kept a place for any length of time. Roystering companions
+unsettled him and made him undesirable as a postilion.
+
+[Illustration: "GALLOPING DICK."]
+
+Coming up to London, he found employment in a livery-stable in
+Piccadilly, but presently his father died and he found himself the
+owner of his savings, amounting to £57. Alas! poor Robert. He had never
+before possessed at one time the half of what he had now, and he acted
+as though the sum of £57 was an endowment for life. He threw up the
+Piccadilly livery-stable, and came out upon the world as a "gentleman";
+or in other words, ruffled it in fine clothes in fashionable places.
+He frequented theatres in this novel character, and seems to have
+impressed a number of perhaps not very critical people. Amongst these
+was a dissolute woman whom he met at Drury Lane. She believed him to
+be a man of wealth, and sought to obtain a share of it. Ferguson flung
+away all his money on her. It could not have been a difficult task,
+one would say, nor have occupied him long. And when all the money
+was gone, he went back, sadder possibly, but still not wiser, to his
+livery-stable situation in Piccadilly, as postilion. It was in this
+employment that he observed the debonair gentlemen who had been his
+rivals in the affections of this woman calling upon her, and received,
+where he had been thrust forth with contumely when his money was at an
+end, and when she discovered that he was no man about town, but only
+one who got his living in the stables. False, perfidious Nancy!
+
+It was some time before the true character of those visitors was
+revealed to him; but one day, acting as a postilion on the Great
+North Road, the chaise he was driving was stopped by two highwaymen,
+duly masked. One stood by the horses, while his companion robbed the
+occupants of the chaise. It was a windy day, and a more than usually
+violent gust blew the first highwayman's mask off. Instantly Ferguson
+recognised the man who stood by the horses as one of his Nancy's
+visitors.
+
+Seeing this, the unmasked robber perceived, clearly enough, that the
+situation was peculiarly dangerous, and, when he had galloped off with
+his companion, laid the facts before him. They agreed that there was
+nothing for it but to await Ferguson's return at a roadside inn, and
+to bribe him to silence. There, accordingly, they remained until the
+chaise on its return journey drew up at the door.
+
+Two gentlemen, said the landlord, particularly desired to see the
+postilion. He entered and accepted a price for his silence; further
+agreeing to meet them that night at supper in the Borough. Meeting
+there, according to arrangement, Ferguson was persuaded to throw in his
+lot with the highway blades. His imagination took fire at the notion
+of riding a fine horse, and, dressed in handsome clothes, presenting a
+figure of romance; but his new-found friends were cool men of business,
+and had nothing of that kind in view for their fresh associate. To cut
+a fine figure was, no doubt, all very well, but the more important
+thing was to know which travellers were worth robbing, and which were
+not. If they could be reasonably well advised on that point, much
+useless effort, and a considerable deal of risk, would be avoided, in
+not stopping those whose pockets were so nearly next to empty as to
+be not worth "speaking to" on the road. Their idea was that Ferguson
+should continue in his employment of postilion, and, as a confederate,
+keep them well informed of the movements of his clients.
+
+Ferguson was disappointed in not being allowed a spectacular part, but
+the profitable nature of the scheme appealed to him, and he agreed to
+this distinctly well-conceived plan. So a long series of unsuspecting
+travellers driven by him owed their extraordinary ill-luck on the road
+entirely to the agency of their innocent-looking postilion, who was so
+professionally interested in their movements, who was so obliging with
+the portmanteaus and valises, and who secretly kept a keen eye upon the
+contents of his customers' purses. Quite often it would happen that a
+trace would be broken in some lonely situation, and then, strange to
+say, while it was being mended, a couple of highwaymen would infallibly
+appear, and threatening the postilion with horrid oaths when he
+pretended to show fight, would at their leisure ransack all the luggage
+and coolly request all money and personal adornments to be handed over.
+
+Wine, women, and cards were Ferguson's downfall. Success in his new
+line of life brought reckless conduct, and he grew so impossible
+that the livery-stable, without in the least suspecting his honesty,
+dismissed him for general unreliability. He then took to the road for a
+while as a highwayman, and thus indulged his natural liking for finery.
+
+He was an excellent horseman, and daring to the verge—or beyond the
+verge—of recklessness. On one occasion, he and two companions "spoke
+to" and were robbing two gentlemen on the road to Edgeware, but were
+interrupted by the appearance of three other well-mounted travellers,
+who gave chase. Ferguson escaped, but his two companions were caught,
+brought to trial, and executed. It was this exploit that first procured
+him the name of "Galloping Dick," although his name was Robert.
+Complimented by admiring friends on his escape, he declared he would
+gallop a horse with any man in the kingdom.
+
+The name of "Galloping Dick" soon became well known, and was a name
+of dread. No clattering horseman could come hurriedly along the road
+without stirring the pulses of nervous travellers, who immediately
+fancied "Galloping Dick" was upon them. Indeed, he soon became too
+well known for any reasonable degree of safety, and he would then
+for a while, for prudential reasons, find temporary employment as a
+postilion. Frequently in custody at Bow Street, on various charges, he
+was many times acquitted, on insufficient evidence; but was at last
+arrested, at the beginning of 1800, on a charge of highway robbery,
+sent for trial to the Lent Assizes at Aylesbury, convicted, and
+executed.
+
+
+
+
+JERRY ABERSHAW
+
+
+The southern suburbs of London were haunted during the last quarter of
+the eighteenth century by a youthful highwayman of a very desperate
+kind. He was as successful as reckless, and captained a gang that made
+Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common places to be dreaded as much as were
+Hounslow Heath on the west, and Finchley Common in the north, and
+brought the name of "Jerry Abershaw" into exceptional prominence.
+
+The real name of this highwayman was Louis Jeremiah Avershaw, and he
+was born in 1773, of the usual "poor but honest" parents. Indeed, it
+would seem, in enquiring into the lives of the highwaymen, that they
+in general came of such stock, whose only crime was their poverty:
+although _that_, as we well know in this happy land of ours, is a very
+heinous offence, it being the duty of every English man and woman to
+pay rates and taxes to keep a constantly growing official class in
+well-paid and easy employment.
+
+We so rarely hear of a highwayman deriving from dishonest parents
+that, it would seem, even in the more adventurous centuries, ill-led
+lives were as a rule so short and sordid as to impress the children of
+those who led them with the idea that honesty was not only really, in
+the long run, the best policy, but that for evil courses there was no
+long run at all. Otherwise, the life of the highwayman, if not by any
+means, as a general rule, so gay as usually it was represented to be,
+was sufficiently full of that spice of excitement which to the youthful
+makes amends for much danger and discomfort, and sons might often have
+succeeded fathers in the liberal profession of highway robbery.
+
+The boyhood of Jerry Abershaw has never been dragged from the obscurity
+that enwraps it. No slowly-budding flower he, but one that in one brief
+day flung open its petals. Or rather, in less flowery language, we
+learn nothing of the first steps that led him to the highway, and find
+him at the very first mention of his doings already a cool and assured
+character, robbing with impunity, and making one place in especial a
+spot to be dreaded. This was the hollow of Putney Bottom, through which
+the Portsmouth Road runs on its way to Kingston. The little Beverley
+Brook trickles by, to this day, in the hollow; and Combe Wood, whose
+thickets formed so convenient a lair for Abershaw, and a rallying-place
+for his gang, is still very much what it was then.
+
+Abershaw was not, of course, the first to see the strategic value of
+the heath, and of such woody tangles as these, bordering the road for
+quite three miles; for we read in Ogilby's great book on the roads,
+published in 1675, of Kingston Hill, hard by as "not rarely infested
+with robbers"; and a gibbet long stood near at hand, to remind those
+robbers, and others who succeeded them, of their own probable fate.
+But, if by no means the first, or even the last, who practised here, he
+is easily the most famous, even though it be merely a pervasive fame,
+not crystallised into many anecdotes.
+
+[Illustration: JERRY ABERSHAW ON PUTNEY HEATH.]
+
+The "Bald Faced Stag," that then stood, a lonely tavern, by the
+roadside near the Beverley Brook, was a favourite meeting-place of
+Abershaw and his fellows. It was afterwards rebuilt, as a superior
+hostelry, in the days when the growth of travel and of coaching had
+rendered the old roadside accommodation insufficient. This later house
+may still be seen, standing nowadays as a private residence, with
+imposing pillared portico, by the way.
+
+Whether the landlord of the original "Bald Faced Stag," was in league
+with Abershaw and his gang, or not, is impossible to say. Very
+generally, the tavern-keepers of that age were suspected, and rightly
+suspected, of a guilty acquaintance with the highwaymen, but it would
+be too much to assume that they were all of that character; and indeed
+we find in the sad story of one John Poulter, otherwise Baxter, who was
+hanged in 1754 for highway robbery, that the frequenting by highwaymen
+against his wish of an inn he kept in Dublin first ruined his trade
+and compelled him in self-defence at last to seek a living on the road.
+
+An innkeeper situated like him who kept the "Bald Faced Stag" in the
+days of Abershaw would have no choice but to harbour the gang whenever
+they felt inclined to confer their patronage upon him; but, to be quite
+just, it would certainly appear that he was a willing ally, for, in the
+most outstanding among the few stories told of Abershaw, it appears
+that once, when taken ill on the road, the highwayman was put to bed
+in the house and cared for while a doctor was procured. It was a Dr.
+William Roots who answered the call, from Putney. The ailing stranger,
+whose real name and occupation the doctor never for a moment suspected,
+was bled, after the medical practice of the time, and the doctor was
+about to leave for home, when his patient, with a great appearance of
+earnestness, said: "You had better, sir, have someone to go back with
+you, as it is a very dark and lonesome journey." This thoughtful offer
+the doctor declined, remarking that "he had not the least fear, even
+should he meet with Abershaw himself." The story was a favourite with
+Abershaw: it afforded him a reliable criterion of the respect in which
+the travelling public generally held him.
+
+The notoriety Abershaw early attained led to his early end. The
+authorities made especial efforts to arrest him, and, learning that he
+frequented a public-house in Southwark, called the "Three Brewers,"
+set a watch upon the place. One day the two officers detailed for this
+duty discovered him in the house, drinking with some of his friends,
+and entered to arrest him. But Abershaw was on the alert, and, as they
+stood in the doorway, arose with a pistol in either hand, and, with a
+curse, warned them to stand clear, or he would shoot them. Disregarding
+this threat, they rushed in, and Abershaw, firing both pistols at once,
+mortally wounded one officer and severely wounded the landlord in the
+head.
+
+But he did not escape. He was tried at Croydon Assizes, on July 30th,
+1795, before Mr. Baron Penryn, for murder; the wounded officer, David
+Price, having died in the interval. A second indictment charged him
+with having attempted to murder the other, by discharging a pistol at
+him.
+
+Abershaw was taken by road from London to Croydon, and passing
+Kennington Common, then the principal place of execution in Surrey,
+he laughingly asked those in charge of him, if they did not share his
+own opinion that he would himself be "twisted" there on the following
+Saturday. That was the conventionally callous way in which the
+highwaymen approached their doom.
+
+To prove the charge of killing Price was naturally the simplest of
+tasks, and the jury, returning from a three-minutes' deliberation, duly
+found him guilty. Prisoner's counsel, however, raising an objection
+on some legal quibble as to a flaw in the indictment, the point was
+argued for two hours—and not decided; the judge desiring to consult his
+learned brethren on the point. There is a certain grim humour about
+these proceedings; because, whatever the result of this was likely
+to be, there was yet the second indictment to be tried, and on that
+alone there could be no doubt of Abershaw being capitally convicted.
+It was then proceeded with, and Abershaw himself, seeing how he must
+inevitably be found guilty, and hanged, threw off all restraint. He
+insolently inquired of the judge, if he were to be murdered by perjured
+witnesses, and in violent language declared his contempt for the Court.
+Even at that solemn moment, when, having been found guilty on the
+second count, the judge, in passing sentence, assumed the black cap,
+he was not affected, except by rage and the spirit of mockery, and
+followed the action of the judge by putting on his own hat. The gaolers
+were at last compelled by his violence to handcuff him, and to tie
+his arms and legs. In that condition he was removed to gaol, to await
+execution.
+
+There he must soon have realised the folly of resistance; for he became
+quiet and apparently resigned. In the short interval that remained
+between his sentence and that appearance on Kennington Common he had
+accurately foreseen, he occupied himself with drawing rough pictures on
+the whitewashed walls of his cell with the juice of black cherries that
+had formed part of the simple luxuries his purse and the custom of the
+prison permitted. These idle scribblings represented his own exploits
+on the road. In one he appeared in the act of stopping a post-chaise
+and threatening the driver: the words, "D—n your eyes! Stop!" appended.
+The remainder of this curious gallery pictured the other incidents
+common in a highwayman's life.
+
+The time then allowed convicted criminals between their sentence and
+execution was very short. On August 3rd he was hanged on Kennington
+Common; game—or, rather, callous—to the last. Arrived there, he kicked
+off his boots among the great crowd assembled, and died unshod, to
+disprove an old saying of his mother's, that he was a bad lad, and
+would die in his shoes. He was but twenty-two years of age when he met
+this fate, not actually for highway robbery, but for murder. His body
+was afterwards hanged in chains in Putney Bottom, the scene of his
+chief exploits, and an old and nasty legend was long current in those
+parts of a sergeant in a regiment soon afterwards marching past firing
+at the distended body, by which (to make short of an offensive story)
+the neighbourhood was nearly poisoned. The sergeant was reduced to the
+ranks for this ill-judged choice of a target.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN AND WILLIAM BEATSON
+
+
+The very general idea that the highwayman ended with the close of the
+eighteenth century is an altogether erroneous one, and has already been
+abundantly disproved in these pages. They not only continued into the
+nineteenth century, but were very numerously executed for their crimes.
+Early among those who belong to that era were John Beatson and William
+Whalley. Theirs is a sad tale of business failure and of a desperate
+recourse to the road, rather than the story of professional highwaymen.
+
+John Beatson was a Scotsman, who had in his youth been a sailor in
+the merchant service, and had made many voyages to India and other
+tropical countries. Tired at last of the sea, he settled at Edinburgh,
+where he established himself as an innkeeper at the "College Tavern."
+There he carried on a successful business for many years, and only
+relinquished it at last in favour of his adopted son, William Whalley
+Beatson, who for some time carried it on happily and profitably with
+his wife. Unhappily, his wife died, and when he was left alone it was
+soon seen, in the altered circumstances of the house, that it was
+she, rather than her husband, who had in the last few years kept the
+inn going. Left alone, and incapable of managing the domestic side of
+the house, he was taken advantage of by the servants, who robbed him
+at every opportunity; and, in short, in every respect the "College
+Tavern" declined and ceased to pay its way. He gave it up and went to
+London, with the idea of entering the wine and spirit trade there.
+Arrived in London, he took a business in Bedford Street, Covent Garden,
+and, finding it uncongenial, sold it to a man and accepted six months'
+bills in payment. The purchaser went bankrupt within three months,
+throwing Beatson himself into difficulties. At this juncture of affairs
+he consulted with his adopted father as to what was to be done, and
+the upshot of their long and anxious deliberations was that there was
+no help for it but to try and retrieve their fortunes by robbing upon
+the King's highway. Their first essay in this new business was begun
+on July 18th, 1801, when they travelled from London to the "Rose and
+Crown" at Godstone, Surrey, staying there the night. The next morning
+they set off on foot, and at midday were at the "Blue Anchor," on the
+road to East Grinstead. They dined there, and asked questions about
+the mail, and did not leave until six o'clock. Between eight and nine
+o'clock they were seen on East Grinstead Common. Half an hour after
+midnight, the postboy who drove the mail-cart was stopped by two men
+near Forest Row, south of East Grinstead. They produced a pistol and
+threatened him with it if he refused to give up the bags. Then, he
+unresisting, they led the horse into a meadow, where they took the bags
+and carried them off. It was afterwards found that they had walked no
+less a distance than six miles with them. They were afterwards found in
+a wheatfield near the village of Hartfield, the letters strewn about in
+the corn.
+
+They had taken all the Bank of England notes, and notes issued by
+country banks, and had left drafts and bills of exchange worth upwards
+of £9,500.
+
+The next morning the two Beatsons appeared at the "Chequers" at
+Westerham, in a very exhausted condition, and had breakfast. With the
+excuse that they were Deptford people, and under the necessity of
+reaching the dockyard there in a hurry, they hastily hired a horse and
+trap, paying for their refreshment with a £2 note, and for the hire
+with one for £5.
+
+The people of the "Chequers" inn thought it strange, when their man
+returned, to hear that he had driven them, not to the dockyard at
+Deptford, but to a coach-office in the town, where they had at once
+taken places in a coach for London.
+
+The fugitives did not hurry themselves when they reached town. On the
+evening of their arrival, it was afterwards discovered, the elder
+purchased a pair of shoes at a shop in Oxford Street, paying for them
+with a £10 Bank of England note. They employed their time in London
+in a shopping campaign, purchasing largely and always tendering
+bank-notes, with the object of accumulating a large sum of money in
+gold, by way of change.
+
+At the end of this week they procured a horse and gig and left London,
+saying they intended to travel to Ireland. Meanwhile, the loss of
+so many bank-notes had been widely advertised and the good faith of
+persons who presented any of them for payment enquired into. The
+movements of the men who had stopped the driver of the mail-cart and
+robbed him were traced, and soon the Holyhead Road was lively with the
+pursuit of them.
+
+They arrived at Knutsford, in Cheshire, only a short time before the
+coming of the mail-coach bringing particulars of the robbery. Before
+that, however, they had attracted a considerable deal of notice by
+their singular behaviour at the "George" inn, where they had put up. To
+draw attention by peculiarities of dress or demeanour is obviously the
+grossest folly in fugitive criminals, whose only chance of safety lies
+in unobtrusive manners and appearance. That would appear to be obvious
+to the veriest novices in crime. But the Beatsons were no doubt by this
+time agitated by the serious position in which they had irretrievably
+placed themselves, and in so nervous a state that they really had not
+full command of their actions. They adopted a hectoring manner at the
+inn, and on the road had attracted unfavourable notice by the shameful
+way in which they had treated their horse.
+
+On the arrival of the mail containing the official notices of the
+robbery and descriptions of the two men concerned in it, the appearance
+of these two men with the gig seemed so remarkably like that of the
+robbers, that a Post Office surveyor was sent after them. They had
+already left Knutsford, and had to be followed to Liverpool, where they
+were discovered at an inn, and arrested.
+
+The mere hasty preliminary inspection of their travelling valise was
+sufficient to prove that these were the men sought for. Bank-notes
+to the amount of £1,700 were discovered, wrapped round by one of the
+letters stolen; and the purchases of jewellery and other articles
+carried with them were valued at another £1,300.
+
+Taken back to London, the prisoners were charged in the first instance
+at Bow Street, and then committed for trial at Horsham. An attempt they
+made to escape from Horsham gaol was unsuccessful, and they were found
+hiding in a sewer. Their trial took place before Mr. Baron Hotham on
+March 29th, 1802. No fewer than thirty witnesses were arrayed against
+them; chiefly London tradesmen, from whom they had made purchases and
+tendered notes in payment. There could hardly ever have been a clearer
+case, and the result of the trial was never for a moment in doubt.
+
+The affectionate efforts of the elder man to shield his adopted son
+drew tears from many eyes, but the readiness of that "son" to take
+advantage of them and to throw the guilt upon him excited, naturally
+enough, much unfavourable comment. Two statements had been prepared and
+written by the prisoners, and both were read by the younger in court.
+The first was by John Beatson, who declared himself to be guilty, but
+his "son" innocent. Whalley's own statement, to the same effect, went
+into a detailed story of how his "father" had given him a large number
+of the notes, and had told him they were part of a large remittance he
+had lately received from India.
+
+The story was so clumsy and unconvincing, and the story told by the
+prosecution so complete in every detail, that both prisoners were
+speedily found guilty. They were condemned to death, and were hanged on
+Saturday, April 7th, 1802, at Horsham, before a crowd of three thousand
+people. The elder Beatson was seventy years of age and the younger but
+twenty-seven.
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT SNOOKS
+
+
+The careers of the highwaymen were, in the vast majority of cases,
+remarkably short, and they were, for the most part, cut off in the
+full vigour of their manly strength and beauty. The accursed shears
+of Fate—or, to be more exact, a rope dangling from a beam—ended them
+before experience had come to revise their methods and fit them out
+with the artistry of the expert.
+
+But few were so summarily ended as the unfortunate Robert Snooks.
+This person, a native of Hungerford, was in the year 1800 living at
+Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire, in the immediate neighbourhood of
+Boxmoor. He had often observed the postboy carrying the well-filled
+mail-bags across the lonely flat of Boxmoor, and (he is described as
+having been of remarkably fine physical proportions) thought how easy a
+thing it would be to frighten him into giving them up. Accordingly, on
+one sufficiently dark night, he waited upon the moor for the postboy,
+stopped him, and, adopting a threatening demeanour, instructed him to
+carry the bags to a solitary spot and then go about his business. The
+frightened official immediately hurried off to the postmaster of the
+district: one Mr. Page, of the "King's Arms," Berkhamstead, and told
+his tale; leaving Snooks to ransack the bags and take what he thought
+valuable.
+
+The bags, turned inside out, were found, the next morning, with a heap
+of letters, torn open and fluttering in all directions across the
+fields. It subsequently appeared that the highwayman had secured a very
+considerable booty, one letter alone having contained £5 in notes.
+The postboy did not know the man who had terrorised him: only that he
+was a "big man"; but the simultaneous disappearance of Snooks left no
+reasonable doubt as to who it was.
+
+This was Snooks's first essay in the dangerous art, and it proved also
+his last. Hurrying to London, he took up his abode in Southwark, and
+presently had the dubious satisfaction of reading the reward-bills
+issued, offering £300 for his capture. After a while he thought
+himself comparatively safe, and was emboldened to make an effort at
+negotiating one of the notes he still held. Afraid to do this in
+person, he thought he might see what would happen if he tried to pass
+one of the notes through the intermediary of the servant of the house
+where he was lodging, and accordingly sent her to purchase a piece
+of cloth for a coat, handing her a five-pound note. The tradesman
+evidently found something suspicious about the note thus tendered,
+and returned it, with the message that "there must be some mistake."
+Whether the tradesman would have followed this up by communicating any
+suspicions he may have had to the authorities does not appear; but "the
+wicked flee when no man pursueth," and Snooks hurried off to what was
+undoubtedly the most dangerous place for him. He fled to Hungerford,
+his birthplace; yet, strange to say, he long evaded capture, and it was
+not until 1802 that he was arrested, on the information of a postboy
+who had been to school with him. He was in due course brought to trial
+at Hertford Assizes, found guilty, and sentenced to death. It was
+judged expedient, as a warning to others, that he should be executed on
+the scene of his crime, the selection of the spot falling to Mr. Page,
+who, besides being postmaster of Berkhamstead, was High Constable of
+the Hundred of Dacorum. As a further warning, and one likely to be of
+some permanence, it was originally proposed to gibbet the body of the
+defunct Snooks on the same spot; so that, swinging there in chains on
+the moor, it might hint to others the folly of doing likewise. But the
+time was growing full late for such exhibitions; the inhabitants of the
+district protested, and this further project was abandoned.
+
+Journeying from Hertford gaol on the morning of the fatal March 11th,
+1802, Snooks, according to a surviving tradition, was given a final
+glass of ale at the "Swan" inn, at the corner of Box Lane, and is said
+to have remarked to the rustics hastening to the scene of execution:
+"Don't hurry; there'll be no fun till I get there."
+
+The usual large and unruly crowd, that could always be reckoned upon
+on such melancholy occasions, was present, and seemed to regard the
+event as no more serious than a fair. To those thus assembled, Robert
+Snooks, standing in the cart under the gallows, held forth in a moral
+address:
+
+"Good people, I beg your particular attention to my fate. I hope this
+lesson will be of more service to you than the gratification of the
+curiosity which brought you here. I beg to caution you against evil
+doing, and most earnestly entreat you to avoid two evils, namely,
+'Disobedience to parents'—to you youths I particularly give this
+caution—and 'The breaking of the Sabbath.' These misdeeds lead to the
+worst of crimes: robbery, plunder, bad women, and every evil course.
+It may by some be thought a happy state to be in possession of fine
+clothes and plenty of money, but I assure you no one can be happy with
+ill-gotten treasure. I have often been riding on my horse and passed
+a cottager's door, whom I have seen dressing his greens, and perhaps
+had hardly a morsel to eat with them. He has very likely envied me in
+my station, who, though at that time in possession of abundance, was
+miserable and unhappy. I envied him, and with most reason, for his
+happiness and contentment. I can assure you there is no happiness but
+in doing good. I justly suffer for my offences, and hope it will be a
+warning to others. I die in peace with God and all the world."
+
+[Illustration: SNOOKS ADDRESSING THE CROWD AT HIS EXECUTION.]
+
+The horse was then whipped up, the cart drawn away from beneath the
+gallows-tree, and Robert Snooks had presently paid the harsh penalty
+of his crime. He had behaved with remarkable courage, and, espying an
+acquaintance in the crowd, offered him his watch if he would promise
+to see that his body received Christian burial. But the man, unwilling
+to be recognised as a friend of the criminal, made no response, and
+Snooks's body was buried at the foot of the gallows. A hole was dug
+there, and a truss of straw divided. Half was flung in first; the body
+upon that, and the second half on top. The hangman had half-stripped
+the body, declaring the clothes to be his perquisite, and would have
+entirely stripped it, had not the High Constable interfered, insisting
+that some regard should be had to decency.
+
+A slow-moving feeling of compassion for the unhappy wretch took
+possession of some of the people of Hemel Hempstead, who on the
+following day procured a coffin, reopened the grave, and, placing the
+body in the coffin, thus gave it some semblance of civilised interment;
+but, those being the times of the body-snatchers, doubts have been
+expressed of the body being really there. It is thought that the
+body-snatchers may afterwards have visited the lonely spot and again
+resurrected it.
+
+Two rough pieces of the local "plum-pudding stone" were afterwards
+placed on the grave, and remained until recent years.
+
+Boxmoor is not now the lonely place it was. The traveller who seeks
+Snooks's grave may find it by continuing northward from Apsley End,
+passing under the railway bridges, and coming to a little roadside inn
+called the "Friend at Hand." Opposite this, on the right-hand side
+of the road, and between this road and the railway embankment runs a
+long narrow strip of what looks like meadow land, enclosed by an iron
+fence, This is really a portion of Boxmoor. At a point, a hundred and
+fifty yards past the inn, look out sharply for a clump of five young
+horse-chestnut trees growing on the moor. Close by them is a barren
+space of reddish earth, with a grassy mound, a piece of conglomerate,
+or "pudding-stone," and a newer stone inscribed "Robert Snooks, 11
+March, 1802." This has been added since 1905, and duly keeps the spot
+in mind.
+
+[Illustration: SNOOKS'S GRAVE.]
+
+
+
+
+HUFFUM WHITE
+
+
+The decay of the highwayman's trade and its replacement by that of
+the burglar and the bank-robber is well illustrated by the career of
+Huffum, or Huffy, White, who was first sentenced for burglary in 1809.
+Transportation for life was then awarded him, and we might have heard
+no more of his activities, had not his own cleverness and the stupidity
+of the authorities enabled him to escape from the hulks at Woolwich.
+Thus narrowly missing the long voyage to Botany Bay, he made direct for
+London, then as now the best hiding-place in the world. He soon struck
+up an acquaintance with one James Mackcoull, and they proposed together
+to enter upon a course of burglary; but at the very outset of their
+agreement they were arrested. Mackcoull, as a rogue and vagabond, was
+sent to prison for six months, and White was sentenced to death as an
+escaped convict, the extreme penalty being afterwards reduced to penal
+servitude for life.
+
+[Illustration: HUFFUM WHITE ESCAPING FROM THE HULKS.]
+
+On January 20th, 1811, Mackcoull was released, and at once, like
+the faithful comrade he was, set about the task of securing White's
+escape from the convict ship to which he had again been consigned.
+Dropping overboard in the fog and darkness that enshrouded the lower
+reaches of the Thames on that winter's evening into the boat that
+Mackcoull had silently rowed under the bows of the ship, White was
+again free.
+
+An astonishing enterprise now lay before White, Mackcoull, and a new
+ally: a man named French. This was nothing less than a plan to break
+into the premises of the Paisley Union Bank at Glasgow. Arrived in
+Glasgow, they at length, after several disappointments, succeeded in
+forcing an entry on a Saturday night, selecting that time for the sake
+of the large margin it gave them for their escape, until the re-opening
+of the bank on the Monday morning. Their booty consisted of £20,000 in
+Scotch notes: a large sum, and in that form an unmanageable one, as
+they were eventually to discover.
+
+The burglary accomplished, their first care was to set off at once for
+London, posting thither by post-chaise, as fast as four horses could
+take them. At every stage they paid their score, which they took care
+should be a generous one, as beseemed the wealthy gentlemen they posed
+as, with a £20 note: thus accumulating, as they dashed southward along
+those four hundred miles, a heavy sum in gold.
+
+On the Monday morning the loss of the notes was of course at once
+discovered. Information was easily acquired as to the movements of
+the men who were at once suspected, and they were followed along the
+road, and some days later White was arrested in London by a Bow Street
+runner, at the house of one Scoltock, a maker of burglars' tools. None
+of the stolen property was found upon White, Mackcoull having been
+sufficiently acute to place all the remaining notes in the keeping of
+a certain Bill Gibbons, who combined the trade of bruiser with that of
+burglars' banker.
+
+Mackcoull himself went into hiding, both from the law and from his
+associates, he having had the counting and custody of the notes, and
+told White and French the amount was but £16,000.
+
+It now became quite evident to French, at least, that, so far as he
+and his friends were concerned, the remaining notes were merely so
+much waste-paper. Their numbers were bound to be known, and they could
+not safely be negotiated. So he suggested to Mrs. Mackcoull that they
+should propose to return the paper-money to the Bank, and save further
+trouble, on the understanding that they should not be prosecuted.
+
+Mrs. Mackcoull appears to have had an influential friend named Sayer,
+employed in close attendance upon the King, and by his good offices
+secured a pardon for all concerned, on the conditions already named.
+Unfortunately, she could not fully carry out the bargain agreed upon,
+for, on the notes being counted, it was discovered that only £11,941
+remained.
+
+White, already in custody, was once more condemned to transportation
+for life. The procedure must by this time have become quite staled by
+familiarity, and we picture him going again to the hulks with an air of
+intense boredom.
+
+He, of course, again escaped, and was soon again on his burglarious
+career: this time at Kettering among other places. But the exploit
+which concluded his course was the almost purely highwayman business
+of robbing the Leeds mail-coach, on October 26th, 1812, near Higham
+Ferrers. He had as accomplices a certain Richard Kendall and one Mary
+Howes. White had booked an outside seat on the coach, and had, in the
+momentary absence of the guard in front, cleverly forced open the lock
+of the box in which the mail-bags were kept, extracted the bags, and
+replaced the lid. At the next stage he left the coach. The accomplices,
+who had a trap in waiting, then all drove off to London, White
+immediately afterwards making for Bristol, where he was soon located,
+living with two notorious thieves, John Goodman and Ned Burkitt. A
+descent was made upon the house, and the two arrested, but White
+escaped over the roof of a shed, and through the adjoining houses.
+
+He was traced in April 1813 to a house in Scotland Road, Liverpool,
+where, in company with a man named Hayward, he was meditating another
+burglary. The officers came upon them hiding in a cellar, and a
+desperate struggle followed; but in the end they were secured.
+
+Richard Kendall and Mary Howes, _alias_ Taylor, were already in
+custody, and White was arraigned with them at the ensuing Northampton
+Assizes, for the robbery of the Leeds mail. Witnesses spoke at this
+trial to having seen the men in the gig on the evening of October 26th,
+on the road near Higham Ferrers, and afterwards at the house of Mary
+Howes, who lived close by, and the keeper of the turnpike deposed to
+only one gig having passed through that evening. There were no fewer
+than forty witnesses, and the trial occupied fourteen hours.
+
+Mary Howes was acquitted, not from lack of evidence, but merely on a
+technical flaw in the indictment; her offence having been committed in
+another county. White and Kendall were convicted and sentenced to death.
+
+White again came near to escaping. By some unknown means, a file had
+been conveyed to him, and on the night before the execution he filed
+through his irons, and then forced a way through several doors, being
+only stopped at the outer gate. The following morning, August 13th,
+1813—unlucky date, with two thirteens—he met his fate with an unmoved
+tranquility. He declared Kendall to be innocent. When the chaplain
+asked him earnestly if he could administer any comfort to him at that
+solemn moment, he replied: "Only by getting some other man to be hanged
+for me."
+
+Kendall was then brought to the gallows, declaring himself to be
+innocent, and a murdered man.
+
+Mackcoull, the earlier associate of White, disappeared for years, but
+was arrested for a robbery in 1820, and died in prison soon after
+receiving sentence.
+
+[Illustration: [++] Gibbet.]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abershaw, Jeremiah, i. 104; ii. 361-369
+
+  Adams, Richard, ii. 122
+
+  Allen, —, i. 123
+
+  — Robert, i. 276, 278-281
+
+  Arnott, Lieut., i. 97
+
+  Avery, —, ii. 121
+
+
+  Beatson, John and William, ii. 370-375
+
+  _Beggar's Opera, The_, i. 240; ii. 296
+
+  Belchier, William, i. 224
+
+  Berkeley, 5th Earl of, i. 237-240
+
+  Bird, Jack, ii. 86-97
+
+  Blake, Joseph ("Blueskin"), ii. 134-136
+
+  Boulter, Thomas, ii. 238
+
+  Bow Street Patrol, i. 123
+
+  "Bowl" Inn, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, i. 166, 177-181
+
+  Bracy, —, i. 76
+
+  Bradshaw, Jack, ii. 101
+
+  Brown, Thomas, i. 211
+
+  Bunce, Stephen, ii. 117-120
+
+
+  Carrick, Valentine, i. 145
+
+  Catnack, James, i. 127-130
+
+  Caxton, Gibbet, i. 201-204
+
+  Cherhill Gang, i. 117
+
+  Clarke, Sir Simon, Bart., i. 97
+
+  Clavel, John, i. 307-316
+
+  "Clever Tom Clinch," i. 166, 177
+
+  Clewer, Revd. William, ii. 81
+
+  "Clibborn's Post," i. 119-121
+
+  Cottington, John ("MulledSack"), i. 158; ii. 26-34, 210
+
+  Cox, Tom, i. 166, 254
+
+  "Cutpurse," Moll (Mary Frith), i. 262-268; ii. 128, 129
+
+
+  Darkin, Isaac, ii. 264-270
+
+  Davis, William (the "Golden Farmer"), i. 317-332, 341
+
+  Denville, Sir Josselin, i. 17; ii. 55
+
+  Dickson, Christopher, i. 102
+
+  Dorbel, Tom, ii. 72
+
+  Dowe, Robert, i. 148, 153, 154
+
+  Drewett, Robert, i. 211
+
+  — William, i. 211
+
+  Dudley, Captain Richard, i. 387-397; ii. 55
+
+  Dun, Thomas, i. 17-22
+
+  Du Vall, Claude, i. 175, 214, 224, 254, 334, 342-355; ii. 173,
+    249, 272
+
+
+  Edwards, William, ii. 79
+
+  Elms, The, Smithfield, i. 157
+
+  — — St. Giles-in-the-Fields, i. 158, 165
+
+  — — Lane, Lancaster Gate, i. 158
+
+  — — Tyburn, i. 162
+
+  Everett and Williams, i. 254
+
+
+  Falstaff, i. 62, 64, 217, 221
+
+  Ferguson, Robert ("Galloping Dick"), i. 105; ii. 353-360
+
+  Finchley Common, i. 245-249, 253-255, 319; ii. 122
+
+  Frith, Mary ("Moll Cutpurse"), i. 262-268; ii. 128, 129
+
+
+  Gad's Hill, i. 62, 214, 217-221, 314; ii. 10
+
+  "Galloping Dick" (Robert Ferguson), i. 105; ii. 353-360
+
+  Gibbets, i. 122, 199-212, 214, 363
+
+  Gibson, John, i. 202
+
+  Giles, St., i. 157
+
+  "Golden Farmer," The (William Davis), i. 317-332, 341
+
+
+  Hackney Marshes, i. 91; ii. 182, 208
+
+  Haggarty, —, i. 243
+
+  Hal, Prince, i. 62, 64, 217
+
+  Hall, John, i. 154; ii. 110-116
+
+  "Hand of Glory," The, i. 49-57, 210
+
+  "Hangman's Highway," i. 156-198
+
+  Harris, James, i. 89
+
+  Hartley John, i. 101
+
+  Hawes, Nathaniel, i. 253
+
+  Hawke (or Hawkes), William, i. 147, 224
+
+  Hawkins, John, i. 229-236
+
+  — William, i. 229, 231, 232, 236
+
+  Hill, Thos., i. 66
+
+  Hillingdon Heath, i. 323, 324
+
+  Hind, Capt. James, i. 65, 214, 273-306, 334; ii. 173, 249
+
+  Holborn, i. 163-175
+
+  — Bars, i. 172
+
+  — Hill, i. 164, 170, 171
+
+  Holloway, i. 243
+
+  Hood, Robin, i. 23-48, 57
+
+  Horner, Nicholas, ii. 148-157
+
+  Hounslow Heath, i. 89, 121, 122, 123, 224-244, 267, 346, 388;
+    ii. 29, 51, 71, 248, 252, 259
+
+
+  Jackson, Francis, i. 356-386
+
+  Johnson, Charles, Historian of Highwaymen, i. 14, 17, 18, 124, 235,
+    270, 335, 339, 392; ii. 41, 158, 166, 233
+
+  — Joe, ii. 167
+
+  Joiner, Abraham, i. 67
+
+
+  King, Augustine, i. 84
+
+  — Matthew, ii. 206, 208, 209
+
+  — Robert, ii. 206
+
+  — Tom, ii. 198-203, 205-210, 228
+
+  Knightsbridge, i. 222-224
+
+
+  Lansdowne Passage, i. 110
+
+  Lewis, Paul, ii. 316-319
+
+  Lorrain, Rev. Paul, i. 132-134
+
+  Low, Richard, ii. 115-117
+
+
+  Maclaine, James, ii. 249, 271-300
+
+  Maidenhead Thicket, i. 59, 295; ii. 38
+
+  Marlborough Downs, i. 118
+
+  Mary-le-Bourne, St., i. 159-161
+
+  Mellish, Mr., Murder of, by highwaymen, i. 121
+
+  Miles, Edward, i. 210
+
+  Morgan, —, i. 99-101
+
+  "Mulled Sack" (Cottington, John), i. 158; ii. 26-34, 210
+
+
+  Nevison, John, or William ("Swiftnicks"), ii. 1-25, 229, 231,
+    232, 234
+
+  Newgate, i. 145, 146, 148-154, 156, 246, 249-254, 302; ii. 62, 63,
+    131, 268, 296, 334-338, 352
+
+  — Ordinaries of, i. 124-126, 131-139, 142-145, 169, 187, 365;
+    ii. 117, 143, 272
+
+  Newmarket, i. 78-82, 173-175; ii. 301
+
+  New Oxford Street, i. 163, 176
+
+
+  O'Brian, Patrick, ii. 81-85
+
+  Ogden, Will, ii. 98-104
+
+  "Old Mob" (Thomas Simpson), i. 254, 333-341
+
+  Ovet, Jack, ii. 105-109
+
+  Oxford Street, i. 163, 181, 192; ii. 279, 332
+
+
+  Page, William, ii. 249-263
+
+  Parsons, William, ii. 241-248
+
+  Peace, Charles, i. 6-11
+
+  _Peine forte et dure_, i. 249-254
+
+  Phillips, Thos., i. 249-253
+
+  Piccadilly, Highwaymen in, i. 109
+
+  Plunkett, —, ii. 280-283, 286-290
+
+  "Poor Robin," ii. 90-93
+
+  Popham, Sir John, i. 62
+
+  Porter's Block, Smithfield, i. 158; ii. 63
+
+  Poulter, John, ii. 301-315
+
+  Pressing to Death, i. 249-254
+
+  Price, James, i. 211
+
+  Pureney, Rev. Thos., i. 132, 133, 135-139, 142; ii. 117, 143, 147
+
+
+  Rann, John ("Sixteen-string Jack"), ii. 340-352
+
+  Ratsey, Gamaliel, i. 14-17
+
+  Reresby, Sir John, i. 82
+
+  Reynolds, Capt., i. 66
+
+  — Tom, ii. 98, 104
+
+  _Rizpah_, i. 204-206
+
+  Robin Hood, i. 23-48, 57; ii. 233
+
+  "Rowden the Pewterer," ii. 196, 198, 215
+
+  Rumbold, Thomas, ii. 35-40
+
+
+  St. Giles-in-the-Fields, i. 157, 176-181
+
+  St. Mary-le-Bourne, i. 159-161
+
+  St. Sepulchre, i. 148-155, 163, 165
+
+  Salisbury Plain, i. 114, 117, 214, 318; ii. 41, 266
+
+  Shakespeare, Highwaymen in, i. 62-64, 217, 221
+
+  Sheppard, Jack, i. 137, 140, 183, 246, 247
+
+  Shooter's Hill, i. 214-217, 276; ii. 101, 189, 260
+
+  Shotover Hill, i. 255; ii. 30
+
+  Shrimpton, John, i. 256-258
+
+  Simms, Harry, i. 97
+
+  Simpson, Thomas ("Old Mob"), i. 254, 333-341
+
+  "Sixteen-string Jack" (Rann, John), ii. 340-352
+
+  Smith, Capt. Alexander, Historian of Highwaymen, i. 11-14, 75, 124,
+    235, 270, 335, 339, 391; ii. 41, 81-83
+
+  Smith, Rev. Samuel, i. 132, 367
+
+  Smithfield, i. 157; ii. 63, 281
+
+  ��� Rounds, i. 158; ii. 34
+
+  Snooks, Robert, ii. 376-383
+
+  Spiggott, Wm., i. 248-253
+
+  Stafford, Capt. Philip, i. 269-272
+
+  Steele, Mr., Murder of, i. 240-244
+
+  Stratford Place, i. 158-161
+
+  Sunday Trading Act, i. 60
+
+  "Swiftnicks" (Nevison, John, or William), ii. 1-25, 229, 231,
+    232, 234
+
+  Sympson, George, i. 229, 231
+
+
+  Taylor, Tom, ii. 123-125
+
+  Tooll, "Captain" Edmund, i. 246
+
+  Tracey, Walter, ii. 158-165
+
+  Turpin, Richard, i. 124, 129, 215, 245, 247; ii. 1, 173-240, 249
+
+  Turpin's Oak, i. 245
+
+  Twm Shon Catti, ii. 65-72
+
+  Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe, i. 236
+
+  Tyburn, i. 133, 146, 153, 155, 156-198, 245, 249, 254, 281, 354, 397;
+    ii. 46, 59, 97, 116, 122, 147, 168, 248, 257, 284, 299, 319, 339
+
+
+  Waltham Cross, i. 87
+
+  Watling Street, i. 159
+
+  Westons, The, ii. 320-339
+
+  Weymouth, Charles, i. 102
+
+  White, Huffum, ii. 384-391
+
+  Whitney, Capt. James, i. 86, 158; ii. 41-64, 173
+
+  "Who goes Home?" i. 92-95
+
+  Wickes, Edward, i. 254; ii. 166-172
+
+  Wild, Jonathan, i. 137, 187, 265; ii. 126-147
+
+  Wild, Robert, i. 70-74
+
+  Wilson, Ralph, i. 231, 232, 235, 236
+
+  Witherington, Thos., i. 171
+
+  Withers, John, ii. 75-80
+
+  Wright, —, i. 231
+
+
+
+
+_Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and
+Aylesbury._
+
+
+
+
+  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
+  │ Transcriber's Note:                                               │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.      │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.             │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant  │
+  │ form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.     │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs    │
+  │ and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that    │
+  │ references them. The List of Illustrations was changed            │
+  │ accordingly.                                                      │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ [++] indicates a caption added by the transcriber.                │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, _like    │
+  │ this_.  Words in bold characters are surrounded by equal signs,   │
+  │ =like this=.                                                      │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ Footnotes were moved to the end of chapters and numbered in one   │
+  │ continuous sequence.                                              │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ In the index the numbers i. and ii. refer to volumes i. and ii.   │
+  │                                                                   │
+  │ Other notes:                                                      │
+  │ Page 191: "... three several times;" changed to "... several      │
+  │   times;"                                                         │
+  │ In this text Edgware is spelled Edgeware.                         │
+  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
+
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+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Internet Archive)
+
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+
+                         ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS
+                                   OF
+                 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
+
+                           VOL. XXIV, PART II
+
+
+
+
+             MYTHS AND TALES FROM THE WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                          PLINY EARLE GODDARD
+
+[Illustration: THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCE EDUCATION]
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                   PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES
+                                  1919
+
+
+
+
+            MYTHS AND TALES FROM THE WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE.
+
+                        BY PLINY EARLE GODDARD.
+
+
+
+
+                             INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+These myths and tales are the free translations of texts recorded in the
+dialect of the White Mountain Apache. The texts themselves with word for
+word translations follow as Part IV of the volume. They were recorded,
+with one exception, during the winter of 1910 as a part of the studies
+made in the Southwest under the yearly grant of Mr. Archer M.
+Huntington. The creation myth, secured from Noze, differs in important
+incidents from the versions given above from the San Carlos as well as
+from versions secured from other White Mountain Apache. It should not be
+assumed that these differences are tribal, it is more probable that they
+are individual, since forms from the San Carlos and Navajo are closely
+similar to each other.
+
+The greater number of the remaining narratives were secured from the
+father of Frank Crockett, the interpreter employed. Several of these are
+ceremonial and religious in their character and probably would not have
+been given except for the son's influence. Two of these were later
+secured from San Carlos informants in more extended form but highly
+corroborative in their general agreement.
+
+The main purpose in recording these narratives was to secure sufficient
+and varied connected texts in the dialect of the White Mountain Apache.
+As a collection of mythology and folklore it is probably far from
+complete. It is assumed, however, to be fairly representative.
+
+                                                    PLINY EARLE GODDARD.
+
+ January, 1919.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                       PAGE.
+
+           INTRODUCTION                                   89
+
+           CREATION MYTH                                  93
+
+           NAIYENEZGANI                                  115
+
+           THE PLACING OF THE EARTH                      119
+
+           THE ADOLESCENCE CEREMONY                      123
+
+           THE MIGRATION OF THE GANS                     124
+
+           RELEASING THE DEER                            126
+
+           DEER WOMAN                                    127
+
+           THE GAMBLER WHO SECURED THE WATER-CEREMONY    128
+
+           THE MAN WHO VISITED THE SKY WITH THE EAGLES   132
+
+           HE WHO BECAME A SNAKE                         135
+
+           THE HUNTER WHO SECURED THE BEAR CEREMONY      136
+
+           THE CANNIBAL OWL                              137
+
+           THE DOINGS OF COYOTE                          138
+
+           BIBLIOGRAPHY                                  139
+
+
+
+
+                           CREATION MYTH.[1]
+
+
+There were many houses there. A maiden went from the settlement to the
+top of a high mountain[2] and came where the rays of the rising Sun
+first strike. She raised her skirt and the “breath” of the Sun entered
+her. She went up the mountain four mornings, and four times the breath
+of the Sun penetrated her. This girl who had never been married became
+pregnant and the people were making remarks about it.
+
+She went up the mountain on four successive days and four days after
+that, eight days altogether, she gave birth to a child. Four days later,
+the child stood on its feet. His fingers and toes were webbed and he had
+neither eyebrows nor eyelashes and the hairs on his head were scattered,
+one in a place. His ears were round with only the openings. Everyone
+said he did not look like a man. After four more days he walked well and
+played with the other children.
+
+His mother went again to the east and lay down under a place where water
+was dripping. The water fell into her as it dripped from the hanging
+algæ. She did this four times and became pregnant. After four days they
+all saw that her abdomen was enlarged and when she had been in that
+condition four days, eight days in all, she gave birth to another
+child.[3] When it was four days old it stood up and was able to walk
+well. Its appearance was like that of the first child. It had webbed
+hands and feet and was without hair. It had round ears with holes only.
+The children walked about together, the head of one being higher than
+that of the other.
+
+The people were asking, “Whose children are these going about?” They
+wanted to know who would make them like human beings. “Who are the kin
+of the woman whose children are going about among us?” The mother had a
+sister who wondered why the people were saying these things, for the
+boys had a father who lived a long way off.
+
+The boys were eight days old and big enough to run about and were
+becoming intelligent. They asked their mother where their father was
+living. “Why do you ask?” she said. “You cannot go to him.” “Why do you
+say that? Why do you hide our father from us?” the boys asked. “Well, do
+you really want to go where your father lives?” she asked them. “Why do
+you suppose we are asking?” the boys replied. “We will go where our
+father lives.” Their mother told them that they were talking foolishly,
+that the distance was great, and that they would not be able to go. The
+boys insisted but were again discouraged by their mother. They finally
+said that it must be they had no father if they could not go to him. The
+mother then consented and said they three would go to the top of a great
+mountain. She cut a supply of meat and after four days, when it was near
+dawn, they started. They came to the top of the mountain when it was day
+and stood there facing the Sun. The woman stood between the boys holding
+them by the hand. When the sun was rising she said: “Look, your father
+is rising. Observe well. His breath streams out from four sides. Go
+towards the streaming out of his breath. There are dangerous things
+living in the east. What have you to go with?” She had a brown fly and
+she gave it to the boys, that it might sit by their ears. The fly was to
+show them the way and tell them where the dangerous ones lived.
+
+She told them they were to start at midday. They remained there until
+the sun reached the sky hole.[4] They then went four times around the
+trees on top of the mountain. The woman started home and the boys set
+out on their journey.
+
+The boys went toward the east but the Sun was going in the opposite
+direction.[5] The boys sat down and cried. A Raven, spreading out his
+wings, alighted nearby and asked the boys why they were crying. The boys
+replied that their father lived over there and that they were going to
+visit him. The Raven asked if they were carrying anything in the way of
+food with them. They replied that they had some meat. The Raven said
+they might ride on his back if they would give him some of the meat. The
+fly told them it would be all right to ride on the Raven, that the Raven
+could see half the way and that there someone was living who knew the
+remainder of the way. They were told by the Raven to break up the meat
+and put the pieces in his mouth, that two of the parcels would sustain
+him until he finished the journey as far as he knew the way. They were
+directed to get on the Raven's back. The Raven began by flying near the
+ground, then went higher and higher, circling around. A hot rain fell
+but the Raven covered them with his wings. They kept putting the meat
+into the Raven's mouth. When they had fed the Raven two pieces of the
+meat they passed through a cloud where the large Eagle lived. The Raven
+told them that that one (the Eagle) would now take them, that he knew
+all the places because he saw everything upon the earth; that he himself
+would go back.
+
+The Eagle asked them where they were going, saying that he lived in a
+dangerous place. The boys indicated the direction they were going,
+saying they had been told their father lived there. Eagle said it was
+true their father lived at that place and asked if they had heard about
+his house. The boys replied that their mother had told them that the Sun
+was their father and that he lived over there. Because she had told them
+this they were on their way to see him. Eagle asked them by what means
+they intended to go, saying even he was in danger from the Sun. The fly
+staying by the ear of one of the boys flew away and soon returned with
+the statement that the dangerous places did exist and that Eagle, with
+whom they were sitting, was the one who knew and was in control of these
+dangerous places. Before the house of the Sun was ice, interlocked like
+fallen timber. Eagle addressed the boys, asking if they had with them
+anything from the earth, meaning meat. They replied that they had and
+each of the boys took some from his pocket. Eagle asked for some of it,
+which when it was given him he ate.
+
+Eagle then said they would set out, for he knew the trail. He requested
+them to put meat in his mouth as he flew with them, indicating the
+amount which would be sufficient, for the trail. When they were seated
+on the Eagle he started down with them, circling around as he flew. A
+storm of hail fell on them, the hailstones being large with thirty-two
+points.[6] The eagle protected the boys by covering them with his wings
+which were rolled back over them. When they had passed through the storm
+Eagle asked that meat be put in his mouth. When he had been fed he flew
+away with the boys and went through a hole which was there for him. When
+he came to the trail he alighted and pointing out the path told them
+that it led to the house of the Sun.[7] He said that he himself would
+now turn back home.
+
+The boys went forward until they crossed a shallow valley beyond which
+was the house, which had projections running out in four directions.
+When they walked with their eyes closed the house went out of sight, but
+when they opened their eyes the house settled down again. It did this
+four times and then it stood firmly. The two boys walked on and coming
+to the house, stood in front of the entrance. An old woman who was the
+wife of the Sun sat there.
+
+She advised them to go on wherever they were intending to go, since a
+person of mean disposition was soon to arrive. The woman who spoke to
+them was really handsome but she sat there in the form of an old woman.
+The boys replied that they had been told that their father lived there,
+and that they had started to come that morning. The woman replied that
+she did not know who their father was. The boys said that the Sun was
+their father and they had come to visit him. The woman then asked who
+had told them that the Sun was their father. They said their mother had
+told them so. The woman told them that their father would soon return
+and asked them to be seated on a chair she indicated. When they were
+seated, the chair kept whirling around with them. When the chair would
+lift up the woman would make it come down again. When the woman saw the
+chair come down again she announced herself as nearly convinced they had
+spoken the truth.
+
+Saying that the Sun was now coming close, she took four silk blankets[8]
+of different colors which had been sewed together projecting in four
+directions and rolled the boys up in them. She put them into an inside
+room. They heard the Sun come back and heard him speak. “Old woman,
+where are the two men who came here?” he asked. The woman replied: “I
+have not seen anyone. No one has been here.” “You say there is no one.
+They must have come, for here are their tracks,” the Sun replied. “You
+must have been cohabiting with someone else. You say you travel over
+this broad earth and that you do not visit anyone. You must have been
+deceiving me about it for two men came in from that trail saying they
+are your children,” his wife said. The Sun asked that they be brought
+in, and the woman opened the door, brought in the roll of blankets, and
+threw it down. The Sun shook the blankets and two men stood up. The Sun
+spoke: “Hesh, do you consider these to be my children? They do not look
+like me.” He stood by them and repeated his question, calling attention
+to their webbed hands and feet and their round ears. “Are you really my
+children?” he asked them. “Who is called the Sun, I wonder?” the
+youngest of the boys said, and water fell from his eyes. “Well, maybe
+you are my children. Sit here and wait,” the Sun said. Their fly looked
+around and reported that the man was their father. After examining the
+room everywhere, the inner corners, the windows, and door, the fly told
+them that ordeals were being prepared for them. He said that soon a
+blazing sky would be arranged, into which they would be thrown. The fly
+looked around for downy feathers which he gave the boys.
+
+When the Sun had finished eating he asked that those who said they were
+the Sun's children should be brought in. He threw them into the place of
+danger. He pushed them in with lightning which had sharp spines. They
+turned into downy feathers and stood in front of him again. “It is
+true,” the Sun said. He threw them in four times, pushing them down.
+Each time they turned into feathers and came back in front of the Sun as
+before. The Sun then said he was convinced that they were his children.
+His wife said: “They told you they were your children, but you have
+treated them badly.” The Sun replied: “They certainly are my children
+but I did not believe it before.” The Sun asked his wife to prepare a
+sweatlodge as soon as they had eaten.
+
+She made a sweatlodge covered with a blue blanket on one side, a black
+one on another side, a white one on another side, and a yellow one on
+another side. His wife had the stones heated red hot, like red hot iron.
+They three went right in, but the Sun only came out again. When the bath
+had been heated the fourth time the boys were as if they had been
+boiled. He pushed back the skin which was between their fingers and
+toes. He fixed for them their lower leg muscles, their knees, their
+thighs, their biceps, their elbows, and their lower arms. He made the
+hair of their heads come to their hips, twisting it off at that length.
+He made their ears, their eyelashes, and their eyebrows, their noses,
+their mouths, and their faces. He fixed every part of their bodies as it
+should be. The Sun went out of the bath with the boys and sat with them
+on the seat where his wife usually sat. They were just like men.[9] When
+the wife of the Sun came and stood in front of them she looked at them
+closely, but could not distinguish one from the other. “Move, husband,”
+she said. The one sitting in the middle moved himself. “You told me you
+had not been with any woman but you fooled me. These are your children.
+You must have a wife. Go home with them,” the woman said.
+
+The Sun spoke to his wife, saying that these were his children but that
+if he went away with them to the earth she would be lonesome. Only today
+there was a good sunset. “Just now when you said 'no' your eye winked,”
+he said to her. “I am jealous of what is far away,” she said. The Sun
+said he would not go, but would talk to his children.
+
+“My boys, shall I give you names?” “Yes, it is not well to be without
+names,” they replied. Then the Sun said he would name them. He told the
+older his name would be Naiyenezgani and that he must behave well.[10]
+He told the other one that he would be named Tobatc'istcini. “When you
+are upon the earth you will be called so and you will tell them that
+your father named you that. You shall say, 'He made my name
+Naiyenezgani.' But you, 'Tobatc'istcini he made my name,' you must tell
+them.”
+
+The Sun then asked them for what they had come. They told him they had
+come for his horse, his saddle, his bridle, his halter, his rope, and
+his saddle blanket. The Sun asked who had told them he had such
+property. The older one replied that their mother had told them what
+property he had and had told them that she would be happy if they
+brought it back to the earth. She said that he (the Sun) would also be
+happy. The Sun replied that he had no property, no horse, saddle,
+bridle, halter, rope, or saddle blanket. The fly had told them that the
+Sun had these, but he looked around again and reported that the Sun had
+them close by.
+
+“Let us go over there,” one of them proposed. They went to a fenced
+enclosure and entered through a gate. The yard was so full of black
+bears that the mass of their moving backs occupied the entire space.
+“Which of those are my horses?” the Sun asked. “They are fearful
+animals,” the boys replied. “These are my horses,” the Sun insisted and
+mounted one of them and rode around on it. The fly informed the boys
+that they were being deceived. The Sun proposed that they should go in
+another direction to another enclosure. Inside this yard were white-tail
+deer, mule deer, elk, and mountain-sheep. The Sun announced that these
+were his horses and told the boys to choose any one they liked and catch
+it. “Which is the largest?” he asked them. “These are not horses,” the
+boys replied, “they are named deer. We asked you for horses.” The Sun
+insisted they were his horses and that he rode them great distances.
+“Well, you have outwitted me. I thought I would succeed in outwitting
+you, but you have won.” The younger brother asked the Sun what he was
+concealing from them, saying he could find them. The Sun asked them not
+to say that and proposed that they look in another place where he had a
+few horses confined. They went to the place indicated and found the
+place filled with antelope, sheep, goats, and pigs. “Catch any one of
+these you want,” the Sun said. “You tend to them here alone,” the boys
+replied and walked out leaving the Sun who followed behind.
+
+They went to the house and ate a meal. Their fly told them that the
+Sun's horses were in the enclosure that had four doors. When they had
+finished eating they went to this enclosure which was a house with a
+roof having holes in it. It had spikes like irons, sticking up from it.
+It was closed and completely dark. “There are horses in there,” the fly
+told them. The Sun said, “I told you it was useless.” One of the boys
+asked that they might look in. There was a door there which he opened. A
+little beyond it was another door, a little beyond another, and a little
+beyond that another, and still beyond that another. They now came to
+horses in the enclosure but could not enter. By standing on something
+they could see through a hole in the roof. They could not get in between
+the horses until they were caused to separate and to open up a passage.
+The Sun then told them to catch the horse that they thought was his. The
+fly sitting by one of their ears told them they were to catch the horse
+with a rope which they should induce the Sun to give them. When the Sun
+again urged them to catch the horse without delay, they asked whether
+they should lead the horse by the mane or carry him out in their hands.
+The Sun, with spotted ropes in his hand, went right through the door
+which he opened. He gave one of the ropes to each of the boys, telling
+them to catch the horses which were his. The animals were milling around
+in the enclosure. In the center was one which was not moving, a sorrel
+with a small white spot on its forehead. Its mane reached the ground.
+When it raised its head one of the boys started toward it, the horses
+separating. He threw the rope and caught the horse which he led back.
+The Sun then told the other boy to catch a horse, wanting to know who
+had told him which horse to catch. There was a stallion running around
+the outside of the herd. Its mane reached the ground; he was acting wild
+but the fly told them that although he acted as if he were mean he was
+really gentle. He directed them to take both these horses from the Sun.
+When the other boy started with his rope toward the stallion he was
+running around the outside of the herd and coming toward the boy. When
+he came close and saw the boy he stopped and then wheeled back. The boy
+lassoed it and immediately the horse trotted up to him, nosing his arm.
+He led the stallion up beside the sorrel horse which was a mare. The Sun
+said: “There they are, ride them, take them with you to the earth.”
+
+The boys then asked for the horse trappings for which they had also
+come. The Sun said he did not know what they meant by horse trappings.
+The younger boy said, “Well, if you do not know what horse trappings
+are, do not again put them on these horses in the corral.” The Sun asked
+who it was who had made them as smart as he was himself. They replied
+that he, the Sun, had made them smart and had made them speak wisely.
+They then asked by name for bridle, halter, saddle blanket, and
+saddle.[11] Turning his back to the boys he walked away and opened a
+door, bidding the boys enter. They went in and saw saddles lying there
+with bridles hanging on the saddle horns. The blankets were lying
+beneath. Before they went in the fly flew in and selected two out of all
+the saddles. One was lying at the east and the other at the west. The
+first was blue and the other yellow. The fly had returned to one of
+their ears by the time the Sun said: “There are those saddles, take the
+ones you want.” The fly told the boys that the saddles which looked good
+really were not, but that they should choose the blue and yellow ones,
+indicating them, and the blankets, halters, bridles, and ropes of
+similar colors lying by them. These were the Sun's own particular set of
+trappings. When the Sun urged them to hurry up each boy stepped toward
+the saddle he had chosen. When they did so the saddles moved of
+themselves with the blankets and bridles. There was a sound “gij” of the
+moving leather and “tsil” as they came to rest.
+
+The Sun turned his face away and took a black silk handkerchief which
+had two white stripes around the border from his pocket. With this he
+wiped his eyes. “I raised you for just this purpose,” he said. The Sun
+started to walk toward the horses. Their fly had told them not to touch
+the saddles, that the Sun himself would fix them. “They belong to you,”
+the fly said. “Everything is alive; the rope on the horse moves about of
+itself. The saddle will jump on of itself.”[12] The fly told them this.
+The halter was gone, the bridle and saddle blanket which had been lying
+on the saddle were gone. The halter, bridle, and saddle blanket that had
+been with the blue saddle were also gone. The Sun called them to come
+where he was standing. They both went out again and the doors of the
+saddle room and of the stable were shut.
+
+They went to the Sun, who was standing between the two horses so that
+their heads projected as he held the bridles. They started away, the
+boys walking in front of the Sun as he directed them to do. They passed
+through the four doors to a post standing in front of the Sun's house.
+He led the horses to the post where they stood without being tied.[13]
+There were four chairs standing inside the Sun's house; and one by
+itself for the woman.[14] His children sat on the chairs and his wife
+sat on the one which was hers. The Sun addressed them as follows:—
+
+“My boys, I will instruct you about the dangerous places you will come
+to. The horses know the dangerous places on the way back. My wife is
+pleased with you and treats you well. That is why you are to have these
+horses, one of which is hers. The other is mine and so is the saddle,
+bridle, halter, and saddle blanket. They are all mine. You will go back
+to your kindred. When you are near, hurry. I will give you something.”
+
+The Sun got up and reached inside to a shelf from which he took up an
+iron knife like a sword. Turning around he took up a bow and arrows
+having iron heads. There were two of the arrows. “I give these to you,”
+he said. “You are giving us these! Our mother did not know about them.
+Why does she not give us something?” the boys said. The Sun's wife said
+she would speak a few words to them. “You shall be my nephews. Your
+mother shall be my sister. She shall be like me. Because of this I have
+treated you well. She shall be the same as I. I become an old woman and
+at other times I am as if I were two years old. She shall be the same
+way.[15] You shall tell her this before the Sun travels far. I am the
+one telling you; he did not tell you. I will name my sister. Your father
+will give you names.” The Sun picked something up and was still holding
+it. “Wait, I will tell you something and after that he will give you a
+name. I name her Nigostsanbikayo.[16] Every one will call her that. She
+will come to me. You, too, will come to me. I give a name to your
+mother. She will be called Ests'unnadlehi and she will help you. I make
+a name for her, Ests'unnadlehi, and with that she will help you. When
+she has children again they will be two girls. These girls will belong
+to the people for there will be people.[17] She will help them. I, too,
+will help them when they come to me. He, too, will help his children.
+That is why I am telling you and you must remember it well. I have
+finished. Your father will tell you about the objects he is about to
+give you.”
+
+The Sun gave the elder boy a weapon saying, “This will be called a 'blue
+sword.' You will use it against the monsters on the earth. Because of
+that I gave you the name, Naiyenezgani.” He gave the weapon to him
+saying, “That is all for you.” Addressing the younger, he said, “Now I
+give this to you, Tobatc'istcini. You will use this which I give you
+against those who prey upon people. You are to help each other. I shall
+be near you watching you. Whatever you do will be known to me. It will
+be well if you kill these evil ones. The people will live everywhere.”
+He gave him the bow with the injunction that he should draw the bow
+three times without releasing the arrow and then he should shoot the
+dangerous beings and they would fly apart. Having said this, he proposed
+they should eat something. The Sun's wife was still sitting in her
+accustomed seat. The men went to the table, well loaded with food
+prepared by some unknown agency, and began to eat. The Sun's wife gave
+the elder one a spotted belt with a yellow fringe hanging from its
+border.
+
+When they had finished the meal, the Sun said he did not know how the
+visitors were to return. They went where the horses stood and the Sun
+said, “Children, this stallion will go well in the lead. Now mount the
+horses.” He held the stirrup and saddle horn and told the boys to get
+on. They did so and rode away from the Sun's house where towards the
+east a post stands up with white hair[18] which reaches to the ground
+and turns up again. The rain falls on it. They rode their horses around
+this post four times and came back where they were standing before, as
+the Sun directed them to do.
+
+When they had finished, the Sun's wife came up to them and told her
+husband to count for his sons the two saddle blankets, two halters, two
+bridles, two ropes, and two saddles. The Sun told them to start home;
+that he was well acquainted with them. He charged them to take good care
+of the saddle blankets and directed that the gray horse should go in the
+lead because he knew the trail to the place midway between the earth and
+the sky. From that point the sorrel horse was to lead because that one
+knew the way from there on. When they returned where their mother lived
+he told them to stake the horses out for four nights. The sorrel was to
+be staked toward the east and the gray to the west. Having ridden the
+horses among the people they were to unsaddle them in some good place. A
+white saddle blanket was to be placed toward the east, a black one to
+the south, a yellow one to the west, and a blue one to the north.[19]
+The bridles, halters, ropes, and saddles were to be brought to the camp.
+He charged them to keep in mind what he was telling, for he was telling
+them this that they might be good men. He divided his property between
+his boys. He told them after the horses had been running loose four days
+to go to them early in the morning. This might be in any good place
+where canyons meet, making a flat. When they came to them they were to
+hold out their hands, palms upward, towards the horses. They were to
+catch the horses while they were licking their hands. They were to
+consider what he told them and when they should go for the horses after
+four days, the four canyons coming together would be full of horses.
+When their horses had been caught by holding out their hands, the saddle
+blankets, one on the other, were to be put on them and the horses were
+to be saddled. They were to ride the horses all day until sunset when
+they were to be turned out again. Having turned them out, they were told
+they might go the next day to see what was happening. Having finished
+his speech he dismissed the boys.
+
+They went with the Sun until they came to the top of the ridge, where
+they stopped. The Sun felt the horses all over. He felt of their legs,
+their feet, their faces, their ears, their manes, their backs, petting
+them. “Goodbye, my horses,” he said, “travel well for my boys down to
+the earth. There is food for you on the earth the same as here.” He
+addressed the gray horse, telling him to be the leader on the way toward
+the earth since he knew the way. He told the boys not to look at the
+horses' feet nor to look behind them, but to keep their eyes fixed on
+the tips of their ears.
+
+They started; before they knew it the horses had changed places, and the
+sorrel was leading. They thought the earth was far off but they soon
+found the horses were trotting along on the earth. Now the horses were
+running with them toward their camp. They rode up slowly where the
+people were walking about. They rode to the camp side by side, and the
+people all ran out to look at them. Their mother was standing outside
+watching them and they rode up one on each side of her. “Mother,
+Ests'unnadlehi, unsaddle our horses,” they said to her.
+
+The people all came up to them. The woman, laughing, ran her hand over
+the horses saying, “Your father gave you large horses.” When the people
+had all come there, the boys told them to call their mother
+Ests'unnadlehi. They all called her by that name. The older boy said
+they were to call him Naiyenezgani. The younger one said they were to
+call him Tobatc'istcini.[20] They addressed them saying, “When we were
+here before you used to laugh at us because we were poor. We used to
+walk because we were poor. We have visited our father where he lives.
+The Sun's wife named our mother. Call me Naiyenezgani. That one was
+given the name, Tobatc'istcini. These will be our names and be careful
+to call them correctly. Do not come near these horses. We will stake one
+out here and the other one there. They will remain tied out four days.
+You may go.”
+
+Before sundown on the fourth day the horses whinnied. They went to their
+horses and saddled them. They rode around among the camps until sundown
+and then rode them to a flat where four canyons came together. They hung
+a white saddle blanket toward the east, a black one to the south, a
+yellow one to the west, and a blue one to the north. Their fly told them
+to hang the blankets in four places, making an enclosure of them. After
+four days they were to come and would find conditions different. He
+charged the boys not to miss doing just as their father had told them.
+They went back to the camp carrying the saddles, bridles, halters, and
+ropes. After two days had passed their fly flew away. He returned,
+reporting that there were many horses filling the place where the four
+canyons came together. The next day he reported that the horses were so
+thick one could walk on their backs. The next day (the fourth), about
+sunrise, the two boys went there with their ropes in their hands. When
+they came to the eastern canyon it was full of white horses, the
+southern one was full of black horses, the western was full of yellow
+horses, and the northern canyon with blue (gray) horses.
+
+They took down all the saddle blankets and piled them together. With
+valleys in four directions full of horses they did not know their former
+horses from the others. They considered how they might distinguish them.
+The horses were milling around near where a blanket hung. They were all
+mingled together with the colors mixed. The men approached the horses
+but they stopped before they got to them. They extended their hands with
+pollen on the palms and the horses whinneyed. Then two horses trotted up
+to them and licked the pollen from the hands of their owners who caught
+them while they did it.[21] They led these horses back to the camp where
+the saddles, etc., were lying.
+
+When they led these two horses all the others followed. Their fly told
+them all about the two horses, what they had done, and that they had
+made many horses for them. Four days from now it would come about that
+the broad earth would be covered with horses. Their fly flew to the
+Sun's camp and the Sun instructed him. “Drive the horses over this way
+and put a halter on top of that mountain; put a rope on the top of this
+mountain to the south; put a halter on the top of the mountain to the
+west; and put a rope on the mountain to the north. Your father says
+this,” the fly told them.
+
+The older of the brothers told the people that they should ride the
+horses and not think they were wild. “Catch any of them and saddle them.
+When you have ridden your horses, then do not go near them for four
+days. Keep away from the horses which are inside where the halters and
+ropes are lying. Turn the horses loose in the space enclosed by the
+ropes and the halter. If they see you they may stampede. These horses
+will be of great value to you.”
+
+The brothers rode the two horses and the others all followed. When the
+two horses whinneyed, the others all answered. They took off the ropes
+and went back to camp. They asked their mother to put up two posts and
+to put a smooth pole across their tops. She was asked to put the saddles
+on this pole with their horns toward the east.[22] The bridles were to
+be hung on the saddle horns and the saddle blankets spread over the
+saddles. They asked her to think about the saddles where they were lying
+during the night.
+
+She kept her mind on the saddles during the night and in the early
+morning she went out to them. There were four saddles on the pole where
+there had been only two. She still kept her mind on the saddles and the
+next morning there were six lying there. “My child,” she said, “you
+spoke the truth. I kept my mind on the saddles and six are now lying
+there.” Tobatc'istcini said, “Very well, keep thinking about them all
+night and go to them early in the morning.” When she went out, there
+were eight saddles on the pole.
+
+Naiyenezgani said he was going yonder and would be back by sunset. He
+went to the mountain top where the halter lay. The Sun was standing
+there. “It must be my father,” he said. “I did not know you. I am glad
+you came down to me.” “Well, my son,” the Sun replied, “let us go around
+the horses.” “What time will it be when we get around them?” the son
+asked. Leaving the place where the halters were lying they went where
+the ropes were. The space was level full of horses. “Fine, my son,” the
+Sun said to Naiyenezgani, “with ropes and halters you made a fence so
+the horses cannot get out. You have this broad world for a corral.”
+
+They went on and came where the halters were piled up. “These halters
+will round up the wild horses for you and you will put them on their
+heads.” They went on and came where the rope hung. “These ropes will
+drive the horses together for you. They will drive the wild horses close
+to camp for you.” They started back and came where Naiyenezgani had met
+the Sun. “I have done everything for you,” the Sun said. “Now I am going
+back and leave you. You too will go home. Tomorrow it will be finished.
+You will give your people two horses apiece. Give each of them one
+stallion and one mare. Distribute them from noon until sunset. These
+horses are mares and stallions in equal numbers. Tonight two saddles are
+to be placed on the pole you put up. You shall keep three saddles and
+give away seven. When you give away the horses give away seven saddles.
+Now my son, we separate. Shake hands. Others will do as we do.” They
+said _njo_ to each other and separated. It was not long before he was
+back and stood there as the sun set. He was happy and laughing. “Where
+have you been, my son?” his mother asked. “You must have been in a good
+place or you would not be laughing.” “What did you say, mother?” he
+replied. “I am happy; when I came over there where the halter lay I met
+my father. I walked with him all day. As we walked around the horses he
+told me about everything. I am happy.”
+
+He said that none of them should go out tomorrow, but that he himself
+would go out early. When he went out there in front of the yellow saddle
+lay a white saddle. Behind that was a blue one. Between them was a
+yellow saddle. The pole was full. There were ten saddles in a row. “I
+told you to put up a long pole, and you put up a short one,” he said to
+his mother. “You said dig one hole here and another there, my son,” she
+replied. “Just these may well be our saddles,” he said. He called
+Tobatc'istcini, saying they would go to catch the horses. “You go to the
+rope over there. I, too, will go to the other rope. Hurry, we will catch
+the horses,” he said to him. He ran where one rope was, and the other
+one went where the other rope was. When they came to the two ropes, they
+circled around, driving the horses all towards each other. They could
+not find their own horses, the Sun's horses. They went into the
+enclosure and walked around. Even when they went around that way they
+could not find the horses. They looked for them again, going around
+among the other horses, but they could not find them. The horses touched
+each other, they were so thick.
+
+Then Tobatc'istcini said, “Naiyenezgani, why do you act so? Is your mind
+gone? You say you met your father yesterday and that you spent the day
+going around the horses. He took them out of the herd, and away from
+you.”
+
+Naiyenezgani caught a black stallion and the other brother a sorrel
+gelding. When they led them to the camp their mother asked
+Tobatc'istcini why he had caught a sorrel and told him to turn him loose
+and catch a white gelding. She said the gray and sorrel horses were made
+for them and that they were well trained the day before. She told them
+to hurry and drive the horses in. Tobatc'istcini rode the sorrel horse
+back and unsaddled it. He then caught a white horse and drove the gray
+horses back to the camp.[23]
+
+“Let us go,” he said to his brother. They mounted the horses and rode
+along. Their mother spoke to them, “My boys, take off that yellow saddle
+and put on a white one.” When they came riding back where their mother
+was, a horse whinneyed. It sounded like the voice of the gray stallion
+that used to be his horse. Another horse whinneyed in this direction and
+the voice was like that of the sorrel mare. They knew their horses when
+they whinneyed and one said to the other, “Brother, those are our horses
+whinneying but we cannot do anything about it.”[24] “Let us hurry,” the
+other said. They rode toward the herd of horses but the horses started
+to run and the herd broke up. While they were looking they ran where
+their horses whinneyed. Their fly told them that the horses had already
+run into the enclosure and that the four doors were shut. They heard
+them whinneying far away. Their fly said the horses were already in
+their stable, but they still whinneyed. They drove the other horses near
+the camp. The older brother told the people to form in a line around the
+horses. He said they were going to stake out horses for them. The people
+replied that they had no ropes, that only the two brothers had them.
+They asked the brothers to make ropes for them. They were told to wait
+while they returned where the horses used to be. They told them that
+they would have ropes the next day. The brothers went in different
+directions, calling to each other. They met and sent their fly to the
+Sun because the people were without ropes. He told his brother to go
+back where he had been staying. He directed him also to take the bridle
+off and to leave the rope as it was, tied to the saddle. “When the Sun
+is in the middle of the sky we will drive the horses back. Although it
+is late the Sun will be in the same place.[25] He (the Sun) may give us
+something,” he said.
+
+The fly returned and reported: ���Your horse was standing behind him. He
+sat watching where the stallions were fighting each other. He kept
+looking at them and then he went a little way.”
+
+The Sun's disk was yellow as at sunset. He looked down four times. The
+yellow beams struck under his raised knees. From the other side they
+also streamed toward him. Nothing happened, and he got up and went to
+his horse. When he put his foot in the stirrup and mounted, ropes were
+tied in four places to the saddle strings where there had been no ropes
+before. Both saddles were that way. They both mounted together and their
+horses pawed the ground and snorted. He rode back to the camp, loping,
+and the other horses strung out behind him. The other brother was
+running his horse on the other side. They stopped near the camp. The
+horses were all lined up facing him. He called to the one on horseback,
+“Come here.” He rode up to him and he asked how many ropes there were.
+The other replied he did not know for he had not counted them, and
+inquired of the other how many ropes he had. The first speaker replied
+that he did not know. Then the younger brother said the other should
+catch the horses for them and lead them out while he remained on his
+horse where he was. The other brother then rode among the horses and
+caught a mare. He led the horse out and gave the rope to one of the men.
+He rode back among the horses and caught a stallion. When he had caught
+six horses, the ropes were all gone. He beckoned with his hand and his
+brother rode up to him. “Had you only six ropes?” he asked. “Yes, I only
+had six and I have caught six horses. Now, take your turn and I will
+remain here on horseback.” The second brother caught the horses and
+reported that he had chosen the better horses. The horses were all good
+but some of them looked to be small.
+
+They told the people there were only seven saddles and that so many of
+the men might have saddles, but that the others must ride around
+bareback for the present. He told them that some time they might have
+saddles because the Sun knew of their need and he himself knew it. He
+instructed them to tie out their horses close by. He said if they heard
+the horses nickering they would know that the stallions were covering
+the mares. They would also know the colts when they were foaled. If they
+turned their horses loose they might not know them. The ropes he said
+would guard their horses for them. They would now drive back the other
+horses while those who had received horses staked theirs out.
+
+He drove the horses away and hung his bridle up. The other one he laid
+in another direction. He took the saddle and everything else back to the
+camp. They came back to the camp in the middle of the night but they did
+not know it was night because the Sun had not moved.
+
+When two days had passed two men came. There were many horses where they
+had passed. They reported that something was running around the other
+side of this large mountain. They did not know what it was, nor to whom
+it belonged. They wondered what was meant and sent their fly to find
+out. He flew away and came back almost immediately. He said it was true.
+On the ridge beyond the mountain he saw horse tracks and a trail with
+dust as fine as flour.
+
+One of the brothers asked his mother to cook for the men quickly. It was
+while they were eating that the fly reported. “Fly back there,” he
+directed him. He told the visitors to remain, for they were no doubt
+tired. They went back where the bridle was lying. They took off the rope
+and hung it toward the east. They spoke to the bridle asking that the
+horses, wherever they went, should come back together during the night.
+
+The visitors were as the two brothers had been. They had no eyelashes or
+eyebrows. Their ears were round and their heads were smooth. There were
+webs between their fingers and toes. When they were asked whence they
+came they replied that they had assumed there were people living
+somewhere. Their own people had been killed off by something until only
+the two were left. They saved themselves at night by digging a trench
+and covering it with a large rock. When they started away, one of the
+brothers asked where they were going. They replied that they did not
+know where they were going but preferred not to stay where they were.
+They said they did not like to be with many peoples. They preferred
+staying there with their present hosts. Naiyenezgani asked them to tell
+their story during the night.
+
+When night came, he called four men to come and listen to what the
+visitors were about to tell. He asked each of the four men to question
+the guests. “What is the country called where you live and what kind of
+thing is killing your people?” he asked. “Tell us about it.”
+
+“The place where we live is called _danagogai_, plain. Something has
+been killing our kinsfolk. It has been killing people everywhere on the
+earth. We do not know what to do,” one of them replied. Naiyenezgani
+told another of the men to question them. He asked if it were really
+true that they had been living in that place, saying he did not believe
+what the other had said. One of the guests replied that it was true. He
+said they did not know how to tell untruths and that it was not right to
+do so. “While we are here in camp it will kill someone.” He added, “I
+have finished.” The second questioner said, “Why did you tell us this?
+We are uneasy about it.” They replied that they were afraid of it and
+therefore came there where they intended to live with them.
+
+Naiyenezgani called upon a third man to question them. “Why did you
+leave a trail for them?” he inquired. “When your kinsfolk were all
+killed, why did you come to us leaving a trail?” The same man spoke
+again. He directed that the next day a sweatbath should be prepared that
+they should take a bath with the two visitors.
+
+“You said the horses had gone far away. I presume they have already come
+together again,” he said. “These some-kind-of-things you said were going
+away we call horses. That is all I have to say.” “These two will speak
+to you,” one of the company said.
+
+“I cannot promise that I will kill that thing which has been killing
+your people. Hurry to build the sweatlodge he mentioned,” Tobatc'istcini
+said. “Make the sweatbath: we are going for the horses,” he added.
+
+During the night the horses had come together. One bridle was lying at
+the east and the other at the west. They told the horses they must all
+stay there together. When the brothers returned the sweatlodge was built
+and the stones were on the fire. Tobatc'istcini directed that the men
+should stand in line while four of them should go into the bath four
+times. He said that when they had come out the fourth time the visitors
+would be like themselves. “You built this sweatbath, but it belongs to
+the Sun,” he told them. When he (Naiyenezgani) went in with them the
+fourth time he asked them where the thing was living which was killing
+them. The visitors replied that he lived down this way, pointing toward
+the west. “The one that has killed all of our people has something long
+for a weapon,” he added. Naiyenezgani said, “Well, he has been killing
+you.” When they came out the fourth time they all looked alike. They ate
+and after the meal the brothers told them all to remain there while they
+went to yonder white mountain ridge to look beyond. He looked at the
+Sun.
+
+They landed far away on the mountain ridge.[26] Beyond that mountain
+they went to another. There was a plain on which a mountain was
+standing. They landed next on that mountain. Tobatc'istcini said,
+“Brother, is the dangerous thing feared by you? If you are afraid, I am
+afraid. If you are not afraid neither am I afraid. You are the elder, I
+am the younger.”
+
+A man was walking in a valley without brush. He was the one who kills
+people. They sent their fly to look over the body of their enemy, to
+examine his ears, his eyes, and his mouth. The fly flew to the man and
+alighted on his ear. When he alighted on his nose the man said, “It is
+not just you. You smell like a man.”
+
+The fly reported that they could not come up to the man, for while he
+walked in one direction he could see behind because he had eyes in the
+back of his head. He had no eyes in front. “He has something long in his
+hand with which he kills people. When I sat on his nose he told me I
+smelled like people,” the fly reported. “He is the same sort of a person
+that you are.” The fly told them to go around to a certain gap in the
+ridge, where the monster was accustomed to pass, and stand side by side.
+He promised to let them know when the enemy approached. When the monster
+walked along, the fly came back where the brothers were standing side by
+side and said, “He is coming up here very close. If he stops here you
+must cut his head off. Now, you shoot him,” he said. “If he sees anyone
+he makes a sweep with his long weapon and kills the person even a long
+way off.”
+
+The man came close to them and stopped. One of them shot him and the
+other cut his head off. He stood just as he was before. They shot again
+and cut his head off again. The head fell but came back on again. One of
+them shot at him the third time and the other cut his neck off again.
+Then one of them ran around in front of him and shot him in the heart.
+This time his flesh flew apart and was scattered over considerable
+space. The flesh was quivering. That which they killed was called
+Naiye'. “That is why he named you Naiyenezgani,”[27] their fly said.
+“Because you and Tobatc'istcini both will kill dangerous beings your
+father named you that.” “You did this in his presence. He was looking at
+you and prevented the monster's making any move against you. He gave you
+the weapons with which you killed him. He did it for the good of
+mankind. Turn the head over and look at its face,” their fly told them.
+They turned him over and looked at his face. His face was like anyone's
+but he also had eyes in the back of his head.[28] No one could attack
+him from in front, and he had eyes to see behind himself also. His knife
+was sharp and the handle was good. “Let us take the knife to convince
+the people. If we do not have the knife, they will not believe us if we
+claim we have killed the Naiye' which used to kill people,” one of them
+said.
+
+On their return they landed on the white mountain ridge and returned to
+the camp. When they had returned, Naiyenezgani directed that all the
+people, including the children, should come together. He asked his
+mother, because the people were assembling, to spread down a buckskin
+and to place on it the arrows, his own weapon, and that of the slain
+Naiye'. He asked the people to gather around it. He called the two
+visitors, asking them to come to a designated spot. He told his brother
+to stand in a certain position and said that he himself would stand in
+another place. He said that he would address the people and told his
+brother to do the same. “I am telling you this because you are seeing
+what you have not seen before. You see today what our father gave us.
+Now you speak to them,” he said to his brother.
+
+Tobatc'istcini spoke as follows, “My name is Tobatc'istcini. Our father
+gave us these things lying here. A being called Naiye' was using that
+weapon over there to kill people. He had killed all the people except
+the two who are sitting over there. We killed him.” “You, Naiyenezgani,
+speak to them again,” he said to his brother.
+
+“We started from here and we went up to the top of yonder mountain. We
+went on to the top of a mountain standing beyond that. A small
+mountain[29] stands beyond that and we went up to its top. There we saw
+a man walking in a valley. He[30] went to him for us and returned. 'When
+he walks he is blind, but he has eyes in the back of his head,' he
+reported to us. 'He kills the people who are slipping up behind him.'
+Now he will not kill anyone. We shall live safely.” He took up what used
+to be his knife and carried it around for the people to see. The man's
+blood was on it, and it was fearful to look at. “There is no place to
+take hold of it. I will take hold of it here,” he said. “Do not look at
+this which used to belong to Naiye'. It is dangerous. Have a meal and
+then go home. Look after our horses well.”
+
+Their mother asked why the two who had come to them should not accompany
+them where the horses were. They went with them where the horses were.
+“Catch the sorrel gelding when you want to. You can tell it by the white
+spot on its shoulder,” he told one of them. To the other he said, “You
+may catch this black one with a white spot on its forehead. If we are
+away anywhere saddle them and ride them around among the horses and
+through the camp. The horses look as if they were mean, as if they had
+never had a rope on them, but they will not misbehave, they are not mean
+and will not shy.” They started back and when they came to the camp
+again they ate.
+
+Two days after they had killed the Naiye' they said they were going in a
+certain direction and that it might be late when they returned. They
+went up to the top of a small sharp-topped mountain. They looked at the
+Sun and, when it came up, yellow beams streamed out from the Sun's disk.
+His breath took the shape of a rainbow. The sunbeams fell to the ground
+over them. “It must be there,” he said. They started and landed on a
+mountain top. From there they went to another and from that one to a
+projecting ridge. Beyond that was a plain on which stood a blue
+mountain. They landed on that. It seems that those who were killing the
+people lived at a distance from each other and the people were living in
+the center of the world. The killers of the people were working towards
+each other.
+
+The two brothers stood on the mountain side by side. They were made like
+their father. You could hardly see their bodies. They were killing out
+the Naiye'. “Fly over the country and hunt him up. He is living
+somewhere,” one of them said to the fly. It flew off and went around
+them in a circle. The next time it went around in a smaller circle. He
+(the monster) was coming behind them. He had eyes looking both ways,
+four eyes. He held something crooked. He stopped and looked carefully
+behind himself. He did not look in front. He could look straight up and
+could see people down below. The fly looked him all over, at his eyes,
+his ears, his nose, and his face. “You are a burr,” he said to the fly.
+The fly thought he said he was going to catch him. He flew between the
+man's legs and returned where the brothers were sitting. “Did you say
+Naiye'? You have come to a dangerous place,” the fly said to them. “As
+he walks along he looks carefully behind himself. When he stops he looks
+up and he can see the people who are below.[31] He carries a long,
+crooked object with which he makes a sweep at people he sees in the
+distance and catches them with his hook.”
+
+The fly was sent again to find out from which point the monster could be
+attacked with the best chances for success. They saw him walking in the
+distance and then they saw him standing where he was accustomed to come
+up the ridge. The fly reported that was a good place for the attack. The
+brothers addressed each other. “What is the matter with you,
+Tobatc'istcini?” Naiyenezgani asked. “You are the leader and should
+speak first,” Tobatc'istcini replied. “Very well, you did not answer me.
+We will attack him. I will cause large hail with thirty-two points to
+fall on him. What are you going to do?” Naiyenezgani asked. “I will
+cause hot rain to fall on him,” was the reply.
+
+They went to him where he was walking. The sky made a noise and it began
+to rain. The two brothers came toward him behind this rain. He put his
+hand to the top of his head. It was hot rain which was falling. They
+could see him, but he could not see them. “Let him walk between you,”
+the fly directed. He was already exhausted with the hot rain and the
+hail. Naiyenezgani stood here and Tobatc'istcini there. The monster
+walked here saying, “It is a bad time. I, too, where I am, it is a bad
+place.” As he walked one of the brothers raised his bow and brought it
+down again, shooting. His companion cut off the monster's head. It came
+back immediately as it was before. They shot and cut his head off again.
+He fell three ways. They did the same thing to him the fourth time and
+he spread out like water. “There shall not be those who kill,”
+Naiyenezgani said. “This is the way I do to Naiye'. Just let him float
+here in his blood. The people will live happily on the earth. I have
+done well by them. Get ready, brother, we will go back. We will take the
+weapon with which he has been killing people.” He rolled this weapon up
+into a coil and put it in his blanket. “Come, we will go back,” he said.
+
+They came back in the manner they went, landing on the successive
+mountains until they reached the camp. They danced a war dance near the
+camp. They danced, holding up the weapon they had taken. “Mother, we are
+hungry, hurry and cook for us,” they said to her. When they had eaten
+they asked their mother to assemble the people and to ask the visitors
+also to come. She told the people to assemble, saying that her sons must
+have seen something during the day they had been away which they would
+tell them about. When the people had come together the weapon they had
+brought back was lying there, not as yet untangled.
+
+“We killed one like the other one. We both did it, but I could have done
+it by myself, if I had been alone. If he had been alone he too could
+have done it by himself,” Naiyenezgani said. “We both attacked him
+because we could do it quickly. We killed him quickly because our father
+helped us. If it had been one of you, you could have done nothing with
+this one that we call Naiye'. He would have killed you right away and
+eaten you up. He had killed all the people who lived with these two men,
+and just now he was coming for you. Before we had known it, he would
+have killed us all. There are no people living on the edges of the
+earth. We are all that are left. He killed people this way. Suppose that
+person should come on you, he would kill you this way.” He threw the
+weapon to a distant bush. It went around the tree and it was as if it
+had been cut off. “He was killing people thus. Now we will live well and
+no one will bother us. A man is going around the earth in one day and he
+will tell us about it.”[32] Tobatc'istcini started away and his mother
+spoke to him. “My son, put on this belt,” she said, offering him the one
+the Sun's wife had given her. “I am going around from here but today it
+is late, I will go tomorrow,” he said. They went to bed. “Take good care
+of things and do not be afraid of anything,” Tobatc'istcini said.
+
+When it was daylight their mother prepared a meal for them and they ate.
+“Come back safely, my son, as the people said to you,” the mother said.
+“I am going, but I do not know when I shall come back,” Tobatc'istcini
+replied. He started, telling them to watch for him on a certain mountain
+point. “I will be back about noon.”
+
+He started away, traveling with a blue flute which had wings.[33] He
+went with this from place to place and was back home before long. He
+went entirely around the border of the world on which people were
+living. The belt was a blue flute. He thought with it four ways and
+looked into it four ways. Before noon a light rain fell on the
+projecting mountain. That cleared off and then he came laughing. “It was
+not far, only so large,” he said, joining the tips of his forefinger and
+his thumb. “Have you your property ready?” he asked. “Have you collected
+everything that is ours? Tomorrow we will give out the horses, one
+apiece to each of you. We shall not give out horses again. Bring the
+horses near to the camp.”
+
+They brought the saddles, the bridles, the halters, the ropes, and the
+blankets. They two went where the horses were. They caught some of the
+horses and saddled them, and drove the other horses near the camp where
+they herded them. They called the people to assemble and when they came
+caught horses for them. He gave away ten horses in all. “I will give you
+no more horses,” he said. “Tomorrow we will go different ways.”[34] He
+drove the horses back where they stayed. “Stake out our horses nearby
+and leave the saddles on them all night,” he said. “This is all. You may
+go in any direction you like.” “This way,” pointing to the east; “this
+way,” south; “this way,” west; or “this way,” north. “We are going over
+here where the end of the world is,” some of them said. Others said they
+were going to the end of the world in this direction. In this manner,
+each party chose a location.
+
+When they had finished, they asked the brothers which way they were
+going. They replied that they were going to drive their horses to the
+top of yonder mountain (_bitsanldai_). “Take good care of your horses.
+Look after them for twelve days and then they will be accustomed to you.
+Now you may go. We are going also.” He drove his horses away saying,
+“None of you are going with us. I thought some of you would go with us.
+You are only giving us back our mother. Go on, mother, let your horse
+lead.”
+
+His mother inquired which way she should lead them. “Go on, go on, I
+tell you,” he replied. She rode towards the east. Soon a little light
+was to be seen under the horse. They went higher and higher until they
+came to the mountain he spoke of. They rode their horses beside hers.
+“Wait, mother,” he said and rode back. “Keep on down this mountain. It
+is good country in this basin. We will live here,” he said. They talked
+together. “You unsaddle over there, you over there, and you over there.
+We will watch the horses.”
+
+“You may have my yucca fruit which lies on the face of Turnbull
+Mountain.”[35]
+
+-----
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  Told by a White Mountain Apache called Noze, at Rice, Arizona, in
+  January. 1910. Noze was a native of Cedar Creek and came to the San
+  Carlos Reservation when it was organized. He was for a long time the
+  chief of a considerable band which in 1910 had greatly dwindled. He
+  died some time between 1910 and the next visit in 1914.
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  This mountain was said to be called _tsidalanasi_ and to stand by the
+  ocean at the south. This is a remarkable statement as east would have
+  been expected and as is so stated in fact in a following paragraph.
+
+Footnote 3:
+
+  This makes the boys brothers in our use of the word. They are always
+  so called in the Navajo account according to which their mothers were
+  sisters. Matthews, 105.
+
+Footnote 4:
+
+  At the center of the sky.
+
+Footnote 5:
+
+  And therefore the boys were not seen by the Sun.
+
+Footnote 6:
+
+  The sacred numbers are 4, 12, and 32.
+
+Footnote 7:
+
+  This method of making the journey has not been encountered before in
+  this connection, but is an incident in a European story secured from
+  the San Carlos, p. 82, above. The usual account includes a series of
+  obstacles some of which resemble the incidents of a European story.
+  See p. 116 below.
+
+Footnote 8:
+
+  Clouds according to the Navajo account, Matthews, 111; and below, p.
+  117.
+
+Footnote 9:
+
+  Thus far the myth seems chiefly to deal with the adolescence ceremony
+  of the boys. The San Carlos account brings in the Sun's father and
+  brothers of the Sun's father as performers of this ceremony, while the
+  Navajo account mentions the daughters of the Sun. See p. 11 above, and
+  Matthews, 112.
+
+Footnote 10:
+
+  Other versions make this the second naming of the elder brother. His
+  boyhood name was “Whitehead,” p. 31. Still other names are known to
+  the Navajo. Matthews, 263-264.
+
+Footnote 11:
+
+  To know by name things or animals hitherto unknown is often mentioned
+  as a great feat. P. 24.
+
+Footnote 12:
+
+  It is seldom that the Apache conception of animism is so plainly
+  stated. Songs however abound in the designation of objects as
+  “living.”
+
+Footnote 13:
+
+  When a youth went through an adolescence ceremony he did it with a
+  definite career in mind. The normal myth of this type put the emphasis
+  on the weapons secured and feats of warlike prowess in killing the
+  monsters; that is, the warrior idea is uppermost. This version
+  stresses the acquisition of horses and probably is a specialized myth
+  for those who wish to be successful in acquiring and breeding horses.
+
+Footnote 14:
+
+  The house of the Sun with the stable and corral, the furniture of the
+  house, and many other references indicate the home of a European and
+  such seems to be the conception.
+
+Footnote 15:
+
+  The two wives of the Sun are often mentioned. The Navajo account has
+  Esdzanadlehi go to the west where the sun visits her daily. Here and
+  there, especially in the songs, the Moon is coupled with the Sun, and
+  is feminine in sex. That the Moon and the Earth should both be called
+  the “Woman who renews herself” is interesting. These conceptions are
+  generally vague and implied rather than expressed.
+
+Footnote 16:
+
+  Earth, literally “There on the earth.”
+
+Footnote 17:
+
+  The narrator said those mentioned at the beginning of the narrative
+  were not real people but just like shadows. The other versions have
+  only the one family existing at this time.
+
+Footnote 18:
+
+  The reference may be to moss, especially as rain falling on it is
+  mentioned below.
+
+Footnote 19:
+
+  The narrator said it was true that horses would not pass a blanket so
+  placed in a narrow canyon.
+
+  This order of the colors and their assignment varies from the one more
+  generally found of black for the east and white for the south. P. 7,
+  and Matthews, 215.
+
+Footnote 20:
+
+  This announcing of names is probably to be explained as ceremonial.
+  Ordinarily, it is improper, probably because immodest to call one's
+  own name.
+
+Footnote 21:
+
+  The use of pollen for sacred purposes is a very important feature
+  among the Athapascan of the Southwest. It is always preferred to the
+  cornmeal used by the Pueblo peoples.
+
+Footnote 22:
+
+  In the division of labor the women are supposed to saddle and unsaddle
+  the horses.
+
+Footnote 23:
+
+  Because he must use a white saddle, the informant explained.
+
+Footnote 24:
+
+  The whinneying was heard from the top of the sky.
+
+Footnote 25:
+
+  The conception of time passing while the Sun stood still is fairly
+  difficult for a people without timepieces.
+
+Footnote 26:
+
+  This method of traveling implies lightning, rainbow or a similar
+  supernatural method, in this case said to be sunbeams.
+
+Footnote 27:
+
+  The name is Naiye', “a dangerous monster,” and -nezgani, “he who
+  kills.”
+
+Footnote 28:
+
+  It is said above that he had no eyes in front.
+
+Footnote 29:
+
+  “Mountain, its child.”
+
+Footnote 30:
+
+  He did not mention his fly by name.
+
+Footnote 31:
+
+  Probably means he can see people who are on the opposite side of a
+  hill.
+
+Footnote 32:
+
+  These monsters are not those in the usual versions. The bringing of
+  trophies and the narratives remind one of counting coup in the Plains.
+  The Navajo versions also mention the bringing back of trophies.
+
+Footnote 33:
+
+  One of the recognized methods of rapid locomotion. P. 20 above.
+
+Footnote 34:
+
+  The dispersion of the tribes, a common incident in origin myths.
+
+Footnote 35:
+
+  The formula for the completion of a narrative.
+
+
+
+
+                           NAIYENEZGANI.[36]
+
+
+Long ago the Sun set and, there in the west, he became the son-in-law of
+Toxastinhn (Water-old-man) whose daughter he married. She, who was to
+become the wife of the Sun, built a house with its door facing the
+sunrise. She sat in the doorway facing the rising sun from which the red
+rays streamed toward her. These rays entered her and since her period
+was about to occur she became pregnant as a result.
+
+When the child was born, its hands and feet were webbed. There was no
+hair on its head and it had no nose. When the boy was grown up he asked
+where his father lived. His mother replied that his father lived where
+one could not go, for the Sun was his father. The boy asked again where
+he lived. His mother said he lived at the sunrise, but that one could
+not go there. The boy then said that he would go there and set out on
+the journey.
+
+He came where the cliffs come down of themselves. They moved in front of
+him. The lightning shot across with him. Beyond that place he came to
+the mountain of cactus which formed a dark barrier in front of him.
+There a black whirlwind twisted through for him so that he passed by.
+From there he went on where the mountain of mosquitoes stood like a
+black ridge in front of him. A female rain fell for him and the wings of
+the mosquitoes became damp; then he passed over. From there he went on
+where the mountains moved up and down toward each other. He jumped away
+from them and then toward them, but in no way could he get through.
+Black-measuring-worm, whose back is striped with lightning, bent over it
+with him.[37]
+
+He walked on toward the house of the Sun. As he was going along, near
+sundown, a spider drew its thread across below the boy's knee and
+tripped him. He got up and went back, but fell again at the same place.
+Wondering why he had fallen, he started on again, when he saw the head
+of Spider-old-woman projecting from her hole so far (three inches) away.
+“Grandchild, where are you going?” she asked. He replied that he was
+going to the house of his father, the Sun. She told him to come into her
+house instead. He replied that the opening was too small. When assured
+that it was large enough, he went in. She told him one could not go to
+the Sun. The spider girls were lying there without skirts or shirts.
+They lay with the head of one toward the feet of the next. Spider-woman
+asked what was the piece of cloth tied to his shirt. He gave it to her
+and she worked with it all night; and the next morning each girl had a
+shirt and a skirt. She made them from the young man's piece of
+cloth.[38]
+
+When the Sun rose, Spider-old-woman went out-of-doors. “It is not yet
+time, my grandson,” she said. She held up five fingers horizontally and
+said it would be time when the Sun shone over them.[39] When the time
+came to go, they set out toward the house of the Sun. He came to the
+front of the house where there were twelve doors and all of them were
+shut. Without anyone opening a door for him, he came to Sun's wife.
+“What sort of a person are you?” she asked. He replied he had come to
+see his father. The woman warned him that no one was allowed around
+there. She rolled him up in a blanket,[40] which she tied with
+lightning, and hid him by the head of the bed.
+
+When the sun set, he heard the noise of the Sun's arrival. The Sun came
+inside his house. “I do not see anyone,” he said, “but from the mountain
+where I go down some man had gone along.” “You tell me you do not have
+love affairs where you go around. This morning your son came here.” She
+went to the head of the bed, undid the lightning with which he was tied
+up and took the boy out. The Sun saw it was his boy. There were twelve
+pipes in which tobacco was burned. The Sun fixed a smoke for him in one
+of these. It was not the Sun's proper tobacco, but a kind that killed
+whoever smoked it. The boy drew on the pipe just once and the tobacco
+was burned out. The Sun prepared another pipeful, which was gone when
+the boy had drawn on the pipe twice. He filled a third pipe; this time
+the boy drew on it three times and the tobacco was consumed. The last
+time the pipe was filled, the boy drew four times before the tobacco was
+burned out.
+
+Toward the east, there was a blazing fire of black _yabeckon_ into which
+the Sun threw the boy. He turned into a downy feather and landed in
+front of his father who expressed his surprise. There was a fire of blue
+_yabeckon_ toward the south into which the boy was next thrown. He again
+turned into a feather and landed in front of his father. The fire toward
+the west was of yellow _yabeckon_ from which the boy escaped in the same
+manner. Finally, the boy was thrown into a white fire of _yabeckon_
+which blazed up in the north. He escaped in the same manner as before.
+Each time when the boy was thrown in, the fire had been poked with
+lightning of the corresponding color.
+
+When the boy had successfully withstood this last test, the Sun directed
+his wife to prepare a sweatbath. She did this by spreading four blankets
+of cloud: black, blue, yellow, and white. She put on the four blankets
+from the four sides in proper rotation. The Sun went in with all his
+boys. While they were in the bath, the skin between the boy's fingers
+and toes was pulled back and joints made in his fingers. He was also
+provided with hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, nose, and ears. Hair was placed
+on his body and nails supplied for his fingers and toes. Counting this
+boy, the Sun had twelve sons with whom he formed a line. He then asked
+his wife to find him in the line, but this she was unable to do because
+they all looked alike, she said.
+
+The Sun then placed a gun and a panther-skin quiver on a shelf and asked
+his son to choose which he would have. After sighting the gun, he
+concluded he did not like it. He put the quiver over his shoulder and
+took out two arrows. When he tried these, he hit the target in the
+center. He chose the panther-skin quiver saying he liked it.[41] All the
+other sons of the Sun had guns. The Sun had them shoot at each other in
+fun. Those who had guns beat the boy who had arrows and drove him off.
+
+On one side, horses were being made and on the other deer. The one who
+was in charge of making these is named Iltca'nailt'ohn.
+
+They put, for him, a light brown mountain, inside of which, cattle,
+goats, sheep, pigs, horses, mules, and donkeys were living. All these
+are the food of white people. In this mountain also were guns, blankets,
+and all kinds of metals.
+
+On the other side he put, for him, a mountain on which century plants
+were growing with their yellow flower stalks standing all around the
+edges. On this mountain, too, were sunflowers, yellow with blossoms,
+cactus, yucca, piñon, oaks, junipers, the fruit of all of which was
+perpetually ripe. All the other wild vegetable foods of the Indians grew
+there also. The mountain was always yellow with flowers.
+
+The Sun asked the boy which of these two mountains he would choose. He
+decided to take the one which was yellow with flowers where fruit was
+always ripe. He did not care for the light brown mountain which stood
+toward the east. He announced that the yellow mountain would be his and
+would belong in the future to the Indians.
+
+They then opened a door in the side of the brown mountain and drove out
+cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, horses, donkeys, and mules. These became the
+property of your white people's nation. The Sun's son asked that some
+horses be given him. The Sun reminded him he had asked for the other
+mountain, and wanted to know why he had not then asked for horses.
+
+From the east, mirage people rounded up some horses for him. The red
+dust of the round-up covered the ground. “There are no horses,” the Sun
+said. The boy asked again for horses only to be told he should have
+asked before when he chose between the two mountains. He asked, that
+notwithstanding, he be given some horses. The Sun took up a rope and led
+back a chestnut stallion from the east. He tied the horse which stood
+pawing the ground and nickering. The boy rode back on it to the place
+where I suppose Toxastin and his grandmother lived. He rode back in a
+single day and tied his horse. The horse kept nickering and pawing the
+earth all the time; he would not graze and the boy was not satisfied. He
+rode back to the house of the Sun, took off the rope; and the horse ran
+off toward the east kicking up his heels.
+
+The boy told his father, the Sun, that the stallion he had given him was
+not satisfactory, and that he had come to ask for a different horse. His
+father went away and returned with two horses, a stallion and a mare.
+“These are what you want, I suppose,” the Sun said, and gave the boy a
+rope, a halter, a saddle blanket, and a saddle.
+
+The boy led the horse back to the place where Toxastin, his grandmother,
+and his mother lived. He led the horses back to a place called
+Cottonwood-branches-hang-down. To the south, blue cottonwood branches
+hung down; to the west, yellow cottonwood branches hung down; to the
+north, white cottonwood branches hung down. The place was named the
+center of the earth. The saddle was placed at the east; the saddle
+blanket at the south; the halter, at the west; and the rope, at the
+north.
+
+In the dry stream bed to the east, black burdocks grew; to the south,
+blue burdocks grew; to the west, yellow burdocks; and to the north,
+white burdocks. He turned out the two horses here to the east. Each time
+the Sun's son came back there, he found the two horses playing. After
+four days, he drove the horses up the valley a little way four times.
+When he went the fourth day to see them he found the tracks of a colt.
+
+That cottonwood tree stood in the center. On the east side of it a black
+stallion stood; on the south side, a blue stallion; on the west side, a
+yellow stallion; on the north side, a white stallion. Horses were
+walking around in the valleys to the east, south, west, and north. Thus
+there came to be horses here on the earth.
+
+-----
+
+Footnote 36:
+
+  Told by the father of Frank Crockett, February, 1910. Frank's father
+  was of the Bissaxa clan and was about sixty years old in 1910. He was
+  still a growing youth when he left the White River country.
+
+Footnote 37:
+
+  These in part are the obstacles mentioned in the Navajo account. They
+  are overcome in a different manner. Matthews, 109-110.
+
+Footnote 38:
+
+  Spider-woman is of considerable importance in the mythology of the
+  Hopi. Voth, 2, 11. The Navajo account (Matthews, 109) omits the
+  clothing-making episode. Spider-woman is the originator of spinning,
+  Franciscan Fathers, 222. She is sometimes said to be the mother of the
+  Sun and therefore Naiyenezgani's paternal grandmother.
+
+Footnote 39:
+
+  An Apache method of indicating time when the Sun is near the horizon.
+
+Footnote 40:
+
+  The blanket was probably a cloud. The word _caziz_ ought to mean
+  “sun-sack.”
+
+Footnote 41:
+
+  Had Naiyenezgani taken the gun Indians would have been armed as white
+  men are.
+
+
+
+
+                     THE PLACING OF THE EARTH.[42]
+
+
+They did not put this large one (the earth) that lies here in place
+before my eyes.
+
+The wind blew from four directions. When there was no way to make the
+earth lie still, Gopher, who lives under the earth, put his black ropes
+under the earth. Here his black rope lies under it; here his blue rope;
+here his yellow rope; and here his white rope.
+
+Over here (east) they made a black whirlwind stand with black metal
+inside of it. Here (south) a blue whirlwind and blue metal were placed;
+here (west) a yellow whirlwind and yellow metal; and here (north) a
+white whirlwind and white metal. With these standing on all sides, the
+earth came to its proper place and was stable.
+
+“Now that this is as it should be, what shall we do next?” said one of
+them. “To what purpose have we had such a hard time making this earth
+lie properly which otherwise would have been unstable?” Then he began to
+pat it with his hand. “Let a black cloud move about sprinkling,” he
+said.
+
+“There will be life from this; the world will be alive from the
+dampness,” he said. “They did well by us, what shall we do? Now thank
+you,” they said.
+
+The people had nothing. The one who was in charge (the Sun); that one
+only was walking around. “It will turn out well with him walking about,”
+they said. They looked well at the one they meant. “That one is the
+Sun,” they said. “We did it in the presence of that one walking about.”
+
+Then Ests'unnadli said she would do something unseemly. Thinking she
+would do it where the Sun first shone in the morning, she seated herself
+there. She was doing this only that people might live. There were no
+people and she thought there should be many and she did it for that
+reason.
+
+She became pregnant. She and the one walking around were the only ones
+who understood about generation. She gave birth to a child there where
+she sat. She went back to the child early each morning for four mornings
+and on the fourth, the child walked back with her. He was entirely
+dressed as he walked back with her.
+
+“It is not good that there should be only this one,” she said. “It will
+be well for me to do an improper thing again.” She sat repeatedly where
+the water was dripping and became pregnant again. She gave birth a
+second time to a child. “I will do as I did before,” she said. She went
+to her child early each morning for four mornings. The fourth morning
+after he was born, the child returned with her. He was dressed in
+buckskin, shoes and all.
+
+She had given birth to two children. The latter one she named
+Tobate'isteini and the first one Bilnajnollije.[43] They were the
+children of this one (the Sun).
+
+A black water vessel by the door of the sun's house was flecked with
+sunshine. He caused dark lightning to dart under it from four
+directions. He caused it to thunder out of it in four directions. He
+caused it to thunder in four directions. He caused male rain to fall in
+four directions. He caused fruits to stand on the earth in lines
+pointing in four directions. “Thanks,” they said, “he has treated us
+well.”
+
+A yellow water vessel by Ests'unnadlehi's door was flecked with light.
+She caused yellow lightning to pass under it from four directions. She
+caused it to thunder from it toward four directions. She caused female
+rain to fall four times in four directions. She caused fruits to stand
+in lines converging from four directions. “Thanks, she has treated us
+well,” they said. “Because of her, things are well with us.” “She caused
+the wind to agitate the grass from four directions for us,” they said.
+“With no trouble for us it comes to its place. The earth will remain
+well for us,” they said. “It is still the same way for us that it was
+long ago. We are thankful yet.”
+
+“Mother, where does our father live?” the boys asked. “Do not ask, for
+he lives in a dangerous place,” Ests'unnadlehi replied. “Do not say he
+lives in a dangerous place but show us where it is, for we are going
+there,” they replied. “If you go you must travel only by night. During
+the day one must sit still,” she told them. She said this, for she meant
+for them to make the journey without being seen by the Sun.
+
+They wondered why she told them to go only at night and resolved to
+travel by day. They came near where the ground was black with mosquitoes
+that had teeth of _becdiłxił_, and there was no way to pass through
+them. They caused a rain, yellow with sunshine, to fall on them and wet
+their wings so that they stuck to the trees. By this means, they passed
+beyond them. “This is why she said it is dangerous,” they said to each
+other. They came where the earth was crossed with a stripe of cactus
+which had spines of _becdiłxił_. A black whirlwind with a core of
+_becdiłxił_ passed, twisting through the cactus; the boys got by it.
+“This was surely the bad place of which our mother told us,” they said.
+As they were going on toward their father's house, they came to sand
+which, if one stepped on it, rolled back with him. There was no way to
+get through it. A big black measuring worm having his back striped with
+a rainbow, bent himself over the sand for them and they crossed over.
+They were now approaching their destination when they found the house
+surrounded by thirty-two lakes which could not be avoided.
+
+A turquoise bird sat in the ear of one of them and directed them on
+their way. The Sun's wife saw the two men pass through, avoiding the
+four bodies of water that surrounded the house. She concealed them under
+the bed which stood in the house. When the Sun returned, he saw the
+tracks of two men and asked where they had gone. The Sun's wife replied
+that they were not there. “You are always saying you have made no visits
+and yet your two sons come here,” she said. The Sun directed that they
+should come to him. They sat facing him. He had tobacco hanging in sacks
+in four places. It was black tobacco which grew on stalks of
+_becdiłxił_. He had a turquoise pipe with thirty-two[44] holes for the
+tobacco to burn in. With this tobacco, he killed those who were not
+really his children. They heard him draw on the pipe once and then he
+tapped it on something and the ashes rolled out. “Fix me a smoke, that
+is why I came,” one of the boys said.
+
+They two went to the sack which was hanging on this side. It was filled
+with large blue tobacco which grew on stalks of _becdoł'ije_. He filled
+a pipe with thirty-two bowls and lighted it again. Having drawn on the
+pipe, he passed it to them. He heard them draw on the pipe once and then
+the ashes fell out.
+
+“Prepare a smoke for me, for I came for that purpose,” one of the boys
+said again. When the other kinds, yellow, and white had been tried from
+the remaining world-quarters, one of the boys produced some tobacco and
+a pipe made of clay with a hole through it. “This is my pipe and my
+tobacco,” the boy announced. “Why did you not tell me before that you
+had tobacco?” the Sun said. He had chairs placed and took a seat between
+the two boys. The three looked just alike. “Come, Djingona'ai,[45] move
+yourself,” the Sun's wife said, so that she might distinguish him from
+the others. “They are surely my children,” the Sun declared. “What do
+you desire?” he asked them. The boys said they had come to hear him ask
+that. The Sun urged them to ask for what they wished without delay as he
+had many things.
+
+The Sun had domesticated animals in four corrals on four sides of his
+house. He had four kinds which were bad. They were bear, coyote,
+panther, and wolf, of which one is afraid. He led a bear from the
+eastern corral, remarking that this was probably the sort they meant,
+that it was his pet. The boys refused it, saying they had come for his
+horse. In turn he led animals from corrals at the south and west which
+were refused each time on the advice of the monitor that sat in the ear
+of one of the boys. The Sun pretended he had no other horse, that he was
+poor. The monitor urged them to persist in their request, saying that
+the Sun could not refuse. He finally led to them one of the horses which
+was walking around unconfined. He was just skin and bones. The rope also
+was poor. “Did you ask for this one?” the Sun said. “That is the one,”
+they replied. The Sun told them the horse could not travel far, but the
+boys said that was the animal they wanted.
+
+He gave them the horse with the admonition that they must not let
+Ests'unnadlehi see it or she would send them away with it, it looked so
+bad. The boys assured him it would be all right. He replied that she
+would be surprised at least. He requested them to tell Ests'unnadlehi
+that he, the Sun, always told the truth. He charged the two boys that
+they should not lie to each other. “This is a good day for you both,” he
+told them. “Thank you, Ests'unnadlehi, my mother, thanks.” “Thank you,
+Djingona'ai, my father. It is true that it is fortunate for us. It was
+for that reason you raised us,” they said.[46]
+
+-----
+
+Footnote 42:
+
+  Told in 1910 by a very dignified man, C. G. 2, of about sixty years.
+  He is a leader of the Naiyenezgani songs used for adolescent girls.
+
+Footnote 43:
+
+  The lightning strikes with him, evidently a poetic name.
+
+Footnote 44:
+
+  It was explained that four was the real number, thirty-two being
+  presumably a ceremonial or poetic exaggeration.
+
+Footnote 45:
+
+  “Goes by day,” the Sun.
+
+Footnote 46:
+
+  This fragment of the culture-hero story having been told, the narrator
+  refused to proceed, perhaps because he knew it had already been
+  several times recorded.
+
+
+
+
+                     THE ADOLESCENCE CEREMONY.[47]
+
+
+The Sun was the one who arranged the ceremony for unclean women. She
+(Ests'unnadlehi) sat thus on her knees and the red light from the sun
+shone into her. She was living alone.
+
+When she becomes a woman they straighten her. The people stand in a line
+and sing while the drum is beaten. They dance four nights. They paint
+her with white clay that she may live a long time, and that her hair may
+get white on one side of her head. They put up a cane with a curved top
+for her around which she is to run. At one side a basket stands in which
+there is tobacco and on the other side a basket containing corn.
+
+When she has run around the cane in its first position, it is put up
+again farther away, where she runs around it again and returns to the
+line of singers. Again, the cane and basket of corn are moved out and
+the girl runs around them. When she returns to the singers she dances,
+having a downy feather tied at the crown of her head. The cane is put up
+Hungerford, and Willoughby had brought in the South-Country adherents
+of Lancaster, those at least of them whom the fields of St. Albans
+and Northampton had left unharmed and unabashed. Sir Andrew Trollope
+was there, with the remnant of the trained troops from Calais who had
+deserted York at Ludford in the previous year. But the bulk of the
+sixty thousand men who served under the Red Rose were the retainers of
+the Northern lords. Henry Percy of Northumberland appeared in person
+with all his following. The Durham vassals of the elder house of
+Neville were arrayed under John Lord Neville, the younger brother of
+Ralph of Westmoreland, though the Earl himself was (now as always) not
+forthcoming in person. Beside the Neville and Percy retainers were the
+bands of Lords Dacre, Welles, Roos, Beaumont, Mauley, and of the dead
+Clifford--of all the barons and knights indeed of the North Country
+save of the younger house of Neville.
+
+The Lancastrian position was very strong. Eight miles north of
+Ferrybridge the Great North Road is flanked by a long plateau some
+hundred and fifty feet above the level of the surrounding country, the
+first rising ground to the west that breaks the plain of York. The high
+road to Tadcaster creeps along its eastern foot, and then winds round
+its northern extremity; its western side is skirted by a brook called
+the Cock, which was then in flood and only passable at a few points
+beside the bridge where the high road crosses it. The Lancastrians were
+drawn up across the plateau, their left wing on the high road, their
+right touching the steep bank of the Cock. One flank was completely
+covered by the flooded stream, while the other, the one which lay
+over the road, could only be turned by the enemy if he went down into
+the plain and exposed himself to a flank attack while executing his
+movement. The ground, however, was very cramped for an army of sixty
+thousand men; it was less than a mile and a half in breadth, and it
+seems likely that the Lancastrians must, contrary to the usual English
+custom, have formed several lines, one in rear of the other, in order
+to crowd their men on to such a narrow space.
+
+The Yorkists at Saxton lay just on the southern declivity of the
+plateau, within two miles of the Lancastrian line of battle, whose
+general disposition must have been rendered sufficiently evident by the
+countless watchfires along the rising ground.
+
+Although they knew themselves to be outnumbered by the enemy, Warwick
+and King Edward were determined to attack. Each of them had a father
+to revenge, and they were not disposed to count heads. Before it was
+dawn, at four o'clock on the morning of that eventful Palm Sunday, the
+Yorkist army was drawn out. The King rode down the line bidding them
+remember that they had the just cause, and the men began to climb the
+gentle ascent of the Towton plateau. The left wing, which was slightly
+in advance of the main body, was led by Fauconbridge; the great central
+mass by Warwick in person; the King was in command of the reserve.
+Of the details of the marshalling we know no more, but the Yorkist
+line, though only thirty-five thousand strong, was drawn up on a front
+equal to that which the sixty thousand Lancastrians occupied, and must
+therefore have been much thinner. When Norfolk and the missing right
+wing should appear, it was obvious that they would outflank the enemy
+on the side of the plain. Warwick's plan, therefore, was evidently to
+engage the Lancastrians so closely and so occupy their attention that
+Norfolk should be able to take them in flank without molestation on his
+arrival.
+
+In the dusk of the March morning, with a strong north wind blowing in
+their faces, the clumps of Yorkist billmen and archers commenced to
+mount the hill. No opposition was made to their approach, but when they
+had advanced for one thousand yards along the summit of the plateau,
+they dimly descried the Lancastrian host in order of battle, on the
+farther side of a slight dip in the ground called Towtondale. At the
+same moment the wind veered round, and a heavy fall of snow commenced
+to beat in the faces of the Lancastrians. So thick was it that the two
+armies could only make out each other's position from the simultaneous
+shout of defiance which ran down each line. Fauconbridge, whose wing
+lay nearest to the enemy, determined to utilise the accident of the
+snow in a manner which throws the greatest credit on his presence
+of mind. He sent forward his archers to the edge of the dip in the
+plateau, with orders to discharge a few flights of arrows into the
+Lancastrian columns, and then to retire back again to the line of
+battle. This they did; the wind bore their arrows into the crowded
+masses, who with the snow beating into their eyes could not see the
+enemy that was molesting them, and considerable execution was done.
+Accordingly the whole Lancastrian line of archers commenced to reply;
+but as they were shooting against the wind, and as Fauconbridge's
+men had withdrawn after delivering their volley, it resulted that
+the Northeners continued to pour a heavy flight of arrows into the
+unoccupied ground forty yards in front of the Yorkist position. Their
+fire was so fast and furious that ere very long their shafts began
+to run short. When this became noticeable, Fauconbridge led his men
+forward again to the edge of Towtondale, and recommenced his deadly
+volleys into the enemy's right wing. The Lancastrians could make little
+or no reply, their store of missiles being almost used up; their
+position was growing unbearable, and with a simultaneous impulse the
+whole mass facing Fauconbridge plunged down into Towtondale, to cross
+the dip and fall on the enemy at close quarters. The movement spread
+down the line from west to east, and in a few minutes the two armies
+were engaged along their whole front. Thus the Lancastrians, though
+fighting on their own chosen ground, had to become the assailants, and
+were forced to incur the disadvantage of having the slope against them,
+as they struggled up the southern side of the declivity of Towtondale.
+
+Of all the battles of the Wars of the Roses, perhaps indeed of all the
+battles in English history, the fight of Towton was the most desperate
+and the most bloody. For sheer hard fighting there is nothing that
+can compare to it; from five in the morning to mid-day the battle
+never slackened for a moment. No one ever again complained that the
+Southern men were less tough than the Northern. Time after time the
+Lancastrians rolled up the southern slope of Towtondale and flung
+themselves on the Yorkist host; sometimes they were driven down at
+once, sometimes they pushed the enemy back for a space, but they could
+never break the King's line. Each time that an attacking column was
+repelled, newly-rallied troops took its place, and the push of pike
+never ceased. We catch one glimpse of Warwick in the midst of the
+tumult. Waurin tells how "the greatest press of the battle lay on the
+quarter where the Earl of Warwick stood," and Whethamsted describes him
+"pressing on like a second Hector, and encouraging his young soldiers;"
+but there is little to be gathered about the details of the fight.[5]
+There cannot have been much to learn, for each combatant, lost in the
+mist and drifting snow, could tell only of what was going on in his
+own immediate neighbourhood. They have only left us vague pictures of
+horror, "the dead hindered the living from coming to close quarters,
+they lay so thick," "there was more red than white visible on the
+snow," are the significant remarks of the chronicler. King Henry, as he
+heard his Palm-Sunday mass in York Minster ten miles away--"he was kept
+off the field because he was better at praying than at fighting," says
+the Yorkist chronicler--may well have redoubled his prayers, for never
+was there to be such a slaughter of Englishmen.
+
+At length the object for which Warwick's stubborn billmen had so long
+maintained their ground against such odds was attained. The column
+under the Duke of Norfolk, which was to form the Yorkist right wing,
+began to come up from Ferrybridge. Its route brought it out on the
+extreme left flank of the Lancastrians, where the high road skirts the
+plateau. Too heavily engaged in front to suspect that all the army of
+York was not yet before them, Somerset and his colleagues had made no
+provision against a new force appearing beyond their left wing. Thus
+Norfolk's advancing columns were able to turn the exposed flank, open
+an enfilading fire upon the enemy's left rear, and, what was still
+more important, to cut him off from all lines of retreat save that
+which led across the flooded Cock. The effect of Norfolk's advance was
+at once manifest; the battle began to roll northward and westward,
+as the Lancastrians gave back and tried to form a new front against
+the unsuspected enemy. But the moment that they began to retire the
+whole Yorkist line followed them. The arrival of Norfolk had been
+to Warwick's men what the arrival of Blücher was to Wellington's
+at Waterloo; after having fought all the day on the defensive they
+had their opportunity at last, and were eager to use it. When the
+Lancastrians had once begun to retire they found themselves so hotly
+pushed on that they could never form a new line of battle. Their gross
+numbers were crushed more and more closely together as the pressure
+on their left flank became more and more marked, and if any reserves
+yet remained in hand, there was no way of bringing them to the front.
+Yet, as all the chroniclers acknowledge, the Northern men gave way to
+no panic; they turned again and again, and strove to dispute every
+step between Towtondale and the edge of the plateau. It took three
+hours more of fighting to roll them off the rising ground; but when
+once they were driven down their position became terrible. The Cock
+when in flood is in many places unfordable; sometimes it spreads out
+so as to cover the fields for fifty yards on each side of its wonted
+bed; and the only safe retreat across it was by the single bridge on
+the Tadcaster road. The sole result of the desperate fighting of the
+Lancastrians was that this deadly obstacle now lay in their immediate
+rear. The whole mass was compelled to pass the river as best it could.
+Some escaped by the bridge; many forded the Cock where its stream ran
+shallow; many yielded themselves as prisoners--some to get quarter,
+others not, for the Yorkists were wild with the rage of ten hours'
+slaughter. But many thousands had a worse fortune; striving to ford the
+river where it was out of their depth, or trodden down in the shallower
+parts by their own flying comrades, they died without being touched by
+the Yorkist steel. Any knight or man-at-arms who lost his footing in
+the water was doomed, for the cumbrous armour of the later fifteenth
+century made it quite impossible to rise again. Even the billman and
+archer in his salet and jack would find it hard to regain his feet.
+Hence we may well believe the chroniclers when they tell us that the
+Cock slew its thousands that day, and that the last Lancastrians who
+crossed its waters crossed them on a bridge composed of the bodies of
+their comrades.
+
+Even this ghastly scene was not to be the end of the slaughter; the
+Yorkists urged the pursuit for miles from the field, nearly to the
+gates of York, still slaying as they went. The hapless King Henry,
+with his wife and son, were borne out of the town by their flying
+followers, who warned them that the enemy was still close behind, and
+were fain to take the road for Durham and the Border. Only Richard
+Tunstal, the King's Chamberlain, and five horsemen more guarded them
+during the flight.
+
+When Warwick and King Edward drew in their men from the pursuit, and
+bade the heralds count the slain, they must have felt that their
+fathers were well avenged. Nearly thirty thousand corpses lay on the
+trampled snow of the plateau, or blocked the muddy course of the Cock,
+or strewed the road to Tadcaster and York; and of these only eight
+thousand were Yorkists. The sword had fallen heavily on the Lancastrian
+leaders. The Earl of Northumberland was carried off by his followers
+mortally wounded, and died next day. Of the barons, Dacre, Neville,
+Mauley, and Welles, lay on the field. Thomas Courtney the Earl of
+Devon was taken alive--a worse fate than that of his fellows, for
+the headsman's axe awaited him. Of leaders below the baronial rank
+there were slain Sir Andrew Trollope, the late Lieutenant of Calais,
+Sir Ralph Grey, Sir Henry Beckingham, and many more whom it would be
+tedious to name. The slaughter had been as deadly to the Northern
+knighthood as was Flodden a generation later to the noble houses of
+Scotland; there was hardly a family that had not to mourn the loss of
+its head or heir.
+
+The uphill fight which the Yorkists had to wage during the earlier
+hours of the day had left its mark in their ranks; eight thousand had
+fallen, one man for every six in the field. But the leaders had come
+off fortunately; only Sir John Stafford and Robert Horne, the Kentish
+captain, had fallen. So long indeed as the fight ran level, the knights
+in their armour of proof were comparatively safe; it was always the
+pursuit which proved so fatal to the chiefs of a broken army.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 5: There is nothing authentic to be discovered of the story
+mentioned by Monstrelet, and popularised in Warwickshire tradition,
+that the Earl slew his charger at Towton to show his men that he would
+not fly.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE TRIUMPH OF KING EDWARD
+
+
+On the evening of that bloody Palm Sunday, King Edward, Warwick, and
+the other Yorkist chiefs, slept in the villages round the battlefield.
+Next morning, however, they set their weary army on the march to reap
+the fruits of victory. In the afternoon they appeared before the gates
+of York, where the heads of York and Salisbury, bleached with three
+months of winter rains, still looked southward from the battlements.
+The citizens had, as was usual in the time, not the slightest intention
+of offering resistance, but they must have felt many a qualm as
+Edward's men, drunk with slaughter and set on revenging the harrying of
+the South by the Queen's army, drew up before their walls.
+
+Edward, however, had already fixed on the policy from which he never
+swerved throughout his reign--hard measure for the great and easy
+measure for the small. The Mayor and citizens were allowed to "find
+means of grace through Lord Berners and Sir John Neville, brother to
+the Earl of Warwick"--doubtless through a sufficient gift of rose
+nobles. These two lords led the Mayor and Council before the King, who
+promptly granted them grace, and was then received into the town "with
+great solemnity and processions." There Edward kept his Easter week,
+and made every arrangement for the subjugation of the North. His first
+act was to take down the heads of his father and his uncle from over
+the gate, and provide for their reverent burial. His next was to mete
+out to his Lancastrian prisoners the measure that York and Salisbury
+had received. The chief of them, Courtney Earl of Devon and the Bastard
+of Exeter, were decapitated in the market-place, and their heads sent
+south to be set up on London Bridge. James Earl of Wiltshire--long
+Salisbury's rival in the South--was caught a few days later, and
+suffered the same fate.
+
+The submission of the various Yorkshire towns was not long in coming
+in, and it was soon ascertained that no further resistance was to be
+looked for south of the Tees. The broken bands of the Lancastrians had
+disappeared from Yorkshire, and Warwick's tenants from Middleham and
+Sherif Hoton were now able to come in to explain to their lord how they
+had fared during the Lancastrian ascendency at the hands of his cousins
+of Westmoreland. In common with the few other Yorkists of the North,
+they had received hard measure; they had been well plundered, and
+probably constrained to pay up all that the Westmorelands could wring
+out of them, as arrears for the twenty years during which the Yorkshire
+lands of Neville had been out of the hands of the senior branch.
+
+A few days after Easter, Warwick and Edward moved out of York and
+pushed on to Durham. On the way they were entertained at Middleham
+with such cheer as the place could afford after its plunder by the
+Lancastrians. Nowhere did they meet with any resistance, and the task
+of finishing the war appeared so simple that the King betook himself
+homeward about May 1st, leaving Warwick with a general commission to
+pacify the North. John Neville remained behind with his brother, as
+did Sir Robert Ogle and Sir John Coniers, the only two Yorkists of
+importance in the North outside the Neville family. The King took
+with him the rest of the lords, who were wanted for the approaching
+festivals and councils in London, and with them the bulk of the army.
+
+The task which Warwick had received turned out to be a much more
+formidable matter than had been expected. King Henry, Queen Margaret,
+the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, Lords Hungerford and Roos, with the
+other surviving Lancastrian leaders, had fled to Scotland, where they
+had succeeded in inducing the Scotch regents--Kennedy, Boyd, and their
+fellows--to continue the policy of the late King, and throw themselves
+heartily into the war with the Yorkists. The inducement offered was the
+cession of Berwick and Carlisle, and the former town was at once handed
+over "and well stuffed with Scots." Nor was it only on Scotch aid that
+the Lancastrians relied; they had determined to make application to the
+King of France, and Somerset and Hungerford sailed for the Continent
+at the earliest opportunity. They were stayed at Dieppe by orders of
+the wily Louis the Eleventh, who was averse to committing himself to
+either party in the English struggle while his own crown was hardly
+three months old; but their mission was not to be without its results.
+Putting aside the hope of assistance from France and Scotland, the
+Lancastrians had still some resources of their own on which they might
+count. A few scattered bands of Percy retainers still kept the field in
+Northumberland, and the Percy crescent still floated over the strong
+castles of Alnwick, Bamborough, and Dunstanburgh.
+
+The problem which fell into Warwick's hands was to clear the routed
+Lancastrians out of Northumberland, and at the same time to keep good
+watch against the inroads of the Scotch and the English refugees who
+were leagued with them. Defensive and offensive operations would have
+to be combined, for, on the one hand, the siege of the Percy castles
+must be formed--and sieges in the fifteenth century were slow and weary
+work--while, on the other, the raids of the lords of the Scotch Border
+might occur at any time and place, and had to be met without delay.
+Warwick was forced to divide his troops, undertaking himself to cover
+the line of the Tyne and observe the Northumbrian castles, while his
+brother John, who for his services at Towton had just been created Lord
+Montagu, took charge of the force which was to fend off Scotch attacks
+on the Western Marches.
+
+In June the Scots and the English refugees crossed the Border in force;
+their main body made a push to seize Carlisle, which the Lancastrian
+chiefs, the Duke of Exeter and Lord Grey de Rougemont, promised to
+deliver to them as they had already delivered Berwick. The town,
+however, shut its gates; and the invaders were constrained to content
+themselves with burning its suburbs and forming a regular siege. But as
+they lay before it they were suddenly attacked by Montagu, who came up
+long before he was expected, and beat them back over the Border with
+the loss of several thousand men; among the slain was John Clifford,
+brother to the peer who had fallen at Towton.
+
+Almost simultaneously another raiding party, led by Lord Roos and
+Sir John Fortescu, the late Chief-Justice, and guided by two of the
+Westmoreland Nevilles, Thomas and Humphrey, slipped down from the
+Middle Marches and attempted to raise the county of Durham. But as they
+drew near to the ancestral Neville seat of Brancepeth, they were fallen
+upon by forces brought up by Warwick, and were driven back on June
+26th as disastrously as the main army for which they had been making a
+diversion.
+
+These two defeats cooled the ardour of the Scotch allies of the house
+of Lancaster. Moreover, trouble was soon provided for them on their
+own side of the Border. There were always discontented nobles to be
+found in the North, and King Edward was able to retaliate on the Scotch
+regents by concluding a treaty with the Earl of Ross, which set a
+considerable rebellion on foot in the Highlands and the Western Isles.
+By the time that the autumn came there was no longer any immediate
+danger to be apprehended on the Borders, and Warwick was able to
+relinquish his northern viceroyalty and come south, to pay his estates
+a flying visit, and to obey the writ which summoned him in November to
+King Edward's first Parliament at Westminster.
+
+While Warwick had been labouring in the North, the King had been
+holding his Court at London, free to rule after his own devices. At
+twenty Edward the Fourth had already a formed character, and displayed
+all the personal traits which developed in his later years. The spirit
+of the fifteenth century was strong in him. Cultured and cruel, as
+skilled as the oldest statesman in the art of cajoling the people,
+as cool in the hour of danger as the oldest soldier, he was not a
+sovereign with whom even the greatest of his subjects could deal
+lightly. Yet he was so inordinately fond of display and luxury of all
+sorts, so given to sudden fits of idleness, so prone to sacrifice
+policy to any whim or selfish impulse of the moment, that he must have
+seemed at times almost contemptible to a man who, like Warwick, had
+none of the softer vices of self-indulgence. Still in mourning for a
+father and brother not six months dead, with a kingdom not yet fully
+subdued to his fealty, with an empty exchequer, with half the nobles
+and gentry of England owing him a blood-feud for their kinsmen slain
+at Towton, Edward had cast aside every thought of the past and the
+morrow, and was bearing himself with all the thriftless good-humour of
+an heir lately come to a well-established fortune. It seems that the
+splendours of his coronation-feasts were the main things that had been
+occupying his mind while Warwick had been fighting his battles in the
+North. Reading of his jousts and banquets and processions, his gorgeous
+reception by the city magnates, and his lavish distributions of honours
+and titles, we hardly remember that he was no firmly-rooted King, but
+the precarious sovereign of a party, surrounded by armed enemies and
+secret conspirators.
+
+In the lists of honours which Edward had distributed after his return
+homeward from Towton field, Warwick found that he had not been
+neglected. The offices which he had held in 1458-59 had been restored
+to him; he was again Captain of the town and castle of Calais,
+Lieutenant of the March of Picardy, Grand Chamberlain of England, and
+High Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster. In addition he was now created
+Constable of Dover and Warden of the Cinque Ports, and made Master of
+the Mews and Falcons, and Steward of the Manor and Forest of Feckenham.
+His position in the North, too, was made regular by his appointment
+as Warden and Commissary General of the East and West Marches, and
+Procurator Envoy and Deputy for all negotiations with the Scots.
+
+Nor had the rest of the Neville clan been overlooked. John Neville had,
+as we have already mentioned, received the barony of Montagu. George
+Neville the Bishop of Exeter was again Chancellor. Fauconbridge, who
+had fought so manfully at Towton, was created Earl of Kent. Moreover,
+Sir John Wenlock, Warwick's most faithful adherent, who had done him
+such good service at Sandwich in 1459, was made a baron. We shall
+always find him true to the cause of his patron down to his death at
+Tewkesbury field. Although several other creations swelled the depleted
+ranks of the peerage at the same time, the Nevilles could not complain
+that they had failed to receive their due share of the rewards.
+
+Nor would it seem that at first the King made any effort to resent
+the natural ascendency which his cousin exercised over his counsels.
+The experienced warrior of thirty-three must still have overborne
+the precocious lad of twenty when their wills came into contact. The
+campaigns of 1459-60, in which he had learnt soldiering under Warwick,
+must have long remained impressed on Edward's mind, even after he had
+won his own laurels at Mortimer's Cross and shared with equal honours
+in the bloody triumph of Towton. So long as Richard Neville was still
+in close and constant contact with the young King, his ascendency was
+likely to continue. It was when, in the succeeding years, his duties
+took him for long periods far from Edward's side, that the Earl was to
+find his cousin first growing indifferent, then setting his own will
+against his adviser's, then deliberately going to work to override
+every scheme that came to him from any member of the Neville house.
+
+We have no particular notice of Warwick's personal doings in the
+Parliament which sat in November and December 1461; but the language of
+his brother George the Chancellor represents, no doubt, the attitude
+which the whole family adopted. His text was "Amend your ways and
+your doings," and the tenor of his discourse was to point out that
+the ills of England during the last generation came from the national
+apostasy in having deserted the rightful heirs so long in behalf of
+the usurping house of Lancaster. Now that a new reign had commenced, a
+reform in national morality should accompany the return of the English
+to their lawful allegiance. The sweeping acts of attainder against
+fourteen peers and many scores of knights and squires which the Yorkist
+Parliament passed might not seem a very propitious beginning for the
+new era, but at any rate it should be remembered to the credit of
+the Nevilles that the King's Council under their guidance tempered
+the zeal of the Commons by many limitations which guarded the rights
+of numerous individuals who would have been injured by the original
+proposals.
+
+Moreover, the Government allowed the opportunity of reconciliation to
+many of the more luke-warm adherents of Lancaster, who had not been
+personally engaged in the last struggle. It is to Warwick's credit
+that his cousin Ralph of Westmoreland was admitted to pardon, and not
+taken to task for the doings of his retainers, under the conduct of
+his brother, in the campaign of Wakefield and St. Albans. Ralph was
+summoned to the Parliament, and treated no worse than if he had been a
+consistent adherent of York. The same favour was granted to the Earl
+of Oxford, till he forfeited it by deliberate conspiracy against the
+King. Sanguine men were already beginning to hope that King Edward and
+his advisers might be induced to end the civil wars by a general grant
+of amnesty, and might invite his rival Henry to return to England as
+the first subject of the Crown. Such mercy and reconciliation, however,
+were beyond the mind of the ordinary partisan of York; and the popular
+feeling of the day was probably on the side of the correspondent of the
+Pastons, who complained "that the King receives such men as have been
+his great enemies, and great oppressors of his Commons, while such as
+have assisted his Highness be not rewarded; which is to be considered,
+or else it will hurt, as seemeth me but reason."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PACIFICATION OF THE NORTH
+
+
+Whatever the partisans of peace may have hoped in the winter of
+1461-62, there was in reality no prospect of a general pacification so
+long as the indomitable Margaret of Anjou was still at liberty and free
+to plot against the quiet of England. The defeats of her Scotch allies
+in the summer of 1461 had only spurred her to fresh exertions. In the
+winter, while Edward's Parliament was sitting at Westminster, she was
+busy hatching a new scheme for simultaneous risings in various parts
+of England, accompanied by descents from France and Brittany aided by
+a Castilian fleet. Somerset and Hungerford had got some countenance
+from the King of France, and Margaret's own hopeful heart built on
+this small foundation a great scheme for the invasion of England. A
+Scotch raid, a rising in Wales, a descent of Bretons upon Guernsey and
+Jersey, and a great French landing at Sandwich, were to synchronise:
+"if weather and wind had served them, they should have had one hundred
+and twenty thousand men on foot in England upon Candlemass Day." But
+weather and wind were unpropitious, and the only tangible result of the
+plan was to cost the life of the Earl of Oxford, who had been told
+off to head the insurgents of the Eastern Counties. He had been taken
+into favour by King Edward, and we need have small pity for him when he
+was detected in correspondence with the Queen at the very time that he
+was experiencing the clemency of her rival. But it was an evil sign of
+the times that he and his son were executed, not after a regular trial
+before their peers, but by a special and unconstitutional court held by
+the Earl of Worcester as Constable of England. For this evil precedent
+Warwick must take the blame no less than Edward.
+
+But Margaret of Anjou had not yet exhausted her energy. So soon as the
+storms of winter were over and Somerset returned from France without
+the promised succours, she resolved to set out in person to stimulate
+the zeal of Louis the Eleventh, and to gather help from her various
+relatives on the Continent. Escaping from Scotland by the Irish Sea,
+she rounded the Land's End and came ashore with her young son in
+Brittany. The Duke gave her twelve thousand crowns, and passed her
+on to her father Réné in Anjou. From his Court she went on to King
+Louis, who lay at Rouen. With him she had more success than might have
+been expected, though far less of course than she had hoped. Louis
+was able to show that he had already got together a fleet, reinforced
+by some Breton and Castilian vessels, in the mouth of the Seine. In
+return for an agreement by which Margaret promised the cession of
+Calais, and perhaps that of the Channel Isles, he undertook to engage
+frankly in the war, and to put at Margaret's disposition a force
+for the invasion of England. The way in which Louis chose a leader
+for this army was very characteristic of the man. He had in close
+confinement at the time a favourite of his father and an enemy of his
+own, Peter de Brézé, Count of Maulévrier and Seneschal of Normandy.
+De Brézé was a gallant knight and a skilled leader; only a few years
+before he had distinguished himself in the English war, and among other
+achievements had taken and sacked Sandwich. The King now offered him
+the choice of staying in prison or of taking charge of an expedition to
+Scotland in aid of Margaret. De Brézé accepted with alacrity the latter
+alternative, as much, we are told, from chivalrous desire to assist
+a distressed Queen as from dislike for the inside of the dungeons of
+Loches. Quite satisfied, apparently, at getting an enemy out of the
+country on a dangerous quest, Louis gave him twenty thousand livres in
+money, forty small vessels, and about two thousand men, and bade him
+take the Queen whither she would go.
+
+While Louis and Margaret were negotiating, their English enemies had
+been acting with their accustomed vigour. When May came round Warwick
+again resumed command of the Northern Border, and marched out to finish
+the work that had been begun in the previous year. He was already on
+Scottish ground, and had taken at least one castle north of the Border,
+when he received a herald from the Scotch regents offering to treat
+for peace. By his commission, drawn up in the last year, Warwick was
+authorised to act as plenipotentiary in any such matter. Accordingly
+he sent back his army and went himself to Dumfries, where he met Mary,
+the Dowager Queen of Scotland, and the majority of the regents. They
+concluded an armistice to last till St. Bartholomew's Day, and then
+set to work to discuss terms of peace. The common report ran that the
+Scots were ready not only to give up the Lancastrian cause, but even to
+deliver over the person of King Henry. Moreover, there was talk of an
+alliance by marriage between the English King and a Scotch Princess.
+This new departure, mainly brought about by the Queen-Dowager's
+influence,[6] was not without its effect on the Lancastrian partisans,
+who found themselves left unsupported to resist Warwick's army, which
+was, during the negotiations, put under the command of his brother
+Montagu and set to reduce the Northumbrian fortresses. King Henry
+fled from the Scotch Court and took refuge in one of the castles of
+the Archbishop of St. Andrews, the chief member of the regency who
+opposed peace with England. Lord Dacre, brother of the peer who fell at
+Towton, surrendered himself to Montagu, and was sent to London, where
+King Edward received him into grace. Even Somerset himself, the chief
+of the party, lost heart, and began to send secret letters to Warwick
+to ascertain whether there was any hope of pardon for him. Meanwhile
+Naworth Castle was surrendered to Montagu, and the more important
+stronghold of Alnwick yielded itself to Lord Hastings, who had been
+detached to form its siege. Bamborough was given up by Sir William
+Tunstal, and of all the Northern fortresses only Dunstanburgh remained
+in Lancastrian hands, and it seemed that this place must fall ere the
+year was out.
+
+Believing that the war was practically at an end, Warwick now turned
+south, and rode up to London to lay the Scotch proposal before the
+King. But he had not long left the Border when the whole aspect of
+affairs was once more transformed by the reappearance of Queen Margaret
+on the scene.
+
+While Montagu and Warwick had been in the North, King Edward had been
+sorely vexed by rumours of French invasion. Seventy French and Spanish
+ships were roaming the Channel, and Fauconbridge, who had set out to
+find them with a hastily-raised fleet, came home without success. A
+French force had mustered in Picardy, and Queen Margaret lay all the
+summer at Boulogne, tampering with the garrison of Calais, who had
+fallen into mutiny on account of long arrears of pay. But Calais failed
+to revolt, Louis made no serious attempt on England, and the Queen
+at last grew impatient and determined to start herself for England,
+though she could only rely on the assistance of Peter de Brézé and his
+two thousand men. Setting sail early in October, she passed up the
+eastern coast, and landed in Northumberland, expecting that all the
+North Country would rise to her aid. No general insurrection followed,
+but Margaret's arrival was not without effect. Both Alnwick and
+Bamborough fell into her hands--the former by famine, for it was wholly
+unvictualled and could not hold out a week; the latter betrayed by the
+governor's brother. Nor was this all; the presence of the Queen moved
+the Scotch regents to break off their negotiations with England, and
+denounce the truce which they had so recently concluded. All that the
+statesmanship of Warwick and the sword of Montagu had done for England
+in the year 1462 was lost in the space of a week.
+
+The moment that the unwelcome news of Margaret's advent reached London,
+Warwick flew to repair the disaster. Only eight days after the fall
+of Bamborough he was already at the head of twenty thousand men, and
+hastening north by forced marches. The King, ill-informed as to the
+exact force that had landed in Northumberland, had sent out in haste
+for every man that could be gathered, and followed himself with the
+full levy of the Southern Counties.
+
+The nearer the Yorkists approached to the scene of action the less
+formidable did their task appear. The approach of winter had prevented
+the Scots from putting an army into the field, and the Lancastrians
+and their French allies had made no attempt to push out from their
+castles. All that they had done was to strengthen the three strongholds
+and fill them with provisions. In Alnwick lay Peter de Brézé's son and
+some of the Frenchmen, together with Lord Hungerford. Somerset, who
+had dropped his secret negotiations with Warwick when his mistress
+returned from France, held Bamborough; with him were Lord Roos and
+Jasper Earl of Pembroke. Sir Ralph Percy, the fighting-man of the Percy
+clan--for his nephew the heir of Northumberland was a minor--had made
+himself strong in Dunstanburgh. Meanwhile the Queen, on the approach
+of Warwick, had quitted her adherents and set sail for Scotland with
+her son and her treasure, under convoy of de Brézé and the main body of
+the French mercenaries. But the month was now November, the seas were
+rough, and off Bamborough she was caught in a storm; her vessel, with
+three others, was driven against the iron-bound coast, and she herself
+barely escaped with her life in a fishing-boat which took her into
+Berwick. Her treasures went to the bottom; and of her French followers
+four hundred were cast ashore on Holy Island, where they were forced to
+surrender next day to a force sent against them by Montagu.
+
+Warwick had now arrived at Newcastle, and King Edward was but a few
+days' march behind him. Though the month was November, and winter
+campaigns, especially in the bleak and thinly-populated North, were in
+the fifteenth century as unusual as they were miserable, Warwick had
+determined to make an end of the new Lancastrian invasion before the
+Scots should have time to move. Luckily we have a full account of his
+dispositions for the simultaneous siege of the three Percy castles,
+from the pen of one who served on the spot.
+
+The army was arranged as follows. King Edward with the reserve lay at
+Durham, in full touch with York and the South. The Duke of Norfolk
+held Newcastle, having as his main charge the duty of forwarding
+convoys of victuals and ammunition to the front, and of furnishing
+them with strong escorts on their way, to guard against any attempts
+made by roving bands of Scots or Percy retainers to break the line
+of communications, thirty miles long, which connected Newcastle with
+the army in the field. The force under Warwick's immediate command,
+charged with the reduction of the fortresses, was divided into four
+fractions. The castles lie at considerable intervals from each other:
+first, Bamborough to the north on a bold headland projecting into the
+sea, a Norman keep surrounded with later outworks; next Dunstanburgh,
+nine miles farther south, and also on the coast; lastly, Alnwick,
+five miles south-west of Dunstanburgh, on a hill, three miles from the
+sea-coast, overlooking the river Alne. Dunstanburgh and Bamborough,
+if not relieved from the sea, could be surrounded and blockaded with
+comparative ease; Alnwick, the largest and strongest of the three
+castles, required to be shut in on all sides, and was likely to prove
+by far the hardest task. Luckily for Warwick the Roman road known as
+the Devil's Causeway was available for the connection of his outlying
+forces, as it runs almost by the walls of Alnwick and within easy
+distance of both Dunstanburgh and Bamborough. To each castle its own
+blockading force was attached. Opposite Bamborough, the one of the
+three which was nearest to Scotland and most exposed to attack by a
+relieving army, lay Montagu and Sir Robert Ogle, both of whom knew
+every inch of the Border. Dunstanburgh was beleaguered by Tiptoft Earl
+of Worcester and Sir Ralph Grey. Alnwick was observed by Fauconbridge
+and Lord Scales. Warwick himself, with the general reserve, lay at
+Warkworth, three miles from Alnwick, ready to transfer himself to any
+point where his aid might be needed.
+
+The forces employed were not less than thirty thousand men, without
+counting the troops on the lines of communication at Newcastle
+and Durham. To feed such a body in the depth of winter, in a
+sparsely-peopled and hostile country and with only one road open, was
+no mean task. Nevertheless the arrangements of Warwick worked with
+perfect smoothness and accuracy,--good witness to the fact that his
+talent for organisation was as great as his talent for the use of
+troops in the field. Every morning, we are told, the Earl rode out
+and visited all the three sieges "for to oversee; and if they wanted
+victuals or any other thing he was ready to purvey it to them with
+all his power." His day's ride was not less than thirty miles in all.
+The army was in good spirits and sure of success. "We have people
+enow here," wrote John Paston, whose duty it was to escort Norfolk's
+convoys to and fro, "so make as merry as ye can at home, for there is
+no jeopardie toward."
+
+A siege at Christmastide was the last thing that the Lancastrians had
+expected at the moment of their rising; they had counted on having the
+whole winter to strengthen their position. No hope of immediate aid
+from Scotland was forthcoming, and after three weeks' blockade the
+spirits of the defenders of Bamborough and Dunstanburgh sank so low
+that they commenced to think of surrender. Somerset, as we have already
+mentioned, had been in treaty with Warwick six months before, with the
+object of obtaining grace from King Edward. He now renewed his offer to
+Warwick, pledging himself to surrender Bamborough in return for a free
+pardon. Ralph Percy, the commander of Dunstanburgh, professed himself
+ready to make similar terms.
+
+It is somewhat surprising to find that Warwick supported, and Edward
+granted, the petitions of Somerset and Percy. But it was now two years
+since the tragedy of Wakefield, both the King and his cousin were
+sincerely anxious to bring about a pacification, and they had resolved
+to forget their blood feud with the Beauforts. On Christmas Eve 1462,
+therefore, Bamborough and Dunstanburgh threw open their gates, such
+of their garrisons as chose to swear allegiance to King Edward being
+admitted to pardon, while the rest, headed by Jasper of Pembroke and
+Lord Roos, were allowed to retire to Scotland unarmed and with white
+staves in their hands. Somerset and Percy went on to Durham, where they
+swore allegiance to the King. Edward took them into favour and "gave
+them his own livery and great rewards," to Somerset in especial a grant
+of twenty marks a week for his personal expenses, and the promise of a
+pension of a thousand marks a year. As a token of his loyalty Somerset
+offered to take the field under Warwick against the Scots, and he was
+accordingly sent up to assist at the siege of Alnwick. Percy was shown
+equal favour; as a mark of confidence the King made him Governor of
+Bamborough which Somerset had just surrendered.
+
+After the yielding of his chief adversary, King Edward thought that
+there was no further need for his presence in the North. Accordingly
+he returned home with the bulk of the army, leaving Warwick with ten
+thousand men, commanded by Norfolk and the Earl of Worcester, to finish
+the siege of Alnwick. Somerset lay with them, neither overmuch trusted
+nor overmuch contemned by his late enemies. Warwick's last siege,
+however, was not destined to come to such an uneventful close as those
+of Bamborough and Dunstanburgh. Lord Hungerford and the younger de
+Brézé made no signs of surrender, and protracted their defence till
+January 6th 1463.
+
+On that day, at five o'clock in the dusk of the winter morning, a
+relieving army suddenly appeared in front of Warwick's entrenchments.
+Though it was mid-winter, Queen Margaret had succeeded in stirring up
+the Earl of Angus--the most powerful noble in Scotland and at that
+moment practical head of the Douglases--to lead a raid into England.
+Fired by the promise of an English dukedom, to be given when King Henry
+should come to his own again, Angus got together twenty thousand men,
+and slipping through the Central Marches, and taking to the Watling
+Street, presented himself most unexpectedly before the English camp.
+With him was Peter de Brézé, anxious to save his beleaguered son, and
+the Queen's French mercenaries.
+
+For once in his life Warwick was taken by surprise. The Scots showed in
+such force that he thought himself unable to maintain the whole of his
+lines, and concentrated his forces on a front facing north-west between
+the castle hill and the river. Here he awaited attack, but nothing
+followed save insignificant skirmishing; Angus had come not to fight,
+but only to save the garrison. When the English blockading force was
+withdrawn, a party of Scotch horse rode up to the postern-gate of the
+castle and invited the besieged to escape; accordingly Lord Hungerford,
+the younger de Brézé, Sir Richard Tunstal, and the great majority of
+the garrison, hastily issued forth and joined the relieving force. Then
+Angus, to the surprise of the English, drew off his men, and fell back
+hastily over the Border.
+
+Warwick had been quite out-generalled; but the whole of his fault
+seems to have been the neglect to keep a sufficient force of scouts on
+the Border. If he had known of Angus's approach, he would have been
+able to take proper measures for protecting the siege. But the main
+feeling in the English army was rather relief at the departure of the
+Scots than disgust at the escape of the garrison. "If on that day the
+Scots had but been bold as they were cunning, they might have destroyed
+the English lords, for they had double their numbers," writes the
+chronicler. The thing which attracted most notice was the fact that
+the renegade Somerset showed no signs of treachery, and bore himself
+bravely in the skirmish, "proving manfully that he was a true liegeman
+to King Edward." Henceforth he was trusted by his colleagues.
+
+Some of the Alnwick garrison had been either unwilling or unable to
+escape with Angus. These protracted the defence for three weeks longer,
+but on January 30th they offered to surrender, and were allowed to
+depart unharmed to Scotland. The castle was garrisoned for the King,
+and entrusted to Sir John Ashley, to the great displeasure of Sir Ralph
+Grey to whom it had been promised. We shall see ere long what evils
+came from this displeasure.
+
+It seemed now as if the war could not be far from its end. No single
+place now held out for Lancaster save the castle of Harlech in North
+Wales, where an obscure rebellion had been smouldering ever since 1461.
+We must not therefore blame Warwick for want of energy, when we find
+that in March he left the indefatigable Montagu in command, and came up
+to London to attend the Parliament which King Edward had summoned to
+meet in April. Nevertheless, as we shall see, his absence had the most
+unhappy results on the Border.
+
+We have no definite information as to Warwick's doings in the spring
+of 1463, but we cannot doubt that it was by his counsel and consent
+that in April his brother the Chancellor and his friend Lord Wenlock,
+in company with Bourchier Earl of Essex, went over-sea to Flanders,
+and contracted with Philip Duke of Burgundy a treaty of commercial
+intercourse and a political alliance. Philip then conveyed the English
+ambassadors to the Court of Louis of France, who was lying at Hesdin,
+and with him they negotiated a truce to last from October 1st till the
+new year. This was to be preliminary to a definite peace with France,
+a plan always forward in Warwick's thoughts, for he was convinced that
+the last hope of Lancaster lay in the support of Louis, and that peace
+between Edward and the French King would finally ruin Queen Margaret's
+plans.
+
+But while George Neville and the Burgundians were negotiating, a new
+and curious development of this period of lingering troubles had
+commenced. Once more the Lancastrians were up in arms, and again the
+evil began in Northumberland. Sir Ralph Grey had been promised, as we
+mentioned above, the governorship of Alnwick, and had failed to receive
+it when the castle fell. This so rankled in his mind that he determined
+to risk his fortunes on an attempt to seize the place by force and
+deliver it up again to the Queen. In the end of May he mastered the
+castle by treachery, and sent for the Lancastrians from over the
+Border. Lord Hungerford came up, and once more received command of the
+castle which he had evacuated five months before. The news of this
+exploit of Grey's was too much for the loyalty of Sir Ralph Percy, the
+renegade governor of Bamborough. When de Brézé and Hungerford came
+before his gates he deliberately surrendered the castle to them without
+resistance.
+
+The exasperating news that the North was once more aflame reached
+Warwick as he banqueted with King Edward at Westminster on May 31st.
+With his customary energy the Earl set himself to repair the mischief
+before it should spread farther. On June 2nd he was once more marching
+up the Great North Road, with a new commission to act as the King's
+lieutenant in the North, while his brother Montagu was named under him
+Lord Warden of the Marches. Warwick's plan of campaign this time was
+not to reduce the castles at once, but to cut off the Lancastrians
+from their base by forcing the Scots to conclude peace. Accordingly he
+left the strongholds on his right and made straight for the Border.
+His first exploit was to relieve Norham Castle, on the English side of
+the Tweed, which was beset by four thousand Scotch borderers, aided
+by Peter de Brézé and his mercenaries. Queen Margaret herself was in
+their camp, and had dragged her unfortunate consort down to the seat
+of war. When the English appeared, the Scots and French raised the
+siege and retired behind the Tweed, where they set themselves to guard
+the ford called the Holybank. But Warwick was determined to cross; he
+won the passage by force of arms, and drove off its defenders. A few
+miles across the Border he found de Brézé's Frenchmen resting in an
+abbey, and fell on them with such vehemence that several hundreds were
+taken prisoners, including the Lord of Graville and Raoul d'Araines, de
+Brézé's chief lieutenants.
+
+One chronicler records a curious incident at this fight. "At the
+departing of Sir Piers de Bressy and his fellowship, there was one
+manly man among them, that purposed to meet with the Earl of Warwick;
+he was a taberette (drummer) and he stood upon a little hill with his
+tabor and his pipe, tabering and piping as merrily as any man might.
+There he stood by himself; till my lord Earl came unto him he would not
+leave his ground." Warwick was much pleased with the Frenchman's pluck,
+bade him be taken gently and well treated, "and there he became my
+lord's man, and yet is with him, a full good servant to his lord."
+
+The moment that Warwick was actually across the Tweed, the Scotch
+regents offered him terms of peace. To prove their sincerity they
+agreed to send off Queen Margaret. Such pressure was accordingly
+put upon her that "she with all her Council, and Sir Peter with the
+Frenchmen, fled away by water in four balyngarys, and they landed
+at Sluis in Flanders, leaving all their horses and harness behind
+them, so sorely were they hasted by the Earl and his brother the Lord
+Montagu."[7] With the horses and harness was left poor King Henry, who
+for the next two years wandered about in an aimless way on both sides
+of the Border, a mere meaningless shadow now that he was separated from
+his vehement consort.
+
+Now at last the Civil War seemed at an end. With Margaret over-sea,
+Somerset a liegeman of York, the Northumbrian castles cut off from any
+hope of succour, and the Scots suing humbly for peace, Warwick might
+hope that his three years' toil had at last come to an end. That, after
+all, the struggle was to be protracted for twelve months more, was a
+fact that not even the best of prophets could have predicted.
+
+After the raid which drove Queen Margaret away, and turned the hearts
+of the Scots toward peace, we lose sight of Warwick for some months.
+We only know that, for reasons to us unknown, he did not finish his
+exploits by the capture of the Northumbrian castles, but came home in
+the autumn, leaving them still unsubdued. Perhaps after the winter
+campaign of 1462-63 he wished to spend Christmas for once in his own
+fair castle of Warwick. His estates indeed in Wales and the West
+Midlands can hardly have seen him since the Civil War recommenced in
+1459, and must have required the master's eye in every quarter. His
+wife and his daughters too, now girls growing towards a marriageable
+age as ages were reckoned in the fifteenth century, must long have been
+without a sight of him.
+
+While Warwick was for once at home, and King Edward was making a
+progress round his kingdom with much pomp and expense, it would seem
+that Queen Margaret, from the retreat in Lorraine to which she had
+betaken herself, was once more exerting her influence to trouble
+England. At any rate a new Lancastrian conspiracy was hatched in the
+winter of 1463-64, with branches extending from Wales to Yorkshire.
+The outbreak commenced at Christmas by the wholly unexpected rebellion
+of the Duke of Somerset. Henry of Beaufort had been so well treated by
+King Edward that his conduct appears most extraordinary. He had supped
+at the King's board, slept in the King's chamber, served as captain of
+the King's guard, and jousted with the King's favour on his helm; yet
+at mid-winter he broke away for the North, with a very small following,
+and made for the garrison at Alnwick. Probably Somerset's conscience
+and his enemies had united to make his position unbearable. The
+Yorkists were always taunting him behind his back, and when he appeared
+in public in the King's company a noisy mob rose up to stone him, and
+Edward had much ado to save his life. But whether urged by remorse for
+his desertion of Lancaster, or by resentment for his treatment by the
+Yorkists, Somerset set himself to join the sinking cause at one of its
+darkest hours.
+
+His arrival in the North, where he came almost alone, for his followers
+were wellnigh all cut off at Durham, was the signal for the new
+Lancastrian outbreak. Simultaneously Jasper of Pembroke endeavoured to
+stir up Wales. A rising took place in South Lancashire and Cheshire,
+in which at one moment ten thousand men are said to have been in the
+field: a band set out from Alnwick, pushed by the Yorkist garrison
+at Newcastle, and seized the Castle of Skipton in Craven, hard by
+Warwick's ancestral estates in the North Riding; and Norham on the
+Border was taken by treachery.
+
+In March Warwick set out once more to regain the twice-subdued North.
+The rising in Cheshire collapsed without needing his arms to put it
+down, and he was able to reach York without molestation. From thence
+he sent to Scotland to summon the regency to carry out the terms of
+pacification which they had promised in the previous year. The Scots
+made no objection, and offered to send their ambassadors to York if
+safe escort was given them past the Lancastrian fortresses. Accordingly
+Montagu started from Durham to pick up his troops at Newcastle, where
+Lord Scrope was already arrayed with the levies of the Northern
+Counties. This journey was near being Montagu's last, for a few miles
+outside Newcastle he was beset by his cousin Sir Humphrey Neville,
+the Earl of Westmoreland's nephew, who fell on his escort with eighty
+spears as he passed through a wood. Montagu, however, escaped by a
+detour and came safely into Newcastle, where he took charge of Scrope's
+force and marched for the Scotch Border.
+
+At Hedgeley Moor he found Somerset with all the Lancastrian refugees
+barring the way. There had mustered all the survivors of the campaigns
+of 1461-2-3, Roos and Hungerford, and Tailboys Lord of Kyme, and the
+two traitors Ralph Grey and Ralph Percy. On April 15th their five
+thousand men fell on Montagu, whose forces were probably about equal.
+The shock was sharp but short; and when Ralph Percy, who led their
+van, was struck down, the Lancastrians dispersed. Percy, if the tale
+be true, refused to fly with the rest, and died crying, "I have saved
+the bird in my bosom," meaning his loyalty to Henry. He should have
+remembered his faith a year before, when he swore fealty to Edward at
+Durham.
+
+Montagu was now able to reach Scotland unmolested. He brought the Scots
+Commissioners back to York, and a fifteen years' peace was safely
+concluded, the Scots promising to give no further shelter to the
+Lancastrians, and the English to disavow the Earls of Ross and Douglas
+whom they had armed against the Scotch regency. "An the Scots be true,
+the treaty may continue fifteen years," said the chronicler, "but it is
+hard to trust Scots: they be ever full of guile and deceit."
+
+Somerset and his followers were now without hope. Their refuge in
+Scotland was cut off and their Northumbrian strongholds doomed to a
+speedy fall, for King Edward had been casting all the winter a train of
+great ordnance such as England had never seen before, and the pieces
+were already on their way north. Nevertheless the desperate adherents
+of Lancaster hardened their hearts, gathered their broken bands, and
+made one last desperate stand for the mastery of the North. On the
+Linhills, by the town of Hexham, they arrayed themselves against
+Montagu on May 13th. But when the Yorkists came in sight the hearts of
+the followers of Somerset failed them. All save five hundred melted
+away from their banners, and the small band that stayed to fight was
+broken, beaten, surrounded, and captured by Montagu's four thousand men
+with perfect ease.
+
+The Lancastrian lords had fought their last field; one and all were
+slain or captured on the hill a mile outside Hexham town, where they
+had made their stand. Montagu marked his triumph by the most bloody
+executions that had been seen throughout the whole war. At Hexham, next
+day, he beheaded Somerset, Sir Edmond Fitzhugh, a moss-trooping captain
+called Black Jack, and three more. On the next day but one he slew at
+Newcastle Lord Roos, Lord Hungerford, and three others. Next day he
+moved south to his brother's ancestral seat of Middleham, and executed
+Sir Philip Wentworth and six squires. Finally, he conducted to York and
+beheaded there Sir Thomas Hussey and thirteen more, the remainder of
+the prisoners of rank who had come into his hands.
+
+For these sweeping executions Warwick must take part of the blame.
+But there is this to be said in defence of Montagu's stern justice,
+that Somerset and three or four others of the victims were men who had
+claimed and abused Edward's pardon, and that Roos and several more had
+been spared at the surrender of Bamborough in 1462. The whole body
+had shown that they could never be trusted, even if they professed to
+submit to York; and the practical justification of their death lies
+in the fact that with their execution ceased all attempts to raise
+the North in favour of the house of Lancaster. Public opinion among
+the Yorkists had nothing but praise for Montagu. "Lo, so manly a man
+is this good Lord Montagu," wrote a London chronicler, "he spared not
+their malice, nor their falseness, nor their guile, nor their treason,
+but slew many, and took many, and let smite off their heads"!
+
+Even before the battle of Hedgeley Moor King Edward had set out to
+reinforce Warwick and Montagu. The news of their victories reached
+him on the way, but he continued to advance, bringing with him the
+great train of artillery destined for the siege of the Northumbrian
+fortresses. This journey was important to King Edward in more ways
+than one. How he spent one day of it, May 1st, when he lay at Stony
+Stratford, we shall presently see. If Warwick had but known of his
+master's doings on that morning, we may doubt if he would have been so
+joyous over his brother's victories or so remorseless with his captured
+enemies.
+
+The King came up to York in the end of May, "and kept his estate there
+solemnly in the palace, and there he created John Lord Montagu Earl
+of Northumberland," in memory of his good service during the last few
+months, handing over to him, together with the Percy title, the greater
+part of the great Percy estates--Alnwick and Warkworth and Langley and
+Prudhoe, and many more fiefs between Tyne and Tweed.
+
+Warwick now advanced northward to complete the work which his brother
+had begun in the previous month, while the King remained behind in
+Yorkshire and occupied himself in the capture of Skipton Castle in
+Craven. On June 23rd the Earl appeared before Alnwick and summoned the
+place. The Lancastrians had lost their leaders at Hexham, there was no
+more fight in them, and they surrendered at once on promise of their
+lives. Dunstanburgh and Norham followed the example of Alnwick. Only
+Bamborough held out, for there Sir Ralph Grey had taken refuge. He knew
+that his treachery at Alnwick in the last year could never be pardoned,
+and utterly refused to surrender. With him was Sir Humphrey Neville,
+who had so nearly destroyed Montagu two months before.
+
+We happen to have an account of the siege of Bamborough which is
+not without its interest. When the army appeared before the castle
+Warwick's herald summoned it in form--
+
+ Offering free pardon, grace, body, and livelihood to all, reserving
+ two persons, Sir Ralph Grey and Sir Humphrey Neville. Then Sir Ralph
+ clearly determined within himself to live or die within the place,
+ though the herald charged him with all inconvenience and shedding of
+ blood that might befall: saying in this wise: "My Lord ensureth you
+ upon his honour to sustain this siege before you these seven years so
+ that he win you: and if ye deliver not this jewel, which the King our
+ dread Sovereign Lord hath greatly in favour, seeing it marches so nigh
+ unto his enemies of Scotland, whole and unbroken with ordnance, and if
+ ye suffer any great guns to be laid against it, it shall cost you a
+ head for every gun shot, from the head of the chief man to the head of
+ the least person within." But Sir Ralph departed from the herald, and
+ put him in endeavour to make defence.
+
+Warwick was therefore compelled to have recourse to his battering
+train, the first that had been used to effect in an English siege.
+
+ So all the King's guns that were charged began to shoot upon the
+ said castle. "Newcastle," the King's greatest gun, and "London," the
+ second gun of iron, so betide the place that the stones of the walls
+ flew into the sea. "Dijon," a brass gun of the King's, smote through
+ Sir Ralph Grey's chamber oftentimes, and "Edward" and "Richard," the
+ bombardels, and other ordnance, were busied on the place. Presently
+ the wall was breached, and my lord of Warwick, with his men-at-arms
+ and archers, won the castle by assault, maugre Sir Ralph Grey, and
+ took him alive, and brought him to the King at Doncaster. And there
+ the Earl of Worcester, Constable of England, sat in judgment on him.
+
+Tiptoft was a judge who never spared, and Grey a renegade who could
+expect no mercy. The prisoner was sentenced to be beheaded, and only
+spared degradation from his knighthood "because of his noble ancestor,
+who suffered at Southampton for the sake of the King's grandfather,
+Richard Earl of Cambridge." His head was sent to join the ghastly
+collection standing over the gate on London Bridge.
+
+With the fall of Bamborough the first act of King Edward's reign was at
+an end.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 6: Queen Mary had, so the story runs, shown overmuch favour
+to the Duke of Somerset. He openly boasted of his success in love, and
+the Queen was ever after his deadly enemy.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The famous story of the robber and Queen Margaret, placed
+by so many writers after the battle of Hexham, seems quite impossible.
+If the incident took place at all, it happened on the other side of the
+Channel.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE QUARREL OF WARWICK AND KING EDWARD
+
+
+With Hedgeley Moor and Hexham and the final surrender of the
+Northumbrian castles ended the last desperate attempt of the
+Lancastrians to hold their own in the North. The few surviving leaders
+who had escaped the fate of Somerset and Hungerford left Scotland and
+fled over-sea. Philip de Commines soon after met the chief of them in
+the streets of Ghent "reduced to such extremity of want and poverty
+that no common beggar could have been poorer. The Duke of Exeter was
+seen (though he concealed his name) following the Duke of Burgundy's
+train begging his bread from door to door, till at last he had a small
+pension allowed him in pity for his subsistence." With him were some of
+the Somersets, John and Edmund, brothers of the Duke who had just been
+beheaded. Jasper of Pembroke made his way to Wales and wandered in the
+hills from county to county, finding friends nowhere. No one could have
+guessed that the cause of Lancaster would ever raise its head again.
+
+The times of war were at length over, and Warwick, like the rest of
+Englishmen, might begin to busy himself about other things than battles
+and sieges. In July he was at last free, and was able to think of
+turning southward to seek for more than a passing visit the Midland
+estates of which he had seen so little for the last five years. After
+a short interval of leisure, we find him in September sitting in the
+King's Council, and urging on two measures which he held necessary for
+the final pacification of the realm. The first was the conclusion of a
+definite treaty of peace with France. It was from King Louis that the
+Lancastrians had been accustomed to draw their supplies of ships and
+money, and while England and France were still at war it was certain
+that King Edward's enemies would continue to obtain shelter and succour
+across the Channel. Accordingly the Earl urged on the conclusion of a
+treaty, and finally procured the appointment of himself and his friend
+and follower Wenlock as ambassadors to Louis. The second point of his
+schemes was connected with the first. It was high time, as all England
+had for some time been saying, that the King should marry.[8] Edward
+was now in his twenty-fourth year, "and men marvelled that he abode
+so long without any wife, and feared that he was not over chaste of
+his living." Those, indeed, who were about the King's person knew that
+some scandal had already been caused by his attempts, successful and
+unsuccessful, on the honour of several ladies about the Court. Rumour
+had for some time been coupling Edward's name with that of various
+princesses of a marriageable age among foreign royal families. Some
+had said that he was about to marry Mary of Gueldres, the Queen Dowager
+of Scotland, and others had speculated on his opening negotiations for
+the hand of Isabel of Castile, sister of the reigning Spanish King.
+But there had been no truth in these reports. Warwick's scheme was to
+cement the peace with France by a marriage with a French princess, and
+in the preliminary inquiries which the King permitted him to send to
+Louis the marriage question was distinctly mentioned. Louis' sisters
+were all married, and his daughters were mere children, so that their
+names were not brought forward, for King Edward required a wife of
+suitable years, "to raise him goodly lineage such as his father had
+reared." The lady whom Warwick proposed to the King was Bona of Savoy,
+sister to Charlotte Queen of France, a princess who dwelt at her
+brother-in-law King Louis' Court and in whose veins ran the blood both
+of the Kings of France and the Dukes of Burgundy.
+
+King Edward made no open opposition to Warwick's plans. The project
+was mooted to King Louis, safe conducts for the English Embassy were
+obtained, and Warwick and Wenlock were expected at St. Omer about
+October 3rd or 4th. But at the last moment, when Warwick attended at
+Reading on September 28th to receive his master's final instructions, a
+most astounding announcement was made to him. We have an account of the
+scene which bears some marks of truth.
+
+The Council met for the formal purpose of approving the marriage
+negotiations. A speaker, probably Warwick, laid before the King the
+hope and expectation of his subjects that he would deign to give them a
+Queen.
+
+ Then the King answered that of a truth he wished to marry, but that
+ perchance his choice might not be to the liking of all present. Then
+ those of his Council asked to know of his intent, and would be told
+ to what house he would go. To which the King replied in right merry
+ guise that he would take to wife Dame Elizabeth Grey, the daughter of
+ Lord Rivers. But they answered him that she was not his match, however
+ good and however fair she might be, and that he must know well that
+ she was no wife for such a high prince as himself; for she was not the
+ daughter of a duke or earl, but her mother the Duchess of Bedford had
+ married a simple knight, so that though she was the child of a duchess
+ and the niece of the Count of St. Pol, still she was no wife for him.
+ When King Edward heard these sayings of the lords of his blood and his
+ Council, which it seemed good to them to lay before him, he answered
+ that he should have no other wife and that such was his good pleasure.
+
+Then came the clinching blow; no other wife could he have--for he was
+married to Dame Elizabeth already!
+
+In fact, five months before, on May 1st, when he ought to have been
+far on his way to the North, King Edward had secretly ridden over from
+Stony Stratford to Grafton in Northamptonshire, and wedded the lady.
+No one had suspected the marriage, for the King had had but a short
+and slight acquaintance with Elizabeth Grey, who had been living a
+retired life ever since her husband, a Lancastrian knight, fell in
+the moment of victory at the second battle of St. Albans. Edward had
+casually met her, had been conquered by her fair face, and had made
+hot love to her. Elizabeth was clever and cautious; she would hear of
+nothing but a formal offer of marriage, and the young King, perfectly
+infatuated by his passion, had wedded her in secret at Grafton in the
+presence of no one save her mother and two other witnesses. This was
+the urgent private business which had kept him from appearing to open
+his Parliament at York.
+
+The marriage was a most surprising event. Lord Rivers, the lady's
+father, had been a keen Lancastrian. He it was who had been captured at
+Sandwich in 1460, and brought before Warwick and Edward to undergo that
+curious scolding which we have elsewhere recorded. And now this "made
+lord, who had won his fortune by his marriage," had become the King's
+father-in-law. Dame Elizabeth herself was seven years older than her
+new husband, and was the mother of children twelve and thirteen years
+of age. The public was so astonished at the match that it was often
+said that the Queen's mother, the old Duchess of Bedford, must have
+given King Edward a love philtre, for in no other way could the thing
+be explained.
+
+Warwick and the rest of the lords of the Council were no less vexed
+than astonished by this sudden announcement. The Earl had broached
+the subject of the French marriage to King Louis, and was expected to
+appear within a few days to submit the proposal for acceptance. The
+King, knowing all the time that the scheme was impossible, had allowed
+him to commit himself to it, and now left him to explain to King Louis
+that he had been duped in the most egregious way, and had been excluded
+from his master's confidence all along. Very naturally the Earl let the
+embassy drop; he could not dare to appear before the French King to ask
+for peace, when the bond of union which he had promised to cement it
+was no longer possible.
+
+But vexed and angered though he must have been at the way in which
+he had been treated, Warwick was too loyal a servant of the house of
+York to withdraw from his master's Council. He bowed to necessity, and
+acquiesced in what he could not approve. Accordingly Warwick attended
+next day to hear the King make public announcement of his marriage in
+Reading Abbey on the feast of St. Michael, and he himself, in company
+with George of Clarence the King's brother, led Dame Elizabeth up to
+the seat prepared for her beside her husband, and bowed the knee to her
+as Queen.
+
+For a few months it seemed as if the King's marriage had been a single
+freak of youthful passion, and the domination of the house of Neville
+in the royal Councils appeared unshaken. As if to make amends for his
+late treatment of Warwick, Edward raised his brother George Neville
+the Chancellor to the vacant Archbishopric of York, and in token of
+confidence sent the Earl as his representative to prorogue a Parliament
+summoned to meet on November 4th.
+
+But these marks of regard were not destined to continue. The favours
+of the King, though there was as yet no open breach between him and
+his great Minister, were for the future bestowed in another quarter.
+The house of Rivers was almost as prolific as the house of Neville;
+the Queen had three brothers, five sisters, and two sons, and for
+them the royal influence was utilised in the most extraordinary way
+during the next two years. Nor was it merely inordinate affection for
+his wife that led King Edward to squander his wealth and misuse his
+power for the benefit of her relatives. It soon became evident that
+he had resolved to build up with the aid of the Queen's family one of
+those great allied groups of noble houses whose strength the fifteenth
+century knew so well--a group that should make him independent of
+the control of the Nevilles. A few days after the acknowledgment of
+the Queen, began a series of marriages in the Rivers family, which
+did not cease for two years. In October 1464, immediately after the
+scene at Reading, the Queen's sister Margaret was married to Thomas
+Lord Maltravers, the heir of the wealthy Earl of Arundel. In January
+1465 John Woodville, the youngest of her brothers, wedded the Dowager
+Duchess of Norfolk. This was a disgraceful match: the bridegroom was
+just of age, the bride quite old enough to be his grandmother; but she
+was a great heiress, and the King persuaded her to marry the sordid
+young man. Within eighteen months more, nearly the whole of the family
+had been married off: Anne Woodville to the heir of Bourchier Earl of
+Essex; Mary Woodville to the eldest son of Lord Herbert, the King's
+most intimate counsellor after Warwick in his earlier years; Eleanor
+Woodville to George Grey heir of the Earl of Kent; and Catherine
+Woodville, most fortunate of all, to the young Duke of Buckingham,
+grandson of the old Duke who had fallen at Northampton. To end the tale
+of the alliances of this most fortunate family, it is only necessary
+to add that even before Queen Elizabeth's marriage her eldest brother
+Anthony had secured the hand of Elizabeth, heiress of the Lord Scales
+who was slain on the Thames in 1460. Truly the Woodville marriages may
+compare not unfavourably with those of the Nevilles!
+
+While the King was heaping his favours on the house of Rivers, Warwick
+was still employed from time to time in the service of the Crown. But
+he could no longer feel that he had the chief part in guiding his
+monarch's policy. Indeed, the King seems to have even gone out of his
+way to carry out every scheme on a different principle from that which
+the Earl adopted. In the spring of 1465, at the time of the Queen's
+formal coronation in May--a ceremony which he was glad enough to
+escape--Warwick went over-sea to conduct negotiations with the French
+and Burgundians. He met the Burgundian ambassadors at Boulogne, and
+those of France at Calais. It was a critical time for both France
+and Burgundy, for the War of the Public Weal had just broken out,
+and each party was anxious to secure the friendship, or at least the
+neutrality of England. With the Burgundians, whom Warwick met first,
+no agreement could be made, for the Count of Charolois, who had now
+got the upper hand of his aged father Duke Philip, refused to make any
+pledges against helping the Lancastrians. He was at this very time
+pensioning the exiled Somersets and Exeter, and almost reckoned himself
+a Lancastrian prince, because his mother, Isabel of Portugal, was a
+grand-daughter of John of Gaunt. Warwick and Charles of Charolois were
+quite unable to agree. Each of them was too much accustomed to have his
+own way, and though they held high feasts together at Boulogne, and
+were long in council, they parted in wrath. There would seem to have
+been something more than a mere difference of opinion between them,
+for ever afterwards they regarded each other as personal enemies. King
+Louis, whose ambassadors met Warwick a month later, proved far more
+accommodating than the hot-headed Burgundian prince. He consented to
+forget the matter of the marriage, and agreed to the conclusion of a
+truce for eighteen months, during which he engaged to give no help to
+Queen Margaret, while Warwick covenanted that England should refrain
+from aiding the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, now in full rebellion
+against their sovereign.
+
+Late in the summer of 1465 Warwick returned home just in time to hear
+of a new stroke of fortune which had befallen his master. Henry the
+Sixth had just been captured in Lancashire. The ex-king had wandered
+down from his retreat in Scotland, and was moving about in an aimless
+way from one Lancastrian household to another, accompanied by no one
+but a couple of priests. One of Henry's entertainers betrayed him,
+and he was seized by John Talbot of Basshall as he sat at meat in
+Waddington Hall, and forwarded under guard to London. At Islington
+Warwick rode forth to meet his late sovereign, and by the King's
+orders led him publicly through the city, with his feet bound by
+leather straps to his stirrups. Why this indignity was inflicted on
+the unfortunate Henry it is hard to say; there cannot possibly have
+been any fear of a rescue, and Warwick might well have spared his late
+master the shame of bonds. Henry was led along Cheapside and Cornhill
+to the Tower, where he was placed in honourable custody, and permitted
+to receive the visits of all who wished to see him.
+
+That Warwick was not yet altogether out of favour with King Edward was
+shown by the fact that he was asked to be godfather to the Queen's
+first child, the Princess Elizabeth, in the February of the following
+year 1466. But immediately afterwards came the succession of events
+which marked the final breach between the King and the Nevilles. In
+March Edward suddenly dismissed from the office of Treasurer Lord
+Mountjoy, a friend of Warwick's, and gave the post to his wife's father
+Lord Rivers, whom he soon created an earl. The removal of his friend
+was highly displeasing to Warwick; but worse was to follow. Warwick's
+nephew George Neville, the heir of his brother John, had been affianced
+to Anne heiress of the exiled Duke of Exeter; but the Queen gave the
+Duchess of Exeter four thousand marks to break off the match, and the
+young lady was wedded to Thomas Grey, Elizabeth's eldest son by her
+first marriage. This blow struck the Nevilles in their tenderest point;
+even the marriages which had made their good fortune were for the
+future to be frustrated by royal influence.
+
+The next slight which Warwick received at the hands of his sovereign
+touched him even more closely. His eldest daughter Isabel, who had been
+born in 1451, was now in her sixteenth year, and already thoughts about
+her marriage had begun to trouble her father's brain. The Earl counted
+her worthy of the highest match that could be found in the realm, for
+there was destined to go with her hand such an accumulation of estates
+as no subject had ever before possessed--half of the lands of Neville,
+Montacute, Despenser, and Beauchamp. The husband whom Warwick had hoped
+to secure for his child was George Duke of Clarence, the King's next
+brother, a young man of eighteen years. Clarence was sounded, and
+liked the prospect well enough, for the young lady was fair as well as
+rich. But they had not reckoned with the King. After a long visit which
+Clarence and his younger brother Richard of Gloucester had paid to
+Warwick in the end of 1466, Edward got wind of the proposed marriage.
+"When the King knew that his brothers had returned from their visit
+to the Earl at Cambridge, he asked them why they had left his Court,
+and who had given them counsel to visit the Earl. Then they answered
+that none had been the cause save they themselves. And the King asked
+whether there had been any talk of affiancing them to their cousins,
+the Earl's daughters; and the Duke of Clarence"--always prompt at a
+lie--"answered that there was not. But the King, who had been fully
+informed of all, waxed wroth, and sent them from his presence." Edward
+strictly forbade the marriage, and for the present there was no more
+talk of it; but Clarence and Warwick understood each other, and were
+always in communication, much to the King's displeasure. It did not
+please him to find his heir presumptive and his most powerful subject
+on too good terms.
+
+The King waited a few months more, and then proceeded to put a far
+worse insult on his old friends and followers. In May 1467 he sent
+Warwick over-sea, with a commission to visit the King of France, and
+turn the eighteen months truce made in 1465 into a permanent peace on
+the best terms possible. The errand seemed both useful and honourable,
+and Warwick went forth in good spirits; but it was devised in reality
+merely to get him out of the kingdom, at a time when the King was
+about to cross all his most cherished plans.
+
+Louis was quite as desirous as Warwick himself to conclude a permanent
+peace. It was all-important to him that England should not be on the
+side of Burgundy, and he was ready to make the Earl's task easy.
+The reception which he prepared for Warwick was such as might have
+been given to a crowned head. He went five leagues down the Seine to
+receive the English embassy, and feasted Warwick royally on the river
+bank. When Rouen was reached "the King gave the Earl most honourable
+greeting; for there came out to meet him the priests of every parish
+in the town in their copes, with crosses and banners and holy water,
+and so he was conducted to Notre Dame de Rouen, where he made his
+offering. And he was well lodged at the Jacobins in the said town of
+Rouen. Afterward the Queen and her daughters came to the said town that
+he might see them. And the King abode with Warwick for the space of
+twelve days communing with him, after which the Earl departed back into
+England." And with him went as Ambassadors from France the Archbishop
+of Narbonne, the Bastard of Bourbon (Admiral of France), the Bishop of
+Bayeux, Master Jean de Poupencourt, and William Monipenny, a Scotch
+agent in whom the King placed much confidence.
+
+Warwick and the French Ambassadors landed at Sandwich, where they had
+a hearty reception; for the people of Sandwich, like all the men of
+Kent, were great supporters of the Earl. Posts were sent forward to
+notify their arrival to the King, and the party then set out to ride
+up to London. As they drew near the city the Earl was somewhat vexed
+to find that no one came forth to welcome them on the King's behalf;
+but presently the Duke of Clarence came riding alone to meet him, and
+brought him intelligence which turned his satisfaction at the success
+of the French negotiations into bitter vexation of spirit.
+
+When Warwick had got well over-sea, the King had proceeded to work out
+his own plans, secure that he would not be interrupted. He had really
+determined to make alliance with Burgundy and not with France; and
+the moment that the coast was clear a Burgundian emissary appeared in
+London. Antony "the Grand Bastard," the trusted agent of the Court of
+Charolois, ascended the Thames at the very moment that Warwick was
+ascending the Seine. Ostensibly he came on a chivalrous errand, to
+joust with the Queen's brother Lord Scales in honour of all the ladies
+of Burgundy. The passage of arms was duly held, to the huge delight
+of the populace of London, and the English chroniclers give us all
+its details--instead of relating the important political events of
+the year. But the real object of the Bastard's visit was to negotiate
+an English alliance for his brother; and he was so successful that
+he returned to Flanders authorised to promise the hand of the King's
+sister Margaret to the Count of Charolois.
+
+But Warwick had not merely to learn that the King had stultified his
+negotiations with France by making an agreement with Burgundy behind
+his back. He was now informed that, only two days before his arrival,
+Edward had gone, without notice given or cause assigned, to his brother
+the Archbishop of York, who lay ill at his house by Westminster Barrs,
+and suddenly dismissed him from the Chancellorship and taken the great
+seal from him. Open war had been declared on the house of Neville.[9]
+
+But bitterly vexed though he was at his sovereign's double dealing,
+Warwick proceeded to carry out the forms of his duty. He called on the
+King immediately on his arrival, announced the success of his embassy,
+and craved for a day of audience for the French Ambassadors. "When the
+Earl spoke of all the good cheer that King Louis had made him, and
+how he had sent him the keys of every castle and town that he passed
+through, he perceived from the King's countenance that he was paying no
+attention at all to what he was saying, so he betook himself home, sore
+displeased."
+
+Next day the French had the audience. The King received them in state,
+surrounded by Rivers, Scales, John Woodville, and Lord Hastings. "The
+Ambassadors were much abashed to see him, for he showed himself a
+prince of a haughty bearing." Warwick then introduced them, and Master
+Jean de Poupencourt, as spokesman for the rest, laid the proposals of
+Louis before the King. Edward briefly answered that he had pressing
+business, and could not communicate with them himself; they might say
+their say to certain lords whom he would appoint for the purpose. Then
+they were ushered out of his presence. It was clear that he would do
+nothing for them; indeed the whole business had only been concocted to
+get Warwick out of the way. It was abortive, and had been intended to
+be so.
+
+The Earl on leaving the palace was bursting with rage; his ordinary
+caution and affability were gone, and he broke out in angry words even
+before the foreigners. "As they rowed home in their barge the Frenchmen
+had many discourses with each other. But Warwick was so wroth that he
+could not contain himself, and he said to the Admiral of France, 'Have
+you not seen what traitors there are about the King's person?' But
+the Admiral answered, 'My Lord, I pray you grow not hot; for some day
+you shall be well avenged.' But the Earl said, 'Know that those very
+traitors were the men who have had my brother displaced from the office
+of Chancellor, and made the King take the seal from him.'"
+
+Edward went to Windsor next day, taking no further heed of the
+Ambassadors. He appointed no one to treat with them, and they remained
+six weeks without hearing from him, seeing no one but Warwick, who
+did his best to entertain them, and Warwick's new ally the Duke of
+Clarence. At last they betook themselves home, having accomplished
+absolutely nothing. On the eve of their departure the King sent them a
+beggarly present of hunting-horns, leather bottles, and mastiffs, in
+return for the golden hanaps and bowls and the rich jewellery which
+they had brought from France.
+
+Warwick would have nothing more to do with his master. He saw the
+Ambassadors back as far as Sandwich, and then went off in high dudgeon
+to Middleham. There he held much deep discourse with his brothers,
+George the dispossessed Chancellor, and John of Montagu the Earl of
+Northumberland. At Christmas the King summoned him to Court; he sent
+back the reply that "never would he come again to Council while all his
+mortal enemies, who were about the King's person, namely, Lord Rivers
+the Treasurer, and Lord Scales and Lord Herbert and Sir John Woodville,
+remained there present." The breach between Warwick and his master was
+now complete.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 8: There seems to be no foundation for the theory that
+Warwick wished the King to marry his daughter Isabel. The Earl moved
+strongly in favour of the French marriage, and his daughter was too
+young, being only thirteen years of age, for a king desirous of raising
+up heirs to his crown.]
+
+[Footnote 9: It seems impossible to work out to any purpose the
+statement of Polidore Vergil and others that Warwick's final breach
+with the King was caused by Edward's offering violence to a lady of
+the house of Neville. Lord Lytton, of course, was justified in using
+this hint for his romance, but the historian finds it too vague and
+untrustworthy.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+PLAYING WITH TREASON
+
+
+Great ministers who have been accustomed to sway the destinies
+of kingdoms, and who suddenly find themselves disgraced at their
+master's caprice, have seldom been wont to sit down in resignation and
+accept their fall with equanimity. Such a line of conduct requires a
+self-denial and a high-flown loyalty to principle which are seldom
+found in the practical statesman. If the fallen minister is well
+stricken in years, and the fire has gone out of him, he may confine
+himself to sermons on the ingratitude of kings. If his greatness has
+been purely official, and his power entirely dependent on the authority
+entrusted to him by his master, his discontent may not be dangerous.
+But Warwick was now in the very prime of his life,--he was just
+forty,--and he was moreover by far the most powerful subject within the
+four seas. It was sheer madness in King Edward to goad such a man to
+desperation by a series of deliberate insults.
+
+This was no mere case of ordinary ingratitude. If ever one man had made
+another, Richard Neville had made Edward Plantagenet. He had taken
+charge of him, a raw lad of eighteen, at the moment of the disastrous
+rout of Ludford, and trained him in arms and statecraft with unceasing
+care. Twice had he saved the lost cause of York, in 1459 and in 1461.
+He had spent five years in harness, in one long series of battles and
+sieges, that his cousin might wear his crown in peace. He had compassed
+sea and land in embassies that Edward might be safe from foreign as
+well as from domestic foes. He had seen his father and his brother fall
+by the axe and the sword in the cause of York. He had seen his mother
+and his wife fugitives on the face of the earth, his castles burnt,
+his manors wasted, his tenants slain, all that the son of Richard
+Plantagenet might sit on the throne that was his father's due.
+
+Warwick then might well be cut to the heart at his master's
+ingratitude. It was no marvel if, after the King's last treachery to
+him in the matter of the French embassy, he retired from Court and sent
+a bitter answer to Edward's next summons. After the open breach there
+were now two courses open to him: the first to abandon all his schemes,
+and betake himself in silent bitterness to the management of his vast
+estates; the second was to endeavour to win his way back to power by
+the ways which medieval England knew only too well--the way which had
+served Simon de Montfort, and Thomas of Lancaster, and Richard of York;
+the way that had led Simon and Thomas and Richard to their bloody
+graves. The first alternative was no doubt the one that the perfect
+man, the ideally loyal and unselfish knight, should have chosen. But
+Richard Neville was no perfect man; he was a practical statesman--"the
+cleverest man of his time," says one who had observed him closely; and
+his long tenure of power had made him look upon the first place in the
+Council of the King as his right and due. His enemies the Woodvilles
+and Herberts had driven him from his well-earned precedence by the
+weapons that they could use--intrigue and misrepresentation; what more
+natural than that he should repay them by the weapon that he could best
+employ, the iron hand of armed force?
+
+Hitherto the career of Warwick had been singularly straightforward and
+consistent. Through thick and thin he had supported the cause of York
+and never wavered in his allegiance to it. It must not be supposed that
+he changed his whole policy when his quarrel with the King came to a
+head. As his conduct in 1469, when his ungrateful master was in his
+power, was destined to show, he had no further design than to reconquer
+for himself the place in the royal Council which had been his from 1461
+to 1464. Later events developed his plans further than he had himself
+expected, but it is evident that at first his sole design was to clear
+away the Woodvilles. The only element in his programme which threatened
+to lead to deeper and more treasonable plans was his connection
+with his would-be son-in-law George of Clarence. The handsome youth
+who professed such a devotion to him, followed his advice with such
+docility, and took his part so warmly in the quarrel with the King,
+seems from the first to have obtained a place in his affections greater
+than Edward had ever won. But Clarence had his ambitions; what they
+were and how far they extended the Earl had not as yet discovered.
+
+Warwick had now the will to play his master's new ministers an ill
+turn; that he had also the power to do so none knew better than
+himself. The lands of Neville and Montacute, Beauchamp and Despenser
+united could send into the field a powerful army. Moreover, his
+neighbours, in most of the counties where his influence prevailed,
+had bound themselves to him by taking his livery; barons as well as
+knights were eager to be of his "Privy Council," to wear his Ragged
+Staff and ride in his array. The very aspect of his household seemed
+to show the state of a petty king. Every one has read Hollingshead's
+famous description, which tells how the little army of followers which
+constituted his ordinary retinue eat six oxen daily for breakfast.
+
+Nor was it only in the strength of his own retainers that Warwick
+trusted; he knew that he himself was the most popular man in the
+kingdom. Men called him ever the friend of the Commons, and "his open
+kitchen persuaded the meaner sort as much as the justice of his cause."
+His adversaries, on the other hand, were unmistakably disliked by
+the people. The old partisans of York still looked on the Woodvilles
+as Lancastrian renegades, and the grasping avarice of Rivers and his
+family was stirring up popular demonstration against them even before
+Warwick's breach with the King. A great mob in Kent had sacked one
+of Rivers' manors and killed his deer in the autumn of 1467, and
+trouble was brewing against him in other quarters. A word of summons
+from Warwick would call rioters out of the ground in half the shires
+of England. Already in January 1468 a French ambassador reports: "In
+one county more than three hundred archers were in arms, and had made
+themselves a captain named Robin, and sent to the Earl of Warwick to
+know if it was time to be busy, and to say that all their neighbours
+were ready. But my Lord answered, bidding them go home, for it was not
+yet time to be stirring. If the time should come, he would let them
+know."[10]
+
+It was not only discontented Yorkists that had taken the news of
+the quarrel between Warwick and his master as a signal for moving.
+The tidings had stirred the exiled Lancastrians to a sudden burst
+of activity of which we should hardly have thought them capable.
+Queen Margaret borrowed ships and money from Louis, and lay in force
+at Harfleur. Sir Henry Courtney, heir of the late Earl of Devon,
+and Thomas Hungerford, son of the lord who fell at Hexham, tried to
+raise an insurrection in the South-West; but they were caught by
+Lord Stafford of Southwick and beheaded at Salisbury. As a reward
+the King gave Stafford his victim's title of Earl of Devon. In Wales
+the long-wandering Jasper Tudor suddenly appeared, at the head of
+two thousand men, supported by a small French fleet. He took Harlech
+Castle and sacked Denbigh; but a few weeks later Warwick's enemy,
+Lord Herbert, fell upon him at the head of the Yorkists of the March,
+routed his tumultuary army, retook Harlech, and forced him again to
+seek refuge in the hills. Herbert, like Lord Stafford, was rewarded
+with the title of the foe he had vanquished, and became Earl of
+Pembroke. While these risings were on foot, Lancastrian emissaries were
+busy all over England; but their activity only resulted in a series
+of executions. Two gentlemen of the Duke of Norfolk's retinue were
+beheaded for holding secret communication with the Beauforts while
+they were in Flanders, following the train which escorted the Princess
+Margaret at her marriage with Charles of Charolois, who had now become
+Duke of Burgundy. In London more executions took place, and Sir Thomas
+Cooke, late Lord Mayor, had all his goods confiscated for misprision
+of treason. Two of the Lancastrian emissaries alleged, under torture,
+the one, that Warwick had promised aid to the rising, the other that
+Lord Wenlock, Warwick's friend and supporter, had guilty knowledge of
+the scheme; but in each case the King himself acknowledged that the
+accusation was frivolous--the random imagining of men on the rack,
+forced to say something to save their own bones. It was not likely that
+Warwick would play the game of Queen Margaret, the slayer of his father
+and brother, and the instigator of attempts on his own life.
+
+Startled by the sudden revival of Lancastrian energy, but encouraged
+by the easy way in which he had mastered it, King Edward determined
+to give the war-like impulses of his subjects vent by undertaking in
+the next year a great expedition against France. He had the example of
+Henry the Fifth before his eyes, and hoped to stifle treason at home by
+foreign war. Among his preparations for leaving home was a determined
+attempt to open negotiations with Warwick for a reconciliation. The
+King won over the Archbishop of York to plead his cause, by restoring
+to him some estates which he had seized in 1467; and about Easter
+George Neville induced his brother to meet the King at Coventry.
+Warwick came, but it is to be feared that he came fully resolved to
+have his revenge at his own time, with his heart quite unsoftened
+toward his master; yet he spoke the King fair, and even consented to be
+reconciled to Lord Herbert, though he would have nothing to say to the
+Woodvilles. He was also induced to join the company which escorted the
+Princess Margaret to the coast, on her way to her marriage in Flanders.
+After this Warwick paid a short visit to London, where he sat among
+the judges who in July tried the Lancastrian conspirators of the city.
+Clarence accompanied him, and sat on the same bench. He had spent the
+last few months in moving the Pope to grant him a disposition to marry
+Isabel Neville,[11] for they were within the prohibited degrees; but
+under pressure from King Edward the Curia had delayed the consideration
+of his request.
+
+The autumn of 1468 and the spring of 1469 passed away quietly. Warwick
+made no movement, for he was still perfecting his plans. He saw with
+secret pleasure that the French, with whom peace would have been
+made long ago if his advice had been followed, kept the King fully
+employed. It must have given him peculiar gratification when his enemy
+Anthony Woodville, placed at the head of a large fleet, made two most
+inglorious expeditions to the French coast, and returned crestfallen
+without having even seen the enemy.
+
+Meanwhile the Earl had been quietly measuring his resources. He had
+spoken to all his kinsmen, and secured the full co-operation of the
+majority of them. George the Archbishop of York, Henry Neville heir to
+Warwick's aged uncle Lord Latimer, Sir John Coniers of Hornby, husband
+of his niece Alice Neville, his cousin Lord Fitzhugh, and Thomas "the
+bastard of Fauconbridge," natural son to the deceased peer who had
+fought so well at Towton, were his chief reliance. His brother John of
+Montagu, the Earl of Northumberland, could not make up his mind; he did
+not reveal Warwick's plans to the King, but he would not promise any
+aid. William Neville of Abergavenny was now too old to be taken into
+account. The rest of Warwick's uncles and brothers were by this time
+dead.
+
+By April 1469 the preparations were complete. Every district where the
+name of Neville was great had been carefully prepared for trouble.
+Kent, Yorkshire, and South Wales were ready for insurrection, and yet
+all had been done so quietly that the King, who ever since he had
+thrown off the Earl's influence had been sinking deeper and deeper into
+habits of careless evil-living and debauchery, suspected nothing.
+
+In April Warwick took his wife and daughters across to Calais,
+apparently to get them out of harm's way. He himself, professing a
+great wish to see his cousin Margaret, the newly-married Duchess of
+Burgundy, went on to St. Omer. He there visited Duke Charles, and was
+reconciled to him in spite of the evil memories of their last meeting
+at Boulogne. To judge from his conduct, the Earl was bent on nothing
+but a harmless tour; but, as a matter of fact, his movements were
+but a blind destined to deceive King Edward. While he was feasting
+at St. Omer he had sent orders over-sea for the commencement of an
+insurrection. In a few days it was timed to break out. Meanwhile
+Warwick returned to Calais, and lodged with Wenlock, who was in charge
+of the great fortress.
+
+His orders had had their effect. In the end of June grave riots broke
+out in the neighbourhood of York. Ostensibly they were connected with
+the maladministration of the estates of St. Leonard's hospital in that
+city; but they were in reality political and not agrarian. Within a
+few days fifteen thousand men were at the gates of York, clamorously
+setting forth a string of grievances, which were evidently founded
+on Cade's manifesto of 1450. Once more we hear of heavy taxation,
+maladministration of the law, the alienation of the royal estates to
+upstart favourites, the exclusion from the royal Councils of the great
+lords of the royal blood. Once more a demand is made for the punishment
+of evil counsellors, and the introduction of economy into the royal
+household, and the application of the revenue to the defence of the
+realm. The first leader of the rioters was Robert Huldyard, known as
+Robin of Redesdale, no doubt the same Robin whom the Earl had bidden
+in 1468 to keep quiet and wait the appointed time. John Neville the
+Earl of Northumberland lay at York with a large body of men-at-arms,
+for he was still Lieutenant of the North. Many expected that he would
+join the rioters; but, either because he had not quite recognised the
+insurrection to be his brother's work, or because he had resolved to
+adhere loyally to Edward, Montagu surprised the world by attacking the
+band which beset York. He routed its vanguard, captured Huldyard, and
+had him beheaded.
+
+But this engagement was far from checking the rising. In a week the
+whole of Yorkshire, from Tees to Humber, was up, and it soon became
+evident in whose interest the movement was working. New leaders
+appeared. Sir John Coniers, the husband of Warwick's niece, and one
+of the most influential Yorkists of the North, replaced Huldyard, and
+assumed his name of Robin of Redesdale, while with him were Henry
+Neville of Latimer and Lord Fitzhugh. Instead of lingering at the gates
+of York, the great body of insurgents--rumour made it more than thirty
+thousand strong--rolled southward into the Midlands. They were coming,
+they said, to lay their grievances before the King; and in every place
+that they passed they hung their articles, obviously the work of some
+old political hand, on the church doors.
+
+King Edward seems to have been taken quite unawares by this dangerous
+insurrection. He had kept his eye on Warwick alone, and when Warwick
+was over-sea he thought himself safe. At the end of June he had been
+making a progress in Norfolk, with no force at his back save two
+hundred archers, a bodyguard whom he had raised in 1468 and kept always
+around him. Hearing of the stir in Yorkshire, he rode north-ward to
+Nottingham, calling in such force as could be gathered by the way. As
+he went, news reached him which suddenly revealed the whole scope of
+the insurrection.
+
+The moment that his brother's attention was drawn off by the Northern
+rising, the Duke of Clarence had quietly slipped over to Calais, and
+with him went George Neville the Archbishop of York. This looked
+suspicious, and the King at once wrote to Clarence, Warwick, and the
+Archbishop, bidding them all come to him without delay. Long before
+his orders can have reached them, the tale of treason was out. Within
+twelve hours of Clarence's arrival at Calais the long-projected
+marriage between him and Isabel Neville had been celebrated, in full
+defiance of the King. Warwick and Clarence kept holiday but for one
+day; the marriage took place on the 11th, and by the 12th they were in
+Kent with a strong party of the garrison of Calais as their escort.
+
+The unruly Kentishmen rose in a body in Warwick's favour, as eagerly
+as when they had mustered to his banner in 1460 before the battle of
+Northampton. The Earl and the Duke came to Canterbury with several
+thousand men at their back. There they revealed their treasonable
+intent, for they published a declaration that they considered the
+articles of Robin of Redesdale just and salutary, and would do
+their best to bring them to the King's notice. How the King was to
+be persuaded was indicated clearly enough, by a proclamation which
+summoned out the whole shire of Kent to join the Earl's banner. Warwick
+and his son-in-law then marched on London, which promptly threw open
+its gates. The King was thus caught between two fires--the open rebels
+lay to the north of him, his brother and cousin with their armed
+persuasion to the south.
+
+Even before Warwick's treason had been known, the King had recognised
+the danger of the northern rising, and sent commissions of array all
+over England. Two considerable forces were soon in arms in his behalf.
+Herbert, the new Earl of Pembroke, raised fourteen thousand Welsh and
+Marchmen at Brecon and Ludlow, and set out eastward. Stafford, the new
+Earl of Devon, collected six thousand archers in the South-Western
+Counties, and set out northward. The King lay at Nottingham with Lord
+Hastings, Lord Mountjoy, and the Woodvilles. He seems to have had
+nearly fifteen thousand men in his company; but their spirit was bad.
+"Sire," said Mountjoy to him in full council of war, "no one wishes
+your person ill, but it would be well to send away my Lord of Rivers
+and his children when you have done conferring with them." Edward took
+this advice. Rivers and John Woodville forthwith retired to Chepstow;
+Scales joined his sister the Queen at Cambridge.
+
+Meanwhile the Northern rebels were pouring south by way of Doncaster
+and Derby. Their leaders Coniers and Latimer showed considerable
+military skill, for by a rapid march on to Leicester they got between
+the King and Lord Herbert's army. Edward, for once out-generalled, had
+to follow them southward, but the Yorkshiremen were some days ahead
+of him, and on July 25th reached Daventry. On the same day Herbert
+and Stafford concentrated their forces at Banbury; but on their first
+meeting the two new earls fell to hard words on a private quarrel, and,
+although the enemy was so near, Stafford in a moment of pique drew off
+his six thousand men to Deddington, ten miles away, leaving Pembroke's
+fourteen thousand Welsh pikemen altogether unprovided with archery.
+
+Next day all the chief actors in the scene were converging on the same
+spot in central England--Coniers marching from Daventry on to Banbury,
+Pembroke from Banbury on Daventry, with Stafford following in his
+rear, while Warwick and Clarence had left London and were moving by
+St. Albans on Towcester; the King, following the Yorkshiremen, was
+somewhere near Northampton.
+
+Coniers and his colleagues, to whom belong all the honours of
+generalship in this campaign, once more got ahead of their opponents.
+Moving rapidly on Banbury on the 26th, they found Pembroke's army
+approaching them on a common named Danesmoor, near Edgecott Park,
+six miles north of Banbury. The Welsh took up a position covered by
+a small stream and offered battle, though they were greatly inferior
+in numbers. The Northerners promptly attacked them, and though one
+of their three leaders, Henry Neville of Latimer, fell in the first
+onset, gained a complete victory; "by force of archery they forced the
+Welsh to descend from the hill into the valley," though Herbert and
+his brothers did all that brave knights could to save the battle. The
+King was only a few hours' march away; indeed, his vanguard under Sir
+Geoffrey Gate and Thomas Clapham actually reached the field, but both
+were old officers of Warwick, and instead of falling on the rebels'
+rear, proceeded to join them, and led the final attack on Herbert's
+position.
+
+Thunderstruck at the deep demoralisation among his troops which this
+desertion showed, the King fell back on Olney, abandoning Northampton
+to the rebels. Next day--it was July 27th--the brave Earl of Pembroke
+and his brother Richard Herbert, both of whom had been taken prisoners,
+were beheaded in the market-place by Coniers' command without sentence
+or trial. Their blood lies without doubt on Warwick's head, for though
+neither he nor Clarence was present, the rebels were obviously acting
+on his orders, and if he had instructed them to keep all their
+captives safe, they would never have presumed to slay them. Several
+chroniclers indeed say that Warwick and Clarence had expressly doomed
+Herbert for death. This slaughter was perfectly inexcusable, for
+Herbert had never descended to the acts of the Woodvilles; he was an
+honourable enemy, and Warwick had actually been reconciled to him only
+a year before.[12] The execution of the Herberts was not the only token
+of the fact that the great Earl's hand was pulling the strings all over
+England. His special aversions, Rivers and John Woodville, were seized
+a week later at Chepstow by a band of rioters--probably retainers from
+the Despenser estates by the Severn--and forwarded to Coventry, where
+they were put to death early in August. Even if Pembroke's execution
+was the unauthorised work of Coniers and Fitzhugh, this slaying of the
+Woodvilles must certainly have been Warwick's own deed. Stafford the
+Earl of Devon, whose desertion of the Welsh had been the principal
+cause of the defeat at Edgecott, fared no better than the colleague
+he had betrayed. He disbanded his army and fled homeward; but at
+Bridgewater he was seized by insurgents, retainers of the late Earl of
+Devon whom he had beheaded a year before, and promptly put to death.
+
+It only remains to relate King Edward's fortunes. When the news of
+Edgecott fight reached his army, it disbanded for the most part, and he
+was left, with no great following, at Olney, whither he had fallen back
+on July 27th. Meanwhile Warwick and Clarence, marching from London on
+Northampton along the Roman road, were not far off. The news of the
+King's position reached their army, and George Neville the Archbishop
+of York, who was with the vanguard, resolved on a daring stroke. Riding
+up by night with a great body of horse he surrounded Olney; the King's
+sentinels kept bad watch, and at midnight Edward was roused by the
+clash of arms at his door. He found the streets full of Warwick's men,
+and the Archbishop waiting in his ante-chamber. The smooth prelate
+entered and requested him to rise and dress himself. "Then the King
+said he would not, for he had not yet had his rest; but the Archbishop,
+that false and disloyal priest, said to him a second time, 'Sire, you
+must rise and come to see my brother of Warwick, nor do I think that
+you can refuse me.' So the King, fearing worse might come to him, rose
+and rode off to meet his cousin of Warwick."
+
+The Earl meanwhile had passed on to Northampton, where he met the
+Northern rebels on July 29th, and thanked them for the good service
+they had done England. There he dismissed the Kentish levies which had
+followed him from London, and moved on to Coventry escorted by the
+Yorkshiremen, many of whom must have been his own tenants. At Coventry
+the Archbishop, and his unwilling companion the King, overtook them.
+The details of the meeting of Warwick and Clarence with their captive
+master have not come down to us. But apparently Edward repaid the
+Earl's guile of the past year by an equally deceptive mask of good
+humour. He made no reproaches about the death of his adherents, signed
+everything that was required of him, and did not attempt to escape.
+The first batch of privy seals issued under Warwick's influence are
+dated from Coventry on August 2nd.
+
+The great Earl's treacherous plans had been crowned with complete
+success. He had shown that half England would rise at his word; his
+enemies were dead; his master was in his power. Yet he found that
+his troubles were now beginning, instead of reaching their end. It
+was not merely that the whole kingdom had been thrown into a state
+of disturbance, and that men had commenced everywhere to settle
+old quarrels with the sword--the Duke of Norfolk, for example,
+was besieging the Paston's castle of Caistor, and the Commons of
+Northumberland were up in arms demanding the restoration of the Percies
+to their heritage. These troubles might be put down by the strong
+arm of Warwick; but the problem of real difficulty was to arrange a
+_modus vivendi_ with the King. Edward was no coward or weakling to be
+frightened into good behaviour by a rising such as had just occurred.
+How could he help resenting with all his passionate nature the violence
+of which he had been the victim? His wife, too, would always be at his
+side; and though natural affection was not Elizabeth Woodville's strong
+point,[13] still she was far too ambitious and vindictive to pardon
+the deaths of her father and brother. Warwick knew Edward well enough
+to realise that for the future there could never be true confidence
+between them again, and that for the rest of his life he must guard his
+head well against his master's sword.
+
+But the Earl was proud and self-reliant; he determined to face the
+danger and release the King. No other alternative was before him, save,
+indeed, to slay Edward and proclaim his own son-in-law, Clarence,
+for King. But the memory of old days spent in Edward's cause was too
+strong. Clarence, too, though he may have been willing enough to
+supplant his brother, made no open proposals to extinguish him.
+
+Edward was over a month in his cousin's hands. Part of the time he was
+kept at Warwick and Coventry, but the last three weeks were spent in
+the Earl's northern stronghold of Middleham. The few accounts which we
+have of the time seem to show that the King was all smoothness and fair
+promises; the Earl and the Archbishop, on the other hand, were careful
+to make his detention as little like captivity as could be managed.
+He was allowed free access to every one, and permitted to go hunting
+three or four miles away from the castle in company with a handful
+of the Earl's servants. Warwick at the same time gave earnest of his
+adherence to the Yorkist cause by putting down two Lancastrian risings,
+the one in favour of the Percies, led by Robin of Holderness, the other
+raised by his own second-cousin, Sir Humphrey Neville, one of the elder
+branch, who was taken and beheaded at York.
+
+Before releasing the King, Warwick exacted a few securities from him.
+The first was a general pardon to himself, Clarence, and all who had
+been engaged in the rising of Robin of Redesdale. The second was a
+grant to himself of the chamberlainship of South Wales, and the right
+to name the governors of Caermarthen and the other South Welsh castles.
+These offices had been in Herbert's hands, and the Earl had found that
+they cramped his own power in Glamorganshire and the South Marches.
+The third was the appointment as Treasurer of Sir John Langstrother,
+the Prior of the Hospitallers of England; he was evidently chosen as
+Rivers' successor, because two years before he had been elected to
+his place as prior in opposition to John Woodville, whom the King had
+endeavoured to foist on the order. The chancellorship, however, was
+still left in the hands of Bishop Stillington, against whom no one had
+a grudge; George Neville did not claim his old preferment.
+
+By October the King was back in London, which he entered in great
+state, escorted by Montagu, the Archbishop, Richard of Gloucester, and
+the Earls of Essex and Arundel. "The King himself," writes one of the
+Pastons that day, "hath good language of my Lords of Clarence, Warwick,
+and York, saying they be his best friends; but his household have other
+language, so that what shall hastily fall I can not say." No more, we
+may add, could any man in England, the King and Warwick included.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 10: Letter of William Monipenny to Louis the Eleventh. He
+calls it _le pays de Surfiorkshire_, a cross between Suffolk and
+Yorkshire. But the latter must be meant, as Warwick had no interest in
+Suffolk, and the captain is obviously Robin of Redesdale.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Clarence's mother was Isabel's great aunt.]
+
+[Footnote 12: It is fair to say that Herbert was universally disliked;
+he was called the Spoiler of the Church and the Commons.]
+
+[Footnote 13: As witness her dealings with Richard the Third after he
+had murdered her sons.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WARWICK FOR KING HENRY
+
+
+The peace between Warwick and King Edward lasted for a period even
+shorter than might have been expected; seven months, from September
+1469 to March 1470, was the term for which it was destined to endure.
+Yet while it did hold firm, all was so smooth outwardly that its
+rupture came as a thunderclap upon the world. Nothing, indeed, could
+have looked more promising for lovers of quiet times than the events of
+the winter of 1469-70. A Parliament ratified all the King's grants of
+immunity to the insurgents of the last year, and while it sat the King
+announced a project which promised to bind York and Neville more firmly
+together than ever. Edward, though now married for six years, had no
+son; three daughters alone were the issue of his union with Elizabeth
+Woodville. He now proposed to marry his eldest daughter, and heiress
+presumptive, to the male heir of the Nevilles, the child George, son of
+Montagu.[14] To make the boy's rank suitable to his prospects, Edward
+created him Duke of Bedford. Montagu had not joined with his brothers
+in the rising, and had even fought with Robin of Redesdale, so it was
+all the easier for the King to grant him this crowning honour.
+
+In February Warwick was at Warwick Castle, Montagu in the North, while
+Clarence and King Edward lay at London. All was quiet enough, when
+suddenly there came news of troubles in Lincolnshire. Riotous bands,
+headed by Sir Robert Welles, son of Lord Willoughby and Welles, had
+come together, sacked the manor of a certain Sir Thomas Burgh, one of
+Edward's most trusted servants, and were raising the usual seditious
+cries about the evil government of the realm. At first nothing very
+dangerous seemed to be on foot. When the King sent for Willoughby, to
+call him to account for his son's doings, the old peer came readily
+enough to London to make his excuses, relying on the safe conduct
+which was sent him. But the riots were now swelling into a regular
+insurrection, and soon news came that Sir Robert Welles had called out
+the whole shire-force of Lincoln, mustered fifteen thousand men, and
+was bidding his troops to shout for King Henry. Edward at once issued
+commissions of array for raising an overwhelming force against the
+rebels. Two of the commissions were sent to Warwick and Clarence, who
+were bidden to collect the men of Warwickshire and Worcestershire.
+Their orders were dated March 7th, but before they were half carried
+out, the purpose for which they were issued had already been attained.
+Edward, taking Lord Willoughby with him as a hostage, had rushed north
+with one of these astonishing bursts of energy of which he was now and
+again capable. Leaving London on the 6th, he reached Stamford on March
+11th, with the forces of the home and eastern counties at his back.
+On the 12th he met the rebels at Empingham near Stamford, and when
+Welles would not bid them disperse, beheaded his aged father Willoughby
+in front of his army. The Lincolnshire men fled in disgraceful rout
+before the fire of the King's artillery, casting off their cassocks
+with the colours of Welles in such haste that the fight was known as
+Lose-coat Field. Sir Robert was caught and beheaded at Doncaster a
+few days later, and the rising was at an end. On Tuesday the 21st the
+King reviewed his troops: "It was said that never were seen in England
+so many goodly men, and so well arrayed for a fight; in especial the
+Duke of Norfolk was worshipfully accompanied, no lord there so well."
+Warwick and Clarence, with a few thousand men from the shires they
+had been told to raise, lay that day at Chesterfield, converging, in
+accordance with their orders, on Lincoln.
+
+Suddenly Edward announced to his army that he had learnt from the
+dying confession of Sir Robert Welles that Warwick and Clarence were
+implicated in the rising. Though Welles had sometimes used King Henry's
+name, it was now said that he had really been proposing to place
+Clarence on the throne, and was acting with Warwick's full approval.
+Edward added that he had already sent to the Duke and the Earl, bidding
+them come to his presence at once and unaccompanied. They had refused
+to come without a safe conduct, so he now proclaimed them traitors, but
+would grant them their lives if they would appear before him in humble
+and obeisant wise within a week. The army was at once directed to march
+on Chesterfield, but when the proclamation reached Warwick and Clarence
+they did not obey it, and fled for their lives.
+
+This series of events is the most puzzling portion of the whole of
+Warwick's life. The chroniclers help us very little, and the only two
+first-hand documents which we possess are official papers drawn up
+by King Edward. These papers were so widely spread that we meet them
+repeated word for word and paragraph for paragraph even in the French
+writers,--with the names, of course, horribly mangled.[15] Edward said
+that down to the very moment of Welles' capture he had no thought but
+that Warwick and Clarence were serving him faithfully: it was Welles'
+confession, and some treasonable papers found on the person of a squire
+in the Duke of Clarence's livery who was slain in the pursuit, that
+revealed the plot to him. The second document which the King published
+was Welles' confession, a rambling effusion which may or may not fully
+represent the whole story. Why Welles should confess at all we cannot
+see, unless he expected to save his life thereby; and if he expected to
+save his life he would, of course, insert in his tale whatever names
+the King chose. Welles' narrative relates that all Lincolnshire was
+afraid that the King would visit it with vengeance for joining Robin
+of Redesdale last year. Excitement already prevailed, when there came
+to him, about February 2nd, Sir John Clare, a chaplain of the Duke
+of Clarence's, who asked him if Lincolnshire would be ready to rise
+supposing there was another trouble this year, but bade him make no
+stir till the Duke should send him word. Without waiting, according
+to his own tale, for any further communication, Welles raised all
+Lincolnshire, making proclamation in the King's name as well as that of
+the Duke of Clarence. Some days after the riots began there came to him
+a squire in the Duke's livery, who told him that he had provoked the
+King, and that great multitudes of the Commons must needs die unless
+they bestirred themselves. So this squire--Welles could not give his
+surname but only knew that he was called Walter--took over the guiding
+of the host till he was slain at Stamford. Moreover, one John Wright
+came to Lincoln, bearing a ring as token, which he said belonged to the
+Earl of Warwick, with a message of comfort to say that the Earl had
+sworn to take such part as Lincolnshire should take. "And I understand
+that they intended to make great risings, and as far as ever I could
+understand, to the intent to make the Duke of Clarence King, and so it
+was largely noised in our host." According to his story, Welles had
+never seen either Warwick or Clarence himself, and had no definite
+knowledge of their purpose. He only understood that the purpose was to
+crown Clarence; all his information came from Clare and the anonymous
+squire.
+
+This is a curious tale, and suggests many doubts. If Warwick wished
+to act again the comedy of last year, why should he send to a county
+where he had no influence, to a staunch Lancastrian family (Welles'
+grandfather fell in Henry's cause at Towton, and his father was the
+Willoughby who tried to kidnap Warwick in 1460) in order to provoke a
+rising? And if he had planned a rising in Lincoln, why did he make no
+attempt to support it by calling out his own Midland and South Welsh
+retainers, or raising Yorkshire or Kent, where he could command the
+whole county? That the Earl was capable of treasonable double-dealing
+he had shown clearly enough in 1469. But was he capable of such insane
+bad management as the arrangements for Welles' insurrection show? Last
+year his own relatives and retainers worked the plan, and it was most
+accurately timed and most successfully executed. Why should he now make
+such a bungle?
+
+It is, moreover, to be observed that while Welles puts everything down
+to Clarence in his confession, Warkworth and other chroniclers say that
+he bade his men shout for King Henry, and all his connections were
+certainly Lancastrian. Is it possible that he was trying to put the
+guilt off his own shoulders, and to make a bid for his life, acting on
+Edward's hints, when he implicated Warwick and Clarence in his guilt?
+
+It is certainly quite in keeping with Edward's character to suppose
+that, finding himself at the head of a loyal and victorious army, it
+suddenly occurred to him that his position could be utilised to fall on
+Warwick and Clarence and take his revenge for the deaths of Pembroke
+and Rivers.
+
+Whether this was so or not, the Duke and the Earl were most certainly
+caught unprepared when Edward marched on Chesterfield. They left a
+message that they would come to the King if he would give them a
+safe conduct, and fled to Manchester. Edward threw his army between
+them and York, where they could have raised men in abundance, and
+the fugitives, after vainly trying to interest Lord Stanley in their
+cause, doubled back on the Midlands. With a few hundred men in their
+train they got to Warwick, but apparently there was no time to make a
+stand even there. The King had sent commissions of array out all over
+England to trusty hands, and forces under staunch Yorkists were closing
+in towards the Midlands on every side. Edward calculated on having an
+enormous army in the field by April; he himself was coming south with
+quite twenty thousand victorious troops, and he had called out the
+whole of the levies of Shropshire, Hereford, Gloucester, Stafford,
+Wiltshire, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset. When he heard that Warwick was
+moving south, he sent to Salisbury to order quarters and provisions for
+forty thousand men, who would be concentrated there if the Earl tried
+to reach the Montacute lands in that quarter.
+
+So unprepared was the Earl for the assault that, packing up his
+valuables in Warwick Castle, and taking with him his wife and his two
+daughters, he fled for the South Coast without waiting to be surrounded
+by his enemies. He quite outstripped the King, who had barely reached
+Salisbury when he himself was at Exeter. There the Duke and Earl
+seized a few ships, which they sent round to Dartmouth; more vessels
+were obtained in the latter place, for the whole seafaring population
+of England favoured the Earl. When Edward drew near, Warwick and his
+son-in-law went on board their hastily-extemporised fleet and put
+to sea. They ran along the South Coast as far as Southampton, where
+they made an attempt to seize a part of the royal navy, including the
+great ship called the _Trinity_, which had lain there since Scales'
+abortive expedition in 1469. But Scales and Howard occupied the town
+with a great Hampshire levy; the Earl's attack failed, and three of his
+ships with their crews fell into the enemy's hands. Tiptoft Earl of
+Worcester, "the great butcher of England," tried the captured men, and
+a squire named Clapham and nineteen more were hung and then impaled by
+him. This atrocious punishment sent a shock of horror through England,
+and Tiptoft's name is still remembered rather for this abomination than
+for all the learning and accomplishments which made him Caxton's idol.
+
+Warwick made for Calais, where his friend Wenlock was in charge,
+expecting free admittance. But the King had sent Galliard de Duras
+and other officers across to watch the governor, and Wenlock, who was
+somewhat of a time-server, dared not show his heart. When Warwick
+appeared in the roads he refused him entry, and shot off some harmless
+cannon toward the ships. At the same time he sent the Earl a secret
+message that "he would give him a fair account of Calais upon the first
+opportunity, if he would betake himself to France and wait." While
+Warwick lay off Calais his daughter, Clarence's wife, was delivered of
+a son. Wenlock sent out for her use two flagons of wine, but would not
+give her a safe conduct to land--"a great severity for a servant to use
+towards his lord," remarks Commines.
+
+Repulsed from Calais, though we hear that the majority of the garrison
+and inhabitants wished to admit them, Warwick and Clarence turned back,
+and sought refuge in the harbour of Honfleur, where they trusted to get
+shelter from Louis of France. On their way between Calais and Honfleur
+they made prizes of several ships belonging to the Duke of Burgundy,
+because they understood that he was arming against them. Louis kept
+away from Warwick for a time; but he sent his secretary, Du Plessis, to
+see him, and his admiral, the Bastard of Bourbon, gave the fugitives a
+hearty welcome. Louis was still at war with England, and still dreading
+a descent by King Edward on the French coast. He was delighted to
+learn that he could now turn Warwick, whose abilities he had learnt
+to respect, against his master--anything that would breed trouble in
+England would keep his enemy occupied at home. The King's first orders
+to his officers were to allow Warwick to fit out his ships, give him a
+supply of money, and send him off to England as quickly as possible.
+But the narrow seas were too well watched. Charles the Bold, irritated
+at Warwick's capture of his merchantmen, had collected a great fleet
+of seventy sail, which swept the Channel and watched the mouth of the
+Seine.
+
+The enforced delay in Warwick's departure allowed time for a new idea
+to ripen in the French King's restless brain. Warwick had now broken
+hopelessly with King Edward; they could never trust each other again.
+Why therefore should not the Earl reconcile himself to the cause of
+Lancaster? No sooner was the idea formed than Louis proceeded to send
+for Queen Margaret out of her refuge in the duchy of Bar, and to lay
+his plan before her and the Earl, when they all met at Angers in the
+middle of July.
+
+The scheme was at first sight revolting to both parties. There was so
+much blood and trouble between them that neither could stomach the
+proposal. If Margaret could bring herself to forget that Warwick had
+twice driven her out of England, and had led her husband in ignominy to
+the Tower, she could not pardon the man who, in his moment of wrath,
+had stigmatised herself as an adulteress and her son as a bastard.[16]
+Warwick, on the other hand, if he could forgive the plot against
+his own life which the Queen had hatched in 1459, could not bear to
+think of meeting the woman who had sent his gray-haired father to the
+scaffold in cold blood on the day after Wakefield. King Louis asked
+each party to forget their whole past careers, and sacrifice their
+dearest hatreds to the exigencies of the moment.
+
+If Warwick and Queen Margaret had been left to themselves, it is most
+improbable that they would ever have come to an agreement. But between
+them Louis went busily to and fro, for his unscrupulous mind was
+perfectly unable to conceive that passion or sentiment could override
+an obvious political necessity. Gradually the two parties were brought
+to state their objections to the King's scheme, the first step towards
+the commencement of negotiations. Warwick was the first to yield; the
+Queen took far longer to persuade. The Earl, she said, had been the
+cause of all the trouble that had come on herself, her husband, and
+her son. She could not pardon him. Moreover, his pardon would lose
+her more friends than he could bring to her. Warwick's answer was
+straightforward. He owned all the harm he had done to her and hers.
+But the offence, he said, had come first from her who had plotted
+evil against him which he had never deserved. What he had done had
+been done solely in his own defence. But now the new King had broken
+faith with him, and he was bound to him no longer. If Margaret would
+forgive him, he would be true to her henceforth; and for that the King
+of France would be his surety. Louis gave his word, praying the Queen
+to pardon the Earl, to whom, he said, he was more beholden than to any
+other man living.[17]
+
+The Queen so pressed, and urged beside by the counsellors of her father
+King Réné, agreed to pardon Warwick. Louis then broached the second
+point in his scheme. The new alliance, he urged, should be sealed by
+a marriage; the Prince of Wales was now seventeen and the Lady Anne,
+Warwick's younger daughter, sixteen. What match could be fairer or more
+hopeful?
+
+But to this the Queen would not listen. She could find a better match
+for her son, she said; and she showed them a letter lately come from
+Edward offering him the hand of the young Princess Elizabeth.[18]
+Louis, however, was quietly persistent, and in the end the Queen
+yielded this point also. On August 4th she met Warwick in the Church of
+St. Mary at Angers, and there they were reconciled; the Earl swearing
+on a fragment of the true cross that he would cleave to King Henry's
+quarrel, the Queen engaging to treat the Earl as her true and faithful
+subject, and never to make him any reproach for deeds gone by. The Earl
+placed his daughter in the Queen's hands, saying that the marriage
+should take place only when he had won back England for King Henry, and
+then departed for the coast to make preparations for getting his fleet
+to sea.
+
+One person alone was much vexed at the success of Louis' scheme. The
+Duke of Clarence had no wish to see his father-in-law reconciled to
+the house of Lancaster, for he had been speculating on the notion
+that if Warwick drove out Edward he himself would become King. But
+wandering exiles must take their fortune as it comes, and Clarence had
+to be contented with Queen Margaret's promise that his name should be
+inserted in the succession after that of her son, when she and her
+husband came to their own again. The Prince was a healthy promising
+lad, and the prospect offered was hopelessly remote; Clarence began to
+grow discontented, and to regret that he had ever placed himself under
+Warwick's guidance. At this juncture his brother sent him a message
+from England, through a lady attending on the Duchess, praying him
+not to wreck the fortunes of his own family by adhering to the house
+of Lancaster, and bidding him remember the hereditary hatred that
+lay between them. Edward offered his brother a full pardon. Clarence
+replied by promising to come over to the King so soon as he and Warwick
+should reach England. Of all these negotiations Warwick suspected not a
+word.
+
+Edward was so overjoyed by his brother's engagement to wreck the Earl's
+invasion, that he laughed at Charles of Burgundy for squandering money
+in keeping a fleet at sea to intercept Warwick, and declared that what
+he most wished was to see his adversary safely landed on English soil,
+to be dealt with by himself.
+
+He had his wish soon enough. In September the equinoctial gales caught
+the Burgundian fleet and blew it to the four winds, some of the vessels
+being driven as far as Scotland and Denmark. This left the coast clear
+for Warwick, who had long been waiting to put to sea. The Earl had
+already taken his precautions to make his task easy. A proclamation,
+signed by himself and Clarence, had been scattered all over England by
+willing hands. It said that the exiles were returning "to set right and
+justice to their places, and to reduce and redeem for ever the realm
+from its thraldom;" but no mention was made either of Edward or Henry
+in it, a curious fact which seems to point out that the Lancastrian
+alliance was not to be avowed till the last moment. But more useful
+than many proclamations was the message which the Earl sent into the
+North Country; he prayed his kinsman Fitzhugh to stir up Yorkshire and
+draw the King northward, as he had done before, when he and Coniers
+worked the rebellion of Robin of Redesdale.
+
+Fitzhugh had no difficulty in rousing the Neville tenants about
+Middleham; and Edward, as Warwick expected, no sooner heard of this
+insurrection than he hurried to put it down, taking with him his
+brother Richard of Gloucester, Scales, Hastings, Say, and many more
+of his most trusted barons, with a good part of the army that was
+disposable to resist a landing on the South Coast. Near York he was
+to be met by Montagu, who had adhered to him for the past year in
+spite of his brother's rebellion. But the King had paid Montagu
+badly for his loyalty. He had taken from him the Percy lands in
+Northumberland, and restored them to the young heir of that ancient
+house, compensating, as he thought, the dispossessed Neville by making
+him a marquis, and handing him over some of Warwick's confiscated
+northern estates. Montagu complained in secret that "he had been given
+a marquisate, and a pie's nest to maintain it withal," and was far from
+being so contented as the King supposed.
+
+On September 25th Warwick landed unopposed at Dartmouth. In his company
+was not only Clarence but several of the great Lancastrian lords who
+had been living in exile--Jasper of Pembroke, Oxford, and many more.
+They brought with them about two thousand men, of whom half were French
+archers lent by Louis. The moment that the invaders landed, Warwick
+and Clarence declared themselves, by putting forth a proclamation in
+favour of King Henry. Devon and Somerset had always been Lancastrian
+strongholds, and the old retainers of the Beauforts and of Exeter came
+in by hundreds to meet their exiled lords. In a few days Warwick had
+ten thousand men, and could march on London; the King was at Doncaster,
+and his lieutenants in the South could make no stand without him. A
+little later Warwick's own Midland and Wiltshire tenants joined him,
+the Earl of Shrewsbury raised the Severn valley in his aid, and all
+Western England was in his hands.
+
+Meanwhile King Edward, who had up to this moment mismanaged his
+affairs most hopelessly, moved south by Doncaster and Lincoln, with
+Montagu and many other lords in his train. On October 6th he lay in
+a fortified manor near Nottingham with his bodyguard, while his army
+occupied all the villages round about. There, early in the morning,
+while he still lay in bed, Alexander Carlisle, the chief of his
+minstrels, and Master Lee, his chaplain, came running into his chamber,
+to tell him there was treachery in his camp. Montagu and other lords
+were riding down the ranks of his army crying, "God save King Henry!"
+The men were cheering and shouting for Warwick and Lancaster, and no
+one was showing any signs of striking a blow for the cause of York.
+
+Edward rose in haste, drew up his bodyguard to defend the approach
+of the manor where he lay, and sent scouts to know the truth of the
+report. They met Montagu marching against them, and fled back to
+say that the rumour was all too true. Then Edward with his brother
+Gloucester, Hastings his chamberlain, Say, and Scales, and their
+immediate following, took horse and fled. They reached Lynn about eight
+hundred strong, seized some merchantmen and two Dutch carvels which
+lay in the harbour, and set sail for the lands of Burgundy. Buffeted
+by storms and chased by Hanseatic pirates, they ran their ships ashore
+near Alkmaar, and sought refuge with Louis of Gruthuyse, Governor of
+Holland. King, lords, and archers alike had escaped with nothing but
+what they bore on their backs; Edward himself could only pay the master
+of the ship that carried him by giving him the rich gown lined with
+martens' fur that he had worn in his flight.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 14: This plan, as Lingard astutely observes, may have two
+meanings. Either, as we said above, it was a ratification of peace with
+the Nevilles, or--and this is quite possible--it was intended to draw
+Montagu apart from his brothers, by giving him a special interest in
+Edward's prosperity.]
+
+[Footnote 15: _E.g._ Waurin makes Ranby Howe, the muster-place of the
+insurgents, into Tabihorch, and Lancashire into Lantreghier.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Foreign writers record that Warwick used this language to
+the legate Coppini in 1460.]
+
+[Footnote 17: All this comes from the invaluable "Manner of the dealing
+of the Earl of Warwick at Angiers," printed in the _Chronicle of the
+White Rose_.]
+
+[Footnote 18: This is a not impossible tale. Edward, fearing Warwick's
+alliance to the Queen, might hope to separate them by offering
+Margaret's son the ultimate succession to the throne. For he himself
+having no male heir, the crown would go with his eldest daughter
+Elizabeth.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RETURN OF KING EDWARD
+
+
+The expulsion of King Edward had been marvellously sudden. Within
+eleven days after his landing at Dartmouth Warwick was master of all
+England. Not a blow had been struck for the exiled King. From Calais to
+Berwick every man mounted the Red Rose or the Ragged Staff with real
+or simulated manifestations of joy. On October 6th the Earl reached
+London, which opened its gates with its accustomed readiness. It had
+only delayed its surrender in fear of a riotous band of Kentishmen,
+whom Sir Geoffrey Gate had gathered in the Earl's name. They had
+wrought such mischief in Southwark that the Londoners refused to let
+them in, and waited for the arrival of Warwick himself before they
+would formally acknowledge King Henry. Meanwhile all the partisans of
+York had either fled from the city or taken sanctuary. Queen Elizabeth
+sought refuge in the precincts of Westminster, where she was soon after
+delivered of a son, the first male child that had been born to King
+Edward.
+
+Riding through the city Warwick came to the Tower, and found King Henry
+in his keeper's hands, "not worshipfully arrayed as a prince, and not
+so cleanly kept as should beseem his state." The Earl led him forth
+from the fortress,--whither he had himself conducted him, a prisoner
+in bonds, five years before,--arrayed him in royal robes, and brought
+him in state to St. Paul's, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, with all the
+Common Council, walking before him, "while all the people to right and
+left rejoiced with clapping of hands, and cried 'God save King Henry!'"
+Then the King, after returning thanks for his deliverance in the
+Cathedral, rode down Cheapside and took up his residence in the palace
+of the Bishop of London.
+
+Henry was much broken and enfeebled by his captivity. "He sat on his
+throne as limp and helpless as a sack of wool," says one unfriendly
+chronicler. "He was a mere shadow and pretence, and what was done in
+his name was done without his will and knowledge." All that remained
+unbroken in him was his piety and his imperturbable long-suffering
+patience. But his weakness only made him the more fit for Warwick's
+purpose. His deliverance took place on the 6th, and on October 9th
+we find him beginning to sign a long series of documents which
+reconstituted the government of the realm. It was made clear from the
+first that Warwick and his friends were to have charge of the King
+rather than the Lancastrian peers. In the first batch of appointments
+Warwick became the King's Lieutenant, and resumed his old posts of
+Captain of Calais and Admiral. George Neville was restored to the
+Chancellorship, and Sir John Langstrother, Prior of the Hospitallers,
+received again the Treasury, which Warwick had bestowed on him in
+1469. The Duke of Clarence was made Lieutenant of Ireland, a post
+he had enjoyed under his brother till his exile in 1470. Among the
+Lancastrians, Oxford was made Constable, and Pembroke joint-Lieutenant
+under Warwick. The rest received back their confiscated lands, but got
+no official preferment.
+
+Oxford's first exercise of his power as Constable was to try Tiptoft
+Earl of Worcester, one of the few of King Edward's adherents whom no
+one could pardon. Oxford had to avenge on him his father and brother,
+whom the Earl had sentenced to be drawn and quartered in 1462, while
+Warwick remembered his adherents impaled in the previous April. The
+Butcher of England got no mercy, as might be expected, and was beheaded
+on October 18th.
+
+A few days before summonses had been sent out in the King's name for
+a Parliament to meet on November 26th, for Warwick was eager to set
+himself right with the nation at the earliest opportunity. Every care
+was taken to show that the new rule was to be one of tolerance and
+amnesty. The whole of the surviving peers who had sat in Edward's
+last Parliament were invited to present themselves to meet King
+Henry--however bitter their Yorkist partizanship had been--save
+six only, and of these four had fled over-sea--Gloucester, Scales,
+Hastings, and Say.
+
+The Parliament met and was greeted by George Neville the Chancellor
+with a sermon adapted to the times, on the text from Jeremiah, "Turn,
+O ye back-sliding children." The proceedings of the session are lost,
+but we know that they were mainly formal, confirming the King's
+appointments to offices, ratifying the agreement made between Queen
+Margaret and Clarence, that the latter should be declared heir to
+the throne failing issue to the Prince of Wales, and reversing the
+attainder of Somerset and Exeter and the other Lancastrian lords, who
+were thus able to take their seats in the Upper House.
+
+The most important political event of the restoration, however, was
+the conclusion of the treaty with France, which Warwick had had so
+close to his heart ever since the first abortive negotiations in
+1464. An embassy, headed by the Bishop of Bayeux, titular Patriarch
+of Jerusalem, appeared in London when Warwick's power was firmly
+established, and a peace for twelve years and treaty of alliance was
+duly concluded. Its most important feature was that it bound England
+to take the French King's side in the struggle with Burgundy. When he
+heard that Edward had been expelled and could no longer aid Charles
+the Bold, Louis had at once attacked the towns on the Somme, and taken
+Amiens and several other important places. Next spring his contest
+with the Duke would begin in earnest, and he was overjoyed to know
+that the English power would be used for his aid, by one who had a
+strong personal dislike to the Burgundian. Warwick at once took steps
+to strengthen the garrison of Calais, which was at this time entirely
+surrounded by the Duke's territory, and began to make preparations for
+a campaign in the next spring.
+
+It is rather difficult to gauge with accuracy the feeling with which
+England received the restoration of King Henry. The nation, however,
+seems on the whole to have accepted the new government with great
+equanimity if with no very marked enthusiasm. The Lancastrians were
+of course contented, though they would have preferred to have won back
+their position by their own arms. Of the Yorkists it was supposed that
+most of the important sections held by the Earl and not by King Edward.
+This was certainly the case, as later events showed, with the Commons
+in most parts of the country, and notably in Yorkshire and Kent, which
+had up to this time been so strongly attached to the cause of York.
+There were, however, classes in which the restoration was not so well
+received. It was disliked by such of the Yorkist nobility as were not
+Nevilles. The Duke of Norfolk and all the Bourchier clan--Essex, the
+Archbishop, Cromwell, and Berners--had not been displeased when Warwick
+chastened the Queen's relatives, but had not wished to see Edward
+entirely deposed. Other peers, such as Grey Earl of Kent, and the Earl
+of Arundel, had committed themselves even more deeply to Edward's side,
+by allying themselves by marriage with the Woodvilles. It was gall
+and bitterness to all those heads of great houses to have to seek for
+pardon and favour from their late enemies. What, for example, must have
+been Norfolk's feelings when he was compelled, as the Paston records
+describe, to sue as humbly to the Lancastrian Earl of Oxford as his own
+dependents had been wont to sue to himself?
+
+Another quarter where the restoration was taken ill was to be found
+among the merchants of London. The late King had been a great spender
+of money, and was at the moment of his exile deep in the books of many
+wealthy purveyors of the luxuries in which he delighted. All these
+debts had now become hopeless, and the unfortunate creditors were
+sulky and depressed. Moreover, Edward's courteous and affable manners
+and comely person had won him favour in the eyes of the Londoners in
+whose midst he habitually dwelt, and still more so, unless tradition
+errs, in the eyes of their wives. Few persons in the city, except
+declared Lancastrians, looked upon the new government with any approach
+to enthusiasm.
+
+There was one individual, too, whose feelings as to the new government
+were likely to be of no mean importance. George of Clarence, though
+he had followed Warwick to London and taken a prominent part in all
+the incidents of the restoration, was profoundly dissatisfied with
+his position. Even when he had been made Lieutenant of Ireland--an
+office which he chose to discharge by deputy--and presented with many
+scores of manors, he was in no wise conciliated. He was farther from
+the throne as the Prince of Wales' ultimate heir than he had been in
+the days of his own brother's reign. Had the chance been given him, it
+seems likely that he would have betrayed Warwick and joined King Edward
+after his return to England. But events had marched too rapidly, and he
+had found no opportunity to strike a blow for York. During the winter
+of 1470-71, however, he put himself once more in communication with his
+brother. The correspondence was carried on through their sisters--the
+Duchess of Exeter on the English side of the Channel and the Duchess
+of Burgundy over-sea. By this means Clarence renewed his promises of
+help to Edward, and swore to join him, with every man that he could
+raise, the moment that he set foot again in England. Meanwhile Warwick
+had no suspicion of his son-in-law's treachery. He trusted him to the
+uttermost, heaped favours upon him, and even got his name joined with
+his own and Pembroke's as Lieutenants for King Henry in all the realm
+of England.
+
+For five months the Earl's reign was undisturbed. There was no one in
+the country who dared dispute his will. Queen Margaret, whose presence
+would have been his greatest difficulty, had not yet crossed the seas.
+Her delay was strange. Perhaps she still dreaded putting herself in the
+hands of her old enemy; perhaps the King of France detained her till
+Warwick should have made his power in England too firm to be troubled
+by her intrigues. But the Earl himself actually desired her presence.
+He several times invited her to hasten her arrival, and at last sent
+over Langstrother, the Treasurer of England, to urge his suit and
+escort Margaret and her son across the Channel. It was not till March
+that she could be induced to move; and by March the time was overdue.
+
+Meanwhile King Edward had received but a luke-warm reception at the
+Court of Burgundy. Duke Charles, saddled with his French war, would
+have preferred to keep at peace with England. His sympathies were
+divided between Lancaster and York. If his wife was Edward's sister,
+he himself had Lancastrian blood in his veins, and had long maintained
+Somerset, Exeter, and other Lancastrian exiles at his Court. But he
+was driven into taking a decided line in favour of Edward by the
+fact that Warwick, his personal enemy, was supreme in the counsels
+of England. If the Earl allied himself to Louis of France, it became
+absolutely necessary for Duke Charles to lend his support to his exiled
+brother-in-law, with the object of upsetting Warwick's domination.
+
+Edward himself had found again his ancient restless energy in the day
+of adversity. He knew that in the last autumn he could have made a
+good defence if it had not been for Montagu's sudden treachery, and
+was determined not to consider his cause lost till it had been fairly
+tried by the arbitrament of the sword. He was in full communication
+with England, and had learnt that many more beside Clarence were eager
+to see him land. The adventure would be perilous, for he would have to
+fight not only, as of old, the Lancastrian party, but the vast masses
+of the Commons whose trust had always been in the great Earl. But peril
+seems to have been rather an incentive than a deterrent to Edward,
+when the reckless mood was on him. He took the aid that Charles of
+Burgundy promised, though it was given in secret and with a grudging
+heart. After a final interview with the Duke at Aire, he moved off in
+February to Flushing, where a few ships had been collected for him in
+the haven among the marshes of Walcheren. About fifteen hundred English
+refugees accompanied him, including his brother of Gloucester and Lords
+Hastings, Say, and Scales. The Duke had hired for him three hundred
+German hand-gun men, and presented him with fifty thousand florins in
+gold. With such slender resources the exiled King did not scruple to
+attempt the reconquest of his kingdom. On March 11th he and his men set
+sail. They were convoyed across the German Ocean by a fleet of fourteen
+armed Hanseatic vessels, which the Duke had sent for their protection.
+Yet the moment that Charles heard they were safely departed, he
+published, for Warwick's benefit, a proclamation warning any of his
+subjects against aiding or abetting Edward of York in any enterprise
+against the realm of England.
+
+However secretly Edward's preparations were concerted, they had not
+entirely escaped his enemy's notice. Warwick had made dispositions
+for resisting a landing to the best of his ability. A fleet stationed
+at Calais, under the Bastard of Fauconbridge, watched the straits and
+protected the Kentish coast. The Earl himself lay at London to overawe
+the discontented and guard King Henry. Oxford held command in the
+Eastern Counties--the most dangerous district, for Norfolk and the
+Bourchiers were rightly suspected of keeping up communication with
+Edward. In the North Montagu and the Earl of Northumberland were in
+charge from Hull to Berwick with divided authority.
+
+As Warwick had expected, the invaders aimed at landing in East Anglia.
+On March 12th Edward and his fleet lay off Cromer. He sent two knights
+ashore to rouse the country ere he himself set foot on land. But in
+a few hours the messengers returned. They bade him hoist sail again,
+for Oxford was keeping strict watch over all those parts, and Edward's
+friends were all in prison or bound over to good behaviour. On
+receiving this disappointing intelligence, Edward determined on one of
+those bold strokes which were so often his salvation. If the friendly
+districts were so well watched, it was likely that the counties where
+Warwick's interest was supreme would be less carefully secured. The
+King bade his pilot steer north and make for the Humber mouth, though
+Yorkshire was known to be devoted to the great Earl.
+
+That night a gale from the south swept over the Wash and scattered
+Edward's ships far and wide. On March 15th it abated, and the vessels
+came to land at various points on the coast of Holderness. The King and
+Hastings, with five hundred men, disembarked at Ravenspur--a good omen,
+for this was the same spot at which Henry of Bolingbroke had commenced
+his victorious march on London in 1399. The other ships landed their
+men at neighbouring points on the coast, and by the next morning all
+Edward's two thousand men were safely concentrated. Their reception
+by the country-side was most discouraging. The people deserted their
+villages and drew together in great bands, as if minded to oppose the
+invaders. Indeed, they only needed leaders to induce them to take the
+offensive; but no man of mark chanced to be in Holderness. Montagu lay
+in the West-Riding and Northumberland in the North. A squire named
+Delamere, and a priest named Westerdale, the only leaders whom the men
+of Holderness could find, contented themselves with following the King
+at a distance, and with sending news of his approach to York.
+
+A less resolute adventurer than Edward Plantagenet would probably have
+taken to his ships again when he found neither help nor sympathy in
+Yorkshire. But Edward was resolved to play out his game; the sight of
+the hostile country-side only made him determine to eke out the lion's
+hide with the fox's skin. Calling to mind the stratagem which Henry
+of Bolingbroke had practised in that same land seventy-two years ago,
+he sent messengers everywhere to announce that he came in arms not to
+dispossess King Henry, but only to claim his ancestral duchy of York.
+When he passed through towns and villages he bade his men shout for
+King Henry, and he himself mounted the Lancastrian badge of the ostrich
+feathers. In these borrowed plumes he came before the walls of York,
+still unmolested, but without having drawn a man to his banners. Hull,
+the largest town that he had approached, had resolutely closed its
+gates against him.
+
+The fate of Edward's enterprise was settled before the gates of York on
+the morning of March 18th. He found the walls manned by the citizens
+in arms; but they parleyed instead of firing upon him, and when he
+declared that he came in peace, aspiring only to his father's dignity
+and possessions, he himself with sixteen persons only in his train
+was admitted within the gate. Then upon the cross of the high altar
+in the Minster he swore "that he never would again take upon himself
+to be King of England, nor would have done before that time, but for
+the exciting and stirring of the Earl of Warwick," "and thereto before
+all the people he cried, 'King Harry! King Harry and Prince Edward!'"
+Satisfied by these protestations, the men of York admitted the invaders
+within their walls. Edward, however, only stayed for twelve hours in
+York, and next morning he marched on Tadcaster.
+
+This day was almost as critical as the last. It was five days since
+the landing at Ravenspur, and the news had now had time to spread.
+If Montagu and Northumberland were bent on loyal service to King
+Henry, they must now be close at hand. But the star of York was in the
+ascendant. Northumberland remembered at this moment rather his ancient
+enmity for the Nevilles than his grandfather's loyalty to Lancaster.
+He gathered troops indeed, but he made no attempt to march south or
+to intercept the invaders. It is probable that he was actually in
+treasonable communication with Edward, as the Lancastrian chroniclers
+declare. Montagu, on the other hand, collected two or three thousand
+men and threw himself into Pontefract, to guard the Great North Road.
+But Edward, instead of approaching Pontefract, moved his army on to
+cross-roads, which enabled him to perform a flank march round his
+adversary; he slept that evening at Sendal Castle, the spot where his
+father had spent the night before the disastrous battle of Wakefield.
+How Montagu came to let Edward get past him is one of the problems
+whose explanation will never be forthcoming. It may have been that his
+scouts lost sight of the enemy and missed the line of his flank march.
+It may equally well have been that Montagu overvalued the King's army,
+which was really no larger than his own, and would not fight till he
+should be joined by his colleague Northumberland. Some contemporary
+writers assert that the Marquis, remembering his old favour with the
+King, was loath that his hand should be the one to crush his former
+master. Others say that it was no scruple of ancient loyalty that moved
+Montagu, but that he had actually determined to desert his brother and
+join Edward's party. But his later behaviour renders this most unlikely.
+
+Montagu's fatal inaction was the salvation of Edward. At Sendal he
+received the first encouragement which he had met since his landing.
+He was there in the midst of the estates of the duchy of York, and a
+considerable body of men joined him from among his ancestral retainers.
+Encouraged by this accession, he pushed on rapidly southward, and by
+marches of some twenty miles a day reached Doncaster on the 21st and
+Nottingham on the 23rd. On the way recruits began to flock in, and
+at Nottingham a compact body of six hundred men-at-arms, under Sir
+James Harrington and Sir William Parr, swelled the Yorkist ranks. Then
+Edward, for the first time since his landing, paused for a moment to
+take stock of the position of his friends and his enemies.
+
+Meanwhile the news of his march had run like wild-fire all over
+England, and in every quarter men were arming for his aid or his
+destruction. Warwick had hoped at first that Montagu and Northumberland
+would stay the invader, but when he heard that Edward had slipped
+past, he saw that he himself must take the field. Accordingly he left
+London on the 22nd, and rode hastily to Warwick to call out his Midland
+retainers. The guard of the city and the person of King Henry was
+left to his brother the Archbishop. Simultaneously Somerset departed
+to levy troops in the South-West, and Clarence set forth to raise
+Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Oxford had already taken the field, and
+on the 22nd lay at Lynn with four thousand men, the force that the not
+very numerous Lancastrians of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge could put
+in arms. From thence he directed his march on Newark, hoping to fall on
+Edward's flank somewhere near Nottingham.
+
+At that very moment the invader had thrown off the mask he had
+hitherto worn. Finding himself well received and strongly reinforced,
+he laid aside his pretence of asking only for the duchy of York, and
+had himself proclaimed as King. But his position was perilous still:
+Warwick was gathering head in his front; Montagu was following
+cautiously in his rear; Oxford was about to assail his flank. The
+enemies must be kept apart at all hazards; so Edward, neglecting the
+others for the moment, turned fiercely on Oxford. He marched rapidly on
+Newark with some five or six thousand men. This decision and show of
+force frightened the Earl, who, though joined by the Duke of Exeter and
+Lord Bardolph, felt himself too weak to fight. When the vanguard of the
+Yorkists appeared, he hastily left Newark and fell back on to Stamford
+in much disorder.
+
+Having thus cleared his flank, Edward turned back on Nottingham and
+then made for Leicester. Here he was joined by the Yorkists of the East
+Midlands in great numbers; of the retainers of Lord Hastings alone no
+less than three thousand came to him in one body.
+
+Warwick, who lay only two short marches from the invader, was straining
+every nerve to get together an army. His missives ran east and west to
+call in all the knights of the Midlands who had ever mounted the Ragged
+Staff or the Red Rose. One of these letters was found in 1889, among
+other treasures, in the lumber room of Belvoir Castle. It was addressed
+to Henry Vernon, a great Derbyshire landholder. The first part, written
+in a secretary's hand, runs as follows:
+
+ Right Trusty and Wellbeloved--I grete you well, and desire and
+ heartily pray you that, inasmuch as yonder man Edward, the King our
+ soverain lord's great enemy, rebel, and traitor, is now arrived in
+ the north parts of this land, and coming fast on south, accompanied
+ with Flemings, Easterlings, and Danes, not exceeding the number of
+ two thousand persons, nor the country as he cometh not falling to
+ him, ye will therefore, incontinent and forthwith after the sight
+ hereof, dispose you to make toward me to Coventry with as many people
+ defensibly arranged as ye can readily make, and that ye be with me in
+ all haste possible, as my veray singular heart is in you, and as I may
+ do thing [_sic_] to your weal or worship hereafter. And may God keep
+ you.--Written at Warwick on March 25th.
+
+Then in the Earl's own hand was written the post-script, appealing to
+Vernon's personal friendship: "Henry, I pray you ffayle me not now, as
+ever I may do for you."
+
+Sad to say, this urgent appeal, wellnigh the only autograph of the
+great Earl that we possess, seems to have failed in its purpose. Vernon
+preferred to watch the game, and as late as April 2nd had made no
+preparation to take arms for either side.
+
+On March 28th Warwick with six thousand men advanced to Coventry, a
+strongly-fortified town facing Edward's line of advance. On the same
+day his adversary, whose forces must now have amounted to nearly ten
+thousand, marched southward from Leicester. Next morning Warwick and
+the King were in sight of each other, and a battle was expected. But
+the Earl was determined to wait for his reinforcements before fighting.
+He calculated that Montagu must soon arrive from the north, Oxford
+from the east, Clarence from the south-west. Accordingly he shut
+himself up in Coventry, and refused to risk an engagement. Edward,
+whose movements all through this campaign evince the most consummate
+generalship, promptly marched past his enemy and seized Warwick, where
+he made his headquarters. He then placed his army across the high road
+from Coventry to London, cutting off the Earl's direct communication
+with the capital, and waited. Like the Earl he was expecting his
+reinforcements.
+
+The first force that drew near was Clarence's levy from the south-west.
+With seven thousand men in his ranks the Duke reached Burford on April
+2nd. Next day he marched for Banbury. On the 4th Warwick received the
+hideous news that his son-in-law had mounted the White Rose and joined
+King Edward. The treason had been long meditated, and was carried out
+with perfect deliberation and great success. A few miles beyond Banbury
+Clarence's array found itself facing that of the Yorkists. Clarence
+bade his men shout for King Edward, and fall into the ranks of the
+army that confronted them. Betrayed by their leader, the men made no
+resistance, and allowed themselves to be enrolled in the Yorkist army.
+
+Clarence, for very shame we must suppose, offered to obtain terms for
+his father-in-law. "He sent to Coventry," says a Yorkist chronicler,
+"offering certain good and profitable conditions to the Earl, if he
+would accept them. But the Earl, whether he despaired of any durable
+continuance of good accord betwixt the King and himself, or else
+willing to maintain the great oaths, pacts, and promises sworn to Queen
+Margaret, or else because he thought he should still have the upperhand
+of the King, or else led by certain persons with him, as the Earl of
+Oxford, who bore great malice against the King, would not suffer any
+manner of appointment, were it reasonable or unreasonable." He drove
+Clarence's messengers away, "crying that he thanked God he was himself
+and not that traitor Duke."
+
+Although Oxford had joined him with four thousand men, and Montagu was
+approaching, Warwick still felt himself not strong enough to accept
+battle when Edward and Clarence drew out their army before the gates of
+Coventry on the morning of April 5th. He then saw them fall into column
+of march, and retire along the London road. Edward, having now some
+eighteen thousand men at his back, thought himself strong enough to
+strike at the capital, where his friends had been busily astir in his
+behalf for the last fortnight. Leaving a strong rear-guard behind, with
+orders to detain Warwick at all hazards, he hurried his main body along
+the Watling Street, and in five days covered the seventy-five miles
+which separated him from London.
+
+Meanwhile Warwick had been joined by Montagu as well as by Oxford, and
+also received news that Somerset, with seven or eight thousand men
+more, was only fifty miles away. This put him in good spirits, for he
+counted on London holding out for a few days, and on the men of Kent
+rallying to his standard when he approached the Thames. He wrote in
+haste to his brother the Archbishop, who was guarding King Henry, that
+if he would maintain the city but forty-eight hours, they would crush
+the invading army between them. Then he left Coventry and hurried after
+the King, who for the next five days was always twenty miles in front
+of him.
+
+But all was confusion in London. The Archbishop was not a man of war,
+and no soldier of repute was at his side. The Lancastrian party in
+the city had never been strong, and the Yorkists were now organising
+an insurrection. There were more than two thousand of them in the
+sanctuaries at Westminster and elsewhere, of whom three hundred were
+knights and squires. All were prepared to rise at the first signal.
+When news came that Edward had reached St. Albans, the Archbishop
+mounted King Henry on horseback and rode with him about London,
+adjuring the citizens to be true to him and arm in the good cause.
+But the sight of the frail shadow of a king, with bowed back and
+lack-lustre eyes, passing before them, was not likely to stir the
+people to enthusiasm. Only six or seven hundred armed men mustered in
+St. Paul's Churchyard beneath the royal banner.[19]
+
+Such a force was obviously unequal to defending a disaffected city.
+Next day, when the army of Edward appeared before the walls, Urswick
+the Recorder of London, and certain aldermen with him, dismissed the
+guard at Aldersgate and let Edward in, no man withstanding them. The
+Archbishop of York and King Henry took refuge in the Bishop of London's
+palace; they were seized and sent to the Tower. George Neville obtained
+his pardon so easily that many accused him of treason. It seems quite
+possible that, when he found at the last moment that he could not
+raise the Londoners, he sent secretly to Edward and asked for pardon,
+promising to make no resistance.
+
+The capture of London rendered King Edward's position comparatively
+secure. He had now the base of operations which he had up to this
+moment lacked, and had established himself in the midst of a
+population favourable to the Yorkist cause. Next day he received a
+great accession of strength. Bourchier Earl of Essex, his brother
+Archbishop Bourchier, Lord Berners, and many other consistent partisans
+of York, joined him with seven thousand men levied in the Eastern
+Counties. His army was now so strong that he might face any force which
+Warwick could bring up, unless the Earl should wait for the levies of
+the extreme North and West to join him.
+
+On Maundy Thursday London had fallen; on Good Friday the King lay in
+London; on Saturday afternoon he moved out again with his army greatly
+strengthened and refreshed, and marched north to meet the pursuing
+enemy. Warwick, much retarded on his way by the rear-guard which
+the King had left to detain him and by the necessity of waiting for
+Somerset's force, had reached Dunstable on the Friday, only to learn
+in the evening that London was lost and his brother and King Henry
+captured. He pushed on, however, and swerving from the Watling Street
+at St. Albans threw himself eastward, with the intention, we cannot
+doubt, of cutting Edward's communication with the Eastern Midlands,
+where York was strong, by placing himself across the line of the Ermine
+Street. On Saturday evening his army encamped on a rising ground near
+Monken Hadley Church, overlooking the little town of Barnet which lay
+below him in the hollow. The whole force lay down in order of battle,
+ranged behind a line of hedges; in front of them was the heathy
+plateau, four hundred feet above the sea, which slopes down into the
+plain of Middlesex.
+
+An hour or two after Warwick's footsore troops had taken post for the
+night, and long after the dusk had fallen, the alarm was raised that
+the Yorkists were at hand. On hearing of the Earl's approach the King
+had marched out of London with every man that he could raise. His
+vanguard beat Warwick's scouts out of the town of Barnet, and chased
+them back on to the main position. Having found the enemy, Edward
+pushed on through Barnet, climbed the slope, and ranged his men in the
+dark facing the hedges behind which the Earl's army lay,
+
+ much nearer than he had supposed, for he took not his ground so even
+ in the front as he should have done, if he might better have seen
+ them. And there they kept them still without any manner of noise or
+ language. Both sides had guns and ordinance, but the Earl, meaning
+ to have greatly annoyed the King, shot guns almost all the night.
+ But it fortuned that they always overshot the King's host, and hurt
+ them little or nought, for the King lay much nearer to them than they
+ deemed. But the King suffered no guns to be shot on his side, or else
+ right few, which was of great advantage to him, for thereby the Earl
+ should have found the ground that he lay in, and levelled guns thereat.
+
+So, with the cannon booming all night above them, the two hosts lay
+down in their armour to spend that miserable Easter even. Next day it
+was obvious that a decisive battle must occur; for the King, whose
+interest it was to fight at once, before Warwick could draw in his
+reinforcements from Kent and from the North and West, had placed
+himself so close to the Earl that there was no possibility of the
+Lancastrian host withdrawing without being observed. The morrow would
+settle, once for all, if the name of Richard Neville or that of Edward
+Plantagenet was to be all-powerful in England.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 19: The _Arrival of King Edward_ says "only six or seven
+thousand" in the printed text. This must be a scribe's blunder,
+being not a small number but a large one; and Waurin, who copies the
+_Arrival_ verbatim, has "600 or 700."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BARNET
+
+
+The Easter morning dawned dim and gray; a dense fog had rolled up from
+the valley, and the two hosts could see no more of each other than on
+the previous night. Only the dull sound of unseen multitudes told each
+that the other was still before them in position.
+
+Of the two armies each, so far as we can judge, must have numbered
+some twenty-five thousand men. It is impossible in the conflict of
+evidence to say which was the stronger, but there cannot have been any
+great difference in force.[20] Each had drawn itself up in the normal
+order of a medieval army, with a central main-battle, the van and rear
+ranged to its right and left, and a small reserve held back behind the
+centre. Both sides, too, had dismounted nearly every man, according to
+the universal practice of the English in the fifteenth century. Even
+Warwick himself,--whose wont it had been to lead his first line to the
+charge, and then to mount and place himself at the head of the reserve,
+ready to deliver the final blow,--on this one occasion sent his horse
+to the rear and fought on foot all day. He wished to show his men that
+this was no common battle, but that he was risking life as well as
+lands and name and power in their company.
+
+In the Earl's army Montagu and Oxford, with their men from the North
+and East, held the right wing; Somerset with his West-Country archery
+and billmen formed the centre; Warwick himself with his own Midland
+retainers had the left wing; with him was his old enemy Exeter,--his
+unwilling partner in the famous procession of 1457, his adversary
+at sea in the spring of 1460. Here and all down the line the old
+Lancastrians and the partisans of Warwick were intermixed; the Cresset
+of the Hollands stood hard by the Ragged Staff; the Dun Bull of Montagu
+and the Radiant Star of the De Veres were side by side. We cannot doubt
+that many a look was cast askance at new friends who had so long been
+old foes, and that the suspicion of possible treachery must have been
+present in every breast.
+
+Edward's army was drawn up in a similar order. Richard of Gloucester
+commanded the right wing; he was but eighteen, but his brother had
+already learnt to trust much to his zeal and energy. The King himself
+headed Clarence's men in the centre; he was determined to keep his
+shifty brother at his side, lest he might repent at the eleventh hour
+of his treachery to his father-in-law. Hastings led the rear-battle on
+the left.
+
+The armies were too close to each other to allow of manoeuvring; the
+men rose from the muddy ground on which they had lain all night, and
+dressed their line where they stood. But the night had led King Edward
+astray; he had drawn up his host so as to overlap the Earl's extreme
+left, while he opposed nothing to his extreme right. Gloucester in the
+one army and Montagu and Oxford in the other had each the power of
+outflanking and turning the wing opposed to them. The first glimpse of
+sunlight would have revealed these facts to both armies had the day
+been fair; but in the dense fog neither party had perceived as yet its
+advantage or its danger. It was not till the lines met that they made
+out each other's strength and position.
+
+Between four and five o'clock, in the first gray of the dawning, the
+two hosts felt their way towards each other; each side could at last
+descry the long line of bills and bows opposed to it, stretching
+right and left till it was lost in the mist. For a time the archers
+and the bombards of the two parties played their part; then the two
+lines rolled closer, and met from end to end all along Gladsmore
+Heath. The first shock was more favourable to Warwick than to the
+King. At the east end of the line, indeed, the Earl himself was
+outflanked by Gloucester, forced to throw back his wing, and compelled
+to yield ground towards his centre. But at the other end of the line
+the Yorkists suffered a far worse disaster; Montagu and Oxford not
+only turned Hastings' flank, but rolled up his line, broke it, and
+chased it right over the heath, and down toward Barnet town. Many of
+the routed troops fled as far as London ere they stopped, spreading
+everywhere the news that the King was slain and the cause of York
+undone. But the defeat of Edward's left wing had not all the effect
+that might have been expected. Owing to the fog it was unnoticed by the
+victorious right, and even by the centre, where the King and Clarence
+were now hard at work with Somerset, and gaining rather than losing
+ground. No panic spread down the line "for no man was in anything
+discouraged, because, saving a few that stood nearest to them, no man
+wist of the rout: also the other party by the same flight and chase
+were never the greatlier encouraged." Moreover, the victorious troops
+threw away their chance; instead of turning to aid his hard-pressed
+comrades, Oxford pursued recklessly, cutting down the flying enemy for
+a mile, even into the streets of Barnet. Consequently he and his men
+lost themselves in the fog; many were scattered; the rest collected
+themselves slowly, and felt their way back towards the field, guiding
+themselves by the din that sounded down from the hill-side. Montagu
+appears not to have gone so far in pursuit; he must have retained part
+of his wing with him, and would seem to have used it to strengthen his
+brother's hard-pressed troops on the left.
+
+But meanwhile King Edward himself was gaining ground in the centre; his
+own column, as the Yorkist chronicler delights to record, "beat and
+bare down all that stood in his way, and then turned to range, first on
+that hand and then on the other hand, and in length so beat and bare
+them down that nothing might stand in the sight of him and of the
+well-assured fellowship that attended truly upon him." Somerset, in
+short, was giving way; in a short time the Lancastrian centre would be
+broken.
+
+At this moment, an hour after the fight had begun, Oxford and his
+victorious followers came once more upon the scene. Lost in the fog,
+they appeared, not where they might have been expected, on Edward's
+rear, but upon the left rear of their own centre. They must have made a
+vast detour in the darkness.
+
+Now came the fatal moment of the day. Oxford's men, whose banners and
+armour bore the Radiant Star of the De Veres, were mistaken by their
+comrades for a flanking column of Yorkists. In the mist their badge had
+been taken for the Sun with Rays, which was King Edward's cognisance.
+When they came close to their friends they received a sharp volley of
+arrows, and were attacked by Warwick's last reserves. This mistake
+had the most cruel results. The old and the new Lancastrians had not
+been without suspicions of each other. Assailed by his own friends,
+Oxford thought that some one--like Grey de Ruthyn at Northampton--had
+betrayed the cause. Raising the cry of treason, he and all his men fled
+northward from the field.[21]
+
+The fatal cry ran down the labouring lines of Warwick's army and
+wrecked the whole array. The old Lancastrians made up their minds that
+Warwick--or at least his brother the Marquis, King Edward's ancient
+favourite--must have followed the example of the perjured Clarence.
+Many turned their arms against the Nevilles,[22] and the unfortunate
+Montagu was slain by his own allies in the midst of the battle. Many
+more fled without striking another blow; among these was Somerset, who
+had up to this moment fought manfully against King Edward in the centre.
+
+Warwick's wing still held its ground, but at last the Earl saw that
+all was lost. His brother was slain; Exeter had been struck down at
+his side; Somerset and Oxford were in flight. He began to draw back
+toward the line of thickets and hedges which had lain behind his army.
+But there the fate met him that had befallen so many of his enemies,
+at St. Albans and Northampton, at Towton and Hexham. His heavy armour
+made rapid flight impossible; and in the edge of Wrotham Wood he was
+surrounded by the pursuing enemy, wounded, beaten down, and slain.
+
+The plunderers stripped the fallen; but King Edward's first desire was
+to know if the Earl was dead. The field was carefully searched, and the
+corpses of Warwick and Montagu were soon found. Both were carried to
+London, where they were laid on the pavement of St. Paul's, stripped to
+the breast, and exposed three days to the public gaze, "to the intent
+that the people should not be abused by feigned tales, else the rumour
+should have been sowed about that the Earl was yet alive."
+
+After lying three days on the stones, the bodies were given over to
+George Neville the Archbishop, who had them both borne to Bisham, and
+buried in the abbey, hard by the tombs of their father Salisbury and
+their ancestors the Earls of the house of Montacute. All alike were
+swept away, together with the roof that covered them, by the Vandalism
+of the Edwardian reformers, and not a trace remains of the sepulchre of
+the two unquiet brothers.
+
+Thus ended Richard Neville in the forty-fourth year of his age,
+slain by the sword in the sixteenth year since he had first taken it
+up at the Battle of St. Albans. Fortune, who had so often been his
+friend, had at last deserted him; for no reasonable prevision could
+have foreseen the series of chances which ended in the disaster of
+Barnet. Montagu's irresolution and Clarence's treachery were not the
+only things that had worked against him. If the winds had not been
+adverse, Queen Margaret, who had been lying on the Norman coast since
+the first week in March, would have been in London long before Edward
+arrived, and could have secured the city with the three thousand men
+under Wenlock, Langstrother, and John Beaufort whom her fleet carried.
+But for five weeks the wind blew from the north and made the voyage
+impossible; on Good Friday only did it turn and allow the Queen to
+sail. It chanced that the first ship, which came to land in Portsmouth
+harbour the very morning of Barnet, carried among others the Countess
+of Warwick; at the same moment that she was setting her foot on shore
+her husband was striking his last blows on Gladsmore Heath. Nor was
+it only from France that aid was coming; there were reinforcements
+gathering in the North, and the Kentishmen were only waiting for
+a leader. Within a few days after Warwick's death the Bastard of
+Fauconbridge had mustered seventeen thousand men at Canterbury in King
+Henry's name. If Warwick could have avoided fighting, he might have
+doubled his army in a week, and offered the Yorkists battle under far
+more favourable conditions. The wrecks of the party were strong enough
+to face the enemy on almost equal terms at Tewkesbury, even when their
+head was gone. The stroke of military genius which made King Edward
+compel the Earl to fight, by placing his army so close that no retreat
+was possible from the position of Barnet, was the proximate cause of
+Warwick's ruin; but in all the rest of the campaign it was fortune
+rather than skill which fought against the Earl. His adversary played
+his dangerous game with courage and success; but if only ordinary luck
+had ruled, Edward must have failed; the odds against him were too many.
+
+But fortune interposed and Warwick fell. For England's sake perhaps it
+was well that it should be so. If he had succeeded, and Edward had been
+driven once more from the land, we may be sure that the Wars of the
+Roses would have dragged on for many another year; the house of York
+had too many heirs and too many followers to allow of its dispossession
+without a long time of further trouble. The cause of Lancaster, on the
+other hand, was bound up in a single life; when Prince Edward fell
+in the Bloody Meadow, as he fled from the field of Tewkesbury, the
+struggle was ended perforce, for no one survived to claim his rights.
+Henry of Richmond, whom an unexpected chance ultimately placed on the
+throne, was neither in law nor in fact the real heir of the house of
+Lancaster. On the other hand, Warwick's success would have led, so far
+as we can judge, first to a continuance of civil war, then, if he had
+ultimately been successful in rooting out the Yorkists, to a protracted
+political struggle between the house of Neville and the old Lancastrian
+party headed by the Beauforts and probably aided by the Queen; for it
+is doubtful how far the marriage of Prince Edward and Anne Neville
+would ever have served to reconcile two such enemies as the Earl and
+Margaret of Anjou. If Warwick had held his own, and his abilities and
+his popularity combined to make it likely, his victory would have meant
+the domination of a family group--a form of government which no nation
+has endured for long. At the best, the history of the last thirty years
+of the fifteenth century in England would have been a tale resembling
+that of the days when the house of Douglas struggled with the crown of
+Scotland, or the Guises with the rulers of France.
+
+Yet for Warwick as a ruler there would have been much to be said. To a
+king of the type of Henry the Sixth the Earl would have made a perfect
+minister and vicegerent, if only he could have been placed in the
+position without a preliminary course of bloodshed and civil war. The
+misfortune for England was that his lot was cast not with Henry the
+Sixth, but with strong-willed, hot-headed, selfish Edward the Fourth.
+
+The two prominent features in Warwick's character which made him a
+leader of men, were not those which might have been expected in a man
+born and reared in his position. The first was an inordinate love of
+the activity of business; the second was a courtesy and affability
+which made him the friend of all men save the one class he could not
+brook--the "made lords," the parvenu nobility which Edward the Fourth
+delighted to foster.
+
+Of these characteristics it is impossible to exaggerate the strength
+of the first. Warwick's ambition took the shape of a devouring love
+of work of all kinds. Prominent though he was as a soldier, his
+activity in war was only one side of his passionate desire to manage
+well and thoroughly everything that came to his hand. He never could
+cease for a moment to be busy; from the first moment when he entered
+into official harness in 1455 down to the day of his death, he seems
+hardly to have rested for a moment. The energy of his soul took him
+into every employment--general, admiral, governor, judge, councillor,
+ambassador, as the exigencies of the moment demanded; he was always
+moving, always busy, and never at leisure. When the details of his life
+are studied, the most striking point is to find how seldom he was at
+home, how constantly away at public service. His castles and manors
+saw comparatively little of him. It was not at Warwick or Amesbury,
+at Caerphilly or Middleham that he was habitually to be found, but
+in London, or Calais, or York, or on the Scotch Border. It was not
+that he neglected his vassals and retainers--the loyalty with which
+they rallied to him on every occasion is sufficient evidence to the
+contrary--but he preferred to be a great minister and official, not
+merely a great baron and feudal chief.
+
+In this sense, then, it is most deceptive to call Warwick the Last
+of the Barons. Vast though his strength might be as the greatest
+landholder in England, it was as a statesman and administrator that he
+left his mark on the age. He should be thought of as the forerunner
+of Wolsey rather than as the successor of Robert of Belesme, or the
+Bohuns and Bigods. That the world remembers him as a turbulent noble
+is a misfortune. Such a view is only drawn from a hasty survey of the
+last three or four years of his life, when under desperate provocation
+he was driven to use for personal ends the vast feudal power that lay
+ready to his hand. If he had died in 1468, he would be remembered
+in history as an able soldier and statesman, who with singular
+perseverance and consistency devoted his life to consolidating England
+under the house of York.
+
+After his restless activity, Warwick's most prominent characteristic
+was his geniality. No statesman was ever so consistently popular
+with the mass of the nation, through all the alternations of good
+and evil fortune. This popularity the Earl owed to his unswerving
+courtesy and affability; "he ever had the good voice of the people,
+because he gave them fair words, showing himself easy and familiar,"
+says the chronicler. Wherever he was well known he was well liked.
+His own Yorkshire and Midland vassals, who knew him as their feudal
+lord, the seamen who had served under him as admiral, the Kentishmen
+who saw so much of him while he was captain of Calais, were all his
+unswerving followers down to the day of his death. The Earl's boundless
+generosity, the open house which he kept for all who had any claim on
+him, the zeal with which he pushed the fortunes of his dependents, will
+only partially explain his popularity. As much must be ascribed to his
+genial personality as to the trouble which he took to court the people.
+His whole career was possible because the majority of the nation not
+only trusted and respected but honestly liked him. This it was which
+explains the "king-making" of his later years. Men grew so accustomed
+to follow his lead that they would even acquiesce when he transferred
+his allegiance from King Edward to King Henry. It was not because he
+was the greatest landholder of England that he was able to dispose of
+the crown at his good will; but because, after fifteen years of public
+life, he had so commended himself to the majority of the nation that
+they were ready to follow his guidance even when he broke with all his
+earlier associations.
+
+But Warwick was something more than active, genial, and popular;
+nothing less than first-rate abilities would have sufficed to carry him
+through his career. On the whole, it was as a statesman that he was
+most fitted to shine. His power of managing men was extraordinary; even
+King Louis of France, the hardest and most unemotional of men, seems
+to have been amenable to his influence. He was as successful with men
+in the mass as with individuals; he could sway a parliament or an army
+with equal ease to his will. How far he surpassed the majority of his
+contemporaries in political prescience is shown by the fact that, in
+spite of Yorkist traditions, he saw clearly that England must give up
+her ancient claims on France, and continually worked to reconcile the
+two countries.
+
+In war Warwick was a commander of ability; good for all ordinary
+emergencies where courage and a cool head would carry him through, but
+not attaining the heights of military genius displayed by his pupil
+Edward. His battles were fought in the old English style of Edward
+the Third and Henry the Fifth, by lines of archery flanked by clumps
+of billmen and dismounted knights. He is found employing both cannon
+and hand-gun men, but made no decisive or novel use of either, except
+in the case of his siege-artillery in the campaign of 1464. Nor did
+he employ cavalry to any great extent; his men dismounted to fight
+like their grandfathers at Agincourt, although the power of horsemen
+had again revindicated itself on the Continent. The Earl was a cool
+and capable commander; he was not one of the hot-headed feudal chiefs
+who strove to lead every charge. It was his wont to conduct his first
+line to the attack and then to retire and take command of the reserve,
+with which he delivered his final attack in person. This caution led
+some contemporary critics, especially Burgundians who contrasted his
+conduct with the headlong valour of Charles the Rash, to throw doubts
+on his personal courage. The sneer was ridiculous. The man who was
+first into the High Street at St. Albans, who fought through the ten
+hours of Towton, and won a name by his victories at sea in an age when
+sea-fights were carried on by desperate hand-to-hand attempts to board,
+might afford to laugh at any such criticism. If he fell at Barnet
+"somewhat flying," as the Yorkist chronicler declares, he was surely
+right in endeavouring to save himself for another field; he knew that
+one lost battle would not wreck his cause, while his own life was the
+sole pledge of the union between the Lancastrian party and the majority
+of the nation.
+
+Brave, courteous, liberal, active, and able, a generous lord to his
+followers, an untiring servant to the commonweal, Warwick had all
+that was needed to attract the homage of his contemporaries: they
+called him, as the Kentish ballad-monger sang, "a very noble knight,
+the flower of manhood." But it is only fair to record that he bore
+in his character the fatal marks of the two sins which distinguished
+the English nobles of his time. Occasionally he was reckless in
+bloodshedding. Once in his life he descended to the use of a long and
+deliberate course of treason and treachery.
+
+In the first-named sin Warwick had less to reproach himself with than
+most of his contemporaries. He never authorised a massacre, or broke
+open a sanctuary, or entrapped men by false pretences in order to put
+them to death. In battle, too, he always bid his men to spare the
+Commons. Moreover, some of his crimes of bloodshed are easily to be
+palliated: Mundeford and the other captains whom he beheaded at Calais
+had broken their oath of loyalty to him; the Bastard of Exeter, whom he
+executed at York, had been the prime agent in the murder of his father.
+The only wholly unpardonable act of the Earl was his slaying of the
+Woodvilles and Herberts in 1469. They had been his bitter enemies, it
+is true; but to avenge political rivalries with the axe, without any
+legal form of trial, was unworthy of the high reputation which Warwick
+had up to that moment enjoyed. It increases rather than lessens the sum
+of his guilt to say that he did not publicly order their death, but
+allowed them to be executed by rebels whom he had roused and might as
+easily have quieted.
+
+But far worse, in a moral aspect, than the slaying of the Woodvilles
+and Herberts, was the course of treachery and deceit that had preceded
+it. That the Earl had been wantonly insulted by his thankless master in
+a way that would have driven even one of milder mood to desperation,
+we have stated elsewhere. An ideally loyal man might have borne the
+King's ingratitude in silent dignity, and foresworn the Court for ever:
+a hot-headed man might have burst out at once into open rebellion; but
+Warwick did neither. When his first gust of wrath had passed, he set
+himself to seek revenge by secret treachery. He returned to the Court,
+was superficially reconciled to his enemies, and bore himself as if
+he had forgotten his wrongs. Yet all the while he was organising an
+armed rising to sweep the Woodvilles and Herberts away, and to coerce
+the King into subjection to his will. The plan was as unwise as it
+was unworthy. Although Warwick's treason was for the moment entirely
+successful, it made any confidence between himself and his master
+impossible for the future. At the earliest opportunity Edward revenged
+himself on Warwick with the same weapons that had been used against
+himself, and drove the Earl into exile.
+
+There is nothing in Warwick's subsequent reconciliation with the
+Lancastrians which need call up our moral indignation. It was the line
+of conduct which forced him into that connection that was evil, not the
+connection itself. There is no need to reproach him for changing his
+allegiance; no other course was possible to him in the circumstances.
+The King had cast him off, not he the King. When he transferred his
+loyalty to the house of Lancaster, he never swerved again. All the
+offers which Edward made to him after his return in 1471 were treated
+with contempt. Warwick was not the man to sell himself to the highest
+bidder.
+
+If then Warwick was once in his life driven into treachery and
+bloodthirsty revenge, we must set against his crime his fifteen long
+years of honest and consistent service to the cause he had made his
+own, and remember how dire was the provocation which drove him to
+betray it. Counting his evil deeds of 1469-70 at their worst, he will
+still compare not unfavourably with any other of the leading Englishmen
+of his time. Even in that demoralised age his sturdy figure stands out
+in not unattractive colours. Born in a happier generation, his industry
+and perseverance, his courage and courtesy, his liberal hand and
+generous heart, might have made him not only the idol of his followers,
+but the bulwark of the commonwealth. Cast into the godless times of the
+Wars of the Roses, he was doomed to spend in the cause of a faction the
+abilities that were meant to benefit a whole nation; the selfishness,
+the cruelty, the political immorality of the age, left their mark on
+his character; his long and honourable career was at last stained by
+treason, and his roll of successes terminated by a crushing defeat.
+Even after his death his misfortune has not ended. Popular history has
+given him a scanty record merely as the Kingmaker or the Last of the
+Barons, as a selfish intriguer or a turbulent feudal chief; and for
+four hundred and ten years he has lacked even the doubtful honour of a
+biography.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 20: The Yorkist author of the _Arrival of King Edward_ says
+that his patron had only nine thousand men. But we can account for many
+more. Edward landed with two thousand; at least six hundred joined at
+Nottingham, at least three thousand at Leicester; Clarence brought
+seven thousand, Essex and the other Bourchiers seven thousand more.
+This makes nineteen thousand six hundred, and many more must have
+joined in small parties. On the other side Warwick had at Coventry six
+thousand men; Oxford met him with four thousand, Montagu with three
+thousand, Somerset with seven thousand, and he too must have drawn in
+many small, unrecorded reinforcements. The Yorkists called his army
+thirty thousand strong--probably overstating it by a few thousands.
+Their own must have been much the same.]
+
+[Footnote 21: Compare this with an incident at Waterloo. Ziethen's
+Prussian corps, coming upon the field to the left rear of the English
+line, took the brigade of the Prince of Saxe-Weimar for French owing to
+a similarity in uniform, attacked them, and slew many ere the mistake
+was discovered.]
+
+[Footnote 22: There seems no valid reason for accepting Warkworth's
+theory that Montagu was actually deserting to King Edward. But there is
+every sign that the Lancastrians imagined that he was doing so. If he
+had wished to betray his brother, he could have done it much better at
+an earlier hour in the battle.]
+
+THE END
+
+
+_Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh_.
+
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+ VE. By Sir Charles Wilson.
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+ DRAKE. By Julian Corbett.
+ DUNDONALD. By the Hon. J.W. Fortescue.
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+ HENRY V. By the Rev. A.J. Church.
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+[Illustration: “GO FOR BATTEN. I’M RIGHT HERE, AND I’LL LOOK AFTER
+BILL”]
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                               MARK TIDD
+
+                     HIS ADVENTURES AND STRATEGIES
+
+                                   BY
+
+                          CLARENCE B. KELLAND
+
+                             ILLUSTRATED BY
+
+                              W. W. CLARKE
+
+                      HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+                          NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                                Books by
+
+                       CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND
+
+                       Mark Tidd in Egypt
+                       Mark Tidd in Italy
+                       Mark Tidd
+                       Mark Tidd in the Backwoods
+                       Mark Tidd in Business
+                       Mark Tidd’s Citadel
+                       Mark Tidd, Editor
+                       Mark Tidd, Manufacturer
+                       Catty Atkins, Bandmaster
+                       Catty Atkins
+                       Catty Atkins, Riverman
+                       Catty Atkins, Sailorman
+                       Catty Atkins, Financier
+
+                           HARPER & BROTHERS
+                            Established 1817
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
+
+                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  “GO FOR BATTEN. I’M RIGHT HERE, AND I’LL LOOK AFTER BILL”
+
+  PLUNK AND ME WAS GOOD AND MAD
+
+  THERE, CROUCHING ON THE BROW, WAS THE FIGURE OF A MAN
+
+  “FELLERS, THE GUARD’S GOT LOOSE, AND HE’S WAITIN’ FOR US TO COME
+  DOWN”
+
+  “JUST RUNG TWICE RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE”
+
+  SAMMY GRUNTED WHEN HE GOT THE FULL WEIGHT OF IT
+
+  HE LET OUT A YELL AS LOUD AS A LOCOMOTIVE WHISTLE
+
+  “YOU GIT RIGHT OUT OF HERE! G-G-GIT!”
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                               MARK TIDD
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+
+My name is Martin—James Briggs Martin—but almost everybody calls me
+Tallow, because once when I was younger I saw old Uncle Ike Bond
+rubbing tallow on his boots to shine them, and then hurried home and
+fixed mine up with the stub of a candle and went to school. I guess
+it couldn’t have smelled very good, for everybody seemed to notice
+it, even teacher, and she asked me what in the world I’d been
+getting into. After that all the boys called me Tallow, and always
+will, I guess.
+
+I tell you about me first only because I’m writing this account of
+what happened. Mark Tidd is really the fellow I’m writing about, and
+Mark’s father and mother, and the engine Mr. Tidd was inventing out
+in his barn, and some other folks who will be told about in their
+places. I helped some; so did Plunk Smalley and Binney Jenks, but
+Mark Tidd did most of it. Mark Tidd sounds like a short name,
+doesn’t it? But it isn’t short at all, for it’s merely what’s left
+of Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, which was what he was
+christened, mostly out of Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire_, a big book that Mr. Tidd was so fond of reading that he
+never read much of anything else except the papers.
+
+Mark Tidd was the last of us four boys to move to Wicksville. I
+was born there, and so was Plunk Smalley, but Binney Jenks moved
+over from Sunfield when he was five. Mark he didn’t come to town
+until a little over a year ago, and Plunk and me saw him get off
+the train at the depot. I guess the car must have been glad when
+he did get off, for he looked like he almost filled it up. Yes,
+sir, when he came out of the door he had to _squeeze_ to get
+through. He was the fattest boy I ever saw, or ever expect to see,
+and the funniest-looking. His head was round and ’most as big as a
+pretty good-sized pumpkin, and his cheeks were so fat they almost
+covered up his eyes. The rest of him was as round as his face, and
+Plunk said one of his legs was as big as all six of Plunk’s and
+Binney’s and mine put together. I guess it was bigger. When Plunk
+and me saw him we just rolled over and kicked up our legs and
+hollered.
+
+“I hope he’s goin’ to live in Wicksville,” says Plunk, “’cause we
+won’t care then if a circus _never_ comes.”
+
+A fat boy like that is a good thing to have in a town, so when
+things sort of slow down you can always go and have fun with him. At
+any rate, that was what we thought then. It seemed to us that Marcus
+Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd was a ready-made joke put right into our
+hands for us to fool with, but afterward we changed our minds
+considerable.
+
+Mark’s father and mother got off the train after him, and his father
+said something to him we couldn’t hear. Mark waddled across the
+platform to where Uncle Ike Bond’s bus stood waiting, and Plunk and
+me listened to hear what he would say.
+
+“D-d-do you c-carry p-p-p-passengers in that b-bus?” Yes, sir, he
+said it just like that!
+
+Well, Plunk he looked at me and I looked at him, and he soaked me in
+the ribs and I smashed his hat down over his eyes, we were so
+tickled. If we had been going to plan a funny kid we couldn’t have
+done half so well. We’d have forgot something sure. But nothing was
+forgot in Mark Tidd, even to the stutter.
+
+Old Uncle Ike looked down off his seat at Mark, and his eyes popped
+out like he couldn’t believe what they saw. He waited a minute
+before he said anything, sort of planning in his mind what he was
+going to say, I guess. That was a way Uncle Ike had, and then he
+usually said something queer. This time he says:
+
+“Passengers? What? Me carry passengers? No. I’ve just got this bus
+backed up here to stiddy the depot platform. The railroad comp’ny
+pays me to do it.”
+
+Mark Tidd he looked solemn at Uncle Ike, and Uncle Ike looked solemn
+at him. Then Mark says, respectful and not impertinent:
+
+“If I was to sit here and hold down the p-p-platform could you drive
+my folks? I could keep it from m-m-movin’ much.”
+
+Uncle Ike blinked. “Son,” says he, “climb aboard, if this here
+rattletrap looks safe to you, and fetch along your folks. We’ll
+leave the platform stand without hitchin’ for wunst.”
+
+At that me and Plunk turned to look at the fat boy’s father and
+mother. Mr. Tidd was a long man, upward of six foot, I guess, and
+not very wide. His shoulders kind of sloped like his head was too
+heavy for them, and his head was so big that it was no wonder. His
+hair was getting gray in front of his ears where it showed under his
+hat, and he had blue eyes and thin cheeks and a sort of far-off,
+pleasant expression, like he was thinking of something nice a long
+ways away. He was leaning against a corner of the station reading
+out of a big book and paying no attention to anybody. Afterward I
+found out the book was Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_, and that he
+always carried it around with him to read in a little when he got a
+spare minute.
+
+Mrs. Tidd wasn’t that kind of person at all. As soon as Plunk and me
+looked at her we knew she could make bully pies, and wouldn’t get
+mad if her fat boy was to sneak into the pantry and cut a slice out
+of one of them in the middle of the afternoon. You could tell she
+was patient and good-natured, but, all the same, she wasn’t the kind
+you could fool. If you came home with your hair wet it wouldn’t do
+any good to tell her somebody threw a pail of water on it. She was
+looking around to see what she could see, and I bet she didn’t miss
+much.
+
+The fat boy he motioned to her to come to the bus, and she spoke to
+her husband. He looked up sort of vague, nodded his head, and came
+poking across the platform, holding his book in front of him and
+reading away as though he hadn’t a minute to spare, and clean forgot
+all about the valise he’d set down beside him.
+
+“Jeffrey,” says Mrs. Tidd, “you’ve forgot your satchel.”
+
+He shut his book, but kept his finger in the place, and looked all
+around him. Pretty soon he saw the satchel and nodded his head at
+it. “So I have,” he says, “so I have,” and went back to get it.
+
+Then all of them got into Uncle Ike’s bus, and he stirred up his
+horses who had been standing ’most asleep, with heads drooping, and
+they went rattling and banging up the street. When Uncle Ike’s bus
+got started you could hear it half a mile. I guess it was all loose,
+for it sounded like a hail-storm beating down on a tin roof.
+
+“Wonder where they’re goin’?” says Plunk.
+
+“You got to do more’n wonder if you’re goin’ to find out,” I says,
+and started trotting after the bus. It wasn’t hard to keep it in
+sight, because Uncle Ike’s horses got tired every little while and
+came to a walk.
+
+They stopped at the old Juniper house that had been standing vacant
+for six months, ever since old man Juniper went to Chicago to live
+with his daughter Susy’s oldest girl that had married a man with a
+hardware store there. The yard was full of boxes and packing-cases
+and furniture all done up with burlap and rope.
+
+“They’re goin’ to _live_ here,” Plunk yells; and I was as glad as he
+was. The benefits of having a stuttering fat boy living near you
+aren’t to be sneezed at by anybody.
+
+We found a shady place across the street and watched to see what
+would happen. It’s always interesting to watch other folks work,
+especially if what they’re doing is _hard_ work, and I guess
+carrying furniture and trunks and boxes is about as hard as
+anything.
+
+Mrs. Tidd was ready for work before anybody else. She came to the
+door with a big apron on and a cloth tied around her hair, and the
+way she sailed into things was a caution. It seemed like she jumped
+right into the middle of that mess, and in a minute things were
+flying. Mr. Tidd came next with his book under his arm and stood in
+the stoop looking sort of puzzled. Mrs. Tidd straightened up, and
+then sat down on a packing-box.
+
+“Jeffrey Tidd,” she said, not sharp and angry, but kind of patient
+and rebuking, “go right back into the house and take those clothes
+off. I knew if I didn’t stay right by you you’d get mixed up
+somehow. Will you tell me why in the world you changed from your
+second-best clothes to that Sunday black suit to move furniture?”
+
+Mr. Tidd he looked pretty foolish and felt of his pants as though he
+couldn’t believe they were his best ones.
+
+“That does beat all,” he said. “It does beat all creation, Libby. I
+wonder how these clothes come to be on me?”
+
+“If you didn’t have ’em on under your others, which ain’t
+impossible, you must have changed into ’em.”
+
+“My best suit!” he said to himself, shaking his head like you’ve
+seen the elephant do at the circus, first to one side and then to
+the other. “My best clothes!”
+
+“Maybe I’d better come along and see you get into the right ones
+this time,” Mrs. Tidd suggested.
+
+“I guess you don’t need to, Libby. I’ll take these off and hang ’em
+in the closet, and I’ll hang my second-best ones up, too. Then I’ll
+put on what’s left. That way I can’t go wrong.” He went off into the
+house, and Mrs. Tidd flew at the piles of stuff again.
+
+Pretty soon the fat boy came around the side of the house with a
+quarter of a cherry pie in his hand and the juice dripping down
+faster than he could suck it off.
+
+“Marcus,” his mother called, “take holt of this bundle of bed-slats
+and carry ’em up to the front room.”
+
+Mark he grabbed them with one hand and hunched them up under his arm
+so that one end dragged on the ground, walking off slow and eating
+pie as he went. It took him quite a while to get back. I could see
+him look across the street at Plunk and me as he came down the
+steps. He stopped a minute, sort of thinking.
+
+After a while Mr. Tidd came back again.
+
+“Put the _Decline and Fall_ down somewheres so you can use both
+hands, Jeffrey,” his wife says. And he did it as meek and obedient
+as could be. Between them they carried a hair-cloth sofa in after
+she had told Mark to fetch along some medium-sized boxes.
+
+Mark stooped over one, and we could hear him grunt.
+
+“Hello, Skinny,” Plunk yells. “Git your back into it and h’ist.
+That’s the way to lift.”
+
+The fat boy straightened up and looked at us quite a while. Then he
+sat down on the box and called, “I bet the two of you can’t l-l-lift
+it.”
+
+“I’ll bet,” says Plunk, “we _kin_ lift it. I’ll bet we kin carry it
+from here to the standpipe and back without lettin’ her down wunst.”
+
+“Braggin’ don’t carry no b-boxes.”
+
+The way he said it sort of made me mad. “Come on, Plunk,” I says;
+“lets show this here hippopotamus whether we kin carry it or not.”
+And we went running across the street.
+
+“Where d’you want it put?” I says.
+
+“No use you tryin’. You couldn’t g-git it up.”
+
+“Git holt,” I says to Plunk. “Now, Mister What’s-your-name, where’s
+it go?”
+
+“Up-stairs in the hall; but you b-b-better not try. It’s too heavy
+for you.”
+
+Plunk and me took that box up-stairs a-flying and ran down again.
+
+“There,” I says. “Now kin we carry it?”
+
+He stuck up what there was to his nose. “One ain’t nothin’. I
+carried the hull twelve out when we was movin’ in fifteen
+mum-minutes.”
+
+“If you did,” I says, “Plunk and me can carry ’em in in twelve.”
+
+He just laughed.
+
+“Doggone it,” I says, “we’ll show you, you’re so smart.”
+
+“Can’t d-d-do it.”
+
+“You ain’t the only kid that can carry things,” Plunk says, with a
+scowl.
+
+Mark he pulled out a little silver watch and held it in his hand.
+“Twelve m-minutes, was it? Can’t do it. I’ll keep time.”
+
+Well, Plunk and me went at those boxes like sixty, and the way we
+ran them up-stairs was a terror to cats. When the last one was up we
+were panting and sweating and most tuckered out. Mark looked off his
+watch when we came out with a sort of surprised expression. “You
+kids is stronger than I figgered. You did it in eleven minutes and a
+half.”
+
+“Sure,” I says.
+
+“But them boxes wasn’t very heavy. You can’t carry that big box, by
+j-jimminy!”
+
+Plunk and me was good and mad, and if anybody’d seen the way we
+hustled that big box in they wouldn’t have believed their eyes.
+
+“That’s perty good,” says Mark. “Wouldn’t thought it of you kids.
+Must be stronger here in Wicksville than over to Peckstown where I
+come from.” He stopped a minute. “I can’t lift that big
+rockin’-c-c-chair myself.”
+
+“Huh!” snorted Plunk. “That’s a easy one.” And in we wrastled with
+the chair.
+
+We weren’t going to have any strange kid think we weren’t up to all
+_he_ was, so we stayed right there all the afternoon, and I guess we
+proved pretty conclusively we could carry. And that wasn’t all: we
+proved we could _last_. I bet we carried two-thirds of the Tidds’
+furniture in. When it was all done we sat down on the fence to pant
+and rest. Mark’s mother called him.
+
+“I got to go to s-s-s-supper,” he says. “Come again when you feel
+s-s-strong.” And then he went into the house.
+
+Plunk and me sat still quite a while. I began to think about it and
+think about it, and I could see Plunk was thinking, too. In about
+fifteen minutes I looked over at him and he looked over at me.
+
+[Illustration: PLUNK AND ME WAS GOOD AND MAD]
+
+“How many things did that fat kid carry in?” I says.
+
+“I didn’t see him carry anythin’.”
+
+“Neither did I.”
+
+We thought quite a spell more. Then I said to Plunk, “I guess maybe
+we better not do too much braggin’ about how much an’ how long we
+kin carry.”
+
+He grinned kind of sickly. “This here Mark Tidd,” he says, “ain’t
+nobody’s fool—leastways, not on Mondays, which is to-day.”
+
+When we got better acquainted with Mark Tidd he read a book called
+_Tom Sawyer_ to us. I guess he got his idea of making us work out of
+that; he was always taking schemes out of books.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+
+Mrs. Tidd was just the kind of person I thought she would be. She
+cooked lots of things and cooked them good; and, no matter how often
+Mark wanted to eat, she never said a word. Plunk and Binney Jenks
+and me got to going there a lot, and there was always cookies and
+pie and things. Of course, we didn’t go specially to eat, but
+knowing we’d get something wasn’t any drawback. I liked Mrs. Tidd,
+and sort of admired her, too. She was always working at something
+and managing things and keeping track of Mr. Tidd and Mark. I never
+heard her complain, and I don’t remember ever seeing her sit down
+except in the cool of the evening after supper.
+
+I don’t want you to get the idea that Mr. Tidd was lazy or
+shiftless, because he wasn’t. He was just queer, and his memory was
+as long as a piece of string, which is the way we have in Wicksville
+of saying there was no knowing just how long it really was. Lots of
+times I’ve seen Mr. Tidd start out to do a job of work and forget
+all about it before he got a chance to commence. He was sure to
+forget if Mrs. Tidd didn’t take the _Decline and Fall_ away from him
+before he went out of the door. Even that didn’t make it certain,
+because something to think about might pop into his head all of a
+sudden, and if it did he had to sit down and think about it then and
+there. He was a machinist complicated by inventions. Every time he
+saw you doing anything he’d stop right there and invent a better way
+for you to do it; and mostly the new ways he invented wouldn’t work.
+
+It was an invention that had brought all the Tidds to Wicksville.
+Mark told us about it. It seems like Mr. Tidd had been inventing a
+new kind of machine or engine or something that he called a turbine.
+He’d been working on it a long time, making pictures of it and
+figuring it out in his head, but he never had a chance to get right
+down to business and actually _invent_ it till a little while before
+they came to our town. Then an aunt of his up and died and left him
+some money. He quit his job right off and came to Wicksville, where
+it was quiet and cheap, to finish up doing the inventing. When he
+got it done he wouldn’t need a job any more because it would make
+him rich. We used to go out in the barn, where he was tinkering
+away, and watch him for hours at a time, and he never paid any more
+attention to us than as if we weren’t there at all. But he was
+careful about other folks and wouldn’t let them step a foot inside
+of the door. He was afraid somebody would see what he was up to and
+go do it first, which would have been a mean trick.
+
+Mr. Tidd wasn’t what you call _suspicious_; he wasn’t always
+expecting somebody that he knew to do something to his engine, and I
+guess any man that had wanted to could have got into the workshop
+and looked it all over to his heart’s content by talking to Mr. Tidd
+for an hour or so and listening to him tell about the Roman Empire,
+and how it split down the middle and went all to smash. He was the
+kind-heartedest man in the world, I guess, and never could see any
+bad in any one—not in any one he really saw. He had a sort of
+far-away idea that there was bad folks, and that some of them might
+want to steal his invention, but if he had seen a man crawling
+through a window of the barn he’d have found some excuse for him.
+Anybody could fool him—that is, they could have if Mrs. Tidd hadn’t
+been there; but she kept her eye on him pretty close and saw to it
+he didn’t let any strangers come fooling around. If everybody had
+been as careful as she was this story wouldn’t have happened.
+
+The real beginning of things didn’t look like anything important at
+all. It happened one afternoon when Mark Tidd and Plunk and Binney
+and me were hanging around the depot platform waiting for the train
+to come in. We didn’t expect anybody we knew to come, and there
+wasn’t any reason for our being there except that there wasn’t any
+reason for our being anywhere else. Plunk and I sat on one of those
+baggage-trucks that run along straight for a while and then turn up
+a hill at the end; Binney sat on a trunk; and Mark was on the
+platform, because that was the safest place for him and wouldn’t
+break down. It was hot and sleepy, and we wished we were somewheres
+else or that something exciting would happen. It didn’t, so we just
+sat there and talked, and finally we got to talking about Mr. Tidd’s
+engine. We’d seen him tinkering around it, and he’d told us about
+it, so we were interested.
+
+“Wouldn’t it be great,” says Binney, “if it worked when he got it
+done! Us fellers could say all the rest of our lives that we knew
+intimate a inventor that was as big as Edison.”
+
+We never had thought about that part of it before; but what Binney
+said was so, and we got more anxious than ever for things to turn
+out right.
+
+“If it does,” says Plunk, “Mark’ll be rich, and maybe live to the
+hotel. Think of bein’ able to spend a dollar ’n’ a half every day
+for nothin’ but meals and a place to sleep.”
+
+Mark he didn’t say anything, because he was drowsy and his head was
+nodding.
+
+“Mr. Tidd says it’ll reverlutionize the world,” Binney put in. “He
+says if them Romans had had one of his gas-turbines the empire
+never’d have fell.”
+
+“If it goes, nothin’ else’ll be used to run automobiles. If Mr. Tidd
+sold a engine for ev’ry automobile in the United States I guess he
+could afford livin’ to the hotel. I’ll bet he could own a automobile
+himself.”
+
+“And they’ll use ’em in fact’ries and steamboats, ’cause they kin be
+run with steam same as with gasolene.”
+
+“And won’t be more’n a twentieth as big as engines is now.”
+
+We kept on talking and describing what we thought Mr. Tidd’s turbine
+would do and guessing how long it would be before he was ready to
+try it to see if it went. We was so interested we never noticed a
+man sitting a little ways off on a trunk. Pretty soon we did notice
+him, though, for he got up deliberate like and stretched himself and
+looked around as if he didn’t see anything, including us. Then his
+eyes lit on Mark, and he kind of grinned. He lighted a cigar and
+came walking over toward us.
+
+“How about this train?” he asks, like he wasn’t much interested but
+wanted to talk to pass away the time. “Is it generally much behind?”
+
+“Not much,” I says. “I ain’t known it to be over a hour late for two
+weeks.”
+
+“Live here?” he asks, with another grin.
+
+I nodded, but didn’t say anything out loud.
+
+“Pretty quiet place for boys, isn’t it?”
+
+“It ain’t what most folks’d call excitin’.”
+
+After a minute he says: “I used to live in a little town like this
+when I was a boy, and I remember there wasn’t very much to do. I
+used to hang around the carpenter shop watching the carpenters work,
+and around the machine shop seeing how the machinists did things. It
+was pretty interesting. I suppose you do the same here.”
+
+“We-ell, it ain’t exactly a machine shop we hang around.”
+
+“Oh,” he says, “what is it?”
+
+“It’s a—a—”
+
+Just then Mark seemed to wake up sudden He grunted and interrupted
+what I was going to say, and then did the saying himself. “It’s a
+b-barn,” he says.
+
+“Oh,” says the man, “a barn? What do you watch in the barn? The
+horses?”
+
+“No. Ain’t no h-h-horses.” Then he half shut his eyes like he was
+going to take another nap.
+
+The man didn’t say anything for a spell. “I was always interested in
+machines when I was a boy,” he says, at last. “Any kind of a machine
+or engine got me all excited. But we didn’t have as fine machines
+then as you do now. They’re making improvements and inventing new
+things every day. Some day they’re going to invent something to make
+locomotives better—something along the turbine line, I expect. Know
+what a turbine is?”
+
+I was just going to say yes, when Mark woke up again. “Yes,” he
+says, “a t-t-turbine is a climbin’ vine that grows over p-porches.”
+
+The man kind of strangled and looked away. “No,” he says in a
+minute, “I guess you got it mixed up with woodbine.”
+
+“Maybe so,” says Mark.
+
+We heard the engine whistle, and the man hurried off to see about
+his baggage. The train pulled in and pulled out again and left us
+sitting on the platform wondering what to do next. Mark stood up
+slow and tired and yawned till it seemed like his head would come
+off.
+
+“Fellers,” says he, “you gabble like a lot of geese. Looked like
+that man was more’n ord’nary interested in engines.”
+
+“’Spose he heard what we was talking about?”
+
+Mark looked at me disgusted. “Tallow,” says he, “don’t go layin’
+down in no pastures, ’cause a muley cow ’thout horns’ll come and
+chaw a hunk out of your p-p-pants.”
+
+“I guess I ain’t so green,” I told him, but he only grinned.
+
+“Let’s go swimmin’,” says Binney.
+
+Mark shook his head and looked solemn. “Go ahead if you want to. No
+swimmin’ for me; it’s Friday, and I stepped on a spider this
+mornin’.”
+
+Plunk busted out laughing. “Haw,” he says, “believin’ in signs. I
+ain’t superstitious.”
+
+Mark looked at him and blinked. “I ain’t superstitious, but I don’t
+b’lieve in takin’ extra chances. Probably there ain’t nothin’ in it,
+but you can’t never tell.”
+
+That illustrates better than I can tell what kind of a fellow Mark
+Tidd was—cautious, looking on all sides of a thing he was thinking
+of doing, always trying to figure plans out ahead so nothing
+disagreeable could happen. I don’t want you to think he was a
+coward, because he wasn’t, but he never ran his head into trouble
+that could be dodged ahead of time.
+
+We all started for the river, because it would be cooler there even
+if we didn’t go in, but on the way Mark found a four-leaf clover,
+and a white cat ran across the road in front of us, so he figured it
+out that if there _was_ any bad luck about Friday and killing a
+spider those two good-luck signs had knocked the spots off it.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mark Tidd wasn’t given much to exercise, but that isn’t saying he
+couldn’t stir around spry if there was some good reason. He never
+wanted to play baseball or tag or anything where you had to run, and
+usually when a game was going on he’d be lying under a tree reading
+a book. He said it was a lot easier reading about a game than
+playing it, and more interesting than watching the kind we played.
+He read a good deal, anyhow, mostly, I guess, because you can sit so
+still to do it, and rest at the same time if you want to; and it was
+surprising the things he got to know about that were useful to us.
+Seemed like almost everything we wanted to do Mark would have read
+about some better way of doing it, and that’s how we came to get up
+the K. K. K., which stands for Ku Klux Klan.
+
+We were all sitting in Tidd’s yard where the shade of the barn fell,
+and nobody had said anything for quite a spell. I was beginning to
+want to do something, and it was easy to see that Plunk and Binney
+were wriggling around uneasy like; but Mark he lay with his little
+eyes shut tight, looking as peaceful and satisfied as a turtle on a
+log. All of a sudden the idea popped into my head, and I yelled
+right out, “Let’s git up a secret society.”
+
+Mark opened one eye and sort of blinked at me, and Plunk and Binney
+sat up straight.
+
+“What’ll we call it?” Binney wanted to know.
+
+“Who’ll be officers?” Plunk asked.
+
+“I dunno,” I says, sharp like, because they seemed to think I ought
+to have the whole thing planned out for them to do without their
+lifting a hand.
+
+Mark rubbed his eyes and rolled over on his side. “What’s the main
+thing about a s-secret society?” he asks.
+
+“Payin’ dues,” I says, quick.
+
+“Havin’ somethin’ to eat,” Binney guessed.
+
+“Naw,” Mark grunts, contemptuous. “The main thing about a secret
+society is the s-s-secret.”
+
+We could see in a minute that he was right about that.
+
+“So,” he went on, “if we’re goin’ to have a secret society the first
+thing is to git a s-s-secret to have.”
+
+“I don’t know no secret,” Binney said, shaking his head hard.
+
+“Nor me,” said Plunk.
+
+I thought a minute, because I knew a couple of secrets, but they
+were secrets I didn’t calculate to tell anybody, least of all Mark
+and Plunk and Binney; so I just shook my head, too.
+
+“We’ll make a secret,” Mark told us.
+
+“How?” I wanted to know, because I didn’t see how you could go to
+work to make a secret, but I might have known Mark would find a way.
+
+“Did you ever hear of the K-k-k-ku K-k-k-klux K-k-k-klan?”
+
+“What?” I asked.
+
+He said it over again.
+
+“I didn’t git it that time,” I told him. “Sounds like a tongue-tied
+hen tryin’ to cackle.”
+
+Mark sort of scowled at me and did it all over, but not one of us
+could make a thing of it.
+
+“Write it,” I said; “that’s the only way we’ll ever git it.”
+
+At first he wasn’t going to do it, but we argued with him that it
+wasn’t any use spoiling a good thing like a secret society just
+because he couldn’t mention plain a name he wanted to tell us; so at
+last he wrote it down on a piece of paper. What he wrote was Ku Klux
+Klan.
+
+“It don’t make no sense,” Binney said. “What language is it, anyhow?
+Dutch?”
+
+“It ain’t no language. It’s a name.”
+
+“Oh.”
+
+“Of the most p-p-powerful secret society that ever was.”
+
+“I reckon it was over in Russia or somewheres. It sounds like it.”
+
+“It was right here in the United States.”
+
+“Hum,” I said, because that name didn’t sound a bit like the United
+States to me.
+
+“It was after the war.”
+
+“The Spanish War?”
+
+“No. The North and South war.”
+
+“Oh.... That one. What was it for?”
+
+“For protection. They went ridin’ around at night rightin’ wrongs
+and scarin’ folks and runnin’ things in general. They wore white
+sheets over their heads.”
+
+“Gee. Honest?”
+
+“It’s in the histories.”
+
+“And it was secret?”
+
+“The most secret thing ever was. Even men in it didn’t know who one
+another was.”
+
+“Let’s have one,” Plunk yelled, squirming around like he was sitting
+on an ant’s nest. “I kin git a sheet.”
+
+“Who’s goin’ to b’long?” I said; and then we all looked at one
+another.
+
+“Nobody but us four,” Binney whispers, because he’s beginning to
+feel secret already. There wasn’t any argument to that, so we agreed
+to be a Ku Klux Klan, and to have our secret meeting-place in a
+little cave up across from the island where the swimming-hole was.
+It wasn’t much of a cave. Just a little round room dug out of the
+hill by somebody a long time ago. I couldn’t stand up straight in
+it, and when we four was all inside there wasn’t much room left—not
+with Mark Tidd taking up the space he did.
+
+Well, each of us got a sheet and hid it there, and we kept potatoes
+to bake and an old frying-pan and a kettle and other things like
+that in case of emergency, for there was no knowing what might come
+up with an organization like ours, and we knew we had to be ready.
+Mark made up passwords and grips and secret signs; and we had an
+alphabet all of our own that we could write letters to one another
+in, which was fine, even though there never seemed to be anything
+very secret to write. But there come to be later on, and there was a
+time when we was glad of the cave and the potatoes and the
+frying-pan. But that wasn’t until the next spring, and lots of
+things happened before then.
+
+I guess maybe it was a month after we organized the Klan when the
+stranger came to town. We were cooking dinner up at the cave that
+day—a black bass, four perch, and a couple of blue-gills, with baked
+potatoes—and we were just scouring the dishes with sand when we
+looked down and saw Uncle Ike Bond come ambling along the river.
+Uncle Ike drove the bus when it was necessary and fished the rest of
+the time, which was most of the time; and he caught fish, too; lots
+of them. I guess he got a good many on night lines.
+
+Binney Jenks yelled down at Uncle Ike, and he looked up to see who
+it was. When he recognized Mark Tidd he sat down sort of tired on a
+log and motioned for us to come. He was a great friend of Mark’s
+since the day the Tidds moved to town; and he let on to folks that
+Mark was the smartest boy in Wicksville, which I wouldn’t be
+surprised if he was.
+
+We all went down the hill, three of us running, and Mark panting
+along behind and puffing and snorting.
+
+“Expectin’ any visitors?” Uncle Ike asked of Mark.
+
+“No,” said Mark, and sat down.
+
+“Um!” grunted Uncle Ike.
+
+He pulled out his pipe and fussed at it with his jack-knife before
+he filled it and lighted up. “Looks kinder like you was goin’ to
+have some,” he said.
+
+Mark didn’t answer anything or ask questions, because if you do
+Uncle Ike is apt to shut up like a clam and not tell you another
+thing. He waited, knowing Ike’d tell on if there was anything to
+say. The old man puffed away for a spell and then asked:
+
+“Father’s makin’ some sort of a whirligig, ain’t he?”
+
+“Yes. He’s inventin’ a e-e-engine.”
+
+“Um!” grunted Uncle Ike. “Calc’late it’s wuth anythin’?”
+
+Mark nodded yes.
+
+“Feller come in on the mornin’ train that seemed tolerable
+int’rested in sich whirligigs,” said Uncle Ike. “He allowed to set
+onto the seat with me and asked was I acquainted in town—me! Asked
+was I acquainted in town!” It was hard for me to tell whether this
+made Uncle Ike mad or tickled him. He was that way, and you never
+could make him out. Sometimes when he was maddest he looked most
+tickled, and when he was most tickled he looked maddest.
+
+“I allowed as how I knowed a few of the citizens by sight and more’n
+a dozen to speak to,” Uncle Ike went on, “and then he up and begun
+wantin’ to know. When folks gits to the wantin’-to-know stage on
+short acquaintance I git to the don’t-want-to-tell stage, and Mister
+Man didn’t collect no amazin’ store of knowledge, not while he was
+a-ridin’ on _my_ bus.”
+
+He stopped talking and looked at Mark, and Mark looked at him. Then
+Uncle Ike winked at Mark. “If I was a smart boy,” he said, “and a
+stranger feller come to town snoopin’ around and askin’ questions
+about whirligigs, I’d sorter look into it, I would. And if that
+stranger feller was askin’ about the i-dentical kind of a whirligig
+my father was makin’ in the barn and calc’latin’ to git rich out of
+I’d look into it perty close. And if my father was one of these here
+inventor fellers that forgits their own names and would trust a cow
+to walk through a cornfield I’d be perty sharp and plannin’ and keep
+my eye peeled. That’s what I’d do, and I ain’t drove a bus these
+twenty years for nothin’, neither. The place to git eddicated,” he
+said, “is on top of a bus. There ain’t nothin’ like it. There’s
+where you see folks goin’ away and comin’ home, and there’s where
+you see strangers and actors and travelin’-men, and everybody that
+walks the face of the earth. Colleges is all right, maybe, for
+readin’ and writin’, but when it comes to knowin’ who you kin depend
+on and who you got to look out for the bus is the place.”
+
+“Did he ask about f-f-father?” Mark wanted to know.
+
+“He didn’t mention him by name,” said Uncle Ike, grinning. “But he
+says to me, says he, ‘This is a nice town,’ says he, ‘and a town
+that looks as if there was smart folks in it. It’s lettle towns like
+this,’ he says, ‘that inventors and other great men comes from,’
+says he. ‘Have you got any inventors here?’ he asks.
+
+“‘There’s Pete Biggs,’ I says. ‘He’s up and invented a way to live
+without workin’.’
+
+“‘Is that all?’ he asks, kind of disappointed.
+
+“‘Wa-al,’ I says, like I was tryin’ hard to remember, ‘I _did_ hear
+that Slim Peters invented some kind of a new front gate that would
+keep itself shut. But ’twan’t no go,’ I says, ‘’cause Slim he had to
+chop down the gate with a ax,’ I says, ‘the first time he wanted to
+go through it. It was a fine gate to stay shut,’ I says, ‘but it
+wa’n’t no good at all to come open.’
+
+“‘Ain’t there anybody here tryin’ to make an engine?’ he put in.
+
+“‘Engine?’ says I. ‘Engines is already invented, ain’t they? What’s
+the use inventin’ when some other feller’s done it first?’
+
+“‘I mean a new kind of an engine,’ he says, ‘a kind they call a
+turbine?’
+
+“‘Oh,’ says I. ‘I ain’t met up with no engines like that, not in
+Wicksville. We ain’t much on fancy names here, and I guess if a
+Wicksville feller had invented anythin’ he wouldn’t have named it
+that—he’d ’a’ called it a engine right out.’
+
+“‘Umph!’ says the feller, like he was mad, and then got out at the
+hotel. I stopped long enough to see him talkin’ with Bert Sawyer, so
+it’s likely he knowed all Bert did inside of ten minutes. And that’s
+all there was to it.” He looked at Mark with his eyes twinkling.
+
+Mark got up kind of slow, blinking his eyes and looking back at
+Uncle Ike.
+
+“I guess I’ll go home,” he said.
+
+Uncle Ike slapped his knee and laughed a rattling kind of laugh way
+down in his throat. “There,” he whispered, like he was talking
+confidential to Binney and Plunk and me, “what’d I tell you? Hey?
+What’d I tell you? Don’t take him long to make up his mind, eh?
+Quicker’n a flash; slicker’n greased lightnin’!”
+
+We went off up the hill after Mark, leaving Uncle Ike sitting on the
+log laughing to himself and slapping his leg every minute or so. He
+sat there till we were out of sight.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Mark was pretty quiet walking along, thinking hard what to do, or
+whether he had better do anything; but finally he seemed to make up
+his mind and hurried off faster than I ever saw him walk before. And
+it was a warm day, too. We turned into his yard, and as we went
+through the gate he jerked his thumb toward the back yard.
+
+“You w-w-wait there,” he stuttered. “I may want you.” Then he went
+in the front door.
+
+As we walked by we looked through the window and saw the stranger
+sitting in the parlor talking to Mr. Tidd, and he was nodding and
+smiling and being very polite; or, anyhow, it seemed that way to me.
+I always was sort of curious, so I stopped close to the window and
+listened, while Plunk and Binney went on around the house. I guess
+it isn’t very nice to listen that way, but I never thought of that
+until it was all over.
+
+Mr. Tidd was talking.
+
+“Yes, sir,” he was saying, “the world don’t hold another book like
+this. The title says it’s _The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire_, but it’s about more than that. Why, it’s about everything.
+It don’t matter what happens, you can find the answer to it in
+Gibbon.... Yes, sir, _The Decline and Fall_ is the greatest book of
+’em all.”
+
+“I agree with you entirely, Mr. Tidd, entirely. It has been some
+time since I read the book, sir, but I have been promising myself
+that pleasure—and profit—for several months. I shall read it again,
+sir, as soon as I get home.”
+
+“You will never regret it,” said Mr. Tidd, and patted the book in
+his lap.
+
+Somehow the stranger’s face seemed familiar to me, but for a while I
+couldn’t place him. Then all of a sudden it came to me: he was the
+man we saw on the depot platform who asked about turbines. I almost
+yelled out loud to Mark.
+
+I listened again and heard the stranger say:
+
+“I’m in the engineering business, Mr. Tidd, and that’s why I came to
+see you. I heard you were working on some sort of a machine, and, as
+my company always wants to keep in touch with the latest
+developments of mechanics and engineering, I dropped in to have a
+chat with you.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Tidd; but it was plain he was thinking about
+something else.
+
+“It happens often,” said the stranger, “that men like yourself, who
+have valuable ideas, lack the money to carry them out. Very
+frequently my company, if the idea seems all right, advances the
+money to carry on experiments.”
+
+“Money,” said Mr. Tidd, vaguely. “Oh yes, money. I don’t need money.
+No. I have all the money I need.”
+
+The stranger looked disappointed, but he didn’t say anything about
+it.
+
+“You’re fortunate,” he told Mr. Tidd, “but maybe there’s something
+else I could do for you.”
+
+“Not as I know of. Don’t seem like I needed a thing, but I’m much
+obliged, much obliged.”
+
+“What is the nature of the work you are doing?” asked the man. I
+didn’t think he liked to come right out with the question that way,
+but probably he couldn’t invent any other way to get at it.
+
+“It’s a turbine,” said Mr. Tidd, right off, and his eyes began to
+shine. “It’s a practical turbine for locomotives and automobiles and
+power-plants and what not. Why, sir, this engine of mine will stand
+on a base no bigger than a cook-stove and develop two hundred
+horse-power; and it will be reversible. I have a new principle, sir,
+for the application of steam; a new principle, it is—” He stopped
+suddenly, shook his head, and said, with a patient sort of smile,
+“My folks don’t like to have me talk too much about it.”
+
+“Of course,” agreed the stranger, who had been leaning forward and
+edging farther toward the front of his chair, with interest. “Of
+course. It is never wise to discuss such things too freely. How far
+has your work progressed?”
+
+“Not far, not far. In the experimental stages. I have something to
+show for my work—nothing to boast of, but enough. Enough to make me
+sure.”
+
+“I should be very interested to look over your workshop,” suggested
+the stranger. “I always like to see how a thorough machinist has
+things arranged.”
+
+At that I ducked and ran around the house, and just a moment later
+Mark came tiptoeing out of the kitchen door. He held up his finger
+for us to be still and then motioned for us to follow him to the
+barn.
+
+In the barn he grabbed up a lot of drawings and stuffed them into my
+hands.
+
+“Here. Take these and hide back of the f-f-fence.”
+
+Then he gave Binney and Plunk some funny-looking pieces of steel to
+carry, and snatched some other things himself, and we all sneaked
+out through the back gate and crouched down behind the fence out of
+sight.
+
+“Father’s goin’ to s-show him the shop,” whispered Mark. “I guess
+the feller was fixin’ to git a squint at these things. If he was
+it’s all right, and if he wasn’t no harm’s done.”
+
+In about two shakes of a lamb’s tail Mr. Tidd and the stranger came
+out of the shop and went inside. We had our ears to the wall and
+could hear how Mr. Tidd was being taffied by the man, and we could
+tell by the way he answered back that he was getting to like the
+stranger more and more every minute. Butter wouldn’t melt in that
+man’s mouth. He was as full of compliments as an old grist-mill is
+of rats.
+
+After a while we heard Mr. Tidd say:
+
+“I dunno’s there’d be any objection to your lookin’ at my drawin’s
+and patterns and stuff. ’Twon’t do no harm, I calc’late.”
+
+The man didn’t say anything, and pretended he wasn’t paying
+attention. We could hear Mr. Tidd moving around, and then he stopped
+still, and I knew he was scratching his head, though I couldn’t see
+him, because he always scratches his head when he can’t figure out
+just what’s going on.
+
+“I swan,” he said, kind of vague and wondering, “I’d ’a’ bet I left
+them things right here; I’d ’a’ bet a cookie. But they ain’t
+here—not a sign of ’em. Now, ain’t that the beatenist? I must ’a’
+carted ’em off some place without thinkin’. Um! Hum!... Where’n
+tunket could it ’a’ been?”
+
+“What seems to be the matter?” asked the stranger, and his voice
+sounded anxious to me. It did to Mark, too, because he nudged me.
+
+“I’ve up and mislaid my drawin’s and things,” said Mr. Tidd,
+sounding like he was apologizing. “Ain’t that the dumbest thing! I’m
+always a-layin’ things around and forgettin’ ’em.”
+
+“Surely they must be in the shop some place,” suggested the
+stranger.
+
+Again we could hear Mr. Tidd rummaging around, but it wasn’t any
+use. “No,” he said, “no, they ain’t here. I wonder if I could ’a’
+left ’em down to the grocery.”
+
+“What would you be doing with them at the grocery?”
+
+“Nothin’ that I know of, but I might have tucked ’em under my arm
+and gone just the same. Like’s not I did. Wa-all, I’m sorry I can’t
+show ’em to you, but maybe they’ll turn up to-morrow.”
+
+“I’ve got to leave on the late train,” said the stranger.
+
+“Too bad,” said Mr. Tidd, his mind still wondering where his things
+were. “Too bad.” And with that he forgot all about the stranger and
+went out of the barn and off up the street talking to himself and
+scratching his head. The stranger looked after him and bit his lips;
+then he grinned like the joke was on him, and he went, too.
+
+“Well,” I asked Mark, “what now?”
+
+“We’ll put ’em right back,” he said, grinning, “and dad won’t know
+but what he just overlooked ’em.”
+
+We fixed everything like it was, and then we went down-town to see
+what we could find out about the stranger.
+
+He was in the hotel when we got there, and it was easy to get out of
+Bert Sawyer all he knew about him. His name was Henry C. Batten, and
+he lived in Pittsburg. He was a traveling man for the International
+Engineering Company, Bert thought, and later we found out it was so,
+because he left one of his cards in his room and Bert found it.
+
+We sat on the hotel steps until Uncle Ike Bond’s bus rattled up to
+carry folks to the late train. The stranger squeezed through the
+door and sat down in a corner, looking as if he wasn’t pleased with
+things in general. Uncle Ike winked at Mark.
+
+“How’d you make out?” he whispered.
+
+Mark went up close and told him all about it, and Uncle Ike like to
+have fallen off the seat laughing.
+
+“What’d I tell you?” he chuckled to nobody in particular. “Ain’t he
+a slick one? Ain’t he? Slicker’n greased pole I call him, eh?”
+
+Then he gathered up the lines, but stooped over again to whisper,
+“If ever this thing gits where you need help from Uncle Ike Bond
+just up and say so in his hearin’, and we’ll see what a eddication
+got on top of a bus is good for.”
+
+I didn’t see what good he could ever do anybody, but that just shows
+how you can be mistaken in folks.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+
+Right up till snow was on the ground the Ku Klux Klan used to meet
+in the cave. We would go up there Saturday mornings, all coming by
+different roads, and when we met there would be passwords and
+signals and grips and all sorts of secret things. After a while we
+got so many signs that a fellow had to be pretty careful what he was
+up to so as not to be telling the other members he was in deadly
+peril, or that a secret meeting was called at once, or something
+else, because almost everything we did had a meaning. For instance,
+if I was to reach around and scratch my back when Mark or Plunk or
+Binney were looking, that meant that I had to speak to them right
+away about something important; and if one of us shoved both hands
+in his pockets at once that meant to look out because enemies were
+watching. All our signals were simple things like that that wouldn’t
+be noticed. Mark got most of them up, and I guess there were more
+than a hundred things to be remembered.
+
+We used to sit in the cave and wish there were some real wrongs
+being done that we could right, or that we had some kind of a
+powerful enemy, or that there was a mean, miserable whelp that we
+could visit at night with our white sheets on and tie him to a tree
+and frighten him into being a good citizen; but there weren’t any,
+and we had to take it out in making believe. But that was almost as
+much fun.
+
+We had one sign that was never to be used except when we were
+desperate and needed help and succor, and that was to untie your
+necktie and tie it up again. But the best one of all was the
+jack-knife sign, and it was a dandy, because there were so many ways
+of using it. If one of us met the other and said “Lemme take your
+jack-knife,” that was one way; or if you sent a note by somebody
+else with the word jack-knife in it, or anything like that. But the
+best way was the one to be used if you were a captive, or if enemies
+were surrounding the cave and you wanted to have your comrades rally
+around you. Nobody would ever suspect it. All you had to do was to
+meet somebody, a farmer or a man fishing or any one, and give him
+your knife and tell him please to give it to any one of the society.
+As soon as that one got the knife he had to collect the others and
+make for the cave as fast as he could. It worked bully. Lots of
+times I’ve sent my little brother over to Mark’s with my knife, and
+dozens of times Mark or Binney or Plunk have sent their knives to
+me. Once Binney sent his by his father, who was going past my house.
+I don’t believe the real, original Ku-Kluxers had a better sign than
+that.
+
+The cave was up on the side hill like I told you, and looked down on
+the river. I told you, too, how Uncle Ike Bond was always fishing
+when he could get time, which was most always, and he used to come
+past almost every time we were there. After a while it got so he’d
+stop to talk to us or we’d go down to talk to him. Finally one day
+he grinned, knowing-like, and asked what we were doing there so
+much.
+
+We looked at one another, and then Mark reached around and scratched
+his back. That meant, of course, that he had to speak about
+something important right away, so we got up and told Uncle Ike we’d
+be back in a minute. He grinned and nodded.
+
+We went off out of earshot, and Mark Tidd whispered:
+
+“Uncle Ike’s a pretty good f-f-friend, ain’t he?”
+
+We said yes, he was.
+
+“I think he’s catchin’ on that we’re up to somethin’.”
+
+“Maybe so,” I said.
+
+“Let’s make him a m-member. Then he can’t give us away. Besides,
+he’d be a pretty valuable one, anyhow.”
+
+We talked it over awhile, and it was decided unanimous to make him a
+Ku-Kluxer, so we went back to where he was sitting.
+
+“Uncle Ike,” says Mark, “can you keep a secret?”
+
+“Wa-all, I hain’t never been tempted very hard, but I guess I can
+keep one good enough for ordinary purposes.”
+
+“This is the secretest thing that ever was,” says Binney.
+
+“Um!” says Uncle Ike. “You don’t tell!”
+
+“We’re the Ku Klux Klan,” says Plunk, to save Mark the trouble of
+stuttering so many k’s.
+
+“And we want you to join if you’ll take the oath.”
+
+“Sure,” says Uncle Ike. “I’ve always hankered to b’long to somethin’
+secret, but I hain’t never seemed to git around to it.”
+
+Mark recited the oath, and Uncle Ike swore to it solemn as could be.
+He seemed real glad to be a member. After that we spent most of the
+afternoon teaching him our secret signs and tokens and things. He
+said he didn’t think he could learn all of them, but that a few
+dozen of the most important would do. He seemed particular delighted
+with the jack-knife sign.
+
+“But looky here,” he said, shaking his finger in our faces, “don’t
+go workin’ any of them signs on me unless you mean ’em in earnest.
+You young fellers kin fool with ’em as much as you want to, but
+don’t go sendin’ me no jack-knives till you git where you need my
+help and need it bad. I’m too old to go gallivantin’ around chasin’
+wild geese.”
+
+After that he stopped to our meetings more often than ever, and
+pretty nearly every time he’d have a big bass, or maybe a nice mess
+of pan-fish for us to cook for our dinner. We were all glad we made
+him a member.
+
+All this while Mr. Tidd was working steady on his turbine, and it
+was getting nearer and nearer to being ready for a trial to see if
+the model would work and do what he thought it was going to do. He
+didn’t do anything else but work in the barn and read the _Decline
+and Fall_ and forget things. I mean he didn’t have any job, but
+lived on money that he had in the bank. If it hadn’t been for that
+he’d have had to go on being a machinist all the rest of his life,
+and probably wouldn’t ever have had time to do any inventing.
+
+With all his forgetting and absent-mindedness and inventing he was
+one of the most patient men. I never heard him speak sharp, and, no
+matter what happened, good or bad, he took it just the same, not
+seeming much disturbed; and always simple and kind-spoken to
+everybody. He always would stop to answer questions or explain
+things or just talk to us boys if we came into the shop, and never
+told us to get out or quit bothering him. Nothing bothered him. But
+Mrs. Tidd wasn’t that way. She’d worry and worry, and sometimes when
+she was flying around up to her ears in work she’d out with
+something cross, not meaning it at all, but letting it fly off the
+tip of her tongue. But she was never short with Mr. Tidd and never
+exasperated with him, no matter what he forgot or did wrong.
+
+All four of us—that is, Mark and Plunk and Binney and me—went out to
+Mr. Tidd’s shop to ask if Mark could come with us and camp Friday
+night and Saturday and Saturday night and Sunday at our cave. The
+rest of us had asked and could go if we wanted to. We wanted to, but
+we didn’t want to without Mark.
+
+Mr. Tidd was tinkering and filing and fussing around with some
+little parts of his turbine, and we had to speak two or three times
+before he heard us; then he turned around surprised-like and said,
+“Bless my soul, bless my soul,” as if we had just come from a
+thousand miles away in an airship. He laid down his tools and leaned
+his arm on his bench and stared at us a minute. Then he said “Bless
+my soul” again and reached for his handkerchief.
+
+“You’ve got it tied around your neck,” Binney told him.
+
+Mr. Tidd felt and found it where Binney said. “Well, well,” he sort
+of whispered. “However come that there?”
+
+“Pa,” began Mark, “can I go camping at the cave? The fellers are
+goin’.”
+
+“Camping,” said Mr. Tidd; “camping at the cave? To be sure—at the
+cave. Um! What cave?”
+
+“Our cave,” we all said at once.
+
+We told him all about it, and he was as interested as could be,
+asking questions and nodding his head and smiling, just like he
+wanted to go to the cave himself.
+
+“Can I go, pa?” Mark asked, when we were through.
+
+“Far’s _I’m_ concerned you can,” said Mr. Tidd, “but you better ask
+your ma. She sort of looks after such things. I guess she looks
+after everything; and, Mark, when you ask her see if she knows where
+my shoes are. I swan I couldn’t find ’em this mornin’ when I came
+out—couldn’t find hide nor hair of ’em. It does beat all how things
+get lost.”
+
+Mrs. Tidd was dusting the parlor when we went in, and had a cloth
+tied around her hair. She was just _flying_ around, poking behind
+things and into corners and going as fast as if she had to have it
+all done in two minutes.
+
+“Ma,” Mark says, poking his head through the door, “can I go campin’
+with the fellers?”
+
+“No,” says Mrs. Tidd, without turning her head. Then she stopped a
+second and felt of her hair. “What’s that you say?”
+
+Mark asked her again, and we chipped in and explained.
+
+“Was ever such a boy!” she said to herself. “Here I got all the
+cleanin’ and dustin’, and bread in the oven. Will you be careful and
+cover up good at night and not get into any mischief?”
+
+Mark nodded.
+
+“What you going to have to eat?”
+
+I told her we’d bake potatoes and have fish and one thing another.
+
+“You sha’n’t do no sich thing—gain’ without proper food!” And off
+she flew to the kitchen and got a basket in a jiffy. Into it she put
+a big chunk of ham, and a loaf of bread and some butter, and a whole
+pie and half a chocolate cake, and what was left of a pot of baked
+beans. “There,” says she, “I guess that’ll keep you from starvin’.”
+
+We said good-by and started for the door, but she came running after
+us. “Mark,” she says, “you take these gray blankets, and, mind you,
+bring them back again or you’ll hear from me.” Then she kissed him
+and flew back to her dusting again.
+
+We had all of our things in the front yard, and it didn’t take us
+any time to get them packed on our backs and start for the river. It
+was only about half an hour’s walk, but it took us a little longer
+to get there on account of Mark, who wanted to rest every little
+while; but it wasn’t really resting he wanted; it was a piece of his
+mother’s cake. We ate it all up before we got to the cave at all.
+
+We got at the cave from the top of the hill and threw our things
+down on the slope in front. It was a little chilly in the shade, so
+Mark told us to gather wood for a fire while he packed things away
+the way they ought to be. I guess we were gone twenty minutes. When
+we came back everything was just where we left it, and Mark was
+standing looking into the cave with his face wrinkled up like it
+gets when he’s puzzled.
+
+“Been workin’ hard, ain’t you?” sings out Plunk.
+
+Usually Mark would have said something back, but this time he
+didn’t. He turned around and asks, “Have any of you been here since
+last Saturday?”
+
+Nobody had.
+
+“S-somebody’s been in the cave.”
+
+“How do you know?” I asked him.
+
+“Things been moved around, and some p-p-potaters is gone,” he
+stuttered.
+
+“Let’s look,” says Binney; and we all crowded in. Mark knew where
+everything ought to be, even if we didn’t, and he told us just what
+had been touched and what hadn’t. “He used the f-fryin’-pan,” he
+grumbled. “Look!”
+
+Sure enough, there was the frying-pan with grease sticking to the
+bottom, and we never left it that way.
+
+“Wonder who it could have been?” says Plunk.
+
+“Maybe it was Uncle Ike,” guessed Binney.
+
+“No,” says Mark, “he’d ’a’ cleaned the pan.”
+
+That was right. We knew he wouldn’t leave any dirty dishes around.
+
+Well, it kind of upset us. Of course, the cave wasn’t ours, and
+anybody could come into it that wanted to, but nobody ever did. It
+was such a little cave that it didn’t amount to much to look at, and
+it was quite a climb; and now here was somebody poking into our
+things, and it made us pretty sore.
+
+“Probably some feller come along fishin’ and happened onto it,”
+Binney guessed.
+
+It didn’t do any good to bother about it, so we set to work and
+packed our things away and got a fire ready to light. In front of
+the cave was a little patch of sand—white sand crumbled off the
+sandstone that the cave was carved out of, I guess—and it was there
+we had our fires and did our cooking. Mark always fixed the fires,
+because he knew how to pile the sticks and get them to blazing even
+if the wind was blowing like sixty. Now he was crouched down ready
+to strike a match when all of a sudden he said something like he was
+startled.
+
+“What’s matter?” I asked him.
+
+He didn’t answer, but bent over and looked at something in the sand.
+Somehow I felt shivery all at once without any reason, and walked
+over where he was to see what he was looking at. There in the sand
+was some kind of a footprint; it was a bare foot, but big, bigger
+than two ordinary men’s feet, with the toes growing sort of
+sideways. I looked at Mark, and he looked at me.
+
+“What made it?” I whispered. For a minute it didn’t seem safe to
+speak out loud.
+
+“I dunno,” says Mark, with his eyes big and his face serious. “Looks
+like a man if the toes weren’t on sideways.”
+
+We called Plunk and Binney, but they couldn’t make anything out of
+it, so we built the fire good and big, just in case it was some kind
+of a wild animal. We knew animals were afraid of fire.
+
+It was Binney who thought about the frying-pan. “It must be a man,
+or it wouldn’t have used the pan,” he says.
+
+That was right. Animals don’t cook. Plunk drew a long breath. “Maybe
+it’s a wild man,” he said, trembly voiced.
+
+“Like there was with that circus last summer,” I said, remembering
+the pictures in front of the tent of seven men catching a thing all
+hair and beard, with skins on it for clothes, and big teeth. We all
+got closer to the fire.
+
+“Bosh!” snorts Mark; but his voice was a little dry, and he didn’t
+look any too comfortable. “There ain’t any wild men.” But he didn’t
+believe it and we didn’t believe it.
+
+“What had we better do?” asks Binney.
+
+“Nothing,” says Plunk, letting on he wasn’t afraid. “It won’t hurt
+anybody even if it is a wild man. And, besides, there are four of
+us.”
+
+That wasn’t so very encouraging, judging from the size of the
+footprint. Anything with a foot as big as that could take four boys
+at a bite.
+
+“Had we better stay?” Binney was pretty scared and showed it.
+
+“Of course,” Plunk told him. “We ain’t babies. We got to stay.”
+
+We couldn’t very well back down after that. I expect every one of us
+was willing enough to pack up and go, but nobody would start it, so
+we sat close to the blaze and talked about other things, and made
+believe to one another that wild men were the last thing in the
+world we’d ever think of running away from.
+
+It began to get dark, and we cooked supper. It wasn’t a very
+cheerful meal because every once in a while one of us would stop to
+listen and ask, “What was that?” There were lots of noises, like
+there always are in the woods, but they never seemed so shivery
+before. The moon didn’t come up till late, and it was dark as a
+pocket except where our fire lighted things up for a few feet.
+
+“We ought to have a gun,” said Plunk, after we had been quiet a long
+time.
+
+“Bosh!” said Mark. “Let’s go to b-b-bed.”
+
+
+Miracle discredits the ordered scheme of creation; and quite as much
+does it do so if you believe creation to be the work of a personal
+Deity. Creation (science shows us more and more) was from its inception
+a process of absolutely related causes and effects--a whole system
+reared up through millions and millions of years upon a structure
+involving infinite millions of lives and deaths--and the whole a
+perfect sequence of causal happenings.
+
+That is “life” as it is presented to man’s reason and understanding;
+and if his reason and understanding are not to faint utterly, he must
+in his search for a moral principle “find God (as the Psalmist puts
+it) in the land of the living,” or not at all. For as he estimates
+the moral value of things solely by that empyric sense which has been
+evolved in him through a faithful recognition of the inevitable laws of
+cause and effect, so must he become demoralised, if he is to be taught
+that what he has regarded as inevitable can be capriciously suspended
+by a power independent of those laws which life has taught him to
+reverence.
+
+Do not think, for a moment, that I am questioning the power of faith
+or the power of prayer. It is a tenable proposition that they are the
+most tremendous power in the world; and yet we may hold that they take
+effect through the natural law alone, and have come into existence
+through the courses of evolution--or, if you like to put it so--in a
+faithful following of the Will which, in the act of Creation, made a
+compact and kept it.
+
+But if the compact of Creation was not kept, if that impact of spirit
+upon matter (which through such vast eras and through such innumerable
+phases of life worked by cause and effect) was ever tampered with so
+that cause and effect were suspended, then the whole process becomes
+discredited to our moral sense, and its presiding genius is discredited
+also.
+
+Are we to suppose that through the earlier millions of years, when only
+the elementary forms of life were present upon this globe, cause and
+effect went on unsuspended and unhindered, and that these processes,
+having once been started (engendered, let us assume, by the Immanent
+Will), held absolute sway over the development of life for millions and
+millions of years, until a time came when humanity appeared, and the
+idea of religion and a Deity entered the world; and that this process
+then became subject to a dethronement? Are we to believe that then
+intervention in a new form, and upon a different basis (not of cause
+and effect) began to take place? If that is the proposition, then, it
+seems to me, we are asked (having accepted the idea of a Creator) to
+impute to Him discreditable conduct--to believe that a point came in
+these causal processes which He had instituted when He could no longer
+“play the game” without arbitrary interference with its rules, and
+that the appearance of man upon the globe was the signal for a fatal
+weakening to His character.
+
+I have seen a clergyman cheat at croquet. He was the by-word of the
+neighbourhood for that curious little weakness; but I assure you that
+the spectacle of that reverend gentleman surreptitiously pushing his
+ball into better position with his foot instead of depending upon the
+legitimate use of his mallet, was no more ignoble a spectacle than
+that which I am asked to contemplate by believers in miracle when they
+present to my eyes a Deity who (upon their assertion) does similar
+things.
+
+Test upon this basis of morality the most crucial of all events in
+Christian theology.
+
+The idea of the Incarnation of God in human form as the final
+and logical fulfilment of the Creative purpose and process--the
+manifestation of the Creator in the created--has had for many great
+thinkers a very deep attraction. But if the process which brings Him
+into material being--the so-called Virgin-Birth--is not a process
+implicit in Nature itself and one that only depends for its realisation
+on man’s grasp of the higher law which shall make it natural and normal
+to the human race--if the Virgin-Birth is miracle instead of perfectly
+conditioned law revealing itself, then, surely, such a device for
+bringing about the desired end is “discreditable conduct”--because
+it discredits that vast system of evolution through cause and effect
+which we call “life.” From such an Incarnation I am repulsed as from
+something monstrous and against nature; and the doings and sayings of
+a being so brought into the world are discredited by the fact of a
+half-parentage not in conformity with creative law.
+
+Now when one ventures to question the moral integrity of so fundamental
+a religious doctrine, and to give definite grounds as to why adverse
+judgment should be passed on it, there will not be lacking theologians
+ready to turn swiftly and rend one something after this manner: “Who
+are you, worm of a man, to question the operations of the Eternal mind,
+or dare to sit in judgment on what God your maker thinks good?”
+
+The answer is “I don’t. It is only your interpretation of those
+operations that I question.” But on that head there is this further to
+say: “By the Creative process God has given to man a reasoning mind;
+and it is only by the use of the reason so given him that man can
+worship his Maker.” To give man the gift of reason and then to take
+from him the right fully to exercise it, is discreditable conduct.
+
+That tendency I attribute not to the Deity but to the theologian--more
+especially as I read in the Scriptures that where God had a special
+revelation to make to a certain prophet who thought a prostrate
+attitude the right one to assume under such circumstances, divine
+correction came in these words, “Stand upon thy feet, and I will speak
+to thee.” Some people seem to think that the right attitude is to stand
+upon their heads.
+
+It is told in some Early Victorian memoirs that a group of Oxford
+dons were discussing together the relations of mortal man to his God,
+and one postulated that the only possible attitude for man to assume
+in such a connection was that of “abject submission and surrender.”
+But even in that dark epoch such a doctrine was not allowed to go
+unquestioned. “No, no,” protested another, “deference, not abject
+submission.” And though it is a quaint example of the Oxford manner,
+surely one must agree with it. Reason being man’s birthright, “Stand
+upon thy feet and I will speak to thee,” is the necessary corollary.
+Even if there be such a thing as divine revelation--the revelation
+must be convincing to man’s reason, and not merely an attack upon his
+nerves, or an appeal to his physical fears.
+
+Similarly any form of government or of society which does not allow
+reason to stand upon its feet and utter itself unashamed is a
+discreditable form of discipline to impose, if reason is to be man’s
+guide.
+
+Now I do not know whether, by characterising the device of a
+“miraculous” birth as discreditable to its author, I am not incurring
+the penalty of imprisonment in a country which says that it permits
+free thought and free speech (at all events in peace-time). A few years
+ago a man was sent to prison--I think it was for three months--for
+saying similar things: a man who was a professed unbeliever in
+Divinity. And quite obviously the discreditable conduct in that case
+was not of the man who acted honestly up to his professions, but of
+this country which, professing one thing, does another. And the most
+discreditable figure in the case was the Home Secretary who, though
+entirely disapproving of this legal survival of religious persecution,
+and with full power to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy which
+has now become his perquisite, refused to move in the matter, and said
+he saw no reason for doing so. His discredit was, of course, shared by
+the Cabinet, by Parliament and by the Country--which (without protest
+except from a few distinguished men of letters and leaders of religious
+thought) allowed that savage sentence to stand on grounds so antiquated
+and so inconsistent with our present national professions.
+
+Nationally we are guilty of a good deal of discreditable conduct on
+similar lines. We profess one thing, and we do another.
+
+Our politicians tell us that they rely upon the voice of the people,
+yet often they employ the political machine which they control, for
+the express purpose of evading it. A few years ago a Liberal statesman
+was appointed to Cabinet-rank, and had in consequence to go to his
+constituency for re-election. He belonged to the party which makes a
+particular boast of its trust in the popular verdict. But in order
+to make his election more safe--before his appointment became public
+property--he communicated to his party agent his ministerial knowledge
+of the coming event so that the date of the bye-election could be
+calculated. And the agent proceeded to book up all the public halls
+in the constituency over the period indicated. Then, in order that
+the scandal might not become too flagrant he generously released a
+proportion of his bookings to his Conservative opponent, but refused to
+release any at all to his Labour opponent; and on those nicely arranged
+conditions he fought his election--and got beaten.
+
+Now that was surely discreditable conduct, for here was a statesman
+who, while ostensibly appealing to the voice of the people was doing
+his level best behind the scenes to deny to it a full and a free
+opportunity of expression. Yet the whole political world was in so
+discreditable a condition that there were actually people who thought
+then--and perhaps still think to-day--that that budding politician
+was unfairly and hardly treated when he was thereafter pursued from
+constituency to constituency by his cheated opponent, and successfully
+prevented from re-entering Parliament even to this day. Probably in
+other branches of life he was an upright and honourable man, but
+politics had affected him, as religion or social ambition has affected
+others, and made him a discreditable witness to the faith which he
+professed.
+
+Now when you have great organisations and great institutions thus
+discrediting themselves by conniving at the double-dealings of those
+whom they would place or keep in authority--you cannot expect the
+honestly critical observer to continue to place their judgment above
+his own, or to believe (when some difficult moral problem presents
+itself) that there is safety for his own soul in relying upon their
+solution of it.
+
+The sanction of the popular verdict in a community which is true to
+its professions is very great and should not lightly be set aside. But
+the sanction of a community or of an organisation which is false to
+its professions is nil. And it is in the face of such conditions (to
+which Society and religion always tend to revert so long as their claim
+is to hold power on any basis of inequality or privilege) that the
+individual conscience is bound to assert itself and become a resistant
+irrespective of the weight of numbers against it. And so, in any State
+where it can be said with truth that the average ethical standard for
+individual conduct is better than the legal standard, the duty of
+individual resistance to evil law begins to arise. “Bad laws,” said a
+wise magistrate, “have to be broken before they can be mended.” And
+to be broken with good effect they must be broken not by the criminal
+classes but by the martyrs and the reformers. It is not without
+significance that every great moral change in history has been brought
+about by lawbreakers and by resistance to authority.
+
+When the English Nonconformists of two or three centuries ago were
+fighting governments and breaking laws, they were doing so in defence
+of a determination to hold doctrines often of a ridiculous kind and
+productive of a very narrow and bigoted form of religious teaching--a
+form which, had it obtained the upper hand and secured a general
+allegiance, might have done the State harm and not good. But, however
+egregious and even pernicious their doctrine, the justice (and even
+the value) of the principle for which they contended was not affected
+thereby. The life of the spirit must take its chance in contact with
+the life material, and Society must have faith that all true and vital
+principles will (given a free field and no favour) hold their own
+against whatever opponents. That is the true faith to which Society is
+called to-day--but which it certainly does not follow--especially not
+in war time.
+
+We talk a great deal about liberty, democratic principle, and
+government by majority; but if those ideals have any real meaning, they
+mean that--given free trade in ideas and in propaganda on all ethical
+and moral questions--you have got to trust your community to choose
+what it thinks good. And to refuse to the general community the means
+of deciding for itself by the utmost freedom of discussion, is--in
+a State based on these principles--the most discreditable conduct
+imaginable.
+
+But of what worth, you may ask, is this moral sanction of a majority?
+I am not myself greatly enamoured of majority rule in the sense of a
+majority exercising compulsion on a minority. Compulsion by a majority
+I should often think it a duty to resist. But to the testimony of a
+majority that refrained from compulsion I should attach the greatest
+possible weight. There you would get a public opinion which by its own
+self-restraint and scrupulous moderation of conduct would be of the
+highest moral value. For Society fearlessly to admit the full and open
+advocacy of that which it disapproves is the finest proof I can imagine
+of its moral stability, and of its faith in the social principles it
+lives by.
+
+Broadly speaking--with the exception I have already referred to--that
+view is now admitted in matters of religion; you may hold and you
+may advocate what religious principles you like. But you are not so
+free to hold and advocate social and ethical principles. The veto of
+Society has shifted, and you are far less likely to incur opprobrium
+and ostracism to-day if you advocate polytheism than if you advocate
+polygamy or pacifism. And the reason for this, I take to be, that the
+religion of modern Society is no longer doctrinal but ethical; and so
+our tendency is to inhibit new ethical teaching though we would not for
+a moment countenance the inhibition of new doctrinal teaching.
+
+That is our temptation, and I think that in the coming decade there
+will be a great fight about it; we are not so prepared as we ought to
+be to allow a free criticism of those social institutions on which our
+ideas of moral conduct are based, even when they cover (as at present
+constituted) a vast amount of double-dealing.
+
+Take for instance this Western civilization of ours which bases its
+social institutions of marriage, property, and inheritance on the
+monogamic principle, but persists in moral judgments and practices
+whose only possible justification is to be found in the rather
+divergent theory that the male is naturally polygamous and the female
+monogamous.
+
+These two ideals, or social practices, make mutually discrediting
+claims the one against the other. I am not concerned to say which I
+think is right. But on one side or the other we are blinking facts, and
+are behaving as though they had not a determining effect upon conduct
+and character which Society ought straightforwardly to recognise.
+
+The man who maintains that it is impossible for the male to live
+happily and contentedly in faithful wedlock with one wife and then
+goes and does so, commits himself by such matrimonial felicity to
+discreditable conduct--discreditable to his professions, I mean. And it
+is, of course, the same if his inconsistency takes him the other way
+about.
+
+There may, however, be an alternative and more honest solution to this
+conflict of claims; both may contain a measure of truth. It may be true
+that monogamy--or single mating--faithfully practised by man and woman
+alike, is ideally by far the best solution of the sex-relations, and
+the best for the State to recognise and encourage by all legitimate
+means; just as vegetarianism and total abstinence may be the best
+solution of our relation to food, or non-resistance of our relation
+to government, or abject submission of our relation to theological
+teaching. But though these may be ideals to strive for, it does not
+follow that human nature is so uniformly constructed upon one model
+as to justify us in making them compulsory, or in turning round and
+denouncing as moral obliquity either plural mating or the eating of
+meat, or the drinking of wine, or rebellion against civil authority, or
+free thought in matters of religion.
+
+If the community deliberately decides that one of these courses gives
+the better social results, it is within its power to discourage the
+other course, without descending to compulsion; and I am inclined to
+think that this may, in the majority of cases, be done by treating the
+desires and appetites of resistant minorities as taxable luxuries. If
+the State finds, for instance, that alcoholism increases the work of
+its magistrates and police, and diminishes the health and comfort of
+home-conditions, it may quite reasonably tax beer, wine and spirits,
+not merely to produce revenue but to abate a nuisance. But it would be
+foolish, were it to go on to say that everybody who incurred such taxes
+was guilty of moral obliquity.
+
+In the same way, if the State wishes to discourage vegetarianism and
+temperance, it will tax sugar, currants, raisins, tea, cocoa and
+coffee, and will continue to tax them till it has diminished the
+consumption; and incidentally it will let meat go free. But it will
+not pass moral judgments--having the fear of human nature before its
+eyes--on those who conscientiously bear the burden of those taxes
+rather than give up what they think good for them.
+
+I could imagine the State, in its wisdom, seeking to discourage luxury
+and the accumulation of wealth into the possession of the few, by
+imposing a graduated income tax of far more drastic severity than
+that which is now depleting the pockets of our millionaires--but not
+therefore saying that all who incurred income tax above a certain scale
+were guilty of moral obliquity.
+
+We have seen a State which required an increase of its population
+setting a premium on children so as to encourage parents to produce
+them; and I can imagine a State which required a diminution in the
+increase of its population setting a tax on children, but not therefore
+joining in the cry of the Neo-Malthusians that every married couple
+who produced more than four children were guilty of a kind of moral
+depravity. And further, I can imagine a State which wished to encourage
+pure and unadulterated monogamy putting a graduated tax, practically
+prohibitive in price, on any other course of conduct productive of
+second or third establishments. But I do not see why the State, as
+State, should concern itself further, or why Society should concern
+itself more deeply about sexual than it does about commercial and trade
+relations, wherein it allows far more grievous defections from the
+ideal of human charity to exist.
+
+Leaving it to the individual is not to say that your views as to
+the desirability of such conduct will not influence your social
+intercourse, and perhaps even affect your calling list. A great many
+things affect our calling lists, without any necessity for us to be
+self-righteous and bigoted about the principle on which we make our
+own circle select. There are some people who will call upon the wives
+of their doctors, but not of their dentists; there are others who will
+not call upon the organist who conducts them to the harmonies of Divine
+Service on Sunday, but would be very glad to call upon Sir Henry Wood,
+who conducts their popular concerts for them during the week. We make
+our selection according to our social tastes and aspirations, and
+sometimes those social tastes may include a certain amount of moral
+judgment. But that moral judgment need not make us interfere; if it
+keeps us at a respectful and kindly distance from those whom we cannot
+regard with full charity, it keeps us sufficiently out of mischief.
+
+Take the public hangman, for instance. I, personally, would not have
+him upon my calling list. I would like to put a graduated tax upon
+him and tax him out of existence. I think he is lending himself to a
+base department of State service; but I also think that the State is
+tempting him; and I think that, in a symbolical way, all of you who
+approve of capital punishment ought to put the public hangman upon
+your calling list--or not exclude him because of his profession (which
+you regard as useful and necessary), but only because he happens to
+be personally unattractive to you. If you exclude him, because of
+his profession, while you consider his profession a necessity--you
+are guilty, I think, of discreditable conduct, and in order to stand
+morally right with yourselves you had better go (I speak symbolically)
+and leave cards on him to-morrow.
+
+What I mean seriously to say is this: there is a great danger to
+moral integrity in any acceptance of social conditions which you
+would refuse to interpret into social intercourse. If you believe
+prostitution to be necessary for the safety of the home--which is the
+doctrine of some--you must accept the prostitute as one who fulfils an
+honourable function in the State. If you accept capital punishment,
+you must accept the hangman. If you accept meat, you must accept the
+slaughterman; if you accept sanitation you must accept the scavenger.
+If you accept dividends or profit from sweated labour, you must
+accept responsibility for sweated conditions, and for the misery, the
+ill-health, the immorality and the degradation which spring from them.
+
+We may be quite sure that far worse things come from these conditions
+on which we make our profit than are contained in the majority of those
+lives which, because of their irregularities or breaches of convention,
+we so swiftly rule off our calling lists. If we are not willing to
+forego the dividends produced for us out of our tolerated social
+conditions, why forego contact with that human material which they
+bring into being? But if you accept contact there, then you will have a
+difficulty in finding any human material of greater abasement to deny
+to it the advantage of your acquaintance.
+
+I have purposely put my argument provocatively, and applied it to
+thorny and questionable subjects, because I want to reach no halfway
+conclusion in this matter, and because the real test of our spiritual
+toleration is now shifting from matters religious to matters social,
+from questions of doctrine to questions of daily life. To-day we must
+be prepared to tolerate a propaganda of social ideas--the products of
+which, if they succeeded in obtaining a hold, would in the estimation
+of many be as regrettable as were the products of Calvinism or
+Puritanism in the past, when they were much more powerful than now.
+
+Our hatred of these new social ideas may be just as keen as the hatred
+of Catholicism for Protestantism or of Protestantism for Catholicism,
+in days when religious doctrine seemed to matter everything. More
+keen it could not be. The dangers these new ideas present could not
+be greater in our eyes than in the eyes of our forefathers were the
+dangers of false doctrine three centuries ago. But the principle
+which demands that they shall be free to state their case and to make
+converts remains always the same. Nevertheless it is unlikely to be
+granted without struggle except by an intelligent minority.
+
+The religious movement of the twentieth century, I say again, is not
+doctrinal but social; and its scripture is not the Bible or any written
+word, but human nature itself.
+
+We are on the brink of great discoveries in human nature, and many
+of our ethical foundations are about to be gravely disturbed. The
+old Manichee dread of the essential evil--the original and engrained
+sin--of human nature remains with us still, and there will be a great
+temptation, as there always has been, not merely to controvert (which
+is permissible) but to persecute and suppress those who preach new
+ideas. It is against such discreditable conduct that we have now to be
+on our guard.
+
+At the threshold of this new era to which we have come, with our old
+civilisation so broken and shattered about us by our own civilising
+hands, the guiding spirit of man’s destiny has its new word to say,
+to which we must listen with brave ears. And first and foremost it is
+this, “Stand upon thy feet--and I will speak with thee.”
+
+
+
+
+WHAT IS WOMANLY?
+
+(1911)
+
+
+The title of my lecture has, I hope, sent a good many of you here--the
+women of my audience, I mean--in a very bristling and combative frame
+of mind, ready to resent any laying down of the law on my part as to
+what is or what is not “womanly.” I hope, that is to say, that you are
+not prepared to have the terms of your womanliness dictated to you by a
+man--or, for that matter, by a woman either.
+
+For who can know either the extent or the direction of woman’s social
+effectiveness until she has secured full right of way--a right of way
+equal to man’s--in all directions of mental and physical activity, or,
+to put it in one word, the right to experiment?
+
+There are, I have no doubt, many things which women might take it into
+their heads to do, which one would not think womanly at their first
+performance, but which one would think womanly when one saw their
+results at long range. No rule of conduct can be set up as an abstract
+right or wrong; we must form our ethics on our social results; and in
+the world’s moral progress the really effective results have generally
+come by shock of attack upon, or of resistance to, some cherished
+conventions of the day.
+
+Take, for example, a thing which has seemed to concern only the male
+sex, but which has really concerned women just as intimately--the
+history of our male code of honour in relation to the institution of
+duelling. There was a time in our history when it would have been very
+difficult to regard as manly the refusal to fight a duel. But it is
+not difficult to-day to see in such a refusal a very true manliness.
+We in this country have got rid of the superstition that honour can in
+any way be mended by two men standing up to take snap-shots at each
+other; and now that we are free from the superstition ourselves, we can
+understand, looking at other countries--Germany, for instance--that it
+must often require more courage to refuse to fight than to consent. But
+we have arrived at that stage of enlightenment only because in our own
+history there have been men courageous enough and manly enough to dare
+to be thought unmanly and cowardly. And as with our manhood so with
+our womanhood; you cannot judge of what is womanly merely on the lines
+of past conventions, produced under circumstances very different from
+those of our own days. You must give to women as you give to men the
+right to experiment, the right to make their own successes and their
+own failures. You cannot with good results lay upon men and women, as
+they work side by side in the world (very often under hard competitive
+conditions) the incompatible rules which govern respectively a living
+language and a dead language. A living language is constantly in
+flux, inventing new words for itself, modifying its spelling and its
+grammatical construction, splitting its infinitives. In a dead language
+the vocabulary is fixed, the spelling is fixed, the construction is
+fixed; but the use and the meaning often remain doubtful. And so, if
+you attempt to determine the woman’s capabilities merely by her past
+record, and to fix the meaning of “womanliness” in any way that forbids
+flux and development, then you are making the meaning and the use of
+the word very doubtful.
+
+Now, obviously, if to be “womanly” means merely to “strike an average,”
+and be as like the majority of women as possible--womanliness as a
+quality is not worth thinking about; it will come of its own accord,
+and exists probably a good deal in excess of our social need for it. It
+stands on a par with that faculty for submission to the unconscionable
+demands of others which makes a sheep sheepish and a hen prolific.
+To be what Henry James calls “intensely ordinary” is, from the
+evolutionary point of view, to be out of the running.
+
+We see this directly we start applying the word “manly” to men.
+For we do not take that to mean merely average quality--if it did,
+over-eating, over-drinking, and that form of speech which I will call
+over-emphasis--would all be manly qualities--and the evolution of the
+race would, according to that doctrine, lie on the lines of all sorts
+of over-indulgence. But when we say “manly,” we mean the pick and
+polish of those qualities which enable a man to possess himself and to
+develop all his faculties; and if it denotes discipline it also denotes
+an insistence on freedom--freedom for development, so that all that is
+in him may be brought out for social use.
+
+Now, the great poverty which modern civilization suffers from, is the
+undevelopment or the under-development of the bulk of its citizens.
+And the great wastage that we suffer from lies in the misdirection
+toward the over-indulgence of our material appetites--of the energies
+which should make for our full human development. And you may be quite
+sure that where in a community of over-population and poverty such as
+ours, the average man, as master, is demanding for himself more of
+these things than his share, there the average woman (where she is in
+economic subjection) is getting less than her share. Yet there are
+many people who (viewing this problem of woman’s subjection where the
+savage in man is still uppermost) will tell you that it is “womanly”
+to be self-sacrificing and self-denying; they will say that it is the
+woman’s nature to be so more than it is the man’s; for, like Milton, in
+his definition of the ideal qualities of womanhood, they put the word
+“subjection” first and foremost. That condition, which, according to
+Scripture, only followed after the curse as its direct product, was,
+you will remember, predicated by Milton, quite falsely, as essential
+even to the paradisal state; and when in _Paradise Lost_ he laid down
+this law of “subjection” as the right condition for unfallen womanhood,
+he went on to describe the divinely appointed lines on which it was to
+operate. The woman was to subject herself to man--
+
+
+                             “with submission,
+     And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.”
+
+
+Those, surely, are the qualifications of the courtesan for making
+herself desired; and it is no wonder, if he had such an Eve by his side
+as was invented for him by Milton, that Adam fell.
+
+Where true womanliness is to end I do not know; but I am pretty sure
+of this--that it must begin in self-possession. It is not womanly
+for a woman to deny herself either in comforts or nourishment, or
+in her instincts of continence and chastity in order that someone
+else--whether it be her children or her husband--may over-indulge.
+It _is_ womanly (it is also manly), when there is danger of hurt or
+starvation to those for whom you are responsible, to suffer much rather
+than that they should suffer; but it is not in the least womanly
+or manly to suffer so that they may indulge. The woman who submits
+to the starving of herself or of her children by a drunken or a
+lazy husband is not in any positive sense womanly--for she is then
+proving herself ineffective for her social task. And she would be more
+effective, and therefore more womanly, if she could, by any means you
+like to name, drive that lazy husband into work, or abstract from that
+drunken husband a right share of his wages. And if by making his home
+a purgatory to him she succeeded, she would be more womanly in the
+valuable sense of the word than if (by submission to injustice) she
+failed, and let her children go starved.
+
+Then, again, a woman may see that the children she and her husband
+are producing ought never to have been born. And if that is so, is it
+womanly for her to go on bearing children at the dictates of the man,
+even though St. Paul says, “Wives, obey your husbands”? Is she any more
+womanly, if she knowingly brings diseased offspring into the world,
+than he is manly in the fathering of them?
+
+But now, come out of the home into Society--not into any of those
+departments of unsolved problems where humanity is seen at its
+worst--pass all those by for the moment--and come to the seat of
+administration--into that great regulator of Society, the law-courts
+(in the superintendence and constitution of which woman is conspicuous
+by her absence). There, as in matters connected with the male code of
+honour, any duty of initiative on the part of women may seem, at first
+sight, to be far removed. But let us see! In the law-courts you meet
+with a doctrine--a sort of unwritten law--that there are certain cases
+to which women must not listen. And occasionally “all decent women” are
+requested to leave the court, when “decent” men are allowed to stay.
+Now, in the face of that request it must be a very painful thing indeed
+for a woman to hold her ground--but it may be womanly for her to do
+so. It may be that in that case there are women witnesses; and I do
+not think our judges sufficiently realise what mental agony it may be
+to a woman to give evidence in a court where there are only men. I am
+quite sure that in such cases, if the judge orders women generally out
+of court, he ought to provide one woman to stand by the woman in the
+witness-box. How would any man feel, if he were called before a court
+composed only of women, women judges, a woman jury, women reporters,
+and saw all men turned out of the court before he began his evidence?
+Would he feel sure that it meant justice for him? I think not.
+
+Now these cases to which women are not to listen almost always
+specially concern women; yet here you have men claiming to deal with
+them as much as possible behind the woman’s back, and to keep her in
+ignorance of the lines on which they arrive at a conclusion. Surely,
+then, it would be well for women of expert knowledge and training to
+insist that these things shall not be decided without women assessors,
+and to be so “womanly” as to incur the charge of brazenness and
+immodesty in defending the woman’s interest, which in such matters is
+also the interest of the race.
+
+But it is only very gradually--and in the face of immemorial
+discouragement--that this communal or social spirit, when it began to
+draw woman outside her own domesticity, has fought down and silenced
+the reproach raised against it, of “unwomanliness,” of an intrusion
+by woman into affairs which were outside her sphere. The awakening of
+the social conscience in women is one of the most pregnant signs of
+the time. But see what (in order to make itself effective) it has had
+to throw over at each stage of its advance--things to which beautiful
+names have been given, things which were assumed all through the
+Victorian era to be essential to womanliness, and to be so engrained in
+the woman’s nature, that without them womanliness itself must perish.
+The ideal of woman’s life was that she should live unobserved except
+when displayed to the world on the arm of a proud and possessive
+husband, and the height of her fortune was expressed in the phrase
+enviously quoted by Mrs. Norton, “Happy the woman who has no history.”
+Now that ideal was entirely repressive of those wider activities which
+during the last fifty years have marked and made happy, in spite of
+struggle, the history of woman’s social development; and every fresh
+effort of that social spirit to find itself and to become effective has
+always had to face, at the beginning of each new phase in its activity,
+the charge of unwomanliness.
+
+Compare that attack, fundamental in its nature, all-embracing in
+its condemnation, with the kind of attack levelled against the
+corresponding manifestations of the social or reforming spirit in
+man. In a man, new and unfamiliar indications of a stirring-up of the
+social conscience may earn such epithets of opprobrium as “rash,”
+“hot-headed,” “ill-considered,” “impracticable,” “utopian”--but
+we do not label them as “unmanly.” Initiative, fresh adventure of
+thought or action in man have always been regarded as the natural
+concomitant of his nature. In a woman they have very generally been
+regarded as unnatural, unwomanly. The accusation is fundamental: it
+does not concern itself with any unsoundness in the doctrines put
+forward; but only with the fact that a woman has dared to become their
+mouthpiece or their instrument. Go back to any period in the last 200
+years, where a definitely new attempt was made by woman toward civic
+thought and action, and you will find that, at the time, the charge
+of “unwomanliness” was levelled against her; you find also that in
+the succeeding generation that disputed territory has always become
+a centre of recognised womanly activity. Take, for instance, the
+establishment of higher training for girls; there are towns in this
+country where the women, who first embarked on such a design, were
+jeered and laughed at, and even mobbed. And the same thing happened in
+an even greater degree to the women who sought to recover for their own
+sex admission to the medical profession: and while the charge levelled
+against them was “unwomanliness,” it was yet through their instincts
+of reserve and sex-modesty that their enemies tried to defeat them.
+Even when they gained the right of admission to medical colleges there
+were lecturers who tried, by the way they expressed themselves in their
+lectures, to drive them out again.
+
+Or take the very salient instance of Florence Nightingale. When she
+volunteered to go out and nurse our soldiers in the Crimea, the
+opposition to a woman’s invasion of a department where men had shown a
+hopeless incompetence at once based itself on the plea that such a task
+was “unwomanly.” Though in their own homes from time immemorial, women
+had been nursing fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, cousins, servants,
+masters, through all the refined and modestly-conducted diseases to
+which these lords of creation are domestically subject, directly one
+woman proposed to carry her expert knowledge into a public department
+and nurse men who were strangers to her, she was told that she was
+exposing herself to an experience which was incompatible with womanly
+modesty. Well, she was prepared to let her womanly modesty take its
+risk in face of the black looks of scandalised officials of Admiralty
+or War Office; and she managed to live down pretty completely the
+charge of unwomanliness. But the example is a valuable one to remember,
+for there you get the claim of convention to keep women from a great
+work of organisation and public service, although already, in the home,
+their abilities for that special service had been proved. And so,
+breaking with that convention of her day Florence Nightingale went to
+be the nursing mother of the British Army in the Crimea, and came home,
+the one conspicuously successful general of that weary and profitless
+campaign, shattered in health by her exertions, but of a reputation so
+raised above mistrust and calumny that through her personal prestige
+alone was established that organisation of nursing by trained women
+which we have in our hospitals to-day.
+
+Take again the special and peculiar opposition which women had to face
+when they began to agitate against certain laws which particularly
+affected the lives of women and did cruel wrong to them even in their
+home relations. Read the life of Caroline Norton, for instance--a woman
+whose husband brought against her a public charge of infidelity, though
+privately admitting that she was innocent; and when, after that charge
+was proved to be baseless, she separated from her husband, refusing to
+live with him any more, then he, in consequence of that refusal cut
+her off absolutely from her children, though they were all under seven
+years of age. That wrong, which our laws had immemorially sanctioned,
+roused her to action, and it was through her efforts, so long ago as
+1838, that the law was altered so as to allow a mother of unblemished
+character right of access to her own children during the years of early
+infancy!
+
+And that is how the law still stands to-day--a woman’s
+contribution--the most that could be done at the time for justice
+to women. But there is no statue to Caroline Norton in Parliament
+Square--or anywhere else, so far as I know.
+
+But what I specially want to draw attention to is this--that when
+she wrote the pamphlet with which she started her agitation all
+her relatives entreated her not to publish it, because it would be
+an exposure to the world of her own private affairs. By that time,
+however, Caroline Norton had learned her lesson in “womanliness,” and
+she no longer said “Happy is the woman who has no history.” Her answer
+was: “There is too much fear of publicity among women: with women it
+is reckoned a crime to be accused, and such a disgrace that they wish
+nothing better than to hide themselves and say no more about it.”
+Does not that set forth in all its weakness the conventional womanly
+attitude of the period?
+
+The Bill which, through her efforts, was brought three times before
+Parliament, was at first defeated. How? By the votes of the Judges,
+to whom the House of Lords left the matter to be decided. And Lord
+Brougham, in speaking against that Bill used this line of argument:
+There were, he said, several legal hardships which were of necessity
+inflicted on women; therefore we should not relieve them from those
+which are not necessary--the necessary hardships being the greater;
+and it being bad policy to raise in women a false expectation that
+the legal hardships relating to their sex were of a removable kind!
+Was ever a more perverted and devilish interpretation given to the
+Scripture, “To him that hath shall be given, and from her that hath not
+shall be taken even that which she hath.”
+
+Let us remember that we are the direct descendants and inheritors of
+the age and of the men who pronounced these unjust judgments, and that
+no miracle has happened between then and now to remove the guilt of
+the fathers from the third and the fourth generation. Heredity is too
+strong a thing for us to have any good ground for believing that our
+eyes, even now, are entirely opened. There are many of us who cannot
+drink port at all, because our grandfathers drank it by the bottle
+every night of their lives.
+
+We inherit constitutions, personal and political--we also inherit
+proverbs, which express so vividly and in so few words, the full-bodied
+and highly-crusted wisdom of former generations. Those proverbs
+expressed once--else they had not become proverbs--an almost universal
+contemporary opinion. Some of them are now beginning to wear thin, have
+of recent years been dying the death, and will presently be heard no
+more. But their source and incentive are still quite recognisable; and
+their dwindled spirit still lives in our midst.
+
+There was one, for instance, on which genteel families were brought up
+in the days of my youth--a rhymed proverb which laid it down that--
+
+
+     A whistling woman and a crowing hen
+     Are hateful alike to God and men.
+
+
+Now let us look into the bit of real natural history which lies at
+the root of that proverb. A crowing hen is a disturbance, but so is a
+crowing cock. But the hen is not to crow because she only lays eggs,
+and because the bulk of hens manage to lay eggs without crowing. They
+make, it is true, a peculiar clutter of their own which is just as
+disturbing; but that is a thoroughly feminine noise and a dispensation
+of Providence; and they don’t do it at all times of the night, and
+without a reason for it, as cocks do. But as a matter of fact it is far
+more easy to prevent a cock from crowing than a hen from cluttering;
+you have only to put a cock in a pen the roof of which knocks his head
+whenever he rears himself up to crow and he will remain as silent as
+the grave, though he will continue to do that spasmodic duty by his
+offspring which is all that nature requires of him. But no such simple
+method will stop the cluttering of a hen when her egg is once well and
+truly laid; the social disturbance caused by the pomp of masculine
+vain-glory is far less inevitable than the disturbance caused by the
+circumstances of maternity. Yet the normal masculine claim to pomp of
+sound is more readily allowed in our proverbial philosophy than the
+occasional feminine claim.
+
+And that is where we have gone wrong; it is really maternity which
+under wholesome conditions decides the social order of things; and we
+have been fighting against it by putting maternity into a compound
+and setting up paternity to crow on the top rail. We have not learned
+that extraordinary adaptability to sound economic conditions which we
+find in many birds and in a few animals. There exists, for instance,
+a particular breed of ostriches, which mates and lays its eggs in a
+country where the days are very hot and the nights very cold; and as
+it takes the female ostrich some 13 or 14 days to lay all her eggs
+and some weeks to incubate, she cannot as she does in other countries
+deposit them in the sand and leave the sun to hatch them, because
+after the sun has started the process, the cold night comes and kills
+them. The mother bird finds, therefore, that she cannot both produce
+and nurse her eggs; yet directly they are laid somebody must begin
+sitting on them. Well, what does she do? She goes about in flocks,
+13 or 14 females accompanied by an equal number of the sterner sex.
+And on a given day, all the hens lay each an egg in one nest, and one
+of the father birds is selected to sit upon them. And so the process
+goes on till all the males are sedentarily employed in hatching out
+their offspring. And I would ask (applying for the moment our own
+terminology to that wonderfully self-adaptive breed of sociologists)
+are not those male ostriches engaged in a thoroughly “manly”
+occupation? Could they be better engaged than in making the conditions
+of maternity as favourable and as unhampered as possible? Yet how
+difficult it is to make our own countrymen see that the strength of a
+nation lies mainly--nay, entirely--in eugenics, in sinking every other
+consideration for that great and central one--the perfecting of the
+conditions of maternity.
+
+But let us come back for a moment to whistling. It is an accomplishment
+which, as a rule, men do better than women; it is the only natural
+treble left to them after they reach the age of puberty; and they are
+curiously proud of it; perhaps, because women, as a rule, have not
+the knack of it. Now, the real offence of a woman’s whistling was not
+when she did it badly (for that merely flattered the male vanity) but
+when she did it well; and no doubt it was because some women managed
+to do it well that the proverb I speak of was invented. We should not
+have been troubled with such a proverb if crowing hens and whistling
+women had been unable to raise their accomplishment above a whisper.
+Yet whistling is really quite beautiful, when it is well done; and why
+is woman not to create this beauty of sound, if it is in her power
+to create it, merely because it finds her in a minority among her
+sex? Does it make her less physically fit, less capable of becoming a
+mother--less inclined, even, to become a mother? No; it does none of
+these things; but it distinguishes her from a convention which has laid
+it down that there are certain things which women can’t do; and so,
+when the exceptional woman does it, she is--or she was the day before
+yesterday--labelled “unwomanly.”
+
+I do not suggest that whistling is a necessary ingredient for
+the motherhood of the new race; but, as a matter of fact, I have
+noticed that those women who whistle well have, as a rule, strength
+of character, originality, the gift of initiative and a strong
+organising capacity; and if these things do go together, then surely
+we should welcome an increase of whistling as a truly womanly
+accomplishment--something attained--which has not been so generally
+attained hitherto.
+
+Let us pass now to a much more serious instance of those artificial
+divisions between masculine and feminine habits of thought and
+action which have in the past seemed so absolute, and are, in fact,
+so impossible to maintain. For you can have no code or standard of
+manhood that is not intimately bound up with a corresponding code or
+standard of womanhood. What raises the one, raises the other, what
+degrades the one degrades the other; and if there is in existence,
+anywhere in our social system, a false code of manliness, there
+alongside of it, reacting on it, depending on it, or producing it, is a
+false code of womanliness.
+
+Take, for example, that matter of duelling already referred to, in
+relation to the male code of honour, and the manliness which it is
+supposed to encourage and develop. You might be inclined to think that
+it lies so much outside the woman’s sphere and her power of control,
+as to affect very little either her womanliness or her own sense of
+honour. But I hope to show by a concrete example how very closely
+womanliness and woman’s code of honour are concerned and adversely
+affected by that “manly” institution of duelling--how, in fact, it
+has tended to deprive women of a sense of honour, by taking it from
+their own keeping and not leaving to them the right of free and final
+judgment.
+
+Here is what happened in Germany about seven years ago. A young married
+officer undertook to escort home from a dance the fiancée of another
+officer; and on the way, having drunk rather more than was good for
+him, he tried to kiss her. She resented the liberty, and apparently
+made him sufficiently ashamed of himself to come next day and beg her
+pardon. Whether she would grant it was surely a matter for herself to
+decide; she accepted his apology, and there, one would have thought,
+the matter might have ended. But unfortunately, several months later,
+word of this very ordinary bit of male misdemeanour reached the ears
+of the lady’s betrothed. It at once became “an affair of honour”--his
+affair, not the lady’s affair--his to settle in his own way, not hers
+to settle in her way. Accordingly he calls out his brother officer,
+and, probably without intending it, shoots him dead. The murdered
+man, as I have said, was married, and at that very time his wife was
+in expectation of having a child. The child was prematurely born to a
+poor mother gone crazed with grief. There, then, we get a beautiful
+economic product of the male code of honour and its criminal effects on
+Society; and if traced to its source we shall see that such a code of
+honour is based mainly on man’s claim to possession and proprietorship
+in woman--for, had the woman not been one whom he looked upon as his
+own property, that officer would have regarded the offence very lightly
+indeed. But because she was his betrothed the woman’s honour was not
+her own, it was his; she was not to defend it in her own way--though
+her own way had proved sufficient for the occasion--he must interfere
+and defend it in his. And we get for result, a man killed for a petty
+offence--the offence itself a direct product of the way in which
+militarism has trained men to look on women--a woman widowed and driven
+to the untimely fulfilment of her most important social function in
+anguish of mind, and a child born into the world under conditions which
+probably handicapped it disastrously for the struggle of life.[1]
+
+Now, obviously, if women could be taught to regard such invasions
+of their right to pardon offence in others as a direct attack upon
+their own honour and liberty--a far worse attack than the act of
+folly which gave occasion for this tragedy--and if they would teach
+these possessive lovers of theirs that any such intrusion on their
+womanly prerogative of mercy was in itself an unforgivable sin against
+womanhood--then such invasions of the woman’s sphere would quickly come
+to an end. They might even put an end to duelling altogether.
+
+See, on the other hand, how acceptance of such an institution trains
+women to give up their own right of judgment, to think even that
+honour, at first hand, hardly concerns them. Is it not natural that, as
+the outcome of such a system from which we are only gradually emerging,
+we should hear it said of these conventionally womanly women that they
+have “a very low sense of honour.”
+
+Low it must naturally be. For that attitude of complaisant passivity
+on the part of the woman while two male rivals fight to possess her is
+the normal attitude of the female in the lower animal world; but it is
+an attitude from which, as the human race evolves into more perfect
+self-government, you see the woman gradually drawing away. While it
+pleases something in her animal instincts, it offends something in her
+human instincts; and while to be fought over is the highest compliment
+to the female animal, it is coming to be something like an insult to
+the really civilized woman--the woman who has the spirit of citizenship
+awake within her. One remembers how Candida, when her two lovers are
+debating which of them is to possess her--brings them at once to their
+senses by reminding them that it is not in the least necessary that
+she should be possessed by either of them; but she does in the end
+give herself to the one who needs her most. That may be the truest
+womanliness under present conditions; as it may once have been the
+truest womanliness for the woman to give herself to the strongest. But
+it may be the truest womanliness, at times, for the woman to bring men
+to their senses by reminding them that it is not necessary for her to
+give herself at all. To be quite sure of attaining to full womanliness,
+let her first make sure that she possesses herself. In the past men
+have set a barrier to her right of knowledge, her right of action,
+her right of independent being; and in the light of that history it
+seems probable that she will best discover her full value by insisting
+on right of knowledge, on right of way, and on right of economic
+independence. So long as convention lays upon women any special and
+fundamental claim of control--a claim altogether different in kind
+and extent from the claim it lays upon men--so long may it be the
+essentially womanly duty of every woman to have quick and alive within
+her the spirit of criticism, and latent within her blood the spirit of
+revolt.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] It may be noted that the war has caused a recrudescence of this
+brutal “code of honour” in our own country. But here it has not
+troubled to resume the obsolete form of the duel. The “defender of his
+wife’s honour” simply commits murder, and the jury acquits.
+
+
+
+
+USE AND ORNAMENT
+
+(OR THE ART OF LIVING)
+
+(1915)
+
+
+I suppose you would all be very much surprised if I said that not use
+but ornament was the object of life.
+
+I refrain from doing so because so definite a statement makes an
+assumption of knowledge which it may always be outside man’s power to
+possess. The object of life may for ever remain as obscure to us as its
+cause. It seems, indeed, likely enough that the one ignorance hinges
+necessarily on the other, and that without knowing the cause of life
+neither can we know its object.
+
+The writers of the Scottish Church Catechism, it is true, thought
+that they knew why man was created. The social products of their
+cocksure theology cause me to doubt it. I would prefer to worship more
+ignorantly a more lovable deity than the one which is there presented
+to my gaze.
+
+But though we may never know why we are here, we may know, by taking a
+little thought and studying the manifestations of the life around us,
+what aspects of it make us glad that we are here. And gladness is as
+good a guide as any that I know to the true values of life.
+
+Examining life from that standpoint I know of nothing that gives me
+more delight than the decoration and embellishment with which man has
+overlaid all the mere uses of existence--things which without those
+embellishments might not delight us at all--or only as a dry crust of
+bread delights in his necessity the starving beggar, or ditch-water one
+dying of thirst.
+
+I can scarcely think of a use in life which I enjoy, that I do not
+enjoy more because of the embellishment placed about it by man, who
+claims to have been made “in God’s image.” Nothing that my senses
+respond to with delight stays limited within the utilitarian aspect
+on which its moral claims to acceptance are too frequently based--or
+remains a benefit merely material in its scope.
+
+When we breathe happily, when we eat happily, and when we love happily,
+we do not think of the utilitarian ends with which those bodily
+instincts are related. The utilitarian motive connects, but only
+subconsciously, with that sense of well-being and delight which then
+fills us; and the conscious life within us is happy without stooping to
+reason.
+
+Underlying our receptivity of these things is, no doubt, the fact that
+our bodies have a use for them. But were we to consider the material
+uses alone, our enjoyment would be less; and if (by following that
+process) we absorbed them in a less joyous spirit, our physical
+benefit, so science now tells us, would be less also.
+
+For some reason or another, which is occasionally hard to define, you
+find pleasure in a thing over and above its use; and I want to persuade
+you that the finer instinct, the genius of the human race, tends always
+in that direction--not to rest content with the mere use of a thing,
+but to lay upon it that additional touch of adornment--whether by
+well-selected material, or craftsman’s skill, or social amenity, which
+shall make it a thing delightful to our senses or to our intelligence.
+
+Take, for instance, so simple a thing as a wine-glass, or a
+water-glass. Materially, it is subject to a very considerable
+drawback; it is brittle, and if broken is practically unmendable.
+From the point of view of utility, strength, cheapness, cleanliness,
+it has no advantage over hardware or china. But in its relation to
+beverages beautiful in colour and of a clear transparency, glass has a
+delightfulness which greatly enhances the pleasure of its use. There
+is a subtle relation between the sparkle of the glass, and the sparkle
+produced in the brain by the sight and the taste of good wine (or--let
+me add, for the benefit of temperance members of my audience--of good
+ginger-ale). I think one could also trace a similar delight to the
+relations subsisting between glass in its transparency and a draught of
+pure water.
+
+That relationship set up between two or more senses (in this case
+between the senses of sight, taste and touch) brings into being a new
+value which I ask you to bear in mind, as I shall have a good deal to
+say about it later--the value of association. The more you examine into
+the matter, the more you will find that association is a very important
+element for evoking man’s faculties of enjoyment; it secures by the
+inter-relation of the senses a sort of compound interest for the appeal
+over which it presides. And it is association, with this compound
+appeal, which again and again decides (over and above all questions
+of use) what material is the best, or the most delightful, to be
+employed for a given purpose. You choose a material because it makes a
+decorative covering to mere utility. That beauty of choice in material
+alone is the beginning of ornament.
+
+When I began, I spoke for a moment as though use and ornament were
+opposite or separate principles; but what I shall hope soon to show
+is that they are so interlocked and combined that there is no keeping
+them apart when once the spirit of man has opened to perceive the true
+sacramental service which springs from their union, and the social
+discordance that inevitably follows upon their divorce. But as man’s
+ordinary definition of the word “use” is sadly material and debased,
+and as his approval and sanction of the joys of life have too often
+been limited by a similar materialism of thought, one is obliged, for
+the time being, to accept the ordinary limiting distinction, so that
+the finer and less realised uses of beauty and delight may be shown
+more clearly as the true end to which all lesser uses should converge.
+
+Life itself is a usage of material, the bringing together of atoms into
+form; and we know, from what science teaches of evolution, that this
+usage has constantly been in the direction of forms of life which,
+for certain reasons, we describe as “higher.” Emerging through those
+forms have come manifestations or qualities, which quite obviously give
+delight to the holders of them; and we are able to gather in watching
+them, as they live, move, and have their being, that for them life
+seems good. It is no part of their acceptance of what has come that
+they are here not to enjoy themselves.
+
+Thus we see from the upward trend of creation a faculty for enjoyment
+steadily emerging, and existing side by side with fears, risks, and
+hardships which the struggle for existence entails--probably an even
+increased faculty for enjoyment, as those fears and risks become more
+consciously part of their lives. And I question whether we should think
+that the wild deer had chosen well, could it resign its apprehension
+of death at the drinking-place for the sake of becoming a worm--the
+wriggling but scarcely conscious prey of the early bird.
+
+Man (the most conscious prey of death) has also his compensations;
+but, wishing to eat his cake and have it, he insists that his increased
+self-consciousness is the hall-mark of an immortality which he is
+unwilling to concede to others. He sees (or the majority of those see,
+who preach personal immortality after death) no moral necessity for
+conceding immortality to the worm because the early bird cuts short
+its career, or to the wild deer because it enjoys life, shrinks from
+death, and endures pain; or to the peewit, because she loves her young;
+or to the parrot, because it dies with a vocabulary still inadequate
+for expressing that contempt for the human species with which the caged
+experience of a life-time has filled its brain. Yet, for these and
+similar reasons applied to himself, man thinks that immortality is his
+due.
+
+In doing so, he does but pursue, to a rather injudicious extent, that
+instinct for the ornamentation and embellishment of the facts of life
+which I spoke of to begin with. For whether it be well-founded or not,
+a belief in immortality gives ornament to existence.
+
+Of course, it may be bad ornament; and I think it becomes bad ornament
+the moment he bases it upon the idea that this life is evil and not
+good. If he says “Life is so good that I want it to go on for ever and
+ever,” and thinks that he can make it better by asserting that it will
+go on for ever and ever, that is a playful statement which may have
+quite a stimulating effect on his career, and make him a much more
+charming and social and imaginative person than he would otherwise be.
+But if he wants a future life merely because he regards this life as a
+“vale of misery”--and wants that future life to contain evil as well
+as good--a Hell as well as a Heaven (in order that he may visualise
+retribution meted out on a satisfactory scale upon those whom he cannot
+satisfactorily visit with retribution to-day) then, I think, that it
+tends to become bad ornament, and is likely to make him less charming,
+less social, and less imaginatively inventive for the getting rid of
+evil conditions from present existence than he would be if he had not
+so over-loaded his brain with doctrinal adornments.
+
+Still, it is ornament of a kind; and with ornament, good or bad (the
+moment he has got for himself leisure or any elbow-room at all in the
+struggle for existence) man cannot help embellishing the facts of
+life--the things that he really knows.
+
+Now that instinct for embellishment is of course latent in Nature
+itself, or we should not find it in man; and it comes of Nature (the
+great super-mathematician) putting two and two together in a way which
+does not merely make four. When two and two are put together by Nature,
+they come to life in a new shape; and man is (up-to-date) the most
+appreciative receptacle of that fact which Nature has yet produced. Man
+builds up his whole appreciation of life by association--by studying
+a method of putting two and two together which comes to something very
+much more than a dead numerical result.
+
+This, as I have said, is Nature’s way of giving to our investments in
+life a compound interest. Man throws into life his whole capital, body,
+soul, and spirit; and as a result of that investment Nature steadily
+returns to him year by year--not detached portions of his original
+outlay, but something new and different. Out of every contact between
+man’s energy and Nature’s, something new arises. And yet, though new,
+it is not strange; it has features of familiarity; it is partly his,
+partly hers; and if his spirit rises above the merely mechanical, it
+is endeared to him by and derives its fullest value from association.
+All beautiful work, all work which is of real use and benefit to the
+community, bears implicitly within it this mark of parentage--of the
+way it has been come by, through patience, skill, ingenuity, something
+more intimate and subtle than the dead impenetrable surface of a thing
+mechanically formed without the accompaniment either of hope or joy.
+
+This creation of new values by association (which you can trace through
+all right processes of labour) is seen even in things which have very
+little of human about them.
+
+The germ of its expression is to be found in that simplest of
+arithmetic propositions to which I have just referred: two and two
+make--not two twos but four, which is, in fact, a fresh concept; and
+the mind that can embrace so much--the idea of four as a number with
+an identity of its own has already raised itself above the lowest
+level of savagery. In that mind something has begun out of which the
+social idea may presently be developed; for the man who has conceived
+the number four will presently be identifying his new concept with a
+variety of correspondencies under fresh aspects: he will discover that
+certain animals have four legs, whereas, until then, his view of them
+was rather that of the child who said that a horse had two legs in
+front, two legs behind, and two at each side--a statement which shows,
+indeed, that the horse has been earnestly considered from as many
+points of view as are sometimes necessary to enable a Cabinet Minister
+to make up his mind, but, for all that, never as a whole; and in such a
+mind, though the identity of the horse may be established from whatever
+point of view he presents himself, the thought of the horse, as a being
+of harmoniously related parts, having order and species, has not yet
+been established. Until a man can count, and sum up the results of
+his counting in synthesis, Nature is composed merely of a series of
+units--and the mind cannot begin that grouping and defining process
+which leads to association and from that to the development of the
+social idea.
+
+You will remember in _Alice through the Looking Glass_, when the two
+Queens set to work to test her educational proficiency--you will
+remember how the White Queen says (in order to discover whether Alice
+can do addition) “What’s one, and one, and one, and one, and one, and
+one?”
+
+“I don’t know,” says Alice, “I lost count.”
+
+“She can’t do addition,” says the White Queen.
+
+Well--she “lost count,” and, therefore, that series of ones failed to
+have any fresh meaning or association for her.
+
+In the same way the primitive savage loses count; beyond three, numbers
+are too many for him--they become merely a “lot.” But war and the
+chase begin to teach him the relative value of numbers; and he finds
+out that if one lot goes out to fight a bigger lot, the smaller lot
+probably gets beaten; so that, before long, calculation of some sort
+becomes necessary for the preservation of existence. He finds out also
+(and this is where ornament begins to come in) that a certain amount of
+wilful miscalculation has a beauty and a value of its own. So, after
+going out to fight ten against ten, and defeating them, he comes back
+and says to his wives and the surrounding communities by whom he wishes
+to be held in awe--“My lot killed bigger lot--much, much bigger lot.”
+And so, when he comes later on to set down his wilful miscalculations
+in records of scripture, he provides delightful problems for the Bishop
+Colensos of future ages--problems the undoing of which may shake to
+the foundations the authority of documents which some mid-Victorian
+school of Christianity has hitherto held to be divinely and verbally
+inspired--not realising that the normal tendency of human nature is
+to be decorative when writing its national history or when giving its
+reasons for having plunged into war.
+
+You begin now, then, to perceive (if you did not before), the
+importance of ornamental association, even when confined to matters of
+arithmetic; and the moral value to future ages not merely of calculated
+truths but of calculated untruths.
+
+But this merely figurative illustration of the quickness of the human
+brain, in its primitive stage, to use mathematics to unmathematical
+ends (or science to ends quite unscientific) does not bring us very far
+upon the road to that self-realisation, in ornament rather than in use,
+which I hope to make manifest by tracing to their most characteristic
+forms of expression the higher grades of civilization.
+
+And I shall hope, by and by, to show that you cannot be social without
+also being ornamental; it is the beginning of that connecting link
+which shall presently make men realise that life is one, and that all
+life is good.
+
+Take, to begin with, the earliest instruments by which primitive man
+began raising himself from the ruck of material conditions; his
+weapons--first of the chase, and then of war. No sooner had he proved
+their use than he began to ornament them--to make them records,
+trophies, and so--objects of beauty. He cannot stop from doing so;
+his delight in the skill of his hands breaks out into ornament. It is
+the same with the arts of peace, the work of the woman-primitive--she
+moulds a pot, or weaves a square of material, and into it--the moment
+she has accomplished the rudiments--goes pattern, beauty, something
+additional and memorable that is not for use material, but for use
+spiritual--pleasure, delight.
+
+And that quite simple example, from a time when man was living the
+life, as we should now regard it, of a harried and hunted beast--with
+his emergence from surrounding perils scarcely yet assured to him--goes
+on consistently up and up the scale of human evolution; and the more
+strongly it gets to be established in social institutions, the more
+noble is likely to be the form of civilization which enshrines it. And
+the less it shows, the less is that form of civilization likely to be
+worthy of preservation, or its products of permanent value to the human
+race.
+
+It is not the millionaire who leaves his mark on the world so that
+hereafter men are glad when they name him; it is the “maker” who
+has turned uses into delights; not the master of the money-market,
+but the Master of Arts. The nearest thing we have on earth to that
+immortality which so many look to as the human goal lies in those forms
+of ornament--of embellishment over and above mere use--which man’s
+genius has left to us in architecture, poetry, music, sculpture, and
+painting. Nothing that stops at utility has anything like the same
+value, for the revelation of the human spirit, as that which finds its
+setting in the Arts--the sculptures of Egypt and Greece, the Gothic
+and Romanesque cathedrals of France, England, Germany and Italy, the
+paintings of the Renaissance, the masterpieces of Bach and Beethoven,
+the poems and writings all down the ages of men comparatively poor in
+monetary wealth, but rich beyond the dreams of avarice in their power
+to communicate their own souls to things material and to leave them
+there, when their own bodies have turned to dust. In the embellishment
+they added to life they bestowed on the age in which they lived its
+most significant commentary. There you will find, as nowhere else, the
+meaning and the interpretation of the whole social order to which these
+forms were as flower and fruit. Ancient Greece is not represented to us
+to-day by its descendants in the flesh (as an expression of that life
+they have ceased to exist) but by those works of art and philosophy
+through which men--many now nameless--made permanent the vision of
+delight to which, in the brief life of the flesh, they had become
+heirs. The self-realisation of that age--all the best of it that we
+inherit--comes to us through embodiment in forms transcending material
+use.
+
+Run your mind’s eye through the various peoples and nationalities of
+Europe--of the world--and you will find that their characteristic
+charm--that which is “racy” of their native soil, marking the
+distinction between race and race, lies in the expression they have
+given to life over and above use. If we had kept to use, race would
+have remained expressionless. Race expresses itself in ornament; and
+even among a poor peasant people (and far more among them than among
+the crowded and over-worked populations of our great cities where
+we pursue merely commercial wealth) comes out in a characteristic
+appreciation of the superabundance of material with which, at some
+point or another, life has lifted them above penury. In the great
+civilizations it extends itself over a rich blend of all these, drawn
+from far sources; and the more widely it extends over the material uses
+of life, the higher and the more permanent are the products of that
+form of civilization likely to be. What does it mean but this?--man is
+out to enjoy himself.
+
+Having said that, need I add that I put a very high interpretation upon
+the word “joy”?
+
+To that end--man’s enjoyment of life--all art is profoundly useful. I
+put that forward in opposition to the specious doctrine of Oscar Wilde
+that “all art is entirely useless.” But it is usefulness extended in a
+new direction; leaving the material uses, by which ordinary values are
+measured, it shifts to the spiritual; and by the spiritual I mean that
+which animates, vitalizes, socializes.
+
+To that end it may often be--and is generally the case--that, in the
+material sense, art is a useless addition or refinement upon that which
+was first planned merely for the service of man’s bodily needs. Yet
+where the need is of a worthy and genuine kind, art never ceases to
+rejoice at the use that is underlying it. This can be clearly seen in
+architecture, where the beauty of design, the proportion, the capacity
+of the edifice--though far transcending the physical need which called
+it into being--remain nevertheless in subtle relation thereto, and give
+to it a new expression--useless indeed to the body--but of this use to
+the mind, that it awakens, kindles, enlivens, sensitizes--making it to
+be in some sort creative, by perception of and response to the creative
+purpose which evoked that form. You cannot enter a cathedral without
+becoming aware that its embracing proportions mean something far more
+than the mere capacity to hold a crowd; its end and aim are to inspire
+in that crowd a certain mental attitude, a spiritual apprehension--to
+draw many minds into harmony, and so to make them one--a really
+tremendous fact when successfully achieved.
+
+Now nothing can be so made--to awaken and enlarge the spirit--without
+some apparent wastefulness of material or of energy. A cathedral will
+absorb more stone, and the labour of more men’s lives, before it is
+finished, than a tenement of equal housing capacity which aims only at
+providing warmth and a cover from the elements. To provide so much joy
+and enlargement to the human spirit, a kind of waste, upon the material
+plane, is necessary; and the man without joy or imagination in his
+composition is likely to say on beholding it: “Why was all this waste
+made?”
+
+Bear in mind this accusation of waste which can constantly be made,
+from a certain standpoint against all forms of joy evolved by the art
+of living--possibly against all forms of joy that you can name; for all
+joy entails an expenditure of energy, and for those who do not realise
+the value of joy such expenditure must necessarily seem wasteful.
+
+But when a man employs hand or brain worthily, straightway he discovers
+(latent within that connection) the instinct of delight, of ornament.
+He cannot rejoice in his craftsmanship without wishing to embellish
+it--to place upon it the expression of the joy which went with the
+making. All that he does to this end is apparently (from the material
+point of view) useless; but from the spiritual it is profoundly useful;
+and from the spirit (and this I think is important) it tends to re-act
+and kindle the craftsman to finer craftsmanship than if he had worked
+for utility alone.
+
+Now if spirit thus acts on matter--achieving its own well-being only
+through a certain waste of material, or expenditure of labour upon the
+lower plane, yet communicating back to matter influences from that
+state of well-being to which it has thus attained--may it not be that
+waste of a certain kind (what I would call “selective waste” _versus_
+“haphazard waste”) is the concomitant not only of spiritual but of
+material growth also? May it not be that evolution has followed upon a
+course of waste deliberately willed and insisted on--and that without
+such waste, life--even material life--had not evolved to its present
+stage?
+
+We see a certain wastefulness attaching to many of the most beautiful
+biological manifestations in the world. Up to a certain point, the
+construction of flower, bird, beast, fish, shows a wonderful economy of
+structure, of means to end (it is the same also in the arts). But there
+comes a point at which Nature, “letting herself go,” becomes fantastic,
+extravagant--may one not say “wilful”?--in the forms she selects for
+her final touches of adornment. And is it not nearly always when the
+matter in hand is most closely related to the “will to live”--or, in
+other words, in relation to the amative instincts--that the “art of
+living” breaks out, and that Nature quits all moderation of design and
+becomes frankly ornamental and extravagant? Just at the point where to
+be creative is the immediate motive, where, in the fulfilment of that
+motive, life is found to be a thing of delight, just there, Nature,
+being amative, becomes playful, exuberant and ornamental.
+
+There are some birds which, in this connection, carry upon their
+persons adornments so extravagant that one wonders how for so many
+generations they have been able to live and move and multiply, bearing
+such edifices upon their backs, their heads, their tails--that they
+were not a crushing hindrance to the necessary affairs of life. They
+certainly cannot have been a help; and yet--they still persist in them!
+
+Taking, then, these natural embryonic beginnings as our starting point,
+I would be inclined to trace out the living value of art and ornament
+somewhat upon these lines: Exuberance--the emergence of beauty and
+adornment, in addition to the mere functional grace arising out of
+fitness for use--has always been going on through the whole process
+of creation among animate nature. We see it established in a thousand
+forms, not only in bird, beast and reptile, but in the vegetable
+world as well. The tendency of all life that has found a fair field
+for its development, is to play with its material--to show that it
+has something over and above the straight needs imposed on it by the
+struggle for existence, which it can spare for self-expression.
+
+It has been lured on to these manifestations mainly by that “will
+to live” which underlies the attractions of sex. That exuberance
+is an essential feature of the evolutionary process at the point
+where self-realisation by self-reproduction is the game to play.
+Under that impulse the selective principle begins to assert itself,
+and straightway the outcome is ornament. Self-realisation (by
+self-reproduction under all sorts of images and symbols) is the true
+basis of ornament and of art: self-realisation!
+
+The spirit of man, moving through these means, impresses itself
+reproductively on the spirits of others with a far better calculation
+of effect than can be secured through bodily inheritance. For in
+physical parentage there is always the chance of a throw-back to
+tainted origins; the sober and moral citizen cannot be sure of sober
+and moral children in whom the desire of his soul shall be satisfied.
+They may be drawn, by irresistible forces, to take after some giddy and
+disreputable old grandfather or grandmother instead of after him; for
+in his veins run the parental weaknesses of thousands of generations;
+and over the racial strain that passes through him to others he
+possesses no control whatever. But the man who has given ornament to
+life in any form of art--though he commits it to the risks and chances
+of life, the destructive accidents of peace and war--is in danger
+of no atavistic trick being played upon the product of his soul; he
+is assured of his effect, and so long as it endures it reflects and
+represents his personality more faithfully than the descendants of his
+blood.
+
+Now for the satisfaction of that instinct, the perpetuation of name
+and identity is not necessary. The artist would not (if told that his
+self-realisation was destined to become merged anonymously in the
+existence of fresco, or canvas, or mosaic)--he would not therefore lay
+down his mallet or his brush, and say that in that case the survival
+of these things to a future age was no survival for him. The maker of
+beautiful inlay would not lose all wish to do inlay if the knowledge
+that he, individually, as the craftsman were destined to oblivion.
+Let the future involve him in anonymity as impenetrable as it liked,
+he would still go on expressing himself in ornament; self-realisation
+would still be the law of his being.
+
+That is the psychology of the artist mind--of that part of humanity
+which produces things that come nearest, of all which earth has to
+show, to conditions of immortality, and so presumably are the most
+satisfying to man’s wish for continued individual existence. The makers
+of beauty do not set any great store on the continuance of their
+names--the continuance of their self-realisation is what they care
+about.
+
+But the possessors of these works of beauty do very often make a great
+point of having their own names perpetuated, even though the vehicle is
+another personality than their own. And so very frequently we have the
+names passed down to us of these parasites of immortality--the tyrants
+for whom palaces, or arches, or temples were built--but not the names
+of the artists who designed them, whose immortality they really are.
+And though the official guide may refresh our memory with snippets
+of history, and say this, that, or the other about the name to which
+the temple remains attached--the really important thing that lives,
+survives, and influences us is not the externally applied name, but the
+invested beauty which has no name, but is soul incarnate in stone to
+the glory of God--the self-realisation of a being who (but for that)
+has passed utterly from remembrance.
+
+That, as I have said before, is the nearest thing to immortality that
+we know. And it comes to us, in a shape which, (so to be informed with
+immortality) cannot limit itself to the demands of use. When all the
+claims of use are satisfied, then the life of personality begins to
+show--the fullest and the most permanent form of self-realisation known
+to man on earth lies in ornament.
+
+Of course, when I say “ornament,” I use the word in a very wide sense.
+What I have said of sculpture, painting or architecture, applies
+equally to poetry, music or philosophy. I would even go further, and
+apply it in other directions where no material matrix for it exists.
+Every department of mental activity has its ornament--the culminating
+expression of that particular direction of the human will. Faith is
+the ornament of destiny, Hope the ornament of knowledge, Love the
+ornament of sex. Without these ornaments destiny and knowledge and sex
+would have no beauty that the soul of man should desire them. Those
+additions or glosses were quite unnecessary to existence--up to a
+point; for millions of years the world did without them, and Evolution
+managed to scramble along without faith, without hope, without love.
+But Evolution itself brought them into being; and then for millions of
+years they existed in germ, without self-consciousness; but steadily,
+as they germinated, they produced beauty and a sense of design in
+their environment. Co-ordination, dovetailing (peaceful word!), the
+harmonising and gentle effect of one life upon another, as opposed to
+the savage and predatory, began to have effect. And in response came
+ornament; faith, hope and love showed their rudimentary beginnings even
+in the lower animals.
+
+One of the most perfectly decorative objects that I have ever seen in
+the animal world (you will find it in still-life form in our Natural
+History Museum) is the device by which a certain small possum has
+taught her young to accompany her from branch to branch. Along her back
+she seats her litter, then over their heads like the conducting-wire
+of a tram-line she extends her tail--and then (each like an electric
+connecting rod) up go the little tails, make a loop, adjust themselves
+to the maternal guide-rope, and hang on. And there, safe from upset, is
+the family-omnibus ready to start!
+
+Of course, you may say that is use; but it is use in which the
+spiritualities, faith, hope and love, begin to appear; and in the
+gentleness of its intention it forms a basis for the up-growth
+of beauty. Now all the arts are, in the same way, first of all
+structural--having for their starting-point a sound and economic use of
+the material on which they are based. Music, architecture, poetry, and
+the rest were all, to begin with, the result of an instinctive choice
+or selection, directed to the elimination of superfluities, accidents,
+excrescences--which to the craftsman’s purpose are nothing.
+
+Nature, in her seed-sowing, has gone to work to propagate by profusion;
+her method is to sow a million seeds so as to make sure that some may
+live; thus she meets and out-matches the chances that are against her.
+The seed of Art sprang up differently; maker-man took hold of the one
+selected seed, not of a dozen, or of a thousand dozen promiscuously,
+and bent his faculties on making that one seed (his chosen material)
+fit to face life and its chances: if a house--walls and roof
+calculated to keep out the rain and resist the force of storms: if a
+textile--fabric of a staple sufficient to resist the wear and tear to
+which it would be subjected: if a putting together of words meant to
+outlast the brief occasion of their utterance--then in a form likely
+to be impressive, and therefore memorable; so that in an age before
+writing was known they might find a safe tabernacle, travelling from
+place to place in the minds of men. And similarly with music--a system
+of sounds so ruled by structural law as to be capable of transmission
+either by instrument, or by voice disciplined and trained to a certain
+code of limitations. And being thus made memorable and passed from
+mouth to mouth, from one place to another, and from age to age, they
+acquired a social significance and importance; till, seeing them thus
+lifted above chance, man set himself to give them new forms of beauty
+and adornment.
+
+And the governing motive was, and always has been, first man’s wish to
+leave memorable records--beyond the limits of his own generation--of
+what life has meant for him; and secondly (and this is the more
+intimate phase) the delight of the craftsman in his work, the
+exuberance of vital energy (secure of its structural ground-work)
+breaking out into play. “See,” it says, “how I dance, and gambol, and
+triumph! This superfluity of strength proves me a victor in my struggle
+to live.”
+
+Nothing else does; for if (having survived the struggle) man only lives
+miserably--scrapes through as it were--the question in the face of so
+poverty-stricken a result, may still be--“Was the struggle worth it?”
+And so by his arts and graces, by his adornment of his streets, temples
+and theatres, by his huge delight in himself, so soon as the essentials
+of mere material existence are secured to him, man has really shown
+that life is good in itself, that he can do well enough without the
+assurance of personal immortality held out to him by the theologians.
+Whether that be or be not his reward hereafter, he will still strive to
+express himself; but for that end mere use alone will not satisfy him.
+
+We have seen, then, how man, in his social surroundings, begins to
+secure something over and above the mere necessities of life; and so,
+after providing himself with a certain competence of food, clothing
+and shelter, has means and energy left for the supply of luxuries,
+ornaments, delights--call them what you will. And according to
+the direction in which he flings out for the acquisition of these
+superfluities--so will his whole manhood develop, or his type of racial
+culture be moulded.
+
+Far back in the beginnings of civilization one of the first forms
+taken by this surplus of power and energy over mere necessity was the
+acquisition of slaves and wives. Civilization then began to ornament
+itself with two modes of body-service--the menial attendance of the
+slave upon his master, and the polygamous sexual attendance of the
+woman upon her lord.
+
+To-day we think that both those things were, from a moral point of
+view, bad ornament. But you cannot look into the history of any
+civilization conducted on those lines without seeing that they
+decorated it--and that, out of their acceptance, came colour,
+pomp, splendour, means for leisure, for enjoyment--for a very keen
+self-realisation of a kind by the few at the expense of the many. And
+the masterful few made that form of decorated civilization more sure
+for themselves by extending a good deal of the decorative element
+to the subservient lives around them. The slaves wore fine liveries
+and lorded it over lower slaves, the favourite wives lived in luxury
+and laziness, eating sweets and spending their days in the frivolous
+mysteries of the toilet.
+
+At a certain point in the social scale this form of ornamental
+existence produced great misery, great hardships, great abasement. But
+it was not instituted and maintained for that reason. Those underlying
+conditions were a drawback, they were a misuse of human nature employed
+as a basis for that ornamental superstructure to build on. And out of
+that underlying misuse came the weakness and the eventual decay of that
+once flourishing school of ornament.
+
+But when that school of ornament was threatened by other schools, it
+was ready to fight to the death for its ornamental superfluities--for
+polygamy, for slavery, for power over others, which had come to mean
+for it all that made life worth living! Life was quite capable of
+being carried on without those things--was, and is, happily lived by
+other races to the accompaniment of another set of ornaments which
+those races think more enjoyable. But no race will consent to live
+without some sort of ornament of its own choosing; and when its choice
+of ornaments, or of social superfluities, over and above the needs
+of existence, is seriously threatened from without it declares that
+it is fighting not merely for liberty but for existence. Yet we know
+quite well that the people of invaded and conquered States continue
+in the main to exist--they continue even to wear ornaments; but these
+are apt to be imposed ornaments galling to the national pride. And so
+to-day, in the midst of a vast belligerency, we have committees and
+consultations going on, to see to it lest, at the end of the war, under
+German dominance, our women should have their future fashions imposed
+on them from Berlin instead of from Paris, a fearful doom for any lady
+of taste to contemplate.
+
+The example may seem frivolous, but it is a parable of the truth;
+we call our ornaments our liberties, and if we cannot ourselves die
+fighting for them, we make others die for us.
+
+Let us take up (for illustration of the same point) another stage
+of civilization--that of ancient Greece. In Greece the city was the
+centre of civilization, and its public buildings became the outward and
+visible sign of the people’s pride of life and of their sense of power.
+The fact that their private dwellings were very simple, and that they
+expended nearly the whole of their artistry upon public works (things
+to be shared and delighted in by all the citizens in common) had a
+profound influence upon their civilization. That new social ideal of
+civic pride found its way irresistibly into ornament. You could not
+have had civic pride in anything like the same degree without it.
+
+But Greek civilization did not fall into decay because of the beauty
+and perfection with which it crowned itself in the public eye, but
+because of certain underlying evils and misuses in the body politic--in
+which again slavery and the subjection of women had their share. Greek
+civilization fell because it failed to recognise the dignity of all
+human nature; it reserved its sense of dignity for a selected race
+and class; it failed to recognise the dignity of all true kinds of
+service, and prided itself in military service alone--in that and in
+the philosophies and the arts. It built a wonderful temple to its gods,
+but failed in a very large degree to take into God the whole body of
+humanity over which it had control. And so, Greek civilization broke up
+into portions of an unimportant size and perished.
+
+At a later day--and again with the city as centre to its life of
+self-realisation--we get the great period of the Italian Renaissance,
+a period in which civic and feudal and ecclesiastical influences
+alternately jostled and combined.
+
+And out of these three prides arose a wonderfully complex
+art--tremendously expressive of what life meant for that people. And
+you got then (for the first time, I think), grouped under the civic
+arm, a new life-consciousness--the consciousness of the guilds, the
+workers, and the craftsmen. The dignity of labour began to assert
+itself; and when it did, inevitably it broke into ornament on its own
+account--not at the bidding of an employer, but for the honour and
+glory of the worker himself. And so, from that date on, the homes and
+halls and churches of the guilds became some of the noblest monuments
+to what life meant for men who had found joy in their labour.
+
+Now that did not come till the craftsman had won free from slavery
+and from forced labour; but when he was a freeman, with room to turn
+round, he built up temples to his craft, to make more evident that the
+true goal of labour is not use but delight. And only when it fell back
+into modern slavery at the hands of commercial capitalism, only then
+did labour’s power of spontaneous expression depart from it and become
+imitative and debased.
+
+I could take you further, and show you (among the survivals from our
+England of the Middle Ages) the “joy of the harvest” expressed in the
+great granaries and tithe-barns which still crown like abbey-churches
+the corn-lands of Home. Concerning one of these William Morris said
+that it stood second in his estimation among all the Gothic buildings
+of Europe! Think of it!--of what that means in the realisation of
+life-values by the age which had a mind so to celebrate man’s rest
+after the labour of the harvest! In those days England was called
+“merry” and foreigners who came to her shores reported as a national
+characteristic the happy looks of her people: even their faces showed
+adornment! And thus it is that beautiful use always clothes itself in
+beauty.
+
+I have said that all art is useful. To many that may have seemed a
+very contentious statement. But how can one separate beauty from use
+if one holds that everything which delights us is useful? On that
+statement there is only one condition I would impose. The use in
+which we delight must not mean the misuse or the infliction of pain
+on others. In those periods of civilization to which I have referred
+(so magnificent in their powers of self-discovery and self-adornment),
+there were always dark and cruel habitations where the “art of living”
+was not applied. They were content that the beauty on which they prided
+themselves should be built up on the suffering, the oppression, or the
+corruption of others. In the lust of their eyes there was a blind spot,
+so that they cared little about the conditions imposed by their own
+too arrogant claim for happiness on the lives that were spent to serve
+them. And out of their blindness came at last the downfall of their
+power.
+
+So it has always been, so it always must be. I believe that beauty,
+delight, ornament, are as near to the object of life as anything that
+one can name, and that through right uses we attain to these as our
+goal. But it is no good claiming to possess delightful things if we do
+not see to it that those who make them for us have also the means to
+live delightfully.
+
+If man cannot make all the uses and services of life decent and
+wholesome as a starting-point, neither can he make life enjoyable--not,
+I mean, with a good conscience. If he would see God through beauty, he
+must see Him not here and there only, but in the “land of the living”;
+else (as the psalmist said) his spirit must faint utterly.
+
+Our life is built up--we know not to what ultimate end--on an infinite
+number of uses, functions, mechanisms. These uses enable us to live;
+they do not necessarily enable us to enjoy. You can quite well imagine
+the use of all your senses and organs so conditioned that you could
+not enjoy a single one of them, and yet they might still fulfil their
+utilitarian purpose of keeping you alive.
+
+I need not rehearse to you in troublesome detail conditions of life
+where everything you see is an eyesore, every touch a cause of
+shrinking, every sound a discord, where taste and smell become a revolt
+and a loathing.
+
+Our modern civilization derives many of its present comforts from
+conditions such as these under which thousands, nay millions, of
+subservient human lives become brutalised. So long as we base our
+ideal of wealth on individual aggrandisement, and on monetary and
+commercial prosperity, and not (as we should do) upon human nature
+itself--making it our chief aim that every life should be set free for
+self-realisation in ornament and delight--so long will these things be
+inevitable.
+
+But when we, as men and women, and as nations, realise that human
+nature is the most beautiful thing on earth (in its possibilities, I
+mean) then surely our chief desire will be to make that our wealth here
+and now, and out of it rear up our memorial to the ages that come after.
+
+
+
+
+ART AND CITIZENSHIP
+
+(1910)
+
+
+The most hardened advocate of “Art for Art’s sake,” will hardly deny
+that Art, for all its “sacred egoism,” is a social force. The main
+question is where does your Art-training begin?
+
+The conditions of the home, the workshop, and of social industries
+do more than the schools and the universities to educate a nation;
+and more especially, perhaps, to educate it toward a right or a wrong
+feeling about Art.
+
+And if, in these departments, your national education takes a wrong
+line, then (however much you build schools over the heads of your
+pupils and intercept their feet with scholarships, and block their
+natural outlook on life with beautiful objects produced in past ages
+and in other countries) your Art-training will partake of the same
+condemnation.
+
+True education, as opposed to merely commercial education, is a
+training of mind and body to an appreciation of right values; values,
+not prices. The man who has an all-round appreciation of right values
+is a well-educated man; and he could not have a better basis either for
+the love or the practice of Art than this appreciation of what things
+are really worth.
+
+But, in the present age, which prides itself on its inhuman system
+of specialisation as a means to economy, such a man is rather a
+rare phenomenon; for it is about as difficult to get out of present
+conditions a true appreciation of life values--a true Art-training--as
+it is to get a true artist. Where your national conditions shut down
+the critical faculties, and make their exercise difficult, there too,
+your creative artistic faculties are being shut down and made difficult
+also. They are far more interdependent than your average Art-teacher
+or Art-student is generally willing to admit. The idea that he has to
+concern himself with conditions outside his own particular department
+threatens him with extra trouble, and the burden of a conscience
+that the doctrine of “Art for Art’s sake,” will not wholly satisfy;
+and so he is inclined to shut his eyes, and direct his energies to
+the securing of favourable departmental instead of right national
+conditions.
+
+But the man, or woman, who embarks whole-heartedly on Art-training
+must in the end find himself involved in a struggle for the recovery
+of those true social values which have been lost (or the acquisition
+of those which are as yet unrealised) and for the substitution, among
+other things, of true for false economics. He cannot afford to live
+a life of aloof specialisation, when the conditions out of which he
+derives and into which he is throwing his work are of a complementarily
+disturbing kind. If, that is to say, the give-and-take conditions
+between artistic supply and social demand have become vitiated, if
+the conditions of the market, or of society, are unfavourable to the
+reception of products of true worth, then the artist must to some
+extent be an active party in the struggle for getting things set right.
+
+That does not mean that, if he has a gift for the designing of
+stage-scenery, he should necessarily be involved in a struggle to
+secure a good drainage system (though even that should have an interest
+for him) but it does mean very much that he should be tremendously
+interested in the education of his own and the public mind to the point
+of receiving good drama rather than bad, in order that his art may have
+worthy material to work upon; and as good drama largely arises from a
+lively conscience and the quickening in the community of new ideas, he
+will wish his public a keen and open mind on all social questions.
+
+Similarly a man who designs for textile fabrics should be very much
+concerned indeed in getting cleanly conditions and pure air in the
+towns and dwelling-houses where his designs have to live and look
+beautiful, or grow ugly and rot. And there you get set before you in
+small, the opposition between the interests of Art and the supposed
+interests of trade. It is--or it is supposed to be--in the interest of
+trade that things should wear out or get broken, and be replaced by
+other things. It is in the interest of Art that they should not wear
+out, that they should last; that everything worthy which is given to
+man’s hand to do should have secured to it the greatest possible length
+of life. And the reason is that the artist, if he be a true artist,
+realises the value of things, the life value; that he is on the side of
+creation and not of destruction, of preservation and not of waste. He
+has within his nature an instinct that the greatest possible longevity
+is the right condition for all manual labour; that when a man sets his
+hand to a thing he should have it as his main aim to give good value,
+to make it so that it will endure. And in this connection I would like
+to substitute for the words “art training” the word “education.” It
+is in the interests of education that things should be made to last,
+and that only things should be made of any lasting material that
+deserve lasting. Nothing should be produced the value of which will
+become negligible before it is honestly worn out. And so it is in the
+interest of education, as of Art, that we should eliminate as much as
+possible the passing and the ephemeral, the demand of mood and fashion,
+the thing cheaply chosen, cheaply acquired, and cheaply let go; and
+substitute the thing that we shall have a long use for, and should like
+to keep permanently--the thing acquired with thought and care, and
+thoughtfully and carefully preserved because it has in itself a value.
+
+But you won’t get any broad exercise of that kind of choice between
+evil and good until you get a sense of right values--going far away
+from what apparently touches art--in the mind, and the public and
+private life of the community. And so, as I started by saying, true Art
+is bound up with true education and social conditions. Good citizenship
+is one of the conditions for setting national Art upon a proper basis.
+A lively sense of your duty to your neighbour cannot fail to have an
+effect upon your taste in art.
+
+Now I want to bring this view of things home to you. So I will ask
+everyone here to think for a moment of their own homes, their own
+living-rooms, and especially of their parlours or drawing-rooms, which
+are by their nature intended to express not so much our domestic
+necessities as our domestic sense of the value of beauty, recreation,
+and rest. And to begin with, how do you show your sense of duty to
+the architect, who has (if you are fortunate) designed for you rooms
+of pleasant and restful proportions? How many of the objects in those
+rooms help at all to give a unifying and a harmonious effect, or are
+in themselves in any way beautiful--things, that is to say, which (if
+not of actual use) we love to set our eyes on, and feel what fineness
+of skill in handling, what clean human thought in design went to their
+production? Have those things been put there quite irrespective of
+their price and the display they make of their owner’s “comfortable
+circumstances”? Are they subordinated to a really intelligent sense
+of what a living-room should be? Or are they merely a crowd, a
+litter, things flung into the room pell-mell by a house-mistress
+bent on securing for her parlour-maid a silly hour’s dusting every
+day of objects--not of virtue--and for herself the recognition by
+her neighbours that she has money enough to throw away in making her
+living-room a silly imitation of a shop for bric-a-brac. Can you, even
+those of you who do not live in streets where you have to safeguard
+your privacy--can you look out of the window without being tickled in
+the face by lace curtains, blind-tassels, or potted palm-leaves? Can
+you sit down to the writing-table without entangling the legs of your
+chair in a woolly mat and your feet in the waste-paper basket, or get
+at the drawer of the cabinet without moving two or three arm-chairs,
+or play the piano without causing the crocks which stand upon it to
+jangle? Is the rest and recreation you get in that room anything else
+but a sense of self-complacency based upon pride of possession? I ask
+you to think what your furnishing of your rooms means, and remember
+that to every person who comes into those rooms--and more especially
+perhaps to the maids whom you set to dust them--you are helping to give
+either an Art-training or an anti-Art-training, a training in true uses
+and values, or in misuses and mere waste and wantonness.
+
+Of course I know that to some extent you are victims. You have dear
+friends who will give you presents, and you can’t hurt their feelings
+by not putting up another shelf, or erecting another glass-shade,
+where neither are wanted, or driving another peg into the wall to hang
+a picture where no picture can be properly seen. And probably the
+reason you cannot is because you have shown yourself so thoughtless
+and haphazard in all your ideas about decoration and house-furnishing
+that even in that house, which you falsely assert to be your castle,
+you stand defenceless before this invasion of ornamental microbes!
+Obviously the house is not yours if others can break in and spoil its
+borders with their own false taste. But I can assure you that those
+inroads do not happen to people whose rooms show a scrupulous sense of
+selection. You inspire then (even in the thoughtless) a certain dread
+and respect. Though they regard you as uncanny and call you a crank,
+you are beginning their Art-training for them.
+
+I remember, in this connection, a Quaker acquaintance whose friends
+descended upon him at the time of his marriage with certain household
+monstrosities which he was expected thereafter to live down to. It was
+a cataclysm which he could not avert; but he found a remedy. He became
+a passive resister to the Education rate, and year by year he placed
+at the disposal of the distraining authorities a selection of his
+wedding-presents till his house was purged of them. I have said that
+you cannot separate Art-training from general education; and here, at
+all events, you find the two happily combined--a war on bad art and on
+a bad educational system joined economically in one.
+
+So much, then, for thoughtless superfluity as an impediment to a
+recognition of true values. I want now to come to the importance of
+permanence as a condition underlying the aim of all production if
+it is to be wholesome in its social results. I have said that an
+instinct for permanence is what differentiates artistic from supposed
+trade interests. Take architecture. Do you imagine that architects or
+builders are likely to design or build in the same style for a system
+of short leaseholds as they might for freeholds? And is the building
+which is calculated just to “save its face” until the lease expires
+likely to be so good either in design or workmanship?
+
+Read, in that connection, what Coventry Patmore says in his essay on
+“Greatness in Architecture”:
+
+“The house and cottage builder of the sixteenth and seventeenth
+centuries was,” he says, “fully aware that the strength of a rafter
+lay rather in its depth than its breadth, and that, for a time at
+least, a few boards two inches thick and ten inches deep, set edgeways,
+would suffice to carry the roof, which nevertheless it pleased him
+better to lay upon a succession of beams ten inches square. It is the
+reality, and the modest ostentation of the reality, of such superfluous
+substantiality that constitutes the whole secret of effect in many an
+old house that strikes us as “architectural,” though it may not contain
+a single item of architectural ornament; and, in the very few instances
+in which modern buildings have been raised in the same fashion, the
+beholder at once feels that their generous regard for the far future
+is of almost as poetical a character as the aged retrospect of a
+similar house of the time of Henry VII. or Elizabeth. A man,” he goes
+on, “now hires a bit of ground for eighty or ninety years; and, if he
+has something to spare to spend on beauty, he says to himself: ‘I will
+build me a house that will last my time, and what money I have to spare
+I will spend in decorating it. Why should I waste my means in raising
+wall and roof which will last five times as long as I or mine shall
+want them?’ The answer is: Because that very ‘waste’ is the truest and
+most striking ornament; and though your and your family’s enjoyment of
+a house thus magnanimously built may last but a tenth of its natural
+age, there lies in that very fact an ‘ornament’ of the most noble and
+touching kind, which will be obvious at all seasons to yourself and
+every beholder, though the consciousness of its cause may be dormant;
+whereas the meanness of the other plan will be only the more apparent
+with every penny you spend in making it meretricious.”
+
+Again, are you likely to get so good an architectural design where you
+cannot be fairly sure that the use for which the building is raised
+is likely to be permanent? And do our modern trade conditions and
+present enormous demand for thoughtless superfluities tend to make that
+prospect more probable? If not, then instability of trade, or trade
+directed to the satisfaction of frivolous and ephemeral demands is bad
+for architecture, and hinders any worthy development in it of national
+characteristics.
+
+But there, mind you, in trade, lies to-day the very life of the nation;
+for the life of our teeming millions depends on it. By our industrial
+specialisation in the pursuit of wealth vast numbers of us have ceased
+to be self-supporting in the necessaries of life. And the question for
+artists is, are we basing our national life on conditions that cannot
+secure permanence and stability in the things which we produce? Is it
+a necessary condition of our industrial development that things should
+have a shorter life and we a shorter use for them than in the old days?
+To the artist the drawback of machine-made things is not necessarily
+in the mechanism of their production (for in some cases your machine
+relieves the human hand of a hard and wearing monotony), but there is
+a very obvious drawback if it imposes upon the worker merely another
+form of hard and wearing monotony, and at the same time shortens the
+life of the thing produced. If handicraft does not offer to the worker
+worthier conditions for hand and brain, and insure longer life in the
+thing produced, it is no good pinning our faith to it. Eliminate it,
+and let machinery take its place. You have not, then, in the transfer,
+destroyed any right values, and you are not going counter to the
+conditions which tend to produce national Art.
+
+But, as an example of the particular value which does sometimes attach
+to hand labour (irrespective of its artistic value), I have here a
+small unused sample of chair-cover material of English make, produced
+about eighty years ago, at a probable cost--so I am told by experts--of
+under £2 the square yard. The chairs it was made to cover are now
+in my possession. During the twenty-five years of my own personal
+acquaintance with them they have had plenty of hard wear; but even at
+the corners that material has not yet begun to wear out; and the colour
+has only become softer and more mellow in quality.
+
+Within the last ten years I endeavoured to get that covering matched in
+a modern material, and I paid for the nearest match I could get about
+one-fifth of the price I have quoted. That material has already gone
+shabby; and where it is most worn and faded the colour, instead of
+mellowing, has gone dead and dirty in quality. The older material will
+probably outlast my time.
+
+There, then, are the comparative values of the old and the new
+material. You pay the higher price for the old, but in the end it is
+more economical. And it has this double advantage (or what would be a
+double advantage in a State where industrial conditions were sound),
+that it inclines its possessor to adopt a more permanent style of
+furnishing, by making age beautiful and change unnecessary; and so it
+sets free a great amount of human labour for other purposes; not merely
+the labour of the textile workers who have not to provide new covers,
+but the labour of the upholsterers, who are not called upon to rip off
+a series of old covers and fit on new ones, dragging old nails out and
+driving fresh nails in, with the result that the framework of the chair
+itself is presently worn out and a new one required in its place. All
+that labour is saved.
+
+That small example is important because it exemplifies those
+possibilities of permanence attaching to certain forms of hand-labour
+out of which can be developed a school of textile manufacture
+indigenous in character--indigenous in that you give it time to become
+embedded in its domestic setting, and to make for itself domestic
+history. It enables you to develop an appreciation for subtleties
+of colour, and to secure tones and harmonies which you cannot get
+ready-made in a shop: it gives to a piece of furniture life-value.
+
+But it is bad for trade!
+
+Now why is it bad for trade? It is bad for trade because our modern
+industrial conditions have brought us to this pass, that it is no
+longer our national aim to direct labour and set it free for other
+work that really needs to be done. Our national problem is rather to
+find work for people, at times even to invent needs, and to create a
+fictitious turnover in trade so that we may not have upon our hands an
+enormous increase of the unemployed problem. And as hands go begging,
+as we have more hands in the country than we can employ on useful and
+fit labour (fit, I mean, for such fine implements as these and for the
+brains behind them), therefore hands are inevitably put to degrading
+uses, and the joy goes out of work; and for the delight (or at least
+the intelligent patience) of true craftsmanship is substituted the
+soul-destroying bondage of mechanical labour at something which is not
+really worth producing.
+
+You may take that, I think, as a test whether a State is in industrial
+health or disease--whether, namely, it tends more in the direction
+of setting labour free for other and higher purposes (through the
+permanent quality of its products), and so evolving an aristocracy of
+labour; or whether (owing to their ephemeral quality) it constantly
+tends to invent work of a lower and more trivial kind, and to provide
+jobs of an ephemeral character which are not really wanted.
+
+Now bad and wasteful taste is directly productive, not so much of trade
+as of fluctuations in trade, because that sort of taste soon tires
+and asks for change; and the consequence is that thousands of workers
+(especially women, whose industries used to be home industries before
+machinery drew them out of the homes) are in this country constantly
+being thrown out of one useless employment into another, and very often
+have to pass through a fresh apprenticeship at a starvation wage.
+And so, when we create frivolous demands for things that we shall not
+want the day after to-morrow, we are not (as we too often think) doing
+anything that is really good for trade, but only something much more
+horrible, which you will understand without my naming it.
+
+You see, then, how very closely the artist’s inclination toward
+permanence of taste may be connected with morality. And if that
+instinct for permanence (with an accompanying adaptation of material
+and design to making things last their full time without waste) is not
+present in the craftsmanship of our day, then we have not got the true
+basis, either in spirit or material, for Art to build upon.
+
+Now I am going to put before you some quite homely instances, because
+I think they will stick best in your memories, in order to show
+you that the real struggle of the artist to-day is not so much to
+secure appreciation of beauty in line and texture, as honesty of
+construction, and real adaptation of form to utility and of production
+to lastingness. I have been noticing, with quite simple objects of
+domestic use, that the trade-purpose toward them seems almost the
+opposite. The trade purpose is to present us with an article which,
+apparently sound in construction, will break down at some crucial point
+before the rest of it is worn out. A watering can, a carving fork,
+a kettle, a dustbin, a coal scuttle, the fixings of a door-handle,
+are generally made, I find, on an ignobly artful plan which insures
+that they shall break down just at that point where the wear and tear
+come hardest, so that an article otherwise complete shall be scrapped
+wastefully or go back to the trade to be tinkered.
+
+But leave things the actual design of which you cannot control, and
+come to dress, our own daily wearing apparel. I do not know if the men
+of my audience are aware that undergarments wear out much quicker if
+they are tight-fitting and worn at a stretch than if they are loose,
+but that is so. And, in consequence, a smart shopman has the greatest
+reluctance to sell you anything that is, as he conceives it, one size
+too large for you. The reason being that the looser fit lasts longer
+and is bad for trade--that it makes for endurance instead of for
+galloping consumption.
+
+In the majority of houses whose cold water systems I have inspected
+the pipes are nearly always run at the most exposed angle of the
+containing walls, so that if there is a frost, the frost may have a
+chance of getting at the pipes and bursting them, and so give the trade
+a fresh job. Again, every housewife knows that in the ordinary daily
+conflicts between tea-sets and domestic service more cups get broken
+than saucers. And I suppose every household in London has got some
+corner shelf piled with superfluous saucers (useless widowers mourning
+the departure of their better halves); but it is very exceptional--only
+in one shop that I know--that one is able to replace the cup (in
+certain stock patterns) without encumbering oneself with the saucer
+which one does not want. The saucers continue to be made in wasteful
+superabundance, because waste of that sort is “good for trade.”
+
+I have been assured by an observant housewife that certain articles do
+now and again appear upon the market specially designed to safeguard by
+little constructive devices, the main point of wear-and-tear through
+which they become useless, and that presently these things disappear
+and are unobtainable, presumably because they prove too lasting, and so
+are “bad for trade.” And they are allowed to disappear because we, as a
+community, have not sufficiently set our hearts and minds against waste
+and uselessness. We buy cheaply because we think cheaply, and because
+we have lost our sense of honour towards the products of men’s hands,
+and toward that wonderful instrument itself which we are content to
+put to such base uses, letting the workers themselves see how much we
+despise the things they have made.
+
+I have seen in London a comic music-hall “turn” in which the comedy
+largely consisted in a continuous breakage of piles of plates by a
+burlesque waiter, who, in the course of his duties, either drops them,
+falls against them, sits on them, or kicks them. During the turn I
+should say some thirty or forty plates get broken. They were cheap
+plates, no doubt; but it seems to me that if there is any fun in this
+monotonous repetition of destruction, then the greater the cost and
+waste of human labour the more irresistibly comic should the situation
+appear; and the management which provided Worcester or Dresden china
+for its low-comedy wits to play upon would have logical grounds for
+considering that it was thereby supplying its audience with livelier
+entertainment more satisfying to its taste.[2]
+
+Now what I want you to see is that such a production would not be
+entertaining to an audience which had not come to regard the labour of
+man’s hands with a licentious indifference--which had not developed the
+gambler’s contempt for the true relations between labour and value.
+And here I want to put before you a proposition which may at first
+shock you, but which I hope to prove true. And that is that labour in
+itself, apart from its justification in some useful result, is bad and
+degrading; the man who is put to work which he knows is to have no
+result comes from that work more degraded and crushed in spirit than
+the man who merely “loafs” and lives “naturally.”
+
+Perhaps the readiest example of that is the old treadmill system which
+was once employed in our prisons, where the prisoner was set to grind
+at a crank artificially adjusted to his physical strength, but having
+no useful result; and I believe that the main reason why prisoners
+on those machines were not allowed to grind their own bread or put
+their strength to any self-supporting industry was because it was “bad
+for trade” and brought them into competition with the contractors who
+supplied food to his Majesty’s prisons. It was not the monotony half
+so much as the consciousness that it was without result which made
+that form of labour so degrading and so utterly exhausting to mind and
+body. You might think it was the compulsion; but I am not sure that
+compulsion to work may not sometimes be very moral and salutary. At any
+rate, here is an instance of the same thing presented under voluntary
+conditions. A man out of work applied to a farmer for a job; the
+farmer had no job for him, and told him so; but as the man persisted
+he started him at half a crown a day to move a heap of stones from one
+side of the road to the other. And when the man had done that and asked
+what next he was to do, he told him to move them back again! But though
+that man was out of work, and was on his way to earn the half-crown,
+rather than submit his body to the conscious degradation of such
+useless labour, he did as the farmer had calculated on his doing, and
+threw up the job.
+
+That same quality of outrage and degradation attends on all labour that
+is subject, within the worker’s knowledge, to wanton destruction, or is
+obviously of no real use or of “faked” value. And the finer the skill
+employed the greater the anguish of mind, or else the hard callousness
+of indifference which must result. Call upon men to make useless
+things, or things which you mean wantonly to destroy the day after
+to-morrow, or to which by the conditions you tolerate you make a fair
+length of life impossible--call upon labour to do those things, and you
+are either filling its spirit with misery and depression, or you are
+making it, in self-defence, callous and hard.
+
+Industrial conditions which encourage the building of houses that are
+only intended to last a lease; which permit the destruction of our
+canal system because that means of transit has proved a dangerous
+rival to the railway system; which impose a quick change in fashions
+on which depend various kinds of ephemeral and parasitic industries;
+which encourage a vast production of ephemeral journalism and
+magazine illustration which after a single reading is thrown aside
+and wasted--all these things, which have become nationalised in our
+midst, are a national anti-Art training. We English have, as the
+result of these things, no national school of architecture; we have
+no national costume (though I myself can remember the time when in
+our Midland counties not only the farm labourer, but the small yeoman
+farmer himself went to church as well as to labour in the beautiful
+smock-frock worn by their forefathers) and we have killed out from our
+midst one of the most beautiful national schools of popular art that
+ever existed, the school of the illustrators of the ’sixties; and we
+have done these things mainly from our increasing haste to get hold of
+something new, and our almost equal haste, when we have it, to throw it
+away again.
+
+We have cast our bread upon the waters. The sort of wealth to the
+pursuit of which nations have committed themselves needs (it now
+appears) an enormous amount of protection. And it cannot have been
+without some demoralising effect upon the mind of the community that
+we have been driven by our outstanding necessities to build every
+year six or seven of those enormous engines of destruction called
+“Dreadnoughts,” whose effective lease of life is about 20 years,
+something considerably shorter than the lease of life which we allow
+for our most jerry-built lodging-houses! And on these short-lived
+products of industry (which are to-day the sign and symbol and
+safeguard of our world-power), our aristocracy of labour has been
+spending its strength, and the nation has now to depend on them for
+its safety. The cost of building a “Dreadnought” is about the same
+as the cost of building St. Paul’s Cathedral. Imagine to yourself a
+nation building every year six or seven St. Paul’s Cathedrals, with the
+consciousness that in twenty-five or thirty years they will all again
+be levelled to the dust, and you will get from that picture something
+of the horror which an artist is bound to feel at the necessity
+which thus drives us forward, even in peace-time, to the continuous
+destruction, on such a colossal scale, of the labour of men��s hands.
+And the more it is revealed to us to-day (by the present catastrophe)
+as an absolute political necessity, the more is the disorder of
+civilization we have arrived at condemned.
+
+Well, I must leave now, in that example I have set before you, the
+wasteful aspect of modern industry, in order to touch briefly on
+another, and an almost equally hateful aspect, which I will call “the
+vivisection of modern industry.” I mean its subdivision into so many
+separate departments, or rather fragments, that it loses for the mind
+of the worker all relation to the thing made--that time-saving device
+at the expense of the human hand and brain, which we glorify under the
+term “specialisation.” Now, however much you may defend that system on
+ground of trade competition, the artist is bound by his principles to
+regard it as a national evil; for anything which tends to take away
+the worker’s joy and pride in the distinctiveness of his trade and
+to undo its human elements is anti-Art training. And so that inhuman
+specialisation which (for the sake of trade cheapness) sets down a man
+to the performance of one particular mechanical action all his life,
+in the making of some one particular part of some article which in its
+further stages he is never to handle, or a woman to stamp out the tin
+skeleton of a button, with her eyes glued to one spot for ten hours
+of the day--all these dehumanising things are anti-Art because they
+are destructive of life-values. We have erected them into a system,
+and while cutting prices by such means at one end, we are mounting up
+costs at the other. We are promoting, maybe, a quicker circulation of
+the currency of the realm, but we are impoverishing the currency of
+the race. For that hard mechanical efficiency we are paying a price
+which is eating up all our real profits; quite apart from its effect
+in the increase of lunacy and of the unfit birth-rate and death-rate
+among children, it is helping to implant in the whole world of labour
+a bitter and a revengeful spirit which we have no right to wonder at
+or to blame. And the results affect us not only in our workshops but
+in our pastimes, by driving those whose labour is so conditioned into
+a more consumptive form of pleasure-seeking and relaxation. You cannot
+put people into inhuman conditions for long hours of each day, and
+expect them to be normal and humane when you turn them out to their
+short hours of leisure. I am pointing to conditions which you know
+probably as well as, or better than, I do; but I am pointing to them
+for the express purpose of saying that you cannot dissociate them from
+your national appreciation of Art. The more you can connect the worker
+with the raw material on the one hand and the finished product on the
+other, the more surely you are establishing conditions out of which
+national Art can grow; and the more you dissociate him from these two
+ends of his material the more you make national Art impossible.
+
+I will give you an instance, quite away from sweated labour conditions,
+where you will see at once how wasteful and opposed to Art is this
+system of breaking up craftsmanship into departments. It was an
+architect who told me that the following system is quite frequently
+followed in dealing with the stone out of which we build the outside
+walls of our modern churches. It is hewn at the quarries into a rough
+surface, thoroughly expressive of the stonemason’s craft, and not in
+any way too rough for its purpose. It is then taken and submitted by
+machinery to a grinding process which makes it mechanically smooth, and
+it is then handed over to other workmen who give back to it a chiselled
+surface of an absolutely uniform and mechanical character which
+expresses nothing. And with that wanton and wasteful lie we are content
+to set up temples to the God of Truth!
+
+Now if the Church has become so blind to the values of life, and so
+lacking in any standard of honour toward the labour of men’s hands, as
+to allow itself to be so clothed in falsehood, yet I do still plead
+that those who call themselves artists shall protest by all means in
+their power against the systematisation of such indignities toward
+handicraft. That is the sort of thing against which any national Art
+training we have ought to fight.
+
+How can we fight? Best of all, I believe, by establishing a standard
+of honour toward manual labour; and, quite definitely, wherever we
+have Art schools, by training all students to hate and despise shams
+and to loathe all waste of labour. But, perhaps, the most direct way
+would be for the State to set up, in every town, in connection with
+its Art schools and its technical schools, a standard of honesty by
+practical demonstration, in the staple industry of the locality. I
+would not trouble, so long as that industry had a useful purpose,
+how much or how little it was connected with Art; but I would give
+the youth of that place the chance of an honest apprenticeship under
+true human conditions to the trade in which they might be called upon
+to spend their lives. I would not have those schools of labour adopt
+any amateurishness of method or standard; they should not obstinately
+reject the aid of machinery where machinery can relieve monotony, but
+they should very carefully consider at what stage the dehumanising
+element came in, either by substituting mechanism for skill, or by
+separating the worker too much from his work in its completed form.
+And from those schools of labour I would allow people to purchase all
+the work of these State-apprentices which their master-craftsmen could
+pass as being of a standard quality. They would not compete in point
+of cheapness with the trade article, for their price would almost
+certainly be higher, but they would, I trust, compete in point of
+quality and design; and by exhibiting a standard, and making the thing
+procurable, they might create a demand which the very trade itself
+would at last be forced to recognise.
+
+This is but a very bald and brief statement of the kind of extension I
+mean; but what I want to put to you is this, that wherever a nation has
+turned from agriculture to trade, there, if you want national Art you
+must invade those trade conditions and set up your standard of honour,
+not outside, but in the trades themselves; you must get hold of those
+who are going to be your workers and craftsmen and put into them (by
+exhibiting to them manual labour under right human conditions) the old
+craftsman’s pride which existed in the days of the Guilds, when the
+trade unions were not merely organisations to secure good wages, but
+to secure good work, and to maintain a standard of honour in labour.
+But you must not stop there. To make your training in any true sense
+national you must make it characteristic, or rather it must make
+itself. It must aim at bringing out racial and local character; and
+before it can do so we must recover that love of locality which we have
+so largely lost. A mere multiplication of schools and classes where a
+departmental system evolved at some city centre is put in force, is not
+national: it is only metropolitan, perhaps only departmental. You can
+put such a system, in a certain superficial way, into the heads and
+hands of your local students, but you cannot put it into the blood.
+Unless your Art training enters into and links up the lives of those
+you would teach with a larger sense of citizenship, it isn’t national.
+They won’t carry it away with them into their daily pursuits, they
+won’t make a spontaneous and instinctive application of it; they will
+only come to it at class-hours, and, when class-hours are over, quit
+again. I have spoken of the necessity of a standard of honour toward
+labour, but we need also a standard of honour toward life. It is still,
+you see, values--life-values--that I am trying to get at as a basis for
+Art.
+
+Now to some of you I must have seemed, in all conscience, gloomy
+and pessimistic in my outlook on present conditions; and therefore,
+before I end, I will try to emit a ray of hope. There are certain
+social developments going on around us which make me hope that we
+may yet emerge from this valley of the shadows through which we are
+still stumbling. One is that there has been in the last generation a
+very general breakdown of the old artificial class notion of the kind
+of work which was compatible with “gentility.” And one meets to-day
+people, whose culture has given them every chance to develop that
+standard of honour toward life (without which their claim to be gentry
+means nothing); you meet with many such people nowadays who have come
+back to manual labour in various forms, in farming, in horticulture,
+and in craftsmanship--some also, I am glad to say, who have become
+shopkeepers--and who are bringing, presumably, their standard of honour
+to bear on those trades on which they no longer foolishly look down.
+Among these a definite revival of handicraft is taking place, and
+where they are doing their work honestly and well they are undoubtedly
+inculcating a better taste. It is especially among this class which
+has come back to handicraft that one meets with domestic interiors of
+a fine and scrupulous simplicity which we may eventually see imitated
+(meretriciously, perhaps, but on the whole beneficially) even in
+lodging-houses which are at present the dust-hung mausoleums of the
+aesthetic movement of thirty years ago.
+
+Another matter for congratulation--not a movement, but a survival--is
+the unspoiled tradition of beauty which still exists in the cottage
+gardens of England. There, in our villages, you find a note of beauty
+that has scarcely been touched by the evil of our modern conditions.
+And I take it as a proof that where, by some happy chance, we have
+managed to “let well alone,” there the instinct for beauty and for
+fitness is still a natural ingredient of industrial life. That survival
+of taste in our cottage gardens is culture in the best sense of the
+word; and it is still popular. We do not yet dig our gardens by
+machinery; when we do they will die the death.
+
+And two other bright points of movement, which I look to as having in
+them the basis of a true Art training, are the widespread revival,
+in so many of our towns and villages, through the efforts of Miss
+Mary Neal, Mr. Cecil Sharp and others, of our old folk-songs and
+Morris dances, and lastly--perhaps I shall surprise you--the Boy Scout
+movement.
+
+Coming into contact with these two movements, I have found that they
+have in them certain elements in common. Instituted with a rare
+combination of tact and enthusiasm, they have taken hold of the blood;
+they have got home at a certain point in boy and girl nature which has
+already made them become native. I find that these two organisations
+tend to develop among their members grace and vigour of movement, good
+manners, a cheerful spirit, a more alert interest in the things about
+them, a feeling of comradeship, and best of all, a certain sense of
+honour toward life. And therefore, even in a place technically devoted
+to the training of students, I say boldly that I see nowhere better
+hope of a sound basis for national Art than in this revival of village
+dancing and folk-song and in the Boy Scout movement.
+
+The assertion may perhaps seem strange and ironic to some of you
+that it is not from a study of beautiful objects that the sense of
+beauty can be made national, but only in the recovery of an ordered
+plan for our social and industrial life, and in the finding of a true
+and worthy purpose for all that our hands are put to do. But in that
+connection you may remember how Ruskin maintained that great Art has
+only flourished in countries which produced in abundance either wine or
+corn; in countries, that is to say, where the greatest industries were
+those with which we most readily associate that note of joy which has
+become proverbial, the joy of the harvest. It is perhaps too much to
+dream that we shall ever again see England living upon its own corn;
+and the greatest forms of Art may, therefore, remain for ever beyond
+our reach. But until a nation does honour to the human hand as the
+most perfect and beautiful of all instruments under the sun, by giving
+it only honourable and useful tasks--until then I must rather wish
+you to be good valuers, keen--indignantly keen--to destroy the false
+values which you see about you, than that you should be either good
+draughtsmen or good artists.
+
+You can do honest and good work as designers and illustrators and
+architects, as workers in wood and metal and stone; but you are
+hampered and bound by the conditions of your day, and you cannot by
+your best efforts make Art national till you have established joy in
+labour. No great school of Art can ever arise in our midst in such a
+form as to carry with it through all the world its national character,
+until the nation itself has found that voice (which to-day seems so
+conspicuously absent, even when we close our shops to make holiday); I
+mean the voice of joy.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[2] _By that reckoning we in Europe are to-day the best comedians the
+world has ever seen. Out of peace-conditions nations produce their
+wars._
+
+
+
+
+CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY.
+
+(1915.)
+
+
+We are frequently told (more especially by those whose profession it is
+to preach belief in a revealed religion), that if man be not endowed
+with an immortal soul, then the game of life is not worth the candle.
+Incidentally we are warned that if the bottom were knocked out of that
+belief, morals would go to pieces and humanity would become reprobate.
+
+Now I can imagine a similar sort of claim put forward in other
+departments of life for other pursuits which seem to their advocate to
+make life more appetising.
+
+I can imagine sportsmen saying that without sport men would cease to
+be manly, morals and physique would deteriorate and life be no longer
+worth living. I can imagine the butcher saying that without meat, and
+the licensed victualler that without beer, men were of all things the
+most miserable. I have recently seen advertisements which say that
+only by supporting the cinema (made beautiful by the feet of Charlie
+Chaplin), can we hope to be victorious in the present war.
+
+The assertion that man cannot do without certain things which, as a
+matter of fact, vast numbers of his fellows are constantly doing
+without--(and with no very marked set-back as regards health,
+efficiency, or general morals)--is a questionable way of forcing home
+conviction that these things or beliefs are indispensable. It is quite
+possible that beer, meat, the pursuit of game, the personality of
+Charlie Chaplin, and a belief in immortality are all alike capable of
+giving stimulus to the human soul (especially to those souls which
+have come by habit to depend upon them). But it is quite certain that
+other human souls have found without them sufficient stimulus to make
+life worth living. And though, against that fact, it may be argued
+that these unconsciously receive their driving force, their social
+and ethical standards, from those whose motive power they reject as
+superfluous, and that we, who do not go to see Charlie Chaplin on the
+films, are winning this war somewhat circuitously through the powers of
+those who do--the argument is hardly a convincing one, since it remains
+for ever in the nature of an unproved hypothesis.
+
+But when the majority of those who believe in personal immortality are
+asked for the ground of their belief, it generally resolves itself into
+this: they have an intense individual conviction that it is so--so
+intense that to hold the contrary becomes “unthinkable.” But that
+intense, individual conviction, over things we greatly care about, is
+a constant phenomenon of the working of the human mind, and is not
+limited to belief in a future state. To a convinced Liberal it is
+“unthinkable” that he should ever pass into such a state of mental
+annihilation as to become a Conservative. To a convinced Conservative
+it is unthinkable that he should fall from the grace which guides
+him into the slough of Liberalism. It is the same with Protestant or
+Catholic, with Socialist, Universalist, or Sectarian: conviction always
+presents an adamantine front to opposing forces and arguments--so long
+as it lasts.
+
+The same phenomenon constantly occurs in the domain of the amative
+passion. The lover (if he be really in love), believes that his love
+will last for ever--that nothing can possibly change it; and all the
+evidence in the world that lovers of a like faith have too often lived
+to see the immortal dream put on mortality, will fail to convince him
+(while he is in the toils) that his own love is liable to any such
+change as theirs.
+
+The reason is that strongly vitalised forces always carry with them a
+sense of permanence.
+
+The vital spark (focused within us by strong conviction or emotion),
+is but an individually apprehended part of a great whole: for this
+thread of life passing through us has already stretched itself out
+over millions of years, and countless atavisms have touched it to
+individual ends which were not ours; the will to live has clung to it
+by myriads of adhesions, feelers, tentacles, and not by human hands
+alone (though our palms still moisten, and our arms fly upward to
+the imaginary branch overhead when danger of falling threatens us,
+because the instinct of our arboreal ancestry still prevails in us over
+reason). And through those atavisms, the struggle to secure survival
+for the family, the clan, the race, has left an impress which may
+very naturally convey from the general to the individual a sense of
+immortality.
+
+For of all these constituent forces the majority knew and thought
+very little about death, except in their instinctive and spasmodic
+efforts to escape from it; and when at last man began to envisage death
+consciously and philosophically, straightway, with all these atavisms
+behind him, he belittled it with dreams of a future life.
+
+It was as perfectly natural a thing to do as for the lover to declare
+that his love for his mistress was eternal and not merely for a
+season, since any lesser statement would fail to convey adequately
+the intensity of the force by which he was moved. Moreover, though
+in millions of individual cases the statement and the sincere belief
+that the love experienced will remain changeless and eternal, are
+contradicted by later fact, it is at least true that the passion itself
+is an ever-recurring phenomenon of life, and does, by its infinite
+recurrence and resurrection in form beyond form through evolving
+generations, present to finite minds an aspect of immortality. Just as
+the water we drink is an imperishable thing, though after drinking it
+we shall thirst again, so is that love, which satisfies the lover’s
+soul, a principle of life extending illimitably beyond his own use for
+it. And if that be true about love, why should it not be true about
+life?
+
+For surely (put it thus), when across limited vision a thread passes,
+of which the eye can see neither the beginning nor the end, and
+when upon that thread, for the time being, the limited life hangs
+all its hopes, is it not quite natural for that clinging life to
+identify itself, through the closeness of its momentary contact,
+with the spiritually apprehended whole, and to identify with that
+concept of a general continuity its own present degree of individual
+consciousness. Moreover, in a world governed by cause and effect, it
+can hardly be predicated that the results either of love or hatred,
+individually indulged, are not, or may not be illimitable, even though
+the individual spirit be not there to preside consciously over their
+extended operations.
+
+When, therefore, so much is true, when so many elements which pass
+through our lives have (by association), links and connections which
+to finite minds seem infinite, they may well impress us (by reason of
+the close identification established between us and them for the time
+being) with a sense that our own individual share and apprehension of
+them are addressed also to a universal goal.
+
+“Universal,” for surely mere continuity--a stretching out of length
+without corresponding breadth--ought not to be the limit of our
+claim. Yet it is significant that, in their demand for personal
+immortality, so many thinkers have found sufficient satisfaction in
+the idea of an extended survival through time into eternity, without
+making a corresponding demand for extension into unity through space.
+They are willing, that is to say, to put up for all eternity with
+those limitations of personality which they enjoy--the relations of
+_meum_ and _tuum_ upon which the possessive life of the senses is
+based, but not with those limitations (the prospect of which they do
+not enjoy), the termination of those same relationships imposed by
+death. It seems rather a one-sided way of doing things--this narrowing
+of the claim in a two-dimensional direction (one might almost say
+in a one-dimensional), yet it has been very generally done--I shall
+presently hope to show why--and most of our Western theology has built
+up our future hopes for us entirely on those lines. Personality,
+the sort of personality we have learned to enjoy, is based upon
+limitations. Abolish limitations in your conception of future life, and
+for the majority of those pious minds which now clamour for it as their
+due you abolish personality also; it is swallowed up not in death but
+in a life from which the individual power to focus and to enjoy has
+disappeared.
+
+It is true that there has now begun, in modern socialistic
+Christianity, a yeasting of desire for an all round, or expansive,
+as well as a forward, or extensive personality after death; that an
+all-embracing and not merely an all-surviving consciousness is more
+and more predicated for the full satisfaction of man’s spiritual need.
+But that was by no means the form of moral hunger which permeated
+primitive or mediæval Christianity, and sufficed, we are to suppose,
+to keep poor human nature from that depravity into which it will fall
+if belief in personal immortality is surrendered. Oregon, as we know,
+looked forward to finding in the nether groans of the damned a full
+completion of the orchestral harmonies of Heaven; and in the whole
+conception of immortality as it has illumined the path of the Church
+from its beginning down to quite modern times, individualism has been
+rampant. On that basis, so long as it satisfied his moral conscience,
+man did great things with it, making it shine as a great light by the
+unflinching witness which he bore to its efficacy through suffering and
+through martyrdom.
+
+It is probably true that an individualistic form to the doctrine was
+then, and always will be, necessary to attract those whose lives have
+been run from a highly individualised standpoint; and that, for them,
+death-bed consolation would hardly be achieved in the presentation of
+a doctrine so defined as to threaten annihilation to all the fetish
+worship and social values of the past.
+
+“God would think twice,” said a courtly French Abbé of the seventeenth
+century to a King’s mistress who, upon her death-bed, was seized by
+spiritual qualms--“God would think twice before damning a lady of your
+quality.” And no one who holds by class-distinctions really wishes to
+find in the New Jerusalem any abolition of that respect for persons
+or prejudices which has, in this world, been the main ground on which
+their self-esteem and their estimate of personality have been based.
+
+To them the most “unthinkable” proposition would be not the contraction
+of the future world to narrower and more select limits than those of
+the one they know, but a future world conducted on any code of morals
+which had not their own entire approval and sanction.
+
+We are told that the late Queen Victoria looked forward with very
+great interest to a future meeting with the Hebrew patriarchs, with
+Abraham, Moses, and Elijah, but hoped to be excused from any personal
+acquaintance with King David on account of his affair with Bathsheba.
+And when we realise how very often the hope of Heaven is really a
+species of self-love and self-applause, conditional on Heaven being
+what we ourselves want it to be, one is led to wonder whether the real
+condition for entry into that state of bliss may not prove to be the
+precise opposite, and whether the disciplinary motto upon its portal
+may not be those mystic words, hitherto attributed to another place,
+“All hope abandon ye who enter here.” That, after all, is only a more
+emphatic way of stating what Christ Himself laid down as the path by
+which man should attain; that only those namely who were ready to
+lose life should find it. And I rather question whether our Christian
+individualists have, up till now, been honestly prepared to “lose life”
+in the full sense, without condition or reserve, and whether, (if they
+have not), they have yet attained the spiritual standpoint necessary to
+bring them within the terms of the promise.
+
+So far I have dealt with the doctrine of immortality as presented to us
+from the individualistic basis alone. But, in some form or another, the
+doctrine of immortality belongs to many religions and schools (indeed,
+one might almost say to all) and has, therefore, most varied and even
+contradictory meanings attached to it. In some schools, as we have
+seen, it sets great store on the survival of the individual; in others
+individuality is held to be of small account--a diminishing rather than
+a persistent factor in the ultimate ends of life viewed as a whole.
+
+I remember in that connection discussing with the late Father George
+Tyrrell, in the days before Rome’s excommunication fell on him, the
+divergent views as to immortality of Christianity and Buddhism; and
+at that time he held that the superiority of the Christian faith
+lay in its insistence on the personal immortality, conscious and
+self-contained, of every human being. Some years later, a month before
+his death, we discussed the matter again; and I asked him then, in what
+degree, if at all, his view as to personal immortality had changed.
+His answer gave me a curious instance of those scientific analogies by
+which Modernism has been seeking to deliver the Roman Church from its
+mediæval entanglements.
+
+“In the main,” he said, “I have only changed in my apprehension of what
+‘personality’ really is. Just as one may find in an hysterical subject
+five or six pseudo-personalities which reveal themselves in turn, each
+one of which is a character quite separately and consistently defined,
+but not one of them (however completely in possession for the time) a
+real person, so it seems to me must we regard all those limitations
+of ‘personality’ which find expression in individual form. There is
+only one true personality, and that is Christ; anything less than the
+one all-embracing whole is but a simulacrum, concealing rather than
+revealing the true substance and form.”
+
+I cannot pretend to give his actual words, but I believe that I have
+accurately stated the sense of them; and you will see, I think, that
+they go a long way toward the adaptation of the Christian to the
+Buddhistic standpoint. That tendency, I believe, we shall find more
+and more at work in the Christian Church as time goes on--not merely
+because by such a definition the doctrine will be better able to hold
+its own against the inroads of science--but because it gives also a
+better response to that socialising genius of the human race which
+is coming more and more to demand a perfect unity as the ultimate
+expression of good.
+
+That, then, we shall probably find to be the future tendency of
+idealism. There remains, of course, the Rationalistic school of
+thought, by which the possibility of individual or personal survival
+after death is from first to last either absolutely denied or very
+severely discountenanced as an idea based upon wholly insufficient
+evidence.
+
+Nevertheless, in some form or another, immortality, conscious or
+unconscious, personal or impersonal, is accepted by all schools alike;
+the scientific law of the conservation of energy being one form of it
+which human reason would now find it very difficult to deny.
+
+Let us for one moment apply that law to our own individual lives and
+consciousness.
+
+Has life convinced us that we are all self-contained persons? Through
+social contact we have undergone many changes, many damages, and
+many repairs. Parts of us have gone to other people, parts of other
+people have come, to us. We have shed and have absorbed quite as much
+spiritually as materially; and though through our material changes we
+retain a certain likeness, so that friends meeting us after a seven
+years’ absence recognise us again in bodies no particle of which have
+they ever seen before; and though similarly we can recognise our
+inner selves across wider intervals of time, have we any reason to
+suppose that our identity is more fixed in the spiritual substance
+than in the material? For myself, I hope not. May one not prefer the
+idea of interchange between life and life, to the notion that one is
+to remain for ever fixed and self-possessed--a thing apart? The more
+we are compounded of other lives, the more we have contributed to
+the lives of others--the more can we recognise our entrance into the
+only eternal life that we can demonstrably be sure about, or that can
+(so it must seem to many of us), be sensibly desired or deserved. Is
+Eternal Bliss, in the individual sense, a more tolerable doctrine than
+eternal Hell-fire? Though, indeed, this latter may be but a scientific
+statement of fact perverted and made foolish by the theologians.
+For life, after all, is but a form of combustion for ever going on,
+and outside of it we know nothing. No doubt the atoms of our being,
+whether physical or spiritual, will forever form part of it; but I see
+no reason why our spirits should not be as diffused, through proper
+elemental changes, as our bodies are now being diffused from day to
+day; or why I should repine that I personally shall not always be there
+to preside over the operation and find it good. Even if, at the far end
+of this earth’s history, everything is again to be reabsorbed in the
+heat and light out of which it came, I can trust the suns and planets
+to fulfil their mission of progress--or the will of God--quite as well
+as, or better than, in my own small sphere I can trust Constitutional
+Governments or Established Churches. And since these lesser lights,
+in their foolish and providential dealings, do not confound my faith,
+neither do the stars in their courses fight against it. Rather do they
+confirm me in my sense that even the most acute perceptions with which
+human life is endowed fail of themselves to justify me in any claim to
+a larger lease of life than can naturally belong to them; for I see in
+the universe things far greater than any individual man, doing service
+and sustaining the life of countless millions, (which without them
+could not live at all), without any prospect of so great a reward.
+
+The eye of the sun itself is blind; and for ever, while it dazzles
+us with its light, blind it must remain. Nay, what need has it for
+sight at all, if in blindness it be able to fulfil its mission? And
+yet implicit within its vast energies, there lies the gift of sight.
+For that blind Eye of Heaven taught us to see; our substance came from
+it, our eyes were made by it, and without it was not anything made on
+earth that was made. And if, by this gift of sight, it has opened to us
+so vast a space for our understanding to dwell in--bestowing so huge
+a conception of life on this frail vessel of clay--if by so giving
+of itself through long aeons of time it has opened to us so much more
+than it knows itself, cannot we render back without grudging these
+shorter, frailer lives of ours, whose brevity, perhaps, is the very
+price required of us for their enjoyment, since without such limits our
+far-reaching comprehension of space and its possessions could never
+have been gained. Should there be any despair, or any depression in
+the thought that from the blind eye of day and from the powers of its
+heat was developed the human brain? For if from that apparent Blindness
+of our Universe came really the eyes of life by which we perceive all
+things, can we not commit our spirits back to its keeping with an
+equal trust that what lies ahead will be at least as good as what lies
+behind, though we be not there to see it?
+
+But the law of the conservation of energy does not in the least satisfy
+the aspirations of those who are out for personal immortality in the
+individual sense. To these it seems a grievance that they should have
+been called into being for any end not wholly satisfying to that
+Ego which is now laying upon their consciousness the weight of its
+possessive limitations. This separative quality of the Ego is to them
+the whole principle of existence; without it they cannot see life.
+To them, life in any less focused or more diffused form would be no
+better than annihilation, an obvious setting-back of the evolutionary
+process by which creation has led step by step to that degree of
+self-consciousness realised in the human race.
+
+Do not these objectors forget not merely how considerable a part of
+human nature already moves and has its being on the lines of a diffused
+and rather decentralised subconsciousness, but also how largely the
+genius of the human race has committed to such conditions of separation
+from all possible enjoyment by the Ego, some of the rarest gifts and
+highest efforts at self-realisation that the world has ever seen? It
+is a condition attaching to all the more permanent forms of expression
+in the arts, to everything that man designs and makes for the delight
+of the generations that come after. It is a condition willingly
+accepted by all who rejoice in their power to throw the influence of
+their personalities beyond the material uses of their own present
+existence. And in that willingness to lose out of themselves for
+future generations--to turn aside from mere physical enjoyment--the
+life-forces within them, in that willingness artist, poet, and thinker,
+have come far nearer to the finding of life than those who live
+indulgently for ends finished by their own absorption thereof.
+
+Now it is the supporters of the individualistic school of thought who
+have generally urged that grave moral dangers would befall the human
+race were a belief in personal immortality to perish; and it is at
+least arguable (by minds that can only see values individually), that
+if man is not to be permanently rewarded or punished for his present
+and future conduct, he has no reason for conducting himself as a decent
+part of the social whole, and that it would be better for him to break
+out on entirely individual lines, live a short and merry life, and
+throwing all altruistic and ethical considerations to the winds, enjoy
+himself as much as he can while the material is to him.
+
+On paper that consideration may seem to hold strong ground; but when it
+is put into practice the facts of life are found to be overwhelmingly
+against it. For one thing excess and self-indulgence fail to produce
+enjoyment, for another the socialising of life by mutual aid tends
+quite obviously to the increase of comfort, safety, and happiness. And
+where apparently it does not is mainly at that point where rampant
+individualism grasps and warps it to its own ends, making the social
+organism subserve not the goodwill of the many but the ill-will of the
+few.
+
+But the ethical argument about the bad effects of non-belief in
+personal immortality has been considerably discounted by the growing
+sensitiveness of the modern conscience--more especially among those who
+are in a serious sense “free-thinkers”--toward the social ills lying
+around us. Generally speaking, our sense of duty toward our neighbour
+is much more lively than it was in the mid-Victorian era; but our
+conviction of personal immortality is probably far less. The two things
+do not go together: the diminution of church attendance in the last
+fifty years has not worsened the conditions of labour.
+
+It may, however, be argued that an instinct for immortality is still
+subconsciously at work within us, colouring our actions and directing
+us on right ethical lines. But if it be a subconscious direction
+which thus works in us for righteousness, it may equally be to a
+subconscious end. The subconscious impulse may merely be guiding us to
+a subconscious realisation which would not at all satisfy the advocates
+of conscious immortality after death. What works subconsciously can in
+all probability find satisfaction in a subconscious reward. The chemic
+processes of the stomach and of the blood, for instance, are largely
+subconscious in their operation; and their needs may be subconsciously
+appeased without the brain being told anything about it through the
+usual intermediaries of taste and mastication. We have a preference for
+a conscious performance of the functions of life which we have always
+been accustomed to perform consciously; but a very large proportion of
+our life-functions work themselves out subconsciously and independently
+of our will. Our hearts beat, our blood circulates, our nails grow,
+our stomachs digest, our wounds heal, whether we tell them to or no,
+and yet we are quite happy about them. We do not consider (because
+they operate by a volition of which we are unaware), that therefore we
+carry about with us a body of death from which our conscious ego must
+needs shrink in disgust--a dead heart, dead stomach, dead blood--that
+the unconsciousness which accompanies health is a state nearer to
+annihilation, and so less to be desired, than the pains accompanying
+functional disturbances.
+
+When those things happen--functional disturbances--we are conscious
+of something more immediately relating to death than to life: it is
+because of local mortification that we become so much aware of things
+which our immortal part helps us to use unconsciously and without
+thought. Virtue itself, when engrained, tends to become instinctive and
+subconscious instead of an effort.
+
+There is quite as much evidence, therefore, in our own bodies that
+unconsciousness is the real gate to immortal life, and the condition
+toward which all that is best and highest in us is seeking, as of the
+contrary teaching that increased self-consciousness is man’s final
+goal. In the functional working of our own bodies an enormous amount of
+self-consciousness has been eliminated, and we do not for our happiness
+or self-realisation wish it restored to us; whole tracts and areas are
+immune from it, or only make a spasmodic grab at our consciousness when
+things go ill with them. “If you go on doing that,” they say, when
+you misuse them, “we will make you know that we are here.” And so you
+become conscious of them: but that doesn’t make you happier. Yet in a
+sort of way, I suppose, a man would realise himself more completely if
+he had sciatica all over him, and could count up his nerves, and tell
+all his bones by the aches and pains attaching to them.
+
+Now it is easy enough for a man to say (I think it was H. M. Stanley,
+the explorer, who did say so) that he would rather endure torment for
+all eternity than accept a state of annihilation. In thus protesting
+he is talking through his hat of something too far beyond human
+experience for the mind to realise. Toothache he has probably always
+found bearable, because he knew that in course of time it would end. On
+the other hand, sound dreamless sleep is probably not less bearable to
+him because during that sleep he has not a ghost of a notion that he
+will ever wake up again. He is carried, that is to say, every day of
+his life while in health, into a state closely resembling annihilation
+of consciousness, in which such annihilation has no terrors for him
+at all; he accepts it as a comfortable part of existence, and goes to
+it with delight when his faculties are tired. Its attractions for him
+would naturally be less while all his senses were alert and fresh.
+
+But the waking man is not the whole man; the subconscious life,
+acquiescent to imposed conditions, occupies by far the larger part
+of him. He can, therefore, only predicate the inclinations of his
+waking hours; in sleep he may revert to a very strong affinity for that
+annihilation of self-conscious life against which, in his waking hours,
+he protests his dread.
+
+And now a further word of comfort for those moral teachers who assure
+us that if once we let go the idea of personal immortality, with its
+accompanying implications of eternal reward or punishment, the conduct
+of the human race is bound to degenerate, and that man’s only logical
+motto will then be, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we
+die.”
+
+To refute that deduction we have but to remember that sociology is a
+thing of ancestry and evolution, and has committed us to a weight of
+facts against which precept and theory are powerless. We have only
+to look back into Nature to see how persistently (without, one must
+suppose, any promise of future reward after death) a contrary instinct
+emerges from the establishment of the social bond in nest and herd and
+hive. And why--if that emerging instinct leads on, in man’s reasoned
+estimation, to foolishness--why do we so specially admire the communal
+life of ant and bee, and incline sometimes to wonder whether (behind so
+marvellous an order of altruistic energy) there be not concealed more
+and not less of spiritual apprehension than in the more individualistic
+forms of insect and animal life? And why, on the contrary, has the
+wise cuckoo become a sort of byword for the singular economy with which
+it has disentangled its life from care or responsibility?
+
+It is surely very unfair thus to erect the cuckoo into a moral emblem
+for reprobation, if it is only doing by instinct, what man would do by
+reason and logic were the darkness of his own destiny made clear to him.
+
+And similarly, it is surely disingenuous on our part to exalt as a
+moral emblem the instinct of ant and bee to subordinate the life of the
+individual to the general--if we deny to ant and bee the immortality
+by which alone such altruism can be recompensed; or if we are to
+believe that a clearer knowledge of their future lot would cause them
+in logic and reason to declare that life on those terms was not worth
+living, and that “to eat, drink, and die to-morrow” were better than to
+live longer and labour for a vain repetition of lives like their own
+indefinitely multiplied. It is ridiculous to impose the moral emblem
+unless you grant also the justifying conditions.
+
+Because the bee and the ant live unconscious of their impending doom,
+are we, therefore, to regard them as a hoodwinked race, set to labour
+at the dictates of the Creative capitalist on terms which contain in
+them no adequate reward? Suppose, for a moment, that revelation could
+descend upon ants’ nest and hive, and tell these workers that beyond
+death the future held for them no store--that their immortality
+was the immortality not of individual but of race; and suppose that
+thereupon they all struck and went forth to die each singly in their
+own way--would that moral emblem impress us, do you think, as a thing
+worthy of imitation or of praise?
+
+But why (let us think) is the predication of such an event so
+impossible and so grotesque? Is it not because the life, the individual
+life of ant or bee is so impregnated with that instinct of communalism
+which gives the species its distinctive character, that it is
+impossible to sunder them, or to imagine the individual capable (while
+in the social _milieu_) of pursuing individual ends alone, after a
+following, over millions of years, of life in the communal form. Life,
+the thread of life which runs through them, is too much engrained with
+communism for separatist principles ever again to prevail.
+
+And surely it is the same with man. Individualism, separatism,
+self-obsessionism, though still present in the phenomena of existence,
+are more and more subject to qualifications from which they cannot
+escape. And even the most evil form of individualism has to be
+parasitic or predatory; it cannot exist alone; even against its
+will it becomes conditioned by other lives. And the communal sense
+of man, implicit within the innumerable forms of life through which
+he has evolved, will continue to lay its hold on the parasitic and
+the predatory, and will do so quite effectively on the basis of an
+evolutionary past, the tendencies of which were established before ever
+theological definitions came to give them impulse and strength.
+
+Is it not almost ludicrous to suggest that that communal instinct
+will cease to play, if the hope of individual reward after death is
+withdrawn from the human race? Will man--because he is nobler than
+the beast, because at his best he does things more altruistic, more
+self-sacrificing, more self-forgetting, more self-transcending than any
+of these--do less nobly because he envisages destiny, which (if he see
+it as destiny) he will see as the logical outcome of evolutionary law?
+
+It is possible, it is even probable, that all phases of theological
+thought have had their use in giving direction and stimulus to the
+human brain; if they have done nothing but stimulate rebellion against
+obscurantist authority they have had value of a positive kind. But
+we may go even further than this, for “everything possible to be
+believed,” says Blake, “is an image of truth.” And under many a
+concept, distorted by ignorance or guile, has lain a germ of the true
+life which draws man on to communal ends. In time that germ puts off
+the husk that seemed once (perhaps in some cases actually was) the
+protective armoury through which alone it could survive for the use
+of a later day. But though old reasons have been shed, the essential
+value has not changed; and often it is less by logic and reason than
+by the strong and subtle links of association that we preserve what is
+good of past credulities.
+
+The doctrine of conscious immortality, however much belittled by its
+appeal to selfish individualism, has done a work for the human race.
+It has held the germ of an ideal for unity which is receiving a more
+universal interpretation to-day than the earlier theologians would ever
+have allowed, or than man, in his then stage of development, could have
+thought it worth while to hand on to his intellectual heirs. Perhaps
+only because he conceived it in just such a form have its values been
+preserved.
+
+I am reminded in this connection of the method by which the wild swine
+of the New Forest were taught to obey the voice of the horn by means
+of which the swine-herd, called them back each night from their free
+roaming in the forest. The way he did it was this. Having first formed
+his herd, some four or five hundred strong, he penned them in a narrow
+space where water and warm shelter were to be found; and there, in the
+allotted enclosure, according them no liberty, he fed them daily to the
+sound of the horn. Food and music became a sort of celestial harmony to
+pig’s brain--when they heard the one, good reason was given them for
+expecting the other.
+
+Presently, in a well-fed condition, they were set free to roam; and
+being full and satisfied they did not roam far; and at night the horn
+sounded them back to an ample meal, and continued to sound while again
+they ate and were satisfied.
+
+So at last, by association, the horn came to have such a beneficent
+meaning that the mere sound of it sufficed to bring them back at
+nightfall to their appointed place of rest. They might roam for miles
+and miles during the day, but night and the sound of the horn brought
+them all back safe to fold. And when that habit had become established,
+they did not cease to return even though the swineherd no longer
+supplied the food which had first given music its charm to those savage
+breasts.
+
+And, similarly, I doubt not, that, though all hope of material profit
+or reward be withdrawn from man’s mind, that call of the horn which
+he has heard of old will still bring his spirit to the resting-place
+at the appointed time; nor will he wish either to shorten his days or
+debase his pleasures because the horn has ceased to provide the meal
+which it once taught him to expect.
+
+Do not let anything I have said be taken as suggesting that the
+spiritual forces of man’s nature may not be conserved, transmuted,
+re-assimilated, or re-distributed, as surely and with as little waste
+as are the material elements of life which pass through disintegration
+and decay into new forms. The processes by which such changes are
+wrought may be, and may ever remain, a mystery to human sense. There
+may be yet in the making a new order or plane of evolution by which
+the process will be quickened and perfected. Soul of man may be in
+the making, though it may be very far removed from that aspect of
+individualism with which the anthropomorphic tendencies of theology
+have burdened it. But--whether life thus rises by unknown law to
+further ends, or whether it passes out, like the life of leaves, into
+the general decay with which autumn each year fertilises the bed of
+mother earth--of one thing I would ask you to be confident--that the
+bandying of words and theories, and the discussion, tending this way
+or that, of man’s destiny after death, are not in any way likely to
+alter or to undo those forward-driving forces and communal desires with
+which, from an inheritance of so many millions of years, the life of
+humanity has become endowed. The will to live will still lift up the
+race and carry it forward to new ends, whether man thinks he sees in
+death the end of his personal existence, or only a new and a better
+beginning. And whether he claims or resigns that prospect of reward he
+will never be able to rid himself of the sense which revives after all
+failures and crimes, that man is his brother-man--or be able to refrain
+at his best from laying down his life, without calculation of personal
+benefit to himself, so that others may live.
+
+The highest manifestations of human genius, the most perfected forms
+of self-realisation in art, in literature, and science, have been
+given to us--and will continue to be given to us--independent of any
+bargain that name and identity shall for ever remain attached thereto
+while posterity enjoys the benefit. The artist might foresee that his
+name would, in a brief time, become dissociated from his work, and his
+memory blotted out from the book of the living; he would produce it all
+the same. The reformer might know that his motives would be aspersed,
+that his name would become after death a spitting and a reproach; but,
+for the sake of the cause he believed in, he would still be willing to
+die a dishonoured death and leave a reprobated name, to a world that
+had failed to understand.
+
+That is human nature at its best; and you will not change it or
+endanger it through any increased doubt thrown by modern thought or
+science on the prospect of conscious immortality after death. For
+whether we recognise it or not, a subconscious spirit, not perhaps of
+immortality but of unity, permeates us all; and for furtherance and
+worship of that which his soul desires, the spirit of man will ever be
+ready to work and strive, and to pass unconditionally into dust--if
+that indeed be the condition on which he holds his birthright in a life
+worth living.
+
+
+W. H. Smith & Son, The Arden Press, Stamford Street, London, S.E.1
+
+
+
+
++-------------------------------------------------+
+|Transcriber’s note:                              |
+|                                                 |
+|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.  |
+|                                                 |
++-------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           LAMBKIN’S REMAINS
+
+                                BY H. B.
+
+           _Author of “The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts,” etc_
+
+
+                              PUBLISHED BY
+                   THE PROPRIETORS OF THE _J.C.R._ AT
+                              J. VINCENT’S
+                         96, HIGH STREET OXFORD
+
+                                  1900
+
+
+_Lambkin on “Sleep” appeared in “The Isis.” It is reprinted here by
+kind permission of the Proprietors. The majority of the remaining
+pieces were first published in “The J. C. R.”_
+
+[_All rights reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+                               DEDICATION
+
+
+                                   TO
+
+                          THE REPUBLICAN CLUB
+
+                            I AM DETERMINED
+                                   TO
+                                DEDICATE
+                               THIS BOOK
+                     AND NOTHING SHALL TURN ME FROM
+                               MY PURPOSE.
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATORY ODE.
+
+
+    I mean to write with all my strength
+      (It lately has been sadly waning),
+    A ballad of enormous length--
+      Some parts of which will need explaining.[1]
+
+    Because (unlike the bulk of men,
+      Who write for fame and public ends),
+    I turn a lax and fluent pen
+      To talking of my private friends.[2]
+
+    For no one, in our long decline,
+      So dusty, spiteful and divided,
+    Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,
+      Or loved them half as much as I did.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The Freshman ambles down the High,
+      In love with everything he sees,
+    He notes the clear October sky,
+      He sniffs a vigorous western breeze.
+
+    “Can this be Oxford? This the place”
+      (He cries), “of which my father said
+    The tutoring was a damned disgrace,
+      The creed a mummery, stuffed and dead?
+
+    “Can it be here that Uncle Paul
+      Was driven by excessive gloom,
+    To drink and debt, and, last of all,
+      To smoking opium in his room?
+
+    “Is it from here the people come,
+      Who talk so loud, and roll their eyes,
+    And stammer? How extremely rum!
+      How curious! What a great surprise.
+
+    “Some influence of a nobler day
+      Than theirs (I mean than Uncle Paul’s),
+    Has roused the sleep of their decay,
+      And decked with light their ancient walls.
+
+    “O! dear undaunted boys of old,
+      Would that your names were carven here,
+    For all the world in stamps of gold,
+      That I might read them and revere.
+
+    “Who wrought and handed down for me
+      This Oxford of the larger air,
+    Laughing, and full of faith, and free,
+      With youth resplendent everywhere.”
+
+    Then learn: thou ill-instructed, blind,
+      Young, callow, and untutored man,
+    Their private names were----[3]
+      Their club was called REPUBLICAN.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Where on their banks of light they lie,
+      The happy hills of Heaven between,
+    The Gods that rule the morning sky
+      Are not more young, nor more serene
+
+    Than were the intrepid Four that stand,
+      The first who dared to live their dream,
+    And on this uncongenial land
+      To found the Abbey of Theleme.
+
+    We kept the Rabelaisian plan:[4]
+      We dignified the dainty cloisters
+    With Natural Law, the Rights of Man,
+      Song, Stoicism, Wine and Oysters.
+
+    The library was most inviting:
+      The books upon the crowded shelves
+    Were mainly of our private writing:
+      We kept a school and taught ourselves.
+
+    We taught the art of writing things
+      On men we still should like to throttle:
+    And where to get the blood of kings
+      At only half-a-crown a bottle.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Eheu Fugaces! Postume!
+      (An old quotation out of mode);
+    My coat of dreams is stolen away,
+      My youth is passing down the road.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The wealth of youth, we spent it well
+      And decently, as very few can.
+    And is it lost? I cannot tell;
+      And what is more, I doubt if you can.
+
+    The question’s very much too wide,
+      And much too deep, and much too hollow,
+    And learned men on either side
+      Use arguments I cannot follow.
+
+    They say that in the unchanging place,
+      Where all we loved is always dear,
+    We meet our morning face to face,
+      And find at last our twentieth year....
+
+    They say, (and I am glad they say),
+      It is so; and it may be so:
+    It may be just the other way,
+      I cannot tell. But this I know:
+
+    From quiet homes and first beginning,
+      Out to the undiscovered ends,
+    There’s nothing worth the wear of winning,
+      But laughter and the love of friends.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    But something dwindles, oh! my peers,
+      And something cheats the heart and passes,
+    And Tom that meant to shake the years
+      Has come to merely rattling glasses.
+
+    And He, the Father of the Flock,
+      Is keeping Burmesans in order,
+    An exile on a lonely rock
+      That overlooks the Chinese border.
+
+    And One (myself I mean--no less),
+      Ah!--will Posterity believe it--
+    Not only don’t deserve success,
+      But hasn’t managed to achieve it.
+
+    Not even this peculiar town
+      Has ever fixed a friendship firmer,
+    But--one is married, one’s gone down,
+      And one’s a Don, and one’s in Burmah.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    And oh! the days, the days, the days,
+      When all the four were off together:
+    The infinite deep of summer haze,
+      The roaring boast of autumn weather!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    I will not try the reach again,
+      I will not set my sail alone,
+    To moor a boat bereft of men
+      At Yarnton’s tiny docks of stone.
+
+    But I will sit beside the fire,
+      And put my hand before my eyes,
+    And trace, to fill my heart’s desire,
+      The last of all our Odysseys.
+
+    The quiet evening kept her tryst:
+      Beneath an open sky we rode,
+    And mingled with a wandering mist
+      Along the perfect Evenlode.
+
+    The tender Evenlode that makes
+      Her meadows hush to hear the sound
+    Of waters mingling in the brakes,
+      And binds my heart to English ground.
+
+    A lovely river, all alone,
+      She lingers in the hills and holds
+    A hundred little towns of stone,
+      Forgotten in the western wolds.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    I dare to think (though meaner powers
+      Possess our thrones, and lesser wits
+    Are drinking worser wine than ours,
+      In what’s no longer Austerlitz)
+
+    That surely a tremendous ghost,
+      The brazen-lunged, the bumper-filler,
+    Still sings to an immortal toast,
+      The Misadventures of the Miller.
+
+    The vasty seas are hardly bar
+      To men with such a prepossession;
+    We were? Why then, by God, we _are_--
+      Order! I call the club to session!
+
+    You do retain the song we set,
+      And how it rises, trips and scans?
+    You keep the sacred memory yet,
+      Republicans? Republicans?
+
+    You know the way the words were hurled,
+      To break the worst of fortune’s rub?
+    I give the toast across the world,
+      And drink it, “Gentlemen: the Club.”
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                      PAGE
+
+          DEDICATORY ODE                                 v
+
+          PREFACE                                       xv
+
+       I. INTRODUCTORY                                   1
+
+      II. LAMBKIN’S NEWDIGATE                           14
+
+     III. SOME REMARKS ON LAMBKIN’S PROSE STYLE         22
+
+      IV. LAMBKIN’S ESSAY ON “SUCCESS”                  28
+
+       V. LAMBKIN ON “SLEEP”                            37
+
+      VI. LAMBKIN’S ADVICE TO FRESHMEN                  42
+
+     VII. LAMBKIN’S LECTURE ON “RIGHT”                  51
+
+    VIII. LAMBKIN’S SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE              58
+
+      IX. LAMBKIN’S ADDRESS TO THE LEAGUE OF PROGRESS   72
+
+       X. LAMBKIN’S LEADER                              83
+
+      XI. LAMBKIN’S REMARKS ON THE END OF TERM          88
+
+     XII. LAMBKIN’S ARTICLE ON THE NORTH-WEST CORNER
+            OF THE MOSAIC PAVEMENT OF THE ROMAN VILLA
+            AT BIGNOR                                   95
+
+    XIII. LAMBKIN’S SERMON                             104
+
+     XIV. LAMBKIN’S OPEN LETTER TO CHURCHMEN           114
+
+      XV. LAMBKIN’S LETTER TO A FRENCH FRIEND          123
+
+     XVI. INTERVIEW WITH MR. LAMBKIN                   132
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The preparation of the ensuing pages has been a labour of love, and
+has cost me many an anxious hour. “Of the writing of books,” says the
+learned Psalmist (or more probably a Syro-Chaldæic scribe of the third
+century) “there is no end”; and truly it is a very solemn thought
+that so many writers, furnishing the livelihood of so many publishers,
+these in their turn supporting so many journals, reviews and magazines,
+and these last giving bread to such a vast army of editors, reviewers,
+and what not--I say it is a very solemn thought that this great mass
+of people should be engaged upon labour of this nature; labour which,
+rightly applied, might be of immeasurable service to humanity, but
+which is, alas! so often diverted into useless or even positively
+harmful channels: channels upon which I could write at some length,
+were it not necessary for me, however, to bring this reflection to a
+close.
+
+A fine old Arabic poem--probably the oldest complete literary work in
+the world--(I mean the Comedy which we are accustomed to call the Book
+of Job)[5] contains hidden away among its many treasures the phrase,
+“Oh! that mine enemy had written a book!” This craving for literature,
+which is so explicable in a primitive people, and the half-savage
+desire that the labour of writing should fall upon a foeman captured in
+battle, have given place in the long process of historical development
+to a very different spirit. There is now, if anything, a superabundance
+of literature, and an apology is needed for the appearance of such a
+work as this, nor, indeed, would it have been brought out had it not
+been imagined that Lambkin’s many friends would give it a ready sale.
+
+Animaxander, King of the Milesians, upon being asked by the Emissary
+of Atarxessus what was, in his opinion, the most wearying thing in the
+world, replied by cutting off the head of the messenger, thus outraging
+the religious sense of a time to which guests and heralds were sacred,
+as being under the special protection of Ζεύς (pronounced “Tsephs”).
+
+Warned by the awful fate of the sacrilegious monarch, I will put a term
+to these opening remarks. My book must be its own preface, I would that
+the work could be also its own publisher, its own bookseller, and its
+own reviewer.
+
+It remains to me only to thank the many gentlemen who have aided me
+in my task with the loan of letters, scraps of MSS., portraits, and
+pieces of clothing--in fine, with all that could be of interest in
+illustrating Lambkin’s career. My gratitude is especially due to Mr.
+Binder, who helped in part of the writing; to Mr. Cook, who was kind
+enough to look over the proofs; and to Mr. Wallingford, Q.C., who very
+kindly consented to receive an advance copy. I must also thank the
+Bishop of Bury for his courteous sympathy and ever-ready suggestion; I
+must not omit from this list M. Hertz, who has helped me with French,
+and whose industry and gentlemanly manners are particularly pleasing.
+
+I cannot close without tendering my thanks in general to the printers
+who have set up this book, to the agencies which have distributed it,
+and to the booksellers, who have put it upon their shelves; I feel a
+deep debt of gratitude to a very large number of people, and that is a
+pleasant sensation for a man who, in the course of a fairly successful
+career, has had to give (and receive) more than one shrewd knock.
+
+  THE CHAPLAINCY,
+  BURFORD COLLEGE,
+  OXFORD.
+
+P.S.--I have consulted, in the course of this work, Liddell and
+Scott’s _Larger Greek Lexicon_, Smith’s _Dictionary of Antiquities_,
+Skeats’ _Etymological Dictionary_, _Le Dictionnaire Franco-Anglais,
+et Anglo-Français_, of Boileau, Curtis’ _English Synonyms_, Buffle on
+_Punctuation_, and many other authorities which will be acknowledged in
+the text.
+
+
+
+
+Lambkin’s Remains
+
+_Being the unpublished works of J. A. Lambkin, M.A. sometime Fellow of
+Burford College_
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+It is without a trace of compunction or regret that I prepare to edit
+the few unpublished essays, sermons and speeches of my late dear
+friend, Mr. Lambkin. On the contrary, I am filled with a sense that
+my labour is one to which the clearest interests of the whole English
+people call me, and I have found myself, as the work grew under my
+hands, fulfilling, if I may say so with due modesty, a high and noble
+duty. I remember Lambkin himself, in one of the last conversations I
+had with him, saying with the acuteness that characterised him, “The
+world knows nothing of its greatest men.” This pregnant commentary upon
+human affairs was, I admit, produced by an accident in the _Oxford
+Herald_ which concerned myself. In a description of a Public Function
+my name had been mis-spelt, and though I was deeply wounded and
+offended, I was careful (from a feeling which I hope is common to all
+of us) to make no more than the slightest reference to this insult.
+
+The acute eye of friendship and sympathy, coupled with the instincts of
+a scholar and a gentleman, perceived my irritation, and in the evening
+Lambkin uttered the memorable words that I have quoted. I thanked him
+warmly, but, if long acquaintance had taught him my character, so had
+it taught me his. I knew the reticence and modesty of my colleague,
+the almost morbid fear that vanity (a vice which he detested) might be
+imputed to him on account of the exceptional gifts which he could not
+entirely ignore or hide; and I was certain that the phrase which he
+constructed to heal my wound was not without some reference to his own
+unmerited obscurity.
+
+The world knows nothing of its greatest men! Josiah Lambkin! from
+whatever Cypress groves of the underworld which environs us when on
+dark winter evenings in the silence of our own souls which nothing can
+dissolve though all attunes to that which nature herself perpetually
+calls us, always, if we choose but to remember, your name shall be
+known wherever the English language and its various dialects are
+spoken. The great All-mother has made me the humble instrument, and I
+shall perform my task as you would have desired it in a style which
+loses half its evil by losing all its rhetoric; I shall pursue my way
+and turn neither to the right nor to the left, but go straight on in
+the fearless old English fashion till it is completed.
+
+Josiah Abraham Lambkin was born of well-to-do and gentlemanly parents
+in Bayswater[6] on January 19th, 1843. His father, at the time of his
+birth, entertained objections to the great Public Schools, largely
+founded upon his religious leanings, which were at that time opposed
+to the ritual of those institutions. In spite therefore of the
+vehement protestations of his mother (who was distantly connected on
+the maternal side with the Cromptons of Cheshire) the boy passed his
+earlier years under the able tutorship of a Nonconformist divine, and
+later passed into the academy of Dr. Whortlebury at Highgate.[7]
+
+Of his school-days he always spoke with some bitterness. He appears
+to have suffered considerably from bullying, and the Headmaster,
+though a humane, was a blunt man, little fitted to comprehend the
+delicate nature with which he had to deal. On one occasion the nervous
+susceptible lad found it necessary to lay before him a description of
+the treatment to which he had been subjected by a younger and smaller,
+but much stronger boy; the pedagogue’s only reply was to flog Lambkin
+heartily with a light cane, “inflicting,” as he himself once told me,
+“such exquisite agony as would ever linger in his memory.” Doubtless
+this teacher of the old school thought he was (to use a phrase then
+common) “making a man of him,” but the object was not easily to be
+attained by brutal means. Let us be thankful that these punishments
+have nearly disappeared from our modern seminaries.
+
+When Josiah was fifteen years of age, his father, having prospered
+in business, removed to Eaton Square and bought an estate in Surrey.
+The merchant’s mind, which, though rough, was strong and acute,
+had meanwhile passed through a considerable change in the matter
+of religion; and as the result of long but silent self-examination
+he became the ardent supporter of a system which he had formerly
+abhorred. It was therefore determined to send the lad to one of the
+two great Universities, and though Mrs. Lambkin’s second cousins, the
+Crumptons, had all been to Cambridge, Oxford was finally decided upon
+as presenting the greater social opportunities at the time.[8]
+
+Here, then, is young Lambkin, in his nineteenth year, richly but
+soberly dressed, and eager for the new life that opens before him. He
+was entered at Burford College on October the 15th, 1861; a date which
+is, by a curious coincidence, exactly thirty-six years, four months,
+and two days from the time in which I pen these lines.
+
+Of his undergraduate career there is little to be told. Called by his
+enemies “The Burford Bounder,” or “dirty Lambkin,” he yet acquired the
+respect of a small but choice circle who called him by his own name. He
+was third _proxime accessit_ for the Johnson prize in Biblical studies,
+and would undoubtedly have obtained (or been mentioned for) the
+Newdigate, had he not been pitted against two men of quite exceptional
+poetic gifts--the present editor of “The Investor’s Sure Prophet,” and
+Mr. Hound, the well-known writer on “Food Statistics.”
+
+He took a good Second-class in Greats in the summer of 1864, and was
+immediately elected to a fellowship at Burford. It was not known at the
+time that his father had become a bankrupt through lending large sums
+at a high rate of interest to a young heir without security, trusting
+to the necessity under which his name and honour would put him to pay.
+In the shipwreck of the family fortunes, the small endowment was a
+veritable godsend to Josiah, who but for this recognition of his merits
+would have been compelled to work for his living.
+
+As it was, his peculiar powers were set free to plan his great
+monograph on “Being,” a work which, to the day of his death, he
+designed not only to write but to publish.
+
+There was not, of course, any incident of note in the thirty years
+during which he held his fellowship. He did his duty plainly as it lay
+before him, occasionally taking pupils, and after the Royal Commission,
+even giving lectures in the College hall. He was made Junior Dean in
+October, 1872, Junior Bursar in 1876, and Bursar in 1880, an office
+which he held during the rest of his life.
+
+In this capacity no breath of calumny ever touched him. His character
+was spotless. He never offered or took compensations of any kind, and
+no one has hinted that his accounts were not accurately and strictly
+kept.
+
+He never allowed himself to be openly a candidate for the Wardenship of
+the College, but it is remarkable that he received one vote at each of
+the three elections held in the twenty years of his residence.
+
+He passed peacefully away just after Hall on the Gaudy Night of last
+year. When his death was reported, an old scout, ninety-two years of
+age, who had grown deaf in the service of the College, burst into tears
+and begged that the name might be more clearly repeated to him, as he
+had failed to catch it. On hearing it he dried his eyes, and said he
+had never known a better master.
+
+His character will, I think, be sufficiently evident in the writings
+which I shall publish. He was one of nature’s gentlemen; reticent,
+just, and full of self-respect. He hated a scene, and was careful to
+avoid giving rise even to an argument. On the other hand, he was most
+tenacious of his just rights, though charitable to the deserving poor,
+and left a fortune of thirty-five thousand pounds.
+
+In the difficult questions which arise from the superior rank of
+inferiors he displayed a constant tact and judgment. It is not always
+easy for a tutor to control and guide the younger members of the
+aristocracy without being accused of pitiless severity on the one
+hand or of gross obsequiousness on the other. Lambkin, to his honour,
+contrived to direct with energy and guide without offence the men upon
+whom England’s greatness depends.
+
+He was by no means a snob--snobbishness was not in him. On the
+other hand, he was equally removed from what is almost worse than
+snobbishness--the morbid terror of subservience which possesses some
+ill-balanced minds.
+
+His attitude was this: that we are compelled to admit the aristocratic
+quality of the English polity and should, while decently veiling
+its cruder aspects, enjoy to the full the benefits which such a
+constitution confers upon society and upon our individual selves.
+
+By a genial observance of such canons he became one of the most
+respected among those whom the chances of an academic career presented
+to him as pupils or parents. He was the guest and honoured friend of
+the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Pembroke, the Duke of Limerick
+(“Mad Harry”), and the Duke of Lincoln; he had also the honour of
+holding a long conversation with the Duke of Berkshire, whom he met
+upon the top of an omnibus in Piccadilly and instantly recognised. He
+possessed letters, receipts or communications from no less than four
+Marquises, one Marquess, ten Barons, sixteen Baronets and one hundred
+and twenty County Gentlemen. I must not omit Lord Grumbletooth, who had
+had commercial dealings with his father, and who remained to the end of
+his life a cordial and devoted friend.[9]
+
+His tact in casual conversation was no less remarkable than his general
+_savoir faire_ in the continuous business of life. Thus upon one
+occasion a royal personage happened to be dining in Hall. It was some
+days after the death of Mr. Hooligan, the well-known Home Rule leader.
+The distinguished guest, with perhaps a trifle of licence, turned to
+Lambkin and said “Well, Mr. Bursar, what do you think of Hooligan?” We
+observed a respectful silence and wondered what reply Lambkin would
+give in these difficult circumstances. The answer was like a bolt from
+the blue, “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” said the Classical Scholar, and
+a murmur of applause went round the table.
+
+Indeed his political views were perhaps the most remarkable feature
+in a remarkable character. He died a convinced and staunch Liberal
+Unionist, and this was the more striking as he was believed by all his
+friends to be a Conservative until the introduction of Mr. Gladstone’s
+famous Bill in 1885.
+
+In the delicate matter of religious controversy his own writings must
+describe him, nor will I touch here upon a question which did not rise
+to any considerable public importance until after his death. Perhaps
+I may be permitted to say this much; he was a sincere Christian in
+the true sense of the word, attached to no narrow formularies, but
+following as closely as he could the system of Seneca, stiffened (as it
+were) with the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, though he was never so
+violent as to attempt a practice of what that extreme stoic laid down
+in theory.
+
+Neither a ritualist nor a low-churchman, he expressed his attitude
+by a profound and suggestive silence. These words only escaped him
+upon one single occasion. Let us meditate upon them well in the stormy
+discussions of to-day: “Medio tutissimus ibis.”
+
+His learning and scholarship, so profound in the dead languages, was
+exercised with singular skill and taste in the choice he made of modern
+authors.
+
+He was ignorant of Italian, but thoroughly conversant with the
+French classics, which he read in the admirable translations of the
+‘Half-crown Series.’ His principal reading here was in the works of
+Voltaire, wherein, however, he confessed, “He could find no style,
+and little more than blasphemous ribaldry.” Indeed, of the European
+languages he would read German with the greatest pleasure, confining
+himself chiefly to the writings of Lessing, Kant, and Schiller. His
+mind acquired by this habit a singular breadth and fecundity, his style
+a kind of rich confusion, and his speech (for he was able to converse
+a little in that idiom) was strengthened by expressions of the deepest
+philosophic import; a habit which gave him a peculiar and individual
+power over his pupils, who mistook the Teutonic gutturals for violent
+objurgations.
+
+Such was the man, such the gentleman, the true ‘Hglaford,’ the modern
+‘Godgebidden Eorldemanthingancanning,’ whose inner thoughts shall unroll
+themselves in the pages that follow.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Lambkin’s Newdigate
+
+POEM WRITTEN FOR “NEWDIGATE PRIZE” IN ENGLISH VERSE
+
+BY J. A. LAMBKIN, ESQ., OF BURFORD COLLEGE
+
+_N.B._--[_The competitors are confined to the use of Rhymed Heroic
+Iambic Pentameters, but the introduction of_ LYRICS _is permitted_]
+
+Subject: “THE BENEFITS CONFERRED BY SCIENCE, ESPECIALLY IN CONNECTION
+WITH THE ELECTRIC LIGHT”
+
+_For the benefit of those who do not care to read through the Poem but
+desire to know its contents, I append the following headings_:
+
+
+INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
+
+    Hail! Happy Muse, and touch the tuneful string!
+    The benefits conferred by Science[10] I sing.
+
+
+HIS THEME: THE ELECTRIC LIGHT AND ITS BENEFITS
+
+    Under the kind Examiners’[11] direction
+    I only write about them in connection
+    With benefits which the Electric Light
+    Confers on us; especially at night.
+    These are my theme, of these my song shall rise.
+    My lofty head shall swell to strike the skies,[12]
+    And tears of hopeless love bedew the maiden’s eyes.
+
+
+SECOND INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
+
+    Descend, O Muse, from thy divine abode,
+
+
+OSNEY
+
+    To Osney, on the Seven Bridges Road;
+    For under Osney’s solitary shade
+    The bulk of the Electric Light is made.
+    Here are the works, from hence the current flows
+    Which (so the Company’s prospectus goes)
+
+
+POWER OF WORKS THERE
+
+    Can furnish to Subscribers hour by hour
+    No less than sixteen thousand candle power,[13]
+    All at a thousand volts. (It is essential
+    To keep the current at this high potential
+    In spite of the considerable expense.)
+
+
+STATISTICS CONCERNING THEM
+
+    The Energy developed represents,
+    Expressed in foot-tons, the united forces
+    Of fifteen elephants and forty horses.
+    But shall my scientific detail thus
+    Clip the dear wings of Buoyant Pegasus?
+
+
+POETICAL OR RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
+
+    Shall pure statistics jar upon the ear
+    That pants for Lyric accents loud and clear?
+    Shall I describe the complex Dynamo
+    Or write about its commutator? No!
+
+
+THE THEME CHANGES
+
+    To happier fields I lead my wanton pen,
+    The proper study of mankind is men.
+
+
+THIRD INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
+
+    Awake, my Muse! Portray the pleasing sight
+    That meets us where they make Electric Light.
+
+
+A PICTURE OF THE ELECTRICIAN
+
+    Behold the Electrician where he stands:
+    Soot, oil, and verdigris are on his hands;
+    Large spots of grease defile his dirty clothes,
+    The while his conversation drips with oaths.
+    Shall such a being perish in its youth?
+    Alas! it is indeed the fatal truth.
+    In that dull brain, beneath that hair unkempt,
+    Familiarity has bred contempt.
+    We warn him of the gesture all too late;
+    Oh, Heartless Jove! Oh, Adamantine Fate!
+
+
+HIS AWFUL FATE
+
+    Some random Touch--a hand’s imprudent slip--
+    The Terminals--a flash--a sound like “Zip!”
+    A smell of Burning fills the startled Air--
+    The Electrician is no longer there!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+HE CHANGES HIS THEME
+
+    But let us turn with true Artistic scorn
+    From facts funereal and from views forlorn
+    Of Erebus and Blackest midnight born.[14]
+
+
+FOURTH INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
+
+    Arouse thee, Muse! and chaunt in accents rich
+    The interesting processes by which
+    The Electricity is passed along:
+    These are my theme, to these I bend my song.
+
+
+DESCRIPTION OF METHOD BY WHICH THE CURRENT IS USED
+
+    It runs encased in wood or porous brick
+    Through copper wires two millimetres thick,
+    And insulated on their dangerous mission
+    By indiarubber, silk, or composition,
+    Here you may put with critical felicity
+    The following question: “What is Electricity?”
+
+
+DIFFICULTY OF DETERMINING NATURE OF ELECTRICITY
+
+    “Molecular Activity,” say some,
+    Others when asked say nothing, and are dumb.
+    Whatever be its nature: this is clear,
+    The rapid current checked in its career,
+    Baulked in its race and halted in its course[15]
+    Transforms to heat and light its latent force:
+
+
+CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. PROOFS OF THIS: NO EXPERIMENT NEEDED
+
+    It needs no pedant in the lecturer’s chair
+    To prove that light and heat are present there.
+    The pear-shaped vacuum globe, I understand,
+    Is far too hot to fondle with the hand.
+    While, as is patent to the meanest sight,
+    The carbon filament is very bright.
+
+
+DOUBTS ON THE MUNICIPAL SYSTEM, BUT--
+
+    As for the lights they hang about the town,
+    Some praise them highly, others run them down.
+    This system (technically called the arc)
+    Makes some passages too light, others too dark.
+
+
+NONE ON THE DOMESTIC
+
+    But in the house the soft and constant rays
+    Have always met with universal praise.
+
+
+ITS ADVANTAGES
+
+    For instance: if you want to read in bed
+    No candle burns beside your curtains’ head,
+    Far from some distant corner of the room
+    The incandescent lamp dispels the gloom,
+
+
+ADVANTAGES OF LARGE PRINT
+
+    And with the largest print need hardly try
+    The powers of any young and vigorous eye.
+
+
+FIFTH INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
+
+    Aroint thee, Muse! inspired the poet sings!
+    I cannot help observing future things!
+
+
+THE ONLY HOPE OF HUMANITY IS IN SCIENCE
+
+    Life is a vale, its paths are dark and rough
+    Only because we do not know enough.
+    When Science has discovered something more
+    We shall be happier than we were before.
+
+
+PERORATION IN THE SPIRIT OF THE REST OF THE POEM
+
+    Hail! Britain, mistress of the Azure Main,
+    Ten Thousand Fleets sweep over thee in vain!
+    Hail! mighty mother of the brave and free,
+    That beat Napoleon, and gave birth to me!
+    Thou that canst wrap in thine emblazoned robe
+    One quarter of the habitable globe.
+    Thy mountains, wafted by a favouring breeze,
+    Like mighty hills withstand the stormy seas.
+
+
+WARNING TO BRITAIN
+
+    Thou art a Christian Commonwealth. And yet
+    Be thou not all unthankful--nor forget
+    As thou exultest in Imperial might
+    The benefits of the Electric Light.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Some Remarks on Lambkin’s Prose Style
+
+
+No achievement of my dear friend’s produced a greater effect than the
+English Essay which he presented at his examination. That so young
+a man, and a man trained in such an environment as his, should have
+written an essay at all was sufficiently remarkable, but that his
+work should have shown such mastery in the handling, such delicate
+balance of idea, and so much know-ledge (in the truest sense of the
+word), coupled with such an astounding insight into human character
+and contemporary psychology, was enough to warrant the remark of the
+then Warden of Burford: “If these things” (said the aged but eminent
+divine), “if these things” (it was said in all reverence and with a
+full sense of the responsibility of his position), “If these things are
+done in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?”
+
+Truly it may be said that the Green Wood of Lambkin’s early years as an
+Undergraduate was worthily followed by the Dry Wood of his later life
+as a fellow and even tutor, nay, as a Bursar of his college.
+
+It is not my purpose to add much to the reader’s own impressions of
+this _tour de force_, or to insist too strongly upon the skill and
+breadth of treatment which will at once make their mark upon any
+intelligent man, and even upon the great mass of the public. But I may
+be forgiven if I give some slight personal memories in interpretation
+of a work which is necessarily presented in the cold medium of type.
+
+Lambkin’s hand-writing was flowing and determined, but was often
+difficult to read, a quality which led in the later years of his life
+to the famous retort made by the Rural Dean of Henchthorp to the
+Chaplain of Bower’s Hall.[16] His manuscript was, like Lord Byron’s
+(and unlike the famous Codex V in the Vatican), remarkable for its
+erasures, of which as many as three may be seen in some places
+super-imposed, ladderwise, _en échelle_, the one above the other,
+perpendicularly to the line of writing.
+
+This excessive fastidiousness in the use of words was the cause of his
+comparatively small production of written work; and thus the essay
+printed below was the labour of nearly three hours. His ideas in this
+matter were best represented by his little epigram on the appearance
+of Liddell and Scott’s larger Greek Lexicon. “Quality not quantity”
+was the witty phrase which he was heard to mutter when he received his
+first copy of that work.
+
+The nervous strain of so much anxiety about his literary work wearied
+both mind and body, but he had his reward. The scholarly aptitude of
+every particle in the phrase, and the curious symmetry apparent in
+the great whole of the essay are due to a quality which he pushed
+indeed to excess, but never beyond the boundary that separates Right
+and Wrong; we admire in the product what we might criticise in the
+method, and when we judge as critics we are compelled as Englishmen and
+connoisseurs to congratulate and to applaud.
+
+He agreed with Aristotle in regarding lucidity as the main virtue
+of style. And if he sometimes failed to attain his ideal in this
+matter, the obscurity was due to none of those mannerisms which are so
+deplorable in a Meredith or a Browning, but rather to the fact that he
+found great difficulty in ending a sentence as he had begun it. His
+mind outran his pen; and the sentence from his University sermon,
+“England must do her duty, or what will the harvest be?” stirring and
+patriotic as it is, certainly suffers from some such fault, though I
+cannot quite see where.
+
+The Oxymoron, the Aposiopesis, the Nominativus Pendens, the Anacoluthon
+and the Zeugma he looked upon with abhorrence and even with dread.
+He was a friend to all virile enthusiasm in writing but a foe to
+rhetoric, which (he would say) “Is cloying even in a demagogue, and
+actually nauseating in the literary man.” He drew a distinction between
+_eloquence_ and rhetoric, often praising the one and denouncing the
+other with the most abandoned fervour: indeed, it was his favourite
+diversion in critical conversation accurately to determine the meaning
+of words. In early youth he would often split an infinitive or end
+a sentence with a preposition. But, ever humble and ready to learn,
+he determined, after reading Mrs. Griffin’s well-known essays in the
+_Daily American_, to eschew such conduct for the future; and it was a
+most touching sight to watch him, even in extreme old age, his reverend
+white locks sweeping the paper before him and his weak eyes peering
+close at the MSS. as he carefully went over his phrases with a pen,
+scratching out and amending, at the end of his day’s work, the errors
+of this nature.
+
+He commonly used a gilt “J” nib, mounted upon a holder of imitation
+ivory, but he was not cramped by any petty limitations in such details
+and would, if necessity arose, make use of a quill, or even of a
+fountain pen, insisting, however, if he was to use the latter, that it
+should be of the best.
+
+The paper upon which he wrote the work that remains to us was the
+ordinary ruled foolscap of commerce; but this again he regarded as
+quite unimportant. It was the matter of what he wrote that concerned
+him, not (as is so often the case with lesser men) the mere accidents
+of pen or paper.
+
+I remember little else of moment with regard to his way of writing, but
+I make no doubt that these details will not be without their interest;
+for the personal habits of a great man have a charm of their own. I
+read once that the sum of fifty pounds was paid for the pen of Charles
+Dickens. I wonder what would be offered for a similar sacred relic, of
+a man more obscure, but indirectly of far greater influence; a relic
+which I keep by me with the greatest reverence, which I do not use
+myself, however much at a loss I may be for pen or pencil, and with
+which I never, upon any account, allow the children to play.
+
+But I must draw to a close, or I should merit the reproach of lapsing
+into a sentimental peroration, and be told that I am myself indulging
+in that rhetoric which Lambkin so severely condemned.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+Lambkin’s Essay on “Success”
+
+
+ON “SUCCESS:” ITS CAUSES AND RESULTS
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulty of Subject]
+
+In approaching a problem of this nature, with all its anomalies and
+analogues, we are at once struck by the difficulty of conditioning any
+accurate estimate of the factors of the solution of the difficulty
+which is latent in the very terms of the above question. We shall do
+well perhaps, however, to clearly differentiate from its fellows the
+proposition we have to deal with, and similarly as an inception of
+our analysis to permanently fix the definitions and terms we shall be
+talking of, with, and by.
+
+[Sidenote: Definition of Success]
+
+Success may be defined as the _Successful Consummation of an Attempt_
+or more shortly as the _Realisation of an imagined Good_, and as it
+implies Desire or the Wish for a thing, and at the same time action
+or the attempt to get at a thing,[17] we might look at Success from
+yet another point of view and say that _Success is the realisation
+of Desire through action_. Indeed this last definition seems on the
+whole to be the best; but it is evident that in this, as in all
+other matters, it is impossible to arrive at perfection, and our
+safest definition will be that which is found to be on the whole most
+approximately the average mean[18] of many hundreds that might be
+virtually constructed to more or less accurately express the idea we
+have undertaken to do.
+
+So far then it is evident that while we may have a fairly definite
+subjective visual concept of what Success is, we shall never be able to
+convey to others in so many words exactly what our idea may be.
+
+                “What am I?
+       ,     .     .     .     .
+    An infant crying for the light
+    That has no language but a cry”
+
+[Sidenote: Method of dealing with Problem]
+
+It is, however, of more practical importance nevertheless, to arrive
+at some method or other by which we can in the long run attack the
+very serious problem presented to us. Our best chance of arriving at
+any solution will lie in attempting to give objective form to what it
+is we have to do with. For this purpose we will first of all divide
+all actions into (א) Successful and (ב) Non-successful[19] actions.
+These two categories are at once mutually exclusive and collectively
+universal. Nothing of which Success can be truly predicated, can at
+the same time be called with any approach to accuracy Unsuccessful;
+and similarly if an action finally result in Non-success, it is quite
+evident that to speak of its “Success” would be to trifle with words
+and to throw dust into our own eyes, which is a fatal error in any
+case. We have then these two primary catēgories what is true of one
+will, with certain reservations, be untrue of the other, in most cases
+(we will come to that later) and _vice-versâ_.
+
+  (1)   Success.
+  (2)   Non-success.
+
+[Sidenote: First great Difficulty]
+
+But here we are met at the outset of our examination by a difficulty of
+enormous dimensions. There is not one success; there are many. There
+is the success of the Philosopher, of the Scientist, of the Politician,
+of the Argument, of the Commanding Officer, of the Divine, of the
+mere unthinking Animal appetite, and of others more numerous still.
+It is evident that with such a vast number of different subsidiary
+catēgories within our main catēgory it would be impossible to arrive at
+any absolute conclusions, or to lay down any firm general principle.
+For the moment we had erected some such fundamental foundation the
+fair structure would be blown to a thousand atoms by the consideration
+of some fresh form, aspect or realisation, of Success which might
+have escaped our vision, so that where should we be then? It is
+therefore most eminently a problem in which we should beware of undue
+generalisations and hasty dogmatism. We must abandon here as everywhere
+the immoral and exploded cant of mediæval deductive methods invented by
+priests and mummers to enslave the human mind, and confine ourselves to
+what we absolutely _know_. Shall we towards the end of this essay truly
+_know_ anything with regard to Success? Who can tell! But at least let
+us not cheat ourselves with the axioms, affirmations and dogmas which
+are, in a certain sense, the ruin of so many; let us, if I may use a
+metaphor, “abandon the _à priori_ for the _chiaro-oscuro_.”
+
+[Sidenote: Second much greater Difficulty]
+
+But if the problem is complex from the great variety of the various
+kinds of Success, what shall we say of the disturbance introduced
+by a new aspect of the matter, which we are now about to allude to!
+Aye! What indeed! An aspect so widespread in its consequences, so
+momentous and so fraught with menace to all philosophy, so big with
+portent, and of such threatening aspect to humanity itself, that we
+hesitate even to bring it forward![20] _Success is not always Success:
+Non-success (or Failure) is an aspect of Success, and vice-versâ._ This
+apparent paradox will be seen to be true on a little consideration.
+For “Success” in any one case involves the “Failure” or “Non-success”
+of its opposite or correlative. Thus, if we bet ten pounds with one of
+our friends our “Success” would be his “Non-success,” and _vice-versâ_,
+collaterally. Again, if we desire to fail in a matter (_e.g._, any man
+would hope to fail in being hanged[21]), then to succeed is to fail,
+and to fail is to succeed, and our successful failure would fail were
+we to happen upon a disastrous success! And note that the _very same
+act_, not this, that, or another, but THE VERY SAME, is (according
+to the way we look at it) a “successful” or an “unsuccessful” act.
+Success therefore not only _may_ be, but _must_ be Failure, and the two
+catēgories upon which we had built such high hopes have disappeared for
+ever!
+
+[Sidenote: Solemn considerations consequent upon this]
+
+Terrible thought! A thing can be at once itself and not itself--nay
+its own opposite! The mind reels, and the frail human vision peering
+over the immense gulf of metaphysical infinity is lost in a cry for
+mercy and trembles on the threshold of the unseen! What visions of
+horror and madness may not be reserved for the too daring soul which
+has presumed to knock at the Doors of Silence! Let us learn from the
+incomprehensible how small and weak a thing is man!
+
+[Sidenote: A more cheerful view]
+
+But it would ill-befit the philosopher to abandon his effort because
+of a kind of a check or two at the start. The great hand of Time
+shouts ever “onward”; and even if we cannot discover the Absolute in
+the limits of this essay, we may rise from the ashes of our tears to
+better and happier things.
+
+[Sidenote: The beginning of a Solution]
+
+A light seems to dawn on us. We shall not arrive at the full day
+but we shall see “in a glass darkly” what, in the final end of our
+development, may perhaps be more clearly revealed to us. It is evident
+that we have been dealing with a relative. _How_ things so apparently
+absolute as hanging or betting can be in any true sense relative we
+cannot tell, because we cannot conceive the majestic whole of which
+Success and Failure, plus and minus, up and down, yes and no, truth
+and lies, are but as the glittering facets of a diamond borne upon the
+finger of some titled and wealthy person.
+
+Our error came from foolish self-sufficiency and pride. We thought
+(forsooth) that our mere human conceptions of contradiction were real.
+It has been granted to us (though we are but human still), to discover
+our error--there is no hot or cold, no light or dark, and no good or
+evil, all are, in a certain sense, and with certain limitations (if I
+may so express myself) the Aspects----
+
+_At this point the bell rang and the papers had to be delivered up.
+Lambkin could not let his work go, however, without adding a few words
+to show what he might have done had time allowed. He wrote:--_
+
+“No Time. Had intended examples--Success, Academic, Acrobatic,
+Agricultural, Aristocratic, Bacillic ... Yaroslavic, Zenobidic,
+etc. Historical cases examined, Biggar’s view, H. Unity, Univ.
+Consciousness, Amphodunissa,[22] Setxm [Illustration].”
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Lambkin on Sleep
+
+
+[_This little gem was written for the great Monograph on “Being,” which
+Lambkin never lived to complete. It was included, however, in his
+little volume of essays entitled “Rictus Almae Matris.” The careful
+footnotes, the fund of information, and the scholarly accuracy of
+the whole sketch are an example--(alas! the only one)--of what his
+full work would have been had he brought it to a conclusion. It is an
+admirable example of his manner in maturer years._]
+
+In sleep our faculties lie dormant.[23] We perceive nothing or almost
+nothing of our surroundings; and the deeper our slumber the more
+absolute is the barrier between ourselves and the outer world. The
+causes of this “Cessation of Consciousness” (as it has been admirably
+called by Professor M‘Obvy)[24] lie hidden from our most profound
+physiologists. It was once my privilege to meet the master of physical
+science who has rendered famous the University of Kreigenswald,[25] and
+I asked him what in his opinion was the cause of sleep. He answered,
+with that reverence which is the glory of the Teutonic mind, “It is in
+the dear secret of the All-wise Nature-mother preserved.” I have never
+forgotten those wise and weighty words.[26]
+
+Perhaps the nearest guess as to the nature of Sleep is to be
+discovered in the lectures of a brilliant but sometimes over-daring
+young scholar whom we all applaud in the chair of Psychology. “Sleep”
+(he says) “is the direct product of Brain Somnolence, which in its
+turn is the result of the need for Repose that every organism must
+experience after any specialised exertion.” I was present when this
+sentence was delivered, and I am not ashamed to add that I was one of
+those who heartily cheered the young speaker.[27]
+
+We may assert, then, that Science has nearly conquered this last
+stronghold of ignorance and superstition.[28]
+
+As to the Muses, we know well that Sleep has been their favourite
+theme for ages. With the exception of Catullus (whose verses have been
+greatly over-rated, and who is always talking of people lying awake
+at night), all the ancients have mentioned and praised this innocent
+pastime. Everyone who has done Greats will remember the beautiful
+passage in Lucretius,[29] but perhaps that in Sidonius Apollinaris, the
+highly polished Bishop of Gaul, is less well known.[30] To turn to our
+own literature, the sonnet beginning “To die, to sleep,” etc.,[31] must
+be noted, and above all, the glorious lines in which Wordsworth reaches
+his noblest level, beginning--
+
+  “It is a pleasant thing to go to sleep!”
+
+lines which, for my part, I can never read without catching some of
+their magical drowsy influence.[32]
+
+All great men have slept. George III. frequently slept,[33] and that
+great and good man Wycliffe was in the habit of reading his Scriptural
+translations and his own sermons nightly to produce the desired
+effect.[34] The Duke of Wellington (whom my father used to call “The
+Iron Duke”) slept on a little bedstead no larger than a common man’s.
+
+As for the various positions in which one may sleep, I treat of them
+in my little book of Latin Prose for Schools, which is coming out next
+year.[35]
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+Lambkin’s Advice to Freshmen
+
+
+Mr. Lambkin possessed among other great and gracious qualities the
+habit of writing to his nephew, Thomas Ezekiel Lambkin,[36] who
+entered the college as an undergraduate when his uncle was some four
+years a Fellow. Of many such communications he valued especially
+this which I print below, on account of the curious and pathetic
+circumstances which surrounded it. Some months after Thomas had been
+given his two groups and had left the University, Mr. Lambkin was
+looking over some books in a second-hand book shop--not with the
+intention of purchasing so much as to improve the mind. It was a
+favourite habit of his, and as he was deeply engaged in a powerful
+romance written under the pseudonym of “Marie Corelli”[37] there
+dropped from its pages the letter which he had sent so many years
+before. It lay in its original envelope unopened, and on turning to
+the flyleaf he saw the name of his nephew written. It had once been
+his! The boy had so treasured the little missive as to place it in his
+favourite book!
+
+Lambkin was so justly touched by the incident as to purchase the
+volume, asking that the price might be entered to his account, which
+was not then of any long standing. The letter he docketed “to be
+published after my death.” And I obey the wishes of my revered friend:
+
+  “MY DEAR THOMAS,
+
+“Here you are at last in Oxford, and at Burford, ‘a Burford Man.’ How
+proud your mother must be and even your father, whom I well remember
+saying that ‘if he were not an accountant, he would rather be a Fellow
+of Burford than anything else on earth.’ But it was not to be.
+
+“The life you are entering is very different from that which you
+have left behind. When you were at school you were under a strict
+discipline, you were compelled to study the classics and to play
+at various games. Cleanliness and truthfulness were enforced by
+punishment, while the most instinctive habits of decency and good
+manners could only be acquired at the expense of continual application.
+In a word, ‘you were a child and thought as a child.’
+
+“Now all that is changed, you are free (within limits) to follow your
+own devices, to make or mar yourself. But if you use Oxford aright she
+will make you as she has made so many of your kind--a perfect gentleman.
+
+“But enough of these generalities. It is time to turn to one or two
+definite bits of advice which I hope you will receive in the right
+spirit. My dear boy, I want you to lay your hand in mine while I speak
+to you, not as an uncle, but rather as an elder brother. Promise me
+three things. First never to gamble in any form; secondly, never to
+drink a single glass of wine after dinner; thirdly, never to purchase
+anything without paying for it in cash. If you will make such strict
+rules for yourself and keep them religiously you will find after years
+of constant effort a certain result developing (as it were), you will
+discover with delight that your character is formed; that you have
+neither won nor lost money at hazards, that you have never got drunk
+of an evening, and that you have no debts. Of the first two I can only
+say that they are questions of morality on which we all may, and all
+_do_, differ. But the third is of a vital and practical importance.
+Occasional drunkenness is a matter for private judgment, its rightness
+or wrongness depends upon our ethical system; but debt is fatal to any
+hope of public success.
+
+“I hesitate a little to mention one further point; but--may I say
+it?--will you do your best to avoid drinking neat spirits in the early
+morning--especially Brandy? Of course a Governor and Tutor, whatever
+his abilities, gets removed in his sympathies from the younger men.[38]
+The habit may have died out, and if so I will say no more, but in my
+time it was the ruin of many a fair young life.
+
+“Now as to your day and its order. First, rise briskly when you are
+called, and into your cold bath, you young dog![39] No shilly-shally;
+into it. Don’t splash the water about in a miserable attempt to deceive
+your scout, but take an Honest British Cold Bath like a man. Soap
+should never be used save on the hands and neck. As to hot baths,
+never ask for them in College, it would give great trouble, and it is
+much better to take one in the Town for a shilling; nothing is more
+refreshing than a good hot bath in the Winter Term.
+
+“Next you go out and ‘keep’ a Mosque, Synagogue, or Meeting of the
+Brethren, though if you can agree with the system it is far better to
+go to your College Chapel; it puts a man right with his superiors and
+you obey the Apostolic injunction.[40]
+
+“Then comes your breakfast. Eat as much as you can; it is the
+foundation of a good day’s work in the Vineyard. But what is this?--a
+note from your Tutor. Off you go at the appointed time, and as you
+may be somewhat nervous and diffident I will give you a little
+Paradigm,[41] as it were, of a Freshman meeting his Tutor for the first
+time.
+
+“[_The Student enters, and as he is half way through the door says:--_]
+
+“_St._--Good morning! Have you noticed what the papers say
+about--[_Here mention some prominent subject of the day._]
+
+“[_The Tutor does not answer but goes on writing in a little book; at
+last he looks up and says:--_]
+
+“_Tut._--Pray, what is your name?
+
+“_St._--M. or N.
+
+“_Tut._--What have you read before coming up, Mr. ----?
+
+“_St._--The existing Latin authors from Ennius to Sidonius
+Apollinaris, with their fragments. The Greek from Sappho to Origen
+including Bacchylides.
+
+[_The Tutor makes a note of this and resumes...._]
+
+“_Tut._--Have you read the Gospels?
+
+“_St._--No, Sir.
+
+“_Tut._--You must read two of them as soon as possible in the Greek, as
+it is necessary to the passing of Divinity, unless indeed you prefer
+the beautiful work of Plato. Come at ten to-morrow. Good morning.
+
+“_St._--I am not accustomed to being spoken to in that fashion.
+
+[_The Tutor will turn to some other Student, and the first Student will
+leave the room._]
+
+“I have little more to say. You will soon learn the customs of the
+place, and no words of mine can efficiently warn you as experience
+will. Put on a black coat before Hall, and prepare for that meal
+with neatness, but with no extravagant display. Do not wear your cap
+and gown in the afternoon, do not show an exaggerated respect to the
+younger fellows (except the Chaplain), on the one hand, nor a silly
+contempt for the older Dons upon the other. The first line of conduct
+is that of a timid and uncertain mind; it is of no profit for future
+advancement, and draws down upon one the contempt of all. The second
+is calculated to annoy as fine a body of men as any in England, and
+seriously to affect your reputation in Society.
+
+“You will find in every college some club which contains the wealthier
+undergraduates and those of prominent position. Join it if possible
+at once before you are known. At its weekly meetings speak soberly,
+but not pompously. Enliven your remarks with occasional flashes of
+humour, but do not trench upon the ribald nor pass the boundary of
+right-reason. Such excesses may provoke a momentary laugh, but they
+ultimately destroy all respect for one’s character. Remember Lot’s wife!
+
+“You will row, of course, and as you rush down to the river after a
+hurried lunch and dash up to do a short bit of reading before Hall,
+your face will glow with satisfaction at the thought that every day of
+your life will be so occupied for four years.
+
+“Of the grosser and lower evils I need not warn you: you will not give
+money to beggars in the street, nor lend it to your friends. You will
+not continually expose your private thoughts, nor open your heart to
+every comer in the vulgar enthusiasm of some whom you may meet. No, my
+dear Ezekiel, it would be unworthy of your name, and I know you too
+well, to fear such things of you. You are a Gentleman, and that you
+may, like a gentleman, be always at your ease, courteous on occasion,
+but familiar never, is the earnest prayer of--
+
+  “JOSIAH LAMBKIN.”
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+Lambkin’s Lecture on “Right”
+
+
+Of the effects of Mr. Lambkin’s lectures, the greatest and (I venture
+to think) the most permanent are those that followed from his course
+on _Ethics_. The late Dean of Heaving-on-the-Marsh (the Honourable
+Albert Nathan-Merivale, the first name adopted from his property in
+Rutland) told me upon one occasion that he owed the direction of his
+mind to those lectures (under Providence) more than to any other
+lectures he could remember.
+
+Very much the same idea was conveyed to me, more or less, by the
+Bishop of Humbury, who turned to me in hall, only a year ago, with a
+peculiar look in his eyes, and (as I had mentioned Lambkin’s name) said
+suddenly, like a man who struggles with an emotion:[42] “Lambkin(!)[43]
+... did not he give lectures in your hall ... on Ethics?” “Some,”
+I replied, “were given in the Hall, others in Lecture Room No. 2
+over the glory-hole.” His lordship said nothing, but there was a
+world of thought and reminiscence in his eyes. May we not--knowing
+his lordship’s difficulties in matters of belief, and his final
+victory--ascribe something of this progressive and salutary influence
+to my dear friend?
+
+
+ON “RIGHT”
+
+  [_Being Lecture V. in a course of Eight, delivered, in the Autumn
+  Term of 1878._]
+
+We have now proceeded for a considerable distance in our journey
+towards the Solution. Of eight lectures, of which I had proposed to
+make so many milestones on the road, the fifth is reached, and now we
+are in measurable distance of the Great Answer; the Understanding of
+the Relations of the Particular to the Universal.
+
+It is an easy, though a profitable task to wander in what the late Sir
+Reginald Hawke once called in a fine phrase “the flowery meads and
+bosky dells of Positive Knowledge.” It is in the essence of any modern
+method of inquiry that we should be first sure of our facts, and it
+is on this account that all philosophical research worthy of the name
+must begin with the physical sciences. For the last few weeks I have
+illustrated my lectures with chemical experiments and occasionally
+with large coloured diagrams, which, especially to young people like
+yourselves have done not a little to enliven what might at first appear
+a very dull subject. It is therefore with happy, hopeful hearts,
+with sparkling eyes and eager appetite that we leave the physical
+entry-hall of knowledge to approach the delicious feast of metaphysics.
+
+But here a difficulty confronts us. So far we have followed an
+historical development. We have studied the actions of savages and the
+gestures of young children; we have enquired concerning the habits
+of sleepwalkers, and have drawn our conclusions from the attitudes
+adopted in special manias. So far, then, we have been on safe ground.
+We have proceeded from the known to the unknown, and we have correlated
+Psychology, Sociology, Anatomy, Morphology, Physiology, Geography,
+and Theology (_here Mr. Darkin of Vast, who had been ailing a long
+time, was carried out in a faint; Mr. Lambkin, being short-sighted,
+did not fully seize what had happened, and thinking that certain of
+his audience were leaving the Hall without permission, he became as
+nearly angry as was possible to such a man. He made a short speech on
+the decay of manners, and fell into several bitter epigrams. It is only
+just to say that, on learning the occasion of the interruption, he
+regretted the expression “strong meat for babes” which had escaped him
+at the time._)
+
+So far so good. But there is something more. No one can proceed
+indefinitely in the study of Ethics without coming, sooner or later,
+upon the Conventional conception of _Right_. I do not mean that this
+conception has any philosophic value. I should be the last to lay down
+for it those futile, empirical and dogmatic foundations which may
+satisfy narrow, deductive minds. But there it is, and as practical men
+with it we must deal. What is _Right_? Whence proceeds this curious
+conglomeration of idealism, mysticism, empiricism, and fanaticism to
+which the name has been given?
+
+It is impossible to say. It is the duty of the lecturer to set
+forth the scheme of truth: to make (as it were) a map or plan of
+Epistemology. He is not concerned to demonstrate a point; he is not
+bound to dispute the attitude of opponents. Let them fall of their own
+weight (_Ruant mole suâ_). It is mine to show that things _may_ be thus
+or thus, and I will most steadily refuse to be drawn into sterile
+argument and profitless discussion with mere affirmations.
+
+“The involute of progression is the subconscious evolution of the
+particular function.” No close reasoner will deny this. It is the
+final summing up of all that is meant by Development. It is the root
+formula of the nineteenth century that is now, alas! drawing to a close
+under our very eyes. Now to such a fundamental proposition I add a
+second. “The sentiment of right is the inversion of the subconscious
+function in its relation to the indeterminate ego.” This also I take
+to be admitted by all European philosophers in Germany. Now I will not
+go so far as to say that a major premiss when it is absolutely sound,
+followed by a minor equally sound, leads to a sure conclusion. God
+fulfils himself in many ways, and there are more things in heaven and
+earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But I take this
+tentatively: that if these two propositions are true (and we have the
+word of Herr Waldteufel,[44] who lives in the Woodstock Road, that
+it is true) then it follows conclusively that no certainty can be
+arrived at in these matters. I would especially recommend you on this
+point (_here Mr. Lambkin changed his lecturing voice for a species of
+conversational, interested and familiar tone_) to read the essay by
+the late Dr. Barton in _Shots at the Probable_: you will also find the
+third chapter of Mr. Mendellsohn’s _History of the Soul_ very useful.
+Remember also, by the way, to consult the footnote on p. 343, of
+Renan’s _Anti-Christ_. The Master of St. Dives’ _Little Journeys in the
+Obvious_ is light and amusing, but instructive in its way.
+
+There is a kind of attitude (_this was Lambkin’s peroration, and he was
+justly proud of it_) which destroys nothing but creates much: which
+transforms without metamorphosis, and which says “look at this, I have
+found truth!” but which dares not say “look away from that--it is
+untrue.”
+
+Such is our aim. Let us make without unmaking and in this difficult
+question of the origin of _Right_, the grand old Anglo-Saxon sense
+of “Ought,” let us humbly adopt as logicians, but grimly pursue as
+practical men some such maxim as what follows:
+
+“Right came from nothing, it means nothing, it leads to nothing; with
+it we are nothing, but without it we are worse than nothing.”[45]
+
+Next Thursday I shall deal with morality in international relations.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+Lambkin’s Special Correspondence
+
+
+Lambkin was almost the first of that great band of Oxford Fellows who
+go as special correspondents for Newspapers to places of difficulty
+and even of danger. On the advantages of this system he would often
+dilate, and he was glad to see, as he grew to be an older, a wealthier,
+and a wiser man, that others were treading in his footsteps. “The
+younger men,” he would say, “have noticed what perhaps I was the first
+to see, that the Press is a Power, and that men who are paid to educate
+should not be ashamed to be paid for any form of education.” He was,
+however, astonished to see how rapidly the letters of a correspondent
+could now be issued as a book, and on finding that such publications
+were arranged for separately with the publishers, and were not the
+property of the Newspapers, he expressed himself with a just warmth in
+condemnation of such a trick.
+
+“Sir” (said he to the Chaplain), “in my young days we should have
+scorned to have faked up work, well done for a particular object, in
+a new suit for the sake of wealth”; and I owe it to Lambkin’s memory
+to say that he did not make a penny by his “Diary on the Deep,”[46]
+in which he collected towards the end of his life his various letters
+written to the Newspapers, and mostly composed at sea.
+
+The occasion which produced the following letter was the abominable
+suppression by Italian troops of the Catholic Riots at Rome in 1873.
+Englishmen of all parties had been stirred to a great indignation at
+the news of the atrocities. “As a nation” (to quote my dear friend) “we
+are slow to anger, but our anger is terrible.” And such was indeed the
+case.
+
+A great meeting was held at Hampstead, in which Mr. Ram made his famous
+speech. “This is not a question of religion or of nationality but of
+manhood (he had said), and if we do not give our sympathy freely, if we
+do not send out correspondents to inform us of the truth, if we do not
+meet in public and protest, if we do not write and speak and read till
+our strength be exhausted, then is England no longer the England of
+Cromwell and of Peel.”
+
+Such public emotion could not fail to reach Lambkin. I remember his
+coming to me one night into my rooms and saying “George (for my name
+is George), I had to-day a letter from Mr. Solomon’s paper--_The Sunday
+Englishman_. They want me to go and report on this infamous matter, and
+I will go. Do not attempt to dissuade me. I shall return--if God spares
+my life--before the end of the vacation. The offer is most advantageous
+in every way: I mean to England, to the cause of justice, and to that
+freedom of thought without which there is no true religion. For,
+understand me, that though these poor wretches are Roman Catholics, I
+hold that every man should have justice, and my blood boils within me.”
+
+He left me with a parting grip of the hand, promising to bring me back
+photographs from the Museum at Naples.
+
+If the letter that follows appears to be lacking in any full account of
+the Italian army and its infamies, if it is observed to be meagre and
+jejune on the whole subject of the Riots, that is to be explained by
+the simple facts that follow.
+
+When Lambkin sailed, the British Fleet had already occupied a deep and
+commodious harbour on the coast of Apulia, and public irritation was
+at its height; but by the time he landed the Quirinal had been forced
+to an apology, the Vatican had received monetary compensation, and the
+Piedmontese troops had been compelled to evacuate Rome.
+
+He therefore found upon landing at Leghorn[47] a telegram from the
+newspaper, saying that his services were not required, but that the
+monetary engagements entered into by the proprietors would be strictly
+adhered to.
+
+Partly pleased, partly disappointed, Lambkin returned to Oxford,
+taking sketches on the way from various artists whom he found willing
+to sell their productions. These he later hung round his room, not on
+nails (which as he very properly said, defaced the wall), but from a
+rail;--their colours are bright and pleasing. He also brought me the
+photographs I asked him for, and they now hang in my bedroom.
+
+This summary must account for the paucity of the notes that follow, and
+the fact that they were never published.
+
+[There was some little doubt as to whether certain strictures on
+the First Mate in Mr. Lambkin’s letters did not affect one of our
+best families. Until I could make certain whether the Estate should
+be credited with a receipt on this account or debited with a loss I
+hesitated to publish. Mr. Lambkin left no heirs, but he would have been
+the first to regret (were he alive) any diminution of his small fortune.
+
+I am glad to say that it has been satisfactorily settled, and that
+while all parties have gained none have lost by the settlement.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE LETTERS
+
+  _s.s. Borgia, Gravesend,
+  Sunday, Sept. 27th, 1873_
+
+Whatever scruples I might have had in sending off my first letter
+before I had left the Thames, and upon such a day, are dissipated
+by the emotions to which the scenes I have just passed through give
+rise.[48]
+
+What can be more marvellous than this historic river! All is dark, save
+where the electric light on shore, the river-boats’ lanterns on the
+water, the gas-lamps and the great glare of the town[49] dispel the
+gloom. And over the river itself, the old Tamesis, a profound silence
+reigns, broken only by the whistling of the tugs, the hoarse cries of
+the bargemen and the merry banjo-party under the awning of our ship.
+All is still, noiseless and soundless: a profound silence broods over
+the mighty waters. It is night.
+
+It is night and silent! Silence and night! The two primeval things!
+I wonder whether it has ever occurred to the readers of the _Sunday
+Englishman_ to travel over the great waters, or to observe in their
+quiet homes the marvellous silence of the night? Would they know of
+what my thoughts were full? They were full of those poor Romans,
+insulted, questioned and disturbed by a brutal soldiery, and I thought
+of this: that we who go out on a peculiarly pacific mission, who have
+only to write while others wield the sword, we also do our part. Pray
+heaven the time may soon come when an English Protectorate shall be
+declared over Rome and the hateful rule of the Lombard foreigners shall
+cease.[50]
+
+There is for anyone of the old viking blood a kind of fascination in
+the sea. The screw is modern, but its vibration is the very movement
+of the wild white oars that brought the Northmen[51] to the field of
+Senlac.[52] Now I know how we have dared and done all. I could conquer
+Sicily to-night.
+
+As I paced the deck, an officer passed and slapped me heartily on
+the shoulder. It was the First Mate. A rough diamond but a diamond
+none the less. He asked me where I was bound to. I said Leghorn. He
+then asked me if I had all I needed for the voyage. It seems that I
+had strayed on to the part of the deck reserved for the second-class
+passengers. I informed him of his error. He laughed heartily and said
+we shouldn’t quarrel about that. I said his ship seemed to be a Saucy
+Lass. He answered “That’s all right,” asked me if I played “Turn-up
+Jack,” and left me. It is upon men like this that the greatness of
+England is founded.
+
+Well, I will “turn in” and “go below” for my watch; “you gentlemen of
+England” who read the _Sunday Englishman_, you little know what life is
+like on the high seas; but we are one, I think, when it comes to the
+love of blue water.
+
+  _Posted at Dover, Monday, Sept. 28, 1873._
+
+We have dropped the pilot. I have nothing in particular to write.
+There is a kind of monotony about a sea voyage which is very depressing
+to the spirits. The sea was smooth last night, and yet I awoke this
+morning with a feeling of un-quiet to which I have long been a
+stranger, and which should not be present in a healthy man. I fancy
+the very slight oscillation of the boat has something to do with it,
+though the lady sitting next to me tells me that one only feels it in
+steamboats. She said her dear husband had told her it was “the smell of
+the oil”--I hinted that at breakfast one can talk of other things.
+
+The First Mate sits at the head of our table. I do not know how it is,
+but there is a lack of _social reaction_ on board a ship. A man is a
+seaman or a passenger, and there is an end of it. One has no fixed
+rank, and the wholesome discipline of social pressure seems entirely
+lost. Thus this morning the First Mate called me “The Parson,” and I
+had no way to resent his familiarity. But he meant no harm; he is a
+sterling fellow.
+
+After breakfast my mind kept running to this question of the Roman
+Persecution, and (I know not how) certain phrases kept repeating
+themselves literally “_ad nauseam_” in my imagination. They kept pace
+with the throb of the steamer, an altogether new sensation, and my
+mind seemed (as my old tutor, Mr. Blurt, would put it) to “work in a
+circle.” The pilot will take this. He is coming over the side. He is
+not in the least like a sailor, but small and white. He wears a bowler
+hat, and looks more like a city clerk than anything else. When I asked
+the First Mate why this was, he answered “It’s the Brains that tell.” A
+very remarkable statement, and one full of menace and warning for our
+mercantile marine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Thursday, Oct. 1, 1873._
+
+I cannot properly describe the freshness and beauty of the sea after a
+gale. I have not the style of the great masters of English prose, and
+I lack the faculty of expression which so often accompanies the poetic
+soul.
+
+The white curling tips (white horses) come at one if one looks to
+windward, or if one looks to leeward seem to flee. There is a kind of
+balminess in the air born of the warm south; and there is jollity in
+the whole ship’s company, as Mrs. Burton and her daughters remarked to
+me this morning. I feel capable of anything. When the First Mate came
+up to me this morning and tried to bait me with his vulgar chaff I
+answered roundly, “Now, sir, listen to me. I am not seasick, I am not a
+landlubber, I am on my sea legs again, and I would have you know that I
+have not a little power to make those who attack me feel the weight of
+my arm.”
+
+He turned from me thoroughly ashamed, and told a man to swab the decks.
+The passengers appeared absorbed in their various occupations, but I
+felt I had “scored a point” and I retired to my cabin.
+
+My steward told me of a group of rocks off the Spanish coast which we
+are approaching. He said they were called “The Graveyard.” If a man can
+turn his mind to the Universal Consciousness and to a Final Purpose all
+foolish fears will fall into a secondary plane. I will not do myself
+the injustice of saying that I was affected by the accident, but a lady
+or child might have been, and surely the ship’s servants should be
+warned not to talk nonsense to passengers who need all their strength
+for the sea.
+
+  _Friday, Oct. 2, 1873._
+
+To-day I met the Captain. I went up on the bridge to speak to him.
+I find his name is Arnssen. He has risen from the ranks, his father
+having been a large haberdasher in Copenhagen and a town councillor. I
+wish I could say the same of the First Mate, who is the scapegrace son
+of a great English family, though he seems to feel no shame. Arnssen
+and I would soon become fast friends were it not that his time is
+occupied in managing the ship. He is just such an one as makes the
+strength of our British Mercantile marine. He will often come and walk
+with me on the deck, on which occasions I give him a cigar, or even
+sometimes ask him to drink wine with me. He tells me it is against the
+rules for the Captain to offer similar courtesies to his guests, but
+that if ever I am in Ernskjöldj, near Copenhagen, and if he is not
+absent on one of his many voyages, he will gratefully remember and
+repay my kindness.
+
+I said to the Captain to-day, putting my hand upon his shoulder, “Sir,
+may one speak from one’s heart?” “Yes,” said he, “certainly, and God
+bless you for your kind thought.” “Sir,” said I, “you are a strong,
+silent, God-fearing man and my heart goes out to you--no more.” He was
+silent, and went up on the bridge, but when I attempted to follow him,
+he assured me it was not allowed.
+
+Later in the day I asked him what he thought of the Roman trouble. He
+answered, “Oh! knock their heads together and have done with it.” It
+was a bluff seaman’s answer, but is it not what England would have said
+in her greatest days? Is it not the very feeling of a Chatham?
+
+I no longer speak to the First Mate. But in a few days I shall be able
+to dismiss the fellow entirely from my memory, so I will not dwell on
+his insolence.
+
+  _Leghorn, Oct. 5, 1873._
+
+Here is the end of it. I have nothing more to say. I find that the
+public has no need of my services, and that England has suffered a
+disastrous rebuff. The fleet has retreated from Apulia. England--let
+posterity note this--has not an inch of ground in all the Italian
+Peninsula. Well, we are worsted, and we must bide our time; but this I
+will say: if that insolent young fool the First Mate thinks that his
+family shall protect him he is mistaken. The press is a great power and
+never greater than where (as in England) a professor of a university or
+the upper classes write for the papers, and where a rule of anonymity
+gives talent and position its full weight.[53]
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+Lambkin’s Address to the League of Progress
+
+
+Everybody will remember the famous meeting of the Higher Spinsters
+in 1868; a body hitherto purely voluntary in its organisation, it
+had undertaken to add to the houses of the poor and wretched the
+element which reigns in the residential suburbs of our great towns. If
+Whitechapel is more degraded now than it was thirty years ago we must
+not altogether disregard the earlier efforts of the Higher Spinsters,
+they laboured well each in her own sphere and in death they were not
+divided.
+
+The moment however which gave their embryonic conceptions an organic
+form did not sound till this year of 1868. It was in the Conference
+held at Burford during that summer that, to quote their eloquent
+circular, “the ideas were mooted and the feeling was voiced which
+made us what we are.” In other words the Higher Spinsters were merged
+in the new and greater society of the League of Progress. How much
+the League of Progress has done, its final recognition by the County
+Council, the sums paid to its organisers and servants I need not here
+describe; suffice it to say that, like all our great movements, it
+was a spontaneous effort of the upper middle class, that it concerned
+itself chiefly with the artisans, whom it desired to raise to its own
+level, and that it has so far succeeded as to now possess forty-three
+Cloisters in our great towns, each with its Grand Master, Chatelaine,
+Corporation of the Burghers of Progress and Lay Brothers, the whole
+supported upon salaries suitable to their social rank and proceeding
+entirely from voluntary contributions with the exception of that part
+of the revenue which is drawn from public funds.
+
+The subject of the Conference, out of which so much was destined to
+grow, was “The Tertiary Symptoms of Secondary Education among the Poor.”
+
+Views upon this matter were heard from every possible standpoint; men
+of varying religious persuasions from the Scientific Agnostic to the
+distant Parsee lent breadth and elasticity to the fascinating subject.
+Its chemical aspect was admirably described (with experiments) by Sir
+Julius Wobble, the Astronomer Royal, and its theological results by the
+Reader in Burmesan.
+
+Lambkin was best known for the simple eloquence in which he could
+clothe the most difficult and confused conceptions. It was on this
+account that he was asked to give the Closing Address with which the
+Proceedings terminated.
+
+Before reciting it I must detain the reader with one fine anecdote
+concerning this occasion, a passage worthy of the event and of the man.
+Lambkin (as I need hardly say) was full of his subject, enthusiastic
+and absorbed. No thought of gain entered his head, nor was he the
+kind of man to have applied for payment unless he believed money to
+be owing to him. Nevertheless it would have been impossible to leave
+unremunerated such work as that which follows. It was decided by the
+authorities to pay him a sum drawn from the fees which the visitors had
+paid to visit the College Fish-Ponds, whose mediæval use in monkish
+times was explained in a popular style by one who shall be nameless,
+but who gave his services gratuitously.
+
+After their departure Mr. Large entered Lambkin’s room with an
+envelope, wishing to add a personal courtesy to a pleasant duty, and
+said:
+
+“I have great pleasure, my dear Lambkin, in presenting you with this
+Bank Note as a small acknowledgment of your services at the Conference.”
+
+Lambkin answered at once with:
+
+“My dear Large, I shall be really displeased if you estimate that
+slight performance of a pleasurable task at so high a rate as ten
+pounds.”
+
+Nor indeed was this the case. For when Lambkin opened the enclosure
+(having waited with delicate courtesy for his visitor to leave
+the room) he discovered but five pounds therein. But note what
+follows--Lambkin neither mentioned the matter to a soul, nor passed
+the least stricture upon Large’s future actions, save in those matters
+where he found his colleague justly to blame: and in the course of the
+several years during which they continually met, the restraint and
+self-respect of his character saved him from the use of ignoble weapons
+whether of pen or tongue. It was a lesson in gentlemanly irony to see
+my friend take his place above Large at high table in the uneasy days
+that followed.
+
+
+  THE ADDRESS
+
+  MY DEAR FRIENDS,
+
+I shall attempt to put before you in a few simple, but I hope
+well-chosen words, the views of a plain man upon the great subject
+before us to-day. I shall attempt with the greatest care to avoid
+any personal offence, but I shall not hesitate to use the knife with
+an unsparing hand, as is indeed the duty of the Pastor whosoever he
+may be. I remember a late dear friend of mine [who would not wish me
+to make his name public but whom you will perhaps recognise in the
+founder and builder of the new Cathedral at Isaacsville in Canada[54]].
+I remember his saying to me with a merry twinkle of the eye that
+looms only from the free manhood of the west: “Lambkin,” said he,
+“would you know how I made my large fortune in the space of but three
+months, and how I have attained to such dignity and honour? It was by
+following this simple maxim which my dear mother[55] taught me in the
+rough log-cabin[56] of my birth: ‘Be courteous to all strangers, but
+familiar with none.’”[57]
+
+My friends, you are not strangers, nay, on the present solemn occasion
+I think I may call you friends--even brethren!--dear brothers and
+sisters! But a little bird has told me.... (_Here a genial smile passed
+over his face and he drank a draught of pure cold water from a tumbler
+at his side._) A little bird has told me, I say, that some of you
+feared a trifle of just harshness, a reprimand perhaps, or a warning
+note of danger, at the best a doubtful and academic temper as to the
+future. Fear nothing. I shall pursue a far different course, and
+however courteous I may be I shall indulge in no familiarities.
+
+“The Tertiary symptoms of Secondary Education among the Poor” is
+a noble phrase and expresses a noble idea. Why the very words are
+drawn from our Anglo-Saxon mother-tongue deftly mingled with a few
+expressions borrowed from the old dead language of long-past Greece and
+Rome.
+
+What is Education? The derivation of the word answers this question. It
+is from “e” that is “out of,” “duc-o” “I lead,” from the root Duc--to
+lead, to govern (whence we get so many of our most important words such
+as “Duke”; “Duck” = a drake; etc.) and finally the termination “-tio”
+which corresponds to the English “-ishness.” We may then put the whole
+phrase in simple language thus, “The threefold Showings of twofold
+Led-out-of-ishness among the Needy.”
+
+The Needy! The Poor! Terrible words! It has been truly said that
+we have them always with us. It is one of our peculiar glories in
+nineteenth century England, that we of the upper classes have fully
+recognised our heavy responsibility towards our weaker fellow-citizens.
+Not by Revolution, which is dangerous and vain, not by heroic
+legislation or hair-brained schemes of universal panaceas, not by
+frothy Utopias. No!--by solid hard work, by quiet and persistent
+effort, with the slow invisible tenacity that won the day at Badajoz,
+we have won this great social victory. And if any one should ask me for
+the result I should answer him--go to Bolton, go to Manchester, go to
+Liverpool; go to Hull or Halifax--the answer is there.
+
+There are many ways in which this good work is proceeding. Life is a
+gem of many facets. Some of my friends take refuge in Prayer, others
+have joined the Charity Organisation Society, others again have
+laboured in a less brilliant but fully as useful a fashion by writing
+books upon social statistics which command an enormous circulation. You
+have turned to education, and you have done well. Show me a miner or
+a stevedore who attends his lectures upon Rossetti, and I will show
+you a man. Show me his wife or daughter at a cookery school or engaged
+in fretwork, and I will shew you a woman. A man and a woman--solemn
+thought!
+
+A noble subject indeed and one to occupy the whole life of a man! This
+“Education,” this “Leading-out-of,” is the matter of all our lives here
+in Oxford except in the vacation.[58] And what an effect it has! Let me
+prove it in a short example.
+
+At a poor lodging-house in Lafayette, Pa., U.S.A., three well-educated
+men from New England who had fallen upon evil times were seated at a
+table surrounded by a couple of ignorant and superstitious Irishmen;
+these poor untaught creatures, presuming upon their numbers, did not
+hesitate to call the silent and gentlemanly unfortunates “Dommed
+High-faluthing Fules”; but mark the sequel. A fire broke out in the
+night. The house was full of these Irishmen and of yet more repulsive
+Italians. Some were consumed by the devouring element, others
+perished in the flames, others again saved their lives by a cowardly
+flight.[59] But what of those three from Massachusetts whom better
+principles had guided in youth and with whom philosophy had replaced
+the bitter craft of the Priest? They were found--my dear friends--they
+were found still seated calmly at the table; they had not moved; no
+passion had blinded them, no panic disturbed: in their charred and
+blackened features no trace of terror was apparent. Such is the effect,
+such the glory of what my late master and guide, the Professor of
+Tautology, used to call the “Principle of the Survival of the Fittest.”
+
+(_Applause, which was only checked by a consideration for the respect
+due to the Sacred edifice._)
+
+Go forth then! Again I say go forth! Go forth! Go forth! The time is
+coming when England will see that your claims to reverence, recognition
+and emolument are as great as our own. I repeat it, go forth, and when
+you have brought the great bulk of families to change their mental
+standpoint, then indeed you will have transformed the world! For
+without the mind the human intellect is nothing.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+Lambkin’s Leader
+
+
+Mr. Solomon was ever determined to keep the _Sunday Englishman_ at a
+high level. “We owe it” (he would say) “first to the public who are
+thereby sacrificed--I mean satisfied--and to ourselves, who secure
+thereby a large and increasing circulation.” [“Ourselves” alluded to
+the shareholders, for the _Sunday Englishman_ was a limited Company, in
+which the shares (of which Mr. Solomon held the greater number) were
+distributed in the family; the tiniest toddler of two years old was
+remembered, and had been presented with a share by his laughing and
+generous parent.]
+
+In this laudable effort to keep “abreast of the times” (as he phrased
+it), the Editor and part Proprietor determined to have leaders written
+by University men, who from their position of vantage enjoy a unique
+experience in practical matters. He had formed a very high opinion
+of Lambkin’s journalistic capacity from his unpublished letters as a
+special correspondent. Indeed, he was often heard to say that “a man
+like him was lost at Oxford, and was born for Fleet Street.” He wrote,
+therefore, to Mr. Lambkin and gave him “Carte Blanche,” as one French
+scholar to another, sending him only the general directions that his
+leader must be “smart, up-to-date, and with plenty of push,” it was to
+be “neither too long nor too short,” and while it should be written in
+an easy familiar tone, there should be little or no seriously offensive
+matter included.
+
+Mr. Lambkin was delighted, and when at his request the article had been
+paid for, he sent in the following:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LEADER.
+
+“The English-Speaking Race has--if we except the Dutch, Negro, and
+Irish elements--a marvellous talent for self-government. From the
+earliest origins of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers to the latest Parish
+Council, guided but not controlled by the modern ‘Mass Thegen’ or local
+‘Gesithcund man,’ this talent, or rather genius, is apparent. We cannot
+tell why, in the inscrutable designs of Providence, our chosen race
+should have been so specially gifted, but certain it is that wherever
+plain ordinary men _such as I who write this and you who read it_,[60]
+may be planted, there they cause the desert to blossom, and the waters
+to gush from the living rock. Who has not known, whether among his
+personal acquaintance or from having read of him in books, the type
+of man who forms the strength of this mighty national organism? And
+who has not felt that he is himself something of that kidney? We stand
+aghast at our own extraordinary power, and it has been finely said that
+Nelson was greater than he knew. From one end of the earth to the other
+the British language is spoken and understood. The very words that I am
+writing will be read to-morrow in London, the day after in Oxford--and
+from this it is but a step to the uttermost parts of the earth.
+
+“Under these conditions of power, splendour, and domination it is
+intolerable that the vast metropolis of this gigantic empire should
+be pestered with crawling cabs. There are indeed many things which in
+the Divine plan have it in their nature to crawl. We of all the races
+of men are the readiest to admit the reign of universal law. Meaner
+races know not the law, but we are the children of the law, and where
+crawling is part of the Cosmos we submit and quit ourselves like
+men, being armed with the armour of righteousness. Thus no Englishman
+(whatever foreigners may feel) is offended at a crawling insect or
+worm. A wounded hare will crawl, and we Read that ‘the serpent was
+cursed and crawled upon his belly’; again, Aristotle in his Ethics
+talks of those whose nature (φύσις) it is ‘ἕρπειν,’ which is usually
+translated ‘to crawl,’ and Kipling speaks of fifes ‘crawling.’ With
+
+Rhoda looked at him and was able to command a smile. “Excuse me,” she
+said politely, “but how many did you say you thought I had concealed in
+this buggy?”
+
+“Only one,” the marshal answered curtly. “You can get out if you want
+to while we examine it.”
+
+She jumped to the ground and stood by, smiling, while they took out the
+rugs and looked under the seat.
+
+Disappointed glances passed from one to another. Evidently, they had
+felt sure they would find the missing slave in her buggy. Rhoda took
+off her wrap and shook it ostentatiously. “You see, I haven’t got him
+concealed about my clothing. You can search my pocket too, if you
+like,” she added innocently.
+
+“You’ve beat us this time, young lady,” he responded angrily, “but we
+know what your father is up to, and you with him, and we’ll get you
+yet.”
+
+She turned upon him with dignity. “May I ask, Mr. Hanscomb, that
+you will finish your examination of this little buggy where there is
+scarcely room for one, as soon as possible, so that I can go on. I am
+on an errand for my father, and I would like to finish it and get home
+before dark. Perhaps you would like to look under the horse’s collar
+and split open the whip-stock.”
+
+The marshal flushed with annoyance. “All right. You can go on now. But
+you’d better be careful about taking in any more niggers.”
+
+She drove slowly on up the hill and they brought their horses’ heads
+together for a conference. She was trembling with anxiety lest it might
+occur to them to search the woodland on the west of the road, and she
+wanted to know what they were going to do before she would have to pass
+out of sight down the other side of the hill. To gain time she dropped
+her whip, and jumped out to get it. Then she adjusted a buckle in the
+harness and examined a thill strap. A stolen glance let her see that
+they were starting back toward the town.
+
+But now a new anxiety filled her. Did they know of the cave? Would they
+think of it as a possible hiding place? The cave was such a little
+one,--it was of no interest to any one but children--perhaps they had
+never heard of it, or had forgotten it if they had. She longed to look
+around and see if they stopped, but she feared to show interest in
+their movements, lest she might renew their suspicions. Had the boy
+left footprints as he ran from the buggy to the fence? She tried to
+remember whether the ground there was hard or muddy, but could recall
+nothing. In an agony of apprehension she reached the top of the hill
+and started down the descent.
+
+“I must know, whatever happens,” she presently said to herself.
+Stopping the horse she sprang out and ran back a little way, to
+where her eyes could command the opposite hill. The horsemen were
+disappearing over its crest. Her knees were shaking as she hurried back
+to the buggy, but she pulled herself together and considered what would
+be the best plan to get the fugitive out of the cave and on to the next
+station. For she feared to go back openly now, lest some member of the
+marshal’s party might return. A little farther on, she remembered,
+was a cross way and striking off from this, a short distance to the
+westward, an old wood road which ended near the cave. “It used to be
+there,” she thought anxiously, “but I haven’t been down it since--oh, I
+don’t know when! I’ll have to take chances on its being there yet.”
+
+But on the cross road she met farmer Gilbertson, in a big, deep-bedded
+wagon filled with a load of loose hay. She told him of her narrow
+escape.
+
+“You better drive in and get him in your little buggy,” he advised,
+“and I’ll wait out here and take him home with me, under the hay. It’ll
+be safe enough--this road ain’t traveled much.”
+
+It was not long until Rhoda was driving homeward again, deep joy in her
+heart that the fugitive had escaped such imminent danger, but wondering
+much how the marshal had discovered the secret of their woodshed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+When Mrs. Ware reached home that afternoon she found Marshal Hanscomb
+and his men, baffled and angry, completing their search of the house.
+
+“Mr. Hanscomb, what does this mean?” she demanded.
+
+“It means that runaway niggers have been making a hiding place of your
+house and that we’ve been barely too late to catch one.”
+
+“I assure you, Mr. Hanscomb, that nothing of the sort has been going
+on in my house. Dr. Ware’s sympathies, it is true, are with the
+anti-slavery cause, but he is not a nigger-stealer.”
+
+“If you think so, madam,”--there was the hint of a sneer in his
+tone--“you’d better go out to the woodshed and look at that room built
+into the middle of your woodpile and see how lately it’s been occupied.”
+
+She turned upon him a face of offended dignity. Her small, plump
+figure, in its balloon-like skirt, stiffened with a haughtiness
+which impressed even the angry marshal. “I trust, sir, that you have
+satisfied yourself there is no one concealed in the house or on the
+premises.”
+
+“We have, madam, for the present. We happened to be a few minutes too
+late.”
+
+“Then I will bid you good-evenin’.” With a stately nod she left him,
+going at once to her own room, behind whose closed door she remained
+until her husband’s return.
+
+Rhoda and her father, coming from opposite directions, drove up to
+their east gate at the same moment, in the red glow of a March sunset.
+She told him hurriedly of the happenings of the afternoon and of the
+narrow chance by which she had finally saved the mulatto lad from
+recapture. At the veranda steps Jim met them, with an excited account
+of the marshal’s visit and his search of the house. He evidently knew
+of the woodshed hiding place, the man said, for he went to it at once.
+
+“Was any one at home?”
+
+“No, sah, nobody but Lizzie and me. But Mrs. Ware, she done come before
+they leave.”
+
+“Then she knows now,” Rhoda told herself. “Oh, to think she had to find
+it out that way!”
+
+They walked silently down the veranda, avoiding each other’s eyes,
+and entered at the front door. Mrs. Ware was coming down the stairs.
+Rhoda stopped short, but her father walked swiftly past her and held
+out his hand to his wife. She could not see his face, but the look
+on her mother’s countenance stabbed her to the heart. In it the girl
+read resentful inquiry, wounded faith, reproachful love. They seemed
+oblivious of her, as Mrs. Ware stood looking into her husband’s face
+with that hurt look upon her own. She did not take the hand he held
+out. Then Rhoda saw him sweep her close to his side and heard him say
+in a choking voice, “Come, Emily!” He led her into the living-room and
+closed the door.
+
+What passed between them there Rhoda never knew--what confessions
+of outraged rights, what heart-barings of living tenderness, what
+recognitions of inner imperatives, what renewals of the bonds of love
+and trust. She crouched where she had dropped on the stair step,
+miserably conscious that this was the climax of the estrangement
+over her between her father and mother, feeling keenly that it had
+been her mother’s right to know the use that was being made of her
+home, appreciating her father’s motive in wishing to keep it hidden,
+remorseful for the wound her share in it would deal her mother’s heart,
+but unable to give up one jot of her conviction that what she and her
+father had been doing had been demanded of them by the highest laws of
+God and the most sacred rights of man.
+
+In a jumble of thought and feeling, swept by waves of passionate
+sympathy and compassion for both of the two within that closed door,
+Rhoda sat huddled on the stairs until her mother came out. “Mother!”
+she called, springing up and holding out her hands.
+
+Mrs. Ware came up and took them, saying simply, “How cold they are,
+honey!” and pressed them to her breast. In the dim light the girl could
+see that her face was very pale but that her eyes were shining with
+calm happiness.
+
+“Oh, mother! We both felt that you ought to know about it--”
+
+“It’s all right, dear child. I would rather your father had confided in
+me from the first--”
+
+“It wasn’t that he doubted you, mother! Oh, don’t think that! He knew
+you would be loyal to him--but he thought it might give you pain to
+know--”
+
+“Yes, honey, I understand--I appreciate all that. But don’t you see,
+dear, I would have liked to be trusted by my husband, even if it had
+hurt--a little?”
+
+“It was your right to know, mother.”
+
+“Perhaps I don’t think so much about that as you would, Rhoda, but--a
+woman who loves needs to feel that she is trusted as well as loved.
+But it’s all right now. I know how you and your father feel about it,
+that you are doing only what seems to you right, although to me, dear
+child, it seems very wrong. I don’t want to know any more about it than
+I must, and you mustn’t expect me to help you in the least, but not for
+the world, dearie, would I hinder you and your father from doing what
+you think is right.”
+
+Rhoda bowed her head upon her mother’s shoulder whispering, “Dear
+mother!”
+
+“Your father and I understand each other better now,” Mrs. Ware went
+on in tender tones. “There has been some misunderstanding between us
+about you and Jeff, but this has cleared it all up, and so I am glad
+it happened. He has promised me that he will not try to influence you
+in any way against marrying Jeff. So you see now, dearie, that it is
+possible, after all, for husband and wife to live together in love and
+trust and happiness, even though they do hold opposite opinions about
+slavery!”
+
+There was a sound of quick, light footsteps across the veranda and
+Charlotte came in breezily, cheeks glowing and eyes sparkling. “What’s
+the matter?” she exclaimed. “What’s happened?” Then sudden recollection
+came to her of what probably had happened and of her own share in it,
+and a look of confusion crossed her face. Rhoda saw it and instant
+suspicion was born in her mind that here was the medium through which
+information had reached the marshal.
+
+“Sister, was it you?” she asked on the impulse, her tone gentle but
+reproachful.
+
+“Was what me?” Charlotte flared back.
+
+“I think you know what I mean.”
+
+Dr. Ware had come out of the living-room and was standing in the
+doorway. Charlotte threw at him a coaxing, appealing glance.
+
+“You’d better tell the truth about it, Charlotte,” he responded. The
+girl shrank back a little at his tone and something of surprise crossed
+her face. Never before had he spoken to her with so near an approach
+to sternness. His large, calm eyes were upon her, dispassionate but
+disapproving. She could not withstand their compulsion.
+
+“Well, then, I did,” she exclaimed defiantly, tossing her head as she
+took a step forward. “And I think I did no more than was right and I’m
+glad I did it. When people are disobeying the laws and are criminals,
+even if they are your own people--”
+
+“There, child, that will do,” her father interrupted, lifting an
+admonishing hand. “Remember, please, that you are only eighteen, and
+that your father is in no need of moral instruction at your hands. I
+understand how you feel about this question and I am perfectly willing
+for you to believe as seems to you right. I expect you to grant the
+same privilege to me and to every other member of my family. And as
+long as you live under your father’s roof, my daughter, he has the
+right also to expect from you loyalty to his interests. Do you think I
+shall have it hereafter?”
+
+Charlotte burst into tears. In all her saucy little life no one had
+ever spoken to her with such severity. “I only told Billy Saunders,”
+she sobbed, “and I told him not to tell!”
+
+Instantly her father was beside her, patting her shoulder, an arm
+about her waist. “There, there!” he soothed. “I didn’t suppose you
+realized what you were doing. As it happened, no great harm came of it.
+Just remember, after this, that it is not your duty to sit in judgment
+on my actions. Then we shall all move along as happily as ever.”
+
+When Rhoda went to her room and her eyes fell upon her writing table,
+sudden misgiving caught her breath. She had not stopped to make it
+tidy, after her letter-writing in the morning, because of her hurried
+departure for the sewing circle, and its unaccustomed disorder brought
+sharply to her mind the letter she had written. And that other
+sheet--had she destroyed it, as she meant to do? She looked the table
+over hastily, shuffling the clean sheets of paper in her hand. “How
+silly!” she thought. “Of course I destroyed it! I remember, I picked up
+several sheets together that I didn’t want, and burned them, and that
+was among them!”
+
+Still, for a moment, the uneasy fear persisted that perhaps she had put
+it into her letter. She burned with shame at the thought that her lover
+might read those words. Then with a sudden vault her mind faced about
+and she felt herself almost exulting that at last he might know how
+much she cared, that at last, in spite of herself she had surrendered.
+
+“If I did send it,” she thought as she sat at her window, in the dark,
+“he will come and I shall have to give up.”
+
+Her mother’s words recurred to her: “You see that it is possible for
+husband and wife to live together in love and trust and happiness, even
+though they do hold opposite opinions about slavery.” They would be
+happy--ah, no doubt about that! And perhaps, if they were married and
+constantly together, she could make Jeff see the wrongs of slavery.
+She could point out to him specific instances of injustice and rouse
+that side of his conscience which now seemed to be dead. He had such
+a fine, noble nature in all other things--it was only because he had
+been brought up in this belief and had always been accustomed to taking
+slavery for granted. With his great love for her she would surely be
+able to exert some influence over him, and she would use it all to one
+end.
+
+She knew of other men who had been slaveholders but, becoming convinced
+that it was wrong, had freed their slaves and joined the anti-slavery
+ranks. Some, even, worked with the Underground Railroad. What a
+splendid thing it would be if she could win him over to the side of
+liberty! For such a result, she told herself, she would be willing to
+crucify her conscience for a little while and be a part of the thing
+she abhorred.
+
+She slept that night with a smile on her face and when she wakened in
+the morning her first consciousness was of an unusual lightness and
+happiness in her heart. Then she remembered, and flushed to her brows.
+
+“But it was all true,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to send it, and
+I’m sure I didn’t. But I--almost--wish I had.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+When Jefferson Delavan received the mail containing the three letters
+from Hillside his lover’s eye saw at once the envelope bearing the
+handwriting of Rhoda Ware. Everything else was pushed aside and this
+was hastily torn open. He turned the sheets over and swept them with
+a hungry look, as though he would devour all their contents at one
+glance. And so it happened that before he had read another line his
+eyes fell upon the page on which she had poured out her heart, which
+she thought she had burned--but almost wished she had not.
+
+He had to read it twice before he could believe that his eyes were
+not playing him some trick. Then he sprang up joyously, with a great
+light in his face, and ordered his horse. The rest of his mail, even
+to Rhoda’s letter, was thrust into his pocket, while he made ready for
+immediate journey. Slaves went scurrying hither and thither, urged to
+unaccustomed speed by their master’s impetuous commands, and in less
+than half an hour he was in his saddle.
+
+He struck across the country on the turnpike road straight for the
+Kentucky shore of the Ohio river opposite Hillside. Quicker time
+might have been possible by the more roundabout route by railroad to
+Cincinnati, but his only thought was that thus he was headed directly
+toward the white house on the hill.
+
+He galloped his horse for an hour or two before he remembered that
+it would be the part of wisdom not to take too much out of it at the
+start, laughed aloud as he slowed down, slapped its neck in sheer joy,
+and sang lustily the tale of “Lord Lovell.” Then he remembered, that
+he had not read the whole of Rhoda’s letter. He drew it forth, and was
+reminded in so doing that he had other letters in his pocket. But they
+could wait. He plunged into hers and read it eagerly through, dropping
+the bridle and allowing his horse to take a slower pace. Now and then
+he smiled or gave a little, tender laugh, as he came upon a mirthful
+sally, or again he frowned thoughtfully and shook his head at her
+argument. And presently he was staring in bewilderment at the closing
+paragraph with its denial of his suit. His heart sank as he hastily
+searched out the other sheet for reassurance. Yes, there it was, and
+there could be no mistaking the longing call of her heart that spoke so
+piteously through its brief lines.
+
+“This other, she wrote with her head,” he told himself, “and then
+her heart gave up and made her write this. Ah, the dear, dear girl!
+It’s like her to surrender like this, so completely, and even against
+herself when she lets her heart get the upper hand. Oh, my arms will
+be all the tying she’ll need, and there’ll be kisses enough to stop her
+mouth as long as we live!”
+
+With a caressing touch he put the missive away in an inner pocket
+and urged his horse on again, smiling and humming softly. At last he
+recalled the other letters. Mrs. Ware’s he read first and found in it
+confirmation of the view he had already taken of Rhoda’s surprising
+message. The girl was evidently longing for sight of him once more, her
+mother said, and if he were to come soon perhaps he could storm her
+stubborn heart. He laughed again and exclaimed aloud, “Yes, indeed, I’m
+coming, and if there’s any more storming necessary--” and the sentence
+broke off into another exultant laugh.
+
+Then he bethought him of the other letter. It was without date line or
+signature and with puzzled eyes he read its few lines, in the middle of
+the page: “When true hearts pine and gallants stay away, then what can
+ladies do? Alas the day, they can but pine when cruel gallants come no
+more!”
+
+He looked the sheet all over and examined the envelope inside and out
+to find some clue to its authorship. But there was not the least sign,
+and the postmark was indistinct. It was written upon the same kind of
+paper and inclosed in the same kind of envelope as Rhoda always used,
+but the handwriting was not Rhoda’s, and it seemed so unlike her to
+send such an indirect, silly little message that he said at once, “No,
+it’s not from Rhoda.” But who could there be among his friends or
+acquaintance likely to take such interest in his courtship, of which so
+few of them knew, and send him this sort of romantic hint? Of course,
+it might be from some friend of Rhoda’s in whom she had confided.
+
+“It must be that little rogue of a Charlotte!” he presently exclaimed.
+“She has sharp eyes in her head, that’s plain enough, always, and she
+has seen how it is with her sister and thought she might help things
+along by giving me a hint. Bless her heart! She’s a dear little thing,
+if she does like to flirt, and after Rhoda and I are married we’ll
+bring her down to Fairmount and give her the best time she’s had in all
+her life and perhaps marry her to Lloyd Corey or Frank Morehead.”
+
+While this was not the outcome of her anonymous message which Charlotte
+hoped to bring about when she penned it, she would perhaps have been
+as willing to accept it, had her thoughts ranged so far ahead, as the
+one she planned to compass. Nor would she have been taken aback had
+she known, while she fluttered about on the tiptoe of expectancy for
+whatever might happen, with what ardor Jefferson Delavan’s thoughts
+were turning toward Rhoda on his northward ride.
+
+If her missive induced him to come again to their house what did it
+matter whether he thought its words referred to Rhoda or to some one
+else? Since Rhoda was determined she would not marry him, he would
+soon find out his mistake and would be quite willing to look for
+consolation elsewhere. Had he not shown her every attention on the trip
+to Cincinnati? And when had she failed to set a man’s heart aflame, if
+she had really wanted to witness the conflagration? Let her once more
+have the opportunity--and she smiled at the brown eyes reflected back
+from her mirror, confident that they had lost none of their power.
+
+He would be able to reach the Ohio river by the morrow’s night, Delavan
+thought, and the next morning he would cross over and hasten up the
+hill to claim the sweet promise that beckoned to him from that glimpse
+of Rhoda’s secret heart. As he mused over her words, and the wonder of
+it that she should at last have called him, it occurred to him that
+perhaps she had not meant to put that sheet into her letter. Perhaps
+she had merely written down that revelation of her feelings as ease to
+her own aching heart. But he laughed joyously.
+
+“She’s let me know how it is with her, whether she meant to send it or
+not, and I’ll do just as she begs me to, this time!”
+
+And so he urged his horse onward, his glowing heart beating high in
+his breast, sure of the happiness waiting for him at the end of his
+journey, and counting off the lessening hours that lay between him and
+the banks of the river. But that night there came a violent rainstorm
+that carried away bridges and left swollen streams rushing through
+overflowed valleys. It delayed him two days, so that it was not until
+the sixth day after Rhoda penned her letter that he reached Hillside.
+
+And in the meantime the Supreme Court had announced its decision in
+the Dred Scott case, delighting the South, staggering the North, and
+fanning to still higher and hotter flame the fires of contention over
+the ever-burning question of slavery. Jefferson Delavan heard the news
+as he fumed over his delay, storm-bound in the hotel of a country
+town. He and half a dozen other slave owners from the town and near-by
+plantations, who dropped into the hotel during the evening, rejoiced
+over the victory as they sat around a bowl of punch.
+
+“This will put an end to the whole controversy and give the country
+peace at last,” said Delavan.
+
+“It knocks the feet from under the Republican party,” declared another.
+“They’ll be capable of no more mischief now!”
+
+“Yes, gentlemen,” exclaimed a third, “it surely ties the hands of the
+northern fanatics. They can no longer stop our growth!”
+
+“Under the protection of this decision,” Delavan followed on, “we can
+take our slaves wherever we like, and, with the northern Democracy
+becoming more and more favorable to us, we shall soon win back the
+ground we have lost!”
+
+“Nor will our growth be all in that direction!” said another, slowly
+and significantly.
+
+“No, indeed!” was Delavan’s quick response. “Mexico and Central America
+will be ours for the taking as soon as we realize our strength.
+Gentlemen!” He sprang to his feet, his face glowing with enthusiasm,
+his glass held high. “Gentlemen, I give you a toast: To the Republic of
+the South, our own fair Land of Dixie, firm footed on the foundation of
+slavery, and spreading wide wings North, South, East and West; her day
+shall come soon and endure forever!”
+
+With shouts of approval the others were on their feet at once, drinking
+the toast, cheering the sentiment, and waving hats, pipes, glasses,
+whatever their hands could seize. And no ghost of a misgiving visited
+Jefferson Delavan, in the midst of their exultant rejoicing, as to how
+that decision might affect his personal fate.
+
+To Rhoda Ware, as she looked back upon them, the days following that of
+her adventure with the negro lad were like a beautiful dream. After her
+one moment of apprehension she did not believe that she had put into
+her letter the telltale sheet whereon she had poured out her heart.
+She was sure she had burned it. But that instant of anxious fear that
+her lover would read her confession had given to her traitor heart its
+opportunity. In the brief respite of secret rejoicing she had allowed
+it to take, it had leaped to the saddle and it would not give up again
+to her mind and conscience the right of command. So she submitted to
+the sway of her love and battled with it no more.
+
+“He will know--he will feel it, even though I didn’t send what I
+wrote,” she whispered to herself. “And if he doesn’t come soon, I will
+write to him--and tell him--yes, I’ll tell him to come!”
+
+She spent much time alone in her room, seated at a southern window that
+commanded a view of the street leading up from the steamboat landing,
+the little bundle of letters and the faded rose held caressingly in her
+hands. It happened that no fugitives came to their door during this
+time, or she might have suffered sudden awakening from her dream.
+
+As it was, she thought of nothing but the coming of her lover and her
+surrender to his suit. Now and then her reverie strayed on into the
+future and she pictured their life together in Jeff’s beautiful home at
+Fairmount, with the slaves all freed and giving faithful service for
+wages. Staying so much apart and living in her own rose-colored dreams,
+the strenuous enthusiasms of the recent months, even her immediate
+surroundings, seemed to lose their reality. The same emotional force
+in her character which enabled her to enter with such zeal into the
+anti-slavery work and to be so absorbed by it that she could sacrifice
+her love upon its altar made it possible now,--indeed, made it
+inevitable,--when she had once given up to the opposing influence, that
+she should be swept by its forceful current to the other extreme.
+
+A new expression came into her face. Her dreams drew a soft and tender
+veil across the usually intent and serious look of her eyes, and all
+her countenance glowed with her inner happiness. Her mother saw the
+change in expression and demeanor with inward delight. For when it
+came to the affections Mrs. Ware was able to interpret her daughter’s
+feelings and actions with more surety than in matters of the mind and
+conscience.
+
+Charlotte, in whose heart rankled resentment against her father and
+sister for their anti-slavery views, their Underground work, and
+the reproach that had been administered to her, noted the new look
+on Rhoda’s face and said bitterly to herself: “Yes, I suppose she’s
+getting hold of a whole pack of niggers to steal and send on to
+Canada!” She told herself petulantly that she was no longer of any
+consequence in their home and began to feel an angry sense of injury
+at the bonds tacitly imposed upon her conduct by the ideas and actions
+of her father and sister. She longed for some happening that would
+take her away and put her into surroundings where she could feel her
+accustomed sense of freedom and personal importance.
+
+And so, the wish being father to the conviction, Charlotte felt every
+day more and more sure that Jefferson Delavan would soon reappear,
+that Rhoda would refuse him again, and that then she could capture
+his repulsed heart and speedily win from him a proposal of marriage.
+She would hold him off a little while, and make him all the more
+eager--that would be easy enough--and when at last she did consent, he
+would of course want an early marriage, and to that, too, she would
+reluctantly consent--“Oh, the sooner the better,” her thoughts broke
+into sudden storm, “so that I can get away from this black abolition
+hole!”
+
+Dr. Ware observed with surprise the look upon his daughter’s face and
+the change in her manner. He felt the lessening of her ardor in their
+mutual interests and was not slow to attribute her silence, her drawing
+away from the life of the household and her self-absorbed, dreamlike
+demeanor to its true cause.
+
+“Something has happened,” he said to himself, “that, for the time
+being, has made her give up the struggle against her heart, and,
+like a river that has burst through its dam, her love is overflowing
+everything else in her nature. Well, I’m glad Delavan isn’t here now,
+and I hope her conscience will get its head above water again before
+she sees him. The good Lord grant that something happens to bring her
+back to herself before it’s too late!”
+
+But he said nothing to his daughter, faithfully observing the pledge
+he had made to his wife at their recent reconciliation. Nor did he and
+Mrs. Ware speak to each other about it, although it was uppermost in
+both their thoughts. The renewed tenderness between them was too sacred
+for either to dare the risk of marring its bloom by even so much as an
+allusion to a subject upon which they were so widely divided.
+
+On the fourth day of her surrender Rhoda sat at her window reading
+a letter from her friend, Julia Hammerton. Her active spirit was
+beginning to bestir itself again and as she finished the epistle she
+stretched her arms above her head and with a little frown remembered
+that she had that morning neglected one of her usual duties. Then,
+“Dear me,” she exclaimed, “I’ve forgotten all about that for-- Oh, it
+must be several days! I suppose mother has attended to it,” she rebuked
+herself, and then smiled tenderly at the sunshine which filled all her
+inner consciousness.
+
+“I’ve been very happy, these days,” she thought, “but I’m afraid I’ve
+been awfully lazy and selfish too. I must go down now and get to work.”
+
+She looked out of the window and saw Horace Hardaker and the elder
+Kimball, father of Walter and Lewis, coming up the hill. Her thought
+reverted to the missive from Horace’s sister.
+
+“I’ll take Julia’s letter down and read it to them. There’s such a lot
+of news from Kansas in it that will interest them. Dear Julia! Horace
+ought to be proud of her--and he is, I know. She’s been so brave and so
+true!”
+
+The hint of a shadow crossed her face as she looked absently at the
+letter in her hand. From somewhere far back in her mind seemed to come
+a faint question, Had she also been true? But she lifted her head
+proudly with the quick answering thought:
+
+“Of course I am true. I shall not change my convictions the least
+little bit, even if I do marry Jeff. And perhaps I can do more good as
+his wife than I could in any other way.”
+
+“As the mistress of slaves!” came back the accusing whisper.
+
+In the office she found her father and the two others deeply engrossed
+in conversation, their looks anxious and gloomy, but their manner
+showing excitement.
+
+“Come in, Rhoda,” said Dr. Ware, as she hesitated at the door, “and
+hear the bad news.”
+
+“Bad news! Oh, father, what is it?”
+
+“The Supreme Court has decided the Dred Scott case and the result is
+even worse than we have feared. Chief Justice Taney has dragged his
+official robes through slavery filth and given to the pro-slaveryites
+everything they want!”
+
+“Oh, father--Horace! What does he say?”
+
+“The decision is,” answered Hardaker, “that a slave cannot be a
+citizen--practically, that a nigger has no rights a white man is
+bound to respect--that Congress has no right to prohibit slavery
+in the territories, and that therefore the Missouri Compromise is
+unconstitutional and void.”
+
+“It knocks the very breath out of the Republican party,” added Dr.
+Ware. “Its existence is based on the effort to get Congress to forbid
+slavery in the territories. So, now--where is it? Where are we?”
+
+“We are done for, all of us,” said Kimball, in hopeless tones. “It
+has knocked the footing from under the whole anti-slavery fight. It
+binds us hand and foot, and it looks now as if we might as well stop
+fighting.”
+
+“Oh, no, Mr. Kimball!” Rhoda exclaimed. “Don’t say that! We must keep
+on fighting as long as there’s one of us left!”
+
+“She’s right, Kimball!” said Dr. Ware, his glance resting for a moment
+upon his daughter’s face. She looked up in some confusion at having
+broken in so abruptly, and met his eyes. Cool and clear, they seemed to
+be looking into her very heart and down in their gray depths as they
+turned away she felt rather than saw a gleam of gratification. The
+hot blood flushed her face, and conscience, that had just now barely
+stirred under its rose-leaf coverlet, roused and began to tell her that
+she too must keep on fighting. Had her father guessed how near she had
+been to deserting their cause, she wondered.
+
+“Yet, she’s right,” Dr. Ware was repeating, with a thump of his fist on
+the table. “We’ve got to find standing ground somewhere, and somehow
+keep up the fight!”
+
+“Their next step will be to reopen the slave trade--they’re demanding
+that already,” Kimball went on. “And then we shall have once more all
+the horrors of the slave ships sheltered under the law and people
+taught to regard the traffic as right because it is legal.”
+
+“Yes,” broke in Hardaker, “that’s the worst of these legalized
+wrongs--the way they debauch the consciences of people. Look at the way
+the northern Democrats are defending the right of property in slaves! A
+few years ago they admitted slavery was wrong, but said it was here and
+so we must make the best of it. Now they say it is all right and must
+be protected and are tumbling over one another in their eagerness to
+give the South everything she wants!”
+
+“Well, this decision gives her everything she wants now, and opens the
+door for her to take anything else she may want later.”
+
+Kimball’s thin old hands were clenched together and his gray-bearded
+face was sad with the hopelessness of age. For thirty years he had
+been fighting with all his strength in the cause of the slave and he
+had seen the anti-slavery sentiment grow from the conviction of a mere
+handful of people to the determination of a mighty multitude. And now,
+when at last it seemed as if they had almost reached the point where
+at least the thing could be penned up in small space and its political
+power taken from it, now had come this deadly blow, to nullify every
+effort they could make.
+
+Rhoda knew what long years of endeavor and sacrifice he had spent
+in the anti-slavery cause and how ardent had been his hope that he
+might live to see slavery ended and the whole country made free. She
+watched him now, her cheeks flushing and her heart responding with full
+sympathy to the grief and despair that filled his breast.
+
+“If Congress,” he went on bitterly, “must recognize and defend the
+master’s right to his slave wherever he takes him, then there can be no
+hindrance to slavery in any part of this country, and Toombs and Davis
+and all the rest of them can yet call the roll of their slaves in the
+shadow of Bunker Hill monument, or any place else they wish. That, my
+friends, is what this decision means!”
+
+His voice trembled and Rhoda saw in his eyes the tears of an old
+man whose dearest hope had come to naught. She was conscious of a
+remorseful shame, as though she herself had been in some measure
+responsible for his grief and despair. For had she not, was her swift,
+self-accusing thought, been ready to compromise with this monster?
+
+“No, no, Mr. Kimball, you mustn’t give up like that,” Hardaker was
+exclaiming, “not while there’s one of us left to die fighting. And the
+election last fall showed that there are more than a million of us, who
+at least are ready to help. Rhoda’s got the right idea,” and he looked
+at her with smiling approval.
+
+Again she blushed and turned her eyes away, feeling acutely that she
+did not deserve this praise and miserably wondering if they would
+despise her were she to tell them that she had been willing, only an
+hour before, to become a slaveholder’s wife.
+
+“It seem to me,” Horace went on, “that we’ve got to go right on with
+the popular propaganda against slavery. Why, this very decision of
+Chief Justice Taney--it’s so atrocious and inhuman, it will be the
+best campaign document we’ve ever had. We ought to circulate it by the
+thousand! I’m not sure, friends, but it will be a good thing for us, in
+the long run!”
+
+Dr. Ware smiled slightly. He was accustomed to the enthusiasm with
+which Hardaker, in a dozen sentences, could convince himself of the
+truth of a proposition which, five minutes before, he would have
+flouted. Nevertheless, this idea appealed to him.
+
+“There’s a good deal in that, Horace,” he acquiesced, “and I think we’d
+better take it up in the Rocky Mountain Club. But while we’re appealing
+to the northern voters we mustn’t forget the South. We must extend and
+increase our Underground work, because it is making slave property most
+precarious all along the border states. The more slaves we can run off
+the more uncertain the whole institution becomes, and the more angry we
+make the South--and there’s nothing irritates them so much as this--the
+sooner the crisis will come. War is the only possible solution of
+this problem, friends. So I say, let’s bring on the crisis as soon as
+possible, and fight it out!”
+
+At that moment there was a knock at the office door and a request for
+Dr. Ware’s services in another part of the town. The two visitors went
+down the hill again and Rhoda, invited by the bright sunshine, strolled
+down the veranda and across the yard to the grape arbor. She wanted to
+be alone and think matters over, find where she stood and allay the
+turmoil between her heart and her conscience.
+
+As she walked down the path she saw that Jim was already making
+preparations for the spring. This great bed was to be filled again with
+white petunias--they had liked it so much last year. Again she seemed
+to sense their odor, as on that June night, and to hear a voice vibrant
+with tones of love. No, she could not think here,--her heart would
+not let her. She turned away and hurried to her room. But there too
+every inch of space was like a seductive voice calling to her with the
+memories of the last few days. With a sudden grip upon herself--a quick
+indrawing of breath and a pressure of teeth upon her lip, the outward
+signs of inner process of taking herself in hand--she went deliberately
+downstairs and out into the woodshed.
+
+There she sat down upon a chunk of wood and faced the little room, with
+its door heedlessly exposed and open, just as the marshal had left it.
+The sight stung her, as she had known it would, with an accusation of
+apostasy. But her spirit rose up quickly in self-defense.
+
+“No, I didn’t desert our cause, even in thought,” she declared to
+herself. “I’m not so bad as that, I hope. I only thought I could marry
+Jeff and still help it along. But I’m afraid I couldn’t. Yes, I know
+what mother said, and for a little while it did seem possible--just
+because I wanted it so much, I suppose. But mother and I are so
+different. I couldn’t be in the midst of things that I thought were
+wrong without trying to make them right. Jeff would free his slaves if
+I asked him to--I’m sure he would.”
+
+She lingered over the thought a moment and a fond smile curved her
+lips. “Yes, I’m sure he would, and I wouldn’t have to be a mistress
+of slaves. But that isn’t the whole of it. He told me once, and it’s
+been in all his letters, how wrapped up he is in the interests of the
+South. And that means slavery. It’s his own section and what they think
+are their rights, against all the rest of us and against freedom, and
+eternal right, and the upward progress of the world. We’d still be
+just as much divided and opposed to each other as ever.”
+
+The memory returned to her of her father sitting at his desk, his face
+drawn with sadness and sadness in his voice, as she had seen him on
+that evening in the previous autumn when she had asked if her mother
+could not be told what they were doing. She shivered a little.
+
+“No, I shouldn’t like to think of my husband feeling like that, knowing
+that he couldn’t tell me of his dearest hopes and plans and ambitions,
+and feel sure of my sympathy. No, that wouldn’t be being married,
+really married.”
+
+A little longer she sat with her chin in her hand and stared at
+the open door of the tiny room. Her face gradually took on a stern
+expression that made it, notwithstanding its youthful smoothness,
+curiously like her father’s.
+
+“No,” she said aloud as she rose, “it can’t be. It’s just as impossible
+still as it has been all the time--even if I did think for a little
+while--”
+
+Her face suddenly melted into tenderness and her voice sank to a
+whisper. “It was a lovely dream while it lasted, and I’m glad--it
+didn’t do anybody, not even me, any harm, and I’m glad--yes, I’m
+glad--I had it!” The little lines at the corners of her mouth deepened,
+her upper lip lifted, and her flashing smile lit up her countenance
+and shone in her eyes. “It’s almost like looking back on having been
+married for a little while!” she thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+“Rhoda,” called Mrs. Ware from the veranda steps, “will you come here,
+please?”
+
+Rhoda was standing between the rows of lilac that hedged the walk to
+the front gate, inspecting the swelling buds and saying to herself
+with pleasure that they looked as if they would bloom early that year.
+The lilac was her best-loved flower and these two lines of bushes had
+been planted because of her pleading, ten years before. Every season
+she watched anxiously for the buds to show sign of returning life, and
+Charlotte declared that after they began to swell she measured them
+with a tape line every day to mark their growth. When they bloomed she
+kept bowls of the flowers all over the house and was rarely without a
+spray in her hair or her dress.
+
+Mrs. Ware noted that her daughter’s step was not as brisk as usual and
+saw that the glow was gone from her face, while into her eyes had come
+a look of wistfulness. Believing she knew the cause, she longed to take
+the girl in her arms and say, “Don’t worry, dear. He’ll be here soon,
+I’m sure, for I wrote to him to come.” But she thought it best to keep
+her own secrets and so what she said was:
+
+“Mrs. Winston has just sent word that little Harriet is worse and she
+wants your father to come at once. He’s not likely to be back here
+before noon. So I want you to drive me over to their house and then
+take the message to your father--I know where he is--so he can stop
+there before he comes home. Get ready at once, honey. I’ve told Jim to
+harness up, and I’ve only to put on my bonnet.”
+
+Charlotte watched them as they drove down the hill, thinking
+discontentedly, “Mother doesn’t care half as much about me as she does
+about Rhoda. She’d just give her eyes to have Rhoda marry Jeff, and she
+never shows the least interest that way in me. I don’t believe she’d
+care if I was to be an old maid. An old maid! Oh, la! Well, I’m not
+going to, and I’ll not marry anybody in Hillside, either.”
+
+Looking rather pleased with herself at this ultimatum she sauntered
+into the house and the notes of the “Battle of Prague” were soon
+resounding through the silent rooms. But the clanging of the knocker at
+the front door presently crashed them into discord. A moment later she
+crossed the hall into the parlor, whither Lizzie had shown Jefferson
+Delavan, thinking:
+
+“What good luck there’s nobody at home but me! I wish Rhoda had refused
+him again first. Well, I’ll tell him she’s going to.”
+
+A twinkle of amusement came now and then into Delavan’s eyes as he
+watched the airs and graces, the sidelong glances, and all the dainty
+feminine tricks of movement and gesture and poise with which Charlotte
+accompanied her conversation. It was not her physical habit ever to
+remain quietly seated, or even in the same position for more than a
+few minutes. Her restless spirits, her active body and her native
+vivacity of manner combined to keep her in motion almost as incessant
+and quite as unconscious as that of a bird flitting about in a tree.
+Although she did not know it this habit was one of her most charming
+characteristics. She had a certain dignity of carriage, like her
+mother’s, which made itself manifest, notwithstanding her absurdly
+large hoopskirt, and this, with her grace of action and of posture,
+made her movements always pleasing to look at, while her bird-like
+flights gave an elusiveness to her manner that enhanced her charm.
+
+She saw the admiration in Delavan’s face as his eyes followed her, and
+tilted her skirts in a way that would have scandalized her mother,
+although she observed that her companion seemed not at all dismayed by
+the glimpses of slender foot and ankle that she made possible. That
+occasional twinkle of amusement she took as a tribute to her gaiety and
+laughed and chattered all the more.
+
+“Has your true heart been pining, Miss Charlotte?” he presently asked
+in a quizzical tone, as he leaned upon the back of her chair, looking
+down smilingly into her pretty, upturned face.
+
+She flushed a little, but made wide eyes at him and said, “What do you
+mean?”
+
+“Oh, I was given to understand that some hearts in Hillside are in a
+rather bad way. Is yours true and does it pine?”
+
+She made a graceful little gesture and turned upon him with a merry
+face and a look distinctly provocative: “Suppose it was, either or
+both, what would it matter to you?”
+
+She looked up at him, smiling, with saucy lips and inviting eyes, and
+before she knew what he was doing he had slipped an arm around her
+waist and lifted her to her feet. She struggled to free herself, but
+he held her against his breast, pushed back her head and kissed her
+squarely upon the lips, once, twice, and thrice. With her hands against
+his chest she tried to push him away and struggled to turn her face
+from his. But she was helpless in his grasp until he released her.
+
+“You brute!” she exclaimed, dashing the angry tears from her eyes. “How
+dare you!”
+
+He leaned against the back of the chair, hand in pocket, and laughed
+indulgently. “Didn’t you want me to? It looked that way.”
+
+“Of course I didn’t,” she stormed. “You’re a horrid thing, and I hate
+you!”
+
+“Well, I’m glad to know you didn’t. It’s much better that you were only
+pretending.”
+
+“How do you think Rhoda will take it, when I tell her? And I shall!”
+
+“Oh, tell her if you like. But how do _you_ think she will take your
+trying to persuade a kiss from her lover?”
+
+Her eyes blazed angrily and she stamped her foot, but said nothing.
+
+“Never mind, little sister,” he went on, patting her shoulder. “I was
+only giving you a lesson, and it’s much better to keep such things in
+the family. Remember after this that if you ask a man so plainly to
+kiss you he’s very likely to do it.”
+
+“Don’t call me ‘sister,’ you horrid thing! I’m not!” she exclaimed,
+turning away.
+
+“I hope you will be some day.”
+
+“I won’t! Rhoda isn’t going to marry you!”
+
+“So she’s told me a number of times!” and he laughed again, an easy,
+happy, self-satisfied laugh.
+
+She faced about, curiosity in her heart. Had something happened without
+her knowledge? Would he seem so sure, would he wear openly that look
+of confident love if Rhoda had not accepted him? The imp of mischief
+stirred once more in her breast. She moved a step nearer.
+
+“Say, do you know, Jeff, that’s the first time a man ever kissed me!”
+
+“You’ve had better luck than you deserve, little sister.”
+
+“If you’re so much in love with Rhoda what did you want to do it for?”
+
+“Why did you look as if you wanted me to if you didn’t?”
+
+“I didn’t look that way!”
+
+“Oh, didn’t you? Then my previous observations have been at fault.
+Perhaps I thought I’d like to find out why you sent me that anonymous
+letter. At first I thought you meant it as a hint for Rhoda’s sake. But
+after you’d been five minutes in this room it seemed to me that you
+were taking very queer means for advancing her interests. If you had
+unfortunately fallen in love with me yourself it wouldn’t have been
+quite so bad. But you haven’t, little sister, you haven’t. You’d have
+wanted me to kiss you again if you had.”
+
+“You’re a horrid brute, that’s what you are, and I hate you!”
+
+“I’m sorry to hear it, for I’ve always liked you, and you’re Rhoda’s
+sister. But I hope you’ll remember that treachery isn’t a nice thing,
+in either love or war.”
+
+She moved uncertainly toward the door and, glancing through the
+window, saw her sister drive past the front gate. “There’s Rhoda!” she
+exclaimed, casting back at him a fiery glance. “I shall tell her just
+the sort of man you are!” But she did not forget to give her hoopskirt
+an extra tilt as she dashed out. Delavan, noting it, smiled as he
+followed her to the door and cast a glance after her figure, hurriedly
+retreating up the stairs.
+
+Rhoda did not know that Jeff was there until she came into the
+hall through the office and saw him standing in the parlor door.
+“Sweetheart!” he called in low tones, and moved toward her, with
+outstretched hand. A glad light came into her face at sight of him, but
+she stood still and did not speak, until he was at her side.
+
+“Don’t, Jeff! When I have told you so many times it can’t be!” she
+pleaded, and drew away from him as he would take her in his arms.
+
+“I know, dearest! But it’s different now, when I know what you really
+want!”
+
+She turned so that he could not see her face and asked with a sort of
+gasp, “What do you mean?”
+
+If he could have seen her countenance as she stood with face averted,
+finger on lip, listening breathlessly for his reply, nothing would have
+prevented him from seizing her in his arms and doing as she had begged
+in the letter she had not meant him to see. For it glowed with love and
+trembled upon surrender and shone with gladness that he knew her inmost
+heart.
+
+“Ah, Rhoda Ware, I know your secret now!” He was bending near her, his
+hands hovering over her, but still he would not touch her while she
+seemed unwilling. “I know, now, how much you love me, and how ready at
+last you are to give up to your heart. Come then, dear one, or I shall
+surely do as you bade me in your letter!”
+
+A sudden stiffening and shrinking in her attitude made him fall back
+a step and look at her anxiously. Slowly, very slowly, she turned,
+lifting her head, until she faced him. And slowly the love-light and
+the trembling nearness to surrender faded out of her countenance and
+left it drawn with the effort by which she had forced herself once more
+to the point of denial, with lips compressed and gray eyes steely with
+resolution.
+
+“Jeff,” she began, and her voice was unsteady, “it’s not fair to either
+of us that you saw what I wrote. I didn’t mean to put that into my
+letter--I wrote it out only because my heart ached so and it seemed
+some relief. But I thought I’d burned it. I’m sorry it got mixed in
+with the other sheets. But it was a mistake, and you’ll forgive me,
+won’t you, dear Jeff, and you won’t feel that it was a promise?”
+
+Her voice fell away into pleading tones and she stood hesitating,
+poised, as if wishing him to stand aside and let her pass. With
+instinctive deference he stepped aside and she moved quickly to the
+foot of the stairs. But he sprang after her and seized her hand,
+exclaiming, as he drew her into the parlor, “No, Rhoda! I shall not let
+you ruin both our lives and break both our hearts, after that glimpse
+you gave me of yours!”
+
+She steadied herself for the struggle she knew must come, and suddenly
+felt her nerves grow firm and her brain clear, as they always did when
+she faced great need. She was calmer than he and more mistress of
+herself as she said:
+
+“I can’t say anything different to what I’ve always said, and said in
+that letter, that I feel to the bottom of my heart that slavery is such
+a wrong, such a curse, such a horrible thing that I can’t marry you
+because you believe in it and are a part of it.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘Don’t, Jeff, please don’t!’ she pleaded.”]
+
+He gazed at her silently a moment, and the love in his face, that had
+but just now been more of the body than of the soul, was transfused
+with admiration of her spirit. “And you can still say that to me,” he
+marveled in hushed accents, “after your heart has ached as it must have
+when you wrote those lines?”
+
+She dropped her eyes lest he see the sudden start of tears. It was a
+subtle undermining of her defenses, had he known it, thus to cease
+demanding and reveal such understanding and sympathy. Of such sort was
+her ideal love, and it hurt more than ever to put it from her. One hand
+was pressed against her heart, as if she could thus lessen the physical
+pain, and she said piteously, “It’s aching now, Jeff!”
+
+He looked at her irresolutely. Her drooping figure, her averted face,
+her trembling voice--they were all such a plea of weakness to strength,
+of feminine trust to masculine power to help, that even if he had not
+loved her the impulse to take her in his arms and comfort her would
+have been well-nigh overpowering. But he knew not what unexpected
+visage her spirit might next reveal and he had already learned that,
+although the primitive woman in her might call loudly one moment, in
+the next the civilized woman would thrust her into her cave and in
+dignity and strength stand guard at the door. For a moment he wavered,
+then with clenched hands turned on his heel and walked across the room,
+exclaiming:
+
+“And you won’t let me stop it, you won’t let me comfort you!” Then he
+faced about and as his eyes fell again upon her, he cried, “By heaven,
+I will!” And he sprang toward her.
+
+But already she had gathered up her resolution once more and it was the
+civilized woman, not to be won save with her own consent, who moved
+aside and eluded the embrace with which he would have swept her to his
+breast. He dropped on his knees at her feet and buried his face in her
+dress. A moment she stood with both hands clenched against her heart.
+Then she bent over him and laid them as softly upon his head as a
+compassionate mother might have done.
+
+“Don’t Jeff, please don’t!” she pleaded. “It’s so hard already--don’t
+make it harder, for both of us. We’ll have to just recognize what is,
+and accept it.”
+
+He rose again, seizing one of her hands as it fell from his head. “But
+what is, Rhoda, except that we love each other with such strength that
+God who made us must have meant us to be husband and wife? What else is
+there that matters, beside that?”
+
+“I’ve told you so often, dear, what it is that matters!”
+
+“What do you want me to do, dear heart? I’ll free my slaves, if you
+wish, and pay them wages.”
+
+Her face lighted and she smiled wistfully at him, but shook her head.
+“It’s deeper than that, Jeff, deeper than just the ownership of a few
+slaves. I knew you would do that, for my sake. I told myself so--” she
+broke off, smiled fondly upon him, then laid her free hand upon the two
+already clasped.
+
+“Listen, Jeff, let me tell you--I didn’t intend to, but perhaps it’s
+best. After I sent you that last letter, I had a sudden fear that I had
+put in the sheet I didn’t mean you to see. It was only a second, and
+then I felt sure I had burned it. But for a little while I--I almost
+wished I had, and in my heart I said I would give up and that I would
+write you to come. It seemed as if you would know anyway, and as if you
+were coming, without my telling you. And for three or four days I sat
+at my window and watched for you and dreamed about our love, and about
+our life together at beautiful Fairmount--” she hesitated an instant
+and blushed faintly, but the true woman in her sent her on--“with
+our children growing up around us, and we so happy and growing old
+together-- Oh, Jeff, it was such a beautiful dream!”
+
+“Not half so beautiful or happy as the reality would be, sweetheart!
+Oh, Rhoda, won’t you make it true!”
+
+“We’d be happy for a while, dear, but we’d wake up, sooner or later,
+just as I did, and then we’d find out that there was no true marriage
+between us, and our happiness would end.”
+
+Denial was in his face and voice as he quickly answered: “Never, Rhoda!
+I can’t believe it! Why should we waken? Why did you?”
+
+“It was the Dred Scott decision.”
+
+He smiled incredulously. “I suppose I would have anyway, after a
+little,” she went on, “if you hadn’t got here first--” and she smiled
+up at him ingenuously.
+
+“O, how I wish I had! If it hadn’t been for that storm--”
+
+“It’s better to wake up too soon than too late,” she broke in. “As
+soon as I knew about that decision and all that the chief justice
+had said, and understood how delighted the South is over it, and how
+it has saddened and discouraged all of us up here at the North who
+hate slavery, then I saw once more that I couldn’t compromise with my
+conscience, not the least little bit.”
+
+“But, Rhoda, you won’t have to, if I free my slaves. And I will!”
+
+“I’ve thought that all out, and it wouldn’t help us any--though I’d be
+glad for the slaves. Don’t you see, Jeff, that if you should free them,
+still believing in slavery as you do, and still being devoted to the
+South and wanting with all your soul to further her interests, which
+you think are bound up in slavery--don’t you see that after a while you
+would begin to feel that for my sake you had done something wrong, had
+been false to your own ideals? And I would know it and it would make me
+unhappy. I don’t think, Jeff, that I’d want you to free your negroes,
+except as you might be convinced that it’s wrong to keep them enslaved.”
+
+She stopped and looked up at him with her flashing smile. “I’ll run
+every one of them off to freedom that I can get a chance to, but--”
+
+He smiled back at her indulgently, and then they both laughed a little,
+glad of the relief from the high tension which had held them.
+
+“Rhoda, you are such a dear girl!” he murmured fondly. Her hands were
+imprisoned, one in each of his, but he did not attempt to lessen the
+distance between them. The earthly side of their love was fading out of
+their mutual consciousness, for the moment, as their thoughts mounted
+to the things of the spirit.
+
+“It’s such a wide gulf between us, although we are so near,” she went
+on. “Your letters have shown me that. To the bottom of your heart you
+believe that all that the South is struggling for is right and good and
+is her just right and will be for the good of the world.”
+
+He threw back his head and his eyes shone. “I do, Rhoda,” he exclaimed
+with emphasis. “I love the South, and her ideals are mine and her
+ambitions are mine! They are just and right and the more widely they
+are spread the better it will be for civilization and the whole world!”
+
+She nodded. “Yes, I understand how you feel, though I didn’t at first.
+And I believe to the bottom of my heart that the enslavement of man by
+man”--her face was glowing now with the inner fires of conviction and
+her low voice thrilled with the intensity of her feeling--“is wrong and
+degrades both of them and is the cause of no end of horrible things.
+And I don’t believe that anything good can ever come out of it.”
+
+“But you don’t know, Rhoda--you never have seen--” he began earnestly.
+
+“Ah, but I have seen, Jeff,” she broke in sadly. “I’ve seen the poor
+negroes that my father and I have helped on their way to Canada taking
+such desperate risks and enduring such awful sufferings in the hope
+of winning their freedom that I don’t need to see anything else.
+Divided like that, dear, on a matter that goes so deep with both of
+us, there could be no real understanding and sympathy between us, no
+true marriage. I think your convictions and your ideals are wrong--they
+are hateful to me--but I honor you for being true to them. I honor
+you more and love you more than I would if you gave them up, while you
+still believed in them, for love of me.”
+
+“You are right, dear heart,” he said, the pain of baffled and hopeless
+love sounding in his voice. “I could not be false to my convictions and
+my principles, even for you, my sweet, any more than you could be false
+to yours. You make me understand, as I haven’t before, what this means
+to you.”
+
+“No, Jeff, I can’t see that there’s any hope for us, for our happiness,
+on this earth, as long as this thing lasts that lies between us.
+Perhaps, in heaven--”
+
+Their eyes met, and her voice trembled and ceased. They stood with
+hands clasped, looking through open windows into each other’s souls,
+gazing deep into the warm and lovely depths of love, which they were
+putting behind them, and turning their vision upward along the heights
+where material aims crumbled away and hope and aspiration became only
+the essence of the soul’s ideals. And as they gazed it seemed to them
+that somewhere up in that dim region of eternal truth their spirits met
+and were joined.
+
+A faint sigh fluttered from Rhoda’s lips. With a start Delavan dropped
+her hands and sank upon the sofa beside them. His head bowed on his
+breast and a deep, shuddering breath, that was almost a sob, shook his
+body.
+
+“I think I’ll go now,” said Rhoda tremulously.
+
+“No, don’t go. I want you beside me a little while. Sit down here. No,
+don’t be afraid--give me your hand.”
+
+For a little space they sat in silence, like two children venturing
+into some unknown region and gaining courage by clasp of hands. At last
+he rose.
+
+“I will leave you now, dear heart. But it’s not good-by, even yet. I
+still believe that sometime I shall call you wife. I’m proud to have
+won your love, Rhoda, prouder than of anything else I shall ever do.”
+
+He pressed her hand to his lips, bowed ceremoniously, and a moment
+later she was listening to the sound of his footsteps as he walked down
+the path to the gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+After the discovery of the hiding place in the woodshed, Dr. Ware
+and his Underground co-workers thought it best for a little while to
+receive no runaways in his house. For it was closely watched, not only
+by the officers whose duty it was to enforce the Fugitive Slave law,
+but also by the slave hunters who made it a business to trail and
+capture northward-bound chattels for the sake of the rewards offered by
+their owners. In order to divert suspicion Walter and Lewis Kimball and
+several other young men who were in the habit of keeping a lookout for
+the fugitives contrived to secrete them elsewhere until surveillance
+upon the white house on the hilltop was relaxed.
+
+In the meantime Dr. Ware made ready a new place of concealment. An end
+of the cellar extending beneath the room occupied by the two black
+servants was separated from the rest by a solid wall. A trap door was
+cut in the floor and a flight of stairs set in. Carpet concealed the
+door and over it was usually set a table, chairs, or other furniture.
+The cellar room was dark and had little ventilation, but Dr. Ware and
+Rhoda congratulated themselves that it would be perfectly safe.
+
+“Why, father, it’s like a dungeon in a castle,” the girl exclaimed with
+a laughing face as she came up after making it ready with pallets and
+cots and a generous supply of old quilts and blankets. “While they are
+shut up in there they can rest and sleep, and so can we, without the
+least fear that they’ll be discovered!”
+
+Dr. Ware cast an observant look at her alert and smiling countenance.
+Not since the adventure with the marshal had she seemed so like her
+usual self. Following those self-absorbed days, when she had seemed
+to be going about in a happy dream, had come a period of depression.
+His professional eye had noted that she did not eat as a healthy young
+creature should and his fatherly solicitude had made him quickly
+conscious of her lessened vivacity of spirit. The changes in her
+demeanor cost him a good deal of anxious thought--much more, indeed,
+than she supposed he ever bestowed upon her. He knew that Jefferson
+Delavan had been there again, but Rhoda told him nothing of what
+had passed between them. So he merely guessed that his daughter had
+struggled once more with her heart and had paid dearly for the victory.
+
+He watched her anxiously, but shrank from speaking to her about her
+physical state because he felt sure of its emotional cause and could
+foresee the trend the conversation would take. For the leading-strings
+of habit were strong upon them both, and even stronger was the
+constraint of self-consciousness in a middle-aged man who all his life
+had cultivated the intellectual side of his nature at the expense of
+the emotional. Only toward the wife who had woven so strong a mesh
+about his heart in the days when the blood of young manhood was hot and
+winey and, in different scope and color, toward the child who so much
+resembled her, had he ever been able to express in words and actions
+the inner warmth and tenderness of his heart.
+
+Of Rhoda he made a companion much more than he did of either his wife
+or Charlotte. When she settled down at home after the three years she
+had spent, in her latter teens, at Dr. Scott’s Female Institute, he had
+been much pleased to find that he could talk with her seriously upon
+most subjects that interested him. And since then they had grown into a
+deep and wide intellectual understanding and sympathy. But between them
+there was no emotional expression of their mutual feeling.
+
+During this last year he had watched with pride her rapid development
+in character and intellect. Her Underground work had stimulated her
+sympathies and trained her in self-reliance and her increased interest
+in political affairs had broadened and developed her intellectually
+until, from an attractive girl of rather more than average endowment
+she had become a woman whose companionship her father enjoyed upon an
+equal footing. Blind babies, if the windows of sense perception are not
+opened into their minds, become imbecile. Perhaps--but everybody knows
+that argument by analogy is the most deceptive of all the paths by
+which human beings endeavor to find truth.
+
+So, to go back to Rhoda and the new place of concealment in the cellar.
+Dr. Ware was much gratified to see her more lively demeanor that
+morning and began to hope that, with the renewal of their Underground
+operations and the constant call they would make upon both heart and
+head, she would soon forget the pain that had been benumbing her
+energies. She told him she was going to a meeting of the sewing circle
+that afternoon at which they were to consider the question of enlarging
+its sphere and turning it into an anti-slavery society. He thought it a
+good idea and encouraged her to do all she could toward that end.
+
+She went early to Mrs. Hardaker’s house, where the meeting was to be
+held, and proved to be the first arrival. Horace was there, not having
+yet returned to his office after dinner, and as she entered he greeted
+her with--
+
+“Rhoda, here’s a grand thing! Just listen!”
+
+She saw that he had the New York “Tribune” in his hands, and as he
+began to read her attention was at once absorbed by the bitter and
+mournful eloquence of Horace Greeley’s lament over the Dred Scott
+decision--a bit of literature that ought to be among the classics of
+American journalism and studied by every aspirant for its honors. But
+it is buried too deep among the yellowing sheets of forgotten newspaper
+files to be known, in these busy days of a later generation, to any
+but an occasional investigator. It had its own brief day of vigorous
+life, when it stirred profoundly the minds and hearts of tens upon
+tens of thousands of earnest men and women. And then like a dead leaf
+it fluttered down to earth, to become a part of that debris of the
+centuries that makes a richer soil for the growth of human souls.
+
+With quickening pulse Rhoda listened to the stately march of the
+sentences, as Hardaker’s fluent, oratorical voice gave to each its full
+significance. As he came to the closing lines his listener’s breath was
+catching now and then and her eyes and cheeks were aflame:
+
+“The star of freedom and the stripes of bondage are henceforth one.
+American republicanism and American slavery are in the future to be
+synonymous. This, then, is the final fruit. In this all the labors of
+our statesmen, the blood of our heroes, the lifelong cares and toils of
+our forefathers, the aspirations of our scholars, the prayers of good
+men, have finally ended. America the slave breeder and slaveholder!”
+
+As Hardaker looked up and saw her countenance aglow with the fires of
+her soul it occurred to him that, after all, Rhoda Ware was beautiful.
+Like the tuned strings of a musical instrument her emotional nature had
+responded to the touch upon her convictions, and behind this mingled
+glow of indignation and aspiring soul he felt all the forces of her
+woman’s heart, her powers of loving, her wealth of compassion and
+tenderness. As he left the house he muttered to himself:
+
+“A girl like that--she ought to be a Joan of Arc!” For the first time
+in his rather long and somewhat spasmodic suit for her heart hope of
+final success almost fell away from him. If such a rare, fine creature
+mated at all, he felt rather than put into definite thought, it surely
+ought to be with some being of finer clay than the average man. And
+then he jammed his hat down hard and said to himself, definitely and
+savagely: “The idea of her marrying a damned slaveholder!” Horace
+Hardaker was a church member in good standing, and it was only in the
+intimacy of his soul and upon most infrequent occasions that he allowed
+himself such lapses of speech. When he did it was a sure sign that his
+indignation had a strong personal tang.
+
+The band of women in Mrs. Hardaker’s parlor talked while they sewed,
+discussing the proposition of turning themselves into a more ambitious
+society. Some were averse, saying they already did as much as they
+could and that, moreover, to venture outside the sphere of their homes
+and attempt to do things that men could do better would not be a proper
+and becoming course. Rhoda, stitching busily, now and then put in an
+argument or answered an objection. Her ardor, pleasant demeanor, and
+practical capacity had made her a favorite with all the members of the
+society, old and young. Her unfortunate love affair, of which all of
+them knew something, invested her with a romantic interest and set her
+a little apart, because of her opportunity and her sacrifice.
+
+Of a sudden Rhoda felt her heart swell with the desire for utterance.
+She began speaking, at first with her needle still busy. But, after
+the first two or three sentences, her work dropped from her hands
+and she leaned forward, her face glowing, as she dwelt upon the
+discouragement which had fallen upon all who hoped for either the
+ending or the staying of the progress of slavery, and of the greater
+need than ever before that every one who believed slavery to be an evil
+should work against it with zeal. She spoke quietly and simply, with
+the intense and moving earnestness of a strong personality in the grip
+of a passionate conviction. One after another the women dropped their
+needles and listened with rapt attention. For a few minutes she talked
+and then she caught up the paper and read the article in the “Tribune.”
+At its close the utter silence of the room was broken only by a
+half-suppressed sob here and there. After a moment she said modestly:
+
+“Well, friends, what are we going to do about this matter?”
+
+A woman in the back of the room began clapping her hands softly, and
+presently Rhoda was shrinking back, blushing and abashed, before the
+storm of applause. Immediately and enthusiastically, and perhaps not in
+strict accord with parliamentary rules, it was decided to change their
+circle into a “Female Anti-Slavery Society,” to continue their present
+work and to add to it whatever their hands might find to do, and to
+make Rhoda Ware its president. Surprised and embarrassed, she tried to
+decline the honor. But the women, crowding around her with praise and
+caresses, would not let her refuse.
+
+At home she said nothing of the affair to her mother or sister, to
+neither of whom did she ever make mention of any of her anti-slavery
+activities. All that portion of her life, which, indeed, had come to be
+the major part, had as little community with them as if there had been
+between them no bond of love and use and relationship. To her father
+she related the bare facts of the occasion. But he soon heard from
+Horace Hardaker, whose mother had told him all about it, a full and
+enthusiastic account of what had taken place.
+
+Rhoda grieved much over the growing alienation between herself and her
+mother and sister. Charlotte held herself plainly aloof, and Rhoda was
+puzzled by an evident resentment in her attitude. She did not know that
+Charlotte held her responsible for her own failure to capture the fancy
+of Jefferson Delavan.
+
+“She’s no right to keep him dangling after her if she doesn’t intend to
+marry him,” was the vexed young woman’s summing up of the situation,
+having quite decided that if her sister would only move out of the way
+she herself would soon be mistress of Fairmount.
+
+As the spring and summer went by Mrs. Ware’s hope for a marriage
+between Jeff and Rhoda dwindled into profound disappointment. A sadness
+came into her face and voice that smote her daughter to the heart.
+The sick-headaches, to which she had long been subject, became more
+frequent, and other ailments began to manifest themselves. Fearing
+remorsefully that her anti-slavery work and her refusal to marry
+Delavan were at the bottom of her mother’s failing health, the girl
+strove in all tender, care-taking ways of which she could think to make
+amends for the double hurt and disappointment. In the conduct of the
+house Mrs. Ware leaned upon her more than ever. But as the months wore
+on Rhoda felt keenly that the old tenderness and intimacy between them
+were disappearing.
+
+The warm weather brought much increase of Underground traffic. At
+that time and during the years immediately following the work of the
+Road was at its height. For its operations there were friends, money,
+workers in plenty, and slaves were gathered up even before they reached
+the free-state border, and hurried on from hand to hand in such secrecy
+and safety that they had hardly a care or a responsibility until they
+found themselves secure on British soil.
+
+To Rhoda her father gave over most of the care of the fugitives
+upon their arrival and while they were secreted in the cellar. Not
+infrequently also she drove them on to the next station, sometimes in
+the night, sometimes by day, in a spring wagon with a false bottom
+which he had bought for this purpose. Occasionally Chad Wallace
+appeared in the neighborhood with his peddler’s wagon at their service,
+if it did not already contain its complement of hidden chattels.
+Now and then farmer Gilbertson, on a trip to town, hauled back some
+“baggage” well concealed in his wagon bed, to be stowed away in his
+hollow haystack until it could be sent on to the next station. A man
+who had a market garden out on the same road and drove back and forth
+a good deal with vegetables for the Hillside market and for steamboat
+supplies, and another who traveled about ostensibly selling reeds often
+carried black passengers.
+
+With hands and head and heart all so full Rhoda found little time
+to spend in thinking of her own unhappiness. Nevertheless, the day
+never went by that had not a little space saved out from other things
+and held apart for thought of her lover. Now and then a letter passed
+between them. But from these missives was dropped all mention of both
+slavery and love, although on both sides the correspondence breathed a
+sense of mutual tenderness and understanding that amounted to a sort
+of spiritual intimacy. To Rhoda these letters were the treasure of her
+heart. They were read over and over again, held caressingly in her
+hands during the brief minutes of each day when she gave herself up to
+thought of him, and kept under her pillow or upon her breast while she
+slept. Every night, when she knelt at her bedside, her petitions to the
+Heavenly Father begged for His blessing upon her efforts in behalf of
+the slaves, pleaded that He would soon put forth His hand and make an
+end of slavery, and implored the safety and the happiness of her lover.
+
+In the late summer there came a message from Fairmount. Emily Delavan,
+Mrs. Ware’s namesake, was to be married in October and the Ware family
+was bidden to the festivities. The news set Charlotte upon the borders
+of ecstatic delight. The visit, which was to be prolonged through
+several weeks, would not only be filled with no end of alluring
+pleasures and amusements, but it should open, she decided at once,
+the door of escape from her home into more congenial surroundings.
+It would be just the sort of environment,--a gay crowd of people
+with nothing to do but enjoy themselves--in which she knew she always
+appeared to best advantage. Two or three uninterrupted weeks of it,
+with Jefferson Delavan always there to feel the effects of her charms,
+and she could be quite sure of the result. But--there was Rhoda.
+
+“If she’s there,” Charlotte grumbled to herself, “she’ll just keep
+on making Jeff think she’s going to marry him some day, and have him
+dangling after her all the time.”
+
+Why should Rhoda want to go at all, if she really meant to play fair
+with Jeff? The girl soon came to the conclusion, with which she
+promptly acquainted her sister, that the other ought not to attend the
+wedding.
+
+“It will be very unkind to me if you insist on going, Rhoda,” she
+complained. “It will spoil all my pleasure.”
+
+“Sister! Why do you say that?”
+
+“Because you’ll keep Jeff hanging around you all the time, just as he
+does when he’s here. Somehow you manage to make him think that you’re
+going to marry him sometime when you know you don’t intend to at all.
+It isn’t fair to me, Rhoda, you know it isn’t.”
+
+Rhoda had already begun to plan ways and means by which her duties and
+responsibilities could be cared for during her absence, for she wished
+much to make the visit. Her youthful spirit, so much neglected and
+denied of late, was asserting itself once more and eagerly anticipating
+the new experience and the promised social gaieties. But above all she
+wished to go in order that she might be with her lover in his own home,
+and afterward be able to picture his daily life more vividly in her
+thought.
+
+“You’re not being fair to me now, Charlotte,” she replied. “I’ve told
+Jeff over and over that I can’t marry him. And I’m sure I don’t want to
+hinder him from marrying any one else, if he wants to.”
+
+“Then be as good as your word, Rhoda, and stay away from where he is.
+He’s attentive enough to me when you’re not around, and if you’ll just
+give me a fair chance--you’ll see--I’ll come back engaged!”
+
+Rhoda threw up her head and answered, with a calm intensity in her tone
+that made Charlotte look at her curiously: “Very well. I’ll stay at
+home. I’ve no claim on Jeff, and you can do whatever you like.”
+
+Charlotte flew across the room, threw her arms around Rhoda’s neck,
+kissed her and declared she was a “dear old thing.” And Rhoda, warming
+in response and comforted a little for her own hurt, smiled with
+pleasure at this outburst of affection, returned her caresses and
+called her “silly little sister.”
+
+“You can be an old maid if you want to and spend your life working for
+niggers,” Charlotte exclaimed, dancing about the room, “but I mean
+to have a good time and make the niggers work for me!” She stopped
+suddenly and with head on one side regarded Rhoda anxiously. “Will you
+promise,” she broke out, “that you won’t tell mother why you don’t go?”
+
+“Of course I won’t tell her!”
+
+“Nor anybody else?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Good sister! Then I’ll love you more than ever!”
+
+When Rhoda declared, and her mother could not induce her to change her
+decision, that it would be impossible for her to go, the disappointment
+was so keen that it sent Mrs. Ware to bed with one of her severest
+headaches. Rhoda cared for her with all tenderness, and, in secret
+bitterness and tears that her mother must now think more hardly of her
+than she deserved, wished that Charlotte would offer to give back her
+promise. But she would not ask it of her sister, and to that young
+woman, in the height of girlish spirits, busy with the dressmaker and
+her own plans, there never occurred the faintest idea of making the
+offer.
+
+Mrs. Ware knew, even before she tried, that she could not induce her
+husband to accept the hospitality of a slave owner, and so, finally,
+it was only herself and her younger daughter who made the journey. As
+they were saying good-by Charlotte whispered to her sister:
+
+“This time next year, Rhoda, I’ll be inviting you to Fairmount!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Letters from Mrs. Ware and Charlotte told of much gaiety and of days
+that were an unceasing round of enjoyment. Charlotte wrote that it was
+“heaven upon earth” and that never before had she “even imagined how
+happy a girl could be.” But in her mother’s letters Rhoda detected a
+note of melancholy. Although at one with the life around her in memory,
+training, sympathy and belief, she yet seemed to feel herself an alien
+while in the midst of it and to be saddened by her own lack of complete
+accord.
+
+“Poor mother!” thought Rhoda. “She loves father and me so much that she
+can’t help feeling loyal to us with a part of her heart. Dear, dear
+mother!”
+
+Moreover, Mrs. Ware was not well, and declared she would be glad to
+return home. She related briefly that Jeff and Emily had divided the
+estate, two thirds of which, according to their father’s will, belonged
+to the brother. Emily had chosen some land and a number of slaves
+and, as her husband already has as many negroes as he needed, it was
+their intention to realize upon these at once and put the money into
+improvements upon his estate.
+
+“They’ll be sold ‘down south,’ I suppose,” said Rhoda, as she read the
+letter aloud to her father.
+
+“Very likely. Those big cotton, cane and rice plantations are an
+insatiable market for slaves. They can’t get enough labor. That is why
+the South is so anxious to reopen the African slave trade. It’s an
+open secret, which the North winks at, as it does at everything the
+South chooses to do, that the traffic is already going on. Since the
+Dred Scott decision there is nothing they stop at. It’s a pity Chad
+Wallace or Alexander Wilson isn’t in the neighborhood of Fairmount just
+now. If they were, Emily’s husband wouldn’t be able to make so many
+improvements!”
+
+A few days later Dr. Ware called Rhoda into his office, anxiety in his
+demeanor. “I’ve just received this letter from Wilson,” he exclaimed,
+“written in Louisville. See what he says:
+
+“‘DEAR FRIEND WARE: Am sending you to-day by express one blackbird, a
+fine specimen, securely boxed. I was fortunate enough to secure a live
+one, as I knew you would find the specimen more interesting alive than
+dead.’”
+
+“Father!” cried Rhoda, her eyes wide and horrified. “He’s sent some
+one in a box! All the way from Louisville! Oh, we must see about it at
+once!”
+
+“The letter was evidently written in great haste,” Dr. Ware continued,
+“on a dirty scrap of paper and,--yes, it was mailed on the boat.”
+
+“Then the box came on the steamboat with the letter!”
+
+“Yes, and will be at the express office now. Jim must take the spring
+wagon and go after it.”
+
+Rhoda waited in extreme anxiety for Jim’s return, fearful lest the poor
+creature should be dead in the box. Even Dr. Ware showed a lessening
+of his usual calm. They said little to each other during the man’s
+absence, but together made ready everything that might be necessary
+if the “blackbird” should be unconscious. They knew of more than one
+daring escape from slavery by similar methods. And they knew too of
+the recent release from a southern penitentiary, after an eight years’
+term, of a man who had been convicted of attempting to rescue a slave
+by this same means.
+
+The box, short and narrow and looking hardly large enough to contain a
+human being, was hurried into Jim’s room and the cover quickly removed.
+Within was the huddled figure of a woman, her knees drawn up to her
+chin, and all her body held in the close confines as tightly as in a
+vise. She did not move and when they spoke to her there was no answer.
+
+“No, she’s not dead,” said Dr. Ware, his finger on her pulse. They
+lifted her out and restorative measures soon brought her back to
+consciousness. But she was ghastly pale and trembling from head to foot.
+
+“You poor thing! You’re safe now,” Rhoda soothed, patting her arm, as
+she began to sob hysterically. “We are your friends and we’ll take care
+of you.”
+
+She was young and comely, perhaps one-fourth colored, with neither
+complexion nor features showing more than a faint trace of her negro
+heritage. Presently they were able to give her food and water, and a
+little later she told them her story. As she talked Rhoda sat beside
+her, clasping her hand and now and then patting her arm in sympathy and
+encouragement. Her speech was simple, but good, showing intelligence
+and some training.
+
+“How did Mr. Wilson happen to send you in a box?” asked Dr. Ware.
+
+“It was the only way. They had to get rid of me quick. I’d been sold to
+a trader from New Orleans and he’d brought me and a lot of others to
+Louisville to take us on the steamboat. I knew he’d paid a big price
+for me, and from that and the way he talked me over I knew what he’d
+bought me for. I made up my mind I’d rather die, or do anything. A
+chance happened to come, on the street in Louisville, as he was taking
+us to the boat, and in a crowd I give him the slip.
+
+“I didn’t know what I’d do or where I’d go, but I just hurried along
+down another street, and then I saw the man who’d been at master’s
+plantation last year and told us about going to Canada if we wanted to
+try it.”
+
+“Yes--Mr. Wilson,” Dr. Ware interrupted.
+
+“I knew him right away, though he looked different, and I spoke to him
+and told him what I wanted. He said to follow him and we walked fast
+and turned up and down streets, and came to a free woman’s house. But
+they’d followed us, and in two or three minutes they were at the door.
+The woman took me into the back room and told me to jump into that
+box. Then she put the cover down quick and went back and I heard the
+men go all round the house looking for me and they swore at the woman
+and told her they’d seen me come in and they’d watch the house and
+keep on searching it till they got me. Then the man--Mr. Wilson, you
+said?--spoke up right loud and said he couldn’t wait any longer and
+would she have his clothes ready if he’d send for the box right away,
+’cause he wanted to catch the boat for Cincinnati. I ’spected he meant
+me, and he did. She put a pillow in the box and some biscuits and a
+bottle of water, and cut a little hole in the side, so I could breathe.
+
+“I thought I was gwine die in the box,” the woman went on, again
+showing signs of hysteria, as memory of her experience returned. “It
+was such a little box I had to be all crunched up and I got awful
+pains, and sometimes it seemed as if I’d just have to scream right out.
+And then I’d think what would happen if I did, and I’d be caught and
+they’d flog me and send me--where they’d bought me for, and then I’d
+bite hard on the pillow and keep still. And once the box was turned up
+so I was on my head till I knew I was gwine die in another minute, but
+they turned it down again and I didn’t.”
+
+She stopped speaking, as long, nervous sobs shook her frame. The tears
+were streaming down Rhoda’s face and her bosom was heaving as with
+trembling hands she administered the draught her father had prepared.
+Dr. Ware noted her agitation and admonished her gently to calm herself.
+The old fear of displeasing him by showing too much emotion quickly
+steadied her nerves. To distract her thoughts from the fugitive’s
+harrowing experience he began to question the woman, as she grew quiet
+once more, about her life in slavery.
+
+“You must have had a hard master to be willing to take such chances to
+gain your freedom.”
+
+“It was the trader I run away from, ’cause I knew what he’d bought me
+for. Master was a kind man.”
+
+“But he sold you.”
+
+“It wasn’t master that sold us. He never does. It was Miss Emily,
+’cause she married.”
+
+A chill struck to Rhoda’s heart. Was her fate to be forever linked
+in this way with that of the slaves from Fairmount? She was glad her
+father did not even look at her as he passed, with apparent unconcern,
+to the logical next question:
+
+“Who was your master?”
+
+“Jefferson Delavan, of Fairmount, just beyond Lexington. He was a kind
+man and never sold any of the slaves. His mother, old mistress, was
+kind too, when she was alive, and she took pains with some of us. She
+was teaching me to be her maid. But Miss Emily’s different. She’s sold
+nearly all of us that fell to her share.”
+
+Dr. Ware stole an anxious glance at Rhoda. She was sitting at the
+bedside, with the woman’s hand clasped in hers, her eyes straight in
+front, her lips pressed together and her face stern.
+
+“It’s hardly fair to make the blame personal,” he ventured. She flashed
+up at him indignant eyes and her voice was bitter with scorn as she
+replied:
+
+“But he allowed her to be sold, father, and for such a purpose!”
+
+He hesitated, considering a temptation. In his daughter’s present mood
+it would be easy to deepen this impulse of condemnation and so perhaps
+undermine her love for Delavan. But the next instant he told himself
+that it would not be fair. “The man has enough to answer for--let him
+at least have justice,” was his thought.
+
+Rhoda felt his calm eyes upon her, but she would not meet them. “You
+must remember,” he was saying judicially, “that no man can be better
+than the system of which he is a part. It is quite possible that
+Delavan knew nothing of all this, except that his sister chose certain
+slaves as her share. I don’t know very much about him, but I think he’s
+decent enough to have protested if he had known of this woman’s fate.
+I also think it’s most unlikely it would have done any good if he had.
+And there it is, Rhoda! No matter how well-intentioned an individual
+slaveholder may be, he is likely to be swept along any minute by his
+system into its worst abominations. Our indictment must always be
+against the system, not against individuals.”
+
+When Rhoda knelt at her bedside that night the look of scorn had faded
+from her countenance and in its place were tears. “Dear Father in
+Heaven,” she prayed, “do not let Thy punishment fall upon him. He knows
+not what he does. His eyes are so blinded that he cannot see how evil
+these things are. Do not punish him, do not let Thy vengeance fall upon
+him, until his eyes are opened and he sees that they are evil. And
+grant, O God, I beg of Thee, grant me this, that I may make amends to
+this poor creature for his wrong. If Thy vengeance is ripe and can be
+stayed no longer, let it fall upon my head. Let me bear his punishment.
+But grant me first that I may save her.”
+
+The fugitive, whose name, Lear White, it was decided should be changed
+to Mary Ellen Dunstable, had been so unnerved by her sufferings that
+for several days she sorely needed Rhoda’s care and Dr. Ware’s medical
+attention. Rhoda would not permit her to go into the cellar hiding
+place, but made a bed for her in her own room and watched over her
+with every solicitude. A dust of powder over her light-colored face
+was enough to give her the appearance of a white girl of brunette
+complexion. Only a close observer would be likely to note that the
+whites of her eyes and the form of her nose gave a hint of negro origin.
+
+“Father,” said Rhoda, when the girl had been two days in the house, “I
+can’t bear to think of sending Mary Ellen on in the usual way. She took
+such awful chances to escape from a horrible fate, and she came so near
+to death in that box, that it seems to me almost as if God had put her
+into my charge, and meant for me to make up to her for all that she has
+suffered. I feel as if I ought not to let her out of my hands until she
+is safe in Canada.”
+
+“Well, what have you thought of doing? Have you a plan?”
+
+“Yes. Mary Ellen looks so much like a white woman that I’m sure she
+and I could travel together, as two girl friends, and go to Cleveland
+by the canal. There I can put her on one of our friendly boats and
+the captain will take charge of her till she is safe on the ferry at
+Detroit.”
+
+They talked the matter over at length, Rhoda dwelling upon the girl’s
+nervous condition, which had so lessened her self-reliance and her
+courage as to make doubtful the wisdom of sending her on alone by
+the ordinary methods. But another reason of equal strength in her own
+mind, although she did not mention it to her father, was her conviction
+that here was an opportunity to make atonement for what she felt to be
+her lover’s sin. Moreover, the girl clung to her with such implicit
+confidence in her power to shield and save that Rhoda’s heart rose high
+with a passion of resoluteness, like a mother’s for her threatened
+offspring.
+
+It was finally decided that her plan should be carried out. The Female
+Anti-Slavery Society offered its little store of cash--pitifully small
+since the money panic of two months previous--to help defray Mary
+Ellen’s expenses. Several of the members donated material they had
+bought for their own winter wardrobes and helped Rhoda make it up into
+gowns for the fugitive.
+
+On her way downtown one day Rhoda saw a new handbill on the trunk of
+a tree at the crossing of the two main streets. It was of a sort that
+had been familiar to her since her childhood. At one side was a crude
+woodcut of a negro on the run, a bundle on the end of a stick across
+his shoulder. She stopped to read it, wondering if it concerned any of
+the blacks who had been sheltered under their roof. It offered three
+hundred dollars reward, told of the running away of “my negro girl,
+Lear White,” gave a detailed and accurate description of her, saying
+she was “light-colored and good-looking,” and was signed, “William
+H. Burns,” with his address in Louisville. Rhoda walked on, smiling,
+thinking in what a little while that poster would be of no consequence
+whatever to Lear White, for they were to start the next morning.
+
+In the afternoon Marcia Kimball came, to help Rhoda with the final
+preparations. They tried upon Mary Ellen the gown, in which they had
+just set the last stitches, that she was to wear on the journey. Much
+pleased with its effect, Marcia whitened her face with a fresh dusting
+of powder, and she stood before them a handsome brunette with a pale
+complexion, big, soft, black eyes and coal-black, waving hair. Marcia
+clapped her hands, exclaiming:
+
+“Splendid, Rhoda! Nobody would ever guess! Oh, you’ll get through all
+right!”
+
+Rhoda, standing beside the window, glanced out and her face grew grave.
+“Come here a minute, Marcia,” she said. Some men were entering at the
+side gate. Miss Kimball paled. “Marshal Hanscomb!” she whispered.
+
+“Yes, but I don’t believe they suspect that she’s here. There are
+three men in the cellar, that Mr. Gilbertson is going to stop for this
+evening. We must put on a bold front. Don’t let Mary Ellen know--she’d
+be scared to death, and they might guess. Come,” she exclaimed in a
+louder voice, turning gaily from the window, “let’s go downstairs and
+have some music. Marcia, you ought to hear Mary Ellen sing ‘Nellie
+Gray’! Come down and you and she sing it together, and I’ll play!”
+
+Laughing and talking, with every appearance of gaiety, though the
+hearts of two of them were beating fast, the three went down to the
+living-room and took their places at the piano. With ears strained to
+catch the sounds from the other parts of the house, Rhoda struck the
+opening notes and the two voices sang:
+
+  “There’s a low green valley on the old Kentucky shore,
+  Where I’ve whiled many happy hours away,
+  A-sitting and a-singing by the little cottage door
+  Where lived my darling Nellie Gray.”
+
+Rhoda stopped for a moment and heard the tramp of the men as they came
+up the stairs from the cellar. Then she laughed merrily.
+
+“Why, Marcia, you’re singing all out of tune! I never heard you do that
+before. Come, now, let’s all sing the chorus together!”
+
+Mary Ellen’s voice rose, rich and melodious, above the other two as the
+music made its mournful plaint through the simple lines:
+
+  “Oh, my poor Nellie Gray,
+  They have taken her away,
+  And I’ll never see my darling any more!”
+
+The men were going through the rooms upstairs and one of them said to
+another, as he stopped to listen, “That girl can sing, can’t she?”
+
+Rhoda heard them coming downstairs and knew that Marcia was looking at
+her with eyes wide and face a little pale. Would they come in? Suddenly
+she was aware that her nerves were steady and strong as steel and that
+her heart was beating as calmly as ever. “Now for the next verse,
+Marcia!” and her fingers moved across the keys. Then she heard the men
+at the door.
+
+“There’s some one in the hall. I must see what they want,” she said,
+rising and casting an encouraging smile at Miss Kimball. Marcia gazed
+at her wonderingly as she moved calmly across the room and then,
+feeling the contagion of her courage, turned quickly to Mary Ellen, and
+to draw her attention away from the door so that she would not face it,
+began asking her what other songs she knew.
+
+“Excuse me, Miss Ware, for disturbing you and your friends,” Marshal
+Hanscomb was saying, “but my duties under the law make it necessary for
+me to search your house.”
+
+“Certainly, Mr. Hanscomb. Come in if you wish to. Miss Kimball is
+here--I think you know her--and the other lady is my friend, Miss
+Dunstable, from Cincinnati, who has been visiting me for the last week.”
+
+The marshal stepped inside, his assistants close behind him. Rhoda
+cast a single glance toward the piano and saw thankfully that Marcia
+was still holding Mary Ellen’s attention. “If only she won’t look
+around,” was her anxious thought. Then turning to the marshal she said
+seriously, with a gentle smile:
+
+“You see, there’s no one else visible in here, Mr. Hanscomb, but if you
+want to look under the piano and up the chimney--” she stopped on a
+rising inflection and looked at him gravely. His eyes flashed, but he
+merely sent an inquiring glance around the room, saw that there were
+no closets or recesses, and then moved toward the door, saying, “Thank
+you, Miss Ware.”
+
+Rhoda closed the door behind him and leaned against it while she drew
+a long breath and pressed her lips together tightly for a moment. Then
+she went back to the piano saying, “Now, Marcia, suppose we let Mary
+Ellen sing that next verse all alone. I want you to hear her.”
+
+The men on the veranda steps, taking their departure, paused and
+listened to the closing lines as Mary Ellen, in a voice of mournful
+sweetness, sang on alone:
+
+  “They have taken her to Georgia,
+  For to wear her life away,
+  As she toils in the cotton and the cane.”
+
+“That girl makes a right good imitation of the way a darkey’s voice
+sounds,” said the one who had spoken before. “I reckon she’s practised
+it.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Rhoda’s heart was high with expectation of success when she and Mary
+Ellen started upon the journey to Cleveland. The runaway, in her new
+gown and a bonnet and veil, played her part perfectly, and Rhoda told
+her father that he might expect her back in a few days with the news
+that all had gone well. “And I,” she added to herself, “shall then be
+able to feel that I have paid off Jeff’s debt of wrongdoing to this
+poor girl.”
+
+As they were going on board the steamboat Jim came hurrying down to the
+landing from the post-office with the morning mail, which contained
+a letter for Rhoda. She saw that it was from Charlotte, and put it
+unopened into her pocket to read later. For, notwithstanding her inward
+assurance that her adventure could not fail, she felt anxious about the
+short time they would have to remain on the river boat. Slave traders
+and their agents and slave catchers were constantly journeying up and
+down the river, and if one of these who had appraised Mary Ellen in her
+days of bondage should happen to see her he might recognize her as Lear
+White. She kept her charge engaged in conversation, the better to carry
+out the pretense that they were two ladies traveling together, and
+warned her not to raise her veil.
+
+The transfer to the canal boat safely made, Rhoda felt much less
+anxious and relaxed a little of her care. They sat upon the deck,
+and Mary Ellen lifted her veil now and then, the better to see the
+succession of charming views through which they passed. The wooded
+hills were ablaze with autumn foliage and these alternated with open
+lands where fields of brown stubble, acres of ripened corn, pasturing
+cattle and busy farm yards told of autumn’s rewards for the year’s
+labor. Mary Ellen was much interested in all this and had many
+questions to ask as to how the work was done and whether or not it
+would be the same in Canada. Several hours passed in this way before
+Rhoda bethought her again of the letter from Charlotte. Smiling at
+thought of the enthusiastic account it would contain of the round of
+pleasures since her last missive, she took it from her pocket and
+drew a little apart, while Mary Ellen became engrossed in looking at
+a town which they were approaching. A number of people were at the
+landing and she gazed at them, the tree-shaded streets, the buildings
+and the church spires with the self-forgetfulness of a child amid new
+surroundings.
+
+Instead of the long letter she expected Rhoda found in the envelope a
+single sheet and dashed across the middle of it the one sentence, “I
+told you I’d soon be engaged, and I am! Charlotte.”
+
+The words danced and blurred before her eyes as she stared at them,
+all her attention indrawn to the pain in her breast. This, then, was
+all love meant to a man--the whim of a moment or a month, ready to be
+captured by the first pretty girl who made the effort. Had it not been
+the same with Horace Hardaker? Why should she have expected Jeff’s love
+to be of any more substantial fiber? And, moreover, what right had she
+to expect or wish him to be faithful to her? But her quivering heart
+cried out that if he had loved as she did he would have been faithful,
+even unto death. And down in the bottom of her soul she knew that her
+pain was not all for his lost love, that some of it, much of it, was
+for her ideal of his love and faith and chivalrous heart, stabbed to
+death by this immediate surrender to Charlotte’s allurements.
+
+“Miss Rhoda! Miss Rhoda! Miss Rhoda!”
+
+The frightened cry, repeated over and over, seeming at first to come
+out of some far-off space, pierced her indrawn consciousness. She
+looked up in a dazed way, her thoughts stumbling back slowly to her
+surroundings. Then she saw that Mary Ellen, between two men, was being
+hustled off the boat.
+
+She sprang after them and seized the arm of one of the men. “What are
+you doing?” she demanded.
+
+“You’ll soon find out what you’ve been doing!” the man replied.
+
+“This is an outrage!” Rhoda exclaimed. “Let this woman go, or I
+shall have you arrested! She is Miss Dunstable of Cincinnati, and is
+traveling with me. Let her go, I say!”
+
+The man laughed and pushed on. “No, she ain’t. She’s Lear White and
+she’s a slave and belongs to William H. Burns. I’m his agent and I was
+with him when he bought her and helped to take her and the rest of his
+gang to Louisville, where she give him the slip. I come up through this
+black abolition country to watch for her, and I knew her the minute I
+set eyes on her, though you have got her fixed up so fine.”
+
+With one sweep of his handkerchief across her cheek, he exposed a broad
+stripe of browner skin. He laughed contemptuously, and a number of
+others who had gathered round them on the landing laughed also. Rhoda
+heard the epithet, “nigger-thief,” in derisive tones passed from one
+to another. She knew well that if the crowd’s sympathies were with him
+there was no telling what it might do. Gripping his arm with both hands
+and bracing herself against his effort to move on, she faced about,
+head high and eyes flashing, and cried:
+
+“Is there no one here who will help me to save this poor girl?”
+
+Then she was aware that from the back of the concourse some men were
+pushing their way toward her. She struggled against the efforts of
+Mary Ellen’s captors to go on and would not release her hold of the
+one next her, thinking that here might be deliverance, or, at least,
+help. As they came nearer she saw that one was in Quaker garb, and her
+hopes rose. In the matter of a runaway slave there was no doubting on
+which side would be the active sympathy and assistance of a Friend. In
+response to his inquiry she told him her own and her father’s name.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he said heartily, “I’ve heard of Dr. Ware.” He glanced at
+Mary Ellen, dumb and patient between her captors, then back at Rhoda,
+and understanding flashed between their eyes.
+
+“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Thee’ll soon find friends here, who’ll do
+their best to bring things out all right for thee and for her too.”
+
+They moved on, the mob around them rapidly increasing. By the looks
+of the men and the remarks which reached her ears she knew that it
+was, for the most part, pro-slavery in feeling. The Quaker was walking
+beside her, but his companions had disappeared. Presently he whispered:
+
+“The marshal will be here soon. Perhaps thee could slip away and hide.
+There’ll be help if thee wants to try it.”
+
+Rhoda shook her head and whispered back: “No, no. I mustn’t leave her.”
+
+In a whisper so low it barely reached her ears she heard him say:
+“Never mind her. She’ll be looked after.”
+
+But before Rhoda could reply three men, pushing their way
+authoritatively, were beside them, and a moment later she found
+herself under arrest and being marched along between the marshal’s two
+assistants.
+
+Soon she saw that a change was taking place in the character of the
+crowd. Its numbers were being rapidly augmented, but most of those
+who were joining it now were silent, and Rhoda guessed by their looks
+and by the glint of an eye here and there that they were moved by a
+determined purpose. The marshal surveyed them anxiously, spoke to his
+aids, and they, with Rhoda between them, held back, then edged their
+way into a cross street and let the throng surge on past them. Then
+they rushed her along until they came to a two-story brick building,
+where they gave her into the charge of another official, who locked her
+into an upstairs room.
+
+Through the barred windows she could see the mob, now at a standstill
+half a block down the street, eddying round the center where stood
+Mary Ellen between her two captors, a drooping figure of despair and
+resignation. On the outskirts and apparently merely looking on was
+the Quaker, who had told her his name was Daniel Benedict. And still
+farther away her eye caught sight of a familiar form, old and shabby,
+topped by a bell-crowned hat, standing beside a dingy peddler’s wagon
+and watching the proceedings with an interest which broke out now and
+then in shrill calls and shuffling capers.
+
+Rhoda leaned against the bars, her hands wrung together, and waited
+breathlessly for what might happen next. The men were surging and
+pushing this way and that, and she soon made out a resolute movement
+on the part of those who were on the outside to force their way to the
+center. Many of those who made up the nucleus had been moved apparently
+by idle curiosity, and they were now falling back, out of the way of
+the onward efforts of the others.
+
+“There’s the marshal,” Rhoda exclaimed to herself, pressing her face
+against the bars, “right in front of Mary Ellen! Oh, poor, poor girl!
+Surely, God won’t let them take her back! Those men are pushing up
+closer! What’s the marshal saying? Oh, he’s calling for a posse! There,
+they’re fighting! Oh, see, they’ve got hold of him!”
+
+In her excitement she was breaking into speech. “Oh, oh! They’ve
+knocked down the trader!--and the other man--Mary Ellen--they’ve got
+her! They’ve got her! And they’re shooting! Oh, again! Again!”
+
+Hands clasped hard against her heart, she stood breathless, silent,
+watching the struggle, while the sound of shots, the cries of the
+mob, and the shouts of the officers broke the stillness of the room.
+“There, they are getting her out! Oh, don’t hurt her! Now--oh, run,
+Mary Ellen, run, run! Oh, they’re helping her--two men--and another
+running ahead-- Oh, God, help her, help her to safety!”
+
+She leaned against the side of the window, sight swimming and lips
+trembling, as Mary Ellen and her body-guard of rescuers, dashing down
+another street, passed from her view. Then she turned her attention
+back to the throng of men who seemed now to be intricately struggling
+with one another. But presently the mass began to resolve itself. A
+number, which seemed to contain both parties, for some were evidently
+trying to stop or hinder the others, rushed after the slave girl and
+her protectors. Many others fell back and stood near to be on hand for
+the next development. They had not long to wait, for the marshal and
+his assistants, regaining their feet, speedily began arresting their
+assailants. Rhoda presently saw them marching up to the jail door with
+a dozen men under guard, of whom several were wounded.
+
+A few minutes later she heard a tenor voice, surprisingly good though
+somewhat cracked with age, singing loudly in the street, “In Dixie land
+I’ll take my stand.” She smiled, for she knew the voice at once, and
+hurried back to the window. Chad Wallace in his dingy peddler’s wagon
+was passing the jail. His eyes were roving carelessly over the front
+of the building and she felt sure he saw her, although he made no sign.
+But he flourished his whip in a wide circle round his head and held it
+poised for a moment above his shoulder, pointing back into the middle
+of his wagon.
+
+Later in the day Daniel Benedict came to see her and gave her
+explanation of what had happened. His wrinkled, benignant face and
+silver gray hair seemed to her distraught heart to carry assurance of
+fatherly protection.
+
+“Thy friend is safe now,” he told her, “and not much the worse for her
+experience.”
+
+“I saw from that window,” she exclaimed, “the way they got her out of
+the crowd. It was wonderful--just pushing a way for her and handing her
+on from one to another and protecting her with their bodies!”
+
+“Yes,” assented the Quaker, calmly, “it was good work, and quickly
+done--else, they would not have succeeded. I could take no part in it,
+for, as thee doubtless knows, it is against my principles to offer
+violent resistance to the law. But,” he hesitated a moment and Rhoda
+saw a twinkle flicker across his kindly eyes, “I do not feel that it
+is necessary to hinder those who think differently. There is a pretty
+strong anti-slavery sentiment here, although there is plenty for the
+other side too, and we determined some time ago that not another seeker
+after freedom should ever be sent back to his chains from this place.
+Those who had no scruples against violent resistance were to be free
+to do whatever they might think best and, for the rest of us,”--and his
+eyes twinkled again,--“there would not be lacking work for us, either.”
+
+“But Mary Ellen? How did the trader get hold of her? Do you know how it
+happened? I had been so watchful, and had let her raise her veil only
+now and then, when it seemed safe. I had not left her side since we
+started, until just before the awful thing happened. Then I heard her
+call and they were dragging her off the boat. I was hardly three feet
+away and had had my hand off her arm, oh, it seemed hardly a minute!
+Have you talked with her? Has she told you?”
+
+He nodded gravely and the suggestion of a smile appeared about his
+lips. Rhoda guessed that Mary Ellen was hidden in his house. “Yes,
+I have talked with the fugitive. She was leaning on the rail, so
+interested in looking at the town and at the landing as the boat came
+up that she forgot about her veil. Then, among the people on shore she
+recognized the trader and was so frightened that she seemed to lose the
+power of motion. He saw her the same instant, rushed upon the boat and
+seized her.”
+
+“Oh, the fault is all mine!” moaned Rhoda. “I should not have left
+her, I should not have taken my eyes off her, for one single minute! I
+was too proud, Mr. Benedict, and this is my punishment. For I thought
+nobody but me could get her safely to Cleveland and I had been so
+successful with others--and with her too--that I thought I couldn’t
+fail!”
+
+“Well, she is safe again. But thee is likely to suffer sadly for thy
+one moment of forgetfulness.”
+
+She told him Mary Ellen’s story, dwelling especially upon her
+sufferings during her long hours in the box. When she ended he brought
+his fist down on his knee and exclaimed solemnly:
+
+“She has earned her freedom twenty times over and she shall have
+it--fugitive slave law, constitution, marshals, or presidents
+notwithstanding, even if--if--Daniel Benedict has to forget his
+principles for once!”
+
+The next day he came again to see her, bringing with him his wife, a
+little woman in Quaker bonnet and gown, with a strong face and a sweet
+smile. Mary Ellen, they told her, had been safely started on her way
+again at midnight. Chaddle Wallace had taken her in his peddler’s
+wagon. Their news well-nigh dissipated Rhoda’s anxiety. For, of all
+the many fugitives he had hauled part or all the way to the northern
+boundary she knew that not one had failed to reach Canada in safety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+In the depths of humiliation Rhoda mourned over the fiasco of her
+attempt to guide Mary Ellen to freedom. But she soon found that the
+fiasco itself was bearing a rich crop of results. She was indicted
+for aiding and abetting the escape of a runaway slave and a dozen men
+of the rescuing party for obstructing the United States marshal in
+the performance of his duties and preventing him from rendering back
+the fugitive. The anti-slavery side retorted by arresting Gordon, the
+slave trader’s agent, and the slave catcher accompanying him, under the
+state’s personal liberty law, for kidnaping, and several members of the
+marshal’s posse, who had used fire-arms, for assault with intent to
+kill.
+
+As the news spread, meeting after meeting was held all through the
+central and eastern part of the state and up into the Western Reserve,
+denouncing the law, expressing sympathy with its victims and declaring
+the righteousness of setting at naught its provisions. Through the
+southern portion of the state and wherever there was sufficient
+pro-slavery feeling to crystallize into such action, counter-meetings
+were held, which reprobated the unfairness to the South, characterized
+in contemptuous terms the actions and principles of believers in the
+“higher law,” declared them to be traitors and called upon the Federal
+Government to use stern measures in upholding the Fugitive Slave Act.
+
+On the advice of Horace Hardaker, who was to conduct her case, and that
+of the counsel for her fellow prisoners, both Rhoda and they refused
+to enter recognizance that they would appear in court when wanted, and
+therefore were compelled to remain in jail.
+
+“It’s an unrighteous law in every respect,” said Hardaker, “and our
+contention will be that it is unconstitutional and void. To consent to
+return for trial under it would make tacit recognition of its validity.
+And that we won’t do. Besides, staying in jail will make martyrdom out
+of it, and the effect will be all the more potent.”
+
+But Rhoda, although she saw that her failure, in the outcome, would
+be of more consequence than success would have been, felt the pangs
+of humbled pride. She talked the matter over with Rachel, Daniel
+Benedict’s wife. For between her and the Quakeress a warm affection
+had quickly developed. Rachel Benedict visited her as often as the
+prison officials would allow, and Rhoda soon found that the little,
+dove-gray figure, with the sweet, strong face and the silver hair, was
+sure to bring assuaging of her heartaches and renewal of her spiritual
+strength. Without making any mention of her personal affairs, Rhoda
+yet found it possible to talk with her new friend with more intimacy
+and with greater surety of understanding and response than she had ever
+been able to do with her mother.
+
+“I was so proud, so self-complacent,” she said, “that I thought I could
+make amends to Mary Ellen for the wrongs that had been done to her.
+And I showed myself unworthy even to try. I let her be taken, just by
+being wrapped up for a few minutes in my own affairs, in something that
+troubled me. Oh, it has been a bitter lesson!”
+
+“Thee seems to me to be too much troubled by thy repentance. If thee
+lets it engross thee it too will become a sin. And perhaps the sin for
+which thee is repenting does not deserve so much repentance, after all.
+If thee did this thing believing in thy inmost soul that it was right
+and wishing in thy inmost soul to do good to others by means of it,
+then don’t disturb thy heart, Rhoda Ware, with how it seems to have
+come out. It hasn’t ended yet. And thee can be sure there is plenty of
+time yet for more good to come out of it than thee ever dreamed of.”
+
+“Yes, it didn’t make any difference to Mary Ellen,” Rhoda answered
+thoughtfully, “for she reached Canada just as safely as if I’d taken
+her all the way myself. But such an awful wrong had been done to
+her,--it seemed more horrible than any other case I had known about,
+and I wanted to suffer for it myself. I wanted to make atonement for
+another person’s sin. And it has all ended in failure!”
+
+“Well, isn’t thee suffering for it? Isn’t thee suffering a great deal
+more than if thee had been successful? But don’t delude thyself,
+Rhoda Ware, by thinking thee can do any good by suffering for another
+person’s sins. We have got to sweat and suffer stripes ourselves for
+the evil that is in us if we are to be purged of our sins!”
+
+At her window that night, Rhoda pondered long upon these words. “I
+suppose Mrs. Benedict is right,” she said to herself finally. “It was
+only my pride--and my love, that made me think I could atone for even
+this one bit of his wrongdoing. He will have to suffer for it, for all
+of it, himself, before he can see that it is wrong. And we shall all
+have to suffer, North and South alike, for this awful sin of slavery,
+for the North is to blame almost as much as the South.
+
+“‘Sweat and suffer stripes’! Bloody sweat, father thinks it will
+be,--he is so sure that it will end in war. Will it come in our time?
+Oh, surely, things cannot go on like this much longer! So much anger on
+both sides, so much indignation in the North, so many threats in the
+South--and all getting worse and worse every year--Oh, if war is to be
+the end, we must be getting nearly there! War!”
+
+She shivered and pressed her hands against her face. As the grisly
+specter of blood and smoke passed vaguely before her mind’s eye her
+anxious thoughts hovered with instant anxiety over the dear image of
+him who she knew would be among the first to challenge the issue. Then
+with a little cry she sprang to her feet.
+
+“Shall I never remember I must not think of him like that!” she asked
+herself with bitterness. “My sister’s husband! O, God, help me to
+forget!” She paced about the room with frowning brows and lips pressed
+hard together, telling herself, as she had already done a hundred
+times, that she must learn to forget, as it had been so easy for him to
+do. And there she touched upon her deepest wound, that his love had not
+been as fine and as true as she had thought it.
+
+“How could he love another--so different--and wish to marry her, after
+all that has passed between us? I could not--how could he?” was the
+question that would come back, again and again. She tried to subdue
+it by telling herself that since he could, since his love and faith
+were not equal to hers, he was not worthy of her love and deserved
+only forgetfulness complete, eternal. But her heart cried out fiercely
+against this edict of her brain and clung to its need of believing in
+him.
+
+“He is fine and noble in many, many ways,” at last she said to herself,
+“in nearly all ways the finest and the noblest man I’ve ever known, and
+if his love fell short of all I thought it was, I must try to forgive
+him that, as I forgive him his blindness about the wickedness of
+slavery, which kept us apart, and, I suppose--deep down in my heart--I
+suppose--I’ll always love him. But I’ll try, oh, I’ll try from this
+minute, always to think of him as Charlotte’s husband. He mustn’t be
+Jeff to me any more--just Charlotte’s husband! Charlotte’s husband!”
+
+During her days in jail she spent much time embroidering dainty things
+for Charlotte’s trousseau, and into these she found herself able to
+stitch, along with the tears that would fall now and then, prayers and
+hopes for Charlotte’s happiness and earnest desires, since the marriage
+must be, that she would make her husband happy. But on this latter
+question she found herself haunted by a doubt that would yield to no
+arguments based on the sequence of love and happiness.
+
+Charlotte and Mrs. Ware returned home immediately after Rhoda’s arrest
+and it was some time, after her sister’s first brief announcement
+of her engagement, before she heard again from either of them. And
+afterward their letters were filled mainly with accounts of their plans
+and preparations for Charlotte’s trousseau and wedding. In her replies
+she could not bring herself to write Jeff’s name and so referred to him
+only as “Charlotte’s lover,” or “Charlotte’s intended.” She noticed too
+that her mother spoke of him only in the same way while her sister
+wrote of him as “he,” in capital letters.
+
+“They are afraid of hurting my feelings by mentioning his name,” I
+suppose, Rhoda said to herself. “I must get used to it, but--I’m glad
+they don’t.”
+
+Charlotte’s letters were brief and infrequent and each one contained,
+in addition to talk about her bridal plans, advice in plenty on the
+propriety of Rhoda’s giving up her “nigger thieving” and her black
+abolition acquaintance, now that the family was identified with
+southern interests.
+
+“Dear little sister!” Rhoda would say to herself with an indulgent
+smile as she read these admonitions. “She’s such a child, and she’s so
+positive she knows all about it! I wonder if she’ll ever really grow
+up!”
+
+But her mother’s letters gave her much concern. Her arrest and
+imprisonment had caused Mrs. Ware severe shock and deep grief and
+her heart was wrung that the necessity was upon her to cause so much
+suffering.
+
+“I must do whatever I can,” she moaned. “It’s on my conscience and I
+must, and I can’t be sorry I did this, dear, dear mother, even for your
+sake. I couldn’t live if I didn’t do my best to fight this awful evil!”
+
+Evidently, too, Mrs. Ware was not well. The physical ailments that had
+interfered with her enjoyment of her visit to Fairmount had grown
+worse since her return. Notwithstanding all this the mother heart of
+her yearned over and wished to be with her first-born. But to this
+desire Rhoda gave constant denial, lest her burden of grief and pain be
+made harder to bear.
+
+Dr. Ware came to see his daughter as often as his practice would
+allow, but his visits were necessarily brief and infrequent. He spoke
+occasionally of Charlotte’s engagement and Rhoda thought he seemed
+pleased with it.
+
+“It’s a very good thing, I guess,” he said one day, with a cheerfulness
+that gave Rhoda a little twinge of unhappiness.
+
+“But he always has loved Charlotte so much,” she thought, “and wanted
+her to have everything she wanted that he’d be glad to have her happy
+no matter if--”
+
+“She’ll be in harmony with her surroundings and he seems to be very
+much in love with her,” Dr. Ware went on. Rhoda turned quickly away
+lest he see the little spasm of pain that she felt sure was showing
+itself upon her countenance.
+
+“Your mother, of course, is deeply pleased,” he continued. “I don’t
+know but it is giving her almost as much pleasure as your marriage
+would have done. It will be a good thing for Charlotte to be married
+happily and settled down. She’ll come out all right. I never have had
+any doubts about her, in the long run, because she’s so much like what
+her mother was at her age.”
+
+Horace Hardaker came often to consult with Rhoda in the preparation of
+her case. He hoped to make a telling presentment and was enthusiastic
+over the excitement that already had been aroused.
+
+“Of course,” he said to her one day in the early winter, when the date
+set for her trial was almost at hand, “the law and the facts are all
+against us. The only thing we can do is to appeal to the sentiment
+against the law. Whether we lose or win, the affair is making a big
+breeze that’s going to be bigger yet!”
+
+“You know, Horace,” she replied, “that I don’t care in the least what
+they do with me,--except on mother’s account. What I want most is to
+help all I can in the fight against slavery and if it will do more good
+for me to stay in jail than to go home and work with the Underground
+again, why then--” she looked straight at him and a smile flashed from
+her lips up into her eyes--“in jail let me stay!”
+
+He smiled back at her and his blue eyes lighted with admiration as
+he laid one hand for a moment over hers. “Rhoda, I’ve told you this
+before, but I must say it again, and I shall always say it--you’re the
+grandest girl there is anywhere!”
+
+After he was gone she sat with a tender smile on her lips. “Dear
+Horace!” she was thinking. “Such a good friend as he is! Sound and true
+to the bottom of his heart! Why didn’t I happen to fall in love with
+him?... Well, it seems to be getting nearly time--for me to refuse him
+again!”
+
+It was within a day or two of the opening of her trial, which was to
+be the first of the series, when Rhoda finally brought herself to the
+point of writing to Jefferson Delavan. Many times she had told herself
+that, since he was to marry her sister, she ought to let him know that
+in her heart were only wishes for his happiness. But it had been a hard
+thing to do and she had postponed it from week to week. At last, her
+sense of duty would be put off no longer and she resolutely faced the
+heartache that she knew the task would make all the more poignant.
+
+“Dear Friend,” she wrote. “Charlotte has told me of the happiness
+that came to her and to you during her visit to Fairmount. I am sure
+you will believe me when I say it is my most earnest wish that that
+happiness will never be any less than it is now and that it will grow
+greater during the many long years of wedded life that I hope are
+before you. In your and her feelings and convictions there is nothing
+to divide you, nothing to prevent the complete union of hearts and
+souls which is the only thing that can make marriage worth while. I
+am sure, since you love her, that you will always be very tender to
+Charlotte. To me she has always been just ‘little sister’ and it is
+difficult for me to realize that she is really a woman and about to
+become a wife. At home we have always spoiled her and that has made
+her, sometimes, in a merry way, rather ruthless of other people’s
+feelings. But I have no doubt your love will make you understand that
+this is only on the surface and that her heart is true and loving. For
+you both, dear friend, soon to be brother, my heart is full of every
+good wish. Always your friend, Rhoda”--she paused here, on the point of
+signing her name in the old way, but “Adeline” seemed sacred to those
+other days and to the love that had been between them then, and she
+could not write it here. So she added only “Ware” and quickly folded
+and sealed the letter.
+
+As she looked at the envelope it seemed as if it were the coffin of her
+love, ready for burial, as if she had said a last good-by to all the
+pleasure it had brought into her heart. Now only the pain was left. She
+bowed her head upon her hands and some scalding drops trickled through
+her fingers. Her jailer’s knock sounded at the door and she sprang to
+her feet and dried her eyes. Hardly had she time to control her sobs
+when it opened and Jefferson Delavan crossed the threshold.
+
+His look was deeply earnest and intent upon her as he moved forward,
+holding out both hands and saying, “Rhoda! I could stay away no longer!”
+
+“Jeff!” she faltered, stepping back. “I--I--had just written to you!”
+
+“Written to me! Rhoda! Did you ask me to come?”
+
+There was no mistaking the look of glad surprise and love that suddenly
+broke over his countenance. Rhoda gazed at him in perplexity and
+instinctively pressed one hand against her heart, as if to keep down
+the responsive love that was trying to leap upward, as she said to
+herself, “Charlotte’s husband! Charlotte’s husband!”
+
+Still moving backward, away from him, as he followed her across the
+room exclaiming again, “Sweetheart, did you ask me to come?” her
+bewildered, apprehensive thought sprang to the conclusion that she must
+make him be true to Charlotte, that she must not let him betray the
+“little sister.”
+
+“Charlotte--” she ejaculated--“your engagement--I wrote to wish you
+happiness!”
+
+He stopped short and stared at her with puzzled eyes. “What under
+heaven do you mean?”
+
+“Why, your engagement to my sister! Aren’t you going to marry
+Charlotte?”
+
+“Assuredly, I’m not!” was his quick and emphatic answer.
+
+“Have you--have you--broken it off, then--so soon?” She was moving her
+trembling hands over each other, unable to keep them still, and holding
+her face half averted, afraid to look at him save in brief glances,
+lest her eyes might betray the love that was swelling in her heart.
+
+“You are talking in puzzles, Rhoda! I’ve never had the faintest desire
+to marry Charlotte, or anybody but you.”
+
+Her face dropped lower and her bosom heaved. What could it all
+mean? Had they been deceiving her? And why? “She said--that is--I
+understood--” she stumbled. Then he broke in upon her embarrassed
+bewilderment.
+
+“She didn’t say she was going to marry me, did she? Lloyd Corey is the
+happy man. It was love at first sight, of the most violent sort, with
+him, and he would take nothing but an outright ‘yes’ for his answer,
+and that inside of two weeks. It was a pretty little love comedy, and I
+wished a hundred times that you were there to watch it with me.”
+
+She moved unsteadily to a chair and sank down, her face in her hands.
+It had been such tragedy to her! And now it was taking all her
+self-control to hold herself firmly in hand under the reaction. At once
+he was beside her, dropping upon one knee and trying to take her hands
+from her face. “What is it, Rhoda? What is the matter? Look at me,
+dearest!”
+
+“Yes, Jeff--let me realize--wait--one moment!” He watched her
+anxiously, her hands in his, as with a deep, long breath, a tension of
+the muscles and a pressing together of her lips she regained control of
+herself. She withdrew her hands and slowly lifted her face as he rose
+to his feet.
+
+“It’s nothing, Jeff--no, I don’t mean that--it is so much. But--I
+thought--Charlotte led me to think that--she was going to marry
+you--and now--to find that you’re not--that you still--” She stopped
+and half turned away her face, trying to hide the confession she knew
+was there of all it meant to find that his love was still her own.
+But already he had seen enough to set his heart on fire and he sprang
+toward her, as if to take her in his arms.
+
+“And you cared so much? Rhoda, deny me no longer!”
+
+She drew away from him and said humbly: “Can you forgive me, Jeff?
+Indeed, I would not have thought it possible, but it seemed to have
+happened. It was just one of Charlotte’s tricks.”
+
+“Forgive you, dear heart? I do not think you could do anything that I
+would not forgive!”
+
+Her glance swept the room. Then she looked up at him with a smile and
+said significantly, “Even this?”
+
+“Even this, Rhoda, else I would not be here. I held out against the
+pleading of my heart as long as I could. But I longed so much to see
+you and wanted so much to help you, that I couldn’t stay away any
+longer. I’ve come, dear, to beg you once more to be my wife. Let me
+give you, at once, the protection of my name--”
+
+She drew back and lifted her head proudly. “I have already the
+protection of my father’s name and the approval of my conscience. I
+should feel myself a coward, and a traitor to myself, if I tried to
+crawl under any other now.”
+
+“I understand what you mean--and I beg your pardon. But we both know
+now, more surely than we knew before, how necessary we are to each
+other, how deep and true and everlasting our love is. Don’t you
+realize that neither of us can ever be happy until we have joined our
+lives together? What are the days and the weeks for us now but just a
+constant yearning for each other’s presence. Look forward, Rhoda, to
+months and years of that, think of how much more life will mean for us
+both, if only you will give up and listen to what your heart tells you.”
+
+She had risen and was standing beside her chair, one hand on its back.
+He came close to her and rested his hand near hers. She was conscious
+too that his other arm was outstretched behind her, hovering close,
+ready to sweep her into his embrace. The struggle in her heart, longing
+to heed the call of his, quick with desire to make amends for the
+injustice she had done him, tumultuous with rejoicing that his love
+had been all she had thought it, was almost more than she could bear.
+He was so near--she had only to lean toward him a little, and his arm
+would be around her and her head upon his breast. Ah, the blessed
+peace there would be in that haven of repose! Already she could feel
+its stilling waters wrapping round her, numbing the power of resistance.
+
+He leaned a little nearer and his voice was low and compellingly sweet,
+“Rhoda! Come to my arms, where you belong! Do not deny our love any
+longer!”
+
+She saw his hand on the back of the chair moving instinctively toward
+her own,--a sinewy, brown, masterful hand, which held her eyes as
+it drew nearer, little by little, as if drawn by some irresistible
+attraction. She knew that his eyes in that same way were fixed upon
+her own, long, slender, nervous, the sort of hand that works out
+the behests of a strenuous soul. And she knew, also, as she waited,
+silent, trying to force herself to voice once more the dictates of her
+conscience, she knew that, if his hand touched hers before she could
+bring herself to speak, she could resist no longer. Still she stood,
+speechless, her fascinated eyes upon his masterful hand, her body
+thrilling with the surety that if she did not speak now, at once, in
+another moment she would be in his arms, and the struggle over.
+
+  “Oh, my poor Nellie Gray,
+  They have taken her away,
+  And I’ll never see my darling any more!”
+
+The words of the negro song, in a negro woman’s voice, came floating
+into the room, mingled with the sounds of broom and scrubbing brush.
+They brought to Rhoda instant memory of Mary Ellen’s melodious tones,
+singing in happy unconsciousness of peril, and of her own strained
+and fearful attention as she listened to the footsteps steps of the
+marshal’s posse. And then like a flash passed before her mind’s eye
+the ashen face and shaking figure of Mary Ellen, as her father and Jim
+lifted her from the box that had almost been her deathbed.
+
+The numbing waters fell away, she raised her hand and pressed it
+against her heart with the impulsive, unconscious gesture he knew so
+well, and moved apart.
+
+“Jeff, it’s no use talking any more about this,” she said in tremulous
+accents. “The last time we said all that is to be said.”
+
+“Don’t say that! It makes everything so bare and hopeless! It makes me
+fear that you have killed your love. Rhoda, you do love me, yet?”
+
+She turned slowly toward him and lifted her downcast face, alight with
+all the glow that was in her heart. “Jeff,” and the word as it came
+from her tenderly smiling lips was a caress, “Jeff, I love you so
+much that my heart has made me forgive you even that you allowed Mary
+Ellen--Lear White--to be sold.”
+
+“My sweet! And I love you so much that my heart has made me forgive
+even your stealing her away!”
+
+For a moment it seemed to them that gray eyes and brown melted into
+each other. And then the comedy of their cross-conscienced hearts
+struck her sense of humor, the corners of her mouth trembled and
+deepened and a smile flashed over her face and sparkled in her eyes.
+At that they both laughed, softly, in the tenderness of perfect
+understanding. Then she saw the old baffled, determined look overspread
+his face as turning sharply he strode across the room and back.
+
+“My God, Rhoda! Why have our hearts snared us into this misery? Why
+don’t you loathe me as you do all that I believe in and stand for?
+Why can’t I condemn and scorn you as I do all the rest of your tribe?
+Why must I, when I detest and am injured by what is dearest to you,
+still see in you my ideal of all that is lovable and womanly? My love,
+my love, why can’t I hate you instead of loving you so that you are
+the only woman in all the world I want for my wife? Must our love be
+forever a curse instead of a blessing?”
+
+He flung himself into a chair beside the table, every muscle of his
+body expressive of anger and rebellion at the mysterious forces of
+human life that had played this scurvy trick upon them, pitted against
+each other loving heart and steadfast conscience and left them, like
+two cocks in a pit, to fight it out in a struggle to the death.
+
+Did they laugh at him and at her, those Caliban spirits of the
+universe, that with grim and cruel humor are forever setting human
+purpose awry and sending it, lop-sided and ludicrous, far aside its
+mark? Did they laugh and cheer and find pleasure in that struggle,
+the sure result of the innate upward-strivingness of the human soul,
+like human beings around a cock-pit betting upon which instinct, which
+spirit, which physique, shall prove the stronger? Or, perhaps, was
+Caliban pushed aside by some Angel of the Sword, infinitely just and
+infinitely merciful, that with stern lips whispered to pitying eyes,
+“No, let them struggle, for only by struggling, even to the uttermost,
+can their souls grow!”
+
+Softly Rhoda came near, hesitatingly put forth one hand and let it
+rest for an instant upon his arm. At her touch he straightened up and
+unconsciously one hand sought the place upon his arm where hers had
+lain. “I don’t believe, dear, it will be forever. I don’t believe it
+will be very much longer.”
+
+“What do you mean, Rhoda?” he cried, springing up. “Do you really think
+there is hope for us?”
+
+“Yes, Jeff, I do. But I don’t suppose you’ll see it as I do. It’s only
+that I think,” she was speaking timidly, and yet with a grave eagerness
+of voice and manner, “and so do a good many of us, that slavery can’t
+last much longer. We feel sure that its end is bound to come, in one
+way or another, and that before long. And when slavery is swept away,
+Jeff, and the whole country is clean of it, then there will be no gulf
+between us!”
+
+Her serious eyes were luminous as they met his unbelieving ones and in
+her face was the subdued glow of one who looks afar off upon a land of
+promise and knows that toward it his feet are set. Love and disbelief
+were mingled in the somber countenance he bent upon her.
+
+“No, Rhoda, I do not agree with you. And much as I love you, sweet, I
+would not, if I could, purchase our happiness at such a cost. I would
+not, if I could, be such a traitor to the South. But I shall always
+love you, dear heart, and I shall always hope that you will yet be
+mine.” He held her hand tenderly for a moment in both of his, pressed
+it to his lips, bowed gravely, and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+“It’s going to be a good speech, Horace, and it will surely attract
+attention,” said Rhoda Ware to her counsel on the day before the
+opening of her trial.
+
+Hardaker had just gone over with her an outline of the address he would
+make in summing up her case. It was intended for the people outside
+the court room, near and far, who would talk about it and read it in
+the newspapers, quite as much as for the ears of the jurors. So high
+and strong had risen the feeling on the slavery question that in some
+parts of Ohio, as well as elsewhere, the lawyer who devoted energy and
+ability to the defense of captured fugitives and their helpers could
+be sure of early and ample political reward. Hardaker was ambitious.
+He meant, as soon as he could reach an opening door, to enter upon a
+public career and he had mapped out for himself election to Congress,
+and after that a steady ascent to high places in national affairs--such
+a career as, half a century ago, engaged the talents and aspirations
+of ten times as many eager and capable young men as now think it worth
+consideration. The fact is an ugly one and not creditable to the
+quality of our national growth.
+
+But for Horace Hardaker in this present case the spurrings of ambition
+were only an added incentive. His conviction was profound that slavery
+was an evil and the Fugitive Slave Act a monstrous law and his desire
+to oppose either or both or anything that tended to strengthen the
+institution of slavery amounted to a passion. And, in addition to these
+motives, his intimate friendship with Dr. Ware and his love for Rhoda
+incited him to exert himself to the utmost in her defense.
+
+“I hope it will, Rhoda,” he replied, “but I’m doubtful if it will do
+you any good. Your violation of the law was open and flagrant and we
+don’t want to deny it or attempt to mitigate it in the least.”
+
+“Indeed we don’t.”
+
+“The decision in the case, then, will depend entirely on the political
+sympathies of the jury, and the other side is not likely to allow any
+man on it who has anti-slavery convictions. It would be a victory worth
+while, Rhoda, if I could get you off! Not only for you, which would
+gratify me enough, but for the anti-slavery cause! To have conviction
+refused in a case as bare-faced as this would be a big blow toward
+making the Fugitive Slave law a dead letter!”
+
+“If I could think,” said Rhoda earnestly, “that any act of mine would
+help to bring that about, I’d be willing to undergo this all over
+again.”
+
+He looked at her admiringly and drew his chair nearer, as he said:
+“Well, you can rest assured that your attempt to help Mary Ellen is
+having important results. And the waves are spreading out and getting
+bigger, Rhoda!” Another hitch brought his chair still closer.
+
+“I’m glad of that, and I want you to remember, Horace, when you are
+making your speech, that you are not to consider me or my sentence
+at all. Say the thing that will help toward what we all want. Don’t
+think about me--just think about Mary Ellen and what she was willing
+to undergo, and all the rest of those poor black creatures that are
+longing so for their freedom.”
+
+His chair was beside hers now and he was seizing her hand. “Rhoda! Not
+think about you! How can I help it? Don’t you know I’m always thinking
+about you and always hoping that some day you’ll think better about
+what I’ve been hoping for so long? Isn’t there any chance, any prospect
+of a chance, for me yet?”
+
+She laid her free hand upon his two that were clasping hers. “I’m
+sorry, Horace! You know how much I like you, how much I prize your
+friendship--but you are like a dear brother to me, Horace, and I can’t
+think of you any other way!”
+
+“But isn’t it possible that sometime--don’t you think, Rhoda, that
+after a while you’ll learn to like me the other way too? You know what
+I am, you know how much I love you--won’t my heart’s love draw yours,
+after a while?”
+
+She shook her head and drew her hands away. “No, Horace, there isn’t
+any hope, not the least in the world. And I wish, dear Horace, I wish
+you would put it quite out of your mind. Don’t waste any more time
+thinking about me. There is many a nice girl who would make you a good
+wife, and I do wish, Horace, for your own sake, you would fall in love
+with one and marry her.”
+
+He looked at her searchingly. “When a girl talks that way she really
+means it.”
+
+“You know I mean it, Horace.”
+
+“I mean, Rhoda, that she knows her own heart, clear through, and feels
+sure about it.”
+
+“That’s the way I know mine,” she answered softly.
+
+He seized her hand again as he exclaimed, “Does that mean, Rhoda, that
+there is some one else and that your heart is full already?”
+
+“Yes, Horace. It means that I love some one else so deeply that I can
+never have a love thought for any other man. I love him with all my
+heart, although I don’t suppose I shall ever marry him. But I shall
+never marry any one else, and I could no more think of you or any one
+else with the kind of love you want than I could if I were his wife.”
+
+There was something like reverence in the gesture with which he put
+down her hand. “Then that is the end of it for me, Rhoda. Would
+you mind telling me, is it that”--he paused an instant, supplying
+mentally the adjective with which he usually thought of Rhoda’s
+lover--“slaveholder, Delavan, from Kentucky?”
+
+“Yes, Horace.”
+
+He rose and took up his hat. “If that’s the way it is with you,” he
+began, then stopped, looking fixedly. “Poor girl!” he went on, resting
+his hand lightly for an instant upon her head. “You ought to have had a
+happier fate!”
+
+“It’s as good as I deserve, Horace,” she replied cheerfully. Then her
+face lighted with the glow that had been in her heart since Delavan’s
+visit, and she went on: “And it might have been so much worse!”
+
+That same glow, as of profound inward happiness, was upon her
+countenance the next day as she sat in the court room. On one side of
+her was her father and on the other sat Rachel Benedict, with wrinkled
+hands primly folded in the lap of her plain gray gown, her kindly,
+bright old eyes and sweet smile bent now and then upon her young
+friend as she whispered some encouraging word. Behind her were Mrs.
+Hardaker and Marcia Kimball and other friends from the Hillside Female
+Anti-Slavery Society.
+
+In the back of the room, throughout the trial, sat Jefferson Delavan.
+He was always in his place in the same seat, when she entered, and
+their eyes would meet once and a faint smile play around her lips for
+an instant. Then she would not look again in his direction, but her
+face kept always its glow of inward happiness.
+
+Horace Hardaker sat with his gaze moodily fixed upon Delavan’s dark
+head. Jeff’s eyes were upon Rhoda’s face and Hardaker felt resentfully
+that within their depths must lie some hint of the lover’s yearning. It
+was almost time for him to begin his address. But his thoughts were not
+upon what he was about to say nor upon how he could most move the jury.
+Instead they were busy, with indignant wonder, upon how “that damned
+slaveholder” had contrived to win the rich and undying love of such a
+girl as Rhoda Ware.
+
+For the way of a man with a maid is always a sealed book to other men.
+A woman can guess, or she knows instinctively, how and why another
+woman has won a man’s love. But the side of a man’s nature with which
+he does his wooing is so different from any manifestation of himself
+that he makes among his fellows that to them it is an unknown land.
+Therefore they are inclined to be skeptical as to its attractiveness.
+
+But Hardaker was much more than skeptical. He was irritated, and even
+angry, that “such a man as that” should have dared to think himself
+worthy of Rhoda’s love. And when he presently rose to address the jury
+the rankling in his heart lent sharper vigor to every thrust he made
+against the slave power and put into his tones a savage indignation
+as, with eyes fixed upon Delavan’s face, he thundered his indictments.
+
+An audience of character and intelligence crowded the court room to the
+doors, while outside, in the hall and around the windows people stood
+on benches, listening intently, for hours at a time. From all over the
+county, from surrounding counties, and from as far away as Cleveland,
+men of substance and of prominence had left their homes and business
+and journeyed hither to listen to the proceedings and to testify by
+their presence their sympathy with the defense.
+
+But the pro-slavery side also had its representatives, although in
+the minority, who were of equal consequence and standing. It was such
+an audience as would gratify any attorney, wishing to influence the
+community as well as the jury.
+
+As he rose for his address Hardaker presented a manly, attractive
+figure and a vigorous, almost a magnetic, personality. Sweeping the
+court room with his eyes, he waited for a moment and then began with a
+couplet from a popular anti-slavery song, a song that had roused the
+echoes in thousands of enthusiastic gatherings, all over the North. No
+one within the reach of his voice needed any explanation of its meaning:
+
+  “’Tis the law of God in the human soul,
+  ’Tis the law in the Word Divine.”
+
+He quoted the injunction of the Mosaic law against the returning of an
+escaped servant and the commands of the New Testament for the succor
+of the oppressed, and in vivid language set them forth as the law of
+the Divine Word, the command of God, and therefore infinitely more
+binding upon men and women who believed in God and accepted the Bible
+as his Word than any law made by man in defiance of the Almighty’s
+command. In a voice that gave full value to its pathetic appeal he told
+the story of Mary Ellen’s heroic endeavor to escape from bondage and
+a fate “like unto the fires of hell.” Then he called upon the fathers
+and mothers of all young girls to tell him if the command of Christ,
+“Do unto others as you would that others do unto you,” had lost all
+its meaning, if humanity, Christianity, fatherhood--even ordinary
+manhood--no longer felt its force. Following the precedent set by a
+number of lawyers of wide reputation he analyzed the relation of the
+Fugitive Slave Act to the Constitution and concluded that it violated
+the rights guaranteed by the basic law of the country, and therefore,
+since it was unconstitutional, to disregard its provisions was not
+unlawful and his client had committed no crime.
+
+“This law was passed at the behest of the slave power,” he declared.
+“It was conceived in iniquity, the iniquity of the South’s
+determination to put upon slavery the seal of national approval; it was
+begotten in corruption, the corruption of compromise and bargain; and
+it was born in the dastardly willingness of misrepresentatives of the
+people to truckle to Southern arrogance and betray the convictions and
+the conscience of the North.
+
+“Shall we then, free men and women of Ohio, betrayed as we have been
+and misrepresented as we are by this so-called law, be expected to
+cast aside the commands of Christianity and the obligations of common
+brotherhood, transform ourselves into bloodhounds to chase the panting
+fugitive and send him back to his chains and, as in this case, to
+such a hell of lust and vice as all decent manhood and womanhood must
+shudder at? In the name of all that humanity holds sacred, I answer,
+no! A thousand times, no!
+
+“The learned counsel for the prosecution has seen fit to sneer at our
+belief in the higher law,” Hardaker went on, with body erect and hand
+upraised, his full, melodious, resonant voice filling the court room
+and the corridors and carrying his words even into the street. “I
+answer that that law has my entire allegiance and that I stand here to
+defend and uphold it and to demand the rights of those who feel bound,
+as I do, by its commands. I feel assured, and you well know, gentlemen
+of the jury, that I voice the sentiments of thousands upon thousands
+of Christ-loving and God-fearing men and women when I say that if any
+fleeing bondman comes to me in need of help, protection, and means of
+flight, so help me the living God in my hour of greatest need, he
+shall have them all, even to the last drop of my life’s blood!”
+
+Like the sudden upburst of a volcano, the court room broke into
+resounding applause. Men sprang to their feet, swung their hats and
+cheered. Women stood upon benches, waved handkerchiefs and clapped
+their hands. The rapping of the judge’s gavel and the cries of the
+officers for “order in the court” were drowned in the uproar and hardly
+reached even their own ears. Then the sharp insistence of hisses began
+to be heard. Jefferson Delavan, who had been listening with hands
+clenched, frowning brows and angry eyes, added his voice to the sounds
+of disapproval. For a few minutes the tumult continued, and then, at
+the judge’s order, the court officers began forcing the people out.
+
+They poured into the street and organized a mass-meeting in the square
+in front of the court house. Numbers of men came running from all
+directions and while the meeting was in progress word filtered out that
+the jury had found the prisoner guilty and the judge’s sentence had
+imposed a fine of one thousand dollars and costs and imprisonment for
+thirty days.
+
+Resolutions were at once passed denouncing the judge and deciding,
+“since the courts no longer dispensed justice,” to proceed to the jail,
+liberate the other prisoners and protect them from the operations of
+“an outrageously unjust and tyrannous enactment.”
+
+Delavan, looking on at the outskirts of the gathering, heard the
+resolutions. He knew that Rhoda would soon be conducted back to her
+quarters in the jail and he ran thither, hoping to arrive before the
+crowd of rescuers. In custody of the marshal she had just reached the
+jail entrance.
+
+“Rhoda!” he exclaimed. “You are in danger here! A mob is coming to
+break in the doors. Marshal, bring her with me, so we can find a place
+of safety for her.”
+
+She drew herself up and looked at him with the same pale face and
+brilliant eyes with which in the woods, so long ago, she had opposed
+his quest for his fugitive slave. Scarcely she seemed the same being
+who, only a few days before, had almost trembled into his embrace.
+
+“No,” she said slowly, “these are my people and with them is where I
+belong. This is where your law has sent me and while I am in its power
+I want no place of safety. Marshal, take me in!”
+
+The marshal was doubtful, asked Delavan what he meant and what he
+purposed to do, and while he hesitated the mob came rushing up the
+street and his only course was to hurry inside with her and bar the
+door.
+
+The mass of men surged against the jail entrance and with pieces of
+timber and bars of iron soon forced their way in. Then they trooped
+through the building, sweeping along all the prisoners who were
+awaiting trial under the Fugitive Slave law. They urged Rhoda to walk
+out into freedom and defiance of her sentence. But she smilingly shook
+her head and told them:
+
+“No, thank you. It’s better to serve out my sentence, and then I’ll be
+free to defy the law again in my own way.”
+
+Exultantly the throng poured out into the street again with the
+prisoners, and faced two companies of militia, ready to fire. Even the
+hottest heads among them paused at this and after some parleying they
+agreed to disperse and allow the men to be taken back to confinement.
+
+Among those awaiting trial for aiding in Mary Ellen’s rescue and escape
+were the pastor of the leading Presbyterian church in the town, the
+superintendent of a Methodist Sunday School, a professor from Oberlin
+College who had happened to be in the place on that day, a merchant,
+two lawyers and a physician, together with some clerks, laboring men,
+a farmer and several free negroes. The day following the conclusion of
+Rhoda’s trial was Sunday, and the Presbyterian minister preached from
+the jail yard to a large concourse of people who stood for two hours
+in a biting wind, for it was now well on in the winter, listening with
+the closest attention. The sermon, which was mainly an anti-slavery
+address, added fuel to the already flaming excitement.
+
+Meetings were held and bands of men began to organize and arm
+themselves. Militia guarded the jail night and day. The pro-slavery
+sympathizers, though in the minority in this region, yet made up a
+considerable share of the populace, and, angered and uneasy, they also
+began to prepare for whatever might happen. To hints that the Fugitive
+Slave law prisoners might yet be delivered from jail they retaliated
+with threats that those of their own party who were under durance for
+infraction of state laws should no longer suffer imprisonment.
+
+So acute did the situation become that Governor Chase hurried to
+Washington to consult with President Buchanan, assuring him that while
+he intended to support the federal government, as long as its authority
+was exercised legitimately, nevertheless he felt it his duty to protect
+the state officials and the state courts and that this should be done,
+though it took every man in the state to do it.
+
+Finally, a compromise was arranged by which the federal government
+dropped the remaining prosecutions for the escape of Mary Ellen and
+released the prisoners, while the state authorities dismissed the suits
+against the slave trader’s agent and his companion and the members of
+the marshal’s posse.
+
+The episode was amicably settled, but the flames of contention had been
+so fed by it that they mounted higher and higher. Meetings continued
+to be held all over those portions of the state where anti-slavery
+sentiment was strong. They culminated, soon after Rhoda’s release,
+in an immense mass-convention at Cleveland attended by many thousand
+people and addressed by public men of distinction, where, amid the
+greatest enthusiasm, resolutions were passed denouncing the Dred Scott
+decision and declaring the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional and
+therefore void.
+
+In the pocket of the dress she had worn on the day of her arrest
+Rhoda chanced to find, soon after this convention, Charlotte’s note
+telling of her engagement. She smiled soberly as she thought of all the
+consequences that had resulted from this manifestation of her sister’s
+puckish spirit.
+
+“If she hadn’t misled me this way,” Rhoda’s thoughts ran, “I wouldn’t
+have forgotten about everything else the way I did for a few minutes,
+and I would have kept watch of Mary Ellen and made her keep her veil
+down, and then that man wouldn’t have recognized her, and we’d have
+gone right on and nothing would have happened!”
+
+Rhoda’s trial aroused the keenest interest all over the North. But
+it was an interest that cared only for principles. The personalities
+of those engaged in the matter were of the slightest consequence.
+Everywhere, in newspapers and in conversation, there was discussion
+of the affair, and of the consequences to which it might lead. But the
+people concerned in it were only so many cogs in a mighty Wheel of
+Fate, turning resistlessly, and ever about to bring into the present,
+out of the unknown future, no man could tell what.
+
+To the South and its northern sympathizers the whole affair was
+irritating and alarming in high degree. Democratic newspapers and their
+readers declared the attitude of “Chase and his abolition crew” to
+be equivalent to a declaration of war against the United States and
+welcomed the prospect, while the compromise by which the difficulty was
+finally settled they described with bitterness as “another triumph”
+for the creed of the “traitorous higher law with its open sanction of
+treason and rebellion.”
+
+But there was one element in the North to whom Rhoda Ware’s share
+in these events was not a matter of indifference. In the eyes of
+the abolitionists she was a martyr to the cause to which they were
+zealously devoted and during the month in which she served out her
+sentence letters poured in upon her containing money for the payment
+of her fine and warm words of praise. The Female Anti-Slavery Society
+of Hillside sent her the whole of their small store, saying, “we shall
+be proud to share even so little in the martyrdom of our beloved
+president.” Rhoda wept over it, knowing well at what cost of personal
+sacrifice the little hoard had been gathered. But she knew, too,
+that to beg them to take back their offering would be to stab their
+very hearts. Other anti-slavery societies in Ohio and elsewhere sent
+contributions. There were checks from rich men in New York, New England
+and Pennsylvania, whose purses were always open for the anti-slavery
+cause and whose custom it was to give brotherly encouragement to
+Underground operators who fell into the toils of the Fugitive Slave
+Act by helping to pay their fines. The amount in which Rhoda had been
+mulcted was entirely paid, as was the assessment in many another case,
+by these enthusiastic co-workers.
+
+Most precious to her, however, were the letters which came from
+abolitionists all over the country with their words of praise,
+sympathy, encouragement and hope. Many of them were from men and women
+whose names will be found in the pages of American history as long as
+the conflict over slavery holds a place therein. Long afterward, when
+many years of peace had enabled all the people of the land to look back
+with calm philosophy upon those heated years of contention, and the
+impartial muse of history had given to the Underground Railroad a high
+place among the causes which brought on the Civil War and abolished
+servitude, Rhoda Ware held these letters among her most prized mementos
+of those stirring days of which she was a part.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+The lilac bushes were again in bud and Rhoda Ware was looking at them,
+pulling down here and there a tall one to see if it was not farther
+advanced than the rest, and reckoning how soon they would burst into
+flower, when she saw a tall, erect old man enter the gate. He came up
+the walk with a peculiar directness of manner, as of one accustomed
+to go forward with eyes and will upon a single aim. As he approached
+and asked for Dr. Ware, Rhoda saw in his face something of that same
+quality of underlying sternness, a sternness expressive rather of
+uncompromising moral sense than of severity of feeling or of judgment,
+that marked her father’s countenance. His silver-white beard, long and
+full, lent to this austereness a patriarchal dignity.
+
+She took him to her father’s door, but Dr. Ware was engaged with a
+patient. The stranger asked if it were not she who had been concerned,
+the previous autumn, in the escape of the slave girl, Lear White, and
+they talked of that affair and of the consequences to which it led.
+She felt a magnetic quality in his grave and mellow tones, and in the
+steady gaze of his deep-set eyes, alert, luminous, penetrating, she was
+conscious of that compelling force that lies in the look of all men
+able to impress themselves upon others. Presently he told her who he
+was and she thrilled as she heard him speak the words, “Captain John
+Brown, of Kansas.”
+
+“My father and I have spoken of you often, Captain Brown,” she said,
+her eyes and face lighting with the admiration which abolitionists felt
+for the man whom already they regarded as a hero.
+
+“Yes. We have known each other for many years, and we have been agreed
+about slavery since a time when there were so few of us that we all
+felt as brothers.”
+
+She had many questions to ask of matters in Kansas, where, she found,
+he knew the husband of her friend, Julia Hammerton. As they talked she
+saw presently that his eyes were fixed upon Bully Brooks, who, in full
+grown feline dignity, was sunning himself on the veranda. The cat’s
+air of complacent ease disappeared and, after some worried movements,
+it suddenly sprang up with arched back and swelling tail, spat its
+displeasure and ran away. Charlotte, coming in at the east gate, saw
+her pet’s performance and shot a questioning glance at Rhoda and the
+stranger as she passed them.
+
+A little later, when her father had taken Captain Brown into his
+office, Rhoda found Charlotte with Bully Brooks in her lap, alternately
+soothing his ruffled dignity and stirring him to angry protest.
+
+“Rhoda, who is that horrid old man?” she demanded.
+
+“Why do you call him horrid? He is the finest, noblest-looking old man
+I’ve ever seen, and his character is as noble as his appearance.”
+
+“Oh, la! I asked you who he is.”
+
+Rhoda hesitated, considering whether or not it would be prudent to let
+Charlotte know the identity of her father’s visitor. For there was much
+pro-southern sentiment in Hillside and, although John Brown was not yet
+an outlaw with a price on his head, he was detested and considered an
+active enemy by all friends of the South. Charlotte noted her pause and
+bent upon her a keen gaze. Apparently Rhoda did not want to tell her
+who he was and therefore it became at once an urgent necessity for her
+to find out. Rhoda felt those intent brown eyes studying her face and
+decided it would be better not to give her sister reason for suspecting
+any mystery.
+
+“I suppose he’s some old nigger-stealer,” Charlotte was saying, still
+watching Rhoda’s expression, “and that’s why you think he’s such a
+noble character. Lloyd thinks, and so do I, that nigger-stealing ought
+to be punished by hanging.”
+
+Rhoda smiled at her. “Would my little sister like to see me hanging
+from a limb of that maple tree yonder?”
+
+“But you’d quit if you knew you were going to be hung for it.”
+
+“No, I wouldn’t.”
+
+Charlotte regarded her with wide eyes. In her secret heart she was
+beginning to feel not a little awe of this quiet elder sister upon
+whose countenance she sometimes surprised a look of exaltation. And
+therefore, to save her own sense of dignity, immensely increased by the
+prospect of her marriage, she had taken refuge in a patronizing manner.
+
+“Of course you would,” she said, with a superior air and a toss of
+her pretty head. “You say that just to brave it out. Has old Mr.
+White-Beard come to help you make plans to get arrested again?”
+
+“No. He wanted to see father.”
+
+“Oh, well! Who is he? John Brown, or Horace Greeley, or Governor Chase?
+One of them is as bad as another and they’re all tarred with the same
+brush.”
+
+“Which do you think?” asked Rhoda calmly.
+
+Charlotte leaned forward, all eagerness, her intuitions, as they so
+often did, flashing straight to the truth. “Not John Brown?” she
+ejaculated. Rhoda nodded, and Charlotte drew back with a little gasp
+and then seized the cat in her lap with extravagant exclamations of
+pride and affection.
+
+“My precious Bully Brooks! You knew who he was, didn’t you, and you
+told him what you thought of him! He’s a regular old ogre, Rhoda,
+and Bully Brooks felt it, didn’t you, you darling cat! And you shall
+go with Charlotte, when she’s married, to Corey’s Hall, so you shall,
+where there won’t be any nigger-stealers to make you angry.”
+
+Rhoda looked on with amusement. Not even yet, although Charlotte’s
+wedding day was fast approaching, could she think of her sister as
+other than a merry sprite, a spoiled child, of whom it would be too
+much to expect the sense of ordinary responsibilities. But now a
+feeling of uneasiness grew upon her, and when presently both rose to go
+into the house she said:
+
+“By the way, sister, please remember that it is not necessary for you
+to tell any one about Captain Brown’s being here, either now or after
+he has gone.”
+
+Charlotte tilted her chin saucily and laughed. “Don’t you know, Rhoda,
+that I never make promises--except for the fun of breaking them?
+Besides, I’m a southerner now.”
+
+Rhoda laid her hand gently upon the other’s shoulder. “Stop, sister.
+This is a serious matter. I can’t forget that once you played the
+traitor--pardon me, there is no other word for it, although I don’t
+think you meant it that way--but it was the traitor to father and to
+me. You know how much father loves you and how he’ll miss you after
+you’re married. Do you want to make him feel so much safer then that
+he can’t help being glad you’re gone?”
+
+It was a new experience for even Rhoda to take her reckless audacities
+with so much seriousness, and she looked up wonderingly, at first with
+pouting and then with trembling lips. “I don’t see why you want to make
+me so unhappy at home, when I’m soon going to leave it,” she sobbed.
+“Do you want to make me hate my home and be glad to go away?”
+
+Rhoda longed to take the dainty, drooping little figure into her arms
+and speak words of soothing. But she held to her purpose. “Do you want
+to make father, who loves you so much, glad to have you go away?”
+
+Charlotte stamped her foot. “Of course I don’t!” she exclaimed, her
+fists in her eyes. “And you’re perfectly horrid to say such things!”
+
+At once Rhoda gave way to compassion, for she felt that she had gained
+her point. She drew her sister within her arm, patting her shoulder and
+kissing her forehead. “There, there, dear! Never mind. I only wanted to
+make sure we could trust you.”
+
+In the afternoon when Dr. Ware was ready to make his round of visits,
+he asked Rhoda to go with him upon a trip he had to make into the
+country. As they drove through the glistening young spring he told her
+of his conversation with his morning’s visitor.
+
+“Captain Brown gave me permission to talk it over with you,” he said.
+“I assured him you could be trusted.” Rhoda’s heart swelled with
+pleasure at her father’s words and at the matter-of-fact way in which
+he spoke them, for both words and manner made her know how habitual
+with him their companionship had become.
+
+“I’ve known him for a good many years,” Dr. Ware went on, “and I’ve
+always believed that some day he’d strike a big blow, square on
+slavery’s head, do some big thing that would help immensely to get rid
+of it. For a man of Brown’s intelligence, character and personality
+can’t live half his lifetime absorbed by one idea without making
+something happen. He and I agree on one point, that slavery can be
+wiped out only by violence. We both see that its roots have gone so
+deep that to pull them up will make a terrible upheaval. He hasn’t the
+faith that I have, hasn’t any, in fact, in political measures and the
+Republican party. He doesn’t believe, as I do, that all this is helping
+to keep the roots from spreading and getting stronger, and that it will
+make our victory quicker and easier, when the time for violence does
+come.
+
+“He thinks that time is nearly here and that he is going to bring it
+about. He proposes to establish himself, before long, somewhere along
+the free-state border, with a band of picked followers, drilled in
+arms, and gather into his fortified camp all the negroes from the
+near-by plantations. Such of these as wish to go to Canada will be
+passed on by the Underground, while those who prefer will stay with him
+and help gather in more slaves from greater distances. As the success
+of his forays becomes known he thinks that other men will join him from
+all over the North, until his army, increased also by daring spirits
+from among the fugitive slaves, will be so large and formidable and
+slave property be made so insecure that slavery will collapse like the
+shell of a ruined house.”
+
+Rhoda’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining. “What a daring
+scheme, father! Do you think it will succeed?”
+
+Dr. Ware smiled doubtfully and shook his head. “I don’t think he can
+carry it through to the end he feels sure of, and I told him so this
+morning. But his heart is set on it. He has been slowly maturing the
+plan for twenty-five years, and has even made a tour of the great
+battlefields and important fortifications of Europe, studying them
+in the light of this purpose. It seems to me impossible that he can
+succeed. But he’ll scare the South out of its wits and make it angrier
+and more determined than ever, and that will be a good thing. With the
+rising tide of public opinion in the North, it will bring the clash
+that’s bound to come a big notch nearer.”
+
+“Did he want you to join him, father?”
+
+“Yes. I knew about his plan--we’ve talked of it before. I have so much
+faith in the power of the one-ideaed man to achieve things that I’ve
+always told him he could call on me for any help it was in my power to
+give. I’ve contributed what I could to his Kansas campaign, and I gave
+him this morning for this scheme all I could spare. I told him, too,”
+Dr. Ware hesitated a little over his words now, “that I might join him
+in person somewhat later, if his first attempts prove successful, and
+that perhaps you would come too. For with your knowledge of nursing you
+would be useful. Do you think you would care to throw yourself into
+such a scheme as his, full of danger and sure to fail, but likely to
+deliver an effective blow?”
+
+His eyes were upon her, clear and calm as usual, but brilliant now with
+the fires of zeal. As they searched her face her own looked back at
+him, as glowing with zeal as his. “You know I would, father--you did
+right to tell him so. I’m always ready to go anywhere or do anything
+that will help our cause. But--mother--what about mother?”
+
+He shook his head sadly and turned away. “Your mother, Rhoda, is
+incurably ill. She cannot be with us much longer. I had her consult two
+physicians in Cincinnati on her way home from Fairmount, and they both
+told her it is only a question of time.”
+
+“Oh, father! Can’t we do anything for her? Why didn’t you tell me
+before?”
+
+“There is nothing we can do but make her as comfortable and care free
+as possible while she is with us. I didn’t tell you before because she
+didn’t want you to know about it until after Charlotte’s wedding, and
+she doesn’t want Charlotte to know it at all. She wants everything to
+be as cheerful and happy as possible while Charlotte is here. Please
+don’t let her guess that you know.”
+
+Charlotte was to be married in May, and during the remaining weeks of
+that time Rhoda watched her mother with anxious and loving care, taking
+upon herself, as Mrs. Ware seemed willing to relinquish it, every
+household responsibility, and noted with aching heart the wasting of
+her face and figure.
+
+“I believe she is just keeping up by her will power,” Rhoda said to Dr.
+Ware, “so that there shall be nothing to make Charlotte unhappy during
+her last weeks at home.”
+
+“Yes,” assented her father, “she wants Charlotte to remember the months
+of her engagement as the happiest time in her life. We must be prepared
+for a reaction after it is all over.”
+
+After Rhoda’s trial and imprisonment no mention of that matter was
+ever made between her and her mother. When she returned home Mrs. Ware
+received her with the utmost love and tenderness, but without the
+least reference to the reasons for her absence. In neither words nor
+manner did she recognize that that absence had been anything other than
+an ordinary social visit and if it had to be spoken of she referred to
+it merely as the time “when you were away.”
+
+So, now, she made no sign to either her husband or her daughter that
+she had any knowledge of the Underground activities in which they were
+engaged or of the fugitive slaves who were sheltered in the house.
+Rhoda was never able to guess whether she knew much or little of what
+went on under her roof nor whether or not she resented it or was
+grieved by it. But the girl’s heart ached constantly with sympathy for
+what she felt must be her mother’s pain.
+
+Her compassion and sorrow, however, did not lead her to consider for
+a moment the idea of giving up the work. Rather, they inspired her to
+greater zeal, in both thought and action, and to more intense desire
+to aid in the destruction of slavery. For, in her mind, whatever grief
+her mother felt, whatever alienation there was between them, were among
+the evil results of the slave system, just as was the division between
+her and Jefferson Delavan, and the only way of rightfully fully meeting
+them was to attack their cause.
+
+At the wedding Rhoda was bridesmaid and Delavan was groomsman. As she
+saw her mother’s eyes fixed wistfully upon them she felt fresh twinges
+of self-reproach. She knew the deep pleasure that Charlotte’s marriage
+to a southerner had brought to the ailing woman, and she knew that this
+would be as nothing beside her satisfaction and delight could she see
+her other daughter united in marriage to the son of her old friend.
+Could it be, after all, Rhoda began to ask herself, that here was where
+her highest duty lay? Ought she, at whatever cost to herself, make
+happy her mother’s last days?
+
+It seemed to Rhoda that everything conspired, throughout the wedding
+festivities, to bring her and Delavan alone together, although she knew
+that they were both trying to avoid such meetings. But he forebore to
+speak of love, and afterward the merry friendliness of these brief
+occasions, just touched as they were with the fragrance of intimacy,
+were among her dearest memories.
+
+When he bade her good-by she felt the lover in his manner and his voice
+as he said: “It has been two years, Rhoda, but I shall wait two years
+more, and ten times that, before I give up hope of our wedding!”
+
+Rhoda looked at him with her flashing smile, that lifting of her short
+upper lip and trembling at its corners and lighting of her eyes, which
+always sent through his veins a fresh thrill of love, and answered:
+“Oh, Jeff! What a long time to prepare for a wedding in!”
+
+After it was all over Mrs. Ware failed rapidly. Rhoda watched her
+wasting cheeks and growing feebleness with an agony of compassion and
+constant tumultuous questioning of herself. Her mother had not spoken
+to her for a long time about Delavan’s suit, but she knew that the wish
+was gathering strength in her breast as she came nearer and nearer to
+death’s door. Rhoda felt it in the wistful look with which the brown
+eyes, grown so large and childlike in the peaked face, followed her
+about the room. It spoke to her in the plaintive appeal of the soft
+southern voice and it pulled mightily at her heartstrings in the
+clinging to hers of the thin hands, a little while ago so plump and
+fair.
+
+With her own heart playing traitor, as it always did with every
+weakening of her resolution, with love and compassion for the invalid
+pleading incessantly, with a remorse-wrung conscience recalling every
+hurt she had ever given to her mother and urging that she ought to
+salve those many wounds with this final atonement, the torment of it
+became almost greater than she could bear.
+
+One day she found her father alone in his office and, impelled by her
+distraught heart, she forgot her usual restraints, flung herself on her
+knees beside his chair and laid her face against his knee.
+
+“Oh, father,” she begged, “help me to see what I ought to do! I know
+mother wants me to marry Jeff--she doesn’t say a word about it, but I
+feel all the time that it is making her last days full of sorrow. It
+seems to me sometimes that I can’t stand it another minute, that I must
+give up, because it will make her happy. Would it help her, father, if
+I did?”
+
+Dr. Ware laid his hand upon her shoulder. Even in her wretchedness the
+action gave her a little thrill of pleasure, for it was nearer a caress
+than she could remember he had ever given her.
+
+“Nothing can help your mother now, child. With her, it is a matter of a
+few months, or weeks, or, perhaps, even days. It would make her happy
+for that little time--I know it as well as you do. You could feel that
+you had enabled her to end her days in peace. But whether or not you
+ought to sacrifice your sense of right to your sense of duty to her is
+something that only you can decide.”
+
+“I know it, father,” she answered in low tones as she rose to her feet
+and wiped the tears from her eyes.
+
+She went out into the yard, gay with the luxuriant blooms of early
+summer. The white petunias sent up their fragrance and the memories it
+brought pierced her very heart with poignant sweetness. She went on
+into the grape arbor and sat down in its cool shadows, asking herself
+why it was that she could keep her own soul clean only at the expense
+of another’s happiness.
+
+“My happiness, Jeff’s happiness,” she thought, “they are of our own
+making and we can choose our own conditions. But mother, poor, dear,
+little mother, so sick, with such a little while to live, and her
+happiness so bound up in this! And if I do it I shall feel all my
+life that it was wrong, that my soul isn’t clean. Oh, mother, how can
+I become a part of this abomination of slavery, this vile, accursed
+thing! I’d be glad to die, a hundred times over, for you--but to live
+and be a part of such wickedness-- Oh, mother, how can I? How can I?”
+
+The end came sooner than they expected. On a hot afternoon in
+midsummer, when the late, red rays of the sun, shining through the
+half-closed shutters, lay in bands across the floor, Mrs. Ware called
+Rhoda. “Come close, honey, down beside me,” she said, and Rhoda knelt
+at the bedside. Her mother slipped a feeble arm around her neck.
+
+“You’ve been a dear, loving daughter to me,” she said, “even if we’ve
+thought so differently about some things. You are like your father,
+Rhoda, and that has always been a pleasure to me. You’ve wanted to make
+me happy, just as he always has, and in almost everything you have. No
+mother ever had a better, dearer daughter than you, honey.”
+
+“Oh, mother,” Rhoda exclaimed, the tears welling into her eyes, for in
+the pale, pitiful face she saw the shadow of the death angel’s wing and
+felt his near approach in the chill that struck into her own breast.
+“Dear mother, I’ve never done half enough for you, never been half as
+good and loving to you as you deserved!”
+
+“Always you have, dear, except in one thing. You know how much for two
+years I’ve wanted you to marry Adeline’s son, dear Jeff. And you would
+not. I haven’t much longer to live, and if you want to make my deathbed
+happy promise me that you will. Oh, Rhoda, send for Jeff and marry him
+here beside my bed and have your dying mother’s blessing!”
+
+Rhoda was sobbing with her face upon her mother’s shoulder. “Dearest
+mother,” she pleaded, “don’t ask that of me.”
+
+“It’s the only thing in all the world that I want, honey. You love
+Jeff, and he adores you, and I know that you’ll be happy together, if
+you’ll only give up that nonsensical idea that has taken possession of
+you. It’s your happiness that I want, Rhoda, yours and Jeff’s. And I
+know, oh, so much better than you do, what makes a woman happy. I can’t
+die feeling that I have done my duty to my little girl and made sure of
+her happiness, unless she will promise me this. Will you do it, Rhoda?”
+
+“Let me be the judge of my happiness, mother, as you were the judge of
+yours!”
+
+“Your mother knows best, child! Take her word for it, and let her bless
+you with her last breath, as you’ll always bless her if you do. It’s
+the last thing she’ll ever ask of you.”
+
+The invalid’s tones were growing weaker and something querulous sounded
+in them as she repeated, “Promise me, Rhoda, promise!”
+
+The linked hands upon Rhoda’s neck loosened their hold and the tired
+arms slipped down. She bowed her head upon her mother’s breast as she
+sobbed, “Let me think for a minute, mother, dear! It breaks my heart
+not to do what you want!”
+
+“It breaks mine, Rhoda, that you don’t. Oh, honey, let me die in peace
+and happiness! Promise me that you’ll marry Jeff!”
+
+Rhoda saw that her father had entered the room and was standing at her
+side. She sprang to her feet, threw her arms about his neck and with
+her head upon his shoulder burst into a passion of tears.
+
+“Father, tell me what to do!” she wailed.
+
+His arms were about her, his face upon her hair, and his tears were
+mingling with hers. In that supreme moment of grief, compassion and
+struggle the icy barriers that had kept their hearts apart melted away
+and they clung together in their common despair, groping through their
+sobs for the right thing to say and do.
+
+Suddenly they were startled by a gay little laugh from the bed. “You’ve
+come at last, have you, Adeline, dearest! How late you are!” the dying
+woman exclaimed, holding out her hands in welcome. From her face the
+shadow had passed and in its place shone a girlish happiness. She was
+back again among the friends of her youth, chatting and laughing with
+“dearest Adeline,” and calling upon “mammy” to do this and that. And
+so, babbling of her girlhood’s pleasures, she passed into the dark
+beyond.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+During the late summer and autumn of that year Rhoda and her father
+and their friends watched with the keenest interest, as did people
+all over the country, the struggle in Illinois between Lincoln and
+Douglas. In the Cincinnati and New York papers they read the speeches,
+printed at length, of both the aspirants for senatorial honors, and on
+many an evening, gathered on the veranda of the Ware home or, after
+the evenings grew cool, around the fireplace in the living-room, they
+discussed all the features of that famous intellectual wrestling match.
+
+Horace Hardaker had been nominated for Congress by the Republican party
+and was conducting a vigorous campaign. Nevertheless, he found time
+to come frequently up the hill to Dr. Ware’s house for these talks.
+Marcia Kimball came also, at first with her brothers, but after a
+little Rhoda observed that it was oftener with Hardaker that she made
+her appearance and always upon his arm that she leaned when they went
+away. With an inward smile Rhoda noticed too that Horace, with apparent
+unconsciousness, began to address his conversation mainly toward Marcia.
+
+“I don’t expect to be elected,” he said one evening, “that is, not
+this time. But I’m giving the ground a good, deep plowing, and there’ll
+be a different crop to reap two years from now.”
+
+His opponent, a Douglas Democrat, won the day, but by so narrow
+a margin that Hardaker was almost as exultant as if he had been
+successful. “Two years more of the way things are going now,” he
+declared, “and we’ll sweep the country!”
+
+“Suppose you do, what good will it do?” said old Mr. Kimball. “Your
+Republican party expressly says it won’t interfere with slavery in the
+South.”
+
+“It will bring on a crisis,” interjected Dr. Ware, “and a crisis
+is exactly the thing we want. The South won’t stand a Republican
+president. And when she tries to leave the Union the upheaval will
+come.”
+
+Not long after the election Hardaker sought Rhoda in more buoyant mood
+than ever, to tell her that he and Marcia were to be married. She
+assured him that she was heartily glad, and really felt all that she
+said, and even more. But her sincere rejoicing did not prevent her from
+looking sadly out of her window that night and feeling that something
+very dear and pleasant had gone out of her life beyond all recovery.
+She would not, if she could, have held Hardaker’s love in fruitless
+thrall, but it had been so comforting, so gratifying, to know how
+surely it was hers and she had so grown to expect one of his recurrent
+proposals every year or so that it cost her a little wrench now to give
+it all up.
+
+“He’ll make Marcia a good, loving husband,” she thought, “and with his
+talent and ambition he’ll succeed. Oh, they’ll be happy, and I’m glad.”
+
+Her eyes grew sad and the lines of her face drooped as she sat beside
+her window. And after a while she took out the little box with its
+treasure of letters and withered flower. She did not read the letters,
+of which there was now nearly a box full, but turned them over
+caressingly in her hands and now and then pressed one to her lips.
+
+Rhoda was bridesmaid when Horace and Marcia were married in the early
+spring. “It’s your third time, isn’t it, dear,” said Marcia as her
+friend draped about her shoulders the folds of her bridal veil. “I do
+hope it will be you yourself, next time!”
+
+“So do I, Marcia!” said Rhoda frankly, looking up with a smile.
+“There isn’t a girl anywhere who’d more willingly be a bride than I,
+if--if--if!”
+
+“Rhoda, you’re the dearest, bravest girl!” cried Marcia, squeezing her
+hand. “If I was in your place I’d be crying my eyes out instead of
+laughing like that!”
+
+“Then I wouldn’t have you for my bridesmaid if you couldn’t give your
+eyes a rest that long,” rejoined Rhoda gaily.
+
+Spring and summer came and went, and for Rhoda Ware the weeks passed
+with uneventful flow. Through their house there trickled a thin stream
+of slaves fleeing northward, sometimes half a dozen or more within a
+week and sometimes not more than one or two. The trouble and cost of
+recovering their runaway negroes, even when they were infrequently able
+to get possession of them again, had caused the southern slaveholders
+to give over their efforts. In these last years of the decade it was
+unusual for a fugitive to be pursued and therefore the traffic of the
+Underground was carried on with little risk.
+
+Rhoda busied herself with these duties, the ordering of her father’s
+household, her anti-slavery work and her reading. Gradually the thought
+grew up in her breast that she would like to study medicine. She talked
+the matter over with her father and he offered, if she wished, to send
+her to one of the medical colleges that within a few years had been
+opened for women. But she would not leave him alone and so, under his
+guidance, she spent her leisure time reading in his medical library,
+discussing his cases with him, and often going with him upon his visits.
+
+Dr. Ware received an occasional brief letter from John Brown in which
+his scheme was referred to with cautious phrasing as a speculation in
+sheep. Toward midsummer he wrote that he was getting his shepherds
+together and expected to collect a band of sheep in the Virginia
+mountains, where he thought there would be good pasturage, about the
+middle of October.
+
+“He is bound to come into collision with the federal government very
+soon,” said Dr. Ware to his daughter as they talked this letter over
+together. “Of course he knows that will be the end of his enterprise
+and of him too.”
+
+“He won’t care,” answered Rhoda, “what becomes of him if he can make
+just one thrust at slavery.”
+
+“That’s true. And the more I think of it the more I believe that even
+if he fails in his first attempt, as he is very likely to do, it will
+be a good strong thrust that will make the South fairly stagger. I told
+him I’d wait to see whether or not he made a beginning before I decided
+about joining him. But I doubt very much, Rhoda, whether you and I will
+have a chance to work under John Brown.”
+
+“I’ll be ready to go whenever you say the word, father,” she said with
+grave earnestness.
+
+Now and then a letter passed between Rhoda and Jefferson Delavan, a
+letter of intimate friendliness, telling of personal matters and mutual
+interests. Once only did he touch upon the slavery question, which
+formerly they had argued with such earnestness, and then he filled a
+long letter with an endeavor to prove to her that the negro race had
+been benefited by slavery, that in taking it from its barbarous state
+and bringing it in contact with civilization the slaveholders had
+lifted it to a higher plane of moral and intellectual life.
+
+When she replied she said merely, “No more of that, please, if you
+still love me! Each of us knows that the other’s convictions are honest
+and deeply rooted. We can’t agree, so let’s not argue, but just enjoy
+our friendship.”
+
+Nor was there in their correspondence any mention of love, or of
+possible or impossible marriage. But toward the end of summer, when a
+little band of men was warily gathering in a Maryland farmhouse, one of
+Jeff’s letters set Rhoda���s heart to fluttering. There was in it, save
+for some terms of endearment which seemed to have flowed unconsciously
+from his pen, no putting into words of a lover’s hopes. But she felt
+through every line the burning of the lover’s heart. And a few weeks
+later there came a brief note saying, “I shall be in Hillside soon and
+shall count on seeing you.”
+
+For a day Rhoda’s heart sang with joy, “He is coming, he is coming!
+I shall see him, have him here beside me!” and would listen to no
+warnings of her mind.
+
+Then she wrote, “Don’t come! I beg of you, Jeff, don’t come! What is
+the use!” And lest her courage might fail her, she quickly sealed and
+posted her missive.
+
+But when the October woods were bright with flaming color, and the
+little band of men in the Maryland farmhouse were waiting for the order
+to march, and Rhoda and her father were saying to each other every
+morning, “There may be news to-day,” Jefferson Delavan appeared at her
+door.
+
+“I told you not to come!” she said, and gave him her hand, while face
+and eyes belied the meaning of her words. His heart gladdened at
+their sweet shining as he held her hand in both of his and answered,
+“And I disobeyed--because I couldn’t help it.” Then, for a moment,
+their starving, delighted gaze fed upon each other’s eyes, until
+Rhoda suddenly felt that he was about to break into lover’s speech.
+Impulsively she laid a finger across his lips. He seized and held it
+there while she exclaimed:
+
+“Don’t speak, Jeff, don’t say anything. It’s such a lovely day--the
+hills are so beautiful--let’s have a ride together!”
+
+He agreed, glad of anything that would insure her presence near him,
+and they were soon galloping over country roads and across the wooded
+hills, brilliant in the gala robes with which Nature celebrates her
+thanksgiving for another year of sun and life and growth.
+
+As they rode, the motion and the wine-like air and the joy in her heart
+lifted Rhoda into exultant mood, deepened the wild rose-bloom in her
+cheeks and kindled her serious eyes into sparkling gaiety. “Let me have
+this little time!” her heart pleaded. “It may be the last. After _that_
+has happened he may never come again!”
+
+And so, with thrilling nerves and singing heart, the Cavalier in her
+breast dominated the Puritan and sent to the four winds warnings
+of conscience and thought of to-morrow. Forgotten was the safety
+of the three fugitive slaves, at that moment hiding in her cellar,
+forgotten the fateful Thing for whose birth in the Virginia mountains
+she had been waiting, cast away from her mind was all thought of the
+anti-slavery contest, nor was there room in her heart for zeal in its
+cause. She was mere woman, loving and beloved, and glorying inwardly
+in her power over her lover. Her Cavalier inheritance took possession
+of her and bade her snatch the pleasure of the hour. Her father’s
+offspring dwindled away into the smallest recesses of her nature and it
+was her mother’s daughter who sat in the saddle, slender and graceful,
+and with starry eye and alluring smile kindled fresh fires in her
+lover’s breast.
+
+With pride and pleasure she saw them burning in his face and eyes as
+he drew beside her and murmured, “Rhoda, you are so beautiful!” Her
+mirror had told her many times, and she had agreed in its verdict, that
+she was not beautiful. And so all the more precious to her was this
+tribute of love, and more than once did she win it, as they rode and
+rode, during the long afternoon.
+
+A sudden memory came of the tale of courtship her mother had told to
+her and Jeff, on that June night so long ago, and across her mind’s eye
+there flitted the vision she had often called up, of the pretty, wilful
+girl and the resolute young man with his hand on her bridle, galloping,
+galloping-- “And that was love--and this is love, and it is mine!”
+her heart sang. Quickly her brain flashed back the question, “Would I
+yield, as mother did, if--if--if--” And the Cavalier in her heart sang
+back, exulting, “I would! I would!”
+
+On their way home they came to an old wood road and turned into it from
+the cross-country way upon which they had been galloping. Checking
+their horses they rode slowly down the brilliant avenue of gold and
+russet and crimson, talking, now earnestly, now gaily, upon one or
+another of the multitude of things, personal and impersonal, which to
+lovers can bourgeon instantly into matters of moment and interest by
+the mere fact of mention in the loved one’s voice. Gradually the road
+dwindled away and they came upon steeper hills and a rocky surface.
+But Rhoda knew where they were and said that by turning sharply to the
+eastward they could gain the high road. Dismounting they led their
+horses across the hills, the fallen autumnal glories billowing beneath
+their feet.
+
+Already Rhoda’s mood had begun to sober. The Puritan was claiming his
+own again. Down that wood road she had driven her buggy, on a winter
+day, to bring out the fugitive negro lad whom she had sent flying to
+the cave for safety from the pursuing marshal. They passed the cave
+itself, where, more than three years previous, she had hidden the
+mulatto, running for the freedom dearer than life from this very man
+who was bending near her now with ardent looks of love. She shivered a
+little as she remembered the slave’s sullen resolution, the pistol in
+his hand, and the tone in which he had said, “I won’t go back.” As Jeff
+bent with loving solicitude to draw her wrap closer about her shoulders
+she was thinking, “And he said they were brothers.”
+
+They struck a path which climbed a steep hill, and when they came to a
+jutting rock Delavan looked around him with sudden recollection. “Why,
+I’ve been here before!” he exclaimed. “It was here I met you, dear,
+that day--don’t you remember? What a long time you have made me wait,
+sweetheart, for your promise!” His lover’s longing, made a hundredfold
+more imperious by the allurement there had been all the afternoon in
+her laugh, her voice, her smile, her lips, her eyes, her manner, would
+be put aside no longer, and he turned upon her with an impetuosity that
+would brook no protest.
+
+“Do you, remember, dearest, the proof of my love I gave you that
+day? I’m ready to give you, here on this same spot, another proof, a
+thousand times greater! It will sweep away everything that keeps us
+apart, Rhoda! Everything!”
+
+She looked at him silently, sweet wonder parting her lips and shining
+starlike in her big gray eyes. Her cheeks were paler now, with the
+ebbing of the exultant tide that had kept her all the afternoon on its
+crest. But to him this soft, subdued mood bespoke the sweetheart ready
+to tremble into his embrace and made her all the more adorable. He
+seized her hand and she let it lie in his close, warm grasp as he went
+on:
+
+“I have made up my mind to give up everything to our love. I will free
+all my niggers--for the sake of your dear conscience not one shall be
+sold--and see that they find places where they can earn their livings.
+Then I will sell my property and we will put this country and its
+accursed contentions behind us. We will go to England, dear heart,
+or France, and live where there will come hardly an echo of all this
+strife to disturb our blessed content and happiness!”
+
+She dropped her eyes from his and for a long moment stood motionless
+while it seemed to her that her very heart stood still. With swift
+inner vision, like that of a drowning man, she saw those years of
+wedded life, long years of comradeship and love and deepest joy, with
+dear children growing up beside them, and her heart yearned toward its
+peace and happiness with such urgency that she dared not try to speak.
+
+“Think, Rhoda, dear,” he was pleading, “think of the quiet, blissful
+years that are waiting for us! Our two hearts together, and nothing,
+nothing at all to come between them!”
+
+Her very lips were pale with desire of it as she whispered: “I am
+thinking, and, oh, Jeff, the thought of it, the joy of it, almost
+makes my heart stop beating. But have you thought, dear, dear Jeff,
+what a sacrifice this will be for you? I know how much you love the
+South. Would you never regret it, never wish to come back and throw
+yourself into her service? If that should happen, it would be the end
+of happiness for us both, for I should know it--our hearts would be
+so close together--even if you didn’t say a word. Have you thought of
+that, dear Jeff?”
+
+He smiled at her with loving confidence. “I’ve thought that all out,
+dear heart. For weeks I’ve been thinking of it, and threshing it all
+out in my mind, until I feel quite sure of myself. I do love my dear
+Southland and as you know so well my ambition has always been to spend
+my life in her service. But there are plenty of other men who can do
+her work as well as I can, and not at the cost of their heart’s love
+and life’s happiness. I am willing to let them do it while I take my
+love and my happiness. My sweet! I knew your dear, generous heart would
+ask me that!” He bowed over her hand, which he still held in his, and
+pressed it to his lips.
+
+Her heart was pleading: “He is right. There are plenty of others who
+can do his work, and there are surely many, many who can do what little
+is possible for me better than I. Why not put it all aside and take the
+love and happiness that belong to us?” And then, like an icy grip upon
+her softening, yielding heart came remembrance of the Thing that was
+about to happen in the Virginia mountains.
+
+She drew her hand from his and in sudden dismay walked apart a few
+paces, saying, “Let me think for a minute, Jeff!” She dropped her
+riding skirt, whose fulness she had been carrying over one arm, and its
+long black folds swept around her slender figure as she leaned against
+a tree with her face in her hands. So tall and straight and slim she
+looked, drooping against the tree trunk, that the fancy crossed his
+mind she was like some forsaken, grieving wood nymph, and all his body
+ached with the longing to enfold her in his arms and comfort whatever
+pain was in her heart. But his love as well as his courtesy forbade him
+to intrude upon her while she stood apart, and he waited for her to
+turn to him again.
+
+Rhoda was thinking of what she knew was about to happen and of what it
+would mean to him. Her father had said that it would be like the sudden
+ringing of an alarm bell and that, however this initial attempt turned
+out, it might cause the whole South to take up arms at once and declare
+war. She knew how her lover’s spirit would leap at such an emergency.
+Did she wish to put his love and his promise to such a test at the very
+beginning? Slowly she walked back and stood in front of him.
+
+“Jeff, this is truly a wonderful proof of your love that you have
+given me!” Her voice was tremulous with desire of all she felt she
+was putting away, but she went bravely on: “I don’t believe any other
+woman ever had such proof! Indeed,” and she smiled tenderly at him, “I
+don’t believe any other woman was ever loved quite so much. It makes me
+feel your love in my heart, oh, so much more precious than even it was
+before! But I want you to be quite sure, dear Jeff!”
+
+“I am sure, sweetheart!” he broke in.
+
+“But won’t you wait a little while, two weeks, no, three weeks, before
+I--we decide? I ask you to go home, at once, and not to see me or write
+to me for three weeks more. And then you can let me know whether or
+not you still wish to put your ideals and ambitions aside for the sake
+of love. But I want you to consider the question then just exactly as
+if we had never talked of it before. You are not to feel yourself in
+the least bound by what you have told me to-day. If anything should
+happen between now and then that makes you feel that the South still
+has a claim upon you, anything that would make you in the very least
+unwilling to--to carry out this plan, then I want you to tell me so
+frankly--with perfect frankness, dear Jeff, as perfect as our love.”
+
+“And is that all the hope you will give me, dearest?” he pleaded. “No
+promise to take back with me?”
+
+She was standing beside the path, on the rising ground a little above
+him, and she leaned toward him, resting her hands lightly upon his
+shoulders as she said, her face all tenderness:
+
+“Dear Jeff, it is for your sake I am asking it!”
+
+He seemed scarcely to hear what she said, and touched her cheek with a
+caressing palm as he exclaimed, “Rhoda, my sweet, your face is like a
+guardian angel’s!”
+
+Before Jefferson Delavan reached Fairmount again the Thing had happened
+that made the North gasp with wonder and set the South beside itself
+with fear and rage. The amazing audacity of John Brown’s attack upon
+Harper’s Ferry and the rankling distrust between the two sections make
+reasonable, to impartial eyes of a later day, the alarming significance
+which the southern people, especially those in the border states, saw
+in Brown’s foredoomed enterprise. The slaveholders of Kentucky were
+aroused to almost as extreme a pitch of angry apprehension and defiance
+as were the people of Virginia.
+
+Rhoda Ware had not to wait even three weeks for the expected letter
+from Jefferson Delavan.
+
+“You were right,” he wrote. “You saw the obstacles that lie between us
+more clearly than I did--or, perhaps, you had more information than I
+of the treacherous lengths to which the North would dare to go in the
+desire to overthrow the ordinary rights of a state and to undermine the
+power of the government under which both sections have solemnly sworn
+to live. This attempt to incite the slaves to insurrection and the
+butchery of their masters proves to all of us that neither property nor
+life is safe in the South. At any moment another plot may break forth,
+no man can tell where, and be more successful than this one was. The
+South needs now, more than she ever did before, every one of her sons
+whom she can trust. I cannot desert her in her hour of peril. From the
+bottom of my heart I thank you, Rhoda, that you made it possible for me
+to remain, without dishonor, in the position where every instinct of
+duty and honor and loyalty demands that I stay. It was like you to know
+that, much as I love you, love would have to yield to honor if it came
+to a test between the two, and it has made me love you all the more,
+if that were possible, to know that your love is so rich and noble and
+generous.
+
+“God knows what the future may hold for us two. For the first time
+since our love began I can see no hope for us. The feeling between
+the North and the South grows intolerable and the bonds between them
+cannot last much longer. As long as the South and her interests are in
+danger, my conscience, my sense of duty, my loyalty, all my ideals and
+aspirations, bid me stay here. And here I know you will not come.
+
+“But whatever happens, dear, I shall always thank God that I have had
+the privilege of knowing and loving you, while the knowledge that you,
+such a peerless woman as you, have loved me will be as long as I live
+the most precious treasure of my heart. I have many dear memories
+of our love, but the dearest of them all is of that last day we had
+together, that splendid ride, when you were so adorable, and of all the
+sweet pictures of you that I cherish the sweetest of all is of your
+face as you leaned toward me in the wood and said, ‘It is for your
+sake, dear Jeff.’
+
+“Only God knows whether or not we shall ever see each other again. But
+I shall always love you, and as long as we both live I shall treasure
+in my heart the belief that you still love me. Good-by, dear heart.”
+
+“At last, it is all over,” Rhoda said to herself when she had read
+the letter. “He sees, at last, as I did so long ago, that there is no
+hope for us. No--he sees none, now, but I can a little. John Brown has
+brought the war ten years nearer, father says, and any time it may
+come. And the war will end slavery. But it’s best not to hope too
+much.”
+
+She took out the box of his letters and read them all over again,
+touching them tenderly and kissing the withered rose. “I’d better burn
+them all now,” she told herself, “and try not to think so much about it
+after this.”
+
+With such pain in her heart as might have been in Abraham’s when he led
+Isaac to the altar, she carried her little love treasure to the fire.
+But even as she held it poised over the flames her resolution failed
+her. It was too much a part of herself and she could not do it. The
+little box was put away again in its hiding place and in the months
+that followed, whenever the ache in her breast would not be hushed in
+any other way, she solaced her love and longing by reading the letters
+over and over again, until she almost knew them, word for word.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+A year and a half and more went by before Rhoda again saw Delavan. The
+campaign of 1860, with its grim earnestness and sober exaltation, had
+passed. She had been stirred by it to her heart’s core, as had all men
+and women of the North, and had shared her father’s satisfaction over
+the result. Hers was indeed an even deeper and gladder satisfaction
+than his, for to passionate abhorrence of slavery and the belief that
+now was the beginning of its end was added her secret small hope that
+afterward might come the fulfilment of her long denied love.
+
+“We mustn’t forget, Rhoda,” her father said as they talked over the
+results of the election, “that probably only a rather small percentage
+of those who voted for Lincoln want to have slavery abolished in
+the states where it already exists. They really think the national
+government has no right to interfere. But if there is war, and
+undoubtedly there will be, a man of Lincoln’s shrewd common-sense will
+know that by freeing the slaves he will cut off the South’s right hand.
+With such a man as he is in the president’s chair I feel confident,
+though a good many abolitionists don’t, that we can look forward to the
+end of slavery.”
+
+The southern states were leaving the Union and the Confederacy had
+been organized. Rhoda knew that Kentucky was rent almost to her every
+hearthstone with discussion of whether North or South should have
+her loyalty. Charlotte had lately written: “Everybody is all torn
+into strips over the question whether or not Kentucky shall join the
+Confederacy. Nobody talks or thinks or dreams of anything else. But
+Lloyd and I are going to secede, whether Kentucky does or not.”
+
+Now and then, at long intervals, had come a brief letter from Jefferson
+Delavan. But he said nothing in any of these missives of love and but
+little of the mighty questions that were absorbing the minds and hearts
+and souls of men, women and children, North and South, and her replies
+were of the same sort. It was as if two loving but far divided souls,
+journeying through space, sought now and then by a faint call to bridge
+the distance between them.
+
+The tense, dark days of Lincoln’s inauguration were over, the guns of
+Sumter had cleared away the last clouds of uncertainty, and war was at
+hand.
+
+The lilacs were in bloom again and Rhoda, moving slowly down the path,
+broke off here and there a branch and presently stood at the front
+gate, her fragrant burden gathered loosely into one arm against her
+white dress. In her delight in their delicate beauty and savor she bent
+her face to the flowers, forgetting for the moment the things of the
+outside world. When she lifted it again Jefferson Delavan stood before
+her.
+
+“I have come to say good-by, Rhoda,” was his greeting, as he entered
+the gate.
+
+“Good-by?-- You are--going--” she stammered.
+
+“I am going to join the fortunes of the South,” he replied, as they
+walked up the path. “Kentucky has been false to her sister states and
+deserted them when they need her most. By a single vote she has decided
+upon neutrality. You, Rhoda, can understand what a bitter dose that is
+for me.”
+
+“You can’t endure it?” she hesitated as they turned into the walk to
+the grape arbor.
+
+“No, I can’t, and there are many other Kentuckians who feel as I do. I
+am going at once to join the southern army, and Corey and Morehead and
+a dozen others that I know are going too.”
+
+“Father has joined the Union army as a surgeon and I am going as a
+nurse.”
+
+They had reached the arbor and stood facing each other, she with her
+armful of lilacs still held against her white dress, both too much
+absorbed to be quite conscious of their actions. A sober smile curved
+by ever so little the grim line of his lips.
+
+“Then you will be fighting for your side as well as I for mine, though
+in a different way. But across the battlefields, Rhoda, I shall hear
+your heart calling mine, and I shall know too that it is telling me to
+fight right on.”
+
+“Yes,” she broke out earnestly, “I know that you are fighting for your
+convictions and your ideals and you will not be worthy of my love if
+you don’t fight until you either win or are conquered. I don’t want you
+to compromise, or to yield, until you have fought to the last drop of
+your strength.”
+
+“It’s going to be a bitter struggle and a long one, whatever the most
+of them, on both sides, think now. In the South there isn’t much belief
+that the North will fight, or can fight. But I know better, Rhoda. You
+have taught me better, you and your father. You have made me understand
+what determination there is at the bottom of all this.”
+
+“It’s a war between two ideals,” she said, “whatever else they may say
+it is. But it’s really that, between two ideals of civilization.”
+
+“And men,” he added quickly, “always fight for their ideals as they do
+for nothing else. It will be to the last gasp.”
+
+She looked away and shuddered. “Oh, it is all so horrible, even to
+think of! But it is a long and horrible iniquity that has caused it
+and must now be paid for. Rachel Benedict told me once that we must
+ourselves pay with sweat and stripes for the evil that we do. I believe
+it’s true, and the North and the South must pay together for all this
+long evil of slavery, for they are both responsible. But this war will
+end it.”
+
+He smiled upon her indulgently. “Can you think so, Rhoda, you, who
+understand how we feel and how determined we are?”
+
+She stepped back and proudly lifted her head. Into her face came the
+look of exaltation he had seen there, in this same arbor, long before.
+It seemed to remove her far from him, and therefore set his heart to
+throbbing all the more with longing for her.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “this war will end it, because God is on our
+side. And afterward--oh, Jeff!”--her face melted to tenderness
+again--“beyond--after the end, after God has spoken and slavery has
+been ended, then there will be peace, and for us--” her voice dropped
+low--“happiness!”
+
+“God be the judge between us, Rhoda Ware,” he exclaimed, “as to which
+is right! Will you accept His judgment, as He speaks it in battle, and
+promise to be my wife when the war is over, whatever He has said?”
+
+Again her face was lifted, glowing with exaltation. “God will never
+allow such an atonement for evil-doing as this war will be,” she said
+solemnly, “to be crowned by that very evil itself. With faith in Him--I
+promise!”
+
+Scarcely had the words left her tongue when she found herself swept to
+his breast and his lips upon her brow, her eyes, her mouth.
+
+“Rhoda, my love, my love,” he whispered, “it is a long good-by that
+lies before us, perhaps even as long as it has been since I first
+begged for your love, here among these vines.”
+
+“And there are battles and dangers, oh, so many,” she whispered back,
+“between now and--the end.”
+
+“But I have a talisman that will carry me safe through it all, to the
+end--and you. See, my sweet, how long I have kept it!” From an inner
+pocket he took a little package and showed her a withered rose, the
+mate of the one she herself so treasured. “I have kept it there, next
+to my heart, ever since the night you gave it me, for my thoughts, five
+years ago!”
+
+She looked at it with wondering love, pressed it to her lips and
+listened with a sweet smile upon them as he said, putting it back
+again: “It shall lie there always, dear heart, until all my thoughts
+are yours and yours are mine. And it will always tell me, as plainly as
+if with your own dear lips, to fight to the uttermost!”
+
+Again she lifted her head proudly. “Yes, to the uttermost, Jeff! For
+that way only can your eyes be opened!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was gone, and she sat alone in the arbor, with her lilacs pressed
+to her bosom, and listened as the strains of martial music came to her
+ears. It was a band playing, downtown, where volunteers were being
+drilled. She could hear the tramp of feet, the rattle of musketry, and
+the words of command.
+
+Louder and louder the sound seemed to grow in her ears until it became
+the booming of unnumbered cannon and the tramp, tramp, tramp of a
+million men. The smoke of battle dimmed her eyes and all around her
+she seemed to hear the cries and groans of mangled and dying men. With
+white lips she whispered to herself, “With bloody sweat and stripes we
+must pay--it is God’s law!”
+
+Slowly her features relaxed, and presently, with a tender smile curving
+her lips, she buried her face in the lilac blooms. For the awful sights
+and sounds had faded away and she had seen a vision of the afterward.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
+
+
+  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
+
+  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
+
+  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
+
+  The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber using
+    the original cover and is entered into the public domain.
+AND GRAMARYE ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                     TEDIOUS BRIEF TALES OF GRANTA
+                             AND GRAMARYE.
+
+                            [Illustration:
+
+                      E. Joyce Shillington Scales
+                                 1919.
+
+                  _Entrance Gateway, Jesus College._]
+
+
+
+
+                        TEDIOUS BRIEF TALES OF
+                          GRANTA AND GRAMARYE
+
+                                  BY
+
+                              “INGULPHUS”
+                (ARTHUR GRAY, Master of Jesus College)
+
+
+                        _With illustrations by_
+                      E. JOYCE SHILLINGTON SCALES
+
+
+                “Merry and tragical, tedious and brief:
+              That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.”
+
+                     _A Midsummer Night’s Dream._
+
+
+                              CAMBRIDGE:
+                         W. HEFFER & SONS LTD.
+         LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD.
+
+
+
+
+                   FIRST PUBLISHED, DECEMBER, 1919.
+
+
+For permission to reprint these tales, which originally appeared in
+_The Cambridge Review_, _The Gownsman_ and _Chanticlere_ (the Jesus
+College Magazine), the writer thanks the editors and proprietors of
+those papers.
+
+
+
+
+                               Contents
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+  I. TO TWO CAMBRIDGE MAGICIANS                                     viii
+
+  II. THE EVERLASTING CLUB                                             1
+
+  III. THE TREASURE OF JOHN BADCOKE                                    9
+
+  IV. THE TRUE HISTORY OF ANTHONY FFRYAR                              19
+
+  V. THE NECROMANCER                                                  28
+
+  VI. BROTHER JOHN’S BEQUEST                                          37
+
+  VII. THE BURDEN OF DEAD BOOKS                                       48
+
+  VIII. THANKFULL THOMAS                                              67
+
+  IX. THE PALLADIUM                                                   76
+
+  X. THE SACRIST OF SAINT RADEGUND                                    84
+
+
+
+
+                         List of Illustrations
+
+
+  I. ENTRANCE GATEWAY, JESUS COLLEGE                      _Frontispiece_
+
+  II. DOORWAY, COW LANE                                                5
+
+  III. ORIEL WINDOW OF HALL AND ENTRANCE TO “K” STAIRCASE             11
+
+  IV. OLD HALL, MASTER’S LODGE                                        17
+
+  V. NORTH-WEST CORNER OF CLOISTERS                                   20
+
+  VI. THE MASTER’S STALL                                              23
+
+  VII. MAIN GATEWAY AND PORTER’S LODGE                                31
+
+  VIII. ON “A” STAIRCASE                                              33
+
+  IX. FIREPLACE IN MASTER’S LODGE                                     41
+
+  X. A CORNER OF THE LIBRARY                                          51
+
+  XI. CHAPEL DOORWAY IN MASTER’S GARDEN                               57
+
+  XII. NORMAN GALLERY, NORTH TRANSEPT                                 71
+
+  XIII. SOUTH-WEST PIER OF TOWER                                      74
+
+  XIV. IN THE FENS                                                    83
+
+  XV. ENTRANCE TO CHAPTER HOUSE                                       87
+
+  XVI. THE CHANCEL SQUINT                                             90
+
+
+
+
+                      To Two Cambridge Magicians
+
+
+  In London lanes, uncanonized, untold
+  By letter’d brass or stone, apart they lie,
+  Dead and unreck’d of by the passer-by.
+  Here still they seem together, as of old,
+  To breathe our air, to walk our Cambridge ground,
+  Here still to after learners to impart
+  Hints of the magic that gave Faustus art
+  To make blind Homer sing “with ravishing sound
+  To his melodious harp” of Oenon, dead
+  For Alexander’s love; that framed the spell
+  Of him who, in the Friar’s “secret cell,”
+  Made the great marvel of the Brazen Head.
+  Marlowe and Greene, on you a Cambridge hand
+  Sprinkles these pious particles of sand.
+
+
+
+
+                         The Everlasting Club
+
+
+There is a chamber in Jesus College the existence of which is probably
+known to few who are now resident, and fewer still have penetrated into
+it or even seen its interior. It is on the right hand of the landing on
+the top floor of the precipitous staircase in the angle of the cloister
+next the Hall--a staircase which for some forgotten story connected
+with it is traditionally called “Cow Lane.” The padlock which secures
+its massive oaken door is very rarely unfastened, for the room is bare
+and unfurnished. Once it served as a place of deposit for superfluous
+kitchen ware, but even that ignominious use has passed from it, and it
+is now left to undisturbed solitude and darkness. For I should say that
+it is entirely cut off from the light of the outer day by the walling
+up, some time in the eighteenth century, of its single window, and such
+light as ever reaches it comes from the door, when rare occasion causes
+it to be opened.
+
+Yet at no extraordinarily remote day this chamber has evidently been
+tenanted, and, before it was given up to darkness, was comfortably
+fitted, according to the standard of comfort which was known in college
+in the days of George II. There is still a roomy fireplace before which
+legs have been stretched and wine and gossip have circulated in the
+days of wigs and brocade. For the room is spacious and, when it was
+lighted by the window looking eastward over the fields and common, it
+must have been a cheerful place for a sociable don.
+
+Let me state in brief, prosaic outline the circumstances which account
+for the gloom and solitude in which this room has remained now for
+nearly a century and a half.
+
+In the second quarter of the eighteenth century the University
+possessed a great variety of clubs of a social kind. There were
+clubs in college parlours and clubs in private rooms, or in inns
+and coffee-houses: clubs flavoured with politics, clubs clerical,
+clubs purporting to be learned and literary. Whatever their professed
+particularity, the aim of each was convivial. Some of them, which
+included undergraduates as well as seniors, were dissipated enough, and
+in their limited provincial way aped the profligacy of such clubs as
+the Hell Fire Club of London notoriety.
+
+Among these last was one which was at once more select and of more evil
+fame than any of its fellows. By a singular accident, presently to be
+explained, the Minute Book of this Club, including the years from 1738
+to 1766, came into the hands of a Master of Jesus College, and though,
+so far as I am aware, it is no longer extant, I have before me a
+transcript of it which, though it is in a recent handwriting, presents
+in a bald shape such a singular array of facts that I must ask you to
+accept them as veracious. The original book is described as a stout
+duodecimo volume bound in red leather and fastened with red silken
+strings. The writing in it occupied some 40 pages, and ended with the
+date November 2, 1766.
+
+The Club in question was called the Everlasting Club--a name
+sufficiently explained by its rules, set forth in the pocket-book. Its
+number was limited to seven, and it would seem that its members were
+all young men, between 22 and 30. One of them was a Fellow-Commoner of
+Trinity: three of them were Fellows of Colleges, among whom I should
+specially mention a Fellow of Jesus, named Charles Bellasis: another
+was a landed proprietor in the county, and the sixth was a young
+Cambridge physician. The Founder and President of the Club was the
+Honourable Alan Dermot, who, as the son of an Irish peer, had obtained
+a nobleman’s degree in the University, and lived in idleness in the
+town. Very little is known of his life and character, but that little
+is highly in his disfavour. He was killed in a duel at Paris in the
+year 1743, under circumstances which I need not particularise, but
+which point to an exceptional degree of cruelty and wickedness in the
+slain man.
+
+I will quote from the first pages of the Minute Book some of the laws
+of the Club, which will explain its constitution:--
+
+“1. This Society consisteth of seven Everlastings, who may be Corporeal
+or Incorporeal, as Destiny shall determine.
+
+2. The rules of the Society, as herein written, are immutable and
+Everlasting.
+
+3. None shall hereafter be chosen into the Society and none shall cease
+to be members.
+
+4. The Honourable Alan Dermot is the Everlasting President of the
+Society.
+
+5. The Senior Corporeal Everlasting, not being the President, shall be
+the Secretary of the Society, and in this Book of Minutes shall record
+its transactions, the date at which any Everlasting shall cease to
+be Corporeal, and all fines due to the Society. And when such Senior
+Everlasting shall cease to be Corporeal he shall, either in person or
+by some sure hand, deliver this Book of Minutes to him who shall be
+next Senior and at the time Corporeal, and he shall in like manner
+record the transactions therein and transmit it to the next Senior. The
+neglect of these provisions shall be visited by the President with fine
+or punishment according to his discretion.
+
+6. On the second day of November in every year, being the Feast of All
+Souls, at ten o’clock _post meridiem_, the Everlastings shall meet
+at supper in the place of residence of that Corporeal member of the
+Society to whom it shall fall in order of rotation to entertain them,
+and they shall all subscribe in this Book of Minutes their names and
+present place of abode.
+
+7. It shall be the obligation of every Everlasting to be present at the
+yearly entertainment of the Society, and none shall allege for excuse
+that he has not been invited thereto. If any Everlasting shall fail
+to attend the yearly meeting, or in his turn shall fail to provide
+entertainment for the Society, he shall be mulcted at the discretion of
+the President.
+
+8. Nevertheless, if in any year, in the month of October and not less
+than seven days before the Feast of All Souls, the major part of the
+Society, that is to say, four at the least, shall meet and record in
+writing in these Minutes that it is their desire that no entertainment
+be given in that year, then, notwithstanding the two rules last
+rehearsed, there shall be no entertainment in that year, and no
+Everlasting shall be mulcted on the ground of his absence.”
+
+The rest of the rules are either too profane or too puerile to be
+quoted here. They indicate the extraordinary levity with which the
+members entered on their preposterous obligations. In particular, to
+the omission of any regulation as to the transmission of the Minute
+Book after the last Everlasting ceased to be “Corporeal,” we owe the
+accident that it fell into the hands of one who was not a member of the
+society, and the consequent preservation of its contents to the present
+day.
+
+Low as was the standard of morals in all classes of the University in
+the first half of the eighteenth century, the flagrant defiance of
+public decorum by the members of the Everlasting Society brought upon
+it the stern censure of the authorities, and after a few years it was
+practically dissolved and its members banished from the University.
+Charles Bellasis, for instance, was obliged to leave the college,
+and, though he retained his fellowship, he remained absent from it
+for nearly twenty years. But the minutes of the society reveal a more
+terrible reason for its virtual extinction.
+
+Between the years 1738 and 1743 the minutes record many meetings of
+the Club, for it met on other occasions besides that of All Souls
+Day. Apart from a great deal of impious jocularity on the part of the
+writers, they are limited to the formal record of the attendance of
+the members, fines inflicted, and so forth. The meeting on November
+2nd in the latter year is the first about which there is any departure
+from the stereotyped forms. The supper was given in the house of the
+physician. One member, Henry Davenport, the former Fellow-Commoner of
+Trinity, was absent from the entertainment, as he was then serving
+in Germany, in the Dettingen campaign. The minutes contain an entry,
+“Mulctatus propter absentiam per Presidentem, Hen. Davenport.” An entry
+on the next page of the book runs, “Henry Davenport by a Cannon-shot
+became an Incorporeal Member, November 3, 1743.”
+
+[Illustration: _Doorway, Cow Lane._]
+
+The minutes give in their own handwriting, under date November 2, the
+names and addresses of the six other members. First in the list, in
+a large bold hand, is the autograph of “Alan Dermot, President, at
+the Court of His Royal Highness.” Now in October Dermot had certainly
+been in attendance on the Young Pretender at Paris, and doubtless
+the address which he gave was understood at the time by the other
+Everlastings to refer to the fact. But on October 28, five days
+_before_ the meeting of the Club, he was killed, as I have already
+mentioned, in a duel. The news of his death cannot have reached
+Cambridge on November 2, for the Secretary’s record of it is placed
+below that of Davenport, and with the date November 10: “this day was
+reported that the President was become an Incorporeal by the hands of
+a french chevalier.” And in a sudden ebullition, which is in glaring
+contrast with his previous profanities, he has dashed down “The Good
+God shield us from ill.”
+
+The tidings of the President’s death scattered the Everlastings like
+a thunderbolt. They left Cambridge and buried themselves in widely
+parted regions. But the Club did not cease to exist. The Secretary
+was still bound to his hateful records: the five survivors did not
+dare to neglect their fatal obligations. Horror of the presence of the
+President made the November gathering once and for ever impossible:
+but horror, too, forbade them to neglect the precaution of meeting
+in October of every year to put in writing their objection to the
+celebration. For five years five names are appended to that entry in
+the minutes, and that is all the business of the Club. Then another
+member died, who was not the Secretary.
+
+For eighteen more years four miserable men met once each year to
+deliver the same formal protest. During those years we gather from
+the signatures that Charles Bellasis returned to Cambridge, now, to
+appearance, chastened and decorous. He occupied the rooms which I have
+described on the staircase in the corner of the cloister.
+
+Then in 1766 comes a new handwriting and an altered minute: “Jan. 27,
+on this day Francis Witherington, Secretary, became an Incorporeal
+Member. The same day this Book was delivered to me, James Harvey.”
+Harvey lived only a month, and a similar entry on March 7 states that
+the book has descended, with the same mysterious celerity, to William
+Catherston. Then, on May 18, Charles Bellasis writes that on that day,
+being the date of Catherston’s decease, the Minute Book has come to
+him as the last surviving Corporeal of the Club.
+
+As it is my purpose to record fact only I shall not attempt to describe
+the feelings of the unhappy Secretary when he penned that fatal
+record. When Witherington died it must have come home to the three
+survivors that after twenty-three years’ intermission the ghastly
+entertainment must be annually renewed, with the addition of fresh
+incorporeal guests, or that they must undergo the pitiless censure of
+the President. I think it likely that the terror of the alternative,
+coupled with the mysterious delivery of the Minute Book, was
+answerable for the speedy decease of the two first successors to the
+Secretaryship. Now that the alternative was offered to Bellasis alone,
+he was firmly resolved to bear the consequences, whatever they might
+be, of an infringement of the Club rules.
+
+The graceless days of George II. had passed away from the University.
+They were succeeded by times of outward respectability, when religion
+and morals were no longer publicly challenged. With Bellasis, too, the
+petulance of youth had passed: he was discreet, perhaps exemplary. The
+scandal of his early conduct was unknown to most of the new generation,
+condoned by the few survivors who had witnessed it.
+
+On the night of November 2nd, 1766, a terrible event revived in the
+older inhabitants of the College the memory of those evil days. From
+ten o’clock to midnight a hideous uproar went on in the chamber of
+Bellasis. Who were his companions none knew. Blasphemous outcries and
+ribald songs, such as had not been heard for twenty years past, aroused
+from sleep or study the occupants of the court; but among the voices
+was not that of Bellasis. At twelve a sudden silence fell upon the
+cloisters. But the Master lay awake all night, troubled at the relapse
+of a respected colleague and the horrible example of libertinism set to
+his pupils.
+
+In the morning all remained quiet about Bellasis’ chamber. When his
+door was opened, soon after daybreak, the early light creeping through
+the drawn curtains revealed a strange scene. About the table were drawn
+seven chairs, but some of them had been overthrown, and the furniture
+was in chaotic disorder, as after some wild orgy. In the chair at the
+foot of the table sat the lifeless figure of the Secretary, his head
+bent over his folded arms, as though he would shield his eyes from
+some horrible sight. Before him on the table lay pen, ink and the red
+Minute Book. On the last inscribed page, under the date of November
+2nd, were written, for the first time since 1742, the autographs of
+the seven members of the Everlasting Club, but without address. In the
+same strong hand in which the President’s name was written there was
+appended below the signatures the note, “Mulctatus per Presidentem
+propter neglectum obsonii, Car. Bellasis.”
+
+The Minute Book was secured by the Master of the College, and I believe
+that he alone was acquainted with the nature of its contents. The
+scandal reflected on the College by the circumstances revealed in it
+caused him to keep the knowledge rigidly to himself. But some suspicion
+of the nature of the occurrences must have percolated to students and
+servants, for there was a long-abiding belief in the College that
+annually on the night of November 2 sounds of unholy revelry were
+heard to issue from the chamber of Bellasis. I cannot learn that the
+occupants of the adjoining rooms have ever been disturbed by them.
+Indeed, it is plain from the minutes that owing to their improvident
+drafting no provision was made for the perpetuation of the All Souls
+entertainment after the last Everlasting ceased to be Corporeal. Such
+superstitious belief must be treated with contemptuous incredulity.
+But whether for that cause or another the rooms were shut up, and have
+remained tenantless from that day to this.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                     The Treasure of John Badcoke
+
+
+As this narrative of an occurrence in the history of Jesus College
+may appear to verge on the domain of romance, I think it proper to
+state by way of preface, that for some of its details I am indebted to
+documentary evidence which is accessible and veracious. Other portions
+of the story are supplied from sources the credibility of which my
+readers will be able to estimate.
+
+On the 8th of November, 1538, the Priory of St. Giles and St. Andrew,
+Barnwell, was surrendered to King Henry VIII. by John Badcoke, the
+Prior, and the convent of that house. The surrender was sealed with the
+common seal, subscribed by the Prior and six canons, and acknowledged
+on the same day in the Chapter House of the Priory, before Thomas Legh,
+Doctor of Laws.[1]
+
+Dr. Legh and his fellows, who had been deputed by Cromwell to visit the
+monasteries, had too frequent occasion to deplore the frowardness of
+religious households in opposing the King’s will in the matter of their
+dissolution. Among many such reports I need only cite the case of the
+Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, mentioned in a letter to Cromwell
+from one of his agents, Christopher Leyghton.[2] He tells Cromwell
+that in an inventory exhibited by the Prior to Dr. Leyghton, the
+King’s visitor, the Prior had “wilfullye left owte a remembraunce of
+certayne parcells of silver, gold and stone to the value of thowsandys
+of poundys”; that it was not to be doubted that he would “eloyne owt
+of the same howse into the handys of his secret fryndys thowsandes of
+poundes, which is well knowne he hathe, to hys comfort hereafter”; and
+that it was common report in the monastery that any monk who should
+open the matter to the King’s advisers “shalbe poysenyde or murtheryde,
+as he hath murthredde diverse others.”
+
+Far different from the truculent attitude of this murderous Prior
+was the conduct on the like occasion of Prior John Badcoke. Dr. Legh
+reported him to be “honest and conformable.” He furnished an exact
+inventory of the possessions of his house, and quietly retired on the
+pittance allowed to him by the King. He prevailed upon the other canons
+to shew the same submission to the royal will, and they peaceably
+dispersed, some to country incumbencies, others to resume in the
+Colleges the studies commenced in earlier life.
+
+John Badcoke settled in Jesus College. The Bursar’s Rental of 1538-39
+shows that his residence there began in the autumn of the earlier year,
+immediately after the surrender of the monastery. Divorced from the
+Priory he was still attached to Barnwell, and took up the duties of
+Vicar of the small parish church of St. Andrew, which stood close to
+the Priory gate. So long as Henry VIII. lived, and the rites of the old
+religion were tolerated, he seems to have ministered faithfully to the
+spiritual needs of his parishioners, unsuspected and unmolested.
+
+More than twelve months elapsed before the demolition of the canons’
+house was taken in hand, and, for so long, in the empty church the
+Prior still offered mass on ceremonial days for the repose of the souls
+of the Peverels and Peches who had built and endowed the house in long
+bygone days, and were buried beside the High Altar. In the porter’s
+lodge remained the only occupant of the monastery--a former servant of
+the house, who, from the circumstance that in his secular profession he
+was a mason, had the name of Adam Waller. Occasional intruders on the
+solitude of the cloister or the monastic garden sometimes lighted on
+the ex-Prior pacing the grass-grown walks, as of old, and generally in
+company with a younger priest.
+
+[Illustration: Oriel Window of Hall & Entrance to ‘K’ Staircase]
+
+This companion was named Richard Harrison. He was not one of the
+dispossessed canons, but came from the Priory of Christ Church,
+Canterbury, of which mention has been made. He was the youngest and
+latest professed of the monks there, a nephew of the Prior, as also of
+John Badcoke. He had not been present at the time of Dr. Leyghton’s
+visitation, as he happened then to be visiting his uncle at Barnwell.
+As the Canterbury monks were ejected in his absence he had remained
+at Barnwell, and there he shared his uncle’s parochial duties. He,
+too, became a resident at Jesus, and he occupied rooms in the College
+immediately beneath those of Badcoke.
+
+Late in the year 1539 the demolition of Barnwell Priory was begun. Adam
+Waller was engaged in the work. One incident, which apparently passed
+almost unnoticed at the time, may be mentioned in connection with this
+business. The keys of the church were in the keeping of Waller, who
+had been in the habit of surrendering them to the two ecclesiastics
+whenever they performed the divine offices there. On the morning when
+the demolition was to begin, it was found that the stone covering
+the altar-tomb of Pain Peverel, crusader and founder of the Priory,
+had been dislodged, and that the earth within it had been recently
+disturbed. Waller professed to know nothing of the matter.
+
+The account rolls of the College Bursars in the reigns of Henry
+VIII. and Edward VI. fortunately tell us exactly the situation of
+the rooms occupied by Badcoke and Harrison, and as, for the proper
+understanding of subsequent events, it is necessary that we should
+realise their condition and relation to the rest of the College, I
+shall not scruple to be particular. They were on the left-hand side of
+the staircase now called K, in the eastern range of the College, and
+at the northern end of what had once been the dormitory of the Nuns of
+St. Radegund. Badcoke’s chamber, which was on the highest floor, was
+one of the largest in the College, and for that reason the Statutes
+prescribed that it should be reserved “for more venerable persons
+resorting to the College”; and Badcoke, being neither a Fellow nor a
+graduate, was regarded as belonging to this class. Below his chamber
+was that of Harrison, and on the ground-floor was the “cool-house,”
+where the College fuel was kept. Between this ground-floor room and L
+staircase--which did not then exist--there is seen at the present day a
+rarely opened door. Inside the door a flight of some half-dozen steps
+descends to a narrow space, which might be deemed a passage, save that
+it has no outlet at the farther end. On either side it is flanked, to
+the height of two floors of K staircase, by walls of ancient monastic
+masonry; the third and highest floor is carried over it. Here, in the
+times of Henry VIII. and the Nunnery days before them, ran or stagnated
+a Stygian stream, known as “the kytchynge sinke ditch,” foul with scum
+from the College offices. Northward from Badcoke’s staircase was “the
+wood-yard,” on the site of the present L staircase. It communicated by
+a door in its outward, eastern wall with a green close which in the old
+days had been the Nunnery graveyard. In Badcoke’s times it was still
+uneven with the hillocks which marked the resting-places of nameless,
+unrecorded Nuns. The old graveyard was intersected by a cart-track
+leading from Jesus Lane to the wood-yard door. The Bursar’s books show
+that Badcoke controlled the wood-yard and coal-house, perhaps in the
+capacity of Promus, or Steward.
+
+Now when Badcoke and Harrison came to occupy their chambers on K
+staircase, Jesus, like other Colleges in those troublous times, had
+fallen on evil days. Its occupants comprised only the Master, some
+eight Fellows, a few servants, and about half-a-dozen “disciples.”
+Nearly half the rooms in College were empty, and the records show
+that many were tenantless, _propter defectum reparacionis_; that is,
+because walls, roofs and floors were decayed and ruinous. Badcoke,
+being a man of means, paid a handsome rent for his chambers, not less
+than ten shillings by the year, in consideration of which the College
+put it in tenantable repair; and, as a circumstance which has some
+significance in relation to this narrative, it is to be noted that the
+Bursar--the accounts of the year are no longer extant--recorded that
+in 1539 he paid a sum of three shillings and fourpence “to Adam Waller
+for layyinge of new brick in yᵉ cupboard of Mr. Badcoke’s chamber.”
+The cupboard in question was seemingly a small recessed space, still
+recognisable in a gyp-room belonging to the chambers which were
+Badcoke’s. The rooms on the side of the staircase opposite to those of
+Badcoke and Harrison were evidently unoccupied; the Bursar took no
+rent from them. The other inmates of the College dwelt in the cloister
+court.
+
+In this comparative isolation Badcoke and Harrison lived until the
+death of Henry VIII. in 1546. In course of time Harrison became a
+Fellow of the College; but Badcoke preferred to retain the exceptional
+status of its honoured guest. To the Master, Dr. Reston, and the
+Fellows, whose religious sympathies were with the old order of things,
+their company was inoffensive and even welcome. But trouble came upon
+the College in 1549, when it was visited by King Edward’s Protestant
+Commissioners. It stands on record, that on May 26th “they commanded
+six altars to be pulled down in the church,” and in a chamber, which
+may have been Badcoke’s, “caused certayn images to be broken.” Mr.
+Badcoke “had an excommunicacion sette uppe for him,” and was dismissed
+from the office, whatever it was, that he held in the College. Worse
+still for his happiness, his companion of many years, Richard Harrison,
+was “expulsed his felowshippe” on some supposition of trafficking with
+the court of Rome.[3] He went overseas, as it was understood, to the
+Catholic University of Louvain in Flanders.
+
+In 1549 Badcoke must have been, as age went in the sixteenth century,
+an old man. His deprivation of office, the loss of his friend, and
+the abandonment of long treasured hopes for the restitution of the
+religious system to which his life had been devoted, plunged him in
+a settled despondency. The Fellows, who showed for him such sympathy
+as they dared, understood that between him and Harrison there passed
+a secret correspondence. But in course of years this source of
+consolation dried up. Harrison was dead, or he had travelled away
+from Louvain. With the other members of the College Badcoke wholly
+parted company, and lived a recluse in his unneighboured room. By the
+wood-yard gate, of which he still had a key, he could let himself
+out beyond the College walls, and sometimes by day, oftener after
+nightfall, he was to be seen wandering beneath his window in the Nuns’
+graveyard, his old feet, like Friar Laurence’s, “stumbling at graves.”
+An occasional visitor, who was known to be his pensioner, was Adam
+Waller. But, though Waller was still at times employed in the service
+of the College, his character and condition had deteriorated with
+years. He was a sturdy beggar, a drunkard, sullen and dangerous in his
+cups, and Badcoke was heard to hint some terror of his presence. At
+last the Master learnt from the ex-Prior that he was about to quit the
+College, and none doubted that he would follow Harrison to Louvain.
+
+Shortly after this became known, Badcoke disappeared from College. He
+had lived in such seclusion that for a day or two it was not noticed
+that his door remained closed, and that he had not been seen in his
+customary walks. When the door was at last forced it was discovered
+that he had indeed gone, but, strangely, he had left behind him the
+whole of his effects. Adam Waller was the last person who was known to
+have entered his chamber, and, being questioned, he said that Badcoke
+had informed him of his intention to depart three days previously,
+but, for some unexplained reason, had desired him to keep his purpose
+secret, and had not imparted his destination. Badcoke’s life of
+seclusion, and his known connection with English Catholics beyond sea,
+gave colour to Waller’s story, and, so far as I am aware, no enquiries
+were made as to the subsequent fate of the ex-Prior. But a strange fact
+was commented on--that the floor of the so-called cupboard was strewn
+with bricks, and that in the place from which they had been dislodged
+was an arched recess of considerable size, which must have been made
+during Badcoke’s tenancy of the room. There was nothing in the recess.
+Another circumstance there was which called for no notice in the then
+dilapidated state of half the College rooms. Two boards were loose in
+the floor of the larger chamber. Thirty feet below the gap which their
+removal exposed, lay the dark impurities of the “kytchynge sinke ditch.”
+
+Adam Waller died a beggar as he had lived.
+
+A century after these occurrences--in the year 1642--the attention of
+the College was drawn by a severe visitation of plague to a much-needed
+sanitary reform. The black ditch which ran under K staircase was
+“cast,” that is, its bed was effectually cleaned out, and its channel
+was stopped; and so it came about that from that day to this it has
+presented a clean and dry floor of gravel. Beneath the settled slime of
+centuries was discovered a complete skeleton. How it came there nobody
+knew, and nobody enquired. Probably it was guessed to be a relic of
+some dim and grim monastic mystery.
+
+Now whether Adam Waller knew or suspected the existence of a treasure
+hidden in the wall-recess of Badcoke’s chamber, and murdered the
+ex-Prior when he was about to remove it to Louvain, I cannot say.
+One thing is certain--that he did not find the treasure there. When
+Badcoke disappeared he left his will, with his other belongings, in
+his chamber. After a decent interval, when it seemed improbable that
+he would return, probate was obtained by the Master and Fellows, to
+whom he had bequeathed the chief part of his effects. In 1858 the wills
+proved in the University court were removed to Peterborough, and there,
+for aught I know, his will may yet be seen. The property bequeathed
+consisted principally of books of theology. Among them was Stephanus’
+Latin Vulgate Bible of 1528 in two volumes folio. This he devised “of
+my heartie good wylle to my trustie felow and frynde, Richard Harrison,
+if he shal returne to Cambrege aftyr the tyme of my decesse.” Richard
+Harrison never returned to Cambridge, and the Bible, with the other
+books, found its way to the College Library.
+
+Now there are still in the Library two volumes of this Vulgate Bible.
+There is nothing in either of them to identify them with the books
+mentioned in Badcoke’s will, for they have lost the fly-leaves which
+might have revealed the owner’s autograph. Here and there in the
+margins are annotations in a sixteenth-century handwriting; and in the
+same handwriting on one of the lost leaves was a curious inscription,
+which suggests that the writer’s mind was running on some treasure
+which was not spiritual. First at the top of the page, in clear
+and large letters, was copied a passage from Psalm 55: “Cor meum
+conturbatum est in me: et formido mortis cecidit super me. Et dixi,
+Quis dabit pennas mihi sicut columbae, et volabo et requiescam.” (My
+heart is disquieted within me: and the fear of death is fallen upon
+me. And I said, O that I had wings like a dove: for then would I fly
+away, and be at rest.) Then, in lettering of the same kind, came a
+portion of Deuteronomy xxviii. 12: “Aperiet dominus thesaurum suum,
+benedicetque cunctis operibus tuis.” (The Lord will disclose his
+treasure, and will bless all the works of thy hands.) Under this, in
+smaller letters, were the words, “Vide super hoc Ezechielis cap. xl.”
+
+[Illustration: Old Hall, Master’s Lodge.]
+
+If in the same volume the chapter in question is referred to, a
+singular fact discloses itself. Certain words in the text are
+underscored in red pencil, and fingers, inked in the margin, are
+directed to the lines in which they occur. Taken in their consecutive
+order these words run: “Ecce murus forinsecus ... ad portam quae
+respiciebat viam orientalem ... mensus est a facie portae extrinsecus
+ad orientem et aquilonem quinque cubitorum ... hoc est gazophylacium.”
+This may be taken to mean, “Look at the outside wall ... at the gate
+facing towards the eastern road ... he measured from the gate outwards
+five cubits (7¹⁄₂ feet) towards the north-east ... there is the
+treasure.”
+
+The outer wall of the College, the wood-yard gate and the road through
+the Nuns’ cemetery must at once have suggested themselves to Richard
+Harrison, had he lived to see his friend’s bequest, and he must have
+taken it as an instruction from the testator that a treasure known
+to both parties was hidden in the spot indicated, close to Badcoke’s
+chamber. And the first text cited must have conveyed to him that his
+friend, in some deadly terror, had transferred the treasure thither
+from the place where the two friends had originally laid it. But
+the message never reached Harrison, and it is quite certain that no
+treasure has been sought or found in that spot. If the Canterbury or
+any other treasure was deposited there by Badcoke it rests there still.
+
+To those who are curious to know more of this matter I would say:
+first, ascertain minutely from Loggan’s seventeenth-century plan of the
+College the position of the wood-yard gate; and, secondly, which indeed
+should be firstly, make absolutely certain that John Badcoke was not
+mystifying posterity by an elaborate jest.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Cooper, _Annals_, I., p. 393.
+
+[2] _The Suppression of the Monasteries_ (Camden Society’s
+Publications), p. 90.
+
+[3] Cooper, _Annals_, II. p. 29.
+
+
+
+
+                  The True History of Anthony Ffryar
+
+
+The world, it is said, knows nothing of its greatest men. In our
+Cambridge microcosm it may be doubted whether we are better informed
+concerning some of the departed great ones who once walked the confines
+of our Colleges. Which of us has heard of Anthony Ffryar of Jesus?
+History is dumb respecting him. Yet but for the unhappy event recorded
+in this unadorned chronicle his fame might have stood with that of
+Bacon of Trinity, or Harvey of Caius. _They_ lived to be old men:
+Ffryar died before he was thirty--his work unfinished, his fame unknown
+even to his contemporaries.
+
+So meagre is the record of his life’s work that it is contained in a
+few bare notices in the College Bursar’s Books, in the Grace Books
+which date his matriculation and degrees, and in the entry of his
+burial in the register of All Saints’ Parish. These simple annals I
+have ventured to supplement with details of a more or less hypothetical
+character which will serve to show what humanity lost by his early
+death. Readers will be able to judge for themselves the degree of care
+which I have taken not to import into the story anything which may
+savour of the improbable or romantic.
+
+Anthony Ffryar matriculated in the year 1541-2, his age being then
+probably 15 or 16. He took his B.A. degree in 1545, his M.A. in 1548.
+He became a Fellow about the end of 1547, and died in the summer of
+1551. Such are the documentary facts relating to him. Dr. Reston was
+Master of the College during the whole of his tenure of a Fellowship
+and died in the same year as Ffryar. The chamber which Ffryar occupied
+as a Fellow was on the first floor of the staircase at the west end
+of the Chapel. The staircase has since been absorbed in the Master’s
+Lodge, but the doorway through which it was approached from the
+cloister may still be seen. At the time when Ffryar lived there the
+nave of the Chapel was used as a parish church, and his windows
+overlooked the graveyard, then called “Jesus churchyard,” which is now
+a part of the Master’s garden.
+
+[Illustration: _North West Corner of Cloisters._]
+
+Ffryar was of course a priest, as were nearly all the Fellows in his
+day. But I do not gather that he was a theologian, or complied more
+than formally with the obligation of his orders. He came to Cambridge
+when the Six Articles and the suppression of the monasteries were of
+fresh and burning import: he became a Fellow in the harsh Protestant
+days of Protector Somerset: and in all his time the Master and the
+Fellows were in scarcely disavowed sympathy with the rites and beliefs
+of the Old Religion. Yet in the battle of creeds I imagine that he
+took no part and no interest. I should suppose that he was a somewhat
+solitary man, an insatiable student of Nature, and that his sympathies
+with humanity were starved by his absorption in the New Science which
+dawned on Cambridge at the Reformation.
+
+When I say that he was an alchemist do not suppose that in the middle
+of the sixteenth century the name of alchemy carried with it any
+associations with credulity or imposture. It was a real science and
+a subject of University study then, as its god-children, Physics and
+Chemistry, are now. If the aims of its professors were transcendental
+its methods were genuinely based on research. Ffryar was no visionary,
+but a man of sense, hard and practical. To the study of alchemy he was
+drawn by no hopes of gain, not even of fame, and still less by any
+desire to benefit mankind. He was actuated solely by an unquenchable
+passion for enquiry, a passion sterilizing to all other feeling. To
+the somnambulisms of the less scientific disciples of his school, such
+as the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life, he showed himself a
+chill agnostic. All his thought and energies were concentrated on the
+discovery of the _magisterium_, the master-cure of all human ailments.
+
+For four years in his laboratory in the cloister he had toiled at
+this pursuit. More than once, when it had seemed most near, it had
+eluded his grasp; more than once he had been tempted to abandon it as
+a mystery insoluble. In the summer of 1551 the discovery waited at his
+door. He was sure, certain of success, which only experiment could
+prove. And with the certainty arose a new passion in his heart--to make
+the name of Ffryar glorious in the healing profession as that of Galen
+or Hippocrates. In a few days, even within a few hours, the fame of his
+discovery would go out into all the world.
+
+The summer of 1551 was a sad time in Cambridge. It was marked by a more
+than usually fatal outbreak of the epidemic called “the sweat,” when,
+as Fuller says, “patients ended or mended in twenty-four hours.” It
+had smouldered some time in the town before it appeared with sudden
+and dreadful violence in Jesus College. The first to go was little
+Gregory Graunge, schoolboy and chorister, who was lodged in the College
+school in the outer court. He was barely thirteen years old, and known
+by sight to Anthony Ffryar. He died on July 31, and was buried the
+same day in Jesus churchyard. The service for his burial was held in
+the Chapel and at night, as was customary in those days. Funerals in
+College were no uncommon events in the sixteenth century. But in the
+death of the poor child, among strangers, there was something to move
+even the cold heart of Ffryar. And not the pity of it only impressed
+him. The dim Chapel, the Master and Fellows obscurely ranged in their
+stalls and shrouded in their hoods, the long-drawn miserable chanting
+and the childish trebles of the boys who had been Gregory’s fellows
+struck a chill into him which was not to be shaken off.
+
+Three days passed and another chorister died. The College gates were
+barred and guarded, and, except by a selected messenger, communication
+with the town was cut off. The precaution was unavailing, and the boys’
+usher, Mr. Stevenson, died on August 5. One of the junior Fellows,
+sir Stayner--“sir” being the equivalent of B.A.--followed on August
+7. The Master, Dr. Reston, died the next day. A gaunt, severe man was
+Dr. Reston, whom his Fellows feared. The death of a Master of Arts on
+August 9 for a time completed the melancholy list.
+
+Before this the frightened Fellows had taken action. The scholars were
+dismissed to their homes on August 6. Some of the Fellows abandoned the
+College at the same time. The rest--a terrified conclave--met on August
+8 and decreed that the College should be closed until the pestilence
+should have abated. Until that time it was to be occupied by a certain
+Robert Laycock, who was a College servant, and his only communication
+with the outside world was to be through his son, who lived in Jesus
+Lane. The decree was perhaps the result of the Master’s death, for he
+was not present at the meeting.
+
+Goodman Laycock, as he was commonly called, might have been the sole
+tenant of the College but for the unalterable decision of Ffryar
+to remain there. At all hazards his research, now on the eve of
+realisation, must proceed; without the aid of his laboratory in College
+it would miserably hang fire. Besides, he had an absolute assurance of
+his own immunity if the experiment answered his confident expectations,
+and his fancy was elated with the thought of standing, like another
+Aaron, between the living and the dead, and staying the pestilence with
+the potent _magisterium_. Until then he would bar his door even against
+Laycock, and his supplies of food should be left on the staircase
+landing. Solitude for him was neither unfamiliar nor terrible.
+
+[Illustration: _The Master’s Stall._]
+
+So for three days Ffryar and Laycock inhabited the cloister, solitary
+and separate. For three days, in the absorption of his research,
+Ffryar forgot fear, forgot the pestilence-stricken world beyond the
+gate, almost forgot to consume the daily dole of food laid outside his
+door. August 12 was the day, so fateful to humanity, when his labours
+were to be crowned with victory: before midnight the secret of the
+_magisterium_ would be solved.
+
+Evening began to close in before he could begin the experiment which
+was to be his last. It must of necessity be a labour of some hours,
+and, before it began, he bethought him that he had not tasted food
+since early morning. He unbarred his door and looked for the expected
+portion. It was not there. Vexed at the remissness of Laycock he waited
+for a while and listened for his approaching footsteps. At last he took
+courage and descended to the cloister. He called for Laycock, but heard
+no response. He resolved to go as far as the Buttery door and knock.
+Laycock lived and slept in the Buttery.
+
+At the Buttery door he beat and cried on Laycock; but in answer he
+heard only the sound of scurrying rats. He went to the window, by the
+hatch, where he knew that the old man’s bed lay, and called to him
+again. Still there was silence. At last he resolved to force himself
+through the unglazed window and take what food he could find. In the
+deep gloom within he stumbled and almost fell over a low object, which
+he made out to be a truckle-bed. There was light enough from the window
+to distinguish, stretched upon it, the form of Goodman Laycock, stark
+and dead.
+
+Sickened and alarmed Ffryar hurried back to his chamber. More than ever
+he must hasten the great experiment. When it was ended his danger would
+be past, and he could go out into the town to call the buryers for the
+certain about it--that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and
+wept, he made his having wasted his substance with harlots, his swine-
+herding and hungering for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy moments
+in his life.  It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea.  I dare
+say one has to go to prison to understand it.  If so, it may be worth
+while going to prison.
+
+There is something so unique about Christ.  Of course just as there are
+false dawns before the dawn itself, and winter days so full of sudden
+sunlight that they will cheat the wise crocus into squandering its gold
+before its time, and make some foolish bird call to its mate to build on
+barren boughs, so there were Christians before Christ.  For that we
+should be grateful.  The unfortunate thing is that there have been none
+since.  I make one exception, St. Francis of Assisi.  But then God had
+given him at his birth the soul of a poet, as he himself when quite young
+had in mystical marriage taken poverty as his bride: and with the soul of
+a poet and the body of a beggar he found the way to perfection not
+difficult.  He understood Christ, and so he became like him.  We do not
+require the Liber Conformitatum to teach us that the life of St. Francis
+was the true _Imitatio Christi_, a poem compared to which the book of
+that name is merely prose.
+
+Indeed, that is the charm about Christ, when all is said: he is just like
+a work of art.  He does not really teach one anything, but by being
+brought into his presence one becomes something.  And everybody is
+predestined to his presence.  Once at least in his life each man walks
+with Christ to Emmaus.
+
+As regards the other subject, the Relation of the Artistic Life to
+Conduct, it will no doubt seem strange to you that I should select it.
+People point to Reading Gaol and say, 'That is where the artistic life
+leads a man.'  Well, it might lead to worse places.  The more mechanical
+people to whom life is a shrewd speculation depending on a careful
+calculation of ways and means, always know where they are going, and go
+there.  They start with the ideal desire of being the parish beadle, and
+in whatever sphere they are placed they succeed in being the parish
+beadle and no more.  A man whose desire is to be something separate from
+himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a
+prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably
+succeeds in being what he wants to be.  That is his punishment.  Those
+who want a mask have to wear it.
+
+But with the dynamic forces of life, and those in whom those dynamic
+forces become incarnate, it is different.  People whose desire is solely
+for self-realisation never know where they are going.  They can't know.
+In one sense of the word it is of course necessary, as the Greek oracle
+said, to know oneself: that is the first achievement of knowledge.  But
+to recognise that the soul of a man is unknowable, is the ultimate
+achievement of wisdom.  The final mystery is oneself.  When one has
+weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and
+mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself.
+Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?  When the son went out to
+look for his father's asses, he did not know that a man of God was
+waiting for him with the very chrism of coronation, and that his own soul
+was already the soul of a king.
+
+I hope to live long enough and to produce work of such a character that I
+shall be able at the end of my days to say, 'Yes! this is just where the
+artistic life leads a man!'  Two of the most perfect lives I have come
+across in my own experience are the lives of Verlaine and of Prince
+Kropotkin: both of them men who have passed years in prison: the first,
+the one Christian poet since Dante; the other, a man with a soul of that
+beautiful white Christ which seems coming out of Russia.  And for the
+last seven or eight months, in spite of a succession of great troubles
+reaching me from the outside world almost without intermission, I have
+been placed in direct contact with a new spirit working in this prison
+through man and things, that has helped me beyond any possibility of
+expression in words: so that while for the first year of my imprisonment
+I did nothing else, and can remember doing nothing else, but wring my
+hands in impotent despair, and say, 'What an ending, what an appalling
+ending!' now I try to say to myself, and sometimes when I am not
+torturing myself do really and sincerely say, 'What a beginning, what a
+wonderful beginning!'  It may really be so.  It may become so.  If it
+does I shall owe much to this new personality that has altered every
+man's life in this place.
+
+You may realise it when I say that had I been released last May, as I
+tried to be, I would have left this place loathing it and every official
+in it with a bitterness of hatred that would have poisoned my life.  I
+have had a year longer of imprisonment, but humanity has been in the
+prison along with us all, and now when I go out I shall always remember
+great kindnesses that I have received here from almost everybody, and on
+the day of my release I shall give many thanks to many people, and ask to
+be remembered by them in turn.
+
+The prison style is absolutely and entirely wrong.  I would give anything
+to be able to alter it when I go out.  I intend to try.  But there is
+nothing in the world so wrong but that the spirit of humanity, which is
+the spirit of love, the spirit of the Christ who is not in churches, may
+make it, if not right, at least possible to be borne without too much
+bitterness of heart.
+
+I know also that much is waiting for me outside that is very delightful,
+from what St. Francis of Assisi calls 'my brother the wind, and my sister
+the rain,' lovely things both of them, down to the shop-windows and
+sunsets of great cities.  If I made a list of all that still remains to
+me, I don't know where I should stop: for, indeed, God made the world
+just as much for me as for any one else.  Perhaps I may go out with
+something that I had not got before.  I need not tell you that to me
+reformations in morals are as meaningless and vulgar as Reformations in
+theology.  But while to propose to be a better man is a piece of
+unscientific cant, to have become a deeper man is the privilege of those
+who have suffered.  And such I think I have become.
+
+If after I am free a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me
+to it, I should not mind a bit.  I can be perfectly happy by myself.  With
+freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?
+Besides, feasts are not for me any more.  I have given too many to care
+about them.  That side of life is over for me, very fortunately, I dare
+say.  But if after I am free a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to
+allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly.  If he shut the
+doors of the house of mourning against me, I would come back again and
+again and beg to be admitted, so that I might share in what I was
+entitled to share in.  If he thought me unworthy, unfit to weep with him,
+I should feel it as the most poignant humiliation, as the most terrible
+mode in which disgrace could be inflicted on me.  But that could not be.
+I have a right to share in sorrow, and he who can look at the loveliness
+of the world and share its sorrow, and realise something of the wonder of
+both, is in immediate contact with divine things, and has got as near to
+God's secret as any one can get.
+
+Perhaps there may come into my art also, no less than into my life, a
+still deeper note, one of greater unity of passion, and directness of
+impulse.  Not width but intensity is the true aim of modern art.  We are
+no longer in art concerned with the type.  It is with the exception that
+we have to do.  I cannot put my sufferings into any form they took, I
+need hardly say.  Art only begins where Imitation ends, but something
+must come into my work, of fuller memory of words perhaps, of richer
+cadences, of more curious effects, of simpler architectural order, of
+some aesthetic quality at any rate.
+
+When Marsyas was 'torn from the scabbard of his limbs'--_della vagina
+della membre sue_, to use one of Dante's most terrible Tacitean
+phrases--he had no more song, the Greek said.  Apollo had been victor.
+The lyre had vanquished the reed.  But perhaps the Greeks were mistaken.
+I hear in much modern Art the cry of Marsyas.  It is bitter in
+Baudelaire, sweet and plaintive in Lamartine, mystic in Verlaine.  It is
+in the deferred resolutions of Chopin's music.  It is in the discontent
+that haunts Burne-Jones's women.  Even Matthew Arnold, whose song of
+Callicles tells of 'the triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre,' and the
+'famous final victory,' in such a clear note of lyrical beauty, has not a
+little of it; in the troubled undertone of doubt and distress that haunts
+his verses, neither Goethe nor Wordsworth could help him, though he
+followed each in turn, and when he seeks to mourn for _Thyrsis_ or to
+sing of the _Scholar Gipsy_, it is the reed that he has to take for the
+rendering of his strain.  But whether or not the Phrygian Faun was
+silent, I cannot be.  Expression is as necessary to me as leaf and
+blossoms are to the black branches of the trees that show themselves
+above the prison walls and are so restless in the wind.  Between my art
+and the world there is now a wide gulf, but between art and myself there
+is none.  I hope at least that there is none.
+
+To each of us different fates are meted out.  My lot has been one of
+public infamy, of long imprisonment, of misery, of ruin, of disgrace, but
+I am not worthy of it--not yet, at any rate.  I remember that I used to
+say that I thought I could bear a real tragedy if it came to me with
+purple pall and a mask of noble sorrow, but that the dreadful thing about
+modernity was that it put tragedy into the raiment of comedy, so that the
+great realities seemed commonplace or grotesque or lacking in style.  It
+is quite true about modernity.  It has probably always been true about
+actual life.  It is said that all martyrdoms seemed mean to the looker
+on.  The nineteenth century is no exception to the rule.
+
+Everything about my tragedy has been hideous, mean, repellent, lacking in
+style; our very dress makes us grotesque.  We are the zanies of sorrow.
+We are clowns whose hearts are broken.  We are specially designed to
+appeal to the sense of humour.  On November 13th, 1895, I was brought
+down here from London.  From two o'clock till half-past two on that day I
+had to stand on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in convict dress,
+and handcuffed, for the world to look at.  I had been taken out of the
+hospital ward without a moment's notice being given to me.  Of all
+possible objects I was the most grotesque.  When people saw me they
+laughed.  Each train as it came up swelled the audience.  Nothing could
+exceed their amusement.  That was, of course, before they knew who I was.
+As soon as they had been informed they laughed still more.  For half an
+hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering mob.
+
+For a year after that was done to me I wept every day at the same hour
+and for the same space of time.  That is not such a tragic thing as
+possibly it sounds to you.  To those who are in prison tears are a part
+of every day's experience.  A day in prison on which one does not weep is
+a day on which one's heart is hard, not a day on which one's heart is
+happy.
+
+Well, now I am really beginning to feel more regret for the people who
+laughed than for myself.  Of course when they saw me I was not on my
+pedestal, I was in the pillory.  But it is a very unimaginative nature
+that only cares for people on their pedestals.  A pedestal may be a very
+unreal thing.  A pillory is a terrific reality.  They should have known
+also how to interpret sorrow better.  I have said that behind sorrow
+there is always sorrow.  It were wiser still to say that behind sorrow
+there is always a soul.  And to mock at a soul in pain is a dreadful
+thing.  In the strangely simple economy of the world people only get what
+they give, and to those who have not enough imagination to penetrate the
+mere outward of things, and feel pity, what pity can be given save that
+of scorn?
+
+I write this account of the mode of my being transferred here simply that
+it should be realised how hard it has been for me to get anything out of
+my punishment but bitterness and despair.  I have, however, to do it, and
+now and then I have moments of submission and acceptance.  All the spring
+may be hidden in the single bud, and the low ground nest of the lark may
+hold the joy that is to herald the feet of many rose-red dawns.  So
+perhaps whatever beauty of life still remains to me is contained in some
+moment of surrender, abasement, and humiliation.  I can, at any rate,
+merely proceed on the lines of my own development, and, accepting all
+that has happened to me, make myself worthy of it.
+
+People used to say of me that I was too individualistic.  I must be far
+more of an individualist than ever I was.  I must get far more out of
+myself than ever I got, and ask far less of the world than ever I asked.
+Indeed, my ruin came not from too great individualism of life, but from
+too little.  The one disgraceful, unpardonable, and to all time
+contemptible action of my life was to allow myself to appeal to society
+for help and protection.  To have made such an appeal would have been
+from the individualist point of view bad enough, but what excuse can
+there ever be put forward for having made it?  Of course once I had put
+into motion the forces of society, society turned on me and said, 'Have
+you been living all this time in defiance of my laws, and do you now
+appeal to those laws for protection?  You shall have those laws exercised
+to the full.  You shall abide by what you have appealed to.'  The result
+is I am in gaol.  Certainly no man ever fell so ignobly, and by such
+ignoble instruments, as I did.
+
+The Philistine element in life is not the failure to understand art.
+Charming people, such as fishermen, shepherds, ploughboys, peasants and
+the like, know nothing about art, and are the very salt of the earth.  He
+is the Philistine who upholds and aids the heavy, cumbrous, blind,
+mechanical forces of society, and who does not recognise dynamic force
+when he meets it either in a man or a movement.
+
+People thought it dreadful of me to have entertained at dinner the evil
+things of life, and to have found pleasure in their company.  But then,
+from the point of view through which I, as an artist in life, approach
+them they were delightfully suggestive and stimulating.  The danger was
+half the excitement. . . . My business as an artist was with Ariel.  I
+set myself to wrestle with Caliban. . . .
+
+A great friend of mine--a friend of ten years' standing--came to see me
+some time ago, and told me that he did not believe a single word of what
+was said against me, and wished me to know that he considered me quite
+innocent, and the victim of a hideous plot.  I burst into tears at what
+he said, and told him that while there was much amongst the definite
+charges that was quite untrue and transferred to me by revolting malice,
+still that my life had been full of perverse pleasures, and that unless
+he accepted that as a fact about me and realised it to the full I could
+not possibly be friends with him any more, or ever be in his company.  It
+was a terrible shock to him, but we are friends, and I have not got his
+friendship on false pretences.
+
+Emotional forces, as I say somewhere in _Intentions_, are as limited in
+extent and duration as the forces of physical energy.  The little cup
+that is made to hold so much can hold so much and no more, though all the
+purple vats of Burgundy be filled with wine to the brim, and the treaders
+stand knee-deep in the gathered grapes of the stony vineyards of Spain.
+There is no error more common than that of thinking that those who are
+the causes or occasions of great tragedies share in the feelings suitable
+to the tragic mood: no error more fatal than expecting it of them.  The
+martyr in his 'shirt of flame' may be looking on the face of God, but to
+him who is piling the faggots or loosening the logs for the blast the
+whole scene is no more than the slaying of an ox is to the butcher, or
+the felling of a tree to the charcoal burner in the forest, or the fall
+of a flower to one who is mowing down the grass with a scythe.  Great
+passions are for the great of soul, and great events can be seen only by
+those who are on a level with them.
+
+* * * * *
+
+I know of nothing in all drama more incomparable from the point of view
+of art, nothing more suggestive in its subtlety of observation, than
+Shakespeare's drawing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  They are Hamlet's
+college friends.  They have been his companions.  They bring with them
+memories of pleasant days together.  At the moment when they come across
+him in the play he is staggering under the weight of a burden intolerable
+to one of his temperament.  The dead have come armed out of the grave to
+impose on him a mission at once too great and too mean for him.  He is a
+dreamer, and he is called upon to act.  He has the nature of the poet,
+and he is asked to grapple with the common complexity of cause and
+effect, with life in its practical realisation, of which he knows
+nothing, not with life in its ideal essence, of which he knows so much.
+He has no conception of what to do, and his folly is to feign folly.
+Brutus used madness as a cloak to conceal the sword of his purpose, the
+dagger of his will, but the Hamlet madness is a mere mask for the hiding
+of weakness.  In the making of fancies and jests he sees a chance of
+delay.  He keeps playing with action as an artist plays with a theory.  He
+makes himself the spy of his proper actions, and listening to his own
+words knows them to be but 'words, words, words.'  Instead of trying to
+be the hero of his own history, he seeks to be the spectator of his own
+tragedy.  He disbelieves in everything, including himself, and yet his
+doubt helps him not, as it comes not from scepticism but from a divided
+will.
+
+Of all this Guildenstern and Rosencrantz realise nothing.  They bow and
+smirk and smile, and what the one says the other echoes with sickliest
+intonation.  When, at last, by means of the play within the play, and the
+puppets in their dalliance, Hamlet 'catches the conscience' of the King,
+and drives the wretched man in terror from his throne, Guildenstern and
+Rosencrantz see no more in his conduct than a rather painful breach of
+Court etiquette.  That is as far as they can attain to in 'the
+contemplation of the spectacle of life with appropriate emotions.'  They
+are close to his very secret and know nothing of it.  Nor would there be
+any use in telling them.  They are the little cups that can hold so much
+and no more.  Towards the close it is suggested that, caught in a cunning
+spring set for another, they have met, or may meet, with a violent and
+sudden death.  But a tragic ending of this kind, though touched by
+Hamlet's humour with something of the surprise and justice of comedy, is
+really not for such as they.  They never die.  Horatio, who in order to
+'report Hamlet and his cause aright to the unsatisfied,'
+
+   'Absents him from felicity a while,
+   And in this harsh world draws his breath in pain,'
+
+dies, but Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are as immortal as Angelo and
+Tartuffe, and should rank with them.  They are what modern life has
+contributed to the antique ideal of friendship.  He who writes a new _De
+Amicitia_ must find a niche for them, and praise them in Tusculan prose.
+They are types fixed for all time.  To censure them would show 'a lack of
+appreciation.'  They are merely out of their sphere: that is all.  In
+sublimity of soul there is no contagion.  High thoughts and high emotions
+are by their very existence isolated.
+
+* * * * *
+
+I am to be released, if all goes well with me, towards the end of May,
+and hope to go at once to some little sea-side village abroad with R---
+and M---.
+
+The sea, as Euripides says in one of his plays about Iphigeneia, washes
+away the stains and wounds of the world.
+
+I hope to be at least a month with my friends, and to gain peace and
+balance, and a less troubled heart, and a sweeter mood.  I have a strange
+longing for the great simple primeval things, such as the sea, to me no
+less of a mother than the Earth.  It seems to me that we all look at
+Nature too much, and live with her too little.  I discern great sanity in
+the Greek attitude.  They never chattered about sunsets, or discussed
+whether the shadows on the grass were really mauve or not.  But they saw
+that the sea was for the swimmer, and the sand for the feet of the
+runner.  They loved the trees for the shadow that they cast, and the
+forest for its silence at noon.  The vineyard-dresser wreathed his hair
+with ivy that he might keep off the rays of the sun as he stooped over
+the young shoots, and for the artist and the athlete, the two types that
+Greece gave us, they plaited with garlands the leaves of the bitter
+laurel and of the wild parsley, which else had been of no service to men.
+
+We call ours a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single
+thing.  We have forgotten that water can cleanse, and fire purify, and
+that the Earth is mother to us all.  As a consequence our art is of the
+moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is of the sun and deals
+directly with things.  I feel sure that in elemental forces there is
+purification, and I want to go back to them and live in their presence.
+
+Of course to one so modern as I am, 'Enfant de mon siecle,' merely to
+look at the world will be always lovely.  I tremble with pleasure when I
+think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the
+lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir
+into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss
+the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for
+me.  Linnaeus fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the
+first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the
+tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to
+whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of
+some rose.  It has always been so with me from my boyhood.  There is not
+a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a
+shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my
+nature does not answer.  Like Gautier, I have always been one of those
+'pour qui le monde visible existe.'
+
+Still, I am conscious now that behind all this beauty, satisfying though
+it may be, there is some spirit hidden of which the painted forms and
+shapes are but modes of manifestation, and it is with this spirit that I
+desire to become in harmony.  I have grown tired of the articulate
+utterances of men and things.  The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life,
+the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for.  It is absolutely
+necessary for me to find it somewhere.
+
+All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences
+of death; and three times have I been tried.  The first time I left the
+box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the house of
+detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years.  Society,
+as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer;
+but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have
+clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence
+I may weep undisturbed.  She will hang the night with stars so that I may
+walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my
+footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in
+great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHIP, OF THE FLYING U
+
+By B. M. Bower (B. M. Sinclair)
+
+
+AUTHOR OF “The Lure of the Dim Trails,” “Her Prairie Knight,” “The
+Lonesome Trail,” etc.
+
+Illustrations by CHARLES M. RUSSELL
+
+
+
+LIST OF CONTENTS
+
+
+     I      The Old Man's Sister
+     II     Over the “Hog's Back”
+      III    Silver
+     IV     An Ideal Picture
+     V      In Silver's Stall
+     VI     The Hum of Preparation
+     VII    Love and a Stomach Pump
+     VIII   Prescriptions
+     IX     Before the Round-up
+     X      What Whizzer Did
+     XI     Good Intentions
+     XII    “The Last Stand”
+      XIII   Art Critics
+     XIV    Convalescence
+     XV     The Spoils of Victory
+     XVI    Weary Advises
+     XVII   When a Maiden Wills
+     XVIII  Dr Cecil Granthum
+     XIX    Love Finds Its Hour
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Came down with not a joint in his legs and turned a somersault
+
+“The Last Stand.”
+
+Throwing herself from the saddle she slid precipitately into the
+washout, just as Denver thundered up
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. -- The Old Man's Sister.
+
+
+
+The weekly mail had just arrived at the Flying U ranch. Shorty, who had
+made the trip to Dry Lake on horseback that afternoon, tossed the bundle
+to the “Old Man” and was halfway to the stable when he was called back
+peremptorily.
+
+“Shorty! O-h-h, Shorty! Hi!”
+
+Shorty kicked his steaming horse in the ribs and swung round in the
+path, bringing up before the porch with a jerk.
+
+“Where's this letter been?” demanded the Old Man, with some excitement.
+James G. Whitmore, cattleman, would have been greatly surprised had
+he known that his cowboys were in the habit of calling him the Old Man
+behind his back. James G. Whitmore did not consider himself old, though
+he was constrained to admit, after several hours in the saddle, that
+rheumatism had searched him out--because of his fourteen years of
+roughing it, he said. Also, there was a place on the crown of his head
+where the hair was thin, and growing thinner every day of his life,
+though he did not realize it. The thin spot showed now as he stood in
+the path, waving a square envelope aloft before Shorty, who regarded it
+with supreme indifference.
+
+Not so Shorty's horse. He rolled his eyes till the whites showed,
+snorted and backed away from the fluttering, white object.
+
+“Doggone it, where's this been?” reiterated James G., accusingly.
+
+“How the devil do I know?” retorted Shorty, forcing his horse nearer.
+“In the office, most likely. I got it with the rest to-day.”
+
+“It's two weeks old,” stormed the Old Man. “I never knew it to fail--if
+a letter says anybody's coming, or you're to hurry up and go somewhere
+to meet somebody, that letter's the one that monkeys around and comes
+when the last dog's hung. A letter asking yuh if yuh don't want to get
+rich in ten days sellin' books, or something, 'll hike along out here in
+no time. Doggone it!”
+
+“You got a hurry-up order to go somewhere?” queried Shorty, mildly
+sympathetic.
+
+“Worse than that,” groaned James G. “My sister's coming out to spend the
+summer--t'-morrow. And no cook but Patsy--and she can't eat in the mess
+house--and the house like a junk shop!”
+
+“It looks like you was up against it, all right,” grinned Shorty. Shorty
+was a sort of foreman, and was allowed much freedom of speech.
+
+“Somebody's got to meet her--you have Chip catch up the creams so he can
+go. And send some of the boys up here to help me hoe out a little. Dell
+ain't used to roughing it; she's just out of a medical school--got her
+diploma, she was telling me in the last letter before this. She'll be
+finding microbes by the million in this old shack. You tell Patsy I'll
+be late to supper--and tell him to brace up and cook something ladies
+like--cake and stuff. Patsy'll know. I'd give a dollar to get that
+little runt in the office--”
+
+But Shorty, having heard all that it was important to know, was
+clattering down the long slope again to the stable. It was supper time,
+and Shorty was hungry. Also, there was news to tell, and he was curious
+to see how the boys would take it. He was just turning loose the horse
+when supper was called. He hurried back up the hill to the mess house,
+performed hasty ablutions in the tin wash basin on the bench beside the
+door, scrubbed his face dry on the roller towel, and took his place at
+the long table within.
+
+“Any mail for me?” Jack Bates looked up from emptying the third spoon of
+sugar into his coffee.
+
+“Naw--she didn't write this time, Jack.” Shorty reached a long arm for
+the “Mulligan stew.”
+
+“How's the dance coming on?” asked Cal Emmett.
+
+“I guess it's a go, all right. They've got them coons engaged to play.
+The hotel's fixing for a big crowd, if the weather holds like this.
+Chip, Old Man wants you to catch up the creams, after supper; you've got
+to meet the train to-morrow.”
+
+“Which train?” demanded Chip, looking up. “Is old Dunk coming?”
+
+“The noon train. No, he didn't say nothing about Dunk. He wants a bunch
+of you fellows to go up and hoe out the White House and slick it up for
+comp'ny--got to be done t'-night. And Patsy, Old Man says for you t' git
+a move on and cook something fit to eat; something that ain't plum full
+uh microbes.”
+
+Shorty became suddenly engaged in cooling his coffee, enjoying the
+varied emotions depicted on the faces of the boys.
+
+“Who's coming?”
+
+“What's up?”
+
+Shorty took two leisurely gulps before he answered:
+
+“Old Man's sister's coming out to stay all summer--and then some, maybe.
+Be here to-morrow, he said.”
+
+“Gee whiz! Is she pretty?” This from Cal Emmett.
+
+“Hope she ain't over fifty.” This from Jack Bates.
+
+“Hope she ain't one of them four-eyed school-ma'ams,” added Happy
+Jack--so called to distinguish him from Jack Bates, and also because of
+his dolorous visage.
+
+“Why can't some one else haul her out?” began Chip. “Cal would like that
+job--and he's sure welcome to it.”
+
+“Cal's too dangerous. He'd have the old girl dead in love before he got
+her over the first ridge, with them blue eyes and that pretty smile of
+his'n. It's up to you, Splinter--Old Man said so.”
+
+“She'll be dead safe with Chip. HE won't make love to her,” retorted
+Cal.
+
+“Wonder how old she is,” repeated Jack Bates, half emptying the syrup
+pitcher into his plate. Patsy had hot biscuits for supper, and Jack's
+especial weakness was hot biscuits and maple syrup.
+
+“As to her age,” remarked Shorty, “it's a cinch she ain't no spring
+chicken, seeing she's the Old Man's sister.”
+
+“Is she a schoolma'am?” Happy Jack's distaste for schoolma'ams dated
+from his tempestuous introduction to the A B C's, with their daily
+accompaniment of a long, thin ruler.
+
+“No, she ain't a schoolma'am. She's a darn sight worse. She's a doctor.”
+
+“Aw, come off!” Cal Emmett was plainly incredulous.
+
+“That's right. Old Man said she's just finished taking a course uh
+medicine--what'd yuh call that?”
+
+“Consumption, maybe--or snakes.” Weary smiled blandly across the table.
+
+“She got a diploma, though. Now where do you get off at?”
+
+“Yeah--that sure means she's a doctor,” groaned Cal.
+
+“By golly, she needn't try t' pour any dope down ME,” cried a short, fat
+man who took life seriously--a man they called Slim, in fine irony.
+
+“Gosh, I'd like to give her a real warm reception,” said Jack Bates, who
+had a reputation for mischief. “I know them Eastern folks, down t' the
+ground. They think cow-punchers wear horns. Yes, they do. They think
+we're holy terrors that eat with our six-guns beside our plates--and
+the like of that. They make me plum tired. I'd like to--wish we knew her
+brand.”
+
+“I can tell you that,” said Chip, cynically. “There's just two bunches
+to choose from. There's the Sweet Young Things, that faint away at sight
+of a six-shooter, and squawk and catch at your arm if they see a garter
+snake, and blush if you happen to catch their eye suddenly, and cry if
+you don't take off your hat every time you see them a mile off.” Chip
+held out his cup for Patsy to refill.
+
+“Yeah--I've run up against that brand--and they're sure all right. They
+suit ME,” remarked Cal.
+
+“That don't seem to line up with the doctor's diploma,” commented Weary.
+
+“Well, she's the other kind then--and if she is, the Lord have mercy on
+the Flying U! She'll buy her some spurs and try to rope and cut out and
+help brand. Maybe she'll wear double-barreled skirts and ride a man's
+saddle and smoke cigarettes. She'll try to go the men one better in
+everything, and wind up by making a darn fool of herself. Either kind's
+bad enough.”
+
+“I'll bet she don't run in either bunch,” began Weary. “I'll bet she's
+a skinny old maid with a peaked nose and glasses, that'll round us up
+every Sunday and read tracts at our heads, and come down on us with both
+feet about tobacco hearts and whisky livers, and the evils and devils
+wrapped up in a cigarette paper. I seen a woman doctor, once--she was
+stopping at the T Down when I was line-riding for them--and say, she was
+a holy fright! She had us fellows going South before a week. I stampeded
+clean off the range, soon as my month was up.”
+
+“Say,” interrupted Cal, “don't yuh remember that picture the Old Man got
+last fall, of his sister? She was the image of the Old Man--and mighty
+near as old.”
+
+Chip, thinking of the morrow's drive, groaned in real anguish of spirit.
+
+“You won't dast t' roll a cigarette comin' home, Chip,” predicted Happy
+Jack, mournfully. “Yuh want t' smoke double goin' in.”
+
+“I don't THINK I'll smoke double going in,” returned Chip, dryly. “If
+the old girl don't like my style, why the walking isn't all taken up.”
+
+“Say, Chip,” suggested Jack Bates, “you size her up at the depot, and,
+if she don't look promising, just slack the lines on Antelope Hill. The
+creams 'll do the rest. If they don't, we'll finish the job here.”
+
+Shorty tactfully pushed back his chair and rose. “You fellows don't
+want to git too gay,” he warned. “The Old Man's just beginning to forget
+about the calf-shed deal.” Then he went out and shut the door after him.
+The boys liked Shorty; he believed in the old adage about wisdom being
+bliss at certain times, and the boys were all the better for his
+living up to his belief. He knew the Happy Family would stop inside the
+limit--at least, they always had, so far.
+
+“What's the game?” demanded Cal, when the door closed behind their
+indulgent foreman.
+
+“Why, it's this. (Pass the syrup, Happy.) T'morrow's Sunday, so we'll
+have time t' burn. We'll dig up all the guns we can find, and catch
+up the orneriest cayuses in our strings, and have a real, old lynching
+bee--sabe?”
+
+“Who yuh goin' t' hang?” asked Slim, apprehensively. “Yuh needn't think
+I'LL stand for it.”
+
+“Aw, don't get nervous. There ain't power enough on the ranch t' pull
+yuh clear of the ground. We ain't going to build no derrick,” said Jack,
+witheringly. “We'll have a dummy rigged up in the bunk house. When Chip
+and the doctor heave in sight on top of the grade, we'll break loose
+down here with our bronks and our guns, and smoke up the ranch in style.
+We'll drag out Mr. Strawman, and lynch him to the big gate before they
+get along. We'll be 'riddling him with bullets' when they arrive--and
+by that time she'll be so rattled she won't know whether it's a man or a
+mule we've got strung up.”
+
+“You'll have to cut down your victim before I get there,” grinned Chip.
+“I never could get the creams through the gate, with a man hung to the
+frame; they'd spill us into the washout by the old shed, sure as fate.”
+
+“That'd be all right. The old maid would sure know she was out West--we
+need something to add to the excitement, anyway.”
+
+“If the Old Man's new buggy is piled in a heap, you'll wish you had cut
+out some of the excitement,” retorted Chip.
+
+“All right, Splinter. We won't hang him there at all. That old
+cottonwood down by the creek would do fine. It'll curdle her blood like
+Dutch cheese to see us marching him down there--and she can't see the
+hay sticking out of his sleeves, that far off.”
+
+“What if she wants to hold an autopsy?” bantered Chip.
+
+“By golly, we'll stake her to a hay knife and tell her to go after him!”
+ cried Slim, suddenly waking up to the situation.
+
+The noon train slid away from the little, red depot at Dry Lake and
+curled out of sight around a hill. The only arrival looked expectantly
+into the cheerless waiting room, gazed after the train, which seemed the
+last link between her and civilization, and walked to the edge of the
+platform with a distinct frown upon the bit of forehead visible under
+her felt hat.
+
+A fat young man threw the mail sack into a weather-beaten buggy and
+drove leisurely down the track to the post office. The girl watched
+him out of sight and sighed disconsolately. All about her stretched the
+rolling grass land, faintly green in the hollows, brownly barren on the
+hilltops. Save the water tank and depot, not a house was to be seen, and
+the silence and loneliness oppressed her.
+
+The agent was dragging some boxes off the platform. She turned and
+walked determinedly up to him, and the agent became embarrassed under
+her level look.
+
+“Isn't there anyone here to meet me?” she demanded, quite needlessly.
+“I am Miss Whitmore, and my brother owns a ranch, somewhere near here.
+I wrote him, two weeks ago, that I was coming, and I certainly expected
+him to meet me.” She tucked a wind-blown lock of brown hair under her
+hat crown and looked at the agent reproachfully, as if he were to blame,
+and the agent, feeling suddenly that somehow the fault was his, blushed
+guiltily and kicked at a box of oranges.
+
+“Whitmore's rig is in town,” he said, hastily. “I saw his man at dinner.
+The train was reported late, but she made up time.” Grasping desperately
+at his dignity, he swallowed an abject apology and retreated into the
+office.
+
+Miss Whitmore followed him a few steps, thought better of it, and paced
+the platform self-pityingly for ten minutes, at the end of which the
+Flying U rig whirled up in a cloud of dust, and the agent hurried out
+to help with the two trunks, and the mandolin and guitar in their canvas
+cases.
+
+The creams circled fearsomely up to the platform and stood quivering
+with eagerness to be off, their great eyes rolling nervously. Miss
+Whitmore took her place beside Chip with some inward trepidation mingled
+with her relief. When they were quite ready and the reins loosened
+suggestively, Pet stood upon her hind feet with delight and Polly lunged
+forward precipitately.
+
+The girl caught her breath, and Chip eyed her sharply from the corner
+of his eye. He hoped she was not going to scream--he detested screaming
+women. She looked young to be a doctor, he decided, after that lightning
+survey. He hoped to goodness she wasn't of the Sweet Young Thing order;
+he had no patience with that sort of woman. Truth to tell, he had no
+patience with ANY sort of woman.
+
+He spoke to the horses authoritatively, and they obeyed and settled to
+a long, swinging trot that knew no weariness, and the girl's heart
+returned to its normal action.
+
+Two miles were covered in swift silence, then Miss Whitmore brought
+herself to think of the present and realized that the young man beside
+her had not opened his lips except to speak once to his team. She turned
+her head and regarded him curiously, and Chip, feeling the scrutiny,
+grew inwardly defiant.
+
+Miss Whitmore decided, after a close inspection, that she rather liked
+his looks, though he did not strike her as a very amiable young man.
+Perhaps she was a bit tired of amiable young men. His face was thin,
+and refined, and strong--the strength of level brows, straight nose
+and square chin, with a pair of paradoxical lips, which were curved
+and womanish in their sensitiveness; the refinement was an intangible
+expression which belonged to no particular feature but pervaded the
+whole face. As to his eyes, she was left to speculate upon their color,
+since she had not seen them, but she reflected that many a girl would
+give a good deal to own his lashes.
+
+Of a sudden he turned his eyes from the trail and met her look squarely.
+If he meant to confuse her, he failed--for she only smiled and said to
+herself: “They're hazel.”
+
+“Don't you think we ought to introduce ourselves?” she asked,
+composedly, when she was quite sure the eyes were not brown.
+
+“Maybe.” Chip's tone was neutrally polite.
+
+Miss Whitmore had suspected that he was painfully bashful, after the
+manner of country young men. She now decided that he was not; he was
+passively antagonistic.
+
+“Of course you know that I'm Della Whitmore,” she said.
+
+Chip carefully brushed a fly off Polly's flank with the whip.
+
+“I took it for granted. I was sent to meet a Miss Whitmore at the train,
+and I took the only lady in sight.”
+
+“You took the right one--but I'm not--I haven't the faintest idea who
+you are.”
+
+“My name is Claude Bennett, and I'm happy to make your acquaintance.”
+
+“I don't believe it--you don't look happy,” said Miss Whitmore, inwardly
+amused.
+
+“That's the proper thing to say when you've been introduced to a lady,”
+ remarked Chip, noncommittally, though his lips twitched at the corners.
+
+Miss Whitmore, finding no ready reply to this truthful statement,
+remarked, after a pause, that it was windy. Chip agreed that it was, and
+conversation languished.
+
+Miss Whitmore sighed and took to studying the landscape, which had
+become a succession of sharp ridges and narrow coulees, water-worn and
+bleak, with a purplish line of mountains off to the left. After several
+miles she spoke.
+
+“What is that animal over there? Do dogs wander over this wilderness
+alone?”
+
+Chip's eyes followed her pointing finger.
+
+“That's a coyote. I wish I could get a shot at him--they're an awful
+pest, out here, you know.” He looked longingly at the rifle under his
+feet. “If I thought you could hold the horses a minute--”
+
+“Oh, I can't! I--I'm not accustomed to horses--but I can shoot a
+little.”
+
+Chip gave her a quick, measuring glance. The coyote had halted and was
+squatting upon his haunches, his sharp nose pointed inquisitively toward
+them. Chip slowed the creams to a walk, raised the gun and laid it
+across his knees, threw a shell into position and adjusted the sight.
+
+“Here, you can try, if you like,” he said. “Whenever you're ready I'll
+stop. You had better stand up--I'll watch that you don't fall. Ready?
+Whoa, Pet!”
+
+Miss Whitmore did not much like the skepticism in his tone, but she
+stood up, took quick, careful aim and fired.
+
+Pet jumped her full length and reared, but Chip was watching for some
+such performance and had them well under control, even though he was
+compelled to catch Miss Whitmore from lurching backward upon her baggage
+behind the seat--which would have been bad for the guitar and mandolin,
+if not for the young woman.
+
+The coyote had sprung high in air, whirled dizzily and darted over the
+hill.
+
+“You hit him,” cried Chip, forgetting his prejudice for a moment. He
+turned the creams from the road, filled with the spirit of the chase.
+Miss Whitmore will long remember that mad dash over the hilltops and
+into the hollows, in which she could only cling to the rifle and to
+the seat as best she might, and hope that the driver knew what he was
+about--which he certainly did.
+
+“There he goes, sneaking down that coulee! He'll get into one of those
+washouts and hide, if we don't head him off. I'll drive around so you
+can get another shot at him,” cried Chip. He headed up the hill again
+until the coyote, crouching low, was fully revealed.
+
+“That's a fine shot. Throw another shell in, quick! You better kneel on
+the seat, this time--the horses know what's coming. Steady, Polly, my
+girl!”
+
+Miss Whitmore glanced down the hill, and then, apprehensively, at the
+creams, who were clanking their bits, wild-eyed and quivering. Only
+their master's familiar voice and firm grip on the reins held them there
+at all. Chip saw and interpreted the glance, somewhat contemptuously.
+
+“Oh, of course if you're AFRAID--”
+
+Miss Whitmore set her teeth savagely, knelt and fired, cutting the
+sentence short in his teeth and forcing his undivided attention to the
+horses, which showed a strong inclination to bolt.
+
+“I think I got him that time,” said she, nonchalantly, setting her hat
+straight--though Chip, with one of his quick glances, observed that she
+was rather white around the mouth.
+
+He brought the horses dexterously into the road and quieted them.
+
+“Aren't you going to get my coyote?” she ventured to ask.
+
+“Certainly. The road swings back, down that same coulee, and we'll
+pass right by it. Then I'll get out and pick him up, while you hold the
+horses.”
+
+“You'll hold those horses yourself,” returned Miss Whitmore, with
+considerable spirit. “I'd much rather pick up the coyote, thank you.”
+
+Chip said nothing to this, whatever he may have thought. He drove up to
+the coyote with much coaxing of Pet and Polly, who eyed the gray object
+askance. Miss Whitmore sprang out and seized the animal by its coarse,
+bushy tail.
+
+“Gracious, he's heavy!” she exclaimed, after one tug.
+
+“He's been fattening up on Flying U calves,” remarked Chip, his foot
+upon the brake.
+
+Miss Whitmore knelt and examined the cattle thief curiously.
+
+“Look,” she said, “here's where I hit him the first time; the bullet
+took a diagonal course from the shoulder back to the other side. It must
+have gone within an inch of his heart, and would have finished him in a
+short time, without that other shot--that penetrated his brain, you see;
+death was instantaneous.”
+
+Chip had taken advantage of the halt to roll a cigarette, holding the
+reins tightly between his knees while he did so. He passed the loose
+edge of the paper across the tip of his tongue, eying the young woman
+curiously the while.
+
+“You seem to be pretty well onto your job,” he remarked, dryly.
+
+“I ought to be,” she said, laughing a little. “I've been learning the
+trade ever since I was sixteen.”
+
+“Yes? You began early.”
+
+“My Uncle John is a doctor. I helped him in the office till he got
+me into the medical school. I was brought up in an atmosphere of
+antiseptics and learned all the bones in Uncle John's 'Boneparte'--the
+skeleton, you know--before I knew all my letters.” She dragged the
+coyote close to the wheel.
+
+“Let me get hold of the tail.” Chip carefully pinched out the blaze of
+his match and threw it away before he leaned over to help. With a quick
+lift he landed the animal, limp and bloody, squarely upon the top of
+Miss Whitmore's largest trunk. The pointed nose hung down the side, the
+white fangs exposed in a sinister grin. The girl gazed upon him proudly
+at first, then in dismay.
+
+“Oh, he's dripping blood all over my mandolin case--and I just know it
+won't come out!” She tugged frantically at the instrument.
+
+“'Out, damned spot!'” quoted Chip in a sepulchral tone before he turned
+to assist her.
+
+Miss Whitmore let go the mandolin and stared blankly up at him, and
+Chip, offended at her frank surprise that he should quote Shakespeare,
+shut his lips tightly and relapsed into silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. -- Over the “Hog's Back.”
+
+
+
+“That's Flying U ranch,” volunteered Chip, as they turned sharply to the
+right and began to descend a long grade built into the side of a steep,
+rocky bluff. Below them lay the ranch in a long, narrow coulee. Nearest
+them sprawled the house, low, white and roomy, with broad porches and
+wide windows; further down the coulee, at the base of a gentle slope,
+were the sheds, the high, round corrals and the haystacks. Great, board
+gates were distributed in seemingly useless profusion, while barbed wire
+fences stretched away in all directions. A small creek, bordered with
+cottonwoods and scraggly willows, wound aimlessly away down the coulee.
+
+“J. G. doesn't seem to have much method,” remarked Miss Whitmore, after
+a critical survey. “What are all those log cabins scattered down the
+hill for? They look as though J. G. had a handful that he didn't want,
+and just threw them down toward the stable and left them lying where
+they happened to fall.”
+
+“It does, all right,” conceded Chip. “They're the bunk house--where
+us fellows sleep--and the mess house, where we eat, and then come the
+blacksmith shop and a shack we keep all kinds of truck in, and--”
+
+“What--in--the world--”
+
+A chorus of shouts and shots arose from below. A scurrying group of
+horsemen burst over the hill behind the house, dashed half down the
+slope, and surrounded the bunk house with blood-curdling yells. Chip
+held the creams to a walk and furtively watched his companion. Miss
+Whitmore's eyes were very wide open; plainly, she was astonished beyond
+measure at the uproar. Whether she was also frightened, Chip could not
+determine.
+
+The menacing yells increased in volume till the very hills seemed to
+cower in fear. Miss Whitmore gasped when a limp form was dragged from
+the cabin and lifted to the back of a snorting pony.
+
+“They've got a rope around that man's neck,” she breathed, in a
+horrified half whisper. “Are--they--going to HANG him?”
+
+“It kinda looks that way, from here,” said Chip, inwardly ashamed. All
+at once it struck him as mean and cowardly to frighten a lady who had
+traveled far among strangers and who had that tired droop to her mouth.
+It wasn't a fair game; it was cheating. Only for his promise to the
+boys, he would have told her the truth then and there.
+
+Miss Whitmore was not a stupid young woman; his very indifference told
+her all that she needed to know. She tore her eyes from the confused
+jumble of gesticulating men and restive steeds to look sharply at Chip.
+He met her eyes squarely for an instant, and the horror oozed from her
+and left only amused chagrin that they should try to trick her so.
+
+“Hurry up,” she commanded, “so I can be in at the death. Remember, I'm a
+doctor. They're tying him to his horse--he looks half dead with fright.”
+
+Inwardly she added: “He overacts the part dreadfully.”
+
+The little cavalcade in the coulee fired a spectacular volley into the
+air and swept down the slope like a dry-weather whirlwind across a patch
+of alkali ground. Through the big gate and up the road past the stables
+they thundered, the prisoner bound and helpless in their midst.
+
+Then something happened. A wide-open River Press, flapping impotently in
+the embrace of a willow, caught the eye of Banjo, a little blaze--faced
+bay who bore the captive. He squatted, ducked backward so suddenly that
+his reins slipped from Slim's fingers and lowered his head between his
+white front feet. His rider seemed stupid beyond any that Banjo had ever
+known--and he had known many. Snorting and pitching, he was away
+before the valiant band realized what was happening in their midst. The
+prisoner swayed drunkenly in the saddle. At the third jump his hat flew
+off, disclosing the jagged end of a two-by-four.
+
+The Happy Family groaned as one man and gave chase.
+
+Banjo, with almost human maliciousness, was heading up the road straight
+toward Chip and the woman doctor--and she must be a poor doctor
+indeed, and a badly frightened one, withal, if she failed to observe a
+peculiarity in the horse thief's cranium.
+
+Cal Emmett dug his spurs into his horse and shot by Slim like a
+locomotive, shouting profanity as he went.
+
+“Head him into the creek,” yelled Happy Jack, and leaned low over the
+neck of his sorrel.
+
+Weary Willie stood up in his stirrups and fanned Glory with his hat.
+“Yip, yee--e-e! Go to it, Banjo, old boy! Watch his nibs ride, would
+yuh? He's a broncho buster from away back.” Weary Willie was the only
+man of them all who appeared to find any enjoyment in the situation.
+
+“If Chip only had the sense to slow up and give us a chance--or spill
+that old maid over the bank!” groaned Jack Bates, and plied whip and
+spur to overtake the runaway.
+
+Now the captive was riding dizzily, head downward, frightening Banjo
+half out of his senses. What he had started as a grim jest, he now
+continued in deadly earnest; what was this uncanny semblance of a
+cow-puncher which he could not unseat, yet which clung so precariously
+to the saddle? He had no thought now of bucking in pure devilment--he
+was galloping madly, his eyes wild and staring.
+
+Of a sudden, Chip saw danger lurking beneath the fun of it. He leaned
+forward a little, got a fresh grip on the reins and took the whip.
+
+“Hang tight, now--I'm going to beat that horse to the Hog's Back.”
+
+Miss Whitmore, laughing till the tears stood in her eyes, braced herself
+mechanically. Chip had been laughing also--but that was before Banjo
+struck into the hill road in his wild flight from the terror that rode
+in the saddle.
+
+A smart flick of the whip upon their glossy backs, and the creams sprang
+forward at a run. The buggy was new and strong, and if they kept the
+road all would be well--unless they met Banjo upon the narrow ridge
+between two broad-topped knolls, known as the Hog's Back. Another tap,
+and the creams ran like deer. One wheel struck a cobble stone, and the
+buggy lurched horribly.
+
+“Stop! There goes my coyote!” cried Miss Whitmore, as a gray object slid
+down under the hind wheel.
+
+“Hang on or you'll go next,” was all the comfort she got, as Chip braced
+himself for the struggle before him. The Hog's Back was reached, but
+Banjo was pounding up the hill beyond, his nostrils red and flaring, his
+sides reeking with perspiration. Behind him tore the Flying U boys in a
+vain effort to head him back into the coulee before mischief was done.
+
+Chip drew his breath sharply when the creams swerved out upon the broad
+hilltop, just as Banjo thundered past with nothing left of his rider but
+the legs, and with them shorn of their plumpness as the hay dribbled out
+upon the road.
+
+A fresh danger straightway forced itself upon Chip's consciousness.
+The creams, maddened by the excitement, were running away. He held
+them sternly to the road and left the stopping of them to Providence,
+inwardly thanking the Lord that Miss Whitmore did not seem to be the
+screaming kind of woman.
+
+The “vigilantes” drew hastily out of the road and scudded out of sight
+down a gully as the creams lunged down the steep grade and across the
+shallow creek bed. Fortunately the great gate by the stable swung wide
+open and they galloped through and up the long slope to the house,
+coming more under control at every leap, till, by a supreme effort, Chip
+brought them, panting, to a stand before the porch where the Old Man
+stood boiling over with anxiety and excitement. James G. Whitmore was
+not a man who took things calmly; had he been a woman he would have been
+called fussy.
+
+“What in--what was you making a race track out of the grade for,” he
+demanded, after he had bestowed a hasty kiss beside the nose of his
+sister.
+
+Chip dropped a heavy trunk upon the porch and reached for the guitar
+before he answered.
+
+“I was just trying those new springs on the buggy.”
+
+“It was very exciting,” commented Miss Whitmore, airily. “I shot a
+coyote, J. G., but we lost it coming down the hill. Your men were
+playing a funny game--hare and hounds, it looked like. Or were they
+breaking a new horse?”
+
+The Old Man looked at Chip, intelligence dawning in his face. There was
+something back of it all, he knew. He had been asleep when the uproar
+began, and had reached the door only in time to see the creams come down
+the grade like a daylight shooting star.
+
+“I guess they was breaking a bronk,” he said, carelessly; “you've got
+enough baggage for a trip round the world, Dell. I hope it ain't all
+dope for us poor devils. Tell Shorty I want t' see him, Chip.”
+
+Chip took the reins from the Old Man's hands, sprang in and drove back
+down the hill to the stables.
+
+
+The “reception committee,” as Chip sarcastically christened them,
+rounded up the runaway and sneaked back to the ranch by the coulee
+trail. With much unseemly language, they stripped the saddle and a
+flapping pair of overalls off poor, disgraced Banjo, and kicked him out
+of the corral.
+
+“That's the way Jack's schemes always pan out,” grumbled Slim. “By
+golly, yuh don't get me into another jackpot like that!”
+
+“You might explain why you let that” (several kinds of) “cayuse get
+away from you!” retorted Jack, fretfully. “If you'd been onto your job,
+things would have been smooth as silk.”
+
+“Wonder what the old maid thought,” broke in Weary, bent on preserving
+peace in the Happy Family.
+
+“I'll bet she never saw us at all!” laughed Cal. “Old Splinter gave
+her all she wanted to do, hanging to the rig. The way he came down that
+grade wasn't slow. He just missed running into Banjo on the Hog's Back
+by the skin of the teeth. If he had, it'd be good-by, doctor--and Chip,
+too. Gee, that was a close shave!”
+
+“Well,” said Happy Jack, mournfully, “if we don't all get the bounce for
+this, I miss my guess. It's a little the worst we've done yet.”
+
+“Except that time we tin-canned that stray steer, last winter,” amended
+Weary, chuckling over the remembrance as he fastened the big gate behind
+them.
+
+“Yes, that was another of Jack's fool schemes,” put in Slim. “Go and
+tin-can a four-year-old steer and let him take after the Old Man and
+put him on the calf shed, first pass he made. Old Man was sure hot about
+that--by golly, it didn't help his rheumatism none.”
+
+“He'll sure go straight in the air over this,” reiterated Happy Jack,
+with mournful conviction.
+
+“There's old Splinter at the bunk house--drawing our pictures, I'll bet
+a dollar. Hey, Chip! How you vas, already yet?” sung out Weary, whose
+sunny temper no calamity could sour.
+
+Chip glanced at them and went on cutting the leaves of a late magazine
+which he had purloined from the Dry Lake barber. Cal Emmett strode up
+and grabbed the limp, gray hat from his head and began using it for a
+football.
+
+“Here! Give that back!” commanded Chip, laughing. “DON'T make a dish rag
+of my new John B. Stetson, Cal. It won't be fit for the dance.”
+
+“Gee! It don't lack much of being a dish rag, now, if I'm any
+judge. Now! Great Scott!” He held it at arm's length and regarded it
+derisively.
+
+“Well, it was new two years ago,” explained Chip, making an ineffectual
+grab at it.
+
+Cal threw it to him and came and sat down upon his heels to peer over
+Chip's arm at the magazine.
+
+“How's the old maid doctor?” asked Jack Bates, leaning against the door
+while he rolled a cigarette.
+
+“Scared plum to death. I left the remains in the Old Man's arms.”
+
+“Was she scared, honest?” Cal left off studying the “Types of Fair
+Women.”
+
+“What did she say when we broke loose?” Jack drew a match sharply along
+a log.
+
+“Nothing. Well, yes, she said 'Are they going to H-A-N-G that man?'”
+ Chip's voice quavered the words in a shrill falsetto.
+
+“The deuce she did!” Jack indulged in a gratified laugh.
+
+“What did she say when you put the creams under the whip, up there? I
+don't suppose the old girl is wise to the fact that you saved her neck
+right then--but you sure did. You done yourself proud, Splinter.” Cal
+patted Chip's knee approvingly.
+
+Chip blushed under the praise and hastily answered the question.
+
+“She hollered out: 'Stop! There goes my COYOTE!'”
+
+“Her COYOTE?”
+
+“HER coyote?”
+
+“What the devil was she doing with a COYOTE?”
+
+The Happy Family stood transfixed, and Chip's eyes were seen to laugh.
+
+“HER COYOTE. Did any of you fellows happen to see a dead coyote up on
+the grade? Because if you did, it's the doctor's.”
+
+Weary Willie walked deliberately over and seized Chip by the shoulders,
+bringing him to his feet with one powerful yank.
+
+“Don't you try throwing any loads into THIS crowd, young man. Answer me
+truly-s'help yuh. How did that old maid come by a coyote--a dead one?”
+
+Chip squirmed loose and reached for his cigarette book. “She shot it,”
+ he said, calmly, but with twitching lips.
+
+“Shot it!” Five voices made up the incredulous echo.
+
+“What with?” demanded Weary when he got his breath.
+
+“With my rifle. I brought it out from town today. Bert Rogers had left
+it at the barber shop for me.”
+
+“Gee whiz! And them creams hating a gun like poison! She didn't shoot
+from the rig, did she?”
+
+“Yes,” said Chip, “she did. The first time she didn't know any
+better--and the second time she was hot at me for hinting she was
+scared. She's a spunky little devil, all right. She's busy hating me
+right now for running the grade--thinks I did it to scare her, I guess.
+That's all some fool women know.”
+
+“She's a howling sport, then!” groaned Cal, who much preferred the Sweet
+Young Things.
+
+“No--I sized her up as a maverick.”
+
+“What does she look like?”
+
+“How old is she?”
+
+“I never asked her age,” replied Chip, his face lighting briefly in a
+smile. “As to her looks, she isn't cross-eyed, and she isn't four-eyed.
+That's as much as I noticed.” After this bald lie he became busy with
+his cigarette. “Give me that magazine, Cal. I didn't finish cutting the
+leaves.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. -- Silver.
+
+
+
+Miss Della Whitmore gazed meditatively down the hill at the bunk house.
+The boys were all at work, she knew. She had heard J. G. tell two of
+them to “ride the sheep coulee fence,” and had been consumed with
+amazed curiosity at the order. Wherefore should two sturdy young men be
+commanded to ride a fence, when there were horses that assuredly needed
+exercise--judging by their antics--and needed it badly? She resolved to
+ask J. G. at the first opportunity.
+
+The others were down at the corrals, branding a few calves which
+belonged on the home ranch. She had announced her intention of going
+to look on, and her brother, knowing how the boys would regard her
+presence, had told her plainly that they did not want her. He said it
+was no place for girls, anyway. Then he had put on a very dirty pair of
+overalls and hurried down to help for he was not above lending a hand
+when there was extra work to be done.
+
+Miss Della Whitmore tidied the kitchen and dusted the sitting room,
+and then, having a pair of mischievously idle hands and a very feminine
+curiosity, conceived an irrepressible desire to inspect the bunk house.
+
+J. G. would tell her that, also, was no place for girls, she supposed,
+but J. G. was not present, so his opinion did not concern her. She had
+been at the Flying U ranch a whole week, and was beginning to feel that
+its resources for entertainment--aside from the masculine contingent,
+which held some promising material--were about exhausted. She had
+climbed the bluffs which hemmed the coulee on either side, had selected
+her own private saddle horse, a little sorrel named Concho, and had made
+friends with Patsy, the cook. She had dazzled Cal Emmett with her wiles
+and had found occasion to show Chip how little she thought of him; a
+highly unsatisfactory achievement, since Chip calmly over-looked her
+whenever common politeness permitted him.
+
+There yet remained the unexplored mystery of that little cabin down the
+slope, from which sounded so much boylike laughter of an evening. She
+watched and waited till she was positive the coast was clear, then
+clapped an old hat of J. G.'s upon her head and ran lightly down the
+hill.
+
+With her hand upon the knob, she ran her eye critically along the outer
+wall and decided that it had, at some remote date, been treated to a
+coat of whitewash; gave the knob a sudden twist, with a backward
+glance like a child stealing cookies, stepped in and came near falling
+headlong. She had not expected that remoteness of floor common to cabins
+built on a side hill.
+
+“Well!” She pulled herself together and looked curiously about her. What
+struck her at first was the total absence of bunks. There were a couple
+of plain, iron bedsteads and two wooden ones made of rough planks. There
+was a funny-looking table made of an inverted coffee box with legs of
+two-by-four, and littered with a characteristic collection of bachelor
+trinkets. There was a glass lamp with a badly smoked chimney, a pack of
+cards, a sack of smoking tobacco and a box of matches. There was a tin
+box with spools of very coarse thread, some equally coarse needles and a
+pair of scissors. There was also--and Miss Whitmore gasped when she saw
+it--a pile of much-read magazines with the latest number of her favorite
+upon the top. She went closer and examined them, and glanced around
+the room with doubting eyes. There were spurs, quirts, chaps and
+queer-looking bits upon the walls; there were cigarette stubs and
+burned matches innumerable upon the rough, board floor, and here in
+her hand--she turned the pages of her favorite abstractedly and a paper
+fluttered out and fell, face upward, on the floor. She stooped and
+recovered it, glanced and gasped.
+
+“Well!”
+
+It was only a pencil sketch done on cheap, unruled tablet paper, but
+her mind dissolved into a chaos of interrogation marks and exclamation
+points--with the latter predominating more and more the longer she
+looked.
+
+It showed blunt-topped hills and a shallow coulee which she remembered
+perfectly. In the foreground a young woman in a smart tailored costume,
+the accuracy of which was something amazing, stood proudly surveying
+a dead coyote at her feet. In a corner of the picture stood a
+weather-beaten stump with a long, thin splinter beside it on the ground.
+Underneath was written in characters beautifully symmetrical: “The old
+maid's credential card.”
+
+There was no gainsaying the likeness; even the rakish tilt of the jaunty
+felt hat, caused by the wind and that wild dash across country, was
+painstakingly reproduced. And the fanciful tucks on the sleeve of the
+gown--“and I didn't suppose he had deigned so much as a glance!” was her
+first coherent thought.
+
+Miss Whitmore's soul burned with resentment. No woman, even at
+twenty-three, loves to be called “the old maid”--especially by a
+keen-witted young man with square chin and lips with a pronounced curve
+to them. And whoever supposed the fellow could draw like that--and
+notice every tiny little detail without really looking once? Of course,
+she knew her hat was crooked, with the wind blowing one's head off,
+almost, but he had no business: “The old maid's credential card!”--“Old
+maid,” indeed!
+
+“The audacity of him!”
+
+“Beg pardon?”
+
+Miss Whitmore wheeled quickly, her heart in the upper part of her
+throat, judging by the feel of it. Chip himself stood just inside the
+door, eying her coldly.
+
+“I was not speaking,” said Miss Whitmore, haughtily, in futile denial.
+
+To this surprising statement Chip had nothing to say. He went to one of
+the iron beds, stooped and drew out a bundle which, had Miss Whitmore
+asked him what it was, he would probably have called his “war sack.” She
+did not ask; she stood and watched him, though her conscience assured
+her it was a dreadfully rude thing to do, and that her place was up at
+the house. Miss Whitmore was frequently at odds with her conscience;
+at this time she stood her ground, backed by her pride, which was her
+chiefest ally in such emergencies.
+
+When he drew a huge, murderous-looking revolver from its scabbard and
+proceeded calmly to insert cartridge after cartridge, Miss Whitmore was
+constrained to speech.
+
+“Are you--going to--SHOOT something?”
+
+The question struck them both as particularly inane, in view of his
+actions.
+
+“I am,” replied he, without looking up. He whirled the cylinder into
+place, pushed the bundle back under the bed and rose, polishing the
+barrel of the gun with a silk handkerchief.
+
+Miss Whitmore hoped he wasn't going to murder anyone; he looked keyed up
+to almost any desperate deed.
+
+“Who--what are you going to shoot?” Really, the question asked itself.
+
+Chip raised his eyes for a fleeting glance which took in the pencil
+sketch in her hand. Miss Whitmore observed that his eyes were much
+darker than hazel; they were almost black. And there was, strangely
+enough, not a particle of curve to his lips; they were thin, and
+straight, and stern.
+
+“Silver. He broke his leg.”
+
+“Oh!” There was real horror in her tone. Miss Whitmore knew all about
+Silver from garrulous Patsy. Chip had rescued a pretty, brown colt from
+starving on the range, had bought him of the owner, petted and cared for
+him until he was now one of the best saddle horses on the ranch. He was
+a dark chestnut, with beautiful white, crinkly mane and tail and white
+feet. Miss Whitmore had seen Chip riding him down the coulee trail only
+yesterday, and now--Her heart ached with the pity of it.
+
+“How did it happen?”
+
+“I don't know. He was in the little pasture. Got kicked, maybe.” Chip
+jerked open the door with a force greatly in excess of the need of it.
+
+Miss Whitmore started impulsively toward him. Her eyes were not quite
+clear.
+
+“Don't--not yet! Let me go. If it's a straight break I can set the bone
+and save him.”
+
+Chip, savage in his misery, regarded her over one square shoulder.
+
+“Are you a veterinary surgeon, may I ask?”
+
+Miss Whitmore felt her cheeks grow hot, but she stood her ground.
+
+“I am not. But a broken bone is a broken bone, whether it belongs to a
+man--or some OTHER beast!”
+
+“Y--e-s?”
+
+Chip's way of saying yes was one of his chief weapons of annihilation.
+He had a peculiar, taunting inflection which he could give to it, upon
+occasion, which caused prickles of flesh upon the victim. To say that
+Miss Whitmore was not utterly quenched argues well for her courage. She
+only gasped, as though treated to an unexpected dash of cold water, and
+went on.
+
+“I'm sure I might save him if you'd let me try. Or are you really eager
+to shoot him?”
+
+Chip's muscles shrank. Eager to shoot him--Silver, the only thing that
+loved and understood him?
+
+“You may come and look at him, if you like,” he said, after a breath or
+two.
+
+Miss Whitmore overlooked the tolerance of the tone and stepped to his
+side, mechanically clutching the sketch in her fingers. It was Chip,
+looking down at her from his extra foot of height, who called her
+attention to it.
+
+“Are you thinking of using that for a plaster?”
+
+Miss Whitmore started and blushed, then, with an uptilt of chin:
+
+“If I need a strong irritant, yes!” She calmly rolled the paper into a
+tiny tube and thrust it into the front of her pink shirt-waist for want
+of a pocket--and Chip, watching her surreptitiously, felt a queer grip
+in his chest, which he thought it best to set down as anger.
+
+Silently they hurried down where Silver lay, his beautiful, gleaming
+mane brushing the tender green of the young grass blades. He lifted his
+head when he heard Chip's step, and neighed wistfully. Chip bent over
+him, black agony in his eyes. Miss Whitmore, looking on, realized
+for the first time that the suffering of the horse was a mere trifle
+compared to that of his master. Her eyes wandered to the loaded revolver
+which bulged his pocket behind, and she shuddered--but not for Silver.
+She went closer and laid her hand upon the shimmery mane. The horse
+snorted nervously and struggled to rise.
+
+“He's not used to a woman,” said Chip, with a certain accent of pride.
+“I guess this is the closest he's ever been to one. You see, he's never
+had any one handle him but me.”
+
+“Then he certainly is no lady's horse,” said Miss Whitmore,
+good-naturedly. Somehow, in the last moment, her attitude toward Chip
+had changed considerably. “Try and make him let me feel the break.”
+
+With much coaxing and soothing words it was accomplished, and it did not
+take long, for it was a front leg, broken straight across, just above
+the fetlock. Miss Whitmore stood up and smiled into the young man's
+eyes, conscious of a desire to bring the curve back into his lips.
+
+“It's very simple,” she declared, cheerfully. “I know I can cure him. We
+had a colt at home with his leg broken the same way, and he was entirely
+cured--and doesn't even limp. Of course,” she added, honestly, “Uncle
+John doctored him--but I helped.”
+
+Chip drew the back of his gloved hand quickly across his eyes and
+swallowed.
+
+“Miss Whitmore--if you could save old Silver--”
+
+Miss Whitmore, the self-contained young medical graduate, blinked
+rapidly and found urgent need of tucking in wind-blown, brown locks,
+with her back to the tall cow-puncher who had unwittingly dropped his
+mask for an instant. She took off J. G.'s old hat, turned it clean
+around twice and put it back exactly as it was before; unless the tilt
+over her left ear was a trifle more pronounced. Show me the woman who
+can set a hat straight upon her head without aid of a mirror!
+
+“We must get him up from there and into a box stall. There is one, isn't
+there?”
+
+“Y--e-s--” Chip hesitated. “I wouldn't ask the Old--your brother, for
+the use of it, though; not even for Silver.”
+
+“I will,” returned she, promptly. “I never feel any compunction about
+asking for what I want--if I can't get it any other way. I can't
+understand why you wanted to shoot--you must have known this bone could
+be set.”
+
+“I didn't WANT to--” Chip bent over and drove a fly from Silver's
+shoulder. “When a horse belonging to the outfit gets crippled like that,
+he makes coyote bait. A forty-dollar cow-puncher can't expect any better
+for his own horse.”
+
+“He'll GET better, whatever he may expect. I'm just spoiling for
+something to practice on, anyway--and he's such a beauty. If you can get
+him up, lead him to the stable while I go and tell J. G. and get some
+one to help.” She started away.
+
+“Whom shall I get?” she called back.
+
+“Weary, if you can--and Slim's a good hand with horses, too.”
+
+“Slim--is that the tall, lanky man?”
+
+“No--he's the short, fat one. That bean-pole is Shorty.”
+
+Miss Whitmore fixed these facts firmly in her memory and ran swiftly to
+where rose all the dust and noise from the further corral. She climbed
+up until she could look conveniently over the top rail. The fence seemed
+to her dreadfully high--a clear waste of straight, sturdy poles.
+
+“J. G--e-e-e!”
+
+“Baw--h-h-h!” came answer from a wholly unexpected source as a big,
+red cow charged and struck the fence under her feet a blow which nearly
+dislodged her from her perch. The cow recoiled a few steps and lowered
+her head truculently.
+
+“Scat! Shoo, there! Go on away, you horrid old thing you! Oh, J.
+G--e-e-e!”
+
+Weary, who was roping, had just dragged a calf up to the fire and was
+making a loop to catch another when the cow made a second charge at the
+fence. He dashed in ahead of her, his horse narrowly escaping an ugly
+gash from her long, wicked horns. As he dodged he threw his rope with
+the peculiar, back-hand twist of the practiced roper, catching her by
+the head and one front foot. Straight across the corral he shot to
+the end of a forty-foot rope tied fast to the saddle horn. The red cow
+flopped with a thump which knocked all desire for trouble out of her for
+the time. Shorty slipped the rope off and climbed the fence, but the cow
+only shook her aching sides and limped sullenly away to the far side of
+the corral. J. G. and the boys had shinned up the fence like scared cats
+up a tree when the trouble began, and perched in a row upon the top. The
+Old Man looked across and espied his sister, wide-eyed and undignified,
+watching the outcome.
+
+“Dell! What in thunder the YOU doing on that fence?” he shouted across
+the corral.
+
+“What in thunder are you doing on the fence, J. G.?” she flung back at
+him.
+
+The Old Man climbed shamefacedly down, followed by the others. “Is that
+what you call 'getting put in the clear'?” asked she, genially. “I see
+now--it means clear on the top rail.”
+
+“You go back to the house and stay there!” commanded J. G., wrathfully.
+The boys were showing unmistakable symptoms of mirth, and the laugh was
+plainly against the Old Man.
+
+“Oh, no,” came her voice, honey-sweet and calm. “Shoo that cow this way
+again, will you, Mr..Weary? I like to watch J. G. shin up the fence.
+It's good for him; it makes one supple, and J. G.'s actually getting
+fat.”
+
+“Hurry along with that calf!” shouted the Old Man, recovering the
+branding iron and turning his back on his tormentor.
+
+The boys, beyond grinning furtively at one another, behaved with quite
+praiseworthy gravity. Miss Whitmore watched while Weary dragged a
+spotted calf up to the fire and the boys threw it to the ground and held
+it until the Old Man had stamped it artistically with a smoking U.
+
+“Oh, J. G.!”
+
+“Ain't you gone yet? What d'yuh want?”
+
+“Silver broke his leg.”
+
+“Huh. I knew that long ago. Chip's gone to shoot him. You go on to the
+house, doggone it! You'll have every cow in the corral on the fight.
+That red waist of yours--”
+
+“It isn't red, it's pink--a beautiful rose pink. If your cows don't like
+it, they'll have to be educated up to it. Chip isn't either going to
+shoot that horse, J. G. I'm going to set his leg and cure him--and I'm
+going to keep him in one of your box stalls. There, now!”
+
+Cal Emmett took a sudden fit of coughing and leaned his forehead weakly
+against a rail, and Weary got into some unnecessary argument with his
+horse and bolted across to the gate, where his shoulders were seen to
+shake--possibly with a nervous chill; the bravest riders are sometimes
+so affected. Nobody laughed, however. Indeed, Slim seemed unusually
+serious, even for him, while Happy Jack looked positively in pain.
+
+“I want that short, fat man to help” (Slim squirmed at this blunt
+identification of himself) “and Mr. Weary, also.” Miss Whitmore might
+have spoken with a greater effect of dignity had she not been clinging
+to the top of the fence with two dainty slipper toes thrust between the
+rails not so very far below. Under the circumstances, she looked like a
+pretty, spoiled little schoolgirl.
+
+“Oh. You've turned horse doctor, have yuh?” J. G. leaned suddenly upon
+his branding iron and laughed. “Doggone it, that ain't a bad idea. I've
+got two box stalls, and there's an old gray horse in the pasture--the
+same old gray horse that come out uh the wilderness--with a bad case uh
+string-halt. I'll have some uh the boys ketch him up and you can start a
+horsepital!”
+
+“Is that supposed to be a joke, J. G.? I never can tell YOUR jokes by
+ear. If it is, I'll laugh. I'm going to use whatever I need and you can
+do without Mr.--er--those two men.”
+
+“Oh, go ahead. The horse don't belong to ME, so I'm willing you should
+practice on him a while. Say! Dell! Give him that truck you've been
+pouring down me for the last week. Maybe he'll relish the taste of the
+doggone stuff--I don't.”
+
+“I suppose you've labeled THAT a 'Joke--please laugh here,'” sighed Miss
+Whitmore, plaintively, climbing gingerly down.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. -- An Ideal Picture.
+
+
+
+“I guess I'll go down to Denson's to-day,” said J. G. at the breakfast
+table one morning. “Maybe we can get that grass widow to come and keep
+house for us.”
+
+“I don't want any old grass widow to keep house,” protested Della. “I'm
+getting along well enough, so long as Patsy bakes the bread, and meat,
+and cake, and stuff. It's just fun to keep house. The only trouble is,
+there isn't half enough to keep me busy. I'm going to get a license to
+practice medicine, so if there's any sickness around I can be of some
+use. You say it's fifty miles to the nearest doctor. But that needn't
+make a grass widow necessary. I can keep house--it looks better than
+when I came, and you know it.” Which remark would have hurt the feelings
+of several well-meaning cow-punchers, had they overheard it.
+
+“Oh, I ain't finding fault with your housekeeping--you do pretty well
+for a green hand. But Patsy'll have to go with the round-up when it
+starts, and what men I keep on the ranch will have to eat with us.
+That's the way I've been used to fixing things; I was never so good I
+couldn't eat at the same table with my men; if they wasn't fit for my
+company I fired 'em and got fellows that was. I've had this bunch a good
+long while, now. You can do all right with just me, but you couldn't
+cook for two or three men; you can't cook good enough, even if it wasn't
+too much work.” J. G. had a blunt way of stating disagreeable facts,
+occasionally.
+
+“Very well, get your grass widow by all means,” retorted she with much
+wasted dignity.
+
+“She's a swell cook, and a fine housekeeper, and shell keep yuh from
+getting lonesome. She's good company, the Countess is.” He grinned when
+he said it “I'll have Chip ketch up the creams, and you get ready and go
+along with us. It'll give you a chance to size up the kind uh neighbors
+yuh got.”
+
+There was real pleasure in driving swiftly over the prairie land,
+through the sweet, spring sunshine, and Miss Whitmore tingled with
+enthusiasm till they drove headlong into a deep coulee which sheltered
+the Denson family.
+
+“This road is positively dangerous!” she exclaimed when they reached a
+particularly steep place and Chip threw all his weight upon the brake.
+
+“We'll get the Countess in beside yuh, coming back, and then yuh won't
+rattle around in the seat so much. She's good and solid--just hang onto
+her and you'll be all right,” said J. G.
+
+“If I don't like her looks--and I know I won't--I'll get into the front
+seat and you can hang onto her yourself, Mr. J. G. Whitmore.”
+
+Chip, who had been silent till now, glanced briefly over his shoulder.
+
+“It's a cinch you'll take the front seat,” he remarked, laconically.
+
+“J. G., if you hire a woman like that--”
+
+“Like what? Doggone it, it takes a woman to jump at conclusions! The
+Countess is all right. She talks some--”
+
+“I'd tell a man she does!” broke in Chip, tersely.
+
+“Well, show me the woman that don't! Don't you be bluffed so easy, Dell.
+I never seen the woman yet that Chip had any time for. The Countess is
+all right, and she certainly can cook! I admit she talks consider'ble--”
+
+Chip laughed grimly, and the Old Man subsided.
+
+At the house a small, ginger-whiskered man came down to the gate to
+greet them.
+
+“Why, how--de-do! I couldn't make out who 't was comin', but Mary, she
+up an' rek'nized the horses. Git right out an' come on in! We've had our
+dinner, but I guess the wimmin folks can scare ye up a bite uh suthin'.
+This yer sister? We heard she was up t' your place. She the one that
+set one uh your horse's leg? Bill, he was tellin' about it. I dunno as
+wimmin horse doctors is very common, but I dunno why not. I get a horse
+with somethin' the matter of his foot, and I dunno what. I'd like t'
+have ye take a look at it, fore ye go. 'Course, I expect t' pay ye.”
+
+The Old Man winked appreciatively at Chip before he came humanely to
+the rescue and explained that his sister was not a horse doctor, and Mr.
+Denson, looking very disappointed, reiterated his invitation to enter.
+
+Mrs. Denson, a large woman who narrowly escaped being ginger-whiskered
+like her husband, beamed upon them from the doorway.
+
+“Come right on in! Louise, here's comp'ny! The house is all tore up--we
+been tryin' t' clean house a little. Lay off yer things an' I'll git yuh
+some dinner right away. I'm awful glad yuh come over--I do hate t' see
+folks stand on cer'mony out here where neighbors is so skurce. I guess
+yuh think we ain't been very neighborly, but we been tryin' t' clean
+house, an' me an' Louise ain't had a minute we could dast call our own,
+er we'd a been over t' seen yuh before now. Yuh must git awful lonesome,
+comin' right out from the East where neighbors is thick. Do lay off yer
+things!”
+
+Della looked appealingly at J. G., who again came to the rescue. Somehow
+he made himself heard long enough to explain their errand, and to
+emphasize the fact that they were in a great hurry, and had eaten dinner
+before they started from home. In his sister's opinion he made one
+exceedingly rash statement. He said that he wished to hire Mrs. Denson's
+sister for the summer. Mrs. Denson immediately sent a shrill call for
+Louise.
+
+Then appeared the Countess, tall, gaunt and muscular, with sallow skin
+and a nervous manner.
+
+“The front seat or walk!” declared Miss Whitmore, mentally, after a
+brief scrutiny and began storing up a scathing rebuke for J. G.
+
+“Louise, this is Miss Whitmore,” began Mrs. Denson, cheerfully,
+fortified by a fresh lungful of air. “They're after yuh t' go an'
+keep house for 'em, an' I guess yuh better go, seein' we got the house
+cleaned all but whitewashin' the cellar an' milk room an' kals'minin'
+the upstairs, an' I'll make Bill do that, an' 't won't hurt him a mite.
+They'll give yuh twenty-five dollars a month an' keep yuh all summer,
+an' as much longer as his sister stays. I guess yuh might as well go,
+fer they can't git anybody else that'll keep things up in shape an' be
+comp'ny fer his sister, an' I b'lieve in helpin' a neighbor out when yuh
+can. You go right an' pack up yer trunk, an' don't worry about me--I'll
+git along somehow, now the house-cleanin's most done.”
+
+Louise had been talking also, but her sister seemed to have a stronger
+pair of lungs, for her voice drowned that of the Countess, who retreated
+to “pack up.”
+
+The minutes dragged by, to the tune of several chapters of family
+history as voluminously interpreted by Mrs. Denson. Miss Whitmore had
+always boasted the best-behaved of nerves, but this day she developed a
+genuine case of “fidgets.” Once she saw Chip's face turned inquiringly
+toward the window, and telegraphed her state of mind--while Mrs.
+Denson's back was turned--so eloquently that Chip was swept at once into
+sympathetic good-fellowship. He arranged the cushion on the front seat
+significantly, and was rewarded by an emphatic, though furtive, nod
+and smile. Whereupon he leaned comfortably back, rolled a cigarette and
+smoked contentedly, at peace with himself and the world--though he did
+not in the least know why.
+
+“An' as I told Louise, folks has got t' put up with things an' not be
+huntin' trouble with a club all the time, if they expect t' git any
+comfort out uh this life. We ain't had the best uh luck, seems t' me,
+but we always git along somehow, an' we ain't had no sickness except
+when--”
+
+A confused uproar arose in the room above them, followed, immediately by
+a humpety bump and a crash as a small, pink object burst open a door and
+rolled precipitately into their midst. It proved to be one of the little
+Densons, who kicked feebly with both feet and then lay still.
+
+“Mercy upon us! Ellen, who pushed Sary down them stairs? She's kilt!”
+
+Della sprang up and lifted the child in her arms, passing her hand
+quickly over the head and plump body.
+
+“Bring a little cold water, Mrs. Denson. She's only stunned, I think.”
+
+“Well, it does beat all how handy you go t' work. Anybody c'd see t' you
+know your business. I'm awful glad you was here--there, darlin', don't
+cry--Ellen, an' Josephine, an' Sybilly, an' Margreet, you come down here
+t' me!”
+
+The quartet, snuffling and reluctant, was dragged ignominiously to
+the middle of the floor and there confessed, 'mid tears and much
+recrimination, that they had been peeping down at the “comp'ny” through
+various knot-holes in the chamber floor; that, as Sary's knot-hole was
+next the wall, her range of vision was restricted to the thin spot upon
+the crown of J. G.'s head, and the back of his neck. Sary longed for
+sight of the woman horse doctor, and when she essayed to crowd in and
+usurp Ellen's point of vantage, there ensued a war of extermination
+which ended in the literal downfall of Sary.
+
+By the time this checked-apron court of inquiry adjourned, Louise
+appeared and said she believed she was ready, and Miss Whitmore escaped
+from the house far in advance of the others--and such were Chip's
+telepathic powers that he sprang down voluntarily and assisted her to
+the front seat without a word being said by either.
+
+Followed a week of dullness at the ranch, with the Countess scrubbing
+and dusting and cleaning from morning till night. The Little Doctor, as
+the bunk house had christened her, was away attending the State Medical
+Examination at Helena.
+
+“Gee-whiz!” sighed Cal on Sunday afternoon. “It seems mighty queer
+without the Little Doctor around here, sassing the Old Man and putting
+the hull bunch of us on the fence about once a day. If it wasn't for Len
+Adams--”
+
+“It wouldn't do you any good to throw a nasty loop at the Little
+Doctor,” broke in Weary, “'cause she's spoken for, by all signs and
+tokens. There's some fellow back East got a long rope on her.”
+
+“You got the papers for that?” jeered Cal. “The Little Doctor don't
+act the way I'd want my girl t' act, supposin' I was some thousand or
+fifteen hundred miles off her range. She ain't doing no pining, I tell
+yuh those.”
+
+“She's doing a lot of writing, though. I'll bet money, if we called
+the roll right here, you'd see there's been a letter a week hittin' the
+trail to one Dr. Cecil Granthum, Gilroy, Ohio.”
+
+“That's what,” agreed Jack Bates. “I packed one last week, myself.”
+
+“I done worse than that,” said Weary, blandly. “I up and fired a shot at
+her, after the second one she handed me. I says, as innocent: 'I s'pose,
+if I lost this, there'd be a fellow out on the next train with blood in
+his eye and a six-gun in both hands, demanding explanations'--and she
+flashed them dimples on me and twinkled them big, gray eyes of hers, and
+says: 'It's up to you to carry it safe, then,' or words to that effect.
+I took notice she didn't deny but what he would.”
+
+“Two doctors in one family--gee whiz!” mused Cal. “If I hadn't got
+the only girl God ever made right, I'd give one Dr. Cecil Granthum, of
+Gilroy, Ohio, a run for his money, I tell yuh those. I'd impress it upon
+him that a man's taking long chances when he stands and lets his best
+girl stampede out here among us cow-punchers for a change uh grass. That
+fellow needs looking after; he ain't finished his education. Jacky, you
+ain't got a female girl yanking your heart around, sail in and show us
+what yuh can do in that line.”
+
+“Nit,” said Jack Bates, briefly. “My heart's doing business at the old
+stand and doing it satisfactory and proper. I don't want to set it to
+bucking--over a girl that wouldn't have me at any price. Let Slim. The
+Little Doctor's half stuck on him, anyhow.”
+
+While the boys amused themselves in serious debate with Slim, Chip put
+away his magazine and went down to visit Silver in the box stall. He was
+glad they had not attempted to draw him into the banter--they had never
+once thought to do so, probably, though he had been thrown into the
+company of the Little Doctor more than any of the others, for several
+good reasons. He had broken the creams to harness, and always drove
+them, for the Old Man found them more than he cared to tackle. And there
+was Silver, with frequent discussions over his progress toward recovery
+and some argument over his treatment--for Chip had certain ideas of his
+own concerning horses, and was not backward about expressing them upon
+occasion.
+
+That the Little Doctor should write frequent letters to a man in the
+East did not concern him--why should it? Still, a fellow without a
+home and without some woman who cares for him, cannot escape having his
+loneliness thrust upon him at times. He wondered why he should care.
+Surely, ten years of living his life alone ought to kill that latent
+homesickness which used to hold him awake at nights. Sometimes even of
+late years, when he stood guard over the cattle at night, and got to
+thinking--oh, it was hell to be all alone in the world!
+
+There were Cal and Weary, they had girls who loved them--and they were
+sure welcome to them. And Jack Bates and Happy Jack had sisters and
+mothers--and even Slim had an old maid aunt who always knit him a red
+and green pair of wristlets for Christmas. Chip, smoothing mechanically
+the shimmery, white mane of his pet, thought he might be contented if he
+had even an old maid aunt--but he would see that she made his wristlets
+of some other color than those bestowed every year upon Slim.
+
+As for the Little Doctor, it would be something strange if she had gone
+through life without having some fellow in love with her. Probably, if
+the truth was known, there had been more than Dr. Cecil Granthum--bah,
+what a sickening name! Cecil! It might as well be Adolphus or Regie
+or--what does a man want to pack around a name like that for? Probably
+he was the kind of man that the name sounded like; a dude with pink
+cheeks.
+
+Chip knew just how he looked. Inspiration suddenly seizing upon him, he
+sat down upon the manger, drew his memorandum book out of his inner
+coat pocket, carefully sharpened a bit of lead pencil which he found in
+another pocket, tore a leaf from the book, and, with Silver looking over
+his shoulder, drew a graphic, ideal picture of Dr. Cecil Granthum.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. -- In Silver's Stall.
+
+
+
+“Oh, are YOU here? It's a wonder you don't have your bed brought down
+here, so you can sleep near Silver. How has he been doing since I left?”
+
+Chip simply sat still upon the edge of the manger and stared. His gray
+hat was pushed far back upon his head and his dark hair waved and curled
+upon his forehead, very much as a girl's might have done. He did not
+know that he was a very good-looking young man, but perhaps the Little
+Doctor did. She smiled and came up and patted Silver, who had forgotten
+that he ever had objected to her nearness. He nickered a soft welcome
+and laid his nose on her shoulder.
+
+“You've been drawing a picture. Who's the victim of your satirical
+pencil this time?” The Little Doctor, reaching out quickly, calmly
+appropriated the sketch before Chip had time to withdraw it, even if he
+had cared to do so. He was busy wondering how the Little Doctor came to
+be there at that particular time, and had forgotten the picture, which
+he had not quite finished labeling.
+
+“Dr. Cecil--” Miss Whitmore turned red at first, then broke into
+laughter. “Oh--h, ha! ha! ha! Silver, you don't know how funny this
+master of yours can be! Ha! ha!” She raised her head from Silver's neck,
+where it had rested, and wiped her eyes.
+
+“How did you know about Cecil?” she demanded of a very discomfited young
+man upon the manger.
+
+“I didn't know--and I didn't WANT to know. I heard the boys talking and
+joshing about him, and I just drew--their own conclusions.” Chip grinned
+a little and whittled at his pencil, and wondered how much of the
+statement was a lie.
+
+Miss Whitmore tamed red again, and ended by laughing even more heartily
+than at first.
+
+“Their conclusions aren't very complimentary,” she said. “I don't
+believe Dr. Cecil would feel flattered at this. Why those bowed legs,
+may I ask, and wherefore that long, lean, dyspeptic visage? Dr. Cecil,
+let me inform you, has a digestion that quails not at deviled crabs and
+chafing-dish horrors at midnight, as I have abundant reason to know. I
+have seen Dr. Cecil prepare a welsh rabbit and--eat it, also, with much
+relish, apparently. Oh, no, their conclusions weren't quite correct.
+There are other details I might mention--that cane, for instance--but
+let it pass. I shall keep this, I think, as a companion to 'The old
+maid's credential card.'”
+
+“Are you in the habit of keeping other folk's property?” inquired Chip,
+with some acerbity.
+
+“Nothing but personal caricatures--and hearts, perhaps,” returned the
+Little Doctor, sweetly.
+
+“I hardly think your collection of the last named article is very
+large,” retorted Chip.
+
+“Still, I added to the collection to-day,” pursued Miss Whitmore,
+calmly. “I shared my seat in the train with J. G.'s silent partner (I
+did not find him silent, however), Mr. Duncan Whitaker. He hired a
+team in Dry Lake and we came out together, and I believe--please don't
+mention Dr. Cecil Granthum to him, will you?”
+
+Chip wished, quite savagely, that she wouldn't let those dimples dodge
+into her cheeks, and the laugh dodge into her eyes, like that. It made a
+fellow uncomfortable. He was thoroughly disgusted with her--or he would
+be, if she would only stop looking like that. He was in that state of
+mind where his only salvation, seemingly, lay in quarreling with some
+one immediately.
+
+“So old Dunk's come back? If you've got his heart, you must have gone
+hunting it with a microscope, for it's a mighty small one--almost as
+small as his soul. No one else even knew he had one. You ought to have
+it set in a ring, so you won't lose it.”
+
+“I don't wear phony jewelry, thank you,” said Miss Whitmore, and Chip
+thought dimples weren't so bad after all.
+
+The Little Doctor was weaving Silver's mane about her white fingers and
+meditating deeply. Chip wondered if she were thinking of Dr. Cecil.
+
+“Where did you learn to draw like that?” she asked, suddenly, turning
+toward him. “You do much better than I, and I've always been learning
+from good teachers. Did you ever try painting?”
+
+Chip blushed and looked away from her. This was treading close to his
+deep-hidden, inner self.
+
+“I don't know where I learned. I never took a lesson in my life, except
+from watching people and horses and the country, and remembering the
+lines they made, you know. I always made pictures, ever since I can
+remember--but I never tried colors very much. I never had a chance,
+working around cow-camps and on ranches.”
+
+“I'd like to have you look over some of my sketches and things--and I've
+paints and canvas, if you ever care to try that. Come up to the house
+some evening and I'll show you my daubs. They're none of them as good as
+'The Old Maid.'”
+
+“I wish you'd tear that thing up!” said Chip, vehemently.
+
+“Why? The likeness is perfect. One would think you were designer for a
+fashion paper, the way you got the tucks in my sleeve and the braid on
+my collar--and you might have had the kindness to TELL me my hat was on
+crooked, I think!”
+
+There was a rustle in the loose straw, a distant slam of the stable
+door, and Chip sat alone with his horse, whittling abstractedly at his
+pencil till his knife blade grated upon the metal which held the eraser.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. -- The Hum of Preparation.
+
+
+
+Miss Whitmore ran down to the blacksmith shop, waving an
+official-looking paper in her hand.
+
+“I've got it, J. G.!”
+
+“Got what--smallpox?” J. G. did not even look up from the iron he was
+welding.
+
+“No, my license. I'm a really, truly doctor now, and you needn't laugh,
+either. You said you'd give a dance if I passed, and I did. Happy Jack
+brought it just now.”
+
+“Brought the dance?” The Old Man gave the bellows a pull which sent a
+shower of sparks toward the really, truly doctor.
+
+“Brought the license,” she explained, patiently. ��You can see for
+yourself. They were awfully nice to me--they seemed to think a girl
+doctor is some kind of joke out here. They didn't make it any easier,
+though; they acted as if they didn't expect me to pass--but I did!”
+
+The Old Man rubbed one smutty hand down his trousers leg and extended it
+for the precious document. “Let me have a look at it,” he said, trying
+to hide his pride in her.
+
+“Well, but I'll hold it. Your hands are dirty.” Dr. Whitmore eyed the
+hands disapprovingly.
+
+The Old Man read it slowly through, growing prouder every line.
+
+“You're all right, Dell--I'll be doggoned if you ain't. Don't you worry
+about the dance--I'll see't yuh get it. You go tell the Countess to bake
+up a lot of cake and truck, and I'll send some uh the boys around t'
+tell the neighbors. Better have it Friday night, I guess--I'm goin t'
+start the round-up out early next week. Doggone it! I've gone and burned
+that weldin'. Go on and stop your botherin' me!”
+
+In two minutes the Little Doctor was back, breathless.
+
+“What about the music, J. G.? We want GOOD music.”
+
+“Well, I'll tend t' that part. Say! You can rig up that room off the
+dining room for your office--I s'pose you'll have to have one. You make
+out a list of what dope you want--and be sure yuh get a-plenty. I look
+for an unhealthy summer among the cow-punchers. If I ain't mistook in
+the symptoms, Dunk's got palpitation uh the heart right now--an' got it
+serious.”
+
+The Old Man chuckled to himself and went back to his welding.
+
+“Oh, Louise!” The Little Doctor hurried to where the Countess was
+scrubbing the kitchen steps with soft soap and sand and considerable
+energy. “J. G. says I may have a dance next Friday night, so we must
+hurry and fix the house--only I don't see much fixing to be done;
+everything is SO clean.”
+
+“Oh, there ain't a room in the house fit fer comp'ny t' walk into,”
+ expostulated the Countess while she scrubbed. “I do like t' see a house
+clean when folks is expected that only come t' be critical an' make
+remarks behind yer back the minit they git away. If folks got anything
+t' say I'd a good deal ruther they said it t' my face an' be done with
+it. 'Yuh can know a man's face but yuh can't know his heart,' as the
+sayin' is, an' it's the same way with women--anyway, it's the same way
+with Mis' Beckman. You can know her face a mile off, but yuh never know
+who she's goin' t' rake over the coals next. As the sayin' is: 'The
+tongue of a woman, at last it biteth like a serpent an' it stingeth
+like an addle,' an' I guess it's so. Anyway, Mis' Beckman's does. I do
+b'lieve on my soul--what's the matter, Dell? What yuh laughin' at?”
+
+The Little Doctor was past speech for the moment, and the Countess stood
+up and looked curiously around her. It never occurred to her that she
+might be the cause of that convulsive outburst.
+
+“Oh--he--never mind--he's gone, now.”
+
+“Who's gone?” persisted the Countess.
+
+“What kinds of cake do you think we ought to have?” asked the Little
+Doctor, diplomatically.
+
+The Countess sank to her knees and dipped a handful of amber, jelly-like
+soap from a tin butter can.
+
+“Well, I don't know. I s'pose folks will look for something fancy,
+seein' you're givin' the dance. Mis' Beckman sets herself up as a
+shinin' example on cake, and she'll come just t' be critical an' find
+fault, if she can. If I can't bake all around her the best day she ever
+seen, I'll give up cookin' anything but spuds. She had the soggiest kind
+uh jelly roll t' the su'prise on Mary last winter. I know it was hern,
+fer I seen her bring it in, an' I went straight an' ondone it. I guess
+it was kinda mean uh me, but I don't care--as the sayin' is: 'What's
+sass fer the goose is good enough sass fer anybody'--an' she done the
+same trick by me, at the su'prise at Adamses last fall. But she couldn't
+find no kick about MY cake, an' hers--yuh c'd of knocked a cow down with
+it left-handed! If that's the best she c'n do on cake I'd advise 'er to
+keep the next batch t' home where they're used to it. They say't 'What's
+one man's meat 's pizen t' the other feller,' and I guess it's so
+enough. Maybe Mame an' the rest uh them Beckman kids can eat sech truck
+without comin' down in a bunch with gastakutus, but I'd hate t' tackle
+it myself.”
+
+The Little Doctor gurgled. This was a malady which had not been
+mentioned at the medical college.
+
+“Where shall we set the tables, if we dance in the dining room?” she
+asked, having heard enough of the Beckmans for the present.
+
+“Why, we won't set any tables. Folks always have a lap supper at ranch
+dances. At the su'prise on Mary--”
+
+“What is a lap supper?”
+
+“Well, my stars alive! Where under the shinin' sun was you brought up if
+yuh never heard of a lap supper? A lap supper is where folks set around
+the walls--or any place they can find--and take the plates on their laps
+and yuh pass 'em stuff. The san'wiches--”
+
+“You do make such beautiful bread!” interrupted the Little Doctor, very
+sincerely.
+
+“Well, I ain't had the best uh luck, lately, but I guess it does taste
+good after that bread yuh had when I come. Soggy was no name for--”
+
+“Patsy made that bread,” interposed Miss Whitmore, hastily. “He had bad
+luck, and--”
+
+“I guess he did!” sniffed the Countess, contemptuously. “As I told Mary
+when I come--”
+
+“I wonder how many cakes we'll need?” Miss Whitmore, you will observe,
+had learned to interrupt when she had anything to say. It was the only
+course to pursue with anyone from Denson coulee.
+
+The Countess, having finished her scrubbing, rose jerkily and upset the
+soap can, which rolled over and over down the steps, leaving a yellow
+trail as it went.
+
+“Well, there, if that wasn't a bright trick uh mine? They say the more
+yuh hurry the less yuh'll git along, an' that's a sample. We'd ought t'
+have five kinds, an' about four uh each kind. It wouldn't do t' run out,
+er Mis' Beckman never would let anybody hear the last of it. Down t'
+Mary's--”
+
+“Twenty cakes! Good gracious! I'll have to order my stock of medicine,
+for I'll surely have a houseful of patients if the guests eat twenty
+cakes.”
+
+“Well, as the sayin' is: 'Patience an' perseverance can git away with
+most anything,'” observed the Countess, naively.
+
+The Little Doctor retired behind her handkerchief.
+
+“My stars alive, I do b'lieve my bread's beginnin' t' scorch!” cried the
+Countess, and ran to see. The Little Doctor followed her inside and sat
+down.
+
+“We must make a list of the things we'll need, Louise. You--”
+
+“Dell! Oh-h. Dell!” The voice of the Old Man resounded from the parlor.
+
+“I'm in the kitchen!” called she, remaining where she was. He tramped
+heavily through the house to her.
+
+“I'll send the rig in, t'morrow, if there's anything yuh want,” he
+remarked. “And if you'll make out a list uh dope, I'll send the order
+in t' the Falls. We've got plenty uh saws an' cold chisels down in the
+blacksmith shop--you can pick out what yuh want.” He dodged and grinned.
+“Got any cake, Countess?”
+
+“Well, there ain't a thing cooked, hardly. I'm going t' bake up
+something right after dinner. Here's some sponge cake--but it ain't fit
+t' eat, hardly. I let Dell look in the oven, 'cause my han's was all
+over flour, an' she slammed the door an' it fell. But yuh can't expect
+one person t' know everything--an' too many han's can't make decent
+soup, as the sayin' is, an' it's the same way with cake.”
+
+The Old Man winked at the Little Doctor over a great wedge of feathery
+delight. “I don't see nothing the matter with this--only it goes down
+too easy,” he assured the Countess between mouthfuls. “Fix up your list,
+Dell, and don't be afraid t' order everything yuh need. I'll foot the--”
+
+The Old Man, thinking to go back to his work, stepped into the puddle of
+soft soap and sat emphatically down upon the top step, coasting rapidly
+to the bottom. A carpet slipper shot through the open door and landed
+in the dishpan; the other slipper disappeared mysteriously. The wedge of
+cake was immediately pounced upon by an investigative hen and carried in
+triumph to her brood.
+
+“Good Lord!” J. G. struggled painfully to his feet. “Dell, who in
+thunder put that stuff there? You're a little too doggoned anxious for
+somebody t' practice on, seems t' me.” A tiny trickle of blood showed in
+the thin spot on his head.
+
+“Are you hurt, J. G.? We--I spilled the soap.” The Little Doctor gazed
+solicitous, from the doorway.
+
+“Huh! I see yuh spilled the soap, all right enough. I'm willin' to
+believe yuh did without no affidavit. Doggone it, a bachelor never has
+any such a man-trap around in a fellow's road. I've lived in Montana
+fourteen years, an' I never slipped up on my own doorstep till you got
+here. It takes a woman t' leave things around--where's my cake?”
+
+“Old Specie took it down by the bunk house. Shall I go after it?”
+
+“No, you needn't. Doggone it, this wading through ponds uh soft soap
+has got t' stop right here. I never had t' do it when I was baching,
+I notice.” He essayed, with the aid of a large splinter, to scrape the
+offending soap from his trousers.
+
+“Certainly, you didn't. Bachelors never use soap,” retorted Della.
+
+“Oh, they don't, hey? That's all you know about it. They don't use
+this doggoned, slimy truck, let me tell yuh. What d'yuh want, Chip? Oh,
+you've got t' grin, too! Dell, why don't yuh do something fer my head?
+What's your license good f er, I'd like t' know? You didn't see Dell's
+license, did yuh, Chip? Go and get it an' show it to him, Dell. It's
+good fer everything but gitting married--there ain't any cure for that
+complaint.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. -- Love and a Stomach Pump.
+
+
+
+An electrical undercurrent of expectation pervaded the very atmosphere
+of Flying U ranch. The musicians, two supercilious but undeniably
+efficient young men from Great Falls, had arrived two hours before and
+were being graciously entertained by the Little Doctor up at the house.
+The sandwiches stood waiting, the coffee was ready for the boiling
+water, and the dining-room floor was smooth as wax could make it.
+
+For some reason unknown to himself, Chip was “in the deeps.” He even
+threatened to stop in the bunk house and said he didn't feel like
+dancing, but was brought into line by weight of numbers. He hated Dick
+Brown, anyway, for his cute, little yellow mustache that curled up at
+the ends like the tail of a drake. He had snubbed him all the way out
+from town and handled Dick's guitar with a recklessness that invited
+disaster. And the way Dick smirked when the Old Man introduced him to
+the Little Doctor--a girl with a fellow in the East oughtn't to let her
+eyes smile that way at a pin-headed little dude like Dick Brown, anyway.
+And he--Chip--had given, her a letter postmarked blatantly: “Gilroy,
+Ohio, 10:30 P. M.”--and she had been so taken up with those cussed
+musicians that she couldn't even thank him, and only just glanced at the
+letter before she stuck it inside her belt. Probably she wouldn't
+even read it till after the dance. He wondered if Dr. Cecil Granthum
+cared--oh, hell! Of COURSE he cared--that is, if he had any sense at
+all. But the Little Doctor--she wasn't above flirting, he noticed. If HE
+ever fell in love with a girl--which the Lord forbid--he'd take mighty
+good care she didn't get time to make dimples and smiles for some other
+fellow to go to heaven looking at.
+
+There, that was her, laughing like she always laughed--it reminded him
+of pines nodding in a canyon and looking wise and whispering things
+they'd seen and heard before you were born, and of water falling over
+rocks, somehow. Queer, maybe--but it did. He wondered if Dick Brown had
+been trying to say something funny. He didn't see, for the life of him,
+how the Little Doctor could laugh at that little imitation man. Girls
+are--well, they're easy pleased, most of them.
+
+Down in the bunk house the boys were hurrying into their “war
+togs”--which is, being interpreted, their best clothes. There was a
+nervous scramble over the cracked piece of a bar mirror--which had a
+history--and cries of “Get out!” “Let me there a minute, can't yuh?” and
+“Get up off my coat!” were painfully frequent.
+
+Happy Jack struggled blindly with a refractory red tie, which his face
+rivaled in hue and sheen--for he had been generous of soap.
+
+Weary had possessed himself of the glass and was shaving as leisurely as
+though four restive cow-punchers were not waiting anxiously their turn.
+
+“For the Lord's sake, Weary!” spluttered Jack Bates. “Your whiskers grow
+faster'n you can shave 'em off, at that gait. Get a move on, can't yuh?”
+
+Weary turned his belathered face sweetly upon Jack. “Getting in a hurry,
+Jacky? YOUR girl won't be there, and nobody else's girl is going to have
+time to see whether you shaved to-day or last Christmas. You don't want
+to worry so much about your looks, none of you. I hate to say it, but
+you act vain, all of you kids. Honest, I'm ashamed. Look at that gaudy
+countenance Happy's got on--and his necktie's most as bad.” He stropped
+his razor with exasperating nicety, stopping now and then to test its
+edge upon a hair from his own brown head.
+
+Happy Jack, grown desperate over his tie and purple over Weary's
+remarks, craned his neck over the shoulder of that gentleman and leered
+into the mirror. When Happy liked, he could contort his naturally plain
+features into a diabolical grin which sent prickly waves creeping along
+the spine of the beholder.
+
+Weary looked, stared, half rose from his chair.
+
+“Holy smithereens! Quit it, Happy! You look like the devil by
+lightning.”
+
+Happy, watching, seized the hand that held the razor; Cal, like a cat,
+pounced upon the mirror, and Jack Bates deftly wrenched the razor from
+Weary's fingers.
+
+“Whoopee, boys! Some of you tie Weary down and set on him while I
+shave,” cried Cal, jubilant over the mutiny. “We'll make short work of
+this toilet business.”
+
+Whereupon Weary was borne to the floor, bound hand and foot with silk
+handkerchiefs, carried bodily and laid upon his bed.
+
+“Oh, the things I won't do to you for this!” he asserted, darkly.
+“There won't nary a son-of-a-gun uh yuh get a dance from my little
+schoolma'am--you'll see!” He grinned prophetically, closed his eyes and
+murmured: “Call me early, mother dear,” and straightway fell away into
+slumber and peaceful snoring, while the lather dried upon his face.
+
+“Better turn Weary loose and wake him up, Chip,” suggested Jack Bates,
+half an hour later, shoving the stopper into his cologne bottle and
+making for the door. “At the rate the rigs are rolling in, it'll take
+us all to put up the teams.” The door slammed behind him as it had done
+behind the others as they hurried away.
+
+“Here!” Chip untied Weary's hands and feet and took him by the shoulder.
+“Wake up, Willie, if you want to be Queen o' the May.”
+
+Weary sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Confound them two Jacks! What time is
+it?”
+
+“A little after eight. YOUR crowd hasn't, come yet, so you needn't
+worry. I'm not going up yet for a while, myself.”
+
+“You're off your feed. Brace up and take all there is going, my son.”
+ Weary prepared to finish his interrupted beautification.
+
+“I'm going to--all the bottles, that is. If that Dry Lake gang comes
+loaded down with whisky, like they generally do, we ought to get hold of
+it and cache every drop, Weary.”
+
+Weary turned clear around to stare his astonishment.
+
+“When did the W. C. T. U. get you by the collar?” he demanded.
+
+“Aw, don't be a fool, Weary,” retorted Chip. “You can see it wouldn't
+look right for us to let any of the boys get full, or even half shot,
+seeing this is the Little Doctor's dance.”
+
+Weary meditatively scraped his left jaw and wiped the lather from the
+razor upon a fragment of newspaper.
+
+“Splinter, we've throwed in together ever since we drifted onto the
+same range, and I'm with you, uh course. But--don't overlook Dr. Cecil
+Granthum. I'd hate like the devil to see you git throwed down, because
+it'd hurt you worse than anybody I know.”
+
+Chip calmly sifted some tobacco into a cigarette paper. His mouth was
+very straight and his brows very close together.
+
+“It's a devilish good thing it was YOU said that, Weary. If it had been
+anyone else I'd punch his face for him.”
+
+“Why, yes--an' I'd help you, too.” Weary, his mouth very much on one
+side of his face that he might the easier shave the other, spoke in
+fragments. “You don't take it amiss from--me, though. I can see--”
+
+The door slammed with extreme violence, and Weary slashed his chin
+unbecomingly in consequence, but he felt no resentment toward Chip.
+He calmly stuck a bit of paper on the cut to stop the bleeding and
+continued to shave.
+
+
+A short time after, the Little Doctor came across Chip glaring at Dick
+Brown, who was strumming his guitar with ostentatious ease upon an
+inverted dry-goods box at one end of the long dining room.
+
+“I came to ask a favor of you,” she said, “but my courage oozed at the
+first glance.”
+
+“It's hard to believe your courage would ooze at anything. What's the
+favor?”
+
+The Little Doctor bent her head and lowered her voice to a confidential
+undertone which caught at Chip's blood and set it leaping.
+
+“I want you to come and help me turn my drug store around with its face
+to the wall. All the later editions of Denson, Pilgreen and Beckman have
+taken possession of my office--and as the Countess says: 'Them Beckman
+kids is holy terrors--an' it's savin' the rod an' spoilin' the kid that
+makes 'em so!'”
+
+Chip laughed outright. “The Denson kids are a heap worse, if she only
+knew it,” he said, and followed her willingly.
+
+The Little Doctor's “office” was a homey little room, with a couch, a
+well-worn Morris rocker, two willow chairs and a small table for the not
+imposing furnishing, dignified by a formidable stack of medical books
+in one corner, and the “drug store,” which was simply a roomy bookcase
+filled with jars, bottles, boxes and packages, all labeled in a neat
+vertical hand.
+
+The room fairly swarmed with children, who seemed, for the most part, to
+be enjoying themselves very much. Charlotte May Pilgreen and Sary Denson
+were hunched amicably over one of the books, shuddering beatifically
+over a pictured skeleton. A swarm surrounded the drug store, the glass
+door of which stood open.
+
+The Little Doctor flew across to the group, horror white.
+
+“Sybilly got the key an' unlocked it, an' she give us this candy, too!”
+ tattled a Pilgreen with very red hair and a very snub nose.
+
+“I didn't, either! It was Jos'phine!”
+
+“Aw, you big story-teller! I never tetched it!”
+
+The Little Doctor clutched the nearest arm till the owner of it
+squealed.
+
+“How many of you have eaten some of these? Tell the truth, now.” They
+quailed before her sternness--quailed and confessed. All told, seven
+had swallowed the sweet pellets, in numbers ranging from two to a dozen
+more.
+
+“Is it poison?” Chip whispered the question in the ear of the perturbed
+Little Doctor.
+
+“No--but it will make them exceedingly uncomfortable for a time--I'm
+going to pump them out.”
+
+“Good shot! Serves 'em right, the little--”
+
+“All of you who have eaten this--er--candy, must come with me. The rest
+of you may stay here and play, but you must NOT touch this case.”
+
+“Yuh going t' give 'em a lickin'?” Sary Denson wetted a finger copiously
+before turning a leaf upon the beautiful skeleton.
+
+“Never mind what I'm going to do to them--you had better keep out of
+mischief yourself, however. Mr. Bennett, I wish you would get some
+fellow you can trust--some one who won't talk about this afterward--turn
+this case around so that it will be safe, and then come to the back
+bedroom--the one off the kitchen. And tell Louise I want her, will you,
+please?”
+
+“I'll get old Weary. Yes, I'll send the Countess--but don't you think
+she's a mighty poor hand to keep a secret?”
+
+“I can't help it--I need her. Hurry, please.”
+
+Awed by the look in her big, gray eyes and the mysterious summoning of
+help, the luckless seven were marched silently through the outer door,
+around the house, through the coal shed and so into the back bedroom,
+without being observed by the merrymakers, who shook the house to its
+foundation to the cheerful command: “Gran' right 'n' left with a double
+ELBOW-W!” “Chasse by yer pardner--balance--SWING!”
+
+“What under the shinin' sun's the matter, Dell?” The Countess,
+breathless from dancing, burst in upon the little group.
+
+“Nothing very serious, Louise, though it's rather uncomfortable to be
+called from dancing to administer heroic remedies by wholesale. Can you
+hold Josephine--whichever one that is? She ate the most, as nearly as I
+can find out.”
+
+“She ain't gone an' took pizen, has she? What was it--strychnine?
+I'll bet them Beckman kids put 'er up to it. Yuh goin' t' give 'er an
+anticdote?”
+
+“I'm going to use this.” The Little Doctor held up a fearsome thing to
+view. “Open your mouth, Josephine.”
+
+Josephine refused; her refusal was emphatic and unequivocal, punctuated
+by sundry kicks directed at whoever came within range of her stout
+little shoes.
+
+“It ain't no use t' call Mary in--Mary can't handle her no better'n I
+can--an' not so good. Jos'phine, yuh got--”
+
+“Here's where we shine,” broke in a cheery voice which was sweet to the
+ears, just then. “Chip and I ain't wrassled with bronks all our lives
+for nothing. This is dead easy--all same branding calves. Ketch hold of
+her heels, Splinter--that's the talk. Countess, you better set your back
+against that door--some of these dogies is thinking of taking a sneak on
+us--and we'd have t' go some, to cut 'em out uh that bunch out there and
+corral 'em again. There yuh are, Doctor--sail in.”
+
+Upheld mentally by the unfailing sunniness of Weary and the calm
+determination of Chip, to whom flying heels and squirming bodies were as
+nothing, or at most a mere trifle, the Little Doctor set to work with
+a thoroughness and dispatch which struck terror to the hearts of the
+guilty seven.
+
+It did not take long--as Weary had said, it was very much like branding
+calves. No sooner was one child made to disgorge and laid, limp and
+subdued, upon the bed, than Chip and Weary seized another dexterously
+by heels and head. The Countess did nothing beyond guarding the door and
+acting as chaperon to the undaunted Little Doctor; but she did her duty
+and held her tongue afterward--which was a great deal for her to do.
+
+The Little Doctor sat down in a chair, when it was all over, looking
+rather white. Chip moved nearer, though there was really nothing that
+he could do beyond handing her a glass of water, which she accepted
+gratefully.
+
+Weary held a little paper trough of tobacco in his fingers and drew the
+tobacco sack shut with his teeth. His eyes were fixed reflectively upon
+the bed. He placed the sack absently in his pocket, still meditating
+other things.
+
+“She answered: 'We are seven,'” he quoted softly and solemnly, and the
+Little Doctor forgot her faintness in a hearty laugh.
+
+“You two go back to your dancing now,” she commanded, letting the
+dimples stand in her cheeks in a way that Chip dreamed about afterward.
+“I don't know what I should have done without you--a cow-puncher seems
+born to meet emergencies in just the right way. PLEASE don't tell
+anyone, will you?”
+
+“Never. Don't you worry about us, Doctor. Chip and I don't set up nights
+emptying our brains out our mouths. We don't tell our secrets to nobody
+but our horses--and they're dead safe.”
+
+“You needn't think I'll tell, either,” said the Countess, earnestly.
+“I ain't forgot how you took the blame uh that sof' soap, Dell. As the
+sayin' is--”
+
+Weary closed the door then, so they did not hear the saying which seemed
+to apply to this particular case. His arm hooked into Chip's, he led the
+way through the kitchen and down the hill to the hay corral. Once safe
+from observation, he threw himself into the sweetly pungent “blue-joint”
+ and laughed and laughed.
+
+Chip's nervous system did not demand the relief of cachinnation. He
+went away to Silver's stall and groped blindly to the place where two
+luminous, green moons shone upon him in the darkness. He rubbed the
+delicate nose gently and tangled his fingers in the dimly gleaming mane,
+as he had seen HER do. Such pink little fingers they were! He laid his
+brown cheek against the place where he remembered them to have rested.
+
+“Silver horse,” he whispered, “if I ever fall in love with a girl--which
+isn't likely!--I'll want her to have dimples and big, gray eyes and a
+laugh like--”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. -- Prescriptions.
+
+
+
+It was Sunday, the second day after the dance. The boys were scattered,
+for the day was delicious--one of those sweet, soft days which come to
+us early in May. Down in the blacksmith shop Chip was putting new rowels
+into his spurs and whistling softly to himself while he worked.
+
+The Little Doctor had gone with him to visit Silver that morning, and
+had not hurried away, but had leaned against the manger and listened
+while he told her of the time Silver, swimming the river when it was
+“up,” had followed him to the Shonkin camp when Chip had thought to
+leave him at home. And they had laughed together over the juvenile seven
+and the subsequent indignation of the mothers who, with the exception of
+“Mary,” had bundled up their offspring and gone home mad. True, they
+had none of them thoroughly understood the situation, having only the
+version of the children, who accused the Little Doctor of trying to make
+them eat rubber--“just cause she was mad about some little old candy.”
+ The mystification of the others among the Happy Family, who scented a
+secret with a joke to it but despaired of wringing the truth from either
+Weary or Chip, was dwelt upon with much enjoyment by the Little Doctor.
+
+It was a good old world and a pleasant, and Chip had no present quarrel
+with fate--or with anybody else. That was why he whistled.
+
+Then voices reached him through the open door, and a laugh--HER laugh.
+Chip smiled sympathetically, though he had not the faintest notion of
+the cause of her mirth. As the voices drew nearer, the soft, smooth,
+hated tones of Dunk Whitaker untangled from the Little Doctor's laugh,
+and Chip stopped whistling. Dunk was making a good, long stay of it this
+time; usually he came one day and went the next, and no one grieved at
+his departure.
+
+“You find them an entirely new species, of course. How do you get on
+with them?” said Dunk.
+
+And the Little Doctor answered him frankly and distinctly: “Oh, very
+well, considering all things. They furnish me with some amusement, and I
+give them something quite new to talk about, so we are quits. They are a
+good-hearted lot, you know--but SO ignorant! I don't suppose--”
+
+The words trailed into an indistinct murmur, punctuated by Dunk's
+jarring cackle.
+
+Chip did not resume his whistling, though he might have done so if he
+had heard a little more, or a little less. As a matter of fact, it
+was the Densons, and the Pilgreens, and the Beckmans that were under
+discussion, and not the Flying U cowboys, as Chip believed. He no longer
+smiled sympathetically.
+
+“We furnish her with some amusement, do we? That's good! We're a
+good-hearted lot, but SO ignorant! The devil we are!” He struck the
+rivet such a blow that he snapped one shank of his spur short off.
+This meant ten or twelve dollars for a new pair--though the cost of it
+troubled him little, just then. It was something tangible upon which
+to pour profanity, however, and the atmosphere grew sulphurous in the
+vicinity of the blacksmith shop and remained so for several minutes,
+after which a tall, irate cow-puncher with his hat pulled low over angry
+eyes left the shop and strode up the path to the deserted bunk house.
+
+He did not emerge till the Old Man called to him to ride down to
+Benson's after one of the Flying U horses which had broken out of the
+pasture.
+
+Della was looking from the window when Chip rode up the hill upon the
+“coulee trail,” which passed close by the house. She was tired of the
+platitudes of Dunk, who, trying to be both original and polished,
+fell far short of being either and only succeeded in being extremely
+tiresome.
+
+“Where's Chip going, J. G.?” she demanded, in a proprietary tone.
+
+“Down t' Benson's after a horse.” J. G. spoke lazily, without taking his
+pipe from his mouth.
+
+“Oh, I wish I could go--I wonder if he'd care.” The Little Doctor spoke
+impulsively as was her habit.
+
+“'Course he wouldn't. Hey, Chip! Hold on a minute!” The Old Man stood
+waving his pipe in the doorway.
+
+Chip jerked his horse to a stand-still and half turned in the saddle.
+
+“What?”
+
+“Dell wants t' go along. Will yuh saddle up Concho for 'er? There's no
+hurry, anyhow, you've got plenty uh time. Dell's afraid one uh the kids
+might fall downstairs ag'in, and she'd miss the case.”
+
+“I'm not, either,” said the Little Doctor, coming to stand by her
+brother; “it's too nice a day to stay inside, and my muscles ache for a
+gallop over the hills.”
+
+Chip did not look up at her; he did not dare. He felt that, if he met
+her eyes--with the laugh in them--he should do one of two undesirable
+things: he should either smile back at her, weakly overlooking the
+hypocrisy of her friendliness, or sneer in answer to her smile, which
+would be very rude and ungentlemanly.
+
+“If you had mentioned wanting a ride I should have been glad to
+accompany you,” remarked Dunk, reproachfully, when Chip had ridden,
+somewhat sullenly, back to the stable.
+
+“I didn't think of it before--thank you,” said the Little Doctor,
+lightly, and hurried away to put on her blue riding habit with its
+cunning little jockey cap which she found the only headgear that would
+stay upon her head in the teeth of Montana wind, and which made her
+look-well, kissable. She was standing on the porch drawing on her
+gauntlets when Chip returned, leading Concho by the bridle.
+
+“Let me help you,” begged Dunk, at her elbow, hoping till the last that
+she would invite him to go with them.
+
+The Little Doctor, not averse to hiding the bitter of her medicine under
+a coating of sugar, smiled sweetly upon him, to the delectation of Dunk
+and the added bitterness of Chip, who was rapidly nearing that state of
+mind which is locally described as being “strictly on the fight.”
+
+“I expect she thinks I'll amuse her some more!” he thought, savagely, as
+they galloped away through the quivering sunlight.
+
+For the first two miles the road was level, and Chip set the pace--which
+was, as he intended it should be, too swift for much speech. After that
+the trail climbed abruptly out of Flying U coulee, and the horses
+were compelled to walk. Then it was that Chip's native chivalry and
+self-mastery were put to test.
+
+He was hungry for a solitary ride such as had, before now, drawn much of
+the lonely ache out of his heart and keyed him up to the life which
+he must live and which chafed his spirit more than even he realized.
+Instead of such slender comfort, he was forced to ride beside the
+girl who had hurt him--so close that his knee sometimes brushed her
+horse--and to listen to her friendly chatter and make answer, at times,
+with at least some show of civility.
+
+She was talking reminiscently of the dance.
+
+“J. G. showed splendid judgment in his choice of musicians, didn't he?”
+
+Chip looked straight ahead. This was touching a sore place in his
+memory. A vision of Dick Brown's vapid smile and curled up mustache rose
+before him.
+
+“I'd tell a man,” he said, with faint irony.
+
+The Little Doctor gave him a quick, surprised look and went on.
+
+“I liked their playing so much. Mr. Brown was especially good upon the
+guitar.”
+
+“Y--e-s?”
+
+“Yes, of course. You know yourself, he plays beautifully.”
+
+“Cow-punchers aren't expected to know all these things.” Chip hated
+himself for replying so, but the temptation mastered him.
+
+“Aren't they? I can't see why not.”
+
+Chip closed his lips tightly to keep in something impolite.
+
+The Little Doctor, puzzled as well as piqued, went straight to the
+point.
+
+“Why didn't you like Mr. Brown's playing?”
+
+“Did I say I didn't like it?”
+
+“Well, you--not exactly, but you implied that you did not.”
+
+“Y--e-s?”
+
+The Little Doctor gave the reins an impatient twitch.
+
+“Yes, yes--YES!”
+
+No answer from Chip. He could think of nothing to say that was not more
+or less profane.
+
+“I think he's a very nice, amiable young man”--strong emphasis upon the
+second adjective. “I like amiable young men.”
+
+Silence.
+
+“He's going to come down here hunting next fall. J. G. invited him.”
+
+“Yes? What does he expect to find?”
+
+“Why, whatever there is to hunt. Chickens and--er--deer--”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+By this they reached the level and the horses broke, of their own
+accord, into a gallop which somewhat relieved the strain upon the mental
+atmosphere. At the next hill the Little Doctor looked her companion over
+critically.
+
+“Mr. Bennett, you look positively bilious. Shall I prescribe for you?”
+
+“I can't see how that would add to your amusement.”
+
+“I'm not trying to add to my amusement.”
+
+“No?”
+
+“If I were, there's no material at hand. Bad-tempered young men are
+never amusing, to me. I like--”
+
+“Amiable young men. Such as Dick Brown.”
+
+“I think you need a change of air, Mr. Bennett.”
+
+“Yes? I've felt, lately, that Eastern airs don't agree with my
+constitution.”
+
+Miss Whitmore grew red as to cheeks and bright as to eyes.
+
+“I think a few small doses of Eastern manners would improve you very
+much,” she said, pointedly.
+
+“Y--e-s? They'd have to be small, because the supply is very limited.”
+
+The Little Doctor grew white around the mouth. She held Concho's rein so
+tight he almost stopped.
+
+“If you didn't want me to come, why in the world didn't you have the
+courage to say so at the start? I must say I don't admire people whose
+tempers--and manners--are so unstable. I'm sorry I forced my presence
+upon you, and I promise you it won't occur again.” She hesitated, and
+then fired a parting shot which certainly was spiteful in the extreme.
+“There's one good thing about it,” she smiled, tartly, “I shall have
+something interesting to write to Dr. Cecil.”
+
+With that she turned astonished Concho short around in the trail--and as
+Chip gave Blazes a vicious jab with his spurs at the same instant, the
+distance between them widened rapidly.
+
+As Chip raced away over the prairie, he discovered a new and puzzling
+kink in his temper. He had been angry with the Little Doctor for coming,
+but it was nothing to the rage he felt when she turned back! He did not
+own to himself that he wanted her beside him to taunt and to hurt with
+his rudeness, but it was a fact, for all that. And it was a very surly
+young man who rode into the Denson corral and threw a loop over the head
+of the runaway.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. -- Before the Round-up.
+
+
+
+“The Little Doctor wants us all to come up t' the White House this
+evening and have some music,” announced Cal, bursting into the bunk
+house where the boys were sorting and packing their belongings ready to
+start with the round-up wagon in the morning.
+
+Jack Bates hurriedly stuffed a miscellaneous collection of socks and
+handkerchiefs into his war bag and made for the wash basin.
+
+“I'll just call her bluff,” he said, determinedly.
+
+“It ain't any bluff; she wants us t' come, er you bet she wouldn't say
+so. I've learned that much about her. Say, you'd a died to seen old
+Dunk look down his nose! I'll bet money she done it just t' rasp his
+feelin's--and she sure succeeded. I'd go anyway, now, just t' watch him
+squirm.”
+
+“I notice it grinds him consider'ble to see the Little Doctor treat us
+fellows like white folks. He's workin' for a stand-in there himself. I
+bet he gets throwed down good and hard,” commented Weary, cheerfully.
+
+“It's a cinch he don't know about that pill-thrower back in Ohio,” added
+Cal. “Any of you fellows going to take her bid? I'll go alone, in a
+minute.”
+
+“I don't think you'll go alone,” asserted Jack Bates, grabbing his hat.
+
+Slim made a few hasty passes at his hair and said he was ready. Shorty,
+who had just come in from riding, unbuckled his spurs and kicked them
+under his bed.
+
+“It'll be many a day b'fore we listen t' the Little Doctor's mandolin
+ag'in,” croaked Happy Jack.
+
+“Aw, shut up!” admonished Cal.
+
+“Come on, Chip,” sang out Weary. “You can spoil good paper when you
+can't do anything else. Come and size up the look on Dunk's face when
+we take possession of all the best chairs and get t' pouring our incense
+and admiration on the Little Doctor.”
+
+Chip took the cigarette from his lips and emptied his lungs of smoke.
+“You fellows go on. I'm not going.” He bent again to his eternal
+drawing.
+
+“The dickens you ain't!” Weary was too astounded to say more.
+
+Chip said nothing. His gray hat-brim shielded his face from view, save
+for the thin, curved lips and firm chin. Weary studied chin and lips
+curiously, and whatever he read there, he refrained from further
+argument. He knew Chip so much better than did anyone else.
+
+“Aw, what's the matter with yuh, Splinter! Come on; don't be a chump,”
+ cried Cal, from the doorway.
+
+“I guess you'll let a fellow do as he likes about it, won't you?”
+ queried Chip, without looking up. He was very busy, just then, shading
+the shoulders of a high-pitching horse so that one might see the tense
+muscles.
+
+“What's the matter? You and the Little Doctor have a falling out?”
+
+“Not very bad,” Chip's tone was open to several interpretations. Cal
+interpreted it as a denial.
+
+“Sick?” He asked next.
+
+“Yes!” said Chip, shortly and falsely.
+
+“We'll call the doctor in, then,” volunteered Jack Bates.
+
+“I don't think you will. When I'm sick enough for that I'll let you
+know. I'm going to bed.”
+
+“Aw, come on and let him alone. Chip's able t' take care of himself, I
+guess,” said Weary, mercifully, holding open the door.
+
+They trooped out, and the last heard of them was Cal, remarking:
+
+“Gee whiz! I'd have t' be ready t' croak before I'd miss this chance uh
+dealing old Dunk misery.”
+
+Chip sat where they had left him, staring unseeingly down at the
+uncompleted sketch. His cigarette went out, but he did not roll a fresh
+one and held the half-burned stub abstractedly between his lips, set in
+bitter lines.
+
+Why should he care what a slip of a girl thought of him? He didn't
+care; he only--that thought he did not follow to the end, but started
+immediately on a new one. He supposed he was ignorant, according to
+Eastern standards. Lined up alongside Dr. Cecil Granthum--damn him!--he
+would cut a sorry figure, no doubt. He had never seen the outside of a
+college, let alone imbibing learning within one. He had learned some of
+the wisdom which nature teaches those who can read her language, and he
+had read much, lying on his stomach under a summer sky, while the cattle
+grazed all around him and his horse cropped the sweet grasses within
+reach of his hand. He could repeat whole pages of Shakespeare, and of
+Scott, and Bobbie Burns--he'd like to try Dr. Cecil on some of them and
+see who came out ahead. Still, he was ignorant--and none realized it
+more keenly and bitterly than did Chip.
+
+He rested his chin in his hand and brooded over his comfortless past and
+cheerless future. He could just remember his mother--and he preferred
+not to remember his father, who was less kind to him than were
+strangers. That was his past. And the future--always to be a
+cow-puncher? There was his knack for drawing; if he could study and
+practice, perhaps even the Little Doctor would not dare call him
+ignorant then. Not that he cared for what she might say or might not
+say, but a fellow can't help hating to be reminded of something that he
+knows better than anyone else--and that is not pleasant, however you may
+try to cover up the unsightliness of it.
+
+If Dr. Cecil Granthum--damn him!--had been kicked into the world
+and made to fight fate with tender, childish little fists but lately
+outgrown their baby dimples, as had been HIS lot, would he have amounted
+to anything, either? Maybe Dr. Cecil would have grown up just common and
+ignorant and fit for nothing better than to furnish amusement to girl
+doctors with dimples and big, gray eyes and a way of laughing. He'd like
+to show that little woman that she didn't know all about him yet. It
+wasn't too late--he was only twenty-four--he would study, and work, and
+climb to where she must look up, not down, to him--if she cared enough
+to look at all. It wasn't too late. He would quit gambling and save his
+money, and by next winter he'd have enough to go somewhere and learn to
+make pictures that amounted to something. He'd show her!
+
+After reiterating this resolve in several emphatic forms, Chip's spirits
+grew perceptibly lighter--so much so that he rolled a fresh cigarette
+and finished the drawing in his hands, which demonstrated the manner in
+which a particularly snaky broncho had taken a fall out of Jack Bates in
+the corral that morning.
+
+
+Next day, early in the afternoon, the round-up climbed the grade and
+started on its long trip over the range, and, after they had gone,
+the ranch seemed very quiet and very lonely to the Little Doctor, who
+revenged herself by snubbing Dunk so unmercifully that he announced
+his intention of taking the next train for Butte, where he lived in the
+luxury of rich bachelorhood. As the Little Doctor showed no symptoms of
+repenting, he rode sullenly away to Dry Lake, and she employed the rest
+of the afternoon writing a full and decidedly prejudiced account to Dr.
+Cecil of her quarrel with Chip, whom, she said, she quite hated.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. -- What Whizzer Did.
+
+
+
+“I guess Happy lost some of his horses, las' night,” said Slim at the
+breakfast table next morning. Slim had been kept at the ranch to look
+after the fences and the ditches, and was doing full justice to the
+expert cookery of the Countess.
+
+“What makes yuh think that?” The Old Man poised a bit of tender, broiled
+steak upon the end of his fork.
+
+“They's a bunch hangin' around the upper fence, an' Whizzer's among 'em.
+I'd know that long-legged snake ten miles away.”
+
+The Little Doctor looked up quickly. She had never before heard of a
+“long-legged snake”--but then, she had not yet made the acquaintance of
+Whizzer.
+
+“Well, maybe you better run 'em into the corral and hold 'em till Shorty
+sends some one after 'em,” suggested the Old Man.
+
+“I never c'd run 'em in alone, not with Whizzer in the bunch,” objected
+Slim. “He's the orneriest cayuse in Chouteau County.”
+
+“Whizzer'll make a rattlin' good saddle horse some day, when he's broke
+gentle,” argued the Old Man.
+
+“Huh! I don't envy Chip the job uh breakin' him, though,” grunted Slim,
+as he went out of the door.
+
+After breakfast the Little Doctor visited Silver and fed him his
+customary ration of lump sugar, helped the Countess tidy the house, and
+then found herself at a loss for something to do. She stood looking out
+into the hazy sunlight which lay warm on hill and coulee.
+
+“I think I'll go up above the grade and make a sketch of the ranch,” she
+said to the Countess, and hastily collected her materials.
+
+Down by the creek a “cotton-tail” sprang out of her way and kicked
+itself out of sight beneath a bowlder. The Little Doctor stood and
+watched till he disappeared, before going on again. Further up the bluff
+a striped snake gave her a shivery surprise before he glided sinuously
+away under a sagebush. She crossed the grade and climbed the steep bluff
+beyond, searching for a comfortable place to work.
+
+A little higher, she took possession of a great, gray bowlder jutting
+like a giant table from the gravelly soil. She walked out upon it and
+looked down--a sheer drop of ten or twelve feet to the barren, yellow
+slope below.
+
+“I suppose it is perfectly solid,” she soliloquized and stamped one
+stout, little boot, to see if the rock would tremble. If human emotions
+are possible to a heart of stone, the rock must have been greatly amused
+at the test. It stood firm as the hills around it.
+
+Della sat down and looked below at the house--a doll's house; at the toy
+corrals and tiny sheds and stables. Slim, walking down the hill, was
+a mere pigmy--a short, waddling insect. At least, to a girl unused to
+gazing from a height, each object seemed absurdly small. Flying U
+coulee stretched away to the west, with a silver ribbon drawn carelessly
+through it with many a twist and loop, fringed with a tender green of
+young leaves. Away and beyond stood the Bear Paws, hazily blue, with
+splotches of purple shadows.
+
+“I don't blame J. G. for loving this place,” thought the Little Doctor,
+drinking in the intoxication of the West with every breath she drew.
+
+She had just become absorbed in her work when a clatter arose from the
+grade below, and a dozen horses, headed by a tall, rangy sorrel she
+surmised was Whizzer, dashed down the hill. Weary and Chip galloped
+close behind. They did not look up, and so passed without seeing her.
+They were talking and laughing in very good spirits--which the Little
+Doctor resented, for some inexplicable reason. She heard them call to
+Slim to open the corral gate, and saw Slim run to do their bidding. She
+forgot her sketching and watched Whizzer dodge and bolt back, and Chip
+tear through the creek bed after him at peril of life and limb.
+
+Back and forth, round and round went Whizzer, running almost through
+the corral gate, then swerving suddenly and evading his pursuers with an
+ease which bordered closely on the marvelous. Slim saddled a horse and
+joined in the chase, and the Old Man climbed upon the fence and shouted
+advice which no one heard and would not have heeded if they had.
+
+As the chase grew in earnestness and excitement, the sympathies of
+the Little Doctor were given unreservedly to Whizzer. Whenever a
+particularly clever maneuver of his set the men to swearing, she clapped
+her hands in sincere, though unheard and unappreciated, applause.
+
+“Good boy!” she cried, approvingly, when he dodged Chip and whirled
+through the big gate which the Old Man had unwittingly left open. J.
+G. leaned perilously forward and shook his fist unavailingly. Whizzer
+tossed head and heels alternately and scurried up the path to the very
+door of the kitchen, where he swung round and looked back down the hill
+snorting triumph.
+
+“Shoo, there!” shrilled the Countess, shaking her dish towel at him.
+
+“Who--oo-oof-f,” snorted he disdainfully and trotted leisurely round the
+corner.
+
+Chip galloped up the hill, his horse running heavily. After him came
+Weary, liberally applying quirt and mild invective. At the house they
+parted and headed the fugitive toward the stables. He shot through
+the big gate, lifting his heels viciously at the Old Man as he passed,
+whirled around the stable and trotted haughtily past Slim into the
+corral of his own accord, quite as if he had meant to do so all along.
+
+“Did you ever!” exclaimed the Little Doctor, disgustedly, from her
+perch. “Whizzer, I'm ashamed of you! I wouldn't have given in like
+that--but you gave them a chase, didn't you, my beauty?”
+
+The boys flung themselves off their tired horses and went up to the
+house to beg the Countess for a lunch, and Della turned resolutely to
+her sketching again.
+
+She was just beginning to forget that the world held aught but soft
+shadows, mellow glow and hazy perspective, when a subdued uproar reached
+her from below. She drew an uncertain line or two, frowned and laid her
+pencil resignedly in her lap.
+
+“It's of no use. I can't do a thing till those cow-punchers take
+themselves and their bronchos off the ranch--and may it be soon!” she
+told herself, disconsolately and not oversincerely. The best of us are
+not above trying to pull the wool over our own eyes, at times.
+
+In reality their brief presence made the near future seem very flat and
+insipid to the Little Doctor. It was washing all the color out of the
+picture, and leaving it a dirty gray. She gazed moodily down at the
+whirl of dust in the corral, where Whizzer was struggling to free
+himself from the loop Chip had thrown with his accustomed, calm
+precision. Whatever Chip did he did thoroughly, with no slurring of
+detail. Whizzer was fain to own himself fairly caught.
+
+“Oh, he's got you fast, my beauty!” sighed the Little Doctor, woefully.
+“Why didn't you jump over the fence--I think you COULD--and run, run, to
+freedom?” She grew quite melodramatic over the humiliation of the horse
+she had chosen to champion, and glared resentfully when Chip threw
+his saddle, with no gentle hand, upon the sleek back and tightened the
+cinches with a few strong, relentless yanks.
+
+“Chip, you're an ugly, mean-tempered--that's right, Whizzer! Kick him if
+you can--I'll stand by you!” This assertion, you understand, was
+purely figurative; the Little Doctor would have hesitated long before
+attempting to carry it out literally.
+
+“Now, Whizzer, when he tries to ride you, don't you let him! Throw him
+clear-over-the STABLE--so there!”
+
+Perhaps Whizzer understood the command in some mysterious, telepathic
+manner. At any rate, he set himself straightway to obey it, and there
+was not a shadow of doubt but that he did his best--but Chip did not
+choose to go over the stable. Instead of doing so, he remained in the
+saddle and changed ends with his quirt, to the intense rage of the
+Little Doctor, who nearly cried.
+
+“Oh, you brute! You fiend! I'll never speak to you again as long as I
+live! Oh, Whizzer, you poor fellow, why do you let him abuse you so? Why
+DON'T you throw him clean off the ranch?”
+
+This is exactly what Whizzer was trying his best to do, and Whizzer's
+best was exceedingly bad for his rider, as a general thing. But Chip
+calmly refused to be thrown, and Whizzer, who was no fool, suddenly
+changed his tactics and became so meek that his champion on the bluff
+felt tempted to despise him for such servile submission to a tyrant in
+brown chaps and gray hat--I am transcribing the facts according to the
+Little Doctor's interpretation.
+
+She watched gloomily while Whizzer, in whose brain lurked no thought
+of submission, galloped steadily along behind the bunch which Slim made
+haste to liberate, and bided his time. She had expected better--rather,
+worse--of him than that. She had not dreamed he would surrender so
+tamely. As they crossed the Hog's Back and climbed the steep grade just
+below her, she eyed him reproachfully and said again:
+
+“Whizzer, I'm ashamed of you!”
+
+It did certainly seem that Whizzer heard and felt the pricking of pride
+at the reproof. He made a feint at being frightened by a jack rabbit
+which sprang out from the shade of a rock and bounced down the hill like
+a rubber ball. As if Whizzer had never seen a jack rabbit before!--he
+who had been born and reared upon the range among them! It was a feeble
+excuse at the best, but he made the most of it and lost no time seeking
+a better.
+
+He stopped short, sidled against Weary's horse and snorted. Chip, in
+none the best humor with him, jerked the reins savagely and dug him with
+his spurs, and Whizzer, resenting the affront, whirled and bounded
+high in the air. Back down the grade he bucked with the high, rocking,
+crooked jumps which none but a Western cayuse can make, while Weary
+turned in his saddle and watched with sharp-drawn breaths. There was
+nothing else that he could do.
+
+Chip was by no means passive. For every jump that Whizzer made the
+rawhide quirt landed across his flaring nostrils, and the locked rowels
+of Chip's spurs raked the sorrel sides from cinch to flank, leaving
+crimson streams behind them.
+
+Wild with rage at this clinging cow-puncher whom he could not dislodge,
+who stung his sides and head like the hornets in the meadow, Whizzer
+gathered himself for a mighty leap as he reached the Hog's Back. Like a
+wire spring released, he shot into the air, shook himself in one last,
+desperate hope of victory, and, failing, came down with not a joint in
+his legs and turned a somersault.
+
+A moment, and he struggled to his feet and limped painfully away,
+crushed and beaten in spirit.
+
+Chip did not struggle. He lay, a long length of brown chaps,
+pink-and-white shirt and gray hat, just where he had fallen.
+
+The Little Doctor never could remember getting down that bluff, and her
+sketching materials went to amuse the jack rabbits and the birds. Fast
+as she flew, Weary was before her and had raised Chip's head upon one
+arm. She knelt beside him in the dust, hovering over the white face
+and still form like a pitying, little gray angel. Weary looked at her
+impersonally, but neither of them spoke in those first, breathless
+moments.
+
+The Old Man, who had witnessed the accident, came puffing laboriously up
+the hill, taking the short cut straight across from the stable.
+
+“Is he--DEAD?” he yelled while he scrambled.
+
+Weary turned his head long enough to look down at him, with the same
+impersonal gaze he had bestowed upon the Little Doctor, but he did
+not answer the question. He could not, for he did not know. The Little
+Doctor seemed not to have heard.
+
+The Old Man redoubled his exertions and reached them very much out of
+breath.
+
+“Is he dead, Dell?” he repeated in an awestruck tone. He feared she
+would say yes.
+
+The Little Doctor had taken possession of the brown head. She looked up
+at her brother, a very unprofessional pallor upon her face, and down at
+the long, brown lashes and at the curved, sensitive lips which held no
+hint of red. She pressed the face closer to her breast and shook her
+head. She could not speak, just then, for the griping ache that was in
+her throat.
+
+“One of the best men on the ranch gone under, just when we need help the
+worst!” complained the Old Man. “Is he hurt bad?”
+
+“J. G.,” began the Little Doctor in a voice all the fiercer for being
+suppressed, “I want you to kill that horse. Do you hear? If you don't do
+it, I will!”
+
+“You won't have to, if old Splinter goes down and out,” said Weary, with
+quiet meaning, and the Little Doctor gave him a grateful flash of gray
+eyes.
+
+“How bad is he hurt?” repeated the Old Man, impatiently. “You're
+supposed t' be a doctor--don't you know?”
+
+“He has a scalp wound which does not seem serious,” said she in an
+attempt to be matter-of-fact, “and his left collar bone is broken.”
+
+“Doggone it! A broken collar bone ain't mended overnight.”
+
+“No,” acquiesced the Little Doctor, “it isn't.”
+
+These last two remarks Chip heard. He opened his eyes and looked
+straight up into the gray ones above--a long, questioning, rebellious
+look. He tried then to rise, to free himself from the bitter ecstasy of
+those soft, enfolding arms. Only a broken collar bone! Good thing it was
+no worse! Ugh! A spasm of pain contracted his features and drew beads
+of moisture to his forehead. The spurned arms once more felt the dead
+weight of him.
+
+“What is it?” The Little Doctor's voice called to him from afar.
+
+Must he answer? He wanted to drift on and on--“Can you tell me where
+the pain is?”
+
+Pain? Oh, yes, there had been pain--but he wanted to drift. He opened
+his eyes again reluctantly; again the pain clutched him.
+
+“It's--my--foot.”
+
+For the first time the eyes of the Little Doctor left his face and
+traveled downward to the spurred boots. One was twisted in a horrible
+unnatural position that told the agonizing truth--a badly dislocated
+ankle. They returned quickly to the face, and swam full of blinding
+tears--such as a doctor should not succumb to. He was not drifting into
+oblivion now; his teeth were not digging into his lower lip for nothing,
+she knew.
+
+“Weary,” she said, forgetting to call him properly by name, “ride to
+the house and get my medicine case--the little black one. The Countess
+knows--and have Slim bring something to carry him home on. And--RIDE!”
+
+Weary was gone before she had finished, and he certainly “rode.”
+
+“You'll have another crippled cow-puncher on yer hands, first thing
+yuh know,” grumbled the Old Man, anxiously, as he watched Weary race
+recklessly down the hill.
+
+The Little Doctor did not answer. She scarcely heard him. She was
+stroking the hair back from Chip's forehead softly, unconsciously,
+wondering why she had never before noticed the wave in it--but then, she
+had scarcely seen him with his hat off. How silky and soft it felt!
+And she had called him all sorts of mean names, and had wanted Whizzer
+to--she shuddered and turned sick at the memory of the thud when they
+struck the hard road together.
+
+“Dell!” exclaimed the Old Man, “you're white's a rag. Doggone it, don't
+throw up yer hands at yer first case--brace up!”
+
+Chip looked up at her curiously, forgetting the pain long enough
+to wonder at her whiteness. Did she have a heart, then, or was it a
+feminine trait to turn pale in every emergency? She had not turned so
+very white when those kids--he felt inclined to laugh, only for that
+cussed foot. Instead he relaxed his vigilance and a groan slipped out
+before he knew.
+
+“Just a minute more and I'll ease the pain for you,” murmured the girl,
+compassionately.
+
+“All right--so long as you--don't--use--the stomach pump,” he retorted,
+with a miserable makeshift of a laugh.
+
+“What's that?” asked the Old Man, but no one explained.
+
+The Little Doctor was struggling with the lump in her throat that he
+should try to joke about it.
+
+Then Weary was back and holding the little, black case out to her. She
+seized it eagerly, slipping Chip's head to her knees that she might use
+her hands freely. There was no halting over the tiny vials, for she had
+decided just what she must do.
+
+She laid something against Chip's closed lips.
+
+“Swallow these,” she said, and he obeyed her. “Weary--oh, you knew what
+to do, I see. There, lay the coat down there for a pillow.”
+
+Relieved of her burden, she rose and went to the poor, twisted foot.
+
+Weary and the Old Man watched her go to work systematically and disclose
+the swollen, purpling ankle. Very gently she did it, and when she had
+administered a merciful anaesthetic, the enthusiasm of the Old Man
+demanded speech.
+
+“Well, I'll be eternally doggoned! You're onto your job, Dell, doggoned
+if yuh ain't. I won't ever josh yuh again about yer doctorin'!”
+
+“I wish you'd been around the time I smashed MY ankle,” commented Weary,
+fishing for his cigarette book; he was beginning to feel the need of a
+quieting smoke. “They hauled me forty miles, to Benton.”
+
+“That must have been torture!” shuddered the Little Doctor. “A
+dislocated ankle is a most agonizing thing.”
+
+“Yes,” assented Weary, striking a match, “it sure is, all right.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. -- Good Intentions.
+
+
+
+“Mr. Davidson, have you nerve enough to help me replace this ankle? The
+Countess is too nervous, and J. G. is too awkward.”
+
+Chip was lying oblivious to his surroundings or his hurt in the sunny,
+south room which Dunk Whitaker chose to call his.
+
+“I've never been accused of wanting nerve,” grinned Weary. “I guess
+I can stand it if you can.” And a very efficient assistant he proved
+himself to be.
+
+When the question of a nurse arose, when all had been done that could be
+done and Weary had gone, the Little Doctor found herself involved in an
+argument with the Countess. The Countess wanted them to send for Bill.
+Bill just thought the world and all of Chip, she declared, and would
+just love to come. She was positive that Bill was the very one they
+needed, and the Little Doctor, who had conceived a violent dislike for
+Bill, a smirky, self-satisfied youth addicted to chewing tobacco, red
+neckties and a perennial grin, was equally positive he was the very
+one they did not want. In despair she retrenched herself behind the
+assertion that Chip should choose for himself.
+
+“I just know he'll choose Bill,” crowed the Countess after the flicker
+of the doctor's skirts.
+
+Chip turned his head rebelliously upon the pillow and looked up at
+her. Something in his eyes brought to mind certain stormy crises in the
+headstrong childhood of the Little Doctor-crises in which she was forced
+to submission very much against her will. It was the same mutinous
+surrender to overwhelming strength, the same futile defiance of fate.
+
+“I came to ask you who you would rather have to nurse you,” she said,
+trying to keep the erratic color from crimsoning her cheeks. You see,
+she had never had a patient of her very own before, and there were
+certain embarrassing complications in having this particular young man
+in charge.
+
+Chip's eyes wandered wistfully to the window, where a warm, spring
+breeze flapped the curtains in and out.
+
+“How long have I got to lie here?” he asked, reluctantly.
+
+“A month, at the least--more likely six weeks,” she said with kind
+bluntness. It was best he should know the worst at once.
+
+Chip turned his face bitterly to the wall for a minute and traced an
+impossible vine to its breaking point where the paper had not been
+properly matched. Twenty miles away the boys were hurrying through their
+early dinner that they might catch up their horses for the afternoon's
+work. And they had two good feet to walk on, two sound arms to subdue
+restless horseflesh and he was not there! He could fairly smell the
+sweet, trampled sod as the horses circled endlessly inside the rope
+corral, and hear them snort when a noose swished close. He wondered who
+would get his string to ride, and what they would do with his bed.
+
+He didn't need it, now; he would lie on wire springs, instead of on the
+crisp, prairie grass. He would be waited on like a yearling baby and--
+“The Countess just knows you will choose Bill,” interrupted a whimsical
+girl voice.
+
+Chip said something which the Little Doctor did not try to hear
+distinctly. “Don't she think I've had enough misery dealt me for once?”
+ he asked, without taking his eyes from the poor, broken vine. He rather
+pitied the vine--it seemed to have been badly used by fate, just as
+he had been. He was sure it had not wanted to stop right there on that
+line, as it had been forced to do. HE had not wanted to stop, either.
+He--“She says Bill would just love to come,” said the voice, with a bit
+of a laugh in it.
+
+Chip, turning his head back suddenly, looked into the gray eyes and felt
+inexplicably cheered. He almost believed she understood something of
+what it all meant to him. And she mercifully refrained from spoken pity,
+which he felt he could not have borne just then. His lips took back some
+of their curve.
+
+“You tell her I wouldn't just love to have him,” he said, grimly.
+
+“I'd never dare. She dotes on Bill. Whom DO you want?”
+
+“When it comes to that, I don't want anybody. But if you could get
+Johnny Beckman to come--”
+
+“Oh, I will--I'll go myself, to make sure of him. Which one is Johnny?”
+
+“Johnny's the red-headed one,” said Chip.
+
+“But--they're ALL--”
+
+“Yes, but his head is several shades redder than any of the others,”
+ interrupted he, quite cheerfully.
+
+The Little Doctor, observing the twinkle in his eyes, felt her spirits
+rise wonderfully. She could not bear that hurt, rebellious, lonely look
+which they had worn.
+
+“I'll bring him--but I may have to chloroform the Countess to get
+him into the house. You must try to sleep, while I'm gone--and don't
+fret--will you? You'll get well all the quicker for taking things
+easily.”
+
+Chip smiled faintly at this wholesome advice, and the Little Doctor laid
+her hand shyly upon his forehead to test its temperature, drew down the
+shade over the south window, and left him in dim, shadowy coolness to
+sleep.
+
+She came again before she started for Johnny, and found him wide awake
+and staring hungrily at the patch of blue sky visible through the window
+which faced the East.
+
+“You'll have to learn to obey orders better than this,” she said,
+severely, and took quiet possession of his wrist. “I told you not to
+fret about being hurt. I know you hate it--”
+
+Chip flushed a little under her touch and the tone in which she spoke
+the last words. It seemed to mean that she hated it even more than he
+did, having him helpless in the house with her. It hadn't been so long
+since she had told him plainly how little she liked him. He was not
+going to forget, in a hurry!
+
+“Why don't you send me to the hospital?” he demanded, brusquely. “I
+could stand the trip, all right.”
+
+The Little Doctor, the color coming and going in her cheeks, pressed her
+cool fingers against his forehead.
+
+“Because I want you here to practice on. Do you think I'd let such a
+chance escape?”
+
+After she was gone, Chip found some things to puzzle over. He felt that
+he was no match for the Little Doctor, and for the first time in his
+life he deeply regretted his ignorance of woman nature.
+
+When the dishes were done, the Countess put her resentment behind her
+and went in to sit with Chip, with the best of intentions. The most
+disagreeable trait of some disagreeable people is that their intentions
+are invariably good. She had her “crochy work,” and Chip groaned
+inwardly when he saw her settle herself comfortably in a rocking-chair
+and unwind her thread. The Countess had worked hard all her life, and
+her hands were red and big-jointed. There was no pleasure in watching
+their clever manipulation of the little, steel hook. If it had been the
+Little Doctor's hands, now--Chip turned again to the decapitated, pale
+blue vine with its pink flowers and no leaves. The Countess counted
+off “chain 'leven” and began in a constrained tone, such as some
+well-meaning people employ against helpless sick folk.
+
+“How're yuh feelin' now? Yuh want a drink, or anything?”
+
+Chip did not want a drink, and he felt all right, he guessed.
+
+The Countess thought to cheer him a little.
+
+“Well, I do think it's too bad yuh got t' lay here all through this
+purty spring weather. If it had been in the winter, when it's cold and
+stormy outside, a person wouldn't mind it s' much. I know yuh must feel
+purty blew over it, fer yuh was always sech a hand t' be tearin' around
+the country on the dead run, seems like. I always told Mary 't you'n
+Weary always rode like the sheriff wa'nt more'n a mile b'hind yuh. An'
+I s'pose you feel it all the more, seein' the round-up's jest startin'
+out. Weary said yuh was playin' big luck, if yuh only knew enough t'
+cash in yer chips at the right time, but he's afraid yuh wouldn't be
+watching the game close enough an' ud lose yer pile. I don't know what
+he was drivin' at, an' I guess he didn't neither. It's too bad, anyway.
+I guess yuh didn't expect t' wind up in bed when yuh rode off up the
+hill. But as the sayin' is: 'Man plans an' God displans,' an' I guess
+it's so. Here yuh are, laid up fer the summer, Dell says--the las' thing
+on earth, I guess, that yuh was lookin' fer. An' yuh rode buckin' bronks
+right along, too. I never looked fer Whizzer t' buck yuh off, I must
+say--yuh got the name uh bein' sech a good rider, too. But they say
+'t the pitcher 't's always goin' t' the well is bound t' git busted
+sometime, an' I guess your turn come t' git busted. Anyway--”
+
+“I didn't get bucked off,” broke in Chip, angrily. A “bronch fighter” is
+not more jealous of his sweetheart than of his reputation as a rider. “A
+fellow can't very well make a pretty ride while his horse is turning a
+somersault.”
+
+“Oh, well, I didn't happen t' se it--I thought Weary said 't yuh got
+throwed off on the Hog's Back. Anyway, I don't know's it makes much
+difference how yuh happened t' hit the ground--”
+
+“I guess it does make a difference,” cried Chip, hotly. His eyes took on
+the glitter of fever. “It makes a whole heap of difference, let me tell
+you! I'd like to hear Weary or anybody else stand up and tell me that
+I got bucked off. I may be pretty badly smashed up, but I'd come pretty
+near showing him where he stood.”
+
+“Oh, well, yuh needn't go t' work an' git mad about it,” remonstrated
+the Countess, dropping her thread in her perturbation at his excitement.
+The spool rolled under the bed and she was obliged to get down upon her
+knees and claw it back, and she jarred the bed and set Chip's foot to
+hurting again something awful.
+
+When she finally secured the spool and resumed her chair, Chip's eyes
+were tightly closed, but the look of his mouth and the flush in his
+cheeks, together with his quick breathing, precluded the belief that
+he was asleep. The Countess was not a fool--she saw at once that fever,
+which the Little Doctor had feared, was fast taking hold of him. She
+rolled her half yard of “edging” around the spool of thread, jabbed the
+hook through the lump and went out and told the Old Man that Chip was
+getting worse every minute--which was the truth.
+
+The Old Map knocked the ashes out of his pipe and went in to look at
+him.
+
+“Did Weary say I got bucked off?” demanded the sick man before the Old
+Man was fairly in the room. “If he did, he lied, that's all. I didn't
+think Weary'd do me dirt like that--I thought he'd stand by me if
+anybody would. He knows I wasn't throwed. I--”
+
+“Here, young fellow,” put in the Old Man, calmly, “don't yuh git t'
+rampagin' around over nothin'! You turn over there an' go t' sleep.”
+
+“I'll be hanged if I will!” retorted Chip. “If Weary's taken to lying
+about me I'll have it out with him if I break all the rest of my bones
+doing it. Do you think I'm going to stand a thing like that? I'll see--”
+
+“Easy there, doggone it. I never heard Weary say't yuh got bucked off.
+Whizzer turned over on his head, 's near as I c'd make out fer dust. I
+took it he turned a summerset.”
+
+Chip's befogged brain caught at the last word.
+
+“Yes, that's just what he did. It beats me how Weary could say, or even
+think, that I--it was the jack rabbit first--and I told her the supply
+was limited--and if we do furnish lots of amusement--but I guess I made
+her understand I wasn't so easy as she took me to be. She--”
+
+“Hey?” The Old Man could hardly be blamed for losing the drift of Chip's
+rapid utterances.
+
+“If we want to get them rounded up before the dance, I'll--it's a good
+thing it wasn't poison, for seven dead kids at once--”
+
+The Old Man knew something about sickness himself. He hurried out,
+returning in a moment with a bowl of cool water and a fringed napkin
+which he pilfered from the dining-room table, wisely intending to bathe
+Chip's head.
+
+But Chip would have none of him or his wise intentions. He jerked the
+wet napkin from the Old Man's fingers and threw it down behind the bed,
+knocked up the bowl of water into the Old Man's face and called him
+some very bad names. The Countess came and looked in, and Chip hurled a
+pillow at her and called her a bad name also, so that she retreated to
+the kitchen with her feelings very much hurt. After that Chip had the
+south room to himself until the Little Doctor returned with Johnny.
+
+The Old Man, looking rather scared, met her on the porch. The Little
+Doctor read his face before she was off her horse.
+
+“What's the matter? Is he worse?” she demanded, abruptly.
+
+“That's fer you t' find out. I ain't no doctor. He got on the fight, a
+while back, an' took t' throwin' things an' usin' langwidge. He can't
+git out uh bed, thank the Lord, or we'd be takin' t' the hills by now.”
+
+“Then somebody has it to answer for. He was all right when I left him,
+two hours ago, with not a sign of fever. Has the Countess been pestering
+him?”
+
+“No,” said the Countess, popping her head out of the kitchen window and
+speaking in an aggrieved tone, “I hope I never pester anybody. I went
+an' done all I could t' cheer 'im up, an' that's all the thanks I
+git fer it. I must say some folks ain't overburdened with gratitude,
+anyhow.”
+
+The Little Doctor did not wait to hear her out. She went straight to the
+south room, pulling off her gloves on the way. The pillow on the floor
+told her an eloquent tale, and she sighed as she picked it up and patted
+some shape back into it. Chip stared at her with wide, bright eyes from
+the bed.
+
+“I don't suppose Dr. Cecil Granthum would throw pillows at anybody!” he
+remarked, sarcastically, as she placed it very gently under his head.
+
+“Perhaps, if the provocation was great enough. What have they been doing
+to you?”
+
+“Did Weary say I got bucked off?” he demanded, excitedly.
+
+The Little Doctor was counting his pulse, and waited till she had
+finished. It was a high number--much higher than she liked.
+
+“No, Weary didn't. How could he? You didn't, you know. I saw it all from
+the bluff, and I know the horse turned over upon you. It's a wonder you
+weren't killed outright. Now, don't worry about it any more--I expect it
+was the Countess told you that. Weary hated dreadfully to leave you. I
+wonder if you know how much he thinks of you? I didn't, till I saw how
+he looked when you--here, drink this, all of it. You've got to sleep,
+you see.”
+
+
+There was a week when the house was kept very still, and the south
+room very cool and shadowy, and Chip did not much care who it was that
+ministered to him--only that the hands of the Little Doctor were always
+soft and soothing on his head and he wished she would keep them there
+always, when he was himself enough to wish anything coherently.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. -- “The Last Stand.”
+
+
+
+To use a trite expression and say that Chip “fought his way back to
+health” would be simply stating a fact and stating it mildly. He went
+about it much as he would go about gentling a refractory broncho, and
+with nearly the same results.
+
+His ankle, however, simply could not be hurried or bluffed into
+premature soundness, and the Little Doctor was at her wits' end to keep
+Chip from fretting himself back into fever, once he was safely pulled
+out of it. She made haste to explain the bit of overheard conversation,
+which he harped on more than he dreamed, when his head went light in
+that first week, and so established a more friendly feeling between
+them.
+
+Still, there was a certain aloofness about him which she could not
+conquer, try as she might. Just so far they were comrades--beyond, Chip
+walked moodily alone. The Little Doctor did not like that overmuch.
+She preferred to know that she fairly understood her friends and was
+admitted, sometimes, to their full confidence. She did not relish
+bumping her head against a blank wall that was too high to look over or
+to climb, and in which there seemed to be no door.
+
+To be sure, he talked freely, and amusingly, of his adventures and of
+the places he had known, but it was always an impersonal recital, and
+told little of his real self or his real feelings. Still, when she
+asked him, he told her exactly what he thought about things, whether his
+opinion pleased her or not.
+
+There were times when he would sit in the old Morris chair and smoke
+and watch her make lacey stuff in a little, round frame. Battenberg, she
+said it was. He loved to see her fingers manipulate the needle and the
+thread, and take wonderful pains with her work--but once she showed him
+a butterfly whose wings did not quite match, and he pointed it out to
+her. She had been listening to him tell a story of Indians and cowboys
+and with some wild riding mixed into it, and--well, she used the wrong
+stitch, but no one would notice it in a thousand years. This, her
+argument.
+
+“You'll always know the mistake's there, and you won't get the
+satisfaction out of it you would if it was perfect, would you?” argued
+Chip, letting his eyes dwell on her face more than was good for him.
+
+The Little Doctor pouted her lips in a way to tempt a man all he could
+stand, and snipped out the wing with her scissors and did it over.
+
+So with her painting. She started a scene in the edge of the Bad Lands
+down the river. Chip knew the place well. There was a heated discussion
+over the foreground, for the Little Doctor wanted him to sketch in some
+Indian tepees and some squaws for her, and Chip absolutely refused to
+do so. He said there were no Indians in that country, and it would spoil
+the whole picture, anyway. The Little Doctor threatened to sketch them
+herself, drawing on her imagination and what little she knew of Indians,
+but something in his eyes stayed her hand. She left the easel in disgust
+and refused to touch it again for a week.
+
+She was to spend a long day with Miss Satterly, the schoolma'am, and
+started off soon after breakfast one morning.
+
+“I hope you'll find something to keep you out of mischief while I'm
+gone,” she remarked, with a pretty, authoritative air. “Make him take
+his medicine, Johnny, and don't let him have the crutches. Well, I think
+I shall hide them to make sure.”
+
+“I wish to goodness you had that picture done,” grumbled Chip. “It
+seems to me you're doing a heap of running around, lately. Why don't you
+finish it up? Those lonesome hills are getting on my nerves.”
+
+“I'll cover it up,” said she.
+
+“Let it be. I like to look at them.” Chip leaned back in his chair and
+watched her, a hunger greater than he knew in his eyes. It was most
+awfully lonesome when she was gone all day, and last night she had been
+writing all the evening to Dr. Cecil Granthum--damn him! Chip always
+hitched that invective to the unknown doctor's name, for some reason he
+saw fit not to explain to himself. He didn't see what she could find to
+write about so much, for his part. And he did hate a long day with no
+one but Johnny to talk to.
+
+He craned his neck to keep her in view as long as possible, drew a long,
+discontented breath and settled himself more comfortably in the chair
+where he spent the greater part of his waking hours.
+
+“Hand me the tobacco, will you, kid?”
+
+He fished his cigarette book from his pocket. “Thanks!” He tore a narrow
+strip from the paper and sifted in a little tobacco.
+
+“Now a match, kid, and then you're done.”
+
+Johnny placed the matches within easy reach, shoved a few magazines
+close to Chip's elbow, and stretched himself upon the floor with a book.
+
+Chip lay back against the cushions and smoked lazily, his eyes half
+closed, dreaming rather than thinking. The unfinished painting stood
+facing him upon its easel, and his eyes idly fixed upon it. He knew
+the place so well. Jagged pinnacles, dotted here and there with scrubby
+pines, hemmed in a tiny basin below--where was blank canvas. He went
+mentally over the argument again, and from that drifted to a scene he
+had witnessed in that same basin, one day--but that was in the winter.
+Dirty gray snow drifts, where a chinook had cut them, and icy side hills
+made the place still drearier. And the foreground--if the Little Doctor
+could get that, now, she would be doing something!--ah! that foreground.
+A poor, half-starved range cow with her calf which the round-up had
+overlooked in the fall, stood at bay against a steep cut bank. Before
+them squatted five great, gaunt wolves intent upon fresh beef for their
+supper. But the cow's horns were long, and sharp, and threatening, and
+the calf snuggled close to her side, shivering with the cold and the
+fear of death. The wolves licked their cruel lips and their eyes gleamed
+hungrily--but the eyes of the cow answered them, gleam for gleam. If it
+could be put upon canvas just as he had seen it, with the bitter, biting
+cold of a frozen chinook showing gray and sinister in the slaty sky--
+“Kid!”
+
+“Huh?” Johnny struggled reluctantly back to Montana.
+
+“Get me the Little Doctor's paint and truck, over on that table, and
+slide that easel up here.”
+
+Johnny stared, opened his mouth to speak, then wisely closed it and did
+as he was bidden. Philosophically he told himself it was Chip's funeral,
+if the Little Doctor made a kick.
+
+“All right, kid.” Chip tossed the cigarette stub out of the window. “You
+can go ahead and read, now. Lock the door first, and don't you bother
+me--not on your life.”
+
+Then Chip plunged headlong into the Bad Lands, so to speak.
+
+A few dabs of dirty white, here and there, a wholly original
+manipulation of the sky--what mattered the method, so he attained the
+result? Half an hour, and the hills were clutched in the chill embrace
+of a “frozen chinook” such as the Little Doctor had never seen in her
+life. But Johnny, peeping surreptitiously over Chip's shoulder, stared
+at the change; then, feeling the spirit of it, shivered in sympathy with
+the barren hills.
+
+“Hully gee,” he muttered under his breath, “he's sure a corker t'
+paint cold that fair makes yer nose sting.” And he curled up in a chair
+behind, where he could steal a look, now and then, without fear of
+detection.
+
+But Chip was dead to all save that tiny basin in the Bad Lands--to the
+wolves and their quarry. His eyes burned as they did when the fever held
+him; each cheek bone glowed flaming red.
+
+As wolf after wolf appeared with what, to Johnny, seemed uncanny
+swiftness, and squatted, grinning and sinister, in a relentless half
+circle, the book slipped unheeded to the floor with a clatter that
+failed to rouse the painter, whose ears were dulled to all else than the
+pitiful blat of a shivering, panic-stricken calf whose nose sought his
+mother's side for her comforting warmth and protection.
+
+The Countess rapped on the door for dinner, and Johnny rose softly and
+tiptoed out to quiet her. May he be forgiven the lies he told that
+day, of how Chip's head ached and he wanted to sleep and must not be
+disturbed, by strict orders of the Little Doctor. The Countess, to whom
+the very name of the Little Doctor was a fetich, closed all intervening
+doors and walked on her toes in the kitchen, and Johnny rejoiced at the
+funeral quiet which rested upon the house.
+
+Faster flew the brush. Now the eyes of the cow glared desperate
+defiance. One might almost see her bony side, ruffled by the cutting
+north wind, heave with her breathing. She was fighting death for herself
+and her baby--but for how long? Already the nose of one great, gray
+beast was straight uplifted, sniffing, impatient. Would they risk a
+charge upon those lowered horns? The dark pines shook their feathery
+heads hopelessly. A little while perhaps, and then--Chip laid down the
+brush and sank back in the chair. Was the sun so low? He could do no
+more--yes, he took up a brush and added the title: “The Last Stand.”
+
+He was very white, and his hand shook. Johnny leaned over the back of
+the chair, his eyes glued to the picture.
+
+“Gee,” he muttered, huskily, “I'd like t' git a whack at them wolves
+once.”
+
+Chip turned his head until he could look at the lad's face. “What do you
+think of it, kid?” he asked, shakily.
+
+Johnny did not answer for a moment. It was hard to put what he felt into
+words. “I dunno just how t' say it,” he said, gropingly, at last, “but
+it makes me want t' go gunnin' fer them wolves b'fore they hamstring
+her. It--well--it don't seem t' me like it was a pitcher, somehow. It
+seems like the reel thing, kinda.”
+
+Chip moved his head languidly upon the cushion.
+
+“I'm dead tired, kid. No, I'm not hungry, nor I don't want any
+coffee, or anything. Just roll this chair over to the bed, will you?
+I'm--dead-tired.”
+
+Johnny was worried. He did not know what the Little Doctor would say,
+for Chip had not eaten his dinner, or taken his medicine. Somehow there
+had been that in his face that had made Johnny afraid to speak to him.
+He went back to the easel and looked long at the picture, his heart
+bursting with rage that he could not take his rifle and shoot those
+merciless, grinning brutes. Even after he had drawn the curtain before
+it and stood the easel in its accustomed place, he kept lifting the
+curtain to take another look at that wordless tragedy of the West.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. -- Art Critics.
+
+
+
+It was late the next forenoon when the Little Doctor, feeling the spirit
+of artistic achievement within her, gathered up brushes and paints for
+a couple hours' work. Chip, sitting by the window smoking a cigarette,
+watched her uneasily from the tail of his eye. Looking back to
+yesterday's “spasm,” as he dubbed it mentally, he was filled with a
+great and unaccountable shyness. What had seemed so real to him then he
+feared to-day to face, as trivial and weak.
+
+He wanted to cry “Stop!” when she laid hand to the curtain, but he
+looked, instead, out across the coulee to the hills beyond, the blood
+surging unevenly through his veins. He felt when she drew the cloth
+aside; she stopped short off in the middle of telling him something Miss
+Satterly had said--some whimsical thing--and he could hear his heart
+pounding in the silence which followed. The little, nickel alarm clock
+tick-tick-ticked with such maddening precision and speed that Chip
+wanted to shy a book at it, but his eyes never left the rocky bluff
+opposite, and the clock ticked merrily on.
+
+One minute--two--the silence was getting unbearable. He could not
+endure another second. He looked toward her; she stood, one hand full of
+brushes, gazing, white-faced, at “The Last Stand.” As he looked, a tear
+rolled down the cheek nearest him and compelled him to speech.
+
+“What's the matter?” His voice seemed to him rough and brutal, but he
+did not mean it so.
+
+The Little Doctor drew a long, quivering breath.
+
+“Oh, the poor, brave thing!” she said, in a hushed tone. She turned
+sharply away and sat down.
+
+“I expect I spoiled your picture, all right--but I told you I'd get into
+mischief if you went gadding around and left me alone.”
+
+The Little Doctor stealthily wiped her eyes, hoping to goodness Chip had
+not seen that they had need of wiping.
+
+“Why didn't you tell me you could paint like that?” She turned upon him
+fiercely. “Here you've sat and looked on at me daubing things up--and
+if I'd known you could do better than--” Looking again at the canvas she
+forgot to finish. The fascination of it held her.
+
+“I'm not in the habit of going around the country shouting what I don't
+know,” said Chip, defensively. “You've taken heaps of lessons, and I
+never did. I just noticed the color of everything, and--oh, I don't
+know--it's in me to do those things. I can't help trying to paint and
+draw.”
+
+“I suppose old Von Heim would have something to say of your way of doing
+clouds--but you got the effect, though--better than he did, sometimes.
+And that cow--I can see her breathe, I tell you! And the wolves--oh,
+don't sit there and smoke your everlasting cigarettes and look so
+stoical over it! What are you made of, anyway? Can't you feel proud? Oh,
+don't you know what you've done? I--I'd like to shake you--so now!”
+
+“Well, I don't much blame you. I knew I'd no business to meddle. Maybe,
+if you'll touch it up a little--”
+
+“I'll not touch a brush to THAT. I--I'm afraid I might kill the cow.”
+ She gave a little, hysterical laugh.
+
+“Don't you think you're rather excitable--for a doctor?” scoffed Chip,
+and her chin went up for a minute.
+
+“I'd like t' kill them wolves,” said Johnny, coming in just then.
+
+“Turn the thing around, kid, so I can see it,” commanded Chip, suddenly.
+“I worked at it yesterday till the colors all ran together and I
+couldn't tell much about it.”
+
+Johnny turned the easel, and Chip, looking, fell silent. Had HIS hand
+guided the brush while that scene grew from blank canvas to palpitating
+reality? Verily, he had “builded better than he knew.” Something in his
+throat gripped, achingly and dry.
+
+“Did anybody see it yesterday?” asked the Little Doctor.
+
+“No--not unless the kid--” “I never said a word about it,” denied
+Johnny, hastily and vehemently. “I lied like the dickens. I said you had
+headache an' was tryin' t' sleep it off. I kep' the Countess teeterin'
+around on her toes all afternoon.” Johnny giggled at the memory of it.
+
+“Well, I'm going to call them all in and see what they say,” declared
+she, starting for the door.
+
+“I don't THINK you will,” began Chip, rebelliously, blushing over his
+achievement like a girl over her graduation essay. “I don't want to
+be--”
+
+“Well, we needn't tell them you did it,” suggested she.
+
+“Oh, if you're willing to shoulder the blame,” compromised Chip, much
+relieved. He hated to be fussed over.
+
+The Little Doctor regarded him attentively a moment, smiled queerly to
+herself and stood back to get a better view of the painting.
+
+“I'll shoulder the blame--and maybe claim the glory. It was mine in the
+first place, you know.” She watched him from under her lashes.
+
+“Yes, it's yours, all right,” said Chip, readily, but something went
+out of his face and lodged rather painfully in the deepest corner of his
+heart. He ignored it proudly and smiled back at her.
+
+“Do such things really happen, out here?” she asked, hurriedly.
+
+“I'd tell a man!” said Chip, his eyes returning to the picture. “I was
+riding through that country last winter, and I came upon that very cow,
+just as you see her there, in that same basin. That's how I came
+to paint it into your foreground; I got to thinking about it, and I
+couldn't help trying to put it on canvas. Only, I opened up on the
+wolves with my six-shooter, and I got two; that big fellow ready to
+howl, there, and that one next the cut-bank. The rest broke out down the
+coulee and made for the breaks, where I couldn't follow. They--”
+
+“Say? Old Dunk's comin',” announced Johnny, hurrying in. “Why don't yuh
+let 'im see the pitcher an' think all the time the Little Doctor done
+it? Gee, it'd be great t' hear 'im go on an' praise it up, like he
+always does, an' not know the diffrunce.”
+
+“Johnny, you're a genius,” cried she, effusively. “Don't tell a soul
+that Chip had a brush in his hand yesterday, will you? He--he'd rather
+not have anyone know he did anything to the painting, you see.”
+
+“Aw, I won't tell,” interrupted Johnny, gruffly, eying his divinity with
+distrust for the first time in his short acquaintance with her. Was she
+mean enough to claim it really? Just at first, as a joke, it would be
+fun, but afterward, oh, she wouldn't do a thing like that!
+
+“Don't you bring Dunk in here,” warned Chip, “or things might happen.
+I don't want to run up against him again till I've got two good feet to
+stand on.”
+
+Their relation was a thing to be watched over tenderly, since Chip's
+month of invalidism. Dunk had notions concerning master and servant, and
+concerning Chip as an individual. He did not fancy occupying the back
+bedroom while Chip reigned in his sunny south room, waited on, petted
+(Dunk applied the term petted) and amused indefatigably by the Little
+Doctor. And there had been a scene, short but exceeding “strenuous,”
+ over a pencil sketch which graphically portrayed an incident Dunk fain
+would forget--the incident of himself as a would-be broncho fighter,
+with Banjo, of vigilante fame, as the means of his downfall--physical,
+mental and spiritual. Dunk might, in time, have forgiven the crippled
+ankle, and the consequent appropriation of his room, but never would he
+forgive the merciless detail of that sketch.
+
+“I'll carry easel and all into the parlor, and leave the door open so
+you can hear what they all say,” said the Little Doctor, cheerfully.
+“I wish Cecil could be here to-day. I always miss Cecil when there's
+anything especial going on in the way of fun.”
+
+“Yes?” answered Chip, and made himself another cigarette. He would be
+glad when he could hobble out to some lonely spot and empty his soul
+of the profane language stored away opposite the name of Dr. Cecil
+Granthum. There is so little comfort in swearing all inside, when one
+feels deeply upon a subject.
+
+“It's a wonder you wouldn't send for him if you miss him that bad,”
+ he remarked, after a minute, hoping the Little Doctor would not find
+anything amiss with his tone, which he meant should be cordial and
+interested--and which evinced plenty of interest, of a kind, but was
+curiously lacking in cordiality.
+
+“I did beg, and tease, and entreat--but Cecil's in a hospital--as a
+physician, you understand, not as a patient, and can't get off just yet.
+In a month or two, perhaps--”
+
+Dinner, called shrilly by the Countess, interrupted her, and she flitted
+out of the room looking as little like a lovelorn maiden as she did like
+a doctor--which was little indeed.
+
+“She begged, and teased, and entreated,” repeated Chip, savagely to
+himself when the door closed upon her, and fell into gloomy meditation,
+which left him feeling that there was no good thing in this wicked
+world--no, not one--that was not appropriated by some one with not sense
+enough to understand and appreciate his blessing.
+
+After dinner the Little Doctor spoke to the unsuspecting critics.
+
+“That picture which I started a couple of weeks ago is finished at last,
+and I want you good people to come and tell me what you think of it.
+I want you all--you, Slim, and Louise, you are to come and give your
+opinion.”
+
+“Well, I don't know the first thing about paintin',” remonstrated the
+Countess, coming in from the kitchen.
+
+The Old Man lighted his pipe and followed her into the parlor with the
+others, and Slim rolled a cigarette to hide his embarrassment, for the
+role of art critic was new to him.
+
+There was some nervousness in the Little Doctor's manner as she set the
+easel to her liking and drew aside the curtain. She did not mean to be
+theatrical about it, but Chip, watching through the open door, fancied
+so, and let his lip curl a trifle. He was not in a happy frame of mind
+just then.
+
+A silence fell upon the group. The Old Man took his pipe from his mouth
+and stared.
+
+The cheeks of the Little Doctor paled and grew pink again. She laughed a
+bit, as though she would much rather cry.
+
+“Say something, somebody, quick!” she cried, when her nerves would bear
+no more.
+
+“Well, I do think it's awfully good, Dell,” began the Countess.
+
+“By golly, I don't see how you done that without seein' it happen,”
+ exclaimed Slim, looking very dazed and mystified.
+
+“That's a Diamond Bar cow,” remarked J. G., abstractedly. “That outfit
+never does git half their calves. I remember the last time I rode
+through there last winter, that cow--doggone it, Dell, how the dickens
+did you get that cow an' calf in? You must a had a photograph t' work
+from.”
+
+“By golly, that's right,” chimed in Slim. “That there's the cow I had
+sech a time chasin' out uh the bunch down on the bottom. I run her
+till I was plum sick, an' so was she, by golly. I'd know her among a
+thousand. Yuh got her complete--all but the beller, an', by golly, yuh
+come blame near gittin' that, too!” Slim, always slow and very much in
+earnest, gradually became infused with the spirit of the scene. “Jest
+look at that ole gray sinner with his nose r'ared straight up in the air
+over there! By golly, he's callin' all his wife's relations t' come an'
+help 'em out. He's thinkin' the ole Diamon' Bar's goin' t' be one too
+many fer 'em. She shore looks fighty, with 'er head down an' 'er eyes
+rollin' all ways t' oncet, ready fer the first darn cuss that makes a
+crooked move! An' they know it, too, by golly, er they wouldn't hang
+back like they're a-doin'. I'd shore like t' be cached behind that ole
+pine stub with a thirty--thirty an' a fist full uh shells--I'd shore
+make a scatteration among 'em! A feller could easy--”
+
+“But, Slim, they're nothing but paint!” The Little Doctor's eyes were
+shining.
+
+Slim turned red and grinned sheepishly at the others.
+
+“I kinda fergot it wasn't nothin' but a pitcher,” he stammered,
+apologetically.
+
+“That is the gist of the whole matter,” said Dunk. “You couldn't ask
+for a greater compliment, or higher praise, than that, Miss Della. One
+forgets that it is a picture. One only feels a deep longing for a good
+rifle. You must let me take it with me to Butte. That picture will make
+you famous among cattlemen, at least. That is to say, out West, here.
+And if you will sell it I am positive I can get you a high price for
+it.”
+
+The eyes of the Little Doctor involuntarily sought the Morris chair in
+the next room; but Chip was looking out across the coulee, as he had a
+habit of doing lately, and seemed not to hear what was going on in the
+parlor. He was indifference personified, if one might judge from his
+outward appearance. The Little Doctor turned her glance resentfully to
+her brother's partner.
+
+“Do you mean all that?” she demanded of him.
+
+“I certainly do. It is great, Miss Della. I admit that it is not
+quite like your other work; the treatment seems different, in places,
+and--er--stronger. It is the best picture of the kind that I have ever
+seen, I think. It holds one, in a way--”
+
+“By golly, I bet Chip took a pitcher uh that!” exclaimed Slim, who had
+been doing some hard thinking. “He was tellin' us last winter about
+ridin' up on that ole Diamon' Bar cow with a pack uh wolves around her,
+an' her a-standin' 'em off, an' he shot two uh the wolves. Yes, sir;
+Chip jest about got a snap shot of 'em.”
+
+“Well, doggone it! what if he did?” The Old Man turned jealously upon
+him. “It ain't everyone that kin paint like that, with nothin' but a
+little kodak picture t' go by. Doggone it! I don't care if Dell had a
+hull apurn full uh kodak pictures that Chip took--it's a rattlin' good
+piece uh work, all the same.”
+
+“I ain't sayin' anything agin' the pitcher,” retorted Slim. “I was jest
+wonderin' how she happened t' git that cow down s' fine, brand 'n all,
+without some kind uh pattern t' go by. S' fur 's the pitcher goes,
+it's about as good 's kin be did with paint, I guess. I ain't ever seen
+anything in the pitcher line that looked any natcherler.”
+
+“Well, I do think it's just splendid!” gurgled the Countess. “It's
+every bit as good 's the one Mary got with a year's subscription t' the
+Household Treasure fer fifty cents. That one's got some hounds chasin'
+a deer and a man hidin' in 'the bushes, sost yuh kin jest see his head.
+It's an awful purty pitcher, but this one's jest as good. I do b'lieve
+it's a little bit better, if anything. Mary's has got some awful nice,
+green grass, an' the sky's an awful purty blue--jest about the color uh
+my blue silk waist. But yuh can't expect t' have grass an' sky like that
+in the winter, an' this is more of a winter pitcher. It looks awful cold
+an' lonesome, somehow, an' it makes yuh want t' cry, if yuh look at it
+long enough.”
+
+The critics stampeded, as they always did when the Countess began to
+talk.
+
+“You better let Dunk take it with him, Dell,” was the parting advice of
+the Old Man.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. -- Convalescence.
+
+
+
+“You don't mind, do you?” The Little Doctor was visibly uneasy.
+
+“Mind what?” Chip's tone was one of elaborate unconsciousness. “Mind
+Dunk's selling the picture for you? Why should I? It's yours, you know.”
+
+“I think you have some interest in it yourself,” she said, without
+looking at him. “You don't think I mean to--to--”
+
+“I don't think anything, except that it's your picture, and I put in a
+little time meddling with your property for want of something else to
+do. All I painted doesn't cover one quarter of the canvas, and I guess
+you've done enough for me to more than make up. I guess you needn't
+worry over that cow and calf--you're welcome to them both; and if you
+can get a bounty on those five wolves, I'll be glad to have you. Just
+keep still about my part of it.”
+
+Chip really felt that way about it, after the first dash of wounded
+pride. He could never begin to square accounts with the Little Doctor,
+anyhow, and he was proud that he could do something for her, even if it
+was nothing more than fixing up a picture so that it rose considerably
+above mediocrity. He had meant it that way all along, but the suspicion
+that she was quite ready to appropriate his work rather shocked him,
+just at first. No one likes having a gift we joy in bestowing calmly
+taken from our hands before it has been offered. He wanted her to
+have the picture for her very own--but--but--He had not thought of
+the possibility of her selling it, or of Dunk as her agent. It was
+all right, of course, if she wanted to do that with it, but--There was
+something about it that hurt, and the hurt of it was not less, simply
+because he could not locate the pain.
+
+His mind fidgeted with the subject. If he could have saddled Silver and
+gone for a long gallop over the prairie land, he could have grappled
+with his rebellious inner self and choked to death several unwelcome
+emotions, he thought. But there was Silver, crippled and swung
+uncomfortably in canvas wrappings in the box stall, and here
+was himself, crippled and held day after day in one room and one
+chair--albeit a very pleasant room and a very comfortable chair--and a
+gallop as impossible to one of them as to the other.
+
+“I do wish--” The Little Doctor checked herself abruptly, and hummed a
+bit of coon song.
+
+“What do you wish?” Chip pushed his thoughts behind him, and tried to
+speak in his usual manner.
+
+“Nothing much. I was just wishing Cecil could see 'The Last Stand.'”
+
+Chip said absolutely nothing for five minutes, and for an excellent
+reason. There was not a single thought during that time which would
+sound pretty if put into words, and he had no wish to shock the Little
+Doctor.
+
+After that day a constraint fell upon them both, which each felt
+keenly and neither cared to explain away. “The Last Stand” was tacitly
+dismissed from their conversation, of which there grew less and less as
+the days passed.
+
+Then came a time when Chip strongly resented being looked upon as an
+invalid, and Johnny was sent home, greatly to his sorrow.
+
+Chip hobbled about the house on crutches, and chafed and fretted, and
+managed to be very miserable indeed because he could not get out and
+ride and clear his brain and heart of some of their hurt--for it had
+come to just that; he had been compelled to own that there was a hurt
+which would not heal in a hurry.
+
+It was a very bitter young man who, lounging in the big chair by the
+window one day, suddenly snorted contempt at a Western story he had been
+reading and cast the magazine--one of the Six Leading--clean into the
+parlor where it sprawled its artistic leaves in the middle of the floor.
+The Little Doctor was somewhere--he never seemed to know just where,
+nowadays--and the house was lonesome as an isolated peak in the Bad
+Lands.
+
+“I wish I had the making of the laws. I'd put a bounty on all the darn
+fools that think they can write cowboy stories just because they rode
+past a roundup once, on a fast train,” he growled, reaching for his
+tobacco sack. “Huh! I'd like to meet up with the yahoo that wrote that
+rank yarn! I'd ask him where he got his lack of information. Huh! A
+cow-puncher togged up like he was going after the snakiest bronk in the
+country, when he was only going to drive to town in a buckboard! 'His
+pistol belt and dirk and leathern chaps'--oh, Lord; oh, Lord! And spurs!
+I wonder if he thinks it takes spurs to ride a buckboard? Do they think,
+back East, that spurs grow on a man's heels out here and won't come off?
+Do they think we SLEEP in 'em, I wonder?” He drew a match along the
+arm of the chair where the varnish was worn off. “They think all a
+cow-puncher has to do is eat and sleep and ride fat horses. I'd like to
+tell some of them a few things that they don't--”
+
+“I've brought you a caller, Chip. Aren't you glad to see him?” It was
+the Little Doctor at the window, and the laugh he loved was in her voice
+and in her eyes, that it hurt him to meet, lately.
+
+The color surged to his face, and he leaned from the window, his thin,
+white hand outstretched caressingly.
+
+“I'd tell a man!” he said, and choked a little over it. “Silver, old
+boy!”
+
+Silver, nickering softly, limped forward and nestled his nose in the
+palm of his master.
+
+“He's been out in the corral for several days, but I didn't tell you--I
+wanted it for a surprise,” said the Little Doctor. “This is his longest
+trip, but he'll soon be well now.”
+
+“Yes; I'd give a good deal if I could walk as well as he can,” said
+Chip, gloomily.
+
+“He wasn't hurt as badly as you were. You ought to be thankful you can
+walk at all, and that you won't limp all your life. I was afraid for a
+while, just at first--”
+
+“You were? Why didn't you tell me?” Chip's eyes were fixed sternly upon
+her.
+
+“Because I didn't want to. It would only have made matters worse,
+anyway. And you won't limp, you know, if you're careful for a while
+longer. I'm going to get Silver his sugar. He has sugar every day.”
+
+Silver lifted his head and looked after her inquiringly, whinnied
+complainingly, and prepared to follow as best he could.
+
+“Silver--oh, Silver!” Chip snapped his fingers to attract his attention.
+“Hang the luck, come back here! Would you throw down your best friend
+for that girl? Has she got to have you, too?” His voice grew wistfully
+rebellious. ���You're mine. Come back here, you little fool--she doesn't
+care.”
+
+Silver stopped at the corner, swung his head and looked back at Chip,
+beckoning, coaxing, swearing under his breath. His eyes sought for sign
+of his goddess, who had disappeared most mysteriously. Throwing up his
+head, he sent a protest shrilling through the air, and looked no more at
+Chip.
+
+“I'm coming, now be still. Oh, don't you dare paw with your lame leg!
+Why didn't you stay with your master?”
+
+“He's no use for his master, any more,” said Chip, with a hurt laugh. “A
+woman always does play the--mischief, somehow. I wonder why? They look
+innocent enough.”
+
+“Wait till your turn comes, and perhaps you'll learn why,” retorted she.
+
+Chip, knowing that his turn had come, and come to tarry, found nothing
+to say.
+
+“Beside,” continued the Little Doctor, “Silver didn't want me so
+much--it was the sugar. I hope you aren't jealous of me, because I know
+his heart is big enough to hold us both.”
+
+She stayed a long half hour, and was so gay that it seemed like old
+times to listen to her laugh and watch her dimples while she talked.
+Chip forgot that he had a quarrel with fate, and he also forgot Dr.
+Cecil Granthum, of Gilroy, Ohio--until Slim rode up and handed the
+Little Doctor a letter addressed in that bold, up-and-down writing that
+Chip considered a little the ugliest specimen of chirography he had ever
+seen in his life.
+
+“It's from Cecil,” said the Little Doctor, simply and unnecessarily, and
+led Silver back down the hill.
+
+Chip, gazing at that tiresome bluff across the coulee, renewed his
+quarrel with fate.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. -- The Spoils of Victory.
+
+
+
+“I wish, while I'm gone, you'd paint me another picture. Will you,
+PLEASE?”
+
+When a girl has big, gray eyes that half convince you they are not gray
+at all, but brown, or blue, at times, and a way of using them that makes
+a fellow heady, like champagne, and a couple of dimples that will
+dodge into her cheeks just when a fellow is least prepared to resist
+them--why, what can a fellow do but knuckle under and say yes,
+especially when she lets her head tip to one side a little and says
+“please” like that?
+
+Chip tried not to look at her, but he couldn't help himself very well
+while she stood directly in front of him. He compromised weakly instead
+of refusing point-blank, as he told himself he wanted to do.
+
+“I don't know--maybe I can't, again.”
+
+“Maybe you can, though. Here's an eighteen by twenty-four canvas, and
+here are all the paints I have in the house, and the brushes. I'll
+expect to see something worth while, when I return.”
+
+“Well, but if I can't--”
+
+“Look here. Straight in the eye, if you please! Now, will you TRY?”
+
+Chip, looking into her eyes that were laughing, but with a certain
+earnestness behind the laugh, threw up his hands--mentally, you know.
+
+“Yes, I'll try. How long are you going to be gone?”
+
+“Oh, perhaps a week,” she said, lightly, and Chip's heart went heavy.
+
+“You may paint any kind of picture you like, but I'd rather you did
+something like 'The Last Stand'--only better. And put your brand, as you
+call it, in one corner.”
+
+“You won't sell it, will you?” The words slipped out before he knew.
+
+“No--no, I won't sell it, for it won't be mine. It's for yourself this
+time.”
+
+“Then there won't be any picture,” said Chip, shortly.
+
+“Oh, yes, there will,” smiled the Little Doctor, sweetly, and went away
+before he could contradict her.
+
+Perhaps a week! Heavens, that was seven days, and every day had at least
+sixteen waking hours. How would it be when it was years, then? When
+Dr. Cecil Granthum--(er--no, I won't. The invective attached to that
+gentleman's name was something not to be repeated here.) At any rate, a
+week was a long, long time to put in without any gray eyes or any laugh,
+or any dimples, or, in short, without the Little Doctor. He could not
+see, for his part, why she wanted to go gadding off to the Falls with
+Len Adams and the schoolma'am, anyway. Couldn't they get along without
+her? They always had, before she came to the country; but, for that
+matter, so had he. The problem was, how was he going to get along
+without her for the rest of his life? What did they want to stay a week
+for? Couldn't they buy everything they wanted in a day or so? And the
+Giant Spring wasn't such great shakes, nor the Rainbow Falls, that
+they need to hang around town a week just to look at them. And the
+picture--what was he such a fool for? Couldn't he say no with a pair of
+gray eyes staring into his? It seemed not. He supposed he must think up
+something to daub on there--the poorer the better.
+
+That first day Chip smoked something like two dozen cigarettes, gazed
+out across the coulee till his eyes ached, glared morosely at the canvas
+on the easel, which stared back at him till the dull blankness of it
+stamped itself upon his brain and he could see nothing else, look where
+he might. Whereupon he gathered up hat and crutches, and hobbled slowly
+down the hill to tell Silver his troubles.
+
+The second day threatened to be like the first. Chip sat by the window
+and smoked; but, little by little, the smoke took form and substance
+until, when he turned his eyes to the easel, a picture looked back at
+him--even though to other eyes the canvas was yet blank and waiting.
+
+There was no Johnny this time to run at his beckoning. He limped about
+on his crutches, collected all things needful, and sat down to work.
+
+As he sketched and painted, with a characteristic rapidity that was
+impatient of the slightest interruption yet patient in its perfectness
+of detail, the picture born of the smoke grew steadily upon the canvas.
+
+It seemed, at first, that “The Last Stand” was to be repeated. There
+were the same jagged pinnacles and scrubby pines, held in the fierce
+grip of the frozen chinook. The same? But there was a difference, not
+to be explained, perhaps, but certainly to be felt. The Little Doctor's
+hills were jagged, barren hills; her pines were very nice pines indeed.
+Chip's hills were jagged, they were barren--they--were desolate; his
+pines were shuddering, lonely pines; for he had wandered alone among
+them and had caught the Message of the Wilderness. His sky was the cold,
+sinister sky of “The Last Stand”--but it was colder, more sinister, for
+it was night. A young moon hung low in the west, its face half hidden
+behind a rift of scurrying snow clouds. The tiny basin was shadowy and
+vague, the cut-bank a black wall touched here and there by a quivering
+shaft of light.
+
+There was no threatening cow with lowered horns and watchful eye; there
+was no panic-stricken calf to whip up her flagging courage with its
+trust in her.
+
+The wolves? Yes, there were the wolves--but there were more of them.
+They were not sitting in a waiting half circle--they were scattered,
+unwatchful. Two of them in the immediate foreground were wrangling over
+a half-gnawed bone. The rest of the pack were nosing a heap pitifully
+eloquent.
+
+As before, so now they tricked the eye into a fancy that they lived.
+One could all but hear the snarls of the two standing boldly in the
+moonlight, the hair all bristly along the necks, the white fangs
+gleaming between tense-drawn lips. One felt tempted to brace oneself for
+the rush that was to come.
+
+For two days Chip shut himself in his room and worked through the long
+hours of daylight, jealous of the minutes darkness stole from him.
+
+He clothed the feast in a merciful shade which hid the repugnance
+and left only the pathos--two long, sharp horns which gleamed in the
+moonlight but were no longer threatening.
+
+He centered his energy upon the two wolves in the foreground, grimly
+determined that Slim should pray for a Gatling gun when he saw them.
+
+The third day, when he was touching up the shoulders of one of the
+combatants, a puff of wind blew open the door which led to the parlor.
+He did not notice it and kept steadily at work, painting his “brand”
+ into a corner. Beneath the stump and its splinter he lettered his
+name--a thing he had never done before.
+
+“Well--I'll be--doggoned!”
+
+Chip jumped half out of his chair, giving his lame ankle a jolt which
+made him grind his teeth.
+
+“Darn it, Chip, did YOU do that?”
+
+“It kind of looks that way, don't it?” Chip was plainly disconcerted,
+and his ankle hurt.
+
+“H--m-m.” The Old Man eyed it sharply a minute. “It's a wonder you
+wouldn't paint in a howl or two, while you're about it. I suppose that's
+a mate to--doggone you, Chip, why didn't yuh tell us you painted that
+other one?”
+
+“I didn't,” said Chip, getting red and uncomfortable, “except the cow
+and--”
+
+“Yes, except the part that makes the picture worth the paint it's done
+with!” snorted the Old Man. “I must say I never thought that uh Dell!”
+
+“Thought what?” flared Chip, hotly, forgetting everything but that the
+Little Doctor was being censured. “It was her picture, she started it
+and intended to finish it. I painted on it one day when she was gone,
+and she didn't know it. I told her not to tell anyone I had anything to
+do with it. It wasn't her fault.”
+
+“Huh!” grunted the Old Man, as if he had his own opinion on that matter.
+“Well, it's a rattling good picture--but this one's better. Poor ole
+Diamond Bar--she couldn't come through with it, after all. She put up a
+good fight, out there alone, but she had t' go under--her an' her calf.”
+ He stood quiet a minute, gazing and gazing. “Doggone them measly wolves!
+Why in thunder can't a feller pump lead into 'em like he wants t'?”
+
+Chip's heart glowed within him. His technique was faulty, his colors
+daring, perhaps--but his triumph was for that the greater. If men could
+FEEL his pictures--and they did! That was the joy of it--they did!
+
+“Darn them snarlin' brutes, anyway! I thought it was doggone queer if
+Dell could dab away all her life at nice, common things that you only
+think is purty, an' then blossom out, all of a sudden, with one like
+that other was--that yuh felt all up an' down yer back. The little
+cheat, she'd no business t' take the glory uh that'n like she done. I'll
+give her thunder when she gits back.”
+
+“You won't do anything of the kind,” said Chip, quietly--too quietly not
+to be menacing. “I tell you that was my fault--I gave her all I did to
+the picture, and I told her not to say anything. Do you think I don't
+know what I owe to her? Do you think I don't know she saved Silver's
+life--and maybe mine? Forty pictures wouldn't square me with the Little
+Doctor--not if they were a heap better than they are, and she claimed
+every darned one. I'm doing this, and I'll thank you not to buy in where
+you're not wanted. This picture is for her, too--but I don't want the
+thing shouted from the housetops. When you go out, I wish you'd shut the
+door.”
+
+The Old Man, thoroughly subdued, took the hint. He went out, and he shut
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. -- Weary Advises.
+
+
+
+“I have a short article here which may interest you, Miss Della,” said
+Dunk, coming out on the porch a few days later with a Butte paper in his
+hand. The Little Doctor was swinging leisurely in the hammock.
+
+“It's about the picture,” he added, smiling.
+
+“The picture? Oh, let me see!” The Little Doctor stopped the hammock
+with her toe and sat up. The wind had tumbled her hair about her face
+and drawn extra color to her cheeks, and she looked very sweet, Dunk
+thought. He held out the paper, pointing a well-kept finger at the place
+he wished her to read. There was a rather large headline, for news was
+scarce just then and every little thing was made the most of. The eyes
+of the Little Doctor clung greedily to the lines.
+
+“It is reported that 'The Last Stand' has been sold. The painting, which
+has been on exhibition in the lobby of the Summit Hotel, has attracted
+much attention among art lovers, and many people have viewed it in
+the last week. Duncan Gray Whitaker, the well-known mine owner and
+cattleman, who brought the picture to Butte, is said to have received an
+offer which the artist will probably accept. Mr. Whitaker still declines
+to give the artist's name, but whoever he is, he certainly has a
+brilliant future before him, and Montana can justly feel proud of him.
+It has been rumored that the artist is a woman, but the best critics are
+slow to believe this, claiming that the work has been done with a power
+and boldness undoubtedly masculine. Those who have seen 'The Last Stand'
+will not easily forget it, and the price offered for it is said to be
+a large one. Mr. Whitaker will leave the city to-morrow to consult the
+unknown artist, and promises, upon his return, to reveal the name of the
+modest genius who can so infuse a bit of canvas with palpitating life.”
+
+“What do you think of that? Isn't the 'modest genius' rather proud of
+the hit she has made? I wish you could have seen the old stockmen stand
+around it and tell wolf stories to one another by the hour. The women
+came and cried over it--they were so sorry for the cow. Really, Miss
+Della, she's the most famous cow in Butte, just now. I had plenty of
+smaller offers, but I waited till Senator Blake came home; he's a crank
+on Western pictures, and he has a long pocketbook and won't haggle over
+prices. He took it, just as I expected, but he insists that the artist's
+name must be attached to it; and if you take his offer, he may bring the
+picture down himself--for he's quite anxious to meet you. I am to wire
+your decision at once.”
+
+The Little Doctor watched a pale green “measuring worm” loop its way
+hurriedly along the floor of the porch. She was breathing rather quickly
+and unevenly, and she seemed to be thinking very fast. When the worm,
+reaching the end, doubled out of sight, she started the hammock swinging
+and leaned back upon her cushions.
+
+“You may tell him to come--I should like very much to see him,” she
+said. “And I am very much obliged to you for the service you have
+performed.” She became very much interested in a magazine, and seemed to
+dismiss Dunk and the picture entirely from her mind. Dunk, after waiting
+till he was convinced she had no intention of saying more, went off to
+the stables to find a messenger for the telegram, telling himself on the
+way that Miss Della Whitmore was a very cool young person, and not as
+grateful as he would like her to be.
+
+The Little Doctor went immediately to find Chip, but that young man,
+who had been just inside the window and had heard every word, was not so
+easily found. He was down in the bunk house, thinking things. And when
+she did find him, near supper time, he was so utterly unapproachable
+that her courage and her patience failed together, and she did not
+mention the picture at all.
+
+
+“Hello, Doctor!” It was a heartening voice, sounding very sweet to the
+ears of the Little Doctor just then. She turned eagerly, her arms still
+clasping Silver's neck. She had come down to the corral to feed him
+sugar and tell him what a very difficult young man his master was, and
+how he held her at arm's length with his manner, and yet was nice and
+friendly and sunny enough--like the sun shining on an iceberg. But human
+sympathy was within reach of her hand, and it was much more satisfying
+than the mute sympathy of a horse.
+
+“Weary Willy Davidson, you don't know how glad I am to see you! As the
+sayin' is: 'Yuh think of angels an' their opposets ain't fur off.' I AM
+glad to see you.”
+
+“Dirt and all?” grinned Weary, for he had ridden far in the heat, and
+was dust-grimed and travelworn. He pulled the saddle off Glory, also,
+travelworn and sweat-grimed, and gave him an affectionate slap of
+dismissal.
+
+“I'd chance money you wasn't thinking of me,” he said, pointedly. “How
+is the old ranch, anyhow? Splinter up, yet?”
+
+“You must think I'm a feeble excuse for a doctor,” retorted she. “Of
+course he's up. He walks all around the house and yard with a cane; I
+promoted him from crutches yesterday.”
+
+“Good shot! That was sure a bad foot he had on him, and I didn't
+know--What's he been putting in the time at? Making pictures--or love?”
+
+“Pictures,” said the Little Doctor, hastily, laying her cheek against
+Silver's mane. “I'd like to see him making love!”
+
+“Yuh would?” said Weary, innocently, disregarding the irony of her tone.
+“Well, if yuh ever do, I tell yuh right now you'll see the real thing.
+If he makes love like he does other things, there won't any female girl
+dodge his loop, that's straight. What about the pictures?”
+
+“Well, he drew a picture of J. G. sliding down the kitchen steps, before
+he was out of bed. And he made a picture of Dunk, that time Banjo bucked
+him off--you saw that happen, I suppose--and it was great! Dunk was
+standing on his head in front of his horse, but I can't show you it,
+because it blew out of the window and landed at Dunk's feet in the path,
+and he picked it up and tore it into little bits. And he doesn't play in
+Chip's yard any more.”
+
+“He never did,” grinned Weary. “Dunk's a great hand to go around
+shooting off his mouth about things he's no business to buy into, and
+old Splinter let him down on his face once or twice. Chip can sure give
+a man a hard fall when he wants to, and not use many words, either. What
+little he does say generally counts.”
+
+The Little Doctor's memory squirmed assentingly. “It's the tone he
+uses,” she said, reflectively. “The way he can say 'yes,' sometimes--”
+
+“You've bumped into that, huh? Bert Rogers lit into him with a tent peg
+once, for saying yes at him. They sure was busy for a few minutes. I
+just sat in the shade of a wagon wheel and laughed till I near cracked a
+rib. When they got through they laughed, too, and they played ten
+games uh pool together that night, and got--” Weary caught himself up
+suddenly. “Pool ain't any gambling game,” he hastened to explain. “It's
+just knocking balls into the pockets, innocent like, yuh see.”
+
+“Mr. Davidson, there's something I'd like to tell you about. Will you
+wait a few minutes more for your supper?”
+
+“Sure,” said Weary; wonderingly, and sat down upon the edge of the
+watering trough.
+
+The Little Doctor, her arms still around Silver's neck, told him all
+about “The Last Stand,” and “The Spoils of Victory,” and Chip, and Dunk,
+and herself. And Weary listened silently, digging little trenches in
+the hard soil with the rowels of his spurs, and, knowing Chip as he did,
+understanding the matter much better than did the Little Doctor.
+
+“And he doesn't seem to know that I never meant to claim the picture as
+my work, and I can't explain while he acts so--oh, you know how he
+can act. And Dunk wouldn't have sold the picture if he had known Chip
+painted it, and it was wrong, of course, but I did so want Chip to have
+some real encouragement so he would make that his life work. YOU know
+he is fitted for something better than cow-punching. And now the picture
+has made a hit and brought a good price, and he must own it. Dunk will
+be furious, of course, but that doesn't matter to me--it's Chip that I
+can't seem to manage.”
+
+Weary smiled queerly down at his spurs.
+
+“It's a cinch you could manage him, easy enough, if you took the right
+way to do it,” he said, quietly.
+
+“Probably the right way would be too much trouble,” said the Little
+Doctor, with her chin well up. “Once I get this picture deal settled
+satisfactorily, I'm quite willing to resign and let him manage himself.
+Senator Blake is coming to-morrow, and I'm so glad you will be here to
+help me.”
+
+“I'd sure like to see yuh through with the deal. Old Blake won't be hard
+to throw--I know him, and so does Chip. Didn't he tell yuh about it?”
+
+“Tell me!” flashed the Little Doctor. “I told him Senator Blake was
+coming, and that he wanted to buy the picture, and he just made him
+a cigarette and said, 'Ye--e-es?' And after that there wasn't any
+conversation of any description!”
+
+Weary threw back his head and laughed.
+
+“That sure sounds just like him,” he said, and at that minute Chip
+himself hobbled into the corral, and the Little Doctor hastened to leave
+it and retreat to the house.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. -- When a Maiden Wills.
+
+
+
+It was Dunk who drove to meet the train, next day, and it was an
+extremely nervous young woman who met Senator Blake upon the porch. Chip
+sprawled in the hammock on the east porch, out of sight.
+
+The senator was a little man whose coat did not fit, and whose hair was
+sandy and sparse, and who had keen, twinkling blue eyes which managed to
+see a great deal more than one would suspect from the rest of his face.
+He pumped the Little Doctor's hand up and down three times and called
+her “My dear young lady.” After the first ten minutes, the Little
+Doctor's spirits rose considerably and her heart stopped thumping so she
+could hear it. She remembered what Weary had told her--that “Old Blake
+won't be hard to throw.” She no longer feared the senator, but
+she refused to speculate upon what Chip might do. He seemed more
+approachable to-day, but that did not count--probably he was only
+reflecting Weary's sunshine, and would freeze solid the minute--“And
+so you are the mysterious genius who has set the Butte critics by the
+ears!” chuckled the senator. “They say your cloud treatment is all
+wrong, and that your coloring is too bold--but directly they forget all
+that and wonder which wolf will make the first dash, and how many the
+cow will put out of business before she goes under herself. Don't be
+offended if I say that you look more capable of portraying woolly white
+lambs at play than ravening wolves measuring the strength of their
+quarry. I must confess I was looking for the--er MAN behind that brush.”
+
+“I told the senator coming out that it was a lady he would have to make
+terms with. He would hardly believe it,” smiled Dunk.
+
+“He needn't believe it,” said the Little Doctor, much more calmly
+than she felt. “I don't remember ever saying that I painted 'The Last
+Stand.'”
+
+Dunk threw up his head and looked at her sharply.
+
+“Genius is certainly modest,” he said, with a laugh that was not nice to
+hear.
+
+“In this case, the genius is unusually modest,” assented she, getting
+rather white. “Unfortunately for myself, senator, I did not paint the
+'ravening wolves' which caught your fancy. It would be utterly beyond my
+brush.”
+
+A glimmering of the truth came to Dunk, and his eyes narrowed.
+
+“Who did paint it for you? Your friend, Chip?”
+
+The Little Doctor caught her breath at the venomous accent he employed,
+and the Old Man half rose from his chair. But Della could fight her own
+battles. She stood up and faced Dunk, tight-lipped and proud.
+
+“Yes, Mr. Whitaker, my friend, Mr. Bennett, of whose friendship I am
+rather proud, painted the best part of 'The Last Stand.'”
+
+“Senator Blake must forgive my being misled by your previous statement
+that the picture was yours,” sneered Dunk.
+
+“I made no previous statement, Mr. Whitaker.” The Little Doctor's tone
+was sweetly freezing. “I said that the picture which I had begun was
+finished, and I invited you all to look at it. It was your misfortune
+that you took too much for granted.”
+
+“It's a mistake to take anything for granted where a woman is concerned.
+At the same time I shouldn't be blamed if I take it for granted Chip--”
+
+“Suppose you say the rest to me, Dunk,” suggested Chip from the doorway,
+where he leaned heavily upon his cane. “It begins to look as though I
+held a hand in this game.”
+
+Dunk wheeled furiously upon him.
+
+“You're playing a high hand for a forty-dollar man,” he grated, “and
+you've about reached your limit. The stakes are beyond your reach, my
+friend.”
+
+Chip went white with anger at the thrust, which struck deeper than Dunk
+knew. But he stood his ground.
+
+“Ye--es? Wait till the cards are all turned.” It turned him sick,
+though, the emptiness of the boast. It was such a pitiful, ghastly
+bluff--for the cards were all against him, and he knew it. A man in
+Gilroy, Ohio, would take the trick which decided the game. Hearts were
+trumps, and Dr. Cecil Granthum had the ace.
+
+The little senator got out of his chair and faced Chip tactfully.
+
+“Kid Bennett, you rascal, aren't you going to shake hands?” His own was
+outstretched, waiting.
+
+Chip crowded several hot words off his tongue, and gave up his hand for
+a temporary pump handle.
+
+“How do you do, Blake? I didn't think you'd remember me.”
+
+“You didn't? How could I help it? I can feel the cold of the water yet,
+and your rope settling over my shoulders. You never gave me a chance to
+say 'God bless you' for that; you just coiled up your rope--swearing all
+the time you did it, because it was wet--and rode off, dripping like a
+muskrat. What did you do it for?”
+
+“I was in a hurry to get back to camp,” grinned Chip, sinking into a
+chair. “And you weren't a senator then.”
+
+“It would have been all the same if I had been, I reckon,” responded
+the senator, shaking Chip's hand again. “Well, well! So you are the
+genius--that sounds more likely. No offense, Miss Whitmore. Do you
+remember that picture you drew with charcoal on a piece of pine board?
+It stands on the mantel in my library, and I always point it out to my
+friends as the work of a young man with a future. And you painted 'The
+Last Stand!' Well, well! I think I'll have to send the price up another
+notch, just to get even with you for swearing at me when my lungs were
+so full of water I couldn't swear back!”
+
+While he talked he was busy unwrapping the picture which he had brought
+with him, and he reminded the Little Doctor of a loquacious peddler
+opening his pack. He was much more genial and unpretentious since Chip
+entered the room, and she wondered why. She wanted to ask about that
+reference to the water, but he stood the painting against the wall, just
+then, and she forgot everything but that.
+
+Chip's eyes clung to the scene greedily. After all, it was his--and he
+knew in his heart that it was good. After a minute he limped into his
+room and brought “The Spoils of Victory,” and stood it beside “The Last
+Stand.”
+
+“A--h-h!” The senator breathed the word deep in his throat and fell
+silent. Even the Old Man leaned forward in his chair that he might see
+the better. The Little Doctor could not see anything, just then, but no
+one noticed anything wrong with her eyes, for they were all down in the
+Bad Lands, watching an old range cow defend her calf.
+
+“Bennett, do the two go together?” asked the senator, at last.
+
+“I don't know--I painted it for Miss Whitmore,” said Chip, a dull glow
+in his cheeks.
+
+The Little Doctor glanced at him quickly, rather startled, if the truth
+be known.
+
+“Oh, that was just a joke, Mr. Bennett. I would much rather have you
+paint me another one--this one makes me want to cry--and a doctor must
+forego the luxury of tears. I have no claim upon either of them, Mr.
+Blake. It was like this. I started 'The Last Stand,' but I only had the
+background painted, and one day while I was gone Mr. Bennett finished it
+up--and it is his work that makes the picture worth anything. I let
+it pass as mine, for the time, but I never intended to wear the laurel
+crown, really. I only borrowed it for a little while. I hope you can
+make Mr. Bennett behave himself and put his brand on it, for if he
+doesn't it will go down to posterity unsigned. This other--'The Spoils
+of Victory'--he cannot attempt to disown, for I was away at Great Falls
+when he painted it, and he was here alone, so far as help of any kind is
+concerned. Now do make him be sensible!”
+
+The senator looked at Chip, then at the Little Doctor, chuckled and sat
+down on the couch.
+
+“Well, well! Kid Bennett hasn't changed, I see. He's just as ornery as
+he ever was. And you're the mysterious, modest genius! How did you come
+out after that dip into the old Missouri?” he asked, abruptly. “You
+didn't take cold, riding in those wet clothes, I hope?”
+
+“I? No, I was all right. I stopped at that sheep camp and borrowed some
+dry clothes.” Chip was very uncomfortable. He wished Blake wouldn't keep
+bringing up that affair, which was four years old and quite trivial, in
+his opinion. It was a good thing Dunk pulled out when he saw he'd got
+the worst of it, or there'd have been trouble, most likely. And Blake--
+The senator went on, addressing the others.
+
+“Do you know what this young fellow did, four years ago this last
+spring? I tried to cross the river near my place in a little boat, while
+the water was high. Bennett, here, came along and swore that a man with
+no more sense than I had ought to drown--which was very true, I admit.
+I had just got out a nice little distance for drowning properly, when a
+tree came bobbing along and upset my boat, and Kid Bennett, as we called
+him then, rode in as far as he could--which was a great deal further
+than was safe for him--and roped me, just as he would have roped a
+yearling. Ha! ha! I can see him yet, scowling at me and whirling the
+loop over his head ready to throw. A picture of THAT, now! When he had
+dragged me to the bank he used some rather strong language--a cowboy
+does hate to wet his rope--and rode off before I had a chance to thank
+him. This is the first time I've seen him since then.”
+
+Chip got very red.
+
+“I was young and foolish, those days, and you weren't a senator,” he
+repeated, apologetically.
+
+“My being a senator wouldn't have mattered at all. They've been changing
+your name, over this side the river, I see. How did that happen?”
+
+Again Chip was uncomfortable.
+
+“We've got a cook that is out of sight when it comes to Saratoga chips,
+and I'm a fiend for them, you see. The boys got to calling me Saratoga
+Chip, and then they cut it down to Chip and stuck to it.”
+
+“I see. There was a fellow with you over there--Davidson. What has
+become of him?”
+
+“Weary? He works here, too. He's down in the bunk house now, I guess.”
+
+“Well, well! Let's go and hunt him up--and we can settle about the
+pictures at the same time. You seem to be crippled. How did that happen?
+Some dare-devil performance, I expect.”
+
+The senator smiled reassuringly at the Little Doctor and got Chip out of
+the house and down in the bunk house with Weary, and whatever means he
+used to make Chip “behave himself,” they certainly were a success. For
+when he left, the next day, he left behind him a check of generous size,
+and Chip was not so aloof as he had been with the Little Doctor, and
+planned with her at least a dozen pictures which he meant to paint some
+time.
+
+There was one which he did paint at once, however--though no one saw it
+but Della. It was the picture of a slim young woman with gray eyes and
+an old felt hat on her head, standing with her fingers tangled in the
+mane of a chestnut horse.
+
+If there was a heartache in the work, if the brush touched the slim
+figure caressingly and lingered wistfully upon the face, no one knew but
+Chip, and Chip had learned long ago to keep his own counsel. There were
+some thoughts which he could not whisper into even Silver's ear.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. -- Dr. Cecil Granthum.
+
+
+
+The Little Doctor leaned from the window and called down the hill to her
+recovered patient--more properly, her nearly recovered patient; for Chip
+still walked with the aid of a cane, though by making use of only one
+stirrup he could ride very well. He limped up the hill to her, and sat
+down on the top step of the porch.
+
+“What's the excitement now?” he asked, banteringly.
+
+“I've got the best, the most SPLENDID news--you couldn't guess what in a
+thousand years!”
+
+“Then I won't try. It's too hot.” Chip took off his hat and fanned
+himself with it.
+
+“Well, can't you LOOK a little bit excited? Try and look the way I feel!
+Anybody as cool as you are shouldn't suffer with the heat.”
+
+“I don't know--I get pretty hot, sometimes. Well, what is the most
+splendid news? Can't you tell a fellow, after calling him up here in the
+hot sun?”
+
+“Well, listen. The Gilroy hospital--you know, where Cecil is”--Chip
+knew--“has a case of blighted love and shattered hopes”--Chip's foolish,
+man-heart nearly turned a somersault. Was it possible?--“and it's the
+luckiest thing ever happened.”
+
+“Yes?” Chip wished to goodness she would get to the point. She could be
+direct enough in her statements when what she said was going to hurt a
+fellow. His heart was thumping so it hurt him.
+
+“Yes. A doctor there was planning to get married and go away on his
+honeymoon, you know--”
+
+Chip nodded, half suffocated with crowding, incredulous hopes.
+
+“Well, and now he isn't. His ladylove was faithless and loves another,
+and his honeymoon is indefinitely postponed. Do you see now where the
+good news comes in?”
+
+Chip shook his head once and looked away up the grade. Funny, but
+something had gone wrong with his throat. He was half choked.
+
+“Well, you ARE dull! Now that fellow isn't going to have any vacation,
+so Cecil can come out, right away! Next week! Think of it!”
+
+Chip tried to think of it, but he couldn't think of anything, just then.
+He was only conscious of wishing Whizzer had made a finish of the job,
+up there on the Hog's Back that day. His heart no longer thumped--it was
+throbbing in a tired, listless fashion.
+
+“Why can't you look a little bit pleased?” smiled the torturer from the
+window. “You sit there like a--an Indian before a cigar store. You've
+just about the same expression.”
+
+“I can't help it. I never was fierce to meet strangers, somehow.”
+
+“Judging from my own experience, I think you are uncommonly fierce at
+The principle that neutrals shall also in time of war enjoy the
+freedom of the seas extends only to neutral vessels, not to neutral
+persons on board enemy ships, since the belligerents are admittedly
+justified in hampering enemy traffic at sea as far as lies in their
+power. Granted the necessary military power, they can, if deemed
+necessary to their ends, forbid enemy merchant vessels to sail the
+sea, on pain of instant destruction, as long as they make their
+purpose known beforehand so that all, whether enemy or neutral, _are
+enabled to avoid risking their lives_. But even where there is doubt
+as to the justification of such proceeding, and possible reprisals
+threatened by the opposing side, the question would remain one to be
+decided between the belligerents themselves alone, they being
+admittedly allowed the right of making the high seas a field for their
+military operations, of suppressing any interruption of such
+operations and supremely determining what measures are to be taken
+against enemy ships. The neutrals have in such case no legitimate
+claims beyond that of demanding that due notice be given them of
+measures contemplated against the enemy, in order that they may
+refrain from entrusting their persons or goods to enemy vessels.
+
+The Austrian Government may presumably take it for granted that the
+Washington Cabinet agrees with the foregoing views, which the Austrian
+Government is fully convinced are altogether unassailable. To deny the
+correctness of these views would imply--and this the Union Government
+can hardly intend--that neutrals have the right of interfering in the
+military operations of the belligerents; indeed, ultimately to
+constitute themselves the judges as to what methods may or may not be
+employed against an enemy. It would also seem a crying injustice for a
+neutral Government, in order merely to secure for its subjects the
+right of passage on enemy ships when they might just as well, or
+indeed with far greater safety, travel by neutral vessels, to grasp at
+the arm of a belligerent Power, fighting perhaps for its very
+existence. Not to mention the fact that it would open the way for all
+kinds of abuses if a belligerent were forced to lay down arms at the
+bidding of any neutral whom it might please to make use of enemy ships
+for business or pleasure. No doubt has ever been raised as to the fact
+that subjects of neutral states are themselves responsible for any
+harm they may incur _by their presence in any territory on land where
+military operations are in progress_. Obviously, there is no ground
+for establishing another standard for naval warfare, particularly
+since the second Peace Conference expressed the wish that, pending the
+agreement of rules for naval warfare, the rules observed in warfare
+upon land should be applied as far as possible at sea.
+
+From the foregoing it appears that the rule as to warning being given
+to the vessel itself before such vessel is sunk is subject to
+exceptions of various kinds under certain circumstances, as, for
+instance, the cases cited by the Union Government of flight and
+resistance, the vessel may be sunk without any warning; in others
+warning should be given before the vessel sails. The Austrian
+Government may then assert that it is essentially in agreement with
+the Union Government as to the protection of neutrals against risk of
+life, whatever may be the attitude of the Washington Cabinet towards
+some of the separate questions here raised. The Austrian Government
+has not only put into practice throughout the war the views it holds
+in this respect, but has gone even farther, regulating its actions
+with the strictest care according to the theory advanced by the
+Washington Cabinet, although its assurance as published only stated
+that was "essentially in agreement" with the Union Government's views.
+The Austrian Government would be extremely satisfied if the Washington
+Cabinet should be inclined to assist it in its endeavours, which are
+inspired by the warmest feelings of humanity, to save American
+citizens from risk at sea by instructing and warning its subjects in
+this direction.
+
+Then, as regards the circular verbal note of February 10 of this year
+concerning the treatment of armed enemy merchant vessels, the Austrian
+Government must in any case declare itself to be, as indicated in the
+foregoing, of the opinion that the arming of trading ships, even when
+only for the purpose of avoiding capture, is not justified in modern
+international law. The rules provide that a warship is to approach an
+enemy merchant vessel in a peaceable manner; it is required to stop
+the vessel by means of certain signals, to interview the captain,
+examine the ship's papers, enter the particulars in due form and,
+where necessary, make an inventory, etc. But in order to comply with
+these requirements it must obviously be understood that the warship
+has full assurance that the merchant vessel will likewise observe a
+peaceable demeanour throughout. And it is clear that no such assurance
+can exist when the merchant vessel is so armed as to be capable of
+offering resistance to a warship. A warship can hardly be expected to
+act in such a manner under the guns of an enemy, whatever may be the
+purpose for which the guns were placed on board. Not to speak of the
+fact that the merchant vessels of the Entente Powers, despite all
+assurances to the contrary, have been proved to be armed for offensive
+purposes, and make use of their armament for such purposes. It would
+also be to disregard the rights of humanity if the crew of a warship
+were expected to surrender to the guns of an enemy without resistance
+on their own part. No State can regard its duty to humanity as less
+valid in respect of men defending their country than in respect of the
+subjects of a foreign Power.
+
+The Austrian Government is therefore of opinion that its former
+assurance to the Washington Cabinet could not be held to apply to
+armed merchant vessels, since these, according to the legal standards
+prevailing, whereby hostilities are restricted to organised military
+forces, must be regarded as privateers (freebooters) which are liable
+to immediate destruction. History shows us that, according to the
+_general_ law of nations, merchant vessels have never been justified
+in resisting the exercise by warships of the right of taking prizes.
+But even if a standard to this effect could be shown to exist, it
+would not mean that the vessels had the right to provide themselves
+with guns. It should also be borne in mind that the arming of merchant
+ships must necessarily alter the whole conduct of warfare at sea, and
+that such alteration cannot correspond to the views of those who seek
+to regulate maritime warfare according to the principles of humanity.
+As a matter of fact, since the practice of privateering was
+discontinued, until a few years back no Power has ever thought of
+arming merchant vessels. Throughout the whole proceedings of the
+second Peace Conference, which was occupied with all questions of the
+laws of warfare at sea, not a single word was ever said about the
+arming of merchant ships. Only on one occasion was a casual
+observation made with any bearing on this question, and it is
+characteristic that it should have been by a British naval officer of
+superior rank, who impartially declared: "Lorsqu'un navire de guerre
+se propose d'arrêter et de visiter un vaisseau marchand, le
+commandant, avant de mettre une embarcation à la mer, fera tirer un
+coup de canon. Le coup de canon est la meilleure garantie que l'on
+puisse donner. _Les navires de commerce n'ont pas de canons à bord._"
+(When a warship intends to stop and board a merchant vessel the
+commander, before sending a boat, will fire a gun. The firing of a gun
+is the best guarantee that can be given. _Merchant vessels do not
+carry guns._)
+
+Nevertheless, Austria-Hungary has in this regard also held by its
+assurance; in the circular verbal note referred to neutrals were
+cautioned beforehand against entrusting their persons or their goods
+on board any armed ship; moreover, the measures announced were not put
+into execution at once, but a delay was granted in order to enable
+neutrals already on board armed ships to leave the same. And, finally,
+the Austro-Hungarian warships are instructed, even in case of
+encountering armed enemy merchant vessels, to give warning and to
+provide for the safety of those on board, provided it seems possible
+to do so in the circumstances.
+
+The statement of the American Ambassador, to the effect that the armed
+British steamers _Secondo_ and _Welsh Prince_ were sunk without
+warning by Austrian submarines, is based on error. The Austrian
+Government has in the meantime received information that no
+Austro-Hungarian warships were at all concerned in the sinking of
+these vessels.
+
+The Austrian Government has, as in the circular verbal note already
+referred to--reverting now to the question of aggravated submarine
+warfare referred to in the memorandum--also in its declaration of
+January 31 of this year issued a warning to neutrals with
+corresponding time limit; indeed, _the whole of the declaration itself
+is, from its nature, nothing more or less than a warning to the effect
+that no merchant vessel may pass the area of sea expressly defined
+therein_. Nevertheless, the Austrian warships have been instructed as
+far as possible to warn such merchant vessels as may be encountered in
+the area concerned and provide for the safety of passengers and crew.
+And the Austrian Government is in the possession of numerous reports
+stating that the crews and passengers of vessels destroyed in these
+waters have been saved. But the Austrian Government cannot accept any
+responsibility for possible loss of human life which may after all
+occur in connection with the destruction of armed vessels or vessels
+encountered in prohibited areas. Also it may be noted that the
+Austro-Hungarian submarines operate only in the Adriatic and
+Mediterranean Seas, and there is thus hardly any question as to any
+action affecting American interests on the part of Austro-Hungarian
+warships.
+
+After all that has been said in the preamble to this Memorandum, it
+need hardly be said that the declaration of the waters in question as
+a prohibited area is in no way intended as a measure aiming at the
+destruction of human life, or even to endangering the same, but that
+its object--apart from the higher aims of _relieving humanity from
+further suffering by shortening the war_, is only to place Great
+Britain and its Allies, who have--without establishing any legally
+effective blockade of the coasts of the Central Powers--hindered
+traffic by sea between neutrals and these Powers in a like position of
+isolation, and render them amenable to a peace with some guarantee of
+permanency. That Austria-Hungary here makes use of other methods of
+war than her opponents is due mainly to circumstances beyond human
+control. But the Austrian Government is conscious of having done all
+in its power to avoid loss of human life. _The object aimed at in the
+blockading of the Western Powers would be most swiftly and certainly
+attained if not a single human life were lost or endangered in those
+waters._
+
+To sum up, the Austrian Government may point out that the assurance
+given to the Washington Cabinet in the case of the _Ancona_, and
+renewed in the case of the _Persia_, is neither withdrawn nor
+qualified by its statements of February 10, 1916, and January 31,
+1917. Within the limits of this assurance the Austrian Government
+will, together with its Allies, continue its endeavours to secure to
+the peoples of the world a share in the blessings of peace. If in the
+pursuit of this aim--which it may take for granted has the full
+sympathy of the Washington Cabinet itself--it should find itself
+compelled to impose restrictions on neutral traffic by sea in certain
+areas, it will not need so much to point to the behaviour of its
+opponents in this respect, which appears by no means an example to be
+followed, but rather to the fact that Austria-Hungary, through the
+persistence and hatred of its enemies, who are determined upon its
+destruction, is brought to a state of self-defence in so desperate
+extreme as is unsurpassed in the history of the world. The Austrian
+Government is encouraged by the knowledge that the struggle now being
+carried on by Austria-Hungary tends not only toward the preservation
+of its own vital interests, but also towards the realisation of the
+idea of equal rights for all states; and in this last and hardest
+phase of the war, which unfortunately calls for sacrifices on the part
+of friends as well, it regards it as of supreme importance to confirm
+in word and deed the fact that it is guided equally by the laws of
+humanity and by the dictates of respect for the dignity and interests
+of neutral peoples.
+
+
+3
+
+=Speech by Dr. Helfferich, Secretary of State, on the Submarine
+Warfare=
+
+The _Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_ of May 1, 1917, gives the
+following speech by Dr. Helfferich, Secretary of State, on the
+economic effects of the submarine warfare delivered in the principal
+committee of the Reichstag on April 28. The speech is here given
+verbatim, with the exception of portions containing confidential
+statements:
+
+"In the sitting of yesterday a member rightly pointed out that the
+technical and economic results of the submarine warfare have been
+estimated with caution. In technical respects the caution observed in
+estimating the results is plain; the sinkings have, during the first
+month, exceeded by nearly a quarter, in the second by nearly half, the
+estimated 600,000 tons, and for the present month also we may fairly
+cherish the best expectations. The technical success guarantees the
+economic success with almost mathematical exactitude. True, the
+economic results cannot be so easily expressed numerically and set
+down in a few big figures as the technical result in the amount of
+tonnage sunk. The economic effects of the submarine warfare are
+expressed in many different spheres covering a wide area, where the
+enemy seeks to render visibility still more difficult by resorting, so
+to speak, to statistical smoke-screens.
+
+"The English statistics to-day are most interesting, one might almost
+say, in what they wisely refrain from mentioning. The Secretary of
+State for the Navy pointed out yesterday how rapidly the pride of the
+British public had faded. The English are now suppressing our reports
+on the successes of our submarines and our statements as to submarine
+losses; they dare not make public the amount of tonnage sunk, but
+mystify the public with shipping statistics which have given rise to
+general annoyance in the English Press itself. The English Government
+lets its people go on calmly trusting to the myth that instead of six
+U-boats sunk there are a hundred at the bottom of the sea. It conceals
+from the world also the true course of the entries and departures of
+tonnage in British ports since the commencement of unrestricted
+submarine warfare. And more than all, the English Government has since
+February suppressed most strictly all figures tending to throw light
+on the position of the grain market. In the case of the coal exports,
+the country of destination is not published. The monthly trade report,
+which is usually issued with admirable promptness by the tenth of the
+next month or thereabouts, was for February delayed and incomplete;
+and for March it has not yet appeared at all. It is to be regretted
+that this sudden withdrawal of information makes it more difficult for
+us to estimate the effect of our submarine operations, but there is a
+gratifying side to the question after all. It is not to be supposed
+that England should suddenly become reticent in order to avoid
+revealing its strength.
+
+"For the rest, what can be seen is still sufficient to give us an
+idea.
+
+"I will commence with the tonnage. You are aware that in the first two
+months of the unrestricted submarine warfare more than 1,600,000 tons
+were sunk, of which probably considerably over one million tons sailed
+under the British flag.
+
+"The estimates as to the quantity of English tonnage at present
+available are somewhat divergent; in any case, whether we take the
+higher or the lower figures, a loss of more than a million tons in two
+months is a thing that England cannot endure for long. And to replace
+it, even approximately, by new building, is out of the question. In
+the year 1914 England's newly-built ships gave a tonnage increment of
+1,600,000; in 1915 it was 650,000 tons, in 1916 only 580,000, despite
+all efforts. And the normal loss of the British merchant fleet in
+peace time amounts to between 700,000 and 800,000 tons. It is hopeless
+to think of maintaining equilibrium by urging on the building of new
+vessels.
+
+"The attempts which are made to enlist the neutral tonnage in British
+service by a system of rewards and punishments may here and there, to
+the ultimate disadvantage of the neutrals themselves, have met with
+some success, but even so, the neutrals must consider the need for
+preserving a merchant fleet themselves for peace time, so that there
+is a narrow limit to what can be attained in this manner. Even in
+January of this year about 30 per cent. of the shipping entries into
+British ports were under foreign flags. I have heard estimates brought
+up to 80 per cent. in order to terrify the neutrals; if but 50 per
+cent. of this be correct it means a decrease in British shipping
+traffic of roughly one-sixth. Counting tonnage sunk and tonnage
+frightened off, the arrivals at British ports have been reduced, at a
+low estimate, by one-fourth, and probably by as much as one-third, as
+against January. In January arrivals amounted to 2.2 million net tons.
+I may supplement the incomplete English statistics by the information
+that in March the arrivals were only 1.5 to 1.6 million tons net, and
+leave it to Mr. Carson to refute this. The 1.5 to 1.6 million tons
+represent, compared with the average entries in peace time, amounting
+to 4.2 millions, not quite 40 per cent. This low rate will be further
+progressively reduced. Lloyd George at the beginning of the war
+reckoned on the last milliard. Those days are now past. Then he based
+his plans on munitions. England has here, with the aid of America,
+achieved extraordinary results. But the Somme and Arras showed that,
+even with those enormous resources, England was not able to beat us.
+Now, in his greeting to the American Allies, Lloyd George cries out:
+'Ships, ships, and yet more ships.' And this time he is on the right
+tack; it is on ships that the fate of the British world-empire will
+depend.
+
+"The Americans, too, have understood this. They propose to build a
+thousand wooden vessels of 3,000 tons. But before these can be brought
+into action they will, I confidently hope, have nothing left to save.
+
+"I base this confidence upon the indications which are visible,
+despite the English policy of suppression and concealment.
+
+"Take the total British trade. The figures for March are still not yet
+available, but those for February tell us enough.
+
+"British imports amounted in January of this year to 90 million pounds
+sterling, in February to only 70 million; the exports have gone down
+from 46 to 37 millions sterling--imports and exports together showing
+a decline of over 20 per cent. in the first month of the submarine
+warfare. And again, the rise in prices all round has, since the
+commencement of the U-boat war, continued at a more rapid rate, so
+that the decline in the import quantity from one month to another may
+fairly be estimated at 25 per cent. The figures for imports and
+exports, then, confirm my supposition as to the decrease of tonnage in
+the traffic with British ports.
+
+"The British Government has endeavoured, by the strictest measures
+rigorously prohibiting import of less important articles, to ward off
+the decline in the quantity of vital necessaries imported. The attempt
+can only partially succeed.
+
+"In 1916, out of a total import quantity of 42 million tons, about 31
+millions fall to three important groups alone, viz., foodstuffs and
+luxuries, timber, and iron ore; all other goods, including important
+war materials, such as other ores and metals, petroleum, cotton and
+wool, rubber, only 11 million tons, or roughly one-fourth. A decline
+of one-fourth, then, as brought about by the first month of
+unrestricted submarine warfare, must affect articles indispensable to
+life and to the purposes of war.
+
+"The decline in the imports in February, 1917, as against February,
+1916, appears as follows:
+
+"Wool 17 per cent., cotton 27 per cent., flax 38 per cent., hemp 48
+per cent., jute 74 per cent., woollen materials 83 per cent., copper
+and copper ore 49 per cent., iron and steel 59 per cent. As to the
+imports of iron ore I will give more detailed figures:
+
+"Coffee 66 per cent., tea 41 per cent., raw sugar 10 per cent.,
+refined sugar 90 per cent., bacon 17 per cent., butter 21 per cent.,
+lard 21 per cent., eggs 39 per cent., timber 42 per cent.
+
+"The only increases worth noting are in the case of leather, hides,
+rubber and tin.
+
+"As regards the group in which we are most interested, the various
+sorts of grain, no figures for quantities have been given from
+February onwards.
+
+"The mere juxtaposition of two comparable values naturally gives no
+complete idea of the facts. It should be borne in mind that the
+commencement of the unrestricted U-boat campaign came at a time when
+the economical position of England was not normal, but greatly
+weakened already by two and a half years of war. A correct judgment
+will, then, only be possible when we take into consideration the
+entire development of the imports during the course of the war.
+
+"I will here give only the most important figures.
+
+"In the case of iron ore, England has up to now maintained its
+position better than in other respects.
+
+"Imports amounted in 1913 to 7.4 million tons.
+
+"In 1916 to 6.9 million tons.
+
+"January, 1913, 689,000 tons; February, 1913, 658,000 tons.
+
+"January, 1916, 526,000 tons; February, 1916, 404,000 tons.
+
+"January, 1917, 512,000 tons; February, 1917, 508,000 tons.
+
+"Here again comparison with the peace year 1913 shows for the months
+of January and February a not inconsiderable decrease, though the
+imports, especially in February, 1917, were in excess of those for the
+same month in 1916.
+
+  "Timber imports, 1913, 10.1 million loads.
+     "       "     1916,  5.9    "      "
+     "   February, 1913, 406,000 loads.
+     "       "     1916, 286,000   "
+     "       "     1917, 167,000   "
+
+"As regards mining timber especially, the import of which fell from
+3.5 million loads in 1913 to 2.0 million in 1916, we have here
+December, 1916, and January, 1917, with 102,000 and 107,000 loads as
+the lowest import figures given since the beginning of 1913; a
+statement for the import of mining timber is missing for February.
+
+"Before turning to the import of foodstuffs a word may be said as to
+the export of coal.
+
+"The total export of coal has decreased from 78 million tons in 1913
+to 461/2 million tons in 1915; in 1916 only about 42 million tons were
+exported. In December, 1916, the export quantity fell for the first
+time below 3 million tons, having remained between 3.2 and 3.9 million
+tons during the months from January to November, 1916. In January,
+1917, a figure of 3.5 million tons was again reached; it is the more
+significant, therefore, that the coal export, which from the nature of
+the case exhibits only slight fluctuations from month to month, falls
+again in February, 1917, to 2.9 million tons (as against 3.4 million
+tons in February of the year before), thus almost reaching once more
+to the lowest point hitherto recorded--that of December, 1916. And it
+should be remembered that here, as in the case of all other exports,
+sunk transports are included in the English statistics.
+
+"Details as to the destination of exported coal have since the
+beginning of this year been withheld. England is presumably desirous
+of saving the French and Italians the further distress of reading for
+the future in black and white the calamitous decline in their coal
+supply. The serious nature of this decline, even up to the end of
+1916, may be seen from the following figures:
+
+"England's coal export to France amounted in December, 1916, to only
+1,128,000 tons, as against 1,269,000 tons in January of the same year;
+the exports to Italy in December, 1916, amounted only to 278,000 tons,
+as against 431,000 tons in January, and roughly 800,000 tons monthly
+average for the peace year 1913.
+
+"As to the further development since the end of February, I am able to
+give some interesting details. Scotland's coal export in the first
+week of April was 103,000 tons, as against 194,000 tons the previous
+year; from the beginning of the year 1,783,000 tons, as against
+2,486,000 tons the previous year. From this it is easy to see how the
+operations of the U-boats are striking at the root of railway and war
+industries in the countries allied with England.
+
+"Lloyd George, in a great speech made on January 22 of this year,
+showed the English how they could protect themselves against the
+effects of submarine warfare by increased production in their own
+country. The practicability and effectiveness of his counsels are more
+than doubtful. He makes no attempt, however, to instruct his Allies
+how they are to protect themselves against the throttling of the coal
+supply.
+
+"I come now to the most important point: _the position of England with
+regard to its food supply_.
+
+"First of all I would give a few brief figures by way of calling to
+mind the degree to which England is dependent upon supplies of
+foodstuffs from overseas.
+
+"The proportion of imports in total British consumption averaged
+during the last years of peace as follows:
+
+"Bread-corn, close on 80 per cent.
+
+"Fodder-grain (barley, oats, maize), which can be utilised as
+substitutes for, and to supplement, the bread-corn, 50 per cent.;
+meat, over 40 per cent.; butter, 60-65 per cent. The sugar
+consumption, failing any home production at all, must be entirely
+covered by imports from abroad.
+
+"I would further point out that our U-boats, inasmuch as concerns the
+food situation in England, are operating under quite exceptionally
+favourable conditions; the world's record harvest of 1915 has been
+followed by the world's worst harvest of 1916, representing a loss of
+45-50 million tons of bread and fodder-grain. The countries hardest
+hit are those most favourably situated, from the English point of
+view, in North America. The effects are now--the rich stocks from the
+former harvest having been consumed--becoming more evident every day
+and everywhere. The Argentine has put an embargo on exports of grain.
+As to the condition of affairs in the United States, this may be seen
+from the following figures:
+
+"The Department of Agriculture estimates the stocks of wheat still in
+the hands of the farmer on March 1, 1917, at 101 million bushels, or
+little over 21/2 million tons. The stocks for the previous year on that
+date amounted to 241 million bushels. Never during the whole of the
+time I have followed these figures back have the stocks been so low or
+even nearly so. The same applies to stocks of maize. Against a supply
+of 1,138,000 bushels on March 1, 1916, we have for this year only
+789,000 bushels.
+
+"The extraordinary scarcity of supplies is nearing the panic limit.
+The movement of prices during the last few weeks is simply fantastic.
+Maize, which was noted in Chicago at the beginning of January, 1917,
+at 95 cents, rose by the end of April to 127 cents, and by April 25
+had risen further to 148 cents. Wheat in New York, which stood at 871/4
+cents in July, 1914, and by the beginning of 1917 had already risen to
+1911/2 cents, rose at the beginning of April to 229 cents, and was noted
+at no less than 281 on April 2. This is three and a half times the
+peace figure! In German currency at normal peace time exchange, these
+281 cents represent about 440 marks per ton, or, at present rate of
+exchange for dollars, about 580 marks per ton.
+
+"That, then, is the state of affairs in the country which is to help
+England in the war of starvation criminally begun by itself!
+
+"In England no figures are now made public as to imports and stocks of
+grain. I can, however, state as follows:
+
+"On the last date for which stocks were noted, January 13, 1917,
+England's visible stocks of wheat amounted to 5.3 million quarters, as
+against 6.3 and 5.9 million quarters in the two previous years. From
+January to May and June there is, as a rule, a marked decline in the
+stocks, and even in normal years the imports during these months do
+not cover the consumption. In June, 1914 and 1915, the visible stocks
+amounted only to about 2 million quarters, representing the
+requirements for scarcely three weeks.
+
+"We have no reason to believe that matters have developed more
+favourably during the present year. This is borne out by the import
+figures for January--as published. The imports of bread-corn and
+fodder-grain--I take them altogether, as in the English regulations
+for eking out supplies--amounted only to 12.6 million quarters, as
+against 19.8 and 19.2 in the two previous years.
+
+"For February the English statistics show an increase in the import
+value of unstated import quantity of all grain of 50 per cent., as
+against February, 1916. This gives, taking the distribution among the
+various sorts of grain as similar to that of January, and reckoning
+with the rise in prices since, about the same import quantity as in
+the previous year. But in view of the great decrease in American grain
+shipments and the small quantity which can have come from India and
+Australia the statement is hardly credible. We may take it that March
+has brought a further decline, and that to-day, when we are nearing
+the time of the three-week stocks, the English supplies are lower than
+in the previous years.
+
+"The English themselves acknowledge this. Lloyd George stated in
+February that the English grain supplies were lower than ever within
+the memory of man. A high official in the English Ministry of
+Agriculture, Sir Ailwyn Fellowes, speaking in April at an agricultural
+congress, added that owing to the submarine warfare, which was an
+extremely serious peril to England, the state of affairs had grown far
+worse even than then.
+
+"Captain Bathurst, of the British Food Controller's Department
+(_Kriegsernährungsamt_), stated briefly on April 19 that the then
+consumption of breadstuffs was 50 per cent. in excess of the present
+_and prospective_ supplies. It would be necessary to reduce the
+consumption of bread by fully a third in order to make ends meet.
+
+"Shortly before, Mr. Wallhead, a delegate from Manchester, at a
+conference of the Independent Labour Party in Leeds had stated that,
+according to his information, England would in six to eight weeks be
+in a complete state of famine.
+
+"The crisis in which England is placed--and we can fairly call it a
+crisis now--is further aggravated by the fact that the supplies of
+other important foodstuffs have likewise taken an unfavourable turn.
+
+"The import of meat in February, 1917, shows the lowest figures for
+many years, with the single exception of September, 1914.
+
+"The marked falling off in the butter imports--February, 1917, showing
+only half as much as in the previous year--is not nearly
+counterbalanced by the margarine which England is making every effort
+to introduce.
+
+"The import of lard also, most of which comes from the United States,
+shows a decline, owing to the poor American crops of fodder-stuffs.
+The price of lard in Chicago has risen from 151/2 cents at the beginning
+of January, 1917, to 211/2 cents on April 25, and the price of pigs in
+the same time from 9.80 to 16.50 dollars.
+
+"Most serious of all, however, is the shortage of potatoes, which at
+present is simply catastrophic. The English crop was the worst for a
+generation past. The imports are altogether insignificant. Captain
+Bathurst stated on April 19 that in about four weeks the supplies of
+potatoes in the country would be entirely exhausted.
+
+"The full seriousness of the case now stares English statesmen in the
+face. Up to now they have believed it possible to exorcise the danger
+by voluntary economies. Now they find themselves compelled to have
+recourse to compulsory measures. I believe it is too late."
+
+The Secretary of State then gives a detailed account of the measures
+taken up to date in England for dealing with the food question, and
+thereafter continues:
+
+"On March 22 again the English food dictator, Lord Devonport, stated
+in the House of Lords that a great reduction in the consumption of
+bread would be necessary, but that it would be _a national disaster_
+if England should have to resort to compulsion.
+
+"His representative, Bathurst, stated at the same time: 'We do not
+wish to introduce _so un-English a system_. In the first place,
+because we believe that the patriotism of the people can be trusted to
+assist us in our endeavours towards economy, and, further, because, as
+we can see from the example of Germany, the compulsory system promises
+no success; finally, because such a system would necessitate a too
+complicated administrative machinery and too numerous staffs of men
+and women whose services could be better employed elsewhere.'
+
+"Meantime the English Government has, on receipt of the latest
+reports, decided to adopt this un-English system which has proved a
+failure in Germany, declaring now that the entire organisation for the
+purpose is in readiness.
+
+"I have still something further to say about the vigorous steps now
+being taken in England to further the progress of agriculture in the
+country itself. I refrain from going into this, however, as the
+measures in question cannot come to anything by next harvest time, nor
+can they affect that harvest at all. The winter deficiency can hardly
+be balanced, even with the greatest exertions, by the spring. Not
+until the 1918 crop, if then, can any success be attained. And between
+then and now lies a long road, a road of suffering for England, and
+for all countries dependent upon imports for their food supply.
+
+"Everything points to the likelihood that the universal failure of the
+harvest in 1916 will be followed by a like universal failure in 1917.
+In the United States the official reports of acreage under crops are
+worse than ever, showing 63.4, against 78.3 the previous year. The
+winter wheat is estimated at only 430 million bushels, as against 492
+million bushels for the previous year and 650 million bushels for
+1915.
+
+"The prospects, then, for the next year's harvest are poor indeed, and
+offer no hope of salvation to our enemies.
+
+"As to our own outlook, this is well known to those present: short,
+but safe--for we can manage by ourselves. And to-day we can say that
+the war of starvation, that crime against humanity, has turned against
+those who commenced it. We hold the enemy in an iron grip. No one can
+save them from their fate. Not even the apostles of humanity across
+the great ocean, who are now commencing to protect the smaller nations
+by a blockade of our neutral neighbours through prohibition of
+exports, and seeking thus to drive them, under the lash of starvation,
+into entering into the war against us.
+
+"Our enemies are feeling the grip of the fist that holds them by the
+neck. They are trying to force a decision. England, mistress of the
+seas, is seeking to attain its end by land, and driving her sons by
+hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation. Is this the England
+that was to have sat at ease upon its island till we were starved into
+submission, that could wait till their big brother across the Atlantic
+arrived on the scene with ships and million armies, standing fast in
+crushing superiority until the last annihilating battle?
+
+"No, gentlemen, our enemies have no longer time to wait. Time is on
+our side now. True, the test imposed upon us by the turn of the
+world's history is enormous. What our troops are doing to help, what
+our young men in blue are doing, stands far above all comparison. But
+they will attain their end. For us at home, too, it is hard; not so
+hard by far as for them out there, yet hard enough. Those at home must
+do their part as well. If we remain true to ourselves, keeping our own
+house in order, maintaining internal unity, then we have won existence
+and the future for our Fatherland. Everything is at stake. The German
+people is called upon now, in these weeks heavy with impending
+decision, to show that it is worthy of continued existence."
+
+
+4
+
+=Speech by Count Czernin to the Austrian Delegation, January 24,
+1918.=
+
+"Gentlemen, it is my duty to give you a true picture of the peace
+negotiations, to set forth the various phases of the results obtained
+up to now, and to draw therefrom such conclusions as are true, logical
+and justifiable.
+
+"First of all it seems to me that those who consider the progress of
+the negotiations too slow cannot have even an approximate idea of the
+difficulties which we naturally had to encounter at every step. I will
+in my remarks take the liberty of setting forth these difficulties,
+but would like first to point out a cardinal difference existing
+between the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk and all others which
+have ever taken place in the history of the world. Never, so far as I
+am aware, have peace negotiations been conducted with open windows. It
+would be impossible that negotiations of the depth and extent of the
+present could from the start proceed smoothly and without opposition.
+We are faced with nothing less than the task of building up a new
+world, of restoring all that the most merciless of all wars has
+destroyed and cast down. In all the peace negotiations we know of the
+various phases have been conducted more or less behind closed doors,
+the results being first declared to the world when the whole was
+completed. All history books tell us, and indeed it is obvious enough,
+that the toilsome path of such peace negotiations leads constantly
+over hill and dale, the prospects appearing often more or less
+favourable day by day. But when the separate phases themselves, the
+details of each day's proceedings, are telegraphed all over the world
+at the time, it is again obvious that nervousness prevailing
+throughout the world must act like an electric current and excite
+public opinion accordingly. We were fully aware of the disadvantage of
+this method of proceeding. Nevertheless we at once agreed to the wish
+of the Russian Government in respect of this publicity, desiring to
+meet them as far as possible, and also because we had nothing to
+conceal on our part, and because it would have made an unfavourable
+impression if we had stood firmly by the methods hitherto pursued, of
+secrecy until completion. _But the complete publicity in the
+negotiations makes it insistent that the great public, the country
+behind, and above all the leaders, must keep cool._ The match must be
+played out in cold blood, and the end will be satisfactory if the
+peoples of the Monarchy support their representatives at the
+conference.
+
+"It should be stated beforehand that the basis on which
+Austria-Hungary treats with the various newly-constituted Russian
+states is that of 'no indemnities and no annexations.' That is the
+programme which a year ago, shortly after my appointment as Minister,
+I put before those who wished to talk of peace, and which I repeated
+to the Russian leaders on the occasion of their first offers of peace.
+And I have not deviated from that programme. Those who believe that I
+am to be turned from the way which I have set myself to follow are
+poor psychologists. I have never left the public in the slightest
+doubt as to which way I intended to go, and I have never allowed
+myself to be turned aside so much as a hair's breadth from that way,
+either to right or left. And I have since become far from a favourite
+of the Pan-Germans and of those in the Monarchy who follow the
+Pan-German ideas. I have at the same time been hooted as an inveterate
+partisan of war by those whose programme is peace at any price, as
+innumerable letters have informed me. Neither has ever disturbed me;
+on the contrary, the double insults have been my only comfort in this
+serious time. I declare now once again that I ask not a single
+kreuzer, not a single square metre of land from Russia, and that if
+Russia, as appears to be the case, takes the same point of view, then
+peace must result. Those who wish for peace at any price might
+entertain some doubt as to my 'no-annexation' intentions towards
+Russia if I did not tell them to their faces with the same complete
+frankness that I shall never assent to the conclusion of a peace going
+beyond the lines just laid down. If the Russian delegates demand any
+surrender of territory on our part, or any war indemnity, then I shall
+continue the war, despite the fact that I am as anxious for peace as
+they, or I would resign if I could not attain the end I seek.
+
+"This once said, and emphatically asserted, that there is no ground
+for the pessimistic anticipation of the peace falling through, since
+the negotiating committees are agreed on the basis of no annexations
+or indemnities--and nothing but new instructions from the various
+Russian Governments, or their disappearance, could shift that basis--I
+then pass to the two great difficulties in which are contained the
+reasons why the negotiations have not proceeded as quickly as we all
+wished.
+
+"The first difficulty is this: that we are not dealing with _a single_
+Russian peace delegation, but with various newly-formed Russian
+states, whose spheres of action are as yet by no means definitely
+fixed or explained among themselves. We have to reckon with the
+following: firstly, the Russia which is administered from St.
+Petersburg; secondly, our new neighbour proper, the great State of
+Ukraine; thirdly, Finland; and, fourthly, the Caucasus.
+
+"With the first two of these states we are treating directly; that is
+to say, face to face; with the two others it was at first in a more or
+less indirect fashion, as they had not sent any representative to
+Brest-Litovsk. We have then four Russian parties, and four separate
+Powers on our own side to meet them. The case of the Caucasus, with
+which we ourselves have, of course, no direct questions to settle, but
+which, on the other hand, is in conflict with Turkey, will serve to
+show the extent of the matter to be debated.
+
+"The point in which we ourselves are most directly interested is that
+of the great newly-established state upon our frontiers, Ukraine. In
+the course of the proceedings we have already got well ahead with this
+delegation. We are agreed upon the aforementioned basis of no
+indemnities and no annexations, and have in the main arrived at a
+settlement on the point that trade relations are to be re-established
+with the new republic, as also on the manner of so doing. But this
+very case of the Ukraine illustrates one of the prevailing
+difficulties. While the Ukraine Republic takes up the position of
+being entirely autonomous and justified in treating independently with
+ourselves, the Russian delegation insists that the boundaries between
+their territory and that of the Ukraine are not yet definitely fixed,
+and that Petersburg is therefore able to claim the right of taking
+part in our deliberations with the Ukraine, which claim is not
+admitted by the members of the Ukraine delegation themselves. This
+unsettled state of affairs in the internal conditions of Russia,
+however, gave rise to very serious delays. We have got over these
+difficulties, and I hope that in a few days' time we shall be able
+once more to resume negotiations.
+
+"As to the position to-day, I cannot say what this may be. I received
+yesterday from my representative at Brest-Litovsk the following two
+telegrams:
+
+"'Herr Joffe has this evening, in his capacity as President of the
+Russian Delegation, issued a circular letter to the delegations of the
+four allied Powers in which he states that the Workers' and Peasants'
+Government of the Ukrainian Republic has decided to send two delegates
+to Brest-Litovsk with instructions to take part in the peace
+negotiations on behalf of the central committee of the workers',
+soldiers' and peasants' councils of Pan-Ukraine, but also to form a
+supplementary part of the _Russian_ delegation itself. Herr Joffe adds
+with regard to this that the Russian delegation is prepared to receive
+these Ukrainian representatives among themselves. The above statement
+is supplemented by a copy of a "declaration" dated from Kharkov,
+addressed to the President of the Russian Peace Delegation at Brest,
+and emanating from the Workers' and Peasants' Government of the
+Ukrainian Republic, proclaiming that the Central Rada at Kiev only
+represents the propertied classes, and is consequently incapable of
+acting on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian
+Workers' and Peasants' Government declares that it cannot acknowledge
+any decisions arrived at by the delegates of the Central Rada at Kiev
+without its participation, but has nevertheless decided to send
+representatives to Brest-Litovsk, there to participate as a
+supplementary fraction of the Russian Delegation, which they recognise
+as the accredited representatives of the Federative Government of
+Russia.'
+
+"Furthermore: 'The German translation of the Russian original text of
+the communication received yesterday evening from Herr Joffe regarding
+the delegates of the Ukrainian Government at Kharkov and the two
+appendices thereto runs as follows:
+
+"'To the President of the Austro-Hungarian Peace Delegation.
+
+"'Sir,--In forwarding you herewith a copy of a declaration received by
+me from the delegates of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of the
+Ukrainian Republic, W.M. Schachrai and J.G. Medwjedew, and their
+mandates, I have the honour to inform you that the Russian Delegation,
+in full agreement with its frequently repeated acknowledgment of the
+right of self-determination among all peoples--including naturally the
+Ukrainian--sees nothing to hinder the participation of the
+representatives of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of the
+Ukrainian Republic in the peace negotiations, and receives them,
+according to their wish, among the personnel of the Russian Peace
+Delegation, as accredited representatives of the Workers' and
+Peasants' Government of the Ukrainian Republic. In bringing this to
+your knowledge, I beg you, sir, to accept the expression of my most
+sincere respect.--The President of the Russian Peace Delegation:
+A. JOFFE.'
+
+"'Appendix 1. To the President of the Peace Delegation of the Russian
+Republic. Declaration.
+
+"'We, the representatives of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of
+the Ukrainian Republic, People's Commissary for Military Affairs, W.M.
+Schachrai, and the President of the Pan-Ukrainian Central Executive
+Committee of the Council of the Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
+Deputation, J.G. Medwjedew, delegated to proceed to Brest-Litovsk for
+the purpose of conducting peace negotiations with the representatives
+of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, in full agreement
+with the representatives of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of
+the Russian Federative Republic, thereby understood the Council of
+People's Commissaries, hereby declare as follows: The General
+Secretariat of the Ukrainian Central Rada can in no case be
+acknowledged as representing the entire Ukrainian people. In the name
+of the Ukrainian workers, soldiers and peasants, we declare
+categorically that all resolutions formed by the General Secretariat
+without our assent will not be accepted by the Ukrainian people,
+cannot be carried out, and can in no case be realised.
+
+"'In full agreement with the Council of People's Commissaries, and
+thus also with the Delegation of the Russian Workers' and Peasants'
+Government, we shall for the future undertake the conduct of the peace
+negotiations with the Delegation of the four Powers, together with the
+Russian Peace Delegation.
+
+"'And we now bring to the knowledge of the President the following
+resolution, passed by the Central Executive Committee of the
+Pan-Ukrainian Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies,
+on the 30th December, 1917/12th January, 1918:
+
+"'The Central Committee has decided: To delegate Comrade Medwjedew,
+President of the Central Executive Committee, and People's Secretary
+Satonski and Commissary Schachrai, to take part in the peace
+negotiations, instructing them at the same time to declare
+categorically that all attempts of the Ukrainian Central Rada to act
+in the name of the Ukrainian people are to be regarded as _arbitrary
+steps_ on the part of the bourgeois group of the Ukrainian population,
+against the will and interests of the working classes of the Ukraine,
+and that no resolutions formed by the Central Rada will be
+acknowledged either by the Ukrainian Soviet Government or by the
+Ukrainian people; that the Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants' Government
+regards the Council of People's Commissaries as representatives of the
+Pan-Russian Soviet Government, and as accordingly entitled to act on
+behalf of the entire Russian Federation; and that the delegation of
+the Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants' Government, sent out for the
+purpose of exposing the arbitrary steps of the Ukrainian Central Rada,
+will act together with and in full agreement with the Pan-Russian
+Delegation.
+
+"'Herewith: The mandate issued by the People's Secretariat of the
+Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants' Republic, 30th December, 1917.
+
+"'Note: People's Secretary for Enlightenment of the People, Wladimir
+Petrowitch Satonski, was taken ill on the way, and did not therefore
+arrive with us.
+
+"'January, 1918.
+
+"'The President of the Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian
+Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, E. Medwjedew.
+
+"'The People's Commissary for Military Affairs, Schachrai.
+
+"'A true copy of the original.
+
+"'The Secretary of the Peace Delegation, Leo Karachou.'
+
+"Appendix 2.
+
+"'On the resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the Council
+of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies of Ukraina, the People's
+Secretariat of the Ukrainian Republic hereby appoints, in the name of
+the Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraina, the President of the
+Central Executive Committee of the Council of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies of Ukraina, Jesim Gregoriewitch Medwjedew, the
+People's Secretary for Military Affairs, Wasili Matwjejewitch
+Schachrai, and the People's Secretary for Enlightenment of the People,
+Wladimir Petrowitch Satonski, in the name of the Ukrainian People's
+Republic, to take part in the negotiations with the Governments of
+Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria as to the terms of peace
+between the mentioned states and the Russian Federative Republic. With
+this end in view the mentioned deputies, Jesim Gregoriewitch
+Medwjedew, Wasili Matwjejewitch Schachrai and Wladimir Petrowitch
+Satonski are empowered, in all cases where they deem it necessary, to
+issue declarations and to sign documents in the name of the Workers'
+and Peasants' Government of the Ukrainian Republic. The accredited
+representatives of the Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants' Government are
+bound to act throughout in accordance with the actions of the
+accredited representatives of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of
+the Russian Federative Republic, whereby is understood the Council of
+People's Commissaries.
+
+"'In the name of the Workers' and Peasants' Government of the
+Ukrainian People's Republic, the People's Secretary for International
+Affairs, for Internal Affairs, Military Affairs, Justice, Works,
+Commissariat.
+
+"'The Manager of the Secretariat.
+
+"'Kharkov, 30th December, 1917/12th January, 1918.
+
+"'In accordance with the copy.
+
+"'The President of the Russian Peace Delegation, A. Joffe.'
+
+"This is at any rate a new difficulty, since we cannot and will not
+interfere in the internal affairs of Russia.
+
+"This once disposed of, however, there will be no further difficulties
+to encounter here; we shall, in agreement with the Ukrainian Republic
+determine that _the old boundaries between Austria-Hungary and the
+former Russia will also be maintained as between ourselves and the
+Ukraine._
+
+
+=Poland=
+
+"As regards Poland, the frontiers of which, by the way, have not yet
+been exactly determined, _we want nothing at all from this new state_.
+Free and uninfluenced, the population of Poland shall choose its own
+fate. For my part I attach no great weight to the _form_ of the
+people's vote in this respect; _the more surely it expresses the
+general wish of the people, the better I shall be pleased_. For I
+desire only the _voluntary_ attachment of Poland; only in the express
+_wish_ of Poland itself toward that end can I see any guarantee for
+lasting harmony. It is my unalterable conviction that _the Polish
+question must not be allowed to delay the signing of peace by a single
+day_. If, after peace is arrived at, Poland should wish to approach
+us, we will not reject its advances--_the Polish question must not and
+shall not endanger the peace itself_.
+
+"I should have been glad if _the Polish Government had been able to
+take part in the negotiations_, since in my opinion Poland is _an
+independent state_. The Petersburg Government, however, takes the
+attitude that the present Polish Government is not entitled to speak
+in the name of the country, and does not acknowledge it as competent
+to represent the country, and we therefore gave way on this point in
+order to avoid possible conflict. The question is certainly one of
+importance, but it is more important still in my opinion _to set aside
+all difficulties likely to delay the negotiations_.
+
+
+=German-Russian Differences as to the Occupied Areas=
+
+"The second difficulty to be reckoned with, and one which has been
+most widely echoed in the Press, is the _difference of opinion between
+our German allies and the Petersburg Government_ anent the
+interpretation of _the right of self-determination among the Russian
+peoples_; that is to say, in the areas occupied by German troops.
+Germany maintains that it _does not aim at any annexation of territory
+by force_ from Russia, but, briefly stated, the difference of opinion
+is a double one.
+
+"In the first place, Germany rightly maintains that _the numerous
+expressions of desire for independence_ on the part of _legislative
+corporations, communal representations_, etc., in the occupied areas
+should be taken as the _provisional_ basis for the will of the people,
+to be _later_ tested by _plebiscite on a broader foundation_, a point
+of view which the Russian Government at first was indisposed to agree
+to, as it did not consider the existing administrations in Courland
+and Lithuania entitled to speak for those provinces any more than in
+the case of Poland.
+
+"In the second place, Russia demands that this plebiscite shall take
+place _after all German troops and officials have been withdrawn from
+the occupied provinces_, while Germany, in reply to this, points out
+that if this principle were carried to its utmost limits it would
+create a vacuum, which could not fail to bring about at once a state
+of complete anarchy and the utmost misery. It should here be noted
+that everything in these provinces which to-day renders possible the
+life of a state at all is _German property_. Railways, posts and
+telegraphs, the entire industry, and moreover the entire
+administrative machinery, police, law courts, all are in German hands.
+The sudden withdrawal of all this apparatus would, in fact, create a
+condition of things which seems _practically impossible to maintain_.
+
+"In both cases it is a question of finding a _middle way_, which
+moreover _must be found_.
+
+"_The differences between these two points of view are in my opinion
+not great enough to justify failure of the negotiations_.
+
+"But such negotiations cannot be settled from one day to another; they
+take time.
+
+"_If once we have attained peace with Russia, then in my opinion the
+general peace cannot be long delayed_, despite all efforts on the part
+of the Western Entente statesmen. I have learned that some are unable
+to understand why I stated in my first speech after the resumption of
+negotiations that it was not now a question at Brest of a general
+peace, but of a _separate peace with Russia_. This was the necessary
+recognition of a plain fact, which Herr Trotski also has admitted
+without reserve, and it was necessary, since the negotiations would
+have been on a different footing--that is to say, _in a more limited
+sphere_--if treating with Russia alone than if it were a case of
+treating for a general peace.
+
+"Though I have no illusions in the direction of expecting the fruit of
+general peace to ripen in a single night, I am nevertheless convinced
+that the fruit _has begun to ripen_, and that it is now only a
+question of holding out whether we are to obtain a general honourable
+peace or not.
+
+
+=Wilson's Message=
+
+"I have recently been confirmed in this view by the offer of peace put
+forward by the President of the United States of America to the whole
+world. This is _an offer of peace_, for in fourteen points Mr. Wilson
+sets forth the principles upon which he seeks to establish a general
+peace. Obviously, an offer of this nature cannot be expected to
+furnish a scheme acceptable in every detail. If that were the case,
+then negotiations would be superfluous altogether, and peace could be
+arrived at by a simple acceptance, a single assent. This, of course,
+is not so.
+
+"_But I have no hesitation in declaring that these last proposals on
+the part of President Wilson seem to me considerably nearer the
+Austro-Hungarian point of view_, and that there are among his
+proposals some which we can even agree to _with great pleasure_.
+
+"If I may now be allowed to go further into these proposals, I must,
+to begin with, point out two things:
+
+"So far as the proposals are concerned with _our Allies_--mention is
+made of the German possession of _Belgium_ and of the _Turkish
+Empire_--I declare that, in fulfilment of our duty to our Allies, I am
+firmly determined _to hold out in defence of our Allies to the very
+last. The pre-war possessions of our Allies we will defend equally
+with our own_. This standpoint is that of all four Allies in complete
+reciprocity with ourselves.
+
+"In the second place, I have to point out that I must _politely but
+definitely decline_ to consider the Point dealing with our internal
+Government. We have in Austria _a parliament elected by general,
+equal, direct and secret ballot_. There is not a more democratic
+parliament in the world, and this parliament, together with the other
+constitutionally admissible factors, has the sole right to decide upon
+matters of _Austrian internal affairs_. I speak of _Austria_ only,
+because I do not refer to _Hungarian_ internal affairs in the
+_Austrian Delegation_. I should not consider it constitutional to do
+so. _And we do not interfere in American affairs; but, on the other
+hand, we do not wish for any foreign guidance from any state
+whatever._ Having said this, I may be permitted, with regard to the
+remaining Points, to state as follows:
+
+"As to the Point dealing with the abolition of 'secret diplomacy' and
+the introduction of full openness in the negotiations, I have nothing
+to say. From my point of view I have _no objection to such public
+negotiations so long as full reciprocity_ is the basis of the same,
+though I do entertain _considerable doubt_ as to whether, all things
+considered, _it is the quickest and most practical method_ of arriving
+at a result. Diplomatic negotiations are simply a matter of business.
+But it might easily be imagined that in the case, for instance, of
+commercial treaties between one country and another it would not be
+advisable _to publish incomplete results beforehand_ to the world. In
+such negotiations both parties naturally commence by setting their
+demands as high as possible in order to climb down gradually, using
+this or that expressed demand as matter for _compensation in_ other
+ways until finally an _equilibrium of the opposing interests is
+arrived at_, a point which must necessarily be reached if agreement is
+to be come to at all. If such negotiations were to be carried on with
+full publicity, nothing could prevent the general public from
+passionately defending every separate clause involved, regarding any
+concession as a defeat, even when such clauses had only been advanced
+_for tactical reasons_. And when the public takes up any such point
+with particular fervour, ultimate agreement may be thereby rendered
+impossible or the final agreement may, if arrived at, be regarded as
+in itself _a defeat_, possibly by both sides. And this would not
+conduce to peaceable relations thereafter; it would, on the contrary,
+_increase the friction_ between the states concerned. And as in the
+case of commercial treaties, so also with _political_ negotiations,
+which deal with political matters.
+
+"If the abolition of secret diplomacy is to mean that _no secret
+compacts are to be made_, that no agreements are to be entered upon
+without the public knowledge, then I have no objection to the
+introduction of this principle. As to how it is to be realised and
+adherence thereto ensured, I confess I have no idea at all. Granted
+that the governments of two countries are agreed, they will always be
+able to make a secret compact without the public being aware of the
+fact. These, however, are minor points. I am not one to stick by
+formalities, and _a question of more or less formal nature will never
+prevent me from coming to a sensible arrangement_.
+
+"Point 1, then, is one that can be discussed.
+
+"Point 2 is concerned with the _freedom of the seas_. In this
+postulate the President speaks from the hearts of all, and I can here
+_fully and completely share America's desire_, the more so as the
+President adds the words, 'outside territorial waters'--that is to
+say, we are to understand the freedom of _the open sea_, and there is
+thus, of course, no question of any interference by force in the
+sovereign rights of our faithful _Turkish_ Allies. Their standpoint in
+this respect will be ours.
+
+"Point 3, which is definitely directed against any _future economic
+war_, is so right, so sensible, and has so often been craved by
+ourselves that I have here again nothing to remark.
+
+"Point 4, which demands _general disarmament_, sets forth in
+particularly clear and lucid form the necessity of reducing after this
+present war the free competition in armaments to a footing sufficient
+for the _internal security_ of states. Mr. Wilson states this frankly
+and openly. In my speech at Budapest some months back I ventured to
+express the same idea; it forms _part of my political creed_, and I
+am most happy to find any other voice uttering the same thought.
+
+"As regards the _Russian clause_, we are already showing in deeds that
+we are endeavouring to bring about friendly relations with our
+neighbours there.
+
+"With regard to _Italy, Serbia, Roumania and Montenegro_, I can only
+repeat my statement already made in the Hungarian Delegation.
+
+"I am not disposed to effect any insurance on the war ventures of our
+enemies.
+
+"I am not disposed to make any one-sided concessions to our enemies,
+who still obstinately adhere to the standpoint of fighting on until
+the final victory; to prejudice permanently the Monarchy by such
+concessions, which would give the enemy the invaluable advantage of
+being able to carry on the war indefinitely without risk.
+(_Applause._)
+
+"Let Mr. Wilson use the great influence he undoubtedly possesses among
+his Allies to persuade them on their part to declare _on what
+conditions they are willing to treat_; he will then have rendered the
+enormous service of having set on foot the _general peace
+negotiations_. I am here replying openly and freely to Mr. Wilson, and
+I will speak as openly and freely to any who wish to speak for
+themselves, but it must necessarily be understood that _time, and the
+continuation of the war, cannot but affect the situations here
+concerned_.
+
+"I have already said this once before; Italy is a striking example.
+Italy had the opportunity before the war of making great territorial
+acquisitions without firing a shot. It declined this and entered into
+the war; it has lost hundreds of thousands of lives, milliards in war
+expenses and values destroyed; it has brought want and misery upon its
+own population, and all this _only to lose for ever an advantage which
+it might have won_.
+
+"Finally, as regards Point 13, it is an open secret that we are
+adherents to the idea of establishing 'an independent Polish State to
+include the areas undoubtedly occupied by Polish inhabitants.' On this
+point also we shall, I think, soon agree with Mr. Wilson. And if the
+President crowns his proposals with the idea of a universal _League of
+Nations_ he will hardly meet with any opposition thereto on the part
+of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
+
+"As will be seen from this comparison of my views with those of Mr.
+Wilson, we are not only _agreed in essentials as to the great
+principles_ for rearrangement of the world after this war, but _our
+ideas as to several concrete questions bearing on the peace are
+closely allied_.
+
+"The differences remaining do not appear to me so great but that a
+discussion of these points might lead to a clearer understanding and
+bring us closer still.
+
+"The situation, then, seems to be this: Austria-Hungary on the one
+hand, and the United States of America on the other, are the two Great
+Powers in the hostile groups of states whose interests are least
+opposed one to the other. It seems reasonable, then, to suppose that
+_an exchange of opinion between these two Powers might form the
+natural starting point for a conciliatory discussion_ between all
+those states which have not yet entered upon peace negotiations.
+(_Applause._) So much for Wilson's proposals.
+
+
+=Petersburg and the Ukraine=
+
+"And now, gentlemen, I hasten to conclude. But this conclusion is
+perhaps the most important of all I have to say; I am endeavouring to
+bring about peace between the Ukraine and Petersburg.
+
+"The conclusion of peace with Petersburg alters nothing in our
+definitive situation. Austro-Hungarian troops are nowhere opposed to
+the Petersburg Government--we have the Ukrainian against us--and it is
+impossible to export anything from Petersburg, since they have nothing
+there themselves but _revolution and anarchy, goods which the
+Bolshevists, no doubt, would be glad to export, but which I must
+politely decline to receive_.
+
+"In spite of this, I wish to make peace with Petersburg as well, since
+this, like any other cessation of hostilities, brings us nearer to the
+_general peace_.
+
+"It is otherwise with Ukraine. For the Ukraine has supplies of
+provisions which they will export if we can agree on commercial terms.
+The question of food is to-day a matter of anxiety throughout the
+world; among our opponents, and also in the neutral countries, it is a
+burning question. I wish to profit by the conclusion of peace with
+those Russian states which have food to export, in order to help our
+own population. _We could and would hold out without this assistance._
+But I know my duty, and my duty bids me do all that can be done to
+lighten the burden of our suffering people, and I will not, therefore,
+from any hysterical nervousness about getting to final peace a few
+days or a few weeks earlier, throw away this possible advantage to our
+people. Such a peace takes time and cannot be concluded in a day. For
+such a peace must definitely state whether, what and how the Russian
+party will deliver to us, for the reason that the Ukraine on its part
+wishes to close the business not after, but at the signing of peace.
+
+"I have already mentioned that the unsettled conditions in this newly
+established state occasion great difficulty and naturally considerable
+delay in the negotiations.
+
+
+=Appeal to the Country=
+
+"_If you fall on me from behind, if you force me to come to terms at
+once in headlong fashion, we shall gain no economic advantage at all_,
+and our people will then be forced to renounce the alleviation which
+they should have gained from the peace.
+
+"A surgeon conducting a difficult operation with a crowd behind him
+standing watch in hand may very likely complete the operation in
+record time, but in all probability the patient would not thank him
+for the manner in which it had been carried out.
+
+"If you give our present opponents the impression that we must have
+_peace at once, and at any price_, we shall not get so much as a
+single measure of grain, and the result will be more or less platonic.
+It is no longer by any means a question principally of terminating the
+war on the Ukrainian front; neither we nor the Ukrainians themselves
+intend to continue the war now that we are agreed upon the
+no-annexation basis. It is a question--I repeat it once again--not of
+'imperialistic' annexation plans and ideas, but of securing for our
+population at last the merited reward of their endurance, and
+procuring them those supplies of food for which they are waiting. Our
+partners in the deal are good business men and are closely watching to
+see _whether you are forcing me to act or not_.
+
+"_If you wish to ruin the peace_, if you are anxious to renounce the
+supply of grain, then it would be logical enough to force my hand by
+speeches and resolutions, strikes and demonstrations, but not
+otherwise. And there is not an atom of truth in the idea that we are
+now at such a pass that we must prefer a bad peace without economic
+gain rather than a good peace with economic advantages to-morrow.
+
+"The difficulties in the matter of food of late are not due solely to
+lack of actual provisions; it is the crises in coal, transport and
+organisation which are increasing. _When you at home get up strikes
+you are moving in a vicious circle; the strikes increase and aggravate
+the crises concerned and hinder the supplies of food and coal._ You
+are cutting your own throats in so doing, and all who believe that
+peace is accelerated thereby are terribly mistaken.
+
+"It is believed that men in the country have been circulating rumours
+to the effect that the Government is instigating the strikes. I leave
+to these men themselves to choose whether they are to appear as
+_criminal slanderers or as fools_.
+
+"If you had a Government desirous of concluding a peace different
+from that desired by the majority of the population, if you had a
+Government seeking to prolong the war for purposes of conquest, one
+might understand a conflict between the Government and the country.
+_But since the Government desires precisely the same as the majority
+of the people--that is to say, the speedy settlement of an honourable
+peace without annexationist aims--then it is madness to attack that
+Government from behind, to interfere with its freedom of action and
+hamper its movements._ Those who do so are fighting, not against the
+Government, they are fighting blindly against the people they pretend
+to serve and against themselves.
+
+"As for yourselves, gentlemen, it is not only your right, but your
+duty, to choose between the following alternatives: either you trust
+me to proceed with the peace negotiations, and in that case you must
+help me, or you do not trust me, and in that case you must depose me.
+I am confident that I have the support of the majority of the
+Hungarian delegation. The Hungarian Committee has given me a vote of
+confidence. If there is any doubt as to the same here, then the matter
+is clear enough. The question of a vote of confidence must be brought
+up and put to the vote; if I then have the majority against me I shall
+at once take the consequences. No one of those who are anxious to
+secure my removal will be more pleased than myself; indeed far less
+so. Nothing induces me now to retain my office but the sense of duty,
+which constrains me to remain as long as I have the confidence of the
+Emperor and the majority of the delegations. A soldier with any sense
+of decency does not desert. But no Minister for Foreign Affairs could
+conduct negotiations of this importance unless he knows, and all the
+world as well, that he is endowed with the confidence of the majority
+among the constitutional representative bodies. There can be no half
+measures here. You have this confidence or you have not. You must
+assist me or depose me; there is no other way. I have no more to say."
+
+
+5
+
+=Report of the Peace Negotiations at Brest-Litovsk=
+
+The Austro-Hungarian Government entered upon the peace negotiations at
+Brest-Litovsk with the object of arriving as quickly as possible at a
+peace compact which, if it did not, as we hoped, lead to a general
+peace, should at least secure order in the East. The draft of a
+preliminary peace was sent to Brest containing the following points:
+
+1. Cessation of hostilities; if general peace should not be
+concluded, then neither of the present contracting parties to afford
+any support to the enemies of the other.
+
+2. No surrender of territory; Poland, Lithuania and Courland retaining
+the right of determining their own destiny for the future.
+
+3. No indemnity for costs of war or damages due to military
+operations.
+
+4. Cessation of economic war and reparation of damages sustained by
+private persons through the economic war.
+
+5. Resumption of commercial intercourse and the same provisionally on
+the basis of the old commercial treaty and twenty years' preference
+subject to restriction in respect of any Customs union with
+neighbouring countries.
+
+6. Mutual assistance in raw materials and industrial articles.
+
+A further point was contemplated, dealing with the evacuation of the
+occupied areas, but the formulation of this had to be postponed until
+after consultation with the German Supreme Military Command, whose
+co-operation was here required owing to the mingling of German and
+Austro-Hungarian troops on the Russian front. The Army Command has
+indicated a period of at least six months as necessary for the
+evacuation.
+
+In discussing this draft with the German delegates two points in
+particular were found to present great difficulty. One was that of
+evacuation. The German Army Command declared categorically that no
+evacuation of the occupied districts could be thought of until after
+conclusion of the general peace. The second difficulty arose in
+connection with the question as to treatment of the occupied
+districts. Germany insisted that in the peace treaty with Russia it
+should be simply stated that Russia had conceded to the peoples within
+its territory the right of self-determination, and that the nations in
+question had already availed themselves of that right. The plain
+standpoint laid down in our draft we were unable to carry through,
+although it was shared by the other Allies. However, in formulating
+the answer sent on December 25, 1916, to the Russian peace proposals a
+compromise was, after persistent efforts on our part, ultimately
+arrived at which at least prevented the full adoption of the divergent
+German point of view on these two points. In the matter of evacuation
+the Germans agreed that the withdrawal of certain bodies of troops
+before the general peace might be discussed.
+
+In the matter of annexations a satisfactory manner of formulating this
+was found, making it applicable only in the event of general peace.
+Had the Entente then been disposed to make peace the principle of "no
+annexations" would have succeeded throughout.
+
+Even allowing for the conciliatory form given through our endeavours
+to this answer by the four Powers to the Russian proposals, the German
+Headquarters evinced extreme indignation. Several highly outspoken
+telegrams from the German Supreme Command to the German delegates
+prove this. The head of the German Delegation came near to being
+recalled on this account, and if this had been done it is likely that
+German foreign policy would have been placed in the hands of a firm
+adherent of the sternest military views. As this, however, could only
+have had an unfavourable effect on the further progress of the
+negotiations, we were obliged to do all in our power to retain Herr
+Kühlmann. With this end in view he was informed and invited to advise
+Berlin that if Germany persisted in its harsh policy Austria-Hungary
+would be compelled to conclude a separate peace with Russia. This
+declaration on the part of the Minister for Foreign Affairs did not
+fail to create a certain impression in Berlin, and was largely
+responsible for the fact that Kühlmann was able to remain.
+
+Kühlmann's difficult position and his desire to strengthen it rendered
+the discussion of the territorial questions, which were first
+officially touched upon on December 27, but had been already taken up
+in private meetings with the Russian delegates, a particularly awkward
+matter. Germany insisted that the then Russian front was not to be
+evacuated until six months after the general peace. Russia was
+disposed to agree to this, but demanded on the other hand that the
+fate of Poland was not to be decided until after evacuation. Against
+this the Germans were inclined to give up its original standpoint to
+the effect that the populations of occupied territories had already
+availed themselves of the right of self-determination conceded, and
+allow a new inquiry to be made among the population, but insisted that
+this should be done during the occupation. No solution could be
+arrived at on this point, though Austria-Hungary made repeated efforts
+at mediation. The negotiations had arrived at this stage when they
+were first interrupted on December 29.
+
+On resuming the negotiations on January 6 the situation was little
+changed. Kühlmann's position was at any rate somewhat firmer than
+before, albeit only at the cost of some concessions to the German
+military party. In these circumstances the negotiations, in which
+Trotski now took part as spokesman for the Russians, led only to
+altogether fruitless theoretical discussions and the right of
+self-determination, which could not bring about any lessening of the
+distance between the two firmly maintained points of view. In order to
+get the proceedings out of this deadlock further endeavours were made
+on the part of Austria to arrive at a compromise between the German
+and Russian standpoints, the more so as it was generally, and
+especially in the case of Poland, desirable to solve the territorial
+question on the basis of complete self-determination. Our proposals to
+the German delegates were to the effect that the Russian standpoint
+should so far be met as to allow the plebiscite demanded by the
+Russians, this to be taken, as the Germans insisted should be the
+case, during the German occupation, but with extensive guarantees for
+free expression of the will of the people. On this point we had long
+discussions with the German delegates, based on detailed drafts
+prepared by us.
+
+Our endeavours here, however, were again unsuccessful. Circumstances
+arising at the time in our own country were responsible for this, as
+also for the result of the negotiations which had in the meantime been
+commenced with the Ukrainian delegates. These last had, at the first
+discussion, declined to treat with any Polish representatives, and
+demanded the concession of the entire Cholm territory, and, in a more
+guarded fashion, the cession of Eastern Galicia and the Ukrainian part
+of North-Eastern Hungary, and in consequence of which the negotiations
+were on the point of being broken off. At this stage a food crisis
+broke out in Austria to an extent of which the Ministry of Foreign
+Affairs was hitherto unaware, threatening Vienna in particular with
+the danger of being in a few days devoid of flour altogether. Almost
+immediately after this came a strike movement of threatening
+proportions. These events at home weakened the position of the Foreign
+Minister both as regards his attitude towards the German Allies and
+towards the opposing parties in the negotiations--with both of which
+he was then in conflict--and this, at a most critical moment, to a
+degree that can hardly be appreciated from a distance. He was required
+to exert pressure upon Germany, and was now forced, not merely to ask,
+but to entreat Germany's aid in sending supplies of food, or Vienna
+would within a few days be in the throes of a catastrophe. With the
+enemy, on the other hand, he was forced, owing to the situation at
+home, to strive for a settlement of peace that should be favourable to
+Austria, in spite of the fact that our food situation and our labour
+troubles were well known to that enemy.
+
+This complete alteration of the position changed the whole basis and
+tactics of the Foreign Minister's proceedings. He had to obtain the
+supplies of grain asked for from Germany and thus to diminish
+political pressure on that country; but at the same time he had to
+persuade the Soviet delegates to continue negotiations, and finally to
+arrive at a settlement of peace under the most acceptable conditions
+possible with the Ukraine, which would put an end to the still serious
+difficulties of the food situation.
+
+In these circumstances it was impossible now to work on the German
+delegates by talking of Austria-Hungary's concluding a separate peace
+with Russia, as this would have imperilled the chance of food supplies
+from Germany--the more so as the representative of the German Army
+Command had declared that it was immaterial whether Austria-Hungary
+made peace or not. Germany would in any case march on Petersburg if
+the Russian Government did not give way. On the other hand, however,
+the Foreign Minister prevailed on the leader of the Russian delegation
+to postpone the carrying out of the intentions of his Government--to
+the effect that the Russian delegation, owing to lack of good faith on
+the part of German-Austro-Hungarian negotiators, should be recalled.
+
+At the same time the negotiations with the Ukrainian delegation were
+continued. By means of lengthy and wearisome conferences we succeeded
+in bringing their demands to a footing which might just possibly be
+acceptable, and gaining their agreement to a clause whereby Ukraine
+undertook to deliver at least 1,000,000 tons of grain by August, 1918.
+As to the demand for the Cholm territory, which we had wished to have
+relegated to the negotiations with Poland, the Ukrainian delegates
+refused to give way on this point, and were evidently supported by
+General Hoffmann. Altogether the German military party seemed much
+inclined to support Ukrainian demands and extremely indisposed to
+accede to Polish claims, so that we were unable to obtain the
+admission of Polish representatives to the proceedings, though we had
+frequently asked for this. A further difficulty in the way of this was
+the fact that Trotski himself was unwilling to recognise the Polish
+party as having equal rights here. The only result obtainable was that
+the Ukrainians should restrict their claims on the Cholm territory to
+those parts inhabited by Ukrainian majority and accept a revision of
+the frontier line, as yet only roughly laid down, according to the
+finding of a mixed commission and the wishes of the population, i.e.
+the principle of national boundaries under international protection.
+The Ukrainian delegates renounced all territorial claims against the
+Monarchy, but demanded from us on the other hand a guarantee as to the
+autonomous development of their co-nationals in Galicia. With regard
+to these two weighty concessions, the Foreign Minister declared that
+they could only be granted on the condition that the Ukraine fulfilled
+the obligation it had undertaken as to delivery of grain, the
+deliveries being made at the appointed times; he further demanded that
+the obligations on both sides should be reciprocal, i.e. that the
+failure of one party to comply therewith should release the other.
+The formulation of these points, which met with the greatest
+difficulties on the part of Ukraine, was postponed to a later date.
+
+At this stage of the proceedings a new pause occurred to give the
+separate delegates time to advise their Governments as to the results
+hitherto attained and receive their final instructions. The Foreign
+Minister returned to Vienna and reported the state of the negotiations
+to the proper quarters. In the course of these deliberations his
+policy of concluding peace with Russia and Ukraine on the basis of the
+concessions proposed was agreed to. Another question dealt with at the
+same time was whether the Monarchy should, in case of extreme
+necessity, conclude a separate peace with Russia if the negotiations
+with that state should threaten to come to nothing on account of
+Germany's demands. This question was, after full consideration of all
+grounds to the contrary, answered _in thesi_ in the affirmative, as
+the state of affairs at home apparently left no alternative.
+
+On resuming the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk further endeavours were
+made to persuade Germany to give way somewhat by pointing out what
+would be the consequence of its obstinate attitude. In the course of
+the deliberations on this point with Herr Kühlmann we succeeded after
+great difficulty in obtaining the agreement of the German delegates to
+a final attempt at compromise, to be undertaken by the Foreign
+Minister. The proposals for this compromise were based on the
+following considerations:
+
+For months past conflicting views had been expressed as to:
+
+1. Whether in the territories where constitutional alterations were to
+be made owing to the war the right of self-determination should be
+taken as already exercised, or whether a plebiscite should be taken
+first;
+
+2. Whether such plebiscite, if taken, should be addressed to a
+constituent body or in the form of a referendum to the people direct;
+
+3. Whether this should be done before or after evacuation; and
+
+4. In what manner it was to be organised (by general franchise, by a
+vote of the nobles, etc.). It would be advisable, and would also be in
+accordance with the principles adopted by Russia, to leave the
+decision on all these points to the people themselves, and deliver
+them over to the "temporary self-administrative body," which should,
+also according to the Russian proposal (Kameneff), be introduced at
+once. The whole of the peace negotiations could then be concentrated
+upon a single point: the question as to the composition of this
+temporary body. Here, however, a compromise could be arrived at, as
+Russia could agree that the already existent bodies set in the
+foreground by Germany should be allowed to express a part of the will
+of the people, Germany agreeing that these bodies should, during the
+occupation, be supplemented by elements appointed, according to the
+Russian principles, by free election.
+
+On February 7, immediately after Herr Kühlmann had agreed to mediation
+on this basis, the Foreign Minister saw the leader of the Russian
+delegation, Trotski, and had a series of conversations with him. The
+idea of compromise on the lines just set forth was little to Trotski's
+taste, and he declared that he would in any case protest against the
+handling of the self-determination question by the Four Powers. On the
+other hand, the discussion did lead to some result, in that a new
+basis for disposing of the difficulties which had arisen was now
+found. There was to be no further continuance of the conflict as to
+whether the territorial alterations involved by the peace should be
+termed "annexations," as the Russian delegates wished, or "exercise of
+the right of self-determination," as Germany wished; the territorial
+alterations were to be simply noted in the peace treaty ("Russia notes
+that ..."). Trotski, however, made his acquiescence to the conclusion
+of such a compact subject to two conditions: one being that the Moon
+Sound Islands and the Baltic ports should remain with Russia; the
+other that Germany and Austria-Hungary should not conclude any
+separate peace with the Ukrainian People's Republic, whose Government
+was then seriously threatened by the Bolsheviks and, according to some
+reports, already overthrown by them. The Foreign Minister was now
+anxious to arrive at a compromise on this question also, in which he
+had to a certain degree the support of Herr von Kühlmann, while
+General Hoffmann most vehemently opposed any further concession.
+
+All these negotiations for a compromise failed to achieve their end
+owing to the fact that Herr Kühlmann was forced by the German Supreme
+Army Command to act promptly. Ludendorff declared that the
+negotiations with Russia must be concluded within three days, and when
+a telegram from Petersburg was picked up in Berlin calling on the
+German Army to rise in revolt Herr von Kühlmann was strictly ordered
+not to be content with the cessions already agreed to, but to demand
+the further cession of the unoccupied territories of Livonia and
+Esthonia. Under such pressure the leader of the German delegation had
+not the power to compromise. We then arrived at the signing of the
+treaty with Ukraine, which had, after much trouble, been brought to an
+end meanwhile. It thus appeared as if the efforts of the Foreign
+Minister had proved fruitless. Nevertheless he continued his
+discussions with Trotski, but these still led to no result, owing to
+the fact that Trotski, despite repeated questioning, persisted in
+leaving everything vague till the last moment as to whether he would,
+in the present circumstances, conclude any peace with the Four Powers
+at all or not. Not until the plenary session of February 10 was this
+cleared up; Russia declared for a cessation of hostilities, but signed
+no treaty of peace.
+
+The situation created by this declaration offered no occasion for
+further taking up the idea of a separate peace with Russia, since
+peace seemed to have come _via facta_ already. At a meeting on
+February 10 of the diplomatic and military delegates of Germany and
+Austria-Hungary to discuss the question of what was now to be done it
+was agreed unanimously, save for a single dissentient, that the
+situation arising out of Trotski's declarations must be accepted. The
+one dissentient vote--that of General Hoffmann--was to the effect that
+Trotski's statement should be answered by declaring the Armistice at
+an end, marching on Petersburg, and supporting the Ukraine openly
+against Russia. In the ceremonial final sitting, on February 11, Herr
+von Kühlmann adopted the attitude expressed by the majority of the
+peace delegations, and set forth the same in a most impressive speech.
+Nevertheless, a few days later, as General Hoffmann had said, Germany
+declared the Armistice at an end, ordered the German troops to march
+on Petersburg, and brought about the situation which led to the
+signing of the peace treaty. Austria-Hungary declared that we took no
+part in this action.
+
+
+6
+
+=Report of the Peace Negotiations at Bucharest=
+
+The possibility of entering upon peace negotiations with Roumania was
+considered as soon as negotiations with the Russian delegations at
+Brest-Litovsk had commenced. In order to prevent Roumania itself from
+taking part in these negotiations Germany gave the Roumanian
+Government to understand that it would not treat with the present King
+and the present Government at all. This step, however, was only
+intended to enable separate negotiations to be entered upon with
+Roumania, as Germany feared that the participation of Roumania in the
+Brest negotiations would imperil the chances of peace. Roumania's idea
+seemed then to be to carry on the war and gain the upper hand. At the
+end of January, therefore, Austria-Hungary took the initiative in
+order to bring about negotiations with Roumania. The Emperor sent
+Colonel Randa, the former Military Attaché to the Roumanian
+Government, to the King of Roumania, assuring him of his willingness
+to grant Roumania honourable terms of peace.
+
+In connection with the peace negotiations a demand was raised in
+Hungarian quarters for a rectification of the frontier line, so as to
+prevent, or at any rate render difficult, any repetition of the
+invasion by Roumania in 1916 over the Siebenbürgen, despite opposition
+on the part of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The strategical
+frontier drawn up by the Army Command, which, by the way, was
+influenced by considerations not conducive to peace, followed a line
+involving the cession to Hungary of Turnu-Severin, Sinaia and several
+valuable petroleum districts in Moldavia. Public opinion in Hungary
+voiced even further demands. The Hungarian Government was of opinion
+that the Parliament would offer the greatest hindrances to any peace
+not complying with the general desire in this respect, and leading
+Hungarian statesmen, even some among the Opposition parties, declared
+the rectification of the frontier to be a condition of peace _sine qua
+non_. Wekerle and Tisza in particular took this view. Despite this
+serious difference of opinion, the Foreign Minister, in entire
+agreement with the Emperor, even before the commencement of the
+negotiations in the middle of February, took up the position that
+demands connected with the frontier line should not offer any obstacle
+to the conclusion of peace. The rectification of the frontier should
+only seriously be insisted on as far as could be done on the basis of
+a loyal and, for the future, amicable relations with Roumania. Hungary
+regarded this lenient attitude on the part of the Foreign Minister
+with increasing disapproval. We pointed out that a frontier line
+conceding cities and petroleum districts to Hungary would be
+unfortunate in every respect. From the point of view of internal
+politics, because the number of non-Hungarian inhabitants would be
+thereby increased; from the military point of view, because it would
+give rise to frontier conflicts with unreliable Roumanian factions;
+and, finally, from the point of view of foreign policy, because it
+would mean annexations and the transference of population this way and
+that, rendering friendly relations with Roumania an impossibility.
+Nevertheless, it would be necessary for a time to hold fast by the
+frontier line as originally conceived, so that the point could be used
+to bring about the establishment in Roumania of a régime amicably
+disposed toward the Central Powers. The Foreign Minister was
+particularly anxious to see a Marghiloman Cabinet formed, inaugurating
+a policy friendly to ourselves. He believed that with such a Cabinet
+it would be easier to arrive at a peace of mutual understanding, and
+was also resolved to render possible such a peace by extensive
+concessions, especially by giving his diplomatic support in the
+Bessarabian question. He informed Marghiloman also in writing that he
+would be prepared to grant important concessions to a Cabinet of which
+he, Marghiloman, was the head, in particular as regards the cession of
+inhabited places such as Turnu-Severin and Ocna, on which points he
+was willing to give way. When the Marghiloman Cabinet was formed the
+Austro-Hungarian demands in respect of the frontier line would,
+despite active opposition on the part of the Hungarian Government, be
+reduced almost by half. The negotiations with Roumania were
+particularly difficult in regard to the question of two places, Azuga
+and Busteni. On March 24 Count Czernin prepared to terminate these
+negotiations, declaring that he was ready to renounce all claim to
+Azuga and Busteni and halve his demands as to the much-debated Lotru
+district, provided Marghiloman were willing to arrange the frontier
+question on this basis. Marghiloman declared himself satisfied with
+this compromise. On the next day, however, it was nevertheless
+rejected by the Hungarian Government, and not until after further
+telegraphic communication with the Emperor and Wekerle was the assent
+of all competent authorities obtained. This had, indeed, been widely
+considered in Hungarian circles as an impossibility.
+
+Another Austro-Hungarian demand which played some part in the
+Bucharest negotiations was in connection with the plan of an
+economical alliance between Austria-Hungary and Roumania. This was of
+especial interest to the Austrian Government, whereas the frontier
+question, albeit in some degree affecting Austria as well, was a
+matter of indifference to this Government, which, as a matter of fact,
+did not sympathise with the demands at all. The plan for an economical
+alliance, however, met with opposition in Hungary. Immediately before
+the commencement of the Bucharest negotiations an attempt was made to
+overcome this opposition on the part of the Hungarian Government and
+secure its adherence to the idea of an economical alliance with
+Roumania--at any rate, conditionally upon the conclusion of a customs
+alliance with Germany as planned. It proved impossible, however, at
+the time to obtain this assent. The Hungarian Government reserved the
+right of considering the question later on, and on March 8 instructed
+their representatives at Bucharest that they must dissent from the
+plan, as the future economical alliance with Germany was a matter
+beyond present consideration. Consequently this question could play no
+part at first in the peace negotiations, and all that could be done
+was to sound the leading Roumanian personages in a purely private
+manner as to the attitude they would adopt towards such a proposal.
+The idea was, generally speaking, well received by Roumania, and the
+prevalent opinion was that such an alliance would be distinctly
+advisable from Roumania's point of view. A further attempt was
+therefore made, during the pause in the peace negotiations in the
+East, to overcome the opposition of the Hungarian Government; these
+deliberations were, however, not concluded when the Minister for
+Foreign Affairs resigned his office.
+
+Germany had, even before the commencement of negotiations in
+Bucharest, considered the question of imposing on Roumania, when
+treating for peace, a series of obligations especially in connection
+with the economical relations amounting to a kind of indirect war
+indemnity. It was also contemplated that the occupation of Wallachia
+should be maintained for five or six years after the conclusion of
+peace. Roumania should then give up its petroleum districts, its
+railways, harbours and domains to German companies as their property,
+and submit itself to a permanent financial control. Austria-Hungary
+opposed these demands from the first on the grounds that no friendly
+relations could ever be expected to exist with a Roumania which had
+been economically plundered to such a complete extent; and
+Austria-Hungary was obliged to maintain amicable relations with
+Roumania.
+
+This standpoint was most emphatically set forth, and not without some
+success, on February 5 at a conference with the Reichskansler. In the
+middle of February the Emperor sent a personal message to the German
+Emperor cautioning him against this plan, which might prove an obstacle
+in the way of peace. Roumania was not advised of these demands until
+comparatively late in the negotiations, after the appointment of
+Marghiloman. Until then the questions involved gave rise to constant
+discussion between Germany and Austria-Hungary, the latter throughout
+endeavouring to reduce the German demands, not only with a view to
+arriving at a peace of mutual understanding, but also because, if
+Germany gained a footing in Roumania on the terms originally
+contemplated, Austro-Hungarian economical interests must inevitably
+suffer thereby. The demands originally formulated with regard to the
+Roumanian railways and domains were then relinquished by Germany, and
+the plan of a cession of the Roumanian harbours was altered so as to
+amount to the establishment of a Roumanian-German-Austro-Hungarian
+harbour company, which, however, eventually came to nothing. The
+petroleum question, too, was reduced from a cession to a ninety years'
+tenure of the state petroleum districts and the formation of a
+monopoly trading company for petroleum under German management.
+Finally, an economic arrangement was prepared which should secure the
+agricultural products of Roumania to the Central Powers for a series of
+years. The idea of a permanent German control of the Roumanian finances
+was also relinquished owing to Austro-Hungarian opposition. The
+negotiations with Marghiloman and his representatives on these
+questions made a very lengthy business. In the economic questions
+especially there was great difference of opinion on the subject of
+prices, which was not disposed of until the last moment before the
+drawing up of the treaty on March 28, and then only by adopting the
+Roumanian standpoint. On the petroleum question, where the differences
+were particularly acute, agreement was finally arrived at, in face of
+the extreme views of the German economical representative on the one
+hand and the Roumanian Foreign Minister, Arion, on the other, by a
+compromise, according to which further negotiations were to be held in
+particular with regard to the trade monopoly for petroleum, and the
+original draft was only to apply when such negotiations failed to lead
+to any result.
+
+The German demands as to extension of the period of occupation for
+five to six years after the general peace likewise played a great part
+at several stages of the negotiations, and were from the first stoutly
+opposed by Austria-Hungary. We endeavoured to bring about an
+arrangement by which, on the conclusion of peace, Roumania should have
+all legislative and executive power restored, being subject only to a
+certain right of control in respect of a limited number of points, but
+not beyond the general peace. In support of this proposal the Foreign
+Minister pointed out in particular that the establishment of a
+Roumanian Ministry amicably disposed towards ourselves would be an
+impossibility (the Averescu Ministry was then still in power) if we
+were to hold Roumania permanently under our yoke. We should far rather
+use every endeavour to obtain what could be obtained from Roumania
+through the medium of such politicians in that country as were
+disposed to follow a policy of friendly relations with the Central
+Powers. The main object of our policy to get such men into power in
+Roumania, and enable them to remain in the Government, would be
+rendered unattainable if too severe measures were adopted. We might
+gain something thereby for a few years, but it would mean losing
+everything in the future. And we succeeded also in convincing the
+German Secretary of State, Kühlmann, of the inadvisability of the
+demands in respect of occupation, which were particularly voiced by
+the German Army Council. As a matter of fact, after the retirement of
+Averescu, Marghiloman declared that these demands would make it
+impossible for him to form a Cabinet at all. And when he had been
+informed, from German sources, that the German Supreme Army Command
+insisted on these terms, he only agreed to form a Cabinet on the
+assurance of the Austrian Foreign Minister that a solution of the
+occupation problem would be found. In this question also we did
+ultimately succeed in coming to agreement with Roumania.
+
+One of the decisive points in the conclusion of peace with Roumania
+was, finally, the cession of the Dobrudsha, on which Bulgaria insisted
+with such violence that it was impossible to avoid it. The ultimatum
+which preceded the preliminary Treaty of Buftea had also to be altered
+chiefly on the Dobrudsha question, as Bulgaria was already talking of
+the ingratitude of the Central Powers, of how Bulgaria had been
+disillusioned, and of the evil effects this disillusionment would have
+on the subsequent conduct of the war. All that Count Czernin could do
+was to obtain a guarantee that Roumania, in case of cession of the
+Dobrudsha, should at least be granted a sure way to the harbour of
+Kustendje. In the main the Dobrudsha question was decided at Buftea.
+When, later, Bulgaria expressed a desire to interpret the wording of
+the preliminary treaty by which the Dobrudsha "as far as the Danube"
+was to be given up in such a sense as to embrace the whole of the
+territory up to the northernmost branch (the Kilia branch) of the
+Danube, this demand was most emphatically opposed both by Germany and
+Austria-Hungary, and it was distinctly laid down in the peace treaty
+that only the Dobrudsha as far as the St. George's branch was to be
+ceded. This decision again led to bad feeling in Bulgaria, but was
+unavoidable, as further demands here would probably have upset the
+preliminary peace again.
+
+The proceedings had reached this stage when Count Czernin resigned his
+office.
+
+
+7
+
+=Wilson's Fourteen Points=
+
+I. Open covenants of peace openly arrived at, after which there shall
+be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy
+shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
+
+II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas outside territorial
+waters alike in peace and in war except as the seas may be closed in
+whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of
+international covenants.
+
+III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the
+establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations
+consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its
+maintenance.
+
+IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will
+be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
+
+V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all
+colonial claims based upon a strict observance of the principle that
+in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the
+populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims
+of the Government whose title is to be determined.
+
+VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory, and such a settlement of
+all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest
+co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an
+unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent
+determination of her own political development and national policy,
+and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations
+under institutions of her own choosing; and more than a welcome
+assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself
+desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the
+months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their
+comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests,
+and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
+
+VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and
+restored without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys
+in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve
+as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws
+which they have themselves set and determined for the government of
+their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole
+structure and validity of international law is for ever impaired.
+
+VIII. All French territory should be freed, and the invaded portions
+restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the
+matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world
+for nearly 50 years, should be righted in order that peace may once
+more be made secure in the interests of all.
+
+IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along
+clearly recognisable lines of nationality.
+
+X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we
+wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the first
+opportunity of autonomous development.
+
+XI. Roumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated, occupied
+territories restored, Serbia accorded free and secure access to the
+sea, and the relations of the several Balkan States to one another
+determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of
+allegiance and nationality, and international guarantees of the
+political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the
+several Balkan States should be entered into.
+
+XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be
+assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are
+now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life
+and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development,
+and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to
+the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
+
+XIII. An independent Polish State should be erected which should
+include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations,
+which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose
+political and economic independence and territorial integrity should
+be guaranteed by international covenant.
+
+XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific
+covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political
+independence and territorial integrity to great and small States
+alike.
+
+
+8
+
+=Ottokar Czernin on Austria's Policy During the War=
+
+_Speech delivered December 11, 1918_
+
+GENTLEMEN,--In rising now to speak of our policy during the war it is
+my hope that I may thereby help to bring the truth to light. We are
+living in a time of excitement. After four years of war, the bloodiest
+and most determined war the world has ever seen, and in the midst of
+the greatest revolution ever known, this excitement is only too easily
+understood. But the result of this excitement is that all those rumours
+which go flying about, mingling truth and falsehood together, end by
+misleading the public. It is unquestionably necessary to arrive at a
+clear understanding. The public has a right to know what has really
+happened, it has the right to know why we did not succeed in attaining
+the peace we had so longed for, it has a right to know whether, and if
+so where, any neglect can be pointed out, or whether it was the
+overwhelming power of circumstances which has led our policy to take
+the course it did. The new arrangement of relations between ourselves
+and Germany will make an end of all secret proceedings. The day will
+come then when, fortunately, all that has hitherto been hidden will be
+made clear. As, however, I do not know when all this will be made
+public, I am grateful for the opportunity of lifting the veil to-day
+from certain hitherto unknown events. In treating of this theme I will
+refrain from touching upon those constitutional factors which once
+counted for so much, but which do so no longer. I do so because it
+seems to me unfair to import into the discussion persons who are now
+paying heavily for what they may have done and who are unable to defend
+themselves. And I must pay this honourable tribute to the
+Austro-Hungarian Press, that it has on the whole sought to spare the
+former Emperor as far as possible. There are, of course,
+exceptions--_exceptiones firmant regulam_. There are in Vienna, as
+everywhere else, men who find it more agreeable to attack, the less if
+those whom they are attacking are able to defend themselves. But,
+believe me, gentlemen, those who think thus are not the bravest, not
+the best, nor the most reliable; and we may be glad that they form so
+insignificant a minority.
+
+But, to come to the point. Before passing on to a consideration of the
+various phases of the work for peace, I should like to point out two
+things: firstly, that since the entry of Italy and Roumania into the
+war, and especially since the entry of America, a "victorious peace"
+on our part has been a Utopian idea, a Utopia which, unfortunately,
+was throughout cherished by the German military party; and, secondly,
+that we have never received any offer of peace from the Entente. On
+several occasions peace feelers were put forward between
+representatives of the Entente and our own; unfortunately, however,
+these never led to any concrete conditions. We often had the
+impression that we might conclude a separate peace without Germany,
+but we were never told the concrete conditions upon which Germany, on
+its part, could make peace; and, in particular, we were never informed
+that Germany would be allowed to retain its possessions as before the
+war, in consequence of which we were left in the position of having to
+fight a war of defence for Germany. We were compelled by our treaty to
+a common defence of the pre-war possessions, and since the Entente
+never declared its willingness to treat with a Germany which wished
+for no annexations, since the Entente constantly declared its
+intention of annihilating Germany, we were forced to defend Germany,
+and our position in Berlin was rendered unspeakably more difficult.
+We ourselves, also, were never given any assurance that we should be
+allowed to retain our former possessions; but in our case the desire
+for peace was so strong that we would have made territorial
+concessions if we had been able thereby to secure general peace. This,
+however, was not the case. Take Italy, for instance, which was
+primarily at war with ourselves and not with Germany. If we had
+offered Italy concessions however great, if we had offered all that
+Italy has now taken possession of, even then it could not have made
+peace, being bound by duty to its Allies and by circumstances not to
+make peace until England and France made peace with Germany.
+
+When, then, peace by sacrifice was the only peace attainable,
+obviously, as a matter of principle, there were two ways of reaching
+that end. One, a general peace, i.e. including Germany, and the other,
+a separate peace. Of the overwhelming difficulties attending the
+former course I will speak later; at present a few words on the
+question of separate peace.
+
+I myself would never have made a separate peace. I have never, not
+even in the hour of disillusionment--I may say of despair at my
+inability to lead the policy of Berlin into wiser channels--even in
+such hours, I say, I have never forgotten that our alliance with the
+German Empire was no ordinary alliance, no such alliance as may be
+contracted by two Emperors or two Governments, and can easily be
+broken, but an alliance of blood, a blood-brotherhood between the ten
+million Austro-Germans and the seventy million of the Empire, which
+could not be broken. And I have never forgotten that the military
+party in power at that time in Germany were not the German people, and
+that we had allied ourselves with the German people, and not with a
+few leading men. But I will not deny that in the moments when I saw my
+policy could not be realised I did ventilate the idea of suggesting to
+the Emperor the appointment, in my stead, of one of those men who saw
+salvation in a separation from Germany. But again and again I
+relinquished this idea, being firmly convinced that separate peace was
+a sheer impossibility. The Monarchy lay like a great block between
+Germany and the Balkans. Germany had great masses of troops there from
+which it could not be cut off, it was procuring oil and grain from the
+Balkans; if we were to interpose between it and the Balkans we should
+be striking at its most sensitive vital nerve. Moreover, the Entente
+would naturally have demanded first of all that we joined in the
+blockade, and finally our secession would automatically have involved
+also that of Bulgaria and Turkey. Had we withdrawn, Germany would have
+been unable to carry on the war. In such a situation there can be no
+possibility of doubt but that the German Army Command would have flung
+several divisions against Bohemia and the Tyrol, meting out to us the
+same fate which had previously befallen Roumania. The Monarchy,
+Bohemia in particular, would at once have become a scene of war. But
+even this is not all. Internally, such a step would at once have led
+to civil war. The Germans of Austria would never have turned against
+their brothers, and the Hungarians--Tisza's Hungarians--would never
+have lent their aid to such a policy. _We had begun the war in common,
+and we could not end it save in common._ For us there was no way out
+of the war; we could only choose between fighting with Germany against
+the Entente, or fighting with the Entente against Germany until
+Germany herself gave way. A slight foretaste of what would have
+happened was given us through the separatist steps taken by Andrassy
+at the last moment. This utterly defeated, already annihilated and
+prostrate Germany had yet the power to fling troops toward the Tyrol,
+and had not the revolution overwhelmed all Germany like a
+conflagration, smothering the war itself, I am not sure but that the
+Tyrol might at the last moment have been harried by war. And,
+gentlemen, I have more to say. The experiment of separate peace would
+not only have involved us in a civil war, not only brought the war
+into our own country, but even then the final outcome would have been
+much the same. The dissolution of the Monarchy into its component
+national parts was postulated throughout by the Entente. I need only
+refer to the Conference of London. But whether the State be dissolved
+by way of reward to the people or by way of punishment to the State
+makes little difference; the effect is the same. In this case also a
+"German Austria" would have arisen, and in such a development it would
+have been hard for the German-Austrian people to take up an attitude
+which rendered them allies of the Entente. In my own case, as Minister
+of the Imperial and Royal Government, it was my duty also to consider
+dynastic interests, and I never lost sight of that obligation. But I
+believe that in this respect also the end would have been the same. In
+particular the dissolution of the Monarchy into its national elements
+by legal means, against the opposition of the Germans and Hungarians,
+would have been a complete impossibility. And the Germans in Austria
+would never have forgiven the Crown if it had entered upon a war with
+Germany; the Emperor would have been constantly encountering the
+powerful Republican tendencies of the Czechs, and he would have been
+in constant conflict with the King of Serbia over the South-Slav
+question, an ally being naturally nearer to the Entente than the
+Habsburgers. And, finally, the Hungarians would never have forgiven
+the Emperor if he had freely conceded extensive territories to Bohemia
+and to the South-Slav state; I believe, then, that in this confusion
+the Crown would have fallen, as it has done in fact. _A separate peace
+was a sheer impossibility._ There remained the second way: to make
+peace jointly with Germany. Before going into the difficulties which
+rendered this way impossible I must briefly point out wherein lay our
+great dependence upon Germany. First of all, in military respects.
+Again and again we were forced to rely on aid from Germany. In
+Roumania, in Italy, in Serbia, and in Russia we were victorious with
+the Germans beside us. We were in the position of a poor relation
+living by the grace of a rich kinsman. But it is impossible to play
+the mendicant and the political adviser at the same time, particularly
+when the other party is a Prussian officer. In the second place, we
+were dependent upon Germany owing to the state of our food supply.
+Again and again we were here also forced to beg for help from Germany,
+because the complete disorganisation of our own administration had
+brought us to the most desperate straits. We were forced to this by
+the hunger blockade established, on the one hand, by Hungary, and on
+the other by the official authorities and their central depots. I
+remember how, when I myself was in the midst of a violent conflict
+with the German delegates at Brest-Litovsk, I received orders from
+Vienna to bow the knee to Berlin and beg for food. You can imagine,
+gentlemen, for yourselves how such a state of things must weaken a
+Minister's hands. And, thirdly, our dependence was due to the state of
+our finances. In order to keep up our credit we were drawing a hundred
+million marks a month from Germany, a sum which during the course of
+the war has grown to over four milliards; and this money was as
+urgently needed as were the German divisions and the German bread.
+And, despite this position of dependence, the only way to arrive at
+peace was by leading Germany into our own political course; that is to
+say, persuading Germany to conclude a peace involving sacrifice. _The
+situation all through was simply this: that any momentary military
+success might enable us to propose terms of peace which, while
+entailing considerable loss to ourselves, had just a chance of being
+accepted by the enemy._ The German military party, on the other hand,
+increased their demands with every victory, and it was more hopeless
+than ever, after their great successes, to persuade them to adopt a
+policy of renunciation. I think, by the way, that there was a single
+moment in the history of this war when such an action would have had
+some prospect of success. I refer to the famous battle of Görlitz.
+Then, with the Russian army in flight, the Russian forts falling like
+houses of cards, many among our enemies changed their point of view.
+I was at that time still our representative in Roumania. Majorescu was
+then not disinclined to side with us actively, and the Roumanian army
+moved forward toward Bessarabia, could have been hot on the heels of
+the flying Russians, and might, according to all human calculations,
+have brought about a complete débâcle. It is not unlikely that the
+collapse which later took place in Russia might have come about then,
+and after a success of that nature, with no "America" as yet on the
+horizon, we might perhaps have brought the war to an end. Two things,
+however, were required: in the first place, the Roumanians demanded,
+as the price of their co-operation, a rectification of the Hungarian
+frontier, and this first condition was flatly refused by Hungary; the
+second condition, which naturally then did not come into question at
+all, would have been that we should even then, after such a success,
+have proved strong enough to bear a peace with sacrifice. We were not
+called upon to agree to this, but the second requirement would
+undoubtedly have been refused by Germany, just as the first had been
+by Hungary. I do not positively assert that peace would have been
+possible in this or any other case, but I do positively maintain that
+during my period of office _such a peace by sacrifice was the utmost
+we and Germany could have attained_. The future will show what
+superhuman efforts we have made to induce Germany to give way. That
+all proved fruitless was not the fault of the German people, nor was
+it, in my opinion, the fault of the German Emperor, but that of the
+leaders of the German military party, which had attained such enormous
+power in the country. Everyone in Wilhelmstrasse, from Bethmann to
+Kühlmann, wanted peace; but they could not get it simply because the
+military party got rid of everyone who ventured to act otherwise than
+as they wished. This also applies to Bethmann and Kühlmann. The
+Pan-Germanists, under the leadership of the military party, could not
+understand that it was possible to die through being victorious, that
+victories are worthless when they do not lead to peace, that
+territories held in an iron grasp as "security" are valueless
+securities as long as the opposing party cannot be forced to redeem
+them. There were various shades of this Pan-Germanism. One section
+demanded the annexation of parts of Belgium and France, with an
+indemnity of milliards; others were less exorbitant, but all were
+agreed that peace could only be concluded with an extension of German
+possessions. It was the easiest thing in the world to get on well with
+the German military party so long as one believed in their fantastic
+ideas and took a victorious peace for granted, dividing up the world
+thereafter at will. But if anyone attempted to look at things from
+the point of view of the real situation, and ventured to reckon with
+the possibility of a less satisfactory termination of the war, the
+obstacles then encountered were not easily surmounted. We all of us
+remember those speeches in which constant reference was always made to
+a "stern peace," a "German peace," a "victorious peace." For us, then,
+the possibility of a more favourable peace--I mean a peace based on
+mutual understanding--I have never believed in the possibility of a
+victorious peace--would only have been acute in the case of Poland and
+the Austro-Polish question. But I cannot sufficiently emphasise the
+fact that the Austro-Polish solution never was an obstacle in the way
+of peace and could never have been so. There was only the idea that
+Austrian Poland and the former Russian Poland might be united and
+attached to the Monarchy. It was never suggested that such a step
+should be enforced against the will of Poland itself or against the
+will of the Entente. There was a time when it looked as if not only
+Poland but also certain sections among the Entente were not
+disinclined to agree to such a solution.
+
+But to return to the German military party. This had attained a degree
+of power in the State rarely equalled in history, and the rarity of
+the phenomenon was only exceeded by the suddenness of its terrible
+collapse. The most striking personality in this group was General
+Ludendorff. Ludendorff was a great man, a man of genius, in
+conception, a man of indomitable energy and great gifts. But this man
+required a political brake, so to speak, a political element in the
+Wilhelmstrasse capable of balancing his influence, and this was never
+found. It must fairly be admitted that the German generals achieved
+the gigantic, and there was a time when they were looked up to by the
+people almost as gods. It may be true that all great strategists are
+much alike; they look to victory always and to nothing else. Moltke
+himself, perhaps, was nothing more, but he had a Bismarck to maintain
+equilibrium. We had no such Bismarck, and when all is said and done it
+was not the fault of Ludendorff, or it is at any rate an excuse for
+him, that he was the only supremely powerful character in the whole of
+Germany, and that in consequence the entire policy of the country was
+directed into military channels. Ludendorff was a great patriot,
+desiring nothing for himself, but seeking only the happiness of his
+country; a military genius, a hard man, utterly fearless--and for all
+that a misfortune in that he looked at the whole world through Potsdam
+glasses, with an altogether erroneous judgment, wrecking every attempt
+at peace which was not a peace by victory. Those very people who
+worshipped Ludendorff when he spoke of a victorious peace stone him
+now for that very thing; Ludendorff was exactly like the statesmen of
+England and France, who all rejected compromise and declared for
+victory alone; in this respect there was no difference between them.
+The peace of mutual understanding which I wished for was rejected on
+the Thames and on the Seine just as by Ludendorff himself. I have said
+this already. According to the treaty it was our undoubted duty to
+carry on a defensive war to the utmost and reciprocally to defend the
+integrity of the State. It is therefore perfectly obvious that I could
+never publicly express any other view, that I was throughout forced to
+declare that we were fighting for Alsace-Lorraine just as we were for
+Trentino, that I could not relinquish German territory to the Entente
+so long as I lacked the power to persuade Germany herself to such a
+step. But, as I will show, the most strenuous endeavours were made in
+this latter direction. And I may here in parenthesis remark that our
+military men throughout refrained from committing the error of the
+German generals, and interfering in politics themselves. It is
+undoubtedly to the credit of our Emperor that whenever any tendency to
+such interference appeared he quashed it at once. But in particular I
+should point out that the Archduke Frederick confined his activity
+solely to the task of bringing about peace. He has rendered most
+valuable service in this, as also in his endeavours to arrive at
+favourable relations with Germany.
+
+Very shortly after taking up office I had some discussions with the
+German Government which left those gentlemen perfectly aware of the
+serious nature of the situation. In April, 1917--eighteen months
+ago--I sent the following report to the Emperor Charles, which he
+forwarded to the Emperor William with the remark that he was entirely
+of my opinion.
+
+[This report is already printed in these pages. See p. 146.]
+
+This led to a reply from the German Government, dated May 9, again
+expressing the utmost confidence in the success of the submarine
+campaign, declaring, it is true, their willingness in principle to
+take steps towards peace, but reprehending any such steps as might be
+calculated to give an impression of weakness.
+
+As to any territorial sacrifice on the part of Germany, this was not
+to be thought of.
+
+As will be seen from this report, however, we did not confine
+ourselves to words alone. In 1917 we declared in Berlin that the
+Emperor Charles was prepared to permit the union of Galicia with
+Poland, and to do all that could be done to attach that State to
+Germany in the event of Germany making any sacrifices in the West in
+order to secure peace. But we were met with a _non possumus_ and the
+German answer that territorial concessions to France were out of the
+question.
+
+The whole of Galicia was here involved, but I was firmly assured that
+if the plan succeeded Germany would protect the rights of the Ukraine;
+and consideration for the Ukrainians would certainly not have
+restrained me had it been a question of the highest value--of peace
+itself.
+
+When I perceived that the likelihood of converting Berlin to our views
+steadily diminished I had recourse to other means. The journey of the
+Socialist leaders to Stockholm will be remembered. It is true that the
+Socialists were not "sent" by me; they went to Stockholm of their own
+initiative and on their own responsibility, but it is none the less
+true that I could have refused them their passes if I had shared the
+views of the Entente Governments and of numerous gentlemen in our own
+country. Certainly, I was at the time very sceptical as to the
+outcome, as I already saw that the Entente would refuse passes to
+their Socialists, and consequently there could be nothing but a "rump"
+parliament in the end. But despite all the reproaches which I had to
+bear, and the argument that the peace-bringing Socialists would have
+an enormous power in the State to the detriment of the monarchical
+principle itself, I never for a moment hesitated to take that step,
+and I have never regretted it in itself, only that it did not succeed.
+It is encouraging to me now to read again many of the letters then
+received criticising most brutally my so-called "Socialistic
+proceedings" and to find that the same gentlemen who were then so
+incensed at my policy are now adherents of a line of criticism which
+maintains that I am too "narrow-minded" in my choice of new means
+towards peace.
+
+It will be remembered how, in the early autumn of 1917, the majority
+of the German Reichstag had a hard fight against the numerically
+weaker but, from their relation to the German Army Command, extremely
+powerful minority on the question of the reply to the Papal Note. Here
+again I was no idle spectator. One of my friends, at my instigation,
+had several conversations with Südekum and Erzberger, and encouraged
+them, by my description of our own position, to pass the well known
+peace resolution. It was owing to this description of the state of
+affairs here that the two gentlemen mentioned were enabled to carry
+the Reichstag's resolution in favour of a peace by mutual
+understanding--the resolution which met with such disdain and scorn
+from the Pan-Germans and other elements. I hoped then, for a moment,
+to have gained a lasting and powerful alliance in the German Reichstag
+against the German military plans of conquest.
+
+And now, gentlemen, I should like to say a few words on the subject of
+that unfortunate submarine campaign which was undoubtedly the beginning
+of the end, and to set forth the reasons which in this case, as in many
+other instances, forced us to adopt tactics not in accordance with our
+own convictions. Shortly after my appointment as Minister the idea of
+unrestricted submarine warfare began to take form in German minds. The
+principal advocate of this plan was Admiral Tirpitz. To the credit of
+the former _Reichskansler_, Bethmann-Hollweg, be it said that he was
+long opposed to the idea, and used all means and every argument to
+dissuade others from adopting so perilous a proceeding. In the end he
+was forced to give way, as was the case with all politicians who came
+in conflict with the all-powerful military party. Admiral Holtzendorff
+came to us at that time, and the question was debated from every point
+of view in long conferences lasting for hours. My then ministerial
+colleagues, Tisza and Clam, as well as myself were entirely in
+agreement with Emperor Charles in rejecting the proposal, and the only
+one who then voted unreservedly in favour of it was Admiral Haus. It
+should here be noted that the principal German argument at that time
+was not the prospect of starving England into submission, but the
+suggestion that the Western front could not be held unless the American
+munition transports were sunk--that is to say, the case for the
+submarine campaign was then based chiefly on a point of _technical
+military importance_ and nothing else. I myself earnestly considered
+the question then of separating ourselves from Germany on this point;
+with the small number of U-boats at our disposal it would have made but
+little difference had we on our part refrained. But another point had
+here to be considered. If the submarine campaign was to succeed in the
+northern waters it must be carried out at the same time in the
+Mediterranean. With this latter water unaffected the transports would
+have been sent via Italy, France and Dover to England, and the northern
+U-boat campaign would have been paralysed. But in order to carry
+on submarine war in the Adriatic we should have to give the Germans
+access to our bases, such as Pola, Cattaro and Trieste, and by so doing
+we were _de facto_ partaking in the submarine campaign ourselves. If we
+did not do it, then we were attacking Germany in the rear by hindering
+their submarine campaign--that is to say, it would bring us into direct
+conflict with Germany. Therefore, albeit sorely against our will, we
+agreed, not convinced by argument, but unable to act otherwise.
+
+And now, gentlemen, I hasten to conclude. I have but a few words to
+say as to the present. From time to time reports have appeared in the
+papers to the effect that certain gentlemen were preparing
+disturbances in Switzerland, and I myself have been mentioned as one
+of them. I am doubtful whether there is any truth at all in these
+reports; as for myself, I have not been outside this country for the
+last nine months. As, however, my contradiction on this head itself
+appears to have given rise to further misunderstandings, I will give
+you my point of view here briefly and, as I hope, clearly enough. I am
+most strongly opposed to any attempt at revolt. I am convinced that
+any such attempt could only lead to civil war--a thing no one would
+wish to see. I am therefore of opinion that the Republican Government
+must be maintained untouched until the German-Austrian people as a
+whole has taken its decision. But this can only be decided by the
+German people. Neither the Republic nor the Monarchy is in itself a
+dogma of democracy. The Kingdom of England is as democratic as
+republican Switzerland. I know no country where men enjoy so great
+freedom as in England. But it is a dogma of democracy that the people
+itself must determine in what manner it will be governed, and I
+therefore repeat that the final word can only be spoken by the
+constitutional representative body. I believe that I am here entirely
+at one with the present Government. There are two methods of
+ascertaining the will of the people: either each candidate for the
+representative body stands for election on a monarchical or a
+republican platform, in which case the majority of the body itself
+will express the decision; or the question of Monarchy or Republic can
+be decided by a plebiscite. It is matter of common knowledge that I
+myself have had so serious conflicts with the ex-Kaiser that any
+co-operation between us is for all time an impossibility. No one can,
+therefore, suspect me of wishing on personal grounds to revert to the
+old régime. But I am not one to juggle with the idea of democracy, and
+its nature demands that the people itself should decide. I believe
+that the majority of German-Austria is against the old régime, and
+when it has expressed itself to this effect the furtherance of
+democracy is sufficiently assured.
+
+And with this, gentlemen, I have finished what I proposed to set
+before you. I vainly endeavoured to make peace together with Germany,
+but I was not unsuccessful in my endeavours to save the
+German-Austrians from ultimately coming to armed conflict with
+Germany. I can say this, and without exaggeration, that I have
+defended the German alliance as if it had been my own child, and I do
+not know what would have happened had I not done so. Andrassy's "extra
+turn" at the last moment showed the great mass of the public how
+present a danger was that of war with Germany. Had the same
+experiment been made six months before it would have been war with
+Germany; would have made Austria a scene of war.
+
+There are evil times in store for the German people, but a people of
+many millions cannot perish and will not perish. The day will come
+when the wounds of this war begin to close and heal, and when that day
+comes a better future will dawn.
+
+The Austrian armies went forth in the hour of war to save Austria.
+They have not availed to save it. But if out of this ocean of blood
+and suffering a better, freer and nobler world arise, then they will
+not have died in vain, all those we loved who now lie buried in cold
+alien earth; they died for the happiness, the peace and the future of
+the generations to come.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] Translated from the German text given by Count Czernin, no English
+text being available.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Adler, Dr. Victor, a discussion with, 27
+  and the Socialist Congress at Stockholm, 168
+  and Trotski, 234, 235
+
+Adrianople, cession of, 268
+
+Aehrenthal, Franz Ferdinand and, 40
+  policy of expansion, 5
+
+Air-raids on England, cause of, 16
+  their effect, 167
+
+Albania, and the Peace of Bucharest, 6
+  Queen Elizabeth of Roumania and, 92
+
+Albrecht von Würtemberg, 39
+
+Alsace-Lorraine, Bethmann on, 74
+  cession of, demanded by Entente, 165
+  conquest of, a curse to Germany, 15
+  Emperor Charles's offer to Germany, 75
+  France insists on restoration of, 170
+  Germany and, 71, 158, 159
+
+Ambassadors and their duties, 97, 110
+
+America and the U-boat campaign, 116, 119, 120
+  enters the war, 17, 148
+  rupture with Germany, 127
+  shipbuilding programme of, 291
+  unpreparedness for war, 122
+  (_Cf._ United States)
+
+American Government, Count Czernin's Note to, 279 _et seq._
+
+Andrassy, Count, and Roumanian peace negotiations, 260
+  declares a separate peace, 24, 25
+  German Nationalist view of his action, 25
+
+Andrian at Nordbahnhof, 219
+
+Anti-Roumanian party and its leader, 77
+
+Arbitration, courts of, 171, 176, 177
+
+Arion, Roumanian Foreign Minister, 322
+
+Armaments, pre-war fever for, 3
+
+Armand-Revertera negotiations, the, 164, 169
+
+Asquith, a warlike speech by, 181
+
+Austria-Hungary, a rejected proposal decides fate of, 2
+  and Albania, 6
+  and cession of Galicia, 145
+  and question of separate peace, 27, 164, 170
+  and the U-boat campaign, 124, 125, 149, 334
+  ceases to exist, 179
+  consequences of a separate peace, 24
+  death-blow to Customs dues, 168
+  declaration on submarine warfare, 279
+  democratic Parliament of, 306
+  enemy's secret negotiations for peace, 141, 162
+  food troubles and strikes in, 238, 239, 241, 314
+  her army merged into German army, 21
+  her position before and after the ultimatum, 13
+  heroism of her armies, 336
+  impossibility of a separate peace for, 19, 21 _et seq._
+  maritime trade obstructed by blockade, 280
+  mobilisation and its difficulties, 8, 9
+  obstinate attitude after Sarajevo tragedy, 8
+  parlous position of, in 1917, 188
+  peace negotiations with Roumania, 259, 318
+  peace terms to, 179
+  policy during war, Count Czernin on, 325
+  racial problems in, 190
+  separatist tactics in, 164
+  Social Democracy in, 21, 31
+  terms on which she could make peace, 29
+  the Archdukes, 22
+  views on a "tripartite solution" of Polish question, 201
+
+Austrian Delegation, Count Czernin's speech to, 298 _et seq._
+
+Austrian Government and the Ukrainian question, 242, 245
+
+Austrian Navy, the, Franz Ferdinand and, 50
+
+Austrian Ruthenians, leader of, 247
+
+Austro-Hungarian demands at Bucharest negotiations, 319
+
+Austro-Hungarian army, General Staff of, 22
+  inferiority of, 21
+
+Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the, and foreign policy, 134
+  peace idea of, 174
+
+Austro-Polish question, the, and the Ukrainian demands, 242
+  no bar to peace, 331
+  solution of, 200 _et seq._
+
+Avarescu, interview with, 263
+  retirement of, 323
+
+
+=B=
+
+Baernreither, his views of a separate peace, 230
+
+Balkan Wars, the, 6
+
+Balkans, the, troubles in: attitude of German Emperor, 68
+
+_Baralong_ episode, the, 133
+
+Bathurst, Captain, and consumption of breadstuffs, 295
+  on an "un-English" system, 296
+
+Bauer, Dr., German-Austrian Secretary of State, 18
+
+Bauer, Herr, houses Trotski's library, 235
+
+Bavarian troops enter into the Tyrol, 27
+
+Belgian neutrality violated by Germany, 14
+
+Belgian question, the, Germany ready for negotiations with England on, 180
+
+Belgium, England's promise to, 14
+  German entry into, 14
+  Germany's views regarding, 157, 158
+
+Belgium, invasion of, changes England's policy, 2
+
+Benckendorff, Count, at London Conference, 275
+
+Benedict XV, Pope, Austria's answer to peace Note of, 175
+  German reply to, 333
+  proposals for peace by, 167, 177
+
+Berchtold, Count, and Franz Ferdinand, 43, 44
+  and the Roumanian question, 77
+  criticised by pro-war party at Vienna, 33
+  ultimatum to Serbia, 7
+  vacillation of, 10
+
+Berlin, Byzantine atmosphere of, 62, 66
+  the English Ambassador demands his passport, 14
+
+Bessarabia, Bolshevism in, 265
+
+Bethmann-Hollweg, and Austria's willingness to cede Galicia, 146
+  and the Supreme Military Command, 156
+  draws up a peace proposal, 139
+  opposes U-boat warfare, 115, 334
+  optimistic view of U-boat campaign, 151 _et seq._
+  replies to author's _exposé_, 150
+  requests Vienna Cabinet to accept negotiations, 8
+  visits Western front, 73
+
+Bilinski, Herr von, and the future of Poland, 205
+
+Bismarck, Prince, and the invincibility of the army, 17
+  and William II., 52
+  dealings with William I., 65
+  heritage of, becomes Germany's curse, 15
+  his policy of "blood and iron," 15
+
+Bizenko, Madame, murders General Sacharow, 220
+
+Blockade, enemies feeling the grip of, 297
+  of Germany, 280
+  why established by Great Britain, 281
+
+Bohemia as a possible theatre of war: author's reflections on, 24
+
+Bolsheviks and the Kieff Committee, 245
+
+Bolsheviks, dastardly behaviour of, 249
+  destruction wrought in Ukraine, 252
+  enter Kieff, 248, 249
+
+Bolshevism, Czernin on, 216, 221
+  in Bessarabia, 265
+  in Russia, 211, 216, 229
+  terrorism of, 226
+  the Entente and, 273
+
+Bosnia, as compensation to Austria, 207
+
+Bozen, proposals for cession of, 170, 173
+
+Bratianu, a tactless proceeding by, 112
+  apprises author of Sarajevo tragedy, 86
+  collapse of, 99
+  Ministry of, 88
+  on Russia, 263
+  reproaches author, 96
+
+"Bread peace," origin of the term, 257
+
+Brest-Litovsk, a dejected Jew at, 225
+  a victory for German militarism, 193
+  answer to Russian peace proposals, 224
+  arrival of Trotski at, 232
+  conflict with Ukrainians at, 235
+  episode of Roumanian peace, 260
+  evacuation of occupied areas: difficulties of, 312
+  first peace concluded at, 249
+  frontier question, 208
+  further Ukrainian representation at, 300
+  heated discussions at, 228
+  object of negotiations at, 305
+  peace negotiations at, 218 _et seq._, 311
+  Russians threaten to withdraw from, 227
+  territorial questions at, 235, 236, 245
+  Ukrainian delegation and their claims, 208, 231, 314
+
+Briand, peace negotiations with, 182
+
+Brinkmann, Major, transmits Petersburg information to German
+  delegation, 230
+
+British losses by submarines, 290
+  trade, and result of submarine warfare, 291
+
+Bronstein and Bolshevism, 211
+
+_Brotfrieden_ ("Bread peace"), 257
+
+Bucharest, fall of, 99
+  report of peace negotiations at, 318
+  Zeppelin attacks on, 101 et seq.
+
+Bucharest, Peace of, 6, 82, 100, 258 _et seq._, 270
+
+Budapest, author's address to party leaders at, 174
+  demonstrations against Germany in, 233
+
+Buftea, Treaty of, 323
+
+Bulgaria, a dispute with Turkey, 268
+  and the Dobrudsha question, 263, 323
+  her relations with America, 125
+  humiliation of, 6
+  negotiations with the Entente, 162, 163, 269
+  question of her neutrality, 10
+  secession of, 183
+
+Bulgarian representatives at Brest, 223
+
+Bülow, Prince, exposes William II., 54
+
+Burian, Count, 106, 200
+  and the division of Galicia, 244
+  draws up a peace proposal, 139
+  his Red Book on Roumania, 98, 114
+  succeeded by author, 114
+  visits German headquarters, 210
+
+Busche, von dem, and territorial concessions, 107
+
+
+=C=
+
+Cachin, his attitude at French Socialist Congress, 214
+
+Cambon, M., attends the London Conference, 275
+
+Capelle and U-boats, 132
+
+Carmen Sylva (_see_ Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania)
+
+Carol, King, a fulfilled prophecy of, 88
+  and Serbia, 12
+  last days of, 90
+  peculiar policy of Government of, 81
+  tactfulness of, 79
+  Tsar's visit to, 88
+  urges acceptance of ultimatum, 90
+  visited by Franz Ferdinand, 79
+
+Carp, 82, 87, 94
+
+Catarau, and the crime at Debruzin, 89
+
+Central-European question, the, 209
+  the terror of the Entente, 172
+
+Central Powers and the Bratianu Ministry, 97
+  enemy blockade of, 132
+  favourable news in 1917, 143
+  why they adopted submarine warfare, 281 _et seq._
+
+Charles VIII., Emperor, and Franz Ferdinand, 41
+  and problem of nationality, 192
+  and the principle of ministerial responsibility, 56
+  and the Ukrainian question, 244
+  apprised by author of critical condition of food supply, 237, 239
+  cautions the Kaiser, 321
+  communicates with King Ferdinand on Roumanian peace, 260
+  confers a title on eldest son of Franz Ferdinand, 45
+  correspondence with Prince Sixtus, 164
+  frequent absences from Vienna, 61
+  his ever friendly demeanour, 57, 58
+  invites Crown Prince to Vienna, 75
+  opposes U-boat warfare, 334
+  reinstates Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, 61
+  rejoices at peace with Ukraine, 249
+  submits author's _exposé_ to William II., 146, 332
+  suggests sacrifices for ending World War, 75
+  visits South Slav provinces, 59
+
+Clam-Martinic, Count, and the customs question, 168
+  and U-boat campaign, 121
+  attends conference on Polish question, 206
+  opposes submarine warfare, 334
+
+Clemenceau, M., and Germany, 182
+  and the Peace of Versailles, 272
+  dominant war aim of, 184, 186
+
+Colloredo-Mannsfield, Count, at Brest-Litovsk, 236
+  attends conference on U-boat question, 121
+  meets author, 219
+
+Compulsory international arbitration, 171, 176, 177
+
+Conrad, Chief of the General Staff, 44
+
+Constantinople, an Entente group in, 163
+
+Corday, Charlotte, cited, 227
+
+Cossacks, the, 212
+
+Courland demanded by Germany, 249
+
+Crecianu, Ambassador Jresnea, house damaged in Zeppelin attack
+  on Bucharest, 103
+
+Csatth, Alexander, mortally wounded, 89
+
+Csicserics, Lieut. Field-Marshal, 219
+  at Brest-Litovsk, 236
+
+Czechs, the, attitude of, regarding a separate peace, 24
+
+Czernin, Count Ottokar, a candid chat with Franz Ferdinand, 43
+  a hostile Power's desire for peace, 141
+  a scene at Konopischt, 39
+  abused by a braggart and brawler, 83
+  acquaints Emperor of food shortage, 237, 239
+  activities for peace with Roumania, 258 _et seq._
+  ambassador to Roumania, 7
+  an appeal for confidence, 310
+  and American intervention, 123
+  and the reinstatement of Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, 61
+  and the Ukrainian question (_see_ Ukrainian)
+  answers explanation of an American request, 128
+  appeals to Germany for food, 238, 239, 329
+  appointed Ambassador to Bucharest, 77
+  apprises Berchtold of decision of Cabinet Council, 12
+  attends conference on U-boat warfare, 121
+  avoided by Pan-Germans, 160
+  becomes Minister for Foreign Affairs, 114
+  breakfasts with Kühlmann, 230
+  confers with Tisza, 27, 28
+  conflicts with the Kaiser, 335
+  conversation with Trotski, 248
+  converses with Crown Prince, 74
+  criticises Michaelis, 160
+  decorated by King Carol, 88
+  disapproves of U-boat warfare, 115
+  dismissal of, 183, 194, 266
+  extracts bearing on a trip to Western front, 72
+  friction with the Emperor, 210, 215
+  his hopes of a peace of understanding, 20 _et seq._, 174,
+    209, 217, 331, 333
+  imparts peace terms to Marghiloman, 266
+  informs Emperor of proceedings at Brest, 229
+  interviews King Ferdinand, 264
+  issues passports for Stockholm Conference, 168, 333
+  journeys to Brest-Litovsk, 218
+  learns of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, 86
+  loss of a dispatch-case, 98
+  loyalty to Germany, 327
+  lunches with Prince of Bavaria, 222
+  meets the Emperor William II., 54
+  misunderstandings resulting from a speech by, 19, 23
+  nominated to the Herrenhaus, 46
+  note to American Government, 279
+  obtains a direct statement from William II., 57
+  on a separate peace, 327
+  on Austria's policy during war, 325
+  on Bolshevism, 216, 221
+  on President Wilson's programme, 192
+  on U-boat warfare, 148, 179, 334
+  passages of arms with Ludendorff, 247
+  peace programme of, 299
+  persecution of, 208
+  Polish leaders and, 205
+  President Wilson on, 193
+  private talk with the Emperor, 124
+  sends in his resignation, 23
+  sets interned prisoners at liberty, 95, 96
+  speech to Austrian Delegation, 298 _et seq._
+  threatens a separate peace with Russia, 228
+  unfounded charges against, 162
+  urges sacrifice of Alsace-Lorraine, 71
+  William II.'s gift to, 64
+  with Emperor Charles visits Eastern front, 57
+
+
+=D=
+
+Danube Monarchy, the, a vital condition for existence of
+  Hungarian State, 202
+  dangers of a political structure for, 202
+
+Debruzin, sensational crime at, 88
+
+Declaration of London, the, 280
+
+D'Esperey, General Franchet, and Karolyi, 260
+
+Deutsch, Leo, and the Marxian Social Democrats, 211
+
+Devonport, Lord, on the food question, 296
+
+Disarmament, negotiations respecting, 4
+  international, 171, 176, 177, 308
+  question of, 181
+
+Divorces in Roumania, 85
+
+Dobrudsha, the, acquisition of, 82
+  assigned to Bulgaria, 268, 269
+  cession of, at peace with Roumania, 323
+  King Ferdinand and, 265
+  Marghiloman's view on, 266
+  question discussed with Avarescu, 263
+  Turkish attitude concerning, 268
+
+Dualism, the curse of, 137
+
+
+=E=
+
+
+East Galicia, cession of, demanded by Ukrainians, 240 _et seq._
+
+"Echinstvo" group, the, 211
+
+Edward VII., King, and Emperor Francis Joseph, 1, 2
+  and William II., 63
+  encircling policy of, 1, 63
+
+Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania, a word-picture by, 91
+  an operation for cataract, 93
+  her devotion to King Carol, 92
+
+Ellenbogen, Dr., and Socialist Conference at Stockholm, 168
+  plain speaking by, 26
+
+England, an effort at _rapprochement_ with Germany and its failure, 180
+  and dissolution of military power in Germany, 184
+  and the elder Richthofen, 246
+  attitude of, at beginning of World War, 15, 16
+  blockade of, by U-boats, 142, 151
+  bread shortage in, 295
+  declares war on Germany, 14
+  discards Declaration of London, 280
+  distress in, from U-boat warfare, 145
+  distrust of Germany's intentions in, 185
+  dread of gigantic growth of Germany in, 1
+  Flotow's tribute to, 120
+  food supply of, 293
+  freedom in, 335
+  her desire to remain neutral at opening of war, 2
+  negotiates with Germany on naval disarmament, 4
+  public opinion in, after Sarajevo tragedy, 8
+  refusal to restore German colonies, 166, 170
+  shortage of potatoes in, 296
+  the Pacifist party in, 167
+  "unbending resolve" of, to shatter Germany, 31, 32, 71
+
+English mentality, a typical instance of, 4
+
+English Socialists, 214
+
+Entente, the, adheres to Pact of London, 209, 217
+  and arming of merchant vessels, 286
+  and Italy, 27
+  and the trial of William II., 66
+  answers President Wilson, 118, 120
+  as instruments in a world revolution, 273
+  Austria pressed to join, 2
+  demands abolition of German militarism, 165, 170, 171, 173
+  desire of final military victory, 164
+  exterminates Prussian militarism, 273
+  impression on, of author's speech at Budapest, 178
+  mine-laying by, 130
+  peace proposals to, 19, 20
+  rejects first peace offer, 115
+  suspicious of Germany's plans, 3
+  their "unbending resolve" to shatter Germany, 31, 326
+  views as to peace, 170
+
+Enver Pasha, his influence in Turkey, 233, 269
+
+Erzberger, Herr, agrees with "Czernin scheme", 185, 333
+  and author's secret report to the Emperor, 155 (note)
+
+Espionage in Roumania, 97
+
+Esterhazy succeeds Tisza, 136
+
+Esthonia demanded by Germany, 249, 317
+
+Eugen, Archduke, 22
+
+Europe after the war, 175
+
+European tension, beginnings of, 1
+
+
+=F=
+
+Fasciotti, Baron, and Austro-Hungarian action in Belgrade, 12
+
+Fellowes, Sir Ailwyn, admits success of U-boats, 295
+
+Ferdinand, King of Roumania, author's interview with, 264
+  German opinion of, 260
+  Queen Elizabeth's fondness for, 93
+
+Ferdinand of Bulgaria, King, anti-Serbian policy of, 51
+
+Filippescu, Nikolai, a proposal by, 80
+
+Fleck, Major, at Nordbahnhof, 219
+
+Flotow, Baron, interview with Hohenlohe, 117
+  reports on German attitude on U-boat warfare, 118
+
+Fourteen Points, Wilson's, 190 _et seq._, 271, 305, 306, 323 _et seq._
+
+France, and Austria: effect of Vienna troubles, 250
+  Bethmann's tribute to, 153
+  distrust of Germany's intentions in, 185
+  insists on restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, 170
+  opening of war a surprise to, 2
+  the Pacifist party in, 167
+
+Francis Joseph, Emperor, a tribute to, 47
+  advised to accept negotiations, 8
+  and Franz Ferdinand, 42, 46
+  and the principle of ministerial responsibility, 56
+  author's audience with, 12
+  death of, 48
+  gives audience to author, 47
+  King Edward VII. and, 1, 2
+  on the Peace of Bucharest, 6
+  opposes Filippescu's scheme, 81
+
+Franz Ferdinand, Archduke, a fortune-teller's prediction concerning, 44
+  anti-Magyar point of view of, 38, 50
+  antipathy to Hungary, 35, 37, 38
+  as gardener, 35
+  as husband and father, 44, 45
+  dislike for the Germans of, 50
+  false rumours concerning, 43
+  fearlessness of, 45
+  friendships of, 39
+  Goluchowski and, 36
+  Great-Austrian programme of, 41, 49
+  his high opinion of Pallavicini, 5
+  his sense of humour, 41
+  makes advances to the Kaiser, 42
+  marriage of, 41, 44
+  mentality of, 35
+  personality of, 34
+  pro-Roumanian proclivities of, 77, 78, 79
+  tragic end of, 49 (_see also_ Sarajevo tragedy)
+  views on foreign policy of, 51
+
+Freedom of the seas, 177
+  attacked by Entente, 280, 281
+  neutrals and, 284
+  President Wilson on, 281, 307
+
+French Socialistic Congress, 214
+
+Freyburg, Baron von, attends conference on U-boat question, 121
+
+Friedrich, Archduke, a tribute to, 22
+  tact of, 72
+
+Frontier rectifications, Hungary and, 258, 266, 319, 330
+
+Fürstenberg, Karl, a request of, refused at Vienna, 112
+  report on Roumanian question by, 77
+
+
+=G=
+
+Galicia, proposed cession of, 20, 75, 145, 159, 173, 332
+  partition of, 209
+  Tisza and, 135
+
+Gas attacks, reason for Germany's use of, 16
+
+Gautsch, Baron, a code telegram from, 229
+  at Nordbahnhof, 219
+
+George, Lloyd, admits grave state of grain supplies, 295
+  and the Peace of Versailles, 272
+  author in agreement with, 177-8
+  confers with Orlando, 164
+  Dr. Helfferich's allusions to, 290
+  his desire to crush Germany, 186
+  influence of, 184
+  on disarmament, 184
+
+George V., King, his telegram to Prince Henry of Prussia, 9
+
+German army, the General Staff, 22
+
+German-Austria, 179
+  population of, 31
+
+German Empire, the, creation of, 15, 66
+
+German Government, _versus_ German Diplomacy, 10
+
+German mentality, a typical instance of, 4
+  military party refuse peace, 32
+
+German Nationalists and Count Andrassy, 25, 26
+
+German policy founders on heritage left by Bismarck, 15
+
+German-Russian differences as to occupied areas, 304
+
+German Supreme Command and evacuation question, 312
+
+Germans and a friendly attitude towards America, 122
+  at Brest conference, 224
+  attitude of, towards Poland, 203
+  inferior mentality of, 69
+  "insatiable appetite" of, 267
+  Lenin and, 216
+  oppose peace negotiations with Roumania, 260
+  refuse to renounce occupied territory, 226
+  the dynastic fidelity of, 52
+
+Germany, a moral coalition against, 3
+  advocates unrestricted U-boat warfare, 115 _et seq._
+  and Alsace-Lorraine, 71
+  and Austro-Hungarian military action in Ukraine, 254
+  answers the Papal Note, 177
+  blind faith in invincibility of her army, 17
+  blockade of, and her retaliatory measures, 16
+  confident of victory, 23, 71
+  culpability of, in matter of peace, 185
+  decides on U-boat campaign, 124
+  declares Armistice with Russia at an end, 318
+  disillusionment of, 31
+  dissatisfaction in, over peace resolution in Reichstag, 156
+  England declares war on, 14
+  evil times in store for, 336
+  her dream of a victorious peace, 326, 331
+  her hopes of food shortage in England, 145
+  Michaelis on internal economic and political situation in, 157
+  military party of, 19, 327, 330, 331
+  negotiations respecting naval disarmament, 4
+  post-war intentions of, 185
+  restricts building of U-boats, 131
+  revolution in, 328
+  rupture with America, 127
+  unsuccessful effort at _rapprochement_, 180
+  violates neutrality of Belgium, 14
+
+Goluchowski, Count, vacillation of, 36
+
+Görlitz, battle of, 96, 107, 329
+
+Gratz, Dr., a good suggestion by, 248
+  author's discussion with, 219
+  on Austro-Polish solution of Polish question, 244
+
+Great-Roumania, question of, 80
+
+Great War, the, psychology of various cities, 197
+  (_See_ World War)
+
+Grey, Sir Edward, an interview with Lichnowsky, 7
+  at London Conference, 275
+  proposes negotiations, 8
+
+
+=H=
+
+Habsburgs, Empire of, the Treaty of London and, 21, 29, 33
+
+Hadik, apathetic attitude of, 238
+
+Hague Convention, the, 280
+
+Haus, Admiral, favours submarine warfare, 334
+  in Vienna, 121
+
+Hauser, and the question of separate peace, 230
+
+Hebel, appointment for, 154
+
+Helfferich, Dr., disclosures by, 161 (note)
+  on attitude of William II. during Balkan troubles, 68
+  speech on submarine warfare, 151, 288 _et seq._
+
+Henry of Prussia, Prince, a telegram
+     from King George to, 9
+
+Hertling, Count, advised to suppress "Der Kaiser im Felde," 64
+  becomes Imperial Chancellor, 198
+  President Wilson on, 193
+  succeeds Michaelis, 161
+
+Herzegovina as compensation to Austria, 207
+
+Hindenburg, Field-Marshal, modesty of, 126
+  popularity of, in Germany, 17
+
+Hoffmann, General, an unfortunate speech by, 237
+  and plans for outer provinces, 226
+  high words with Kühlmann, 235
+  received by the Kaiser, 230
+  receives a telegram from Petersburg, 229
+  visited by author, 219
+
+Hohenberg, Duchess of, 41
+  welcomed in Roumania, 79
+
+Hohendorf, General Conrad von, and his responsibility for
+  the war, 18 (note)
+
+Hohenlohe, Prince, and settlement of Wedel's request, 127
+  free speech with William II., 65
+  report on U-boat campaign, 116, 126
+
+Holtzendorff, Admiral, and submarine campaign, 149
+  arrives in Vienna, 121
+  guarantees results of U-boat campaign, 122, 334
+
+Hungarian Ruthenians, Wekerle on, 243
+  Social Democrats, 168
+
+Hungary and cession of her territory, 106
+  and Roumanian intervention, 77, 106, 107
+  and the alliance with Roumania, 77 _et seq._
+  demands of, at Bucharest, 319
+  frontier rectification question, 258, 266, 319, 330
+  her influence on the war, 138
+  indignation in, at author's appointment to Bucharest, 77
+  "just punishment" of, 97
+  opposes economical alliance with Roumania, 266, 320
+  question of a separate peace, 27
+  repellent attitude of, 107
+  struggle for liberty in, 202
+  why her army was neglected, 22
+
+
+=I=
+
+Imperiali, Marchese, points submitted to London Conference by, 275
+
+International arbitration (_see_ Arbitration)
+
+International disarmament, 171, 176, 177
+
+International law, Germany's breach of, in adoption of U-boat
+  warfare, 280, 281
+
+Internationalists, Russian, 211
+
+Ischl, an audience with Emperor Francis Joseph at, 12
+
+Iswolsky, 11
+
+Italy, Allied defeat in, 183
+  and Albania, 6
+  and the Peace of Versailles, 272
+  Czernin on, 308
+  declares a blockade, 281
+  points submitted to London Conference, 275
+  stands in way of a peace of understanding, 188
+  ultimatum to, 12
+  why she entered the war, 3
+
+
+=J=
+
+Jaczkovics, Vicar Michael, tragic death of, 89
+
+Jagow, Herr von, a frank disclosure by, 14
+
+Joffe, Herr, a circular letter to Allies, 300
+  conversation with, at Brest, 220
+  criticisms on the Tsar, 227
+
+Jonescu, Take, and the Sarajevo tragedy, 86
+
+Joseph Ferdinand, Archduke, 22
+  appointed Chief of Air Force, 62
+  reinstatement of, 61
+  relinquishes his command, 62
+  the Luck episode, 61
+
+
+=K=
+
+Kameneff at Brest, 220, 316
+
+Karachou, Leo, secretary of Peace Delegation, 303
+
+Karl, Emperor, peace proposals to the Entente, 20
+
+Karl of Schwarzenberg, Prince, Franz Ferdinand and, 39, 40
+
+Karolyi and Roumanian peace negotiations, 260
+  his attitude before the Roumanian declaration of war, 28
+
+Kerenski and the offensive against Central Powers, 211
+  newspaper report of condition of his health, 212
+
+Kiderlen-Waechter, a satirical remark by, 63
+
+Kieff, a mission to, 251
+  entered by Bolsheviks, 248, 249
+  in danger of a food crisis, 252
+  peace conditions at, 208
+
+Kieff Committee and the Bolsheviks, 245
+
+Kiel Week, the, 62
+
+_Kienthaler_ (Internationalists), 211
+
+Konopischt and its history, 34 _et seq._
+
+Kreuznach, a conference at, 145
+
+Kriegen, Dr. Bogdan, a fulsome work by, 64
+
+Kühlmann, Dr., and the food shortage, 238, 239
+  author's talk with, 222
+  difficult position of, 313
+  high words with Hoffman, 235
+  his influence, 198, 199
+  informed of Roumanian peace overtures, 260
+  on the Kaiser, 228
+  returns to Brest, 230
+
+
+=L=
+
+Lamezan, Captain Baron, at Brest-Litovsk, 233
+
+Landwehr, General, and the food shortage, 238, 240
+
+Lansdowne, Lord, conciliatory attitude of, 184
+
+Larin and Menshevik Socialists, 211
+
+League of Nations, the, 308
+
+Lenin, author on, 216
+  opposed to offensive against Central Powers, 211
+
+Leopold of Bavaria, Prince, a day's shooting with, 231
+  chats with author, 219
+
+Lewicky, M., 240
+
+Lichnowsky interviews Sir Edward Grey, 7
+
+Liége taken by Ludendorff, 22
+
+Lithuania, Germany and, 249
+
+Livonia demanded by Germany, 249, 317
+
+London, Declaration of, discarded by England, 280
+
+London, Pact of, 20, 170, 172, 179, 328
+  desired amendments to, 146
+  text of, 21, 275 _et seq._
+
+Lublin, German demand for evacuation of, 204, 205, 206
+
+Luck episode, the, 22, 106
+  Archduke Joseph Ferdinand and, 61
+
+Ludendorff and Belgium, 186
+  and the Polish question, 207
+  candid admission by, 247
+  compared with enemy statesmen, 19
+  confident of success of U-boat warfare, 126
+  congratulates Hoffmann, 237
+  displays "a gleam of insight", 230
+  dominating influence of, 79, 115, 126
+  German hero-worship of, 17
+  his independent nature, 60
+  how he captured Liége, 22
+  personality of, 331
+
+Lueger and Franz Ferdinand, 50
+
+Luxembourg, German invasion of, 16
+
+
+=M=
+
+Mackensen, a fleet of Zeppelins at Bucharest, 101
+  failure at Maracesci, 261
+  headquarters at Bucharest, 105
+
+Magyars, the, and Franz Ferdinand, 38, 50
+  author and, 78
+
+Majorescu and Austria's policy, 330
+  and territorial concessions, 97, 206
+  forms a Ministry, 81
+
+Mandazescu, arrest and extradition of, 89
+
+Maracesci, attack on, 261
+
+Marghiloman and co-operation of Roumania, 106
+  forms a Cabinet, 266, 320
+
+Marie, Queen of Roumania, English sympathies of, 98, 99
+
+Marne, the, first battle of, 17
+
+Martow and the Menshevik party, 211
+
+Martynoz, and the Russian Internationalists, 211
+
+Medwjedew, J.G., Ukrainian delegate to Brest, 301
+
+Mennsdorff, Ambassador, interviews General Smuts, 169
+
+Menshevik party, the, 211
+
+Meran, the Entente's proposals regarding, 170, 173
+
+Merchant vessels, arming of, author on, 285
+
+Merey meets Czernin at Brest, 219
+
+Michaelis, Dr., appointed Imperial Chancellor, 156
+  defines Germany's views regarding Belgium, 157
+  on peace proposals, 157
+  Pan-Germanism of, 160
+
+"Might before Right," Bismarckian principle of, 15
+
+Miklossy, Bishop Stephan, marvellous escape of, 89
+
+Militarism, German faith in, 17
+  England's idea of German, 166
+
+Monarchists _v._ Republicans, 52
+
+Monarchs, hypnotic complacency of, 58 _et seq._
+
+Moutet, attitude of, at French Socialist conference, 214
+
+
+=N=
+
+Nationality, problem of, 190
+  Franz Ferdinand and, 191
+
+Naval disarmament, negotiations on, 4
+
+Nicholas, Grand Duke, and the military party in Russia, 2
+
+Nicolai, Tsar, Joffe on, 227
+
+North Sea, the, blockade of, 280
+
+Noxious gas, why used by Germany, 16
+
+
+=O=
+
+Odessa, in danger of a food crisis, 252
+
+Orlando confers with Ribot and Lloyd George, 164
+
+Otto, Archduke, brother of Franz Ferdinand, 36
+
+
+=P=
+
+Pallavicini, Markgraf, discusses the political situation with author, 5
+
+Pan-Germans, 330
+  conditions on which they would conclude peace, 160
+
+Pan-Russian Congress, the, 212, 213, 214
+
+Papal Note, the, 167, 177
+  Austria's reply to, 175
+  German reply to, 333
+
+Paris, negotiations _in camera_ at, 271
+
+Peace by sacrifice, 327
+
+Peace Congress at Brest-Litovsk, 218 _et seq._
+
+Peace movement, real historical truth concerning, 186
+
+Peace negotiations, Count Czernin on, 298 _et seq._
+  deadlock in, 182
+  the Pope's proposals, 167, 175, 177, 333
+
+Peace resolution, a, and its consequences, 156
+
+Penfield, Mr., American Ambassador to Vienna, 131
+
+People's Socialists, the, 212
+
+Peschechonow, Minister of Food, 212
+
+Petersburg and the Ukraine, 309
+
+Plechanow, Georgei, and the Russian Social Patriots, 211
+
+Poklewski, Russian Ambassador to Roumania, 86
+
+Poland, a conference on question of, 205
+  becomes a kingdom, 200
+  conquest of, 106
+  Count Czernin on, 304
+  Emperor Charles's offer regarding, 75
+  future position of, 203
+  German standpoint on, 203
+  Michaelis on, 159
+  re-organisation of, 145
+  the German demands, 244
+  unrepresented at Brest, and the reason, 304, 315
+
+Poles, the, and Brest-Litovsk negotiations, 208
+  party divisions among, 204
+
+Polish question, and the Central-European project, 209
+  difficulties of, 200
+
+Popow, Bulgarian Minister of Justice, 223
+
+Pro-Roumanian party and its head, 77
+
+Prussian militarism, England's idea of, 166
+  extermination of, 273
+  fear of, 174
+  (_See also_ German military party)
+
+
+=Q=
+
+
+Quadruple Alliance, the, dissension in, 250
+  Germany as shield of, 183
+  peace terms to Roumania, 262
+
+
+=R=
+
+Radek, a scene with a chauffeur, 237
+
+Radoslawoff, ignorant of negotiations with Entente, 162
+
+Randa, Lieut.-Col. Baron, a telling remark by, 104
+  and Roumanian peace overtures, 260, 262, 319
+
+Reichstag, the, a peace resolution passed in, 156
+  demands peace without annexation, 156, 160
+
+Renner and the Stockholm Congress, 168
+
+Republicans _v._ Monarchists, 52
+
+Ressel, Colonel, 264
+
+Revertera negotiates for peace, 164, 169
+
+Revolution, danger of, 147
+
+Rhondda, Lord, British Food Controller, 151
+
+Ribot confers with Orlando, 164
+  statement by, 152
+
+Richthofen brothers, the, 246
+
+Rosenberg meets author at Brest, 219
+
+Roumania, 77 _et seq._
+  a change of Government in, 81
+  a land of contrasts, 84
+  affairs in, after Sarajevo tragedy, 86
+  and the Peace of Bucharest, 6
+  author's negotiations for peace, 258
+  between two stools, 261
+  declares war, 100, 279
+  espionage in, 97
+  freedom of the Press in, 84
+  Germany and, 262, 267
+  her treachery to Central Powers, 262
+  how news of Sarajevo tragedy was received in, 86
+  Marghiloman forms a Cabinet, 266
+  negotiations for peace, 318
+  out of action, 23
+  peace concluded with, 323
+  question of annexations of, 159, 207
+  question of her neutrality, 12, 95
+  Russian gold in, 111
+  social conditions in, 85
+  ultimatum to, 12, 262
+  why she entered the war, 3
+
+Roumanian invasion of Transylvania, 108
+
+Roumanians, mistaken views of strength of, 261
+  their love of travel, 85
+
+Rudolf, Crown Prince, and Franz Ferdinand, 37
+
+Russia, a contemplated peace with, 211
+  abdication of the Tsar, 142
+  an appeal to German soldiers, 249
+  begins military operations without a declaration of war, 3
+  Bolshevism in, 211, 216, 229
+  declares for cessation of hostilities, 318
+  differences of opinion in, as to continuance of war, 211 _et seq._
+  enters the war, 7
+  Francis Joseph's inquiry as to a possible revolution in, 105
+  her responsibility for Great War, 10
+  incites German army to revolt, 317
+  negotiations for peace, 298
+  out of action, 23
+  peace treaty signed, 318
+  prepared for war, 112
+  the military party in, 2, 9
+  ultimatum to Roumania, 262
+
+Russian Revolution, the, 142, 147, 211 _et seq._
+
+Russians, their fear of Trotski, 237
+
+Ruthenian districts of Hungary, Ukrainian demands, 242
+
+
+=S=
+
+Sacharow, General, murder of, 220
+
+St. Mihiel, author at, 73
+
+St. Privat, reminiscences of, 74
+
+Salzburg negotiations, the, 210
+
+Sarajevo, the tragedy of, 6, 49
+  sounds death knell of the Monarchy, 32
+
+Sassonoff, a momentous statement by, 88
+  attitude of, after declaration of war, 8
+  visits Bucharest, 112
+
+Satonski, Wladimir Petrowitch, 302
+
+Schachrai, W.M., at Brest, 301
+
+Schonburg, Alvis, and the Emperor Charles, 61
+
+Schönerer, Deputy, Franz Ferdinand and, 50
+
+Secret diplomacy, abolition of: author's views, 306-7
+
+Sedan, a house with a history at, 74
+
+Seidler, Dr. von, a _faux pas_ by, 56
+  and the food shortage, 240
+  and the partition of Galicia, 209
+  and the Ukrainian question, 208, 242, 243
+  apathetic attitude of, 238, 239
+  author's meeting with, 230
+  visits South Slav provinces, 59
+
+Seitz, and the Stockholm Conference, 168
+
+Serbia, arrogance of, 6
+  ultimatum to, 7
+
+Sewrjuk, M., 240
+
+Sixtus, Prince, letters from Emperor Charles to, 164
+
+Skobeleff and the Mensheviks, 211
+
+Skrzynski, Herr von, 250
+
+Slapowszky, Johann, tragic death of, 89
+
+Slav provinces, a visit by the Emperor to, 59
+
+Smuts, General, interview with Mennsdorff, 170
+
+Social Democrats and the question of peace, 26, 30
+  and the Stockholm Conference, 168, 333
+  Hungarian, 243
+  opposed to sacrifice of Alsace-Lorraine, 71
+
+"Social Patriots," Russian, 211
+
+Social Revolutionary Party, the, 212
+
+Socialists and offensive against Central Powers, 211
+
+Spanish reports of war-weariness in England and France, 143
+
+Stirbey, Prince, 263
+
+Stockholm, a Socialist Conference at, 168, 333
+  Russians ask for a conference at, 229
+
+Stockholm Congress, negative result of, 169
+
+Strikes and their danger, 310
+
+Stumm, von, on Ukrainian claims, 241
+
+Sturdza, Lieut.-Col., extraordinary behaviour of, 83
+
+Stürgkh, Count, 18 (note)
+  recollections of, 46
+
+Submarine warfare, author's note to American Government on, 279
+  Czernin on, 334
+  destruction without warning justified, 283
+  enemy losses in, 290
+  enemy's "statistical smoke-screens" as to, 289
+  question of safety of passengers and crew, 282
+  speech by Dr. Helfferich on, 288
+  why adopted by Central Powers, 281 _et seq._
+  (_See also_ U-boats)
+
+Südekum, Herr, and Austria-Hungary's peace proposals, 155, 333
+
+Supreme Military and Naval Command, conditions of, for peace
+  negotiations, 159
+
+Switzerland, reported disturbances in: author's disclaimer, 335
+
+Sycophancy in high places, 58, 60, 62, 63, 64
+
+Sylvester, Dr., and the German-Austrian National Assembly, 26
+
+
+=T=
+
+Talaat Pasha arrives at Brest, 233
+  influence of, 143
+  threatens to resign, 269
+
+Talleyrand, a dictum of, 174
+
+Tarnowski, Count, author's opinion of, 110
+  German Ambassador to Washington, 127
+
+Thomas, M., war speech on Russian front, 214
+
+Tisza, Count Stephen, 18 (note)
+  a characteristic letter from, 200
+  advocates unrestricted U-boat warfare, 115, 334
+  and American intervention, 123
+  and author's appointment to Bucharest, 78
+  and cession of Hungarian territory, 135
+  and control of foreign policy, 134
+  and the Stockholm Conference, 168
+  assassination of, 137
+  at a U-boat campaign conference, 121
+  author's conference with, 27, 28
+  defends Count Czernin, 108
+  dismissal of, 136, 203
+  Franz Ferdinand and, 38
+  his influence in Hungary, 27
+  leads anti-Roumanian party, 77
+  lively correspondence with author, 128
+  on dangers of pessimism, 154
+  on the Treaty of London, 28
+  opposes annexation of Roumania, 207
+  opposes the war, 10
+  opposes U-boat warfare, 131, 334
+  peace proposal of, 139
+  _pro-memoria_ of, on Roumanian peace negotiations, 258
+  question of frontier rectifications, 319
+  refuses cession of Hungarian territory, 107
+  speech at conference on Polish question, 206
+  tribute to, 137
+  views regarding Poland, 200
+  visits the Southern Slavs, 30
+
+Transylvania, 173
+  opposition to cession of, 107
+  proposed cession of, 28, 50
+  Roumanian invasion of, 108
+
+Trentino, the, offered to Italy, 75
+
+Trieste, Entente proposals regarding, 170, 173
+
+"Tripartite solution" of Polish question, Tisza on, 201
+
+Trnka and the Customs dues, 168
+
+Trotski, a tactical blunder by, 236
+  accepts the German-Austria ultimatum, 235
+  and the Internationalist party, 211
+  arrives at Brest, 232
+  declines to sign, 250
+  his brother-in-law Kameneff, 220
+  his library, 235, 236
+  negotiations with, 247
+  opposed to ill-treatment of war prisoners, 236
+  ultimatum to, 234
+
+Trudoviks, the, 212
+
+Tscheidse, and the Mensheviks, 211, 213
+
+Tschernow, speaks at Peasants' Congress, 212
+
+Tschirsky, Herr von, a momentous communication to Berchtold, 7
+  and a telegram from King George, 9
+  his desire for war, 32
+  untactful diplomacy of, 10
+
+Tseretelli and the Menshevik party, 211
+
+Turkey, a dispute with Bulgaria, 268
+  asks for munitions, 95
+  how the Sultan was deposed, 233
+  probable secession of, 269
+
+Turkish Grand Vizier arrives at Brest, 233
+
+Turks, a reported advance by a hostile Power for a separate peace, 143
+  at Brest Conference, 223
+
+Tyrol, the, German troops in, 24
+
+
+=U=
+
+U-boat warfare, 114 _et seq._
+  a conference in Vienna on, 121
+  "a terrible mistake", 126
+  and America's entry into the war, 126
+  and why adopted by Germany, 16
+  Czernin on, 148
+  political arguments against, 117, 118
+  what it achieved, 178
+  (_See also_ Submarine warfare)
+
+Ugron, Herr von, and the "tripartite" solution of Polish question, 201
+
+Ukraine and Petersburg, 309
+  Bolshevik destruction in, 252
+  food supplies from, 251 _et seq._, 315
+  military action in, and the consequences, 253
+  peace concluded with, 249
+  revolution in, 253
+  survey of imports from, 255
+  treaty signed, 317
+
+Ukrainian Army General Committee appointed, 214
+  delegates at Brest, 231, 300
+  Workers' and Peasants' Government, a declaration from, 301
+
+Ukrainians and their demands, 208, 240, 314
+  dictatorial attitude of, 241
+  negotiations with, 315
+
+United States, the, scarcity of supplies in, 294
+  (_See also_ America)
+
+
+=V=
+
+Versailles, opening of Peace Congress at, 196
+  the Council of Four at, 271
+  the Peace of, 18, 19, 271
+  terrible nature of, 273
+  triumph of Entente at, 186
+
+Vienna, a council in, 121
+  differences of opinion in, 77
+  disastrous effects of troubles in, 250
+  disturbances in, 58
+  food shortage and strikes in, 238, 239, 241, 314
+  politicians' views on peace proposals, 230
+  psychology of, 197
+  warlike demonstrations at, after Sarajevo tragedy, 33
+
+Vredenburch, Herr von, Dutch Ambassador to Roumania, 104
+
+
+=W=
+
+Wales, Prince of (_see_ Edward VII., King)
+
+Wallachia, occupation of, 99, 105
+
+Wallhead, Mr., 295
+
+Washington Cabinet, and Austria-Hungary's attitude to submarine
+  warfare, 279
+
+Wassilko, Nikolay, leader of Austrian Ruthenians, 247, 249
+
+Wedel, Count, calls on Count Czernin, 127
+  disclosures of, 161 (note)
+  revelations of, 155 (note)
+
+Weisskirchner, Burgemeister, coins the term "bread peace," 257
+
+Wekerle, Dr., and the Polish question, 203
+  author and, 136, 230
+  on the Ukrainian question, 242
+  standpoint of, on Roumanian peace negotiations, 260, 319
+
+Western front, an Entente break-through on, 183
+
+Western Powers, the, and Germany's ambitions, 2
+
+Wiesner, Ambassador, von, and a Pan-German, 161
+  at Brest-Litovsk, 236
+  author discusses Russian peace with, 219
+
+Wilhelm, Crown Prince, and Franz Ferdinand, 43
+  anxious for peace, 72
+  author's conversation with, 74
+  his quarters at Sedan, 74
+
+William I. and Bismarck, 65
+
+William II., Emperor, and Bismarck, 52
+  and Franz Ferdinand, 42
+  and the German Supreme Military Command, 17
+  as _causeur_, 66
+  as the "elect of God," 52, 53
+  cause of his ruin, 62 _et seq._
+  demonstrations against, in the Reichstag, 54
+  desires to help deposed Tsar, 70
+  difficulties of his political advisers, 60
+  fails to find favour in England, 63
+  his projected division of the world, 67
+  impending trial of: author's protest, 66
+  informed of serious nature of situation for Allies, 332
+  instructions to Kühlmann, 249
+  long years of peaceful government, 68
+  longs for peace, 70
+  on food troubles in England, 145
+  on impending attack on Italian front, 71
+  presents author with "Der Kaiser im Felde," 64
+  Prince Hohenlohe and, 65
+  question of his abdication, 75
+  the Press and, 65
+  warlike speeches of, 68
+
+Wilson, President, advantages of his "Fourteen Points," 188
+  as master of the world, 192
+  author on his Message, 305
+  Count Andrassy's Note to, 25
+  Count Czernin on, 192
+  Entente's reply to his peace proposal, 118, 120, 123
+  his Fourteen Points and the Peace of Versailles, 271
+  on the freedom of the seas, 281
+  ready to consider peace, 250
+  reopens hopes of a peace of understanding, 189
+  speech to Congress, 193
+  text of the Fourteen Points, 323
+
+Wolf, K.H., a scene in the "Burg," 169
+
+World-domination, Germany's dream of, 1, 2
+
+World organization, a new, principles of, 174 _et seq._
+
+World War, the, an important phase of, 107
+  attempts at peace, 134 _et seq._
+  author's impressions and reflections on, 195 _et seq._, 271 _et seq._
+  by whom started, 18 (note)
+  causes of, 3
+  President Wilson and, 188 _et seq._
+  questions of responsibility for outbreak of, 2
+
+World War, the, U-boat warfare in, 114 _et seq._
+  (_see also_ Submarine warfare and U-boat)
+  violent measures adopted by Germany in, 16
+
+
+=Z=
+
+Zeppelin raids on Bucharest, 100
+
+Zimmermann, Herr, and author's peace proposals, 146
+  opposes unrestricted U-boat warfare, 115, 120
+
+_Zimmerwalder_ (Russian Internationalists), 211
+
+
+
+PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C. 4
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
+   | Typographical errors corrected in text:                          |
+   |                                                                  |
+   | Table of Contents: Appendix is listed as 257, changed to 275     |
+   | Page  47: 'and and in doing so' replaced with 'and in doing so'  |
+   | Page  81: 'to made room' replaced with 'to make room'            |
+   | Page 107: session replaced with cession                          |
+   | Page 196: perdera replaced with perdra                           |
+   | Page 201: Nr 63 replaced with Nr. 63                             |
+   | Page 251: official replaced with officials                       |
+   | Page 286: 'Les navir' replaced with 'Les navires'                |
+   | Page 293: persumably replaced with presumably                    |
+   | Page 333: Sudekum replaced with Südekum                          |
+   | Page 334: 'would have have been' replaced with 'would have been' |
+   | Page 343: Gouluchowski replaced with Goluchowski                 |
+   | Page 344: Gorlitz replaced with Görlitz                          |
+   | Page 346: Lubin replaced with Lublin                             |
+   |                                                                  |
+   | The surname Colloredo-Mannsfield/Colloredo-Mannsfeld appears     |
+   | once each way, on page 121, and in the index                     |
+   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+Amateurs may produce the plays in this volume without charge.
+Professional actors _must_ apply for acting rights to the author, in
+care of the publishers.
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The one-act plays for young people contained in this volume can be
+produced separately, or may be used as links in the chain of episodes
+which go to make up outdoor or indoor pageants. There are full
+directions for simple costumes, dances, and music. Each play deals with
+the _youth_ of some American hero, so that the lad who plays George
+Washington or Benjamin Franklin will be in touch with the emotions of a
+patriot of his own years, instead of incongruously portraying an adult.
+Much of the dialogue contains the actual words of Lincoln, Washington,
+and Franklin, so that in learning their lines the youthful players may
+grasp something of the hardihood and sagacity of Washington, the
+perseverance of Franklin, and the honesty and dauntlessness of Lincoln,
+and of those salient virtues that went to the up-building of America--a
+heritage from the time "when all the land was young."
+
+The plays are suitable for schools, summer camps, boys' clubs, historic
+festivals, patriotic societies, and social settlements and playgrounds.
+The outdoor plays are especially adapted for a "Safe and Sane Fourth."
+All the plays have stood the test of production.
+
+"The Pageant of Patriots"--the first children's patriotic pageant ever
+given in America--was produced in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N. Y., under
+the auspices of Brooklyn's ten Social Settlements, May, 1911. The
+Hawthorne Pageant was first produced on Arbor Day, May, 1911, by the
+Wadleigh High School, New York City; Pocahontas was given as a separate
+play at Franklin Park, Boston, by Lincoln House, and some of the other
+plays have been given at various schools in New York City.
+
+Thanks are due to _The Woman's Home Companion_, _The Delineator_, _The
+Designer_, _The Normal Instructor_, and _The Popular Educator_ for
+their kind permission to reprint these plays.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PATRIOTIC PLAYS: THEIR USE AND VALUE
+
+PAGEANTS
+
+PAGEANTS OF PATRIOTISM
+
+The outdoor arrangement can be produced by a whole school or group of
+schools, by groups of social settlements, communities, and cities, in
+parks, armories, woodland spaces or meadows on such occasions as the
+Fourth of July, Decoration Day, Bunker Hill Day, Labor Day, during Old
+Home Week, or for any special city or town celebration. The indoor
+arrangement of the same pageant is also suitable for whole schools, or
+groups of schools, groups of settlements, communities, villages,
+cities: in armories, school halls, assembly rooms, or small theaters on
+Columbus Day, Lincoln's Birthday, Washington's Birthday, or some day of
+special celebration.
+
+PAGEANT OF PATRIOTS (Outdoor)
+  Prologue by the Spirit of Patriotism
+  Princess Pocahontas
+  Pilgrim Interlude
+  Ferry Farm Episode
+  George Washington's Fortune
+  Daniel Boone: Patriot
+  Benjamin Franklin Episode
+  Abraham Lincoln Episode
+  Liberty Dance
+  Pageant Directions
+
+PAGEANT OF PATRIOTS  (Indoor)
+  Prologue by the Spirit of Patriotism
+  Dramatic Silhouette: Lords of the Forest
+  The Coming of the White Man: Tableau
+  Princess Pocahontas
+  Priscilla Mullins Spinning: Tableau
+  Benjamin Franklin: Journeyman
+  George Washington's Fortune
+  The Boston Tea Party
+  Dramatic Silhouette: The Spirit of '76
+  Abraham Lincoln: Rail-Splitter
+  Directions for Indoor Arrangement
+
+THE HAWTHORNE PAGEANT
+
+Can be produced in park or woodland in its outdoor arrangement. Is
+suitable for co-educational schools, girls' schools, girls' Summer
+camps. Is appropriate for Hawthorne's Birthday (July 4), Arbor Day, May
+Day, or any day during Spring and Summer. In its indoor form it can be
+given in school halls or in a small theater. In this form it is
+appropriate for co-educational schools, girls' schools, settlements. It
+can be given any time during the Autumn, Winter, or Spring.
+
+HAWTHORNE PAGEANT (For Outdoor or Indoor Production)
+  Chorus of Spirits of the Old Manse
+  Prologue by the Muse of Hawthorne
+  In Witchcraft Days (First Episode)
+  Dance Interlude
+  Merrymount (Second Episode)
+  Pageant Directions
+
+LIST OF SEPARATE ONE-ACT PLAYS
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN: RAIL-SPLITTER (Indoor)
+Can be produced in school, home, or small theater. Is suitable for
+schools, settlements, clubs, patriotic societies, and debating
+societies. Can be appropriately produced any time between September and
+March. Is especially appropriate for Lincoln's Birthday.
+
+BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: JOURNEYMAN (Indoor)
+Can be produced in a school, home, or small theater. Is suitable for
+schools, clubs, settlements, patriotic societies and clubs. Can
+appropriately be produced any time between September and June. Is
+particularly suited to Franklin's Birthday.
+
+THE BOSTON TEA PARTY (Indoor)
+Can be produced in school, home, or small theater. Is suitable for
+boys' schools, Boy Scouts, settlements, clubs, and patriotic societies.
+Can be produced on any holiday. Is particularly appropriate for Fall
+and Winter months--especially the month of December.
+
+DANIEL BOONE: PATRIOT (Outdoor)
+Can be produced in park, woodland, or village green. Can be given by
+boys' schools, clubs, settlements, and patriotic societies. Also by the
+"Sons of Daniel Boone" and the Boy Scouts. Is appropriate for any day
+during Spring, Summer, or Autumn. Can be given on the Fourth of July.
+
+GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FORTUNE (Outdoor)
+Can be produced in park, lawn, or woodland. Is suitable for schools,
+clubs, patriotic societies, and settlements. Is appropriate for any day
+during Spring, Summer, or Autumn, and is particularly appropriate for
+the Fourth of July. An indoor arrangement can easily be made for George
+Washington's Birthday.
+
+IN WITCHCRAFT DAYS (Outdoor)
+Can be given in park, lawn, or village green or woodland. Suitable for
+co-educational schools, girls' schools, girls' Summer camps, patriotic
+societies, settlements, and clubs. Appropriate for Arbor Day, May Day,
+or any day during Spring, Summer, or early Autumn. An indoor
+arrangement can be given for Thanksgiving in school halls.
+
+MERRYMOUNT (Outdoor)
+Can be produced in park or woodland. Is suitable for co-educational
+schools, girls' schools, girls' Summer camps, and for clubs,
+settlements, and patriotic societies. Is appropriate for Arbor Day, May
+Day, or any day in Spring and Summer. An indoor version of it can also
+be given.
+
+PRINCESS POCAHONTAS (Outdoor)
+Can be given in park, in woodland, or on lawn. Is suitable for schools,
+clubs, and patriotic societies. Can be given on the Fourth of July, or
+any day during Spring and Summer. Indoor production is also possible.
+
+
+
+PATRIOTIC PLAYS AND PAGEANTS
+
+
+
+PATRIOTIC PLAYS: THEIR USE AND VALUE
+
+
+The primary value of the patriotic play lies in its appeal to the love
+of country, and its power to revitalize the past. The Youth of To-Day
+is put in touch with the Patriots of Yesterday. Historic personages
+become actual, vivid figures. The costumes, speech, manners, and ideas
+of bygone days take on new significance. The life of trail and wigwam,
+of colonial homestead and pioneer camp, is made tangible and realistic.
+And the spirit of those days--the integrity, courage, and vigor of the
+Nation's heroes, their meager opportunities, their struggle against
+desperate odds, their slow yet triumphant upward climb--can be
+illumined by the acted word as in no other way. To read of the home
+life of America's beginnings is one thing; to portray it or see it
+portrayed is another. And of the two experiences the latter is the less
+likely to be forgotten. To the youthful participants in a scene which
+centers about the campfire, the tavern table, or the Puritan
+hearthstone will come an intimate knowledge of the folk they represent:
+they will find the old sayings and maxims of the Nation-Builders as
+pungent and applicable to the life of to-day as when they were first
+spoken.
+
+The patriotic play has manifold uses. It combines both pleasure and
+education. It is both stimulating and instructive. In its indoor form
+it may be the basis of a winter afternoon's or evening's entertainment,
+in its outdoor form it may take whole communities and schools into the
+freedom of the open. It should rouse patriotic ardor, and be of benefit
+ethically, esthetically, and physically. It should wake in its
+participants a sense of rhythm, freedom, poise, and plastic grace. It
+should bear its part in developing clear enunciation and erectness of
+carriage. To those taking part it should bring the exercise of memory,
+patience, and inventiveness. It should kindle enthusiasm for the things
+of America's past. In what way can national hero-days and festivals be
+more fittingly commemorated than by giving a glimpse of the hero for
+whom the day is named? Thus the patriotic play is equally adaptable for
+Fourth of July, Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday, Columbus
+Day, and the hundreds of other days--not holidays--that lie in between.
+
+If the patriotic play is produced in the right way it should contain
+the very essence of democracy--_efficient team-work, a striving
+together for the good of the whole_. It should lead to the ransacking
+of books and libraries; the planning of scene-setting, whether indoor
+or outdoor; the fashioning of simple and accurate costumes by the young
+people taking part; the collecting of suitable stage properties such as
+hearthbrooms, Indian pipes, and dishes of pewter. The greater the
+research, the keener the stimulus for imagination and ingenuity, two
+things that go to the making of every successful production.
+Fortunately, the patriotic play is inherently simple, its appeal is
+along broad general lines, so that it requires no great amount of money
+or energy to adequately produce it. And, as history is made up not of
+one event, but of a series of events, so an historical pageant is a
+logical sequence of one-act patriotic plays or episodes. The one-act
+patriotic play shows one hero or one event; the pageant shows, through
+one-act plays used in chronological order, the development and
+upbuilding of America through the lives of her heroes.
+
+In its pageant form, the patriotic play, with dances, songs, pantomime,
+and spoken speech, lends itself to schools, communities, and city use,
+in park, in armory, and on village green: in its one-act form it lends
+itself to both indoor and outdoor production by schools, patriotic
+societies, clubs and settlements, and, last, but not least, the home
+circle. And in the hope of assisting teachers and producers to fit
+appropriate plays to appropriate occasions notes on the subject have
+been added to the individual plays in the table of contents.
+
+
+
+THE PAGEANT OF PATRIOTS
+(Outdoor)
+
+
+THE PAGEANT OF PATRIOTS
+
+EPISODES
+
+1. PROLOGUE BY THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM
+2. PRINCESS POCAHONTAS
+3. PILGRIM INTERLUDE
+4. FERRY FARM EPISODE
+5. GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FORTUNE
+6. DANIEL BOONE: PATRIOT
+7. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN EPISODE
+   Scene 1. Benjamin Franklin and the Crystal Gazer (1720)
+            The Dream Begins
+   Scene 2. Benjamin Franklin at the Court of France (1781)
+            The Dream Ends
+8. ABRAHAM LINCOLN EPISODE
+9. FINAL TABLEAU
+10. MARCH OF PLAYERS
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+_Spoken by The Spirit of Patriotism_
+
+People of --------, ye who come to see
+Enacted here some hours of Pageantry,
+Lend us your patience for each simple truth,
+And see portrayed for you the Nation's Youth.
+Spirit of Patriotism I. Behold
+How at my word time's curtain is uprolled,
+And all the past years live, unvanquished
+As are the laurels of the mighty dead.
+I am the spirit of the hearth and home!
+For me are flags unfurled and bugles blown.
+For me have countless thousands fought and died;
+For me the name of "Liberty" is cried!
+I am the leader where the battle swings,
+I bring the memory of all high things.
+And so to-day I come to bid you look
+At scenes deep-written in the Nation's book.
+The youth of all the heroes you shall see--
+What lads they were, what men they grew to be.
+How honor, thrift, and courage made them rise
+By steps that you can learn if you be wise.
+First, Pocahontas in a woodland green;
+Then life among the Pilgrim folk is seen--
+Thrifty Priscilla, Maid o' Plymouth Town,
+In Puritanic cap and somber gown!
+For the next scene comes life in Southern climes--
+The Ferry Farm of past Colonial times.
+Then Washington encamped before a blaze
+O' fagots, swiftly learning woodland ways.
+Then Boone with Rigdon in the wilderness
+Dauntlessly facing times of strife and stress.
+Crossing the Common in the morning sun
+Young Benjamin Franklin comes: about him hung
+Symbols of trade and hope--kite, candles, book.
+The crystal gazer enters, bids him look
+At all the guerdon that the years will bring.
+The Vision next: Trianon in the Spring,
+And Franklin honored by the Queen of France
+With courtly minuet and festal dance.
+Lastly, a cabin clearing in the West,
+Where on a holiday with mirth and zest
+Lincoln's companions take their simple cheer.
+These are the scenes to be enacted here,
+Shown to you straightway in a simple guise.
+Youthful the scenes that we shall here devise
+On which the beads of history are strung.
+Remember that our players, too, are young.
+All critic-knowledge, then, behind you leave,
+And in the spirit of the day receive
+What we would give, and let there come to you
+The Joy of Youth, with purpose high and true.
+
+COSTUME
+
+THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM. The Spirit of Patriotism should wear a long
+white robe, with flowing Grecian lines, made either of white
+cheesecloth, or white cashmere. It should fall from a rounded neck.
+Hair worn flowing, and chapleted with a circlet of gold stars. White
+stockings and sandals. Carries a staff from which floats the Stars and
+Stripes.
+
+
+PRINCESS POCAHONTAS
+
+
+CHARACTERS
+
+PRINCESS POCAHONTAS
+CHIEF POWHATAN
+CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH
+Eight Young Indian Braves
+Eight Young Indian Maidens
+Two Indian Women
+Two old and withered Squaws
+Six or seven little Indian children
+Other followers of Powhatan
+
+TIME: _Mid-afternoon on a mild day in 1609._
+PLACE: _Virginia._
+SCENE: _An open glade showing a small Indian encampment._
+
+[Transcriber's note: All stage directions appear in italics in the
+original]
+
+At the opening of the scene the glade is deserted, the men of the tribe
+being engaged in a skirmish with the white men, while the women and
+children have gone foraging. There are two teepees, one at right, and
+one at left, their doors closed. By the side of teepee at left a pile
+of fagots, and a wooden block.
+
+Further front, facing audience, a great war-drum, gaily painted. A
+skin-covered drum-stick. At right, towards front, the smoldering
+remains of a fire. The whole appearance of the camp shows that it is
+not permanent--a mere pausing-place.
+
+The space between the teepees is absolutely unobstructed, but there are
+trees and bushes at the back and sides.
+
+By degrees the Indians who have been foraging begin to return. One of
+the Indian women enters carrying fagots. One of the older squaws
+rekindles the fire. Next come the children, with merry shouts, carrying
+their little bows and arrows. The Indian maidens enter gaily, carrying
+reeds for weaving. They move silently, swiftly, gracefully. Two of
+their number begin to grind maize between stones. Two others plait
+baskets. An old medicine-man, with a bag of herbs, comes from the
+background, and seats himself near the drum, at left, taking an Indian
+flute from his deerskin belt, and fingering it lovingly. An Indian
+woman, arriving later than the others, unstraps from her back a small
+papoose, and hangs it to the limb of a tree. The Indian children stand
+towards the front of the greensward, shoot in a line their feathered
+arrows, run and pick up the arrows, and acclaim in pantomime the one
+who shot the best. Then they go towards background, doing a childish
+imitation of a war-dance. The mother of the papoose, having finished
+her duties in setting one of the teepees to rights, now takes down the
+papoose from the tree where it swings, and seating herself in the
+center of the greensward, croons an Indian lullaby. The Indian maidens
+group themselves about her, seated in a semicircle on the ground,
+swaying rhythmically. At the back of the stage one of the little Indian
+boys sees an Indian maiden approaching, clad in white doeskin. Cries
+aloud delightedly: _"Pocahontas!"_
+
+The Indian maidens and the squaws rise and fall back before the
+entrance of Pocahontas with gestures of salutation and respect.
+
+ALL
+(clearly and enthusiastically).
+Pocahontas!
+
+[Pocahontas comes down center with a basket filled with branches that
+bear small red berries. The children and two of the maidens gather
+about her, and then fall back as she begins speaking, so that she has
+the center of the stage. Greatest interest is evinced in all she does.
+
+POCAHONTAS
+(speaking slowly, as one does in an unfamiliar tongue, yet clearly and
+deliberately).
+I--Pocahontas--daughter of Powhatan, great chief,--speak--language
+of--paleface. Powhatan teach me. (Points to way from which she has
+come.) Yonder--I--went. Prayed to River God.
+
+[Makes gesture of worship, raising basket above her head. The
+semicircle about her widens respectfully. A maiden then approaches and
+takes basket. Pocahontas smiles in sudden childlike delight, and
+holding out chain of beads that fall from her neck to her waist, says
+with pretty intonation:
+
+Beads. Jamestown.
+
+[Watches them for a moment as they glimmer in the sun. Then with sudden
+laugh seizes the Indian maiden nearest her, and by gesture summons the
+other Indian maidens. One of the very old squaws with a half-wry,
+half-kindly smile begins a swift tapping on the drum that has in it the
+rhythm of dance music. The Indian children withdraw to the doors of the
+teepees, and Pocahontas and the Indian maidens dance. The old
+medicine-man adds his flute-notes to the rhythm of the war-drum.
+
+The Indians being a notably silent people, this scene must be given
+mostly in pantomime.
+
+From the forest at right comes the faint sound of a crackling branch.
+Instant attention on the part of all. The dance stops. The Indian
+maidens stand poised, listening. The women shade their eyes with their
+hands. A small Indian boy lays his ear to the ground, and then cries:
+_"Powhatan!"_ Two expectant semicircles are formed. All look to wards
+right. Powhatan enters, Pocahontas runs to meet him. Tableau.
+
+Powhatan then indicates that others are coming from right. Young braves
+enter with John Smith in their midst. His hands are bound behind him,
+his face is white and drawn. Children at sight of him scamper to
+teepees. The rest show signs of curiosity. Pocahontas stands with
+clasped hands and startled eyes, regarding Smith most earnestly. A
+brave bears Smith's weapons. Smith is led to right foreground. Block of
+wood is brought him for a seat.
+
+The Indian women, maidens, and children retreat to the extreme
+background, where they sit in a semicircle, watching. Then Powhatan and
+braves withdraw to left, where they form a circle and confer, one brave
+at a time addressing the rest in pantomime, with many gestures, some
+towards Smith, some towards the path by which they brought him.
+Occasionally the words _"Algonquin," "Chickahominy," "Jamestown,"
+"Opeckankano," "W'ashunsunakok"_ are spoken. When Powhatan speaks in
+pantomime the others listen with occasional grunts of satisfaction and
+approval. It is evident that the prisoner and the fate awaiting him are
+under discussion.
+
+Pocahontas alone remains near the center of interest. She glances first
+at her father and the braves, sees they are deep in discussion, and
+then crosses to John Smith, with every sign of interest and awakening
+pity. She brings him water in a wooden bowl. He drinks thirstily. She
+then goes to one of the teepees, and brings him a cup of milk. This she
+holds for him to drink from, as his hands are bound.
+
+POCAHONTAS
+(gravely, as she puts down the cup).
+How!
+
+SMITH
+(with equal gravity).
+How!
+
+POCAHONTAS(touching herself lightly).
+Pocahontas. Daughter of Powhatan.
+
+[Touches Smith questioningly.
+
+SMITH
+(answering her).
+Smith. John Smith.
+
+POCAHONTAS
+(repeating it after him).
+John Smith.
+
+SMITH.
+From Jamestown.
+
+POCAHONTAS
+(nods, says slowly).
+Pocahontas _likes_ paleface.
+
+[Meantime the pantomimic discussion held by Powhatan and his braves is
+drawing near its close. There comes a shout of triumphant acclaim "Wah!
+Wah! Wah!" hoarse and loud. Powhatan, having in pantomime rendered his
+decision, now stands with arms folded, at left. Braves to right, and
+take Smith to center. Powhatan stands at the extreme left. The braves
+form a semicircle about Smith. The women and children in the background
+rise silently, and peer forward. Smith is forced to one knee. A brave
+holds aloft the hatchet.
+
+POCAHONTAS
+(looking from Smith to her father, and then running towards the latter
+with a cry).
+No! No!
+
+[Powhatan regards his daughter gravely, yet unrelentingly. Pocahontas,
+center, stretches out her arms in pleading. Powhatan shakes his head.
+Pocahontas then goes towards Smith, and again with animated pantomime,
+indicating first Smith and then the way by which he has come, pleads
+for him. Powhatan shakes his head. He is obdurate. Pocahontas bows her
+head dejectedly. Turns to go back to where she has been standing. Then
+changes her mind, runs to her father, and with every evidence of
+pleading and humility, falls on her knees before him, arms
+outstretched. For a moment they are still as statues. Then Pocahontas
+takes from her neck her string of beads, and, by gesture, offers it as
+a ransom for Smith.
+
+POCAHONTAS
+(speaking slowly).
+Pocahontas, daughter of Great Chief, asks of Great Chief John Smith's
+life.
+
+[Tense pause. Powhatan, with arms folded, considers deeply. Then makes
+sign of assent, but gives back necklace to Pocahontas, who rises with
+pantomime of joy. Powhatan makes sign to braves to release Smith. Smith
+is unbound. His weapons are given back to him. He chafes his wrists and
+presents his compass to Powhatan.
+
+SMITH.
+Great Chief! (Turns first to Powhatan, and then to Pocahontas.) Great
+Princess! John Smith grateful!
+
+[Powhatan touches him on shoulder.
+
+POWHATAN
+(grunting).
+Umph!
+
+[Indicates by gesture peace-pipe which has been lit at fire. All braves
+sit in semicircle facing audience, and pass it (not too slowly!) from
+one to another, including Smith and Powhatan. Then all rise.
+
+SMITH
+(standing center).
+John Smith goes to Jamestown. John Smith friend of great chief,
+Powhatan. Palefaces always remember Powhatan! Always remember
+Pocahontas!
+
+BRAVES
+(all together).
+Wah! Wah! Wah!
+
+[Exit Smith, right. Smith is watched by the Indians in silence deep and
+respectful.
+
+POCAHONTAS
+(to Powhatan).
+Great Chief safely returned. Captive set free. Shall we go yonder?
+(Points.) Pray to River God?
+
+[Powhatan nods gravely. He and Pocahontas exeunt left. The braves
+follow next. The Indian maidens, women, and children form the end of
+the procession. The stage is thus left empty, and the scene ends.
+
+
+COSTUMES
+
+POCAHONTAS. Pocahontas should wear the traditional costume of "white
+doeskin with a scarlet mantle flecked with gold sequins." A great chain
+of pearls should be about her neck. Another chain which reaches to her
+waist should be of white and blue beads--large beads that will catch
+glitter from the sun. About her head a band of tan, and a white quill.
+The embroidery about the neck of her Indian robe is of pearls. The
+basket which she carries should be white, with a motif of rich blue and
+scarlet. She wears a tan (dressed deerskin) girdle, heavily embroidered
+in red beads. Her stockings and moccasins are tan-colored also, the
+moccasins embroidered in scarlet. The ends of her braids are bound in
+scarlet and gold. White canton flannel, skilfully slashed for fringing,
+will make the Indian dress, which should fall in straight lines from a
+square neck. It should reach to about three inches above the ankle, and
+should be heavily fringed. The robe, worn fastened at the shoulders,
+should be of scarlet cloth. The deerskin belt is of cotton khaki. The
+moccasins can be made of the same material, cut sandal fashion. Or low
+canvas ties without heels, bead-embroidered.
+
+CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. Tan-colored costume of the seventeenth century. The
+coat of tattered, weather-stained brown velvet, the puffed sleeves
+slashed with tan satin that is soiled and frayed. Great tan boots
+coming to the knee. A white lace collar at neck, much the worse for
+wear. A brown leather girdle.
+
+POWHATAN. Indian dress of tan (dressed deerskin), the neck and breast
+of it gorgeously painted with blue, green, and scarlet. Great chains of
+shells and beads. A huge head-dress of black feathers that hangs down
+his back almost to his knees. It should be the largest and most
+magnificent of all the Indian head-dresses, as it is the insignia of
+chiefdom. Tan stockings and tan moccasins. The material of his costume
+may be cotton khaki. (The imitation khaki is best, as the real material
+is too heavy.)
+
+THE MEDICINE-MAN. The medicine-man is old. He wears a wig of long,
+white, coarse hair. His costume is of cotton khaki, decorated with
+beads, bits of looking-glass, and feathers. He wears no feathers on his
+head. A piece of fur is fastened to his shoulders. His blanket is
+black, with white cabalistic signs. It can be made of canton flannel.
+
+INDIAN BRAVES. The braves who follow Powhatan should wear costumes
+resembling those of the chief, save that they are less gorgeously
+painted, and wear fewer strings of beads and shells. Their
+head-dresses, too, are shorter. They should be of gray, black, and
+brown feathers. Their faces are, of course, stained brown, their arms
+and necks likewise. Red and black warpaint should also be on their
+faces. Unless wigs of long hair are to be worn, the boys wearing the
+feathered head-dresses should be careful to see that their lack of long
+hair is concealed from view. Often the Indian braves wore their long
+matted locks braided; and black cheesecloth cut into strips and then
+braided and fastened to a tight black cap will make a splendid wig of
+this sort--the braids of hair should hang in front of the ears. The
+Indian braves should carry bows, arrows, and tomahawks.
+
+THE INDIAN MAIDENS. The Indian maidens should wear tan fringed dresses,
+of the same length and fashion as that of Pocahontas. Necklaces and
+bracelets of shells. The necks of the dresses embroidered in beads and
+shells. They wear their long black hair in two braids, the ends of the
+braids bound either with scarlet, corn-yellow, or vivid blue. They have
+moccasins and tan-colored stockings. Their bead' embroidered footgear
+should be in striking color on a tan background. But their chief glory
+is their blankets. These should be barbarically glowing, since it is
+partly in their wild flare of color that the beauty of the Blanket
+Dance lies. The following designs for them are taken from the Indian
+motifs and colorings studied from the collections in various museums of
+natural history, and however startling they may seem at first, their
+color-scheme should be faithfully carried out, as much of the success
+of the scene depends on them. The material used may be canton flannel
+throughout. They should be the size of the average, every-day blanket.
+
+1. Blanket made of equal halves of deep royal purple and pale turquoise
+blue.
+
+2. Blanket of deep cobalt blue. Fastened in the center a great oval of
+orange.
+
+3. Blanket made of equal halves of pale lemon and black.
+
+4. Blanket made of equal halves of very dark green and very pale green.
+
+5. Blanket made of equal halves of deep violet and white.
+
+6. White blanket with disks of scarlet at each of its four corners.
+
+7. Blanket of equal halves of royal purple and pale lavender.
+
+8. Blanket of very pale green, with large white disk in center.
+
+Each Indian maiden should wear a band of gay-colored cheesecloth, red,
+green, or blue, bound about her forehead. This band should match the
+color that fastens her braids. In the back of the head-band should be
+fastened a quill of contrasting shade. It need hardly be added that the
+Indian maidens wear neither feather head-dresses nor war-paint. Their
+arms, necks, and faces should be stained light brown. The tan-colored
+stockings are to simulate bare skin.
+
+SQUAWS. The squaws wear the same cotton khaki costumes as the Indian
+maidens, save that their blanket are of more somber colors, and their
+headgear is either omitted altogether, or consists of black, bronze, or
+dull green.
+
+THE LITTLE INDIAN BOYS. They should drew in exact imitation of the
+older braves, save that they wear no war-paint.
+
+PROPERTIES. For either an indoor or outdoor representation of this
+scene where it is impossible to have a real fire, have a pile of fagots
+and unionist them place large bunches of joss-sticks bound together
+with thread. These will burn easily and safely, and the blue smoke from
+them will simulate a waft from woodland embers.
+
+The log can be made of two small vinegar barrels fastened together,
+covered with brown burlap, and then flecked with green and brown paint.
+The teepees should be of canvas, unbleached cotton, or burlap fastened
+over three slender, strong poles, stuck into the ground. They should be
+equal to bearing the weight of the canvas or burlap, and yet light
+enough to be removed and carried off the scene by the young Indian
+braves as they leave in the direction of the river when the scene ends.
+
+DANCES. At the place indicated in the scene, the Indian maidens give
+one or more characteristic Indian dances. "The Blanket Dance," one of
+the most widely known and picturesque of the Indian dances, follows
+somewhat the lines of a Virginia Reel. The Indian maidens stand in a
+line facing each other, their blankets wrapped about them. The head
+couple, facing each other, spread wide their blankets behind them like
+great butterfly wings. Then they dance forward and back, forward and
+back, beckoning, retreating, gesturing, and finally dance off, with one
+blanket wrapped about two pairs of shoulders. Then the next couple, and
+so on. All sorts of fantastic steps, gestures, bendings, and swayings
+can be introduced. A wide space should be left between the dancers, so
+that all they do can be clearly seen. Dancing in great circles, like a
+mild war-dance, yet without the whoops and wild gestures of the latter,
+is another form that lends itself to the out-of-doors. Another dance is
+the Eagle Dance; with arms spread wide, holding their blankets at
+wing-like angles, the dancers circle about each other, the dance
+growing wilder and wilder. Still another dance is the symbolical one of
+the Four Winds--North, South, East, West--done by four Indian maidens.
+The South Wind gentle and swaying; the West Wind fantastic, with arms
+upraised; the East Wind with streaming hair and rain-drops shining on
+finger tips; the North Wind wilder than them all, and finally driving
+them all before her.
+
+MUSIC. Piano: MacDowell's "An Indian Idyl," "From an Indian Lodge."
+These can be had orchestrated. For a band: "Tomahawk Dance," by Andrew
+Herman. "Indian War Dance," by Bellstedt. "The Sun Dance," by Leo
+Friedman.
+
+
+PILGRIM INTERLUDE
+
+
+PILGRIM CHANT
+
+(Tune: Oxford. To be sung off stage by the Puritan maidens before they
+enter to take part in the episode.)
+
+Gone is now the sullen winter,
+  Gone the famine and the snow;
+In the forest, like a promise,
+  See the first white mayflowers blow.
+
+Fresh hope thrills us with their coming,
+  They, too, braved the winter long;
+Then at Springtime took new leafage,
+  Frail yet steadfast, small but strong.
+
+Cling we thus to our new country,
+  Let us struggle and endure;
+We have found a land of Freedom,
+  And our heritage is sure.
+
+
+THE SPINNING LESSON
+(A Pilgrim Interlude)
+
+
+CHARACTERS
+
+PRISCILLA MULLINS
+Lads of Plymouth Town
+    JOHN BILLINGTON
+    DEGORY MARTIN
+Youthful Pilgrim Maidens
+    RUTH
+    PATIENCE
+    MIRIAM
+    LETTICE
+    ANNE
+STAR-OF-SPRING, an Indian maiden
+NATIQUA, a squaw, her mother
+FOREST FLOWER, another Indian maiden
+HERON'S WING, a young Indian brave
+
+SCENE: A grassy glade at Plymouth in the Spring of 1621, Trees right,
+left, and background. At the beginning of the scene the grassy stage is
+deserted. There presently enters from background Anne, a young Pilgrim
+maid of about fourteen, whose somber garb shows out darkly against the
+green background. She looks quickly about her, right and left,
+shielding her eyes with her hand. Then she calls back over her shoulder
+to her companions, Diantha and Lettice.
+
+ANNE
+(calling).
+Come quickly, Diantha. Here is a fair spot for our corn-shelling, and
+not a prowling Indian in sight.
+
+[Diantha, slender, dark, and somewhat older than Anne, enters with
+Lettice. They carry between them an Indian basket of capacious size, in
+which are dried ears of corn.
+
+DIANTHA
+(clearly).
+Nay, we need have no fear; for on one side Captain Miles Standish keeps
+watch, and on the other John Alden; so as for Indians----
+
+LETTICE
+(as they come to center).
+One Indian only have I seen this day, and to see him is ever a sign of
+good omen.
+
+DIANTHA.
+That means that Squanto is in Plymouth Town, our good, true Indian
+friend. He it was who taught us how to shell the corn, so many months
+agone; he it was who taught us, this Spring, the manner of sowing it.
+
+LETTICE
+(holding up Indian basket).
+And here is one of the Indian corn-baskets that Captain Standish found
+buried in a strange wilderness spot when he first explored these
+forests.
+
+ANNE
+(drawing near to Lettice).
+These forests--! Oh, my heart! As night draws on how dark and fearsome
+they appear! And now that Spring is in the land it sets me longing for
+English hedgerows.
+
+[Sits on ground, left, and begins to shell corn.
+
+LETTICE
+(joining Anne in her work).
+Do you remember the Spring in Leyden, Diantha?
+
+DIANTHA
+(looking upward as she stands).
+Why, even here the Spring is very fair! Do not the sunlight, the blue
+sky, and the budding trees make your heart sing with joy?
+
+ANNE.
+Sit, then, Diantha, and let us have a quiet hour.
+
+DIANTHA
+(standing behind them, half-gay, half-mocking).
+A quiet hour--! Hither come Patience and Miriam and Ruth, the greatest
+clatter-tongues in Plymouth. See! They have been gathering wild plum
+blossoms!
+
+[Enter Miriam, Patience, and Ruth from background. They hasten towards
+Diantha. The exquisite white of the blossoms they carry makes them look
+like heralds of the Spring.
+
+MIRIAM
+(excitedly).
+Diantha, what dost think! Priscilla Mullins hath declared herself weary
+of spinning in her own door-yard, and since Squanto hath told us that
+we need not fear the Indians she hath besought Degory Martin and John
+Billington to bring hither her spinning-wheel.
+
+PATIENCE
+(wide-eyed).
+Was ever the like known in Plymouth!
+
+RUTH
+(as all look eagerly towards background).
+Hither she comes!
+
+PRISCILLA
+(clearly in distance).
+Have a care, Degory.
+
+DEGORY.
+Aye, Mistress Priscilla.
+
+PRISCILLA
+(as they emerge from background).
+Stumble not, John Billington.
+
+JOHN BILLINGTON
+(sturdily).
+Not while I bear such a burden.
+
+[They set down the spinning-wheel, center.
+
+PRISCILLA.
+I thank you. Will you come for me when the shadows o' the pines grow
+long across my doorway?
+
+[The Pilgrim lads nod, and exeunt, left background.
+
+PRISCILLA
+(to Pilgrim maidens).
+Well, and have you no word of greeting? Why, they are dumb with
+astonishment! And is it so strange a thing to bring one's wheel
+outdoors? 'Twas out of doors that this wood first grew! (Touches
+wheel.) All day I have longed to be out in these wide spaces--and yet
+there was work to do. But see--now I weld heart's desire and work
+together!
+
+[She begins to spin. Meantime Pilgrim maidens group about her. Tableau.
+
+MIRIAM.
+You are ever one to see the bright side of things, Priscilla,
+and------Look, Priscilla--an Indian!
+
+[At sound of that dread word all the maidens draw near to Priscilla.
+From the woods in right background appears Star-of-Spring, the little
+Indian maiden. She carries a basket of shell-fish on her head,
+steadying it with her hand. She is so intent on walking carefully that
+she does not see the group of Pilgrims until she is nearly upon them.
+There ensues a period of unflagging pantomime. Star-of-Spring, upon
+seeing the group of dark-clad maidens, starts back, half terrified.
+Priscilla rises, and as an overture of peace and good-will, takes a few
+steps towards her. Star-of-Spring retreats still further towards right.
+Priscilla returns to her wheel.
+
+Star-of-Spring, emboldened, takes a step towards the Pilgrim maidens.
+Pilgrim maidens, quite as wary of Star-of-Spring as she is of them,
+retreat a little way to left. At this Star-of-Spring's last fears
+vanish. She wishes to be friends. With pretty pleading she holds out to
+them her basket of shell-fish. Places it on the ground and then steps
+back, bowing, with arms wide and outstretched palms.
+
+PRISCILLA.
+She means we should accept it. Is that not truly generous!
+
+DIANTHA
+(reassured).
+It must be Star-of-Spring, the little Indian maid of whom Squanto has
+so often told us.
+
+[Diantha takes up basket. Pantomime of delight on part of
+Star-of-Spring. She draws near to Anne, and with a quaint grace touches
+Anne's cap and kerchief. Tries on Anne's cap, and looks at herself in a
+barbaric bit of looking-glass that dangles from one of her many chains
+of beads. Then laughs, gives back the cap, and is in turn fascinated at
+the sight of Priscilla when she begins spinning. Star-of-Spring
+approaches the wheel with pantomime indicating awe and delighted
+curiosity. She first inspects it, and then begins to talk in dumbshow
+with quick, animated gestures. The Pilgrim maidens are somewhat
+bewildered.
+
+DIANTHA
+(as the meaning of the scene dawns on her).
+Priscilla! She wishes to spin!
+
+ANNE.
+Thou hast done many strange things in this new land, Priscilla; but I
+doubt not that the strangest of all is to give an Indian maiden her
+first lesson in spinning!
+
+[Priscilla rises. Star-of-Spring seats herself. Business of Priscilla's
+teaching her to spin. Haltingly and somewhat fumblingly she does at
+length manage to compass the first rudiments of her lesson. The Pilgrim
+maidens stand grouped about her. Tableau.
+DEGORY
+(from background).
+The shadows of the pines lengthen across your door-sill, Priscilla!
+
+[At sound of the new voice Star-of-Spring rises, and hastily retreats,
+right. Degory Martin and John Billington enter from background.
+
+DIANTHA.
+Only think, Degory, Star-of-Spring, an Indian maid, hath had a spinning
+lesson!
+
+DEGORY.
+The shadows are lengthening. Twilight comes apace here in the forest.
+'Tis time you all came home.
+
+[The maidens of Plymouth follow him as he and John Billington take the
+spinning-wheel and spinning-stool with them. They make their exit at
+center background. Star-of-Spring, who has lingered at edge of trees,
+right, steals out to look after her departing playmates. Stands at
+place where spinning-wheel was. Again shakes her head, as if in
+perplexity over the strange arts of the palefaces. Finds on grass part
+of a skein of flax. Tosses it lightly in the air. Catches it again as
+it falls. Begins a characteristic dance, swaying, tossing skein,
+catching it. Each step of the dance takes her further into background.
+Then she comes down center again, like a tossing bough or a blown
+flame. She does not perceive the group entering from left. Her mother
+(Natiqua), Forest Flower, and Heron's Wing. They also are so occupied
+with portage that they do not perceive Star-of-Spring until they are
+almost up to her. Heron's Wing and Forest Flower carry between them a
+birch-bark canoe. Behind them trudges Natiqua, bent beneath a double
+pile of fagots. They pass, in picturesque silhouette, back of the spot
+where Priscilla had been seated with her spinning-wheel. Then they and
+Star-of-Spring become aware of each other. They stop. Natiqua frowns.
+Star-of-Spring points to place where Priscilla sat with her
+spinning-wheel, and by animated gestures portrays what has taken place.
+But neither Natiqua, Forest Flower, nor Heron's Wing is in the least
+interested. Natiqua shakes her head and frowns. It is evident that the
+wonders of the palefaces are not to her mind. She lets slip from her
+back her double pile of fagots, then replaces one, and Star-of-Spring
+takes up the other. Then, in Indian file, they cross the scene to
+right, and slowly disappear from view.
+
+
+COSTUMES
+
+PILGRIM MAIDENS. The Pilgrim maidens should wear plain black dresses
+ankle length, with white cuffs and Puritan caps, and white kerchiefs.
+These dresses may be made of black cambric, worn with the glazed side
+turned in.
+
+THE PILGRIM LADS. The Pilgrim lads wear black suits, with full
+knee-breeches, black stockings, and low black shoes with silver
+buckles. Their hair comes to their ears, and they have white collars
+turned down on their coats, and deep white cuffs on their sleeves.
+
+THE INDIANS. The Indians wear costumes of cotton khaki, the necks gaily
+painted with Indian designs. Strings of beads and shells. Natiqua has a
+green and scarlet blanket. She and the Indian maidens wear their hair
+in braids. They also have a gay strip of cheesecloth--red, green, or
+yellow--bound about their brows, and a quill stuck upright in the back.
+Heron's Wing has a head-dress of blue-gray heron's feathers. All wear
+moccasins. (See description of Indian costumes in "Princess
+Pocahontas.")
+
+
+FERRY FARM EPISODE
+
+CHARACTERS
+
+LORD FAIRFAX
+MARY BALL WASHINGTON
+GEORGE WASHINGTON
+Plantation hands
+    AUNT RACHEL
+    SAMBO
+    LUCY
+    DINAH
+    PETER
+    NELLY
+    SUSY
+    UNCLE NED
+
+SCENE: The lawn of Ferry Farm, 1748. A wide expanse of green. Trees
+right, left, and background. The trees in background supposedly screen
+the Colonial house from view. At the left the estate supposedly
+stretches to the highway. At the right, behind the trees, it is given
+over to flower and vegetable gardens.
+
+At the beginning of the scene the grassy space is deserted, but from
+the distance, right, comes the sound of singing. The sound swells
+louder and louder in the rhythm of one of the oldest of African songs,
+"Mary and Martha just gone 'long to ring those charming bells." The
+first verse is sung before the singers appear. With the second verse
+those who have been at work in the fields come into view, their gay and
+colorful costumes bright against the green background.
+
+Two of the children run into sight first; then comes a group of nine or
+ten young people. Some carry between them baskets heaped quite high
+with fruit and vegetables. One boy holds a hoe. A girl carries a rake.
+Another an armful of dried corn on the ear. Two more a low basket
+heaped with cotton. In the center of this group hobbles old Aunt
+Rachel, turbaned, and leaning on a cane. By her side walks Lucy,
+carrying a great bunch of pink "Winter Roses."
+
+The third verse is sung as this group emerges into full view of the
+audience. The children stand looking at Aunt Rachel as they sing, as if
+they were catching some of the words from her. She beats time with her
+finger to see that they learn correctly. Other voices take up the song
+in right background, swelling it higher and higher. Uncle Ned, with his
+fiddle under his arm, comes slowly from right to join the group in
+foreground. The baskets are set down. The boy leans on his hoe, the
+girl on her wooden rake, rapt and happy. All are given over to the
+rhythmic joy of the music.
+"Since that day when we spoke on the staircase we have only been alone
+together once, for a moment. I asked her then if I should tell her
+mother, and she said 'Not yet.' Excepting that, we have never exchanged
+a word that you and her mother might not have heard, nor a glance that
+you might not have seen. We both knew that we were waiting for you to
+get well, and we have waited."
+
+Guido looked at him with a sort of wonder.
+
+"That was like you," he said quietly.
+
+"You understand, now," Lamberti continued. "You and I met her on the
+same day at your aunt's, and when I saw her, I felt as if I had always
+known her and loved her. No one can explain such things. Then by a
+strange coincidence we dreamt the same dream, on the same night."
+
+"Was it she whom you met in the Forum, and who ran away from you?" asked
+Guido, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes. That is the reason why we always avoided each other, and why I
+would not go to their house till you almost forced me to. We had never
+spoken alone together till the garden party. It was then that we found
+out that our dreams were alike, and after that I kept away from her more
+than ever, but I dreamt of her every night."
+
+"So that was your secret, that afternoon!"
+
+"Yes. We had dreamt of each other and we had met in the Forum in the
+place we had dreamt of, and she ran away without speaking to me. That
+was the whole secret. She was afraid of me, and I loved her, and was
+beginning to know it. I thought there was something wrong with my head
+and went to see a doctor. He talked to me about telepathy, but seemed
+inclined to consider that it might possibly be a mere train of
+coincidences. I think I have told you everything."
+
+For a long time they sat side by side in silence, each thinking his own
+thoughts.
+
+"Is there anything you do not understand?" Lamberti asked at last.
+
+"No," Guido answered thoughtfully. "I understand it all. It was rather a
+shock at first, but I am glad you have told me. Perhaps I do not quite
+understand why she wishes to see me."
+
+"We both wish to be sure that you bear us no ill-will. I am sure she
+does, and I know that I do."
+
+There was a pause again.
+
+"Do you think I am that kind of friend?" Guido asked, with a little
+sadness. "After what you have done, too?"
+
+"I am afraid my mere existence has broken up your life, after all,"
+Lamberti answered.
+
+"You must not think that. Please do not, my friend. There is only one
+thing that could hurt me now that it is all over."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"I am not afraid that it will happen. You are not the kind of man to
+break her heart."
+
+"No," Lamberti answered very quietly. "I am not."
+
+"It was only a dream for me, after all," Guido said, after a little
+while. "You have the reality. She used to talk of three great questions,
+and I remember them now as if I heard her asking them: 'What can I know?
+What is it my duty to do? What may I hope?' Those were the three."
+
+"And the answers?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing, nothing. Those are my answers. Unless----"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"Unless--what?" Lamberti asked.
+
+Guido smiled a little.
+
+"Unless there is really something beyond it all, something essentially
+true, something absolute by nature."
+
+Lamberti had never known his friend to admit such a possibility even
+under a condition.
+
+"At all events," Guido added, "our friendship is true and absolute.
+Shall we go home? I feel a little tired."
+
+Lamberti helped him to the carriage and drew the light cover over his
+knees before getting in himself. Then they drove down towards the city,
+by the long and beautiful drive, past the Acqua Paola and San Pietro in
+Montorio.
+
+"You must go and see her this evening," Guido said gently, as they came
+near the Palazzo Farnese. "Will you tell her something from me? Tell
+her, please, that it would be a little hard for me to talk with her now,
+but that she must not think I am not glad that she is going to marry my
+best friend."
+
+"Thank you. I will say that." Lamberti's voice was less steady than
+Guido's.
+
+"And tell her that I will write to her from the Tyrol."
+
+"Yes."
+
+It was over. The two men knew that their faithful friendship was
+unshaken still, and that they should meet on the morrow and trust each
+other more than ever. But on this evening it was better that each should
+go his own way, the one to his solitude and his thoughts, the other to
+the happiest hour of his life.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+On the following afternoon Lamberti waited for Cecilia at the Villa
+Madama, and she came not long after him, with Petersen. He had been to
+the Palazzo Massimo in the evening, and a glance and a sign had
+explained to her that all was well. Then they had sat together awhile,
+talking in a low tone, while the Countess read the newspaper. When
+Lamberti had given Guido's brave message, they had looked earnestly at
+each other, and had agreed to tell her mother the truth at once, and to
+meet on the morrow at the villa, which was Cecilia's own house, after
+all. For they felt that they must be really alone together, to say the
+only words that really mattered.
+
+The head gardener had admitted Lamberti to the close garden, by the
+outer steps, but had not let him into the house, as he had received no
+orders. When Cecilia came, he accompanied her with the keys and opened
+wide the doors of the great hall. Cecilia and Lamberti did not look at
+each other while they waited, and when the man was gone away Cecilia
+told Petersen to sit down in the court of honour on the other side of
+the little palace. Petersen went meekly away and left the two to
+themselves.
+
+They walked very slowly along the path towards the fountain, and past
+it, to the parapet at the other end, where they had talked long ago. But
+as they passed the bench, they glanced at it quietly, and saw that it
+was still in its place. Cecilia had not been at the villa since the
+afternoon before Guido fell ill, and Lamberti had never come there since
+the garden party in May.
+
+They stood still before the low wall and looked across the shoulder of
+the hill. Saving commonplace words at meeting, they had not spoken yet.
+Cecilia broke the silence at last, looking straight before her, her lids
+low, her face quiet, almost as if she were in a dream.
+
+"Have we done all that we could do, all that we ought to do for him?"
+she asked. "Are you sure?"
+
+"We can do nothing more," Lamberti answered gravely.
+
+"Tell me again what he said. I want the very words."
+
+"He said, 'Tell her that it would be a little hard for me to talk with
+her now, but that she must not think I am not glad that she is going to
+marry my best friend.' He said those words, and he said he would write
+to you from the Tyrol. He leaves to-morrow night."
+
+"He has been very generous," Cecilia said softly.
+
+"Yes. He will be your best friend, as he is mine."
+
+She knew that it was true.
+
+"We have done what we can," Lamberti continued presently. "He has given
+all he has, and we have given him what we could. The rest is ours."
+
+He took her hand and drew her gently, turning back towards the fountain.
+
+"It was like this in the dream," she said, scarcely breathing the words
+as she walked beside him.
+
+They stood still before the falling water, quite alone and out of sight
+of every one, in the softening light, and suddenly the girl's heart beat
+hard, and the man's face grew pale, and they were facing each other,
+hands in hands, look in look, thought in thought, soul in soul; and they
+remembered that day when each had learned the other's secret in the
+shadowy staircase of the palace, and each dreamt again of a meeting long
+ago in the House of the Vestals; but only the girl knew what she had
+felt of mingled joy and regret when she had sat alone at night weeping
+on the steps of the Temple.
+
+There was no veil between them now, as their eyes drew them closer
+together by slow and delicious degrees. It was the first time, though
+every instant was full of memories, all ending where this was to begin.
+Their lips had never met, yet the thrill of life meeting life and the
+blinding delight of each in the other were long familiar, as from ages,
+while fresh and untasted still as the bloom on a flower at dawn.
+
+Then, when they had kissed once, they sat down in the old place,
+wondering what words would come, and whether they should ever need words
+at all after that. And somehow, Cecilia thought of her three questions,
+and they all were answered as youth answers them, in one way and with
+one word; and the answer seemed so full of meaning, and of faith and
+hope and charity, that the questions need never be asked again, nor any
+others like them, to the end of her life; nor did she believe that she
+could ever trouble her brain again about _Thus spake Zarathushthra_, and
+the Man who had killed God, and the overcoming of Pity, and the Eternal
+Return, and all those terrible and wonderful things that live in
+Nietzsche's mazy web, waiting to torment and devour the poor human moth
+that tries to fly upward.
+
+But as for Kant's Categorical Imperative, in order to act in such a
+manner that the reasons for her actions might be considered a universal
+law, it was only necessary to realise how very much she loved the man
+she had chosen, and how very much he loved her; for how indeed could it
+then be possible not to live so as to deserve to be happy?
+
+She had thought of these things during the night and had fallen asleep
+very happy in realising the perfect simplicity of all science,
+philosophy, and transcendental reasoning, and vaguely wondering why
+every one could not solve the problems of the universe as she had.
+
+"Is it all quite true?" she asked now, with a little fluttering wonder.
+"Shall I wake and hear the door shutting, and be alone, and frightened
+as I used to be?"
+
+Lamberti smiled.
+
+"I should have waked already," he said, "when we were standing there by
+the fountain. I always did when I dreamt of you."
+
+"So did I. Do you think we really met in our dreams?" She blushed
+faintly.
+
+"Do you know that you have not told me once to-day that you care for me,
+ever so little?" he asked.
+
+"I have told you much more than that, a thousand times over, in a
+thousand ways."
+
+"I wonder whether we really met!"
+
+
+
+
+                                MARIETTA
+
+                            A MAID OF VENICE
+
+                          By F. MARION CRAWFORD
+
+                     _Author of "Saracinesca," etc._
+
+                           Cloth. 12 mo. $1.50
+
+
+"There are two important departments of the novelist's art in which
+Marion Crawford is entirely at home. He can tell a love story better
+than any one now living save the unapproachable George Meredith. And he
+can describe the artistic temperament and the artistic environment with
+a security born of infallible instinct."--_The New York Herald._
+
+"This is not the first time that Mr. Crawford's pen has drawn the
+conscious love of a pure girl for a man whose own heart she believed to
+be untouched, yet, in the love of Marietta for the Dalmatian, we have
+something that, while so utterly human, is so delicately revealed that
+the reader must be a stoic indeed who does not take a delightful
+interest in the fate of that love."--_New York Times._
+
+"It suggests the bright shimmer of the moon on still waters, the soft
+gliding of brilliant-hued gondolas, the tuneful voices of the gondoliers
+keeping rhythmic time to the oar stroke and the faint murmuring of
+lovers' vows lightly made and lightly broken."--_Richmond Dispatch._
+
+"Furnishes another illustration of the author's remarkable facility in
+assimilating different atmospheres, and in mastering, in a minute way,
+as well as sympathetically, very diverse conditions of life.... The plot
+is intricate, and is handled with the ease and skill of a past-master in
+the art of story-telling."--_Outlook._
+
+"The workshop, its processes, the ways and thought of the time,--all
+this is handled in so masterly a manner, not for its own sake, but for
+that of the story.... It has charm, and the romance which is eternally
+human, as well as that which was of the Venice of that day. And over it
+all there is an atmosphere of worldly wisdom, of understanding,
+sympathy, and tolerance, of intuition and recognition, that makes Marion
+Crawford the excellent companion he is in his books for mature men and
+women."--_New York Mail and Express._
+
+                          THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+                        66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+                     WRITINGS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD
+
+                              12 mo. Cloth
+
+
+                  Corleone                      $1.00
+
+                  Casa Braccio. 2 vols           2.00
+
+                  Taquisara                      1.50
+
+                  Saracinesca                    1.00
+
+                  Sant' Ilario                   1.00
+
+                  Don Orsino                     1.50
+
+                  Mr. Isaacs                     1.00
+
+                  A Cigarette-Maker's Romance,
+                   and Khaled                    1.50
+
+                  Marzio's Crucifix              1.00
+
+                  An American Politician         1.00
+
+                  Paul Patoff                    1.00
+
+                  To Leeward                     1.00
+
+                  Dr. Claudius                   1.50
+
+                  Zoroaster                      1.50
+
+                  A Tale of a Lonely Parish      1.00
+
+                  With the Immortals             1.00
+
+                  The Witch of Prague            1.00
+
+                  A Roman Singer                 1.50
+
+                  Greifenstein                   1.00
+
+                  Pietro Ghisleri                1.00
+
+                  Katherine Lauderdale           1.00
+
+                  The Ralstons                   1.00
+
+                  Children of the King           1.00
+
+                  The Three Fates                1.00
+
+                  Adam Johnstone's Son, and A
+                   Rose of Yesterday             1.50
+
+                  Marion Darche                  1.50
+
+                  Love in Idleness               2.00
+
+                  Via Crucis                     1.50
+
+                  In the Palace of the King      1.50
+
+                  Ave Roma Immortalis. 2 v.     $6.00 net
+
+                  Rulers of the South: Sicily,
+                   Calabria, Malta. 2 vols      $6.00 net
+
+
+
+
+                                CORLEONE
+
+                            A TALE OF SICILY
+                The last of the famous Saracinesca Series
+
+"It is by far the most stirring and dramatic of all the author's Italian
+stories.... The plot is a masterly one, bringing at almost every page a
+fresh surprise, keeping the reader in suspense to the very end."--_The
+Times_, New York.
+
+
+                               MR. ISAACS
+
+"It is lofty and uplifting. It is strongly, sweetly, tenderly written.
+It is in all respects an uncommon novel."--_The Literary World._
+
+
+                              DR. CLAUDIUS
+
+"The characters are strongly marked without any suspicion of caricature,
+and the author's ideas on social and political subjects are often
+brilliant and always striking. It is no exaggeration to say that there
+is not a dull page in the book, which is peculiarly adapted for the
+recreation of the student or thinker."--_Living Church._
+
+
+
+                             A ROMAN SINGER
+
+"A powerful story of art and love in Rome."--_The New York Observer._
+
+
+
+                         AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN
+
+"One of the characters is a visiting Englishman. Possibly Mr. Crawford's
+long residence abroad has made him select such a hero as a safeguard
+against slips, which does not seem to have been needed. His insight into
+a phase of politics with which he could hardly be expected to be
+familiar is remarkable."--_Buffalo Express._
+
+
+                               TO LEEWARD
+
+"It is an admirable tale of Italian life told in a spirited way and far
+better than most of the fiction current."--_San Francisco Chronicle._
+
+
+                               ZOROASTER
+
+"As a matter of literary art solely, we doubt if Mr. Crawford has ever
+before given us better work than the description of Belshazzar's feast
+with which the story begins, or the death-scene with which it
+closes."--_The Christian Union_ (now _The Outlook_).
+
+
+                        A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH
+
+"It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief
+and vivid story. It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy,
+as well as thoroughly artistic."--_The Critic._
+
+
+                            MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX
+
+"We take the liberty of saying that this work belongs to the highest
+department of character-painting in words."--_The Churchman._
+
+
+                               PAUL PATOFF
+
+"It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely
+written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined
+surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._
+
+
+                             PIETRO GHISLERI
+
+"The strength of the story lies not only in the artistic and highly
+dramatic working out of the plot, but also in the penetrating analysis
+and understanding of the impulsive and passionate Italian
+character."--_Public Opinion._
+
+
+                        THE CHILDREN OF THE KING
+
+"One of the most artistic and exquisitely finished pieces of work that
+Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its
+surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salerno, with the
+bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr.
+Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a
+whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity."--_Public
+Opinion._
+
+
+                              MARION DARCHE
+
+"We are disposed to rank 'Marion Darche' as the best of Mr. Crawford's
+American stories."--_The Literary World._
+
+
+                          KATHERINE LAUDERDALE
+
+"It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely
+written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined
+surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._
+
+
+                              THE RALSTONS
+
+"The whole group of character studies is strong and vivid."--_The
+Literary World._
+
+
+                            LOVE IN IDLENESS
+
+"The story is told in the author's lightest vein; it is bright and
+entertaining."--_The Literary World._
+
+
+                              CASA BRACCIO
+
+"We are grateful when Mr. Crawford keeps to his Italy. The poetry and
+enchantment of the land are all his own, and 'Casa Braccio' gives
+promise of being his masterpiece.... He has the life, the beauty, the
+heart, and the soul of Italy at the tips of his fingers."--_Los Angeles
+Express._
+
+
+                                TAQUISARA
+
+"A charming story this is, and one which will certainly be liked by all
+admirers of Mr. Crawford's work."--_New York Herald._
+
+
+              ADAM JOHNSTONE'S SON and A ROSE OF YESTERDAY
+
+"It is not only one of the most enjoyable novels that Mr. Crawford has
+ever written, but is a novel that will make people think."--_Boston
+Beacon._
+
+"Don't miss reading Marion Crawford's new novel, 'A Rose of Yesterday.'
+It is brief, but beautiful and strong. It is as charming a piece of pure
+idealism as ever came from Mr. Crawford's pen."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+
+                             SARACINESCA
+
+"The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make
+it great: that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of
+giving a graphic picture of Roman society.... The story is exquisitely
+told, and is the author's highest achievement, as yet, in the realm of
+fiction."--_The Boston Traveler._
+
+
+                              SANT' ILARIO
+
+                        A SEQUEL TO SARACINESCA
+
+"A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every
+requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive
+in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to
+sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution,
+accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in
+analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_The New York Tribune._
+
+
+                               DON ORSINO
+
+                A SEQUEL TO SARACINESCA AND SANT' ILARIO
+
+"Offers exceptional enjoyment in many ways, in the fascinating
+absorption of good fiction, in the interest of faithful historic
+accuracy, and in charm of style. The 'New Italy' is strikingly revealed
+in 'Don Orsino.'"--_Boston Budget._
+
+
+                           WITH THE IMMORTALS
+
+"The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a
+writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought
+and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper
+literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose
+active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of
+assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his
+courage, and so have a fascination entirely new for the habitual reader
+of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers
+quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest."--_The Boston
+Advertiser._
+
+
+                              GREIFENSTEIN
+
+"... Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. Like all
+Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will
+be read with a great deal of interest."--_New York Evening Telegram._
+
+
+                 A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE and KHALED
+
+"It is a touching romance, filled with scenes of great dramatic
+power."--_Boston Commercial Bulletin._
+
+"It abounds in stirring incidents and barbaric picturesqueness; and the
+love struggle of the unloved Khaled is manly in its simplicity and noble
+in its ending."--_The Mail and Express._
+
+
+                          THE WITCH OF PRAGUE
+
+"The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed
+and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored
+a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained
+throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting
+story."--_New York Tribune._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+
+
+MY BRAVE and GALLANT GENTLEMAN
+
+
+A Romance of British Columbia
+
+
+BY
+
+ROBERT WATSON
+
+
+
+
+McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART
+
+PUBLISHERS :: :: :: :: TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+_Copyright, 1918,_
+
+_By George H. Doran Company_
+
+
+_Printed in the United States of America_
+
+
+
+
+TO A LADY CALLED NAN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I  THE SECOND SON
+    II  ANOTHER SECOND SON
+   III  JIM THE BLACKSMITH
+    IV  VISCOUNT HARRY, CAPTAIN OF THE GUARDS
+     V  TOMMY FLYNN, THE HARLFORD BRUISER
+    VI  ABOARD THE COASTER
+   VII  K. B. HORSFAL, MILLIONAIRE
+  VIII  GOLDEN CRESCENT
+    IX  THE BOOZE ARTIST
+     X  RITA OF THE SPANISH SONG
+    XI  AN INFORMATIVE VISITOR
+   XII  JOE CLARK, BULLY
+  XIII  A VISIT, A DISCOVERY AND A KISS
+   XIV  THE COMING OF MARY GRANT
+    XV  "MUSIC HATH CHARMS--"
+   XVI  THE DEVIL OF THE SEA
+  XVII  GOOD MEDICINE
+ XVIII  A MAID, A MOOD AND A SONG
+   XIX  THE "GREEN-EYED MONSTER" AWAKES
+    XX  FISHING!
+   XXI  THE BEACHCOMBERS
+  XXII  JAKE STOPS THE DRINK FOR GOOD
+ XXIII  THE FIGHT IN THE WOODS
+  XXIV  TWO MAIDS AND A MAN
+   XXV  THE GHOUL
+  XXVI  "HER KNIGHT PROVED TRUE"
+
+
+
+
+MY BRAVE AND GALLANT GENTLEMAN
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Second Son
+
+Lady Rosemary Granton!  Strange how pleasant memories arise, how
+disagreeable nightmares loom up before the mental vision at the sound
+of a name!
+
+Lady Rosemary Granton!  As far back as I could remember, that name had
+sounded familiar in my ears.  As I grew from babyhood to boyhood, from
+boyhood to youth, it was drummed into me by my father that Lady
+Rosemary Granton, some day, would wed the future Earl of Brammerton and
+Hazelmere.  This apparently awful calamity did not cause me any mental
+agony or loss of sleep, for the reason that I was merely The Honourable
+George, second son of my noble parent.
+
+I was rather happy that morning, as I sat in an easy chair by the
+library window, perusing a work by my favourite author,--after a
+glorious twenty-mile gallop along the hedgerows and across country.  I
+was rather happy, I say, as I pondered over the thought that something
+in the way of a just retribution was at last about to be meted out to
+my elder, haughty, arrogant and extremely aristocratic rake of a
+brother, Harry.
+
+My mind flashed back again to the source of my vagrant thoughts.  Lady
+Rosemary Granton!  To lose the guiding hand of her mother in her
+infancy; to spend her childhood in the luxurious lap of New York's
+pampered three hundred; to live six years more among the ranchers, the
+cowboys and, no doubt, the cattle thieves of Wyoming, in the care of an
+old friend of her father, to wit, Colonel Sol Dorry; then to be
+transferred for refining and general educational purposes for another
+spell of six years to the strict discipline of a French Convent; to
+flit from city to city, from country to country, for three years with
+her father, in the stress of diplomatic service--what a life! what an
+upbringing for the future Countess of Brammerton!  Finally, by way of
+culmination, to lose her father and to be introduced into London
+society, with a fortune that made the roués of every capital in Europe
+gasp and order a complete new wardrobe!
+
+As I thought what the finish might be, I threw up my hands, for it was
+a most interesting and puzzling speculation.
+
+Lady Rosemary Granton!  Who had not heard the stories of her conquests
+and her daring?  They were the talk of the clubs and the gossip of the
+drawing-rooms.  Masculine London was in ecstasies over them and voted
+Lady Rosemary a trump.  The ladies were scandalised, as only jealous
+minded ladies can be at lavishly endowed and favoured members of their
+own sex.
+
+Personally, I preferred to sit on the fence.  Being a lover of the open
+air, of the agile body, the strong arm and the quick eye, I could not
+but admire some of this extraordinary young lady's exploits.  But,--the
+woman who was conceded the face of an angel, the form of a Venus de
+Milo; who was reported to have dressed as a jockey and ridden a horse
+to victory in the Grand National Steeplechase; who, for a wager, had
+flicked a coin from the fingers of a cavalry officer with a revolver at
+twenty paces; lassooed a cigar from between the teeth of the Duke of
+Kaslo and argued on the Budget with a Cabinet Minister, all in one
+week; who could pray with the piety of a fasting monk; weep at will and
+look bewitching in the process; faint to order with the grace, the
+elegance and all the stage effect of an early Victorian Duchess: the
+woman who was styled a golden-haired goddess by those on whom she
+smiled and dubbed a saucy, red-haired minx by those whom she
+spurned;--was too, too much of a conglomeration for such a humdrum
+individual, such an ordinary, country-loving fellow as I,--George
+Brammerton.
+
+And now, poor old Hazelmere was undergoing a process of renovation such
+as it had not experienced since the occasion of a Royal visit some
+twenty years before: not a room in the house where one could feel
+perfectly safe, save the library: washing, scrubbing, polishing and
+oiling in anticipation of a rousing week-end House Party in honour of
+this wonderful, chameleon-like, Lady Rosemary's first visit; when her
+engagement with Harry would be formally announced to the inquisitive,
+fashionable world of which she was a spoiled child.
+
+Why all this fuss over a matter which concerned only two individuals, I
+could not understand.  Had I been going to marry the Lady
+Rosemary,--which, Heaven forbid,--I should have whipped her quietly
+away to some little, country parsonage, to the registrar of a small
+country town; or to some village blacksmith, and so got the business
+over, out of hand.  But, of course, I had neither the inclination, nor
+the intention, let alone the opportunity, of putting to the test what I
+should do in regard to marrying her, nor were my tastes in any way akin
+to those of my most elegant, elder brother, Viscount Harry, Captain of
+the Guards,--egad,--for which two blessings I was indeed truly thankful.
+
+As I was thus ruminating, the library door opened and my noble sire
+came in, spick and span as he always was, and happier looking than
+usual.
+
+"'Morning, George," he greeted.
+
+"Good morning, dad."
+
+He rubbed his hands together.
+
+"Gad, youngster! (I was twenty-four) everything is going like
+clockwork.  The house is all in order; supplies on hand to stock an
+hotel; all London falling over itself in its eagerness to get here.
+Harry will arrive this afternoon and Lady Rosemary to-morrow."
+
+I raised my eyebrows, nodded disinterestedly and started in again to my
+reading.  Father walked the carpet excitedly, then he stopped and
+looked down at me.
+
+"You don't seem particularly enthusiastic over it, George.  Nothing
+ever does interest you but boxing bouts, wrestling matches, golf and
+books.  Why don't you brace up and get into the swim?  Why don't you
+take the place that belongs to you among the young fellows of your own
+station?"
+
+"God forbid!" I answered fervently.
+
+"Not jealous of Harry, are you?  Not smitten at the very sound of the
+lady's name,--like the young bloods, and the old ones, too, in the
+city?"
+
+"God forbid!" I replied again.
+
+"Hang it all, can't you say anything more than that?" he asked testily.
+
+"Oh, yes! dad,--lots," I answered, closing my book and keeping my
+finger at the place.  "For one thing--I have never met this Lady
+Rosemary Granton; never even seen her picture--and, to tell you the
+truth, from what I have heard of her, I have no immediate desire to
+make the lady's acquaintance."
+
+There was silence for a moment, and from my father's heavy breathing I
+could gather that his temper was ruffling.
+
+"Look here, you young barbarian, you revolutionary,--what do you mean?
+What makes you talk in that way of one of the best and sweetest young
+ladies in the country?  I won't have it from you, sir, _this_ Lady
+Rosemary Granton, _this_ Lady indeed."
+
+"Oh! you know quite well, dad, what I mean," I continued, a little
+bored.  "Harry is no angel, and I doubt not but Lady Rosemary is by far
+too good for him.  But,--you know,--you cannot fail to have heard the
+stories that are flying over the country of her cantrips;--some of
+them, well, not exactly pleasant.  And, allowing fifty percent for
+exaggeration, there is still a lot that would be none the worse of
+considerable discounting to her advantage."
+
+"Tuts, tush and nonsense!  Foolish talk most of it!  The kind of stuff
+that is garbled and gossiped about every popular woman.  The girl is
+up-to-date, modern, none of your drawing-room dolls.  I admit that she
+has go in her, vim, animal spirits, youthful exuberance and all that.
+She may love sport and athletics, but, but,--you, yourself, spend most
+of your time in pursuit of these same amusements.  Why not she?"
+
+"Why! father, these are the points I admire in her,--the only ones, I
+may say.  But, oh! what's the good of going over it all?  I know, you
+know,--everybody knows;--her flirtations, her affairs; every rake in
+London tries to boast of his acquaintance with her and bandies her name
+over his brandy and soda, and winks."
+
+"Look here, George," put in my father angrily, "you forget yourself.
+These stories are lies, every one of them!  Lady Rosemary is the
+daughter of my dearest, my dead friend.  Very soon, she will be your
+sister."
+
+"Yes!  I know,--so let us not say any more about it.  It is Harry and
+she for it, and, if they are pleased and an old whim of yours
+satisfied,--what matters it to an ordinary, easy-going, pipe-loving,
+cold-blooded fellow like me?"
+
+"Whim, did you say?  Whim?" cried my father, flaring up and clenching
+his hands excitedly.  "Do you call the vow of a Brammerton a whim?  The
+pledged word of a Granton a whim?  Whim, be damned."
+
+For want of words to express himself, my father dropped into a chair
+and drummed his agitated fingers on the arms of it.
+
+I rose and went over to him, laying my hand lightly on his shoulder.
+
+Poor old dad!  I had not meant to hurt his feelings.  After all, he was
+the dearest of old-fashioned fellows and I loved his haughty,
+mid-Victorian ways.
+
+"There, there, father,--I did not mean to say anything that would give
+offence.  I take it all back.  I am sorry,--indeed I am."
+
+He looked up at me and his face brightened once more.
+
+"'Gad, boy,--I'm glad to hear you say it.  I know you did not mean
+anything by your bruskness.  You are an impetuous, headstrong young
+devil though,--with a touch of your mother in you,--and, 'gad, if I
+don't like you the more for it.
+
+"But, but," he went on, looking in front of him, "you must remember
+that although Granton and I were mere boys at the time our vow was
+made,--he was a Granton and I a Brammerton, whose vows are made to
+keep.  It seems like yesterday, George; it was a few hours after he
+saved my life in the fighting before Sevastopol.  We were sitting by
+the camp-fire.  The chain-shot was still flying around.  The cries of
+the wounded were in our ears.  The sentries were challenging
+continually and drums were rolling in the distance.
+
+"I clasped Fred's hand and I thanked him for what he had done for me
+that day, right in the teeth of the Russian guns.
+
+"'Freddy, old chap, you're a trump,' I said, 'and, if ever I be blessed
+with an heir to Brammerton and Hazelmere, I would wish nothing better
+than that he should marry a Granton.'
+
+"'And nothing would please me so much, Harry, old boy,--as that a maid
+of Granton should wed a Brammerton,' he answered earnestly.
+
+"'Then it's a go,' said I, full of enthusiasm.
+
+"'It's a go, Harry.'
+
+"And we raised our winecups, such as they were.
+
+"'Your daughter, Fred!'
+
+"'Your heir, Harry!'
+
+"'The future Earl and Countess of Brammerton and Hazelmere,' we chimed
+together.
+
+"Our winecups clinked and the bond was made;--made for all time,
+George."
+
+My father's eyes lit up and he seemed to be back in the Crimea.  He
+shook his head sadly.
+
+"And now, poor old Fred is gone.  Ah, well! our dream is coming true.
+In a month, the maid of Granton weds the future Earl of Brammerton.
+
+"'Gad, George, my boy,--Rosemary may be skittish and lively, but were
+she the most mercurial woman in Christendom, she has never forgotten
+that she is first of all a Granton, and, as a Granton, she has kept a
+Granton's pledge."
+
+For a moment I caught the contagion of my father's earnestness.  My
+eyes felt damp as I thought how important, after all, this union was to
+him.  But, even then, I could not resist a little more questioning.
+
+"Does Harry love her, dad?"
+
+"Love her!" He smiled.  "Why! my boy, he's madly in love with her."
+
+"Then, why doesn't he mend a bit? give over his mad chasing after,--to
+put it mildly,--continual excitement; and demonstrate that he is
+thoroughly in earnest.  You know, falling madly in love is a habit of
+Harry's."
+
+"Don't you worry your serious head about that, George.  You talk of
+Harry as if he were a baby.  You talk as if you were his grandfather,
+instead of his younger brother and a mere boy."
+
+"Does Lady Rosemary love Harry?" I asked, ignoring his admonition.
+
+"Of course, she loves him.  Why shouldn't she?  He's a good fellow;
+well bred and well made; he is a soldier; he is in the swim; he has
+plenty to spend; he is the heir to Brammerton;--why shouldn't she love
+him?  She is going to marry him, isn't she?  She may not be of the
+gushing type, George, but she'll come to it all in good time.  She will
+grow to love him, as every good wife does her husband.  So, don't let
+that foolish head of yours give you any more trouble."
+
+I turned to leave.
+
+"George!"
+
+"Yes, dad!"
+
+"You will be on hand this week-end.  I want you at home.  I need you to
+keep things going.  No skipping off to sporting gatherings or athletic
+conventions.  I wish you to meet your future sister."
+
+"Well,--I had not thought of that, dad.  Big Jim Darrol, Tom Tanner and
+I have entered for a number of events at the Gartnockan Games on
+Saturday.  I am also on the lists as a competitor for the Northern
+Counties Golf Championship on Monday."
+
+My father looked up at me in a strange way.
+
+"However," I went on quickly, "much as I dislike the rush, the gush and
+the clatter of house parties, I shall be on hand."
+
+"Good!  I knew you would, my boy," replied my father quietly.  "Where
+away now, lad?"
+
+"Oh! down to the village to tell Jim and Tom not to count on me for
+their week-end jaunt."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Another Second Son
+
+I strolled down the avenue, between the tall trees and on to the broad,
+sun-baked roadway leading to the sleepy little village of Brammerton,
+which lay so snugly down in the hollow.  Swinging my stout stick and
+whistling as I went, I felt at peace with the good old world.  My head
+was clear, my arm was strong; rich, fresh blood was dancing in my
+veins; I was young, single, free;--so what cared I?
+
+As I walked along, I saw ahead of me a thin line of blue-grey smoke
+curling up from the roadside.  As I drew nearer, I made out the back of
+a ragged man, leaning over a fire.  His voice, lusty and clear as a
+bell, was ringing out a strange melody.  I went over to him.
+
+I was looking over his shoulder, yet he seemed not to have heard me, so
+intent was he on his song and in his work.
+
+He was toasting the carcass of a poached rabbit, the wet skin of which
+lay at his side.  He was a dirty, ragged rascal, but he seemed happy
+and his voice was good.  The sentiment of his song was not altogether
+out of harmony with my own feelings.
+
+  "A carter swore he'd love always
+    A skirt, some rouge, a pair of stays.
+  After his vow, for days and days,
+    He thought himself the smarter."
+
+
+The singer bit a piece of flesh from the leg of his rabbit, to test its
+tenderness, then he resumed his toasting and his song.
+
+  "But, underneath the stays and paint
+    He found the usual male complaint:
+  A woman's tongue, with Satan's taint;
+    A squalling, brawling tartar.
+
+  "She scratches, bites and blacks his eye.
+    His head hangs low; he heaves a sigh;
+  He longs for single days, gone by.
+    He's doomed to die a martyr."
+
+
+The peculiar fellow stopped, opened a red-coloured handkerchief, took
+out a hunk of bread and set it down by his side with slow deliberation.
+It was quite two minutes ere he started off again.
+
+  "Now, friends, beware, take my advice;
+    When eating sugar, think of spice;
+  Before you marry, ponder twice:
+    Remember Ned the carter."
+
+
+From the words, it seemed to me that he had finished the song, but,
+judging from the tune, it was never-ending.
+
+"A fine song, my good fellow," I remarked from behind.
+
+The rascal did not turn round.
+
+"Oh!--it's no' so bad.  It's got the endurin' quality o' carrying a
+moral," he answered.
+
+"You seem to be clear in the conscience yourself," said I.
+
+"It'll be clearer when I get outside o' this rabbit," he returned,
+still not deigning to look at me.
+
+"But you did not seem to be startled when I spoke to you," I remarked
+in surprise.
+
+"What way should I?  I never saw the man yet that I was feart o'.
+Forby,--I kent you were there."
+
+"But, how could you know?  I did not make a noise or display my
+presence in any way."
+
+"No!--but the wind was blawin' from the back, ye see; and when ye came
+up behind the smoke curled up a bit further and straighter than it did
+before; then there was just the ghost o' a shadow."
+
+I laughed.  "You are an observant customer."
+
+"Oh, ay!  I'm a' that.  Come round and let me see ye."
+
+I obeyed, and he seemed satisfied with his inspection.
+
+"Sit doon,--oot o' the smoke," he said.
+
+I did so.
+
+"You are Scotch?" I ventured.
+
+"Ay!  From Perth, awa'.
+
+"A Scotch tinker?"
+
+"Just that; a tinker from Perth, and my name's Robertson.  I'm a
+Struan, ye ken.  The Struans,--the real Struans,--are a' tinkers or
+pipers.  In oor family, my elder brother fell heir to my father's
+pipes, so I had just to take to the tinkering.  But we're joint heirs
+to my father's fondness for a dram.  Ye havena a wee drop on ye?"
+
+"Not a drop," I remarked.
+
+"That's a disappointment.  I was kind o' feart ye wouldna, when I asked
+ye."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Oh! ye don't look like a man that wasted your substance.  More like a
+seller o' Bibles, or maybe a horse doctor."
+
+I laughed at the queer comparison, and he looked out at me from under
+his shaggy, red eyebrows.
+
+"Have a bite o' breakfast wi' me.  I like to crack to somebody when I'm
+eatin'.  It helps the digestion."
+
+"No, thank you," I said.  "I have breakfasted already."
+
+"It's good meat, man.  The rabbit's fresh.  I can guarantee it, for it
+was runnin' half an hour ago.  Try a leg."
+
+I refused, but, as he seemed crestfallen, I took the drumstick in my
+hand and ate the meat slowly from it; and never did rabbit taste so
+good.
+
+"What makes ye smile?" asked my tattered companion.  "Do ye no' like
+the taste o' it?"
+
+"Oh! the rabbit is all right," I said, "but I was just thinking that
+had it lived its children might have belonged to a brother of mine some
+day."
+
+"How's that?  Is he a keeper?  Od sake!" he went on, scratching his
+head, as it seemed to dawn on him, "ye don't happen to belong to the
+big hoose up there?"
+
+"I live there," said I.
+
+He leaned over to me quickly.  "Have another leg, man,--have it;--dod!
+it's your ain, anyway."
+
+"I haven't finished the first yet.  Go ahead yourself."
+
+He ate slowly, eying me now and again through the smoke.
+
+"So you're a second son, eh?" he pondered.  "Man, ye have my sympathy.
+I had the same ill-luck.  That's how my brother Angus got the pipes and
+I'm a tinker.  Although, I wouldna mind being the second son o' a Laird
+or a Duke."
+
+"Well, my friend," said I; "that's just where our opinions differ.
+Now, I'd sooner be the second son of a rag-and-bone man; a--Perthshire
+piper of the name of Robertson; ay! of the devil himself,--than the
+second son of an Earl."
+
+"Do ye tell me that now!" he put in, with a cock of his towsled head,
+picking up another piece of rabbit.
+
+"You see,--you and these other fellows can do as you like; go where you
+like when you like.  An Earl's second son has to serve his House.  He
+has to pave the way and make things smooth for the son and heir.  He is
+supposed to work the limelight that shines on his elder brother.  He is
+tolerated, sometimes spoiled and petted, because,--well, because he has
+an elder brother who, some day, will be an Earl; but he counts for
+little or nothing in the world's affairs.
+
+"Be thankful, sir, you are only the second son of a highland piper."
+
+The tramp reflected for a while.
+
+"Ay, ay!" he philosophised at last, "no doot,--maybe,--just that.  I
+can see you have your ain troubles and I'm thinkin', maybe, I'm just as
+weel the way I am.  But it's a queer thing; we aye think the other man
+is gettin' the best o' what's goin'.  It's the way o' the world."
+
+He was quiet a while.  He negotiated the rabbit's head and I watched
+him with interest as he extracted every bit of meat from the maze of
+bone.
+
+"And you would be the Earl when your father dies, if it wasna for your
+brother?" he added.
+
+"Yes!" I answered.
+
+"Man, it must be a dreadful temptation."
+
+"What must be?"
+
+"Och! to keep from puttin' something in his whisky; to keep from
+flinging him ower the window or droppin' a flower pot on his heid,
+maybe.  If my ain father had been an Earl, Angus Robertson would never
+have lived to blow the pipes.  As it was, it was touch and go wi'
+Angus;--for they were the bonny pipes,--the grand, bonny pipes."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, you would have murdered your brother for a
+skirling, screeching bagpipes?" I asked in horror.
+
+"Och! hardly that, man.  Murder is no' a bonny name for it.  I would
+just kind o' quietly have done awa' wi' him.  It's maybe a pity my
+conscience was so keen, for he's no' much good, is Angus; he's a
+through-other customer: no' steady and law-abidin' like mysel'."
+
+"Well, my friend," I said finally----
+
+"Donald! that's my name."
+
+"Well, Donald, I must be on my way."
+
+"What's a' the hurry, man?"
+
+"Business."
+
+"Oh! weel; give me your hand on it.  You've a fine face.  The face o' a
+man that, if he had a dram on him, he would give me a drop o' it."
+
+"That I would, Donald."
+
+"It's a pity.  But ye don't happen to have the price o' the dram on ye?"
+
+"Maybe I have, Donald."
+
+I handed him a sixpence.
+
+"Thank ye.  I'm never wrong in the readin' o' face character."
+
+As I made to go from him, he started off again.
+
+"You don't happen to be a married man, wi' a wife and bairns?" he asked.
+
+"No, Donald.  Thank goodness!  What made you ask that?"
+
+"Oh!  I thought maybe you were and that was the way you liked the words
+o' my bit song."
+
+I left the tinker finishing his belated breakfast and hurried down the
+road toward the village.
+
+The sun was getting high in the heavens, birds were singing and the
+spring workers were busy in the fields.  I took the side track down the
+rough pathway leading to Modley Farm.
+
+My good friend, big, brawny, bluff Tom Tanner,--who was standing under
+the porch,--hailed me from a distance, with his usual merry shout.
+
+"Where away, George?  Feeling fit for our trip?" he asked as I got up
+to him.
+
+"I am sorry, old boy, but, so far as I am concerned, the trip is off.
+I just hurried down to tell you and Jim.
+
+"You see, Tom, there is going to be a House Party up there this
+week-end and my dad's mighty anxious to have me at home; so much so,
+that I would offend him if I went off.  Being merely George Brammerton,
+I must bow to the paternal commands, although I would rather, a hundred
+times, be at the games."
+
+Tom's face fell, and I could see he was disappointed.  I knew how much
+he enjoyed those week-end excursions of ours.
+
+"The fact is," I explained, "there is going to be a marriage up there
+pretty soon, and, naturally, I am wanted to meet the lady."
+
+"Great Scott!  George,--you are not trying to break it gently to me?
+You are not going to get married, are you?" he asked in consternation.
+
+I laughed loudly.  "Lord, no!  Not for a kingdom.  It is my big brother
+Harry."
+
+Tom seemed relieved.  He even sighed.
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say it, George, for there's a lot of fine
+athletic meetings coming on during the next three or four months and it
+would be a pity to miss them for, for,----  Oh! hang it all!  you know
+what I mean.  You're such a queer, serious, determined sort of
+customer, that it's hard to say what you will do next."
+
+He looked so solemn over the matter that I laughed again.
+
+His kind-hearted old mother, who had been at work in the kitchen and
+had overheard our conversation, came to the doorway and placed her arms
+lovingly around our broad shoulders.
+
+"Lots of time yet to think about getting married.  And, let me whisper
+something into your ears.  It's an old woman's advice, and it's
+good:--when you do think of marrying, be sure you get a wife with a
+pleasant face and a good figure; a wife that other wives' men will turn
+round and admire; for, you know, you can never foretell what kind of
+temper a woman has until you have lived with her.  A maid is always on
+her best behaviour before her lover.  And, just think what it would
+mean if you married a plain, shapeless lass and she proved to have a
+temper like a termagant!  Now, a handsome lass, even if she has a
+temper, is always--a handsome lass and something to rouse envy of you
+in other men.  And, after all, we measure and treasure what we have in
+proportion as other people long for it.  So, whatever you do, young
+men, make sure she is handsome!"
+
+"Good, sensible advice, Mrs. Tanner; and I mean to take it," said I.
+"But I would be even more exacting.  In addition to being sweet
+tempered and fair of face and form, she must have curly, golden hair
+and golden brown eyes to match."
+
+"And freckles?" put in Mrs. Tanner with a wry face.
+
+"No! freckles are barred," I added.
+
+"But, golden hair and brown eyes are mighty rare to find in one
+person," said Tom innocently.
+
+"Of course they are; and the combination such as I require is so
+extremely rare that my quest will be a long one.  I am likely therefore
+to enjoy my bachelorhood for many days to come."
+
+"Good-bye, Mrs. Tanner.  Good-bye, Tom; I am going down to the smithy
+to see Jim."
+
+I strolled away from my happy, contented friends, on to the main road
+again and down the hill to the village, little dreaming how long it
+would be ere I should have an opportunity of talking with them again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Jim the Blacksmith
+
+The village of Brammerton seemed only half awake.  A rumbling cart was
+slowly wending its way up the hill, three or four old men were standing
+yarning at the inn corner; now and again, a busy housewife would appear
+at her door and take a glimpse of what little was going on and
+disappear inside just as quickly as she had shown herself.  The sound
+of the droning voices of children conning their lessons came through
+the open window of the old schoolhouse.
+
+These were the only signs and sounds of life that forenoon in
+Brammerton.  Stay!--there was yet another.  Breaking in on the general
+quiet of the place, I could hear distinctly the regular thud of hard
+steel on soft, followed by the clear double-ring of a small hammer on a
+mellow-toned anvil.
+
+One man, at any rate, was hard at work,--Jim Darrol,--big, honest,
+serious giant that he was.
+
+Light of heart and buoyant in body, I turned down toward the smithy.  I
+looked in through the grimy, broken window and admired the brawny giant
+he looked there in the glare of the furnace, with his broad back to me,
+his huge arms bared to the shoulders.  Little wonder, thought I, Jim
+Darrol can whirl the hammer and put the shot farther than any man in
+the Northern Counties.
+
+How the muscles bulged, and wriggled, and crawled under his dark, hairy
+skin!  What a picture of manliness he portrayed!  And, best of all,--I
+knew his heart was as good and clean as his body was sound.
+
+I tiptoed cautiously inside and slapped him between the shoulders.  He
+wheeled about quickly.  He always was a solemn-looking owl, but this
+morning his face was clouded and grim.  As he recognised me, a terrible
+anger seemed to blaze up in his black eyes.  I could see the muscles
+tighten in his arms and his fingers close firmly over the shaft of the
+hammer he held.  I could see a new-born, but fierce hatred burning in
+every inch of his enormous frame.
+
+"Hello, Jim, old man!  Who has been rubbing you the wrong way?" I cried.
+
+His jaws set.  He raised his left hand and pointed with his finger to
+the open doorway.
+
+"Get out!" he growled, in a deep, hoarse voice.
+
+I stood dumbfounded for a brief moment, then I replied roughly and
+familiarly: "Oh, you go to the devil!  Keep your anger for those who
+have caused it."
+
+"Get out, will you!" he cried again, taking a step nearer to me, his
+brows lowered, his lips drawn to a thin line.
+
+I had seen these danger signals in Jim before, but never with any ill
+intent toward me.  I was so astounded I could scarcely think aright.
+What could he mean?  What was the matter?
+
+"Jim, Jim," I soothed, "don't talk that way to old friends."
+
+"You're no friend of mine," he shouted.  "Will you get out of here?"
+
+In some respects, I was like Jim Darrol: I did not like to be ordered
+about.
+
+"No!  I will not get out," I snapped back at him.  "I mean to remain
+here until you grow sensible."
+
+I went over to his anvil, set my leg across it and looked straight at
+him.
+
+He raised his hammer high, as if to strike me; and I felt then that if
+I had taken my eyes from Jim's for the briefest flash of time, my last
+minute on earth would have arrived.
+
+With an oath,--the first I ever heard him utter,--he cast the hammer
+from him, sending it clattering into a corner among the old horse shoes.
+
+"Damn you,--I hate you and all your cursed aristocratic breed," he
+snarled.  And, with the spring of a tiger, he had me by the throat,
+with those great, grabbing hands of his, his fingers closing cruelly on
+my windpipe as he tried to shake the life out of me.
+
+I had always been able to account for Jim when it came to fisticuffs,
+but never at close quarters.  This time, his attack was violent as it
+was unexpected.  I did not have the ghost of a chance.  I staggered
+back against the furnace wall, still in his devilish clutch.  Not a
+gasp of air entered or left my body from the moment he clutched me.
+
+He shook me as a terrier does a rat.
+
+Soon my strength began to go; my eyes bulged; my head felt as if it
+were bursting; dancing lights and awful darknesses flashed and loomed
+alternately before and around me.  Then the lights became scarcer and
+the darknesses longer and more intense.  As the last glimmer of
+consciousness was leaving me, when black gloom had won and there was no
+more light, I felt a sudden release, painful and almost unwelcome to
+the oblivion to which I had been hurling.  The lights came flashing
+back to me again and out of the whirling chaos I began to grasp the
+tangible once more.  As I leaned against the side of the furnace,
+pulling at my throat where those terrible fingers had
+been,--gasping,--gasping,--for glorious life-giving, life-sustaining
+air, I gradually began to see as through a haze.  Before long, I was
+almost myself again.
+
+Jim was standing a few paces away, his chest heaving, his shaggy head
+bent and his great hands clenched against his thighs.
+
+I gazed at him, and as I gazed something wet glistened in his eyes,
+rolled down his cheeks and splashed on the back of his hand, where it
+dried up as if it had fallen on a red-hot plate.
+
+I took an unsteady step toward him and held out my hand.
+
+"Jim," I murmured, "my poor old Jim!"
+
+His head remained lowered.
+
+"Strike me," he groaned huskily.  "For God's sake strike me, for the
+coward I am!"
+
+"I want your hand, Jim," I answered.  "Tell me what is wrong?  What is
+all this about?"
+
+At last he looked into my eyes.  I could see a hundred conflicting
+emotions working in his expressive face.
+
+"You would be friends after what I have done?" he asked.
+
+"I want your hand, Jim," I said again.
+
+In a moment, both his were clasped over mine, in his vicelike grip.
+
+"George,--George!" he cried.  "We've always been friends,--chums.  I
+have always known you were not like the rest of them."
+
+He drew his forearm across his brow.  "I am not myself, George.  You'll
+forgive me for what I did, won't you?"
+
+"Man, Jim,--there is nothing done that requires forgiving;--only, you
+have the devil's own grip.  I don't suppose I shall be able to swallow
+decently for a week.
+
+"But you are in trouble: what is it, Jim?  Tell me; maybe I can help."
+
+"Ay,--it's trouble enough,--God forbid.  It's Peggy, George,--my dear
+little sister, Peggy, that has neither mother nor father to guide
+her;--only me, and I'm a blind fool.  Oh!--I can't speak about it.
+Come over with me and see for yourself."
+
+I followed him slowly and silently out of the smithy, down the lane and
+across the road to his little, rose-covered cottage.  We went round to
+the back of the house.  Jim held up his hand for caution, as he peeped
+in at the kitchen window.  He turned to me again, and beckoned, his big
+eyes blind with tears.
+
+"Look in there," he gulped.  "That's my little sister, my little Peggy;
+she who never has had a sorrow since mother left us.  She's been like
+that for four hours and she gets worse when I try to comfort her."
+
+I peered in.
+
+Peggy was sitting on the edge of a chair and bending across the table.
+Her arms were spread out in front of her and her face was buried in
+them.  Her brown, curly hair rippled over her neck and shoulders like a
+mountain stream.  Great sobs seemed to be shaking her supple body.  I
+listened, and my ears caught the sound of a breaking heart.  There was
+a fearful agony in her whole attitude.
+
+I turned away without speaking and followed Jim back to the smithy.
+When we got there, something pierced me like a knife, although all was
+not quite clear to my understanding.
+
+"Jim,--Jim," I cried, "surely you never fancied I--I was in any way to
+blame for this.  Why!  Jim,--I don't even know yet what it is all
+about."
+
+He laughed unpleasantly.  "No, George, no!--Oh!  I can't tell you.
+Here----"
+
+He went to his coat which hung from a hook in the wall.  He pulled a
+letter from his inside pocket.  "Read that," he said.
+
+I unfolded the paper, as he stood watching me keenly.
+
+The note was in handwriting with which I was well familiar.
+
+
+"My DEAR LITTLE PEGGY,
+
+I am very, very sorry,--but surely you know that what you ask is
+impossible.  I shall try to find time to run out and see you at the
+usual place, Friday night at nine o'clock.  Do not be afraid, little
+woman; everything will come out all right.  You know I shall see that
+you are well looked after; that you do not want for anything.
+
+Burn this after you read it.  Keep our secret, and bear up, like the
+good little girl you are.  Yours affectionately,
+
+H----"
+
+
+As I read, my blood chilled in my veins, was,--there could be no
+mistaking it.
+
+"My God!  Jim," I cried, "this is terrible.  Surely,--surely----"
+
+"Yes!  George," he said, in a tensely subdued voice, "your brother did
+that.  Your brother,--with his glib tongue and his masterful way.
+Oh!--well I know the breed.  They are to be found in high and low
+places; they are generally not much for a man to look at, but they are
+the kind no woman is safe beside; the kind that gets their soft side
+whether they be angels or she-devils.  Why couldn't he leave her alone?
+Why couldn't he stay among his own kind?
+
+"And now, he has the gall to think that his accursed money can smooth
+it over.  Damn and curse him for what he is."
+
+I had little or nothing to say.  My heart was too full for words and a
+great anger was surging within me against my own flesh and blood.
+
+"Jim,--does this make any difference between you and me?" I asked,
+crossing over to him on the spongy floor of hoof parings and steel
+filings.  "Does it, Jim?"
+
+He caught me by the shoulders, in his old, rough way, and looked into
+my face.  Then he smiled sadly and shook his head.
+
+"No, George, no!  You're different: you always were different; you are
+the same straight, honest George Brammerton to me;--still the same."
+
+"Then, Jim, you will let me try to do something here?  You will promise
+me not to get into personal contact with Harry,--at least until I have
+seen him and spoken with him.  Not that he does not deserve a dog's
+hiding, but I should like to see him and talk with him first."
+
+"Why should I promise that?" he asked sharply.
+
+"For one thing,--because, doubtless, Harry is home now.  And again,
+there is going to be a week-end House Party at our place.  Harry's
+engagement of marriage with Lady Rosemary Granton is to be announced;
+and Lady Rosemary will be there.
+
+"It would only mean trouble for you, Jim;--and, God knows, this is
+trouble enough."
+
+"What do I care for trouble?" he cried defiantly.  "What trouble can
+make me more unhappy than I now am?"
+
+"You must avoid further trouble for Peggy's sake," I interposed.
+"Jim,--let me see Harry first.  Do what you like afterwards.  Promise
+me, Jim."
+
+He swallowed his anger.
+
+"God!--it will be a hard promise to keep if ever I come across him.
+But I do promise, just because I like you, George, as I hate him."
+
+"May I keep this meantime?" I asked, holding up Harry's letter to Peggy.
+
+"No!  Give it to me.  I might need it."
+
+"But I might find greater use for it, Jim.  Won't you let me have it,
+for a time at least?"
+
+"Oh! all right, all right," he answered, spreading his hands over his
+leather apron.
+
+I left him there amid the roar of the fire and the odour of sizzling
+hoofs, and wended my way slowly up the dust-laden hill, back home,
+having forgotten entirely, in the great sorrow that had fallen, to tell
+Jim my object in calling on him that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Viscount Harry, Captain of the Guards
+
+On nearing home, I noticed the "Flying Dandy," Harry's favourite horse,
+standing at the front entrance in charge of a groom.
+
+"Hello, Wally," I shouted in response to the groom's salute and broad
+grin.  "Is Captain Harry home?"
+
+"Yes, sir!  Three hours agone, sir.  'E's just agoing for a canter,
+sir, for the good of 'is 'ealth."
+
+I went inside.
+
+"Hi!  William," I cried to the retreating figure of our portly and
+aristocratic butler.  "Where's Harry?"
+
+"Captain Harry, sir, is in the armoury.  Any message, sir?"
+
+"No! it is all right, William.  I shall go along in and see him."
+
+I went down the corridor, to the most ancient part of Hazelmere House;
+the old armoury, with its iron-studded oaken doors and its suggestion
+of spooks and goblins.  I pushed in to that sombre-looking place, which
+held so many grim secrets of feudal times.  How many drinking orgies
+and all-night card parties had been held within its portals, I dared
+not endeavour to surmise.  As to how many plots had been hatched behind
+its studded doors, how many affairs of honour had been settled for all
+time under its high-panelled roof,--there was only a meagre record; but
+those we knew of had been bloody and not a few.
+
+Figures, in suits of armour, stood in every corner; two-edged swords,
+shields of brass and cowhide, blunderbusses and breech-loading pistols
+hung from the walls, while the more modern rifles and fowling pieces
+were ranged in orderly fashion along the far side.
+
+The light was none too good in there, and I failed, at first, to
+discover the object of my quest.
+
+"How do, farmer Giles?" came that slow, drawling, sarcastic voice which
+I knew so well.
+
+I turned suddenly, and,--there he was, seated on a brass-studded oak
+chest almost behind the heavy door, swinging one leg and toying with a
+seventeenth century rapier.  Through his narrow-slitted eyes, he was
+examining me from top to toe in apparent disgust: tall, thin, perfectly
+groomed, handsome, cynical, devil-may-care.
+
+I tried to speak calmly, but my anger was greater than I could properly
+control.  Poor little Peggy Darrol was uppermost in my thoughts.
+
+"'Gad, George,--you look like a tramp.  Why don't you spruce up a bit?
+Hobnailed boots, home-spun breeches; ugh! it's enough to make your
+noble ancestors turn in their coffins and groan.
+
+"Don't you know the Brammerton motto is, 'Clean,--within and without.'"
+
+He bent the blade of his rapier until it formed a half hoop, then he
+let it fly back with a twang.
+
+"And some of us have degenerated so," I answered, "that we apply the
+motto only in so far as it affects the outside."
+
+"While some of us, of course, are so busy scrubbing and polishing at
+our inwards," he put in, "that we have no time to devote to the parts
+that are seen.  But that seems to me deuced like cant; and a cheap
+variety of it at that.
+
+"So you have taken to preaching, as well as farming.  Fine combination,
+little brother!  However, George,--dear boy,--we shall let it go at
+that.  There is something you are anxious to unload.  Get it out of
+your system, man."
+
+"I have just been hearing that you are going to marry Lady Rosemary
+Granton soon."
+
+"Why, yes! of course.  You may congratulate me, for I have that
+distinguished honour," he drawled.
+
+"And you _do_ consider it an honour?" I asked, pushing my hands deep
+into my pockets and spreading my legs.
+
+He leaned back and surveyed me tolerantly.
+
+"'Gad!--that's a beastly impertinent question, George.  Why shouldn't
+it be an honour, when every gentleman in London will be biting his
+finger-tips with envy?"
+
+I nodded and went on.
+
+"You consider also that she will be honoured in marrying a Brammerton?"
+
+"Look here," he answered, a little irritated, "what's all this damned
+catechising for?"
+
+"I am simply asking questions, Harry; taking liberties seeing I am a
+Brammerton and your little brother," I retorted calmly.
+
+"And nasty questions they are, too;--but, by Jove! since you ask, and,
+as I am a Brammerton, and it is I she is going to marry,--why!  I
+consider she _is_ honoured.  The honour will be,--ah! on both sides,
+George.  Now,--dear fellow,--don't worry about my feelings.  If you
+have anything more to ask, why! shoot it over, now that I am in the
+mood for answering," he continued dryly.  "I have a hide like a rhino'."
+
+I looked him over coldly.
+
+"Yes, Harry,--Lady Rosemary _will_ come to you as a Granton, fulfilling
+the pledge made by her father.  She will come to you with her honour
+bright and unsullied."
+
+He bent forward and frowned at me.
+
+"Do you doubt it?" he shot across.
+
+I shook my head.  "No!"
+
+He resumed his old position.
+
+"Glad to hear you say so.  Now,--what else?  Blest if this doesn't make
+me feel quite a devil, to be lectured and questioned by my young
+brother,--my own, dear, little, preaching, farmer, kid of a brother."
+
+"You will go to her a Brammerton, fulfilling the vow made by a
+Brammerton, with a Brammerton's honour, unstained,
+unblemished,--'Clean,--within and without'?"
+
+He rose slowly from the chest and faced me squarely.
+
+There was nothing of the coward in Harry.
+
+His eye glistened with a cruel light.  "Have a care, little brother,"
+he said between his regular, white teeth.  "Have a care."
+
+"Why, Harry," I remonstrated in feigned surprise, "what's the matter?
+What have I said amiss?"
+
+He had always played the big, patronising, bossing brother with me and
+I had suffered it from him, although, from a physical standpoint, the
+suffering of late had been one of good-natured tolerance.  To-day,
+there was something in my manner that told him he had reached the end
+of it.
+
+"Tell me what you mean?" he snarled.
+
+"If you do not know what I mean, brother mine, sit down and I will tell
+you."
+
+"No!" he answered.
+
+"Oh, well!--I'll tell you anyway."
+
+I went up close to him.  "What are you going to do about Peggy Darrol?"
+I demanded.
+
+The shot hit hard; but he was almost equal to it.  He sat down on the
+chest again and toyed once more with the point of the rapier.  Then,
+without looking up, he answered:
+
+"Peggy Darrol,--eh, George!  Peggy Darrol, did you say?  Who the devil
+is she?  Oh,--ah,--eh,--oh, yes! the blacksmith's sister,--um,--nice
+little wench, Peggy:--attractive, fresh, clinging, strawberries and
+cream and all that sort of thing.  Bit of a dreamer, though!"
+
+"Who set her dreaming?" I asked, pushing my anger back.
+
+"Hanged if I know; born in her I suppose.  It is part of every woman's
+make-up.  Pretty little thing, though; by Gad! she is."
+
+"Yes! she is pretty; and she was good as she is pretty until she got
+tangled up with you."
+
+Harry sprang up and menaced me.
+
+"What do you mean, you,--you?----  What are you driving at?  What's
+your game?"
+
+"Oh! give over this rotten hypocrisy," I shouted, pushing him back.
+"Hit you on the raw, did it?"
+
+He drew himself up.
+
+"No! it didn't.  But I have had more than enough of your impertinences.
+I would box your ears for the unlicked pup you are, if I could do it
+without soiling my palms."
+
+I smiled.
+
+"Those days are gone, Harry,--and you know it, too.  Let us cut this
+evasion and tom-foolery.  You have got that poor girl into a scrape.
+What are you going to do about getting her out of it?"
+
+"_I_ have got her into trouble?  How do you know _I_ have?  Her word
+for it, I suppose?  A fine state of affairs it has come to, when any
+girl who gets into trouble with her clod-hopper sweetheart, has simply
+to accuse some one in a higher station than she, to have all her
+troubles ended."
+
+He flicked some dust from his coat-sleeve.  "'Gad,--we fellows would
+never be out of the soup."
+
+"No! not her word," I retorted.  "Little Peggy Darrol is not that sort
+of girl and well you know it.  I have your own word for it,--in
+writing."
+
+His face underwent a change in expression; his cheeks paled slightly.
+
+I drew his letter from my pocket.
+
+"Damn her for a little fool," he growled.  He held out his hand for it.
+
+"Oh, no!  Harry,--I am keeping this meantime."  And I replaced it.
+"Tell me now,--what are you going to do about Peggy?" I asked
+relentlessly.
+
+"Oh!" he replied easily, "don't worry.  I shall have her properly
+looked after.  She needn't fear.  Probably I shall make a settlement on
+her; although the little idiot hardly deserves that much after giving
+the show away as she has done."
+
+"Of course, you will tell Lady Rosemary of this before any announcement
+is made of your marriage, Harry?  A Brammerton must, in all things, be
+honourable, 'Clean,--within and without.'"
+
+He looked at me incredulously, and smiled almost in pity for me and my
+strange ideas.
+
+"Certainly not!  What do you take me for?  What do you think Lady
+Rosemary is that I should trouble her with these petty matters?"
+
+"Petty matters," I cried.  "You call this petty?  God forgive you,
+Harry.  Petty! and that poor girl crying her heart out; her whole
+innocent life blasted; her future a disgrace!  Petty!--my God!;--and
+you a Brammerton!
+
+"But I tell you," I blazed, "you shall let Lady Rosemary know."
+
+"And I tell you,--I shall not," he replied.
+
+"Then, by God!--I'll do it myself," I retorted.  "I give you two hours
+to decide which of us it is to be."
+
+I made toward the door.  But Harry sprang for his rapier, picked it up
+and stood with his back against my exit, the point of his weapon to my
+breast.
+
+There was a wicked gleam in his narrow eyes.
+
+"Damn you!  George Brammerton, for a sneaking, prying, tale-bearing
+lout;--you dare not do it!"
+
+He took a step forward.
+
+"Now, sir,--I will trouble you for that letter."
+
+I looked at him in astonishment.  There was a strange something in his
+eyes I had never seen there before; a mad, irresponsible something that
+cared not for consequences; a something that makes heroes of some men
+and murderers of others.  I stood motionless.
+
+Slowly he pushed the point of his rapier through my coat-sleeve.  It
+pricked into my arm and I felt a few drops of warm blood trickle.  I
+did not wince.
+
+"Stop this infernal fooling," I cried angrily.
+
+He bent forward, in the attitude of fence with which he was so familiar.
+
+"Fooling, did you say?  'Gad! then, is this fooling?"
+
+He turned the rapier against my breast, ripping my shirt and lancing my
+flesh to the bone.  I staggered back with a gasp.
+
+It was the act of a madman; and I knew in that moment that I was face
+to face with death by violence for the second time in a few hours.  I
+slowly backed from him, but he followed me, step for step,
+
+As I came up against and sought the wall behind me for support, my hand
+came in contact with something hard.  I closed my fingers over it.  It
+was the handle of an old highland broadsword and the feel of it was not
+unpleasant.  It lent a fresh flow to my blood.  I tore the sword from
+its fastenings, and, in a second, I was standing facing my brother on a
+more equal, on a more satisfactory footing, determined to defend
+myself, blow for blow, against his inhuman, insane conduct.
+
+"Ho! ho!" he yelled.  "A duel in the twentieth century.  'Gad! wouldn't
+this set London by the ears?  The Corsican Brothers over again!
+
+"Come on, with your battle-axe, farmer Giles, Let's see what stuff
+you're made of--blood or sawdust."
+
+Twice he thrust at me and twice I barely avoided his dextrous
+onslaughts.  I parried as he thrust, not daring to venture a return.
+Our strange weapons rang out and re-echoed, time and again, in the
+dread stillness of the isolated armoury.
+
+My left arm was smarting from the first wound I had received, and a few
+drops of blood trickled down over the back of my hand, splashing on the
+floor.
+
+"You bleed!--just like a human being, George.  Who would have thought
+it?" gloated Harry with a taunt.
+
+He came at me again.
+
+My broadsword was heavy and, to me, unwieldy, while Harry's rapier was
+light and pliable.  I could tell that there could be only one ending,
+if the unequal contest were prolonged,--I would be wounded badly, or
+killed outright.  At that moment, I had no very special desire for
+either happening.
+
+Harry turned and twisted his weapon with the clever wrist movement for
+which he was famous in every fencing club in Britain; and every time I
+wielded my heavy weapon to meet his light one I thought I should never
+be in time to meet his counter-stroke, his recovery was so very much
+quicker than mine.
+
+He played with me thus for a time which seemed an eternity.  My breath
+began to come in great gasps.  Suddenly he lunged at me with all his
+strength, throwing the full weight of his body recklessly behind his
+stroke, so sure was he, evidently, that it would find its mark.  I
+sprang aside just in time, bringing my broadsword down on his rapier
+and sending six inches of the point of it clattering to the floor.
+
+"Damn the thing!" he blustered, taking a firmer grip of what steel
+remained in his hand.
+
+"Aren't you satisfied?  Won't you stop this madness?" I panted, my
+voice sounding loud and hollow in the stillness around us.
+
+For answer he grazed my cheek with his jagged steel, letting a little
+more blood and hurting sufficiently to cause me to wince.
+
+"Got you again, you see," he chuckled, pushing up his sleeves and
+pulling his tie straight.  "George, dear boy, I'll have you in
+mincemeat before I get at any of your well-covered vitals."
+
+A blind fury seized me.  I drove in on him.  He turned me aside with a
+grin and thrust heavily at me in return.  I darted to the left, making
+no endeavour to push aside his weapon with my own but relying only on
+the agility of my body.  With an oath, he floundered forward, and
+before he could recover I brought the flat of my heavy broadsword
+crashing down on the top of his head.  His arm went up with a nervous
+jerk and his rapier flew from his hand, shattering against a high
+window and sending the broken glass rattling on to the cement walk
+below.
+
+Harry sagged to the floor like a sack of flour and lay motionless on
+his face, his arms and legs spread out like a spider's.
+
+I was bending down to turn him over, when I heard my father's voice on
+the other side of the door.
+
+"Stand back!  I'll see to this," he cried, evidently addressing the
+frightened servants.
+
+I turned round.  The door swung on its immense hinges and my father
+stood there, with staring eyes and pallid face, taking in the situation
+deliberately, looking from me to Harry's inert body beside which I
+knelt.  Slowly he came into the centre of the room.
+
+Full of anxiety, I looked at him.  But there was no opening in that
+stern, old face for any explanations.  He did not assail me with a
+torrent of words nor did he burst into a paroxysm of grief and anger.
+His every action was calculated, methodical, remorseless.
+
+He turned to the open door.
+
+"Go!" he commanded sternly.  "Leave us,--leave Brammerton.  I never
+wish to see you again.  You are no son of mine."
+
+His words seared into me.  I held out my hands.
+
+"Go!" he repeated quietly, but, if anything, more firmly.
+
+"Good God! father,--won't you hear what I have to say in explanation?"
+I cried in vexatious desperation.
+
+He did not answer me except with his eyes--those eyes which could say
+so much.
+
+My anger was still hot within me.  My inborn sense of fairness deeply
+resented this conviction on less than even circumstantial evidence;
+and, at the back of all that, I,--as well as he, as well as Harry,--was
+a Brammerton, with a Brammerton's temperament.
+
+"Do you mean this, father?" I asked.
+
+"Go!" he reiterated.  "I have nothing more to say to such an unnatural
+son, such an unnatural brother as you are."
+
+I bowed, pulled my jacket together with a shrug and buttoned it up.
+After all,--what mattered it?  I was in the right and I knew it.
+
+"All right, father!  Some day, I know you will be sorry."
+
+I turned on my heel and left the armoury.
+
+The servants were clustering at the end of the corridor, with
+frightened eyes and pale faces.  They opened up and shuffled uneasily
+as I passed through.
+
+"William," I said to the butler, "you had better go in there.  You may
+be needed."
+
+"Yes, sir! yes, sir!" he answered, and hurried to obey.
+
+Upstairs, in my own room, my knapsack was lying in a corner, ready for
+my proposed week-end tour.  Beside it, stood my golf clubs.  These will
+do, I found myself thinking: a knapsack with a change of linen and a
+bag of golf clubs,--not a bad outfit to start life with.
+
+I opened my purse:--fifty pounds and a few shillings.  Not much, but
+enough!  In fact, nothing would have been plenty.
+
+Suddenly I remembered that, before I went, I had a duty to perform.
+From my inside pocket, I took the letter which Harry had written to
+little, forlorn Peggy Darrol.  I went to my writing desk and addressed
+an envelope to Lady Rosemary Granton.  I inserted Harry's letter and
+sealed the envelope.  As to the bearer of my message, that was easy.  I
+pushed the button at my bedside and, in a second, sweet little Maisie
+Brant came to the door.
+
+Maisie always had been my special favourite, and, on account of my
+having pulled her out of the river when she was only seven years old, I
+was hers.  She had never forgotten.  I cried to her in an easy,
+bantering way in order to reassure her.
+
+  "Neat little Maisie, sweet little Maisie;
+  Only fifteen and as fresh as a Daisy."
+
+
+She smiled, but behind her smile was a look of concern.
+
+"I am going away, Maisie," I said.
+
+"Going away, sir?" she repeated anxiously, as she came bashfully
+forward.
+
+"I won't be back again, Maisie.  I am going for good."
+
+She looked up at me in dumb disquiet.
+
+"Maisie, Lady Rosemary Granton will be here this week-end."
+
+"Yes, sir!" she answered.  "I am to have the honour of looking after
+her rooms."
+
+I laid my hand gently on her shoulder.
+
+"I want you to do something for me, Maisie.  I want you to give her
+this letter,--see that she gets it when she is alone.  It is more
+important to her than you can ever dream of.  She must have it within a
+few hours of her arrival.  No one else must set eyes on it between now
+and then.  Do you understand, Maisie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!  You can trust me for that."
+
+"I know I can, Maisie.  You are a good girl."
+
+I gave her the letter and she placed it in the safest, the most secret,
+place she knew,--her bosom.  Then her eyes scanned me over.
+
+"Oh! sir," she cried, in sudden alarm, "you are hurt.  You are
+bleeding."
+
+I put my hand to my cheek, but then I remembered I had already wiped
+away the few drops of blood from there with my handkerchief.
+
+"Your arm, sir," she pointed.
+
+"Oh!--just a scratch, Maisie."
+
+"Won't you let me bind it for you, sir, before you go?" she pleaded.
+
+"It isn't worth the trouble, Maisie."
+
+Tears came to those pretty eyes of hers; so, to please her, I consented.
+
+"All right," I cried, "but hurry, for I have no more business in here
+now than a thief would have."
+
+She did not understand my meaning, but she left me and was back in a
+moment with a basin of hot water, a sponge, balsam and bandages.
+
+I slipped off my coat and rolled up my sleeve, then, as Maisie's gentle
+fingers sponged away the congealed blood and soothed the throb, I began
+to discover, from the intense relief, how painful had been the hurt,
+mere superficial thing as it was.
+
+She poured on some balsam and bound up the cut; all gentleness, all
+tenderness, like a mother over her babe.
+
+"There is a little jag here, Maisie, that aches outrageously now that
+the other has been lulled to sleep."  I pointed to my breast.
+
+She undid my shirt, and, as she surveyed the damage, she cried out in
+anxiety.
+
+It was a raw, jagged, angry-looking wound, but nothing to occasion
+concern.
+
+She dealt with it as she had done the other, then she drew the edges of
+the cut together, binding them in place with strips of sticking
+plaster.  When it was all over, I slipped into my jacket, swung my
+knapsack across my shoulders, took my golf-bag under my left arm,--and
+I was ready.
+
+Maisie wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.
+
+"Never mind, little woman," I sympathised.
+
+"Must you really go away, sir?" she sobbed.
+
+"Yes!--I must.  Good-bye, little girl."
+
+I kissed her on the trembling curve of her red, pouting lips, then I
+went down the stairs, leaving her weeping quietly on the landing.
+
+As I turned at the front door for one last look at the inside of the
+old home, which I might never see again, I saw the servants carrying
+Harry from the armoury.  I could hear his voice swearing and
+complaining in almost healthy vigour, so I was pleasantly confirmed in
+what I already had surmised,--his hurt was as temporary as the flat of
+a good, trusty, highland broad-sword could make it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Tommy Flynn, The Harlford Bruiser
+
+I hurried down the avenue to where it joined the dusty roadway.
+
+I stood for a few moments in indecision.  To my left, down in the
+hollow, the way led through the village.  To my right, it stretched far
+on the level until it narrowed to a grey point piercing a semi-circle
+of green; but I knew that miles beyond, at the end of that grey line,
+was the busy town of Grangeborough, with its thronging people, its
+railways and its steamships.  That was the direction for me.
+
+I waved my hand to sleepy little Brammerton and I swung to the right,
+for Grangeborough and the sea.
+
+Soon the internal tumult, caused by what I had just gone through, began
+to subside, and my spirits rose attune to the glories of the afternoon.
+
+Little I cared what my lot was destined to be--a prince in a palace or
+a tramp under a hedge.  Although, to say truth, the tramp's existence
+held for me the greater fascination.
+
+I was young, my lungs were sound and my heart beat well.  I was big and
+endowed with greater strength than is allotted the average man.
+
+Glad to be done with pomp, show and convention, my life was now my very
+own to plan and make, or to warp and spoil, as fancy, fortune and fate
+decreed.
+
+I hankered for the undisturbed quiet of some small village by the sea,
+with work enough,--but no more,--to keep body nourished and covered;
+with books in plenty and my pipe well filled; with an open door to
+welcome the sunshine, the scented breeze, the salted spray from the
+ocean and my congenial fellow-man.
+
+But, if I should be led in the paths of grubbing men, 'mid bustle,
+strife and quarrel, where the strong and the crafty alone survived,
+where the weaklings were thrust aside, I was ready and willing to take
+my place, to take my chance, to pit brawn against brawn, brain against
+brain, to strike blow for blow, to fail or to succeed, to live or die,
+as the gods might decree.
+
+As I filled my lungs, I felt as if I had relieved myself of some great
+burden in cutting myself adrift from Brammerton,--dear old spot as it
+was.  And I whistled and hummed as I trudged along, trying to reach the
+point of grey at the rim of the semi-circle of green.  On, on I went,
+on my seemingly unending endeavour.  But I knew that ultimately the
+road would end, although merely to open up another and yet another path
+over which I would have to travel in the long journey of life which lay
+before me.
+
+As I kept on, I saw the sun go down in a display of blood-red
+pyrotechnics.  I heard the chatter of the birds in the hedgerows as
+they settled to rest.  Now and again, I passed a tired toiler, with
+bent head and dragging feet,--his drudgery over for the day, but
+weighted with the knowledge that it must begin all over again on the
+morrow and on each succeeding morrow till the crash of his doom.
+
+The night breeze came up and darkness gathered round me.  A few hours
+more, and the twinkling lights of Grangeborough came into view.  They
+were welcome lights to me, for the pangs of a healthy hunger were
+clamouring to be appeased.
+
+As it had been with the country some hours before, so was it now with
+Grangeborough.  The town was settling down for the night.  It was late.
+Most of the shops were closing, or already closed.  Business was over
+for the day.  People hurried homeward like shadows.
+
+I looked about me for a place to dine, but failed, at first, in my
+quest.  Down toward the docks there were brighter lights and
+correspondingly deeper darknesses.  I went along a broad thoroughfare,
+turned down a narrower one until I found myself among lanes and alleys,
+jostled by drunken sailors and accosted by wanton women, as they
+staggered, blinking, from the brightly lighted saloons.
+
+My finer sensibilities rose and protested within me, but I had no
+choice.  If I wished to quell my craving for food, there was nothing
+left for me to do but to brave the foul air and the rough element of
+one of these sawdust-floored, glass-ornamented whisky palaces, where a
+snack and a glass of ale, at least, could be purchased.
+
+I looked about me and pushed into what seemed the least disreputable
+one of its kind.  I made through the haze of foul air and tobacco smoke
+to the counter, and stood idly by until the bar-tender should find it
+convenient to wait upon me.
+
+The place was crowded with sea-faring men and the human sediment that
+is found in and around the docks of all shipping cities; it resounded
+with a babel of coarse, discordant voices.
+
+The greater part of this coterie was gathered round a huge individual,
+with enormous hands and feet, a stubbly, blue chin,--set, round and
+aggressive; a nose with a broken bridge spoiled the balance of his
+podgy face.  He had beady eyes and a big, ugly mouth with stained,
+irregular teeth.  From time to time, he laughed boisterously, and his
+laugh had an echo of hell in it.
+
+He and his followers appeared to be enjoying some good joke.  But
+whenever he spoke every one else became silent.  Each coarse jest he
+mouthed was laughed at long and uproariously.  He had a hold on his
+fellows.  Even I was fascinated; but it was by the great similarity of
+some of the mannerisms of this uncouth man to those I had observed in
+the lower brute creation.
+
+My attention was withdrawn from him, however, by the sound of the
+rattling of tin cans in another corner which was partly partitioned
+from the main bar-room.  I followed the new sound.
+
+A tattered individual was seated there, his feet among a cluster of
+pots and pans all strung together.  His head was in his hands and his
+red-bearded face was a study of dejection and misery.
+
+There was something strangely familiar in the appearance of the man.
+
+Suddenly I remembered, and I laughed.
+
+I went over and sat down opposite him, setting my golf clubs by my
+side.  He ignored my arriving.  That same old trick of his!
+
+"Donald,--Donald Robertson!" I exclaimed, laughing again.
+
+Still he did not look across.
+
+Suddenly he spoke, and in a voice that knew neither hope nor gladness.
+
+"Ye laugh,--ye name me by my Christian name,--but ye don't say,
+'Donald, will ye taste?'"
+
+I leaned over and pulled his hands away from his head.  He flopped
+forward, then glared at me.  His eyes opened wide.
+
+"It's,--it's you,--is it?  The second son come to me in my hour o'
+trial."
+
+"Why!  Donald,--what's the trouble?" I asked.
+
+"Trouble,--ye may well say trouble.  Have ye mind o' the sixpence ye
+gied me on the roadside this mornin'."
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"For thirteen long, unlucky hours I saved that six-pence against my
+time o' need.  I tied it in the tail o' my sark for safety.  I came in
+here an hour ago.  I ordered a glass o' whisky and a tumbler o' beer.
+I sat doon here for a while wi' them both before me, enjoying the sight
+o' them and indulgin' in the heavenly joy o' anteecipation.  Then I
+drank the speerits and was just settlin' doon to the beer,--tryin' to
+make it spin oot as long as I could; for, ye ken, it's comfortable in
+here,--when an emissary o' the deevil, wi' hands like shovels and a
+leer in his e'e, came in and picked up the tumbler frae under my very
+nose and swallowed the balance o' your six-pence before I could say
+squeak."
+
+I laughed at Donald's rueful countenance and his more than rueful tale.
+
+"Did the man have a broken nose and a heavy jaw?" I asked.
+
+"Ay, ay!" said Donald, lowering his voice.  "Do ye happen to ken him?"
+
+"No!--but he is still out there and he thinks it a fine joke that he
+played on you."
+
+"So would I," said Donald, "if I had drunk his beer."
+
+"What did you do when he swallowed off your drink?" I asked.
+
+"Do!--what do ye think I did?  I remonstrated wi' a' the vehemence that
+a Struan Robertson in anger is capable o'.  But the vehemence o' the
+Lord himsel' couldna bring the beer back."
+
+"Why didn't you fight, man?  Why didn't you knock the bully down?" I
+asked, pitying his wobegone appearance.
+
+"Mister,--whatever your name is,--I'm a man o' peace; and, forby I'm
+auld enough to ken it's no' wise to fight on an empty stomach.  I
+havena had a bite since I saw ye last."
+
+"Never mind, Donald,--cheer up.  I am going to have some bread and
+cheese, and a glass of ale, so you can have some with me, at my
+expense."
+
+His face lit up like a Roman candle.
+
+"Man,--I'm wi' ye.  You're a man o' substance, and I'm fonder o'
+substantial bread and cheese and beer than I am o' the metapheesical
+drinks I was indulgin' in for ten minutes before ye so providentially
+came."
+
+I could not help wondering at some of the remarks of this wise, yet
+good-for-little, old customer; but I did not press him for more
+enlightenment.
+
+I thumped the hand-bell on the table, and was successful in obtaining
+more prompt attention from the bar-tender than I had been able to do
+across the counter.
+
+When the food and drink were placed between us and paid for, Donald
+stuffed all but one slice of his bread and cheese inside his waistcoat,
+and he sighed contentedly as he contemplated the sparkling ale.
+
+But, all at once, he startled me by springing to his feet, seizing his
+tumbler in his hand and emptying the contents down his gullet at two
+monstrous gulps.
+
+"No, no!--ye thievin' deevil," he shouted, as he regained his breath,
+"ye canna do that twice wi' Donald Robertson."
+
+I looked toward the opening in the partition.  Donald's recent
+enemy,--the man whom I had been studying at the other end of the
+bar-room,--was shouldering himself into our company.  Behind him, in a
+semi-circle, a dozen faces grinned in anticipation of some more fun at
+Donald's expense.
+
+The big bully glared down at me as I sat.
+
+"That there is uncommon good beer, young un," he growled, "and that
+there is most uncommon good bread and cheese."
+
+I glanced at him with half-shut eyelids, then I broke off another piece
+of bread.
+
+"Maybe you didn't 'ear me?" he shouted again, "I said that was uncommon
+good beer."
+
+"I shall be better able to judge of that, my man, after I have tasted
+it," I replied.
+
+"Not that beer, little boy,--you ain't going to taste that," he
+thundered, "because I 'appens to want it,--see!  I 'appens to 'ave a
+most aggrawating thirst in my gargler."
+
+A burst of laughter followed this ponderous attempt at humour.
+
+"'And it over, sonny,--I wants it."
+
+I merely raised my head and ran my eyes over him.
+
+He was an ugly brute, and no mistake.  A man of tremendous girth.
+
+Although I had no real fear of him,--for, already I had been schooled
+to the knowledge that fear and its twin brother worry are man's worst
+opponents.--I was a little uncertain as to what the outcome would be if
+I got him thoroughly angered.  However, I was in no mind to be
+interfered with.
+
+He thumped his heavy fist on the table.
+
+"'And that over,--quick," he roared.
+
+His great jaws clamped together and his thick, discoloured lips became
+compressed.
+
+"Why!--certainly, my friend," I remarked easily, rising with slow
+deliberation.  "Which will you have first:--the bread and cheese, or
+the ale?"
+
+"'Twere the ale I arst and it's th' ale I wants,--and blamed quick
+about it or I'll know the reason w'y."
+
+"Stupid of me!" I remarked.  "I should have known you wanted the ale
+first.  Here you are, my good, genial, handsome fellow."
+
+I picked up the foaming tumbler and offered it to him.  When he
+stretched out his great, grimy paw to take it, I tossed the stuff smack
+into his face, sending showers of the liquid into the gaping
+countenances of his supporters.
+
+He staggered back among them, momentarily blinded, and, as he
+staggered, I sent the tumbler on the same errand as the ale.  It
+smashed in a hundred pieces on the side of his broken nose, opening up
+an old gash there and sending a stream of blood oozing down over his
+mouth.
+
+There was no more laughter, nor grinning.  The place was as quiet as a
+church during prayer.  I pushed into the open saloon, with the
+remonstrating Donald at my heels.  Then the bull began to roar.  He
+pulled off his coat, while half a dozen of his own kind endeavoured
+with dirty handkerchiefs and rags to mop the blood from his face.
+
+"Shut the door.  Don't let 'im away from 'ere," he shouted.  "I'll push
+his windpipe into his boots, I will.  Watch me!"
+
+As I stood with my back against the partition, the bar-tender slipped
+round the end of the counter.
+
+"Look here, guv'nor," he whispered with good intent, "the back door's
+open,--run like the devil."
+
+I turned to him in mild surprise.
+
+"Don't be an ijit," he went on.  "Git.  Why!  he's Tommy Flynn, the
+champion rib cracker and face pusher of Harlford, here on his holidays."
+
+"Tommy Flynn," I answered, "Tommy Rot fits him better."
+
+"You ain't a-going to stand up and get hit, are you?"
+
+"What else is there for me to do?" I asked.
+
+He threw up his arms despairingly.
+
+"Lor' lumme!--then I bids you good-bye and washes my hands clean of
+you."  And he went round behind the counter in disgust, spitting among
+the sawdust.
+
+By this time, Tommy Flynn, the champion rib cracker and face pusher,
+was rolling up his sleeves businesslike and thrusting off his numerous
+seconds in his anxiety to get at me.
+
+"'Ere, Splotch," he cried to a one-eyed bosom friend of his, "'old my
+watch, while I joggles the puddins out of this kid with a left 'ander.
+My heye!--'e won't be no blooming golfing swell in another 'alf minute."
+
+He grinned at me a few times in order to hypnotise me with his beauty
+and to instil in me the necessary amount of frightfulness, before he
+got to work in earnest.  Then, by way of invitation, he thrust forward
+his jaw almost into my face.  I took advantage of his offer somewhat
+more quickly than he anticipated.  I struck him on the chin with my
+left and drew my right to his body.  But his chin was hard as flint and
+it bruised my knuckles; while his great body was podgy and of an
+india-rubberlike flexibility.
+
+For my pains, he brushed my ear and drew a little blood, with the grin
+of an ape on his brutish face.
+
+He threw up his arms to guard, feinted at me, and rushed in.
+
+I parried his blows successfully, much to his surprise, for I could see
+his eyes widening and a wrinkle in his brow.
+
+"Careful, Tommy!--careful," cautioned Splotch of the one eye.  "He's a
+likely looking young bloke."
+
+"Likely be blowed," said Tommy shortly, as he toyed with me.  "Watch
+this!"
+
+I saw that it would be for my own good, the less I let my antagonist
+know of my ability at his own game, and I knew also I would have to
+play caution with my strength all the way, owing to the trying ordeals
+I had already gone through that day.
+
+Once, my antagonist tried to draw me as he would draw a novice.  I
+ignored the body bait he opened up for me and, instead, I swung in
+quickly with my right on to his bruised nose, with all the energy I
+could muster.  He staggered and reeled like a drunken man.  In fact,
+had he not been half-besotted by dear-only-knows how many days of
+debauchery, it might have gone hard with me, but now he positively
+howled with pain.
+
+I had hit on his most vulnerable part, right at the beginning.
+
+Something inside of me chuckled, for, if there was one special place in
+any man's anatomy that I always had been able to reach, it was his nose.
+
+Flynn rushed on me again and again.  I was lucky indeed in beating back
+his onslaughts.
+
+Once, a spent blow got me on the cheek; yet, spent as it was, it made
+me numb and dizzy for the moment.  Once, he caught me squarely on the
+chest right over the wound my brother had given me.  The pain of that
+was like the cut of a red-hot knife, but it passed quickly.  I
+staggered and reeled several times, as flashes of weakness seemed to
+pass over me.  I began to fear that my strength would give out.
+
+I pulled myself together with an effort.  Then,
+once,--twice,--thrice,--in a succession bewildering to myself, I
+smashed that broken nose of Flynn's, sending him sick and wobbling
+among his following.
+
+He became maddened with rage.  His companions commenced to voice
+cautions and instructions.  He swore back at them in a muddy torrent of
+abuse.
+
+Already, the fight was over;--I could feel it in my bones;--over, far
+sooner and more satisfactory to me than I had expected.  And, more by
+good luck than by ability, I was, to all intents and purposes,
+unscathed.
+
+Tommy Flynn could fight.  But he was not the fighter he would have been
+had he been away from drink and in strict training, as I was.  It was
+my good fortune to meet him when he was out of condition.  He spat out
+a mouthful of blood and returned to the conflict, defending his nose
+with all the ferocity of a lioness defending her whelps.
+
+"Look out!  Take care!" a timely voice whispered on my left.
+
+Something flashed in my opponent's hands in the gaslight.  I backed to
+the partition.  We had a terrible mix-up just then.  Blow and
+counterblow rained.  He broke down my guard once and drove with fierce
+force for my face.  I ducked, just in time, for he missed me by a mere
+hair's-breadth.  His fist smashed into a metal bolt in the woodwork.
+Sparks flew and there was a loud ring of metal against metal.
+
+"You cowardly brute!" I shouted, breaking away as it dawned on me that
+he had attacked me with heavy knuckle-dusters.  My blood fairly danced
+with madness.  I sprang in on him in a positive frenzy.  He became a
+child in my hands.  Never had I been roused as I was then.  I struck
+and struck again at his hideous face until it sagged away from me.
+
+He was blind with his own blood.  I followed up, raining punch upon
+punch,--pitilessly,--relentlessly.  His feet slipped in the slither of
+bloody sawdust.  I struck again and he crashed to the floor, striking
+his head against the iron pedestal of a round table in the corner.
+
+He lay all limp and senseless, with his mouth wide open and his breath
+coming roaring and gurgling from his clotted throat.
+
+As his friends endeavoured to raise him, as I stood back against the
+counter, panting, I heard a battering at the main door of the saloon
+which had been closed at the commencement of the scuffle.
+
+"Here, sir,--quick!" cried the sympathetic bartender to me.  "The cops!
+Out the back door like hell!"
+
+I had no desire to be mixed up in a police affair, especially in the
+company of such scum as I was then among.  I picked up my golf bag and
+swung my knapsack on to my back once more.  Then I remembered about
+Donald.  I could not leave him.  I searched in corners and under the
+tables.  He was nowhere in sight.
+
+"Is it the tinker?" asked the bar-tender excitedly.
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"He's gone.  He slunk out with his tin cans, through the back way, as
+soon as you got started in this scrap."
+
+I did not wait for anything more, for some one was unlocking the front
+door.  I darted out the back exit and into the lane.  Down the lane, in
+the darkness, I tore like a hurricane, then along the waterfront until
+there was a mile between me and the scene of my late encounter.
+
+I slowed up at a convenient horse-trough, splashed my hands and face in
+the cooling water and adjusted my clothing as best I could, then I
+strolled into the shipping shed, where stevedores and dock labourers
+were busy, by electric light, completing the loading of a smart-looking
+little cargo boat.
+
+A notion seized me.  It was a coaster, so I knew I could not be going
+very far away.
+
+I walked up the gang-plank, and aboard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Aboard the Coaster
+
+An ordinary seaman, then the second officer of the little steamer
+passed me on the deck, but both were busy and paid no more attention to
+my presence than if I had been one of themselves.
+
+I strolled down the narrow companionway, into a cosy, but somewhat
+cramped, saloon.
+
+After standing for a time in the hope of seeing some signs of life, I
+pushed open the door of a stateroom on the starboard side.  The room
+had two berths.  I tossed my knapsack and clubs into the lower one.  As
+I turned to the door again, I espied a diminutive individual, no more
+than four and a half feet tall,--or, as I should say, small,--in the
+full, gold-braided uniform of a ship's chief steward.
+
+He was a queer-looking little customer, grizzled, weather-beaten and,
+apparently, as hard as nails.  He was absolutely self-possessed and,
+despite his stature, there was "nothing small about him," as an
+American friend of mine used to put it.
+
+He touched his cap, and smiled.  His smile told me at once that he was
+an Irishman, for only an Irishman could smile as he did.  It was a
+smile with a joke, a drink, a kiss and a touch of the devil himself in
+it.
+
+"I saw ye come down, sor.  Ye'll be makin' for Glasgow?"
+
+Glasgow!  I cogitated, yes!--Glasgow as a starting point would suit me
+as well as anywhere else.
+
+"Correct first guess," I answered.  "But, tell me,--how did you know
+that that was my destination?"
+
+He showed his teeth.
+
+"Och! because it's the only port we're callin' at, sor.  Looks like a
+fine trip north," he went on.  "The weather's warm and there's just
+enough breeze to make it lively.  Nothin' like the sea, sor, for
+keepin' the stomach swate and the mind up to the knocker."
+
+I yawned, for I was dog-weary.
+
+"When ye get to Glasgow, if ye are on the lookout for a place to
+slape,--try Barney O'Toole's in Argyle Street.  The place is nothin' to
+look at, but it's a hummer inside, sor."
+
+I yawned drowsily once more, but the hint did not stop him.
+
+"If you'll excuse my inquisitiveness, sor,--or rather, what ye might
+call my natural insight,--I judge you're on either a moighty short
+tour, or a devil av a long one got up in a hurry."
+
+The little clatterbag's uncanny guessing harried me.
+
+"How do you arrive at your conclusions?" I asked, taking off my jacket
+and hanging it up.
+
+"Och! shure it's by the size av your wardrobe.  No man goes on a
+well-planned, long trip with a knapsack and a bag av golfsticks."
+
+"Well,--it is likely to be long enough," I laughed ruefully.
+
+"Had a row with the old man and clearin' out?" he sympathised.  "Well,
+good luck to yer enterprise.  I did the same meself when I was
+thirteen; after gettin' a hidin' with a bit av harness for doin'
+somethin' I never did at all.  I've never seen the old man since and
+never want to.  Bad cess to him.
+
+"Would ye like a bite before ye turn in, sor?  It's past supper-time,
+but I can find ye a scrapin' av something."
+
+"A bite and a bath,--if I may?" I put in.  "I'm sticky all over."
+
+"A bath!  Right ye are.  I knew ye was a toff the minute I clapped my
+blinkers on ye."
+
+In ten minutes my talkative friend announced that my bath was in
+readiness.  For ten minutes more he rattled on to me at intervals,
+through the bathroom door, poking into my past and arranging my future
+like a clairvoyant.
+
+Notwithstanding, he had a nice, steaming-hot supper waiting for me when
+I returned to my stateroom.
+
+As I fell-to, he stood by, enjoying the relish I displayed in the
+appeasing of my hunger.
+
+"If I was a young fellow av your age, strong build and qualities, do ye
+know where I would make for?" he ventured.
+
+"Where?" I asked, uninterestedly.
+
+He lowered his eyebrows.  "Out West,--Canada," he said, with a decided
+nod of his head.  "And, the farther west the better.  The Pacific Coast
+has a climate like home, only better.  For the main part, ye're away
+from the long winters;--it's a new country;--a young man's
+country:--it's wild and free:--and,--it's about as far away as ye can
+get from--from,--the trouble ye're leavin' behind."
+
+I looked across at him.
+
+"Oh! bhoy,--I've been there.  I know what I'm talkin' about."
+
+He sighed.  "But I'm gettin' old and I've been too long on the sea to
+give it up."
+
+He pulled himself together suddenly.  Owing to his stature, that was
+not a very difficult task.
+
+"Man!--ye're tired.  I'll be talkin' no more to you.  Tumble in and
+sleep till we get to Glasgow."
+
+As he cleared away the dishes, I approached him regarding my fare.
+
+"Look here, steward,--I had not time to book my berth or pay my
+passage.  What's the damage?"
+
+"Ten and six, sor, exclusive av meals," he answered, taking out his
+ticket book in a business-like way.
+
+"What name, sor?"
+
+"Name!--oh, yes! name!" I stammered.  "Why!--George Bremner."
+
+He looked at me and his face fell.  I am sure his estimation of me fell
+with it.  I was almost sorry I had not obliged him by calling myself
+Algernon something-or-other.
+
+I paid him.
+
+"When do you expect to arrive in Glasgow?" I asked.
+
+"Eight o'clock to-morrow morning, sor.  And," he added, "there's a boat
+leaves for Canada to-morrow night."
+
+"The devil it does," I grunted.
+
+He gave me another of his infectious smiles.
+
+"Would ye like another bath in the mornin', sor, before breakfast?" he
+inquired, as he was leaving.
+
+I could not bear to disappoint the little fellow any more.
+
+"Yes," I replied.
+
+Quarter of an hour later, I was lying on my back in the upper berth,
+gazing drowsily into the white-enamelled ceiling two feet overhead;
+happy in the reborn sensations of cleanliness, relaxation and
+satisfaction; loving my enemies as well, or almost as well, as I loved
+my friends.  I could not get the little steward's advice out of my
+head.  In a jumbled medley, "Out West,--out West,--out West," kept
+floating before my brain.  "The Pacific Coast.--Home climate, only
+better.--A new country.--A young man's country.--Wild and free.--It's
+about as far away as ye can get,--as ye can get,--can get,--can get."
+
+The rumbling of the cargo trucks, the hoarse "lower away" of the
+quartermaster, the whirr of the steam winch and the lapping of the
+water against the boat,--all intermingled, then died away and still
+farther away, until only the quietest of these sounds remained,--the
+lapping of the sea and "Canada,--Canada,--Canada."  They kept up their
+communications with me, sighing and singing, the merest murmurings of
+the wind in a sea shell:--soothing accompaniments to my unremembered
+dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+K. B. Horsfal, Millionaire
+
+When I awoke, the sun was streaming through the porthole upon my face.
+It was early morning,--Saturday morning I remembered.
+
+From the thud, thud, of the engines and the steady rise and fall, I
+knew we were still at sea.  I stretched my limbs, feeling as a god must
+feel balancing on the topmost point of a star; so refreshed, so
+invigorated, so buoyant, so much in harmony with the rising sun and the
+freshness of the early day, that, to be exact, I really had no feeling.
+
+I sprang to the floor of my cabin and dressed hurriedly in my anxiety
+to be on deck; but, at the door, I encountered my little Irish steward.
+He eyed me suspiciously, as if I had had intentions of evading my
+morning ablution,--so I swallowed my impatience, grabbed a towel and
+made leisurely for the bathroom, where I laved my face and hands in the
+cold water, remained inside for a sufficiently respectable time, then
+ran off the water and, finally, made my exit and clambered on deck.
+
+As I paced up and down, enjoying the beauties of the fast narrowing
+firth, I no longer felt in doubt as to my ultimate destination.  My
+subconscious self, aided and abetted by the Irish steward, had already
+decided that for me:--it was Canada, the West, the Pacific.
+
+Soon after I had breakfasted, we reached the Tail of the Bank, and so
+impatient was I to be on my long journey that I bade good-bye to my
+little Irishman at Greenock, leaving him grinning and happy in the
+knowledge that I was taking his advice and was bound for the Pacific
+Coast.
+
+In forty minutes more, I left the train at Glasgow and started in to a
+hurried and moderate replenishing of my wardrobe, finishing up with the
+purchase of a travelling bag, a good second-hand rifle and a little
+ammunition.
+
+I dispensed with my knapsack by presenting it to a newsboy, who held it
+up in disgust as if it had been a dead cat.  Despite the fact that I
+was now on my own resources and would have to work, nothing could
+induce me to part with my golf clubs.  They were old and valued
+friends.  Little did I imagine then how useful they would ultimately
+prove.
+
+At the head office of the steamship company, I inquired as to the best
+class of travelling when the traveller wished to combine cheapness with
+rough comfort; and I was treated to the cheering news that there was a
+rate war on between the rival Trans-Atlantic Steamship Companies and I
+could purchase a second-cabin steamboat ticket for six pounds, while a
+further eight pounds, thirteen shillings and four-pence would carry me
+by Colonist, or third class, three thousand miles, from the East to the
+Far West of Canada.
+
+I paid for my ticket and booked my berth then and there, counted out my
+remaining wealth,--ten pounds and a few coppers,--and my destiny was
+settled.
+
+With so much to tell of what befell me later, I have neither the time
+nor the inclination to detail the pleasures and the discomforts of a
+twelve days' trip by slow steamer across a storm-swept Atlantic,
+battened down for days on end, like cattle in the hold of a
+cross-channel tramp; of a six days' journey across prairie lands, in a
+railway car with its dreadful monotony of unupholstered wooden seats
+and sleeping boards, its stuffiness, its hourly disturbances in the
+night-time in the shape of noisy conductors demanding tickets, incoming
+and outgoing travellers and shrieking engines; its dollar meals in the
+dining car, which I envied but could not afford; its well-nigh
+unlightable cooking stoves and the canned beef and pork and beans with
+which I had to regale myself en route.
+
+Jaded, travel-weary and grimy, I reached the end of my journey.  It was
+late in the evening.  I tumbled out of the train and into the first
+hotel bus that yawned for me, and not once did I look out of the window
+to see what kind of a city I had arrived at.
+
+I came to myself at the entrance to a magnificent and palatial hotel;
+too much so, by far, I fancied, for my scantily-filled purse.  But I
+was past the minding stage, and I knew I could always make a change on
+the morrow, if so be it a change were necessary.
+
+And then I began to think,--what mattered it anyway?  What were a few
+paltry sovereigns between one and poverty?  Comforting thought,--a man
+could not have anything less than nothing.
+
+I registered, ordered a bath, a shave, a haircut, a jolly good supper
+and a bed; and, oh! how I enjoyed them all!  Surely this was the most
+wonderful city in the world, for never did bath, or shave, or supper,
+or bed feel so delicious as these did.
+
+I swooned away at last from sheer pleasure.
+
+The recuperative powers of youth are marvellously quick.  I was up and
+out to view the city almost as soon as the sun was touching the
+snow-tipped tops of the magnificent mountain peaks which were miles
+away yet seemed to stand sentinels at the end of the street down which
+I walked.  I was up and out long ere the sun had gilded the waters of
+the broad inlet which separated Vancouver from its baby sister to the
+north of it.
+
+The prospect pleased me; there was freedom in the air, expanse,
+vastness, but,--it was still a city with a city's artifices and,
+consequently, not what I was seeking.  I desired the natural life; not
+the roughness, the struggle, the matching of crafty wits, the throbbing
+blood and the straining sinews,--but the solitude, the quiet, the
+chance for thought and observation, the wilds, the woods and the sea.
+
+As I returned to breakfast, I wondered if I should find them,--and
+where.
+
+In the dining-room, during the course of my breakfast,--the first real
+breakfast I had partaken of in Canada,--my attention was diverted to a
+tall, well-groomed, muscular-looking man, who sat at a table nearby.
+He looked a considerable bit on the sunny side of fifty.  He was clean
+shaven, his hair was black tinged with grey, and his eyes were keen and
+kindly.
+
+Every time I glanced in his direction, I found him looking over at me
+in an amused sort of way.  I began to wonder if I were making some
+breach of Canadian etiquette of which I was ignorant.  True, I had
+eaten my porridge and cream without sprinkling the dish with a surface
+of sugar as he had done; I had set aside the fried potatoes which had
+been served to me with my bacon and eggs;--but these, surely, were
+trivial things and of no interest to any one but myself.
+
+At last, he rose and walked out, sucking a wooden toothpick.  With his
+departure, I forgot his existence.
+
+After I had breakfasted, I sought the lounge room in order to have a
+look at the morning paper and, if possible, determine what I was going
+to do for a living and how I was going to get what I wanted to do.
+
+I was buried in the advertisements, when a genial voice with a nasal
+intonation, at my elbow, unearthed me.
+
+It was my observer of the dining-room.  He had seated himself in the
+chair next to mine.
+
+"Say! young man,--you'll excuse me; but was it you I saw come in last
+night with the bag of golf clubs?"
+
+I acknowledged the crime.
+
+He laughed good-naturedly.
+
+"Well,--you had courage anyway.  To sport a golfing outfit here in the
+West is like venturing out with breeches, a walking cane and a monocle.
+Nobody but an Englishman would dare do it.  Here, they think golf and
+cricket should be bracketed along with hopscotch, dominoes and
+tiddly-winks; just as I used to fancy baseball was a glorified kids'
+game.  I know better now."
+
+I looked at him rather darkly.
+
+"Oh!--it's all right, friend,--it takes a man to play baseball, same as
+it takes a man to play golf and cricket.  Golfing is about the only
+vice I have left.  Why, now I come to think of it, my wife clipped a
+lot of my vices off years ago, and since that my daughter has succeeded
+in knocking off all the others,--all but my cigars, my cocktails and my
+golf.  I'm just plumb crazy on the game and I play it whenever I can.
+Maybe it's because I used to play it when I was a little chap, away
+back in England years and years ago."
+
+"I am glad you like the game," I put in.  "It is a favourite of mine."
+
+"I play quite a bit back home in Baltimore," he continued, "that's when
+I'm there.  My clubs arrived here by express yesterday.  You see, it's
+like this;--I'm off to Australia at the end of the week, on a business
+trip,--that is, if I get things settled up here by that time.  I am
+crossing over from there to England, where I shall be for several
+months.  England is some place for golf, so I'm going to golf some, you
+bet.
+
+"I'm not boring you, young friend?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Not a bit," I laughed.  "Go on,--I am as interested as can be."
+
+"I believe there's a kind of a lay-out they call a golf course, in one
+of the outlying districts round here.  What do you say to making the
+day of it?  You aren't busy, are you?" he added.
+
+"No! no!--not particularly," I answered.  I did not tell him that in a
+few days, if I did not get busy at something or other, I should starve.
+
+"Good!" he cried.  "Go to your room and get your sticks.  I'll find out
+all about the course and how to get to it."
+
+The brusk good-nature of the man hit me somehow; besides, I had not had
+a game for over three weeks.  Think of it--three weeks!  And goodness
+only knew when I should have the chance of another after this one.  As
+for looking for work;--work was never to be compared with golf.  Surely
+work could wait for one day!
+
+"All right!--I'm game," I said, jumping up and entering into the spirit
+of gaiety that lay so easily on my new acquaintance.
+
+"Good boy!" he cried, getting up and holding out his hand.  "My name's
+Horsfal,--K. B. Horsfal,--lumberman, meat-packer, and the man whose
+name is on every trouser-suspender worth wearing.  What's yours?"
+
+"George Bremner," I answered simply.
+
+"All right, George, my boy,--see you in ten minutes.  But, remember, I
+called this tune, so I pay the piper."
+
+That was music in my ears and I readily agreed.
+
+"Make it twenty minutes," I suggested.  "I have a short letter to
+write."
+
+I wrote my letter, gave it to the boy to deliver for me and presented
+myself before my new friend right up to time.
+
+In the half hour's run we had in the electric tram, I learned a great
+deal about Mr. K. B. Horsfal.
+
+He had migrated from the Midlands of England at the age of seventeen.
+He had kicked,--or had been kicked,--about the United States for some
+fifteen years, more or less up against it all the time, as he
+expressively put it; when, by a lucky chance, in a poverty-stricken
+endeavour to repair his broken braces, he hit upon a scheme that
+revolutionised the brace business: was quick enough to see its
+possibilities, patented his idea and became famous.
+
+Not content to rest on his laurels,--or his braces,--he tackled the
+lumbering industry in the West and the meat-packing industry in the
+East, both with considerable success.  Now he had to sit down and do
+some figuring when he wished to find out how many millions of dollars
+he was worth.
+
+His wife had died years ago and his only daughter was at home in
+Baltimore.
+
+Altogether, he was a new and delightful type to one like me,--a young
+man fresh from his ancestral roof in the north of staid and
+conventional old England.
+
+He was healthy, vigorous, and as keen as the edge of a razor.
+
+On and on he talked, telling me of himself, his work and his projects.
+
+I got to wondering if he were merely setting the proverbial sprat; but
+the sprat in his case proved the whale.  Every moment I expected him to
+ask me for some confidences in return, but on this point Mr. K. B.
+Horsfal was silent.
+
+We discovered our golfing ground, which proved to be a fairly good,
+little, nine-holed country course, rough and full of natural hazards.
+
+K. B. Horsfal could play golf, that I soon found out.  He entered into
+his game with the enthusiasm and grim determination which I imagined he
+displayed in everything he took a hand in.
+
+He seldom spoke, so intent was he on the proper placing of his feet and
+the proper adjustment of his hands and his clubs.
+
+Three times we went round that course and three times I had the
+pleasure of beating him by a margin.  He envied me my full swing and my
+powerful and accurate driving; he studied me every time I approached a
+green and he scratched his head at some of my long putts; but, most of
+all, he rhapsodised on my manner of getting out of a hole.
+
+"Man,--if I only had that trick of yours in handling the mashie and the
+niblick, I could do the round a stroke a hole better, for there isn't a
+rut, or a tuft, or a bunker in any course that I seem to be able to
+keep out of."
+
+I showed him the knack of it as it had been taught me by an old
+professional at Saint Andrews.  K. B. Horsfal was in ecstasies, if a
+two-hundred-pound, keen, brusk, American business man ever allows
+himself such liberties.
+
+Nothing would please him but that we should go another round, just to
+test out his new acquisition and give him the hang of the thing.
+
+To his supreme satisfaction,--although I again beat him by the same
+small margin,--he reduced his score for the round by eight strokes.
+
+On our journey back to the city, he began to talk again, but on a
+different tack this time.
+
+"George,--you'll excuse me,--but, if I were you I would put that signet
+ring you are wearing in your pocket."
+
+I looked down at it and reddened, for my ring was manifestly old, as it
+was manifestly strange in design and workmanship, and apt to betray an
+identity.
+
+I slipped it off my little finger and placed it in my vest pocket.
+
+My companion laughed.
+
+"'No sooner said than done,'" he quoted.  "You see, George,--any one
+who saw you come in to the hotel last night could tell you had not been
+travelling for pleasure.  The marks of an uncomfortable train journey,
+in a colonist car, were sticking out all over you.  Now, golf clubs and
+a signet ring like that which you were sporting are enough to tell any
+man that you have been in the habit of travelling luxuriously and for
+the love of it."
+
+I could not help admiring my new friend's method of deduction, and I
+thanked him for his kindly interest.
+
+"Not a bit," he continued, "so long as you don't mind.  For, it's like
+this,--I take it you have left home for some personal reason,--no
+concern of mine,--you have come out here to start over, or rather, to
+make a start.  Good!  You are right to start at the bottom of the hill.
+But, from the look of you, I fancy you won't stick at anything that
+doesn't suit you.  You are the kind of a fellow who, if you felt like
+it, would tell a man to go to the devil, then walk off his premises.
+You see, I don't tab you as a milksop kind of Englishman exactly.
+
+"Well,--out here they don't like Britishers who receive remittances
+every month from their mas or pas at home, for they have found that
+that kind is generally not much good.  Hope you're not one, George?"
+
+"No!" I laughed, rather ruefully, almost wishing I were.  "With me, it
+is sink or swim.  And, I do not mind telling you, Mr. Horsfal, that it
+will be necessary for me to leave the hotel to-morrow for less
+pretentious apartments and to start swimming for all I am worth."
+
+"Good!" he cried, as if it were a good joke.  "How do you propose
+starting in?"
+
+"I have already commenced keeping an eye on the advertisements, which
+seem to be chiefly for real estate salesmen and partners with a little
+capital," I said.
+
+"But, the fact is, I have made an application this morning for
+something I thought might suit me.  But, even if I am lucky enough to
+be considered, the chances are there will be some flies in the
+ointment:--there always are."
+
+My friend looked at me, as I thought, curiously.
+
+"To-morrow morning," I went on, "it is my intention to begin with the
+near end of the business district and call on every business house, one
+after another, until I happen upon something that will provide a start.
+
+"I have no love for the grinding in an office, nor yet for the grubbing
+in a warehouse, but, for a bit, it will be a case of 'needs must when
+the devil drives,'--so I mean to take anything that I can get, to begin
+with, and leave the matter of choice to a more opportune time."
+
+"And what would be your choice, George?" he inquired.
+
+"Choice!  Well, if you asked me what I thought I was adapted for, I
+would say, green-keeper and professional golfer; gymnastic instructor;
+athletic coach; policeman; or, with training and dieting, pugilist.  At
+a pinch, I could teach school."
+
+K. B. Horsfal grinned and looked out of the car window at the
+apparently never-ending sea of charred tree stumps through which we
+were passing.
+
+"Not very ambitious, sonny!--eh!"
+
+"No,--that is the worst of it," I answered.  "I do not seem to have
+been planned for anything ambitious.  Besides, I have no desire to
+amass millions at the sacrifice of my peace of mind.  Why!--a
+millionaire cannot call his life his own.  He is at the beck and call
+of everybody.  He is consulted here and harassed there.  He is dunned,
+solicited and blackmailed; he is badgered and pestered until, I should
+fancy, he wished his millions were at the bottom of the deep, blue sea."
+
+"Lord, man!" exclaimed Mr. Horsfal, "but you have hit it right.  One
+would almost think you had been through it yourself."
+
+"I have not," I answered, "but I know most of the diseases that attack
+the man of wealth."
+
+"Now, you have given me an idea of what you might _have_ to do.  But to
+get back to desire or choice;--what would it be then?" he inquired, as
+the electric tram passed at last from the tree stumps and began to
+draw, through signs of habitation, toward the city.
+
+"If I had my desire and my choice, Mr. Horsfal, they would be: in such
+a climate as we have here but away somewhere up the coast, with the sea
+in front of me and the trees and the hills behind me; the open air, the
+sunlight; contending with the natural,--not the artificial,--obstacles
+of life; work, with a sufficiency of leisure; quiet, when quiet were
+desired; and, in the evening as the sun went down into the sea or
+behind the hills, a cosy fire, a good book and my pipe going good."
+
+K. B. Horsfal, millionaire, patentee, lumberman and meat-packer, looked
+at me, sighed and nodded his head.
+
+"After all, my boy," he said, almost sadly, "I shouldn't wonder if that
+isn't better than all the hellish wealth-hunting that ever was or ever
+shall be.  Stick to your ideals.  Try them out if you can.  As for
+me,--it's too late.  I am saturated with the money-getting mania; I am
+in the maelstrom and I couldn't get out if I tried.  I'm in it for
+good."
+
+Our conversation was brought to an abrupt ending, as Mr. Horsfal had to
+make a short call at one of the newspaper offices, on some business
+matter.  We got out of the tram together.  I waited for him while he
+made his call, then we walked back leisurely to the hotel; happy,
+pleasantly tired and hungry as hunters.
+
+I was regaled in the dining-room as the guest of my American friend.
+
+"Are you going to be in for the balance of the evening?" he asked, as I
+rose to leave him at the conclusion of our after-dinner smoke.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Good!" he ejaculated, rather abruptly.
+
+And why he should have thought it "good," puzzled me not a little as I
+went up in the elevator.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Golden Crescent
+
+I had been sitting in my room for two hours, reading, and once in a
+while, thinking over the strange adventures that had befallen me since
+I had started out from home some three short weeks before.  I was
+trying to picture to myself how it had all gone in the old home; I was
+wondering if my father's heart had softened any to his absent son.
+
+I reasoned whether, after all, I had done right in interfering between
+my brother Harry and his fiancee; but, when I thought of poor little
+Peggy Darrol and the righteous indignation and anger of her brother
+Jim, I felt, that if I had to go through all of it again, I would do as
+I had done already.
+
+My telephone bell rang.  I answered.
+
+It was the hotel exchange operator.
+
+"Hello!--is that room 280?"
+
+"Yes!" I answered.
+
+"Mr. George Bremner?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"A gentleman in room 16 wishes to see you.  Right away, if you can,
+sir!"
+
+"What name?" I asked.
+
+"No name given, sir."
+
+"All right!  I'll go down at once.  Thank you!"
+
+I laid aside my pipe and threw on my coat.  On reaching the right
+landing, I made my way along an almost interminable corridor, until I
+stood before the mysterious room 16.
+
+As I entered, a respectably dressed, middle-aged man was coming out,
+hat in hand.  Two others were sitting inside, apparently waiting an
+interview, while a smart-looking young lady,--evidently a
+stenographer,--was showing a fourth into the room adjoining.
+
+It dawned on me that this request to call must be the outcome of the
+letter I had written that morning in answer to the newspaper
+advertisement.
+
+I immediately assumed what I thought to be the correct, meek expression
+of a man looking for work; with, I hope, becoming timidity and
+nervousness, I whispered my name to the young lady.  Then I took a seat
+alongside one of my fellow applicants, who eyed me askance and with
+what I took to be amused tolerance.
+
+Five minutes, and the young lady ushered out the man who had been on
+the point of being interviewed as I had come in.
+
+"Mr. Monaghan?" queried the lady.
+
+Mr. Monaghan rose and followed her.
+
+An interval of ten minutes, and Mr. Monaghan went after his predecessor.
+
+"Mr. Rubenstein?" asked the lady.
+
+Mr. Rubenstein, who, every inch of him, looked the part, went through
+the routine of Mr. Monaghan, leaving me alone in the waiting room.
+
+At last my turn came and I was ushered into the "sanctum."  I had put
+my head only inside the door, when the bluff voice I had learned that
+day to know shouted merrily:
+
+"Hello!  George.  What do you know?  Come on in and sit down."
+
+And there was Mr. Horsfal, as large as life, sitting behind a desk with
+a pile of letters in front of him.
+
+I was keenly disappointed and I fear I showed it.  Only this,--after
+all my rising hopes,--the genial Mr. Horsfal wished to chat with me now
+that he had got his business worries over.
+
+"Why!--what's the matter, son?  You look crestfallen."
+
+"I am, too," I answered.  "I was not aware which rooms you occupied
+and, when I received the telephone message to come here and saw those
+men waiting, I felt sure I had received an answer to my application for
+a position I saw in the papers this morning."
+
+Mr. Horsfal leaned back in his chair and surveyed me.
+
+"Well,--no need to get crestfallen, George.  When you had that thought,
+your thinking apparatus was in perfect working order."
+
+My eyes showed surprise.  "You don't mean----"
+
+"Yes!  George."
+
+"What?--'wanted,--alert, strong, handy man, to supervise up-coast
+property.  One who can run country store preferred.  Must be sober,'" I
+quoted.
+
+"The very same.  I've been interviewing men for a week now and I'm sick
+of it.  I got your letter this evening.  But all day I have had it in
+my mind that you were the very man I wanted, sent from the clouds right
+to me."
+
+"But,--but," I exclaimed.  "I am afraid I have not the experience a man
+requires for such a job."
+
+K. B. Horsfal thumped his desk.
+
+"Lord sakes! man,--don't start running yourself down.  Boost,--boost
+yourself for all you're worth."
+
+"Oh, yes!  I know," I said.  "But this is different.  I have become
+acquainted with you.  I cannot sail under false colours.  I have no
+experience.  I am a simple baby when it comes to business."
+
+He banged his desk again.
+
+"George,--I'm the boss of this affair.  You must just sit back quiet
+and listen, while I tell you about it; then you can talk as much as you
+want.
+
+"There's a thousand acres of property that I, or I should say, my
+daughter Eileen owns some hundred miles up the coast from here.  The
+place is called Golden Crescent Bay.  My wife took a fancy to it in the
+early days, when she came with me on a trip one time I was looking over
+a timber proposition.  I bought it for her for an old song and she grew
+so fond of the place that she spent three months of every year, as long
+as she lived, right on that very land.  She left it all to Eileen when
+she died.
+
+"As a business man, I should sell it, for its value has gone away up;
+but, as a husband, as a father and as a sentimentalist, I just can't do
+it.  It would be like desecration.
+
+"There's two miles of water frontage to it; there's the house we put
+up, also a little cabin where the present caretaker lives.  The only
+other place within a couple of miles by water and four miles round by
+land through the bush, is a cottage that stands on the property
+abutting Eileen's, and close to her bungalow.  It has been boarded up
+and unoccupied for quite a while.  Of course, up behind, over the
+hills, there are ranches here and there, while, across the bay and all
+up the coast, there are squatters, settlers, fishermen and ranchers for
+a fare-you-well."
+
+"You say there is a caretaker there already?" I put in.
+
+"Yes!--I was just getting to that.  He's an old Klondike miner; came
+out with a fortune.  Spent the most of it before he got sober.  Came
+to, just in time.  Now he hoards what's left like an old skinflint.
+Won't spend a nickel, unless it's on booze.  Drinks like a drowning man
+and it never fizzes on him.  A good enough man for what he's been
+doing, but no good for what I want now."
+
+"You don't want me to do him out of his place, Mr. Horsfal?" I asked.
+
+"I was coming to that, too,--only you're so darned speedy.
+
+"He's all right as a caretaker with little or nothing to do, and he
+will prove useful to you for odd jobs,--but, I have a salmon cannery
+some miles north of this place and I am going to have half a dozen
+lumber camps operating south, and further up, for the next few years.
+Some of them are going full steam ahead now.
+
+"They require a convenient store, where they can get supplies; grub,
+oil, gasoline, hardware and such like.  I need a man who could look
+after a proposition of that kind,--good.  The settlers would find a
+store up there a perfect god-send.
+
+"The property at Golden Crescent is easily got at and is the most
+central to all my places.  Now, having an eye to business, and with
+Eileen's consent, I have decided to convert the large front living-room
+of her bungalow into a store.  It is plain, and can't be hurt.  It's
+just suited for the purpose.  I have had some carpenters up there this
+past week, putting in a counter and shelves and shutting the new store
+off completely from the rest of the house.
+
+"A stock of groceries, hardware, etc., has already been ordered from
+the wholesalers and should be up there in a few days.
+
+"Steamers pass Golden Crescent twice a week.  When they have anything
+for you, they whistle and stand by out in the bay; when you want them,
+you hoist a white flag on the pole, on the rock, at the end of the
+little wharf; then you row out and meet them.
+
+"These are the main features, George.  Oh, yes!  I'm paying one hundred
+dollars a month and all-found to the right man."
+
+He stopped and looked over at me a little anxiously.
+
+"George!--will you take the job?"
+
+"What about those other poor beggars who have applied?" I asked.
+
+"There you are again," he exclaimed impatiently.  "They had the same
+chance as you had.  Didn't I even keep you waiting out there till I had
+seen them in turn.  Not one of them has the qualifications you have.  I
+want a man with a brain as well as a body."
+
+"But you don't know me, Mr. Horsfal.  I have no friends, no
+testimonials; and I might be,--why!  I might be the biggest criminal
+unhung."
+
+"Testimonials be blowed!  Who wants testimonials?  Any dub can get
+them.  As for the other part,--do you think K. B. Horsfal of Baltimore,
+U. S. A., by this time, doesn't know a man after he has been a whole
+day in his company?
+
+"Sonny, take it from me,--there are mighty few American business men,
+who have topped a million dollars, who don't know a man through and
+through in less time than that, and without asking very many questions,
+either.  Why, man!--that's their business; that's what makes their
+millions."
+
+There was no resisting K. B. Horsfal.
+
+"Thanks!  I'll take the job," I said.  "And I'm mighty grateful to you."
+
+"Good boy!  You're all right.  Leave it there!"  His two hands clasped
+over mine.
+
+"Gee! but I'm glad that's over at last."
+
+"When do I start in?" I asked.
+
+"Right now.  I'll phone for a launch to be ready to start up with us
+to-morrow morning.  I'll show you over the proposition and leave you
+there.  Phone for any little personal articles you may want.  I'll
+attend to the bedding and all that sort of thing.  Have the boy call
+you at six a. m. sharp."
+
+Nothing was overlooked by the masterly mind of my new, my first
+employer.
+
+We breakfasted early.  An automobile was standing waiting for us at the
+hotel entrance; while, at a down-town slip, a trig little launch,
+already loaded up with our immediate necessities, was in readiness to
+shoot out through the Narrows as soon as we got aboard.
+
+This launch was named the _Edgar Allan Poe_, and, in consequence, I
+felt as if she were an old friend.
+
+As soon as the ropes were cast from the wharf, a glorious feeling of
+exhilaration started to run through me; for it seemed that I was being
+loosed from the old life and plunged into a new; a life I had been for
+so long hungering; the life of the woods, the hills and the sea, the
+quiet and freedom; the life of my dreams as well as of my waking
+fancies.  Whether or not it would come up to my expectations was a
+question of conjecture, but I was not in a mood to trouble conjecturing.
+
+The swift little boat fought the tide rip in the Narrows like a lonely
+explorer defending his life against a horde of surging savages; and,
+gradually, she nosed her way through, past Prospect Point, then,
+inclining to the north shore, but heading forward all the time, past
+the lighthouse which stands sentinel on the rock at Point Atkinson; and
+away up the coast, leaving the city, with its dizzying and
+light-blotting sky-scrapers far and still farther behind, until nothing
+of that busy terminal remained to the observer but a distant haze.
+
+The _Edgar Allan Poe_ threaded her way rapidly and confidently among
+the rocks and fertile little islands, up, up northward, ever northward,
+amid lessening signs of life and habitation; through the beautiful
+Strait of Georgia.
+
+From eight o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon
+we sailed on, amid a prodigality of scenic beauty,--sea, mountains and
+islands; islands, mountains and sea,--enjoying every mile of that
+beautiful trip.  We conversed seldom, although there was much to
+discuss and our time was short.
+
+At last, we sped past a great looming rock, which stood almost sheer
+out of the sea, then we ran into a glorious bay, where the sea danced
+and glanced in a fairy ecstasy.
+
+"Golden Crescent Bay," broke in Mr. Horsfal.  "How do you like it?"
+
+"It is Paradise," I exclaimed, in breathless admiration.  And never
+have I had reason to change that first impression and opinion.
+
+We ran alongside a rocky headland close to the shore, on which stood
+two little wooden sheds bearing the numbers one and two.  We clambered
+up.
+
+"Number one is for gasoline; two for oil," volunteered my ever
+informing employer.
+
+The rock was connected to the shore by a well-built, wooden wharf on
+piles, which ran directly into what I rightly guessed had been the
+summer home of Mrs. Horsfal.  It was a plainly built cottage and trim
+as a warship.  It bore signs of having been recently painted, while,
+all around, the grass was trim and tidy.
+
+On the right of this, about fifty yards across, on the same cleared
+area, but out on a separate rocky headland, stood another well-built
+cottage, the windows of which were boarded up.
+
+"My property starts ten yards to the south of the wharf here, George,
+and runs around the bay as far, almost, as it goes, and back to the
+hills quite a bit.  That over there is the other house I spoke to you
+about.  It, and the property to the south, is owned by some one in the
+Western States.
+
+"But I wonder where the devil old Jake Meaghan is.  Folks could land
+here and walk away with the whole shebang and he would never know of
+it."
+
+As he spoke, however, a small boat crept out from some little cove
+about three hundred yards round the bay.  It contained a man, who rowed
+it leisurely toward the wharf.  We leaned over the wooden rail and
+waited.
+
+The man ran the boat into the shingly beach, pulled in his oars,
+climbed out and made toward us.  An Airedale dog, which had evidently
+been curled up in the bottom of the boat, sprang out after him, keeping
+close to him and eyeing us suspiciously and angrily.
+
+In appearance the man reminded me of one of R. L. Stevenson's pirates,
+or one of Jack London's 'longshoremen.
+
+He wore heavy logging boots, brown canvas trousers kept up by a belt,
+and a brown shirt, showing hairy brown arms and a bared, scraggy
+throat.  A battered, sun-cast, felt hat lay on his head.  His face was
+wrinkled and weather-beaten to the equivalent of tanned hide.  He wore
+great, long, drooping moustaches snow white in colour.  His eyes were
+limpid blue.
+
+"It's you, Mr. Horsfal," he mumbled rather thickly, in a voice that
+seemed to come from somewhere underground; "didn't know you in the
+distance."
+
+"Jake,--shake with Mr. George Bremner;--he's going to supervise the
+place and the new store, same as I explained to you two weeks ago.
+Hope you make friends.  He's to be head boss man, and his word goes;
+but you'll find him twenty-four carat gold."
+
+"That's darned fine gold, boss," grunted Jake.
+
+He held out his horny hand and grasped mine, exclaiming heartily enough:
+
+"Glad to meet you, George."
+
+He pulled out a plug of tobacco from his hip pocket, brushed some of
+the most conspicuous dirt and grime from it, bit off what appeared to
+me to be a mouthful and began to look me over.
+
+"He's new," he grunted, as if to himself; "but he's young and big.  He
+looks tough; he's got the right kind of jaw."
+
+Then he turned to Mr. Horsfal.  "Guess, when he gets the edges rubbed
+off, he'll more than make it, boss," he said.
+
+K. B. Horsfal laughed loudly.
+
+"That's just what I thought myself, Jake.  Now, give us the keys to the
+oil barns and the new store.  Go and help unload that baggage and truck
+from the launch.  You can follow your usual bent after that, for I'll
+be showing George over the place myself."
+
+I found the prospective store just as it had been described: a large,
+plain, front room, now fitted with shelves and a counter, and all
+freshly painted.  Everything was in readiness to accommodate the stock,
+most of which was due to arrive the next afternoon.  Where a door had
+been, leading into the other parts of the house, it was now solidly
+partitioned up, leaving only front and back entrances to the store.
+
+We spent the afternoon in the open air, inspecting the property, which
+was perfectly situated for scenic beauty, with plenty of cleared,
+fertile land near the shore and rich in giant timber behind.
+
+In the early part of the evening, after a cold lunch aboard the launch,
+we went back to the house and, for the first time, Mr. Horsfal inserted
+a key into the front door of the dwelling proper.
+
+I had been not a little curious regarding this place and I was still
+wondering where it was intended that I should take up my quarters.
+
+Jake Meaghan seemed all right in his own Klondikish,
+pork-and-beans-and-a-blanket way, but I hardly fancied him as a rooming
+partner and a possible bedfellow.  To be candid, I never had had a
+bedfellow in all my life and I had already made up my mind that, rather
+than suffer one now, I would fix up one of the several empty barns
+which were scattered here and there over the property, and thus retain
+my beloved privacy.
+
+My employer pushed his way into the house and invited me to follow him.
+
+I found myself in a small, front room, neatly but plainly furnished.
+The floor was varnished and two bearskin rugs supplied the only
+carpeting.  It had a mahogany centre table, on which a large
+oil-burning reading lamp was set.  Three wicker chairs, designed solely
+for comfort, and a stove with an open front helped to complete its
+comfortable appearance.  A number of framed photographs of Golden
+Crescent and some water colour paintings decorated the plain, wooden
+walls.  In the far corner, beside a small side window, there stood a
+writing desk; while, all along that side of the wall, on a long curtain
+pole, there was hung, from brass rings, a heavy green curtain.
+
+I took in what I could in a cursory glance and I marvelled that there
+could be so much apparent concentrated comfort so far away from city
+civilisation; but, when my guide pulled aside the curtain on the wall
+and disclosed rows and rows of books behind a glass front, books
+ancient and modern, books of religion, philosophy, medicine, history,
+fiction and poetry,--at least a thousand of them,--I gave up trying any
+more to fathom what manner of a man he was.
+
+My eyes sparkled and explained to K. B. Horsfal what my voice failed to
+utter.
+
+"Well,--what d'ye think of it all?" he asked at last.
+
+"It is a delight,--a positive delight," I replied simply.
+
+As I walked over to the front window, I wondered little that Mrs.
+Horsfal should have loved the place; and, when I looked away out over
+the dancing waters, upon the beauties of the bay in the changing light
+of the lowering sun, upon the rocky, fir-dotted island a mile to sea,
+and upon the lonely-looking homes of the settlers over there two miles
+away on the far horn of Golden Crescent, with the great background of
+mountains in purple velvet,--I wondered less.
+
+"Yes!  George,--it's pretty near what heaven should be to look at.  But
+I guess it's the same old story that the poet once sang:
+
+"'Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.'
+
+"That poet kind of forgot that, if what he said was true, it was only
+the vile man that the prospect could please, eh!
+
+"You notice the house has been cleaned from top to toe.  I had that
+done last week.  I see to that every time I come west."
+
+He put his hand on my shoulder.  "George, boy,--no one but myself and
+Eileen has slept under this roof since my wife died, but I want you to
+make it your home."
+
+I turned to remonstrate.
+
+"Now,--don't say a word," he hurried on.  "You can't bluff me with your
+self-defamatory remarks.  You are not a Jake Meaghan, or one of his
+stamp.  You are of the kind that appreciates a home like this to the
+extent of taking care of it.
+
+"Come and have a look at the other apartments.
+
+"This is the kitchen.  It has a pantry and a good cooking-stove.  There
+are four bedrooms in the house.  This can be yours;--it's the one I
+used to occupy.  This is a spare one.  This is Eileen's.  You won't
+require it; and one never knows when Eileen might take it into her head
+to come up here and live.
+
+"This is my Helen's room,--my wife's.  It has not been changed since
+she died."
+
+He went in.  I remained respectfully in the adjoining apartment.  I
+waited for five minutes.
+
+When he returned, there were tears in his eyes.  He locked the door
+with a sigh.
+
+"George,--here are the keys to the whole she-bang.  There isn't much
+more to keep me here.  You have signed the necessary papers in
+connection with the trust account for $5,000 in the Commercial Bank of
+Canada in Vancouver.  Draw your wages regularly.  Pay Jake his fifty a
+month at the same time.  We find his grub for him.
+
+"Run things at a profit if you can, for that's business.  Stand
+strictly to the instructions I have given you regarding orders for
+supplies from the various camps and from the cannery.  Use your own
+judgment as to credit with the settlers.  I leave you a free hand up
+here.
+
+"Send your monthly reports, addressed to me care of my lawyers, Dow,
+Cross & Sneddon of Vancouver.  They will forward them.
+
+"If any question should arise regarding the property itself, get in
+touch with the lawyers."
+
+I walked with him down to the launch as he talked.
+
+"Thanks to you, George,--I'll get to Vancouver in the small hours of
+the morning and I will be able to pull out for Sydney in the afternoon
+of to-morrow.
+
+"Good-bye, boy.  All being well, I'll be back within a year."
+
+In parting with him, as he shook me by the hand, I experienced a
+tightening in my throat such as I had never felt when parting from any
+other man either before or since.  Yet, I had only known him for two
+days.  I could see that he, also, was similarly affected.  It was as if
+something above and beyond us were making our farewell singularly
+solemn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Booze Artist
+
+I stood watching until the tiny launch rounded the point; then, as the
+light was still fairly good,--it being the end of the month of
+May,--and as I had no inclination for sleep as yet, I got into the
+smallest of the rowing boats that were tied up alongside the wharf,
+loosed it and pulled leisurely up the bay, with the intention of making
+myself a little better acquainted with the only living soul with whom I
+was within hail,--Jake Meaghan.
+
+As I ran the boat into his cove, I could hear his dog bark warningly.
+
+The door of his barn,--for it was nothing else,--was closed, and it was
+some time before I heard Meaghan's deep voice in answer to my knock,
+inviting me to come in and bidding his dog to lie down.
+
+Meaghan was sitting, presumably reading a newspaper, which was the only
+kind of "literature" I ever saw him read.  His attitude appeared to me
+to be assumed and I had a notion that, when the dog first barked at my
+approach, he had been busy with the contents of a brass-bound, wooden
+chest which now lay half under his bunk, in a recess in the far corner.
+
+"Hello!  Thought you might come over.  Sit down," he greeted.  "Saw the
+boss pull out half an hour ago.  I'm just sittin' down for my turn at
+the newspaper.  They leave me a bundle off the steamer once in a while.
+This one's from the old country;--the _Liverpool Monitor_.  It's two
+months old, but what's the dif,--the news is just as good as if it was
+yesterday's or to-morrow's."
+
+I looked round Jake's shanty.  Considering it was a single-roomed place
+and used for cooking, washing, sleeping and everything else, it was
+wonderfully tidy, although, to say truth, there was little in it after
+all to occasion untidiness: a stove, a pot, a frying-pan, an enamelled
+tin teapot, some crockery, a table, an oil lamp, three chairs, the
+brass-bound trunk, two wheat-flake boxes and Jake's bed,--with one
+other addition,--a fifteen-gallon keg with a stopcock in it and set on
+a wooden stand close to his bunk.
+
+An odour of shell-fish pervaded the atmosphere, coming from some kind
+of soup made from clams and milk, on which Jake had evidently been
+dining.  The residue of it still sat in a pot on the stove.  This, I
+discovered, was Jake's favourite dish.
+
+He rose, took two breakfast cups from a shelf and went over to the keg
+in the corner.  He filled up both of them to the brim.
+
+"Have a drink, George?" he invited, offering me one of the cups.
+
+"What is it?" I asked, thinking it might be a cider of some kind.
+
+"What d'ye suppose, man?--ginger beer?  It's good rye whiskey."
+
+From the odour, I had ascertained this for myself before he spoke.
+
+"No, thanks, Jake, I don't drink."
+
+"Holy mackinaw!" he exclaimed, almost dropping the cups in his
+astonishment.  "If you don't drink, how in the Sam Hill are you going
+to make it stick up here?  Why, man, you'll go batty in the winter
+time, for it's lonely as hell."
+
+"From all accounts, Jake, hell is not a very lonely place," I laughed.
+
+"Aw!--you know what I mean," he put in.
+
+"I'll have plenty of work to do in the store; enough to keep me from
+feeling lonely."
+
+"Not you.  Once it's goin', it'll be easy's rollin' off'n a log.
+What'll you do o' nights, 'specially winter nights,--if you don't
+drink?"
+
+He sat down and began to empty his cup of liquor by the gulp.
+
+His dog, which had been lying sullenly on the floor near the stove, got
+up and ambled leisurely to Jake's feet.  It looked up at him as he
+drank, then it put its two front paws on Jake's knees, as if to attract
+his attention.
+
+Meaghan stopped his imbibing and stroked the dog's head.
+
+"Well,--well--Mike; and did I forget you?"
+
+He poured a little liquor in a saucer and set it down on the floor
+before the dog, who lapped it up with all the relish of a seasoned
+toper.  Then it put its paws back on Jake's knees, as if asking for
+more.
+
+"No!  Mike.  Nothin' doin'.  You've had your whack.  Too much ain't
+good for your complexion, old man."
+
+In a sort of dreamy, contemplative mood the dog sat down on its
+haunches between us.
+
+"What'll you do o' nights if you don't drink?  You ain't told me that,
+George," reiterated Jake, sucking some of the liquor from his drooping
+moustaches.
+
+"Oh!" I replied, "I'll read, and sometimes I'll sit out and watch the
+stars and listen to the sea and the wind."
+
+"And what after that?" he queried.
+
+"I can always think, when I have nothing else to do."
+
+"And what after that?" he asked again.
+
+"Nothing, Jake,--nothing.  That's all."
+
+"No it ain't.  No it ain't, I tell you;--after that,--it's the bughouse
+for yours.  It's the thinking,--it's the thinking that does it every
+time.  It's the last stage, George.  You'll be clean, plumb batty
+inside o' six months."
+
+The dog got up, after two unsuccessful attempts.
+
+Never did I see such a strange sight in any animal.  He put out one paw
+and staggered to the right.  He put out another and staggered to the
+left.  All the time, his eyes were half closed.  He was quite
+insensible of our presence, for he was as drunk as any waterfront
+loafer.  Staggering, stumbling and balancing, he made his way back to
+his place beside the stove, where, in a moment more, he was in a deep
+sleep and snoring,--as a Westerner would put it,--to beat the cars.
+
+Meaghan noticed my interest in the phenomenon.
+
+"That's nothin'," he volunteered.  "Mike has his drink with me every
+night, for the sake o' company.  Why not?  He doesn't see any fun in
+lookin' at the stars and watching the tide come up o' nights.  Worst
+is, he can't stand up to liquor.  It kind o' gets his goat; yet he's
+been tipplin' for three years now."
+
+Jake finished off his cup of whisky.
+
+"Good Heavens, man!" I exclaimed in disgust and dismay, "don't you know
+you will kill yourself drinking that stuff in that way?"
+
+"Guess nit," he growled, but quite good-naturedly.  "I ain't started.
+I've been drinkin' more'n that every night for ten years and I ain't
+dead yet,--not by a damn sight.  No! nor I ain't never been drunk,
+neither."
+
+He took up the other cupful of whisky as he spoke and slowly drained it
+off before my eyes.  He laid the empty cup on the table with a grunt of
+satisfaction, pulling at his long moustaches in lazy pleasure.
+
+"That's my nightcap, George.  Better'n seein' stars, too."
+
+I could see his end.
+
+"I'd much rather see stars than snakes," I remarked.  But Jake merely
+laughed it off.
+
+I rose in a kind of cold perspiration.  To me, this was
+horrible;--drinking for no apparent reason.
+
+He came with me to the door.  His voice was as steady as could be; so
+were his legs.  The effects of the liquor he had consumed did not show
+on him except maybe for a bloodshot appearance in the whites of his
+baby-blue eyes.
+
+I was worried.  I had known such another as Jake in the little village
+of Brammerton; and I knew what the inevitable end had been and what
+Jake's would be also.
+
+"Don't be sore at me, George," he pleaded.  "It's the only friend I got
+now."
+
+"It is not any friend of yours, Jake."
+
+"Well,--maybe it ain't, but I think it is and that's about the only way
+we can reckon our friends.
+
+"When you find I ain't doin' my share o' the work because o' the booze
+or when you catch me drunk,--I'll quit it.  Good-night, George."
+
+I wished him good-night gruffly, hurried over the beach, scrambled into
+the boat and rowed quickly for my new home.
+
+And, as I stood on the veranda for a long time before turning in, I
+watched the moon rise and skim her way behind and above the clouds,
+throwing, as she did so, great dark shadows and eerie lights on the sea.
+
+In the vast, awesome stillness of the forest behind and the swishing
+and shuffling of the incoming tide on the shingles on the beach, I
+thought of what my good friend, K. B. Horsfal, had quoted:
+
+"Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Rita of the Spanish Song
+
+Next morning I was awakened bright and early by the singing of birds.
+For a few moments I imagined myself back in England; but the ceaseless
+beat of the sea and the sustained, woody-toned, chattering, chirruping
+squeak of an angry squirrel on my roof gave me my proper location.
+
+I had heard once, in a London drawing-room, that there were no singing
+birds in British Columbia; that the songsters of the East were unable
+to get across the high, eternal cold and snow of the Rockies.  What a
+fallacy!  They were everywhere around me, and in thousands.  How they
+got there was of little moment to me.  They were there, much to my joy;
+and the forests at my back door were alive with the sweetness of their
+melodies.
+
+Early as I was, I could see a thin column of smoke rising from the cove
+where Jake was.  When I went to the woodpile at the rear of my
+bungalow, I found more evidence of his early morning diligence.  A heap
+of dry, freshly cut kindling was set out, while the chickens had
+already been fed and let out to wander at their own sweet wills.
+
+For the first time in my very ordinary life, I investigated the
+eccentricities of a cook stove, overcame them and cooked myself a
+rousing breakfast of porridge and bacon and eggs with toast.  How proud
+I felt of my achievement and how delicious the food tasted!  Never had
+woman cooked porridge and bacon and eggs to such a delightful turn.
+
+I laughed joyously, for I felt sure I had stumbled across an important
+truth that woman had religiously kept from the average man throughout
+all the bygone ages: the truth that any man, if he only sets his mind
+to it, can cook a meal perfectly satisfactory to himself.
+
+After washing up the breakfast dishes without smashing any, sweeping
+the kitchen floor and shovelling up--nothing; there was nothing left
+for me to do, for the north-going steamer was not due until early in
+the afternoon.  When she should arrive and give me delivery of the
+freight which she was bringing, I knew I should have enough to occupy
+my attention for some days to come, getting the cases opened up and the
+goods checked over, priced and set out in the store; but, meantime, my
+time was my own.
+
+It was a glorious morning.  The sun was shining and the air was balmy
+as a midsummer's day at home.  I opened the front door and gazed on the
+loveliness; I stretched my arms and felt vigour running to my
+finger-tips.  Then I longed, how I longed, for a swim!
+
+And why not!  I slipped out of my shirt and trousers and got into my
+bathing suit.  I ran down to the end of the wharf and out on to the
+rocks.
+
+The water was calm, and deep, and of a pale green hue.  I could see the
+rock cod and little shiners down there, darting about on a breakfast
+hunt.
+
+Filling my lungs, I took a header in, coming up fifteen yards out and
+shaking my head with a gurgling cry of pleasure.  I struck out,
+overhand, growing stronger and more vigorous each succeeding moment, as
+the refreshing sea played over my body.  On, on I went, turning upon my
+breast sometimes, sometimes on my back, lashing the water into foam
+with my feet and blowing it far into the air from my mouth.
+
+Half a mile out and I was as near to the island, in the middle of the
+Bay, as I was to the wharf.  I knew I could make it, although I had not
+been in the water for several weeks.  I had an abundance of time, the
+sea was warm, the island looked pretty,--so on I went.
+
+I reached it at last, a trifle blown, but in good condition.
+
+It had not been by any means a record swim for me.  I had not intended
+that it should.  All the way, it had been a pleasure trip.
+
+I made for a sandy beach, between two rocky headlands.  Soon, I got my
+footing and waded ashore.  After a short rest, I set out to survey the
+island.
+
+All the childhood visions I had stored in my memory of "Coral Island,"
+"Crusoe's Island," and "Treasure Island" became visualised and merged
+into one,--the island I was exploring.
+
+It was of fairy concept; only some four hundred yards long and about a
+hundred yards in breadth, with rugged rocks and sandy beaches; secret
+caves and strange caverns; fertile over all with small fir and arbutus
+trees, shrubs, ferns and turfy patches of grass of the softest velvet
+pile.  In the most unlikely places, I stumbled across bubbling springs
+of fresh water forcing its way through the rocks.  How they originated,
+was a mystery to me, for the island was separated from the mainland by
+a mile, at least, of salt water.
+
+What an ideal spot, I thought, for a picnic!  Would not some of my
+eccentric acquaintances at home,--the Duke of Athlane, for
+instance,--dearly love to take the whole thing up by the roots and
+transplant it in the centre of some of the artificial lakes they had
+schemed and contrived, in wild attempts to make more beautiful the
+natural beauties of their estates?
+
+By this time, the warm air had dried my body.  I climbed to the highest
+point of the island,--a small plateau, covered with short turf; a
+glorious place for the enjoyment of a sun bath.  I lay down and
+stretched myself.
+
+My only regret then was that I did not have a book with me to complete
+my Paradise.
+
+Pillowed on a slight incline, I dreamily watched the scudding clouds,
+then my eyes travelled across to the mainland.  I could see the smoke
+curl upward from my kitchen fire.  I saw old Jake get into his boat,
+followed by the drunken rascal of a dog, Mike.  All was still and quiet
+but for the seethe and shuffle of the sea.
+
+Suddenly, on the other side of the water somewhere, but evidently far
+away, a voice, untrained, but of peculiar sweetness, broke into my
+drowsing.  I listened for a time, trying to catch the refrain.  As it
+grew clearer, I tried to pick up the words, but they were in a tongue
+foreign to me.  They were not French, nor were they Italian.  At last,
+it struck me that they were Spanish words; the words of a Spanish
+dancing song, which, when I was a gadding-about college boy, had been
+popular among us.  I recalled having heard that it was sung by the
+chorus of a famous Spanish dancer, who, at one time, had been the rage
+of London and the Provinces, but who had mysteriously vanished from the
+footlights with the same suddenness as she had appeared there.
+
+It was a haunting little melody, catchy and childishly simple; and it
+had remained in my memory all these years, as is so often the case with
+choruses that we hear in our babyhood.
+
+Naturally, I was more than curious to see the singer, so I crept to the
+top of the grassy knoll and peered over, searching the far side of the
+island and over the water.
+
+Away out, I discerned a small boat making in the direction of the
+island.  The oars were being plied by a woman, or a girl,--I could not
+tell which, as her back was toward me and she was still a good way off.
+She handled her oars as if she were a part of the boat itself and the
+boat were a living thing.
+
+She stopped every now and then, rose from her seat and busied herself
+with something.  I wondered what she was doing.  I saw her haul
+something into the boat.  As she examined it in her hand, the sun
+flashed upon it.  I could hear her laugh happily as she tossed it into
+the bottom of the boat.
+
+She was trolling for fish and, evidently, getting a plentiful supply.
+
+She rowed in as if intent upon fishing round the island.  But, all at
+once, she changed her mind, turned the boat, pulled in her fishing line
+and shot into a sandy beach, springing out and pulling the boat clear
+of the tide.
+
+She straightened herself as she turned and faced the plateau on the far
+incline of which I lay hidden.  I saw at a glance that, though a mere
+girl in years,--somewhere between sixteen and eighteen,--yet she was a
+woman, maturing as a June rose, as a butterfly stretching its pretty
+wings for the first time in the ecstasy of its new birth.  Of medium
+height; her hair was the darkest shade of brown and hung in two long,
+thick braids down to her neat waist.  She seemed not at all of the
+countrified type I might have expected to encounter so far in the wilds.
+
+She was dressed in a spotless white blouse, the sleeves of which were
+rolled back almost to her shoulders; with a dark-coloured, serviceable
+skirt, the hem of which hung high above a pair of small, bare feet and
+neat, supple-looking ankles.  I could see her shoes and stockings,
+brown in colour, lying in the bow of the boat.  She reached over,
+picked them up, then sat on a rock by the water's edge and pulled them
+on her feet.
+
+But, after all, it was not her dress that held my attention; although
+in the main this was pleasing to the eye, nor yet was it the girl's
+features, for she was still rather far off for me to observe these
+distinctly.  What riveted me was the light, agile rapidity of her every
+action; and her evident abandonment of everything else for what, for
+the moment, absorbed her.
+
+As I watched, I became filled with conflicting thoughts.  Should I
+remain where I was, or should I at once betray my presence?
+
+I decided that the island was large enough for both of us.  She was not
+interested in me, so why should I interrupt her in her lonely enjoyment?
+
+I was perplexed more than a little in trying to place where she
+rightfully belonged.  Naturally, I took her to be the daughter of one
+of the settlers on the far side of Golden Crescent.  But there was a
+something in her entire appearance that seemed to place her on a
+different plane from that, a plane all by herself; while, again, there
+was the Spanish song which I had heard her lilt out on the water.
+
+She brought my conjecturing to rather an abrupt conclusion, for,
+without any warning, she darted up over the rocks and through the ferns
+to where I lay, and she had almost trodden upon me before I had time to
+get out of her way.
+
+She stepped back with an exclamation of surprise, but gave no sign to
+indicate that she was afraid.
+
+I sprang to my feet.
+
+"I am very sorry,--miss," I said sincerely.
+
+"Oh!--there ain't much to be sorry over.  This ain't my island.
+Still,--girls don't much care about men watching them from behind
+places," she replied, with a tone of displeasure.
+
+"And I am sorry,--again," I answered.  "Please forgive me, for I could
+hardly help it.  I was lying here when I heard you sing.  I became
+curious.  When you landed, I intended making my presence known, but I
+said to myself just what you have said now:--'It is not my island.'
+However, I shall go now and leave you in possession."
+
+"Where is your boat?"
+
+"Didn't bring one with me."
+
+"How did you get here then?"
+
+Her blunt questioning was rather disconcerting.
+
+"Oh!  I walked it," I answered lightly, with a grin.
+
+Her voice changed.  "You're trying to be smart," she reprimanded.
+
+"Sorry," I said, in a tone of contrition, "for I am not a bit smart in
+spite of my trying.  Well,--I swam across from the wharf over there."
+
+She looked up.  "Being smart some more."
+
+"No!--it is true."
+
+She measured the distance from the island to the wharf with her eye.
+
+I remarked, some time ago, that her hair was of the darkest shade of
+brown.  I was wrong;--there was a darker hue still, and that was in her
+eyes; while her skin was of that attractive combination, olive and pink.
+
+"Gee!--that was some swim.
+
+"How are you going to get back?" she continued, in open friendliness.
+
+"Swim!"
+
+"Ain't you tired?"
+
+"I was winded a bit when I got here, but I am all right again," I
+answered.
+
+"You're an Englishman?"
+
+"How did you guess it?" I asked, as if I were giving her credit for
+unearthing a great mystery.
+
+Before answering, she sat down on the grass, clasping her hands over
+her knees.  I squatted a short distance from her.
+
+"Only Englishmen go swimming hereabouts in the morning."
+
+"Do you often stumble across stray, swimming Englishmen?" I asked in
+banter.
+
+"No!--but three summers ago there were some English people staying in
+that house at the wharf that's now closed up:--the one next Horsfal's,
+and they were in the water so much, they hardly gave the fish a chance.
+It was the worst year we ever had for fishing."
+
+I laughed, and she looked up in surprise.
+
+"Then we had an English surveyor staying with us for a month last year.
+He was crazy for the water.  He went in for half an hour every morning
+and before his breakfast, too.  You don't find the loggers or any of
+the settlers doing silly stunts like that.  No, siree.
+
+"Guess you're a surveyor?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Or maybe a gentleman up for shooting and fishing?  Can't be though,
+for there ain't any launches in the Bay.  Yes, you are, too, for I saw
+a launch in yesterday."
+
+"I hope I am always a gentleman," I said, "but I am not the kind of
+gentleman you mean.  I have no launch and no money but what I can earn.
+I am the new man who is to look after Mr. Horsfal's Golden Crescent
+property.  I shall be more or less of a common country storekeeper
+after to-day."
+
+"Heard about that store from old Jake.  Granddad over home was talking
+about it, too.  It'll be convenient for the Camps and a fine thing for
+the settlers up here."
+
+She jumped up.  "Well,--I guess I got to beat it, Mister----"
+
+"George Bremner," I put in.
+
+"My name's Rita;--Rita Clark.  I stay over at the ranch there, the one
+with the red-roofed houses.  This island's named Rita, too."
+
+"After you?"
+
+"Ya!--guess so!"
+
+She did not venture any more.
+
+"Been here long?" I asked.
+
+"Long's I can remember," she answered.
+
+"Like it?"
+
+"I love it.  It's all I got.  Never been away from it more'n three
+times in my life."
+
+There was something akin to longing in her voice.
+
+"I love it all the same,--all but that over there."
+
+As she spoke, she shivered and pointed away out to the great
+perpendicular rock, with its jagged, devilish, shark-like teeth, which
+rose sheer out of the water and stood black, forbidding and snarling,
+even in the sunshine, to the right, at the entrance to the Bay, a
+quarter of a mile or so from the far horn of Golden Crescent.
+
+"You don't like rocks?"
+
+"Some rocks," she whispered, "but not 'The Ghoul.'"
+
+"The Ghoul," I repeated with a shudder.  "Ugh!--what a name.  Who on
+earth saddled it with such a horrible name?"
+
+"Nobody on earth.  Guess it must have been the devil in hell, for it's
+a friend of his."
+
+Her face grew pale and a nameless horror crept into her eyes.
+
+"It ain't nice to look on now,--is it?"
+
+"No!" I granted.
+
+"You want to see it in the winter, when there's a storm tearing in,
+with the sea crashing over it in a white foam and,--and,--people trying
+to hang on to it.  Oh!--I tell you what it is,--it's hellish, that's
+all.  It's well named The Ghoul,--it's a robber of the dead."
+
+"Robber of the dead!--what do you mean?"
+
+"Everybody but a stranger knows:--it robs them of a decent burial.
+Heaps of men, and women too, have been wrecked out there, but only one
+was ever known to come off alive.  Never a body has ever been found
+afterwards."  She shivered and turned her head away.
+
+For a while, I gazed at the horrible rock in fascination.  What a
+reminder it was to the poor human that there is storm as well as calm;
+evil as well as good; that turmoil follows in the wake of quiet; that
+sorrow tumbles over joy; and savagery and death run riot among life and
+happiness and love!
+
+At last, I also turned my eyes away from The Ghoul, with a strong
+feeling of anger and resentment toward it.  Already I loathed and hated
+the thing as I hated nothing else.
+
+I stood alongside the girl and we remained silent until the mood passed.
+
+Then she raised her eyes to mine and smiled.  In an endeavour to
+forget,--which, after all, was easy amid so much sunshine and
+beauty,--I reverted to our former conversation.
+
+"You said you were seldom away from here.  Don't you ever take a trip
+to Vancouver?"
+
+"Been twice.  We're not strong on trips up here.  Grand-dad goes to
+Vancouver and Victoria once in a while.  Grandmother's been here twenty
+years and never been five miles from the ranch, 'cept once, and she's
+sorry now for that once.
+
+"Joe's the one that gets all the trips.  You ain't met Joe.  Guess when
+you do you and him won't hit it.  He always fights with men of your
+size and build."
+
+"Who is this Joe?" I asked.  "He must be quite a man-eater."
+
+"I ain't going to tell you any more.  You'll know him when you see him.
+
+"I'm going now.  Would you like some fish?  The trout were biting good
+this morning.  I've got more'n we need."
+
+We went down to the shore together.  There were between thirty and
+forty beauties of sea-trout in the bottom of her boat.  She handed me
+out a dozen.
+
+"Guess that'll make a square meal for you and Jake."
+
+Then she looked at me and laughed, showing her teeth.  "Clean forgot,"
+she said.  "A swimming man ain't no good at carrying fish."
+
+"Why not?" I asked.
+
+I picked up some loose cord from her boat, strung the trout by the
+gills and tied them securely round my waist.
+
+She watched me archly and a thought went flashing through my mind that
+it did not need the education of the city to school a woman in the art
+of using her eyes.
+
+"Guess I'll see you off the premises first, before I go."
+
+"All right!" said I.
+
+We crossed the Island once more, and I got on to a rock which dipped
+sheer and deep into the sea.
+
+She held out her hand and smiled in such a bewitching way that, had I
+not been a well-seasoned bachelor of almost twenty-five years'
+standing, I should have lost my heart to her completely.
+
+"Good-bye!  Mister,--Mister Bremner.  Safe home."
+
+"Good-bye!  Miss--Rita."
+
+"Sure you can make it?" she asked earnestly.
+
+"Yes!" I cried, and plunged in.
+
+As I came up, I turned and waved my hand.  She waved in answer, and
+when I looked again she was gone.
+
+I struck swiftly for the wharf, allowing for the incoming tide.
+
+When I was half-way across, I heard the sound of oars and, on taking a
+backward glance, I saw Rita making toward me.
+
+"Hello!" I cried, when she drew near.  "What's the matter?"
+
+A little shame-faced, she bent over.  "I got scared," she said timidly,
+"scared you mightn't make it.  Sure you don't want me to row you in?"
+
+The boat was alluring, but my pride was touched.
+
+"Quite sure," I answered.  "I'm as fresh as the trout round my waist.
+Thanks all the same."
+
+"All right!  Guess I was foolish.  You ain't a man; you're a porpoise."
+
+With this half-annoyed sally, she swung the bow of the boat and rowed
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+An Informative Visitor
+
+That afternoon, prompt at two o'clock, a whistle sounded beyond the
+point and, shortly afterwards, the steamboat _Siwash_, north bound,
+entered the Bay.
+
+Jake and I were waiting at the end of the wharf, seated in a large,
+wide-beamed, four-oared boat, with Mike, the dog,--still eyeing me
+suspiciously,--crouching between his master's feet.
+
+We had a raft and half a dozen small rowing boats of all shapes and
+conditions, strung out, Indian file, from our stern.  Every available
+thing in Golden Crescent Bay that could float, down to a canoe and an
+old Indian dug-out, we borrowed or requisitioned for our work.  And,
+with this long procession in tow, we pulled out and made for the
+steamer, which came to a standby in the deep water, three hundred yards
+from the shore.
+
+The merchandise was let down by slings from the lower deck, and we had
+to handle the freight as best we could, keeping closely alongside all
+the while.
+
+A dozen times, I thought one or another of the boats would be
+overturned and its contents emptied into the Bay.  But luck was with
+us.  Jake spat tobacco juice on his hands every few minutes and sailed
+in like a nigger.  Our clothes were soon moist through and through, and
+the perspiration was running over our noses long before our task was
+completed.  But finally the last package was lowered and checked off by
+the mate and myself, a clear receipt given; and we (Jake and I) pushed
+for the shore, landing exhausted in body but without mishap to the
+freight.
+
+Jake fetched some fresh clams to my kitchen for convenience and, after
+slapping half a plug of tobacco in his cheek, he started in and cooked
+us a savoury concoction which he called "chowder," made with baked
+clams mixed in hot milk, with butter and crumbled toast; all duly
+seasoned:--while I smoked my pipe and washed enough dishes to hold our
+food, and set the table for our meal.
+
+Already, I had discovered that dish-washing was the bugbear of a
+kitchen drudge's existence, be the kitchen drudge female or male.  I
+had only done the job three or four times, but I had got to loathe and
+abhor the operation.  Not that I felt too proud to wash dishes, but it
+seemed such a useless, such an endless, task.  However, I suppose
+everything in this old world carries with it more or less of these same
+annoyingly bad features.
+
+At any rate, I never could make up my mind to wash a dish until I
+required it for my next and immediate meal.
+
+We dined ravenously, and throughout the proceeding, Mike sat in the
+doorway, keeping close watch that I did not interfere with the sacred
+person of his lord and master, Jake Meaghan.
+
+Rested and reinvigorated, we set-to with box-openers, hammers and
+chisels, unpacking and unpacking until the thing became a boring
+monotony.
+
+Canned milk, canned beef, canned beans, canned salmon, canned crabs,
+canned well-nigh-everything; bottled fruits, bottled pickles, bottled
+jams and jellies, everything bottled that was not canned; bags of
+sugar, flour, meal, potatoes, oats and chicken feed; hardware galore,
+axes, hammers, wedges, peevies, cant hoops, picks, shovels, nails,
+paints, brooms, brushes and a thousand other commodities and
+contrivances the like of which I never saw before and hope never to see
+again.
+
+Never, in all my humble existence, did I feel so clerky as I did then.
+
+I checked the beastly stuff off as well as I could, taking the
+Vancouver wholesalers' word for the names of half the things, for I was
+quite sure they knew better than I did about them.
+
+With the assistance of Jake, as "hander-up," I set the goods in a
+semblance of order on the shelves and about the store.
+
+We worked and slaved as if it were the last day and our eternal
+happiness depended on our finishing the job before the last trump
+sounded its blast of dissolution.
+
+By the last stroke of twelve, midnight, we had the front veranda swept
+clean of straw, paper and excelsior, and all empty boxes cleared away;
+just in time to welcome the advent of my first Sabbath day in the
+Canadian West.
+
+Throughout our arduous afternoon and evening, what a surprise old Jake
+was to me!  Well I knew that he was hard and tough from years of
+strenuous battling with the northern elements; but that he, at his age
+and with his record for hard drinking, should be able to keep up the
+sustained effort against a young man in his prime and that he should do
+so cheerfully and without a word of complaint,--save an occasional
+grunt when the steel bands around some of the boxes proved
+recalcitrant, and an explosive, picturesque oath when the end of a
+large case dropped over on his toes,--was, to me, little short of
+marvellous.
+
+Already, I was beginning to think that Mr. K. B. Horsfal had erred in
+regard to his man and that it was Jake Meaghan who was twenty-four
+carat gold.
+
+If any man ever did deserve two breakfast cups brimful of whisky, neat,
+before turning in, it was old, walrus-moustached, weather-battered,
+baby-eyed, sour-dough Jake, in the small, early hours of that Sabbath
+morning.
+
+I slept that night like a dead thing, and the sun was high in the
+heavens before I opened my eyes and became conscious again of my
+surroundings.
+
+I looked over at the clock.  Fifteen minutes past ten!  I threw my legs
+over the side of the bed, ashamed of my sluggardliness.
+
+Then I remembered,--it was Sunday morning.
+
+Oh! glorious remembering!  Sunday,---with nothing to do but attend to
+my own bodily comforts.
+
+I pulled my legs back into the bed in order to start the day correctly.
+I lay and stretched myself, then, very leisurely,--always remembering
+that it was the Sabbath,--I put one foot out and then the other, until,
+at last, I stood on the floor, really and truly up and awake.
+
+Jake had been around.  I could see traces of him in the yard, though he
+was nowhere visible in the  flesh.
+
+After I had breakfasted and made my bed (I know little Maisie Brant,
+who used to make my bed away back over in the old home--little Maisie
+who had wept at my departure, would have laughed till she wept again,
+had she seen my woful endeavours to straighten out my sheets and smooth
+my pillow.  But then, she was not there to see and laugh and--I was
+quite satisfied with my handiwork and satisfied that I would be able to
+sleep soundly in the bed when the night should come again)--I hunted
+the shelves for a book.
+
+Stevenson, Poe, Scott, Hugo, Wells, Barrie, Dumas, Twain, Emerson,
+Byron, Longfellow, Burns,--which should it be?
+
+Back along the line I went, and chose--oh, well!--an old favourite I
+had read many times before.
+
+I hunted out a hammock and slung it comfortably from the posts on the
+front veranda, where I could lie and smoke and read; also where I could
+look away across the Bay and rest my eyes on the quiet scene when they
+should grow weary.
+
+Late in the afternoon, when I was beginning to grow tired of my
+indolence, I heard the thud, thud of a gasoline launch as it came up
+the Bay.  It passed between Rita's Isle and the wharf, and held on,
+turning in to Jake Meaghan's cove.
+
+I wondered who the visitor could be, then I went back to my reading.
+
+Not long after, a shadow fell across my book and I jumped up.
+
+"Pray, don't let me disturb you, my son," said a soft, well-modulated,
+masculine voice.  "Stay where you are.  Enjoy your well-earned rest."
+
+A little, frail-looking, pale-faced, elderly gentleman was at my elbow.
+
+He smiled at me with the smile of an angel, and my heart went out to
+him at once, so much so that I could have hugged him in my arms.
+
+"My name is William Auld," he continued.  "I am the medical missionary.
+What is yours, my son?"
+
+He held out his hand to me.
+
+"George Bremner," I replied, gripping his.  "Let me bring you a chair."
+
+I went inside, and when I returned he was turning over the leaves of my
+book.
+
+"So you are a book lover?" he mused.  "Well, I would to God more men
+were book lovers, for then the world would be a better place to live
+in, or rather, the men in it would be better to live among.
+
+"Victor Hugo,--'Les Miserables'!--" he went on.  "To my mind, the
+greatest of all novelists and the greatest of all novels."
+
+He laid the book aside, and sought my confidences, not as a preacher,
+not as a pedagog, but as a friend; making no effort to probe my past,
+seeking no secrets; but all anxiety for my welfare; keen to know my
+ambitions, my aspirations, my pastimes and my habits of living; open
+and frank in telling me of himself.  He was a man's man, with the
+experience of men that one gets only by years of close contact.
+
+"For twenty years it has been God's will to allow me to travel up and
+down this beloved coast and minister to those who need me."
+
+"You must like the work, sir," I ventured.
+
+"Like it!--oh! yes, yes,---I would not exchange my post for the City
+Temple of London, England."
+
+"But such toil must be arduous, Mr. Auld, for you are not a young man
+and you do not look altogether a robust one."
+
+He paused in meditation.  "It is arduous, sometimes;--to-day I have
+talked to the men at eight camps and I have visited fourteen families
+at different points on my journey.  But, if I were to stop, who would
+look after my beloved people in the ranches all up the coast; who would
+care for my easily-led, simple-hearted brethren in the logging camps,
+every one of whom knows me, confides in me and looks forward to my
+coming; not one of whom but would part with his coat for me, not one
+who would harm a hair of my head.  I shall not stop, Mr. Bremner,--I
+have no desire to stop, not till God calls me.
+
+"I see you have been making changes even in your short time here," he
+said, pointing to the store.
+
+"Yes!  I think Jake and I did fairly well yesterday," I answered, not a
+little proudly.
+
+"Splendidly, my boy!  And, do you know,--your coming here means a great
+deal.  It is the commencement of a new departure, for your store is
+going to prove a great boon to the settlers.  They have been talking
+about it and looking forward to it ever since it was first mooted.
+
+"But it will not be altogether smooth sailing for you, for you must
+keep a close rein on your credit."
+
+It struck me, as he spoke, that he was the very man I was desirous of
+meeting regarding what I considered would prove my stumbling block.
+
+"Can you spare me half an hour, sir, and have tea with me?" I asked.
+
+"Yes! gladly, for my day's service is over,--all but one call, and a
+cup of tea is always refreshing."
+
+I showed him inside and set him in my cosiest chair.  While I busied
+with the table things,--washing some dishes as a usual preliminary,--I
+approached the subject.
+
+"Mr. Auld,--I wished to ask your advice, for I am sure you can assist
+me.  My employer, Mr. Horsfal, has given me a free hand regarding
+credit to the settlers.  I know none of them and I am afraid that,
+without guidance, I may offend some or land the business in trouble
+with others.  Will you help me, sir?"
+
+"Why--of course, I'll help."
+
+He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and commenced to write,
+talking to me as he did so.
+
+"You know, if times are at all good, you can trust the average man who
+owns the ranch he lives on to pay his grocery bills sooner or later.
+Still, if I were you, I wouldn't let any of them get into debt more
+than sixty or seventy dollars, for they do not require to, and, once
+they get in arrears, they have difficulty in getting out.
+
+"It is the floating population,--the here-to-day-and-away-to-morrow
+people who should not be given credit.  And,--Mr. Bremner, if you
+desire to act in kindness to the men themselves, do not allow the
+loggers, who come in here, to run up bills for themselves personally.
+Not that they are more dishonest than other people,--far from it.  I
+find it generally the other way round,--but they are notoriously
+improvident; inclined,--God bless them,--to live for the fleeting
+moment.
+
+"In many ways they are like children in their simplicity and their
+waywardness,--and their lot is not one of roses and honeysuckle.  They
+make good money and can afford to pay as they go.  If they cannot pay,
+they can easily wait for what they want until they can, for they are
+well fed and well housed while in the camps."
+
+We sat down at the table together.
+
+"There is a list, George.  May I call you George?  It is so much more
+friendly."
+
+I nodded in hearty approval.
+
+"It is not by any means complete, but it contains the principal people
+among your near-hand neighbours.  You can trust them to pay their last
+cent: Neil Andrews, Semple, Smith, Johannson, Doolan, MacAllister and
+Gourlay.
+
+"Any others who may call,--make them pay; and I shall be glad to inform
+you about them when I am this way again."
+
+"How often do you come in here, Mr. Auld?"
+
+"I try to make it, at least, once in two weeks, but I am not always
+successful.  I like to visit Jake Meaghan.  Poor, old, faithful,
+plodding Jake,--how I tried, at first, to extract the thorn from his
+flesh--the accursed drink!  I talked to him, I scolded him, I
+threatened him, but,--poor Jake,--he and his whisky are one, and
+nothing but death will ever separate them."
+
+Suddenly his face lit up and his eyes seemed to catch fire.
+
+"And who are we to judge?" he said, as if denying some inward question.
+"What right have we to think for a moment that this inherent weakness
+shall deprive Jake Meaghan of eternal happiness?  He is honest; he does
+good in his own little sphere; he harms no one but himself, for he
+hasn't a dependent in the world.  He fills a niche in God's plan; he is
+still God's child, no matter how erring he may be.  He is some mother's
+son.  George,--I am fully persuaded that my God, and your God, will not
+be hard on old Jake when his time comes; and, do you know, sometimes I
+think that time is not very far off."
+
+We sat silent for a while, then the minister spoke again:
+
+"Tell me, George,--have you met any of your neighbours yet?"
+
+"Only two," I said, "Jake, and Rita Clark."
+
+He raised his white, bushy eyebrows.
+
+"So you have met Rita!  She's a strange child; harboured in a strange
+home."
+
+He sighed at some passing thought.
+
+"It's a queer world,--or rather, it's a good world with queer people in
+it.  One would expect to find love and harmony in the home every time
+away up here, but it does not always follow.  Old Margaret Clark is the
+gentlest, dearest, most patient soul living.  Andrew Clark is a good
+man in every way but one,--but in that one he is the Rock of Gibraltar
+itself, or, to go nearer the place of his birth, Ailsa Craig, that old
+milestone that stands defiantly between Scotland and Ireland.  Andrew
+Clark is immovable.  He is hard, relentless, fanatical in his ideas of
+right and wrong; cruel to himself and to the woman he vowed to love and
+cherish.  Oh!--he sears my heart every time I think of him.  Yet, he is
+living up to his idea of what is right."
+
+The white-haired old gentleman,--bearer of the burdens of his
+fellows,--did not confide in me as to the nature of Andrew Clark's
+trouble, and it was not for me to probe.
+
+"As for Rita," he pursued, "poor, little Rita!--she is no relative of
+either Margaret or Andrew Clark.  She is a child of the sea.  Hers is a
+pitiful story, and I betray no confidences in telling you of it, for it
+is common property.
+
+"Fourteen years ago a launch put into the Bay and anchored at the
+entrance to Jake's cove.  There were several ladies and gentlemen in
+her, and one little girl.  They picnicked on the beach and, in the
+evening, they dined aboard, singing and laughing until after midnight.
+Jake was the only one who saw or heard them, and he swears they were
+not English-spoken.  Though they were gay and pleasure-loving, yet they
+seemed to be of a superior class of people.
+
+"He awoke before daylight, fancying he heard screams in the location of
+The Ghoul Rock.  He got up and, so certain was he that he had not been
+mistaken, he got into his boat and rowed out and round The Ghoul,--for
+the night was calm,--but everything was quiet and peaceful out there.
+
+"Next morning, while Joe Clark was scampering along the shore, he came
+across the unconscious form of a little girl about four years old, clad
+only in a nightdress and roped roughly to an unmarked life-belt.  Joe
+carried her in to his grandfather, old Andrew, who worked over her for
+more than an hour; and at last succeeded in bringing her round.
+
+"All she could say then was, "Rita, Rita, Rita," although, about a year
+afterwards, she started to hum and sing a little Spanish dancing song.
+A peculiar reversion of memory, for she certainly never heard such a
+song in Golden Crescent.
+
+"Jake swears to this day that she belonged to the launch party, who
+must have run sheer into The Ghoul Rock and gone down.
+
+"Little boy Joe pleaded with his grandfather and grandmother to keep
+the tiny girl the sea had given them, and they did not need much
+coaxing, for she was pretty and attractive from the first.
+
+"Inquiries were set afoot, but, from that day to this, not a clue has
+been found as to her identity; so, Rita Clark she is and Rita Clark she
+will remain until some fellow, worthy of her I hope, wins her and
+changes her name.
+
+"I thought at one time, Joe Clark would claim her and her name would
+not be changed after all, but since Joe has seen some of the outside
+world and has been meeting with all kinds of people, he has grown
+patronising and changeable with women, as he is domineering and
+bullying with men.
+
+"He treats Rita as if he expected her to be continually at his call
+should he desire her, and yet he were at liberty to choose when and
+where he please."
+
+"But, does Rita care for him?" I asked.
+
+"Seems so at times," he answered, "but of late I have noticed a
+coldness in her at the mention of his name; just as if she resented his
+airs of one-sided proprietorship and were trying to decide with herself
+to tolerate no more of it.
+
+"I tried to veer round to the subject with Joe once, but he swore an
+oath and told me to mind my own affairs.  What Joe Clark needs is
+opposition.  Yet Joe is a good fellow, strong and daring as a lion and
+aggressive to a degree."
+
+I was deeply interested as the old minister told the story, and it was
+like bringing me up suddenly when he stopped.  I had no idea how fast
+the time had been passing.
+
+Well I could understand now why this Rita Clark intuitively hated The
+Ghoul Rock.  Who, in her place, would feel otherwise?
+
+The Rev. William Auld rose from the table.
+
+"I must go now, my son, for the way is long.  Thanks so much for the
+rest and for your hospitality.  My only exhortation to you is, stand
+firm by all the principles you know to be true; never lose hold of the
+vital things because you are here in the wilds, for it is here the
+vital things count, more than in the whirr of civilisation."
+
+"Thank you, sir.  I'll try," I said.  "You will come again, I hope."
+
+"Certainly I shall.  Even if you did not ask me, for that is my duty.
+
+"If you accompany me as far as Jake's cove, where my launch is, I think
+I can furnish you with a paper from your countryside.  I have friends
+in the city, in the States and in England, who supply me, every week,
+with American and Old Country papers.  There are so many men from both
+lands in the camps and settled along the coast and they all so dearly
+love a newspaper.  I generally try to give them what has been issued
+nearest their own home towns."
+
+I rowed Mr. Auld over to his launch and wished him good-bye, receiving
+from his kindly old hands a copy of _The Northern Examiner_, dated
+three days after I had left Brammerton.
+
+It was like meeting with an old friend, whom I had expected never to
+meet again.  I put it in my inside pocket for consideration when I
+should get back to my bungalow with plenty of time to enjoy it.
+
+I dropped in to Jake's shack, for I had not seen him all the sleepy
+day.  I found him sitting in perfect content, buried up over the eyes
+in a current issue of _The Northern Lights_,--a Dawson newspaper, which
+had been in existence since the old Klondike days and was much relished
+by old-timers.
+
+The dog was curled up near the stove, sleeping off certain effects;
+Jake was at his second cup of whisky.  I left them to the peace and
+sanctity of their Sabbath evening and rowed back to "Paradise
+Regained," as I had already christened my bungalow.
+
+I sat down on the steps of the veranda, to peruse the home paper which
+the minister had left with me, and it was not long before I was
+startled by a flaring headline.  The blood rushed from my face to my
+heart and seemed as if it would burst that great, throbbing organ:--
+
+
+"SUDDEN DEATH OF THE EARL OF BRAMMERTON AND HAZELMERE."
+
+
+My eyes scanned the notice.
+
+"News has been telegraphed that the Earl of Brammerton and Hazelmere
+died suddenly of heart failure at his country residence, Hazelmere.
+His demise has caused a profound sensation, as it occurred on the eve
+of a House Party, arranged in celebration of the engagement of his son,
+Viscount Harry Brammerton, Captain of the Coldstream Guards, to the
+beautiful Lady Rosemary Granton, daughter of the late General Frederick
+Granton, who was the companion and dearest friend of the late Earl of
+Brammerton in the early days of their campaigning in the Crimea and
+India."
+
+A long obituary notice followed, concluding with the following
+paragraph:
+
+
+"It is given out that the marriage of the present Earl with Lady
+Granton has been postponed and that, after the necessary business
+formalities have been attended to, Captain Harry will join his regiment
+in Egypt for a short term.
+
+"Lady Rosemary Granton has gone to New York, at the cabled invitation
+of some old family friends."
+
+"It is understood that the Hon. George Brammerton, second and only
+other son of the late Earl, is presently on a long walking tour in
+Europe.  His whereabouts are unknown and he is still in ignorance of
+his father's death."
+
+
+The pain of that sudden announcement, so soon after I had left home and
+right on the eve of my new endeavours, no one shall ever know.
+
+My dear old father!  Angry at my alleged eccentricities sometimes, but
+ever ready to forgive,--was gone: doubtless, passing away with a
+message of forgiveness to me on his lips.
+
+And,--after the pain of it, came the conflict.
+
+Had what I had done caused or in any way hastened my father's death?
+Admitting that Harry's fault was great and unforgiveable, would it not
+have been better had I allowed it to remain in obscurity, at least for
+a time?  Was the keeping of the family name unsullied, was the
+untarnished honour of our ancient family motto, "Clean,--within and
+without," of greater importance than my father's life?  Was it my duty
+to be an unintentional and silent partner to the keeping of vital
+intelligence from the fair Lady Rosemary?
+
+Over all,--had I done right or wrong?
+
+What did duty now demand of me?  Should I hurry home and face the fresh
+problems there which were sure to arise now that Harry had succeeded to
+the titles and estates?  Should I remain by the post I had accepted
+from the hands of Mr. K. B. Horsfal and test thoroughly this new and
+exhilarating life which, so far, I had merely tasted?
+
+I had no doubts as to what my inclinations and desires were.  But it
+was not a question of inclinations and desires:--it was simply one of
+duty.
+
+All night long, I sat on the veranda steps with my elbows on my knees
+and my head in my upturned hands, fighting my battle; until, at last,
+when the grey was creeping up over the hills behind me and touching the
+dark surface of the sea in front here and there with mellow lights, I
+rose and went in to the house,--my conscience clear as the breaking
+day, my mind at rest like the rose-coloured tops of the mountains.
+
+I had no regrets.  I had done as a true Brammerton should.  I had done
+the right.
+
+I would not go back;--not yet.  I would remain here for a while in my
+obscurity, testing out the new life and executing as faithfully as I
+knew how the new duties I had voluntarily assumed.
+
+Further,--for my peace of mind,--so long as I remained in Golden
+Crescent, I decided I would not cast my eyes over the columns of any
+newspaper coming from the British Isles.  If I were to be done with the
+old life, I must be done with it in every way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Joe Clark, Bully
+
+With the advent of Monday morning, the Golden Crescent Trading Company,
+in charge of George Bremner, handyman, store-clerk, bookkeeper, buyer
+and general superintendent,--opened its doors for business.
+
+I was not overburdened with customers, for which I was not sorry, as I
+had lots to do fixing the prices of my stock and setting it to rights.
+
+But the arrival of the mail by the Tuesday steamer brought Neil
+Andrews, Doolan, Gourlay and the stern, but honest-faced old Scot,
+Andrew Clark, all at different times during the afternoon.  Not one of
+them could resist the temptation and go away without making some
+substantial purchases.
+
+I held religiously to the Rev. William Auld's list, but I found, in
+most cases, that my customers were prepared to pay for their first
+orders, at any rate, in cash; and, of course, I did not discourage them.
+
+On Wednesday, a launch, with three men in her, put in from No. 1 camp
+at Susquahamma, bearing an order as long as my arm, duly endorsed in a
+business-like way and all according to requirements.
+
+It took me most of the afternoon to put that order up.  The men did not
+seem to mind, as they reckoned the going and returning to camp a
+well-nigh all-day job for them.  They made Jake's shack their
+headquarters, spending all of the last two hours of their time in his
+cabin.
+
+Thursday brought another launch, this time from Camp No. 3, and the
+same process was gone through as with No. 1, including the visit of the
+visitors to Jake's shack.
+
+In an ordinary case, I would have been beginning to fear that that
+shack had become a common shebeen, but I knew Jake was not the man to
+accept money from any of his fellow creatures in exchange for any
+hospitality it might be in his power to offer.  A few days later came a
+repeat order from No. 1 Camp, then a request from the Cannery, which I
+was able to fill only in part, as many things required by them had not
+been included in the original orders given to the Vancouver wholesalers.
+
+I was beginning to wonder where Camp No. 2 was getting its supplies
+from, when, one day, about two weeks after my opening, they showed up.
+
+Two men came over in a fast-moving launch of a much better type than
+those in use by the other camps.  The men were big and burly fellows.
+One of them was unmistakably Irish; the other looked of Swedish
+extraction.
+
+"You the man that looks after this joint?" asked the Swede.
+
+"I am," I answered.
+
+He looked me up and down, for I was on the same side of the counter as
+they.  Then he turned to his Irish companion with a grin.
+
+"Say, mister,--where's your hoss?" he asked, addressing me.
+
+Both laughed loudly.
+
+At first I failed to see the point of hilarity.
+
+"What is the joke?" I asked.
+
+"Guess you are!" said the Swede.  And the two men laughed louder than
+ever.
+
+"Look here!" I cried, my blood getting up, "I want you two to
+understand, first go off, that I am not in the habit of standing up to
+be grinned at.  What do you want?  Speak out your business or get out
+of here and tumble back into your boat."
+
+"Ach!--it's all right, matey," put in the Irishman.  "Just a bit av fun
+out av yer breeches and leggings.  We Canucks don't wear breeches and
+leggings in grocery stores.  Do we, Jan?"
+
+"Guess nit," said Jan.  And they both laughed again.
+
+I cooled down, thinking if that were all their joke they were welcome
+to it, for I had already found my breeches and leggings mighty handy
+for getting through the bush with and for tumbling in and out of leaky
+rowing boats.
+
+I grinned.  "All right, fellows," I cried, "laugh all you want and I'll
+leave you a legging each as a legacy when I die."
+
+"Say, sonny,--you're all right!" he exclaimed.
+
+Good humour returned all round.
+
+"We're from No. 2 Camp at Cromer Bay and we want a bunch of stuff."
+
+"Where is your list and I'll try to fill it?" I inquired.
+
+The Swede handed over a long order, badly scrawled on the back of a
+paper bag.  The order was unstamped and unsigned, and not on the
+company's order form.
+
+"This is not any good," I said.  "Where is the company's order?"
+
+The Swede looked blankly at the Irishman, and the Irishman gazed
+dreamily at the Swede.
+
+"Guess that's good enough.  Ain't it, Dan?"
+
+"Shure!" seconded Dan.
+
+"It can't be done, boys," I said.  "Sorry,--but I have my instructions
+and they must be followed out."
+
+I handed back the list.
+
+The Swede stared at it and then over at me.
+
+"Ain't you goin' to fill this?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Well, I'll be gosh-dinged!  Say! sonny,--there'll be a hearse here for
+you to-morrow.  The boss wrote this."
+
+"How am I to know that?" I retorted.
+
+"Damned if I know," he returned, scratching his forelock.  "But it'll
+be merry hell to pay if we go back without this bunch of dope."
+
+"And it might be the devil to pay, if I gave you the goods without a
+proper order," I followed up.
+
+"Some of this stuff's for to-morrow's grubstake," put in the Swede,
+"and most of the hardware's wanted for a job first crack out of the box
+in the morning."
+
+"Sorry to disoblige you, fellows," I said sincerely, "but your boss
+should not have run so close to the wind.  Further, I am going to work
+this store right and that from the very beginning."
+
+"And you're not goin' to fill the boss's own caligeography, or whatever
+you call it?" reiterated the Irishman.
+
+"No!"
+
+"Wouldn't that rattle ye?" exclaimed Dan to his friend.
+
+"It do," conceded the Swede, who put his hand into his pocket and
+tossed fifteen cents on to the counter.
+
+"Well,--give us ten cents chewing tobacco, and a packet of gum."
+
+I filled this cash order and immediately thereafter the two walked out
+of the store and sailed away without another word or even a look behind
+them.
+
+I was worried over the incident, for I did not like to think myself in
+any way instrumental in depriving the men of anything they might
+require for their supper, and it was farthest from my desires to stop
+or even hamper the work at Camp No. 2.  But I had been warned that
+there was only one way to operate a business and that was on business
+lines, according to plan, so my conscience would not permit of any
+other course than the one I had taken.
+
+Had the store been my own, I might have acted differently, but it was
+merely held by me in trust, which was quite another matter.
+
+Next forenoon, a tug blew her whistle and put into the Bay, coming-to
+on the far side of Rita's Isle.  A little later, as I stood behind the
+counter writing up some fresh orders to the wholesalers, to replenish
+my dwindling stock, a dinghy, with one man at the oars and another
+sitting in the stern, appeared round the Island and pointed straight
+for the wharf.
+
+The oarsman ran the nose of the boat on the beach and remained where he
+was.  The man who had been sitting in the stern sprang out and came
+striding in the direction of the store.
+
+He stopped at the door and looked around him, ignoring my presence the
+while.
+
+What a magnificent specimen of a man he was!  Never in my life had I
+seen such a man, and, with all the sight-seeing I have done since, I
+have never met such another.
+
+I fancied, with my five feet eleven inches, that I was of a good
+height; but this giant stood six feet four inches, if he stood an inch.
+He looked quite boyish; not a day older than twenty-two.  His hair was
+very fair and wavy, and he had plenty of it.
+
+He was cleanly shaven and cleanly and neatly dressed.  His eyes were
+big and sky blue in colour.  They were eyes that could be warm or cold
+at will.  Just then, they were passively cold.
+
+His was a good face, reflecting strength and determination, while
+honesty, straight-forwardness and absolute fearlessness lent a charm to
+it that it otherwise would have lacked.
+
+After all, it was the glory of his stature that attracted me, as he
+stood, framed by the door, dressed in his high logging boots, with
+khaki-coloured trousers and a shirt to match; a soft felt hat on the
+back of his head set a little sportily to one side.
+
+Myself an admirer of the human form, a lover of muscle and sinew,
+
+And what a sense of contrast did the sight awaken in his mind.  The
+vessel was probably one of the Union Company's mail steamships, coasting
+round to Natal.  How plainly he would conjure up the scene upon her
+decks, the passengers striving to while away the tediousness of their
+floating captivity with chess and draughts--the latter of divers kinds--
+with books and tobacco, with chat and flirtation; whereas, here he was,
+at no very great distance either, undergoing, in this savage wilderness,
+a captivity which was terribly real--a prisoner of war among a tribe of
+sullen and partially crushed barbarians, with almost certain death, as a
+sacrifice to their slain compatriots, staring him in the face, and a
+strong probability of that death being a cruel and lingering one withal.
+And the pure rays of the newly risen sun shone forth joyously upon that
+blue surface, and a whiff of strong salt air seemed borne in upon them
+from the bosom of the wide, free ocean.
+
+For some minutes the Kafirs stood, talking, laughing like children as
+they gazed upon the long, low form of the distant steamship, concerning
+which many of their quaint remarks and conjectures would have been
+amusing enough at any other time.  And, as if anything was wanting to
+keep him alive to the peril of his position, Hlangani, stepping to the
+prisoner's side, observed:
+
+"The time has come to blind you, Ixeshane."
+
+The words were grim enough in all conscience--frightful enough to more
+than justify the start which Eustace could not repress, as he turned to
+the speaker.  But a glance was enough to reassure him.  The chief
+advanced toward him, holding nothing more formidable than a folded
+handkerchief.
+
+To the ordeal of being blindfolded Eustace submitted without a word.  He
+recognised its force.  They were nearing their destination.  Even a
+captive, probably foredoomed to death, was not to be allowed to take
+mental notes of the approaches to the present retreat of the Paramount
+Chief.  Besides, by insuring such ignorance, they would render any
+chance of his possible escape the more futile.  But as he walked,
+steered by one of his escort, who kept a hand on his shoulder, he
+concentrated every faculty, short of the sight of which he was
+temporarily deprived, upon observations relating to the lay of the
+ground.  One thing he knew.  Wherever they might be they were at no
+great distance from the sea coast.  That was something.
+
+Suddenly a diversion occurred.  A long, loud, peculiar cry sounded from
+some distance in front.  It was a signal.  As it was answered by the
+returning warriors, once more the wild war-song was raised, and being
+taken up all along the line, the forest echoed with the thunderous roar
+of the savage strophe, and the clash of weapons beating time to the
+weird and thrilling chant.  For some minutes thus they marched; then by
+the sound Eustace knew that his escort was forming up in martial array
+around him; knew moreover, from this circumstance, that the forest had
+come to an end.  Then the bandage was suddenly removed from his eyes.
+
+The abrupt transition from darkness to light was bewildering.  But he
+made out that he was standing in front of a hut, which his captors were
+ordering him to enter.  In the momentary glance which he could obtain he
+saw that other huts were standing around, and beyond the crowd of armed
+men which encompassed him he could descry the faces of women and
+children gazing at him with mingled curiosity and wonder.  Then,
+stooping, he crept through the low doorway.  Two of his guards entered
+with him, and to his unspeakable gratification their first act was to
+relieve him of the _reim_ which secured his arms.  This done, a woman
+appeared bearing a calabash of curdled milk and a little reed basket of
+stamped mealies.
+
+"Here is food for you, _Umlungu_," said one of them.  "And now you can
+rest until--until you are wanted.  But do not go outside," he added,
+shortly, and with a significant grip of his assegai.  Then they went
+out, fastening the wicker screen that served as a door behind them, and
+Eustace was left alone.
+
+The interior of the hut was cool, if a trifle grimy, and there were
+rather fewer cockroaches than usual disporting themselves among the
+domed thatch of the roof--possibly owing to the tenement being of recent
+construction.  But Eustace was dead tired and the shelter and solitude
+were more than welcome to him just then.  The curdled milk and mealies
+were both refreshing and satisfying.  Having finished his meal he
+lighted his pipe, for his captors had deprived him of nothing but his
+weapons, and proceeded to think out the situation.  But nature asserted
+herself.  Before he had taken a dozen whiffs he fell fast asleep.
+
+How long he slept he could not tell, but it must have been some hours.
+He awoke with a start of bewilderment, for his slumber had been a heavy
+and dreamless one: the slumber of exhaustion.  Opening his eyes to the
+subdued gloom of the hut he hardly knew where he was.  The atmosphere of
+that primitive and ill-ventilated tenement was stuffy and oppressive
+with an effluvium of grease and smoke, and the cockroaches were running
+over his face and hands.  Then the situation came back to him with a
+rush.  He was a prisoner.
+
+There was not much doing outside, to judge by the tranquillity that
+reigned.  He could hear the deep inflections of voices carrying on a
+languid conversation, and occasionally the shrill squall of an infant.
+His watch had stopped, but he guessed it to be about the middle of the
+afternoon.
+
+He was about to make an attempt at undoing the door, but remembering the
+parting injunction of his guard, he judged it better not.  At the same
+time it occurred to him that he had not yet investigated the cause of
+the saving of his life.  Here was a grand opportunity.
+
+Cautiously, and with one ear on the alert for interruption, he took the
+silver box from the inside pocket in which it was kept.  Removing the
+chamois leather covering, which showed a clean cut an inch long, he
+gazed with astonishment upon, the box itself.  The assegai had struck it
+fair, and there in the centre of the lid its point, broken off flush,
+remained firmly embedded.  He turned the box over.  The point had just
+indented the other side but not sufficiently to show through.
+
+For some minutes he sat gazing upon it, with a strange mixture of
+feeling, and well he might.  This last gift of Eanswyth's had been the
+means of saving his life--it and it alone.  It had lain over his heart,
+and but for its intervention that sure and powerfully directed stroke
+would have cleft his heart in twain.  That was absolutely a fact, and
+one established beyond any sort of doubt.
+
+Her hand had averted the death-stroke--the shield of her love had stood
+between him and certain destruction.  Surely--surely that love could not
+be so unlawful--so accursed a thing.  It had availed to save him--to
+save him for itself.  Eustace was not a superstitious man, but even he
+might, to a certain extent, feel justified in drawing a highly
+favourable augury from the circumstance.  Yet he was not out of his
+difficulties--his perils--yet.  They had, in fact, only just begun; and
+this he knew.
+
+So far his captors had not ill-treated him, rather the reverse.  But
+this augured next to nothing either way.  The Gcalekas had suffered
+severe losses.  Even now they were in hiding.  They were not likely to
+be in a very merciful mood in dealing with a white prisoner, one of the
+hated race which had shot down their righting men, driven them from
+their country, and carried off most of their cattle.  The people would
+clamour for his blood, the chiefs would hardly care to run counter to
+their wish--he would probably be handed over to the witch-doctors and
+put to some hideous and lingering death.
+
+It was a frightful thought, coming upon him alone and helpless.  Better
+that the former blow had gone home.  He would have met with a swift and
+merciful death in the excitement of battle--whereas now?  And then it
+crossed his mind that the interposition of the silver box might not have
+been a blessing after all, but quite the reverse.  What if it had only
+availed to preserve him for a death amid lingering torments?  But no, he
+would not think that.  If her love had been the means of preserving him
+thus far, it had preserved him for itself.  Yet it was difficult to feel
+sanguine with the odds so terribly against him.
+
+What would she do when she heard that Tom had been killed and himself
+captured by the savages?  "Were anything to befall you, my heart would
+be broken," had been almost her last words, and the recollection of them
+tortured him like a red-hot iron, for he had only his own fool-hardiness
+to thank that he was in this critical position at all.  Fortunately it
+did not occur to him that he might be reported dead, instead of merely
+missing.
+
+His reflections were interrupted.  A great noise arose without--voices--
+then the steady tramp of feet--the clash of weapons--and over and above
+all, the weird, thrilling rhythmical chant of the war-song.  He had just
+time to restore the silver box to its place, when the door of the hut
+was flung open and there entered three Kafirs fully armed.  They ordered
+him to rise immediately and pass outside.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
+
+THE PARAMOUNT CHIEF.
+
+The spectacle which met Eustace's eyes, on emerging from the dark and
+stuffy hut, struck him as grand and stirring in the extreme.
+
+He saw around him an open clearing, a large natural amphitheatre,
+surrounded by dense forest on three sides, the fourth being constituted
+by a line of jagged rocks more or less bush-grown.  Groups of hastily
+constructed huts, in shape and material resembling huge beehives, stood
+around in an irregular circle, leaving a large open space in the centre.
+And into this space was defiling a great mass of armed warriors.
+
+On they came, marching in columns, the air vibrating to the roar of
+their terrible war-song.  On they came, a wild and fierce array, in
+their fantastic war dresses--the glint of their assegai blades dancing
+in the sunlight like the ripples of a shining sea.  They were marching
+round the great open space.
+
+Into this muster of fierce and excited savages Eustace found himself
+guided.  If the demeanour of his guards had hitherto been good-humoured
+and friendly, it was so no longer.  Those immediately about him kept
+turning to brandish their assegais in his face as they marched, going
+through the pantomime of carving him to pieces, uttering taunts and
+threats of the most blood-curdling character.
+
+"_Hau umlungu_!  Are you cold?  The fire will soon be ready.  Then you
+will be warm--warm, ha-ha!" they sang, rubbing their hands and spreading
+them out before an imaginary blaze.  "The wood is hot--ah-ah!  It burns!
+ah-ah!"  And then they would skip first on one foot, then on another, as
+if trying to avoid a carpeting of glowing coals.  Or, "The fighting men
+of the Ama-Gcaleka are thirsty.  But they will soon have to drink.
+Blood--plenty of blood--the drink of warriors--the drink that shall make
+their hearts strong.  _Hau_!"  And at this they would feign to stab the
+prisoner--bringing their blades near enough to have frightened a nervous
+man out of his wits.  Or again: "The ants are hungry.  The black ants
+are swarming for their food.  It shall soon be theirs.  Ha-ha!  They
+want it alive.  They want eyes.  They want brains.  They want blood!
+Ha-ha!  The black, ants are swarming for their food."  Here the savages
+would squirm and wriggle as in imitation of a man being devoured alive
+by insects.  For this was an allusion to a highly popular barbarity
+among these children of Nature; one not unfrequently meted out to those
+who had incurred the envy or hostility of the chiefs and witch-doctors,
+and had been "smelt out" accordingly.
+
+When all were gathered within the open space the war chant ceased.  The
+great muster of excited barbarians had formed up into crescent rank and
+now dropped into a squatting posture.  To the open side of this,
+escorted by about fifty warriors, the prisoner was marched.
+
+As he passed through that sea of fierce eyes, all turned on him with a
+bloodthirsty stare, between that great crowd of savage forms, squatted
+around like tigers on the crouch, Eustace felt his pulses quicken.  The
+critical time had arrived.
+
+Even at that perilous moment he took in the place and its surroundings.
+He noted the faces of women, behind the dark serried ranks of the
+warriors, peering eagerly at him.  There were, however, but few, and
+they wore a crushed and anxious look.  He noted, further, that the huts
+were of recent and hasty construction, and that the cattle inclosure was
+small and scantily stocked.  All this pointed to the conclusion that the
+kraal was a temporary one.  The bulk of the women and cattle would be
+stowed away in some more secure hiding place.  Only for a moment,
+however, was he thus suffered to look around.  His thoughts were quickly
+diverted to a far more important consideration.
+
+His guards had fallen back a few paces, leaving him standing alone.  In
+front, seated on the ground, was a group consisting of a dozen or
+fourteen persons, all eyeing him narrowly.  These he judged to be the
+principal chiefs and councillors of the Gcaleka tribe.  One glance at
+the most prominent figure among these convinced him that he stood in the
+presence of the Paramount Chief himself.
+
+Kreli, or Sarili, as the name is accurately rendered--the former being,
+however, that by which he was popularly, indeed, historically known--the
+chief of the Gcalekas and the suzerain head of all the Xosa race, was at
+that time about sixty years of age.  Tall and erect in person, dignified
+in demeanour, despising gimcrack and chimney-pot hat counterfeits of
+civilisation, he was every inch a fine specimen of the savage ruler.
+His shrewd, massive countenance showed character in every line, and the
+glance of his keen eyes was straight and manly.  His beard, thick and
+bushy for a Kafir, was only just beginning to show a frost of grey among
+its jetty blackness.  Such was the man before whom Eustace Milne stood--
+so to speak--arraigned.
+
+For some moments the august group sat eyeing the prisoner in silence.
+Eustace, keenly observing those dark impassive faces, realised that
+there was not one there which was known to him.  He had seen Hlangani's
+gigantic form, resplendent or the reverse in the most wildly elaborate
+war costume, seated among the fighting men.  Here in the group before
+him all were strangers.
+
+While some of his chiefs were arrayed in costumes of plumes and skins
+and cow-tails exceeding fantastic, Kreli himself had eschewed all
+martial adornments.  An ample red blanket swathed his person, and above
+his left elbow he wore the thick ivory armlet affected by most Kafirs of
+rank or position.  But there was that about his personality which marked
+him out from the rest.  Eustace, gazing upon the arbiter of his fate,
+realised that the latter looked every inch a chief--every inch a man.
+
+"Why do you come here making war upon me and my people, _umlungu_!" said
+the chief, shortly.
+
+"There is war between our races," answered Eustace.  "It is every man's
+duty to fight for his nation, at the command of his chief."
+
+"Who ordered you to take up arms against us?  You are not a soldier, nor
+are you a policeman."
+
+This was hard hitting.  Eustace felt a trifle nonplussed.  But he
+conceived that boldness would best answer his purpose.
+
+"There were not enough regular troops or Police to stand against the
+might of the Gcaleka nation," he replied.  "Those of us who owned
+property were obliged to take up arms in defence of our property."
+
+"Was your property on the eastern side of the Kei?  Was it on this side
+of the Bashi?" pursued the chief.  "When a man's house is threatened
+does he go four days' journey away from it in order to protect it?"  A
+hum of assent--a sort of native equivalent for "Hear, hear," went up
+from the councillors at this hard hit.
+
+"Do I understand the chief to mean that we whose property lay along the
+border were to wait quietly for the Gcaleka forces to come and `eat us
+up' while we were unprepared?" said Eustace quietly.  "That because we
+were not on your side of the Kei we were to do nothing to defend
+ourselves; to wait until your people should cross the river?"
+
+"Does a dog yelp out before he is kicked?"
+
+"Does it help him, anyway, to do so after?" replied the prisoner, with a
+slight smile over this new rendering of an old proverb.  "But the chief
+cannot be talking seriously.  He is joking."
+
+"_Hau_!" burst forth the _amapakati_ in mingled surprise and resentment.
+
+"You are a bold man, _umlungu_," said Kreli, frowning.  "Do you know
+that I hold your life in my hand?"
+
+This was coming to the point with a vengeance.  Eustace realised that,
+like Agag, he must "walk delicately."  It would not do to take up a
+defiant attitude.  On the other hand to show any sign of trepidation
+might prove equally disastrous.  He elected to steer as near as possible
+a middle course.
+
+"That is so," he replied.  "I am as anxious to live as most people.  But
+this is war-time.  When a man goes to war he does not lock up his life
+behind him at home.  What would the Great Chief gain by my death?"
+
+"His people's pleasure," replied Kreli, with sombre significance, waving
+a hand in the direction of the armed crowd squatted around.  Then
+turning, he began conferring in a low tone with his councillors, with
+the result that presently one of the latter directed that the prisoner
+should be removed altogether beyond earshot.
+
+Eustace accordingly was marched a sufficient distance from the debating
+group, a move which brought him close to the ranks of armed warriors.
+Many of the latter amused themselves by going through a wordless, but
+highly suggestive performance illustrative of the fate they hoped
+awaited him.  One would imitate the cutting out of a tongue, another the
+gouging of an eye, etc., all grinning the while in high glee.
+
+Even Eustace, strong-nerved as he was, began to feel the horrible strain
+of the suspense.  He glanced towards the group of chiefs and _amapakati_
+much as the prisoner in the dock might eye the door of the room where
+the jury was locked up.  He began talking to his guards by way of
+diversion.
+
+"Who is that with Hlangani, who has just joined the _amapakati_?" he
+asked.
+
+"Ukiva."
+
+He looked with new interest at the warrior in question, in whose name he
+recognised that of a fighting chief of some note, and who was reported
+to have commanded the enemy in the fight with Shelton's patrol.
+
+"And the man half standing up--who is he?"
+
+"Sigcau--the great chief's first son.  _Whau umlungu_!" broke off his
+informant.  "You speak with our tongue even as one of ourselves.  Yet
+the chiefs and principal men of the House of Gcaleka are unknown lo you
+by sight."
+
+"Those of the House of Gaika are not.  Tell me.  Which is Botmane?"
+
+"Botmane?  Lo!" replied several of the Kafirs emphatically.  "He next to
+the Great Chief."
+
+Eustace looked with keen interest upon the man pointed out--an old man
+with a grey head, and a shrewd, but kindly natured face.  He was Kreli's
+principal councillor and at that time was reported to be somewhat in
+disfavour by reason of having been strenuously opposed to a war with the
+whites.  He was well-known to Eustace by name; in fact the latter had
+once, to his considerable chagrin, just missed meeting him on the
+occasion of a political visit he had made to the Komgha some months
+previously.
+
+Meanwhile the prisoner might well feel anxious as he watched the group
+of _amapakati_, for they were debating nothing less than the question
+whether he should be put to death or not.
+
+The chief Kreli was by no means a cruel or bloodthirsty ruler--and he
+was a tolerably astute one.  It is far from certain that he himself had
+ever been in favour of making war at that time.  He was too shrewd and
+far-seeing to imagine that success could possibly attend his arms in the
+long run, but on the other hand he bore a deep and latent grudge against
+the English by reason of the death at their hands of his father, Hintza,
+who had been made a prisoner not altogether under circumstances of an
+unimpeachable kind and shot while attempting to escape.  This had
+occurred forty years earlier.
+
+So when the young bloods of the tribe, thirsting for martial
+distinction, had forced the hands of their elders and rulers, by
+provoking a series of frictions with their Fingo neighbours then under
+British protection, the old chief had exercised no very strenuous
+opposition to their indulging themselves to the top of their bent.
+
+Having, however, given way to the war spirit, he left no stone unturned
+to insure success.  Runners were sent to the Gaika and Hlambi tribes
+located in British Kaffraria, viz.: within the Colonial limits--but
+although plenty of young men owning those nationalities drifted across
+the Kei in squads to join his standard, the bulk of the tribes
+themselves were slow to respond to his appeal.  Had it been otherwise,
+the position of the border people would have been more serious.  With
+the enemy at their very doors they would have found plenty of occupation
+at home, instead of being free to pour their forces into the Transkei.
+Things, however, had turned out differently.  The Gcaleka country had
+been ravaged from end to end, and the old chief was at that moment
+practically a fugitive.  It may readily be imagined, therefore, that he
+was in rather an ugly humour, and not likely to show much clemency
+towards the white prisoner in his power.
+
+There was another consideration which militated against the said
+clemency.  Although he had made no allusion to it, it must not be
+supposed that Kreli was all this time unaware of the identity of his
+prisoner.  The latter's friendship with many of the Gaika rulers was a
+rank offence in the eyes of the Paramount Chief just then.  Had he not
+sent his "word" to those chiefs, and had not his "word" fallen on ears
+dull of hearing?  Instead of rising at his call they were yet "sitting
+still."  What more likely than that white men, such as this one, were
+influencing them--were advising them contrary to their allegiance to
+him, the Paramount Chief?
+
+Some of the _amapakati_ were in favour of sparing the prisoner at
+present.  He might be of use to them hereafter.  He seemed not like an
+ordinary white man.  He spoke their tongue and understood their customs.
+There was no knowing but that he might eventually serve them materially
+with his own people.  Others, again, thought they might just as well
+give him over to the people to be put to death in their own way.  It
+would please the fighting men--many of whom had lost fathers and
+brothers at the hands of the whites.  Yet again, one or two more
+originated another proposal.  They had heard something of this white man
+being a bit of a wizard--that he owned a "charm" which had turned the
+blade of a broad assegai from his heart.  Let him be handed over to
+Ngcenika, the great witch-doctress.  Let her try whether his "charm" was
+too strong for her.
+
+This idea met with something like universal acceptance.  Shrewd and
+intelligent as they are in ordinary matters, Kafirs are given to the
+most childish superstitions, and, in adopting the above suggestion,
+these credulous savages really did look forward to witnessing something
+novel in the way of a competition in magic.  In their minds the
+experiment was likely to prove a thing worth seeing.
+
+"_Ewa!  Ewa_!"  ["Yes--yes"] they cried emphatically.  "Let Ngcenika be
+called."
+
+"So be it," assented Kreli.  "Let the witch-doctress be sought."
+
+But almost before the words had left his lips--there pealed forth a
+wild, unearthly shriek--a frightful yell--emanating from the line of
+rugged and bush-grown rocks which shut in one side of the clearing.
+Chiefs, _amapakati_, warriors--all turned towards the sound, an anxious
+expression upon every face--upon many, one of apprehension, of fear.
+Even to the white prisoner the interruption was sufficiently startling.
+And then there bounded forth into their midst a hideous, a truly
+appalling apparition.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY.
+
+THE WITCH-DOCTRESS.
+
+Man, woman, or demon--which was it?
+
+A grim, massive face, a pair of fierce, rolling eyes, which seemed to
+sparkle with a cruel and blood thirsty scintillation, a large, strongly
+built trunk, whose conformation alone betrayed the sex of the creature.
+Limbs and body were hung around thickly with barbarous "charms" in
+hideous and disgusting profusion--birds' heads and claws, frogs and
+lizards, snakes' skins, mingling with the fresh and bloody entrails of
+some animal.  But the head of this revolting object was simply
+demoniacal in aspect.  The hair, instead of being short and woolly, had
+been allowed to attain some length, and hung down on each side of the
+frightful face in a black, kinky mane, save for two lengths of it,
+which, stiffened with some sort of horrid pigment, stood erect like a
+couple of long red horns on each side of the wearer's ears.  Between
+these "horns," and crowning the creature's head, grinned a human skull,
+whose eyeless sockets were smeared round with a broad circle in dark
+crimson.  And that nothing should be wanting to complete the diabolical
+horror of her appearance, the repulsive and glistening coils of a live
+serpent were folding and unfolding about the left arm and shoulder of
+the sorceress.
+
+Something like a shudder of fear ran through the ranks of the armed
+warriors as they gazed upon this frightful apparition.  Brave men all--
+fearless fighters when pitted against equal forces--now they quailed,
+sat there in their armed might, thoroughly cowed before this female
+fiend.  She would require blood--would demand a life, perhaps several--
+that was certain.  Whose would it be?
+
+The wild, beast-like bounds of the witch-doctress subsided into a kind
+of half-gliding, half-dancing step--her demoniacal words into a weird
+nasal sort of chant--as she approached the chief and his councillors.
+
+"Seek not for Ngcenika, O son of Hintza, father of the children of
+Xosa!" she cried in a loud voice, fixing her eyes upon Kreli.  "Seek not
+for Ngcenika, O _amapakati_, wise men of the House of Gcaleka, when your
+wisdom is defeated by the witchcraft of your enemies.  Seek not
+Ngcenika, O ye fighting men, children of the Great Chief, your father,
+when your blood is spilled in battle, and your bullets fly harmless from
+the bodies of the whites because of the evil wiles of the enemy within
+your ranks.  Seek her not, for she is here--here to protect you--here to
+`smell out' the evil wizard in your midst.  She needs no seeking; she
+needs no calling.  She is here!"
+
+"Ha! ha!" ejaculated the warriors in a kind of gasping roar, for those
+ominous words told but too truly what would presently happen.  Not a man
+but dreaded that he might be the victim, and in proportion as each man
+stood well in rank or possessions, so much the greater was his
+apprehension.
+
+"I hear the voices of the shadowy dead!" went on the sorceress, striking
+an attitude of intense listening, and gazing upwards over the heads of
+her audience.  "I hear their voices like the whispering murmur of many
+waters.  I hear them in the air?  No.  I hear them in the roar of the
+salt waves of yonder blue sea?  No.  I hear them in the whispering
+leaves of the forest--in the echoing voices of the rocks?  No.  In the
+sunshine?  No.  I am in the dark--in the dark!" she repeated, raising
+her tone to a high, quavering shriek, while her features began to work,
+her eyes to roll wildly.  "I am in the gloom of the far depths, and the
+world itself is rolling above me.  The air is thick.  I choke.  I
+suffocate.  I am in the tomb.  The rock walls close me in.  There are
+faces around me--eyes--myriads of eyes--serpent eyes--hissing tongues.
+They come about me in the black gloom.  They scorch--they burn.  Ah-ah!"
+
+An awful change had come over the speaker.  Her features were working
+convulsively--she foamed at the mouth--her eyes were turned literally
+inward so that nothing but the white was visible.  Her body swayed to
+and fro in short, irregular jerks, as though avoiding the attack of
+unseen enemies.  The live serpent, which, grasped by the neck, she held
+aloft in the air, writhed its sinuous length, and with hood expanded and
+eyes scintillating, was hissing ferociously.  The effect upon the savage
+audience was striking.  Not a word was uttered--not a finger moved.  All
+sat motionless, like so many statues of bronze, every eye bent in
+awesome entrancement upon the seer.  Even Eustace felt the original
+contemptuous interest with which he had watched the performance deepen
+into a blood-curdling sort of repulsion.  From the stage of mere
+jugglery the case had entered upon one which began to look uncommonly
+like genuine diabolical possession.
+
+"I am in the gloom of the depths," shrieked the hideous sorceress, "even
+the Home of the Immortal Serpents, which none can find save those who
+are beloved of the spirits.  The air is black and thick.  It is shining
+with eyes--eyes, eyes--everywhere eyes.  The ground is alive with
+serpents, even the spirits of our valiant dead, and they speak.  They
+speak but one word and that is `Blood!  Blood--blood--blood!'" repeated
+the frightful monster.  "Blood must flow! blood! blood!"  And uttering a
+series of deafening howls she fell prone to the earth in frightful
+convulsions.
+
+Not one of the spectators moved.  The hideous features working, the eyes
+rolling till they seemed about to drop from their sockets, the foam
+flying from the lips--the body of Ngcenika seeming to stiffen itself
+like a corpse, bounded many feet in the air, and falling to the earth
+with a heavy thud, bounded and rebounded again--the festoons of
+barbarous and disgusting ornaments which adorned her person, twisting
+and untwisting in the air like clusters of snakes.  The live
+_rinkhaals_, which had escaped from her grasp, lay coiled in an attitude
+of defence, its head reared threateningly.
+
+For some minutes this appalling scene continued.  Then the horrible
+contortions of the body ceased.  The witch-doctress lay motionless; the
+swollen eyes, the terrible face, set and rigid, staring up to Heaven.
+She might have been dead.  So, too, might have been the spectators, so
+still, so motionless were they.
+
+The suspense was becoming horrible, the silence crushing.  There was
+just a whisper of air among the leaves of the surrounding forest,
+causing a faint rustle, otherwise not a sound--not even the distant call
+of a bird.  Eustace, gazing upon the motionless dark forms that
+surrounded him and upon the immeasurably repulsive figure of the
+prostrate demoniac, felt that he could stand it no longer--that he must
+do something to break that awful silence even though it should cost him
+his life, when an interruption occurred, so sudden, so startling in its
+unexpectedness, that he could hardly believe his eyes.
+
+The witch-doctress, who had seemed prone in the powerlessness of extreme
+exhaustion for hours at least, suddenly sprang to her feet with a
+blood-curdling yell.
+
+"The white wizard!" she shrieked.  "The white wizard!"
+
+"Ha!  The white wizard!  The white wizard!" echoed the warriors,
+relieved that the storm had passed them by this time.  "Let us see.  Is
+his charm too strong for Ngcenika?"
+
+The time had come.  Though unarmed, Eustace was still unbound.
+Instinctively and warily he glanced around, eager to grasp at some means
+of doing battle for his life.  But no such means rewarded his glance.
+
+Ngcenika walked up to one of the guards, and laid her hand on the bundle
+of assegais which he carried.  The man surrendered it with alacrity,
+striving to conceal the apprehension which came over his features as he
+came face to face with the terrible witch-doctress.  She chose a
+short-handled, broad-bladed stabbing assegai, examined it critically,
+and returned to her former position.
+
+Placing the weapon on the ground she proceeded to dance round it in a
+circle, chanting a weird, droning incantation.  The prisoner watched her
+keenly.  No attempt had been made to bind him.  At last her song ceased.
+Grasping the assegai in her powerful right hand, she advanced towards
+Eustace.
+
+At a sign from Ngcenika the guards fell back some twenty yards.  Behind
+them were the dense ranks of armed warriors, all craning eagerly forward
+to watch what was to follow.  At about the same distance in front sat
+the group of chiefs and councillors, so that the prisoner and the
+sorceress were completely hemmed in.
+
+"White wizard--white dog!" she began, standing within striking distance.
+"Wizard indeed!  What is thy magic worth?  Dost thou not fear me?"
+
+Eustace, seeing through the repulsive mass of gew-gaws which represented
+the juggling line of business, realised that he had to deal with a
+powerful, broadly built, middle-aged woman of about five foot ten.  She
+looked hard and muscular, and as strong as any two men--in fact, no mean
+antagonist, even had he been similarly armed, and he was unarmed.
+
+"No, I do not fear you," he replied quietly, keeping his eyes upon hers,
+like a skilful fencer.  The answer seemed rather to amuse than irritate
+her.
+
+"He does not fear me!" she repeated.  "Ha!  _Inyoka_, [Serpent], does he
+fear thee!" she cried, darting the serpent's head within a couple of
+inches of the prisoner's face.  The reptile hissed hideously, but
+Eustace, who knew that it had been rendered harmless, and that it must
+long since have spat its venom glands empty, did not allow himself to be
+disconcerted by this.  A murmur of wonder arose from the spectators.
+
+[The _rinkhaal_, a variety of cobra, has the faculty of being able, when
+angry, to eject an acrid, venomous saliva, to a distance of about six
+feet.]
+
+"He is not afraid!  The white wizard is not afraid!" they cried.
+
+"Dost thou dare to stand before me while I strike thee?  Is thy charm
+potent enough, O white wizard?" said Ngcenika, raising the assegai in
+the air.
+
+"I dare."
+
+"Present thy breast, then.  Give thy heart to my stroke.  Let thy
+`charm' protect thee if it can."
+
+A desperate plan had occurred to Eustace--to wrench the assegai from the
+hag's hand and make a dash for the forest.  But even concurrently with
+the idea, he realised the absolute impracticability of it.  He more,
+than doubted his ability to disarm his adversary; he had no doubt at all
+as to the certainty of his being seized long before he could accomplish
+that feat.  No--he must stand up to the blow.  It was his only chance,
+and at any rate his death would be a swift and painless one.
+
+The dark, brawny arm of the sorceress was upraised, her muscular fingers
+gripped the assegai haft a few inches from the blade.  The shining
+spear-head gleamed aloft.
+
+Not once did his glance wander from that cruel demon-face confronting
+him.  Yet between it and him floated the sweet, oval contour of another
+very different countenance.
+
+"Love of my life--preserve that life once more for thyself!" he murmured
+with the impassioned fervour of an invocation of faith.  His lips moved.
+
+"Ha!  Thou repeatest thy charm, O white wizard," said Ngcenika.  "Is it
+stronger than mine?  Is it stronger than mine?"
+
+One might have heard a pin drop.  That fierce, excitable crowd, bending
+forward, straining their eyes upon this unwonted scene, held their very
+breath as they gazed.
+
+The prisoner stood with chest expanded--erect--facing the
+witch-doctress.  There was a flash of light through the air, and the
+spear descended.  No writhing body, gushing with blood, sank to the
+earth.  The prisoner stood, erect and smiling.
+
+"_Hau_!" cried the warriors.  "The `charm' is too strong.  The white man
+is unhurt--_Mawo_!"
+
+Ngcenika could be seen examining the point of her assegai in scowling
+concern.  It was completely flattened and turned.
+
+It must not be supposed that Eustace was so simple as to imagine that
+the sorceress would strike at the spot where she knew the impediment was
+concealed--over his heart, to wit.  That cunning she-devil, as he well
+knew, would aim just to the right of this, and would reckon infallibly
+upon transfixing him.  Accordingly, while watching the stroke, with
+incredible quickness and dexterity he timed himself to swerve slightly
+in that direction thus actually catching the point of the weapon upon
+the silver box.  Again had the love of Eanswyth stepped between himself
+and death.
+
+"Where is the man who owns this spear?" cried the witch-doctress,
+suddenly.
+
+With much inward trepidation a warrior stepped forward.
+
+"Thy weapon is bewitched!" cried the hag, in a terrible voice.
+
+The man made no reply.  He thought his doom was sealed.
+
+"Yes, thy weapon is bewitched."  Then raising her voice: "Where is the
+man who struck this white wizard in battle?"
+
+A moment's hesitation--and there advanced from the ranks of the fighting
+men a tall, powerful warrior.  He grasped in his hand a broad-bladed
+assegai, with the point broken short off.
+
+"I am Mfulini, the son of Mapute," he began, not waiting to be addressed
+first.  "I am a fighting man of the race of Gcaleka!  I love war.
+_Hau_!  I have struck more than one enemy, but have never struck him
+twice.  _Hau_!  I struck this white man and my weapon broke, my strong
+_umkonto_ [The broad headed close-quarter assegai] that has drunk the
+heart's blood of five Fingo dogs.  The weapon is bewitched.  He who has
+done this thing must be found.  The wizard must be found.  _Hau_!"
+
+"_Ewa, Ewa_!" shouted the warriors.  "The wizard must be found.  The
+great witch-doctress must find him.  Then will the white man's magic be
+no longer too strong for her.  He must be killed!  Find him!  Find him!
+He must be killed!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.
+
+THE "SMELLING OUT."
+
+"He must be killed!  He must be killed!"
+
+The cry was taken up.  The bloodthirsty shout rolled through the ranks
+fiercer and fiercer till the wild roaring chorus was deafening.  That
+crouching, armed multitude, a moment before so motionless and silent,
+sprang erect, swaying to and fro, frenzied with uncontrollable
+excitement; a legion of dark demons roaring and howling under the
+promptings of superstition and ferocity; bellowing for blood--blood,
+blood, no matter whose.  Weapons waved wildly in the air, and the
+deep-throated shout volleyed forth.  "He must be killed!"
+
+The warriors were seated in an immense double semicircle.  Gliding with
+her half-dancing step to the upper end of this, the witch-doctress began
+chanting an incantation in a high nasal key, an invocation to the great
+_Inyoka_ [Serpent] who held the kraal and its inhabitants under its
+especial favour.  As she commenced her round, the shouting of the
+warriors was hushed.  All stood upright and silent.  Different emotions
+held sway in each grim, dark countenance.  The hearts of many were
+sinking with deadly fear, yet each strove to meet the eye of the
+terrible witch-doctress boldly and without quailing.  They knew that
+that fatal round would prove of deadly import to one or more of them ere
+it was completed.
+
+"Ho--_Inyoka 'nukulu_!"  [Great serpent] chanted the hag, with a
+significant shake of the body of the hideous reptile, which she held by
+the neck.  "Find the wizard!  Find the wizard!"
+
+"Find the wizard!" echoed those whom she had already passed by as she
+commenced her passage along the line.
+
+"Find the wizard!" they shouted, rapping the ground with their sticks.
+Those who had yet to undergo the ordeal kept stem silence.
+
+The chorus grew in volume as the number qualified to swell it increased.
+Not merely a lust for blood did that horrid shout represent--it
+embodied also a delirious relief on the part of those already safe.
+
+Suddenly Ngcenika made a half pause, raising her voice in the midst of
+her yelling chant.  The serpent, its black coils writhing and twisting
+around her arm, opened its jaws and hissed horribly.  Those still
+expectant held their breaths; those already relieved shouted and
+hammered with their sticks harder than ever.  Those directly opposite
+the sorceress, at this ill-omened juncture, stood turned to stone.
+
+"Find him, Inyoka!" snarled the hag.
+
+"Find him!  Find him!" echoed the deep-toned chorus.
+
+But the pause was only momentary.  Not yet was the victim singled out.
+Ngcenika resumed her way, only to repeat the process further along the
+line.  And this she would do at intervals, sometimes coming to a dead
+stop in such significant and purpose-fraught fashion that the whole body
+of spectators stood ready to hurl themselves like lightning upon the
+unlucky one denounced.  The hellish hag was enjoying the terror she
+inspired, and as strong men of tried bravery one after another quailed
+before her she gloated over their fears to such a pitch that her voice
+rose to a deafening shriek of demoniacal glee.
+
+The other end of the great human crescent was nearly reached and still
+no victim.  And now those who had escaped so far began to feel their
+apprehensions return.  It would be no unprecedented affair were a second
+trial to occur, or even a third.  The sorceress might elect to make her
+fatal progress through the ranks again and again.  There were barely
+fifty men left.  Unless the victim or victims should be found among
+those, a second progress was inevitable.
+
+The bloodthirsty chorus rose into a deafening roar.  The tension was
+fearful to witness.  The hideous possession of the repulsive
+witch-doctress had communicated itself in some degree to the mass of
+excitable savages.  Many were foaming at the mouth and apparently on the
+eve of convulsions.  Not satisfied with the shouting, the infuriated mob
+beat time with their feet in addition to their sticks, as they joined in
+the hell-hag's demoniacal incantations, and the perspiration streamed
+from every pore till the very air was heavy with a sickening and musky
+odour.  It was a repellent and appalling scene, and even the white
+spectator, apart from the extreme peril of his own situation, felt his
+blood curdle within him at this vision of what was very like a
+diabolical power let loose.  But there was worse to follow.
+
+Suddenly the sorceress was seen to halt.  Her voice rose to a frightful
+yell, as with blazing eyes, and pouring forth a torrent of denunciation,
+she raised the great black serpent aloft in such wise that its writhing
+neck and hissing jaws made a dart straight at the face of a man in the
+rear rank of the line and near the end of the latter.
+
+"Thou hast found him, _Inyoka_!  Thou hast found him!  Show us the
+wizard!" screeched the hideous witch-doctress.  The grinning skull and
+the two devil-like horns of hair which surmounted her head quivered
+convulsively.  Her eyes started from the sockets, and the weird and
+barbaric amulets hung about her person rattled like castanets.  She was
+once more the mouthing demoniac of a short half-hour ago.
+
+The writhings and hisses of the serpent had become perfectly frantic.
+Suddenly the reptile was seen to spring free of her grasp and to fling
+itself straight at the man whose face it had first struck at.
+
+"The wizard!  The wizard!" roared the warriors.  "_Hau_!  It is Vudana!
+Vudana, the son of Sekweni, _Hau_!"
+
+"Vudana, the wizard!  Seize him!" shrieked the sorceress.  "Seize him,
+but slay him not.  He must confess!  He must confess!  On your lives,
+slay him not!"
+
+The first part of her mandate had already been obeyed.  Those in his
+immediate neighbourhood had flung themselves upon the doomed man and
+disarmed him almost before the words of denunciation had left the hag's
+lips.  The second part was in no danger of being disobeyed now.  Better
+for the victim if it had.
+
+The latter was a man just past middle age, with a quiet and far from
+unpleasing cast of features.  He was not a chief, but had a reputation
+for shrewdness and foresight beyond that of many an accredited leader.
+
+"Ha, Vudana!  Vudana, the wizard!" cried Ngcenika mockingly.  "Vudana,
+who did not believe in the efficacy of my magic.  Vudana, who pretended
+to manufacture `charms' as effective as mine.  Vudana, whose poor
+attempts at magic have been effective to destroy mine in the case of all
+who believed in them.  Call the names of those who fell," she cried,
+addressing the crowd.  "They are all believers in Vudana, not in me!
+Where are they now?  Ask the Amanglezi--even the Amafengu, before whose
+bullets they fell.  Ask the jackal and the vulture, who have picked
+their bones.  Ask Mfulini, the son of Mapute, whose weapon was turned by
+the magic of the white man!  Was he a believer in Vudana's `charms'?"
+she added in a menacing voice, rolling her eyes around.
+
+"He was not," shouted the warrior named, springing forward.  "Where is
+the man who bewitched my broad _umkonto_.  Let him confess and say how
+he did it."
+
+"It is well, Mfulini," said the witch-doctress grimly, knowing that the
+other trembled for his personal safety now that she had dexterously
+turned suspicion upon him.  "Thou shall be the man to make him confess."
+
+"I have nothing to confess," said Vudana.  He lay on his bark, held
+powerless by several men while waiting for a _reim_ to be brought
+wherewith to bind him.  He knew that he was doomed--doomed not merely to
+death, but to one of the differing forms of frightful torment meted out
+to those accused of his offence.  He knew moreover that whether he
+accused himself or not the result would be the same, and a warrior light
+blazed from his eyes as he replied.
+
+"If the Great Chief wants my cattle, my possessions, they are his; let
+him take them.  If he wants my life, it too is his; let him take it.
+But I will not accuse myself of that which I have never committed."
+
+If Kreli had heard this appeal he made no sign.  Witchcraft was an
+offence--theoretically at any rate--outside the secular province.
+"Smelling out" was a good old custom which had its uses, and one not
+lightly to be interfered with.  It was doubtful, however, whether he did
+hear, for a shout of execration, led by the witch-doctress, drowned the
+victim's words.
+
+"He will not confess!  _Au_!  Where are the hot stones?  To the fire!
+To the fire!" roared the crowd.  The witch-doctress uttered a fiendish
+laugh.
+
+"No.  To the ants!" she cried.
+
+"_Ewa!  Ewa_!  To the ants!" they echoed.  "Bring him along.  _Hau_!
+The ants are hungry!"
+
+A noosed _reim_ was thrown round the doomed man's neck, and another made
+fast to each of his wrists, and thus, with the whole crowd surging and
+yelling around him, he was dragged into the adjoining forest.
+
+"_Hamba-ke, umlungu_!"  ["Go on, white man"] said several of the
+warriors guarding Eustace, motioning him to proceed.  "We are going to
+show you a sight.  Quick, or we shall be late!"
+
+By no means free from apprehension on his own account, Eustace obeyed.
+When they arrived among the eager and excited crowd, the entertainment
+had already begun.  All made way for the white prisoner and his guards,
+and there was a fiendish leer on many a dark face which needed not a
+muttered remark or two to explain.  The horrible scene he was about to
+witness was extremely likely to be his own fate.
+
+The doomed man lay spread eagled on his back; his hands and feet,
+stretched to their utmost tension, were fastened to stout pegs driven
+into the ground.  Two of the Kafirs were busily anointing his naked body
+with a sticky compound, which was, in fact, a mixture of honey and
+native beer.  This they smeared over him with bits of rag: ears, eyes,
+nose, coming in for a plentiful share.  Already his flesh seemed alive
+with moving objects, and then the cause became apparent.  The wretched
+man was tied down right across a huge ant's nest, which had been broken
+in order to receive his body.  Already the infuriated insects were
+making their bites felt.  _He was to be devoured alive by black ants_.
+
+"Confess, Vudana," cried Ngcenika.  "Confess thy witchcraft and how thy
+`charms' were obtained.  The black ants bite hard.  Ha!"
+
+"Confess?  Ha-ha!" jeered the sufferer, his eyes blazing.  "Not to thee,
+vulture.  Not to thee, jackal.  Not to thee, spawn of a Fingo dog.  Ha!
+That is the witch-doctress of the Amagcaleka!  Such a thing as that!
+What magic can she make?  A cheat--a liar!  I can die--I can die as I
+have lived--a man, a warrior."
+
+"_Hau_!  A wizard!  A traitor!" vociferated the crowd.  "Confess thy
+witchcraft, lest we put thee to the flaming torment.  The fire bites
+deeper than the black ants.  _Hau_!"
+
+"I laugh at the fire," roared the victim.  "I laugh at all that you can
+do.  The fire is but a pleasant warmth.  The bite of the ants is but the
+softest tickling.  Thou dog, Mfulini, were I free, I would whip thee
+round the kraal."
+
+"Is thy bed a comfortable one, Vudana?" replied the barbarian thus
+apostrophised, with a sneer.  And picking up a handful of the venomous
+insects he scattered them upon the tortured man's face with a brutal
+laugh.
+
+For all his defiant fortitude the latter was undergoing agonies.  The
+ants were swarming all over his body, crawling into his nostrils and
+ears, biting everywhere, eating the rims of his eyelids, his lips, his
+throat, and he was powerless to move a hand or foot.  The spectators
+crowded around, mocking and jeering at him.  A few minutes ago he was a
+man of consideration--now all pushed and fought for the front places to
+witness his sufferings, all heaped execrations upon him as they gloated
+over the horrible punishment of one who had been denounced as a wizard.
+
+"Whose magic is the greatest, Vudana--thine or mine?" jeered Ngcenika,
+bending over her victim until her face was close to his.  But the
+proximity of that repulsive countenance infuriated even the helpless
+victim.  With a roar of rage he spat full into it, vociferating:
+
+"Thou spawn of a Fingo dog!  Thine hour is come.  I have put my mark
+upon thee.  Before many moons are dead thou too shalt die, and thy death
+shall be even as mine.  I, Vudana, say it.  Hear ye my words all!"
+
+"He has confessed," shouted the crowd.  "He is a wizard.  He has
+confessed.  Let him die the death!"
+
+With a yell of fury Ngcenika started back, and glared vengefully around
+as if inquest of some means whereby to add to the sufferer's agony.
+Then she remembered that it would hardly bear adding to under the
+circumstances, and contented herself with a satanic laugh.
+
+Nor would it.  In a short time the miserable man's body was black with
+the repulsive insects.  They swarmed into his ears and nostrils.  His
+struggles became fearful, as he writhed in the excruciating torment of
+their poisonous bites.  He foamed at the mouth.  His eyeballs rolled and
+strained in their sockets, and he shook his head and roared like a
+beast.  It would be impossible to exaggerate the agonies he was
+undergoing.  His frantic struggles availed not to shake off a single one
+of the myriad insects swarming upon him.  Already his eyes were half
+eaten away.
+
+It was a fiendish and appalling spectacle.  The man was now raving mad.
+He gnashed his teeth and howled.  His contortions were fearful to
+witness.  Yet no spark of pity or compunction did the sight awaken in
+the ferocious hearts of the spectators, many of whom were, up to the
+moment of the fatal denunciation, his kindred and his friends.  But
+since his treatment of the witch-doctress all were chary of venturing
+too close.  Many of the superstitious barbarians had already began to
+look upon Ngcenika with decreased respect.  Vudana, suffering as a
+wizard, had spat in her face, accompanying the act with a prophecy and a
+curse.  On no consideration would they run the risk of exposing
+themselves to like treatment.
+
+Eustace, forced to be a spectator of this blood-curdling scene, felt his
+head swim with horror and disgust.  The chastened gloom of the forest,
+the gibing crowd of armed savages, the weird shrill singing of the
+witch-doctress, and the frightful contortions and beast-like roars of
+the miserable victim, who was being literally devoured alive, made up a
+picture likely to haunt a man in his dreams for the rest of his life, to
+start him suddenly awake in a cold sweat of terror.  Still he remembered
+that any exhibition of feeling would be in the highest degree dangerous,
+and controlled himself accordingly.
+
+All this had taken some time and now the frantic struggles of the
+sufferer had subsided.  A convulsive shudder would now and then run
+through his limbs, and his sightless eyeballs would roll in a manner
+hideous to behold, and ever the disgusting insects swarmed over him in a
+horrible moving mass, now red with blood, and smothered beneath gouts of
+saliva which had flown from the maniac's lips.  Upon his violent
+struggles had followed exhaustion--mercifully, the exhaustion of
+approaching death.
+
+"He is dying!" cried several, bending over the victim.  "_Hau_!  A man
+like Vudana should have taken much longer to die."
+
+This was said in a disappointed tone.  The barbarous appetite of these
+savages was thoroughly roused--whetted for further atrocities.  A shout
+arose.
+
+"The white man!  The white man!  What shall we do with him?"
+
+Well might Eustace start, in horror and dismay.  But a glance served to
+show that the object of attention was not himself, but somebody at the
+other end of the crowd, in which direction all heads were turned.  Then
+as the crowd parted a moment he caught a glimpse of something--somebody
+rather--which evoked a second start, this time one of very unequivocal
+amazement.  Could he believe his eyes?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.
+
+A STRANGE DUEL.
+
+In the midst of the savage throng was another white man, also a
+prisoner, who had been forced to assist at the barbarous scene just
+detailed.  His lot, however, had been cast in far worse lines than that
+of Eustace, for his hands were tightly fastened behind his back and a
+_reim_ connected his ankles in such wise that he could only take short
+steps--which painful fact he would every now and then forget, with the
+result of just so many ignominious "croppers."  Whereat his dusky
+tormentors would shout with gleeful laughter.
+
+In addition to his bonds the unfortunate man appeared to have undergone
+considerable maltreatment.  His hair and beard were matted with dust and
+blood, and his head was rudely bandaged with rags of the filthiest
+description.  He was clad in a greasy and tattered shirt, and trousers
+to match--his own clothes having been impounded by his captors.
+Moreover there were livid wales upon his face and hands, and such parts
+of his person as were visible through his ragged apparel, which showed
+that he had been unmercifully beaten.  Well might Eustace start in
+amazement, absolute and unfeigned.  In this pitiable object he
+recognised Tom Carhayes.
+
+He gazed at him speechless--as at one who has risen from the dead.  If
+ever he could have sworn to any man's death it would have been to that
+of the man before him.  He had seen the assegais flash in the air and
+descend--had heard the dull, sickening blows of the kerries which had
+beaten the life out of his unfortunate cousin.  Yet, here stood the
+latter--not exactly unhurt, but yet full of life.
+
+"_Hau_, Umlilwane!" said Hlangani, who was standing beside the latter--
+grinning hideously into his victim's face.  "You are not near enough to
+see well.  The black ants bite--harder than the shot from your gun," he
+went on, with grim meaning, beckoning to those who stood by to drag the
+prisoner nearer to the body of the unfortunate Vudana, which lay, raw
+and bloody, the veins exposed in many places by the bites of the myriad
+swarming insects.  Carhayes gazed upon the horrid sight with a shudder
+of disgust.  Then raising his eyes he encountered those of Eustace.  A
+shout of astonishment escaped him.
+
+"How did you get here?" he cried.  "Thought you were rubbed out if ever
+any fellow was.  Suppose you thought the same of me.  Well, well.  It'll
+come to that soon.  These damned black devils have bested me, just as I
+reckoned I was besting them.  They've been giving me hell already.  But
+I say, Eustace, you seem to be in clover," noticing the other's freedom
+from bonds or ill-treatment.  Then he added bitterly, "I forgot; you
+always did stand in well with them."
+
+"That isn't going to help me much now, I'm afraid," answered Eustace.
+"I've just made a fool of the witch-doctress and she won't let things
+rest there, depend upon it.  My case isn't much more hopeful than yours.
+Have you tried the bribery trick?"
+
+"No.  How do you mean?"
+
+"Offer some big-wig, like our particular friend there--I won't mention
+names--a deuce of a lot of cattle to let you escape.  Try and work it--
+only you must be thundering careful."
+
+The Kafirs, who had been attentively listening to the conversation
+between the two white men, here deemed that enough had been said.
+Dialogue in an unknown tongue must represent just so much plotting,
+argued their suspicious natures.  So they interposed.
+
+"See there," said Hlangani, with a meaning glance at the fearfully
+contorted features of the miserable victim of the witch-doctress.  "See
+there, Umlilwane, and remember my `word' to you the day you shot my
+white hunting dog and wounded me in the shoulder.  _You had better first
+have cut off your right hand, for it is better to lose a hand than one's
+mind.  Hau_!  You laughed then.  Who laughs now?"
+
+To Eustace those words now stood out in deadly significance.  The
+wretched Vudana had died raving mad.  This, then, was the promised
+vengeance.  Whatever his own fate might be, that of his cousin was
+sealed.  Nothing short of a miracle could save him.  Carhayes, noting
+the deadly and implacable expression upon the dark countenance of his
+enemy, realised something of this, and fearless as he habitually was, it
+was all he could do to keep from betraying some misgiving.
+
+At this juncture a mandate arrived from Kreli that the warriors should
+once more assemble within the temporary kraal, and that the white
+prisoners should again be brought before him.  Singing, chatting,
+laughing, administering many a sly kick or cuff to poor Carhayes, the
+savages swarmed back to the open space, dragging that unfortunate along
+in rough, unceremonious fashion.  Soon the glade was empty, save for the
+body of the miserable victim of their blindly superstitious ferocity.
+It lay there, stark, mangled, and hideous.
+
+The Paramount Chief and his councillors still sat in a group apart.
+They had borne no part in, betrayed no interest in, the barbarous
+tragedy which had just taken place.  Such a matter as the punishment of
+a wizard was entirely beneath their notice--in theory at any rate.  They
+still sat in grave and dignified impassiveness.
+
+Eustace, noting the difference between his own treatment and that of his
+cousin--the one bound with unnecessary rigour, hustled and kicked, the
+other, though disarmed, treated with a certain amount of consideration--
+began to entertain strong hopes on his own account.  But tending
+materially to dash them was the fact that Ngcenika, standing before the
+chief and the _amapakati_, was favouring that august assemblage with a
+very fierce and denunciatory harangue.
+
+There were two white men, she said--two prisoners.  One of these was a
+man of some power, who had been able to oppose her magic with his own;
+only for a time, however--the hag took care to add.  This man it might
+be well to keep for a little while longer at any rate; there were
+several experiments which she herself intended to try upon him.  But the
+other--he had always been a bitter enemy of their race.  Many had fallen
+at his hands.  Had he not cut a notch upon his gun-stock for every
+fighting man of the race of Xosa whom he had slain?  There was the
+gun-stock and there were the notches.  There were many of them, let the
+Great Chief--let the _amapakati_ count.
+
+At the production of this damning "_piece de conviction_," a shout of
+fury rose from the ranks of the warriors.
+
+"To the fire!" they cried.  "To the fire with him!"
+
+The situation was appalling, yet Carhayes never quailed.  The desperate
+pluck of the man bore him up even then.  He scowled contemptuously upon
+the lines of dark and threatening faces, then turned erect and fearless
+towards the chief.
+
+For a few moments they confronted each other thus in silence.  The
+Englishman, somewhat weak and unsteady from exhaustion and
+ill-treatment, could still look the arbiter of his fate straight in the
+eyes without blenching.  They might do their worst and be damned, he
+said to himself.  He, Tom Carhayes, was not going to whine for mercy to
+any nigger--even if that "nigger" was the Chief Paramount of all the
+Amaxosa tribes.
+
+The latter, for his part, was not without respect for the white man's
+intrepidity, but he had no intention of sparing him for all that.  He
+had been debating with his chiefs and councillors, and they had decided
+that Carhayes ought to be sacrificed as an uncompromising and determined
+enemy of their race.  The other it might be expedient to keep a little
+longer and see how events would turn.
+
+"What have you to say, _umlungu_?" said Kreli at length.
+
+"Nothing.  Not a damn thing," broke in Carhayes, in a loud, harsh tone.
+
+"Tom, for God's sake don't be such a fool," whispered Eustace, who was
+near enough to be heard.  "Can't you be civil for once?"
+
+"No, I can't; not to any infernal black scoundrel," roared the other
+savagely.  "It's different with you, Eustace," changing his tone to a
+bitter sneer.  "Damn it, man, you're about half a Kafir already.  Why
+don't you ask old Kreli for a couple of his daughters and set up a kraal
+here among them, eh?"
+
+A sounding whack across the ear with the haft of an assegai choked the
+words in his throat.  He stood, literally foaming with fury.
+
+"Attend, thou white dog," cried a great deep-toned voice.  "Attend when
+the Great Chief is talking to thee.  _Au_!"
+
+An infuriated mastiff straining at his chain is a pretty good
+exemplification of impotent wrath, but even he is nothing to the aspect
+and demeanour of Carhayes as he turned to the perpetrator of this
+indignity.  The veins rolled in his forehead as if they would burst.
+The muscles stood out upon his neck like cords as he strove by a
+superhuman effort to burst his bonds.  But Hlangani only sneered.
+
+"Listen when the Great Chief is talking to thee, thou jackal, or I will
+strike thee again," he said.
+
+"God damn the Great Chief!" roared poor Tom, his voice rising to a
+hurricane shriek of fury under this shameful indignity, which he was
+powerless to resent.  "And you, Hlangani, you dog, if I stood unbound I
+would kill you at this moment--kill you all unarmed as I am.  Coward!
+Dare you try it!"
+
+"What is this _indaba_?" interrupted Kreli sternly.  "This white man has
+a very long tongue.  Perhaps it may be shortened with advantage."  A hum
+of applause greeted this remark, and the chief went on.  "You are asked
+a question, _umlungu_, and instead of answering you rave and bellow and
+throw yourself about like a cow that has lost her calf.  And now what
+have you to say?  You have invaded our country and shot our people with
+your own hand.  If a man thrusts his head into a hornet's nest, whom
+shall he blame but himself if he gets stung--if he treads upon a
+serpent, how shall he complain if made to feel the reptile's fangs?"
+
+"Well, you see, it's war-time," answered Carhayes bluntly, beginning to
+think he might just as well say something to save his life, if words
+could save it, that is.  "I have met your people in fair fight, and I
+challenge any man, black or white, to deny that I have acted fair,
+square, and above board.  And when we do take prisoners we don't treat
+them as I have been treated since I was brought here.  They are taken
+care of by the doctors if wounded, as I am; not tied up and starved and
+kicked, as I have been."
+
+"Their doctors are the Fingo dogs," interrupted the chief darkly, "their
+medicine a sharp assegai.  Freeborn men of the House of Gcaleka to die
+at the hand of a Fingo slave!  _Hau_!"
+
+A roar of execration went up at this hit.  "To the fire with him!"
+howled the savage crowd.  "Give him to us, Great Chief, that we may make
+him die a hundred deaths!"
+
+"That is the sort of healing my children get when they fall into the
+hands of Amanglezi.  And you, _umlungu_, you have offered an insult to
+the House of Gcaleka in the person of Hlangani, my herald, a man of the
+House of Hintza, my father.  Was it war-time when you shed his blood?
+Did you meet in fair fight when you shot him suddenly and at
+close-quarters, he having no gun?"
+
+"Was it war-time when Hlangani entered the Gaika location to stir up
+strife?  Was it right that he should bring his dogs on to my farm to
+hunt my bucks?" answered Carhayes fearlessly.  "Again, was it fair play
+for four men, armed with assegais, to attack one, who had but two shots?
+Or was it self-defence?  Listen to my words, Kreli, and you chiefs and
+_amapakati_ of the House of Gcaleka," he went on, raising his voice till
+it was audible to the whole assemblage.  "In the presence of you all I
+proclaim Hlangani a coward.  He has struck and insulted me because I am
+bound.  He dare not meet me free.  I challenge him to do so.  Loosen
+these bonds.  I am weak and wounded.  I cannot escape--you need not
+fear--and let him meet me if he dares, with any weapon he chooses.  I
+challenge him.  If he refuses he is nothing but a cowardly dog, and
+worse than the meanest Fingo.  If you, Kreli, refuse my request, it is
+because you _know_ this bragging herald of yours to be a coward."
+
+The fierce rapidity of this harangue, the audacity of the request
+embodied within it, took away the auditors' breath.  Yet the idea
+appealed to them--appealed powerfully to their ardently martial
+sympathies.  The very novelty of such a duel as that proposed invested
+it with a rare attractiveness.
+
+"What does Hlangani say?" observed Kreli, with a partly amused glance at
+his subordinate.
+
+"This, O Great Chief of my father's house," replied the warrior, the
+light of battle springing into his eyes.  "Of what man living was
+Hlangani ever afraid?  What man ever had to call him twice?  Yet, O
+Great Chief, the head of my father's house, I would ask a boon.  When I
+have whipped this miserable white dog, I would claim possession of his
+wretched carcase absolutely, alive or dead."
+
+"It is granted, Hlangani," said the chief.
+
+"And I?" cried Carhayes.  "What shall be given to me when I have sent
+this cur, who strikes helpless men, howling to his hut?  My liberty, of
+course?"
+
+"No," replied Kreli, shortly.
+
+"No?" echoed the prisoner.  "My life then?"
+
+"No," answered the chief again.  "Be content, _umlungu_.  If you conquer
+you shall have a swift and merciful death.  If you fail, Hlangani claims
+you."
+
+Carhayes stared at the chief for a moment, then, as he realised that he
+had nothing to hope for, whether he won in the combat or not--an
+expression of such deadly ferocity, such fell and murderous purpose
+swept across his face, that many of those who witnessed it realised that
+their countryman was going to snatch no easy victory.
+
+The stout rawhide _reims_ which bound his hands behind him were
+loosened--and that which secured his feet was removed.  He stood
+swinging his arms and stamping to hasten the circulation--then he asked
+for some water, which was brought him.
+
+"_Ha, umlungu_!" jeered Ngcenika, addressing Eustace, as the two white
+men stood talking together.  "Give this valiant fighter some white magic
+to strengthen him.  He will need it."
+
+"Well, Eustace, I'm going to kill that dog," said Carhayes.  "I'm going
+to die fighting anyway, so that's all right.  Now--I'm ready.  What are
+we going to fight with?"
+
+"This," said one of the bystanders, handing him a pair of hard-wood
+kerries.
+
+Hlangani now made his appearance similarly armed.  The crescent
+formation of warriors had narrowed their ranks, the chiefs and
+councillors and Eustace and his guards composing the upper arc of the
+circle.  The prisoner could not have broken through that dense array of
+armed men which hemmed him in on every side, had he entertained the
+idea.
+
+Both the principals in that strange impromptu duel were men of splendid
+physique.  The Kafir, nearly naked, looked like a bronze giant, towering
+above his adversary in his magnificent height and straight and perfect
+proportions.  The Englishman, thick-set, deep-chested, concentrated a
+vast amount of muscular power within his five-foot-eight.  He had thrown
+off his ragged shirt, and the muscles of his chest and arms stood out
+like ropes.  He looked a terribly awkward antagonist, and moreover on
+his side the conflict would be fought with all the ferocity of despair.
+He was a man bent on selling his life dearly.
+
+Hlangani, for his part, was confident and smiling.  He was going to
+fight with his natural weapons, a pair of good, trusty kerries.  This
+blundering white man, though he had the strength and ferocity of an
+enraged bull, had more than that quadruped's stupidity.  He would knock
+him out of shape in no time.
+
+When blood is up, the spirit of Donnybrook is very strong among Kafirs.
+The next best thing to taking part in a fight is to witness one--and
+now, accordingly, every head was bent forward with the most eager
+interest as the two combatants advanced towards each other in the open
+space.  There was no "ring" proper, nor were there any recognised rules;
+no "time" either.  Each man's business was to kill or disable the
+other--as effectually as possible, and by any means in his power.
+
+Now a smart Kafir, armed with two good kerries whose use he thoroughly
+understands, is about as tough a customer to tackle as is a professional
+pugilist to the average Briton who knows how to use his hands but
+indifferently.  Of this Carhayes was perfectly aware.  Consequently his
+plan was to meet his antagonist with extreme wariness; in fact, to stand
+rather on the defensive, at any rate at first.  He was a fair single
+stick player, which tended not a little to equalise the chances.
+
+As they drew near each other and reached striking distance, they looked
+straight into each other's eyes like a pair of skilful fencers.  The
+savage, with one kerrie raised in the air, the other held horizontally
+before his breast, but both with a nervous, supple grasp, ready to turn
+any way with lightning rapidity--his glance upon that of his foe--his
+active, muscular frame poised lightly on one foot, then on another, with
+feline readiness, would have furnished a perfect subject for an
+instantaneous photograph representing strength and address combined.
+The Englishman, his bearded lips compressed, his blue eyes sparkling and
+alert, shining with suppressed eagerness to come to close-quarters with
+his crafty and formidable foe, was none the less a fine specimen of
+courage and undaunted resolution.
+
+Hlangani, a sneering laugh upon his thick lips, opened the ball by
+making a judicious feint.  But his adversary never moved.  He followed
+it up by another, then a series of them, whirling his striking kerrie
+round the Englishman's head in the most startling proximity, now on this
+side, now on that, holding his parrying one ready for any attack the
+other might make upon him.  Still Carhayes stood strictly on the
+defensive.  He knew the Kafir was trying to "draw him"--knew that his
+enemy's quick eye was prepared for any opportunity.  He was not going to
+waste energy gratuitously.
+
+Suddenly, and with lightning-like celerity, Hlangani made a sweep at the
+lower part of his adversary's leg.  It would have been the ruin of a
+less experienced combatant, but Carhayes' kerrie, lowered just two
+inches, met that of his opponent with a sounding crash just in time to
+save his skull somewhere in the region of the ear.  It was a clever
+feint, and a dexterous follow-up, but it had failed.  Hlangani began to
+realise that he had met a foeman worthy of his steel--or, rather, of his
+wood.  Still he knew the other's impetuous temper, and by wearing out
+his patience reckoned on obtaining a sure and tolerably easy victory.
+
+And it seemed as if he would gain the result of his reasoning even
+sooner than he expected.  Bristling with rage, literally smarting with
+the indignity recently put upon him, Carhayes abandoned the defensive.
+With a sudden rush, he charged his antagonist, and for a few moments
+nothing was heard but the clash of hard-wood in strike and parry.
+Hlangani was touched on the shoulder, while Carhayes got a rap on the
+knuckles, which in cold blood would have turned him almost sick with
+pain.  But his blood was at boiling point now, and he was fighting with
+the despairing ferocity of one who has no hope left in life.  He pressed
+his gigantic adversary with such vigour and determination that the other
+had no alternative but to give way.
+
+The fun was waxing fast and furious now.  The warriors crowding in
+nearer and nearer, pressed forward in breathless attention, encouraging
+their champion with many a deep-toned hum of applause when he scored or
+seemed likely to score a point.  The few women then in the kraal stood
+on tiptoe, trying to peer over the heads and shoulders of the armed men.
+Even the chiefs and councillors condescended to show considerable
+interest in this impromptu tournament, while Eustace Milne, animated by
+various motives, watched its progress narrowly.
+
+For a few moments it really seemed that the white man would prove the
+victor.  Before the impetuosity of his furious attacks Hlangani was
+constrained to give way more and more.  A Beserk ferocity seemed to have
+taken possession of Carhayes.  His eyes glared through the blood and
+dust which clung to his unwashen visage.  Every hair of his beard seemed
+to bristle and stand upright, like the mane of a wild boar.  His chest
+heaved, and the dexterity with which he whirled his kerrie around his
+adversary's ears--always quick to ward the latter's blows from himself--
+was wonderful to behold.
+
+Crash--scroosh!  The blow told.  A sound as of the crunching of bone.
+Hlangani staggered back half a dozen paces, the blood pouring from a
+wound in his skull.  It was a blow that would probably have shattered
+the skull of a white man.
+
+But before Carhayes could follow it up, the wily savage adopted a
+different plan.  By a series of astonishing leaps and bounds, now
+backward, now from side to side, he endeavoured to bewilder his enemy,
+and very nearly succeeded.  Mad with rage, desperation, and a
+consciousness of failing strength, Carhayes was fast losing control over
+himself.  He roared like a wild animal.  He began to strike out wildly,
+leaving his guard open.  This the cunning barbarian saw and encouraged.
+Those looking on had no doubt now as to who held the winning cards; even
+Eustace could see it, but his cousin was too far off now to hear a word
+of warning or advice, which, however, was just as well for himself.
+
+Again the combatants closed.  The splinters began to fly in all
+directions as the hard-wood sticks whirled and crashed.  Then suddenly a
+crushing blow on the wrist sent Carhayes' kerrie flying from his grasp
+and almost simultaneously with it came a sickening "scrunch."  The white
+man dropped like an ox at the shambles, the blood pouring from his head.
+
+Echoing the mighty roar of exultation that went up from the spectators,
+Hlangani stood with his foot on the chest of his prostrate adversary,
+his kerrie raised to strike again.  But there was no necessity.  Poor
+Tom lay like a corpse, stunned and motionless.  The ferocious triumph
+depicted on the countenance of the savage was horrible to behold.
+
+"He is mine," he cried, his chest heaving, his eyes blazing, "mine
+absolutely.  The Great Chief has said it.  Bring _reims_."
+
+In a trice a few stout rawhide thongs were procured, and Carhayes was
+once more bound hand and foot.  Then acting under the directions of his
+fierce conqueror--three or four stalwart Kafirs raised the insensible
+form of the unfortunate settler and bore it away.
+
+"He has only begun to taste the fury of Hlangani's revenge," said a
+voice at Eustace's side.  Turning he beheld the witch-doctress,
+Ngcenika.  The hag pointed to the retreating group with a mocking leer.
+
+"He will wake," she went on.  "But he will never be seen again,
+Ixeshane--never.  _Hau_!"
+
+"Where will he wake, Ngcenika?" asked Eustace, in a voice which he
+strove to render unconcerned.
+
+"_Kwa, Zinyoka_," [At the Home of the Serpents] replied the hag with a
+brutal laugh.
+
+"And where is that?"
+
+"Where is it?  Ha, ha!" mocked the witch-doctress.  "Thou art a
+magician, too, Ixeshane.  Wouldst thou indeed like to know?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Invoke thy magic then, and see if it will tell thee.  But better not.
+For they who look upon the Home of the Serpents are seen no more in
+life.  Thou hast seen the last of yon white man, Ixeshane; thou and
+these standing around here.  Ha, ha!  Better for him that he had never
+been born."  And with a Satanic laugh she turned away and left him.
+
+Strong-nerved as he was, Eustace felt his flesh creep.  The hag's
+parting words hinted at some mysterious and darkly horrible fate in
+store for his unfortunate cousin.  His own precarious position brought a
+sense of this doubly home to him.  He remembered how jubilant poor Tom
+had been over the outbreak of the war.  This, then, was to be the end of
+it.  Instead of paying off old scores with his hated and despised foes,
+he had himself walked blindfold into the trap, and was to be sacrificed
+in some frightful manner to their vengeance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.
+
+"I WALK IN SHADOW."
+
+Eanswyth was back again in her old home--living her old life, as in the
+times that were past--but alone.
+
+When she had announced her intention of returning to Anta's Kloof, her
+friends had received the proposition with incredulity--when they saw
+that she was determined, with dismay.
+
+It was stark lunacy, they declared.  She to go to live on an
+out-of-the-way farm, alone!  There was not even a neighbour for pretty
+near a score of miles, all the surrounding stock-farmers having trekked
+into _laager_.  The Gaikas were reported more restless than ever, nor
+were symptoms wanting that they were on the eve of an outbreak.  The
+Gcaleka campaign had fired their warlike spirits, but had failed to
+convey its accompanying warning, and those "in the know" asserted that
+the savages might rise any minute and make common cause with their
+countrymen across the Kei.  And in the face of all this, here was
+Eanswyth proposing to establish herself on a lonely farm bordering on
+the very location of the plotting and disaffected tribesmen.  Why, it
+was lunacy--rank suicide!
+
+The worst of it was that nobody on earth had the power to prevent her
+from doing as she chose.  Her own family were Western Province people
+and lived far up in the Karroo.  Had they been ever so willing, it would
+take them nearly three weeks to arrive--by which time it might be too
+late.  But Eanswyth did not choose to send for any one.  She wanted to
+be alone.
+
+"You need not be in the least alarmed on my account," she had said to
+the Hostes in answer to their reiterated expostulations.  "Even if the
+Gaikas should rise, I don't believe they would do me the slightest harm.
+The people on Nteya's location know me well, and the old chief and I
+used to be great friends.  I feel as if I must go to my old home again--
+and--don't think me ungracious, but it will do me good to be entirely
+alone."
+
+"That was how poor Milne used to argue," said Hoste gravely.  "But they
+killed him all the same."
+
+"Yes," she replied, mastering the quick sharp spasm which the allusion
+evoked.  "But they were Gcalekas--not our people, who knew him."
+
+Hoste shook his head.
+
+"You are committing suicide," he said.  "And the worst of it is we have
+no power on earth to prevent you."
+
+"No, you haven't," she assented with the shadow of a smile.  "So let me
+go my own way with a good grace.  Besides, with old Josane to look after
+me, I can't come to much harm."
+
+She had telegraphed to her late husband's manager at Swaanepoel's Hoek,
+requesting him to send the old cattle-herd to her at once.  Three days
+later Josane arrived, and having commissioned Hoste to buy her a few
+cows and some slaughter sheep, enough to supply her modest household.
+Eanswyth had carried out her somewhat eccentric plan.
+
+The utter loneliness of the place--the entire absence of life--the empty
+kraals and the silent homestead, all this is inexpressibly grateful to
+her crushed and lacerated spirit.  And in the dead silence of those
+uninhabited rooms she conjures up the sweetest, the holiest memories.
+Her solitude, her complete isolation, conveys no terror--no spark of
+misgiving, for it is there that her very life has been lived.  The dead
+stillness of the midnight hour, the ghostly creaking of a board, the
+hundred and one varying sounds begotten of silence and darkness, inspire
+her with no alarm, for her imagination peoples these empty and deserted
+rooms with life once more.
+
+She can see him as she saw him in life, moving about the place on
+different errands bent.  There is his favourite chair; there his place
+at the table.  His personality seems still to pervade the whole house,
+his spirit to hover around her, to permeate her whole being, here as it
+could nowhere else.  But it was on first entering his room, which still
+contained a few possessions too cumbersome or too worthless to carry
+away--a trunk or two and a few old clothes--here it was that that awful
+and vivid contrast struck her in overwhelming force.
+
+What an expression there is in such poor and useless relics--a glove, a
+boot, a hat, even an old pipe--when we know we shall never see the owner
+again, parted perhaps by circumstances, by distance, by death.  Do not
+such things seem verily to speak--and to speak eloquently--to bring
+before our eyes, to sound within our ears, the vision, the voice of one
+whom we shall never behold again?  Ah! do they not!
+
+Standing for the first time alone in that room, Eanswyth felt as though
+her heart had been broken afresh.  She fell prone among those poor and
+worthless relics, pressing them passionately to her lips, while her
+tears fell like rain.  If ever her lover's spirit could come back to
+her, surely it would be in that room.
+
+"O Eustace, my darling, my first and only love!" murmured the stricken
+creature, lying face to the very floor in the agony of her grief.  "Come
+to me from the shadowy spirit land!  O God, send him to me, that I may
+look upon him once more!"
+
+The shadows deepened within the room.  Raising her head she gazed
+around, and the expression of pitiable eagerness on the white drawn face
+was fearful to behold.
+
+"Oh, dear Lord, if our love is so wicked are we not punished enough!  O
+God, show him to me again if but for a moment!  The ghastliest terrors
+of the grave are sweetness to me, if I may but see him once--my dear
+dead love!  Eustace, Eustace!  You cannot come to me, but I shall soon
+go to you!  Is it a loving God or a fiend that tortures us so?  Ah-ah!"
+
+Her heart-broken paroxysm could go no further.  No apparition from
+another world met her eyes as they strove to penetrate the deepening
+shadows as though fully expecting one.  The exhaustion that supervened
+was beneficial to a degree, in that it acted as a safety valve to her
+fearfully overwrought brain.  Her very mind was in danger.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+For nearly a fortnight has Eanswyth thus dwelt, and so far from
+beginning to tire of her solitude, she hugs it closer to her.  She has
+received visits from the Hostes and other friends who, reckoning that a
+couple of days of solitude would sicken her of it altogether, had come
+with the object of inducing her to return to the settlement.  Besides,
+Christmas was close at hand and, her bereavement notwithstanding, it did
+not somehow seem good that she should spend that genial season alone and
+in a position not altogether free from danger.  But their kindly efforts
+proved futile; indeed, Eanswyth could hardly disguise the fact that
+their visits were unwelcome.  She preferred solitude at such a time, she
+said.  Then Mrs Hoste had undertaken to lecture her.  It could not be
+right to abandon one's self so entirely, even to a great sorrow, purred
+that complacent matron.  It seemed somehow to argue a want of Christian
+resignation.  It was all very well up to a certain point, of course; but
+beyond that, it looked like flying in the face of Providence.  And
+Eanswyth had turned her great eyes with such a blank and bewildered look
+upon the speaker's face, as if wondering what on earth the woman could
+be talking about, that Mrs Hoste, good-hearted though shallow, had
+dropped her role of preacher then and there.
+
+One thing that struck Eanswyth as not a little strange was that hardly a
+Kafir had been near the place, whereas formerly their dusky neighbours
+had been wont to visit them on one pretext or another enough and to
+spare, the latter especially, in poor Tom's opinion.  She had sent word
+to Nteya, inviting him to visit her and have a talk, but the old chief
+had made some excuse, promising, however, to come over and see her
+later.  All this looked strange and, taken in conjunction with the fact
+that there had been war-dancing again in Nteya's location, suspicious.
+So thought at any rate Josane, who gave vent to his misgivings in no
+uncertain tone.  But Eanswyth treated his warnings with perfect
+unconcern.  She would not move, she declared.  She was afraid of nobody.
+If Josane was, he might go if he liked.  To which the staunch old
+fellow would reply that he feared no man, black or white; that he was
+there to take care of her, and there he would stay, adding, with a
+growl, that it might be bad for Nteya's, or anybody else's, people
+should they attempt to molest her.
+
+It wanted but a day or two to Christmas--but an hour to sunset.  It was
+one of those marvellous evenings not uncommon in South Africa, as well
+as in the southern parts of Europe--one of those evenings when sky and
+earth alike are vivid with rich colouring, and the cloudless blue of the
+heavens assumes a deeper azure still, and there is a dreamy enchantment
+in the air, and every sight, every sound, toned and mellowed by
+distance, blends in perfect harmony with the changing glories of the
+dying day.  Then the sun goes down in a flaming rainbow of rare tints,
+each more subtle than the other, each more gorgeous, and withal more
+delicate than the last.
+
+The enchantment of the hour was upon Eanswyth to the full--the
+loneliness, the sense of absolute solitude, cut off from the outer
+world, alone with her dead.  Wandering down to the gate of the now
+tenantless ostrich camp she is going over the incidents of that last
+day--that first and that last day, for it was that upon which they had
+discovered to each other their great and all-absorbing love.  "The last
+day we shall have together," he had said--and it was so.  She can
+vividly conjure up his presence at her side now.  Every word he said,
+every careless gesture even, comes back to her now.  Here was the gate
+where they had stood feeding the great birds, idly chatting about
+nothing in particular, and yet how full were both their hearts even
+then.  And that long sweet embrace so startlingly interrupted!  Ah! what
+a day that had been!  One day out of a whole lifetime.  Standing here on
+this doubly hallowed spot, it seems to her that an eternity of
+unutterable wretchedness would not be too great a price to pay for just
+that one day over again.  But he is gone.  Whether their love had been
+the most sacred that ever blessed the lot of mortal here below, or the
+unhallowed, inexorably forbidden thing it really is, matters nothing
+now.  Death has decided, and from his arbitration there is no appeal.
+
+She throws herself upon the sward: there in the shade of the mimosa
+trees where they had sat together.  All Nature is calm and at peace,
+and, with the withdrawal of man, the wild creatures of the earth seem to
+have reclaimed their own.  A little duiker buck steps daintily along
+beneath the thorn fence of the ostrich camp, and the grating, metallic
+cackle of the wild guinea-fowl is followed by the appearance of quite a
+large covey of those fine game birds, pecking away, though ever with an
+air of confirmed distrust, within two score yards of the pale, silent
+mourner, seated there.  The half-whistling, half-twanging note of the
+yellow thrush mingles with the melodious call of a pair of blue cranes
+stalking along in the grass, and above the drowsy, measured hum of bees
+storing sweetness from the flowering aloes, there arises the heavier
+boom of some great scarabaeus winging his way in blundering, aimless
+fashion athwart the balmy and sensuous evening air.
+
+The sun sinks to the western ridge--the voices of animal and insect life
+swell in harmonious chorus, louder and louder, in that last hour of
+parting day.  His golden beams, now horizontal, sweep the broad and
+rolling plains in a sea of fire, throwing out the rounded spurs of the
+Kabousie Hills into so many waves of vivid green.  Then the flaming
+chariot of day is gone.
+
+And in the unearthly hush of the roseate afterglow, that pale,
+heart-broken mourner wends her way home.  Home!  An empty house, where
+the echo of a footfall sounds ghostly and startling; an abode peopled
+with reminiscences of the dead--meet companionship for a dead and empty
+heart.
+
+Never so dead--never so empty--as this evening.  Never since the first
+moment of receiving the awful news has she felt so utterly crushed, so
+soul-weary as here to-night.  "How was it all to end?" had been their
+oft-spoken thought--here on this very spot.  The answer had come now.
+Death had supplied it.  But--how was _this_ to end?
+
+The glories of departing day were breaking forth into ever varying
+splendours.  The spurs of the mountain range, now green, now gold,
+assumed a rich purple against the flaming red of the sky.  The deepening
+afterglow flushed and quivered, as the scintillating eyes of heaven
+sprang forth into the arching vault--not one by one, but in whole
+groups.  Then the pearly shades of twilight and the cool, moist
+fragrance of the falling night.
+
+Why was the earth so wondrously lovely--why should eyes rest upon such
+semi-divine splendour while the heart was aching and bursting? was the
+unspoken cry that went up from that heart-weary mourner standing there
+alone gazing forth into the depths of the star-gemmed night.
+
+Stay!  What is that tongue of flame suddenly leaping forth into the
+darkness?  Another and another--and lo! by magic, from a score of lofty
+heights, red fires are gushing upward into the black and velvety gloom,
+and as the ominous beacons gather in flaming volume roaring up to a
+great height, the lurid glow of the dark firmament is reflected dully
+upon the slumbering plains.
+
+A weird, far-away chorus floats upon the stillness, now rising, now
+falling.  Its boding import there is no mistaking.  It is the gathering
+cry of a barbarian host.  The Gaika location is up in arms.  Heavens!
+What is to become of this delicate woman here, alone and unprotected,
+exposed to the full brunt of a savage rising--and all that it means?
+
+Eanswyth is standing on the _stoep_, her eyes fixed upon the appalling
+phenomenon, but in their glance is no shadow of fear.  Death has no
+terrors for her now; at peril she can afford to laugh.  Her lips are
+even curving into a sweet, sad smile.
+
+"Just as it was that night," she exclaims.  "The parallel is complete.
+Blaze on red signals of death--and when destruction does break forth let
+it begin with me!  I will wait for it, welcome it, for I walk in shadow
+now--will welcome it here on this spot where we stood that sweet and
+blessed night--here where our hearts first met--here where mine is
+breaking now!"
+
+Her voice dies away in a sob.  She sinks to the ground.  The distant
+glare of the war-fires of the savages falls fully upon that prostrate
+figure lying there in the abandonment of woe.  It lights up a very
+sacrifice.  The rough stones of the _stoep_ are those of an altar--the
+sacrifice a broken heart.
+
+"Here is where we stood that night together," she murmurs, pressing her
+lips to the hard, cold stones.  "It is just as it was then.  Oh, my
+love--my love, come back to me!  Come back--even from the cold grave!"
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"Eanswyth!"
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The word is breathed in a low, unsteady voice.  Every drop of blood
+within her turns to ice.  It is answered at last, her oft-repeated
+prayer.  She is about to behold him.  Does she not shrink from it?  Not
+by a hair's-breadth.
+
+"Let me see you, my love," she murmurs softly, not daring to move lest
+the spell should be broken.  "Where--where are you?"
+
+"Where our hearts first met--there they meet again.  Look up, my sweet
+one.  I am here."
+
+She does look up.  In the red and boding glare of those ominous
+war-fires she sees him as she saw him that night.  She springs to her
+feet--and a loud and thrilling cry goes forth upon the darkness.
+
+"Eustace--Eustace!  Oh, my love!  Spirit or flesh--you shall not leave
+me!  At last--at last!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.
+
+FROM DEATH AND--TO DEATH.
+
+She realised it at length--realised that this was no visitant from the
+spirit-world conjured up in answer to her impassioned prayer, but her
+lover himself, alive and unharmed.  She had thrown herself upon his
+breast, and clung to him with all her strength, sobbing passionately--
+clung to him as if even then afraid that he might vanish as suddenly as
+he had appeared.
+
+"My love, my love," he murmured in that low magnetic tone which she knew
+so well, and which thrilled her to the heart's core.  "Calm those poor
+nerves, my darling, and rest on the sweetness of our meeting.  We met--
+our hearts met first on this very spot.  Now they meet once more, never
+again to part."
+
+Still her feeling was too strong for words; she could only cling to him
+in silence, while he covered her face and soft hair with kisses.  A
+moment ago she was mourning him as dead, was burying her heart in his
+unknown and far-away grave, and lo, as by magic, he stood before her,
+and she was safe in his embrace.  A moment ago life was one long vista
+of blank, agonising grief; now the joys of heaven itself might pale
+before the unutterable bliss of this meeting.
+
+Unlawful or not as their love might be, there was something solemn,
+almost sacred, in its intense reality.  The myriad eyes of heaven looked
+down from the dark vault above, and the sullen redness of the war-fires
+flashing from the distant heights shed a dull, threatening glow upon
+those two, standing there locked in each other's embrace.  Then once
+more the wild, weird war-cry of the savage hosts swelled forth upon the
+night.  It was an awesome and fearful background to this picture of
+renewed life and bliss.
+
+Such a reunion can best be left to the imagination, for it will bear no
+detailment.
+
+"Why did you draw my very heart out of me like this, Eustace, my life?"
+she said at last, raising her head.  "When they told me you were dead I
+knew it would not be long before I joined you.  I could not have endured
+this living death much longer."
+
+There were those who pronounced Eanswyth Carhayes to be the most
+beautiful woman they had ever beheld--who had started with amazement at
+such an apparition on an out-of-the-way Kaffrarian farm.  A grand
+creature, they declared, but a trifle too cold.  They would have
+marvelled that they had ever passed such a verdict could they but have
+seen her now, her splendid eyes burning into those of her lover in the
+starlight as she went on:
+
+"You are longing to ask what I am doing here in this place all alone and
+at such a time.  This.  I came here as to a sanctuary: a sacred spot
+which enshrined all the dearest memories of you.  Here in silence and in
+solitude I could conjure up visions of you--could see you walking beside
+me as on that last day we spent together.  Here I could kneel and kiss
+the floor, the very earth which your feet had trod; and--O Eustace, my
+very life, it was a riven and a shattered heart I offered up daily--
+hourly--at the shrine of your dear memory."
+
+Her tones thrilled upon his ear.  Never had life held such a delirious,
+intoxicating moment.  To the cool, philosophical, strong-nerved man it
+seemed as if his very senses were slipping away from him under the
+thrilling love-tones of this stately, beautiful creature nestling within
+his arms.  Again their lips met--met as they had met that first time--
+met as if they were never again to part.
+
+"Inkose!"
+
+The sudden sonorous interruption caused Eanswyth to start as if she had
+been shot, and well it might.  Her lover, however, had passed through
+too many strange and stirring experiences of late to be otherwise than
+slightly and momentarily disconcerted.
+
+A dark figure stood at the lowest step of the _stoep_, one hand raised
+in the air, after the dignified and graceful manner of native
+salutation.
+
+"Greeting, Josane," he replied.
+
+"Now do mine eyes behold a goodly sight," went on the old Kafir with
+animation, speaking in the pleasing figurative hyperbole of his race.
+"My father and friend is safe home once more.  We have mourned him as
+dead and he is alive again.  He has returned to gladden our hearts and
+delight our eyes.  It is good--it is good."
+
+"How did you know I had returned, Josane?"
+
+Had there been light enough they would have detected the most whimsical
+smile come over the old Kafir's face as he replied:
+
+"Am I not the _Inkosikazi's_ watch-dog?  What sort of a watch-dog is it
+that permits a footstep to approach from outside without his knowledge?"
+
+"You are, indeed, a man, Josane--a man among men, and trust to those who
+trust you," replied Eustace, in that tone of thorough friendship and
+regard which had enabled him to win so effectually the confidence of the
+natives.
+
+The old cattle-herd's face beamed with gratification, which, however,
+was quickly dashed with anxiety.
+
+"Look yonder," he said.  "There is trouble in the Gaika location
+to-night.  Take the _Inkosikazi_ and leave--this very night.  I know
+what I say."  Then, marking the other's hesitation, "I know what I say,"
+he repeated impressively.  "Am I not the _Inkosikazi's_ watch-dog?  Am I
+not her eyes and ears?  Even now there is one approaching from Nteya's
+kraal."
+
+He had struck a listening attitude.  Eustace, his recent experiences
+fresh in his mind, felt depressed and anxious, gazing expectantly into
+the darkness, his hand upon the butt of his revolver.
+
+"Halt!  Who comes there?" he cried in the Xosa tongue.
+
+"A friend, Ixeshane!" came the prompt reply, as a dark form stepped into
+view.
+
+Now that life was worth living again, Eanswyth felt all her old
+apprehensions return; but she had every confidence in her lover's
+judgment and the fidelity of her trusted old retainer.
+
+"_Hau_, Ixeshane!  You are here; it is good," said the new arrival in
+the most matter-of-fact way, as though he were not wondering to
+distraction how it was that the man who had been reported slain in the
+Bomvana country by the hostile Gcalekas, should be standing there alive
+and well before him.  "I am here to warn the _Inkosikazi_.  She must
+leave, and at once.  The fire-tongues of the Amaxosa are speaking to
+each other; the war-cry of the Ama Ngqika is cleaving the night."
+
+"We have seen and heard that before, Ncanduku," answered Eustace,
+recognising the new arrival at once.  "Yet your people would not harm
+us.  Are we not friends?"
+
+The Kafir shook his head.
+
+"Who can be called friends in war-time?" he said.  "There are strangers
+in our midst--strangers from another land.  Who can answer for them?  I
+am Ncanduku, the brother of Nteya.  The chief will not have his friends
+harmed at the hands of strangers.  But they must go.  Look yonder, and
+lose no time.  Get your horses and take the _Inkosikazi_, and leave at
+once, for the Ama Ngqika have responded to the call of their brethren
+and the Paramount Chief, and have risen to arms.  _The land is dead_."
+
+There was no need to follow the direction of the Kafir's indication.  A
+dull, red glare, some distance off, shone forth upon the night; then
+another and another.  Signal fires?  No.  These shone from no prominent
+height, but from the plain itself.  Then Eustace took in the situation
+in a moment.  The savages were beginning to fire the deserted homesteads
+of the settlers.
+
+"Inspan the buggy quickly, Josane," he said.  "And, Ncanduku, come
+inside for a moment.  I will find _basela_ [Best rendered by the
+familiar term `backshish'] for you and Nteya."  But the voice which had
+conveyed such timely warning responded not.  The messenger had
+disappeared.
+
+The whole condition of affairs was patent to Eustace's mind.  Nteya,
+though a chief whose status was not far inferior to that of Sandili
+himself, was not all-powerful.  Those of his tribesmen who came from a
+distance, and were not of his own clan, would be slow to give implicit
+obedience to his "word," their instincts for slaughter and pillage once
+fairly let loose, and so he had sent to warn Eanswyth.  Besides, it was
+probable that there were Gcalekas among them.  Ncanduku's words,
+"strangers from another land," seemed to point that way.  He put it to
+Josane while harnessing the horses.  The old man emitted a dry laugh.
+
+"There are about six hundred of the Gcaleka fighting men in Nteya's
+location to-night," he replied.  "Every farmhouse in the land will be
+burned before the morning.  _Whau_, Ixeshane!  Is there any time to lose
+now?"
+
+Eustace realised that assuredly there was not.  But inspanning a pair of
+horses was, to his experienced hand, the work of a very few minutes
+indeed.
+
+"Who is their chief?" he asked, tugging at the last strap.  "Sigcau?"
+
+"No.  Ukiva."
+
+An involuntary exclamation of concern escaped Eustace.  For the chief
+named had evinced a marked hostility towards himself during his recent
+captivity; indeed, this man's influence had more than once almost turned
+the scale in favour of his death.  No wonder he felt anxious.
+
+Eanswyth had gone into the house to put a few things together, having,
+with an effort, overcome her reluctance to let him out of her sight
+during the few minutes required for inspanning.  Now she reappeared.  "I
+am ready, Eustace," she said.
+
+He helped her to her seat and was beside her in a moment.
+
+"Let go, Josane!" he cried.  And the Kafir, standing away from the
+horses' heads, uttered a sonorous farewell.
+
+"What will become of him, dear?" said Eanswyth, as they started off at a
+brisk pace.
+
+"He is going to stay here and try and save the house.  I'm afraid he
+won't be able to, though.  They are bound to burn it along with the
+others.  And now take the reins a moment, dearest.  I left my horse
+hitched up somewhere here, because I wanted to come upon you unawares.
+I'll just take off the saddle and tie it on behind."
+
+"But what about the horse?  Why not take him with us?"
+
+"Josane will look after him.  I won't take him along now, because--well,
+it's just on the cards we might have to make a push for it, and a led
+horse is a nuisance.  Ah--there he is," as a low whinnying was heard on
+their left front and duly responded to by the pair in harness.
+
+In less than two minutes he had the saddle secured at the back of the
+buggy and was beside her again.  It is to be feared Eustace drove very
+badly that night.  Had the inquiry been made, candour would have
+compelled him to admit that he had never driven so badly in his life.
+
+Eanswyth, for her part, was quite overcome with the thrilling,
+intoxicating happiness of the hour.  But what an hour!  They were
+fleeing through the night--fleeing for their lives--their way lighted by
+the terrible signal beacons of the savage foe--by the glare of flaming
+homesteads fired by his ravaging and vengeful hand.  But then, he who
+was dead is alive again, and is beside her--they two fleeing together
+through the night.
+
+"Darling," she whispered at last, nestling up closer to him.  "Why did
+they try to kill me by telling me you were dead?"
+
+"They had every reason to suppose so.  Now, what do you think stood
+between me and certain death?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Your love--not once, but twice.  The silver box.  See.  Here it is,
+where it has ever been--over my heart.  Twice it turned the point of the
+assegai."
+
+"Eustace!"
+
+"It is as I say.  Your love preserved me for yourself."
+
+"Oh, my darling, surely then it cannot be so wicked--so unlawful!" she
+exclaimed with a quiver in her voice.
+
+"I never believed it could," he replied.
+
+Up till then, poor Tom's name had not been mentioned.  Both seemed to
+avoid allusion to it.  Now, however, that Eustace had to narrate his
+adventures and escape, it could not well be avoided.  But in describing
+the strange impromptu duel between the Gcaleka warrior and his
+unfortunate cousin, he purposely omitted any reference to the latter's
+probable hideous fate, leaving Eanswyth to suppose he had been slain
+then and there.  It was impossible that she should have been otherwise
+than deeply moved.
+
+"He died fighting bravely, at any rate," she said at last.
+
+"Yes.  Want of courage was never one of poor Tom's failings.  All the
+time we were out he was keener on a fight than all the rest of the
+command put together."
+
+There was silence after this.  Then at last:
+
+"How did you escape, Eustace, my darling?  You have not told me."
+
+"Through paying ransom to that same Hlangani and paying pretty stiffly
+too.  Four hundred and fifty head of good cattle was the figure.  Such a
+haggle as it was, too.  It would have been impolitic to agree too
+quickly.  Then, I had to square this witch-doctress, and I daresay old
+Kreli himself will come in for some of the pickings.  From motives of
+policy we had to carry out the escape as if it was a genuine escape and
+not a put-up job--but they managed it all right--took me across the
+river on some pretext or other and then gave me the opportunity of
+leg-bail.  As soon as the war is over Hlangani will come down on me for
+the cattle."
+
+"How did you know I was back at Anta's Kloof, dearest?  Did the Hostes
+tell you?" said Eanswyth at last.
+
+"No.  I met that one-eyed fellow Tomkins just outside Komgha.  I only
+waited while he called up two or three more to back his statement and
+then started off here as hard as ever I could send my nag over the
+ground."
+
+The journey was about half accomplished.  The buggy bowled merrily
+along--and its occupants--alone together in the warm balmy southern
+night--began to wish the settlement was even further off.  They were
+ascending a long rise.
+
+"Hallo, what's up?" exclaimed Eustace suddenly, whipping up his horses,
+which he had been allowing to walk up the hill.
+
+The brow of the hill was of some altitude and commanded a considerable
+view of the surrounding country.  But the whole of the latter was lit up
+by a dull and lurid glow.  At intervals apart burned what looked like
+several huge and distant bonfires.
+
+"They mean business this time," said Eustace, reining in a moment to
+breathe his horses on the brow of the rise.  "Look.  There goes Hoste's
+place.  That's Bradfield's over there--and beyond that must be
+Oesthuisen's.  Look at them all blazing merrily; and--by jingo--there
+goes Draaibosch!"
+
+Far and wide for many a mile the country was aglow with blazing
+homesteads.  Evidently it was the result of preconcerted action on the
+part of the savages.  The wild yelling chorus of the barbarous
+incendiaries, executing their fierce war-dances around their work of
+destruction, was borne distinctly upon the night.
+
+"The sooner we get into Komgha the better now," he went on, sending the
+buggy spinning down the long declivity which lay in front.  At the
+bottom of this the road was intersected by a dry water course, fringed
+with bush; otherwise the _veldt_ was for the most part open, dotted with
+straggling clumps of mimosa.
+
+Down went the buggy into the dry sandy drift.  Suddenly the horses shied
+violently, then stopped short with a jerk which nearly upset the
+vehicle.  A dark firm, springing panther-like, apparently from the
+ground, had seized the reins.
+
+Instinctively Eustace recognised that this was no time for parleying.
+Quick as thought he drew his revolver and fired.  The assailant relaxed
+his hold, staggered, spun round, then fell heavily to the earth.  The
+horses, thus released, tore wildly onward, mad with terror.
+
+A roar and a red, sheeting flash split the darkness behind.  The
+missiles hummed overhead, one of them tearing a hole in the wide brim of
+Eanswyth's hat.  This aroused all the demon in the blood of her
+companion.  Standing up in his seat, regardless of prudence, he pointed
+his revolver at the black onrushing mass discernible in the starlight,
+and fired three shots in rapid succession.  A horrible, shrill, piercing
+scream, showed that they had told with widespread and deadly effect.
+
+"Ha!  _Bulala abelungu_!"  [Death to the whites] howled the exasperated
+barbarians.  And dropping flat on the ground they poured another volley
+into the retiring vehicle.
+
+But the latter had gained some distance now.  The horses, panic-stricken
+and well-nigh unmanageable, were tearing up the hill on the other side
+of the drift, and it was all their driver could do in the darkness to
+keep them in the track.  The buggy swayed fearfully, and twice catching
+a wheel in an ant-heap was within an ace of turning over.
+
+Suddenly one of the horses stumbled heavily, then fell.  All his
+driver's efforts to raise him were useless.  The poor beast had been
+struck by a bullet, and lay, feebly struggling, the blood pouring from a
+jagged wound in his flank.
+
+The black bolt of despair shot through Eustace's heart.  There was a
+feeble chance of escape for Eanswyth, but a very feeble one.  Of himself
+he did not think.  Quickly he set to work to cut loose the other horse.
+
+But the traditional sagacity of that quadruped, as is almost invariably
+the case, failed in an emergency.  He plunged and kicked in such wise as
+to hinder seriously, if not defeat, every effort to disengage him from
+the harness.  Eustace, his listening powers at their utmost tension,
+caught the light pit-pat of the pursuers' footsteps racing up the hill
+in the darkness.  They would be upon him before--
+
+Ha!  The horse was loose.
+
+"Quick, Eanswyth.  Mount!  It is your only chance!" he said, shortening
+the reins into a bridle and holding them for her.
+
+"I will not."
+
+"Quick, quick!  Every moment lost is a life!"
+
+"I will not.  We will die together.  I will not live without you," and
+the heroic flash in the grand eyes was visible in the starlight.
+
+The stealthy footsteps were now plainly audible.  They could not have
+been two hundred yards distant.  Suddenly the horse, catching a renewed
+access of panic, plucked the reins from Eustace's hand, and careered
+wildly away into the _veldt_.  The last chance of escape was cut off.
+They must die together now.  Facing round, crouching low behind the
+broken-down vehicle, they listened for the approach of the pursuers.
+
+All the bitterness of the moment was upon those two--upon him
+especially--crouching there in the dark and lonely _veldt_.  Their
+reunion was only to be a reunion in death.
+
+The last dread act was drawing on.  The stealthy steps of the
+approaching foe were now more distinctly audible.  With a deadly and
+vengeful fire at his heart, Eustace prepared to sell their lives as
+dearly as ever life was sold.
+
+"We need not fear, my sweet one," whispered the heroine at his side.
+"We are dying together."
+
+Nearer--nearer, came those cat-like footfalls.  Then they ceased.  The
+pulses of the two anxious listeners beat with an intense and surging
+throb of expectation in the dead silence.
+
+But instead of those stealthy feet, swift to shed blood, there was borne
+upon the night the sound of horses' hoofs.  Then a crash of fire-arms,
+and a ringing cheer.  No savage war-cry that, but a genuine British
+shout.
+
+"That you, Milne?" cried a familiar voice.  "All right: keep cool, old
+man.  We shan't hit you by mistake.  How many are there?"
+
+"I don't know.  Better not tackle them in the dark, Hoste.  Who is with
+you?"
+
+"Some Police.  But where are the niggers?"
+
+Where indeed?  Savages have no stomach for facing unknown odds.  Their
+late assailants had prudently made themselves scarce.
+
+"We seem to be only just in time, anyway?" said Hoste, with a long
+whistle of consternation as he realised the critical position of
+affairs.  "Is Mrs Carhayes all right?" he added anxiously.
+
+"Quite, thanks, Mr Hoste," replied Eanswyth.  "But you are, as you say,
+only just in time."
+
+Two of the Police horses were inspanned to the buggy, the men mounting
+behind comrades, and the party set forth.  It would not do to linger.
+The enemy might return in force at any moment.
+
+Their escape had indeed been a narrow one.  It was only late in the
+afternoon that Hoste had, by chance, learned from a trustworthy source
+that the Gaikas meant to rise that night.  Horror-stricken, he had
+rushed off to the officer in command of the Mounted Police to beg for
+some troopers as a protective escort in order to bring Eanswyth away
+from her lonely and perilous situation.  An experienced sergeant and
+twenty-five men had been immediately ordered out--arriving in the very
+nick of time, as we have seen.
+
+"Well, we are all burnt out now, anyway," said Hoste as they journeyed
+along as rapidly as possible.  "Look at my old place, what a flare-up
+it's making.  And the hotel at Draaibosch!  It's making a bigger blaze
+than all."
+
+"That's McDonald's `Cape Smoke,'" [An inferior quality of Cape brandy is
+thus popularly termed] laughed the police sergeant.
+
+It was a weird and awesome sight.  The whole country was literally in a
+blaze--the murk of the reddened smoke of burning homesteads obliterating
+the stars.  And ever and anon the fierce, tumultuous thunder of a
+distant war-dance was borne upon the air, with the vengeful shouts of
+excited savages, beginning their orgy of torch and assegai.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.
+
+EUSTACE BECOMES UNPOPULAR.
+
+The state of excitement prevailing in Komgha during the period of
+hostilities within the Transkei, was as nothing to that which prevailed
+now that the tide of war was rolling around the very outposts of the
+settlement itself.
+
+The once sleepy little village had become a vast armed camp, garrisoned
+by regular troops, as well as being the halting place for numerous
+bodies of irregulars--mounted burghers or Fingo levies--once more called
+out or volunteering for active service, the latter with more zest this
+time, inasmuch as the enemy was within their very gates.  It was the
+headquarters of operations, and all day long--frequently all night too--
+what with expeditions or patrols setting out, or returning, or
+preparing; the arrival of reinforcements; the flash and trappings of the
+military element; the exaggerated and conflicting rumours varying with
+every half-hour that went by.  With all these things, we say, the
+sojourners in that favoured settlement found things as lively as they
+could wish.
+
+There was no mistaking the position of affairs now.  The Gaikas, whose
+locations occupied the whole northern half of British Kaffraria, the
+Hlambi clans, who held the rugged country along the eastern slopes of
+the Amatola Mountains, were all up in arms.  All, that is, save an
+insignificant fraction, who applied to the Government for protection as
+`loyals'; their loyalty consisting in taking no part in hostilities
+themselves, but aiding with supplies and information those who did--as
+well as affording a refuge in time of need to the women and cattle
+belonging to their hostile countrymen.  Communication with the Colony
+was practically cut off--for, except to strong parties, the King
+Williamstown road was closed.  A strong escort, consisting of Police and
+military, was attacked within a few miles of the settlement itself, only
+getting through by dint of hard fighting; and ever in their bushy hiding
+places, on the surrounding hills, hovered dark clouds of armed Savages
+ready to swoop down upon lonely express-rider or waggon train
+insufficiently guarded.  The smoke of ruined homesteads rose from the
+fair plains of British Kaffraria, and by night the lurid signals of the
+hostile barbarians flamed forth from many a lofty peak.
+
+In the Transkei matters were rather worse than before the previous three
+months of campaigning.  Very far from crushed, the Gcalekas swarmed back
+into their oft-swept country, and with the aid of their new allies set
+to work with redoubled ardour to make things as lively for the white man
+as they possibly could.  This kept nearly all the forces then at the
+front actively employed in that direction, leaving the field open to the
+residue of the Gaikas and Hlambis to burn and pillage throughout British
+Kaffraria at their own sweet will.  The destruction of property was
+great and widespread.
+
+Still, on the whole, men seemed rather to enjoy the prevailing state of
+things than otherwise, even those who were severe losers, strange to
+say.  The colonial mind, adventurous at bottom, dearly loves excitement,
+once it has drunk at that enchanted fountain.  Perhaps one of the best
+illustrations of this is to be found in the numbers who remained, and do
+remain, on at Johannesburg after the collapse, in a state of
+semi-starvation--rather than exchange the liveliness and stir of that
+restless and mushroom town for the surer but more sober conditions of
+life offered by the scenes of their birth.  In British Kaffraria, the
+renewed outbreak of hostilities afforded plenty of excitement, which
+went as a set-off against the aforesaid losses--for the time being at
+any rate.  Those who had already taken part in the first campaign either
+volunteered for the second or stayed at home and talked about both.
+Though whether he had been out or not made no difference as regarded the
+talking part of it, for every man jack you might meet in a day's
+wandering was open to give you his opinion upon what had been done, and
+what hadn't been done; above all upon what _should_ have been done; in a
+word, felt himself entirely competent to direct the whole of the field
+operations there and then, and without even the traditional minute's
+notice.
+
+But however enjoyable all this may have been to society at large, as
+there represented, there was one to whom it was intolerably irksome, and
+that one was Eustace Milne.  The reasons for this were diverse.  In the
+first place, in the then crowded state of the community, he could hardly
+ever obtain an opportunity of talking, with Eanswyth alone; which was
+not wholly without advantage in that it enabled the latter to keep up
+her _role_; for if her former sorrowing and heart-wrung condition had
+now become the hollowest mockery, there was no reason why everybody
+should be informed thereof, but very much the reverse.  He could not see
+her alone in the house, for it was always full of people, and when it
+was not, still, the walls were thin.  He could not take her for a ride
+outside the settlement, for in those early days the enemy was daring,
+and did not always keep at a respectful distance.  It would not do to
+run any more risks.  In the next place, all the "talking big," and
+indeed the talking at all, that went on, morning, noon, and night, on
+the well-worn, and threadbare topic was wearisome to him.  The thing had
+become, in fact, a bore of the first water.  But the most distasteful
+side of it all was the notoriety which he himself had, all
+involuntarily, attained.  A man who had been reported slain, and then
+turned up safe and sound after having been held a prisoner for some
+weeks by the savage and ordinarily ruthless enemy they were then
+fighting, was sure to attract considerable attention throughout the
+frontier community.  Friends, neighbours, intimates, people they had
+never seen or heard of before, would call on the Hostes all day and
+every day--literally in swarms, as the victim of these attentions put
+it--in order to see Eustace, and haply, to extract a "yarn" as to his
+late captivity.  If he walked through the township some effusive
+individual was bound to rush at him with an "I say, Mister, 'scuse me,
+but we're told you're the man that was taken prisoner by old Kreli.
+Now, do us the favour to step round and have a drink.  We don't see a
+man who has escaped from them black devils every day."  And then, under
+pain of being regarded as churlish to a degree, he would find himself
+compelled to join a group of jovial, but under the circumstances
+excessively unwelcome, strangers, and proceed to the nearest bar to be
+cross questioned within an inch of his life, and expected to put away
+sundry "splits" that he did not want.  Or those in charge of operations,
+offensive and defensive, would make his acquaintance and ask him to
+dine, always with the object of eliciting useful information.  But to
+these Eustace was very reticent and proved, in fact, a sore
+disappointment.  He had been treated fairly well by his captors.  They
+were savages, smarting under a sense of defeat and loss.  They might
+have put him to death amid cruel torments; instead of which they had
+given him his liberty.  For the said liberty he had yet to pay--to pay
+pretty smartly, too, but this was only fair and might be looked upon in
+the light of ransom.  He was not going to give any information to their
+detriment merely because, under a doubtfully administered system of
+organisation, they had taken up arms against the Colony.  Besides, as a
+matter of fact, it was doubtful whether he had any information to give.
+
+So his entertainers were disappointed.  Everyone who accosted him upon
+the objectionable topic was disappointed.  He became unpopular.
+
+The infinitesimal intellect of the community felt slighted.  The far
+from infinitesimal sense of self-importance of the said community was
+wounded to the core.  Here was a man who had passed through strange and
+startling experiences which everyone else was dying to share--at second
+hand.  Yet he kept them to himself.  Who was he, indeed, they would like
+to know?  Other men, had they gone through the same experiences, would
+have had them on tap all day long, for the benefit of all comers, good
+measure and brimming over.  This one, on the contrary, was as close as
+death itself.  Who was he that he should affect a singularity?
+
+When a man is unpopular in a small community, he is pretty sure before
+long to be made aware of that fact.  In this instance there were not
+wanting individuals the ingenuity of whose inventive powers was equal to
+the occasion.  No wonder Milne was reticent as to what he had gone
+through--hinted these--for it was almost certainly not to his credit.
+It was a singular thing that he should have emerged from the ordeal
+unhurt and smiling, while poor Tom Carhayes had been mercilessly
+butchered.  It looked, fishy--uncommonly so.  The more you looked at it,
+the more it began to take on the aspect of a put-up job.  Indeed it
+would not be surprising if it turned out that the expedition across the
+Bashi was a cunningly devised trap, not originating with the Kafirs
+either.  The escape of Hoste and Payne was part of the programme--no
+motive existing why these two should be put out of the way.
+
+Motive?  Motive for desiring Tom Carhayes' death?  Well, any fool could
+see that, one might have thought.  Was there not a young and beautiful
+widow in the case--who would succeed lo the dead man's extremely
+comfortable possessions, and whom, by this time, any one could see with
+half an eye, was desperately in love with the plotting and unscrupulous
+cousin?  That was motive enough, one would think.
+
+It was easy, moreover, now to see through the predilection of that
+arch-schemer for their native neighbours and now enemies.  It was all
+part of the plot.  Doubtless he was even no sending them secret
+information and advice in return for what they had done for him.  It
+would be surprising if he turned out anything better than a Kafir spy,
+were the real truth known.
+
+These amiable hints and innuendoes, sedulously buzzed around, were not
+long in reaching the object of them.  But they affected his impenetrable
+self-possession about as much as the discharge of a pea-shooter might
+affect the back of the mail-plated armadillo.  His philosophical mind
+saw no earthly reason for disturbing itself about any rumours which a
+pack of spiteful idiots might choose to set afloat.  Hoste's advice to
+him, to run two or three of these amiable gentry to earth and visit them
+with a good sound kicking, only made him laugh.  Why should he mind what
+anybody said?  If people chose to believe it they might--but if they
+didn't they wouldn't, and that was all about it.
+
+True, he was tempted, on one or two occasions, to follow his friend's
+advice--and that was when Eanswyth was brought into the matter.  But he
+remembered that you cannot strangle a widespread slander by force, and
+that short of the direst necessity the association in an ordinary row of
+any woman's name is justifiable neither by expediency nor good taste.
+But he resolved to get her to move down to Swaanepoel's Hoek at the very
+earliest opportunity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.
+
+A ROW IN THE CAMP.
+
+There was just this much to bear out the ill-natured comments of the
+scandal-mongers, in that the re-appearance of the missing cousin had
+gone very far towards consoling the young widow for the loss of the dead
+husband.
+
+The fact was that where her strongest, deepest feelings were concerned,
+Eanswyth, like most other women, was a bad actress.  The awful poignancy
+of her suffering had been too real--the subsequent and blissful
+revulsion too overpowering--for her to be able to counterfeit the one or
+dissemble the other, with anything like a satisfactory result.  Those
+who had witnessed the former, now shook their heads, feeling convinced
+that they had then mistaken the object of it.  They began to look at
+Eanswyth ever so little, askance.
+
+But why need she care if they did?  She was independent, young and
+beautiful.  She loved passionately, and her love was abundantly
+returned.  A great and absorbing interest has a tendency to dwarf all
+minor worries.  She did not, in fact, care.
+
+Eustace, thanks to his cool and cautious temperament, was a better
+actor; so good, indeed, that to those who watched them it seemed that
+the affection was mainly, if not entirely, on one side.  Sometimes he
+would warn her.
+
+"For your own sake, dearest," he would say on such rare occasions when
+they were alone together.  "For your own sake try and keep up
+appearances a little longer; at any rate until we are out of this
+infernal back-biting, gossipy little hole.  Remember, you are supposed
+to be plunged in an abyss of woe, and here you are looking as absurdly
+happy as a bird which has just escaped from a cage."
+
+"Oh, darling, you are right as usual," she would reply, trying to look
+serious.  "But what am I to do?  No wonder people think I have no
+heart."
+
+"And they think right for once, for you have given it away--to me.  Do
+keep up appearances, that's all.  It won't be for much longer."
+
+Eustace had secured a couple of rooms for his own use in one of the
+neighbouring cottages.  The time not spent with Eanswyth was got through
+strolling about the camp, or now and then taking a short ride out into
+the _veldt_ when the _entourage_ was reported safe.  But this, in
+deference to Eanswyth's fears, he did but seldom.
+
+"Why on earth don't you go to the front again, Milne?" this or that
+friend or acquaintance would inquire.  "You must find it properly slow
+hanging on in this hole.  I know I do.  Why, you could easily get a
+command of Fingo or Hottentot levies, or, for the matter of that, it
+oughtn't to be difficult for a fellow with your record to raise a
+command on your own account."
+
+"The fact is I've had enough of going to the front," Eustace would
+reply.  "When I was there I used often to wonder what business it was of
+mine anyway, and when the Kafirs made a prisoner of me, my first thought
+was that it served me devilish well right.  I give you my word it was.
+And I tell you what it is.  When a man has got up every day for nearly a
+month, not knowing whether he'd go to bed between his blankets that
+night or pinned down to a black ants' nest, he's in no particular hurry
+to go and expose himself to a repetition of the process.  It tells upon
+the nerves, don't you know."
+
+"By Jove, I believe you," replied the other.  "I never knew Jack Kafir
+was such a cruel devil before, at least not to white men.  Well, if I'd
+gone through what you have, I believe I'd give the front a wide berth,
+too.  As it is, I'm off in a day or two, I hope."
+
+"I trust you may meet with better luck," said Eustace.
+
+One day a considerable force of mounted burghers started for the
+Transkei--a good typical force--hardened, seasoned frontiersmen all,
+well mounted, well armed; in fact, a thoroughly serviceable looking
+corps all round.  There was the usual complement of spectators seeing
+them off--the usual amount of cheering and hat-waving.  On the outskirts
+of the crowd was a sprinkling of natives, representing divers races and
+colours.
+
+"_Au_!" exclaimed a tall Gaika, as the crowd dispersed.  "_That_ will be
+a hard stone for Kreli to try and crush.  If it was the _Amapolise_
+[Police] he could knock them to pieces with a stick.  Mere boys!"
+
+"What's that you say, Johnny?" said a hard-fisted individual, turning
+threateningly upon the speaker.
+
+"Nothing.  I only made a remark to my comrade," replied the man in his
+own language.
+
+"Did you?" said the other walking up to the Kafir and looking him
+straight in the eye.  "Then just keep your damned remarks to yourself,
+Johnny, or we shall quarrel.  D'you hear?"
+
+But the Kafir never quailed, never moved.  He was a tall, powerful
+native and carried his head grandly.  The white man, though shorter,
+looked tough and wiry as whip cord.  The crowd, which had been
+scattering, gathered round the pair with the celerity of a mob of London
+street-cads round a fallen cab-horse.
+
+"What's the row?  A cheeky nigger?  Give him fits, Mister!  Knock him
+into the middle of next week!" were some of the cries that burst from
+the group of angry and excited men.
+
+"I have committed no offence," said the Kafir.  "I made a remark to a
+comrade, saying what a fine lot of men those were."
+
+"Oh, yes?  Very likely!" shouted several ironically.
+
+"See here now.  You get out of this," said the first man.  "Do you hear,
+get out.  Don't say another word--or--"
+
+He did not finish.  Stung by a contemptuous look in the Kafir's eyes, he
+dashed his fist full into his face.
+
+It was a crushing blow--but the native did not fall.  Like lightning he
+aimed a blow at his assailant's head with his heavy kerrie--a blow which
+would have shattered the skull like an egg shell.  But the other threw
+up his arm in time, receiving nearly the full force of the blow on that
+member, which dropped to his side completely paralysed.  Without
+attempting to follow up his success the savage sprang back, whirling his
+kerrie round his head.  The crowd, taken by surprise, scattered before
+him.
+
+Only for a moment, though.  Like a pack of hounds pressed back by a stag
+at bay they gave way but to close up again.  In a trice the man's kerrie
+was struck from his grasp, and he was thrown down, beaten, kicked, and
+very roughly handled.
+
+"Tie up the _schelm_!"
+
+"Give him six dozen well-laid on!"  "Six dozen without counting!"
+"Cheeky brute!" were some of the shouts that accompanied each kick and
+blow dealt or aimed at the prostrate Kafir, who altogether seemed to be
+having a pretty bad time of it.
+
+"That's a damned shame!" exclaimed a voice behind them.
+
+All started and turned their heads, some astonished--all angry--some
+perhaps a little ashamed of themselves--towards the owner of the voice,
+a horseman who sat calmly in his saddle some twenty yards away--an
+expression of strong disgust upon his features.
+
+"What have you got to say to it anyhow, I'd like to know?" cried the man
+who had just struck the native.
+
+"What I said before--that it's a damned shame," replied Eustace Milne
+unhesitatingly.
+
+"What's a shame, Mister?" sneered another.  "That one o' your precious
+black kids is getting a hidin' for his infernal cheek?"
+
+"That it should take twenty men to give it him, and that, too, when he's
+down."
+
+"I tell you what it is, friend," said the first speaker furiously.  "It
+may take rather less than twenty to give you one, and that, too, when
+you're up!" which sally provoked a blatant guffaw from several of the
+hearers.
+
+"I'm not much afraid of that," answered Eustace tranquilly.  "But now,
+seeing that British love of fair play has been about vindicated by a
+score of Englishmen kicking a prostrate Kafir, how would it be to let
+him get up and go?"
+
+The keen, biting sarcasm told.  The group, which mainly consisted of the
+low element, actually did begin to look a trifle ashamed of itself.  The
+better element composing it gave way and took itself off, as Eustace
+deliberately walked his horse up to the fallen native.  There were a few
+muttered jeers about "the nigger's friend" and getting into the Assembly
+on the strength of "blanket votes," [The native franchise, derisively so
+termed] and so forth, but none offered any active opposition except one,
+however, and that was the man who had originated the disturbance.
+
+"Look here," he shouted savagely.  "I don't know who you are and I don't
+care.  But if you don't take yourself off out of this mighty quick, I'll
+just about knock you into a jelly; you see if I don't."
+
+"_Ja_, that's right.  Serve him as you did the nigger!" yelled the
+bystanders, a lot of rowdy hobbledehoys and a contingent of town loafers
+whom the prospect of an easy-going, devil-may-care life in the _veldt_
+had drawn from the more sober avocations of bricklaying and
+waggon-building within the Colony, and who, it may be added,
+distinguished themselves at the seat of hostilities by such a line of
+drunken mutinous insubordination as rendered them an occasion of
+perennial detestation and disgust to their respective commanders.  These
+now closed up around their bullying, swash-bucklering champion,
+relieving their ardently martial spirits by hooting and cat's calls.  It
+was only one man against a crowd.  They felt perfectly safe.
+
+"Who sold his mate to the blanked niggers!" they yelled.  "Ought to be
+tarred and feathered.  Come on, boys; let's do it.  Who's for tarring
+and feathering the Kafir spy?"
+
+All cordially welcomed this spicy proposal, but curiously enough, no one
+appeared anxious to begin, for they still kept some paces behind the
+original aggressor.  That worthy, however, seemed to have plenty of
+fight in him, for he advanced upon Eustace unhesitatingly.
+
+"Come now.  Are you going to clear?" he shouted.  "You're not?  All
+right.  I'll soon make you."
+
+A stirrup-iron, wielded by a clever hand, is a terribly formidable
+weapon.  Backing his horse a pace or two Eustace wrenched loose his
+stirrup.  Quick as lightning, it whirled in the air, and as his
+assailant sprang wildly at him down it came.  The aggressive bully went
+to earth like a felled ox.
+
+"Any more takers for the tar-and-feather line of business?" said Eustace
+quietly, but with the light of battle in his eyes.
+
+The insulting jeers and the hooting still continued.  But no one
+advanced.  No one seemed anxious to tackle that particularly resolute
+looking horseman.
+
+"Get out of this, you cowardly skunks!" sung out a voice behind him,
+which voice proceeded from another horseman, who had ridden up unseen
+during the _emeute_.  "Twenty to one!  Faugh!  For two pins we'll
+sjambok the lot of you."
+
+"Hallo, Errington!  Where have you dropped from?  Thought you were away
+down in the Colony," said Eustace, turning to the new arrival, a fine
+soldierly looking man of about his own age, in whom he recognised a
+former Field-Captain in Brathwaite's Horse.  The crowd had already begun
+to melt away before this new accession of force.
+
+"Yer--send yer winder to be cleaned!  Stick it in yer breeches pocket!"
+were some of the witticisms yelled back by the retreating rowdies, in
+allusion to the eye-glass worn by the newcomer.
+
+"By jove, Milne.  You seem to have been in the wars," said the latter
+looking from one to the other of the injured parties.  "What's the row,
+eh?"
+
+"It speaks for itself.  Nothing much, though.  I've only been reminding
+our valiant friends there that fair play is a jewel even when its only a
+Kafir that's concerned."--"Which unsavoury Ethiop seems to have been
+knocked about a bit, however," rejoined the other, sticking his glass
+into his eye to examine the fallen native.
+
+The Kafir, who had raised himself to a sitting posture, was now staring
+stupidly about him as though half dazed.  Blood was issuing from his
+nose and mouth, and one of his eyes was completely closed up.  His
+assailants had all slunk away by now, the arrival upon the scene of this
+unwelcome ally having turned the scale against any plan they might have
+entertained of showing further unpleasantness toward the solitary
+intervener.
+
+Some three or four of the Gaika's countrymen, who had held aloof, now
+came up to the assistance of their friend.  These gave their version of
+the story.  Eustace listened attentively.
+
+"It was a foolish thing to make any remark at such a time and in such a
+place," he said.  "It was sure to provoke strife.  Go and get him a tot
+of grog," throwing them a sixpence, "and then you'd better get away
+home."
+
+"I tell you what it is, Milne," said Errington in a low tone.  "I know
+that fellow you floored so neatly.  He's one of the best bruisers in the
+country, and I'm afraid you haven't seen the last of him.  You'd better
+keep a bright lookout as long as you're in this part.  He's bound to
+play you some dog's trick at the earliest opportunity."
+
+"Is he?  Well I must try and be ready for him.  I suppose now we must
+bring the poor devil round, eh?  He seems about stunned."
+
+Errington had a flask in his pocket.  Dismounting he raised the fallen
+man's head and poured some of the contents into his mouth.
+
+The fellow revived--gradually, stupidly.  He had received a bad blow,
+which only a thick slouch hat and a thicker skull had saved from being a
+worse one.
+
+"Who the hell are you?" he growled surlily, as he sat up.  "Oh, I know
+you," he went on as his glance lit upon Eustace.  "All right, my fine
+feller, wait a bit, till I'm all right again.  You'll be sorry yet for
+that damned coward's whack you've given me.  See if you're not."
+
+"You brought it upon yourself.  Why did you try and rush me?"
+
+"I didn't rush you with a stirrup-iron, did I?"
+
+"No.  But see here.  If I'm attacked I'm not going to leave the choice
+of my means of defence to the enemy.  Not much.  How would that pan out
+for an idea in fighting old Kreli, for instance?"
+
+"Of course," struck in Errington.  "That's sound sense, and you know it
+is, Jackson.  You and Milne have had a bit of a scrimmage and you've got
+the worst of it.  It might easily have been the other way.  So don't let
+us have any grudge-bearing over it.  Take another drink, man," pouring
+out a liberal modicum of whiskey into the cup of the flask, "and shake
+hands and make it up."
+
+The man, who was not a bad fellow at bottom, gave a growl as he tossed
+off the tendered potion.  Then he held out his hand to Eustace.
+
+"Well, Mister, I don't bear no grudge.  If you'll jest say you're sorry
+you hit me--"
+
+"I'll say that with pleasure, Jackson," replied Eustace, as they shook
+hands.  "And look here, if you still feel a bit groggy on your pins,
+jump on my horse and ride home.  I'll walk."
+
+"No, thanks.  I'm all right now.  Besides I ain't going your way.  My
+waggon's outspanned yonder on the flat.  Good-night."
+
+"I stand very much indebted to you, Errington, for two services
+rendered," said Eustace as they rode towards the township.  "And I'm not
+sure that the last isn't by far the most important."
+
+"Pooh! not at all, my dear fellow.  That howling rabble wouldn't have
+come within twenty yards of you."
+
+"I don't know about that.  The vagabonds were rather beginning to
+realise that twenty to one meant long odds in favour of the twenty, when
+you came up.  But the deft way in which you smoothed down our friend
+with the broken head was diplomatic to a degree.  I hate rows, and the
+knowledge that some fellow is going about day and night seeking an
+opportunity of fastening a quarrel upon you unawares is tiresome.
+Besides, I'm nothing of a boxer, and if I were should hate a shindy just
+as much."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said the other, who _was_ something of a
+boxer.  "To form the centre of attraction to a howling, yahooing rabble,
+making an undignified exhibition of yourself bashing and being bashed by
+some other fellow like a couple of butcher's boys in the gutter, is
+bound to be a revolting process whichever way you look at it.  Even the
+law of the pistol seems to be an improvement on it."
+
+"I think so, too.  It puts men on better terms of equality.  Any man may
+become a dead shot and a quick drawer, but not one man in ten can fulfil
+all the conditions requisite to becoming a good boxer.  The fact is,
+however, I hate rows of any kind, even when only a spectator.  When
+fellows say they like them I never altogether believe them."
+
+"Unless they are very young.  But the Berserk taint soon wears off as
+you get on into life a bit," said Errington.
+
+"Well now--I turn off here.  Good-evening."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.
+
+"IT IS THE VOICE OF AN ORACLE."
+
+Swaanepoel's Hoek, poor Tom Carhayes' other farm, was situated in the
+division of Somerset East, somewhere between the Great and Little Fish
+Rivers.  It was rather an out-of-the-way place, lying in a mountainous
+district, sparsely inhabited and only reached by rough wheel-tracks
+through narrow, winding _poorts_.  But the scenery was wild and romantic
+to a degree.  The bold sweep of bush-grown slopes, the lofty heights
+culminating in red iron-bound _krantzes_ whose inaccessible hedges
+afforded nesting place for colonies of _aasvogels_, the thunder of the
+mountain torrent pent-up between black rocky walls where the maiden-hair
+fern hung in solid festoons from every crack and cranny, the cheerful
+and abundant sounds of bird and animal life--all this rendered the place
+a wonderfully pleasant and attractive, if somewhat out-of-the-way,
+residence.
+
+To Eanswyth Carhayes, however, this very isolation constituted an
+additional charm.  The solemn grandeur of the soaring mountains, the
+hush of the seldom trodden valleys, conveyed to her mind, after the
+bustle and turmoil of the crowded frontier settlement, the perfection of
+peace.  She felt that she could spend her whole life on this beautiful
+spot.  And it was her own.
+
+She had only once before visited the place--shortly after her marriage--
+and then had spent but three or four days there.  Its beauties had
+failed at that time to strike her imagination.  Now it was different.
+All the world was a Paradise.  It seemed that there was nothing left in
+life for her to desire.
+
+The house was a fair size, almost too large for the overseer and his
+family.  That worthy had asked Eustace whether Mrs Carhayes would
+prefer that they should vacate it.  There was a substantial outbuilding,
+used--or rather only half of it was used--as a store, and a saddle and
+harness room.  They could make themselves perfectly snug in that, if
+Mrs Carhayes wished to have the house to herself.
+
+"I can answer for it: Mrs Carhayes wishes nothing of the sort," he had
+replied.  "In fact, we were talking over that very thing on the way
+down."
+
+"Sure the children won't disturb her, Mr Milne?"
+
+"Well, it hasn't looked like it up till now.  Those youngsters of yours
+don't seem particularly obstreperous, Bentley, and Mrs Carhayes appears
+rather to have taken a fancy to them than otherwise."
+
+"If there's a kind sweet lady in this world, Mr Milne, it's Mrs
+Carhayes," said the overseer earnestly.  "I know the wife'll make her
+right comfortable while she's here.  She'll save her all bother over
+housekeeping or anything of that sort.  Excuse the question, but is she
+likely to be making a long stay?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder.  You see, there's nowhere else for her to go, and
+the quiet of this place suits her after all she has gone through.  And
+she has gone through some pretty lively times, I need hardly tell you."
+
+"I should think so.  Why, what a narrow escape she had that time you
+were bringing her away from Anta's Kloof, when the trap broke down.
+That was a frightful position for any lady to be in, in all conscience."
+
+"Oh, you heard of that, did you?  Ah, I forgot.  It was in every paper
+in the Colony--more or less inaccurately reported, of course," added
+Eustace drily, and then the two men lit their pipes and chatted for an
+hour or so about the war and its events.
+
+"By the way, Bentley," said Eustace presently.  "Talking about that
+outbuilding.  I've decided to knock out the partition--it's only a
+wooden one--between the two rooms next to the storeroom, turn them into
+one, and use it as a bedroom for myself.  The house is rather congested
+with the lot of us in it, after all.  We might go to work at it this
+afternoon."
+
+"Certainly, Mr Milne, certainly," replied the overseer.  And forthwith
+the tool-chest was laid under requisition, and in a couple of hours the
+necessary alterations were effected.
+
+This move did not altogether meet with Eanswyth's approval, and she
+expostulated accordingly.
+
+"Why should you be the one turned out in the cold," she said.  "There's
+no earthly necessity for it.  You will be horribly uncomfortable over
+there, Eustace, and in winter the nights will be quite bitter.  Then
+again, the roof is a thatched one, and the first rain we get will start
+it leaking like a sieve.  Besides, there's plenty of room in the house."
+
+"It isn't that, you dear, thoughtful, considerate guardian angel," he
+answered.  "It isn't quite that, though I put it that way for Bentley's
+behoof.  It is something of a concession to Mother Grundy, for even here
+that arch-hag can make her upas power felt, and I don't want to have all
+the tongues in the district wagging like the tails of a pack of
+foxhounds just unkennelled.  We had enough of that at Komgha.  So I've
+arranged that at any rate we shan't be under the same roof.  See?"
+
+"Yes; but it's ridiculous all the same.  As if we weren't relations,
+too."
+
+"And will be closer relations soon--in fact, the closest.  I suppose we
+must wait a year--but that rests with you."
+
+"I don't know.  It's an awfully long time," and she sighed.  Then rather
+hesitatingly: "Darling, you have never yet shown me the little silver
+box.  We are alone now, and--"
+
+"And you are dying to see it.  Well, Eanswyth, it is really a most
+remarkable coincidence--in fact, almost makes a man feel superstitious."
+
+It was near sundown.  A soft, golden light rested upon the great slopes,
+and the cooing of doves floated melodiously from the mealie lands in the
+valley.  The mountain stream roared through its rocky bed at their feet,
+and among the crannies and ledges of a profusion of piled up boulders
+forming miniature cliffs around, a whole colony of bright eyed little
+_dasjes_ [The "rock rabbit"--really a species of marmot] were disporting
+themselves, scampering in and out with a boldness which augured volumes
+in favour of the peaceable aspect of the two human intruders upon their
+sequestered haunt.
+
+"As you say, the time and place are indeed fitting," said Eustace,
+sitting down upon a boulder and taking the box from its place of
+concealment.  "Now, my darling, look at this.  The assegai point is
+broken short off, driven with such force that it has remained embedded
+in the lid."
+
+It was even as he said.  Had the blade been driven with a powerful
+hammer it could not have been more firmly wedged within the metal.
+
+"That was the blow I received during the fight," he went on.  "The dent
+at the side of it was done when I stood up to the witch-doctress.  It
+did not penetrate much that time; not that the blow wasn't hard enough,
+for it nearly knocked me down, but the assegai was a rotten one and made
+of soft iron, and the point flattened out like a Snider bullet.
+Heavens! but that was an ordeal--something of a nerve-tickler!" he
+added, with a grave and meditative look in his eyes, as if he were
+mentally re-enacting that trying and critical scene.
+
+Eanswyth shuddered, but said nothing.  She nestled rather closer to his
+side, as he continued:
+
+"Now to open the box--a thing I haven't done since, partly from
+superstitious motives--partly that I intended we should do so together--
+if we ever were to be again together, that is."
+
+He pressed the spring, but it was out of order.  It needed the wrench of
+a strong knife blade before the lid flew open.
+
+"Look at that.  The assegai point is so firmly wedged that it would take
+a hammer to drive it out--but I propose to leave it in--use it as a
+`charm' next war perhaps.  Now for the letter.  It has gone through and
+through it--through the photograph too--and has just dinted the bottom
+of the box."
+
+He spread out the letter.  Those last tender, loving words, direct from
+her overflowing heart, were pierced and lacerated by the point of the
+murderous weapon.
+
+"If this is not an oracle, there never was such a thing," he went on.
+"Look at this"--reading--"`I dare not say "God bless you."  Coming from
+me it would entail a curse, rather than a blessing...'  The point has
+cut clean through the words `a curse'--Mfulini's assegai has made short
+work of that malediction.  Is not that the voice of an oracle?"
+
+She made no reply.  She was watching the development of the
+investigation with rapt, eager attention.
+
+"Here again--`Were anything to befall you--were you never to come back
+to me my heart would be broken...'  As the paper is folded it has cut
+through the word `heart'--And--by Jove, this is more than a coincidence!
+Here again, it has gone clean through the same word.  Look at the end.
+`_I want you in all your dangers and hardships to have, with you, these
+poor little lines, coming, as they are, warm from my hand and heart_'...
+And now for the photograph.  It is a sweetly lifelike representation of
+you, my dearest--"
+
+A cry from her interrupted him.  The portrait was a three parts length
+cabinet one, cut round to enable it to fit the box, which it did
+exactly.  Right through the breast of the portrait, the assegai point
+had pierced.
+
+"O Eustace--this is an oracle, indeed!" she cried.  "Do you not see?
+The spear point has gone right through my `heart' again for the third
+time.  My dearest love, thrice has my `heart' stood between you and
+death--once in the portrait, twice in the letter.  At the same time it
+has obliterated the word `curse.'  It is, indeed, an `oracle' and--What
+if I had never given you that box at all?"
+
+"I should be a lot of dry bones scattered about the _veldt_ in
+Bomvanaland at this moment," he rejoined.  "Now you see how your love
+has twice stood between me and death; has preserved my life for itself.
+My sweet guardian angel, does not that look as if some Fate had always
+intended us for each other from the very first!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.
+
+AT SWAANEPOEL'S HOEK.
+
+Several months had gone by.
+
+The war was nearly over now.  Struck on all sides--decimated by the
+terrible breech-loading weapons of the whites--harried even in their
+wildest strongholds, their supplies running low, their crops destroyed,
+and winter upon them--the insurgent tribes recognised that they were
+irretrievably worsted.  They had no heart for further fighting--their
+principal thought now was to make the best terms they could for
+themselves.  So all along the frontier the disheartened savages were
+flocking in to lay down their arms and surrender.  Those who belonged to
+independent tribes in the Transkei were treated as belligerents--and
+after being disarmed were located at such places as the Government
+thought fit.  Those who were British subjects, and whose locations were
+within the colonial boundaries, such as the Gaikas, Hlambis, and a
+section of the Tembus, were treated as rebels and lodged in gaol until
+such time as it should please the authorities to put them on their trial
+for high treason, treason, felony, or sedition, according to their rank,
+responsibilities, or deeds.  Still the unfortunate barbarians preferred
+to discount the chances of the future against present starvation--and
+continued to come in, in swarms.  The gaols were soon crammed to
+overflowing; so, too, were the supplementary buildings hired for the
+emergency.
+
+Not all, however, had preferred imprisonment with plenty to liberty with
+starvation.  There were still armed bands lurking in the forest recesses
+of the Amatola, and in the rugged and bushy fastnesses beyond the Kei.
+While most of the chiefs of the colonial tribes had either surrendered
+or been slain, the head and Paramount Chief of all was still at large.
+"Kreli must be captured or killed," was the general cry.  "Until this is
+done the war can never be considered at an end."  But the old chief had
+no intention of submitting to either process if he could possibly help
+it.  He continued to make himself remarkably scarce.
+
+Another character who was very particularly wanted was Hlangani, and for
+this shrewd and daring leader the search was almost as keen as for Kreli
+himself.  Common report had killed him over and over again, but somehow
+there was no satisfactory evidence of his identification.  Then a wild
+rumour got about that he had been sent by his chief on a mission to
+invoke the aid of the Zulu King, who at that time was, rightly or
+wrongly, credited with keeping South Africa in general, and the colony
+of Natal in particular, in a state of uneasiness and alarm.  But,
+wherever he was, like his chief, and the "bold gendarmes" of the
+burlesque song, he continued to be "when wanted never there."
+
+All these reports and many more reached Eustace Milne, who had taken no
+active part in frontier affairs since we saw him last.  He had even been
+sounded as to his willingness to undertake a post on behalf of the
+Government which should involve establishing diplomatic relations with
+the yet combatant bands, but this he had declined.  He intended to do
+what he could for certain of the rebels later on, but meanwhile the time
+had not yet come.
+
+Moreover, he was too happy amid the peaceful idyllic life he was then
+leading to care to leave it even for a time in order to serve a
+potentially ungrateful country.  And it was idyllic.  There was quite
+enough to do on the place to keep even his energetic temperament active.
+The stock which had constituted the capital of their common partnership
+and had been sent to Swaanepoel's Hoek at the outbreak of the war
+required considerable looking after, for, owing to the change of
+_veldt_, it did not thrive as well as could be wished.  And then the
+place afforded plenty of sport; far more than Anta's Kloof had done.
+Leopards, wild pigs, and bushbucks abounded in the bushy kloofs; indeed,
+there were rather too many of the former, looking at it from the farming
+point of view.  The valley bottoms and the water courses were full of
+guinea-fowl and francolins, and high up on the mountain slopes, the vaal
+rykbok might be shot for the going after, to say nothing of a plentiful
+sprinkling of quail and now and then a bustard.  Eustace was often
+constrained to admit to himself that he would hardly have believed it
+possible that life could hold such perfect and unalloyed happiness.
+
+He had, as we have said, plenty of wholesome and congenial work, with
+sport to his heart's content, and enjoyed a complete immunity from care
+or worry.  These things alone might make any man happy.  But there was
+another factor in this instance.  There was the sweet companionship of
+one whom he had loved passionately when the case was hopeless and she
+was beyond his reach, and whom he loved not less absorbingly now that
+all barriers were broken down between them, now that they would soon
+belong to each other until their life's end.  This was the influence
+that cast a radiant glow upon the doings and undertakings of everyday
+life, encircling everything with a halo of love, even as the very peace
+of Heaven.
+
+Not less upon Eanswyth did the same influences fall.  The revulsion
+following upon that awful period of heart-break and despair had given
+her fresh life indeed.  In her grand beauty, in the full glow of health
+and perfect happiness, no one would have recognised the white, stricken
+mourner of that time.  She realised that there was nothing on earth left
+to desire.  And then her conscience would faintly reproach her.  Had she
+a right to revel in such perfect happiness in the midst of a world of
+sorrow and strife?
+
+But the said world seemed to keep very fairly outside that idyllic
+abode.  Now and then they would drive or ride into Somerset East, or
+visit or be visited by a neighbour--the latter not often.  The bulk of
+the surrounding settlers were Boers, and beyond exchanging a few
+neighbourly civilities from time to time they saw but little of them.
+This, however, was not an unmixed evil.
+
+Bentley had been as good as his word.  His wife was a capital
+housekeeper and had effectively taken all cares of that nature off
+Eanswyth's hands.  Both were thoroughly good and worthy people, of
+colonial birth, who, by steadiness and trustworthy intelligence, had
+worked their way up from a very lowly position.  Unlike too many of
+their class, however, they were not consumed with a perennial anxiety to
+show forth their equality in the sight of Heaven with those whom they
+knew to be immeasurably their superiors in birth and culture, and to
+whom, moreover, they owed in no small degree their own well-being.  So
+the relations existing between the two different factors which composed
+the household were of the most cordial nature.
+
+There had been some delay in settling up Tom Carhayes' affairs--in fact,
+they were not settled yet.  With a good sense and foresight, rather
+unexpected in one of his unthinking and impulsive temperament, poor Tom
+had made his will previous to embarking on the Gcaleka campaign.
+Everything he possessed was bequeathed to his wife--with no restriction
+upon her marrying again--and Eustace and a mutual friend were appointed
+executors.
+
+This generosity had inspired in Eanswyth considerable compunction, and
+was the only defective spoke in the wheel of her present great
+happiness.  Sometimes she almost suspected that her husband had guessed
+at how matters really stood, and the idea cost her more than one
+remorseful pang.  Yet, though she had failed in her allegiance, it was
+in her heart alone.  She would have died sooner than have done so
+otherwise, she told herself.
+
+Twice had the executors applied for the necessary authority to
+administer the estate.  But the Master of the Supreme Court professed
+himself not quite satisfied.  The evidence as to the testator's actual
+death struck him as inadequate--resting, as it did, upon the sole
+testimony of one of the executors, who could not even be positive that
+the man was dead when last seen by him.  He might be alive still, though
+held a prisoner.  Against this view was urged the length of time which
+had elapsed, and the utter improbability that the Gcaleka bands, broken
+up and harried, as they were, from point to point, would hamper
+themselves with a prisoner, let alone a member of that race toward which
+they had every reason to entertain the most uncompromising and
+implacable rancour.  The Supreme Court, however, was immovable.  When
+hostilities were entirely at an end, they argued, evidence might be
+forthcoming on the part of natives who had actually witnessed the
+testator's death.  That fact incontestably established, letters of
+administration could at once be granted.  Meanwhile the matter must be
+postponed a little longer.
+
+This delay affected those most concerned not one whit.  There was not
+the slightest fear of Eanswyth's interests suffering in the able hands
+which held their management.  Only, the excessive caution manifested by
+the law's representatives would at times communicate to Eustace Milne a
+vague uneasiness.  What if his cousin should be alive after all?  What
+if he had escaped under circumstances which would involve perforce his
+absence during a considerable period?  He might have gained the sea
+shore, for instance, and been picked up by a passing ship bound to some
+distant country, whose captain would certainly decline to diverge many
+days out of his course to oblige one unknown castaway.  Such things had
+happened.  Still, the idea was absurd, he told himself, for, even if it
+was so, sufficient time had elapsed for the missing man, in these days
+of telegraphs and swift mail steamers, to make known his whereabouts,
+even if not to return in person.  He had not seen dim actually killed in
+his conflict with Hlangani--indeed, the fact of that strange duel having
+been fought with kerries, only seemed to point to the fact that no
+killing was intended.  That he was only stunned and disabled when
+dragged away out of sight Eustace could swear, but why should that
+implacable savage make such a point of having the absolute disposal of
+his enemy, if it were not to execute the most deadly ferocious vengeance
+upon him which lay in his power?  That the wretched man had been
+fastened down to be devoured alive by black ants, even as the pretended
+wizard had been treated, Eustace entertained hardly any doubt--would
+have entertained none, but that the witch-doctress's veiled hint had
+pointed to a fate, if possible, even more darkly horrible.  No, after
+all this time, his unfortunate cousin could not possibly be alive.  The
+actual mode of his death might forever remain a mystery, but that he was
+dead was as certain as anything in this world can be.  Any suspicion to
+the contrary he resolved to dismiss effectually from his mind.
+
+Eanswyth would often accompany her lover during his rides about the
+_veldt_ looking after the stock.  She would not go with him, however,
+when he was on sporting intent, she had tried it once or twice, but the
+bucks had a horrid knack of screaming in the most heart-rending fashion
+when sadly wounded and not killed outright, and Eustace's assurance that
+this was due to the influence of fear and not of pain, entirely failed
+to reconcile her to it.  [A fact.  The smaller species of antelope here
+referred to, however badly wounded, will not utter a sound until seized
+upon by man or dog, when it screams as described.  The same holds good
+of the English hare.]  But when on more peaceful errand bent, she was
+never so happy as when riding with him among the grand and romantic
+scenery of their mountain home.  She was a first-rate horsewoman and
+equally at home in the saddle when her steed was picking his way along
+some dizzy mountain path on the side of a grass slope as steep as the
+roof of a house with a series of perpendicular _krantzes_ below, or when
+pursuing some stony and rugged bush track where the springy _spekboem_
+boughs threatened to sweep her from her seat every few yards.
+
+"We are partners now, you know, dearest," she would say gaily, when he
+would sometimes urge the fatigue and occasionally even the risk of these
+long and toilsome rides.  "While that law business still hangs fire the
+partnership can't be dissolved, I suppose.  Therefore I claim my right
+to do my share of the work."
+
+It was winter now.  The clear mountain air was keen and crisp, and
+although the nights were bitterly cold, the days were lovely.  The sky
+was a deep, cloudless blue, and the sun poured his rays down into the
+valleys with a clear, genial warmth which just rendered perceptible the
+bracing exhilaration of the air.  Thanks to the predominating _spekboem_
+and other evergreen bushes, the winter dress of Nature suffered but
+little diminution in verdure; and in grand contrast many a stately
+summit soared proudly aloft, capped with a white powdering of snow.
+
+Those were days of elysium indeed, to those two, as they rode abroad
+among the fairest scenes of wild Nature; or, returning at eve, threaded
+the grassy bush-paths, while the crimson winged louris flashed from tree
+to tree, and the francolins and wild guinea-fowl, startled by the
+horses' hoofs, would scuttle across the path, echoing their grating note
+of alarm.  And then the sun, sinking behind a lofty ridge, would fling
+his parting rays upon the smooth burnished faces of the great red cliffs
+until they glowed like molten fire.
+
+Yes, those were indeed days to look back upon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.
+
+FROM THE DEAD!
+
+Eustace and the overseer were sitting on the _stoep_ smoking a final
+pipe together before going to bed.  It was getting on for midnight and,
+save these two, the household had long since retired.
+
+Tempted by the beauty of the night they sat, well wrapped up, for it was
+winter.  But the whole firmament was ablaze with stars, and the broad
+nebulous path of the Milky Way shone forth like the phosphoric trail in
+the wake of a steamer.  The conversation between the two had turned upon
+the fate of Tom Carhayes.
+
+"I suppose we shall soon know now what his end really was," the overseer
+was saying.  "Kafirs are as close as death over matters of that kind
+while the war is actually going on.  But they are sure to talk
+afterwards, and some of them are bound to know."
+
+"Yes.  And but for this administration business it might be just as well
+for us not to know," answered Eustace.  "Depend upon it, whatever it is,
+it will be something more than ghastly, poor fellow.  Tom made a great
+mistake in going to settle in Kafirland at all.  He'd have done much
+better here."
+
+"I suppose there isn't the faintest shadow of a chance that he may still
+be alive, Mr Milne?"
+
+The remark was an unfortunate one.  Cool-headed as he was, it awoke in
+Eustace a vague stirring of uneasiness--chiming in, as it did, with the
+misgivings which would sometimes pass through his own mind.
+
+"Not a shadow of a chance, I should say," he replied, after a slight
+pause.
+
+Bentley, too, began to realise that the remark was not a happy one--for
+of course he could not all this time have been blind to the state of
+affairs.  He felt confused and relapsed into silence--puffing vigorously
+at his pipe.
+
+The silence was broken--broken in a startling manner.  A terrified
+scream fell upon their ears--not very loud, but breathing unmistakable
+tones of mortal fear.  Both men sprang to their feet.
+
+"Heavens!" cried the overseer.  "That's Mrs Carhayes--"
+
+But the other said not a word.  In about a half a dozen steps he was
+through the sitting room and had gained the door which opened out of it.
+This was Eanswyth's bedroom, whence the terrified cry had proceeded.
+
+"What is wrong, Eanswyth?" he cried, tapping at the door.
+
+It opened immediately.  She stood there wrapped in a long loose dressing
+gown, the wealth of her splendid hair falling in masses.  But her face
+was white as death, and the large eyes were dilated with such a pitiable
+expression of fear and distress, as he certainly had never beheld there.
+
+"What is it, my darling?  What has frightened you so?" he said tenderly,
+moved to the core by this extraordinary manifestation of pitiable
+terror.
+
+She gave a quick flurried look over her shoulder.  Then clutching his
+hands--and he noticed that hers were trembling and as cold as ice--she
+gasped:
+
+"Eustace--I have seen--him!"
+
+"Who--in Heaven's name?"
+
+"Tom."
+
+"Darling, you must have dreamt it.  You have been allowing your thoughts
+to run too much on the subject and--"
+
+"No.  It was no dream.  I have not even been to bed yet," she
+interrupted, speaking hurriedly.  "I was sitting there, at the table,
+reading one of my little books.  I just happened to look up and--O
+Eustace"--with a violent shudder--"I saw _his_ face staring in at the
+window just as plainly as I can see you now."
+
+Eustace followed her cowering glance.  The window, black and
+uncurtained, looked out upon the _veldt_.  There were shutters, but they
+were hardly ever closed.  His first thought, having dismissed the
+nightmare theory, was that some loafer was hanging about, and seeing the
+lighted window had climbed up to look in.  He said as much.
+
+"No.  It was _him_," she interrupted decisively.  "There was no
+mistaking him.  If it were the last word I breathed I should still say
+so.  What does it mean?  Oh, what does it mean?" she repeated in tones
+of the utmost distress.
+
+"Hush, hush, my dearest!  Remember, Bentley will hear, and--"
+
+"_There he is again_!"
+
+The words broke forth in a shriek.  Quickly Eustace glanced at the
+window.  The squares of glass, black against the outer night, showed
+nothing in the shape of a human countenance.  A large moth buzzed
+against them, and that was all.
+
+Her terror was so genuine, as with blanched face and starting eyes she
+glared upon the black glass, that ever so slight a thrill of
+superstitious dread shot through him in spite of himself.
+
+"Quick!" she gasped.  "Quick!  Go and look all round the house!  I am
+not frightened to remain alone.  Mr Bentley will stay with me.  Go,
+quick!"
+
+The overseer, who had judiciously kept in the background, now came
+forward.
+
+"Certainly, Mrs Carhayes.  Better come into this room and sit down for
+a bit.  Why, you must have been mistaken," he went on, cheerily placing
+a chair at the sitting room fire, and kicking up the nearly dead logs.
+"Nobody could get up at your window.  Why, its about fifteen feet from
+the ground and there's nothing lying about for them to step on.  Not
+even a monkey could climb up there--though--wait.  I did hear once of a
+case where a baboon, a wild one out of the _veldt_, climbed up on to the
+roof of a house and swung himself right into a room.  I don't say I
+believe it, though.  It's a little too much of a Dutchman's yarn to be
+readily swallowed."
+
+Thus the good-natured fellow rambled on, intent on cheering her up and
+diverting her thoughts.  The rooms occupied by himself and his family
+were at the other end of the house and opened outside on the _stoep_,
+hence the sound of her terrified shriek had not reached them.
+
+Eustace, on investigation intent, had slipped round the outside of the
+house with the stealth and rapidity of a savage.  But, as he had
+expected, there was no sign of the presence of any living thing.  He put
+his ear to the ground and listened long and intently.  Not a sound.  No
+stealthy footfall broke the silence of the night.
+
+But as he crouched there in the darkness, with every nerve, every
+faculty at the highest tension, a horrible thought came upon him.  What
+if Carhayes had really escaped--was really alive?  Why should he not
+avow himself openly--why come prowling around like a midnight assassin?
+And then the answer suggested itself.  Might it not be that his mind,
+unhinged by the experiences of his captivity, was filled with the one
+idea--to exact a deadly vengeance upon the wife who had so soon
+forgotten him?  Such things had been, and to this man, watching there in
+the darkness, the idea was horrible enough.
+
+Stay!  There was one way of placing the matter beyond all doubt.  He
+remembered that the soil beneath Eanswyth's window was loose dust--a
+trifle scratched about by the fowls, but would give forth the print of a
+human foot with almost the distinctness of snow.
+
+Quickly he moved to the spot.  Striking a wax vesta, and then another,
+he peered eagerly at the ground.  The atmosphere was quite still, and
+the matches flamed like a torch.  His heart beat and his pulses
+quickened as he carefully examined the ground--then a feeling of intense
+relief came upon him.  _There was no sign of a human footprint_.
+
+No living thing could have stood under that window, much less climbed up
+to it, without leaving its traces.  There were no traces; ergo, no
+living thing had been there, and he did not believe in ghosts.  The
+whole affair had been a hallucination on the part of Eanswyth.  This was
+bad, in that it seemed to point to a weak state of health or an
+overloaded mind.  But it was nothing like so bad as the awful misfortune
+involved by the reality would have been--at any rate, to him.
+
+He did not believe in ghosts, but the idea crossed his mind that so far
+as from allaying Eanswyth's fears, the utter impossibility of any living
+being having approached her window without leaving spoor in the sandy,
+impressionable soil, would have rather the opposite tendency.  Once the
+idea got firmly rooted in her mind that the dead had appeared to her
+there was no foreseeing the limits of the gravity of the results.  And
+she had been rather depressed of late.  Very anxiously he re-entered the
+house to report the utter futility of his search.
+
+"At all events we'll soon make it impossible for you to get another
+_schrek_ in the same way, Mrs Carhayes," said the overseer cheerily.
+"We'll fasten the shutters up."
+
+It was long before the distressed, scared look faded from her eyes.
+"Eustace," she said--Bentley having judiciously left them together for a
+while--"When _you_ were--when I thought you dead--I wearied Heaven with
+prayers to allow me one glimpse of you again.  I had no fear then, but
+now--O God! it is _his_ spirit that I have seen."
+
+He tried to soothe her, to reassure her, and in a measure succeeded.  At
+last, to the surprise of himself and the overseer, she seemed to shake
+off her terror as suddenly as it had assailed her.  She was very
+foolish, she declared.  She would go to bed now, and not keep them up
+all night in that selfish manner.  And she actually did--refusing all
+offers on the part of Eustace or the overseer to remain in the sitting
+room in order to be within call, or to patrol around the house for the
+rest of the night.
+
+"No," she said, "I am ashamed of myself already.  The shutters are
+fastened up and I shall keep plenty of light burning.  I feel quite safe
+now."
+
+It was late next morning when Eanswyth appeared.  Thoroughly refreshed
+by a long, sound sleep, she had quite forgotten her fears.  Only as
+darkness drew on again a restless uneasiness came over her, but again
+she seemed to throw it off with an effort.  She seemed to have the
+faculty of pulling herself together by an effort of will--even as she
+had done that night beside the broken-down buggy, while listening for
+the approaching footsteps of their savage enemies in the darkness.  To
+Eustace's relief, however, nothing occurred to revive her uneasiness.
+
+But he himself, in his turn, was destined to receive a rude shock.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FORTY.
+
+A LETTER FROM HOSTE.
+
+There was no postal delivery at Swaanepoel's Hoek, nor was there any
+regular day for sending for the mails.  If anybody was driving or riding
+into Somerset East on business or pleasure, they would call at the post
+office and bring out whatever there was; or, if anything of greater or
+less importance was expected, a native servant would be despatched with
+a note to the postmaster.
+
+Bentley had just returned from the township, bringing with him a batch
+of letters.  Several fell to Eustace's share, all, more or less, of a
+business nature.  All, save one--and before he opened this he recognised
+Hoste's handwriting:
+
+  My Dear Milne (it began): This is going to be an important
+  communication.  So, before you go any further, you had better get into
+  some sequestered corner by yourself to read it, for it's going to
+  knock you out of time some, or I'm a Dutchman.
+
+"That's a shrewd idea on the part of Hoste putting in that caution," he
+said to himself.  "I should never have credited the chap with so much
+gumption."
+
+He was alone in the shearing-house when the overseer had handed him his
+letters.  His coat was off, and he was doing one or two odd carpentering
+jobs.  The time was about midday.  Nobody was likely to interrupt him
+here.
+
+  Something has come to my knowledge [went on the letter] which you, of
+  all men, ought to be the one to investigate.  To come to the point,
+  there is some reason to suppose that poor Tom Carhayes may still be
+  alive.
+
+  You remember that Kafir on whose behalf you interfered when Jackson
+  and a lot of fellows were giving him beans?  He is my informant.  He
+  began by inquiring for you, and when I told him you were far away, and
+  not likely to be up here again, he seemed disappointed, and said he
+  wanted to do you a good turn for standing his friend on that occasion.
+  He said he now knew who you were, and thought he could tell you
+  something you would like to know.
+
+  Well, I told him he had better unburden himself to me, and if his
+  information seemed likely to be of use, he might depend upon me
+  passing it on to you.  This, at first, he didn't seem to see--you know
+  what a suspicious dog our black brother habitually is--and took
+  himself off.  But the secret seemed to weigh upon him, for, in a day
+  or two, he turned up again, and then, in the course of a good deal of
+  "dark talking," he gave me to understand that Tom Carhayes was still
+  alive; and, in fact, he knew where he was.
+
+  Milne, you may just bet your boots I felt knocked all out of time.  I
+  hadn't the least suspicion what the fellow was driving at, at first.
+  Thought he was going to let out that he knew where old Kreli was
+  hiding, or Hlangani, perhaps.  So, you see, you must come up here at
+  once, and look into the matter.  I've arranged to send word to
+  Xalasa--that's the fellow's name--to meet us at Anta's Kloof directly
+  you arrive.
+
+  Don't lose any time.  Start the moment you get this.  Of course I've
+  kept the thing as dark as pitch; but there's no knowing when an affair
+  of this kind may not leak out and get into all the papers.
+
+  Kind regards to Mrs Carhayes--and keep this from her at present.
+
+  Yours ever, Percy F. Hoste.
+
+Carefully Eustace read through every word of this communication; then,
+beginning again, he read it through a second time.
+
+"This requires some thinking out," he said to himself.  Then taking up
+the letter he went out in search of some retired spot where it would be
+absolutely impossible that he should be interrupted.
+
+Wandering mechanically he found himself on the very spot where they had
+investigated the silver box together.  That would do.  No one would
+think of looking for him there.
+
+He took out the letter and again studied every word of it carefully.
+There was no getting behind its contents: they were too plain in their
+fatal simplicity.  And there was an inherent probability about the
+potentiality hinted at.  He would certainly start at once to investigate
+the affair.  Better to know the worst at any rate.  And then how
+heartily he cursed the Kafir's obtrusive gratitude, wishing a
+thousand-fold that he had left that sable bird of ill-omen at the mercy
+of his chastisers.  However, if there was any truth in the story, it was
+bound to have come to light sooner or later in any case--perhaps better
+now, before the mischief wrought was irreparable.  But if it should turn
+out to be true--what then?  Good-bye to this beautiful and idyllic dream
+in which they two had been living during all these months past.
+Good-bye to a life's happiness: to the bright golden vista they had been
+gazing into together.  Why had he not closed with Hlangani's hideous
+proposal long ago?  Was it too late even now?
+
+The man suffered agonies as he sat there, realising his shattered
+hopes--the fair and priceless structure of his life's happiness levelled
+to the earth like a house of cards.  Like Lucifer fallen from Paradise
+he felt ready for anything.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Great was Eanswyth's consternation and astonishment when he announced
+the necessity of making a start that afternoon.
+
+"The time will soon pass," he said.  "It is a horrible nuisance,
+darling, but there is no help for it.  The thing is too important.  The
+fact is, something has come to light--something which may settle that
+delayed administration business at once."
+
+It might, indeed, but in a way very different to that which he intended
+to convey.  But she was satisfied.
+
+"Do not remain away from me a moment longer than you can help, Eustace,
+my life!" she had whispered to him during the last farewell, she having
+walked a few hundred yards with him in order to see the last of him.
+"Remember, I shall only exist--not live--during these next few days.
+This is the first time you have been away from me since--since that
+awful time."
+
+Then had come the sweet, clinging, agonising tenderness of parting.
+Eanswyth, having watched him out of sight, returned slowly to the house,
+while he, starting upon his strange venture, was thinking in the
+bitterness of his soul how--when--they would meet again.  His heart was
+heavy with a sense of coming evil, and as he rode along his thoughts
+would recur again and again to the apparition which had so terrified
+Eanswyth a few nights ago.  Was it the product of a hallucination on her
+part after all, or was it the manifestation of some strange and dual
+phase of Nature, warning of the ill that was to come?  He felt almost
+inclined to admit the latter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FORTY ONE.
+
+XALASA'S REVELATION.
+
+"You ought to consider yourself uncommonly fortunate, Milne," said
+Hoste, as the two men drew near Anta's Kloof.  "You are the only one of
+the lot of us not burnt out."
+
+"That's a good deal thanks to Josane," replied Eustace, as the house
+came into sight.  "He thought he could manage to save it.  I didn't.
+But he was right."
+
+"Ha-ha!  I believe the old scamp has been enjoying himself all this time
+with the rebels.  I dare say he has been helping to do the faggot
+trick."
+
+"Quite likely."
+
+Hoste eyed his companion with a curious glance.  The latter had been
+rather laconic during their ride; otherwise he seemed to show no very
+great interest one way or another in the object of it.  Yet there was
+reason for believing that if Xalasa's tale should prove true it would
+make every difference to the whole of Eustace Milne's future life.
+
+The sun was just setting as they reached Anta's Kloof.  The Kafir had
+stipulated that they should meet him at night.  He did not want to incur
+potential pains and penalties at the hands of his compatriots as an
+"informer" if he could possibly help it.  The house, as Hoste had said,
+was the only one in the whole neighbourhood which had escaped the torch,
+but that was all that could be said, for it was completely gutted.
+Everything portable had been carried off, if likely to prove of any use
+to the marauders, what was not likely so to prove being smashed or
+otherwise destroyed.  Windows were broken and doors hung loose on their
+hinges; in fact, the place was a perfect wreck.  Still it was something
+that the fabric would not need rebuilding.
+
+Hardly had they off-saddled their horses, and, knee-haltering them
+close, turned them out to graze around the house, than the night fell.
+
+"Xalasa should be here by now," remarked Hoste, rather anxiously.
+"Unless he has thought better of it.  I always expected we should learn
+something more about poor Tom when the war was over.  Kafirs will talk.
+Not that I ever expected to hear that he was alive, poor chap--if he is,
+that's to say.  But what had been the actual method of his death: that
+was bound to leak out sooner or later."
+
+Eustace made no reply.  The remark irritated him, if only that his
+companion had made it, in one form or another, at least half a dozen
+times already.  Then the sound of a light footstep was heard, and a
+tall, dark figure stood before them in the gloom, with a muttered
+salutation.
+
+"Greeting, Xalasa!" said Eustace, handing the new arrival a large piece
+of Boer tobacco.  "We will smoke while we talk.  The taste of the
+fragrant plant is to conversation even as the oil unto the axles of a
+heavily laden waggon."
+
+The Kafir promptly filled his pipe.  The two white men did likewise.
+
+"Have you been in the war, Xalasa?" went on Eustace, when the pipes were
+in full blast.  "You need not be afraid of saying anything to us.  We
+are not Government people."
+
+"_Au_!" said the Gaika, with a quizzical grin upon his massive
+countenance.  "I am a `loyal,' Ixeshane."
+
+"The chiefs of the Ama Ngqika, Sandili and the rest of them, have acted
+like children," replied Eustace, with apparent irrelevance.  "They have
+allowed themselves to be dragged into war at the `word' of Kreli, and
+against the advice of their real friends, and where are they now?  In
+prison, with a lot of thieves and common criminals, threatened with the
+death of a dog!"
+
+The Kafir uttered an emphatic murmur of assent.  Hoste, who was
+excusably wondering what the deuce the recent bad behaviour, and
+eventual fate of Sandili and Co., had to do with that of Tom Carhayes,
+could hardly restrain his impatience.  But Eustace knew what he was
+about.  The Briton may, as he delights to boast, prefer plain and
+straightforward talking in matters of importance--or he may not.  The
+savage, of whatever race or clime, unequivocally does not.  He dearly
+loves what we should call beating around the bush.  However important
+the subject under discussion, it must be led up to.  To dash straight at
+the point is not his way.  So after some further talk on the prospects
+and politics of the Gaika nation, and of the Amaxosa race in general--
+past, present, and to come--Eustace went on:
+
+"You were not always a `loyal,' Xalasa?"
+
+"_Whau_!" cried the man, bringing his hand to his mouth, in expressive
+native fashion.  "When the fire trumpet first sounded in the midnight
+sky, I answered its call.  While the chiefs of the Ama Ngqika yet sat
+still, many of their children went forth to war at the `word' of the
+Paramount Chief.  Many of us crossed into the Gcaleka country and fought
+at the side of our brethren.  Many of us did not return.  _Hau_!"
+
+"Then you became a `loyal'?"
+
+"_Ihuvumente_ [The Government] was very strong.  We could not stand
+against it.  Ha!  _Amasoja_--_Amapolisi_--_bonke_.  [Soldiers--police--
+all] I thought of all the men who had crossed the Kei with me.  I
+thought of the few who had returned.  Then I thought, `Art thou a fool,
+Xalasa?  Is thy father's son an ox that he should give himself to be
+slain to make strength for Sarili's fighting men?'  _Hau_!  I came home
+again and resolved to `sit still.'"
+
+"But your eyes and ears were open among the Ama-Gcaleka.  They saw--they
+heard of my brother, Umlilwane?"
+
+"Thy brother, Umlilwane, was alive at the time the white _Amagcagca_
+[Rabble] knocked me down and kicked me.  He is alive still."
+
+"How do you know he is alive still?" said Eustace, mastering his voice
+with an effort, for his pulses were beating like a hammer as he hung
+upon the other's reply.  It came--cool, impassive, confident:
+
+"The people talk."
+
+"Where is he, Xalasa?"
+
+"Listen, Ixeshane," said the Kafir, glancing around and sinking his
+voice to an awed whisper.  "Where is he!  _Au!  Kwa 'Zinyoka_."
+
+"_Kwa 'Zinyoka_!  `The Home of the Serpents!'"  Well he remembered the
+jeering, but ominous, words of the hideous witch-doctress at the time
+his unfortunate cousin was being dragged away insensible under the
+directions of his implacable foe, Hlangani.  "_He will wake.  But he
+will never be seen again_."  And now this man's testimony seemed to bear
+out her words.
+
+"What is this `Home of the Serpents,' Xalasa?" he said.
+
+"_Au_!" returned the Kafir, after a thoughtful pause, and speaking in a
+low and apprehensive tone as a timid person in a haunted room might talk
+of ghosts.  "It is a fearsome place.  None who go there ever return--
+none--no, not one," he added, shaking his head.  "But they say your
+magic is great, Ixeshane.  It may be that you will find your brother
+alive.  The war is nearly over now, but the war leaves every man poor.
+I have lost all I possessed.  When you find your brother you will
+perhaps think Xalasa is a poor man, and I have too many cattle in my
+kraal.  I will send four or five cows to the man who told me my brother
+was alive."
+
+In his heart of hearts Eustace thought how willingly he would send him a
+hundred for precisely the opposite intelligence.
+
+"Where is `The Home of the Serpents'?" he said.
+
+"Where?  Who knows?  None save Ngcenika, who talks with the spirits.
+None save Hlangani, who rejoices in his revenge as he sees his enemy
+there, even the man who struck him, and drew the blood of the Great
+Chief's herald.  Who knows?  Not I.  Those who go there never return,"
+he added impressively, conveying the idea that in his particular
+instance "ignorance is bliss."
+
+Eustace's first instinct was one of relief.  If no one knew where the
+place was, clearly no one could tell.  Then it struck him that this
+rather tended to complicate matters than to simplify them.  There had
+been quite enough insinuated as to himself, and though guiltless as to
+his cousin's fate, yet once it got wind that the unfortunate man was
+probably alive somewhere, it would devolve upon himself to leave no
+stone unturned until that probability should become a certainty.  Public
+opinion would demand that much, and he knew the world far too well to
+make the blunder of treating public opinion, in a matter of this kind,
+as a negligeable quantity.
+
+"But if you don't know where the place is, Xalasa, how am I to find it?"
+he said at length.  "I would give much to the man who would guide me to
+it.  Think!  Is there no man you know of who could do so?"
+
+But the Kafir shook his head.  "There is none!" he said.  "None save
+Ngcenika.  _Whau_, Ixeshane!  Is not thy magic as powerful as hers?
+Will it not aid thee to find it?  Now I must go.  Where the `Home of the
+Serpents' is, thy brother is there.  That is all I can tell thee."
+
+He spoke hurriedly now and in an altered tone--even as a man who has
+said too much and is not free from misgiving as to the consequences.  He
+seemed anxious to depart, and seeing that nothing more was to be got out
+of him for the present, the two made no objection.
+
+Hardly had he departed than Josane appeared.  He had noted the arrival
+of Xalasa, though Xalasa was under the impression that he was many miles
+distant.  He had waited until the _amakosi_ [Literally "chiefs."  In
+this connection "masters"] had finished their _indaba_ [Talk] and here
+he was.  He was filled with delight at the sight of Ixeshane and his
+eyes felt good.  His "father" and his "friend" had been away for many
+moons, but now he was back again and the night was lighter than the day.
+His "father" could see, too, how he had kept his trust, the old man
+went on.  Where were the houses of all the other white _amakosi_!  Heaps
+of ashes.  The house of his "father" alone was standing--it alone the
+torch had passed by.  As for the destruction which had taken place
+within it, that could not be prevented.  The people "saw red."  It had
+taxed the utmost effort of himself and Ncanduku to preserve the house.
+Reft of hyperbole, his narrative was plain enough.  A marauding band had
+made a descent upon the place on the very night they had quitted it,
+and, although with difficulty dissuaded from burning it down, the
+savages had wrecked the furniture and looted the stores, as we have
+shown.  This, however, was comparatively a small evil.
+
+Hoste, wearied with all this talk, which moreover he understood but
+imperfectly, had waxed restive and strolled away.  No sooner was he out
+of earshot than Josane, sinking his voice, remarked suddenly:
+
+"Xalasa is a fool!"
+
+Eustace merely assented.  He saw that something was coming, and prepared
+to listen attentively.
+
+"Do you want to find Umlilwane?" went on the old Kafir with ever so
+slight an expression on the "want."
+
+"Of course I do," was the unhesitating reply.  But for the space of half
+a minute the white man and the savage gazed fixedly into each other's
+faces in the starlight.
+
+"_Au_!  If I had known that!" muttered Josane in a disappointed tone.
+"If I had known that, I could have told you all that Xalasa has--_could
+have told you many moons ago_."
+
+"You knew it, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And is it true--that--that he is alive now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But, Josane, how is it you kept your knowledge to yourself?  He might
+have been rescued all this time.  Now it may be too late."
+
+"_Whau_, Ixeshane!  Did _you_ want him rescued?" said the old fellow
+shrewdly.  "Did the _Inkosikazi_ want him rescued?"
+
+This was putting matters with uncomfortable plainness.  Eustace reddened
+in the darkness.
+
+"Whatever we `wanted,' or did not want, is nothing," he answered.  "This
+is a matter of life and death.  He must be rescued."
+
+"As you will," was the reply in a tone which implied that in the
+speaker's opinion the white man was a lunatic.  And from his point of
+view such was really the case.  The old savage was, in fact, following
+out a thoroughly virtuous line of conduct according to his lights.  All
+this while, in order to benefit the man he liked, he had coolly and
+deliberately been sacrificing the man he--well, did not like.
+
+"Where is `The Home of the Serpents,' Josane?  Do you know?"
+
+"Yes.  I know?"
+
+Eustace started.
+
+"Can you guide me to it?" he said, speaking quickly.
+
+"I can.  But it is a frightful place.  The bravest white man would take
+to his heels and run like a hunted buck before he had gone far inside.
+You have extraordinary nerve, Ixeshane--but--You will see."
+
+This sounded promising.  But the old man's tone was quiet and confident.
+He was not given to vapouring.
+
+"How do you know where to find this place, Josane?" said Eustace, half
+incredulously in spite of himself.  "Xalasa told us it was unknown to
+everybody--everybody but the witch-doctress?"
+
+"Xalasa was right.  I know where it is, because I have seen it.  _I was
+condemned to it_."
+
+"By Ngcenika?"
+
+"By Ngcenika.  But my revenge is coming--my sure revenge is coming,"
+muttered the old Gcaleka, crooning the words in a kind of ferocious
+refrain--like that of a war-song.
+
+As this juncture they were rejoined by Hoste.
+
+"Well, Milne," he said.  "Had enough _indaba_?  Because, if so, we may
+as well trek home again.  Seems to me we've had a lot of trouble for
+nothing and been made mortal fools of down to the ground by that
+_schelm_, Xalasa's, cock-and-bull yarns."
+
+"You're wrong this time," replied Eustace.  "Just listen here a while
+and you'll see that we're thoroughly on the right scent."
+
+At the end of half an hour the Kafir and the two white men arose.  Their
+plans were laid.  The following evening--at sundown--was the time fixed
+on as that for starting upon their perilous and somewhat dimly
+mysterious mission.
+
+"You are sure three of us will be enough, Josane?" said Hoste.
+
+"Quite enough.  There are still bands of the Gcaleka fighting men in the
+forest country.  If we go in a strong party they will discover us and we
+shall have to fight--_Au_!  `A fight is as the air we breathe,' you will
+say, _Amakosi_," parenthesised the old Kafir, whimsically--"But it will
+not help us to find `The Home of the Serpents.'  Still, there would be
+no harm in having one more in the party."
+
+"Who can we get?" mused Hoste.  "There's George Payne; but he's away
+down in the Colony--Grahamstown, I believe.  It would take him days to
+get here and even then he might cry off.  I have it; Shelton's the man,
+and I think he'll go, too.  Depend upon it, Milne, Shelton's the very
+man.  He's on his farm now--living in a Kafir hut, seeing after the
+rebuilding of his old house.  We'll look him up this very night; we can
+get there in a couple of hours."
+
+This was agreed to, and having arranged where Josane was to meet them
+the following evening, the two men saddled up and rode off into the
+darkness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FORTY TWO.
+
+THE SEARCH PARTY.
+
+Midwinter as it was, the heat in the valley of the Bashi that morning
+was something to remember.
+
+Not so much the heat as an extraordinary closeness and sense of
+oppression in the atmosphere.  As the sun rose, mounting higher and
+higher into the clear blue of the heavens, it seemed that all his rays
+were concentrated and focussed down into this broad deep valley, whose
+sides were broken up into a grand panorama of soaring krantzes and wild
+rocky gorges, which latter, as also the great terraced slopes, were
+covered with dense forest, where the huge and spreading yellow-wood, all
+dangling with monkey trailers, alternated with the wild fig and the
+mimosa, the _spekboem_ scrub and the _waacht-een-bietje_ thorn, the
+spiky aloe and the plumed euphorbia, and where, in the cool dank shade,
+flourished many a rare orchid, beginning to show sign of blossoming,
+winter as it was.
+
+But the four men riding there, making a path for themselves through this
+well-nigh virgin forest, had little thought to give to the beauties of
+Nature.  Seriousness and anxiety was absent from none of those
+countenances.  For to-day would see the object of their quest attained.
+
+So far their expedition had been in no wise unattended by danger.  Four
+men would be a mere mouthful if discovered by any of the scattered bands
+of the enemy, who still roamed the country in its wildest and most
+rugged parts.  The ferocity of these savages, stimulated by a sullen but
+vengeful consciousness of defeat, would render them doubly formidable.
+Four men constituted a mere handful.  So the party had travelled by
+circuitous ways, only advancing at night, and lying hidden during the
+daytime in the most retired and sequestered spots.  Twice from such
+judicious hiding places had they espied considerable bodies of the enemy
+marching northward, and two or three times, patrols, or armed forces of
+their own countrymen.  But these they were almost as careful to avoid as
+the savage Gcalekas.  Four men advancing into the hostile country was an
+uncommon sight.  They did not want their expedition talked about, even
+among their own countrymen, just yet.  And now they were within two
+hours of the object of their search.
+
+The dangers they had gone through, and those which were yet to come,
+were courted, be it remembered, not in search of treasure or riches, not
+even out of love of adventure.  They were braved in order to rescue a
+friend and comrade from an unknown fate, whose mysteriousness was
+enhanced by vague hints at undefined horrors, on the part of the only
+man qualified to speak, viz., their guide.
+
+For Josane had proved extraordinarily reticent as to details; and all
+attempts to draw him out during their journey had failed.  As they drew
+near the dreaded spot this reticence had deepened to a remarkable
+degree.  The old Gcaleka displayed an ominous taciturnity, a gloom even,
+which was in no degree calculated to raise the spirits of the three
+white men.  Even Eustace failed to elicit from him any definite facts.
+He had been "smelt out" and condemned to "the Home of the Serpents" and
+had escaped while being taken into it, and to do this he had almost had
+to fly through the air.  But the place would try their nerves to the
+uttermost; of that he warned them.  Then he would subside again into
+silence, regardless of any further attempt to "draw" him.
+
+There was one of the party whose motives, judged by ordinary human
+standards, were little short of heroic, and that one was Eustace Milne.
+He had nothing to gain by the present undertaking, nor had the others.
+But then they had nothing to lose by it except their lives, whereas he
+had not only that but everything that made life worth living into the
+bargain.  Again and again he found himself cursing Xalasa's "gratitude,"
+from the very depths of his soul.  Yet never for a moment did he swerve
+in his resolve to save his unfortunate cousin if the thing were to be
+done, although there were times when he marvelled over himself as a
+strange and unaccountable paradox.  A silence was upon them all, as they
+moved at a foot's pace through the dense and jungly tangle, mounting
+ever upwards.  After an hour of this travelling they had reached a
+considerable height.  Here in a sequestered glade Josane called a halt.
+
+"We must leave the horses," he said.  "It is impossible to take them
+where we are going.  _Whau_!" he went on, looking upwards and snuffing
+the air like a stag.  "There will be plenty of thunder by and by.  We
+have no time to lose."
+
+Taking with them a long twisted rawhide rope, of amazing strength, which
+might be necessary for climbing purposes, and a few smaller _reims_,
+together with a day's provisions, and every available cartridge, they
+started on foot, Josane leading the way.  Each was armed with a double
+gun--one barrel rifled--and a revolver.  The Gcaleka carried three
+small-bladed casting assegais, and a broad headed, close-quarter one, as
+well as a kerrie.
+
+They had struck into a narrow gorge in the side of the hill.  It was
+hard work making any headway at all.  The dense bush, intertwined with
+creepers, met them in places in an unbroken wall, but Josane would hack
+away manfully with his broad-bladed assegai until he succeeded in
+forcing a way.
+
+"It seems as if we were going to storm the devil's castle," said
+Shelton, sitting down to wipe his streaming brow.  "It's hot enough
+anyway."
+
+"Rather," assented Hoste.  "Milne, old chap, how do you feel?"
+
+"Headachy.  There's a power of thunder sticking out--as Josane says--
+against when we get out."
+
+"If we ever do get out."
+
+"That's cheerful.  Well, if we mean to get in, I suppose we'd better
+make a move?  Eh, Josane!"  The Kafir emphatically agreed.  He had
+witnessed their dilatoriness not without concern.  He appeared strangely
+eager to get the thing over--contrary to the habits of his kind, for
+savages, of whatever race, are never in a hurry.  A line of rocky
+boulders in front, thickly grown with straight stemmed euphorbia, stiff
+and regular like the pipes of an organ, precluded any view of the sort
+of formation that lay beyond.  Right across their path, if path it might
+be called, rose another impenetrable wall of thorns and creepers.  In
+front of this Josane halted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FORTY THREE.
+
+"KWA 'ZINYOKA."
+
+The brooding, oppressive stillness deepened.  Not a breath of air
+stirred the sprays of the bush, which slept motionless as though carved
+in stone.  Even the very bird voices were hushed.  Far below, the sound
+of the river, flowing over its long stony reaches, came upwards in
+plaintive monotonous murmur.
+
+All of a sudden Josane turned.  He sent one keen searching glance
+straight in front of him, and another from side to side.
+
+"The Home of the Serpents is a horrible place," he said.  "I have warned
+you that it is so.  It is not too late now.  The _Amakosi_ can yet turn
+back."
+
+The awed solemnity of his tone could not fail to impress his hearers,
+especially two of them.  The boding sense of oppression in the
+atmosphere, the utter wildness of the surroundings, the uneasy,
+mysterious nature of their quest, and the tall gaunt figure of the old
+Kafir standing in the semi-gloom beneath the funereal plumes of the
+straight stemmed euphorbia, like an oracle of misfortune--all this
+affected the imagination of two, at any rate, of these ordinarily
+hard-headed and practical men in a fashion they could scarcely have
+deemed possible.  The third, however, was impervious to such influences.
+There was too much involved in the material side of the undertaking.
+No thought had he to spare apart from this; no scope was there for
+giving free rein to his imagination.
+
+"I think I may say we none of us have the slightest idea of turning
+back!" he answered.
+
+"Certainly not," assented the other two.
+
+Josane looked fixedly at them for a moment.  Then he said:
+
+"It is good.  Follow me--carefully, carefully.  We do not want to leave
+a broad spoor."
+
+The undergrowth among the straight stiff stems of the euphorbia looked
+dense and impenetrable as a wall.  To the astonishment of the
+spectators, the old Kafir lay flat on his stomach, lifted the dense
+tangle just enough to admit the passage of his body, for all the world
+as though he were lifting a heavy curtain, and slipped through.
+
+"Come," he whispered from the other side, for he had completely
+disappeared from view.  "Come--as I did.  But do not rend the bushes
+more than is absolutely necessary."
+
+They followed, worming their way in the same fashion about a dozen
+yards.  Then an ejaculation of amazement, not unmixed with alarm, broke
+from the lips of Shelton, who was leading.  It found an echo on those of
+the other two.  Their first instinct was to draw back.
+
+They had emerged upon a narrow ledge, not of rock, or even earth; a
+narrow ledge of soft, yielding, quaking moss.  And it overhung what had
+the appearance of a huge natural well.
+
+It literally overhung.  By peering cautiously outward they could see a
+smooth perpendicular wall of red rock falling sheer and straight to a
+depth of nearly two hundred feet.  Three sides of the hollow--itself not
+that distance in width--were similarly constituted, the fourth being a
+precipitous, well-nigh perpendicular slope, with a sparse growth of
+stunted bushes jotting its rugged sides.  A strange, gruesome looking
+hole, whose dismal depths showed not the smallest sign of life.  Could
+this be the awesome, mysterious "Home of the Serpents?"
+
+But Josane's next words disabused them on this point.
+
+"Tarry not," he said.  "Follow me.  Do even as I do."
+
+Right to the brink of this horrible abyss the bush grew in a dense
+jungly wall, and it was the roots of this, overgrown with an
+accumulation of moss and soil, that constituted the apology for a ledge
+along which they were expected to make their way.  And there was a
+distance of at least sixty or seventy yards of this precarious footway,
+to miss which would mean a certain and terrible death.
+
+It would have been something of an ordeal even had the foothold been
+firm.  Now, however, as they made their way along this quivering,
+quaking, ladder-like pathway of projecting roots interleaved with
+treacherous moss, not one of the three was altogether free from a
+nervous and shaky sensation about the knees as he moved slowly forward,
+selecting the strongest-looking stems for hand-hold.  Once a root
+whereon Hoste had put his foot gave way with a muffled crack, letting
+his leg through the fearful pathway up to the thigh.  An involuntary cry
+escaped him as, grasping a stem above him, he drew it forth with a
+supreme effort, and his brown visage assumed a hue a good many shades
+paler, as through the hole thus made he contemplated a little cloud of
+leaves and sticks swirling away into the abyss.
+
+"Great Heaven!" he ejaculated.  "Are we never coming to the end of this
+ghastly place?"
+
+"How would you like to cross it running at full speed, like a monkey, as
+I was forced to do?  I told you I had to fly through the air," muttered
+Josane, who had overheard.  "The horror of it has only just begun--just
+begun.  _Hau_!  Did I not say it was going to be a horrible place?"
+
+But they were destined to reach the end of it without mishap, and right
+glad were they to find themselves crawling along a narrow ledge overhung
+by a great rock, still skirting the abyss, but at any rate there was
+hard ground under them; not a mere shaky network of more or less rotten
+roots.
+
+"Is this the only way, Josane?" said Eustace at length, as they paused
+for a few minutes to recover breath, and, truth to say, to steady their
+nerves a trifle.  Even he put the question with some diffidence, for as
+they drew nearer and nearer to the locality of their weird quest the old
+Gcaleka's manner had undergone a still further change.  He had become
+morose and taciturn, gloomy and abstracted to a degree.
+
+"It is not," he answered.  "It is the only way I know.  When I came here
+my eyes were shut; when I went away they were open.  Then I approached
+it from above; now we have approached from below.  The way by which I
+left, is the way you have seen."
+
+"O Lord!  I wouldn't travel the last infernal hundred yards again for a
+thousand pounds," muttered Hoste ruefully.  "And now, I've got to do it
+again for nothing.  I'd sooner run the gauntlet of the whole Gcaleka
+tribe, as we did before."
+
+"We may have to do that as well," remarked Shelton.  "But I think I
+never did see such an utterly dismal and God-forsaken corner in my life.
+Looks as if Old Nick had built it out of sheer devilment."
+
+There was reason in what he said.  The immense funnel-like hole seemed
+an extraordinary caprice of Nature.  Nothing grew at the bottom but
+coarse herbage and a few stunted bushes.  It seemed absolutely lacking
+in _raison d'etre_.  Occurring at the top of a mountain, it would at
+once have suggested an ancient crater.  Occurring, as it did, in solid
+ground on the steep slope of a lofty river bank that theory seemed not
+to hold good.  On all sides, save the narrow defile they had come
+through, it was shut in by lofty wooded heights breaking here and there
+into a red iron-stone cliff.
+
+Their guide resumed his way, advancing in a listening attitude, and with
+intense caution.  The ledge upon which they crept, now on all-fours,
+widened considerably.  The projecting rock overhead jutted out further
+and further, till it overhung the abyss for a considerable distance.
+Beneath its shade they were already in semi-gloom.  Crawling along,
+toilsomely, laboriously, one behind the other, each man with all his
+senses, all his faculties, on the alert, the fact that their guide had
+stopped came upon them as a surprise.  Then, as they joined him, and
+crouched there side by side--each man's heart beat quicker, each man's
+face slightly changed colour.  For the overhanging rock had heightened--
+the ledge had widened to an area of fifteen or twenty feet.  Flooring
+and rock-roof no longer met.  At the bottom of this area, both yawned
+away from each other in a black horizontal rift.
+
+Save through this rift there was no getting any further.  Quickly each
+mind grasped the solution.  The cave yawning in front of them was--
+
+"Where does that hole lead to, Josane?" said Hoste.
+
+"_Kwa 'zinyoka_," replied the Gcaleka, impressively.
+
+Such creatures are we of the light and air, that it is safe to assert
+that not even the boldest among us can undertake the most cursory
+exploration into the bowels of the earth without a consciousness of ever
+so slight a sobering influence, a kind of misgiving begotten of the idea
+of darkness and weight--a feeling as though the cavern roof might crush
+down upon us, and bury us there throughout the aeons of eternity.  It is
+not surprising, therefore, that our three friends--all men of tried
+courage--should sit down for a few minutes, and contemplate this yawning
+black hole in dubious silence.
+
+It was no reflection on their courage, either.  They had just dared and
+surmounted a peril trying and frightful enough to tax the strongest
+nerves--and now before them lay the entrance to an unknown _inferno_; a
+place bristling with grim and mysterious terrors such as even their
+stout-hearted guide--the only man who knew what they were--recoiled from
+braving again.  They could hardly believe that the friend and
+fellow-countrymen, whom all these months they had reckoned among the
+slain, lay near them within that fearful place, alive, and perchance
+unharmed.  It might be, however, that the cavern before them was but a
+tunnel, leading to some hidden and inaccessible retreat like the curious
+crater-like hollow they had just skirted.
+
+"_Au_!" exclaimed Josane, with a dissatisfied shake of the head.  "We
+cannot afford to _sleep_ here.  If we intend to go in we must do so at
+once."
+
+There was reason in this.  Their preparations were simple enough--and
+consisted in seeing that their weapons were in perfect readiness.
+Eustace, too, had lighted a strong bull's-eye lantern with a closing
+slide.  Besides this, each man was plentifully supplied with candles,
+which, however, it was decided, should only be used if a quantity of
+light became absolutely necessary.
+
+Be it remembered not one of the three white men had other than the
+vaguest idea of the nature of the horrors which this gruesome place
+might disclose.  Whether through motives of superstition or from
+whatever cause, Josane had hitherto preserved a remarkable silence on
+the subject.  Now he said, significantly:
+
+"Hear my words, Amakosi.  Tread one behind the other, _and look neither
+to the right nor to the left, nor above.  But look where you place your
+steps, and look carefully_.  Remember my words, for I know that of which
+I speak."
+
+They compared their watches.  It was just half-past one.  They sent a
+last long look at the sky and the surrounding heights.  As they did so
+there rolled forth upon the heavy air a long, low boom of distant
+thunder.  Then they fell into their places and entered the cavern, the
+same unspoken thought in each man's mind--Would they ever behold the
+fair light of day again?
+
+And the distant, muttering thunder peal, hoarse, heavy, sullen, breaking
+upon the sultry air, at the moment when they left the outer world,
+struck them as an omen--the menacing voice of outraged Nature booming
+the knell of those who had the temerity to seek to penetrate her
+innermost mysteries.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.
+
+INFERNO.
+
+For the first forty yards the roof of the cave was so low that they had
+to advance in a stooping posture.  Then it heightened and the tunnel
+widened out simultaneously.  Eustace led the way, his bull's-eye lantern
+strapped around him, throwing a wide disk of yellow light in front.
+Behind him, but keeping a hand on his shoulder in order to guide him,
+walked Josane; the other two following in single file.
+
+A turn of the way had shut out the light from the entrance.  Eustace
+closing the slide of the lantern for a moment, they were in black,
+pitchy darkness.
+
+A perceptible current of air blew into the cavern.  That looked as if
+there should be an outlet somewhere.  Old Josane, while enjoining
+silence upon the rest of the party, had, from the moment they had
+entered, struck up a low, weird, crooning song, which sounded like an
+incantation.  Soon a glimmer of light showed just in front.
+
+"That is the other way in," muttered old Josane.  "That is the way I
+came in.  The other is the way I came out.  _Hau_!"
+
+An opening now became apparent--a steep, rock shaft, reaching away into
+the outer air.  It seemed to take one or more turnings in its upward
+passage, for the sky was not visible, and the light only travelled down
+in a dim, chastened glimmer as though it was intercepted in its course.
+An examination of this extraordinary feature revealed the fact that it
+was a kind of natural staircase.
+
+"This is the way I came in.  Ha!" muttered Josane again, with a glare of
+resentment in his eyes as though recalling to mind some particularly
+ignominious treatment--as he narrowly scrutinised the slippery, rocky
+sides of the shaft.
+
+"I suppose it'll be the best way for us to get out," said Hoste.
+"Anything rather than that devil of a scramble again."
+
+"The time to talk of getting out is not yet," rejoined the Kafir drily.
+"We are not _in_ yet."
+
+They resumed their way.  As they penetrated deeper, the cavern suddenly
+slanted abruptly upwards.  This continued for some twenty or thirty
+yards, when again the floor became level, though ever with a slight
+upward bend.  Great slabs of rock projected from the sides, but the
+width of the tunnel varied little, ranging between six and ten yards.
+The same held good of its height.
+
+As they advanced they noticed that the current of air was no longer
+felt.  An extraordinary foetid and overpowering atmosphere had taken its
+place.  Similarly the floor and sides of the cavern, which before they
+reached the outlet had been moist and humid, now became dry and firm.
+
+"Hand us your flask, Shelton," said Hoste.  "Upon my soul I feel as if I
+was going to faint.  Faugh!"
+
+The odour was becoming more and more sickening with every step.  Musky,
+rank, acreous--it might almost be felt.  Each man required a pull at
+something invigorating, if only to neutralise the inhalation of so
+pestilential an atmosphere.  Smoking was suggested, but this Josane
+firmly tabooed.
+
+"It cannot be," he said.  "It would be madness.  Remember my words,
+_Amakosi.  Look neither to the right nor to the left_--_only straight in
+front of you, where you set down your steps_."
+
+Then he resumed his strange wild chant, now sinking it to an awe-struck
+whisper hardly above his breath.  It was a weird, uncanny sight, those
+four shadowy figures advancing through the thick black darkness, the
+fiery eye of the lantern darting forth its luminous column in front,
+while the deep-toned, long-drawn notes of the wild, heathenish _rune_
+died away in whispering echoes overhead.
+
+"Oh! good Lord!  Look at that!"
+
+The cry broke from Shelton.  All started, so great was the state of
+tension that their nerves were undergoing.  Following his glance they
+promptly discovered what it was that had evoked it.
+
+Lying upon a great slab of rock, about on a level with their chests, was
+an enormous puff-adder.  The bloated proportions of the hideous reptile
+were disposed in a sinuous coil--shadowy, repulsive to the last degree,
+in the light of the lantern.  A shudder ran through every one of the
+three white men.
+
+"Quick, Josane.  Hand me one of your kerries," said Shelton.  "I can get
+a whack at him now."
+
+But the Kafir, peremptorily, almost angrily refused.
+
+"Why did you not listen to my words?" he said.  "Look neither to the
+right nor to the left, was what I told you.  Then you would have seen
+nothing.  Now let us move on."
+
+But Shelton and Hoste stood, irresolutely staring at the horrid reptile
+as though half fascinated.  It--as if resenting the intrusion--began to
+unwind its sluggish folds, and raising its head, emitted a low, warning
+hiss, at the same time blowing itself out with a sound as of a pair of
+bellows collapsing, after the fashion which has gained for this most
+repulsive of all serpents its distinctive name.
+
+"You must not kill it," repeated the Kafir, in a tone almost of command.
+"This is `The Home of the Serpents,' remember.  Did I not warn you?"
+
+They saw that he was deadly in earnest.  Here in this horrible den,
+right in the heart of the earth, the dark-skinned, superstitious savage
+seemed the one to command.  It was perhaps remarkable that no thought of
+disobeying him entered the mind of any one of the three white men; still
+more so, that no resentment entered in either.  They resumed their way
+without a murmur; not, however, without some furtive glances behind, as
+though dreading an attack on the part of the deadly reptile they were
+leaving in their rear.  More than once they thought to detect the sound
+of that slow, crawling glide--to discern an indistinct and sinuous
+shadow moving in the subdued light.
+
+"This is `The Home of the Serpents'!" chanted Josane, taking up once
+more his weird refrain.
+
+"This is The Home of the Serpents, the abode of the Spirit-dead.  O
+_Inyoka 'Nkulu_ [Great Serpent] do us no hurt!  O Snake of Snakes, harm
+us not!
+
+"The shades of thy home are blacker than blackest night.
+
+"We tread the dark shades of thy home in search of the white man's
+friend.
+
+"Give us back the white man's friend, so may we depart in peace--
+
+"In peace from The Home of the Serpents, the abode of the Spirit-dead.
+
+"Into light from the awe-dealing gloom, where the shades of our fathers
+creep.
+
+"So may we return to the daylight in safety with him whom we seek.
+
+  "Harm us not,
+  O Snake of snakes!
+  Do us no hurt,
+  O _Inyoka 'Nkulu_!"
+
+The drawn out notes of this lugubrious refrain were uttered with a
+strange, low, concentrative emphasis which was indescribably thrilling.
+Eustace, the only one of the party who thoroughly grasped its burden,
+felt curiously affected by it.  The species of devil worship implied in
+the heathenish invocation communicated its influence to himself.  His
+spirits, up till now depressed and burdened as with a weight of brooding
+evil, seemed to rise to an extraordinary pitch of exaltation, as though
+rejoicing at the prospect of prompt admission into strange mysteries.
+Far otherwise, however, were the other two affected by the surroundings.
+Indeed, it is by no means certain that had their own inclinations been
+the sole guide in the matter, they would there and then have turned
+round and beat a hasty and ignominious retreat, leaving Tom Carhayes and
+his potential fate to the investigation of some more enterprising party.
+
+The atmosphere grew more foetid and pestilential.  Suddenly the cavern
+widened out.  Great slabs of rock jutted horizontally from the sides,
+sometimes so nearly meeting that there was only just room to pass in
+single file between.  Then a low cry of horror escaped the three white
+men.  They stopped short, as though they had encountered a row of fixed
+bayonets, and some, at any rate, of the party were conscious of the very
+hair on their heads standing erect.
+
+For, lying about upon the rock slabs were numbers of shadowy, sinuous
+shapes, similar to the one they had just disturbed.  Some were lying
+apart, some were coiled up together in a heaving, revolting mass.  As
+the light of the lantern flashed upon them, they began to move.  The
+hideous coils began to separate, gliding apart, head erect, and hissing
+till the whole area of the grisly cavern seemed alive with writhing,
+hissing serpents.  Turn the light which way they would, there were the
+same great wriggling coils, the same frightful heads.  Many, hitherto
+unseen, were pouring their loathsome, gliding shapes down the rocks
+overhead, and the dull, dragging heavy sound, as the horrible reptiles
+crawled over the hard and stony surface, mingled with that of strident
+hissing.  What a sight to come upon in the heart of the earth!
+
+It is safe to assert that no object in Nature is held in more utter and
+universal detestation by man than the serpent.  And here were these men
+penned up within an underground cave in the very heart of the earth,
+with scores, if not hundreds, of these frightful and most deadly
+reptiles--some too, of abnormal size--around them; all on the move, and
+so near that it was as much as they could do to avoid actual contact.
+Small wonder that their flesh should creep and that every drop of blood
+should seem to curdle within their veins.  It was a position to recur to
+a man in his dreams until his dying day.
+
+"Oh, I can't stand any more of this," said Hoste, who was walking last.
+"Hang it.  Anything above ground, you know--but this--!  Faugh!  We've
+got no show at all.  Ugh-h!"
+
+Something cold had come in contact with his hand.  He started violently.
+But it was only the clammy surface of a projecting rock.
+
+And now the whole of the gloomy chamber resounded with shrill and angry
+hissing, as the disturbed reptiles glided hither and thither--was alive
+with waving necks and distended jaws, glimpsed shadowy on the confines
+of the disk of light which shot into the remote corners of the frightful
+den.  Curiously enough, not one of the serpents seemed to be lying in
+the pathway itself.  All were on the ledges of rock which bordered it.
+
+"Keep silence and follow close on my steps," said Josane shortly.  Then
+he raised his voice and threw a marvellously strange, soft melodiousness
+into the weird song, which he had never ceased to chant.  Eustace, who
+was the first to recover to some extent his self-possession, and who
+took in the state of affairs, now joined in with a low, clear, whistling
+accompaniment.  The effect was extraordinary.  The writhing contortions
+of the reptiles ceased with a suddenness little short of magical.  With
+heads raised and a slight waving motion of the neck they listened,
+apparently entranced.  It was a wonderful sight, terrible in its weird
+ghastliness--that swarm of deadly serpents held thus spell-bound by the
+eerie barbaric music.  It really looked as though there was more than
+met the eye in that heathenish adjuration as they walked unharmed
+through the deadly reptiles to the refrain of the long-drawn, lugubrious
+chant.
+
+  "Harm us not,
+  O Snake of Snakes!
+  Do us no hurt,
+  _O Inyoka 'Nkulu_!"
+
+  Thus they passed through that fearful chamber, sometimes within a
+  couple
+  of yards of two or three serpents lying on a level with their faces.
+  Once it was all that even Eustace, the self-possessed, could do to
+  keep
+  himself from ducking violently as the head of a huge puff-adder
+  noiselessly shot up horribly close to his ear, and a very marked
+  quaver
+  came into his whistling notes.
+
+  As the cavern narrowed to its former tunnel-like dimensions the
+  serpents
+  grew perceptibly scarcer.  One or two would be seen to wriggle away,
+  here
+  and there; then no more were met with.  The sickening closeness of the
+  air still continued, and now this stood amply accounted for.  It was
+  due
+  to the foetid exhalations produced by this mass of noisome reptiles
+  congregated within a confined space far removed from the outer air.
+
+  "Faugh!" ejaculated Hoste.  "Thank Heaven these awful brutes seem to
+  have
+  grown scarce again.  Shall we have to go back through them, Josane?"
+
+  "It is not yet time to talk of going back," was the grim reply.  Then
+  he
+  had hardly resumed his magic song before he broke it off abruptly.  At
+  the same time the others started, and their faces blanched in the
+  semi-darkness.
+
+  For, out of the black gloom in front of them, not very far in front
+  either, there burst forth such a frightful diabolical howl as ever
+  curdled the heart's blood of an appalled listener.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FORTY FIVE.
+
+A FEARFUL DISCOVERY.
+
+They stood there, turned to stone.  They stood there, strong men as they
+were, their flesh creeping with horror.  The awful sound was succeeded
+by a moment of silence, then it burst forth again and again, the grim
+subterraneous walls echoing back its horrible import in ear-splitting
+reverberation.  It sounded hardly human in its mingled intonation of
+frenzied ferocity and blind despair.  It might have been the shriek of a
+lost soul, struggling in the grasp of fiends on the brink of the
+nethermost pit.
+
+"Advance now, cautiously, _amakosi_," said Josane.  "Look where you are
+stepping or you may fall far.  Keep your candles ready to light.  The
+Home of the Serpents is a horrible place.  There is no end to its
+terrors.  Be prepared to tread carefully."
+
+His warning was by no means superfluous.  The ground ended abruptly
+across their path.  Suddenly, shooting up, as it were, beneath their
+very feet, pealed forth again that frightful, blood-curdling yell.
+
+It was awful.  Starting backward a pace or two, the perspiration pouring
+from their foreheads, they stood and listened.  On the Kafir no such
+impression had the incident effected.  He understood the position in all
+its grim significance.
+
+"Look down," he said, meaningly.  "Look down, _amakosi_."
+
+They did so.  Before them yawned an irregular circular hole or pit,
+about thirty feet deep by the same in diameter.  The sides were smooth
+and perpendicular; indeed, slightly overhanging from the side on which
+they stood.  Opposite, the glistening surface of the rock rose into a
+dome.  But with this hole the cavern abruptly ended, the main part of
+it, that is, for a narrow cleft or "gallery" branched off abruptly at
+right angles.  From this pit arose such a horrible effluvium that the
+explorers recoiled in disgust.
+
+"Look down.  Look down," repeated Josane.
+
+The luminous disk from the lantern swept round the pit.  Upon its nearly
+level floor crawled the loathsome, wriggling shapes of several great
+serpents.  Human skulls strewn about, grinned hideously upwards, and the
+whole floor of this ghastly hell-pit seemed literally carpeted with a
+crackling layer of pulverised bones.  But the most awful sight of all
+was yet to come.
+
+Gathered in a heap, like a huge squatting toad, crouched a human figure.
+Human?  Could it be?  Ah! it had been once.  Nearly naked, save for a
+few squalid rags black with filth, this fearful object, framed within
+the brilliantly defined circle of the bull's-eye, looked anything but
+human.  The head and face were one mass of hair, and the long, bushy,
+tangled beard screening almost the whole body in its crouching attitude
+imparted to the creature the appearance of a head alone, supported on
+two hairy, ape-like arms, half man, half tarantula.  The eyes were
+glaring and blinking in the light with mingled frenzy and terror, and
+the mouth was never still for a moment.  What a sight the grizzly
+denizen of that appalling hell-pit--crouching there, mopping and mowing
+among the gliding, noisome reptiles, among the indescribable filth and
+the grinning human skulls!  No wonder that the spectators stood
+spell-bound, powerless, with a nerveless, unconquerable repulsion.
+
+Suddenly the creature opened its mouth wide and emitted that fearful
+demoniacal howl which had frozen their blood but a few moments back.
+Then leaping to its feet, it made a series of desperate springs in its
+efforts to get at them.  Indeed it was surprising the height to which
+these springs carried it, each failure being signalled by that
+blood-curdling yell.  Once it fell back upon a serpent.  The reptile,
+with a shrill hiss, struck the offending leg.  But upon the demoniac
+those deadly fangs seemed to produce no impression whatever.  Realising
+the futility of attempting to reach them, the creature sank back into a
+corner, gathering itself together, and working its features in wild
+convulsions.  Then followed a silence--a silence in its way almost as
+horrible as the frightful shrieks which had previously broken it.
+
+The spectators looked at each other with ashy faces.  Heavens! could
+this fearful thing ever have been a man--a man with intellect and a
+soul--a man stamped with the image of his maker?
+
+"He is the last, _Amakosi_," said the grave voice of Josane.  "He is the
+last, but not the first.  There have been others before him,"
+designating the skulls which lay scattered about.  "Soon he will be even
+as they--as I should have been had I not escaped by a quick stroke of
+luck."
+
+"Great Heaven, Josane!  Who is he?" burst from the horror-stricken lips
+of Shelton and Hoste simultaneously.  Eustace said nothing, for at that
+moment as he gazed down upon the mouldering skulls, there came back to
+him vividly the witch-doctress's words, "They who look upon `The Home of
+the Serpents' are seen no more in life."  Well did he understand them
+now.
+
+"The man whom you seek," was the grave reply.  "He whom the people call
+Umlilwane."
+
+An ejaculation of horror again greeted the Kafir's words.  This awful
+travesty, this wreck of humanity, that this should be Tom Carhayes!  It
+was scarcely credible.  What a fate!  Better had he met his death, even
+amid torture, at the time they had supposed, than be spared for such an
+end as this.
+
+Then amid the deep silence and consternation of pity which this
+lugubrious and lamentable discovery evoked, there followed an intense, a
+burning desire for vengeance upon the perpetrators of this outrage; and
+this feeling found its first vent in words.  Josane shook his head.
+
+"It might be done," he muttered.  "It might be done.  Are you prepared
+to spend several days in here, _Amakosi_?"
+
+This was introducing a new feature into the affair--the fact being that
+each of the three white men was labouring under a consuming desire to
+find himself outside the horrible hole once more--again beneath the
+broad light of day.  It was in very dubious tones, therefore, that
+Shelton solicited an explanation.
+
+"Even a maniac must eat and drink," answered Josane.  "Those who keep
+Umlilwane here do not wish him to die--"
+
+"You mean that some one comes here periodically to bring him food?"
+
+"_Ewa_."
+
+"But it may not be the persons who put him here; only some one sent by
+them," they objected.
+
+"This place is not known to all the Gcaleka nation," said Josane.
+"There are but two persons known to me who would dare to come within a
+distance of it.  Those are Ngcenika, the witch-doctress, and Hlangani,
+who is half a witch-doctor himself."
+
+"By lying in wait for them we might capture or shoot one or both of them
+when they come to bring the poor devil his food, eh, Josane?" said
+Shelton.  "When are they likely to come?"
+
+"It may not be for days.  But there is another side to that plan.  What
+if they should have discovered that we are in here and decide to lie in
+wait for us?"
+
+"Oh, by Jove!  That certainly is a reverse side to the medal," cried
+Hoste, with a long whistle of dismay.  And indeed the idea of two such
+formidable enemies as the redoubted Gcaleka warrior and the ferocious
+witch-doctress lurking in such wise as to hold them entirely at their
+mercy was not a pleasant one.  There was hardly a yard of the way where
+one determined adversary, cunningly ambushed, would not hold their lives
+in his hand.  No.  Any scheme for exacting reprisals had better keep
+until they were once more in the light of day.  The sooner they rescued
+their unfortunate friend and got quit of the place the better.
+
+And even here they had their work fully cut out for them.  How were they
+to get at the wretched maniac?  The idea of descending into that
+horrible pit was not an alluring one; and, apart from this, what sort of
+reception would they meet with from its occupant?  That the latter
+regarded them in anything but a friendly light was manifest.  How, then,
+were they ever to convey to the unfortunate creature that their object
+was the reverse of hostile?  Tom Carhayes was well-known to be a man of
+great physical power.  Tom Carr hayes--a gibbering, mouthing lunatic--a
+furious demoniac--no wonder they shrank from approaching him.
+
+"Silence!  Darken the light!"
+
+The words, quick, low, peremptory--proceeded from Josane.  In an instant
+Eustace obeyed.  The slide of the lantern was turned.
+
+"I listen--I hear," went on the Kafir in the same quick whisper.  "There
+are steps approaching."
+
+Every ear was strained to the uttermost.  Standing in the pitchy
+blackness and on the brink of that awful pit, no one dared move so much
+as a foot.
+
+And now a faint and far-away sound came floating through the darkness; a
+strange sound, as of the soft bass of voices from the distant
+spirit-world wailing weirdly along the ghostly walls of the tunnel.  It
+seemed, too, that ever so faint a light was melting the gloom in the
+distance.  The effect was indescribable in its awesomeness.  The
+listeners held their very breath.
+
+"Up here," whispered Josane, referring to the shaft already mentioned.
+"No! show no light--not a glimmer.  Hold on to each other's shoulder--
+you, Ixeshane, hold on to mine--Quick--_Hamba-ke_."  [Go on.]
+
+This precaution, dictated by the double motive of keeping together in
+the darkness, and also to avoid any one of the party accidentally
+falling into the pit--being observed, the Kafir led the way some little
+distance within the shaft.
+
+"Heavens!" whispered Hoste.  "What about the snakes?  Supposing we tread
+on one?"
+
+In the excitement of the moment this consideration had been quite
+overlooked.  Now it struck dismay into the minds of the three white men.
+To walk along in pitch darkness in a narrow tunnel which you know to be
+infested with deadly serpents, with more than an even chance of treading
+upon one of the noisome reptiles at every step, is a position which
+assuredly needs a powerful deal of excitement to carry it through.
+
+"_Au_!  Flash one beam of light in front, Ixeshane," whispered the
+guide.  "Not behind--for your life, not behind!"
+
+Eustace complied, carefully shading the sides of the light with the
+flaps of his coat.  It revealed that the cave here widened slightly, but
+made a curve.  It further revealed no sign of the most dreaded enemy of
+the human race.
+
+Here, then, it was decided to lie in wait.  The lights carried by those
+approaching would hardly reach them here, and they could lurk almost
+concealed, sheltered by the formation of the tunnel.
+
+The flash from Eustace's lantern had been but momentary.  And now, as
+they crouched in the inky gloom, the sense of expectation became painful
+in its intensity.  Nearer and nearer floated the wailing chant, and soon
+the lurking listeners were able to recognise it as identical with the
+wild, heathenish _rune_ intoned by their guide--the weird, mysterious
+invocation of the Serpent.
+
+  "Harm us not,
+  O Snake of snakes!
+  Do us no hurt
+  _O Inyeka 'Nkulu_!"
+
+The sonorous, open vowels rolled forth in long-drawn cadence, chanted by
+two voices--both blending in wonderful harmony.  Then a cloud of
+nebulous light filled up the entrance to their present hiding place,
+hovering above the fearful hell-pit where the maniac was imprisoned,
+throwing the brink into distinct relief.
+
+The watchers held their very breath.  The song had ceased.  Suddenly
+there was a flash of light in their eyes, as from a lantern.
+
+Two dark figures were standing on the brink of the hole.  Each carried a
+lantern, one of those strong, tin-rimmed concerns used by
+transport-riders for hanging in their waggon-tents.  There was no lack
+of light now.
+
+"Ho, Umlilwane!" cried a deep, bass voice, which rumbled in hoarse
+echoes beneath the domed roof, while the speaker held his lantern out
+over the pit.  "Ho, Umlilwane!  It is the dog's feeding time again.  We
+have brought the dog his bones.  Ho, ho!"
+
+The wretched maniac who, until now, had kept silence, here broke forth
+again into his diabolical howls.  By the sound the watchers could tell
+that he was exhausting himself in a series of bull-dog springs similar
+to those prompted by his frenzy on first discovering themselves.  At
+each of these futile outbursts the two mocking fiends shouted and roared
+with laughter.  But they little knew how near they were laughing for the
+last time.  Three rifles were covering them at a distance of fifty
+yards--three rifles in the hands of men who were dead shots, and whose
+hearts were bursting with silent fury.  Josane, seeing this, took
+occasion to whisper under cover of the lunatic's frenzied howls:
+
+"The time is not yet.  The witch-doctress is for me--for me.  I will
+lure her in here, and when I give the word--but not before--shoot
+Hlangani.  The witch-doctress is for me."
+
+The identity of the two figures was distinct in the light.  The hideous
+sorceress, though reft of most of the horrid accessories and adornments
+of her order, yet looked cruel and repulsive as a very fiend--fitting
+figure to harmonise with the Styx-like gloom of the scene.  The huge
+form of the warrior loomed truly gigantic in the sickly lantern light.
+"Ho, Umlilwane, thou dog of dogs!" went on the latter.  "Art thou
+growing tired of thy cool retreat?  Are not the serpents good
+companions?  _Haul_ Thou wert a fool to part so readily with thy mind.
+After so many moons of converse with the serpents, thou shouldst have
+been a mighty soothsayer--a mighty diviner--by now.  How long did it
+take thee to lose thy mind?  But a single day?  But a day and a night?
+That was quick!  Ho, ho!"  And the great taunting laugh was echoed by
+the shriller cackle of the female fiend.
+
+"Thou wert a mighty man with thy fists, a mighty man with thy gun, O
+Umlilwane!" went on the savage, his mocking tones now sinking to those
+of devilish hatred.  "But now thou art no longer a man--no longer a man.
+_Au_!  What were my words to thee?  `Thou hadst better have cut off thy
+right hand before shedding the blood of Hlangani _for it is better to
+lose a hand than one's mind_.'  What thinkest thou now of Hlangani's
+revenge?  Hi!"
+
+How plain now to one of the listeners were those sombre words, over
+whose meaning he had so anxiously pondered.  This, then, was the fearful
+vengeance promised by the Gcaleka warrior.  And for many months his
+wretched victim had lain here a raving maniac--had lain here in a
+darkness as of the very pit of hell--had lain among noisome serpents--
+among crawling horrors untold--small wonder his reason had given way
+after a single night of such, as his tormentor had just declared.  Small
+wonder that he had indeed lost his mind!
+
+A fiendish yell burst from the maniac.  Suddenly a great serpent was
+thrown upward from the pit.  Petrified with horror, the watchers saw its
+thick, writhing form fly through the air and light on the
+witch-doctress's shoulder.  With a shrill laugh the hag merely seized
+the wriggling, squirming reptile, which, with crest waving, was hissing
+like a fury, and hurled it back into the pit again.  What sort of
+devil's influence was protecting these people, that they could handle
+the most deadly reptiles with absolute impunity?  Were they, indeed,
+under some demoniac spell?  To one, however, among the white spectators,
+the real solution of the mystery may have suggested itself.
+
+"Here are thy bones, dog," resumed the great barbarian, throwing what
+looked like a half-filled sack into the hole.  "Here is thy drink," and
+he lowered a large calabash at the end of a string.  "Eat, drink, and
+keep up thy strength.  Perhaps one day I may turn thee loose again.  Who
+knows!  Then when thy people see thee coming they will cry: `Here comes
+Hlangani's Revenge.'  And they will fly from thee in terror, as from the
+approach of a fell disease."
+
+The watchers looked at each other.  These last words, coupled with the
+act of throwing down the food, seemed to point to the speedy conclusion
+of the visit.  They could hear the miserable victim mumbling and
+crunching what sounded like literally bones, and growling like a dog.
+But Hlangani went on.
+
+"Wouldst thou not rather have gone to feed the black ants, or have died
+the death of the red-hot stones, Umlilwane?  Thou wouldst be at rest
+now.  And now thou hast only just begun to live--alone in the darkness--
+alone with the serpents--a man whose mind is gone.  Thou wilt never see
+the light of day again.  _Whau_!  The sun is shining like gold outside.
+And thy wife, Umlilwane--thy beautiful wife--tall and graceful, like the
+stem of the budding _umbona_ [Maize]--dost thou never think of her?  Ha!
+There is another who does--another who does.  I have seen him--I have
+seen them both--him and thy beautiful wife--"
+
+Eustace had nudged Josane in such wise as to make that individual
+understand that the curtain must be rung down on this scene--and that at
+once.  Simultaneously the "yap" of a puppy dog burst forth almost
+beneath his feet.  Its effect upon the pair at the pit's brink was
+electric.
+
+"_Yau_!" cried Ngcenika, turning toward the sound.  "The little dog has
+followed me in after all.  Ah, the little brute.  I will make him taste
+the stick!"
+
+"Or throw him down to Umlilwane," laughed her companion.  "He will do
+for him to play with, two dogs together.  _Mawo_!"
+
+Again the "yap" was heard, now several times in rapid succession.  So
+perfect was the imitation that the watchers themselves were for a moment
+taken in.
+
+"_Iza, inja!  Injane, izapa_!"  ["Come, dog!  Little dog--come here!"]
+cried the witch-doctress coaxingly, advancing into the lateral gallery,
+holding her lantern in front of her.  Josane, with his mouth to the
+ground was emitting a perfect chorus of yaps.
+
+"Now," he whispered, under cover of the echoes produced, as the width of
+the gallery left a clear chance at Hlangani, without endangering the
+witch-doctress.  "Remember--the female beast, Ngcenika, is for me.
+Shoot Hlangani--_Now_!"
+
+Scarce had the word left his mouth than the shots crashed forth
+simultaneously.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FORTY SIX.
+
+THE END OF THE WITCH-DOCTRESS.
+
+To convey anything like an adequate idea of what followed is well-nigh
+impossible.  The stunning, deafening roar of the volley in that narrow
+space was as though the very earth had exploded from its foundations.
+Through it came the shivering crash of glass, as Hlangani's lantern fell
+into the pit, but whether its owner followed it or not could not be
+determined through the overpowering din.  Still holding the lantern, the
+hideous witch-doctress was seen through the sulphurous smoke, standing
+there as one turned to stone--then like lightning, a dark, lithe body
+sprang through the spectators and with a growl like that of a wild beast
+leaped upon the bewildered Ngcenika.  There was the gleam of an assegai
+in the air--then darkness and the shatter of glass.  The lantern fell
+from the sorceress' hand.
+
+"Turn on the light, Milne; quick!" cried the other two.
+
+"I'm trying to, but the infernal thing won't work.  The slide's jammed--
+Oh!"
+
+For he was swept off his feet.  Two heavy bodies rolled over him--
+striving, cursing, struggling, stabbing--then half stumbled, half rolled
+away into the gloom beyond.
+
+The others bethought them of their candles, which, up till now, had been
+kept unused.  Quickly two of them were produced and lighted.
+
+The din of the scuffle seemed to be receding further and further; nor in
+the faint and flickering impression cast upon the cavernous gloom by the
+light of the candles could anything be seen of the combatants.  But that
+the scuffle was a hard and fierce one was evident from the sounds.
+
+Just then Eustace succeeded in opening the lantern slide, and now they
+were able to advance boldly in the strong disk of light.  The latter
+revealed the object of their search.
+
+Rolling over and over each other were two dark bodies, one now
+uppermost, now the other.  Both seemed equally matched; even if in point
+of sheer physical strength the advantage did not lie slightly with the
+witch-doctress, for Josane, though wiry and active, was a good deal
+older than he looked.  Each firmly gripped the other's right wrist, for
+the purpose of preventing the use of the broad-bladed, murderous assegai
+with which the right hand of each was armed.  Victory would lie with
+whoever could hold out the longest.
+
+As soon as the light fell upon the two struggling bodies, the
+witch-doctress threw all her energies into afresh and violent effort.
+She seemed to divine that the new arrivals would refrain from shooting
+at her for fear of injuring Josane.  So she redoubled her struggles and
+kicked and bit and tore like one possessed.
+
+"Keep her in that position a moment, Josane," sung out Hoste.  "I'll put
+a hunk of lead through the devil's carcase.  There--so!"
+
+But it was not to be.  With a supreme effort she wrenched her wrist free
+from her opponent's grasp, and turning with the rapidity of a cat,
+leaped out of sight in the darkness.  But a moment later she stumbled
+over a boulder and sprawled headlong.  Before she could rise her pursuer
+was upon her and had stabbed her twice through the body with his
+assegai.
+
+"Ha!  Spawn of a Fingo dog!" cried Josane, his voice assuming a fierce,
+throaty growl in the delirious satiety of his vengeance.  "I am Josane--
+whom thou wouldst have thrown to the serpents, as thou didst this white
+man--ha! whom thou wouldst have given alive to feed the black ants, as
+thou didst Vudana, my kinsman.  Ha!  I am Josane, who was eaten up at
+thy accursed bidding.  Ha!  But I lived for revenge and it has come.
+Ha!  How does this feel?--and this?--and this?"
+
+With each ejaculation "ha!" he had plunged his assegai into the writhing
+body of the prostrate witch-doctress.  To the white men his aspect was
+that of a fiend--standing there in the cavernous gloom, his eyes rolling
+in frenzy--literally digging with his spear into the body of his
+vanquished enemy, out of which the red blood was squirting in a dozen
+great jets.  Not until the corpse had entirely ceased to move did he
+cease his furious stabs.
+
+"The hell-hag is dead!" he cried, as he at length turned to leave.  "The
+hell-hag is dead," he repeated, turning the words into a fierce chant of
+exultation.  "The hell-hag bleeds, and my revenge is sweet.  Ha!
+Revenge is brighter than the sun in the heavens, for it is red, blood
+red.  Ha!  Mine enemy is dead!"
+
+By this time they had returned to the brink of the pit.  But there was
+no sign of Hlangani.  Something like dismay was on every face.  The
+fragments of his shattered lantern lay strewn about at the bottom of the
+hole, but of the savage himself there was no sign.  It was marvellous.
+All three men were first-rate shots.  It was impossible that any one of
+them could have missed him at that distance, let alone all three.  How
+could he have got away with three bullets in his body?
+
+Cautiously they hunted everywhere with increasing anxiety, but nothing
+occurred to reward their search.  The latter led them almost back to the
+great rock-chamber where the serpents swarmed.  Still no sign of
+Hlangani.
+
+This was serious in the extreme.  They would have their hands full
+enough with the wretched maniac, even if they succeeded in bringing him
+away at all; and the idea that the fierce Gcaleka, desperately wounded
+perhaps, might be lying in wait, in some awkward place, ready to fall
+upon them with all the reckless, despairing ferocity of a cornered
+leopard, was anything but encouraging.  Or, what if he had escaped
+altogether, and were to bring back a swarm of his countrymen to cut off
+their retreat.
+
+"I tell you what it is," said Hoste.  "The sooner we get this poor chap
+out, and clear out ourselves, the better."
+
+This was true enough; but how to act upon it was another thing.
+
+Several candles were lighted and stuck about on the rocks, making the
+black, gloomy cavern a trifle less sepulchral.  Then they advanced to
+the pit's brink.  The lunatic, crouched on the ground gnawing a bone,
+stared stupidly at them.
+
+"Don't you know me, Tom?" said Eustace, speaking quietly.  "We are come
+to get you away from here, old chap.  You know me?  Come now!"
+
+But the poor wretch gave no sign of intelligence, as he went on munching
+his revolting food.  Several times they tried him, each in different
+ways, but always without success.  It was pitiable.
+
+"We shall have to get him out by force," said Shelton.  "But how the
+deuce we are going to do it beats me."
+
+"We might lasso him with a _reim_, and haul him up that way," suggested
+Hoste.
+
+"I had thought of that," said Eustace.  "First of all, though, I'm going
+to have another try at the _suaviter in modo_.  He may recognise me--
+nearer."
+
+"Nearer?  What?  How?  You are never going down there!" cried Shelton.
+
+"That's just what I am going to do.  Where's that long _reim_, Josane?"
+
+This was the long, stout rawhide rope they had brought with them in case
+it might be wanted for climbing purposes.  Quickly Eustace had made a
+running noose in it.
+
+"I hope you're in good hard form, Milne," said Shelton gravely.  "The
+poor chap may try and tear you to pieces.  I wouldn't risk it, if I were
+you."
+
+"And the snakes?" put in Hoste.  "What about the snakes?"
+
+"I shall have to chance them," returned Eustace, having a shrewd
+suspicion that the reptiles had been rendered harmless by the extraction
+of their fangs, and were, in fact, kept there by the witch-doctress in
+order to lend additional horror to this _inferno_, whither she consigned
+her victims.  Even then the act of descending into that noisome pit,
+with the almost certainty of a hand-to-hand struggle with a raging
+lunatic of enormous strength, was an ordeal calculated to daunt the
+stoutest of hearts.  Certain it is that neither of the other two would
+have cared to undertake it.  More than ever, then, did they endeavour to
+dissuade him.
+
+"This is my idea," he said.  "I must try and get him round against this
+side of the hole.  Then, while I hold his attention, Josane must drop
+his blanket over his head.  Then I'll fling the noose round him, and you
+must all man the _reim_, and haul him up like a sack.  Only it must be
+done sharp.  Directly I sing out `_Trek_,' you must haul away for dear
+life."
+
+"But how about yourself, old chap?"
+
+"Never mind about me.  I can wait down there until you're ready for me.
+But when you have got him up here you must tie him up as tight as a log,
+and sharp, too.  Now, Josane, is your blanket ready?"
+
+The old Kafir, who had been knotting a small stone into each corner so
+that the thing should fall quickly, answered in the affirmative.  In a
+second the _reim_ was dropped over the side, and Eustace, sliding down,
+stood at the bottom of the pit.
+
+The indescribably fearful effluvium fairly choked him.  He felt dizzy
+and faint.  The lunatic, still crouching at the other side, made no
+aggressive movement, merely staring with lack-lustre eyes at the new
+arrival.  Keeping his eye upon him, Eustace took advantage of this
+welcome truce to feel for his flask and counteract his fast overpowering
+nausea with a timely pull.
+
+"Tom," he said, in a most persuasive tone, approaching the wretched
+being.  "Tom--you know me, don't you?"
+
+Then an awful change came into the maniac's countenance.  His eyes
+glared through the tangle of his matted hair; the great bushy beard
+began to bristle and quiver with rage.  He rose to his feet and, opening
+his mouth, emitted that same horrible howl.  Those above held their
+breath.
+
+Well for Eustace was it that he never quailed.  Standing there in the
+middle of the pit--at the mercy of this furious lunatic--he moved not a
+muscle.  But his eyes held those of the demoniac with a piercing and
+steady gaze.
+
+The crisis was past.  Whimpering like a child, the wretched creature
+sank to the ground, again covering his face with his hands.
+
+This was good enough as a first triumph, but the maniac had to be coaxed
+round to the other side of the hole.  Eustace dared not remove his
+glance, even for the fraction of a second.  His foot struck against
+something, which yielded suddenly and started away hissing.  His pulses
+stood still with horror, yet he knew better than to remove his eyes from
+his unhappy kinsman.
+
+"Come, Tom," he said coaxingly, advancing a couple of steps.  "Get up,
+man, and go and sit over there."
+
+With an affrighted cry, the other edged away round the wall of his
+prison, bringing himself much nearer the point where it was intended he
+should be brought.  He cowered, with face averted, moaning like an
+animal in pain.  Not to overdo the thing, Eustace waited a moment, then
+advanced a step or two nearer.  It had the desired effect.  The madman
+shuffled away as before.  He must be in the right place now.  Still
+Eustace dared not look up.
+
+"He's all right now, if you're ready," whispered a voice from above.
+
+"Ready!" was the quick reply.
+
+Something dropped.  The madman's head and shoulders disappeared under
+the voluminous folds of old Josane's red blanket.  Quick as lightning
+Eustace had sprung to his side and whipped the running noose round him.
+
+"_Trek_!" he cried, with an energy sufficient to start a dozen spans of
+oxen.
+
+The body of Tom Carhayes swung into the air.  Kicking, struggling,
+howling, he disappeared over the brink above.  Eustace, alone at the
+bottom of the pit, could hear the sounds of a furious scuffle--sounds,
+too, which seemed to be receding as though into distance.  What did it
+all mean?  They seemed a long time securing the maniac.
+
+Then, as he looked around this horrible dungeon, at the crawling shapes
+of the serpents gliding hither and thither, hissing with rage over their
+late disturbance, as he breathed the unspeakably noisome atmosphere, he
+realised his own utter helplessness.  What if anything untoward should
+occur to prevent his comrades from rescuing him?  Life was full of
+surprises.  They might be attacked by a party of Kafirs, brought back
+there by the missing Hlangani, for instance.  What if he had merely
+exchanged places with his unfortunate kinsman and were to be left there
+in the darkness and horror?  How long would he be able to keep his
+reason?  Hardly longer than the other, he feared.  And the perspiration
+streamed from every pore, as he began to realise what the miserable
+maniac had undergone.
+
+A silence had succeeded to the tumult above.  What did it mean?  Every
+second seemed an hour.  Then, with a start of unspeakable relief, he
+heard Hoste's voice above.
+
+"Ready to come up, old chap?"
+
+"Very much so.  Why have you taken so long?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"We had to tie up poor Tom twice, you know; first with the big _reim_,
+then with others.  Then we had to undo the big _reim_ again.  Here it
+is," chucking it over.
+
+Eustace slipped the noose under his armpits, and, having given the word
+to haul away, a very few moments saw him among them all again.  The mad
+man was securely bound and even gagged, only his feet being loosened
+sufficiently to enable him to take short steps.
+
+So they started on their return track, longing with a greater longing
+than words can tell, to breathe the open air, to behold the light of day
+again.
+the armies of the Philistines, and fighting over again the battles of
+Israel's kings! Many a tale he stored away in his busy brain to be
+repeated to the children gathered around the public fountain in the cool
+of the evening.
+
+It mattered not what character he told them of,--priest or prophet,
+judge or king,--the picture was painted in life-like colors by this
+patriotic little hero-worshipper.
+
+Here and at home he heard so many discussions about what was lawful and
+what was not, that he was constantly in fear of breaking one of the many
+rules, even in as simple a duty as washing a cup.
+
+So he watched his host closely till the meal was over, finding that in
+the observance of many customs, he failed to measure up to his uncle's
+strict standard.
+
+Phineas went back to his work after dinner. He was greatly interested in
+Joel, and, while he sawed and hammered, kept a watchful eye on him. He
+was surprised at the boy's knowledge. More than once he caught himself
+standing with an idle tool in hand, as he listened to some story that
+Joel was telling to Jesse.
+
+After a while he laid down his work and leaned against the bench. "What
+do you find to do all day, my lad?" he asked, abruptly.
+
+"Nothing," answered Joel, "after I have recited my lessons to Rabbi
+Amos."
+
+"Does your aunt never give you any tasks to do at home?"
+
+"No. I think she does not like to have me in her sight any more than she
+is obliged to. She is always kind to me, but she doesn't love me. She
+only pities me. I hate to be pitied. There is not a single one in the
+world who really loves me."
+
+His lips quivered, but he winked back the tears. Phineas seemed lost in
+thought a few minutes; then he looked up. "You are a Levite," he said
+slowly, "so of course you could always be supported without needing to
+learn a trade. Still you would be a great deal happier, in my opinion,
+if you had something to keep you busy. If you like, I will teach you to
+be a carpenter. There are a great many things you might learn to make
+well, and, by and by, it would be a source of profit to you. There is no
+bread so bitter as the bread of dependence, as you may learn when you
+are older."
+
+"Oh, Rabbi Phineas!" cried Joel. "Do you mean that I may come here every
+day? It is too good to be true!"
+
+"Yes; if you will promise to stick to it until you have mastered the
+trade. If you are as quick to learn with your hands as you have been
+with your head, I shall have reason to be proud of such a pupil."
+
+Joel's face flushed with pleasure, and he sprang up quickly, saying,
+"May I begin right now? Oh, I'll try _so_ hard to please you!"
+
+Phineas laid a soft pine board on the bench, and began to mark a line
+across it with a piece of red chalk.
+
+"Well, you may see how straight a cut you can make through this plank."
+
+He picked up a saw, and ran his fingers lightly along its sharp teeth.
+But he paused in the act of handing it to Joel, to ask, "You are sure,
+now, that your uncle and aunt will consent to such an arrangement?"
+
+"Yes indeed!" was the emphatic answer. "They will be glad enough to have
+me out of the way, and learning something useful."
+
+The saw cut slowly through the wood; for the weak little hand was a
+careful one, and the boy was determined not to swerve once from the
+line. He smiled with satisfaction as the pieces fell apart, showing a
+clean, straight edge.
+
+"Well done!" said Phineas, kindly. "Now let me see you drive a nail."
+Made bold by his first success, Joel pounded away vigorously, but the
+hammer slipped more than once, and his unpractised fingers ached with
+the blows that he had aimed at the nail's head.
+
+"You'll soon learn," said Phineas, with an encouraging pat on the boy's
+shoulder. "Gather up those odds and ends under the bench. When you've
+sawed them into equal lengths, I'll show you how to make a box."
+
+Joel bent over his work with almost painful intensity. He fairly held
+his breath, as he made the measurements. He gripped the saw as if his
+life depended on the strength of his hold. Phineas smiled at his
+earnestness.
+
+"Be careful, my lad," he said. "You will soon wear out at that rate."
+
+It seemed to Joel that there never had been such a short afternoon. He
+had stopped to rest several times, when Phineas had insisted upon it;
+but this new work had all the fascination of an interesting game. The
+trees threw giant shadows across the grass, when he finally laid his
+tools aside. His back ached with so much unusual exercise, and he was
+very tired.
+
+"Rabbi Phineas," he asked gently, after a long pause, "what makes you so
+good to me? What makes you so different from other people? While I am
+with you, I feel like I want to be good. Other people seem to rub me the
+wrong way, and make me cross and hateful; then I feel like I'd rather
+be wicked than not. Why this afternoon, I've scarcely thought of Rehum
+at all. I forgot at times that I am lame. When you talk to me, I feel
+like I did that day Dan took me out on the lake. It seemed a different
+kind of a world,--all blue sky and smooth water. I felt if I could stay
+out there all the time, where it was so quiet and comforting, that I
+could not even hate Rehum as much as I do."
+
+A surprised, pleased look passed over the man's face. "Do I really make
+you feel that way, little one? Then I am indeed glad. Once when I was a
+young boy living in Nazareth, I had a playmate who had that influence
+over me and all the boys he played with. I never could be selfish and
+impatient when he was with me. His very presence rebuked such
+thoughts,--when we were children playing together, like my own two
+little ones there, and when we were older grown, working at the same
+bench. It has been many a long year since I left Nazareth, but I think
+of him daily. Even now, after our long separation, the thought of his
+blameless life inspires me to a higher living. Yes," he went on
+musingly, more to himself than the boy, "it was like music. Surely no
+white-robed priest in the holy temple ever offered up more acceptable
+praise than the perfect harmony of his daily life."
+
+Joel's lips trembled. "If I had ever had one real friend to care for
+me--not just pity me, you know--maybe I would have been different. But I
+have never had a single one since my father died."
+
+Phineas smiled, and held out his hand. "You have one now, my lad, never
+forget that."
+
+The strong brown hand closed in a warm grasp, and Joel drew it, with a
+grateful impulse, to his lips. Ruth came up with wondering eyes. She
+could not understand what had passed; but Joel's eyes were full of
+tears, and she vaguely felt that he needed comfort. She had a pet pigeon
+in her arms, that she carried everywhere with her.
+
+"Here," she lisped, holding out the snowy winged bird. "Boy, take it!
+Boy, keep it!"
+
+Joel looked up inquiringly at Phineas. "Take it," he said, in a low
+tone. "Let it be the omen of a happier life commencing for you."
+
+"I never had a pet of any kind before," said Joel, in delight, smoothing
+the white wings folded contentedly against his breast. "But she loves
+it so, I dislike to take it from her. How beautiful it is!"
+
+"My little Ruth is a born comforter," said Phineas, tossing her up in
+his arms. "Shall Joel take the pigeon home with him, little daughter?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, nodding her head. "Boy cried."
+
+"I'll name it 'Little Friend,'" said Joel, rising with it in his arms.
+"I'll take it home with me, and keep it until after the Sabbath, to make
+me feel sure that this day has not been just a dream; but I will bring
+it back next time I come. I can see it here every day, and it will be
+happier here. Oh, Rabbi Phineas, I can never thank you enough for this
+day!"
+
+It was a pitiful little figure that limped away homeward in the fading
+light, with the white pigeon in his arms.
+
+Looking anxiously up in the sky, Joel saw one star come twinkling out.
+The Sabbath would soon begin, and then he must not be found carrying
+even so much as this one poor little pigeon. The slightest burden would
+be unlawful.
+
+As he hurried on, the loud blast of a trumpet, blown from the roof of
+the synagogue, signalled the laborers in the fields to stop all work.
+He knew that very soon it would sound again, to call the town people
+from their tasks; and at the third blast, the Sabbath lamp would be
+lighted in every home.
+
+Fearful of his uncle's displeasure at his tardiness, he hurried
+painfully onward, to provide food and a resting-place for his "little
+friend" before the second sounding of the trumpet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+EARLY in the morning after the Sabbath, Joel was in his accustomed place
+in the market, waiting for his friend Phineas. His uncle had given a
+gruff assent, when he timidly asked his approval of the plan.
+
+The good Rabbi Amos was much pleased when he heard of the arrangement.
+"Thou hast been a faithful student," he said, kindly. "Thou knowest
+already more of the Law than many of thy elders. Now it will do thee
+good to learn the handicraft of Phineas. Remember, my son, 'the balm was
+created by God before the wound.' Work, that is as old as Eden, has been
+given us that we might forget the afflictions of this life that fleeth
+like a shadow. May the God of thy fathers give thee peace!"
+
+With the old man's benediction repeating itself like a solemn refrain in
+all his thoughts, Joel stood smoothing the pigeon in his arms, until
+Phineas had made his daily purchases. Then they walked on together in
+the cool of the morning, to the little white house under the fig-trees.
+Phineas was surprised at his pupil's progress. To be sure, the weak arms
+could lift little, the slender hands could attempt no large tasks. But
+the painstaking care he bestowed on everything he attempted, resulted in
+beautifully finished work. If there was an extra smooth polish to be put
+on some wood, or a delicate piece of joining to do, Joel's deft fingers
+seemed exactly suited to the task.
+
+Before the winter was over, he had made many pretty little articles of
+furniture for Abigail's use.
+
+"May I have these pieces of fine wood to use as I please?" he asked of
+Phineas, one day.
+
+"All but that largest strip," he answered. "What are you going to make?"
+
+"Something for Ruth's birthday. She will be three years old in a few
+weeks, Jesse says, and I want to make something for her to play with."
+
+"What are you going to make her?" inquired Jesse, from under the
+work-bench. "Let me see too."
+
+"Oh, I didn't know you were anywhere near," answered Joel, with a start
+of alarm.
+
+"Tell me!" begged Jesse.
+
+"Well, if you will promise to keep her out of the way while I am
+finishing it, and never say a word about it--"
+
+"I'll promise," said the child, solemnly. He had to clap his hand over
+his mouth a great many times in the next few weeks, to keep his secret
+from telling itself, and he watched admiringly while Joel carved and
+polished and cut.
+
+One of the neighbors had come in to talk with Abigail the day he
+finished it, and as the children were down on the beach, playing in the
+sand, he took it in the house to show to the women. It was a little
+table set with toy dishes, that he had carved out of wood,--plates and
+cups and platters, all complete.
+
+The visitor held up her hands with an exclamation of delight. After
+taking up each little highly polished dish to admire it separately, she
+said, "I know where you might get a great deal of money for such work.
+There is a rich Roman living near the garrison, who spends money like a
+lord. No price is too great for him to pay for anything that pleases his
+fancy. Why don't you take some up there, and offer them for sale?"
+
+"I believe I will," said Joel, after considering the matter. "I'll go
+just as soon as I can get them made."
+
+Ruth spread many a little feast under the fig-trees; but after the first
+birthday banquet, Jesse was her only guest. Joel was too busy making
+more dishes and another little table, to partake of them.
+
+The whole family were interested in his success. The day he went up to
+the great house near the garrison to offer them for sale, they waited
+anxiously for his return.
+
+"He's sold them! He's sold them!" cried Jesse, hopping from one foot to
+the other, as he saw Joel coming down the street empty-handed. Joel was
+hobbling along as fast as he could, his face beaming.
+
+"See how much money!" he cried, as he opened his hand to show a shining
+coin, stamped with the head of Cæsar. "And I have an order for two more.
+I'll soon have a fortune! The children liked the dishes so much,
+although they had the most beautiful toys I ever saw. They had images
+they called dolls. Some of them had white-kid faces, and were dressed as
+richly as queens. I wish Ruth had one."
+
+"The law forbids!" exclaimed Phineas. "Have you forgotten that it is
+written, 'Thou shalt not make any likeness of anything in the heavens
+above or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth'? She is happy
+with what she has, and needs no strange idols of the heathen to play
+with."
+
+Joel made no answer; but he thought of the merry group of Roman children
+seated around the little table he had made, and wished again that Ruth
+had one of those gorgeously dressed dolls.
+
+Skill and strength were not all he gained by his winter's work; for some
+of the broad charity that made continual summer in the heart of Phineas
+crept into his own embittered nature. He grew less suspicious of those
+around him, and smiles came more easily now to his face than scowls.
+
+But the strong ambition of his life never left him for an instant. To
+all the rest of the world he might be a friend; to Rehum he could only
+be the most unforgiving of enemies.
+
+The thought that had given him most pleasure when the wealthy Roman had
+tossed him his first earnings, was not that his work could bring him
+money, but that the money could open the way for his revenge.
+
+That thought, like a dark undercurrent, gained depth and force as the
+days went by. As he saw how much he could do in spite of his lameness,
+he thought of how much more he might have accomplished, if he had been
+like other boys. It was a constant spur to his desire for revenge.
+
+One day Phineas laid aside his tools much earlier than usual, and
+without any explanation to his wondering pupil, went up into the town.
+
+When he returned, he nodded to his wife, who sat in the doorway
+spinning, and who had looked up inquiringly as he approached.
+
+"Yes, it's all arranged," he said to her. Then he turned to Joel to ask,
+"Did you ever ride on a camel, my boy?"
+
+"No, Rabbi," answered the boy, in surprise, wondering what was coming
+next.
+
+"Well, I have a day's journey to make to the hills in Upper Galilee. A
+camel caravan passes near the place where my business calls me, as it
+goes to Damascus. I seek to accompany it for protection. I go on foot,
+but I have made arrangements for you to ride one of the camels."
+
+"Oh, am I really to go, too?" gasped Joel, in delighted astonishment.
+"Oh, Rabbi Phineas! How did you ever think of asking me?"
+
+"You have not seemed entirely well, of late," was the answer. "I thought
+the change would do you good. I said nothing about it before, for I had
+no opportunity to see your uncle until this afternoon; and I did not
+want to disappoint you, in case he refused his permission."
+
+"And he really says I may go?" demanded the boy, eagerly.
+
+"Yes, the caravan moves in the morning, and we will go with it."
+
+There was little more work done that day. Joel was so full of
+anticipations of his journey that he scarcely knew what he was doing.
+Phineas was busy with preparations for the comfort of his little family
+during his absence, and went into town again.
+
+On his return he seemed strangely excited. Abigail, seeing something was
+amiss, watched him carefully, but asked no questions. He took a piece of
+timber that had been laid away for some especial purpose, and began
+sawing it into small bits.
+
+"Rabbi Phineas," ventured Joel, respectfully, "is that not the wood you
+charged me to save so carefully?"
+
+Phineas gave a start as he saw what he had done, and threw down his saw.
+
+"Truly," he said, smiling, "I am beside myself with the news I have
+heard. I just now walked ten cubits past my own house, unknowing where I
+was, so deeply was I thinking upon it. Abigail," he asked, "do you
+remember my friend in Nazareth whom I so often speak of,--the son of
+Joseph the carpenter? Last week he was bidden to a marriage in Cana. It
+happened, before the feasting was over, the supply of wine was
+exhausted, and the mortified host knew not what to do. Six great jars of
+stone had been placed in the room, to supply the guests with water for
+washing. _He changed that water into wine!_"
+
+"I cannot believe it!" answered Abigail, simply.
+
+"But Ezra ben Jared told me so. He was there, and drank of the wine,"
+insisted Phineas.
+
+"He could not have done it," said Abigail, "unless he were helped by the
+evil one, or unless he were a prophet. He is too good a man to ask help
+of the powers of darkness; and it is beyond belief that a son of Joseph
+should be a prophet."
+
+To this Phineas made no answer. His quiet thoughts were shaken out of
+their usual routine as violently as if by an earthquake.
+
+Joel thought more of the journey than he did of the miracle. It seemed
+to the impatient boy that the next day never would dawn. Many times in
+the night he wakened to hear the distant crowing of cocks. At last, by
+straining his eyes he could distinguish the green leaves of the vine on
+the lattice from the blue of the half-opened blossoms. By that token he
+knew it was near enough the morning for him to commence saying his first
+prayers.
+
+Dressing noiselessly, so as not to disturb the sleeping family, he
+slipped out of the house and down to the well outside the city-gate.
+Here he washed, and then ate the little lunch he had wrapped up the
+night before. A meagre little breakfast,--only a hard-boiled egg, a bit
+of fish, and some black bread. But the early hour and his excitement
+took away his appetite for even that little.
+
+Soon all was confusion around the well, as the noisy drivers gathered to
+water their camels, and make their preparations for the start.
+
+Joel shrunk away timidly to the edge of the crowd, fearful that his
+friend Phineas had overslept himself.
+
+In a few minutes he saw him coming with a staff in one hand, and a small
+bundle swinging from the other.
+
+Joel had one breathless moment of suspense as he was helped on to the
+back of the kneeling camel; one desperate clutch at the saddle as the
+huge animal plunged about and rose to its feet. Then he looked down at
+Phineas, and smiled blissfully.
+
+[Illustration: "HE LOOKED DOWN AT PHINEAS, AND SMILED BLISSFULLY"]
+
+Oh, the delight of that slow easy motion! The joy of being carried along
+without pain or effort! Who could realize how much it meant to the
+little fellow whose halting steps had so long been taken in weariness
+and suffering?
+
+Swinging along in the cool air, so far above the foot-passengers, it
+seemed to him that he looked down upon a new earth. Blackbirds flew
+along the roads, startled by their passing. High overhead, a lark had
+not yet finished her morning song. Lambs bleated in the pastures, and
+the lowing of herds sounded on every hill-side.
+
+Not a sight or sound escaped the boy; and all the morning he rode on
+without speaking, not a care in his heart, not a cloud on his horizon.
+
+At noon they stopped in a little grove of olive-trees where a cool
+spring gurgled out from the rocks.
+
+Phineas spread out their lunch at a little distance from the others; and
+they ate it quickly, with appetites sharpened by the morning's travel.
+Afterwards Joel stretched himself out on the ground to rest, and was
+asleep almost as soon as his eyelids could shut out the noontide glare
+of the sun from his tired eyes.
+
+When he awoke, nearly an hour afterward, he heard voices near him in
+earnest conversation. Raising himself on his elbow, he saw Phineas at a
+little distance, talking to an old man who had ridden one of the
+foremost camels.
+
+They must have been talking of the miracle, for the old man, as he
+stroked his long white beard, was saying, "But men are more wont to be
+astonished at the sun's eclipse, than at his daily rising. Look, my
+friend!"
+
+He pointed to a wild grape-vine clinging to a tree near by. "Do you see
+those bunches of half-grown grapes? There is a constant miracle. Day by
+day, the water of the dew and rain is being changed into the wine of the
+grape. Soil and sunshine are turning into fragrant juices. Yet you feel
+no astonishment."
+
+"No," assented Phineas; "for it is by the hand of God it is done."
+
+"Why may not this be also?" said the old man. "Even this miracle at the
+marriage feast in Cana?"
+
+Phineas started violently. "What!" he cried. "Do you think it possible
+that this friend of mine is the One to be sent of God?"
+
+"Is not this the accepted time for the coming of Israel's Messiah?"
+answered the old man, solemnly. "Is it not meet that he should herald
+his presence by miracles and signs and wonders?"
+
+Joel lay down again to think over what he had just heard. Like every
+other Israelite in the whole world, he knew that a deliverer had been
+promised his people.
+
+Time and again he had read the prophecies that foretold the coming of a
+king through the royal line of David; time and again he had pictured to
+himself the mighty battles to take place between his down-trodden race
+and the haughty hordes of Cæsar. Sometime, somewhere, a universal
+dominion awaited them. He firmly believed that the day was near at hand;
+but not even in his wildest dreams had he ever dared to hope that it
+might come in his own lifetime.
+
+He raised himself on his elbow again, for the old man was speaking.
+
+"About thirty years ago," he said slowly, "I went up to Jerusalem to be
+registered for taxation, for the emperor's decree had gone forth and no
+one could escape enrolment. You are too young to remember the taking of
+that census, my friend; but you have doubtless heard of it."
+
+"Yes," assented Phineas, respectfully.
+
+"I was standing just outside the Joppa gate, bargaining with a man for a
+cage of gold finches he had for sale, which I wished to take to my
+daughter, when we heard some one speaking to us. Looking up we saw
+several strange men on camels, who were inquiring their way. They were
+richly dressed. The trappings and silver bells on their camels, as well
+as their own attire, spoke of wealth. Their faces showed that they were
+wise and learned men from far countries.
+
+"We greeted them respectfully, but could not speak for astonishment when
+we heard their question:
+
+"'Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star
+in the East, and have come to worship him.' The bird-seller looked at
+me, and I looked at him in open-mouthed wonder. The men rode on before
+we could find words wherewith to answer them.
+
+"All sorts of rumors were afloat, and everywhere we went next day,
+throughout Jerusalem, knots of people stood talking of the mysterious
+men, and their strange question. Even the king was interested, and
+sought audience with them."
+
+"Could any one answer them?" asked Phineas.
+
+"Nay! but it was then impressed on me so surely that the Christ was
+born, that I have asked myself all these thirty years, 'Where is he that
+is born king of the Jews?' For I too would fain follow on to find and
+worship him. As soon as I return from Damascus, I shall go at once to
+Cana, and search for this miracle-worker."
+
+The old man's earnest words made a wonderful impression on Joel. All the
+afternoon, as they rose higher among the hills, the thought took
+stronger possession of him. He might yet live, helpless little cripple
+as he was, to see the dawn of Israel's deliverance, and a son of David
+once more on its throne.
+
+Ride on, little pilgrim, happy in thy day-dreams! The time is coming;
+but weary ways and hopeless heart-aches lie between thee and that
+to-morrow. The king is on his way to his coronation, but it will be with
+thorns.
+
+Ride on, little pilgrim, be happy whilst thou can!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+IT was nearly the close of the day when the long caravan halted, and
+tents were pitched for the night near a little brook that came splashing
+down from a cold mountain-spring.
+
+Joel, exhausted by the long day's travel, crowded so full of new
+experiences, was glad to stretch his cramped limbs on a blanket that
+Phineas took from the camel's back.
+
+Here, through half-shut eyes, he watched the building of the camp-fire,
+and the preparations for the evening meal.
+
+"I wonder what Uncle Laban would do if he were here!" he said to
+Phineas, with an amused smile. "Look at those dirty drivers with their
+unwashed hands and unblessed food. How little regard they have for the
+Law. Uncle Laban would fast a lifetime rather than taste anything that
+had even been passed over a fire of their building. I can imagine I see
+him now, gathering up his skirts and walking on the tips of his sandals
+for fear of being touched by anything unclean."
+
+"Your Uncle Laban is a good man," answered Phineas, "one careful not to
+transgress the Law."
+
+"Yes," said the boy. "But I like your way better. You keep the fasts,
+and repeat the prayers, and love God and your neighbors. Uncle Laban is
+careful to do the first two things; I am not so sure about the others.
+Life is too short to be always washing one's hands."
+
+Phineas looked at the little fellow sharply. How shrewd and old he
+seemed for one of his years! Such independence of thought was unusual in
+a child trained as he had been. He scarcely knew how to answer him, so
+he turned his attention to spreading out the fruits and bread he had
+brought for their supper.
+
+Next morning, after the caravan had gone on without them, they started
+up a narrow bridle-path, that led through hillside-pastures where flocks
+of sheep and goats were feeding.
+
+The dew was still on the grass, and the air was so fresh and sweet in
+this higher altitude that Joel walked on with a feeling of strength and
+vigor unknown to him before.
+
+"Oh, look!" he cried, clasping his hands in delight, as a sudden turn
+brought them to the upper course of the brook whose waters, falling far
+below, had refreshed them the night before.
+
+The poetry of the Psalms came as naturally to the lips of this
+beauty-loving little Israelite as the breath he drew.
+
+Now he repeated, in a low, reverent voice, "'The Lord is my shepherd; I
+shall not want.' Oh, Rabbi Phineas, did you ever know before that there
+could be such green pastures and still waters?"
+
+The man smiled at the boy's radiant, upturned face. "'Yea, the earth is
+the Lord's and the fulness thereof,'" he murmured. "We have indeed a
+goodly heritage."
+
+Hushed into silence by the voice of the hills and the beauty on every
+side, they walked on till the road turned again.
+
+Just ahead stood a house unusually large for a country district;
+everything about it bore an air of wealth and comfort.
+
+"Our journey is at an end now," said Phineas. "Yonder lies the house of
+Nathan ben Obed. He owns all those flocks and herds we have seen in
+passing this last half hour. It is with him that I have business; and we
+will tarry with him until after the Sabbath."
+
+They were evidently expected, for a servant came running out to meet
+them. He opened the gate and conducted them into a shaded court-yard.
+Here another servant took off their dusty sandals, and gave them water
+to wash their feet.
+
+They had barely finished, when an old man appeared in the doorway; his
+long beard and hair were white as the abba he wore.
+
+Phineas would have bowed himself to the ground before him, but the old
+man prevented it, by hurrying to take both hands in his, and kiss him on
+each cheek.
+
+"Peace be to thee, thou son of my good friend Jesse!" he said. "Thou art
+indeed most welcome."
+
+Joel lagged behind. He was always sensitive about meeting strangers; but
+the man's cordial welcome soon put him at his ease.
+
+He was left to himself a great deal during the few days following. The
+business on which the old man had summoned Phineas required long
+consultations.
+
+One day they rode away together to some outlying pastures, and were gone
+until night-fall. Joel did not miss them. He was spending long happy
+hours in the country sunshine. There was something to entertain him,
+every way he turned. For a while he amused himself by sitting in the
+door and poring over a roll of parchment that Sarah, the wife of Nathan
+ben Obed, brought him to read.
+
+She was an old woman, but one would have found it hard to think so, had
+he seen how briskly she went about her duties of caring for such a large
+household.
+
+After Joel had read for some little time, he became aware that some one
+was singing outside, in a whining, monotonous way, and he laid down his
+book to listen. The voice was not loud, but so penetrating he could not
+shut it out, and fix his mind on his story again. So he rolled up the
+parchment and laid it on the chest from which it had been taken; then
+winding his handkerchief around his head, turban fashion, he limped out
+in the direction of the voice.
+
+Just around the corner of the house, under a great oak-tree, a woman sat
+churning. From three smooth poles joined at the top to form a tripod, a
+goat-skin bag hung by long leather straps. This was filled with cream;
+she was slapping it violently back and forth in time to her weird song.
+
+Her feet were bare, and she wore only a coarse cotton dress. But a gay
+red handkerchief covered her black hair, and heavy copper rings hung
+from her nose and ears.
+
+The song stopped suddenly as she saw Joel. Then recognizing her master's
+guest, she smiled at him so broadly that he could see her pretty white
+teeth.
+
+Joel hardly knew what to say at this unexpected encounter, but bethought
+himself to ask the way to the sheep-folds and the watch-tower. "It is a
+long way there," said the woman, doubtfully; Joel flushed as he felt her
+black eyes scanning his misshapen form.
+
+Just then Sarah appeared in the door, and the maid repeated the question
+to her mistress.
+
+"To be sure," she said. "You must go out and see our shepherds with
+their flocks. We have a great many employed just now, on all the
+surrounding hills. Rhoda, call your son, and bid him bring hither the
+donkey that he always drives to market."
+
+The woman left her churning, and presently came back with a boy about
+Joel's age, leading a donkey with only one ear.
+
+Joel knew what that meant. At some time in its life the poor beast had
+strayed into some neighbor's field, and the owner of the field had been
+at liberty to cut off an ear in punishment.
+
+The boy that led him wore a long shirt of rough hair-cloth. His feet and
+legs were brown and tanned. A shock of reddish sunburned hair was the
+only covering for his head. There was a squint in one eye, and his face
+was freckled.
+
+He made an awkward obeisance to his mistress.
+
+"Buz," she said, "this young lad is your master's guest. Take him out
+and show him the flocks and herds, and the sheep-folds. He has never
+seen anything of shepherd life, so be careful to do his pleasure. Stay!"
+she added to Joel. "You will not have time to visit them all before the
+mid-day meal, so I will give you a lunch, and you can enjoy an entire
+day in the fields."
+
+As the two boys started down the hill, Joel stole a glance at his
+companion. "What a stupid-looking fellow!" he thought; "I doubt if he
+knows anything more than this sleepy beast I am riding. I wonder if he
+enjoys any of this beautiful world around him. How glad I am that I am
+not in his place."
+
+Buz, trudging along in the dust, glanced at the little cripple on the
+donkey's back with an inward shiver.
+
+"What a dreadful lot his must be," he thought. "How glad I am that I am
+not like he is!"
+
+It was not very long till the shyness began to wear off, and Joel found
+that the stupid shepherd lad had a very busy brain under his shock of
+tangled hair. His eyes might squint, but they knew just where to look in
+the bushes for the little hedge-sparrow's nest. They could take unerring
+aim, too, when he sent the smooth sling-stones whizzing from the sling
+he carried.
+
+"How far can you shoot with it?" asked Joel.
+
+For answer Buz looked all around for some object on which to try his
+skill; then he pointed to a hawk slowly circling overhead. Joel watched
+him fit a smooth pebble into his sling; he had no thought that the boy
+could touch it at such a distance. The stone whizzed through the air
+like a bullet, and the bird dropped several yards ahead of them.
+
+"See!" said Buz, as he ran to pick it up, and display it proudly. "I
+struck it in the head."
+
+Joel looked at him with increasing respect. "That must have been the
+kind of sling that King David killed the giant with," he said, handing
+it back after a careful examination.
+
+"King David!" repeated Buz, dully, "seems to me I have heard of him,
+sometime or other; but I don't know about the giant."
+
+"Why where have you been all your life?" cried Joel, in amazement. "I
+thought everybody knew about that. Did you never go to a synagogue?"
+
+Buz shook his bushy head. "They don't have synagogues in these parts.
+The master calls us in and reads to us on the Sabbath; but I always get
+sleepy when I sit right still, and so I generally get behind somebody
+and go to sleep. The shepherds talk to each other a good deal about such
+things, I am never with them though. I spend all my time running
+errands."
+
+Shocked at such ignorance, Joel began to tell the shepherd king's life
+with such eloquence that Buz stopped short in the road to listen.
+
+Seeing this the donkey stood still also, wagged its one ear, and went to
+sleep. But Buz listened, wider awake than he had ever been before in his
+life.
+
+The story was a favorite one with Joel, and he put his whole soul into
+it.
+
+"Who told you that?" asked Buz, taking a long breath when the
+interesting tale was finished.
+
+"Why I read it myself!" answered Joel.
+
+"Oh, can you read?" asked Buz, looking at Joel in much the same way that
+Joel had looked at him after he killed the hawk. "I do not see how
+anybody can. It puzzles me how people can look at all those crooked
+black marks and call them rivers and flocks and things. I looked one
+time, just where Master had been reading about a great battle. And I
+didn't see a single thing that looked like a warrior or a sword or a
+battle-axe, though he called them all by name. There were several little
+round marks that might have been meant for sling-stones; but it was more
+than I could make out, how he could get any sense out of it."
+
+Joel leaned back and laughed till the hills rang, laughed till the tears
+stood in his eyes, and the donkey waked up and ambled on.
+
+Buz did not seem to be in the least disturbed by his merriment, although
+he was puzzled as to its cause. He only stooped to pick up more stones
+for his sling as they went on.
+
+It was not long till they came to some of the men,--great brawny fellows
+dressed in skins, with coarse matted hair and tanned faces. How little
+they knew of what was going on in the busy world outside their fields!
+As Joel talked to them he found that Cæsar's conquests and Hero's
+murders had only come to them as vague rumors. All the petty wars and
+political turmoils were unknown to them. They could talk to him only of
+their flocks and their faith, both as simple as their lives.
+
+Joel, in his wisdom learned of the Rabbis, felt himself infinitely their
+superior, child though he was. But he enjoyed his day spent with them.
+He and Buz ate the ample lunch they had brought, dipped up water from
+the brook in cups they made of oak-leaves, and both finally fell asleep
+to the droning music of the shepherd's pipes, played softly on the
+uplands.
+
+A distant rumble of thunder aroused them, late in the afternoon; and
+they started up to find the shepherds calling in their flocks. The gaunt
+sheep dogs raced to and fro, bringing the straying goats together. The
+shepherds brought the sheep into line with well-aimed sling-shots,
+touching them first on one side, and then on the other, as oxen are
+guided by the touch of the goad.
+
+Joel looked up at the darkening sky with alarm. "Who would have thought
+of a storm on such a day!" he exclaimed.
+
+Buz cocked his eyes at the horizon. "I thought it might come to this,"
+he said; "for as we came along this morning there were no spider-webs
+on the grass; the ants had not uncovered the doors of their hills; and
+all the signs pointed to wet weather. I thought though, that the time of
+the latter rains had passed a week ago. I am always glad when the stormy
+season is over. This one is going to be a hard one."
+
+"What shall we do?" asked Joel.
+
+Buz scratched his head. Then he looked at Joel. "You never could get
+home on that trifling donkey before it overtakes us; and they'll be
+worried about you. I'd best take you up to the sheep-fold. You can stay
+all night there, very comfortably. I'll run home and tell them where you
+are, and come back for you in the morning."
+
+Joel hesitated, appalled at spending the night among such dirty men; but
+the heavy boom of thunder, steadily rolling nearer, silenced his
+half-spoken objection. By the time the donkey had carried him up the
+hillside to the stone-walled enclosure round the watch-tower, the
+shepherds were at the gates with their flocks.
+
+Joel watched them go through the narrow passage, one by one. Each man
+kept count of his own sheep, and drove them under the rough sheds put up
+for their protection.
+
+A good-sized hut was built against the hillside, where the shepherds
+might find refuge. Buz pointed it out to Joel; then he turned the donkey
+into one of the sheds, and started homeward on the run.
+
+Joel shuddered as a blinding flash of lightning was followed by a crash
+of thunder that shook the hut. The wind bore down through the trees like
+some savage spirit, shrieking and moaning as it flew. Joel heard a
+shout, and looked out to the opposite hillside. Buz was flying along in
+break-neck race with the storm. At that rate he would soon be home. How
+he seemed to enjoy the race, as his strong limbs carried him lightly as
+a bird soars!
+
+At the top he turned to look back and laugh and wave his arms,--a sinewy
+little figure standing out in bold relief against a brazen sky.
+
+Joel watched till he was out of sight. Then, as the wind swooped down
+from the mountains, great drops of rain began to splash through the
+leaves.
+
+The men crowded into the hut. One of them started forward to close the
+door, but stopped suddenly, with his brown hairy hand uplifted.
+
+"Hark ye!" he exclaimed.
+
+Joel heard only the shivering of the wind in the tree-tops; but the
+man's trained ear caught the bleating of a stray lamb, far off and very
+faint.
+
+"I was afraid I was mistaken in my count; they jostled through the gate
+so fast I could not be sure." Going to a row of pegs along the wall, he
+took down a lantern hanging there and lit it; then wrapping his coat of
+skins more closely around him, and calling one of the dogs, he set out
+into the gathering darkness.
+
+Joel watched the fitful gleam of the lantern, flickering on unsteadily
+as a will-o'-the-wisp. A moment later he heard the man's deep voice
+calling tenderly to the lost animal; then the storm struck with such
+fury that they had to stand with their backs against the door of the hut
+to keep it closed.
+
+Flash after flash of lightning blinded them. The wind roared down the
+mountain and beat against the house till Joel held his breath in terror.
+It was midnight before it stopped. Joel thought of the poor shepherd out
+on the hills, and shuddered. Even the men seemed uneasy about him, as
+hour after hour passed, and he did not come.
+
+Finally he fell asleep in the corner, on a pile of woolly skins. In the
+gray dawn he was awakened by a great shout. He got up, and went to the
+door. There stood the shepherd. His bare limbs were cut by stones and
+torn by thorns. Blood streamed from his forehead where he had been
+wounded by a falling branch. The mud on his rough garments showed how
+often he had slipped and fallen on the steep paths.
+
+Joel noticed, with a thrill of sympathy, how painfully he limped. But
+there on the bowed shoulders was the lamb he had wandered so far to
+find; and as the welcoming shout arose again, Joel's weak little cheer
+joined gladly in.
+
+"How brave and strong he is," thought the boy. "He risked his life for
+just one pitiful little lamb."
+
+The child's heart went strangely out to this rough fellow who stood
+holding the shivering animal, sublimely unconscious that he had done
+anything more than a simple duty.
+
+Joel, who felt uncommonly hungry after his supperless night, thought he
+would mount the donkey and start back alone. But just as he was about to
+do so, a familiar bushy head showed itself in the door of the sheepfold.
+Buz had brought him some wheat-cakes and cheese to eat on the way back.
+
+Joel was so busy with this welcome meal that he did not talk much. Buz
+kept eying him in silence, as if he longed to ask some question. At
+last, when the cheese had entirely disappeared, he found courage to ask
+it.
+
+"Were you always like that?" he said abruptly, motioning to Joel's back
+and leg. Somehow the reference did not wound him as it generally did. He
+began to tell Buz about the Samaritan boy who had crippled him. He never
+was able to tell the story of his wrongs without growing passionately
+angry. He had worked himself into a white heat by the time he had
+finished.
+
+"I'd get even with him," said Buz, excitedly, with a wicked squint of
+his eyes.
+
+"How would you do it?" demanded Joel. "Cripple him as he did me?"
+
+"Worse than that!" exclaimed Buz, stopping to take deliberate aim at a
+leaf overhead, and shooting a hole exactly through the centre with his
+sling. "I'd blind him as quick as that! It's a great deal worse to be
+blind than lame."
+
+Joel closed his eyes, and rode on a few moments in darkness. Then he
+opened them and gave a quick glad look around the landscape. "My! What
+if I never could have opened them again," he thought. "Yes, Buz, you're
+right," he said aloud. "It _is_ worse to be blind; so I shall take
+Rehum's eyesight also, some time. Oh, if that time were only here!"
+
+Although the subject of the miracle at Cana had been constantly in the
+mind of Phineas, and often near his lips, he did not speak of it to his
+host until the evening before his departure.
+
+It was just at the close of the evening meal. Nathan ben Obed rose
+half-way from his seat in astonishment, then sank back.
+
+"How old a man is this friend of yours?" he asked.
+
+"About thirty, I think," answered Phineas. "He is a little younger than
+I."
+
+"Where was he born?"
+
+"In Bethlehem, I have heard it said, though his home has always been in
+Nazareth."
+
+"Strange, strange!" muttered the man, stroking his long white beard
+thoughtfully.
+
+Joel reached over and touched Phineas on the arm. "Will you not tell
+Rabbi Nathan about the wonderful star that was seen at that time?" he
+asked, in a low tone.
+
+"What was that?" asked the old man, arousing from his reverie.
+
+When Phineas had repeated his conversation with the stranger on the day
+of his journey, Nathan ben Obed exchanged meaning glances with his
+wife.
+
+"Send for the old shepherd Heber," he said. "I would have speech with
+him."
+
+Rhoda came in to light the lamps. He bade her roll a cushioned couch
+that was in one corner to the centre of the room.
+
+"This old shepherd Heber was born in Bethlehem," he said; "but since his
+sons and grandsons have been in my employ, he has come north to live. He
+used to help keep the flocks that belonged to the Temple, and that were
+used for sacrifices. His has always been one of the purest of lives; and
+I have never known such faith as he has. He is over a hundred years old,
+so must have been quite aged at the time of the event of which he will
+tell us."
+
+Presently an old, old man tottered into the room, leaning on the
+shoulders of his two stalwart grandsons. They placed him gently on the
+cushions of the couch, and then went into the court-yard to await his
+readiness to return. Like the men Joel had seen the day before, they
+were dressed in skins, and were wild-looking and rough. But this aged
+father, with dim eyes and trembling wrinkled hands, sat before them like
+some hoary patriarch, in a fine linen mantle.
+
+Pleased as a child, he saluted his new audience, and began to tell them
+his only story.
+
+As the years had gone by, one by one the lights of memory had gone out
+in darkness. Well-known scenes had grown dim; old faces were forgotten;
+names he knew as well as his own, could not be recalled: but this one
+story was as fresh and real to him, as on the night he learned it.
+
+The words he chose were simple, the voice was tremulous with weakness;
+but he spoke with a dramatic fervor that made Joel creep nearer and
+nearer, until he knelt, unknowing, at the old man's knee, spell-bound by
+the wonderful tale.
+
+"We were keeping watch in the fields by night," began the old shepherd,
+"I and my sons and my brethren. It was still and cold, and we spoke but
+little to each other. Suddenly over all the hills and plains shone a
+great light,--brighter than light of moon or stars or sunshine. It was
+so heavenly white we knew it must be the glory of the Lord we looked
+upon and we were sore afraid, and hid our faces, falling to the ground.
+And, lo! an angel overhead spake to us from out of the midst of the
+glory, saying, 'Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great
+joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the
+city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a
+sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes,
+lying in a manger.'
+
+"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
+praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth,
+good-will toward men!'
+
+"Oh, the sound of the rejoicing that filled that upper air! Ever since
+in my heart have I carried that foretaste of heaven!"
+
+The old shepherd paused, with such a light on his upturned face that he
+seemed to his awestruck listeners to be hearing again that same angelic
+chorus,--the chorus that rang down from the watch-towers of heaven,
+across earth's lowly sheep-fold, on that first Christmas night.
+
+There was a solemn hush. Then he said, "And when they were gone away,
+and the light and the song were no more with us, we spake one to
+another, and rose in haste and went to Bethlehem. And we found the Babe
+lying in a manger with Mary its mother; and we fell down and worshipped
+Him.
+
+"Thirty years has it been since the birth of Israel's Messiah; and I sit
+and wonder all the day,--wonder when He will appear once more to His
+people. Surely the time must be well nigh here when He may claim His
+kingdom. O Lord, let not Thy servant depart until these eyes that
+beheld the Child shall have seen the King in His beauty!"
+
+Joel remained kneeling beside old Heber, perfectly motionless. He was
+fitting together the links that he had lately found. A child, heralded
+by angels, proclaimed by a star worshipped by the Magi! A man changing
+water into wine at only a word!
+
+"I shall yet see Him!" exclaimed the voice of old Heber, with such
+sublime assurance of faith that it found a response in every heart.
+
+There was another solemn stillness, so deep that the soft fluttering of
+a night-moth around the lamp startled them.
+
+Then the child's voice rang out, eager and shrill, but triumphant as if
+inspired: "Rabbi Phineas, _He_ it was who changed the water into
+wine!--This friend of Nazareth and the babe of Bethlehem are the same!"
+
+The heart of the carpenter was strangely stirred, but it was full of
+doubt. Not that the Christ had been born,--the teachings of all his
+lifetime led him to expect that; but that the chosen One could be a
+friend of his,--the thought was too wonderful for him.
+
+The old shepherd sat on the couch, feebly twisting his fingers, and
+talking to himself. He was repeating bits of the story he had just told
+them: "And, lo, an angel overhead!" he muttered. Then he looked up,
+whispering softly, "Glory to God in the highest--and peace, yes, on
+earth peace!"
+
+"He seems to have forgotten everything else," said Nathan, signalling to
+the men outside to lead him home. "His mind is wiped away entirely, that
+it may keep unspotted the record of that night's revelation. He tells it
+over and over, whether he has a listener or not."
+
+They led him gently out, the white-haired, white-souled old shepherd
+Heber. It seemed to Joel that the wrinkled face was illuminated by some
+inner light, not of this world, and that he lingered among men only to
+repeat to them, over and over, his one story. That strange sweet story
+of Bethlehem's first Christmas-tide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Next morning a goodly train set out from the gates of Nathan ben Obed.
+It was near the time of the feast of the Passover, and he, with many of
+his household, was going down to Jerusalem.
+
+The family and guests went first on mules and asses. Behind them
+followed a train of servants, driving the lambs, goats, and oxen to be
+offered as sacrifices in the temple, or sold in Jerusalem to other
+pilgrims.
+
+All along the highway, workmen were busy repairing the bridges, and
+cleaning the springs and wells, soon to be used by the throngs of
+travellers.
+
+All the tombs near the great thoroughfares were being freshly
+white-washed; they gleamed with a dazzling purity through the green
+trees, only to warn passers-by of the defilement within. For had those
+on their way to the feast approached too near these homes of the dead,
+even unconsciously, they would have been accounted unclean, and unfit
+to partake of the Passover. Nothing escaped Joel's quick sight, from the
+tulips and marigolds flaming in the fields, to the bright-eyed little
+viper crawling along the stone-wall.
+
+But while he looked, he never lost a word that passed between his friend
+Phineas and their host. The pride of an ancient nation took possession
+of him as he listened to the prophecies they quoted.
+
+Every one they met along the way coming from Capernaum had something to
+say about this new prophet who had arisen in Galilee. When they reached
+the gate of the city, a great disappointment awaited them. _He had been
+there, and gone again._
+
+Nathan ben Obed and his train tarried only one night in the place, and
+then pressed on again towards Jerusalem. Phineas went with them.
+
+"You shall go with us next year," he said to Joel; "then you will be
+over twelve. I shall take my own little ones too, and their mother."
+
+"Only one more year," exclaimed Joel, joyfully. "If that passes as
+quickly as the one just gone, it will soon be here."
+
+"Look after my little family," said the carpenter, at parting. "Come
+every day to the work, if you wish, just as when I am here; and
+remember, my lad, you are almost a man."
+
+Almost a man! The words rang in the boy's thoughts all day as he pounded
+and cut, keeping time to the swinging motion of hammer and saw. Almost a
+man! But what kind of one? Crippled and maimed, shorn of the strength
+that should have been his pride, beggared of his priestly birthright.
+
+Almost, it might be, but never in its fulness, could he hope to attain
+the proud stature of a perfect man.
+
+A fiercer hate sprang up for the enemy who had made him what he was; and
+the wild burning for revenge filled him so he could not work. He put
+away his tools, and went up the narrow outside stairway that led to the
+flat roof of the carpenter's house. It was called the "upper chamber."
+Here a latticed pavilion, thickly overgrown with vines, made a cool
+green retreat where he might rest and think undisturbed.
+
+Sitting there, he could see the flash of white sails on the blue lake,
+and slow-moving masses of fleecy clouds in the blue of the sky above.
+They brought before him the picture of the flocks feeding on the
+pastures of Nathan ben Obed.
+
+Then, naturally enough, there flashed through his mind a thought of Buz.
+He seemed to see him squinting his little eyes to take aim at a leaf
+overhead. He heard the stone whirr through it, as Buz said: "I'd blind
+him!"
+
+Some very impossible plans crept into Joel's day-dreams just then. He
+imagined himself sitting in a high seat, wrapped in robes of state;
+soldiers stood around him to carry out his slightest wish. The door
+would open and Rehum would be brought forth in fetters.
+
+"What is your will concerning the prisoner, O most gracious sovereign,"
+the jailer would ask.
+
+Joel closed his eyes, and waved his hand before an imaginary audience.
+"Away with him,--to the torture! Wrench his limbs on the rack! Brand his
+eyelids with hot irons! Let him suffer all that man can suffer and live!
+Thus shall it be done unto the man on whom the king delighteth to take
+vengeance!"
+
+Joel was childish enough to take a real satisfaction in this scene he
+conjured up. But as it faded away, he was man enough to realize it could
+never come to pass, save in his imagination; he could never be in such a
+position for revenge, unless,--
+
+That moment a possible way seemed to open for him. Phineas would
+probably see his friend of Nazareth at the Passover. What could be more
+natural than that the old friendship should be renewed. He whose hand
+had changed the water into wine should finally cast out the alien king
+who usurped the throne of Israel, for one in whose veins the blood of
+David ran royal red,--what was more to be expected than that?
+
+The Messiah would come to His kingdom, and then--and then--the thought
+leaped to its last daring limit.
+
+Phineas, who had been His earliest friend and playfellow, would he not
+be lifted to the right hand of power? Through him, then, lay the royal
+road to revenge.
+
+The thought lifted him unconsciously to his feet. He stood with his arms
+out-stretched in the direction of the far-away Temple, like some young
+prophet. David's cry of triumph rose to his lips: "Thou hast girded me
+with strength unto the battle," he murmured. "Thou hast also given me
+the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me!"
+
+A sweet baby voice at the foot of the steps brought him suddenly down
+from the height of his intense feeling.
+
+"Joel! Joel!" called little Ruth, "where is you?"
+
+Then Jesse's voice added, "We're all a-coming up for you to tell us a
+story."
+
+Up the stairs they swarmed to the roof, the carpenter's children and
+half-a-dozen of their little playmates.
+
+Joel, with his head still in the clouds, told them of a mighty king who
+was coming to slay all other kings, and change all tears--the waters of
+affliction--into the red wine of joy.
+
+"H'm! I don't think much of that story," said Jesse, with out-spoken
+candor. "I'd rather hear about Goliath, or the bears that ate up the
+forty children."
+
+But Joel was in no mood for such stories, just then. On some slight
+pretext he escaped from his exacting audience, and went down to the
+sea-shore. Here, skipping stones across the water, or writing idly in
+the sand, he was free to go on with his fascinating day-dreams.
+
+For the next two weeks the boy gave up work entirely. He haunted the
+toll-gates and public streets, hoping to hear some startling news from
+Jerusalem. He was so full of the thought that some great revolution was
+about to take place, that he could not understand how people could be
+so indifferent. All on fire with the belief that this man of Nazareth
+was the one in whom lay the nation's hope, he looked and longed for the
+return of Phineas, that he might learn more of Him.
+
+But Phineas had little to tell when he came back. He had met his friend
+twice in Jerusalem,--the same gentle quiet man he had always known,
+making no claims, working no wonders. Phineas had heard of His driving
+the moneychangers out of the Temple one day, and those who sold doves in
+its sacred courts, although he had not witnessed the scene.
+
+The carpenter was rather surprised that He should have made such a
+public disturbance.
+
+"Rabbi Phineas," said Joel, with a trembling voice, "don't you think
+your friend is the prophet we are expecting?"
+
+Phineas shook his head. "No, my lad, I am sure of it now."
+
+"But the herald angels and the star," insisted the boy.
+
+"They must have proclaimed some one else. He is the best man I ever
+knew; but there is no more of the king in His nature, than there is in
+mine."
+
+The man's positive answer seemed to shatter Joel's last hope. Downcast
+and disappointed, he went back to his work. Only with money could he
+accomplish his life's object, and only by incessant work could he earn
+the shining shekels that he needed.
+
+Phineas wondered sometimes at the dogged persistence with which the
+child stuck to his task, in spite of his tired, aching body.
+
+He had learned to make sandal-wood jewel-boxes, and fancifully wrought
+cups to hold the various dyes and cosmetics used by the ladies of the
+court.
+
+Several times, during the following months, he begged a sail in some of
+the fishing-boats that landed at the town of Tiberias. Having gained the
+favor of the keeper of the gates, by various little gifts of his own
+manufacture, he always found a ready admittance to the palace.
+
+To the ladies of the court, the sums they paid for his pretty wares
+seemed trifling; but to Joel the small bag of coins hidden in the folds
+of his clothes was a little fortune, daily growing larger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+IT was Sabbath morning in the house of Laban the Pharisee. Joel, sitting
+alone in the court-yard, could hear his aunt talking to the smaller
+children, as she made them ready to take with her to the synagogue.
+
+From the upper chamber on the roof, came also a sound of voices, for two
+guests had arrived the day before, and were talking earnestly with their
+host. Joel already knew the object of their visit.
+
+They had been there before, when the preaching of John Baptist had drawn
+such great crowds from all the cities to the banks of the Jordan. They
+had been sent out then by the authorities in Jerusalem to see what
+manner of man was this who, clothed in skins and living in the
+wilderness, could draw the people so wonderfully, and arouse such
+intense excitement. Now they had come on a like errand, although on
+their own authority.
+
+Another prophet had arisen whom this John Baptist had declared to be
+greater than himself. They had seen Him drive the moneychangers from the
+Temple; they had heard many wild rumors concerning Him. So they followed
+Him to His home in the little village of Nazareth, where they heard Him
+talk in the synagogue.
+
+They had seen the listening crowd grow amazed at the eloquence of His
+teaching, and then indignant that one so humble as a carpenter's son
+should claim that Isaiah's prophecies had been fulfilled in Himself.
+
+They had seen Him driven from the home of His boyhood, and now had come
+to Capernaum that they might be witnesses in case this impostor tried to
+lead these people astray by repeating His claims.
+
+All this Joel heard, and more, as the earnest voices came distinctly
+down to him through the deep hush of the Sabbath stillness. It shook his
+faith somewhat, even in the goodness of this friend of his friend
+Phineas, that these two learned doctors of the Law should consider Him
+an impostor.
+
+He stood aside respectfully for them to pass, as they came down the
+outside stairway, and crossed the court-yard on their way to the
+morning service.
+
+Their long, flowing, white robes, their broad phylacteries, their
+dignified bearing, impressed him greatly. He knew they were wise, good
+men whose only aim in life was to keep the letter of the Law, down to
+its smallest details. He followed them through the streets until they
+came to the synagogue. They gave no greeting to any one they passed, but
+walked with reverently bowed heads that their pious meditation might not
+be disturbed by the outside world. His aunt had already gone by the way
+of the back streets, as it was customary for women to go, her face
+closely veiled.
+
+The synagogue, of finely chiselled limestone, with its double rows of
+great marble pillars, stood in its white splendor, the pride of the
+town. It had been built by the commander of the garrison who, though a
+Roman centurion, was a believer in the God of the Hebrews, and greatly
+loved by the whole people.
+
+Joel glanced up at the lintel over the door, where Aaron's rod and a pot
+of manna carved in the stone were constant reminders to the daily
+worshippers of the Hand that fed and guided them from generation to
+generation.
+
+Joel limped slowly to his place in the congregation. In the seats of
+honor, facing it, sat his uncle and his guests, among the rulers of the
+synagogue.
+
+For a moment his eyes wandered curiously around, hoping for a glimpse of
+the man whose fame was beginning to spread all over Galilee. It had been
+rumored that He would be there. But Joel saw only familiar faces. The
+elders took their seats.
+
+During the reading of the usual psalm, the reciting of a benediction,
+and even the confession of the creed, Joel's thoughts wandered. When the
+reader took up his scroll to read the passages from Deuteronomy, the boy
+stole one more quick glance all around. But as the whole congregation
+arose, and turned facing the east, he resolutely fixed his mind on the
+duties of the hour.
+
+The eighteen benedictions, or prayers, were recited in silence by each
+devout worshipper. Then the leader repeated them aloud, all the
+congregation responding with their deep Amen! and Amen! Joel always
+liked that part of the service and the chanting that followed.
+
+Another roll of parchment was brought out. The boy looked up with
+interest. Probably one of his uncle's guests would be invited to read
+from it, and speak to the people.
+
+No, it was a stranger whom he had not noticed before, sitting behind one
+of the tall elders, who was thus honored.
+
+Joel's heart beat so fast that the blood throbbed against his ear-drums,
+as he heard the name called. It was the friend of his friend Phineas,
+_the Rabbi Jesus_.
+
+Joel bent forward, all his soul in his eyes, as the stranger unrolled
+the book, and began to read from the Prophets. The words were old
+familiar ones; he even knew them by heart. But never before had they
+carried with them such music, such meaning. When He laid aside the roll,
+and began to speak, every fibre in the boy's being thrilled in response
+to the wonderful eloquence of that voice and teaching.
+
+The whole congregation sat spell-bound, forgetful of everything except
+the earnestness of the speaker who moved and swayed them as the wind
+does the waving wheat.
+
+Suddenly there arose a wild shriek, a sort of demon-like howl that
+transfixed them with its piercing horror. Every one turned to see the
+cause of the startling sound. There, near the door, stood a man whom
+they all knew,--an unhappy creature said to be possessed of an unclean
+spirit.
+
+"Ha!" he cried, in a blood-curdling tone. "What have we to do with Thee,
+Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know Thee, who thou
+art, the holy One of God!"
+
+There was a great stir, especially in the woman's gallery; and those
+standing nearest him backed away as far as possible.
+
+Every face was curious and excited, at this sudden interruption,--every
+face but one; the Rabbi Jesus alone was calm.
+
+"Hold thy peace and come out of him!" He commanded. There was one more
+shriek, worse than before, as the man fell at His feet in a convulsion;
+but in a moment he stood up again, quiet and perfectly sane. The wild
+look was gone from his eyes. Whatever had been the strange spell that
+had bound him before, he was now absolutely free.
+
+There was another stir in the woman's gallery. Contrary to all rule or
+custom, an aged woman pushed her way out. Down the stairs she went,
+unveiled through the ranks of the men, to reach her son whom she had
+just seen restored to reason. With a glad cry she fell forward,
+fainting, in his arms, and was borne away to the little home, now no
+longer darkened by the shadow of a sore affliction.
+
+Little else was talked about that day, until the rumor of another
+miracle began to spread through the town. Phineas, stopping at Laban's
+house on his way home from an afternoon service, confirmed the truth of
+it.
+
+One of his neighbors had been dangerously ill with a fever that was
+common in that part of the country; she was the mother-in-law of Simon
+bar Jonah. It was at his home that the Rabbi Jesus had been invited to
+dine.
+
+As soon as He entered the house, they besought Him to heal her. Standing
+beside her, He rebuked the fever; and immediately she arose, and began
+to help her daughter prepare for the entertainment of their guest.
+
+"Abigail was there yesterday," said Phineas, "to carry some broth she
+had made. She thought then it would be impossible for the poor creature
+to live through the night. I saw the woman a few hours ago, and she is
+perfectly well and strong."
+
+That night when the sun was setting, and the Sabbath was at an end, a
+motley crowd streamed along the streets to the door of Simon bar Jonah.
+Men carried on couches; children in their mother's arms; those wasted by
+burning fevers; those shaken by unceasing palsy; the lame; the blind;
+the death-stricken,--all pressing hopefully on.
+
+What a scene in that little court-yard as the sunset touched the wan
+faces and smiled into dying eyes. Hope for the hopeless! Balm for the
+broken in body and spirit! There was rejoicing in nearly every home in
+Capernaum that night, for none were turned away. Not one was refused. It
+is written, "He laid His hand on every one of them, and healed them."
+
+That he might not seem behind his guests in zeal and devotion to the
+Law, the dignified Laban would not follow the crowds.
+
+"Let others be carried away by strange doctrines and false prophets, if
+they will," he declared; "as for me and my household, we will cling to
+the true faith of our fathers."
+
+So the three sat in the upper chamber on the roof, and discussed the new
+teacher with many shakes of their wise heads.
+
+"It is not lawful to heal on the Sabbath day," they declared. "Twice
+during the past day He has openly transgressed the Law. He will lead all
+Galilee astray!"
+
+But Galilee cared little how far the path turned from the narrow faith
+of the Pharisees, so long as it led to life and healing.
+
+Down in the garden below, the children climbed up on the grape-arbor,
+and peered through the vines at the surging crowds which they would have
+joined, had it not been for Laban's strict commands.
+
+One by one they watched people whom they knew go by, some carried on
+litters, some leaning on the shoulders of friends. One man crawled
+painfully along on his hands and knees.
+
+After awhile the same people began to come back.
+
+"Look, quick, Joel!" one of the children cried; "there goes Simon ben
+Levi. Why, his palsy is all gone! He doesn't shake a bit now! And
+there's little Martha that lives out near Aunt Rebecca's! Don't you know
+how white and thin she looked when they carried her by a little while
+ago? See! she is running along by herself now as well as we are!"
+
+The children could hardly credit their own sense of sight, when
+neighbors they had known all their lives to be bed-ridden invalids came
+back cured, singing and praising God.
+
+It was a sight they never could forget. So they watched wonderingly till
+darkness fell, and the last happy-hearted healed one had gone home to a
+rejoicing household.
+
+While the fathers on the roof were deciding they would have naught of
+this man, the children in the grape-arbor were storing up in their
+simple little hearts these proofs of his power and kindness.
+
+Then they gathered around Joel on the doorstep, while he repeated the
+story that the old shepherd Heber had told him, of the angels and the
+star, and the baby they had worshipped that night in Bethlehem.
+
+"Come, children," called his Aunt Leah, as she lit the lamp that was to
+burn all night. "Come! It is bed-time!"
+
+His cousin Hannah lingered a moment after the others had gone in, to
+say, "That was a pretty story, Joel. Why don't you go and ask the good
+man to straighten your back?"
+
+Strange as it may seem, this was the first time the thought had occurred
+to him that he might be benefited himself. He had been so long
+accustomed to thinking of himself as hopelessly lame, that the wonderful
+cures he had witnessed had awakened no hope for himself. A new life
+seemed to open up before him at the little girl's question. He sat on
+the doorstep thinking about it until his Uncle Laban came down and
+crossly ordered him to go to bed.
+
+He went in, saying softly to himself, "I will go to him to-morrow; yes,
+early in the morning!"
+
+Strange that an old proverb should cross his mind just then. "Boast not
+thyself of to-morrow. Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+WHEN Joel went out on the streets next morning, although it was quite
+early, he saw a disappointed crowd coming up from the direction of
+Simon's house on the lake shore.
+
+"Where have all these people been?" he asked of the baker's boy, whom he
+ran against at the first corner.
+
+The boy stopped whistling, and rested his basket of freshly baked bread
+against his knee, as he answered:--
+
+"They were looking for the Rabbi who healed so many people last night.
+Say! do you know," he added quickly, as if the news were too good to
+keep, "he healed my mother last night. You cannot think how different it
+seems at home, to have her going about strong and well like she used to
+be."
+
+Joel's eyes brightened. "Do you think he'll do anything for me, if I go
+to him now?" he asked wistfully. "Do you suppose he could straighten out
+such a crooked back as mine? Look how much shorter this leg is than the
+other. Oh, _do_ you think he could make them all right?"
+
+The boy gave him a critical survey, and then answered, emphatically,
+"Yes! It really does not look like it would be as hard to straighten you
+as old Jeremy, the tailor's father. He was twisted all out of shape, you
+know. Well, I'll declare! There he goes now!"
+
+Joel looked across the street. The wrinkled face of the old
+basket-weaver was a familiar sight in the market; but Joel could hardly
+recognize the once crippled form, now restored to its original
+shapeliness.
+
+"I am going right now," he declared, starting to run in his excitement.
+"I can't wait another minute."
+
+"But he's gone!" the boy called after him. "That's why the people are
+all coming back."
+
+Joel sat down suddenly on a ledge projecting from the stone-wall.
+"Gone!" he echoed drearily. It was as if he had been starving, and the
+life-giving food held to his famished lips had been suddenly snatched
+away. Both his heart and his feet felt like lead when he got up after
+awhile, and dragged himself slowly along to the carpenter's house.
+
+[Illustration: "'I PEEPED OUT 'TWEEN 'E WOSE--VINES'"]
+
+It was such a bitter disappointment to be so near the touch of healing,
+and then to miss it altogether.
+
+No cheerful tap of the hammer greeted him. The idle tools lay on the
+deserted workbench. "Disappointed again!" he thought. Then the doves
+cooed, and he caught a glimpse of Ruth's fair hair down among the garden
+lilies.
+
+"Where is your father, little one?" he called.
+
+"Gone away wiv 'e good man 'at makes everybody well," she answered. Then
+she came skipping down the path to stand close beside him, and say
+confidentially: "I saw Him--'e good man--going by to Simon's house. I
+peeped out 'tween 'e wose-vines, and He looked wite into my eyes wiv His
+eyes, and I couldn't help loving Him!"
+
+Joel looked into the beautiful baby face, thinking what a picture it
+must have made, as framed in roses it smiled out on the Tender-hearted
+One, going on His mission of help and healing.
+
+With her little hand in his, she led him back to hope, for she took him
+to her mother, who comforted him with the assurance that Phineas
+expected to be home soon, and doubtless his friend would be with him.
+
+So there came another time to work by himself and dream of the hour
+surely dawning. And the dreams were doubly sweet now; for side by side
+with his hope of revenge, was the belief in his possible cure.
+
+They heard only once from the absent ones. Word came back that a leper
+had been healed. Joel heard it first, down at the custom-house. He had
+gotten into the way of strolling down in that direction after his work
+was done; for here the many trading-vessels from across the lake, or
+those that shipped from Capernaum, had to stop and pay duty. Here, too,
+the great road of Eastern commerce passed which led from Damascus to the
+harbors of the West. So here he would find a constant stream of
+travellers, bringing the latest news from the outside world.
+
+The boy did not know, as he limped up and down the water's edge, longing
+for some word from his absent friends, that near by was one who watched
+almost as eagerly as himself.
+
+It was Levi-Matthew, one of the officials, sitting in the seat of
+custom. Sprung from the same priestly tribe as Joel, he had sunk so low,
+in accepting the office of tax-gatherer, that the righteous Laban would
+not have touched him so much as with the tip of his sandal.
+
+"Bears and lions," said a proverb, "might be the fiercest wild beasts in
+the forests; but publicans and informers were the worst in cities."
+
+One could not bear witness in the courts, and the disgrace extended to
+the whole family. They were even classed with robbers and murderers. No
+doubt there was deep cause for such a feeling; as a class they were
+unscrupulous and unjust. There might have been good ones among their
+number, but the company they kept condemned them to the scorn of high
+and low.
+
+When a Jew hates, or a Jew scorns, be sure it is thoroughly done; there
+is no half-way course for his intense nature to take.
+
+So this son of Levi, sitting in the seat of custom, and this son of Levi
+strolling past him, were, socially, as far apart as the east is from the
+west,--as unlike as thorn and blossom on the same tribal stem.
+
+Matthew knew all the fishermen and ship-owners that thronged the busy
+beach in front of him. The sons of Jonah and of Zebedee passed him
+daily; and he must have wondered when he saw them throw down their nets
+and leave everything to follow a stranger.
+
+He must have wondered also at the reports on every tongue, and the
+sights he had seen himself of miraculous healing. But while strangely
+drawn towards this new teacher from Nazareth, it could have been with no
+thought that the hand and the voice were for him. He was a publican, and
+how could they reach to such depths?
+
+A caravan had just stopped. The pack-animals were being unloaded, bales
+and packages opened, private letters pried into. The insolent officials
+were tossing things right and left, as they made a list of the taxable
+goods.
+
+Joel was watching them with as much interest as if he had not witnessed
+such scenes dozens of times before, till he noticed a group gathering
+around one of the drivers. He was telling what he had seen on his way to
+Capernaum. Several noisy companions kept interrupting him to bear
+witness to the truth of his statements.
+
+"And he who but a moment before had been the most miserable of lepers
+stood up before us all, cleansed of his leprosy. His skin was soft and
+fair as a child's, and his features were restored to him," said the
+driver.
+
+Joel and Levi-Matthew stood side by side. At another time the boy might
+have drawn his clothes away to keep from brushing against the despised
+tax-gatherer. But he never noticed now that their elbows touched.
+
+When he had heard all there was to be told, he limped away to carry the
+news to Abigail. To know that others were being cured daily made him all
+the more impatient for the return of this friend of Phineas.
+
+The publican turned again to his pen and his account-book. He, too,
+looked forward with a burning heart to the return of the Nazarene,
+unknowing why he did so.
+
+At last Joel heard of the return, in a very unexpected way. There were
+guests in the house of Laban again. One of the rabbis who had been there
+before, and a scribe from Jerusalem. Now there were longer conferences
+in the upper chamber, and graver shakings of the head, over this false
+prophet whose fame was spreading wider.
+
+The miracle of healing the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, when he
+had gone down to Jerusalem to one of the many feasts, had stirred Judea
+to its farthest borders. So these two men had been sent to investigate.
+
+On the very afternoon of their arrival, a report flew through the
+streets that the Rabbi Jesus was once more in the town. Their host led
+them with all the haste their dignity would allow, to the house where He
+was said to be preaching. The common people fell back when they saw
+them, and allowed them to pass into the centre of the throng.
+
+The Rabbi stood in the doorway, so that both those in the house and
+without could distinctly hear Him. The scribe had never seen Him before,
+and in spite of his deep-seated prejudice could not help admiring the
+man whom he had come prepared to despise. It was no wild fanatic who
+stood before him, no noisy debater whose fiery eloquence would be likely
+to excite and inflame His hearers.
+
+He saw a man of gentlest dignity; truth looked out from the depths of
+His calm eyes. Every word, every gesture, carried with it the conviction
+that He who spoke taught with God-given authority.
+
+The scribe began to grow uneasy as he listened, carried along by the
+earnest tones of the speaker.
+
+There was a great commotion on the edge of the crowd, as some one tried
+to push through to the centre.
+
+"Stand back! Go away!" demanded angry voices.
+
+The scribe was a tall man, and by stretching a little, managed to see
+over the heads of the others. Four men, bearing a helpless paralytic,
+were trying to carry him through the throngs; but they would not make
+room for this interruption.
+
+After vainly hunting for some opening through which they might press,
+the men mounted the steep, narrow staircase on the outside of the
+building, and drew the man up, hammock and all, to the flat roof on
+which they stood.
+
+There was a sound of scraping and scratching as they broke away the
+brush and mortar that formed the frail covering of the roof. Then the
+people in the room below saw slowly coming down upon them between the
+rafters, this man whom no obstacle could keep back from the Great
+Physician.
+
+But the paralyzed hands could not lift themselves in supplication; the
+helpless tongue could frame no word of pleading,--only the eyes of the
+sick man could look up into the pitying face bent over him, and implore
+a blessing.
+
+The scribe leaned forward, confidently expecting to hear the man bidden
+to arise. To his surprise and horror, the words he heard were: "Son, thy
+_sins_ be forgiven thee!"
+
+He looked at Laban and his companion, and the three exchanged meaning
+glances. When they looked again at the speaker, His eyes seemed to read
+their inmost thoughts.
+
+"Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?" He asked, with startling
+distinctness. "Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy
+sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?
+But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive
+sins," here He turned to the helpless form lying at His feet, "I say
+unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way unto thine house."
+
+The man bounded to his feet, and picking up the heavy rug on which he
+had been lying, went running and leaping out of their midst.
+
+Without a word, Laban and his two guests drew their clothes carefully
+around them, and picked their way through the crowd. Phineas, who stood
+at the gate, gave them a respectful greeting. Laban only turned his eyes
+away with a scowl, and passed coldly on.
+
+"The man is a liar and a blasphemer!" exclaimed the scribe, as they sat
+once more in the privacy of Laban's garden.
+
+"Only God can forgive sins!" added his companion. "This paralytic should
+have taken a sin-offering to the priest. For only by the blood of
+sacrifice can one hope to obtain pardon."
+
+"Still He healed him," spoke up the scribe, musingly.
+
+"Only through the power of Satan!" interrupted Laban. "When He says He
+can forgive sins, He blasphemes."
+
+The other Pharisee leaned forward to say, in an impressive whisper:
+"Then you know the Law on that point. He should be stoned to death, His
+body hung on a tree, and then buried with shame!"
+
+It was not long after that Joel, just back from a trip to Tiberias in a
+little sailing-boat, came into the garden. He had been away since early
+morning, so had heard nothing of what had just occurred; he had had good
+luck in disposing of his wares, and was feeling unusually cheerful.
+Hearing voices in the corner of the garden, he was about to pass out
+again, when his uncle called him sternly to come to him at once.
+
+Surprised at the command, he obeyed, and was questioned and
+cross-questioned by all three. It was very little he could tell them
+about his friend's plans; but he acknowledged proudly that Phineas had
+always known this famous man from Nazareth, even in childhood, and was
+one of his most devoted followers.
+
+"This man Phineas is a traitor to the faith!" roared Laban. "He is a
+dangerous man, and in league with these fellows to do great evil to our
+nation."
+
+The scribe and the rabbi nodded approvingly.
+
+"Hear me, now!" he cried, sternly. "Never again are you to set foot over
+his threshold, or have any communication whatsoever with him or his
+associates. I make no idle threat; if you disobey me in this, you will
+have cause to wish you had never been born. You may leave us now!"
+
+Too surprised and frightened to say a word, the child slipped away. To
+give up his daily visit to the carpenter's house, was to give up all
+that made his life tolerable; while to be denied even speaking to his
+associates, meant to abandon all hope of cure.
+
+But he dared not rebel; obedience to those in authority was too
+thoroughly taught in those days to be lightly disregarded. But his uncle
+seemed to fear that his harsh command would be eluded in some way, and
+kept such a strict watch over him, that he rarely got beyond the borders
+of the garden by himself.
+
+One day he was all alone in the grape-arbor, looking out into the
+streets that he longed to be in, since their freedom had been denied
+him.
+
+A little girl passed, carrying one child in her arms, and talking to
+another who clung to her skirts. It was Jerusha.
+
+Joel threw a green grape at her to attract her attention, and then
+beckoned her mysteriously to come nearer. She set the baby on the
+ground, and gave him her bracelet to play with, while she listened to a
+whispered account of his wrongs through the latticed arbor.
+
+"It's a shame!" she declared indignantly. "I'll go right down to the
+carpenter's house and tell them why you cannot go there any more. And
+I'll keep watch on all that happens, and let you know. I go past here
+every day, and if I have any news, I'll toss a pebble over the wall and
+cluck like a hen. Then if nobody is watching, you can come to this hole
+in the arbor again."
+
+The next day, as Joel was going in great haste to the baker's, whither
+his aunt had sent him, he heard some one behind him calling him to wait.
+In another moment Jerusha was in speaking distance, nearly bent double
+with the weight of her little brother, whom she was carrying as usual.
+
+"There!" she said, with a puff of relief, as she put him on his own
+feet. "Wait till I get my breath! It's no easy thing to carry such a
+load and run at the same time! How did you get out?"
+
+"There was an errand to be done, and no one else to do it," answered
+Joel, "so Aunt sent me."
+
+"Oh, I've got such news for you!" she exclaimed. "Guess what has
+happened! Your Rabbi Jesus has asked Levi-Matthew to be one of His
+followers, and go around with Him wherever He goes. Think of it! One of
+those horrid tax-gatherers! He settled his accounts and gave up his
+position in the custom-house yesterday. And he is getting ready for a
+great feast. I heard the butcher and the wine-dealer both telling about
+the big orders he had given them.
+
+"All the publicans and low common people that are his friends are
+invited. Yes, and so is your friend the carpenter. Think of that, now!
+He is going to sit down and eat with such people! Of course respectable
+folks will never have anything more to do with him after that! I guess
+your uncle was right about him, after all!"
+
+Both the little girl's face and manner expressed intense disgust.
+
+Joel was shocked. "Oh, are you sure?" he cried. "You certainly must be
+mistaken! It cannot be so!"
+
+"I guess I know what I see with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears!"
+she retorted, angrily. "My father says they are a bad lot. People that
+go with publicans are just as unclean themselves. If you know so much
+more than everybody else, I'll not trouble myself to run after you with
+any more news. Mistaken, indeed!"
+
+With her head held high, and her nose scornfully turned up, she jerked
+her little brother past him, and went quickly around the corner of the
+street.
+
+The indignation of some of the rabbis knew no bounds. "It has turned out
+just as I predicted," said the scribe to Laban, at supper. "They are
+nothing but a set of gluttons and wine-bibbers!"
+
+There was nothing else talked of during the entire meal. How Joel's
+blood boiled as he listened to their conversation! The food seemed to
+choke him. As they applied one coarse epithet after another to his
+friend Phineas, all the kindness and care this man had ever given him
+seemed to rise up before him. But when they turned on the Nazarene, all
+the stories Joel had heard in the carpenter's house of His gentle
+sinless childhood, all the tokens he had seen himself of His pure
+unselfish manhood, seemed to cry out against such gross injustice.
+
+It was no light thing for a child to contradict the doctors of the Law,
+and, in a case of this kind, little less than a crime to take the stand
+Joel did.
+
+But the memory of two faces gave him courage: that of Phineas as it had
+looked on him through all those busy happy hours in the carpenter's
+home; the other face he had seen but once, that day of healing in the
+synagogue,--who, having once looked into the purity of those eyes, the
+infinite tenderness of that face, could sit calmly by and raise no voice
+against the calumny of his enemies?
+
+The little cripple was white to the lips, and he trembled from head to
+foot as he stood up to speak.
+
+The scribe lifted up both hands, and turned to Laban with a meaning
+shrug of the shoulders. "To think of finding such heresy in your own
+household!" he exclaimed. "Among your own children!"
+
+"He is no child of mine!" retorted Laban. "Nor shall he stay among
+them!" Then he turned to Joel.
+
+"Boy, take back every word you have just uttered! Swear you will
+renounce this man,--this son of perdition,--and never have aught to say
+well of Him again!"
+
+Joel looked around the table, at each face that shone out pale and
+excited in the yellow lamplight. His eyes were dilated with fear; his
+heart thumped so in the awful pause that followed, that he thought
+everybody else must hear it.
+
+"I cannot!" he said hoarsely. "Oh, I cannot!"
+
+"Then take yourself out of my sight forever. The doors of this house
+shall never open for you again!"
+
+There was a storm of abuse from the angry man at this open defiance of
+his authority. With these two cold, stern men to nod approval at his
+zealousness, he went to greater lengths than he might otherwise have
+done.
+
+With one more frightened glance around the table, the child hurried out
+of the room. The door into the street creaked after him, and Joel limped
+out into the night, with his uncle's curse ringing in his ears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+PHINEAS, going along the beach that night, in the early moonlight,
+towards his home, saw a little figure crouched in the shadow of a low
+building beside the wharf. It was shaking with violent sobs. He went up
+to the child, and took its hands down from its wet face, with a
+comforting expression of pity. Then he started back in surprise. It was
+Joel!
+
+"Why, my child! My poor child!" he exclaimed, putting his arm around the
+trembling, misshapen form. "What is the meaning of all this?"
+
+"Uncle Laban has driven me away from home!" sobbed the boy. "He was
+angry because you and Rabbi Jesus were invited to Levi-Matthew's feast.
+He says I have denied the faith, and am worse than an infidel. He says I
+am fit only to be cast out with the dogs and publicans!--and--and--" he
+ended with a wail. "Oh, he sent me away with his curse!"
+
+Phineas drew him closer, and stroked the head on his shoulder in pitying
+silence.
+
+"Fatherless and motherless and lame!" the boy sobbed bitterly. "And now,
+a homeless outcast, blighted by a curse, I have been sitting here with
+my feet in the dark water, thinking how easy it would be to slip down
+into it and forget; but, Rabbi Phineas, that face will not let me,--that
+face of your friend,--I keep seeing it all the time!"
+
+Phineas gathered the boy so close in his arms that Joel could feel his
+strong, even heart-beats.
+
+"My child," he said solemnly, "call me no more, Rabbi! Henceforth, it is
+to be _father_ Phineas. You shall be to me as my own son!"
+
+"But the curse!" sobbed Joel. "The curse that is set upon me! It will
+blight you too!"
+
+"Nay," was the quiet answer; "for it is written, 'As the bird by
+wandering, as the swallow by flying, _so the curse, causeless, shall not
+come_.'"
+
+But the boy still shook as with a chill. His face and hands were burning
+hot.
+
+"Come!" said Phineas. He picked him up in his strong arms, and carried
+him down the beach to Abigail's motherly care and comforting.
+
+"He will be a long time getting over the shock of this," she said to
+her husband, when he was at last soothed to sleep.
+
+"Ah, loyal little heart!" he answered, "he has suffered much for the
+sake of his friendship with us!"
+
+Poor little storm-tossed bark! In the days that followed he had reason
+to bless the boisterous winds, that blew him to such a safe and happy
+harbor!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Over on the horns of Mount Hattin, the spring morning began to shine.
+The light crept slowly down the side of the old mountain, till it fell
+on a little group of men talking earnestly together. It was the Preacher
+of Galilee, who had just chosen twelve men from among those who followed
+Him to help Him in His ministry.
+
+They gathered around Him in the fresh mountain dawn, as He pictured the
+life in store for them. Strange they did not quail before it, and turn
+back disheartened. Nay, not strange! For in the weeks they had been with
+Him, they had learned to love Him so, that His "follow me," that drew
+them from the toll-gate and fishing-boat, was stronger than ties of home
+and kindred.
+
+Just about this time, Phineas and Joel were starting out from Capernaum
+to the mountain. Hundreds of people were already on the way; people who
+had come from all parts of Judea, and beyond the Jordan. Clouds of dust
+rose above the highway as the travellers trudged along.
+
+Joel was obliged to walk slowly, so that by the time they reached the
+plain below, a great multitude had gathered.
+
+"Let's get close," he whispered. He had heard that those who barely
+touched the garments of the strange Rabbi were made whole, and it was
+with the hope that he might steal up and touch Him unobserved that he
+had begged Phineas to take him on such a long, painful walk.
+
+"There is too great a crowd, now," answered Phineas. "Let us rest here
+awhile, and listen. Let me lift you up on this big rock, so that you can
+see. 'Sh! He is speaking!"
+
+Joel looked up, and, for the second time in his life, listened to words
+that thrilled him like a trumpet call,--words that through eighteen
+hundred years have not ceased to vibrate; with what mighty power they
+must have fallen when, for the first time, they broke the morning
+stillness of those mountain wilds!
+
+Joel forgot the press of people about him, forgot even where he was, as
+sentence after sentence seemed to lift him out of himself, till he
+could catch glimpses of lofty living such as he had never even dreamed
+of before.
+
+Round by round, he seemed to be carried up some high ladder of thought
+by that voice, away from all that was common and low and earthly, to a
+summit of infinite love and light.
+
+Still the voice led on, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, 'An eye
+for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'"
+
+Joel started so violently at hearing his own familiar motto, that he
+nearly lost his balance on the rock.
+
+"But I say unto you that you resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite
+thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.... Ye have heard
+that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine
+enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
+do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
+you, and persecute you."
+
+Poor little Joel, it was a hard doctrine for him to accept! How could he
+give up his hope of revenge, when it had grown with his growth till it
+had come to be as dear as life itself?
+
+He heard little of the rest of the sermon, for through it all the words
+kept echoing, "Bless them that curse you! Do good to them that hate
+you! Pray for them which despitefully use you!"
+
+"Oh, I can't! I can't!" he groaned inwardly.
+
+"I have found a chance for you to ride home," said Phineas, when the
+sermon was over, and the people began to file down the narrow mountain
+paths. "But there will be time for you to go to Him first, for healing.
+You have only to ask, you know."
+
+Joel took an eager step forward, and then shrank back guiltily. "Not
+now," he murmured, "some other time." He could not look into those clear
+eyes and ask a blessing, when he knew his heart was black with hate.
+
+After all his weeks of waiting the opportunity had come; but he dared
+not let the Sinless One look into his soul.
+
+Phineas began an exclamation of surprise, but was interrupted by some
+one asking him a question. Joel took advantage of this to climb up
+behind the man who had offered him a ride. All the way home he weighed
+the two desires in his mind,--the hope of healing, and the hope of
+revenge.
+
+By the time the two guardian fig-trees were in sight, he had decided. He
+would rather go helpless and halting through life than give up his
+cherished purpose.
+
+But there was no sleep for him that night, after he had gone up to his
+little chamber on the roof. He seemed to see that pleading face on the
+mountain-side; it came to him again and again, with the words, "Bless
+them that curse you! Pray for them that despitefully use you!"
+
+All night he fought against yielding to it. Time and again he turned
+over on his bed, and closed his eyes; but it would not let him alone.
+
+He thought of Jacob wrestling with the angel till day-break, and knew in
+his heart that the sweet spirit of forgiveness striving with his selfish
+nature was some heavenly impulse from another world.
+
+At last when the cock-crowing commenced at dawn, and the stars were
+beginning to fade, he drew up his crooked little body, and knelt with
+his face to the kindling east.
+
+"Father in heaven," he prayed softly, "bless mine enemy Rehum, and
+forgive all my sins,--fully and freely as I now forgive the wrong he has
+done to me."
+
+A feeling of light-heartedness and peace, such as he had never known
+before, stole over him. He could not settle himself to sleep, though
+worn out with his night's long vigil.
+
+[Illustration: "NOT A WORD WAS SAID"]
+
+Hastily slipping on his clothes, he tiptoed down the stairs, and limped,
+bare-headed, down to the beach. The lake shimmered and glowed under the
+faint rose and gray of the sky like a deep opal. The early breeze blew
+the hair back from his pale face with a refreshing coolness.
+
+It seemed to him the world had never looked one half so beautiful
+before, as he stood there.
+
+A firm tread on the gravel made him turn partly around. A man was coming
+up the beach; it was the friend of Phineas. As if drawn by some
+uncontrollable impulse, Joel started to meet Him, an unspoken prayer in
+his pleading little face.
+
+Not a word was said. For one little instant Joel stood there by the
+shining sea, his hand held close in the loving hand of the world's
+Redeemer. For one little instant he looked up into His face; then the
+man passed on.
+
+Joel covered his face with his hands, seeming to hear the still small
+voice that spoke to the prophet out of the whirlwind.
+
+"He is the Christ!" he whispered reverently,--"He is the Christ!"
+
+In his exalted feeling all thought of a cure had left him; but as he
+walked on down the beach, he noticed that he no longer limped. He was
+moving along with strong, quick strides. He shook himself and threw
+back his shoulders; there was no pain in the movement. He passed his
+hands over his back and down his limbs.
+
+Oh, he was straight and strong and sinewy! He seemed a stranger to
+himself, as running and leaping, then stopping to look down and feel his
+limbs again, he ran madly on.
+
+Suddenly he cast his garments aside and dived into the lake. Before his
+injury, he had been able to swim like a fish, now he reached out with
+long powerful strokes that sent him darting through the cold water with
+a wonderful sense of exhilaration.
+
+Then he dressed again, and went on running and leaping and climbing till
+he was exhausted, and his first wild delirious joy began to subside into
+a deep quiet thankfulness. Then he went home, radiant in the happiness
+of his new-found cure.
+
+But more than the mystery of the miracle, more than the joy of the
+healing, was the remembrance of that moment, that one little moment,
+when he felt the clasp of the Master's hand, and seemed wrapped about
+with the boundless love of God.
+
+From that moment, he lived but to serve and to follow Him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+HIGH up among the black lava crags of Perea stood the dismal fortress of
+Macherus. Behind its close prison bars a restless captive groped his way
+back and forth in a dungeon cell. Sometimes, at long intervals, he was
+given such liberty as a chained eagle might have, when he was led up
+into one of the towers of the gloomy keep, and allowed to look down,
+down into the bottomless gorges surrounding it. For months he had chafed
+in the darkness of his underground dungeon; escape was impossible.
+
+It was John Baptist, brought from the wild, free life of the desert to
+the tortures of the "Black Castle." Here he lay at the mercy of Herod
+Antipas, and death might strike at any moment. More than once, the
+whimsical monarch had sent for him, as he sat at his banquets, to be the
+sport of the passing hour.
+
+The lights, the color, the flash of gems may have dazzled his eyes for a
+brief space, accustomed as they were to the midnight darkness of his
+cell; but his keen vision saw, under the paint and purple of royal
+apparel, the corrupt life of king and court.
+
+Pointing his stern, accusing finger at the uneasy king, he cried, "It is
+not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife!" With words that stung
+like hurtling arrows, he laid bare the blackened, beastly life that
+sought to hide its foulness under royal ermine.
+
+Antipas cowered before him; and while he would gladly have been freed
+from a man who had such power over him, he dared not lift a finger
+against the fearless, unflinching Baptist.
+
+But the guilty Herodias bided her time, with blood-thirsty impatience;
+his life should pay the penalty of his bold speech.
+
+Meanwhile he waited in his cell, with nothing but memories to relieve
+the tediousness of the long hours. Over and over again he lived those
+scenes of his strange life in the desert,--those days of his
+preparation,--the preaching to the multitudes, the baptizing at the ford
+of the Jordan.
+
+He wondered if his words still lived; if any of his followers still
+believed on him. But more than all, he wondered what had become of that
+One on whom he had seen the spirit of God descending out of heaven in
+the form of a dove.
+
+"Where art Thou now?" he cried. "If Thou art the Messiah, why dost Thou
+not set up Thy kingdom, and speedily give Thy servant his liberty?" The
+empty room rang often with that cry; but the hollow echo of his own
+words was the only answer.
+
+One day the door of his cell creaked back far enough to admit two men,
+and then shut again, leaving them in total darkness. In that momentary
+flash of light, he recognized two old followers of his, Timeus bar Joram
+and Benjamin the potter.
+
+With a cry of joy he groped his way toward them, and clung to their
+friendly hands.
+
+"How did you manage to penetrate these Roman-guarded walls?" he asked,
+in astonishment.
+
+"I knew the warden," answered Benjamin. "A piece of silver conveniently
+closes his eyes to many things. But we must hasten! Our time is
+limited."
+
+They had much to tell of the outside world. Pilate had just given
+special offence, by appropriating part of the treasure of the Temple,
+derived from the Temple tax, to defray the cost of great conduits he had
+begun, with which to supply Jerusalem with water.
+
+Stirred up by the priests and rabbis, the people besieged the government
+house, crying loudly that the works be given up. Armed with clubs,
+numbers of soldiers in plain clothes surrounded the great mob, and
+killed so many of the people that the wildest excitement prevailed
+throughout all Judea and Galilee.
+
+There was a cry for a national uprising to avenge the murder.
+
+"They only need a leader!" exclaimed John. "Where is He for whom I was
+but a voice crying in the wilderness? Why does He not show Himself?"
+
+"We have just come from the village of Nain," said Timeus bar Joram. "We
+saw Him stop a funeral procession and raise a widow's son to life. He
+was followed by a motley throng whom He had healed of all sorts of
+diseases; and there were twelve men whom He had chosen as life-long
+companions.
+
+"We questioned some of them closely, and they gave us marvellous reports
+of the things He had done."
+
+"Is it not strange," asked Benjamin the potter, "that having such power
+He still delays to establish His kingdom?"
+
+The captive prophet made no answer for awhile. Then he groped in the
+thick darkness till his hand rested heavily on Benjamin's arm.
+
+"Go back, and say that John Baptist asks, 'Art Thou the Coming One, or
+must we look for another?'"
+
+Days passed before the devoted friends found themselves once more inside
+the prison walls. They had had a weary journey over rough hills and
+rocky by-paths.
+
+"What did He say?" demanded the prisoner, eagerly.
+
+"Go and tell John what ye saw and heard: that the blind receive sight;
+the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; the dead are
+raised; and the poor have the gospel preached unto them."
+
+The man stood up, his long hair hanging to his shoulder, his hand
+uplifted, and his eyes dilated like a startled deer that has caught the
+sound of a coming step.
+
+"The fulfilment of the words of Isaiah!" he cried. "For he hath said,
+'Your God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be
+opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame
+man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing!' Yea, he _hath_
+bound up the broken-hearted; and he shall yet 'proclaim liberty to the
+captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to
+proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord!'"
+
+Then with both hands clasped high above his head, he made the prison
+ring with the cry, "The kingdom is at hand! The kingdom is at hand! I
+shall soon be free!"
+
+Not long after that, the castle blazed with the lights of another
+banquet. The faint aroma of wines, mingled with the heavy odor of
+countless flowers, could not penetrate the grim prison walls. Nor could
+the gay snatches of song and the revelry of the feast. No sound of
+applause reached the prisoner's ear, when the daughter of Herodias
+danced before the king.
+
+Sitting in darkness while the birthday banqueters held high carnival, he
+heard the heavy tramp of soldiers' feet coming down the stairs to his
+dungeon. The great bolts shot back, the rusty hinges turned, and a
+lantern flickered its light in his face, as he stood up to receive his
+executioners.
+
+A little while later his severed head was taken on a charger to the
+smiling dancing girl. She stifled a shriek when she saw it; but the
+wicked Herodias looked at it with a gleam of triumph in her treacherous
+black eyes.
+
+When the lights were out, and the feasters gone, two men came in at the
+warden's bidding,--two men with heavy hearts, and voices that shook a
+little when they spoke to each other. They were Timeus and Benjamin.
+Silently they lifted the body of their beloved master, and carried it
+away for burial; and if a tear or two found an unaccustomed path down
+their bearded cheeks, no one knew it, under cover of the darkness.
+
+So, out of the Black Castle of Macherus, out of the prison-house of a
+mortal body, the white-souled prophet of the wilderness went forth at
+last into liberty.
+
+For him, the kingdom was indeed at hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile in the upper country, Phineas was following his friend from
+village to village. He had dropped his old familiar form of address, so
+much was he impressed by the mysterious power he saw constantly
+displayed.
+
+Now when he spoke of the man who had been both friend and playfellow,
+it was almost reverently that he gave Him the title of Master.
+
+It was with a heavy heart that Joel watched them go away. He, too,
+longed to follow; but he knew that unless he took the place at the
+bench, Phineas could not be free to go.
+
+Gratitude held him to his post. No, not gratitude alone; he was learning
+the Master's own spirit of loving self-sacrifice. As he dropped the
+plumb-line over his work, he measured himself by that perfect life, and
+tried to straighten himself to its unbending standard.
+
+He had his reward in the look of pleasure that he saw on the carpenter's
+face when Phineas came in, unexpectedly, one day, dusty and
+travel-stained.
+
+"How much you have accomplished!" he said in surprise. "You have filled
+my place like a grown man."
+
+Joel stretched his strong arms with a slight laugh. "It is a pleasure to
+work now," he said. "It seems so queer never to have a pain, or that
+worn-out feeling of weakness that used to be always with me. At first I
+was often afraid it was all a happy dream, and could not last. I am
+getting used to it now. Where is the Master?" Joel asked, as Phineas
+turned towards the house.
+
+"He is the guest of Simon. He will be here some days, my son. I know you
+wish to be with Him as much as possible, so I shall not expect your help
+as long as He stays."
+
+"If I could only do something for Him!" was Joel's constant thought
+during the next few days. Once he took a coin from the little money bag
+that held his hoarded savings--a coin that was to have helped buy his
+revenge--and bought the ripest, juiciest pear he could find in the
+market. Often he brought Him water, fresh and cold from the well when He
+looked tired and warm from His unceasing work.
+
+Wherever the Master turned, there, close beside Him, was a beaming
+little face, so full of love and childish sympathy that it must have
+brought more refreshment to His thirsty soul than either the choice
+fruit or the cooling water.
+
+One evening after a busy day, when He had talked for hours to the people
+on the seashore who had gathered around the boat in which He sat, He
+sent away the multitude.
+
+"Let us pass over unto the other side," He said.
+
+Joel slipped up to Andrew, who was busily arranging their sails. "Let me
+go, too!" he whispered pleadingly.
+
+"Well," assented the man, carelessly, "You can make yourself useful, I
+suppose. Will you hand me that rope?"
+
+Joel sprang to obey. Presently the boat pushed away from the shore, and
+the town, with its tumult and its twinkling lights, was soon left far
+behind.
+
+The sea was like glass, so calm and unruffled that every star above
+could look down and see its unbroken reflection in the dark water below.
+
+Joel, in the hinder part of the ship, lay back in his seat with a sigh
+of perfect enjoyment. The smooth gliding motion of the boat rested him;
+the soft splash of the water soothed his excited brain. He had seen his
+Uncle Laban that afternoon among other of the scribes and Pharisees, and
+heard him declare that Beelzebub alone was responsible for the wonders
+they witnessed.
+
+Joel's indignation flared up again at the memory. He looked down at the
+Master, who had fallen asleep on a pillow, and wondered how anybody
+could possibly believe such evil things about Him.
+
+It was cooler out where they were now. He wondered if he ought not to
+lay some covering over the sleeping form. He took off the outer mantle
+that he wore, and bent forward to lay it over the Master's feet. But he
+drew back timidly, afraid of wakening Him. "I'll wait awhile," he said
+to himself, folding the garment across his knees in readiness.
+
+Several times he reached forward to lay it over Him, and each time drew
+back. Then he fell asleep himself.
+
+From its situation in the basin of the hills, the Galilee is subject to
+sudden and furious storms. The winds, rushing down the heights, meet and
+clash above the water, till the waves run up like walls, then sink again
+into seething whirlpools of danger.
+
+Joel, falling asleep in a dead calm, awoke to find the ship rolling and
+tossing and half-full of water. The lightning's track was followed so
+closely by the crash of thunder, there was not even pause enough between
+to take one terrified gasp.
+
+Still the Master slept. Joel, drenched to the skin, clung to the boat's
+side, expecting that every minute would be his last. It was so dark and
+wild and awful! How helpless they were, buffetted about in the fury of
+the storm!
+
+As wave after wave beat in, some of the men could no longer control
+their fear.
+
+"Master!" they called to the sleeping man, as they bent over Him in
+terror. "Carest Thou not that we perish?"
+
+He heard the cry for help. The storm could not waken Him from His deep
+sleep of exhaustion, but at the first despairing human voice, He was up,
+ready to help.
+
+Looking up at the midnight blackness of the sky, and down at the wild
+waste of waters, He stretched out His hand.
+
+"_Peace!_" he commanded in a deep voice. "_Be still!_" The storm sank to
+earth as suddenly as a death-stricken raven; a great calm spread over
+the face of the waters. The silent stars shone out in their places; the
+silent sea mirrored back their glory at His feet.
+
+The men huddled fearfully together. "What manner of man is this?" they
+asked, one of another. "Even the wind and the sea obey Him!"
+
+Joel, looking up at the majestic form, standing so quietly by the
+railing, thought of the voice that once rang out over the night of
+Creation with the command, "Let there be light!" At its mere bidding
+light had flowed in across the darkness of primeval night.
+
+Just so had this voice thrilled the storm with its "Peace! Be still!"
+into utter calm.
+
+The child crouched at His feet, burying his face in his mantle, and
+whispering, in awe and adoration, "He _is_ the Christ! He is the son of
+God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+AFTER that night of the voyage to the Gadarenes, Joel ceased to be
+surprised at the miracles he daily witnessed. Even when the little
+daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, was called back to life,
+it did not seem so wonderful to him as the stilling of the tempest.
+
+Many a night after Phineas had gone away again with the Master to other
+cities, Joel used to go down to the beach, and stand looking across the
+water as he recalled that scene.
+
+The lake had always been an interesting place to him at night. He liked
+to watch the fishermen as they flashed their blazing torches this way
+and that. A sympathetic thrill ran through him as they sighted their
+prey, and raised their bare sinewy arms to fling the net or fly the
+spear.
+
+But after that morning of healing, and that night of tempest, it seemed
+to be a sacred place, to be visited only on still nights, when the town
+slept, and heaven bent nearer in the starlight to the quiet earth.
+
+The time of the Passover was drawing near,--the time that Joel had been
+looking forward to since Phineas had promised him a year ago that he
+should go to Jerusalem.
+
+The twelve disciples who had been sent out to all the little towns
+through Galilee, to teach the things they had themselves been taught,
+and work miracles in the name of Him who had sent them, began to come
+slowly back. They had an encouraging report to bring of their work; but
+it was shadowed by the news they had heard of the murder of John
+Baptist.
+
+Joel joined them as soon as they came into Capernaum, and walked beside
+Phineas as the footsore travellers pressed on a little farther towards
+Simon's house.
+
+"When are we going to start for Jerusalem?" was his first eager
+question.
+
+Phineas looked searchingly into his face as he replied, "Would you be
+greatly disappointed, my son, not to go this year?"
+
+Joel looked perplexed; it was such an unheard of thing for Phineas to
+miss going up to the Feast of the Passover.
+
+"These are evil times, my Joel," he explained. "John Baptist has just
+been beheaded. The Master has many enemies among those in high places.
+It would be like walking into a lion's den for Him to go up to
+Jerusalem.
+
+"Even here He is not safe from the hatred of Antipas, and after a little
+rest will pass over into the borders of the tetrarch Philip. We have no
+wish to leave Him!"
+
+"Oh, why should He be persecuted so?" asked Joel, looking with
+tear-dimmed eyes at the man walking in advance of them, and talking in
+low earnest tones to John, who walked beside Him.
+
+"You have been with Him so much, father Phineas. Have _you_ ever known
+Him to do anything to make these men His enemies?"
+
+"Yes," said Phineas. "He has drawn the people after Him until they are
+jealous of His popularity. He upsets their old traditions, and teaches a
+religion that ignores some of the Laws of Moses. I can easily see why
+they hate Him so. They see Him at such a long distance from themselves,
+they can not understand Him. Healing on the Sabbath, eating with
+publicans and sinners, disregarding the little customs and ceremonies
+that in all ages have set apart our people as a chosen race, are crimes
+in their eyes.
+
+"If they only could get close enough to understand Him; to see that His
+pure life needs no ceremonies of multiplied hand-washings; that it is
+His broad love for His fellow-men that makes Him stoop to the lowest
+classes,--I am sure they could not do otherwise than love Him.
+
+"Blind fanatics! They would put to death the best man that ever lived,
+because He is so much broader and higher than they that the little
+measuring line of their narrow creed cannot compass Him!"
+
+"Is He never going to set up His kingdom?" asked Joel. "Does He never
+talk about it?"
+
+"Yes," said Phineas; "though we are often puzzled by what He says, and
+ask ourselves His meaning."
+
+They had reached the house by this time, and as Simon led the way to its
+hospitable door, Phineas said, "Enter with them, my lad, if you wish. I
+must go on to my little family, but will join you soon."
+
+To Joel's great pleasure, he found they were to cross the lake at once,
+to the little fishing port of Bethsaida. It was only six miles across.
+
+"We have hardly had time to eat," said Andrew to Joel, as they walked
+along towards the boat "I will be glad to get away to some desert
+place, where we may have rest from the people that are always pushing
+and clamoring about us."
+
+"How long before you start?" asked Joel.
+
+"In a very few minutes," answered Andrew; "for the boat is in
+readiness."
+
+Joel glanced from the street above the beach to the water's edge, as if
+calculating the distance.
+
+"Don't go without me," he said as, breaking into a run, he dashed up the
+beach at his utmost speed. He was back again in a surprisingly quick
+time, with a cheap little basket in his hand; he was out of breath with
+his rapid run.
+
+"Didn't I go fast?" he panted. "I could not have done that a few weeks
+ago. Oh, it feels so good to be able to run when I please! It is like
+flying."
+
+He lifted the cover of the basket. "See!" he said. "I thought the Master
+might be hungry; but I had no time to get anything better. I had to stop
+at the first stall I came to."
+
+At the same time the boat went gliding out into the water with its
+restful motion, thousands of people were pouring out of the villages on
+foot, and hurrying on around the lake, ahead of them.
+
+The boat passed up a narrow winding creek, away from the sail-dotted
+lake; its green banks seemed to promise the longed-for quiet and rest.
+But there in front of them waited the crowds they had come so far to
+avoid.
+
+They had brought their sick for healing. They needed to be helped and
+taught; they were "as sheep without a shepherd!" He could not refuse
+them.
+
+Joel found no chance to offer the food he had bought so hastily with
+another of his hoarded coins,--the coins that were to have purchased his
+revenge.
+
+As the day wore on, he heard the disciples ask that the multitudes might
+be sent away.
+
+"It would take two hundred pennyworth of bread to feed them," said
+Philip, "and even that would not be enough."
+
+Andrew glanced over the great crowds and stroked his beard thoughtfully.
+"There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes,
+but what are they among so many?"
+
+Joel hurried forward and held out his basket with its little
+store,--five flat round loaves of bread, not much more than one hungry
+man could eat, and two dried fishes.
+
+He hardly knew what to expect as the people were made to sit down on the
+grass in orderly ranks of fifties.
+
+His eyes grew round with astonishment as the Master took the bread, gave
+thanks, and then passed it to the disciples, who, in turn, distributed
+it among the people. Then the two little fishes were handed around in
+the same way.
+
+Joel turned to Phineas, who had joined them some time ago. "Do you see
+that?" he asked excitedly. "They have been multiplied a thousand fold!"
+
+Phineas smiled. "We drop one tiny grain of wheat into the earth," he
+said, "and when it grows and spreads and bears dozens of other grains on
+its single stalk, we are not astonished. When the Master but does in an
+instant, what Nature takes months to do, we cry, 'a miracle!' 'Men are
+more wont to be astonished at the sun's eclipse, than at its daily
+rising,'" he quoted, remembering his conversation with the old
+traveller, on his way to Nathan ben Obed's.
+
+A feeling of exaltation seized the people as they ate the mysterious
+bread; it seemed that the days of miraculous manna had come again. By
+the time they had all satisfied their hunger, and twelve basketfuls of
+the fragments had been gathered up, they were ready to make Him their
+king. The restlessness of the times had taken possession of them; the
+burning excitement must find vent in some way, and with one accord they
+demanded Him as their leader.
+
+Joel wondered why He should refuse. Surely no other man he had ever
+known could have resisted such an appeal.
+
+The perplexed fisherman, at Jesus's command, turned their boat homeward
+without Him. To their simple minds it seemed that He had made a mistake
+in resisting the homage forced upon Him by the people; they longed for
+the time to come when they should be recognized as the honored officials
+in the new kingdom. Many a dream of future power and magnificence must
+have come to them in the still watches of the night, as they drifted
+home in the white light of the Passover moon.
+
+Many a time in the weeks that followed, Joel slipped away to his
+favorite spot on the beech, a flat rock half hidden by a clump of
+oleander bushes. Here, with his feet idly dangling in the ripples, he
+looked out over the water, and recalled the scenes he had witnessed
+there.
+
+It seemed so marvellous to him that the Master could have ever walked
+on those shining waves; and yet he had seen Him that night after the
+feeding of the multitudes. He had seen, with his own frightened eyes,
+the Master walk calmly towards the boat across the unsteady water, and
+catch up the sinking Peter, who had jumped overboard to meet Him. It
+grieved and fretted the boy that this man, of God-given power and such
+sweet unselfish spirit, could be so persistently misunderstood by the
+people. He could think of nothing else.
+
+He had not been with the crowds that pressed into the synagogue the
+Sabbath after the thousands had been fed; but Phineas came home with
+grim lips and knitted brows, and told him about it.
+
+"The Master knew they followed Him because of the loaves and fishes," he
+said. "He told them so.
+
+"When we came out of the door, I could not help looking up at the lintel
+on which is carved the pot of manna; for when they asked Him for a sign
+that they might believe Him, saying, 'Our fathers ate manna in the
+wilderness!' He answered: 'I am the bread of life! Ye have seen me, and
+yet believe not!'
+
+"While He talked there was a murmuring all over the house against Him,
+because He said that He had come down from heaven. Your uncle Laban was
+there. I heard him say scornfully: 'Is not this the son of Joseph, whose
+father and mother we know? How doth He now say, "I am come down out of
+heaven"?' Then he laughed a mocking little laugh, and nudged the man who
+stood next to him. There are many like him; I could feel a spirit of
+prejudice and persecution in the very air. Many who have professed to be
+His friends have turned against Him."
+
+While Phineas was pouring out his anxious forebodings to his wife and
+Joel, the Master was going homeward with His chosen twelve.
+
+"Would ye also go away?" He asked wistfully of His companions, as He
+noted the cold, disapproving looks of many who had only the day before
+been fed by Him, and who now openly turned their backs on Him.
+
+Simon Peter gave a questioning glance into the faces of his companions;
+then he pressed a step nearer. "Lord, to whom shall we go?" he answered
+impulsively. "Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed,
+and know that Thou art the Holy One of God."
+
+The others nodded their assent, all but one. Judas Iscariot clutched the
+money bags he held, and looked off across the lake, to avoid the
+searching eyes that were fixed upon him.
+
+These honest Galileans were too simple to suspect others of dark
+designs, yet they had never felt altogether free with this stranger from
+Judea. He had never seemed entirely one of them. They did not see in his
+crafty quiet manners, the sheep's clothing that hid his wolfish nature;
+but they could feel his lack of sympathetic enthusiasm.
+
+He had been one of those who followed only for the loaves and fishes of
+a temporal kingdom, and now, in his secret soul, he was sorry he had
+joined a cause in whose final success he was beginning to lose faith.
+
+The sun went down suddenly that night behind a heavy cloud, as a
+gathering storm began to lash the Galilee and rock the little boats
+anchored at the landings.
+
+The year of popularity was at an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+ABIGAIL sat just inside the door, turning the noisy hand-mill that
+ground out the next day's supply of flour. The rough mill-stones grated
+so harshly on each other that she did not hear the steps coming up the
+path. A shadow falling across the door-way made her look up.
+
+"You are home early, my Phineas," she said, with a smile. "Well, I shall
+soon have your supper ready. Joel has gone to the market for some honey
+and--"
+
+"Nay! I have little wish to eat," he interrupted, "but I have much to
+say to you. Come! the work can wait."
+
+Abigail put the mill aside, and brushing the flour from her hands, sat
+down on the step beside him, wondering much at his troubled face.
+
+He plunged into his subject abruptly. "The Master is soon going away,"
+he said, "that those in the uttermost parts of Galilee may be taught of
+Him. And He would fain have others beside the twelve He has chosen to go
+with Him on His journey."
+
+"And you wish to go too?" she questioned, as he paused.
+
+"Yes! How can I do otherwise? And yet how can I leave you and the little
+ones alone in these troubled times? You cannot think how great the
+danger is. Remember how many horrors we have lately heard. The whole
+country is a smouldering volcano, ready to burst into an eruption at any
+moment. A leader has only to arise, and all Israel will take up arms
+against the powers that trample us under foot."
+
+"Is not this prophet, Jesus, He who is to save Israel?" asked Abigail.
+"Is He not even now making ready to establish His kingdom?"
+
+"I do not understand Him at all!" said Phineas, sadly. "He does talk of
+a kingdom in which we are all to have a part; but He never seems to be
+working to establish it. He spends all His time in healing diseases and
+forgiving penitent sinners, and telling us to love our neighbors.
+
+"Then, again, why should He go down to the beach, and choose for His
+confidential friends just simple fishermen. They have neither influence
+nor money. As for the choice of that publican Levi-Matthew, it has
+brought disgrace on the whole movement. He does not seem to know how to
+sway the popular feeling. I believe He might have had the support of the
+foremost men of the nation, if He had approached them differently.
+
+"He shocks them by setting aside laws they would lay down their lives
+rather than violate. He associates with those they consider unclean; and
+all His miracles cannot make them forget how boldly He has rebuked them
+for hypocrisy and unrighteousness. They never will come to His support
+now; and I do not see how a new government can be formed without their
+help."
+
+Abigail laid her hand on his, her dark eyes glowing with intense
+earnestness, as she answered: "What need is there of armies and human
+hands to help?
+
+"Where were the hosts of Pharaoh when our fathers passed through the Red
+Sea? Was there bloodshed and fighting there?
+
+"Who battled for us when the walls of Jericho fell down? Whose hand
+smote the Assyrians at Sennacherib? Is the Lord's arm shortened that He
+cannot save?
+
+"Why may not His prophet speak peace to Jerusalem as easily as He did
+the other night to the stormy sea? Why may not His power be multiplied
+even as the loaves and fishes?
+
+"Why may not the sins and backslidings of the people be healed as well
+as Joel's lameness; or the glory of the nation be quickened into a new
+life, as speedily as He raised the daughter of Jairus?
+
+"Isaiah called Him the Prince of Peace. What are all these lessons, if
+not to teach us that the purposes of God do not depend on human hands to
+work out their fulfilment?"
+
+Her low voice thrilled him with its inspiring questions, and he looked
+down into her rapt face with a feeling of awe.
+
+"Abigail," he said softly, "'my source of joy,'--you are rightly named.
+You have led me out of the doubts that have been my daily torment. I see
+now, why He never incites us to rebel against the yoke of Cæsar. In the
+fulness of time He will free us with a breath.
+
+"How strange it should have fallen to my lot to have been His playmate
+and companion. My wonder is not that He is the Messiah; but that I
+should have called Him friend, all these years, unknowing."
+
+"How long do you expect to be away?" she asked, after a pause, suddenly
+returning to the first subject.
+
+"Several months, perhaps. There is no telling what insurrections and
+riots may arise, all through this part of the country. Since the murder
+of John Baptist, Herod has come back to his court in Tiberias. I dislike
+to leave you here alone."
+
+Abigail, too, looked grave, and neither spoke for a little while. "I
+have it!" she exclaimed at length, with a pleased light in her eyes. "I
+have often wished I could make a long visit in the home of my girlhood.
+The few days I have spent in my father's house, those few times I have
+gone with you to the feasts, have been so short and unsatisfactory. Can
+I not take Joel and the children to Bethany? Neither father nor mother
+has ever seen little Ruth, and we could be so safe and happy there till
+your return."
+
+"Why did I not come to you before with my worries?" asked Phineas. "How
+easily you make the crooked places straight!"
+
+Just then the children came running back from the market. Abigail went
+into the house with the provisions they had brought, leaving their
+father to tell them of the coming separation and the long journey they
+had planned.
+
+A week later, Phineas stood at the city gate, watching a little company
+file southward down the highway. He had hired two strong,
+gayly-caparisoned mules from the owner of the caravan. Abigail rode on
+one, holding little Ruth in her arms; Joel mounted the other, with Jesse
+clinging close behind him.
+
+Abigail, thinking of the joyful welcome awaiting her in her old home,
+and the children happy in the novelty of the journey, set out gayly.
+
+But Phineas, thinking of the dangers by the way, and filled with many
+forebodings, watched their departure with a heavy heart.
+
+At the top of a little rise in the road, they turned to look back and
+wave their hands. In a moment more they were out of sight. Then Phineas,
+grasping his staff more firmly, turned away, and started on foot in the
+other direction, to follow to the world's end, if need be, the friend
+who had gone on before.
+
+It was in the midst of the barley harvest. Jesse had never been in the
+country before. For the first time, Nature spread for him her great
+picture-book of field and forest and vineyard, while Abigail read to him
+the stories.
+
+First on one side of the road, then the other, she pointed out some spot
+and told its history.
+
+Here was Dothan, where Joseph went out to see his brothers, dressed in
+his coat of many colors. There was Mount Gilboa, where the arrows of the
+Philistines wounded Saul, and he fell on his own sword and killed
+himself. Shiloh, where Hannah brought little Samuel to give him to the
+Lord; where the Prophet Eli, so old that his eyes were too dim to see,
+sat by the gate waiting for news from the army, and when word was
+brought back that his two sons were dead, and the Ark of the Covenant
+taken, here it was that he fell backward from his seat, and his neck was
+broken.
+
+All these she told, and many more. Then she pointed to the gleaners in
+the fields, and told the children to notice how carefully Israel still
+kept the commandment given so many centuries before: "When ye reap the
+harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy
+field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou
+shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of
+thy vineyard, thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger."
+
+At Jacob's well, where they stopped to rest, Joel lifted Jesse up, and
+let him look over the curb. The child almost lost his balance in
+astonishment, when his own wondering little face looked up at him from
+the deep well. He backed away from it quickly, and looked carefully into
+the cup of water Joel handed him, for more than a minute, before he
+ventured to drink.
+
+The home to which Abigail was going was a wealthy one. Her father,
+Reuben, was a goldsmith, and for years had been known in Jerusalem not
+only for the beautifully wrought ornaments and precious stones that he
+sold in his shop near the Temple, but for his rich gifts to the poor.
+
+"Reuben the Charitable," he was called, and few better deserved the
+name. His business took him every day to the city; but his home was in
+the little village of Bethany, two miles away. It was one of the largest
+in Bethany, and seemed like a palace to the children, when compared to
+the humble little home in Capernaum.
+
+Joel only looked around with admiring eyes; but Jesse walked about,
+laying curious little fingers on everything he passed. The bright
+oriental curtains, the soft cushions and the costly hangings, he
+smoothed and patted. Even the silver candlesticks and the jewelled cups
+on the side table were picked up and examined, when his mother happened
+to have her back turned.
+
+[Illustration: "'WE TALKED LATE'"]
+
+There were no pictures in the house; the Law forbade. But there were
+several mirrors of bright polished metal, and Jesse never tired of
+watching his own reflection in them.
+
+Ruth stayed close beside her mother. "She is a ray of God's own
+sunshine," said her grandmother, as she took her in her arms for the
+first time. The child, usually afraid of strangers, saw in Rebecca's
+face a look so like her mother's that she patted the wrinkled cheeks
+with her soft fingers. From that moment her grandmother was her devoted
+slave.
+
+Jesse was not long in finding the place he held in his grandfather's
+heart. The old man, whose sons had all died years before, seemed to
+centre all his hopes on this son of his only daughter. He kept Jesse
+with him as much as possible; his happiest hours were when he had the
+child on his knee, teaching him the prayers and precepts and proverbs
+that he knew would be a lamp to his feet in later years.
+
+"Nay! do not punish the child!" he said, one morning when Jesse had been
+guilty of some disobedience. Abigail went on stripping the leaves
+from an almond switch she just had broken off.
+
+"Why, father," she said, with a smile, "I have often seen you punish my
+brothers for such disobedience, and have as often heard you say that one
+of Solomon's wisest sayings is, 'Chasten thy son while there is hope,
+and let not thy soul spare for his crying.' Jesse misses his father's
+firm rule, and is getting sadly spoiled."
+
+"That is all true, my daughter," he acknowledged; "still I shall not
+stay here to witness his punishment."
+
+Abigail used the switch as she had intended. The boy had overheard the
+conversation, and the cries that reached his grandfather as he rode off
+to the city were unusually loud and appealing. They may have had
+something to do with the package the good man carried home that
+night,--cakes and figs and a gay little turban more befitting a young
+prince than the son of a carpenter.
+
+"Who lives across the street?" asked Joel, the morning after their
+arrival.
+
+"Two old friends of mine," answered Abigail. "They came to see me last
+night as soon as they heard I had arrived. You children were all asleep.
+We talked late, for they wanted to hear all I could tell them of Rabbi
+Jesus. He was here last year, and Martha said He and her brother Lazarus
+became fast friends. Ah, there is Lazarus now!--that young man just
+coming out of the house. He is a scribe, and goes up to write in one of
+the rooms of the Temple nearly every day.
+
+"Mary says some of the copies of the Scriptures he has made are the most
+beautifully written that she has ever seen."
+
+"See!" exclaimed Joel, "he has dropped one of the rolls of parchment he
+was carrying, and does not know it. I'll run after him with it."
+
+He was hardly yet accustomed to the delight of being so fleet of foot;
+no halting step now to hinder him. He almost felt as if he were flying,
+and was by the young man's side nearly as soon as he had started.
+
+"Ah, you are the guest of my good neighbor, Reuben," Lazarus said, after
+thanking him courteously. "Are you not the lad whose lameness has just
+been healed by my best friend? My sisters were telling me of it. It must
+be a strange experience to suddenly find yourself changed from a
+helpless cripple to such a strong, straight lad as you are now. How did
+it make you feel?"
+
+"Oh, I can never begin to tell you, Rabbi Lazarus," answered Joel. "I
+did not even think of it that moment when He held my hand in His. I only
+thought how much I loved Him. I had been starving before, but that
+moment He took the place of everything,--father, mother, the home love I
+had missed,--and more than that, the love of God seemed to come down and
+fold me so close and safe, that I knew He was the Messiah. I did not
+even notice that I was no longer lame, until I was far down the beach.
+Oh, you do not know how I wanted to follow Him! If I could only have
+gone with Him instead of coming here!"
+
+"Yes, my boy, I know!" answered the young man, gently; "for I, too, love
+Him."
+
+This strong bond of sympathy between the two made them feel as if they
+had known each other always.
+
+"Come walk with me a little way," said Lazarus. "I am going up to
+Jerusalem to the Temple. Or rather, would you not like to come all the
+way? I have only to carry these rolls to one of the priests, then I will
+be at liberty to show you some of the strange sights in the city."
+
+Joel ran back for permission. Only stopping to wind his white linen
+turban around his head, he soon regained his new-found friend.
+
+His recollection of Jerusalem was a very dim, confused one. Time and
+time again he had heard pilgrims returning from the feasts trying to
+describe their feelings when they had come in sight of the Holy City.
+Now as they turned with the road, the view that rose before him made him
+feel how tame their descriptions had been.
+
+The morning sun shone down on the white marble walls of the Temple and
+the gold that glittered on the courts, as they rose one above the other;
+tower and turret and pinnacle shot back a dazzling light.
+
+It did not seem possible to Joel that human hands could have wrought
+such magnificence. He caught his breath, and uttered an exclamation of
+astonishment.
+
+Lazarus smiled at his pleasure. "Come," he said, "it is still more
+beautiful inside."
+
+They went very slowly through Solomon's Porch, for every one seemed to
+know the young man, and many stopped to speak to him. Then they crossed
+the Court of the Gentiles. It seemed like a market-place; for cages of
+doves were kept there for sale, and lambs, calves, and oxen bleated and
+lowed in their stalls till Joel could scarcely hear what his friend was
+saying, as they pushed their way through the crowd, and stood before the
+Gate Beautiful that led into the Court of the Women.
+
+Here Lazarus left Joel for a few moments, while he went to give the
+rolls to the priest for whom he had copied them.
+
+Joel looked around. Then for the first time since his healing, he
+wondered if it would be possible for him to ever take his place among
+the Levites, or become a priest as he had been destined.
+
+While he wondered, Lazarus came back and led him into the next court.
+Here he could look up and see the Holy Place, over which was trained a
+golden vine, with clusters of grapes as large as a man's body, all of
+purest gold. Beyond that he knew was a heavy veil of Babylonian
+tapestry, hyacinth and scarlet and purple, that veiled in awful darkness
+the Holy of Holies.
+
+As he stood there thinking of the tinkling bells, the silver trumpets,
+the clouds of incense, and the mighty songs, a great longing came over
+him to be one of those white-robed priests, serving daily in the
+Temple.
+
+But with the wish came the recollection of a quiet hillside, where only
+bird-calls and whirr of wings stirred the stillness; where a breeze from
+the sparkling lake blew softly through the grass, and one Voice only was
+heard, proclaiming its glad new gospel under the open sky.
+
+"No," he thought to himself; "I'd rather be with Him than wear the High
+Priest's mitre."
+
+It was almost sundown when they found themselves on the road homeward.
+They had visited place after place of interest.
+
+Lazarus found the boy an entertaining companion, and the friendship
+begun that day grew deep and lasting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+"WHAT are you looking for, grandfather?" called Jesse, as he pattered up
+the outside stairs to the roof, where Reuben stood, scanning the sky
+intently.
+
+"Come here, my son," he called. "Stand right here in front of me, and
+look just where I point. What do you see?"
+
+The child peered anxiously into the blue depths just now lit up by the
+sunset.
+
+"Oh, the new moon!" he cried. "Where did it come from?"
+
+"Summer hath dropped her silver sickle there, that Night may go forth to
+harvest in her star-fields," answered the old man. Then seeing the look
+of inquiry on the boy's face, hastened to add, "Nay, it is the censer
+that God's hand set swinging in the sky, to remind us to keep the
+incense of our praises ever rising heavenward. Even now a messenger may
+be running towards the Temple, to tell the Sanhedrin that it has
+appeared. Yea, other eyes have been sharper than mine, for see! Already
+the beacon light has been kindled on the Mount of Olives!"
+
+Jesse watched the great bonfire a few minutes, then ran to call his
+sister. By the time they were both on the roof, answering fires were
+blazing on the distant hilltops throughout all Judea, till the whole
+land was alight with the announcement of the Feast of the New Moon.
+
+"I wish it could be this way every night, don't you, Ruth?" said Jesse.
+"Are you not glad we are here?"
+
+The old man looked down at the children with a pleased smile. "I'll show
+you something prettier than this, before long," he said. "Just wait till
+the Feast of Weeks, when the people all come to bring the first fruits
+of the harvests. I am glad your visit is in this time of the year, for
+you can see one festival after another."
+
+The day the celebration of the Feast of Weeks commenced, Reuben left his
+shop in charge of the attendants, and gave up his entire time to Joel
+and Jesse.
+
+"We must not miss the processions," he said. "We will go outside the
+gates a little way, and watch the people come in."
+
+They did not have long to wait till the stream of people from the upper
+countries began to pour in; each company carried a banner bearing the
+name of the town from which it came. A white ox, intended for a
+peace-offering, was driven first; its horns were gilded, and its body
+twined with olive wreaths.
+
+Flocks of sheep and oxen for the sacrifice, long strings of asses and
+camels bearing free-will gifts to the Temple, or old and helpless
+pilgrims that could not walk, came next.
+
+There were wreaths of roses on the heads of the women and children;
+bands of lilies were tied around the sheaves of wheat. Piled high in the
+silver vessels of the rich, or peeping from the willow baskets of the
+poor, were the choicest fruits of the harvest.
+
+Great bunches of grapes from whose purple globes the bloom had not been
+brushed, velvety nectarines, tempting pomegranates, mellow pears, juicy
+melons,--these offerings of fruit and flowers gleamed all down the long
+line, for no one came empty-handed up this "Hill of the Lord."
+
+As they drew near the gates, a number of white-robed priests from the
+Temple met them. Reuben lifted Jesse in his arms that he might have a
+better view. "Listen," he said. Joel climbed up on a large rock.
+
+A joyful sound of flutes commenced, and a mighty chorus went up: "I was
+glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Our
+feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem!"
+
+Voice after voice took up the old psalm, and Reuben's deep tones joined
+with the others, as they chanted, "Peace be within thy walls, and
+prosperity within thy palaces!"
+
+Following the singing pilgrims to the Temple, they saw the priests take
+the doves that were to be for a burnt-offering, and the first fruits
+that were to be laid on the altars.
+
+Jesse held fast to his grandfather's hand as they passed through the
+outer courts of the Temple. He was half frightened by the din of voices,
+the stamping and bellowing and bleating of the animals as they were
+driven into the pens.
+
+He had seen one sacrificial service; the great stream of blood pouring
+over the marble steps of the altar, and the smoke of the burnt-offering
+were still in his mind. It made him look pityingly now at the
+gentle-eyed calves and the frightened lambs. He was glad to get away
+from them.
+
+Soon after the time of this rejoicing was over, came ten solemn days
+that to Joel were full of interest and mystery. They were the days of
+preparation for the Fast of the Atonement. Disputes between neighbors
+were settled, and sins confessed.
+
+The last great day, the most solemn of all, was the only time in the
+whole year when the High Priest might draw aside the veil, and enter
+into the Holy of Holies.
+
+With all his rich robes and jewels laid aside, clad only in simple
+white, with bare feet and covered head, he had to go four times into the
+awful Presence. Once to offer incense, once to pray, to sprinkle the
+blood of a goat towards the mercy-seat, and then to bring out the
+censer.
+
+That was the day when two goats were taken; by casting lots one was
+chosen for a sacrifice. On the other the High Priest laid the sins of
+the people, and it was driven out into the wilderness, to be dashed to
+pieces from some high cliff.
+
+Tears came into Joel's eyes, as he watched the scape-goat driven away
+into the dreary desert. He pitied the poor beast doomed to such a death
+because of his nation's sins.
+
+Then came the closing ceremonies, when the great congregation bowed
+themselves three times to the ground, with the High Priest shouting
+solemnly, "Ye are clean! Ye are clean! Ye are clean!"
+
+Joel was glad when the last rite was over, and the people started to
+their homes, as gay now as they had been serious before.
+
+"When are we going back to our other home?" asked Ruth, one day.
+
+"Why, are you not happy here, little daughter?" said Abigail. "I thought
+you had forgotten all about the old place."
+
+"I want my white pigeons," she said, with a quivering lip, as if she had
+suddenly remembered them. "I don't want my father not to be here!" she
+sobbed; "and I want my white pigeons!"
+
+Abigail picked her up and comforted her. "Wait just a little while. I
+think father will surely come soon. I will get my embroidery, and you
+may go with me across the street."
+
+Ruth had been shy at first about going to see her mother's friends; but
+Martha coaxed her in with honey cakes she baked for that express
+purpose, and Mary told her stories and taught her little games.
+
+After a while she began to flit in and out of the house as fearlessly as
+a bright-winged butterfly.
+
+One day her mother was sitting with the sisters in a shady corner of
+their court-yard, where a climbing honeysuckle made a cool sweet arbor.
+Ruth was going from one to the other, watching the bright embroidery
+threads take the shape of flowers under their skilful fingers. Suddenly
+she heard the faint tinkle of a silver bell. While she stood with one
+finger on her lip to listen, Lazarus came into the court-yard.
+
+"See what I have brought you, little one," he said. "It is to take the
+place of the pigeons you are always mourning for."
+
+It was a snow-white lamb, around which he had twined a garland of many
+colored flowers, and from whose neck hung the little silver bell she had
+heard.
+
+At first the child was so delighted she could only bury her dimpled
+fingers in the soft fleece, and look at it in speechless wonder. Then
+she caught his hand, and left a shy little kiss on it, as she lisped,
+"Oh, you're so good! You're so good!"
+
+After that day Ruth followed Lazarus as the white lamb followed Ruth;
+and the sisters hardly knew which sounded sweeter in their quiet home,
+the tinkling of the silver bell, or the happy prattle of the baby
+voice.
+
+Abigail spent many happy hours with her friends. One day as they sat in
+the honeysuckle arbor, busily sewing, Ruth and Jesse came running
+towards them.
+
+"I see my father coming, and another man," cried the boy. "I'm going to
+meet them."
+
+They all hastened to the door, just as the tired, dusty travellers
+reached it.
+
+"Peace be to this house, and all who dwell therein," said the stranger,
+before Phineas could give his wife and friends a warmer greeting.
+
+"We went first to your father's house, but, finding no one at home, came
+here," said Phineas.
+
+"Come in!" insisted Martha. "You look sorely in need of rest and
+refreshment."
+
+But they had a message to deliver before they could be persuaded to eat
+or wash.
+
+"The Master is coming," said Phineas. "He has sent out seventy of His
+followers, to go by twos into every town, and herald His approach, and
+proclaim that the day of the Lord is at hand. We have gone even into
+Samaria to carry the tidings there."
+
+"At last, at last!" cried Mary, clasping her hands. "Oh, to think that I
+have lived to see this day of Israel's glory!"
+
+"Tell us what the Master has been doing," urged Abigail, after the men
+had been refreshed by food and water.
+
+First one and then the other told of miracles they had seen, and
+repeated what He had taught. Even the children crept close to listen,
+leaning against their father's knees.
+
+"There has been much discussion about the kingdom that is to be formed.
+While we were in Peter's house in Capernaum, some of the disciples came
+quarrelling around Him, to ask who should have the highest positions. I
+suppose those who have followed Him longest think they have claim to the
+best offices."
+
+"What did He say?" asked Abigail, eagerly.
+
+Phineas laid his hand on Ruth's soft curls. "He took a little child like
+this, and set it in our midst, and said that he who would be greatest in
+His kingdom, must become even like unto it!"
+
+"Faith and love and purity on the throne of the Herods," cried Martha.
+"Ah, only Jehovah can bring such a thing as that to pass!"
+
+"Are you going to stay at home now, father?" asked Jesse, anxiously.
+
+"No, my son. I must go on the morrow to carry my report to the Master,
+of the reception we have had in every town. But I will soon be back
+again to the Feast of Tabernacles."
+
+"Carry with you our earnest prayer that the Master will abide with us
+when He comes again to Bethany," said Martha, as her guests departed.
+"No one is so welcome in our home, as the friend of our brother
+Lazarus."
+
+The preparation for the Feast of the Tabernacles had begun. "I am going
+to take the children to the city with me to-day!" said Reuben, one
+morning, "to see the big booth I am having built. It will hold all our
+family, and as many friends as may care to share it with us."
+
+Jesse was charmed with the great tent of green boughs.
+
+"I wish I could have been one of the children that Moses led up out of
+Egypt," he said, with a sigh.
+
+"Why, my son?" asked Reuben.
+
+"So's I could have wandered around for forty years, living in a tent
+like this. How good it smells, and how pretty it is! I wish you and
+grandmother would live here all the time!"
+
+The next day Phineas joined them. It was a happy family that gathered in
+the leafy booth for a week of out-door rejoicing in the cool autumn
+time.
+
+"Where is the Master?" asked Abigail.
+
+"I know not," answered her husband. "He sent us on before."
+
+"Will He be here, I wonder?" she asked, and that question was on nearly
+every lip in Jerusalem.
+
+"Will He be here?" asked the throngs of pilgrims who had heard of His
+miracles, and longed to see the man who could do such marvellous things.
+
+"Will He be here?" whispered the scribes to the Pharisees. "Let Him
+beware!"
+
+"Will He be here?" muttered Caiaphas the High Priest. "Then better one
+man should die, than that the whole community perish."
+
+The sight that dazzled the eyes of the children that first evening of
+the week, was like fairyland; a blaze of lanterns and torches lit up the
+whole city.
+
+In the Court of the Women, in the Temple, all the golden lamps were lit,
+twinkling and burning like countless stars.
+
+On the steps that separated this court from the next one, stood three
+thousand singers, the sons and daughters of the tribe of Levi. Two
+priests stood at the top of the steps, and as each gave the signal on a
+great silver trumpet, the burst of song that went up from the vast choir
+seemed to shake the very heavens. Harps and psalters and flutes swelled
+with the rolling waves of the organ's melody. To the sound of this
+music, men marched with flaming torches in their hands, and the marching
+and a weird torch-dance were kept up until the gates of the Temple
+closed.
+
+In the midst of all the feasting and the gayeties that followed, the
+long-expected Voice was heard in the arcades of the Temple.
+
+The Child of Nazareth was once more in His Father's house about His
+Father's business.
+
+On the last great day of the feast, Joel was up at day-break, ready to
+follow the older members of the family as soon as the first
+trumpet-blast should sound.
+
+In his right hand he carried a citron, as did all the others; in his
+left was a palm-branch, the emblem of joy. An immense multitude gathered
+at the spring of Siloam. Water was drawn in a golden pitcher, and
+carried back to be poured on the great altar, while the choir sang with
+its thousands of voices, and all the people shouted, Amen and Amen!
+
+When the days had gone by in which the seventy bullocks had been
+sacrificed, and when the ceremonies were all over, then the leaves were
+stripped from the green booths, and the people scattered to their
+homes.
+
+Long afterward, Jesse remembered only the torch-light dances, the silver
+trumpets and the crowds, and the faint ringing of the fringe of bells on
+the priest's robes as he carried the fire on the golden shovel to burn
+the sweet-smelling incense.
+
+Joel's memory rang often with two cries that had startled the people.
+One when the water was poured from the golden pitcher. It was the
+Master's voice: "_If any man thirst, let him come unto me_." The other
+was when all eyes were turned on the blazing lamps. "_I am the Light of
+the World!_"
+
+Reuben thought oftenest of the blind man to whom he had seen sight
+restored. But Lazarus was filled with anxiety and foreboding; through
+his office of scribe, he had come in close contact with the men who were
+plotting against his friend. Dark rumors were afloat. The air was hot
+with whisperings of hate.
+
+He had overheard a conversation between the Temple police, and some of
+the chief priests and Pharisees.
+
+"Why did ye not take Him, as ye were ordered?" they demanded angrily.
+
+"We could not," was the response; "for never man spake like this man."
+
+He had seen the mob searching for stones to throw at Him. Though He had
+disappeared out of their midst unhurt, still Lazarus felt that some
+terrible disaster was hanging threateningly over the head of his beloved
+friend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+IT was with a deep feeling of relief that the two families watched the
+Master go away into Perea. Phineas still kept with Him. As the little
+band disappeared down the street, Ruth hid her face in her mother's
+dress and began to cry.
+
+"I don't want my father to go away again!" she sobbed. Abigail took her
+in her lap and tried to comfort her, although there were tears in her
+own eyes.
+
+"We will go home soon, little daughter, and then father will be with us
+all the time. But we must wait first, till after the cold, rainy season,
+and the Feast of Dedication."
+
+"What! another feast?" asked Jesse, to whom the summer had seemed one
+long confusion of festivals. "Don't they have lots of them down in this
+country! What's this one for?"
+
+"Grandfather will tell you," answered his mother. "Run out and ask him
+for the story. I know you will like it."
+
+Seated on his grandfather's knee, Jesse doubled up his little fists, as
+he heard how a heathen altar had once been set up on the great altar of
+burnt-offering, and a heathen general had driven a herd of swine through
+the holy Temple, making it unclean. But his breath came quick, and his
+eyes shone, as the proud old Israelite told him of Judas the Maccabee,
+Judas the lion-hearted, who had whipped the Syrian soldiers, purified
+the Temple, and dedicated it anew to the worship of Jehovah.
+
+"Our people never forget their heroes," ended the old man. "Every year,
+in every home, no matter how humble, one candle is lighted at the
+beginning of the feast; the next night, two, and the next night, three,
+and so on, till eight candles shine out into the winter darkness.
+
+"For so the brave deeds of the Maccabees burn in the memory of every
+child of Abraham!"
+
+The feast came and went. While the candles burned in every home, and the
+golden lamps in the great Temple blazed a welcome, the Nazarene came
+back to His Father's house, to be once more about His Father's business.
+
+Joel caught a glimpse of Him walking up and down the covered porches in
+front of the Gate Beautiful. The next moment he was pushing and
+elbowing his way through the jostling crowds, till he stood close beside
+Him.
+
+After that, the services that followed were a blank. He saw only one
+face,--the face that had looked into his beside the Galilee, and drawn
+from his heart its intensest love. He heard only one voice,--the voice
+he had longed for all these weeks and days. Just to be near Him! To be
+able to reach out reverent fingers and only touch the clothes He wore;
+to look up in His face, and look and look with a love that never
+wearied,--that was such happiness that Joel was lost to everything else!
+
+But after a while he began to realize that it was for no friendly
+purpose that the chief priests came pressing around with questions.
+
+"If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly," they demanded. Then up and
+down through the long Porch of Solomon, among all its white marble
+pillars, they repeated His answer:--
+
+"The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. I and
+my Father are one!"
+
+"Blasphemy!" shouted a mocking voice behind Him. "Blasphemy!" echoed
+Pharisee and Sadducee for once agreed. The crowds pushed and shoved
+between the pillars; some ran out for stones. In the confusion of the
+uproar, as they turned to lay violent hands on Him, He slipped out of
+their midst, and went quietly away.
+
+Joel hunted around awhile for the party he had come with, but seeing
+neither Phineas nor Lazarus, started back to Bethany on the run. A cold
+winter rain had begun to fall.
+
+None of Reuben's family had gone into Jerusalem that day on account of
+the weather, but were keeping the feast at home.
+
+They were startled when the usually quiet boy burst excitedly into the
+house, and told them what he had just seen.
+
+"O mother Abigail!" he cried, throwing himself on his knees beside her.
+"If He goes away again may I not go with Him? I cannot go back to
+Galilee and leave Him, unknowing what is to happen. If He is to be
+persecuted and driven out, and maybe killed, let me at least share His
+suffering, and be with Him at the last!"
+
+"You forget that He has all power, and that His enemies can do Him no
+harm," said Abigail, gently. "Has He not twice walked out unharmed,
+before their very eyes, when they would have taken Him? And besides what
+good could you do, my boy? You forget you are only a child, and might
+not be able to stand the hardships of such a journey."
+
+"I am almost fourteen," said Joel, stretching himself up proudly. "And I
+am as strong now as some of the men who go with Him. _He_ gave me back
+my strength, you know. Oh, you do not know how I love Him!" he cried.
+"When I am away from Him, I feel as you would were you separated from
+Jesse and Ruth and father Phineas. My heart is always going out after
+Him!"
+
+"Child, have you no care for us?" she responded reproachfully.
+
+"Oh, do not speak so!" he cried, catching up her hand and kissing it. "I
+_do_ love you; I can never be grateful enough for all you have done for
+me. But, O mother Abigail, you could never understand! You were never
+lame and felt the power of His healing. You were never burning with a
+wicked hatred, and felt the balm of His forgiveness! You cannot
+understand how He draws me to Him!"
+
+"Let the boy have his way," spoke up Reuben. "I, too, have felt that
+wonderful power that draws all men to Him. Gladly would I part with
+every shekel I possess, if I thereby might win Him the favor of the
+authorities."
+
+When once more a little band of fugitives followed their Master across
+the Jordan, Joel was with them.
+
+The winter wore away, and they still tarried. Day by day, they were
+listening to the simple words that dropped like seeds into their
+memories, to spring up in after months and bear great truths. Now they
+heard them as half understood parables,--the good Samaritan, the barren
+fig-tree, the prodigal son, the unjust steward.
+
+There was one story that thrilled Joel deeply,--the story of the lost
+sheep. For he recalled that stormy night in the sheepfold of Nathan ben
+Obed, and the shepherd who searched till dawn for the straying lamb.
+
+It was only long afterwards that he realized it was the Good Shepherd
+Himself who told the story, when He was about to lay down His own life
+for the lost sheep of Israel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile in Bethany, Rabbi Reuben and his wife rejoiced that their
+daughter's visit stretched out indefinitely.
+
+Jesse openly declared that he intended to stay there always, and learn
+to be a goldsmith like his grandfather.
+
+Ruth, too, was happy and contented, and seemed to have forgotten that
+she ever had any other home. As the early spring days came on, she lived
+almost entirely out in the sunshine. She had fallen into the habit of
+standing at the gate to watch for Lazarus every evening when he came
+back from the Temple. As soon as she saw him turn the corner into their
+street, she ran to meet him, her fair curls and white dress fluttering
+in the wind.
+
+No matter how tired he was, or what cares rested heavily on his mind,
+the pale face always lighted up, and his dark eyes smiled at her coming.
+
+"Lazarus does not seem well, lately," she heard Martha say to her mother
+one day. "I have been trying to persuade him to rest a few days; but he
+insists he cannot until he has finished the scroll he is illuminating."
+
+A few days after that he did not go to the city as usual. Ruth peeped
+into the darkened room where he was resting on a couch; his eyes were
+closed, and he was so pale it almost frightened her.
+
+He did not hear her when she tiptoed into the room and out again; but
+the fragrance of the little stemless rose she laid on his pillow aroused
+him. He opened his eyes and smiled languidly, as he caught sight of her
+slipping noiselessly through the door.
+
+Her mother, sewing by the window, looked out and saw her running across
+the street. Jesse was out in front of the house, playing with a ball.
+
+"Who is that boy talking to Jesse?" asked Abigail of Rebecca, who stood
+in the doorway, holding out her arms as Ruth came up.
+
+"Why, that is little Joseph, the only son of Simon the leper. Poor
+child!"
+
+"Simon the leper," repeated Abigail. "A stranger to me."
+
+"Surely not. Have you forgotten the wealthy young oil-seller who lived
+next the synagogue? He has the richest olive groves in this part of the
+country."
+
+"Not the husband of my little playmate Esther!" cried Abigail. "Surely
+he has not been stricken with leprosy!"
+
+"Yes; it is one of the saddest cases I ever heard of. It seems so
+terrible for a man honored as he has been, and accustomed to every
+luxury, to be such a despised outcast."
+
+"Poor Esther!" sighed Abigail. "Does she ever see him?"
+
+"Not now. The disease is fast destroying him; and he is such a hideous
+sight that he has forbidden her to ever try to see him again. Even his
+voice is changed. Of course he would be stoned if he were to come back.
+He never seeks the company of other lepers. She has had a room built for
+him away from the sight of men. Every day a servant carries him food and
+tidings. It is well that they have money, or he would be obliged to live
+among the tombs with others as repulsive-looking as himself, and such
+company must certainly be worse than none. Sometimes little Joseph is
+taken near enough to speak to him, that he may have the poor comfort of
+seeing his only child at a distance."
+
+"What if it were my Phineas!" exclaimed Abigail, her tears dropping fast
+on the needlework she held. "Oh, it is a thousand times worse than
+death!"
+
+Out in the street the boys were making each other's acquaintance in the
+off-hand way boys of that age have.
+
+"My name is Jesse. What's yours?"
+
+"Joseph."
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"Around the corner, next to the synagogue."
+
+"My father is a carpenter. What's yours?"
+
+Joseph hesitated. "He used to be an oil-seller," he said finally. "He
+doesn't do anything now."
+
+"Why?" persisted Jesse.
+
+"He is a leper now," was the reluctant answer.
+
+A look of distress came over Jesse's face. He had seen some lepers once,
+and the sight was still fresh in his mind. As they were riding down from
+Galilee, Joel had pointed them out to him. A group of beggars with
+horrible scaly sores that had eaten away their flesh, till some were
+left without lips or eyelids; one held out a deathly white hand from
+which nearly all the fingers had dropped. Their hair looked like white
+wire, and they called out, in shrill, cracked voices, "Unclean! Unclean!
+Come not near us!"
+
+"How terrible to have one's father like that," thought Jesse. A lump
+seemed to come up in his throat; his eyes filled with tears at the bare
+idea. Then, boy-like, he tossed up his ball, and forgot all about it in
+the game that followed.
+
+Several days after he met Joseph and a servant who was carrying a large,
+covered basket and a water-bottle made of skin.
+
+"I'm going to see my father, now," said Joseph. "Ask your mother if you
+can come with me."
+
+Jesse started towards his home, then turned suddenly. "No, I'm not going
+to ask her, for she'll be sure to say no. I am just going anyhow."
+
+"You'll catch it when you get home!" exclaimed Joseph.
+
+"Well, it cannot last long," reasoned Jesse, whose curiosity had gotten
+the better of him. "I believe I'd rather take a whipping than not to
+go."
+
+Joseph looked at him in utter astonishment.
+
+"Yes, I would," he insisted; "so come on!"
+
+A short walk down an unfrequented road, in the direction of Jericho,
+took them to a lonely place among the bare cliffs. A little cabin stood
+close against the rocks, with a great sycamore-tree bending over it.
+Near by was the entrance to a deep cave, always as cool as a cellar,
+even in the hottest summer days.
+
+At the mouth of the cave sat Simon the leper. He stood up when he saw
+them coming, and wrapped himself closely in a white linen mantle that
+covered him from head to foot. It was a ghostly sight to Jesse; but to
+Joseph, so long accustomed to it, there seemed nothing strange.
+
+At a safe distance the servant emptied his basket on a large flat rock,
+and poured the water into a stone jar standing near. Last of all, he
+laid a piece of parchment on the stone. It was Esther's daily letter to
+her exiled husband.
+
+No matter what storms swept the valley, or what duties pressed at home,
+that little missive was always sent. She had learned to write for his
+sake. By all his friends he was accounted dead; but her love, stronger
+than death, bridged the gulf that separated them. She lived only to
+minister to his comfort as best she could.
+
+Simon did not send as long a message in return as this trusted messenger
+usually carried. He had much to say to his boy, and the sun was already
+high.
+
+Jesse, lagging behind in the shelter of the rock, heard the tender words
+of counsel and blessing that came from the white-sheeted figure with a
+feeling of awe.
+
+As the father urged his boy to be faithful to every little duty, careful
+in learning the prayers, and above all obedient to his mother, Jesse's
+conscience began to prick him sorely.
+
+"I believe I know somebody that could cure him," he said, as they picked
+their way over the rocks, going home. "'Cause He made Joel well."
+
+"Who's Joel?" asked Joseph.
+
+"A boy that lives with us. He was just as lame, and limped way over when
+he walked. Now he is as straight as I am. All the sick people where I
+lived went to Him, and they got well."
+
+Joseph shook his head. "Lepers can't be cured. Can they, Seth?" he
+asked, appealing to the servant.
+
+"No, lepers are just the same as dead," answered Seth. "There's no help
+for them."
+
+Jesse was in a very uncomfortable frame of mind, as, hot and dusty, he
+left his companion and dragged home at a snail's pace.
+
+Next morning Joseph was waiting for him out in front. "Well, did she
+whip you?" he asked, with embarrassing frankness.
+
+"No," said Jesse, a little sheepishly. "She put me to bed just as soon
+as I had eaten my dinner, and made me stay there till this morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+RUTH went every day to ask for her sick friend, sometimes with a bunch
+of grapes, sometimes with only a flower in her warm little hand.
+
+But there came a time when Martha met her, with eyes all swollen and red
+from crying, and told her they had sent to the city for a skilful
+physician.
+
+In the night there came a loud knocking at the door, and a call for
+Rabbi Reuben to come quickly, that Lazarus was worse. At day-break a
+messenger was sent clattering away to hurry over the Jordan in hot
+haste, and bring back from Perea the only One who could help them.
+
+The noise awakened Ruth; she sat up in surprise to see her mother
+dressed so early. The outer door was ajar, and she heard the message
+that the anxious Martha bade the man deliver: "Lord, he whom Thou lovest
+is sick."
+
+"He will come right away and make him well, won't He, mother?" she asked
+anxiously.
+
+"Surely, my child," answered Abigail. "He loves him too well to let him
+suffer so."
+
+But the day wore on, and the next; still another, and He did not come.
+
+Ruth stole around like a frightened shadow, because of the anxious looks
+on every face.
+
+"Why doesn't He come?" she wondered; and on many another lip was the
+same question.
+
+She was so quiet, no one noticed when she stole into the room where her
+friend lay dying. Mary knelt on one side of the bed, Martha on the
+other, watching the breath come slower and slower, and clinging to the
+unresponsive hands as if their love could draw him back to life.
+
+Neither shed a tear, but seemed to watch with their souls in their eyes,
+for one more word, one more look of recognition.
+
+Abigail sat by the window, weeping softly. Ruth had never seen her
+mother cry before, and it frightened her. She glanced at her
+grandfather, standing by the foot of the bed; two great tears rolled
+slowly down his cheeks, and dropped on his long beard.
+
+A sudden cry from Mary, as she fell fainting to the floor, called her
+attention to the bed again. Martha was silently rocking herself to and
+fro, in an agony of grief.
+
+Still the child did not understand. Those in the room were so busy
+trying to bring Mary back to consciousness, that no one noticed Ruth.
+
+Drawn by some impulse she could not understand, the child drew nearer
+and nearer. Then she laid her soft little hand on his, thinking the
+touch would surely make him open his eyes and smile at her again; it had
+often done so before.
+
+But what was it that made her start back terrified, and shrink away
+trembling? It was not Lazarus she had touched, but the awful mystery of
+death.
+
+"I did not know that a little child could feel so deeply," said Abigail
+to her mother, when she found that Ruth neither ate nor played, but
+wandered aimlessly around.
+
+"I shall keep her away from the funeral."
+
+But all her care could not keep from the little one's ears the mournful
+music of the funeral dirge, or the wailing of the mourners, who gathered
+to do honor to the young man whom all Bethany knew and loved.
+
+Many friends came out from Jerusalem to follow the long procession to
+the tomb. There was a long eulogy at the grave; but the most impressive
+ceremony was over at last, and the great stone had to be rolled into the
+opening that formed the doorway.
+
+Then the two desolate sisters went back to their lonely home and empty
+life, wondering how they could go on without the presence that had been
+such a daily benediction.
+
+The fourth day after his death, as Martha sat listlessly looking out of
+the green arbor with unseeing eyes, Ruth ran in with a radiant face.
+
+"He's come!" she cried. "He's come, and so has my father. Hurry! He is
+waiting for you!"
+
+Martha drew her veil about her, and mechanically followed the eager
+child to the gate, where Phineas met her with the same message.
+
+"Oh, why did He not come sooner?" she thought bitterly, as she pressed
+on after her guide.
+
+Once outside of the village, she drew aside her veil. There stood the
+Master, with such a look of untold sympathy on His worn face, that
+Martha cried out, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here my brother had not
+died!"
+
+"Thy brother shall rise again," He said gently.
+
+"Yes, I know he shall rise again in the resurrection, at the last day,"
+she said brokenly. "That brings hope for the future; but what comfort is
+there for the lonely years we must live without him?" The tears streamed
+down her face again.
+
+Then for the first time came those words that have brought balm into
+thousands of broken hearts, and hope into countless tear-blind eyes.
+
+"I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me shall never
+die. Believest thou this?"
+
+Martha looked up reverently. "Yea, Lord, I believe that Thou art the
+Christ, the Son of God which should come into the world."
+
+A great peace came over her troubled spirit as she hurried to her home,
+where the many friends still sat who had come to comfort them. A number
+of them were from Jerusalem, and she knew that among them were some who
+were unfriendly to her brother's friend.
+
+So she quietly called her sister from the room, whispering, "The Master
+is come, and calleth for thee!"
+
+Those who sat there thought they were going to the grave to weep, as was
+the custom. So they rose also, and followed at a little distance.
+
+Mary met Him with the same exclamation that her sister had uttered, and
+fell at His feet.
+
+He, seeing in her white face the marks of the deep grief she had
+suffered, was thrilled to the depths of His humanity by the keenest
+sympathy. His tears fell too, at the sight of hers.
+
+"Behold how He loved Lazarus!" said a man to the one who stood beside
+him.
+
+"Why did He not save him then?" was the mocking answer.
+
+"They say He has the power to open the eyes of the blind, and even to
+raise the dead. Let Him show it in this case!"
+
+It was a curious crowd that followed Him to the door of the tomb: men
+who hated Him for the scorching fire-brands of rebuke He had thrown into
+their corrupt lives; men who feared Him as a dangerous teacher of false
+doctrines; men who knew His good works, but hesitated either to accept
+or refuse; and men who loved Him better than life,--all waiting,
+wondering what He would do.
+
+"Roll the stone away!" He commanded; a dozen strong shoulders bent to do
+His bidding. Then He looked up and spoke in a low tone, but so
+distinctly that no one lost a word.
+
+"Father," He said,--He seemed to be speaking to some one just beside
+Him,--"I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me, and I knew that Thou
+hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it,
+that they may believe that Thou hast sent me."
+
+A cold shiver of expectancy ran over those who heard. Then He cried, in
+a loud voice, "_Lazarus, come forth!_" There was a dreadful pause. Some
+of the women clutched each other with frightened shrieks; even strong
+men fell back, as out of the dark grave walked a tall figure wrapped in
+white grave-clothes.
+
+His face was hidden in a napkin. "Loose him, and let him go," said the
+Master, calmly.
+
+Phineas stepped forward and loosened the outer bands. When the napkin
+fell from his face, they saw he was deathly white; but in an instant a
+warm, healthful glow took the place of the corpse-like pallor.
+
+Not till he spoke, however, could the frightened people believe that it
+was Lazarus, and not a ghost they saw.
+
+Never had there been such a sight since the world began: the man who had
+lain four days in the tomb, walking side by side with the man who had
+called him back to life.
+
+The streets were full of people, laughing, shouting, crying, fairly
+beside themselves with astonishment.
+
+Smiths left their irons to cool on the anvils; bakers left their bread
+to burn in the ovens; the girl at the fountain dropped her half-filled
+pitcher; and a woman making cakes ran into the street with the dough in
+her hands.
+
+Every house in the village stood empty, save one where a sick man moaned
+for water all unheeded, and another where a baby wakened in its cradle
+and began to cry.
+
+Long after the reunited family had gone into their home with their
+nearest friends, and shut the door on their overwhelming joy, the crowds
+still stood outside, talking among themselves.
+
+Many who had taken part against the Master before, now believed on
+account of what they had seen. But some still said, more openly than
+before, "He is in league with the evil one, or He could not do such
+things." These hurried back to Jerusalem, to spread the report that this
+dangerous man had again appeared, almost at the very gates of the great
+Capital.
+
+That night there was a secret council of the chief priests and the
+Pharisees. "What shall we do," was the anxious question. "If we let Him
+alone, all men will believe on Him; and the Romans shall come and take
+away both our place and our nation."
+
+Every heart beat with the same thought, but only Caiaphas put it in
+words. At last he dared repeat what he had only muttered to himself
+before: "It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people,
+and that the whole nation perish not."
+
+While the streets were still full of people, Jesse crept up to Joel, as
+they sat together in the court-yard. "Don't you think it would be just
+as easy to cure a leper as to raise Rabbi Lazarus from the dead?"
+
+"Yes, indeed!" answered Joel, positively, "I've seen it done."
+
+"Oh, have you?" cried the boy, in delight. "Then Joseph can have his
+father back again."
+
+He told him the story of Simon the leper, and of his visit to the lonely
+cave.
+
+Joel's sympathies were aroused at once. Ever since his own cure, he had
+felt that he must bring every afflicted one in the wide world to the
+great source of healing.
+
+Just then a man stopped at the gate to ask for Phineas. Joel had learned
+to know him well in the weeks they had been travelling together; it was
+Thomas.
+
+The boy sprang up eagerly. "Do you know when the Master is going to
+leave Bethany?" he asked.
+
+"In the morning," answered Thomas, "and right glad I am that it is to be
+so soon. For when we came down here, I thought it was but to die with
+Him. He is beset on all sides by secret enemies."
+
+"And will He go out by the same road that we came?"
+
+"It is most probable."
+
+Joel waited for no more information from him, but went back to Jesse to
+learn the way to the cave.
+
+Jesse was a little fellow, but a keen-eyed one, and was able to give
+Joel the few simple directions that would lead him the right way.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad you are going!" he exclaimed. "Shall I run and tell
+Joseph what you are going to do?"
+
+"No, do not say a word to any one," answered Joel. "I shall be back in a
+very short time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+SIMON the leper sat at the door of his cave. He held a roll of vellum in
+his unsightly fingers; it was a copy of the Psalms that Lazarus had once
+made for him in happier days.
+
+Many a time he had found comfort in these hope-inspiring songs of David;
+but to-day he was reading a wail that seemed to come from the depths of
+his own soul:
+
+"Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy
+waves. Thou hast put mine acquaintance far from me. Thou hast made me an
+abomination unto them. I am shut up and I cannot come forth. Lord, I
+have called daily upon Thee. I have stretched out my hands unto Thee.
+Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise again and
+praise Thee? Lord, why casteth Thou off my soul? Why hidest Thou Thy
+face from me?"
+
+The roll dropped to the ground, and he hid his face in his hands,
+crying, "How long must I endure this? Oh, why was I not taken instead of
+Lazarus?"
+
+The sound of some one scrambling over the rocks made him look up
+quickly.
+
+Seth never made his visits at this time of the day, and strangers had
+never before found the path to this out-of-the-way place.
+
+Joel came on, and stopped by the rock where the water-jar stood.
+
+Simon stood up, covering himself with his mantle, and crying out,
+warningly, "Beware! Unclean! Come no further!"
+
+"I bring you news from the village," said Joel. The man threw out his
+hand with a gesture of alarm.
+
+"Oh, not of my wife Esther," he cried, imploringly, "or of my little
+Joseph! I could not bear to hear aught of ill from them. My heart is
+still sore for the death of my friend Lazarus. I went as near the
+village as I dared, and heard the dirge of the flutes and the wailing of
+the women, when they laid him in the tomb. I have sat here ever since in
+sackcloth and ashes."
+
+"But Lazarus lives again!" exclaimed Joel, simply. He had seen so many
+miracles lately, that he forgot the startling effect such an
+announcement would have on one not accustomed to them.
+
+[Illustration: "'YOU BUT MOCK ME, BOY'"]
+
+The man stood petrified with astonishment. At last he said bitterly,
+"You but mock me, boy; at least leave me to my sorrow in peace."
+
+"No!" cried Joel. "As the Lord liveth, I swear it is the truth. Have you
+not heard that Messiah has come? I have followed Him up and down the
+country, and know whereof I speak. At a word from Him the dumb sing, the
+blind see, and the lame walk. I was lame myself, and He made me as you
+see me now."
+
+Joel drew himself up to his fullest height. Simon looked at him,
+completely puzzled.
+
+"Why did you take the trouble to come and tell me that,--a poor despised
+leper?" he finally asked.
+
+"Because I want everybody else to be as happy as I am. He cured me. He
+gave me back my strength. Then why should not my feet be always swift to
+bring others to Him for the same happy healing? He Himself goes about
+all the time doing good. I know there is hope for you, for I have seen
+Him cleanse lepers."
+
+Simon trembled, as the full meaning of the hope held out to him began to
+make itself clear to his confused mind: health, home, Esther,
+child,--all restored to him. It was joy too great to be possible.
+
+"Oh, if I could only believe it!" he cried.
+
+"Lazarus was raised when he had been four days dead. All Bethany can
+bear witness to that," persisted Joel. The words poured out with such
+force and earnestness, as he described the scene, that Simon felt
+impelled to believe him.
+
+"Where can I find this man?" he asked.
+
+Joel pointed down the rocky slope. "Take that road that leads into
+Bethany. Come early in the morning, and as we all pass that way, call to
+Him. He never refuses any who have faith to believe that He can grant
+what they ask."
+
+When Joel was half-way down the hill, he turned back. "If He should not
+pass on the morrow," he said, "do not fail to be there on the second
+day. We will surely leave here soon."
+
+Simon stood in bewilderment till the boy had passed down the hill; he
+began to fear that this messenger had been only the creation of a dream.
+He climbed upon the cliff and peered down into the valley. No, he had
+not been deceived; the boy was no mirage of his thirsty soul, for there,
+he came out into full sight again, and now, he was climbing the opposite
+hillside.
+
+"How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him who bringeth good
+tidings!" he murmured. "Oh, what a heaven opens out before me, if this
+lad's words are only true!"
+
+Next morning, after they left Bethany, Joel looked anxiously behind
+every rock and tree that they passed; but Simon was not to be seen.
+
+Presently Joel saw him waiting farther down the road; he was kneeling in
+the dust. The white mantle, that in his sensitiveness was always used to
+hide himself from view, was cast aside, that the Great Healer might see
+his great need.
+
+He scanned the approaching figures with imploring eyes. He was looking
+for the Messiah,--some one in kingly garments, whose jewelled sceptre's
+lightest touch would lay upon him the royal accolade of health.
+
+These were evidently not the ones he was waiting for. These were only
+simple wayfarers; most of them looked like Galileans.
+
+He was about to rise up with his old warning cry of unclean, when he
+caught sight of Joel. But where was the princely Redeemer of prophecy?
+
+Nearer and nearer they came, till he could look full in their faces. No
+need now to ask on which one he should call for help; indeed, he seemed
+to see but one face, it was so full of loving pity.
+
+"O Thou Messiah of Israel!" he prayed. "Thou didst call my friend
+Lazarus from the dead, O pass me not by! Call me from this living death!
+Make me clean!"
+
+The eyes that looked down into his seemed to search his soul. "Believest
+thou that I can do this?"
+
+The pleading faith in Simon's eyes could not be refused. "Yea, Lord," he
+cried, "Thou hast but to speak the word!"
+
+He waited, trembling, for the answer that meant life or death to him.
+
+"I will. Be thou clean!" He put out His hand to raise the kneeling man
+to his feet. "Go and show thyself to the priests," He added.
+
+The party passed on, and Simon stood looking after them. _Was_ it the
+Christ who had passed by? Where were His dyed garments from Bozrah? The
+prophet foretold Him as glorious in apparel, travelling in the greatness
+of His strength. No sceptre of divine power had touched him; it was only
+the clasp of a warm human hand he had felt. He looked down at himself.
+Still a leper! His faith wavered; but he remembered he had not obeyed
+the command to show himself to the priests. Immediately he started
+across the fields on a run, towards the road leading into Jerusalem.
+
+Far down the highway Joel heard a mighty shout; he turned and looked
+back. There on the brow of a hill, sharply outlined against the sky,
+stood Simon. His arms were lifted high up towards heaven; for as he ran,
+in obedience to the command, the leprosy had gone from him. He was
+pouring out a flood of praise and thanksgiving, in the first ecstasy of
+his recovery, at the top of his voice.
+
+Joel thought of the tiresome ceremonies to be observed before the man
+could go home, and wished that the eight days of purification were over,
+that the little family might be immediately reunited.
+
+Meanwhile, Seth, with his basket and water-bottle, was climbing the hill
+toward the cave. For the first time in seven years since he had
+commenced these daily visits, no expectant voice greeted him. He went
+quite close up to the little room under the cliff; he could see through
+the half-open door that it was empty. Then he cautiously approached the
+mouth of the cave, and called his master. A hundred echoes answered him,
+but no human voice responded. Call after call was sent ringing into the
+hollow darkness. The deep stillness weighed heavily upon him; he began
+to be afraid that somewhere in its mysterious depths lay a dead body.
+
+The fear mastered him. Only stopping to put down the food and pour out
+the water, he started home at the top of his speed.
+
+As he reached the road, a traveller going to Bethany hailed him. "What
+think you that I saw just now?" asked the stranger. "A man running with
+all his might towards Jerusalem. Tears of joy were streaming down his
+cheeks, and he was shouting as he ran, 'Cleansed! Cleansed! Cleansed!'
+He stopped me, and bade me say, if I met a man carrying a basket and
+water-skin, that Simon the leper has just been healed of the leprosy. He
+will be home as soon as the days of purification are over."
+
+Seth gazed at him stupidly, feeling that he must be in a dream. Esther,
+too, heard the message unbelievingly. Yet she walked the floor in a
+fever of excitement, at the bare possibility of such a thing being true.
+
+The next morning, she sent Seth, as usual, with the provisions. But he
+brought them back, saying the place was still deserted.
+
+Then she began to dare to hope; although she tried to steel herself
+against disappointment, by whispering over and over that she could never
+see him again, she waited impatiently for the days to pass. At last they
+had all dragged by.
+
+The new day would begin at sunset, the very earliest time that she might
+expect him. The house was swept and garnished as if a king were coming.
+The table was set with the choicest delicacies Seth could find in the
+Jerusalem markets.
+
+The earliest roses, his favorite red ones, were put in every room. In
+her restless excitement nothing in her wardrobe seemed rich enough to
+wear. She tried on one ornament after another before she was suited.
+Then, all in white, with jewels blazing in her ears, on her throat, on
+her little white hands, and her eyes shining like two glad stars, she
+sat down to wait for him.
+
+But she could not keep still. This rug was turned up at the corner; that
+rose had dropped its petals on the floor. She would have another kind of
+wine on the table.
+
+At last she stepped out of the door in her little silken-bound sandals,
+and climbed the outside stairs to the roof, to watch for him.
+
+The sun was entirely out of sight, but the west was glorious with the
+red gold of its afterglow. Looking up the Mount of Olives, she could see
+the smoke of the evening sacrifice rising as the clouds of incense
+filled the Temple. Surely he must be far on the way by this time.
+
+Her heart almost stopped beating as she saw a figure coming up the road,
+between the rows of palm-trees. She strained her eyes for a nearer view,
+then drew a long tremulous breath. It was Lazarus; there went the two
+children and the lamb to meet him. All along the street, people were
+standing in the doors to see him go past; he was still a wonder to them.
+
+She shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked again. But while her gaze
+searched the distant road, some one was passing just below, under the
+avenue of leafy trees, with quick impatient tread; some one paused at
+the vine-covered door; some one was leaping up the stairs three steps at
+a time; some one was coming towards her with out-stretched arms, crying,
+"Esther, little Esther, O my wife! My God-given one!"
+
+For the first time in seven years, she turned to find herself in her
+husband's arms. Strong and well, with the old light in his eyes, the old
+thrill in his voice, the glow of perfect health tingling through all his
+veins, he could only whisper tremulously, as he held her close, "Praise
+God! Praise God!"
+
+No wonder he seemed like a stranger to Joseph. But the clasp of the
+strong arms, and the deep voice saying "my son," so tenderly, were
+inexpressibly dear to the little fellow kept so long from his birthright
+of a father's love.
+
+He was the first to break the happy silence that fell upon them. "What a
+good man Rabbi Jesus must be, to go about making people glad like this
+all the time!"
+
+"It is He who shall redeem Israel!" exclaimed Simon. "To God be the
+glory, who hath sent Him into this sin-cursed world! Henceforth all that
+I have, and all that I am, shall be dedicated to His service!"
+
+Kneeling there in the dying daylight, with his arms around the wife and
+child so unexpectedly given back to him, such a heart-felt prayer of
+gratitude went upward to the good Father that even the happiest angels
+must have paused to listen, more glad because of this great
+earth-gladness below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+"I THINK there will be an unusual gathering of strangers at the Passover
+this year," said Rabbi Reuben to Lazarus, as they came out together from
+the city, one afternoon. "The number may even reach three millions. A
+travelling man from Rome was in my shop to-day. He says that in the
+remotest parts of the earth, wherever the Hebrew tongue is found, one
+may hear the name of the Messiah.
+
+"People pacing the decks of the ships, crossing the deserts, or trading
+in the shops, talk only of Him and His miracles; they have aroused the
+greatest interest even in Athens and the cities of the Nile. The very
+air seems full of expectancy. I cannot but think great things are about
+to come to pass. Surely the time is now ripe for Jesus to proclaim
+Himself king. I cannot understand why He should hide Himself away in the
+wilderness as if He feared for His safety."
+
+Lazarus smiled at the old man, with a confident expression. "Be sure, my
+friend, it is only because the hour has not yet come. What a sight it
+will be when He does stand before the tomb of our long dead power, to
+call back the nation to its old-time life and grandeur. I can well
+believe that with Him all things are possible."
+
+"Would that this next Passover were the time!" responded Reuben. "How I
+would rejoice to see His enemies laid low in the dust!"
+
+Already, on the borders of Galilee, the expected king had started toward
+His coronation. Many of the old friends and neighbors from Capernaum had
+joined their band, to go on to the Paschal feast.
+
+They made slow progress, however, for at every turn in the road they
+were stopped by outstretched hands and cries for help. Nearly every step
+was taken to the sound of some rejoicing cry from some one who had been
+blessed.
+
+Joel could not crowd all the scenes into his memory; but some stood with
+clear-cut distinctness. There were the ten lepers who met them at the
+very outset; and there was blind Bartimeus begging by the wayside. He
+could never forget the expression of that man's face, when his eyes
+were opened, and for the first time he looked out on the glory of the
+morning sunshine.
+
+Joel quivered all over with a thrill of sympathy, remembering his own
+healing, and realizing more than the others what had been done for the
+blind beggar.
+
+Then there was Zaccheus, climbing up to look down through the sycamore
+boughs that he might see the Master passing into Jericho, and Zaccheus
+scrambling down again in haste to provide entertainment for his honored
+guest.
+
+There was the young ruler going away sorrowful because the sacrifice
+asked of him was more than he was willing to make. But there was one
+scene that his memory held in unfading colors:--
+
+Roses and wild honeysuckle climbing over a bank by the road-side.
+Orange-trees dropping a heavy fragrance with the falling petals of their
+white blossoms. In the midst of the shade and the bloom the mothers from
+the village near by, gathering with their children, all freshly washed
+and dressed to find favor in the eyes of the passing Prophet.
+
+Babies cooed in their mother's arms. Bright little faces smiled out from
+behind protecting skirts, to which timid fingers clung. As they waited
+for the coming procession, and little bare feet chased each other up and
+down the bank, the happy laughter of the older children filled all the
+sunny air.
+
+As the travellers came on, the women caught up their children and
+crowded forward. It was a sight that would have made almost any one
+pause,--those innocent-eyed little ones waiting for the touch that would
+keep them always pure in heart,--that blessing their mothers coveted for
+them.
+
+But some of the disciples, impatient at the many delays, seeing in the
+rosy faces and dimpled limbs nothing that seemed to claim help or
+attention, spoke to the women impatiently. "Why trouble ye the Master?"
+they said. "Would ye stop the great work He has come to do for matters
+of such little importance?"
+
+Repelled by the rebuke, they fell back. But there was a look of
+displeasure on His face, such as they had never seen before, as Jesus
+turned toward them.
+
+"Suffer the little children to come unto me," He said, sternly, "and
+forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven!"
+
+Then holding out His hands He took them up in His arms and blessed
+them, every one, even the youngest baby, that blinked up at Him
+unknowingly with its big dark eyes, received its separate blessing.
+
+So fearlessly they came to Him, so lovingly they nestled in His arms,
+and with such perfect confidence they clung to Him, that He turned again
+to His disciples. "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive
+the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."
+
+Met at all points as He had been by loathsome sights, ragged beggars,
+and diseases of all kinds, this group of happy-faced children must have
+remained long in His memory, as sweet as the unexpected blossoming of a
+rose in a dreary desert.
+
+At last the slow journey drew towards a close. The Friday afternoon
+before the Passover found the tired travellers once more in Bethany.
+News of their coming had been brought several hours before by a man
+riding down from Jericho. His swift-footed beast had overtaken and
+passed the slow procession far back on the road.
+
+There was a joyful welcome for the Master in the home of Lazarus. The
+cool, vine-covered arbor was a refreshing change from the dusty road.
+Here were no curious throngs and constant demands for help.
+
+Away from the sights that oppressed Him, away from the clamor and the
+criticism, here was a place where heart and body might find rest. The
+peace of the place, and the atmosphere of sympathy surrounding Him, must
+have fallen like dew on His thirsty soul. Here, for a few short days, He
+who had been so long a houseless wanderer was to know the blessedness of
+a home.
+
+Several hours before the first trumpet blast from the roof of the
+synagogue proclaimed the approaching Sabbath, Simon hurried to his home.
+
+"Esther," he called in great excitement, "I have seen Him! The Christ! I
+have knelt at His feet. I have looked in His face. And, oh, only
+think!--He has promised to sit at our table! To-morrow night, such a
+feast as has never been known in the place shall be spread before Him.
+Help me to think of something we may do to show him especial honor."
+
+Esther sprang up at the news. "We have very little time to prepare," she
+said. "Seth must go at once into the city to make purchases. To-morrow
+night, no hireling hand shall serve him. I myself shall take that lowly
+place, with Martha and Mary to aid me. Abigail, too, shall help us, for
+it is a labor of love that she will delight to take part in. I shall go
+at once to ask them."
+
+The long, still Sabbath went by. The worshippers in the synagogue looked
+in vain for other miracles, listened in vain for the Voice that wrought
+such wonders.
+
+Through the unbroken rest of that day He was gathering up His strength
+for a coming trial. Something of the approaching shadow may have been
+seen in His tender eyes; some word of the awaiting doom may have been
+spoken to the brother and sisters sitting reverently at his feet,--for
+they seemed to feel that a parting was at hand, and that they must crowd
+the flying hours with all the loving service they could render Him.
+
+That night at the feast, as Esther's little white hands brought the
+water for the reclining guests to wash, and Martha and Abigail placed
+sumptuously filled dishes before them, Mary paused in her busy passing
+to and fro; she longed to do some especial thing to show her love for
+the honored guest.
+
+Never had His face worn such a look of royalty; never had He seemed so
+much the Christ. The soft light of many candles falling on His worn
+face seemed to reveal as never before the divine soul soon to leave the
+worn body where it now tarried.
+
+An old Jewish custom suddenly occurred to her. She seemed to see two
+pictures: one was Aaron, standing up in the rich garments of the
+priesthood, with his head bowed to receive the sacred anointing; the
+other was Israel's first king, on whom the hoary Samuel was bestowing
+the anointing that proclaimed his royalty. Token of both priesthood and
+kingship,--oh, if she dared but offer it!
+
+No one noticed when she stepped out after awhile, and hurried swiftly
+homeward. Hidden away in a chest in her room, was a little alabaster
+flask, carefully sealed. It held a rare sweet perfume, worth almost its
+weight in gold.
+
+She took it out with trembling fingers, and hid it in the folds of her
+long flowing white dress. Her breath came quick, and her heart beat
+fast, as she slipped in behind the guests again. The color glowed and
+paled in her cheeks, as she stood there in the shadow of the curtains,
+hesitating, half afraid to venture.
+
+At last, when the banquet was almost over, she stepped noiselessly
+forward. There was a hush of surprise at this unusual interruption,
+although every one there was familiar with the custom, and recognized
+its deep meaning and symbolism.
+
+First on His head, then on His feet, she poured the costly perfume.
+Bending low in the deepest humility, she swept her long soft hair across
+them to wipe away the crystal drops. The whole house was filled with the
+sweet, delicate odor.
+
+Some of those who saw it, remembered a similar scene in the house of
+another Simon, in far away Galilee; but only the Anointed One could feel
+the deep contrast between the two.
+
+That Simon, the proud Pharisee, condescending and critical and scant in
+hospitality; this Simon, the cleansed leper, ready to lay down his life,
+in his boundless love and gratitude. That woman, a penitent sinner,
+kneeling with tears before His mercy; this woman, so pure in heart that
+she could see God though hidden in the human body of the Nazarene. That
+anointing, to His priesthood at the beginning of His ministry; this
+anointing, to His kingdom, now almost at hand. No one spoke as the
+fragrance rose and spread itself like the incense of a benediction. It
+seemed a fitting close to this hour of communion with the Master.
+
+Across this eloquent silence that the softest sound would have jarred
+upon, a cold, unfeeling voice broke harshly.
+
+[Illustration: "A DARK FIGURE WENT SKULKING OUT INTO THE NIGHT"]
+
+It was Judas Iscariot who spoke. "Why was all this ointment wasted?" he
+asked. "It would have been better to have sold it and given it to the
+poor."
+
+Simon frowned indignantly at this low-browed guest, who was so lacking
+in courtesy, and Mary looked up distressed.
+
+"Let her alone!" said the Master, gently. "Ye have the poor with you
+always, and whensoever ye will, ye may do them good: but me ye have not
+always. She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my
+body to the burying."
+
+A dark look gleamed in the eyes of Judas,--there was that reference
+again to His burial. There seemed to be no use of making any further
+pretence to follow Him any longer. His kingdom was a delusion,--a vague,
+shadowy, spiritual thing that the others might believe in if they chose.
+But if there was no longer any hope of gaining by His service, he would
+turn to the other side.
+
+That night there was another secret council of some of the Sanhedrin,
+and Judas Iscariot was in their midst.
+
+When the lights were out, and the Temple police were making their final
+rounds, a dark figure went skulking out into the night, and wound its
+way through the narrow streets,--the dark figure that still goes
+skulking through the night of history,--the man who covenanted for
+thirty pieces of silver to betray his Lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+"WHO is that talking in the house?" asked Joel of Abigail the morning
+after the feast. He had been playing in the garden with Jesse, and
+paused just outside the door as he heard voices.
+
+"Only father and Phineas, now," answered Abigail. "Simon the oil-seller
+has just been here, and I am sure you could not guess his errand. It was
+about you."
+
+"About me?" echoed Joel, in surprise.
+
+"Yes, I never knew until this morning that you were the one who
+persuaded him to go to the Master for healing. He says if it had not
+been for you, he would still be an outcast from home. During these weeks
+you have been away, he has been hoping to find some trace of you, for he
+longs to express his gratitude. Last night at the feast, he learned your
+name, and now he has just been here to talk to Phineas and father about
+you. His olive groves yield him a large fortune every year, and he is in
+a position to do a great deal for you, if you will only let him."
+
+"What does he want to do?" asked Joel.
+
+"He has offered a great deal: to send you to the best schools in the
+country; to let you travel in foreign lands, and see life as it is in
+Rome and Athens and the cities of Egypt. Then when you are grown, he
+offers to take you in business with himself, and give you the portion of
+a son. It is a rare chance for you, my boy."
+
+"Yes," answered Joel, flushing with pleasure at the thought of all he
+might be able to see and learn. He seemed lost for a few minutes in the
+bright anticipation of such a tempting future; then his face clouded.
+
+"But I would have to leave everybody I love," he cried, "and the home
+where I have been so happy! I cannot do it, mother Abigail; it is too
+much to ask."
+
+"Now you talk like a child," she answered, half impatiently; but there
+was a suspicion of tears in her eyes as she added, "Joel, you have grown
+very dear to us. It will be hard to give you up, for you seem almost
+like an own son. But consider, my boy; it would not be right to turn
+away from such advantages. Jesse and Ruth will be well provided for. All
+that my father has will be theirs some day. But Phineas is only a poor
+carpenter, and cannot give you much beyond food and clothing. I heard
+him say just now that he clearly thought it to be your duty to accept,
+and he had no doubt but that you would."
+
+"But I cannot be with the Master!" cried Joel, as the thought suddenly
+occurred to him that he could no longer follow Him as he had been doing,
+if he was to be sent away to study and travel.
+
+"No; but think what you may be able to do for His cause, if you have
+money and education and influence. It seems to me that for His sake
+alone, you ought to consent to such an arrangement."
+
+That was the argument that Phineas used when he came out; and the boy
+was sadly bewildered between the desire to be constantly with his
+beloved Master, and his wish to serve Him as they suggested.
+
+It was in this perplexed state of mind that he started up to Jerusalem
+with Jesse and his grandfather.
+
+The streets were rapidly filling with people, coming up to the Feast of
+the Passover, and Joel recognized many old friends from Galilee.
+
+"There is Rabbi Amos!" he exclaimed, as he caught sight of an old man in
+the door of a house across the street. "May I run and speak to him?"
+
+"Certainly!" answered Reuben. "You know your way so well about the
+streets that it makes no difference if we do get separated. Jesse and I
+will walk on down to the shop. You can meet us there."
+
+Rabbi Amos gave Joel a cordial greeting. "I am about to go back to the
+Damascus gate," he said. "I have just been told that the Nazarene will
+soon make His entrance into the city, and a procession of pilgrims are
+going out to meet Him. I have heard much of the man since He left
+Capernaum, and I have a desire to see Him again. Will you come?"
+
+The old man hobbled along so painfully, leaning on his staff, that they
+were a long time in reaching the gate. The outgoing procession had
+already met the coming pilgrims, and were starting to return. The way
+was strewn with palm branches and the clothes they had taken off to lay
+along the road in front of the man they wished to honor. Every hand
+carried a palm branch, and every voice cried a Hosannah.
+
+At first Joel saw only a confused waving of the green branches, and
+heard an indistinct murmur of voices; but as they came nearer, he caught
+the words, "Hosannah to the Son of David!"
+
+"Look!" cried Rabbi Amos, laying his wrinkled, shaking hand heavily on
+Joel's shoulder. "Look ye, boy, the voice of prophecy! No Roman
+war-horse bears the coming victor! It is as Zechariah foretold! That the
+king should come riding upon the colt of an ass,--the symbol of peace.
+So David rode, and so the Judges of Israel came and went!"
+
+Joel's eyes followed the gesture of the tremulous, pointing finger.
+There came the Master, right in the face of His enemies, boldly riding
+in to take possession of His kingdom.
+
+At last! No wandering now in lonely wildernesses! No fear of the jealous
+scribe or Pharisee! The time had fully come. With garments strewn in the
+way, with palms of victory waving before Him, with psalm and song and
+the shouting of the multitude, He rode triumphantly into the city.
+
+Joel was roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, to see His best
+beloved friend so honored. People understood Him now; they appreciated
+Him. The demonstrations of the multitude proved it. He was so happy and
+excited, he scarcely knew what he was doing. He had no palm branch to
+wave, but as the head of the procession came abreast with him, and he
+saw the face of the rider, he was almost beside himself.
+
+He waved his empty hands wildly up and down, cheering at the top of his
+voice; but his shrillest Hosannahs were heard only by himself. They were
+only a drop in that mighty surf-beat of sound.
+
+Scarcely knowing what to expect, yet prepared for almost anything, they
+followed the procession into the city. When they reached the porch of
+the Temple, the Master had disappeared.
+
+"I wonder where He has gone," said Joel, in a disappointed tone. "I
+thought they would surely crown Him."
+
+"He evidently did not wish it to be," answered Rabbi Amos. "It would be
+more fitting that the coronation take place at the great feast. Wait
+until the day of the Passover."
+
+As they sat in the Court of the Gentiles, resting, Joel told Rabbi Amos
+of the offer made him by the wealthy oil-dealer Simon.
+
+"Accept it, by all means!" was the old man's advice. "We have seen
+enough just now to know that a new day is about to dawn for Israel. In
+Bethany, you will be much nearer the Master than in Capernaum; for
+surely, after to-day's demonstration, He will take up His residence in
+the capital. In time you may rise to great influence in the new
+government soon to be established."
+
+The old rabbi's opinion weighed heavily with Joel, and he determined to
+accept Simon's offer. Then for awhile he was so full of his new plans
+and ambitions, he could think of nothing else.
+
+All that busy week he was separated from the Master and His disciples;
+for it was the first Passover he had ever taken part in. After it was
+over, he was to break the ties that bound him to the carpenter's family
+and the simple life in Galilee, and go to live in Simon's luxurious home
+in Bethany.
+
+So he stayed closely with Phineas and Abigail, taking a great interest
+in all the great preparations for the feast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Reuben chose, from the countless pens, a male lamb a year old, without
+blemish. About two o'clock the blast of two horns announced that the
+priests and Levites in the Temple were ready, and the gates of the inner
+courts were opened, that all might bring the lambs for examination.
+
+The priests, in two long rows, caught the blood in great gold and silver
+vessels, as the animals were killed, and passed it to others behind,
+till it reached the altar, at the foot of which it was poured out.
+
+Then the lamb was taken up and roasted in an earthen oven, and the feast
+commenced at sunset on Thursday. The skin of the lamb, and the earthen
+dishes used, were generally given to the host, when different families
+lodged together.
+
+As many as twenty were allowed to gather at one table. Reuben had
+invited Nathan ben Obed, and those who came with him, to partake of his
+hospitality. Much to Joel's delight, a familiar shock of sunburned hair
+was poked in at the door, and he recognized Buz's freckled face,
+round-eyed and open mouthed at this first glimpse of the great city.
+
+During the first hour they were together, Buz kept his squinting eyes
+continually on Joel. He found it hard to believe that this straight,
+sinewy boy could be the same pitiful little cripple who had gone with
+him to the sheepfolds of Nathan ben Obed.
+
+"Say," he drawled, after awhile, "I know where that fellow is who made
+you lame. I was so upset at seeing you this way that I forgot to tell
+you. He had a dreadful accident, and you have already had your wish, for
+he is as blind as that stone."
+
+"Oh, how? Who told you?" cried Joel, eagerly.
+
+"I saw him myself, as we came through Jericho. He had been nearly beaten
+to death by robbers a few weeks before. It gave him a fever, and both
+eyes were so inflamed and bruised that he lost his sight."
+
+"Poor Rehum!" exclaimed Joel.
+
+"Poor Rehum!" echoed Buz, in astonishment. "What do you mean by poor
+Rehum? Aren't you glad? Isn't that just exactly what you planned; or did
+you want the pleasure of punching them out yourself?"
+
+"No," answered Joel, simply; "I forgave him a year ago, the night before
+I was healed."
+
+"You forgave him!" gasped Buz,--"you forgave him! A dog of a Samaritan!
+Why, how could you?"
+
+Buz looked at him with such a wondering, puzzled gaze that Joel did not
+attempt to explain. Buz might be ignorant of a great many things, but he
+knew enough to hate the Samaritans, and look down on them with the
+utmost contempt.
+
+"I don't really believe you could understand it," said Joel, "so it is
+of no use to try to tell you how or why. But I did forgive him, fully
+and freely. And if you will tell me just where to find him, I will go
+after him early in the morning and bring him back with me. The Hand
+that straightened my back can open his eyes; for I have seen it done
+many times."
+
+All during the feast, Buz kept stealing searching glances at Joel. He
+could hardly tell which surprised him most, the straightened body or the
+forgiving spirit. It was so wonderful to him that he sat speechless.
+
+At the same time, in an upper chamber in another street, the Master and
+His disciples were keeping the feast together. It was their last supper
+with Him, although they knew it not. Afterwards they recalled every word
+and every incident, with loving memory that lingered over each detail;
+but at the time they could not understand its full import.
+
+The gates were left open on Passover night. While the Master and His
+followers walked out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where they had often
+gone together, Joel was questioning Buz as to the exact place where he
+was to find his old enemy.
+
+"I'll go out very early in the morning," said Joel, as his head touched
+the pillow. "Very early in the morning, for I want Rehum's eyes to be
+open just as soon as possible, so that he can see the Master's face.
+Lord help me to find him to-morrow," he whispered, and with a blessing
+on his lips for the one he had so long ago forgiven, his eyes closed
+softly.
+
+Sleep came quickly to him after the fatigue and excitement of the day.
+In his dreams he saw again the Master's face as He made His triumphal
+entrance into the city; he heard again the acclamations of the crowd.
+Then he saw Rabbi Amos and Simon and little Ruth. There was a confused
+blending of kindly faces; there was a shadow-like shifting of indistinct
+but pleasant scenes. In the fair dreamland where he wandered, fortune
+smiled on him, and all his paths were peace.
+
+Sleep on, little disciple, happy in thy dreaming; out in Gethsemane's
+dark garden steals one to betray thy Lord! By the light of glimmering
+lanterns and fitful torches they take Him now. Armed with swords and
+staves, they lead Him out from the leafy darkness into the moon-flooded
+highroad.
+
+Now He stands before the High Priest,--alone, unfriended. Sleep, and
+wake not at the cock's shrill crowing, for there is none to make answer
+for Him, and one who loved Him hath thrice denied!
+
+Dream on! In the hall of Pilate now, thorn-crowned and purple-clad, Him
+whom thou lovest; scourged now, and spat upon. This day, indeed, shall
+He come into His kingdom, but well for thee, that thou seest not the
+coronation.
+
+Sleep on, little disciple, be happy whilst thou can!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+IT was so much later than he had intended, when Joel awoke next morning,
+that without stopping for anything to eat, he hurried out of the city,
+and took the road by which the Master had made such a triumphal entry a
+few days before.
+
+Faded branches of palms still lay scattered by the wayside, thickly
+covered with dust.
+
+All unconscious of what had happened the night before, and what was even
+at that very moment taking place, Joel trudged on to Bethany at a rapid
+pace, light-hearted and happy.
+
+For six days he had been among enthusiastic Galileans who firmly
+believed that before the end of Passover week they should see the
+overthrow of Rome, and all nations lying at the feet of a Jewish king.
+How long they had dreamed of this hour!
+
+He turned to look back at the city. The white and gold of the Temple
+dazzled his eyes, as it threw back the rays of the morning sun. He
+thought of himself as he had stood that day on the roof of the
+carpenter's house, stretching out longing arms to this holy place, and
+calling down curses on the head of his enemy, Rehum.
+
+Could he be the same boy? It seemed to him now that that poor, crippled
+body, that bitter hatred, that burning thirst for revenge, must have
+belonged to some one else, he felt so well, so strong, so full of love
+to God and all mankind.
+
+A little broken-winged sparrow fluttered feebly under a hedgerow. He
+stopped to gather a handful of ripe berries for it, and even retraced
+his steps to a tiny spring he had noticed farther back, to bring it
+water in the hollow of a smooth stone.
+
+He did not find Rehum at the place where Buz had told him to inquire.
+His father had taken him to his home, somewhere in Samaria.
+
+Joel turned back, tired and disappointed. He was glad to lie down, when
+he reached Bethany again, and rest awhile. A peculiar darkness began to
+settle down over the earth. Joel was perplexed and frightened; he knew
+it could not be an eclipse, for it was the time of the full moon.
+Finally he started back to Jerusalem, although it was like travelling in
+the night, for the darkness had deepened and deepened for nearly three
+hours, and the mysterious gloom made him long to be with his friends.
+
+His first thought was to find the Master, and he naturally turned toward
+the Temple. Just as he started across the Porch of Solomon, the darkness
+was lifted, and everything seemed to dance before his eyes. He had never
+experienced an earthquake shock before, but he felt sure that this was
+one.
+
+He braced himself against one of the pillars. How the massive columns
+quivered! How the hot air throbbed! The darkness had been awful, but
+this was doubly terrifying.
+
+The earth had scarcely stopped trembling, when an old white-bearded
+priest ran across the Court of the Gentiles; his wrinkled hands, raised
+above his head, shook as with palsy. The scream that he uttered seemed
+to transfix Joel with horror.
+
+"_The veil of the Temple is rent in twain!_" he cried,--"_The veil of
+the Temple is rent in twain!_"
+
+Then with a convulsive shudder he fell forward on his face. Joel's knees
+shook. The darkness, the earthquake, and now this mighty force that had
+laid bare the Holy of Holies, filled him with an undefined dread.
+
+He ran past the prostrate priest into the inner court, and saw for
+himself. There hung the heavy curtain of Babylonian tapestry, in all its
+glory of hyacinth and scarlet and purple, torn asunder from top to
+bottom. No earthquake shock could have made that ragged gash. The wrath
+of God must have come down and laid mighty fingers upon it.
+
+He ran out of the Temple, and towards the house where he had slept the
+night before.
+
+The earthquake seemed to have shaken all Jerusalem into the streets.
+Strange words were afloat. A question overheard in passing one excited
+group, an exclamation in another, made him run the faster.
+
+At Reuben's shop he found Jesse and Ruth both crying from fright. The
+attendant who had them in charge told him that his friends had been gone
+nearly all day.
+
+"Where?" demanded Joel.
+
+"I do not know exactly. They went out with one of the greatest
+multitudes that ever passed through the gates of the city. Not only
+Jews, but Greeks and Romans and Egyptians. You should have seen the
+camels and the chariots, the chairs and the litters!" exclaimed the man.
+
+A sudden fear fell upon the boy that this was the day that the One he
+loved best had been made king, and he had missed it,--had missed the
+greatest opportunity of his life.
+
+"Was it to follow Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth?" he demanded eagerly.
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"To crown Him?" was the next breathless question.
+
+"No; to crucify Him."
+
+The unexpected answer was almost a death-thrust. Joel stood a moment,
+dumb with horror. The blood seemed to stand still in his veins; there
+was a roaring in his ears; then everything grew black before him. He
+clutched blindly at the air, then staggered back against the wall.
+
+"No, _no_, _no_, NO!" he cried; each word was louder than the last. "I
+will not believe it! You do not speak truth!"
+
+He ran madly from the shop, down the street, and through the city gate.
+Out on the highway he met the returning multitude, most of them in as
+great haste as he.
+
+Everything he saw seemed to confirm the truth of what he had just heard,
+but he could not believe it.
+
+"No, no, no!" he gasped, in a breathless whisper, as he ran. "No, no,
+no! It cannot be! He is the Christ! The Son of God! They could not be
+able to do it, no matter how much they hated Him!"
+
+But even as he ran he saw the hill where three crosses rose. He turned
+sick and cold, and so weak he could scarcely stand. Still he stumbled
+resolutely on, but with his face turned away from the sight he dared not
+look upon, lest seeing should be knowing what he feared.
+
+At last he reached the place, and, shrinking back as if from an expected
+blow, he slowly raised his eyes till they rested on the face of the dead
+body hanging there.
+
+The agonized shriek on his lips died half uttered, as he fell
+unconscious at the foot of the cross.
+
+A long time after, one of the soldiers happening to notice him, turned
+him over with his foot, and prodded him sharply with his spear. It
+partially aroused him, and in a few moments he sat up. Then he looked up
+again into the white face above him; but this time the bowed head awed
+him into a deep calm.
+
+The veil of the Temple was rent indeed, and through this pierced body
+there shone out from its Holy of Holies the Shekinah of God's love for a
+dying world. It uplifted Joel, and drew him, and drew him, till he
+seemed to catch a faint glimpse of the Father's face; to feel himself
+folded in boundless pardon, in pity so deep, and a love so unfathomed,
+that the lowest sinner could find a share. But while he gazed and gazed
+into the white face, so glorified in its marble stillness, Joseph of
+Arimathea stood between him and the cross, giving directions, in a low
+tone, for the removal of the body.
+
+It seemed to waken Joel out of his trance; and when the bloodstained
+form was stretched gently on the ground, he forgot his glimpse of
+heavenly mysteries, he saw no longer the uplifted Christ. He saw
+instead, the tortured body of the man he loved; the friend for whom he
+would gladly have given his life.
+
+Almost blinded by the rush of tears, he groped his way on his knees
+toward it. A mantle of fine white linen had been laid over the lifeless
+body; but one hand lay stretched out beside Him with a great bloody
+nail-hole through the palm,--it was the hand that had healed him; the
+hand that had fed the hungry multitudes; the hand that had been laid in
+blessing on the heads of little children, waiting by the roadside! With
+the thought of all it had done for him, with the thought of all it had
+done for all the countless ones its warm, loving touch had comforted,
+came the remembrance of the torture it had just suffered. Joel lay down
+beside it with a heart-broken moan.
+
+Men came and lifted the body in its spotless covering. Joel did not look
+up to see who bore it away.
+
+The lifeless hand still hung down uncovered at His side. With his eyes
+fixed on that, Joel followed, longing to press it to his lips with
+burning kisses; but he dared not so much as touch it with trembling
+fingers,--a sense of his unworthiness forbade.
+
+As the silent procession went onward, Joel found himself walking beside
+Abigail. She had pushed her veil aside that she might better see the
+still form borne before them; she had stood near by through all those
+hours of suffering. Her wan face and swollen eyes showed how the force
+of her sympathy and grief had worn upon her.
+
+Joel glanced around for Phineas. He was one of those who walked before
+with the motionless burden, his strong brown hands tenderly supporting
+the Master's pierced feet; his face was as rigid as stone, and seemed to
+Joel to have grown years older since the night before.
+
+Another swift rush of tears blinded Joel, as he looked at the set,
+despairing face, and then at what he carried.
+
+O friend of Phineas! O feet that often ran to meet him on the grassy
+hillsides of Nazareth, that walked beside him at his daily toil, and led
+him to a nobler living!--Thou hast climbed the mountain of Beatitudes!
+Thou hast walked the wind-swept waters of the Galilee! But not of this
+is he thinking now. It is of Thy life's unselfish pilgrimage; of the
+dust and travel stains of the feet he bears; of the many steps, taken
+never for self, always for others; of the cure and the comfort they have
+daily carried; of the great love that hath made their very passing by to
+be a benediction.
+
+It seemed strange to Joel that, in the midst of such overpowering
+sorrow, trivial little things could claim his attention. Years afterward
+he remembered just how the long streaks of yellow sunshine stole under
+the trees of the garden; he could hear the whirr of grasshoppers,
+jumping up in the path ahead of them; he could smell the heavy odor of
+lilies growing beside an old tomb.
+
+The sorrowful little group wound its way to a part of the garden where a
+new tomb had been hewn out of the rock; here Joseph of Arimathea
+motioned them to stop. They laid the open bier gently on the ground, and
+Joel watched them with dry eyes but trembling lips, as they noiselessly
+prepared the body for its hurried burial.
+
+From time to time as they wound the bands of white linen, powdered with
+myrrh and aloes, they glanced up nervously at the sinking sun. The
+Sabbath eve was almost upon them, and the old slavish fear of the Law
+made them hasten. A low stifled moaning rose from the lips of the women,
+as the One they had followed so long was lifted up, and borne forever
+out of their sight, through the low doorway of the tomb.
+
+Strong hands rolled the massive stone in place that barred the narrow
+opening. Then all was over; there was nothing more that could be done.
+
+The desolate mourners sat down on the grass outside the tomb, to watch
+and weep and wait over a dead hope and a lost cause.
+
+A deep stillness settled over the garden as they lingered there in the
+gathering twilight. They grew calm after awhile, and began to talk in
+low tones of the awful events of the day just dying.
+
+Gradually, Joel learned all that had taken place. As he heard the story
+of the shame and abuse and torture that had been heaped upon the One he
+loved better than all the world, his face grew white with horror and
+indignation.
+
+"Oh, wasn't there _one_ to stand up for Him?" he cried, with clasped
+hands and streaming eyes. "Wasn't there _one_ to speak a word in His
+defence? O my Beloved!" he moaned. "Out of all the thousands Thou didst
+heal, out of all the multitudes Thou didst bless, not one to bear
+witness!"
+
+He rocked himself to and fro on his knees, wringing his hands as if the
+thought brought him unspeakable anguish.
+
+"Oh, if I had only been there!" he moaned. "If I could only have stood
+up beside Him and told what He had done for me! O my God! My God! How
+can I bear it? To think He went to His death without a friend and
+without a follower, when I loved Him so! All alone! Not one to speak for
+Him, not one!"
+
+Groping with tear-blinded eyes towards the tomb, the boy stretched his
+arms lovingly around the great stone that stopped its entrance; then
+suddenly realizing that he could never go any closer to the One inside,
+never see Him again, he leaned his head hopelessly against the rock, and
+gave way to his feeling of utter loneliness and despair.
+
+How long he stood there, he did not know. When he looked up again, the
+women had gone, and it was nearly dark. Phineas and several other men
+lingered in the black shadows of the trees, and Joel joined them.
+
+Roman guards came presently. A stout cord was stretched across the
+stone, its ends firmly fastened, and sealed with the seal of Cæsar. A
+watch-fire was kindled near by; then the Roman sentinels began their
+steady tramp! tramp! as they paced back and forth.
+
+High overhead the stars began to set their countless watch-fires in the
+heavens; then the white full moon of the Passover looked down, and all
+night long kept its silent vigil over the forsaken tomb of the sleeping
+Christ.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Abigail had found shelter for the night with friends, in a tent just
+outside the city; but Joel and Phineas took their way back to Bethany.
+
+Little was said as they trudged along in the moonlight. Joel thought
+only of one thing,--his great loss, the love of which he had been
+bereft. But to Phineas this death meant much more than the separation
+from the best of friends; it meant the death of a cause on which he had
+staked his all. He must go back to Galilee to be the laughing-stock of
+his old neighbors. He who they trusted would have saved Israel had been
+put to death as a felon,--crucified between two thieves! The cause was
+lost; he was left to face an utter failure.
+
+When the moon went down that morning over the hills of Judea, there were
+many hearts that mourned the Man of Nazareth, but not a soul in all the
+universe believed on Him as the Son of God.
+
+Hope lay dead in the tomb of Joseph, with a great stone forever walling
+it in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+"WAKE up, Joel! Wake up! I bring you good tidings, my lad!" It was
+Abigail's voice ringing cheerily through the court-yard, as she bent
+over the boy, fast asleep on the hard stones.
+
+All the long Sabbath day after the burial, he had sat listlessly in the
+shady court-yard, his blank gaze fixed on the opposite wall. No one
+seemed able to arouse him from his apathy. He turned away from the food
+they brought him, and refused to enter the house when night came.
+
+Towards morning he had gone over to the fountain for a long draught of
+its cool water; then overcome by weakness from his continued fast, and
+exhausted by grief, he fell asleep on the pavement.
+
+Abigail came in and found him there, with the red morning sun beating
+full in his face. She had to shake him several times before she could
+make him open his eyes.
+
+He sat up dizzily, and tried to collect his thoughts. Then he
+remembered, and laid his head wearily down again, with a groan.
+
+"Wake up! Wake up!" she insisted, with such eager gladness in her voice
+that Joel opened his eyes again, now fully aroused.
+
+"What is it?" he asked indifferently.
+
+"_He is risen!_" she exclaimed joyfully, clasping her hands as she
+always did when much excited. "I went to His tomb very early in the
+morning, while it was yet dark, with Mary and Salome and some other
+women. The stone had been rolled aside; and while we wondered and wept,
+fearing His enemies had stolen Him away, He stood before us, with His
+old greeting on His lips,--'All hail!'"
+
+Joel rubbed his eyes and looked at her. "No, no!" he said wearily, "I am
+dreaming again!"
+
+He would have thrown himself on the ground as before, his head pillowed
+on his arm, but she would not let him. She shook his hands with a
+persistence that could not be refused, talking to him all the while in
+such a glad eager voice that he slowly began to realize that something
+had made her very happy.
+
+"What is it, Mother Abigail?" he asked, much puzzled.
+
+"I do not wonder you are bewildered," she cried. "It is such blessed,
+such wonderful news. Why He is _alive_, Joel, He whom Thou lovest! Try
+to understand it, my boy! I have just now come from the empty tomb. I
+saw Him! I spoke with Him! I knelt at His feet and worshipped!"
+
+By this time all the family had come out. Reuben looked at his daughter
+pityingly, as she repeated her news; then he turned to Phineas.
+
+"Poor thing!" he said, in a low tone. "She has witnessed such terrible
+scenes lately, and received such a severe shock, that her mind is
+affected by it. She does not know what she is saying. Did not you
+yourself help prepare the body for burial, and put it in the tomb?"
+
+"Yes," answered Phineas, "and helped close it with a great stone, which
+Mammy had sat very silent all the time, her old face wearing a puzzled
+expression, her keen eyes fixed upon a paper cutter which lay upon
+Haydn’s desk, her lips pursed up doubtfully. Haydn did not break the
+silence; he only watched. After a few moments she looked up, gave a
+perplexed sigh, and said:
+
+“Well, sah, p’raps yo’ is right. P’raps yo’ is. I ain’t nothin’ but a’
+ole nigger woman, but, bress Gawd, I loves ma white folks, an’ I hates
+fer ter see de ole times so twisted up wid de new ideas, I sartain’
+does. It goes against de grain p’intedly.”
+
+“I can understand all that, dear old Mammy, but you mark my words, the
+results will justify the deeds.”
+
+So Mammy gave up the argument, though she was far from resigned to the
+plans.
+
+And thus had the enterprise grown. Constance finished her year at the
+high-school, Mary Willing was established in the model little candy
+kitchen, with all its practical little appointments, and before long was
+nearly as proficient as Constance herself, and quite as enthusiastic.
+One year slipped by and another followed it. Then a third was added to
+the number, until now, with the autumn of 19— Constance was nineteen
+years old and Eleanor twenty-one.
+
+Neither has changed a great deal. Eleanor’s three years in the college
+world have given her greater poise and independence, a more matured
+outlook upon life, but the old Eleanor Carruth is still in evidence.
+
+Constance had grown taller, the slight figure is more rounded, though
+still girlish. She still has the wonderfully sweet, frank expression, in
+spite of her two years out in the business world, for after her
+graduation she took firmer hold than ever of her business venture and
+branched out in many directions. New booths were opened in adjacent
+towns, private orders were filled for patrons in New York City, holiday
+consignments were made to more remote ones, to which her fame had spread
+through friends and friends’ friends. Of course some losses had been
+sustained, but in comparison with her output and returns they were
+trivial, and her success was an established fact. But the work
+continued, her aim being absolute independence for her mother, and for
+Jean the home and the atmosphere their mother had formerly known and
+loved.
+
+And the silent partner of the firm, old Baltie, how had the three years
+dealt with him? A horse which has attained twenty-five years and is
+sightless is supposed to be out of the running, but Baltie lived
+apparently to prove the fallacy of such a supposition. At twenty-eight
+he was younger and more active than at twenty-four, his age when rescued
+by Jean. Nothing could restore his sight, but with each year his hearing
+seemed to have grown keener, and the ears were as sensitive as a wild
+animal’s. But Baltie needs a chapter to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SILENT PARTNER AND OTHERS.
+
+
+“Mother, have you seen Jean?” asked Constance, popping her head into her
+mother’s room shortly after breakfast one glorious October morning.
+
+“She was here but a few moments ago, dear,” answered Mrs. Carruth,
+looking up from her desk at which she sat writing out the marketing list
+for Mammy.
+
+“I want her to leave this parcel at Mrs. Morgan’s on her way to school,
+and, by the same token, she ought to be on her way there this very
+minute. I wonder where she has gone?”
+
+“Not very far, I think. She knows she must start at once.”
+
+Constance laughed as she replied: “I wonder if she ever will know? Time
+doesn’t exist for her, or perhaps I would better say that it exists only
+for her; she so calmly takes all she wishes. But she really must start
+now. I’ll go hunt her up and get her headed in the right direction.”
+
+“Yes, do, Honey,” urged Mrs. Carruth, as Constance hurried away in quest
+of the youngest member of the household.
+
+Mrs. Carruth resumed her writing. The past three years had dealt kindly
+with her: Mammy and the daughters of the home had seen to that. Nothing
+could ever alter the gentle expression of her eyes, or change the tender
+curves of her lips. Each told its story of love for those nearest and
+dearest to her, as well as her sympathy and interest in her
+fellow-beings. Mrs. Carruth had passed her forty-seventh birthday, but
+did not look more than thirty-eight. The hardest years of her life were
+those following upon her husband’s death, and the serious financial
+losses she was then forced to meet. Since Constance’s venture and the
+success which had almost immediately attended it, the outlook for all
+had been more hopeful, and if now living less pretentiously than she had
+lived during her husband’s lifetime, she was none the less comfortable.
+Upon Hadyn Stuyvesant’s advice Mrs. Carruth had not rebuilt the old
+home, although by careful economy she could have done so. But Hadyn was
+looking farther into the future than Mrs. Carruth looked. Perhaps his
+wish had some bearing upon the thought, for from the moment Hadyn
+Stuyvesant had met Constance Carruth _his_ future was settled so far as
+he was concerned. But he was too wise to let the sixteen-year-old girl
+guess his feelings. The gulf between sixteen and twenty-three is a wide
+one. As the years advance it mysteriously narrows. At nineteen Constance
+often wondered why Hadyn seemed younger to her in his twenty-sixth year
+than he had at twenty-three. Never by look or word had he betrayed any
+warmer feeling for her than the good-comradeship established at the
+beginning of their acquaintance. He was like a brother in that dear
+home. Mrs. Carruth consulted him freely upon all occasions. Eleanor
+accepted him as a matter-of-course; that was Eleanor’s way. Constance
+found in him the jolliest companion. Jean adored him openly, and he was
+her valiant champion whenever she needed one. From the day he had taken
+his first meal in her home she had been to him the “Little Sister,” and
+he never called her by any other name. Not long after that event she had
+coined a name for him—a funny enough one, too. Rushing into Constance’s
+room in her impetuous way one day, she demanded: “Connie, when knights
+used to fight for their ladies, ever ever so long ago, what did they
+call them?—the knights I mean.”
+
+“Do you mean Knight Errant?” asked Constance, looking up to smile at the
+eager little girl.
+
+“Knight Errant? Knight Errant?” repeated Jean, doubtfully. “No, somehow
+that doesn’t fit him. I couldn’t call him that, it’s too long.”
+
+“Call whom, Jean?” Constance began to wonder what was simmering in this
+little sister’s head.
+
+“Mr. Stuyvesant. He calls me ‘Little Sister,’ and I want a name for
+him.”
+
+“Do you think mother would approve of your calling him by a nickname?”
+
+“’Tisn’t going to be a nickname; it’s going to be a _love_ name for him,
+just like his for me is,” was Jean’s curious distinction.
+
+“Oh!” The tone did not imply deep conviction.
+
+“Now, Connie, you don’t understand at all. You think I’m going to
+be—be—, well, you don’t think I’m respectful, but I _am_. I don’t know
+anyone that I feel more respectfuller to than Mr. Stuyvesant. He’s just
+lovely. Only just plain Mr. Stuyvesant keeps him such a long way off,
+and he mustn’t be. Mother has adopted him, you know, ’cause we all
+agreed to lend part of her to him. So I must have a homey name for him.
+What were the other names they gave those old knights?”
+
+“They were often called ‘champions of their fair ladies,’” answered
+Constance, slipping her arm about Jean and drawing her close to her
+side.
+
+“That’s it! That just suits him, doesn’t it? He was my champion the day
+Jabe Raulsbury turned old Baltie out to die in the road, and he has been
+a heap of times since when I’ve got into scrapes. So that’s what I’m
+going to call him. He is down on the piazza talking with mother about
+the new fence, and I’m going right straight down to ask him if I may
+call him Champion,” ended Jean, delighted with her new acquisition and
+bounding away.
+
+“Don’t interrupt Mother,” warned Constance, always a little doubtful of
+the outbreaks of the fly-away.
+
+Hadyn Stuyvesant had not only approved the name, but was delighted with
+the idea, and vowed from thenceforth to guard his “lady fair.” So
+“Champion” he was from that moment on, and, long as the name was, it had
+clung. The three years had not lessened Jean’s love for him or his
+devotion to her.
+
+As Constance descended the stairs in quest of Jean she met Mammy at the
+foot.
+
+“Is yo’ Ma up in her room, Baby?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, Mammy, and just finishing the marketing list. Have you seen Jean?
+It is high time she started for school.”
+
+“Dat’s de livin’ truf, an’ it’s what I done tol’ her a’reddy, but she
+boun’ ter go out yonder to see dat hawse.”
+
+“Then I’m bound to go out yonder after her,” laughed Constance, as she
+ran briskly down the hall, passed through the door which led to the
+piazza and opened upon the lawn. There was no sign of Jean, but
+Constance crossed the velvety turf to the stable at the further side of
+the grounds, passing on her way the candy kitchen, and calling cheerily
+to Mary Willing, who was already busy within: “Polly’s got her kettle on
+for our candee,” to be promptly answered by: “Yes, and it’s a-boiling,
+if you will come and see.”
+
+“Good! I will be there in just a minute. I’m hunting for Jean.” A moment
+later she turned the corner of the stable and came upon Jean and Old
+Baltie.
+
+To say that Old Baltie had become almost human during the four years
+spent in this home conveys very little idea of the mutual understanding
+existing between him and his friends, Jean and Mammy were, of course,
+his joint owners; but since his marriage to Mammy, Charles also claimed
+ownership. No one would have recognized the old horse for the one
+rescued by Jean. His coat was now as sleek as satin, his old body round
+and plump, his manners those of a thoroughly spoiled thoroughbred horse.
+It had not required all the four years spent with the Carruths to blot
+out the effects of Jabe’s harsh treatment, or to revive in Baltie the
+memory of his earlier days as Grandfather Raulsbury’s pet. The interval
+in which he had fallen upon evil days had vanished as an ugly dream, and
+with nobility’s inherent qualities, whether manifested in man or beast,
+he had dismissed the memory, risen above it, and with all of his
+noblesse oblige was helping others to do likewise.
+
+His wonderfully attuned ears were quick to catch the sound of
+Constance’s footfalls upon the soft turf, and he greeted her with a
+stifled nicker, for his position made a gentlemanly greeting well-nigh
+impossible: he was lying at full length upon a bed of sweet clover, his
+head in Jean’s lap. These two were never in the positions or situations
+of their kind if they could possibly achieve others.
+
+“Hello!” called Jean, glancing up from pressing her cheek against one
+large satiny ear which she held against it.
+
+“Thought I’d find you here, Honey; but I’ve got to hustle you off to
+school. Do you know what time it is?”
+
+“Only half-past eight, and we’re having a beau-ti-ful time, aren’t we,
+Baltie, dear?”
+
+“Hoo-hoo-hoo!” fluttered the delicate nostrils. Constance dropped down
+beside Jean and ran her hand along the warm, sleek neck. Another nicker
+acknowledged the caress, but the great horse did not stir. The clear
+morning sunshine flooded the paddock, Baltie’s little kingdom, and
+filtered through the gorgeous sugar maples overhead. The air was clear
+and crisp, the ground dry as though night dews were unknown. Off at the
+edge of the paddock a cricket shrilled his monotonous little song of the
+coming winter—a snug stable for the old horse and a warm fireside for
+his friends.
+
+“You really must go now, dear,” urged Constance, rising to her feet
+after a final caress.
+
+“Oh, dear, and he is so big and so warm and so soft and so good,”
+protested Jean. “But I s’pose I must. Come, Baltie, you’ve got to get
+up. Now! All together!” and placing her arms beneath the great neck Jean
+gave the preliminary heave-ho! necessary to start the old horse. Four
+years before it would have been impossible for him to get to his feet,
+but, as Mammy insisted:
+
+“Charles Devon hadn’t been Massa Stark’s groom fer nothin’,” and she
+herself was a master hand at “mashargin” (Mammy’s pronunciation of
+massaging), a course of treatment to which Baltie had been most
+vigorously subjected, to the wonderful rejuvenation of his old bones and
+muscles.
+
+A horse, even in his most nimble days of colthood, does not rise from a
+prone position with any great degree of grace; yet Baltie might have
+given points to some of his younger brethren. Up came his head, the
+slender forefeet were braced, there was a mighty heave and hoist, and
+Baltie stood upon all-fours, shaking clover leaves from his flanks.
+
+“Now fly, Jean! Be sure to take the parcel for Mrs. Morgan. I’ll stop a
+moment with Baltie to make your peace for your abrupt departure,” said
+Constance, gayly, well knowing that Jean’s leave-taking from her pet was
+usually a prolonged ceremony.
+
+Away hurried the little girl, leaving the older sister to spend the
+ensuing five minutes with the old horse, who nozzled and fussed over
+her, as only a petted horse knows how.
+
+“Now, old silent partner, I must run away and look after my forewoman
+and get busy myself. Goodness, how the Carruth family is developing!
+Eleanor already offered a position at Sunnymeade for next fall, my
+humble self a full-fledged business woman with a flourishing trade; Jean
+junior partner with a private following of her own, and you, you dear,
+blind, faithful old creature, setting us all an example of faithfulness
+and devotion; Mammy and Charles the biggest hit of the whole
+establishment with their lunch counter, and yonder the little girl whom
+Mother has made over brand new! No wonder I’m proud; no wonder I’m
+sometimes afraid my head will be turned by all our good fortune and
+success. Keep me headed right, Baltie. If you, without sight, can steer
+a straight course, surely I, with both my eyes to the good, ought to be
+able to. Good-bye, dear,” and clasping her arms around the sleek, warm
+neck, Constance stood perfectly still for a moment or two, her head
+pillowed upon the silky mane, her thoughts traveling rapidly back across
+the intervening years—years so full of effort, anxiety, hope,
+disappointment, love and faith. The one which was beginning with this
+October—for it was in October that she had begun her work four years
+before—was bidding fair to prove a crisis in all their lives.
+Instinctively the girl felt this. Girl in years, yes, but a little woman
+in executive ability, foresight and execution, withal, still sweet and
+true, and retaining her faith in her fellow-beings. Never had she looked
+lovelier than at this moment standing there in the glorious October
+sunlight, her arms clasped about the big bay horse, her eyes shining
+with hope, health, courage, her cheeks glowing. She was dressed for her
+morning’s work, her gown a simple tan-colored linen with white collar,
+cuffs and belt, a soft tie of brown silk at her throat. She was good to
+look at this girl of nineteen, as she stood with such unstudied grace,
+the very personification of hope. Presently, with a little start, she
+came back to a realization of things around her, and with a parting
+caress for the blind horse ran lightly from the paddock across the lawn
+to the little candy kitchen, and entered with a cheery greeting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BEE-HIVE.
+
+
+When three years before, Hadyn Stuyvesant, the owner of the property
+rented by the Carruths, had followed out Constance Carruth’s plans for a
+model kitchen in which she could make her candy, he was not a little
+surprised at the sixteen-year-old girl’s practical ideas. She asked him
+to build an extension to the little cottage at the end of the grounds
+occupied by Mammy and Charles, and had drawn the plans and
+specifications herself. The result was a marvel to him.
+
+The extension consisted of three rooms on the first floor and two on the
+second. Upon entering the door one found one’s self in a good-sized
+room, with rubber-tiled floor all blue and white, the walls snowy in
+alabasterine. Here on numberless white enameled shelves were placed the
+boxes of candy ready for shipment. From this attractive room opened the
+packing room, floor, walls and ceiling scrupulous. Long zinc-covered
+tables ready for the pans of candy, little portable stands at hand to
+hold the boxes in which the candy was to be packed. Perhaps the most
+practical feature of this packing room was the height of the tables, or
+more correctly their lack of height. Constance had reason to know that
+one can be foot-weary after several hours spent in candy-making.
+Consequently these packing tables were made low enough to enable those
+working at them to sit upon the comfortable bent-wood chairs while doing
+the work, which often required several hours, for not only had the candy
+to be packed in its pretty boxes, but the boxes had to be wrapped and
+tied with dainty ribbons. Nothing must fall short of perfection.
+
+But the crowning point of Constance’s practicability was shown in the
+actual kitchen itself. This was also tiled, but the tiles were of
+shining porcelain, washable, scrubable, scourable to the very limit. A
+big gas range stood at one side, near it hung pans, pots and kettles of
+every size and possible need, all of white enamel ware. A big porcelain
+sink and draining tray stood next. Close at hand was a large table, its
+top of white marble warranted to withstand the hottest candy which could
+be poured upon it, to chill it quickly for handling or cutting, and to
+come forth from its boiling baptism immaculate under the alchemy of hot
+soapsuds.
+
+On the walls were great hooks, upon which to pull long ropes of molasses
+or cream candy. Along another side of the kitchen were shelves to hold
+the hundred and one ingredients which were to be transformed into the
+most toothsome of dainties, and these were too numerous to name. A
+spacious closet held aprons, caps, towels, dish-cloths and what not,
+needed in the work.
+
+On the floor overhead, and reached by a quaint little stairway from the
+shipping room, was the stock room, where boxes, labels, wrapping paper,
+twine, and a hundred other needfuls were kept. In one corner a
+business-like roll-top desk, with still more business-like ledgers, told
+of the ability of this little lady to keep track of her finances. And
+room number five? Ah, the eternal feminine! Who says she must waive all
+claim to her womanly instincts, merge them in the coarser, less refined
+ones of the hurrying, struggling world around her when she sets out to
+be a bread-winner among her masculine contemporaries? If some do this,
+Constance Carruth was not to be numbered among them, and no better proof
+of it could have been offered than the “fifth wheel to her business
+wagon,” as she laughingly called room number five. That little room is
+worthy of minute description.
+
+To begin with, the walls were tinted a soft ivory white, with a delft
+blue frieze running around the top. The floor was of hard wood, with a
+pretty blue and white rug spread in the center. On this stood a white
+enameled table, with snowy linen cover, a reading lamp, the several
+books and magazines testifying to its primal use. Four or five
+comfortable wicker chairs, with cushions of pretty figured Japanese
+crepe, stood about. In one corner a couch with a delft blue and white
+cover and enough pillows to spell luxury, invited weary bodies to rest
+when labors were ended, and yet never once hinted that by removing the
+cover and pillows a bed stood ready for a guest if extra space were
+needed. Book shelves of white enameled wood filled half one side of the
+room, and held every sort of cook-book ever published, as well as many
+of Constance’s favorite authors. A white chiffonnier held many necessary
+articles, for after one has spent several hours over a boiling kettle
+one longs for a tub and fresh garments; and all these were at hand in
+the big closet. Opening from this restful room was a perfectly appointed
+bathroom. Could plans have been more perfect?
+
+Certainly the girl, bending over the big saucepan, stirring its boiling
+contents, felt that _her_ little paradise had been gained when she
+changed from the bustling, rushing Arcade to the peace, tranquillity and
+refinement of her present surroundings. The accident which
+short-circuited the switchboard wires in the telephone booth that
+eventful Labor Day had brought to Mary Willing, even at the cost of a
+good deal of physical suffering, present advantages and an outlook for
+the future such as she had never pictured. Indeed, her horizon had been
+much too circumscribed for her imagination to reach so far. It needed
+the influence and environment of the past three years to make her fully
+appreciate the vast difference between the acquisitions which mere
+dollars can command, and those which true refinement of heart, mind,
+soul and body hold as invaluable and indeprivable heritages. Possibly
+the best proof that she had taken the lesson to heart lay in the fact
+that “Pearl” Willing had completely dropped out of the world’s ken, and
+in her stead, quiet, dignified Mary Willing moved and had her being.
+Unconsciously Mrs. Carruth had undertaken to solve a knotty,
+sociological problem, but the results already obtained seemed to justify
+her belief that she was right in her estimate of this girl. At all
+events she had reason to be sanguine of ultimate success in bending a
+hitherto neglected twig. It needed courage, however, upon Mrs. Carruth’s
+part to undertake this reformation. From her childhood, to her
+nineteenth year Mary Willing’s environment had been, if not
+demoralizing, certainly detrimental to a higher development in any girl.
+Her associates were coarse, boisterous, heedless girls, without the
+faintest sense of the fitness of things, or the first rudiments of
+refinement. To earn enough money to clothe themselves in shoddy finery,
+to contribute as small a percentage of their earnings to the family
+purse as possible, and to have as much “fun,” never mind at whose
+expense, or at what sacrifice of their own dignity, bounded their aims
+and ambitions. And Mary Willing had seen no reason for not following in
+their footsteps. Handsomer than any of her companions, and holding a
+position where her personal charms were conspicuous for all who passed
+to comment upon them, she had used them to attract the attention of
+those whom she thought likely to contribute to her pleasure.
+
+To make her more self-conscious, and senselessly pave the way to greater
+evil, her mother had continually urged her to make the most of her good
+looks while she had them, assuring her that unless she managed to “catch
+a rich husband with her handsome face she needn’t hope to get one at
+all.”
+
+Was it any wonder the girl grew up vain, shallow, and with standards
+poorly calculated to withstand temptations if offered opportunely?
+Still, there was a certain something in her which, up to her nineteenth
+year, had saved her from anything worse than shallow flirtations; and
+then when everything seemed conspiring to lead her to more serious
+consequences of her folly, Fate had established close at her side a
+personality and atmosphere in such contrast to her own, and all she had
+ever known, that it acted as a dash of cold water acts upon a
+sleepwalker. At first she was startled, then roused, and finally
+thoroughly wakened to the perilous path she was following.
+
+But the strangest part of it all lay in the fact that the individual
+which capricious Dame Fate had used as her instrument never for one
+moment suspected that she was being used at all, but continued on her
+sweet, cheery, sunny way entirely unconscious of her responsibilities.
+Perhaps therein lay her greatest strength. Then came the accident on the
+river, and Mrs. Carruth, quick to read and comprehend, found a field for
+the sweetest missionary work a woman can enter upon—that of shaping the
+life of a young girl for the noblest position to which she can attain—a
+refined young womanhood, a beautiful wifehood, and a motherhood as
+perfect as God will give her grace to make it. Mary Willing could hardly
+have found a more beautiful example, and the three years had wrought
+miracles.
+
+Mrs. Carruth had made haste slowly. The first year Mary Willing entered
+upon her duties in the candy kitchen she went and came daily, learning
+and applying herself with all the enthusiasm her gratitude to those she
+so admired and strove to emulate inspired. The relations between the
+girl and Constance were those of valued employee and respected employer.
+It could not have been otherwise. Mary had a vast deal to _un_learn, the
+hardest of all things to accomplish, and when old impressions were
+effaced to begin an entirely new page. Gradually as time passed on the
+girl grew into her new environment. Old habits of manner and speech gave
+way to gentler ones, old viewpoints shifted to those of these good
+friends, who had risen up at such a crucial point in her life and were
+fitting her to be a little woman in the truest sense. In the course of
+the three years just passed she and Constance had grown closer to each
+other. The latter, quick to see the former’s sincere desire to improve,
+and take advantage of every opportunity to do so, felt the keenest
+sympathy for her less fortunate sister, and the strongest desire to aid
+her. Mary’s aim and ambition was to grow “just exactly like Constance
+Carruth! The dearest, best and loveliest girl that ever lived,” as she
+confided to her mother. The greatest obstacle to be overcome was the
+unhappy influence in Mary Willing’s own home life. It sometimes seemed
+to Mrs. Carruth that whatever good they accomplished in the five and a
+half working days of the week was entirely undone during the one day and
+a half which the girl spent in the hurly-burly, the untidiness and
+hopeless shallowness of her own home, to say nothing of the coarsening
+influence of a worthless, dissipated father’s presence. Mrs. Carruth
+believed that Mary Willing had naturally been endowed with instincts far
+above the average of her class, though from what source inherited she
+could not understand, and that all needed to develop them was a more
+wholesome atmosphere, wise guiding, and, of course, separation from
+former contaminating influences. But she bided her time and, when least
+expecting to do so, discovered the secret. At length, when she felt the
+moment to be ripe, she suggested most tactfully that Mary come to live
+with them, to occupy the little room which had once been Mammy’s, but,
+since her marriage to Charles, and her removal to the snug cottage
+adjoining the candy kitchen, had been newly decorated and furnished for
+what Jean, in her characteristic fashion, termed “the left-overs;”
+“left-overs” being any extra guest who might claim the hospitality of
+the family when the other guest room was occupied. It was a pretty
+little room, up in the third floor at the rear of the house, and
+overlooked the lawn, the candy kitchen, Mammy’s cottage, and the rolling
+country beyond owned by Jabe Raulsbury. It had been papered in the
+softest green paper, with garlands of pink roses as a border. The floor
+was carpeted with a deeper shade of ingrain filling, upon which lay two
+pretty rugs in pink and green. Dimity curtains, looped back with chintz
+bands, draped the windows. The furniture was of white enamel, with plain
+white iron bedstead. Cushions and coverings, as well as table and bureau
+scarfs, were of the chintz, edged with inexpensive lace—the bedspread of
+snowy white. Had the room been designed for Mary Willing’s rich coloring
+it could hardly have suited her more perfectly. But it had not; Fate was
+simply working out her scheme not only in color but in influence. How
+great the influence of that simple little room would prove not even Mrs.
+Carruth suspected, although she was a firm believer in the influence of
+one’s surroundings.
+
+When Mrs. Carruth suggested that Mary remain with them in order to be at
+hand whenever needed in an emergency, and to avoid during the cold,
+stormy days of winter the long trip to and from her own home, the girl
+had responded with an eagerness which touched Mrs. Carruth very deeply.
+“And if I come here to live you must let me pay my board,” she cried,
+impulsively. Then, noticing the color which crept into the older woman’s
+face, she hastened to add, contritely: “Oh, dear me! Shall I ever learn
+how to say things? I’m—I’m so—I mean I know so _little_. Please forgive
+me, Mrs. Carruth. I didn’t stop to think how rude that was. I ought to
+have said you must not pay me such a large salary if you let me live
+here. I know that no amount of money that I could earn could pay my
+board. I’ve learned _that_ much, you see, even if I don’t seem to have
+learned very much more during the last two years. But I’m truly, truly
+trying hard to learn.”
+
+“I know it, dear. Perhaps I am over-sensitive. Old instincts are hard to
+overcome. No, I do not think we will change the salary. Constance had
+already thought of increasing the sum she is now paying you, for you
+earn it. Work has increased rapidly during these two years, and you are
+very proficient, and very valuable to her.”
+
+“Oh, I am so glad! I want so much to be.”
+
+“You are; so live here with us, and let the little room and the ‘bread
+and salt’ stand as a part of your salary.”
+
+Mary Willing had never had occasion to enter this room, and when
+Constance led her to it upon the day she took up her residence with
+them, the girl stopped short upon the threshold, clasped her hands in a
+little ecstacy of rapture, and cried: “I’ll live up to every single
+thing in it, for only a gentlewoman could have arranged such a room, and
+only a gentlewoman has any right to live in it. It just speaks of that
+dear, blessed little mother of yours from every corner, and from every
+single rose on the paper and the chintz; and if I don’t live to make her
+proud of me I shall want to know why.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE BUSY BEES.
+
+
+“I’m afraid the head of the firm is very late this morning,” cried
+Constance, merrily, as she entered the candy kitchen. Mrs. Carruth had
+long since given it the name of the Bee-hive.
+
+“I think the head of the firm has earned the right to arrive late if she
+wishes to,” answered Mary Willing, glancing backward over her shoulder
+as she stood before the gas range. Her arms were bared to the elbows,
+for the waist she wore was made with short sleeves, in order to give her
+perfect freedom in her work. They were beautiful arms, strong,
+well-rounded and smooth as ivory.
+
+“No, indeed, the head of the firm is a far cry from such indulgences,
+let me tell you. She has just heaps and loads to accomplish before she
+can arrive at such luxuries. But how goes the candy, Mary? Are you ready
+for me yet?”
+
+“Not quite; but I shall be in just a few minutes. See, it is beginning
+to rope,” was the reply as the candy-maker lifted a spoonful of the
+boiling syrup and let it run back into the kettle, the last drop falling
+from the spoon quickly forming into little threads, which wavered in the
+hot air rising from the range.
+
+“Better begin beating it now, and let me pop in the nuts; then we’ll
+pour it off,” answered Constance, her practiced eye quick to see that
+another moment’s boiling might undo a morning’s work.
+
+“Well, you’re the boss! Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Constance, I didn’t
+mean that! I mean you’re—” and the girl paused in confusion, her face
+coloring a deeper red than the heat and her work had brought there.
+
+“I’ll make believe I didn’t hear,” answered Constance, a softer light
+filling her eyes in place of the pained one which for a little instant
+had crept into them, as a cloud can cast a momentary shadow upon a
+wind-swept, shining October sea.
+
+“You have to make believe so many times,” answered the girl, contritely,
+as she lifted the kettle from the range, and placing it upon the marble
+table, began to beat vigorously.
+
+“Not nearly so often as I used to,” answered Constance, emptying into
+the kettle a great dish of walnuts. Mary again beat vigorously with her
+big spoon, shaking her head doubtfully the while. Constance did not look
+at her, but, arming herself with a large knife, guided the candy into
+the little grooves which would shape it as it was poured upon the table
+from the tilted kettle. One end of the table had been blocked out like a
+checkerboard, each inch square lined for cutting the candy accurately.
+
+“Now watch me do my stunt,” she cried, standing with knife suspended
+over the fast chilling candy, and smiling up at the tall girl at her
+side.
+
+“Do you forgive my—my—oh, the things I’m forever saying that must feel
+just like a file drawn over your teeth? If you only knew how hard it is
+to forget old ways and words and learn the better ones!”
+
+“Do you see that little motto over there?” asked Constance, pointing
+with her poised knife to a card, one of several hanging upon the wall of
+the kitchen. The one toward which she pointed was in dark blue letters
+upon a white ground. It read: “Forget It!”
+
+“Yes, that is just exactly what I am forever doing,” was Mary’s petulant
+reply. “If I didn’t forget all the time I’d never _have_ to forget at
+all, and if that isn’t the finest bit of Irish you’ve ever heard, please
+improve on it if you can.”
+
+The laughter which floated out through the open door greeted Mrs.
+Carruth as she entered the packing room.
+
+“May I share the joke?” she asked. “I’m sure it must be a good one, and
+rich as the odors floating out to tempt nose and palate. Cut it quickly,
+Honey; I know it must be chilled enough and it does smell so good. Mary,
+you are a master hand. M—mm—m! A veritable lump of delight, though still
+slightly warm,” she ended as Constance dropped into her mouth a square
+of the nut fudge she had just cut from the great mass covering the
+table.
+
+“Sit down, Mumsey, dear, and be good, consequently happy, while we work
+like beavers. How does it chill so rapidly? Quick! Mary, you cut at that
+end while I work at this. We’ve pounds and pounds to get done this
+morning if we are to fill all the orders.”
+
+For a few moments only the swift swish of the great knives as they cut
+the candy could be heard, now and again one girl or the other catching
+up a square upon the end of her knife and pausing just long enough to
+offer it to Mrs. Carruth. Presently all was cut, and as it lay cooling
+they set to work upon the next batch to be made, Mary cleaning the fudge
+kettle while Constance got out another for the walnut creams. Each kind
+of candy had its special cooking utensils, and no others were ever used
+for it. In a few minutes Constance had a second batch of candy bubbling
+upon her range, ready to turn over to Mary when she should have finished
+washing the kettles and other articles used in making the fudge.
+
+“I came out to be useful; may I prove it?” asked Mrs. Carruth.
+
+“Just sit and watch us work. That helps,” answered Mary, as she relieved
+Constance.
+
+“Will you be just a heap happier if I let you help wrap the fudge in
+paraffin paper?” asked Constance as she nestled her head for a moment in
+her mother’s neck. “Eh? Will you? You busy body. Why can’t you let us do
+all the work and so win all the glory? I suspect you’re a terribly
+selfish mother; yes, I do. You needn’t protest. You won’t even let your
+girls, real own ones or adopted ones, make their sticky marks in this
+world in peace. You must come poking out here to buzz around in the hive
+and beg honey.”
+
+“I don’t have to beg, for it is voluntarily given,” laughed Mrs.
+Carruth, kissing the soft cheek so close to her lips. “This kind I mean,
+and I know of none sweeter.”
+
+“Gross flattery! Now I _know_ you are scheming, so ’fess right off,”
+cried Constance, whirling around to peer into her mother’s face, and
+break into a merry laugh.
+
+Mrs. Carruth pursed up her lips into a derisive pucker, and looked into
+the merry eyes of this sunshiny daughter.
+
+“And if I am, what then?” she asked.
+
+“I knew it!” was the triumphant retort. “But I dare not waste time
+bringing you to order now. Yes, you may help wrap. If anything will
+wheedle you into being good, letting you get busy will,” ended
+Constance, turning to the table and deftly lifting the squares to the
+flat pans upon which they were to be carried to the packing room.
+
+“Shoo along in there and get busy if you must, and while you are getting
+sticky enough to satisfy even yourself, you will tell me what is
+simmering. And mind, Mary can hear, too; so if it is too anarchistic she
+will come to the rescue. Oh, you can’t do as you used to. Whyfor do I
+make candy by the pounds innumerable? Whyfor do I send it to tickle many
+palates? Whyfor do I take in dollars galore? All, _all_ to keep you from
+running off on some wild project whereby you shall earn as many more
+dollars to my utter undoing, lost glory and disgrace appalling to
+contemplate in a girl who has a tendency to grow fat—yes, fat!”
+
+As she rattled on with her nonsense Constance worked busily getting out
+her paraffin paper, the necessary boxes and the dainty ribbons with
+which to tie them. Then seating herself beside her mother, who was
+already busy wrapping the fudge in its little squares of paraffin, she
+began packing the candy in its boxes.
+
+“Now, what is it?” she asked, looking quizzically into the sweet,
+lovable face. Mrs. Carruth laughed a low, little laugh as she asked:
+“Why are you so sure that it is anything?”
+
+“I know the signs. They have periodical simmerings, sort of seismic
+rumblings, so to speak,” nodded Constance, working swiftly.
+
+“I feel such a drone in a busy hive—” began Mrs. Carruth, then
+hesitated.
+
+“I knew it! Mary, it has bubbled to the surface again,” Constance called
+into the kitchen, where brisk footsteps testified to the occupant’s
+industry.
+
+“Shall I come to your rescue?” was the laughing question.
+
+“Not yet; I’m still able to handle her, though there is no telling how
+soon she will get beyond me. I’ll call you if I see signs,” was called
+back. “Now go on, you incorrigible woman, and tell your long-suffering
+child what bee you have buzzing in your bonnet now. A brand new fall
+bonnet, too! It’s outrageous to so misuse it after all the trouble I’ve
+been put to to induce you to indulge in it at all, and not sneak off to
+Madame Elsie with a lot of old finery to be made over into a creation
+warranted (by her) to deceive the keenest eye. Oh, I know your sly ways,
+and have to lie awake nights to think how to thwart them. You sly,
+wicked woman, to deprive me of my sorely needed rest and beauty sleep.
+Why, I’m growing thin—”
+
+“Alas for consistency!” interrupted Mrs. Carruth, derisively. “A moment
+ago you assured me you were growing fat. That scores me one, and
+entitles me to have my little say-so and hold my own against this
+conspiracy of—how many shall I say? Six. Yes, think of the outrageous
+odds brought against one weak woman.”
+
+“Weak! Weak! Why, it requires all the energy and shrewdness the combined
+force can bring to bear upon her to keep her within bounds, doesn’t it,
+Mary?”
+
+“And we don’t always do it then,” was the bantering reply.
+
+“No, we do not,” was the emphatic agreement. “Neither Mammy, Charles,
+Eleanor, Jean, Hadyn, you, nor I can feel sure that we have settled her
+vaulting ambitions at once and for all time. Is your candy ready for me
+yet?—Don’t need me? Very well, I’ll keep at this job, then; it’s a
+co-operative job, and the hardest part of it is to hold down my rival.
+There, those boxes are all packed, and now, Madame busy-body, I’m ready
+to listen. No, you are not going to tie bows while you talk, it gives
+you too great an advantage. Look right straight into my eyes, and while
+you confess your desires to transgress you shall keep up a sub-conscious
+train of thought along this line: ‘This is my second daughter, Constance
+Blairsdale Carruth. She is past nineteen years of age. She weighs one
+hundred and eighteen pounds. She still possesses all her faculties
+unimpaired. Is endowed (I hope!) with the average degree of intelligence
+and common sense. She has never been ill a day in her life (whistle and
+knock wood when you think that), and she is taking mighty good care of
+the health she enjoys. She has been at work four years transmuting
+syrups and sugars into dollars and cents, in which undertaking she has
+met with rather amazing success, and is going to meet with even greater.
+Her plan is to make one dear, blessed little mother quite independent,
+and—please God—(these words were spoken in a mere whisper)—she will
+compass it. Now, are you going to let her do all this quite untrammeled,
+or are you going to worry her by suggesting all manner of wild plans for
+doing things for yourself?”
+
+Constance had risen from her chair while speaking, and dropped upon her
+knees before her mother to clasp her arms about her waist and look into
+the face she loved best on earth. The girl’s expression was half grave,
+half merry, though wholly sweet and winning.
+
+Mrs. Carruth took the upraised face in both her hands, bent toward it,
+rested her lips upon the soft, silky hair, and said gently:
+
+“Dear heart, dear heart; my dauntless little daughter. Yes, you _are_
+doing all and far more than you have said, and that is exactly the
+reason I wish to contribute my share. Can’t you see, dear, that I feel
+such a dull, dull drone in this busy hive?”
+
+“Dull?—when you keep the hive in such running order that we never even
+suspect where the machinery which runs it is located. Dull?—when you
+keep our home as charming in every detail as it was when you had ample
+means at your command to conduct it. Dull?—when you are here every
+moment as its sweet and gracious head to make it such a home as few know
+in this northern world, where homes for the most part mean simply a roof
+to cover one, and under which food is served three times daily. Mother,
+can’t you see and feel what you are doing for us girls? How you are
+surrounding us with an atmosphere so beautiful, so exceptional in these
+days of hurry and bustle that its influence must bide with us all our
+days and remain a dear memory all our lives? We may leave it sooner or
+later, other duties may call us away, but nothing, nothing can ever
+deprive us of all this—” Constance raised one arm to sweep it
+comprehensively over the room in which they sat and all-embracingly
+beyond. “So please let all rest as it is. Let Nonnie work away at
+college, and later—” here a merry twinkle filled the girl’s eyes—“let
+her, well, let her take up the co-ed plan, if she likes. Things seem
+shaping that way if the signs can be trusted. Let me boil a way to fame
+and fortune. Let Jean—if Fate so decrees—though by the same token I’ve a
+notion she won’t, follow in Nonnie’s footsteps. Alack! Jean’s energies
+do not point toward the campus of —— college. I misdoubt,” and Constance
+smiled. Then, turning serious again, she resumed: “Will you promise me
+something?”
+
+“Will you first listen to my little plan?” was her mother’s counter
+question.
+
+“Yes, I’ll listen.”
+
+“You know how I delight in fancy work, dear, and there is such a field
+for embroidery and other kinds I do so well. The Woman’s Exchange, you
+know.”
+
+“You may do all you want to—yards, pounds, dozens, heaps—however it is
+described—but you must do it for _our_ home, not other people’s. I’ll
+tell you what you may do, all against the coming climax, for it is
+coming, you mark my words: You begin right now and make dozens of the
+daintiest pieces of underwear imaginable—”
+
+“Oh, Constance!” cried Mrs. Carruth, reproachfully, the softest rose
+creeping into her cheeks.
+
+“Can’t help it!” protested Constance. “I know that co-ed plan will
+develop. My heart! Do you think I’m blind as a bat? When a man bids a
+girl good-bye at a railway station and helps her on board the
+smoking-car instead of the Pullman, and neither of them knows the
+difference—well. You just wait till spring, my lady. It is a case of ‘I
+smell a mouse, I feel him in the air,’ etc., get busy, Mumsey, get busy.
+The entire winter won’t be too long, I tell you; for when that explosion
+takes place it will be with a bang, you mark my words.”
+
+“Connie, Connie, this is dreadful!”
+
+“May be,” answered Constance, wagging her head dubiously; “but I’m
+afraid we must resign ourselves to it. Mercy only knows how she will
+come home at Thanksgiving. I believe he is to meet her. I’m prepared for
+a box car or even a flat car. Yes, it is dreadful, you are quite right.
+Wonder how it will affect me if I ever succumb? But take my advice, get
+busy, Mumsey, and, dear, remember this—” Swiftly the tone changed from
+the jesting one to the tenderest as the girl rested her head upon her
+mother’s shoulder: “You represent _home_ to us girls. Without you it
+would be the harp without its strings, the organ without its pipes. It
+would disintegrate. Keep it for us. Try to feel that you are doing far
+more in our busy hive by just being our Queen Bee than you ever could by
+going abroad in the land to gather the honey. Let _us_ do that, and
+remember this—I read it not long ago and I’ll never forget it:—
+
+      “‘The beautiful gracious mother,
+        Wherever she places her chair,
+      In the kitchen (this one) or the parlor,
+        The center of home is there.’
+
+“Ready for me in there, Mary? Mother is perishing for occupation, and
+I’ve scolded her as much as I dare,” and, with a tender kiss upon her
+mother’s cheek, the girl ran swiftly into the next room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MAMMY MAKES INVESTIGATIONS.
+
+
+“Bress de Lord, we ain’t got ter run no counter on Thanksgiving Day!”
+was Mammy’s fervent exclamation, as she rose from her bed on the Monday
+preceding Thanksgiving Day. Hurrying across the room she opened the
+draughts in the little stove, for Charles’ rheumatic twinges must not be
+aggravated by the sudden chill of rising from a warm bed to dress in a
+cold room. The fire had been carefully covered the night before, and
+now, replenished by a few shovelfuls of coal, and a vigorous shake of
+the revolving grate, was soon snapping and roaring right comfortably.
+The rattling had served more than one end, as had the clatter made by
+putting on the fresh fuel. Although Mammy had no idea of permitting her
+spouse to contract a cold from dressing in a cold room, she, on the
+other hand, saw no reason why he should indulge in over-many morning
+winks after she, herself, had risen and begun the duties of the day.
+
+“Eh? Um, yas, Honey,” came in somnolent tones from the billows of
+feathers in which Charles’ shiny bald pate, with its fringe of snowy
+wool, was nearly buried. Mammy could not abide the new-fangled hair
+mattresses, but clung tenaciously to her bygone ideas of “real downright
+comfort fer a body dat’s clar beat out when de day’s done. No, sir-ee!
+Don’t talk ter me ob dese hyar ha’r mattresses. I ain’t got a mite er
+use fer ’em needer has Charles, _if I ses-so_. Give me de suah ’nough
+fedders wid de down on ’em; none ob yo’ hawse ha’r stuffed bags. De
+fedders fits wherever dey teches, ’an snugs up mighty soft on de achy
+spots, but dose highfalutin’ h’ar mattresses,—well, dey jest lak dese
+hyar Norf folks we meet up wid: ef yo’ kin fit _dem_, well an’ good,
+yo’s all right, but does yo’ t’ink dey’s gwine ter try fer ter fit yo’?
+Go ’long, chile.”
+
+Consequently the bed, which stood in the bedroom of the little cottage
+in which Mammy and Charles lived, boasted a feather bed, the like of
+which for downiness and size was rarely seen. It had been made by Mammy
+herself of the downiest of feathers, plucked by her own hand from the
+downiest of her own geese, hatched under her own critical eyes when she
+was a young woman on her old master’s plantation. It had taken many
+geese, many days, much drying and curing to achieve such a triumph; and
+the “baid” was Mammy’s most cherished possession. The airings, sunnings,
+beatings and renovatings to which it had been subjected during the years
+she had owned it would have totally wrecked any less perfect article of
+household economy; but it had survived all, and each morning, after its
+prescribed hours of airing, was “spread up” into a most imposing mound,
+covered with a “croshey” spread, made by the sanctified hands of “ol’
+Miss” (Mrs. Carruth’s mother), and still further adorned by “piller
+shams,” made by “Miss Jinny” herself.
+
+More than one of Mrs. Carruth’s guests had been conducted through
+Mammy’s cottage by its proud inmate, and the “baid” and its coverings
+displayed with justifiable pride.
+
+“Yas, wake up!” commanded Mammy, making her own toilet with despatch.
+“We’s got a pile o’ wo’k ter do terday, an’ I’se gotter see dat dose no
+count nigger gals what’s a-pertendin’ ter do Miss Jinny’s wo’k
+now-a-days gits a move on ’em. Dey pesters me mightily, dough I ain’t
+let ’em ’spect it, I tells yo’. Ef I did dey’d jes nachelly climb right
+ober de house an’ ebery las’ pusson in it. But I knows how ter han’le
+’em ef Miss Jinny don’t. She t’ink she gwine do it jes lak she useter
+back yonder on her Pa’s plantation, but it don’ do up hyar. Trouble is
+wid dese hyar Norf niggers dey ain’ know dey _is_ niggers, and dey gits
+mighty mix in dey minds twell somebody come along and tells ’em jest
+’zackly what dey is, an’ whar dey b’longs at. I done tol’ dem two in
+yonder, an’ I reckon dey’s learnt a heap since I done took ’em in han’.
+Yas, I does. Dey don’ come a-splurgin’ an’ a-splutterin’ roun’ me no mo’
+wid dey, ‘Dis hyar ain’ ma juty. I ain’ ’gaged fer ter do dat wuk.’ My
+Lawd! I come pretty nigh bustin’ dat Lilly May’s haid las’ week when I
+tell her ter do sumpin’ an’ she say dat ter me. She foun’ out what her
+juty was, an’ she ain’t fergit it again, I tell yo’. Now come ’long
+down, Charles, I gwine have brekfus ready befo’ yo’ get yo’ wool
+breshed,” and off hurried the old woman to begin the routine of her more
+than busy day.
+
+The clock was striking five when Charles came slowly down the stairs and
+entered the immaculate kitchen. The past three years have dealt kindly
+with the old couple in spite of their incessant labors. Mammy has not
+changed in the least. Charles is a trifle more bent, perhaps, but the
+three years have certainly not detracted from the old man’s appearance,
+nor have they robbed him of any strength. Indeed, he seems in better
+health and physical condition than upon the day he celebrated his golden
+wedding. Mammy has made up for the lost years by caring for him as she
+would have cared for a child.
+
+The business which they started in the Arcade has flourished and
+prospered beyond their wildest hopes. Charles still holds the honorary
+position of “Janitor-in-Chief” at the Arcade, a sinecure in every sense
+of the word excepting one; he keeps the acting janitor up to the high
+mark in the performance of _his_ duties, greatly to Mr. Porter’s
+amusement. He also keeps the dapper mulatto youth, who now serves at the
+lunch counter headed due north. To that young man Charles is “Mr.
+Devon,” of the firm of “Blairsdale & Devon.”
+
+At the cottage Mammy still cooks, bakes, preserves and concocts with all
+her wonderful skill, assisted by a little colored girl, the eldest of
+those whom Jean impressed upon Mammy’s wedding day.
+
+Oh, Mammy is a most important personage these days.
+
+Breakfast over in the little cottage, and it was a breakfast fit for a
+king, Mammy began issuing her orders like a general, and Charles lived
+only to obey.
+
+“Now hike in dar an’ git de furnace a-goin’ good, an’ den go ’long ter
+de gre’t house an’ have it good an’ warm befo’ dem chillern wakes up. I
+cyant have em’ ketchin’ cold, an’ de mawnin’s right snappy,” she said,
+as dish-towel in hand she looked out of her kitchen door at the
+glistening world, for a heavy hoar frost covered lawn and foliage,
+prophesying a storm before many days.
+
+“Here, put on yo’ coat! What’s de use ob my rubbin’ yo’ shoulder wid
+linnimint ef yo’ gwine right spang out dis here warm kitchen inter de
+chill ob de mawnin’ widout wroppin’ up? Laws-a-massy, it tek mos’ de
+whole endurin’ time ter keep you from doin’ foolishnesses, I clar it
+do.”
+
+Charles chuckled delightedly. It was, on the whole, rather flattering to
+be so cherished and looked after as he had been during the last three
+years. Poor old soul, those he had spent alone had been barren enough of
+care or comforts.
+
+“You needn’t ter snort dat-a-way,” protested his dominating wife. “I’s
+only jes’ a-watchin’ out fer my _own_ sake. I’se got a sight ter do
+’sides nussin’ rheumatics an’ tekin’ keer sick folks wid a misery in dey
+backs.”
+
+“Honey, yo’s a wonder. Yas, yo’ _is_,” was Charles’ parting rejoinder,
+as he toddled off to the duties, which to him, as well as to Mammy, were
+labors of love. Before many minutes had passed the little candy kitchen
+was snug and warm for its mistress, and then the old man made his way to
+the “gre’t house,” as he and Mammy, true to earlier customs, always
+called the home which sheltered their white folks. Mammy had already
+finished her own household tasks and met him at the door. Together they
+entered the silent house, their key making not the slightest sound, lest
+they disturb the sleeping inmates. The maids now in Mrs. Carruth’s
+service did not sleep in the house, but came at seven each morning, and
+woe betide the tardy one! Mammy was always on hand, and her greeting was
+governed by the moment of the said damsel’s arrival. There were a few
+duties, however, which Mammy would permit no other than herself to
+perform. She must see that the breakfast table was properly laid, the
+breakfast under way and the rooms dusted, aired and warmed before she
+stole softly upstairs to call her “chillern.” Then she turned all over
+to her dusky satellites, and at once became grand high potentate and
+autocrat.
+
+It was a few minutes past seven when she entered Mrs. Carruth’s room
+with a cheery “Mawnin’, honey. ’Spose ef I lets yo’ sleep any longer yo’
+gwine give me sumpin’ I ain’t cravin’ fer ter git. Cyant fer de life er
+me see why yo’ boun’ ter git up dese mawnin’s. Why won’ yo’ let me bring
+up yo’ tray, honey?” said the good old soul, moving softly about the
+room, raising the window shades and turning on the valve of the
+radiator.
+
+“Because I have all I can do as it is to keep you and the girls from
+spoiling me completely,” returned Mrs. Carruth, as she rose from her bed
+and stepped into the adjoining bathroom, where Mammy already had her
+bath prepared.
+
+“Well, it’s de biggest job we-all ever is tackled,” insisted the old
+woman, as she placed a chair before the dressing table and took from the
+closet the garments Mrs. Carruth would need for the day. Since sunnier
+times had come to this home Mammy had fallen back into old habits. The
+“chillern,” as she called Eleanor, Constance and Jean, were called
+before their mother was awakened, but “Miss Jinny” claimed her undivided
+attention, and it would have nearly broken Mammy’s loving old heart had
+Mrs. Carruth denied her this privilege, so long made impossible by the
+strenuous days and manifold duties following upon the misfortunes which
+succeeded Mr. Carruth’s death.
+
+The delight of Mammy’s life was to assist at her “Miss Jinny’s” toilet,
+as she had done in her mistress’ girlhood days—to brush and arrange the
+still abundant hair, and to hand her a fresh handkerchief and say, as
+she had said to the young girl years ago:
+
+“Gawd bless yo’, honey! Yo’ is as sweet as de roses dis mawnin’.”
+
+When all was completed to her satisfaction, and Mrs. Carruth was about
+to leave the room, Mammy remarked, with well-assumed indifference:
+
+“I ’spose dat Lilly done got Miss Nonnie’s room all fix jes right, but I
+reckons I better cas’ ma eyes ober it; cyant trus’ dese girls wid no
+’sponserbility, nohow.”
+
+“I think everything is in perfect order, Mammy, but I dare say you will
+feel happier if you give those little touches which you alone can give.
+Eleanor will recognize them and be happier because you gave them. It
+will be a joy to us all to have her back again, won’t it, although she
+has not been away so very long after all.”
+
+“No’m, she ain’t. How long she gwine be wid us dis time?”
+
+“Not quite a week, Mammy. She will reach here this afternoon and must
+leave us early Saturday; Thanksgiving holidays are short ones. We shall
+have her longer at Christmas, then we will count the days till Easter,
+and after that to June, when we will have her for a long, long holiday,
+and college days will be ended.”
+
+“M’m-u’m,” nodded Mammy, drawing the coverings from the bed and laying
+them carefully over chairs to air. “Spec she’ll find dat trip down from
+up yonder mighty tiresome. Trabblin’ all alone is sort of frazzlin’.”
+
+“She is hardly likely to travel alone. Mammy. So many of her college
+mates will be journeying the same way, and even if they were not, she
+will be pretty sure to meet Mr. Forbes; he was obliged to run up to
+Springfield on Saturday and expects to return to-day. They may meet on
+the same train.”
+
+Mammy was looking out of the window. It would have made very little
+difference had she been facing Mrs. Carruth. Her face was absolutely
+inscrutable, as she answered:
+
+“’Spec dat would save Miss Nonnie a heap ob trouble. Yas’m, mebbe dey
+will meet up wid one anoder.”
+
+Mrs. Carruth went upon her way to the breakfast room. Mammy had learned
+all she wished to know.
+
+At four o’clock that afternoon Miss Jean Carruth was perched upon her
+point of vantage, from which every object approaching her home could be
+descried. It was not a particularly easy point to reach, but that only
+added to its attraction; nobody else was likely to choose it. Nearly
+everyone sought the terrace, the piazza, or the upper windows in
+preference to the stable roof, even though the stable roof boasted a
+delightful assortment of gables and dormer windows, to say nothing of a
+broad gutter, around which one could prance at the imminent risk of a
+header to the ground, at least twelve feet below. In the golden haze of
+that mellow November afternoon, for autumn lingered late this year, Jean
+sat curled up in her corner, her chin resting in her palms, and her
+wonderful eyes fixed upon the road leading up the hill to her home. It
+was in reality more street than road, but was nearly always mentioned as
+the “hill road,” owing to its contrast to the broader highway from which
+it branched and zig-zagged up the hill to the more sparsely settled
+section of Riveredge. The watcher commanded all its length. Presently
+the shining eyes lighted up with a queer, half-delighted, half-defiant
+expression. Far down the road a vehicle was approaching; it was one of
+the railroad station surreys, and in it were seated two people, besides
+the driver: two people quite oblivious to all the rest of the world, if
+one could judge by their absorbing interest in each other, for the keen
+eyes watching them could discern this, even from their owner’s distance
+from the surrey.
+
+“Um.” The utterance might be interpreted almost any way. Then, “_Now_, I
+dare say, we’ve got to have him here all this evening, and all
+to-morrow, and all the next day, and all every day; and I don’t want him
+around every single minute. My goodness, it was bad enough before Nonnie
+left for —— College; we never could get a single word in edgeways. I
+wonder if he’s going to board here? I used to like him when he just came
+to see us all, but now he’s tickled to death if everybody’s engaged when
+he shows up; _everybody but Nonnie_. I reckon I’ve got to take things in
+hand. Nonnie’s only twenty-one, and he’s, he’s? I do believe he’s about
+_forty-one_, though I never could get him to tell. But it doesn’t make
+any difference! He’s too old for Nonnie, and I’m not going to let him
+have her,” was the emphatic conclusion to this monologue, as Jean
+scrambled to her feet and gave a defiant nod toward the vehicle, which
+had just drawn up in front of the carriage block. At that moment Mrs.
+Carruth and Constance hurried down the steps to greet the new arrivals.
+Evidently the welcome accorded the masculine member of the party aroused
+a keen sense of resentment in Jean, and some manner of outlet for her
+feelings became imperative. Physical exercise was her usual
+safety-valve, and in this instance she chose one which had on former
+occasions proved effective, and more than once brought Mammy to the
+verge of nervous prostration, and the dire prophecy that “sooner or
+later dat chile gwine brek her neck.” As before stated, the gutter was
+wide, it was also a stoutly constructed one of galvanized iron, but it
+had _not_ been designed for a promenade, much less a running track for
+athletic training. Nevertheless, it had to serve as one this time, for
+Jean started running around it as though bent upon its destruction, or
+her own. It came near proving her own, for just as Homer Forbes was
+placing a couple of suit cases upon the piazza he chanced to catch sight
+of the prancing demoiselle, and with a shout of: “Great Josephus! Are
+you courting sudden death?” made a wild dash for the stable.
+
+With a defiant skip, Jean made for the other side at top speed, lost her
+balance, slipped, and the next second was hanging suspended by her arms
+between earth and sky. Had she not been lithe as a cat she never could
+have saved herself. Forbes was nearly petrified.
+
+“Hang on! Confound it, what took you up there, anyway?” he cried, with
+no little asperity, as the others hurried across the lawn to the trapeze
+performer’s rescue.
+
+“My feet took me up and my hands are keeping me here. Stand from under!
+I’m going to drop.”
+
+“Drop nothing!” was the very un-savant like retort. “You’ll break both
+your legs. Hold on till I can get up there,” and the would-be rescuer
+darted within the stable.
+
+How she managed it no one could quite grasp, but there was a flutter of
+skirts, a swing, and Jean was in a little heap upon the soft turf.
+Springing lightly to her feet and dusting the grass from her palms, she
+said:
+
+“Hello, Nonnie! I got _him_ out of the way long enough to hug you
+without having him watch how it’s done. Reckon he’ll learn soon enough
+without me to teach him. Come on into the house, quick. He’ll find out
+that I’m not killed when he looks out of the window.”
+
+If Mrs. Carruth seemed resigned, Constance quite convulsed and Eleanor
+unduly rosy, Jean seemed oblivious of those facts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THANKSGIVING.
+
+
+With the happier outlook resulting from Constance’s success in her
+candy-making, it had been deemed advisable to send Jean to the private
+school from which Eleanor had graduated. Consequently, that autumn Jean
+had been enrolled among its pupils, and her place in the public school
+at which she and Constance had been pupils knew her no more, and Jean
+was much divided in her mind as to whether she was made happier or
+otherwise by the change. In the old school were many friends whom she
+loved dearly, and whom she missed out of her daily life. In the new one
+was her boon companion, Amy Fletcher, and also a number of the girls
+whom she constantly met in the homes of her mother’s friends. But Jean
+was a loyal little soul, and her interest in her fellow-beings a lively
+one. She could hardly have been her mother’s daughter otherwise.
+Naturally in the public school were many children from the less
+well-to-do families of Riveredge, and not a few from those in very
+straitened circumstances. Among the latter were three girls very near
+Jean’s own age. They were sisters, and were ambitious to complete the
+grammar school course, in order to fit themselves for some employment.
+There were other children older and other children younger; in fact,
+there seemed to be no end to the children in the Hodgeson family, a new
+one arriving upon the scene with the punctuality of clockwork. This fact
+had always disturbed Jean greatly.
+
+“If there only _would_ come an end to the Hodgesons,” she lamented to
+her mother. “The trouble is, we no sooner get settled down and think
+we’ve reached the end than we have to begin all over again. Those babies
+keep things terribly stirred up. Don’t you think you could make Mrs.
+Hodgeson understand that she could get on with fewer of them, Mother?
+You see, the clothes never do hold out, and as for that last baby
+carriage you managed to get for her, why, it’s just a wreck already. The
+other day, when I went by there on my way to the Irving School, I saw
+Billy Hodgeson riding the newest and the next newest, and the _third_
+newest in it, and the third newest had a puppy in his arms. No carriage
+could stand all that, could it?”
+
+“I’m afraid not, dear. Perhaps we had better ask some other friends if
+they have a carriage they no longer need.”
+
+“Oh, no, don’t! Please, don’t! If you do, Mrs. Hodgeson will think she’s
+got to get a brand new baby to put into it, for the old babies wouldn’t
+match, you know. No, please, don’t.”
+
+“Very well; we must let them get on with the old ones, both babies and
+carriage, I see,” Mrs. Carruth answered, much amused.
+
+“Yes, I really would; but here is something that’s bothering me,” and
+Jean snuggled close into the encircling arms of the big chair in which
+she and her mother sat for this twilight hour conference.
+
+“What are they going to do when Thanksgiving Day comes? No turkey on
+earth would be big enough to go ’round, even if they could buy one,
+which I don’t believe they can. I was talking to Mrs. Hodgeson about it
+just the other day, and she said she was afeered her man couldna buy one
+nohow this year; they was so terrible intortionate in the prices,”
+concluded Jean, lapsing unconsciously into the slipshod Mrs. Hodgeson’s
+vernacular.
+
+“I think she must have meant extortionate,” corrected Mrs. Carruth.
+
+“Perhaps she did; I don’t know. But I’ll bet five cents they won’t have
+a thing when the day comes around, and I think that’s awful.”
+
+“We are sending out a number of baskets from the church, and I have
+asked that one be sent to the Hodgesons,” was Mrs. Carruth’s hopeful
+reply. It was not welcomed as she anticipated.
+
+“That won’t do a bit of good,” answered Jean, with a dubious shake of
+her copper-tinted head. “Not a _single bit_, for when Mrs. Hodgeson said
+she reckoned they’d have to get along without a turkey I said right off
+that I thought I could manage one all right, ’cause you could get one
+sent to her. My, but she got mad! And she told me she guessed she could
+get along without no charity turkey; that Hodgeson always _had_ managed
+to fill up the young ones somehow, and if he couldn’t do it on turkey
+this year he could do it on salt pork. Ugh! Wouldn’t that be awful? Why,
+Mammy won’t have salt pork near her except for seasoning use, as she
+calls it. No, we’ve got to do something else for those everlasting
+Hodgesons.”
+
+Mrs. Carruth thought the term well applied, even though she did not say
+so; they were everlasting. But she was hardly prepared for Jean’s
+solution of the problem with which she had seen fit to burden her
+youthful shoulders.
+
+Mrs. Carruth’s Thanksgiving guests were Hadyn Stuyvesant and Homer
+Forbes. Her table was laid for six, and a pretty table it was,
+suggestive in its decorations of the day. According to her Southern
+traditions, the meal was ordered for two o’clock instead of the more
+fashionable hour favored by her Northern friends. Her guests had
+arrived, and Charles, the very personification of the old family
+servitor, had just announced with all the elegance and mannerism of
+which he was capable:
+
+“De Madam is sarved.”
+
+Upon this day Mammy had taken affairs strictly into her own hands. No
+one except herself should prepare her Miss Jinny’s Thanksgiving dinner.
+The other servants might assist Charles in serving it, but the actual
+preparation and cooking must be done by her own faithful hands.
+Consequently all the marketing for this occasion had been personally
+looked to by Mammy and Charles. In their chariot of state, drawn by
+Baltie, they had driven to South Riveredge, selected every article, and
+carried it home in their own baskets. Once that lordly turkey had been
+scientifically poked and pinched by her and met with approval, she was
+not going to let it out of her sight “an’ have no secon’-rater sont up
+to de house instid.” Mammy had small faith in Northern tradesmen. So to
+her cabin all had been sent, there to be prepared and cooked by her on
+“de fines’ range in de worl’!” as she confidently believed her own to
+be, and truly it was a wondrous feast which now stood ready for Charles’
+serving, the two maids to dart like shuttles between Mammy’s cabin and
+the great house.
+
+It was Hadyn Stuyvesant who with graceful bow offered his arm to Mrs.
+Carruth, while Homer Forbes turned to the two girls. As she rose to
+accept Hadyn’s arm Mrs. Carruth paused a moment, doubt and indecision in
+her eyes, and asked:
+
+“Where is Jean?”
+
+“She left the room just a short time ago, mother. Shall I call her?”
+asked Constance.
+
+“Yes, do, dear. We will wait just a moment for you.”
+
+Constance left the room, to return in two minutes with consternation
+written upon her face.
+
+“Where is she and what—?” asked Mrs. Carruth, resignation to any
+possibility descending upon her.
+
+“She has just come in, mother, and—and—” the words ended in a laugh as
+Constance collapsed upon a chair.
+
+“What is it, Connie?” demanded Eleanor. “What has Jean done now?”
+
+“Where’s my little sister?” asked Hadyn. “You can’t make me believe she
+has broken all the laws of the Medes and Persians.”
+
+“No, not those old fogies, but, oh, dear, what do you suppose she has
+done?—invited, sans ceremony, Victoria Regina, Mary Stuart, and Adelaide
+Elizabeth Hodgeson to dine with her!”
+
+“Constance! Never!” cried Mrs. Carruth.
+
+“She has. They are up in her room this very minute putting the finishing
+touches to their very unique toilets.”
+
+“Go get ’em. Fetch ’em on. We’ll entertain ’em right royally! I know
+that National bird is a bouncer, and big enough to feed a dozen
+Hodgesons as well as all present,” was Hadyn’s laughing command.
+
+“Oh, Hadyn, we can’t,” protested Eleanor, whose dignity and sense of
+propriety were continually receiving slight jars from this friend of the
+household.
+
+“Why not? It will be the experience of their lives—an education by
+practical illustration of manners polite. How can you hesitate, Eleanor?
+I thought you were a strong advocate of settlement work, and here you
+are overlooking an opportunity sent to your very door. Who was it I
+heard talking about ‘neglected opportunities’ not long since? A most
+edifying dissertation, if I recollect aright, too.”
+
+“I second the motion. Such a zest to a meal may never again be offered.
+Yes, Mrs. Carruth, you’ve got it to do. It is clearly a duty brought to
+your door,” added Homer Forbes. “Moreover, it will give me a wonderful
+opportunity to pursue my psychological studies. Didn’t know I was
+knee-deep in them, did you, Eleanor? Fact, however. Human emotions as
+the direct result of unsuspected mental suggestion, etc. Bring on your
+subjects, Constance.”
+
+“I give in. Do as you’ve a mind to, you incorrigible children, only bear
+this in mind—you are _not_ to tease those girls and make them miserable.
+Jean has made one wild break, but there shall be no more if I can
+prevent it. Since she has brought them here, and you _will_ dine with
+them, so be it; but you are not to tease them, you madcap men,” was Mrs.
+Carruth’s final dictum.
+
+“Not a tease, not a smile out of order,” agreed Hadyn, though his
+twinkling eyes half belied his words.
+
+“You just watch us entertain ’em,” insisted Homer.
+
+“I’ll watch, you may be sure of that,” laughed Mrs. Carruth. “Now fly,
+Connie, and summon our unexpected guests.”
+
+We will pass over the oysters, which were disposed of as never before
+oysters had been, and the soup, which disappeared audibly. That dinner
+was a genuine Southern one, and no item was lacking. At length arrived
+the critical moment when the bird of national fame should have appeared,
+but—didn’t. There was a long, ominous delay. Charles bustled and fussed
+about, one eye upon his mistress, the other upon the pantry. No one
+noticed that Jean’s conversational powers, never mediocre, were now
+phenomenal. She talked incessantly and as rapidly as a talking machine,
+albeit her listeners seemed to offer small encouragement for such a
+ceaseless flow of language. They sat with their eyes fastened to their
+plates—plates which would require very little scraping before washing.
+To and from pantry and dining room vibrated Charles. The vegetables,
+relishes, jellies—in short, everything to be served with the turkey—was
+placed in tempting array upon the sideboard; but still no sign of the
+festive bird itself, and Charles’ perturbation was increasing by the
+second. As on many another occasion it was Mammy who supplied the
+climax. At this crucial moment she appeared in the doorway of the
+pantry, her eyes blazing, her face a thundercloud, as she stammered:
+
+“Miss Jin-n-n-ninny! M-m-iss Jinny! Please, ma’am, fergive me fer
+’trudin’ in ’pon yo’ when yo’ is entertainin’; but ’tain’t lak dey was
+strangers, dey’s all ob de family, so to speak, ma’am” (Mammy was too
+excited to notice that the cheeks of two individuals seated at that
+board had turned a rosy, rosy pink), “an’ I jes’ natchelly _got_ to
+speak ma min’ or bus’—”
+
+“Why, Mammy, what has happened?” interrupted Mrs. Carruth, quite aware
+that Mammy managed to find mares’ nests when others were unable to do
+so, but surprised by this one, nevertheless. Mammy did not often
+overstep the lines set by convention; but on this occasion she certainly
+seemed tottery.
+
+“De bird! De tuckey! It’s gone! It’s done been stole right out ob ma
+wamin oven yonder. I done had it all cook to a tu’n, an’ set up in ma
+oven fer ter keep it jes’ ter de true livin’ p’int ob sarvin’, an den I
+run inter Miss Connie’s kitchen fer ter git some ob dem little frilly
+papers I need fer its laigs, an—an’ it mus’ ’a’ been stole whilst I was
+in dar, er else de very debbil hisself done fly away wid it right from
+unner ma nose, kase I ain’t been outer dat kitchen one single minnit
+since—not one!” emphasized Mammy, with a wag of her turbaned head, her
+talking machine running down simply because her breath had given out.
+
+If poor Mammy had needed anything to further outrage her feelings and
+put a climax to her very real distress, the roar which at that instant
+arose from two masculine throats would have been more than enough; but
+when Homer Forbes turned a reproachful face toward her and asked, “Mammy
+Blairsdale, do you mean to tell me that our goose—”
+
+“No, sah! No, sah! de _tuckey_!” corrected Mammy instantly.
+
+“Well, then, our turkey is cooked—”
+
+“Cooked! Cooked! Ef it was only de _cookin’_ dat pestered me I wouldn’t
+be pestered,” was Mammy’s Hibernian reply. “It’s done been _stole_, sah!
+Clean, cl’ar stole out ob ma kitchen.”
+
+“Let’s go find the thief, Forbes!” cried Hadyn, casting his napkin upon
+the table and springing to his feet. “Come on. Mammy, whom do you
+suspect? Which way shall we run? What must we do with him when we
+overhaul him?”
+
+“Oh, yo’ jes’ a-projeckin, I knows dat all right, but I tells you dat
+bird ain’ got no ekal in dis town. I done supervise his p’ints masef,
+an’ he’s de best to be had. If yo’ wants to know who I thinks is got
+him, I thinks it’s a man what done stop at ma door when I was a-stuffin’
+dat tucky early dis mawnin’. He was a tromp, an’ he ax me fer somethin’
+ter eat. I ain’t ginnerly got no use fer tromps, but dis hyer was de
+Thanksgivin’ mawnin’, an’ seem lak I couldn’t turn him away hungry.”
+
+“We’ll find him! Come on, Forbes! Where’s that stout walking-stick, Mrs.
+Carruth? Bring along the wheelbarrow for the remains, Charles—of the
+turkey, I mean.”
+
+Haydn was making for the door, Forbes hard upon his heels, when Jean
+darted to her mother’s side to draw her head toward her and whisper
+something into the listening ear. Jean’s guests sat like graven images.
+Constance and Eleanor were ready to shriek at the absurdity of the
+situation.
+
+“Hadyn, Homer, come back! Mammy, send in the quail pie and all the other
+good things you’ve prepared; we shall not starve. Ladies and gentlemen,
+circumstances render explanations somewhat embarrassing at this moment.
+Don’t be distressed, Mammy. On with the feast, Charles.
+
+“Why? what? where? who?” were the words which rattled about Mrs.
+Carruth’s ears.
+
+Mammy gave one glance at Jean, who had returned to her seat. She had not
+been in this family sixty-eight years without arrogating a few
+prerogatives. Then, but for Mrs. Carruth’s upraised hand, Etna would
+have broken forth. But Jean knew her hour of reckoning would come later.
+Her conversational powers seemed to have suffered a reaction. Her chair
+was next Hadyn’s. As he returned to his place he bent low, slipped his
+arm about the subdued little figure, and asked in a tone which it would
+have been hard to resist:
+
+“Little Sister, what did you do with that turkey?”
+
+“Rolled it in a big towel, put it in a basket, and carried it to the
+Hodgesons’ with mother’s Thanksgiving compliments, when I went after the
+girls. They wouldn’t eat a _charity_ turkey, but a compliment turkey was
+different,” was whispered back in a voice suspiciously charged with
+tears.
+
+“I call you a trump!” Then in a lower tone he turned to Constance, who
+sat at the other side, and said: “Who gives himself with his gift,
+serves three.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+EXPANSION.
+
+
+The short Thanksgiving holiday ended, Eleanor returned to college and
+Jean to school, found Constance busier than ever in her kitchen, for the
+holiday season was her hardest time, and this year promised to be an
+exceptional one. An extra supply of candy must be made for the booth in
+the Arcade, as well as for those who sold her candies on commission in
+other towns. Then, too, an unusual number of private orders had already
+come in. These all meant incessant work for Constance and Mary Willing.
+
+The first week in December she entered the kitchen where Mary was just
+cutting into squares great masses of chocolate caramels. She had been
+hard at work all the morning, and her face was flushed from her
+exertions.
+
+“Oh, I’m afraid you are nearly done up,” cried Constance, contritely.
+“You have been working so hard ever since eight o’clock, and it is now
+past eleven. I am so sorry to leave all this work to you while I do the
+easy part.”
+
+“Do you call it easy work to write about two dozen letters, keep track
+of all the orders which are pouring in now, and run accounts
+straight?—to say nothing of ordering our supplies. _I_ don’t, and I’m
+thanking my lucky stars that I can do _my_ share of the work with a big
+spoon instead of a pen,” was Mary’s cheerful reply, as she raised her
+arm to push back from her forehead an unruly lock of hair which fell
+across her eyes.
+
+“Let me,” said Constance quickly, lifting the soft strand into place.
+“You are all sticky, and when one’s hands are sticky that is the time
+for hair to grow rampant and one’s nose to itch! I’ve been there too
+many times myself not to know all about it, I tell you. But that isn’t
+what I came downstairs to say! Do you know that this pile of letters has
+set me thinking, Mary? If things go on at this rate you and I can never
+in the world handle the business. Why, it has taken me the whole morning
+to look after the letters and acknowledge the orders which came by the
+early mail. I haven’t been able to do one single stroke in here, and now
+I have got to go down to South Riveredge. Charles told Mammy that we
+ought to have more space there for our goods, and he wished I would see
+Mr. Porter about it at once. He thinks we ought to rent one of the other
+spaces for the Christmas season, anyway, and have someone there to
+attend to it. What do you think? And do you know of someone we could
+get? You see Christmas is only three weeks off, and whatever we do we’ve
+got to do at once.”
+
+As Constance talked she wielded a big knife and helped briskly. Mary did
+not answer at once; her pretty forehead wore a perplexed pucker. At
+length she said:
+
+“I know a girl who could take charge of it I think, although I don’t
+know whether you’d like her or not.”
+
+Constance smiled as she answered: “Suppose you tell me who she is, then
+maybe I can tell you whether I like her or not.”
+
+“It’s Kitty Sniffins. We used to go to school together.”
+
+“I don’t know her at all, so I’m a poor judge of her qualifications, am
+I not? But if you think she is the sort of girl we would like to have
+there, I am sure she needs no other recommendation, Mary. What is her
+address?”
+
+“Her brother is an insurance agent down on State Street. You might see
+him. They moved not long ago, and I don’t know where they live now.”
+
+“Oh——,” exclaimed Constance, light beginning to dawn upon her. She had
+not heard the name Sniffins since the year in which she began her
+candy-making, as the result of the burning of their home, and the name
+had not figured very pleasantly in the experience of that October, or
+the months which followed. Still, the sister might prove very unlike the
+brother, and just now time was precious. If she was to act upon Charles’
+suggestion she must act immediately.
+
+“I think I’ll drop her a note in care of her brother; I don’t like to go
+to his office. She can call here,” said Constance.
+
+Mary glanced up quickly to ask:
+
+“Is there any reason, Miss Constance, why you would prefer someone
+else?” for something in Constance’s tone made her surmise that for some
+reason which she failed to comprehend Kitty Sniffins did not meet with
+her young employer’s approval.
+
+“If I have one it is too silly to put into words,” laughed Constance,
+“so I will not let it influence me. I dare say Kitty Sniffins is a right
+nice girl and will sell enough candy to make me open my eyes. At all
+events, I’ll have a pow-wow with her. But before she can sell candy or
+anything else she must have a place to sell it in, and it’s up to me to
+scuttle off to the Arcade as fast as I can go. And, by the way, you’ve
+got to have more help here, Mary. Yes, you _have_. You need not shake
+your head. As matters are shaping I shall have to give every moment of
+my time to the business of this great and glorious enterprise. Now whom
+shall I get? What is Fanny doing this fall? She left school in the
+spring, didn’t she?”
+
+“Yes. She is helping mother sew, but——” and an eager light sprang into
+Mary’s eyes. Fanny Willing was a younger sister, a rather delicate girl,
+who was growing more delicate from the hours spent at work in the close
+rooms of her home, and running a heavy, old-fashioned sewing machine.
+She was a plain, quiet little thing, very unlike her striking-looking
+older sister, and as such had not found favor in her mother’s eyes. In
+her younger days Mrs. Willing had boasted a certain style of beauty, and
+with it had contrived to win a husband whom she felt would elevate her
+to a higher social plane, but her hopes had never been realized.
+Probably every family has a black sheep; Jim Willing had figured as that
+unenviable figure in his. It was the old story of the son born after his
+parents had been married a number of years, and several older sisters
+were waiting to spoil him; plenty of money to fling about, a wild
+college career of two years, marriage with a pretty housemaid
+and—disinheritance. It had required only twenty-three years to bring it
+all to pass, and the next twenty-three completed the evil. At forty-six
+Jim Willing looked like a man of fifty-six—so can dissipation and moral
+degeneration set their seal upon their victims. Gentle blood? What had
+it done for him? Very little, because he had permitted it to become
+hopelessly contaminated. And his children?—they were working out the
+problem of heredity; paying the penalties of an earlier generation;
+demonstrating the commandment which says, “unto the third and fourth
+generation.” A cruel, relentless one, but not to be lightly broken.
+
+In Mary was one illustration of it; Fanny another. Each was to “drie her
+weird,” as the Scotch say.
+
+“Do you think your mother can spare her?”
+
+“I’m sure she can. The fact is, Fanny has been trying to get some work
+in one of the shops in South Riveredge. Sewing doesn’t agree with her,
+somehow; she seems to grow thinner every day; she ain’t—_isn’t_, I
+mean—very strong, you see.”
+
+“Will you send word to her, Mary? I think this sort of work will be
+better for her than the sewing, and we’ll talk about the salary when she
+comes over.”
+
+“She’ll be a mighty lucky girl just to _get_ here, salary or _no_
+salary!” was Mary’s positive reply. “If you don’t mind I’ll run down
+home this afternoon and tell her to come early to-morrow morning. I’ll
+have all this batch made, and the rest can wait until the morning; we’ve
+got a good lot ahead already.” Mary’s eagerness manifested itself in her
+every action, and Constance nodded a cheerful approval as she laid down
+her big knife and turned to leave the kitchen.
+
+“Go ahead, partner, but I must be off now.”
+
+“So the business is expanding?” exclaimed Mr. Porter, heartily, when
+Constance had explained to him her wish to rent an arch for her
+Christmas trade. “Good! I knew it would. Couldn’t possibly help it with
+such candy as that to back it up. But mind, you are not to forget my
+Christmas order in all your bustle and hurry for other people. Twenty
+pounds——”
+
+“What!” cried Constance, aghast at the recklessness of her oldest
+customer.
+
+“Now, that will do, young lady. Will you please answer me this! Why must
+I always be looked upon as a mild sort of lunatic when I give you an
+order? ’Twas ever thus! Why, you hooted my first order, and you have
+kept on hooting every single one since. I wonder I haven’t transferred
+my patronage long since. Trouble is you realize where you have me
+cornered. You know I can’t duplicate those candies anywhere. Now come
+along with me and let us arrange for the new quarters which are to
+replace the outgrown ones, and—mark my word—this business will never
+again contract to the old space. This is where my business acumen shows
+itself. Once I’ve got you into the bigger stand, and the rent into my
+coffers, I mean to keep you there, even if I have to get out and drum up
+the extra trade to meet the extra outlay. Co-operation.”
+
+Constance was too accustomed to this good friend’s nonsense to see
+anything but the deepest interest for her welfare underlying it. She
+knew that, with all his seeming badinage, he was looking further ahead
+than she, with her still limited experience, even after four years in
+her little business world, could look, for her’s, while exceptional for
+her years and sex, could never match that of this man of the great,
+active business world. But if Mr. Porter was far-seeing in some
+directions, in others he was short-sighted, and his range of vision was
+to be broadened by one who dwelt in a far humbler walk of life—Mammy
+Blairsdale.
+
+Upon this particular morning Mammy had elected to drive in state to
+South Riveredge, ostensibly to cast a critical eye over the
+Blairsdale-Devon Lunch Counter, but in reality to convey to it a very
+special dainty for her pet customer—Hadyn Stuyvesant.
+
+In addition to a few hundred other side issues to her business, Mammy
+had raised poultry during the previous summer, and, curiously enough, to
+every chick hatched out, there had pecked themselves into the world
+about four roosters, until poor Mammy began to believe her setting eggs
+must have had a spell cast upon them. As the summer advanced such an
+array of lordly, strutting, squawking young cocks never dominated a
+poultry yard, and the sequel was inevitable. When they arrived at the
+_crowing age_ the neighbors arose in revolt! Such a vociferous,
+discordant collection of birds had never fought and crowed themselves
+into public notice. Mammy became almost distracted, and was at her wits’
+end until a diplomatic move struck her: those roosters should win not
+only fame for themselves, but for their owner also; and not long
+afterward first one neighbor then another was mollified and highly
+flattered to receive a fine daintily broiled, fried, or roasted young
+bird, cooked as only Mammy knew how to cook a fowl, garnished as only
+Mammy knew how to garnish, and accompanied by a respectful note, _not_
+written by Mammy, but by Jean, somewhat in this strain:
+
+“Will Mrs. —— please accept this dish with the most respectful
+compliments of Mammy Blairsdale, who _hopes_ this noisy rooster will
+never disturb her any more?”
+
+Oh, “sop to Cerberus!” Could diplomacy go further?
+
+It was one of the most vociferous of her flock which now lay upon his
+lordly back, his legs pathetically turned to the skies, his fighting and
+his squaking days ended forever, that reposed in Mammy’s warming can, to
+be transferred to Charles’ warming oven, there to await Hadyn’s arrival.
+
+As Constance and Mr. Porter drew near the lunch counter, Mammy was
+giving very explicit directions to Charles. Constance and Mr. Porter
+were too occupied to be aware of her presence; not she of theirs,
+however.
+
+Mr. Porter conducted Constance to the arch next but one to that in which
+the lunch counter stood, only separated from it by the cigar stand.
+
+“Now here is a space which you can have as well as not, and it is close
+enough to Charles for him to cast an eye over it from time to time.”
+
+“And may I rent it for one month?” asked Constance.
+
+“Better rent it for one year,” urged Mr. Porter. “It’s in a mighty good
+location.”
+
+“And _I_ call it a mighty _po’_ location,” broke in an emphatic voice.
+“A _mighty_ po’ one, and no kynd ob a place fo’ one ob ma chillen fer to
+be at. _Gobblin_ men-folks hyar at de lunch stan’; _smokin’_ men-folks
+at de nex’ one; an’ we kin bress Gawd ef we don’t fin’ oursefs wid
+_guzzlin_ men-folks on yonder at de tother side befo’ long.”
+
+“Now, now! Hold on, Mammy! Go slow,” broke in Mr. Porter, laughingly.
+“You know the Arcade doesn’t stand for _that_ sort of thing. Don’t hit
+us so hard.”
+
+“How I gwine know what it boun’ ter stan’ fer if _it_ lak ter stan’ fer
+lettin’ dat chile rint a counter nex’ door to a segar stan’?” snapped
+Mammy, her eyes fixed upon the luckless superintendent, personifying the
+strongly emphasized _it_.
+
+“Well, it’s lucky we found you here. Now, we never took _that_ side of
+the question into consideration, did we, little girl? Yes, I guess
+Mammy’s judgment beats ours. Great head! So come on, Mammy, and let us
+have your sound advice in this choice of bigger quarters for Miss
+Constance. You see, _I_ predict that she will never return to the
+smaller ones again.”
+
+“Don’t need no gre’t secon’-sight fer ter make _dat_ out, I reckon,” was
+the superior retort.
+
+Mr. Porter looked crushed and then dropped behind Mammy, who went
+sailing majestically down the Arcade, to stop at the very first and most
+pretentious of all the Arches—one which had been rented until very
+recently by a stationer, who had profited so handsomely that he had
+built a large shop not far from the Arcade, and now wished to sub-let
+this arch until his lease expired. Next to it was a florist’s stand, and
+opposite a stationer’s, each of a very high order. Constance stood
+aghast at Mammy’s audacity.
+
+“Why, Mammy, this is the highest-priced arch in the Arcade,” she
+exclaimed.
+
+“Well, what _dat_ got ter do wid it, Baby? Ain’t your candy _de
+highest-priced candy_? _An’ ain’ you de very high-water mark quality?_
+Who gwine ter ’spute dat? Go ’long an’ rint yo’ place; yo’ all matches
+p’intedly,” and with this speech Mammy stalked back to her own quarters.
+
+Constance gave one look at Mr. Porter, then sank upon one of the little
+benches within the arch.
+
+“By George, she’s right and I’m a blockhead! Think I’d better turn over
+my job to her and go down into the engine-room until I learn to read
+human nature as _she_ can. Yes, it is the finest, highest-priced arch in
+the building, but it didn’t take that old black woman five seconds to
+discover the match for it.”
+
+“But, Mr. Porter,” protested Constance, “of all the extravagant steps,
+and for Mammy, above all others, to urge it. That conservative creature!
+And the way she expressed it! _Why_ was I born a Blairsdale? It will
+shorten my years, I know, to have to live up to the name,” and Constance
+broke into a merry laugh.
+
+“Perhaps the burden will be lifted before long, and such a calamity to
+your friends averted,” answered Mr. Porter, soberly, but with twinkling
+eyes. The one o’clock whistle had just blown in a building hard by, and
+the Arcade’s elevator was beginning to bring down the people from the
+floors above. Among them was Hadyn Stuyvesant, who went at once to the
+luncheon counter, quite unaware of the presence of a certain little lady
+near the entrance of the Arcade; but her back was toward the elevator.
+For one second she glanced at Mr. Porter entirely innocent of the
+purport of his words. Then, catching sight of the mischievous eyes
+twinkling at her, she rose suddenly to her feet, saying: “Come at once
+and let me learn what this rash step will cost me.”
+
+With a low laugh Mr. Porter strode toward his office beside a very
+rosy-cheeked young girl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+VAULTING AMBITIONS.
+
+
+In the course of a few days Constance’s new quarters in the Arcade were
+in operation, for Mr. Porter lost no time in fitting up Arch Number One.
+The little booth beneath the stairs was dismantled to furnish forth the
+new one. Down at the kitchen Mary and her sister Fanny, who had come to
+assist in the work, were doing their best to keep abreast of the orders
+pouring in with each mail, while Mrs. Carruth, her ambitions at length
+achieved, was attending to the correspondence, since Constance’s time
+must for a little while be given to the new booth. She had not received
+a reply to her letter to Kitty Sniffins, and for the time being was too
+occupied with the demands of the new booth to take further steps in the
+matter. Indeed, she had about made up her mind to look for someone else,
+once order was brought out of the confusion of moving and settling, for
+some indefinable instinct caused her to feel an aversion to engaging
+Kitty Sniffins. Had she been asked to state why, she would have found it
+difficult to put her objection into actual words, and more than once she
+reproached herself for entertaining it at all. Nevertheless, she could
+not free herself from it, but was too busy just then to dwell upon it.
+In the course of a few days everything would be settled and in running
+order; and meanwhile she, herself, would go to the Arcade each day
+where, with Charles as her Majordomo, body-guard and faithful friend,
+she was a veritable queen of her little realm, and woe betide the
+individual so reckless as to forget that he or she was in the presence
+of a Blairsdale.
+
+The pretty Arch had been in perfect running order for one week when
+Constance began to cast about for someone to take her place, since
+neither she herself, nor her family felt content to have her make the
+journey to and from South Riveredge each day, or to spend her time at
+the Arch. On the previous Saturday she had put a carefully-worded
+advertisement in the _Riveredge Times_, the answers to be sent to Arch
+No. 1, Arcade Building; and upon her arrival at her Arch on this Monday
+morning she found dozens of letters from girls, and even men, asking
+employment. She was reading one of the letters when a shadow fell across
+the page, and raising her eyes she saw a young man standing at the
+counter. Thinking he had come to purchase a box of candy, she rose from
+her chair and stood waiting for him to make his wants known to her.
+Instead of doing so, he raised his hat, and with a most impressive bend
+of his long, loosely-hung figure, and a smile which irritated her by its
+self-complacency, said:
+
+“How are you, Miss Carruth? You’re sure putting up a big show here,
+ain’t you?”
+
+“What can I do for you?” asked Constance, with quiet dignity.
+
+“Guess you can’t do nothing for _me_, but maybe I can do something for
+_you_. Candy ain’t in my line. Never spent none o’ my solid cash for the
+stuff, but I’m glad other people do; plenty of fools in this world to
+help wise folks get rich, ain’t there?”
+
+“Will you please state your business?” and Constance took up another
+letter as a hint to her unwelcome visitor that her time, if not his, was
+of some value.
+
+“Got a pile o’ answers, ain’t you? That’s just what I thought, and it’s
+just what brought me down here this early. This letter come for Kitty in
+my care ’most a week ago, but she’s down in the city doin’ somethin’ or
+’nother; don’t ’mount to much, I guess, though. I knew she hadn’t no
+friends up yonder in swell Riveredge, and when I saw your ad. in the
+_Riveredge Times_ it didn’t take me no time to put two and two together.
+Oh, I’m fly, I am! I knowed—_knew_—the postmark meant something about
+that candy kitchen, ’cause Mary Willing and Kit used to be school pals,
+and I guessed you was a-lookin’ for more help, and I don’t often guess
+wrong, neither. I sent a telegraph to Kit to come on home this mornin’
+to see you, but I weren’t goin’ to take any chances, so I come right up
+to clench the job for her.”
+
+“Then I assume that you are Miss Sniffins’ brother. May I ask why you
+felt so sure that the letter sent to your care was from me, or had
+anything to do with my need of more help in this business?”
+
+The smile and wink which prefaced his reply nearly proved the last
+straw. Quietly reaching below the counter, Constance pressed an electric
+button. She had been wise beyond her years when she had this connection
+made between her Arch and Charles’ counter. Sniffins did not notice the
+motion.
+
+“Well, you see, I’m boss in my own house and run the wimmin-folks. When
+I suspicioned what the letter was, I just took French leave, so to
+speak, and opened and read it——”
+
+“What!” The indignation in Constance’s tone was a trifle disconcerting
+even to the thick-skinned Sniffins, and he had the grace to color
+slightly. But it was only momentary. He rarely forgot Sniffins.
+
+“Oh, that’s all O. K. All in the family, you see. Kit won’t dare kick;
+she ain’t the kickin’ kind—not with _me_, anyhow. She knows too well
+which side her bread’s buttered to kick. _I’m_ the head of things down
+yonder in our house, and as long as I can earn the pile and put up the
+cash for ’em Ma and Kit can toe the mark. But I don’t see no reason why
+they shouldn’t add some to the pile. We ain’t, so-to-speak, _rich_ yet,
+but we ain’t _poor_; oh, no-siree, we ain’t poor. That savings bank next
+door knows we ain’t poor no more, and it knows we’re goin’ to be——”
+
+“Yes, Charles, I need you,” interrupted Constance, for unobserved by her
+visitor old Charles had drawn near, and now stood just behind Sniffins,
+and had heard a good portion of his senseless boasting.
+
+“Yas, Mist’ess, I’s right hyer fer ter sarve yo’.”
+
+Sniffins turned quickly.
+
+“Hello, old stager, where did you come from?”
+
+Charles paid no more attention to him than he would have paid to a stray
+dog—not as much.
+
+“Will you please remain at the counter a few moments, Charles. When your
+sister returns she may call here to see me, Mr. Sniffins. Good-morning.”
+And without another glance at the man Constance walked quickly away from
+the counter, and down to the ’phone booth, where she called a number.
+Sniffins’ eyes followed her. When she disappeared he turned to Charles
+and, with an unpleasant sneer, remarked: “Workin’ for her livin’ an’
+tryin’ ter play the big-bug, too, ain’t she?”
+
+“Does yo’ wish fer ter purchase some of dis hyer candy, sah?” asked
+Charles, icily.
+
+“No, I don’t, an’ if I did I ain’t takin’ it from niggers.”
+
+“No, sah, I don’ reckon yo’ is, kase—Mor’in’, Massa Po’tah, I’se right
+glad fer ter see a _gemmen_, sah. Dey’s mighty skurse sometimes. How kin
+I sarve yo’, sah?”
+
+“Morning, Charles. Where is my little girl this morning? Gone to the
+telephone booth? Be back pretty quick, won’t she? I want to speak to her
+a moment.”
+
+“She’ll return, sah, when de air’s better fer her ter breve; it got sort
+o’ foul-like, an’ if you’se no objections I’se gwine raise de winder
+jist a trifle.”
+
+“Do, by all means. Must keep the air pure and sweet for that little
+lady.”
+
+“Yas, sir: Yas, sir: Dat’s percis’ly what I’s amin’ ter do. _Dat’s_ why
+I’se always on han’.”
+
+“Good! We’ll watch out for her, won’t we? Hello, Sniffins. How about
+that big deal you were going to put through for me? I haven’t heard much
+about it lately.”
+
+“Oh, you’ll hear from that all right, all right. Trouble is you expect a
+man to do in two weeks somethin’ most men needs two months to do.”
+
+“Well if _you_ take two months to settle that matter for me, the other
+fellow, _who can_ do it in two weeks, will win out, you mark my word. So
+you’d better not take time to buy candy at ten A. M. on Monday
+mornings,” for in some way Mr. Porter had gathered from Charles the true
+situation, and had given this broad hint. Sniffins was not given to
+taking hints, but he dared not go counter to Mr. Porter’s implied wish
+that he leave the Candy Arch. Still, he was bound to have his last shot,
+and, with what he intended to be a telling glance, he said:
+
+“You tell Miss Carruth that my sister will take that position, and I’ll
+call ’round later to arrange about her salary.”
+
+“It will not be necessary for you to do so, Mr. Sniffins; I have just
+’phoned to someone else.” Constance had returned so quietly that no one
+was aware of her approach.
+
+“How do you do, Mr. Porter? I am glad to see you. What can I do for you?
+Come into my sanctum.”
+
+She led the way to the rear of the Arch, where a little inclosure held
+her desk and two chairs. Sniffins turned to leave the Arch. At the
+entrance he came face to face with Hadyn Stuyvesant. The look which
+accompanied the nod Sniffins gave him was not pleasant. Hadyn did not
+know him at all, and looked at him in surprise, believing him to have
+mistaken him for someone else. But Sniffins knew Hadyn.
+
+“So _he’s_ on there, too, is he? Guess he can see through a millstone
+most as far as other folks can. If that girl keeps on she’s goin’ to be
+rich, _rich_. That business has growed—ah, grown—like a—a—well, it’s
+_grown_. ’For’ long she’s goin’ to have a big thing in it. Wake up,
+Sniffins, my boy. You’re got as good a chance as any other fellow, an’
+you’re no sloach on looks, neither. Get busy and spruce up more’n ever.
+Buy some new clothes, old man; you’ll find ’em a good investment, I tell
+you. Get Kit down there _somehow_; that’s your best wedge for gettin’
+into the swell set up yonder. Kit’s half-way good-lookin’, and ain’t got
+the spunk of a mouse to do any way except the way _I_ tell her.”
+
+By the time this monologue came to an end Sniffins had turned into his
+office on State Street, and there found his sister awaiting him. She had
+returned to South Riveredge nearly frightened to death by his telegram.
+
+“Ah, cut it out! What’s the use whooping things up for nothing?” was his
+short ordering. “Nobody’s dead nor dyin’, but I want you to get down to
+the Arcade and _get this job_, see? Don’t come back here whinin’ that
+you _can’t_. You’re _got_ to get it, or you can dust out o’ South
+Riveredge an’ your happy home. Now listen to what I’m tellin’ you: Don’t
+you let on _who_ you _are_. If you do the jig’s up, for that high and
+mighty sprig down there ain’t got no sort o’ use for _me_. But I’ll
+_tame_ her. I ain’t seen the girl yet I couldn’t tame. But I want you
+there ’cause I want to keep track of the revenue, do you see? and if
+your head’s worth half a muttonhead you can’t _help_ gettin’ a good idea
+of what that business is worth, and that’s what I mean to know. She
+don’t know you from a hole in the ground, and you ain’t goin’ to let
+her——”
+
+“But she will know my name, Lige.”
+
+“How will she know your name if you don’t _tell_ her your name? You’ve
+got a middle name, ain’t you? Well, what’s the matter with that?
+Katherine Boggs is all right, ain’t it? You haven’t _got_ to tack on the
+Sniffins.”
+
+“Oh, I’d forget, and people would know me, and I’d be scared to death to
+do it, Lige.”
+
+“Now see here: You’ll be scared to death if you _don’t_ do it, let me
+tell you, for I’ll scare you myself. Now get down there and do the job
+right up to the mark.”
+
+About half an hour later a sweet-faced, timid girl presented herself at
+Constance’s Arch. She seemed unduly agitated, and her hands trembled as
+she rested them on the counter, to ask if Miss Carruth was to be seen.
+
+“I think she can be,” answered Constance, smiling encouragingly at the
+perturbed little figure before her, for Constance was too much her
+mother’s child not to feel the deepest sympathy for such a girl.
+
+“Is she in?” ventured her visitor.
+
+“I am Miss Carruth. What can I do for you?”
+
+“Oh! Why, you want a girl, a clerk?”
+
+“I do. Come into my little office; no one will interrupt us there. Sit
+down; you seem tired. Now tell me all about it. I’ve had such a pile of
+letters that I hardly know which to answer. By the way, I have just
+’phoned to one who gave me her number but not her name. I asked her to
+call at once. I wonder if you can be No. 795?” Constance paused with a
+most encouraging smile upon her lips and light in her eyes.
+
+“Yes—oh—no; I mean——”
+
+“Why are you so nervous? It will not be a very difficult undertaking,
+I’m sure, just to sit here and sell boxes of candy, and I’m not _half_
+as formidable a young woman as you must have pictured me. The hours are
+not so very long, and there will be a good many spare moments. The
+salary is seven dollars a week. Do you care to consider it, Miss——?”
+
+“S—Boggs, I mean Miss Boggs. Yes, I’ll take it, I want it very much,
+I’ll try to please you——”
+
+Constance looked at the girl. What ailed her? Why this feverish
+eagerness to secure the position, and why a degree of nervousness which
+almost amounted to a panic?
+
+“Will you please give me your address? And”—Constance hesitated. She was
+upon the point of asking for references, but sympathy for the girl
+withheld her from doing so.
+
+The girl gave an address in a distant part of the town, and rose to go.
+Constance’s look held her. There was nothing alarming in the quiet gaze
+of those deep brown eyes; on the contrary, it was soothing, if
+compelling.
+
+“Do you mind telling me why you are so agitated? I can see no cause for
+it, yet there may be one which I do not guess, and if I can help remove
+it I shall be glad to do so. It troubles me to see you disturbed.
+Perhaps a good deal depends upon your securing a situation at once, and
+if that is the cause of your trouble we have removed it, haven’t we? for
+you are already engaged.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know I’m very foolish; I do want the situation; I’ve _got_
+to take it; I’ll do my very, very best; I truly will. Please excuse me.
+When must I come?”
+
+“Can you come this afternoon? I am very anxious to get back to my duties
+in my candy kitchen, and if you can arrange to come here after luncheon,
+I shall have time to show you the little things you would like to learn,
+and to-morrow morning you can get along without me.”
+
+“Yes, I’ll come. I’ll be here at two o’clock, and I’ll try so hard to
+please you, Miss Carruth.” For a moment a smile lighted up the girl’s
+face and quite transformed it.
+
+She was a plain, colorless little thing, but something in her smile made
+her very attractive.
+
+“I shall be here. Good-bye for a couple of hours.”
+
+The girl hurried away.
+
+“Well, if she isn’t one of the oddest little creatures I’ve ever come
+across. I am sure I don’t know what impelled me to engage her, for I
+dare say I could have found a dozen others much better qualified to
+attend to things here, but—somehow—well, I dare say, there’s a lot of
+mother in me, and when our sympathies are aroused we sometimes do queer
+things.”
+
+Constance was not conscious of having spoken aloud, as she moved about
+the Arch arranging and giving a touch here and there, until a laughing
+voice asked:
+
+“What is this I’m listening to? A budding elocutionist practicing her
+monologue?”
+
+“Does sound a little like it, doesn’t it? but it’s nothing half so
+brilliant. In fact, you might suspect me of bordering on mental
+aberration instead if I told you, so I reckon I won’t. But I am starved
+even if you are not. Let us go see what Blairsdale _and_ Devon have to
+offer to-day.”
+
+A moment later Constance and Hadyn Stuyvesant were seated in the little
+screened-off corner back of Charles’ counter, his duties transferred to
+his satellite, as he laid before his young mistress, and the one whom in
+his faithful old heart he had long cherished a wish to call his “Young
+Massa,” the dainties especially prepared for them by Mammy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AT MERRY YULETIDE.
+
+
+“Hurry, Eleanor. We are all waiting for you,” called Constance from the
+terrace, where a group of young people stood waiting for the tardy one.
+
+It was the day following Christmas, and such a day as long dwells in
+one’s memory of perfect winter days; scarcely a cloud in the sky, and
+the air filled with a crispness which set one’s blood a-tingle. The
+world wore her white robes of the season, bedecked with a thousand
+sparkling jewels. The river was frozen nearly across, and on its
+glistening surface groups of skaters darted about, or pushed ice-chairs,
+in which were seated older or less vigorous bodies for whom skating was
+not.
+
+Early in December, when the weather had turned unusually cold for the
+season, the river had commenced to freeze over. It had been thirty years
+since such heavy ice had formed, and those who recalled that time
+predicted that the present cold snap would hold as that one had held,
+and the New Year find, as it had then found, the sleighs crossing to the
+opposite shore.
+
+Eleanor Carruth had returned from college three days before Christmas,
+to find everyone in the liveliest, gayest mood, and each moment crowded
+to its very limit with duties or pleasures. Christmas in Mrs. Carruth’s
+home had always been a day of “good will toward man” in its truest,
+sweetest sense. No one had time to think of self in her desire to think
+of others. For more than sixty years Mammy’s voice had been the first
+one to cry “Christmas gif’” to her children, as she went from bed to bed
+in the chill Christmas dawn. Try as they might in bygone years, none of
+the other servants on the old plantation had been able to creep up to
+the bedchambers before her, and now in the newer life of the Northern
+world, to which she had followed those she loved, she had never missed
+her greeting. In the dark, difficult days when resources were limited
+and every penny had to be so carefully expended, the Christmas gifts had
+been very simple little remembrances interchanged, but old Mammy had
+invariably managed to have _some_ trifle for her “chillen,” and they
+would sooner have gone without their own than have failed to have their
+token of the season lying at her door on Christmas morning.
+
+But happier days had now dawned for all, and the Christmas day just
+passed had been a red-letter one for the family. True, Eleanor’s
+resources were not yet equal to Constance’s. Eleanor’s spending money
+was derived from the source which, prior to her entrance in college, had
+caused Mammy such deep concern. Eleanor still coached a number of the
+less brilliant lights of the college. In this way she felt more
+independent of her aunt and less dependent upon Constance.
+
+Constance protested and scolded, declaring that it was perfect nonsense
+for Eleanor to so burden herself, since the candy kitchen was more than
+equal to the demands made upon it. But Eleanor was a Carruth.
+
+As the party stood waiting for her, Jean, keeping fast hold of Haydn’s
+hand and jigging up and down in her impatience to be off, Forbes talking
+to one of Eleanor’s friends, and the others all chatting at once,
+Eleanor came hurrying from the house, carrying in her hand a pair of
+shining skates, and carefully tucked under her arm a _broom_.
+
+Haydn was the first to spy it. His eyes began to twinkle, and he quickly
+slipped over to Constance’s side.
+
+“Is this a very mid-winter madness?” he asked under his breath.
+
+Constance glanced up quickly. Her eyes instantly caught the twinkle, and
+darted toward Forbes, who was too deeply engaged in trying to prove to
+his rather skeptical listener that the soft little wraith-like clouds
+beginning to gather overhead meant wind, and perhaps more snow also,
+within twenty-four hours, to be aware of Eleanor’s unusual departure in
+the line of impedimenta. Neither Constance nor Hadyn intended to spoil
+the joke by jogging their wits, and the others who were alive to the fun
+preferred to see it to the end.
+
+Eleanor hurried up to Forbes and said, as though to confirm his
+argument:
+
+“Yes, it _is_ clouding over, isn’t it? Mammy says it is going to snow
+and urged me to carry this umbrella. I can always trust Mammy’s ‘bones,’
+she ended as she held forth the broom to the bewildered man, who looked
+from her face to it as though questioning her sanity.”
+
+Then Eleanor wakened.
+
+“Oh, why—I thought—why, how did I get this?”
+
+“Let me relieve you of your strange burden, Eleanor. Still want an
+umbrella? I’ll fetch one if you say so, but you may find the broom more
+useful, on second thought. Let’s take it along to clear away the light
+snow which fell last night. Come on, people! If we expect to get up an
+appetite for Mammy’s luncheon at two o’clock, we’d best make a move
+toward the river,” cried Hadyn, leading the way with the broom
+shouldered like a musket, and Jean in full prance beside him.
+
+It was a merry party which gathered upon the crystal surface of the
+river that morning. For many days Jack Frost had been busy, and had done
+his wonderful work most effectively, completing it during the previous
+night by a light coating of diamond-dust, which glistened and sparkled
+in the clear sunshine, or swirled up in fantastic spirals as the skaters
+whirled away through it. The boathouse at the river’s edge served as a
+shelter for the chilled ones, and, far-sighted woman! Mammy had sent
+Charles down there with a great basket of sandwiches, and a heaterful of
+steaming chocolate. Somehow nature had made a big mistake when she
+fashioned Mammy: she should have formed a man, a _white_ man, and cast
+his lot among the great commerical lights of his day.
+
+The chocolate heater had to be replenished more than once, and the
+manner in which the sandwiches vanished was almost miraculous.
+
+Eleanor, Constance and Jean were as much at home upon their skates as
+upon the soles of their feet, and Hadyn had skated ever since he could
+move without assistance; but Forbes had acquired the art during a winter
+spent in Northern Europe, and at a date not so remote as to have
+lessened the novelty of the experience. He had brought with him from
+Holland a pair of skates of truly remarkable design, and it was upon
+these “ice boats,” as Hadyn instantly dubbed them, that he was now
+demonstrating the extraordinary agility of the Dutch skaters.
+
+“Stand off! Make way!” cried Hadyn, as Forbes, one arm about Eleanor’s
+waist and the other holding her hand aloft in what he fondly believed to
+be a perfect imitation of the Dutch peasants’ graceful poise and motion,
+bore down upon the party, his long, upturned skates and still longer
+legs causing Eleanor to cast skittish glances in their direction as she
+swung along beside him.
+
+“Great! How do you do it, old man?” asked Hadyn as Eleanor was almost
+hurled into his arms, Forbes’ momentum carrying him on and past them
+like a runaway motor-car.
+
+“Simplest thing in the world! Be back in a second to show you how.
+Nothing like it! Absolutely—” but he was carried beyond his hearers,
+whose eyes followed his wild evolutions with more or less apprehension
+for “what next?” since it seemed contrary to all laws of gravitation for
+any human being to maintain his equilibrium very long if he took such
+chances.
+
+“He has turned! He’s coming back! Now watch out, Hadyn, and learn how
+it’s done,” laughed Constance, as this skated “Ichabod Crane” bore down
+upon them, hair blown on end, arms flying, legs cutting capers legs
+never before had cut, and upon his face the expression of “do or die,
+man, for _she_ is watching you.”
+
+“Gee, what a swathe he cuts!” cried another man, as the light snow lying
+upon the ice flew from beneath the rushing skates.
+
+“Now watch out! Clear the track! Look sharp, and you’ll all catch the
+knack of it without half trying. Nothing easier,” shouted the skater as
+he drew nearer, pride in his eyes, glory descending upon him. But alack!
+it’s said ’a haughty spirit goeth before a fall.’ There _may_ have been
+an ice fissure. Forbes insisted there _was_ one in which he caught his
+skate; but there certainly _was_ the fall both actual and figurative. As
+the enthusiast came within ten feet of his spellbound audience, a pair
+of very long legs came up, and a very loosely-hung body came down with
+dispatch. The legs flew apart until the figure resembled an ice-boat
+under full headway, nor did its momentum perceptibly lessen as it sped
+past its audience, the light snow piling up in front of it and flying
+over its shoulders as it flies back from a snow-plow. For fully thirty
+feet the wild figure slid along before it lost its impetus. Then it came
+to a dazed stop. Only one of the audience was prepared to go to its aid;
+the others were entirely helpless, and were hanging upon each other’s
+necks—let us hope in tears of sympathy.
+
+“Can—can I help you?” stammered Hadyn, as he bent over to raise the
+prone one. “You—you rather came a cropper that time, and—and—”
+
+“Get behind me, for heaven’s sake. Do you think a man can slither along
+on the ice for thirty feet and—and not damage his garments? Quick,
+before all those people get wise. Is your long cape in the boathouse?
+Yes? Thanks, I’ll take it, and I don’t care a hang if _you freeze_;” and
+scrambling to his feet Forbes sped for the boathouse, and the world saw
+him not again that day.
+
+Scarcely had Forbes left the party on the pond when a new member was
+added to it, or, at least, arrived upon the scene with a very firmly
+fixed intention of being added to it if he could contrive to be.
+
+He was arrayed, from his standpoint of a proper toilet for the occasion,
+in a costume altogether irresistible, and which it had cost him no
+little time and outlay to procure.
+
+Heavy tan shoes, a plaided Scotch tweed suit, a sweater of gorgeous red,
+and a sealskin cap.
+
+With many a curve and flourish, for the man _could_ skate, he came up to
+the group, and with a most impressive bow to Constance, raised the fur
+cap, and, standing uncovered, said:
+
+“Good-morning, Miss Carruth. Fine sport, ain’t it? May I compliment you
+on your skating? You ain’t got a rival on the ice, nor off it, neither.”
+
+For a moment Constance was at a loss to place the man, then she recalled
+his visit to her Candy Arch about three weeks before. It was Elijah
+Sniffins.
+
+The very audacity of this move deprived her of speech for a moment, and
+the others with her were too amazed to come to her rescue. Indeed, they
+did not know the man at all, and, consequently, did not realize the
+extent of his presumption.
+
+Then Constance came to herself. Looking straight into the man’s eyes,
+her own ominous with indignation, and her cheeks flushing with
+resentment, she replied:
+
+“Haven’t you made a slight mistake, Mr. Sniffins? I believe the business
+matter upon which you called at the Arcade was settled then and there,
+for I had already made other arrangements. I hardly think there is
+anything more to be discussed.”
+
+“Oh, that’s all in the sweet bygones. You needn’t think I’ve got to talk
+business every time we meet any mor’n you have; I just give myself a
+holiday once in so often just like you do, and this is one of ’em. Great
+day for a holiday. But, by the way, did you get a nice girl for your
+counter?—one that’s goin’ to have some snap to her and do a rushin’
+business with all the young folks anxious to get rid of their money?”
+
+“She is quite satisfactory, thank you, and good-morning, Mr. Sniffins.”
+
+“Oh, I say, won’t you give me just one turn? Never see anyone could
+skate like you—”
+
+“Hadyn, isn’t it about time we went home? Just one more spin, please,”
+and turning toward Hadyn Stuyvesant Constance held out both hands toward
+him. He had turned to speak to another member of the party, and until
+that moment had not been aware of Sniffins’ intrusion. At sight of
+Constance’s face his own changed, and he gave a quick glance at the man,
+who seemed undecided as to whether it would be wiser to accept his
+dismissal or persist in his unwelcome attentions. It may have been
+something in Hadyn’s glance which deterred him, for with another
+impressive bow he skated rapidly away, muttering:
+
+“Little snob! Thinks she’s out of sight; but she ain’t any better’n
+others who are makin’ their pile, and I’ll learn her yet.”
+
+“Who is he? What is the matter, little girl?” asked Hadyn, as he and
+Constance swung away over the ice.
+
+“Why, it’s that odious man. I don’t know what to make of him. This is
+the second time he has forced himself upon me, and why he does so is
+more than I can fathom. He is the Fire Insurance Agent down in State
+Street; and the only time we have ever had any intercourse whatsoever
+with him was when the house burned. But _I_ did not see him even then.
+Mother or Mammy were the only ones who had any dealings with him at that
+time, though once later, when the Candy Booth in the Arcade caught fire,
+he did speak to me, now I remember, though I had quite forgotten it.
+What in this world can the man want? I declare he half frightens me, he
+is so audacious.”
+
+She then told Hadyn of Sniffins’ visit to the Arcade. He listened
+attentively, seeing far more in it than the girl beside him guessed, but
+taking care not to let her know.
+
+“And you did not engage his sister, after all?” he inquired.
+
+“No; I have a Katherine Boggs doing duty there. She’s a quiet, nice
+little thing, and not likely to do the ’rushin’ business with all the
+young fools,’ which this idiot seems to think a requisite qualification.
+Ugh! How I loathe the very sight of that man! It’s mighty lucky I did
+not engage his sister, isn’t it? He would have used her as a wedge to
+force his presence upon me, though why on earth he wishes to is more
+than I can understand.”
+
+The face she turned up to Hadyn’s was the very personification of
+sweetness and modesty.
+
+He looked at her, a slight color creeping into his own and a light
+filling his eyes, which for the first time since she had known him sent
+an odd little thrill to the girl’s heart, which caused it to beat a
+trifle quicker, and her eyes to fall before his. It was all over in a
+moment, and all he said was:
+
+“Keep your modesty, little girl. It is a valuable asset to womanhood.
+And now we must get back home, or the little Mother and Mammy will get
+after us.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+“THEN CAME THE WILD WEATHER.”
+
+
+January and February, blustery, wild months, crept slowly away, and
+March, still more blustery, came in. The cold and dampness told upon
+poor old Charles, and more than one day found him a fast prisoner in the
+“baid,” which, in spite of Mammy’s conviction “dat it fair hit de sore
+spots,” frequently failed to find Charles’, and only served to smother
+his groans. Then one day, when, in spite of his spouse’s protests, he
+insisted upon going to the Arcade in a driving snowstorm, the climax was
+reached, and when Charles reached his little cabin at nightfall he was
+“cl’ar beat out an’ ready fer ter drap,” as Mammy told Mrs. Carruth. The
+next day he was downright ill, and a physician had to be summoned.
+
+“Seem lak, seem lak de very ol’ boy hisself done got inter dat man,”
+scolded Mammy, her wrath the outcome of nervous irritation, for Charles
+was the pride and the love of her life. “No matter how I is ter argify
+wid him, he just natcherly boun’ ter go ’long ter dat Arcyde yistiddy,
+an’ now see what done come of it! Gawd bress ma soul, I reckons I’d
+smack him good ef he warn’t lyin’ dar groanin’ so wid his misery dat he
+lak ’nough wouldn’t feel de smacks I give him. Tch! tch!” and Mammy
+shook her head ominously.
+
+“Poor Charles! I’ll go right out to the cabin, Mammy, and sit with him
+while you look after your cooking; it’s too bad, too bad; but I think he
+will soon be about again.”
+
+“Yes, an’ ef yo’ goes out in dis hyar blizzardy weather I’ll have two
+sick folks on my han’s ’stid o’ one. Now, see here, Miss Jinny, yo’ min’
+me an’ stay indoors! Yo’ hear me?”
+
+“Nonsense, Mammy. Do you think I shall take cold by walking from here to
+your cabin? How foolish,” protested Mrs. Carruth. “Your luncheon counter
+cannot be neglected, and with but one pair of hands how can you do your
+cooking and nurse Charles, too?”
+
+As she spoke Mrs. Carruth tied a scarf over her head and wrapped a long,
+heavy cloak about her, Mammy never for a second ceasing to protest.
+
+“Now come, Mammy,” she said, leading the way to the back door, Mammy
+following and scolding every step of the way. As they opened the door
+leading to the back porch they were assailed by a gust of wind and a
+whirl of snow which blinded them, and at the same time nearly carried
+them off their feet.
+
+“Mighty man! Go ’long back, Miss Jinny’ Go back! Dis hyar ain’t no
+fittin’ place fer yo’, I tells yo’,” gasped Mammy, turning to bar Mrs.
+Carruth’s progress, for even Mammy’s weight was as a straw against the
+gale which swept around the corner of the porch. But slight as she was,
+Mrs. Carruth was not to be overborne. For a moment she laid hold of the
+porch railing to steady herself, then with a firm hold upon her flapping
+cloak braced herself against the wind, and started for the cottage.
+Mammy was for once silenced, simply because the words were swept from
+her lips as soon as she tried to form them.
+
+Earlier in the morning an attempt had been made to clear a path to the
+cottage; but in such a wild, howling blizzard a half hour was more than
+enough to set man’s work at naught, and Mrs. Carruth and Mammy had to
+flounder through the snowdrifts as best they could, and were breathless
+when they reached the bottom of the garden.
+
+“Fo’ Gawd’s sake, come unner de lee ob de house ’fore yo’ is blown daid
+unner ma eyes, honey,” panted Mammy. “Oh, why for is we ever come ter
+sech a place fer ter live! We all gwine be froz daid ’fore we kin draw
+our brefs. Come in de house, Miss Jinny, come in,” and, half dragging,
+half carrying her mistress, Mammy led her into the cabin where the
+little darkey, Mammy’s handmaiden, stood with her eyes nearly popping
+out of her head with fright, for she had been watching them from the
+safe shelter of the kitchen.
+
+Mrs. Carruth dropped upon a chair well-nigh exhausted, for even though
+the cabin was barely two hundred feet from the house, it had required
+all the strength she could summon to battle her way to it in the force
+and smother of the blizzard.
+
+“Why—why, I’d no idea it was so terrible,” she panted. “I’ve never known
+such a storm.”
+
+“Ain’t I tell yo’ so? Ain’t I tell yo’ not ter come out in it? An’ how I
+is ter git yo’ back ter de house is mo’n I kin tell,” deplored Mammy, as
+she hastily divested herself of her own wrappings and then turned to
+remove her mistress’.
+
+“Yo’ foots is soppin’, soakin’ wet. Yo’ mought as well not ’a’ had no
+rubbers on ’em, fer yo’ is wet ter de knees. Hyer, you no ’count
+Mirandy, get me some hot water, an’ den hike upstairs fo’ de bottle ob
+alcohol, yo’ hyer me!” stormed Mammy, relieved to find someone to vent
+her irritation upon. “An’ yo’ ain’t gwine back ter dat house whilst dis
+storm is ragin’, let me tell yo’.”
+
+“I am all right, Mammy; this is mere folly. I shall be as dry as a bone
+in just a few minutes,” protested Mrs. Carruth.
+
+“Yis! Yis! An’ lak enough chilled to de bone, too. Now, yo’ min’ what I
+tells you,” and, in spite of their protests, Mrs. Carruth was presently
+rubbed and warmed into dry garments and comfort. It was well Constance’s
+Candy Kitchen communicated with Mammy’s quarters, and that a supply of
+clothing was always kept in it. It was deserted this morning, for Mary
+and Fanny had gone home on the previous, Saturday afternoon, and the
+storm had made it impossible for them to return. A large supply of candy
+had been sent to the Arcade on Saturday morning; so even if customers
+were courageous enough to face the blizzard in quest of sweets there
+would be no lack of of sweets to please the sweet tooth, and Constance
+was glad of the respite the storm gave her, for, like many another busy
+little business woman, she found many things to attend to in the house
+when she could steal the time from her regular duties.
+
+This morning she was busy with a dozen little odd bits of work, while
+Jean, school impossible in such weather, was lost to all the outer world
+in a new book.
+
+When Mrs. Carruth was made comfortable she went upstairs to Charles. She
+found him in a sorry plight, and saw at once that poor old Charles was
+in a more serious condition than Mammy realized, troubled as she was
+about him; but this was carefully concealed from the old woman.
+
+“We have both to take our scolding now,” she said as she seated herself
+near him. “Mammy will never forgive either of us for disobeying her,
+Charles. But what can I do for you?”
+
+Charles was too stiff and full of pain to move, but he tried to smile
+bravely as he answered:
+
+“Reckons we’d better a-minded her, Honey. Reckons we had. She’s a mighty
+pert ’oman, she is, an’ when she say do, we better _do_, an’ when she
+say don’t, we better _don’t_, dat’s suah. An’ jes’ look at me! Hyar I
+layin’ lak I tied han’ an’ foot, an’ de bis’ness down yonder gwine ter
+rack an’ ruin, lak ’nough, wid dat no ’count boy a-runnin’ it. And
+Charles groaned in tribulation of spirit.
+
+“Wait a moment; I’ll see that all goes well down there,” answered Mrs.
+Carruth, soothingly, and slipping away from the room she went into the
+deserted Bee-hive to ’phone to the Arcade. After considerable delay she
+got Mr. Porter and told him the situation. He was all interest, and
+begged her to tell Charles that if necessary he himself would mount
+guard over the luncheon counter. She next called Hadyn, and asked him to
+let her know how all went at the candy booth. He assured her that all
+was well, but that business did not seem to be flourishing.
+
+“Will you please tell Miss Boggs to close it for the day and to go home
+at once, Hadyn? The storm grows worse every moment, I believe, and if
+she remains there any longer she may not be able to get home.”
+
+“I’ll tell her, and I’ll see that she gets home, too. Don’t worry,
+little mother. I’ll be down a little later to see how you all fare.”
+
+“Oh, no! No! Don’t try to come. We are all right, and you must not try
+to drive here in this awful storm. Promise me that you won’t, Hadyn.”
+
+“Can’t make rash promises, and Comet has breasted even worse storms than
+this,” was the laughing answer. “Who is looking after your furnace, now
+that Charles is down and out?”
+
+“Mr. Henry’s man. He was here this morning, and will be back this
+evening. We lack nothing, and we don’t want you under _any_
+circumstances. Please, say you won’t try to come.”
+
+“Not unless——” Then there was a whirr and one or two disconnected words
+and the connection broke short off. No wires could long withstand the
+weight of ice and snow and the force of wind wrenching at them. Mrs.
+Carruth tried again and again to get the connection, but all to no
+purpose, and with a strange apprehension in her heart she returned to
+Charles’ bedside to reassure him regarding his luncheon counter.
+
+At noon the doctor called to see Charles, and during Mammy’s absence
+from the room Mrs. Carruth contrived to have a word with him.
+
+“He’s a pretty old man, and took big chances yesterday. If it were only
+the rheumatism I had to contend with, I should not feel the least
+concern for him. That is painful, I know, but not dangerous, as it has
+settled in his limbs; but I don’t like this temperature and breathing.
+Yet I dare say, if I use a stethoscope, he will think he is a dead man
+already. These colored people are difficult patients to handle, what
+with their ignorance and their emotional temperaments they are far worse
+than children, for we can compel children to do as we think best.”
+
+Mrs. Carruth smiled. “You do not know the ante-bellum negro,” she said.
+
+“Maybe I do not, but I know the post-bellum, I can tell you, and I’ve
+very little use for them.”
+
+“Do you wish to examine Charles?” she asked, quietly.
+
+“If he had been a white man, I should have done so last night when I was
+first called to attend him; but I came near being mobbed the last time I
+tried to use a stethoscope on a negro patient. The family thought I was
+about to remove the woman’s lungs, I believe.”
+
+“Charles, I wish Dr. Black to examine you very thoroughly while he is
+here—as thoroughly as if he were treating me. There is nothing to alarm
+you; but we cannot treat you understandingly unless he learns exactly
+where the greatest difficulty lies.”
+
+“Wha’ he gwine do to me?” asked Charles, his eyes opening wide.
+
+“Examine your lungs and heart to see if they are sound and strong.”
+
+“He gwine cut me wide open?” cried the old man.
+
+Just then Mammy entered. It was well she did. “Luty, Luty, dat man gwine
+projec’ wid me, honey; don’ you let him.”
+
+For a moment Mammy seemed ready to take the defensive, and Dr. Black
+shrugged his shoulders in a manner which indicated: “I told you so.”
+Perhaps it was the shrug—Mammy wasn’t slow to grasp a situation—but more
+likely it was the look in her Miss Jinny’s eyes, for, turning to the
+doctor, she said, with the air of an African queen:
+
+“Yo’ is de perfessional ’tendant, an’ I wishes yo’ fer ter do what yo’
+an’ ma Miss Jinny knows fer ter be right wid de patient.”
+
+When Dr. Black left a few moments later, he said to Mrs. Carruth, who
+had followed him downstairs, while Mammy remained behind to alternately
+berate and calm Charles:
+
+“If we can keep the fever down, the old fellow may escape with nothing
+worse than his rheumatic twinges—hard to bear, but not alarming; but I
+don’t like the other symptoms. He was too old to take such chances. Can
+you let me hear from him about eight this evening?”
+
+“Every hour if necessary. He is like one of our own family to us, and
+nothing we can do for him or Mammy can ever repay their devotion to us.
+Would it not be better for you to call again?”
+
+“I’d gladly do so, but I am likely to be summoned to a patient in
+Glendale at any moment, and with this storm——” And the doctor waved his
+hand toward the turmoil beyond the windows.
+
+“I know it. I will ’phone if——” Then Mrs. Carruth paused in dismay.
+“What if the wires were down?”
+
+“My wire was all right when I left home less than an hour since, and you
+may not need me, after all. I hope you will not.”
+
+“Amen to that hope,” said Mrs. Carruth, fervently, and, bidding the
+doctor good-bye, she returned to Charles.
+
+As the day dragged on the storm increased in violence. Mammy would not
+hear of Mrs. Carruth returning to the house, but prepared a dainty tray
+for her and ordered her into the Bee-hive to partake of her luncheon,
+and afterward to lie down. Perhaps she would not have been so ready to
+comply with the old woman’s wishes had she not resolved upon a course
+which she felt sure Mammy would combat with all her strength. This was
+to spend the night with Charles, whose condition did not improve. Toward
+evening Jean came battling out to the cottage, followed by Constance,
+greatly to Mammy’s consternation.
+
+“I ’clar’s ter goodness, yo’s all gone crazy!” she stormed as they came
+in from the Bee-hive. “Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, wha’ brung you chillun out
+hyer? Ain’ yo’ Ma an’ me got ’nough fer ter pester us wid dat sick man
+up dar widout any mo’ tribberlations ’scendin’ ’pon us? Go ’long back, I
+tells yo’; ’fo’ we’s driven cl’ar crazy.”
+
+“Hush, Mammy, dear,” said Constance. “I want mother to go back to the
+house and let me take her place with Charles. I am so strong that it
+won’t tire me, and you know I’m a good nurse, don’t you?”
+
+“And so am I, Mammy. You know I am,” broke in Jean. “Please, please let
+me stay.”
+
+For a moment Mammy looked as though she were about to take a wild flight
+into the wilder weather outside, and her wits along with her; then she
+stamped her foot and said:
+
+“Yo’ chillern come an’ talk wid yo’ ma.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IN THE VALLEY.
+
+
+“No, dear. I shall not wear myself out,” said Mrs. Carruth, gently,
+though firmly. “I want you to go back to the house to look after the
+maids and Jean——”
+
+“Oh, I don’t want to go back! Please, please let me sleep in the
+Bee-hive, mother. Please, please do,” begged Jean, clasping her arms
+about her mother’s waist. Constance interrupted:
+
+“Yes, mother, do. I will go back if you are determined not to, for I
+dare say the maids would be panic-stricken if left alone; but Jean might
+just as well remain here with you,” for into Constance’s active brain
+had sprung an idea which she wished to carry out, and she knew she could
+count upon Jean’s co-operation.
+
+“But you and the maids would be quite alone in the house,” demurred Mrs.
+Carruth.
+
+“And do you think Jean would be big and valiant enough to protect me
+from prowlers?” smiled Constance. “It would be a hard-pressed burglar
+who would venture forth this night, I’m thinking.”
+
+Just then a sound overhead caused Mrs. Carruth to raise her hand to
+enjoin silence, and Mammy was heard to say soothingly:
+
+“Dar, dar, honey, jis’ let me raise an’ ease yo’ up a leetle, so’s yo’
+hits de sof’est fedders in de baid,” and quickly upon the softer, more
+soothing tones followed: “Yit what in de name o’ man ever done teken yo’
+out of dis house yistiddy’s mo’n I can tell. Ef yo’d done taken heed ter
+ma’ wo’ds yo’ wouldn’ never come ter dis hyer pass.”
+
+Then followed a series of groans from the patient.
+
+“Mammy is getting worn out and consequently irritable,” said Mrs.
+Carruth. “Yes, you may remain, Jean, but Constance must go back, and I
+must go to Charles. If Mammy has much more to tax her strength and mind
+she will be ill, and she is in no mood to care for Charles now; she will
+do more harm than good. Good-night, darling. Don’t worry about me I will
+’phone over to the house if I need anything in the night.” And Mrs.
+Carruth hurried upstairs.
+
+“Come into the Bee-hive, Jean,” whispered Constance. The little girl
+followed.
+
+“Now, dear,” said Constance, earnestly, “you and I have got to take
+matters into our own hands. Can I trust you, Jean?” Constance dropped
+upon a chair, and placing both arms about the little sister looked
+straight into her eyes.
+
+The look was returned as steadfastly, and the fine little head poised in
+a manner which would have delighted an artist’s soul, as Jean asked:
+
+“Don’t you know you can, Connie?”
+
+“Yes, I do! And here is the situation: Before we came over here I tried
+to ’phone over to mother, but even our wire is out of order. I dare say
+every wire is, and that the trouble is in the central office, owing to
+this storm. I did not tell mother because it would only alarm her, and
+she may not have occasion to use the ’phone at all; I earnestly hope she
+will not until it is repaired. I shall go home, but I shall not go to
+bed. You stay here in the Bee-hive, but don’t undress, Jean; roll this
+warm rug around you and cuddle down on the couch. I know you will drop
+asleep, but I know you will not sleep so soundly that you will be lost
+to the world altogether. I shall be on the couch in the library and can
+see this window from there. If Charles grows worse, or you think mother
+is worn out and needs me, will you flash the electric light three times?
+I shall know what it means and come straight over.” Constance spoke very
+quietly, but very earnestly.
+
+“I’ll do it. I may go to sleep, but somehow I know I shall wake up if I
+am needed, Connie. Even if I am only fourteen years old I can be a
+little woman, as mother so often says I am.”
+
+“I know you can, dear, and you are, Jean; even if in many ways you are
+younger than most girls of your age. I don’t think any of us have grown
+up quite so fast as the girls around us. Mother says we have not, and
+she does not wish us to, because there are so many more years in which
+we must be old than in which we can be young; but I reckon we can rise
+to a situation when occasion demands, and, somehow, I feel that we will
+both be needed to-night. Dear old Charles, he is pretty sick, I know, or
+mother would not look so anxious, and _such_ a night as this is. Why,
+Jean, we could not get a message to Dr. Black however badly we might
+need him. We must depend entirely upon ourselves.”
+
+“I wonder Champion did not come over.”
+
+“He ’phoned mother this morning, but before she got all his message the
+connection broke, and, I dare say, the roads have been almost
+impassable.”
+
+“Impassable roads would never keep him from coming,” cried the
+“Champion’s” champion. “There must have been something worse than the
+roads. I don’t know what, but I know it was something,” insisted Jean.
+
+“Yes, I am sure there must have been, he is always so thoughtful for
+us,” replied Constance, a soft light springing into her eyes as she
+recalled Hadyn’s unvarying kindness from the first moment she knew him.
+“Now, good-night, honey. I hope you won’t need me at all, but I know you
+will be on the lookout if you do.”
+
+A moment later Constance was struggling back to the house through the
+blinding storm and snowdrifts. As she entered the back door the front
+one opened to admit a snow-covered, panting figure, and Hadyn confronted
+her.
+
+“Great Scott! Where have you come from?” he demanded.
+
+“I might ask the same question,” panted Constance, divesting herself of
+her cloak, and shaking it to free it from the snow which covered it.
+“Get out of your coat, quick, and give it to Lilly to hang in the
+kitchen until it is dry. What under the sun possessed you to try to come
+here to-night, you madman?”
+
+“Under the sun? Nay, lady, neither sun nor moon. I fear you are
+wandering. Is it a case of blizzard-madness?” answered Hadyn, as he
+slipped off his big ulster and cap and gave them to the maid.
+
+“Now, come along in here and tell me all the little mother couldn’t tell
+me. Where is she, and where is my little sister?”
+
+“Lilly, please bring some more logs for the library fire. Come in here,
+Hadyn, and I’ll tell you all about it. Mother and Jean are over With
+Charles and Mammy, and I’m here to mount guard over the house and maids,
+who, luckily, are storm-bound.”
+
+“But why on earth aren’t you all here? The little mother and Jean have
+no business to be anywhere else on such a villainous night. Let me go
+right over after them,” and Hadyn turned toward the door.
+
+“Stop! Wait! Listen to me!”
+
+“Oh, of course, Mademoiselle la General,” laughed Hadyn, as Constance
+laid a detaining hand upon his arm. “I’m listening.”
+
+“Then sit down to do it and hear the whole story. When you really know
+all about it you can help me; but you might as well whistle to the wind
+out yonder as to hope to get mother back here to-night. Yes, Lilly, put
+the logs in the basket, and you and Rose please stay in the kitchen
+until eleven. I will be out to speak to you when Mr. Stuyvesant goes.”
+
+“When he _does_,” said Hadyn, under his breath, then louder: “It must be
+rather satisfying to have such a flower-garden right indoors when it is
+whooping things up so outside,” and he nodded toward the maid just
+leaving the room. “If you could only have a ‘Violet’ and a ‘Pansy,’ and
+one or two other blossoms, you’d have a whole greenhouse.”
+
+Constance laughed outright as she answered:
+
+“We’ve had wood nymphs, and some of the months—May and June, for
+instance—and several jewels, to say nothing of a few royalties, so
+nothing will surprise us now; but Mammy seems equal to all of them put
+together. And apropos of Mammy, let me tell you all about her and
+Charles.”
+
+They sat down before the blazing logs while Constance told of the
+experiences of the past twenty-four hours. Hadyn listened with a
+troubled face.
+
+“I’d no idea it was so serious,” he said, when she finished, “but I am
+mighty glad I came over to-night. And now you are to heed what _I_ say:
+you may sit here with me until eleven if you will. I’ll be right glad of
+your company. _Then_ you are going upstairs to bed—_yes_, you are, too.
+Now, it is no use ‘argifyin’,’ to quote Mammy. I’ll stay here in the
+library snug, warm, and as comfortable as any man could wish to be. I
+shall see Jean’s light if she signals, and I’ll be good—yes, honest I
+will. You doubt it, I know, and you think I will sneak over yonder and
+be more bother than I am worth; but I give you my word I won’t. I’ll do
+exactly as you would do if you were here alone.”
+
+Constance raised her eyes to his, and little guessed how hard it was for
+the man who looked into their pure, trustful depths to refrain from
+holding out his arms to the girl who had grown so dear to him during the
+past three and a half years.
+
+“I’ll take you at your word,” she answered.
+
+“Good. Now sit down and toast your toes before this blaze. By Jove, is
+there anything like blazing logs and soft lamplight? They spell
+_h-o-m-e_, don’t they?” and Hadyn glanced around the cosy room as though
+to him, at least, it held the sweetest elements of home a man could ask
+for.
+
+Softly the little clock ticked the moments and hours away as they sat
+there together, talking over a hundred little happenings of the past
+years, now and then glancing over to the Bee-hive. But all was quiet. A
+dim light shone in Mammy’s bedroom, and in the Bee-hive Jean’s shaded
+electric light cast a faint halo upon the snow which continued to whirl
+by the window, although the wind had died down a little and the storm
+seemed less violent. Shortly after ten Constance went out to the kitchen
+to see that the storm-bound maids were comfortable. Cots had been placed
+in the laundry for them, and they were probably far better off than they
+would have been in their own home.
+
+“Now, are you sure _you_ will be comfortable?” she asked Hadyn when she
+returned to the library. He glanced about the room, at the cheerful fire
+and the divan, with its numberless pillows, and smiled significantly.
+“Only trouble is, I may be _too_ comfortable,” he said. “But you need
+not worry,” as a slight shade of doubt crossed Constance’s face. “I
+won’t go to the Land o’ Nod. But _you_ must, so good-night, little girl.
+Go on upstairs and sleep well. I know just what that room looks like; I
+shall never forget the night you gave it up to me. If I had known it a
+little sooner, I should not have let you do so, although the memory of
+it has been one of the sweetest ones of my life. Good-night.”
+
+“Good-night, Hadyn, and—thank you a thousand times.”
+
+If Haydn held the slender fingers an extra moment, and looked earnestly
+into the beautiful eyes raised to his, he was hardly to be blamed.
+
+Turning to the book shelves, he selected a book and went back to his
+chair before the fire. Eleven and twelve were struck by the clock on the
+mantle shelf, but all was quiet in the little cottage at the foot of the
+garden. Then came three single strokes in succession; twelve-thirty,
+one, one-thirty. Hadyn remembered no more. His wild struggle through the
+storm earlier in the evening, the silent house, the warmth, the
+luxurious depth of the Morris chair had all conspired against his
+resolutions, and three o’clock was striking when he started wide awake
+with a sense of calamity at hand and the deepest contrition in his
+heart—an hour and a half blotted out as though they had never been!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+OF THE SHADOW.
+
+
+As the night wore on, Mrs. Carruth and Mammy grew more and more anxious
+for their patient. The severe weather told upon him in spite of the even
+temperature of the cottage, and he suffered as a man upon the rack. With
+the intense pain came higher temperature, and by one o’clock Mrs.
+Carruth began to see that further medical advice was imperative;
+something more than they could do must be done for Charles, for he could
+not endure such torture for many more hours. Furthermore, his breathing
+had become very labored, and Mrs. Carruth feared the worst from that
+symptom. Without saying anything to Mammy she slipped noiselessly into
+the Bee-hive, meaning to ’phone to Dr. Black. In that little sanctum all
+was snug and quiet. Noiselessly removing the receiver, she tried to call
+up central. There was no response, and a shadow fell across her face.
+Then she tried her own home, but without result; the storm had
+completely disorganized the entire service. She was sorely troubled and
+about to slip back to Charles, when Jean’s face appeared at the top of
+the stairway, and she called softly:
+
+“Mother, is Charles worse?”
+
+“Why, dearie! What are you doing out of your bed at this hour?”
+
+“Don’t scold me, Mumsey, I haven’t been in it, only lying on the
+outside, ’cause I thought you might need me; do you?”
+
+“No, honey, certainly not. You must undress at once and get into bed.”
+
+“But, mother, _is_ Charles worse? If he isn’t please let me go and sit
+with Mammy while you come in here and go to bed; you have been up all
+night. If he isn’t worse you can be spared, and I’ll be all the help
+Mammy needs. If he is worse you need me, anyway. I’ve had a long rest,
+and been asleep, too, though I tried hard not to.”
+
+As she talked, Jean tiptoed down the stairs, and, coming close to her
+mother, slipped her arms about her waist and nestled her head against
+her shoulder. The past three months had made a great change in Jean. For
+a long time it seemed as though she never meant to grow another inch,
+for at thirteen she was no taller than a child of eleven, although plump
+and strong beyond the average child. Then she suddenly took a start and
+shot up, up, up, until now she was fully as tall as Constance, but
+slight and pliable as a willow wand.
+
+Mrs. Carruth laid her arms caressingly about her shoulders, and rested
+her cheek against the wonderful hair: hair of the deepest, richest
+bronze, and soft and wavy to a degree.
+
+“My little woman,” she said, very tenderly.
+
+“If I truly am, then let me do a little woman’s part. You are tired and
+terribly worried about Charles. Let me come in and help.”
+
+“There is so little we can do, Jean. We have done practically all we
+know how to do, and Dr. Black asked me to ’phone if there seemed to be
+any pronounced change. I haven’t said anything to Mammy, because I do
+not want to alarm her more than I must; but I would give anything to
+communicate with him, and the wires are down.”
+
+“Yes, I know they are; Connie told me so before she went home, and that
+was one reason she wanted me to stay here: she was afraid you would need
+help during the night and be unable to get it.”
+
+Mrs. Carruth was about to reply, when Mammy’s frightened face appeared
+in the doorway.
+
+“Yes, Mammy! What is it?”
+
+Poor old Mammy! One of the child-race, she was pitifully at a loss in
+the face of such a situation as the present crisis. Had it been any of
+her white folks she would have been efficient to the last degree,
+carrying out the precepts of “ole Miss,” who “raised” her, remembering
+with marvellous accuracy each detail of that ante-bellum training, and
+performing each with a patience and tenderness incomprehensible to those
+who have never known the heart-service rendered by those old-time
+servitors. But, strange anomaly, though a characteristic so very marked
+in her race, Mammy was utterly helpless when it came to taking the
+initiative for Charles or herself in sickness. Then she turned to her
+“white folks,” and if her Miss Jinny had bidden her drink strychnine, or
+give it to Charles, she would have obeyed her unquestionably. Strange
+people that they are!
+
+“Please, come quick, Miss Jinny! I’se powerful trebbled. Charles he
+sought o’ wanderin’ in his min’ and talkin’ a heap o’ foolishness.”
+
+Without a word Mrs. Carruth hurried from the Bee-hive in Mammy’s wake,
+Jean, unnoticed, close behind her. As she entered the room Charles was
+sitting upright, talking wildly and gesticulating to some imaginary
+person at the foot of his bed. Mammy, true to her instincts, flung her
+apron over her head, and, dropping upon her knees in the middle of the
+floor, cried:
+
+“He sees de hants! He sees de hants! His hours done numbered!” and
+followed it up with earnest petitions for Charles’ life. Mrs. Carruth
+knew colored people too well to waste time in expostulations. She knew
+that the only way to bring Mammy back to her senses was to set about
+doing for Charles the things which Mammy, in a more rational frame of
+mind, would have done herself. Hurrying to his bedside, she said to the
+semi-delirious old man:
+
+“Why, Charles, did you miss me when I went to speak to Miss Jean? It is
+Jean you wish to see, isn’t it? Well, here she is right at the foot of
+the bed, but you can talk to her quite as well when you are lying down.
+There, that is better,” as Charles, in obedience to her gentle easing
+down, let her lay him back among his pillows. Mammy caught sight of the
+act, and it recalled her to her senses quicker than a whip lash could
+have done. Springing to her feet, she hurried to the bedside, and taking
+her mistress by both hands forced her into the chair near at hand,
+exclaiming under her breath:
+
+“Bress Gawd, baby! wha’, wha’ yo’ mean by liftin’ dat heavy man?”
+
+Mrs. Carruth had not misjudged, but she was none the less concerned for
+Charles who continued to ramble on to Jean, who stood at the foot of the
+bed. A distant clock struck one-thirty. Mammy was doing all she could to
+quiet Charles, while Mrs. Carruth slipped into the adjoining room to
+prepare some medicine for him. Jean chose that moment to hurry back to
+the Bee-hive. A moment later the electric drop light was flashing its
+message across the snow-bound garden to the darkened house beyond. There
+was no response. Again and again Jean turned the switch, flashing out
+across the snow the bright light from the Tungsten bulb, and watching
+eagerly for some response, but the house remained perfectly dark; and at
+length, in despair, she gave up signalling and went swiftly back to
+Mammy’s side of the cottage. Creeping softly up to the bedroom she
+looked in. Her mother was too much occupied with Charles to notice her
+return, and Mammy was placing hot water bags at the old man’s feet. From
+the anxious look upon her mother’s face, Jean knew that she was
+seriously alarmed for Charles, who was trembling and quivering with a
+sudden chill. Without a word she turned and sped back to the Bee-hive.
+Five minutes later she opened the door and slipped out into the night.
+The storm had nearly ceased, but the clouds, driven by a wild, bleak
+wind, were still scudding across the sky. There was no moon, and it
+would have been a brave star which dared send its cheerful gleam through
+that cloud rack. Upon the ground the snow lay in deep wind-driven banks,
+in some places higher than Jean’s head. All the world was dark, silent,
+awesome. Jean never paused. She had formed her plans upon the instant,
+and was acting upon them as promptly. A hundred feet from the cottage
+old Baltie’s stable loomed in the darkness, the snow upon the eastern
+side of it banked high as the little window over his stall. Luckily the
+doors were upon the southern, more protected side of the building; and
+after struggling and wallowing through the snow until she was nearly
+breathless, Jean reached them. Pausing a moment to recover her breath,
+she inserted the key in the lock and opened the smaller door. She was
+instantly greeted by a soft nicker. Baltie never slept when the
+footfalls, however light, of those he loved drew near.
+
+“Baltie, Baltie, dear,” cried Jean, softly, running to the box and
+opening the door, switching on the light as she ran. But neither light
+nor darkness meant anything to Baltie. His sensitive ears bounded his
+world of darkness, and love did the rest. His head was in Jean’s arms in
+a moment.
+
+“Can you do it, dear? Can you do it for Charles and Mammy? I wouldn’t
+ask you to if I could go alone, but you are bigger and stronger than I
+am, Baltie, even if you are so old. Can you take me to Dr. Black’s
+through this deep snow? It isn’t so very far, Baltie, and we’ll be
+careful. Can you, Baltie? We must have him, for Charles is so sick.”
+
+For answer the horse nestled closer to the girl, and nickered
+repeatedly.
+
+“I know you mean ‘yes,’ dear. I know you do. I’ll be careful, Baltie.
+I’ll cover you up all warm and snug.”
+
+As she talked, Jean threw over Baltie’s head the head and neck blanket,
+which Charles had insisted must be part of the old horse’s impedimenta
+during the severe winter months. Deftly pushing his ears into the ear
+coverings, she drew the hood over his head, his soft eyes shining upon
+her like two moons from the circular openings, and buttoned it around
+his throat. An extra blanket was quickly added, and then the old saddle
+was strapped on. Leading Baltie to the door, Jean switched off the
+electric light, gave one lithe little spring and landed across the
+saddle. It had not taken her long to shift from her ordinary clothing
+into Constance’s divided riding skirt up there in the Bee-hive, or to
+add the heavy outer garments the inclement weather made necessary.
+
+“Now, Baltie, we must go, we must, dear. Please, please do your best for
+Charles and Mammy, they have been so good to you.”
+
+As though he understood every word spoken to him, the horse bent to the
+driving wind and plunged into the unbroken road. Dr. Black’s home was
+less than a mile from Mrs. Carruth’s, and ordinarily Jean could have
+walked it in less than fifteen minutes, or run it in ten, and had often
+done so; but all walks and roadways were now completely obliterated. She
+must trust to her sense of direction and to Baltie’s wonderful instinct.
+
+On plodded the good old creature, breaking into a light lope where the
+wind had swept the street comparatively free of snow, wallowing,
+pounding, pawing into the drifts where they barred his progress,
+snorting his protest, not at Jean, but at the elements, though never
+pausing in his efforts, which made him breathe hard, and more than once
+slow up for his second wind.
+
+Jean had ridden from her earliest childhood, and had a man’s seat in the
+saddle. Now she leaned forward, her arms clasped about the great,
+heaving neck, the while speaking encouraging words into the ears laid
+back to catch her voice. As they drew near the more thickly settled
+portion of Riveredge, the blank, dense silence in which it lay impressed
+her strongly. During the first half mile the electric lights at measured
+intervals cast their fantastic gleam and shadows upon the snow. In this
+section they were numerous and brought into stronger relief the ghostly
+houses. Far off some shivering dog howled dismally, and instantly Jean
+thought of old Mammy’s superstitions, and her convictions “dat ef he
+howl _two_ times an’ stop, it sure is fer a man ter die.” This dog had
+howled “two times.” Jean was not superstitious, but she was the child of
+southern-born parents, and had been “raised” by a very typical southern
+“Mammy.” Tradition is very hard to overcome. She shivered, but not from
+the biting cold, though her feet were numb from it.
+
+Not a human being was in sight as she turned into the street upon which
+Dr. Black’s house stood five blocks further down. They might almost as
+well have been fifty, for the street was narrower than most of the
+others, and running north and south had caught the full brunt of the
+northeaster. More than one piazza and front door was banked nearly to
+the piazza roof, and the street itself practically impassable.
+
+Baltie had come bravely thus far, but such a white mountain as now lay
+before him was enough to daunt a young horse, much less an old blind
+one. He stopped, his flanks heaving, his head drooping. Jean was almost
+ready to give up in despair, for the cold had chilled her to the bone,
+and feet and hands were almost without sensation.
+
+“Oh, Baltie, Baltie, my dear old horse, can’t you go a little further?
+Can’t you, dear? Please, please try just once more. It’s only a very
+little way now; only such a little way! I can see the light in front of
+Dr. Black’s door. I’d get off your back and walk, or try to, if I didn’t
+know that I couldn’t go five steps. Come, Baltie, please try just once
+more.”
+
+Perhaps it was Jean’s pleading, perhaps Baltie’s wind had returned; at
+all events, he raised his head, gave a wild snort, a mad plunge, and,
+after a desperate struggle, floundered up to Dr. Black’s gate. The house
+was barely twenty feet from it, but the snow was up to Jean’s waist.
+
+She never knew how she forced her way through it, or reached the
+electric button. She only knew she must do it somehow. When, in response
+to its prolonged jingling by his bedside, Dr. Black came back to this
+world of real things from the world of dreams, into which a long, hard
+day of work and exposure had carried him, and making a hurried toilet
+hastened down to the door, he found a huddled heap upon the doormat, and
+saw in the drifts beyond a quivering, panting horse.
+
+In two minutes the whole household was astir, kind Mrs. Black had Jean
+up in her bedroom, the doctor administering restoratives, the doctor’s
+man had led Baltie around to the stable and was caring for him with all
+possible despatch.
+
+“Look after her, Polly, and don’t let her leave that bed until I say she
+may. I must be off to Mrs. Carruth’s. I don’t believe she even knows
+this child is here. It’s all the result of this confounded storm and the
+wires being down. Such a blizzard as this hasn’t struck Riveredge in
+thirty years.”
+
+It did not take Dr. Black as long to reach Mrs. Carruth’s home as it had
+taken Jean to reach his, and when he arrived he found a distracted
+household. Hadyn had rushed over to the Bee-hive to find Jean vanished,
+Mrs. Carruth entirely absorbed with Charles, who was in a very critical
+condition, and Mammy nearly beside herself. As Hadyn, in spite of Mrs.
+Carruth’s protests, insisted upon going after Dr. Black, he was
+confronted by that gentleman at the very door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AFTERMATH.
+
+
+That storm of March, 19—, claimed many a victim. More than one was
+frozen to death, many died from the exposure, and many more were
+invalids for months as the result of it. All that terrible night Dr.
+Black worked over old Charles, with Mammy and Hadyn to aid him, and
+Constance to vibrate between the house and the cottage, for with the
+first peep of dawn Mr. Henry’s man came over to dig out the snow-bound
+family and make a path from house to cottage. Mrs. Carruth, upon
+learning of Jean’s desperate rush for Dr. Black and her collapse at his
+doorstep, started instantly for his home. Charles could claim a great
+deal from her, but the claim of her own was far greater, and Dr. Black’s
+sleigh and powerful horse carried her to Jean as quickly as the great
+snowdrifts permitted.
+
+But Jean was really none the worse for her mad ride once she was warmed
+and had partaken of Mrs. Black’s cup of steaming hot chocolate. She was
+as strong and pliable as a hickory sapling, which, the storm having
+passed over it, springs erect and is as vigorous as ever. Mrs. Black
+soon reassured Mrs. Carruth, and at length had the satisfaction of
+seeing them both fast asleep in her guest room, Mrs. Carruth’s arm, even
+in her sleep, laid caressingly and protectingly across Jean’s shoulder.
+Both were worn out, and noon had struck before they wakened to reproach
+themselves for their long rest and to make inquiry for Charles. Dr.
+Black had just returned, and reported a decided improvement in the old
+man.
+
+“And Baltie—dear old Baltie?” demanded Jean.
+
+“Baltie is sure enough in clover, little girl,” answered the good
+doctor. “Dried clover, and last summer’s clover, to be sure, but none
+the less clover, for Dick has nearly buried him in it, and the old
+fellow seems none the worse for his struggle through snowdrifts. But you
+are both trumps—the queen of hearts and the king, by George! I don’t
+know how you did it!”
+
+“We _had_ to do it. There wasn’t anyone else to.”
+
+Dr. Black took the earnest face in both his hands, and, looking into the
+hazel eyes, said:
+
+“It is a pity a few more are not convinced of that ‘we had to.’”
+
+Then he drove his guests back to their home. It was agreed that Baltie
+should not be taken out of Dr. Black’s stable until the weather
+moderated.
+
+A week passed. Charles was out of danger, but still required the closest
+attention, and Constance insisted upon a nurse from Memorial Hospital.
+Mammy protested, but her protests were of no avail. Constance saw very
+quickly that weeks of careful nursing lay ahead, and she would not
+permit her mother to overtax her strength. Mammy must attend to her
+cooking and the luncheon counter, now that Charles could not. Constance
+had her own hands full with her candy kitchen, for, even with Mary and
+Fanny Willing to assist her, she had all she could do to keep abreast of
+her orders. So the nurse took command in Mammy’s bedroom, and Mammy had
+to yield.
+
+Perhaps no one felt the situation half as keenly as Hadyn did. That he
+had dozed off in that hour and a half in which so much occurred filled
+him with a remorse he could not overcome. He had been left at a post of
+duty at a critical hour, and he had failed ignominiously. He would not
+admit any extenuating circumstances, for he sincerely felt that there
+were none. If others had kept awake when it was imperative to keep
+awake, why had he not done so? If little Jean had been able to do so,
+and when he had failed her had undertaken such a ride, undaunted by the
+hour, the darkness, the loneliness and the terrific storm, while he
+dozed snugly before the open fire—oh, it was intolerable, disgraceful!
+And these friends had done so much for him! True, no harm had come to
+Jean or to the others, but Hadyn shuddered when he pictured what might
+have happened in those ninety minutes. Coax and urge as he would he
+could not induce Jean to admit that she had signalled to the house for
+aid, albeit he felt as certain that she had done so as if he had seen
+the electric light flashed. When he urged she simply closed her lips and
+shook her head, and as no one else, not even Constance, could enlighten
+him, he had to let the matter drop.
+
+In the course of the next week Baltie came hobbling back to his home. In
+spite of all the care given him at Dr. Black’s, the old horse showed the
+effects of his exposure and the terrible tax upon his strength that wild
+night; yet none who loved him so well dreamed that the great summons had
+really come to the animal which had given more than thirty years of
+faithful service to his friends. From little colthood he had been
+Grandfather Raulsbury’s pet until the old man’s death. Then had come the
+dreadful interval of evil days when Jabe Raulsbury had so misused him,
+to be followed by the happier ones with the Carruths—days of unremitting
+care, affection and happiness for Baltie and those who loved him, and
+especially to Jean and Mammy. And how generously he had requited their
+devotion to him! Indeed, the last act of his life was to be recorded as
+one of service to those he loved—a service which had undoubtedly saved
+the life of one who had tenderly ministered to his comfort. But for
+Baltie’s devotion Charles’ life could not have been saved, all agreed,
+and the one who loved the blind horse more than any other excepting Jean
+would have mourned her old husband. Mammy’s heart was large enough to
+take in all the world if they needed her love and care, though she often
+hid that fact beneath an assumed aggressiveness. That was Mammy’s way.
+
+From the hour that Baltie had become the joint property of Jean and
+Mammy, and later the ownership had embraced Charles, they had not missed
+visiting his stable the first thing in the morning. For a long time
+Mammy’s was the first voice the blind old horse heard when he greeted
+the morning sunlight which streamed into his big box stall; Mammy’s the
+first hand to minister to his comfort and caress him. Then, as soon as
+she was dressed, Jean flew to the stable, and a pretty scene always
+followed. When Charles came into the family he was the one to go first
+to the stable; but neither Jean nor Mammy ever failed to visit Baltie a
+little later, and during those years he had become almost human. Only
+human speech seemed denied him, but this lack he supplied by his own
+Houyhnhum language, and the silent but most eloquent language of the
+eyes and ears which God has given mute creatures—each so very wonderful
+if dull humans will only try to learn them. In the audible one are
+almost as many inflections as in the broader range of the human voice,
+and it is a dull intellect indeed which cannot interpret:
+
+“I love you. I am cold. I am hungry. I am parched with thirst,” and a
+hundred other sentences, or read the language of the eyes and ears.
+
+And Baltie’s vocabulary was a liberal one; his conversational powers,
+exceptional; his friends understanding the keenest.
+
+As often occurs, that blizzard, which is now history, was followed by
+weather as soft and balmy as mid-April rather than late March. As if by
+magic the snow disappeared, running away in rivers of water and leaving
+the turf beneath showing promising bits of green, which made one feel
+little tingles of joy at the hint of springtime. Only in sunless spots
+did banks of snow linger surlily and soiled, like some malign creature
+beaten, but yet too vindictive to withdraw. The stable fronted south,
+and all the graciousness of that early spring sunshine fell upon it and
+entered its doors the minute they were opened. In spite of her anxiety
+for Charles, and her increased labors as the result of his illness and
+convalescence, Mammy had somehow found time to visit Baltie each day,
+though she was not often able to do so early in the morning. It was Jean
+who ran out to him long before anyone else was astir, and more than once
+had Constance been obliged to go out after her, lest she forget
+breakfast, school, and everything else.
+
+Baltie had been back in his own stable about a week when he began to
+show signs that the wonderful machinery which had endured for so many
+years was wearing out. Had Charles or Mammy been looking after him then,
+they would have recognized the signs; but Mr. Henry’s man, though he did
+everything for Baltie’s comfort, saw in him nothing but a worn-out old
+horse, which must very soon go the way of all old worn-out horses, and
+Jean lacked experience to understand. So the climax came when no one
+dreamed it was pending.
+
+It was a wonderful morning in mid-April. Out in the garden some pioneer
+robins had ventured into the northern world, and were calling madly to
+one another of the grave responsibilities of selecting building sites,
+and constructing homes against the arrival of their wives, who had, like
+themselves, been wintering in the South. On the southern terrace a few
+venturesome crocuses popped their heads up through the moist earth to
+smile a “howdy, friend,” at a passerby. Off in the distance the river
+lay like a mirror, with vast ice floes dropping down stream with the
+tide, crystal barges for Elaine, and moving as silently, each duplicated
+in the water mirror that floated them, as were also the opposite shore
+and mountains. A wonderful picture, mirage-like in its outline and
+exquisite coloring. Those who knew that river best read the signs
+unerringly. The farmers living in the environs of Riveredge called this
+peculiar atmospheric condition a “weather breeder.”
+
+There was something in Jean which fairly leaped out to meet the newly
+awakened world and springtide. From a little child she had lived very
+close indeed to nature’s heart. The first balmy breath of spring seemed
+to intoxicate her; the first bird-call could throw her into an ecstacy;
+an early spring blossom invariably caused a rapture; summer’s languor
+and richness bore her off into a beautiful world of her own; autumn’s
+“mellow, yellow, ripening days, floating in a golden coating of a
+dreamy, listless haze,” conveyed her instantly into dreamland; winter’s
+frost and sparkle produced the wildest exhilaration. Was it any wonder
+that, coming out into the early morning sunlight of that soft springlike
+day, with bird notes filling the air, and her own pulses thrilling with
+life at its dawn, Jean’s cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled with the
+very joy of living?
+
+It was still very early and no one yet astir. Over in Mammy’s cottage a
+faint smoke wraith floated up from the chimney, telling that Mammy was
+astir. Jean had thrown a warm cape about her, for the morning air still
+had its chill, and, enticed by the sunlight, she ran down the piazza
+steps, inhaling deep breaths of the delicious air. Pausing a moment to
+revel in it all, her eyes fell upon the stable. The next second she was
+darting away like a swallow, no premonition in her heart of what lay
+behind its closed doors.
+
+Opening the door she entered with a soft whistle. When had there failed
+to be an instant response to that whistle? This time there was silence
+only.
+
+“Oh, Baltie, dear! Come, Baltie!” she called, running across to the box
+stall and opening the door. Then there was a low cry, and Jean stood for
+a moment as though petrified. On the sweet, clean straw lay the old
+horse, body inert, limbs relaxed, head resting upon its bed of soft
+straw as a tired, worn-out veteran’s might rest upon his pillow, his
+eyes closed, and without a flutter of the delicate nostrils to indicate
+breathing. Life seemed extinct. With a piteous cry Jean glided to the
+horse’s head and dropped upon her knees, clasping her arms about the
+silky neck.
+
+“Baltie, oh, Baltie, dear, look at me! Speak to me,” she begged.
+
+The eyelids fluttered, and the faintest possible nicker was breathed
+through the nostrils as he strove to raise his head. Too late! The angel
+of death was about to claim one of his most faithful creatures, and, let
+us hope, the recording angel was already checking off the deeds of a
+devoted life and a disposition which many of his friends claiming
+immortality might emulate.
+
+“Oh, my Baltie, my Baltie!” sobbed Jean, slipping into a sitting
+position and lifting the horse’s head into her lap. “Must you leave me?
+Must your life end now? I love you so, Baltie, I love you so! You have
+been so good, so faithful! How can I let you die? how can I?” and with
+heartbreaking sobs Jean buried her head in the silky forelock as her
+arms clasped the great head.
+
+Slowly the sunlight which Baltie and Jean so loved crept around and
+looked into the window of the stall. On a branch just beyond the window
+a bluebird caroled as though not in all the sunlit world was there
+sorrow or death.
+
+In the stall Jean sat motionless. Her first impulse had been to rush for
+aid; but who could aid in this extremity? Instinctively the girl knew it
+to be the end, and somehow, in her great love for her pet, she did not
+wish anyone else to intrude upon the moment of his passing. She had no
+idea of the flight of time. Ten minutes or an hour might have passed
+without her noting them. Baltie lay perfectly still, his head in her
+lap, her arms clasping his neck. Gently, sweetly as he had lived, so was
+Baltie slipping out of the world of sentient creatures. Only the
+faintest flutter of breath indicated that life lingered. His effort to
+greet the one he loved seemed to have demanded his last atom of
+vitality. After a little Jean’s sobs ceased, though tears still fell
+upon the satiny head. She did not know how long she had been in the
+stall, when just the softest sigh was breathed from the delicate
+nostrils, a faint quiver passed over the great frame, and Baltie was at
+rest forever. Gently as he had lived, so had Baltie died.
+
+Two hours later Mammy came out to the stable in quest of Jean.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+IN THE SPRINGTIDE.
+
+
+It is probable that not even those who loved her best realized how Jean
+had loved the pet which had been her daily companion for nearly four
+years. The very fact that she had rescued him from a miserable death,
+nursed and tended him to restored health, had felt his love for her
+growing with each day, made Baltie nearer and dearer to her than a
+young, vigorous horse could ever have been.
+
+Baltie was now resting in his lowly bed at the foot of the garden, but
+Jean did not cease to grieve for him. When Mammy had found her with
+Baltie’s head in her lap that morning there had been a pathetic little
+scene—for Mammy loved the old horse as dearly as Jean loved him; but had
+she been entirely indifferent to him, the fact that her baby loved him
+would have been enough to exalt him above all other animals in Mammy’s
+sight. Jean was utterly exhausted by her grief and benumbed from her
+cramped position when Mammy found her, and the good old soul was
+genuinely alarmed when she tried to help the child to her feet. Baltie’s
+weight and her cramped position had completely arrested circulation. In
+spite of her own grief Mammy lifted Baltie’s head from Jean’s lap, laid
+it gently upon the straw and then helped the girl up, or tried to, for
+Jean was too numb to stand.
+
+“Bress Gawd, what comin’ to us nex’?” she cried, half carrying Jean to
+the house, where Constance met them.
+
+It was hours before Jean could walk unaided, and many days before the
+girl smiled again. Mrs. Carruth grew troubled, and one afternoon spoke
+to Hadyn about her.
+
+“I am so distressed about it. She is filled with remorse for having
+taken Baltie out that night, and that, added to her grief for him, is
+making the child positively ill. I have done my best to make her
+understand that Baltie had already lived far beyond a horse’s allotted
+years, and that very soon he must have come into his long rest, but I
+seem to make no impression.”
+
+“If I had been on hand when needed he would be alive this minute, and my
+little girl happy and cheery as ever,” protested Hadyn. “I’ll never,
+never forgive myself that lapse as long as I live, and nothing I can do
+will ever atone for it. It was the most contemptible failure of which I
+have ever been guilty; but I declare to you, I’m going to do something
+to make reparation. Where is Jean now?”
+
+“She went down to the Arcade for Constance about an hour ago, but she
+ought to be back very soon.”
+
+“I’ll walk down and meet my little sister. I’ve a scheme simmering far
+back in my witless mind which may take form and shape if I can keep
+awake. Au revoir, little mother,” and with the grace so characteristic
+of him, Hadyn raised her hand and pressed his lips to it! There was no
+one on earth he loved as he loved this gentle, gracious woman.
+
+Riveredge in its late April dress was very dainty. She seemed to be
+preparing for Easter, which this year fell late in the month, and over
+all the world lay the softest veil of gossamer green. The air was
+redolent of cherry and apple blossoms, and filled with bird notes.
+
+As Hadyn walked down the steep roadway, which led from the Carruth’s to
+the broader highway, he saw Jean coming toward him and waved his hand in
+greeting. As he hurried toward her he called:
+
+“Well met, little sister,” raising his hat and extending his hand.
+
+A quick light sprung into Jean’s eyes. “I like that,” she said, with a
+quaint, little upraising of her head.
+
+“Like what, Jean?”
+
+“I like to have a man bow as you do, Champion. Because I’m only fourteen
+and still wear short skirts some of them seem to think a nod and
+‘how-d’-do’ is all that is required of them, but I don’t agree with
+them.”
+
+Hadyn did not betray the amusement this characteristic little comment
+caused him. He knew Jean to be more observing of the amenities than most
+girls of her age, and that all her Southern instincts demanded the
+chivalrous attention which generations of her ancestors had received
+from men. Many of her girl friends laughed at her and teased her, but
+that did not lower her standard of what was due womanhood from manhood.
+
+“I should be unworthy the name you’ve given me if I forgot,” said Hadyn.
+
+“It wouldn’t make one bit of difference whether I had given you that
+name or not, you couldn’t be different.”
+
+“Thank you. But where are you going now?”
+
+“Nowhere in particular. Amy is away and Connie up to her eyes in the
+month’s accounts. So I’m adrift.”
+
+“How would you like to come for a walk in the woods with me? I am not
+going back to the office this afternoon, for the fever is on me. The
+call of the woods gets into my blood sometimes, and then I’ve got to
+tramp. Only trouble is, I can’t always get a tramping companion. Will
+you come?”
+
+“I’d love to, but I must let mother know, she might worry.”
+
+“She won’t, because she knows I came to ask you to go with me if I could
+find you.”
+
+They struck into a side road, which presently became a mere wood path
+leading up the mountain, and from which a little higher up an exquisite
+picture of the river and opposite mountains could be seen. Hadyn,
+pausing at a broad, flat rock, said:
+
+“Let’s sit down and enjoy all this. Come, sit beside me, little sister.”
+
+Jean dropped down upon the lichen-covered rock, warm and dry in the
+afternoon sunshine which fell upon it, and said:
+
+“Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t all the world beautiful? Why need anybody or
+anything in it ever die, and why will other people make them. Oh,
+Champion, if I only hadn’t made Baltie!” and quick tears sprung into her
+eyes. During the two weeks since Baltie’s death Jean had actually lost
+flesh and grown pale in her sorrow and remorse for what she believed to
+be purely the result of her want of thought.
+
+Hadyn put his hand on hers and, looking into her eyes, asked:
+
+“Little sister, do you know how that hurts _me_? It was not your want of
+forethought that night, but my faithlessness which carried you out into
+that terrible storm, and I shall never, never forgive myself. You might
+have been the victim instead of old Baltie, but as it is his life paid
+the penalty of my lapse. True, he was very old and might not have lived
+a great deal longer, but his end certainly would not have been hastened,
+or your loving heart grieving as it now is had I done my duty. Can you
+ever forgive me, dear?”
+
+As Hadyn talked a swift change swept over Jean’s expressive face; a new
+light sprung into her eyes, and she said:
+
+“Why, Champion, I never for one single second blamed you. Did you think
+I did? Oh, you couldn’t think that, not when you know how dearly I love
+you, and how good you’ve always been to Baltie and me. Why, you saved
+his life, you know, and have always helped me look out for him; and
+you’ve done hundreds and hundreds of things for us both. Please, please
+never say that again. You didn’t know I was going to signal that night.”
+
+“Ah, but I _did_ know it, and it was only upon that condition that
+Constance consented to go upstairs to bed. She thought she could trust
+me to answer that signal, but you see she couldn’t, and all this is the
+result. You are grieving for your pet until you are almost ill from it,
+and I feel like—like, oh, like the most contemptible thing that ever
+happened. What can I do to help, little one? It hurts me to see you or
+yours unhappy.”
+
+“I shall not be unhappy,” was Jean’s instant assertion. “I do miss
+Baltie terribly, for I loved him, and—and he seemed so much mine, and
+was so good and faithful—” here a little sob checked her words. Hadyn
+slipped his arms about her, and she leaned her head upon his shoulder.
+This big “brother” was a great source of strength and comfort to her.
+Then she resumed: “But I shall not let it make you unhappy, too. I dare
+say I am silly—the girls laugh at me and say I am, but I can’t help
+it—when I love anybody, or anything, I _love_ them, and that’s all there
+is about it. Baltie knew me better than he knew anyone else, and loved
+me better. No one knows or believes how he understood me, or I him, and
+it is no use trying to make them; but I feel as if some part of me had
+gone without having him to love and visit and pet every day, and have
+him snuggle up to me. I wish horses could have monuments raised to their
+memory, and some record kept of their good deeds and faithfulness for
+people to read. My goodness, more good things could be said of Baltie
+this minute, and they’d be true, too, than can be said of that dreadful
+old Jabe Raulsbury; and yet when he died last year they put up a
+tombstone for him the very first thing, and what do you think they had
+inscribed on it?”
+
+“I’m sure I don’t know,” and Hadyn smiled at the thought of any
+commendatory legend being placed upon the monument of the irascible
+Jabe, whose life had been one long series of quarrels with his
+neighbors, brutality to the dumb creatures which had lucklessly fallen
+into his hands, and whose last act had been to fly into a wild rage and
+beat his wife. Fortunately, it had been his last transgression, for a
+neighbor, hearing her screams, had rushed to her aid, and Jabe, hearing
+his approach, and starting to escape by a back door, had pitched
+headlong through an open trap-door and into his cellar. Several broken
+bones and some internal injuries brought him his just desserts of four
+months’ torture, ending in his death, and the town drew a sigh of
+relief. Then his widow erected a monument to his memory. It bore this
+memorial to the deceased Jabe:
+
+    “A loving husband, tender brother.
+    Never shall we find another,”
+
+The first statement was open to doubt, also, the second, for Ned
+Raulsbury, who had not had the pleasure of fraternal intercourse with
+his brother Jabe for many years, unless a ten years’ lawsuit to secure
+his own share of the estate represented it, probably congratulated
+himself that he was not likely to “find another.”
+
+Jean repeated the legend with infinite scorn, and Hadyn laughed
+outright. Then growing serious again, he said:
+
+“Perhaps a better record of Jabe’s true character is preserved in his
+neighbors’ memory of him, and I should think that Mrs. Raulsbury might
+now draw her first free breath. It _is_ true that a man’s death can
+sometimes bring oblivion of his evil deeds. Poor old Baltie might have
+told a few of Jabe’s, but even had he possessed human speech I doubt if
+he would have so employed it. Baltie was a gentleman. And, Little
+Sister, as a gentleman he must have a monument. Yes, I mean it. A shaft
+shall mark the old horse’s resting-place down there in the garden, and I
+shall have it erected; it is the least I can do under the circumstances.
+Don’t say anything about it to anyone. What would you like inscribed on
+it, dear?”
+
+As Hadyn talked in his deep, softly-modulated voice, Jean’s face grew
+radiant. At his concluding question she clasped his hand in both of hers
+and pressed her lips to it again and again, exclaiming:
+
+“No one but you would ever have understood! No, not anyone. You have
+_always_ understood; right from the very first day I knew you. Baltie
+would never have been saved on that awful day, or ever have been mine at
+all, if it hadn’t been for you, Champion, and oh, how hard, hard, hard I
+love you for it. Please don’t ever go away from us; I couldn’t live
+without you now; none of us could; you’ll be just one of us always,
+won’t you, Champion?”
+
+Jean was too deeply in earnest to be aware that Hadyn’s face was
+flushing, or of the strange expression creeping into his eyes: a light
+of wonderful tenderness and yearning. He looked steadily into the eyes
+regarding him so earnestly as he said:
+
+“Little Sister, do you realize that your home is the only real home I
+have known in many years? That when you and Eleanor and Constance agreed
+to share with me ‘a part of Mother,’ as you so sweetly expressed it, you
+made me your debtor forever and ever? Can you understand how very dear
+that little Mother of yours is to me, or how much her daughters’ welcome
+into their home has done to spare me a great many lonely hours? True,
+there are many friends in the outer world, but that house was once my
+Mother’s home, you know, and all my boyhood was spent in it. To go back
+to it under almost any conditions would seem almost like entering my own
+doors, but to be welcomed to it as I have been makes it—well, some day
+you may understand just what it _does_ make it, little girl. And now I
+want to tell you something else: You miss old Baltie, I know, and
+nothing can ever quite fill his place for you, but your heart is big,
+true and warm enough to hold another, isn’t it? For some time I have
+been dissatisfied with the care given Comet down in that South Riveredge
+boarding stable. They are careless in grooming him, and someone, I can’t
+find out which man, is not treating him kindly. Comet never knew the
+meaning of a harsh or impatient word until he went there, never feared a
+blow——”
+
+“Strike Comet!” cried Jean, all her sense of justice outraged.
+
+“Not exactly strike him, I think, but there are many ways of making a
+high-strung, thoroughbred horse’s life a torture. A sudden slap when
+grooming him, a shout if he does not step around briskly, or even a blow
+on his muzzle with the curry-comb. They may not inflict any great amount
+of pain, but they soon get on his nerves, and the next thing we know we
+have a horse that starts and plunges at the first sharp word; jerks his
+head up if anyone raises a hand toward it; shrinks at the sight of a
+curry-comb as from an instrument of torture. Comet never before
+manifested any of those signs, but now I’m beginning to notice them, and
+I don’t like it a little bit. I wouldn’t have that horse ruined for ten
+times his price in dollars, and so I’m going to see what I can do to
+place him where all chance of it will be removed.”
+
+“Where, where are you going to send him?” cried Jean, clasping her hands
+in her eagerness.
+
+“How would you like to have him come and live down yonder with you?”
+asked Hadyn, nodding toward Jean’s home, which could be seen from their
+woodland nook.
+
+“In our stable: Comet? To be there all the time so I could go out to see
+him every single day, and he’d grow to love me just as Baltie did? Do
+you really mean it? Could I?”
+
+“I think Comet will meet your advances more than half way. He has been
+treated like a child since his colthood, and you know how he understands
+_me_. I’ve had a long talk with the little mother, and she has agreed to
+let me keep Comet down there, and my man Parsons is to take care of him,
+to sleep in the coachman’s room upstairs and board with Mammy. You know
+most of his color find ‘just naturally doing nothing’ quite to their
+liking; but Parsons seems to be of different clay, so we will make him
+happy by keeping him busy. Good plan all around, don’t you think so?”
+
+“I think you are just the splendidest, dearest man that ever lived, and
+Comet shall have the best care in all the world, and if any living being
+so much as points a finger at him I’ll—I’ll—well, I just tell you,
+they’d better not! Now, let’s go right back home and tell Connie all
+about it. You know she loves Comet as much as you or I love him, and
+she’ll be tickled to death to have him right there,” and Jean bounded to
+her feet all enthusiasm, her eyes shining and cheeks glowing, for
+something to love and care for was absolutely essential to Jean’s
+happiness.
+
+And so it came to pass that about a week later Comet was installed in
+the Carruth stable, and if ever a horse came into an earthly paradise,
+Comet came into one in this new home.
+
+Jean was in a rapture, and truly no horse-lover could fail to fall
+complete victim to Comet’s charms. It was the balm needed for Jean’s
+sorrow for Baltie, and when, in the course of the following weeks, a
+granite shaft was placed over Baltie’s grave, the little girl was as
+happy as she well could be.
+
+The shaft bore the legend:
+
+                        TO BALTIE.
+
+    _For Thirty Years a Faithful Friend and Servitor._
+
+            Perhaps in some more blissful realm
+            Your eyes will beam on us again,
+            And we shall find that great and small,
+            God _is_ the father of us all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MAMMY MAKES A DISCOVERY.
+
+
+June had come, and with June came Eleanor’s graduation. During her
+various holidays Eleanor had returned to Riveredge, and with each return
+of Eleanor there was vigorous renewal of visits from Homer Forbes.
+Forbes seemed deeply occupied in the intervals, and those most
+interested in the progress of affairs at the Irving School wondered at
+his long absence during the afternoons and his frequent walks up the
+mountain to a plateau at its summit. More than once had some of the
+pupils of the Irving School met him as he strolled along toward it, head
+bent in deepest meditation, hat drawn down over his eyes, hands clasped
+behind him, and “munchin’, munchin’, munchin’, fer all de spi’t an’
+image ob a goat,” said Mammy, who frequently came upon him as he passed
+through the Arcade, for he never set forth upon his rambles without
+fortifying himself with a box of Constance’s candies.
+
+Since the fall Jean had not journeyed to the Irving School with her
+candies, so the sweet-tooth Forbes was obliged to go after his sweeties
+or do without them. But it did not seem to inconvenience him. The Arcade
+lay upon his way, and nothing short of dynamite was ever likely to hurry
+him. He would buy his box of chocolates and start off, leaving behind
+him a little trail of the paraffin papers in which they had been
+wrapped, and by which anyone so minded might have followed him miles.
+Sometimes, if he had absent-mindedly forgotten to eat any luncheon, he
+would supplement his box of candies with some of Mammy’s sandwiches, and
+it was upon one of these occasions that his call at Mammy’s counter led
+to a curious disclosure.
+
+With the warm spring weather Charles’ health improved steadily; but
+Mammy had no idea of risking a repetition of her recent experiences by
+permitting Charles to take needless risks. On dull days or damp ones
+Charles must bide at home in his cottage, or do little indoor jobs for
+his mistress. True, Hadyn’s man left very little for the old man to do,
+for Hadyn had been very careful to tell Parsons that Mrs. Carruth must
+not want for any service he could render her, and at the same time
+tactfully spare old Charles’ feelings. And Parsons was a clever young
+negro, as well as a devoted one to Hadyn.
+
+And it so fell out that Mammy went down to the Arcade rather oftener
+than usual that spring, and consequently saw many things. Among others
+was the frequency with which Mr. Elijah Sniffins haunted Arch Number
+One.
+
+Now, Mammy had absolutely no use for Mr. Elijah Sniffins, as may be
+remembered. Of course, she conceded him the right to purchase all the
+candy he wished; but why should he dawdle over his selection, and then
+tarry to talk with Miss Boggs until the girl seemed almost panic
+stricken? As near as Mammy could discover, she wished him anywhere but
+in Arch Number One, and one Saturday morning Mammy took it upon herself
+to keep a sharp lookout. Several times during the morning she made
+excuses to go down to the counter for boxes of candy for some of her own
+customers, and twice found Sniffins there engaged in a very confidential
+conversation with Miss Boggs. Upon her approach he made most impressive
+bows to the young lady, and departed with slow insolence.
+
+“’Pears lak dat man powerful set ’pon dese hyer candies,” remarked
+Mammy.
+
+“Yes, I guess he does like them pretty well,” answered Miss Boggs.
+
+“You know him quite a spell back?” was Mammy’s next question.
+
+“Oh, yes, for some time,” was the hasty answer. “Did you want some more
+of those pralines, Mammy?” and Miss Boggs fluttered nervously among the
+boxes in the case, bending low to avoid Mammy’s sharp eyes. As Mammy
+stood talking Homer Forbes came strolling up to the candy counter.
+
+“Good-morning, Mammy Blairsdale. As usual, you have a watchful eye upon
+Miss Constance’s interests, I see.”
+
+“Mor’in’, Marsa Fo’bes. Yas, sir. Dat’s what ma eyes were done give me
+fo’, an’ dey ain’t often playin’ me no tricks, neider. Dey’s good, sharp
+eyes, if dey _is_ ol’ ones,” was Mammy’s sibyl-like answer.
+
+“You proved that fact to me many months ago,” said Forbes, with one of
+his whimsical, inscrutable smiles. “I should hate to have a guilty
+conscience and have you cast your eyes upon me. I’d give myself away as
+sure as shooting. I’d be sure you’d read my secret if I had one. Lucky I
+haven’t!”
+
+“Yas, sir, ’tis. Mos’ culled folks has de gif ob secon’ sight, dey say.
+I ain’t rightly know what secon’ sight is mase’f, but I knows dis much
+p’intedly: I knows dat dey ain’t many folks what kin fool me fer long.
+Dey like ’nough fool me a little while, but I ketches dem sooner or
+later. Yas, sah, I does. Yo’ gwine for one ob yo’ strolls terday? ’Pears
+lak yo’ powerful taken wid dat mountain walk, yo’ go ’long up dat a-way
+so f’equently. Better stop ter ma lunch counter an’ git a snack ter take
+’long wid yo’.”
+
+How innocent the words, yet what a strange effect they produced upon
+Miss Boggs. Forbes did not notice it at all, but Mammy missed nothing.
+
+“Good idea. I’ll be along presently,” said Forbes, as he selected his
+box of chocolates, and reached into the pocket of his trousers for the
+change, rather abstractedly staring at Miss Boggs as he did so. The girl
+seemed greatly disconcerted by the look, though, as a matter of fact,
+Forbes himself was barely aware of her presence. It was not lost upon
+Mammy, who had given one swift, backward glance as she turned to go down
+the Arcade. A moment later Forbes reached her counter.
+
+“Give me a good snack to-day, Mammy Blairsdale. I’ve much on my mind
+these days, and must keep the brain well fed.”
+
+“Reckons yo’ll find _dat_ wholesome-lak,” returned Mammy, handing him a
+neat little package.
+
+“What’s the damage?” he asked.
+
+“None ’tall lessen yo’ drap it, er sits on it. If yo’ does dat it’ll
+squash.”
+
+“Nonsense! How much?”
+
+“Ain’t I say nothin’, sah?—wid de complements ob de firm,” was Mammy’s
+grandiloquent answer. Then, coming closer, she asked:
+
+“Massa Fo’bes, I wonner if yo’ kin he’p me wid somepin what’s pesterin’
+ma min’ mightily?”
+
+“I’ll help you if I can, Mammy Blairsdale. What is it?”
+
+“Kin yo’ tell me who dat girl down yonder is?”
+
+“Which girl?” asked Forbes, turning to look down the corridor.
+
+“None yo’ kin _see_. I means de one dat’s yonder at Miss Constance’s
+counter.”
+
+“Oh, that one? Why, she is a Miss Boggs, isn’t she?”
+
+“No, she _ain’t_,” contradicted Mammy, emphatically. “She may _call_
+herse’f Miss Boggs if she wanter, but I’ll bait yo’ she ain’t Miss Boggs
+no mo’n I’m Miss Brown! I’se seen dat girl somewhar’s else befo’, an’
+I’se gwine ter fin’ more ’bout her dan I knows now. She favors someone
+else I knows, an’ I ain’t got er mite er use fer dat someone else,
+neider. Is yo’ know Mr. ’Lijer Sniffins?”
+
+“The Fire Insurance Agent down on State Street?”
+
+“Yas, sir, dat’s him I means.”
+
+“Yes, by sight, and enough to have him insure the few worldly goods I
+possess.”
+
+“He’s at dat counter de hull endurin’ time, ’specially when he git a
+notion Miss Constance gwine come down, and he’n dat girl jes’ as thick
+as thieves.”
+
+“He and Miss Constance?” cried Forbes, aghast.
+
+“Gawd bress ma soul, _no_, sir. I means dat Miss Boggs; an’ what I wants
+ter fin’ out is what fo’ he got any call ter jist na’chelly live dar.”
+
+“Maybe it’s a charming romance right under your very eyes, Mammy
+Blairsdale. Surely you do not wish to play the kill-joy?”
+
+“Kill-joy! Huh!” retorted Mammy. “I ain’t gwine be no fool, neider. I
+tells yo’ I never _is_ like dat man, an’ if he’s takin’ ter pesterin’
+dat girl he gotter quit; an’ if ’tain’t de girl it’s some other
+divilmint he got in his haid. I ain’ trus’ him no furder’n I kin see his
+shadder; no, I ain’.”
+
+“Has he been there when Miss Constance was at the counter?”
+
+“If he ain’t bin dar, he bin whar he kin watch her ’thout her
+s’pici’nin’ it. Time’n agin I’se done seen him tip in dat men’s
+furnishin’ Arch, Number Six, pertendin’ lak he buyin’ neckties an’ all
+kynds ob fummadiddles. Reckon he do buy a heap, too, for he jes’
+splurgin’ fer fair dese days.”
+
+“Dare say he is trying to make a good impression upon the lady of his
+heart,” laughed Forbes.
+
+“D’ssay he tryn’ fer ter mak’ a ’pression on someone else, an’ he better
+quit if he knows what’s good fer him. Now, what dat girl scuttlin’ down
+yonder fer?” was her quick exclamation. Over Forbes’ shoulder she had
+caught sight of Miss Boggs hurrying down the corridor, ostensibly toward
+the lavatory.
+
+“Candy makes her fingers sticky, Mammy Blairsdale,” was Forbes’
+half-idle comment as he turned to look over his shoulder in the
+direction of Mammy’s glance. At that very instant Miss Boggs’ profile
+was distinctly outlined against the white marble wall behind her, and,
+strange coincidence, Elijah Sniffins, turning suddenly around the
+corner, came face to face with her. For a brief second each face was
+distinctly outlined, then the man and girl passed their opposite ways.
+
+But in that instant Forbes had received an impression swift as an
+electric shock. When he turned to look at Mammy, she remarked:
+
+“Reckons yo’ ain’t so near-sighted as dem glasses ’ceivin’ folks inter
+believin’, sah.”
+
+“Where does Sniffins live, Mammy?”
+
+“Don’ know no mo’n de daid,” scoffed Mammy.
+
+“Where does _Miss Boggs_ live?”
+
+“Bress de Lawd!” exclaimed the old woman, apparently apropos of nothing.
+
+“Guess I’ll cut out the stroll up Mount Parnassus and look after my
+insurance. I’m afraid I ought to renew that premium pretty soon.
+Good-bye, Mammy Blairsdale. I’ll see you later.”
+
+“Good-bye, sah! Yas, sah, reckon yo’ had better see me later.”
+
+With his package of luncheon and box of candies, and, as usual, leaving
+a trail of paraffin papers behind him, Forbes strolled out of the
+Arcade, incidentally noting that Sniffins was selecting cigars at the
+counter next Mammy’s. Once he was beyond the portals of the Arcade, his
+accustomed deliberation of air and manner fell from him, and with a
+muttered “I’ll learn what is back of all that or jump overboard” he sped
+along toward State Street at a rate which would have startled his
+friends had any chanced to meet him.
+
+No one but the office boy was in Sniffins’ office.
+
+“Where’s Mr. Sniffins?” demanded Forbes.
+
+“Dunno.”
+
+“When will he be back?”
+
+“Dunno.”
+
+“What in thunder _do_ you know, then?”
+
+“Nothin’.”
+
+“Right you are, son!” and turning Forbes pretended to leave the office.
+Suddenly pausing, he whirled around to say:
+
+“Give me Sniffins’ home address; I’ll ’phone to him there this evening.”
+It was a venture, but worth while.
+
+“Six-twenty Westbank Road.”
+
+“Thanks. Good-day.”
+
+“Day,” and the boy returned to the fascinations of “Tom, the
+Cow-puncher.”
+
+Then Forbes went his way up the mountains, having accomplished his
+object much quicker than he had hoped to. Had anyone been watching him,
+once he reached the summit, they might have questioned his sanity.
+Deliberately placing his candy box and his luncheon upon a stump, he
+began pacing off distances: twenty long strides toward the river, then
+twenty at right-angles, pausing to peer toward the mighty stream flowing
+six hundred feet below him, for the cliffs were precipitous at that
+point.
+
+“Good site. Magnificent view. Constant inspiration. Bound to succeed.
+Purely classical. This will emphasize the illusion. But it must not
+_prove_ an illusion; no, not for a moment. It will be a beautiful
+reality—a crystallized dream. We will set up our Lares and Penates in
+its very center—ahem! I mean—I mean—well I’ll try to persuade her to set
+hers up beside mine. Wonderful girl! extraordinary, very! Fell in with
+my idea at once—at least thought the plan—what was it she pronounced it?
+Ah, I recall, ‘truly altruistic.’ Truly altruistic. Yes, that was it.
+Excellent choice of words. Invariably apt and to the point. Yes, the
+building shall face this way. Her window—my Lord!” and the monologue
+came to an abrupt end as the speaker, turning a vivid scarlet, made a
+grab for his edibles, and, seating himself upon a warm rock, began to
+devour his luncheon with the dispatch of the animal Mammy insisted he
+resembled. The sun was sinking into the West when Forbes came strolling
+up to Mrs. Carruth’s piazza, where the family had gathered for their
+afternoon tea which old Charles was serving. It was the delight of
+Charles’ heart to serve this little repast.
+
+This time it was iced tea and lemonade, with some of Mammy’s flaky
+jumbles and a box of Constance’s candy. That piazza was an inviting
+spot. Hammocks, lounging chairs and bamboo settees made it more than
+luxurious, and the family spent all the time possible in this corner,
+which seemed to catch every passing breeze from the river.
+
+They rose to welcome their guest and offer him refreshment. It was
+Eleanor who first reached him, and it was beside Eleanor he ensconced
+himself upon one of the pillow-laden settees.
+
+“Where on earth have you been, you tramp?” asked Hadyn where he swayed
+idly back and forth in a hammock, Jean nestling beside him. Jean was
+never ten feet from Hadyn if she could help it. His arm encircled her,
+and her head rested against his shoulder as she watched Forbes. Jean was
+growing into a very beautiful young girl, though still a child at heart.
+“A thin slip of a girl like a new morn” exactly described her. Though
+Jean was not thin. She was simply lithe and supple.
+
+“Just on one of my strolls up the mountain. Great old mountain! Fine
+view up there! Wonderful place for a residence!” replied Forbes,
+devouring jumbles at an alarming rate and quenching his thirst with
+glass after glass of lemonade.
+
+“Great if you have an idea of perfecting an aeroplane. Personally, I’d
+not relish rambling up there twice daily, and at present the trail
+leaves something to be desired for vehicles which navigate upon this
+mundane sphere,” laughed Hadyn.
+
+“How do you know that Mr. Forbes hasn’t already invented an air-ship?”
+asked Constance. “I hear he goes up there very often, and he may have
+ways and means of which we are ignorant.”
+
+“Only Shank’s mare,” answered Forbes, stretching out a pair of long,
+dusty legs. “Jove! I am a sight. I didn’t know I was so disreputable.
+Beg your pardon, Mrs. Carruth, for intruding upon you like this. Truth
+is, I hurried down that trail like an avalanche, for I’d spent more time
+at Mammy’s counter than usual. By the way, Miss Constance, Mammy asked
+me to look up an address for her. Will you please give it to her for
+me?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Tell her it is 620 Westbank Road.”
+
+“Six-twenty Westbank Road!” repeated Constance, in a surprised voice.
+“Why, that is Katherine Boggs’ address, and I am almost sure that Mammy
+knows it. Why did she ask for Katherine’s address, I wonder?”
+
+“Don’t know, I’m sure, for Mammy’s ways and wishes are beyond the ken of
+the average mortal,” laughed Forbes, as he rose to take leave. As he was
+about to descend the steps he turned to Eleanor.
+
+“By the way, if you haven’t anything special on hand for to-morrow
+afternoon, won’t you come for a stroll with me?” he asked.
+
+“Now, don’t you do it, Eleanor,” broke in Hadyn. “He means to drag you
+clear to the top of that mountain, and these July days are over-warm for
+violent exertion. Can’t you see, Forbes, that the very thought of it is
+making her cheeks flush?”
+
+“Here, eat another jumble, quick!” cried Constance, catching up the
+plate and rushing to the hammock.
+
+Eleanor and Forbes had sauntered off down the terrace. Hadyn took a
+jumble, and with a laugh crowded the whole cake into his mouth, his eyes
+dancing with mischief.
+
+At that moment Mammy popped her head out upon the piazza to ask:
+
+“Is yo’ chillen all got ’nough jumbles?”
+
+“One of them has more than he can manage,” was Constance’s merry reply.
+“Look at him, Mammy. It was the only way I could close his mouth when he
+was inclined to say more than was wise.”
+
+“Don’ believe dat, nohow. Marse Hadyn ain’ never is ter say wha’ he no
+b’isness ter,” asserted Mammy.
+
+“Hah! I’ve _one_ champion, anyway,” choked Hadyn.
+
+“Two,” corrected Jean.
+
+“Oh, Mammy,” called Constance after the retreating figure. “Mr. Forbes
+says the address you wanted is 620 Westbank Road.”
+
+“Huh? Wha’ yo’ say?” cried Mammy, whirling about and coming out upon the
+piazza again, her face a study.
+
+“Yes, Miss Boggs’ address, Mammy. Why did you ask Mr. Forbes about it? I
+could have given it to you, you know.”
+
+“My Lawd!” was Mammy’s brief retort, and, turning as quickly as she had
+come, she hurried indoors once more.
+
+“I shall never understand Mammy if I live to be a hundred years old”
+said Constance. “I often believe I’ve solved her riddle, then presto!
+here comes a new phase.”
+
+“Leave her alone, Constance. Don’t try to solve it. Just take her as she
+is, and make sure that her ‘chillen’ come first in her thoughts,” said
+Hadyn. “But, by the by, will you come for a ride to-morrow afternoon?”
+
+“Gladly.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MAMMY A SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+
+
+During the following week Independence Day was celebrated, and such had
+become the fame of both Mammy’s luncheons and Constance’s candies, that
+these two busy women found every moment filled more than full.
+
+Each had reason to remember another July Fourth, and Mary Willing most
+reason of all. The Mary Willing of this year bore little resemblance to
+the Mary Willing of that one, and a happier girl it would have been hard
+to find. Fanny was now staying with Mary, sharing with her the pretty
+little room in Mrs. Carruth’s home, and had quite won her way into Mrs.
+Carruth’s heart by her sweet, gentle ways.
+
+During the spring poor, shiftless Jim Willing had taken himself and his
+family out West, thanks to Hadyn’s influence in securing for him a
+position upon a large farm in Minnesota, where he was not only compelled
+to work, but where also, thanks to Hadyn, he could not loaf and drink,
+for the man whom he served was not to be trifled with. In May the family
+had emigrated, to the intense satisfaction of those most deeply
+interested in Mary and Fanny, and the boundless relief of their
+neighbors.
+
+In the course of the week which followed her suspicions concerning
+Katherine Boggs, Mammy began to lay her plans, and, as usual, with her
+accustomed shrewdness. She did not wish Constance to suspect her
+interference, but she was fully resolved to get to the bottom of the
+matter. Mammy had already formed her opinion, and Mammy was not often
+wrong. Fate seemed to favor her, for one morning, when she happened to
+be at her counter, Elijah Sniffins entered the Arcade, and going to the
+cigar stand bought a cigar, which he lighted and began to smoke. He then
+strolled down toward the candy counter. It was a warm, sultry day, with
+scarcely a breath stirring. The window giving upon the street in the
+Arch was open, as was the door leading from Constance’s little office,
+to a short hall communicating with the side street. From her counter
+Mammy watched Sniffins until he entered the candy Arch, and then
+slipping out of the rear door of the Arcade made her way around the
+block and entered Constance’s office by the side door.
+
+For greater protection Constance had hung China silk curtains across the
+grillwork, which divided her office from the counter, but these, while
+affording her perfect seclusion, did not cut off the sound of a
+customer’s footfalls.
+
+Under ordinary circumstances, Mammy would have scorned to resort to such
+measures to obtain her end, but she felt pretty sure that her Miss
+Constance was being tricked for some purpose, and felt herself justified
+in fighting fire with fire.
+
+With exceptional wisdom for her years Constance had arranged with
+Charles and Mammy a little code of signals on the electric buttons
+beside her desk and under the counter in her Arch. The signals had
+served to good purpose, as has already been shown, for old Charles had
+come most opportunely when needed one morning. The code was simple: One
+ring meant, “Are you there?”; two, “Come to my counter”; three, “Please
+’phone up to Mr. Porter that Miss Carruth needs him at once.” This last
+call was clearly an emergency call and had never been put to the test;
+but both Mammy and Charles, as well as the young colored boy who served
+at Mammy’s counter, knew that it must not be disregarded for one instant
+if it did come. Constance never knew why she had added it to the simple
+little code, for she certainly never anticipated any special need for
+it. Still, it was a comfort to the young girl to feel that, should
+anything serious occur, she could instantly turn to Mr. Porter.
+
+Mammy entered the office unheard by the two people in the Arch, the
+rumble of vehicles in the street drowning all sound of her footfalls.
+Sniffins was standing at the counter in earnest conversation with Miss
+Boggs. Presently Mammy overheard these words:
+
+“Lige, I _can’t_! I just can’t any longer. She’s too lovely to me.”
+
+“Ah, shut up that stuff. What does she do for you, anyway! Nothin’ mor’n
+anybody else would, an’ she gets enough out o’ you for seven dollars a
+week. Gosh, she’s makin’ seventy if she’s makin’ a cent. Here, lemme see
+that last memorandum of sales made.”
+
+“I haven’t got it here,” was the low-spoken reply.
+
+“Then where have you got it? I want it, do you understand.”
+
+“I don’t see why you want it. I don’t see what good it does you, anyway,
+to know how much candy is sold here,” was the querulous answer.
+
+“Ah, what do you know, anyway? You never did have enough sense to go in
+out of the rain. _I_ know what I want it for. When I’m sure this
+business is makin’ the right-sized pile, I’m goin’—well, never mind what
+I’m going to do. But what I want you to do right now is to strike for
+ten dollars a week—see? You’ve been here six months on seven dollars,
+an’ that’s long and plenty. Now we’re going to have more of the
+profits.”
+
+Katherine merely shook her head stubbornly.
+
+“Does that mean that you won’t?” asked Lige, in an ugly tone.
+
+“Yes, it does.”
+
+“All right, all right. Then you can dust your sweet self out of 620
+mighty quick. No happy home for you of my puttin’ up unless you do as I
+say, Miss Prude. Now where’s that memorandum I want?”
+
+As he spoke Lige made a move as though he intended to go behind the
+counter. Poor, simple little Katherine! She had never been intended to
+play a double game.
+
+At that moment Mammy pressed the button four times. Here was a situation
+needing a firmer hand than hers. A moment later the boy at Mammy’s Arch
+was ’phoning up to Mr. Porter’s office.
+
+“Please, sir, I just got four rings from Miss Carruth’s candy Arch, and
+Mrs. Blairsdale, she say if ever I git _that_, I must call you up right
+smart, and ask you please to go there, ’cause Miss Constance ain’t never
+goin’ to ring four rings unless she need you quick.”
+
+“I’ll be there inside of two minutes, Fred,” and the receiver was
+snapped back.
+
+“Get away, Lige; are you crazy?” cried Katherine, under her breath, at
+the same time foolishly making a dash for her pocketbook which lay upon
+a shelf behind her. As she clasped it Lige caught her wrist in a grip
+which made her cry aloud in pain. At that moment Mr. Porter entered the
+Arch. Lige dropped Katherine’s arm and made a dash for Constance’s
+sanctum, but Mammy had anticipated all this; she had shut and locked the
+door leading to the side street.
+
+“Mebby yo’ t’ink mos’ eve’ybody as big a fool as yo’ is, Mr. Sniffins,
+but yo’ see dey’s _some_ wise an’ hones’ ones yit, don’ yo’? Now, sah,
+yo’ set yo’sef right spang down on dat ar’ cheer t’will I ax yo’ a few
+ques’ions, wha’ Massa Po’tah gwine hyar, an’ dat po’ li’l fool out
+yonder gwine ’splain ef we ses-so. Yas, Massa Po’tah, _I’se_ runnin’
+t’ings just now, an’, please, sah, keep yo’ eye on dat skunk, fo’ I
+tells yo’ he ain’t nothin’ in de roun’ worl’ else. Now, _Miss Sniffins_,
+yo’ please, ma’am, come on hyar, too, fo’ yo’s needed p’intedly.”
+
+In spite of the serious side of the question, Mr. Porter could not help
+smiling at Mammy’s generalship. Sniffins stood in the middle of the
+room, glowering like a trapped animal, and Katherine entered it
+trembling like a leaf. Notwithstanding her righteous wrath, Mammy could
+not help pitying the shrinking little figure, and, placing a chair for
+her, she said kindly:
+
+“Dar, dar, chile, don’ yo’ git so pannicky. Nobody ain’ gwine kill yo’
+whilst Massa Po’tah an’ me close by, dough, Gawd knows wha’ dat low-down
+sumpin’-nurrer lak ter do if he git a chance; _I_ ain’ speculatin’.”
+
+“Mammy, what is the meaning of all this?” interrupted Mr. Porter at this
+juncture.
+
+“Dat’s jist ’xactly what I don’ sent fo’ yo’ fer ter fin’ out, sah.
+Dere’s been some sort of debbilmint gwine on hyar fer a right smart
+while, an’ I’se made it ma b’isness fer ter git scent of it an’ trail
+it, I has. Dat ar’—dat ar’, my Gawd! I spec’s I _gotter_ call him a man
+kase dar don’ seem to be no yether name fo’ him, but _he’s_ at de bottom
+ob it, an’ wha’ fo’ he is, is jist what I means fer ter fin’ out befo’ I
+lets him outer dis hyar office. Now, sah, Massa Po’tah, yo’ kin hab de
+bench an’ question de prisoner.”
+
+Porter had seen enough upon entering the Arch to make him realize that
+Mammy had pretty good grounds for her words and the rage which seemed to
+almost consume her. Ordinarily Mammy’s face was wonderfully serene, but
+Mammy was a pure-blooded African negro, born of an African slave
+captured and brought to the United States when the slave trade was a
+flourishing and disgraceful source of revenue, and Mammy was born not
+long after her mother’s capture. In moments of excitement all her racial
+characteristics dominated to a degree that transformed her. At the
+present moment there was a fierce conflict between heredity and
+tradition, and the environment and training of a lifetime.
+
+“Mammy, tell me what took place before I came upon the scene,” said Mr.
+Porter. “I mean within the last half hour, not before.”
+
+Mammy repeated all she had seen and heard. As she talked Mr. Porter rang
+the janitor’s bell. When the man appeared he said to him: “Get Terry and
+wait with him out in the main corridor. Do it quickly, and don’t make a
+fuss.” Terry was the house detective.
+
+“Now, Sniffins, sit down and explain what I saw as I entered the Arch.
+There is something wrong here, and I’ve got to get to the bottom of it
+right off. It will be useless to beat about the bush now. Mammy has seen
+and heard enough to make things very disagreeable for you, I fancy, and
+certainly I’ve seen pleasanter spectacles than your conduct with Miss
+Boggs as I entered——-”
+
+“She ain’ Miss Boggs no mo’n I is,” broke in Mammy.
+
+Sniffins would not answer. Mr. Porter turned to the trembling little
+figure at the opposite side of the room, real pity in his kind eyes.
+Sniffins glowered at her. Catching the look, Mr. Porter turned upon him
+like lightning.
+
+“If you try to intimidate that child, by the great Jehosaphat I’ll
+either give myself the satisfaction of thrashing you, or turning you
+over to Terry on an accusation you’ll not like. Now quit it! You haven’t
+a thing in the world to fear, Miss Boggs; I guess it is all far less
+grave than it seems to you this minute. So tell me the whole truth.”
+
+Mr. Porter’s voice had changed rapidly from the severe tones directed
+toward Sniffins, and now held only encouragement for the terrified girl.
+After a few spasmodic sobs she faced him and said:
+
+“No, Mr. Porter, I shall not try to keep up this deceit any longer. I
+told Lige when I began it that it would be useless. I’m not the kind of
+girl who can do such things; I’m not smart enough.”
+
+“Reckons yo’s too smart fer ter try ter be what he is,” broke in Mammy.
+Mr. Porter held up his hand to enjoin silence, but if Mammy consented to
+keep her tongue still, she could still wag her head and use her eyes,
+and to some purpose.
+
+“My name isn’t Boggs, but Sniffins——”
+
+“What I done tole yo’!” exploded Mammy.
+
+“Lige is my brother. He wanted me to take the situation. At first I did
+not know why he was so anxious for me to. I thought it was just because
+he wanted me to have one which he believed might lead to something a
+good deal better later on, because Miss Carruth’s candy business was
+growing fast, and I might get to be a forewoman, or something like that.
+You see, I used to know Mary Willing at school, and she and Fanny are
+both doing so well, but——” and Katherine hesitated.
+
+“Go on, Miss Sniffins,” said Mr. Porter, encouragingly; but the look
+Elijah Sniffins gave his sister was not pleasant.
+
+“Well, he just made me take this place, and wouldn’t let me tell my real
+name; and I’ve been scared nearly to death every day of my life for fear
+Mary Willing would come down here, and that would be the end of it all.
+But that wasn’t the worst; pretty soon I guessed just why Lige wanted me
+here, and—and—oh, it seemed as though I just couldn’t stand it another
+minute; I was so ashamed. Miss Carruth is so kind to me, and has always
+been.”
+
+“And the true reason?” interrogated Mr. Porter.
+
+“Oh, I _can’t_ tell it,” cried the girl, turning scarlet and burying her
+face in her hands.
+
+“It will be better to do so here than to do so elsewhere, will it not? I
+am determined to get to the bottom of all this, now that I have begun,
+and much prefer to keep it quiet for the sake of all concerned. I think
+I already guess more than you realize. I shall ask a few questions to
+make it easier for you?”
+
+“She ain’t got to answer none if she don’t want ter,” was Elijah’s surly
+remark.
+
+“Will you kindly keep quiet until your information is desired?” said Mr.
+Porter, quietly. “Your brother wished you to have this situation for two
+reasons, I take it: The first for the income and prospective
+advancement; the second because it brought you in close touch with Miss
+Carruth and might prove a wedge for his social aspirations, which I hear
+are ambitious.”
+
+The girl nodded assent.
+
+“You objected to the deceit practiced and rebelled. Was that the cause
+of his anger and gross rudeness as I entered?”
+
+“Partly.”
+
+“And the rest?”
+
+“He made me keep strict account of the sales and profits and give him a
+memorandum each week,” whispered Katherine.
+
+“Indeed. And to what end?”
+
+“He said—he said, he’d make up his mind that he would get to know and
+would marry Miss Carruth if the business got to be—to be—a big one——”
+
+“My Gawd a-mighty!” cried Mammy, flying out of the chair upon the edge
+of which she had been sitting, her old face the picture of consternation
+and amazement. It was not surprising that Sniffins sprung from his
+simultaneously and made toward the door, for Mammy certainly was wrath
+and retribution incarnate.
+
+Mr. Porter barred the way of one and said sternly: “Mammy, sit down!”
+
+“But—but—but—Massa Po’tah, is yo’ hyar wha’ dat man a-sayin’? _Is_ yo’?
+He—he marry ma Miss Jinny’s daughter? Why, he ain’, he ain’ fitten fer
+ter bresh her shoes! Lemme jes’ lay ma hans on him an’ frazzle him out.”
+
+Mammy was nearly beside herself with indignation.
+
+“Mammy, do you wish to remain here and hear the rest of this ridiculous
+story, or must I have Sniffins and his sister taken up to my office? It
+is too public here for loud talking, and if you wish to save your little
+girl deep mortification, and her mother the keenest distress, you will
+control yourself. This is the greatest folly I could have believed any
+sane being capable of, but if it gets noised abroad it will soon grow
+into a scandal, as you must realize. Remember this, every one present,
+Miss Carruth must never learn one word about it if we can keep it from
+her. Now, go on, Miss Sniffins, and tell all the rest of this wretched
+folly and, yes, downright rascality, for your brother has placed himself
+in a very unenviable position.”
+
+“You can’t _prove_ nothin’,” protested Sniffins.
+
+“Prove anything! Man, are you altogether a fool? Intimidating your
+sister into masquerading under an assumed name, to say nothing of
+handing over a private memoranda of another person’s business affairs,
+and, by the way, Miss Sniffins, I’ll take charge of that last
+memorandum, if you please,” said Mr. Porter, extending his hand toward
+Katherine.
+
+“No, I’m hanged if you do,” blustered Sniffins, springing toward her.
+
+With a grip like iron Mr. Porter forced him back upon his chair.
+Katherine handed him a slip of paper from her purse.
+
+“Thank you. Now, Sniffins, I’ve just a few concluding words to say to
+you, but you will do well to heed them: In the first place, you have
+made an ass of yourself pure and simple. In the second, you are pretty
+close to being something far worse. You have done some queer things
+lately, and tried some very questionable tricks down there on State
+Street, as you know even better than I do, although, as I hinted to you
+some time ago, I know enough, and a heap more than you suspect. I don’t
+want to make trouble for you, or any other man just beginning his
+career, but I won’t stand for rascality. Now here is your chance and you
+have no choice but to take it: You gave your sister no choice, remember,
+and now it’s your turn to eat a little of your own loaf. Ask to be
+transferred to some other office—the further away the better.”
+
+“Ah—what sort of a game are you puttin’ up?” snarled Sniffins.
+
+“It is you, not I, who have put up the game, and since you’ve begun it
+you may as well make up your mind to play it out. You can easily get
+transferred, and that is just what you’ve got to do. This place has
+grown too warm for you in a good many ways. Your mother is fairly
+well-to-do, and your sister has this situation.”
+
+“But I can’t keep it! I can’t!” lamented Katherine.
+
+“You must. Once your brother is away you have nothing to apprehend.”
+
+“But my name! What will Miss Carruth think?” deplored Katherine.
+
+“Will you leave that to me?” asked Mr. Porter, real compassion in his
+voice and face for this unhappy little victim of an unscrupulous will.
+
+“I want to stay, oh, I _do_ want to, for Miss Carruth is always so
+lovely to me.”
+
+“You’s gwine fer ter stay, too,” announced Mammy, autocratically,
+hastily going to Katherine’s side to soothe and pat as she would have
+consoled a distressed child.
+
+“Oh, Mammy, Mammy, she won’t let me stay,” sobbed the contrite little
+soul.
+
+“How she gwine know anything ’bout dese hyer doin’s?” demanded Mammy.
+
+“I don’t see how she can help it.”
+
+“Well, den, I does.”
+
+“Keep your situation, Miss Sniffins, and also keep quiet. I shall tell
+Miss Constance that you gave the assumed name because you feared she
+might feel some prejudice against engaging you if she learned you were
+Mr. Sniffins’ sister; I am sure that is a pretty valid reason, for she
+has every reason to wish to avoid him; he has never figured pleasantly
+in her affairs. And now I think we have had enough of all this. But
+remember this, Sniffins: I mean exactly what I have said, and South
+Riveredge is no place for your future business operations. You have come
+pretty near making a serious mess of things for yourself and everyone
+connected with you, and a halt has been called. Move on, and take a word
+of advice from a business man of double your years—_move straight
+hereafter_. Now go.”
+
+Sniffins left the office by the side door, which Mammy unlocked and held
+open with this parting shot:
+
+“Ain’ I done told yo’ long time ergo dat _some_ day niggers gwine fer
+ter hol’ open de do’ fo’ yo’ stid of yo’ fo’ _dem_?”
+
+Mammy had never forgotten or forgiven the experience of her first visit
+to Elijah Sniffins’ office, and she was settling an old score. Then,
+turning to Katherine, she asked:
+
+“Wha yo’ gwine spen’ de nex’ few days, honey? I would’n aim fer ter go
+home ef I was yo’.”
+
+“I shall stay with a friend here in South Riveredge. I believe Lige
+would half kill me if I went home, he’s so awful mad.”
+
+“Dat’s right, yo’ keep ’way f’om dat man.”
+
+“Yes, it is wiser, Miss Sniffins. Don’t worry, all will come out right
+in the end; he has just lost his head—that’s all. Now mind what I say,
+both of you: Not one word of all this anywhere else. I wouldn’t have all
+this folly come to that little girl’s ears for all I’m worth. It’s
+almost incredible that anyone could act like such a fool. Paugh! it
+makes me ill. I feel as though some loathsome beast had drawn near that
+little girl of ours,” and with a quick “good-day” Mr. Porter turned and
+strode from the office, out through the Arch and into the main corridor,
+where the janitor and Terry stood quietly talking together. They glanced
+up as he drew near.
+
+“Oh, Donnely,” he said to the janitor, “just take a look at that faucet
+in Arch Number One, will you? It’s leaking a little; and Terry, if
+you’ll come up to my office with me you can get those papers now as well
+as any time.” A word, a smile to those in the other Arches, and not a
+thought was given by anyone to what might have been a very unpleasant
+episode in Constance Carruth’s career.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+CUPID IN SPECTACLES.
+
+
+If Constance had any suspicion that a most unusual scene had taken place
+in Arch Number One, she gave no sign of it.
+
+Within a few days after that occurrence Mr. Porter ’phoned down to her
+counter one morning, and asked her if she could come up to his office
+before she returned to her home, giving as a reason his wish to talk
+over some plans he had in mind for the Arch. She went up immediately,
+and as simply as possible he told her of Katherine Sniffins’ unfortunate
+deception, her reason for taking the position under an assumed name, and
+her distress and remorse for having practiced such a deceit. He did his
+best to spare Katherine and to convince Constance that her only reason
+for such deceit had been her eagerness to secure the position, and her
+fear that she could not do so if Constance knew her to be Elijah
+Sniffins’ sister.
+
+At first Constance was strongly inclined to resent it all, and to sever
+relations with the victim of Elijah Sniffin’s scheming, but gradually,
+as Mr. Porter talked, her sense of justice prevailed, and her resentment
+changed to pity, and with that the day was won.
+
+Perhaps Mr. Porter’s casually dropped remark regarding Mr. Elijah
+Sniffins’ sudden departure from South Riveredge to take charge of one of
+the company’s offices in the far West, and the added information that he
+would not return to his former home, was the final straw which turned
+the balance in Katherine’s favor. Constance was a generous-hearted girl,
+to whom petty resentment was impossible. And so that chapter in the
+lives of the girls, so utterly unlike in character, was closed, and
+Constance never knew what an exceedingly unpleasant one it might have
+been for her but for Mammy’s ceaseless vigilance and Mr. Porter’s
+wisdom. For a few days, it is true, she was somewhat disturbed, and it
+needed all her self-control and dignity to help her through the
+half-hour’s talk with Katherine, but once that ordeal was over she
+dismissed it all forever, and was the same sweet, gracious little
+employer whom Katherine had always known. If Katherine had admired her
+before, she openly adored her now, and confided to Mary Willing, whom
+she met not long after, that she “didn’t know there _could_ be girls
+like Constance Carruth,” and forthwith eulogized her until, had
+Constance heard it, she might have been forgiven if she had begun to
+feel around her own shoulder blades for sprouting wings.
+
+Mary let her talk on, secretly rejoicing in every word spoken in praise
+of her idol, then with a most superior
+“why—anybody—could—have—told—you—that” air, she said:
+
+“It’s all very well, I dare say, for people to work like everything to
+reform girls who have actually _done_ wrong and are in disgrace, but
+from my standpoint, if a few more people would do the things Mrs.
+Carruth and Miss Constance are doing as a matter of course every day of
+their lives, there wouldn’t be so many girls in need of reforming,
+because they would be helped to have a little common sense and an idea
+of the fitness of things before they went too far. Everybody knows what
+a silly little fool I used to be whenever a man came near me, and I’d be
+one yet if it hadn’t been for those blessed people; but I tell you they
+made me sit up and take notice, and they did it so beautifully, and with
+so much love and sweet fellowship thrown in, that I’d die to-morrow if
+it could save just one hair of their dear heads. You may think I’m just
+talking for effect, but I’m not. I mean every single word I say, and if
+you ever get to know them as Fanny and I do, you will feel exactly the
+same way, you see if you don’t.”
+
+“I do already, though I can’t talk as you do,” answered Katherine,
+simply.
+
+“They have helped me that way, too,” added Mary. “My goodness, how I
+used to talk and what awful words I used before I knew them! But they
+teach you without letting you ever guess they are teaching, and you
+learn because you can’t help it. Good-bye. Come down and see me some
+time.”
+
+“Can I come to see you down there?”
+
+“Why not? The little sitting-room up over the candy kitchen is just like
+our own. Miss Constance told me to invite any of my girl friends to
+visit me whenever I wished to, and we have lovely times up there
+evenings when the work is done. Sometimes Mrs. Carruth or Miss Constance
+come out to sit with us a little while. They always say they have come
+out to welcome their guests, because Fanny’s guests and mine are theirs,
+too. Isn’t that a sweet way of putting it? We know, though, that they do
+it because they want our friends to feel at home, and there hasn’t been
+a single evening when they haven’t sent Mammy up with some cake, or
+lemonade, or something nice, and I can always take a pound of candy if I
+want to. Oh, there’s no place in all the world like the ‘Bee-hive,’ I
+tell you!” And, with a happy smile, Mary went upon her way.
+
+Not long after this something else came up that filled the Carruth
+household with subject for thought.
+
+Before leaving college, Eleanor had been offered a position in a girls’
+school. The school was one widely known, and prepared a great many
+pupils for Eleanor’s alma mater. She had been highly recommended by its
+faculty, and had fully decided to accept the position. All that remained
+to complete the arrangements was her final acceptance above her own
+signature and that of the school’s principal. This she was on the point
+of settling when she returned to Riveredge, then a trifle changed her
+decision. Homer Forbes came home with her, and on the way she told him
+of her plans.
+
+He listened with great interest, although without comment, meanwhile
+gazing abstractedly out of the Pullman car window until Eleanor began to
+wonder if he heard one word she said, and, if the truth must be
+confessed, was not a little piqued at his seeming unconcern.
+
+As usual, when thinking deeply, he munched away upon something. This
+time it happened to be a long spiral of paper he had absently torn from
+a magazine and twisted into a lamplighter, and Eleanor found herself
+subconsciously wondering how much of it would disappear before he
+recovered his wits and spoke.
+
+About four inches of it had vanished, and, had Mammy been present, her
+theory of the goat would surely have been substantiated, when he gave
+his paper fodder a toss, and, turning toward her, said:
+
+“Don’t sign that contract until you get home and have thought it over a
+week. Then if you _do_ sign it, do so for six months—one term—only.”
+
+“But,” interrupted Eleanor, “that seems to me a most improvident step,
+for right in the dead of the winter it would leave me without occupation
+or the prospect of any.”
+
+“No, it wouldn’t, either. Do you think I would suggest such a step if I
+didn’t have something up my sleeve for you a mighty sight better—er,
+ahem! I mean if I hadn’t been on the lookout for something desirable—or,
+or, at least, something I feel you would consider.”
+
+“What is it?” was Eleanor’s very natural and direct question.
+
+“Eh? Ah, well, er—a little enterprise, a scheme, a—er—What station is
+this we’re drawing into?” and this discussion was sidetracked instantly,
+leaving Eleanor to wonder if Forbes had lost his senses.
+
+She had been home a little more than a week when he asked her to take a
+walk with him, and had led her a wild scramble to the top of the
+mountain to the plateau heretofore mentioned, where he unfolded a plan
+which caused Eleanor to collapse upon a nearby rock and sit looking at
+him in a bewildered manner. Again and again during the ensuing weeks had
+they toiled up the mountain, and each time had returned grimy, gratified
+and garrulous, heads nodding, hands gesticulating and oblivious of any
+other human being on top of the round world.
+
+Mrs. Carruth watched developments with resignation; Constance with open
+amusement; Mammy with a division between tolerance and contempt—the
+saving grace in the cause being that Forbes could remotely claim kinship
+with the Blairsdales. But it was upon Jean that the effect was the
+funniest. Jean had spent all her life with people older than herself.
+There had been no little children in her home, and her interests had
+naturally centered upon her older sisters and around their affairs. She
+had a wise little head upon her fourteen-year-old shoulders, and older
+people would have been somewhat surprised could they have known the
+“long, long thoughts” which passed through it. More than once had she
+seen Forbes and Eleanor start off and toil up the mountain, and more
+than once had she been an unobserved follower. She never followed close
+enough to overhear their conversation; that would have been contrary to
+her sense of honor. Still, she was determined to know where they went,
+and, if her eyes could inform her, why they went, and her deductions
+came nearer the mark than the two would have believed possible.
+
+And so had passed the summer days, and now September was at hand, and in
+a very short time Eleanor would start for Forest Lodge—the school in
+which she had accepted a position for six months—_not longer_. Forbes’
+influence had prevailed.
+
+Early one morning the ’phone rang. Eleanor was wanted.
+
+“I know what it is,” cried Jean, who happened to be near it and turned
+to receive the message: “It’s Mr. Forbes, and he wants Eleanor to play
+Pilgrim’s Progress with him again, I’ll bet a cookie.” The funny
+one-sided conversation began only to be interrupted by Jean, who
+exclaimed:
+
+“What makes you think you’re talking to Eleanor? Are our voices so alike
+as all that? Hold the wire while I call her, and don’t waste all those
+nice speeches on me,” and with a chuckle Jean turned to call Eleanor.
+
+That afternoon Forbes called for Eleanor, and just as they were about to
+start upon their pilgrimage Jean came tearing out upon the piazza with
+two gorgeously colored laundry bags, rose-flowered and highly
+decorative, which she plumped down upon the piazza.
+
+“Jean!” expostulated Mrs. Carruth. “What in this world?”
+
+“Well, I don’t see any sense in playing a game unless you have the
+‘impurtenances,’ as Mammy calls them: it must seem sort of half played.
+So I’ve filled these bags full of newspapers, and if you’ll each sling
+one over your shoulders you’ll be sure enough ‘pilgrims,’ and goodness
+knows you climb up that mountain often enough to give ‘Pilgrim’s
+Progress’ to the life!”
+
+Then Jean fled, and so did Eleanor and Forbes.
+
+Panting and hot, in the course of time they reached the summit of the
+mountain and the plateau, every square foot of which should have been
+known to them by this time. Seating themselves upon the log, which had
+done duty many times before, Forbes at once began to unroll a great
+blueprint which he held at arm’s length, and said:
+
+“_Now_, I can show you the tangible evidence of my dreams. You see the
+plan is this:”
+
+But, alack! the best-_drawn_ plans, etc., and this plan was printed upon
+the stiffest of architect’s paper, and had been rolled tightly for
+several days: Forbes’ fingers were a trifle shaky for some reason; one
+edge of the outspread roll slipped from them and quick as a flash coiled
+up upon itself, sweeping his glasses from his nose and hurling them ten
+feet away, where they crashed upon a rock and shivered to atoms.
+
+Now, if anyone reading this is solely and entirely dependent upon a pair
+of glasses to see anything ten inches beyond her own nose, she will
+understand how Forbes felt at that particular moment—maybe.
+
+They bounded to their feet and inanely rushed for the wrecked glasses,
+knowing perfectly well that only bits of scattered crystal lay upon that
+merciless rock. Eleanor dropped upon her knees and began frantically to
+gather up the fragments, Forbes towering above her and blinking like an
+owl which has suddenly been routed out of a hollow tree into the glaring
+sunshine. A fragment, about two-thirds, of the lense of the right eye
+still held to the nose-clip. Eleanor pounced upon this, crying:
+
+“Ah, here is a little piece, a very little piece! Do you think you can
+see with that? See just a little, little bit? Enough to look over the
+plans? I’ll read the specifications to you. I’ll do anything, anything
+to help you, I feel so terribly sorry. Let me be your eyes for just a
+little while, for I know how disappointed you must be,” and there was
+almost a sob in her voice as she rose to her feet and held the hopeless
+bit of eyeglass toward him.
+
+He took it, deliberately opened the patent clip and as deliberately
+snapped it upon his nose, Eleanor watching him as though worlds trembled
+in the balance.
+
+If half a loaf is better than no bread, I dare say two-thirds of an
+eyeglass are better than no eyeglass at all; and who in such a vital
+moment would have dared hint that Forbes looked slightly batty as he
+cocked one eye at the lady before him? Certainly not the lady, who was
+the very picture of Dolores at that instant. Then Forbes came to the
+front splendidly. Indeed, he came with a rush and a promptitude which no
+one could have foreseen; he made one step forward, and the next instant
+held the lady in his arms, as his words poured deliciously into the ear
+so near his lips:
+
+“My eyes! My eyes! You shall be my eyes, my ears, my soul!—yes, my very
+body and boots. No! no! I don’t mean that! Oh, hang it all, what made me
+say that foolish thing? I mean you _are_ my eyes and my very soul!
+Without your inspiration my very mind would be a blank. With you the
+dreams of my life will be crystallized into beautiful realities. Never,
+never shall I let you leave me! Never depart from your home until this
+one we have pictured and planned stands ready to receive you within its
+walls, to be its cherished, adored light; its inner shrine, at which I
+shall be the chief worshipper, my goddess of sweetness, light and
+intellect! My inspiration to ideals beyond man’s conception.”
+
+But let us draw down that thick fir bough as a curtain.
+
+Off yonder, upon a moss-covered stone, sat a little figure, hugging his
+knees and swaying backward and forward in an abandonment of hilarious
+mirth. At his feet lay a bow, beside him an empty quiver. On his wee
+nose the wreck of a pair of thick-lensed eyeglasses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+HARVEST TIME.
+
+
+The September days were exceptionally warm ones, but no one seemed to
+mind them because the evenings were cool. The two pilgrims continued
+their progress, advancing rapidly and in such a rosy atmosphere that the
+millennium seemed close at hand. Whatever Homer Forbes’ plans were, and
+as yet only he and Eleanor seemed to know much about them, they
+evidently met the entire approval of the lady in the question, for she
+threw herself into the process of perfecting them with an ardor that
+nearly drove her family frantic. No matter where they turned, they found
+plans and specifications lying about, and Eleanor’s room resembled an
+architect’s drafting-office. Not long after that walk up the mountain
+there had been a closeted hour’s talk with Mrs. Carruth, and when Homer
+Forbes came out of the library at the end of it he was in such a
+perturbed state of mind that he nearly fell over Mammy as he rushed
+through the hall, out of the front door and across the piazza, to vanish
+down the road and leave the family staring after him; at least, that
+portion of the family which happened to be seated there. Hard upon his
+heels followed Mammy, crying:
+
+“Gawd bress ma soul! what Miss Jinny done ter dat man? ’Pears lak he
+gone plum loony.” Then, turning to Mrs. Carruth, who followed not far
+behind, Mammy continued: “Miss Jinny, is dat man gone cl’ar crazy?”
+
+Mrs. Carruth smiled as she replied:
+
+“They sometimes call it ‘a very mid-summer madness,’ Mammy, but
+mid-summer has passed, hasn’t it? It’s not dangerous, however. You would
+better go upstairs and ask Miss Nornie. I am sure she can tell you more
+about Mr. Forbes than I can. At all events, she has decided to let him
+guide her through life, so she must have an abiding faith in him, and I
+have told him he may do so if she wishes it. By the spring you will have
+to climb to the top of Mt. Parnassus if you wish to see your Miss
+Nornie, I think.”
+
+“Whar _dat_ place at?” demanded Mammy, while Hadyn gave a low whistle,
+and Constance cried, “What did I tell you, Mumsey?” as Jean jumped up
+and down in her excitement.
+
+“You had better go upstairs and ask Miss Nornie, Mammy,” and straightway
+Mammy whirled about and started upstairs to Eleanor’s room, where she
+found her buried neck-deep in a pile of drafting papers, triangles,
+compasses and pencils; though just what she was drawing plans for Mammy
+could not guess. When questioned of late Eleanor had given negative,
+abstracted replies which more than once nearly convulsed her hearers,
+and upon one occasion she had brought consternation upon the family by
+emptying a brimming washbowl of water into her scrap-basket instead of
+her slop-jar. Evidently the scrap-basket had figured more prominently in
+her thoughts of late than had her washbowl.
+
+As Mammy appeared at the door Eleanor was bending over a great blueprint
+plan which she had spread upon the floor. It was a tremendous affair,
+fully two by four feet, and Eleanor was down upon her knees, hands
+outspread and locks flying, too absorbed to be aware of Mammy’s
+presence.
+
+“Peripatos, peristyle penetralia,” murmured the engrossed one, tracing
+with a slender forefinger the lines upon her plan, then repeating,
+“Penetralia, penetralia. How interesting.”
+
+“What in de name o’ man is you jabberin’ about, anyway, Miss Nornie?”
+
+Eleanor came to an upright position with a start, crying:
+
+“Goodness, Mammy, how you startled me!”
+
+“Yo’ better had git up f’om dat floor ’stid o’ bendin’ ober dat sky-blue
+sheet o’ paper what done look lak it got Chinee writin’ an’ drawin’ on
+it. Yo’ face make out de res’ ob de colors fer de hull ’Merican flag:
+red, white an’ blue alltergedder. ’Taint no kynd ob a day fer ter be
+bendin’ ober lak yo’ is. Nex’ t’ing yo’ know yo’ gwine git rush o’ blood
+ter de haid, an’ dat’s bad, I tells yo’! Wha’ yo’ gwine do wid all dat
+blue stuff, anyway? Yo’ ain’ tell me one single t’ing ’bout it, an’ I
+ain’ know wha’ ’tis. An’ I wants fer ter know, too, if yo’ gwine be home
+ter lunch ter day.” Mammy’s sharp eye scrutinized the rosy face before
+her.
+
+“O, you needn’t bother about me, Mammy. Mr. Forbes will be over shortly
+and we are going for a tramp.”
+
+“Tromp! tromp!” echoed Mammy. “Tromp on sich a hot day as dis hyar wid
+de fermom’ter jist nachelly climbin’ cl’ar out er sight? Is you done
+gone silly, yo’ an’ dat Perfesser Fo’bes? Yo’ stay ter home in dis cool
+house what I done darken up fer ter keep out de sizzlin’, billin’ heat.
+It fa’r scoch de very skin off yo’ body. Don’ yo’ let dat man drag yo’
+up dat mountain on sich a day, I tells yo’.”
+
+“Oh, we don’t mind it, and the woods are so cool. Just put up one of
+your delicious little luncheons for us, and we’ll be more than
+supplied.”
+
+“Cool in de woods! Yis, when yo’ gits to em, but yo’s got right smart
+ter walk fo’ yo’ comes ter dem, an’ I ain’ pinin’ fer no sich ’xertion
+on such a frazzlin’-out day. But I reckons I jist better save ma’ bref
+dan spend it a-talkin’. Yo’ lunch gwine be ready fo’ yo’ when yo’ ready
+fo’ it; but what I wants ter know now is, what all _dat_ meanin’,” and
+Mammy pointed again to the big blueprint.
+
+Eleanor was not given to emotion but there come times in every life when
+one’s emotions are more easily played upon than at others. The past week
+had held such moments for Eleanor. Of all Mammy’s children Eleanor had
+been the least demonstrative. She rarely caressed the old woman as
+Constance and Jean did. Now, however, she bounded to her feet and,
+rushing to Mammy, cried:
+
+“Oh, Mammy! Mammy! Do you believe in dreams? Don’t you think they come
+true sometimes?”
+
+“A heap o’ times!” interjected Mammy.
+
+Eleanor sighed ecstatically. I _knew_ you would say so, Mammy. “And
+_ours_ will, won’t it?”
+
+“Who ‘ours?’” demanded Mammy, her lips pursed up, and distrust in her
+eyes.
+
+“Homer’s and mine! Homer! Isn’t that a name to inspire one? Fate must
+have ordained that he should bear such a name. Only a classic poet’s
+could be in harmony. It must be the purest, the best, the finest, the
+most perfect,” rhapsodized Eleanor.
+
+Mammy looked at her a little anxiously, and asked:
+
+“Isn’t yo’ better lay down on dat baid yonder? Yo’s been a bendin’ ober
+dose papers twell yo’ haid’s achin’, I’se feered.”
+
+“Ah, no, Mammy, but think of it! To live in a Grecian dwelling! A
+perfect reproduction of an Athenian temple. With the fountain of
+Hippocrene in it’s center, from which a rill will flow murmuring all the
+day. Helicon’s harmonious stream. We shall call it Helicon Hall, and
+there we shall train the youthful mind to a deep appreciation of true
+beauty. In the central court, overroofed with glass and filled with
+tropical plants, will be our hearth stone, our altar, on either side of
+which will stand our lares and penates. Could any other mind have
+conceived this wonderful dream in this prosaic age? See, see our plans,
+Mammy? How clear, how concise, how graphic. Ah, I can picture it
+all—all.”
+
+“Well den I cyant!” cried Mammy, losing patience, “and I don’ reckon yo’
+Ma nor none ob de yethers kin. At any rate, I got sumpin else ter do
+’sides standin’ hyar listenin’ at what I sets down as jist foolishness;
+an’ ef I was yo’ Ma I’d tell yo’ not ter go a-climbin’ up dat mountain
+no mo’ twell de wedder done cool off some,” and with this admonition
+Mammy left the dreamer to her dreams. But before we take a long leave of
+her, we will add, by the way, that in the course of time this dream
+crystallized into a large building, in the form of the Parthenon,
+wherein this modern Socrates, Professor Homer Forbes, and a charming
+Hypatia, his wife, led the minds of affluent youths, whose parents were
+willing to indulge them in such luxuries, along paths of learning
+literally flower-strewn. Reclining at length upon the green sward of the
+court of Helicon Hill, they drank in the words of wisdom falling from
+the lips of their preceptors. Eleanor had achieved her ideals: Homer
+Forbes his. What more could mortals ask?
+
+And the lares and penates? Well, Jean was rather practical. Those old
+Greek fireside gods might be all very well in their way, but Greece had
+seen _her_ day. In the present one there was a quaint little grinning
+“god of things, as they ought to be,” to which Jean pinned greater
+faith; and when, one beautiful April day, Homer Forbes and his bride
+returned from their wedding journey, and entered the inner court of
+Helicon Hall, where the (let us hope) sacred fire burned upon the
+hearth, the first thing upon which Eleanor’s eyes rested in these
+classic surroundings was “Billykin,” perched above the blazing logs.
+
+And in the interval between that warm September day and the lighting of
+that hearth by loving hands for the home-coming of the idealists? Ah,
+life holds some sweet moments, and this old world is not such a bad one,
+after all. But we anticipate.
+
+October came again, and all the world was beautiful in its golden haze.
+With Eleanor’s engagement to Homer Forbes, and her complete absorption
+in her demi-god, who had changed her plans so completely, her future so
+entirely, Eleanor plunged headlong into consummating his dreams so far
+as in her power lay. This left Constance largely to herself and her own
+plans. All had gone well with her, and, with the beginning of the social
+season in Riveredge and elsewhere, Constance’s business grew very brisk.
+She was kept busy from morning to evening. It was a wonderfully happy
+life for her. To be the chief support of her family, to give to her
+mother the thousand little luxuries she had known in earlier life, to
+give to Jean every possible advantage, both educational and social, and
+still have time to enjoy life at its heyday herself—why—surely, no more
+could be asked.
+
+Mary and Fanny Willing were as happy and content as two girls well could
+be, and worked and sang from dawn to twilight. With the autumn even more
+help became necessary to keep abreast of the orders; and, through Hadyn,
+Constance secured the services of a man in whom Hadyn was deeply
+interested. He had known him in college days, but days of adversity had
+overtaken him, and for two years he had seemed to be the very toy of an
+adverse fate. In that interval his family had slipped into the Great
+Beyond, and the small nest-egg left him had been swept from him by the
+failure of the company in which it was invested, throwing Edward DeLaney
+upon his own resources.
+
+Upon Hadyn’s advice he was engaged by Constance as bookkeeper and a sort
+of general superintendent, dividing his time between the Candy Kitchen,
+the Arcade, and the other booths, which, in the course of time had been
+established elsewhere. He was only twenty-five, but an able, manly
+fellow, quick-witted and resourceful. He took firm hold of affairs
+instantly, and, during the course of the ensuing winter, Constance more
+than once thanked the lucky star which had guided this tall, clear-eyed,
+finely-set-up six-foot laddie to her Candy Kitchen. No one could look
+into those fine, hazel eyes without trusting them instantly, nor see the
+lines of that resolute, yet tender mouth without reading the man’s
+character. His skin was as fair and as clear as a child’s, and his smile
+as winning. He speedily found his way into the home circle, and just the
+degree of happiness it brought to him few guessed.
+
+But this is dipping into the future by several months. At present we are
+in October’s golden glow.
+
+“What a day!” cried Hadyn, as he and Constance came out upon the piazza
+one beautiful afternoon when luncheon was over.
+
+“Isn’t it simply heavenly? It seems to me we never have such days
+excepting during October. Look at the coloring over on that mountain and
+on our own hills. It is perfectly intoxicating. It makes me feel like
+doing something out of the usual order, and yet I ought to go out yonder
+to the Candy Kitchen and lend a hand with the thousand and one things to
+be attended to. I tell you, Hadyn Stuyvesant, I am rapidly becoming a
+power in the commercial world,” laughed Constance.
+
+“You are a greater power already than you guess. Before you know it that
+business will have grown beyond its boundaries again, and even greater
+expansion will be necessary. But just now let’s ‘forget it,’ and go for
+a ride up that glorious mountain. I’ll ’phone down to Pringle’s for
+Lightfoot, and we’ll have an afternoon fit for the gods.”
+
+“Done! I’m only human, and the call of the woods on such a day as this
+drowns the call of duty. But I hate to take Comet from you; you seem so
+much a part of each other.”
+
+“Since he came to live here he has become a part of you all, and more
+nearly _human_ than ever. Jean has seen to that. How that child loves
+animals! I’ve a little scheme in the back part of my head which I mean
+shall take tangible form when her next birthday comes around.”
+
+“Oh, what is it?” cried Constance, for everything concerning Jean held
+the keenest interest for her.
+
+“Tell you after we’ve had our ride. I’m off now for my togs. See you
+inside half an hour. Tell Parsons to saddle Comet for you,” and with a
+wave of his hand Hadyn hurried away to get into his riding clothes. An
+hour later they rode away from the house, as bonny a pair as eyes could
+rest upon, and upon which one pair did rest with the love and devotion
+one often sees in the eyes of a dog; Mammy raised her apron, wiped a
+tear from her lids, and said softly to herself:
+
+“_Dem’s ma chillen._ Yis, jist ma own God-blessedest ones what ever _is_
+live! Him, too. Miss Nornie kin tek up wid dat Perfesser man ef she
+wanter, but _gimme dat one ridin’ ’way yonder_. He’s de very cream ob
+all creation, an’ he gwine be mighty good ter ma baby, too. I ain’t need
+no secon’ sight fer ter read _dat_ writin’. An’ he gwine fin’ out what a
+pearl o’ price he gettin’, too, dough I reckons he got some notion o’
+dat a’reddy. An’ he gwine git somepin’ he ain’ countin’ ’pon a mite, an’
+would be clar _’bove_ countin’ ’pon anyhow; he gwine git a wife wha’ got
+her _own nes’aig_. Charles an’ me ain’ run dat ar’ lunch counter all dis
+time jist fer fun an’ de reppitation it done give us; no, sir-ee! We
+done put ’side ’nough fer ter give each o’ ole Massa’s gran’chillen dey
+_dots_, as dose French folks calls it. Yis, we is, an’ I’s proud ob it,
+too. It’s de onlies’ way we kin eber show em dat dey’s ours, an’ we’s
+deirs. Mebbe Massa Stuyvesant got a-plenty, an’ mebbe Massa Fo’bes is
+got, too, a-plenty fer ’em bofe—I dunno—but I knows dis much: A ’omans a
+mighty sight mo’ self-respectin’ an’, an’ sort o’ stan’in’ firm on her
+own foots ef she knows dars a stockin’full o’ gol’ wha’ she kin turn
+inside-out ef she want ter ’thout axin’ ’by yo’ leave, Mr. Man,’ no
+matter how she love him or he love her. An’ me an’ Charles done fix dat
+all right, so we has. Gawd bress ma chillen! Gawd bress em! Dey’s filled
+ma soul wid joy all de days of ma life, and dey’s made Charles’ foots
+fer ter walk in de green past’ers endurin’ his declinin’ years. Oh, we’s
+happy, we is, wid de Gawd-blessedes’ white folks two ol’ cullered folks
+ever is know.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THREE LITTLE WOMEN’S SUCCESS
+which causes them to believe that the Divinity is continually
+interfering on their behalf at the cost of other people. It will be
+noticed that the references given are all to the Old Testament, and
+nearly all refer to acts of blood.
+
+These doctrines were not, however, at all acceptable to Burgers' party,
+or the more enlightened members of the community, and so bitter did the
+struggle of rival opinions become that there is very little doubt that
+had the country not been annexed, civil war would have been added to
+its other calamities. Meanwhile the natives were from day to day
+becoming more restless, and messengers were constantly arriving at the
+Special Commissioner's camp, begging that their tribe might be put
+under the Queen, and stating that they would fight rather than submit
+any longer to the Boers.
+
+At length on the 9th April, Sir T. Shepstone informed the Government of
+the Republic that he was about to declare the Transvaal British
+territory. He told them that he had considered and reconsidered his
+determination, but that he could see no possible means within the State
+by which it could free itself from the burdens that were sinking it to
+destruction, adding that if he could have found such means he would
+certainly not have hidden them from the Government. This intimation was
+received in silence, though all the later proceedings with reference to
+the Annexation were in reality carried out in concert with the
+authorities of the Republic. Thus on the 13th March the Government
+submitted a paper of ten questions to Sir T. Shepstone as regards the
+future condition of the Transvaal under English rule, whether the debts
+of the State would be guaranteed, &c. To these questions replies were
+given which were on the whole satisfactory to the Government. As these
+replies formed the basis of the proclamation guarantees, it is not
+necessary to enter into them.
+
+It was further arranged by the Republican Government that a formal
+protest should be entered against the Annexation, which was accordingly
+prepared and privately shown to the Special Commissioner. The
+Annexation proclamation was also shown to President Burgers, and a
+paragraph eliminated at his suggestion. In fact, the Special
+Commissioner and the President, together with most of his Executive,
+were quite at one as regards the necessity of the proclamation being
+issued, their joint endeavours being directed to the prevention of any
+disturbance, and to secure a good reception for the change.
+
+At length, after three months of inquiry and negotiation, the
+proclamation of annexation was on the 12th of April 1877 read by Mr.
+Osborn, accompanied by some other gentlemen of Sir T. Shepstone's
+staff. It was an anxious moment for all concerned. To use the words of
+the Special Commissioner in his despatch home on the subject, "Every
+effort had been made during the previous fortnight by, it is said,
+educated Hollanders, and who had but lately arrived in the country, to
+rouse the fanaticism of the Boers, and to induce them to offer 'bloody'
+resistance to what it was known I intended to do. The Boers were
+appealed to in the most inflammatory language by printed manifestoes
+and memorials; ... it was urged that I had but a small escort, which
+could easily be overpowered." In a country so full of desperadoes and
+fanatical haters of anything English, it was more than possible that,
+though such an act would have been condemned by the general sense of
+the country, a number of men could easily be found who would think they
+were doing a righteous act in greeting the "annexationists" with an
+ovation of bullets. I do not mean that the anxiety was personal,
+because I do not think the members of that small party set any higher
+value on their lives than other people, but it was absolutely necessary
+for the success of the act itself, and for the safety of the country,
+that not a single shot should be fired. Had that happened it is
+probable that the whole country would have been involved in confusion
+and bloodshed, the Zulus would have broken in, and the Kafirs would
+have risen; in fact, to use Cetywayo's words, "the land would have
+burned with fire."
+
+It will therefore be easily understood what an anxious hour that was
+both for the Special Commissioner sitting up at Government House, and
+for his staff down on the Market Square, and how thankful they were
+when the proclamation was received with hearty cheers by the crowd. Mr.
+Burgers' protest, which was read immediately afterwards, was received
+in respectful silence.
+
+And thus the Transvaal Territory passed for a while into the great
+family of the English Colonies. I believe that the greatest political
+opponent of the act will bear tribute to the very remarkable ability
+with which it was carried out. When the variety and number of the
+various interests that had to be conciliated, the obstinate nature of
+the individuals who had to be convinced, as well as the innate hatred
+of the English name and ways which had to be overcome to carry out this
+act successfully, are taken into consideration, together with a
+thousand other matters, the neglect of any one of which would have
+sufficed to make failure certain, it will be seen what tact and skill
+and knowledge of human nature was required to execute so difficult a
+task. It must be remembered that no force was used, and that there
+never was any threat of force. The few troops that were to enter the
+Transvaal were four weeks' march from Pretoria at the time. There was
+nothing whatsoever to prevent the Boers putting a summary stop to the
+proceedings of the Commissioner if they had thought fit.
+
+That Sir Theophilus played a bold and hazardous game nobody will deny,
+but, like most players who combine boldness with coolness of head and
+justice of cause, he won; and, without shedding a single drop of blood,
+or even confiscating an acre of land, and at no cost, annexed a great
+country, and averted a very serious war. That same country four years
+later cost us a million of money, the loss of nearly a thousand men
+killed and wounded, and the ruin of many more confiding thousands, to
+surrender. It is true, however, that nobody can accuse the retrocession
+of having been conducted with judgment or ability--very much the
+contrary.
+
+There can be no more ample justification of the issue of the Annexation
+proclamation than the proclamation itself.
+
+First, it touches on the Sand River Convention of 1852, by which
+independence was granted to the State, and shows that the "evident
+objects and inciting motives" in granting such guarantee were to
+promote peace, free-trade, and friendly intercourse, in the hope and
+belief that the Republic "would become a flourishing and
+self-sustaining State, a source of strength and security to
+neighbouring European communities, and a point from which Christianity
+and civilisation might rapidly spread toward Central Africa." It goes
+on to show how these hopes have been disappointed, and how that
+increasing weakness in the State itself on the one side, and more than
+corresponding growth of real strength and confidence among the native
+tribes on the other, have produced their natural and inevitable
+consequence ... that after more or less of irritating conflict with
+aboriginal tribes to the north, there commenced about the year 1867
+gradual abandonment to the natives in that direction of territory
+settled by burghers of the Transvaal "in well-built towns and villages
+and on granted farms."
+
+It goes on to show that "this decay of power and ebb of authority in
+the north is being followed by similar processes in the south under yet
+more dangerous circumstances. People of this State residing in that
+direction have been compelled within the last three months, at the
+bidding of native chiefs, and at a moment's notice, to leave their
+farms and homes, their standing crops ... all to be taken possession of
+by natives, but that the Government is more powerless than ever to
+vindicate its assumed rights or to resist the declension that is
+threatening its existence." It then recites how all the other colonies
+and communities of South Africa have lost confidence in the State, how
+it is in a condition of hopeless bankruptcy, and its commerce
+annihilated, whilst the inhabitants are divided into factions, and the
+Government has fallen into "helpless paralysis." How also the prospect
+of the election of a new President, instead of being looked forward to
+with hope, would in the opinion of all parties be the signal for civil
+war, anarchy, and bloodshed. How that this state of things affords the
+very strongest temptation to the great neighbouring native powers to
+attack the country, a temptation that they were only too ready and
+anxious to yield to, and that the State was in far too feeble a
+condition to repel such attacks, from which it had hitherto only been
+saved by the repeated representations of the Government of Natal. The
+next paragraphs I will quote as they stand, for they sum up the reasons
+for the Annexation.
+
+"That the Secocoeni war, which would have produced but little effect
+on a healthy constitution, has not only proved suddenly fatal to the
+resources and reputation of the Republic, but has shown itself to be a
+culminating point in the history of South Africa, in that a Makatee or
+Basuto tribe, unwarlike and of no account in Zulu estimation,
+successfully withstood the strength of the State, and disclosed for the
+first time to the native powers outside the Republic, from the Zambesi
+to the Cape, the great change that had taken place in the relative
+strength of the white and black races, that this disclosure at once
+shook the prestige of the white man in South Africa, and placed every
+European community in peril, that this common danger has caused
+universal anxiety, has given to all concerned the right to investigate
+its cause, and to protect themselves from its consequences, and has
+imposed the duty upon those who have the power to shield enfeebled
+civilisation from the encroachments of barbarism and inhumanity." It
+proceeds to point out that the Transvaal will be the first to suffer
+from the results of its own policy, and that it is for every reason
+perfectly impossible for Her Majesty's Government to stand by and see a
+friendly white State ravaged, knowing that its own possessions will be
+the next to suffer. That Her Majesty's Government, being persuaded that
+the only means to prevent such a catastrophe would be by the annexation
+of the country, and, knowing that this was the wish of a large
+proportion of the inhabitants of the Transvaal, the step must be taken.
+Next follows the formal annexation.
+
+Together with the proclamation, an address was issued by Sir T.
+Shepstone to the burghers of the State, laying the facts before them in
+a friendly manner, more suited to their mode of thought than it was
+possible to do in a formal proclamation. This document, the issue of
+which was one of those touches that insured the success of the
+Annexation, was a powerful summing up in colloquial language of the
+arguments used in the proclamation, strengthened by quotations from the
+speeches of the President. It ends with these words: "It remains only
+for me to beg of you to consider and weigh what I have said calmly and
+without undue prejudice. Let not mere feeling or sentiment prevail over
+your judgment. Accept what Her Majesty's Government intends shall be,
+and what you will soon find from experience, is a blessing not only to
+you and your children, but to the whole of South Africa through you,
+and believe that I speak these words to you as a friend from my heart."
+
+Two other proclamations were also issued, one notifying the assumption
+of the office of Administrator of the Government by Sir T. Shepstone,
+and the other repealing the war-tax, which was doubtless an unequal and
+oppressive impost.
+
+I have in the preceding pages stated all the principal grounds of the
+Annexation and briefly sketched the history of that event. In the next
+chapter I propose to follow the fortunes of the Transvaal, under
+British Rule.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE TRANSVAAL UNDER BRITISH RULE.
+
+
+The news of the Annexation was received all over the country with a
+sigh of relief, and in many parts of it with great rejoicings. At the
+Gold Fields, for instance, special thanksgiving services were held, and
+"God save the Queen" was sung in church. Nowhere was there the
+slightest disturbance, but, on the contrary, addresses of
+congratulation and thanks literally poured in by every mail, many of
+them signed by Boers who have since been conspicuous for their bitter
+opposition to English rule. At first, there was some doubt as to what
+would be the course taken under the circumstances by the volunteers
+enlisted by the late Republic. Major Clarke, R.A., was sent to convey
+the news, and to take command of them, unaccompanied save by his Kafir
+servant. On arrival at the principal fort, he at once ordered the
+Republican flag to be hauled down and the Union Jack run up, and his
+orders were promptly obeyed. A few days afterwards some members of the
+force thought better of it, and having made up their minds to kill him,
+came to the tent where he was sitting to carry out their purpose. On
+learning their kind intentions, Major Clarke fixed his eye-glass in his
+eye, and after steadily glaring at them through it for some time, said,
+"You are all drunk, go back to your tents." The volunteers, quite
+overcome by his coolness and the fixity of his gaze, at once slipped
+off, and there was no further trouble. About three weeks after the
+Annexation, the I-13th Regiment arrived at Pretoria, having been very
+well received all along the road by the Boers, who came from miles
+round to hear the band play. Its entry into Pretoria was quite a sight;
+the whole population turned out to meet it; indeed the feeling of
+rejoicing and relief was so profound that when the band began to play
+"God save the Queen" some of the women burst into tears.
+
+Meanwhile the effect of the Annexation on the country was perfectly
+magical. Credit and commerce were at once restored; the railway bonds
+that were down to nothing in Holland rose with one bound to par, and
+the value of landed property nearly doubled. Indeed it would have been
+possible for any one, knowing what was going to happen, to have
+realised large sums of money by buying land in the beginning of 1877,
+and selling it shortly after the Annexation.
+
+On the 24th May, being Her Majesty's birthday, all the native chiefs
+who were anywhere within reach were summoned to attend the first formal
+hoisting of the English flag. The day was a general festival, and the
+ceremony was attended by a large number of Boers and natives in
+addition to all the English. At mid-day, amidst the cheers of the
+crowd, the salute of artillery, and the strains of "God save the
+Queen," the Union Jack was run up a lofty flagstaff, and the Transvaal
+was formally announced to be British soil. The flag was hoisted by
+Colonel Brooke, R.E., and the present writer. Speaking for myself, I
+may say that it was one of the proudest moments of my life. Could I
+have foreseen that I should live to see that same flag, then hoisted
+with so much joyous ceremony, within a few years shamefully and
+dishonourably hauled down and buried,[8] I think it would have been the
+most miserable.
+
+          [8] The English flag was during the signing of the Convention
+          at Pretoria formally buried by a large crowd of Englishmen
+          and loyal natives.
+
+The Annexation was as well received in England as it was in the
+Transvaal. Lord Carnarvon wrote to Sir T. Shepstone to convey "the
+Queen's entire approval of your conduct since you received Her
+Majesty's commission, with a renewal of my own thanks on behalf of the
+Government for the admirable prudence and discretion with which you
+have discharged a great and unwonted responsibility." It was also
+accepted by Parliament with very few dissentient voices, since it was
+not till afterwards, when the subject became useful as an
+electioneering howl, that the Liberal party, headed by our "powerful
+popular minister," discovered the deep iniquity that had been
+perpetrated in South Africa. So satisfied were the Transvaal Boers with
+the change that Messrs. Kruger, Jorissen, and Bok, who formed the
+deputation to proceed to England and present President Burgers' formal
+protest against the Annexation, found great difficulty in raising
+one-half of the necessary expenses--something under one thousand
+pounds--towards the cost of the undertaking. The thirst for
+independence cannot have been very great when all the wealthy burghers
+in the Transvaal put together would not subscribe a thousand pounds
+towards retaining it. Indeed, at this time the members of the
+deputation themselves seem to have looked upon their undertaking as
+being both doubtful and undesirable, since they informed Sir T.
+Shepstone that they were going to Europe to discharge an obligation
+which had been imposed upon them, and if the mission failed, they would
+have done their duty. Mr. Kruger said that if they did fail, he would
+be found to be as faithful a subject under the new form of government
+as he had been under the old; and Dr. Jorissen admitted with equal
+frankness that "the change was inevitable, and expressed his belief
+that the cancellation of it would be calamitous."
+
+Whilst the Annexation was thus well received in the country immediately
+interested, a lively agitation was commenced in the Western Province of
+the Cape Colony, a thousand miles away, with a view of inducing the
+Home Government to repudiate Sir T. Shepstone's act. The reason of this
+movement was that the Cape Dutch party, caring little or nothing for
+the real interests of the Transvaal, did care a great deal about their
+scheme to turn all the white communities of South Africa into a great
+Dutch Republic, to which they thought the Annexation would be a
+deathblow. As I have said elsewhere, it must be borne in mind that the
+strings of the anti-annexation agitation have all along been pulled in
+the Western Province, whilst the Transvaal Boers have played the parts
+of puppets. The instruments used by the leaders of the movement in the
+Cape were, for the most part, the discontented and unprincipled
+Hollander element, a newspaper of an extremely abusive nature called
+the _Volkstem_, and another in Natal known as the _Natal Witness_,
+lately edited by the notorious Aylward, which has an almost equally
+unenviable reputation.
+
+On the arrival of Messrs. Jorissen and Kruger in England, they were
+received with great civility by Lord Carnarvon, who was, however,
+careful to explain to them that the Annexation was irrevocable. In this
+decision they cheerfully acquiesced, assuring his lordship of their
+determination to do all they could to induce the Boers to accept the
+new state of things, and expressing their desire to be allowed to serve
+under the new Government.
+
+Whilst these gentlemen were thus satisfactorily arranging matters with
+Lord Carnarvon, Sir. T. Shepstone was making a tour round the country
+which resembled a triumphal progress more than anything else. He was
+everywhere greeted with enthusiasm by all classes of the community,
+Boers, English, and natives, and numerous addresses were presented to
+him couched in the warmest language, not only by Englishmen, but also
+by Boers.
+
+It is very difficult to reconcile the enthusiasm of a great number of
+the inhabitants of the Transvaal for English rule, and the quiet
+acquiescence of the remainder, at this time, with the decidedly
+antagonistic attitude assumed later on. It appears to me, however, that
+there are several reasons that go far towards accounting for it. The
+Transvaal, when we annexed it, was in the position of a man with a
+knife at his throat, who is suddenly rescued by some one stronger than
+he, on certain conditions which at the time he gladly accepts, but
+afterwards, when the danger is passed, wishes to repudiate. In the same
+way the inhabitants of the South African Republic were in the time of
+need very thankful for our aid, but after a while, when the
+recollection of their difficulties had grown faint, when their debts
+had been paid and their enemies defeated, they began to think that they
+would like to get rid of us again, and start fresh on their own account
+with a clean sheet. What fostered agitation more than anything else,
+however, was the perfect impunity with which it was allowed to be
+carried on. Had only a little firmness and decision been shown in the
+first instance there would have been no further trouble. We might have
+been obliged to confiscate half-a-dozen farms, and perhaps imprison as
+many free burghers for a few months, and there it would have ended.
+Neither Boers or natives understand our namby-pamby way of playing at
+government; they put it down to fear. What they want, and what they
+expect, is to be governed with a just but a firm hand. Thus when the
+Boers found that they could agitate with impunity, they naturally
+enough continued to agitate. Anybody who knows them will understand
+that it was very pleasant to them to find themselves in possession of
+that delightful thing, a grievance, and, instead of stopping quietly at
+home on their farms, to feel obliged to proceed, full of importance and
+long words, to a distant meeting, there to spout and listen to the
+spouting of others. It is so much easier to talk politics than to sow
+mealies. Some attribute the discontent among the Boers to the
+postponement of the carrying out of the Annexation proclamation
+promises with reference to the free institutions to be granted to the
+country, but in my opinion it had little or nothing to do with it. The
+Boers never understood the question of responsible government, and
+never wanted that institution; what they did want was to be free of all
+English control, and this they said twenty times in the most outspoken
+language. I think there is little doubt the causes I have indicated are
+the real sources of the agitation, though there must be added to them
+their detestation of our mode of dealing with natives, and of being
+forced to pay taxes regularly, and also the ceaseless agitation of the
+Cape wire-pullers, through their agents the Hollanders, and their
+organs in the press.
+
+On the return of Messrs. Kruger and Jorissen to the Transvaal, the
+latter gentleman resumed his duties as Attorney-General, on which
+occasion, if I remember aright, I myself had the honour of
+administering to him the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty, that he
+afterwards kept so well. The former reported the proceedings of the
+deputation to a Boer meeting, when he took a very different tone to
+that in which he addressed Lord Carnarvon, announcing that if there
+existed a majority of the people in favour of independence, he still
+was Vice-President of the country.
+
+Both these gentlemen remained for some time in the pay of the British
+Government, Mr. Jorissen as Attorney-General, and Mr. Kruger as member
+of the Executive Council. The Government, however, at length found it
+desirable to dispense with their services, though on different grounds.
+Mr. Jorissen had, like several other members of the Republican
+Government, been a clergyman, and was quite unfit to hold the post of
+Attorney-General in an important colony like the Transvaal, where legal
+questions were constantly arising requiring all the attention of a
+trained mind; and after he had on several occasions been publicly
+admonished from the bench, the Government retired him on liberal terms.
+Needless to say, his opposition to English rule then became very
+bitter. Mr. Kruger's appointment expired by law in November 1877, and
+the Government did not think it advisable to re-employ him. The terms
+of his letter of dismissal can be found on page 135 of Blue-book (c.
+144), and involving as they do a serious charge of misrepresentation in
+money matters, are not very creditable to him. After this event he also
+pursued the cause of independence with increased vigour.
+
+During the last months of 1877 and the first part of 1878 agitation
+against British rule went on unchecked, and at last grew to alarming
+proportions, so much so that Sir T. Shepstone, on his return from the
+Zulu border in March 1878, where he had been for some months discussing
+the vexed and dangerous question of the boundary line with the Zulus,
+found it necessary to issue a stringent proclamation warning the
+agitators that their proceedings and meetings were illegal, and would
+be punished according to law. This document, which was at the time
+vulgarly known as the "Hold-your-jaw" proclamation, not being followed
+by action, produced but little effect.
+
+On the 4th April 1878 another Boer meeting was convened, at which it
+was decided to send a second deputation to England, to consist this
+time of Messrs. Kruger and Joubert, with Mr. Bok as secretary. This
+deputation proved as abortive as the first, Sir. M. Hicks Beach
+assuring it, in a letter dated 6th August 1878, that it is "impossible,
+for many reasons, ... that the Queen's sovereignty should now be
+withdrawn."
+
+Whilst the Government was thus hampered by internal disaffection, it
+had also many other difficulties on its hands. First, there was the
+Zulu boundary question, which was constantly developing new dangers to
+the country. Indeed, it was impossible to say what might happen in that
+direction from one week to another. Nor were its relations with
+Secocoeni satisfactory. It will be remembered that just before the
+Annexation this chief had expressed his earnest wish to become a
+British subject, and even paid over part of the fine demanded from him
+by the Boer Government to the Civil Commissioner, Major Clarke. In
+March 1878, however, his conduct towards the Government underwent a
+sudden change, and he practically declared war. It afterwards appeared,
+from Secocoeni's own statement, that he was instigated to this step
+by a Boer, Abel Erasmus by name--the same man who was concerned in the
+atrocities in the first Secocoeni war--who constantly encouraged him
+to continue the struggle. I do not propose to minutely follow the
+course of this long war, which, commencing in the beginning of 1878,
+did not come to an end till after the Zulu war: when Sir Garnet
+Wolseley attacked Secocoeni's stronghold with a large force of
+troops, volunteers, and Swazi allies, and took it with great slaughter.
+The losses on our side were not very heavy, so far as white men were
+concerned, but the Swazis are reported to have lost 400 killed and 500
+wounded.
+
+The struggle was, during the long period preceding the final attack,
+carried on with great courage and ability by Major Clarke, R.A.,
+C.M.G., whose force, at the best of times, only consisted of 200
+volunteers and 100 Zulus. With this small body of men he contrived,
+however, to keep Secocoeni in check, and to take some important
+strongholds. It was marked also by some striking acts of individual
+bravery, of which one, performed by Major Clarke himself, whose
+reputation for cool courage and presence of mind in danger is
+unsurpassed in South Africa, is worthy of notice; and which, had public
+attention been more concentrated on the Secocoeni war, would
+doubtless have won him the Victoria Cross. On one occasion, on visiting
+one of the outlying forts, he found that a party of hostile natives,
+who were coming down to the fort on the previous day with a flag of
+truce, had been accidentally fired on, and had at once retreated. As
+his system in native warfare was always to try and inspire his enemy
+with perfect faith in the honour of Englishmen, and their contempt of
+all tricks and treachery even towards a foe, he was very angry at this
+occurrence, and at once, unarmed and unattended save by his native
+servant, rode up into the mountains to the kraal from which the white
+flag party had come on the previous day, and apologised to the chief
+for what had happened. When I consider how very anxious Secocoeni's
+natives were to kill or capture Clarke, whom they held in great dread,
+and how terrible the end of so great a captain would in all probability
+have been had he been taken alive by these masters of refined torture,
+I confess that I think this act of gentlemanly courage is one of the
+most astonishing things I ever heard of. When he rode up those hills he
+must have known that he was probably going to meet his death at the
+hands of justly incensed savages. When Secocoeni heard of what Major
+Clarke had done he was so pleased that he shortly afterwards released a
+volunteer whom he had taken prisoner, and who would otherwise, in all
+probability, have been tortured to death. I must add that Major Clarke
+himself never reported or alluded to this incident, but an account of
+it can be found in a despatch written by Sir O. Lanyon to the Secretary
+of State, dated 2d February 1880.
+
+Concurrently with, though entirely distinct from, the political
+agitation that was being carried on among the Boers having for object
+the restoration of independence, a private agitation was set on foot by
+a few disaffected persons against Sir T. Shepstone, with the view of
+obtaining his removal from office in favour of a certain Colonel
+Weatherley. The details of this impudent plot are so interesting, and
+the plot itself so typical of the state of affairs with which Sir T.
+Shepstone had to deal, that I will give a short account of it.
+
+After the Annexation had taken place, there were naturally enough a
+good many individuals who found themselves disappointed in the results
+so far as they personally were concerned; I mean that they did not get
+so much out of it as they expected. Among these was a gentleman called
+Colonel Weatherley, who had come to the Transvaal as manager of a
+gold-mining company, but getting tired of that had taken a prominent
+part in the Annexation, and who, being subsequently disappointed about
+an appointment, became a bitter enemy of the Administrator. I may say
+at once that Colonel Weatherley seems to me to have been throughout the
+dupe of the other conspirators.
+
+The next personage was a good-looking desperado, who called himself
+Captain Gunn of Gunn, and who was locally somewhat irreverently known
+as the very Gunn of very Gunn. This gentleman, whose former career had
+been of a most remarkable order, was, on the annexation of the country,
+found in the public prison charged with having committed various
+offences, but on Colonel Weatherley's interesting himself strongly on
+his behalf, he was eventually released without trial. On his release,
+he requested the Administrator to publish a Government notice declaring
+him innocent of the charges brought against him. This Sir T. Shepstone
+declined to do, and so, to use his own words, in a despatch to the High
+Commissioner on the subject, Captain Gunn of Gunn at once became "what
+in this country is called a patriot."
+
+The third person concerned was a lawyer, who had got into trouble on
+the Diamond Fields, and who felt himself injured because the rules of
+the High Court did not allow him to practise as an advocate. The
+quartette was made up by Mr. Celliers, the editor of the patriotic
+organ, the _Volkstem_, who, since he had lost the Government printing
+contract, found that no language could be too strong to apply to the
+_personnel_ of the Government, more especially its head. Of course,
+there was a lady in it; what plot would be complete without? She was
+Mrs. Weatherley, now, I believe, Mrs. Gunn of Gunn. These gentlemen
+began operations by drawing up a long petition to Sir Bartle Frere as
+High Commissioner, setting forth a string of supposed grievances, and
+winding up with a request that the Administrator might be "promoted to
+some other sphere of political usefulness." This memorial was forwarded
+by the "committee," as they called themselves, to various parts of the
+country for signature, but without the slightest success, the fact of
+the matter being that it was not the Annexor but the Annexation that
+the Boers objected to.
+
+At this stage in the proceedings Colonel Weatherley went to try and
+forward the good cause with Sir Bartle Frere at the Cape. His letters
+to Mrs. Weatherley from thence, afterwards put into Court in the
+celebrated divorce case, contained many interesting accounts of his
+attempts in that direction. I do not think, however, that he was
+cognisant of what was being concocted by his allies in Pretoria, but
+being a very vain, weak man, was easily deceived by them. With all his
+faults he was a gentleman. As soon as he was gone a second petition was
+drawn up by the "committee," showing "the advisability of immediately
+suspending our present Administrator, and temporarily appointing and
+recommending for Her Majesty's royal and favourable consideration an
+English gentleman of high integrity and honour, in whom the country at
+large has respect and confidence."
+
+The English gentleman of high integrity and honour of course proves to
+be Colonel Weatherley, whose appointment is, further on, "respectfully
+but earnestly requested," since he had "thoroughly gained the
+affections, confidence, and respect of Boers, English, and other
+Europeans in this country." But whilst it is comparatively easy to
+write petitions, there is sometimes a difficulty in getting people to
+sign them, as proved to be the case with reference to the documents
+under consideration. When the "committee" and the employés in the
+office of the _Volkstem_ had affixed their valuable signatures it
+was found to be impossible to induce anybody else to follow their
+example. Now, a petition with some half dozen signatures attached would
+not, it was obvious, carry much weight with the Imperial Government,
+and no more could be obtained.
+
+But really great minds rise superior to such difficulties, and so did
+the "committee," or some of them, or one of them. If they could not get
+genuine signatures to their petitions, they could at any rate
+manufacture them. This great idea once hit out, so vigorously was it
+prosecuted that they, or some of them, or one of them, produced in a
+very little while no less than 3883 signatures, of which sixteen were
+proved to be genuine, five were doubtful, and all the rest fictitious.
+But the gentleman, whoever he was, who was the working partner in the
+scheme--and I may state, by way of parenthesis, that when Gunn of Gunn
+was subsequently arrested, petitions in process of signature were found
+under the mattress of his bed--calculated without his host. He either
+did not know, or had forgotten, that on receipt of such documents by a
+superior officer, they are at once sent to the officer accused to
+report upon. This course was followed in the present case, and the
+petitions were discovered to be gross impostures. The ingenuity
+exercised by their author or authors was really very remarkable, for it
+must be remembered that not one of the signatures was forged; they were
+all invented, and had, of course, to be written in a great variety of
+hands. The plan generally pursued was to put down the names of people
+living in the country, with slight variations. Thus "De _V_illiers"
+became "De _W_illiers," and "Van Z_y_l" "Van Z_u_l." I remember that my
+own name appeared on one of the petitions with some slight alteration.
+Some of the names were evidently meant to be facetious. Thus there was
+a "Jan Verneuker," which means "John the Cheat."
+
+Of the persons directly or indirectly concerned in this rascally plot,
+the unfortunate Colonel Weatherley subsequently apologised to Sir T.
+Shepstone for his share in the agitation, and shortly afterwards died
+fighting bravely on Kambula. Captain Gunn of Gunn and Mrs. Weatherley,
+after having given rise to the most remarkable divorce case I ever
+heard--it took fourteen days to try--were, on the death of Colonel
+Weatherley, united in the bonds of holy matrimony, and are, I believe,
+still in Pretoria. The lawyer vanished I know not where, whilst Mr.
+Celliers still continues to edit that admirably conducted journal the
+_Volkstem_; nor, if I may judge from the report of a speech made
+by him recently at a Boer festival, which, by the way, was graced by
+the presence of our representative, Mr. Hudson, the British Resident,
+has his right hand forgotten its cunning, or rather his tongue lost the
+use of those peculiar and _recherché_ epithets that used to adorn
+the columns of the _Volkstem_. I see that he, on this occasion,
+denounced the English element as being "poisonous and dangerous" to a
+State, and stated, amidst loud cheers, that "he despised" it. Mr.
+Cellier's lines have fallen in pleasant places; in any other country he
+would long ago have fallen a victim to the stern laws of libel. I
+recommend him to the notice of enterprising Irish newspapers. Such is
+the freshness and vigour of his style that I am confident he would make
+the fortune of any Hibernian journal.
+
+Some little time after the Gunn of Gunn frauds a very sad incident
+happened in connection with the government of the Transvaal. Shortly
+after the Annexation, the Home Government sent out Mr. Sergeaunt,
+C.M.G., one of the Crown Agents for the Colonies, to report on the
+financial Condition of the country. He was accompanied, in an
+unofficial capacity, amongst other gentlemen, by Captain Patterson and
+his son, Mr. J. Sergeaunt; and when he returned to England, these two
+gentlemen remained behind to go on a shooting expedition. About this
+time Sir Bartle Frere was anxious to send a friendly mission to Lo
+Bengula, king of the Matabele, a branch of the Zulu tribe, living up
+towards the Zambesi. This chief had been making himself unpleasant by
+causing traders to be robbed, and it was thought desirable to establish
+friendly relations with him, so it was suggested to Captain Patterson
+and Mr. Sergeaunt that they should combine business with pleasure, and
+go on a mission to Lo Bengula, an offer which they accepted, and
+shortly afterwards started for Matabeleland with an interpreter and a
+few servants. They reached their destination in safety; and having
+concluded their business with the king, started on a visit to the
+Zambesi Falls on foot, leaving the interpreter with the waggon. The
+falls were about twelve days' walk from the king's kraal, and they were
+accompanied thither by young Mr. Thomas, the son of the local
+missionary, two Kafir servants, and twenty native bearers supplied by
+Lo Bengula. The next thing that was heard of them was that they had all
+died through drinking poisoned water, full details of the manner of
+their deaths being sent down by Lo Bengula.
+
+In the first shock and confusion of such news it was not very closely
+examined, at any rate by the friends of the dead men, but, on
+reflection, there were several things about it that appeared strange.
+For instance, it was well known that Captain Patterson had a habit, for
+which, indeed, we had often laughed at him, of, however thirsty he
+might be, always having his water boiled when he was travelling, in
+order to destroy impurities, and it seemed odd that he should on this
+one occasion have neglected the precaution. Also, it was curious that
+the majority of Lo Bengula's bearers appeared to have escaped, whereas
+all the others were, without exception, killed; nor even in that
+district is it usual to find water so bad that it will kill with the
+rapidity it had been supposed to do in this case, unless indeed it had
+been designedly poisoned. These doubts of the poisoning-by-bad-water-story
+resolved themselves into certainty when the waggon returned in charge
+of the interpreter, when, by putting two and two together, we were able
+to piece out the real history of the diabolical murder of our poor
+friends with considerable accuracy, a story which shows what
+blood-thirsty wickedness a savage is capable of when he fancies his
+interests are threatened.
+
+It appeared that, when Captain Patterson first interviewed Lo Bengula,
+he was not at all well received by him. I must, by way of explanation,
+state that there exists a pretender to his throne, Kruman by name, who,
+as far as I can make out, is the real heir to the kingdom. This man
+had, for some cause or other, fled the country, and for a time acted as
+gardener to Sir T. Shepstone in Natal. At the date of Messrs. Patterson
+and Sergeaunt's mission to Matabeleland he was living, I believe, in
+the Transvaal. Captain Patterson, on finding himself so ill received by
+the king, and not being sufficiently acquainted with the character of
+savage chiefs, most unfortunately, either by accident or design,
+dropped some hint in the course of conversation about this Kruman. From
+that moment Lo Bengula's conduct towards the mission entirely changed,
+and, dropping his former tone, he became profusely civil; and from that
+moment, too, he doubtless determined to kill them, probably fearing
+that they might forward some scheme to oust him and place Kruman, on
+whose claim a large portion of his people looked favourably, on the
+throne.
+
+When their business was done, and Captain Patterson told the king that
+they were anxious, before returning, to visit the Zambesi Falls, he
+readily fell in with their wish, but, in the first instance, refused
+permission to young Thomas, the son of the missionary, to accompany
+them, only allowing him to do so on the urgent representations of
+Captain Patterson. The reason of this was, no doubt, that he had kindly
+feelings towards the lad, and did not wish to include him in the
+slaughter.
+
+Captain Patterson was a man of extremely methodical habits, and,
+amongst other things, was in the habit of making notes of all that he
+did. His note-book had been taken off his body, and sent down to
+Pretoria with the other things. In it we found entries of his
+preparations for the trip, including the number and names of the
+bearers provided by Lo Bengula. We also found the chronicle of the
+first three days' journey, and that of the morning of the fourth day,
+but there the record stopped. The last entry was probably made a few
+minutes before he was killed; and it is to be observed that there was
+no entry of the party having been for several days without water, as
+stated by the messengers, and then finding the poisoned water.
+
+This evidence by itself would not have amounted to much, but now
+comes the curious part of the story, showing the truth of the old
+adage, "Murder will out." It appears that when the waggon was coming
+down to Pretoria in charge of the interpreter, it was outspanned
+one day outside the borders of Lo Bengula's country, when some
+Kafirs--Bechuanas, I think--came up, asked for some tobacco, and fell
+into conversation with the driver, remarking that he had come up with a
+full waggon, and now he went down with an empty one. The driver replied
+by lamenting the death by poisoned water of his masters, whereupon one
+of the Kafirs told him the following story:--He said that a brother of
+his was out hunting, a little while back, in the desert for ostriches,
+with a party of other Kafirs, when hearing shots fired some way off,
+they made for the spot, thinking that white men were out shooting, and
+that they would be able to beg meat. On reaching the spot, which was by
+a pool of water, they saw the bodies of three white men lying on the
+ground, and also those of a Hottentot and a Kafir, surrounded by an
+armed party of Kafirs. They at once asked the Kafirs what they had been
+doing killing the white men, and were told to be still, for it was by
+"order of the king." They then learned the whole story. It appeared
+that the white men had made a mid-day halt by the water, when one of
+the bearers, who had gone to the edge of the pool, suddenly shouted to
+them to come and look at a great snake in the water. Captain Patterson
+ran up, and, as he leaned over the edge, was instantly killed by a blow
+with an axe; the others were then shot and assegaied. The Kafir further
+described the clothes that his brother had seen on the bodies, and also
+some articles that had been given to his party by the murderers, that
+left little doubt as to the veracity of his story. And so ended the
+mission to Matabeleland.
+
+No public notice was taken of the matter, for the obvious reason that
+it was impossible to get at Lo Bengula to punish him; nor would it have
+been easy to come by legal evidence to disprove the ingenious story of
+the poisoned water, since anybody trying to reach the spot of the
+massacre would probably fall a victim to some similar accident before
+he got back again. It is devoutly to be hoped that the punishment he
+deserves will sooner or later overtake the author of this devilish and
+wholesale murder.
+
+The beginning of 1879 was signalised by the commencement of operations
+in Zululand and by the news of the terrible disaster at Isandhlwana,
+which fell on Pretoria like a thunderclap. It was not, however, any
+surprise to those who were acquainted with Zulu tactics and with the
+plan of attack adopted by the English commanders. In fact, I know that
+one solemn warning of what would certainly happen to him if he
+persisted in his plan of advance was addressed to Lord Chelmsford,
+through the officer in command at Pretoria, by a gentleman whose
+position and long experience of the Zulus and their mode of attack
+should have carried some weight. If it ever reached him, he took, to
+the best of my recollection, no notice of it whatever.
+
+But though some such disaster was daily expected by a few, the majority
+both of soldiers and civilians never dreamed of anything of the sort,
+the general idea being that the conquest of Cetywayo was a very easy
+undertaking; and the shock produced by the news of Isandhlwana was
+proportionately great, especially as it reached Pretoria in a much
+exaggerated form. I shall never forget the appearance of the town that
+morning; business was entirely suspended, and the streets were filled
+with knots of men talking, with scared faces, as well they might: for
+there was scarcely anybody but had lost a friend, and many thought that
+their sons or brothers were among the dead on that bloody field. Among
+others, Sir T. Shepstone lost one son, and thought for some time that
+he had lost three.
+
+Shortly after this event Sir Theophilus went to England to confer with
+the Secretary of State on various matters connected with the Transvaal,
+carrying with him the affection and respect of all who knew him, not
+excepting the majority of the malcontent Boers. He was succeeded by
+Colonel, now Sir Owen Lanyon, who was appointed to administer the
+Government during the absence of Sir T. Shepstone.
+
+By the Boers, however, the news of our disaster was received with great
+and unconcealed rejoicing, or at least by the irreconcilable portion of
+that people. England's necessity was their opportunity, and one of
+which they certainly meant to avail themselves. Accordingly, notices
+were sent out summoning the burghers of the Transvaal to attend a mass
+meeting on the 18th March, at a place about thirty miles from Pretoria.
+Emissaries were also sent to native chiefs, to excite them to follow
+Cetywayo's example, and massacre all the English within reach, of whom
+a man called Solomon Prinsloo was one of the most active The natives,
+however, notwithstanding the threats used towards them, one and all
+declined the invitation.
+
+It must not be supposed that all the Boers who attended these meetings
+did so of their own free will; on the contrary, a very large number
+came under compulsion, since they found that the English authorities
+were powerless to give them protection. The recalcitrants were
+threatened with all sorts of pains and penalties if they did not
+attend, a favourite menace being that they should be made "biltong" of
+when the country was given back (_i.e._, be cut into strips and hung
+in the sun to dry). Few, luckily for themselves, were brave enough
+to tempt fortune by refusing to come, but those who did have had to
+leave the country since the war. Whatever were the means employed, the
+result was an armed meeting of about 3000 Boers, who evidently meant
+mischief.
+
+Just about this time a corps had been raised in Pretoria, composed, for
+the most part, of gentlemen, and known as the Pretoria Horse, for the
+purpose of proceeding to the Zulu border, where cavalry, especially
+cavalry acquainted with the country, was earnestly needed. In the
+emergency of the times officials were allowed to join this corps, a
+permission of which I availed myself, and was elected one of the
+lieutenants.[9] The corps was not, after all, allowed to go to Zululand
+on account of the threatening aspect adopted by the Boers, against whom
+it was retained for service. In my capacity as an officer of the corps
+I was sent out with a small body of picked men, all good riders and
+light weights, to keep up a constant communication between the Boer
+camp and the Administrator, and found the work both interesting and
+exciting. My headquarters were at an inn about twenty-five miles from
+Pretoria, to which our agents in the meeting used to come every evening
+and report how matters were proceeding, whereupon, if the road was
+clear, I despatched a letter to headquarters; or, if I feared that the
+messengers would be caught _en route_ by Boer patrols and searched, I
+substituted different coloured ribbons according to what I wished to
+convey. There was a relief hidden in the trees or rocks every six
+miles, all day and most of the night, whose business it was to take the
+despatch or ribbon and gallop on with it to the next station, in which
+way we used to get the despatches into town in about an hour and a
+quarter.
+
+          [9] It is customary in South African volunteer forces to
+          allow the members to elect their own officers, provided the
+          men elected are such as the Government approves. This is
+          done, so that the corps may not afterwards be able to declare
+          that they have no confidence in their officers in action, or
+          to grumble at their treatment by them.
+
+On one or two occasions the Boers came to the inn and threatened to
+shoot us, but as our orders were to do nothing unless our lives were
+actually in danger, we took no notice. The officer who came out to
+relieve me had not, however, been there more than a day or two before
+he and all his troopers were hunted back into Pretoria by a large mob
+of armed Boers whom they only escaped by very hard riding.
+
+Meanwhile the Boers were by degrees drawing nearer and nearer to the
+town, till at last they pitched their laagers within six miles, and
+practically besieged it. All business was stopped, the houses were
+loopholed and fortified, and advantageous positions were occupied by
+the military and the various volunteer corps. The building, normally in
+the occupation of the Government mules, fell to the lot of the Pretoria
+Horse, and, though it was undoubtedly a post of honour, I honestly
+declare that I have no wish to sleep for another month in a mule stable
+that has not been cleaned out for several years. However, by sinking a
+well, and erecting bastions and a staging for sharpshooters, we
+converted it into an excellent fortress, though it would not have been
+of much use against artillery. Our patrols used to be out all night,
+since we chiefly feared a night attack, and generally every preparation
+was made to resist the onset that was hourly expected, and I believe
+that it was that state of preparedness that alone prevented it.
+
+Whilst this meeting was going on, and when matters had come to a point
+that seemed to render war inevitable, Sir Bartle Frere arrived at
+Pretoria and had several interviews with the Boer leaders, at which
+they persisted in demanding their independence, and nothing short of
+it. After a great deal of talk the meeting finally broke up without any
+actual appeal to arms, though it had, during its continuance, assumed
+many of the rights of government, such as stopping post-carts and
+individuals, and sending armed patrols about the country. The principal
+reason of its break-up was that the Zulu war was now drawing to a
+close, and the leaders saw that there would soon be plenty of troops
+available to suppress any attempt at revolt, but they also saw to what
+lengths they could go with impunity. They had for a period of nearly
+two months been allowed to throw the whole country into confusion, to
+openly violate the laws, and to intimidate and threaten Her Majesty's
+loyal subjects with war and death. The lesson was not lost on them; but
+they postponed action till a more favourable opportunity offered.
+
+Sir Bartle Frere before his departure took an opportunity at a public
+dinner given him at Potchefstroom of assuring the loyal inhabitants of
+the country that the Transvaal would never be given back.
+
+Meanwhile a new Pharaoh had arisen in Egypt, in the shape of Sir Garnet
+Wolseley, and on the 29th June 1879 we find him communicating the fact
+to Sir 0. Lanyon in very plain language, telling him that he
+disapproved of his course of action with regard to Secocoeni, and
+that "in future you will please take orders only from me."
+
+As soon as Sir Garnet had completed his arrangements for the
+pacification of Zululand, he proceeded to Pretoria, and having caused
+himself to be sworn in as Governor, set vigorously to work. I must say
+that in his dealings with the Transvaal he showed great judgment and a
+keen appreciation of what the country needed, namely, strong
+government; the fact of the matter being, I suppose, that being very
+popular with the Home authorities he felt that he could more or less
+command their support in what he did, a satisfaction not given to most
+governors, who never know but that they may be thrown overboard in
+emergency to lighten the ship.
+
+One of his first acts was to issue a proclamation, stating that,
+"Whereas it appears that, notwithstanding repeated assurances of
+contrary effect given by Her Majesty's representatives in this
+territory, uncertainty or misapprehension exists amongst some of Her
+Majesty's subjects as to the intention of Her Majesty's Government
+regarding the maintenance of British rule and sovereignty over the
+territory of the Transvaal: and whereas it is expedient that all
+grounds for such uncertainty or misapprehension should be removed once
+and for all beyond doubt or question: now therefore I do hereby
+proclaim and make known, in the name and on behalf of Her Majesty
+the Queen, that it is the will and determination of Her Majesty's
+Government that this Transvaal territory shall be, _and shall
+continue to be for ever_, an integral portion of Her Majesty's
+dominions in South Africa."
+
+Alas! Sir G. Wolseley's estimate of the value of a solemn pledge thus
+made in the name of Her Majesty, whose word has hitherto been held to
+be sacred, differed greatly to that of Mr. Gladstone and his
+Government.
+
+Sir Garnet Wolseley's operations against Secocoeni proved eminently
+successful, and were the best arranged bit of native warfare that I
+have yet heard of in South Africa. One blow was struck, and only one,
+but that was crushing. Of course the secret of his success lay in the
+fact that he had an abundance of force; but it was not ensured by that
+alone, good management being very requisite in an affair of the sort,
+especially where native allies have to be dealt with. The cost of the
+expedition, not counting other Secocoeni war expenditure, amounted to
+over £300,000, all of which is now lost to this country.
+
+Another step in the right direction undertaken by Sir Garnet was the
+establishment of an Executive Council and also of a Legislative
+Council, for the establishment of which Letters Patent were sent from
+Downing Street in November 1880.
+
+Meanwhile the Boers, paying no attention to the latter proclamation,
+for they guessed that it, like other proclamations in the Transvaal,
+would be a mere _brutum fulmen_, had assembled for another mass
+meeting, at which they went forward a step, and declared a Government
+which was to treat with the English authorities. They had now learnt
+that they could do what they liked with perfect impunity, provided they
+did not take the extreme course of massacring the English. They had yet
+to learn that they might even do that. At the termination of this
+meeting, a vote of thanks was passed to "Mr. Leonard Courtney of
+London, and other members of the British Parliament." It was wise of
+the Boer leaders to cultivate Mr. Courtney of London. As a result of
+this meeting, Pretorius, one of the principal leaders, and Bok, the
+secretary, were arrested on a charge of treason, and underwent a
+preliminary examination; but as the Secretary of State, Sir M. Hicks
+Beach, looked rather timidly on the proceeding, and the local
+authorities were doubtful of securing a verdict, the prosecution was
+abandoned, and necessarily did more harm than good, being looked upon
+as another proof of the impotence of the Government.
+
+Shortly afterwards, Sir G. Wolseley changed his tactics, and, instead
+of attempting to imprison Pretorius, offered him a seat on the
+Executive Council, with a salary attached. This was a much more
+sensible way of dealing with him, and he at once rose to the bait,
+stating his willingness to join the Government after a while, but that
+he could not publicly do so at the moment lest he should lose his
+influence with those who were to be brought round through him. It does
+not, however, appear that Mr. Pretorius ever did actually join the
+Executive, probably because he found public opinion too strong to allow
+him to do so.
+
+In December 1879 a new light broke upon the Boers, for in the previous
+month Mr. Gladstone had been delivering his noted attack on the policy
+of the Conservative Government. Those Mid-Lothian speeches did harm, it
+is said, in many parts of the world; but I venture to think that they
+have proved more mischievous in South Africa than anywhere else; at any
+rate, they have borne fruit sooner. It is not to be supposed that Mr.
+Gladstone really cared anything about the Transvaal or its independence
+when he was denouncing the hideous outrage that had been perpetrated by
+the Conservative Government in annexing it. On the contrary, as he
+acquiesced in the Annexation at the time (when Lord Kimberley stated
+that it was evidently unavoidable), and declined to rescind it when he
+came into power, it is to be supposed that he really approved of it, or
+at the least looked on it as a necessary evil. However this may be, any
+stick will do to beat a dog with, and the Transvaal was a convenient
+point on which to attack the Government. He probably neither knew nor
+cared what effect his reckless words might have on ignorant Boers
+thousands of miles away; and yet, humanly speaking, many a man would
+have been alive and strong to-day whose bones now whiten the African
+Veldt had those words never been spoken. Then, for the first time, the
+Boers learnt that, if they played their cards properly and put on
+sufficient pressure, they would, in the event of the Liberal party
+coming to office, have little difficulty in coercing it as they wished.
+
+There was a fair chance at the time of the utterance of the Mid-Lothian
+speeches that the agitation would, by degrees, die away; Sir G.
+Wolseley had succeeded in winning over Pretorius, and the Boers in
+general were sick of mass meetings. Indeed, a memorial was addressed to
+Sir. G. Wolseley by a number of Boers in the Potchefstroom district,
+protesting against the maintenance of the movement against Her
+Majesty's rule, which, considering the great amount of intimidation
+exercised by the malcontents, may be looked upon as a favourable sign.
+
+But when it slowly came to be understood among the Boers that a great
+English Minister had openly espoused their cause, and that he would
+perhaps soon be all-powerful, the moral gain to them was incalculable.
+They could now go to the doubting ones and say,--we must be right about
+the matter, because, putting our own feelings out of the question, the
+great Gladstone says we are. We find the committee of the Boer
+malcontents, at their meeting in March 1880, reading a letter to Mr.
+Gladstone, "in which he was thanked for the great sympathy shown in
+their fate," and a hope expressed that, if he succeeded in getting
+power, he would not forget them. In fact, a charming unanimity
+prevailed between our great Minister and the Boer rebels, for their
+interests were the same, the overthrow of the Conservative Government.
+If, however, every leader of the Opposition were to intrigue or
+countenance intrigues with those who are seeking to undermine the
+authority of Her Majesty, whether they be Boers or Irishmen, in order
+to help himself to power, the country might suffer in the long run.
+
+But whatever feelings may have prompted Her Majesty's Opposition, the
+Home Government, and their agent, Sir Garnet Wolseley, blew no
+uncertain blast, if we may judge from their words and actions. Thus we
+find Sir Garnet speaking as follows at a banquet given in his honour at
+Pretoria:--
+
+"I am told that these men (the Boers) are told to keep on agitating in
+this way, for a change of Government in England may give them again the
+old order of things. Nothing can show greater ignorance of English
+politics than such an idea; I tell you that there is no Government,
+Whig or Tory, Liberal, Conservative, or Radical, _who would dare
+under any circumstances to give back this country_. They would not
+dare, because the English people would not allow them. To give back the
+country, what would it mean? To give it back to external danger, to the
+danger of attack by hostile tribes on its frontier, and who, if the
+English Government were removed for one day, would make themselves felt
+the next. Not an official of Government paid for months; it would mean
+national bankruptcy. No taxes being paid, the same thing recurring
+again which had existed before would mean danger without, anarchy and
+civil war within, every possible misery; the strangulation of trade,
+and the destruction of property."
+
+It is very amusing to read this passage by the light of after events.
+On other occasions Sir Garnet Wolseley will probably not be quite so
+confident as to the future when it is to be controlled by a Radical
+Government.
+
+This explicit and straightforward statement of Sir Garnet's produced a
+great effect on the loyal inhabitants of the Transvaal, which was
+heightened by the publication of the following telegram from the
+Secretary of State:--"You may fully confirm explicit statements made
+from time to time as to inability of Her Majesty's Government to
+entertain _any proposal_ for withdrawal of the Queen's sovereignty."
+
+On the faith of these declarations many Englishmen migrated to the
+Transvaal and settled there, whilst those who were in the country now
+invested all their means, being confident that they would not lose
+their property through its being returned to the Boers. The excitement
+produced by Mr. Gladstone's speeches began to quiet down and be
+forgotten for the time, arrear taxes were paid up by the malcontents,
+and generally the aspect of affairs was such, in Sir Garnet Wolseley's
+opinion, as justified him in writing, in April 1880, to the Secretary
+of State expressing his belief that the agitation was dying out.[10]
+Indeed, so sanguine was he on that point that he is reported to have
+advised the withdrawal of the cavalry regiment stationed in the
+territory, a piece of economy that was one of the immediate causes of
+the revolt.
+
+          [10] In Blue-Book No. (C. 2866) of September 1881, which is
+          descriptive of various events connected with the Boer rising,
+          is published, as an appendix, a despatch from Sir Garnet
+          Wolseley, dated October 1879. This despatch declares the
+          writer's opinion that the Boer discontent a on the increase.
+          Its publication thus--_apropos des bottes_--nearly two
+          years after it was written, is rather an amusing incident. It
+          certainly gives one the idea that Sir Garnet Wolseley,
+          fearing that his reputation for infallibility might be
+          attacked by scoffers for not having foreseen the Boer
+          rebellion, and perhaps uneasily conscious of other despatches
+          very different in tenor and subsequent in date: and, mindful
+          of the withdrawal of the cavalry regiment by his advice, had
+          caused it to be tacked on to the Blue-Book as a documentary
+          "I told you so," and a proof that, whoever else was blinded,
+          he foresaw. It contains, however, the following remarkably
+          true passage:--"Even were it not impossible, for many other
+          reasons, to contemplate a withdrawal of our authority from
+          the Transvaal, the position of insecurity in which we should
+          leave this loyal and important section of the community (the
+          English inhabitants), by exposing them to the certain
+          retaliation of the Boers, would constitute, in my opinion, an
+          insuperable obstacle to retrocession. Subjected to the same
+          danger, moreover, would be those of the Boers, whose superior
+          intelligence and courageous character has rendered them loyal
+          to our Government"
+
+          As the Government took the trouble to republish the despatch,
+          it is a pity that they did not think fit to pay more
+          attention to its contents.
+
+The reader will remember the financial condition of the country at the
+time of the Annexation, which was one of utter bankruptcy. After three
+years of British rule, however, we find, notwithstanding the constant
+agitation that had been kept up, that the total revenue receipts for
+the first quarter of 1879 and 1880 amounted to £22,773 and £47,982
+respectively. That is to say, that, during the last year of British
+rule, the revenue of the country more than doubled itself, and amounted
+to about £160,000 a year, taking the quarterly returns at the low
+average of £40,000. It must, however, be remembered that this sum would
+have been very largely increased in subsequent years, most probably
+doubled. At any rate the revenue would have been amply sufficient to
+make the province one of the most prosperous in South Africa, and to
+have enabled it to shortly repay all debts due to the British
+Government, and further to provide for its own defence. Trade also,
+which, in April 1877, was completely paralysed, had increased
+enormously. So early as the middle of 1879, the Committee of the
+Transvaal Chamber of Commerce pointed out, in a resolution adopted by
+them, that the trade of the country had in two years risen from almost
+nothing to the considerable sum of two millions sterling per annum, and
+that it was entirely in the hands of those favourable to British rule.
+They also pointed out that more than half the land-tax was paid by
+Englishmen, or other Europeans adverse to Boer Government. Land, too,
+had risen greatly in value, of which I can give the following instance.
+About a year after the Annexation I, together with a friend, bought a
+little property on the outskirts of Pretoria, which, with a cottage we
+put up on it, cost some £300. Just before the rebellion we fortunately
+determined to sell it, and had no difficulty in getting £650 for it. I
+do not believe that it would now fetch a fifty-pound note.
+
+I cannot conclude this chapter better than by drawing attention to a
+charming specimen of the correspondence between the Boer leaders and
+their friend Mr. Courtney. The letter in question, which is dated 26th
+June, purports to be written by Messrs. Kruger and Joubert, but it is
+obvious that it owes its origin to some member or members of the Dutch
+party at the Cape, from whence, indeed, it is written. This is rendered
+evident both by its general style, and also by the use of such terms as
+"Satrap," and by references to Napoleon III. and Cayenne, about whom
+Messrs. Kruger and Joubert know no more than they do of Peru and the
+Incas.
+
+After alluding to former letters, the writers blow a blast of triumph
+over the downfall of the Conservative Government, and then make a
+savage attack on the reputation of Sir Bartle Frere. The "stubborn
+Satrap" is throughout described as a liar, and every bad motive imputed
+to him. Really, the fact that Mr. Courtney should encourage such
+epistles as this is enough to give colour to the boast made by some of
+the leading Boers, after the war, that they had been encouraged to
+rebel by a member of the British Government.
+
+At the end of this letter, and on the same page of the Blue-Book, is
+printed the telegram recalling Sir Bartle Frere, dated 1st August 1880.
+It really reads as though the second document was consequent on the
+first. One thing is very clear, the feelings of Her Majesty's new
+Government towards Sir Bartle Frere differed only in the method of
+their expression from those set forth by the Boer leaders in their
+letter to Mr. Courtney, whilst their object, namely, to be rid of him,
+was undoubtedly identical with that of the Dutch party in South Africa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE BOER REBELLION.
+
+
+When the Liberal ministry became an accomplished fact instead of a
+happy possibility, Mr. Gladstone did not find it convenient to adopt
+the line of policy with reference to the Transvaal that might have been
+expected from his utterances whilst leader of the Opposition. On the
+contrary, he declared in Parliament that the Annexation could not be
+cancelled, and on the 8th June 1880 we find him, in answer to a Boer
+petition, written with the object of inducing him to act up to the
+spirit of his words and rescind the Annexation, writing thus:--"Looking
+to all the circumstances, both of the Transvaal and the rest of South
+Africa, and to the necessity of preventing a renewal of disorders which
+might lead to disastrous consequences, not only to the Transvaal, but
+to the whole of South Africa, our judgment is, that the _Queen cannot
+be advised to relinquish her sovereignty over the Transvaal_; but,
+consistently with the maintenance of that sovereignty, we desire that
+the white inhabitants of the Transvaal should, without prejudice to the
+rest of the population, enjoy the fullest liberty to manage their local
+affairs. We believe that this liberty may be most easily and promptly
+conceded to the Transvaal as a member of a South African
+confederation."
+
+Unless words have lost their signification, this passage certainly
+means that the Transvaal must remain a British colony, but that England
+will be prepared to grant it responsible government, more especially if
+it will consent to a confederation scheme. Mr. Gladstone, however, in a
+communication dated 1st June 1881, and addressed to the unfortunate
+Transvaal loyals, for whom he expresses "respect and sympathy,"
+interprets his meaning thus: "It is stated, as I observe, that a
+promise was given by me that the Transvaal never should be given back.
+There is no mention of the terms or date of this promise. If the
+reference be to my letter, of 8th June 1880, to Messrs. Kruger and
+Joubert, I do not think the language of that letter justifies the
+description given. Nor am I sure in what manner or to what degree the
+fullest liberty to manage their local affairs, which I then said Her
+Majesty's Government desired to confer on the white population of the
+Transvaal, differs from the settlement now about being made in its
+bearing on the interests of those whom your Committee represents."
+
+Such twisting of the meaning of words would, in a private person, be
+called dishonest. It will also occur to most people that Mr. Gladstone
+might have spared the deeply wronged and loyal subjects of Her Majesty
+whom he was addressing the taunt he levels at them in the second
+paragraph I have quoted. If asked, he would no doubt say that he had
+not the slightest intention of laughing at them; but when he
+deliberately tells them that it makes no difference to their interests
+whether they remain Her Majesty's subjects under a responsible
+Government, or become the servants of men who were but lately in arms
+against them and Her Majesty's authority, he is either mocking them, or
+offering an insult to their understandings.
+
+By way of comment on his remarks, I may add that he had, in a letter
+replying to a petition from these same loyal inhabitants, addressed to
+him in May 1880, informed them that he had already told the Boer
+representatives that the Annexation could not be rescinded. Although
+Mr. Gladstone is undoubtedly the greatest living master of the art of
+getting two distinct and opposite sets of meanings out of one set of
+words, it would try even his ingenuity to make out, to the satisfaction
+of an impartial mind, that he never gave any pledge about the retention
+of the Transvaal.
+
+Indeed, it is from other considerations clear that he had no intention
+of giving up the country to the Boers, whose cause he appears to have
+taken up solely for electioneering purposes. Had he meant to do so, he
+would have carried out his intention on succeeding to office, and,
+indeed, as things have turned out, it is deeply to be regretted that he
+did not; for, bad as such a step would have been, it would at any rate
+have had a better appearance than our ultimate surrender after three
+defeats. It would also have then been possible to secure the repayment
+of some of the money owing to this country, and to provide for the
+proper treatment of the natives, and the compensation of the loyal
+inhabitants who could no longer live there: since it must naturally
+have been easier to make terms with the Boers before they had defeated
+our troops.
+
+On the other hand, we should have missed the grandest and most
+soul-stirring display of radical theories, practically applied, that
+has as yet lightened the darkness of this country. But although Mr.
+Gladstone gave his official decision against returning the country,
+there seems to be little doubt that communications on the subject were
+kept up with the Boer leaders through some prominent members of the
+Radical party, who, it was said, went so far as to urge the Boers to
+take up arms against us. When Mr. White came to this country on behalf
+of the loyalists, after the surrender, he stated that this was so at a
+public meeting, and said further that he had in his possession proofs
+of his statements. He even went so far as to name the gentleman he
+accused, and to challenge him to deny it I have not been able to gather
+that Mr. White's statements were contradicted.
+
+However this may be, after a pause, agitation in the Transvaal suddenly
+recommenced with redoubled vigour. It began through a man named
+Bezeidenhout, who refused to pay his taxes. Thereupon a waggon was
+seized in execution under the authority of the court and put up to
+auction, but its sale was prevented by a crowd of rebel Boers, who
+kicked the auctioneer off the waggon and dragged the vehicle away. This
+was on the 11th November 1880. When this intelligence reached Pretoria,
+Sir Owen Lanyon sent down a few companies of the 21st Regiment, under
+the command of Major Thornhill, to support the Landdrost in arresting
+the rioters, and appointed Captain Raaf, C.M.G., to act as special
+messenger to the Landdrost's Court at Potchefstroom, with authority to
+enrol special constables to assist him to carry out the arrests. On
+arrival at Potchefstroom Captain Raaf found that, without an armed
+force, it was quite impossible to effect any arrest. On the 26th
+November Sir Owen Lanyon, realising the gravity of the situation,
+telegraphed to Sir George Colley, asking that the 58th Regiment should
+be sent back to the Transvaal. Sir George replied that he could ill
+spare it on account of "daily expected outbreak of Pondos and possible
+appeal for help from Cape Colony," and that the Government must be
+supported by the loyal inhabitants.
+
+It will be seen that the Boers had, with some astuteness, chosen a very
+favourable time to commence operations. The hands of the Cape
+Government were full with the Basuto war, so no help could be expected
+from it; Sir G. Wolseley had sent away the only cavalry regiment that
+remained in the country, and lastly, Sir Owen Lanyon had quite recently
+allowed a body of 300 trained volunteers, mostly, if not altogether,
+drawn from among the loyalists, to be raised for service in the Basuto
+war, a serious drain upon the resources of a country so sparsely
+populated as the Transvaal.
+
+Meanwhile a mass meeting had been convened by the Boers for the 8th
+January to consider Mr. Gladstone's letter, but the Bezeidenhout
+incident had the effect of putting forward the date of assembly by a
+month, and it was announced that it would be held on the 8th December.
+Subsequently the date was shifted to the 15th, and then back again to
+the 8th. Every effort was made, by threats of future vengeance, to
+secure the presence of as many burghers as possible; attempts were also
+made to persuade the native chiefs to send representatives, and to
+promise to join in an attack on the English. These entirely failed. The
+meeting was held at a place called Paarde Kraal, and resulted in the
+sudden declaration of the Republic and the appointment of the famous
+triumvirate Kruger, Joubert, and Pretorius. It then moved into
+Heidelberg, a little town about sixty miles from Pretoria, and on the
+16th December the Republic was formally proclaimed in a long
+proclamation, containing a summary of the events of the few preceding
+years, and declaring the arrangements the malcontents were willing to
+make with the English authorities. The terms offered in this document
+are almost identical with those finally accepted by Her Majesty's
+Government, with the exception that in the proclamation of the 16th
+December the Boer leaders declare their willingness to enter into
+confederation, and to guide their native policy by general rules
+adopted in concurrence "with the Colonies and States of South Africa."
+This was a more liberal offer than that which we ultimately agreed to,
+but then the circumstances had changed.
+
+This proclamation was forwarded to Sir Owen Lanyon with a covering
+letter, in which the following words occur:--"We declare in the most
+solemn manner that we have no desire to spill blood, and that from our
+side we do not wish war. It lies in your hands to force us to appeal to
+arms in self-defence.... We expect your answer within twice twenty-four
+hours."
+
+I beg to direct particular attention to these paragraphs, as they have
+a considerable interest in view of what followed.
+
+The letter and proclamation reached Government House, Pretoria, at
+10.30 on the evening of Friday the 17th December. Sir Owen Lanyon's
+proclamation, written in reply, was handed to the messenger at noon on
+Sunday, 19th December, or within about thirty-six hours of his arrival,
+and could hardly have reached the rebel camp, sixty miles off, before
+dawn the next day, the 20th December, on which day, at about one
+o'clock, a detachment of the 94th was ambushed and destroyed on the
+road between Middleburg and Pretoria, about eighty miles off, by a
+force despatched from Heidelberg for that purpose some days before. On
+the 16th December, or the _same day_ on which the Triumvirate had
+despatched the proclamation to Pretoria containing their terms, and
+expressing in the most solemn manner that they had no desire to shed
+blood, a large Boer force was attacking Potchefstroom.
+
+So much then for the sincerity of the professions of their desire to
+avoid bloodshed.
+
+The proclamation sent by Sir O. Lanyon in reply recited in its preamble
+the various acts of which the rebels had been guilty, including that of
+having "wickedly sought to incite the said loyal native inhabitants
+throughout the province to take up arms against Her Majesty's
+Government," announced that matters had now been put into the hands of
+the officer commanding Her Majesty's troops, and promised pardon to all
+who would disperse to their homes.
+
+It was at Potchefstroom, which town had all along been the nursery of
+the rebellion, that actual hostilities first broke out. Potchefstroom
+as a town is much more Boer in its sympathies than Pretoria, which is,
+or rather was, almost purely English. Sir Owen Lanyon had, as stated
+before, sent a small body of soldiers thither to support the civil
+authorities, and had also appointed Major Clarke, C.M.G., an officer of
+noted coolness and ability, to act as Special Commissioner for the
+district.
+
+Major Clarke's first step was to try, in conjunction with Captain Raaf,
+to raise a corps of volunteers, in which he totally failed. Those of
+the townsfolk who were not Boers at heart had too many business
+relations with the surrounding farmers, and perhaps too little faith in
+the stability of English rule after Mr. Gladstone's utterances, to
+allow them to indulge in patriotism. At the time of the outbreak,
+between seventy and eighty thousand sterling was owing to firms in
+Potchefstroom by neighbouring Boers, a sum amply sufficient to account
+for their lukewarmness in the English cause. Subsequent events have
+shown that the Potchefstroom shopkeepers were wise in their generation.
+
+On the 15th December a large number of Boers came into the town and
+took possession of the printing-office in order to print the
+proclamation already alluded to. Major Clarke made two attempts to
+enter the office and see the leaders, but without success.
+
+On the 16th a Boer patrol fired on some of the mounted infantry, and
+the fire was returned. These were the first shots fired during the war,
+and they were fired by Boers. Orders were thereupon signalled to Clarke
+by Lieutenant-Colonel Winsloe, 21st Regiment, now commanding at the
+fort which he afterwards defended so gallantly, that he was to commence
+firing. Clarke was in the Landdrost's office on the Market Square with
+a force of about twenty soldiers under Captain Falls and twenty
+civilians under Captain Raaf, C.M.G., a position but ill-suited for
+defensive purposes, from whence fire was accordingly opened, the Boers
+taking up positions in the surrounding houses commanding the office.
+Shortly after the commencement of the fighting, Captain Falls was shot
+dead whilst talking to Major Clarke, the latter having a narrow escape,
+a bullet grazing his head just above the ear. The fighting continued
+during the 17th and till the morning of the 18th, when the Boers
+succeeded in firing the roof, which was of thatch, by throwing
+fire-balls on to it. Major Clarke then addressed the men, telling them
+that, though personally he did not care about his own life, he did not
+see that they could serve any useful purpose by being burned alive, so
+he should surrender, which he did, with a loss of about six killed and
+wounded. The camp meanwhile had repulsed with loss the attack made on
+it, and was never again directly attacked.
+
+Whilst these events were in progress at Potchefstroom, a much more
+awful tragedy was in preparation on the road between Middleburg and
+Pretoria.
+
+On the 23d November, Colonel Bellairs, at the request of Sir Owen
+Lanyon, directed a concentration on Pretoria of most of the few
+soldiers that there were in the territory, in view of the disturbed
+condition of the country. In accordance with these orders, Colonel
+Anstruther marched from Lydenburg, a town about 180 miles from
+Pretoria, on the 5th December, with the headquarters and two companies
+of the 94th Regiment, being a total of 264 men, three women, and two
+children, and the disproportionately large train of thirty-four
+ox-waggons, or an ox-waggon capable of carrying five thousand pounds'
+weight to every eight persons. And here I may remark that it is this
+enormous amount of baggage, without which it appears to be impossible
+to move the smallest body of men, that renders infantry regiments
+almost useless for service in South Africa except for garrisoning
+purposes. Both Zulus and Boers can get over the ground at thrice the
+pace possible to the unfortunate soldier, and both races despise them
+accordingly. The Zulus call our infantry "pack oxen." In this
+particular instance, Colonel Anstruther's defeat, or rather,
+annihilation, is to a very great extent referable to his enormous
+baggage train; since, in the first place, had he not lost valuable days
+in collecting more waggons, he would have been safe in Pretoria before
+danger arose. It must also be acknowledged that his arrangements on the
+line of march were somewhat reckless, though it can hardly be said that
+he was ignorant of his danger. Thus we find that Colonel Bellairs wrote
+to Colonel Anstruther, warning him of the probability of an attack, and
+impressing on him the necessity of keeping a good look-out, the letter
+being received and acknowledged by the latter on the 17th December.
+
+To this warning was added a still more impressive one that came to my
+knowledge privately. A gentleman well known to me received, on the
+morning after the troops had passed through the town of Middleburg on
+their way to Pretoria, a visit from an old Boer with whom he was on
+friendly terms, who had purposely come to tell him that a large patrol
+was out to ambush the troops on the Pretoria road. My informant having
+convinced himself of the truth of the statement, at once rode after the
+soldiers, and catching them up some distance from Middleburg, told
+Colonel Anstruther what he had heard, imploring him, he said, with all
+the energy he could command, to take better precautions against
+surprise. The Colonel, however, laughed at his fears, and told him that
+if the Boers came "he would frighten them away with the big drum."
+
+At one o'clock on Sunday, the 20th December, the column was marching
+along about a mile and a half from a place known as Bronker's Splint,
+and thirty-eight miles from Pretoria, when suddenly a large number of
+mounted Boers were seen in loose formation on the left side of the
+road. The band was playing at the time, and the column was extended
+over more than half a mile, the rearguard being about a hundred yards
+behind the last waggon. The band stopped playing on seeing the Boers,
+and the troops halted, when a man was seen advancing with a white flag,
+whom Colonel Anstruther went out to meet, accompanied by Conductor
+Egerton, a civilian. They met about one hundred and fifty yards from
+the column, and the man gave Colonel Anstruther a letter, which
+announced the establishment of the South African Republic, stated that
+until they heard Lanyon's reply to their proclamation they did not know
+if they were at war or not; that, consequently, they could not allow
+any movements of troops, which would be taken as a declaration of war.
+This letter was signed by Joubert, one of the Triumvirate. Colonel
+Anstruther replied that he was ordered to Pretoria, and to Pretoria he
+must go.
+
+Whilst this conference was going on, the Boers, of whom there were
+quite five hundred, had gradually closed round the column, and took up
+positions behind rocks and trees which afforded them excellent cover,
+whilst the troops were on a bare plain, and before Colonel Anstruther
+reached his men a murderous fire was poured in upon them from all
+sides. The fire was hotly returned by the soldiers. Most of the
+officers were struck down by the first volley, having, no doubt, been
+picked out by the marksmen. The firing lasted about fifteen minutes,
+and at the end of that time seven out of the nine officers were down
+killed and wounded; an eighth (Captain Elliot), one of the two who
+escaped, untouched, being reserved for an even more awful fate. The
+majority of the men were also down, and had the hail of lead continued
+much longer it is clear that nobody would have been left. Colonel
+Anstruther, who was lying badly wounded in five places, seeing what a
+hopeless state affairs were in, ordered the bugler to sound the cease
+firing, and surrendered. One of the three officers who were not much
+hurt was, most providentially, Dr. Ward, who had but a slight wound in
+the thigh; all the others, except Captain Elliot and one lieutenant,
+were either killed or died from the effects of their wounds. There were
+altogether 56 killed and 101 wounded, including a woman, Mrs. Fox.
+Twenty more afterwards died of their wounds. The Boer loss appears to
+have been very small.
+
+After the fight Conductor Egerton, with a sergeant, was allowed to walk
+into Pretoria to obtain medical assistance, the Boers refusing to give
+him a horse, or even to allow him to use his own. The Boer leader also
+left Dr. Ward eighteen men and a few stores for the wounded, with which
+he made shift as best he could. Nobody can read this gentleman's report
+without being much impressed with the way in which, though wounded
+himself, he got through his terrible task of, without assistance,
+attending to the wants of 101 sufferers. Beginning the task at 2
+P.M., it took him till six the next morning before he had seen
+the last man. It is to be hoped that his services have met with some
+recognition. Dr. Ward remained near the scene of the massacre with his
+wounded men till the declaration of peace, when he brought them down to
+Maritzburg, having experienced great difficulty in obtaining food for
+them during so many weeks.
+
+This is a short account of what I must, with reluctance, call a most
+cruel and carefully planned massacre. I may mention that a Zulu driver,
+who was with the rearguard, and escaped into Natal, stated that the
+Boers shot all the wounded men who formed that body. His statement was
+to a certain extent borne out by the evidence of one of the survivors,
+who stated that all the bodies found in that part of the field (nearly
+three-quarters of a mile away from the head of the column), had a
+bullet hole through the head or breast in addition to their other
+wounds.
+
+The Administrator of the Transvaal in council thus comments on the
+occurrence in an official minute:--"The surrounding and gradual hemming
+in under a flag of truce of a force, and the selection of spots from
+which to direct their fire, as in the case of the unprovoked attack by
+the rebels upon Colonel Anstruther's force, is a proceeding of which
+very few like incidents can be mentioned in the annals of civilised
+warfare."
+
+The Boer leaders, however, were highly elated at their success, and
+celebrated it in a proclamation of which the following is an
+extract:--"Inexpressible is the gratitude of the burghers for this
+blessing conferred on them. Thankful to the brave General F. Joubert
+and his men who have upheld the honour of the Republic on the
+battlefield. Bowed down in the dust before Almighty God, who had thus
+stood by them, and, with a loss of over a hundred of the enemy, only
+allowed two of ours to be killed."
+
+In view of the circumstances of the treacherous hemming in and
+destruction of this small body of unprepared men, most people would
+think this language rather high-flown, not to say blasphemous.
+
+On the news of this disaster reaching Pretoria, Sir Owen Lanyon issued
+a proclamation placing the country under martial law. As the town was
+large, straggling, and incapable of defence, all the inhabitants,
+amounting to over four thousand souls, were ordered up to camp, where
+the best arrangements possible were made for their convenience. In
+these quarters they remained for three months, driven from their
+comfortable homes, and cheerfully enduring all the hardships, want, and
+discomforts consequent on their position, whilst they waited in
+patience for the appearance of that relieving column that never came.
+People in England hardly understand what these men and women went
+through because they chose to remain loyal. Let them suppose that all
+the inhabitants of an ordinary English town, with the exception of the
+class known as poor people, which can hardly be said to exist in a
+colony, were at an hour's notice ordered--all, the aged and the sick,
+delicate women, and tiny children--to leave their homes to the mercy of
+the enemy, and crowd up in a little space under shelter of a fort, with
+nothing but canvas tents or sheds to cover them from the fierce summer
+suns and rains, and the coarsest rations to feed them; whilst the
+husbands and brothers were daily engaged with a cunning and dangerous
+enemy, and sometimes brought home wounded or dead. They will then have
+some idea of what was gone through by the loyal people of Pretoria, in
+their weak confidence in the good faith of the English Government.
+
+The arrangements made for the defence of the town were so ably and
+energetically carried out by Sir Owen Lanyon, assisted by the military
+officers, that no attack upon it was ever attempted. It seems to me
+that the organisation that could provide for the penning up of four
+thousand people for months, and carry it out without the occurrence of
+a single unpleasantness or expression of discontent, must have had
+something remarkable about it. Of course, it would have been impossible
+without the most loyal co-operation on the part of those concerned.
+Indeed everybody in the town lent a helping hand; judges served out
+rations, members of the Executive inspected nuisances, and so forth.
+There was only one instance of "striking;" and then, of all people in
+the world, it was the five civil doctors who, thinking it a favourable
+opportunity to fleece the Government, combined to demand five guineas
+a-day each for their services. I am glad to say that they did not
+succeed in their attempt at extortion.
+
+On the 23d December, the Boer leaders issued a second proclamation in
+reply to that of Sir O. Lanyon of the 18th, which is characterised by
+an utter absence of regard for the truth, being, in fact, nothing but a
+tissue of impudent falsehoods. It accuses Sir O. Lanyon of having
+bombarded women and children, of arming natives against the Boers, and
+of firing on the Boers without declaring war. Not one of these
+accusations has any foundation in fact, as the Boers well knew; but
+they also knew that Sir Owen, being shut up in Pretoria, was not in a
+position to rebut their charges, which they hoped might, to some
+extent, be believed, and create sympathy for them in other parts of the
+world. This was the reason of the issue of the proclamation, which well
+portrays the character of its framers.
+
+Life at Pretoria was varied by occasional sorties against the Boer
+laagers, situated at different points in the neighbourhood, generally
+about six or eight miles from the town. These expeditions were carried
+out with considerable success, though with some loss, the heaviest
+incurred being when the Boers, having treacherously hoisted the white
+flag, opened a heavy fire on the Pretoria forces, as soon as they,
+beguiled into confidence, emerged from their cover. In the course of
+the war, one in every four of the Pretoria mounted volunteers was
+killed or wounded.
+
+But perhaps the most serious of all the difficulties the Government had
+to meet was that of keeping the natives in check. As has before been
+stated, they were devotedly attached to our rule, and, during the three
+years of its continuance, had undergone what was to them a strange
+experience, they had neither been murdered, beaten, or enslaved.
+Naturally they were in no hurry to return to the old order of things,
+in which murder, flogging, and slavery were events of everyday
+occurrence. Nor did the behaviour of the Boers on the outbreak of the
+war tend to reconcile them to any such idea. Thus we find that the
+farmers had pressed a number of natives from Waterberg into one of
+their laagers (Zwart Koppies); two of them tried to run away, a Boer
+saw them and shot them both. Again, on the 7th January, a native
+reported to the authorities at Pretoria that he and some others were
+returning from the Diamond Fields driving some sheep. A Boer came and
+asked them to sell the sheep. They refused, whereupon he went away, but
+returning with some other Dutchmen fired on the Kafirs, killing one.
+
+On the 2d January information reached Pretoria that on the 26th
+December some Boers fired on some natives who were resting outside
+Potchefstroom and killed three; the rest fled, whereupon the Boers took
+the cattle they had with them.
+
+On the 11th January some men, who had been sent from Pretoria with
+despatches for Standerton, were taken prisoners. Whilst prisoners they
+saw ten men returning from the Fields stopped by the Boers and ordered
+to come to the laager. They refused and ran away, were fired on, five
+being killed and one getting his arm broken.
+
+These are a few instances of the treatment meted out to the unfortunate
+natives, taken at haphazard from the official reports. There are plenty
+more of the same nature if anybody cares to read them.
+
+As soon as the news of the rising reached them, every chief of any
+importance sent in to offer aid to Government, and many of them,
+especially Montsioa, our old ally in the Keate Award district, took the
+loyals of the neighbourhood under their protection. Several took charge
+of Government property and cattle during the disturbances, and one had
+four or five thousand pounds in gold, the product of a recently
+collected tax, given him to take care of by the Commissioner of his
+district, who was afraid that the money would be seized by the Boers.
+In every instance the property entrusted to their charge was returned
+intact. The loyalty of all the native chiefs under very trying
+circumstances (for the Boers were constantly attempting to cajole or
+frighten them into joining them) is a remarkable proof of the great
+affection of the Kafirs, more especially those of the Basuto tribes,
+who love peace better than war, for the Queen's rule. The Government of
+Pretoria need only have spoken one word to set an enormous number of
+armed men in motion against the Boers, with the most serious results to
+the latter. Any other Government in the world would, in its extremity,
+have spoken that word, but, fortunately for the Boers, it is against
+English principles to set black against white under any circumstances.
+
+Besides the main garrison at Pretoria there were forts defended by
+soldiery and loyals at the following places:--Potchefstroom,
+Rustenburg, Lydenburg, Marabastad, and Wakkerstroom, none of which were
+taken by the Boers.[11]
+
+          [11] Colonel Winsloe, however, being short of provisions, was
+          beguiled by the fraudulent representations and acts of the
+          Boer commander into surrendering the fort at Potchefstroom
+          daring the armistice.
+
+One of the first acts of the Triumvirate was to despatch a large force
+from Heidelberg with orders to advance into Natal Territory, and seize
+the pass over the Drakensberg known as Lang's Nek, so as to dispute the
+advance of any relieving column. This movement was promptly executed,
+and strong Boer troops patrolled Natal country almost up to Newcastle.
+
+The news of the outbreak, followed as it was by that of the Bronker's
+Spruit massacre, and Captain Elliot's murder, created a great
+excitement in Natal. All available soldiers were at once despatched up
+country, together with a naval brigade, who, on arrival at Newcastle,
+brought up the strength of the Imperial troops of all arms to about a
+thousand men. On the 10th January Sir George Colley left Maritzburg to
+join the force at Newcastle, but at this time nobody dreamt that he
+meant to attack the Nek with such an insignificant column. It was known
+that the loyals and troops who were shut up in the various towns in the
+Transvaal had sufficient provisions to last for some months, and that
+there was therefore nothing to necessitate a forlorn hope. Indeed the
+possibility of Sir George Colley attempting to enter the Transvaal was
+not even speculated upon until just before his advance, it being
+generally considered as out of the question.
+
+The best illustration I can give of the feeling that existed about the
+matter is to quote my own case. I had been so unfortunate as to land in
+Natal with my wife and servants just as the Transvaal troubles began,
+my intention being to proceed to a place I had near Newcastle. For some
+weeks I remained in Maritzburg, but finding that the troops were to
+concentrate on Newcastle, and being besides heartily wearied of the
+great expense and discomfort of hotel life in that town, I determined
+to go on up country, looking on it as being as safe as any place in the
+colony. Of course the possibility of Sir George attacking the Nek
+before the arrival of the reinforcements did not enter into my
+calculations, as I thought it a venture that no sensible man would
+undertake. On the day of my start, however, there was a rumour about
+the town that the General was going to attack the Boer position. Though
+I did not believe it, I thought it as well to go and ask the Colonial
+Secretary, Colonel Mitchell, privately, if there was any truth in it,
+adding that if there was, as I had a pretty intimate knowledge of the
+Boers and their shooting powers, and what the inevitable result of such
+a move would be, I should certainly prefer, as I had ladies with me, to
+remain where I was. Colonel Mitchell told me frankly that he knew no
+more about Sir George's plans than I did; but he added I might be sure
+that so able and prudent a soldier would not do anything rash. His
+remark concurred with my own opinion; so I started, and on arrival at
+Newcastle a week later was met by the intelligence that Sir George had
+advanced that morning to attack the Nek. To return was almost
+impossible, since both horses and travellers were pretty nearly knocked
+up. Also, anybody who has travelled with his family in summer-time over
+the awful track of alternate slough and boulders between Maritzburg and
+Newcastle, known in the colony as a road, will understand that at the
+time the adventurous voyagers would far rather risk being shot than
+face a return journey.
+
+The only thing to do under the circumstances was to await the course of
+events, which were now about to develop themselves with startling
+rapidity. The little town of Newcastle was at this time an odd sight,
+and remained so all through the war. The hotels were crowded to
+overflowing with refugees, and on every spare patch of land were
+erected tents, mud huts, canvas houses, and every kind of covering that
+could be utilised under the pressure of necessity, to house the many
+homeless families who had succeeded in effecting their escape from the
+Transvaal, many of whom were reduced to great straits.
+
+On the morning of the 28th January, anybody listening attentively in
+the neighbourhood of Newcastle could hear the distant boom of heavy
+guns. We were not kept long in suspense, for in the afternoon news
+arrived that Sir George had attacked the Nek, and failed with heavy
+loss. The excitement in the town was intense, for, in addition to other
+considerations, the 58th Regiment, which had suffered most, had been
+quartered there for some time, and both the officers and men were
+personally known to the inhabitants.
+
+The story of the fight is well known, and needs little repetition, and
+a very sad story it is. The Boers, who at that time were some 2000
+strong, were posted and entrenched on steep hills, against which Sir
+George Colley hurled a few hundred soldiers. It was a forlorn hope, but
+so gallant was the charge, especially that of the mounted squadron led
+by Major Bronlow, that at one time it nearly succeeded. But nothing
+could stand under the withering fire from the Boer schanses, and as
+regards the foot soldiers, they never had a chance. Colonel Deane tried
+to take them up the hill with a rush, with the result that by the time
+they reached the top, some of the men were actually sick from
+exhaustion, and none could hold a rifle steady. There on the bare
+hill-top they crouched and lay, whilst the pitiless fire from redoubt
+and rock lashed them like hail, till at last human nature could bear it
+no longer, and what was left of them retired slowly down the slope. But
+for many that gallant charge was their last earthly action. As they
+charged they fell, and where they fell they were afterwards buried. The
+casualties, killed and wounded, amounted to 195, which, considering the
+small number of troops engaged in the actual attack, is enormously
+heavy, and shows more plainly than words can tell the desperate nature
+of the undertaking. Amongst the killed were Colonel Deane, Major Poole,
+Major Hingeston, and Lieutenant Elwes. Major Essex was the only staff
+officer engaged who escaped, the same officer who was one of the
+fortunate four who lived through Isandhlwana. On this occasion his
+usual good fortune attended him, for though his horse was killed and
+his helmet knocked off, he was not touched. The Boer loss was very
+trivial.
+
+Sir George Colley, in his admirably lucid despatch about this
+occurrence addressed to the Secretary of State for War, does not enter
+much into the question as to the motives that prompted him to attack,
+simply stating that his object was to relieve the besieged towns. He
+does not appear to have taken into consideration, what was obvious to
+anybody who knew the country and the Boers, that even if he had
+succeeded in forcing the Nek, in itself almost an impossibility, he
+could never have operated with any success in the Transvaal with so
+small a column, without cavalry, and with an enormous train of waggons.
+He would have been harassed day and night by the Boer skirmishers, his
+supplies cut off, and his advance made practically impossible. Also the
+Nek would have been re-occupied behind him, since he could not have
+detached sufficient men to hold it, and in all probability Newcastle,
+his base of supplies, would have fallen into the hands of the enemy.
+
+The moral effect of our defeat on the Boers was very great. Up to this
+time there had been many secret doubts amongst a large section of them
+as to what the upshot of an encounter with the troops might be; and
+with this party, in the same way that defeat, or even the anxiety of
+waiting to be attacked, would have turned the scale one way, victory
+turned it the other. It gave them unbounded confidence in their own
+superiority, and infused a spirit of cohesion and mutual reliance into
+their ranks which had before been wanting. Waverers wavered no longer,
+but gave a loyal adherence to the good cause, and, what was still more
+acceptable, large numbers of volunteers,--whatever President Brand may
+say to the contrary,--poured in from the Orange Free State.
+
+What Sir George Colley's motive was in making so rash a move is, of
+course, quite inexplicable to the outside observer. It was said at the
+time in Natal that he was a man with a theory: namely, that small
+bodies of men properly handled were as useful and as likely to obtain
+the object in view as a large force. Whether or no this was so, I am
+not prepared to say; but it is undoubtedly the case that very clever
+men have sometimes very odd theories, and it may be that he was a
+striking instance in point.
+
+For some days after the battle at Lang's Nek affairs were quiet, and it
+was hoped that they would remain so till the arrival of the
+reinforcements, which were on their way out. The hope proved a vain one
+On the 7th February it was reported that the escort proceeding from
+Newcastle to the General's camp with the post, a distance of about
+eighteen miles, had been fired on and forced to return.
+
+On the 8th, about mid-day, we were all startled by the sound of
+fighting, proceeding apparently from a hill known as Scheins Hoogte,
+about ten miles from Newcastle. It was not known that the General
+contemplated any move, and everybody was entirely at a loss to know
+what was going on, the general idea being, however, that the camp near
+Lang's Nek had been abandoned, and that Sir George was retiring on
+Newcastle.
+
+The firing grew hotter and hotter, till at last it was perfectly
+continuous, the cannon evidently being discharged as quickly as they
+could be loaded, whilst their dull booming was accompanied by the
+unceasing crash and roll of the musketry. Towards three o'clock the
+firing slackened, and we thought it was all over, one way or the other,
+but about five o'clock it broke out again with increased vigour. At
+dusk it finally ceased. About this time some Kafirs came to my house
+and told us that an English force was hemmed in on a hill this side of
+the Ingogo River, that they were fighting bravely, but that "their arms
+were tired," adding that they thought they would be all killed at
+night.
+
+Needless to say we spent that night with heavy hearts, expecting every
+minute to hear the firing begin again, and ignorant of what fate had
+befallen our poor soldiers on the hill. Morning put an end to our
+suspense, and we then learnt that we had suffered what, under the
+circumstances, amounted to a crushing defeat It appears that Sir George
+had moved out with a force of five companies of the 60th Regiment, two
+guns, and a few mounted men, to, in his own words, "patrol the road,
+and meet and escort some waggons expected from Newcastle." As soon as
+he passed the Ingogo he was surrounded by a body of Boers sent after
+him from Lang's Nek, on a small triangular plateau, and sharply
+assailed on all sides. With a break of about two hours, from three to
+five, the assault was kept up till nightfall, with very bad results so
+far as we were concerned, seeing that out of a body of about 500 men,
+over 150 were killed and wounded. The reinforcements sent for from the
+camp apparently did not come into action. For some unexplained reason
+the Boers did not follow up their attack that night, perhaps because
+they did not think it possible that our troops could effect their
+escape back to the camp, and considered that the next morning would be
+soon enough to return and finish the business. The General, however,
+determined to get back, and scratch teams of such mules, riding-horses,
+and oxen as had lived through the day being harnessed to the guns, the
+dispirited and exhausted survivors of the force managed to ford the
+Ingogo, now swollen by rain which had fallen in the afternoon, poor
+Lieutenant Wilkinson, the adjutant of the 60th, losing his life in the
+operation, and to struggle through the dense darkness back to camp.
+
+On the hill-top they had lately held the dead lay thick. There, too,
+exposed to the driving rain and bitter wind, lay the wounded, many of
+whom would be dead before the rising of the morrow's sun. It must
+indeed have been a sight never to be forgotten by those who saw it. The
+night--I remember well--was cold and rainy, the great expanses of hill
+and plain being sometimes lit by the broken gleams of an uncertain
+moon, and sometimes plunged into intensest darkness by the passing of a
+heavy cloud. Now and again flashes of lightning threw every crag and
+outline into vivid relief, and the deep muttering of distant thunder
+made the wild gloom more solemn. Then a gust of icy wind would come
+tearing down the valleys to be followed by a pelting thunder
+shower--and thus the night wore away.
+
+When one reflects what discomfort, and even danger, an ordinary healthy
+person would suffer if left after a hard day's work to lie all night in
+the rain and wind on the top of a stony mountain, without food, or even
+water to assuage his thirst, it becomes to some degree possible to
+realise what the sufferings of our wounded after the battle of Ingogo
+must have been. Those who survived were next day taken to the hospital
+at Newcastle.
+
+What Sir George Colley's real object was in exposing himself to the
+attack has never transpired. It can hardly have been to clear the road,
+as he says in his despatch, because the road was not held by the enemy,
+but only visited occasionally by their patrols. The result of the
+battle was to make the Boers, whose losses were trifling, more
+confident than ever, and to greatly depress our soldiers. Sir George
+had now lost between three and four hundred men out of his column of
+little over a thousand, which was thereby entirely crippled. Of his
+staff officers Major Essex now alone survived, his usual good fortune
+having carried him safe through the battle of Ingogo. What makes his
+repeated escapes the more remarkable is that he was generally to be
+found in the heaviest firing. A man so fortunate as Major Essex ought
+to be rewarded for his good fortune if for no other reason, though, if
+reports are true, there would be no need to fall back on that to find
+grounds on which to advance a soldier who has always borne himself so
+well.
+
+Another result of the Ingogo battle was that the Boers, knowing that we
+had no force to cut them off, and always secure of a retreat into the
+Free State, passed round Newcastle in Free State Territory, and
+descended from fifteen hundred to two thousand strong into Natal for
+the purpose of destroying the reinforcements which were now on their
+way up under General Wood. This was on the 11th of February, and from
+that date till the 18th the upper districts of Natal were in the hands
+of the enemy, who cut the telegraph wires, looted waggons, stole herds
+of cattle and horses, and otherwise amused themselves at the expense of
+Her Majesty's subjects in Natal.
+
+It was a very anxious time for those who knew what Boers are capable
+of, and had women and children to protect, and who were never sure if
+their houses would be left standing over their heads from one day to
+another.
+
+Every night we were obliged to place out Kafirs as scouts to give us
+timely warning of the approach of marauding parties, and to sleep with
+loaded rifles close to our hands, and sometimes, when things looked
+very black, in our clothes, with horses ready saddled in the stable.
+Nor were our fears groundless, for one day a patrol of some five
+hundred Boers encamped on the next place, which by the way belonged to
+a Dutchman, and stole all the stock on it, the property of an
+Englishman. They also intercepted a train of waggons, destroyed the
+contents, and burnt them. Numerous were the false alarms it was our
+evil fortune to experience. For instance, one night I was sitting in
+the drawing-room reading, about eleven o'clock, with a door leading on
+to the verandah slightly ajar, for the night was warm, when suddenly I
+heard myself called by name in a muffled voice, and asked if the place
+was in the possession of the Boers. Looking towards the door I saw a
+full-cocked revolver coming round the corner, and on opening it in some
+alarm, I could indistinctly discern a line of armed figures in a
+crouching attitude stretching along the verandah into the garden
+beyond. It turned out to be a patrol of the mounted police, who had
+received information that a large number of Boers had seized the place
+and had come to ascertain the truth of the report. As we gathered from
+them that the Boers were certainly near, we did not pass a very
+comfortable night.
+
+Meanwhile we were daily expecting to hear that the troops had been
+attacked along the line of march, and knowing the nature of the country
+and the many opportunities it affords for ambuscading and destroying
+one of our straggling columns encumbered with innumerable waggons, we
+had the worst fears for the result. At length a report reached us to
+the effect that the reinforcements were expected on the morrow, and
+that they were not going to cross the Ingagaan at the ordinary drift,
+which was much commanded by hills, but at a lower drift on our own
+place, about three miles from Newcastle, which is only slightly
+commanded. We also heard that it was the intention of the Boers to
+attack them at this point and to fall back on my house and the hills
+behind. Accordingly, we thought it about time to retreat, and securing
+a few valuables, such as plate, we made our way into the town, leaving
+the house and its contents to take their chance. At Newcastle an attack
+was daily expected, if for no other reason, to obtain possession of the
+stores collected there.
+
+The defences of the place were, however, in a wretched condition, no
+proper outlook was kept, and there was an utter want of effective
+organisation. The military element at the camp had enough to do to look
+after itself, and did not concern itself with the safety of the town;
+and the mounted police--a colonial force paid by the colony--had been
+withdrawn from the little forts round Newcastle, as the General wanted
+them for other purposes, and a message sent that the town must defend
+its own forts. There were, it is true, a large number of able-bodied
+men in the place who were willing to fight, but they had no
+organisation. The very laager was not finished until the danger was
+past.
+
+Then there was a large party who were for surrendering the town to the
+Boers, because if they fought it might afterwards injure their trade.
+With this section of the population the feeling of patriotism was
+strong, no doubt, but that of pocket was stronger. I am convinced that
+the Boers would have found the capture of Newcastle an easy task, and I
+confess that what I then saw did not inspire me with great hopes of the
+safety of the colony when it gets responsible government, and has to
+depend for protection on burgher forces. Colonial volunteer forces are,
+I think, as good troops as any in the world; but an unorganised
+colonial mob, pulled this way and that by different sentiments and
+interests, is as useless as any other mob, with the difference that it
+is more impatient of control.
+
+For some unknown reason the Boer leaders providentially changed their
+minds about attacking the reinforcements, and their men were withdrawn
+to the Nek as swiftly and silently as they had been advanced, and on
+the 17th February the reinforcements marched into Newcastle, to the
+very great relief of the inhabitants, who had been equally anxious for
+their own safety and that of the troops. Personally, I was never in my
+life more pleased to see Her Majesty's uniform; and we were equally
+rejoiced on returning home to find that nothing had been injured. After
+this we had quiet for a while.
+
+On the 21st February, we heard that two fresh regiments had been sent
+up to the camp at Lang's Nek, and that General Wood had been ordered
+down country by Sir George Colley to bring up more reinforcements. This
+item of news caused much surprise, as nobody could understand why, now
+that the road was clear, and that there was little chance of its being
+again blocked, a General should be sent down to do work which could, to
+all appearance, have been equally well done by the officers in command
+of the reinforcing regiments, with the assistance of their transport
+riders. It was, however, understood that an agreement had been entered
+into between the two Generals that no offensive operations should be
+undertaken till Wood returned.
+
+With the exception of occasional scares, there was no further
+excitement till Sunday the 27th February, when, whilst sitting on the
+verandah after lunch, I thought I heard the sound of distant artillery.
+Others present differed with me, thinking the sound was caused by
+thunder, but as I adhered to my opinion, we determined to ride into
+town and see. On arrival there we found the place full of rumours, from
+which we gathered that some fresh disaster had occurred; and that
+messages were pouring down the wires from Mount Prospect camp. We then
+went on to camp, thinking that we should learn more there, but they
+knew nothing about it, several officers asking us what new "shave" we
+had got hold of. A considerable number of troops had been marched from
+Newcastle that morning to go to Mount Prospect, but when it was
+realised that something had occurred, they were stopped, and marched
+back again. Bit by bit we managed to gather the truth. At first we
+heard that our men had made a most gallant resistance on the hill,
+mowing down the advancing enemy by hundreds, till at last, their
+ammunition failing, they fought with their bayonets, using stones and
+meat tins as missiles. I wish that our subsequent information had been
+to the same effect.
+
+It appears that on the evening of the 26th, Sir George Colley, after
+mess, suddenly gave orders for a force of a little over six hundred
+men, consisting of detachments from no less than three different
+regiments, the 58th, 60th, 92d, and the Naval Brigade, to be got ready
+for an expedition, without revealing his plans to anybody until late in
+the afternoon; and then without more ado, marched them up to the top of
+Majuba--a great square-topped mountain to the right of, and commanding
+the Boer position at Lang's Nek. The troops reached the top about three
+in the morning, after a somewhat exhausting climb, and were stationed
+at different points of the plateau in a scientific way. Whilst the
+darkness lasted, they could, by the glittering of the watch-fires,
+trace from this point of vantage the position of the Boer laagers that
+lay 2000 yards beneath them, whilst the dawn of day revealed every
+detail of the defensive works, and showed the country lying at their
+feet like a map.
+
+On arrival at the top, it was represented to the General that a rough
+entrenchment should be thrown up, but he would not allow it to be done
+on account of the men being wearied with their marching up. This was a
+fatal mistake. Behind an entrenchment, however slight, one would think
+that 600 English soldiers might have defied the whole Boer army, and
+much more the 200 or 300 men by whom they were hunted down at Majuba.
+It appears that about 10.15 A.M., Colonel Stewart and Major Fraser
+again went to General Colley "to arrange to start the sailors on an
+entrenchment." ... "Finding the ground so exposed, the General did not
+give orders to entrench."
+
+As soon as the Boers found out that the hill was in the occupation of
+the English, their first idea was to leave the Nek, and they began to
+inspan with that object, but discovering that there were no guns
+commanding them, they changed their mind, and set to work to storm the
+hill instead. As far as I have been able to gather, the number of Boers
+who took the mountain was about 300, or possibly 400; I do not think
+there were more than that. The Boers themselves declare solemnly that
+they were only 100 strong, but this I do not believe. They slowly
+advanced up the hill till about 11.30, when the real attack began, the
+Dutchmen coming on more rapidly and confidently, and shooting with
+ever-increasing accuracy, as they found our fire quite ineffective.
+
+About a quarter to one, our men retreated to the last ridge, and
+General Colley was shot through the head. After this, the retreat
+became a rout, and the soldiers rushed pell-mell down the precipitous
+sides of the hill, the Boers knocking them over by the score as they
+went, till they were out of range. A few were also, I heard, killed by
+the shells from the guns that were advanced from the camp to cover the
+retreat, but as this does not appear in the reports, perhaps it is not
+true. Our loss was about 200 killed and wounded, including Sir George
+Colley, Drs. Landon and Cornish, and Commander Romilly, who was shot
+with an explosive bullet, and died after some days' suffering. When the
+wounded Commander was being carried to a more sheltered spot, it was
+with great difficulty that the Boers were prevented from massacring him
+as he lay, they being under the impression that he was Sir Garnet
+Wolseley. As was the case at Ingogo, the wounded were left on the
+battlefield all night in very inclement weather, to which some of them
+succumbed. It is worthy of note that after the fight was over they were
+treated with considerable kindness by the Boers.
+
+Not being a soldier, of course, I cannot venture to give any military
+reasons as to how it was that what was after all a considerable force
+was so easily driven from a position of great natural strength; but I
+think I may, without presumption, state my opinion as to the real
+cause, which was the villainous shooting of the British soldier. Though
+the troops did not, as was said at the time, run short of ammunition,
+it is clear that they fired away a great many rounds at men who, in
+storming the hill, must necessarily have exposed themselves more or
+less, of whom they managed to hit--certainly not more than six or
+seven--which was the outside of the Boer casualties. From this it is
+clear that they can neither judge distance nor hit a moving object, nor
+did they probably know that when shooting down hill it is necessary to
+aim low. Such shooting as the English soldier is capable of may be very
+well when he has an army to aim at, but it is useless in guerilla
+warfare against a foe skilled in the use of the rifle and the art of
+taking shelter.
+
+A couple of months after the storming of Majuba, I, together with a
+friend, had a conversation with a Boer, a volunteer from the Free State
+in the late war, and one of the detachment that stormed Majuba, who
+gave us a circumstantial account of the attack with the greatest
+willingness. He said that when it was discovered that the English had
+possession of the mountain, they thought that the game was up, but
+after a while bolder counsels prevailed, and volunteers were called for
+to storm the hill. Only seventy men could be found to perform the duty,
+of whom he was one. They started up the mountain in fear and trembling,
+but soon found that every shot passed over their heads, and went on
+with greater boldness. Only three men, he declared, were hit on the
+Boer side; one was killed, one was hit in the arm, and he himself was
+the third, getting his face grazed by a bullet, of which he showed us
+the scar. He stated that the first to reach the top ridge was a boy of
+twelve, and that as soon as the troops saw them they fled, when, he
+said, he paid them out for having nearly killed him, knocking them over
+one after another "like bucks" as they ran down the hill, adding that
+it was "alter lecker" (very nice). He asked us how many men we had lost
+during the war, and when we told him about seven hundred killed and
+wounded, laughed in our faces, saying he knew that our dead amounted to
+several thousands. On our assuring him that this was not the case, he
+replied, "Well, don't let's talk of it any more, because we are good
+friends now, and if we go on you will lie, and I shall lie, and then we
+shall get angry. The war is over now, and I don't want to quarrel with
+the English; if one of them takes off his hat to me I always
+acknowledge it." He did not mean any harm in talking thus; it is what
+Englishmen have to put up with now in South Africa; the Boers have
+beaten us, and act accordingly.
+
+This man also told us that the majority of the rifles they picked up
+were sighted for 400 yards, whereas the latter part of the fighting had
+been carried on within 200.
+
+Sir George Colley's death was much lamented in the colony, where he was
+deservedly popular; indeed, anybody who had the honour of knowing that
+kind-hearted English gentleman, could not do otherwise than deeply
+regret his untimely end. What his motive was in occupying Majuba in the
+way he did has never, so far as I am aware, transpired. The move, in
+itself, would have been an excellent one, had it been made in force, or
+accompanied by a direct attack on the Nek, but, as undertaken, seems to
+have been objectless. There were, of course, many rumours as to the
+motives that prompted his action, of which the most probable seems to
+be that, being aware of what the Home Government intended to do with
+reference to the Transvaal, he determined to strike a blow to try and
+establish British supremacy first, knowing how mischievous any apparent
+surrender would be. Whatever his faults may have been as a General, he
+was a brave man, and had the honour of his country much at heart.
+
+It was also said by soldiers who saw him the night the troops marched
+up Majuba, that the General was "not himself," and it was hinted that
+continual anxiety and the chagrin of failure had told upon his mind. As
+against this, however, must be set the fact that his telegrams to the
+Secretary of State for War, the last of which he must have despatched
+only about half an hour before he was shot, are cool and collected, and
+written in the same unconcerned tone--as though he were a critical
+spectator of an interesting scene--that characterises all his
+communications, more especially his despatches. They at any rate give
+no evidence of shaken nerve or unduly excited brain, nor can I see that
+any action of his with reference to the occupation of Majuba is out of
+keeping with the details of his generalship upon other occasions. He
+was always confident to rashness, and possessed by the idea that every
+man in the ranks was full of as high a spirit, and as brave as he was
+himself. Indeed, most people will think, that so far from its being a
+rasher action, the occupation of Majuba, bad generalship as it seems,
+was a wiser move than either the attack on the Nek or the Ingogo
+fiasco.
+
+But at the best, all his movements are difficult to be understood by a
+civilian, though they may, for ought we know, have been part of an
+elaborate plan, perfected in accordance with the rules of military
+science, of which, it is said, he was a great student.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE RETROCESSION OF THE TRANSVAAL.
+
+
+When Parliament met in January 1881, the Government announced, through
+the mediumship of the Queen's Speech, that it was their intention to
+vindicate Her Majesty's authority in the Transvaal. I have already
+briefly described the somewhat unfortunate attempts to gain this end by
+force of arms; and I now propose to follow the course of the diplomatic
+negotiations entered into by the ministry with the same object.
+
+As soon as the hostilities in the Transvaal took a positive form,
+causing great dismay among the Home authorities, whose paths, as we all
+know, are the paths of peace--at any price; and whilst, in the first
+confusion of calamity, they knew not where to turn, President Brand
+stepped upon the scene in the character of "Our Mutual Friend," and, by
+the Government at any rate, was rapturously welcomed.
+
+This gentleman has for many years been at the head of the Government of
+the Orange Free State, whose fortunes he had directed with considerable
+ability. He is a man of natural talent and kind-hearted disposition,
+and has the advancement of the Boer cause in South Africa much at
+heart. The rising in the Transvaal was an event that gave him a great
+and threefold opportunity: first, of interfering with the genuinely
+benevolent object of checking bloodshed; secondly, of advancing the
+Dutch cause throughout South Africa under the cloak of amiable
+neutrality, and striking a dangerous blow at British supremacy over the
+Dutch and British prestige with the natives; and, thirdly, of putting
+the English Government under a lasting obligation to him. Of this
+opportunity he has availed himself to the utmost in each particular.
+
+So soon as things began to look serious, Mr. Brand put himself into
+active telegraphic communication with the various British authorities
+with the view of preventing bloodshed by inducing the English
+Government to accede to the Boer demands. He was also earnest in his
+declarations that the Free State was not supporting the Transvaal;
+which, considering that it was practically the insurgent base of
+supplies, where they had retired their women, children, and cattle, and
+that it furnished them with a large number of volunteers, was perhaps
+straining the truth.
+
+About this time also we find Lord Kimberley telegraphing to Mr. Brand
+that "if _only_ the Transvaal Boers will desist from armed opposition
+to the Queen's authority," he thinks some arrangement might be made.
+This is the first indication made public of what was passing in the
+minds of Her Majesty's Government, on whom its Radical supporters were
+now beginning to put the screw, to induce or threaten them into
+submitting to the Boer demands.
+
+Again, on the 11th January, the President telegraphed to Lord Kimberley
+through the Orange Free State Consul in London, suggesting that Sir H.
+de Villiers, the Chief Justice at the Cape, should be appointed a
+Commissioner to go to the Transvaal to settle matters. Oddly enough,
+about the same time the same proposition emanated from the Dutch party
+in the Cape Colony, headed by Mr. Hofmeyer, a coincidence that inclines
+one to the opinion that these friends of the Boers had some further
+reason for thus urging Sir Henry de Villiers' appointment as
+Commissioner beyond his apparent fitness for the post, of which his
+high reputation as a lawyer and in his private capacity was a
+sufficient guarantee.
+
+The explanation is not hard to find, the fact being that, rightly or
+wrongly, Sir Henry de Villiers, who is himself of Dutch descent, is
+noted throughout South Africa for his sympathies with the Boer cause,
+and both President Brand and the Dutch party in the Cape shrewdly
+suspected that, if the settling of differences were left to his
+discretion, the Boers and their interests would receive very gentle
+handling. The course of action adopted by him, when he became a member
+of the Royal Commission, went far to support this view, for it will be
+noticed in the Report of the Commissioners that in every single point
+he appears to have taken the Boer side of the contention. Indeed so
+blind was he to their faults, that he would not even admit that the
+horrible Potchefstroom murders and atrocities, which are condemned both
+by Sir H. Robinson and Sir Evelyn Wood in language as strong as the
+formal terms of a report will allow, were acts contrary to the rules of
+civilised warfare. If those acts had been perpetrated by Englishmen on
+Boers, or even on natives, I venture to think Sir Henry de Villiers
+would have looked at them in a very different light.
+
+In the same telegram in which President Brand recommends the
+appointment of Sir Henry de Villiers, he states that the allegations
+made by the Triumvirate in the proclamation in which they accused Sir
+Owen Lanyon of committing various atrocities, deserve to be
+investigated, as they maintain that the collision was commenced by the
+authorities. Nobody knew better than Mr. Brand that any English
+official would be quite incapable of the conduct ascribed to Sir Owen
+Lanyon, whilst, even if the collision had been commenced by the
+authorities, which as it happened it was not, they would under the
+circumstances have been amply justified in so commencing it. This
+remark by President Brand in his telegram was merely an attempt to
+throw an air of probability over a series of slanderous falsehoods.
+
+Messages of this nature continued to pour along the wires from day to
+day, but the tone of those from the Colonial Office grew gradually
+humbler. Thus we find Lord Kimberley telegraphing on the 8th February,
+that if the Boers would desist from armed opposition all reasonable
+guarantees would be given as to their treatment after submission, and
+that a scheme would be framed for the "permanent friendly settlement of
+difficulties." It will be seen that the Government had already begun to
+water the meaning of their declaration that they would vindicate Her
+Majesty's authority. No doubt Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Courtney, and their
+followers had given another turn to the Radical screw.
+
+It is, however, clear that at this time no idea of the real aims of the
+Government had entered into the mind of Sir George Colley, since on the
+7th February he telegraphed home a plan which he proposed to adopt on
+entering the Transvaal, which included a suggestion that he should
+grant a complete amnesty only to those Boers who would sign a
+declaration of loyalty.
+
+In answer to this he was ordered to do nothing of the sort, but to
+promise protection to everybody and refer everything home.
+
+Then came the battle of Ingogo, which checked for the time the flow of
+telegrams, or rather varied their nature, for those despatched during
+the next few days deal with the question of reinforcements. On the 13th
+February, however, negotiations were reopened by Paul Kruger, one of
+the Triumvirate, who offered, if all the troops were ordered to
+withdraw from the Transvaal, to give them a free passage through the
+Nek, to disperse the Boers, and to consent to the appointment of a
+Commission.
+
+The offer was jumped at by Lord Kimberley, who, without making
+reference to the question of withdrawing the soldiers, offered, if only
+the Boers would disperse, to appoint a Commission with extensive powers
+to develop the "permanent friendly settlement" scheme. The telegram
+ends thus: "Add, that if this proposal is accepted, you now are
+authorised to agree to suspension of hostilities on our part." This
+message was sent to General Wood, because the Boers had stopped the
+communications with Colley. On the 19th, Sir George Colley replies in
+these words, which show his astonishment at the policy adopted by the
+Home Government, and which, in the opinion of most people, redound to
+his credit--
+
+"Latter part of your telegram to Wood not understood. There can be no
+hostilities if no resistance is made, but am I to leave Lang's Nek in
+Natal territory in Boer occupation, and our garrisons isolated and
+short of provisions, or occupy former and relieve latter?" Lord
+Kimberley hastens to reply that the garrisons must be left free to
+provision themselves, "but we do not mean that you should march to the
+relief of garrisons or occupy Lang's Nek if an arrangement proceeds."
+
+It will be seen that the definition of what vindication of Her
+Majesty's authority consisted grew broader and broader; it now included
+the right of the Boers to continue to occupy their positions in the
+colony of Natal.
+
+Meanwhile the daily fire of complimentary messages was being kept up
+between President Brand and Lord Kimberley, who alternately gave
+"sincere thanks to Lord Kimberley" and "fully appreciated the friendly
+spirit" of President Brand, till on the 21st February the latter
+telegraphs through Colley: "Hope of amicable settlement by negotiation,
+but this will be greatly facilitated if somebody on spot and friendly
+disposed to both could by personal communication with both endeavour to
+smooth difficulties. Offers his services to Her Majesty's Government,
+and Kruger and Pretorius and Joubert are willing." Needless to say his
+services were accepted.
+
+Presently, however, on 27th February, Sir George Colley made his last
+move, and took possession of Majuba. His defeat and death had the
+effect of causing another temporary check in the peace negotiations,
+whilst Sir Frederick Roberts with ample reinforcements was despatched
+to Natal. It had the further effect of increasing the haughtiness of
+the Boer leaders, and infusing a corresponding spirit of pliability or
+generosity into the negotiations of Her Majesty's Government.
+
+Thus on 2d March, the Boers, through President Brand and Sir Evelyn
+Wood, inform the Secretary of State for the Colonies that they are
+willing to negotiate, but decline to submit on cease opposition. Sir
+Evelyn Wood, who evidently did not at all like the line of policy
+adopted by the Government, telegraphed that he thought the best thing
+to do would be for him to engage the Boers, and disperse them _vi et
+armis_, without any guarantees, "considering the disasters we have
+sustained," and that he should, "if absolutely necessary," be empowered
+to promise life and property to the leaders, but that they should be
+banished from the country. In answer to this telegram, Lord Kimberley
+informs him that Her Majesty's Government will amnesty _everybody_
+except those who have committed acts contrary to the rules of civilised
+warfare, and that they will agree to anything, and appoint a Commission
+to carry out the details, and "be ready for friendly communications
+with _any persons_ appointed by the Boers."
+
+Thus was Her Majesty's authority finally re-established in the
+Transvaal.
+
+It was not a very grand climax, nor the kind of arrangement to which
+Englishmen are accustomed, but perhaps, considering the circumstances,
+and the well-known predilections of those who made the settlement, it
+was as much as could be expected.
+
+The action of the Government must not be considered as though they were
+unfettered in their judgment; it can never be supposed that they acted
+as they did because they thought such action right or even wise, for
+that would be to set them down as men of a very low order of
+intelligence, which they certainly are not.
+
+It is clear that no set of sensible men, who had after much
+consideration given their decision that under all the circumstances the
+Transvaal must remain British territory, and who, on a revolt
+subsequently breaking out in that territory, had declared that Her
+Majesty's rule must be upheld, would have, putting aside all other
+circumstances, deliberately stultified themselves by almost
+unconditionally, and of their own free will, abandoning the country,
+and all Her Majesty's subjects living in it. That would be to pay a
+poor tribute to their understanding, since it is clear that if reasons
+existed for retaining the Transvaal before the war, as they were
+satisfied there did, those reasons would exist with still greater force
+after a war had been undertaken and three crushing defeats sustained,
+which if left unavenged must, as they knew, have a most disastrous
+effect on our prestige throughout the South African continent.
+
+I prefer to believe that the Government was coerced into acting as it
+did by Radical pressure, both from outside and from its immediate
+supporters in the House, and that it had to choose between making an
+unconditional surrender in the Transvaal and losing the support of a
+very powerful party. Under these circumstances it, being Liberal in
+politics, naturally followed its instincts, and chose surrender.
+
+If such a policy was bad in itself, and necessarily mischievous in its
+consequences, so much the worse for those who suffered by it; it was
+clear that the Government could not be expected to lose votes in order
+to forward the true interests of countries so far off as the South
+African Colonies, which had had the misfortune to be made a party
+question of, and must take the consequences.
+
+There is no doubt that the interest brought to bear on the Government
+was very considerable, for not only had they to deal with their own
+supporters, and with the shadowy caucus that was ready to let the lash
+of its displeasure descend even on the august person of Mr. Gladstone,
+should he show signs of letting slip so rich an opportunity for the
+vindication of the holiest principles of advanced Radicalism, but also
+with the hydra-headed crowd of visionaries and professional
+sentimentalists who swarm in this country, and who are always ready to
+take up any cause, from that of Jumbo or of a murderer to that of
+oppressed peoples, such as the Bulgarians or the Transvaal Boers.
+
+These gentlemen, burning with zeal, and filled with that confidence
+which proverbially results from the hasty assimilation of imperfect and
+erroneous information, found in the Transvaal question a great
+opportunity of making a noise; and--as in a disturbed farmyard the bray
+of the domestic donkey, ringing loud and clear among the utterances of
+more intelligent animals, overwhelms and extinguishes them--so, and
+with like effect, amongst the confused sound of various English
+opinions about the Boer rising, rose the trumpet-note of the Transvaal
+Independence Committee and its supporters.
+
+As we have seen, they did not sound in vain.
+
+On the 6th of March an armistice with the Boers had been entered into
+by Sir Evelyn Wood, which was several times prolonged up to the 21st
+March, when Sir Evelyn Wood concluded a preliminary peace with the Boer
+leaders, which, under certain conditions, guaranteed the restoration of
+the country within six months, and left all other points to be decided
+by a Royal Commission.
+
+The news of this peace was at first received in the colony in the
+silence of astonishment. Personally, I remember, I would not believe
+that it was true. It seemed to us, who had been witnesses of what had
+passed, and knew what it all meant, something so utterly incredible
+that we thought there must be a mistake.
+
+If there had been any one redeeming circumstance about it, if the
+English arms had gained a single decisive victory, it might have been
+so, but it was hard for Englishmen, just at first, to understand that
+not only had the Transvaal been to all appearance wrested from them by
+force of arms, but that they were henceforth to be subject, as they
+well knew would be the case, to the coarse insults of victorious Boers,
+and the sarcasms of keener-witted Kafirs.
+
+People in England seem to fancy that when men go to the colonies they
+lose all sense of pride in their country, and think of nothing but
+their own advantage. I do not think that this is the case, indeed, I
+believe that, individual for individual, there exists a greater sense
+of loyalty, and a deeper pride in their nationality, and in the proud
+name of England, among colonists, than among Englishmen proper.
+Certainly the humiliation of the Transvaal surrender was more keenly
+felt in South Africa than it was at home; but, perhaps, the
+impossibility of imposing upon people in that country with the farrago
+of nonsense about blood-guiltiness and national morality, which was
+made such adroit use of at home, may have made the difference.
+
+I know that personally I would not have believed it possible that I
+could feel any public event so keenly as I did this; indeed, I quickly
+made up my mind that if the peace was confirmed, the neighbourhood of
+the Transvaal would be no fit or comfortable residence for an
+Englishman, and that I would, at any cost, leave the country,--which I
+accordingly did.
+
+Newcastle was a curious sight the night after the peace was declared.
+Every hotel and bar was crowded with refugees, who were trying to
+relieve their feelings by cursing the name of Gladstone with a vigour,
+originality, and earnestness that I have never heard equalled; and
+declaring in ironical terms how proud they were to be citizens of
+England--a country that always kept its word. Then they set to work
+with many demonstrations of contempt to burn the effigy of the Bight
+Honourable Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government, an
+example, by the way, that was followed throughout South Africa.
+
+Even Sir Evelyn Wood, who is very popular in the colony, was hissed as
+he walked through the town, and great surprise was expressed that a
+soldier who came out expressly to fight the Boers should consent to
+become the medium of communication in such a dirty business. And,
+indeed, there was some excuse for all this bitterness, for the news
+meant ruin to very many.
+
+But if people in Natal and at the Cape received the news with
+astonishment, how shall I describe its effect upon the unfortunate
+loyal inhabitants in the Transvaal, on whom it burst like a
+thunderbolt?
+
+They did not say much, however, and indeed there was nothing to be
+said. They simply began to pack up such things as they could carry with
+them, and to leave the country, which they well knew would henceforth
+be utterly untenable for Englishmen or English sympathisers. In a few
+weeks they come pouring down through Newcastle by hundreds; it was the
+most melancholy exodus that can be imagined. There were people of all
+classes, officials, gentlefolk, work-people, and loyal Boers, but they
+had a connecting link; they had all been loyal, and they were all
+ruined.
+
+Most of these people had gone to the Transvaal since it became a
+British colony, and invested all they had in it, and now their capital
+was lost and their labour rendered abortive; indeed, many of them whom
+one had known as well to do in the Transvaal, came down to Natal hardly
+knowing how they would feed their families next week.
+
+It must be understood that so soon as the Queen's sovereignty was
+withdrawn the value of landed and house property in the Transvaal went
+down to nothing, and has remained there ever since. Thus a fair-sized
+house in Pretoria brought in a rental varying from ten to twenty pounds
+a month during British occupation, but after the declaration of peace,
+owners of houses were glad to get people to live in them to keep them
+from falling into ruin. Those who owned land or had invested money in
+businesses suffered in the same way; their property remains neither
+profitable or saleable, and they themselves are precluded by their
+nationality from living on it, the art of "Boycotting" not being
+peculiar to Ireland.
+
+Nor were they the only sufferers. The officials, many of whom had taken
+to the Government service as a permanent profession, in which they
+expected to pass their lives, were suddenly dismissed, mostly with a
+small gratuity, which would about suffice to pay their debts, and told
+to find their living as best they could. It was indeed a case of _vae
+victis_,--woe to the conquered loyalists.[12]
+
+          [12] The following extract is clipped from a recent issue
+          of the _Transvaal Advertiser_. It describes the present
+          condition of Pretoria:--
+
+          "The streets grown over with rank vegetation; the
+          water-furrows uncleaned and unattended, emitting offensive
+          and unhealthy stenches; the houses showing evident signs of
+          dilapidation and decay; the side paths, in many places,
+          dangerous to pedestrians--in fact, everything the eye can
+          rest upon indicates the downfall which has overtaken this
+          once prosperous city. The visitor can, if he be so minded,
+          betake himself to the outskirts and suburbs, where he will
+          perceive the same sad evidences of neglect, public grounds
+          unattended, roads uncared for, mills and other public works
+          crumbling into ruin. These palpable signs of decay most
+          strongly impress him. A blight seems to have come over this
+          lately fair and prosperous town. Rapidly it is becoming a
+          'deserted village,' a 'city of the dead.'"
+
+The Commission appointed by Her Majesty's Government consisted of Sir
+Hercules Robinson, Sir Henry de Villiers, and Sir Evelyn Wood,
+President Brand being also present in his capacity of friend of both
+parties, and to their discretion were left the settlement of all
+outstanding questions. Amongst these, were the mode of trial of those
+persons who had been guilty of acts contrary to the rules of civilised
+warfare, the question of severance of territory from the Transvaal on
+the eastern boundary, the settlement of the boundary in the Keate-Award
+districts, the compensation for losses sustained during the war, the
+functions of the British Resident, and other matters. Their place of
+meeting was at Newcastle in Natal, and from thence they proceeded to
+Pretoria.
+
+The first question of importance that came before the Commission was
+the mode of trial to be adopted in the cases of those persons accused
+of acts contrary to the usages of civilised warfare, such as murder.
+The Attorney-General for the Transvaal strongly advised that a special
+tribunal should be constituted to try these cases, principally because
+"after a civil war in which all the inhabitants of a country, with very
+few exceptions, have taken part, a jury of fair and impartial men,
+truly unbiassed, will be very difficult to get together." It is
+satisfactory to know that the Commissioners gave this somewhat obvious
+fact "their grave consideration," which, according to their Report,
+resulted in their determining to let the cases go before the ordinary
+court, and be tried by a jury, because in referring them to a specially
+constituted court which would have done equal justice without fear or
+favour, "the British Government would have made for itself, among the
+Dutch population of South Africa, a name for vindictive oppression,
+which no generosity in other affairs could efface."
+
+There is more in this determination of the Commissioners, or rather of
+the majority of them--for Sir E. Wood, to his credit be it said,
+refused to agree in their decision--than meets the eye, the fact of the
+matter being that it was privately well known to them, that though the
+Boer leaders might be willing to allow a few of the murderers to
+undergo the form of a trial, neither they nor the Boers themselves
+meant to permit the farce to go any further. Had the men been tried by
+a special tribunal they would in all probability have been condemned to
+death, and then would have come the awkward question of carrying out
+the sentence on individuals whose deeds were looked on, if not with
+general approval, at any rate without aversion by the great mass of
+their countrymen. In short, it would probably have become necessary
+either to reprieve them or to fight the Boers again, since it was very
+certain that they would not have allowed them to be hung. Therefore the
+majority of the Commissioners, finding themselves face to face with a
+dead wall, determined to slip round it instead of boldly climbing it,
+by referring the cases to the Transvaal High Court, cheerfully
+confident of what the result must be.
+
+After all, the matter was, much cry about little wool, for of all the
+crimes committed by the Boers--a list of some of which will be found in
+the Appendix to this book--in only three cases were a proportion of the
+perpetrators produced and put through the form of trial. Those three
+were--the dastardly murder of Captain Elliot, who was shot by his Boer
+escort whilst crossing the Vaal river on parole; the murder of a man
+named Malcolm, who was kicked to death in his own house by Boers, who
+afterwards put a bullet through his head to make the job "look better;"
+and the murder of a doctor named Barber, who was shot by his escort on
+the border of the Free State. A few of the men concerned in the first
+two of these crimes were tried in Pretoria; and it was currently
+reported at that time, that in order to make their acquittal certain
+our Attorney-General received instructions not to exercise his right of
+challenging jurors on behalf of the Crown. Whether or not this is true
+I am not prepared to say, but I believe it is a fact that he did not
+exercise that right, though the counsel for the prisoners availed
+themselves of it freely, with the result that in Elliot's case, the
+jury was composed of eight Boers and one German, nine being the full
+South African jury. The necessary result followed; in both cases the
+prisoners were acquitted in the teeth of the evidence. Barber's
+murderers were tried in the Free State, and were, as might be expected,
+acquitted.
+
+Thus it will be seen that of all the perpetrators of murder and other
+crimes during the course of the war not one was brought to justice.
+
+The offence for which their victims died was, in nearly every case,
+that they had served, were serving, or were loyal to Her Majesty the
+Queen. In no single case has England exacted retribution for the murder
+of her servants and citizens; but nobody can read through the long list
+of these dastardly slaughters without feeling that they will not go
+unavenged. The innocent blood that has been shed on behalf of this
+country, and the tears of children and widows, now appeal to a higher
+tribunal than that of Mr. Gladstone's Government, and assuredly they
+will not appeal in vain.
+
+The next point of importance dealt with by the Commission was the
+question whether or no any territory should be severed from the
+Transvaal, and kept under English rule for the benefit of the native
+inhabitants. Lord Kimberley, acting under pressure put upon him by
+members of the Aborigines Protection Society, instructed the Commission
+to consider the advisability of severing the districts of Lydenburg and
+Zoutpansberg, and also a strip of territory bordering on Zululand and
+Swaziland, from the Transvaal, so as to place the inhabitants of the
+first two districts out of danger of maltreatment by the Boers, and to
+interpose a buffer between Zulus, and Swazis, and Boer aggression, and
+_vice versâ_.
+
+The Boer leaders had, it must be remembered, acquiesced in the
+principle of such a separation in the preliminary peace signed by Sir
+Evelyn Wood and themselves. The majority of the Commission, however
+(Sir Evelyn Wood dissenting), finally decided against the retention of
+either of these districts, a decision which, I think, was a wise one,
+though I arrive at that conclusion on very different grounds to those
+adopted by the majority of the Commission.
+
+Personally, I cannot see that it is the duty of England to play
+policeman to the whole world. To have retained these native districts
+would have been to make ourselves responsible for their good
+government, and to have guaranteed them against Boer encroachment,
+which I do not think that we were called upon to do. It is surely not
+incumbent upon us, having given up the Transvaal to the Boers, to
+undertake the management of the most troublesome part of it, the Zulu
+border. Besides, bad as the abandonment of the Transvaal is, I think
+that if it was to be done at all, it was best to do it thoroughly,
+since to have kept some natives under our protection, and to have
+handed over the rest to the tender mercies of the Boers, would only be
+to render our injustice more obvious, whilst weakening the power of the
+natives themselves to combine in self-defence, since those under our
+protection would naturally have little sympathy with their more
+unfortunate brethren--their interests and circumstances being
+different.
+
+The Commission do not seem to have considered the question from these
+points of view; but putting them on one side, there are many other
+considerations connected with it which are ably summed up in their
+Report. Amongst these is the danger of disturbances commenced between
+Zulus or Swazis and Boers spreading into Natal, and the probability of
+the fomenting of disturbances amongst the Zulus by Boers. The great
+argument for the retention of some territory, if only as a symbol that
+the English had not been driven out of the country, is, however, set
+forth in the forty-sixth paragraph of the Report, which runs as
+follows:--"The moral considerations that determine the actions of
+civilised governments are not easily understood by barbarians, in whose
+eyes successful force is alone the sign of superiority, and it appeared
+possible that the surrender by the British Crown of one of its
+possessions to those who had been in arms against it, might be looked
+upon by the natives in no other way than as a token of the defeat and
+decay of the British power, and that thus a serious shock might be
+given to British authority in South Africa, and the capacity of Great
+Britain to govern and direct the vast native population within and
+without her South African dominions--a capacity resting largely on the
+renown of her name--might be dangerously impaired."
+
+These words, coming from so unexpected a source, do not, though couched
+in such mild language, hide the startling importance of the question
+discussed. On the contrary, they accurately and with double weight
+convey the sense and gist of the most damning argument against the
+policy of the retrocession of the Transvaal in its entirety; and
+proceeding from their own carefully chosen Commissioners, can hardly
+have been pleasant reading to Lord Kimberley and his colleagues.
+
+The majority of the Commission then proceeds to set forth the arguments
+advanced by the Boers against the retention of any territory, which
+appear to have been chiefly of a sentimental character, since we are
+informed that "the people, it seemed certain, would not have valued the
+restoration of a mutilated country. Sentiment in a great measure had
+led them to insurrection, and the force of such it was impossible to
+disregard." Sir Evelyn Wood, in his dissent, states that he cannot even
+agree with the premises of his colleagues' argument, since he is
+convinced that it was not sentiment that had led to the outbreak, but a
+"general and rooted aversion to taxation." If he had added, and a
+hatred not only of English rule, but of all rule, he would have stated
+the complete cause of the Transvaal rebellion. In the next paragraph of
+the Report, however, we find the real cause of the pliability of the
+Commission in the matter, which is the same that influenced them in
+their decision about the mode of trial of the murderers and other
+questions--they feared that the people would appeal to arms if they
+decided against their wishes.
+
+Discreditable and disgraceful as it may seem, nobody can read this
+Report without plainly seeing that the Commissioners were, in treating
+with the Boers on these points, in the position of ambassadors from a
+beaten people getting the best terms they could. Of course, they well
+knew that this was not the case but whatever the Boer leaders may have
+said, the Boers themselves did not know this, or even pretend to look
+at the matter in any other light. When we asked for the country back,
+said they, we did not get it; after we had three times defeated the
+English we did get it; the logical conclusion from the facts being that
+we got it because we defeated the English. This was their tone, and it
+is not therefore surprising that whenever the Commission threatened to
+decide anything against them, they, with a smile, let it know that if
+it did, they would be under the painful necessity of re-occupying
+Lang's Nek. It was never necessary to repeat the threat, since the
+majority of the Commission would thereupon speedily find a way to meet
+the views of the Boer representatives.
+
+Sir Evelyn Wood, in his dissent, thus correctly sums up the
+matter:--"To contend that the Royal Commission ought not to decide
+contrary to the wishes of the Boers, because such decision might not be
+accepted, is to deny to the Commission the very power of decision that
+it was agreed should be left in its hands." Exactly so. But it is
+evident that the Commission knew its place, and so far from attempting
+to exercise any "power of decision," it was quite content with such
+concessions as it could obtain by means of bargaining. Thus, as an
+additional reason against the retention of any territory, it is urged
+that if this territory was retained "the majority of your Commissioners
+... would have found themselves in no favourable position for obtaining
+the concurrence of the Boer leaders as to other matters." In fact, Her
+Majesty's Commission, appointed, or supposed to be appointed, to do Her
+Majesty's will and pleasure, shook in its shoes before men who had
+lately been rebels in arms against her authority, and humbly submitted
+itself to their dicta.
+
+The majority of the Commission went on to express their opinion, that
+by giving way about the retention of territory they would be able to
+obtain better terms for the natives generally, and larger powers for
+the British Resident. But, as Sir Evelyn Wood points out in his Report,
+they did nothing of the sort, the terms of the agreement about the
+Resident and other native matters being all consequent on and included
+in the first agreement of peace. Besides, they seem to have overlooked
+the fact that such concessions as they did obtain are only on paper,
+and practically worthless, whilst all _bonâ fide_ advantages remained
+with the Boers.
+
+The decision of the Commissioners in the question of the Keate Award,
+which next came under their consideration, appears to have been a
+judicious one, being founded on the very careful Report of Colonel
+Moysey, R.E., who had been for many months collecting information on
+the spot. The Keate Award Territory is a region lying to the south-west
+of the Transvaal, and was, like many other districts in that country,
+originally in the possession of natives of the Baralong and Batlapin
+tribes. Individual Boers having, however, _more suo_ taken possession
+of tracts of land in the district, difficulties speedily arose between
+their Government and the native chiefs, and in 1871 Mr. Keate,
+Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, was by mutual consent called in to
+arbitrate on the matter. His decision was entirely in favour of the
+natives, and was accordingly promptly and characteristically repudiated
+by the Boer Volksraad. From that time till the rebellion the question
+remained unsettled, and was indeed a very thorny one to deal with. The
+Commission, acting on the principle _in medio tutissimus ibis_, drew a
+line through the midst of the disputed territory, or, in other words,
+set aside Mr. Keate's award, and interpreted the dispute in favour of
+the Boers.
+
+This decision was accepted by all parties at the time, but it has not
+resulted in the maintenance of peace. The principal chief, Montsioa, is
+an old ally and staunch friend of the English, a fact which the Boers
+are not able to forget or forgive, and they appear to have stirred up
+rival chiefs to attack him, and to have allowed volunteers from the
+Transvaal to assist them. Montsioa has also enlisted some white
+volunteers, and several fights have taken place, in which the loss of
+life has been considerable. Whether or no the Transvaal Government is
+directly concerned it is impossible to say, but from the fact that
+cannon are said to have been used against Montsioa it would appear that
+it is, since private individuals do not, as a rule, own Armstrong
+guns.[13]
+
+          [13] I beg to refer any reader interested in this matter to
+          the letter of "Transvaal" to the _Standard_, which I have
+          republished in the Appendix to this book.
+
+Amongst the questions remaining for the consideration of the
+Commissioners was that of what compensation should be given for losses
+during the war. Of course, the great bulk of the losses sustained were
+of an indirect nature, resulting from the necessary and enormous
+depreciation in the value of land and other property, consequent on the
+retrocession. Into this matter the Home Government declined to enter,
+thereby saving its pocket at the price of its honour, since it was upon
+English guarantees that the country would remain a British possession
+that the majority of the unfortunate loyals invested their money in it.
+It was, however, agreed by the Commission (Sir H. de Villiers
+dissenting) that the Boers should be liable for compensation in cases
+where loss had been sustained through commandeering seizure,
+confiscation, destruction, or damage of property. The sums awarded
+under these heads have already amounted to about £110,000, which sum
+has been defrayed by the Imperial Government, the Boer authorities
+stating that they were not in a position to pay it.
+
+In connection with this matter I will pass to the financial clauses of
+the Report. When the country was annexed, the public debt amounted to
+£301,727. Under British rule this debt was liquidated to the extent of
+£150,000, but the total was brought up by a Parliamentary grant, a loan
+from the Standard Bank, and sundries to £390,404, which represented the
+public debt of the Transvaal on the 31st December 1880. This was
+further increased by moneys advanced by the Standard Bank and English
+Exchequer during the war, and till the 8th August 1881, during which
+time the country yielded no revenue, to £457,393. To this must be added
+an estimated sum of £200,000 for compensation charges, pension
+allowances, &c., and a further sum of £383,000, the cost of the
+successful expedition against Secocoeni, that of the unsuccessful one
+being left out of account, bringing up the total public debt to over a
+million, of which about £800,000 is owing to this country.
+
+This sum, with the characteristic liberality that distinguished them in
+their dealings with the Boers, but which was not so marked where loyals
+were concerned, the Commissioners (Sir Evelyn Wood dissenting) reduced
+by a stroke of the pen to £265,000, thus entirely remitting an
+approximate sum of £500,000, or £600,000. To the sum of £265,000 still
+owing must be added say another £150,000 for sums lately advanced to
+pay the compensation claims, bringing up the actual amount now owing to
+England to something under half a million, of which I say with
+confidence she will never see a single £10,000. As this contingency was
+not contemplated, or if contemplated, not alluded to by the Royal
+Commission, provision was made for a Sinking Fund, by means of which
+the debt, which is a second charge on the revenues of the States, is to
+be extinguished in twenty-five years.
+
+It is a strange instance of the proverbial irony of fate, that whilst
+the representatives of the Imperial Government were thus showering
+gifts of hundreds of thousands of pounds upon men who had spurned the
+benefits of Her Majesty's rule, made war upon her forces, and murdered
+her subjects, no such consideration was extended to those who had
+remained loyal to her throne. Their claims for compensation were passed
+by unheeded; and looking from the windows of the room in which they sat
+in Newcastle, the members of the Commission might have seen them
+flocking down from a country that could no longer be their home; those
+that were rich among them made poor, and those that were poor reduced
+to destitution.
+
+The only other point which it will be necessary for me to touch on in
+connection with this Report is the duties of the British Resident and
+his relations to the natives. He was to be invested as representative
+of the Suzerain with functions for securing the execution of the terms
+of peace as regards--(1) the control of the foreign relations of the
+State; (2) the control of the frontier affairs of the State; and (3)
+the protection of the interests of the natives in the State.
+
+As regards the first of these points, it was arranged that the
+interests of subjects of the Transvaal should be left in the hands of
+Her Majesty's representatives abroad. Since Boers are, of all people in
+the world, the most stay-at-home, our ambassadors and consuls are not
+likely to be troubled much on their account. With reference to the
+second point, the Commission made stipulations that would be admirable
+if there were any probability of their being acted up to. The Resident
+is to report any encroachment on native territory by Boers to the High
+Commissioner, and when the Resident and the Boer Government differ, the
+decision of the Suzerain is to be final. This is a charming way of
+settling difficulties, but the Commission forgets to specify how the
+Suzerain's decision is to be enforced. After what has happened, it can
+hardly have relied on awe of the name of England to bring about the
+desired obedience!
+
+But besides thus using his beneficent authority to prevent subjects of
+the Transvaal from trespassing on their neighbour's land, the Resident
+is to exercise a general supervision over the interests of all the
+natives in the country. Considering that they number about a million,
+and are scattered over a territory larger than France, one would think
+that this duty alone would have taken up the time of any ordinary man;
+and, indeed, Sir Evelyn Wood was in favour of the appointment of
+sub-residents to assist him. The majority of the Commission refused,
+however, to listen to any such suggestion--believing, they said, "that
+the least possible interference with the independent Government of the
+State would be the wisest." Quite so, but I suppose it never occurred
+to them to ask the natives what their views of the matter were! The
+Resident was also to be a member of a Native Location Commission, which
+was at some future time to provide land for the natives to live on.
+
+In perusing this Report it is easy to follow with more or less accuracy
+the individual bent of its framers. Sir Hercules Robinson figures
+throughout as a man who has got a disagreeable business to carry out,
+in obedience to instructions that admit of no trifling with, and who
+has set himself to do the best he can for his country, and those who
+suffer through his country's policy, whilst obeying those instructions.
+He has evidently choked down his feelings and opinions as an
+individual, and turned himself into an official machine, merely
+registering in detail the will of Lord Kimberley. With Sir Henry de
+Villiers the case is very different. One feels throughout that the task
+is to him a congenial one, and that the Boer cause has in him an
+excellent friend. Indeed, had he been an advocate of their cause
+instead of a member of the Commission, he could not have espoused their
+side on every occasion with greater zeal. According to him they were
+always in the right, and in them he could find no guile. Mr. Hofmeyer
+and President Brand exercised a wise discretion from their own point of
+view when they urged his appointment as Special Commissioner. I now
+come to Sir Evelyn Wood, who was in the position of an independent
+Englishman, neither prejudiced in favour of the Boers, or the reverse,
+and on whom, as a military man, Lord Kimberley would find it difficult
+to put the official screw. The results of his happy position are
+obvious in the paper attached to the end of the Report, and signed by
+him, in which he totally and entirely differs from the majority of the
+Commission on every point of any importance. Most people will think
+that this very outspoken and forcible dissent deducts somewhat from the
+value of the Report, and throws a shadow of doubt on the wisdom of its
+provisions.
+
+The formal document of agreement between Her Majesty's Government and
+the Boer leaders, commonly known as the Convention, was signed by both
+parties at Pretoria on the afternoon of the 3d August 1881, in the same
+room in which, nearly four years before, the Annexation Proclamation
+was signed by Sir T. Shepstone.
+
+Whilst this business was being transacted in Government House, a
+curious ceremony was going on just outside, and within sight of the
+windows. This was the ceremonious burial of the Union Jack, which was
+followed to the grave by a crowd of about 2000 loyalists and native
+chiefs. On the outside of the coffin was written the word "Resurgam,"
+and an eloquent oration was delivered over the grave. Such
+demonstrations are, no doubt, foolish enough, but they are not entirely
+without political significance.
+
+But a more unpleasant duty awaited the Commissioners than that of
+attaching their signatures to a document,--consisting of the necessity
+of conveying Her Majesty's decision as to the retrocession to about a
+hundred native chiefs, until now Her Majesty's subjects, who had been
+gathered together to hear it. It must be borne in mind that the natives
+had not been consulted as to the disposal of the country, although they
+outnumber the white people in the proportion of twenty to one, and
+that, beyond some worthless paper stipulations, nothing had been done
+for their interests.
+
+Personally, I must plead guilty to what I know is by many, especially
+by those who are attached to the Boer cause, considered as folly, if
+not worse, namely, a sufficient interest in the natives, and sympathy
+with their sufferings, to bring me to the conclusion that in acting
+thus we have inflicted a cruel injustice upon them. It seems to me,
+that as they were the original owners of the soil, they were entitled
+to some consideration in the question of its disposal, and consequently
+and incidentally, of their own. I am aware that it is generally
+considered that the white man has a right to the black man's
+possessions and land, and that it is his high and holy mission to
+exterminate the wretched native and take his place. But with this
+conclusion I venture to differ. So far as my own experience of natives
+has gone, I have found that in all the essential qualities of mind and
+body they very much resemble white men, with the exception that they
+are, as a race, quicker-witted, more honest, and braver than the
+ordinary run of white men. Of them might be aptly quoted the speech
+Shakespeare puts into Shylock's mouth: "Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a
+Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?" In the
+same way I ask, Has a native no feelings or affections? does he not
+suffer when his parents are shot, or his children stolen, or when he is
+driven a wanderer from his home? Does he not know fear, feel pain,
+affection, hate, and gratitude? Most certainly he does; and this being
+so, I cannot believe that the Almighty, who made both white and black,
+gave to the one race the right or mission of exterminating or even of
+robbing or maltreating the other, and calling the process the advance
+of civilisation. It seems to me, that on only one condition, if at all,
+have we the right to take the black men's land; and that is, that we
+provide them with an equal and a just Government, and allow no
+maltreatment of them, either as individuals or tribes, but, on the
+contrary, do our best to elevate them, and wean them from savage
+customs. Otherwise, the practice is surely undefensible.
+
+I am aware, however, that with the exception of a small class, these
+are sentiments which are not shared by the great majority of the
+public, either at home or abroad. Indeed, it can be plainly seen how
+little sympathy they command, from the fact that but scanty
+remonstrance was raised at the treatment meted out to our native
+subjects in the Transvaal, when they were, to the number of nearly a
+million, handed over from the peace, justice, and security that on the
+whole characterise our rule, to a state of things and possibilities of
+wrong and suffering which I will not try to describe.
+
+To the chiefs thus assembled Sir Hercules Robinson, as President of the
+Royal Commission, read a statement, and then retired, refusing to allow
+them to speak in answer. The statement informed the natives that "Her
+Majesty's Government, with that sense of justice which befits a great
+and powerful nation," had returned the country to the Boers, "whose
+representatives, Messrs. Kruger, Pretorius, and Joubert, I now," said
+Sir Hercules, "have much pleasure in introducing to you." If reports
+are true, the native chiefs had, many of them personally, and all of
+them by reputation, already the advantage of a very intimate
+acquaintance with all three of these gentlemen, so that an introduction
+was somewhat superfluous.
+
+Sir Hercules then went on to explain to them that locations would be
+allotted to them at some future time; that a British Resident would be
+appointed, whose especial charge they would be, but that they must bear
+in mind that he was not ruler of the country, but the Government,
+"subject to Her Majesty's suzerain rights." Natives were, no doubt,
+expected to know by intuition what suzerain rights are. The statement
+then goes on to give them good advice as to the advantages of indulging
+in manual labour when asked to do so by the Boers, and generally to
+show them how bright and happy is the future that lies before them.
+Lest they should be too elated by such good tidings, they are, however,
+reminded that it will be necessary to retain the law relating to
+passes, which is, in the hands of a people like the Boers, about as
+unjust a regulation as a dominant race can invent for the oppression of
+a subject people, and had, in the old days of the Republic, been
+productive of much hardship. The statement winds up by assuring them
+that their "interests will never be forgotten or neglected by Her
+Majesty's Government." Having read the document the Commission hastily
+withdrew, and after their withdrawal the chiefs were "allowed" to state
+their opinions to the Secretary for Native Affairs.
+
+In availing themselves of this permission, it is noticeable that no
+allusion was made to all the advantages they were to reap under the
+Convention, nor did they seem to attach much importance to the
+appointment of the British Resident. On the contrary, all their
+attention was given to the great fact that the country had been ceded
+to the Boers, and that they were no longer the Queen's subjects. We are
+told, in Mr. Shepstone's Report, that they "got very excited," and
+"asked whether it was thought that they had no feelings or hearts, that
+they were thus treated as a stick or piece of tobacco, which could be
+passed from hand to hand without question." Umgombarie, a Zoutpansberg
+chief, said: "I am Umgombarie. I have fought with the Boers, and have
+many wounds, and they know that what I say is true.... I will never
+consent to place myself under their rule. I belong to the English
+Government. I am not a man who eats with both sides of his jaw at once;
+I only use one side. I am English, I have said." Silamba said: "I
+belong to the English. I will never return under the Boers. You see me,
+a man of my rank and position; is it right that such as I should be
+seized and laid on the ground and flogged, as has been done to me and
+other chiefs?"
+
+Sinkanhla said: "We hear and yet do not hear, we cannot understand. We
+are troubling you, Chief, by talking in this way; we hear the chiefs
+say that the Queen took the country because the people of the country
+wished it, and again that the majority of the owners of the country did
+not wish their rule, and that therefore the country was given back. We
+should like to have the man pointed out from among us black people who
+objects to the rule of the Queen. We are the real owners of the
+country; we were here when the Boers came, and without asking leave,
+settled down and treated us in every way badly. The English Government
+then came and took the country; we have now had four years of rest and
+peaceful and just rule. We have been called here to-day, and are told
+that the country, our country, has been given to the Boers by the
+Queen. This is a thing which surprises us. Did the country, then,
+belong to the Boers? Did it not belong to our fathers and forefathers
+before us, long before the Boers came here? We have heard that the
+Boers' country is at the Cape. If the Queen wishes to give them their
+land, why does she not give them back the Cape?"
+
+I have quoted this speech at length, because, although made by a
+despised native, it sets forth their case more powerfully and in
+happier language than I can do.
+
+Umyethile said: "We have no heart for talking. I have returned to the
+country from Sechelis, where I had to fly from Boer oppression. Our
+hearts are black and heavy with grief to-day at the news told us, we
+are in agony, our intestines are twisting and writhing inside of us,
+just as you see a snake do when it is struck on the head.... We do not
+know what has become of us, but we feel dead; it may be that the Lord
+may change the nature of the Boers, and that we will not be treated
+like dogs and beasts of burden as formerly, but we have no hope of such
+a change, and we leave you with heavy hearts and great apprehension as
+to the future." In his Report, Mr. Shepstone (the Secretary for Native
+Affairs) says: "One chief, Jan Sibilo, who has been, he informed me,
+personally threatened with death by the Boers after the English leave,
+could not restrain his feelings, but cried like a child."
+
+I have nothing to add to these extracts, which are taken from many such
+statements. They are the very words of the persons most concerned, and
+will speak for themselves.
+
+The Convention was signed on the 3d August 1881, and was to be formally
+ratified by a Volksraad or Parliament of the Burghers within three
+months of that date, in default of which it was to fall to the ground
+and become null and void.
+
+Anybody who has followed the course of affairs with reference to the
+retrocession of the Transvaal, or who has even taken the trouble to
+read through this brief history, will probably come to the conclusion
+that, under all the circumstances, the Boers had got more than they
+could reasonably expect. Not so, however, the Boers themselves. On the
+28th September the newly-elected Volksraad referred the Convention to a
+General Committee to report on, and on the 30th September the Report
+was presented. On the 3d October a telegram was despatched through the
+British Resident to "His Excellency W. E. Gladstone," in which the
+Volksraad states that the Convention is not acceptable--
+
+(1.) Because it is in conflict with the Sand River Treaty of 1852.
+
+(2.) Because it violates the peace agreement entered into with Sir
+Evelyn Wood, in confidence of which the Boers laid down their arms.
+
+The Volksraad consequently declared that modifications were desirable,
+and that certain articles _must_ be altered.
+
+To begin with, they declare that the "conduct of foreign relations does
+not appertain to the Suzerain, only supervision," and that the articles
+bearing on these points must consequently be modified. They next attack
+the native question, stating that "the Suzerain has not the right to
+interfere with our Legislature," and state that they cannot agree to
+Article 3, which gives the Suzerain a right of veto on Legislation
+connected with the natives; to Article 13, by virtue of which natives
+are to be allowed to acquire land; and to the last part of Article 26,
+by which it is provided that whites of alien race living in the
+Transvaal shall not be taxed in excess of the taxes imposed on
+Transvaal citizens.
+
+They further declare that it is _infra dignitatem_ for the President of
+the Transvaal to be a member of a Commission. This refers to the Native
+Location Commission, on which he is, in the terms of the Convention, to
+sit, together with the British Resident, and a third person jointly
+appointed.
+
+They next declare that the amount of the debt for which the Commission
+has made them liable should be modified. Considering that England had
+already made them a present of from £600,000 to £800,000, this is a
+most barefaced demand. Finally, they state that "Articles 15, 16, 26,
+and 27 are superfluous, and only calculated to wound our sense of
+honour" (_sic_).
+
+Article 15 enacts that no slavery or apprenticeship shall be tolerated.
+
+Article 16 provides for religious toleration.
+
+Article 26 provides for the free movement, trading, and residence of
+all persons, other than natives, conforming themselves to the laws of
+the Transvaal.
+
+Article 27 gives to all the right of free access to the Courts of
+Justice.
+
+Putting the "sense of honour" of the Transvaal Volksraad out of the
+question, past experience has but too plainly proved that these
+Articles are by no means superfluous.
+
+In reply to this message, Sir Hercules Robinson telegraphs to the
+British Resident on the 21st October in the following words:--
+
+"Having forwarded Volksraad Resolution of 15th to Earl of Kimberley, I
+am desired to instruct you in reply to repeat to the Triumvirate that
+Her Majesty's Government cannot entertain any proposals for a
+modification of the Convention _until after it has been ratified_,
+and the necessity for further concession proved by experience."
+
+I wish to draw particular attention to the last part of this message,
+which is extremely typical of the line of policy adopted throughout in
+the Transvaal business. The English Government dared not make any
+further concession to the Boers, because they felt that they had
+already strained the temper of the country almost to breaking in the
+matter. On the other hand, they were afraid that if they did not do
+something, the Boers would tear up the Convention, and they would find
+themselves face to face with the old difficulty. Under these
+circumstances, they have fallen back upon their temporising and
+un-English policy, which leaves them a back-door to escape through,
+whatever turn things take. Should the Boers now suddenly turn round and
+declare, which is extremely probable, that they repudiate their debt to
+us, or that they are sick of the presence of a British Resident, the
+Government will be able to announce that "the necessity for further
+concession" has now been "proved by experience," and thus escape the
+difficulty. In short, this telegram has deprived the Convention of
+whatever finality it may have possessed, and made it, as a document, as
+worthless as it is as a practical settlement. That this is the view
+taken of it by the Boers themselves, is proved by the text of the
+Ratification which followed on the receipt of this telegram.
+
+The tone of this document throughout is, in my opinion, considering
+from whom it came, and against whom it is directed, very insolent. And
+it amply confirms what I have previously said, that the Boers looked
+upon themselves as a victorious people making terms with those they
+have conquered. The Ratification leads off thus: "The Volksraad is not
+satisfied with this Convention, and considers that the members of the
+Triumvirate performed a fervent act of love for the Fatherland when
+they upon their own responsibility signed such an unsatisfactory state
+document." This is damning with faint praise indeed. It then goes on to
+recite the various points of objection, stating that the answers from
+the English Government proved that they were well founded. "The English
+Government," it says, "acknowledges indirectly by this answer (the
+telegram of 21st October, quoted above) that the difficulties raised by
+the Volksraad are neither fictitious nor unfounded, inasmuch _as it
+desires from us the concession_ that we, the Volksraad, shall submit
+it to a practical test." It will be observed that England is here
+represented as begging the favour of a trial of her conditions from the
+Volksraad of the Transvaal Boers. The Ratification is in these words:
+"Therefore is it that the Raad here unanimously resolves not to go into
+further discussion of the Convention, _and maintaining all objections
+to the Convention_ as made before the Royal Commission or stated in
+the Raad, and for the purpose of showing to everybody that the love
+of peace and unity inspires it, _for the time and provisionally_
+submitting the articles of the Convention to a practical test, _hereby
+complying with the request of the English Government_ contained in
+the telegram of the 13th October 1881, proceeds to ratify the
+Convention."
+
+It would have been interesting to have seen how such a Ratification as
+this, which is no Ratification but an insult, would have been accepted
+by Lord Beaconsfield. I think that within twenty-four hours of its
+arrival in Downing Street, the Boer Volksraad would have received a
+startling answer. But Lord Beaconsfield is dead, and by his successor
+it was received with all due thankfulness and humility. His words,
+however, on this subject still remain to us, and even his great rival
+might have done well to listen to them. It was in the course of what
+was, I believe, the last speech he made in the House of Lords, that
+speaking about the Transvaal rising, he warned the Government that it
+was a very dangerous thing to make peace with rebellious subjects in
+arms against the authority of the Queen. The warning passed unheeded,
+and the peace was made in the way I have described.
+
+As regards the Convention itself, it will be obvious to the reader that
+the Boers have not any intention of acting up to its provisions, mild
+as they are, if they can possibly avoid them, whilst, on the other
+hand, there is no force at hand to punish their disregard or breach. It
+is all very well to create a Resident with extensive powers; but how is
+he to enforce his decisions? What is he to do if his awards are laughed
+at and made a mockery of, as they are and will be? The position of Mr.
+Hudson at Pretoria is even worse than that of Mr. Osborn in Zululand.
+For instance, the Convention specifies in the first article that the
+Transvaal is to be known as the Transvaal State. The Boer Government
+have, however, thought fit to adopt the name of "South African
+Republic" in all public documents. Mr. Hudson was accordingly directed
+to remonstrate, which he did in a feeble way; his remonstrance was
+politely acknowledged, but the country is still officially called the
+South African Republic, the Convention and Mr. Hudson's remonstrance
+notwithstanding. Mr. Hudson, however, appears to be better suited to
+the position than would have been the case had an Englishman, pure and
+simple, been appointed, since it is evident that things that would have
+struck the latter as insults to the Queen he represented, and his
+country generally, are not so understood by him. In fact, he admirably
+represents his official superiors in his capacity of swallowing
+rebuffs, and when smitten on one cheek delightedly offering the other.
+
+Thus we find him attending a Boer meeting of thanksgiving for the
+success that had waited on their arms and the recognition of their
+independence, where most people will consider he was out of place. To
+this meeting, thus graced by his presence, an address was presented by
+a branch of the Africander Bond, a powerful institution, having for its
+object the total uprootal of English rule and English customs in South
+Africa, to which he must have listened with pleasure. In it he, in
+common with other members of the meeting, is informed that "you took up
+the sword and struck the Briton with such force" that "the Britons
+through fear revived that sense of justice to which they could not be
+brought by petitions," and that the "day will soon come that we shall
+enter with you on one arena for the entire independence of South
+Africa," _i.e._, independence from English rule.
+
+On the following day the Government gave a dinner, to which all those
+who had done good service during the late hostilities were invited, the
+British Resident being apparently the only Englishman asked. Amongst
+the other celebrities present I notice the name of Buskes. This man,
+who is an educated Hollander, was the moving spirit of the
+Potchefstroom atrocities; indeed, so dark is his reputation that the
+Royal Commission refused to transact business with him, or to admit him
+to their presence. Mr. Hudson was not so particular. And now comes the
+most extraordinary part of the episode. At the dinner it was necessary
+that the health of Her Majesty as Suzerain should be proposed, and with
+studied insolence this was done last of all the leading political
+toasts, and immediately after that of the Triumvirate. Notwithstanding
+this fact, and that the toast was couched by Mr. Joubert, who stated
+that "he would not attempt to explain what a Suzerain was," in what
+appear to be semi-ironical terms, we find that Mr. Hudson "begged to
+tender his thanks to the Honourable Mr. Joubert for the kind way in
+which he proposed the toast."
+
+It may please Mr. Hudson to see the name of the Queen thus
+metaphorically dragged in triumph at the chariot wheels of the
+Triumvirate, but it is satisfactory to know that the spectacle is not
+appreciated in England: since, on a question in the House of Lords, by
+the Earl of Carnarvon, who characterised it as a deliberate insult,
+Lord Kimberley replied that the British Resident had been instructed
+that in future he was not to attend public demonstrations unless he had
+previously informed himself that the name of Her Majesty would be
+treated with proper respect. Let us hope that this official reprimand
+will have its effect, and that Mr. Hudson will learn therefrom that
+there is such a thing as _trop de zéle_--even in a good cause.
+
+The Convention is now a thing of the past, the appropriate rewards have
+been lavishly distributed to its framers, and President Brand has at
+last prevailed upon the Volksraad of the Orange Free State to allow him
+to become a Knight Grand Cross of Saint Michael and Saint George,--the
+same prize looked forward to by our most distinguished public servants
+at the close of the devotion of their life to the service of their
+country. But its results are yet to come--though it would be difficult
+to forecast the details of their development. One thing, however, is
+clear: the signing of that document signalised an entirely new
+departure in South African affairs, and brought us within a measurable
+distance of the abandonment, for the present at any rate, of the
+supremacy of English rule in South Africa.
+
+This is the larger issue of the matter, and it is already bearing
+fruit. Emboldened by their success in the Transvaal, the Dutch party at
+the Cape are demanding, and the demand is to be granted, that the Dutch
+tongue be admitted _pari passu_ with English, as the official
+language in the Law Courts and the House of Assembly. When a country
+thus consents to use a foreign tongue equally with its own, it is a
+sure sign that those who speak it are rising to power. But "the Party"
+looks higher than this, and openly aims at throwing off English rule
+altogether, and declaring South Africa a great Dutch republic. The
+course of events is favourable to their aspiration. Responsible
+Government is to be granted to Natal, which country, not being strong
+enough to stand alone in the face of the many dangers that surround
+her, will be driven into the arms of the Dutch party to save herself
+from destruction. It will be useless for her to look for help from
+England, and any feelings of repugnance she may feel to Boer rule will
+soon be choked by necessity, and a mutual interest. It is, however,
+possible that some unforeseen event, such as the advent to power of a
+strong Conservative Ministry, may check the tide that now sets so
+strongly in favour of Dutch supremacy.
+
+It seems to me, however, to be a question worthy of the consideration
+of those who at present direct the destinies of the Empire, whether it
+would not be wise, as they have gone so far, to go a little further and
+favour a scheme for the total abandonment of South Africa, retaining
+only Table Bay. If they do not, it is now quite within the bounds of
+sober possibility that they may one day have to face a fresh Transvaal
+rebellion, only on a ten times larger scale, and might find it
+difficult to retain even Table Bay. If, on the other hand, they do, I
+believe that all the White States in South Africa would confederate of
+their own free-will, under the pressure of the necessity for common
+action, and the Dutch element being preponderant, at once set to work
+to exterminate the natives on general principles, in much the same way,
+and from much the same motives that a cook exterminates black beetles,
+because she thinks them ugly, and to clear the kitchen.
+
+I need hardly say that such a policy is not one that commands my
+sympathy, but Her Majesty's Government having put their hand to the
+plough, it is worth their while to consider it. It would at any rate be
+in perfect accordance with their declared sentiments, and command an
+enthusiastic support from their followers.
+
+As regards the smaller and more immediate issue of the retrocession,
+namely, its effect on the Transvaal itself, it cannot be other than
+evil. The act is, I believe, quite without precedent in our history,
+and it is difficult to see, looking at it from those high grounds of
+national morality assumed by the Government, what greater arguments can
+be advanced in its favour, than could be found to support the
+abandonment of,--let us say,--Ireland. Indeed a certain parallel
+undoubtedly exists between the circumstances of the two countries.
+Ireland was, like the Transvaal, annexed, though a long time ago, and
+has continually agitated for its freedom. The Irish hate us, so did the
+Boers. In Ireland, Englishmen are being shot, and England is running
+the awful risk of blood-guiltiness, as it did in the Transvaal. In
+Ireland, smouldering revolution is being fanned into flame by Mr.
+Gladstone's speeches and acts, as it was in the Transvaal. In Ireland,
+as in the Transvaal, there exists a strong loyal class that receives
+insults instead of support from the Government, and whose property, as
+was the case there, is taken from them without compensation, to be
+flung as a sop to stop the mouths of the Queen's enemies. And so I
+might go on, finding many such similarities of circumstances, but my
+parallel, like most parallels, must break down at last Thus--it
+mattered little to England whether or no she let the Transvaal go, but
+to let Ireland go would be more than even Mr. Gladstone dare attempt.
+
+Somehow, if you follow these things far enough, you always come to
+vulgar first principles. The difference between the case of the
+Transvaal and that of Ireland is a difference not of justice of cause,
+for both causes are equally unjust or just according as they are
+viewed, but of mere common expediency. Judging from the elevated
+standpoint of the national morality theory, however, which, as we know,
+soars above such truisms as the foolish statement that force is a
+remedy, or that if you wish to retain your prestige you must not allow
+defeats to pass unavenged, I cannot see why, if it was righteous to
+abandon the Transvaal, it would not be equally righteous to abandon
+Ireland!
+
+As for the Transvaal, that country is not to be congratulated on its
+success, for it has destroyed all its hopes of permanent peace, has
+ruined its trade and credit, and has driven away the most useful and
+productive class in the community. The Boers, elated by their success
+in arms, will be little likely to settle down to peaceable occupations,
+and still less likely to pay their taxes, which, indeed, I hear they
+are already refusing to do. They have learnt how easily even a powerful
+Government can be upset, and the lesson is not likely to be forgotten,
+for want of repetition to their own weak one.
+
+Already the Transvaal Government hardly knows which way to turn for
+funds, and as, perhaps fortunately for itself, quite unable to borrow,
+through want of credit.
+
+As regards the native question, I agree with Mr. H. Shepstone, who, in
+his Report on this subject, says that he does not believe that the
+natives will inaugurate any action against the Boers, so long as the
+latter do not try to collect taxes, or otherwise interfere with them.
+But if the Boer Government is to continue to exist, it will be bound to
+raise taxes from the natives, since it cannot collect much from its
+white subjects. The first general attempt of the sort will be the
+signal for active resistance on the part of the natives, whom, if they
+act without concert, the Boers will be able to crush in detail, though
+with considerable loss. If, on the other hand, they should have
+happened, during the last few years, to have learnt the advantages of
+combination, as is quite possible, perhaps they will crash the Boers.
+
+The only thing that is at present certain about the matter is that
+there will be bloodshed, and that before long. For instance, the
+Montsioa difficulty in the Keate Award has in it the possibilities of a
+serious war, and there are plenty such difficulties ready to spring
+into life within and without the Transvaal.
+
+In all human probability it will take but a small lapse of time for the
+Transvaal to find itself in the identical position from which we
+relieved it by the Annexation.
+
+What course events will then take it is impossible to say. It may be
+found desirable to re-annex the country, though, in my opinion, that
+would be, after all that has passed, an unfortunate step; its
+inhabitants may be cut up piecemeal by a combined movement of native
+tribes, as they would have been, had they not been rescued by the
+English Government in 1877, or it is possible that the Orange Free
+State may consent to take the Transvaal under its wing: who can say?
+There is only one thing that our recently abandoned possession can
+count on for certain, and that is trouble, both from its white
+subjects, and the natives, who hate the Boers with a bitter and a
+well-earned hatred.
+
+The whole question can, so far as its moral aspect is concerned, be
+summed up in a few words.
+
+Whether or no the Annexation was a necessity at the moment of its
+execution--which I certainly maintain it was--it received the
+unreserved sanction of the Home authorities, and the relations of
+Sovereign and subject, with all the many and mutual obligations
+involved in that connection, were established between the Queen of
+England and every individual of the motley population of the Transvaal.
+Nor was this change an empty form, for, to the largest proportion of
+that population, this transfer of allegiance brought with it a
+priceless and a vital boon. To them it meant freedom and justice--for
+where, on any portion of this globe over which the British ensign
+floats, does the law even wink at cruelty or wrong?
+
+A few years passed away, and a small number of the Queen's subjects in
+the Transvaal rose in rebellion against her authority, and inflicted
+some reverses on her arms. Thereupon, in spite of the reiterated
+pledges given to the contrary--partly under stress of defeat, and
+partly in obedience to the pressure of "advanced views"--the country
+was abandoned, and the vast majority who had remained faithful to the
+Crown, was handed to the cruel despotism of the minority who had
+rebelled against it.
+
+Such an act of treachery to those to whom we were bound with double
+chains--by the strong ties of a common citizenship, and by those claims
+to England's protection from violence and wrong which have hitherto
+been wont to command it, even where there was no duty to fulfil, and no
+authority to vindicate--stands, I believe, without parallel on our
+records, and marks a new departure in our history.
+
+I cannot end these pages without expressing my admiration of the
+extremely able way in which the Boers managed their revolt, when once
+they felt that, having undertaken the thing, it was a question of life
+and death with them. It shows that they have good stuff in them
+somewhere, which, under the firm but just rule of Her Majesty, might
+have been much developed, and it makes it the more sad that they should
+have been led to throw off that rule, and have been allowed to do so by
+an English Government.
+
+In conclusion, there is one point that I must touch on, and that is the
+effect of the retrocession on the native mind, which I can only
+describe as most disastrous. The danger alluded to in the Report of the
+Royal Commission has been most amply realised, and the prevailing
+belief in the steadfastness of our policy, and the inviolability of our
+plighted word, which has hitherto been the great secret of our hold on
+the Kafirs, has been rudely shaken. The motives that influenced, or are
+said to have influenced, the Government in their act, are naturally
+quite unintelligible to savages, however clever, who do believe that
+force is a remedy, and who have seen the inhabitants of a country ruled
+by England defeat English soldiers and take possession of it, whilst
+those who remained loyal to England were driven out of it. It will not
+be wonderful if some of them, say the natives of Natal, deduce
+therefrom conclusions unfavourable to loyalty, and evince a desire to
+try the same experiment.
+
+It is, however, unprofitable to speculate on the future, which must be
+left to unfold itself.
+
+The curtain is, so far as this country is concerned, down for the
+moment on the South African stage; when it rises again, there is but
+too much reason to fear that it will reveal a state of confusion,
+which, unless it is more wisely and consistently dealt with in the
+future than it has been in the past, may develop into chaos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The following pages, extracted from an introduction to a new edition to
+"Cetywayo and His White Neighbours," written in 1888, are reprinted
+here, because they contain matter of interest concerning the more
+recent history of the Transvaal Boers.
+
+
+    _Extract from Introduction to New Edition of 1888._
+
+The recent history of the Transvaal, now once more a republic, will
+fortunately admit of brief treatment. It is, so far as England is
+concerned, very much a history of concession. For an account of the
+first Convention I must refer my readers to the remarks which I have
+made in the chapter of this book headed "The Retrocession of the
+Transvaal." It will there be seen that the Transvaal Volksraad only
+ratified the first convention, which was wrung from us (Sir Evelyn
+Wood, to his honour be it said, dissenting) after our defeats at Lang's
+Nek, Ingogo, and Majuba, as a favour to the British Government, which
+in its turn virtually promised to reconsider the convention, if only
+the Volksraad would be so good as to ratify it. This convention was
+ratified in October 1881. In June 1883 the Transvaal Government[14]
+telegraphs briefly to Lord Derby through the High Commissioner that the
+Volksraad has "resolved that time has come to reconsider convention."
+Lord Derby quickly telegraphs back that "Her Majesty's Government
+consent to inquire into the working of convention." Human nature is
+frail, and it is impossible to help wishing that Lord Palmerston or
+Disraeli had been appointed by the Fates to answer that telegram. But
+we have fallen upon different days, and new men have arisen who appear
+to be suited to them; and so the convention was reconsidered, and on
+the 27th of February 1884 a new one was signed, which is known as the
+convention of London. It begins by defining boundaries to which the
+"Government of the South African Republic will strictly adhere, ... and
+will do its utmost to prevent any of its inhabitants from making any
+encroachments upon the said boundaries." The existence of the New
+Republic in Zululand is a striking and practical comment on this
+article. Article ii. also provides for the security of the amended
+southwest boundary. The proclamation of 16th September 1884 (afterwards
+disallowed by the English Government), by which the South African
+Republic practically annexed the territories of Montsioa and Moshette,
+already for the most part in the possession of its freebooters, very
+clearly illustrates its anxiety to be bound by this provision. Art xii.
+provides for the independence of the Swazis; and by way of illustrating
+the fidelity with which it has been observed, we shall presently have
+occasion to remark upon the determined attempts that have continually
+been made by Boer freebooters to obtain possession of Swaziland--and so
+on.
+
+          [14] [C. 3659], 1883.
+
+In order to make these severe restrictions palatable to the burghers of
+a free and haughty Republic, Lord Derby recommends Her Majesty's
+Government to remit a trifling sum of £127,000 of their debt due to the
+Imperial Treasury, which was accordingly done. On the whole, the
+Transvaal had no reason to be dissatisfied with this new treaty, though
+really the whole affair is scarcely worth discussing. Convention No. 2
+is almost as much a farce and a dead letter as was Convention No. 1. It
+is, however, impossible to avoid being impressed with the really
+remarkable tone, not merely of equality, but of superiority, adopted by
+the South African Republic and its officials towards this country. To
+take an instance. The Republic had found it convenient to wage a war of
+extermination upon some Kafir chiefs. Two of these, Mampoer and Njabel,
+fell into its hands. Her Majesty's Government was, rightly or wrongly,
+so impressed with the injustice of the sentence of death passed upon
+these unfortunates, that, acting through Mr. Hudson, the British
+Resident at Pretoria, it strained every nerve to save them. This was
+the upshot of it. In a tone of studied sarcasm, His Honour the State
+President "observes with great satisfaction the great interest in these
+cases which has been manifested by your Honour and Her Majesty's
+Government." He then goes on to say that, notwithstanding this
+interest, Mampoer will be duly and effectually hung, giving the exact
+time and place of the event, and Njabel imprisoned for life, with hard
+labour. Finally, he once more conveys "the hearty thanks of the
+Government and the members of the Executive Council for the interest
+manifested in these cases,"[15] and remains, &c.
+
+          [15] [C. 3841], 1884, p 148.
+
+The independence of Swaziland was guaranteed by the convention of 1884.
+Yet the Blue-books are full of accounts of various attempts made by
+Boers to obtain a footing in Swaziland. Thus in November 1885
+Umbandine, the king of Swaziland, sends messengers to the Governor of
+Natal through Sir T. Shepstone, in which he states that in the winter
+Piet Joubert, accompanied by two other Boers and an interpreter, came
+to his kraal and asked him to sign a paper "to say that he and all the
+Swazis agreed to go over and recognise the authority of the Boer
+Government, and have nothing more to do with the English."[16] Umbandine
+refused, saying that he looked to and recognised the English
+Government. Thereon the Boers, growing angry, answered, "Those fathers
+of yours, the English, act very slowly; and if you look to them for
+help, and refuse to sign this paper, we shall have scattered you and
+your people, and taken possession of the land before they arrive. Why
+do you refuse to sign the paper? You know we defeated the English at
+Majuba." Umbandine's message then goes on to say that he recognises the
+English Government only, and does not wish to have dealings with the
+Boers. Also, in the following month, we find him making a direct
+application to the Colonial Office through Mr. David Forbes,[17] praying
+that his country may be taken under the protection of Her Majesty's
+Government.
+
+          [16] [C. 4645], 1886, p. 64.
+
+          [17] Ibid. p. 70.
+
+More than one such attempt to secure informal rights of occupation in
+Swaziland appears to have been made by the Transvaal Boers. Mr. T.
+Shepstone, C.M.G., is at present acting as Resident to Umbandine,
+though he has not, it would seem, any regular commission from the Home
+Government authorising him to do so, probably because it does not
+consider that its rights in Swaziland are such as to justify such an
+assumption of formal authority over the Swazis. However this may be,
+Umbandine could not have found a better man to protect his interests.
+Of course, when acts like that of Piet Joubert are reported to the
+Government of the South African Republic and made the subject of a
+remonstrance by this country, all knowledge of them is repudiated, as
+it was repudiated in the case of the invasion of Zululand.
+
+It is part of the policy of the Transvaal only to become an accessory
+after the fact. Its subjects go forth and stir up trouble among the
+natives, and then probably the Boer Government intervenes "in the
+interests of humanity," and takes, or tries to take, the country. This
+process is always going on, and, unless the British Government puts a
+stop to it, always will go on. We shall probably soon hear that it is
+developing itself in the direction of Matabeleland. A country the size
+of France, which could without difficulty accommodate a population of
+from eight to ten millions of industrious folk, is not large enough for
+the wants of a Boer people, numbering something under fifty thousand
+souls. Every young Boer must have his six or more thousand acres of
+land on which to lord it. It is his birthright, and if it is not
+forthcoming he goes and takes it by force from the nearest native
+tribe. Hence these continual complaints. Of course, there are two ways
+of looking at the matter. There is a party that does not hesitate to
+say that the true policy of this country is to let the Boers work their
+will upon the natives, and then, as they in turn fly from civilisation
+towards the far interior, to follow on their path and occupy the lands
+that they have swept. This plan is supported by arguments about the
+superiority of the white races and their obvious destiny of rule. It
+is, I confess, one that I look upon as little short of wicked. I could
+never discern a superiority so great in ourselves as to authorise us,
+by right divine as it were, to destroy the coloured man and take his
+lands. It is difficult to see why a Zulu, for instance, has not as much
+right to live in his own way as a Boer or an Englishman. Of course,
+there is another extreme. Nothing is more ridiculous than the length to
+which the black brother theory is sometimes driven by enthusiasts. A
+savage is one thing, and a civilised man is another; and though
+civilised men may and do become savages, I personally doubt if the
+converse is even possible. But whether the civilised man, with his gin,
+his greed, and his dynamite, is really so very superior to the savage
+is another question, and one which would bear argument, although this
+is not the place to argue it. My point is, that his superiority is not
+at any rate so absolutely overwhelming as to justify him in the
+wholesale destruction of the savage and the occupation of his lands, or
+even in allowing others to do the work for him if he can prevent it.
+The principle might conceivably be pushed to inconvenient and indecent
+lengths. Savagery is only a question of degree. When all true savages
+have been wiped out, the most civilised and self-righteous among the
+nations may begin to give the term to those whom they consider to be on
+a lower scale than themselves, and apply the argument also. Thus there
+are "cultured" people in another land who do not hesitate to say that
+the humble writers of these islands are rank and rude barbarians not to
+be endured. Supposing that, being the stronger, they also _applied
+the argument_, it would be inconvenient for some of us, and perhaps
+the world would not gain so very much after all. But this is a
+digression, only excusable, if excusable at all, in one who has endured
+a three weeks' course of unmitigated Blue-book. To return.
+
+The process of absorption attempted in Swaziland, and brought to a
+successful issue in Zululand, also went forward merrily in
+Bechuanaland, till recently, under the rule of Mankorane, chief of the
+Batlapins, and Montsioa, chief of the Baralongs. These two chiefs have
+always been devoted friends and adherents of the English Government,
+and consequently are not regarded with favour by the Boers. Shortly
+after the retrocession of the Transvaal, a rival to Mankorane rose up
+in the person of a certain Massou, and a rival to Montsioa named
+Moshette. Both Massou and Moshette were supported by Boer fillibusters,
+and what happened to Usibepu in Zululand happened to these unfortunate
+chiefs in Bechuanaland. They were defeated after a gallant struggle,
+and two Republics called Stellaland and Goschen were carved out of
+their territories and occupied by the fillibusters. Fortunately for
+them, however, they had a friend in the person of the Rev. John
+Mackenzie, to whose valuable work, "Austral Africa," I beg to refer the
+reader for a fuller account of these events. Mr. Mackenzie, who had for
+many years lived as a missionary among the Bechuanas, had also mastered
+the fact that it is very difficult to do anything for South Africa in
+this country unless you can make it a question of votes, or, in other
+words, unless you can bring pressure to bear upon the Government.
+Accordingly he commenced an agitation on behalf of Mankorane and
+Montsioa, in which he was supported by various religious bodies, and
+also by the late Mr. Forster and the Aborigines Protection Society. As
+a result of this agitation he was appointed Deputy to the High
+Commissioner for Bechuanaland, whither he proceeded early in 1884 to
+establish a British protectorate. He was gladly welcomed by the
+unfortunate chiefs, who were now almost at their last gasp, and who
+both of them ceded their rights of government to the Queen. Hostilities
+did not, however, cease, for on the 31st July 1884 the fillibusters
+again attacked Montsioa, routed him, and cruelly murdered Mr. Bethell,
+his English adviser. Meanwhile Mr. Mackenzie's success was viewed with
+very mixed feelings at the Cape. To the English party it was most
+acceptable, but the Dutch,[18] and more numerous party, looked on it
+with alarm and disgust. They did not at all wish to see the Imperial
+power established in Bechuanaland; so pressure was put upon Sir
+Hercules Robinson, and through him on Mr. Mackenzie, to such an extent
+indeed as to necessitate the resignation of the latter. Thereon the
+High Commissioner despatched a Cape politician, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and
+his own private secretary, Captain Bower, R.N., to Bechuanaland. These
+gentlemen at once set to work to undo most of what Mr. Mackenzie had
+done, and, generally speaking, did not advance either British or native
+interests in Bechuanaland. At this point, taking advantage of the
+general confusion, the Government of the South African Republic issued
+a proclamation placing both Montsioa and Moshette under its protection,
+as usual "in the interests of humanity."
+
+          [18] By the Dutch party I mean the anti-Imperial and
+          retrogressive party. It must be remembered that many of the
+          now educated and progressive Boers do not belong to this.
+
+But the agitation in England had, fortunately for what remained of the
+Bechuana people, not been allowed to drop. Her Majesty's Government
+disallowed the Boer proclamation, under Article iv. of the convention
+of London, and despatched an armed force to Bechuanaland, commanded by
+Sir Charles Warren. This good act, I believe I am right in saying, we
+owe entirely to the firmness of Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain,
+who insisted upon its being done. Meanwhile Messrs. Upington and
+Sprigg, members of the Cape Government, hastened to Bechuanaland to
+effect a settlement before the arrival of Sir Charles Warren's force.
+This settlement, though it might have been agreeable to the
+fillibusters and the anti-Imperialists generally, was disallowed by Her
+Majesty's Government as unsatisfactory, and Sir Charles Warren was
+ordered to occupy Bechuanaland. This he accordingly did, taking Mr.
+Mackenzie with him, very much against the will of the anti-English
+party, and, be it added, of Sir Hercules Robinson. Indeed, if we may
+accept Mr. Mackenzie's version of these occurrences, which seems to be
+a fair one, and adequately supported by documentary evidence, the
+conduct of Sir Hercules Robinson towards Mr. Mackenzie would really
+admit of explanation. As soon as the freebooters saw that the Imperial
+Government was really in earnest, of course there was no more trouble.
+They went away, and Sir Charles Warren took possession of Bechuanaland
+without striking a single blow. He remained in the country for nearly a
+year arranging for its permanent pacification and government, and as a
+result of his occupation, on the 30th September 1885, all the territory
+south of the Molopo River was declared to be British territory, and
+made into a quasi crown colony, the entire extent of land, including
+the districts ruled over by Khama, Sechele, and Gasitsive, being about
+160,000 square miles in area. I believe that the new colony of British
+Bechuanaland is proving a very considerable success. Every provision
+has been made for native wants, and its settlement goes on apace. There
+is no reason why, with its remarkable natural advantages, it should not
+one day become a great country, with a prosperous white, and a loyal
+and contented native population. When this comes about it is to be
+hoped that it will remember that it owes its existence to the energy
+and firmness of Mr. Mackenzie, Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Chamberlain, and
+Sir Charles Warren.
+
+It is probably by now dawning upon the mind of the British public that
+when we gave up the Transvaal we not only did a cowardly thing and
+sowed a plentiful crop of future troubles, we also abandoned one of the
+richest, if not the richest, country in the world. The great
+gold-fields which exist all over the surface of the land are being
+opened up and pouring out their treasures so fast that it is said that
+the Transvaal Government, hitherto remarkable for its impecuniosity,
+does not know what to do with its superfluous cash. To what extent this
+will continue it is impossible to say, but I for one shall not be
+surprised if the output should prove to be absolutely unprecedented.
+And with gold in vast quantities, with iron in mountains, and coal-beds
+to be measured by the scores of square miles, with lead and copper and
+cobalt, a fertile soil, water, and one of the most lovely climates in
+the world, what more is required to make a country rich and great? Only
+one thing, an Anglo-Saxon Government, and that we have taken away from
+the Transvaal. Whether the English flag has vanished for ever from its
+borders is, however, still an open question. The discovery of gold in
+such quantities is destined to exercise a very remarkable influence
+upon the future of the Transvaal. Where gold is to be found, there the
+hardy, enterprising, English-speaking diggers flock together, and
+before them and their energy the Boer retreats, as the native retreats
+and vanishes before the rifle of the Boer. Already there are many
+thousands of diggers in the Transvaal; if the discoveries of gold go
+on and prove as remunerative as they promise to be, in a few more years
+their number will be vastly increased. Supposing that another five
+years sees sixty or seventy thousand English diggers at work in the
+Transvaal, is it to be believed that these men will in that event allow
+themselves to be ruled by eight or nine thousand hostile-hearted Boers?
+Is it to be believed, too, that the Boers will stop to try and rule
+them? From such knowledge as I have of their character I should say
+certainly not. They will _trek_, anywhere out of the way of the
+Englishman and his English ways, and those who do not _trek_ will
+be absorbed.[19] Should this happen, it is, of course, possible, and
+even probable, that for some time the diggers, fearing the vacillations
+of Imperial policy, would prefer to remain independent with a
+Republican form of Government. But the Englishman is a law-abiding and
+patriotic creature, and as society settled itself in the new community,
+it would almost certainly desire to be united to the Empire and
+acknowledge the sovereignty of the Queen. So far as a judgment can be
+formed, if only the gold holds out the Transvaal will as certainly fall
+into the lap of the Empire as a green apple will one day drop from the
+tree--that is, if it is not gathered.
+
+          [19] The occupation of Rhodesia has now made it impossible
+          for the Boers to trek out of reach of the English and their
+          flag.--H. R. H.
+
+Now it is quite possible that the Germans, or some other power, may try
+to gather the Transvaal apple. The Boers are not blind to the march of
+events, and they dislike us and our rule. Perhaps they might think it
+worth their while to seek German protection, and unless we are prepared
+to say "no" very firmly indeed--and who knows, in the present condition
+of Home politics, what we are prepared to do from one day to
+another?--Germany would in such a case almost certainly think it worth
+her while to give it. Very likely the protection, when granted, would
+in some ways resemble that which the Boer himself, his breast aglow
+with love of peace and the "interests of humanity," is so anxious to
+extend to the misguided native possessor of desirable and well-watered
+lands. Very likely, in the end, the Boer would be sorry that he did not
+accept the ills he knew of. But that is neither here nor there. So far
+as we are concerned, the mischief would be done. In short, should the
+position arise, everything will depend upon our capacity of saying
+"no," and the tone in which we say it. It will not do to rely upon our
+London convention, by which the Transvaal is forbidden to conclude
+treaties with outside powers without the consent of this Government.
+The convention has been broken before now, and will be broken again, if
+the Boers find it convenient to break it, and know that they can do so
+with impunity. Meanwhile we must rest on our oars and watch events. One
+thing, however, might and should be done. Some person having weight and
+real authority--if he were quite new to South Africa so much the
+better--should be appointed as our Consul to watch over the welfare of
+Englishmen and our Imperial interests at Pretoria, and properly paid
+for doing so. It is difficult to find a suitable man unless he is
+adequately salaried and supported.
+
+But quite recently this country has awakened to the knowledge that
+Delagoa Bay is important to its South African interests, though how
+important it perhaps does not altogether realise. For years and years
+the colony of Natal has been employed in the intermittent construction
+of a railway with a very narrow gauge, which is now open as far as
+Ladysmith, or to within a hundred miles of the Transvaal border. Natal
+is very poor, and in common with the rest of South Africa, and indeed
+of the world, has lately been passing through a period of great
+commercial depression. The Home Government has refused to help it to
+construct its railways (if it had done so, how many hundreds of
+thousand pounds would have been saved to the British taxpayer during
+the Zulu and Boer wars!), and has equally refused to allow it to borrow
+sufficient money to get them constructed, with the result that a large
+amount of the interior trade has already been deflected into other
+channels. And now a fresh and very real danger, not only to Natal, but
+to all Imperial interests in South Africa, has sprung into sudden
+prominence, that is, in this country, for in Africa it has been
+foreseen for many years. Above Zululand is situated Amatongaland, which
+reaches to the southern shore of one of the finest harbours in the
+world, Delagoa Bay. This great bight, in which half a dozen navies
+could ride at anchor, the only really good haven on the coasts of South
+Africa, is fifty-five miles in width and twenty in depth, that is, from
+east to west It is separated from the Transvaal, of which it is the
+natural port, by about ninety miles of wild and sparsely inhabited
+country.
+
+The ownership of this splendid port was for many years in dispute
+between this country and the Portuguese, with whose dominions of
+Mozambique it is connected by a strip of coast, and who have a small
+fort upon it. This dispute was finally referred by Lord Granville in
+1872 to the decision of Marshal MacMahon, and on this occasion, as on
+every other in which this country has been weak enough to go to
+arbitration, that decision was given against us. Into the merits of the
+case it is not necessary to enter, further than to say, as has already
+been recently pointed out by a very able and well-informed correspondent
+of the _Morning Post_, that it is by no means clear by what right the
+matter was referred to arbitration at all. The Amatongas are in
+possession of the southern shore of the bay, including, I believe, the
+Inyack Peninsula and Inyack Island, and they are an independent people.
+The Swazis also abut on it, and they are independent. What warrant had
+we to refer their rights to the arbitration of Marshal MacMahon? The
+evidence of the exercise of any Portuguese sovereignty over these
+countries is so shadowy that it may be said never to have existed;
+certainly it does not exist now. This is a point, but it is nothing
+more. We must take things as we find them, and we find that the
+Portuguese have been formally declared and admitted by us to be the
+owners of Delagoa Bay.
+
+Now, so long as we held the Transvaal it did not so much matter who had
+the sovereignty of the Bay, since a railway constructed from there
+could only run to British territory. But we gave up the Transvaal,
+which is now virtually a hostile state, and the contingency which has
+been so long foreseen in South Africa, and so blindly overlooked at
+home, has come to pass--the railway is in course of rapid completion.
+What does this mean to us? At the best, it means that we lose the
+greater part of the trade of South-eastern Africa; at the worst, that
+we lose it all. In other words, it means, putting aside the question of
+our Imperial needs and status in Africa, a great many millions a year
+in hard cash out of the national pocket. Let us suppose that the worst
+happens, and that the Germans get a footing either in the Transvaal or
+Delagoa Bay. Obviously they will stop our trade in favour of their own.
+Or let us suppose that the Transvaal takes advantage of one of our
+spasms of Imperial paralysis, such as afflicted us during the
+_régime_ of Lord Derby, and defies the provision in the convention
+which forbids them to put a heavier tax upon our goods than upon those
+of any other nation. In either event our case would be a bad one, for
+our road from the eastern coast to the vast interior is blocked. But it
+is of little use crying over spilt milk, or anticipating evils which it
+is our duty to try to avert, and which in all probability still could
+be averted by a sound and consistent policy.
+
+To begin with, both Swaziland and Amatongaland can be annexed to the
+Empire. It is true that the independence of the first of these
+countries is guaranteed by Article xii. of the convention of London of
+1884. Here is the exact wording:--"The independence of the Swazis
+within the boundary-line of Swaziland, as indicated in the first
+article of this convention, will be fully recognised." But England has
+for years exercised a kind of protective right over Swaziland--a right,
+as I have already shown, fully acknowledged and frequently appealed to
+by the Swazis themselves. And for the rest, what is the obvious meaning
+of this provision? It means that the independence of Swaziland is
+guaranteed against Boer encroachments; its object was to protect the
+Swazis from extermination at the hands of the Boers. Further, the Boers
+have again and again broken this article of the convention in their
+repeated attempts to get a foothold in Swaziland. It has now become
+necessary to our interests that the Swazis should come under our rule,
+as indeed they are most anxious to do, and a way should be found by
+which this end can be accomplished.
+
+Then as to Amatongaland, or Maputaland, as it is sometimes called, only
+a month or two ago an embassy from the Queen of that country waited on
+the Colonial Office, praying for British protection. It is not known
+what answer they received; let us trust that it was a favourable
+one.[20] The protection that should be accorded to the Amatongas, both
+in their interests and our own, is annexation to the British Empire
+upon such terms as might be satisfactory to them. The management of
+their country might be left to them, subject to the advice of a
+Resident, and the enforcement of the ordinary laws respecting life and
+property common to civilised states. Drink and white men might be
+strictly excluded from it, unless the Amatongas should wish to welcome
+the latter. But the country, with its valuable but undefined rights
+over Delagoa Bay, should belong to England, for whoever owns Swaziland
+and Amatongaland will in course of time be almost certain to own the
+Bay also. It must further be remembered that circumstances have already
+given us certain rights over the Amatongas. They regarded Cetywayo as
+their suzerain, and it was, I believe, at his instance that Zambila was
+appointed regent during the minority of her son. As we have annexed
+what remains of Zululand, Cetywayo's suzerainty has consequently passed
+to us.
+
+          [20] I understand that the treaty which we have concluded
+          with Amatongaland (where, by the way, it is said a new
+          harbour has been discovered) binds the authorities of that
+          country not to cede territory to any other Power. But there
+          is nothing in such a treaty to prevent, say Portugal or the
+          Boers, from taking possession of the land by force of arms.
+          Were the country annexed to the Crown, or a British
+          Protectorate established, they would not dare to do this.
+
+          _Note._--This has since been done.--H. R. H.
+
+Meanwhile, can nothing be done by direct treaty with the Portuguese? A
+little while ago the Bay could no doubt have been acquired for a very
+moderate consideration, but those golden opportunities have been
+allowed to slip from hands busy weaving the web of party politics. Now
+it is a different affair. Delagoa Bay is of no direct value to Portugal
+except for the honour and glory of the thing. Portugal has never done
+anything with it, any more than she has with her other African
+possessions, and never will do anything with it. But it has become very
+valuable, indeed, so far as its South African interests are concerned,
+almost vital, to this country, and of that fact Portugal is perfectly
+well aware. Consequently, if we want the Bay we must pay for it, if not
+in cash, at the offer of which the Portuguese national pride might be
+revolted, then in some other equivalent. Surely a power like England
+could find a way of obliging one like Portugal in return for this small
+concession. Or an exchange of territory might be effected. Perhaps
+Portugal might be inclined to accept of some of our possessions on the
+West Coast or an island or two in the West Indies. It is hard to
+suppose that there is no way out of the trouble; but if indeed there is
+none, why, then, one must be found, or we must be content to lose a
+great part of our African trade.
+
+The reader who has followed me through this brief and imperfect summary
+of recent events in South Africa will see how varied are its interests,
+how enormous its areas, and how vast its wealth. In that great country
+England is still the paramount power. Her prestige has, indeed, been
+greatly shaken, and she is sadly fallen from her estate of eight or
+nine years gone. But she is still paramount; and if she has to face the
+animosity of a section of the Boers, she can, notwithstanding her many
+crimes against them, set against it the love and respect of every
+native in the land, with the exception, perhaps, of a few self-seekers
+and intriguers. The history of the next twenty years, and perhaps of
+the next ten, will decide whether this country is to remain paramount
+or whether South Africa is to become a great Dutch, English-hating
+Republic. There are some who call themselves Englishmen, and who
+possessed by that strange itch which prompts them to desire any evil
+that can humble their country in the face of her enemies, or can bring
+about the advantage of the rebel to the injury of the loyal subject, to
+whom this last event would be most welcome, and who have not hesitated
+to say that it would be welcome. To such there is nothing to be said.
+Let them follow their false lights and earn the wonder of true-hearted
+men and the maledictions of posterity.
+
+But, addressing those of other and older doctrines, I would ask what
+such an event would mean? It would mean nothing less than a great
+national calamity; it would mean the utter ruin of the native tribes;
+and, to come to a reason which has a wider popularity, for as I think
+Mr. S. Little says in his work on South Africa, "the argument to the
+pocket is the best argument to the man," it would mean the loss of a
+vast trade, which, if properly protected, will be growing while we are
+sleeping. And this calamity can yet be averted; the mistakes and
+cowardice of the past can still be remedied, at any rate to a great
+extent; the door is yet open. We have many difficulties to face, among
+the chief of which are the Transvaal, the question of Delagoa Bay, and
+last, but not least, the question of the Dutch party at the Cape, which
+may be numerically the strongest party. When, in our mania for
+representative institutions, we thrust responsible government upon the
+Cape, we placed ourselves practically at the mercy of any chance
+anti-English majority. It is possible that in the future we may find
+some such majority urging upon an English Ministry the desirability of
+the separation of the Cape Colony from the Empire, and may find also
+that the prayer meets with favourable attention from those to whom
+there is but one thing sacred, the rights of a majority, and especially
+of an agitating majority.
+
+But let not the country be deceived by any such representations. The
+natives too have a right to a voice in the disposal of their fortunes
+and their lands. They are the majority in the proportion of three to
+one, and let any doubter go and ask of them, anywhere from the Zambesi
+to Cape Agulhas, whether they would rather be ruled by the Queen or by
+a Boer Republic, and hear the answer. When it was a question of
+surrendering the Transvaal we heard a great deal of the rights of some
+thirty thousand Boers, and very little, or rather nothing, of the
+rights of the million natives who lived in the country with them, and
+to whom that country originally belonged. And yet, if the reader will
+turn to that part of this book which deals with the question, he will
+find that they had an opinion, and a strong one. No settlement of South
+African questions that does not receive adequate consideration from a
+native point of view can be a just settlement, or one which the Home
+Government should sanction. Moreover, the Cape is not by any means
+entirely anti-English at heart, as was shown clearly enough by the
+number and enthusiasm of the loyalist meetings when its Ministry was
+attempting to undo Mr. Mackenzie's work in Bechuanaland in the
+interests of the Patriot-party.
+
+Still, it is possible that movements may arise under the fostering care
+of the Africander Bond and its sympathisers, having for object the
+separation of the colony from the Empire, or other ends fatal to
+Imperial interests; and in this case the Home Government should be
+prepared to disallow and put a final stop to them. We cannot afford to
+lose our alternative route to India and to throw these great
+territories into the hands of enemies, from which they would very
+probably pass into those of commercial rivals. In such an event all
+that would be required is a show of firmness. If once it was known that
+an English Ministry really meant what it said, and that its promises
+made in the Queen's name were not liable to be given the lie by a
+succeeding set of politicians elected on another platform, there would
+be an end to disloyalty and agitation in South Africa. As it is,
+loyalists, remembering the experiences of the last few years, are
+faint-hearted, never knowing if they will meet with support at home,
+while agitators and enemies wax exceeding bold.
+
+Our system of party government, whatever may be its merits, if any, as
+applied to Home politics, is a great enemy to the welfare and progress
+of our Colonies, the affairs of which are, especially of late years,
+frequently used as stalking-horses to cover an attack upon the other
+side. Could not the two great parties agree to rule Colonial affairs,
+and especially South African affairs, out of the party game? Could not
+the policy of the Colonial Office be guided by a Commission composed of
+members of different political opinions, and responsible not to party,
+but to Parliament and the country, instead of by a succession of
+Ministers as variable and as transitory as shadows? Lord Rosebery and
+Mr. Chamberlain, for instance, are Radicals; but, putting aside party
+tactics and exigencies, are their views upon Colonial matters so widely
+different from those of, let us say, Sir Michael Hicks Beach and Lord
+Carnarvon that it would be impossible for these four gentlemen to act
+together on such a Commission? Surely they are not; and perhaps a day
+may come when the common-sense of the country will lead it to adopt
+some such system which would give to the Colonies a fixed and
+intelligent control aiming at the furtherance of the joint interests of
+the Empire and its dependencies. If it ever does, that day will be a
+happy one for all concerned.
+
+Meanwhile, there is, so far as South Africa is concerned, a step that
+might be taken to the great benefit of that country, and also of our
+Imperial aims, and that is the appointment of a High Commissioner who
+would have charge of all Imperial as distinguished from the various
+Colonial interests. This appointment has already been advocated with
+ability by Mr. Mackenzie in the last chapter of his book, "Austral
+Africa," and it is undoubtedly one that should receive the
+consideration of the Government. Such an officer would not supersede
+the Governors of the various colonies or the administrators of the
+native territories, although, so far as Imperial interests were
+concerned, they would be primarily responsible to him. At present there
+is no central authority except the Colonial Office, and Downing Street
+is a long way off and somewhat overworked. Each Governor must
+necessarily look at South African affairs from his own standpoint and
+through local glasses. What is wanted is a man of the first ability,
+whose name would command respect abroad and support at home; and
+several such men could be found, who would study South African politics
+as a whole as an engineer studies a map, and who would set himself to
+conciliate and reconcile all interests for the common welfare and the
+welfare of the mother-country. Such a man, or rather a succession of
+such men, might, if properly supported, succeed in bringing about a
+very different state of affairs from that which has been briefly
+reviewed and considered in these pages. They might, little by little,
+build up a South African Confederation, strong in itself and loyal to
+England, that shall in time become a great empire. For my part,
+notwithstanding the difficulties and dangers which we have brought upon
+ourselves, and upon the various South African territories and their
+inhabitants, I believe that such an empire is destined to arise, and
+that it will not take the form of a Dutch Republic.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+THE POTCHEFSTROOM ATROCITIES, &c.
+
+
+There were more murders and acts of cruelty committed during the war at
+Potchefstroom, where the behaviour of the Boers was throughout both
+deceitful and savage, than at any other place.
+
+When the fighting commenced a number of ladies and children, the wives
+and children of English residents, took refuge in the fort. Shortly
+after it had been invested they applied to be allowed to return to
+their homes in the town till the war was over. The request was refused
+by the Boer commander, who said that as they had gone there, they might
+stop and "perish" there. One poor lady, the wife of a gentleman well
+known in the Transvaal, was badly wounded by having the point of a
+stake, which had been cut in two by a bullet, driven into her side. She
+was at the time in a state of pregnancy, and died some days afterwards
+in great agony. Her little sister was shot through the throat, and
+several other women and children suffered from bullet wounds, and fever
+arising from their being obliged to live for months exposed to rain and
+heat, with insufficient food.
+
+The moving spirit of all the Potchefstroom atrocities was a cruel
+wretch of the name of Buskes, a well-educated man, who, as an advocate
+of the High Court, had taken the oath of allegiance to the Queen.
+
+One deponent swears that he saw this Buskes wearing Captain Fall's
+diamond ring, which he had taken from Sergeant Ritchie, to whom it was
+handed to be sent to England, and also that he had possessed himself of
+the carriages and other goods belonging to prisoners taken by the
+Boers.[21] Another deponent (whose name is omitted in the Blue Book for
+precautionary reasons) swears, "That on the next night the patrol again
+came to my house accompanied by one Buskes, who was secretary of the
+Boer Committee, and again asked where my wife and daughter were. I
+replied, in bed; and Buskes then said, 'I must see for myself.' I
+refused to allow him, and he forced me, with a loaded gun held to my
+breast, to open the curtains of the bed, when he pulled the bedclothes
+half off my wife, and altogether off my daughter. I then told him if I
+had a gun I would shoot him. He placed a loaded gun at my breast, when
+my wife sprang out of bed and got between us."
+
+          [21] Buskes was afterwards forced to deliver up the ring.
+
+I remember hearing at the time that this Buskes (who is a good
+musician) took one of his victims, who was on the way to execution,
+into the chapel and played the "Dead March in Saul," or some such
+piece, over him on the organ.
+
+After the capture of the Court House a good many Englishmen fell into
+the hands of the Boers. Most of these were sentenced to hard labour and
+deprivation of "civil rights." The sentence was enforced by making them
+work in the trenches under a heavy fire from the fort. One poor fellow,
+F. W. Finlay by name, got his head blown off by a shell from his own
+friends in the fort, and several loyal Kafirs suffered the same fate.
+After these events the remaining prisoners refused to return to the
+trenches till they had been "tamed" by being thrashed with the butt end
+of guns, and by threats of receiving twenty-five lashes each.
+
+But their fate, bad as it was, was not so awful as that suffered by Dr.
+Woite and J. Van der Linden.
+
+Dr. Woite had attended the Boer meeting which was held before the
+outbreak, and written a letter from thence to Major Clarke, in which he
+had described the talk of the Boers as silly bluster. He was not a paid
+spy. This letter was, unfortunately for him, found in Major Clarke's
+pocket-book, and because of it he was put through a form of trial,
+taken out and shot dead, all on the same day. He left a wife and large
+family, who afterwards found their way to Natal in a destitute
+condition.
+
+The case of Van der Linden is somewhat similar. He was one of Raaf's
+Volunteers, and as such had taken the oath of allegiance to the Queen.
+In the execution of his duty he made a report to his commanding officer
+about the Boer meeting, and which afterwards fell into the hands of the
+Boers. On this he was put through the form of trial, and, though in the
+service of the Queen, was found guilty of treason and condemned to
+death. One of his judges, a little less stony-hearted than the rest,
+pointed out that "when the prisoner committed the crime martial law had
+not yet been proclaimed, nor the State," but it availed him nothing. He
+was taken out and shot.
+
+A Kafir named Carolus was also put through the form of trial and shot,
+for no crime at all that I can discover.
+
+Ten unarmed Kafir drivers, who had been sent away from the fort, were
+shot down in cold blood by a party of Boers. Several witnesses depose
+to having seen their remains lying together close by Potchefstroom.
+
+Various other Kafirs were shot. None of the perpetrators of these
+crimes were brought to justice. The Royal Commission comments on these
+acts as follows:--
+
+"In regard to the deaths of Woite, Van der Linden, and Carolus, the
+Boer leaders do not deny the fact that those men had been executed, but
+sought to justify it. The majority of your Commissioners felt bound to
+record their opinion that the taking of the lives of these men was an
+act contrary to the rules of civilised warfare. Sir H. de Villiers was
+of opinion that the executions in these cases, having been ordered by
+properly constituted court martial of the Boers' forces after due
+trial, did not fall under the cognisance of your Commissioners.
+
+"Upon the case of William Finlay the majority of your Commissioners
+felt bound to record the opinion that the sacrifice of Finlay's life,
+through forced labour under fire in the trenches, was an act contrary
+to the rules of civilised warfare. _Sir H. de Villiers did not feel
+justified by the facts of the case in joining in this expression of
+opinion_ (sic). As to the case of the Kafir Andries, your Commissioners
+decided that, although the shooting of this man appeared to them, from
+the information laid before them, to be not in accordance with the
+rules of civilised warfare, under all the circumstances of the case, it
+was not desirable to insist upon a prosecution."
+
+"The majority of your Commissioners, although feeling it a duty to
+record emphatically their disapproval of the acts that resulted in the
+deaths of Woite, Van der Linden, Finlay, and Carolus, yet found it
+impossible to bring to justice the persons guilty of these acts."
+
+It will be observed that Sir H. de Villiers does not express any
+disapproval, emphatic or otherwise, of these wicked murders.
+
+But Potchefstroom did not enjoy a monopoly of murder.
+
+In December 1880, Captain Elliot, who was a survivor from the Bronker
+Spruit massacre, and Captain Lambart, who had been taken prisoner by
+the Boers whilst bringing remounts from the Free State, were released
+from Heidelberg on parole on condition that they left the country. An
+escort of two men brought them to a drift of the Vaal river, where they
+refused to cross, because they could not get their cart through, the
+river being in flood. The escort then returned to Heidelberg and
+reported that the officers would not cross. A civil note was then sent
+back to Captain Elliot and Lambart, signed by P. J. Joubert, telling
+them "to pass the Vaal river immediately by the road that will be shown
+to you." What secret orders, if any, were sent with this letter has
+never transpired; but I decline to believe that, either in this or in
+Barber's case, the Boer escort took upon themselves the responsibility
+of murdering their prisoners, without authority of some kind for the
+deed.
+
+The men despatched from Heidelberg with the letter found Lambart and
+Elliot wandering about and trying to find the way to Standerton, They
+presented the letter, and took them towards a drift in the Vaal.
+Shortly before they got there the prisoners noticed that their escort
+had been reinforced. It would be interesting to know, if these extra
+men were not sent to assist in the murder, how and why they turned up
+as they did and joined themselves to the escort. The prisoners were
+taken to an old and disused drift of the Vaal river and told to cross.
+It was now dark, and the river was much swollen with rain; in fact,
+impassable for the cart and horses. Captains Elliot and Lambart begged
+to be allowed to outspan till the next morning, but were told that they
+must cross, which they accordingly attempted to do. A few yards from
+the bank the cart stuck on a rock, and whilst in this position the Boer
+escort poured a volley into it. Poor Elliot was instantly killed, one
+bullet fracturing his skull, another passing through the back, a third
+shattering the right thigh, and a fourth breaking the left wrist. The
+cart was also riddled, but strange to say, Captain Lambart was
+untouched, and succeeded in swimming to the further bank, the Boers
+firing at him whenever the flashes of lightning revealed his
+whereabouts. After sticking some time in the mud of the bank he managed
+to effect his escape, and next day reached the house of an Englishman
+called Groom, living in the Free State, and from thence made his way to
+Natal.
+
+Two of the murderers were put through a form of trial, after the
+conclusion of peace, and acquitted.
+
+The case of the murder of Dr. Barber is of a somewhat similar character
+to that of Elliot, except that there is in this case a curious piece of
+indirect evidence that seems to connect the murder directly with Piet
+Joubert, one of the Triumvirate.
+
+In the month of February 1881, two Englishmen came to the Boer laager
+at Lang's Nek to offer their services as doctors. Their names were Dr.
+Barber, who was well known to the Boers, and his assistant, Mr. Walter
+Dyas, and they came, not from Natal, but the Orange Free State. On
+arrival at the Boer camp they were at first well received, but after a
+little while seized, searched, and tied up all night to a disselboom
+(pole of a waggon). Next morning they were told to mount their horses,
+and started from the camp escorted by two men who were to take them
+over the Free State line.
+
+When they reached the Free State line the Boers told them to get off
+their horses, which they were ordered to bring back to the camp. They
+did so, bade good-day to their escort, and started to walk on towards
+their destination. When they had gone about forty yards Dyas heard the
+report of a rifle, and Barber called out, "My God, I am shot!" and fell
+dead.
+
+Dyas went down on his hands and knees and saw one of the escort
+deliberately aim at him. He then jumped up, and ran dodging from right
+to left, trying to avoid the bullet. Presently the man fired, and he
+felt himself struck through the thigh. He fell with his face to the
+men, and saw his would-be assassin put a fresh cartridge into his rifle
+and aim at him. Turning his face to the ground he awaited his death,
+but the bullet whizzed past his head. He then saw the men take the
+horses and go away, thinking they had finished him. After waiting a
+while he managed to get up and struggled to a house not far off; where
+he was kindly treated and remained till he recovered.
+
+Some time after this occurrence a Hottentot, named Allan Smith, made a
+statement at Newcastle, from, which it appears that he had been taken
+prisoner by the Boers and made to work for them. One night he saw
+Barber and Dyas tied to the disselboom, and overheard the following,
+which I will give in his own words:--
+
+"I went to a fire where some Boers were sitting; among them was a
+low-sized man, moderately stout, with a dark brown full beard,
+apparently about thirty-five years of age I do not know his name.
+_He was telling his comrades that he had brought an order from Piet
+Joubert_ to Viljoen, to take the two prisoners to the Free State
+line _and shoot them there_. He said, in the course of conversation,
+'Piet Joubert het gevraacht waarom was de mensche neet dood geschiet
+toen hulle bijde eerste laager gekom het' ('Piet Joubert asked why were
+the men not shot when they came to the first laager.') They then saw me
+at the fire, and one of them said, 'You must not talk before that
+fellow; he understands what you say, and will tell everybody.
+
+"Next morning Viljoen told me to go away, and gave me a pass into the
+Free State. He said (in Dutch), 'You must not drive for any Englishman
+again. If we catch you doing so we will shoot you, and if you do not go
+away quick, and we catch you hanging about when we bring the two men to
+the line, we will shoot you too.'"
+
+Dyas, who escaped, made an affidavit with reference to this statement
+in which he says, "I have read the foregoing affidavit of Allan Smith,
+and I say that the person described in the third paragraph thereof as
+bringing orders from Piet Joubert to Viljoen, corresponds with one of
+the Boers who took Dr. Barber and myself to the Free State, and to the
+best of my belief he is the man who shot Dr. Barber."
+
+The actual murderers were put on their trial in the Free State, and, of
+course, acquitted. In his examination at the trial, Allan Smith says,
+"It was a young man who said that Joubert had given orders that Barber
+had to be shot.... It was not at night, but in the morning early, when
+the young man spoke about Piet Joubert's order."
+
+Most people will gather, from what I have quoted, that there exists a
+certain connection between the dastardly murder of Dr. Barber (and the
+attempted murder of Mr. Dyas) and Piet Joubert, one of that "able"
+Triumvirate of which Mr. Gladstone speaks so highly.
+
+I shall only allude to one more murder, though more are reported to
+have occurred, amongst them that of Mr. Malcolm, who was kicked to
+death by Boers,--and that is Mr. Green's.
+
+Mr. Green was an English gold-digger, and was travelling along the main
+road to his home at Spitzcop. The road passed close by the military
+camp at Lydenburg, into which he was called. On coming out he went to a
+Boer patrol with a flag of truce, and whilst talking to them was shot
+dead. The Rev. J. Thorne, the English clergyman at Lydenburg, describes
+this murder in an affidavit in the following words:--
+
+"That I was the clergyman who got together a party of Englishmen and
+brought down the body of Mr. Green who was murdered by the Boers and
+buried it. I have ascertained the circumstances of the murder, which
+were as follows:--Mr. Green was on his way to the gold-fields. As he
+was passing the fort, he was called in by the officers, and sent out
+again with a message to the Boer commandant. Immediately on leaving the
+camp, he went to the Boer guard opposite with a flag of truce in his
+hand; while parleying with the Boers, who proposed to make a prisoner
+of him, he was shot through the head."
+
+No prosecution was instituted in this case. Mr. Green left a wife and
+children in a destitute condition.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+PLEDGES GIVEN BY MR GLADSTONE'S GOVERNMENT AS TO THE RETENTION OF
+THE TRANSVAAL AS A BRITISH COLONY.
+
+
+The following extracts from the speeches, despatches, and telegrams of
+members of the present Government, with reference to the proposed
+retrocession of the Transvaal, are not without interest:--
+
+During the month of May 1880, Lord Kimberley despatched a telegram to
+Sir Bartle Frere, in which the following words occur: "_Under no
+circumstances can the Queen's authority in the Transvaal be
+relinquished._"
+
+In a despatch dated 20th May, and addressed to Sir Bartle Frere, Lord
+Kimberley says, "That the sovereignty of the Queen in the Transvaal
+could not be relinquished."
+
+In a speech in the House of Lords on the 24th May 1880, Lord Kimberley
+said:--
+
+"There was a still stronger reason than that for not receding; it was
+impossible to say what calamities such a step as receding might not
+cause. We had, at the cost of much blood and treasure, restored peace,
+and the effect of our now reversing our policy would be to leave the
+province in a state of anarchy, and possibly to cause an internecine
+war. For such a risk, he could not make himself responsible. The number
+of the natives in the Transvaal was estimated at about 800,000, and
+that of the whites less than 50,000. Difficulties with the Zulus and
+frontier tribes would again arise, and, looking as they must to South
+Africa as a whole, the Government, after a careful consideration of the
+question, came to the conclusion _that we could not relinquish the
+Transvaal_. Nothing could be more unfortunate than uncertainty in
+respect to such a matter."
+
+On the 8th June 1880, Mr. Gladstone, in reply to a Boer memorial, wrote
+as follows:--
+
+"It is undoubtedly a matter for much regret that it should, since the
+Annexation, have appeared that so large a number of the population of
+Dutch origin in the Transvaal are opposed to the annexation of that
+territory, but it is impossible now, to consider that question as if it
+were presented for the first time. We have to do with a state of things
+which has existed for a considerable period, during which _obligations
+have been contracted, especially, though not exclusively, towards the
+native population, which cannot be set aside_. Looking to all the
+circumstances, both of the Transvaal and the rest of South Africa, and
+to the necessity of preventing a renewal of disorders, which might lead
+to disastrous consequences, not only to the Transvaal but to the whole
+of South Africa, _our judgment it that the Queen cannot be advised to
+relinquish the Transvaal_."
+
+Her Majesty's Speech, delivered in Parliament on the 6th January 1881,
+contains the following words: "A rising in the Transvaal has recently
+imposed upon me the duty of _vindicating my authority_."
+
+These extracts are rather curious reading in face of the policy adopted
+by the Government, after our troops had been defeated.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+A BOER ON BOER DESIGNS.
+
+
+I reprint here a letter published in _The Times_ of 14th October
+1899, together with a prefatory note added by the editor of that
+journal. This epistle seems to me worthy of the study of thinking men.
+Much of it, most of it indeed, is mere brutal vapouring, false in its
+facts, false in its deductions; remarkable only for the livid hues of
+hate with which it is coloured. Yet in this vile concoction, the work
+evidently of a half-educated member of the Cape Dutch party, or perhaps
+of an Afrikander Irishman of the stamp of the late notorious Fenian
+Aylward, appear statements built upon a basis of truth which we should
+do well to lay to heart. I allude principally to the question of our
+food supply and to the possible behaviour of the electorate in the
+event of a great war under pressure of want and high prices. (See
+paragraph 3 of the letter of "P. S.") In a very different work, "A
+Farmer's Year," pages 179 and 380, I have attempted to treat of this
+great matter which elsewhere has been dealt with also by others more
+able and perhaps better qualified. Until it is reasonably certain that
+under any circumstances which we can conceive the price of food stuffs
+will not be raised to a prohibitive point, it can never be said that
+the future of Great Britain is assured beyond all probable doubt. When
+will this problem receive the attention it deserves at the hands of our
+Governments and of those over whom they rule?
+
+
+We have received the following letter, appropriately headed "Boer
+Ignorance." The writer bears a well-known Dutch name, and gives as his
+late address the name of a well-known town in a Dutch district of Cape
+Colony:--
+
+    _To the Editor of the "Times."_
+
+    SIR,--In your paper you have often commented on what you are
+    pleased to call the ignorance of my countrymen, the Boers. We are
+    not so ignorant as the British statesmen and newspaper writers, nor
+    are we such fools as you British are. We know our policy, and we do
+    not change it. We have no opposition party to fear nor to truckle
+    to. Your boasted Conservative majority has been the obedient tool
+    of the Radical minority, and the Radical minority has been the
+    blind tool of our farseeing and intelligent, President. We have
+    desired delay, and we have had it, and we are now practically
+    masters of Africa from the Zambezi to the Cape. All the Afrikanders
+    in Cape Colony have been working for years for this end, for they
+    and we know the facts.
+
+     1. The actual value of gold in the Transvaal is at least 200,000
+    millions of pounds, and this fact is as well known to the Emperors
+    of Germany and Russia as it is to us. You estimate the value of the
+    gold at only 700 millions of pounds, or, at least, that is what you
+    pretend to estimate it at. But Germany, Russia, and France do not
+    desire you to get possession of this vast mass of gold, and so,
+    after encouraging you to believe that they will not interfere in
+    South Africa they will certainly do so, and very easily find a
+    _casus belli_, and they will assist us directly and indirectly
+    to drive you out of Africa.
+
+     2. We know that you dare not take any precautions in advance to
+    prevent the onslaught of the Great Powers, as the Opposition, the
+    great peace party, will raise the question of expense, and this
+    will win over your lazy, dirty, drunken working classes, who will
+    never again permit themselves to be taxed to support your Empire,
+    or even to preserve your existence as a nation.
+
+     3. We know from all the military authorities of the European and
+    American continents that you exist as an independent Power merely
+    on sufferance, and that at any moment the great Emperor William can
+    arrange with France or Russia to wipe you off the face of the
+    earth. They can at any time starve you into surrender. You must
+    yield in all things to the United States also, or your supply of
+    corn will be so reduced by the Americans that your working classes
+    would be compelled to pay high prices for their food, and rather
+    than do that they would have civil war, and invite any foreign
+    Power to assist them by invasion, for there is no patriotism in the
+    working classes of England, Wales, or Ireland.
+
+     4. We know that your country has been more prosperous than any
+    other country during the last fifty years (you have had no civil
+    war like the Americans and French to tone up your nerves and
+    strengthen your manliness), and consequently your able-bodied men
+    will not enlist in your so-called voluntary army. Therefore you
+    have to hire the dregs of your population to do your fighting, and
+    they are deficient in physique, in moral and mental ability, and in
+    all the qualities that make good fighting men.
+
+     5. Your military officers we know to be merely pedantic scholars or
+    frivolous society men, without any capacity for practical warfare
+    with white men.  The Afridis were more than a match for you, and
+    your victory over the Sudanese was achieved because those poor
+    people had not a rifle amongst them.
+
+     6. We know that your men, being the dregs of your people, are
+    naturally feeble, and that they are also saturated with the most
+    horrible sexual diseases, as all your Government returns plainly
+    show, and that they cannot endure the hardships of war.
+
+     7. We know that the entire British race is rapidly decaying, your
+    birth-rate is rapidly falling, your children are born weak,
+    diseased, and deformed, and that the major part of your population
+    consists of females, cripples, epileptics, consumptives, cancerous
+    people, invalids, and lunatics of all kinds whom you carefully
+    nourish and preserve.
+
+     8. We know that nine-tenths of your statesmen and higher officials,
+    military and naval, are suffering from kidney diseases, which
+    weaken their courage and will-power and makes them shirk all
+    responsibility as far as possible.
+
+     9. We know that your Navy is big, but we know that it is not
+    powerful, and that it is honeycombed with disloyalty--as witness
+    the theft of the signal-books, the assaults on officers, the
+    desertions, and the wilful injury of the boilers and machinery,
+    which all the vigilance of the officers is powerless to prevent.
+
+    10. We know that the Conservative Government is a mere sham, and
+    that it largely reduced the strength of the British artillery in
+    1888-89. And we know that it does nor dare now to call out the
+    Militia for training, nor to mobilise the Fleet, nor to give
+    sufficient grants to the Line and Volunteers for ammunition to
+    enable them to become good marksmen and efficient soldiers. We
+    know that British soldiers and sailors are immensely inferior as
+    marksmen, not only to Germans, French, and Americans, but also to
+    Japanese, Afridis, Chilians, Peruvians, Belgians, and Russians.
+
+    11. We know that no British Government dares to propose any form of
+    compulsory military or naval training, for the British people would
+    rather be invaded, conquered, and governed by Germans, Russians, or
+    Frenchmen than be compelled to serve their own Government.
+
+    12. We Boers know that we will not be governed by a set of British
+    curs, but that we will drive you out of Africa altogether, and the
+    other manly nations which have compulsory military service--the
+    armed manhood of Europe--will very quickly divide all your other
+    possessions between them.
+
+    Talk no more of the ignorance of the Boers or Cape Dutch; a few
+    days more will prove your ignorance of the British position, and in
+    a short space of time you and your Queen will be imploring the good
+    offices of the great German Emperor to deliver you from your
+    disasters, for your humiliations are not yet complete.
+
+    For thirty years the Cape Dutch have been waiting their chance, and
+    now their day has come; they will throw off their mask and your
+    yoke at the same instant, and 300,000 Dutch heroes will trample you
+    under foot.
+
+    We can afford to tell you the truth now, and in this letter you
+    have got it.--Yours, &c.,
+
+    P. S.
+
+    _October 12._
+
+
+    Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+    Edinburgh & London
+
+
+
+
+
+Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 44659-h.htm or 44659-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44659/44659-h/44659-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44659/44659-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: “If he wanted to fight, he’d hardly be in an office”]
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+SECRET SERVICE
+
+Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865
+Done into Book Form from the Play by William Gillette
+
+by
+
+CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
+
+Illustrated by the Kinneys
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Copyright, 1912, by
+Dodd, Mead and Company
+
+Published, January, 1912
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+              I DEDICATE MY SHARE OF THIS JOINT PRODUCTION
+                                   TO
+
+The many people of the stage, personally known and unknown by me, who
+have so often interested, amused, instructed, and inspired me by their
+presentations of life in all its infinite variety. They are a much
+misunderstood people by the public generally, and I take this occasion
+to testify that, in my wide acquaintance with stage people, I have found
+them as gentle, as generous, as refined, and as considerate as any group
+of people with whom I have associated in my long and varied career.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                                PREFACE
+
+Once upon a time a novel of mine was turned into a play. The dramatist
+who prepared the story for stage production sent me a copy of his
+efforts toward that end. About the only point of resemblance between his
+production and mine was the fact that they both bore the same title, the
+hero in each had the same name, and the action in both cases took place
+on this earth.
+
+I was a young author then, and timid. I ventured humbly to enquire why
+the drama differed so entirely from the novel; and this ingenious, I
+might almost say ingenuous, explanation was vouchsafed me:
+
+“Well, to tell you the truth, after I had read a chapter or two of your
+book, I lost it, and I just wrote the play from my own imagination.”
+
+I do not wish to criticise the results of his efforts, for he has since
+proved himself to be a dramatist of skill and ability, but to describe
+that particular effort as a dramatisation of my book was absurd.
+Incidentally, it was absurd in other ways and, fortunately for the
+reputation of both of us, it never saw the light.
+
+When my dear friends, the publishers, asked me to turn this play into a
+novel, I recalled my experience of by-gone days, and the idea flashed
+into my mind that here was an opportunity to get even, but I am a
+preacher as well as a story-writer, and in either capacity I found I
+could not do it. Frankly, I did not want to do it.
+
+My experience, however, has made me perhaps unduly sensitive, and I
+determined, since I had undertaken this work, to make it represent Mr.
+Gillette’s remarkable and brilliant play as faithfully as I could, and I
+have done so. I have used my own words only in those slight changes
+necessitated by book presentation instead of production on the stage. I
+have entered into as few explanations as possible and have limited my
+own discussion of the characters, their motives, and their actions, to
+what was absolutely necessary to enable the reader to comprehend. On the
+stage much is left to the eye which has to be conveyed by words in a
+book, and this is my excuse for even those few digressions that appear.
+
+I have endeavoured to subordinate my own imagination to that of the
+accomplished playwright. I have played something of the part of the old
+Greek Chorus which explained the drama, and there has been a touch of
+the scene-painter’s art in my small contribution to the book.
+
+Otherwise, I have not felt at liberty to make any departure from the
+setting, properties, episodes, actions, or dialogue. Mine has been a
+very small share in this joint production. The story and the glory are
+Mr. Gillette’s, not mine. And I am cheerfully determined that as the
+author of the first, he shall have all of the second.
+
+                                                   Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+
+                                                   St. George’s Rectory,
+                                       Kansas City, Mo., November, 1911.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                  BOOK I
+      WHAT HAPPENED AT EIGHT O’CLOCK
+
+    I The Battery Passes                     3
+   II A Commission from the President       18
+  III Orders to Captain Thorne              34
+   IV Miss Mitford’s Intervention           49
+    V The Unfaithful Servant                69
+   VI The Confidence of Edith Varney        86
+
+                 BOOK II
+      WHAT HAPPENED AT NINE O’CLOCK
+
+  VII Wilfred Writes a Letter              105
+ VIII Edith Is Forced to Play the Game     133
+   IX The Shot That Killed                 154
+
+                BOOK III
+      WHAT HAPPENED AT TEN O’CLOCK
+
+    X Caroline Mitford Writes a Despatch   173
+   XI Mr. Arrelsford Again Interposes      187
+  XII Thorne Takes Charge of the Telegraph 204
+ XIII The Tables Are Turned                217
+  XIV The Call of the Key                  229
+   XV Love and Duty at the Touch           247
+
+                 BOOK IV
+      WHAT HAPPENED AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK
+
+  XVI The Tumult in Human Hearts           261
+ XVII Wilfred Plays the Man                271
+XVIII Captain Thorne Justifies Himself     292
+  XIX The Drumhead Court-Martial           301
+   XX The Last Reprieve                    318
+
+      Afterword                            330
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                                 BOOK I
+
+                     WHAT HAPPENED AT EIGHT O’CLOCK
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+                           THE BATTERY PASSES
+
+
+Outside, the softness of an April night; the verdure of tree and lawn,
+the climbing roses, already far advanced in that southern latitude,
+sweetly silvered in the moonlight. Within the great old house apparently
+an equal calm.
+
+Yet, neither within nor without was the night absolutely soundless. Far
+away to the southward the cloudless horizon, easily visible from the
+slight eminence on which the house stood, was marked by quivering
+flashes of lurid light. From time to time, the attentive ear might catch
+the roll, the roar, the reverberation of heavy sound like distant
+thunder-peals intermingled with sharper detonations. The flashes came
+from great guns, and the rolling peals were the sound of the cannon, the
+detonations explosions of the shells. There was the peace of God in the
+heaven above; there were the passions of men on the earth beneath.
+
+Lights gleamed here and there, shining through the twining rose foliage,
+from the windows of the old house, which stood far back from the street.
+From a room on one side of the hall, which opened from the broad
+pillared portico of Colonial fashion, a hum of voices arose.
+
+A group of women, with nervous hands and anxious faces, working while
+they talked, were picking lint, tearing linen and cotton for bandages.
+Their conversation was not the idle chatter of other days. They “told
+sad stories of the death of kings!” How “Tom” and “Charles” and “Allen”
+and “Page” and “Burton” had gone down into the Valley of the Shadow of
+Death, whence they had not come back. How this fort had been hammered
+yesterday, the other, the day before. How So-and-So’s wounds had been
+ministered to. How Such-a-One’s needs had been relieved. How the enemy
+were drawing closer and closer and closer, and how they were being held
+back with courage, which, alas! by that time was the courage of despair.
+And much of their speech was of their own kind, of bereft women and
+fatherless children. And ever as they talked, the busy fingers flew.
+
+Upstairs from one of the front rooms the light shone dimly through a
+window partly covered by a half-drawn Venetian blind. One standing at
+the side of the house and listening would have heard out of the chamber
+low moanings, muttered words from feverish lips and delirious brain. The
+meaningless yet awful babble was broken now and again by words of
+tenderness and anguish. Soft hands were laid on the burning brow of the
+poor sufferer within, while a mother’s eyes dropped tears upon
+bloodstained bandages and wasted frame.
+
+And now the gentle wind which swept softly through the trees bore a
+sudden sharper, stranger sound toward the old house in the garden. The
+tramp of horse, the creak of wheels, the faint jingling of arms and
+sabres drew nearer and rose louder. Sudden words of command punctured
+the night. Here came a battery, without the rattle of drum or the blare
+of bugles, with no sound but its own galloping it rolled down the
+street. Lean, gaunt horses were ridden and driven by leaner and gaunter
+men in dusty, worn, ragged, tattered uniforms. Only the highly polished
+brass guns—twelve-pounder Napoleons—gleamed bright in the moonlight.
+
+The sewing women came out on the porch and the blind of the window above
+was lifted and a white-haired woman stood framed in the light.
+
+No, those watchers did not cheer as the battery swept by on its way to
+the front. For one thing, a soldier lay upstairs dying; for another,
+they had passed the time when they cheered that tattered flag. Now they
+wept over it as one weeps as he beholds for the last time the face of a
+friend who dies. Once they had acclaimed it as the sunrise in the
+morning, now they watched it silently go inevitably to the sunset of
+defeat.
+
+The men did not cheer either. They were not past cheering—oh, no! They
+were made of rougher stuff than the women, and the time would come when,
+in final action, they would burst forth into that strange, wild yell
+that struck terror to the hearts of the hearers. They could cheer even
+in the last ditch, even in the jaws of death—face the end better for
+their cheering perhaps; but women are more silent in the crisis. They
+bear and give no tongue.
+
+The officer in command saw the little group of women on the porch. The
+moonlight shone from the street side and high-lighted them, turning the
+rusty black of most of the gowns, home-dyed mourning,—all that could be
+come at in those last awful days in Richmond,—into soft shadows, above
+which their faces shone angelic. He saw the woman’s head in the window,
+too. He knew who lay upon the bed of death within the chamber. He had
+helped to bring him back from the front several days before. He bit his
+lips for a moment and then, ashamed of his emotion, his voice rang
+harsh. With arm and sabre the battery saluted the women and passed on,
+while from the window of the great drawing-room, opposite the room of
+the lint-pickers and bandage-tearers, a slender boy stared and stared
+after the disappearing guns, his eyes full of envy and vexatious tears
+as he stamped his foot in futile protest and disappointment.
+
+The noise made by the passing cannon soon died away in the distance.
+Stillness supervened as before; workers whispered together, realising
+that some of those passing upon whom they had looked would pass no more,
+and that they would look upon them never again. Upstairs the moans of
+the wounded man had died away, the only thing that persisted was the
+fearful thundering of the distant guns around beleaguered Petersburg.
+Within the drawing-room, the boy walked up and down restlessly,
+muttering to himself, evidently nerving himself to desperate resolution.
+
+“I won’t do it,” he said. “I won’t stay here any longer.”
+
+He threw up his hands and turned to the portraits that adorned the room,
+portraits that carried one back through centuries to the days of the
+first cavalier of the family, who crossed the seas to seek his fortune
+in a new land, and it was a singular thing that practically every one of
+them wore a sword.
+
+“You all fought,” said the boy passionately, “and I am going to.”
+
+The door at the other end was softly opened. The great room was but
+dimly lighted by candles in sconces on the wall; the great chandelier
+was not lighted for lack of tapers, but a more brilliant radiance was
+presently cast over the apartment by the advent of old Martha. She had
+been the boy’s “Mammy” and the boy’s father’s “Mammy” as well, and no
+one dared to speculate how much farther into the past she ran back.
+
+“Is dat you, Mars Wilfred?” said the old woman, waddling into the room,
+both hands extended, bearing two many-branched candle-sticks, which she
+proceeded to deposit upon the handsome mahogany tables with which the
+long drawing-room was furnished.
+
+“Yes, it is I, Aunt Martha. Did you see Benton’s Battery go by?”
+
+“Lawd lub you, chile, Ah done seed so many guns an’ hosses an’ soljahs
+a-gwine by Ah don’t tek no notice ob ’em no mo’. ’Peahs lak dey keep on
+a-passin’ by fo’ebah.”
+
+“Well, there won’t be many more of them pass by,” said the boy in a
+clear accent, but with that soft intonation which would have betrayed
+his Southern ancestry anywhere, “and before they are all gone, I would
+like to join one of them myself.”
+
+“Why, my po’ li’l lamb!” exclaimed Martha, her arms akimbo, “dat Ah done
+nussed in dese ahms, is you gwine to de fight!”
+
+The boy’s demeanour was anything but lamb-like. He made a fierce step
+toward her.
+
+“Don’t you call me ‘lamb’ any more,” he said, “it’s ridiculous and——”
+
+Mammy Martha started back in alarm.
+
+“’Peahs mo’ lak a lion’d be better,” she admitted.
+
+“Where’s mother?” asked the boy, dismissing the subject as unworthy of
+argument.
+
+“I reckon she’s upstaihs wid Mars Howard, suh. Yo’ bruddah——”
+
+“I want to see her right away,” continued the boy impetuously.
+
+“Mars Howard he’s putty bad dis ebenin’,” returned Martha. “Ah bettah go
+an’ tell her dat you want her, but Ah dunno’s she’d want to leab him.”
+
+“Well, you tell her to come as soon as she can. I’m awfully sorry for
+Howard, but it’s living men that the Confederacy needs most now.”
+
+“Yas, suh,” returned the old nurse, with a quizzical look out of her
+black eyes at the slender boy before her. “Dey suah does need men,” she
+continued, and as the youngster took a passionate step toward her, she
+deftly passed out of the room and closed the door behind her, and he
+could hear her ponderous footsteps slowly and heavily mounting the
+steps.
+
+The boy went to the window again and stared into the night. In his
+preoccupation he did not catch the sound of a gentler footfall upon the
+stairs, nor did he notice the opening of the door and the silent
+approach of a woman, the woman with white hair who had stood at the
+window. The mother of a son dead, a son dying, and a son living. No
+distinctive thing that in the Confederacy. Almost any mother who had
+more than one boy could have been justly so characterised. She stopped
+half-way down the room and looked lovingly and longingly at the slight,
+graceful figure of her youngest son. Her eyes filled with tears—for the
+dying or the living or both? Who can say? She went toward him, laid her
+hand on his shoulder. He turned instantly and at the sight of her tears
+burst out quickly:
+
+“Howard isn’t worse, is he?” for a moment forgetful of all else.
+
+The woman shook her head.
+
+“I am afraid he is. The sound of that passing battery seemed to excite
+him so. He thought he was at the front again and wanted to get up.”
+
+“Poor old Howard!”
+
+“He’s quieter now, perhaps——”
+
+“Mother, is there anything I can do for him?”
+
+“No, my son,” answered the woman with a sigh, “I don’t think there is
+anything that anybody can do. We can only wait—and hope. He is in God’s
+hands, not ours.”
+
+She lifted her face for a moment and saw beyond the room, through the
+night, and beyond the stars a Presence Divine, to Whom thousands of
+other women in that dying Confederacy made daily, hourly, and momentary
+prayers. Less exalted, more human, less touched, the boy bowed his head,
+not without his own prayer, too.
+
+“But you wanted to see me, Wilfred, Martha said,” the woman presently
+began.
+
+“Yes, mother, I——”
+
+The boy stopped and the woman was in no hurry to press him. She divined
+what was coming and would fain have avoided it all.
+
+“I am thankful there is a lull in the cannonading,” she said, listening.
+“I wonder why it has stopped?”
+
+“It has not stopped,” said Wilfred, “at least it has gone on all
+evening.”
+
+“I don’t hear it now.”
+
+“No, but you will—there!”
+
+“Yes, but compared to what it was yesterday—you know how it shook the
+house—and Howard suffered so through it.”
+
+“So did I,” said the boy in a low voice fraught with passion.
+
+“You, my son?”
+
+“Yes, mother, when I hear those guns and know that the fighting is going
+on, it fairly maddens me——”
+
+But Mrs. Varney hastily interrupted her boy. Woman-like she would thrust
+from her the decision which she knew would be imposed upon her.
+
+“Yes, yes,” she said; “I know how you suffered,—we all suffered,
+we——” She turned away, sat down in a chair beside the table, leaned
+her head in her hands, and gave way to her emotions. “There has been
+nothing but suffering, suffering since this awful war began,” she
+murmured.
+
+“Mother,” said Wilfred abruptly, “I want to speak to you. You don’t like
+it, of course, but you have just got to listen this time.”
+
+Mrs. Varney lifted her head from her hands. Wilfred came nearer to her
+and dropped on his knees by her side. One hand she laid upon his
+shoulder, the other on his head. She stared down into his up-turned
+face.
+
+“I know—I know, my boy—what you want.”
+
+“I can’t stay here any longer,” said the youth; “it is worse than being
+shot to pieces. I just have to chain myself to the floor whenever I hear
+a cannon-shot or see a soldier. When can I go?”
+
+The woman stared at him. In him she saw faintly the face of the boy
+dying upstairs. In him she saw the white face of the boy who lay under
+the sun and dew, dead at Seven Pines. In him she saw all her kith and
+kin, who, true to the traditions of that house, had given up their lives
+for a cause now practically lost. She could not give up the last one.
+She drew him gently to her, but, boy-like, he disengaged himself and
+drew away with a shake of his head, not that he loved his mother the
+less, but honour—as he saw it—the more.
+
+“Why don’t you speak?” he whispered at last.
+
+“I don’t know what to say to you, Wilfred,” faltered his mother,
+although there was but one thing to say, and she knew that she must say
+it, yet she was fighting, woman-like, for time.
+
+“I will tell you what to say,” said the boy.
+
+“What?”
+
+“Say that you won’t mind if I go down to Petersburg and enlist.”
+
+“But that would not be true, Wilfred,” said his mother, smiling faintly.
+
+“True or not, mother, I can’t stay here.”
+
+“Oh, Wilfred, Russell has gone, and Howard is going, and now you want to
+go and get killed.”
+
+“I don’t want to be killed at all, mother.”
+
+“But you are so young, my boy.”
+
+“Not younger than Tom Kittridge,” answered the boy; “not younger than
+Ell Stuart or Cousin Steven or hundreds of other boys down there. See,
+mother—they have called for all over eighteen, weeks ago; the seventeen
+call may be out any moment; the next one after that takes me. Do you
+want me to stay here until I am ordered out! I should think not. Where’s
+your pride?”
+
+“My pride? Ah, my son, it is on the battlefield, over at Seven Pines,
+and upstairs with Howard.”
+
+“Well, I don’t care, mother,” he persisted obstinately. “I love you and
+all that, you know it,—but I can’t stand this. I’ve got to go. I must
+go.”
+
+Mrs. Varney recognised from the ring of determination in the boy’s voice
+that his mind was made up. She could no longer hold him. With or without
+her consent he would go, and why should she withhold it? Other boys as
+young as hers had gone and had not come back. Aye, there was the rub:
+she had given one, the other trembled on the verge, and now the last
+one! Yes, he must go, too,—to live or die as God pleased. If they
+wanted her to sacrifice everything on the altar of her country, she had
+her own pride, she would do it, as hundreds of other women had done. She
+rose from her chair and went toward her boy. He was a slender lad of
+sixteen but was quite as tall as she. As he stood there he looked
+strangely like his father, thought the woman.
+
+“Well,” she said at last, “I will write to your father and——”
+
+“But,” the boy interrupted in great disappointment, “that’ll take
+  Because you saved my rice. Have you no thanks?
+
+VIJAYA [_sings_]
+
+  _Sing you of her, O first few stars,
+  Whom Brahma, touching with his finger, praises, for you hold
+  The van of wandering quiet; ere you be too calm and old,
+  Sing, turning in your cars,
+  Sing, till you raise your hands and sigh, and from your car heads peer,
+  With all your whirling hair, and drop tear upon azure tear._
+
+ANASHUYA.
+
+  What know the pilots of the stars of tears?
+
+VIJAYA.
+
+  Their faces are all worn, and in their eyes
+  Flashes the fire of sadness, for they see
+  The icicles that famish all the north,
+  Where men lie frozen in the glimmering snow;
+  And in the flaming forests cower the lion
+  And lioness, with all their whimpering cubs;
+  And, ever pacing on the verge of things,
+  The phantom, Beauty, in a mist of tears;
+  While we alone have round us woven woods,
+  And feel the softness of each other’s hand,
+  Amrita, while—
+
+ANASHUYA [_going away from him_].
+
+  Ah me, you love another,
+
+[_Bursting into tears_]
+
+  And may some dreadful ill befall her quick!
+
+VIJAYA.
+
+  I loved another; now I love no other.
+  Among the mouldering of ancient woods
+  You live, and on the village border she,
+  With her old father the blind wood-cutter;
+  I saw her standing in her door but now.
+
+ANASHUYA.
+
+  Vijaya, swear to love her never more.
+
+VIJAYA.
+
+  Ay, ay.
+
+ANASHUYA.
+
+        Swear by the parents of the gods,
+  Dread oath, who dwell on sacred Himalay,
+  On the far Golden Peak; enormous shapes,
+  Who still were old when the great sea was young;
+  On their vast faces mystery and dreams;
+  Their hair along the mountains rolled and filled
+  From year to year by the unnumbered nests
+  Of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet
+  The joyous flocks of deer and antelope,
+  Who never hear the unforgiving hound.
+  Swear!
+
+VIJAYA.
+
+  By the parents of the gods, I swear.
+
+ANASHUYA [_sings_].
+
+  _I have forgiven, O new star!
+  Maybe you have not heard of us, you have come forth so newly,
+  You hunter of the fields afar!
+  Ah, you will know my loved one by his hunter’s arrows truly,
+  Shoot on him shafts of quietness, that he may ever keep
+  An inner laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep._
+
+  Farewell, Vijaya. Nay, no word, no word;
+  I, priestess of this temple, offer up
+  Prayers for the land.
+
+[VIJAYA _goes_]
+
+                    O Brahma, guard in sleep
+  The merry lambs and the complacent kine,
+  The flies below the leaves, and the young mice
+  In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks
+  Of red flamingo; and my love, Vijaya;
+  And may no restless fay with fidget finger
+  Trouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me.
+
+
+THE INDIAN UPON GOD
+
+  I PASSED along the water’s edge below the humid trees,
+  My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,
+  My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace
+  All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
+  Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
+  _Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
+  Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
+  The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from his eye._
+  I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
+  _Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
+  For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
+  Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide._
+  A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
+  Brimful of starlight, and he said: _The Stamper of the Skies,
+  He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
+  Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?_
+  I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:
+  _Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
+  He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
+  His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light._
+
+
+THE INDIAN TO HIS LOVE
+
+  THE island dreams under the dawn
+  And great boughs drop tranquillity;
+  The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,
+  A parrot sways upon a tree,
+  Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.
+
+  Here we will moor our lonely ship
+  And wander ever with woven hands,
+  Murmuring softly lip to lip,
+  Along the grass, along the sands,
+  Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:
+
+  How we alone of mortals are
+  Hid under quiet boughs apart,
+  While our love grows an Indian star,
+  A meteor of the burning heart,
+  One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,
+
+  The heavy boughs, the burnished dove
+  That moans and sighs a hundred days:
+  How when we die our shades will rove,
+  When eve has hushed the feathered ways,
+  Dropping a vapoury footsole on the tide’s drowsy blaze.
+
+
+THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES
+
+
+  AUTUMN is over the long leaves that love us,
+  And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
+  Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
+  And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.
+
+  The hour of the waning of love has beset us,
+  And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
+  Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
+  With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.
+
+
+EPHEMERA
+
+  ‘YOUR eyes that once were never weary of mine
+  Are bowed in sorrow under their trembling lids,
+  Because our love is waning.’
+
+                         And then she:
+  ‘Although our love is waning, let us stand
+  By the lone border of the lake once more,
+  Together in that hour of gentleness
+  When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:
+  How far away the stars seem, and how far
+  Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!’
+  Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
+  While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
+  ‘Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.’
+
+  The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
+  Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
+  A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
+  Autumn was over him: and now they stood
+  On the lone border of the lake once more:
+  Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
+  Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
+  In bosom and hair.
+            ‘Ah, do not mourn,’ he said,
+  ‘That we are tired, for other loves await us:
+  Hate on and love through unrepining hours;
+  Before us lies eternity; our souls
+  Are love, and a continual farewell.’
+
+
+THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL
+
+  I SAT on cushioned otter skin:
+  My word was law from Ith to Emen,
+  And shook at Invar Amargin
+  The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
+  And drove tumult and war away
+  From girl and boy and man and beast;
+  The fields grew fatter day by day,
+  The wild fowl of the air increased;
+  And every ancient Ollave said,
+  While he bent down his fading head,
+  ‘He drives away the Northern cold.’
+  _They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech
+            leaves old._
+
+  I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
+  A herdsman came from inland valleys,
+  Crying, the pirates drove his swine
+  To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
+  I called my battle-breaking men,
+  And my loud brazen battle-cars
+  From rolling vale and rivery glen;
+  And under the blinking of the stars
+  Fell on the pirates by the deep,
+  And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:
+  These hands won many a torque of gold.
+  _They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the
+            beech leaves old._
+
+  But slowly, as I shouting slew
+  And trampled in the bubbling mire,
+  In my most secret spirit grew
+  A whirling and a wandering fire:
+  I stood: keen stars above me shone,
+  Around me shone keen eyes of men:
+  I laughed aloud and hurried on
+  By rocky shore and rushy fen;
+  I laughed because birds fluttered by,
+  And starlight gleamed, and clouds flew high,
+  And rushes waved and waters rolled.
+  _They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the
+            beech leaves old._
+
+  And now I wander in the woods
+  When summer gluts the golden bees,
+  Or in autumnal solitudes
+  Arise the leopard-coloured trees;
+  Or when along the wintry strands
+  The cormorants shiver on their rocks;
+  I wander on, and wave my hands,
+  And sing, and shake my heavy locks.
+  The grey wolf knows me; by one ear
+  I lead along the woodland deer;
+  The hares run by me growing bold.
+  _They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the
+            beech leaves old._
+
+  I came upon a little town,
+  That slumbered in the harvest moon,
+  And passed a-tiptoe up and down,
+  Murmuring, to a fitful tune,
+  How I have followed, night and day,
+  A tramping of tremendous feet,
+  And saw where this old tympan lay,
+  Deserted on a doorway seat,
+  And bore it to the woods with me;
+  Of some unhuman misery
+  Our married voices wildly trolled.
+  _They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the
+            beech leaves old._
+
+  I sang how, when day’s toil is done,
+  Orchil shakes out her long dark hair
+  That hides away the dying sun
+  And sheds faint odours through the air:
+  When my hand passed from wire to wire
+  It quenched, with sound like falling dew,
+  The whirling and the wandering fire;
+  But lift a mournful ulalu,
+  For the kind wires are torn and still,
+  And I must wander wood and hill
+  Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold.
+  _They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the
+            beech leaves old._
+
+
+THE STOLEN CHILD
+
+  WHERE dips the rocky highland
+  Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
+  There lies a leafy island
+  Where flapping herons wake
+  The drowsy water rats;
+  There we’ve hid our faery vats.
+  Full of berries,
+  And of reddest stolen cherries.
+  _Come away, O human child!
+  To the waters and the wild
+  With a faery, hand in hand,
+  For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand._
+
+  Where the wave of moonlight glosses
+  The dim gray sands with light,
+  Far off by furthest Rosses
+  We foot it all the night,
+  Weaving olden dances,
+  Mingling hands and mingling glances
+  Till the moon has taken flight;
+  To and fro we leap
+  And chase the frothy bubbles,
+  While the world is full of troubles
+  And is anxious in its sleep.
+  _Come away, O human child!
+  To the waters and the wild
+  With a faery, hand in hand,
+  For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand._
+
+  Where the wandering water gushes
+  From the hills above Glen-Car,
+  In pools among the rushes
+  That scarce could bathe a star,
+  We seek for slumbering trout,
+  And whispering in their ears
+  Give them unquiet dreams;
+  Leaning softly out
+  From ferns that drop their tears
+  Over the young streams.
+  _Come away, O human child!
+  To the waters and the wild
+  With a faery, hand in hand,
+  For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand._
+
+  Away with us he’s going,
+  The solemn-eyed:
+  He’ll hear no more the lowing
+  Of the calves on the warm hillside;
+  Or the kettle on the hob
+  Sing peace into his breast,
+  Or see the brown mice bob
+  Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
+  _For he comes, the human child,
+  To the waters and the wild
+  With a faery, hand in hand,
+  From a world more full of weeping than he can understand._
+
+
+TO AN ISLE IN THE WATER
+
+  SHY one, shy one,
+  Shy one of my heart,
+  She moves in the firelight
+  Pensively apart.
+
+  She carries in the dishes,
+  And lays them in a row.
+  To an isle in the water
+  With her would I go.
+
+  She carries in the candles
+  And lights the curtained room,
+  Shy in the doorway
+  And shy in the gloom;
+
+  And shy as a rabbit,
+  Helpful and shy.
+  To an isle in the water
+  With her would I fly.
+
+
+DOWN BY THE SALLEY GARDENS
+
+  DOWN by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
+  She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
+  She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
+  But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.
+
+  In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
+  And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
+  She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
+  But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.
+
+
+THE MEDITATION OF THE OLD FISHERMAN
+
+  YOU waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play,
+  Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart;
+  In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay,
+  _When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart_.
+
+  The herring are not in the tides as they were of old;
+  My sorrow! for many a creak gave the creel in the cart
+  That carried the take to Sligo town to be sold,
+  _When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart_.
+
+  And ah, you proud maiden, you are not so fair when his oar
+  Is heard on the water, as they were, the proud and apart,
+  Who paced in the eve by the nets on the pebbly shore,
+  _When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart_.
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF FATHER O’HART
+
+  GOOD Father John O’Hart
+  In penal days rode out
+  To a shoneen who had free lands
+  And his own snipe and trout.
+
+  In trust took he John’s lands;
+  Sleiveens were all his race;
+  And he gave them as dowers to his daughters,
+  And they married beyond their place.
+
+  But Father John went up,
+  And Father John went down;
+  And he wore small holes in his shoes,
+  And he wore large holes in his gown.
+
+  All loved him, only the shoneen,
+  Whom the devils have by the hair,
+  From the wives, and the cats, and the children,
+  To the birds in the white of the air.
+
+  The birds, for he opened their cages
+  As he went up and down;
+  And he said with a smile, ‘Have peace now’;
+  And he went his way with a frown.
+
+  But if when any one died
+  Came keeners hoarser than rooks,
+  He bade them give over their keening;
+  For he was a man of books.
+
+  And these were the works of John,
+  When weeping score by score,
+  People came into Coloony;
+  For he’d died at ninety-four.
+
+  There was no human keening;
+  The birds from Knocknarea
+  And the world round Knocknashee
+  Came keening in that day.
+
+  The young birds and old birds
+  Came flying, heavy and sad;
+  Keening in from Tiraragh,
+  Keening from Ballinafad;
+
+  Keening from Inishmurray,
+  Nor stayed for bite or sup;
+  This way were all reproved
+  Who dig old customs up.
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF MOLL MAGEE
+
+  COME round me, little childer;
+  There, don’t fling stones at me
+  Because I mutter as I go;
+  But pity Moll Magee.
+
+  My man was a poor fisher
+  With shore lines in the say;
+  My work was saltin’ herrings
+  The whole of the long day.
+
+  And sometimes from the saltin’ shed,
+  I scarce could drag my feet
+  Under the blessed moonlight,
+  Along the pebbly street.
+
+  I’d always been but weakly,
+  And my baby was just born;
+  A neighbour minded her by day,
+  I minded her till morn.
+
+  I lay upon my baby;
+  Ye little childer dear,
+  I looked on my cold baby
+  When the morn grew frosty and clear.
+
+  A weary woman sleeps so hard!
+  My man grew red and pale,
+  And gave me money, and bade me go
+  To my own place, Kinsale.
+
+  He drove me out and shut the door,
+  And gave his curse to me;
+  I went away in silence,
+  No neighbour could I see.
+
+  The windows and the doors were shut,
+  One star shone faint and green;
+  The little straws were turnin’ round
+  Across the bare boreen.
+
+  I went away in silence:
+  Beyond old Martin’s byre
+  I saw a kindly neighbour
+  Blowin’ her mornin’ fire.
+
+  She drew from me my story—
+  My money’s all used up,
+  And still, with pityin’, scornin’ eye,
+  She gives me bite and sup.
+
+  She says my man will surely come,
+  And fetch me home agin;
+  But always, as I’m movin’ round,
+  Without doors or within,
+
+  Pilin’ the wood or pilin’ the turf,
+  Or goin’ to the well,
+  I’m thinkin’ of my baby
+  And keenin’ to mysel’.
+
+  And sometimes I am sure she knows
+  When, openin’ wide His door,
+  God lights the stars, His candles,
+  And looks upon the poor.
+
+  So now, ye little childer,
+  Ye won’t fling stones at me;
+  But gather with your shinin’ looks
+  And pity Moll Magee.
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF THE FOXHUNTER
+
+  ‘NOW lay me in a cushioned chair
+  And carry me, you four,
+  With cushions here and cushions there,
+  To see the world once more.
+
+  ‘And some one from the stables bring
+  My Dermot dear and brown,
+  And lead him gently in a ring,
+  And gently up and down.
+
+  ‘Now leave the chair upon the grass:
+  Bring hound and huntsman here,
+  And I on this strange road will pass,
+  Filled full of ancient cheer.’
+
+  His eyelids droop, his head falls low,
+  His old eyes cloud with dreams;
+  The sun upon all things that grow
+  Pours round in sleepy streams.
+
+  Brown Dermot treads upon the lawn,
+  And to the armchair goes,
+  And now the old man’s dreams are gone,
+  He smooths the long brown nose.
+
+  And now moves many a pleasant tongue
+  Upon his wasted hands,
+  For leading aged hounds and young
+  The huntsman near him stands.
+
+  ‘My huntsman, Rody, blow the horn,
+  And make the hills reply.’
+  The huntsman loosens on the morn
+  A gay and wandering cry.
+
+  A fire is in the old man’s eyes,
+  His fingers move and sway,
+  And when the wandering music dies
+  They hear him feebly say,
+
+  ‘My huntsman, Rody, blow the horn,
+  And make the hills reply.’
+  ‘I cannot blow upon my horn,
+  I can but weep and sigh.’
+
+  The servants round his cushioned place
+  Are with new sorrow wrung;
+  And hounds are gazing on his face,
+  Both aged hounds and young.
+
+  One blind hound only lies apart
+  On the sun-smitten grass;
+  He holds deep commune with his heart:
+  The moments pass and pass;
+
+  The blind hound with a mournful din
+  Lifts slow his wintry head;
+  The servants bear the body in;
+  The hounds wail for the dead.
+
+
+THE BALLAD OF FATHER GILLIGAN
+
+  THE old priest Peter Gilligan
+  Was weary night and day;
+  For half his flock were in their beds,
+  Or under green sods lay.
+
+  Once, while he nodded on a chair,
+  At the moth-hour of eve,
+  Another poor man sent for him,
+  And he began to grieve.
+
+  ‘I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,
+  For people die and die’;
+  And after cried he, ‘God forgive!
+  My body spake, not I!’
+
+  He knelt, and leaning on the chair
+  He prayed and fell asleep;
+  And the moth-hour went from the fields,
+  And stars began to peep.
+
+  They slowly into millions grew,
+  And leaves shook in the wind;
+  And God covered the world with shade,
+  And whispered to mankind.
+
+  Upon the time of sparrow chirp
+  When the moths came once more,
+  The old priest Peter Gilligan
+  Stood upright on the floor.
+
+  ‘Mavrone, mavrone! the man has died,
+  While I slept on the chair’;
+  He roused his horse out of its sleep,
+  And rode with little care.
+
+  He rode now as he never rode,
+  By rocky lane and fen;
+  The sick man’s wife opened the door:
+  ‘Father! you come again!’
+
+  ‘And is the poor man dead?’ he cried.
+  ‘He died an hour ago.’
+  The old priest Peter Gilligan
+  In grief swayed to and fro.
+
+  ‘When you were gone, he turned and died
+  As merry as a bird.’
+  The old priest Peter Gilligan
+  He knelt him at that word.
+
+  ‘He who hath made the night of stars
+  For souls, who tire and bleed,
+  Sent one of His great angels down
+  To help me in my need.
+
+  ‘He who is wrapped in purple robes,
+  With planets in His care,
+  Had pity on the least of things
+  Asleep upon a chair.’
+
+
+THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD PENSIONER
+
+  I HAD a chair at every hearth,
+  When no one turned to see,
+  With ‘Look at that old fellow there,
+  And who may he be?’
+  And therefore do I wander now,
+  And the fret lies on me.
+
+  The road-side trees keep murmuring:
+  Ah, wherefore murmur ye,
+  As in the old days long gone by,
+  Green oak and poplar tree?
+  The well-known faces are all gone
+  And the fret lies on me.
+
+
+THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY
+
+  WHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
+  Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
+  My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
+  My brother in Moharabuiee.
+
+  I passed my brother and cousin:
+  They read in their books of prayer;
+  I read in my book of songs
+  I bought at the Sligo fair.
+
+  When we come at the end of time,
+  To Peter sitting in state,
+  He will smile on the three old spirits,
+  But call me first through the gate;
+
+  For the good are always the merry,
+  Save by an evil chance,
+  And the merry love the fiddle
+  And the merry love to dance:
+
+  And when the folk there spy me,
+  They will all come up to me,
+  With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
+  And dance like a wave of the sea.
+
+
+THE DEDICATION TO A BOOK OF STORIES SELECTED FROM THE IRISH NOVELISTS
+
+  THERE was a green branch hung with many a bell
+  When her own people ruled in wave-worn Eire;
+  And from its murmuring greenness, calm of faery,
+  A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
+
+  It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
+  And turned the farmer’s memory from his cattle,
+  And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle,
+  For all who heard it dreamed a little while.
+
+  Ah, Exiles, wandering over many seas,
+  Spinning at all times Eire’s good to-morrow!
+  Ah, worldwide Nation, always growing Sorrow!
+  I also bear a bell branch full of ease.
+
+  I tore it from green boughs winds tossed and hurled,
+  Green boughs of tossing always, weary, weary!
+  I tore it from the green boughs of old Eire,
+  The willow of the many-sorrowed world.
+
+  Ah, Exiles, wandering over many lands!
+  My bell branch murmurs: the gay bells bring laughter,
+  Leaping to shake a cobweb from the rafter;
+  The sad bells bow the forehead on the hands.
+
+  A honeyed ringing: under the new skies
+  They bring you memories of old village faces;
+  Cabins gone now, old well-sides, old dear places;
+  And men who loved the cause that never dies.
+
+
+
+
+EARLY POEMS
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+_THE ROSE_
+
+
+
+
+‘_Sero te amavi, Pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova! Sero te amavi._’
+
+  S. AUGUSTINE.
+
+
+
+
+TO LIONEL JOHNSON
+
+
+
+
+EARLY POEMS: THE ROSE
+
+
+TO THE ROSE UPON THE ROOD OF TIME
+
+  _Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
+  Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
+  Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
+  The Druid, gray, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
+  Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
+  And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old
+  In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
+  Sing in their high and lonely melody.
+  Come near, that no more blinded by man’s fate,
+  I find under the boughs of love and hate,
+  In all poor foolish things that live a day,
+  Eternal beauty wandering on her way._
+
+  _Come near, come near, come near—Ah, leave me still
+  A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
+  Lest I no more hear common things that crave;
+  The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
+  The field mouse running by me in the grass,
+  And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
+  But seek alone to hear the strange things said
+  By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
+  And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.
+  Come near; I would, before my time to go,
+  Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
+  Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days._
+
+
+FERGUS AND THE DRUID
+
+FERGUS.
+
+  THE whole day have I followed in the rocks,
+  And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape.
+  First as a raven on whose ancient wings
+  Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
+  A weasel moving on from stone to stone,
+  And now at last you wear a human shape,
+  A thin gray man half lost in gathering night.
+
+DRUID.
+
+  What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
+
+FERGUS.
+
+  This would I say, most wise of living souls:
+  Young subtle Conchubar sat close by me
+  When I gave judgment, and his words were wise,
+  And what to me was burden without end
+  To him seemed easy, so I laid the crown
+  Upon his head to cast away my care.
+
+DRUID.
+
+  What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
+
+FERGUS.
+
+  I feast amid my people on the hill,
+  And pace the woods, and drive my chariot wheels
+  In the white border of the murmuring sea;
+  And still I feel the crown upon my head.
+
+DRUID.
+
+  What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
+
+FERGUS.
+
+  I’d put away the foolish might of a king,
+  But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours.
+
+DRUID.
+
+  Look on my thin gray hair and hollow cheeks,
+  And on these hands that may not lift the sword,
+  This body trembling like a wind-blown reed.
+  No maiden loves me, no man seeks my help,
+  Because I be not of the things I dream.
+
+FERGUS.
+
+  A wild and foolish labourer is a king,
+  To do and do and do, and never dream.
+
+DRUID.
+
+  Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams;
+  Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.
+
+FERGUS.
+
+  I see my life go dripping like a stream
+  From change to change; I have been many things,
+  A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
+  Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill,
+  An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,
+  A king sitting upon a chair of gold,
+  And all these things were wonderful and great;
+  But now I have grown nothing, being all,
+  And the whole world weighs down upon my heart:
+  Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow
+  Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing!
+
+
+THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN
+
+  A MAN came slowly from the setting sun,
+  To Forgail’s daughter, Emer, in her dun,
+  And found her dyeing cloth with subtle care,
+  And said, casting aside his draggled hair:
+  ‘I am Aleel, the swineherd, whom you bid
+  Go dwell upon the sea cliffs, vapour-hid;
+  But now my years of watching are no more.’
+
+  Then Emer cast the web upon the floor,
+  And stretching out her arms, red with the dye,
+  Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry.
+
+  Looking on her, Aleel, the swineherd, said:
+  ‘Not any god alive, nor mortal dead,
+  Has slain so mighty armies, so great kings,
+  Nor won the gold that now Cuchulain brings.’
+
+  ‘Why do you tremble thus from feet to crown?’
+
+  Aleel, the swineherd, wept and cast him down
+  Upon the web-heaped floor, and thus his word:
+  ‘With him is one sweet-throated like a bird,
+  And lovelier than the moon upon the sea;
+  He made for her an army cease to be.’
+
+  ‘Who bade you tell these things?’ and then she cried
+  To those about, ‘Beat him with thongs of hide
+  And drive him from the door.’ And thus it was;
+  And where her son, Finmole, on the smooth grass
+  Was driving cattle, came she with swift feet,
+  And called out to him, ‘Son, it is not meet
+  That you stay idling here with flocks and herds.’
+
+  ‘I have long waited, mother, for those words;
+  But wherefore now?’
+
+                    ‘There is a man to die;
+  You have the heaviest arm under the sky.’
+
+  ‘My father dwells among the sea-worn bands,
+  And breaks the ridge of battle with his hands.’
+
+  ‘Nay, you are taller than Cuchulain, son.’
+
+  ‘He is the mightiest man in ship or dun.’
+
+  ‘Nay, he is old and sad with many wars,
+  And weary of the crash of battle cars.’
+
+  ‘I only ask what way my journey lies,
+  For God, who made you bitter, made you wise.’
+
+  ‘The Red Branch kings a tireless banquet keep,
+  Where the sun falls into the Western deep.
+  Go there, and dwell on the green forest rim;
+  But tell alone your name and house to him
+  Whose blade compels, and bid them send you one
+  Who has a like vow from their triple dun.’
+
+  Between the lavish shelter of a wood
+  And the gray tide, the Red Branch multitude
+  Feasted, and with them old Cuchulain dwelt,
+  And his young dear one close beside him knelt,
+  And gazed upon the wisdom of his eyes,
+  More mournful than the depth of starry skies,
+  And pondered on the wonder of his days;
+  And all around the harp-string told his praise,
+  And Conchubar, the Red Branch king of kings,
+  With his own fingers touched the brazen strings.
+  At last Cuchulain spake, ‘A young man strays
+  Driving the deer along the woody ways.
+  I often hear him singing to and fro;
+  I often hear the sweet sound of his bow,
+  Seek out what man he is.’
+
+                          One went and came.
+  ‘He bade me let all know he gives his name
+  At the sword point, and bade me bring him one
+  Who had a like vow from our triple dun.’
+
+  ‘I only of the Red Branch hosted now,’
+  Cuchulain cried, ‘have made and keep that vow.’
+
+  After short fighting in the leafy shade,
+  He spake to the young man, ‘Is there no maid
+  Who loves you, no white arms to wrap you round,
+  Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground,
+  That you come here to meet this ancient sword?’
+
+  ‘The dooms of men are in God’s hidden hoard.’
+
+  ‘Your head a while seemed like a woman’s head
+  That I loved once.’
+
+                      Again the fighting sped,
+  But now the war rage in Cuchulain woke,
+  And through the other’s shield his long blade broke,
+  And pierced him.
+
+          ‘Speak before your breath is done.’
+
+  ‘I am Finmole, mighty Cuchulain’s son.’
+
+  ‘I put you from your pain. I can no more.’
+
+  While day its burden on to evening bore,
+  With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed;
+  Then Conchubar sent that sweet-throated maid,
+  And she, to win him, his gray hair caressed;
+  In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast.
+  Then Conchubar, the subtlest of all men,
+  Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten,
+  Spake thus, ‘Cuchulain will dwell there and brood
+  For three days more in dreadful quietude,
+  And then arise, and raving slay us all.
+  Go, cast on him delusions magical,
+  That he may fight the waves of the loud sea.’
+  And ten by ten under a quicken tree,
+  The Druids chaunted, swaying in their hands
+  Tall wands of alder and white quicken wands.
+
+  In three days’ time, Cuchulain with a moan
+  Stood up, and came to the long sands alone:
+  For four days warred he with the bitter tide;
+  And the waves flowed above him, and he died.
+
+
+THE ROSE OF THE WORLD
+
+  WHO dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
+  For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
+  Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
+  Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
+  And Usna’s children died.
+
+  We and the labouring world are passing by:
+  Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place,
+  Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
+  Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
+  Lives on this lonely face.
+
+  Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
+  Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
+  Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
+  He made the world to be a grassy road
+  Before her wandering feet.
+
+
+THE ROSE OF PEACE
+
+  IF Michael, leader of God’s host
+  When Heaven and Hell are met,
+  Looked down on you from Heaven’s door-post
+  He would his deeds forget.
+
+  Brooding no more upon God’s wars
+  In his Divine homestead,
+  He would go weave out of the stars
+  A chaplet for your head.
+
+  And all folk seeing him bow down,
+  And white stars tell your praise,
+  Would come at last to God’s great town,
+  Led on by gentle ways;
+
+  And God would bid His warfare cease,
+  Saying all things were well;
+  And softly make a rosy peace,
+  A peace of Heaven with Hell.
+
+
+THE ROSE OF BATTLE
+
+  ROSE of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
+  The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled
+  Above the tide of hours, trouble the air,
+  And God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care;
+  While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band
+  With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand.
+  _Turn if you may from battles never done_,
+  I call, as they go by me one by one,
+  _Danger no refuge holds, and war no peace,
+  For him who hears love sing and never cease,
+  Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:
+  But gather all for whom no love hath made
+  A woven silence, or but came to cast
+  A song into the air, and singing past
+  To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you
+  Who have sought more than is in rain or dew
+  Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,
+  Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,
+  Or comes in laughter from the sea’s sad lips;
+  And wage God’s battles in the long gray ships.
+  The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,
+  To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;
+  God’s bell has claimed them by the little cry
+  Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die._
+
+  Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
+  You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
+  Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
+  The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
+  Beauty grown sad with its eternity
+  Made you of us, and of the dim gray sea.
+  Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,
+  For God has bid them share an equal fate;
+  And when at last defeated in His wars,
+  They have gone down under the same white stars,
+  We shall no longer hear the little cry
+  Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.
+
+
+A FAERY SONG
+
+_Sung by the people of faery over Diarmuid and Grania, who lay in their
+bridal sleep under a Cromlech._
+
+  WE who are old, old and gay,
+  O so old!
+  Thousands of years, thousands of years,
+  If all were told:
+
+  Give to these children, new from the world,
+  Silence and love;
+  And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,
+  And the stars above:
+
+  Give to these children, new from the world,
+  Rest far from men.
+  Is anything better, anything better?
+  Tell us it then:
+
+  Us who are old, old and gay,
+  O so old!
+  Thousands of years, thousands of years,
+  If all were told.
+
+
+THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
+
+  I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
+  And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
+  Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
+  And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
+
+  And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
+  Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
+  There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
+  And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
+
+  I will arise and go now, for always night and day
+  I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
+  While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
+  I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
+
+
+A CRADLE SONG
+
+  THE angels are stooping
+  Above your bed;
+  They weary of trooping
+  With the whimpering dead.
+
+  God’s laughing in heaven
+  To see you so good;
+  The shining Seven
+  Are gay with His mood.
+
+  I kiss you and kiss you,
+  My pigeon, my own;
+  Ah, how I shall miss you
+  When you have grown.
+
+
+THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER
+
+  I RISE in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
+  Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
+  And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
+  Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
+  And the young lie long and dream in their bed
+  Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
+  And their day goes over in idleness,
+  And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
+  While I must work because I am old,
+  And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.
+
+
+THE PITY OF LOVE
+
+  A PITY beyond all telling
+  Is hid in the heart of love:
+  The folk who are buying and selling;
+  The clouds on their journey above;
+  The cold wet winds ever blowing;
+  And the shadowy hazel grove
+  Where mouse-gray waters are flowing
+  Threaten the head that I love.
+
+
+THE SORROW OF LOVE
+
+  THE quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,
+  The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
+  And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
+  Had hid away earth’s old and weary cry.
+
+  And then you came with those red mournful lips,
+  And with you came the whole of the world’s tears,
+  And all the trouble of her labouring ships,
+  And all the trouble of her myriad years.
+
+  And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
+  The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
+  And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,
+  Are shaken with earth’s old and weary cry.
+
+
+WHEN YOU ARE OLD
+
+  WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,
+  And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
+  And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
+  Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
+
+  How many loved your moments of glad grace,
+  And loved your beauty with love false or true;
+  But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
+  And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
+
+  And bending down beside the glowing bars
+  Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
+  And paced upon the mountains overhead
+  And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
+
+
+THE WHITE BIRDS
+
+  I WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
+  We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
+  And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of
+            the sky,
+  Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
+
+  A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;
+  Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,
+  Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of
+            the dew:
+  For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam:
+            I and you!
+
+  I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,
+  Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;
+  Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would
+            we be,
+  Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of
+            the sea!
+
+
+A DREAM OF DEATH
+
+  I DREAMED that one had died in a strange place
+  Near no accustomed hand:
+  And they had nailed the boards above her face,
+  The peasants of that land,
+  And, wondering, planted by her solitude
+  A cypress and a yew:
+  I came, and wrote upon a cross of wood,
+  Man had no more to do:
+  _She was more beautiful than thy first love,
+  This lady by the trees_:
+  And gazed upon the mournful stars above,
+  And heard the mournful breeze.
+
+
+A DREAM OF A BLESSED SPIRIT
+
+  ALL the heavy days are over;
+  Leave the body’s coloured pride
+  Underneath the grass and clover,
+  With the feet laid side by side.
+
+  One with her are mirth and duty;
+  Bear the gold embroidered dress,
+  For she needs not her sad beauty,
+  To the scented oaken press.
+
+  Hers the kiss of Mother Mary,
+  The long hair is on her face;
+  Still she goes with footsteps wary,
+  Full of earth’s old timid grace.
+
+  With white feet of angels seven
+  Her white feet go glimmering;
+  And above the deep of heaven,
+  Flame on flame and wing on wing.
+
+
+THE MAN WHO DREAMED OF FAERYLAND
+
+  HE stood among a crowd at Drumahair;
+  His heart hung all upon a silken dress,
+  And he had known at last some tenderness,
+  Before earth made of him her sleepy care;
+  But when a man poured fish into a pile,
+  It seemed they raised their little silver heads,
+  And sang how day a Druid twilight sheds
+  Upon a dim, green, well-beloved isle,
+  Where people love beside star-laden seas;
+  How Time may never mar their faery vows
+  Under the woven roofs of quicken boughs:
+  The singing shook him out of his new ease.
+
+  He wandered by the sands of Lisadill;
+  His mind ran all on money cares and fears,
+  And he had known at last some prudent years
+  Before they heaped his grave under the hill;
+  But while he passed before a plashy place,
+  A lug-worm with its gray and muddy mouth
+  Sang how somewhere to north or west or south
+  There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race;
+  And how beneath those three times blessed skies
+  A Danaan fruitage makes a shower of moons,
+  And as it falls awakens leafy tunes:
+  And at that singing he was no more wise.
+
+  He mused beside the well of Scanavin,
+  He mused upon his mockers: without fail
+  His sudden vengeance were a country tale,
+  Now that deep earth has drunk his body in;
+  But one small knot-grass growing by the pool
+  Told where, ah, little, all-unneeded voice!
+  Old Silence bids a lonely folk rejoice,
+  And chaplet their calm brows with leafage cool;
+  And how, when fades the sea-strewn rose of day,
+  A gentle feeling wraps them like a fleece,
+  And all their trouble dies into its peace:
+  The tale drove his fine angry mood away.
+
+  He slept under the hill of Lugnagall;
+  And might have known at last unhaunted sleep
+  Under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,
+  Now that old earth had taken man and all:
+  Were not the worms that spired about his bones
+  A-telling with their low and reedy cry,
+  Of how God leans His hands out of the sky,
+  To bless that isle with honey in His tones;
+  That none may feel the power of squall and wave,
+  And no one any leaf-crowned dancer miss
+  Until He burn up Nature with a kiss:
+  The man has found no comfort in the grave.
+
+
+THE TWO TREES
+
+  BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart,
+  The holy tree is growing there;
+  From joy the holy branches start,
+  And all the trembling flowers they bear.
+  The changing colours of its fruit
+  Have dowered the stars with merry light;
+  The surety of its hidden root
+  Has planted quiet in the night;
+  The shaking of its leafy head
+  Has given the waves their melody,
+  And made my lips and music wed,
+  Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
+  There, through bewildered branches, go
+  Winged Loves borne on in gentle strife,
+  Tossing and tossing to and fro
+  The flaming circle of our life.
+  When looking on their shaken hair,
+  And dreaming how they dance and dart,
+  Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
+  Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
+  Gaze no more in the bitter glass
+  The demons, with their subtle guile,
+  Lift up before us when they pass,
+  Or only gaze a little while;
+  For there a fatal image grows,
+  With broken boughs, and blackened leaves,
+  And roots half hidden under snows
+  Driven by a storm that ever grieves.
+  For all things turn to barrenness
+  In the dim glass the demons hold,
+  The glass of outer weariness,
+  Made when God slept in times of old.
+  There, through the broken branches, go
+  The ravens of unresting thought;
+  Peering and flying to and fro,
+  To see men’s souls bartered and bought.
+  When they are heard upon the wind,
+  And when they shake their wings; alas!
+  Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
+  Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
+
+
+TO IRELAND IN THE COMING TIMES
+
+  _Know, that I would accounted be
+  True brother of that company,
+  Who sang to sweeten Ireland’s wrong,
+  Ballad and story, rann and song;
+  Nor be I any less of them,
+  Because the red-rose-bordered hem
+  Of her, whose history began
+  Before God made the angelic clan,
+  Trails all about the written page;
+  For in the world’s first blossoming age
+  The light fall of her flying feet
+  Made Ireland’s heart begin to beat;
+  And still the starry candles flare
+  To help her light foot here and there;
+  And still the thoughts of Ireland brood
+  Upon her holy quietude._
+
+  _Nor may I less be counted one
+  With Davis, Mangan, Ferguson,
+  Because to him, who ponders well,
+  My rhymes more than their rhyming tell
+  Of the dim wisdoms old and deep,
+  That God gives unto man in sleep.
+  For the elemental beings go
+  About my table to and fro.
+  In flood and fire and clay and wind,
+  They huddle from man’s pondering mind;
+  Yet he who treads in austere ways
+  May surely meet their ancient gaze.
+  Man ever journeys on with them
+  After the red-rose-bordered hem.
+  Ah, faeries, dancing under the moon,
+  A Druid land, a Druid tune!
+
+  While still I may, I write for you
+  The love I lived, the dream I knew.
+  From our birthday, until we die,
+  Is but the winking of an eye;
+  And we, our singing and our love,
+  The mariners of night above,
+  And all the wizard things that go
+  About my table to and fro,
+  Are passing on to where may be,
+  In truth’s consuming ecstasy,
+  No place for love and dream at all;
+  For God goes by with white foot-fall.
+  I cast my heart into my rhymes,
+  That you, in the dim coming times,
+  May know how my heart went with them
+  After the red-rose-bordered hem._
+
+
+
+
+EARLY POEMS
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+_THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN_
+
+
+
+  ‘_Give me the world if Thou wilt, but grant me an asylum
+            for my affections._’
+                                                    TULKA.
+
+
+
+
+TO EDWIN J. ELLIS
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN
+
+
+S. PATRIC.
+
+  YOU who are bent, and bald, and blind,
+  With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
+  Have known three centuries, poets sing,
+  Of dalliance with a demon thing.
+
+OISIN.
+
+  Sad to remember, sick with years,
+  The swift innumerable spears,
+  The horsemen with their floating hair,
+  And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
+  And feet of maidens dancing in tune,
+  And the white body that lay by mine;
+  But the tale, though words be lighter than air,
+  Must live to be old like the wandering moon.
+
+  Caolte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
+  When we followed a deer with our baying hounds,
+  With Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,
+  And passing the Firbolgs’ burial mounds,
+  Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
+  Where passionate Maeve is stony still;
+  And found on the dove-gray edge of the sea
+  A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
+  On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
+  And like a sunset were her lips,
+  A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
+  A citron colour gloomed in her hair,
+  But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
+  And with the glimmering crimson glowed
+  Of many a figured embroidery;
+  And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
+  That wavered like the summer streams,
+  As her soft bosom rose and fell.
+
+S. PATRIC.
+
+  You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.
+
+OISIN.
+
+  ‘Why do you wind no horn?’ she said.
+  ‘And every hero droop his head?
+  The hornless deer is not more sad
+  That many a peaceful moment had,
+  More sleek than any granary mouse,
+  In his own leafy forest house
+  Among the waving fields of fern:
+  The hunting of heroes should be glad.’
+
+  ‘O pleasant maiden,’ answered Finn,
+  ‘We think on Oscar’s pencilled urn,
+  And on the heroes lying slain,
+  On Gavra’s raven-covered plain;
+  But where are your noble kith and kin,
+  And into what country do you ride?’
+
+  ‘My father and my mother are
+  Aengus and Edain, and my name
+  Is Niamh, and my land where tide
+  And sleep drown sun and moon and star.’
+
+  ‘What dream came with you that you came
+  To this dim shore on foam-wet feet?
+  Did your companion wander away
+  From where the birds of Aengus wing?’
+
+  She said, with laughter tender and sweet:
+  ‘I have not yet, war-weary king,
+  Been spoken of with any one;
+  For love of Oisin foam-wet feet
+  Have borne me where the tempests blind
+  Your mortal shores till time is done!’
+
+  ‘How comes it, princess, that your mind
+  Among undying people has run
+  On this young man, Oisin, my son?’
+
+  ‘I loved no man, though kings besought
+  And many a man of lofty name,
+  Until the Danaan poets came,
+  Bringing me honeyed, wandering thought
+  Of noble Oisin and his fame,
+  Of battles broken by his hands,
+  Of stories builded by his words
+  That are like coloured Asian birds
+  At evening in their rainless lands.’
+
+  O Patric, by your brazen bell,
+  There was no limb of mine but fell
+  Into a desperate gulph of love!
+  ‘You only will I wed,’ I cried,
+  ‘And I will make a thousand songs,
+  And set your name all names above,
+  And captives bound with leathern thongs
+  Shall kneel and praise you, one by one,
+  At evening in my western dun.’
+
+  ‘O Oisin, mount by me and ride
+  To shores by the wash of the tremulous tide,
+  Where men have heaped no burial mounds,
+  And the days pass by like a wayward tune,
+  Where broken faith has never been known,
+  And the blushes of first love never have flown;
+  And there I will give you a hundred hounds;
+  No mightier creatures bay at the moon;
+  And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,
+  And a hundred calves and a hundred sheep
+  Whose long wool whiter than sea froth flows,
+  And a hundred spears and a hundred bows,
+  And oil and wine and honey and milk,
+  And always never-anxious sleep;
+  While a hundred youths, mighty of limb,
+  But knowing nor tumult nor hate nor strife,
+  And a hundred maidens, merry as birds,
+  Who when they dance to a fitful measure
+  Have a speed like the speed of the salmon herds,
+  Shall follow your horn and obey your whim,
+  And you shall know the Danaan leisure:
+  And Niamh be with you for a wife.’
+  Then she sighed gently, ‘It grows late,
+  Music and love and sleep await,
+  Where I would be when the white moon climbs,
+  The red sun falls, and the world grows dim.’
+
+  And then I mounted and she bound me
+  With her triumphing arms around me,
+  And whispering to herself enwound me;
+  But when the horse had felt my weight,
+  He shook himself and neighed three times:
+  Caolte, Conan, and Finn came near,
+  And wept, and raised their lamenting hands,
+  And bid me stay, with many a tear;
+  But we rode out from the human lands.
+
+  In what far kingdom do you go,
+  Ah, Fenians, with the shield and bow?
+  Or are you phantoms white as snow,
+  Whose lips had life’s most prosperous glow?
+  O you, with whom in sloping valleys,
+  Or down the dewy forest alleys,
+  I chased at morn the flying deer,
+  With whom I hurled the hurrying spear,
+  And heard the foemen’s bucklers rattle,
+  And broke the heaving ranks of battle!
+  And Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,
+  Where are you with your long rough hair?
+  You go not where the red deer feeds,
+  Nor tear the foemen from their steeds.
+
+S. PATRIC.
+
+  Boast not, nor mourn with drooping head
+  Companions long accurst and dead,
+  And hounds for centuries dust and air.
+
+OISIN.
+
+  We galloped over the glossy sea:
+  I know not if days passed or hours,
+  And Niamh sang continually
+  Danaan songs, and their dewy showers
+  Of pensive laughter, unhuman sound,
+  Lulled weariness, and softly round
+  My human sorrow her white arms wound.
+
+  On! on! and now a hornless deer
+  Passed by us, chased by a phantom hound
+  All pearly white, save one red ear;
+  And now a maiden rode like the wind
+  With an apple of gold in her tossing hand,
+  And with quenchless eyes and fluttering hair
+  A beautiful young man followed behind.
+
+  ‘Were these two born in the Danaan land,
+  Or have they breathed the mortal air?’
+
+  ‘Vex them no longer,’ Niamh said,
+  And sighing bowed her gentle head,
+  And sighing laid the pearly tip
+  Of one long finger on my lip.
+
+  But now the moon like a white rose shone
+  In the pale west, and the sun’s rim sank,
+  And clouds arrayed their rank on rank
+  About his fading crimson ball:
+  The floor of Emen’s hosting hall
+  Was not more level than the sea,
+  As full of loving phantasy,
+  And with low murmurs we rode on,
+  Where many a trumpet-twisted shell
+  That in immortal silence sleeps
+  Dreaming of her own melting hues,
+  Her golds, her ambers, and her blues,
+  Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps.
+  But now a wandering land breeze came
+  And a far sound of feathery quires;
+  It seemed to blow from the dying flame,
+  They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.
+  The horse towards the music raced,
+  Neighing along the lifeless waste;
+  Like sooty fingers, many a tree
+  Rose ever out of the warm sea;
+  And they were trembling ceaselessly,
+  As though they all were beating time,
+  Upon the centre of the sun,
+  To that low laughing woodland rhyme.
+  And, now our wandering hours were done,
+  We cantered to the shore, and knew
+  The reason of the trembling trees:
+  Round every branch the song-birds flew,
+  Or clung thereon like swarming bees;
+  While round the shore a million stood
+  Like drops of frozen rainbow light,
+  And pondered in a soft vain mood,
+  Upon their shadows in the tide,
+  And told the purple deeps their pride,
+  And murmured snatches of delight;
+  And on the shores were many boats
+  With bending sterns and bending bows,
+  And carven figures on their prows
+  Of bitterns, and fish-eating stoats,
+  And swans with their exultant throats:
+  And where the wood and waters meet
+  We tied the horse in a leafy clump,
+  And Niamh blew three merry notes
+  Out of a little silver trump;
+  And then an answering whisper flew
+  Over the bare and woody land,
+  A whisper of impetuous feet,
+  And ever nearer, nearer grew;
+  And from the woods rushed out a band
+  Of men and maidens, hand in hand,
+  And singing, singing altogether;
+  Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
+  Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
+  And trimmed with many a crimson feather:
+  And when they saw the cloak I wore
+  Was dim with mire of a mortal shore,
+  They fingered it and gazed on me
+  And laughed like murmurs of the sea;
+  But Niamh with a swift distress
+  Bid them away and hold their peace;
+  And when they heard her voice they ran
+  And knelt them, every maid and man,
+  And kissed, as they would never cease,
+  Her pearl-pale hand and the hem of her dress.
+  She bade them bring us to the hall
+  Where Aengus dreams, from sun to sun,
+  A Druid dream of the end of days
+  When the stars are to wane and the world be done.
+
+  They led us by long and shadowy ways
+  Where drops of dew in myriads fall,
+  And tangled creepers every hour
+  Blossom in some new crimson flower,
+  And once a sudden laughter sprang
+  From all their lips, and once they sang
+  Together, while the dark woods rang,
+  And made in all their distant parts,
+  With boom of bees in honey marts,
+  A rumour of delighted hearts.
+  And once a maiden by my side
+  Gave me a harp, and bid me sing,
+  And touch the laughing silver string;
+  But when I sang of human joy
+  A sorrow wrapped each merry face,
+  And, Patric! by your beard, they wept,
+  Until one came, a tearful boy;
+  ‘A sadder creature never stept
+  Than this strange human bard,’ he cried;
+  And caught the silver harp away,
+  And, weeping over the white strings, hurled
+  It down in a leaf-hid hollow place
+  That kept dim waters from the sky;
+  And each one said with a long, long sigh,
+  ‘O saddest harp in all the world,
+  Sleep there till the moon and the stars die!’
+
+  And now still sad we came to where
+  A beautiful young man dreamed within
+  A house of wattles, clay, and skin;
+  One hand upheld his beardless chin,
+  And one a sceptre flashing out
+  Wild flames of red and gold and blue,
+  Like to a merry wandering rout
+  Of dancers leaping in the air;
+  And men and maidens knelt them there
+  And showed their eyes with teardrops dim,
+  And with low murmurs prayed to him,
+  And kissed the sceptre with red lips,
+  And touched it with their finger-tips.
+
+  He held that flashing sceptre up.
+  ‘Joy drowns the twilight in the dew,
+  And fills with stars night’s purple cup,
+  And wakes the sluggard seeds of corn,
+  And stirs the young kid’s budding horn,
+  And makes the infant ferns unwrap,
+  And for the peewit paints his cap,
+  And rolls along the unwieldy sun,
+  And makes the little planets run:
+  And if joy were not on the earth,
+  There were an end of change and birth,
+  And earth and heaven and hell would die,
+  And in some gloomy barrow lie
+  Folded like a frozen fly;
+  Then mock at Death and Time with glances
+  And waving arms and wandering dances.
+
+  ‘Men’s hearts of old were drops of flame
+  That from the saffron morning came,
+  Or drops of silver joy that fell
+  Out of the moon’s pale twisted shell;
+  But now hearts cry that hearts are slaves,
+  And toss and turn in narrow caves;
+  But here there is nor law nor rule,
+  Nor have hands held a weary tool;
+  And here there is nor Change nor Death,
+  But only kind and merry breath,
+  For joy is God and God is joy.’
+  With one long glance on maid and boy
+  And the pale blossom of the moon,
+  He fell into a Druid swoon.
+
+  And in a wild and sudden dance
+  We mocked at Time and Fate and Chance,
+  And swept out of the wattled hall
+  And came to where the dewdrops fall
+  Among the foamdrops of the sea,
+  And there we hushed the revelry;
+  And, gathering on our brows a frown,
+  Bent all our swaying bodies down,
+  And to the waves that glimmer by
+  That slooping green De Danaan sod
+  Sang, ‘God is joy and joy is God,
+  And things that have grown sad are wicked,
+  And things that fear the dawn of the morrow,
+  Or the gray wandering osprey Sorrow.’
+
+  We danced to where in the winding thicket
+  The damask roses, bloom on bloom,
+  Like crimson meteors hang in the gloom,
+  And bending over them softly said,
+  Bending over them in the dance,
+  With a swift and friendly glance
+  From dewy eyes: ‘Upon the dead
+  Fall the leaves of other roses,
+  On the dead dim earth encloses:
+  But never, never on our graves,
+  Heaped beside the glimmering waves,
+  Shall fall the leaves of damask roses.
+  For neither Death nor Change comes near us,
+  And all listless hours fear us,
+  And we fear no dawning morrow,
+  Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow.’
+
+  The dance wound through the windless woods;
+  The ever-summered solitudes;
+  Until the tossing arms grew still
+  Upon the woody central hill;
+  And, gathered in a panting band,
+  We flung on high each waving hand,
+  And sang unto the starry broods:
+  In our raised eyes there flashed a glow
+  Of milky brightness to and fro
+  As thus our song arose: ‘You stars,
+  Across your wandering ruby cars
+  Shake the loose reins: you slaves of God,
+  He rules you with an iron rod,
+  He holds you with an iron bond,
+  Each one woven to the other,
+  Each one woven to his brother
+  Like bubbles in a frozen pond;
+  But we in a lonely land abide
+  Unchainable as the dim tide,
+  With hearts that know nor law nor rule,
+  And hands that hold no wearisome tool;
+  Folded in love that fears no morrow,
+  Nor the gray wandering osprey Sorrow.’
+
+  O Patric! for a hundred years
+  I chased upon that woody shore
+  The deer, the badger, and the boar.
+  O Patric! for a hundred years
+  At evening on the glimmering sands,
+  Beside the piled-up hunting spears,
+  These now outworn and withered hands
+  Wrestled among the island bands.
+  O Patric! for a hundred years
+  We went a-fishing in long boats
+  With bending sterns and bending bows,
+  And carven figures on their prows
+  Of bitterns and fish-eating stoats.
+  O Patric! for a hundred years
+  The gentle Niamh was my wife;
+  But now two things devour my life;
+  The things that most of all I hate:
+  Fasting and prayers.
+
+S. PATRIC.
+
+  Tell on.
+
+OISIN.
+
+                            Yes, yes,
+  For these were ancient Oisin’s fate
+  Loosed long ago from heaven’s gate,
+  For his last days to lie in wait.
+
+  When one day by the shore I stood,
+  I drew out of the numberless
+  White flowers of the foam a staff of wood
+  From some dead warrior’s broken lance:
+  I turned it in my hands; the stains
+  Of war were on it, and I wept,
+  Remembering how the Fenians stept
+  Along the blood-bedabbled plains,
+  Equal to good or grievous chance:
+  Thereon young Niamh softly came
+  And caught my hands, but spake no word
+  Save only many times my name,
+  In murmurs, like a frighted bird.
+  We passed by woods, and lawns of clover,
+  And found the horse and bridled him,
+  For we knew well the old was over.
+  I heard one say ‘his eyes grow dim
+  With all the ancient sorrow of men’;
+  And wrapped in dreams rode out again
+  With hoofs of the pale findrinny
+  Over the glimmering purple sea:
+  Under the golden evening light.
+  The immortals moved among the fountains
+  By rivers and the woods’ old night;
+  Some danced like shadows on the mountains,
+  Some wandered ever hand in hand,
+  Or sat in dreams on the pale strand;
+  Each forehead like an obscure star
+  Bent down above each hooked knee:
+  And sang, and with a dreamy gaze
+  Watched where the sun in a saffron blaze
+  Was slumbering half in the sea ways;
+  And, as they sang, the painted birds
+  Kept time with their bright wings and feet;
+  Like drops of honey came their words,
+  But fainter than a young lamb’s bleat.
+  ‘An old man stirs the fire to a blaze,
+  In the house of a child, of a friend, of a brother;
+  He has over-lingered his welcome; the days,
+  Grown desolate, whisper and sigh to each other;
+  He hears the storm in the chimney above,
+  And bends to the fire and shakes with the cold,
+  While his heart still dreams of battle and love,
+  And the cry of the hounds on the hills of old.
+
+  ‘But we are apart in the grassy places,
+  Where care cannot trouble the least of our days,
+  Or the softness of youth be gone from our faces,
+  Or love’s first tenderness die in our gaze.
+  The hare grows old as she plays in the sun
+  And gazes around her with eyes of brightness;
+  Before the swift things that she dreamed of were done
+  She limps along in an aged whiteness;
+  A storm of birds in the Asian trees
+  Like tulips in the air a-winging,
+  And the gentle waves of the summer seas,
+  That raise their heads and wander singing,
+  Must murmur at last “unjust, unjust”;
+  And “my speed is a weariness,” falters the mouse;
+  And the kingfisher turns to a ball of dust,
+  And the roof falls in of his tunnelled house.
+  But the love-dew dims our eyes till the day
+  When God shall come from the sea with a sigh
+  And bid the stars drop down from the sky,
+  And the moon like a pale rose wither away.’
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN
+
+
+  NOW, man of croziers, shadows called our names
+  And then away, away, like whirling flames;
+  And now fled by, mist-covered, without sound,
+  The youth and lady and the deer and hound;
+  ‘Gaze no more on the phantoms,’ Niamh said,
+  And kissed my eyes, and, swaying her bright head
+  And her bright body, sang of faery and man
+  Before God was or my old line began;
+  Wars shadowy, vast, exultant; faeries of old
+  Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold;
+  And how those lovers never turn their eyes
+  Upon the life that fades and flickers and dies,
+  But love and kiss on dim shores far away
+  Rolled round with music of the sighing spray:
+  But sang no more, as when, like a brown bee
+  That has drunk full, she crossed the misty sea
+  With me in her white arms a hundred years
+  Before this day; for now the fall of tears
+  Troubled her song.
+
+                    I do not know if days
+  Or hours passed by, yet hold the morning rays
+  Shone many times among the glimmering flowers
+  Wove in her flower-like hair, before dark towers
+  Rose in the darkness, and the white surf gleamed
+  About them; and the horse of faery screamed
+  And shivered, knowing the Isle of many Fears,
+  Nor ceased until white Niamh stroked his ears
+  And named him by sweet names.
+
+                          A foaming tide
+  Whitened afar with surge, fan-formed and wide,
+  Burst from a great door marred by many a blow
+  From mace and sword and pole-axe, long ago
+  When gods and giants warred. We rode between
+  The seaweed-covered pillars, and the green
+  And surging phosphorus alone gave light
+  On our dark pathway, till a countless flight
+  Of moonlit steps glimmered; and left and right
+  Dark statues glimmered over the pale tide
+  Upon dark thrones. Between the lids of one
+  The imaged meteors had flashed and run
+  And had disported in the stilly jet,
+  And the fixed stars had dawned and shone and set,
+  Since God made Time and Death and Sleep: the other
+  Stretched his long arm to where, a misty smother,
+  The stream churned, churned, and churned—his lips apart,
+  As though he told his never slumbering heart
+  Of every foamdrop on its misty way:
+  Tying the horse to his vast foot that lay
+  Half in the unvesselled sea, we climbed the stairs
+  And climbed so long, I thought the last steps were
+  Hung from the morning star; when these mild words
+  Fanned the delighted air like wings of birds:
+  ‘My brothers spring out of their beds at morn,
+  A-murmur like young partridge: with loud horn
+  They chase the noon-tide deer;
+  And when the dew-drowned stars hang in the air
+  Look to long fishing-lines, or point and pare
+  A larch-wood hunting spear.
+
+  ‘O sigh, O fluttering sigh, be kind to me;
+  Flutter along the froth lips of the sea,
+  And shores the froth lips wet:
+  And stay a little while, and bid them weep:
+  Ah, touch their blue veined eyelids if they sleep,
+  And shake their coverlet.
+
+  ‘When you have told how I weep endlessly,
+  Flutter along the froth lips of the sea
+  And home to me again,
+  And in the shadow of my hair lie hid,
+  And tell me how you came to one unbid,
+  The saddest of all men.’
+
+  A maiden with soft eyes like funeral tapers,
+  And face that seemed wrought out of moonlit vapours,
+  And a sad mouth, that fear made tremulous
+  As any ruddy moth, looked down on us;
+  And she with a wave-rusted chain was tied
+  To two old eagles, full of ancient pride,
+  That with dim eyeballs stood on either side.
+  Few feathers were on their dishevelled wings,
+  For their dim minds were with the ancient things.
+
+  ‘I bring deliverance,’ pearl-pale Niamh said.
+
+  ‘Neither the living, nor the unlabouring dead,
+  Nor the high gods who never lived, may fight
+  My enemy and hope; demons for fright
+  Jabber and scream about him in the night;
+  For he is strong and crafty as the seas
+  That sprang under the Seven Hazel Trees.
+  And I must needs endure and hate and weep,
+  Until the gods and demons drop asleep,
+  Hearing Aed touch the mournful strings of gold.’
+
+  ‘Is he so dreadful?’
+
+                    ‘Be not over-bold,
+  But flee while you may flee from him.’
+
+                                    Then I:
+  ‘This demon shall be pierced and drop and die,
+  And his loose bulk be thrown in the loud tide.’
+
+  ‘Flee from him,’ pearl-pale Niamh weeping cried,
+  ‘For all men flee the demons’; but moved not,
+  Nor shook my firm and spacious soul one jot;
+  There was no mightier soul of Heber’s line;
+  Now it is old and mouse-like: for a sign
+  I burst the chain: still earless, nerveless, blind,
+  Wrapped in the things of the unhuman mind,
+  In some dim memory or ancient mood
+  Still earless, nerveless, blind, the eagles stood.
+
+  And then we climbed the stair to a high door,
+  A hundred horsemen on the basalt floor
+  Beneath had paced content: we held our way
+  And stood within: clothed in a misty ray
+  I saw a foam-white seagull drift and float
+  Under the roof, and with a straining throat
+  Shouted, and hailed him: he hung there a star,
+  For no man’s cry shall ever mount so far;
+  Not even your God could have thrown down that hall;
+  Stabling His unloosed lightnings in their stall,
+  He had sat down and sighed with cumbered heart,
+  As though His hour were come.
+
+                        We sought the part
+  That was most distant from the door; green slime
+  Made the way slippery, and time on time
+  Showed prints of sea-born scales, while down through it
+  The captives’ journeys to and fro were writ
+  Like a small river, and, where feet touched, came
+  A momentary gleam of phosphorus flame.
+  Under the deepest shadows of the hall
+  That maiden found a ring hung on the wall,
+  And in the ring a torch, and with its flare
+  Making a world about her in the air,
+  Passed under a dim doorway, out of sight,
+  And came again, holding a second light
+  Burning between her fingers, and in mine
+  Laid it and sighed: I held a sword whose shine
+  No centuries could dim: and a word ran
+  Thereon in Ogham letters, ‘Mananan’:
+  That sea-god’s name, who in a deep content
+  Sprang dripping, and, with captive demons sent
+  Out of the seven-fold seas, built the dark hall
+  Rooted in foam and clouds, and cried to all
+  The mightier masters of a mightier race;
+  And at his cry there came no milk-pale face
+  Under a crown of thorns and dark with blood,
+  But only exultant faces.
+
+                      Niamh stood
+  With bowed head, trembling when the white blade shone,
+  But she whose hours of tenderness were gone
+  Had neither hope nor fear. I bade them hide
+  Under the shadows till the tumults died
+  Of the loud crashing and earth-shaking fight,
+  Lest they should look upon some dreadful sight;
+  And thrust the torch between the slimy flags.
+  A dome made out of endless carven jags,
+  Where shadowy face flowed into shadowy face,
+  Looked down on me; and in the self-same place
+  I waited hour by hour, and the high dome
+  Windowless, pillarless, multitudinous home
+  Of faces, waited; and the leisured gaze
+  Was loaded with the memory of days
+  Buried and mighty: when through the great door
+  The dawn came in, and glimmered on the floor
+  With a pale light, I journeyed round the hall
+  And found a door deep sunken in the wall,
+  The least of doors; beyond on a dim plain
+  A little runnel made a bubbling strain,
+  And on the runnel’s stony and bare edge
+  A dusky demon dry as a withered sedge
+  Swayed, crooning to himself an unknown tongue:
+  In a sad revelry he sang and swung
+  Bacchant and mournful, passing to and fro
+  His hand along the runnel’s side, as though
+  The flowers still grew there: far on the sea’s waste;
+  Shaking and waving, vapour vapour chased,
+  While high frail cloudlets, fed with a green light,
+  Like drifts of leaves, immovable and bright,
+  Hung in the passionate dawn. He slowly turned:
+  A demon’s leisure: eyes, first white, now burned
+  Like wings of kingfishers; and he arose
+  Barking. We trampled up and down with blows
+  Of sword and brazen battle-axe, while day
+  Gave to high noon and noon to night gave way;
+  But when at withering of the sun he knew
+  The Druid sword of Mananan, he grew
+  To many shapes; I lunged at the smooth throat
+  Of a great eel; it changed, and I but smote
+  A fir-tree roaring in its leafless top;
+  And I but held a corpse, with livid chop
+  And dripping and sunken shape, to face and breast,
+  When I tore down that tree; but when the west
+  Surged up in plumy fire, I lunged and drave
+  Through heart and spine, and cast him in the wave,
+  Lest Niamh shudder.
+
+                    Full of hope and dread
+  Those two came carrying wine and meat and bread,
+  And healed my wounds with unguents out of flowers,
+  That feed white moths by some De Danaan shrine;
+  Then in that hall, lit by the dim sea-shine,
+  We lay on skins of otters, and drank wine,
+  Brewed by the sea-gods, from huge cups that lay
+  Upon the lips of sea-gods in their day;
+  And then on heaped-up skins of otters slept.
+  But when the sun once more in saffron stept,
+  Rolling his flagrant wheel out of the deep,
+  We sang the loves and angers without sleep,
+  And all the exultant labours of the strong:
+
+  But now the lying clerics murder song
+  With barren words and flatteries of the weak.
+  In what land do the powerless turn the beak
+  Of ravening Sorrow, or the hand of Wrath?
+  For all your croziers, they have left the path
+  And wander in the storms and clinging snows,
+  Hopeless for ever: ancient Oisin knows,
+  For he is weak and poor and blind, and lies
+  On the anvil of the world.
+
+S. PATRIC.
+
+                            Be still: the skies
+  Are choked with thunder, lightning, and fierce wind,
+  For God has heard, and speaks His angry mind;
+  Go cast your body on the stones and pray,
+  For He has wrought midnight and dawn and day.
+
+OISIN.
+
+  Saint, do you weep? I hear amid the thunder
+  The Fenian horses; armour torn asunder;
+  Laughter and cries: the armies clash and shock;
+  All is done now; I see the ravens flock;
+  Ah, cease, you mournful, laughing Fenian horn!
+
+  We feasted for three days. On the fourth morn
+  I found, dropping sea-foam on the wide stair,
+  And hung with slime, and whispering in his hair,
+  That demon dull and unsubduable;
+  And once more to a day-long battle fell,
+  And at the sundown threw him in the surge,
+  To lie until the fourth morn saw emerge
+  His new healed shape: and for a hundred years
+  So warred, so feasted, with nor dreams, nor fears
+  Nor languor nor fatigue: an endless feast,
+  An endless war.
+
+                The hundred years had ceased;
+  I stood upon the stair: the surges bore
+  A beech bough to me, and my heart grew sore,
+  Remembering how I stood by white-haired Finn
+  While the woodpecker made a merry din,
+  The hare leaped in the grass.
+
+                          Young Niamh came
+  Holding that horse, and sadly called my name;
+  I mounted, and we passed over the lone
+  And drifting grayness, while this monotone,
+  Surly and distant, mixed inseparably
+  Into the clangour of the wind and sea:
+
+  ‘I hear my soul drop down into decay,
+  And Mananan’s dark tower, stone by stone,
+  Gather sea-slime and fall the seaward way,
+  And the moon goad the waters night and day,
+  That all be overthrown.
+
+  ‘But till the moon has taken all, I wage
+  War on the mightiest men under the skies,
+  And they have fallen or fled, age after age:
+  Light is man’s love, and lighter is man’s rage;
+  His purpose drifts and dies.’
+
+  And then lost Niamh murmured, ‘Love, we go
+  To the Island of Forgetfulness, for lo!
+  The Islands of Dancing and of Victories
+  Are empty of all power.’
+
+                        ‘And which of these
+  Is the Island of Content?’
+
+                    ‘None know,’ she said;
+  And on my bosom laid her weeping head.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN
+
+
+  FLED foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke,
+  High as the saddle girth, covering away from our glances the tide;
+  And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance
+            broke;
+  The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed.
+
+  I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,
+  And never a song sang Niamh, and over my finger-tips
+  Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold air,
+  And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips.
+
+  Were we days long or hours long in riding, when rolled in a grisly
+            peace,
+  An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak?
+  And we stood on a sea’s edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed
+            fleece
+  Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke.
+
+  And we rode on the plains of the sea’s edge; the sea’s edge barren
+            and gray,
+  Gray sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,
+  Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away
+  Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas.
+
+  But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark;
+  Dropping; a murmurous dropping; old silence and that one sound;
+  For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark:
+  Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground.
+
+  And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night,
+  For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and
+            the sun,
+  Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light,
+  And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was
+            one.
+
+  Till the horse gave a whinny; for, cumbrous with stems of the hazel
+            and oak,
+  A valley flowed down from his hoofs, and there in the long grass lay,
+  Under the starlight and shadow, a monstrous slumbering folk,
+  Their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way.
+
+  And by them were arrow and war-axe, arrow and shield and blade;
+  And dew-blanched horns, in whose hollow a child of three years old
+  Could sleep on a bed of rushes, and all inwrought and inlaid,
+  And more comely than man can make them with bronze and silver and gold.
+
+  And each of the huge white creatures was huger than four-score men;
+  The tops of their ears were feathered, their hands were the claws of
+            birds,
+  And, shaking the plumes of the grasses and the leaves of the mural glen,
+  The breathing came from those bodies, long-warless, grown whiter than
+            curds.
+
+  The wood was so spacious above them, that He who had stars for His
+            flocks
+  Could fondle the leaves with His fingers, nor go from His dew-cumbered
+            skies;
+  So long were they sleeping, the owls had builded their nests in their
+            locks,
+  Filling the fibrous dimness with long generations of eyes.
+
+  And over the limbs and the valley the slow owls wandered and came,
+  Now in a place of star-fire, and now in a shadow place wide;
+  And the chief of the huge white creatures, his knees in the soft
+            star-flame,
+  Lay loose in a place of shadow: we drew the reins by his side.
+
+  Golden the nails of his bird-claws, flung loosely along the dim ground;
+  In one was a branch soft-shining, with bells more many than sighs,
+  In midst of an old man’s bosom; owls ruffling and pacing around,
+  Sidled their bodies against him, filling the shade with their eyes.
+
+  And my gaze was thronged with the sleepers; for nowhere in any clann
+  Of the high people of Soraca nor in glamour by demons flung,
+  Are faces alive with such beauty made known to the salt eye of man,
+  Yet weary with passions that faded when the sevenfold seas were young.
+
+  And I gazed on the bell-branch, sleep’s forebear, far sung by the
+            Sennachies.
+  I saw how those slumberers, grown weary, there camping in grasses deep,
+  Of wars with the wide world and pacing the shores of the wandering seas,
+  Laid hands on the bell-branch and swayed it, and fed of unhuman sleep.
+
+  Snatching the horn of Niamh, I blew a lingering note;
+  Came sound from those monstrous sleepers, a sound like the stirring of
+            flies.
+  He, shaking the fold of his lips, and heaving the pillar of his throat,
+  Watched me with mournful wonder out of the wells of his eyes.
+
+  I cried, ‘Come out of the shadow, king of the nails of gold!
+  And tell of your goodly household and the goodly works of your hands,
+  That we may muse in the starlight and talk of the battles of old;
+  Your questioner, Oisin, is worthy, he comes from the Fenian lands.’
+
+  Half open his eyes were, and held me, dull with the smoke of their
+            dreams;
+  His lips moved slowly in answer, no answer out of them came;
+  Then he swayed in his fingers the bell-branch, slow dropping a sound in
+            faint streams
+  Softer than snow-flakes in April and piercing the marrow like flame.
+
+  Wrapt in the wave of that music, with weariness more than of earth,
+  The moil of my centuries filled me; and gone like a sea-covered stone
+  Were the memories of the whole of my sorrow and the memories of the
+            whole of my mirth,
+  And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone.
+
+  In the roots of the grasses, the sorrels, I laid my body as low;
+  And the pearl-pale Niamh lay by me, her brow on the midst of my breast;
+  And the horse was gone in the distance, and years after years ’gan flow;
+  Square leaves of the ivy moved over us, binding us down to our rest.
+
+  And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot;
+  How the fetlocks drip blood in the battle, when the fallen on fallen lie
+            rolled;
+  How the falconer follows the falcon in the weeds of the heron’s plot,
+  And the names of the demons whose hammers made armour for Midhir of old.
+
+  And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot;
+  That the spearshaft is made out of ashwood, the shield out of osier and
+            hide;
+  How the hammers spring on the anvil, on the spear-head’s burning spot;
+  How the slow, blue-eyed oxen of Finn low sadly at evening tide.
+
+  But in dreams, mild man of the croziers, driving the dust with their
+            throngs,
+  Moved round me, of seamen or landsmen, all who are winter tales;
+  Came by me the Kings of the Red Branch, with roaring of laughter and
+            songs,
+  Or moved as they moved once, love-making or piercing the tempest with
+            sails.
+
+  Came Blanid, MacNessa, tall Fergus who feastward of old time slunk;
+  Cook Barach, the traitor; and warward, the spittle on his beard never
+            dry,
+  Dark Balor, as old as a forest, car-borne, his mighty head sunk
+  Helpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death-making eye.
+
+  And by me, in soft red raiment, the Fenians moved in loud streams,
+  And Grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone.
+  So lived I and lived not, so wrought I and wrought not, with creatures
+            of dreams,
+  In a long iron sleep, as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone.
+
+  At times our slumber was lightened. When the sun was on silver or gold;
+  When brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dimness they love going
+            by;
+  When a glow-worm was green on a grass leaf lured from his lair in the
+            mould;
+  Half wakening, we lifted our eyelids, and gazed on the grass with a
+            sigh.
+
+  So watched I when, man of the croziers, at the heel of a century fell,
+  Weak, in the midst of the meadow, from his miles in the midst of the
+            air,
+  A starling like them that forgathered ’neath a moon waking white as
+            a shell,
+  When the Fenians made foray at morning with Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair.
+
+  I awoke: the strange horse without summons out of the distance ran,
+  Thrusting his nose to my shoulder; he knew in his bosom deep
+  That once more moved in my bosom the ancient sadness of man,
+  And that I would leave the immortals, their dimness, their dews dropping
+            sleep.
+
+  O, had you seen beautiful Niamh grow white as the waters are white,
+  Lord of the croziers, you even had lifted your hands and wept:
+  But, the bird in my fingers, I mounted, remembering alone that delight
+  Of twilight and slumber were gone, and that hoofs impatiently stept.
+
+  I cried, ‘O Niamh! O white one! if only a twelve-houred day,
+  I must gaze on the beard of Finn, and move where the old men and young
+  In the Fenians’ dwellings of wattle lean on the chessboards and play,
+  Ah, sweet to me now were even bald Conan’s slanderous tongue!
+
+  ‘Like me were some galley forsaken far off in Meridian isle,
+  Remembering its long-oared companions, sails turning to thread-bare
+            rags;
+  No more to crawl on the seas with long oars mile after mile,
+  But to be amid shooting of flies and flowering of rushes and flags.’
+
+  Their motionless eyeballs of spirits grown mild with mysterious thought,
+  Watched her those seamless faces from the valley’s glimmering girth;
+  As she murmured, ‘O wandering Oisin, the strength of the bell-branch is
+            naught,
+  For there moves alive in your fingers the fluttering sadness of earth.
+
+  ‘Then go through the lands in the saddle and see what the mortals do,
+  And softly come to your Niamh over the tops of the tide;
+  But weep for your Niamh, O Oisin, weep; for if only your shoe
+  Brush lightly as haymouse earth pebbles, you will come no more to my
+            side.
+
+  ‘O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?’
+  I saw from a distant saddle; from the earth she made her moan;
+  ‘I would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn, for breast unto
+            breast
+  We shall mingle no more, nor our gazes empty their sweetness lone
+
+  ‘In the isles of the farthest seas where only the spirits come.
+  Were the winds less soft than the breath of a pigeon who sleeps on her
+            nest,
+  Nor lost in the star-fires and odours the sound of the sea’s vague drum,
+  O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?’
+
+  The wailing grew distant; I rode by the woods of the wrinkling bark,
+  Where ever is murmurous dropping, old silence and that one sound;
+  For no live creatures live there, no weasels move in the dark;
+  In a reverie forgetful of all things, over the bubbling ground.
+
+  And I rode by the plains of the sea’s edge, where all is barren and
+            gray,
+  Gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,
+  Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away,
+  Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas.
+
+  And the winds made the sands on the sea’s edge turning and turning go,
+  As my mind made the names of the Fenians. Far from the hazel and oak
+  I rode away on the surges, where, high as the saddle bow,
+  Fled foam underneath me, and round me, a wandering and milky smoke.
+
+  Long fled the foam-flakes around me, the winds fled out of the vast,
+  Snatching the bird in secret; nor knew I, embosomed apart,
+  When they froze the cloth on my body like armour riveted fast,
+  For Remembrance, lifting her leanness, keened in the gates of my heart.
+
+  Till fattening the winds of the morning, an odour of new-mown hay
+  Came, and my forehead fell low, and my tears like berries fell down;
+  Later a sound came, half lost in the sound of a shore far away,
+  From the great grass-barnacle calling, and later the shore-weeds brown.
+
+  If I were as I once was, the strong hoofs crushing the sand and the
+            shells,
+  Coming out of the sea as the dawn comes, a chaunt of love on my lips,
+  Not coughing, my head on my knees, and praying, and wroth with the
+            bells,
+  I would leave no saint’s head on his body from Rachlin to Bera of
+            ships.
+
+  Making way from the kindling surges, I rode on a bridle-path
+  Much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made,
+  Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the
+            rath,
+  And a small and feeble race stooping with mattock and spade.
+
+  Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet;
+  While in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their
+            chieftains stood,
+  Awaiting in patience the straw-death, croziered one, caught in their
+            net:
+  Went the laughter of scorn from my mouth like the roaring of wind in
+            a wood.
+
+  And because I went by them so huge and so speedy with eyes so bright,
+  Came after the hard gaze of youth, or an old man lifted his head:
+  And I rode and I rode, and I cried out, ‘The Fenians hunt wolves in
+            the night,
+  So sleep they by daytime.’ A voice cried, ‘The Fenians a long time are
+            dead.’
+
+  A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried
+            grass,
+  And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without
+            milk;
+  And the dreams of the islands were gone, and I knew how men sorrow and
+            pass,
+  And their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that
+            glimmer like silk.
+
+  And wrapping my face in my hair, I murmured, ‘In old age they ceased’;
+  And my tears were larger than berries, and I murmured, ‘Where white
+            clouds lie spread
+  On Crevroe or broad Knockfefin, with many of old they feast
+  On the floors of the gods.’ He cried, ‘No, the gods a long time are
+            dead.’
+
+  And lonely and longing for Niamh, I shivered and turned me about,
+  The heart in me longing to leap like a grasshopper into her heart;
+  I turned and rode to the westward, and followed the sea’s old shout
+  Till I saw where Maeve lies sleeping till starlight and midnight part.
+
+  And there at the foot of the mountain, two carried a sack full of sand,
+  They bore it with staggering and sweating, but fell with their burden at
+            length:
+  Leaning down from the gem-studded saddle, I flung it five yards with my
+            hand,
+  With a sob for men waxing so weakly, a sob for the Fenians’ old
+            strength.
+
+  The rest you have heard of, O croziered one; how, when divided the
+            girth,
+  I fell on the path, and the horse went away like a summer fly;
+  And my years three hundred fell on me, and I rose, and walked on the
+            earth,
+  A creeping old man, full of sleep, with the spittle on his beard never
+            dry.
+
+  How the men of the sand-sack showed me a church with its belfry in air;
+  Sorry place, where for swing of the war-axe in my dim eyes the crozier
+            gleams;
+  What place have Caolte and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair?
+  Speak, you too are old with your memories, an old man surrounded with
+            dreams.
+
+S. PATRIC.
+
+  Where the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stones is their
+            place;
+  Where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide
+            hell,
+  Watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on God’s face,
+  Between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell.
+
+OISIN.
+
+  Put the staff in my hands; for I go to the Fenians, O cleric, to chaunt
+  The war-songs that roused them of old; they will rise, making clouds
+            with their breath
+  Innumerable, singing, exultant; the clay underneath them shall pant,
+  And demons be broken in pieces, and trampled beneath them in death.
+
+  And demons afraid in their darkness; deep horror of eyes and of wings,
+  Afraid their ears on the earth laid, shall listen and rise up and weep;
+  Hearing the shaking of shields and the quiver of stretched bowstrings,
+  Hearing hell loud with a murmur, as shouting and mocking we sweep.
+
+  We will tear out the flaming stones, and batter the gateway of brass
+  And enter, and none sayeth ‘No’ when there enters the strongly armed
+            guest;
+  Make clean as a broom cleans, and march on as oxen move over young
+            grass;
+  Then feast, making converse of Eire, of wars, and of old wounds, and
+            rest.
+
+S. PATRIC.
+
+  On the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the Fenians are
+            tost;
+  None war on the masters of Hell, who could break up the world in their
+            rage;
+  But kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lost
+  Through the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age.
+
+OISIN.
+
+  Ah, me! to be shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain,
+  Without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear,
+  All emptied of purple hours as a beggar’s cloak in the rain,
+  As a grass seed crushed by a pebble, as a wolf sucked under a weir.
+
+  It were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved of old there;
+  I throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased,
+  I will go to Caolte, and Conan, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,
+  And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+
+
+THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS.
+
+
+When I wrote these poems I had so meditated over the images that came
+to me in writing ‘Ballads and Lyrics,’ ‘The Rose,’ and ‘The Wanderings
+of Oisin,’ and other images from Irish folk-lore, that they had become
+true symbols. I had sometimes when awake, but more often in sleep,
+moments of vision, a state very unlike dreaming, when these images took
+upon themselves what seemed an independent life and became a part of
+a mystic language, which seemed always as if it would bring me some
+strange revelation. Being troubled at what was thought a reckless
+obscurity, I tried to explain myself in lengthy notes, into which I
+put all the little learning I had, and more wilful phantasy than I now
+think admirable, though what is most mystical still seems to me the
+most true. I quote in what follows the better or the more necessary
+passages.
+
+
+THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE (page 3).
+
+The gods of ancient Ireland, the Tuatha De Danaan, or the Tribes of the
+goddess Danu, or the Sidhe, from Aes Sidhe, or Sluagh Sidhe, the people
+of the Faery Hills, as these words are usually explained, still ride
+the country as of old. Sidhe is also Gaelic for wind, and certainly the
+Sidhe have much to do with the wind. They journey in whirling winds,
+the winds that were called the dance of the daughters of Herodias
+in the Middle Ages, Herodias doubtless taking the place of some old
+goddess. When the country people see the leaves whirling on the road
+they bless themselves, because they believe the Sidhe to be passing by.
+They are almost always said to wear no covering upon their heads, and
+to let their hair stream out; and the great among them, for they have
+great and simple, go much upon horseback. If any one becomes too much
+interested in them, and sees them overmuch, he loses all interest in
+ordinary things.
+
+A woman near Gort, in Galway, says: ‘There is a boy, now, of the
+Clorans; but I wouldn’t for the world let them think I spoke of him;
+it’s two years since he came from America, and since that time he never
+went to Mass, or to church, or to fairs, or to market, or to stand on
+the cross roads, or to hurling, or to nothing. And if any one comes
+into the house, it’s into the room he’ll slip, not to see them; and as
+to work, he has the garden dug to bits, and the whole place smeared
+with cow dung; and such a crop as was never seen; and the alders all
+plaited till they look grand. One day he went as far as the chapel;
+but as soon as he got to the door he turned straight round again, as
+if he hadn’t power to pass it. I wonder he wouldn’t get the priest to
+read a Mass for him, or something; but the crop he has is grand, and
+you may know well he has some to help him.’ One hears many stories of
+the kind; and a man whose son is believed to go out riding among them
+at night tells me that he is careless about everything, and lies in
+bed until it is late in the day. A doctor believes this boy to be mad.
+Those that are at times ‘away,’ as it is called, know all things, but
+are afraid to speak. A countryman at Kiltartan says, ‘There was one of
+the Lydons—John—was away for seven years, lying in his bed, but brought
+away at nights, and he knew everything; and one, Kearney, up in the
+mountains, a cousin of his own, lost two hoggets, and came and told
+him, and he knew the very spot where they were, and told him, and he
+got them back again. But _they_ were vexed at that, and took away the
+power, so that he never knew anything again, no more than another.’
+
+Knocknarea is in Sligo, and the country people say that Maeve, still
+a great queen of the western Sidhe, is buried in the cairn of stones
+upon it. I have written of Clooth-na-Bare in ‘The Celtic Twilight.’
+She ‘went all over the world, seeking a lake deep enough to drown her
+faery life, of which she had grown weary, leaping from hill to hill,
+and setting up a cairn of stones wherever her feet lighted, until, at
+last, she found the deepest water in the world in little Lough Ia,
+on the top of the bird mountain, in Sligo.’ I forget, now, where I
+heard this story, but it may have been from a priest at Collooney.
+Clooth-na-Bare would mean the old woman of Bare, but is evidently a
+corruption of Cailleac Bare, the old woman of Bare, who, under the
+names Bare, and Berah, and Beri, and Verah, and Dera, and Dhira,
+appears in the legends of many places. Mr. O’Grady found her haunting
+Lough Liath high up on the top of a mountain of the Fews, the Slieve
+Fuadh, or Slieve G-Cullain of old times, under the name of the Cailleac
+Buillia. He describes Lough Liath as a desolate moon-shaped lake, with
+made wells and sunken passages upon its borders, and beset by marsh and
+heather and gray boulders, and closes his ‘Flight of the Eagle’ with a
+long rhapsody upon mountain and lake, because of the heroic tales and
+beautiful old myths that have hung about them always. He identifies
+the Cailleac Buillia with that Meluchra who persuaded Fionn to go
+to her amid the waters of Lough Liath, and so changed him with her
+enchantments, that, though she had to free him because of the threats
+of the Fiana, his hair was ever afterwards as white as snow. To this
+day the Tuatha De Danaan that are in the waters beckon to men, and
+drown them in the waters; and Bare, or Dhira, or Meluchra, or whatever
+name one likes the best, is, doubtless, the name of a mistress among
+them. Meluchra was daughter of Cullain; and Cullain Mr. O’Grady
+calls, upon I know not what authority, a form of Lir, the master of
+waters. The people of the waters have been in all ages beautiful and
+changeable and lascivious, or beautiful and wise and lonely, for water
+is everywhere the signature of the fruitfulness of the body and of the
+fruitfulness of dreams. The white hair of Fionn may be but another
+of the troubles of those that come to unearthly wisdom and earthly
+trouble, and the threats and violence of the Fiana against her, a
+different form of the threats and violence the country people use, to
+make the Aes Sidhe give up those that are ��away.’ Bare is now often
+called an ugly old woman, but in the ‘Song of Bare,’ which Lady Gregory
+has given in her ‘Saints and Wonders,’ she laments her lost beauty
+after the withering of seven hundred years; and Dr. Joyce says that
+one of her old names was Aebhin, which means beautiful. Aebhin was the
+goddess of the tribes of northern Leinster; and the lover she had made
+immortal, and who loved her perfectly, left her, and put on mortality,
+to fight among them against the stranger, and died on the strand of
+Clontarf.
+
+
+THE POET PLEADS WITH THE ELEMENTAL POWERS (p. 37). HE
+THINKS OF HIS PAST GREATNESS WHEN A PART OF THE CONSTELLATIONS OF
+HEAVEN (p. 40). HE HEARS THE CRY OF THE SEDGE (p. 28).
+
+The Rose has been for many centuries a symbol of spiritual love and
+supreme beauty. The lotus was in some Eastern countries imagined
+blossoming upon the Tree of Life, as the Flower of Life, and is thus
+represented in Assyrian bas-reliefs. Because the Rose, the flower
+sacred to the Virgin Mary, and the flower that Apuleius’ adventurer
+ate, when he was changed out of the ass’s shape and received into the
+fellowship of Isis, is the western Flower of Life, I have imagined it
+growing upon the Tree of Life. I once stood beside a man in Ireland
+when he saw it growing there in a vision, that seemed to have rapt him
+out of his body. He saw the Garden of Eden walled about, and on the top
+of a high mountain, as in certain mediæval diagrams, and after passing
+the Tree of Knowledge, on which grew fruit full of troubled faces, and
+through whose branches flowed, he was told, sap that was human souls,
+he came to a tall, dark tree, with little bitter fruits, and was shown
+a kind of stair or ladder going up through the tree, and told to go
+up; and near the top of the tree, a beautiful woman, like the Goddess
+of Life, associated with the tree in Assyria, gave him a rose that
+seemed to have been growing upon the tree. One finds the Rose in the
+Irish poets, sometimes as a religious symbol, as in the phrase, ‘the
+Rose of Friday,’ meaning the Rose of austerity, in a Gaelic poem in
+Dr. Hyde’s ‘Religious Songs of Connacht’; and, I think, as a symbol
+of woman’s beauty in the Gaelic song, ‘Roseen Dubh’; and a symbol of
+Ireland in Mangan’s adaptation of ‘Roseen Dubh,’ ‘My Dark Rosaleen,’
+and in Mr. Aubrey de Vere’s ‘The Little Black Rose.’ I do not know any
+evidence to prove whether this symbol came to Ireland with mediæval
+Christianity, or whether it has come down from older times. I have
+read somewhere that a stone engraved with a Celtic god, who holds what
+looks like a rose in one hand, has been found somewhere in England; but
+I cannot find the reference, though I certainly made a note of it. If
+the Rose was really a symbol of Ireland among the Gaelic poets, and if
+‘Roseen Dubh’ is really a political poem, as some think, one may feel
+pretty certain that the ancient Celts associated the Rose with Eire, or
+Fotla, or Banba—goddesses who gave their names to Ireland—or with some
+principal god or goddess, for such symbols are not suddenly adopted or
+invented, but come out of mythology.
+
+I have made the Seven Lights, the constellation of the Bear, lament for
+the theft of the Rose, and I have made the Dragon, the constellation
+Draco, the guardian of the Rose, because these constellations move
+about the pole of the heavens, the ancient Tree of Life in many
+countries, and are often associated with the Tree of Life in mythology.
+It is this Tree of Life that I have put into the ‘Song of Mongan’
+under its common Irish form of a hazel; and, because it had sometimes
+the stars for fruit, I have hung upon it ‘the Crooked Plough’ and the
+‘Pilot Star,’ as Gaelic-speaking Irishmen sometimes call the Bear and
+the North star. I have made it an axle-tree in ‘Aedh hears the Cry of
+the Sedge,’ for this was another ancient way of representing it.
+
+
+THE HOST OF THE AIR (p. 6).
+
+Some writers distinguish between the Sluagh Gaoith, the host of the
+air, and Sluagh Sidhe, the host of the Sidhe, and describe the host
+of the air as of a peculiar malignancy. Dr. Joyce says, ‘Of all the
+different kinds of goblins .... air demons were most dreaded by the
+people. They lived among clouds, and mists, and rocks, and hated the
+human race with the utmost malignity.’ A very old Aran charm, which
+contains the words ‘Send God, by his strength, between us and the
+host of the Sidhe, between us and the host of the air,’ seems also
+to distinguish among them. I am inclined, however, to think that the
+distinction came in with Christianity and its belief about the prince
+of the air, for the host of the Sidhe, as I have already explained, are
+closely associated with the wind.
+
+They are said to steal brides just after their marriage, and sometimes
+in a blast of wind. A man in Galway says, ‘At Aughanish there were two
+couples came to the shore to be married, and one of the newly married
+women was in the boat with the priest, and they going back to the
+island; and a sudden blast of wind came, and the priest said some
+blessed words that were able to save himself, but the girl was swept.’
+
+This woman was drowned; but more often the persons who are taken ‘get
+the touch,’ as it is called, and fall into a half dream, and grow
+indifferent to all things, for their true life has gone out of the
+world, and is among the hills and the forts of the Sidhe. A faery
+doctor has told me that his wife ‘got the touch’ at her marriage
+because there was one of them wanted her; and the way he knew for
+certain was, that when he took a pitchfork out of the rafters, and told
+her it was a broom, she said, ‘It is a broom.’ She was, the truth is,
+in the magical sleep, to which people have given a new name lately,
+that makes the imagination so passive that it can be moulded by any
+voice in any world into any shape. A mere likeness of some old woman,
+or even old animal, some one or some thing the Sidhe have no longer a
+use for, is believed to be left instead of the person who is ‘away’;
+this some one or some thing can, it is thought, be driven away by
+threats, or by violence (though I have heard country women say that
+violence is wrong), which perhaps awakes the soul out of the magical
+sleep. The story in the poem is founded on an old Gaelic ballad that
+was sung and translated for me by a woman at Ballisodare in County
+Sligo; but in the ballad the husband found the keeners keening his
+wife when he got to his house. She was ‘swept’ at once; but the Sidhe
+are said to value those the most whom they but cast into a half dream,
+which may last for years, for they need the help of a living person in
+most of the things they do. There are many stories of people who seem
+to die and be buried—though the country people will tell you it is but
+some one or some thing put in their place that dies and is buried—and
+yet are brought back afterwards. These tales are perhaps memories of
+true awakenings out of the magical sleep, moulded by the imagination,
+under the influence of a mystical doctrine which it understands too
+literally, into the shape of some well-known traditional tale. One does
+not hear them as one hears the others, from the persons who are ‘away,’
+or from their wives or husbands; and one old man, who had often seen
+the Sidhe, began one of them with ‘Maybe it is all vanity.’
+
+Here is a tale that a friend of mine heard in the Burren hills, and it
+is a type of all:—
+
+‘There was a girl to be married, and she didn’t like the man, and she
+cried when the day was coming, and said she wouldn’t go along with
+him. And the mother said, “Get into the bed, then, and I’ll say that
+you’re sick.” And so she did. And when the man came the mother said to
+him, “You can’t get her, she’s sick in the bed.” And he looked in and
+said, “That’s not my wife that’s in the bed, it’s some old hag.” And
+the mother began to cry and roar. And he went out and got two hampers
+of turf, and made a fire, that they thought he was going to burn the
+house down. And when the fire was kindled, “Come out, now,” says he,
+“and we’ll see who you are, when I’ll put you on the fire.” And when
+she heard that, she gave one leap, and was out of the house, and they
+saw, then, it was an old hag she was. Well, the man asked the advice
+of an old woman, and she bid him go to a faery-bush that was near,
+and he might get some word of her. So he went there at night, and saw
+all sorts of grand people, and they in carriages or riding on horses,
+and among them he could see the girl he came to look for. So he went
+again to the old woman, and she said, “If you can get the three bits
+of blackthorn out of her hair, you’ll get her again.” So that night he
+went again, and that time he only got hold of a bit of her hair. But
+the old woman told him that was no use, and that he was put back now,
+and it might be twelve nights before he’d get her. But on the fourth
+night he got the third bit of blackthorn, and he took her, and she
+came away with him. He never told the mother he had got her; but one
+day she saw her at a fair, and, says she, “That’s my daughter; I know
+her by the smile and by the laugh of her, and she with a shawl about
+her head.” So the husband said, “You’re right there, and hard I worked
+to get her.” She spoke often of the grand things she saw underground,
+and how she used to have wine to drink, and to drive out in a carriage
+with four horses every night. And she used to be able to see her
+husband when he came to look for her, and she was greatly afraid he’d
+get a drop of the wine, for then he would have come underground and
+never left it again. And she was glad herself to come to earth again,
+and not to be left there.’
+
+The old Gaelic literature is full of the appeals of the Tuatha De
+Danaan to mortals whom they would bring into their country; but the
+song of Midher to the beautiful Etain, the wife of the king who was
+called Echaid the ploughman, is the type of all.
+
+‘O beautiful woman, come with me to the marvellous land where one
+listens to a sweet music, where one has spring flowers in one’s hair,
+where the body is like snow from head to foot, where no one is sad or
+silent, where teeth are white and eyebrows are black ... cheeks red
+like foxglove in flower.... Ireland is beautiful, but not so beautiful
+as the Great Plain I call you to. The beer of Ireland is heady, but
+the beer of the Great Plain is much more heady. How marvellous is the
+country I am speaking of! Youth does not grow old there. Streams with
+warm flood flow there; sometimes mead, sometimes wine. Men are charming
+and without a blot there, and love is not forbidden there. O woman,
+when you come into my powerful country you will wear a crown of gold
+upon your head. I will give you the flesh of swine, and you will have
+beer and milk to drink, O beautiful woman. O beautiful woman, come with
+me!’
+
+
+THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS (p. 11).
+
+The Tuatha De Danaan can take all shapes, and those that are in the
+waters take often the shape of fish. A woman of Burren, in Galway,
+says, ‘There are more of them in the sea than on the land, and they
+sometimes try to come over the side of the boat in the form of fishes,
+for they can take their choice shape.’ At other times they are
+beautiful women; and another Galway woman says, ‘Surely those things
+are in the sea as well as on land. My father was out fishing one night
+off Tyrone. And something came beside the boat that had eyes shining
+like candles. And then a wave came in, and a storm rose all in a
+minute, and whatever was in the wave, the weight of it had like to sink
+the boat. And then they saw that it was a woman in the sea that had the
+shining eyes. So my father went to the priest, and he bid him always to
+take a drop of holy water and a pinch of salt out in the boat with him,
+and nothing could harm him.’
+
+The poem was suggested to me by a Greek folk song; but the folk belief
+of Greece is very like that of Ireland, and I certainly thought, when
+I wrote it, of Ireland, and of the spirits that are in Ireland. An old
+man who was cutting a quickset hedge near Gort, in Galway, said, only
+the other day, ‘One time I was cutting timber over in Inchy, and about
+eight o’clock one morning, when I got there, I saw a girl picking nuts,
+with her hair hanging down over her shoulders; brown hair; and she had
+a good, clean face, and she was tall, and nothing on her head, and
+her dress no way gaudy, but simple. And when she felt me coming she
+gathered herself up, and was gone, as if the earth had swallowed her
+up. And I followed her, and looked for her, but I never could see her
+again from that day to this, never again.’
+
+The county Galway people use the word ‘clean’ in its old sense of fresh
+and comely.
+
+
+HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED,
+AND LONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD (p. 15).
+
+My deer and hound are properly related to the deer and hound that
+flicker in and out of the various tellings of the Arthurian legends,
+leading different knights upon adventures, and to the hounds and to the
+hornless deer at the beginning of, I think, all tellings of Oisin’s
+journey to the country of the young. The hound is certainly related
+to the Hounds of Annwvyn or of Hades, who are white, and have red
+ears, and were heard, and are, perhaps, still heard by Welsh peasants,
+following some flying thing in the night winds; and is probably related
+to the hounds that Irish country people believe will awake and seize
+the souls of the dead if you lament them too loudly or too soon. An
+old woman told a friend and myself that she saw what she thought were
+white birds, flying over an enchanted place; but found, when she got
+near, that they had dogs’ heads, and I do not doubt that my hound and
+these dog-headed birds are of the same family. I got my hound and deer
+out of a last century Gaelic poem about Oisin’s journey to the country
+of the young. After the hunting of the hornless deer, that leads him
+to the seashore, and while he is riding over the sea with Niamh, he
+sees amid the waters—I have not the Gaelic poem by me, and describe it
+from memory—a young man following a girl who has a golden apple, and
+afterwards a hound with one red ear following a deer with no horns.
+This hound and this deer seem plain images of the desire of man ‘which
+is for the woman,’ and ‘the desire of the woman which is for the desire
+of the man,’ and of all desires that are as these. I have read them
+in this way in ‘The Wanderings of Usheen’ or Oisin, and have made my
+lover sigh because he has seen in their faces ‘the immortal desire of
+immortals.’
+
+The man in my poem who has a hazel wand may have been Aengus, Master of
+Love; and I have made the boar without bristles come out of the West,
+because the place of sunset was in Ireland, as in other countries, a
+place of symbolic darkness and death.
+
+
+THE CAP AND BELLS (p. 22).
+
+I dreamed this story exactly as I have written it, and dreamed another
+long dream after it, trying to make out its meaning, and whether I
+was to write it in prose or verse. The first dream was more a vision
+than a dream, for it was beautiful and coherent, and gave me the sense
+of illumination and exaltation that one gets from visions, while the
+second dream was confused and meaningless. The poem has always meant a
+great deal to me, though, as is the way with symbolic poems, it has not
+always meant quite the same thing. Blake would have said, ‘the authors
+are in eternity,’ and I am quite sure they can only be questioned in
+dreams.
+
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG (p. 24).
+
+All over Ireland there are prophecies of the coming rout of the enemies
+of Ireland, in a certain Valley of the Black Pig, and these prophecies
+are, no doubt, now, as they were in the Fenian days, a political force.
+I have heard of one man who would not give any money to the Land
+League, because the Battle could not be until the close of the century;
+but, as a rule, periods of trouble bring prophecies of its near coming.
+A few years before my time, an old man who lived at Lisadill, in Sligo,
+used to fall down in a fit and rave out descriptions of the Battle;
+and a man in Sligo has told me that it will be so great a battle that
+the horses shall go up to their fetlocks in blood, and that their
+girths, when it is over, will rot from their bellies for lack of a hand
+to unbuckle them. If one reads Professor Rhys’ “Celtic Heathendom”
+by the light of Professor Frazer’s “Golden Bough,” and puts together
+what one finds there about the boar that killed Diarmuid, and other
+old Celtic boars and sows, one sees that the battle is mythological,
+and that the Pig it is named from must be a type of cold and winter
+doing battle with the summer, or of death battling with life. For the
+purposes of poetry, at any rate, I think it a symbol of the darkness
+that will destroy the world. The country people say there is no shape
+for a spirit to take so dangerous as the shape of a pig; and a Galway
+blacksmith—and blacksmiths are thought to be specially protected—says
+he would be afraid to meet a pig on the road at night; and another
+Galway man tells this story: ‘There was a man coming the road from Gort
+to Garryland one night, and he had a drop taken; and before him, on
+the road, he saw a pig walking; and having a drop in, he gave a shout,
+and made a kick at it, and bid it get out of that. And by the time he
+got home, his arm was swelled from the shoulder to be as big as a bag,
+and he couldn’t use his hand with the pain of it. And his wife brought
+him, after a few days, to a woman that used to do cures at Rahasane.
+And on the road all she could do would hardly keep him from lying down
+to sleep on the grass. And when they got to the woman she knew all that
+happened; “and,” says she, “it’s well for you that your wife didn’t let
+you fall asleep on the grass, for if you had done that but even for one
+instant, you’d be a lost man.”’
+
+Professor Rhys, who considers the bristleless boar a symbol of darkness
+and cold, rather than of winter and cold, thinks it was without
+bristles because the darkness is shorn away by the sun.
+
+The Battle should, I believe, be compared with three other battles; a
+battle the Sidhe are said to fight when a person is being taken away
+by them; a battle they are said to fight in November for the harvest;
+the great battle the Tuatha De Danaan fought, according to the Gaelic
+chroniclers, with the Fomor at Moy Tura, or the Towery Plain.
+
+I have heard of the battle over the dying both in County Galway and in
+the Isles of Aran, an old Aran fisherman having told me that it was
+fought over two of his children, and that he found blood in a box he
+had for keeping fish, when it was over; and I have written about it,
+and given examples elsewhere. A faery doctor, on the borders of Galway
+and Clare, explained it as a battle between the friends and enemies
+of the dying, the one party trying to take them, the other trying to
+save them from being taken. It may once, when the land of the Sidhe was
+the only other world, and when every man who died was carried thither,
+have always accompanied death. I suggest that the battle between the
+Tuatha De Danaan, the powers of light, and warmth, and fruitfulness,
+and goodness, and the Fomor, the powers of darkness, and cold, and
+barrenness, and badness upon the Towery Plain, was the establishment
+of the habitable world, the rout of the ancestral darkness; that the
+battle among the Sidhe for the harvest is the annual battle of summer
+and winter; that the battle among the Sidhe at a man’s death is the
+battle of life and death; and that the battle of the Black Pig is the
+battle between the manifest world and the ancestral darkness at the
+end of all things; and that all these battles are one, the battle of
+all things with shadowy decay. Once a symbolism has possessed the
+imagination of large numbers of men, it becomes, as I believe, an
+embodiment of disembodied powers, and repeats itself in dreams and
+visions, age after age.
+
+
+THE SECRET ROSE (p. 32).
+
+I find that I have unintentionally changed the old story of Conchubar’s
+death. He did not see the crucifixion in a vision, but was told about
+it. He had been struck by a ball, made of the dried brain of a dead
+enemy, and hurled out of a sling; and this ball had been left in his
+head, and his head had been mended, the ‘Book of Leinster’ says, with
+thread of gold because his hair was like gold. Keating, a writer of
+the time of Elizabeth, says, ‘In that state did he remain seven years,
+until the Friday on which Christ was crucified, according to some
+historians; and when he saw the unusual changes of the creation and the
+eclipse of the sun and the moon at its full, he asked of Bucrach, a
+Leinster Druid, who was along with him, what was it that brought that
+unusual change upon the planets of Heaven and Earth. “Jesus Christ, the
+Son of God,” said the Druid, “who is now being crucified by the Jews.”
+“That is a pity,” said Conchubar; “were I in his presence I would kill
+those who were putting him to death.” And with that he brought out
+his sword, and rushed at a woody grove which was convenient to him,
+and began to cut and fell it; and what he said was, that if he were
+among the Jews, that was the usage he would give them, and from the
+excessiveness of his fury which seized upon him, the ball started out
+of his head, and some of the brain came after it, and in that way he
+died. The wood of Lanshraigh, in Feara Rois, is the name by which that
+shrubby wood is called.’
+
+I have imagined Cuchulain meeting Fand ‘walking among flaming dew.’ The
+story of their love is one of the most beautiful of our old tales.
+
+I have founded the man ‘who drove the gods out of their Liss,’ or fort,
+upon something I have read about Caolte after the battle of Gabra, when
+almost all his companions were killed, driving the gods out of their
+Liss, either at Osraighe, now Ossory, or at Eas Ruaidh, now Asseroe,
+a waterfall at Ballyshannon, where Ilbreac, one of the children of the
+goddess Danu, had a Liss. But maybe I only read it in Mr. Standish
+O’Grady, who has a fine imagination, for I find no such story in Lady
+Gregory’s book.
+
+I have founded ‘the proud dreaming king’ upon Fergus, the son of Roigh,
+the legendary poet of ‘the quest of the bull of Cuailgne,’ as he is
+in the ancient story of Deirdre, and in modern poems by Ferguson. He
+married Nessa, and Ferguson makes him tell how she took him ‘captive in
+a single look.’
+
+  ‘I am but an empty shade,
+  Far from life and passion laid;
+  Yet does sweet remembrance thrill
+  All my shadowy being still.’
+
+Presently, because of his great love, he gave up his throne to
+Conchubar, her son by another, and lived out his days feasting, and
+fighting, and hunting. His promise never to refuse a feast from a
+certain comrade, and the mischief that came by his promise, and the
+vengeance he took afterwards, are a principal theme of the poets. I
+have explained my changing imaginations of him in ‘Fergus and the
+Druid,’ and in a little song in the second act of ‘The Countess
+Kathleen,’ and in ‘Deirdre.’
+
+I have founded him ‘who sold tillage, and house, and goods,’ upon
+something in ‘The Red Pony,’ a folk tale in Mr. Larminie’s ‘West Irish
+Folk Tales.’ A young man ‘saw a light before him on the high road. When
+he came as far, there was an open box on the road, and a light coming
+up out of it. He took up the box. There was a lock of hair in it.
+Presently he had to go to become the servant of a king for his living.
+There were eleven boys. When they were going out into the stable at ten
+o’clock, each of them took a light but he. He took no candle at all
+with him. Each of them went into his own stable. When he went into his
+stable he opened the box. He left it in a hole in the wall. The light
+was great. It was twice as much as in the other stables.’ The king
+hears of it, and makes him show him the box. The king says, ‘You must
+go and bring me the woman to whom the hair belongs.’ In the end, the
+young man, and not the king, marries the woman.
+
+
+
+
+EARLY POEMS:
+
+
+BALLADS AND LYRICS (p. 89). ‘THE ROSE’ (p. 139).
+‘THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN’ (p. 175).
+
+When I first wrote I went here and there for my subjects as my reading
+led me, and preferred to all other countries Arcadia and the India of
+romance, but presently I convinced myself, for such reasons as those
+in ‘Ireland and the Arts,’ that I should never go for the scenery of
+a poem to any country but my own, and I think that I shall hold to
+that conviction to the end. I was very young; and, perhaps because I
+belonged to a Young Ireland Society in Dublin, I wished to be as easily
+understood as the Young Ireland writers, to write always out of the
+common thought of the people.
+
+I have put the poems written while I was influenced by this desire,
+though with an always lessening force, into those sections which I
+have called ‘Early Poems.’ I read certain of them now with no little
+discontent, for I find, especially in the ballads, some triviality and
+sentimentality. Mangan and Davis, at their best, are not sentimental
+and trivial, but I became so from an imitation that was not natural
+to me. When I was writing the poems in the second of the three, the
+section called ‘The Rose,’ I found that I was becoming unintelligible
+to the young men who had been in my thought. We have still the same
+tradition, but I have been like a traveller who, having when newly
+arrived in the city noticed nothing but the news of the market-place,
+the songs of the workmen, the great public buildings, has come after
+certain months to let his thoughts run upon some little carving in its
+niche, some Ogham on a stone, or the conversation of a countryman who
+knows more of the ‘Boar without Bristles’ than of the daily paper.
+
+When writing I went for nearly all my subjects to Irish folklore and
+legends, much as a Young Ireland poet would have done, writing ‘Down by
+the Salley Garden’ by adding a few lines to a couple of lines I heard
+sung at Ballisodare; ‘The Meditation of the Old Fisherman’ from the
+words of a not very old fisherman at Rosses Point; ‘The Lamentation
+of the Old Pensioner’ from words spoken by a man on the Two Rock
+Mountain to a friend of mine; ‘The Ballad of the Old Foxhunter’ from
+an incident in one of Kickham’s novels; and ‘The Ballad of Moll Magee’
+from a sermon preached in a chapel at Howth; and ‘The Wanderings of
+Oisin’ from a Gaelic poem of the Eighteenth Century and certain Middle
+Irish poems in dialogue. It is no longer necessary to say who Oisin
+and Cuchulain and Fergus and the other bardic persons are, for Lady
+Gregory, in her ‘Gods and Fighting Men’ and ‘Cuchulain of Muirthemne’
+has re-told all that is greatest in the ancient literature of Ireland
+in a style that has to my ears an immortal beauty.
+
+
+  _Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at The Shakespeare Head Press,
+                        Stratford-on-Avon_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+Only the most obvious punctuation errors repaired. Repeated section
+titles were removed. Varied hyphenation was retained.
+
+Page 202, “multudinous” changed to “multitudinous” (pillarless,
+multitudinous home)
+
+Page 211, stanza break inserted above the line that begins (Till the
+horse gave a whinny)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
+
+
+
+
+  THE KING’S THRESHOLD. ON
+  BAILE’S STRAND. DEIRDRE.
+  SHADOWY WATERS :: BEING
+  THE SECOND VOLUME OF
+  THE COLLECTED WORKS IN
+  VERSE & PROSE OF WILLIAM
+  BUTLER YEATS :: IMPRINTED
+  AT THE SHAKESPEARE HEAD
+  PRESS STRATFORD-ON-AVON
+  MCMVIII
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                             PAGE
+  THE KING’S THRESHOLD                                          1
+  ON BAILE’S STRAND                                            69
+  DEIRDRE                                                     125
+  THE SHADOWY WATERS                                          179
+
+  APPENDIX I:
+  ACTING VERSION OF ‘THE SHADOWY WATERS’                      231
+
+  APPENDIX II:
+  A DIFFERENT VERSION OF DEIRDRE’S ENTRANCE                   251
+
+  APPENDIX III:
+  THE LEGENDARY AND MYTHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF THE PLAYS      254
+
+  APPENDIX IV:
+  THE DATES AND PLACES OF PERFORMANCE OF PLAYS                 256
+
+
+
+
+  _The friends that have it I do wrong
+  When ever I remake a song,
+  Should know what issue is at stake:
+  It is myself that I remake._
+
+
+
+
+THE KING’S THRESHOLD
+
+
+
+
+  TO FRANK FAY
+
+  BECAUSE OF HIS BEAUTIFUL SPEAKING IN
+  THE CHARACTER OF SEANCHAN
+
+
+
+
+_PERSONS IN THE PLAY_
+
+
+  KING GUAIRE
+  SEANCHAN (_pronounced_ SHANAHAN)
+  HIS PUPILS
+  THE MAYOR OF KINVARA
+  TWO CRIPPLES
+  BRIAN (_an old servant_)
+  THE LORD HIGH CHAMBERLAIN
+  A SOLDIER
+  A MONK
+  COURT LADIES
+  TWO PRINCESSES
+  FEDELM
+
+
+
+
+THE KING’S THRESHOLD.
+
+
+    _Steps before the Palace of KING GUAIRE at Gort. A
+    table in front of steps at one side, with food on it,
+    and a bench by table. SEANCHAN lying on steps. PUPILS
+    before steps. KING on the upper step before a curtained
+    door._
+
+KING.
+
+  I WELCOME you that have the mastery
+  Of the two kinds of Music: the one kind
+  Being like a woman, the other like a man.
+  Both you that understand stringed instruments,
+  And how to mingle words and notes together
+  So artfully, that all the Art’s but Speech
+  Delighted with its own music; and you that carry
+  The long twisted horn, and understand
+  The heady notes that, being without words,
+  Can hurry beyond Time and Fate and Change.
+  For the high angels that drive the horse of Time—
+  The golden one by day, by night the silver—
+  Are not more welcome to one that loves the world
+  For some fair woman’s sake.
+                              I have called you hither
+  To save the life of your great master, Seanchan,
+  For all day long it has flamed up or flickered
+  To the fast cooling hearth.
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+                              When did he sicken?
+  Is it a fever that is wasting him?
+
+KING.
+
+  No fever or sickness. He has chosen death:
+  Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring
+  Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom,
+  An old and foolish custom, that if a man
+  Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve
+  Upon another’s threshold till he die,
+  The common people, for all time to come,
+  Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold,
+  Even though it be the King’s.
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+                               My head whirls round;
+  I do not know what I am to think or say.
+  I owe you all obedience, and yet
+  How can I give it, when the man I have loved
+  More than all others, thinks that he is wronged
+  So bitterly, that he will starve and die
+  Rather than bear it? Is there any man
+  Will throw his life away for a light issue?
+
+KING.
+
+  It is but fitting that you take his side
+  Until you understand how light an issue
+  Has put us by the ears. Three days ago
+  I yielded to the outcry of my courtiers—
+  Bishops, Soldiers, and Makers of the Law—
+  Who long had thought it against their dignity
+  For a mere man of words to sit amongst them
+  At my own table. When the meal was spread,
+  I ordered Seanchan to a lower table;
+  And when he pleaded for the poets’ right,
+  Established at the establishment of the world,
+  I said that I was King, and that all rights
+  Had their original fountain in some king,
+  And that it was the men who ruled the world,
+  And not the men who sang to it, who should sit
+  Where there was the most honour. My courtiers—
+  Bishops, Soldiers, and Makers of the Law—
+  Shouted approval; and amid that noise
+  Seanchan went out, and from that hour to this,
+  Although there is good food and drink beside him,
+  Has eaten nothing.
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+                    I can breathe again.
+  You have taken a great burden from my mind,
+  For that old custom’s not worth dying for.
+
+KING.
+
+  Persuade him to eat or drink. Till yesterday
+  I thought that hunger and weakness had been enough;
+  But finding them too trifling and too light
+  To hold his mouth from biting at the grave,
+  I called you hither, and all my hope’s in you,
+  And certain of his neighbours and good friends
+  That I have sent for. While he is lying there
+  Perishing, my good name in the world
+  Is perishing also. I cannot give way,
+  Because I am King. Because if I gave way,
+  My Nobles would call me a weakling, and it may be
+  The very throne be shaken.
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+                            I will persuade him.
+  Your words had been enough persuasion, King;
+  But being lost in sleep or reverie,
+  He cannot hear them.
+
+KING.
+
+                        Make him eat or drink.
+  Nor is it all because of my good name
+  I’d have him do it, for he is a man
+  That might well hit the fancy of a king,
+  Banished out of his country, or a woman’s,
+  Or any other’s that can judge a man
+  For what he is. But I that sit a throne,
+  And take my measure from the needs of the State,
+  Call his wild thought that overruns the measure,
+  Making words more than deeds, and his proud will
+  That would unsettle all, most mischievous,
+  And he himself a most mischievous man.
+
+    [_He turns to go, and then returns again._
+
+  Promise a house with grass and tillage land,
+  An annual payment, jewels and silken ware,
+  Or anything but that old right of the poets.
+
+    [_He goes into palace._
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+  The King did wrong to abrogate our right;
+  But Seanchan, who talks of dying for it,
+  Talks foolishly. Look at us, Seanchan;
+  Waken out of your dream and look at us,
+  Who have ridden under the moon and all the day,
+  Until the moon has all but come again,
+  That we might be beside you.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Half turning round, leaning on his elbow, and
+    speaking as if in a dream._]
+
+                              I was but now
+  In Almhuin, in a great high-raftered house,
+  With Finn and Osgar. Odours of roast flesh
+  Rose round me, and I saw the roasting-spits;
+  And then the dream was broken, and I saw
+  Grania dividing salmon by a stream.
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+  Hunger has made you dream of roasting flesh;
+  And though I all but weep to think of it,
+  The hunger of the crane, that starves himself
+  At the full moon because he is afraid
+  Of his own shadow and the glittering water,
+  Seems to me little more fantastical
+  Than this of yours.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                      Why, that’s the very truth.
+  It is as though the moon changed everything—
+  Myself and all that I can hear and see;
+  For when the heavy body has grown weak,
+  There’s nothing that can tether the wild mind
+  That, being moonstruck and fantastical,
+  Goes where it fancies. I had even thought
+  I knew your voice and face, but now the words
+  Are so unlikely that I needs must ask
+  Who is it that bids me put my hunger by.
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+  I am your oldest pupil, Seanchan;
+  The one that has been with you many years—
+  So many, that you said at Candlemas
+  That I had almost done with school, and knew
+  All but all that poets understand.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  My oldest pupil? No, that cannot be,
+  For it is some one of the courtly crowds
+  That have been round about me from sunrise,
+  And I am tricked by dreams; but I’ll refute them.
+  At Candlemas I bid that pupil tell me
+  Why poetry is honoured, wishing to know
+  If he had any weighty argument
+  For distant countries and strange, churlish kings.
+  What did he answer?
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+                      I said the poets hung
+  Images of the life that was in Eden
+  About the child-bed of the world, that it,
+  Looking upon those images, might bear
+  Triumphant children. But why must I stand here,
+  Repeating an old lesson, while you starve?
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Tell on, for I begin to know the voice.
+  What evil thing will come upon the world
+  If the Arts perish?
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+                  If the Arts should perish,
+  The world that lacked them would be like a woman,
+  That looking on the cloven lips of a hare,
+  Brings forth a hare-lipped child.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                            But that’s not all:
+  For when I asked you how a man should guard
+  Those images, you had an answer also,
+  If you’re the man that you have claimed to be,
+  Comparing them to venerable things
+  God gave to men before he gave them wheat.
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+  I answered—and the word was half your own—
+  That he should guard them as the Men of Dea
+  Guard their four treasures, as the Grail King guards
+  His holy cup, or the pale, righteous horse
+  The jewel that is underneath his horn,
+  Pouring out life for it as one pours out
+  Sweet heady wine.... But now I understand;
+  You would refute me out of my own mouth;
+  And yet a place at table, near the King,
+  Is nothing of great moment, Seanchan.
+  How does so light a thing touch poetry?
+
+    [_SEANCHAN is now sitting up. He still looks dreamily
+    in front of him._
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  At Candlemas you called this poetry
+  One of the fragile, mighty things of God,
+  That die at an insult.
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+    [_To other PUPILS._]
+
+                    Give me some true answer,
+  For on that day we spoke about the Court,
+  And said that all that was insulted there
+  The world insulted, for the Courtly life,
+  Being the first comely child of the world,
+  Is the world’s model. How shall I answer him?
+  Can you not give me some true argument?
+  I will not tempt him with a lying one.
+
+YOUNGEST PUPIL.
+
+  O, tell him that the lovers of his music
+  Have need of him.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                     But I am labouring
+  For some that shall be born in the nick o’ time,
+  And find sweet nurture, that they may have voices,
+  Even in anger, like the strings of harps;
+  And how could they be born to majesty
+  If I had never made the golden cradle?
+
+YOUNGEST PUPIL.
+
+    [_Throwing himself at SEANCHAN’S feet._]
+
+  Why did you take me from my father’s fields?
+  If you would leave me now, what shall I love?
+  Where shall I go? What shall I set my hand to?
+  And why have you put music in my ears,
+  If you would send me to the clattering houses?
+  I will throw down the trumpet and the harp,
+  For how could I sing verses or make music
+  With none to praise me, and a broken heart?
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  What was it that the poets promised you,
+  If it was not their sorrow? Do not speak.
+  Have I not opened school on these bare steps,
+  And are not you the youngest of my scholars?
+  And I would have all know that when all falls
+  In ruin, poetry calls out in joy,
+  Being the scattering hand, the bursting pod,
+  The victim’s joy among the holy flame,
+  God’s laughter at the shattering of the world.
+  And now that joy laughs out, and weeps and burns
+  On these bare steps.
+
+YOUNGEST PUPIL.
+
+  O master, do not die!
+
+OLDEST PUPIL.
+
+  Trouble him with no useless argument.
+  Be silent! There is nothing we can do
+  Except find out the King and kneel to him,
+  And beg our ancient right.
+                           For here are some
+  To say whatever we could say and more,
+  And fare as badly. Come, boy, that is no use.
+
+    [_Raises YOUNGEST PUPIL._
+
+  If it seem well that we beseech the King,
+  Lay down your harps and trumpets on the stones
+  In silence, and come with me silently.
+  Come with slow footfalls, and bow all your heads,
+  For a bowed head becomes a mourner best.
+
+    [_They lay harps and trumpets down one by one, and then
+    go out very solemnly and slowly, following one another.
+    Enter MAYOR, TWO CRIPPLES, and BRIAN, an old servant.
+    The mayor, who has been heard, before he came upon
+    the stage, muttering _‘Chief Poet,’ ‘Ireland,’ etc._,
+    crosses in front of SEANCHAN to the other side of the
+    steps. BRIAN takes food out of basket. The CRIPPLES are
+    watching the basket. The MAYOR has an Ogham stick in
+    his hand._
+
+MAYOR.
+
+    [_As he crosses._]
+
+  ‘Chief Poet,’ ‘Ireland,’ ‘Townsman,’ ‘Grazing land,’
+  Those are the words I have to keep in mind—
+  ‘Chief Poet,’ ‘Ireland,’ ‘Townsman,’ ‘Grazing land.’
+  I have the words. They are all upon the Ogham.
+  ‘Chief Poet,’ ‘Ireland,’ ‘Townsman,’ ‘Grazing land.’
+  But what’s their order?
+
+    [_He keeps muttering over his speech during what
+    follows._
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+                   The King were rightly served
+  If Seanchan drove his good luck away.
+  What’s there about a king, that’s in the world
+  From birth to burial like another man,
+  That he should change old customs, that were in it
+  As long as ever the world has been a world?
+
+SECOND CRIPPLE.
+
+  If I were king I would not meddle with him,
+  For there is something queer about a poet.
+  I knew of one that would be making rhyme
+  Under a thorn at crossing of three roads.
+  He was as ragged as ourselves, and yet
+  He was no sooner dead than every thorn tree
+  From Inchy to Kiltartan withered away.
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  The King is but a fool!
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  I am getting ready.
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  A poet has power from beyond the world,
+  That he may set our thoughts upon old times,
+  And lucky queens and little holy fish
+  That rise up every seventh year——
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  Hush! hush!
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  To cure the crippled.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  I am half ready now.
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  There’s not a mischief I’d begrudge the King
+  If it were any other——
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  Hush! I am ready.
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  That died to get it. I have brought out the food,
+  And if my master will not eat of it,
+  I’ll home and get provision for his wake,
+  For that’s no great way off. Well, have your say,
+  But don’t be long about it.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+    [_Goes close to SEANCHAN._]
+
+                              Chief Poet of Ireland,
+  I am the Mayor of your own town Kinvara,
+  And I am come to tell you that the news
+  Of this great trouble with the King of Gort
+  Has plunged us in deep sorrow—part for you,
+  Our honoured townsman, part for our good town.
+
+    [_Begins to hesitate; scratching his head._
+
+  But what comes now? Something about the King.
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  Get on! get on! The food is all set out.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  Don’t hurry me.
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+                  Give us a taste of it.
+  He’ll not begrudge it.
+
+SECOND CRIPPLE.
+
+                         Let them that have their limbs
+  Starve if they will. We have to keep in mind
+  The stomach God has left us.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+                               Hush! I have it!
+  The King was said to be most friendly to us,
+  And we have reason, as you’ll recollect,
+  For thinking that he was about to give
+  Those grazing lands inland we so much need,
+  Being pinched between the water and the stones.
+  Our mowers mow with knives between the stones;
+  The sea washes the meadows. You know well
+  We have asked nothing but what’s reasonable.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Reason in plenty. Yellowy white hair,
+  A hollow face, and not too many teeth.
+  How comes it he has been so long in the world
+  And not found Reason out?
+
+    [_While saying this he has turned half round. He hardly
+    looks at the MAYOR._
+
+BRIAN.
+
+    [_Trying to pull MAYOR away._]
+
+                          What good is there
+  In telling him what he has heard all day!
+  I will set food before him.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+    [_Shoving BRIAN away._]
+
+                            Don’t hurry me!
+  It’s small respect you’re showing to the town!
+  Get farther off! [_To SEANCHAN._] We would not have you think,
+  Weighty as these considerations are,
+  That they have been as weighty in our minds
+  As our desire that one we take much pride in,
+  A man that’s been an honour to our town,
+  Should live and prosper; therefore we beseech you
+  To give way in a matter of no moment,
+  A matter of mere sentiment—a trifle—
+  That we may always keep our pride in you.
+
+    [_He finishes this speech with a pompous air, motions
+    to BRIAN to bring the food to SEANCHAN, and sits on
+    seat._
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  Master, master, eat this! It’s not king’s food,
+  That’s cooked for everybody and nobody.
+  Here’s barley-bread out of your father’s oven,
+  And dulse from Duras. Here is the dulse, your honour;
+  It’s wholesome, and has the good taste of the sea.
+
+    [_Takes dulse in one hand and bread in other and
+    presses them into SEANCHAN’S hands. SEANCHAN shows by
+    his movement his different feeling to BRIAN._
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  He has taken it, and there’ll be nothing left!
+
+SECOND CRIPPLE.
+
+  Nothing at all; he wanted his own sort.
+  What’s honey to a cat, corn to a dog,
+  Or a green apple to a ghost in a churchyard?
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Pressing food back into BRIAN’S hands._]
+
+  Eat it yourself, for you have come a journey,
+  And it may be eat nothing on the way.
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  How could I eat it, and your honour starving!
+  It is your father sends it, and he cried
+  Because the stiffness that is in his bones
+  Prevented him from coming, and bid me tell you
+  That he is old, that he has need of you,
+  And that the people will be pointing at him,
+  And he not able to lift up his head,
+  If you should turn the King’s favour away;
+  And he adds to it, that he cared you well,
+  And you in your young age, and that it’s right
+  That you should care him now.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Who is now interested._]
+
+                              And is that all?
+  What did my mother say?
+
+BRIAN.
+
+                          She gave no message;
+  For when they told her you had it in mind to starve,
+  Or get again the ancient right of the poets,
+  She said: ‘No message can do any good.
+  He will not send the answer that you want.
+  We cannot change him.’ And she went indoors,
+  Lay down upon the bed, and turned her face
+  Out of the light. And thereupon your father
+  Said: ‘Tell him that his mother sends no message,
+  Albeit broken down and miserable.’      [_A pause._
+  Here’s a pigeon’s egg from Duras, and these others
+  Were laid by your own hens.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                              She has sent no message.
+  Our mothers know us; they know us to the bone.
+  They knew us before birth, and that is why
+  They know us even better than the sweethearts
+  Upon whose breasts we have lain.
+                                   Go quickly! Go
+  And tell them that my mother was in the right.
+  There is no answer. Go and tell them that.
+  Go tell them that she knew me.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+                                 What is he saying?
+  I never understood a poet’s talk
+  More than the baa of a sheep!
+
+    [_Comes over from seat. SEANCHAN turns away._
+
+                               You have not heard,
+  It may be, having been so much away,
+  How many of the cattle died last winter
+  From lacking grass, and that there was much sickness
+  Because the poor have nothing but salt fish
+  To live on through the winter?
+
+BRIAN.
+
+                                 Get away,
+  And leave the place to me! It’s my turn now,
+  For your sack’s empty!
+
+MAYOR.
+
+                        Is it ‘get away’!
+  Is that the way I’m to be spoken to!
+  Am I not Mayor? Amn’t I authority?
+  Amn’t I in the King’s place? Answer me that!
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  Then show the people what a king is like:
+  Pull down old merings and root custom up,
+  Whitewash the dunghills, fatten hogs and geese,
+  Hang your gold chain about an ass’s neck,
+  And burn the blessed thorn trees out of the fields,
+  And drive what’s comely away!
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  Holy Saint Coleman!
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  Fine talk! fine talk! What else does the King do?
+  He fattens hogs and drives the poet away!
+
+SECOND CRIPPLE.
+
+  He starves the song-maker!
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  He fattens geese!
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  How dare you take his name into your mouth!
+  How dare you lift your voice against the King!
+  What would we be without him?
+
+BRIAN.
+
+                                Why do you praise him?
+  I will have nobody speak well of him,
+  Or any other king that robs my master.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  And had he not the right to? and the right
+  To strike your master’s head off, being the King,
+  Or yours or mine? I say, ‘Long live the King!
+  Because he does not take our heads from us.’
+  Call out, ‘Long life to him!’
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  Call out for him!
+
+    [_Speaking at same time with MAYOR._
+
+  There’s nobody’ll call out for him,
+  But smiths will turn their anvils,
+  The millers turn their wheels,
+  The farmers turn their churns,
+  The witches turn their thumbs,
+  ’Till he be broken and splintered into pieces.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+    [_At same time with BRIAN._]
+
+  He might, if he’d a mind to it,
+  Be digging out our tongues,
+  Or dragging out our hair,
+  Or bleaching us like calves,
+  Or weaning us like lambs,
+  But for the kindness and the softness that is in him.
+
+    [_They gasp for breath._
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  I’ll curse him till I drop!
+
+    [_Speaking at same time as SECOND CRIPPLE and MAYOR and
+    BRIAN, who have begun again._
+
+  The curse of the poor be upon him,
+  The curse of the widows upon him,
+  The curse of the children upon him,
+  The curse of the bishops upon him,
+  Until he be as rotten as an old mushroom!
+
+SECOND CRIPPLE.
+
+    [_Speaking at same time as FIRST CRIPPLE and MAYOR and
+    BRIAN._
+
+  The curse of wrinkles be upon him!
+  Wrinkles where his eyes are,
+  Wrinkles where his nose is,
+  Wrinkles where his mouth is,
+  And a little old devil looking out of every wrinkle!
+
+BRIAN.
+
+    [_Speaking at same time with MAYOR and CRIPPLES._]
+
+  And nobody will sing for him,
+  And nobody will hunt for him,
+  And nobody will fish for him,
+  And nobody will pray for him,
+  But ever and always curse him and abuse him.
+
+MAYOR.
+
+    [_Speaking at same time with CRIPPLES and BRIAN._]
+
+  What good is in a poet?
+  Has he money in a stocking,
+  Or cider in the cellar,
+  Or flitches in the chimney,
+  Or anything anywhere but his own idleness?
+
+    [_BRIAN seizes MAYOR._
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  Help! help! Am I not in authority?
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  That’s how I’ll shout for the King!
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  Help! help! Am I not in the King’s place?
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  I’ll teach him to be kind to the poor!
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  Help! help! Wait till we are in Kinvara!
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+    [_Beating MAYOR on the legs with crutch._]
+
+  I’ll shake the royalty out of his legs!
+
+SECOND CRIPPLE.
+
+    [_Burying his nails in MAYOR’S face._]
+
+  I’ll scrumble the ermine out of his skin!
+
+    [_The CHAMBERLAIN comes down steps shouting, ‘_Silence!
+    silence! silence!_’_
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+  How dare you make this uproar at the doors,
+  Deafening the very greatest in the land,
+  As if the farmyards and the rookeries
+  Had all been emptied!
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  It is the Chamberlain.
+
+    [_CRIPPLES go out._
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+  Pick up the litter there, and get you gone!
+  Be quick about it! Have you no respect
+  For this worn stair, this all but sacred door,
+  Where suppliants and tributary kings
+  Have passed, and the world’s glory knelt in silence?
+  Have you no reverence for what all other men
+  Hold honourable?
+
+BRIAN.
+
+                 If I might speak my mind,
+  I’d say the King would have his luck again
+  If he would let my master have his rights.
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+  Pick up your litter! Take your noise away!
+  Make haste, and get the clapper from the bell!
+
+BRIAN.
+
+    [_Putting last of food into basket._]
+
+  What do the great and powerful care for rights
+  That have no armies!
+
+    [_CHAMBERLAIN begins shoving them out with his staff._
+
+MAYOR.
+
+                  My lord, I am not to blame.
+  I’m the King’s man, and they attacked me for it.
+
+BRIAN.
+
+  We have our prayers, our curses and our prayers,
+  And we can give a great name or a bad one.
+
+    [_MAYOR is shoving BRIAN out before him with one hand.
+    He keeps his face to CHAMBERLAIN, and keeps bowing. The
+    CHAMBERLAIN shoves him with his staff._
+
+MAYOR.
+
+  We could not make the poet eat, my lord.
+
+    [_CHAMBERLAIN shoves him with staff._
+
+  Much honoured [_is shoved again_]—honoured to speak with you, my lord;
+  But I’ll go find the girl that he’s to marry.
+  She’s coming, but I’ll hurry her, my lord.
+  Between ourselves, my lord [_is shoved again_], she is a great coaxer.
+  Much honoured, my lord. O, she’s the girl to do it;
+  For when the intellect is out, my lord,
+  Nobody but a woman’s any good.
+
+    [_Is shoved again._
+
+  Much honoured, my lord [_is shoved again_], much honoured, much
+        honoured!
+
+    [_Is shoved out, shoving BRIAN out before him._
+
+    [_All through this scene, from the outset of the
+    quarrel, SEANCHAN has kept his face turned away, or
+    hidden in his cloak. While the CHAMBERLAIN has been
+    speaking, the SOLDIER and the MONK have come out of the
+    palace. The MONK stands on top of steps at one side,
+    SOLDIER a little down steps at the other side. COURT
+    LADIES are seen at opening in the palace curtain behind
+    SOLDIER. CHAMBERLAIN is in the centre._
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+    [_To SEANCHAN._]
+
+  Well, you must be contented, for your work
+  Has roused the common sort against the King,
+  And stolen his authority. The State
+  Is like some orderly and reverend house,
+  Wherein the master, being dead of a sudden,
+  The servants quarrel where they have a mind to,
+  And pilfer here and there.
+
+    [_Pause, finding that SEANCHAN does not answer._
+
+                           How many days
+  Will you keep up this quarrel with the King,
+  And the King’s nobles, and myself, and all,
+  Who’d gladly be your friends, if you would let them?
+
+    [_Going near to MONK._
+
+  If you would try, you might persuade him, father.
+  I cannot make him answer me, and yet
+  If fitting hands would offer him the food,
+  He might accept it.
+
+MONK.
+
+                    Certainly I will not.
+  I’ve made too many homilies, wherein
+  The wanton imagination of the poets
+  Has been condemned, to be his flatterer.
+  If pride and disobedience are unpunished
+  Who will obey?
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+    [_Going to other side towards SOLDIER._]
+
+               If you would speak to him,
+  You might not find persuasion difficult,
+  With all the devils of hunger helping you.
+
+SOLDIER.
+
+  I will not interfere, and if he starve
+  For being obstinate and stiff in the neck,
+  ’Tis but good riddance.
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+                        One of us must do it.
+  It might be, if you’d reason with him, ladies,
+  He would eat something, for I have a notion
+  That if he brought misfortune on the King,
+  Or the King’s house, we’d be as little thought of
+  As summer linen when the winter’s come.
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+  But it would be the greater compliment
+  If Peter’d do it.
+
+SECOND GIRL.
+
+                  Reason with him, Peter.
+  Persuade him to eat; he’s such a bag of bones!
+
+SOLDIER.
+
+  I’ll never trust a woman’s word again!
+  There’s nobody that was so loud against him
+  When he was at the table; now the wind’s changed,
+  And you that could not bear his speech or his silence,
+  Would have him there in his old place again;
+  I do believe you would, but I won’t help you.
+
+SECOND GIRL.
+
+  Why will you be so hard upon us, Peter?
+  You know we have turned the common sort against us,
+  And he looks miserable.
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+                        We cannot dance,
+  Because no harper will pluck a string for us.
+
+SECOND GIRL.
+
+  I cannot sleep with thinking of his face.
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+  And I love dancing more than anything.
+
+SECOND GIRL.
+
+  Do not be hard on us; but yesterday
+  A woman in the road threw stones at me.
+  You would not have me stoned?
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+  May I not dance?
+
+SOLDIER.
+
+  I will do nothing. You have put him out,
+  And now that he is out—well, leave him out.
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+  Do it for my sake, Peter.
+
+SECOND GIRL.
+
+  And for mine.
+
+    [_Each girl as she speaks takes PETER’S hand with her
+    right hand, stroking down his arm with her left. While
+    SECOND GIRL is stroking his arm, FIRST GIRL leaves go
+    and gives him the dish._
+
+SOLDIER.
+
+  Well, well; but not your way. [_To SEANCHAN._] Here’s meat for you.
+  It has been carried from too good a table
+  For men like you, and I am offering it
+  Because these women have made a fool of me.
+
+    [_A pause._
+
+  You mean to starve? You will have none of it?
+  I’ll leave it there, where you can sniff the savour.
+  Snuff it, old hedgehog, and unroll yourself!
+  But if I were the King, I’d make you do it
+  With wisps of lighted straw.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                   You have rightly named me.
+  I lie rolled up under the ragged thorns
+  That are upon the edge of those great waters
+  Where all things vanish away, and I have heard
+  Murmurs that are the ending of all sound.
+  I am out of life; I am rolled up, and yet,
+  Hedgehog although I am, I’ll not unroll
+  For you, King’s dog! Go to the King, your master.
+  Crouch down and wag your tail, for it may be
+  He has nothing now against you, and I think
+  The stripes of your last beating are all healed.
+
+    [_The SOLDIER has drawn his sword._
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+    [_Striking up sword._]
+
+  Put up your sword, sir; put it up, I say!
+  The common sort would tear you into pieces
+  If you but touched him.
+
+SOLDIER.
+
+                        If he’s to be flattered,
+  Petted, cajoled, and dandled into humour,
+  We might as well have left him at the table.
+
+    [_Goes to one side sheathing sword._
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  You must need keep your patience yet awhile,
+  For I have some few mouthfuls of sweet air
+  To swallow before I have grown to be as civil
+  As any other dust.
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+                   You wrong us, Seanchan.
+  There is none here but holds you in respect;
+  And if you’d only eat out of this dish,
+  The King would show how much he honours you.
+
+    [_Bowing and smiling._
+
+  Who could imagine you’d so take to heart
+  Being put from the high table? I am certain
+  That you, if you will only think it over,
+  Will understand that it is men of law,
+  Leaders of the King’s armies, and the like,
+  That should sit there.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                          Somebody has deceived you,
+  Or maybe it was your own eyes that lied,
+  In making it appear that I was driven
+  From the King’s table. You have driven away
+  The images of them that weave a dance
+  By the four rivers in the mountain garden.
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+  You mean we have driven poetry away.
+  But that’s not altogether true, for I,
+  As you should know, have written poetry.
+  And often when the table has been cleared,
+  And candles lighted, the King calls for me,
+  And I repeat it him. My poetry
+  Is not to be compared with yours; but still,
+  Where I am honoured, poetry is honoured—
+  In some measure.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                  If you are a poet,
+  Cry out that the King’s money would not buy,
+  Nor the high circle consecrate his head,
+  If poets had never christened gold, and even
+  The moon’s poor daughter, that most whey-faced metal,
+  Precious; and cry out that none alive
+  Would ride among the arrows with high heart,
+  Or scatter with an open hand, had not
+  Our heady craft commended wasteful virtues.
+  And when that story’s finished, shake your coat
+  Where little jewels gleam on it, and say,
+  A herdsman, sitting where the pigs had trampled,
+  Made up a song about enchanted kings,
+  Who were so finely dressed, one fancied them
+  All fiery, and women by the churn
+  And children by the hearth caught up the song
+  And murmured it, until the tailors heard it.
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+  If you would but eat something you’d find out
+  That you have had these thoughts from lack of food,
+  For hunger makes us feverish.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                                Cry aloud,
+  That when we are driven out we come again
+  Like a great wind that runs out of the waste
+  To blow the tables flat; and thereupon
+  Lie down upon the threshold till the King
+  Restore to us the ancient right of the poets.
+
+MONK.
+
+  You cannot shake him. I will to the King,
+  And offer him consolation in his trouble,
+  For that man there has set his teeth to die.
+  And being one that hates obedience,
+  Discipline, and orderliness of life,
+  I cannot mourn him.
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+                      ’Twas you that stirred it up.
+  You stirred it up that you might spoil our dancing.
+  Why shouldn’t we have dancing? We’re not in Lent.
+  Yet nobody will pipe or play to us;
+  And they will never do it if he die.
+  And that is why you are going.
+
+MONK.
+
+  What folly’s this?
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+  Well, if you did not do it, speak to him—
+  Use your authority; make him obey you.
+  What harm is there in dancing?
+
+MONK.
+
+                                Hush! begone!
+  Go to the fields and watch the hurley players,
+  Or any other place you have a mind to.
+  This is not woman’s work.
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+                            Come! let’s away!
+  We can do nothing here.
+
+MONK.
+
+                          The pride of the poets!
+  Dancing, hurling, the country full of noise,
+  And King and Church neglected. Seanchan,
+  I’ll take my leave, for you are perishing
+  Like all that let the wanton imagination
+  Carry them where it will, and it’s not likely
+  I’ll look upon your living face again.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Come nearer, nearer!
+
+MONK.
+
+  Have you some last wish?
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Stoop down, for I would whisper it in your ear.
+  Has that wild God of yours, that was so wild
+  When you’d but lately taken the King’s pay,
+  Grown any tamer? He gave you all much trouble.
+
+MONK.
+
+  Let go my habit!
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                  Have you persuaded him
+  To chirp between two dishes when the King
+  Sits down to table?
+
+MONK.
+
+  Let go my habit, sir!
+
+    [_Crosses to centre of stage._
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  And maybe he has learnt to sing quite softly
+  Because loud singing would disturb the King,
+  Who is sitting drowsily among his friends
+  After the table has been cleared. Not yet!
+
+    [_SEANCHAN has been dragged some feet clinging to the
+    MONK’S habit._
+
+  You did not think that hands so full of hunger
+  Could hold you tightly. They are not civil yet.
+  I’d know if you have taught him to eat bread
+  From the King’s hand, and perch upon his finger.
+  I think he perches on the King’s strong hand.
+  But it may be that he is still too wild.
+  You must not weary in your work; a king
+  Is often weary, and he needs a God
+  To be a comfort to him.
+
+    [_The MONK plucks his habit away and goes into palace.
+    SEANCHAN holds up his hand as if a bird perched upon
+    it. He pretends to stroke the bird._
+
+                          A little God,
+  With comfortable feathers, and bright eyes.
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+  There will be no more dancing in our time,
+  For nobody will play the harp or the fiddle.
+  Let us away, for we cannot amend it,
+  And watch the hurley.
+
+SECOND GIRL.
+
+  Hush! he is looking at us.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Yes, yes, go to the hurley, go to the hurley,
+  Go to the hurley! Gather up your skirts—
+  Run quickly! You can remember many love songs;
+  I know it by the light that’s in your eyes—
+  But you’ll forget them. You’re fair to look upon.
+  Your feet delight in dancing, and your mouths
+  In the slow smiling that awakens love.
+  The mothers that have borne you mated rightly.
+  They’d little ears as thirsty as your ears
+  For many love songs. Go to the young men.
+  Are not the ruddy flesh and the thin flanks
+  And the broad shoulders worthy of desire?
+  Go from me! Here is nothing for your eyes.
+  But it is I that am singing you away—
+  Singing you to the young men.
+
+    [_The TWO YOUNG PRINCESSES come out of palace. While he
+    has been speaking the GIRLS have shrunk back holding
+    each other’s hands._
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+                                Be quiet!
+  Look who it is has come out of the house.
+  Princesses, we are for the hurling field.
+  Will you go there?
+
+FIRST PRINCESS.
+
+                    We will go with you, Aileen.
+  But we must have some words with Seanchan,
+  For we have come to make him eat and drink.
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+  I will hold out the dish and cup for him
+  While you are speaking to him of his folly,
+  If you desire it, Princess.
+
+    [_He has taken dish and cup._
+
+FIRST PRINCESS.
+
+                            No, Finula
+  Will carry him the dish and I the cup.
+  We’ll offer them ourselves.
+
+    [_They take cup and dish._
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+                            They are so gracious;
+  The dear little Princesses are so gracious.
+
+    [_PRINCESS holds out her hand for SEANCHAN to kiss it.
+    He does not move._
+
+  Although she is holding out her hand to him,
+  He will not kiss it.
+
+FIRST PRINCESS.
+
+                      My father bids us say
+  That, though he cannot have you at his table,
+  You may ask any other thing you like
+  And he will give it you. We carry you
+  With our own hands a dish and cup of wine.
+
+FIRST GIRL.
+
+  O, look! he has taken it! He has taken it!
+  The dear Princesses! I have always said
+  That nobody could refuse them anything.
+
+    [_SEANCHAN takes the cup in one hand. In the other he
+    holds for a moment the hand of the PRINCESS._
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  O long, soft fingers and pale finger-tips,
+  Well worthy to be laid in a king’s hand!
+  O, you have fair white hands, for it is certain
+  There is uncommon whiteness in these hands.
+  But there is something comes into my mind,
+  Princess. A little while before your birth,
+  I saw your mother sitting by the road
+  In a high chair; and when a leper passed,
+  She pointed him the way into the town.
+  He lifted up his hand and blessed her hand—
+  I saw it with my own eyes. Hold out your hands;
+  I will find out if they are contaminated,
+  For it has come into my thoughts that maybe
+  The King has sent me food and drink by hands
+  That are contaminated. I would see all your hands.
+  You’ve eyes of dancers; but hold out your hands,
+  For it may be there are none sound among you.
+
+    [_The PRINCESSES have shrunk back in terror._
+
+FIRST PRINCESS.
+
+  He has called us lepers.
+
+    [_SOLDIER draws sword._
+
+CHAMBERLAIN.
+
+                        He’s out of his mind,
+  And does not know the meaning of what he said.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Standing up._]
+
+  There’s no sound hand among you—no sound hand.
+  Away with you! away with all of you!
+  You are all lepers! There is leprosy
+  Among the plates and dishes that you have carried.
+  And wherefore have you brought me leper’s wine?
+
+    [_He flings the contents of the cup in their faces._
+
+  There, there! I have given it to you again. And now
+  Begone, or I will give my curse to you.
+  You have the leper’s blessing, but you think
+  Maybe the bread will something lack in savour
+  Unless you mix my curse into the dough.
+
+    [_They go out hurriedly in all directions. SEANCHAN is
+    staggering in the middle of the stage._
+
+  Where did I say the leprosy had come from?
+  I said it came out of a leper’s hand,
+
+    _Enter CRIPPLES._
+
+  And that he walked the highway. But that’s folly,
+  For he was walking up there in the sky.
+  And there he is even now, with his white hand
+  Thrust out of the blue air, and blessing them
+  With leprosy.
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+                He’s pointing at the moon
+  That’s coming out up yonder, and he calls it
+  Leprous, because the daylight whitens it.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  He’s holding up his hand above them all—
+  King, noblemen, princesses—blessing all.
+  Who could imagine he’d have so much patience?
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+    [_Clutching the other CRIPPLE._]
+
+  Come out of this!
+
+SECOND CRIPPLE.
+
+    [_Pointing to food._]
+
+                  If you don’t need it, sir,
+  May we not carry some of it away?
+
+    [_They cross towards food and pass in front of
+    SEANCHAN._
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Who’s speaking? Who are you?
+
+FIRST CRIPPLE.
+
+  Come out of this!
+
+SECOND CRIPPLE.
+
+  Have pity on us, that must beg our bread
+  From table to table throughout the entire world,
+  And yet be hungry.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                      But why were you born crooked?
+  What bad poet did your mothers listen to
+  That you were born so crooked?
+
+CRIPPLE.
+
+                                Come away!
+  Maybe he’s cursed the food, and it might kill us.
+
+OTHER CRIPPLE.
+
+  Yes, better come away.
+
+    [_They go out._
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Staggering, and speaking wearily._]
+
+                        He has great strength
+  And great patience to hold his right hand there,
+  Uplifted, and not wavering about.
+  He is much stronger than I am, much stronger.
+
+    [_Sinks down on steps. Enter MAYOR and FEDELM._
+
+FEDELM.
+
+    [_Her finger on her lips._]
+
+  Say nothing! I will get him out of this
+  Before I have said a word of food and drink;
+  For while he is on this threshold and can hear,
+  It may be, the voices that made mock of him,
+  He would not listen. I’d be alone with him.
+
+    [_MAYOR goes out. FEDELM goes to SEANCHAN and kneels
+    before him._
+
+  Seanchan! Seanchan!
+
+    [_He remains looking into the sky._
+
+                      Can you not hear me, Seanchan?
+  It is myself.
+
+    [_He looks at her, dreamily at first, then takes her
+    hand._
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                Is this your hand, Fedelm?
+  I have been looking at another hand
+  That is up yonder.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+  I have come for you.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Fedelm, I did not know that you were here.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+  And can you not remember that I promised
+  That I would come and take you home with me
+  When I’d the harvest in? And now I’ve come,
+  And you must come away, and come on the instant.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Yes, I will come. But is the harvest in?
+  This air has got a summer taste in it.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+  But is not the wild middle of the summer
+  A better time to marry? Come with me now!
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Seizing her by both wrists._]
+
+  Who taught you that? For it’s a certainty,
+  Although I never knew it till last night,
+  That marriage, because it is the height of life,
+  Can only be accomplished to the full
+  In the high days of the year. I lay awake:
+  There had come a frenzy into the light of the stars,
+  And they were coming nearer, and I knew
+  All in a minute they were about to marry
+  Clods out upon the ploughlands, to beget
+  A mightier race than any that has been.
+  But some that are within there made a noise,
+  And frighted them away.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+                          Come with me now!
+  We have far to go, and daylight’s running out.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  The stars had come so near me that I caught
+  Their singing. It was praise of that great race
+  That would be haughty, mirthful, and white-bodied,
+  With a high head, and open hand, and how,
+  Laughing, it would take the mastery of the world.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+  But you will tell me all about their songs
+  When we’re at home. You have need of rest and care,
+  And I can give them you when we’re at home.
+  And therefore let us hurry, and get us home.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  It’s certain that there is some trouble here,
+  Although it’s gone out of my memory.
+  And I would get away from it. Give me your help.      [_Trying to rise._
+  But why are not my pupils here to help me?
+  Go, call my pupils, for I need their help.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+  Come with me now, and I will send for them,
+  For I have a great room that’s full of beds
+  I can make ready; and there is a smooth lawn
+  Where they can play at hurley and sing poems
+  Under an apple-tree.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                      I know that place:
+  An apple-tree, and a smooth level lawn
+  Where the young men can sway their hurley sticks.
+
+[_Sings._]
+
+  The four rivers that run there,
+  Through well-mown level ground,
+  Have come out of a blessed well
+  That is all bound and wound
+  By the great roots of an apple,
+  And all the fowl of the air
+  Have gathered in the wide branches
+  And keep singing there.
+
+    [_FEDELM, troubled, has covered her eyes with her
+    hands._
+
+FEDELM.
+
+  No, there are not four rivers, and those rhymes
+  Praise Adam’s paradise.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+                         I can remember now,
+  It’s out of a poem I made long ago
+  About the Garden in the East of the World,
+  And how spirits in the images of birds
+  Crowd in the branches of old Adam’s crabtree.
+  They come before me now, and dig in the fruit
+  With so much gluttony, and are so drunk
+  With that harsh wholesome savour, that their feathers
+  Are clinging one to another with the juice.
+  But you would lead me to some friendly place,
+  And I would go there quickly.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+    [_Helping him to rise._]
+
+  Come with me.
+
+    _He walks slowly, supported by her, till he comes to
+    table._
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  But why am I so weak? Have I been ill?
+  Sweetheart, why is it that I am so weak?
+
+    [_Sinks on to seat._
+
+FEDELM.
+
+    [_Goes to table._]
+
+  I’ll dip this piece of bread into the wine,
+  For that will make you stronger for the journey.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Yes, give me bread and wine; that’s what I want,
+  For it is hunger that is gnawing me.
+
+    [_He takes bread from FEDELM, hesitates, and then
+    thrusts it back into her hand._
+
+  But, no; I must not eat it.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+                             Eat, Seanchan.
+  For if you do not eat it you will die.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Why did you give me food? Why did you come?
+  For had I not enough to fight against
+  Without your coming?
+
+FEDELM.
+
+                      Eat this little crust,
+  Seanchan, if you have any love for me.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  I must not eat it—but that’s beyond your wit.
+  Child! child! I must not eat it, though I die.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+    [_Passionately._]
+
+  You do not know what love is; for if you loved,
+  You would put every other thought away.
+  But you have never loved me.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Seizing her by wrist._]
+
+                              You, a child,
+  Who have but seen a man out of the window,
+  Tell me that I know nothing about love,
+  And that I do not love you! Did I not say
+  There was a frenzy in the light of the stars
+  All through the livelong night, and that the night
+  Was full of marriages? But that fight’s over,
+  And all that’s done with, and I have to die.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+    [_Throwing her arms about him._]
+
+  I will not be put from you, although I think
+  I had not grudged it you if some great lady,
+  If the King’s daughter, had set out your bed.
+  I will not give you up to death; no, no!
+  And are not these white arms and this soft neck
+  Better than the brown earth?
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Struggling to disengage himself._]
+
+                              Begone from me!
+  There’s treachery in those arms and in that voice.
+  They’re all against me. Why do you linger there?
+  How long must I endure the sight of you?
+
+FEDELM.
+
+  O, Seanchan! Seanchan!
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Rising._]
+
+                        Go where you will,
+  So it be out of sight and out of mind.
+  I cast you from me like an old torn cap,
+  A broken shoe, a glove without a finger,
+  A crooked penny; whatever is most worthless.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+    [_Bursts into tears._]
+
+  O, do not drive me from you!
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+    [_Takes her in his arms._]
+
+                               What did I say,
+  My dove of the woods? I was about to curse you.
+  It was a frenzy. I’ll unsay it all.
+  But you must go away.
+
+FEDELM.
+
+                        Let me be near you.
+  I will obey like any married wife.
+  Let me but lie before your feet.
+
+SEANCHAN.
+
+  Come nearer.
+
+    [_Kisses her._
+
+  If I had eaten when you bid me, sweetheart,
+  The kiss of multitudes in times to come
+  Had been the poorer.
+
+    [_Enter KING from palace, followed by the two
+    PRINCESSES._
+
+KING.
+
+    [_To FEDELM._]
+
+  Has he eaten yet?
+
+FEDELM.
+
+  No, King, and will not till you have restored
+  The right of the poets.
+
+KING.
+
+    [_Coming down and standing before SEANCHAN._]
+
+                          Seanchan, you have refused
+low, insolent laughter.
+
+Maria was at her door instantly. Across the court, a man could be seen
+for one moment, seated on Serena’s wash-bench; then behind him the door
+closed with a bang, shutting off the shaft of firelight.
+
+Maria crossed the court, and when she had reached the man’s side he
+looked up. The moonlight fell upon his face. It was Crown.
+
+“What yuh doin’ hyuh?” she asked him.
+
+“Jus’ droppin’ in on a few ole frien’.”
+
+“Come tuh de shop,” she commanded. “I gots tuh hab talk wid yuh.”
+
+He arose obediently, and followed her.
+
+Maria turned up the lamp and faced about as Crown entered the room. He
+had to bend his head to pass under the lintel, and his shoulders brushed
+the sides of the opening.
+
+The big negress stood for a long moment looking at him. Her gaze took in
+the straight legs with their springing thighs straining the fabric of
+the cotton pants, the slender waist, and the almost unbelievable
+outward flare of the chest to the high, straight span of the shoulders.
+
+A look of deep sadness grew in her somber face.
+
+“Wid uh body like dat!” she said at last, “why yuh is goin’ aroun’
+huntin’ fuh deat’?”
+
+Crown laughed uneasily, stepped into the room, and sat at a table. He
+placed his elbows upon it, hunched his shoulders forward with a writhing
+of muscle beneath the shirt, then dropped his chin in his hands, and
+regarded the woman.
+
+“I know dese hyuh niggers,” he replied. “Dey is a decent lot. Dey
+wouldn’t gib no nigger away tuh de w’ite folks.”
+
+“Dat de Gawd’ trut’. Only dey is odder way ob settlin’ up er debt.”
+
+“Serena?” he asked, with a sidelong look, and a laugh. “Dat sister gots
+de fear ob Gawd in she heart. I ain’t ’fraid none ob she.”
+
+After a moment of silence he asked abruptly:
+
+“Bess still libbin’ wid de cripple?”
+
+“Yes; an’ she a happy, decent ’oman. Yuh bes’ leabe she alone.”
+
+“Fer Gawd’ sake! Wut yuh tink I come tuh dis damn town fuh? I ain’t jus’
+huntin’ fuh deat’! I atter my ’oman.”
+
+Maria placed her hands on the table opposite the man and bent over to
+look into his face.
+
+“’Oman is all berry much de same,” she said in a low, persuasive voice.
+“Dey comes an’ dey goes. One sattify a man quick as annuduh. Dey is lots
+ob bettuh lookin’ gal dan Bess. She fix fuh life now wid dat boy. I ax
+yuh go an’ lef she. Gib she uh chance.”
+
+“It tek long time tuh learn one ’oman,” he said slowly. “Me an’ Bess
+done fight dat all out dese fibe year gone.”
+
+“Yuh ain’t goin’ leabe she den?” There was an unusual note of pleading
+in the heavy voice.
+
+“Not till Hell freeze.”
+
+After a moment he arose and turned to her.
+
+“I gots tuh go out now. I ain’t sho’ wedder I goin’ away tuhnight or
+wait fuh tuhmorruh night. I goin’ look aroun’ an’ see how de lan’ lay;
+but I’ll be seein’ yuh agin befo’ I goes.”
+
+Maria regarded him for a long moment; the look of sadness in her face
+deepened to a heavy melancholy; but she said nothing.
+
+Crown started for the street with his long, swaggering stride. The big
+woman watched him until he turned to the north at the entrance and
+passed from view. Then she locked the door and, with a deep sigh,
+walked to her own room.
+
+
+§
+
+Porgy opened his eyes suddenly. The window, which had been luminous when
+he went to sleep, was now darkened. He watched it intently. Slowly he
+realized that parts of the little square still showed the moonlit waters
+of the bay, and that only the centre was blocked out by an intervening
+mass. Then the mass moved, and Porgy saw that it was the torso and
+shoulders of a man. The window was three feet in width, yet the
+shoulders seemed to brush both sides of it as the form bent forward. The
+sash was down, and presently there came a sound as though hands were
+testing it to see whether it could be forced up.
+
+Porgy was lying on his back. He reached his left hand over the covers
+and let the fingers touch ever so lightly the sleeping faces of first
+the baby, then the woman. His right hand slid beneath his pillow, and
+his strong, slender fingers closed about the handle of a knife.
+
+At the window the slight, testing noise continued.
+
+
+§
+
+It was certainly after midnight when Maria looked from her doorway; for
+the moon was tottering on the western wall, and while she stood looking,
+slowly it dropped over and vanished.
+
+The vague forebodings that she had felt when she talked to Crown earlier
+in the evening had kept sleep from her; with each passing hour her fears
+increased, and with them a sense of imminence that finally forced her to
+get up, slip on a wrapper, and prepare to make the rounds of the court.
+
+But on opening her door, she was at once reassured. The square stood
+before her like a vast cistern brimmed with misty dark and roofed with a
+lid of sky. A cur grovelled forward on its belly from a near-by nook,
+and licked one of her bare feet with its moist, warm tongue.
+
+Above her, in the huge honeycomb of the building, someone was snoring in
+a slow, steady rhythm.
+
+The big negress drew a deep sigh of relief and turned back toward her
+room.
+
+A sound of cracking wood snapped the silence. Then, like a flurry of
+small bells, came a shiver of broken glass on the stones.
+
+Maria spun around, and tried to locate the sound; but no noise followed.
+Silence flowed back over the court and settled palpably into its
+recesses. The faint, not unpleasant rhythm of the snoring came
+insistently forward.
+
+Suddenly Maria turned, her face quick with apprehension. She drew her
+wrapper closely about her, and crossed to Porgy’s door. With only half
+of the distance traversed, she heard a sound from the room. It was more
+of a muffled thump than anything else, and with it, something very like
+a gasp.
+
+When her hand closed over the knob all was silent again, except that she
+could hear a long, slightly shuddering breath.
+
+Then came a sound that caused her flesh to prickle with primal terror.
+It was so unexpected, there in the chill, silent night. It was Porgy’s
+laugh, but different. Out of the stillness it swelled suddenly, deep,
+aboriginal, lustful. Then it stopped short.
+
+Maria heard the baby cry out; then Bess’s voice, sleepy and mystified.
+“Fuh Gawd’ sake, Porgy, what yuh laughin’ ’bout?”
+
+“Dat all right, honey,” came the answer. “Don’t yuh be worryin’. Yuh
+gots Porgy now, an’ he look atter he ’oman. Ain’t I done tells yuh: Yuh
+gots er _man_ now.”
+
+Maria turned the knob, entered the room, and closed the door quickly
+behind her.
+
+Night trailed westward across the city. In the east, out beyond the
+ocean’s rim, essential light trembled upward and seemed to absorb rather
+than quench the morning stars. Out of the sliding planes of mist that
+hung like spent breath above the city, shapes began to emerge and assume
+their proper values.
+
+Far in the upper air over Catfish Row a speck appeared. It took a long,
+descending spiral, and became two, then three. Around a wide circle the
+specks swung, as though hung by wires from a lofty pivot. The light
+brightened perceptibly. The specks dropped to a lower level, increased
+in size, and miraculously became a dozen. Then some of them dropped in
+from the circumference of the circle, cutting lines across like the
+spokes of a wheel, and from time to time flapping indolent wings. Dark
+and menacing when they flew to the westward, they would turn easily
+toward the east, and the sun, still below the horizon, would gild their
+bodies with ruddy gold, as they sailed, breast on, toward it.
+
+Down, down they dropped, reaching low, and yet lower levels, until at
+last they seemed to brush the water-front buildings with their sombre
+wings. Then gradually they narrowed to a small circle that patrolled
+the air directly over a shape that lay awash in the rising tide, across
+the street from Catfish Row.
+
+Suddenly from the swinging circle a single bird planed down and lit with
+an awkward, hopping step directly before the object. For a moment he
+regarded it with bleak, predatory eyes; then flew back to his fellows. A
+moment later the whole flock swooped down, and the shape was hidden by
+flapping wings and black awkward bodies that hopped about and fought
+inward to the centre of the group.
+
+A negro who had been sleeping under an overturned bateau awoke and
+rubbed his eyes; then he sprang up and, seizing an oar, beat the birds
+away with savage blows.
+
+He bent over the object for a moment, then turned and raced for the
+street with eyes showing white.
+
+“Fuh Gawd’ sake, folks,” he cried, “come hyuh quick! Hyuh Crown, an’ he
+done dead.”
+
+
+§
+
+A group of three white men stood over the body. One was the
+plain-clothes man with the goatee and stick who had investigated the
+Robbins’ murder. Behind him stood a uniformed policeman. The third, a
+stout, leisurely individual, was stooping over the body, in the act of
+making an examination.
+
+“What do you make of it, Coroner?” asked the plain-clothes man.
+
+“Knife between fifth and sixth ribs; must have gone straight through the
+heart.”
+
+“Well, he had it comin’ to him,” the detective observed. “They tell me
+he is the nigger, Crown, who killed Robbins last April. That gives us
+the widow to work on fer a starter, by the way; and Hennessy tells me
+that he used to run with that dope case we had up last August. She’s
+livin’ in the Row, too. Let’s go over and have a look.”
+
+The Coroner cast an apprehensive glance at the forbidding structure
+across the way.
+
+“Can’t be so sure,” he cautioned. “Corpse might have been washed up.
+Tide’s on the flood.”
+
+“Well, I’m goin’ to have a look at those two women, anyway,” the
+plain-clothes man announced. “That place is alive with crooks. I’d like
+to get something on it that would justify closing it up as a public
+nuisance, and throwing the whole lot of ’em out in the street. One
+murder and a happy-dust riot already this summer; and here we are
+again.”
+
+Then turning to the policeman, he gave his orders.
+
+“Get the wagon and take the body in. Then you had better come right
+back. We might have some arrests. The Coroner and I’ll investigate while
+you’re gone.”
+
+He turned away toward the Row, assuming that he would be followed.
+
+“All right, Cap; what do you say?” he called.
+
+The Coroner shook his ponderous figure down into his clothes, turned
+with evident reluctance, and joined him.
+
+“All right,” he agreed. “But all I need is a couple of witnesses to
+identify the body at the inquest.”
+
+Across the street a small negro boy detached himself from the base of
+one of the gateposts and darted through the entrance.
+
+A moment later the white men strode into an absolutely empty square.
+Their heels made a sharp sound on the flags, and the walls threw a clear
+echo down upon them.
+
+A cur that had been left napping in the sun woke with a start, looked
+about in a bewildered fashion, gave a frightened yelp, and bolted
+through a doorway.
+
+It was all clearly not to the taste of the Coroner, and he cast an
+uneasy glance about him.
+
+“Where do we go?” he asked.
+
+“That’s the widow’s room over there, if she hasn’t moved. We’ll give it
+a look first,” said the detective.
+
+The door was off the latch, and, without knocking, he kicked it open and
+walked in.
+
+The room was small, but immaculately clean. Beneath a patched white
+quilt could be seen the form of a woman. Two other women were sitting in
+utter silence beside the bed.
+
+The form under the covers moaned.
+
+“Drop that,” the detective commanded. “And answer some questions.”
+
+The moaning stopped.
+
+“Where were you yesterday and last night?”
+
+The reply came slowly, as though speaking were great pain.
+
+“I been sick in dis bed now t’ree day an’ night.”
+
+“We been settin’ wid she, nursin’ she, all dat time,” one of the women
+said.
+
+And the other supplemented, “Dat de Gawd’ trut’.”
+
+“You would swear to that?” asked the Coroner.
+
+Three voices answered in chorus:
+
+“Yes, Boss, we swear tuh dat.”
+
+“There you are,” said the Coroner to the plain-clothes man, “an
+air-tight alibi.”
+
+The detective regarded him for a moment with supreme contempt. Then he
+stepped forward and jerked the sheet from Serena’s face, which lay upon
+the pillow as immobile as a model done in brown clay.
+
+“You know damn well that you were out yesterday!” he snapped. “I have a
+good mind to get the wagon and carry you in.”
+
+Silence followed.
+
+“What do you say to that?” he demanded.
+
+But Serena had nothing to say, and neither had her handmaidens.
+
+Then he turned a menacing frown upon them, as they sat motionless with
+lowered eyes.
+
+“Well!”
+
+They jumped slightly, and their eyes showed white around the iris.
+Suddenly they began to speak, almost in unison.
+
+“We swear tuh Gawd, we done been hyuh wid she t’ree day.”
+
+“Oh, Hell!” said the exasperated detective. “What’s the use? You might
+as well argue with a parrot-cage.”
+
+“That woman is just as ill at this moment as you are,” he said to his
+unenthusiastic associate when they were again in the sunlight. “Her
+little burlesque show proves that, if nothing else. But there is her
+case all prepared. I don’t believe she killed Crown; she doesn’t look
+like that kind. She is either just playing safe, or she has something
+entirely different on her chest. But there’s her story; and you’ll never
+break in without witnesses of your own; and you’ll never get ’em.”
+
+The Coroner was not a highly sensitized individual; but as he moved
+across the empty court, he found it difficult to control his nerves
+under the scrutiny which he felt leveled upon him from behind a hundred
+shuttered windows. Twice he caught himself looking covertly over his
+shoulders; and, as he went, he bore hopefully away toward the entrance.
+
+But the detective was intent upon his task, and presently called him
+back.
+
+“This is the cripple’s room,” he said. “He ain’t much of a witness. I
+tried to break him in the Robbins case; but he wouldn’t talk. I want to
+have a look at the woman, though.”
+
+He kicked the door open suddenly. Porgy and Bess were seated by the
+stove, eating breakfast from tin pans. On the bed in the corner the baby
+lay.
+
+Porgy paused, with his spoon halfway to his mouth, and looked up. Bess
+kept her eyes on the pan, and continued to eat.
+
+The Coroner stopped in the doorway, and made a businesslike show of
+writing in a notebook.
+
+“What’s your name?” he asked Porgy.
+
+The cripple studied him for a long moment, taking in the ample
+proportions of the figure and the heavy, but not unsympathetic, face.
+Then he smiled one of his fleeting, ingenuous smiles.
+
+“Jus’ Porgy,” he said. “Yuh knows me, Boss. Yuh is done gib me plenty ob
+penny on King Charles Street.”
+
+“Of course, you’re the goat-man. I didn’t know you without your wagon,”
+he said amiably. Then, becoming businesslike, he asked:
+
+“This nigger, Crown. You knew him by sight. Didn’t you?”
+
+Porgy debated with himself for a moment, looked again into the Coroner’s
+face, was reassured by what he saw there, and replied:
+
+“Yes, Boss: I ’member um w’en he usen tuh come hyuh, long ago.”
+
+“You could identify him, I suppose?”
+
+Porgy looked blank.
+
+“You’d know him if you saw him again?”
+
+“Yes, Boss; I know um.”
+
+The Coroner made a note in his book, closed it with an air of finality,
+and put it in his pocket.
+
+During the brief interview, the detective had been making an examination
+of the room. The floor had been recently scrubbed, and was still damp in
+the corners. He gave the clean, pine boards a close scrutiny, then
+paused before the window. The bottom of the lower sash had been broken,
+and several of the small, square panes were missing.
+
+“So this is where you killed Crown, eh?” he announced.
+
+The words fell into the silence and were absorbed by it, causing them to
+seem theatrical and unconvincing. Neither Porgy nor Bess spoke. Their
+faces were blank and noncommittal.
+
+After a full moment, the woman said:
+
+“I ain’t onduhstan’, Boss. Nobody hyuh ain’t kill Crown. My husban’ he
+fall t’rough dat winduh yisterday when he leg gib ’way. He er cripple.”
+
+“Any one see him do it?” enquired the Coroner from the door.
+
+“Oh, yes, Boss,” replied Bess, turning to him. “T’ree or four ob de mens
+was in de street; dey will tell yuh all ’bout um.”
+
+“Yes, of course; more witnesses,” sneered the detective. Then turning to
+the Coroner, he asked with a trace of sarcasm in his tone:
+
+“That satisfies you fully, I suppose?”
+
+The Coroner’s nerves were becoming edgy.
+
+“For God’s sake,” he retorted, “do you expect me to believe that a
+cripple could kill a two-hundred pound buck, then tote him a hundred
+yards? Well, I’ve got what I need now anyway. As far as I’m concerned,
+I’m through.”
+
+They were passing the door of Maria’s shop when the detective caught
+sight of something within that held his gaze.
+
+“You can do as you please,” he told his unwilling companion. “But I’m
+going to have a look in here. I have never been able to get anything on
+this woman; but she is a bad influence in the neighborhood. I’d trust
+her just as far as I could throw her.”
+
+The Coroner heaved a sigh of resignation, and they stepped back, and
+entered the shop.
+
+Upon the flooring, directly before the door, and not far from it, was a
+pool of blood. Standing over the pool was a table, and upon it lay the
+carcass of a shark. Maria sat on a bench behind the table. As the men
+entered she swung an immense cleaver downward. A cross-section of the
+shark detached itself and fell away on a pile of similar slices. A thin
+stream of blood dribbled from the table, augmenting the pool upon the
+floor.
+
+Maria did not raise her eyes from her task. Again the cleaver swung up,
+and whistled downward.
+
+From the street sounded the clatter of the returning patrol.
+
+“I’ll wait for you in the wagon,” said the Coroner hastily, and stepped
+back into the sunlight.
+
+But he was not long alone. The uninterrupted swing of the dripping
+cleaver was depressing, and the enthusiasm of his associate waned.
+
+The bell clanged. Hoofs struck sparks from the cobbles, and the strong
+but uncertain arm of the law was withdrawn, to attend to other and more
+congenial business.
+
+
+§
+
+The sound from the retreating wagon dwindled and ceased.
+
+For a moment Catfish Row held its breath; then its windows and doors
+flew open, and poured its life out into the incomparable autumn weather.
+The crisis had passed. There had been no arrests.
+
+Serena stepped forth, her arms filled with the morning’s wash.
+
+“‘Ain’t it hahd tuh be er nigger!’” someone sang in a loud, clear voice.
+And everybody laughed.
+
+Down the street, like an approaching freight train, came the drays,
+jarring the building and rattling the windows, as the heavy tires rang
+against the cobbles.
+
+Bess and Porgy came out with the others, and seated themselves against
+the wall in the gracious sunlight. Of the life, yet apart from it,
+sufficient unto each other, they did not join in the loud talk and
+badinage that was going on about them. Like people who had come on a
+long, dark journey, they were content to sit, and breathe deeply of the
+sun. The baby was sleeping in Bess’s arms, and from time to time she
+would sing a stave to it in a soft, husky voice.
+
+Into the court strode a group of stevedores. Their strong white teeth
+flashed in the sunshine, and their big, panther-like bodies moved easily
+among the women and children that crowded about them.
+
+“Wey all de gals?” called one in a loud, resonant voice. “Mus’ be dey
+ain’t know dat dis is pay-day.”
+
+Two women who were sitting near Porgy and Bess rose and went forward,
+with their arms twined about each other’s waists. In a few minutes they
+were out of the crowd again, each looking up with admiring eyes into
+the face of one of the men.
+
+“Mens an’ ’omans ain’t de same,” said Porgy. “One mont’ ago dem gals
+been libbin’ wid dey own mens. Den de storm tek um. Now dey is fuhgit um
+a’ready, an’ gibbin’ dey lub tuh de nex’.”
+
+“No; dey is diff’rent fuh true,” replied Bess. “An’ yuh won’t nebber
+onduhstan’. All two dem gal gots baby fuh keep alibe.” She heaved a deep
+sigh; and then added, “Dey is jus’ ’oman, an’ nigger at dat. Dey is
+doin’ de bes’ dey kin--dat all.”
+
+She was looking down at the baby while she spoke, and when she raised
+her eyes and looked at Porgy, he saw that they were full of tears.
+
+“But you, Bess; you is diff’rent f’om dat?” he said, with a gently
+interrogating note in his voice.
+
+“Dat ’cause Gawd ain’t mek but one Porgy!” she told him. “Any ’oman gots
+tuh be decent wid you. But I gots fuh tell yuh de trut’, widout Porgy I
+is jus’ like de res’.”
+
+A shadow drifted across their laps, and they lifted their faces to the
+sky.
+
+A solitary buzzard had left the circle that had hung high in the air all
+morning, and was swinging back and forth over the Row, almost brushing
+the parapet of the roof as it passed. While Porgy and Bess looked, it
+suddenly raised the points of its wings, reached tentative legs
+downward, spread its feet wide, and lit on the edge of the roof directly
+over their room.
+
+“My Gawd!” exclaimed Maria, who was standing near. “Crown done sen’ he
+buzzud back fuh bring trouble. Knock um off, Porgy. Fer Gawd’ sake,
+knock um off befo’ he settle!”
+
+The cripple reached out and picked up a brick-bat. The happiness had
+left his face, and his eyes were filled with fear. With a swing of his
+long, powerful arm, he sent the missile on its errand.
+
+It struck the parapet directly beneath the bird.
+
+With a spasmodic flap of wings, the black body lifted itself a few feet
+from the building, then settled suddenly back. For a moment it hopped
+awkwardly about, as though the roof were red hot beneath its feet, then
+folded its wings, drew its nude head in upon its breast, and surveyed
+the court with its aloof, malevolent eyes.
+
+“T’row agin,” Maria called, handing Porgy another brick-bat. But he
+seemed not to hear. His face quivered, and he hid it in his hands.
+
+“Sonny,” the big negress called to a small boy who was standing near,
+looking at the bird with his mouth open. “Git out on de roof wid uh
+stick, an’ run dat bird away.”
+
+But Porgy plucked at her skirt, and she looked down.
+
+“Let um be,” he said in a hopeless voice. “It too late now. Ain’t yuh
+see he done settle, an’ he pick my room fuh light ober? It ain’t no use
+now. Yuh knows dat. It ain’t no use.”
+
+
+§
+
+The next morning Porgy sat in his accustomed place by Archdale’s door.
+Autumn had touched the oaks in the park across the way, and they brushed
+the hard, bright sky with a slow circling motion, and tossed handfuls of
+yellow leaves down upon the pedestrians who stepped briskly along.
+
+King Charles Street was full of hurrying men on their way to the cotton
+offices and the big wholesale warehouses that fronted on the wharves.
+Like the artery of a hale old man who has lain long asleep, but who
+wakens suddenly and springs into a race, the broad thoroughfare seemed
+to pound and sing with life.
+
+The town was in a generous mood. Again and again the bottom of Porgy’s
+cup gave forth its sharp, grateful click as a coin struck it and
+settled. But the cripple had not even his slow glance of thanks for his
+benefactors on that flashing autumn morning. Always he kept veiled,
+apprehensive eyes directed either up or down the street, or lifted
+frightened glances to the sky, as though fearing what he might see
+there.
+
+At noon a white man stopped before him. But he did not drop a coin and
+pass on.
+
+After a moment, Porgy brought his gaze back, and looked up.
+
+The white man reached forward, and handed him a paper.
+
+“Dat fuh me?” asked Porgy, in a voice that shook.
+
+“You needn’t mind takin’ it,” the man assured him with a laugh. “It’s
+just a summons as witness to the Coroner’s inquest. You knew that
+nigger, Crown, didn’t you?”
+
+He evidently took Porgy’s silence for assent, for he went on.
+
+“Well, all you got to do is to view the body in the presence of the
+Coroner, tell him who it is, and he’ll take down all you say.”
+
+Porgy essayed speech, failed, tried again, and finally whispered:
+
+“I gots tuh go an’ look on Crown’ face wid all dem w’ite folks lookin’
+at me. Dat it?”
+
+His voice was so piteous that the constable reassured him:
+
+“Oh, cheer up; it’s not so bad. I reckon you’ve seen a dead nigger
+before this. It will all be over in a few minutes.”
+
+“Dey ain’t goin’ be no nigger in dat room ’cept me?” Porgy asked.
+
+“Just you and Crown, if you still call him one.”
+
+After a moment Porgy asked:
+
+“I couldn’t jus’ bring a ’oman wid me? I couldn’t eben carry my--my
+’oman?”
+
+“No,” said the white man_ positively. “Now I’ve got to be gettin’ along,
+I reckon. Just come over to the Court House in half an hour, and I’ll
+meet you and take you in. Only be sure to come. If you don’t show up
+it’s jail for you, you know.”
+
+For a moment after the man had gone, Porgy sat immovable, with his eyes
+on the pavement. Then a sudden change swept over him. He cast one glance
+up and down the hard, clean street, walled by its uncompromising,
+many-eyed buildings. Then in a panic he clambered into his cart, gave a
+cruel twist to the tail of his astonished goat, and commenced a
+spasmodic, shambling race up Meeting House Road in the direction in
+which he knew that, miles away, the forests lay.
+
+
+§
+
+To many, the scene which ensued on the upper Meeting House Road stands
+out as an exquisitely humorous episode, to be told and retold with
+touching up of high lights and artistic embellishments. To these, in the
+eyes of whom the negro is wholly humorous, per se, there was not the
+omission of a single conventional and readily recognizable stage
+property.
+
+For, after all, what could have been funnier than an entirely serious
+race between a negro in a dilapidated goat-cart, and the municipality’s
+shining new patrol wagon, fully officered and clanging its bell for the
+crowds to hear as it came.
+
+The finish took place in the vicinity of the railway yards and
+factories, and the street was filled with workmen who smoked against the
+walls, or ate their lunch, sitting at the pavement’s edge--grand-stand
+seats, as they were quite accurately described in the telling.
+
+The street cars ran seldom that far out; and Porgy had the thoroughfare
+almost entirely to himself. His face wore a demented look, and was
+working pitifully. In his panic, he wrung the tail of his unfortunate
+beast without mercy. The lunchers along the pavement saw him coming, and
+called to friends further along; so that as he came, he was greeted with
+shouts of laughter and witty sallies from the crowd.
+
+Then the wagon appeared, a mere speck in the distance, but sending the
+sound of its bell before it as an advertisement of its presence. It grew
+rapidly until it reached the cheering crowds. Then it seemed that even
+the sedate officers of the law were not above a sly humor of their own,
+for the vehicle slackened its pace perceptibly and prolonged the final
+moment of capture.
+
+The big buildings had been left behind, and there lay before Porgy only
+the scattered, cheap bungalows of the labor quarters; and beyond, as
+elusive and desirable as the white man’s heaven, glimmered the far line
+of the woods, misty and beautiful in the pink autumn haze.
+
+The patrol forged ahead and came to a clanging stop. The officers leapt
+out and, amid shouts of laughter from the crowd, lifted wagon, goat and
+man into the vehicle. The driver jerked the horse back into its
+breechings, swung the wagon with a dramatic snap that was not wasted
+upon his gallery, and sent it clanging and rocking back in the
+direction from which it had come.
+
+Porgy fell forward, with his arms thrown out upon the back of the goat,
+and buried his face between them in the shaggy, evil-smelling hair.
+
+The workmen upon the sidewalks cheered and shouted with mirth. Surely it
+had been a great day. They would not soon have another laugh to match
+it.
+
+
+§
+
+When the wagon reached the down-town district, the inquest was over. It
+had been a simple matter to secure another witness for the
+identification of the body. The jury had made short work of their task,
+and had found that Crown had come to his death as the result of a chest
+wound at the hands of person or persons unknown.
+
+Porgy was taken at once to the station house, where the charge of
+“Contempt of Court” was formally entered against him on the blotter, and
+he was locked up to await trial early the following morning.
+
+Under the wheezing gas jet, the Recorder looked Porgy over with his
+weary glance, brought the tips of his slender fingers together; gave him
+“five days,” in his tired drawl, and raised his eyes to the next negro
+on the morning’s list.
+
+They hoisted the outfit, goat and all, into the patrol for the trip to
+the jail, thus again brightening a day for a group of light-hearted
+Nordics upon the pavement.
+
+A large, red-faced policeman took his seat at the rear of the wagon.
+
+“You sure beat all!” he confided to Porgy, with a puzzled frown.
+“Runnin’ away like the devil was after you, from bein’ a witness; an’
+now goin’ to jail with a face like Sunday mornin’.”
+
+
+§
+
+In the fresh beauty of an early October morning, Porgy returned home.
+There were few of his friends about, as work was now plentiful, and most
+of those who could earn a day’s wage were up and out. He drove through
+the entrance, pulled his goat up short, and looked about him.
+
+Serena was seated on her bench with a baby in her arms.
+
+Porgy gave her a long look, and a question commenced to dawn in his
+eyes. The child turned in her arms, and his suspicions were confirmed.
+It was his baby--his and Bess’s.
+
+Then Serena looked up and saw him. She arose in great confusion, clasped
+the infant to her ample bosom, and, without a word of greeting, stepped
+through her doorway. Then, as though struck by an afterthought, she
+turned, thrust her head back through the opening, and called loudly:
+
+“Oh, Maria! hyuh Porgy come home.”
+
+Then she disappeared and the door slammed shut.
+
+Mystified and filled with alarm, Porgy turned his vehicle toward the
+cook-shop and arrived at the door just as Maria stepped over the
+threshold.
+
+She seated herself on the sill and brought her face level with his. Then
+she looked into his eyes.
+
+What Porgy saw there caused him to call out sharply:
+
+“Where’s Bess? Tell me, quick, where’s Bess?”
+
+The big negress did not answer, and after a moment her ponderous face
+commenced to shake.
+
+Porgy beat the side of his wagon with his fist.
+
+“Where, where--” he began, in a voice that was suddenly shrill.
+
+But Maria placed a steadying hand over his frantic one and held it
+still.
+
+“Dem dutty dogs got she one day w’en I gone out,” she said in a low,
+shaken voice. “She been missin’ yuh an’ berry low in she min’ ’cause she
+can’t fin’ out how long yuh is lock up fuh. Dat damn houn’ she knock off
+de wharf las’ summer fin’ she like dat an’ git she tuh tek er swalluh ob
+licker. Den half a dozen of de mens gang she, an’ mek she drunk.”
+
+“But wuh she now?” Porgy cried. “I ain’t keer ef she wuz drunk. I want
+she now.”
+
+Maria tried to speak, but her voice refused to do her bidding. She
+covered her face with her hands, and her throat worked convulsively.
+
+Porgy clutched her wrist. “Tell me,” he commanded. “Tell me, now.”
+
+“De mens all carry she away on de ribber boat,” she sobbed. “Dey leabe
+word fuh me dat dey goin’ tek she all de way tuh Sawannah, an’ keep she
+dey. Den Serena, she tek de chile, an’ say she is goin’ gib um er
+Christian raisin’.”
+
+Deep sobs stopped Maria’s voice. For a while she sat there, her face
+buried in her hands. But Porgy had nothing to say. When she finally
+raised her head and looked at him, she was surprised at what she saw.
+
+The keen autumn sun flooded boldly through the entrance and bathed the
+drooping form of the goat, the ridiculous wagon, and the bent figure of
+the man in hard, satirical radiance. In its revealing light, Maria saw
+that Porgy was an old man. The early tension that had characterized him,
+the mellow mood that he had known for one eventful summer, both had
+gone; and in their place she saw a face sagged wearily, and the eyes of
+age lit only by a faint reminiscent glow from suns and moons that had
+looked into them, and had already dropped down the west.
+
+She looked until she could bear the sight no longer; then she stumbled
+into her shop and closed the door, leaving Porgy and the goat alone in
+an irony of morning sunlight.
+
+
+THE END
+Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
+available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original lovely illustrations.
+      See 65568-h.htm or 65568-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/65568/65568-h/65568-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/65568/65568-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/runawaybunny00smit
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RUNAWAY BUNNY
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Books by LAURA ROUNTREE SMITH
+
+
+    Bear and Bunny Book, The
+    Bunny Boy and Grizzly Bear
+    Bunny Bright Eyes
+    Bunny Cotton-Tail Junior
+    Candy-Shop Cotton-Tails, The
+    Children’s Favorite Stories
+    Circus Book, The
+    Circus Cotton-Tails, The
+    Cotton-Tail First Reader, The
+    Cotton-Tail Primer, The
+    Cotton-Tails in Toyland, The
+    Drills and Plays for Patriotic Days
+    Games and Plays
+    Hawk-Eye, An Indian Story Reader
+    Language Lessons from Every Land
+    Little Bear
+    Little Eskimo
+    Merry Little Cotton-Tails, The
+    Mother Goose Stories
+    Primary Song Book
+    Roly-Poly Book, The
+    Runaway Bunny, The
+    Seventeen Little Bears
+    Snubby Nose and Tippy Toes
+    Tale of Bunny Cotton-Tail, The
+    Three Little Cotton-Tails
+
+    Published by
+    A. FLANAGAN COMPANY
+    CHICAGO
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+THE RUNAWAY BUNNY
+
+by
+
+LAURA ROUNTREE SMITH
+
+Illustrated by Dorothy Dulin
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1923
+A. Flanagan Company
+Chicago
+
+Copyright, 1923, by A. Flanagan Company.
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+TIME TO RUN AWAY 7
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+THE HUNGRY RABBIT 20
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+A LOAD OF EASTER EGGS 35
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+MOTHER BUN’S VISITORS 48
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+THE ANIMALS’ FOURTH OF JULY 58
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+THE COUNTY FAIR 66
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+THE BUNNY SCHOOL 77
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+THE TELL-THE-TIME RABBIT 88
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+THE THANKSGIVING DINNER 101
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+CHRISTMAS AT MOTHER BUN’S 112
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: “A very old Rabbit peeped out” (Page 35)]
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter I
+                            TIME TO RUN AWAY
+
+
+                 The Runaway Rabbit has formed the habit
+                   Of running away, I see.
+                 Oh, Runaway Rabbit, please form the habit
+                   Of staying awhile with me.
+
+
+The Runaway Rabbit sat on the doorstep of his own little house, saying,
+“By my cottontail, it is time for me to run away!”
+
+He took out his little brown traveling bag and packed it full.
+
+[Illustration: “Packed it full”]
+
+He was in such a hurry to run away that he did not even stop to clear
+off his breakfast table. He did not even stop to wind his clock or lock
+his front door!
+
+Hippety-hop, lippety-lop, he went down the path, carrying his little
+brown traveling bag.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked the Whistling Wind.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked the Smiling Sun.
+
+To them both, the Runaway Bunny replied:
+
+                   “Oho! I’m happy to have such fun;
+                   It’s such a pleasure to run and run!”
+
+He did not tell anyone where he was going. Many years ago he had made up
+his mind that some day he would run away and visit his grandparents.
+
+Now wasn’t it funny? At this very minute Old Mother Bun was saying:
+
+                   “My old legs get so stiff; it’s funny!
+                   I wish I had a little Bunny!”
+
+She wanted a little Bunny to travel up and down the cellar stairs for
+her.
+
+At this very minute Old Father Bun was saying:
+
+                        “I would pay a mint of money
+                        If I had a visiting Bunny!”
+
+He wanted a little Rabbit to bring in wood and water.
+
+[Illustration: “Took out her field glasses”]
+
+Suddenly, without any warning whatever, Old Mother Bun took out her
+field glasses. And as she looked out of the window she remarked, “I
+think I see a little figure away over in the field coming this way very
+fast!”
+
+Old Father Bun put his long ears close to the window to listen.
+
+He had wonderful hearing, and he said, “I think I hear the far-off
+patter, patter, patter of little feet. Some one is coming. He should be
+here in five minutes.”
+
+[Illustration: “Father Bun took out his watch”]
+
+Father Bun took out his watch and kept looking at it, while he went
+outdoors to wait. He had not long to wait, for the Runaway Bunny soon
+came in sight. He cried:
+
+              “I’m the Runaway Bunny. I’ve come all the way
+              To say, ‘How do you do?’ and wish you good day.”
+
+He set down his traveling bag and kissed his grandparents.
+
+Old Mother Bun said, “You are our own dear grandson.”
+
+Father Bun said, “Come right inside, my dear.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny was glad to sit down by the kitchen stove and eat
+cookies as fast as Old Mother Bun took them out of the oven.
+
+Now he had heard the old Rabbits wishing before he had entered the
+house. So he went pitter, patter, clitter, clatter, down to the cellar
+and brought up a great green cabbage. He put it into a chopping bowl and
+chopped it up for dinner.
+
+Then he went pitter, patter, clitter, clatter, down to the cellar and
+brought up many other good things.
+
+Old Mother Bun said:
+
+                   “You are such a little treasure,
+                   To keep you here will be a pleasure.”
+
+[Illustration: “The Runaway Bunny winked one eye”]
+
+At this the Runaway Bunny winked one eye; for he never stayed anywhere
+very long.
+
+He had formed the habit of running away.
+
+He next went with a hop and a skip and a bound, and brought in wood and
+water.
+
+Old Father Bun was delighted. He said:
+
+                 “I swear, by my long and floppy ears,
+                 I will keep you here for years and years!”
+
+[Illustration: “Opened his traveling bag”]
+
+The Runaway Bunny looked cross-eyed; but he had a merry time all day.
+
+He said, “Grandmother Bun, what a fine pantry you have!” and
+“Grandfather Bun, what a fine garden you have! Will you take me riding
+in your wheelbarrow?”
+
+When evening came he and his grandparents popped corn. And when it was
+bedtime the Runaway Bunny opened his traveling bag and brought out a
+brand new nightcap for Old Mother Bun and a brand new pipe for Old
+Father Bun.
+
+They said:
+
+               “We love you so, we’ll keep you, honey.
+               Please say you’ll live with us, little Bunny.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny coughed politely and took his little brown traveling
+bag and went pitter, patter, clitter, clatter, upstairs.
+
+He put on his little white nightcap and night robe.
+
+[Illustration: “Tucked him up snug and warm”]
+
+Old Mother Bun tucked him up snug and warm in bed, and Old Father Bun
+sang:
+
+                   “Tra, la, la, la! To sing’s a habit.
+                   Pleasant dreams, dear little Rabbit!”
+
+When the little fellow was asleep, Old Mother Bun said:
+
+                   “I hope he will stay a year and a day,
+                   I think he forgot about running away.”
+
+Old Father Bun remarked:
+
+             “If he stays through one night, all will be well,
+             But in Rabbit Land you never can tell.”
+
+In the morning the Runaway Bunny was gone!
+
+He left his little brown traveling bag, so it looked as though he
+intended to come back some time. He also left a polite note to thank his
+grandparents for their kindness.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+                   Now if you really want to know
+                   Where the Runaway Bunny will go,
+                   Just take this book and read and read;
+                   You’ll have a lively time, indeed!
+
+[Illustration: The Bunny]
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter II
+                           THE HUNGRY RABBIT
+
+
+                    The Runaway Bunny went hippety-hop;
+                      He was hungry as could be.
+                    Oh, Runaway Bunny, will you stop
+                      And take a bite with me?
+
+
+The Runaway Bunny took out his little toy watch and looked at it. And,
+though he could not tell time, he said, “My fur and cottontail! It seems
+to be time for something to eat.”
+
+He decided to ask the first animal he met for some breakfast.
+
+He went hopping and skipping along until he met Pit-A-Pat, the Cat. He
+told her how very hungry he was.
+
+[Illustration: “Told her how very hungry he was”]
+
+She said, “Come home with me and I’ll give you a saucer of milk.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny replied:
+
+              “I don’t drink milk, though you think it funny;
+              I am a peculiar Runaway Bunny.”
+
+Then he whispered to Pit-A-Pat that he wished he had stopped for Old
+Mother Bun’s breakfast, and he went hopping down the path.
+
+Pit-A-Pat remarked, “I ought to have asked who Mother Bun is. I might
+want to know some day.”
+
+My, how hungry the Runaway Bunny was! By and by he met Rough Coat, the
+old tramp dog, and asked him for a tiny bite of breakfast.
+
+[Illustration: “By and by he met Rough Coat”]
+
+Rough Coat said, “If you come with me I will give you a fine bone I
+buried last week.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny bowed politely and said:
+
+               “I can’t eat bones, though you think it funny;
+               I am a peculiar Runaway Bunny.”
+
+“What are you running away for?” asked Rough Coat.
+
+But the little fellow was in too much of a hurry to stop to answer him.
+He could not forget how hungry he was.
+
+He sang:
+
+                    “The Runaway Bunny is sad, you see,
+                    For he is hungry as he can be.”
+
+A wise old owl in the tree overhead, who said his name was Who-Who,
+offered the Rabbit a juicy bat.
+
+But the Runaway Bunny replied:
+
+               “I can’t eat bats, though you think it funny;
+               I am a peculiar Runaway Bunny.”
+
+He went on hippety-hop, hippety-hop, until he met Old Brother Bear, who
+offered him a taste of honey.
+
+Now Old Brother Bear loved honey. So he was relieved when the Runaway
+Bunny replied:
+
+               “I can’t eat honey, though you think it funny;
+               I am a peculiar Runaway Bunny.”
+
+He went on his way, singing about Old Mother Bun’s coffee and rolls and
+doughnuts.
+
+He sang:
+
+          “Oh, the best things to eat for a Bunny on the run
+          Are the rolls and the doughnuts of our Grandmother Bun.”
+
+Next he met Foxy-Lox, that sly old fellow! The Runaway Bunny fairly
+shouted:
+
+                “My fur and whiskers! I have to shout,
+                I’m so hungry I don’t know what I’m about.”
+
+Foxy-Lox crept up very, very close and whispered in the Runaway Bunny’s
+right ear:
+
+                  “Hungry for carrots and everything nice,
+                  I can supply you in just a trice.”
+
+Then Foxy-Lox, that crafty old fellow, crept up and whispered in the
+Runaway Bunny’s left ear:
+
+                “Hungry for cabbage and vegetables green,
+                You’re the hungriest Bunny I’ve ever seen.”
+
+No wonder the Runaway Bunny was hungry. No breakfast, no dinner, no
+supper!
+
+Foxy-Lox said:
+
+                     “Come with me into my den,
+                     My children are little gentlemen.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny followed him, muttering:
+
+                  “At the home of good Old Mother Bun,
+                  There are plenty of meals for everyone.”
+
+They went along until they came to the den.
+
+There was a table set with carrots and cabbage and tender green
+spring-flower shoots and everything else, in fact, that a hungry Bunny
+would like to eat.
+
+[Illustration: “Waiting their turn to be served”]
+
+Sure enough, the six little Foxy-Loxies sat like little gentlemen round
+the table, waiting their turn to be served.
+
+Old Foxy-Lox invited the Runaway Bunny to eat a good square meal.
+
+Nodding his head in the direction of the visitor, he whispered to his
+little Foxes:
+
+                     “You will make a meal, ’tis true,
+                     Then we’ll make a meal of you!”
+
+The Runaway Bunny had sharp ears. He began to twitch them nervously to
+and fro.
+
+He could not hear what Old Foxy-Lox was whispering about. But he thought
+the old fellow was up to some mischief. So he said:
+
+              “I won’t eat cabbage, though you think it funny;
+              I am a peculiar Runaway Bunny.”
+
+Then he looked at the carrots and said:
+
+              “I won’t eat carrots, though you think it funny;
+              I am a peculiar Runaway Bunny.”
+
+Then he waved his paw toward the table of tempting things.
+
+And he shouted:
+
+              “I won’t eat at all, though you think it funny;
+              I am a peculiar Runaway Bunny.”
+
+Then he gave one bound and was out of the den before Foxy-Lox could wink
+an eyelash.
+
+His talkative little ticking Watch made this remark:
+
+                  “We don’t care how hard the climb;
+                  Friend Bunny, you got out just in time!”
+
+The Runaway Bunny was thinking hard again, “No breakfast, no dinner, no
+supper!” He sat down on a log to think.
+
+Pitter, patter, clitter, clatter, came the sound of two little feet. And
+another Bunny stood in the path before him.
+
+This new friend now said:
+
+                “I went to the side show and took in money,
+                So you may call me a wee Circus Bunny.”
+
+[Illustration: “Then he stood on his head”]
+
+Then he stood on his head and did several circus tricks, as cunning as
+could be. At any other time the Runaway Bunny would have laughed. But he
+only said mournfully:
+
+                  “The world is large, the world is wide,
+                  And I am empty quite—inside!”
+
+The Circus Bunny said:
+
+                  “We’re very near a garden plot,
+                  We shall find a good meal, like as not.”
+
+[Illustration: “They had a fine meal”]
+
+They went hippety-hop until they came to the garden. Here they ate the
+tops of some early spring flowers and some bits of tender lettuce. They
+had a fine meal before they were through with it. The Circus Bunny said:
+
+            “Let’s live in the garden a night and a day.
+            There’s plenty of lettuce; come, what do you say?”
+
+            But the Runaway Bunny was off with a hop,
+            With his ears and his tail going flippety-flop.
+            The surprised Circus Bunny remarked, “That is funny!
+            That rabbit is surely the Runaway Bunny.”
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter III
+                         A LOAD OF EASTER EGGS
+
+
+As the Runaway Bunny hopped along, it began to rain very hard.
+
+He heard a voice singing:
+
+                     “I like the thunderstorm and rain;
+                     Just why I do I can’t explain.”
+
+The voice came from a wee house in the woods. The Runaway Bunny stopped
+and knocked politely at the door.
+
+His little heart went thump, for he did not know what he should find
+inside.
+
+The door opened a little and a very old Rabbit peeped out and said:
+
+                    “I am Old Mother Give-Away;
+                    And now, sir, what have you to say?”
+
+The Runaway Bunny hung his head, for he had never been generous enough
+to give away anything in all his life. But as the rain was falling fast,
+he wanted to go in and dry his fur and whiskers.
+
+So he said:
+
+                    “May I do any errands for you today?
+                    I like to travel away, away.”
+
+In answer to this, the door was opened wide and he hopped inside.
+
+My, what a wonderful sight he saw!
+
+There were Easter eggs on the table and Easter eggs on the floor, Easter
+eggs on the window-sill and Easter eggs in baskets! They were painted in
+gay colors—red, blue, and gold.
+
+Old Mother Give-Away said:
+
+                 “A messenger I thought I’d borrow;
+                 You may help me take the eggs to-morrow.”
+
+[Illustration: “Painting piles and piles of Easter eggs”]
+
+Then she told him how she and Father Give-Away had spent many days
+painting piles and piles of Easter eggs.
+
+She said she wanted every Rabbit in the world to have an Easter egg on
+Easter morning. She wanted the eggs well hidden, so it would be fun to
+hunt for them.
+
+[Illustration: “Splashing the colors upon them”]
+
+She went on painting the eggs, dashing and splashing the colors upon
+them. The Runaway Bunny planned where he would hide the Easter eggs in
+every wee house he visited.
+
+He thought he would put them back of books and in vases and back of
+clocks and in cups and bowls and baskets. There are so many good places
+to hide wee Easter eggs.
+
+By and by the two Bunnies curled up on the rug and fell asleep.
+
+Very early next day the Runaway Bunny woke up.
+
+He said:
+
+                  “May I start with the Easter eggs today?
+                  Please let me go, Mother Give-Away.”
+
+To his surprise Old Mother Give-Away answered, as though she were half
+asleep:
+
+                 “Speak to the Rubbers on the floor;
+                 They’ve heard that question asked before.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny laughed and slipped four little Rubbers on his four
+little feet to keep them dry, this misty, moisty morning.
+
+Then he asked again:
+
+                 “May I start with the Easter eggs to-day?
+                 Please let me go, Mother Give-Away.”
+
+Then the Rubbers piped up to answer him:
+
+                       “Ask the Umbrella in the hall;
+                       It may not answer you at all.”
+
+[Illustration: “The Umbrella was in a very good humor”]
+
+The Umbrella was in a very good humor and, as the Runaway Bunny opened
+it, said:
+
+                     “Ask the Raincoat what he will say
+                     About going out on a rainy day!”
+
+The Runaway Bunny chuckled as he slipped on the Raincoat that hung on a
+nail.
+
+He asked as before:
+
+                 “May I start with the Easter eggs to-day?
+                 Please let me go, Mother Give-Away.”
+
+The Raincoat replied:
+
+                  “Ask the Rain Cap; perhaps he’ll explain
+                  Why we’re happy when we hear the rain.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny knew they were happy to get out in the rain. But he
+asked again:
+
+                 “May I start with the Easter eggs to-day?
+                 Please let me go, Mother Give-Away.”
+
+The Rain Cap replied:
+
+                 “Ask the Wheelbarrow, for he knows
+                 The home into which each Easter egg goes.”
+
+Then the Runaway Bunny ran out into the yard and said to the
+Wheelbarrow:
+
+                 “Let’s start with the Easter eggs to-day;
+                 Come, Mr. Wheelbarrow, what do you say?”
+
+And the Wheelbarrow said, “I am ready to start this very minute.”
+
+[Illustration: “About 246 Easter eggs in the Wheelbarrow”]
+
+Then Mother Give-Away came out and helped the Runaway Bunny pile about
+246 Easter eggs in the Wheelbarrow. She covered them well to keep them
+dry.
+
+The Runaway Bunny remarked:
+
+                “Now I should call this perfect fun,
+                If I’d had breakfast with Grandmother Bun.”
+
+“Who is Grandmother Bun?” asked Old Mother Give-Away.
+
+The wind whistled so hard that the Runaway Bunny did not hear the
+question. But he went rolling the Wheelbarrow merrily along, singing:
+
+                 “Perhaps you may think it very funny
+                 That I should be called an Easter Bunny.”
+
+[Illustration: “He left eggs at every Rabbit house”]
+
+He left eggs at every Rabbit house he passed, and by and by the
+Wheel-barrow was empty.
+
+He left it in the road and went hippety-hop along, singing:
+
+                    “I wish you all a glad Easter Day.
+                    I’m running away! I’m running away!”
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter IV
+                         MOTHER BUN’S VISITORS
+
+
+                 Said Mother Bun, “You may think it funny,
+                 But I miss my little Runaway Bunny.”
+
+Old Father Bun thought a long time before speaking.
+
+                  Then said Father Bun, “Would it be wise,
+                  In all the papers to advertise?”
+
+Old Father and Mother Bun talked on about the Runaway Bunny, saying:
+
+                     “In every newspaper in the wood
+                     We’ll advertise. It may do good.”
+
+So Old Father Bun sat down by a table and said:
+
+                 “By my stubby tail, I shall have to think
+                 How to use paper and pen and ink.”
+
+He was not used to doing much writing.
+
+“Click, click, click,” went Old Mother Bun’s knitting needles.
+
+“Puff, puff, puff,” went Old Father Bun’s pipe.
+
+By and by he wrote the following:
+
+                     “Rabbit lost, Rabbit lost!
+                     Get him back at any cost.
+                     He runs away o’er hill and dale,
+                     He has long ears and stubby tail.”
+
+Old Mother Bun said:
+
+                       “I would nail that on a tree,
+                       Where every animal can see.”
+
+Old Father Bun did not agree with her. He knew it paid to advertise in
+newspapers. So he put on his old felt hat, took his walking stick, and
+started out to a real newspaper office. He took his notice to
+Chatterbox, the Monkey newspaper man. So all the animals soon read in
+their newspapers about the Runaway Bunny.
+
+[Illustration: “He took his notice to Chatterbox”]
+
+When Pit-A-Pat read the notice, she smacked her lips and said:
+
+                    “Here is a chance to have some fun,
+                    I’ll make a call on Old Mother Bun.”
+
+So by and by it happened that Old Father Bun said, “I hear the patter,
+patter of little feet.”
+
+Old Mother Bun said, “Do look out and tell me who is coming.”
+
+Pit-A-Pat came to the door and bowed politely, saying:
+
+                 “I long for milk. May I have a drink?
+                 I can help you find the Rabbit, I think.”
+
+[Illustration: “Gave her a saucer of warm milk”]
+
+They gladly let Pit-A-Pat in and gave her a saucer of warm milk in their
+best blue-rimmed saucer.
+
+While she was licking her chops, Old Father Bun said:
+
+                   “To inquire of you seems rather funny,
+                   But did you meet our Runaway Bunny?”
+
+Old Mother Bun said:
+
+                 “To call him Bunny we’ve formed the habit,
+                 He is also known as the Runaway Rabbit.”
+
+“Did he have long ears?” asked Pit-A-Pat, winking slyly. “Did he have a
+tiny stubby tail?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” shouted Father and Mother Bun eagerly.
+
+“Did he have a habit of running away?” asked Pit-A-Pat, looking narrowly
+out of her green eyes.
+
+“Yes, yes,” shouted Old Father and Mother Bun again together.
+
+Then the most astonishing thing happened!
+
+Pit-A-Pat got up slowly, humped her back, and without another word
+walked out of the open window!
+
+Old Mother Bun remarked:
+
+                  “No use to cry for spilled milk, I see:
+                  Pit-A-Pat played a trick on me.”
+
+Old Father Bun said:
+
+                   “I think her actions are very funny.
+                   She must have met our Runaway Bunny.”
+
+“Rap-a-tap-tap,” sounded on the door.
+
+And in walked Rough Coat, saying politely:
+
+               “I’m a lonesome fellow; I live alone.
+               Could you give me as much as a chicken bone?”
+
+As luck would have it, they had a whole plate full of chicken bones in
+the house. So Rough Coat had a wonderful meal.
+
+Old Father Bun said, “Did you meet our Runaway Bunny?”
+
+Rough Coat said, “Did he run as though he would never stop?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” cried Father Bun excitedly.
+
+“Did he sometimes say, ‘My fur and whiskers’?” asked Rough Coat.
+
+“Yes, yes,” cried Father and Mother Bun together.
+
+Rough Coat gave himself a great shake, remarking:
+
+                    “I enjoyed my lunch, I do declare;
+                    Ask your questions of Brother Bear.”
+
+[Illustration: “Whisk! with a bound he was gone!”]
+
+Whisk! with a bound he was gone!
+
+Father Bun said:
+
+               “We’ll have other visitors some fine day,
+               No telling, though, what our guests will say.”
+
+At this very minute the Runaway Bunny read in the newspaper about
+himself.
+
+He read, “‘Bunny lost.’ That must be I.”
+
+He twitched his long ears to and fro and turned to look back at his
+little stubby tail.
+
+He did not want to go back and visit his grandparents yet. So he started
+on, saying:
+
+                 “I won’t stay still for a purse of money,
+                 I am such a funny Runaway Bunny!”
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter V
+                      THE ANIMALS’ FOURTH OF JULY
+
+
+                  “We’ll have fun and frolic by and by,
+                  For soon will come the Fourth of July.”
+
+So sang all the wild animals in the woods.
+
+The Runaway Bunny ran on and on until he could run no longer. Then he
+set up a shout, for he had been traveling in a circle, and here he was
+back at his own little house in the woods!
+
+There was his wee spinning wheel in the corner. There were his dishes on
+the table as he had left them.
+
+[Illustration: “Then he began to spin furiously”]
+
+He hopped into his wee bed and slept a week and a day. Then he went down
+cellar and got a cabbage to eat. He felt very happy. He wanted to work.
+Then he began to spin furiously, singing:
+
+                 “I can spin quite well if I only try,
+                 I will buy a flag for the Fourth of July.”
+
+“Rap-a-tap,” sounded on his door and in walked Pit-A-Pat, big as life
+and twice as natural! She told the story about her little kittens who
+had lost their mittens. The Runaway Bunny listened earnestly, for he had
+known what it was to be cold.
+
+                “When I sell the goods I spin,” said Bunny,
+                “For mittens I’ll give you a pile of money.”
+
+Pit-A-Pat bowed her thanks and the Runaway Bunny began to spin again in
+real earnest, saying:
+
+              “I can spin quite well if I only try,
+              “I’ll buy firecrackers for the Fourth of July.”
+
+“Bowwow,” sounded outside the window.
+
+[Illustration: “There stood Rough Coat, growling”]
+
+There stood Rough Coat, growling, “I need a new collar. I want one with
+my name and address upon it, so if I get lost some one can lead me
+home.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny knew how hard it was to want things. So he whistled,
+and sang:
+
+                  “When I sell the goods I spin to-morrow,
+                  I shall have money for all to borrow.”
+
+Rough Coat went away happy.
+
+“Whir, whir, whir,” went the cunning little spinning wheel.
+
+All day long the Runaway Bunny kept on spinning and telling what he
+wanted to buy for himself with the money, after his goods were sold.
+
+All day long the animals came and begged him for money.
+
+At last he ran to the store and sold the cloth he had spun. When he had
+given the animals the money they wanted, he said:
+
+                 “I’m a Runaway Bunny and here I sigh,
+                 I’ve nothing left for the Fourth of July.”
+
+“No flag, no firecrackers, no fireworks,” called Old Who-Who, the Owl.
+
+The Runaway Bunny dried his eyes, for he was so disappointed he had shed
+a few tears. And he said:
+
+                    “As long as I can make a rhyme,
+                    I’ll run away and have a good time.”
+
+[Illustration: “Pit-A-Pat came with a large flag”]
+
+He was just starting to run away when there was a great noise and
+Pit-A-Pat came with a large flag as a present, and Rough Coat brought
+firecrackers. Soon all the animals gathered together for a surprise
+party and they set off fireworks and drank red lemonade.
+
+They all had a happy Fourth of July.
+
+The Three Little Kittens wore their new mittens and Rough Coat wore a
+new collar. All the animals hugged and kissed the Runaway Bunny and
+begged him to stay with them in the woods.
+
+Suddenly, without any warning whatever, he took his flag and, singing a
+song to himself, went hippety-hop down the road.
+
+He sang:
+
+                  “The Fourth of July is a holiday;
+                  And I’m running away, I’m running away!”
+
+All the animals clapped their paws and cried:
+
+                 “Please stay with us and forget the habit
+                 Of running away, dear Runaway Rabbit!”
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter VI
+                            THE COUNTY FAIR
+
+
+The Runaway Bunny went hopping along, singing:
+
+              “When I am lonesome I’m always singing
+              Of a jolly old kite that used to fly
+              At the end of the string I was often swinging,
+              And I said to old earth, ‘Good-bye, good-bye!’”
+
+“Good-bye, good-bye,” called a merry voice; and there in the path before
+the Runaway Bunny stood the Circus Bunny.
+
+The Circus Bunny said:
+
+                “I’ll run along with you, if you don’t care;
+                I’m off for a trip to the county fair.”
+
+“To whom were you saying good-bye?” asked the Runaway Bunny.
+
+“I will answer that question when you tell me about the wonderful ride
+you had with the kite,” answered the Circus Bunny.
+
+But the Runaway Bunny had already forgotten about the kite and could
+think of nothing but the fair. He was delighted to have company on the
+way; and he remarked:
+
+                 “What shall we do when we get to the fair
+                 And find all the animals gathered there?”
+
+The Circus Bunny replied:
+
+                 “Your question to me seems rather funny;
+                 We shall hire a tent and make some money.”
+
+What a fine trip they had!
+
+Everyone was going to the fair. Some of the animals were going on foot
+and some were going on horseback. Some of them rode in state in cars.
+Some of the animals traveled alone and others took the whole family.
+
+The Runaway Bunny said to everyone he passed:
+
+                 “I’m off to the fair. Good day, good day!
+                 I’m running away, I’m running away.”
+
+The Circus Bunny kept saying a little rhyme over and over:
+
+                 “Will you spend a penny and form the habit
+                 Of calling to see the Circus Rabbit?”
+
+They arrived at the fair. But just as they were going to set up a wee
+tent of their own and make money for themselves, some one picked them up
+by their long ears and put them in a wire cage.
+
+[Illustration: “Picked them up by their long ears”]
+
+The Circus Bunny whispered:
+
+                   “Well, this is a pretty how-do-you-do!
+                   I don’t know how to get out. Do you?”
+
+The Runaway Bunny answered:
+
+                     “I really haven’t a word to say,
+                     This may cure me of running away!”
+
+By and by a man came and called out:
+
+                “Performing Rabbits! Step this way!
+                Hear what the Bunnies have to say;
+                Their tricks are funny, and each small Bunny
+                Is well worth all your admission money.”
+
+Now crowds and crowds gathered around the cage. The Circus Bunny stood
+on his head and turned somersaults and said:
+
+                 “Will you spend a penny and form the habit
+                 Of calling to see the Circus Rabbit?”
+
+All the animals in the crowd cheered and clapped, and cried, “Do it
+again! Do it again!”
+
+By and by the Circus Bunny grew tired of performing his tricks, and it
+was the Runaway Bunny’s turn to entertain the crowd.
+
+He had never done a trick in all his life and was wondering what to do,
+when the Circus Bunny reminded him:
+
+                   “You were singing a very comical song,
+                   As I was coming along, along.”
+
+So the Runaway Bunny sang:
+
+              “When I am lonesome I’m always singing
+              Of a jolly old kite that used to fly
+              At the end of the string I was often swinging,
+              And I said to old earth, ‘Good-bye, good-bye!’”
+
+[Illustration: “Up, up, up he began to sail”]
+
+At this very minute the most surprising thing happened!
+
+The Runaway Bunny was so little that he squeezed out through the wires
+in the cage door! He took hold of the string of a kite that was near,
+and up, up, up he began to sail, higher and higher, until he soon looked
+like a speck in the sky.
+
+“Well,” remarked the Circus Bunny, “it was certainly fortunate that the
+jolly old kite was waiting for him. That is a new way he has found of
+running away. I believe I will squeeze out of this cage, too.”
+
+So while the crowd was watching the Runaway Bunny, he tried to get out
+of the cage. But he stuck halfway, until kind-hearted Old Mother Bun
+pulled him out and tucked him safely in her market basket.
+
+Old Father Bun said, “What is in your basket?”
+
+Old Mother Bun said, “I will tell you when we get home.”
+
+Up, up, up sailed the Runaway Bunny.
+
+When he had sailed up a week and a day, down, down sailed the kite and
+he arrived in his own little back yard, at home.
+
+He said, “I shall have a fine kite story to tell my
+great-great-grand-children some day. That was a fine ride I had!”
+
+Then he repeated in a singsong way:
+
+              “When I am lonesome I’m always singing
+              Of a jolly old kite that used to fly
+              At the end of the string I was often swinging,
+              And I said to old earth, ‘Good-bye, good-bye!’”
+
+He made himself a nice little supper and for once was contented to sit
+in his wee house. But that night he dreamed that he was running away,
+singing:
+
+                   “For a county fair I do not care,
+                   I can run away from anywhere,
+                   Wherever I go this thing I say,
+                   ‘I’m running away! I’m running away!’”
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter VII
+                            THE BUNNY SCHOOL
+
+
+The summer had passed and September had come. All the school bells were
+ringing.
+
+The Runaway Bunny said:
+
+                    “There is one thing I can remember,
+                    School begins in glad September.”
+
+[Illustration: “Went hippety-hop down the path”]
+
+He packed his neat little dinner pail and went hippety-hop down the
+path, singing happy little songs like this:
+
+                     The Runaway Bunny, as a rule,
+                       Likes to run away,
+                     The Runaway Bunny said, “To school
+                       I go this September day.
+                     “I don’t know the words,
+                       I don’t know the tune.
+                     I’m the Runaway Bunny;
+                       I’ll get to school soon.”
+
+“Don’t be so sure of that,” called Pit-A-Pat.
+
+“Don’t be so sure you’ll get there soon,” said Rough Coat.
+
+“You may not get there until afternoon,” growled Old Brother Bear.
+
+                 “I never before have made a rhyme,
+                 But I think you’ll not get there on time!”
+
+whispered Old Foxy-Lox, peering at the Runaway Bunny from his hiding
+place.
+
+The school bells all sang:
+
+                        “Come to school. Ding, dong!
+                        Don’t be late. Run along!”
+
+At this very minute the Runaway Bunny thought of something he had
+forgotten.
+
+He stopped short in the path, saying:
+
+                  “I’ll hide my dinner pail in the wood
+                  And get me a pencil as a rabbit should!”
+
+He put his dinner pail down by a log and went hurrying home to get a
+lead pencil. Soon he came back hippety-hop with his pencil in his
+overalls pocket.
+
+He stopped to look for his dinner pail. It was gone!
+
+He shouted to Pit-A-Pat, who had gone on ahead:
+
+                  “To get to school I will not fail,
+                  But where, oh where is my dinner pail?”
+
+Pit-A-Pat said she knew nothing about the lost dinner pail.
+
+Soon the Runaway Bunny caught up with Rough Coat and said:
+
+                     “It makes me shake my stubby tail
+                     To think I lost my dinner pail.”
+
+[Illustration: “Brother Bear came up and whispered softly”]
+
+Then Brother Bear came up and whispered softly:
+
+                       “Ask Foxy-Lox down in his den,
+                       And his little gentlemen!”
+
+The Runaway Bunny was very angry to think Foxy-Lox would take his dinner
+pail. He wanted to go to Foxy-Lox’s house and get it back.
+
+But Old Brother Bear said:
+
+                     “I’d rather lose a pail or two
+                     Than have him make a meal of you!”
+
+The Runaway Bunny saw that Brother Bear was right. It would never do to
+go to Foxy-Lox’s house for his dinner pail. Besides, that sly fox would
+never give it back.
+
+So the Runaway Bunny ran on to school and got there just two minutes
+late.
+
+[Illustration: “All the Bunnies were in their seats”]
+
+All the Bunnies were in their seats, ready for work. The Runaway Bunny
+took his seat and began to learn a rhyme the rest were studying.
+
+He said it over to himself:
+
+                     “September’s here to visit us,
+                       In gold and russet gown;
+                     And we’ve been busy Bunnies since
+                       September’s come to town.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny was a smart little fellow. He liked to learn his
+ABC’s.
+
+He learned to read very well and he went to school sixteen days in
+September.
+
+Then one bright afternoon he heard the birds singing:
+
+                  “Good-bye, good-bye! To the South we go;
+                  Autumn is coming, and winter with snow.”
+
+He wished he could fly like his feathered friends.
+
+Suddenly he remembered how fast he could run.
+
+He did not wait for the close of school but went hippety-hop out of the
+window, singing:
+
+                 “Long ago I formed the habit
+                 Of running away. I’m the Runaway Rabbit.”
+
+He stayed in the woods all the rest of September.
+
+[Illustration: “Learned the names of the flowers”]
+
+From Old Brother Bear he learned the names of all the fall fruits and
+flowers.
+
+Suddenly he decided to go to town; and he left the wild woods, singing:
+
+               “The Runaway Bunny was made for play,
+               I’m running away! I’m running away!
+               Soon comes November, but still I’ll remember
+               The things I have learned in happy September.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny was running away toward town.
+
+[Illustration: The Bunny.]
+
+
+
+
+                              Chapter VIII
+                        THE TELL-THE-TIME RABBIT
+
+
+               The Runaway Bunny could talk in rhyme,
+               But for years and years he couldn’t tell time.
+
+One day the Runaway Bunny woke up in his own little house and sang:
+
+                   “It is such a pleasant autumn day,
+                   I’m really thinking of running away.”
+
+He put on his Wrist Watch for company, though he could not tell time to
+save his little stubby tail!
+
+He was going hippety-hop along when he met Old Brother Bear. The Bear
+passed the time of day, but seemed to be in a terrible hurry and
+growled:
+
+                  “What is the real time? I fear I’m late,
+                  But I must get there, at any rate!”
+
+“Where are you going?” inquired the Runaway Bunny.
+
+But Old Brother Bear only hurried on.
+
+Next Foxy-Lox came along and chattered:
+
+                   “What is the real time? I cannot wait,
+                   But I must get there, at any rate!”
+
+“Where are you going?” asked the Runaway Bunny.
+
+But Foxy-Lox had no time to answer him, and went hurrying down the path
+without even a backward glance.
+
+The Runaway Bunny said to himself:
+
+                  “To tell the time’s a convenient habit,
+                  For even a funny Runaway Rabbit.”
+
+“Tick, tick, tick,” went the little Wrist Watch and it sang:
+
+                “To talk a little is my turn,
+                I’ll teach the time, if you want to learn.”
+
+[Illustration: “The Runaway Bunny was surprised”]
+
+The Runaway Bunny was surprised, you may be sure, and put his ear down
+close to the little watch to listen.
+
+The little Wrist Watch continued:
+
+                  “To learn some things is in your power,
+                  The short hand tells us all the hour.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny skipped this way and that way, and sang:
+
+                “’Tis more fun making a simple rhyme,
+                With a little Wrist Watch to tell the time.”
+
+The little Wrist Watch continued:
+
+                 “Let’s run a race. Come, who will win it?
+                 My long hand tells you of each minute.”
+
+Then the Runaway Bunny ran on faster than ever and the tiny hands of the
+Wrist Watch ran round its face. Before he could believe it, the Runaway
+Bunny was learning to tell time.
+
+He shouted:
+
+                   “A quarter of eight! I won’t be late;
+                   I’ve learned a little, at any rate.”
+
+He learned half past and a quarter past and a quarter of the hours.
+
+He sang merrily:
+
+                    “Over this garden fence I’ll climb;
+                    I know it is my breakfast time.”
+
+He sat down and began to eat cabbage leaves. My! how fresh and crisp
+they were!
+
+He began to wonder about the animals he had met. He wondered where they
+could be going. Don’t you wonder, too?
+
+All this time Old Brother Bear was on his way to the home of Father and
+Mother Bun. When he came in, those two old Bunnies were sitting by the
+fire.
+
+[Illustration: “Sitting by the fire”]
+
+He took off his cap politely and said:
+
+                     “May I come in and warm my paws?
+                     Its freezing cold until it thaws.”
+
+[Illustration: “Gave him a plate of cakes”]
+
+Seeing that Old Brother Bear was friendly, Old Father Bun allowed him to
+sit in a rocking chair by the fire. Old Mother Bun gave him a plate of
+cakes, smoking hot, with honey on them. Old Mother Bun said:
+
+                  “I hope, kind sir, that you like honey;
+                  It makes me think of our Runaway Bunny.”
+
+“Did he have long ears and a tiny tail?” asked Old Brother Bear.
+
+“Yes, yes,” shouted Old Mother Bun.
+
+“Did he carry a little Wrist Watch?” asked Old Brother Bear.
+
+“Yes, yes,” shouted Old Father Bun.
+
+Then Old Brother Bear, who was something of a joker, smacked his lips
+and said:
+
+                   “Such fine cakes are worth much money,
+                   I also thank you for the honey.”
+
+So saying, he bowed politely and walked out of the door.
+
+Old Mother Bun remarked:
+
+                  “I really think it very funny,
+                  He would not talk of the Runaway Bunny.”
+
+Old Father Bun’s head went nid-nid-nodding.
+
+[Illustration: “Up walked Old Foxy-Lox”]
+
+Up walked Old Foxy-Lox, tapping on the window pane.
+
+Foxy-Lox asked for cookies and honey, but Old Mother Bun would not let
+him in.
+
+He went off, shouting:
+
+                     “I saw the Runaway Rabbit to-day,
+                     And as usual he was running away.”
+
+“Call him back! Call him back!” called Old Father Bun, who had waked up
+in time to hear Foxy-Lox shout.
+
+Mother Bun shook her head as she counted her silver spoons, saying:
+
+                 “Though it may seem to you absurd,
+                 He sometimes robs good folk, I’ve heard.”
+
+Old Father Bun said:
+
+                “Alackaday! What shall I say?
+                Will the Runaway Bunny come back some day?”
+
+While all this was going on, the Runaway Bunny continued to eat as much
+cabbage as he wanted.
+
+The little Wrist Watch said to him:
+
+                 “To tell the time is a useful habit;
+                 Let’s see you do it, you cunning Rabbit!”
+
+The Runaway Bunny had really learned to tell the time. But he wanted to
+tease, so he said:
+
+                    “It is bedtime, bedtime,
+                    O’er all the world in every clime.”
+
+Then he curled up in a hole in a hollow tree and went to sleep.
+
+All the time, his little Wrist Watch ticked busily on.
+
+For all who wanted to hear, it sang:
+
+                  “For hours and hours I tick away,
+                  A-telling time by night and day.
+
+                  “My long hand always points the minute;
+                  And how much good can you do in it?
+
+                  “My short hand always points the hour;
+                  To learn it is within your power.
+
+                  “For telling time’s an easy trick
+                  If you have learned arithmetic.”
+
+That night the Runaway Rabbit cried out in his sleep:
+
+                 “It is warm in a hollow tree, I declare;
+                 It is dream time, dream time everywhere!”
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter IX
+                        THE THANKSGIVING DINNER
+
+
+[Illustration: “The Market Basket cried out”]
+
+One day late in November, the Runaway Rabbit sang:
+
+                    “To Grandma Bun I’ll hurry away,
+                    To help her keep Thanksgiving Day.”
+
+He had gone hippety-hop only a little way when he sat down on a stone to
+think.
+
+To his surprise, the Market Basket he carried cried out:
+
+                 “Will you buy a turkey while on your way,
+                 For Old Mother Bun’s Thanksgiving Day?”
+
+“Dear me! My fur and whiskers, I never thought about that!” he cried.
+“Of course I will—now that you suggest it!”
+
+He rattled the pennies in his little bead purse. He rattled the dimes
+and quarters.
+
+He went hippety-hop to the market and said:
+
+               “Will you sell me a turkey of eighteen pounds?
+               How very grand that order sounds!”
+
+[Illustration: “Surprised the butcher”]
+
+To see such a little fellow with so much money surprised the butcher.
+But he weighed the turkey and it quite filled the Market Basket.
+
+The Runaway Bunny was starting merrily down the road, when the Basket
+cried:
+
+                      “Each Thanksgiving people sigh
+                      For rich and spicy pumpkin pie.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny saw a nice yellow pumpkin in a field and he managed to
+tuck it under his arm.
+
+He arrived home and began to make a pumpkin pie. He measured this,
+weighed that, and cut up and cooked the pumpkin.
+
+He baked a wonderful pumpkin pie and was about ready to set out again,
+when the Basket cried:
+
+                    “Fine potatoes are a treat
+                    On Thanksgiving, if they’re sweet.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny threw his little red cap up in the air, shouting,
+“Sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes!”
+
+[Illustration: “He pared them and cut them up”]
+
+So, leaving his turkey and pie, he ran hippety-hop to the grocer’s and
+bought sweet potatoes and took them home. He pared them and cut them up.
+He pared some carrots, too. Then he put them all on to cook.
+
+He sang:
+
+                  “I’m the Runaway Bunny; I talk in rhyme;
+                  It is lucky I started out on time.”
+
+The basket spoke again and said:
+
+                “I don’t believe I have heard you say
+                If you’ve cranberries for Thanksgiving Day.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny ran quickly for cranberries.
+
+He was back in less than no time, and began to pack his Basket to take
+with him to spend the day with Old Mother Bun.
+
+At this very minute “Rap-a-tap!” was heard on the door; and in walked
+his old friends, Pit-A-Pat, Rough Coat, Old Brother Bear, and Foxy-Lox.
+
+                Said Foxy-Lox, “Shall we be in the way,
+                If we travel with you on Thanksgiving Day?”
+
+Pit-A-Pat began to lick her chops as she smelled the gravy. For the
+Runaway Bunny had the dinner all cooked to take with him, of course.
+
+Rough Coat thought of the turkey legs. Old Brother Bear smelled the
+sweet potatoes.
+
+Old Foxy-Lox had a long head on him.
+
+So he said:
+
+                “Let’s set the table here just to see
+                How fine your Thanksgiving dinner will be.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny switched his ears to and fro. But he let the animals
+help him set the table with turkey, gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberries,
+and pumpkin pie. And every minute he grew more and more hungry himself.
+
+[Illustration: “He grew more and more hungry”]
+
+Foxy-Lox said:
+
+                “Though we do not intend to be impolite,
+                Let’s taste to see if the dinner is right.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny enjoyed a joke as well as anyone.
+
+So he said:
+
+                 “I am really amused at what you say;
+                 Come, help yourself on Thanksgiving Day!”
+
+Then they all had a fine feast.
+
+The visitors felt a little guilty and whispered among themselves:
+
+                 “We think our conduct is rather shocking,
+                 But we will fill his Christmas stocking.”
+
+The Runaway Bunny excused himself, saying he wanted some exercise.
+
+And he sang:
+
+                 “I like to travel; I’ve formed the habit;
+                 I am well named the Runaway Rabbit.”
+
+He ran off through the woods away, away, away! Would he never stop?
+
+[Illustration: The Bunny.]
+
+
+
+
+                               Chapter X
+                       CHRISTMAS AT MOTHER BUN’S
+
+
+Old Mother Bun was very busy making Christmas presents and Old Father
+Bun was very busy wrapping them up and putting the animals’ names upon
+them.
+
+Every once in awhile, Old Mother Bun would say, “Did you remember Old
+Father Chipmunk?”
+
+Then Old Father Bun would say, “Did you remember Old Grandfather
+Weasel?”
+
+“Click, click, click,” went Old Mother Bun’s knitting needles, as she
+knitted scarfs and sweaters and caps for the animals.
+
+One evening Old Father Bun said:
+
+                 “Are the stockings ready to hang? Because
+                 It is almost time for Santa Claus.”
+
+[Illustration: “There were three stockings”]
+
+Old Mother Bun got out a big stocking, a little stocking, and a
+middle-sized stocking, saying:
+
+              “We’ll hang up three, though it seems so funny;
+              We’ll put one up for the Runaway Bunny.”
+
+So there were three stockings hanging by the fireplace. And every hour
+it grew nearer and nearer Christmas Eve.
+
+Now wasn’t it odd? At this very minute the Runaway Bunny was saying:
+
+                 “By my stubby tail, at least I remember
+                 That Santa Claus comes late in December!”
+
+He looked down the path that led to the woods toward Old Mother Bun’s
+home, singing:
+
+                    “Ha, ha! I must be off to-day.
+                    I’m running away! I’m running away!”
+
+He ran on happily.
+
+Suddenly he stopped and remembered he had no presents for Old Mother Bun
+and Old Father Bun. So back he went hippety-hop, hippety-hop, to his
+little house; and up he went into the attic and looked in an old trunk.
+
+[Illustration: “Looked in an old trunk”]
+
+                   “Ha, ha!” he cried. “I call this fun;
+                   Here is a pipe for Grandfather Bun.”
+
+Sure enough, there was a brand new pipe in a red velvet case. He looked
+down deeper in the trunk and found something else.
+
+                “Ha, ha!” he cried. “Presents for everyone!
+                Here are spectacles for Grandmother Bun.”
+
+He put his presents in a little bag and went off hippety-hop, singing:
+
+                 “I hope I shall get there by break of day;
+                 I’m running away! I’m running away!”
+
+Sometimes he stopped to rest and cried:
+
+                  “My fur and whiskers! It’s cold as ice!
+                  I forgot my mittens, so warm and nice.”
+
+His little sweater did not keep him warm enough.
+
+[Illustration: “He was getting colder every minute”]
+
+His little paws were very cold! His long ears were even colder! He was
+getting colder every minute as he went hippety-hop across the snow!
+
+The next minute he jumped into such a deep snowdrift that only his long
+ears stuck out. The snow got into his nose and eyes until he could
+scarcely breathe. He tried to wriggle out, but the drift held him fast.
+
+Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle went some sleigh bells. And a funny old man,
+dressed in fur from top to toe and carrying a big pack on his back, came
+riding along.
+
+He was singing:
+
+                     “I carry presents, as is my habit,
+                     Aha! I think I see a rabbit.”
+
+He got out of his sleigh and waded into the snowdrift from which the
+Bunny’s ears stuck out.
+
+[Illustration: “Pulled the Runaway Bunny out”]
+
+Then he pulled the Runaway Bunny out by the ears.
+
+The Runaway Bunny shook the snow from his fur and looked at the funny
+old man.
+
+“Why, it’s Santa Claus!” shouted that surprised Bunny. “Hurrah!”
+
+“Tut, tut! This is no time of night for little Bunnies to be out in the
+cold!” cried Santa Claus. “Come with me and you shall ride in my pack,
+where you will be warm and dry.”
+
+So the Runaway Bunny jumped into Santa’s pack and almost buried himself
+among the toys. Then he rode away, singing:
+
+                     “It’s fun to go in Santa’s sleigh,
+                     I’m riding away! I’m riding away!”
+
+They slid down many chimneys and climbed over many roofs. Then away they
+rode until by and by they came to the home of Father and Mother Bun.
+They peeped in at the window. There sat old Father and Mother Bun fast
+asleep in their armchairs.
+
+[Illustration: “Crept down the chimney”]
+
+As Santa Claus crept down the chimney, he whispered to the Runaway
+Bunny, “You may help me, little Bunny. You may trim the stockings with
+holly.”
+
+So he took a bunch of holly from his pack and the Runaway Bunny fastened
+sprays of it on the stockings.
+
+Then Santa whispered:
+
+                 “Curl up in a stocking and go to sleep;
+                 Be still as a mouse, and don’t you peep!”
+
+So the Runaway Bunny took off his little sweater, so that he would not
+be too hot in the warm stocking. Then Santa tucked him into Old Mother
+Bun’s stocking. He put her presents on the floor. Then he filled Old
+Father Bun’s stocking from top to toe.
+
+He left a card on the table. He wrote on the card:
+
+                     “Santa was here to pay a call;
+                     A merry Christmas to one and all!”
+
+Did they have a merry Christmas? Well, I should think they did!
+
+Early Christmas morning, Old Mother Bun awoke and cried:
+
+              “I don’t see well, but it seems funny—
+              Those look like the ears of the Runaway Bunny!”
+
+Next Old Father Bun awoke and said:
+
+              “I see very well—I have formed the habit;
+              Those look like the ears of the Runaway Rabbit.”
+
+Then Father Bun took hold of one ear and Mother Bun took hold of the
+other ear, and they pulled the Runaway Bunny out of the stocking.
+
+[Illustration: “Pulled Bunny out by the ears”]
+
+They all cried, “Merry Christmas!”
+
+Then the Runaway Bunny gave Mother Bun her spectacles and Father Bun his
+pipe. And they had a merry time with the presents Santa Claus had
+brought them.
+
+Old Mother Bun gave the Runaway Bunny a new cap and sweater, and Old
+Father Bun gave him a new sled. Then the pair kissed him on both cheeks
+and begged him to live with them always. He said he would.
+
+Then the Runaway Bunny put on his new cap and sweater and went coasting
+downhill on his new sled.
+
+[Illustration: “Went coasting downhill”]
+
+               The very last words that I heard him say
+               Were, “With Grandpa and Grandma Bun I’ll stay,
+               And if I live a year and a day,
+               I’m entirely cured of running away!”
+
+I wonder if he ever ran away after that. I forgot to ask him!
+
+                If I were a Bunny, I do declare,
+                I’d hang up a stocking with greatest care;
+                And I’d always be very good because
+                I’d hope for a visit from Santa Claus.
+                And every winter I’d have the fun
+                Of spending Christmas with Grandma Bun.
+
+                Who’ll fill our stockings from top to toe?
+                  Jolly Old Santa Claus!
+                Who’ll laugh at the stockings all in a row?
+                  Jolly Old Santa Claus!
+                And all the children and bunnies cry,
+                “Hurrah! hurrah! he is riding by!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            HISTOLOGY OF
+                          MEDICINAL PLANTS
+
+                                 BY
+
+                  WILLIAM MANSFIELD, A.M., PHAR.D.
+
+
+        Professor of Histology and Pharmacognosy, College of
+                  Pharmacy of the City of New York
+                         Columbia University
+
+
+                     TOTAL ISSUE, FOUR THOUSAND
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+                       JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.
+                   LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED
+
+
+
+
+                         Copyright, 1916, by
+                          WILLIAM MANSFIELD
+
+
+
+
+                               PREFACE
+
+
+The object of the book is to provide a practical scientific course in
+vegetable histology for the use of teachers and students in schools
+and colleges.
+
+The medicinal plants are studied in great detail because they
+constitute one of the most important groups of economic plants. The
+cells found in these plants are typical of the cells occurring in
+the vegetable kingdom; therefore the book should prove a valuable
+text-book for all students of histology.
+
+The book contains much that is new. In Part II, which is devoted
+largely to the study of cells and cell contents, is a new scientific,
+yet practical, classification of cells and cell contents. The author
+believes that his classification of bast fibres and hairs will clear
+up much of the confusion that students have experienced when studying
+these structures.
+
+The book is replete with illustrations, all of which are from
+original drawings made by the author. As most of these illustrations
+are diagnostic of the plants in which they occur, they will prove
+especially valuable as reference plates.
+
+The material of the book is the outgrowth of the experience of the
+author in teaching histology at the College of Pharmacy of the
+City of New York, Columbia University, and of years of practical
+experience gained by examining powdered drugs in the laboratory of a
+large importing and exporting wholesale drug house.
+
+The author is indebted to Ernest Leitz and Bausch & Lomb Optical
+Company for the use of cuts of microscopic apparatus used in Part I
+of the book.
+
+The author also desires to express his appreciation to Professor
+Walter S. Cameron, who has rendered him much valuable aid.
+
+                                                   WILLIAM MANSFIELD.
+
+  COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
+    September, 1916.
+
+
+
+
+                              CONTENTS
+
+
+                               PART I
+
+           SIMPLE AND COMPOUND MICROSCOPES AND MICROSCOPIC
+                               TECHNIC
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                       THE SIMPLE MICROSCOPES
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  Simple microscopes, forms of                                       4
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II
+
+                        COMPOUND MICROSCOPES
+
+  Compound microscopes, structure of                                 7
+  Compound microscopes, mechanical parts of                          7
+  Compound microscopes, optical parts of                             9
+  Compound microscopes, forms of                                    12
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+                      MICROSCOPIC MEASUREMENTS
+
+  Ocular micrometer                                                 19
+  Stage micrometer                                                  19
+  Mechanical stage                                                  21
+  Micrometer eye-pieces                                             21
+  Camera lucida                                                     22
+  Drawing apparatus                                                 23
+  Microphotographic apparatus                                       24
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV
+
+                      HOW TO USE THE MICROSCOPE
+
+  Illumination                                                      26
+  Micro lamp                                                        27
+  Care of the microscope                                            28
+  Preparation of specimens for cutting                              28
+  Paraffin imbedding oven                                           30
+  Paraffin blocks                                                   31
+  Cutting sections                                                  31
+  Hand microtome                                                    31
+  Machine microtomes                                                32
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                              REAGENTS
+
+  Reagent set                                                       39
+  Measuring cylinder                                                40
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI
+
+                       HOW TO MOUNT SPECIMENS
+
+  Temporary mounts                                                  41
+  Permanent mounts                                                  41
+  Cover glasses                                                     43
+  Glass slides                                                      44
+  Forceps                                                           45
+  Needles                                                           46
+  Scissors                                                          46
+  Turntable                                                         46
+  Labeling                                                          47
+  Preservation of mounted specimens                                 48
+  Slide box                                                         48
+  Slide tray                                                        48
+  Slide cabinet                                                     49
+
+
+                               PART II
+
+                  TISSUES, CELLS AND CELL CONTENTS
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                              THE CELL
+
+  Typical cell                                                      53
+  Changes in a cell undergoing division                             55
+  Origin of multicellular plants                                    57
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II
+
+                     THE EPIDERMIS AND PERIDERM
+
+  Leaf epidermis                                                    59
+  Testa epidermis                                                   63
+  Plant hairs                                                       66
+  Forms of hairs                                                    67
+  Papillæ                                                           67
+  Unicellular hairs                                                 69
+  Multicellular hairs                                               72
+  Periderm                                                          80
+  Cork periderm                                                     80
+  Stone cell periderm                                               85
+  Parenchyma and stone cell periderm                                85
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+                         MECHANICAL TISSUES
+
+  Bast fibres                                                       89
+  Crystal bearing bast fibres                                       90
+  Porous and striated bast fibres                                   92
+  Porous and non-striated bast fibres                               96
+  Non-porous and striated bast fibres                               96
+  Non-porous and non-striated bast fibres                           96
+  Occurrence of bast fibres in powdered drugs                      103
+  Wood fibres                                                      104
+  Collenchyma cells                                                106
+  Stone cells                                                      109
+  Endodermal cells                                                 116
+  Hypodermal cells                                                 118
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV
+
+                          ABSORPTION TISSUE
+
+  Root hairs                                                       121
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                          CONDUCTING TISSUE
+
+  Vessels and tracheids                                            126
+  Annular vessels                                                  127
+  Spiral vessels                                                   127
+  Sclariform vessels                                               128
+  Reticulate vessels                                               131
+  Pitted vessels                                                   131
+  Pitted vessels with bordered pores                               131
+  Sieve tubes                                                      136
+  Sieve plate                                                      138
+  Medullary bundles, rays and cells                                138
+  Medullary ray bundle                                             139
+  The medullary ray                                                139
+  The medullary ray cell                                           141
+  Structure of the medullary ray cells                             142
+  Arrangement of the medullary ray cells in the medullary ray      142
+  Latex tubes                                                      142
+  Parenchyma                                                       144
+  Cortical parenchyma                                              147
+  Pith parenchyma                                                  147
+  Leaf parenchyma                                                  150
+  Aquatic plant parenchyma                                         150
+  Wood parenchyma                                                  150
+  Phloem parenchyma                                                150
+  Palisade parenchyma                                              150
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI
+
+                           AERATING TISSUE
+
+  Water pores                                                      151
+  Stomata                                                          151
+  Relation of stomata to the surrounding cells                     154
+  Lenticels                                                        157
+  Intercellular spaces                                             158
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+                          SYNTHETIC TISSUE
+
+  Photosynthetic tissue                                            163
+  Glandular tissue                                                 164
+  Glandular hairs                                                  164
+  Secretion cavities                                               166
+  Schizogenous cavities                                            168
+  Lysigenous cavities                                              168
+  Schizo-lysigenous cavities                                       168
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VIII
+
+                           STORAGE TISSUE
+
+  Storage cells                                                    173
+  Storage cavities                                                 176
+  Crystal cavities                                                 176
+  Mucilage cavities                                                176
+  Latex cavities                                                   176
+  Oil cavity                                                       178
+  Glandular hairs as storage organs                                178
+  Storage walls                                                    179
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IX
+
+                            CELL CONTENTS
+
+  Chlorophyll                                                      182
+  Leucoplastids                                                    183
+  Starch grains                                                    183
+      Occurrence                                                   184
+      Outline                                                      185
+      Size                                                         185
+      Hilum                                                        185
+      Nature of hilum                                              188
+  Inulin                                                           194
+  Mucilage                                                         194
+  Hesperidin                                                       196
+  Volatile oil                                                     196
+  Tannin                                                           196
+  Aleurone grains                                                  197
+      Structure of aleurone grains                                 197
+      Form of aleurone grains                                      197
+      Description of aleurone grains                               198
+      Tests for aleurone grains                                    198
+  Crystals                                                         200
+      Micro-crystals                                               200
+      Raphides                                                     200
+      Rosette crystals                                             202
+      Solitary crystals                                            205
+  Cystoliths                                                       210
+      Forms of cystoliths                                          210
+      Tests for cystoliths                                         215
+
+
+                              PART III
+
+             HISTOLOGY OF ROOTS, RHIZOMES, STEMS, BARKS,
+                  WOODS, FLOWERS, FRUITS AND SEEDS
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                         ROOTS AND RHIZOMES
+
+  Cross-section of pink root                                       219
+  Cross-section of ruellia root                                    219
+  Cross-section of spigelia rhizome                                223
+  Cross-section of ruellia rhizome                                 226
+      Powdered pink root                                           227
+      Powdered ruellia root                                        227
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II
+
+                                STEMS
+
+  Herbaceous stems                                                 233
+  Cross-section, spigelia stem                                     233
+  Ruellia stem                                                     235
+  Powdered horehound                                               237
+  Powdered spurious horehound                                      237
+  Insect flower stems                                              241
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+                             WOODY STEMS
+
+  Buchu stem                                                       242
+  Mature buchu stem                                                242
+  Powdered buchu stem                                              245
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV
+
+                                BARKS
+
+  White pine bark                                                  248
+  Powdered white pine bark                                         250
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                                WOODS
+
+  Cross-section quassia                                            254
+  Radial-section quassia                                           254
+  Tangential-section quassia                                       258
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI
+
+                               LEAVES
+
+  Klip buchu                                                       260
+  Powdered klip buchu                                              262
+  Mountain laurel                                                  264
+  Trailing arbutus                                                 264
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+                               FLOWERS
+
+  Pollen grains                                                    270
+  Non-spiny-walled pollen grains                                   273
+  Spiny-walled pollen grains                                       273
+  Stigma papillæ                                                   274
+  Powdered insect flowers                                          278
+  Open insect flowers                                              280
+  Powdered white daisies                                           282
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VIII
+
+                               FRUITS
+
+  Celery fruit                                                     285
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IX
+
+                                SEEDS
+
+  Sweet almonds                                                    289
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X
+
+                   ARRANGEMENT OF VASCULAR BUNDLES
+
+  Types of fibro-vascular bundles                                  292
+  Radial vascular bundles                                          292
+  Concentric vascular bundles                                      295
+  Collateral vascular bundles                                      295
+  Bi-collateral vascular bundles                                   298
+  Open collateral vascular bundles                                 298
+
+
+                                INDEX
+
+
+
+
+                       TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+  FIG.  1.  Tripod Magnifier                                         4
+  FIG.  2.  Watchmaker’s Loupe                                       4
+  FIG.  3.  Folding Magnifier                                        4
+  FIG.  4.  Reading Glass                                            4
+  FIG.  5.  Steinheil Aplanatic Lens                                 5
+  FIG.  6.  Dissecting Microscope                                    5
+  FIG.  7.  Compound Microscope of Robert Hooke                      8
+  FIG.  8.  Compound Microscope                                     10
+  FIG.  9.  Abbé Condenser                                          11
+  FIG. 10.                                                          11
+  FIG. 11.                                                          11
+  FIG. 12.  Objectives                                              11
+  FIG. 13.                                                          12
+  FIG. 14.                                                          12
+  FIG. 15.  Eye-Pieces.                                             12
+  FIG. 16.  Pharmacognostic Microscope                              12
+  FIG. 17.  Research Microscope                                     14
+  FIG. 18.  Special Research Microscope                             14
+  FIG. 19.  Greenough  Binocular Microscope                         15
+  FIG. 20.  Polarization Microscope                                 16
+  FIG. 21.  Ocular Micrometer                                       19
+  FIG. 22.  Stage Micrometer                                        19
+  FIG. 23.  Micrometer Eye-Piece                                    20
+  FIG. 24.  Micrometer Eye-Piece                                    21
+  FIG. 25.  Mechanical Stage                                        22
+  FIG. 26.  Camera Lucida                                           22
+  FIG. 27.  Camera Lucida                                           22
+  FIG. 28.  Drawing Apparatus                                       23
+  FIG. 29.  Microphotographic Apparatus                             24
+  FIG. 30.  Micro Lamp                                              27
+  FIG. 31.  Paraffin-embedding Oven                                 30
+  FIG. 32.  Paraffin Blocks                                         31
+  FIG. 33.  Hand Microtome                                          31
+  FIG. 34.  Hand Cylinder Microtome                                 34
+  FIG. 35.  Hand Table Microtome                                    34
+  FIG. 36.  Base Sledge Microtome                                   35
+  FIG. 37.  Minot Rotary Microtome                                  36
+  FIG. 38.  Reagent Set                                             39
+  FIG. 39.  Measuring Cylinder                                      40
+  FIG. 40.  Staining Dish                                           40
+  FIG. 41.  Round Cover Glass                                       44
+  FIG. 42.  Square Cover Glass                                      44
+  FIG. 43.  Rectangular Cover Glass                                 44
+  FIG. 44.  Glass Slide                                             44
+  FIG. 45.  Histological Forceps                                    45
+  FIG. 46.  Forceps                                                 45
+  FIG. 47.  Sliding-pin Forceps                                     45
+  FIG. 48.  Dissecting Needle                                       46
+  FIG. 49.  Scissors                                                46
+  FIG. 50.  Scalpels                                                47
+  FIG. 51.  Turntable                                               47
+  FIG. 52.  Slide Box                                               48
+  FIG. 53.  Slide Tray                                              48
+  FIG. 54.  Slide Cabinet                                           49
+
+  PLATE   1  THE ONION ROOT                                         56
+  PLATE   2  LEAF EPIDERMIS                                         60
+  PLATE   3  LEAF EPIDERMIS                                         61
+  PLATE   4  TESTA EPIDERMAL CELLS                                  64
+  PLATE   5  TESTA CELLS                                            65
+  PLATE   6  PAPILLÆ                                                68
+  PLATE   7  UNICELLULAR SOLITARY HAIRS                             70
+  PLATE   8  CLUSTERED UNICELLULAR HAIRS                            71
+  PLATE   9  MULTICELLULAR UNISERIATE NON-BRANCHED HAIRS            73
+  PLATE  10  MULTICELLULAR MULTISERIATE NON-BRANCHED HAIRS          75
+  PLATE  11  MULTICELLULAR UNISERIATE BRANCHED HAIRS                76
+  PLATE  12  NON-GLANDULAR MULTICELLULAR HAIRS                      78
+  PLATE  13  MULTICELLULAR MULTISERIATE BRANCHED HAIRS              79
+  PLATE  14  MULTICELLULAR MULTISERIATE BRANCHED HAIRS              81
+  PLATE  15  MULTICELLULAR MULTISERIATE BRANCHED HAIRS              82
+  PLATE  16  PERIDERM OF CASCARA SAGRADA (_Rhamnus purshiana_,
+               D.C.)                                                84
+  PLATE  17  MANDRAKE RHIZOME and WHITE CINNAMON                    86
+  PLATE  18  PERIDERM OF WHITE OAK (_Quercus alba_, L.)             87
+  PLATE  19  CRYSTAL-BEARING FIBRES OF BARKS                        91
+  PLATE  20  CRYSTAL-BEARING FIBRES OF BARKS                        93
+  PLATE  21  CRYSTAL-BEARING FIBRES OF LEAVES                       94
+  PLATE  22  BRANCHED BAST FIBRES                                   95
+  PLATE  23  POROUS AND STRIATED BAST FIBRES                        97
+  PLATE  24  POROUS AND NON-STRIATED BAST FIBRES                    98
+  PLATE  25  NON-POROUS AND STRIATED BAST FIBRES                    99
+  PLATE  26  NON-POROUS AND NON-STRIATED BAST FIBRES               101
+  PLATE  27  GROUPS OF BAST FIBRES                                 102
+  PLATE  28  WOOD FIBRES                                           105
+  PLATE  29  CATNIP STEM and MOTHERWORT STEM                       107
+  PLATE  30  COLLENCHYMA CELLS                                     108
+  PLATE  31  BRANCHED STONE CELLS                                  110
+  PLATE  32  POROUS AND STRIATED STONE CELLS                       113
+  PLATE  33  POROUS AND NON-STRIATED STONE CELLS                   114
+  PLATE  34  CINNAMON, RUELLA ROOT, CASCARA and CINNAMON           115
+  PLATE  35  CROSS-SECTIONS OF ENDODERMAL CELLS OF                 117
+  PLATE  36  LONGITUDINAL SECTIONS OF ENDODERMAL CELLS             119
+  PLATE  37  HYPODERMAL CELLS                                      120
+  PLATE  38  CROSS-SECTION OF SARSAPARILLA ROOT (_Smilax
+               officinalis_, Kunth)                                123
+  PLATE  39  ROOT HAIRS (Fragments)                                124
+  PLATE  40  ANNULAR AND SPIRAL VESSELS                            129
+  PLATE  41  SPIRAL VESSELS                                        130
+  PLATE  42  SCLARIFORM VESSELS                                    132
+  PLATE  43  RETICULATE VESSELS                                    133
+  PLATE  44  PITTED VESSELS                                        134
+  PLATE  45  VESSELS                                               135
+  PLATE  46  SIEVE TUBE                                            137
+  PLATE  47  RADIAL LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF WHITE SANDALWOOD
+               (_Santalum album_, L.)                              140
+  PLATE  48  KAVA-KAVA ROOT and WHITE PINE BARK                    143
+  PLATE  49  BLACK INDIAN HEMP and BLACK INDIAN HEMP ROOT          145
+  PLATE  50  LATEX VESSELS                                         146
+  PLATE  51  PARENCHYMA CELLS                                      148
+  PLATE  52  GRINDELIA STEM (longitudinal) and GRINDELIA STEM
+               (cross-section)                                     149
+  PLATE  53  ACONITE STEM and PEPPERMINT STEM                      152
+  PLATE  54  TYPES OF STOMA                                        153
+  PLATE  55  LEAF EPIDERMI WITH STOMA                              155
+  PLATE  56  BELLADONNA LEAF, DEER TONGUE LEAF and WHITE PINE LEAF 156
+  PLATE  57  ELDER BARK                                            159
+  PLATE  58  INTERCELLULAR AIR SPACES                              160
+  PLATE  59  IRREGULAR INTERCELLULAR AIR SPACES                    161
+  PLATE  60  GLANDULAR HAIRS                                       165
+  PLATE  61  STALKED GLANDULAR HAIRS                               167
+  PLATE  62  CALAMUS RHIZOME and WHITE PINE BARK                   169
+  PLATE  63  CANELLA ALBA BARK and KLIP BUCHU LEAF                 170
+  PLATE  64  BITTER ORANCE PEEL and WHITE PINE LEAF                171
+  PLATE  65  CINNAMON, CALUMBA, PARENCHYMA, SARSAPARILLA,
+               LEPTANDRA, QUEBRACHO, BLACKBERRY                    174
+  PLATE  66  MUCILAGE AND RESIN                                    175
+  PLATE  67  CROSS-SECTION OF SKUNK-CABBAGE LEAF (_Symplocarpus
+               fœtidus_, [L.] Nutt.)                               177
+  PLATE  68  RESERVE CELLULOSE                                     180
+  PLATE  69  RESERVE CELLULOSE                                     181
+  PLATE  70  STARCH                                                186
+  PLATE  71  STARCH                                                187
+  PLATE  72  STARCH                                                189
+  PLATE  73  STARCH                                                190
+  PLATE  74  STARCH                                                191
+  PLATE  75  STARCH GRAINS                                         192
+  PLATE  76  STARCH MASSES                                         193
+  PLATE  77  INULIN (_Inula helenium_, L.)                         195
+  PLATE  77_a_  ALEURONE GRAINS                                    199
+  PLATE  78  MICRO-CRYSTALS                                        201
+  PLATE  79  RAPHIDES                                              203
+  PLATE  80  ROSETTE CRYSTALS                                      204
+  PLATE  81  INCLOSED ROSETTE CRYSTALS                             206
+  PLATE  82  SOLITARY CRYSTAL                                      207
+  PLATE  83  SOLITARY CRYSTALS                                     208
+  PLATE  84  SOLITARY CRYSTALS                                     209
+  PLATE  85  SOLITARY CRYSTALS                                     211
+  PLATE  86  SOLITARY CRYSTALS                                     212
+  PLATE  87  ROSETTE CRYSTALS AND SOLITARY CRYSTALS OCCURRING IN   213
+  PLATE  88  CYSTOLITHS                                            214
+  PLATE  89  CROSS-SECTION OF ROOT OF SPIGELIA MARYLANDICA, L.     220
+  PLATE  90  RUELLIA ROOT (_Ruellia ciliosa_, Pursh.).             222
+  PLATE  91  CROSS-SECTION OF RHIZOME OF SPIGELIA MARYLANDICA, L.  224
+  PLATE  92  CROSS-SECTION OF RHIZOME OF RUELLIA CILIOSA, Pursh.   225
+  PLATE  93  POWDERED SPIGELIA MARYLANDICA, L.                     228
+  PLATE  94  POWDERED RUELLIA CILIOSA, Pursh.                      229
+  PLATE  95  CROSS-SECTION OF STEM OF SPIGELIA MARYLANDICA, L.     234
+  PLATE  96  CROSS-SECTION OF STEM OF RUELLIA CILIOSA, Pursh.      236
+  PLATE  97  POWDERED HOREHOUND (_Marrubium vulgare_, L).          238
+  PLATE  98  SPURIOUS HOREHOUND (_Marrubium peregrinum_, L.)       239
+  PLATE  99  POWDERED INSECT FLOWER STEMS (_Chrysanthemum
+               cinerariifolium_, [Trev.], Vis.)                    240
+  PLATE 100  CROSS-SECTION OF BUCHU STEMS (_Barosma betulina_
+               [Berg.], Barth, and Wendl.)                         243
+  PLATE 101  BUCHU STEM and LEPTANDRA RHIZOME                      244
+  PLATE 102  POWDERED BUCHU STEMS (_Barosma betulina_ [Berg.],
+                Barth. and Wendl.).                                246
+  PLATE 103  CROSS-SECTION OF UNROSSED WHITE PINE BARK (_Pinus
+               strobus_, L.)                                       249
+  PLATE 104  POWDERED WHITE PINE BARK (_Pinus strobus_, L.)        251
+  PLATE 105  CROSS-SECTION OF QUASSIA WOOD (_Picræna excelsa_
+               [Sw.], Lindl.)                                      255
+  PLATE 106  TANGENTIAL SECTION OF QUASSIA WOOD (_Picræna
+               excelsa_ [Sw.], Lindl.)                             256
+  PLATE 107  RADIAL SECTION OF QUASSIA WOOD (_Picræna excelsa_
+               [Sw.], Lindl.)                                      257
+  PLATE 108  CROSS-SECTION OF KLIP BUCHU JUST OVER THE VEIN        261
+  PLATE 109  POWDERED KLIP BUCHU                                   263
+  PLATE 110  CROSS-SECTION MOUNTAIN LAUREL (_Kalmia latifolia_,
+               L.)                                                 265
+  PLATE 111  CROSS-SECTION TRAILING ARBUTUS LEAF (_Epigæa
+               repens_, L.)                                        266
+  PLATE 112  POWDERED INSECT FLOWER LEAVES                         268
+  PLATE 113  SMOOTH-WALLED POLLEN GRAINS                           271
+  PLATE 114  SPINY WALLED POLLEN GRAINS                            272
+  PLATE 115  PAPILLÆ                                               275
+  PLATE 116  PAPILLÆ OF STIGMAS                                    276
+  PLATE 117  PAPILLÆ OF STIGMAS                                    277
+  PLATE 118  POWDERED CLOSED INSECT FLOWER                         279
+  PLATE 119  POWDERED OPEN INSECT FLOWER                           281
+  PLATE 120  POWDERED WHITE DAISIES (_Chrysanthemum
+               leucanthemum_, L.)                                  283
+  PLATE 121  CROSS-SECTION OF CELERY FRUIT (_Apium
+               graveolens_, L.)                                    286
+  PLATE 121  CROSS-SECTION OF CELERY FRUIT (_Apium
+               graveolens_, L.)                                    286
+  PLATE 123  CROSS-SECTION SWEET ALMOND SEED                       290
+  PLATE 124  CROSS-SECTION OF A RADIAL VASCULAR BUNDLE OF
+               SKUNK CABBAGE ROOT                                  293
+  PLATE 125  CROSS-SECTION OF A PHLOEM-CENTRIC BUNDLE OF
+               CALAMUS RHIZOME (_Acorus calamus_, L.)              294
+  PLATE 126  CROSS-SECTION OF A CLOSED COLLATERAL BUNDLE OF
+               MANDRAKE STEM (_Podophyllum peltatum_, L.)          286
+  PLATE 127  BI-COLLATERAL BUNDLE OF PUMPKIN STEM (_Curcurbita
+               pepo_, L.)                                          297
+
+
+
+
+                               Part I
+
+       SIMPLE AND COMPOUND MICROSCOPES AND MICROSCOPIC TECHNIC
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                       THE SIMPLE MICROSCOPES
+
+
+The construction and use of the =simple microscope= (magnifiers)
+undoubtedly date back to very early times. There is sufficient
+evidence to prove that spheres of glass were used as burning spheres
+and as magnifiers by people antedating the Greeks and Romans.
+
+The simple microscopes of to-day have a very wide range of
+application and a corresponding variation in structure and in
+appearance.
+
+Simple microscopes are used daily in classifying and studying crude
+drugs, testing linen and other cloth, repairing watches, in reading,
+and identifying insects. The more complex simple microscopes are used
+in the dissection and classification of flowers.
+
+The =watchmaker’s loupe=, the =linen tester=, the =reading glass=,
+the =engraver’s lens=, and the simplest folding magnifiers consist
+of a double convex lens. Such a lens produces an erect, enlarged
+image of the object viewed when the lens is placed so that the object
+is within its focal distance. The focal distance of a lens varies
+according to the curvature of the lens. The greater the curvature,
+the shorter the focal distance and the greater the magnification.
+
+The more complicated simple microscope consists of two or more
+lenses. The double and triple magnifiers consist of two and three
+lenses respectively.
+
+When an object is viewed through three lenses, the magnification is
+greater than when viewed through one or two lenses, but a smaller
+part of the object is magnified.
+
+
+                     FORMS OF SIMPLE MICROSCOPES
+
+
+                          TRIPOD MAGNIFIER
+
+The =tripod magnifier= (Fig. 1) is a simple lens mounted on a
+mechanical stand. The tripod is placed over the object and the focus
+is obtained by means of a screw which raises or lowers the lens,
+according to the degree it is magnified.
+
+
+                         WATCHMAKER’S LOUPE
+
+The =watchmaker’s loupe= (Fig. 2) is a one-lens magnifier mounted on
+an ebony or metallic tapering rim, which can be placed over the eye
+and held in position by frowning or contracting the eyelid.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Tripod Magnifier]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Watchmaker’s Loupe]
+
+
+                          FOLDING MAGNIFIER
+
+The =folding magnifier= (Fig. 3) of one or more lenses is mounted
+in such a way that, when not in use, the lenses fold up like the
+blade of a knife, and when so folded are effectively protected from
+abrasion by the upper and lower surfaces of the folder.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Folding Magnifier]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Reading Glass]
+
+
+                           READING GLASSES
+
+=Reading glasses= (Fig. 4) are large simple magnifiers, often six
+inches in diameter. The lens is encircled with a metal band and
+provided with a handle.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Steinheil Aplanatic Lens]
+
+
+                     STEINHEIL APLANATIC LENSES
+
+=Steinheil aplanatic lenses= (Fig. 5) consist of three or four
+lenses cemented together. The combination is such that the field is
+large, flat, and achromatic. These lenses are suitable for field,
+dissecting, and pocket use. When such lenses are placed in simple
+holders, they make good dissecting microscopes.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Dissecting Microscope]
+
+
+                        DISSECTING MICROSCOPE
+
+The =dissecting microscope= (Fig. 6) consists of a Steinheil lens
+and an elaborate stand, a firm base, a pillar, a rack and pinion,
+a glass stage, beneath which there is a groove for holding a metal
+plate with one black and one white surface. The nature of the object
+under observation determines whether a plate is used. When the plate
+is used and when the object is studied by reflected light it is
+sometimes desirable to use the black and sometimes the white surface.
+The mirror, which has a concave and a plain surface, is used to
+reflect the light on the glass stage when the object is studied by
+transmitted light. The dissecting microscope magnifies objects up to
+twenty diameters, or twenty times their real size.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II
+
+                        COMPOUND MICROSCOPES
+
+
+The =compound microscope= has undergone wonderful changes since 1667,
+the days of Robert Hooke. When we consider the crude construction
+and the limitations of Robert Hooke’s microscope, we marvel at the
+structural perfection and the unlimited possibilities of the modern
+instrument. The advancement made in most sciences has followed the
+gradual perfection of this instrument.
+
+The illustration of Robert Hooke’s microscope (Fig. 7) will convey
+to the mind more eloquently than words the crudeness of the early
+microscopes, especially when it is compared with the present-day
+microscopes.
+
+
+                STRUCTURE OF THE COMPOUND MICROSCOPE
+
+The parts of the compound microscope (Fig. 8) may be grouped
+into--first, the mechanical, and, secondly, into the optical parts.
+
+
+                        THE MECHANICAL PARTS
+
+1. The =foot= is the basal part, the part which supports all the
+other mechanical and optical parts. The foot should be heavy enough
+to balance the other parts when they are inclined. Most modern
+instruments have a three-parted or tripod-shaped base.
+
+2. The =pillar= is the vertical part of the microscope attached to
+the base. The pillar is joined to the limb by a hinged joint. The
+hinges make it possible to incline the microscope at any angle, thus
+lowering its height. In this way, short, medium, and tall persons
+can use the microscope with facility. The part of the pillar above
+the hinge is called the _limb_. The limb may be either straight
+or curved. The curved form is preferable, since it offers a more
+suitable surface to grasp in transferring from box or shelf to the
+desk, and _vice versa_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Compound Microscope of Robert Hooke]
+
+3. The =stage= is either stationary or movable, round or square, and
+is attached to the limb just above the hinge. The upper surface is
+made of a composition which is not easily attacked by moisture and
+reagents. The centre of the stage is perforated by a circular opening.
+
+4. The =sub-stage= is attached below the stage and is for the purpose
+of holding the iris diaphragm and Abbé condenser. The raising and
+lowering of the sub-stage are accomplished by a rack and pinion.
+
+5. The =iris diaphragm=, which is held in the sub-stage below the
+Abbé condenser, consists of a series of metal plates, so arranged
+that the light entering the microscope may be cut off completely or
+its amount regulated by moving a control pin.
+
+6. The =fine adjustment= is located either at the side or at the top
+of the limb. It consists of a fine rack and pinion, and is used in
+focusing an object when the low-power objective is in position, or in
+finding and focusing the object when the high-power objective is in
+position.
+
+7. The =coarse adjustment= is a rack and pinion used in raising and
+lowering the body-tube and in finding the approximate focus when
+either the high- or low-power objective is in position.
+
+8. The =body-tube= is the path traveled by the rays of light entering
+the objectives and leaving by the eye-piece. To the lower part of the
+tube is attached the nose-piece, and resting in its upper part is the
+draw-tube, which holds the eye-piece. On the outer surface of the
+draw-tube there is a scale which indicates the distance it is drawn
+from the body-tube.
+
+9. The =nose-piece= may be simple, double, or triple, and it is
+protected from dust by a circular piece of metal. Double and triple
+nose-pieces may be revolved, and like the simple nose-piece they hold
+the objectives in position.
+
+
+                          THE OPTICAL PARTS
+
+1. The =mirror= is a sub-stage attachment one surface of which is
+plain and the other concave. The plain surface is used with an Abbé
+condenser when the source of light is distant, while the concave
+surface is used with instruments without an Abbé condenser when the
+source of light is near at hand.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Compound Microscope
+
+  Eyepiece
+  Draw Tube
+  Body Tube
+  Coarse
+  Adjustment
+  Revolving Nosepiece for three Objectives
+  Fine Adjustment
+  Stage
+  Objectives
+  Limb
+  Abbi Condenser
+  Iris Diaphragm
+  Hinge for Inclining
+  Substage Attachment
+  Mirror
+  Pillar
+  Foot]
+
+2. The =Abbé condenser= (Fig. 9) is a combination of two or more
+lenses, arranged so as to concentrate the light on the specimen
+placed on the stage. The condenser is located in the opening of the
+stage, and its uppermost surface is circular and flat.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 9--Abbé Condenser]
+
+3. =Objectives= (Figs. 10, 11, and 12). There are low, medium, and
+high-power objectives. The low-power objectives have fewer and
+larger lenses, and they magnify least, but they show more of the
+object than do the high-power objectives. There are three chief
+types of objectives: First, dry objectives; second, wet objectives,
+of which there are the water-immersion objectives; and third, the
+oil-immersion objectives. The dry objectives are used for most
+histological and pharmacognostical work. For studying smaller objects
+the water objective is sometimes desirable, but in bacteriological
+work the oil-immersion objective is almost exclusively used. The
+globule of water or oil, as the case may be, increases the amount of
+light entering the objective, because the oil and water bend many
+rays into the objective which would otherwise escape.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 12. Objectives.]
+
+4. =Eye-pieces= (Figs. 13, 14, and 15) are of variable length, but
+structurally they are somewhat similar. The eye-piece consists of a
+metal tube with a blackened inner tube. In the centre of this tube
+there is a small diaphragm for holding the ocular micrometer. In the
+lower end of the tube a lens is fastened by means of a screw. This,
+the field lens, is the larger lens of the ocular. The upper, smaller
+lens is fastened in the tube by a screw, but there is a projecting
+collar which rests, when in position, on the draw-tube.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 15. Eye-Pieces.]
+
+The longer the tube the lower the magnification. For instance, a
+two-inch ocular magnifies less than an inch and a half, a one-inch
+less than a three-fourths of an inch, etc.
+
+The greater the curvature of the lenses of the ocular the higher will
+be the magnification and the shorter the tube-length.
+
+
+                    FORMS OF COMPOUND MICROSCOPES
+
+The following descriptions refer to three different models of
+compound microscopes: one which is used chiefly as a pharmacognostic
+microscope, one as a research microscope stand, while the third type
+represents a research microscope stand of highest order, which is
+used at the same time for taking microphotographs.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Pharmacognostic Microscope]
+
+
+                     PHARMACOGNOSTIC MICROSCOPE
+
+The =pharmacognostic microscope= (Fig. 16) is an instrument
+which embodies only those parts which are most essential for the
+examination of powdered drugs, bacteria, and urinary sediments. This
+microscope is provided with a stage of the dimensions 105 × 105 mm.
+This factor and the distance of 80 mm. from the optical centre to the
+handle arm render it available for the examination of even very large
+objects and preparations, or preparations suspended in glass dishes.
+The stand is furnished with a side micrometer, a fine adjustment
+having knobs on both sides, thereby permitting the manipulation of
+the micrometer screw either by left or right hand. The illuminating
+apparatus consists of the Abbé condenser of numerical aperture
+of 1.20, to which is attached an iris diaphragm for the proper
+adjustment of the light. A worm screw, mounted in connection with the
+condenser, serves for the raising and lowering of the condenser, so
+that the cone of illuminating pencils can be arranged in accordance
+to the objective employed and to the preparation under observation.
+The objectives necessary are those of the achromatic type, possessing
+a focal length of 16.2 mm. and 3 mm. Oculars which render the best
+results in regard to magnification in connection with the two
+objectives mentioned are the Huyghenian eye-pieces II and IV so that
+magnifications are obtained varying from 62 to 625. It is advisable,
+however, to have the microscope equipped with a triple revolving
+nose-piece for the objectives, so that provision is made for the
+addition of an oil-immersion objective at any time later should the
+microscope become available for bacteriological investigations.
+
+
+                       THE RESEARCH MICROSCOPE
+
+The =research microscope= used in research work (Fig. 17) must be
+equipped more elaborately than the microscope especially designed for
+the use of the pharmacognosist. While the simple form of microscope
+is supplied with the small type of Abbé condenser, the research
+microscope is furnished with a large illuminating apparatus of
+which the iris diaphragm is mounted on a rack and pinion, allowing
+displacement obliquely to the optical centre, also to increase
+resolving power in the objectives when observing those objects which
+cannot be revealed to the best advantage with central illumination.
+Another iris is furnished above the condenser; this iris becomes
+available the instant an object is to be observed without the aid
+of the condenser, in which case the upper iris diaphragm allows
+proper adjustment of the light. The mirror, one side plane, the
+other concave, is mounted on a movable bar, along which it can be
+slid--another convenience for the adjustment of the light. The
+microscope stage of this stand is of the round, rotating and centring
+pattern, which permits a limited motion to the object slide: The
+rotation of the microscope stage furnishes another convenience in the
+examination of objects in polarized light, allowing the preparation
+to be rotated in order to distinguish the polarization properties of
+the objects under observation.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Research Microscope]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Special Research Microscope]
+
+
+                     SPECIAL RESEARCH MICROSCOPE
+
+A =special research microscope= of the highest order (Fig. 18)
+is supplied with an extra large body tube, which renders it of
+special advantage for micro-photography. Otherwise in its mechanical
+equipment it resembles very closely the medium-sized research
+microscope stand, with the exception that the stand is larger in its
+design, therefore offering universal application. In regard to the
+illuminating apparatus, it is advisable to mention that the one in
+the large research microscope stand is furnished with a three-lens
+condenser of a numerical aperture of 1.40, while the medium-sized
+research stand is provided with a two-lens condenser of a numerical
+aperture of 1.20. The stage of the microscope is provided with a
+cross motion--the backward and forward motion of the preparation is
+secured by rack and pinion, while the side motion is controlled by a
+micrometric worm screw. In cases where large preparations are to be
+photographed, the draw-tube with ocular and the slider in which the
+draw-tubes glide are removed to allow the full aperture of wide-angle
+objectives to be made use of.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Greenough Binocular Microscope]
+
+
+                        BINOCULAR MICROSCOPE
+
+The =Greenough binocular microscope=, as shown in Fig. 19, consists
+of a microscope stage with two tubes mounted side by side and moving
+on the same rack and pinion for the focusing adjustment. Either tube
+can be used without the other. The oculars are capable of more or
+less separation to suit the eyes of different observers. In each
+of the drub-like mountings, near the point where the oculars are
+introduced, porro-prisms have been placed, which erect the image.
+This microscope gives most perfect stereoscopic images, which are
+erect instead of inverted, as in the monocular compound microscopes.
+The Greenough binocular microscope is especially adapted for
+dissection and for studying objects of considerable thickness.
+
+
+                       POLARIZATION MICROSCOPE
+
+The =polarization microscope= (Fig. 20) is used chiefly for the
+examination of crystals and mineral sections as well as for the
+observation of organic bodies in polarized light. It can, however,
+also be used for the examination of regular biological preparations.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Polarization Microscope]
+
+If compared with the regular biological microscope, the polarization
+microscope is found characteristic of the following points: it is
+supplied with a polarization arrangement. The latter consists of a
+polarizer and analyzer. The polarizer is situated in a rotating mount
+beneath the condensing system. The microscope, of which the diagram
+is shown, possesses a triple “Ahrens” prism of calcite. The entering
+light is divided into two polarized parts, situated perpendicularly
+to each other. The so-called “ordinary” rays are reflected to one
+side by total reflection, which takes place on the inner cemented
+surface of the triple prism, allowing the so-called “extraordinary”
+rays to pass through the condenser. If the prism is adjusted to
+its focal point, it is so situated that the vibration plane of the
+extra-ordinary rays are in the same position as shown in the diagram
+of the illustration.
+
+The analyzer is mounted within the microscope-tube above the
+objective. Situated on a sliding plate, it can be shifted into
+the optical axis whenever necessary. The analyzer consists of a
+polarization prism after Glan-Thompson. The polarization plane of the
+active extraordinary rays is situated perpendicularly to the plane as
+shown in the diagram. The polarization prisms are ordinarily crossed.
+In this position the field of the microscope is darkened as long as
+no substance of a double refractive index has been introduced between
+the analyzer and polarizer. In rotating the polarizer up to the mark
+90, the polarization prisms are mounted parallel and the field of
+the microscope is lighted again. Immediately above the analyzer and
+attached to the mounting of the analyzer a lens of a comparatively
+long focal length has been placed in order to overcome the difference
+in focus created by the introduction of the analyzer into the optical
+rays.
+
+The condensing system is mounted on a slider, and, furthermore,
+can be raised and lowered along the optical centre by means of a
+rack-and-pinion adjustment. If lowered sufficiently, the condensing
+system can be thrown to the side to be removed from the optical
+rays. The condenser consists of three lenses. The two upper lenses
+are separately mounted to an arm, which permits them to be tilted to
+one side in order to be removed from the optical rays. The complete
+condenser is used only in connection with high-power objectives.
+As far as low-power objectives are concerned, the lower condensing
+lens alone is made use of, and the latter is found mounted to the
+polarizer sleeve. Below the polarizer and above the lower condensing
+lens an iris diaphragm is found.
+
+The microscope table is graduated on its periphery, and, furthermore,
+carries a vernier for more exact reading.
+
+The polarization microscope is not furnished with an objective
+nose-piece. Every objective, however, is supplied with an individual
+centring head, which permits the objective to be attached to
+an objective clutch-changer, situated at the lower end of the
+microscope-tube. The centring head permits the objectives to be
+perfectly centred and to remain centred even if another objective is
+introduced into the objective clutch-changer.
+
+At an angle of 45 degrees to the polarization plane of polarizer and
+analyzer, a slot has been provided, which serves for the introduction
+of compensators.
+
+Between analyzer and ocular, another slot is found which permits
+the Amici-Bertrand lens to be introduced into the optical axis. The
+slider for the Bertrand lens is supplied with two centring screws
+whereby this lens can be perfectly and easily centred. The Bertrand
+lens serves the purpose of observing the back focal plane of the
+microscope objective. In order to allow the Bertrand lens to be
+focused, the tube can be raised and lowered for this purpose. An iris
+diaphragm is mounted above the Bertrand lens.
+
+If the Bertrand lens is shifted out of the optical axis, one can
+observe the preparation placed upon the microscope stage and,
+depending on its thickness or its double refraction, the interference
+color of the specimen. This interference figure is called the
+orthoscopic image and, accordingly, one speaks of the microscope as
+being used as an “orthoscope.”
+
+After the Bertrand lens has been introduced into the optical axis,
+the interference figure is visible in the back focal plane of the
+objective. Each point of this interference figure corresponds to
+a certain direction of the rays of the preparation itself. This
+arrangement permits observation of the change of the reflection of
+light taking place in the preparation, this in accordance with the
+change of the direction of the rays. This interference figure is
+called the conoscopic image, and, accordingly, the microscope is used
+as a “conoscope.”
+
+Many types of polarization microscopes have been constructed; those
+of a more elaborate form are used for research investigations; others
+of smaller design for routine investigations.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+                      MICROSCOPIC MEASUREMENTS
+
+
+In making critical examinations of powdered drugs, it is frequently
+necessary to measure the elements under observation, particularly in
+the case of starches and crystals.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Ocular Micrometer]
+
+
+                          OCULAR MICROMETER
+
+Microscopic measurements are made by the =ocular micrometer= (Fig.
+21). This consists of a circular piece of transparent glass on the
+centre of which is etched a one- or two-millimeter scale divided into
+one hundred or two hundred divisions respectively. The value of each
+line is determined by standardizing with a stage micrometer.
+
+
+                          STAGE MICROMETER
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Stage Micrometer]
+
+The =stage micrometer= (Fig. 22) consists of a glass slide upon which
+is etched a millimeter scale divided into one hundred equal parts or
+lines: each line has a value of one hundredth of a millimeter.
+
+
+    STANDARDIZATION OF OCULAR MICROMETER WITH LOW-POWER OBJECTIVE
+
+Having placed the ocular micrometer in the eye-piece and the stage
+micrometer on the centre of the stage, focus until the lines of the
+stage micrometer are clearly seen. Then adjust the scales until the
+lines of the stage micrometer are parallel with and directly under
+the lines of the ocular micrometer.
+
+Ascertain the number of lines of the stage micrometer covered by the
+one hundred lines of the ocular micrometer. Then calculate the value
+of each line of the ocular. This is done in the following manner:
+
+If the one hundred lines of the ocular cover seventy-five lines
+of the stage micrometer, then the one hundred lines of the ocular
+micrometer are equivalent to seventy-five one-hundredths, or
+three-fourths, of a millimeter. One line of the ocular micrometer
+will therefore be equivalent to one-hundredth of seventy-five
+one-hundredths, or .0075 part of a millimeter, and as a micron is the
+unit for measuring microscopic objects, this being equivalent to one
+one-thousandth of a millimeter, the value of each line of the ocular
+will therefore be 7.5 microns.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Micrometer Eye-Piece]
+
+With the high-power objective in place, ascertain the value of each
+line of the ocular. If one hundred lines of the ocular cover only
+twelve lines of the stage micrometer, then the one hundred lines of
+the ocular are equivalent to twelve one-hundredths of a millimeter,
+the value of one line being equivalent to one one-hundredth of twelve
+one-hundredths, or twelve ten-thousandths of a millimeter, or .0012,
+or 1.2_µ_.
+
+It will therefore be seen that objects as small as a thousandth of a
+millimeter can be accurately measured by the ocular micrometer.
+
+In making microscopic measurements it is only necessary to find how
+many lines of the ocular scale are covered by the object. The number
+of lines multiplied by the equivalent of each line will be the size
+of the object in microns, or _micromillimeters_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Micrometer Eye-Piece]
+
+
+                        MICROMETER EYE-PIECES
+
+=Micrometer eye-pieces= (Figs. 23 and 24) may be used in making
+measurements. These eye-pieces with micrometer combinations are
+preferred by some workers, but the ocular micrometer will meet the
+needs of the average worker.
+
+
+                          MECHANICAL STAGES
+
+Moving objects by hand is tiresome and unsatisfactory, first, because
+of the possibility of losing sight of the object under observation,
+and secondly, because the field cannot be covered so systematically
+as when a mechanical stage is used for moving slides.
+
+The =mechanical stage= (Fig. 25) is fastened to the stage by a screw.
+The slide is held by two clamps. There is a rack and pinion for
+moving the slide to left or right, and another rack and pinion for
+moving the slide forward and backward.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 25. Mechanical Stage]
+
+
+                            CAMERA LUCIDA
+
+The =camera lucida= is an optical mechanical device for aiding the
+worker in making drawings of microscopic objects. The instrument is
+particularly necessary in research work where it is desirable to
+reproduce an object in all its details. In fact, all reproductions
+illustrating original work should be made by means of the camera
+lucida or by microphotography.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Camera Lucida]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Camera Lucida]
+
+A great many different types of camera lucidas or drawing apparatus
+are obtainable, varying from simple-inexpensive to complex-expensive
+forms. Figs. 26, 27, and 28 show simple and complex forms.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Drawing Apparatus]
+
+
+                     MICROPHOTOGRAPHIC APPARATUS
+
+The =microphotographic apparatus= (Fig. 29), as the name implies, is
+an apparatus constructed in such a manner that it may be attached to
+a microscope when we desire to photograph microscopic objects. It
+consists of a metal base and a polished metal pillar for holding the
+bellows, slide holder, ground-glass observation plate, and eye-piece.
+In making photographs, the small end of the bellows is attached to
+the ocular of the microscope, the focus adjusted, and the object or
+objects photographed. More uniform results are obtained in making
+such photographs if an artificial light of an unvarying candle-power
+is used.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 29.--Microphotographic Apparatus]
+
+There are obtainable more elaborate microphotographic apparatus than
+the one figured and described, but for most workers this one will
+prove highly satisfactory. It is possible, by inclining the tube of
+the microscope, to make good microphotographs with an ordinary plate
+camera. This is accomplished by removing the lens of the camera and
+attaching the bellows to the ocular, focusing, and photographing.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV
+
+                      HOW TO USE THE MICROSCOPE
+
+
+In beginning work with the compound microscope, place the base of the
+microscope opposite your right shoulder, if you are right-handed; or
+opposite your left shoulder, if you are left-handed. Incline the body
+so that the ocular is on a level with your eye, if necessary; but
+if not, work with the body of the microscope in an erect position.
+In viewing the specimen, keep both eyes open. Use one eye for
+observation and the other for sketching. In this way it will not be
+necessary to remove the observation eye from the ocular unless it be
+to complete the details of a sketch.
+
+=Learn to use both eyes.= Most workers, however, accustom themselves
+to using one eye; when they are sketching, they use both eyes,
+although it is not necessary to do so.
+
+=Open the iris diaphragm=, and incline the mirror so that white light
+is reflected on the Abbé condenser. Place the slide on the centre
+of the stage, and if the slide contains a section of a plant, move
+the slide so as to place this specimen over the centre of the Abbé
+condenser. Then lower the body by means of the coarse adjustment
+until the low-power object, which should always be in position when
+work is begun, is within one-fourth of an inch of the stage. Then
+raise the body by means of the coarse adjustment until the object,
+or objects, in case a powder is being examined, is seen. Open and
+close the iris diaphragm, finally adjusting the opening so that the
+best possible illumination is obtained for bringing out clearly
+the structure of the object or objects viewed. Then regulate the
+focus by moving the body up or down by turning the fine adjustment.
+When studying cross-sections or large particles of powders, it is
+sometimes desirable to make low-power sketches of the specimen. In
+most cases, however, only sufficient time should be spent in studying
+the specimen to give an idea of the size, structure, and general
+arrangement or plan or structure if a section of a plant, or, if
+a powder, to note its striking characters. All the finer details
+of structure are best brought out with the high-power objective in
+position.
+
+In =placing the high-power objective in position=, it is first
+necessary to raise the body by the coarse adjustment; then open the
+iris diaphragm, and lower the body until the objective is within
+about one-eighth of an inch of the slide. Now raise the tube by
+the fine adjustment until the object is in focus, then gradually
+close the iris diaphragm until a clear definition of the object is
+obtained. Now proceed to make an accurate sketch of the object or
+objects being studied.
+
+In =using the water or oil-immersion objectives= it is first
+necessary to place a drop of distilled water or oil, as the case may
+be, immediately over the specimen, then lower the body by the coarse
+adjustment until the lens of the objective touches the water or the
+oil. Raise the tube, regulate the light by the iris diaphragm, and
+proceed as if the high-power objectives were in position.
+
+The water or oil should be removed from the objectives and from the
+slide when not in use.
+
+After the higher-powered objective has been used, the body should
+be raised, and the low-power objective placed in position. If the
+draw-tube has been drawn out during the examination of the object,
+replace it, but be sure to hold one hand on the nose-piece so as to
+prevent scratching the objective and Abbé condenser by their coming
+in forceful contact. Lastly, clean the mirror with a soft piece of
+linen. In returning the microscope to its case, or to the shelf,
+grasp the limb, or the pillar, firmly and carry as nearly vertical as
+possible in order not to dislodge the eye-piece.
+
+
+                            ILLUMINATION
+
+The illumination for microscopic work may be from natural or
+artificial sources.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Micro Lamp]
+
+It has been generally supposed that the best possible illumination
+for microscopic work is diffused sunlight obtained from a northern
+direction. No matter from what direction diffused sunlight is
+obtained, it will be found suitable for microscopic work. In no case
+should direct sunlight be used, because it will be found blinding
+in its effects upon the eyes. Natural illumination--diffused
+sunlight--varies so greatly during the different months of the
+year, and even during different periods of the day, that individual
+workers are resorting more and more to artificial illumination. The
+particular advantage of such illumination is due to the fact that
+its quality and intensity are uniform at all times. There are many
+ways of securing such artificial illumination, no one of which has
+any particular advantage over the other. Some workers use an ordinary
+gas or electric light with a color screen placed in the sub-stage
+below the iris diaphragm. In other cases a globe filled with a weak
+solution of copper sulphate is placed in such a way between the
+source of light and the microscope that the light is focused on the
+mirror. Modern mechanical ingenuity has devised, however, a number of
+more convenient micro lamps (Fig. 30). These lamps are a combination
+of light and screen. In some forms a number of different screens come
+with each lamp, so that it is possible to obtain white-, blue-, or
+dark-ground illumination. The type of the screen used will be varied
+according to the nature of the object studied.
+
+
+                       CARE OF THE MICROSCOPE
+
+If possible, the microscope should be stored in a room of the same
+temperature as that in which it is to be used. In any case, avoid
+storing in a room that is cooler than the place of use, because when
+it is brought into a warmer room, moisture will condense on the
+ocular objectives and mirrors.
+
+Before beginning work remove all moisture, dust, etc., from the inner
+and outer lenses of the ocular, the objectives, the Abbé condenser,
+and the mirror by means of a piece of soft, old linen. When the work
+is finished the optical parts should be thoroughly cleaned.
+
+If reagents have been used, be sure that none has got on the
+objectives or the Abbé condenser. If any reagent has got on these
+parts, wash it off with water, and then dry them thoroughly with soft
+linen.
+
+The inner lenses of the eye-pieces and the under lens of the Abbé
+condenser should occasionally be cleaned. The mechanical parts of the
+stand should be cleaned if dust accumulates, and the movable surfaces
+should be oiled occasionally. Never attempt to make new combinations
+of the ocular or objective lenses, or transfer the objectives or
+ocular from one microscope to another, because the lenses of any
+given microscope form a perfect lens system, and this would not be
+the case if they were transferred. Keep clean cloths in a dust-proof
+box. Under no circumstances touch any of the optical parts with your
+fingers.
+
+
+                PREPARATION OF SPECIMENS FOR CUTTING
+
+Most drug plants are supplied to pharmacists in a dried condition.
+It is necessary, therefore, to boil the drug in water, the time
+varying from a few minutes, in the case of thin leaves and herbs, up
+to a half hour if the drug is a thick root or woody stem. If a green
+(undried) drug is under examination, this first step is not necessary.
+
+If the specimen to be cut is a leaf, a flower-petal, or other thin,
+flexible part of a plant, it may be placed between pieces of elder
+pith or slices of carrot or potato before cutting.
+
+
+                       SHORT PARAFFIN PROCESS
+
+In most cases, however, more perfect sections will be obtained if the
+specimens are embedded in paraffin, by the quick paraffin process,
+which is easily carried out.
+
+After boiling the specimen in water, remove the excess of moisture
+from the outer surface with filter paper or wait until the water has
+evaporated. Next make a mould of stiff cardboard and pour melted
+paraffin (melting at 50 or 60 degrees) into the mould to a height of
+about one-half inch, when the paraffin has solidified. This may be
+hastened by floating it on cool or iced water instead of allowing it
+to cool at room temperature.
+
+The specimens to be cut are now placed on the paraffin, with glue, if
+necessary, to hold them in position, and melted paraffin poured over
+the specimens until they are covered to a depth of about one-fourth
+of an inch. Cool on iced water, trim off the outer paraffin to the
+desired depth, and the Specimen will be in a condition suitable for
+cutting.
+
+Good workable sections may be cut from specimens embedded by this
+quick paraffin method. After a little practice the entire process
+can be carried out in less than an hour. This method of preparing
+specimens for cutting will meet every need of the pharmacognosist.
+
+
+                        LONG PARAFFIN PROCESS
+
+In order to bring out the structure of the =protoplast= (living part
+of the cell), it will be necessary to begin with the living part of
+the plant and to use the long paraffin method or the collodion method.
+
+Small fragments of a leaf, stem, or root-tip are placed in
+chromic-acid solution, acetic alcohol, picric acid, chromacetic
+acid, alcohol, etc., depending upon the nature of the specimen under
+observation. The object of placing the living specimen in such
+solutions is to kill the protoplast suddenly so that the parts of the
+cell will bear the same relationship to each other that they did in
+the living plant, and to fix the parts so killed.
+
+After the fixing process is complete, the specimen is freed of the
+fixing agent by washing in water. From the water-bath the specimens
+are transferred successively to 10, 20, 40, 60, 70, 80, 90, and
+finally 100 per cent alcohol. In this 100 per cent alcohol-bath the
+last traces of moisture are removed. The length of time required to
+leave the specimens in the different percentages of alcohols varies
+from a few minutes to twenty-four hours, depending upon the size and
+the nature of the specimen.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Paraffin-embedding Oven]
+
+After dehydration the specimen is placed in a clearing
+agent--chloroform or xylol--both of which are suitable when embedding
+in paraffin. The clearing agents replace the alcohol in the cells,
+and at the same time render the tissues transparent. From the
+clearing agent the specimen is placed in a weak solution of paraffin,
+dissolved xylol, or chloroform. The strength of the paraffin solution
+is gradually increased until it consists of pure paraffin. The
+temperature of the paraffin-embedding oven (Fig. 31) should not be
+much higher than the melting-point of the paraffin.
+
+The specimen is now ready to be embedded. First make a mould of
+cardboard or a lead-embedding frame (Fig. 32), melt the paraffin, and
+then place the specimen in a manner that will facilitate cutting.
+Remove the excess of paraffin and cut when desired.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Paraffin Blocks]
+
+In using the collodion method for embedding fibrous specimens,
+as wood, bark, roots, etc., the specimen is first fixed with
+picric acid, washed with water, cleared in ether-alcohol, embedded
+successively in two, five, and twelve per cent ether-alcohol
+collodion solution, and finally embedded in a pure collodion bath.
+
+
+                          CUTTING SECTIONS
+
+Specimens prepared as described above may be cut with a hand
+microtome or a machine microtome.
+
+
+                           HAND MICROTOME
+
+In cutting sections by a =hand microtome=, it is necessary to place
+the specimen, embedded in paraffin or held between pieces of elder
+pith, carrot, or potato, over the second joints of the fingers,
+then press the first joints firmly upon the specimen with the thumb
+pressed against it. If they are correctly held, the specimens will be
+just above the level of the finger and the end of the thumb, and the
+joint will be below the level of the finger.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Hand Microtome]
+
+Hold the section cutter (Fig. 33) firmly in the hand with the flat
+surface next to the specimen. While cutting the section, press your
+arm firmly against your chest, and bend the wrist nearly at right
+angles to the arm. Push the cutting edge of the microtome toward the
+body and through the specimen in such a way as to secure as thin a
+section as possible. Do not expect to obtain nice, thin sections
+during the first or second trials, but continued practice will enable
+one to become quite efficient in cutting sections in this manner.
+
+When the examination of drugs is a daily occurrence, the above method
+will be found highly satisfactory.
+
+
+                         MACHINE MICROTOMES
+
+When a number of sections are to be prepared from a given specimen,
+it is desirable to cut the sections on a machine microtome,
+particularly when the sections are to be prepared for the use of
+students, in which case they should be as uniform as possible.
+
+Great care should be exercised in cutting sections with a machine
+microtome--first, in the selection of the type of the microtome; and
+secondly, in the style of knife used in cutting.
+
+For soft tissues embedded in paraffin or collodion, the =rotary
+microtome= with vertical knife will give best results. The thickness
+of the specimen is regulated by mechanical means, so that in cutting
+the sections it is only necessary to turn a crank and remove the
+specimens from the knife-edge, unless there is a ribbon-carrier
+attachment. If the sections are being cut from a specimen embedded
+by the quick paraffin method, it is best to drop the section in a
+metal cup partly filled with warm water. This will cause the paraffin
+to straighten out, and the specimen will uncoil. After sufficient
+specimens have been cut, the cup should be placed in a boiling-water
+bath until the paraffin surrounding the sections melts and floats on
+the water. Before removing the specimen from the water-bath, it is
+advisable to shake the glass vigorously in order to cause as many
+specimens as possible to settle to the bottom of the cup. The cup
+is then placed in iced water or set aside until the paraffin has
+solidified. The cake-like mass is then removed from the cup, and the
+sections adhering to its under surface are removed by lifting them
+carefully off with the flat side of the knife and transferring them,
+together with the sections at the bottom of the cup, to a wide-mouth
+bottle, and covered with alcohol, glycerine, and water mixture; or if
+it is desired to stain the specimens, they should be placed in a weak
+alcoholic solution.
+
+Specimens having a hard, woody texture should be cut on a =sliding
+microtome= by means of a special wood knife, which is especially
+tempered to cut woody substances. Woody roots, wood, or thick bark
+may be cut readily on this microtome when they have been embedded by
+the quick paraffin process. The knife in the sliding microtome is
+placed in a horizontal position, slanting so that the knife-edge is
+drawn gradually across the specimen. After cutting, the sections are
+treated as described above.
+
+The thickness of the sections is regulated by mechanical means.
+After a section has been cut, the block containing the specimen is
+raised by turning a thumb-screw. In this microtome the knife, as in
+the rotary type, is fixed, and the block containing the specimen is
+movable.
+
+If the specimen has been infiltrated with, and embedded in, paraffin
+or collodion, the treatment of the sections after cutting should be
+different.
+
+In the case of paraffin, the sections are fastened directly to the
+slide, and the paraffin is dissolved by either chloroform or xylol.
+The specimen is then placed in 100, 95, and 45 per cent alcohol,
+and then washed in water. These sections are now stained with
+water-stains, brought back through alcohol, cleared, and mounted in
+Canada balsam.
+
+If alcoholic stains are used, it will not be necessary to dehydrate
+before staining, and the dehydration after staining will also be
+eliminated.
+
+Sections infiltrated with collodion are either stained directly
+without removing the collodion or after removal.
+
+
+                         FORMS OF MICROTOMES
+
+The =hand cylinder microtome= (Fig. 34) consists of a cylindrical
+body. The clamp for holding the specimen is near the top below the
+cutting surface. At the lower end is attached a micrometer screw with
+a divided milled head. When moved forward one division, the specimen
+is raised 0.01 mm. This micrometer screw has an upward movement of
+10 mm. The cutting surface consists of a cylindrical glass ring.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Hand Cylinder Microtome]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 35.--Hand Table Microtome]
+
+The =hand table microtome= (Fig. 35) is provided with a clamp, by
+which it may be attached to the edge of a table or desk. The cutting
+surface consists of two separated but parallel glass benches. The
+object is held by a clamp and is raised by a micrometer screw, which,
+when moved through one division by turning the divided head, raises
+the specimen 0.01 mm.
+
+The =sliding microtome= has a track of 250 mm. The object is held
+by a clamp and its height regulated by hand. The disk regulating
+the micrometer screw is divided into one hundred parts. When this
+is turned through one division, the object is raised 0.005 mm. or
+5 microns, at the same time a clock-spring in contact with teeth
+registers by a clicking sound. If the disk is turned through two
+divisions, there will be two clicks, etc. In this way is regulated
+the thickness of the sections cut. When the micrometer screw has been
+turned through the one hundred divisions, it must be unscrewed, the
+specimen raised, and the steps of the process repeated. The knife is
+movable and is drawn across the specimen in making sections.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Base Sledge Microtome]
+
+The =base sledge microtome= (Fig. 36) has a heavy iron base which
+supports a sliding-way on which the object-carrier moves. The
+object-carrier is mounted on a solid mass of metal, and is provided
+with a clamp for holding the object. The object is raised by turning
+a knob which, when turned once, raises the specimen one to twenty
+microns, according to how the feeding mechanism is set.
+
+Sections thicker than twenty microns may be obtained by turning the
+knob two or more times. The knife is fixed and is supported by two
+pillars, the base of which may be moved forward or backward in such a
+manner that the knife can be arranged with an oblique or right-angled
+cutting surface.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Minot Rotary Microtome]
+
+The =Minot rotary microtome= (Fig. 37) has a fixed knife, held in
+position by two pillars, and a movable object-carrier. The object is
+firmly secured by a clamp, and it is raised by a micrometer screw.
+The screw is attached to a wheel having five hundred teeth on its
+periphery. A pawl is adjusted to the teeth in such a way that, when
+moved by turning a wheel to which it is attached, specimens varying
+from one to twenty-five microns in thickness may be cut, according
+to the way the adjusting disk is set. When the mechanism has been
+regulated and the object adjusted for cutting, it is only necessary
+to turn a crank in cutting sections.
+
+
+                         CARE OF MICROTOMES
+
+When not in use, microtomes should be protected from dust, and all
+parts liable to friction should be oiled.
+
+Microtome knives should be honed as often as is necessary to insure
+a proper cutting edge. After cutting objects, the knives should be
+removed, cleaned, and oiled.
+
+It should be kept clearly in mind that special knives are required
+for cutting collodion, paraffin, and frozen and woody sections. The
+cutting edges of the different knives vary considerably, as is shown
+in the preceding cuts.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                              REAGENTS
+
+
+Little attention is given in the present work to micro-chemical
+reactions for the reason that their value has been much overrated in
+the past. A few reagents will be found useful, however, and these few
+are given, as well as their special use. They are as follows:
+
+
+                          LIST OF REAGENTS
+
+=Distilled Water= is used in the alcohol, glycerine, and water
+mixture as a general mounting medium. It is used when warm as a test
+for inulin and it is used in preparing various reagents.
+
+=Glycerine= is used in preparing the alcohol, glycerine, and water
+mixture, in testing for aleurone grains, and as a temporary mounting
+medium.
+
+=Alcohol= is used in preparing the alcohol, glycerine, and water
+mixture, in testing for volatile oils.
+
+=Acetic Acid=. Both dilute and strong solutions are used in testing
+for aleurone grains, cystoliths, and crystals of calcium oxalate.
+
+=Hydrochloric Acid= is used in connection with phloroglucin as a test
+for lignin and as a test for calcium oxalate.
+
+=Ferric Chloride Solution= is used as a test for tannin.
+
+=Sulphuric Acid= is used as a test for calcium oxalate.
+
+=Tincture Alkana= is used when freshly prepared by macerating the
+granulated root with alcohol and filtering, as a test for resin.
+
+=Sodium Hydroxide=. A five per cent solution is used as a test for
+suberin and as a clearing agent.
+
+=Copper Ammonia= is used as a test for cellulose.
+
+=Ammonical Solution of Potash= is used as a test for fixed oils.
+The solution is a mixture of equal parts of a saturated solution of
+potassium hydroxide and stronger ammonia.
+
+=Oil of Cloves= is used as a clearing fluid for sections preparatory
+to mounting in Canada balsam.
+
+=Canada Balsam= is used as a permanent mounting medium for dehydrated
+specimens, and as a cement for ringing slides.
+
+=Paraffin= is used for general embedding and infiltrating.
+
+=Lugol’s Solution= is used as a test for starch and for aleurone
+grains and proteid matters.
+
+=Osmic Acid=. A two per cent solution is used as a test for fixed
+oils.
+
+=Alcohol, Glycerine, and Water Mixture= is used as a temporary
+mounting medium and as a qualitative test for fixed oils.
+
+=Chlorzinc Iodide= is used as a test for suberin, lignin, cellulose,
+and starch.
+
+=Analine Chloride= is used as a test for lignified cell walls of bast
+fibres and of stone cells.
+
+=Phloroglucin=. A one per cent alcoholic solution is used in
+connection with hydrochloric acid as a test for lignin.
+
+=Hæmatoxylin-Delifields= is used as a test for cellulose.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Reagent Set]
+
+
+                             REAGENT SET
+
+Each worker should be provided with a set of =reagent bottles=
+(Fig. 38). Such a set may be selected according to the taste of the
+individual, but experience has shown that a 30 c.c. bottle with a
+ground-in pipette and a rubber bulb is preferable to other types. In
+such forms the pipettes are readily cleaned, and the rubber bulbs can
+be replaced when they become old and brittle. The entire set should
+be protected from dust by keeping it in a case, the cover of which
+should be closed when the set is not in use.
+
+
+                         MEASURING CYLINDER
+
+In order accurately to measure micro-chemical reagents, it is
+necessary to have a standard 50 c.c. cylinder (Fig. 39) graduated to
+c.c.’s. Such a cylinder should form a part of the reagent set.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Measuring Cylinder]
+
+
+                           STAINING DISHES
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Staining Dish]
+
+There is a great variety of =staining dishes= (Fig. 40), but for
+general histological work a glass staining dish with groves for
+holding six or more slides and a glass cover is most desirable.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI
+
+                       HOW TO MOUNT SPECIMENS
+
+
+The method of procedure in mounting specimens for study varies
+according to the nature of the specimen, its preliminary treatment,
+and the character of the mount to be made. As to duration, mounts are
+either temporary or permanent.
+
+
+                          TEMPORARY MOUNTS
+
+In preparing a =temporary mount=, place the specimen in the centre
+of a clean slide and add two or more drops of the temporary mounting
+medium, which may be water, or a mixture of equal parts of alcohol,
+glycerine, and water, or some micro-chemical reagent, as weak Lugol’s
+solution, solution of chloral hydrate, etc. Cover this with a cover
+glass and press down gently. Remove the excess of the mounting
+medium with a piece of blotting paper. Now place the slide on the
+stage and proceed to examine it. Such mounts can of course be used
+only for short periods of study; and when the period of observation
+is finished, the specimen should be removed and the slide washed,
+or the slide washing may be deferred until a number of such slides
+have accumulated. At any rate, when the mounting medium dries, the
+specimen is no longer suitable for observation.
+
+
+                          PERMANENT MOUNTS
+
+Permanent mounts are prepared in much the same way as temporary, but
+of course the mounting medium is different. The kind of permanent
+mounting medium used depends upon the previous treatment of the
+specimen. If the specimen has been preserved in alcohol or glycerine
+and water, it is usually mounted in glycerine jelly. If the specimen
+in question is a powder, it is placed in the centre of the slide and
+a drop or two of glycerine, alcohol, and water mixture added, unless
+the powder was already in suspension in such a mixture. Cut a small
+cube of glycerine jelly and place it in the centre of the powder
+mixture. Lift up the slide by means of pliers, or grasp the two
+edges between the thumb and finger and hold over a small flame of an
+alcohol lamp, or place on a steam-bath until the glycerine jelly has
+melted. Next sterilize a dissecting needle, cool, and mix the powder
+with the glycerine jelly, being careful not to lift the point of the
+needle from the slide during the operation. If the mixing has been
+carefully done, few or no air-bubbles will be present; but if they
+are present, heat the needle, and while it is white hot touch the
+bubbles with its point, and they will disappear. Now take a pair of
+forceps and, after securing a clean cover glass near the edge, pass
+them three times through the flame of the alcohol lamp. While holding
+it in a slanting position, touch one side of the powder mixture and
+slowly lower the cover glass until it comes in complete contact with
+the mixture. Now press gently with the end of the needle-handle, and
+set it aside to cool. When it is cool, place a neatly trimmed label
+on one end of the slide, on which write the name of the specimen,
+the number of the series of which it is to form a part, etc. Any
+excess of glycerine jelly, which may have been pressed out from the
+edges of the cover glass, should not be removed at once, but should
+be allowed to remain on the slide for at least one month in order to
+allow for shrinkage due to evaporation. At the end of a month remove
+the glycerine jelly by first passing the blade of a knife, held in
+a vertical position, the back of the knife being next to the slide,
+around the edge of the cover glass. After turning the knife-blade so
+that the flat side is in contact with slide, remove the jelly outside
+of the cover glass. Any remaining fragments should be removed with
+a piece of old linen or cotton cloth. Finally, ring the edge of the
+cover glass with microscopical cement, of which there are many types
+to be had. If the cleaning has been done thoroughly, there is no
+better ringing cement than Canada balsam.
+
+In mounting cross-sections, the method of procedure is similar to the
+above, with the exception that the glycerine jelly is placed at the
+side of the specimen and not in the centre. While melting the jelly,
+incline the slide in order to allow the melted glycerine jelly to
+flow gradually over the specimen, thus replacing the air contained in
+the cells and intercellular spaces. Finish the mounting as directed
+above, but under no conditions should you stir the glycerine jelly
+with the section.
+
+If specimens, after having been embedded in paraffin or collodion,
+are cut, cleared, stained, and dehydrated, they are usually mounted
+in Canada balsam. A small drop of this substance, which may be
+obtained in collapsible tubes, is placed at one side of the specimen.
+While inclining the slide, gently heat until the Canada balsam covers
+the specimen. Secure a cover glass by the aid of pliers, pass it
+through the flame three times, and lower it slowly while holding it
+in an inclined position. Press gently on the cover glass with the
+needle-handle, and keep in a horizontal position for twenty-four
+hours, then place directly in a slide box or cabinet, since no
+sealing is required.
+
+Glycerine is sometimes used to make permanent mounts, but it is
+unsatisfactory, because the cover glass is easily removed and the
+specimen spoiled or lost, unless ringed--a procedure which is not
+easily accomplished. If the specimen is to be mounted in glycerine,
+it must first be placed in a mixture of alcohol, glycerine, and
+water, and then transferred to glycerine. Lactic acid is another
+permanent liquid-mounting medium, which is unsatisfactory in the same
+way as glycerine, but like glycerine, there are certain special cases
+where it is desirable to use it. When this is used, the slides should
+be kept in a horizontal position, unless ringed.
+
+
+                            COVER GLASSES
+
+Great care should be used In the selection of =cover glasses=,
+however, not only as regards their shape but as to their thickness.
+The standard tube length of the different manufacturers makes an
+allowance of a definite thickness for cover glasses. It is necessary,
+therefore, to use cover glasses made by the manufacturer of the
+microscope in use.
+
+Cover glasses are either square or round. Of each there are four
+different thicknesses and two different sizes. The standard
+thicknesses are: The small size is designated three-fourths and the
+large size seven-eighths.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Round Cover Glass]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Square Cover Glass]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 43.--Rectangular Cover Glass]
+
+=Cover glasses= are circular (Fig. 41), square (Fig. 42), or
+rectangular (Fig. 43) pieces of transparent glass used in
+covering the specimens mounted on glass slides. A few years ago
+much difficulty was experienced in obtaining uniformly thick and
+transparent cover glasses, but no such difficulty is experienced
+to-day. The type of cover glass used depends largely upon the
+character of the specimen to be mounted. The square and rectangular
+glasses are selected when a series of specimens are to be mounted,
+but in mounting powdered drugs and histological specimens the round
+cover glasses are preferable because they are more sightly and more
+readily cleaned and rinsed.
+
+
+                            GLASS SLIDES
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Glass Slide]
+
+=Glass slides= (Fig. 44) are rectangular pieces of transparent glass
+used as a mounting surface for microscopic objects. The slides are
+usually three inches long by one inch wide, and they should be
+composed of white glass, and they should have ground and beveled
+edges. Slides should be of uniform thickness, and they should not
+become cloudy upon standing.
+
+
+                    SLIDE AND COVER-GLASS FORCEPS
+
+Slides and cover glasses should be grasped by their edges. To the
+beginner this is not easy. In order to facilitate holding slides and
+cover glasses during the mounting process, one may use a slide and a
+cover-glass =forceps=. The slide forceps consists of wire bent and
+twisted in such a way that it holds a slide firmly when attached to
+its two edges.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 45.--Histological Forceps]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 46.--Forceps]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 47.--Sliding-pin Forceps]
+
+There are various forms of cover-glass holders, but only two types as
+far as the method of securing the cover glass is concerned. First,
+there are the bacteriological and the histological forceps (Fig. 45),
+which are self-closing. The two blades of such forceps must be forced
+apart by pressure in securing the cover glass. The second type of
+forceps is that in which the two blades are normally separated (Fig.
+46), it being necessary to press the blades to either side of the
+cover glass in order to secure and hold it. There is a modification
+of this type of forceps which enables one to lock the blades by means
+of a sliding pin (Fig. 47), after the cover glass has been secured.
+It is well to accustom oneself to one type, for by so doing one may
+become dexterous in its use.
+
+
+                               NEEDLES
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Dissecting Needle]
+
+Two =dissecting needles= (Fig. 48) should form a part of the
+histologist’s mounting set. The handles may be of any material, but
+the needle should be of tempered steel and about two inches long.
+
+
+                              SCISSORS
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Scissors]
+
+Almost any sort of =scissors= (Fig. 49) will do for histology work,
+but a small scissors with fine pointed blades, are preferred.
+Scissors are useful in trimming labels and in cutting strips of
+leaves and sections of fibrous roots that are to be embedded and cut.
+
+
+                              SCALPELS
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 50.--Scalpels]
+
+=Scalpels= (Fig. 50) have steel blades and ebony handles. These vary
+in regard to size and quality of material. The cheaper grades are
+quite as satisfactory, however, as the more expensive ones, and for
+general use a medium-sized blade and handle will be found most useful.
+
+
+                              TURNTABLE
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Turntable]
+
+Much time and energy may be saved by ringing slides on a =turntable=
+(Fig. 51). There is a flat surface upon which to rest the hand
+holding the brush with cement, and a revolving table upon which the
+slide to be ringed is held by means of two clips. In ringing slides,
+it is only necessary to revolve the table, and at the same time to
+transfer the cement to the edge of the cover glass from the brush
+held in the hand.
+
+
+                              LABELING
+
+There are many ways of =labeling slides=, but the best method is to
+place on the label the name of the specimen, the powder number, and
+the box, the tray or cabinet number. For example:
+
+                       Powdered Arnica Flowers
+                         No. 80--Box A--600.
+
+
+                  PRESERVATION OF MOUNTED SPECIMENS
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Slide Box]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 53.--Slide Tray]
+
+Accurately mounted, labeled, and ringed slides should be filed away
+for future study and reference. Such =filing= may be done in slide
+boxes, in slide trays, or in cabinets. Slide boxes are to be had
+of a holding capacity varying from one to one hundred slides. For
+general use, slide boxes (Fig. 52) holding one hundred slides will
+be found most useful. Some workers prefer trays (Fig. 53), because
+of the saving of time in selecting specimens. Trays hold twenty
+slides arranged in two rows. The cover of the tray is divided into
+two sections so that, if desired, only one row of slides is uncovered
+at a time. Slide cabinets (Fig. 54) are particularly desirable for
+storing large individual collections, particularly when the slides
+are used frequently for reference. Large selections of slides should
+be numbered and card indexed in order to facilitate finding.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 54.--Slide Cabinet]
+
+
+
+
+                               Part II
+
+                  TISSUES CELLS, AND CELL CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                              THE CELL
+
+
+The =cell= is the unit of structure of all plants. In fact the cell
+is the plant in many of the lower forms--so called unicellular
+plants. All plants, then, consist of one or more cells.
+
+While cells vary greatly in size, form, color, contents, and
+function, still in certain respects their structure is identical.
+
+
+                            TYPICAL CELL
+
+The typical vegetable cell is composed of a living portion or
+=protoplast= and an external covering, or =wall=. The protoplast
+includes everything within the wall. It is made up of a number of
+parts, each part performing certain functions yet harmonizing with
+the work of the cell as a whole. The protoplast (protoplasm) is a
+viscid substance resembling the white of an egg. The protoplast, when
+unstained and unmagnified, appears structureless, but when stained
+with dyes and magnified, it is found to be highly organized. The
+two most striking parts of the protoplast are the =cytoplasm= and
+the =nucleus=. The part of the protoplast lining the innermost part
+of the wall is the =ectoplast=, which is less granular and slightly
+denser than most of the =cytoplasm=. The cytoplasm is decidedly
+granular in structure.
+
+In the cytoplasm occurs one or more cavities, =vacuoles=, filled with
+=cell sap=. Embedded in the cytoplasm are numerous =chromatophores=,
+which vary in color in the different cells, from colorless to yellow,
+to red, and to green. The =nucleus= is the seat of the vital activity
+of the cell, and the seat of heredity. The whole life and activity of
+the cell centre, therefore, in and about the nucleus.
+
+The outer portion of the nucleus consists of a thin
+membrane or wall. The membrane encloses numerous granular
+particles--=chromatin=--which are highly susceptible to organic
+stains. Among the granules are thread-like particles or =linin=. Near
+the centre of the nucleus are one or more small rounded nucleoli. The
+liquid portion of the nucleus, filling the membranes and surrounding
+the chromatin, linin, and nucleoli, is the =nuclear sap=.
+
+Other cell contents characteristic of certain cells are crystals,
+starch, aleurone, oil, and alkaloids. The detailed discussion of
+these substances will be deferred until a later chapter.
+
+The =cell wall= which surrounds the protoplast is a product of its
+activity. The structure and composition of the wall of any given cell
+vary according to the ultimate function of the cell. The walls may be
+thin or thick, porous or non-porous, and colored or colorless. The
+composition of cell walls varies greatly. The majority of cell walls
+are composed of cellulose, in other cells of linin, in others of
+cutin, and in still others of suberin, etc. In the majority of cells
+the walls are laid down in a series of layers one over the other by
+apposition, similar to the manner of building a pile of paper from
+separate sheets. The first layer is deposited over the primary wall,
+formed during cell division; to this is added another layer, etc. A
+modification of this manner of growth is that in which the layers are
+built up one over the other, but the building is gradually done by
+the deposit of minute particles of cell-wall substance over the older
+deposits. Such walls are never striated, as is likely to be the case
+in cell walls formed by the first method. In other cells the walls
+are increased in thickness by the deposition of new wall material in
+the older membrane. The cell walls will be discussed more fully when
+the different tissues are studied in detail.
+
+
+                INDIRECT CELL DIVISION (KARYOKINESIS)
+
+The purpose of cell division is to increase the number of cells
+of a tissue, an organ, an organism, or to increase the number of
+organisms, etc. Such cell divisions involve, first, an equal division
+of the protoplast and, secondly, the formation of a wall between
+the divided protoplasts. The first changes in structure of a cell
+undergoing division occur in the nucleus.
+
+
+                CHANGES IN A CELL UNDERGOING DIVISION
+
+The =linin threads= become thicker and shorter. The =chromatin
+granules= increase in size and amount; the threads and chromatin
+granules separate into a definite number of segments or =chromosomes=
+(Plate 1, Fig. 2). The nuclear membrane becomes invested with a
+fibrous protoplasmic layer which later separates and passes into
+either end of the cell, there forming the =polar caps= (Plate 1, Fig.
+3).
+
+The =nuclear membrane= and the =nucleoli= disappear at about this
+time. Two fibres, one from each polar cap, become attached to
+opposite sides of the individual chromosomes. Other fibres from
+the two polar caps unite to form the =spindle fibres=, which thus
+extend from pole to pole. All these spindle fibres form the =nuclear
+spindle= (Plate 1, Fig. 5).
+
+The chromosomes now pass toward the division centre of the cell or
+=equatorial plane= and form, collectively, the =equatorial plate=
+(Plate 1, Fig. 5). At this point of cell division, the chromosomes
+are =U=-shaped, and the curved part of the chromosomes faces the
+equatorial plane. The chromosomes finally split into two equal
+parts (Plate 1, Fig. 6). The actual separation of the halves of
+chromosomes is brought about by the attached polar fibres, which
+contract toward the polar caps (Plate 1, Fig. 7). The chromosomes are
+finally drawn to the polar caps (Plate 1, Fig. 8). The chromosomes
+now form a rounded mass. They then separate into linin threads
+and chromatin granules. Nucleoli reappear, and nuclear sap forms.
+Finally, a nuclear membrane develops. The spindle fibres, which still
+extend from pole to pole, become thickened at the equatorial plane
+(Plate 1, Fig. 8), and finally their edges become united to form the
+=cell-plate= (Plate 1, Fig. 9), which extends across the cell, thus
+completely separating the mother cell into two daughter cells. After
+the formation of the cell-plate, the spindle fibres disappear. The
+cell becomes modified to form the =middle lamella=, on either side of
+which the daughter protoplast adds a cellulose layer. The ultimate
+composition of the middle lamella and the composition and structure
+of the cell wall will differ according to the function which the cell
+will finally perform.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 1
+
+  Nine figures, showing stages in the cell-division common to the
+  onion root (_Allium cepa_, L.)]
+
+
+                   ORIGIN OF MULTICELLULAR PLANTS
+
+All multicellular plants are built up by the repeated cell division
+of one original cell. If the cells formed are similar in structure
+and function, they form a tissue. In multicellular plants many
+different kinds of tissues will be formed as a result of cell
+division, since there are many different functions to be performed by
+such an organism. When several of these tissues become associated and
+their functions are correlated, they form an organ. The association
+of several organs in one form makes an organism. The oak-tree is an
+organism. It is made up of organs known as flowers, leaves, stems,
+roots, etc. Each of these organs is in turn made up of several kinds
+of tissue. In some cases it is difficult to designate a single
+function to an aggregation of cells (tissue). In fact, a tissue may
+perform different functions at different periods of its existence
+or it may perform two functions at one and the same time; as an
+example, stone cells, whose primary function is mechanical, in many
+cases function as storage tissue. The cells forming the tissues of
+the plant, in fact, show great adaptability in regard to the function
+which they perform. Nevertheless there is a predominating function
+which all tissues perform, and the structure of the cells forming
+such tissues is so uniform that it is possible to classify them.
+
+The functional classification of tissues is chosen for the purpose
+of demonstrating the adaptation of cell structure to cell function.
+If the cells performing a similar function in the different plants
+were identical in number, distribution, form, color, size, structure,
+and cell contents, there would not be a science of histology upon
+which the art of microscopic pharmacognosy is based. It may be said,
+however, with certainty, that the cells forming certain of the
+tissues of any given species of plant will differ in a recognizable
+degree from cells performing a similar function in other species of
+plants. Often a tissue is present in one plant but absent in another.
+For example, many aquatic plants are devoid of mechanical fibrous
+cells. The barks of certain plants have characteristic stone cells,
+while in many other barks no stone cells occur. Many leaves have
+characteristic trichomes; others are free from trichomes, etc. Yet
+all cells performing a given function will structurally resemble
+each other. In the present work the nucleus and other parts of the
+living protoplast will not be considered, for the reason that these
+parts are not in a condition suitable for study, because most drugs
+come to market in a dried condition, a condition which eliminates
+the possibility of studying the protoplast. The general structure of
+the cells forming the different tissues will first be considered,
+then their variation, as seen in different plants, and finally their
+functions.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II
+
+                     THE EPIDERMIS AND PERIDERM
+
+
+The epidermis and its modifications, the hypodermis and the periderm,
+form the dermal or protective outer layer or layers of the plant.
+
+The epidermis of most leaves, stems of herbs, seeds, fruits, floral
+organs, and young woody stems consists of a single layer of cells
+which form an impervious outer covering, with the exception of the
+stoma.
+
+
+                           LEAF EPIDERMIS
+
+The cells of the =epidermis= vary in size, in thickness of the side
+and end walls, in form, in arrangement, in character of outgrowths,
+in the nature of the surface deposits, in the character of
+wall--whether smooth or rough--and in size.
+
+In cross-sections of the leaf the character of both the side and end
+walls is easily studied.
+
+In surface sections--the view most frequently seen in powders--the
+side walls are more conspicuous than the end wall (Plates 2 and 3).
+This is so because the light is considerably retarded in passing
+through the entire length of the side walls, while the light is
+retarded only slightly in passing through the end wall. The light in
+this case passes through the width (thickness) of the wall only. The
+outer walls of epidermal cells are characteristic only when they are
+striated, rough, pitted, colored, etc. In the majority of leaves the
+outer wall of the epidermal cells is not diagnostic in powders, or in
+surface sections.
+
+The thickness of the end and side walls of epidermal cells differs
+greatly in different plants.
+
+As a rule, leaves of aquatic and shade-loving plants, as well as the
+leaves of most herbs have thinner walled epidermal cells than have
+the leaves of plants growing in soil under normal conditions, or than
+have the leaves of shrubs and trees.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 2
+
+                           LEAF EPIDERMIS
+
+  1. Uva-ursi (_Arctostaphylos uva-ursi_, [L.] Spring).
+  2. Boldus (_Peumus boldus_, Molina).
+  3. Catnip (_Nepeta cataria_, L.).
+  4. Digitalis (_Digitalis purpurea_, L.).
+  4-A. Origin of hair.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 3
+
+                           LEAF EPIDERMIS
+
+  1. Upper striated epidermis of chirata leaf (_Swertia chirata_,
+  [Roxb.] Ham.).
+  2. Green hellebore leaf (_Veratrum viride_, Ait.).
+  3. Boldus leaf (_Peumus boldus_, Molina).
+  4. Under epidermis of India senna (_Cassia angustifolia_, Vahl.).]
+
+The widest possible range of cell-wall thickness is therefore found
+in the medicinal leaves, because the medicinal leaves are collected
+from aquatic plants, herbs, shrubs, trees, etc.
+
+The outer wall is always thicker than the side walls. Even the
+side walls vary in thickness in some leaves, the wall next to the
+epidermis being thicker than the lower or innermost portion of the
+wall. Frequently the outermost part of the side walls is unequally
+thickened. This is the case in the beaded side walls characteristic
+of the epidermis of the leaves of laurus, myrcia, boldus, and
+capsicum seed, etc. The thickness of the side walls of the epidermal
+cells of most leaves varies in the different leaves.
+
+In most leaves there are five typical forms of arrangement of
+epidermal cells: First, those over the veins which are elongated
+in the direction of the length of the leaf; and, secondly, those
+on other parts of the leaf which are usually several-sided and not
+elongated in any one direction. If the epidermis of the leaf has
+stoma, then there is a third type of arrangement of the epidermal
+cells around the stoma; fourthly, the cells surrounding the base of
+hairs; and fifthly, outgrowths of the epidermis, non-glandular and
+glandular hairs, etc.
+
+It should be borne in mind that in each species of plant the five
+types of arrangement are characteristic for the species.
+
+The character of the outer wall of the epidermal cells differs
+greatly in different plants. In most cases the wall is smooth; senna
+is an example of such leaves. In certain other leaves the wall
+is rough, the roughness being in the form of striations. In some
+cases the striations occur in a regular manner; belladonna leaf is
+typical of such leaves. In other instances the wall is striated in
+an irregular manner as shown in chirata epidermis. Very often an
+epidermis is rough, but the roughness is not due to striations.
+In these cases the epidermis is unevenly thickened, the thin
+places appearing as slight depressions, the thick places as slight
+elevations. Boldus has a rough, but not a striated surface.
+
+=Surface deposits= are not of common occurrence in medicinal plants;
+waxy deposits occur on the stem of sumac, on a species of raspberry,
+on the fruit of bayberry, etc. Resinous deposits occur on the leaves
+and stems of grindelia species, and on yerba santa.
+
+In certain leaves there are two or three layers of cells beneath the
+epidermis that are similar in structure to the epidermal cells. These
+are called hypodermal cells, and they function in the same way as the
+epidermal cells.
+
+Hypodermal cells are very likely to occur on the margin of the leaf.
+Uva-ursi leaf has a structure typical of leaves with hypodermal
+marginal cells. Uva-ursi, like other leaves with hypodermal cells has
+a greater number of hypodermal cells at the leaf margin than at any
+other part of the leaf surface.
+
+The cutinized walls of epidermal cells are stained red with saffranin.
+
+
+                           TESTA EPIDERMIS
+
+=Testa epidermal cells= form the epidermal layers of such seeds as
+lobelia, henbane, capsicum, paprika, larkspur, belladonna, scopola,
+etc.
+
+In surface view the end walls are thick and wavy in outline;
+frequently the line of union--middle lamella--of two cells is
+indicated by a dark or light line, while in others the wall between
+two cells appears as a single wall. The walls are porous or
+non-porous, and the color of the wall varies from yellow to brown, to
+colorless. These cells always occur in masses, composed partially of
+entire and partially of broken fragments.
+
+In lobelia seed (Plate 4, Fig. 2) the line of union of adjacent cell
+walls appears as a dark line. The walls are wavy in outline, of a
+yellowish-red color and not porous.
+
+In henbane seed (Plate 4, Fig. 3) the line of union between the cells
+is scarcely visible; the walls are decidedly wavy, more so than in
+lobelia, and no pits are visible.
+
+In capsicum seed (Plate 4, Fig. 1) the cells are very wavy and
+decidedly porous, the line of union between the cell walls being
+marked with irregular spaces and lines.
+
+In belladonna seed (Plate 5, Fig. 1) the walls between two adjacent
+cells are non-striated and non-porous, and extremely irregular in
+outline.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 4
+
+                        TESTA EPIDERMAL CELLS
+
+  1. Capsicum seed (_Capsicum frutescens_, L.).
+  2. Lobelia seed (_Lobelia inflata_, L.).
+  3. Henbane seed (_Hyoscyamus niger_, L.).]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 5
+
+                             TESTA CELLS
+
+  1. Belladonna seed (_Atropa belladonna_, L.).
+  2. Star-aniseed (_Illicium verum_, Hooker).
+  3. Stramonium seed (_Datura stramonium_, L.).]
+
+In star-anise seed (Plate 5, Fig. 2) the walls are irregularly
+thickened and wavy in outline.
+
+In stramonium seed (Plate 5, Fig. 3) the walls are very thick, wavy
+in outline, and striated.
+
+
+                       PLANT HAIRS (TRICHOMES)
+
+In histological work plant hairs are of great importance, as they
+offer a ready means of distinguishing and differentiating between
+plants, or parts of plants, when they occur in a broken or finely
+powdered condition. There is no other element in powdered drugs which
+is of so great a diagnostic value as the plant hair. The same plant
+will always have the same type of hair, the only noticeable variation
+being in the size. In microscopical drug analysis the presence of
+hairs is always noted, and in many cases the purity of the powder
+can be ascertained from the hairs. Botanists seem to have given
+little attention to the study of plant hairs. This accounts for the
+fact that information concerning them is very meagre in botanical
+literature, and, as far as the author can learn, no one has attempted
+to classify them. In systematic work, plant hairs could be used to
+great advantage in separating genera and even species. Hairs are,
+of course, a factor now in systematic work. The lack of hairs is
+indicated by the term glabrous. Their presence is indicated by such
+terms as hispid, villous, etc. In certain cases the term indicates
+position of the hair as ciliate when the hair is marginal. When hairs
+influence the color of the leaf, such terms as cinerous and canescent
+are used. In all the cases cited no mention is made of the real
+nature of the hair.
+
+In systematic work, as in pharmacognosy, we must work with dried
+material, and it is only those hairs which retain their form under
+such conditions which are of classification value.
+
+Hairs are the most common outgrowths of the epidermal cells. They
+are classified as glandular or non-glandular, according to their
+structure and function. The glandular hairs will be considered under
+synthetic tissue.
+
+Each group is again subdivided into a number of secondary groups,
+depending upon the number of cells present, their form, their
+arrangement, their size, their color, the character of their walls,
+whether rough or smooth, whether branched or non-branched, whether
+curved, twisted, straight, or twisted and straight, whether pointed,
+blunt, or forked.
+
+
+                           FORMS OF HAIRS
+
+                               PAPILLÆ
+
+=Papillæ= are epidermal cells which are extended outward in the form
+of small tubular outgrowths.
+
+Papillæ occur on the following parts of the plant: flower-petals,
+stigmas, styles, leaves, stems, seeds, and fruits. Papillæ occur on
+only a few of the medicinal leaves.
+
+The under surface of both Truxillo (Plate 6, Fig. 3) and Huanuca coca
+have very small papillæ. The outermost wall of these papillæ are much
+thicker than the side walls. The papillæ of klip buchu (Plate 6, Fig.
+4), an adulterant of true buchu, has large thick-walled papillæ.
+
+The velvety appearance of most flower-petals (Plate 6, Figs. 2 and
+5) is due to the presence of papillæ. The papillæ of flower-petals
+are very variable. In calendula flowers (Plate 6, Fig. 1) they
+are small, yellowish in color, and the outer wall is marked with
+parallel striations which appear as small teeth in cross-section.
+The ray petal papillæ of anthemis consist of rather large, broad,
+blunt papillæ with slightly striated walls. The papillæ of the ray
+petals of the white daisy consist of papillæ which have medium sized,
+cone-shaped papillæ with finely striated walls. The papillæ of the
+flower stigma vary greatly in different flowers. In some cases two or
+more types of papillæ occur, but even in these cases the papillæ are
+characteristic of the species.
+
+The papillæ differ greatly in the case of the flowers of the
+compositæ, where two types of flowers are normally present--namely,
+the ray flowers and the disk flowers.
+
+In all cases observed the papillæ of the stigma of the ray flowers
+are always smaller than the papillæ of the stigma of the disk
+
+“No, I would ride Roy. I asked for him just to see what Dick would
+say, and when he didn’t want me to have him, I persisted, simply to
+tease him. And it has saved my life!” she cried hysterically.
+
+“Not much doubt who stood to benefit by the plot!” muttered one of the
+men who had stood behind Mabel at the Gymkhana, but Fitz nudged the
+speaker fiercely.
+
+“I don’t know what we’re all standing here for--in case our deceased
+friend’s sorrowing relations like to come back and wipe us out, I
+suppose. Let me mount you, Miss North. Are you fellows going to stop
+out all night? Had we better bring _that_ along, do you think?”
+
+This was added in a lower tone, as he pointed to the robber’s corpse.
+After some demur it was decided to lay it across the saddle of
+Brendon’s pony, which had found its way back to the rest with a pair
+of broken knees, and they rode back towards the gorge, the last man
+leading the laden pony, so that it might be kept out of Mabel’s sight.
+As they approached the entrance to the ravine Dr Tighe came forward
+hastily to meet them.
+
+“Look here,” he said, “I want some one to ride on to Alibad at once.
+The Commissioner has broken his knee-cap and a few other things, and
+Major North’s is the nearest house, but Mrs North mustn’t be
+frightened. Milton, your pony’s a good one, I know, so just take it
+out of him. Say nothing about Miss North or Brendon or anything, but
+tell Mrs North the Commissioner has had a nasty fall, and I am
+bringing him to her house with a fractured patella and a pair of
+smashed ribs. She can get things ready, and send on to my house for
+anything she doesn’t happen to have.”
+
+“Surely the ladies had better go back with me, Doctor?” asked Milton,
+pausing as he was about to start.
+
+“No, we don’t want any more kidnapping to-night. We must travel
+slowly, all of us, but they’ll be safer than with you. Feel shaky,
+Miss North? Drink this,” and he handed her a flask-cup. “Miss Graham
+is waiting to weep tears of joy over you. What, aren’t you gone yet,
+Milton?”
+
+“Tell Major North to arrest the syce,” Fitz shouted after the
+messenger as he disappeared in the darkness.
+
+“Off with your coats, you young fellows!” cried Dr Tighe, as the thud
+of the pony’s steps upon the sand died away. “The Commissioner has to
+be carried home somehow, and there’s not so much as a stick to make a
+stretcher of. We must tie the coats together by the sleeves, and
+manufacture a litter in that way.”
+
+No one dared to scoff, although no one could understand what the
+doctor meant to do; but working energetically under his directions,
+they succeeded in framing a sufficiently practicable litter. Six of
+the party were chosen as bearers, and the others were to relieve them,
+their duty in the meantime being to lead the riderless horses and keep
+watch against a surprise. Mabel and Flora, who had been enjoying the
+luxury of shedding a few tears together in private, were placed at the
+head of the procession, and the march began. At first the litter
+containing the wounded man followed close after the two girls; but
+presently Fitz, who was one of the bearers, felt his arm grasped.
+
+“Let the ladies get ahead of us, please. I--I can’t stand this very
+well.”
+
+Fitz understood. Mr Burgrave was suffering acutely in being carried
+over the rough ground, and he feared lest some sound extorted from him
+by the pain should acquaint Mabel with the fact. The litter and its
+bearers dropped behind, and if now and then a groan was forced from
+the Commissioner’s lips, his rival, at any rate, felt no contempt for
+the involuntary weakness. Before half of the journey had been
+accomplished, a relief party, headed by Dick, met them, and Mr
+Burgrave was transferred to a charpoy carried by natives, after Dr
+Tighe had made rough and ready use of the splints and strapping
+Georgia had sent. A little later a detachment of the Khemistan Horse
+passed at a smart trot in the direction of the gorge. It was not now
+the rule, as in the early days of General Keeling’s reign, for the
+regiment to sleep in its boots, but it was still supposed to be ready
+day and night to trace the perpetrators of any outrage and bring them
+to justice--rough justice, sometimes, but none the less impressive for
+that. The sight gave Mabel a sense of safety and comfort, and she
+scouted Flora’s proposal that she should come home with her for the
+night.
+
+“As if I would leave Georgie alone, with all this extra work on her
+hands!” she said, as they turned in at the gate.
+
+“Oh, Mab, is it true about the Commissioner?” cried Georgia, coming
+out to meet them on the verandah.
+
+“Yes; I am afraid he’s dreadfully hurt, poor man!”
+
+“Was he riding with you when he fell?”
+
+“He--he was riding after me,” said Mabel cautiously.
+
+Georgia threw up her hands. “Oh, if you could only have hurt any other
+man, or taken him to any house but this!” she cried; and Mabel thought
+it both unkind and unfair, considering the circumstances.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+ WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION.
+
+Hark! what was that? Mabel sprang up in bed, her heart beating
+furiously, her hands clammy with fear. There was the sound of horses’
+feet, the rattling of bridles, on every side. A wild impulse seized
+her to creep under the dressing-table--to hide herself anywhere, but a
+moment later she laughed aloud. The very last thing before going to
+bed, Dick had told her for her comfort that not only would the usual
+Sikh sentry keep guard over the Commissioner’s slumbers, but the
+compound would be patrolled all night by the Khemistan Horse. She
+crept to the window and peered out between the slats of the venetians.
+Yes; there they were--splendid men with huge turbans, and
+accoutrements glittering in the moonlight--pacing slowly to and fro
+upon their stout little horses. But how was it that there were two of
+them at that far corner of the compound, where she could scarcely
+distinguish their figures, and why had they paused as though to listen
+for something? Mabel listened too, and presently, above the nearer
+noises of trampling hoofs and jingling bits, she heard the approach of
+a galloping horse. Was it a scout coming in to give warning of a
+threatened attack? But no; the two men at the corner sat motionless on
+their horses, and as the sound came nearer and nearer she saw the
+flash of their tulwars. They were saluting--whom or what? Mabel
+strained her eyes to see, but could distinguish nothing. Then she
+remembered. It was General Keeling to whom they were doing honour, as
+he rode his periodical rounds, watchful for the safety of his old
+province. A cold sweat broke out all over her, and in a panic of which
+she was heartily ashamed even at the moment, she scurried back to bed
+and gave herself up to more and more violent paroxysms of horror. Of
+what use were sentinels against such a visitant as this? Suppose it
+was his will to come closer, to come up to the house, to enter? What
+could be more likely? She lifted her head for a moment and listened
+again. Surely that was a horse’s tread upon the drive, approaching the
+door? In reality, the intruder was only one of the patrols, but in the
+state of ungovernable terror in which Mabel was plunged this did not
+occur to her, and she buried her head under the bed-clothes and
+screamed.
+
+The ayah, roused from her heavy slumbers by her mistress’s shrieks,
+came shivering to her side and tried to quiet her, but finding her
+entreaties of no avail, ran for help. Presently Georgia glided in,
+looking like a reproachful ghost herself, in a white dressing-gown,
+and proffered Mabel three tabloids and a glass of water, as sternly as
+if she had been Queen Eleanor handing Rosamund the poison.
+
+“I’ll sit by you till you are asleep,” she whispered; “but you mustn’t
+make such a noise. You’ll wake the Commissioner, and he has only just
+dropped off to sleep, poor man!”
+
+“I know I’m a fearful baby,” confessed Mabel, restored to calmness by
+the eminently practical nature of Georgia’s benevolence, “but I was so
+horribly frightened. Is poor Mr Burgrave very bad?”
+
+“It was a nasty accident,” replied Georgia, with professional caution.
+
+“What have you done to him?”
+
+“Strapped up the broken ribs, and applied ice to the leg and slung it
+up.”
+
+“Ugh, cruel creature! ice this cold night? I suppose it’s because you
+hate him so much?”
+
+“Hate him? What nonsense! How could we hate a man who has got hurt in
+trying to save you? He’s so brave about it, too.”
+
+“And he didn’t mind having you for a doctor?”
+
+“Of course I was only helping Dr Tighe. But even if Mr Burgrave
+disliked my being there, he wouldn’t show it. When Dr Tighe told him
+he had better stay in this house until the splint is taken off, and
+not run the risk of jarring the limb, he looked at me, and said, ‘If
+my presence is not too troublesome to my kind surgeon here.’”
+
+“And smiled at you like a father. _I_ know,” said Mabel, with sleepy
+sarcasm. “Georgie,” she roused herself suddenly, “I want to know--how
+is----”
+
+“Now, I will not answer another question to-night,” said Georgia
+resolutely. “I am going to read to you till you fall asleep.”
+
+
+
+When Mabel awoke in the morning she felt oppressed by an intolerable
+burden. Body and mind seemed to be alike tired out, and it was an
+effort even to open her eyes. Georgia and Dr Tighe were in the room
+looking at her, and the sight of them reminded her that there was some
+question she wanted to ask, but she could not remember what it was.
+
+“Well, Miss North,” said Dr Tighe, “nerves a bit jumpy this morning,
+eh? We’ll allow you a day in bed to settle them a little, but after
+that you must get up and help Mrs North to look after her patient.”
+
+“Oh, I’ll get up to-day,” said Mabel faintly.
+
+“No, no; don’t be in too great a hurry. Your brother will come in to
+ask you a question or two in a few minutes, and afterwards you shall
+try what a little more sleep and a little more slumber will do for
+you. It’s quite evident that nature never meant you for a
+frontierswoman.”
+
+“Oh, Doctor,” expostulated Georgia, “think what she has gone through
+since she came here, and only out from home such a short time!
+Besides, nothing so bad as this has ever happened in our neighbourhood
+before.”
+
+“At any rate, it’s the sort of thing you want to take to young if
+you’re to shine in it,” said the doctor. “Life in these parts is not
+exactly pretty, but it has its exciting moments. Nothing like what it
+had once, though. A predecessor of mine under General Keeling used to
+head cavalry charges and take forts in the intervals of his medical
+duties. I have no pleasant little recreations of that sort for my
+leisure hours. Now, Miss North, don’t let me see you dare to smile at
+the thought of my heading a cavalry charge. There was some object in
+training in those days, but naturally a man puts on weight when
+there’s nothing to do but potter about an hospital.”
+
+“You see you’re not the only person in the world who hankers after
+thrilling experiences, Mab,” said Georgia, as she left the room with
+the doctor, and the words recalled to Mabel their conversation of
+three weeks since. Stretching out her hand, she took a mirror from the
+toilet-table and glanced at herself in it, only to drop the glass in
+horror. What a hollow-eyed wreck she looked! Was it possible that one
+night could work such a change? She had had her wish and tried
+experiments in reality, and she recoiled from the result.
+
+“On the whole, I think I prefer the pleasing fictions of ordinary
+English life,” she said to herself.
+
+“Good-morning, Mab,” said Dick’s voice, following a knock at the door.
+“I’m not going to disturb you long, but I want you to tell Tighe and
+me what you can remember about last night’s business. It’s necessary
+for me to know, or I wouldn’t bother you.”
+
+With a shudder Mabel let her thoughts return to that homeward ride for
+a moment, then looked up suddenly. “Oh, now I remember!” she said. “My
+head is so stupid, I couldn’t think of it before. How is Mr Brendon?”
+
+Both men had expected her to ask after the Commissioner, and Brendon’s
+name took them by surprise. “Brendon? Oh, he’s--he’s as well as he can
+be,” said Dr Tighe hastily, recovering himself first.
+
+“But how can he possibly be well? His arm must have been nearly cut
+off. He fell down under the horses’ feet. Oh, you don’t mean--he can’t
+be----?”
+
+The silence was a sufficient answer, and she turned her face to the
+wall with a moan. Brendon dead--for whom her kindliest feeling the
+evening before had been a more or less good-natured contempt--and he
+had practically given his life for her!
+
+“Look here, Mab,” said Dick earnestly; “it won’t do the poor fellow
+any good to cry about him just now. What we want is evidence to
+convict the villains who did it.”
+
+“Have you caught them?” came in a muffled voice from the bed.
+
+“I hope so. Winlock, who went out to track them last night, had his
+own ideas on the subject, and posted part of his detachment in hiding
+among the rocks round Dera Gul. A little before dawn three men rode
+up, coming from Nalapur way--not from our direction--but they and
+their horses were all dead-beat. Winlock arrested them, feeling pretty
+certain they were the men he wanted, and had made a long round to
+avert suspicion before going home. They were Bahram Khan’s servants,
+sure enough, but he said they had been to Nalapur for him, and he
+offered no objection to their being arrested. When you are better we
+must see if you can identify any of them, but now all I want is to
+know roughly what happened, on account of the--inquiry, which must
+take place to-day.”
+
+Thus stimulated, Mabel told her tale, helped out by questions from
+Dick, but breaking down more than once. He took down what she said,
+and the doctor signed it as a witness, and then they left her to
+Georgia’s ministrations. Georgia found her patient excited and
+tearful, and sent Rahah at once to the surgery to make up a composing
+draught.
+
+“Now, Mab, lie down and try to be quiet,” she said.
+
+“No, I won’t lie down. I can’t sleep,” cried Mabel. “Isn’t it
+dreadful, my having to identify those men? I can’t bear to think of
+it. And it brings it all back so vividly--the horrible helplessness--I
+could do nothing--_nothing_--to save myself. I think I should have
+gone mad in another moment if Mr Anstruther had not come up. And now
+to have to go and look at them in cold blood, and say that I recognise
+them! Isn’t there any way out of it? Oh, Georgie, can’t Dick make my
+syce turn Queen’s evidence?”
+
+“I’m afraid not,” said Georgia reluctantly. “The fact is, Mab, your
+syce didn’t wait to be caught. He went off while we were at the
+picnic.”
+
+“Oh, well,” said Mabel despairingly, “then I must do it, I suppose. It
+seems a kind of duty, as poor Mr Brendon was killed in trying to save
+me, to have the men who killed him punished. But it’s awful to think
+that three men will be hanged just because I saw their faces! They
+will be hanged, won’t they?”
+
+“I don’t know, really. It is very dreadful, Mab, but there is one good
+thing about the whole affair. It may put things right on the frontier.
+Both Dick and I think Bahram Khan was so confident of Mr Burgrave’s
+support that he ventured on this outrage feeling sure that he would
+see him through. If these three men are proved to be his agents, it
+must open the Commissioner’s eyes. He’s an Englishman and an
+honourable man, though dreadfully mistaken, and he can’t go on backing
+him up after that. In fact, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to.”
+
+“No, I don’t think he would. And I suppose there is no question about
+it really? What do other people think?”
+
+“None of the men here have a doubt that it was Bahram Khan’s doing. As
+for the regiment, they are so indignant over the insult offered to
+Dick in attempting to carry off his sister, that they would like to
+raze Dera Gul to the ground forthwith.”
+
+“Oh, that’s the light in which they look at it? They don’t think of my
+feelings in the matter at all?”
+
+“I’m afraid not. You and I are merely Dick’s chattels in their eyes,
+you see.”
+
+“I may be, but you are not. My ayah Tara tells me all sorts of
+wonderful things about you, Georgie, which she picks up from the other
+servants. Do you know that when you kiss Dick before he starts in the
+morning, they think you are putting a spell upon him to keep him safe
+all day, and bring him back to you all right at night?”
+
+Georgia blushed like a girl. “That is really rather sweet,” she said.
+“Rahah despises the people round here too much to tell me anything
+they say about us.”
+
+“Oh, Georgie,” cried Mabel, with sudden envy, “I would give anything
+to care for any one as you do for Dick! You look quite different when
+you talk about him. If only I wasn’t such a cold-hearted wretch! I
+wish I had cared for poor Mr Brendon, even; that would be better than
+caring for no one but myself.”
+
+She broke into a storm of tearless sobs, and Georgia hailed the
+appearance of Rahah with the sleeping-draught, which she was obliged
+to administer almost by force. It was some time in taking effect, but
+at last the sobs died away, and she was able to leave the patient in
+charge of her own ayah, while she went about her other duties. Not
+until the morning of the next day did Mabel wake again, very much
+ashamed of her behaviour, which she was conscious had not been exactly
+in accordance with the high aspirations she had formerly confided to
+Georgia. Resolved to redeem her character, she sprang out of bed at
+once, and when Georgia came into her room on tiptoe, expecting to find
+her asleep, she was already dressed.
+
+“Let me do something to help you,” she said eagerly. “You must have
+had a fearful amount of extra work thrown on you yesterday. What can I
+do?”
+
+“Well, if you are so benevolently inclined, you might sit with the
+Commissioner a little,” said Georgia. “He was asking for you all day,
+and rather suspected us of concealing something dreadful from him.”
+
+“Very well,” said Mabel readily. The proposal exactly fell in with her
+wishes, for she had conceived a magnificent idea while dressing. By
+her diplomacy she would induce the Commissioner to reverse his
+frontier policy.
+
+“Miss North!” Mr Burgrave started up from his pillows as Mabel entered
+the sickroom, but becoming suddenly conscious of his injuries, he sank
+back again stiffly. “Excuse my left hand,” he added. “The other is off
+work just now. And how are you? Really not much the worse?”
+
+“I had no business to be any the worse,” returned Mabel. “Nothing
+happened to me, thanks to you and--the others.”
+
+“Ah, but the shock to the nerves must have been exceedingly severe,”
+said Mr Burgrave soothingly. “As I remarked to Tighe yesterday, Mrs
+North would have got over anything of the kind in an hour or two, but
+you are much more highly strung.”
+
+Mabel was vaguely aware that the comparison was intended to be in her
+own favour, but she could not agree that the advantage was on her
+side, and she changed the subject hastily. “I don’t know how to thank
+you for what you did. Every time I think of that evening I feel more
+and more how grateful I ought to be. And I am, indeed, but I can’t say
+what I should like.”
+
+Mr Burgrave raised his hand. “Please don’t, Miss North, or you will
+make me more miserable than I am already. How can I forget that I did
+nothing to help you? Mr Anstruther had that happiness, while I was
+lying on the ground under my horse.”
+
+“But you tried--you did all you could--you are so terribly hurt!”
+protested Mabel.
+
+“Yes, and that is my only comfort. I was hurt, and therefore I am
+here. No, on second thoughts, I don’t even envy Anstruther. He did the
+work, but I have basely annexed the reward. To have rescued you was
+happiness enough for him. I, who was unsuccessful, am consoled by
+finding myself under the same roof with you for a fortnight. That is
+enough for me.”
+
+“How nice of you to say so!” Mabel rose. “Then I can leave you alone
+quite happily, and go and help Georgia?”
+
+“Miss North, you are not going already? What have I said to drive you
+out of the room? Do you want me to pine away in melancholy solitude?
+After all, I did try to rescue you, as you were kind enough to say
+just now; but it will need your constant society and conversation to
+keep me from brooding over my failure.”
+
+“I’m afraid my society won’t be very cheerful,” said Mabel, resuming
+her seat with a sigh. “You see, I can’t help feeling that what
+happened was a good deal my fault. If I had only told what I knew----”
+
+“Well?” asked Mr Burgrave anxiously, as she paused.
+
+“Ah, but if I had, you would not have believed it,” was the unexpected
+response, “any more than you would now.”
+
+“Do you think I should be so rude as to question your word?”
+
+“You will when I tell you that I know the men who tried to carry me
+off were agents of Bahram Khan’s.”
+
+“You have evidence to support this very serious charge, I presume? Are
+you able to identify the men?”
+
+“I suppose so; I haven’t tried yet. But, Mr Burgrave, I’m going to
+tell you something that only my sister-in-law knows--not even my
+brother, for I wouldn’t let her say anything to him. Bahram Khan did
+want to--to marry me.”
+
+“What?” cried the Commissioner, starting up again. “You don’t mean to
+say that he has ever ventured to--to suggest such a thing to you?”
+Rage and disgust strove for the mastery in his voice.
+
+“Oh no, he has never said anything to me; but the day I was at Dera
+Gul the women talked of nothing else.”
+
+“Oh, the women!” Mr Burgrave spoke quite calmly again, and with
+evident relief. “You must remember that Bahram Khan is a good deal
+more advanced in his notions than the other Sardars of the province,
+and would like to imitate our ways with regard to ladies--English
+ladies, I mean. That is just the sort of thing that native women can’t
+understand. Any polite attention he might offer you would be
+misconstrued by them into a cause for violent jealousy. Their mistake
+made things extremely unpleasant for you at the moment, no doubt; but
+you need not torment yourself with thinking that he had any such
+preposterous idea in his head.”
+
+Mr Burgrave did not actually say that a lady accustomed to universal
+admiration was liable to perceive it even where it did not exist, but
+this was what Mabel understood his slightly repressive tone to imply.
+Ignorant of the Eye-of-the-Begum’s secret mission to Georgia, she
+could not defend herself against the suggestion, and she grew crimson.
+
+“Why don’t you say that I imagined the whole thing?” she demanded.
+“It’s not an experience I am proud of, I assure you. I told it you
+purely in the hope that it might open your eyes a little, but since
+you prefer to regard Bahram Khan as an interesting martyr----”
+
+“Pray don’t mistake me, Miss North. If I believed that Bahram Khan had
+really devised this dastardly plot against you, I would hunt him down
+like a bloodhound until he was delivered up to justice, though that
+would mean the death of all my hopes for this frontier. In one way, of
+course, it would simplify matters a good deal. I am not in the habit
+of bothering ladies with politics, but there can be no harm in saying
+that it gives me great pain to differ from a man I respect as I do
+your brother. He has done so much for the frontier that it seems
+almost presumption in me, a new-comer, to set my opinion above his.
+However, I have formed that opinion after long and careful study of
+the Khemistan problem, and only the very strongest proof that I had
+been mistaken could induce me to alter it. But if you should be able
+to identify Bahram Khan’s servants as your assailants, it would be
+conclusive evidence that he is not the man I take him to be.”
+
+“And then you would see that Dick was right, and leave him to manage
+things in his own way?”
+
+“My dear Miss North, we are now soaring into the domain of
+improbabilities. If my opinion were once modified, it is possible that
+your brother’s view might prevail, or again, it might not.”
+
+“I am certain he would not be sorry if Bahram Khan was proved to be
+untrustworthy,” was Mabel’s mental comment. “It would show him a way
+out of his difficulty. And now I shall be able to do it.”
+
+Mabel was particularly cheerful all the rest of the day, as indeed she
+had a right to be, for was she not about to secure the safety of the
+frontier? Warned by her experience of the morning, she made no further
+attempt to entrap Mr Burgrave into a political discussion, but
+contented herself with showing in numberless little ways her gratitude
+for the concession he was prepared to make. She even welcomed his
+offer to introduce her to the beauties of Robert Browning, a poet
+whose works she had been wont to regard with the mingled alarm and
+dislike which, in the case of a modern young lady, can only spring
+from ignorance of them. He sent a servant back to the bungalow he had
+occupied to fetch the two portly volumes which, as he told her, always
+formed a part of his travelling library, and she read aloud to him
+without a murmur a considerable portion of “Paracelsus.” Under the
+combined influence of his favourite poet and the reader’s voice, the
+Commissioner forgot alike his injuries and the difficulties which
+beset his policy, and the household fairly basked in his smiles. This,
+at least, was what Fitz Anstruther said, but he had happened to
+intrude upon the reading as the bearer of an important message from
+Dick, and was adversely affected by the peaceful scene.
+
+The next morning, as Dick was going to his office, Mabel intercepted
+him in the verandah. “I am ready to identify those men as soon as you
+like, Dick,” she said.
+
+He looked at her in surprise. “Wouldn’t you rather wait until you have
+recovered a little from the shock?” he asked.
+
+“Oh no, I’m all right now. I should like to get it over, Dick.”
+
+“Well, you certainly seem to have picked up wonderfully. I suppose
+there’s no doubt of your knowing them again?”
+
+Mabel shuddered. “How could I help recognising them? The red light,
+and those awful faces--it seems as if the whole thing was photographed
+on my mind. I should know them anywhere.”
+
+“Oh, all right. It would be far worse, you know, to try to identify
+them and fail than to let the thing go altogether.”
+
+“You needn’t be afraid. Only I should be glad not to have to look
+forward to it much longer.”
+
+“Very well. No doubt it’s better to do it before the impression has a
+chance of fading from your mind. It’s a bother about the Commissioner,
+though. He insists on being present, and Georgie and Tighe say he
+mustn’t on any account be allowed to move until they have wired his
+knee. We shall have to carry his bed out on the verandah, I suppose.
+Just like him to think the show can’t go on without him. Of course
+he’s afraid we shall contrive to bring his precious _protégé_ in
+guilty in some underhand way.”
+
+Mabel smiled as Dick went down the steps, for she knew better. Mr
+Burgrave’s anxiety was not so much for Bahram Khan personally as for
+his own schemes, and not so much for them as for the continuance of
+his friendship with the North family. This knowledge, and the pleasing
+conviction that she alone possessed it, sustained her when she was
+summoned in the afternoon to identify her three surviving assailants.
+
+“Come along,” said Dick, entering the drawing-room; “they’re all here,
+and Tighe has superintended the removal of the distinguished patient.
+They’re in the verandah outside his room. Don’t be frightened, Mab.
+Georgia shall come too, and support you.”
+
+In spite of her resolution, Mabel trembled a little as she entered the
+improvised police-court, realising once more what issues hung upon her
+words. Fitz was there, and a Hindu clerk, and the Commissioner,
+propped up in bed. Before them stood a dozen natives with turbans and
+clothes of various degrees of picturesque dirt and raggedness, guarded
+by as many dismounted troopers armed to the teeth.
+
+“Now, Mab, pick ’em out,” murmured Dick, from behind his sister.
+
+“But there are too many men here. There were only three left,”
+objected Mabel, in a hasty whisper.
+
+“Well, and you have to tell us which they were. You didn’t think we
+were going to parade the three prisoners and invite you to swear to
+them, did you? Now don’t waste the time of the court.”
+
+Absolute despair seized upon Mabel as she stood in front of the line
+of men, and looked shrinkingly into their faces. How was it possible
+that so many natives, differing presumably in origin and
+circumstances, could be so much alike? Not one of them blenched under
+her timid scrutiny. Some looked stolid and some bored, and one or two
+even amused, but this gave her no help. At last, however, it struck
+her that there was something familiar in one or two of the faces. She
+moved a step or so in order to examine them more carefully, and then
+looked round at Dick and the rest.
+
+“This man,” she said, pointing to one, “and that one, and this.”
+
+“You are certain?” asked Mr Burgrave.
+
+“Yes; I know their faces quite well.”
+
+This time an undisguised smile ran momentarily along the line of
+swarthy countenances, only to disappear before Dick’s frown.
+
+“Take them away,” he said to the troopers, and with a clanking of
+chains here and there, the prisoners and their guard departed.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked Mabel in bewilderment, as she looked from
+one to the other of the three chagrined faces before her. “What have I
+done?”
+
+“Oh, only identified as your assailants one of the _chaprasis_ and a
+sowar in mufti and the gardener’s son, who were all peacefully going
+about their lawful business at the time of the outrage,” said Dick
+bitterly. “You have made us the laughing-stock of the frontier.”
+
+“But--but weren’t the real men there at all?”
+
+“Of course they were, but you passed them over.”
+
+“And what will happen to them now?”
+
+“They’ll be discharged for lack of evidence, that’s all. Bahram Khan
+will testify that they had been to Nalapur on an errand for him, and
+other witnesses will swear that they saw and spoke to them there, and
+we can say nothing.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX.
+ WOUNDED HERO AND MINISTERING ANGEL.
+
+ “‘Are we not halves of one dissevered world,
+ Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part? never!
+ Till thou, the lover, know; and I, the knower,
+ Love--’”
+
+read Mabel, and paused, since it was evident that her auditor had some
+remark to make.
+
+“It has always seemed to me,” said Mr Burgrave, “that in this meeting
+between Paracelsus and Aprile, whose characteristics are so
+essentially feminine, the poet has typified for all time the union of
+the masculine and feminine elements in human nature. Woman--the
+creature of feeling, man--the creature of reason, neither complete
+without the other. Before perfection can be attained, the lover must
+learn to know, the knower to love.”
+
+“All women are not creatures of feeling,” said Mabel.
+
+“But you would scarcely say that any woman was a creature of reason?
+Such a--a person would not be a woman. She would be a monstrosity.”
+
+“I mean that I don’t think you can divide people by hard and fast
+lines in that way. It’s perfectly possible for a man to be a creature
+of feeling, and I know women who are quite as reasonable as any man.”
+
+“Pardon me; you don’t altogether follow my argument. I yield to no one
+in my admiration of the conclusions at which women arrive. They are
+often--one might say very often--astonishingly correct, but they are
+purely the result of a leap in the dark, and not of any process of
+reasoning. And since this is so, no wise man can feel safe in acting
+upon them, while where the lady--as is not infrequently the case with
+her charming sex--is biassed by her personal feelings, they are liable
+to be dangerously deceptive.”
+
+Mabel closed the book with a bang. “I wonder,” she said angrily, “at
+your talking in this way, as if I wasn’t horribly humiliated enough
+already. It was simply a chance that I didn’t identify the right men,
+and I _know_ just the same that it was Bahram Khan who employed them.”
+
+Mr Burgrave raised his eyebrows slightly. “Indeed, my dear Miss North,
+you must pardon my maladroitness. I assure you that I had no intention
+whatever of alluding to the--let us say the disagreeable incident of
+yesterday. I was dealing purely with generalities.”
+
+“But you yourself know perfectly well--though you pretend not to think
+so--that it was Bahram Khan,” persisted Mabel.
+
+The Commissioner raised himself on his elbow and looked straight at
+her, and Mabel quailed. “And is it possible,” he demanded, “that you
+believe I am deliberately sheltering from justice, contrary to the
+dictates of my own conscience, a wretch who has dared to raise his
+hand against an Englishwoman--against a lady for whom I have the
+highest regard? No, Miss North, you must be good enough to withdraw
+those words. Even your brother and his wife are sufficiently just to
+believe me an honourable man, although we differ on so many points.”
+
+The stern blue eyes under the lowering brows seemed to pierce Mabel
+through and through. She half rose from her chair, then sat down
+again, and repressed with difficulty a threatened burst of tears.
+
+“I--I didn’t mean that,” she faltered. “All I meant was that I didn’t
+see how you could think anything else when we are all so sure of it.”
+
+“Allow me to say that I credit you with the sincerity you refuse to
+recognise in me. Your brother has a strong prejudice--there is no
+other word for it--against Bahram Khan, which he has transmitted to
+you, and you look at the facts in the light of that prejudice. I was
+perfectly willing to be convinced of the young man’s guilt by the
+merest shred of anything that could be called evidence, but none was
+produced. The case against him broke down completely. Would you have
+me withdraw my countenance from a man whom I conscientiously believe
+to be innocent, and ruin all his prospects, simply on the score of an
+unf-- unsupported opinion of yours? No, Miss North, I won’t believe it
+of you. You must perceive that I am right.”
+
+“But you said our intuitions were wonderfully correct, and that your
+judgment was incomplete by itself,” urged Mabel.
+
+“To be of any real value, the feminine intuition must be confirmed by
+the masculine judgment. Its use is purely supplementary.”
+
+“Oh, Mr Burgrave, you can’t really mean that! Why, my brother would
+never dream of doing anything without consulting his wife. He thinks
+most highly of her judgment.”
+
+“Surely Major North is the best judge of his own affairs?” suggested
+Mr Burgrave dryly. “If he has confidence in his wife’s judgment, it is
+only natural he should wish to avail himself of it. Such would not be
+my case, I confess, but then, the confidence would be wanting.”
+
+“But, according to you, I ought to model my opinions on some one’s,”
+said Mabel--“Dick’s, I suppose--and that’s just what you have been
+scolding me for doing.”
+
+“Dick’s?” said the Commissioner reflectively. “No, not Dick’s, I
+think. That was not at all what I had in my mind, Miss North. And have
+I been scolding you, or is that another mistaken intuition? You know
+how gladly I would have accepted your view of Bahram Khan’s guilt, if
+that had been possible?”
+
+“I know you said so, and I hoped so much----” Mabel’s eyes were full
+of tears.
+
+“And do you know why that was?”
+
+“No, indeed, I can’t imagine.” She spoke hastily, scenting danger. The
+Commissioner smiled paternally.
+
+“No? Then will you do me the favour to consider the matter? Ask
+yourself why I was willing, even anxious, to be converted from my own
+opinion. When you have arrived at the answer, I shall know.”
+
+He smiled at her again from his pillows, but Mabel muttered something
+incoherent and fled.
+
+“I don’t know what to do!” she cried, in the seclusion of her own
+room. “Does he think I am a baby, or a little school-girl? If he wants
+to propose, why can’t he do it straight out, and take his refusal like
+a man? I know how to manage that sort of thing. But to break the idea
+to me gradually in this way, as if I was--oh, I don’t know what--a
+sort of fairy that must be handled gently for fear it should vanish
+into thin air--it’s insufferable! And the worst of it is, I can’t
+quite make out how to stop it. I seem somehow to have got myself into
+his power.”
+
+To see as little of Mr Burgrave as possible, and to confine the
+conversation to safe subjects when she did meet him, was the remedy
+which naturally suggested itself, and Mabel did her best to apply it;
+but, to her dismay, it did not appear to produce any effect. She had
+even a distinct feeling that it was just what Mr Burgrave had
+expected. Moreover, it was extremely difficult to put in practice. Now
+that the operation had been performed on the patient’s knee, and the
+leg fixed immovably in a splint, he was allowed to be lifted on a
+couch, and thus to spend his days in the society of his hosts. Dick
+was out as much as ever, and when Georgia was busy, it was obviously
+Mabel’s duty to entertain the invalid. It is sad to relate that when
+escape proved impossible, she was reduced to assuming an intense
+interest in the study of Browning, toiling through “Sordello” with
+astonishing patience. But if any valid excuse offered itself for
+leaving Mr Burgrave to his own reflections, she embraced it gladly,
+and when the arrival in the neighbourhood of one of the nomadic tribes
+brought Georgia a sudden rush of patients, she volunteered at once to
+help her in dealing with them.
+
+The surgery in which Georgia received her visitors was a building
+standing by itself in the compound, and approached by a special gate
+in the wall, so that the ladies might come to see their doctor without
+fear of encountering any rude masculine gaze. As an additional
+precaution, when the wives of any of the chief men came to the
+surgery, they brought a youth with them as attendant, who mounted
+guard over a motley array of slippers at the door, and completed the
+security against profane intrusion. Inside, Georgia dealt with the
+cases individually in a small room at one end, while in the large room
+the visitors sat on the floor in rows, looking at the pictures on the
+walls, or listening casually to the Biblewoman, trained by Miss
+Jenkins at the Bab-us-Sahel Mission, who sat among them and read or
+talked. At the other end was another small room, where a patient and
+her friends were occasionally accommodated when Georgia had any
+special reason for wishing to keep the case under her own eye, and the
+husband was more than usually indulgent. At other times there stood in
+this room a spring bedstead, which was never used, but which the women
+made up parties to inspect, personally conducted by Rahah. There was a
+history attaching to this object of pilgrimage. Two years before a
+lady globe-trotter of exalted rank, in the course of an adventurous
+flying visit to the frontier, had spent a night at the Norths’, and
+been stirred to enthusiasm by Georgia’s quiet but far-reaching work
+among the women. Her Grace deplored sympathetically the absence of a
+proper hospital, and offered to put her London drawing-room at Mrs
+North’s disposal during her next visit home, that she might plead for
+funds to establish one. Georgia pointed out, however, that the
+smallness of the station, and the uncertain character of the
+wanderings of the tribes, would probably result in leaving the
+hospital empty for eleven months out of the year, while if Dick should
+be transferred to another post, its _raison d’être_ would be gone.
+The duchess was disappointed, but not crushed. Would Mrs North allow
+her to send a gift, just one, to the surgery as it stood at present?
+She could not bear to think of the terrible discomfort the poor sick
+women must suffer.
+
+Georgia consented, and after a time the gift arrived, brought
+up-country at a vast expenditure of toil and money. It was a
+regulation hospital bed, the very latest patent, which could be made
+to roll itself the wrong way like a bucking horse, stand up on end,
+kneel down like a camel, dislocate itself in unexpected places, and
+perform other acrobatic feats, all by turning a handle. Rahah sat
+before it in silent admiration for a whole morning, occasionally
+pressing the wires gently down for the pleasure of seeing them rise
+again. When she had drunk in this delight sufficiently, she ventured
+to put the bedstead through its paces, rushing to summon her mistress
+in joyful awe at each new trick she discovered. But so far, her
+enjoyment was incomplete. To be perfect, the bed needed a patient to
+occupy it, and at last one was brought in by her friends, crippled by
+some rheumatic affection. Rahah herself laid her on the bed, only to
+behold her leap from it immediately with the strength of perfect
+health. There was an evil spirit in the bed, she declared. All other
+beds sank when you lay down upon them, this one rose up. And in spite
+of the wonderful cure of this first and only case, the bed was never
+occupied again. It was talked of all along the frontier, the women
+came for miles to see it, and watched in shuddering delight while
+Rahah showed them what it could do; but it was only very rarely that a
+heroine could be found bold enough even to touch it with a finger.
+Meanwhile, the patients continued to sleep on their mats or their
+charpoys, insisting that the bed should be turned out of the room
+before they would take up their quarters there, lest the evil spirit
+should seize upon them during the hours of darkness.
+
+On this particular morning Rahah was exhibiting the wonders of the bed
+to a party of new arrivals, and Mabel was deputed to see that the
+patients were admitted into Georgia’s sanctum in proper order, and
+only one at a time. Seeing that they were all comfortably seated
+facing the Biblewoman, she thought it would be best to begin with
+those nearest the door, thus going through the whole assemblage
+methodically. The women, on the other hand, considered that the worst
+cases ought to be seen first, and each woman was firmly convinced that
+her own case was the worst of all. Hence arose an uproar, in which the
+sympathising friends accompanying each would-be patient joined with
+all the force of their lungs, besieging the unfortunate Mabel, who
+could not understand a word, with a tumult of assertions,
+contradictions, and maledictions. At last one woman, who carried a
+baby, was seized with a bright idea. Flinging away a fold of her veil
+from the child’s face, she held it out to Mabel, exhibiting the awful
+condition of its eyes, which were almost sightless from neglected
+ophthalmia, as an incontestable proof of her right to the first place.
+The hint was not lost upon the other women, and in a moment Mabel was
+surrounded by sights from which she recoiled in horror. At first she
+was too much appalled to move, as each woman displayed triumphantly
+the urgency of her own need, and then she turned sick and faint. The
+agglomeration of so many miseries was too much for her. Rahah,
+returning at the moment, left the outer door open, and this gave her
+courage to escape. Pressing her hands over her eyes, she burst through
+the astonished crowd, drank in a draught of pure fresh air, and then
+fairly ran across the compound and back to the house. Mounting the
+steps with difficulty, she staggered and caught at the rail to steady
+herself, only avoiding a fall by a wild clutch at one of the pillars
+when she reached the top. An exclamation of concern reached her ears,
+and she became dimly conscious that Mr Burgrave was making desperate
+efforts to rise from his couch.
+
+“You are ill, Miss North! What is it? You don’t mean to say that
+another attempt has been made----?”
+
+“To carry me off? Oh no, not quite so near home.” Mabel laughed a
+little, and as she began to see more clearly, noticed how the
+remorseful anxiety in his face gave place to unfeigned relief. “No,
+I’m not ill, only silly and faint.”
+
+“Try a whiff of this, then.” He passed her a bottle of salts. “I was
+allowed to revive myself with it when my doctors had been
+investigating the inside of my knee a little more closely than was
+pleasant.”
+
+“Oh, don’t!” cried Mabel faintly. “I never want to hear a doctor
+mentioned again.”
+
+“Why, what has happened? Has Mrs North turned vivisectionist?”
+
+“No, of course not. It was only that I was helping her with her
+patients, and they had such awful things the matter with them that
+I--well, I ran away.”
+
+“And very wisely. Do I understand that Mrs North required you to
+expose yourself to the sight of these horrors? It is monstrous!”
+
+“She didn’t ask me to come; I offered to help her.”
+
+“In the hope of pleasing her, of course. It is all the same. In the
+abundant strength of mind and body she possesses, she forgets that
+other people are more delicately organised than herself. I am amazed
+at her lack of consideration.”
+
+“I won’t have you say such things about Georgia!” cried Mabel. “She is
+the best and dearest woman I know.”
+
+“I honour your enthusiasm. Pray don’t mistake me. I have the highest
+possible esteem myself for Mrs North, but she is a little too
+strenuous for my taste.”
+
+“I wouldn’t have her the least bit different. I wish I was like her,
+instead of being so silly and cowardly.”
+
+“No, Miss North, let me beg of you not to wish that. I would not have
+_you_ different. Your sister-in-law’s training and her past
+experiences account for many--er--remarkable points in her character,
+but, believe me, your true friends would rather see in you this
+womanly shrinking from the sight of suffering than a bold
+determination to relieve it.”
+
+“I hope I may consider you one of those true friends?” Mabel tried to
+infuse a note of strong sarcasm into her voice.
+
+“I hope you may. It is difficult, is it not, to feel confidence in one
+who differs so totally from Mrs North and her husband? But this is a
+question upon which we will not enter--yet.”
+
+“Could I say that I preferred to enter upon it at once?” Mabel
+demanded angrily of herself when she had made her escape. “Somehow he
+gets such an advantage over me by putting me down in that lofty way,
+and yet I don’t know how to stop it. The idea of his daring to
+criticise Georgie to me!”
+
+But Mr Burgrave was even bolder than Mabel imagined. Returning the
+next morning from a ride with Fitz Anstruther, she was greeted by a
+laugh from Georgia as she mounted the steps.
+
+“Oh, Mab, I have been having quite a scolding, and all about you! It’s
+clear that I am not worthy to have such a sister-in-law.”
+
+“Georgie! you don’t mean that Mr Burgrave has been so rude as to----”
+
+“Now, Mab, you know better than that. It would be impossible to him to
+be rude. He simply took me to task, very mildly and calmly, about the
+way I neglect you, though I stand to you in the place of a mother----”
+
+“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mabel, her face scarlet.
+
+“So he says. It seems I am lacking in the tenderness which should be
+lavished upon you. Our rough frontier life ought to be tempered to you
+by all sorts of sweetness and light which I have made no attempt to
+supply. I have been inconsiderate in bringing you into contact with
+the revolting details of my professional work, and a lot more. Do
+forgive me, Mab. I really haven’t meant to do all these dreadful
+things, but you did want to make acquaintance with realities, you
+know.”
+
+“That man is getting unbearable!” broke from Mabel. “I shall speak to
+him--No, I shan’t,” she added wearily; “it’s no good. He gets the
+better of me somehow or other. Can’t you put a little cold poison into
+his medicine, Georgie? Surely it’s a case in which the end would
+justify the means.”
+
+She went indoors with rather a forced laugh, and Fitz, who had been
+looking out over the desert without appearing to notice what was being
+said, turned round suddenly to Georgia.
+
+“Can you honestly expect me to stand all this much longer, Mrs North?”
+
+“All what?” asked Georgia, in astonishment.
+
+“The Commissioner’s intolerable assumption. Any one would think he was
+Miss North’s guardian, or her father, or even”--with a fierce
+laugh--“her husband. What right has he to take it upon himself to
+defend her?--as if she needed any defending against you! It’s nothing
+but his arrogant impudence.”
+
+“But still”--Georgia spoke with some hesitation--“how does it affect
+you?”
+
+“Oh, Mrs North, you needn’t pretend not to have noticed. You know as
+well as I do that the Commissioner and I are both--er--well, we are
+both awfully gone on Miss North, and he isn’t playing fair. You have
+seen it, haven’t you?”
+
+“I have, indeed, but I hoped you hadn’t quite found out what your real
+feelings were.”
+
+“Surely you must have thought me a hopeless idiot? I found out all
+about it the day she had that fall from her horse.”
+
+“So long ago as that? Why, you had scarcely known her a fortnight!”
+
+“But I met her first years ago, before we went to Kubbet-ul-Haj.
+Besides, what does it signify if I had only known her an hour? It is
+the kind of feeling one can only have for one woman in one’s life.”
+
+“But you didn’t say anything?” asked Georgia anxiously.
+
+Fitz laughed shamefacedly. “No, I have said nothing even yet. The fact
+is, it seemed sacrilege even to think of it. She is so lovely, so
+sweet, so far above me in every way! Oh, Mrs North, I could rave about
+her for hours.”
+
+“And so you shall,” was the cordial but unexpected response, “as often
+as you like, and I will listen patiently, provided that you still say
+nothing to her.”
+
+“No, no; things can’t go on in this way. You see, the Commissioner has
+changed all that. He goes in and fights for his own hand in the most
+barefaced way, and I must get my innings too. After all, though it
+sounds horribly low to say it, I did kill the fellow that was carrying
+her off, and bring her back.”
+
+“Of course you did. If that was all, you certainly deserve to win
+her.”
+
+“Yes; but then the Commissioner scores in having got hurt. He sees her
+for ever so long every day, and she is so awfully kind, talking to him
+and reading to him, and letting him prose away to her, that no wonder
+he thinks he is making splendid running. I only wish I had got hurt
+too.”
+
+“Do you really?” asked Georgia, with meaning in her tone.
+
+“No, Mrs North, you’re right; I don’t. If we had both been hurt there
+would have been no one with the slightest chance of catching up the
+rascals. Whether she takes him or me in the end, I did save her, at
+any rate.”
+
+“Good,” said Georgia encouragingly. “I like that spirit.”
+
+“Well, now you know how things stand. You see what an advantage the
+Kumpsioner Sahib is taking of her gratitude and your kindness, and you
+can guess how I feel about it. Tell me candidly, do you think I have
+the slightest chance? Why did you say that you hoped I had not
+understood my own feelings?”
+
+“Simply because a waiting game is your only chance. Since you ask me,
+I will speak plainly. You are younger than Mabel, you know; it is
+undeniable, unfortunately”--as Fitz made a gesture of impatience--“and
+Dick and I have got into the way of treating you like a son or a
+brother--a very much younger brother. We haven’t taken you seriously,
+and I am very much afraid Mabel doesn’t either. Mr Burgrave holds a
+very high position, and he is a man of great distinction. We on this
+frontier cherish an unfortunate prejudice against him, of course, but
+elsewhere he is considered most charming and fascinating. How can she
+but feel flattered by his homage? And he has undoubtedly acquired a
+great influence over her; I can’t help seeing that. And yet I can’t
+make out that she cares for him, and I have watched her closely.”
+
+“Well, that is one grain of comfort, at any rate,” said Fitz
+disconsolately. “But he is not going to carry her off without my
+having the chance to say a word to her first, I can tell him.”
+
+Georgia looked up anxiously. “Don’t throw away your only hope,” she
+entreated. “What you have to do is to make yourself necessary to her.
+You have been managing very well hitherto--always ready to do anything
+she wanted. Make yourself so useful to her as a friend that she would
+rather keep you as a lover than lose you altogether.”
+
+“Oh, I say, Mrs North, you don’t flatter a man’s vanity much!”
+
+“Yes, I do. At least, I am showing that I think you capable of a great
+deal of self-effacement for the sake of winning her.”
+
+“And if the Commissioner carries her off meanwhile?”
+
+“I don’t think he will, provided you let her alone. But if you worry
+her to have you, she may accept him just to be rid of your attentions.
+And then there will be nothing to be done but to bear it like a man.”
+
+“You don’t disguise the taste of your medicines much, Mrs Dr North.
+I’ll chew the bitter pill as I ride, and try to look as if I liked it.
+I was to meet the Major at the old fort at ten o’clock. It’s awfully
+good of you to have listened so patiently to my symptoms, and
+prescribed for me so fully.”
+
+He ran down the steps and rode away, arriving at the fort a little
+late, to find that Dick was already discussing with Colonel Graham the
+business on which they had come. A series of small thefts, irritating
+rather than serious, had occurred on the club premises of late, and
+the minds of the members were exercised over the question of their
+prevention in future. As Fitz rode up Dick and Colonel Graham were
+descending to the courtyard after making the round of the walls, and
+the former signed to him to wait where he was.
+
+“I never remember such a succession of petty robberies before,” said
+Colonel Graham. “The natives must be in a very unsettled state.”
+
+“I’m not sorry these things have happened,” returned Dick. “In fact,
+I’m glad of it.”
+
+Colonel Graham glanced at him. “What have you got in your head?” he
+asked.
+
+“Simply this. I suppose you believe, as I do, that the thief gets in
+by climbing over the wall, while the watchman is busy guarding the
+gateway and never thinks that there is any other means of entering?”
+
+“That’s my idea. In a climate like this mud-brick is bound to go
+pretty soon if it isn’t looked after, and for years the rain has
+washed it down into these rubbish-heaps, till they are as good as so
+many flights of steps. What with the grass and bushes growing all
+about, it’s as easy as possible to get in. I could do it myself.”
+
+“Then you agree that it would be as well to make it harder? I propose
+that we call a club meeting and invite subscriptions for the purpose
+of putting the walls into proper repair. Otherwise we shall soon have
+the place down on our heads.”
+
+“But that sort of thing will take a long time to organise.”
+
+“It needn’t, since it’s only to keep the natives from thinking there’s
+anything up. So far as I can see, there’s no particular reason why you
+and I shouldn’t head the subscription list with a thousand rupees
+each--so that the most pressing work may be begun at once--or why that
+two thousand rupees shouldn’t last out better than such a sum ever did
+before.”
+
+“Good! Are we to take the young fellows into our confidence?”
+
+“Runcorn may as well know all about it. A sapper will be useful in
+deciding what it’s possible to do in the time. Happily he and the
+canal people have kept the wall overlooking the water in tolerable
+repair. As for the other sides, we must clear away the rubbish from
+the foot of the walls, and build up the parapets where the bricks have
+weathered away. The bushes must go, naturally, and the ramparts be
+made a fairly safe promenade--for the ladies, of course. The tower
+stairs are awfully dangerous, and it will be quite natural to have
+them seen to, and the floors and loopholes may as well be looked after
+while we are about it, though we shall never get a satisfactory
+flanking fire without rebuilding the whole thing. I shall take it upon
+myself to present the place with a new gate--not obtrusively martial
+in appearance, but with a certain reserve strength about it. My wife
+will think me a terrible Vandal for spoiling the beautiful ruin her
+father left behind him, but it’s obvious that the _chaukidar_ will be
+able to look after the place better when there’s a gate to shut.”
+
+“I should say there won’t be much ruin left when you have done with
+it,” said Colonel Graham. “It’s a mere coincidence that our largest
+godown turns out to be in the way of the canal extension works, and
+has been condemned. There would be no harm in storing the corn and a
+few other little trifles in the vaults under the club-house, and it
+would give us an excuse for posting a sentry here at night.”
+
+“Good,” said Dick, in his turn. “What accomplished deceivers we shall
+be by the time this is over, if we live to see it!”
+
+“You think things are in a bad way?”
+
+“What do you think yourself?”
+
+“I? I have no opinion. You have been on this frontier much longer than
+I have, and you are in political charge. I’ve seen enough to know that
+there’s something queer going on, that’s all.”
+
+“I’ll tell you one thing that’s going on. Five times in the last
+fortnight I have received secret information of tribal gatherings
+which were to be held without my knowledge. Of course I made a point
+of turning up, and behaving just as if I had received an invitation in
+due form.”
+
+“Well, that was all right, so far.”
+
+“Yes, but think of the _jirgahs_ that I did not hear of. What went on
+at them?”
+
+“I see; it looks bad. What do you propose doing?”
+
+“What ought to be done is to revive the martial law proclamation,
+which has been in abeyance for the last four years. But I am not
+supreme here just now.”
+
+“Surely the Commissioner would not interfere with the exercise of your
+authority?”
+
+“The Commissioner has imbibed so many horrors about the Khemistan
+frontier that he is pleased every morning to find himself alive, and
+the house not burnt over his head. I believe he regards the
+improvement as due to his own presence here, and at the same time
+considers it an additional proof that Khemistan may now be governed
+like all the other provinces. If I had things my own way, my very
+first move would be to deport Burgrave, preferably to Simla, where he
+could both be happy himself and a cause of happiness to others, but as
+it is, he will probably deport me.”
+
+“Then you believe he has some trick on hand too?”
+
+“I’m sure of it. He is in constant communication with Government.
+Beardmore and his clerks come to him every day”--Beardmore was the
+Commissioner’s private secretary, and a man after his chief’s own
+heart, of the type that considers it has successfully surmounted a
+crisis when it has drawn up a state-paper on the subject, and has no
+inconvenient yearnings after energetic action--“and he is busy with
+them for hours, concocting a report on the state of the frontier, I
+suppose. When that is finished, we may expect the blow.”
+
+“What is it that you expect exactly? A friend of mine at headquarters
+tells me there’s a persistent rumour----”
+
+“That they intend to withdraw the subsidy, and cut loose from Nalapur?
+Just so. And that means the deluge for us. The blessed word
+Non-intervention will bring about the need for intervention, as
+usual.”
+
+“Our people will rise?”
+
+“Not at first. Bahram Khan will probably remove his uncle quietly, and
+in order to still any unpleasant rumours, encourage raids on us, which
+will serve the further purpose of awakening the appetite for blood and
+loot. The Sardars will be got to believe that we have only drawn back
+in order to advance better, and that their one chance is to make the
+first move. They will cross the border, and our people will join
+them.”
+
+“And we shall be thankful for the fort? North, in view of all this,
+what do you say to sending the ladies down to Bab-us-Sahel for a
+while?”
+
+“I don’t know,” answered Dick hesitatingly. “I thought of suggesting
+to my wife that she should go down there and do some shopping.”
+
+“But you fancied she’d see through it? Probably. She was born and bred
+here, and knows the weather-signs as well as you do. What’s the good
+of trying to throw dust in her eyes? Put it to her plainly that, as
+things are, you would feel much happier if she was away, and she’ll go
+like a shot. Your sister and my Flora will go with her, and they’ll be
+a pleasant party.”
+
+“She won’t like going when there’s no sign of danger, and it might
+precipitate the crisis, too. Perhaps when Burgrave launches his
+thunderbolt----”
+
+“If you could only get him to escort the ladies down at once, we might
+pull through yet.”
+
+“No fear,” said Dick bitterly, “until he’s done his worst.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER X.
+ GAINING A LOVER AND KEEPING A FRIEND.
+
+“No bathing to-day, Mab!” laughed Georgia, meeting Mabel in her
+riding-habit in the hall.
+
+“You mean that we can’t ride? Why not?”
+
+“Now you look just like the prehistoric lady in the picture! Because
+there’s a dust-storm coming on. I meant to tell you before, but you
+rushed away from the breakfast-table so quickly. I have been hurrying
+Dick off, that he may get to the office before it begins.”
+
+“But how do you know there’s going to be a dust-storm at all? I
+thought that before they came on the sky was copper-coloured, and the
+air got like an oven?”
+
+“Well, the sky is getting black, as you can see. Dust-storms here are
+not confined to the hot weather, they come all the year round. It’s
+the merest chance that there hasn’t been one yet since you arrived.”
+
+“How horrid that it should come just to-day!” said Mabel snappishly.
+“I told Mr Anstruther I was tired of riding Simorgh, and he must
+really bring Laili back. He said he couldn’t be sure she was cured
+yet, and I told him he might use a leading-rein if he liked, but that
+I meant to ride her. We weren’t going at all near the frontier, or
+anywhere in the direction of Dera Gul.”
+
+“My beloved Mab, dust-storms don’t respect British territory, and if
+you had once been out in one you wouldn’t wish to repeat the
+experience, even if you were in a position to do it. Go and take your
+habit off, and when Mr Anstruther comes, I will tell him to send the
+horses to the stables, and wait here until the storm is over. Then you
+will have some one to talk to. See that the servants shut all your
+windows.”
+
+But when Mabel emerged again from her darkened room into the lighted
+hall, the disappointment caused by the loss of her ride was mingled
+with a certain amount of ill-humour, due to an even more untoward
+occurrence. The ayah Tara had chosen this particular morning for
+passing in review all her mistress’s best gowns and hats, with an eye
+to any little repairs that might be necessary, and having taken the
+garments from their respective boxes and spread them out all over the
+room, had sat down to contemplate them for a while before setting to
+work. She was not accustomed to the peculiarities of the Khemistan
+climate, and the gathering darkness appeared to her only as the
+precursor of a thunderstorm. Hence, when the first gust of raging wind
+whirled a cloud of gritty dust through the open windows, she was as
+much astonished as Mabel herself, who was entering the room at the
+moment, and was almost knocked down. Both mistress and maid flew at
+once to shut the windows, but in the wind and darkness this was by no
+means an easy task, and before it could be accomplished the dust lay
+thick all over the room and its contents. Such a _contretemps_ was
+enough to provoke a saint, Mabel said to herself angrily, when she had
+left the weeping Tara to do what she could to repair the mischief, and
+it would be idle to deny that she was feeling very cross indeed as she
+entered the drawing-room with a bundle of letters in her hand.
+
+The shutters were closed and the lamps lighted as if it were night,
+and the dust pattered like hail on the verandah whenever the howling
+of the wind would allow any other sound to be heard. Fitz Anstruther
+was sitting near the fireplace, looking through an old magazine, and
+Mabel, rejecting his suggestion of a game of chess, seated herself at
+the writing-table, saying that she must finish her letters for the
+mail. She found it difficult to write, however, for although she would
+not look up, she could not help being conscious that her companion’s
+eyes were much oftener fixed on her than on the printed page before
+him. Accustomed though she was to such homage from men, this time it
+made her nervous, and at last she could bear it no longer.
+
+“Wouldn’t you like something to do?” she demanded suddenly, turning
+round and catching him in the act of looking at her, but he was equal
+to the occasion.
+
+“Something to do? Something for you, do you mean? May I really write
+your letters for you? I’m sure the Major has given me plenty of
+practice in that sort of thing, and your friends would be so surprised
+to find you had set up a private secretary.”
+
+“Thanks, but I don’t seem to be in the mood for letter-writing, and
+certainly not for dictating.”
+
+“Then may I hold a skein of silk for you to wind? That’s the sort of
+thing they set a mere man down to in books.”
+
+“I don’t use silk of that sort. Is there nothing you would like to
+do?”
+
+“Yes, awfully. I should like to talk to you.”
+
+“I think I shall go and read to the Commissioner,” severely.
+
+“It would only be wasting sweetness on the desert air. He’s perfectly
+happy at this moment, with Beardmore plotting treason in a
+confidential report, and about six clerks writing away for him as hard
+as they can write, and he wouldn’t appreciate an interruption.”
+
+“I suppose you are judging Mr Burgrave by yourself when you say he
+will be happier if I keep away?”
+
+“I? Oh no; I was judging him by himself. The Kumpsioner Sahib doesn’t
+think ladies and affairs of state go well together, you know.”
+
+“Indeed?” Mabel was bitterly conscious that she bore a grudge against
+the Commissioner for this very reason, but she had no intention of
+admitting the fact.
+
+“Why, do you mean that he vouchsafes to talk shop to you alone, out of
+all the world of women? What an important person you are, Miss North!
+Think of having the run of the Commissioner’s state secrets! But of
+course one can see why he does it. How unfairly people are dealt with
+in this world! Why have I no official secrets to confide? Supposing I
+spy round and amass some, may I expound them to you for three or four
+hours a day?”
+
+“What nonsense!” said Mabel, with some warmth. “Mr Burgrave is only
+teaching me to appreciate Browning.”
+
+“And you fly to state secrets for relief in the intervals! Miss North,
+won’t you teach me to appreciate Browning? I’ll wire to Bombay at once
+for the whole twenty-nine volumes, if you will.”
+
+“I really have no time to waste----”
+
+“Oh, how unkind! Consider the crushing effect of your words. Do you
+truly think me such an idiot that teaching me would be waste of time?”
+
+Mabel laughed in spite of herself. “You didn’t let me finish my
+sentence,” she said. “I was going to say that it would be only a waste
+of your time, too, to try to learn anything from me.”
+
+“Never! Say the word, and I enrol myself your pupil for ever.”
+
+“You must have a very poor opinion of me as a teacher, I’m afraid, if
+you think it would take a lifetime to turn you out a finished
+scholar.”
+
+“How you do twist a man’s words! The fault would be on my side, of
+course. I was going to say the misfortune, but it would be good
+fortune for me,” Fitz added, in a low voice.
+
+(“Now, if I don’t keep my head, something will happen!” said Mabel to
+herself, conscious that the atmosphere was becoming electric.) Aloud
+she remarked lightly, “Ah, you have given yourself away. Do you think
+I would have anything to do with a pupil who was determined not to
+learn?”
+
+“Not if he has learnt all you can teach him?” demanded Fitz, rising
+and coming towards her. “Please understand that there is nothing more
+for me to learn. I want to teach you.”
+
+“Oh, thanks! but I haven’t offered myself as a pupil,” with a nervous
+laugh.
+
+“No, it’s the other way about. I want to teach you to care for me as
+you have made me care for you. Well, not like that, perhaps; I
+couldn’t expect it. But you do care for me a little, don’t you?”
+
+“Mr Anstruther!--I am astonished--” stammered Mabel.
+
+“Are you really? What a bad teacher I must be! I know all the other
+men are wild after you, of course, but I thought it was different,
+somehow, between you and me, as if--well, almost as if we were made
+for each other, as people say. I have felt something of the sort from
+the very first. I love you, Mabel, and I think you do like me rather,
+don’t you? You have been so awfully kind in letting me do things for
+you, and it has driven all the rest mad with envy. I believe I could
+make you love me in time, if you would let me try. There’s nothing in
+the whole world I wouldn’t do for you. If only you won’t shut your
+heart up against me, I think you’ll have to give in.”
+
+He was holding her hands tightly as he spoke, and Mabel trembled under
+the rush of his words. Was she going to faint, or what was the meaning
+of that wild throbbing at her heart? Clearly she must act decisively
+and at once, or this tempestuous young man would think he had taken
+her by storm. She summoned hastily the remnants of her pride.
+
+“Please go and sit down over there,” she said, freeing her hands from
+his grasp. “How can I think properly when you are towering over me
+like that?” Fitz did not offer to move, and by way of redressing the
+inequality, she rose also, supporting herself by laying a shaking hand
+upon the writing-table. “I am so very sorry and--and surprised about
+this. I had no idea----”
+
+“None?” he asked.
+
+“I mean I never thought it would go as far as this--that you would be
+so persistent--so much in earnest.”
+
+“A new light on the matter, evidently.” As she grew more agitated,
+Fitz had become calmer.
+
+“Because it’s impossible, you know.”
+
+“Excuse me, I don’t know anything of the kind.”
+
+“You are a great deal younger than I am, for one thing.”
+
+“Barely three years, and it’s a fault that will mend.”
+
+“No, it won’t. As you get older, I shall get old faster, and if there
+is a thing I detest, it is to see a young man with an elderly wife. I
+could not endure to feel that I was growing old while you were still
+in the prime of life. You would hate it yourself, too, and you would
+leave off caring for me, and we should both be miserable.”
+
+“Try me!” said Fitz, with a light in his eyes that she could not meet.
+
+“And then there’s another thing,” she went on hurriedly. “I know it
+sounds horrid to say it, but--it’s not only that three years--you are
+so young for your age. I’m not a reasonable creature like Georgia; I
+simply long to be made to obey, whether I like it or not. I feel that
+I want a master, but I could make you do what I liked.”
+
+“Could you? But perhaps I could make you do what I liked. Just look at
+me for a moment.”
+
+But Mabel covered her eyes. “No, I won’t. It sounds as if I had been
+inviting you to master me, which wouldn’t be at all what I meant.
+Please understand, once for all, that I don’t care for you enough to
+marry you.”
+
+“Very well. But you will one day. If I am young, there’s one good
+thing about it--I can wait.”
+
+“It’s no good whatever your thinking that I shall change.”
+
+“That is my business, please. I presume my thoughts are my own? and I
+feel that I shall teach you to love me yet.”
+
+“I shouldn’t have thought,” said Mabel indignantly, “that it was like
+you to persecute a woman who had refused you.”
+
+“Don’t be afraid. I shall not persecute you; I shall simply wait.”
+
+“And try to make me miserable by looking doleful? I call that
+persecution, just the same. No, really, if you are going to be so
+disagreeable, I shall have to speak to my brother, and ask him to get
+you transferred somewhere else, and that would be very bad for your
+prospects.”
+
+Mabel thought that this threat sounded extremely telling, but to Fitz,
+who had declined excellent posts in other parts of the province,
+rather than quit the frontier which grows to have such a strange
+fascination for every Khemistan man, it was less alarming.
+
+“Don’t trouble to get protection from the Major, Miss North. I assure
+you it won’t be necessary.”
+
+“But am I to be kept in perpetual dread of having to discuss
+this--this unpleasant subject? I think it is very unkind of you,” said
+Mabel, with tears in her eyes, “for I had come to like you so much as
+a friend, and you were always so useful, and now----”
+
+“And now I intend to be quite as useful, and just as much your friend,
+I hope, as before. Let us make a bargain. You may feel quite safe. I
+won’t attempt to approach the unpleasant subject without your leave.”
+
+Mabel looked at him in astonishment. “But I should never give you
+leave, you know,” she said.
+
+“As you please. Then the subject will never be renewed. I am content
+to wait.”
+
+“But what is the good of waiting when I have told you----”
+
+“Come, I don’t think you can deny me that consolation, can you, when
+you have the whole thing in your own hands? Is it a bargain?”
+
+“It doesn’t seem fair to let you go on hoping----”
+
+“That’s my own lookout,” he said again. “If your friend is always at
+hand when you want him, surely he may be allowed to nurse his foolish
+hopes in private--provided that he never exhibits them?”
+
+“Very well, then,” said Mabel reluctantly. “But I don’t feel----”
+
+“If I am satisfied, surely you may be?”
+
+The entrance of a servant to unbar the shutters dispensed with the
+need of an answer. Preoccupied as they had been during the last
+half-hour, neither Fitz nor Mabel had noticed that the dust had ceased
+to patter and the wind to howl. The storm was over, and once again
+there was daylight, although rain was descending in torrents.
+
+“Mab, the Commissioner was asking for you,” said Georgia, pausing as
+she passed the door. “He has finished his morning’s work, and wanted
+to know if you were ready for some Browning.”
+
+“Oh yes, I’ll go at once,” said Mabel, anxious only to escape from
+Fitz and the memory of their agitating conversation. It had shaken her
+a good deal, she felt, and this made her angry with him. What right
+had he to disturb her so rudely, and make her feel guilty, when she
+had done nothing? It was with distinct relief that she met Mr
+Burgrave’s benignant smile, and returned his morning greeting. He did
+not appear to notice any perturbation in her manner, and she took up
+the book, and turned hastily to the page where they had left off,
+while Mr Burgrave, pencil in hand, settled himself comfortably among
+his cushions, ready to call attention to any beauties she might miss
+in reading the lines. If he was like Fitz, in that his eyes were fixed
+on the fair head bent over the pages of “Pippa Passes,” he was unlike
+Fitz in that their gaze escaped unnoticed.
+
+“‘You’ll love me yet!--and I can marry--’” read Mabel, totally
+unconscious of the havoc she was making of the poet’s words, but her
+auditor almost sprang from his couch.
+
+“No, no!” he cried. “I beg your pardon, Miss North, but the storm has
+shaken your nerves a little, hasn’t it? Allow me,” and he took the
+book from her hands, and read the poem aloud in a voice so full of
+feeling that it went to Mabel’s heart.
+
+  “‘You’ll love me yet!--and I can tarry
+   Your love’s protracted growing;
+  June reared that bunch of flowers you carry
+   From seeds of April’s sowing.
+
+  ‘I plant a heartful now; some seed
+   At least is sure to strike--’”
+
+What malign influence had brought the reading to this point just now?
+Fitz might have used those very words. Involuntarily Mabel rose and
+stood at the edge of the verandah, looking out into the rain. Her eyes
+were filled with tears, but she stood with her back to Mr Burgrave,
+and he did not see them. He read on--
+
+  “‘And yield--what you’ll not pluck indeed,
+   Not love, but, maybe, like.
+
+  ‘You’ll look at least on love’s remains,
+   A grave’s one violet;
+  Your look?--that pays a thousand pains.
+   What’s death? You’ll love me yet!’”
+
+Was the seed springing already? A tear splashed into the gritty dust
+that lay on the verandah-rail, and Mabel dashed her hand across her
+eyes in an agony of shame. Mr Burgrave must have seen; what would he
+think? But before she could even reach her handkerchief, the book was
+thrown down, and Mr Burgrave had seized his crutch, and was at her
+side.
+
+“Mabel, my dear little girl!” he cried tenderly.
+
+“Oh no, no; not you!” she gasped, horror-stricken.
+
+“And why not, dearest? Forgive me for blundering so brutally. How
+could I guess that the seed I had dared to plant was blossoming
+already? I have watched it growing slowly day by day, so slowly that I
+was often afraid it had not struck at all, and now, when it is
+actually in full flower, I pass by without seeing it, and bruise it in
+this heartless way. Forgive me, dear.”
+
+“Indeed, indeed you are making a mistake!” cried Mabel, in a panic.
+“It really isn’t what you think, Mr Burgrave. I don’t care for you in
+that way at all.”
+
+“My dear girl must allow me to be the judge of that. I can read your
+heart better than you can read it for yourself, dearest. Do you think
+I haven’t noticed how naturally you turn to me for refuge against
+trouble and unkindness? It has touched me inexpressibly. Again and
+again you have sought sympathy from me, with the sweetest confidence.”
+
+“It’s quite true!” groaned Mabel, seeing in a sudden mental vision all
+the occasions to which Mr Burgrave alluded.
+
+“Of course it is, dear. You hadn’t realised how completely you trusted
+me, had you? Other people thought--no, I won’t tell you what they
+said--but I knew better. I was sure of you, you see.”
+
+“What did other people say?” asked Mabel, with faint interest.
+
+“Er--well, it was a lady in the neighbourhood.” Mabel’s thoughts flew
+to Mrs Hardy with natural apprehension. “She was good enough to warn
+me that you were--no, I will not say the word--that you were amusing
+yourself with me. She had noticed, naturally enough, how inevitably we
+drew together, but she ascribed your sweet trustfulness to such vile
+motives as could never enter your head. I said to her, ‘Madam, to
+defend Miss North against your suspicions would be to insult her. In a
+short time, when you realise their baselessness, you will suffer as
+keenly as you deserve for having entertained them.’ I could trust my
+little girl, you see.”
+
+“Oh, you make me ashamed!” cried Mabel, abashed by the perfect
+confidence with which this stern, self-sufficient man regarded her.
+“Oh, Mr Burgrave, do please believe I am not good enough for you. It
+makes me miserable to think how disappointed you will be.”
+
+“I should like to hear you call me Eustace,” said Mr Burgrave softly,
+unmoved by her protestations. It occurred to Mabel, with a dreadful
+sense of helplessness, that he regarded them only as deprecating
+properly the honour he proposed doing her.
+
+“Well--please--Eustace--” But Mr Burgrave kissed her solemnly on the
+forehead, and she could stand no more.
+
+“It’s too much! I’ll come back presently,” she gasped, and succeeded
+in escaping. As she fled through the hall she met Georgia.
+
+“Perhaps you’ll be interested to know that I’m engaged to Mr Burgrave,
+Georgie!” she cried hysterically, rushing into her own room and
+locking the door.
+
+
+
+“That wretched man!” cried Georgia. “After all Dr Tighe and I have
+done for his leg!”
+
+“Didn’t know Tighe had any grievance against him about this,” grumbled
+Dick. He was sitting on the edge of the dressing-table, ruefully
+contemplating his boots, with his hands dug deep in his pockets. On
+ordinary occasions Georgia would have requested him, gently but
+firmly, to move, but now she was too much perturbed in mind to think
+of the furniture. Delayed in starting by the dust-storm, Dick had only
+returned from a hard day’s riding late at night, to find himself
+confronted on the threshold, so to speak, by the triumphant
+Commissioner, and requested to give him his sister.
+
+“Oh, but he would be on our side, of course,” said Georgia. “Dick, I
+do think it is horrid of Mr Burgrave to have proposed under present
+circumstances. It’s as if he wanted to rob us of everything--even of
+Mab.”
+
+“No, he’s doing us an honour. He all but told me so. But he really is
+absolutely gone on Mab. His whole face changes when he speaks of her.
+Fact is, Georgie, if the man didn’t come rooting about on our very own
+frontier, I couldn’t help having a sneaking liking for him. His belief
+in his own greatness is perfectly sincere, and he cherishes no
+animosity against us for opposing his plans. He told me that he hoped
+political differences would make no break in our friendly
+intercourse--Hang it! this thing’s giving way. Why in the world don’t
+you have stronger tables?”
+
+“Sit here,” said Georgia, pointing to the wicker sofa. “Well, Dick?”
+
+“Well? It’s coming, old girl, coming fast, and he’s mercifully trying
+to soften the blow to us.”
+
+Georgia looked round with a shiver. The shabby bungalow with its
+makeshift furniture was the outward and visible sign of the life-work
+which she and her husband had inherited from her father, and it was to
+be taken from them by the action of the man who hoped that his
+arbitrary decree would be no obstacle to their continuing to regard
+him as a friend.
+
+“And what I think is,” Dick went on, “that they had better be married
+as soon as possible, before Burgrave goes down to the river again, and
+the blow falls.”
+
+“But, Dick,” Georgia almost screamed, “you’re giving her no time to
+repent.”
+
+“Repent? I’m not proposing to kill her. Surely it would be better for
+her to be married from this house than from a Bombay hotel? Besides,
+we should have no further anxiety about her----”
+
+“No further anxiety? Dick, if she marries him I shall never know
+another happy moment. She doesn’t care a straw for him--it’s a kind of
+fascination, that’s all, a sort of deadly terror. I can’t tell you
+what it’s been like all day. She couldn’t bear me to leave them alone
+a moment, and there was he beaming at her, and not seeing it a bit. He
+thinks it’s all right for her to be shy and tongue-tied, and not dare
+to meet his eye--the pompous idiot! Mab shy--and with a man! She’s
+miserable--in fear of her life.”
+
+“No, no, Georgie, that’s a little too thick. Mab is not a school-girl,
+to let herself be coerced into an engagement, and it won’t do to stir
+her up to break it off. You mustn’t go and abuse him to her. Be
+satisfied with relieving your feelings to me.”
+
+“Now, Dick, is it likely? Am I the person to give her an extra reason
+for sticking to him? If I abused him she would feel bound to defend
+him, and might even end by caring for him. I can’t pretend to
+congratulate her on her choice, but she shall have every facility for
+seeing as much of him as she can possibly want.”
+
+“Vengeful creature!”
+
+“No, that’s not it. I have no patience with her.”
+
+“Ah, she has proved you a false prophet, hasn’t she? That’s
+unpardonable.”
+
+“She has done worse; I’m perfectly convinced that she refused the
+right man before accepting the wrong one. And though she doesn’t
+deserve it, I think she ought to have time to get things put right, if
+she can.”
+
+“Very well. Then the deluge will come first, that’s all.”
+
+“How soon do you expect it?”
+
+“Well, I gather from what the Commissioner says that his report is
+nearly drawn up. As it’s only a pretext for a predetermined move, they
+won’t take long to consider it. The decision will be intimated to me,
+and I shall submit my resignation in return.”
+
+“And then we shall fold our tents like the Arabs, and silently steal
+away?”
+
+“Not quite at once. We must stick on until they send up a man to
+replace me, and carry out the new policy. The worst of it will be that
+Ashraf Ali will know why I am resigning, and unless I can get him to
+keep quiet, he will think himself free to break the treaty before our
+side does. If Bahram Khan once gets to know what’s on hand, it’s all
+up, for nothing will persuade the Sardars that we are not repudiating
+the treaty as the first step to an invasion and the annexation of
+Nalapur, and he will be there to lead them, if the Amir won’t. I hope
+to goodness that Burgrave will have removed the light of his
+countenance from us before then, but I suppose that’s sure to be all
+right. He would hardly like to look as if he was hounding his intended
+brother-in-law out of the province. Unfortunately it’s pretty certain
+that rumours of my impending departure will begin to get about in some
+mysterious manner as soon as his unfavourable report goes up, for his
+plans seem doomed to leak out into the bazaar. I’m inclined to think
+he has a spy about him somewhere. By-the-bye, Georgie, who is the
+sweetseller you’ve allowed to hang about the place lately?”
+
+“I, Dick? He told me you had said he might come.”
+
+“Something fishy there, evidently. But he must have an accomplice
+inside.”
+
+“One of the Commissioner’s Hindu clerks, perhaps.”
+
+“Possibly. Well, we’ll deal with him to-morrow.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI.
+ BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
+
+As soon as Dick awoke in the morning, his talk with Georgia recurred
+to his mind, and looking out of his dressing-room window, he called to
+Ismail Bakhsh, whom he saw in the compound. From his long connection
+with the family, the old soldier was regarded as the head of the
+household staff.
+
+“Has that sweetseller turned up yet, Ismail Bakhsh?”
+
+“No, sahib, I have not seen him this morning.”
+
+“Well, when he does, you can detain him. I want to ask him a question
+or two.”
+
+“The thing is done, sahib. If the protector of the poor would listen
+to a word from this unworthy one----”
+
+“Yes; what is it?”
+
+“It was in my mind yesterday, sahib, to examine all the verandahs,
+lest the storm should have shaken the pillars, and in so doing I found
+that the work of the rats under the floors has been great and very
+evil. Surely there are many places in which the planks are loose and
+easy to be moved, but on this side of the house it is the worst.
+Before the Kumpsioner Sahib’s rooms a man might even squeeze himself
+in and hide under the verandah floor.”
+
+“We shall never get rid of the rats until we have proper cement
+floors--and it’s no good thinking of that now,” added Dick, half to
+himself. “But are you sure there’s nothing worse than rats about,
+Ismail Bakhsh? I don’t like the idea of that hole.”
+
+“I also suspected evil, sahib, but having sent two of the servants’
+sons in with lights, I was content when they found nothing.”
+
+“I hope you nailed the boards firmly into their places?”
+
+“I put them back, sahib, but why fasten them? There was no man inside,
+and in case any should seek to enter, the hole should be blocked up
+from within, not from without. Moreover, if the protector of the poor
+would invite Winlock Sahib to bring his sporting dog to the house,
+with your honour’s own dogs we might succeed in killing all the rats
+before mending the floors.”
+
+“Good idea! Ask the memsahib to give you a _chit_ to Winlock Sahib.
+No; it had better be to-morrow. I shall be out all to-day.”
+
+Ismail Bakhsh salaamed and departed, and Dick returned to his
+dressing, neither of them dreaming that they were separated by nothing
+but a half-inch plank from a man who had listened to the whole of
+their colloquy. The bungalow, which had never been intended for a
+permanent dwelling, had been run up in haste. Hence the contrast of
+its somewhat ramshackle appearance with that of the substantial stone
+houses in the cantonments, and hence also the perpetual worry caused
+by the colonies of rats inhabiting the space under the floors, which
+should have been filled up with concrete. However, since innumerable
+complaints and remonstrances had brought nothing but vague promises
+and an occasional snub from those in authority, Dick and Georgia
+continued to live on in their unsatisfactory dwelling, and to wage
+intermittent warfare against the rats. But the rats could not fairly
+be accused of the worst of the damage of which Ismail Bakhsh
+complained, for crouched under the boards lay the sweetseller, who had
+effected an entrance by sliding out one of the planks from the front
+of the verandah and pulling another aside, returning them to their
+places when he had crawled in. His dark face paled when Ismail Bakhsh
+suggested bringing the dogs, but when he heard Dick postpone the
+rat-hunt to the next day, he breathed freely again.
+
+“To-day is all I want,” he said to himself. “When I have once got the
+paper for Jehanara Bibi from that accursed half-blood my work is done,
+and Nāth Sahib may set his dogs on my track as much as he likes--and
+his sowars too.”
+
+He remained crouched in his lair all morning, until the Commissioner
+had dismissed his clerks and hobbled round to the other side of the
+house to look for Mabel. As soon as the sound of his crutch had become
+inaudible in the distance, there was a hesitating tap on one of the
+loose boards. It was answered by a bolder knock from below, the board
+was pushed slightly aside, and a yellow hand, trembling as if with
+ague, passed a roll of papers through the crack. The sweetseller
+seized it, and pressed the fingers of the transmitter, which were
+hurriedly withdrawn. The hidden man secreted the papers carefully in
+his clothing, and crawled round to the front of the house, whence he
+could watch through a peep-hole all that went on in this part of the
+compound. When noon was come, and the servants had all betaken
+themselves to their own quarters, he removed the sliding plank and
+slipped out, bringing with him his stock in trade, and replaced the
+board carefully. Having assured himself that Dick was nowhere to be
+seen, he crossed the compound boldly, climbed the wall at a point
+where various projecting stones and convenient hollows afforded a
+foothold, and walked with dignified haste to the nearest sandhill. On
+the farther side of this he buried his tray and his sweets in the
+sand, and then, girding up his loins, set out resolutely in the
+direction of Dera Gul.
+
+Dusk had already fallen when he reached the fortress, where he
+received a respectful greeting from the ragged guards, who informed
+him that the chief was in his zenana. As soon as the news was brought
+that Narayan Singh had returned, however, Bahram Khan sent word that
+he should be admitted immediately--a high honour which was not seldom
+the reward of the indispensable spy. Committing himself to the
+guidance of one of the slave-boys, Narayan Singh passed behind the
+curtain and into the anteroom, to discover Bahram Khan reclining upon
+the divan in the easiest possible undress. The pleasant murmur of the
+hubble-bubble, as he approached, prepared the visitor to find the room
+full of smoke, and his master seemed at first too much engrossed with
+his pipe to notice his entrance. Cross-legged in the corner sat the
+Eurasian Jehanara, shrouded in her veil, her glittering eyes
+reflecting the faint light which was shed by a brazier of glowing
+charcoal.
+
+“Peace, Narayan Singh!” said the Prince at last, taking the mouthpiece
+of the long leathern tube lazily from his lips. “Is all well?”
+
+“All is well, Highness. I have here a copy of the report of Barkaraf
+Sahib to the Sarkar, from the hands of his confidential clerk.”
+
+Jehanara laughed harshly. “Thou hadst but little difficulty with
+Antonio D’Costa?” she said.
+
+“What knowest thou of the swine?” asked Bahram Khan jealously.
+
+“I have not seen him for many years, Highness, but he is my cousin,
+and I was acquainted with his character as a youth, and heard of his
+doings as a man. Knowing thy desire to learn the intentions of the
+Kumpsioner Sahib, and hearing that my cousin was in his employ, it
+needed only that I should instruct the skilful Narayan Singh to
+approach him in the right way.”
+
+“And I,” said Narayan Singh, “needed but to hold before his eyes the
+copies of the bonds I had obtained from certain money-lenders, and
+threaten to show them to Barkaraf Sahib, when he fell down on his
+knees before me, and was ready to do whatever I might desire, for fear
+of the ruin that threatened him.”
+
+“It is well,” growled Bahram Khan. “But what does the report say?”
+
+Narayan Singh took out the papers which had been handed to him in his
+hiding-place, and laid them on the floor before Jehanara. She took
+them up, and leaning forward, scrutinised the contents eagerly by the
+dim light of the brazier.
+
+“In this report,” she said, with deep satisfaction, “which the
+Kumpsioner Sahib has just finished drawing up, he recommends the
+immediate withdrawal of the subsidy, and the recall of Beltring Sahib
+from Nalapur, on the ground that the treaty was merely a temporary
+arrangement, the necessity for which has passed away.” Bahram Khan
+laughed, and she went on. “The Amir Sahib is to be assured of the
+continuous friendship and good-will of the Sarkar, which with the one
+hand will take away his rupees, and with the other present him with
+the liberty to govern his people without interference or guidance.”
+
+“Truly the infidels are delivered into our hands!” cried Bahram Khan.
+“And when is the change to be announced?”
+
+“The Kumpsioner Sahib desires an order, which may be carried out by
+the political officer on the spot.”
+
+“Then the fool himself is leaving the border? Let him go. I care not
+to take his life. He has been a useful friend to me, and may be
+permitted to carry his folly elsewhere. It is Nāth Sahib that I want,
+and surely even my uncle will turn against him when he knows that the
+Sarkar has determined to break the treaty.”
+
+“Gently, Highness!” entreated Jehanara. “The Amir Sahib is ever
+faithful to his friends, and not easily turned from his allegiance.
+Such is his friendship for Nāth Sahib that the only thing that would
+make him join in the plot would be the hope of benefiting him.”
+
+“But,” put in Narayan Singh, who had been wondering uncomfortably
+whether it would be better to tell his news at once, or to wait until
+he had managed to secure a moment’s private conversation with
+Jehanara. “I heard tidings yesterday, Highness, which seem to show
+that the Kumpsioner Sahib is not the friend thou didst reckon him. I
+could have told them sooner, but I fear they will not be pleasing in
+thine ears.”
+
+“Let us hear them,” cried Bahram Khan, while Jehanara shot an angry
+glance at the spy. He ought to have known by this time that it was
+generally wiser to soften and sweeten agitating news, and not to
+administer it undiluted.
+
+“It was said among the servant-people that Barkaraf Sahib had asked
+Nāth Sahib for his sister, Highness, and that even now he has
+betrothed her to him.”
+
+There was a moment’s incredulous silence, and then Bahram Khan sprang
+up from the divan, sending the heavy cut-glass bottle of the
+water-pipe flying, and almost overturning the brazier. “And this is
+the fruit of your counsel, both of you!” he shouted. “Who was it that
+held me back when I would have fallen on the whole company of the
+English as they returned from their fool’s dinner in the desert, and
+killed them all, except Nāth Sahib’s sister? Who was it again that
+bade me suffer my servants to be taken prisoners and held captive, and
+be tried for their lives by a boy, and that told me to rejoice when I
+received them back unharmed? Thou, O woman! thou, dog of an idolater!
+Surely ye were in league with the Kumpsioner Sahib to steal the girl
+from me, and he has bribed you to blacken my face in the eyes of all
+my people.”
+
+“Highness,” said Jehanara, with dignity, “thine anger has made thee
+unjust to thy faithful servants. Fear not; I know the ways of the
+English, and this betrothal need not lead to marriage for many months.
+Nāth Sahib’s sister shall yet be thine, and the Kumpsioner Sahib may
+wait in vain for his bride.”
+
+“Wait!” cried Bahram Khan, sinking again upon his cushions, “nay, he
+shall wait for nothing but death. He shall die by inches, and before
+my eyes, because he has sought to befool me. If he escapes, the lives
+of both of you shall pay for it.”
+
+“As thou wilt, Highness. But was it not thy admiration of her beauty
+which first showed the Kumpsioner Sahib that the girl was fair? Suffer
+thy servant to consider the matter for a moment, and she will offer
+thee her counsel.”
+
+Leaving Bahram Khan to look at affairs in this new light, Jehanara
+established herself again in her corner, gazing fixedly into the hot
+coals. Both her life and that of Narayan Singh were at stake, and she
+knew it; and she had no desire to die. Six years before she had played
+a desperate game with Bahram Khan, conscious that in him she faced an
+opponent as cunning and as faithless as herself. The conditions were
+unequal, for she staked far more than he did, and he won, possibly
+because her sense of the risk she was running had robbed her of the
+perfect coolness necessary to ensure success. He had not married her,
+even by Mohammedan rites, and nothing short of full legal recognition
+could have vindicated in the eyes of her own people the course she had
+pursued. Robbed of her anticipated triumph, she made no attempt to
+escape the consequences, but set herself by every means in her power
+to obtain that ascendency over the Prince’s mind which she had failed
+to gain over his heart. Fresh failures and unspeakable mortifications
+had awaited her. The women of the household, from the beautiful little
+Ethiopian bride to whom was awarded the position Jehanara had intended
+for herself, to the humblest hill-girl who had been kidnapped to
+become at once a slave and a Muslimeh, saw to it that she ate the
+bread of bitterness; but in spite of taunts and revilings she kept the
+one end in view until her persistence was crowned with complete
+success. Bahram Khan would listen to no advice but hers, having learnt
+by experience that his confidence in her was justified. The intrigue
+by which first the Commissioner, and then the Viceroy, had been
+convinced of his wrongs, was of her devising, and had proved so
+successful as to convince her that had it not been for Dick’s
+opposition, she would already have seen Bahram Khan established as his
+uncle’s heir. It followed that her hatred for Dick, heightened by his
+cavalier treatment of herself, was at least as strong as that of the
+disappointed claimant. As she sat brooding over the charcoal at this
+moment, there was a cruel light in her eyes while she ran hastily over
+the points of the scheme which had sprung full-grown into her mind
+when Bahram Khan accused her of treachery.
+
+“Highness,” she said at last, and Bahram Khan propped himself up on
+his cushions with a muttered growl, while the trembling Narayan Singh
+appeared to take fresh interest in life, “this perfidy of the
+Kumpsioner Sahib’s provides thee with what was most needed, a means of
+involving the Amir Sahib in our plans. Nay, through this treachery,
+with the blessing of Heaven, thy servants will yet behold thee seated
+upon his throne, with the sanction of the Sarkar.”
+
+“Wonderful!” cried the Prince, with gleaming eyes. “Go on.”
+
+“First of all, then, Highness, the Kumpsioner Sahib must not leave
+Alibad before the treaty is broken--but we will consider presently by
+what means he may be induced to remain on the border. Next,
+instructions must be sent to the Vizier Ram Singh to represent thy
+quarrel to his master, the Amir Sahib, in this wise. Thou wilt say
+that the Kumpsioner Sahib, with a great show of friendliness, promised
+to get thee Nāth Sahib’s sister for a wife, but that he has befooled
+thee, and demanded the maiden for himself. Thine uncle may not
+altogether believe that Barkaraf Sahib really offered thee his help in
+the matter”--the half-caste could not restrain a touch of scorn as she
+glanced through her eyelashes at the miserable native who had brought
+himself to believe that an Englishman looked favourably on his desire
+to marry an Englishwoman. “Still, he has doubtless heard through his
+sister, thy mother, of thy love for the girl, and he will soon hear
+also that she is betrothed to the Kumpsioner Sahib, so that he cannot
+but believe in the enmity between him and thee. Next thou wilt say
+that by setting spies on this enemy of thine thou hast learnt that he
+has persuaded the Sarkar to withdraw the subsidy. This he does in
+order to gain honour for himself by annexing the Nalapur state, and
+also that he may overthrow Nāth Sahib, whom thine uncle loves, and
+who, as we know through Ram Singh, has sworn to resign his office
+rather than forsake his friend. Thus, then, thine uncle will be eager
+to champion Nāth Sahib’s cause against Barkaraf Sahib, and thou,
+forgetting thine old hatred in the new, will show him the way.
+According to the words of this paper of my cousin’s, the Sarkar’s
+change of policy will be announced at a durbar to be held by Nāth
+Sahib in the Agency at Nalapur, and the Amir Sahib will do well to see
+to it that this durbar is not held. If we devise a means for keeping
+the Kumpsioner Sahib here, he must needs hold the durbar himself, and
+while he and Nāth Sahib, and all the sahibs from Alibad, are
+entangled in the mountains on the way to the city, they must be caught
+in an ambush of the Amir Sahib’s troops. The Kumpsioner Sahib may well
+be killed in the first onset, to save all further trouble, but Nāth
+Sahib and the other friends of thine uncle need only be disarmed and
+kept prisoners, the writing of the Sarkar being taken from them. Then
+the Amir Sahib may send a peaceful message to the Sarkar that, hearing
+rumours of evil intended against him, he has seized a number of its
+officers and holds them as hostages, until he shall be assured that
+his fears are groundless. So then the Sarkar, fearing for the lives of
+its sahibs, will send some great person to reassure his Highness, and
+explain that it was the evil doings of the dead Barkaraf Sahib alone
+that caused the mischief, and Nāth Sahib will be put in his place,
+and the subsidy continued, and all be well--save, perhaps, the payment
+of a slight fine for the accidental slaying of the Kumpsioner Sahib.”
+
+“But what is the good of all this to me?” bellowed Bahram Khan. “It
+would rid me of the Kumpsioner Sahib, but no more--nay, it makes Nāth
+Sahib the head where he is now the tail.”
+
+“Seest thou not, Highness, that this is the plot as it must appear in
+the eyes of thine uncle? Now lift the veil, and behold it as it is in
+thine own mind. Who should naturally be chosen to command the force
+lying in ambush but the Sardar Abd-ul-Nabi, and is he not a close
+friend of the Vizier Ram Singh, and wholly devoted to thy cause? To
+him the Amir Sahib will give orders that he is to slay no one but
+Barkaraf Sahib, and that the lives of the rest are to be saved, even
+at the risk of his own, but from thee he will receive the command to
+slay all and spare none, not even the youngest.”
+
+“Nay, I will ride with them, and smite them myself from behind!” cried
+Bahram Khan.
+
+“That must not be, Highness. Thou wilt be far away at the time.”
+
+“Then Nāth Sahib and Barkaraf Sahib shall be saved alive and brought
+to me that I may see them die.”
+
+“The risk is too great, Highness. Hast thou forgotten the day when
+Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib was attacked in a certain nullah and all his
+escort slain, and how he fought his way out alone and rode back to his
+camp, and returning, as if upon eagles’ wings, with a fresh body of
+troops, fell upon the tribesmen when they were stripping the dead, and
+slew them every one? Not a man shall live--be content with that, for
+there is other work for thee than watching their blood flow.”
+
+“And what is that, woman?”
+
+“Thou wilt be waiting here, Highness, and as soon as a swift messenger
+brings thee word that the sahibs have been attacked, thou wilt ride
+with all speed to Alibad. Knowing that all the sahibs are away except
+the Padri and two or three others who are not warriors, and that there
+is no place of refuge for them, thou wilt hasten thither to save them
+and the Memsahibs. If they believe in thy professions of friendship,
+then all is well--they are delivered into our hands. But it is in my
+mind that they will not trust thee, and that is even better, for then
+all the evil that follows will spring from their own lack of
+confidence. The men of the regiment who are left behind will fortify
+themselves in their lines, but there is no need to attack them just
+then. The bazaar and the European houses will be fired--by the
+_badmashes_ of the place, doubtless--and in the turmoil and confusion
+all the sahibs will be killed, but all men will behold thee rushing
+hither and thither like one possessed, commanding thy soldiers with
+curses to save the white men alive.”
+
+Bahram Khan chuckled grimly, for the picture appealed to him.
+
+“And at last,” went on Jehanara, “seeing that thou canst do nothing,
+so few are thy men, thou wilt retire sorrowfully, taking with thee
+such women and loot as may come in thy way--but only for safe
+keeping.” Bahram Khan chuckled again. “The next day, when the Amir
+Sahib learns that he has indeed raised his hand against the Sarkar,
+and slain so many sahibs, he will be plunged in despair. He will find
+it impossible to keep his army in check, and they will come to Alibad
+and complete the work begun by thee, before ravaging the rest of the
+frontier. All will be the deed of thine uncle, and he it is that will
+have to answer to the Sarkar.”
+
+“True, O woman. Trust me to see that his evil deeds shall blot out
+mine. But how if Nāth Sahib’s sister should chance to be slain also?”
+
+“Her safety is thy care, Highness. Before seeking to save the sahibs,
+thou wilt have seized Nāth Sahib’s house, which is on the outskirts
+of the town, and sent off his wife and sister here, for their better
+protection, under a sufficient guard.”
+
+“Who will see that Nāth Sahib’s Mem troubles us no more,” laughed
+Bahram Khan.
+
+“Not so, Highness. The doctor lady must find safety with the
+Moti-ul-Nissa.”
+
+“Nay, is she not Nāth Sahib’s wife?” cried Bahram Khan, much injured.
+
+“There must be sanctuary for the doctor lady with thy mother,”
+repeated Jehanara firmly. “What harm can she do thee, Highness?”
+
+“She is Sinjāj Kīlin’s daughter. That is enough.”
+
+“True, Highness, and for that very reason she must live. The Begum
+must be warned to hide her in the inmost recesses of the zenana, since
+the Amir Sahib clamours for her blood, and she herself must clearly
+understand that thou art protecting her at the risk of thy life. See
+here, Highness, and think not it is any love for thy foes that moves
+me. Her testimony is the very crowning-point of our plan. When thou
+hast made thyself master in Nalapur, and goest forth to meet the
+armies of the Empress with the head of the Amir Sahib as a
+peace-offering, there will yet be voices raised against thee. But when
+it is known that thou didst save the doctor lady, the wife and
+daughter of thine own and thy father’s enemies, and place her in
+safety in thine own zenana, who shall judge thee too hardly that thou
+couldst not save the town? Thou hast done all in thy power, and the
+Memsahib will bear witness to thee. And as for sparing her--why, there
+is Nāth Sahib’s sister left for thee still.”
+
+“Aha!” laughed Bahram Khan, “and she is not of Sinjāj Kīlin’s blood.
+She will not fight like the doctor lady.”
+
+“Nay, but she is of Nāth Sahib’s blood,” said Jehanara, conscious
+once more of an inconsistent thrill of perverted pride in her father’s
+race, as she remembered what other Englishwomen had done before in
+like circumstances; “but all will be well, Highness, whatever happens.
+If she is found married to thee, she cannot, as a _pardah_ woman, be
+brought into court to testify against thee, and if she is dead by that
+time, why, she killed herself in her terror, not waiting to learn thy
+merciful intentions towards her. And women pass, but the throne lasts,
+Highness. The one is better than the other.”
+
+“Truly, thou art a veritable Shaitan!” To Bahram Khan’s mind the
+epithet conveyed a high compliment. “Set the matter in train, then.
+Here is my seal.” He took off his heavy signet and handed it to her.
+“Do thou and Narayan Singh see that all is in order, so that not one
+of my enemies may escape. But what of Barkaraf Sahib? If he leaves the
+border, I lose half my vengeance.”
+
+“It may be, Highness”--the speaker was Narayan Singh, who had remained
+silent in sheer astonishment at the daring and resourcefulness of his
+co-plotter--“that the Hasrat Ali Begum might help us in the matter. If
+her Highness were to hear that any evil threatened the doctor lady or
+her husband, she would doubtless send a messenger to warn her. Might
+she not become aware, through some indiscretion” (he looked across at
+Jehanara), “that the Kumpsioner Sahib was departing from the border to
+seek his own safety, leaving Nāth Sahib to carry out a dangerous and
+disagreeable task? Her Highness would send the Eye-of-the-Begum
+immediately to inform the doctor lady of what she had heard, and does
+there live a woman upon earth who, having received such tidings, would
+not at once fling the Kumpsioner Sahib’s cowardice in his teeth, and
+taunt him until he was forced for very shame to remain and do his
+business for himself?”
+
+“By that saying,” interrupted Jehanara, vexed at being selected to
+perpetrate an indiscretion, “thou betrayest thine ignorance, Narayan
+Singh. There is such a woman, and the doctor lady is she. She would
+tell the news to her husband, and leave him to reproach the Kumpsioner
+Sahib if he thought fit, and there would be no taunts, for the English
+are not wont to speak like the bazaar folk. But there is another woman
+who would work for us, though ignorantly, and that is the wife of the
+Padri Sahib.”
+
+“The lady of the angry tongue!” cried Bahram Khan. “But how should we
+persuade my mother to send a slave to her?”
+
+“It would not be easy, Highness, and therefore the Begum shall not be
+troubled in the matter. I will disguise myself and tell the Padri’s
+Mem that her Highness, desiring to warn the doctor lady, was too
+closely watched to allow of her sending her usual messenger. I will
+say also that I succeeded in slipping away from Dera Gul, and in
+crossing the desert with the message, but that I dared not approach
+Nāth Sahib’s house, fearing there might be spies among his servants.
+Thus, then, I will tell the news, and before very long the Padri’s Mem
+will tell it also--in the ears of the Kumpsioner Sahib.”
+
+“It is well thought of,” said Bahram Khan approvingly.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII.
+ HONOUR AND DUTY.
+
+Three or four days later, Mrs Hardy marched up the steps of the
+Norths’ bungalow with a purposeful mien, and requested an interview
+with the Commissioner. Mr Burgrave had finished his morning’s work
+early, and his couch had been placed in the drawing-room verandah. A
+table was close beside him, with a volume of Browning lying upon it,
+and there was a chair close at hand ready for Mabel, but she was out
+riding with Fitz, to whom Dick, in utter oblivion of the probable
+awkwardness of the situation, had hastily turned her over on finding
+that he himself was needed elsewhere. The Commissioner groaned
+impatiently when Mrs Hardy was announced. A talk with her was not the
+pleasure he had in view when he hurried through his work, but he
+consoled himself with the thought that she would not stay long. No
+doubt the Padri was anxious to get a new harmonium, or to enlarge the
+church, and they wanted him to head the subscription-list.
+
+“Excuse my getting up,” he said, as he shook hands with her. “My
+sapient boy has put my crutch just out of reach.”
+
+If the words were intended to convey a hint, Mrs Hardy did not choose
+to take it, for she sat down deliberately between the crutch and its
+owner. Then, without any attempt at leading up to the subject, she
+said, with great distinctness--
+
+“I have come to talk to you about your policy, Mr Burgrave.”
+
+The Commissioner stared at her in undisguised astonishment. “Pardon
+me; but that is a subject I do not discuss with--with outsiders,” he
+said.
+
+“I only want to lay a few facts before you,” pursued Mrs Hardy
+unmoved.
+
+“No, no; excuse me. I cannot consent to discuss affairs of state with
+a lady.”
+
+“I mean you to listen to what I have to say, Mr Burgrave, and I shall
+stay here until you do.”
+
+“I can’t run away,” said Mr Burgrave, with the best smile he could
+muster, and a side glance at the crutch; “and when a lady is kind
+enough to come and talk to me, it would be rude to stop my ears.
+Perhaps you will be so good as to let me know your views at once,
+then, that your valuable time may not be wasted?”
+
+“I should like to ask you, first of all, whether you are aware that
+your confidential report to the Government on the frontier question is
+common property at Dera Gul? Of course, if you choose to tell your
+secrets to Bahram Khan and leave Major North in ignorance of them, I
+have nothing more to say.”
+
+To her great joy, Mrs Hardy perceived that she had made an impression.
+The Commissioner looked startled and disturbed. “Impossible!” he said.
+“The report has been seen by no one but my secretary, and the clerks
+who copied portions of it.”
+
+“It is for you to find out which is to blame. I can only tell you what
+is going on, just as it has been told to me. I was in my garden about
+an hour ago, when a woman peeped out from behind the bushes--a
+miserable, footsore creature. She told me she was a slave of the
+Hasrat Ali Begum’s--Bahram Khan’s mother--who had sent her to warn the
+Norths that you intend to withdraw the Nalapur subsidy, and leave
+Major North to face the result. I have no idea how Bahram Khan
+obtained the information, but he means to take advantage of it. Though
+she could not tell me what his plan is exactly, she seemed quite sure
+that it would end in a general rising, involving almost certain death
+to the Europeans in places like this. It was clear that she regarded
+you as a coward, running away from the consequences of your own acts,
+and deliberately exposing others to danger. That is not my opinion, I
+may say”--Mrs Hardy had seen the Commissioner wince--“but I thought
+you could not have looked at things in this light, and as soon as the
+poor creature was gone I came to you at once.”
+
+“Confiding in Mrs North by the way, no doubt?”
+
+“No, I came straight to you. Now let me ask you, have you realised
+what will be the result of your action? You know that Major North will
+resign rather than countenance what we all feel would be a gross
+breach of faith, and yet you place him in a position in which he must
+do one thing or the other. I don’t know what Miss North will think
+about it, but I know what I----”
+
+“We will leave Miss North’s name out of the conversation, if you
+please.”
+
+“Excuse me; we can’t. How do you expect her to feel towards you when
+you have set yourself deliberately to ruin her brother? You think
+worse of her than I do if you believe she will marry you after such a
+piece of cruel, unprovoked oppression.”
+
+“Mrs Hardy, a lady is privileged----”
+
+“Yes, I have no doubt you think I am taking an outrageous liberty, but
+I can’t and won’t be silent. All your interest in the frontier centres
+in a pretty, flighty girl who has no business to be here at all, and
+simply for the sake of showing your power you come and ride roughshod
+over us, whose lives are bound up in it. I know you’re a proud man, Mr
+Burgrave, and I don’t ask you to reverse your policy publicly, which
+you would naturally find a hard thing to do. But if this dreadful
+business has gone too far to be stopped, make Major North take a
+month’s leave, and carry it through yourself. Then the people will see
+that he is not responsible for the breach of faith, and he will come
+back and be your right hand when you most need him. What good could a
+stranger do when the tribes are out? Absolute ignorance of the country
+is not always the qualification it was in your case, you know. I know
+the frontier better than any other place in the world--we used to
+itinerate in the district for years before we were allowed to settle
+down--and I am _certain_ there’s trouble coming. I can see it in the
+looks of the people, and hear it in the way they talk. And here on the
+spot are the Norths, the very people to deal with a crisis, and you
+have done your best to undermine their influence already. Can’t you
+stop there? What have they done that you should persecute them like
+this?”
+
+“I assure you,” said Mr Burgrave slowly, “that I have the highest
+possible respect for both Major and Mrs North personally, but
+personality is not policy.”
+
+“Up here it very often is. But come, Mr Burgrave, if you don’t
+absolutely hate the Norths, why not do as I suggest?”
+
+“I promise you that every suggestion you have made shall receive the
+fullest consideration,” replied the Commissioner, in his best
+Secretarial manner. “I may rely upon your silence as to the matter?”
+
+Mrs Hardy thought she detected a relenting in his tone. “Of course you
+may, if you are really going to do something. I am glad to find you
+open to conviction, if only for Miss North’s sake and your own. You
+will have a very pretty wife, and I trust a happy one. Ah, there she
+is!” as the sound of horses’ feet was heard, and Mabel, cantering
+past, waved her whip gaily to the watchers--“and riding with Mr
+Anstruther!”
+
+“And is there any reason why she should not ride with Mr Anstruther?”
+
+“His peace of mind, that’s all. But perhaps you think he deserves no
+mercy? I may tell you I was glad to hear of your engagement, since it
+saved that fine young fellow for a more suitable woman.”
+
+“A more fortunate woman, doubtless,” corrected Mr Burgrave, with
+majestic forbearance. “A better there cannot be.”
+
+
+
+Mabel was in the highest spirits as she mounted the steps after Fitz
+had ridden away. When he had appeared with the message that Dick was
+detained at the office, and had sent him to ride with her, her first
+impulse was to refuse to go, but other counsels prevailed. Fitz had
+offered no congratulations on her engagement, and the omission rankled
+in her mind. She was nourishing a reckless determination to provoke a
+scene by asking him what he meant by it, but her courage oozed away
+very soon after starting. She would still have given much to know what
+he thought of the whole situation, but she durst not venture upon an
+inquiry. Fitz, on his part, made no allusion to the important event
+which had occurred since their last ride, speaking of the Commissioner
+as coolly as if she had no particular interest in him. Before they had
+been out long, she was content to accept his ruling, and conscious of
+a kind of horror in looking back upon the resolution with which she
+had started. She was on good terms with herself once more, and to such
+an extent did the gloom cast by Mr Burgrave’s impressive personality
+seem to be lightened at this distance, that she returned home feeling
+positively friendly towards him. It was unfortunate that Mrs Hardy’s
+disapproving glance, when she encountered her on the steps, should
+clash with this new mood of cheerfulness, and that another shock
+should be awaiting her when she looked into the drawing-room verandah
+on her way to take off her habit.
+
+“Little girl,” said her lover, holding out his hand to draw her nearer
+him, “would you mind very much if I said I had rather you didn’t take
+these solitary rides with young Anstruther?”
+
+The angry crimson leaped up into Mabel’s forehead.
+
+“You have no right whatever to make such insinuations!” she cried
+hotly.
+
+“Now, dearest, you mistake me. I make no insinuations--I should not
+dream of such a thing. All I say is--doesn’t it seem more suitable to
+you, yourself, that until I am able to ride with you again you should
+not go out except with your brother? You will do me the justice to
+believe that I am not jealous--I would not insult you by such a
+feeling--but other people will talk. Yes, I am jealous--for my little
+girl, not of her. No one must have the chance even of passing a remark
+upon her.”
+
+Mabel stood playing with her whip, her face flushed and her lips
+pressed closely together. “He would like to make life a prison for me,
+with himself as jailer!” she thought, as she bent the lash to meet the
+handle, making no attempt to listen to Mr Burgrave, who went on to
+speak of the high position his wife would occupy, of the extreme
+circumspection necessary in such a station, and of the unfortunate
+love of scandal characterising the higher circles of Indian female
+officialdom. He did not actually say that the future Mrs Burgrave must
+be above suspicion, but this was the general idea underlying his
+remarks.
+
+“Why, you have broken your whip!” The words reached her ears at last.
+“Never mind, you shall have the best in Bombay as soon as it can come
+up here. You see what I mean, little girl, don’t you?”
+
+“Oh yes,” said Mabel drearily. “You forbid me ever to ride with any
+one but you, or to speak to a man under seventy.”
+
+“Mabel!” he cried, deeply hurt, “can you really misjudge me so
+cruelly?”
+
+“It’s not that,” she said, kneeling down beside him with a sudden
+burst of frankness. “I know how fond you are of me, and I can’t tell
+you how grateful and ashamed it makes me. But you don’t understand
+things. You want to treat me like a baby, and I have been grown-up a
+long, long time. Think what I have gone through since I came here,
+even.”
+
+“I know, I know!” he said hoarsely. “Don’t speak of it, my dearest!
+The thought of that evening in the nullah comes upon me sometimes at
+night, and turns me into an abject coward. I mean to take you away
+where you will be safe, and have no anxieties.”
+
+“Then have you never any anxieties? Because they will be mine.”
+
+“No,” he said, with something of sternness, “my anxieties shall never
+touch my wife. I want to shake off my worries when I leave the office,
+and come home to find you in a perfect house, with everything round
+you perfectly in keeping, the very embodiment of rest and peace,
+sitting there in a perfect gown, long and soft and flowing, for me to
+feast my eyes upon.”
+
+He lingered lovingly over the contemplation of this ideal picture, to
+the details of which Mabel listened with a cold shudder. “My dear
+Eustace,” she said brusquely, to hide her dismay, “please tell me how
+you think the house and the servants are to be kept perfect, if I do
+nothing but trail round and strike attitudes in a tea-gown?” She
+caught his wounded look, and went on hastily, “And what did you mean
+by that invidious glance you cast at my habit? I won’t have my things
+sniffed at.”
+
+“It’s so horribly plain,” pleaded the culprit.
+
+“And why not?” demanded Mabel, touched in her tenderest point. “I’m
+sure it’s most workmanlike.”
+
+“That’s just it. Workmanlike--detestable! Why should a woman want to
+wear workmanlike clothes? All her things ought to be like that gown
+you wore at the Gymkhana, looking as if a touch would spoil them.”
+
+“I shall remind you of this in future, you absurd man!” laughed Mabel,
+regaining her cheerfulness as she thought she saw a way of
+establishing her point; “but please remember, once for all, that I
+shall choose my clothes myself--and they will be suitable for various
+occasions, for business as well as pleasure. Your part will only be to
+admire, and to pay.” There was a seriousness in her tone which belied
+the jesting words. Surely he would understand, he must understand,
+that there was a principle at stake.
+
+“And that part will be punctually performed,” said Mr Burgrave
+indulgently, gazing in admiration into her animated face. “I know that
+you will remember my foolish prejudices, and gratify them to the
+utmost extent of my desires, if not of my purse. That is all I ask of
+you--to be always beautiful.”
+
+In her bitter disappointment Mabel could have burst into tears.
+
+“Oh, you won’t understand! you won’t understand!” she cried. “I don’t
+want piles of clothes; I don’t want everything softened and shaded
+down for me. I want to be a helpmate to my husband, as Georgia is to
+Dick.”
+
+“Dear child, I am sorry you have returned to this subject,” said Mr
+Burgrave, taken aback. “I thought we had threshed it out fully long
+ago.”
+
+“Ah, but we can speak more freely now!” she cried. “Don’t you see that
+I should hate to be stuck up on a pedestal for you to look at, or to
+be a kind of pet, that you might amuse yourself smilingly with my
+foolish little interests out of office hours? I want you to tell me
+things, and let us talk them over together, as Dick and Georgia do.”
+
+“I know they do,” said Mr Burgrave, trying to smile. “The walls here
+are so thin that I hear them at it every evening. A prolonged growl is
+your brother soliloquising, and a brief interlude of higher tones is
+Mrs North giving her opinion of affairs. It is a little embarrassing
+for me, knowing as I do that my doings are almost certainly the
+subject of the conversation.”
+
+“Well, and if they are?” cried Mabel. “It is only because you and Dick
+don’t understand one another that he and Georgia criticise you. Now
+think about this very matter of the frontier. If you would only talk
+to me, and tell me what you thought was the proper thing to be done, I
+could talk to them, and you might find out that your views were not so
+much opposed after all. Do try, please; oh, do! I would give anything
+to bring you to an agreement.”
+
+Mr Burgrave’s brow was clouded as he looked into her eager eyes.
+
+“Am I to understand,” he said, with dreadful distinctness, “that your
+brother and Mrs North are trying to make use of you to extract
+information from me? No, I will not suspect your brother. No man would
+stoop to employ such an expedient--so degrading to my future wife, so
+affronting to myself. It is Mrs North’s doing.”
+
+Mabel, who had listened in horrified silence, sprang to her feet at
+this point as if stung. “I think it will be as well for me to return
+you this,” she said, laying upon the table the ring of “finest Europe
+make,” which the Commissioner had been fain to purchase from the chief
+jeweller in the bazaar as a makeshift until the diamond hoop for which
+he had sent to Bombay could arrive. “You have grossly insulted both
+Georgia and me, and--and I never wish to speak to you again.”
+
+She meant to sweep impressively from the room, but the angry tears
+that filled her eyes made her blunder against the table, and Mr
+Burgrave, raising himself with a wild effort, caught her hand. “Mabel,
+come here,” he said, and furious with herself for yielding, she
+obeyed. “Give me that ring, please.” He restored it solemnly to its
+place on her finger. “Now we are on speaking terms again. Dear little
+girl, forgive me. I was wrong, unpardonably wrong, but I never thought
+your generous little heart would lead you so far in opposing my
+expressed wish. I admire the impulse, my darling, but when you come to
+know me better you will understand how unlikely it is that I should
+yield to it. Come, dear, look sunny again, or must I make a heroic
+attempt to go down on my knees with one leg in splints?”
+
+“Oh, if you would only understand!” sighed Mabel. She was kneeling
+beside him again, occupying quite undeservedly, as she felt, the
+position of suppliant. “If only I could make you see----”
+
+“See what?” he asked, taking her face in his hands and kissing it. “I
+see that my little girl thinks me an old brute. Won’t she believe me
+if I assure her on my honour that I am trying to do the best I can for
+her brother, and that I hope I have found a way of putting things
+right?”
+
+“Have you, really?” Her bright smile was a sufficient reward. “Oh,
+Eustace, if it’s all settled happily, I shall love you for ever!”
+
+The assurance did not seem to promise much that was new when the
+relative position of those concerned was considered, but the
+unsolicited kiss bestowed upon him was very grateful to Mr Burgrave,
+and he smiled kindly as he released Mabel and bade her run away and
+change her habit. She left the room gaily enough, but once outside, a
+sudden wave of recollection swept over her, and she wrung her hands
+wildly.
+
+“I was free--_free_!” she cried to herself. “Just for a moment I was
+free, and I let him fetch me back. Oh, what can I do? I believe I
+could be quite fond of him if he would let me, but he won’t. And if he
+wasn’t so good I should delight to break it off in the most insulting
+way possible, but his virtues are the worst thing about him. I hate
+them! Is this sort of thing to go on for a whole lifetime--beating
+against a stone wall and bruising my hands, and then being kissed and
+given a sweet, and told not to cry? Mabel Louisa North, you are a
+silly fool, and you deserve just what you have got. I hate and despise
+you, and with my latest breath I shall say, Serve you right!”
+
+
+
+“Oh, Dick, has it come?” Georgia sprang up to meet her husband, as he
+entered the room with a gloomy face.
+
+“No, but so far as I can see, it’s close at hand. I can’t quite make
+things out, but Burgrave seems to have altered his plans
+astonishingly. Instead of travelling down to the coast at once, he is
+going to stay here another week, and hold a durbar at Nalapur. I have
+to send word to Beltring at once to get the big _shamiana_ put up in
+the Agency grounds, and to see that all the Sardars have notice. What
+does it mean?”
+
+“He’s going to see the thing through on his own account,” said
+Georgia, with conviction. “But it will make no difference to us, will
+it, Dick?”
+
+“Rather not! The breach of faith is the same, whether I announce it at
+first, or merely come in afterwards to carry it out. I wish Burgrave
+hadn’t such a mania for mysteries. Ismail Bakhsh tells me he has been
+sending off official telegrams at a tremendous rate all day, and yet
+when I ventured to hint that some idea of the proposed proceedings at
+the durbar would be interesting, he turned rusty at once, and said he
+had not received his instructions. This system of government by
+thunderbolt doesn’t suit me. It’s enough to make a man chuck things up
+now, without waiting for the final blow.”
+
+“Oh, but you will stick on as long as you can? It’s some sort of
+security for peace.”
+
+“A wretchedly shaky one, then,” said Dick, with an angry laugh.
+“Here’s the Amir sending his mullah Aziz-ud-Din to say that he learns
+on incontestable authority that the subsidy is to be withdrawn, and
+imploring me to say whether I have any hand in it. The poor old
+fellow’s faith in me is quite touching, but what could I say except
+that I knew nothing about it, and repeat the assurance I gave him
+before?”
+
+“But what could Ashraf Ali mean by incontestable authority?”
+
+“How can I tell? Some spy, I suppose. By the way, though, it didn’t
+strike me. That must be what the Commissioner meant!”
+
+“Why, what did he say?”
+
+“He doesn’t intend to stay on in this house. Now that he can be got
+into a cart, he thinks it better to return to his hired bungalow. I
+imagine I looked a bit waxy, for he graciously explained that he had
+reason to believe we have spies among the servants here.”
+
+“Dick! you don’t mean to say that he accused you----?”
+
+“No, he was so good as to assure me that he had the best possible
+means of knowing I had nothing to do with it. But when I reminded him
+that all the servants, except those Mab brought with her from Bombay,
+have been with us for years, he intimated that he made no accusations,
+but official matters had got out, and he didn’t mean to allow that
+sort of thing to go on. No doubt it was that sweetseller fellow, as we
+thought.”
+
+“Well, I think that to go is the best thing the Commissioner can do.
+It will give Mab a little peace.”
+
+“Yes, I shouldn’t say she looked exactly festive.”
+
+“How could she? She feels that she has cut herself off from us, for of
+course we can’t discuss things before her as we used to do, and I
+don’t think she finds that he makes up for it. I have great hopes.”
+
+“Now, no coming between them!” said Dick warningly, and Georgia
+laughed.
+
+“I trust it won’t be necessary,” she said.
+
+A week later she happened to be again sitting alone in the
+drawing-room, busy with the fine white work on which she expended so
+many hours and such loving care at this time, when Dick came in. To
+her astonishment, he was in uniform, and laid his sword upon the table
+by the door as he entered.
+
+“Why, Dick, you are not going to Nalapur with the Commissioner after
+all?” she cried.
+
+“Burgrave can’t go, and I have to hold the durbar instead.”
+
+“But how--what----?”
+
+“It seems that he had a fearful blow-up with Tighe this morning, after
+taking it for granted all along that he would be allowed to leave off
+his splints and go. Tighe absolutely howled at the idea, told him that
+in moving from this house to his own he had jarred the knee so badly
+as to throw himself back for a week, and that the splints must stay on
+for some time yet. Of course he can’t ride in them, and to take him
+through the mountains in a doolie would be madness.”
+
+“I wondered at his being allowed to ride so soon,” said Georgia, “but
+I thought Dr Tighe must have found him better than we expected. Of
+course I haven’t seen the knee for some time lately. But did he tell
+you what the object of the durbar was?”
+
+“He did. It is just what we thought it would be, Georgie.”
+
+“Nonsense!” cried Georgia sharply. “As if you would go to Nalapur in
+that case! Are you joking, Dick?”
+
+His set face brought conviction slowly to her mind.
+
+“You are not joking, and yet you came home, and got ready, just as if
+you meant to hold the durbar, and never told me!” she cried.
+
+“I do mean to hold the durbar,” said Dick.
+
+She sat stunned, and he went on: “I thought I wouldn’t tell you till
+the last moment, because I knew how you would feel about it, and I
+didn’t want to worry you more than could be helped.”
+
+“To worry me!” she repeated. “And yet you come here and try to tease
+me with this absurd, impossible story? You are not going.”
+
+Dick looked her straight in the face. “But I am,” he said.
+
+“But you said you would resign first.”
+
+“I must resign afterwards, that’s all. There are some things a man
+can’t do, Georgie, and one is to desert in the face of the enemy.”
+
+“But it’s wrong--dishonourable!”
+
+“It’s got to be done, and Burgrave has managed to engineer matters so
+that I have to do it. I talked about resigning, and he said very
+huffily that he wasn’t the person to receive my resignation, which is
+quite true. He anticipates danger, I can see, for he tells me he has
+had information that Bahram Khan has some sort of plot on hand, and do
+you expect me to hang back after that?”
+
+“I never thought you would care what people said. If it’s right to
+resign, do it, and let them say what they like.”
+
+“If I wasn’t a soldier I would, but I have no choice.”
+
+“No choice between right and wrong?”
+
+“Not as a soldier. It isn’t my business to criticise my orders, but to
+execute them. Oh, I know all you are thinking. I see it perfectly
+well, and from your point of view you are absolutely in the right, and
+as an individual I agree with you, but I am not my own master.”
+
+“And your personal honour?”
+
+“I’m afraid it has got to look after itself. Don’t think me a brute,
+Georgie. I want to be on your side, but I can’t.”
+
+“Then I suppose it’s no use my saying anything more?”
+
+“I really think it would be better not. You see, it would only make us
+both awfully uncomfortable, and do no good.”
+
+“Oh, don’t!” burst from Georgia. “I can’t bear to hear you talk like
+that. Remember your promise to Ashraf Ali. The poor old man has relied
+on that, and pledged himself to all the Sardars that the Government
+doesn’t intend to forsake them. The whole honour of England is at
+stake. Dick, these people have learnt from you and my father to
+believe the word of an Englishman, and are you going to teach them to
+distrust it now?”
+
+“When you have quite finished----” began Dick.
+
+“I can’t! I can’t! Oh, Dick, our own people, who know us and trust us!
+Have you the heart to forsake them? Dick, won’t you listen to me? I
+have never urged you to do anything against your will before, but when
+it is a matter of right and conscience--! I know you believe you’re
+right now, but how will you feel about it afterwards? Think of our
+friends betrayed, our name disgraced, through you!”
+
+“Hang it, Georgie!” cried Dick, losing his temper, “you make a man
+feel such a cur. I tell you I have got to go.”
+
+“I wish I had died when baby died at Iskandarbagh, rather than lived
+to hear you say that.”
+
+Dick turned away without answering, and took up his sword from the
+table where he had laid it down. It was always Georgia’s privilege to
+buckle the sword-belt for him, and she rose mechanically, rousing
+herself with an effort from her stupor of dismay. He took the strap
+roughly out of her hands.
+
+“No,” he said, “you’d better have nothing to do with it. The blame is
+all mine at present, and you can keep your own conscience clear.”
+
+She sank upon a chair again and watched him miserably as he buckled on
+the sword and went out. On the threshold he looked back, softening a
+little.
+
+“Graham has changed his mind, and is not coming to the durbar. If
+there should be any attempt at a rising, you are to take refuge in the
+old fort. Tighe will come and sleep in the house these two nights if
+you are nervous.”
+
+“I’m not nervous,” said Georgia indignantly.
+
+“Oh, very well. After all, we shall be between you and Nalapur.”
+
+He crossed the hall to the front door, Georgia’s strained nerves
+quivering afresh as his spurs clinked at each step. Suddenly she
+realised that he was gone, and without bidding her farewell.
+
+“Dick!” she cried faintly, “you are not going--like this?”
+
+There was no answer, and she moved slowly to the window, supporting
+herself by the furniture. He was already mounted, and was giving his
+final directions to Ismail Bakhsh. The sight gave Georgia fresh
+strength, and stepping out on the verandah, she ran round the corner
+of the house. There was one place where he always turned and looked
+back as he rode out. He could not pass it unheeded even now, that
+spot, close to the gate of the compound, where she had so often waited
+for his return. As she stood grasping the verandah rail with both
+hands, the consciousness that for the first time in their married life
+he was leaving her in anger swept over her like a flood.
+
+“Oh, it will kill me!” she moaned, seizing one of the pillars to
+support herself, but almost immediately another thought flashed into
+her mind. “No, he is not angry--my dear old Dick! he is only grieved.
+He durst not be kind to me, lest I should persuade him any more, and
+he should have to give way. God keep you, my darling!”
+
+In the rush of happy tears that filled her eyes, the landscape was
+blotted out, and when she could see distinctly again, Dick had passed
+the gate. She could just distinguish the top of his helmet above the
+wall as he rode. He had gone by while she was not looking. Would it
+have been any comfort to her to know that he had looked back, and not
+seeing her, had ridden on faster?
+
+“I had to behave like a brute, or I should have given in--and she
+didn’t see it,” he said to himself remorsefully. “Of course she was
+right, bless her! She always is, but I couldn’t do anything else.”
+
+Her pale reproachful face haunted him, and had there been time he
+would have turned back, but he was obliged to hurry on. As he entered
+the town, he came upon Dr Tighe.
+
+“Doctor,” he said, laying a hand on the little man’s shoulder, “look
+after my wife while I’m away. She’s awfully cut up at my going like
+this.”
+
+ [image: images/img_148.jpg
+ caption: “LOOK AFTER MY WIFE WHILE I’M AWAY”]
+
+“All right!” said the doctor cheerfully; “and don’t you be frightened
+about her. Mrs North is a sensible woman, and knows better than to go
+and make herself ill with fretting.”
+
+
+
+“The Memsahib parted from the sahib without kissing him!” said one of
+the servants wonderingly to the rest.
+
+“What foolish talk is this?” asked Mabel’s bearer scornfully. “My last
+Memsahib never kissed the Sahib unless he had gained her favour by a
+gift of jewels.”
+
+The tone implied that the subject might be dismissed as beneath
+contempt, but the man’s actions did not altogether tally with it, for
+after loftily waving aside the assurance of the first speaker that
+this Sahib and Memsahib were not as others, he retired precipitately
+to his own quarters. Here a lanky youth, who was slumbering peacefully
+in the midst of a miscellaneous collection of goods, some of them
+Mabel’s, and others the bearer’s own, was suddenly roused by a kick.
+
+“Hasten to Dera Gul with a message of good omen!” said the bearer,
+impelling his messenger firmly in the desired direction. “Nāth Sahib
+and the doctor lady have quarrelled, and until they meet again he is
+without the protection of her magic.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+ ONE NIGHT.
+
+“Awake, Miss Sahib, awake!”
+
+“Miss North! Miss North!”
+
+Mabel sat up in bed. Her window was being shaken violently, and
+outside on the verandah were those two persistent voices.
+
+“See what it is, Tara,” she called to her ayah, but the woman was
+crouching in a corner, her teeth chattering with terror. Seeing that
+she was too frightened to move, Mabel threw on a dressing-gown and
+went to the window. Outside stood Fitz Anstruther, his face pale in
+the moonlight, and Ismail Bakhsh, who was armed with his old
+regimental carbine and tulwar. Thus accoutred, he was wont to mount
+guard over the house and its inmates when Dick was absent, patrolling
+the verandahs at intervals; but he had never hitherto found it
+necessary to alarm his charges at midnight.
+
+“What is it?” asked Mabel, opening the window.
+
+“You must get dressed at once, and bring anything that you
+particularly value,” said Fitz hurriedly. “We were attacked on the way
+to Nalapur, and there was no durbar. I’m come instead of the Major to
+fetch you to the old fort, for Bahram Khan and his cut-throats may be
+here at any moment. Will you speak to Mrs North, please? I was afraid
+of startling her if I knocked at her window or came into the house.
+Winlock is outside with twenty sowars, and he and I will see after the
+papers in the Major’s study.”
+
+Mabel dropped the blind and went towards Georgia’s room, twisting up
+her hair mechanically as she did so. Rahah was already on the alert,
+and met her at the door with gleaming eyes.
+
+“I know, Miss Sahib. The evil is at hand at last. Awake, O my lady!”
+She laid a hand gently on Georgia’s forehead. “The time has come to
+take refuge in the fort. The Sahib bade me be prepared.”
+
+“Dick has sent Mr Anstruther to fetch us, Georgie,” said Mabel,
+unconsciously altering Fitz’s words, as Georgia, half awake, looked
+sleepily from her to Rahah. “I think he wants us to be quick.”
+
+“Of course,” said Georgia, rousing herself. “Now, Rahah, you will be
+happy at last. We’ll come and help you, Mab, before Tara’s ready. Oh,
+but the papers!--I must see that they are safe.”
+
+“Mr Anstruther is looking after them,” said Mabel.
+
+“I wonder whether Dick thought of giving him the key of the safe? Very
+likely he forgot it in his hurry. He had better have my duplicate. Oh,
+thanks, Mab! There’s a tin despatch-box standing by the safe which
+will hold all the most important papers.”
+
+With the key in her hand, Mabel hurried down the passage, her slippers
+making no sound on the matting. There was a light in Dick’s den, and
+Fitz and Captain Winlock were shovelling armfuls of papers and various
+small articles into a huge camel-trunk which stood open in the middle
+of the floor. As Mabel reached the door, Winlock held out something to
+Fitz. “Not much good taking this, at any rate,” he said, and a cold
+hand seemed to grip Mabel’s heart as she saw that it was Dick’s
+tobacco-pouch, which Georgia, with what his sister considered a
+reprehensible toleration of her husband’s pleasant vices, had worked
+for him.
+
+“No, put it in,” said Fitz gruffly. “It may comfort her to have it.”
+
+A slight sound at the door, half gasp, half groan, made both men jump,
+and looking round they saw Mabel, her eyes wide with terror.
+
+“Mr Anstruther, what has happened to Dick?”
+
+The words were barely audible. Fitz stood guiltily silent.
+
+“Tell me,” she said.
+
+“He was wounded,” growled Winlock.
+
+“It’s worse than that, I know. Is he taken prisoner?”
+
+“No,” was the unwilling reply.
+
+“Then he’s killed! Oh!----” but before Mabel could utter another word,
+Fitz’s hand was upon her mouth.
+
+“Miss North, you mustn’t scream. For Heaven’s sake, think of his wife!
+Remember what those two are--have been--to one another, and
+remember--everything. Let us get her safe to the fort, and let Mrs
+Hardy break it to her gently. A sudden shock like this might kill
+her.”
+
+Mabel freed herself from the restraining hand, and stood shivering as
+if with cold. “Oh, Dick, Dick!” she wailed pitifully, in a tone that
+went to the men’s hearts, and then she crept back in silence along the
+passage. Once in her own room, she dropped helplessly into a chair and
+sat rigid, staring straight before her. Dick dead! Georgia a widow!
+that perfect comradeship at an end for ever!--and Georgia did not know
+it. Mabel wrung her hands feebly. It was the only movement she had
+strength to make. All power of thought and action seemed to have
+forsaken her. Dick was dead and Georgia was left.
+
+“My beloved Mab!” Georgia came hurrying in, equipped for driving. “I
+said I should be ready first, but I didn’t expect to find you quite so
+far behind. I believe Rahah keeps half my things packed, all ready for
+a night alarm of this kind, but of course your ayah is not accustomed
+to these little excitements. Are you quite overwhelmed by the amount
+that has to be done?”
+
+“Yes; I don’t know what to pack first,” said Mabel, with a forced
+laugh, keeping her face turned away.
+
+“Well, Rahah and I will see to that while you dress. We may be some
+days in the fort, and you don’t want to go about in an amber
+dressing-gown the whole time. We’ll begin with your jewel-case. Where
+is it?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know! What’s the good of taking that sort of thing?”
+
+“It might be invaluable--to buy food, or bribe the enemy, or ransom a
+prisoner--or anything. Where _is_ it, Mab? I thought you kept it in
+here?”
+
+“Yes, I do.” Mabel looked up from the shoe she was tying, as Georgia
+ransacked a drawer in vain. “But no doubt Tara has taken it out to the
+cart already. She has always been instructed to save it first of all
+if the house was on fire.”
+
+Mabel spoke wearily. The awful irony of Georgia’s fussing over a box
+of trinkets while Dick lay dead almost destroyed her self-control. How
+was it that she did not guess the truth without being told?
+
+“But why hasn’t she come back to help you to dress? I hope it’s all
+right, Mab, but I doubt if you’ll see that jewel-case again. She has
+had time to slip away with it and hide somewhere. Here, Rahah, put all
+these things in the box. It’s well to take plenty of clothes, Mab, for
+we are not likely to be able to get much washing done.”
+
+“Don’t!” burst from Mabel.
+
+“Why not?” asked Georgia, in astonishment.
+
+“Why, it sounds as if you thought we were going to spend the rest of
+our lives in the fort,” said Mabel lamely.
+
+“I don’t see why. Surely you would like to save as many of your things
+as possible, whether we stay there long or not?”
+
+“Oh yes, of course.” Mabel turned away to fasten her dress at the
+glass, conscious that in Georgia’s eyes she must be playing a sorry
+part. Georgia thought her dazed with fright, whereas her mind was full
+of that dreadful revelation which must be made sooner or later.
+
+“Are you nearly ready, Mrs North?” asked Fitz’s voice in the passage.
+
+“Quite,” replied Georgia, stuffing Mabel’s dressing-gown ruthlessly
+into a full trunk. “Tell the servants to come and fetch the boxes,
+please.”
+
+“Well, I’m afraid the servants have stampeded to a certain extent.
+Ismail Bakhsh and the rest of the _chaprasis_ and one or two others
+are left, and that’s all, but of course they’ll make themselves
+useful.”
+
+“You see, Mab!” said Georgia, and Mabel understood that she need not
+expect to see her jewel-case again. They followed Fitz out into the
+verandah, in front of which were ranged all the vehicles belonging to
+the establishment, drawn by everything that could be found even
+remotely resembling a horse.
+
+“I told Ismail Bakhsh to get them out,” said Fitz. “There are the
+wives and children to bring, and I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
+
+“Of course not,” said Georgia. “Wait a moment, please; I have
+forgotten something,” and she ran back into the drawing-room. Mabel
+knew what it was she had suddenly remembered.
+
+“I hope she won’t be long,” said Fitz anxiously. “We’ve been here a
+quarter of an hour already.”
+
+Only a quarter of an hour! To Mabel it seemed hours since she had been
+awakened by those voices on the verandah. She looked out beyond the
+line of troopers sitting motionless on their horses, and noticed,
+without perceiving the significance of the fact, that there were two
+or three of their number acting as scouts farther off in the
+moonlight.
+
+“I daren’t lose any more time,” Fitz went on, fidgeting up and down
+the steps. “I can’t think how it is they have left us so long.”
+
+Ismail Bakhsh, stowing Mabel’s dressing-bag under the seat of the
+dog-cart, looked round. “Sahib, _he_ rides to-night. They will not
+cross the border until he has passed.”
+
+“Then whoever or whatever _he_ may be, he has probably saved all our
+lives,” said Fitz, as Georgia came out of the house. While he was
+helping her into the dog-cart, Mabel caught once more the sound of the
+tramp of the galloping horse, which the old trooper’s quick ear had
+perceived some minutes before. The sowars straightened themselves
+suddenly in their saddles, and the horses pricked their ears in the
+direction of the noise.
+
+“Old boy seems somewhat agitated to-night,” muttered Winlock to Fitz,
+as the invisible rider pulled up abruptly, then galloped on again.
+
+“There’s enough to make him so,” returned Fitz, who was helping to
+hoist the last terrified native woman, with her burden of two children
+and several brass pots, into the last cart. “All right now?” he
+demanded, looking down the row of vehicles. “We had better be off,
+then.”
+
+Was it fancy, or did Mabel see the sparks struck from the stone on
+which the unseen horse stumbled as the sound came nearer? She could
+have screamed for sheer terror; but Rahah, who was her companion on
+the back seat of the dog-cart, laughed aloud as she wrapped the end of
+her _chadar_ round the great white Persian cat she held in her arms.
+
+“What is there to fear, Miss Sahib? No man has ever stood against
+Sinjāj Kīlin, and he is close at hand. The rule of the Sarkar will
+continue.”
+
+“Now do tell me what has happened,” Mabel heard Georgia saying to
+Fitz, as he drove out of the gate. “I’m sure I am a model soldier’s
+wife, for Dick suddenly sends me a bare message ordering me to abandon
+all my household goods and take refuge in the fort, and I do it
+without asking why! But I must confess I should like to know the
+reason. Did the durbar break up in disorder, or were you attacked on
+the way back?”
+
+“There was no durbar at all. The attack came off on the way there. But
+I say, Mrs North,” said Fitz desperately, anticipating Georgia’s
+question, “I can’t tell you what happened then, for I wasn’t there.
+Won’t it do if I recount my own experiences, and you ask the other
+fellows about the rest of it when we get to the fort?” He left her no
+time to answer, but went on hurriedly:--
+
+“Yesterday we got as far as the entrance to the Akrab Pass, some way
+beyond Dera Gul, and camped there for the night. The Major chose the
+site of the camp himself, in an awfully good position commanding the
+mouth of the pass, and arranged everything just as if it was war-time.
+I knew, of course, that he was looking out for treachery of some sort,
+and I was awfully sick when he told me this morning that I was to stay
+and do camp-guard with Winlock, and not go with him to the durbar. I
+yearned horribly to disobey orders, but, you see, he left me certain
+things to do if--if anything went wrong.” Fitz cleared his throat,
+muttered that he thought he must have got a cold, and hastened on.
+“Beltring had come down from Nalapur to meet the Commissioner, as he
+thought, and the Sardar Abd-ul-Nabi was waiting just inside the pass
+with an escort of the Amir’s troops. We in camp had nothing to do but
+kick our heels all day, for the Major left strict orders against going
+out of sight of the pass. He meant to get through his work by
+daylight, so as to sleep at the camp to-night, and come back here in
+the morning, you see. There were no caravans passing, and the place
+seemed deserted, which we thought a bad sign. But about eleven this
+morning one of our scouts brought in a small boy, who had come tearing
+down the pass and asked for the English camp. We had the little chap
+up before us, and I recognised him as a slave-boy I saw at Dera Gul
+the day Miss North and I were there. He knew me at once, and began to
+pour out what he had to say so fast that we could scarcely follow him.
+It seems that the Hasrat Ali Begum had managed in some way to get an
+inkling of Bahram Khan’s plot, and she despatched one of her
+confidential old ladies to warn you and the Major. Unfortunately, the
+old lady got caught, and Bahram Khan was so enraged with his mother
+that he promptly packed his whole zenana off to Nalapur, to be out of
+mischief, I suppose. On the way through the pass this boy, by the
+Begum’s orders, managed to hide among the rocks when they broke camp,
+and so escaped with her message. He hoped to catch the Major before he
+started, but, most unhappily, he durst not ask the only man he met
+whether he had passed, and he was behind him instead of in front. So
+he came down the pass, missing him entirely, of course, and warned us
+instead. The Major’s force was to be attacked in the worst part of the
+defile, he told us, and as soon as a messenger could reach Dera Gul to
+say that the attack had taken place, Bahram Khan would set out to raid
+Alibad. It was an awful dilemma for Winlock and me. It was no use
+sending after the Major to warn him, for whatever was to happen must
+have happened by that time, and if we tried to warn the town, Bahram
+Khan was safe to intercept the messenger and start on his raid at
+once, and of course we couldn’t evacuate the camp without orders. We
+decided to strike the tents and get everything ready for a start at
+any moment, and we posted our best shots on either side of the
+entrance to the pass, in case the Major’s party should be pursued.
+Then we waited, and at last the--the force turned up. Thanks to the
+Major’s suspicions and precautions, the surprise was a good deal of a
+fizzle. But as I said, I can’t tell you about that. Well, we had to
+get back here. The enemy were supposed not to be far behind, so we
+left Beltring and twenty-five men to hold the mouth of the pass at all
+hazards, and see that no messenger got through until we were safely
+past Dera Gul. After that it was left to them to seize the moment for
+retreating on Shah Nawaz, which Haycraft was to evacuate, so that both
+detachments might return here by the line of the canal. We put our
+wounded and baggage in the middle, and started--”
+
+“No, wait!” cried Georgia, for hitherto Fitz had spoken so fast that
+she had found it impossible to get in a word. “Who were the wounded?
+You said nothing about them before. Was any one killed?”
+
+“I--I really can’t give you any particulars,” returned Fitz, at his
+wits’ end. “Please let me finish my tale. I’m getting to the most
+exciting part. It was fearfully thrilling when we had to pass under
+the very walls of Dera Gul. Of course we were all ready for action at
+a moment’s notice, but the men were told to ride at ease, and talk if
+they liked, to give the impression that all was well. I know Winlock
+and I exchanged the most appalling inanities at the top of our voices,
+till the Dera Gul people must have thought we were drunk. As we
+expected, pretty soon there came a hail from the walls, asking who we
+were, and Ressaldar Badullah Khan, who was nearest, called out that we
+were coming back from Nalapur without holding the durbar. ‘But what
+has happened?’ asked the voice from the wall. ‘What should happen,
+save that the Superintendent Sahib won’t hold the durbar?’ said the
+Ressaldar, and we went on. Of course they must have been awfully
+puzzled, for they couldn’t see our wounded in the dark, and the only
+thing they could do was to send some one off to the pass to find out
+what had happened. Beltring was to look out for that, and if possible
+to seize the messenger and get his men away at once, before Bahram
+Khan could come up and take him in the rear.”
+
+“And I suppose Dick is helping to prepare the fort for defence?” asked
+Georgia. “There must be a dreadful amount to do.”
+
+“Oh, that reminds me, Miss North,” cried Fitz quickly, turning round
+to Mabel. “The Commissioner was most anxious to come and fetch you
+himself, but we pointed out to him that he could do no good, and being
+so lame, might hinder us a good deal. Excuse me, Mrs North, but I
+think I must give all my attention to driving just here. I don’t know
+why the whole population should have turned their possessions out into
+the street, unless it was to make it awkward for us.”
+
+They were approaching the fort, and the roadway was almost blocked
+with carts, cattle, household goods, and terrified people. Several
+vedettes, to whom Winlock gave a countersign, had been passed at
+various points, and it was evident that the sudden danger had not
+taken the military authorities, at any rate, by surprise. The space in
+front of the fort gates was a blaze of light from many torches, and
+several officers in uniform were resolutely bringing order out of the
+general chaos. Gangs of coolies, bearing sand-bags and loads of
+furniture, fuel, provisions, and forage, seemed inextricably mixed up
+with shrill-voiced women and crying children, ponies, camels, and
+goats; and it needed a good deal of shouting and some diplomacy, with
+not a little physical force, to separate the various streams and set
+them flowing in the right directions. As the dog-cart stopped,
+Woodworth, the adjutant, came up.
+
+“We want volunteers to help destroy the buildings round the fort,” he
+said. “You’ll go, Anstruther? What about your servants, Mrs North?”
+
+“There are seven who have come with us, nearly all old soldiers,” said
+Georgia. “If you will speak to Ismail Bakhsh, who is a host in
+himself, I will see that their wives and children are safely lodged
+while they set to work.”
+
+“Awfully sorry to trouble you about this sort of thing just now,” said
+Woodworth awkwardly.
+
+“Trouble? I am delighted they should help, of course. Where shall I
+find my husband?”
+
+“Good heavens! You haven’t heard----?” The adjutant stopped suddenly.
+
+“You blighted idiot!” muttered Fitz under his breath. “Fact is, Mrs
+North, the Major’s hurt--rather badly--” this reluctantly; “but I
+didn’t want to frighten you sooner than I could help----”
+
+“Where is he? Take me to him at once,” was all she said.
+
+Woodworth stepped forward mechanically to help her out of the cart,
+but found himself forestalled. The Commissioner had come hurrying up,
+preceded by two huge Sikhs, who cleared a passage for him through the
+throng, and now, supporting himself upon his crutch, he held out his
+hand to Georgia.
+
+“Believe me, Mrs North,” he said, “you have the sympathy of every man
+here at this terrible time. Surely it must be some consolation to you
+that your noble husband fell fighting, as he would have wished, and
+that the smallness of our losses is entirely owing to his prudence and
+self-sacrifice?”
+
+Georgia, on the ground now, looked about her like one dazed, finding,
+wherever she looked, fresh confirmation of the cruel tidings. In Mr
+Burgrave’s sympathising face, in Woodworth’s pitying eyes, in the
+sorrowful glances of the stern troopers who had closed up round the
+group, she read the truth of what she had just heard. Her hand went
+quickly from her heart to her eyes, as though to shut out the sight.
+Then it dropped again.
+
+“Oh, you might have told me at once!” she cried bitterly to Fitz. “I
+could have borne it better from you than from the man who has done it
+all.”
+
+“When you are more yourself, Mrs North, I know you will regret this
+injustice,” said Mr Burgrave, without anger. “Allow me to take you to
+your quarters in the fort.”
+
+Georgia shook from head to foot as he offered her his arm. She was on
+the point of refusing it, of yielding to the sickening sense of
+aversion with which his presence inspired her, when the scowling gaze
+of the mounted troopers arrested her attention, and awakened her to
+the deadly peril in which the Commissioner stood. These men idolised
+Dick, and they had heard her accuse Mr Burgrave of causing his death.
+A word from her would mean that his last moment had come. Even to turn
+her back upon him would be taken to show that she left him to their
+vengeance, which might not follow immediately, but would be certain to
+fall sooner or later. With a great effort she conquered her
+repugnance, and laid her hand upon his arm.
+
+“At a time like this there are no private quarrels,” she said
+hoarsely, addressing the troopers rather than the Commissioner. “We
+must all stand together for the honour of England.”
+
+“Of course, of course!” agreed Mr Burgrave, wondering what on earth
+had called forth such a melodramatic remark, for he had missed the
+growl of disappointed rage with which the troopers let their ready
+blades fall back into the scabbards. “Most admirable spirit, I’m
+sure.”
+
+“Upon my word!” muttered Woodworth to Fitz, “the man would have been
+cut to pieces before our eyes in another moment, and he never saw it.”
+
+“Oh, ignorance is bliss,” returned Fitz shortly. “What’s to happen to
+the carts?”
+
+“Broken up for firewood, I suppose. We can’t make room for
+everything.”
+
+“I fear you will find your quarters somewhat confined,” Mr Burgrave
+was saying kindly to Georgia, as with the help of his Sikhs he piloted
+her through the gateway, “but we cannot expect palatial accommodation
+in our present circumstances. Our good friends Mrs Hardy and Miss
+Graham are taking pains to make things comfortable for you, I know,
+and you must be kind enough to excuse the deficiencies due to lack of
+time and means.”
+
+Georgia gave a short fierce laugh. The Commissioner’s tone suggested
+that if he had been consulted sooner there would have been a perfect
+Hôtel Métropole in readiness to receive the fugitives. She broke
+away from him, and laid her hand lovingly upon one of the new gates,
+for his presentation of which to a presumably ruined fort all the
+newspapers of the province had made Dick their butt only the week
+before. The echoes of their Homeric laughter were even at this moment
+resounding in Bombay on the one hand and Lahore on the other.
+
+“If your life--any of our lives--are saved, it will all be due to
+him!�� she cried, and the Commissioner marvelled at the lack of
+sequence so characteristic of a woman’s mind. He led Georgia through
+the labyrinth of curiously involved passages and courts at the back of
+the club-house, in which Government stores and stray pieces of private
+property were lying about pell-mell, until they could be separated and
+reduced to some sort of order by the overworked officer in charge of
+the housing arrangements. Mabel followed with Rahah, and at last they
+reached a tiny oblong courtyard not far from the rear wall of the
+fort. Here, in the middle of the paved space, was Mrs Hardy, sorting a
+confused heap of her possessions with the assistance of an elderly
+Christian native, Mr Hardy’s bearer.
+
+“Oh, my dear! my poor dear!” she cried, running to Georgia, and for a
+moment the two women held each other locked in a close embrace.
+
+“This room,” said Mr Burgrave, who seemed to feel it incumbent upon
+him to do the honours of the place, “has been allotted to Miss Graham,
+as it communicates by a passage with the Colonel’s quarters in the
+next courtyard. The two on the right are Mr and Mrs Hardy’s, the two
+on the left are intended for you, Mrs North, and the one opposite is
+for you, Mabel. I believe the arrangement was suggested to Colonel
+Graham by Major North himself.”
+
+Mrs Hardy raised her head and gave him a fiery glance. “Miss North,
+will you be so kind as to request Mr Burgrave to go away?” she said
+viciously.
+
+“No; wait, please,” said Georgia. “Which of the officers were with my
+husband when he--was hurt, Mr Burgrave?”
+
+“There were several, I believe, but the only one not seriously wounded
+was Mr Beltring, and he will not come in until the Shah Nawaz
+contingent gets here--if at all.”
+
+“If--when he comes, I should like to see him, please,” said Georgia,
+and the Commissioner departed.
+
+“Now come in, dear, and lie down,” said Mrs Hardy. “Your rooms are
+ready, and I see Rahah, like a thoughtful girl, has even brought the
+cat to make it look homelike. Anand Masih will bring you some tea in a
+minute, and then I hope you will just go to bed again.”
+
+“Dear Mrs Hardy, you have given us all your own furniture,” protested
+Georgia, recognising a well-worn writing-table; but Mrs Hardy shook
+her head vigorously.
+
+“Nonsense, my dear, nonsense! We had far more brought in than we can
+possibly use in this little place, and as soon as I have seen you
+settled, Anand Masih and I will look after my two rooms. Mr Hardy is
+helping Dr Tighe in the reading-room, which they have turned into a
+hospital, or I know he would have come to see if he could do anything
+for you.”
+
+Never silent for a moment, Mrs Hardy administered tea without milk to
+Mabel and Georgia, and then tried vainly again to induce them to go to
+bed. Just as she was departing in despair, Flora Graham ran in.
+
+“I am helping to arrange the hospital--I can’t stay,” she panted. “Oh,
+Mrs North, Mabel darling, I am so sorry! I can’t tell you how much--”
+She stopped, unable to speak. “I know a little what it is like,” she
+added, with a sob; “Fred and his men are not in yet.”
+
+She dashed away, and Georgia and Mabel sat silent, hand in hand, until
+the sound of a cheer from the hard-worked garrison heralded the
+arrival of the Shah Nawaz detachment. Presently the clink of spurs on
+the verandah announced young Beltring, who was Dick’s most trusted
+pupil among the military officers desiring political employment, and
+as a man after his chief’s own heart, had been allowed to earn
+experience, if not fame, as his assistant at Nalapur. He came in
+slowly and reluctantly, scarcely daring to look at Georgia, his torn
+and bloodstained clothes and bandaged head bearing eloquent testimony
+to the fighting he had seen that day.
+
+“Sit down, Mr Beltring,” said Georgia, holding out her hand to him.
+“You got here without further loss, I hope?”
+
+“Yes, the enemy were on both flanks, but they never came near enough
+to do any harm,” he answered, dropping wearily into a chair.
+
+“Now tell us, please. You were with him--at the end?”
+
+“I was the nearest, but not with him. He was riding with that
+treacherous scoundrel Abd-ul-Nabi, and we had orders to keep a few
+paces to the rear. We thought he wanted to speak to Abd-ul-Nabi
+privately, but now I believe it was because he foresaw what was
+coming. The rest of us were still in that part of the pass where the
+walls are too steep for any ambush, while he, on in front with
+Abd-ul-Nabi, was rounding the corner where the track goes down
+suddenly into a wide rocky nullah. He must have seen something that he
+was not meant to see--the glitter of weapons among the rocks
+perhaps--for he turned suddenly and shouted, ‘Back! back! an
+ambuscade!’ Abd-ul-Nabi spurred his horse across the pathway to
+prevent his getting back to us, but the Major came straight at him,
+and the ruffian pulled out a pistol and fired at him point-blank. I
+cut the wretch down the next moment, but the Major had dropped like a
+log, and before we could get him up there was a rush round the corner
+in front, while Abd-ul-Nabi’s escort, who had been riding last,
+attacked us in the rear. Leyward took command, and the fellows behind
+were soon disposed of, but in front we had a pretty hard time. At last
+we drove them back far enough to get at the Major’s body. He was lying
+under a heap of dead. I got him out, and his head fell back on my
+shoulder. No, there could be no mistake, Mrs North. Do you think I
+would ever have left him while there was any breath in his body? I
+tried to get him on to my horse, and Badullah Khan helped me. Just as
+we had got him up, there was another rush, and the wretched beast
+broke away. I was thrown off on my head, and when I came to myself the
+Ressaldar was holding me in front of him on his horse, and we were in
+full retreat down the pass. We had lost eight killed beside the Major,
+and Leyward and the two other fellows were all badly wounded, besides
+almost every one of the men, and--and they wouldn’t go back.”
+
+“No, no; it would have been wrong,” murmured Georgia. “Thank you for
+telling me this. There could be no message.”
+
+“No message,” repeated Beltring, answering the unasked question.
+
+“He could not send me any message,” wailed Georgia, as the young man
+went out, “and I parted from him in anger. Oh, Dick, my darling, my
+darling--forgive me!”
+
+“Oh, Georgie, don’t!” sobbed Mabel.
+
+“Poor Mab! I forgot you were there. Lie down here on my bed. I can’t
+sleep.”
+
+“I’m sure I can’t,” protested Mabel.
+
+It was not long before she cried herself to sleep, however, but
+Georgia sat where she was until the morning.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+ TO KEEP THE FLAG FLYING.
+
+“Mab!” Mabel awoke from her uneasy slumbers to wonder where she was,
+and why Georgia was sitting there, her face silhouetted against the
+square of grey light that represented a window. “Mab! Dick is not
+dead.”
+
+“Why--oh, Georgie!--have you heard anything?”
+
+“No; but I know it. We always agreed that if either of us died when
+the other was not there, the one that was dead should come back to say
+good-bye. And I have waited for him all night, and he has not come.”
+
+Mabel gazed at her in dismay. “Oh, but you are not building upon that,
+Georgie? How can it be any proof that he is alive? He might not be
+allowed to come.”
+
+“He promised. Besides, I know he is alive,” persisted Georgia
+obstinately. “If he was dead, I should feel it.”
+
+“Georgie dear, you mustn’t go on like this. You will make yourself
+ill. Come and lie down a little, and try to go to sleep. I will tell
+you if he comes.” Mabel ended with a sob.
+
+“If he does, I shall know,” murmured Georgia, as she lay down.
+“Thanks, Mab; I am so tired.”
+
+Mabel waited only until she was asleep, and then, summoning Rahah to
+watch beside her, went in search of Dr Tighe. It so happened that she
+met him in the passage which led into the courtyard.
+
+“Bad business this, Miss North. We can ill spare your brother. How is
+his poor wife?”
+
+“She has borne up wonderfully so far, but--oh, Dr Tighe, I’m afraid
+her mind is going. She will persist that Dick is not dead.”
+
+“Poor thing! can’t realise it yet,” said the doctor compassionately.
+
+“No; it is quite a delusion. She says he is still alive, or she would
+know it. What can we do? I thought perhaps if she could see his
+body----”
+
+“No, no. Better that the delusion should last for ever than she should
+see his body after those fiends have had to do with it.”
+
+“But she must give up hope soon, and it will be such a fearful
+disappointment----”
+
+“If the hope keeps her up through the next few days, so much the
+better. Afterwards, please God, she’ll have more effectual comfort
+than we could give her.”
+
+“But I can’t help hoping too, and it will make the reality so much
+worse,” confessed Mabel, with an irrepressible sob.
+
+“Woman alive! who cares about you?” cried the doctor furiously. “What
+do your little bits of feelings matter compared with hers? No, no; I
+beg your pardon, Miss North,” his tone softening. “I’d get a fine
+wigging if the Commissioner heard me, wouldn’t I? But you must
+remember how much you have got left, and your sister has nothing. For
+God’s sake, let her please herself with thinking that he’s all right
+for the present, if that comforts her at all. By-and-by the truth will
+come to her gradually, but she will have the child to think of, and
+the worst bitterness will be gone. Come, now, you’re brave enough for
+that, aren’t you? How is she--asleep just now? I’ll look in again
+later on. Now make up your mind to be unselfish about this.”
+
+“Does he mean that generally I am selfish?” mused Mabel. “It never
+struck me before. But nobody seems to care about me. They all think
+that I have Eustace left. As if he could ever make up to me for Dick!”
+she laughed mirthlessly at the mere idea. “He will be coming in
+presently and making appropriate remarks. Oh dear, oh dear! if he had
+gone to the durbar and been killed instead of Dick, I believe I should
+have been _glad_. How dreadful it is! How can I ever marry him? But I
+know I shall never have the courage to tell him I want to give him up.
+What can I do?”
+
+“Mabel, my poor little girl!” Mr Burgrave emerged from the passage,
+and limped towards her as she stood listlessly on the verandah. “You
+have slept badly, I fear? How is Mrs North?”
+
+“She won’t believe that he is dead.” And with her eyes full of tears,
+Mabel repeated to him Georgia’s words.
+
+“Very touching, very touching!” remarked the Commissioner, his tone
+breathing the deepest sympathy. “Poor thing! it is unspeakably sad to
+see so strong a mind overthrown. You must find it very trying, poor
+child! I hope you are taking care of yourself?” His glance travelled
+over her, and Mabel remembered for the first time that she had slept
+in her clothes, and that her hair had not been touched since she had
+twisted it up roughly the night before on the first alarm.
+
+“Oh, I know I’m not fit to be seen!” she cried impatiently. “But what
+does that signify?”
+
+“It signifies very much. You must remember the natives in the fort.
+Their endurance--even their loyalty--may hang upon our success in
+keeping up appearances during the next few days. And we white men,
+also--surely it is a poor compliment to us to make such a sorry
+ob--figure--of yourself? Then there is your unfortunate sister. Is it
+likely to restore her mental balance to see you in such a dishevelled
+condition? Oblige me by changing your dress and doing something to
+your hair. It is a public duty at such a time.”
+
+“I wish you wouldn’t bother!” said Mabel, weeping weakly. “I have no
+black things, and I can’t bear to put on colours.”
+
+“My dear girl, is it for me to advise you as to your clothes?” The
+tone, half severe and half humorous, stung Mabel with a recollection
+of their conversation of ten days before. “Considering poor Mrs
+North’s delusion, might it not be advisable to humour her, in so far
+as not to insist upon wearing mourning immediately?”
+
+“Oh, very well,” was the grudging reply, of which Mabel repented the
+next moment, adding contritely, “I’m sorry to have been so cross,
+Eustace. I will try to be brave.”
+
+“That is what I expect of my little girl. She would never bring
+discredit upon my choice by showing the white feather. I rely upon her
+to set an example of cheerfulness to the whole garrison.”
+
+He bestowed upon her what Mabel inwardly stigmatised as a lofty kiss
+of encouragement before departing, and she obeyed him meekly, going at
+once to her room to change her dress. She was so angry with herself
+for having deserved his rebuke that she forgot to be angry with him.
+After all, it was well for her to have this severe master to please,
+if she was in danger of bringing reproach upon her country by her
+faint-heartedness. She was taking herself to task in this strain, when
+the sound of voices in the outermost of Georgia’s two rooms, which was
+next to her own, interrupted her meditations.
+
+“Oh dear! Georgie hasn’t slept long,” she lamented to herself. “Who is
+that talking to her, I wonder? Oh, Mr Anstruther, of course.”
+
+“I came in to see if there was anything I could do for you,” she heard
+Fitz say. “I’m ashamed to have been so long in coming, but the fact
+is, I was up all night knocking down houses and setting coolies to
+cart away the remains, and when we had got the space all round pretty
+clear and came in, I was so dead tired that I just lay down and went
+to sleep where I was.”
+
+“Oh, you should have gone on resting while you had the chance,” said
+Georgia. “Everybody is only too kind to me, and there’s nothing I want
+done. Then we are really besieged now?”
+
+“I suppose we might say that we are in a state of siege. At present
+all the tribes are holding _jirgahs_ to consider the matter. Our outer
+circle of vedettes was driven in soon after we got here last night,
+but we held the houses facing the fort against a few spasmodic rushes
+until we had got the zone of fire cleared. The enemy are too close for
+comfort as it is, but at any rate they have a space to cross before
+they can get up to the walls.”
+
+“Then they are occupying the town?”
+
+“Decidedly, if that means looting all the houses and firing most of
+them.”
+
+“Is our house burnt?”
+
+“Almost as soon as you were out of it. I noticed the fire when I
+looked round once as we were driving. But I don’t think the enemy can
+have been as close behind us as that. I fancy the servants who shirked
+coming with us were looting, and some one had knocked over a lamp.”
+
+“And how are things going with us here?”
+
+“So-so. But you know, Mrs North, if it hadn’t been for the Major and
+Colonel Graham, we might as well have taken refuge in a fowl-house as
+in this place. Long ago they got in all the stores they could without
+attracting attention, and everything else was ready to be moved at a
+moment’s notice. They had their plans all cut and dried, too, and
+every man found his post assigned to him. The walls are good against
+anything but artillery, and the towers and loopholes and gates have
+all been put into some sort of repair.”
+
+“Yes,” said Georgia, “and that is the best of the situation. Now for
+the worst.”
+
+“Well, you know, it would all have been worst but for the Major, and
+every soul inside the walls is blessing him. The worst is that we have
+scraped together a preposterous number of non-combatants--some of them
+the wives and children of the sowars, of course, but a good many of
+them Hindus and bazaar-people of that sort, whom it would have been
+sheer murder to leave outside, but who will be no good to us whatever.
+All the old soldiers have been re-enlisted, and the boys are to make
+themselves useful, but there is a helpless crowd of women and children
+and elderly people to dispose of somehow. That’s the secret of your
+close quarters here. We can’t have the poor wretches anywhere near the
+walls, so they are put away in the central courts, where we can keep
+an eye upon them, and overawe them if necessary.”
+
+“Poor things! I must go and see after them,” murmured Georgia.
+
+“Of course, with all these extra mouths, we are not provisioned for a
+regular siege, unless we eat the horses, which ought to be saved in
+case we have to cut our way out at last. But the worst thing is that
+we have no artillery, not so much as a field-gun, and very little of
+anything else. The regiment have their carbines, of course, but the
+Commissioner’s Sikhs are the only men with rifles--except those of us
+who go in for big game shooting. However, as a set-off against that,
+the enemy have no big guns either. And then, it’s about the best
+season of the year for moving troops on this frontier, so that we
+ought to be relieved before very long.”
+
+“But that’s only if the enemy don’t cut the canals.”
+
+“Yes, I’m afraid they’re too sharp not to do that. It looks as if a
+dust-storm was coming on, which would help them if they set to work at
+once.”
+
+“Have they made any pretence of offering terms?”
+
+“The Amir sent his mullah this morning with a flag of truce. He
+couldn’t be allowed inside, so the Commissioner and Colonel Graham
+spoke to him from the walls. But there was no accepting what he
+offered.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“Poor old Ashraf Ali was awfully cut up about--what happened
+yesterday. He explained through the mullah that he arranged the
+ambuscade entirely for the benefit of the Commissioner, whom he really
+was anxious to have out of the way. It was a pure accident that the
+very last thing he could have wished happened instead. However, in
+order that his trouble mightn’t be wasted, he suggested that we should
+hand him over the Commissioner now. He will see that he gives no more
+trouble on this frontier, and it is open to the rest of us either to
+stay here unmolested, or to return to civilisation under a
+safe-conduct, just as we like.”
+
+“You mean that he actually offers to guarantee the safety of every one
+else if the Commissioner gives himself up?”
+
+“Practically that. Doesn’t it strike you as a little quaint?”
+
+“Was that the Commissioner’s view of it?”
+
+“I believe so. He remarked what a preposterous demand it was, when he
+had the responsibility of the fort and the whole community on his
+shoulders. He doesn’t intend to shirk his duty. The Colonel said it
+was a tremendous relief to hear how sensibly he took it. Some men
+would have insisted on giving themselves up forthwith, but he has too
+much to think of.”
+
+A wan smile showed itself on Georgia’s face. “Well, if he intends to
+interpret his duty very strictly, we may wish he had gone,” she said.
+
+“I don’t believe he is even technically in the right, and certainly I
+think the Colonel will have to organise a little mutiny if he insists
+upon bossing the show. Couldn’t you turn on Miss North to induce him
+to moderate his pretensions a bit?” Mabel, in the next room, shook her
+fist unseen at the speaker.
+
+“After all,” said Georgia, “it’s most unlikely that they would have
+kept their promise to protect us, even if he had given himself up.”
+
+“Very little doubt about that. From what the mullah said, it’s clear
+that there are two parties in their camp, and I shouldn’t care to say
+which is the stronger. Bahram Khan’s following, besides his own men,
+who did all the looting last night, comprises the more troublesome of
+the frontier tribes and the chiefs who have grudges against the Amir,
+while Ashraf Ali has his loyal Sardars and the tribes which have
+always been friendly to us. If only we had the Major here!”
+
+“You mean that he would play them off against one another?”
+
+“Yes, and there’s no one else to do it. Beltring and I wanted to try,
+because there’s just the chance that the tribes would listen to us, as
+we have been with him so much, but the Colonel won’t let us leave the
+fort.”
+
+“No, it would be no good. You would only be risking your lives
+uselessly,” said Georgia. “He has more influence over them than any
+man I ever knew, except my father.”
+
+“Ah, but, Mrs North, there’s no time to lose. As soon as we have
+killed two or three of the lot, they’ll all be against us, and the
+longer we hold out the worse it will be. Even if Bahram Khan doesn’t
+succeed in bringing them over to his side at once, he will be
+intriguing against his uncle in secret.”
+
+“I know, but what can we do? I dare not make inquiries about Dick, for
+if the Amir is keeping him safe somewhere, it might put him into
+Bahram Khan’s power. We can only wait.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs North, don’t count on that,” pleaded Fitz sorrowfully. “It’s
+no good, believe me. Ashraf Ali knows he is dead as well as we do.”
+
+“But I know that he is not dead,” said Georgia, and Fitz went out
+hastily. In the verandah he met Mabel.
+
+“Oh, Miss North, I wanted to speak to you,” he said, but she beckoned
+him imperiously aside.
+
+“You seem to think it rather a fine thing to abuse a man who isn’t
+there to defend himself,” she said.
+
+“Indeed?” he said, in astonishment. “I wasn’t aware of it.”
+
+“Perhaps you didn’t know that I could hear you when you were laughing
+at Mr Burgrave?”
+
+“I certainly didn’t know you were listening, but I was not laughing at
+him. I merely said that he hadn’t given himself up. Would you wish me
+to say that he had?”
+
+“You hinted that it was wrong and cowardly of him, and that he was
+saving himself at the expense of every one else here, when you ought
+to know it was only his strong sense of duty that kept him back. Would
+you have gone?”
+
+“Certainly not, if the burden of the defence rested on me, as the
+Commissioner fancies it does on him.”
+
+“You see! And you said yourself it would probably have been no good.”
+
+“So I say still. Bahram Khan has more on hand than a piece of private
+revenge. If we trusted to his safe-conduct, we should be in for
+Cawnpore over again.”
+
+“And after that you still make fun of Mr Burgrave for not going! It’s
+a shame! I know he has made mistakes in the past, from our point of
+view, but I won’t hear him called a coward. He is the most noble,
+lofty-minded man in the world, and I only wish I was more worthy of
+him!”
+
+“You can’t expect me to indorse that, any more than the Commissioner
+himself would,” said Fitz. “If anything I have said about him has
+pained you, Miss North, I humbly beg your pardon; but please remember
+that I should never speak against him intentionally, simply because
+you think so highly of him.”
+
+“I only want you to understand that I am not going to ask him to
+moderate his pretensions, as you call it,” went on Mabel, rather
+confused. “For one thing, he wouldn’t do it, and for another, now that
+Dick is gone, I must be guided by him.”
+
+“Quite so,” said Fitz, somewhat dryly. Then his tone changed. “I
+wanted to ask you what you thought about telling poor Mrs North
+something the mullah said this morning. It struck me that perhaps we
+ought to keep it dark for a bit, as the doctor thinks it a good thing
+she can’t believe that the worst has happened. The poor old Amir wept
+as if for his own son when he heard that the Major was dead, and went
+himself to look for the body, intending to give it a state funeral.
+But when they got to the pass, it was gone. The Hasrat Ali Begum, who
+was in camp near, had broken _pardah_ with her women as soon as the
+fight was over, and carried off the body and buried it. They were
+afraid of what Bahram Khan would do with it, you see, and at present
+they won’t tell even the Amir where the grave is, but he sent word
+that he meant to build a tomb over it later on. Now, ought Mrs North
+to know?”
+
+“I shouldn’t think so, should you? I have never been much with people
+in trouble--I don’t know how to deal with them. But I think it will be
+better not to tell her unless she asks.”
+
+“But she isn’t likely to ask, is she? Oh, Miss North, if she might
+only be right! I don’t believe there’s a man in the fort that wouldn’t
+gladly die to bring him back.”
+
+
+
+The expected dust-storm did not begin until the afternoon, and in the
+interval the besieged continued to strengthen their defences,
+disturbed only by an intermittent rifle-fire. A party of the enemy had
+taken possession of General Keeling’s old house, and lying down behind
+the low wall which surrounded the roof, were firing at any one they
+saw on the ramparts. Thanks to the efforts of Colonel Graham and Dick,
+the ruined parapet here had been repaired, but when there were
+messages to be sent from one point to another, the cry was “Heads
+down!” So skilfully were the enemy posted that no response to their
+annoying attentions was possible until a party of Sikhs, at
+considerable risk to life and limb, scaled the turrets flanking the
+gateway, the repair of which had not been completed owing to lack of
+time, and succeeded in commanding the roof of the old house. They had
+scarcely cleared it before the storm came on, and they were ordered
+down again, since it was generally believed that an assault would be
+attempted under cover of the wind and darkness. Nothing of the kind
+took place, however, and the garrison, who were kept under arms,
+chafed at their enforced inaction, and tried in vain to pierce the
+obscurity which surrounded them, while the wind howled and the dust
+rattled on the roofs. When, last of all, the rain poured down in
+sheets, and the air cleared sufficiently to allow the buildings beyond
+the zone of fire to become dimly visible, it was seen that the enemy
+had taken advantage of the storm for a different purpose. On the roof
+of General Keeling’s house was now a rough stone breastwork, so
+constructed as to shelter its occupants even against the fire from the
+towers, and provided with loopholes so arranged as to allow the barrel
+of a rifle to be pointed through them in any direction.
+
+“It looks to me as though we should have to rush the General’s house
+and blow it up,” said the Commissioner to Colonel Graham, as they
+stood in one of the turrets, peering into the sweeping rain, during
+the last few minutes of daylight. “That sangar makes our walls
+untenable.”
+
+“Then we shall have to raise them,” was the laconic reply, as Colonel
+Graham passed his field-glass to his companion. “You may not have
+noticed that though the General’s old stone house is the only one
+strong enough to support a sangar on the roof, the brick houses on
+both sides of it have been loop-holed. The place is a regular
+death-trap.”
+
+“Do you mean to say that in this short time they have prepared a
+position impregnable to our whole force?” asked Mr Burgrave
+incredulously.
+
+“Quite possibly, but that isn’t the question. Their numbers are
+practically unlimited; ours are not. I should be glad if you and I
+could come to an understanding at once. We are not here to exhibit
+feats of arms, but to keep the flag flying until we can be relieved,
+and to protect the unfortunate women and children down below there.
+Nothing would please me better than to lead an assault on the house
+yonder, but who’s to defend the fort when the butcher’s bill is paid?
+If we had only ourselves to consider, I might cut my way out with the
+troops, and make a historic march to Rahmat-Ullah, but with the
+non-combatants it would be impossible. You see this?--or perhaps you
+don’t see it, but I do. Well, are we to work together, or not?”
+
+“You are asking me to subordinate my judgment to yours?”
+
+“Politically, you are supreme here. From a military point of view----”
+
+“You think you ought to be? Considering the office I hold, doesn’t
+that strike you as rather a large order?”
+
+“Would you propose to occupy an independent and superior position from
+which to criticise my measures? Surely you must see that is out of the
+question? You may be Commissioner for the province, but I am
+commandant of this fort, and the troops are under my orders. The
+conclusion is pretty obvious, isn’t it? In such a situation as this, a
+single head is essential, and there must be no hint of divided
+counsels. You and I have both got everything we prize in the world at
+stake here. Can we squabble over our relative positions in face of
+what lies before us?”
+
+“The question would come more gracefully from me to you, in the
+circumstances,” said Mr Burgrave, “but I see your point. Let it be
+understood that the conduct of all military operations is vested in
+you, then. I reserve, of course, the right of private criticism, and
+of offering advice.”
+
+“And of putting the blame on me if things go wrong!” thought Colonel
+Graham, but he was too wise to give utterance to the remark. “Do you
+care to make the round of the defences with me?” he asked. “I should
+like to see how the new brickwork stands this deluge.”
+
+As they emerged from the shelter of the tower into the rainy dusk,
+they were met by Fitz, who, like the other civilians in the place, had
+enrolled himself as a volunteer. When he first spoke, his voice was
+inaudible, owing to a rushing, roaring sound which filled the air.
+
+“Why, what’s this?” shouted the Colonel.
+
+“The canal, sir,” answered Fitz, as loudly. “Winlock sent me to ask
+you to come and look at it.”
+
+“Is it in flood? Can the reservoir have burst?”
+
+“We think the enemy have opened the sluices. The dead body of a white
+man was washed down just now. We saw it, though we couldn’t reach it,
+and some one said it was Western, who was in charge at the canal
+works.”
+
+The Colonel and Mr Burgrave hurried along the rampart, sheltered from
+the enemy’s fire by the gathering darkness, to the rear wall of the
+fort, the base of which was washed by the canal. The canal itself was
+part of the great system of irrigation-works by means of which, as the
+Commissioner had once complained, General Keeling had made Khemistan.
+A huge reservoir was constructed in the hills to receive the torrents
+of water which rushed down every ravine after a storm, and which,
+after carrying ruin and destruction in their path, ran fruitlessly to
+waste. By means of sluices the outflow was regulated with the minutest
+care, and the precious water husbanded so jealously that even in the
+hottest seasons it was possible to supply the canal which, with its
+many effluents, had converted the immediate surroundings of Alibad
+from a sandy waste into a garden. In view of the possible necessity of
+coping with an occasional rush of water, the banks were artificially
+raised, and the one opposite the south-west angle of the fort, where
+the canal took a sudden bend, had been strengthened to a considerable
+height with masonry, to protect the cultivated land beyond it from
+inundation. This change in its course largely increased the force of
+the current at this point.
+
+After a storm the placid canal always became a rushing torrent, on
+account of the accessions it received after leaving the reservoir, but
+none of those in the fort had ever seen it rise to the height it had
+reached on the present occasion. Colonel Graham uttered an exclamation
+of dismay when he looked out over the turbid stream, which seemed to
+be flung back from the opposite bank against the fort wall with even
+increased violence. Presently there was a lull in the storm, and by
+the aid of a lantern, which was lowered from the rampart, he was able
+to see that the current was actually scouring away the lower courses
+of the wall. The next moment the lantern was violently swept from the
+hand of the man who held the cord, as another rush of water came
+swirling round the tower at the angle of the wall, dashing its spray
+into the faces of the watchers. Every one of them felt the wall shake
+under the blow, and there was a murmur of uneasiness. Colonel Graham
+recovered himself first.
+
+“Turn out all the servants and coolies, Winlock,” he said, “and shore
+up the wall with props and sand-bags as far as possible. We will stay
+here and watch whether the water rises any higher. It’s clear they
+hope that this south curtain will go,” he added to Mr Burgrave, “and
+that then they will only have to walk in.”
+
+“They must have a clever head among them,” said the Commissioner; “for
+they are evidently letting the water out a little at a time.”
+
+“Ah, that’s the native engineer, no doubt. They would keep him alive
+to manage the machinery for them when they murdered poor Western. Look
+out, here’s another!”
+
+Again the wall trembled perceptibly, but by this time the courtyard
+was full of eager workers, piling up earth and stones and beams and
+bags of sand, and anything else that could be found. Presently the
+Colonel called out to them to stop, for there was now the danger that
+the wall might fall outwards instead of inwards, and they waited in
+unwilling idleness, while the two men on the rampart watched the
+current anxiously, and measured the distance of its surface from the
+parapet. Then came a more violent rush of water than any before, and
+to Colonel Graham and Mr Burgrave the wall seemed to rock backwards
+and forwards under them. When they looked into each other’s faces once
+more, they could scarcely believe that it was still standing.
+
+“That’s the last, evidently,” said the Colonel, “a final effort. The
+water’s getting lower already. We’re safe for to-night, but if they
+had only had the patience to wait till this rain was over, we could
+never have stood the force of water they could have turned on. And as
+it is, a child’s popgun might almost account for this bit of wall
+now.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV.
+ “THE OLD FIRST HEROIC LESSONS.”
+
+“Why, Mrs North!” Disturbed in his task of supervising the
+proceedings of a nervous native assistant, whose mind was less
+occupied with his dispensing than with the bullets which flattened
+themselves occasionally upon the pavement outside the surgery, Dr
+Tighe had turned suddenly to find Georgia at his elbow. “Can I do
+anything for you?” he asked kindly, looking with professional
+disapproval at her pale face and weary eyes.
+
+“I want you to let me help you in the hospital.”
+
+“And I thought you were a sensible woman! Will you tell me if you call
+this wise, now?”
+
+“I think it would help me to have something to do.”
+
+“But not this. What am I to say to the Major when--if--when I see him
+again, if you overtask your strength?”
+
+“I see you think I am mad,” she said earnestly, “but I _know_ he is
+alive. But the suspense is so dreadful, doctor. It’s certain that he
+is wounded, and I can scarcely doubt he is a prisoner; and what may be
+happening to him at any moment? It is killing me, and I must live--for
+both their sakes.” The doctor nodded quickly. “And I thought if I
+could do something to help those who were suffering as he is, it
+might--oh, I don’t know--it might make me tired enough to sleep
+again.”
+
+“A good idea!��� said Dr Tighe, in his most matter-of-fact tones. “You
+shall relieve me of half my dressings, by all means, and I’ll turn
+over to you the out-patient work among these unfortunate women and
+children. You can leave that dispensing, Babu”--the assistant, who had
+been listening for the thud of the bullets, started violently--“and go
+round the wards with the Memsahib.”
+
+From his own cases on the opposite side of the improvised wards Dr
+Tighe glanced across at Georgia several times, remarking with approval
+that her face and figure were losing their look of utter weariness as
+she went about her work. She was giving her whole mind to it, that was
+evident, and for the time her own anxiety was pushed into the
+background. The number of patients to be treated was considerable, for
+besides the men who had been wounded at the fight in the Akrab Pass,
+there were a good many casualties due to the enemy’s fire since the
+siege had begun. The work was therefore heavy, but as soon as the
+dressings were finished Dr Tighe bustled up to Georgia and pointed out
+a new opening for her energies.
+
+“The Colonel wants sacks made--millions of ’em--for sand-bags,” he
+said. “He was at his wits’ end about it this morning, tried to get the
+native women to sew them, and they wouldn’t.”
+
+“Oh, why didn’t he ask us?” cried Georgia. “We would have worked our
+fingers to the bone.”
+
+“I’m sure you would, and it’s likely he’d ask it of you, isn’t it? But
+why all the refugees should have board and lodging given them free, I
+don’t know. Why, they wouldn’t even make the sacks for payment! A lot
+of them said they couldn’t sew, and the rest seemed to think they were
+being persecuted when they were asked to do it. But you know how to
+get round them, Mrs North. We can’t very well say that if a woman
+doesn’t sew a sack a day out she goes--sounds a bit brutal--but you’ll
+manage to set them to work, I’m sure. I’ll tell Colonel Graham you’ve
+taken the matter in hand, and he’ll be for ever grateful.”
+
+Unpromising though the task seemed, Georgia succeeded in finding six
+women who consented to sew if the Memsahibs would do so too, and a
+working-party was organised in the little courtyard, from which Mr
+Hardy and the men-servants were rigorously banished for the time.
+Since the need of sand-bags--at any rate in such numbers--had not been
+foreseen, the proper material was lacking, but all the tents in the
+fort were promptly requisitioned, and their canvas utilised. The
+regimental tailors cut out the sacks, delivering them into the charge
+of Rahah, and inside the courtyard Mrs Hardy and Georgia superintended
+the unskilled workers, while Flora and Mabel took a pride in proving
+their willingness to blister their fingers for their country. It was
+fortunate that fine needlework was not required, for the native
+women’s ideas of sewing were rudimentary in the extreme, but their two
+instructresses succeeded at last in convincing them, by precept and
+example, that to sew one side only of a seam was unnecessary as a
+decoration and not calculated materially to further the usefulness of
+a sack. When this lesson had been sufficiently impressed upon the
+pupils, Georgia sat down in the doorway of her room to divide the
+_pice_ which Colonel Graham had entrusted to her for distribution
+among them. The sun was setting over the hill beyond the fort, and the
+women, as they sat cross-legged on the floor, seized the fact that the
+light was in their eyes as an excuse for turning round to gaze
+greedily at the money which Georgia was apportioning on a chair.
+Suddenly there was a whizz and a noisy clatter. A bullet had grazed
+Georgia’s hand and struck the chair, sending the coins flying, and it
+was followed by a burst of firing, which caused the terrified
+workwomen to drop their sacks and exclaim with one voice that they
+were dead.
+
+“Down! down!” cried Georgia, setting the example herself, “and crawl
+round to the other verandah. They are firing from the hill, but they
+won’t be able to see us there.”
+
+Dragging with her one woman who was paralysed with fright, she induced
+the others to follow her, and when they were out of the line of fire,
+proceeded to examine the terrific wounds from which one and all
+declared themselves to be suffering. Curiously enough, no one was
+badly hurt. Two had scratches, and one a nasty bruise from a ricochet
+shot, but of severe injuries there were none. Georgia dressed the
+wounds and comforted the sufferers with one or two _pice_ extra, and
+then sent them back to their own quarters, thus allowing admittance to
+Colonel Graham, Mr Hardy, the Commissioner, and Fitz, who had been
+informed by the horrified servants that the enemy were firing into the
+Memsahibs’ courtyard. Their anxiety raised to the highest pitch by the
+shrieks from within, the four gentlemen were held at bay in the
+passage by the heroic Rahah, who informed them that they must pass
+over her body before they should break the _pardah_ of the women
+assembled under her mistress’s protection. Just as they were at last
+admitted a cry from behind made them look round, to see an unfortunate
+water-carrier who had been passing along the rampart falling into the
+courtyard.
+
+“We must get up a parados on that side,” said Colonel Graham, when the
+wounded man had been sent to the hospital. “They command the inside of
+the whole east curtain from that hill. Your sand-bags will be made
+useful sooner than we expected, Mrs North.”
+
+“But what is to happen to us?” cried Mabel. “Are we to stay here to be
+shot at?”
+
+“Calm yourself, my dear girl,” said Mr Burgrave, in gently reproving
+tones. “You are in no danger at the present moment.”
+
+“You see, Miss North,” said the Colonel, “I don’t want to have to put
+you either in the hospital courtyard or among the native refugees, and
+there is nowhere else. After all, this court is so small that the
+enemy can’t possibly command more than the east side, and we’ll put
+that right by hanging curtains along the verandah.”
+
+“Why, what good would that be against bullets?”
+
+“The curtain wouldn’t stop them, certainly, but our friends up there
+are very careful of their ammunition, and never waste a shot. Not
+being able to see whether any one is in the verandah, they won’t aim
+at it. It was the sight of a whole party assembled here that was
+irresistible.”
+
+“But is Georgia to live in darkness?” demanded Georgia’s
+self-constituted champion.
+
+“Nonsense, Mab! There are three other verandahs to sit in. After all,
+one expects bullets in a siege,” said Georgia.
+
+“That’s the right spirit, Mrs North,” said Colonel Graham heartily.
+“As soon as it’s dusk we’ll have the matting up from the
+club-house--messroom, I mean--floor, and nail it along the roof of
+this verandah and across the corner where the passage is. Then you’ll
+be safe from anything but chance shots, and those, I’m afraid, we can
+none of us guard against.”
+
+“But are those fellows up there to pot at the ladies without our ever
+having a chance to pay them back, sir?” cried Fitz.
+
+“I was coming to that. Of course the plan is to clear us off the east
+rampart so that a force from the town may rush it under cover of the
+fire from the hill, and therefore the parados must be our first care.
+Still, I think we can spare a few sand-bags for the two western
+towers, and if we arrange a little sangar on the top of each when it
+is dark, we can show our chivalrous friends the snipers to-morrow what
+it feels like to be sniped. Tell Winlock to set all the servants to
+work filling bags and baskets, and anything else they can find, with
+earth at once.”
+
+“We seem to hold our own fairly well at present,” said Mr Burgrave, as
+Fitz departed, and the Colonel stood looking narrowly at the
+threatened verandah and the scattered work-materials with which it was
+strewn.
+
+“We seem to--yes, but it is simply because we have not been tried as
+yet. There is far too great a length of wall for us to hold against a
+well-planned attack--say from two sides at once. Why they haven’t put
+us to the test before I can’t imagine. It’s not like their usual
+tactics to let things drag on in this way.”
+
+“I am of opinion that they dislike crossing the cleared space, and
+intend to remain at a discreet distance and starve us out. If only
+they stick to that, we ought to be relieved long before matters come
+to a crisis.”
+
+“No, it’s not that!” cried the Colonel irritably. “There’s something
+behind that we don’t see. If there was any possibility of their having
+guns, I should say they were waiting for them. But where are they to
+get them from unless they have surprised Rahmat-Ullah, which we have
+no reason to suppose? They have some dodge on hand, though, I’m
+certain.”
+
+“Is there any weak point at which they could be aiming?”
+
+“Man, this place is nothing but weak points. If those fellows on the
+hill knew what they were about, they could enfilade our north and
+south ramparts as well as cover the eastern one. The south curtain is
+so weak now that an elephant or a battering-ram--let alone a
+well-planted shell or two--could knock it over, and the canal on that
+side is getting lower every day. The water-carriers have to go down a
+dozen steps now, and it’s only the enemy’s fear for their own precious
+skins that prevents their picking them off from the opposite bank. We
+could pepper them from the rampart, they know that, and they haven’t
+the sense to pour in an oblique fire from the hill. I suppose, too, it
+hasn’t occurred to you that if they took it into their heads to blow
+us up, one or two plucky fellows could get close up to the walls under
+cover of a general attack, and lay a train at their leisure. It’s
+impossible to fire transversely from the loopholes in the towers
+without exposing pretty nearly one’s whole body, and as to depressing
+a rifle and firing point-blank down from the parapet, well----”
+
+Mr Burgrave understood the pause to mean that the consequences would
+probably be very uncomfortable for the holder of the rifle, and said
+no more. The night passed without further alarm, save that Georgia
+found it would be dangerous to have a light in her rooms unless door
+and shutters were both closed. The glimmer from the window, even when
+only seen through the matting curtain, attracted two or three bullets
+immediately, and it was evident that the choice must be made between
+air and light. During the hours of darkness the besieged worked hard
+at their defences, and succeeded in erecting a more or less effectual
+shelter along the inside of the east rampart, and also a sand-bag
+parapet at the summit of the two western towers. The gateway turrets
+on the north-east, which were now exposed to the fire from the hill in
+the rear as well as to that from General Keeling’s house in front,
+were strengthened in the same way. Behind these shelters the best
+marksmen of the garrison took up their posts, and as soon as the
+bullets began to fly from the hill, seized the opportunity of pointing
+out to the enemy that the state of things had altered to some extent
+in the night. Since it was impossible for a man on either side to fire
+without exposing himself slightly, a return shot was the instant
+comment on this imprudence, and hence, before the morning was over,
+both parties were lying low and glaring at their opponents’ sangars,
+ready to shoot but not caring to be shot. Helmets on the one side and
+turbans on the other, raised cautiously on rifle-barrels above the
+breastwork, drew a few shots, but the nature of the trick was quickly
+perceived by both parties, and the sniping continued to languish.
+
+“Their rifles seem to carry as far as ours,” remarked Mr Burgrave to
+Colonel Graham.
+
+“So they ought,” was the grim reply. “Most of them, if not all, are
+ours. They are stolen and smuggled wholesale into Ethiopia, and Bahram
+Khan has borrowed them to arm his followers with. That’s how they
+manage to give us so much trouble. In the matchlock days, when this
+place was built, we could have laughed at their shooting from the
+hill.”
+
+“What is that?” said the Commissioner suddenly, putting up his
+eye-glass; “a pile of cannon-balls? It was not there last night.”
+
+They were standing in one of the gateway turrets, and the heap to
+which he pointed was visible upon the cleared space, in front of the
+entrance to a lane between two of the houses occupied by the enemy.
+Colonel Graham laid down his field-glass with an exclamation of
+disgust.
+
+“Cannon-balls! It’s _heads_--human heads--heads of our men. Those
+fiends have surprised one of our posts--Sultanibagh probably, beyond
+Shah Nawaz. I telegraphed to the Jemadar in charge to retire upon
+Rahmat-Ullah, as there was no chance of their getting here safely, but
+the wires must have been cut before they got the message, or else the
+men have been ambushed on their way. Well, Bahram Khan has put himself
+beyond the pale of mercy this time, even with our Government, I should
+imagine.”
+
+As the light grew stronger the sickening trophy was perceived from
+other parts of the fort, and the men of the Khemistan Horse began to
+become impatient. It appeared that a deserter had ventured close under
+the walls in the night, in order to taunt the garrison with some
+unexplained reverse, the nature of which was now made manifest. They
+were asked how long Sinjāj Kīlin’s sowars had been content to hide
+behind stone walls, instead of coming out to fight on horseback in the
+open, and a variety of interesting and savoury information was added
+as to the precise nature of the tortures in store for all, whether
+officers or men, who fell into Bahram Khan’s hands. To the men who had
+so long dominated the frontier, this abuse was intolerably galling,
+and the troopers were gathering in corners with sullen faces, and
+asking one another why they were kept back from washing out the
+disgrace in blood. They had now been in the fort the best part of a
+week, no attack in force had been made, and yet there had not been the
+slightest attempt to drive off the enemy or inflict any loss upon him.
+Ressaldar Badullah Khan voiced this feeling to Colonel Graham a little
+later, when the Colonel had passed with a judicious lack of apparent
+notice the scowling groups of men who were discussing the state of
+affairs.
+
+“Our faces are black, sahib,” said the native officer, in response to
+the question put to him. “Bahram Khan and his _badmashes_ laugh at our
+beards, and we are pent up here like women. We are better men than
+they--we have proved it in every fight since first Sinjāj Kīlin
+Sahib raised the regiment--why then (so say the sowars) is it
+forbidden to us to issue forth with our horses, and sweep the baseborn
+rabble outside from the face of the earth?”
+
+“Is the regiment complaining of the course I choose to take,
+Ressaldar?”
+
+“Nay, sahib; the sowars say that it is the will of the Kumpsioner
+Sahib which is being done.”
+
+“They are wrong. It is mine. What could the regiment do on horseback
+in the streets of the town, with the enemy firing from roofs and
+loopholes? We have not a man too many in the fort now, and yet,
+Ressaldar, I anticipate a sortie in force before long, though not in
+review order.”
+
+The Ressaldar’s eyes gleamed. “May the news be told to the regiment,
+sahib?” he asked.
+
+“Could they refrain from shouting it to the next man who taunts them?
+No, Ressaldar; tell them to trust me as they have always done
+hitherto. There will be work to be done before many days, but I cannot
+set mutinous men to do it.”
+
+Badullah Khan went out, meeting Woodworth on the threshold.
+
+“Would you mind coming up to the north-western tower, sir?” asked the
+adjutant, when he had closed the door. “The enemy seem to be doing
+something in that direction which I can’t quite make out.”
+
+“What sort of thing?” asked Colonel Graham, rising.
+
+“I would rather not give an opinion until you have seen what there is
+to see, sir,” was the reply, so unwontedly cautious that the Colonel
+prepared for a heavy blow. Woodworth followed him up the narrow
+winding stairs in silence, and pointed to the stretch of desert on the
+northern side of the town, across which two long strings of men and
+animals were slowly passing in a westerly direction. The Colonel
+started, examined the moving objects through his field-glass, and
+called to his orderly--
+
+“Ask Beltring Sahib to come here at once.”
+
+Almost before Beltring, breathless, had mounted the staircase, he was
+greeted by a question. “Beltring, are there any guns at Nalapur?”
+
+“No, sir. At least, there are two old field-pieces in front of the
+palace, but that’s all.”
+
+“Are they in working order?”
+
+“They use them for firing salutes, sir, not for anything else, I
+believe.”
+
+“Still, that shows they are safe to work, and here they are. Where
+will they mount them, should you say, Woodworth?”
+
+“On the hill, sir. The slope on the far side is comparatively easy for
+getting them up.”
+
+“True, and from the brow there they could knock the place about our
+ears in a couple of hours. At all costs we must keep them from getting
+the range to-day. They will have no range-finders, that’s one good
+thing, and if we can secure a night’s respite, it’ll be a pity if we
+don’t make good use of it. Tell our marksmen to fire at anything they
+see moving up there. Those guns must not be placed in position before
+sunset. And then tell all the other officers and volunteers to meet me
+on the south rampart immediately.”
+
+The council of war which assembled on the rampart, sheltered by the
+south-western tower, was sufficiently informal to make the hair of any
+stickler for military etiquette stand on end, but its proceedings were
+absolutely practical. The Colonel, beside whom stood Mr Burgrave,
+stated the situation briefly.
+
+“You have seen the two guns which the enemy intend to mount on the
+hill there. Once they get them into position and find our range, we
+may as well retire into the vaults and wait until we are smoked out,
+for there is no possible shelter above ground. With our small force it
+is hopeless to detach a party to sally out and capture the guns in the
+open--more especially since the enemy hold the town between us and
+them. Still, they have plenty to do in getting the guns across the
+canal and dragging them up the hill, and we must make it our business
+to prevent them from opening fire to-day, and to-night those guns must
+be taken. I propose to leave the Commissioner in charge of the fort,
+with ten of his own Sikhs and fifty sowars under Ressaldar Ghulam
+Rasul. Every civilian who can hold a weapon must also do duty. I shall
+take a hundred and fifty dismounted sowars and thirty Sikhs, with all
+the enrolled volunteers, and make a dash for the hill under cover of
+darkness. If we succeed, we shall have averted a great danger; if we
+fail, the fort will be no worse off than if we had hung about and done
+nothing. I am confident that the Commissioner will fight to the end,
+and not allow himself to be tempted by any offer of terms.”
+
+“Know the beggars too well,” said Mr Burgrave laconically.
+
+“That’s the main scheme; now for details. To reach the hill, the canal
+must be crossed in any case. The most obvious plan would undoubtedly
+be for the force to rendezvous silently in the shadow of the west
+curtain, traverse the irrigated land, and restore the bridge at the
+foot of the hill sufficiently to cross by it. But the enemy could
+sweep the whole route from their positions both in the town and on the
+hill, and they will be very much on the alert to-night. My idea is to
+cross the canal here from the water-gate, and march the first part of
+the distance along the bank, so as to come upon the enemy from the
+side he won’t expect us. He knows we have neither boat nor bridge, and
+the water is still deep enough along the wall to be impassable to any
+but good swimmers.”
+
+“Then how do you propose to cross?” asked Mr Burgrave.
+
+���There I must invite suggestions. We have no time for building boats
+or bridges, and the water-gate offers no facilities for it either. A
+raft, possibly. What do you think, Runcorn?”
+
+“A raft supported on inflated skins, sir?” asked the engineer officer.
+“That might be practicable, but it would have to be very small, for
+the passage to the gate is so narrow that all the materials must be
+taken to the water’s edge separately and put together there. There is
+no standing-ground of any sort but the wretched shaky steps that the
+water-carriers use, so that we can’t well lower things from the wall.”
+
+“And the time spent in ferrying the force over would be interminable,
+not to mention the risk of discovery by the enemy,” said Colonel
+Graham.
+
+His subordinates looked at one another. Various suggestions had been
+hazarded and rejected, when a hesitating voice made itself heard. The
+speaker was Mr Hardy, who had joined the group a few minutes earlier,
+with a message to the Colonel from one of the wounded officers in the
+hospital.
+
+“In my Oxford days,” he said, “I remember a pleasant walk through the
+meadows--” His hearers gasped. Why should these peaceful recollections
+be obtruded at such a moment? “There was one point at which the path
+crossed a considerable stream, and a punt that ran on wires was placed
+there. I’m afraid I am not very intelligible,” he smiled nervously. “I
+can’t describe the mechanism in technical language, but the punt was
+fastened to one wire, and the other was free and moved on pulleys, so
+that you could pull yourself across, or draw the punt towards you if
+it happened to be at the opposite bank.”
+
+“Padri,” said Colonel Graham, “it’s clear that you are an unsuspected
+mechanical genius. This is the very thing we want, though we must use
+rope instead of wire.”
+
+“But we have even got that, sir,” said Runcorn eagerly. “Timson was
+boasting that he had saved all the stores of his department--miles of
+telegraph wire amongst them. Now he’ll have to disgorge.”
+
+“Then will you set about the construction of the ferry, Runcorn? You
+can’t begin work on the spot until night, but you can get your
+materials ready. Requisition anything you want, of course.”
+
+“May we make a suggestion, sir?” said Fitz Anstruther, coming forward
+with Winlock as the council broke up. Signals of intelligence had been
+passing between the two for some time, and they had held a whispered
+consultation while the ferry was being discussed.
+
+“Why, what plot have you on hand?”
+
+It was Winlock who answered. “We thought that it might make all the
+difference to your success, sir, if a diversion could be arranged to
+distract the enemy’s attention. We two know every foot of these hills
+from _chikor_-shooting, and if we might pick out a dozen or so of the
+sowars who have constantly gone with us out hunting as beaters, we
+could make a sham attack. We know of a splendid place on the side of a
+hill, inaccessible from below, which commands the camp of the hostile
+tribes, and we thought if we sent up a signal rocket or two, to be
+answered from the fort, and then poured in as many volleys as there
+was time for, it might make a good impression. Of course, as soon as
+they try to get round us and rush the hill, we must retire, to keep
+them from finding out how few we are; but the main force ought to have
+settled the guns by that time, and we might rendezvous on the hill and
+march back together.”
+
+“It sounds feasible,” said the Colonel slowly; “but how do you propose
+to cross the canal?”
+
+“We don’t mean to cross it in going, sir. Anstruther says we can
+clamber along the base of this wall from the water-gate round the
+south-western tower, so as to get on to dry land under the west
+curtain.”
+
+“I know it’s possible, sir,” said Fitz eagerly. “I’ve done it more
+than once when the canal was low, and it’ll be easier now that the
+bricks are so much washed away. And of course we shall be very careful
+in crossing the irrigated land--all of us in khaki, you see, and
+taking advantage of every bit of cover--and unless we run right into
+one of the enemy’s outposts, I don’t see how they are to spot us. And
+think of the benefit it will be to have their attention distracted
+from your movement!”
+
+“You realise that you are taking your lives in your hands? You will
+probably have to swim the canal higher up to join us, and, after all,
+we may not be able to wait for you. Your men will be volunteers, of
+course? They must understand that it’s a desperate business.”
+
+“Yes, sir; but they’ll come like a shot. They’ve been out with us
+after _markhor_, and we’ve been in some tight places in the mountains.
+May we have what rockets we want?”
+
+“By all means. Good luck go with you! I wish I was coming too!”
+
+“That’s really handsome of the C.O.,” said Fitz, dodging a bullet as
+he clattered down the stairs into the courtyard with Winlock. “Grand
+firework display to-night! What a pity that the ladies and all the
+refugees can’t have front seats on the ramparts to watch the
+_tamasha_!”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI.
+ THE DARKEST HOUR.
+
+“Sahib, there is a man under the wall on the east side.”
+
+“How did he come there?” demanded Colonel Graham angrily. “What are
+the sentries doing?”
+
+“The night is so dark, sahib, that he crept up unnoticed. He is the
+holy mullah Aziz-ud-Din, and desires speech with your honour.”
+
+“The Amir’s mullah? You are sure of it?”
+
+“I know his voice, sahib. He is holding his hands on high, to show
+that he has no weapons.”
+
+“I suppose we may as well see what he has to say,” said the Colonel to
+Mr Burgrave, with whom he had been making final arrangements, and the
+two men climbed the steps to the east rampart. Once there, and looking
+over into the darkness, it was some little time before their eyes
+could distinguish the dim figure at the foot of the wall.
+
+“Peace!” said Colonel Graham.
+
+“It is peace, sahib. I bear the words of the Amir Ashraf Ali Khan. He
+says, ‘It is now out of my power to save the lives of the sahibs, and
+I will not deceive them, knowing that a warrior’s death amid the ruins
+of their fortress will please them better than to fall into the hands
+of my thrice-accursed nephew, who has stolen the hearts of my soldiers
+from me. But this I can do. The houses next to the canal on this side
+of the fort are held by my own bodyguard, faithful men who have eaten
+of my salt for many years, and I have there six swift camels hidden.
+Let the Memsahibs be entrusted to me, especially those of the
+household of my beloved friend Nāth Sahib, and I will send them at
+once to Nalapur, where they shall be in sanctuary in my own palace,
+and I will swear--I who kept my covenant with the Sarkar until the
+Sarkar broke it--that death shall befall me before any harm touches
+them.’”
+
+“Why is this message sent to-night?” asked Colonel Graham.
+
+“Because Bahram Khan is preparing a great destruction, sahib, and the
+heart of Ashraf Ali Khan bleeds to think that the houses of his
+friends Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib and Nāth Sahib should both be blotted
+out in one day.”
+
+“Carry my thanks and those of the Commissioner Sahib to Ashraf Ali
+Khan, but tell him that the Memsahibs will remain with us. Their
+presence would only place him in greater danger, and he would not be
+able to protect them. But we can. They will not fall into the hands of
+Bahram Khan.”
+
+“It is well, sahib.” The faint blur which represented the messenger
+melted into the surrounding blackness, and Colonel Graham turned to
+his companion.
+
+“It will be your business to see to that, if the enemy break in.
+Haycraft comes with me. We must leave Flora in your charge. Don’t let
+her fall into their hands, any more than Miss North.”
+
+“I promise,” said Mr Burgrave, and their hands met in the darkness.
+
+“Thanks. I think we have settled everything now. We don’t start for an
+hour yet, and if you like to explain things to Miss North----”
+
+“I should prefer to say nothing unless the necessity arises.”
+
+“I never thought of your going into details, but she must know
+something, surely? Flora will learn the state of affairs from
+Haycraft; Mrs North will pick it up from the Hardys and her ayah, and
+Miss North will probably expect---- But please yourself, of course.”
+
+“I will go and talk to her for a little while. I have scarcely seen
+her all day.”
+
+Mr Burgrave’s tone was constrained. It seemed to him almost impossible
+to meet Mabel at this crisis, and abstain from any allusion to the
+terrible duty which had just been laid upon him. He was not an
+imaginative man, and no forecast of the scene burned itself into his
+brain, as would have been the case with some people, but the
+oppression of anticipation was heavy upon him. For him the dull horror
+in his mind overshadowed everything, and it was with a shock that he
+found Mabel to be in one of her most vivacious and aggressive moods.
+She was walking up and down the verandah outside her room as if for a
+wager, turning at each end of the course with a swish of draperies
+which sounded like an angry breeze, and she hailed his arrival with
+something like enthusiasm, simply because he was some one to talk to.
+
+“Flora is crying on Fred’s--I mean Mr Haycraft’s--shoulder somewhere,”
+she said; “and Mrs Hardy and Georgia are having a prayer-meeting with
+the native Christians. They wanted me to come too; but I don’t feel as
+if I could be quiet, and I shouldn’t understand, either. What is going
+to happen, really?”
+
+“The Colonel proposes to make a sortie and capture the two guns which
+the enemy have brought up. There is, I trust, every prospect of his
+succeeding.”
+
+Mabel stamped her foot. “Why can’t you tell me the truth, instead of
+trying to sugar things over?” she demanded. “It would be much more
+interesting.”
+
+“You must allow me to decide what is suitable for you to hear,” said
+Mr Burgrave, his mind still so full of that final duty of his that he
+spoke with a serene indifference which Mabel found most galling.
+
+“I don’t allow you to do anything of the sort. I wish you wouldn’t
+treat me as if I was a baby. It’s like telling me yesterday that all
+the fresh milk in the place was to be reserved for us women and the
+wounded, as if I wanted to be pilloried as a lazy, selfish creature,
+doing nothing and demanding luxuries!”
+
+“My dear little girl, I am sure there isn’t a man in the garrison who
+would consent to your missing any comfort that the place can furnish.”
+
+“That’s just it. I want to feel the pinch--to share the hardships. But
+of course you don’t understand--you never do.” She stopped and looked
+at him. “I don’t know how it is, Eustace, but you seem somehow to stir
+up everything that is bad in my nature. I could die happy if I had
+once shocked you thoroughly.”
+
+He recoiled from her involuntarily. “Do you think it is a time to joke
+about death when it may be close upon you?” he asked, with some
+severity.
+
+“That sounds as if you were a little shocked,” said Mabel
+meditatively. “But you know, Eustace, whenever you tell me to do
+anything--I mean when you express a wish that I should do anything--I
+feel immediately the strongest possible impulse to do exactly the
+opposite.”
+
+“But the impulse has never yet been translated into action?” he asked,
+with the indulgent smile which was reserved for Mabel when she talked
+extravagantly.
+
+“I’m ashamed to say it hasn’t.”
+
+“Then I am quite satisfied. I can scarcely aspire to regulate your
+thoughts just at present, can I? But so long as you respect my
+wishes----”
+
+“Oh, what a lot of trouble it would save if we were all comfortably
+killed to-night!” cried Mabel, with a sudden change of mood. Mr
+Burgrave was shocked, and showed it. “I’m in earnest, Eustace.”
+
+“My dear child, you can hardly expect me to believe that you would
+welcome the horrors which the storming of this place would entail?”
+
+“Oh no; of course not. You are so horribly literal. Can’t you see that
+my nerves are all on edge? I do wish you understood things. If you
+won’t talk about what’s going to be done to-night, do go away, and
+don’t stay here and be mysterious.”
+
+“Dear child, do you think I shall judge you hardly for this feminine
+weakness? You need not be afraid of hurting or shocking me. Say
+anything you like; I shall put it down to the true cause. If your
+varying moods have taught me nothing else, at least I have learnt
+since our engagement to take your words at their proper valuation.”
+
+“If you pile many more loads of obligation upon me, I shall expire!”
+said Mabel sharply, only to receive a kind smile in return. Anything
+more that she might have said, in the amiable design of shocking him
+beyond forgiveness, was prevented by the appearance of Mrs Hardy.
+
+“Is it true that you are going to arm all the civilians in the place,
+Mr Burgrave?” she demanded of the Commissioner.
+
+“It is thought well--merely as a precautionary measure.”
+
+“Then I do beg and beseech you to give Mr Hardy a rifle that won’t go
+off, or we shall all be shot.”
+
+“We will get the Padri to go round and hand out fresh cartridges,
+instead of giving him a gun,” said Mr Burgrave seriously, but Mabel
+burst into a peal of hysterical laughter, which was effectual in
+putting a stop to further conversation, and he returned to the outer
+courtyard, where the men chosen for the forlorn hope were mustering in
+readiness for the start. Fitz and Winlock and their small party had
+left already, officers and men alike wearing the native grass sandals
+instead of boots, as they had been accustomed to do in their hunting
+expeditions, and it was known that they had scrambled along the wall
+and round the base of the south-western tower in safety. The ferry had
+by this time been successfully constructed by Runcorn and his
+assistants, one of whom had undertaken the very unpleasant task of
+swimming across the ice-cold canal to pass the first wire rope round
+one of the posts which registered the height of the water on the
+opposite bank. Ball ammunition in extra quantities was served out to
+the whole force, for although Colonel Graham hoped to confine himself
+entirely to cold steel, for the sake of quietness, he was determined
+to be able to reply to the enemy’s fire, should their attention
+unfortunately be aroused. The men were marched down in parties to the
+water-gate, and ferried over as quickly as the confined space would
+allow, and when all had crossed, the raft was drawn back to the
+gateway, and the wire disconnected. It had been decided that this was
+imperative, lest the enemy should take advantage of the ferry to cross
+the canal while the attention of the garrison was occupied by an
+attack in front. If the forlorn hope returned victorious, it would be
+easy to reconstruct the ferry by throwing a rope to them from the
+rampart, while if they were compelled to retreat, the raft was so
+small that to employ it under fire would entail a useless sacrifice of
+life, and the fugitives would do better to swim.
+
+Then began a weary waiting-time for those in the fort. The night was
+moonless, so that it was impossible to distinguish any movement,
+whether on the part of friend or of foe. At last a rocket, rising from
+the cliff which overhung the town on the north-west, and which Fitz
+and Winlock had indicated as their goal, showed that they, at least,
+had so far been successful. The rocket sent up from the fort in reply
+was answered by another from the cliff, and this was immediately
+followed by the distant sound of brisk firing, which seemed to cause
+considerable perturbation in the parts of the town occupied by the
+enemy. Lights moved about hurriedly from place to place, horns were
+blown, and there was a confused noise of angry shouting. The garrison
+did their best, by opening fire from the wall and towers, to increase
+the effect of the surprise, but without much hope of hitting anything,
+for the moving lights did not afford very satisfactory targets. In
+reply, a dropping fire broke out from the houses opposite, which was
+maintained for some time, but with little spirit, and slackened
+gradually. Scarcely had Mr Burgrave given the order to cease fire,
+however, when a heavy fusillade was heard on the west of the fort,
+though not from the hill. The sound appeared to come from the point at
+which the bridge, now in ruins, had crossed the canal, a point which
+it had not hitherto been known that the enemy were occupying, and
+which Colonel Graham had not intended to approach. His force should
+have been far to the left of it by this time, and already mounting the
+hill. The most probable explanation seemed to be that they had missed
+their way in the darkness, and following the bank of the canal too
+far, had fallen into an ambuscade posted at the ruins of the bridge to
+guard against any attempt to cross for the purpose of capturing the
+guns. The Commissioner and his garrison waited and listened in the
+deepest anxiety, straining their eyes to try and perceive, from the
+flashes of the rifles, which way the fight was tending. But the firing
+ceased suddenly, as that on the farther side of the enemy’s position
+had done some time before. There was nothing to do but wait.
+
+Suddenly, after a long interval, a piteous wailing arose at the rear
+of the fort, from the opposite bank of the canal. A native stood
+there, one of the water-carriers who had accompanied the force,
+abjectly entreating to be fetched over, since the enemy were at his
+heels. To employ the ferry at such a moment was not to be thought of,
+but a rope was thrown from the steps of the water-gate, and the
+miserable wretch, plunging in, caught it, and was drawn across. He
+told a terrible tale as he stood dripping and shivering in the passage
+leading to the gate. Colonel Graham’s force had been attacked, shortly
+after leaving the canal-bank, by overwhelming numbers of the enemy,
+who had first poured in a withering fire, and then rushed forward to
+complete the destruction with their knives and tulwars. The _bhisti_
+himself was the only man who had escaped, and the enemy had pursued
+him to the very edge of the canal. The sharpest-sighted men in the
+fort, sent to the rampart to test the truth of this statement as far
+as they could by starlight, were obliged to confirm it. There was
+undoubtedly a large body of the enemy on the other side of the canal.
+They were lying down behind the high bank, so as to be sheltered from
+the fire of the garrison.
+
+“To cut off fugitives, I suppose,” muttered Mr Burgrave, half to
+himself and half to Ressaldar Ghulam Rasul. “That looks as though the
+massacre were not quite so complete as--Hark! I thought I heard a
+sound from the hill. Can our glorious fellows have made a last dash
+for it after all--some few who escaped?”
+
+The men on the rampart stood like statues to listen, but failed to
+distinguish anything that might confirm the Commissioner’s surmise.
+The air seemed full of sound--footfalls, a murmur from the town, a
+stray shot or two from the same direction, and on the west a kind of
+shuffling noise. The enemy were taking up their positions for the
+attack. Mr Burgrave sent orders to the guard at the water-gate to let
+the air out of the inflated skins which supported the raft, so as to
+sink it to the level of the water, and this was at once done. When he
+had posted a sentry in the passage and another on the rampart above
+it, he was able to leave that side of the fort to defend itself, since
+the enemy had no means of crossing to assail it. To occupy the whole
+range of wall with the absurdly small force at his disposal was
+obviously impossible, and he therefore placed ten men in each of the
+larger towers, from which, with the usual amount of trouble and risk,
+a flanking fire could be obtained, and twelve in the two gateway
+turrets, retaining the Ressaldar and sixteen men as a reserve, ready
+to make a dash for any point that might be specially threatened. If
+the garrison should be driven from the walls, those who escaped were
+to rush for the hospital, where the women and children would take
+refuge, and the last stand was to be made. Having ordered his forces
+to their stations, the Commissioner went the round of the towers to
+encourage the men. His own Sikhs he could deal with well enough, but
+he felt that it was the irony of fate which obliged him to urge the
+sowars of the Khemistan Horse to show themselves worthy of their first
+commander, General Keeling, and it seemed as if the same thought had
+occurred to the men, for they scowled at him resentfully when they
+heard the mighty name from his lips.
+
+The bad news brought by the fugitive spread through the fort with
+astonishing rapidity. The native women, whom Georgia had succeeded in
+soothing into some sort of calmness before the departure of the
+forlorn hope, filled the air with their wailings, until Ismail Bakhsh,
+who was head of the civilian guard detailed for the defence of the
+hospital, threatened to fire a volley among them if they were not
+quiet. Flora Graham’s ayah was gossiping with a friend among these
+women when the news arrived, and she rushed with it at once to her
+mistress’s room. Poor Flora had shut herself up alone to pray for the
+safety of her father and lover, and was following in thought every
+step of their perilous march. She had just reached with them the
+summit of the hill, and rushed upon the guard round the guns, when the
+ayah burst in with the news that the worst had happened. The sudden
+revulsion of feeling was too much for Flora. Her usual self-control
+deserted her, and she ran wildly across the courtyard to Georgia’s
+room. Georgia was lying down, talking softly in the dark to Mabel, who
+sat beside her, and both sprang up at Flora’s entrance.
+
+“What is it? Have they come back?” they demanded, with one voice.
+
+“No, no; they are killed--all killed! Papa and Fred both--oh, Mrs
+North, what can I do?” She dropped sobbing on the floor at Georgia’s
+feet, and buried her face in her dress.
+
+“Perhaps it isn’t true,” suggested Georgia faintly. She had sunk down
+again on the bed.
+
+“There’s no hope--one man has come back, the only survivor. Both of
+them at once! and I was praying for them, and I felt so sure--and even
+while I was praying they were being killed.”
+
+“Is the whole force cut off?” asked Georgia, almost in a whisper.
+
+“All but this one man.” Flora checked her sobs for a moment to answer.
+
+“Fitz Anstruther too?” cried Mabel sharply.
+
+“All, I tell you! It doesn’t signify to you, Mab; you have your
+Eustace left, but I have lost everything. Oh, Mrs North, you know how
+it feels. Help me to bear it.”
+
+“Flora dear,” began Georgia, with difficulty. “I--I can’t breathe,”
+she gasped, struggling to stand up. “Please ask Mrs Hardy to come. I
+feel so faint. She will understand.”
+
+Rahah, who had been crouched in the corner as usual, sprang up and ran
+out, returning in a moment with Mrs Hardy, who fell upon both girls
+immediately, and drove them out with bitter reproaches.
+
+“You pair of selfish, thoughtless chatterboxes! I should have thought
+you had more sense, Flora. Just be off, both of you. You can have my
+rooms for the rest of the night; I shall stay here. Even if all our
+poor fellows are killed, is that any reason for killing Mrs North
+too?”
+
+“Oh, please don’t, Mrs Hardy! I never thought--Mrs North is always so
+kind, and I am so miserable,” sobbed Flora.
+
+“You shouldn’t be miserable unless you’re quite certain it’s
+necessary. You wouldn’t believe a native who told you he was dead, as
+they are always doing; so why should you when he says other people are
+dead?” demanded Mrs Hardy, with a brilliancy of logic which somehow
+failed to satisfy. “I haven’t a doubt that the _bhisti_ took to his
+heels in a panic at the sound of the first shot, and if he hadn’t
+fortunately been in the rear, the panic might have spread to all the
+rest. There, go away, do, and don’t cry so. We’ll hope all will go
+well.”
+
+
+
+“Why have you left your post, doctor?” asked Mr Burgrave, meeting Dr
+Tighe crossing the courtyard.
+
+“The hospital will have to look after itself a good deal to-night, but
+I have left the Padri and my Babu in charge there. Mrs North is taken
+ill.”
+
+“Good heavens! It only needed this to make the horror of the situation
+complete.”
+
+“From our point of view, it may be the best thing that could happen.
+It will make the men fight like demons. Here, you girl, where are you
+going?” He had caught the shoulder of a veiled woman who ran up and
+tried to slip past him into the passage, but she let her _chadar_ fall
+aside, and disclosed herself as Rahah.
+
+“I have been telling the men of the regiment, sahib, and they have all
+sworn great oaths that so long as one of them has a spark of life left
+Sinjāj Kīlin’s daughter shall not be without a protector in her
+need, and that the corpses of foes without and friends within shall be
+piled as high as the ramparts before the enemy shall gain a footing on
+the wall. I told also those in the hospital”--there was a hint of
+malice in Rahah’s voice--“and every wounded man who can sit up in bed
+is crying out for a gun. They will serve as hospital guard, they say,
+and set Ismail Bakhsh and his men free to fight on the walls.”
+
+“Good idea, that!” said Dr Tighe, turning to the Commissioner. “You
+see how the men take it. Well, I shall keep Mrs North in her own
+quarters if I can, but there is a passage through to the hospital
+courtyard, and we must carry her over if it’s necessary. But I don’t
+think it will be, now.”
+
+Mr Burgrave nodded, and returned to his station on the west curtain.
+Why the enemy did not advance to the attack was a mystery. In the
+opinion of Ghulam Rasul and his most experienced subordinates, they
+had moved out from their position in the town, and were occupying the
+irrigated land on both sides of the canal in large numbers, sheltered
+against any volley from the walls by the rows of trees which marked
+the lines of the water-courses. They could not be seen, nor could it
+precisely be said that they were heard, but as the old soldiers in the
+garrison said, it could be felt that they were there. The situation
+was eerie in the extreme, and Mr Burgrave was unable to find comfort
+in a phenomenon which made his men cheerful in a moment. It was the
+Ressaldar who called his attention to it as they stood straining their
+ears in the attempt to distinguish some definite sound in the
+murmuring silence, and at once he himself heard clearly the faint
+tramp of a galloping horse far away to the north-east.
+
+“He rides!” breathed Ghulam Rasul in an ecstasy, and “He rides!” cried
+the sowar nearest him, catching up the words from his lips. “He
+rides!” went from man to man, until the defenders of the towers looked
+at one another with glistening eyes, and even the unsympathetic Sikhs,
+who held themselves loftily aloof from the contemptible local
+superstitions of their Khemi comrades, repeated, with something of
+enthusiasm, “He rides!” “He rides; all is well,” said Ismail Bakhsh,
+puffing out his chest with pride, in his temporary guardroom on the
+clubhouse verandah. “Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib is watching over his house
+and over his children. The power of the Sarkar stands firm.”
+
+ [image: images/img_198.jpg
+ caption: “HE RIDES”]
+
+All unconscious of the moral reinforcement which was doubling the
+strength of the garrison, Mabel and Flora sat disconsolately over the
+charcoal brazier in Mrs Hardy’s room, listening for the sounds of the
+attack, which they expected to hear each moment. Mrs Hardy’s vigorous
+rebuke had nerved them both to put a brave face on matters, and for
+some time they vied with one another in discovering reasons for
+refusing to credit the report of the fugitive, and deciding that all
+might yet be well. But as time went on, and there was no sign of the
+triumphant return of Colonel Graham and his force, their valiant
+efforts at cheerfulness flagged perceptibly. Mrs Hardy, running across
+to say that Georgia was doing pretty well, advised them to lie down
+and try to sleep, but they scouted the idea with indignation, and
+still sat looking gloomily into the glowing embers and listening to
+the night wind, which wailed round the crazy old buildings in a
+peculiarly mournful manner.
+
+“Doesn’t it seem absurdly incongruous,” said Mabel at last, in a low
+voice, “that you and I--two _fin de siècle_ High School girls, who
+have taken up all the modern fads just like other people--should be
+sitting here, expecting every moment that a band of savages will break
+in and kill us--with swords? It feels so unnatural--so horribly out of
+drawing.”
+
+“How can you talk such nonsense?” snapped Flora, upon whose nerves the
+strain of suspense was telling severely. “I never heard that a High
+School career protected people against a violent death. Do you think
+it felt natural to the women in the Mutiny to be killed--or the French
+Revolution, or any time like that?”
+
+“I don’t know. It really seems as if they must have been more
+accustomed to horrors in those days. Just imagine, Flora, the little
+paragraph there will be in the _South Central Magazine_: ‘We regret to
+record the death of Miss Mabel North, O.S.C., who was murdered in the
+late rising on the Indian frontier. Miss Flora Graham, a distinguished
+student of St Scipio’s College, St Margarets, N.B., is believed to
+have perished on the same sad occasion.’ Your school paper will have
+just the same sort of thing in it, and the two editors will send each
+other complimentary copies, and acknowledge the courtesy in the next
+number. It will all be about you and me--and we shall be dead.”
+
+“Of course we shall; you said that before. But I don’t see what good
+it does to die many times before our deaths.”
+
+“How horrid of you to call me a coward!” said Mabel pensively.
+
+“I don’t call you anything of the sort. I think you must be fearfully
+brave to look at things in this detached, artistic kind of way, but
+what’s the good of it? Death must come when it will come, but
+naturally no one could be expected to look forward with pleasure to
+the mere fact of dying. Unless, of course”--Flora’s blue eyes shone as
+she turned suddenly from the general to the particular--“my dying
+would save papa or Fred. Then I should be glad to die.”
+
+“You really mean that you wouldn’t mind being killed if somehow it
+would save either of their lives?”
+
+“Of course I do, just as you would gladly die to save your Eustace.”
+
+“But I wouldn’t!” cried Mabel involuntarily, then tried to minimise
+the effect of her admission by turning it into a joke. “I think it’s
+his privilege to do that for me.”
+
+“I wish you wouldn’t say that sort of thing!” said Flora
+reproachfully. “Happily there’s no one else to hear it, but if I
+didn’t know you, I should think you were perfectly horrid.”
+
+“No, Flora, really,” cried Mabel, in a burst of honesty; “I can’t say
+confidently that there is one person in the world I would die for. I
+feel as if I could die to save Georgia, but I don’t know whether I
+could do it when the time came. I used to think that people--English
+people, at any rate--became heroic just as a matter of course when
+danger happened, but now I begin to believe that it depends a good
+deal on what they have been like before.”
+
+“You always try to make the worst of yourself.”
+
+“No, I don’t. I’m trying to look at myself as I really am. I have
+never in all my life done a thing I didn’t like if I could help it.
+What sort of preparation is that for being heroic? Flora,” with a
+sudden change of subject, “suppose the enemy had stormed the fort
+before this evening, would you have asked your father or Fred to kill
+you?”
+
+“No,” was the unexpected reply. “It would have been so awfully hard on
+them. I keep a revolver in this pocket of my coat. You just put it to
+your eye--and it’s done.”
+
+“Oh, I wish I was like you! I know I should be wondering and worrying
+whether it was right, and all that sort of thing, until it was too
+late to do it.”
+
+“I don’t care whether it would be right or not,” said Flora doggedly.
+“I should do it. Do you think I would make things worse for papa and
+Fred, or let them have the blame of it if it was wrong?”
+
+“I suppose Eustace would do it for me,” drearily. “He would if he
+thought it was the proper thing. He always does the proper thing.”
+
+“I wish you wouldn’t talk in such a horrid voice. It makes me feel
+creepy. And I don’t think it’s fair to say that sort of thing about
+the Commissioner. He’s perfectly devoted to you, and you know it would
+break his heart to have to--do what we were talking about. I don’t
+believe you’re half as fond of him as he is of you.”
+
+“Have you found that out now for the first time?”
+
+“Then it’s a shame!” cried Flora. “Why do you let him think you care
+for him? He worships you, and you pretend----”
+
+“I don’t pretend. He took it into his head that I cared for him, and
+wouldn’t let me say I didn’t. And he doesn’t worship me. He thinks
+that I shall make a nice adoring sort of worshipper for him when he
+has got me well in hand.”
+
+“Well, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” said Flora
+crushingly.