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WITHDRAW 


MACMTLLAN'S    MAGAZINE 


VOL.    LXXIV 


MACMILLAN'S 


VOL.  LXXIV 

MAY,  1896,  TO  OCTOBER,  1896 


MACMILLAN    AND    CO.,    LTD. 

NEW  YORK:   THE  MACMILLAN  CO. 
1896 


W.J.  LlNTON.    S* 


The  Right  of  Translation  and  Reproduction  is  Reserved, 


R.IOHAIID  CLAY  AND  SONS,  LIMITED 
LONDON  AND  BUNGAV 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Apollo  in  the  Latin  Quarter 411 

Arm  Chair  Philosopher,  An 114 

Bideford  Bay,  In 137 

Brigandage  in  Sicily • 378 

Buffs,  The  Rise  of  the 392 

Burning  of  Meiron,  The ...  428 

Canada,  The  English  Settlement  of 177 

Danish  History,  An  Old  Page  of 353 

Death,  Into  the  Jaws  of 93 

„      In  the  Hour  of 193 

Examiner's  Dream,  An 367 

Execution  in  India,  An 286 

Florentine  Despot,  A 128 

French  Royalists,  The 457 

Friendly  Critic,  A 435 

How  History  is  Written  in  America 237 

How  King  Shaillu  was  Punished 419 

How's  That? 203 

Hughes,  Thomas 78 

Italian  Adventurer,  An 211 

Lady  Margaret  Tudor 449 

Living  of  East  Wispers,  The , 54 

Lord's  Pavilion,  In 312 

Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains 42 

Modern  Sindbad,  A 187 

New  Mosaics  at  Saint  Paul's,  The 16 

Newfoundland 23 

Ossian,  The  Centenary  of 62 

Packet-Service,  The  Old 34 

Pepys,  The  Man 345 

Poor  Scholar,  The 222 

Prince  of  Wales,  A 254 

Racine,  Some  Thoughts  on 227 

Radicals,  Old  and  New     .    .    .    f    ._  .   ^    .    .  ^, 153 


Contents. 

PAGE 

Rahel  Levin  and  Her  Times 264 

Red  Deer  of  New  Zealand,  The 305 

Romance  of  a  Stall,  The- 118 

Schoolmaster  at  Home,  A 444 

Scots  Brigade,  The  First 104 

Secret  of  Saint  Florel,  The— 

Chapters     I. — ill ; 1 

„         iv. — vi 81 

,,        vn. — ix 161 

,,           x. — xn 241 

,,      xin. — xvn 321 

,,    xviii. — xx 465 

Shall  we  return  to  the  Land  ? 279 

Slave  of  Summer,  The 199 

Snake  Story,  The  Best,  in  the  World 373 

Songs  of  Yesterday,  The 359 

Spanish  Main,  The 70 

Sportsman's  Journal,  Notes  from  a 384 

Story  of  His  Life,  The 300 

Tobacco  Smoking,  On  the  Antiquity  of 289 

White  Road,  The 145 

Yeomanry,  Our 401 


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MACMILLAN'S    MAGAZINE. 


MAY,  1896. 


THE   SECRET    OF  SAINT    FLOREL. 


CHAPTER  I. 

"  I'LL  tell  you  what,  Bryant ;  I  don't 
half  like  this  fellow  Holson.  There's 
something  queer  about  him.  These 
mysterious  comings  and  goings  of  his 
may  be  an  everyday  matter  in  these 
parts,  but  in  an  ordinary  Englishman 
I  call  'em  deuced  odd  ! "  And  Hugh 
Strong  lit  a  cigar  while  waiting  for 
his  companion's  answer  which  was  not 
immediately  forthcoming. 

"  I  don't  know,"  replied  the  other, 
after  a  pause,  in  a  deep  and  de- 
liberate voice.  "  He's  treated  us  hos- 
pitably enough ;  and  if  he  chooses  to 
go  away  for  a  day  or  two  every  now 
and  then,  he  has  a  perfect  right  to 
do  as  he  pleases.  It's  not  for  us  to 
grumble.  Moreover,  I  heard  a  very 
simple  explanation  of  his  fondness  for 
looking  after  his  property  down  at 
Saint  Florel." 

"  Well !  What  did  you  hear  ?  "  in- 
quired Strong  eagerly. 

"  Calm  yourself,  my  dear  fellow ; 
it  was  something  ordinary  enough. 
There  dwells  at  Saint  Florel  a  certain 
Creole  lady  of  considerable  personal 
attractions." 

"  Oh,"  said  Hugh  in  a  disappointed 
tone,  "is  that  all1?  Well,  I  don't 
admire  the  lady's  taste.  Holson  looks 
like  a  gaol-bird." 

"  He's  not  handsome,  I  admit,"  re- 
No.  439. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


turned  Bryant ;  "  and  like  yourself 
I'm  not  particularly  attracted  to  him. 
However,  if  it  hadn't  been  for  him 
we  shouldn't  have  seen  anything  of 
the  island,  and  it's  worth  seeing," 
he  concluded,  waving  his  cigar  to- 
wards the  landscape  that  lay  stretched 
around  and  below. 

It  was  indeed  worth  seeing.  The 
two  friends  were  sitting  over  their 
after-dinner  tobacco  on  the  verandah 
of  a  country-house  among  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Island  of  Reunion.  The 
dwelling  was  perched  upon  a  wide 
natural  ledge  or  shelf,  behind  which 
the  wooded  heights  towered  upwards, 
while  the  steep  fell  away  in  front  to 
the  winding  valley  below.  The  moon 
was  just  rising,  and  her  faint  silvery 
beams,  struggling  through  the  even- 
ing mists,  made  the  dim  solitudes 
around  yet  more  mysterious.  The 
rainy  season  had  just  begun  by  seve- 
ral hours'  steady  downfall ;  but,  as 
evening  came  on,  the  clouds  had  dis- 
persed, and  no  showers  obscured  the 
waxing  brilliance  of  the  moon  that 
was  slowly  climbing  up  her  starry 
road  to  the  zenith.  Mountain  rose 
behind  mountain,  and  peak  beyond 
peak  soared  skywards,  till  the  land- 
scape resembled  a  sea  whose  irregular 
and  fantastic  billows  had  been  sud- 
denly petrified.  In  the  craggy  hol- 
lows below,  and  among  the  dusky 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Ftorel. 


summits  of  the  wooded  slopes,  wreaths 
of  mist  were  rising  and  floating  above 
the  blackness  of  the  unseen,  like  ghosts 
that,  pale  and  shapeless,  seemed  con- 
demned to  linger  for  ever  in  shadowed 
regions  beyond  reach  of  the  moon. 

The  scent  of  jasmine  and  roses  came 
in  heavy  waves  of  fragrance  from  the 
garden ;  below  in  the  valley  the 
waters  of  a  rapid  torrent,  swollen  by 
the  afternoon's  rain,  fretted  and  chafed 
against  gray  boulders,  with  a  roar 
softened  to  music  by  the  distance. 
There  was  no  discordant  sound  abroad, 
save  the  groaning  of  the  Indian  cook 
as  he  kneaded  his  bread  in  the  bakery 
behind  the  house :  and  this  curious 
and  quite  unnecessary  noise  jarred, 
it  must  be  confessed,  with  the  cheer- 
ful chirping  of  the  crickets  and  the 
rush  of  the  torrent.  Strong,  who  was 
enjoying  the  view  and  the  coolness 
with  that  capacity  for  appreciation 
which  proceeds  from  a  well-digested 
dinner,  began  to  feel  irritated,  and 
removed  his  cigar  the  better  to  ex- 
press his  disapprobation. 

"  Hang  the  fellow  !  "  he  cried  im- 
patiently. "  Why  in  the  world  should 
he  start  his  confounded  moaning  just 
now  1  It's  like  that  hymn  about 
'  Every  prospect  pleases,  and  only  man 
is  vile.'  " 

"  Still  it's  his  way  of  going  to  work," 
answered  Bryant.  "  You  may  not 
admire  his  proceedings  just  at  present, 
but  you'd  look  rather  blank  if  there 
was  no  bread  for  breakfast." 

A  louder  howl  from  the  bakery  put 
an  additional  point  to  his  discourse, 
and  so  disgusted  his  companion  that 
the  latter  arose,  with  an  expression 
not  loud  but  deep,  and  set  off  in  the 
direction  of  the  kitchen,  a  crazy  build- 
ing, half  concealed  among  rose-bushes, 
whose  locality  was  betrayed  by  a  ray 
of  yellow  light  streaming  through  a 
hole  in  the  window-shutter.  Dozens 
of  moths  fluttered  away  from  the  light 
as  Strong  approached,  and  a  half -wild 


cat  fled  up  the  nearest  tree.  As  he 
opened  the  door  the  heat  presented 
a  sufficiently  unpleasant  contrast  to 
the  coolness  of  the  garden.  The  floor 
was  of  mud,  and  the  tables,  which  had 
not  known  a  scrubbing-brush  for  many 
a  day,  were  utilised  also  as  seats,  for 
a  stalwart  Indian,  naked  save  for  a 
loin-cloth,  was  placidly  smoking  upon 
one,  while  the  other  was  encumbered 
with  a  pile  of  unwashed  plates  and 
dishes.  Cacao,  the  smoker,  hummed 
a  native  air  as  he  sent  the  blue  clouds 
curling  upwards,  and  watched  his 
subordinate's  exertions  with  much 
complacency.  Chocolat,  whose  toilet 
was  as  simple  as  that  of  his  com- 
panion, stooped  over  a  wooden  trough 
in  which  lay  the  mass  of  dough  for 
the  morrow's  provision  of  bread.  The 
beads  of  perspiration  trickled  down 
his  face  as  he  rolled  and  kneaded, 
while  keeping  up  a  series  of  low 
howls  and  groans  which  must  have 
been  emitted  for  personal  encourage- 
ment, inasmuch  as  they  were  totally 
needless  from  any  other  point  of  view, 

Cacao  and  Chocolat  were  both  war- 
ranted to  speak  English,  so  Hugh 
Strong  began  at  once.  "  Chocolat, 
my  good  fellow,  what  are  you  making 
such  a  noise  about  1 " 

"  Makee  bread,"  answered  Chocolat, 
smiling  till  every  tooth  in  his  head 
was  visible,  and  gladly  desisting  from 
his  toil  for  a  little  conversation. 

"  But  you  needn't  also  make  such 
a  row." 

"Master  angry  when  come  in  morn- 
ing, no  find  bread  ready." 

"  But  surely  you  can  make  the 
bread  without  howling  as  though  you 
were  being  thrashed." 

"Master  angry  if  no  bread,"  re- 
peated Chocolat  with  an  unmoved 
smile. 

Here  Cacao,  who  had  listened  with 
some  interest,  intervened  with  an 
explanation.  "  All  Indian  make  same 
noise  when  him  work ;  what  you  call 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


de  fashion,"  he  concluded  with  a  grin.- 
that  matched  Chocolat's. 

"Well,  look  here,"  said  Strong, 
impatiently,  "if  you  two  can  keep 
away  from  the  fashion,  as  you  call  it, 
for  the  next  two  hours,  I'll  make  it 
worth  your  while ;  your  noise  is  a 
beastly  nuisance.  By  the  way,  what 
time  is  your  master  coming  back  to- 
morrow ?  Where  has  he  gone  1 " 

"  Gone  Saint  Florel,  look  after  cane- 
fields  there.  Come  early  in  morning 
for  breakfast,"  replied  Cacao. 

'Hugh  shut  the  kitchen  door  and 
turned  again  across  the  moonlit  gar- 
den. Before  he  had  gone  more  than 
twenty  yards,  however,  there  was 
heard  a  dull  ponderous  thud  as  of  the 
distant  fall  of  some  enormous  weight. 
The  ground  seemed  for  a  second  to 
vibrate  with  the  shock,  while  far 
below  in  the  valley  a  heavy  continuous 
echo  rolled  along  the  ravines  mutter- 
ing into  silence  as  it  sank  and  died 
away  among  their  furthest  recesses. 
Some  strangely  generated  current  of 
air  seemed  at  work  among  the  floating 
mists,  which  were  shaken  and  agitated, 
gathering  for  a  second  into  closer 
wreaths,  then  eddying  and  dispersing, 
and  finally  accumulating  again  as 
before. 

The  whole  occurrence  was  over 
almost  before  Strong  realised  that 
anything  unusual  had  happened.  The 
moonlight  still  shone  brightly,  not  a 
breath  stirred  the  air,  and  he  might 
have  deemed  the  whole  thing  a  matter 
of  imagination,  had  not  Bryant  hur- 
ried across  the  grass  towards  him  at 
the  same  moment  that  Cacao  and 
Chocolat  came  flying  from  the  kitchen, 
their  bare  feet  almost  noiseless  on  the 
gravel  path. 

The  two  Englishmen  looked  at  each 
other.  "  Good  Heavens,  what  was 
that?"  said  Bryant.  "What  could 
it  have  been  1  "  echoed  Strong ;  and 
they  both  turned  simultaneously  to  the 
Indians,  whose  dusky  faces  were 


almost  ashen  with  fear  and  looked 
ghastly  in  the  moonlight.  "  What 
was  it?"  asked  both  Englishmen 
together. 

"Big  rock  tumble,"  suggested  Cacao, 
as  distinctly  as  his  chattering  teeth 
would  allow,  while  Choeolat's  trem- 
bling lips  formulated  a  still  more 
startling  alternative  :  "  Tink  de  debbil 
about  to-night." 

"  Nonsense,"  said  Bryant,  who  was 
the  first  to  recover  his  composure. 
"  It's  certainly  not  the  devil,  and  I 
don't  see  how  it  could  have  been  a 
rock  either ;  the  sound  wasn't  sharp 
enough.  It  sounded  more  like  a 
gigantic  feather-bed.  I've  been  among 
the  Alps,  and  if  I  had  heard  that  noise 
in  Switzerland  I  should  have  said  it 
was  an  avalanche.  There's  no  snow 
here,"  he  concluded  in  a  puzzled  tone. 

"  No,"  said  Hugh  Strong,  with  a 
sudden  inspiration  ;  "  there's  no  snow, 
but  there's  plenty  of  earth.  That  was 
a  landslip,  Bryant  !  " 

"  By  Jove  !  "  said  the  other,  "  I 
believe  you're  right,  Strong.  Well, 
it's  a  sufficiently  startling  business. 
We  can't  see  or  hear  anything  to-night. 
No  doubt  Holson  will  bring  us  news 
when  he  returns  in  the  morning ;  that 
is,  if  it  has  happened  anywhere  in  his 
direction.  Now  I  vote  for  another 
cigar,  and  then, we'll  turn  in." 

They  strolled  again  towards  the 
verandah,  whose  wooden  supports  were 
all  wreathed  with  stephanotis,  and  sat 
themselves  down  in  the  two  luxurious 
arm-chairs  which  they  had  so  lately 
vacated.  Perhaps,  though  neither  of 
them  would  have  liked  to  confess  it, 
the  nerves  of  both  were  slightly 
shaken. 

"  When  shall  we  clear,  old  fellow  ?  " 
said  Strong,  when  the  cigars  were  well 
alight. 

"  Whenever  you  like,"  answered 
the  other. 

"  We've  been  here  nearly  a  month, 
you  see,"  went  on  his  companion,  "  and 

B   2 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


we'd  better  not  miss  the  next  Messa- 
gerie  boat.  I'm  glad  we  fell  in  with 
Holson,  though  I  don't  like  him. 
We've  seen  some  fine  scenery,  even 
though  the  shooting  is  nothing  to 
speak  of ;  and  on  the  whole  I  think 
we  did  well  to  accept  his  invitation. 
Still,  your  health's  all  right  now, 
Bryant,  thanks  to  our  year's  travelling, 
and  as  far  as  that  goes  we've  no  excuse 
for  stopping  away  any  longer.  So  I 
vote  for  the  next  boat  home.  We'll 
tell  Holson  when  he  returns  to- 
morrow." 

"All  right,"  said  Bryant;  "I'm 
your  man.  We'll  go  by  next  boat ;  " 
and  then  they  went  to  bed. 

They  ate  their  breakfast  next  morn- 
ing without  their  host,  who  had  appa- 
rently been  detained  at  his  sugar- 
factory.  It  was  not  until  a  Creole 
merchant  arrived  to  see  him  on  busi- 
ness that  Anthony  Holson's  prolonged 
absence  caused  any  uneasiness  to  his 
guests.  It  being  then  afternoon  and 
the  Creole  tired  of  waiting,  Chocolat 
volunteered  to  run  to  Saint  Florel  and 
see  what  had  become  of  his  master. 
In  two  hours  or  so,  by  taking  short 
cuts,  he  assured  Bryant,  he  would 
be  well  on  his  way  home  again. 

"  Chocolat  know  dese  parts,"  Cacao 
confided  to  Hugh  Strong.  "  He  got 
wife  and  lot  o'  baby  at  Saint  Florel,  so 
know  all  'bout  it." 

The  Indian,  however,  seemed  to 
have  over-rated  his  walking  powers, 
for  five  o'clock  came,  and  six,  and 
there  were  still  no  signs  of  his  return. 
As  they  sat  down  to  a  meal,  which 
owing  to  Chocolat's  absence  could  only 
be  called  dinner  by  courtesy,  both 
Bryant  and  Hugh  Strong  were  be- 
ginning to  feel  a  sense  of  impending 
calamity.  As  there  was  still  some 
faint  daylight  left  when  they  had 
finished,  the  two  friends  with  one 
accord  took  the  path  along  which 
Chocolat  ought  to  have  returned,  and 
strolled  along  it  for  a  short  distance 


to  see  if  any  signs  of  the  messenger 
were  visible.  They  were  just  thinking 
that  it  would  be  wiser  to  turn  back 
on  account  of  the  increasing  darkness 
when  Hugh  made  a  dart  forward  and 
closely  inspected  a  seated  figure  by 
the  road-side  which  he  thought  he 
recognised.  "Why,"  he  cried  in 
amazement,  "  it's  Chocolat !  " 

Chocolat  it  was,  sure  enough.  He 
sat  in  a  kind  of  dejected  stupor  at 
the  foot  of  a  loquat  tree.  His  clothes 
were  torn  and  disarranged,  his  face 
scratched  and  swollen,  and  his  feet 
bleeding.  As  the  Englishmen  ap- 
proached, he  merely  raised  his  head 
and  looked  at  them  with  a  dazed  and 
unseeing  expression  of  face. 

"  What's  the  matter  1  "  said  Bryant. 
"  What  has  happened  1  Speak,  man, 
can't  you  1 " 

But  Chocolat  only  shook  his  head 
and  seemed  unable  to  utter  a  word. 

"  Chocolat,"  said  Hugh  very  slowly 
and  distinctly,  trying  his  infallible 
resource,  "  tell  us  what  has  happened, 
and  I'll  give  you  a  dollar.  Have  you 
been  to  Saint  Florel  ? " 

"  Yes, — no, — yes,"  said  Chocolat 
mechanically. 

"  Well,  which  1 "  said  Bryant.  "  Did 
you  go,  or  did  you  not  go  1  " 

"  I  went,  yes, — no,  I  did  not  go," 
answered  Chocolat  in  the  same  dazed 
fashion. 

"  Let's  get  him  home,"  said  Hugh. 
"  Perhaps  Cacao  can  get  his  tale  out 
of  him ;  but  I'm  afraid,  Bryant,  that 
something  very  serious  has  happened. 
I  have  a  strong  impression  that  we 
shall  not  see  Holson  again." 

Between  them  they  dragged  the 
wretched  Chocolat  upright ;  but  when 
he  attempted  to  walk  he  was  in  such 
evident  pain  chat  Bryant  examined 
bis  feet,  which  were  cut  and  bleeding 
as  by  sharp  stones.  He  improvised 
a  bandage  with  a  pocket-handkerchief, 
and  then,  each  taking  an  arm,  the  two 
friends  between  them  supported  the 


The  Secret  of  Saint  F  lor  el. 


Indian  home,  a  haven  which  was 
reached  in  darkness  far  too  great  to 
be  comfortable.  Cacao  met  them  at 
the  gate  with  a  lantern,  and  seeing 
his  brother  in  such  a  plight  gave  a 
shout  of  astonishment.  Chocolat  fell 
into  his  relation's  supporting  arms 
with  a  cry  of  genuine  grief  ;  and  then 
ensued  a  rapid,  and,  as  it  appeared  to 
the  impatient  Englishmen,  an  inter- 
minable conversation  in  their  native 
tongue  between  the  two  Indians. 

"  Well,  what  does  he  say  1 "  in- 
quired Hugh,  when  at  last  a  slight 
pause  occurred  in  the  narrative. 

"  Saint  Fiord's  gone  !  "  said  Cacao, 
looking  up  in  affright. 

' '  Gone  1 "  ej  aculated  Bryant.  ' '  What 
nonsense  !  " 

"  Chocolat  can't  find  it,"  persisted 
Cacao. 

"  He  must  have  taken  the  wrong- 
road,"  said  Bryant. 

"  No,  no,"  cried  Cacao.  "  Chocolat 
know  road  all  quite  right ;  he  go  little 
way,  take  good  road,  rub  eye,  can't 
see,  rub  again,  no  Saint  Florel, 
no  nothing, — nothing  at  all, — all 
gone  !  " 

Bryant  looked  at  Hugh,  who  pursed 
up  his  mouth  into  whistling  shape, 
but  made  no  sound.  Bryant  turned 
again  to  Cacao,  who  was  standing 
there  in  a  complete  state  of  bewilder- 
ment, while  poor  Chocolat,  bereft, 
like  Macduff,  of  all  his  family  at  one 
fell  swoop,  sat  upon  the  ground  and 
wept  bitterly. 

"Try  and  make  me  understand," 
said  Bryant.  "  Do  you  really  mean 
to  say  that  Chocolat  can't  see  Saint 
Florel  anywhere  ? " 

"  He  go,"  explained  Cacao,  "  and 
go  and  go,  very  far,  up  mountain ; 
then  take  right  road  over  top ;  turn 
round  where  big  rocks  are,  and  all 
gone  :  no  big  hill  where  used  to  be ; 
no  hole  where  used  to  be  ;  no  nothing 
at  all." 

"  Then  where  is  Saint  Florel  1 "  per- 


sisted Bryant.  "  It  must  be  some- 
where, man." 

"  'Spect  all  buried  under  ground. 
Everything  tumble  on  top,"  answered 
Cacao. 

"  Then  where's  your  master  1 " 

"  'Spect  he  buried  too."     • 

"  Then  what  are  we  to  do  1 " 

"Don't  know." 

"  Here's  a  pretty  business,"  said 
Hugh,  who  had  been  listening  atten- 
tively. "  Are  we  supposed  to  take 
charge  of  this  house  and  all  Holson's 
belongings  till  somebody  turns  up  to 
do  something  1  " 

"  Better  send  down  word  to  the 
Consul,"  said  Bryant. 

"  Let  us  go  over  to-morrow  to 
where  Saint  Florel  was,"  said  Hugh. 
"  It  will  be  an  interesting  sight, 
though  I  suppose  nothing  can  be  done 
in  the  way  of  rescue." 

"Very  well,"  said  Bryant;  "and 
now  to  bed." 

CHAPTER   II. 

NEXT  morning  the  two  friends  set 
off  accompanied  by  both  servants. 
The  path,  a  mere  track,  led  over 
mountains  and  along  valleys,  winding 
in  all  sorts  of  unexpected  directions. 
The  sun  was  hot,  the  air  clear  and 
warm ;  exquisite  ferns  clung  against 
the  bare  gray  rocks,  or  nestled  in 
sheltered  and  stony  hollows  ;  the  wild 
raspberries  shone  upon  their  pale 
green  stems  in  dazzling  flashes  of 
scarlet,  while  the  whole  ground  was 
carpeted  with  alpine  strawberries. 
The  great  purple  mountain's  flanks, 
and  distant  rosy  peaks,  soared  above 
the  lowest  clouds  so  that  their  farther 
ranges  seemed  suspended  in  the  air. 
Here  and  there,  where  the  precipitous 
nature  of  the  ground  had  yielded  for 
a  moment  to  some  gentler  influence 
and  afforded  a  few  spare  yards  of 
comparative  level,  an  Indian  had 
planted  manioc,  or  potatoes,  or  maize, 


6 


The  Secret  of  Saint  FloreL 


the  vivid  emerald  green  of  the  latter's 
springing  sheathes  being  visible  for  a 
long  distance  and  enabling  the  travel- 
ler to  guess  where  a  human  habitation 
might  be  found. 

When  they  had  been  walking  for 
at  least  a  couple  of  hours  Chocolat, 
who  was  a  few  yards  ahead,  paused 
and  made  them  a  sign  to  come  for- 
ward. The  track  rose  at  this  par- 
ticular spot,  and  when  they  stood  be- 
side Chocolat,  both  recoiled  at  the 
complete  and  overwhelming  nature  of 
the  catastrophe. 

The  point  upon  which  they  were 
standing  was  the  summit  of  a  hill, 
and  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things 
the  path  would  here  have  begun  to 
descend.  A  rock,  however,  whose 
stony  mass  was  visible,  though  half 
buried,  several  yards  further  down, 
had  slipped  from  its  foundations  and 
carried  with  it  an  immense  quantity 
of  earth ;  for  the  end  of  the  path, 
broken  off  short,  was  literally  over- 
hanging a  newly  formed  precipice, 
and  an  enormous  hollow  lay  beneath 
their  feet,  partially  filled  up  with  the 
fallen  earth. 

It  would  have  been  difficult  to 
picture  a  more  extraordinary  scene  of 
desolation  than  the  one  which  now 
met  their  eyes.  Saint  Florel  had  been 
a  little  village  of  about  a  dozen  houses, 
whose  inhabitants  supported  them- 
selves by  cultivating  vegetables  or 
working  in  the  patch  of  ground  de- 
voted to  sugar-cane.  But  now  there 
was  no  sign  of  life  visible  for  miles 
round,  no  trace  of  human  dwelling 
or  cultivation.  Some  force  of  nature, 
either  a  sudden  shock  of  earthquake, 
or  the  undermining  influence  of  water, 
had  loosened  the  overhanging  mass  of 
rock-bound  soil  that  rose  above  it ; 
and  in  one  quick  and  horrible  moment 
all  life  of  man  and  plant  had  been 
crushed  and  extinguished  for  ever. 
There  lay  before  the  travellers  a  vast 
mass  of  freshly  turned  soil,  stretching 


downwards  till  it  covered  the  little 
stream  in  the  valley  whose  course  for 
many  yards  was  completely  choked. 
Blade  and  leaf  and  frond  clothed  the 
nakedness  of  the  rocks  and  stony 
landscape  round,  softening  all  sharp 
and  rugged  lines,  spreading  a  growth 
of  tender  verdure  over  the  steep  sides 
of  the  hills,  and  shrinking  in  more 
fertile  hollows  into  patches  of  intenser 
green.  But  here  before  them  lay 
what  seemed  some  hideous  scar  on  the 
fair  and  spacious  bosom  of  nature  ;  a 
gaping  and  cruel  wound  that  marred 
her  loveliness. 

They  stood  and  gazed  at  this  deso- 
lation for  some  moments  ;  the  thought 
of  all  those  fellow-creatures  lying 
buried  beyond  hope  of  rescue  was  pres- 
ent to  both,  and  neither  felt  inclined 
to  speak,  until  Bryant  broke  the 
silence.  "  Do  you  see,"  he  said  to 
Strong,  "just  where  the  edge  of  the 
shock  has  come  1  Down  there  is  quite 
a  large  tree  that  has  been  left  upright 
though  its  roots  are  bare ;  and  close 
beside  it  a  palmiste  has  been  snapped 
off  for  half  its  length." 

As  he  mentioned  the  palmiste, 
Chocolat  stepped  forward  and  gazed 
attentively  down  the  ravine. 

"  What  are  you  looking  for1?"  asked 
Strong. 

"  Only  one  palmiste  in  Saint  Florel," 
answered  Chocolat ;  "in  Mam'selle 
Julie's  garden.  Must  have  been 
there,"  he  concluded,  indicating  with 
his  finger  a  spot  close  to  the  boundary 
of  the  landslip's  effect. 

"  Who  was  Mam'selle  Julie  1 "  in- 
quired Bryant. 

"  She  Master's  friend.  Much  pretty, 
beautiful,"  replied  Cacao.  "  Master 
stay  there  always  in  Saint  Florel." 

"How  would  it  be,"  suggested 
Hugh,  "  to  scramble  down  and  dig  a 
bit  round  that  palmiste  ?  If  Holson 
was  there  the  night  before  last,  we 
may  find  proof  of  his  death." 

Bryant    was    looking   thoughtfully 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Fiord. 


round  as  his  companion  spoke.  "  I-~ 
have  never  been  in  Saint  Florel  before," 
he  said,  "  but  from  the  appearance  of 
the  neighbourhood,  I  should  imagine 
that  this  peril  has  been  impending  for 
years.  The  village  and  plantation 
were  evidently  in  a  hollow,  steeply 
overhung  by  a  bluff,  on  the  remains 
of  which  we  are  standing ;  the  earth 
and  rocks  of  the  bluff  simply  dropped 
into  the  hole  below  them,  and  filled 
it  up.  You  see  the  chief  shock  has 
been  in  one  place,  the  deepest  part  of 
the  hollow,  the  central  space  under 
the  bluff ;  there  are  thousands  of  tons 
of  earth  there.  The  place  is  filled  up  ; 
but  the  sides  of  the  hollow  have  not 
nearly  as  much  stuff  over  them.  You 
see  that  palmiste  tree,  which  must 
have  been  quite  on  the  edge  of  the 
rising  ground,  has  merely  been  snapped 
not  buried.  There  may  only  be  a 
few  feet  of  earth  above  the  virginal 
level  there,  and  we  can  dig  if  you 
like,  on  the  chance  of  finding  some- 
thing to  re-bury ;  but  I  think  it's  a 
forlorn  hope.  There's  no  need  to  go 
on  long." 

Making  their  way  accordingly  down 
to  a  lower  level  they  were  soon  at  the 
spot  indicated.  It  lay  on  the  extreme 
edge  of  the  track  of  the  landslip,  and 
far  removed  from  that  part  of  the 
mountain  side  which  had  received  the 
greatest  weight  of  earth.  The  palmiste, 
snapped  off  for  half  its  height,  stood 
like  a  house-pole  above  the  desolate 
earth.  The  disturbance  had  been 
comparatively  slight  in  this  direction, 
and  only  a  small  quantity  of  the  rich 
reddish  soil,  which  had  poured  like 
a  torrent  over  the  luckless  hamlet  of 
Saint  Florel,  had  been  dispersed  here- 
abouts. For  a  few  minutes  they 
looked  at  the  scene  in  silence,  their 
unwillingness  to  begin  exploring  being 
caused  not  by  inhumanity,  but  by  a 
natural  reluctance  to  expose  what 
might  possibly  prove  some  terrible 
spectacle. 


The  two  Indians  had  brought  spades 
in  case  they  might  be  required,  and 
now  carefully  following  Bryant's 
directions  they  began  lifting  the 
damp  caked  earth  in  slices.  It  ap- 
peared to  be  here  so  shallow,  that 
vertical  digging  would  have  defeated 
its  object.  The  men  worked  steadily 
on,  and  in  a  very  few  minutes 
Chocolat's  spade,  as  he  lifted  a  layer 
of  earth,  had  a  damp  white  fold  cling- 
ing round  it.  They  all  pressed  eagerly 
forward,  and  clearing  the  mould  with 
their  hands  found  that  it  belonged  to 
the  corpse  of  some  woman.  Soon 
soft  dark  hair  was  disclosed,  and 
before  long  the  body  lying  face  down- 
wards was  exposed  to  the  light. 

"  That  Mam'selle  Julie,  right  enuff," 
said  Cacao. 

"Why  should  she  belying  on  her  face 
now  ?  "  said  Bryant  in  a  puzzled  tone. 
"  I  don't  believe  there  was  enough 
weight  of  earth  upon  her  to  prevent 
her  getting  up  again." 

"  Perhaps  some  falling  stone  struck 
her  from  behind,"  suggested  Strong. 
"  Where  was  her  house,  Chocolat  1 " 

"  Down  further  from  palmiste,  much 
slope,"  answered  the  Indian.  "  Can't 
tell  where  now  ;  everything  lost." 

"Well,"  said  Strong,  "I  suppose 
we  had  better  lift  the  poor  soul  aside 
and  bury  her  decently  somewhere." 

They  all  four  stooped  and  very 
gently  turned  the  corpse  over  upon  its 
back,  but  no  sooner  had  they  done 
so  than  they  simultaneously  started 
away.  Having  lain  on  her  face  the 
woman's  dress  in  front  had  taken 
little  or  no  harm;  it  was  scarcely 
soiled  by  its  contact  with  the  damp 
earth,  but  a  ghastlier  stain  defiled  its 
whiteness,  for  its  folds  over  her  bosom 
showed  a  dark  patch  of  blood .  It  was  not, 
however,  from  this  that  they  all  shrank, 
though  it  was  sufficiently  horrible; 
it  was  from  the  dead  face,  white  and 
fixed  in  a  look  of  pain  and  terror  im- 
possible to  describe.  The  dust- covered 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


eyes  were  wide  open,  and  the  faded 
lips  parted  as  if  in  a  prayer  for  help 
or  mercy,  while  the  beautiful  waxen 
fingers  of  one  hand  lay  rigid  upon  her 
breast  and  dyed  with  the  same  stain. 

"  One  can  understand  now  why 
she  did  not  escape,"  said  Hugh,  as 
soon  as  the  first  fascination  of  horror 
was  past. 

"  Yes,"  answered  Bryant  slowly ; 
"  she  must  have  been  murdered  just 
as  that  mass  came  rolling  down. 
Apparently  she  was  in  her  garden, 
and  at  some  little  distance  from  the 
house.  Lift  her  aside  under  that 
bush  till  we  can  bury  her." 

Hugh  and  the  two  Indians  accord- 
ingly raised  the  corpse  and  bore  it 
to  a  short  distance.  Bryant,  who 
remained  on  the  spot,  presently  stooped, 
and  picking  up  some  small  object 
thrust  it  into  his  pocket  before  the 
others  returned.  They  now  continued 
their  search,  but  an  hour's  labour 
convinced  them  of  the  futility  of 
further  work,  for  the  soil,  slipped 
down  from  above,  grew  all  at  once 
much  deeper,  a  fact  which  proved  that 
there  had  been  a  sudden  hollow  in 
the  original  surface.  Any  attempt 
to  explore  to  such  a  depth  was  clearly 
hopeless,  so,  abandoning  the  task,  they 
dug  a  grave  for  the  murdered  woman. 
By  the  time  she  was  decently  buried 
the  sun  was  well  on  his  way  down 
the  sky,  and  they  set  off  homewards 
with  abundant  food  for  reflection. 

Cacao  and  Chocolat  conversed  a 
good  deal  in  their  native  tongue,  but 
the  Englishmen  only  broke  the  silence 
with  an  occasional  brief  remark.  Both 
were  in  reality  occupied  in  speculations 
as  to  the  murderer,  and  their  mental 
conclusions  were  the  same.  Arrived 
at  the  house,  Bryant  ordered  the  ser- 
vants at  once  to  prepare  a  meal,  and 
then,  drawing  Strong  into  his  own 
room,  brought  from  his  pocket  the 
object  he  had  found  at  Saint  Florel. 
Strong  made  an  exclamation  at  sight 


of  the  knife.  "  Where  did  you  find 
it  1 "  he  asked. 

"  Close  to  the  body  of  the  woman," 
answered  Bryant;  "only  then  it  was 
open,  and  I  had  to  shut  it  to  get  it 
into  my  pocket.  Look  here,"  and  he 
opened  the  blade.  In  spite  of  the 
rust  and  mould  which  adhered  to  it, 
the  knife  was  clearly  stained  with 
blood ;  and  on  its  haft  was  the  mono- 
gram A.  H. 

"  As  I  thought,"  said  Strong. 

Bryant  did  not  answer,  only  laying 
the  knife  upon  the  table,  with  a  feeling 
of  relief  that  it  was  no  longer  in  his 
pocket. 

"  What's  to  be  done  ? "  inquired 
Strong. 

"  I  don't  see  that  anything  can  be 
done,"  replied  Bryant.  "  Holson  is 
probably  expiating  his  crime  under 
several  tons  of  earth  ;  and  if  he  were 
alive  and  well  at  this  moment  no  one 
could  produce  a  single  witness  against 
him,  even  if  he  were  charged.  The 
knife  is  only  circumstantial  evidence 
after  all,  and  that,  I  take  it,  doesn't 
count." 

"  But  I  suppose  we  must  send  word 
to  the  Consulate." 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  so,"  answered  Bry- 
ant ;  "  but  I  wish  we'd  cleared  out  of 
this  before  all  these  awful  things  hap- 
pened. I  hate  being  mixed  up  in  such 
matters,"  he  concluded  almost  irri- 
tably, feeling  his  nerves  somewhat 
shaken,  and  feeling  also  a  true  English 
objection  to  exhibiting  the  least  emo- 
tion. 

"I'll  tell  you  what  Bryant,"  said 
Hugh  Strong :  "I  don't  see  how  we 
can  possibly  write  to  the  Consul  in 
a  satisfactory  way  about  all  this.  It 
will  be  much  better  to  explain  things 
personally,  and  as  we  both  want  to 
go  off  by  the  next  boat  I  think  we'll 
start  for  Saint  Denis  a  little  sooner 
I'm  not  particularly  superstitious,  but 
I  do  not  care  to  stay  in  this  place  any 
longer  than  I  can  help." 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


"Well,"  answered  Bryant  in  his 
deliberate  fashion,  "  I  think  it's  a 
good  plan ;  we  will  start  to-morrow." 

They  carried  out  their  programme 
and  left  the  little  house  among  the 
mountains  next  day  with  a  consider- 
able feeling  of  relief.  Their  troubles 
in  connection  with  the  unpleasant 
occurrences  of  the  past  few  days  were 
by  no  means  over,  for  when  the  Con- 
sul heard  their  tale,  he  looked  ex- 
ceedingly grave.  "  The  French  police 
must  be  at  once  informed,"  he  said ; 
"  and  I  fear,  gentlemen,  that  you  must 
be  content  to  remain  here  for  another 
month,  in  case  this  man  Holson  is 
found,  when  you  will  be  required  as 
witnesses.  Of  course  he  may  be 
buried  under  the  landslip,  or  he  may 
very  possibly  never  have  committed 
that  murder  at  all  ;  in  any  case  the 
evidence  appears  to  me  to  be  purely 
circumstantial.  Personally  I  do  not 
think  it  at  all  likely  that  Holson  has 
escaped  ;  if  he  committed  that  murder 
he  need  scarcely  have  run  away,  seeing 
the  landslip  covered  up  his  misdeeds, 
or  seeing,  at  any  rate,  that  he  might 
easily  fancy  it  had  done  so.  He  may 
possibly  have  stabbed  the  woman 
in  a  fit  of  rage  or  jealousy ;  they  two 
were  very  likely  the  only  creatures 
awake  in  Saint  Florel  after  nine  o'clock, 
for  these  Indian  labourers  sleep  early. 
She  would  have  been  quite  beyond 
reach  of  help ;  but  if  Holson  escaped 
the  landslip,  why  did  he  run  away  ? 
At  any  rate  I  must  ask  you  not  to 
take  your  passages  in  the  next  boat 
until  we  have  heard  from  the  French 
police." 

"  Do  you  know  anything  of  Hol- 
son 1 "  inquired  Bryant  of  the  Consul. 

"  Yes ;  I  know  something,  and  it 
is  a  sufficiently  curious  story,"  was  the 
answer.  "  Holson  landed  here  three 
years  ago  with  only  a  five-pound  note 
in  his  pocket.  I  knew  the  captain  of 
the  steamer  he  came  out  in,  and  he 
told  me  that  Holson  had  come  on 


board  possessed  of  a  considerable  sum, 
for  during  the  voyage  he  gambled 
every  night  and  lost  heavily.  I  first 
saw  him  down  at  the  hotel  in  the 
town,  and  I  never  wish  to  see  such 
a  sight  again.  He  was  gambling 
heart  and  soul,  and  looked  almost 
mad ;  indeed  to  this  day  I  am  not 
sure  whether  at  times  Holson  is  com- 
pletely sane.  He  watched  the  cards 
turn  up,  and  clutched  his  winnings, 
with  the  look  of  some  ferocious  and 
persistent  animal.  The  end  of  it  was 
that  he  recovered  some  part  of  his 
original  capital,  and  purchased  a  plot 
of  land  that  had  once  been  planted 
with  cane,  but  which  had  gone  out  of 
cultivation.  .  He  got  it  cheap,  for  the 
last  occupier  had  died  and  the  owner 
wanted  to  get  the  place  off  his  hands. 
This  was  his  third  year  on  it ;  and  as 
he  worked  the  place  well  it  ought  to 
have  paid  him." 

"  Holson  was  English,  I  suppose  ?  " 
said  Hugh  Strong. 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  believe  so,"  answered 
the  Consul.  "  He  came  here  from 
England  and  spoke  like  a  gentleman. 
And  now  you  must  excuse  me  for 
suggesting  that  I  have  a  lot  of  work 
to  get  through.  By  the  way,  has  it 
occurred  to  either  of  you  that  this 
woman  may  haye  committed  suicide  1 
Holson  was  in  the  habit  of  spending 
a  good  deal  of  time  in  her  house ;  he 
may  easily  have  left  his  knife  behind, 
and  she  may  have  used  it  against 
herself." 

Bryant  looked  doubtful  at  this  sug- 
gestion, but  Hugh  Strong  shook  his 
head  emphatically.  "  I  am  sure  it  is 
a  murder,"  he  said;  "and  I  am  sure 
too  that  Holson  did  it." 

"  Ah,  well,"  said  the  Consul,  "  time 
will  perhaps  show.  This  is  a  wild 
place,  though  it  is  supposed  to  be 
civilised,  and  I  fear  that  more  than 
one  murderer  is  still  at  large  here. 
If  they  can,  of  course,  all  criminals 
try  and  get  over  to  Madagascar ; 


10 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


there  is  no  extradition  treaty  with 
that  country,  and  malefactors  can 
enjoy  themselves  in  perfect  peace. 
No  one  disturbs  them.  And  now 
for  the  present  I  must  be  busy  ;  but 
if  you  care  to  accept  bachelor  hospi- 
tality, give  me  the  pleasure  of  your 
company  at  dinner  to-night.  My  wife 
is  away  up  at  our  cottage  among  the 
mountains,  but  if  you  will  excuse 
shortcomings,  I  shall  be  delighted  to 
see  you.  I  have  a  nephew  here  who 
arrived  a  week  or  two  ago  from  Mau- 
ritius. He  is  going  to  Madagascar  in 
a  few  days  to  take  charge  of  the 
English  hospital  at  Antananarivo,  and 
then  to  travel  for  botanising  ;  so  we 
shall  be  a  regular  English  party ;  a 
real  treat  in  these  regions,  I  assure 
you." 

CHAPTER  III. 

IT  is  needless  to  say  that  both 
Bryant  and  his  friend  accepted  this 
invitation,  and  spent,  in  consequence, 
a  very  pleasant  evening.  Frank  Dal- 
gleish,  the  medical  nephew,  was  as 
lively  and  entertaining  a  companion  as 
a  young  gentleman  of  twenty-three, 
with  high  spirits  and  a  turn  for  fun, 
can  well  be  ;  and  the  Consul  was  the 
very  soul  of  hospitality.  Of  course 
the  conversation  drifted  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  landslip  and  supposed 
murder. 

"  What  time  did  you  hear  the 
earthquake,  or  whatever  it  was  ? " 
inquired  the  Consul. 

"  It  was  just  ten,"  replied  Bryant, 
"for  I  looked  at  my  watch." 

"  Of  course  one  has  no  means  of 
judging  when  the  woman  was  actually 
killed,"  said  the  Consul,  "  but  I  do 
not  think  that  any  Indian  in  Saint 
Florel  could  have  been  awake  much 
later  than  nine,  or  even  half-past 
eight.  Work  in  the  cane-plantations 
begins  early,  and  the  labourers  go  to 
bed  with  the  sun.  If  Holson  killed 
that  woman  an  hour  before  the  land- 


slip occurred,  no  one  in  the  village 
might  have  been  any  the  wiser.  She 
may  have  died  almost  instantly,  and 
had  no  time  to  give  any  alarm." 

"  But  if  she  was  murdered  an  hour 
before  an  unexpected  landslip,  why 
did  the  murderer  take  no  pains  to 
conceal  his  crime  1  "  inquired  Frank. 

"  Ah,  that  is  just  the  point,"  re- 
turned his  uncle.  "  At  present  the 
whole  affair  is  a  mystery,  and  rather 
an  interesting  one.  Holson  may  have 
lingered  about  Saint  Florel  and  after- 
wards been  overwhelmed  by  the  land- 
slip. Personally  I  think  the  deed 
must  have  been  done  almost  at  the 
same  moment  as  the  earth  came  down  ; 
only  then  the  two  corpses  would  have 
been  found  close  together." 

"  Chocolat,  Holson's  Indian  servant, 
knew  all  about  the  place ;  his  wife 
lived  on  the  estate,  I  believe,"  said 
Strong ;  "  and  he  told  us  that  the 
Creole  woman's  house  was  at  the 
bottom  of  her  garden,  as  it  were.  Ac- 
cording to  him  the  palmists  tree  was 
at  its  furthest  boundary,  and  the 
ground  from  that  tree  sloped  very 
steeply  and  suddenly  towards  the 
house.  When  we  began  digging,  a 
little  beyond  where  the  corpse  was 
found,  we  could  see  at  once  how  much 
deeper  the  fresh  earth  had  fallen.  It 
seems  almost  a  miracle  that  the  body 
was  ever  found." 

"  Murder  will  sometimes  out,"  ob- 
served the  Consul ;  "  but  I  fear  in 
this  instance  nothing  more  will  be 
discovered.  Holson's  body  must  be 
buried  somewhere  near  his  victim's." 

The  next  few  days,  which  Bryant 
and  Hugh  Strong  were  compelled  to 
spend  in  Saint  Denis,  would  have  been 
dull  enough  but  for  the  company  of 
Frank  Dalgleish,  who  insisted  upon 
dragging  them  about  the  town  to  see 
everything  of  the  slightest  interest. 
He  enjoyed  his  own  sight-seeing  with 
a  light-hearted  gaiety  that  proved 
infectious,  and  the  three  became  ex- 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


11 


cellent  friends.  Of  course  both  Strong 
and  Bryant  were  requested  by  the 
French  authorities  to  postpone  their 
departure  in  case  of  their  attendance 
as  witnesses  being  required.  In  the 
meantime  they  amused  themselves  as 
best  they  could,  and  became  cynosures 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Creole  women  of 
Saint  Denis. 

Time,  however,  brought  no  news  of 
the  missing  man.  The  police  scoured 
the  mountainous  districts,  and  all 
vessels  leaving  the  ports  were  watched ; 
no  one,  however,  in  the  least  resem- 
bling Holson  had  been  seen  or  heard 
of,  and  the  excitement  of  his  pursuit 
died  away  under  the  universal  impres- 
sion that  the  murderer  had  expiated 
his  crime  under  the  landslip.  His 
personal  possessions  were  brought  down 
to  the  Consulate,  and  the  Consul,  after 
investigating  his  private  papers  and 
despatch-box,  found  the  address  to 
which  the  latter  should  be  sent.  "  If 
you  and  your  friend  are  going  straight 
back  to  England,"  he  said,  "you 
would  put  me  under  the  greatest  obli- 
gation if  you  would  take  charge  of 
the  parcel  of  papers  and  things  I  have 
sorted  out  to  be  returned  to  Holson's 
relatives.  Would  it  be  much  trouble 
to  despatch  them  by  registered  parcel  ? 
The  address  is  Denehurst,  Coltham, 
Sussex." 

"I  live  in  Devonshire,"  said  Hugh 
Strong,  to  whom  the  request  was  ad- 
dressed, "but  I  know  Sussex  well 
enough.  I  shall  be  delighted  to  do 
anything  I  can  in  the  matter,  and 
take  them  myself." 

"  Very  well,"  said  the  Consul ; 
"  here  is  the  parcel ;  you  see  it  is  not 
a  large  one.  There  is  nothing  of  value 
enough  to  send  to  the  Treasury  that 
I  can  find  except  memoranda  relating 
to  the  title-deeds  of  the  estate  called 
Denehurst,  which  will  probably  be 
useful  to  any  member  of  the  family. 
This  is  the  only  attractive  thing  I 
have  seen,  and  it's  pretty  enough, 


isn't  it  ? "  and  he  held  out  a  leather 
case  closing  with  a  snap. 

It  contained  the  miniature  of  a 
young  girl,  fair-haired  and  blue-eyed, 
with  a  gentle  dreamy  expression,  and 
a  dawning  smile  upon  her  lips.  There 
was  a  grace  and  charm  about  the 
picture  suggestive  of  unconsciousness 
on  the  part  of  the  sitter ;  either  the 
portrait  had  been  taken  secretly,  or 
the  girl  must  have  united  the  sim- 
plicity of  childhood  to  the  sweet- 
ness of  maturer  years.  The  face  was 
neither  arch,  nor  clever,  nor  intellec- 
tual ;  it  was  "  pure  womanly  "  ;  the 
delicate  features  bore  the  stamp  of 
rare  beauty,  and  the  large  eyes  under 
their  pencilled  brows  gazed  at  the 
spectator  with  infantine  gravity  and 
innocence. 

"  By  George  !  "  said  Hugh  Strong, 
as  he  laid  the  miniature  down  after 
looking  his  fill,  which,  being  an  im- 
pressionable young  man,  took  some 
time.  "  By  George,  that's  something 
worth  looking  at !  "  and  he  promptly 
took  up  the  portrait  again. 

"  A  very  attractive  girl,"  was  Bry- 
ant's more  seasoned  judgment,  which 
however  his  friend  did  not  receive 
with  favour.  "  Is  that  all  you  can 
find  to  say  1 "  he  asked  indignantly. 
"  Why,  it's  the  most  beautiful  face  I 
ever  saw  in  my  life.  She  is  a  most 
lovely  creature.  I  wonder  what  was 
Holson's  connection  with  her ;  there  is 
no  likeness  that  I  can  see." 

"  Perhaps  she  is,  or  was,  his  wife," 
suggested  Bryant. 

Hugh's  face  fell.  "  I  never  thought 
of  that!"  he  cried.  "But  I  can't 
believe  a  woman  who  looked  like  that 
would  ever  marry  such  a  man." 

"  Women  do  strange  things  some- 
times," said  his  friend ;  and  then  the 
miniature  was  returned  to  its  case, 
and  the  brown  paper  parcel  consigned 
to  the  safe  till  the  mail  was  due. 

"  You're  evidently  hard  hit,"  ob- 
served Frank  Dalgleish  laughingly  to 


12 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


Strong.  "Your  best  plan  is  to  go 
straight  to  Denehurst,  introduce  your- 
self, and  marry  that  charming  widow. 
I'll  be  best  man  at  the  wedding, 
and  marry  the  head-bridesmaid.  But 
now,  if  you  have  sufficiently  admired 
your  lady-love,  I  vote  we  go  for  a 
stroll.  The  air  is  getting  cool  now, 
and  the  day  after  to-morrow,  as  you 
know,  I  depart  from  this  hospitable 
shore  to  shed  the  light  of  medical 
science  upon  the  gentle  Malagache  ; 
therefore  we  may  as  well  enjoy  as 
much  of  each  other's  company  as  we 
can." 

In  a  few  days  the  two  Englishmen 
started  for  Europe  once  more,  seeing 
the  lovely  shores  of  Reunion  grow 
fainter  and  fainter  while  the  steamer 
plunged  forward.  As  the  flower- 
decked  town  faded  out  of  sight  both 
Bryant  and  his  friend  experienced  a 
sense  of  relief. 

"A  pretty  place,"  said  Hugh,  "but 
I  never  should  care  to  see  it  again. 
One  seems  to  have  been  living  under 
the  shadow  of  a  crime  lately ;  and 
now  for  England,  home — 

"  And  beauty,"  suggested  Bryant 
expressively.  "  I  observe,  Strong,  that 
you  have  stuck  like  wax  to  that 
brown-paper  parcel.  In  point  of  age 
I  have  the  advantage  of  you,  and  I 
might  reasonably  suggest  that  I  am 
fitter  to  take  care  of  it  than  you. 
However,  my  dear  boy,  I  will  refrain, 
and  leave  you  the  joy  of  carrying 
about  a  miniature  which  you  are  dying 
to  look  at,  sealed  up  in  a  packet  which 
you  dare  not  open." 

It  was  June  when  they  again  reached 
England,  and  perfect  June  weather ; 
and  it  is  needless  to  say  that  to  the 
two    travellers    the    hawthorn-decked 
hedgerows    of    their    native    country 
were  more  beautiful  than  all  the  gor- 
geous blossoms  of  the  tropics.   Bryant, 
rather  solitary  man  with  few  rela- 
ons    or   friends,   betook    himself    at 


once  to  a  favourite  bachelors'  hotel  in 
Jermyn  Street,  while  Hugh  Strong 
disappeared  temporarily  under  an 
avalanche  of  greetings  from  various 
sisters,  cousins,  and  aunts. 

In  a  few  days,  however,  which 
Bryant  spent  in  tasting  all  the  de- 
lights of  a  return  to  the  most  com- 
fortable of  clubs,  Hugh  suddenly 
appeared  in  Jermyn  Street.  "I 
say,  old  fellow,"  he  cried.  "  That 
parcel  !  I  had  nearly  forgotten  about 
it.  The  Consul  said  I  could  send  it 
as  a  registered  packet,  but  I've  half  a 
mind  to  deliver  it  personally.  It 
would  be  an  act  of  civility,  and  it 
may  also  prove  a  bit  of  a  lark.  Pack 
up  your  things,  and  we'll  run  down  to 
Coltham  together  for  a  couple  of 
nights." 

"  I  was  just  beginning  to  feel  com- 
fortably settled  at  home  again,"  began 
Bryant ;  "  but  I  own  to  a  certain 
curiosity  as  to  Holson's  belongings ; 
so  I'll  come." 

Coltham,  they  were  told  at  the 
station,  did  not  boast  of  a  railway 
communication,  and  they  were  there- 
fore directed  to  book  to  Redford, 
whence  they  must  make  their  way  as 
best  they  could  to  their  destination. 

"  Where  we  are  going  to  Heaven 
only  knows,"  grumbled  Bryant,  as  he 
seated  himself  in  a  smoking-carriage. 
"  Coltham  may  be  miles  away  from 
this  station  at  Redford,  and  for  any- 
thing I  know  we  may  be  reduced  to 
the  carrier's  cart.  This  comes  of  being 
too  inquisitive  about  other  people's 
relatives.  I  wish  I'd  stayed  in  Jermyn 
Street,"  he  concluded,  for  rural  soli- 
tudes had  few  charms  for  him,  and  the 
realised  comforts  of  his  club  presented 
themselves  vividly  to  his  imagination 
at  the  moment. 

"  Never  mind,"  said  Hugh;  "you'll 
feel  quite  happy  by  and  by.  To- 
morrow's Sunday,  too,  and  always  a 
beastly  day  in  London." 

"  I    know    very    well    what    you're 


The  Secret  of  Saint  FloreL 


13 


driving  at,"  replied  his  friend  ;  "  y_ou 
want  to  try  and  see  that  girl  whose 
picture  you  were  so  taken  with.  How 
do  you  know  she  lives  at  this  place, 
Denehurst,  at  all  1  She  may  be  in 
the  Antipodes." 

"  Well,  never  mind  the  girl,"  said 
Hugh  rather  shamefacedly.  "  If  she  is 
there,  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  her  in  the  flesh ;  and  if  not, 
it  can't  be  helped." 

Redf  ord  proved  as  barren  of  vehicles 
that  afternoon  as  Bryant  had  pro- 
phesied, and,  after  finding  that  their 
luggage  could  be  sent  on  by  an  empty 
cart  that  was  returning  to  Coltham, 
they  set  off  stoutly  on  their  five-mile 
walk. 

They  were  an  oddly  assorted  pair  : 
Hugh  Strong,  aged  twenty-five,  tall 
and  broad-shouldered,  with  a  frank 
face  and  genial  smile ;  James  Bryant, 
short  in  stature,  nearly  ten  years 
older,  inclined  to  stoutness,  as  de- 
liberate as  the  other  was  impulsive, 
and  as  even-tempered  as  Hugh  was 
impetuous.  Bryant  was  a  bit  of  a 
cynic  moreover,  while  his  friend  was 
a  confirmed  optimist,  and  possessed 
a  prudence  and  foresight  for  which 
Hugh  had  no  corresponding  qualities. 
The  two  had  an  occasional  and 
amiable  difference  ;  but  during  a  long 
friendship  they  had  never  had  a 
serious  quarrel. 

They  plodded  along  without  much 
conversation,  till  it  suddenly  occurred 
to  Hugh  to  ask  a  question.  "  I  say, 
Bryant,"  he  began,  "  do  you  suppose 
this  man,  this  Dennis  Dene,  to  whom 
the  parcel  is  addressed,  has  any  idea 
of  the  fact  that  Holson  is  supposed 
to  be  a  murderer  ? " 

"  Don't  know,"  returned  Bryant. 

"  The  Consul  wrote  home  as  soon 
as  we  sent  word,  I  know ;  but  I 
haven't  the  slightest  idea  whether  he 
ever  said  anything  about  that  little 
circumstance.  I  don't  think  he  knew 
soon  enough;  it  is  most  awkward." 


"  Silence  is  golden ;  follow  that 
rule,"  quoth  Bryant.  "  What  a  length 
this  road  is.  How  can  people  bury 
themselves  in  such  a  place  ?  " 

The  road  fortunately  did  not  prove 
so  interminable  as  Bryant  feared,  and 
Coltham,  an  insignificant  but  pictur- 
esque little  hamlet,  was  soon  reached. 
It  boasted  a  clean,  if  humble  inn, 
whose  modest  hospitality  they  both 
appreciated.  The  landlord  too  was 
voluble,  and  from  him  they  learned 
several  particulars  about  the  family  at 
Denehurst.  "  Old  Mr.  Dennis  Dene 
was  Mr.  Anthony  Holson's  uncle,"  he 
said.  "  He  never  comes  out  of  the  park 
now,  and  not  often  as  far  as  the  gate. 
An.  invalid  they  call  him,  but  I  think 
he's  a  bit  touched  here,"  he  concluded, 
tapping  his  forehead  significantly. 

"  Does  old  Mr.  Dene  live  alone 
then  1  "  inquired  Hugh. 

"  No,  no,  there's  a  nephew  with  him, 
his  sister's  son,  Mason  Sawbridge,  a 
poor  crooked  fellow  that  nobody  likes. 
He  and  Mr.  Anthony  were  cousins, 
sister's  sons ;  and  then  there's  Miss 
Phoebe." 

"And  who  is  Miss  Phoebe?"  de- 
manded the  irrepressible  Hugh. 

"She  was  Mr.  Anthony's  cousin 
too.  He,  and  Mason  Sawbridge  and 
Miss  Phoebe  were  old  Mr.  Dene's 
sisters'  children.  He  had  three  sisters  ; 
two,  I've  heard  tell,  ran  away  from 
home  to  be  married,  and  got  a  bad 
bargain  in  husbands ;  that  was  Mr. 
Mason's  mother  and  Miss  Phoebe's. 
Mr.  Anthony  Holson's  got  a  good 
fortune  from  his  family,  but  Mr.  Dene 
was  guardian  to  all  three.  Eh,  dear  ! 
I  can  remember  when  Denehurst  was 
a  very  different  place,  but  now  it's 
nearly  in  ruins.  There's  just  enough 
for  those  that  are  there  to  live  upon, 
and  that's  all.  In  Lady  Lucilla's 
time,  fifteen  years  ago,  things  were 
very  different." 

"Who  was  Lady  Lucilla?"  in- 
quired Hugh. 


14 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


"  Old  Mr.  Dene's  wife,  and  a  real 
beauty.  There  was  no  one  to  match 
her  in  these  parts.  They  tell  a  queer 
story  of  her  marriage.  Old  Mr.  Dene 
was  a  terrible  one  after  cards  and 
dicing  and  such  like,  when  he  was 
young,  and  lost  a  lot  of  money  one 
way  and  another ;  and  they  say  that 
Lady  Lucilla  married  him  on  condition 
he  never  touched  a  card  or  gambled 
again.  He  kept  his  promise  while  she 
lived ;  but  when  she  died  he  was  nigh 
crazy  with  trouble  and  began  at  the 
same  thing  again.  I've  heard  tell 
he's  lost  pretty  nigh  everything,  but 
no  one  rightly  knows  who  things 
belong  to  now.  Lord  !  There  was  a 
great  long  room  at  Denehurst  all 
decked  with  carved  oak,  and  pictures 
as  thick  as  flies  on  the  walls,  all  in 
gilt  frames.  They  say  all  those  have 
gone  too  now,  but  no  one  knows  the 
rights  of  the  story.  Old  Parkins,  the 
butler  up  at  Denehurst,  never  says 
anything  that  a  man  can  get  hold  of 
by  way  of  news  ;  the  pints  of  good 
ale  I've  stood  him,  the  last  six  or 
seven  year,  and  never  a  word  to  talk 
over  in  the  tap-room  by  way  of 
return  !  One  is  bound  to  amuse  cus- 
tomers, you  see,"  he  concluded  with  a 
trifle  of  very  natural  indignation  at 
Mr.  Parkins's  reticence. 

"  Does  old  Mr.  Dene  see  visitors, 
then  1 "  asked  Bryant,  who  was  be- 
ginning to  feel  that  it  was  now  his 
turn  to  extract  a  little  information. 

"  That  I  don't  rightly  know,"  re- 
turned the  landlord.  "  But  you've 
only  to  go  along  the  high  road  about 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  beyond  the  village, 
and  ring  at  the  big  gates.  The  lodge- 
keeper  then  will  tell  you.  I  never 
hear  tell  of  any  visitors  now  at  Dene- 
hurst. Mr.  Mason  Sawbridge  is 
master,  I  believe,  since  his  uncle 
began  to  fail." 

"  And  what  is  Miss  Phoebe  like  ?  " 
asked  the  audacious  Hugh. 

"  Rarely    pretty,"    said    the     land- 


lord, his  rather  bucolic  face  kindling 
into  temporary  enthusiasm.  "Barely 
pretty,  and  kind  too ;  but  she  seldom 
comes  out  of  the  park  except  to 
church.  It  must  be  dull  for  the  poor 
soul,  though  she's  always  been  fond 
of  wandering  about  the  woods  and 
such-like  places.  Still,  now  she's  a 
woman  grown  she  must  likely  want  a 
bit  more  change." 

"  How  old  is  she  then  V  said  Hugh, 
disregarding  a  rather  malicious  chuckle 
from  Bryant. 

"  She  was  seventeen  when  Mr. 
Anthony  went  away,"  said  their  host. 
"  That's  three  years  since,  so  she's 
nigh  twenty  now  or  thereabouts." 

"  And  what — "  began  Hugh. 

"  Look  here,"  interrupted  Bryant, 
"  I  think  we've  sat  here  long  enough 
for  the  present.  I  should  like  a  little 
fresh  air  as  we  are  in  the  country." 

"  It  is  close,  sir,"  said  the  host 
apologetically,  for  they  were  sitting 
in  the  tap-room.  "  You  see  the  to- 
bacco's a  bit  strong  that  they  get 
at  the  shop  down  the  village,  and  the 
smell  stays  about  the  place  some- 
how." 

"  However   you    have  the    face- 
began   Bryant,    when   they  were  out- 
side   and    strolling    down    the     little 
garden  at  the  back  of  the  inn. 

"Never  mind,  never  mind,  my  dear 
fellow,"  interrupted  Hugh  hastily ; 
"  don't  inflict  one  of  your  abominable 
disquisitions  on  me  just  now.  I've 
found  out  nearly  all  I  wanted  to 
know." 

"  You'd  better  ask  this  man  Mason 
Sawbridge, — what  an  odd  name — to 
show  you  the  family-tree,"  said  Bryant 
grimly.  "  Perhaps  a  glance  at  it  may 
complete  the  information  you  require." 

"  That  looks  likely  water  for  trout, 
doesn't  it  1  "  said  Hugh  with  tact 
worthy  of  a  woman.  He  pointed  to 
a  narrow  but  tempting-looking  stream 
that  ran  at  the  bottom  of  the  land- 
lord's vegetable  patch. 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


15 


"  By  Jove,  that  it  does  !  "  answered 
Bryant  with  well  satisfied  looks  as  his 
eyes  followed  the  course  of  the  little 
river's  windings.  "  Why  didn't  I 
bring  some  tackle  from  town  ?  "  If 
Bryant  could  be  reckoned  enthusiastic 
about  anything  on  earth  it  was  fish- 
ing ;  he  was  a  most  earnest  devotee  of 
the  sport,  which  coincided  with  his 
ideas  of  enjoyable  pleasure.  Shooting 
bored  him ;  hunting  he  considered 
too  much  of  an  exertion  to  be 
really  attractive,  though  he  some- 
times rode  to  counteract  an  inclination 
to  stoutness  which  gave  him  some 
anxiety  ;  but  fishing —  Straight- 
way Denehurst  and  its  occupants,  the 
deceased  Holson,  even  Hugh  himself 
disappeared  from  his  mind,  and  James 
Bryant  beheld  himself  skilfully  whip- 
ping a  nice-looking  stretch  of  water  in 
the  adjoining  field,  and  hooking  a 
three-pounder  by  dint  of  the  most 
cunning  exertions.  He  had  just  men- 
tally landed  his  prize,  and  the  silvery 
beauty  was  gasping  on  the  grass,  when 
Hugh's  next  remark  brought  him  back 
to  present  things  once  more.  "  Per- 
haps old  Boniface,  or  whatever  his 
name  is,  down  at  the  inn  can  lend 
you  a  rod.  He  may  be  a  fisherman  ; 
there's  a  mangy-looking  fish  of  some 
kind  under  a  glass  case  on  my  bed- 
room mantelpiece." 

"  Country  tackle  is  no  good,"  said 
Bryant  mournfully. 


"  Write  to  Farlow  then,  or  Bernard; 
they  know  the  sort  of  thing  you  like, 
and  you  can  have  it  down  in  no 
time." 

"Well,  I'll  see,"  said  Bryant.  "I'll 
go  and  ask  the  landlord  ^whether  there 
is  any  fish  worth  catching  about  here," 
and  he  went  up  the  box-edged  path  to 
the  homely  door  again. 

Left  to  himself  Hugh's  face  assumed 
a  look  of  intense  satisfaction  ;  he 
hated  fishing  himself,  but  he  hated 
solitude  still  more.  If  the  proposed 
call  at  Denehurst  opened  any  agree- 
able prospect,  he  did  not  intend  to 
hurry  away  from  Coltham,  for  the 
picture  of  the  girl  found  among  Hoi- 
son's  things  had  made  more  impression 
on  him  than  he  cared  to  acknowledge. 
Still  Bryant's  presence  would  be  a 
great  addition  to  his  own  pleasure  in 
the  expedition ;  and  if  there  was  any 
decent  fishing  to  be  had,  he  knew 
that  his  friend  would  not  quarrel  with 
his  present  quarters.  Only  one  doubt 
remained  to  mar  his  hopes.  Was  the 
pretty  Phoebe  up  at  Denehurst  the 
original  of  the  miniature  1  However, 
Hugh  was  a  naturally  cheerful  indi- 
vidual who  always  looked  on  the 
sunny  side  of  everything,  and  he 
presently  turned  up  the  path  again 
in  the  best  possible  spirits  whist- 
ling, 

Shall  I,  wasting  in  despair, 
Die  because  a  woman's  fair  ? 


(To  be  continued] 


16 


THE    NEW    MOSAICS    AT    SAINT    PAUL'S. 


THE  general  public  are  perhaps 
scarcely  aware  of  the  wonderful 
scheme  of  decoration  which  has  been 
carried  out  at  Saint  Paul's  during  the 
last  five  years.  To  say  that  nothing 
like  it  has  been  attempted  during  this 
century  is  to  speak  under  the  mark 
rather  than  above  it.  In  the  opinion 
of  many  competent  judges  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  either  in  ancient, 
medieval,  or  modern  times  a  more  con- 
scientious and  artistic  piece  of  work 
than  that  which  now  adorns  the  cathe- 
dral church  of  our  great  metropolis. 

It  is  in  itself  a  thing  to  be  proud 
of,  that  here  we  have  a  genuine  bit  of 
English  work,  designed  by  an  English 
artist,  and  wrought  by  English  work- 
men in  material  made  in  England. 
It  carries  us  back  to  old  times  to 
find  an  English  artist  retained  by  a 
Dean  and  Chapter  at  a  fixed  salary, 
to  design  and  execute  the  decoration 
of  their  cathedral  as  a  consecutive 
work  of  art.  But  apart  from  this, 
the  decoration  of  Saint  Paul's  had 
come  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  those 
insoluble  problems  at  which  every 
new  generation  would  try  its  hand 
only  to  sink  back  baffled.  Not  only 
is  there  the  intrinsic  difficulty  of  deal- 
ing with  a  building  of  such  magni- 
tude ;  not  only  does  the  climate  and 
atmosphere  of  London  add  elements 
of  difficulty  all  their  own ;  but  in 
addition  all  England,  certainly  all 
London,  imagines  itself  to  have 
proprietary  rights  in  Saint  Paul's, 
and  almost  a  claim  to  be  consulted  as 
to  its  treatment ;  to  say  nothing  of 
the  fact  that  every  Englishman 
imagines  himself  to  be  a  judge  of  art, 
and  takes  his  personal  tastes  to  be 


the  artistic  and  infallible  measure  of 
all  things. 

Perhaps  with  these  facts  in  view 
the  authorities  at  Saint  Paul's  have 
proceeded  with  more  than  the  usual 
caution  of  a  corporation,  and  have 
experienced  more  than  most  bodies 
the  overwhelming  difficulties  which  a 
committee  of  art  can  bring  to  bear  on 
progress.  Nearly  forty  years  ago, 
under  the  rule  of  Dean  Mil  man,  the 
project  was  first  mooted,  large  sums 
of  money  were  collected,  and  large 
sums  spent  in  experiment  and  tenta- 
tive designs.  And  when  at  last  the 
reredos  appeared  as  the  first  solid 
instalment  of  an  attempt  to  beautify 
the  cathedral,  it  was  nearly  swept 
away  in  a  fanatical  outburst,  theo- 
logians, antiquaries,  and  architects  all 
putting  themselves  in  evidence  as 
persons  who  must  at  least  be  appeased 
by  any  one  who  wished  to  decorate 
Saint  Paul's.  While  this  storm  was 
blowing  itself  out,  the  work  of 
decorating  the  cathedral  was  quietly 
progressing,  in  gradual  and  very 
spasmodic  instalments  of  mosaic, 
which,  from  the  designs  of  various 
artists  and  with  varying  merit,  were 
placed  slowly  in  the  eight  spandrels  of 
the  dome  under  the  auspices  of  Doctor 
Salviati  of  Venice.  The  boisterous 
figures  of  prophet  and  evangelist, 
variously  engaged  and  surrounded  by 
angelic  ministrants,  give  at  least  a 
flash  of  colour  to  the  solemn  magni- 
ficence of  the  dome  as  its  proportions 
melt  away  into  the  gloom  of  Thorn- 
hill's  frescoes,  and  the  eight  modern 
images  which  look  down  from  their 
niches  on  the  worshippers  below. 

In   1891   the    zeal  for    decoration, 


The  New  Mosaics  at  Saint  Paul's. 


17 


which  had  been  sleeping  all  these 
years,  save  for  the  striking  and 
brilliant  exception  mentioned  above, 
seems  to  have  burst  out  into  full 
vigour.  Mr.  W.  B.  Richmond  then 
appears  on  the  scene,  not  by  any 
means,  as  we  are  informed,  to  ex- 
periment on  a  new  subject  and  feel 
his  way  to  a  scheme  of  decoration, 
but  with  the  carefully  developed 
plans  of  an  artistic  lifetime,  with  a 
devotion  to  Wren's  great  masterpiece 
dating  from  childhood,  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  Italian  methods  of 
mosaic  work  practically  studied  from 
the  early  masters,  especially  at 
Ravenna,  and  with  a  complete  mastery 
of  colour,  which  in  itself  is  no  slight 
advantage  under  the  peculiar  con- 
ditions of  our  foggy  atmosphere. 
Since  that  time  the  decoration  of 
Saint  Paul's  has  been  a  rapid,  con- 
secutive, and  continuous  process. 
Behind  the  long  lines  of  scaffolding, 
planking,  and  canvas,  which  have 
been  so  irritating  to  the  visitor,  and 
so  fatal  to  the  already  scanty  light 
which  penetrates  the  cathedral,  a 
small  contingent  of  mosaic  workers, 
under  the  control  of  Messrs.  Powell  of 
Whitefriars,  glass-painters  and  setters 
from  the  same  firm,  and  painters  from 
the  firm  of  McMillan  and  Houghton 
have  been  busily  engaged.  Those  who 
have  attended  the  choir-offices  during 
these  years  must  have  been  startled 
to  hear  the  perpetual  snip  of  the 
pliers  used  by  the  workmen  in  cutting 
their  tesserce  to  the  right  shape, 
and  occasionally  by  the  fall  of  a 
brush  or  a  hammer  on  the  broad 
scaffolding  over  their  heads.  The 
men  have  all  seemed  to  take  not  only 
an  intelligent  interest  in  their  work, 
but  to  have  manifested  a  real  love 
and  enthusiasm  for  it,  which  is  the 
more  intelligible  in  a  system  where 
every  workman,  instead  of  mechani- 
cally fixing  in  his  pieces  like  a  child's 
puzzle,  has  to  judge  with  something 
No.  439. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


of  an  artist's  eye  the  angle  in  which 
to  set  them  to  the  best  advantage  of 
light  and  colour. 

The  visitor  to  Saint  Paul's  will 
remember  that  the  choir  consists  of 
an  eastern  apse  with  .a  sanctuary  bay 
with  square  openings,  now  shut  off  by 
the  reredos.  Westward  of  this  it  is 
pierced  with  three  arches,  surmounted 
by  a  cornice  and  a  frieze  which  run 
down  each  side  of  the  choir.  Above 
this  are  clerestory  windows  of  the 
usual  classical  type,  with  no  tracery 
or  mullions,  having  on  each  side  a 
considerable  space  of  a  triangular- 
shape.  The  vaulting  of  the  roof  is 
broken  up  before  it  reaches  the  apse 
(from  which  it  is  separated  by  a  broad 
stone  arch)  into  three  shallow  circular 
domes,  supported,  it  would  seem,  by 
twelve  pendentives,  whose  kite-like 
shape  are  some  of  the  most  prominent 
surfaces  in  the  church.  This  descrip- 
tion, let  it  be  said,  does  not  aim  so 
much  at  architectural  accuracy,  as  at 
reminding  the  reader  of  the  view 
which  meets  his  eye  as  he  looks  up 
the  choir  :  he  will  find  its  architec- 
tural details  admirably  described  in 
the  authorised  Guide  to  the  Cathe- 
dral by  the  Rev.  Lewis  Gilbertson ; 
and  he  will  now,  we  trust,  be  in 
a  better  position  to  appreciate  the 
decoration  which  has  covered  these 
bare,  yet  beautiful,  surfaces  with  a 
blaze  of  gold  and  colour.  One  word 
must  be  said  to  comfort  those  who 
know,  perhaps  to  their  cost,  the 
tarnishing  powers  of  the  London 
atmosphere.  The  tesserce  employed, 
being  of  glass,  are  impervious  to  these 
evil  influences,  and  are  set  in  a  sub- 
stance like  cement  which  hardens 
with  age  ;  while  the  mass  of  paint, 
being  laid  on  with  wax  liquefied  by 
petroleum  instead  of  oil,  forms  an 
imperishable  surface  which  is  as  much 
part  of  the  stone  as  if  it  had  been 
burned  into  it. 

On    entering    the    choir   the   most 


18 


,   The  New  Mosaics  at  Saint  Paul's. 


prominent  object  is  the  magnificent 
new  reredos,  which,  stretching  across 
the  westernmost  end  of  what  used  to 
be  the  sanctuary,  has  converted  the 
apse  into  a  chapel,  to  which  we  will 
introduce  our  readers  presently. 
Running  across  the  frieze  of  rosso 
antico  in  letters  of  gold,  the  inscrip- 
tion (the  choice  of  which  was  little 
short  of  an  inspiration),  Sic  Deus 
dilexit  mundum,  links  together  the 
story  of  the  Redemption  and  the 
altar  in  a  wonderful  harmony.  Above 
this,  visible  to  the  extreme  west  end 
of  the  cathedral,  we  discover  the 
glitter  and  warm  glow  of  the  new 
mosaics.  This  is  the  crowning  point 
of  all  the  decoration  of  the  cathedral, 
and  it  required  some  skill  not  to  pro- 
duce an  anti-climax  to  the  reredos. 
Here,  in  the  three  triangular  spaces 
of  the  roof  as  it  slopes  down  to  the 
circle  of  the  apse,  each  space  divided 
from  the  other  by  architectural  bands 
and  pierced  through  a  large  part  of 
its  surface  by  windows,  Mr.  Richmond 
has  placed  his  Last  Judgment ;  a 
subject  which,  while  almost  demanded 
by  the  position,  allowed  him  to  place 
on  a  commanding  eminence  a  majestic 
figure  of  Christ,  as  the  crown  and 
glory  of  the  converging  lines  of  decora- 
tion. This  figure,  for  which  something 
like  forty  studies  were  made,  and 
which,  if  standing  erect,  would  be 
fourteen  feet  in  height,  has  been 
elaborated  with  infinite  pains.  The 
folds  of  the  light-coloured  robe  hang 
in  majestic  lines,  while  falling  off  the 
shoulders  is  a  cope-like  vestment, 
clasped  in  front  with  a  jewelled 
morse  and  hanging  down  the  back, 
visible  in  its  inner  lining  underneath 
the  outstretched  arms  which,  while 
raised  to  bless,  convey  at  the  same 
time  a  suggestion  of  crucifixion  and 
of  intercession.  The  face,  with  its 
marvellous  delicacy  of  expression, 
marvellous,  that  is  to  say,  having 
regard  to  the  material  of  which  it  is 


composed,  was  a  subject  of  long  and 
careful  study.  It  was  relaid  by  the 
workmen  more  than  once,  while  the 
artist  was  running  up  the  scale  of  ex- 
pression in  the  human  yet  divine  face, 
from  the  Rex  tremendce  majestatis,  to 
the  Pie  Jesu  Domine,  with  which 
Thomas  of  Celano  has  made  us 
familiar.  The  background  is  filled 
up  by  a  maze  of  red  wings  and  gold, 
significant  of  Him  who  comes  flying 
upon  the  wings  of  the  wind,  while 
beneath  Him  are  the  clouds,  and  the 
rainbow  throne,  and  the  sun  turning 
into  darkness  and  the  moon  into 
blood,  where  the  Judge  sits  crowned 
with  imperial  diadem,  encircled  with 
the  thorns  now  bursting  into  flowers. 
On  either  side,  separated  by  the  divid- 
ing ribs  of  the  architecture,  yet  by 
a  clever  trick  of  decoration  almost 
turned  into  one  surface,  is  a  sugges- 
tion, tenderly  and  beautifully  treated, 
of  the  reward  and  doom  of  the  last 
day. 

On  the  left  of  the  spectator,  that  is 
to  say,  on  the  right  of  the  throne,  two 
angels,  seated  on  the  arch  of  the 
window,  are  scanning  a  large  scroll 
on  which  the  artist  conceives  to  be 
inscribed  the  names  of  the  blessed. 
Behind  stand  three  other  angels,  hold- 
ing in  their  hands  crowns  of  victory 
wherewith  to  adorn  those  whose 
names  are  written  on  the  scroll ;  while 
on  the  left  of  the  throne  two  others 
are  endeavouring  to  discover  what 
names  are  missing,  and  behind  them 
again  are  more  angels  with  veiled  or 
averted  faces,  mourning  for  those 
who  have  failed  to  attain  salvation. 
The  treatment  is  somewhat  novel, 
and  the  Byzantine  feeling  which  ani- 
mates these  groups  is  striking  and 
beautiful,  and  serves  to  throw  into 
relief  the  great  central  figure.  The 
subject  is  continued  in  the  three  win- 
dows below,  which  are  perhaps  the 
least  satisfactory  portion  of  the  de- 
sign, as  these  openings  into  the  light, 


The  New  Mosaics  at  Saint  Pauls. 


19 


in  the  place  which  they  occupy,  are 
one  of  the  most  difficult  problems  to 
the  artist.  They  will  probably  need 
to  be  treated  again,  or  in  some  way 
adapted.  Round  the  frieze  are  small 
figures  of  virtues  mentioned  in  the 
book  of  Revelation,  while  below  runs 
the  great  text,  Alleluia,  Sanctus, 
Sanctus,  Sanctus,  Alleluia,  which  is 
not  so  happily  chosen  as  the  text  of 
the  reredos. 

We  now  turn  from  the  apse  to 
view  the  decoration  of  the  roof,  whose 
vaulting  reaches  away  to  the  entrance 
of  the  dome.  Here  the  most  striking 
objects  are  the  pendentives  which 
hang  sloping  forward  from  the  roof, 
with  a  surface  curved  at  a  peculiar 
angle,  and  offering  great  difficulties  to 
the  artist.  Each  of  these  carries  on 
a  surface  of  gold  a  great  angel  with 
arms  set  wide  apart,  reaching  up  over 
the  head,  encircled  with  six  wings. 
The  attitude  of  these  angels  suggests 
a  messenger  just  alighting  with  a 
proclamation  from  on  high,  while  the 
outstretched  arms  give  also  a  sense  of 
support  to  the  circular  domes  above 
them,  and  make  them  a  kind  of 
Christian  caryatides.  These  form  a 
line  of  beauty  along  which  the  eye  is 
carried  to  the  central  Christ.  Above 
them  the  eye  is  arrested  by  the  three 
shallow  cupolas  in  which  each  bay 
terminates,  above  the  semicircular 
arches  dividing  them  from  each  other. 
In  each  of  these  the  artist  has  de- 
picted one  of  the  acts  of  Creation. 
In  the  most  eastern  cupola,  which  is 
above  the  sanctuary,  is  represented  the 
creation  of  the  birds.  In  the  centre 
is  a  golden  sun,  round  which  are  fly- 
ing circles  of  birds  ;  while  round  the 
outer  ring  runs  a  silvery  stream  with 
a  flowery  bank,  and  beyond  it  rises  a 
range  of  blue  mountains.  Springing 
from  the  bank  are  various  trees,  the 
olive,  the  fig,  the  oak,  the  quince,  the 
chestnut,  and  the  lemon,  while  under- 
neath them,  with  all  their  wealth  of 


plumage  displayed,  are  peacocks  and 
waterfowl  and  kingfishers,  the  whole 
exquisitely  finished,  and  to  those  who 
have  had  the  privilege  of  inspecting 
it  closely  equal  in  delicacy  to  a  piece 
of  tapestry.  This  cupoja  bears  the 
date  A.D.  1892  ;  but  we  doubt  if  even 
the  strongest  glasses  will  be  able  to 
detect  it.  In  the  next  cupola,  coming 
west,  we  have  the  creation  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  sea.  This  is  deeper 
in  tone  and  warmer  in  colour.  The 
centre  here  again  is  a  sun  of  glory, 
round  which  the  spray  of  the  waves 
has  made  a  magnificent  iris.  At 
regular  intervals  round  the  outer  circle 
sea-monsters  are  spouting  a  delicate 
stream  of  silvery  water  into  the  blue 
vault,  the  soft  tones  of  which  lighten 
up  with  marvellous  delicacy  the  rush 
and  swirl  of  the  dark  waves,  through 
which  gambol  and  dart  multitudes  of 
brilliant  fish  just  waking  into  life. 
Not  one  of  the  least  beautiful  features 
in  this  decoration  is  the  band  of 
scallop  shells  which  surrounds  the 
outer  rim.  In  the  third  dome,  with  a 
firmer  touch  and  stronger  outline,  we 
have  the  creation  of  the  beasts.  Here, 
as  before,  there  is  the  central  sun  and 
flying  birds  ;  but  the  surface  below  is 
broken  up  by  palm  trees  in  which  sit 
birds  of  the  par  rot- type,  and  beneath 
them  every  sort  of  beast,  except  the 
horse,  an  exception  which  we  are  in- 
clined to  deplore.  Each  of  these 
cupolas  is  separated  by  a  richly  deco- 
rated architectural  band,  in  the  cloth- 
ing of  which  Mr.  Richmond  has  shown 
his  mastery  of  colour.  Instead  of  in- 
discriminate gold,  which  is  to  painting 
what  a  drum  is  to  music,  there  is  a 
delicate  and  careful  picking  out  of  the 
decorative  features  of  Wren's  work, 
which  a  blurr  of  paint  might  easily 
have  obliterated ;  and  on  the  surface 
facing  the  eye  room  has  been  found 
for  a  series  of  bold,  well-chosen  texts, 
which  link  together  the  design  of  the 
roof. 

c  2 


20 


The  New  Mosaics  at  Saint  Paul's. 


If  we  now  gaze  at  the  walls  which 
carry  the  vaulting  we  are  able  to  see 
one  section  completely  finished,  on  the 
north-east  side  of  the  sanctuary,  and 
to  realise  what  the  whole  will  be 
like  when  the  work  is  done.  Over 
the  arches  are  two  spandrel  spaces, 
making  twelve  in  all,  only  two  of 
which  (these  we  have  indicated  above) 
are  as  yet  completed.  In  these  are 
represented  two  warrior  angels  guard- 
ing the  sanctuary  in  an  attitude  of 
repose,  holding  some  emblems  of  the 
Passion  in  their  hand.  These  are 
the  first  pieces  executed  of  the  new 
mosaic,  and,  unlike  the  rest,  with 
two  other  exceptions,  are  fixed  on 
pieces  of  slate  cemented  into  the  wall, 
instead  of  on  the  surface  of  the  wall 
itself.  Above  these  spandrels  running 
the  whole  length  of  the  choir  is  a 
frieze,  which  has  offered  more  diffi- 
culties to  the  decorator  than  almost 
any  other  part  of  the  design.  After 
long  discussion  mosaic  was  chosen  in 
preference  to  bronze  or  marble,  but 
even  then  the  choice  of  subjects  was 
full  of  difficulty.  The  first  idea  will 
be  seen  in  the  long  panels  east  of  the 
reredos,  where  moving  figures  have 
been  attempted  in  the  two  pieces 
representing  the  sea  giving  up  its 
dead.  These,  except  as  a  piece  of 
colour,  are  not  very  successful,  as 
the  confined  space  and  the  height 
from  the  floor  make  it  difficult  to  dis- 
tinguish sufficiently  the  details  of 
the  subject,  and  the  small  figures  are 
thrown  out  of  scale  by  the  large  forms 
around  them.  The  design  finally 
adopted  is  to  be  seen  in  that  part  of 
the  frieze  which  runs  down  the  choir 
and  terminates  above  the  organ.  There, 
in  each  bay,  we  have  an  arabesque 
continuation  of  the  subject  of  the 
cupola,  birds  and  fish  treated  decora- 
tively,  except  in  the  last,  where  there 
are  symbolical  but  finished  treatments 
of  Adam  and  Eve.  In  the  projecting 
and  smaller  portions  of  the  frieze  there 


are  carpet-patterns  of  Persian  charac- 
ter, which  contain  some  of  the  most 
exquisite  though  the  least  pretentious 
work  in  the  whole  scheme ;  while  to  pre- 
vent them  from  becoming  mere  purple 
patches  the  stone  setting  in  which  they 
are  placed  has  been  decorated  with  a 
subdued  flush  of  beautiful  arabesque 
ornament. 

Above  the  frieze  are  some  of  the 
most  important  parts  of  the  decoration, 
the  large  panels  on  each  side  of  the 
windows  lending  themselves  to  twelve 
large  pictures,  of  which  Mr.  Richmond 
has  fully  availed  himself.  The  general 
scheme  of  subject  is  as  follows  :  on 
the  north  side  is  represented  the 
general  expectancy  of  the  world  wait- 
ing for  a  Saviour,  whether  in  Jewish 
or  Gentile  history ;  on  the  south,  the 
different  temple-builders,  who  in  sacred 
history  have  realised  the  place  of 
God's  habitation  among  men. 

Beginning  at  the  most  eastern  panel, 
on  the  north  side,  we  see  the  Delphic 
Sibyl,  listening  to  the  revelation  con- 
veyed to  her  by  a  messenger  who  is 
pointing  upwards,  as  she  peers  into 
the  roll  of  futurity.  The  exquisite 
ornamentation  of  the  robes  and  the 
majestic  pose  of  the  figure  will  be 
familiar  to  those  who  saw  the  full- 
sized  cartoon  exhibited  a  year  or  two 
ago  at  the  New  Gallery.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  window  towards  the 
west  is  the  more  richly  draped  figure  of 
the  Persian  Sibyl,  straining  forward  to 
listen  to  the  voices  of  winged  genii  above 
her,  while  her  hand  points  outward  into 
a  perplexing  future  which  her  open 
scroll  hardly  helps  her  to  realise.  The 
delicate  ornamentation  of  mother-of- 
pearl,  the  exquisite  embroidery,  and 
the  other  rich  details  call  up  a 
momentary  feeling  of  regret  that  so 
much  will  be  lost  to  sight,  while  they 
inspire  a  feeling  of  gratitude  to  the 
artist  who  has  paid  this  homage  to 
art,  and  especially  in  the  House  of 
God,  that  it  should  be  executed  not 


The  New  Mosaics  at  Saint  Paul's. 


21 


merely  to  please  the  eye,  but  also  to 
satisfy  truth  and  beauty. 

The  next  panel  towards  the  west 
contains  a  vigorous  picture  of  the 
young  conqueror  Alexander,  who 
brought  the  Eastern  and  "Western 
worlds  together,  and  by  the  spread  of 
the  Greek  language  and  culture  in- 
directly prepared  the  way  for  Christ. 
The  pose  of  the  figure  leaning  on  his 
sword  is  extremely  fine ;  and  there  is 
an  animated  and  highly  decorated 
background  representing  the  influx  of 
the  West  of  which  Alexander  was  the 
great  herald  and  exponent.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  window  is  Cyrus, 
gorgeous  but  designedly  effeminate, 
he  who  was  the  shepherd  of  the  Most 
High  in  bringing  the  Jews  back  to 
their  own  land.  The  background 
here  is  made  up  of  a  procession  of  the 
returning  exiles,  and  other  rich 
decorative  work,  the  two  panels  to- 
gether forming  a  magnificent  piece  of 
colour  and  design.  The  two  next 
panels  in  the  westernmost  group  on 
the  north  side  of  the  choir  show  the 
more  familiar  examples  of  Abraham 
and  Job ;  and  both  show  groups 
rather  than  solitary  figures.  The 
moment  chosen  by  the  artist  in  the 
history  of  Abraham  is  the  apparition 
of  the  three  angelic  beings  to  him  as 
he  sat  in  the  door  of  his  tent  at 
Mamre,  when  the  child  of  promise  was 
announced  and  Sarah  laughed  as  she 
heard ;  while  Job  is  represented  in 
his  affliction,  surrounded  by  his  friends, 
suffering  yet  confident  of  the  Re- 
deemer of  his  life. 

Returning  to  the  south  side  of  the 
choir  beginning  at  the  easternmost 
end  we  see  a  long  line  of  temple- 
builders  and  decorators.  David  and 
Solomon  occupy  each  a  side  of  the 
window  in  the  bay  of  the  sanctuary  : 
David,  old  and  somewhat  despondent, 
looking  forward  as  it  were  from 
Pisgah  to  a  temple  which  another 
must  build  ;  and  Solomon,  young  and 


gorgeously  clad,  conscious  of  his 
magnificence  and  glory,  and  confident 
of  his  ability  to  rear  a  shrine  meet 
for  the  God  of  Israel.  The  next 
pair  takes  us  back  to  earlier  times, 
where  Bezaleel  and  Ahbliab  are  seen 
surrounded  by  the  furniture  of  the 
tabernacle  which  they  have  been  con- 
structing; and  in  the  last  two  we 
have  a  conception  in  the  spirit  of 
Michael  Angelo,  Moses  in  communion 
with  the  Majesty  of  God,  and  Jacob 
asleep  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder, 
realising  in  the  vision  of  angels  what 
was  meant  by  Bethel  the  House  of 
God.  In  these  four  panels  of  the 
westernmost  bay  there  is,  designedly 
or  not,  a  point  of  contact  with  the 
flowing  lines  of  the  pictures  in  the 
dome,  which  will  help  to  piece  the 
new  work  on  to  the  old. 

Two  points  of  the  decoration  have 
still  been  left  unnoticed.     The  first  of 
these  is  the  windows.    The  problem  of 
glazing    in     a    church    covered    with 
mosaic  must  always  be  a  difficult  one  ; 
should  there  be  coloured  glass  at  all, 
and    if    so,  of  what  character  ?     The 
effect   of    ordinary    stained    glass    on 
the  walls  at  the  side  may  be  seen  to 
advantage  in  the  west  window  of  the 
cathedral.      These,  on  either  side  the 
surfaces  of  the  panels,   have   become 
quite  black  and  incapable  of  receiving 
decoration.      Mr.  Richmond  therefore, 
while  deciding   to  use  coloured  glass, 
devised   a  new  plan,  which,  by  a  free 
use   of   leading  and    by   employing  a 
great   deal  of  unloaded  glass,  admits 
light  sufficiently  broken  to  illuminate 
the     surfaces    of    the    wall    without 
dazzling    the    eye.       Nearly    all     the 
clerestory  windows,  while  carried  out 
with    great    success    on  this   pattern, 
are  different  in  tone  and  design  from 
each  other,   and  yet   are  wonderfully 
harmonious    while     admitting    ample 
light.      They    \\ill     be    regarded,    we 
anticipate,  not  only  as  designs  beauti- 
ful   in    themselves    and   subordinated 


22 


The  New  Mosaics  at  Saint  Paul's. 


entirely  to  the  mosaics,  but  as  carry- 
ing out  the  true  aim  and  object  of 
windows.  It  would  be  futile,  at  the 
great  height  which  they  are  from  the 
eye,  to  describe  the  design,  which,  as 
in  all  Mr.  Richmond's  work,  is  of  a 
very  elaborate  character. 

The  other  portion  of  the  decoration 
to  be  considered  is  the  space  behind 
the  reredos,  now  called  the  Jesus 
Chapel.  Only  a  part  of  this  comes 
into  Mr.  Richmond's  design,  although 
of  course  the  apse  roof  already  de- 
scribed is  immediately  above  the 
chapel  altar.  But  at  the  entrances  on 
either  side,  above  Wren's  beautiful 
iron  gates,  are  two  magnificent  mosaics, 
containing  some  of  Mr.  Richmond's 
finest  work.  That  on  the  north  re- 
presents Melchizedic  blessing  Abra- 
ham, and  that  on  the  south  the 
sacrifice  of  Noah.  These  subjects 
were  chosen  because  from  the  plane 
of  the  sanctuary  of  the  high  altar 
both  these  subjects  are  seen,  as  it 
were,  in  connection  with  it.  Here 


will  be  noticed,  in  the  splendid  border 
of  fruits  which  surround  the  pictures, 
how  completely  the  artist  has  caught 
the  spirit  of  Grinling  Gibbons's  work 
for  which  the  cathedral  is  so  famous. 
But  although  the  other  decoration  of 
this  chapel  is  not  from  the  hands 
of  Mr.  Richmond,  it  is  exceedingly 
beautiful ;  the  marble  of  the  small 
reredos,  the  exquisite  recumbent  statue 
of  Dr.  Liddon,  and  the  splendid  win- 
dows of  Mr.  Kempe  being  all  worthy 
of  careful  inspection. 

To  have  seen  a  work  like  this  so 
successfully  inaugurated  is  indeed  a 
subject  on  which  this  generation  may 
congratulate  itself.  And  while  we 
rejoice  to  see  our  great  cathedral 
clothing  herself  with  ornament,  it  is 
gratifying  to  be  able  to  feel  at  the 
same  time  that  a  new  field  has  been 
opened  for  the  talents  of  English 
artists  and  English  workmen,  and  that 
a  great  step  has  been  taken  towards 
forming  an  English  school  of  mosaic 
founded  on  the  best  models  of  the  past. 


23 


NEWFOUNDLAND.1 


UPON  the  subject  of  Newfoundland 
it  is  to  be  feared  that  most  of  us  are 
somewhat  hazy.  How  far  out  into 
the  Atlantic  it  thrusts  its  rugged 
headlands,  so  far,  indeed,  that  a 
steamer  can  reach  it  in  a  trifle  over 
three  days  from  Queenstown,  is  not, 
we  think,  as  a  general  rule  quite 
realised.  Its  very  position  as  our 
oldest  colony  has  been  obscured,  and 
in  many  minds,  no  doubt,  even 
usurped,  by  the  aggressive  personality 
of  the  Pilgrim  Father  and  the  Cava- 
lier. Even  for  those  of  us  who  take 
an  interest  in  colonial  history  it  re- 
quires some  mental  effort  to  remember 
that  four  generations  of  Englishmen, 
to  say  nothing  of  other  Europeans, 
had  spent  their  summers  on  the  New- 
foundland coast  before  a  white  man 
had  set  foot  in  New  England  or  Vir- 
ginia. Before  American  history,  as 
understood  by  most  of  us,  had  in  fact 
dawned,  the  capes  and  bays  of  this 
wild  island  were  better  known  by  most 
English  sailors  than  those  of  Clare  or 
Kerry.  Indeed,  so  ignorant,  or  for- 
getful, are  we  of  the  great  part  played 
by  the  Newfoundland  fishery  in  his- 
tory, that  every  chapter  of  the  ad- 
mirable book  which  Judge  Prowse 
has  written  to  remind  us  of  our 
shortcomings  seems  suggestive  of  re- 
proach. Nor  does  the  author  leave  us 
entirely  to  deal  with  our  own  con- 
sciences in  this  respect ;  with  the 
ardour  of  a  true  patriot  he  trounces 
us  with  justifiable  severity  for  both 
our  political  and  historical  neglect  of 

1  A  HISTORY  OF  NEWFOUNDLAND  FROM 
THE  ENGLISH,  COLONIAL,  AND  FOREIGN 
RECORDS  ;  by  D.  W.  Prowse,  Q.C.,  Judge  of 
the  Central  District  Court  of  Newfoundland. 
London,  1895. 


his  fog-enveloped  fatherland.  No 
more  fitting  name  than  that  of  Judge 
Prowse  could  well  stand  on  the  title- 
page  of  such  a  work,  for  in  his  own 
person  he  is  a  representative  of  one  of 
the  oldest  Newfoundland  families,  and 
one,  too,  that  hailed  from  Devonshire, 
the  parent,  it  might  almost  be  said,  of 
the  English  fisheries  in  the  North 
Atlantic.  That  the  judge,  moreover, 
has  other  qualifications  than  his  mere 
patronymic  for  becoming  the  historian 
of  his  native  colony  will,  we  think,  be 
readily  conceded  by  any  one  who  fol- 
lows him  through  his  eventful  story. 

The  history  of  Newfoundland  be- 
gan in  the  year  1498,  almost  exactly 
four  centuries  ago.  It  divides  it- 
self into  four  distinct  epochs,  each 
one  of  which  so  nearly  constitutes 
a  century  that  for  general  purposes 
of  memory  and  description  they  may 
fairly  be  so  labelled.  The  sixteenth 
century,  for  instance,  saw  the  fisher- 
men of  all  nations  resorting  thither, 
and  plying  their  trade  upon  nominally 
equal  terms,  though  in  actual  fact 
under  English  rule.  Throughout  the 
seventeenth  century  the  adventurers 
from  Great  Britain  enjoyed  a  recognised 
supremacy,  and  administered  rude 
justice  through  that  unique  function- 
ary, the  Fishing-Admiral.  During 
the  eighteenth  century  the  colony  was 
under  naval  governors  sent  from  Eng- 
land ;  while  for  the  last  sixty  years  or 
so  the  inhabitants  have  enjoyed  what 
are  commonly  called  the  blessings  of 
constitutional  government.  This  latter 
period  is  much  the  least  pleasant 
reading  of  the  whole  story,  and  leaves 
one  with  something  more  than  an  im- 
pression that  Newfoundland  was  both 
a  healthier  and  more  prosperous  coun- 


24 


Newfoundland. 


try  before  the  local    politician  came 
upon  the  scene. 

But  after  all  it  would  be  misleading 
to  regard  Newfoundland,  as  one  re- 
gards most  other  British  colonies, 
from  the  standpoint  of  internal  de- 
velopment. From  first  to  last  its 
territorial  significance  has  been  sim- 
ply that  of  a  vantage-ground  for 
fishermen  and  fish-traders.  As  a  field 
for  the  ordinary  agricultural  settler 
the  ancient  colony  has  never  succeeded 
in  obtaining  the  faintest  outside  recog- 
nition. There  would  be  no  material 
inaccuracy  in  saying  that,  away  from 
its  thinly-peopled  sea-coast,  to  this  very 
day  Newfoundland  is  a  howling  and 
untrodden  wilderness.  It  is  probable 
that  under  compulsion,  if  such  a  thing 
were  possible,  the  country  might  sup- 
port quite  a  respectable  farming  com- 
munity ;  while  its  mineral  wealth, 
which  is  quite  another  matter,  may  yet 
some  day  be  developed.  But  if  agri- 
cultural emigrants  avoided  the  rugged 
island  when  it  was  not  only  a  much 
more  notable  place  of  resort,  but  pos- 
sessed a  real  advantage  in  its  relative 
propinquity  to  Great  Britain,  what  hope 
could  there  be  for  it  now  when  distance 
has  no  longer  any  significance,  and  the 
most  fertile  spots  of  the  earth  are  as 
easy  of  access  1  Nova  Scotia  and  New 
Brunswick,  containing  large  tracts  of 
well-settled  agricultural  country,  can 
scarcely  retain  their  rural  population, 
while  their  virgin  lands  have  long  since 
ceased  to  be  even  considered,  and  for 
good  reason,  by  European  emigrants. 
What  chance  then  can  there  be  for  poor 
Newfoundland  to  create  a  population 
large  enough  to  make  even  a  faint 
impression  on  its  sombre  and  bound- 
less solitudes?  To  the  native  of 
the  island  speculations  on  a  task  so 
formidable  may  be  of  some  interest. 
He  may  repudiate  with  indignation 
the  notion  that  wheat  will  not  ripen 
and  that  fogs  reign  over  land  and  sea 
for  a  third  of  the  year,  and  may  point 


to  potato-patches  of  prodigious  yield 
and  strips  of  oats  that  even  the 
Manitoban  could  not  despise.  But  all 
these  things,  and  many  more,  unfortu- 
nately, can  be  grown  in  vast  abundance 
over  illimitable  tracts  and  beneath 
kindlier  skies,  and  even  then  under 
present  conditions  produce  no  great 
result  to  the  grower.  The  settler's 
axe  is  almost  silent  in  the  still  vast 
forests  of  older  Canada.  In  New 
England  farms  that  have  been  occu- 
pied and  thriftily  cultivated  for 
generations  are  being  abandoned 
wholesale.  In  the  South  Atlantic 
States  entire  counties  are  dropping 
out  of  cultivation.  The  future  of 
Newfoundland  in  any  such  sense  as 
this  is  not  worth  discussion.  Nor 
indeed  is  it  our  business,  which  lies 
with  its  past ;  and  the  past  of  New- 
foundland has  not  only  a  curious  and 
interesting  record  in  a  domestic  sense, 
but  in  its  relations  with  the  mother 
country  and  her  own  imperial  history 
is  one  that  should  appeal  strongly  to 
English  readers. 

It  has  always  been  a  common  notion 
that  for  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  French,  Spanish,  and 
Portuguese  had  the  Newfoundland 
fishery  to  themselves.  Judge  Prowse 
disposes  summarily  of  this  idea,  and 
brings  forward  ample  proof  not  only 
that  the  English  fishing-fleet  was 
there  in  great  strength,  but  that  for 
the  whole  century,  and  most  certainly 
from  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  it 
ruled  this  heterogenous  floating  colony 
in  most  masterful  fashion.  Spain  was 
computed  to  have  six  thousand  sailors 
on  the  Banks  at  this  period  ;  Portugal 
was  not  very  far  behind  her,  while 
France  was  probably  more  strongly 
represented  than  either.  Though  no 
question  was  made  of  the  right  of  all 
these  nations  to  an  equal  share  in  the 
trade,  the  supremacy  of  the  British 
seamen,  chiefly  from  Devonshire,  half 
fishermen,  half  pirates,  seems  never  to 


Newfoundland. 


25 


have  been  disputed,  or  never,  at  any 
rate,  successfully  disputed.  The  soil 
of  Newfoundland  or  Terra  Nuova,  it 
is  true,  was  then  of  no  moment.  Its 
value  was  merely  that  of  a  refuge  in 
stress  of  weather,  and  a  place  upon 
which  to  dry  and  pack  the  spoils  of 
the  deep.  But  upon  this  seemingly 
barren  foothold  the  English  adven- 
turers, with  that  acquisitive  instinct 
which  foreign  nations  and  ourselves 
are  just  now  calling  by  such  different 
names,  kept  from  the  first  a  firm  and 
jealous  grip ;  while  in  the  floating, 
and  upon  the  whole,  peaceful  republic 
which  spent  half  of  every  year  be- 
tween the  desert  shores  of  Labrador 
and  the  grim  headland  of  Cape  Ray, 
our  countrymen  seem  to  have  secured 
for  themselves  undisputed  sway. 
The  fisheries  of  Newfoundland  are 
to-day,  no  doubt,  an  important  item 
in  the  world's  economy ;  but  they  are 
as  nothing  compared  to  the  place  they 
occupied  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors 
and  the  Stuarts.  For  a  hundred 
years  the  foggy  northern  island  was 
England's  only  colony,  and  its  rugged 
indented  coasts  were  almost  as  well 
known  by  the  hardy  seamen  of 
Plymouth  and  Topsham,  of  Bideford 
and  Dartmouth,  as  those  of  Britain. 
Newfoundland  had  not,  it  is  true, 
been  cleared  and  ploughed,  reaped  or 
sown  ;  but  when  the  Mayflower  sailed 
to  found  the  first  colony  in  New 
England,  five  generations  of  Devon 
and  Cornish  men  had  been  going  back- 
wards and  forwards  there  with  almost 
as  little  concern  as  they  would  have 
visited  Ireland  or  the  Scilly  Isles. 

We  have  heard  much  lately,  and 
entirely  to  our  advantage,  of  the  great 
Elizabethan  seamen,  the  privateers, 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  Spanish  Main. 
But  Judge  Prowse  most  justly  says 
that  to  claim  for  these  alone  the 
founding  of  our  sea-power  would 
be  a  monstrous  oversight,  though  we 
.fancy  it  is  hardly  an  unnatural  one. 


The  Newfoundland  trade  made  the 
West  Country  a  province  of  seamen 
and  of  people  interested  in  maritime 
adventure,  and  the  West  Country 
gave  to  England  her  maritime  ascend- 
ency. By  the  end  of  the  •  sixteenth 
century  the  Spanish  navy  had  been  so 
decimated  that  her  seamen  had  almost 
disappeared  from  the  Newfoundland 
coast,  returning  later  on,  however,  in 
reduced  numbers  as  whalers  and 
sealers  rather  than  fishermen.  There 
were  nevertheless  even  then  some 
fifteen  thousand  of  the  latter,  about  a 
third,  or  possibly  even  more,  of  whom 
were  British.  Newfoundland  as  a 
matter  of  fact  was  looked  upon  by  all 
the  maritime  nations  as  the  training- 
ground  of  their  seamen,  as  well  as  a 
great  centre  of  trade.  Breasting  the 
fierce  Atlantic  gales  of  spring  and 
autumn  in  their  small  ships  of  one  or 
two  hundred  tons,  weathering  for 
months  at  a  time  the  fogs  and  storms 
of  those  lonely  far-off  seas,  it  was 
here  that  English  and  French,  and  in 
a  less  degree  Spaniards,  Portuguese, 
and  Dutch  learned  to  be  formidable 
to  one  another  whenever  the  flag  of 
battle  should  fly. 

Nor  was  it  only  the  amount  of 
capital  and  the  number  of  men  em- 
ployed in  the  trade  that  made  it  fill 
such  a  big  space  in  English  life  at  this 
period.  Newfoundland  became,  in 
addition  to  its  inexhaustible  fisheries, 
an  important  centre  of  general  traffic. 
The  oils  and  wines  and  fruits  of 
Southern  Europe  were  carried  there 
by  the  southern  fishing-fleets,  while  in 
English  bottoms  went  out  cargoes  of 
cordage,  hosiery,  cutlery,  and  other 
articles  of  British  manufacture.  Nor 
did  Northern  and  Southern  Europe 
only  exchange  their  wares  upon  this 
remote  and  barren  coast ;  when  the 
peace  of  the  world  allowed  it  hundreds 
of  English  ships  would  beat  home- 
wards by  the  ports  of  Spain  and 
Portugal,  bartering  their  freights  of 


26 


Newfoundland. 


cod  and  herrings  for  the  luxuries  of 
the  two  Peninsula  kingdoms.  Never- 
theless with  all  this  coming  and  going, 
any  regular  settlement  upon  the  soil 
of  Newfoundland  was  as  yet  but  trifling. 
Any  movement  in  that  direction  was 
discountenanced  by  the  English  fishing 
interest,  and  when  it  took  a  serious 
form  was  strongly  resented.  With  the 
exception  of  Saint  John's,  where  a  few 
merchants  and  traders  from  the  earliest 
times  took  permanent  root,  the  scat- 
tered settlements  along  the  shore  were 
in  the  sixteenth  century  mere  clusters 
of  shanties  through  which  for  the  six 
winter  months  the  bear  and  the  wolf 
could  roam  undisturbed. 

It  was  in  1623  that  the  first  serious 
attempt  was  made  to  colonise  New- 
foundland ;  and  as  it  was  made  by 
royal  grantees  who  had  no  connection 
with  the  fishing  interest,  the  tradi- 
tional dislike  of  the  latter  to  any 
permanent  settlement  was  intensified 
into  active  hostility.  These  West 
Country  vikings,  by  virtue  of  a  cen- 
tury's occupation  of  Newfoundland 
seas  and  a  century's  overlordship  of 
foreign  fleets,  could  ill  brook  the 
intrusion  of  a  set  of  landsmen.  And 
to  make  matters  worse  the  latter 
came  with  charters  that  would  make 
these  ancient  sons  of  the  sea  tributary 
to  new  men  and  new  laws  whenever 
they  should  set  their  foot  on  shore. 
But  these  land  colonies  pined  and 
languished  in  the  rude  Newfoundland 
atmosphere.  Sir  William  Yaughan 
of  Carmarthenshire,  with  a  company 
of  Welshmen,  tried  his  hand  and 
failed;  so  did  Falkland,  so  did 
Baltimore,  the  father  of  the  celebrated 
founder  of  Maryland.  But  with  their 
high-flown  constitutions,  fanciful  organ- 
isations, and  poor  material  they  soon 
withered  in  the  rugged  Newfoundland 
soil  and  left  scarcely  any  trace.  The 
big  stone  house,  indeed,  in  which 
Lord  Baltimore  and  his  family  lived 
manfully  for  many  years,  was  still 


standing  a  century  later,  a  solitary 
and  pathetic  relic  of  a  noble  though 
misdirected  effort. 

Most  of  that  south-eastern  peninsula 
of  Avalon  upon  which  Saint  John's 
stands  was  included  in  the  Baltimore 
grant,  and  £30,000,  it  is  said,  was 
expended  on  the  property.  But  they 
all  disappeared,  these  well-meaning, 
sanguine  aristocrats  with  their  motley 
following  of  lazy  unpractical  loons,  and 
left  Newfoundland,  even  more  than 
other  colonies,  to  be  settled  by  those 
hardier  spirits  whom  individual  enter- 
prise drew  gradually  to  its  shores.  In 
the  reign  of  Charles  the  First  those 
terrible  scourges  of  the  ocean,  the 
Sallee  rovers  or  Moorish  pirates,  were 
gathering  a  rich  harvest  among  the 
Newfoundland  fleet  The  town-records 
give  us  a  glimpse  of  the  Mayor  of 
W^eymouth,  as  representing  the  West 
Country  interest,  riding  post-haste  to 
the  King  at  Woodstock  to  humbly 
pray  that  the  royal  fleet  might  hasten 
westwards  to  the  rescue ;  for  three 
hundred  English  ships,  two  hundred 
and  fifty  of  which  hailed  from  West 
Country  ports  with  five  thousand 
Devon  and  Cornish  lads  on  board,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  season's  cargoes, 
were  unprotected  and  in  imminent 
danger  of  capture  or  destruction. 
Twenty-seven,  it  seems,  had  already 
been  cut  off  and  seized.  Laud,  says 
the  Weymouth  chronicle,  struck  his 
hand  upon  his  breast,  and  promised 
that  while  he  had  life  he  would  do  his 
utmost  in  so  consequential  an  affair, 
further  declaring  that  in  twelve 
months'  time  not  a  Turkish  ship 
should  be  on  the  sea.  Laud's  name 
does  not  suggest  itself  to  one  as  a 
terror  to  erratic  corsairs,  nor,  it  is 
needless  perhaps  to  add,  did  it  prove 
so.  The  almost  insolent  ignorance  of 
colonial  matters  displayed  by  Charles 
the  First  and  his  son  is  in  thorough 
harmony  with  the  rest  of  their  atti- 
tude as  guardians  of  England's  honour. 


Newfoundland. 


27 


It  was  the  second  Charles  who,  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  century,  when 
Eastern  Virginia  had  become  quite 
a  populous  country  of  freeholders, 
granted  half  of  it  with  offensive 
frivolity  to  a  couple  of  Court  favour- 
ites. The  storm  raised  was  so  great 
that  the  easy-going  Sybarite,  probably 
to  his  own  surprise,  found  he  had  made 
a  mistake,  and  was  forced  to  throw  his 
friends  over,  which  he  doubtless  did 
with  a  light  heart  and  a  good  grace. 
But  the  act  sank  deep  into  the  minds 
of  the  Southern  colonists,  who  had 
mainly  stood  by  the  Stuarts,  and  they 
never  again  put  their  trust  in  princes. 
In  like,  fashion  did  Charles  the  First 
treat  the  Newfoundland  colonists, 
who  under  the  benevolent  neutrality 
of  his  father  had,  as  we  have  seen, 
occupied  portions  of  the  sea-coast. 
But  this  proceeding,  we  fear,  was  not 
mere  frivolous  stupidity,  but  strictly 
business  of  a  dubious  kind.  The 
Devonshire  faction,  that  is  to  say,  the 
fishing  interest,  were  always  powerful 
at  Court,  and  it  appears  that  in  this 
case  they  backed  their  petitions  by 
those  more  substantial  arguments 
which  never  came  amiss  to  a  Stuart 
king.  In  brief,  this  unblushing 
monarch  granted  the  whole  island 
of  Newfoundland,  regardless  of  his 
father's  grantees  and  friends,  to  the 
Duke  of  Hamilton.  This  great  person- 
age represented  the  fishing  as  opposed 
to  the  colonial  interest,  and  in  his 
charter  was  inserted  the  artful  clause 
that  no  settler  was  to  be  permitted  to 
dwell  within  six  miles  of  the  shore. 
This  was  tantamount  in  Newfoundland 
to  decreeing  that  the  settlers  of  the 
preceding  reign,  planted  at  so  much 
cost,  were  to  be  ruthlessly  ejected. 
These  monstrous  regulations  were  only 
partially  enforced,  but  they  no  doubt 
helped  to  dissipate  the  already  feeble 
colonies  of  Baltimore,  Vaughan,  and 
their  friends.  This  brings  us  back 
again  to  the  further  doings  of  Charles 


the  Second,  and  these  as  regards  New- 
foundland were  very  bad  indeed,  much 
worse  than  even  his  attempt  to  make 
the  Virginia  squires  the  slaves  of  a 
couple  of  dissolute  and  undeserving 
courtiers.  For  this  light-hearted 
monarch  had  not  been  two  years  on 
the  throne  before  he  made  a  gratuitous 
present  of  nine-tenths  of  Newfound- 
land to  the  French.  And  one  fine 
morning  the  English  colonists,  who 
by  that  time  had  become  fairly  numer- 
ous on  the  south-eastern  coasts,  beheld 
a  French  flotilla  sail  into  Placenta 
Bay,  and  proceed  forthwith  to  erect 
forts  and  dwelling-houses.  This  was 
the  beginning  of  that  French  occupa- 
tion which  has  ever  since  been  so 
productive  of  friction  between  the 
nations,  and  of  so  little  practical  use 
to  France.  The  permanent  settlers 
at  Placenta  were  few,  but  the  place 
was  unequalled  in  the  island  as  a 
stronghold,  and  two  hundred  ships 
from  Saint  Malo,  many  of  them,  we 
are  told,  of  four  hundred  tons  burthen, 
made  their  headquarters  here.  Indeed 
at  this  time  the  sea-power  of  France 
as  opposed  to  that  of  England  was  at 
its  zenith,  and  the  number  of  French 
fishermen  sailing  on  these  seas  had 
risen  to  something  like  twenty 
thousand. 

The  Dutch  too,'  in  those  days  of 
Britain's  degradation,  did  not  confine 
their  insults  to  the  Channel  and  the 
Thames,  but  reached  their  long  arms 
even  to  Saint  John's,  and  made  an  at- 
tempt to  capture  the  port.  It  was 
defended,  and  successfully  defended, 
on  this  occasion  by  one  Christopher 
Martin,  who,  people  familiar  with 
Torquay  will  be  interested  to  know, 
hailed  from  the  romantic  hamlet  of 
Cockington.  This  weather-beaten 

O 

sailor  has  left  an  account  of  the  en- 
gagement, and  also  his  opinion  of  the 
general  management  of  the  island  at 
this  period.  Though  a  West  Country- 
man himself  he  was  opposed  to  the 


28 


Newfoundland. 


Devonshire  attitude  on  the  subject  of 
colonisation,  and  argued  vigorously 
against  it.  By  this  time  the  resident 
population  of  the  Colony  had  grown 
considerably.  Good  houses  and  stores 
had  arisen,  well  equipped  with  all 
appliances  for  the  fish-trade,  and  a 
certain  amount  of  land  was  cleared 
and  in  cultivation,  while  many  of  the 
merchants  had  become  almost  wealthy. 
But  all  this  local  development  was 
regarded  by  the  fishing-adventurers 
as  inimical  to  their  interests,  and  a 
final  attempt  to  crush  it  was  now 
made. 

The  plot  was  hatched  and  carried 
through  by  Sir  Joshua  Childs,  a  man 
of  wealth  and  influence  in  England. 
Even  Charles  and  his  brother,  the 
Duke  of  York,  were  somewhat  stag- 
gered by  the  proposals  to  depopulate 
without  compensation  an  English 
colony.  Their  easy  consciences  how- 
ever were  quieted  in  the  usual 
financial  fashion,  and  the  iniquitous 
order  for  clearing  the  island  of  English 
settlers  was  acquiesced  in  by  the 
same  monarch  who  had  introduced 
the  French. 

The  removal  of  the  French  settlers 
from  Arcadia,  which  Longfellow  has 
so  idealised  in  EVANGELINE,  was  an 
entirely  justifiable  proceeding  com- 
pared to  this  extirpation  of  English 
settlers  by  Englishmen  from  motives, 
of  greed  alone.  It  should  be  in  fair- 
ness stated,  however,  that  a  consider- 
able minority  even  in  the  Devonshire 
towns,  which  were  the  stronghold  of 
the  fishing  interest,  were  opposed  to  a 
course  so  barbarous.  We  must  at 
the  same  time  try  to  realise,  though 
the  mental  effort  is  considerable,  that 
colonies  in  those  days  were  not 
regarded  by  statesmen  as  wholly  un- 
mixed blessings.  They  were  looked 
upon  by  many  as  dangerous  rivals  in 
trade,  not  as  future  customers.  The 
New  Englanders  by  this  time  had 
become  immensely  enterprising,  not 


to  a  very  great  extent  as  fishermen, 
but  as  traders  they  were  to  be  met 
with  on  every  sea,  and  that  too  in 
ships  of  their  own  building.  It  was 
not  merely  in  every  harbour  of  the 
North  Atlantic  that  these  Yankee 
craft  became  familiar  objects,  but 
laden  with  fish,  and  in  utter  con- 
tempt of  the  navigation  laws,  they 
sailed  in  and  out  of  the  Mediterranean 
ports  or  stole  along  the  dark  coasts  of 
Africa  in  quest  of  negro  slaves.  The 
captains  even  sold  their  ships,  it  was 
said,  in  British  harbours  to  the  great 
alarm  of  the  local  craftsmen.  It  is 
perhaps  no  wonder  that  a  generation 
which  from  commercial  susceptibilities 
deliberately  ruined  the  trade  of  Ire- 
land, was  not  without  petty  fears  and 
narrow  jealousies  of  its  colonial  off- 
spring. This  last  harrying  of  the 
Newfoundland  colonists,  though  it 
was  ruthlessly  commenced,  was  too 
gross  an  outrage  to  continue.  The 
naval  officers  upon  the  station  effec- 
tively supported  the  outcry  of  a  large 
minority  both  at  home  and  in  the 
fishing-fleet  :  the  instruments  of  this 
official  outrage,  never  perhaps  very 
zealous,  succumbed  at  last  to  the 
force  of  public  opinion  ;  and  the  land 
had  peace. 

All  this  time  the  Colony  had  been 
under  the  rule  of  that  characteristic 
Newfoundland  functionary  the  Fishing- 
Admiral.  It  had  been  the  custom  in 
earlier  days  for  the  first  skipper  who 
entered  Saint  John's  Harbour  in  the 
spring  to  assume  this  office  by  tacit 
consent.  As  the  duties,  however, 
became  more  weighty  and  the  remu- 
neration, in  the  shape  of  bribes  from 
litigants,  more  valuable,  the  old  hap- 
hazard method  gave  way  to  one  of 
selection,  tempered,  no  doubt,  by 
favouritism.  These  rude  autocrats, 
who  could  scarcely  sign  their  names, 
ruled  both  upon  land  and  sea,  and 
seem  to  have  been  ever  ready  to  ex- 
change their  good  offices  for  any  sort 


Newfoundland. 


29 


of  commodity,  from  a  basket  of  apples 
to  a  cargo  of  fish,  according  to  the 
means  of  the  litigant.  The  fishing 
population,  however,  seemed  attached 
to  the  system,  probably  because  it  was 
a  time-honoured  one  and  an  institution 
peculiarly  their  own.  Nor  indeed 
was  it  entirely  abolished  till  the 
American  war. 

But  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century  a  worse  enemy  than  the  Devon- 
shire fishermen  was  coming  to  New- 
foundland. For  with  the  advent  of 
William  the  Third  came  the  great 
struggle  with  France,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  redoubtable  Frontenac,  great- 
est of  the  many  able  Governors  of 
Canada,  took  up  his  residence  at  Quebec. 
The  New  England  colonies  now  found 
their  prosperity  checked  and  their  very 
safety  threatened.  Frontenac  was  as 
able  in  diplomacy  as  in  war.  The 
Indian  nations  were  brought  into  the 
field ;  French  troops  fell  upon  the 
English  frontier  with  fire  and  sword  ; 
a  fitting  lieutenant  was  found  by 
Frontenac  in  the  Canadian  D'Iberville, 
skilful  .alike  by  land  or  sea ;  and  on 
Newfoundland  fell  the  heavy  hand  of 
this  resourceful  warrior.  British  and 
French  war-ships  were  in  the  North 
Atlantic  flying  at  each  other's  throats, 
and  making  vain  attempts  at  Placenta 
and  Saint  John's  respectively.  The 
French  capital  was  the  strongest  place 
in  the  island  by  nature,  while  Saint 
John's  was  practically  impregnable  to 
the  ships  of  that  day,  protected  as  it 
was  by  forts  manned  at  this  time  by 
English  sailors.  But  D'Iberville,  born 
and  reared  amid  Canadian  forests, 
was  not  to  be  baulked.  Landing  at 
Placenta  he  marched  with  Indian 
guides  and  four  hundred  men  through 
the  wilderness,  and  bursting  suddenly 
upon  the  landward  and  unprotected 
side  of  Saint  John's  easily  defeated  the 
raw  bands  of  astonished  fishermen 
who  had  to  meet  his  troops  in  the 
open.  D'Iberville  was  supported  by 


several  ships  of  war,  and  the  town, 
with  all  the  English  settlements, 
now  lay  at  his  mercy.  Nor  was  he 
merciful,  for  he  treated  Newfound- 
land as  he  had  treated  the  New 
England  frontier.  Every  fort  and 
every  house  was  razed  to  the  ground  ; 
the  coast-line  became  again  a  wilder- 
ness, and  the  damage  was  estimated 
at  £200,000.  In  fact  the  Colony 
from  now  till  the  end  of  the  war 
was  a  constant  scene  of  combat  be- 
tween French  and  English,  and  the 
fishing-fleet  sank  from  its  average  of 
three  hundred  ships  to  less  than  thirty. 
At  the  treaty  of  Utrecht  England 
was  weak  as  usual  in  her  North 
Atlantic  policy.  She  held  these  French 
possessions  in  the  hollow  of  her  hand ; 
but  she  gave  back  the  island  of  Cape 
Breton,  and  granted  those  concurrent 
fishing-rights  to  France  which  have 
been  such  a  constant  source  of  friction 
to  this  day.  Judge  Prowse  declares 
that  the  insignificant  fisheries  of 
France,  now  only  maintained  in  these 
waters  by  a  system  of  bounties, 
cost  the  government  no  less  than 
£50  a  year  per  man,  and  are  of 
practically  no  use  as  a  naval  training- 
ground.  In  these  days,  however,  use- 
less as  the  Newfoundland  rights  are 
to  France,  they  have  become  a  matter 
of  national  honour  and  sentiment ; 
and  this  feeling  among  civilised  na- 
tions not  actually  at  war  is  regarded 
as  legitimate  even  if  inconvenient  to 
others.  But  when  England  and 
France  were  fighting  in  deadly  rivalry, 
as  they  did  throughout  the  eighteenth 
century,  such  considerations  would 
have  been  ridiculous.  England  was 
practically  the  sole  enemy  for  which 
the  navy  of  France  existed ;  and  it 
was  chiefly  in  the  interests  of  this 
navy  that  France  struggled  so  hard  to 
maintain  a  footing  in  Newfoundland. 
Yet  at  every  treaty  the  diplomatists, 
with  what  surely  seems  a  fatuous 
short-sightedness,  undid  the  work  of 


30 


Newfoundland. 


their  victorious  seamen,  and  gave 
back  those  rights  to  be  for  ever  a 
thorn  in  the  side  of  Great  Britain. 

At  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  the  much- 
harried  island  settled  down  to  the 
long  period  of  peace  and  prosperity 
connected  with  Walpole's  administra- 
tion. The  inhabitants  had  already 
rebuilt  their  towns,  villages,  and  forts, 
but  with  increasing  civilisation  the 
anomaly  of  the  Fishing- Admiral  forced 
itself  upon  the  islanders.  It  was  felt 
that  such  a  caricature  of  justice  was 
no  longer  possible,  and  after  much 
civic  disturbance  England  at  last  sent 
out  the  first  naval  Governor,  one 
Captain  Osborn.  The  Crown,  it  must 
be  said,  had  done  this  act  of  common 
sense  upon  its  own  responsibility  with- 
out the  formality  of  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment. So  when  the  new  Governor 
joined  issue  with  the  Fishing- Admirals 
who  had  received  their  original 
authority  from  Parliament,  there  was 
a  great  disturbance  ;  and  the  worst 
of  it  was  that  the  law  was  on  the  side 
of  the  Admirals.  The  irregularity 
was  not  set  right  by  the  home  govern- 
ment for  sixty  years  ;  and  throughout 
the  whole  of  that  period  the  royal 
Governors  with  their  jails,  courthouses, 
magistrates,  and  police  found  them- 
selves in  constant  conflict  with  the 
rough-tongued  skipper  who  happened 
for  that  season  to  be  the  elected  chief 
of  the  fishing-community. 

Cape  Breton  had  been  ceded  to  the 
French,  and  thither  went  many  of 
their  countrymen  from  Newfoundland, 
clustering  round  the  great  fortress  of 
Louisbourg  which  soon  became  the 
centre  of  the  French  power  in  these 
seas  and  the  headquarters  of  their 
fisheries.  In  1742  there  was  war 
again,  and  three  years  later  an  army 
of  New  England  colonists  aided  by 
the  Newfoundland  fleet  captured 
Louisbourg,  the  most  brilliant  achieve- 
ment of  colonial  arms  prior  to  the 
Revolution.  How  bitter  was  the 


language  throughout  British  America 
when  it  was  restored,  and  what  a 
famous  siege  was  that  in  which  it  was 
retaken,  are  matters  of  some  note  in 
history. 

Among  the  many  distinguished 
Englishmen  who  were  connected  with 
Newfoundland  during  this  century 
was  Rodney,  who  was  its  Governor  in 
1749  and  left  behind  him  a  great 
reputation  for  wisdom  and  justice. 
Mr.  Hannay,  in  his  life  of  the  famous 
Admiral,  gives  the  prescribed  routine 
which  was  strictly  followed  by  every 
naval  governor  of  that  time.  In  the 
spring  it  was  his  duty  to  leave  the  Downs 
with  the  men-of-war  under  his  command, 
and  dropping  down  the  Channel  call  at 
Poole,  Weymouth,  Topsham,  Dart- 
mouth, Plymouth,  and  Falmouth. 
Having  collected  from  these  ports  the 
entire  Newfoundland  fishing-fleet  he 
carried  them  under  his  escort  straight 
to  Saint  John's,  where  he  took  up  his 
station  for  the  summer,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  reins  of  the  colonial 
government.  His  instructions  were 
to  keep  his  warships  cruising  through- 
out the  open  season  on  the  look-out 
for  pirates,  smugglers,  or  other  evil- 
doers. It  was  a  common  grievance 
throughout  all  this  period  that  Eng- 
lish hands  shipped  for  the  season  were 
carried  off  or  enticed  away  by  Yankee 
skippers,  and  as  sea-going  Englishmen 
were  regarded  by  the  naval  authorities 
as  precious  and  valuable  material, 
every  effort  was  made  to  stop  the 
illicit  traffic.  When  the  month  of 
October  came  round,  His  Excellency 
arranged  with  his  deputy  and  officials 
on  shore  for  the  administration  of  the 
island  during  the  coming  winter ;  and 
then,  gathering  his  fishing-fleet  once 
more  beneath  his  protecting  wings,  he 
sailed  for  Europe,  though  not  direct 
to  English  shores.  The  consumption 
of  dried  fish  must  have  dwindled 
enormously  by  this  time  in  Protestant 
Britain,  for  the  Admiral's  standing- 


Neivfoundland. 


31 


orders  were  to  convey  the  fleet  straight 
to  the  Mediterranean,  calling  at  Cadiz 
and  Lisbon,  thence  to  Barcelona, 
Majorca,Minorca,  and  Alicante,  whence, 
disposing  of  their  summer's  spoils, 
they  returned  home  laden  with 
southern  merchandise.  The  Admiral 
had  then  to  report  himself  with  his 
warships  at  Gravesend,  which  remained 
his  station  till  the  fishing-season  came 
round  again. 

The  Newfoundlanders  of  this  cen- 
tury seem  to  have  been  noted  as  a 
rough  and  ready  people  given  to  deep 
curses  and  deep  potations.  They 
were  not  without  church  privileges  ; 
but  to  the  New  Englanders,  whose 
church  was  the  pivot  of  their  existence, 
the  boisterous  islanders  seemed  an  un- 
regenerate  race  indeed,  sheep  wander- 
ing in  the  wilderness  without  deacons, 
ministers,  or  assemblies  to  guide  their 
erring  footsteps,  or  any  censorious 
public  opinion  to  regulate  their  way 
of  life. 

The  men  of  Devon  remained 
throughout  all  the  eighteenth  century 
the  prevailing  element  in  Newfound- 
land society.  An  old  inn,  still 
standing,  at  Newton  Abbot  seems  to 
have  been  the  chief  of  the  many  West 
Country  trysting-places  whence  the 
great  Newfoundland  firms  collected 
their  hands.  The  period  for  the  going 
and  coming  of  these  men  was  a  red- 
letter  day  in  the  Devonian  calendar. 
A  common  form  of  rustic  calculation 
ran  :  "  The  parson's  in  Proverbs  ;  the 
Newfanlan'  men  'ull  soon  be  coming 
home." 

In  1762  Saint  John's  once  more  fell 
into  French  hands.  Always  neglect- 
ful of  Newfoundland,  important 
though  it  was  to  them,  the  English 
government  had  allowed  the  forts  to 
decay  and  the  garrisons  to  dwindle  to 
a  mere  handful  of  fifty  or  sixty  men. 
The  French,  sailing  from  Brest, 
eluded  Hawke,  and  descending  on  the 
town  with  four  ships  and  seven  hun- 


dred soldiers,  occupied  it  without 
resistance,  and  set  to  work  forthwith 
to  fortify  themselves.  Colonel  Am- 
herst,  brother  of  the  famous  general, 
was  then  at  New  York,  and  hearing 
of  the  disaster  hastened  with  several 
ships  and  seven  hundred  men  of  the 
60th,  the  Royal  Scots,  and  High- 
landers to  the  scene.  There  was  a 
spirited  and  gallant  fight,  first  at  the 
landing-place,  then  on  the  hill-side  ; 
till  at  length  the  French  were  driven 
into  their  quarters  and,  their  fleet 
deserting  them,  forced  to  surrender  at 
discretion.  Then  came  the  Treaty  of 
Paris,  and  the  usual  restoration  to 
the  vanquished  French  of  their  New- 
foundland possessions,  which  had 
again  of  course  fallen  temporarily 
into  the  hands  of  the  English.  The 
islands  of  Saint  Pierre  and  Miquelon 
were  by  this  treaty  permanently 
handed  over  to  France,  and  remain  in 
her  possession  to  this  day.  There 
was  great  opposition  at  the  time, 
intense  beyond  the  Atlantic  and 
almost  equally  so  among  the  British 
merchants  and  sailors  Mrho  recognised 
in  Newfoundland  the  chief  nursery  of 
the  French  navy. 

The  period  of  the  American  war 
was  a  lively  as  well  as  a  prosperous 
one  for  Newfoundland.  Great  efforts 
were  made  by  th.6  Americans  to  seduce 
the  old  colony  from  her  allegiance  ;  but 
though  the  commercial  intercourse  be- 
tween the  island  and  the  main  had 
become  a  very  close  one,  the  former 
showed  no  disposition  whatever  to 
break  with  the  mother  country.  In- 
deed if  there  had  been,  the  chances 
of  success  would  have  been  but 
slight. 

The  Newfoundlanders  profited  im- 
mensely by  the  war.  British  ships, 
privateers,  soldiers,  and  sailors  were 
constantly  at  Saint  John's.  Much  of 
the  interrupted  New  England  trade 
found  its  way  there.  Prize-money 
was  spent  freely,  and  the  inhabitants 


32 


Newfoundland. 


had  no  cause  to  repent  their  loyalty, 
The  French  islands  were  of  course 
seized  at  once,  and  the  inhabitants,  to 
the  number  of  some  thirteen  hundred, 
shipped  off  to  France.  Nor  perhaps  is 
it  necessary  to  remark  that  at  the 
peace  they  were  given  back  again  as 
usual.  At  the  close  of  the  war  New- 
foundland received  a  few,  but  very 
few,  of  those  crowds  of  refugee  loyal- 
ists from  America  who  trooped  into 
the  Eastern  provinces  and  gave  a  new 
life  to  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Bruns- 
wick, and  founded  Ontario.  Things 
now  upon  the  whole  went  well  with 
her.  In  the  war  of  1812  she  enjoyed 
another  period  of  prosperous  excite- 
ment ;  but,  after  all,  the  island  re- 
mained really  dependent  on  fishing  and 
shipping  interests.  Farms  were  cleared 
around  the  sea-ports,  but  the  people 
who  cleared  and  worked  them  were 
there  for  other  purposes.  Such  trifling 
development  was  merely  incidental  to 
the  one  absorbing  interest  of  the 
Province.  There  has  of  a  truth  been 
plenty  of  incident  in  the  last  eighty 
years  of  Newfoundland's  history,  but 
space  forbids  us  to  do  much  more 
than  refer  our  readers  to  the  interest- 
ing and  well-illustrated  pages  of  the 
Judge  himself.  Fire  and  famine  and 
financial  distress  have  been  lamenta- 
bly frequent  visitors  throughout  the 
whole  of  this  century,  and  within  the 
last  half  dozen  years  have  twice 
brought  the  ancient  Colony  into  most 
unfortunate  prominence.  Nor  is  there 
any  question  but  that  the  Province 
has  for  this  long  time  been  living 
from  hand  to  mouth,  without  anything 
to  fall  back  upon  in  the  hour  of  un- 
foreseen calamity.  Newfoundland 
might,  no  doubt,  have  failed  equally 
as  a  Crown  Colony,  but  its  politicians 
have  certainly  brought  it  neither  good 
fortune  nor  success.  Home  Rule  was 
conceded  in  1832;  and  the  session 
of  its  first  elected  Parliament,  the 
most  diminutive  perhaps  ever  yet 


assembled,  was  taken  ready  advantage 
of  by  the  London  humorists.  It  was 
christened  the  Bow-wow  Parliament, 
and  is  depicted  in  an  admirable  cari- 
cature of  the  time  as  a  small  group  of 
Newfoundland  dogs  in  session  presided 
over  by  an  astute-looking  speaker  of 
the  same  family  in  wig,  spectacles, 
and  bands.  This  functionary  is  re- 
presented as  saying  :  "  All  those  who 
are  of  this  opinion  will  say  bow ; 
those  of  the  contrary,  wow." 

But  Newfoundland  officialism  has 
for  all  time  had  a  very  racy  and 
humorous  element  about  it,  as  might 
from  its  circumstances  be  expected. 
One  of  its  earlier  Chief  Justices  was  a 
delightful  person,  almost  worthy  to 
have  been  a  Fishing- Admiral  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  This  gentleman, 
a  substantial  merchant  by  name 
Tremlett,  and  renowned  for  his  rough 
unswerving  honesty,  was  in  1802 
made  a  subject  of  formal  complaint  to 
the  Governor,  Admiral  Duckworth. 
The  latter  was  well  aware  that  it  was 
the  Chief  Justice's  aggressive  honesty 
that  was  the  trouble  ;  nevertheless  he 
had  to  bring  the  complaints  officially 
to  his  notice.  And  this  was  the 
formal  reply  handed  in  to  the 
Admiral :  "To  the  first  charge,  Your 
Excellency,  I  answer  that  it  is  a  lie. 
To  the  second  charge  I  say  that  it  is 

a    d d    lie.     And    to     the     third 

I  say  that  it  is  a  d d  infernal  lie. 

Your  Excellency's  obedient  Servant, 
Thomas  Tremlett."  The  humour  of 
the  incident  is  fully  sustained  in  the 
reply  of  the  complainants  to  this 
strenuous  vindication,  which  was 
officially  communicated  to  them  by 
the  Governor.  They  petitioned  that 
there  might  be  a  public  inquiry,  "  as 
they  felt  they  were  not  equal  to  the 
Judge  on  paper."  Such  a  paragon  of 
judicial  purity  as  the  good  Tremlett 
had  proved  could  not  of  course  be 
slighted,  so  the  question  was  solved  at 
the  expense  of  Nova  Scotia,  whither 


Neivfoundland. 


33 


he  was  removed  at  a  higher  salary, — 
while  a  person,  as  the  Governor 
quaintly  put  it,  "  of  more  popular 
manners "  was  installed  at  Saint 
John's. 

It  was  in  1763,  the  year  of  the 
Treaty  of  Paris,  that  the  first  survey 
of  the  island  was  made,  and  made 
too  by  the  famous  Captain  Cook. 
It  must  have  been  a  formidable  task, 
though  perhaps  not  more  so  than  it 
would  be  at  the  present  day.  For 
even  yet,  as  we  have  said,  with  an 
area  larger  than  England,  it  remains 
an  almost  wholly  unredeemed  wilder- 
ness. Even  in  its  coast-line,  as  viewed 
from  the  ocean,  there  has  always 
seemed  to  us  something  appallingly 
forbidding  and  desolate.  The  last 
time  we  saw  it  was  from  the  deck  of 
a  trading-steamer,  and  for  the  whole 
of  a  gray  December  day  its  savage 
headlands  and  lonely  bays  followed 
one  another  in  dreary  and  monotonous 
succession  till  they  faded  into  the 
wintry  night.  There  was  no  company 
on  our  ship,  and  the  captain  hugged 
the  shore  as  close  as  he  dared.  We 
spent  the  day  on  deck  with  a  pair  of 
strong  glasses  that  would  have  revealed 
any  living  object  upon  the  melancholy 
russet  hills,  as  yet  untouched  by 
snow,  that  swept  inland  from  the 
cruel  crags  up  which  the  white  surf 


was  crawling.  Here  and  there  at  long 
intervals  was  a  tiny  hamlet  nestling 
in  a  cove,  which  only  seemed  to 
emphasise  the  desolation  reigning  over 
so  vast  an  expanse  of  land  and  sea, 
for  the  latter  was  of  course  at  this 
season  of  the  year  almost  deserted. 
We  had  just  left  the  bustling  coast  of 
New  England;  in  a  short  time  we 
should  be  amid  the  busy  hum  of  the 
Mersey.  It  seemed  to  us,  when  in 
the  presence  of  these  barren  solitudes, 
well  nigh  incredible  that  such  things 
could  be  upon  a  highway  thronged, 
as  this  has  been  for  four  hundred 
years,  by  those  forces  that  above  all 
others  have  tamed  the  waste  places 
of  the  earth.  There  is,  in  truth, 
as  this  article  has  endeavoured  to 
show,  no  mystery  about  the  matter. 
But  there  is  something  curiously 
fascinating  in  a  coast  so  long  a 
familiar  unit  in  the  world's  history, 
and  yet  even  now  containing  upon  its 
face  such  scanty  impress  of  human 
life  and  at  its  back  none  whatever. 
It  is  vastly  different  from  the  desola- 
tion of  lands  that  lie  outside  the 
sphere  of  human  interests  ;  for  there 
is  a  strange  pathos  here  in  a  solitude 
almost  as  profound  as  that  of  Green- 
land, and  yet  in  its  very  silence  so 
eloquent  of  the  famous  names  and  stir- 
ring deeds  of  the  past. 


No.  439. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


34 


THE   OLD   PACKET-SERVICE.1 


"  THE  mail  -  steamer  Mercury 
grounded  on  the  Lethe  shoal  while 
entering  the  port  of  Guam  and  is 
reported  a  total  wreck.  Mails  and 
passengers  saved."  Such  is  the  type 
of  a  certain  bald  and  prosaic  statement 
which  we  frequently  read  without  any 
particular  emotion  in  the  newspapers. 
We  may  chance  to  have  a  friend  in 
Lloyd's,  and  if  so  we  are  for  a  moment 
anxious  for  his  pocket ;  or  we  may 
have  sailed  with  the  self-same  skipper 
in  the  lost  vessel,  in  which  case  our 
comments  will  take  the  colour  of  our 
recollections  of  the  voyage.  But  after 
all,  mails  and  passengers  are  safe,  and 
no  great  harm  has  therefore  been 
done.  New  ships  can  be  built  and 
new  cargoes  manufactured  ;  the  Lethe 
shoal  may  be  resurveyed  if  necessary, 
and  the  captain's  certificate  suspended 
if  he  deserves  it ;  the  Government  of 
Guam  may  be  subjected  to  diplomatic 
pressure  on  the  dangerous  state  of  its 
harbour,  and  so  may  good  come  out 
of  evil ;  but  we  can  turn  with  a  good 
conscience  from  the  shipping-news  to 
the  fashionable  intelligence,  for  mails 
and  passengers  are  saved.  Mails  and 
passengers,  not  passengers  and  mails ; 
for  letters  come  before  lives,  at  any 
rate  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred,  and  a  single  missing  mail- 
bag  causes  more  stir  than  three 
seamen  washed  overboard ;  while  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  things,  in  the 
prosaic  voyage  from  port  to  port,  it  is 
a  matter  of  certainty  that  the  mail  shall 
enjoy  the  privilege  of  being  the  last 
aboard  and  the  first  ashore.  The 

1  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  POST  OFFICE  PACKET- 
SERVICE,  between  the  years  1793  and  1815, 
compiled  from  Records  chiefly  official;  by 
Arthur  H.  Norway.  London,  1895. 


divinity  that  hedges  a  king  is  a  trifle 
to  the  sanctity  that  enwraps  the  mail. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  trace  in  a  rude 
fashion  the  growth  of  this  reverence 
for  a  packet  of  letters.  In  the  first 
place  the  essence  of  a  letter  is  that  it 
shall  be  written,  and  the  smallest 
written  document  is  a  very  serious 
affair.  The  pith  of  the  matter  is 
that,  humiliating  though  the  con- 
fession may  be,  parchment,  or  even 
reasonably  good  paper  and  ink  enjoy 
by  nature  a  longer  life  than  the 
human  frame.  Carlyle  was  eternally 
reviling  sheepskin,  but  there  is  no 
getting  over  the  fact  that  it  is,  in 
comparison  with  ourselves,  immortal 
upon  earth,  and  indeed  the  principal 
agent  in  conferring  immortality  upon 
men.  Paper  of  course  is  less  durable. 
We  have  heard  an  eminent  publisher 
declare  with  a  sigh  that  by  the  end  of 
three  hundred  years  every  book  that 
he  had  brought  out  would  have 
crumbled  into  dust ;  but  in  truth  for 
ninety-nine  hundredths  of  them  three 
centuries  is  an  extravagant  allowance 
of  life.  Milton  surely  understated 
his  case  when  he  said  and  maintained 
that  it  was  almost  as  great  a  crime  to 
kill  a  good  book  as  a  good  man,  for 
the  best  of  men  must  die  sooner  or 
later,  while  through  the  merits  of 
sheepskin  and  paper  his  books  may 
live.  The  potential  immortality  of 
every  written  word  invests  it  with  a 
dignity  that  is  forbidden  to  mere 
flesh  and  blood ;  it  is  no  wonder  that 
we  bow  down  before  it. 

The  signs  of  this  peculiar  veneration 
of  documents  are  abundant  enough  in 
our  actions  of  every  day,  but  none 
perhaps  is  more  striking  than  the 
name  of  the  writing  whereby  a  man 


The  Old  Packet-Service. 


seeks  to  extend  his  influence  beyond 
the  term  of  his  own  life.  A  sovereign 
alone  ventures  to  speak  of  his  will 
and  pleasure  during  his  lifetime ;  but 
every  man  from  the  day  of  his  death 
assumes  sovereign  rights  and  talks  of 
his  will,  which  he  carefully  calls  his 
last  will ;  for  no  one  knows,  and  this 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  features 
in  letters,  what  written  document  may 
be  actually  his  last.  Hence  there 
grows  up  a  peculiar  responsibility 
about  the  custody  of  written  words, 
no  doubt  easily  explicable  in  the  days 
when  men  did  not  commit  trivialities 
to  writing,  but  still  having  its  root  in 
a  kind  of  superstition.  The  destruc- 
tion of  a  will,  to  take  the  strongest 
case,  is  looked  upon  not  only  as  a 
crime  against  the  living,  but  virtually 
as  an  act  of  sacrilege.  Again,  men 
who  will  remorselessly  pull  down  old 
houses,  and  under  the  guise  of  restora- 
tion mutilate  old  churches,  hesitate 
before  they  destroy  old  papers ;  they 
will  store  them  away  in  garrets  and 
cellars  for  a  prey  to  rats  and  mould, 
but  they  rarely  have  the  courage 
deliberately  to  make  away  with  them. 
Women  are  well  known  to  be  the 
most  inveterate  preservers  of  letters ; 
they  have  so  little  faith  in  abstract 
immortality,  whatever  their  pro- 
fessions, that  they  cherish  the  poor 
bundles  of  rags  as  tenderly  as  though 
they  were  living  creatures. 

Out  of  these  two  primary  senti- 
ments, reverence  for  a  written  word 
and  high  sense  of  the  duty  of  pre- 
serving the  same,  has  utimately  grown 
the  sanctity  of  Her  Majesty's  mail. 
The  historian  of  the  Post  Office  has 
furnished  us  with  many  instances  of  a 
devotion  to  duty  on  the  part  of  its 
officials  which  are  unsurpassed  in  the 
annals  of  any  service,  civil,  religious, 
or  military  ;  and  Mr.  Arthur  Norway 
has  now  supplemented  these  by  a 
volume,  which  is  interesting  not  only 
as  a  contribution  to  the  literature  of 


the  department,  but  as  a  chapter  of 
naval  and  military  history  which  has 
remained  too  long  unwritten.  The 
material  for  such  work  is  not  to  be 
found  without  long  and  painful  grop- 
ing among  musty  and  forgotten  manu- 
scripts ;  but  Mr.  Norway,  avoiding 
the  example  too  often  set  in  more 
pretentious  histories,  has  suppressed 
all  parade  of  research,  brushed  away 
all  dust  and  cobwebs,  and  woven  the 
dry  official  records  into  a  plain, 
straightforward  narrative,  as  stirring 
as  any  fictitious  tale  of  adventure  and 
much  better  written  than  most. 

The    first    institution    of     Packet- 
Services  across  the  two  Channels   and 
the  North  Sea  probably  dates  back  to 
very  ancient  times.    In  the  days  when 
England  was  a  province  of  France,  and 
during  the  later  period  when  France 
was  a  province   of   England,  the   need 
of  a  channel  for  regular  correspondence 
must  have  made  itself  irresistibly  felt ; 
and  even  after  the  loss  of  Calais  the 
long  presence  of   English  troops  and 
English   agents  in  the  Low  Countries 
called  for  almost  as  constant  means  of 
communication    with    Holland.      The 
service  probably  made  a  great  stride 
in  the  days  of  the  Protectorate  ;  for 
Secretary  Thurloe,  who  hung  the  secrets 
of  all  Europe  at  the  Protector's  girdle, 
could  do  so  only   by   means  of   unin- 
terrupted '  correspondence     with    his 
agents  abroad,  and  being   Postmaster 
himself  could  regulate  the  packets  to 
suit  his  wishes.     Still  the  system  was 
not     extended     outside     the    narrow 
seas  either  during  Cromwell's  reign  or 
that  of  his  successor.     The  need  for 
such  extension  became  pressing  only 
through  the    growth   of  our    colonial 
possessions. 

We  are  accustomed  to  look  upon 
colonial  expansion  as  a  movement  of 
comparatively  modern  date,  and  to 
ignore  the  share  of  attention  that  was 
claimed  even  two  centuries  ago  by  our 
kin  beyond  sea,  and  the  labour  that 

D  2 


36 


The  Old  Packet-Service. 


their  affairs  entailed  on  the  Board  of 
Trade  and  Plantations.  It  is  true  that 
our  colonies  had  been  so  established  as 
apparently  to  call  for  little  adminis- 
trative interference  from  English 
officials.  Between  Lords  Proprietors 
and  Chartered  Companies  the  Govern- 
ment appeared  to  be  seated  almost 
exclusively  in  private  hands.  More- 
over it  was  a  fixed  principle  of  colonial 
policy  that  every  new  settlement  should 
forthwith  be  endowed  with  a  constitu- 
tion on  the  English  model,  and  allowed 
for  the  most  part  to  manage  its  own 
affairs.  None  the  less,  however,  the 
authority  of  the  Crown  was  constantly 
invoked.  There  were  disputes,  particu- 
larly about  boundaries,  to  be  settled, 
sovereign  rights  to  be  upheld,  and 
occasionally  rebellions  to  be  suppressed. 
Massachusetts,  as  may  be  believed  of 
the  leader  of  the  rebellion  of  1775, 
was  a  most  troublesome  possession ; 
Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  and  New 
Plymouth  never  ceased  quarrelling 
about  territorial  limits  ;  Virginia  was 
much  disquieted  by  a  rebellion ;  and 
Carolina,  though  judiciously  adminis- 
tered by  the  Lords  Proprietors,  had 
not  been  exempt  from  the  same  dis- 
order ;  Maine  was  eternally  wailing 
against  the  misdeeds  of  Massachusetts, 
and  Maryland  alone  enjoyed  a  more 
or  less  peaceful  existence  under  Lord 
Baltimore.  Further  north  there  was 
Newfoundland,  always  a  most  distress- 
ful country,  writhing  under  the  yoke 
of  the  West  Country  adventurers  in 
whose  power  it  lay,  and  incessantly 
shrieking  to  the  Crown  for  help.  To 
the  south-east  there  was  Bermuda, 
also  a  hot-bed  of  grievances  owing  to 
the  high-handed  government  of  the 
Somers  Islands  Company.  Still  further 
to  the  south,  Nevis,  Montserrat, 
Antigua,  part  of  Saint  Kitts,  Barbados, 
and  Jamaica,  each  with  its  own  little 
houses  of  Lords  and  Commons,  lay 
quaking  in  their  shoes  before  the 
naval  power  of  France,  and  half  tor- 


mented, half  comforted  by  the  presence 
of  swarms  of  privateers. 

With  all  these  settlements  there 
passed  a  flood  of  correspondence  to 
and  from  the  Board  of  Trade  and 
Plantations,  and  more  particularly 
with  the  West  Indian  islands  which 
were  shielded  by  no  interposition  of 
Proprietors  or  Chartered  Companies. 
The  enforcement  of  the  Navigation 
Acts  was  one  principal  subject  of  dis- 
cussion ;  unending  wrangles  between 
the  islands  and  the  Royal  African 
Company,  which  possessed  the  mono- 
poly of  the  trade  in  live  negroes, 
made  another ;  the  menaces  of  the 
French  squadron  constituted  a  third. 
All  were  important  questions  alike  to 
mother  country  and  colonies,  but  the 
difficulty  in  adjusting  them  was  in- 
creased tenfold  by  the  absence  of  any 
regular  means  of  communication. 
Merchant  vessels  were,  with  the  oc- 
casional exception  of  a  man-of-war, 
the  only  ships  that  passed  between 
England  and  the  islands,  and  they  of 
course  would  not  sail  without  cargo. 
Once,  when  the  whole  year's  produce 
of  an  island  was  destroyed  by  a  hurri- 
cane, communication  with  England 
ceased  for  two  and  twenty  solid 
months ;  the  merchant  vessels  on  the 
spot  waited  for  the  next  year's  crop 
before  they  sailed  home,  and  of  course 
no  more  ships  came  out  from  England 
meanwhile.  Moreover  any  unarmed 
vessel  ran  great  risk  of  capture  by 
the  Algerine  pirates  that  swarmed  in 
the  Channel.  Colonial  governors  on 
their  way  to  their  posts,  and  colonial 
agents  bound  homeward  with  an  arm- 
ful of  grievances,  were  impartially 
captured  and  carried  off.  The  New- 
foundland fishing-fleet  sailed  under 
convoy  of  a  King's  ship,  and  governors 
nominated  by  the  King  always  crossed 
the  Atlantic  in  a  frigate. 

The  difficulties  both  of  trade  and 
administration  in  such  conditions  may 
easily  be  conceived.  The  Board  of 


The  Old  Packet-Service. 


37 


Plantations  was  longing  to  exert  more 
immediate  control  over  the  West  In- 
dian islands  and  reduce  them  more 
nearly  to  their  present  position  of 
Crown  Colonies,  but  they  were  met 
always  by  the  insuperable  objections 
of  irregular  communication.  The  local 
legislatures  were  tenacious  of  their 
privileges,  and  actually  maintained 
them,  in  spite  of  a  thousand  absurdi- 
ties, unaltered  until  our  own  time. 
The  first  attempt  to  subject  them 
more  directly  to  the  Board  of  Trade 
had  not  been  abandoned  ten  years 
when  the  Post  Office  instituted  the 
one  thing  needful  to  have  made  it 
feasible.  In  1688  a  Packet-Service 
was  established  for  regular  communi- 
cation to  Corunna,  or,  as  it  was  called, 
the  Groyne,1  from  the  port  of  Fal- 
mouth,  and  four  years  later  additional 
packets  were  added  to  ply  to  the 
West  Indies  and  the  Southern  States 
of  America  from  the  same  station. 

Falmouth  consequently  during  the 
following  century  grew  to  a  wealth 
and  importance  which,  though  still 
recollected  by  a  few  living  men,  is  in 
these  days  hardly  credible.  It  is  only 
within  the  last  two  generations,  it 
must  be  remembered,  that  there  has 
departed  from  the  West  Indies  the 
glory  which,  while  it  lasted,  was 
enough  of  itself  to  raise  their  post- 
towns  in  England  to  dignity.  But 
apart  from  this,  during  the  eighteenth 
and  the  earlier  years  of  the  present 
century  most  of  the  great  news  came 
from  the  west,  and  Falmouth  through 
its  communication  with  Spain  em- 
braced the  field  of  the  Mediterranean 
also.  The  intelligence  for  which  the 
whole  country  was  waiting,  whether 
of  Byng  at  Sicily  or  Pococke  at  Ha- 
vanna,  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown  or 
Rodney  at  Saint  Lucia,  of  Jervis  at 

1  Corrupted,  of  course,  from  the  French 
Corognc.  Leghorn  is  one  of  the  few  survivals 
of  the  barbarous  lingo  of  the  old  merchant  - 
skippers. 


Saint  Vincent  or  Nelson  at  Trafalgar, 

O         * 

of  Moore  at  Corunna  or  Wellington  at 
Vittoria,  all  reached  Falmouth  first; 
and,  as  Mr.  Norway  tells  us,  it  was 
ventilated  and  discussed  in  every 
tavern  in  the  town  a  full  day  before 
it  reached  the  hands  even  of  Ministers 
in  London. 

A  besetting  sin  of  the  packets  from 
the  earliest  times  was  the  practice  of 
carrying  goods  for  purposes  of  trade, 
which  made  the  service  extremely  pro- 
fitable to  officers  and  men,  but  led  to 
overloading  the  vessels  and  conse- 
quently to  slow  passages.  It  had  been 
strictly  forbidden  by  Charles  the 
Second  as  far  back  as  1660,  but,  as 
will  presently  be  seen,  without  any 
great  effect.  A  second  failing,  which 
was  perhaps  almost  inevitable  in  early 
days  when  a  vessel  went  armed  to  sea, 
was  the  partiality  for  a  little  quiet 
piracy.  The  temptation  was  doubtless 
great.  England  and  Spain  were  con- 
stantly at  war  during  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  Spanish  prizes  were  always 
reputed  to  be  rich.  The  Admiralty 
Courts  could  always  be  bribed  to  con- 
demn the  prize,  the  Post  Office  looked 
the  other  way,  the  crews  made  their 
prize-money;  and  thus  every  one,  except 
of  course  the  Spaniards,  was  satisfied. 
It  is  true  that  the  packets  fought 
more  than  one  gallant  action  in  their 
early  days  in  honest  defence  of  their 
ships  and  of  their  mail;  but  there 
were  far  too  many  engagements  of  a 
different  kind  which  led  to  the  abuse 
of  putting  the  capture  of  prizes  first 
and  the  safety  of  the  mail  second.  In 
fact  the  time  came  when  the  Packet  - 
Service  required  to  be  overhauled  with 
a  strong  hand,  and  the  moment  chosen 
was,  curiously  enough,  the  outbreak  of 
the  great  war  of  1793.  The  authori- 
ties then  decided  that,  in  spite  of  the 
risk  of  French  privateers,  the  arma- 
ment of  the  packets  should  be  reduced, 
and  their  commanders  instructed  to 
run  away  from  any  armed  vessel,  or 


38 


The  Old  Packet-Service. 


to  fight  her  only  when  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  run,  and,  if  resistance  were  im- 
possible, to  sink  the  mails  and  sur- 
render. To  make  obedience  to  these 
orders  the  surer  a  special  type  of  vessel 
was  selected  of  about  one  hundred  and 
eighty  tons  burden,  with  a  crew  of 
twenty-eight  men  and  an  armament 
of  six  guns,  four  four-pounders  and 
two  six-pounders  only. 

It  was  a  daring  experiment,  for  it 
placed  the  packets  at  the  mercy  of  the 
majority  of  the   French  privateers,  if 
the  complement  of  men  and  the  weight 
of  metal  were  made  the  standard  of 
comparison ;   and   it   remained    to    be 
seen  whether  the  sanctity  of  the  mail 
would  inspire  its  custodians  to  extra- 
ordinary exertions  in  its  defence.    The 
result    at  first  was   not  discouraging. 
In    December,    1793,     the    Antelope 
packet   fought  a  desperate  action  off 
the  coast  of  Jamaica  against  the  priva- 
teer Atalanta.      Fever   was    at    work 
among  the  crew  of  the  Antelope,  and 
she  had  but  two-and-twenty  men  fit 
for    duty    against     sixty-five     in    the 
privateer.       The     Atalanta,    knowing 
where  her  own  superiority   lay,  bore 
down    upon    the    packet,    threw    out 
grappling-irons  and  tried  to  carry  her 
by  boarding.      By  the  ready  ability  of 
the  packet's   commander,    Curtis,   the 
first  attack   was   defeated  with  loss  ; 
but  he  was  presently  shot  dead,  and 
the  command  passed  to  the  boatswain, 
a    man    named    Pasco.       He    was    so 
illiterate  that   he  could   not  write  his 
name :  but  he  quite  understood  how 
to  command  a  ship  in  action,  and  he 
continued  the  defence  with  such  vigour 
that  the  privateeersmen  cast  loose  the 
grapples  and  prepared    to    sheer    off. 
They  were  not,  however,  to  escape  so 
easily.     Before  the  two  vessels  could 
separate  Pasco  ran   aloft,  and  lashing 
the  Atalanta's  square-sailyard  to  the 
Antelope's      fore-shrouds,     hammered 
away  till  the  enemy,  for  all  the  bloody 
flag  of  no  quarter  which  was  nailed  to 


their  masthead,  cried  out  for  mercy. 
On  taking  possession  of  his  prize  Pasco 
found  thirty-two  of  his  opponents 
dead  on  the  deck,  and  but  sixteen  of 
the  whole  sixty-five  still  unhurt.  The 
Antelope's  loss  was  three  killed  and 
four  wounded.  It  is  satisfactory 
to  be  able  to  add  that  Pasco  did 
not  want  for  praise  and  reward  on 
his  return  home  after  this  gallant 
action. 

This  brilliant  beginning,   however, 
was    not  well  followed    up.      In    the 
next  seven  or  eight  years  packet  after 
packet    was     captured     with     doleful 
regularity,  and   the  West  India   mer- 
chants were  loud  in  their  complaints. 
It    soon    became    apparent    that    the 
packets,   though    nominally   built  for 
speed,  were  for  some  reason  overtaken 
with  surprising  ease  ;   and  there  grew 
up    unpleasant    suspicions    that    they 
were  over  ready  to   surrender  to  ves- 
sels which  they  might  have  beaten  off. 
The   curious    coincidence  that   nearly 
all    packets    were    captured     on     the 
homeward   voyage  led   to   careful  in- 
vestigation, and  thus  it  came  out  that 
the  old  abuse   of  carrying   goods  for 
trade  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  mystery. 
The  cargo  received    on  board  at  Fal- 
mouth    was    insured   for    the    double 
voyage  out  and  home  ;  the  men  sold 
it  in   the  West   Indies  and   remitted 
their  proceeds  homeward  ;  and  finally 
the  ship  was  surrendered  to  the  first 
enemy  with  a  readiness  that  encouraged 
the  capturing  vessel  to  put  all  hands 
ashore  in  their  own  boat.      The  crew 
then   claimed    their   insurance-money, 
which    was     thus     added     to     their 
profits    out   of  the    voyage.      It    was 
a    sad    discovery,    which     lamentably 
tarnished  the  fair  fame  of  the  Packet- 
Service.      Once   again   a   strong  hand 
was    necessary   to    restore    efficiency ; 
the  abuses  were  put  down  in  spite  of 
much  grumbling,  and  when  the  short 
breathing-space  given  by  the  Peace  of 
Amiens  was  past,  the  packets  had  a 


The  Old  Packet-Service. 


39 


chance  of  regaining  their  good  char- 
acter. 

To  do  them  justice  they  made 
worthy  use  of  their  opportunity.  It 
is  difficult  out  of  the  number  of  bril- 
liant actions  chronicled  by  Mr.  Norway 
to  select  one  out  of  half  a  dozen  of 
equal  gallantry  for  special  mention. 
The  scene  until  1812  was  generally 
the  lovely  waters  of  the  Caribbean 
Archipelago,  at  that  time  swarming 
with  privateers  which  stole  out  from 
Guadeloupe  to  make  havoc  of  the 
English  trade.  How  busy  they  kept 
the  English  cruisers,  and  how  for- 
midable they  might  be  as  opponents, 
manned  as  they  were  by  the  despera- 
does of  all  nations,  we  may  read  for 
ourselves  in  the  pages  of  PETER 
SIMPLE  and  TOM  CRINGLE'S  LOG. 
Marryat  is  not  ashamed  to  tell  of  the  oc- 
casional failures  even  of  a  man-of-war's 
crew  to  capture  these  vessels,  so  that 
it  may  be  imagined  that  they  were  no 
playthings  to  the  poor  little  packets. 
Yet  the  packets  faced  them  always 
with  extraordinary  gallantry,  though 
they  were  sometimes  forced  after  a 
desperate  fight  to  sink  the  mail  and 
haul  down  the  colours.  On  one  me- 
morable occasion  a  single  packet 
actually  stepped  in  to  save  an  English 
island. 

That  island  was  Dominica,  the 
loveliest,  as  some  maintain,  of  all  the 
Antilles,  the  most  southerly  of  the 
Leeward  Islands,  and  unhappily 
situated  within  dangerous  proximity 
to  the  French  island  of  Guadeloupe. 
The  garrison  that  held  it  was  small  : 
men  died  so  fast  in  the  West  Indies 
in  those  days  that  it  could  hardly  be 
otherwise ;  and  lying  as  it  does  within 
sight  of  French  troops  the  island  was 
a  standing  temptation  to  French  enter- 
prise. It  so  happened  that  the  crew 
of  the  only  man-of-war  then  cruising 
off  the  island,  H.M.S.  Dominica, 
mutinied  and  carried  the  ship  to  the 
enemy  at  Guadeloupe.  It  is  melan- 


choly to  have  to  record  so  ugly  a  story, 
but  as  the  tale  of  the  Hermione  also 
shows,  the  troubles  that  are  remem- 
bered by  the  name  of  the  Nore  were 
at  work  in  every  British  naval  station. 
The  French  at  once  replaced  the 
mutineers  with  men  of  their  own 
nation,  packed  her  with  troops,  added 
a  sloop,  a  schooner,  and  two  galleys 
as  consorts,  and  sent  the  whole 
flotilla  away  to  capture  the  Dominican 
capital,  Roseau.  The  armament  ap- 
peared off  the  entrance  to  the  port  on 
May  24th,  1806. 

The  planters  of  Dominica  were  at 
their  wits'  end.      Even  if  they  could 
defeat  an  attempt  at  a  landing,  they 
could  hardly  hope  to  save  the  sugar- 
ships   in  the  harbour,  the  capture  of 
which    would  spell   ruin   to  many  of 
them.      While  still  debating  they  saw 
two   more  vessels  enter  the   bay,  the 
packet    Duke    of    Montrose,    Captain 
Dynely,  under  the  convoy  of  H.M.S. 
Attentive.      The    Governor    of     the 
island  ordered  the  Attentive  to  stand 
off  and  intercept  the  French  flotilla, 
but  being  a  miserable  sailer  she  was 
easily  left  behind;  and  it  was   plain 
that,   unless  the   packet  took  up  the 
quarrel,   the  mischief  would  be  done 
before   the   Attentive  could   get  into 
action.      The  .Governor  therefore  ap- 
pealed to  Dynely  to  take  a  detachment 
of  troops  on  board  and  fight  in  defence 
of  the  island.      Dynely  hesitated  ;  his 
vessel  was  not  national  property,  and 
his  instructions  covered  no  such  con- 
tingency as  this.      He  asked  first  that 
the   merchants  would    guarantee   the 
value  of   his  vessel  in  case  she  were 
lost.     They  refused.     He  then  offered 
to    take    upon    himself    the    value  of 
masts,  yards,  and  rigging,  if  they  would 
do  the  like  for  the  hull.     Again  they 
refused ;  the  West  Indian  planter  is 
the   most   hospitable  of  men,  but  he 
loses    spirit    under    a    tropical     sun. 
Dynely  therefore  accepted  the  whole 
responsibility,  sent   his   mails   ashore, 


40 


The  Old  Packet-Service. 


and  bade  any  man  that  had  no  mind 
to  follow  him  in  an  action  which  was 
no  part  of  his  business,  to  go  ashore 
with  them  if  he  would.  The  Falmouth 
crew  of  course  stood  by  him  to  a  man  ; 
so  forty  men  of  the  Forty-sixth  and 
Third  West  India  Regiments  were 
taken  on  board  as  a  reinforcement :  it 
was  likely  enough  that  they  were  no 
new  hands  at  the  work,  for  in  those 
haphazard  days  even  Light  Dragoons 
occasionally  did  duty  as  Marines ; 
and  the  Duke  of  Montrose  stood  out 
of  the  bay  to  meet  three  vessels,  the 
smallest  of  which  was  as  powerful  as 
herself. 

The  wind  was  very  light,  but  the 
packet,  a  fine  sailer  and  skilfully 
handled,  could  outmanoeuvre  her  ad- 
versaries ;  and  Dynely,  noticing  that 
the  French  were  separated,  seized  the 
opportunity  to  bear  down  upon  the 
largest  of  them  alone.  Presently  the 
wind  dropped  altogether  ;  Dynely  got 
out  his  boats,  towed  his  ship  within 
pistol-shot,  and  opened  fire.  For 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  he  hammered 
at  her,  no  one  of  the  French  consorts 
daring  apparently  to  interfere,  and  at 
last  forced  her  to  strike.  Losing  no 
time  he  turned  next  to  the  former 
King's  ship  Dominica,  which  turned 
and  fled,  as  it  happened,  straight  into 
the  jaws  of  another  English  cruiser, 
the  Wasp,  which  had  been  attracted 
by  the  firing.  Returning  from  the 
chase  Dynely  found  the  rest  of  the 
work  done.  The  Attentive  had  cap- 
tured both  the  galleys  :  a  party  of  the 
Forty-Eighth  Regiment  had  rowed  off 
from  shore  and  captured  the  remain- 
ing ship  by  boarding ;  and  the  whole 
affair  was  over.  Dominica  had  been 
saved  by  the  packet  and  by  nothing 
else ;  and  Dynely,  on  arriving  home, 
received  a  special  reward  and  com- 
mendation from  the  Admiralty.  He 
did  not  live  long  to  enjoy  his  honours. 
In  December  of  the  same  year  he  was 
attacked  close  to  Barbados  by  a 


powerful  French  privateer  which  car- 
ried eighty-five  men  against  his  eight 
and  twenty.  For  three  hours  he  fought 
her  desperately,  till  he  was  shot  dead, 
when  the  crew,  disheartened  by  the 
loss  of  both  their  commander  and 
mate,  who  was  already  fallen,  hauled 
down  their  colours. 

More  brilliant  even  than  this  was 
an  action  fought  by  the  Windsor 
Castle  under  her  master  William 
Rogers,  in  1807.  Here  again,  the 
assailing  privateer,  more  powerful  in 
armament  and  still  more  powerful  in 
men  than  her  intended  victim,  ran 
alongside  the  packet  and  strove  to 
carry  her  by  boarding.  In  the  middle 
of  the  action  the  wind  died  away  and 
the  two  vessels  lay  locked  together  for 
more  than  two  hours,  unable  to  part, 
and  cannonading  each  other  furiously. 
Of  the  twenty-eight  English  three 
were  killed  and  ten  wounded;  but  the 
survivors  stuck  to  their  guns  indomit- 
ably, until  at  last  the  French  fire 
slackened,  and  at  every  discharge  of 
their  own  they  heard  the  enemy 
scream,  a  ghastly  womanish  sound  to 
be  heard  among  men.  Finally  the 
packet's  men,  having  repelled  the 
French  attack,  took  the  offensive  in 
their  turn  and  after  a  sharp  struggle 
captured  the  privateer.  It  was  a 
victory  of  sheer  pluck  and  skill,  won 
by  a  slaughter  which,  considering  the 
small  numbers  engaged,  is  not  easily 
matched  even  in  the  history  of  the 
Royal  Navy. 

But  a  far  more  terrible  trial  came 
for  the  packets  on  the  outbreak  of  the 
American  war  in  1812.  The  French 
privateers,  well-found  though  they 
were  and  manned  with  desperate  men, 
were  child's  play  to  the  American, 
which  were  twice  as  powerful  and 
manned  by  English  deserters.  Where 
English  frigates  were  overmatched,  it 
is  hardly  surprising  that  the  little 
packets  should  have  gone  to  the  wall. 
And  yet  they  fought  even  against 


The  Old  Packet-Service. 


•11 


overwhelming  odds  with  a  desperate 
courage  and  an  obstinacy  remarkable 
even  among  British  seamen.  Captain 
Cock  in  the  Townsend,  with  a  crew  of 
thirty-two  men  and  four  passengers, 
fought  against  two  American  pri- 
vateers simultaneously  for  more  than 
three  hours  before  he  would  consent 
to  surrender.  Each  of  his  assailants 
was  superior  to  him  singly  in  strength, 
and  the  two  carried  together  nearly 
five  times  his  Aveight  of  metal  and 
seven  times  his  strength  of  men.  Yet 
even  when  they  had  battered  the 
packet  into  a  wreck,  when  half  its 
crew  was  in  the  surgeon's  hands,  and 
when  she  was  actually  in  a  sinking 
state,  Cock  only  with  great  reluctance 
hauled  down  his  colours.  He  had 
repelled  countless  attempts  to  board, 
and  it  was  hard  to  have  to  yield  to 
sheer  weight  of  metal.  The  Towns- 
end  was  so  heavily  shattered  that  the 
Americans,  finding  her  not  worth 
keeping,  restored  her  for  a  small  sum 
to  her  captain,  who  duly  brought  her 
into  her  destination,  though  without 
the  mail  for  which  he  had  struggled 
so  gallantly.  Cock  lived  to  fight  two 
or  three  more  actions  before  he  died, 
worn  out  with  wounds  and  hard  work. 
His  name  should  be  remembered  at 
the  Post  Office,  for  no  man  ever  made 
a  nobler  fight  for  his  mail. 

With  such  contests  the  Packet-Ser- 
vice was  occupied  during  the  three 
years  from  1812  to  1815.  A  few 
years  later  the  old  arrangements  were 
altered,  and  Falmouth  knew  the  Service 
no  more.  In  spite  of  occasional  lapses 
from  the  path  of  rectitude  the  Cor- 
nishmen  had  played  their  part  bravely 
for  more  than  a  century ;  and  it  is 
interesting  to  know  that  the  old  spirit 
which  made  the  West  Country  the 
centre  of  adventure  in  Elizabeth's  day 


still  lasted  to  the  close  of  the  great 
French  War,  and  still  responded  to 
the  old  cry  of  Westward  Ho !  It 
may  be  that  their  time  will  come 
again,  for  the  Cornish  fishermen  with 
their  handsome  half-Jewish  type  of 
face,  great  frames,  and  incomparable 
natural  dignity,  impress  one  always  as 
a  folk  that  when  in  earnest  can  do 
great  things.  There  is  not  a  great 
deal  to  choose,  though  there  is  a  good 
deal  to  contrast,  between  them  and 
their  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  brethren  of 
Devon ;  and  the  Devon  men  have 
proved  well  enough  what  they  can 
do. 

Meanwhile,  as  we  said  at  the  be- 
ginning, the.  result  of  these  stubborn 
packet-fights  has  been  to  enhance  the 
sanctity  of  the  mail,  and  give  our 
modern  steamers  a  standard  by  which 
to  rate  the  importance  of  their  trust. 
Though  submarine  cables  spread  wide, 
and  the  repairing  steamers  of  the 
world  rest  in  English  hands,  there  is 
still  a  chance  that  the  ordeal  so 
bravely  passed  by  the  Falmouth 
packets  in  the  great  war  may  some 
day  have  again  to  be  faced.  Such 
mails  as  are  carried  in  these  days  can 
hardly  be  sunk  at  short  notice,  and  the 
steamers,  unless  they  have  the  ad- 
vantage in  speed,  must  needs  fight 
to  preserve  them.  It  is  a  curious 
question,  possibly  hardly  thought  out 
yet  even  by  experts,  what  may  be 
the  fate  of  the  mails  in  the  next  great 
war,  and  it  may  be  that  one  day  Mr. 
Norway's  book  may  be  consulted  for 
precedents.  Meanwhile  for  our  own 
part  we  are  content  to  read  it  for  a 
vivid  study  of  English  devotion  and 
English  heroism,  which  does  honour 
alike  to  the  English  merchant  service, 
and  to  a  great  though  much  abused 
public  department. 


42 


MARY    STUART    AT    SAINT    GERMAINS. 


HENRY  THE  SECOND  of  France  often 
declared  that  his  son  Chariot,  after- 
wards Charles  the  Ninth,  and  Mary 
Stuart,  received  their  nurture  from 
Ronsard.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  trace 
this  gentle  master's  influence  in  the 
poetic  essays  of  the  gifted  pair,  though 
little  enough  of  it,  unfortunately,  in 
their  conduct  of  life. 

At  Saint  Germains  the  young  queen, 
Catherine  of  Medicis,  had  gathered 
about  her  a  pretty  child's  court  where 
rhyming  and  romance  were  the  order 
of  the  day.  Little  Madam  Mary 
Stuart  held  the  sceptre  of  love  and 
beauty  in  this  sylvan  world,  and  Ron- 
sard, Prince  of  Poets,  was  its  laureate. 
The  post  could  have  been  no  sinecure, 
we  imagine,  which  exacted  not  only  a 
Franciade,  and  courtly  eulogies  and 
epithalamiums  interminable  (weari- 
some writing  to  judge  by  the  reading), 
but  the  supervision  as  well  of  court 
pageantries,  and  the  composition  of 
numerous  couplets,  cartels,  and  such 
like  conceits,  for  the  players  to  mouth 
at  masks  and  mummeries.  He  was 
called  upon,  no  doubt,  to  help  to  set 
afoot  those  joyous  games  of  chivalry 
which  the  royal  nurslings  played  while 
summer  lasted  under  the  greenwood 
tree.  Valorous  Don  Quixote  had  not 
yet  sallied  forth,  albeit  busy  just  then 
furbishing  up  his  grandsire's  rusty 
armour :  and  the  legendary  period, 
dear  to  childhood's  heart,  of  giants, 
fire-breathing  dragons,  infidels,  en- 
chanted princesses  with  their  attendant 
knights-errant,  was  still,  comparatively 
speaking,  within  hailing  distance.  We 
catch  a  pleasant  glimpse  of  the  eager, 
blue-eyed  poet,  his  lute  under  his  arm, 
his  mantle  awry,  as  he  leads  afield 
his  merry  band  of  rosy-cheeked  lads 


and  dainty  lasses.  Up  hill  and  down 
dale  they  race  ;  through  thickets  where 
many  a  silken  shred  pays  toll  for 
the  benefit  of  thrifty  nest-builders, 
by  mossy  banks,  by  ferny  dingles, 
and  brown  dimpling  brooks  that  make 
sweet  laughter  in  many  a  silent  place. 
Echo  tracks  their  flight  down  the  dim 
aisles  of  that  mysterious  shadow- 
world  whose  secret  ways  the  master 
alone  knows.  "  I  was  not  yet  twelve 
years  old,"  he  writes,  condescending 
to  the  beautiful  old  lyrical  tongue  of 
France  which  no  one  could  use  to 
better  purpose  when  it  suited  him  ; 
"  I  was  barely  out  of  childhood,  when, 
far  removed  from  the  noise  of  streets, 
in  deep-wooded  valleys  under  the 
hanging  trees,  in  grottoes,  leafy, 
hidden,  safe  from  rash  intrusion,  I 
gave  myself  up  without  a  care  to  the 
delights  of  song-making.  Echo  an- 
swered me,  and  the  rustic  deities 
peeped  in  upon  me ;  dryads,  fauns, 
satyrs,  the  nymphs  of  woods  and 
meadows ;  wild  creatures  with  horns 
in  the  middle  of  the  forehead,  balanc- 
ing themselves  like  goats  and  leaping 
from  rock  to  rock ;  and  the  fantastic 
troop  of  fairies  who  dance  in  ring, 
their  kirtles  ungirdled  and  flung  to 
the  wind." 

As  one  reads,  the  centuries  roll 
back,  and  the  world  grows  young 
again.  Paris,  like  fair  Rosamund  of 
the  legend,  lies  hidden  away  in  a 
green  forest  labyrinth  ;  no  sky-raking 
tower  is  there  to  advertise  the  last 
wonder  of  creation ;  no  clamorous 
iron  rails ;  no  highways  broad  and 
straight  and  dusty  stretching  away  to 
the  city  gates.  Even  the  silver  wind- 
ing old  Seine  seems  loath  to  find  the 
road  thither,  so  pleasant  is  this  dally- 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


43 


ing  among  green  osier  isles  and  banks 
of  flowering  iris,  so  cool  the  shadows 
under  her  hanging  woods. 

"  After  the  death  of  our  late  Lord 
King  of  glorious  memory,"  writes    a 
local  chronicler,  one  Bonhomme  Andre" 
du    Chesne,    "  his   son,   great  Henry, 
second  of  his  name,  came  to  the  throne  ; 
who  likewise  honoured  his  Saint  Ger- 
mains above  all  other  royal  residences  ; 
esteeming  it  the  most  rare  in  beauty, 
the    most    gracious     in    sojourn,    the 
.most  abundant  in  all  sorts  of  delights. 
To  come  to  it  from  Paris  it  is  necessary 
to  cross  three  or    four    fords,   unless, 
indeed,  one  makes  a  wide   detour,   or 
takes  barge  and  arrives  by  water.      I 
cannot    stop    here     to     describe    the 
galleries,  the  chambers,  ante-chambers, 
offices,    the    chapel    (constructed,   one 
tells  us,  in  the  days  of  Queen  Blanche), 
the    terraces,    courts,    the    places   for 
tennis   and  pall-mall,  flower  gardens, 
willow    walks,    vineyards,    mountains, 
and    valleys,     the    village    of     Pecq, 
which    lies    at    the    foot    of    the  hill 
beside    the     river    Seine.      Nor    can 
I    more    than    mention    that    famous 
forest  under  the  walls  of  the  said  noble 
castle,    full    of    fine    game,   and    such 
lofty  trees  covered  with   a  leafage   so 
umbrageous,  that  the  sun  in  its  most 
ardent  heats  can  never  penetrate  ;  a 
forest,   we  are  told,    where    in  times 
past  the  rustic   deities  were  wont  to 
make  their  retreat,   as  to-day,  during 
the  honourable  repose  of  peace,  it  is 
the  resort  of    our  King  and  Princes. 
For  of  a  verity,  if  ever  the  Majesty  of 
the    Lilies    hath    especially  honoured 
and  cherished  one  spot  in  our  France, 
it   is,  methinks,  beyond  dispute,    the 
same   Chateau-en-Laye,   after  that    of 
Fontaine-belle-eau. " 

Legendary  Broceliande  could  not 
have  lent  a  more  appropriate  scene, 
and  with  a  poet  for  prompter  the 
promising  young  players  of  Cathe- 
rine's company  were  well  equipped. 
Handsome  Henry  of  Anjou  played 


the  part  of  Amadis  of  Gaul ;  othe  rs 
figured  in  the  parts  of  Giron  le 
Courtois,  Roland  of  France,  and 
such  like  paladins  of  romance.  More 
difficult,  perhaps,  through  very  em- 
barrassment of  riches,  was  the  choice 
of  Queen  of  Love  and  Beauty.  "  I 
do  declare,"  cries  an  enthusiastic 
courtier,  "that  April  in  its  most 
perfect  spring-time  hath  not  so  many 
beautiful  flowers,  nor  bears  such 
fragrant  verdure."  Behold  them  where 
they  troop  in  dazzling  array,  mar- 
shalled by  the  courtly  Brantome  in 
his  PRINCESSES  OF  FRANCE.  First  of  the 
pretty  flock  steps  forth  Madam 
Elizabeth,  eldest  daughter  of  the 
Lilies,  or  rather,  for  her  rare  grace 
and  beauty,  Elizabeth  Queen  of  the 
World.  So  highly,  we  are  informed, 
were  her  excellences  appreciated  by 
her  royal  father,  that  sooner  than 
throw  her  away  in  an  unequal  match 
he  permitted  her  younger  sister  to 
take  precedence  in  marriage ;  and 
thus  was  enabled,  after  Mary  of 
England's  death,  to  secure  an  alliance 
with  the  Roy  Hespagnol,  black  Philip 
of  Spain,  a  consummation  devoutly  to 
be  wished.  But  Heaven  has  special 
compassion  for  daughters  of  the  Fleur- 
de-Lis,  so  the  old  poets  declare,  and 
soon  released  this-  gentle  princess  from 
her  vows.  She  drooped  and  died 
young,  hastened,  as  was  bruited  in 
France,  by  poison. 

After  Madam  Elizabeth  trips  the 
younger  sister  who  married  into 
Lorraine,  a  kind  and  gentle  princess, 
we  are  assured,  with  that  open  and 
sunny  cast  of  countenance  which  gives 
pleasure  to  all  beholders.  And  after 
Claude  the  mysterious  Diana,  legiti- 
mised daughter  of  France ;  Diana  of 
the  silver  bow,  lover  of  arms,  horses, 
and  the  chase.  Later  on,  in  the  tragic 
pages  of  history,  we  catch  another 
glimpse  of  poor  blithe  Claude  where 
she  lies  huddled  at  the  foot  of 
Catherine's  bed,  weeping  bitterly  on 


44 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


the  eve  of  Saint  Bartholomew ;  and 
more  than  once  again  she  steps  upon 
the  scene,  a  majestic  figure,  "  true 
Valois  and  true  Frenchwoman," 
bewailing  the  trampled  lilies  of  her 
house.  But  no  premonition  of  such 
dark  days  now  casts  its  shadow  before  ; 
and  by  the  bosky  ways  of  Saint  Ger- 
mains rides  young  Diana,  prime 
favourite  with  her  royal  father,  as 
with  every  intrepid  horseman  that 
pricks  in  his  train.  Mark  her  rich 
habit  of  green  and  silver,  and  the 
plumed  hat  she  wears,  cocked  bravely 
to  one  side  a  la  Guelf.  Surely  no 
costume  could  be  braver,  nor  any 
lady  in  the  land  sit  her  horse  with 
a  better  grace,  or  guide  with  firmer 
hand  that  fiery  little  barb,  Le  Dottoi, 
which  King  Henry  himself,  the  more 
to  do  her  honour,  has  broken  for  her 
use. 

Pass  on,  bright  Diana !  Another 
follows  more  dazzling  still.  No 
mortal,  surely,  no  queen  or  empress 
of  mere  earthly  mould  the  one  who 
now  approaches,  trailing  her  gold 
incrusted  robe  and  veil  of  shining 
tissue.  More  like  the  very  goddess 
Aurora  in  person,  who,  strolling  heed- 
lessly upon  the  confines  of  Heaven, 
hath  gone  astray  in  our  terrestrial 
sphere.  The  Sieur  de  Brantome  is 
fain  to  admit  that  once  launched  on 
the  subject  of  Madam  Margaret's  sur- 
passing charms,  he  shall,  perchance, 
lay  himself  open  to  the  accusation  of 
prolixity :  "  But  cry  your  mere}', 
ladies,  whose  the  fault,  indeed,  since 
there  is  not,  was  not,  and  never 
can  be  any  limit  to  the  list  of  her 
most  rare  perfections  *?  "  Suffice  it  for 
us,  however,  to  repeat  in  bald  language, 
ignorant  of  the  elegances  of  courts, 
that  this  youngest  and  fairest  of 
Catherine's  daughters  was  not  one  of 
your  nabottes,  or  elbow-high  dames, 
who  appear  quite  crushed  beneath 
the  weight  of  their  own  jewels  and 
gowns.  On  the  contrary  she  could 


carry  with  ease,  and  for  hours  together 
if  need  be,  the  most  magnificent  state 
robes,  even  when  fashioned  out  of 
that  fabulous  web  of  molten  gold 
which  came  from  the  Grand  Sultan's 
looms.  Neither  was  she,  like  some 
beauties  of  our  acquaintance,  con- 
strained to  dissemble  her  charms 
behind  a  veil,  or  mask,  or  such-like 
subterfuge,  when  facing  the  searching 
light  of  day.  "  And  I  declare  to  you 
that  the  privilege  of  church-going  was 
not  neglected  on  such  high  festivals 
as  Palm  Sunday,  or  Candlemas,  when 
it  was  known  that  this  princess  would 
walk  in  the  procession,  carrying  her 
branch  (as  it  were  the  palm  of  beauty) 
and  her  rich  parure,  with  that  inimi- 
table air,  half  haughty,  half  tender. 
If  peradventure  we  courtiers  lost 
something  of  our  devotions,  truly  it 
was  not  altogether  without  compen- 
sation, seeing  that  the  greatest  mis- 
creant among  us,  gazing  on  such 
divine  beauty,  could  no  longer  deny 
the  power  of  miracles." 

Farther  than  this,  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged, the  high-swelling  com- 
pliment, even  of  those  days,  could 
hardly  be  carried.  In  fact,  we  are 
half  persuaded  that  the  bestowing  of 
the  golden  apple  in  Catherine's  court 
of  Love  and  Beauty  might  have  proved 
a  still  more  embarrassing  affair  had 
Madam  Margaret, — beautiful,  scanda- 
lous, all-conquering  Queen  Margot — 
chanced  to  come  into  the  world  a 
few  years  earlier.  As  it  was  she  was 
not  yet  born  when  the  six  years'  old 
Queen  of  Scots  landed  in  France. 
Touching  this  event  a  letter  addressed 
by  Henry  the  Second  to  the  Duke  of 
Aumale  comes  opportunely  to  hand. 
"I  must  inform  you,  my  cousin," 
writes  the  King,  all  politic  suavity, 
"that  my  daughter,  the  Queen  of 
Scotland,  arrived  Sunday  at  Carrieres 
[Saint  Germain-en-Laye]  where  are 
my  children.  And  from  what  I  learn, 
not  only  by  letter  from  my  cousin, 


• 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


45 


your  mother,  but  also  from  the  Sieur 
de  Humieres,  it  is  apparent  that  at 
first  meeting  my  son  and  she  struck 
up  a  mighty  friendship,  and  are  as 
familiar  together  as  if  they  had  been 
acquainted  all  their  lives.  And  no 
one  comes  from  before  her  who  is  not 
full  of  admiration  as  of  something- 
marvellous  ;  which  redoubles  in  me 
the  desire  I  have  to  see  her ;  as  I 
hope  soon  to  do,  by  Heaven's  grace  : 
praying  the  same,  my  cousin,  to  keep 
you  in  all  good  health  and  safety. 
Written  at  Moulins,  the  18th  of 
October,  1548." 

Great  Henry,  as  he  was  called  in 
his  lifetime,  has  not  many  apologists, 
but  to  his  credit  it  must  be  said  that 
he  was  fond  of  children,  and  partial 
to  their  society.  "  My  father  took 
me  upon  his  knee  to  hear  my  childish 
prattle,"  Margaret  of  Valois  writes 
pleasantly  in  one  place  ;  while  another 
chronicles  how  the  Dauphin,  the  sickly 
eldest  born,  will  accept  from  no  hand 
save  his  father's  the  obnoxious  black 
draught.  As  for  little  Madame  Marie 
Destrauard  (contemporary  ortho- 
graphy plays  queer  havoc  with  Mary's 
name),  that  pretty  fairy  had,  as  usual, 
but  to  see  to  vanquish.  We  are  told 
how  at  their  first  interview  King 
Henry  enthroned  the  child  on  his 
knee,  passed  his  great  hand,  callous 
from  much  friction  of  lance,  racket, 
and  bridle-rein,  over  her  soft  curls, 
pinched  her  peach-blossom  cheeks, 
nipped  at  her  dainty  fingers, — caress- 
ing those  budding  charms  which  even 
in  infancy  cast  a  spell  like  witchcraft, 
and  later  on,  at  the  tragic  culmination 
of  her  career,  lent  a  martyr's  halo  to 
the  pale  severed  head.  If  the  King's 
Majesty  fell  straightway  under  her 
fascination,  how  much  more  so  his 
faithful  courtiers  !  Not  a  voice  but 
was  ready  to  cry  miracle  when  this 
little  queen,  a  very  sprite  of  beauty, 
tripped  it  in  one  of  her  wild  native 
dances,  decked  out  after  the  barbarous 


fashion  of  her  country  ;  or  when,  at 
the  King's  instigation,  she  sang  and 
chattered  in  that  strange  tongue, 
"  the  which,  uncouth,  horrid,  and 
most  rustical  as  it  sounded  in  any 
other  mouth,  when  spoken  by  this 
princess  became  melodious  sweet  as 
ever  I  heard." 

More  than  one  sharp-pointed  pen, 
meanwhile,  was  taking  notes  for  our 
benefit  of  those  upstart  Lorrainers  (in 
Huguenot  nomenclature,  les  larrons, 
thieves),  who  stood  by,  spectators  of 
their  young  kinswoman's  success.  Six 
brothers  in  all,  sons  of  the  canny  old 
Duke  Claude  and  his  high  and  virtu- 
ous spouse  Dame  Antoinette  de  Bour- 
bon, frequented  the  court  at  this  time, 
as  who  should  best  set  the  fashions  in 
the  cut  of  a  velvet  cloak  or  the  lilt  of 
a  rakish  blade.  Every  one  his  turn, 
was  their  audacious  motto.  Bright 
and  early  of  a  morning  the  younger 
members  were  astir,  hastening  to  wait 
upon  the  levee  of  their  eldest,  Mon- 
seigneur  Due  d'Aumale,  afterwards 
known  as  Monsieur  de  Guise-le-Grand. 
Reinforced  by  his  presence,  and  each 
one  his  part  well  rehearsed,  they  then 
proceeded  to  show  themselves  at  the 
King's  solemn  toilette,  where  they 
took  their  turns  with  other  proud 
vassals  of  France  at  handing  the  royal 
shirt,  the  ewer,  the  morning  draught, 
and  so  forth. 

Not  to  this  day  is  it  given  for  all 
who  run  to  read  under  great  Duke 
Francis's  haughty  brows,  or  to  probe 
the  mellifluous  urbanity  of  his  illus- 
trious and  most  reverend  brother, 
the  Cardinal.  Yet  what  busybody 
among  us  can  refrain  from  prying  and 
pondering  1  Mark  the  game  spread 
out  before  them :  the  next  move 
theirs,  —  England  checkmated  (he 
laughs  best  who  laughs  last), — the 
baby  queen  between  their  very  fingers, 
to  turn,  to  twist,  to  face  about  like 
any  bit  of  sculptured  ivory  on  checkered 
board.  The  whole  court  is  loud  in 


46 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


admiration.  Great  Henry  himself 
allows  a  smile  to  relax  his  lantern 
jaws,  the  while  he  calls  again  for  that 
pleasant  history  of  Mary,  Queen- 
Regent  of  Scotland  (true  Lorraine  of 
the  race),  and  of  how  she  outwitted 
every  mother's  son  of  them,  perfidious 
English  and  scurvy  Scots  alike. 

So  the  story  is  repeated,  with 
Homeric  longevity,  to  judge  by  the 
accounts  handed  down.  It  is  told 
how  this  princess,  hard  pressed  by  the 
English,  who  demanded  her  daughter 
in  marriage  at  the  sword's  point,  took 
ship  under  command  of  Nicolas 
Durand  de  Villegagnon,  and  with 
him  sped  out  of  Leith  harbour  in 
plain  sight  of  all,  as  if  to  make  the 
straight  route  for  France  ;  but  present- 
ly, turning  secretly  about,  stole  along 
the  north  coast  of  Scotland  by  a 
passage  hitherto  deemed  impracticable ; 
and  thus  arrived  unexpectedly  at 
Dunbritton,  where  was  waiting  the 
Sieur  Philippe  MaiHe"  de  Breze  with 
his  vessel,  to  whom  the  Queen-Mother 
confided  her  daughter,  and  albeit  the 
seas  ran  mountains  high  and  the 
heavens  were  black  with  tempest,  the 
said  de  Maiiy  incontinently  set  sail, 
and  so,  after  many  perils,  cast  anchor 
off  the  coast  of  Brittany,  where  the 
little  princess  was  safely  disembarked 
and  sent  on  by  easy  stages  to  the 
court  pf  France  at  Saint  Germain-en- 
Laye. 

"  Well  played,  i'  faith  !  "  laughs  the 
King,  long  and  loud.  And  how  about 
the  English  fleet,  you  ask,  my  masters  ? 
Par  la  Mordieu !  that  was  rolling 
about  finely  in  the  trough  of  the  sea 
outside  Calais,  expecting  every  mo- 
ment to  overhaul  our  wily  navigator, 
the  said  Commander  Nicolas,  and  the 
precious  booty  along  with  him. 

To  his  other  qualities,  good,  bad, 
and  indifferent,  Henry  the  Second 
added  a  strong  dash  of  the  mulish ; 
an  idea,  once  fixed  in  that  long,  nar- 
row head  of  his,  took  firm  root. 


Among  his  cherished  prejudices, 
shared  in  this  case  by  the  French  at 
large,  was  a  lively  aversion  he  had 
conceived  at  first  sight  for  his  pale 
young  Italian  wife.  At  best,  it  was 
murmured,  she  had  stolen  into  the 
country  under  false  pretences ;  for 
who,  out  of  Italy,  could  forecast  that 
the  hearty  young  Dauphin  should 
die  as  he  did  without  warning  (after 
swallowing  a  cup  of  cold  water  fla- 
voured by  an  Italian  hand),  and  so 
leave  place  on  the  throne  for  this 
Princess  of  Florence  1 

But  Catherine's  star  was  not  one 
destined  to  twinkle  in  obscurity. 
Through  good  report  and  through  evil 
it  shone  on,  ever  in  the  ascendant. 
Even  the  King's  distaste  of  her,  or 
rather  Diana's  jealous  satisfaction 
therein,  served  its  turn  by  enabling 
her  to  cling  to  her  rights  in  France 
during  the  critical  ten  years  of  her 
early  married  life,  before  the  birth  of 
her  children.  They  were  years  of 
hard  schooling  for  a  proud  spirit, 
of  grovelling  humiliation  and  deceit 
which  did  not  fail  to  leave  their 
mark.  Scarcely  out  of  childhood  her- 
self, an  alien  among  the  haughty 
French  nobility  of  the  sword,  who 
made  small  count  of  her  mercantile 
extraction,  burdened,  moreover,  by 
secret  instructions  from  home  inter- 
lined with  covert  threats,  she  lived  in 
perpetual  dread  of  the  deed  of  separa- 
tion which  would  have  sent  her  igno- 
miniously  back  to  her  own  people  like 
a  damaged  bale  of  that  costly  Floren- 
tine silk  which  figures  so  largely  in 
the  court  expenditure  of  the  time. 

With  our  present  knowledge  of 
Catherine's  character  it  is  difficult  to 
figure  the  dreadful  heroine  of  the 
Saint  Bartholomew  as  an  inoffensive 
and  self-effaced  young  person,  cling- 
ing desperately  for  protection  to  the 
skirts  of  her  husband's  arrogant  mis- 
tress. Madam,  indeed,  had  not  a 
more  humble,  devoted  follower  in  her 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


47 


train,  one  who  covered  her  with— 
sweeter  blandishments  or  more  adroit 
flattery,  particularly  in  presence  of 
the  King.  Sometimes,  but  rarely, 
outraged  pride  got  the  better  of 
policy ;  and  once,  we  are  told,  in  a 
moment  of  weakness  Catherine  con- 
fided her  distress  to  the  Seigneur  de 
Tavannes,  whose  memoirs  are  pre- 
served. That  downright  young  soldier 
offered  promptly  to  cut  off  the  Valenti- 
nois's  handsome  nose,  and  so  put  an  end 
to  her  sorceries.  The  favourite  was 
then  a  woman  of  forty,  yet  still  in 
full  flower  of  her  majestic  beauty. 
As  for  Messieurs  of  Lorraine,  astute 
schemers  though  they  were,  they  failed 
obviously,  at  this  period,  to  discover 
any  possible  contingency  by  which 
the  friendless  young  Queen  could  be 
turned  to  account  either  for  good  or 
evil  in  their  far-reaching  plans.  They 
treated  her  contemptuously,  and  made 
an  egregious  mistake,  as  time  proved. 
Years  after,  the  Papal  Nuncio,  Santa- 
Croce,  wrote  to  Rome :  "  We  must 
take  for  an  infallible  maxim  that  the 
Queen-Mother  detests  this  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine  above  all  other  men 
living ;  and  it  is  understood  that  she 
has  cause  for  her  dislike.  Among 
other  things,  during  the  lifetime  of 
Francis  the  Second  the  Queen  of 
Scotland  is  said  to  have  twitted  her 
on  the  score  of  her  birth,  declaring 
that  she  was  no  better  than  a  trades- 
man's daughter ;  and  'tis  believed 
these  words  were  suggested  by  the 
said  Cardinal." 

But  in  the  days  of  her  small  begin- 
ning Catherine  permitted  herself  no 
such  luxury  of  hating.  Gentle  and 
observant,  she  listened  rather  than 
talked ;  lent  an  attentive  ear  to  the 
noisy  brag  of  soldiers,  to  the  conversa- 
tion of  ambassadors ;  was  interested  in 
despatches,  and  in  religious  specula- 
tion, and  curious  to  hear  the  courtiers 
gossip  of  secret  gallantries  and  treach- 
ery. Already  she  possessed  a  naive 


charm  of  her  own,  and  was  endowed 
with  the  fascinating  smile,  the  sweet 
and  caressing  voice,  and  natural  elo- 
quence which  afterwards  rendered  her 
personal  influence  especially  i-edoubt- 
able.  With  the  birth  of  children  the 
Queen's  position  became  more  tenable, 
though  it  did  not  alter  her  modest 
attitude.  She  was  now,  to  all  appear- 
ance, absorbed  in  the  care  of  these 
ailing  little  beings,  whose  health  from 
their  cradle  gave  rise  to  continual  dis- 
quietude. Of  the  ten  born  to  her  in 
less  than  that  number  of  years,  Mar- 
garet alone  could  be  counted  abso- 
lutely sound  in  mind  and  body.  The 
others,  fair  in  outward  show  as  those 
hectic  fruits  which  hide  a  secret 
blight,  were  more  or  less  afflicted  by 
strange  and  nameless  maladies,  indica- 
tive of  a  tainted  blood  and  a  failing 
race. 

At  Saint  Germains,  the  Little  Court, 
so  called  in  distinction  from  the  Great 
Court  of  the  King  and  Madame  de 
Valentinois,  was  under  Catherine's 
direct  control.  Here,  at  least,  within 
limits,  she  was  free  to  exercise  her 
dominating  ambition,  and  the  subtle 
Italian  spirit,  which,  for  the  rest, 
knew  how  to  bide  its  time, — odiate  e 
aspettate,  to  hate  and  wait. 

"  In  those  days,"  writes  the  quaint 
author  of  LA  VIE,  MORT,  ET  TOMBEAU 
DE  PHILIPPE  DE  STKOZZI,  "  there  was 
nurtured  at  Saint  Germains,  under 
the  Queen's  care,  together  with  Mon- 
seigneur  le  Dauphin,  and  Messeigneurs 
his  brothers,  and  Mesdames  his  sisters, 
besides  the  Queen  of  Scots  (one  time 
Queen  of  our  France),  a  great  store  of 
noble  infants,  picked  from  the  princely 
houses  of  the  realm.  Pleasant  it 
was,  of  a  verity,  and  right  joyous,  to 
see  this  little  court,  which  remained 
apart  and  stationary,  for  most  times 
in  residence  at  the  Foret-en-Laye ; 
whereas  that  of  His  Majesty  changed 
continually,  ambulating  from  castle 
to  castle.  Truly  this  was  a  school 


48 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


for  good  manners  and  generous  exer- 
cises, particularly  when  Monseigneur 
the  Dauphin,  and  the  young  nobility 
about  him,  began  to  wax  in  years, 
and  were  prepared  to  receive  instruc- 
tion in  dancing,  leaping,  and  the 
dexterous  use  of  arms,  besides  the 
study  of  letters,  music,  painting, 
mathematics,  engineering,  and  such- 
like honourable  sciences,  suited  to 
their  noble  estate." 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  under 
Catherine's  fostering  care  the  girls' 
education  was  any  more  neglected  than 
their  brothers.  Margaret  of  Valois 
boasts  that  before  six  years  of  age  she 
was  past  mistress  of  the  complete  art 
of  coquetry.  Each  soft-cheeked  damsel 
must  needs  have  her  chosen  esquire 
whose  business  it  was  to  wear  her 
colours,  run  her  errands,  in  short  to 
wait  upon  her  in  every  emergency. 
The  poor  little  Dauphin  Francis 
served  his  apprenticeship  in  these 
chivalrous  games  to  Madam  Mary  of 
Scotland,  and  by  the  same  token  must 
frequently  have  been  more  in  need  of 
succour  on  his  own  account  than  cap- 
able of  affording  it  to  his  high-spirit- 
ed companion.  The  Queen's  Maries 
also  figure  in  a  barely  decipherable 
court  list  of  this  time  :  Mary  Beaton, 
Mary  Seton,  Mary  Livingstone,  and 
Mary  Fleming;  the  latter,  "very 
young  and  fair,"  presently  relegated  to 
a  convent  by  Diana's  jealous  interpo- 
sition. After  the  Saint  Bartholomew 
Queen  Catherine  is  reported  to  have 
remarked  tranquilly  that,  so  far  as  her 
own  conscience  was  concerned,  there 
were  not  upon  it  more  than  four  or 
five  murders.  The  cruel  intrigue  which 
led  to  Mary  Fleming's  undoing  was 
not  likely,  then,  to  rest  heavily,  though 
what  particular  satisfaction  could  have 
been  snatched  from  its  transitory  suc- 
cess would  be  curious  to  learn. 

Meanwhile  she  watched  over  her 
little  world  at  Saint  Germains  with  un- 
ceasing vigilance  ;  always  smiling,  kind 


and  caressing,  yet  hard  as  the  hand 
of  steel  in  velvet  glove.  One  and  all 
were  taught  on  entering  life  that  their 
first  duty  was  to  obey  the  Queen  their 
mistress,  to  love  her,  fear  her,  regard 
her  as  an  unfailing  power  and  donor 
of  every  gift.  "  I  hardly  dared  speak 
to  her,"  writes  Margaret ;  "  and  when 
she  looked  at  me  I  trembled  lest  I 
might  have  done  something  to  dis- 
please her."  Equally  submissive  were 
the  three  Henries, — of  Valois,  of 
Navarre,  and  of  Lorraine.  We  are 
told  of  the  futile  efforts  Charles  the 
Ninth  made  to  escape.  Often,  it  is 
said,  when  following  the  chase  at  Saint 
Germains,  he  would  prick  his  horse  as 
if  pursued  by  furies,  driving  headlong 
at  every  obstacle  ;  yet  fast  and  far  as 
the  unhappy  boy  fled,  often  by  paths 
that  taxed  the  boldest  huntsman, 
there,  close  on  his  tracks,  smiling  as 
ever,  and  fixing  upon  him  the  cold 
Medicis  eye,  rode  his  evil  genius.  And 
it  was  of  a  piece  that  this  violent 
exercise,  while  nothing  short  of  death 
to  the  sickly  young  King,  should  be 
particularly  beneficial  to  Catherine, 
retarding  as  it  did  the  obesity  which 
gained  upon  her  in  later  life,  and 
helped  to  clog  her  keen  faculties. 

Among  Catherine's  docile  pupils 
Mary  Stuart  seems  to  have  been  the 
least  tractable.  She  certainly  eman- 
cipated herself  early  from  the  Queen's 
tutelage,  either  by  natural  hardiness 
or  through  her  uncle's  influence. 
Nevertheless,  in  her  case  as  in  others, 
the  race  was  for  the  strong.  Hardly 
had  Francis  breathed  his  last,  and 
the  Guises  fallen  from  power,  than 
the  young  widow  received  pretty 
clear  intimation  that  it  was  not  well 
for  her  to  stay  in  France.  But  in 
the  interval  what  marvellous  self- 
control  must  have  been  the  Italian's 
under  provocation  of  that  insolent 
young  beauty.  We  learn  that  at  her 
son's  marriage  with  the  Scottish 
Queen  she  bestowed  on  the  latter, 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


49 


accompanied  by  every  mark  of  joy 
and  satisfaction,  a  valuable  collection 
of  pearls  which  had  formed  part  of 
her  own  rich  wedding  outfit.  These 
are  the  very  jewels,  perhaps,  which 
lend  their  lustre  to  Mary's  charms  in 
that  ideal  world  where  she  still  queens 
it.  They  gleam  across  the  pages  of 
romance  bright  as  the  day  when  first 
they  clasped  her  warm  white  throat,  or 
trembled  to  the  beat  of  her  heart. 
Their  pale  splendour  adorns  alike  the 
bridal  veil  and  the  black  robe  of 
execution ;  not  forgetting  the 
bewitching  cap,  which  was  another 
acquisition,  by  the  way,  she  owed  to 
the  tradesman's  daughter.  In  point 
of  fact  pearls  are  among  the  most 
perishable  of  treasures,  and  it  is 
hardly  probable  that  one  precious 
drop  of  Mary's  parure  now  remains 
in  existence.  "  But  where  are  the 
snows  of  yester-year  1 "  comes  back 
Villon's  plaintive  refrain. 

Insolent  and  ungrateful  as  Mary  was, 
she  studied  none  the  less  diligently 
out  of  her  preceptor's  book,  conned  it, 
admired,  and  imitated.  No  apter 
pupil  could  be  desired,  nor  was  any 
child  of  Catherine's  own  more  worthy 
such  a  mother,  or  the  serpent-nest 
that  bred  her.  When  forced  to  quit 
the  shores  of  her  beloved  France,  she 
sailed  away  into  exile,  followed  by 
tears  and  madrigals,  and  uttering 
that  touching  cry  which  finds  an 
echo  in  every  heart,  "  Farewell,  my 
young  days,  my  happy  days,  farewell 
for  ever  !  "  This  tender  young  princess 
did  not  forget  to  carry  with  her, 
hidden  in  her  white  bosom,  the 
Italian's  secret,  the  poisoned  perfume 
and  the  assassin's  dagger. 

One  turns  with  impatience  from 
those  wooden  likenesses  of  Mary 
Stuart  which  are  still  preserved,  to 
picture  her  in  the  glowing  language 
of  her  poets  and  lovers.  "  Who  has 
not  been  led  astray  in  the  glamour 
cast  by  that  pale  prison  rose  1 "  cries 

No.  439. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


Michelet.       "Our   most  learned    and 
conscientious    historians     fall    under 
the  spell ;  nor  could   I  have  escaped 
were  it    not    for    damning    proof    on 
proof,   lately  brought  to   light,  which 
now  reveal  the  fatal  fairy  in  her  true 
colours,  a  danger  to  the  whole  world." 
Older    by    a    year   than     her    future 
husband,    the    young     Dauphin,    she 
possessed   in    perfection  the    physical 
health    which    he     so     sorely    lacked. 
The     radiance     of     her     glance,    the 
mingled  snow   and   carnation   of    her 
complexion,  were  subjects  of  continual 
encomium.      Later,   under   the    trans- 
parent   folds    of    her    white    widow's 
veil,    the  delicate    pallor    which    suc- 
ceded     this,    first    brilliance     of    the 
opening   rose   roused   still  louder   en- 
thusiasm.     "  Contend  as  it  might  for 
precedence,    the  artifice   of    her    veil 
could  not  compare  with  the  dazzling 
snow   of   her   complexion,"  Bran  tome 
raves.       The    latter    we  know   for    a 
prodigious   squire  of  dames,  and   one 
well  versed  in  courtly  periphrase  ;  yet 
even    he    (though    hard    it    seems  to 
believe  him)    confesses    himself  at    a 
loss    for    words     sufficiently    fine    to 
depict  those   seductive  charms  which 
afterwards    so    scandalised    the    grim 
Scotch     lords    of     the     Reformation. 
"This       is       no       Christian,"      they 
muttered ;     "  'tis     that    pagan    idol, 
Diana,     worshipped     of     old    of    the 
Ephesians." 

The  exact  tint  of  Mary's  hair  has 
been  always  a  vexed  subject  of  dis- 
cussion. Some  give  it  an  unmitigated 
red,  Michelet,  for  instance,  who  so  far 
forgets  himself  and  history  as  to  call 
the  poor  lady  a  great  red  camel ; 
others,  siding  with  chivalrous  Sir 
Walter,  boldly  endow  their  martyred 
queen  and  mistress  with  rich  dark- 
brown  tresses.  It  should  not  be 
forgotten,  however,  that  red  hair,  even 
modest  auburn,  suffered  a  severe 
eclipse  during  the  early  years  of  our 
century,  whereas  under  the  Valois  no 

E 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


one  with  any  pretensions  to  elegance 
could  be  seen  wearing  it  black.  In 
this  particular,  at  least,  Mary  Stuart 
must  have  had  the  advantage  of  Queen 
Margot,  who  inherited  her  father's 
dark  colouring,  and  was  reduced  to 
dissemble  nature's  shortcomings  by 
the  perruquier's  art.  We  are  told  of 
three  gigantic  blonde  lackeys  kept  in 
her  service,  and  brought  to  the  shears 
as  regularly  as  sheep.  Brantome, 
indeed,  protests  that  his  incomparable 
princess  could  carry  with  grace 
"  even  her  natural  black  hair,  twisted 
and  plaited  a  1'Espagnol,  as  she  some- 
times wore  it,  in  imitation  of  her 
sister  the  Queen  of  Spain."  But  no 
such  need  of  insistence,  one  feels, 
when  he  comes  to  praise  the  curled 
golden  tresses  of  the  Scottish  Queen. 
"  Alas  !  "  he  cries,  "  what  profana- 
tion was  that  at  the  dreadful  moment 
of  her  death  when  the  barbarous 
executioner  snatched  her  bonnet,  and 
there  lay  revealed  those  same  fair 
locks,  now  whitened,  thin,  and  wintry, 
which  her  friends  of  France  had  so 
often  seen  to  admire,  curled  and 
adorned  as  befitted  their  beauty  and 
the  queen  they  graced."  For  the 
rest,  Ronsard,  Jodelle,  Baif ,  and  others 
of  the  courtly  suite  (eye-witnesses  for 
the  most  part),  are  unanimous  in  as- 
cribing to  Mary  tresses  golden  as  the 
sun's  rays,  which  cast  dark  beauty 
into  shade  as  day  eclipses  night.  One 
and  all,  moreover,  as  in  duty  bound, 
prostrate  themselves  before  her  beau- 
tiful white  hand  (cette  belle  main 
blanche),  praising,  as  who  shall  praise 
best,  its  delicate  tapering  fingers, 
Aurora's  very  own,  wherewith  she 
touched  the  lute,  harpsichord,  and 
other  musical  instruments,  attuning 
them  to  the  sound  of  her  sweet  voice, 
the  better  to  enthral  and  lead  captive 
all  mankind. 

"  In  that  court  of  the  Second 
Henry,"  writes  a  modern  French 
essayist,  "  of  which  Rabelais,  Mon- 


taigne, and  Brantome  resume  for  us 
the  naive  materialism  of  morals,  the 
strange  preoccupation  of  spirit,  science 
was  the  rage  of  the  hour.  Women 
rivalled  men  in  learning,  excelled  them 
indeed,  since  they  had  more  leisure  at 
their  disposal,  and  were  more  obedient 
to  the  dictates  of  fashion."  And  here 
again,  in  learning  as  in  beauty,  the 
young  Queen  of  Scots  outstripped  all 
competitors,  plucking  the  fair  fruits 
of  science  as  it  were  for  merest  sport. 
Two  hours  daily  the  key  of  her  closet 
was  turned,  and  that  brief  space, 
stolen  from  the  pleasures  of  her  age, 
was  devoted  to  study,  and  the  perusal 
in  their  original  of  such  masters  as 
Virgil,  Horace,  Ariosto,  and  Petrarch. 
At  fourteen  she  declaimed  before  the 
whole  Court  a  Latin  oration  of  her 
own  composition.  Its  theme,  freely 
translated,  was,  "  Should  women  be 
taught  the  alphabet  ? "  and  no  one 
but  will  be  gratified  to  learn  that  this 
fair  young  advocate  of  women's  pro- 
gress carried  the  point  of  her  argu- 
ment affirmatively,  with  infinite  grace. 
King  Henry  rejoiced  greatly  in  the 
young  beauty's  learning.  He  was  not 
much  of  a  classical  scholar  himself, 
yet  he  could  lay  some  claim  to  aca- 
demic honours  on  the  score  of  athletics, 
in  which  he  actually  excelled.  The 
modern  science  of  boating  was  then, 
of  course,  unknown ;  but  there  was 
no  lack  of  glorious  striving  in  other 
noble  sports.  The  Sieur  de  Tavannes 
boasts  in  his  memoirs  of  having  broken 
sixty  lances  in  one  day,  and  of  dancing 
afterwards  all  night ;  though  we  are 
led  to  infer  that  a  certain  ointment, 
or  salve,  of  singular  virtue,  where- 
with the  said  noble  seigneur  lubri- 
cated his  manly  biceps,  had  some  share 
in  the  remarkable  feat.  In  his  plan 
of  Saint  Germains  Francis  the  First 
had  not  neglected  to  provide  a  spacious 
ballroom,  which  was  considered  at  the 
time  one  of  the  finest  and  most  com- 
modious ever  built.  After  serving  for 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


51 


many  years  the  ignoble  uses  of  barrack 
and  prison,  this  noble  saloon  has  lately 
been  restored  to  its  original  propor- 
tions, and  appears  at  present  a  long, 
rather  narrow,  apartment  facing  the 
west  with  eight,  or  more,  beautifully 
proportioned  windows  set  back  in  deep 
embrasures.  Compared  with  the 
grandiose  splendour  of  Versailles, 
Saint  Germains's  historic  banqueting- 
hall  strikes  the  visitor  as  almost 
homely.  It  is  pervaded  by  the  mellow 
hues  of  old  red  brick,  and  harbours  an 
immense  open  fireplace  where  the  sala- 
mander, Francis's  symbol  of  love  and 
glory,  disports  at  large.  Time  and 
hard  usage  have  more  than  a  little 
warped  the  beams  underfoot ;  and  the 
countless  tiny  octagonal  tiles  which 
cover  the  floor  rise  and  fall  in  dizzy 
undulations  more  suggestive  of  the 
rolling  deep  than  of  terpsichorean 
feats. 

Pleasure,  like  everything  else  under 
the  Valois,  was  taken  in  heroic  doses. 
A  full-dress  ball  began  shortly  after 
midday,  and  dragged  out  its  long- 
drawn  sweetness,  with  interludes  of 
masques,  music,  games,  and  proces- 
sions, far  into  the  small  hours  of  the 
morning,  fortified  opportunely  by  a 
substantial  supper.  These  were  the 
occasions  for  feminine  display  and 
rivalry,  franker  in  its  expression  then, 
if  no  more  genuine,  than  the  same 
sort  of  thing  now.  To  believe  her 
panegyrists,  Mary  Stuart  queened  it 
by  right  of  beauty  as  well  as  right 
divine.  When  she  took  part  in  a 
ballet,  or  followed  the  torchlight 
dance,  or,  better  still,  stepped  out  in 
a  pavane  of  Italy  (imported,  like  all 
things  inimitable,  from  beyond  the 
mountains),  every  man  there,  from 
king  to  lackey,  trod  on  each  other's 
heels  in  their  efforts  to  catch  sight  of 
this  triumphant  beauty.  Behold  her 
now  pluming  herself  for  conquest ; 
advancing,  retreating,  gliding  past  with 
long  sideling  steps,  mincing  and  ruffl- 


ing, or  spreading  wide  her  skirts  of 
stiff  gold  brocade  like  some  magnificent 
peacock  to  the  sun.  Every  voice  pro- 
claims the  peerless  goddess  Aurora 
fairly  eclipsed. 

Yet  there  was  always  that  one  dis- 
sentient note.  Madame  Catherine  of 
Medicis  wrote  drily  about  this  time  : 
"  Our  little  queenlet  of  Scotland  has 
but  to  smile  to  turn  all  these  French 
heads."  It  was  an  evil  hour  for  Mary, 
though  she  may  not  have  suspected 
it,  which  made  her  Queen  of  France, 
when  Henry  persisted  in  breaking  one 
more  lance  with  his  stout  captain  of 
the  guards.  The  King  doted  on  the 
golden-haired  girl,  and  would  have  her 
by  him  at  every  leisure  moment. 
Nothing  drove  away  black  care,  which 
sits  brooding  on  kings'  shoulders,  like 
the  sight  of  the  young  princess  flinging 
away  in  one  of  her  wild  Highland 
reels  :  "  As  I  have  seen  her  myself, 
many  a  time,"  Brantome  declares, 
"  dressed  in  native  costume,  a  la  sau- 
vage,  yet  appearing  withal  (be  not  in- 
credulous when  I  tell  you)  a  very 
goddess  in  mortal  frame "  ;  in  other 
words,  we  presume,  a  goddess  in 
tartans.  Ronsard  and  Jodelle,  zealous 
as  ever  to  perform  their  part,  trans- 
lated for  her  and  for  the  King's  plea- 
sure, those  wild  and  haunting  melodies 
of  the  north  which  we  know ;  and 
these  she  committed  to  memory,  sing- 
ing them  to  the  accompaniment  of 
her  lyre  in  a  voice  surpassing  sweet. 

During  the  continuance  of  fine 
weather,  diversions  in  the  open  air  were 
of  frequent  occurrence  in  the  forest  of 
Saint  Germains.  To  this  day  the  sites 
of  green  amphitheatres  may  still  be 
traced,  and  the  remains  of  stone  seats, 
"  quarried  and  set  about  expressly  for 
the  repose  and  accommodation  of  spec- 
tators." We  are  told  of  a  fail- 
chamber  contrived  out  of  intertwined 
ivy  leaves,  and  carpeted  with  green- 
sward, which  was  erected  on  one  of 
the  river  islets.  Also  of  a  magnificent 

E   2 


52 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


festival  held  in  the  forest  itself,  under 
hanging  boughs,  and  surrounded  by 
secret  grottoes  whence,  to  the  music 
of  hautbois,  violin,  timbrel,  and  bag- 
pipe, issued  troops  of  shepherds  and 
shepherdesses  dressed  in  the  costumes 
of  the  different  parts  of  France,  who 
set  themselves  to  dance  right  joyously 
in  an  open  glade  the  various  dances 
of  the  provinces  which  they  repre- 
sented. From  time  immemorial,  how- 
ever, it  is  evident  that  al  fresco  enter- 
tainments have  suffered  under  some 
malign  influence,and  they  were  no  more 
free  from  interruption  in  the  sixteenth 
century  than  we  are  apt  to  find  them 
under  our  own  cloudy  skies.  Mar- 
garet of  Valois  recounts  the  disaster 
which  overtook  one  such  festal  occa- 
sion arranged  in  her  honour  by  Don 
•John  of  Austria.  "  Of  a  verity,"  she 
cries  gaily,  "  the  heavens  must  have 
grown  jealous  of  our  too  great  con- 
tentment, for  suddenly,  out  of  a  clear 
sky,  they  burst  over  us  in  such  a 
tempest  of  wind  and  rain  as  drove 
everything  before  it.  All  the  same, 
we  took  our  revenge,  for  next  day,  in 
recounting  the  ridiculous  adventures 
brought  about  by  the  confusion  of  our 
retreat,  we  found  as  much  amusement 
as  we  had  in  the  first  instance  ex- 
perienced of  delight  and  satisfaction." 
A  DISCOURSE,  PUBLISHED  WITH 
PRIVILEGE  (Paris,  1559),  describes  at 
length  the  splendid  rejoicings  over 
Mary  Stuart's  marriage  with  the 
French  Dauphin.  It  was  celebrated, 
as  in  duty  bound,  at  Paris,  whither 
all  the  world  flocked  to  make  hay 
while  the  sun  shone.  There  was 
largess  of  silver  pennies  in  the  streets, 
and  much  spilling  of  good  wine,  red 
and  white,  not  to  mention  processions, 
tournaments,  and  midnight  revels. 
Pages  are  devoted  to  the  description 
of  a  superb  ball  and  masque  held 
within  the  precincts  of  the  ancient 
feudal  residence  of  the  Kings  of 
France,  the  Castle  of  Tournelles,  of 


which  no  vestige  now  remains  to 
mark  its  hundred  towers  and  curious 
ramifications  over  half  Paris.  After 
their  marriage  the  youthful  pair  do 
not  appear  to  have  frequented  Saint 
Germains.  They  had  left  behind  child- 
hood and  childhood's  innocent  play, 
and  the  grim  game  of  life  now  entered 
upon  necessitated  a  more  secure  re- 
treat than  their  forest  castle  afforded. 
Catherine  also  avoided  the  spot,  having 
received  warning  from  one  of  her 
astrologers  that  its  conjunction  was  of 
evil  omen  for  her.  Long  after,  when 
dying  at  Blois,  she  resigned  herself  to  the 
inevitable  with  characteristic  stoicism 
on  learning  the  name  of  the  priest  in 
attendance,  one  Abbe  de  Saint  Ger- 
main. 

Francis  and  Mary,  under  Lorraine 
tutorage,  held  their  court  at  Blois  and 
Amboise,  which  became  the  theatre 
of  their  brief  but  sanguinary  reign. 
A  year  later,  when  the  unfortunate 
Queen  was  forced  to  take  her  final 
departure  from  France,  a  crowd  of 
disconsolate  young  lords  and  weeping 
ladies  accompanied  her  as  far  as  Calais, 
where  she  embarked.  "  So  long  as 
daylight  lasted,"  writes  her  faithful 
chronicler,  "  and  land  remained  in 
sight,  this  sweet  princess  could  not  be 
persuaded  to  quit  her  post  on  deck, 
but  looking  towards  France  with 
streaming  eyes  repeated  again  and 
again,  '  Farewell,  my  France,  dear  land 
of  France,  farewell  for  ever  ! ' ': 

What  part  the  poets  took  in  that 
memorable  leave-taking  may  be  easily 
conjectured.  Gallant  de  Maison-Fleur, 
for  one,  seizing  upon  the  accident  of  a 
cold  and  ungenial  spring,  maintains 
in  many  melodious  stanzas  that  nature 
herself  hath  gone  into  mourning  at  the 
loss  of  their  most  rare  princess. 
Reams  of  verses,  wherein  the  four 
seasons  of  the  year,  the  floral  calendar, 
heaven  and  earth  and  heathen  mytho- 
logy are  ransacked  to  do  her  honour, 
still  exist,  though,  as  the  French  say. 


Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 


53 


a  peine.  We  skim  at  our  ease  these 
ornate  poesies  and  euphonies  which 
doubtless  cost  the  tuneful  Pleiades 
many  sleepless  nights  and  days  of 
laborious  travail.  But  Queen  Mary 
herself,  and  this  is  more  to  the  point, 
never  wearied  of  perusing  them. 
Often,  we  are  told,  when  in  exile  and 
prison,  she  was  seen  walking  apart, 
the  verses  in  her  hands,  which  she 
bedewed  with  her  fast  falling  tears. 

Did  the  fair  Queen  vouchsafe  as 
much  for  poor,  love-lorn  Chastelard, 
and  his  poetic  effusions  1  If  so  history 
makes  no  mention  of  it.  "  Yet  for 
certain  'twas  a  right  gallant  cavalier," 
Brantdme  declares,  who  knew  my 
Lord  of  Chastelard  well  in  France 
before  his  madness  fell  upon  him  ;  "a 
man  of  good  sword  and  good  letters." 
Of  good  blood  also,  since  he  could 
claim  kinship  on  his  mother's  side 
with  the  Chevalier  Bayard,  whom  he 
was  said  to  resemble  in  appearance. 
Alas,  fond  lovers  all !  Let  every  one 
drop  the  tear  of  pity  so  cruelly  denied 
this  hapless  gentleman  of  Dauphine 
by  "  the  most  beautiful  and  most 
cruel  princess  on  earth." 

Among  the  many  who  ring  their 
changes  on  Mary's  charms  none  strike 
a  sweeter  note  than  Ronsard.  His 
beautiful  lines,  inspired  by  the  young 
Queen  as  she  appeared  to  him  one  day 
in  her  white  widow's  weeds,  pacing  a 
forest  path,  are  as  fresh  as  the  hour 
they  were  written.  An  exquisite 
hour  it  was,  fragrant  with  early  dews, 
and  flowers  scarce  yet  unfolded  "  by 
the  little  acolytes  of  Zephyr,"  to  quote 
from  good  Father  Amyot.  Under 


the  poet's  charm  we  are  wafted  for  a 
moment  out  of  our  garish  world,  and 
standing  apart  in  some  dim  leafy  spot 
watch  with  his  eyes  this  lovely 
apparition  gliding  between  the  trees. 
So  young,  so  fair,  she  seems,  yet 
already  touched  by  grief,  as  if  an 
angel  had  wept.  Downcast  her  gaze, 
whiter  than  snow-white  veil  the  pure 
young  brow ;  and  as  she  advances, 
lost  in  pensive  reverie,  the  very  trees 
that  line  her  path,  rugged  oak,  lofty 
pine,  and  all  the  sylvan  forest  growth, 
incline  on  either  side,  bending  low  as 
before  something  holy. 

Another  of  Mary's  French  admirers 
was  that  noble  Michel  de  1'Hospital, 
Chancellor  of  France,  who  carried 
the  lilies  unspotted  through  dark 
days  of  his  country's  history.  Her 
epithalamium  was  composed  by  his 
pen,  in  sonorous  Latin  numbers  as 
befitted  his  magisterial  gravity.  We 
know  how  this  high-minded  statesman 
(conscience-keeper  of  a  wicked  world) 
was  constrained  ere  long  to  repudiate 
his  muse,  denouncing  where  formerly 
he  had  worshipped.  The  same  hand 
which  welcomed  Mary,  bride  of  France 
and  queen  of  every  heart,— 

Tantus  in  ore  decor,  majestas  regia  tanta 

est !— 

depicts  her  in  a  second  poem,  but 
changed  indeed  from  that  dazzling 
bridal  splendour.  Darkness  and  shapes 
of  horror  encompass  the  scene  where 
now  she  steals,  the  Furies  on  her 
track ;  a  Clytemnestra,  murderess  of 
her  lawful  spouse,  father  of  the  child 
still  at  her  breast. 


THE    LIVING    OF    EAST    WISPERS. 


EAST  WISPERS,  at  this  time,  was  in 
the  prayers  of  the  unbeneficed  clergy 
of  the  diocese.  "  I  wish  the  Bishop 
would  offer  it  to  you,  Wilfrid,"  Mrs. 
Hepburn  said. 

"  I  hardly  think  that  is  likely, 
Caroline.  It  is  an  important  living  ; 
and  there  are  so  many  able  men 
waiting  for  preferment." 

"  Most  of  them  watch  as  well  as 
wait ;  some  of  them  act,"  said  Mrs. 
Hepburn.  She  knitted  in  silence 
awhile.  Mr.  Hepburn  drew  down 
the  blind,  the  sun  being  in  his  wife's 
eyes ;  he  was  an  acute  observer  of 
little  things,  as  touching  those  he 
loved.  "  Why  is  it,  Wilfrid,  that  the 
Bishop  has  ignored  your  claims  all 
these  years  ? " 

"  I  don't  know,  Caroline.  My— 
claims  ? "  said  Mr.  Hepburn,  absently. 

"  He  persistently  passes  you  over, 
as  if  you  were  of  no  account.  It 
would  make  me  angry  if  I  were  a 
man.  It  is  far  from  considerate  of 
him  to  expect  you  to  be  always  a 
curate ;  and  a  new  vicar  might  turn 
you  adrift ;  it  is  often  done,  when 
they  bring  their  own  curates,  or  have 
daughters,  and  prefer  unmarried  men." 

"  Caroline  !  " 

"  Well,  you  know  what  happened 
at  St.  Peter's ;  though,  to  be  sure, 
nothing  came  of  that  experiment,  I 
am  glad  to  say." 

"  Caroline  ! " 

"  And  Mr.  Lane  was  a  long  time 
out  before  he  got  the  workhouse 
chaplaincy ;  nor  was  that  the  Bishop's 
appointment.  His  policy  appears  to 
be  to  give  good  livings  only  to  rich 
men." 

"  I  have  heard  his  lordship  remark 


on  the  disadvantages  of  a  poor  bene- 
ficed  clergy,"  Mr.  Hepburn  said. 
"  He  means  well,  I  am  sure." 

"  I  dare  say  he  does.  There  is  a 
place  said  to  be  paved  with  good 
intentions.  I  have  thought  what  a 
very  pathetic  pavement  that  must  be." 

"  Caroline  !  " 

Mrs.  Hepburn  blushed  and  held 
down  her  head ;  she  had  hardly 
meant  to  say  this  bitter  thing.  She 
was  a  stout,  healthy  lady,  and  had 
something  of  a  style  in  walk  and 
manner.  She  would  have  made  an 
admirable  provincial  Mayoress  ;  and 
she  had  been  known  (in  Mr.  Hep- 
burn's absence)  to  smile  at  mild  pro- 
fanity. She  was  too  robust  to  have 
visions ;  passing  Sisters  of  Mercy  in 
the  street,  Mrs.  Hepburn  would  raise 
her  handsome  head,  in  a  kind  of 
instinctive  pitying  wonderment,  as 
one  who  should  say,  Foolish,  foolish 
virgins !  "  The  Bishop,"  she  went 
on,  "  seems  to  think  nothing  of  long 
and  devoted  service.  I  have  induced 
Mr.  Grant  two  or  three  times  to 
write  appreciatively  of  you  in  THE 
HERALD,  and  the  page  (marked)  has 
been  sent  to  him ;  but  he  has  taken 
no  notice." 

"  Mr.  Grant  has  been  most  obliging, 
and  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  he 
holds  me  in  some  esteem,"  said  Mr. 
Hepburn.  "  But,  Caroline,  a  reporter, 
even  though  he  is  a  member  of  our 
choir,  can  scarcely  be  expected  to 
write  in  such  a  manner  as  would 
influence  the  Bishop.  His  lordship, 
moreover,  I  believe,  has  a  prejudice 
against  newspapers." 

"  I  have  seen  him  delay  a  meeting 
till  the  reporters  came,  "Mrs.  Hepburn 
observed. 


The  Living  of  East  Wispers. 


55 


"  He  may  have  had  some  momentous 
announcement  to  make." 

Mrs.  Hepburn  sighed.  "  Still,  I 
do  think  something  ought  to  be  done 
for  you,  Wilfrid.  There  might  be 
some  hope  for  us  if  the  Bishop,  when 
he  visits  the  town,  would  call  and 
have  tea  with  us,  instead  of  always 
going  to  the  houses  of  the  rich  people. 
I  should  take  care  to  let  him  hear 
something  that  would  open  his  eyes. 
It  seems  to  me,"  said  Mrs.  Hepburn, 
with  a  break  in  her  voice,  "  that  even 
the  Church  is  against  the  poor.  The 
children  are  growing  up,  and  of 
course,  Wilfrid,  our  expenses  increase. 
I  keep  things  from  you  as  much  as  I 
can.  But  Selina  and  Alice  are  be- 
come old  enough  to  notice  how  other 
children  are  dressed ;  and,  though  I 
do  not  complain  of  this,  I  have  not 
had  a  new  gown  for  two  years.  If  it 
were  not  for  my  brother  I  don't  know 
what  we  should  do." 

"  Caroline,"  said  Mr.  Hepburn  anx- 
iously, "  I  shall  not  need  that  over- 
coat this  winter." 

"  You  must  look  respectable,  Wil- 
frid ;  it  is  more  important  in  your 
case  than  in  ours.  What  do  you 
think  the  Bishop  would  say  if  he 
were  to  see  you  dressed  shabbily  ? 
Cast  him  forth  into  outer  dark- 
ness— 

"  Oh  Caroline,  Caroline  !  " 

"  And  then  I  can  still  make  a  point 
of  going  out  only  on  wet  days,  when 
Gerald's  fine  cloak  covers  a  multitude 
of  sins.  I  can't  work  to-day,"  Mrs. 
Hepburn  exclaimed  ;  "  I  feel  so  peevish 
somehow." 

"  The  weather  is  very  trying,"  said 
Mr.  Hepburn. 

"  It  is  not  that,  Wilfrid  ;  it  is  East 
Wispers.  Ah,  dear,  I  wish  you  could 
understand  that  this  hand-to-mouth 
existence  is  unjust  to  you  and  to  us, 
and  that  it  will  continue  until  you 
move  on  your  own  behalf.  Living 
after  living  falls  vacant,  and  nothing 


comes  our  way.  The  Bishop  might 
at  least  be  given  a  little  gentle  re- 
minder. I  should  like  to  be  a  friend 
of  his  pelican  daughter  ;  they  say  he 
proposes  and  she  disposes.  Thus  the 
Church  typifies  Providence.  Oh,  I 
am  not  saying  this  to  shock  you, 
Wilfrid ;  but  I  have  often  wished 
that  you  were  not  so  proud  and  sen- 
sitive. And  I  can't  really  see  what 
harm  there  would  be  in  speaking  to 
the  Bishop  about  East  Wispers.  It 
is  in  his  gift,  and  he  may  not,  after 
all,  know  that  you  have  been  so 
shamefully  neglected.  Wilfrid,  I  am 
utterly  tired  of  this  dull,  hopeless 
monotony  of  life ;  this  miserable 
struggle,  year  after  year,  to  make 
ends  meet  and  keep  out  of  debt.  We 
are  actually  worse  off  than  many  of 
the  working  people  in  the  parish,  and 
then  the  cruel  mockery  of  our  respec- 
tability !  "  Mrs.  Hepburn  rose,  and 
made  a  magnificent  figure  at  the 
window.  "  I  spent  a  day  at  East 
Wispers  rectory  before  I  married 
you,''  she  said  ;  "  and  when  I  recall 
that  delightful  place — 

"  Caroline,  I  can't  speak  to  the 
Bishop  !  "  Mr.  Hepburn  cried. 

She  turned  ;  his  face  was  in  his 
hands.  "  It  is  frequently  done,  Wil- 
frid. There  is  nothing  disgraceful  in 
making  a  reasonable  request.  If  you 
were  in  any  other  profession  you 
would  have  no  hesitation  in  asking 
for  advancement.  Mr.  Jardine,  I  am 
told,  was  at  the  Palace  on  Tuesday, 
and  can  you  doubt  that  he  went  to 
urge  his  claims  1 " 

Mr.  Hepburn  looked  up.  "  Jar- 
dine  ?"  he  said.  "You  must  have 
been  misinformed,  Caroline.  It  was 
Jardine  who  wrote  that  letter  in  THE 
HERALD  on  the  need  of  a  suffragan 
Bishop  for  the  diocese  ;  an  extremely 
strong  letter  to  my  mind." 

"  It  was  rude  and  malicious,  a 
spiteful  letter,"  Mrs.  Hepburn  said. 

"  I  should  call  it  hasty  and  perhaps 


The  Living  of  East  Wispers. 


unsympathetic,"  Mr.  Hepburn  ad- 
mitted, "  remembering  the  Bishop's 
great  age.  And,  having  sent  such  a 
communication  to  the  public  press, 
Jardine  would  scarcely  go  to  his  lord- 
ship to  ask  a  favour."  -^ 
"  Did  he  tell  you  he  wrote  it  1  It 
was  anonymous." 

"  No ;  young  Grant  told  me ;  he 
said  he  read  it  in  manuscript  before 
it  appeared.  Jardine  was  so  parti- 
cular about  it  that  he  went  to  the 
office  to  see  the  proof.  The  Bishop, 
T  understand,  is  much  displeased  at 
its  appearance,  as  it  insinuates  (not 
too  felicitously,  I  think,)  that  he  is 
getting  too  old  for  the  adequate  ad- 
ministration of  the  diocese.  That  is 
a  subject  on  which  his  lordship  is 
exceedingly  susceptible.  Mr.  Medway 
was  telling  me  that  at  the  last  Dioce- 
san Conference  he  playfully  questioned 
the  Bishop  as  to  whether  there  was 
any  truth  in  the  rumour  that  a  suffra- 
gan was  to  be  appointed,  and  his  lord- 
ship cried  out,  '  Not  a  word,  not  a 
word  !  '  in  quite  a  spirited  way,  and 
appeared  to  be  greatly  offended  at 
the  suggestion.  It  was  injudicious, 
no  doubt,"  Mr.  Hepburn  added,  "  of 
Grant  to  disclose,  even  to  me,  the 
authorship  of  the  letter  ;  but  of  course, 
Caroline,  you  will  not  betray  his  con- 
fidence." 

"  Certainly  not ;  I  don't  suppose 
I  shall  think  about  it  again.  But  if 
Mr.  Jardine,  after  behaving  in  so 
ungentlemanly  a  way,  could  go  to  the 
Bishop,  why  should  you  hesitate, 
Wilfrid  ? " 

Mr.  Hepburn  shook  his  head. 
"  Wilfrid,  I  should  not  mind  speak- 
ing to  the  Bishop  myself." 

"  That, — that  would  never,  never 
do,  Caroline  ! " 

"  I  should  really  like  to  go,  as  I 
feel  so  sure  I  could  persuade  him 
to  do  something  for  us  ;  if  not  now, 
then  perhaps  soon — 

"  No,  no,   Caroline  ;  you   must  not 


think  of  such  a  thing  ;  it  would  be 
most  unbecoming  and  unprecedented." 

Mrs.  Hepburn  pulled  up  the  blind, 
rather  slowly,  as  though  thinking  of 
something,  and  stood  in  the  sunshine. 
A  young  man  passing  raised  his  hat ; 
she  gave  him  a  charming  smile.  "  It 
is  not  easy,"  she  said,  "  in  the  midst 
of  deepening  poverty,  to  regard  pre- 
cedent as  quite  sacred." 

"  The  Bishop  would  be  shocked," 
Mr.  Hepburn  cried. 

But  to  herself  Mrs.  Hepburn  said  : 
"  I  should  like  to  so  shock  the  old 
gentleman.  It  could  not  make  matters 
worse  than  they  are." 


II. 

CARRIAGES  were  in  waiting  at  the 
town-hall  •  the  Bishop's  was  drawn 
up  under  the  portico.  Four  o'clock 
was  come  ;  the  meeting,  every  one  but 
the  reforming  layman  seemed  to  think, 
had  already  been  unreasonably  long. 
The  Bishop  (having  renounced  all 
affection  to  enthusiasm)  leaned  towards 
the  secretary,  who  lowered  his  head 
reverentially.  "This,"  whispered  the 
Bishop,  "  is  the  gentleman's  fourth 
amendment.  How  do  we  stand  ?  Is 
it  possible  for  him  to  amend  anything 
else  1 "  The  secretary  smiled.  "  I 
hope,"  said  the  Bishop,  "  he  will  have 
done  reforming  us  out  of  existence  in 
time  for  me  to  catch  the  next  train." 
The  secretary  coughed ;  the  Dean 
coughed ;  the  Archdeacon  (roused 
from  a  pleasant  nap)  coughed  also,  to 
show  that  he  had  been  taking  an  in- 
telligent interest  in  the  proceedings. 
But  the  layman  with  ideas  would  be 
a-talking ;  he  was  young,  not  timid, 
and  turned  so  deaf  an  ear  to  episcopal 
snubs  that  curates  gasped,  and  hardened 
vicars  imagined  humorous  things. 
The  end  came  at  last,  quite  suddenly ; 
the  right-reverend  chairman  stopped 
a  proposed  vote  of  thanks  to  himself. 
"  If,"  observed  his  lordship,  "  we 


The  Living  of  East  Wispers. 


57 


would  all  do  more  and  talk  less,  the 
Church  at  large  would  undoubtedly 
benefit."  And  as  the  clergy  and  laity, 
with  many  sighs  of  relief,  rose,  Mrs. 
Hepburn  made  her  way  to  the  Bishop. 
He  received  her  with  the  ripened 
courtesy  of  assured  greatness,  and 
invited  her  to  walk  with  him  along 
the  corridor.  There  was  no  time  to 
lose ;  the  Archdeacon  was  toddling 
behind,  carrying  a  big  black  bag  ;  so 
the  lady,  in  eloquent  urgency,  and 
with  some  pathos,  made  her  appeal. 
"  I  trust,"  she  added,  "  I  have  not 
given  offence  to  your  lordship  in  men- 
tioning this." 

"  Not  at  all,  not  at  all  ;  ladies  are 
privileged  persons,"  said  the  Bishop. 
He  smiled  pleasantly,  and  folded  his 
hands  high  up  on  his  breast.  With 
every  other  step  he  raised  his  fine  old 
head,  as  if  determined  to  make  these 
people  understand  that  he  was  not 
beginning  to  stoop.  "  At  the  same 
time,  Mrs.  Hepburn,  I  regret  I  cannot 
offer  you  any  positive  assurance  on 
the  subject.  Mr.  Hepburn  has  not 
been  forgotten.  East  Wispers  has 
given  us  most  anxious  thought,  to  my 
daughter  in  particular,  I  may  say, 
since  the  diocese  owes  so  much  to  her  ; 
and  we  have  got  so  far  as  the  selection 
of  two  clergymen  who  appear  to  be 
most  suited  for  this  arduous  parish ; 
namely,  your  husband  and  Mr.  Jar- 
dine." 

"  Mr.  Jardine  !  "  Mrs.  Hepburn 
exclaimed  involuntarily. 

"  While  fully  recognising,"  said  the 
Bishop,  "  your  husband's  many  excel- 
lent qualities,  I  cannot  avoid  the  con- 
clusion that  Mr.  Jardine  has  an 
advantage  over  him  in  having  acquired 
just  the  experience  which  seems 
peculiarly  to  mark  him  out  for  such  a 
parish." 

"  Mr.  Jardine  is  unmarried,  my 
lord.  And  your  lordship  may  be 
aware  that  he  is— not  poor." 

"  Yes  ;  that  is  in   his  favour.     In 


the  existing  circumstances  of  the 
Church,  when  our  schools  make  so 
great  a  demand  on  our  resources,  by 
reason  of  the  ever-increasing  faith- 
lessness of  the  State,  I  am  strongly 
of  opinion  that  a  parish  clergyman 
should  possess  an  independent  in- 
come. This  may  appear  hard ;  but 
the  interests  of  the  Church  cannot  be 
subordinated  to  personal  feeling." 

"  Mr.  Jardine  is  very  young,  my 
lord  ;  and, — -we  have  a  large  family. 
If  it  were  not  for  my  brother's  kind- 
ness, we  could  scarcely  live  in  a 
manner  becoming  Mr.  Hepburn's  high 
calling." 

'  I  am  sorry  to  hear  that ;  I  hear 
it  so  frequently,  and  it  always  grieves 
me,"  said  the  Bishop.  "  It  is  a  most 
urgent  and  weighty  problem,  this 
upon  which  you  touch ;  and  I  fail  to 
comprehend  how  it  is  to  be  solved 
otherwise  than  by  a  larger  and  more 
consistent  generosity  on  the  part  of 
the  laity." 

They  had  reached  the  street ;  a 
footman  opened  the  door  of  the 
Bishop's  carriage ;  the  Archdeacon 
put  the  black  bag  on  the  seat. 

"  Then,  my  lord,  we  must  give  up 
all  hope  1"  Mrs.-- Hepburn  murmured. 

"  Oh,  no,  no.  Nothing  has  yet 
been  definitely  decided,  beyond  the 
selection  of  what  we  consider  the 
two  most  suitable  persons.  It  will  be 
one  or  the  other.  In  any  event,  Mr. 
Hepburn  may  expect  to  hear  from 
me.  Pray  assure  him  of  my  regard." 

"The  station,"  said  the  Arch- 
deacon, helping  the  Bishop  into  the 
carriage. 

"  The  workhouse,  unless  I  do 
something,"  Mrs.  Hepburn  said  to 
herself  bitterly. 

III. 

ON  a  misty  warm  morning,  four 
days  later,  Mr.  Hepburn  (who  had 
been  taking  the  early  celebration) 


58 


The  Living  of  East  Wispers. 


came  home  looking  pathetically  pale 
and  visionary.  This,  in  Mrs.  Hep- 
burn's phrase,  was  his  apostolic  mood  ; 
and  his  remoteness  at  such  times  de- 
pressed her  indefinitely,  making  her 
feel  isolated  and  vagrant,  as  though 
they  had  been  going  in  opposite 
directions  all  their  married  life.  She 
had  waited  to  breakfast  with  him, 
and  he  sat  down  to  the  table  with  a 
sacrificial  air,  which  made  her  think 
of  John  the  Baptist  and  locusts  and 
wild  honey.  The  bacon  and  eggs 
struck  her  as  being  curiously  incon- 
gruous, and  instinctively  she  pushed 
the  dry  toast  towards  him.  The 
children  were  gone  to  school,  and 
an  unwonted  quiet  reigned  in  the 
house. 

The  talk  was  conventional  for 
some  while ;  Mr.  Hepburn  spoke 
mournfully  of  a  young  lady  whose 
manner  of  going  to  the  altar  to 
communicate  had  deeply  wounded  his 
sense  of  Anglican  propriety ;  then, 
somewhat  abruptly  abbreviating  the 
ritual  question,  Mrs.  Hepburn  re- 
marked on  a  sudden,  there  had  been 
no  news  from  the  Bishop  yet. 

"  I  do  not  suppose  I  have  been  in  his 
lordship's  thoughts,"  Mr.  Hepburn 
said,  in  his  preoccupied  simple  way. 
"  The  Vicar  appears  to  think  that 
Mr.  Jardine  will  be  offered  East 
Wispers." 

"That  is  impossible  now,"  Mrs. 
Hepburn  said.  "  Quite  impossible  !  " 

The  words  tugged  at  Mr.  Hep- 
burn's innocency,  and  brought  him 
out  of  the  clouds.  "  Why  do  you 
think  so  1 "  he  asked. 

"  Mr.  Jardine's  chances  of  East 
Wispers  are  at  an  end."  This  she 
said  in  a  kind  of  desperation.  "  I 
have  effectually  stopped  his  ambition 
in  that  quarter." 

"  Caroline,  you  cannot  have  seen  the 
Bishop  ? " 

"  I  have  seen  him, '  Mrs.  Hepburn 
replied. 


"  Then — oh,  Caroline,  it  is  not 
possible  that  you  can  have  betrayed 
Mr.  Grant's  confidence  in  me  ?  " 

"  I  spoke  to  the  Bishop  when  he 
was  in  the  town  last  week.  Yes  ;  I 
mentioned  East  Wispers,  and  ex- 
plained to  him  briefly  about  ourselves. 
I  gave  him  to  understand  that  I  was 
acting  solely  on  my  own  initiative. 
He  told  me  that  the  choice  lay  be- 
tween you  and  Mr.  Jardine.  I  was 
strongly  moved  to  acquaint  him  with 
the  authorship  of  the  anonymous 
letter  in  THE  HERALD,  but  I  refrained. 
There  was  no  opportunity,  and  it  was 
clear  to  me  that  more  convincing 
proof  was  required.  Wilfrid,  can't 
you  understand  how  natural  it  was 
for  me  to  wish  to  do  the  best  for  you  1 
I  hope  I  have  been  a  good  wife — 

"  Yes,  yes,  Caroline  ;  but  it  was 
unwise  to  speak  to  the  Bishop.  You 
cannot  believe,  on  reflection,  that  it 
was  in  commendable  taste." 

"  I  have  been  so  worried  of  late  I 
have  not  had  time  to  reflect." 

"  And  then,"  said  Mr.  Hepburn, 
"  you  seem  to  have  done  something 
besides.  What  is  it  you  have  done, 
Caroline  1 " 

"  I  may  as  well  tell  you  everything 
now,  Wilfrid.  You  will  be  grieved, 
I  dare  say ;  but  all  this  is  a  heavier 
burden  on  my  mind  than  I  imagined 
it  would  be.  I  could  not  sleep  last 
night.  Indeed,  I  held  back  for  two 
days  before  I  could  find  courage  to 
do  it.  Yet  I  don't  say  I  am  ashamed  ; 
it  was  absolutely  necessary  to  do  some- 
thing, for  the  world  is  against  us, — 
the  world  in  the  Church,  where  it 
expresses  itself  in  the  most  torturing 
refinements  of  cruelty ;  and  after  all 
I  have  done  nothing  worse  than  fight 
it  with  its  own  weapons." 

"  Tell  me,  tell  me,"  Mr.  Hepburn 
pleaded. 

"Well,  I  called  on  Mr.  Grant,— 
you  know  how  devoted  he  is  to  you — 
and  induced  him  to  obtain  for  me  the 


The  Living  of  East  Wispers. 


59 


manuscript  of  Mr.  Jardine's  letter  to 
his  paper.  I  may  not,  perhaps, 
have  been  perfectly  frank  with  him, 
and  of  course  I  feel  sorry  for  that, 
and  will  some  day  apologise  to  him ; 
but  I  do  not  see  that  I  need  be  sorry 
for  anything  else.  He  was  kind 
enough  to  bring  the  manuscript  to  me. 
It  was  in  Mr.  Jardine's  handwriting, 
and  I  have  sent  it  to  the  Bishop." 

Mr.  Hepburn  did  not  speak  at 
once.  He  seemed  like  a  man  to  whom 
a  thing  has  happened  beyond  his  com- 
prehension. His  chest  fell  in,  and  he 
sat  with  his  ascetic  white  hands  on 
the  arms  of  his  chair,  like  a  copy  of 
death.  "  It  was  a  crime,  Caroline. 
You  tempted  the  young  man  to  com- 
mit a  theft." 

"  Wilfrid  ! " 

"  He  took  what  did  not  belong  to 
him.  He  may  be  sent  to  prison." 

"  But,  Wilfrid,  the  manuscript  was 
of  no  use  to  any  one." 

"  You  have  put  it  to  a  dreadful 
use.  I  do  not  reproach  you  ;  we  are 
one,  Caroline ;  we  have  had  many 
troubles,  and  have  borne  them  hand 
in  hand.  But  regard  this  as  we  may, 
it  is  a  very,  very  serious  breach  of 
confidence." 

"  Mr.  Grant  would  not  betray 
me." 

"  He  may  not  be  able  to  help  him- 
self. Something  is  sure  to  come  of 
this.  The  Bishop's  sense  of  duty,  his 
abhorrence  of  wrong-doing,  may  pre- 
vent him  from  keeping  silent." 

"  Wilfrid,  you  frighten  me  !  You 
can't  believe  that  I  would  sanction 
anything  in  the  nature  of  a  crime  1 
Oh,  I  confess  I  may  have  been  reck- 
less and  over-anxious ;  but  it  was  for 
your  sake  and  the  children's, — and 
he  would  never  bring  my  name 
into  it!" 

"  The  papers  were  not  his  to  give 
to  you  or  to  any  one.  He  could  not 
have  come  by  them  lawfully." 

"  He  assured  me  they  would  not  be 


wanted ;  that  they  would  never  be 
missed ;  I  think  I  promised  to  let  him 
have  them  back  again  :  it  seemed 
possible,  somehow.  They  were  all 
crumpled  and  full  of  holes,  and  covered 
with  black  marks.  I  believe  I  told 
him  he  was  not  to  run  any  risk  on  my 
account." 

"  That  does  not  make  his  conduct 
the  less  culpable.  Should  the  Bishop 
take  action  in  the  matter, — and  I  do 
not  see  how  he  can  avoid  doing  so — 
young  Grant,  who  has  been  so  good  to 
me  in  many  ways,  will  be  profession- 
ally ruined,  even  if  the  law  is  not 
invoked." 

"  Oh,  Wilfrid,  you  make  me  feel 
utterly  miserable.  I  acted  thought- 
lessly, I  admit ;  but  I  did  not  think 
it  could  be  so  serious  as  you  make 
out." 

"  When  did  you  send  the  manu- 
script to  the  Bishop  1 '' 

"  Only  last  night ;  I  posted  it  my- 
self, while  you  were  at  church." 

"  His  lordship  would  receive  it  this 
morning.  He  may  be  reading  it,  in 
amazement  and  pain,  at  this  very 
moment.  Caroline,  Caroline,  this  was 
not  the  way  !  We  could  never  have 
been  happy  at  East  Wispers  had  we 
gone  there  by  such  methods.  Last 
night,  you  say ;  .1  must  go  to  the 
Bishop  at  once.  There  is  a  train  in  a 
few  minutes.  Did, — did  you  enclose 
a  note  of  your  own  1  " 

"  No  ;  I  merely  put  the  manuscript 
in  an  envelope  and  addressed  it  to  the 
Bishop  at  the  Palace.  I  marked  the 
envelope  private, — at  least,  I  think  I 
did  ;  I  hardly  knew  what  I  was 
doing." 

Mr.  Hepburn  had  risen.  "  Last 
night,"  he  said.  "I  remember  you 
seemed  so  anxious.  Can  you  give  me 
money  to  pay  the  fare  ?  Oh,  Caroline, 
we  must  hope  for  the  best.  Hitherto 
God  has  been  very  merciful  to  us. 
Caroline,  Caroline,  we  must  not  forget 
His  loving-kindness." 


60 


The  Living  of  East  Wispers. 


IV 

ROSES  after  rain,  and  on  the  roses 
sunshine,  and  in  the  sunshine  bees 
and  butterflies  ;  high  gray  walls,  birds 
calling  to  their  young,  an  atmosphere 
of  the  sun  to-day  and  of  the  things 
of  long  ago  ;  an  old  palace  in  an  old 
garden,  and  in  the  garden  this 
simple,  contemplative  gentleman,  very 
miserable,  very  feeble,  hopeless  almost 
of  prelatical  forgiveness,  yet  tenderly 
resolute  to  make  his  appeal,  whatever 
might  come  of  it. 

The  cathedral  bells  rang  ;  the  cathe- 
dral spires  rose  high  in  the  blue 
and  white  sky ;  a  white-robed  throng 
might  be  moving  through  the  stately 
aisles,  if  one  could  see  them.  The 
elusive  subtle  romance  of  the  religious 
life,  the  imaginative  throb  of  great 
tradition,  the  note  of  sanctity  in 
environment ;  these  are  not  for  all 
minds,  but  they  were  for  Mr.  Hep- 
burn's. Yet  not  to-day ;  in  a  normal 
mood  he  would  have  lingered  affec- 
tionately, smiling  a  thankfulness  be- 
yond expression,  in  this  pleasant 
garden,  seeing  wondei'ful  and  beauti- 
ful things  with  the  inward  sense  which 
is  created  and  fed  by  the  heavenly 
vision.  But  this  timid  man,  of  fragile, 
fine  character,  was  sorely  afflicted, 
and  not  all  the  beauty  of  all  the 
Bishop's  garden  could  give  peace  to 
his  sad  heart  or  ease  the  torment  of 
his  thoughts. 

So  Mr.  Hepburn  came  at  length  to 
the  place  where  he  would  be,  to  make 
his  supplication ;  and  white  roses  and 
red  hung  over  him  as  he  stood  by  the 
Palace  door,  the  door  through  which 
prelates  great  and  small  had  passed 
since  the  Saxon  days,  and  the  air  was 
heavy  with  perfume.  The  Bishop, 
the  footman  told  him,  was  in  Lon- 
don ;  he  had  been  speaking  in  the 
House  of  Lords  on  the  night  before, 
but  he  was  expected  home  that 
morning ;  the  carriage,  indeed,  had 
gone  to  the  station  for  his  lordship. 


Mr.  Hepburn  expressing  a  wish  to 
wait,  the  footman  said  in  sympathy, 
"  You  seem  tired,  sir,"  and  knowing 
him  well,  conducted  him  to  the 
Bishop's  study,  and  there  left  him. 

The  study  was  small  and  ancient, 
and  seemed  haunted  by  invisible 
saintly  presences  and  the  voices  of 
wise  men.  The  windows  were  open 
and  looked  out  on  the  garden,  and 
the  breeze  made  the  roses  incline 
this  way,  as  if  they  would  be  where 
wisdom  dwelt.  Mr.  Hepburn,  from 
the  high-backed  chair,  which  had  been 
given  him,  let  his  eyes  wander  timor- 
ously about  the  room.  He  saw  scarce 
anything  in  detail,  yet  was  impressed 
deeply,  as  an  epileptic  prisoner  (doubt- 
ful of  the  nature  of  his  crime)  might 
be  in  a  Court  of  Assize.  The  minutes 
passed,  and  he  grew  more  desolate 
and  dreading.  At  last,  his  gaze  rest- 
ing on  the  Bishop's  table  (the  only 
table  in  the  room),  he  perceived  there 
a  heap  of  letters. 

The  letters  were  apparently  un- 
opened ;  they  would  be  waiting  till 
the  Bishop  should  come.  The  curate 
knew  how  punctilious  his  Diocesan 
was  about  his  correspondence.  Never- 
theless for  some  moments  absolutely 
no  speculation  regarding  the  signifi- 
cance, the  possibilities  of  this  circum- 
stance entered  Mr.  Hepburn's  mind. 
His  was  a  slow  brain  naturally  ;  slower 
still  to  act  where  the  opportunity  of 
doubtful  conduct  was  offered.  On  a 
sudden  he  raised  his  head  in  a  startled 
nervous  fashion,  for  it  had  occurred 
to  him  that,  as  the  Bishop  had  been 
in  London  since  the  previous  day, 
probably  he  had  not  seen  Caroline's 
letter  containing  Mr.  Jardine's  manu- 
script. 

Mr.  Hepburn  moved  uneasily  in  his 
chair  ;  he  glanced  towards  the  door, 
the  window,  and  drew  his  hand  across 
his  brow  in  a  bewildered  way.  The 
servant  had  shut  the  door  ;  he  was 
alone  in  the  study.  His  eyes  were 


The  Living  of  East  Wispers. 


61 


fixed  again  on  the  letters ;  he  sighed 
heavily ;  a  moisture  appeared  on  his 
face.  If  Caroline's  letter  should  be 
there  ! 

He  stood  up  ;  and  as  he  moved  to 
the  table,  the  sound  of  carriage-wheels 
was  heard.  He  was  shaken  spiritually 
rather  than  bodily  •  his  hand  did  not 
tremble  at  all  as  it  turned  over  the 
letters.  Yes— here  was  Caroline's. 
He  lifted  it,  held  it  over  the  other 
letters,  his  arm  outstretched ;  then 
suddenly  let  it  fall  and  stood  gazing 
at  it,  like  a  man  who  felt  that  he  was 
tampering  with  the  wrath  of  God. 
Then  the  Bishop's  voice  came  from 
the  stair.  Mr.  Hepburn's  hand 
touched  the  letter  again,  but  was  in- 
stantly withdrawn ;  his  vital  forces 
seemed  paralysed.  He  uttered  a  low 
moan,  and  slid  back  to  his  chair, 
leaving  the  letter  on  the  table. 

The  Bishop  entered,  and  Mr.  Hep- 
burn (his  hands  on  the  rests  of  the 
chair)  rose  and  bowed  reverentially. 

"  Ah,  good  morning,  Mr.  Hepburn. 
You  are  an  early  riser  too.  I  am 
pleased  to  see  you." 

The  Bishop  seated  himself  at  the 
table.  The  servant  placed  a  black 
bag  on  it,  and  left  the  study.  Mr. 
Hepburn  remained  partially  standing. 

"  Be  seated,  Mr.  Hepburn,  be 
seated.  I  am  sure  you  won't  mind 
my  going  on  with  my  letters.  I 
wished  to  see  you.  I  hope  Mrs.  Hep- 
burn is  quite  well." 

"  Thank  you,  my  lord — 

The  Bishop  began  to  open  his 
letters,  using  a  little  ivory  paper-knife. 
He  read  each  one  as  he  opened  it. 
Mrs.  Hepburn's  was  the  third  which 
he  took  up.  He  thrust  in  the  paper- 
knife. 

"  My  lord- 
Mr.  Hepburn  had  advanced  a  step. 
He  held  forth  his  hands  in  a  pitiful 
imploring  way.  The  Bishop,  pausing 
in  the  act  of  taking  out  Mr.  Jardine's 
manuscript,  looked  at  him  curiously. 


:'Yes,  Mr.  Hepburn  1  I  think  you 
are  not  well  to-day." 

"  That  letter,  my  lord,  is  from  my 
wife." 

"  Indeed,"  said  the  Bishop.  He 
smiled  benignly.  "  I  suppose  it  is 
about  East  Wispers.  Mrs.  Hepburn 

spo Aha,  I  must  not  betray  a 

lady's  confidence.  Oh,  no ;  oh,  no  ; 
no,  no.  You  have  a  careful  and 
solicitous  wife,  Mr.  Hepburn,  an  excel- 
lent wife.  Oh,  yes  ;  oh,  yes,  yes,  yes." 

"  My     lord -"     Mr.      Hepburn 

moved  up  to  the  table  as  he  spoke. 
"  Might  I  beg  of  your  lordship, — my 
lord,  as  a  peculiar  kindness  to  me 
personally — that  you  will  not  read 
my  wife's  letter  1 " 

The  Bishop  looked  at  the  super- 
scription. "  It  is  really  from  Mrs. 
Hepburn  1 "  he  said. 

"  Yes,  my  lord." 

"  Then  —  certainly  ;  here  is  the 
letter,"  said  the  Bishop. 

Mr.  Hepburn  put  it  in  his  pocket. 
"  Thank  you,  my  lord,"  he  faltered  in 
a  profound  humility.  "And  thank 
— thank  God  !  "  he  added,  raising  his 
voice. 

"  Oh,  it  can't  be  so  serious  as  that," 
the  Bishop  said,  opening  another 
letter.  "  After  all,  it  was  not  un- 
natural that  Mrs.  Hepburn  should 
desire  to  say  a  good  word  for 
you,  though  the  practice  is  hardly 
openly  to  be  encouraged.  I  have 
decided,  Mr.  Hepburn,"  the  prelate 
added  pleasantly,  "  to  offer  you  the 
living  of  East  Wispers,  should  you 
care  to  accept  it." 

"  My  lord— 

"  I  am  sure  Mrs.  Hepburn  will  be 
pleased." 

"  My  lord— 

"  I  have  perfect  confidence  in  you," 
said  the  Bishop.  "So  also  has  my 
daughter.  Oh,  yes  ;  oh,  yes,  yes,  yes. 
And  I  hope  you  will  remember  to  take 
some  of  our  roses  to  Mrs.  Hepburn 
when  you  go  home." 


62 


THE    CENTENARY    OF    OSSIAN. 


THE  trial  of  James  Macpherson  for 
forgery  and  fraud  may  be  said  to 
have  lasted  a  hundred  years,  from 
1762  to  1862.  The  former  date  is 
the  year  of  the  publication  of  the 
first  batch  of  the  Ossianic  poems ; 
and  the  latter  is  the  year  in  which 
was  published  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAN 
OF  LISMORE.  Macpherson  himself  died 
in  1796,  and  the  present  year  is 
therefore  the  centenary  of  his  death. 
To  understand  the  fury  and  bitter- 
ness of  the  Ossianic  controversy,  one 
of  the  fiercest  of  all  literary  fights,  it 
is  necessary  to  turn  back  for  a  moment 
into  the  political  atmosphere  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

There  is  an  Act  of  Parliament  of 
George  the  Second  which  clearly 
shows  the  attitude  of  the  English 
mind  towards  the  Scottish  Highlanders 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  In  that 
Act  Parliament  solemnly  ordained 
that  "from  and  after  the  1st  day  of 
August,  1747,  no  man  or  boy  within 
that  part  of  Great  Britain  called 
Scotland,  shall  on  any  pretence  what- 
ever wear  and  put  on  the  clothes 
commonly  called  Highland  clothes, 
that  is  to  say,  the  plaid,  philibeag,  or 
little  kilt,  trouse,  shoulder-belt,  or  any 
part  whatsoever  of  what  peculiarly 
belongs  to  the  Highland  garb,  and 
that  no  tartan  or  party-coloured  plaid 
or  stuff,  shall  be  used  for  great  coats  or 
upper  coats."  The  Act  then  went  on 
to  declare  that  if  the  smallest  piece  of 
tartan  plaid  could  be  detected  among 
the  garments  of  any  Highland  man  or 
boy  he  should  suffer  six  months'  im- 
prisonment, and  for  a  second  offence 
seven  years'  penal  servitude.  The 
oath  of  a  single  witness  before  a 
Justice  of  the  Peace  was  enough  to 


effect  a  conviction.  This  attempt  to 
"  take  the  breeks  off  a  Highlandman  " 
by  Act  of  Parliament  grew  immedi- 
ately out  of  the  terror  inspired  by  the 
rebellion  of  1745  ;  but  underlying  and 
reinforcing  the  panic-stricken  legisla- 
tion there  was  the  popular  conviction 
that  the  Scottish  mountains  were  in- 
habited by  "  black-kneed "  cattle- 
thieves  barely  emerged  from  the  canni- 
bal state.  The  shopkeepers  of  Manches- 
ter and  Derby  after  Prince  Charlie's 
invasion  retained  vivid  pictures  of  bar- 
barous giants  demanding  at  the  point 
of  a  very  long  sword  a  bawbee,  which, 
much  to  the  profit  of  the  invaders, 
the  citizens,  it  is  said,  understood  to 
be  Gaelic  for  a  guinea.  To  escape 
the  general  odium  and  contempt  at- 
taching to  all  things  Celtic,  not  a 
few  clansmen,  driven  south  by  the 
clearances  and  dispersions  of  the  time, 
were  obliged  to  change  their  name. 
Many  a  Smith  of  London  and  Glasgow 
is  an  expatriated  Macgregor. 

Into  this  medley  of  misconception 
about  the  Northern  Celts  came  the 
Ossianic  poems  of  1762.  It  is  worth 
recalling  the  preliminary  circum- 
stances that  led  to  their  publication. 
The  third  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century  brought  to  Scotland  a  period 
of  domestic  peace  after  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  all  but  continuous 
civil  and  religious  strife.  Then  for  the 
first  time  grew  up  a  generation  of  men 
who  knew  not  the  faction-fights  of  rival 
religions  and  rival  royalties.  Among 
the  cultivators  of  literature  and  philo- 
sophy which  this  time  of  leisured  tran- 
quillity brought  forth  in  Edinburgh 
there  were  a  few  men  whose  sympathies 
were  turned  towards  the  Highlands ; 
among  others  was  the  Reverend  John 


The  Centenary  of  Ossian. 


63 


Home,  author  of  the  once  famous 
tragedy  of  DOUGLAS.  It  was  known, 
not  to  the  educated  public  but  to  this 
small  circle  in  the  Scottish  capital, 
that  a  mass  of  traditional  literature,  in 
prose  and  verse,  was  current  among  the 
Highlanders  and  Islesmen  ;  and  it  was 
surmised  that  at  least  a  portion  of  this 
traditional  literature  dated  back  to 
very  ancient  times,  for  the  bards  of 
the  Celtic  races  had  excited  the  won- 
der and  admiration  of  more  than 
one  Roman  writer.  In  Ireland  and 
Wales  English  conquerors  had  well- 
nigh  obliterated  the  bards  and  bardic 
institutions;  but  among  the  Cale- 
donian Celts  the  bards,  though  a  de- 
cadent race,  had  preserved  to  later 
times  something  of  an  apostolic 
succession.  Looking  round  for  means 
of  tapping  this  Celtic  literature, 
Home  and  his  friends  stumbled  upon 
a  young  Badenoch  Highlander  who, 
from  training  and  capabilities,  seemed 
made  to  their  hands.  This  was  an 
Aberdeenshire  schoolmaster  named 
James  Macpherson.  The  youth  (he 
was  only  twenty-one  at  the  time)  had 
already  shown  his  aptitude  and  in- 
clinations both  by  publishing  original 
verse  and  by  collecting  various  frag- 
ments of  traditional  Gaelic  poems. 
Macpherson  was  prevailed  upon  to 
translate  the  latter  into  English,  and 
they  were  pronounced  by  Home  and 
his  literary  friends  to  be  a  precious 
discovery.  A  subscription  was  imme- 
diately raised,  and  Macpherson,  with 
three  assistants,  was  despatched  upon  a 
tour  of  the  Highlands  and  Isles  with 
the  view  of  collecting  as  much  Celtic 
poetry  as  could  be  found,  and  publish- 
ing it  in  an  English  translation. 
No  one  seems  to  have  thought  then  of 
suggesting  the  publication  of  the 
Gaelic  originals,  which  is  not  sur- 
prising, seeing  that  probably  not  a 
soul  outside  the  Celts  themselves 
could  read  the  language  in  those  days. 
Macpherson  and  his  assistants  during 


their  tour  collected  a  few  manuscripts 
from  the  chiefs  and  others  to  whom 
they  had  introductions.  But  by  far 
the  greater  quantity  of  the  material 
they  accumulated  was  composed  of 
traditional  songs  and  ballads,  poems 
and  stories  taken  down  from  the  oral 
recitation  of  surviving  remnants  of 
bards,  of  herds  and  boatmen,  of  old 
men  and  women,  and  such  others  as 
become  the  repository  of  floating  oral 
literature.  At  the  end  of  two  years  a 
first  instalment  of  the  result  of  the 
commissioners'  labours  was  given  to 
the  world  under  the  title  of  FINGAL,  AN 
ANCIENT  EPIC  POEM  IN  Six  BOOKS, 

TOGETHER  WITH  SEVERAL  OTHER  POEMS 
BY  OSSIAN,  THE  SON  OF  FlNGAL,  TRANS- 
LATED PROM  THE  GAELIC  LANGUAGE 
BY  JAMES  MACPHERSON.  Two  years 
later,  in  1764,  Macpherson  published 
a  further  batch  of  epic  and  dramatic 
pieces,  purporting  to  be  translations 
of  poems  by  Ossian. 

These  publications  very  soon  aroused 
the  attention  of  literary  men  through- 
out Europe.  The  first  feeling  was  one 
of  surprise  and  perplexity.  It  was 
amazing,  especially  in  that  age  of 
artificial  writing,  to  see  an  ancient 
epic  popping  up  like  a  Jack-in-the-box 
out  of  a  No  Man's  Land.  It  seemed 
incredible  that  a  blind  old  Highland 
bard  should  have  composed  sublime 
epic  poems  hundreds  of  years  before 
any  modern  European  nation  had  crept 
out  of  its  cradle.  In  the  controversy 
that  followed  England  went  to  the 
north  pole  of  criticism;  Continental 
opinion  took  an  opposite  direction. 
The  partisans  of  neither  side  addressed 
themselves  dispassionately  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  origin  of  the  poems.  On 
the  one  hand  vituperative  personal 
abuse,  and  on  the  other  extravagant 
admiration  obscured  the  issues,  so  that 
both  sides  lost  sight  of  the  funda- 
mental problem,  which  was  briefly 
this :  did  Macpherson  take  the  de- 
tached and  isolated  traditional  ballads 


The  Centenary  of  Ossian. 


and  stories  about  the  exploits  of  Fingal 
and  his  warriors,  and  then  himself  fuse 
them  into  one  continuous  epic  poem ; 
or  did  he  find  such  a  continuous  epic 
already  in  existence  in  the  Gaelic,  and 
merely  put  the  scattered  fragments  me- 
chanically together  and  translate  them 
into  English  ?  And  further,  how  far 
was  popular  tradition  correct  in  attri- 
buting either  the  Fingalian  ballads 
and  stories  or  the  epic  (if  it  existed) 
to  a  bard  of  the  third  or  fourth  cen- 
tury called  Ossian  1  In  other  words, 
was  Macpherson  the  Homer  or  the 
Pisistratus  of  the  Ossianic  poems  ;  and 
if  he  was  only  the  Gaelic  Pisistratus, 
who  was  the  Gaelic  Homer?  Instead 
of  investigating  these  problems,  the 
English  critics  promptly  put  Macpher- 
son on  his  trial  for  fraud  and  forgery, 
while  the  Continental  critics  lost  their 
heads  over  the  invention  of  superla- 
tives to  describe  the  glamour  and  the 
greatness  of  the  poems.  Looking  to 
the  loose  literary  customs  of  the 
eighteenth  century  no  convincing  ar- 
gument can  be  adduced  from  Mac- 
pherson's  use  of  the  word  translation. 
It  is  necessary  to  remember  the  his- 
toric fact  that  in  former  times  scribes 
and  writers  used  the  words  translation 
and  transcription  with  an  easy  free- 
dom very  shocking  to  modern  anti- 
quaries. All  through  the  Middle 
Ages,  down  to  quite  recent  times, 
few  writers  were  troubled  with  that 
kind  of  literary  conscience,  and  their 
readers  did  not  expect  it  of  them. 

Some  of  his  European  admirers 
went  the  length  of  declaring  Ossian  to 
be  the  greatest  epic  poet  of  all  time, 
greater  even  than  Homer.  Macpher- 
son's  translation  was  itself  translated 
into  half  the  languages  of  Europe. 
Even  Goethe  tried  his  hand,  and  in- 
corporated extracts  from  Ossian  in 
WERTHER  :  Schiller  wrote  enthusias- 
tically of  "the  great  nature  of  Ossian"; 
and  Herder  acknowledged  the  Gaelic 
poet  as  a  source  of  inspiration.  In 


Italy  the  Abb^  Csesarotti  championed 
Macpherson  against  his  English  de- 
tractors. He  placed  Ossian  on  a  level 
with  Homer,  if  not  above  him.  In 
reply  to  Johnson's  taunt  that  Mac- 
pherson, and  not  Fingal,  was  the 
father  of  Ossian,  the  Abb^  rejoined, 
"  Whether  Ossian  was  the  son  of 
Fingal  or  not,  he  was  certainly  the 
son  of  Apollo."  In  France  (where 
three  separate  translations  appeared) 
Caesarotti's  Italian  version  became, 
it  is  said,  the  favourite  reading  of 
Napoleon. 

It  is  generally  thought  that  among 
British  critics  the  most  vehement  op- 
ponent of  Macpherson  was  Doctor 
Johnson.  This  is  scarcely  true.  The 
most  violent  attack  on  the  authenticity 
of  the  poems  came  from  Lowland  Scot- 
land, where  the  native  poets  possessed 
prescriptive  rights  of  flinging  mud  at 
Celtic  bards.  Dean  Ramsay  of  Edin- 
burgh has  put  it  on  record  that 
Macpherson's  OSSIAN  was  "  universally 
damned,"  but  it  is  to  be  presumed  that 
those  who  commissioned  the  book  were 
excepted.  To  prove  its  spurious  cha- 
racter, Malcolm  Laing  searched  with 
malicious  minuteness  for  analogies. 
He  found  that  Macpherson's  transla- 
tion was  nothing  but  "  a  patchwork 
of  plagiarism "  made  up  of  garbled 
quotations  from  Milton,  Shakespeare, 
the  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  and  the 
Bible.  As  a  monument  of  erudition 
Laing's  book  deserves  a  place  beside 
the  classic  treatise  of  Zachary  Bogan, 
in  which  are  discovered  three  hundred 
and  twenty  closely-printed  pages  of 
coincidences  between  Homer  and  the 
Old  Testament.  At  least  one  Pres- 
byterian clergyman  preached  against 
the  sinfulness  of  those  persons  who 
wasted  their  time  in  reading  the  ex- 
ploits of  the  Fingalian  heroes  instead 
of  studying  "the  faithful  words  of 
God."  "James  Macpherson,"  he  told 
his  congregation,  "  calls  the  Fingalian 
heroine  a  blue-eyed  maiden.  Brethren., 


The  Centenary  of  Ossian. 


65 


it  is  my  firm  conviction  that  the  jade 
had  been  fechtin'." 

The  gentle  art  of  literary  contro- 
versy was  cultivated  to  a  fine  point 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  con- 
temporary argument  against  the  au- 
thenticity of  the  alleged  discoveries 
was  summarised  with  admirable 
lucidity  by  Pinkerton,  the  historian 
and  antiquary.  "  The  Celts,"  he  wrote, 
"  are  of  all  savages  the  most  deficient 
in  understanding.  Wisdom  and  in- 
genuity may  be  traced  among  the 
Samoyeds,  Laps,  and  negroes,  but, 
among  Celts  none  of  native  growth. 
To  say  that  a  writer  is  a  Celt  is  to 
say  that  he  is  a  stranger  to  truth, 
modesty,  and  morality."  Pinkerton  is 
to  be  regarded  as  an  expert  witness 
in  the  case,  being  particularly  well 
qualified  to  detect  literary  forgery. 
He  had  himself  successfully  passed  off 
some  of  his  own  verses  as  ancient 
ballads  purporting  to  be  discovered  in 
a  manuscript  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Another  critic  thought  it  would  be 
easy  to  find  among  the  Gaelic  High- 
landers "  good  specimens  of  the  ape- 
idiot,"  but  to  look  "  among  savages 
burrowing  in  middens  "  for  epic  poems 
was  the  height  of  folly. 

Though  not  the  most  virulent, 
Doctor  Johnson  was  certainly  the 
most  formidable  of  Macpherson's  op- 
ponents. He  threw  all  his  influence 
into  the  scale  against  the  poems.  He 
uttered  the  dictum  that  "  Gaelic  was 
the  rude  speech  of  a  barbarous  people, 
who  were  content,  as  they  conceived 
grossly,  to  be  grossly  understood." 
This  argument,  it  is  true,  would  have 
carried  more  weight  if  the  Doctor  had 
possessed  an  elementary  acquaintance 
with  the  Gaelic  language.  There 
seemed  to  be  nothing  more  to  be  said 
for  the  antiquity  of  the  poems  when 
Johnson  laid  it  down  that  "  there  was 
not  a  Gaelic  manuscript  in  the  world 
one  hundred  years  old,  and  there 
could  be  no  polished  language  with- 

No.  439. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


out  writing."  And  besides,  whether 
ancient  or  modern,  whether  by  Ossian 
or  Macpherson,  the  poems  were  worth- 
less ;  they  were  mere  "  bombast  and 
fustian."  It  was  "easy  to  abandon 
one's  mind  to  write  such  stuff."  Mac- 
pherson's reply  to  Johnson  was  to 
send  a  challenge  to  fight,  couched,  it 
is  said,  in  the  following  elegant  piece 
of  Latinity  : 

Maxime,   si   tu   vis,    cupio  contendere 
tecum. 

The  Doctor  answered  by  purchasing  a 
stout  oak  cudgel,  and  issuing  an  ulti- 
matum in  which  he  said,  "  I  hope  I 
shall  never  be  deterred  from  detecting 
what  I  think  a  cheat  by  the  menaces 
of  a  ruffian'."  Though  Macpherson 
sulked  in  his  tent  and  made  no  de- 
tailed reply  to  his  critics  and  accusers, 
one  of  his  backers  kept  up  the  spirit 
of  the  controversy  by  a  retort  in  which 
he  made  a  threefold  classification  of 
liars  into  ordinary  liars,  damned  liars, 
and  literary  critics. 

It  is  an  old  Saxon  taunt  that  the 
Celts  are  never  happy  or  at  peace  ex- 
cept when  they  are  fighting.  If  that 
be  so  the  publication  of  OSSIAN  must 
have  brought  much  peace  and  happi- 
ness to  the  Irish  and  Scottish  branches 
of  the  Celtic  people.  Irish  scholars 
made  it  a  national  grievance  that 
Macpherson  had  claimed  the  Ossianic 
poems  for  Scotland.  They  contended, 
with  much  warmth  of  argument, 
that  the  translation  was  nothing  but 
a  freely  mangled  conglomeration  of 
old  Irish  poems,  songs,  and  tales.  The 
recriminations  that  ensue  when  mem- 
bers of  a  family  quarrel  are  not  for 
the  ears  of  strangers.  But  this  much 
may  be  said,  that  there  was  at  least 
a  shadow  of  excuse  for  the  facetious 
writer  who  summed  up  the  argument 
of  the  Irish  faction  thus  :  "  If  there 
is  anything  of  merit  and  originality  in 
Macpherson's  CSSIAN,  then  it  is  Irish ; 
if  not,  it  is  Scottish."  The  question 

p 


66 


The  Centenary  of  Ossian. 


whether  the  foundations  of  the  Ossi- 
anic  poems  are  Irish  or  Scotch,  if 
pushed  to  an  extremity,  may  easily 
degenerate  into  a  quibble  ;  as  though 
one  should  debate  whether,  let  us  say, 
Longfellow  is  an  American  or  an 
Anglo-Saxon  writer.  Ballads  about 
the  Fingalian  heroes,  of  unknown 
antiquity  and  popularly  attributed  to 
OSSIAN,  are  necessarily  common  to  both 
branches  of  the  Gaels  ;  just  as  stories 
of  King  Arthur  and  his  knights  are 
common  to  the  Celts  of  Scotland, 
Wales,  Cornwall,  and  Brittany.  The 
Marquis  of  Wellesley  became  an  un- 
conscious partisan  in  the  controversy. 
An  old  lady  in  London  happened  to 
read  some  parts  of  the  book  to  him, 
when  he  suddenly  exclaimed  :  "  Why, 
I  have  heard  all  these  stories  before 
from  my  nurse  in  Ireland,  who  related 
them  to  me  in  the  original  Irish." 

Outside  this  Scoto-Irish  storm  in  a 
teacup,  the  great  tempest  continued 
to  rage  round  Macpherson.  Apart 
from  political  prejudice  and  racial 
animosity  it  may  be  said  the  English 
antipathy  to  the  Ossianic  poems  rested 
on  the  popular  conviction  so  forcibly 
expressed  by  Doctor  Johnson,  that 
"  there  was  not  a  Gaelic  manuscript  in 
the  world  a  hundred  years  old."  It  is 
true  that  darkness  is  everywhere, — to 
the  blind.  In  this  instance  the  per- 
spicuous Doctor  was  the  blind.  Yet 
the  fault  was  not  altogether  his  own  ; 
the  blindness  was  part  of  a  cosmic 
process,  a  universal  darkness.  The 
melancholy  fact  is  that  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries  Europe 
lost  its  head  over  Guttenberg's  inven- 
tion. The  literary  men  of  that  time 
made  a  fetish  of  the  printed  book, 
as  so  many  do  to-day.  The  old 
manuscripts  were  neglected  or  used  to 
light  fires,  if  too  soiled  to  make  sugar- 
bags.  The  wisdom  locked  up  in 
ballads  and  other  oral  tradition  was 
contemptuously  dismissed  as  old  wives' 
tales.  Percy's  RELIQUES,  the  famous 


book  which  introduced  English  ballads 
into  the  world  of  reputable  literature, 
was  aptly  christened.  It  was  all  that 
was  left  "  of  a  large  folio  manuscript 
found  lying  on  the  floor  under  a 
bureau  of  the  parlour,  being  used  by 
the  maids  to  light  the  fire."  There 
was  a  manuscript  book  of  Gaelic  poetry 
at  Douai  which  some  think  might  have 
forestalled  Macpherson  if  it  had  not 
been  used  by  the  students  to  light 
their  pipes.  The  domestic  servant 
who  laid  Mill's  dining-room  fire  with 
the  first  volume  of  Carlyle's  manu- 
script of  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION 
would,  therefore,  have  been  in  the 
best  literary  vogue  if  she  had  lived  a 
century  earlier.  The  kindest  fate 
that  could  happen  to  a  manuscript 
book  in  those  days  was  for  it  to  be- 
come concealed  by  dust  in  an  unfre- 
quented corner  of  a  great  library. 

If  for  no  other  reason,  James  Mac- 
pherson would  always  be  remembered 
as  a  collector  of  old  manuscripts  and 
traditional  poems.  He  has  a  place 
among  the  few  men  of  the  eighteenth 
century  whose  sympathies  were  di- 
rected towards  that  literature  of  the 
people  which  lies  outside  printed 
books.  It  is  no  more  than  a  coinci- 
dence, perhaps,  that  it  was  another 
Celt,  Sir  William  Jones,  whose  intro- 
duction of  Sanskrit  to  the  scholars  of 
Europe  laid  the  foundation  of  scien- 
tific philology.  Thanks  to  the  scientific 
philologists,  the  Ossianic  controversy 
has  been  lifted  from  the  heated  at- 
mosphere of  partisan  declamation  into 
the  cool  region  of  impartial  enquiry. 
When  systematic  search  was  made 
(by  the  philologists,  not  by  the  liter- 
ary men)  it  was  found  that  an- 
cient Celtic  manuscripts  were  every- 
where. In  Dublin  there  are  Celtic 
manuscripts  in  prose  and  verse,  at 
least  as  old  as  the  Middle  Ages, 
enough  to  fill  many  hundred  volumes. 
In  the  national  libraries  in  Great 
Britain,  it  is  estimated  that  if  all 


The  Centenary  of  Ossian. 


67 


the  unedited  Celtic  manuscripts  were 
printed,  they  would  fill  at  least  twelve 
to  fourteen  hundred  octavo  volumes. 
There  is  an  instructive  anecdote  which 
tells  of  the  effect  produced  on  Moore 
the  Irish  poet,  by  the  sudden  disclo- 
sure of  these  old  literary  treasures. 
Moore  one  day  in  1839  called  on 
O'Curry  at  the  Royal  Irish  Academy, 
to  talk  about  a  book  on  the  History 
of  Ireland  the  poet  was  writing.  He 
found  O'Curry  surrounded  by  a  num- 
ber of  old  Irish  manuscripts.  Struck 
by  their  venerable  and  imposing  ap- 
pearance Moore  remarked  :  "  These 
huge  tomes  could  not  have  been 
written  by  fools  or  for  any  foolish 
purpose.  I  never  knew  anything 
about  them  before,  and  I  had  no 
right  to  have  undertaken  the  His- 
tory of  Ireland."  But  he  finished  his 
history  and  published  it  all  the  same. 

But  Celtic  manuscripts  are  not 
confined  to  Dublin.  There  are  few 
important  libraries  in  Europe  that  do 
not  possess  either  Celtic  manuscripts 
or  Latin  manuscripts  glossed  with 
Celtic  words.  And  as  every  one 
knows,  the  BOOK  OF  KELLS  (generally 
conceded  to  be  the  most  beautiful  book 
in  the  world),  though  in  the  Latin 
language,  was  penned  and  illustrated 
by  Gaelic  monks,  probably  before  the 
tenth  century  of  our  era.  In  the 
library  of  Balliol  College  there  is  a 
Gaelic  poem  of  the  twelfth  century, 
and  among  the  Continental  libraries 
where  other  manuscripts  have  been 
found  are  Milan,  Wurtzberg,  Berne, 
Carlsruhe,  Copenhagen,  and  even  as 
far  away  as  Carinthia.  Some  of 
these  were  perhaps  carried  abroad  by 
the  early  missionaries  of  the  Celtic 
Christian  Church  in  Britain,  for  it 
was  the  custom  of  the  bard  to  follow 
in  the  wake  of  the  missionary.  Many 
undoubtedly  were  scattered  on  the 
Continent  by  the  expulsion  of  monks 
from  the  monasteries  during  the  vari- 
ous attempts  made  by  the  English  to 


civilise  the  Celtic  fringe.  The  literary 
critics  of  the  eighteenth  century  made 
up  their  minds  that  the  language  of 
the  Celts  was  the  last  of  the  tongues 
of  Europe  to  emerge  from  barbarism. 
The  philologists  of  the  'nineteenth 
century  have  shown  that  the  contrary 
is  the  fact.  Among  the  Celts  the 
vernacular  speech  was  cultivated  as  a 
literary  vehicle  long  before  the  Teu- 
tonic and  Romance  languages.  In 
fact  the  present  political  insignifi- 
cance of  the  remnants  of  the  Celtic 
nations  makes  it  hard  to  realise  that 
this  handful  of  peasants  is  in  pos- 
session of  a  literature  "  which  in 
the  Middle  Ages  exerted  an  immense 
influence,  changed  the  current  of 
European  imagination,  and  imposed 
upon  almost  the  whole  of  Christianity 
its  poetical  motives."  In  Ireland  there 
were  schools  where  native  poetry  was 
rigorously  and  systematically  studied 
as  a  fine  art  at  the  very  time  that 
the  Teutonic  barbarians  were  pulling 
the  Roman  Empire  to  pieces,  and 
tossing  babies  on  spears  for  amusement. 
Bede  tells  us  that  it  was  customary 
in  the  seventh  century  for  many  of  the 
Saxon  nobility  in  England  to  attend 
these  Irish  schools,  and  it  is  known 
that  their  fame  drew  many  students 
from  the  Continent. 

At  the  very  time  that  Doctor 
Johnson  uttered  his  famous  dictum 
limiting  the  age  of  the  oldest  Gaelic 
manuscript  to  one  hundred  years, 
there  was  lying  forgotten  in  London 
one  which,  if  any  person  had  taken  the 
trouble  to  decipher  and  translate  it, 
would  have  done  more  to  settle  the 
Ossianic  controversy  than  all  that 
was  said  by  the  combatants  on  either 
side.  This  was  the  manuscript  known 
as  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAN  OF  Lis- 
MORE.  Its  history  is  that  of  so  many 
other  old  writings,  compiled  with 
much  care  and  labour,  tossed  into 
a  den  of  lumber,  the  remnants  rescued 
from  rats  and  other  irreverent  beings 

F  2 


68 


The  Centenary  of  Ossian. 


by  some  antiquary  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  now  valued  by  men  at  more 
than  its  weight  in  gold.  THE  BOOK 
OF  THE  DEAN  OF  LISMORE  is  a  sort  of 
commonplace  book  of  Gaelic  poetry, 
collected  by  one  Sir  James  Macgregor 
who  was  Dean  of  Lismore  in  Argyle- 
shire  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  In  this  old  collection  of 
popular  and  traditional  Gaelic  poetry 
there  are  nine  poems  (about  one  thou- 
sand lines),  which  bear  this  super- 
scription :  The  author  of  this  is  Os- 
sian, the  son  of  Fionn.  Now,  though 
none  of  these  poems  is  literally  the 
same  as  anything  in  Macpherson's 
Ossian,  yet  the  topics,  the  treatment, 
and  the  alleged  authorship  are  the 
same.  That  is  to  say,  a  blind  old  bard, 
Ossian,  the  son  of  Fionn  (or  Fingal), 
despondently  sings  of  the  mighty 
achievements  of  the  patriarchal  heroes 
who  lived  and  fought  during  his  youth. 
There  are  no  means  of  fixing  the  dates 
of  these  ballads  but  internal  evidence 
tends  to  show  that  possibly  they  be- 
long to  the  first  century  of  the 
Christian  era,  and  certainly  are  very 
much  earlier  than  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, when  the  collection  was  made. 
The  evidence  of  the  Dean's  Book 
thus  proves  two  things.  In  the  first 
place  it  proves  that  Macpherson  had 
a  mass  of  raw  material  in  the  shape 
of  legendary  ballads  to  work  upon, 
and  was  therefore  no  mere  literary 
impostor  like  poor  Chatterton,  such  as 
Doctor  Johnson  and  the  Anglo-Scotch 
critics  dubbed  him.  In  the  second 
place  it  proves  the  extreme  improba- 
bility of  the  ballads  having  been 
forced  into  a  continuous  epic  before 
the  sixteenth  century,  or  how  did 
reference  to  it  escape  the  Dean  1 
The  conclusion  from  this  evidence 
is,  therefore,  that  Macpherson's  OSSIAN 
is  modern  in  form  but  ancient  in 
matter ;  that  either  Macpherson  or 
some  other  Highland  bard  between  the 
sixteenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 


blended  the  different  cycles  of  Ossianic 
ballads  into  one  continuous  narrative 
and  threw  it  into  the  epic  form.  Pro- 
fessor Blackie  was  of  opinion  that  we 
must  look  for  the  Gaelic  Homer  among 
the  Highland  bards  of  the  early 
eighteenth  century,  before  Macpher- 
son's time ;  and  he  adduced  many 
learned  and  ingenious  arguments  to 
establish  this,  though  probably  with- 
out convincing  any  one  but  himself. 
If  it  was  Macpherson,  as  the  majority 
of  Celtic  scholars  agree,  then  of  course 
he  had  no  right  to  call  FINGAL  and 
the  other  poems  a  translation.  But 
looking  to  the  contemporary  literary 
customs,  few  will  be  inclined  to  dispute 
the  judgment  of  Doctor  Skene  (the 
most  dispassionate  of  Celts),  that  Mac- 
pherson's fault  in  calling  it  a  trans- 
lation was  a  comparatively  trivial  one, 
and  that  the  real  blot  on  his  fame  was 
his  subsequent  conduct.  When  the 
antiquity  of  the  matter,  as  well  as  the 
form  of  the  poems,  was  disputed,  Mac- 
pherson was  weak  and  foolish  enough 
to  set  about  concocting  a  set  of 
Gaelic  originals,  from  which  the  Eng- 
lish version  purported  to  be  trans- 
lated. These  were  published  after  his 
death  by  his  literary  executor ;  that 
is  to  say,  Ossian  appeared  in  his  own 
language  after  he  had  been  printed  in 
half  the  other  languages  of  Europe. 
Doctor  Skene  calls  this  Gaelic  version 
"  a  curious  kind  of  mosaic  constructed 
evidently  with  great  labour  afterwards, 
in  which  sentences,  or  parts  of  sen- 
tences, of  genuine  poems  are  cemented 
together  in  a  very  inferior  word-paste 
of  Macpherson's  own." 

By  one  of  the  curiosities  of  literary 
coincidences,  it  was  in  1862,  exactly 
one  hundred  years  after  the  publica- 
tion of  FINGAL,  that  the  BOOK  OF  THE 
DEAN  OF  LISMORE  was  made  known  to 
the  world  by  means  of  the  extracts 
and  translations  published  by  Doctors 
Skene  and  Maclauchan.  But  by  this 
time  the  great  Ossianic  controversy 


The  Centenqxy  of  Ossian. 


69 


had  dwindled  almost  to  vanishing 
point.  To  the  great  mass  of  persons 
of  education  in  Europe  Ossian  had 
become  but  the  faint  echo  of  a  storm 
that  had  long  blown  itself  asleep. 
Besides  Gaelic  scholars  and  Celtic  en- 
thusiasts there  were  few  who  took  the 
trouble  to  form  an  opinion  on  the 
matter  at  all.  Of  these,  some  agreed 
with  Wordsworth's  verdict  that  "  the 
spirit  of  Ossian  was  glorious,  but  Mac- 
pherson's  OSSIAN  was  trash."  Others 
sided  with  Macaulay,  who,  as  trustee 
of  the  British  Museum,  refused  to 
sanction  the  purchase  of  certain  rare 
and  invaluable  Celtic  manuscripts  on 
the  ground  that  "no  Celtic  manu- 
script was  worth  twopence  halfpenny." 
Even  among  Highlanders  the  great 
Celtic  bard,  like  the  epic  poets  in 
Italy,  found  more  champions  than 
readers.  A  certain  Italian  gentleman, 
it  is  said,  fought  thirteen  duels  to 
establish  the  superiority  of  Tasso  over 
Ariosto.  In  the  thirteenth  the  cham- 
pion of  Tasso  fell  mortally  wounded. 
As  he  lay  dying  he  moaned,  "  And 
after  all  I  have  not  read  either  of 
them  "  ;  whereto  his  opponent  sympa- 
thetically replied,  "Nor  have  I." 
Even  so  all  good  Highlanders  are 
ready  to  fight  for  their  favourite  bard, 
but  they  do  not  read  him ;  at  least  so 
said  Professor  Blackie. 

This  neglect  is  a  strange  fate  for  a 
book  which  cast  a  lasting  ferment 
into  the  literature  of  Europe,  and  in 
regard  to  which  many  critics  are 
agreed  that  no  single  work  in  British 
literature  has  had  so  wide-reaching, 
so  potent,  and  so  enduring  an  in- 
fluence, as  Mr.  William  Sharp  puts  it 
in  the  introduction  to  his  charming 
book  LYRA  CELTICA.  The  full  force  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  powerful  advocacy 
failed  to  immediately  popularise  Ossian 


among  educated  men ;  but  his  pleadings 
and  arguments  did  much  to  break  down 
the  old  Saxon  antipathy  to  all  things 
Celtic.  In  his  book  on  THE  STUDY  OF 
CELTIC  LITERATURE,  Arnold  showed 
that  one  of  the  qualities  which 
the  English  people  admire  most  in 
some  of  their  great  poets  is  the 
very  quality  which  above  all  others 
is  the  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  the  Celtic  bards,  and  that  Ossian 
in  particular  is  saturated  and  per- 
vaded with  the  quintessence  of  this 
trait.  To  denote  this  characteristic 
trait  of  Celtic  poetry  Arnold  used  the 
word  Titanism.  No  one  has  defined 
Titanism,  but  it  has  been  caricatured 
in  the  saying,  "The  Celtic  mind 
seems  always  sailing  nowhere  under 
full  sail."  Those  who  wished  to 
know  the  full  meaning  of  the  word 
were  recommended  to  discover  it  by 
devout  study  of  Byron  and  Keats. 
"  And  where  did  they  get  it  1 "  asks 
Arnold.  "The  Celts,"  he  answers, 
"  are  the  prime  authors  of  this  vein  of 
piercing  regret  and  passion,  of  this 
Titanism  in  poetry.  A  famous  book, 
Macpherson's  OSSIAN,  carried  in  the 
last  century  this  vein  like  a  flood  of 
lava  through  Europe.  .  .  .  Make  the 
part  of  what  is  forged,  modern, 
tawdry,  spurious,  in  the  book  as  large 
as  you  like,  there  will  still  be  left  a 
residue  with  the  very  soul  of  the 
Celtic  genius  in  it,  and  which  has  the 
proud  distinction  of  having  brought 
this  soul  of  the  Celtic  genius  into 
contact  with  the  genius  of  the  nations 
of  modern  Europe,  and  enriched  all 
our  poetry  by  it.  Woody  Morven 
and  echoing  Lora  and  Selma  with  its 
silent  halls,  we  all  owe  them  a  debt 
of  gratitude,  and  when  we  are  unjust 
enough  to  forget  it,  may  the  Muse 
forget  us." 


70 


THE   SPANISH   MAIN.1 


MR.  BODWAY  has  anticipated  one 
of  the  chief  objections  to  his  book 
with  so  much  candour  that  criticism 
may  well  feel  itself  disarmed.  To 
narrate  the  events  of  four  hundred 
stirring  years  within  the  compass  of 
a  single  volume  of  less  than  four 
hundred  pages  is  indeed  a  task  to 
make  the  boldest  pause.  Nor  were 
these  limitations  altogether  a  matter 
of  choice.  Mr.  Rodway's  book  has 
been  written  for  the  series  known  as. 
THE  STORY  OP  THE  NATIONS,  and  to 
the  laws  regulating  that  series  he  was 
necessarily  forced  to  submit ;  to  which 
circumstance  must  also,  we  presume, 
be  attributed  the  fact  of  his  pages 
being  disfigured  by  some  of  the  worst 
llustrations  which  an  era  of  cheap 
devices  and  hasty  work  has  as  yet 
contrived  to  produce.  And  of  dimen- 
sions proportionate  to  this  imposing 
subject  is  its  literature.  From  the 
Decades  of  Peter  Martyr  to  the  Blue 
Book  issued  the  other  day  (if  a  Blue 
Book  may  rank  as  literature)  stretches 
an  array  of  volumes  in  many  lan- 
guages that  it  might  puzzle  a  Heber 
to  collect  and  a  Macaulay  to  read. 
Nor  would  it  be  bounded  by  the  do- 
main of  print.  To  treat  the  subject 
exhaustively  it  would  be  necessary  to 
explore  the  archives  not  only  of  our 
own  country  but  of  Spain  also  and  of 
Portugal,  of  Italy,  France,  and  Hol- 
land. The  story  of  the  Spanish  Main 
is  indeed  a  story  of  the  nations,  for 
it  would  be  hard  to  name  one  of  the 

1  1.  THE  WEST  INDIES  AND  THE  SPANISH 
MAIN  ;  by  James  Rodway.  London,  1896. 

2.  DOCUMENTS  AND  CORRESPONDENCE  RE- 
LATING TO  THE  QUESTION  OF  BOUNDARY 
BETWEEN  BRITISH  GUIANA  AND  VENEZUELA  ; 
presented  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament  by 
Command  of  Her  Majesty,  March,  1896. 


great  Powers  of  Europe  that  has  not 
at  some  period  during  the  last  four 
centuries  stretched  out  a  hand  to  that 
famous  apple  of  discord. 

It  would  be  unreasonable  therefore 
to  blame  Mr.  Bodway  for  having 
failed  to  achieve  impossibilities.  Every 
island  and  every  province,  as  he  says, 
has  its  own  tale.  It  was  inevitable 
that  much  should  be  left  untold ;  and 
inevitable  also,  to  use  his  own  words, 
that  every  West  Indian  should  find 
something  missing,  some  event  un- 
mentioned  which  is  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  his  particular  commu- 
nity. This  discovery  will  extend 
beyond  the  West  Indies.  Every  one 
whom  study  or  curiosity  or  the  love 
of  gallant  deeds  has  led  to  the  sub- 
ject will  make  his  own  comment. 
Every  Englishman  who  has  dipped 
into  the  volumes  of  Hakluyt  or  Pur- 
chas,  or  knows  them  only  in  the  pages 
of  Southey,  Charles  Kingsley,  Mr. 
Froude  or  Mr.  Payne,  who  has  read 
what  Humboldt  and  Irving,  Sir  Arthur 
Helps  and  Mr.  Fiske  have  written, 
will  think  himself  competent  to  play 
the  critic  to  Mr.  Bodway ;  and  the 
more  sternly  he  will  be  inclined  to 
play  it  in  proportion  as  his  reading 
has  lain  more  closely  among  the 
annalists  of  that  earlier  time.1  For 

1  A  list  of  some  of  the  principal  works  in 
English  on  this  subject  published  during  this 
century  may  perhaps  be  of  service  to  our 
readers.  Humboldt's  EXAMEN  CRITIQUE  has 
not  indeed  been  translated,  so  far  as  we  know, 
but  good  English  versions  of  the  others  are 
common  and  cheap.  We  have  not  included 
the  numerous  pamphlets  and  catalogues  of 
Mr.  Harrisse,  nor  the  prodigious  NARRATIVE 
AND  CRITICAL  HISTORY  OF  AMERICA  edited 
by  Mr.  Justin  Winsor,  as,  though  containing 
much  curious  and  interesting  information 
on  many  subjects  extracted  with  great  industry 
from  many  quarters,  they  are,  from  their 


The  Spanish  Main. 


71 


it  is  on  that  side  that  Mr.  Rodway's 
summary  is  most  deficient.  Perhaps 
he  was  right.  He  was  forced  to  de- 
cide between  ancient  history  and 
modern,  and  probably  he  was  wise  to 
give  his  preference  to  the  latter.  The 
purveyors  of  knowledge  for  the  million 
must  consult  the  tastes  of  the  million, 
and  those  do  not,  we  take  it,  as  a 
rule  care  to  stray  too  far  from  their 
own  times  and  interests.  By  passing 
lightly  over  the  operations  of  the  six- 
teenth century  Mr.  Rodway  has  been 
enabled  to  spare  more  time  to  the 

scope  and  form,  rather  works  of  reference 
than  books  to  be  read. 

The  True  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico  ; 
by  Captain  Bemal  Diaz  del  Castello,  one  of 
the  Conquerors,  written  in  the  year  1568 
(translated  by  Maurice  Keating). 

A  History  of  the  Buccaneers  of  America ; 
by  Captain  James  Burney  (vol.  iv.  of  his 
Voyages  and  Discoveries  in  the  South  Sea). 

Lives  of  British  Admirals;  by  Robert 
Southey. 

Life  and  Voyages  of  Columbus ;  by  "Wash- 
ington Irving. 

Voyages  and  Discoveries  of  the  Companions 
of  Columbus  ;  by  Washington  Irving. 

Examen  Critique  de  I'Histoire  de  la  Geo- 
graphic du  Nouveau  Continent;  by  A.  von 
Humboldt. 

Cosmos;  by  A.  von  Humboldt  (translated 
by  E.  C.  Otte.  vol.  ii. ). 

Personal  Narrative  of  Travels  in  the  New 
Continent;  by  A.  von  Humboldt  (translated 
by  Thomasina  Ross). 

The  Despatches  of  Hernando  Cortes,  the  Con- 
queror of  Mexico,  addressed  to  the  Emperor 
Charles  V. ;  written  during  the  Conquest 
(translated  by  George  Folsom). 

History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico  ;  by  "W.  H. 
Prescott. 

History  of  the  Conquest  of  Peru  ;  by  W.  H. 
Prescott. 

The  Spanish  Conquest  in  America;  by  Sir 
Arthur  Helps. 

The  Discovery  of  America  ;   by  John  Fiske. 

Drake;  by  Julian  Corbett  (from  the  series 
of  Men  of  Action). 

Voyages  of  the  Elizabethan  Seamen  to 
America;  by  E.  J.  Payne. 

History  of  the  New  World  called  America  ; 
by  E.  J.  Payne. 

English  Seamen  in  the  Sixteenth  Century ; 
by  J.  A.  Froude. 

To  these  may  be  added  many  of  the  volumes 
published  by  the  Hakluyt  Society,  and  the 
Calendars  of  Colonial  State  Papers  (America 
and  "West  Indies,  1574—1674)  edited  by  the 
late  Mr.  Sainsbury. 


operations  of  the  nineteenth.  The 
early  discoverers,  conquerors,  and 
settlers  make  way  for  the  politicians, 
philanthropists,  and  speculators  of  a 
later  day ;  the  exterminators  of  the 
Caribs  are  set  aside  in '  favour  of 
the  emancipators  of  the  negro,  and 
the  dreams  of  M.  de  Lesseps  take  the 
place  of  the  deeds  of  Balboa,  Drake, 
and  Morgan. 

Mr.  Rodway  was  right  no  doubt ; 
yet  we  cannot  but  wish  that  he  had 
dared    to    be    wrong.      It    is    not,    of 
course,  to  be  understood  that  he  has 
altogether  neglected  these  old  heroes, 
though  he  has  indeed  ignored  some  who 
should  certainly  have  had  a  place  in  his 
pages,  if  their  title  is  to  be  taken  as 
indicating  their  contents.    But  we  wish 
that  his  scale  of  proportion  had  been 
different.      We  are  partial  and  selfish, 
it   will   be    said,   and    are    grumbling 
because  Mr.  Rodway  has  not  written 
to  please  us  instead  of  some  hundreds 
of  more  important  folk.    Perhaps,  and 
yet  we  fancy  some  of  our  readers  may 
be    inclined    to    echo   our    complaint. 
Preach   as    he    will,    that    stern    and 
heavy-handed    pedant    whom  we  call 
the  scientific  historian,  he  will  never 
eradicate  from    the  general  heart  of 
man  the  consciousness  of  the  romantic 
element  in  history  and  the  love  for  it. 
Mr.   Rodway  is  conscious  of  it,  and 
loves  it,   we  are  persuaded,   even  as 
we  do.     "  The  shores  of  the  Caribbean 
Sea,"  he  writes,  "  have  been  the  scene 
of  marvellous  adventures,  of  intense 
struggles  between  races  and  peoples, 
of  pain,  trouble,  and  disaster  of  almost 
every    description.     No    wonder  that 
the  romance-writer  has  laid  his  scenes 
upon   its  beautiful  islands   and   deep 
blue  waters,  for  nowhere  in  the  world, 
perhaps,  could  he  find  such  a  wealth 
of    incident."     In    truth  those    three 
little  words,   the    Spanish   Main,   are 
among  the  most  eloquent  in  our  lan- 
guage, and  dull  indeed  must  be  the 
man    in    whom    they   can   kindle  no 


72 


The  Spanish  Main. 


spark  of  enthusiasm.  As  in  the  vision 
which  the  last  of  the  bards  beheld 
from  Snowdon  rises  a  shadowy  pro- 
cession of  great  figures  who  have 
written  their  names  deep  upon  the 
page  of  history,  and  too  often,  it  must 
be  owned,  in  characters  of  blood.  The 
noblest  of  them  all  leads  the  way, 
Columbus  with  his  lofty  brow  and 
brooding  eyes.  Thick  and  fast  they 
throng  :  Vasco  Nunez  de  Balboa,  the 
discoverer  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  the 
man  who  knew  not  when  he  was 
beaten  (hombre  que  no  sabia  estar 
par  ado)  ;  Ojeda  and  Nicuesa,  rivals  in 
accomplishments,  in  courage,  in  enter- 
prise, and  in  misfortune ;  the  bold 
Biscayan  pilot  Juan  de  la  Cosa,  who 
was  looked  up  to  by  his  comrades  as 
an  oracle  of  the  sea,  and  Americus 
Yespucius,  whose  name  an  accident  of 
fortune  has  made  immortal  beyond 
his  deserts ;  the  great  Marquis  of  the 
Valley,  Hernando  Cortes,  conqueror 
of  Mexico,  and  Francisco  Pizarro, 
conqueror  of  Peru  ;  Gonzalez  Davila 
who  discovered  Nicaragua,  and  Con- 
trera,  who  conceived  the  magnificent 
design  of  making  himself  master  of 
all  the  Main  and  monarch  of  the  great 
South  Sea,  but  who  came  no  nearer 
to  its  accomplishment  than  taking 
Panama  and  losing  his  own  head  in 
return ;  Orellana  who  sailed  down 
the  Amazon  from  the  Andes  to  the 
sea,  and  won  undying  fame  through 
treacherously  deserting  his  captain ; 
and  the  Apostle  of  the  Indies, 
the  good  and  gentle  Las  Casas,  in 
valour  and  endurance  equal  to  any 
soldier  of  them  all.  The  years  pass 
and  the  scene  widens.  The  English 
flag  floats  on  the  waters  and  English 
heretics  profane  the  shores  which  God, 
so  said  the  Vatican,  had  given  to  the 
Spaniard.  The  Englishman,  who  cared 
something,  after  his  fashion,  for  God 
but  not  a  jot  for  the  Vatnan, 
entirely  declined  to  acquiesce  in  such 
an  outrageous  interpretation  of  the 


divine  decree.  Led  by  John  Hawkins 
and  Francis  Drake  the  Lutheran  dogs 
swarmed  into  the  golden  seas,  and 
knocked  stoutly  at  the  doors  of  the 
world's  treasure-house.  History  has 
done  them  sometimes  more  and  some- 
times less  than  justice.  Their  courage, 
stoutness,  sagacity,  and  seamanship 
it  is  indeed  impossible  to  rate  too 
highly.  Cruel,  with  rare  exceptions, 
they  never  were ;  the  Indians  hailed 
them  as  deliverers  wherever  they 
came,  and  even  the  Spaniards  acknow- 
ledged them  for  gallant  and  generous 
enemies.  But  they  were  not  quite 
perhaps  the  God-fearing,  unselfish 
patriots  that  figure  in  Kingsley's  and 
Froude's  pages  ;  while  assuredly  they 
were  something  much  more  and  better 
than  the  greedy  and  unscrupulous 
pirates  of  a  later  imagination.  To 
class  such  men  as  Drake  and  Frobisher 
and  Davis,  Cumberland,  Grenville, 
and  Raleigh  with  the  Buccaneers  of 
the  next  century,  argues  either  a 
woeful  ignorance  or  a  wilful  mis- 
understanding of  history.  And  even 
the  Buccaneers  themselves,  the  true 
Brethren  of  the  Coast,  not  the  common 
cut-throats  of  a  later  time,  played  their 
part  in  the  great  drama  ;  a  bloody  and 
brutal  part  it  too  often  was,  but  one 
of  which  the  true  importance  has  not 
perhaps  been  fully  recognised.  Here, 
as  will  sometimes  happen,  the  romance 
of  history  has  overlaid  its  significance  ; 
yet  those  privateers  who,  under  secret 
commission,  harried  the  Spaniard  out 
of  his  gold  and  his  wits  during  the 
latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
added  in  their  way  an  important 
chapter  to  our  colonial  history.  There 
was  little  in  common  between  the  two 
men  save  courage  and  sagacity  ;  never- 
theless the  same  work  which  Drake 
begun  in  1572  when  he  picked  the 
lock  of  the  new  world  at  Nombre  de 
Dios,  was  still  in  progress  when  a 
hundred  years  later  Morgan  led  his 
men  across  the  Isthmus  of  Darien  to 


The  Spanish  Main. 


73 


sack  the  city  of  Panama.  The  motives 
which  inspired  the  two  men  may  not 
have  been  the  same.  It  is  possible 
that  love  of  country  had  no  great 
share  in  Morgan's  actions,  and  that 
all  religions  were  much  the  same  to 
him.  He  was,  as  he  confessed  in  the 
later  days  of  his  respectability,  a 
man  of  the  pike  rather  than  of  the 
book.  But  to  probe  men's  motives 
after  the  lapse  of  two  or  three  cen- 
turies must  always  be  hazardous 
work.  What  they  did  the  historian 
can  tell ;  why  they  did  it  he  can  only 
guess.  It  is  at  least  certain  that 
in  the  seventeenth  century  Morgan 
and  his  men  helped  to  break  the 
power  of  Spain  in  the  Caribbean  Sea, 
as  Drake  and  his  men  had  helped  to 
break  it  in  the  sixteenth  century  ;  and 
judged  by  the  strict  law  of  nations, 
the  acts  of  both  are  equally  indefen- 
sible. The  two  nations  were  ostensibly 
at  peace  when  Drake  sacked  Cartha- 
gena  in  1586  ;  they  were  at  peace 
when  Morgan  sacked  Panama  in 
1671.  But  the  old  forecastle  theory 
that  there  could  be  no  peace  within 
the  tropical  line  was  in  deed,  if  not  in 
word,  as  steadfastly  maintained  in  the 
sixteenth  as  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury ;  and  it  is  well  for  England,  and 
well  for  the  world,  that  it  was  so. 
Nursed  in  traditions  of  order,  and 
with  nothing  to  gain  by  disregard- 
ing them,  we  may  shake  our  heads 
at  it  all  now.  The  world  has 
gained  in  politeness  what  it  has 
lost  in  patriotism  :  men  respect  the 
law  more  if  they  fear  God  less : 
and  nations,  when  they  mean  fight- 
ing now,  are  as  precise  and  punctili- 
ous in  the  preliminaries  as  Mon- 
sieur Jourdain's  fencing-master.  War, 
which  Erasmus,  were  he  to  revisit 
the  earth,  would  no  longer  call  the 
malady  of  princes,  is  a  terrible  thing  ; 
but  not  in  our  time,  nor  in  the  time 
of  our  children's  children,  will  arbitra- 
tion take  its  place.  When  diplomacy 


has  said  its  last  word,  and  failed,  there 
will  always  remain  the  arbitrament 
of  the  sword.  The  old  way  was  rough 
and  ready,  illegal,  barbarous,  what  you 
please;  but  it  was  wondrously  effective. 
Men  fought  first  and  arbitrated  after- 
wards ;  and  the  man  who  had  proved 
himself  strongest  pronounced  the 
award.  That  is  what  it  really  came  to. 
While  the  men  of  affairs  were  writing 
and  wrangling  in  the  cabinets  and 
councils  of  the  old  world,  the  men  of 
action  were  doing  their  work  for  them 
in  the  seas  and  on  the  shores  of  the 
new  world.  It  was  Doctor  Arnold's 
creed  that  the  standard  of  human 
morality  has  been  one  and  the  same 
from  the  beginning  of  time,  and  that 
men  of  every  age  and  every  country 
must  be  judged  only  by  the  eternal 
laws  of  right  and  wrong.  It  is  a  more 
convenient  creed  for  the  churchman 
than  the  historian.  There  are  indeed 
offences  which,  in  Coleridge's  phrase, 
are  offences  against  the  good  manners 
of  human  nature  itself ;  and  it  may  be 
granted  that  the  man  who  committed 
such  offences  in  the  reign  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar was  as  guilty  as  the  man 
who  should  commit  them  in  the  reign 
of  Victoria.  That  such  offences  were 
committed  by  some  of  the  earlier 
Spanish  conquerors  cannot  be  dis- 
puted, though  it  seems  no  less  certain 
that  Las  Casas  and  the  English  writers 
who  followed  his  lead  have  greatly 
exaggerated  their  number  and  enor- 
mity ;  they  were  rare,  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe,  among  the  early 
English  adventurers,  but  in  the  next 
century  there  was  no  Drake  to  keep 
order  and  no  Raleigh  to  entreat  kind- 
ness. For  such  offences  Spaniard  and 
Englishman,  Frenchman,  Italian,  and 
Hollander  are  all  equally  culpable. 
But  for  the  rest,  whatever  moralist  or 
historian  may  say,  it  would  have  fared 
ill  not  with  England  only,  nor  with 
all  that  we  mean  by  the  progress  of 
the  world,  but  with  the  general  cause 


74 


The  Spanish  Main. 


of  humanity,  had  there  never  been  a 
moment  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  when  right  gave  way 
to  might. 

The  philanthropist  will  not  of  course 
agree  with  Robertson  in  calling  the 
discovery  and  early  settlement  of 
America  a  splendid  story  ;  and  it 
must  in  truth  be  owned  that  there  are 
many  dark  stains  upon  its  splendour. 
But  it  is  one  which  in  the  sterner 
qualities  of  daring,  courage,  and  en- 
durance it  would  be  hard  to  match 
in  the  annals  of  the  human  race ;  and 
we  cannot  but  think  that  Mr.  Rodway 
might,  even  within  the  small  space  at 
his  disposal,  have  made  more  of  it 
than  he  has.  To  take  but  one  instance 
of  omission ;  he  has  nowhere  even 
mentioned  the  name  of  Balboa.  Now 
Balboa,  after  Columbus  and  Cortez, 
unquestionably  plays  the  finest  part  in 
what  one  may  call  the  first  act  of  the 
great  drama.  If  his  magnificent  enter- 
prise in  discovering  the  great  South 
Sea  were  not  enough  to  give  him  a 
place  in  Mr.  Rodway's  pages,  he 
should  at  least  have  been  remembered 
for  his  government  of  Darien,  in  which 
he  showed  not  only  the  fighting 
qualities  common  to  all  the  early 
conquerors,  but  a  measure  of  sagacity, 
prudence,  and  humanity  that  was 
certainly  not  common.  For  the  his- 
torian of  Elizabeth's  reign  to  omit 
from  his  pages  the  name  of  Francis 
Drake  would  be  hardly  more  surpris- 
ing than  for  the  historian  of  the 
Spanish  Main  to  omit  the  name  of 
Yasco  Nunez  de  Balboa. 

And  this  brings  us  to  a  matter 
which  has  always  puzzled  us,  and 
which  Mr.  Rodway  has  done  nothing 
to  elucidate.  We  write  and  talk 
glibly  enough  of  the  Spanish  Main, 
but  when  did  the  phrase  first  come 
into  use  and  what  was  its  exact  geo- 
graphical significance  1  The  prevalent 
idea,  borrowed,  we  take  it,  from  the 
delightful  romance  of  WESTWARD 


Ho  !,  seems  to  be  that  the  phrase 
was  in  common  use  among  the 
Elizabethan  sailors  to  signify  that 
part  of  the  great  American  con- 
tinent on  which  the  Spaniards  had 
effected  a  settlement  when  we  first 
broke  into  the  Caribbean  Sea  ;  that  is 
to  say,  from  Yera  Cruz  in  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  to  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco. 
But  we  cannot  find  that  the  phrase 
was  in  use  at  that  time.  In  the  pages 
of  Hakluyt  we  read  of  the  Main,  of 
the  Firm  Land  (which  is  of  course  a 
literal  translation  of  the  Spanish  term 
Tierra  Firma},  of  the  Mainland  Coast, 
of  the  Coast  of  the  Indies  or  of  the  West 
Indies ;  but  of  the  Spanish  Main  we 
have  nowhere  read.  Nor  have  we 
been  able  to  find  it  in  the  writers  of 
the  next  century.  Dampier  does  not 
use  it,  nor  Lionel  Wafer,  nor  the 
translator  of  Exquemelin's  DE  AMERI- 
CAENSCHE  ZEE-ROOVERS  ;  it  is  not  to 
be  found  in  Morgan's  official  reports 
of  his  buccaneering  exploits,  nor  in 
Ringrose's  narrative,  nor  in  Sharp's. 
In  the  map  engraved  for  Dampier's 
YOYAGES  (1729)  the  term  Firm 
Land  is  employed  to  designate  the 
territory  now  occupied  by  the  Re- 
publics of  Yenezuela  and  Colombia. 
The  original  Tierra  Firma  of  the 
Spaniards,  according  to  Ulloa,  in- 
cluded only  the  provinces  of  Yeragua, 
Panama,  and  Darien,  with  the  city  of 
Panama  for  its  capital.  We  may  be 
in  error,  and  certainly  we  do  not  pro- 
fess that  our  researches  have  been  ex- 
haustive ;  but  the  earliest  use  we  have 
found  of  the  term  the  Spanish  Main 
is  in  THE  JOURNAL  OF  ADMIRAL 
JAMES,  lately  published  by  the  Navy 
Records  Society,  where  on  Novem- 
ber 12th,  1779,  the  Admiral  notes 
that  he  "  bore  away  for  Truxillo 
on  the  Spanish  Main,"  Truxillo 
being  the  port  of  Honduras.  In 
the  supplementary  volume  containing 
the  maps  and  illustrations  for  the ' 
new  edition  of  Bryan  Edward's 


The  Spanish  Main. 


75 


HISTORY  OF  THE  BRITISH  WEST  INDIES 
(published  in  1818-19)  the  terms 
Terra  Firma  and  Spanish  Main  are 
both  used ;  the  former  marking  much 
the  same  extent  of  territory  that  is 
included  in  the  Firm  Land  of  Dam- 
pier's  map,  while  the  latter  appears 
to  signify  only  the  coast-line  extend- 
ing from  the  Mosquito  Gulf  to  Cape 
la  Vela.  To  this  day  people  in  the 
islands  speak  always  of  the  Main, 
and  the  Main  only. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Spanish 
Main  was  an  elastic  phrase  often 
vaguely  used  in  our  own  century  to 
include  the  Caribbean  Archipelago  as 
well  as  the  mainland.  But  we  doubt, 
with  all  respect  to  Mr.  Rodway, 
whether  it  was  ever  stretched  so  far 
as  to  include  the  three  provinces  of 
Guiana.  Mr.  Rodway  has  lived  in 
British  Guiana  and  written  an  inter- 
esting book  on  it ;  and  this  may  possi- 
bly account  for  his  devoting  some  of 
his  scanty  space  to  a  portion  of  terri- 
tory which,  unless  we  are  altogether 
mistaken,  does  not  properly  come 
within  his  province  at  all. 

But  whatever  its  exact  territorial 
significance,  or  whenever  the  phrase 
first  came  into  general  use,  as  to  its 
origin  there  can  be  no  doubt.  An 
ingenious  gentleman  has  indeed  derived 
main  from  the  Spanish  word  manea, 
a  shackle  or  fetter,  holding  it  to 
signify  the  West  Indian  islands, 
which  link,  as  it  were,  the  mainland 
of  Florida  to  the  mainland  of  Vene- 
zuela. This  remarkable  interpretation 
is  supported  by  a  quotation  from 
Bacon :  "  We  turned  conquerors  and 
invaded  the  main  of  Spain."  It  would 
have  been  difficult  to  call  a  more  in- 
convenient witness.  What  Bacon 
really  wrote  was,  "  In  1589  we  turned 
challengers,  and  invaded  the  main  of 
Spain ; "  and  his  reference  was  of 
course  to  the  expedition  which  Drake 
and  Norreys  led  against  the  coasts  of 
Portugal,  then  a  province  of  Spain, 


in  reprisal  for  Philip's  great  Armada 
of  the  previous  year.  The  misplaced 
ingenuity  of  this  interpretation  almost, 
it  must  be  said,  finds  a  parallel  in  Mr. 
Rodway's  own  pages.  The  second 
title  of  Mr.  Froude's  delightful  book, 
THE  ENGLISH  IN  THE  WEST  INDIES,  is, 
as  everybody  knows,  THE  Bow  OF 
ULYSSES,  which  Mr.  Rodway  supposes 
to  have  much  the  same  significance  as 
the  manea  or  main  of  our  clever  friend 
aforesaid.  But  if  he  had  taken  the 
trouble  to  refresh  his  memory  with  a 
peep  at  page  fifteen  of  Mr.  Froude's 
book,  he  would  have  been  spared  this 
rather  unfortunate  mistake.  The 
English  main  is  but  the  old  French 
magne,  which  is  in  its  turn  the  Latin 
magnus.  It  signifies  the  mainland, 
the  great  continent  as  distinguished 
from  the  islands  ;  just  as,  when  applied 
to  the  sea,  it  signifies  the  great  ocean 
as  distinguished  from  smaller  expanses 
of  water. 

Such  as  it  was,  the  Spanish  Main 
was  discovered  by  Columbus  on  his 
third  voyage.  The  territories  now 
known  as  Venezuela  and  British 
Guiana  had  been  discovered,  so  the 
new  Blue  Book  informs  us,  before  the 
year  1520.  This  caution  is  unneces- 
sary ;  the  exact  date  is  perfectly  well 
known.  Columbus  sighted  the  island 
to  which  from  its  three  mountain 
peaks  he  gave  the  name  of  Trinidad 
on  July  31st,  1498  ;  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  he  caught  his  first  glimpse 
of  the  continent  in  the  lowlands  which 
form  the  delta  of  the  Orinoco.  He 
at  first  supposed  them  to  be  a  continu- 
ation of  the  Caribbean  Archipelago, 
nor  was  it  till  he  encountered  the 
strong  current  running  into  the  Gulf 
of  Paria  from  the  mouths  of  the 
Orinoco,  and  noticed  the  curious  dis- 
coloration of  the  sea,  that  he  realised 
the  full  importance  of  his  discovery. 
No  island,  he  said,  could  feed  a  river 
or  rivers  capable  of  discharging  so 
vast  a  volume  of  water.  He  must 


76 


The  Spanish  Main. 


have  reached  the  shores  of  some  huge 
continent  laid  down  on  no  map  and 
as  yet  undreamed  of  by  mortal  man. 
On  passing  out  of  the  gulf  he  turned 
to  the  west  and  sailed  along  the  coast 
as  far  as  the  islands  of  Margarita  and 
Cubagua,  collecting  from  the  kindly 
natives  a  good  store  of  the  pearls  with 
which  those  waters  abound.  And 
ever  as  he  sailed  the  land  stretched 
away  on  his  left  hand,  westward  far 
as  the  eye  could  see ;  a  fair  coast 
with  many  good  harbours,  and  in  the 
background  a  lofty  range  of  moun- 
tains. But  the  great  Admiral's 
bodily  strength  could  endure  no  more. 
Racked  with  gout  and  fever,  and 
almost  blind,  he  turned  his  ship's 
head  to  the  north-west  and  steered 
across  the  open  sea  for  Hispaniola, 
proposing  to  send  his  brother  Bartho- 
lomew back  to  continue  his  discoveries, 
while  he  recruited  his  health  on  shore. 
What  happened  on  his  arrival  at  the 
island  is  no  part  of  our  present  story. 
For  two  weary  years  he  and  his 
brother  laboured  to  restore  order 
among  a  greedy  and  mutinous  rabble  ; 
and  when  he  did  at  last  reach  Spain 
it  was,  to  the  everlasting  disgrace  of 
the  Spanish  nation,  as  a  prisoner  in 
irons. 

Meanwhile  the  liveliest  curiosity 
was  rife  at  the  Court  in  Granada. 
The  pearls,  which  Columbus  had  sent 
home  with  his  despatches  and  the 
charts  of  his  voyage,  seemed  an 
earnest  of  the  teeming  riches  which 
his  sanguine  imagination  attributed 
to  the  new  coast.  There  was  at 
that  time  idling  about  the  Court  a 
young  adventurer  whose  name  has 
been  already  mentioned,  Alonzo  de 
Ojeda.  Brought  up  in  the  household 
of  the  Duke  of  Medina  Celi,  he  had 
followed  his  patron  to  the  Moorish 
Wars,  had  sailed  with  Columbus  on 
his  second  voyage,  and  though  still 
quite  young  had  already  earned  a 
name  for  daring  and  enterprise. 


Through  his  intimacy  with  Bishop 
Fonseca,  head  of  the  Council  for  the 
Indies,  he  had  acquired  access  to  all 
the  particulars  of  the  new  discovery  ; 
and  that  malignant  prelate,  the 
Admiral's  lifelong  enemy,  lent  a 
ready  ear  to  his  suggestions  that  he 
should  be  entrusted  to  reap  the  rich 
harvest  left  ungathered  by  Columbus. 
It  is  probable  that  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  were  ignorant  of  this  viola- 
tion of  the  privileges  granted  in  their 
original  agreement  with  the  Admiral 
of  the  Ocean.  At  any  rate  Ojeda's 
commission  was  signed  by  Fonseca 
alone  ;  and  he  knew  well  that  if  the 
result  of  the  voyage  proved  beneficial 
to  the  royal  treasury  Ferdinand  at 
least  would  ask  no  inconvenient 
questions.  No  one  will  be  dis- 
appointed to  learn  that  the  voyage 
was  not  successful.  Neither  gold  nor 
pearls  were  found,  and  a  cargo  of 
slaves  barely  sufficed  to  pay  the  cost 
of  the  expedition.  But  a  considerable 
addition  was  made  to  the  geography 
of  the  new  continent.  The  first  land 
sighted  (June,  1599)  was  that  now 
known  as  Surinam,  or  Dutch  Guiana, 
some  two  hundred  leagues  south  of 
that  made  by  Columbus  in  the 
previous  year ;  while  the  coast  was 
explored  northward  as  far  as  Cape 
la  Vela,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
leagues  beyond  his  farthermost  point. 
It  was  while  in  the  Gulf  of  Maracaibo 
that  Ojeda,  observing  how  the  houses 
of  the  natives  were  built  on  piles 
driven  into  the  water,  gave  to  the 
place  the  name  of  Venezuela,  or 
Little  Venice,  which  the  who  e 
province  bears  to  this  day. 

It  may  have  been  only  an  excess  of 
caution  which  determined  the  histo- 
rian of  the  British  Government  to 
leave  so  ample  a  margin  in  the  matter 
of  these  early  dates  ;  in  certain  other 
matters,  and  in  certain  other  dates 
also,  the  determining  element  would 
appear  to  have  been  rather  a  defi- 


The  Spanish  Main. 


77 


ciency  of  knowledge.  We  do  not  know 
who  is  responsible  for  the  historical 
introduction  to  the  Blue  Book ;  but 
it  certainly  lacks  the  precision  one 
expects  from  a  work  bearing  the 
stamp  of  a  Government.  It  does  not 
appear  to  have  occurred  to  the  writer 
that,  when  in  1580  the  Dutch  first 
began  to  establish  themselves  on  the 
coast  of  Guiana,  they  were  Spanish 
subjects.  They  were  fighting,  it  is 
true,  for  their  independence  ;  but  they 
had  not  yet  won  it,  nor  indeed  were 
they  as  yet  even  united  in  their 
struggle  for  freedom.  A  subject 
nation  does  not  become  free  in  a  day 
by  merely  renouncing  its  allegiance. 
So  long  as  Holland  was  even  in 
theory  a  province  of  Spain,  whatever 
territory  she  acquired  in  any  part  of 
the  world  could  by  the  law  of  nations 
be  held  only  for  the  Spanish  crown. 
The  children  of  slaves  could  not  be 
born  free.  The  independence  of  the 
Netherlands  was  acknowledged  by 
Spain  in  1609.  The  official  histo- 
rian assigns  the  acknowledgment  to 
1648,  when  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
was  closed  by  the  Treaty  of  Mun- 
ster,  or  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia 
as  it  is  more  commonly  called. 
But  he  forgets,  and  it  is  curious 
that,  so  far  as  we  have  seen,  nobody 
has  reminded  him  of  the  Twelve 
Years'  Truce  which  was  signed  be- 
tween Spain  and  the  States-General 
of  the  United  Provinces  in  1609. 
The  basis  and  backbone  of  that  truce, 
over  which  the  Commissioners  had 
been  wrangling  for  three  years,  was 
that  Spain  should  treat  with  her 
rebellious  subjects  as  with  a  free 
people.  "  Recognition  of  our  sove- 
reignty," said  Prince  Maurice,  "  is  the 
foundation-stone  of  these  negotia- 
tions ; "  and  though  he  and  John 
Barneveld  had  long  parted  company 
on  most  points,  they  were  agreed  on 
this.  It  was  a  bitter  pill  for  the 


haughty  Spaniard  to  swallow  ;  but  the 
Dutch  burghers  stood  firm.  The 
treaty  was  signed  at  Antwerp  on 
April  9th,  1609,  first  by  the  Am- 
bassadors of  the  Kings  of  France  and 
Great  Britain  as  mediators,  and  then 
by  the  deputies  of  the  Archdukes  and 
of  the  States-General.  The  first 
article  was  to  this  effect  :  That  the 
Archdukes  declared,  as  well  in  their 
own  name  as  that  of  the  King,  that 
they  were  content  to  treat  with  the 
Lords  the  States-General  of  the  United 
Provinces  in  quality  of,  and  as  holding 
them  for,  countries,  provinces,  and 
free  states,  over  which  they  pretended 
to  nothing.  Another  article  declared 
that  each  party  should  remain  seized 
of  their  respective  possessions,  and  be 
not  troubled  therein  by  the  other 
party  during  the  truce.  It  is  true 
that  the  war  was  renewed  in  the  year 
following  the  expiration  of  the  truce, 
but  it  was  waged  then  on  a  different 
footing.  Spain  might  solace  her 
wounded  dignity  by  professing  to  be 
occupied  once  again  in  chastising  her 
rebellious  subjects  ;  but  the  Powers 
of  Europe  recognised  that  the  war  was 
now  between  the  Kingdom  of  Spain 
and  the  Republic  of  the  United 
Provinces.  The  birth  of  Dutch 
independence  dates  not  from  the  year 
1648  but  from  the  year  1609. 

However,  these  facts  do  not,  we 
presume,  affect  the  matter  at  issue 
between  Great  Britain  and  Venezuela  ; 
nor  do  they  come  strictly  within  the 
scope  of  this  article.  Here,  for  the 
present,  we  must  part  from  Mr.  Rod- 
way,  and  we  part,  on  our  side,  in  all 
good  will.  If  we  have  been  compelled 
to  join  issue  with  him  on  some  few 
points,  at  least  we  owe  him  a  debt  of 
gratitude  for  the  opportunity  of  re- 
newing our  acquaintance  with  one  of 
the  most  stirring  and  romantic,  and 
certainly  not  one  of  the  least  important, 
chapters  in  the  Story  of  the  Nations. 


THOMAS   HUGHES. 


ON  March  25th  was  buried  quietly 
at  Brighton  the  body  of  one  whom  all 
that  knew  him,  and  many  who  did 
not,  spoke  of  and  thought  of  as  Tom 
Hughes. 

The  mind  of  the  present  writer 
runs  back  thirty  years,  and  he  recalls 
his  excitement  and  joy  when,  as  a 
boy,  he  first  saw  the  author  of  TOM 
BROWN'S  SCHOOLDAYS  in  the  flesh. 
He  had  come  to  see  his  son ;  and  his 
son's  schoolfellow  remembers  how  he 
wrote  an  extra  letter  to  his  home  that 
week  giving  accurate  details  of  the 
hero's  height,  complexion,  hair  (of 
this,  even  in  those  days,  there  was  not 
much),  his  look,  his  voice.  The  voice 
was  heard  at  the  boys'  Debating 
Society  trouncing  a  profane  young 
Tory  who  did  not  speak  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  with  the  respect  due  to 
so  good  and  great  a  man ;  during  the 
last  decade  the  voice,  we  may  observe, 
altered  somewhat  on  that  topic. 

Tom  Hughes  was  just  the  man  to 
join  a  boys'  debate;  he  was  a  boy 
himself  in  all  essentials  to  the  very 
end.  The  title-page  of  his  famous 
book  records  that  it  was  written  by 
an  Old  Boy;  and  that  is  precisely 
what  he  was.  In  a  recent  letter  to  a 
young  and  unknown  correspondent  in 
America,  he  styled  himself  an  old  boy 
of  seventy-three.  One  of  the  wisest 
women  who  ever  knew  him  well  called 
him  Master  Tom  ;  and  Master  Tom  in 
certain  ways  he  always  was. 

No  one  could  have  written  TOM 
BROWN'S  SCHOOLDAYS  who  had  not 
the  heart  of  a  boy ;  and  coming  from 
the  heart  of  one  boy  it  entered  into 
the  hearts  of  thousands.  "Let  it  be 
published, "said  his  old  friend  Septimus 


Hansard  on  seeing  the  manuscript, 
"  it  will  be  the  book  for  all  future 
Public  School  boys."  Rugby  knows 
what  he  did  for  cricket  and  all  games. 
He  so  loved  all  manly  sports  that  he 
loathed  the  gambling  which  has  come 
to  be  so  closely  connected  with  too 
many  of  them.  One  of  his  last  public 
appearances  at  Chester  (where  he  was 
a  Judge  of  County  Courts)  was  as  the 
opponent  of  the  National  Sporting 
League.  He  loved  to  confront  the 
strong,  as  his  schoolfellow  Arthur 
Stanley  loved  to  befriend  the  weak. 

In  Parliament  he  was  a  Radical  at 
a  time  when  Radicalism  was  not  the 
popular  and  paying  creed  that  it  has 
been  sometimes  since,  but  he  found  it 
a  "heart-breaking  place."  It  may  be 
a  good  place  for  the  man  who  only 
wants  to  belong  to  what  has  been 
called  the  best  club  in  London,  or  who 
has  axes  of  his  own  to  grind  and 
advertisements  of  himself  to  publish, 
but  not  a  cheerful  home  for  a  man  of 
moral  fervour,  a  man  who  wants  to 
see  some  wrong  righted,  some  good 
work  done.  Of  Co-operation  he  was 
a  pioneer,  and  stood  much  storm  and 
stress  in  its  early  days,  to  the  no 
small  loss  of  patrimony.  That  he 
bore  as  a  boy  might ;  but  when  the 
better  days  came  and  his  former 
colleagues  waxed  fat  and  kicked, 
behaved,  that  is  to  say,  much  like 
other  capitalists,  he  waxed  wroth  and 
sad.  At  one  time  he  was  a  bit  of  a 
Chartist,  and  joining  Kingsley,  in  the 
days  of  Parson  Lot,  he  became  the 
hero  of  the  working  men,  who  in 
due  time  carried  him,  so  to  say, 
shoulder-high  into  Parliament ;  but 
when  they  found  him  to  be  no 


Thomas  Hughes. 


79 


delegate,  and  saw  that  in  that  ample, 
well-poised  head  he  could  carry  two 
ideas  and  see  two  sides  in  some 
questions,  they  turned  against  him 
and  desired  another  king,  some  one  to 
represent  their  narrowness  with  more 
fidelity. 

As  in  the  State,  so  in  the  Church, 
his  breadth  of  mind  was  not  acceptable. 
Of  his  devotion  to  the  Church  none 
who  read  or  heard  his  words  could 
•entertain  a  doubt ;  but  when,  in 
answer  to  an  invitation,  he  spoke  at  a 
Church  Congress  some  years  ago,  he 
was  howled  at  by  the  bigots  of  both 
parties.  He  preferred  Christianity  to 
Churchmanship,  and,  though  fond  of 
faith,  thought  with  Saint  Paul  that 
there  was  something  to  be  said  for  hope 
and  love.  He  had  no  objection  to  a 
fight  ;  but,  not  thinking  a  Church 
Congress  the  best  place  for  one,  he  did 
not  speak  at  such  gatherings  again. 

He  was  for  many  years  a  volunteer, 
inspiring  enthusiasm  and  making 
friends  there  as  elsewhere.  In  the 
army  he  had  two  brothers,  and  to  it 
he  sent  a  son.  He  was  all  for  outdoor 
life,  at  least  in  theory ;  of  late  years 
he  did  not  take  much  air  or  exercise, 
though  he  loved  the  sun  to  the  last, 
and  was  about  to  seek  it  in  Italian  skies 
when  he  died.  His  love  of  outdoor 
life  led  him  to  send  two  sons  out  to 
the  prairies  of  America,  and  perhaps 
was  partly  responsible  for  the  ill-fated 
scheme  of  Rugby,  Tennessee.  Young 
men  were  to  combine  the  beauty  of 
work  with  the  sweetness  of  home ; 
going  out  with  their  own  sisters  they 
were  in  due  time  to  exchange  their 
society  for  that  of  other  people's  sisters. 
The  scheme  failed  dismally,  but  the 
Old  Boy  never  acknowledged,  to  others 
at  least,  that  it  was  more  than  prema- 
ture. That  scheme  recalls  America, 
to  which  he  often  went  and  where  he 
was  almost  worshipped.  He  was  an 
ardent  Northerner  thirty  years  ago, 
and  his  letters  to  THE  SPECTATOR, 


recently  reprinted  as  VACATION  RAM- 
BLES, show  what  he  felt  about  America 
and  what  he  said  there  in  1870.  A 
recent  letter  to  THE  TIMES  from  a 
friend  tells  us  how  keen  a  Northerner 
he  was,  and  how  he  lectured  that 
writer  on  the  subject  without  waiting 
to  discover  that  he  was  "  preaching  to 
the  converted ; "  that,  too,  was  just 
like  him  to  the  last. 

These  rambling  words,  let  us  here 
say,  make  no  pretence  to  tell  the  story 
of  his  life ;  they  only  try  to  show 
how  full  of  interest  and  of  interests 
he  was.  He  touched  life  at  so  many 
points,  and  had  so  many  friends,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  thousands  who 
seemed  to  know  him  and  to  love  him 
through  his  books. 

If  any  one  wished  to  see  him  angry, 
he  might  have  been  recommended  to 
talk  flippant  scepticism ;  to  see  him 
bored,  nothing  was  so  effective  as  an 
allusion  to  his  books,  especially  to 
TOM  BROWN'S  SCHOOLDAYS.  He  was 
absolutely  devoid  of  vanity,  conceit, 
or  literary  spite  ;  he  did  much  to  make 
Lowell's  books  popular  in  England, 
and  to  the  very  last  was  appreciative 
of  the  humblest  effort  in  the  literary 
line,  never  stamping  upon  the  smoking 
flax. 

He  had  two  human  masters,  Doctor 
Arnold  and  F.  D.  Maurice ;  these  were 
the  mainsprings  of  his  life.  The  teach- 
ing of  the  latter  he  carried  to  the 
Working  Men's  College,  where  he  did 
much  for  a  long  time,  and  of  which  he 
was  for  eleven  years  principal.  There 
lies  near  us  an  address  presented  to 
him  on  his  resigning  that  position  in 
1883. 

Of  the  Co-operative  Congress  he 
was  elected  chairman  in  1866,  as  is 
testified  by  a  large  mug  adorned  by  a 
terrible  picture  of  that  official.  Of 
the  Crystal  Palace  also  he  was  chair- 
man. For  many  years  his  face  was 
familiar  in  the  best  society  in  London, 
using  the  adjective  in  no  fashionable 


80 


Thomas  Hughes. 


sense.  Personages  may  have  been 
refreshed  to  meet  a  man  who  was 
too  much  of  a  boy  to  approach 
them  with  bent  back  or  bated  breath. 
The  author  of  THE  BOOK  OP  SNOBS, 
it  may  be  observed,  was  one  of  his 
closest  friends.  Most  of  his  early 
intimates,  such  as  Septimus  Hansard 
and  Matthew  Arnold,  had  gone 
before  him,  but  Dean  Bradley,  the 
Reverend  John  Llewelyn  Davies,  and 
Mr.  J.  M.  Ludlow,  to  name  three 
only,  yet  remain.  Looking  back  on 
his  whole  life,  one  is  moved  to  say  of 
him  what  he  said  of  his  brother  George 
(in  his  charming  MEMOIR  OP  A  BROTHER) 
and  of  Theodore  Walrond,  that  he  did 
much  to  keep  the  atmosphere  of  life 
clean  and  sweet  about  him.  He  was 
essentially  a  wholesome  and  a  manly 
man.  THE  MANLINESS  OP  CHRIST  is, 
some  think,  one  of  the  most  attractive 
of  his  books. 

He  had  his  oddities,  his  limitations, 
but  they  need  not  be  mentioned  here. 
He  loved,  as  he  expressed  it,  to  "  sit  at 
home  in  his  own  mind,"  and  a  roomy, 
well-furnished  place  to  sit  in  it  was. 
His  memory  was  marvellous,  not  for 
details  of  daily  life,  but  for  long  pas- 
sages of  poetry,  odds  and  ends,  quaint 
Berkshire  stories,  with  which  he  would 
illustrate  and  illumine  passing  topics. 
A  talker  he  was  not,  save  in  an  inter- 
jectional,  exclamatory  or  declamatory 
fashion,  at  least  in  later  years.  His 
imaginative  power  was  so  great  that 
he  fancied  he  disliked  the  daily  and 
weekly  papers  As  a  fact,  few  people 
were  fonder  of  them  or  read  them 


with  greater  assiduity ;  and  though 
he  may  have  liked  "  staying  in  his 
own  mind  "  he  was  also  fond  of  travel 
in  foreign  countries,  as  may  be  seen 
from  his  letters  sent  to  THE  SPECTATOR 
under  the  signature  Vacuus  Viator, 
from  1862  to  1895,  and  republished, 
as  has  been  said,  last  year. 

His  liberality  was  wonderful.  Until 
the  letters  addressed  to  him  fell  into 
other  hands,  no  one  knew  how  many 
asked  help  of  him,  and  got  it.  He 
was  not  always  wise  in  this  matter ; 
his  boyish  trustfulness  being  in  this, 
as  in  some  other  things,  his  bane. 
He  believed  almost  any  story,  recog- 
nised fictitious  claims,  gave  large  sums, 
forgot  that  he  had  given,  and  there- 
fore gave  again.  Such  a  man,  such  a 
boy,  wanted  some  one  by  him  to  shield, 
support,  and  cheer  him,  for  though 
cheery  he  was  not  always  cheerful  ; 
some  one  full  of  sympathy,  courage, 
common  sense  ;  some  one  to  see  things 
as  they  are  ;  some  one  to  attend  to  the 
small  things  of  life,  and  not  only  to  the 
panaceas,  the  great  schemes.  Those 
who  knew  Tom  Hughes  know,  and 
those  who  did  not  may  be  glad  to  hear, 
that  such  a  friend  he  had. 

He  has  gone  from  us  and  left  a  gap 
in  the  world,  in  many  hearts,  in  many 
homes.  His  words  and  deeds  have 
helped  to  make  some  idle  men  useful 
citizens  and  some  old  men  feel  young ; 
his  sunny  face  and  cheery  greeting 
have  brightened  many  lives.  If  some 
forgot  him,  Rugby  did  not,  but  wished 
to  have  his  body  buried  at  the  school 
that  he  loved  and  served  so  well. 


MACMILLAN'S    MAGAZINE. 


JUNE,  1896. 


THE    SECRET   OF    SAINT   FLOREL. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SUNDAY  dawned  fresh  and  bright, 
just  what  an  ideal  country  Sunday 
should  be ;  a  cloudless  sky,  a  soft 
wind,  and  wild  roses  garlanding 
every  hedge.  Bryant  had  ascertained 
that  there  was  trout  in  the  stream, 
and  that  a  considerable  stretch  of 
the  river  was  preserved  by  old  Mr. 
Dene,  which  stretch  he  might  very 
easily  obtain  permission  to  fish. 
This  knowlege  had  sent  him  to  bed  in 
a  particularly  happy  and  contented 
frame  of  mind,  and  he  was  enjoying 
a  rather  prolonged  morning  doze  when 
the  church  clock  struck  nine,  and 
Hugh  entered  the  room  without  any 
ceremony.  "  Come,  I  say,"  he  observed, 
"  aren't  you  going  to  get  up  1  " 

Bryant  turned  over  with  a  yawn, 
and  was  so  startled  at  beholding  the 
other's  attire,  that  he  sat  bolt  up- 
right and  rubbed  his  eyes,  thinking 
he  must  have  been  mistaken.  There 
stood  Hugh  in  his  most  irreproachable 
trousers  and  frock-coat,  holding  his 
cane,  gloves,  and  hat. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  said  Bryant  in 
dismay,  "  what  in  the  world  are  you 
going  to  do  ?  We  can't  go  and  call 
at  Denehurst  at  this  hour  in  the  morn- 
ing." 

"  I    don't  want  to  go  and  call  at 

No.  440. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


Denehurst  just  at  present,"  replied 
Hugh  coolly.  "  I'm  going  to  church, 
and  it  begins  at  ten." 

"  What  are  you  in  such  a  hurry  to 
go  to  church  for  1 "  asked  Bryant, 
when  a  sudden  thought  struck  him. 
"  Ah,  I  remember  now  ;  Phoebe  comes 
to  church,  doesn't  she  1  Well,  you 
can  go  to  church  without  me,  I  suppose, 
can't  you  1  How  do  you  know  I 
sha'n't  fall  in  love  with  her  myself, 
and  cut  you  out,  eh  1 " 

But  the  end  of  it  was  that  Hugh 
somehow  prevailed,  and  ten  o'clock, 
thanks  to  his  enthusiasm,  found  them 
entering  the  ancient  door  of  the 
Church  of  St.  -Matthew,  Coltham.  It 
was  a  quaint  little  place,  with  white- 
washed walls  whereon  were  many 
tablets  commemorating  the  virtues  of 
bygone  Denes  ;  there  were  oaken  pews 
worn  black  with  age,  and  the  stone 
floor  was  uneven  from  the  same  cause. 
No  restorer's  hand  had  as  yet  invaded 
it,  and  perhaps  there  were  valuable 
frescoes  under  the  whitewash,  and 
unsuspected  carving  in  the  clumsy 
oak  pews ;  nevertheless  the  rude  and 
homely  aspect  of  everything  har- 
monised pleasantly  enough  with  the 
sunburned  and  rather  vacant  faces  of 
the  rustic  congregation.  Several 
windows  were  open,  and  a  family  of 
young  swallows,  in  a  nest  against  one 

G 


82 


The  Secret  o/  Saint  FloreL 


of  the  heavy  rafters  of  the  roof,  was 
in  process  of  being  fed  with  many 
chirps  from  the  parent  birds  as  they 
swooped  fearlessly  in  and  out.  Beyond 
the  open  door,  through  the  porch,  a 
patch  of  sunlit  turf,  golden  with 
buttercups,  looked  intensely  bright 
in  contrast  to  the  cool  darkened 
shadows  of  the  church.  All  round, 
through  every  window,  the  ill-kept  space 
of  graveyard  could  be  seen,  its  surface 
heaved  into  grassy  mounds  that  seemed 
like  waves  on  a  peaceful  and  silent 
sea,  whose  gentle  tide  had  overflowed 
the  lives  of  such  of  the  hamlet  as  had 
been  gathered  to  their  fathers.  The 
soft  wind  murmured  among  dock  and 
nettle  and  white  hemlock  ;  the  bees 
were  astir  in  daisies  and  clover  ;  the 
butterflies  danced  in  the  sunshine ; 
and  all  things  alive  seemed  to  rejoice 
in  the  very  act  of  living,  with  no 
dogging  thought  of  those  others  who 
slept  so  near  at  hand. 

Bryant  and  his  friend  reached  the 
church  in  more  than  ample  time  for 
service ;  and  now  the  former  ob- 
served that  a  game  of  follow-my-leader 
was  about  to  be  begun,  and  that  the 
leader  was  not  to  be  himself.  Hugh, 
(whose  familiarity  with  the  interior 
of  the  sacred  edifice  suspiciously 
smacked  of  previous  exploration) 
marched  straight  up  the  aisle  to- 
wards the  chancel,  in  spite  of  whispered 
protestations  from  Bryant,  who  wished 
to  be  near  the  door  in  order  to  escape 
if  desirable.  Hugh  turned  a  deaf 
ear  to  all  remonstrances,  and  finally  in- 
troduced himself  and  his  companion 
into  a  pew  in  the  chancel  immediately 
behind  one  of  the  benches  occupied 
by  the  rustic  choir,  to  whose  melody 
Bryant  reflected  with  a  shudder  that 
he  would  be  compelled  to  listen  at 
rather  close  quarters.  Immediately 
opposite,  and  behind  the  correspond- 
ing bench,  was  another  pew,  well 
cushioned  and  evidently  belonging  to 
a  family  of  some  standing.  Bryant 


had  just  begun  to  consider  the  situa- 
tion when  the  organ  struck  up,  the 
old  parson  in  an  ample  surplice  (they 
were  Low  Church  at  Coltham)  came 
into  the  reading-desk,  and  the  service 
began. 

Hugh's  face  of  disgust  as  the  con- 
gregation rose  was  a  sight  to  see  ;  but 
the  first  sentences  of  the  exhortation 
had  hardly  been  read  before  the  door 
under  the  tower  opened  and  (so  in- 
fectious is  enthusiastic  curiosity)  Bry- 
ant felt  himself  turn  as  eagerly  as  his 
companion  to  see  who  was  coming. 
Just  as  the  exhortation  concluded  and 
every  one  knelt,  the  opposite  pew  had 
received  its  occupants,  and  they  saw 
before  them  the  lady  of  the  miniature. 

If  her  loveliness  had  been  striking 
in  her  portrait,  it  was  ten  times  more 
so  in  reality,  for  no  pictured  beauty 
can  equal  that  which  lives  and 
breathes.  You  may  lay  on  your 
pigments  as  cunningly  as  you  please ; 
they  will  never  equal  the  rose-leaf  hue 
on  a  maiden's  cheek,  or  the  sunny 
gleam  of  her  hair.  In  this  particular 
instance,  too,  beauty  was  the  more 
striking  for  its  remarkable  foil.  Lovely 
Phoebe  was  tall  for  a  woman,  and 
graceful  as  a  swan  ;  but  standing 
beside  her,  and  of  a  stature  which  cer- 
tainly did  not  greatly  exceed  four  feet 
and  a  half,  was  a  dwarf,  a  man  prob- 
ably of  about  five  and  twenty,  though 
his  countenance  had  a  hideous  kinship 
with  an  age  which  his  years  did  not 
warrant.  He  was  faultlessly  dressed  ; 
indeed  the  extraordinary  nicety  of  his 
costume  rendered  his  unpleasant  ap- 
pearance the  more  conspicuous.  His 
forehead  was  well-shaped,  and  be- 
tokened considerable  intelligence  ;  his 
eyes  were  dark,  narrow,  and  set  very 
close  to  his  nose,  which  was  aquiline 
with  delicate  nostrils  ;  the  upper  part 
of  his  face  was  clean  shaved,  but 
round  his  pointed  chin  grew  a  thin 
curly  beard,  rising  into  whiskers 
which  just  touched  the  corners  of- 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


83 


his  thin-lipped  mouth,  accentuating 
its  length  and  straightness.  A  colder 
or  more  cunning  face  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  imagine  ;  and  Hugh  would 
have  been  petrified  with  horror  at  this 
misshapen  creature's  contiguity  to  the 
lady,  if  the  warmth  of  his  admiration 
for  the  latter  had  not  thawed  him. 

They  included  the  Litany  and  Com- 
munion Service  in  the  morning-prayer 
at  Coltham,  so  that  the  hours  of  wor- 
ship were  somewhat  prolonged ;  but 
although  Bryant  silently  rebelled, 
Hugh  did  not  find  his  religious  obser- 
vances at  all  tedious.  Phoebe  was 
naturally  conscious  that  there  were 
two  strangers  in  church,  and,  seeing 
that  she  led  the  most  secluded  life, 
felt  a  little  maidenly  curiosity  about 
them.  She  was  not,  however,  at  all 
a  self-conscious  young  person,  and  hav- 
ing stolen  a  look  at  the  two  men,  and 
decided  that  the  younger  and  taller 
was  the  most  attractive,  though  the 
other  had  a  pleasant  face,  she  turned 
her  attention  to  her  devotions,  and 
to  shutting  out  Mason  Sawbridge's 
unpleasant  face  from  her  sight  by 
an  ingenious  arrangement  of  her 
hand  when  on  her  knees.  The  dwarf 
on  his  part  cast  crafty  and  not  alto- 
gether propitious  glances  into  the  op- 
posite pew,  constantly  turning  his  big 
head  towards  his  lovely  cousin,  as 
though  to  assure  himself  that  her 
looks  were  not  also  wandering  in 
that  direction. 

Rather  to  Bryant's  surprise  Hugh 
hurried  out  as  soon  as  the  last  fold  of 
the  old  parson's  surplice  had  disap- 
peared ;  he  walked  round  to  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  church,  and  standing 
among  the  graves  gave  vent  to  a  lusty 
and  strong  observation,  hardly  befit- 
ting the  sacred  surroundings.  "  D — 
it,"  he  cried,  "  it's  enough  to  make 
a  fellow  sick  !  " 

"  Perhaps  she  has  an  affection  for 
him,"  suggested  Bryant  soothingly ; 
for  he  guessed  the  other's  thoughts, 


and  the  contrast  between  the  couple 
had  not  been  without  its  effect  even 
on  himself. 

"  Affection  !  "  echoed  Hugh,  with 
some  heat.  "  How  can  you  even 
say  such  a  thing  1  Toleration  is  all 
she  could  possibly  experience  for  such 
a  creature." 

"  Still  you  don't  as  yet  know  any- 
thing of  the  position  of  affairs  between 
them.  You  can't  possibly  be  sure  of 
anything." 

"  Didn't  you  see  how  she  kept 
shrinking  away  every  time  his  coat 
happened  to  brush  against  her  dress  1 
She  didn't  let  him  even  find  the 
hymns,  though  he  kept  offering  her 
his  book.  She  hates  him ;  I'm  as 
sure  of  it  as  though  she  had  told  me." 

"You  had  better  riot  jump  to  any 
rash  conclusions,"  advised  Bryant. 
"  You  probably  intend  to  offer  yourself 
as  knight-errant." 

"There  they  go ! "  interrupted  Hugh, 
as  he  caught  sight  of  a  white  dress 
round  the  corner.  "  Now  I  intend 
to  follow  at  a  respectful  distance," 
and  off  he  set. 

As  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by 
meditating  among  the  tombs  Bryant 
followed,  not  without  a  certain  grow- 
ing interest  in  the  development  of 
events. 

Phoebe's  tall  figure,  in  soft  white 
dress  and  shady  hat,  sailed  gracefully 
along  at  an  easy  pace,  to  which  her 
companion  kept  up  with  an  uncouth 
amble.  They  followed  the  road  with 
its  dusty  hedges  for  some  time  and 
then  turned  down  a  shady  lane. 
Along  one  side  ran  a  broad  ditch, 
evidently  a  little  stream  in  winter, 
though  now  its  stagnant  waters  were 
covered  with  a  white-flowered  plant. 
A  few  yards  down  the  lane  a  rustic 
bridge  crossed  the  ditch  to  a  little 
swinging  wicket  leading  to  what  was 
evidently  a  private  footpath.  These 
details  Hugh  and  Bryant  discovered 
upon  a  nearer  approach,  for  they 

G  2 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


naturally  did  not  follow  closely  enough 
to  make  themselves  conspicuous. 
"  And  now,"  said  Bryant  with  a  fine 
sarcasm,  "  perhaps  you  will  condescend 
to  some  lunch." 

That  afternoon  about  three  o'clock 
they  presented  themselves  at  the  great 
iron  gates  on  the  high-road,  and  in- 
terrogated the  lodge-keeper.  "  No  one 
visits  here  o'  Sundays,"  was  the  answer 
to  their  request  for  admission ;  and 
they  were  obliged  to  return  after 
leaving  their  cards  with  On  business 
connected  with  the  Island  of  Reunion 
scribbled  on  them  in  pencil. 

There  was  nothing  attractive  about 
the  bar-parlour  of  the  Red  Lion  on 
Sunday,  so  the  two  friends  set  out 
for  a  stroll  after  dinner.  It  was 
a  lovely  evening,  so  quiet  that  the 
flight  of  a  startled  blackbird  seemed 
an  event,  and  the  noiseless  flitting  of 
the  ghostly  little  bats  came  as  a  sur- 
prise. It  was  growing  rapidly  dark, 
but  the  moon  shone  pale  in  the  eastern 
sky,  gathering  a  subtle  radiance 
as  the  light  of  a  lingering  sunset 
slowly  faded.  Overhead  in  the  still 
colourless  arch  of  heaven  one  or  two 
faint  stars  were  trembling,  and  all 
unquiet  things  seemed  to  be  holding 
their  breath  while  Nature  sank  to 
sleep.  They  walked  along  silently 
enough,  scarcely  meeting  a  soul,  and 
Hugh  led  the  way  past  the  church 
and  down  the  lane.  He  did  not  hesi- 
tate at  the  bridge  but  passed  over  and 
opened  the  wicket. 

"I  say,  Strong,"  remonstrated  his 
friend,  "  this  is  downright  trespassing." 

"  There's  no  notice-board,"  returned 
the  unabashed  Hugh.  "  If  any  one 
meets  us,  we  can  say  we  are  strangers 
in  the  neighbourhood." 

They  went  along  a  winding  path, 
apparently  little  used  and  leading 
among  trees  of  every  description ;  at 
some  date  an  attempt  had  been  made 
to  render  this  more  ornamental  by 
means  of  rock-work  here  and  there 


and  rustic  seats.  But  all  efforts  to 
keep  them  in  order  had  evidently  long 
since  ceased,  for  the  wooden  seats  were 
rotting  or  overthrown,  and  moss  and 
rank  weeds  had  invaded  the  stone- 
work. Presently  some  rhododendrons, 
straggling  and  pale  from  growing  in 
the  shade,  seemed  to  hint  at  a  nearer 
approach  to  a  garden,  and  Bryant, 
hesitating  to  go  further,  lingered  a 
step  or  two  behind  his  companion. 
The  latter  still  went  on ;  but  he  had 
advanced  barely  a  dozen  paces  before 
he  gave  an  involuntary  exclamation 
of  surprise  which  speedily  caused 
Bryant  to  join  him. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  path,  after  running  for  a  few 
yards  behind  a  clump  of  rhododendrons, 
suddenly  ended  in  a  small  lawn  shut 
in  by  trees  on  three  sides,  while  on  the 
fourth,  exactly  opposite  to  them,  rose 
a  wing  of  the  old  red  brick  house 
called  Denehurst.  The  lawn  was 
narrow,  and  the  night  was  now  bright, 
and  so  still  that  every  sound  reached 
them  plainly  as  they  stood  concealed 
behind  the  shrubs.  Three  gray  stone 
steps  led  up  from  the  grass  to  the 
open  French  windows  of  a  large  room, 
inside  which  they  could  see  a  dinner- 
table  with  fruit  and  wine  still  upon  it. 
The  occupants  were  three  :  a  hand- 
some gray-bearded  old  man  whose 
long  white  hair  gave  him  a  most 
venerable  appearance  ;  the  hunchback 
they  had  seen  in  church,  now  arrayed  in 
dress  clothes  as  faultless  as  his  morning 
garb  ;  and  the  beautiful  Phoebe.  The 
old  man  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table  in 
an  ancient  carved  oak  chair,  his  magnifi- 
cent profile  standing  out  clearly  against 
the  background  of  dark  wood  with 
which  the  room  was  panelled.  Mason 
Sawbridge,  the  hunchback,  sat  oppo- 
site the  window  on  the  other  side  of 
the  table,  upon  which  the  strong 


The  Secret  qf  Saint  Florel. 


85 


light  of  a  lamp  rendered  everything 
plainly  visible.  The  decanters  and 
dishes  of  fruit  had  been  hastily 
pushed  aside  before  himself  and  the 
old  man,  so  hastily  indeed  that  a 
glass  of  wine  had  been  upset,  and  its 
red  stain  on  the  white  cloth  somehow 
reminded  Hugh  of  blood.  The  lamp- 
light shone  upon  a  great  pile  of  gold 
coin  heaped  between  the  two  men 
who  were  throwing  dice.  The  spec- 
tators could  plainly  hear  the  rattle  of 
the  cubes  as  the  old  man  played. 
The  number  fell.  "  Mine  ! "  cried 
Mason  exultantly,  and  he  watched  his 
antagonist  with  greedy  eyes,  as  he 
doled  out  a  pile  of  gold  from  his  own 
heap  and  pushed  it  across  the  table. 
This  time  it  was  the  hunchback's 
throw,  and  again  he  won,  announcing 
the  fact  rather  superciliously.  Again  a 
heap  of  gold  was  transferred,  and  now 
the  old  man  clutched  the  dice.  He 
rattled  them  with  a  half  senile  smile 
for  so  long  that  the  other  grew  im- 
patient. 

"  Come,  don't  play  the  fool,"  he 
cried  roughly  ;  "  throw,  if  you  want  to 
go  on  with  the  game."  Dennis  Dene 
threw  and  again  he  lost ;  the  gold 
pieces  were  counted  out  grudgingly, 
and  the  loser's  face  grew  pitifully 
anxious  as  he  saw  his  pile  of  money 
diminishing.  So  the  play  went  on, 
while  Phoebe,  leaning  against  the 
frame  of  the  window,  turned  her  sweet 
face  full  to  the  moonlight  and  stood 
gazing  out  into  the  garden  with  her 
back  to  the  game.  She  wore  a  look 
of  patient  weariness  and  sadness 
that  would  have  touched  colder 
hearts  than  those  of  the  two  unseen 
watchers  among  the  shrubs. 

"  She  looks  like  an  angel  turning 
away  from  sin,"  whispered  Hugh  with 
unexpected  fancy.  "  Oh,  if  I  can  only 
get  her  out  of  this  ! " 

James  Bryant  was  certainly  not  a 
sentimental  or  impulsive  person,  but 
the  geniality  of  his  nature  leaped  into 


a  warmer  feeling  as  he  turned  from 
the  strange  spectacle  they  were  wit- 
nessing to  look  at  his  companion. 
Hugh's  face  had  a  curious  expression 
of  concentrated  eagerness  and  tender 
pity,  and  as  the  other  looked,  he 
realised  at  once  that  his  companion 
was  in  earnest. 

"  If  I  could  only  get  her  out  of 
this,"  murmured  Hugh  again. 

"  I'm  with  you  there,  old  fellow," 
answered  Bryant  with  less  deliberation 
than  usual. 

But  the  strange  scene  they  were 
witnessing  was  not  yet  over.  The 
play  grew  more  rapid  and  the  players 
more  excited ;  the  dice  rattled,  and 
the  coins  clinked  as  they  were  hastily 
handled ;  the  hunchback's  laugh  be- 
came more  exultant,  and  his  manner 
more  overbearing  as  the  luck  fell  to 
him  again  and  again,  while  the  old 
gamester's  fingers  trembled  with  ner- 
vousness, and  his  fine  face  seemed  to 
grow  pinched  and  shrunken  with 
anxiety.  At  last  Phoebe  turned  and 
moved  away  from  the  window ;  they 
could  see  her  figure  pass  across  the 
room  to  her  uncle's  chair.  His  eager 
fingers  were  clutching  the  dice  again, 
when  she  laid  her  own  upon  them  ;  at 
the  touch  his  hands  fell  nervelessly  on 
to  the  table  before  him,  and  he 
glanced  up  at  her  beautiful  face  with 
something  like  fear,  which  turned  to 
shame  at  the  grave  rebuke  of  her 
eyes. 

"  Playing  again,  Dennis  1 "  she  said 
quietly.  "  After  your  promise  !  " 

"Only  a  throw  or  two  more, 
Lucy1?"  he  pleaded  with  pitiful  earnest- 
ness. "  Just  two  more,  say ;  it's  true 
I  have  lost,  but  a  couple  of  chances 
more  may  give  me  all  that  back  again," 
and  he  pointed  wistfully  to  the  pile  of 
coin  on  his  antagonist's  side  of  the 
table. 

"  Not  one  !  "  she  said  firmly.  "  Put 
the  dice  down,  Dennis,  and  come 
away  ;  come  with  me." 


86 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Fiord. 


"  Let  him  alone,  Phoebe,  if  he  likes 
to  play,"  interrupted  Mason.  "  It's 
amusing  to  me  to  see  how  excited  he 
always  gets  over  the  rubbish ;  and  I 
do  not  get  much  amusement  now- 
adays." 

Phoebe  did  not  answer  or  even  look 
towards  the  speaker ;  she  kept  her 
hands  upon  her  uncle's,  who  had  bowed 
his  head  upon  his  chest,  and  over 
whose  features  a  painfully  senile  ex- 
pression had  begun  to  steal,  as  his 
flush  of  excitement  died  away. 

"  Come  away,  Dennis  !  Come  away 
with  me,"  she  repeated. 

"  No,  no ;  go,  go  !  Why  do  you 
interrupt  me  and  worry  me  like  this  1 
Go  away,  my  dear ;  you  are  only  a 
woman  after  all,  and  cannot  under- 
s  and  men's  business  !  " 

"  Dennis,"  she  insisted,  "  you  pro- 
mised." 

"  I  promised,  he  repeated  after 
her,  mechanically  and  more  quietly. 

"  Let  him  alone,  Phoebe,"  said  the 
hunchback  again,  watching  her  efforts 
with  a  malicious  smile. 

She  laid  her  hands  on  the  old  man's 
white  head,  and  smoothed  his  hair 
gently  for  a  moment.  "  You  will 
come  away  now,  Dennis,"  she  pleaded. 
"  Come  and  dance ;  it  is  such  a  long 
time  since  we  danced." 

"  You  danced  this  morning,"  said 
Mason  in  a  harsh  voice.  "  You  make 
the  old  man  much  more  addle-brained, 
Phoebe,  with  humouring  him  like 
that." 

But  the  hunchback's  contradictory 
tone  roused  a  similar  spirit  in  his 
uncle,  who  rose  and  clapped  his  hands. 
"  A  good  idea,  child ;  a  very  good 
idea.  I  do  not  approve  of  Mason's 
interference.  We  will  dance  at 
once." 

He  pushed  back  the  table  with 
some  eagerness,  and  from  a  chair  in 
the  far  corner  of  the  room  produced  a 
violin.  After  a  preliminary  scrape 
across  the  strings,  he  placed  it  in 


position  under  his  chin,  and  gravely 
advanced  to  the  open  space  of  floor 
where  Phoebe  stood  waiting.  And 
now,  as  the  first  movements  of  the 
minuet  began,  the  music  began  also ; 
a  strange  wild  strain  of  rhythmless 
melody,  whose  mournful  and  bewilder- 
ing cadences  were  an  echo  from  the 
player's  disordered  brain.  The  sounds 
were  as  the  unwritten  harmonies  that 
are  born  of  wood  and  wind  and  water, 
while  every  now  and  then  came  a 
discordant  crash  when  the  bow  trem- 
bled in  the  old  man's  fingers,  and 
swept  the  strings  with  a  bodily  power 
which  had  no  mental  guide  for  its 
balance.  Every  wave  of  alternating 
strength  and  weakness  that  passed 
over  his  intelligence  was  faithfully  re- 
produced in  the  irregular  sweetness 
and  discord  of  his  music.  All  the 
time  his  stately  presence  moved  with 
the  utmost  correctness  through  the 
courtly  measure  of  the  minuet,  which 
Phoebe,  with  pale  face  and  a  certain 
reserved  dignity  of  mien,  was  dancing 
with  him.  Behind  the  table,  on  which 
the  pile  of  coin  glittered  like  a  great 
yellow  flame  in  the  lamplight,  stood 
Mason  Sawbridge,  his  hands  thrust 
deep  into  his  pockets,  his  shoulders 
curving  forward  till  they  literally 
seemed  at  the  level  of  his  ears,  his  crafty 
face  suffused  with  a  sardonic  grin  of 
mockery  which  every  now  and  then 
found  vent  in  a  harsh  guttural  laugh. 
The  two  spectators  behind  the  rhodo- 
dendrons were  gazing  at  this  extra- 
ordinary scene  with  what  could  only 
be  described  as  fascination.  At  length, 
however,  as  the  hunchback  gave  a 
more  unpleasant  laugh  than  usual, 
Bryant,  who  was  perhaps  less  absorbed 
than  his  companion,  seized  the  latter 
by  the  arm,  just  as  he  was  apparently 
meditating  a  rush  forward,  and  forci- 
bly dragged  him  back  for  a  few  paces. 
Once  away  from  the  moonlit  lawn  and 
open  window,  and  standing  in  the 
dark  little  path  by  which  they  had 


The  Secret  q£  Saint  Florel. 


87 


come,  Hugh  gave  a  gasp  and  recovered 
himself. 

"  Good  God,"  he  cried,  "  surely  we 
must  be  living  in  some  horrible  night- 
mare !  I  never  saw  such  a  sight  in 
my  life." 

"  Nor  I  either,"  returned  Bryant 
truthfully. 

"  What  does  it  all  mean  1  Why, 
that  poor  girl  must  be  nearly  ready 
for  a  lunatic  asylum  by  now,  if  this 
sort  of  thing  has  been  going  on 
long." 

"  The  old  gentleman,"  said  Bryant, 
"  is  of  course  our  deceased  friend 
Anthony's  uncle  ;  and,  according  to  the 
innkeeper,  he  is  also  uncle  to  the  lady 
and  the  hunchback.  Of  course  he's 
mad ;  and  that  crooked  nephew  of 
his  obviously  does  his  best  to  en- 
courage the  gambling  tastes  that 
have  ruined  him.  To-morrow  we 
will  call :  but  I  should  not  be  at  all 
surprised  if  our  interview  was  of  the 
briefest." 

"  And  that  beautiful  girl  too, — to 
be  condemned  to  live  with  such  com- 
panions. It's  heartrending  ! "  Bryant 
did  not  answer,  and  Hugh  presently 
began  again.  "  What  a  revolting  ex- 
istence !  One  can  see  she  is  unhappy. 
I  don't  intend  to  give  her  up,  Bryant." 
Still  his  friend  made  no  reply.  "  I 
don't  intend  to  give  her  up,"  repeated 
Hugh  with  quite  a  threatening  inflec- 
tion in  his  tone. 

"  I  don't  suggest  that  you  should," 
answered  Bryant. 

"  Then  why  don't  you  say  some- 
thing," said  Hugh  almost  angrily, 
"  instead  of  never  opening  your 
lips  ? " 

"  What  do  you  want  me  to  say  1 " 

"  Well,  you  might  give  a  fellow  a 
little  sympathy  and  advice." 

"  Oh,  if  you  want  advice,  you  can 
have  it.  Be  sure  of  your  ground  before 
you  jump,  Strong;  men  who  plunge 
forward  after  a  woman  whom  they 
know  nothing  about  are  very  apt, 


metaphorically  speaking,  to  break 
their  necks.  To  judge  from  what 
little  I  have  seen,  this  hardly  appears 
a  very  desirable  family  to  marry 
into." 

This  was  the  voice  of  cold  prudence 
with  a  vengeance  ;  and,  moreover,  there 
was  a  vein  of  reason  running  through 
Bryant's  observations  that  Hugh  felt 
himself  unwillingly  compelled  to  ac- 
knowledge. "  There  may  be  some- 
thing in  what  you  say,"  he  admitted, 
"  and  I  don't  want  to  make  a  fool  of 
myself ;  but  all  the  same  I'm  in  ear- 
nest, Bryant.  There's  a  saying  about 
marriages  being  made  in  heaven,  you 
know." 

"  Look  here,"  said  Bryant ;  "  I'm  a 
good  ten  years  older  than  you,  and 
one  way  and  another  I've  known  a 
good  deal  about  women.  There  may 
be  marriages  that  are  made  in  heaven : 
the  powers  above  forbid  that  I  should 
deny  their  prerogative  ;  but  it  strikes 
me  that  the  percentage  of  celestially- 
planned  unions  is  very  small.  I 
wouldn't  venture  upon  one  myself  on 
such  a  presumption." 

"  Of  course  I  know  you're  a  con- 
firmed old  bachelor,"  answered  Hugh. 
"  Still,  you  see,  if  every  one  was  of 
your  opinion  mankind  would  come  to 
an  end." 

"  Well,  you  won't  assist  in  the  ex- 
tinction of  humanity  by  listening  to 
anything  I  say,  I  am  quite  aware  of 
that,"  said  Bryant;  "and  now  here 
we  are  on  the  road  again.  I  think 
we  had  better  both  sleep  over  this 
matter  before  we  talk  about  it  any 
more ;  our  brains  will  be  clearer." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  next  morning,  while  they  were 
breakfasting,  a  boy  brought  a  note 
addressed  to  Bryant.  It  was  written 
on  the  thickest  and  most  costly  of 
crested  paper  and  ran  as  follows,  in 


88 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


an    exceedingly     clear    and     minute 
handwriting. 

DENEHURST, 
Monday  morning. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, — I  exceedingly  regret 
that,  through,  the  stupidity  of  the  lodge- 
keeper,  you  should  have  been  refused 
admittance  yesterday,  and  must  apologise 
for  a  seeming  discourtesy  that  I  trust  you 
will  not  impute  to  myself.  My  uncle,  now 
in  failing  health,  was  at  one  time  so  much 
worried  by  visitors  upon  all  sorts  of  business 
matters,  that  I  was  compelled  to  make 
some  arrangement  for  the  prevention  of 
the  annoyance,  by  forbidding  callers  on 
Sundays.  If  three  o'clock  this  afternoon 
will  be  a  convenient  time  to  come,  I  shall 
be  most  happy  to  see  you  at  that  hour,  and 
to  hear  what  has  brought  you  to  Coltham. 
I  presume,  from  the  message  on  your  card, 
that  your  visit  is  connected  with  the  sad 
news  of  my  cousin  Anthony's  death,  which 
we  received  a  short  time  ago.  Again 
apologising  for  the  annoyance  you  have 
been  caused,  Believe  me,  Sir,  faithfully 
yours, — MASON  SAWBRIDGE. 

"  That's  civil  enough,"  observed 
Hugh,  when  he  had  read  this  effusion 
which  his  companion  handed  to  him 
for  perusal. 

Bryant  nodded,  and  forthwith  pro- 
ceeded to  despatch  an  answer,  intimat- 
ing that  they  would  be  at  Denehurst 
at  the  hour  suggested. 

In  spite  of  the  heavy  financial  em- 
barrassments which  had  pressed  upon 
the  estate,  and  to  meet  which  a  good 
deal  of  valuable  timber  had  been  felled, 
there  still  remained  some  magnificent 
clumps  of  trees  in  the  park,  which, 
together  with  a  fine  avenue  and  a  con- 
siderable extent  of  wood  beyond,  gave 
Denehurst  a  most  attractive  appear- 
ance. The  afternoon  sun  was  sending 
broad  shafts  of  light  upon  the  cluster- 
ing masses  of  foliage  and  the  spacious 
tracts  of  deep  grass  that  grew  be- 
tween. The  cows  ruminated  con- 
tentedly, and  the  sheep  stopped 
browsing  for  a  moment  to  raise  their 
heads  with  an  inquiring  glance  at  the 
strangers  as  they  passed  up  the  avenue, 
where  the  squirrels  scampered  and 


climbed  and  the  wood-pigeons  cooed 
in  the  topmost  branches.  In  the  heat 
of  the  afternoon  most  of  the  birds 
were  silent,  but  the  occasional  crow 
of  a  pheasant  could  be  heard  from  the 
woods  behind  the  house  ;  and  every 
now  and  again  a  thrush,  that  could 
not  contain  itself  for  joy  at  its  own 
existence,  burst  forth  with  a  few 
ecstatic  notes. 

"  This  doesn't  look  like  a  place  with 
a  skeleton  in  its  cupboard,  does  it  1 " 
remarked  Hugh  presently. 

"Nevertheless  we've  heard  it  rattle," 
replied  Bryant ;  and  so  indeed  they 
had. 

At  the  end  of  the  avenue  was  a 
second  pair  of  gates  admitting  to  the 
garden,  and  here  the  lack  of  funds  on 
the  Denehurst  estate  was  more  appa- 
rent. The  paths  were  grass-grown, 
the  flower-beds  overrun  with  weeds, 
and  the  lawns  in  sad  need  of  mowing. 
The  stone  figure  of  a  Triton  pouring 
water  from  a  shell,  which  had  once 
been  a  fountain,  was  green  from  damp 
and  neglect,  while  the  water  which 
had  once  issued  from  the  shell  had 
long  since  ceased  to  fall  into  a  basin 
now  full  only  of  nettles.  The  house 
was  built  of  red  brick,  mellowed  by 
age  to  a  harmonious  colour ;  there 
was  a  square  central  block,  from  which 
a  wing  extended  to  right  and  left, 
while  its  many  windows  were  closed 
with  green  jalousies.  Only  three  of 
these,  on  the  left  of  the  white- 
columned  portico,  were  open  ;  the  rest 
of  the  house  seemed  uninhabited. 

Hugh  seized  the  ponderous  handle 
at  the  end  of  a  heavy  iron  chain,  which 
evidently  communicated  with  the  hall, 
and  gave  it  a  lusty  pull,  in  answer  to 
which  they  heard  a  faint  jangle  muffled 
by  several  doors  and  passages.  After 
a  pause,  so  long  that  they  were  on  the 
point  of  ringing  again,  a  respectable- 
looking  elderly  man-servant  admitted 
them  to  a  bare  and  lofty  hall  paved 
with  squares  of  black  and  white 


The  Secret  of  .Saint  Florel. 


89 


marble  ;  they  followed  the  man  across 
this,  their  footsteps  echoing  as  though 
down  the  aisle  of  a  church,  to  a  door 
in  a  deep  embrasure,  which  introduced 
them  to  the  drawing-room,  where  they 
were  left  to  their  own  reflections. 

It  was  a  long  narrow  room,  its  walls 
adorned  with  tarnished  white  and  gold 
paper,  while  a  faded  carpet  covered 
part  of  its  parquet  floor.  The  three 
windows  looking  on  the  garden  were 
open,  and  the  fresh  air  and  sunshine 
were  doing  their  best  to  dispel  the 
damp  and  musty  odour  which  told  of 
neglect  and  disuse.  Everything  in 
the  room  seemed  to  belong  to  a  past 
of  sad  and  haunting  memories.  The 
tapestry  covering  the  spindle-legged 
chairs  was  faded  to  one  dull  uniform 
tint  :  the  heavy  gilt  cornices  support- 
ing the  curtains  were  tarnished  to  the 
semblance  of  old  brass  ;  while  the  sun 
had  robbed  the  curtains  themselves  of 
any  decided  colour.  The  nymphs  and 
cupids,  disporting  themselves  on  the 
ceiling  in  a  maze  of  flowers  and  float- 
ing ribbons,  seemed  to  partake  of  the 
general  melancholy  of  the  apartment, 
and  amid  their  smirks  and  dimples  to 
gaze  down  upon  its  faded  glories  with 
a  sad  neutrality  of  expression. 

The  antiquated  air  of  the  room  was 
presently,  however,  rudely  dispelled 
by  the  entrance  of  Mason  Sawbridge 
in  all  the  panoply  of  fashionable  tail- 
oring, and  with  a  swagger  which 
its  attempt  at  geniality  rendered  gro- 
tesque. "  Good  afternoon,  gentlemen," 
he  began ;  "I  am  delighted  to  see 
you,  and  much  regret  that  our  meeting 
should  have  been  delayed.  As  we  have 
not  the  advantage  of  a  common  friend 
you  will  perhaps  introduce  each  other. 
Thanks,  thanks,"  he  continued,  when 
Bryant,  who  now  took  the  lead,  had 
presented  Hugh.  "  And  now  allow 
me  to  ask  what  has  brought  you  both 
to  Coltham  1 " 

"  We  are  entrusted  by  the  Consul 
at  Saint  Denis  with  this  parcel,"  re- 


turned Bryant,  "which  he  asked  us 
either  to  convey  to  Denehurst  or  to 
post.  Owing  to  the  curious  circum- 
stances connected  with  the  death  of 
Mr.  Anthony  Holson,  it  struck  us 
both  that  a  personal  interview  might 
be  more  satisfactory  to  you." 

"Most  kind  of  you,  I'm  sure,"  re- 
turned Sawbridge,  taking  the  packet. 
"A  few  questions  as  to  my  unfor- 
tunate cousin's  affairs  will,  indeed,  be 
a  great  personal  relief.  Poor  An- 
thony ! "  and  he  broke  off  with  a 
sigh  of  regret  which  seemed  genuine 
enough.  "  He  was  presumed  to  have 
met  his  death  in  a  landslip,  I  think 
the  Consul  wrote,"  he  continued  ;  "  but 
was  the  body 'ever  found?" 

"  It  had  not  been  when  we  came 
away,"  returned  Bn^ant ;  "nor  is  it 
likely  ever  to  be  discovered  under 
hundreds  of  tons  of  earth." 

"  There  seem  also  peculiar  circum- 
stances," went  on  the  hunchback  in 
a  lower  tone.  "  My  cousin  appears 
suspected  of  murder." 

"Yes,  he  was,"  said  Bryant  shortly. 

"And, — pardon  my  question — what 
is  your  opinion  ? " 

"  My  dear  sir,"  returned  Bryant, 
"  I  can  only  judge  from  the  same  cir- 
cumstances as  other  people.  The  body 
of  a  woman,  well  known  to  have  been 
on  intimate  terms  with  your  cousin, 
was  found  murdered  under  a  shallow 
covering  of  earth,  with  his  pocket- 
knife  lying  beside  her.  The  matter 
was  considered  suspicious  enough  to 
warrant  the  arrest  of  Mr.  Anthony 
Holson,  if  he  could  be  found ;  but  no 
clue  to  him  could  be  obtained,  and 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
he  is  dead." 

"No  one  ever  saw  him  alive  after  the 
night  of  the  landslip  ? "  asked  Mason. 

"Not  that  I  am  aware  of,"  said 
Bryant. 

"  Then  the  general  impression  in 
Reunion  is  that  my  cousin  is  dead  ? 
You  yourself  think  so  ?  " 


90 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


The  last  words  were  twisted  into 
the  form  of  a  question,  so  Bryant 
answered  :  "  Yes  ;  certainly  I  think 
so." 

"  The  finding  of  Anthony's  knife  be- 
side the  body  of  the  woman  was  the 
only  piece  of  incriminating  evidence  1 
That  is  merely  circumstantial." 

"  It  was  well  known,  of  course,  that 
the  murdered  woman  was  his  mistress," 
returned  Bryant ;  "  and  every  one  in 
his  house  knew  that  he  left  it  on  the 
day  of  the  landslip  to  go  to  Saint  Florel, 
when  the  catastrophe  took  place. 
More  than  that,  no  one  knows." 

"  Apparently  no  one  can  prove  that 
my  cousin  was  ever  in  Saint  Florel  at 
all  on  that  day,  though  every  one 
knew  his  intention  of  going  there," 
said  the  hunchback  with  thoughtful 
deliberation. 

"  I  fancy  not,"  said  Bryant.  "  The 
place  was  very  small  and  some  dis- 
tance from  the  high  road ;  very  few 
people  ever  went  there  except  upon 
business  connected  with  the  estate." 

"  I  cannot  for  one  moment  believe 
that  my  cousin  committed  murder," 
said  Mason  firmly.  "  He  was  a  man 
of  a  somewhat  passionate  tempera- 
ment, but  he  was  certainly  incapable 
of  such  a  crime.  If  he  did  not  do  it, 
and  was  not  himself  killed  by  the 
landslip,  why  did  he  not  return  ?  If 
he  did  do  it,  and  escaped  the  landslip 
by  some  means,  I  cannot  conceive  any 
reason  for  his  remaining  in  hiding. 
You  say  that  no  witness  against  him 
remained  1 " 

"  Every  living  soul  in  Saint  Florel 
was  buried  alive,  I  believe,"  answered 
Bryant. 

"  For  the  sake  of  the  argument  I 
will  stretch  a  point,"  said  Mason, 
"  and  admit  that  my  poor  cousin  did 
commit  the  murder.  Supposing  that 
to  be  so,  and  that  every  one  but  him- 
self was  killed,  why  should  he  have 
shrunk  from  taking  his  trial  ?  The 
mere  circumstance  of  his  knife  being 


found  near  the  body  would  not  have 
been  enough  to  convict  him,  and  no 
other  witness  was  possible.  No  ;  I  fear 
I  must  allow  myself  to  be  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  is  dead,"  and  again 
he  sighed. 

"  Indeed,  I  think  it  is  the  only 
possible  explanation  of  his  disappear- 
ance," said  Bryant. 

"  And  you  think  the  same  1 "  in- 
quired Mason  turning  to  Hugh,  who 
had  listened  in  silence  to  the  conver- 
sation. 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  replied  Hugh. 

"  You  accompanied  Mr.  Bryant,  I 
believe,  in  the  exploration  of  Saint 
Florel  ? " 

"Yes,"  answered  Hugh.  "I  had 
just  the  same  opportunities  of  judging 
as  he  had,  and  I  have  come  to  pre- 
cisely the  same  conclusion." 

"  Well,  it's  a  sad  business  alto- 
gether, and  this  inability  to  produce 
proof  of  death  complicates  matters," 
said  Mason.  "  My  cousin  Anthony 
was  in  a  somewhat  responsible  posi- 
tion here,  I  must  tell  you,  and  looked 
entirely  after  the  interest  of  our  uncle, 
who  has  been  failing  for  some  years. 
Indeed  the  poor  old  gentleman  is 
really  getting  a  trifle  weak  in  mind. 
Anthony  took  charge  of  everything 
connected  with  this  estate,  and  was 
also  by  natural  relationship  guardian 
to  our  cousin  Miss  Thayne,  who  is 
still  a  minor.  For  the  present  I  shall 
of  course  continue  to  act  in  business 
matters  for  my  cousin  Anthony,  as  I 
have  done  by  his  own  wish,  and  under 
power  of  attorney,  ever  since  he  left 
us  three  years  ago.  By  the  way, 
gentlemen,  I  suppose  I  need  hardly 
ask  you  not  to  mention  these  unpleas- 
ant suspicions  about  here.  The  dead 
may  as  well  have  the  benefit  of  silence, 
since  there  is  no  object  in  speaking." 

"  Certainly,"  answered  Bryant ; 
"  you  may  rely  upon  my  silence, 
and  that  of  Mr.  Strong  also." 

"  Well,  now,"   said  the  hunchback 


The  Secret  q£  Saint  Florel. 


91 


affably,  "  pray  reckon  upon  me  to  do 
anything  in  my  power  to  make  your 
stay  in  Coltham  pleasant.  Do  you 
fish  ? " 

Bryant  was  just  beginning  an  eager 
affirmative  when  a  voice  from  the  gar- 
den interrupted  him.  Both  he  and 
Strong  recognised  it  at  once  and  were 
silent ;  it  was  the  voice  of  Phoebe. 

"  Well,  Mason,  so  at  last  you  have 
made  up  your  mind  to  have  the  windows 
opened  a  little.  Why  didn'fc  you  do  it 
before  1  I've  reminded  you  a  good 
many  times." 

As  she  said  the  last  words  the 
speaker  came  up  to  the  open  window 
which  was  high  enough  from  the  level 
of  the  ground  outside  to  leave  only 
her  head  and  shoulders  visible.  She 
wore  a  cotton  dress  of  some  kind, 
and  a  wide  hat  of  pale  yellow  straw 
made  a  most  effective  background  to 
the  rose-leaf  tints  of  her  face  and  the 
delicate  ripples  of  her  fair  hair. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  !  "  she  cried, 
flushing  with  surprise  and  confusion 
as  she  saw  the  occupants  of  the  room. 
"  I  had  no  idea—" 

"  Come  in,  Phoebe,"  said  the  hunch- 
back, "  and  see  these  gentlemen." 
Then  as  she  turned  away  to  enter  the 
front  door  he  added  hastily  :  "  My 
cousin  Anthony  was  practically  en- 
gaged to  her,  and  his  death  has  been 
a  great  shock.  Pray  say  no  word  of 
this  murder.  I  have  not  of  course 
mentioned  the  matter." 

Bryant  and  Hugh  both  bowed 
assent,  and  in  another  second  were 
being  presented  to  "  my  cousin,  Miss 
Thayne." 

If  Hugh  had  fallen  in  love  with  her 
miniature  and  worshipped  her,  to  the 
neglect  of  orthodoxy,  in  church  and 
with  the  width  of  the  chancel  between 
them,  what  were  his  feelings  when  she 
was  seated  close  to  him  in  a  chair, 
and  conversing  amiably  within  only  a 
yard  or  two  of  distance  1  She  resem- 
bled her  portrait  in  the  way  that  flesh 


and  blood  always  does  resemble  ivory. 
If  a  person  looks  ugly  in  a  life-like 
portrait  he  will  look  much  uglier  in 
reality  ;  and  if  he  (or  she)  be  beauti- 
ful, life  will  seem  ten  times  lovelier 
than  its  presentment.  Her  young 
grace  and  vigorous  presence  seemed 
suddenly,  to  Hugh  at  least,  to  imbue 
the  atmosphere  of  the  ghostly  draw- 
ing-room with  the  warmth  and  bright- 
ness of  summer.  The  spindle-legged 
chairs  took  an  air  of  fashion,  and  the 
faded  tapestry  bloomed  again ;  the 
very  nymphs  and  cupids  on  the  ceiling 
seemed  to  renew  their  smiles,  and 
whisper  with  simpering  lips  to  Hugh 
that  he  was  a  lucky  fellow. 

"  You  live  in  a  lovely  country, 
Miss  Thayne,"  he  said  presently, 
when  Bryant  and  the  hunchback  were 
deep  in  the  engrossing  question  of 
trout. 

"  Do  you  think  so  1 "  she  said  with 
a  smile.  "  I  have  always  fancied  that 
other  countries  were  more  beautiful  ; 
but  then,  you  see,  I  have  never 
travelled." 

"The  more  one  travels,"  said  Hugh 
decidedly,  "  the  more  convinced  one 
feels  that  there  is  no  place  like  home. 
I  have  seen  a  good  many  countries, 
but  never  one  with  the  charm  of 
England." 

"  Still  one  reads  of  forests  and 
prairies  and  lakes  and  torrents  and  all 
sorts  of  things  that  sound  like  fairy 
tales,"  observed  Phoebe.  "  I  think  I 
should  sometimes  like  a  change  to 
scenes  of  that  kind." 

"  You  have  never  been  abroad  1 " 

"  Oh,  dear  no  !  I  have  never  been 
six  times  out  of  Coltham,  I  think.  I 
am  always  here  all  the  year  round." 

"  Do  you  paint  ? "  inquired  Hugh. 
"  Sketching  is  a  great  resource  when 
you  have  such  lovely  views  in  every 
direction." 

"  No,"  answered  Phoebe.  "  I  don't 
paint,  or  sing,  or  play  the  piano,  or  do 
anything  attractive  of  that  kind.  I 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


am  not  at  all  clever.  I  just  walk 
about,  and  enjoy  spring  and  summer 
and  autumn  and  winter, — as  much, 
that  is  to  say,  as  I  can,"  she  con- 
cluded truthfully. 

Never  had  accomplishments  ap- 
peared so  superficial  and  useless,  or 
ignorance  so  attractive  to  Hugh,  as  at 
that  moment  when  he  replied  with 
fervent  conviction  :  "  I  think  you  are 
perfectly  right.  Most  women  waste 
a  lot  of  time  trying  to  do  things  for 
which  they  haven't  the  least  taste, 
just  because  they  are  fashionable  and 
considered  part  of  their  education. 
My  sisters'  piano  has  nearly  maddened 
me  sometimes." 

"  You  have  a  sister  "?  "  inquired 
Phoebe  with  interest. 


"I  have  several  sisters," he  answered 
rather  briefly,  for  the  consciousness 
that  there  were  six  of  them,  all  older 
than  himself,  was  occasionally  a  little 
overwhelming. 

"  I  wish  I  had,"  said  Phrebe  de- 
cisively. "  One  would  always  have 
some  one  to  talk  to  then ;  one  could 
never  be  lonely.  It  would  be  very 
pleasant." 

"Well,"  he  said,  a  little  doubt- 
fully, "  I  am  not  quite  sure  that 
several  is  not  too  many  for  pleasure." 

"  How  many  is  '  several '  ? "  inquired 
Phoebe  smiling. 

"  In  my  case  it  means  six,  and 
really — "  here  he  broke  off  suddenly, 
becoming  aware  that  some  one  was 
speaking  at  the  door. 


(To  be  continued.) 


INTO   THE   JAWS   OF   DEATH. 


A  SCOTCH  coal-pit  with  its  dismal 
approaches,  its  general  grimy  appear- 
ance, and  its  various  unsavoury  fumes 
polluting  the  atmosphere  for  a  great 
distance  around,  is  not  an  interesting 
spectacle  wherever  seen.  But  a  coal- 
pit situated  in  some  parts  of  the 
Monkland  district  of  Scotland,  where 
often,  so  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  it 
is  surrounded  by  bleak  dismal  moss- 
hags,  studded  here  and  there  with 
equally  bleak  and  dismal  marshes,  is, 
if  it  were  possible,  less  inviting  still. 
And  from  considerable  experience  of 
various  mining  districts  among  these 
grim  storehouses  of  wealth,  we  are  of 
opinion  that,  from  a  spectacular  point 
of  view,  a  Monkland  pit  is  the  least 
inviting  and  most  depressing  object 
to  be  found  in  the  world.  Yet  it  is 
wonderful  what  an  amount  of  poetry 
may  be  found  diffused  over  these  bare, 
unlovely  holes. 

Alighting  at  some  wayside  station 
on  the  North  British  line  you  find 
yourself  within  a  few  paces  of  a  wide 
waste  of  bog  and  heath,  studded  here 
and  there  with  darker  objects  which  are 
emitting  columns  of  solid  black  smoke 
and  white  jets  of  steam,  and,  like 
little  pigmies,  striving  to  uplift  them- 
selves from  this  dreary  slough  of 
despond.  Not  a  road  is  to  be  seen. 
Yonder  is  one  of  those  pigmies,  snort- 
ing and  puffing  like  some  outraged 
monster,  engulfed  and  struggling  to 
be  free;  but  to  reach  it  seems  an 
impossibility. 

By  this  time  you  have  discovered 
it  to  be  a  pit-engine,  and  a  road  to  it 
there  must  be  somewhere.  Then  you 
perceive  a  little,  narrow,  straggling 
path,  that  looks  like  a  sheep-pad, 


meandering  in  and  out  across  a  solid- 
seeming  bog,  jinking  around  little 
clumps  of  heather,  and  anon  approach- 
ing the  edge  of  a  water-hole  where  you 
lose  it,  to  pick  it  up  again  on  the 
opposite  side  with  a  gap  of  six  or  seven 
feet  between.  Thus,  with  sundry 
slips  and  jumps  you  near  the  object  of 
your  search,  the  Pee- weep  Pit.  It  got 
its  name  from  the  lapwings,  whose 
despairing  cry  of  pee-e-weet,  pee-e-weet, 
pee-e-weet,  morning,  noon,  and  night, 
has  earned  for  them  among  the 
peasantry  the  name  of  Pee-weep. 
This  dismal  spot  seems  to  have  been 
the  original  home  of  that  migratory 
bird,  for  it  could  be  seen  at  all  hours 
of  the  day  here,  and  at  all  seasons  of 
the  year,  in  great  numbers.  There  is 
the  pit,  in  the  middle  of  the  moss, 
with  its  engines  puffing  and  blowing, 
grinding  and  squeaking  during  the 
livelong  day  and  all  through  the 
night ;  and  round  it  circle  the  birds, 
adding  their  voices  to  the  unending 
noise,  pee-e-weet,  pee-e-weet,  pee-e-weet, 
with  the  same  monotonous  persistency. 
It  seems  strange  to  name  a  coal-pit, 
a  large  deep  hole  in  the  bog  with  its 
engines,  machinery,  housing,  and 
framework,  after  an  insignificant  bird. 
But  our  English  language  has  from 
time  immemorial  in  this  way  been 
added  to,  and  in  large  measure  built 
up  by  words  coined  to  express  sound, 
situation,  and  environment.  In  this 
locality  will  be  found  many  villages 
with  names,  suggestive  of  their  position 
and  surroundings,  derived  from  their 
location.  For  example,  there  is  the 
village  of  Green  Dyke.  The  first 
house  of  this  village  was  built  on  the 
site  of  a  large  ditch,  or  dyke,  over- 


94 


Into  the  Jaws  of  Death. 


grown  with  green  grass,  a  veritable 
oasis  in  the  wide,  dreary  waste  of 
black  bog.  This,  then,  was  an  apt, 
and  at  the  same  time  sufficiently  ex- 
pressive designation  for  the  new 
village. 

Again  we  have  another  consider- 
able village  with  the  expressive  appel- 
lation of  Courie-Bend.  We  can  re- 
member when  there  was  no  sign  of 
human  habitation  on  the  spot.  The 
position  is  the  highest  and  most  un- 
protected on  this  table-land  of  heath ; 
and  when  the  wild  winter  wind  comes 
sweeping  down  from  off  the  snow-clad 
Lead  Hills  some  miles  away,  woe 
betide  the  unlucky  wayfarer,  for  there 
is  neither  shelter  nor  protection  from 
the  pitiless  blast.  His  only  resource 
was  to  cower  down  behind  the  largest 
bush  of  heather  within  reach,  and 
secure  what  shelter  it  might  afford 
until  the  storm  passed.  It  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  he  could  not  squat 
on  the  ground,  or  lie  down  on  the 
spongy  heath,  or  he  would  have  been 
immediately  immersed  in  the  sap  of 
the  bog  and  soaked  through  with 
another  freezing  mixture.  He  assumed 
first  the  position  known  as  hunker- 
ing, that  is,  squatting  on  the  heels, 
without  allowing  the  knees  to  touch 
the  ground ;  then,  if  you  drop  your 
head  between  the  knees,  you  know 
what  it  is  to  courie,  which  is,  in  effect, 
to  crouch  or  cower.  On  the  spot 
where  cowering  was  the  only  refuge 
in  a  Monkland  storm  we  have  now 
the  flourishing  mining  village  of  Courie- 
Bend. 

Yet  again  we  have  another  village 
of  considerable  importance  known  as 
Blaw  Dreary.  When  the  miners  first 
pitched  their  tents  on  this  abomination 
of  desolation,  they  were  much  disturbed 
by  the  peculiar  sounds  made  by  the 
wind  blowing  through  a  small  belt  of 
trees  near  by.  Their  origin  was 
simple  enough.  For  nearly  thirty 
miles  south,  east,  and  west  there  was 


no  shelter  from  the  wind  blowing 
from  those  quarters.  When  a  storm 
tore  down  from  the  Lead  Hills  over 
the  bleak  moorland  it  beat  full  on 
this  narrow  belt  of  trees  to  the  north. 
The  timber  was  sparse  and  thin,  and 
not  sufficient  to  stem  the  force  of  the 
blast,  which  swept  through  the  little 
clump,  screaming  among  the  branches, 
whistling  in  the  hedge-rows,  and  rush- 
ing on  unchecked  in  its  mad  career  to 
the  valley  below.  These  sounds,  so 
unlike  anything  in  the  previous  expe- 
rience of  these  simple  miners,  stirred 
their  superstitious  imaginations,  and 
left  them  with  a  feeling  of  loneliness 
that  they  were  unable  to  shake  off. 
Hence  came  the  poetical  designation 
of  the  young  village  built  on  that  spot, 
Blaw  Dreary. 

It  is  difficult,  even  for  the  most 
adroit  artists  in  words,  to  interpret 
or  explain  the  Scotch  idiom.  In  our 
native  vernacular  it  is  very  expressive, 
according  to  our  own  notions  the  most 
expressive  in  the  world  ;  but  we  have 
often  felt  that,  by  the  time  it  was 
properly  translated  and  rendered  into 
intelligible  English,  all  the  poetry  had 
gone  out  of  it.  But  the  Southron 
has  of  late  years  been  made  sufficiently 
acquainted  with  Scottish  literature 
and  the  Scotch  dialect  to  enable  him, 
if  not  altogether  to  catch  the  real 
meaning,  at  all  events  to  grasp  some- 
thing of  the  sense  of  the  expression. 
Even  with  these  explanations  of  the 
inhospitableness  of  this  dreary  and 
uncomfortable  region  it  will  doubtless 
be  still  difficult  for  him  to  realise  the 
great  deeds  of  heroism  and  devotion 
performed  here  day  by  day,  week  in 
and  week  out,  all  the  year  round,  by 
these  simple  and  superstitious  people. 
Yet  we  hesitate  not  to  say  that  in 
these  bleak  fastnesses  we  have  wit- 
nessed deeds  equal  to  any  of  those  for 
which  medals,  crosses,  and  ribands 
are  bestowed;  acts  of  nobleness  and 
true  valour  performed  while  engaged 


Into  the  Jcvws  of  Death. 


95 


in  the  unromantic  pursuit  of  their 
daily  bread,  and  never  known  or 
spoken  of  outside  their  own  narrow 
sphere.  And  it  may  be  added  that 
sftch  deeds  are  so  common  among 
these  men  that  but  little  notice  is 
taken  of  them,  except  in  some  ex- 
traordinary cases  of  desperation  and 
excitement. 

Let  us  take  a  morning  in  the  dead 
of  winter  on  this  wild  storm-swept 
morass  ;  a  poor  shivering  wretch  crawl- 
ing across  wet  moss,  wading  through 
dripping  heather,  stemming  sleet  and 
snow,  which  penetrates  every  crevice 
and  cranny  of  his  wrappings,  jumping 
over  some  bog-holes  and  tumbling  into 
others.  After  half  an  hour  or  so  of 
this  cheerful  work  he  arrives  at  the 
pit-head  where  a  large  fire-lamp  stands 
full  of  blazing  coals,  at  which  he  pro- 
ceeds to  dry  his  dripping  garments. 
It  is  not  yet  six  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. The  pumping-engine  is  booming 
and  thumping  as  if  every  pulsation 
were  to  be  her  last.  Her  gear  rattles 
and  clatters,  and  her  exhaust-pipe 
puffs  and  snorts  in  high  dudgeon  as  if 
something  past  the  ordinary  were  on 
hand.  Our  pitman  here  is  the  pump- 
doctor,  or  the  one  who  looks  after  the 
pumps  which  drain  the  mine  and 
keep  the  coal-workings  dry.  His 
practised  ear  detects,  by  the  convul- 
sive swish  of  the  water  at  the  de- 
livery-box, and  by  the  movements  of 
the  machinery,  that  everything  in  his 
institution  is  not  right. 

In  the  midst  of  his  drying  opera- 
tions he  becomes  disturbed  at  the  con- 
tinuance of  these  suspicious  sounds, 
and,  only  half-clothed,  quietly  paces 
over  to  the  pump-head.  Arriving  there 
he  whistles  shrilly  to  himself,  and  re- 
marks in  an  undertone,  "  Everything's 
not  right  here  this  morning,  I  doubt. 
I  say,  Geordie  [crying  to  the  engine- 
man],  when  did  this  take  place  ? " 

1  Despite  the  apparent  popularity  of  what 
has  been  aptly  called  "kail-yard  literature  ' 


"  About  half  an  hour  since,  Robin, 
lad.  She  [the  engine]  was  going  right 
steady  all  night  until  about  a  quarter 
after  five,  when  all  at  once  I  noticed 
a  difference  in  the  weight  of  water 
being  delivered,  and,  says  I  to  myself, 
something's  up ;  I  wish  Robin  was 
here." 

"  There's  no  time  to  put  off,  Geordie. 
Here's  Dan,  the  pit-head  man.  Give 
me  up  the  bottom  cage  and  I'll  go 
down  and  see  the  trouble." 

It  will  be  as  well  that  we  should 
explain  here  that  at  a  pumping-pit 
there  are  usually  two  engines  on  the 
bank,  or  surface  of  the  shaft ;  one  for 
raising  the  coal  and  taking  the  men 
to  and  from  the  coal-seam,  and  one 
for  pumping  the  water  out  of  the 
workings  of  the  mine.  The  usual 
form  of  shaft  in  Scotland,  till  recent 
years,  was  oblong,  measuring  twelve 
feet  long  by  six  feet  wide  inside  the 
timber,  and,  as  in  this  case  and  in 
all  pumping-shafts,  the  longitudinal 
space  was  divided  into  three  compart- 
ments, measuring  about  six  feet  by 
four  feet  each.  One  of  the  end  com- 
partments is  always  taken  up  with 
the  pumps ;  and  the  other  two  are 
occupied  by  the  cages  for  raising  the 
minerals.  In  a  position  of  rest  one 
cage  stands  at  'the  bottom  of  the  shaft 
and  the  other  at  the  top.  When 
work  is  to  be  resumed  in  the  morning 
the  winding  engine  (the  engine  for 
raising  the  cages),  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  pit-head  man  and  pump- 
doctor,  makes  one  journey  up  and 
down  the  shaft  with  the  cage,  thus 
putting  the  one  that  had  been  at  the 
top  down  to  the  bottom,  and  the  one 
which  had  been  at  the  bottom  up  to 
the  top.  It  is  thus  ensured  that  no 
obstruction  is  in  the  shaft  on  either 
side,  and  that  the  cages  can  pass  up 
and  down  freely. 

we  shall,  perhaps,  best  consult  the  conveni- 
ence of  the  majority  of  our  readers  by  employ- 
ing the  English  form  of  speech. 


96 


Into  the  Jaws  of  Death. 


While  these  preliminaries  are  going 
forward  the  doctor  and  the  pit-head 
man  are  listening,  with  every  sense 
tautly  strung,  to  discern,  by  the  varia- 
tion in  the  sounds  of  the  descending 
and  ascending  cages,  whether  anything 
is  wrong  in  the  shaft,  and  what  the 
nature  of  the  trouble  is.  The  engine- 
man  is  also  alert,  and  on  this  occa- 
sion, instead  of  throwing  his  engine 
into  gear,  he  hands  it  every  turn 
so  as  to  be  ready  for  any  emergency. 
While  the  cages  are  being  thus  manipu- 
lated, the  doctor  gazes  intently  down 
into  the  darkness  into  which  the  top 
cage  has  sunk,  as  if  he  could  see  any- 
thing in  that  awful  pitchiness.  All 
at  once  his  ear  detects  something, 
and,  with  a  short,  sharp,  cry  of  halt ! 
the  engine  suddenly  stops  with  a 
convulsive  gasp. 

"Back  her  a  wee  bit,  Geordie." 
"All  right,  Robin."  "Halt,  there, 
Geordie,"  the  doctor  shouts.  "  Done, 
Robin,"  and  the  engine  grunts  and 
again  stops. 

"  A  joint  has  blown,  Geordie,  and 
the  half  of  our  water  is  going  back 
into  the  shank.  Bring  up  the  down 
cage,  and  I'll  see  what  can  be  done  to 
stop  it  before  the  men  go  down." 

Robin  proceeds  to  array  himself  in 
his  professional  habiliments.  First  he 
dons  a  large  leathern  helmet  with  a 
broad,  deep  flap  behind  to  run  the 
water  far  down  the  wearer's  back. 
This  head-gear  is  built  on  utilitarian 
principles.  It  is  constructed  with  a 
high,  stiff  crown  so  as  to  resist  the 
impact  of  falling  stones  and  other 
rubbish  which  too  often,  through  care- 
lessness, goes  hurtling  into  the  shaft, 
always  maiming  and  often  killing  out- 
right the  unprotected  wight  on  whom 
they  may  fall.  We  have  witnessed  a 
stone  fall  into  a  shaft,  crush  through 
timber  six  inches  thick,  strike  a  man 
on  the  head  with  this  covering  on, 
and  absolutely  prostrate  him.  Taking 
him  up  for  dead  we  discovered  he 


was  only  slightly  stunned ;  but  the 
hat  was  knocked  down  over  his  face 
with  the  brim  resting  on  his  shoulders 
all  round.  If  this  stone  had  struck 
his  unprotected  head,  his  skull  must 
have  been  smashed  like  matchwood. 
Add  to  this  article  of  wear  a  large 
stiff  leathern  sheet  which  is  thrown 
over  the  shoulders  and  under  the  flap 
of  the  hat,  running  the  water  clear 
off  the  head  and  back,  and  you  have 
one  of  the  queerest  spectacles  that 
ever  met  the  uninitiated  eye.  When 
dressed  in  this  way,  and  considered 
from  a  back  view,  the  pump-doctor 
appears  like  a  huge  black  turtle 
standing  on  his  hind  legs.  The  won- 
der is  that  a  man  can  do  any  work 
at  all  in  such  a  garb ;  but  much  hard 
and  dangerous  work  is  done  in  it. 

On  the  arrival  of  the  cage  Robin 
steps  thereon,  holding  in  his  hand  a 
blazing  lamp,  or  torch,  pi-otected  by 
a  shield  of  tin  on  the  top.  and,  with 
a  "  Down  slowly,  Geordie,  lad,"  he 
descends  into  the  abyss.  After  a 
few  minutes  of  careful  engineering  by 
Geordie,  a  resounding  "  Halt  !  "  comes 
up  from  the  depths,  which  is  repeated 
by  the  pit-head  man  on  guard  at  the 
top,  and  the  engine  stops.  Looking 
down  the  long  shaft  (three  hundred 
feet  deep  to  where  the  damage  is,  and 
below  that  again  two  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  more  to  the  water  sump 
or  lodgement)  you  can,  by  the  flare 
of  Robin's  lamp,  see  the  water  in  a 
solid  sheet  scattering  all  about  him, 
disclosing  something  more  serious 
than  was  at  first  anticipated.  After 
a  careful  examination  the  long  drawn 
order  from  below  comes,  "  Heave  up," 
which  again  is  repeated  by  the  dutiful 
pit-head  man  who  has  been  carefully 
scrutinising  all  the  movements  in  the 
shaft;  and  forthwith  the  engine  re- 
volves and  up  comes  the  cage  with 
its  human  freight. 

"There'll  be  no  coal-raising  the 
day,  boys,"  gravely  remarks  the 


Into  the  Jaws  of  Death. 


97 


doctor,  who  is  seen  to  be  dripping 
with  water.  "  We'll  have  to  take 
out  a  pipe,  and  put  in  a  new  one.  A 
piece  of  the  flange,  carrying  with  it  a 
piece  of  the  body  of  the  pipe,  has 
burst  off.  Who'll  run  for  the  manager  ? 
He  had  better  know ;  we  can  get  all 
the  tackle  ready  for  him  coming." 

"  I'll  tell  him,  if  ye  like,  Robin  ;  I 
go  near  by,"  said  a  strapping  young 
collier. 

"  Oh,  ay,  Tom,  just  do  that ;  and 
ye'll  see  the  maid  at  the  same  time. 
Ye'll  kill  two  birds  with  the  one 
stone  anyway.  And,  Tom,  go  down 
and  tell  Master  John  [the  assistant- 
manager].  This  is  a  job  he'd  like  to 
see.  He'll  learn  some  of  his  trade 
here,  I'll  warrant." 

"  All  right,"  responds  Tom,  and  off 
he  goes,  whistling  in  the  darkness, 
joyfully  contemplating  the  prospect  of 
a  chat  with  the  manager's  pretty 
maid. 

Many  things  must  be  done  ere 
everything  is  ready  for  the  great 
operation  of  changing  pipes.  It  is 
not  only  a  particular  feat  of  en- 
gineering, but  it  is  a  peculiarly 
hazardous  one  as  well,  as  the  sequel 
will  show.  About  this  pit  every 
necessary  tool  was  kept  in  readiness. 
Every  implement  was  in  its  place,  and 
many  of  the  preliminaries  could  be 
accomplished  ere  the  manager  and  his 
young  assistant  would  be  on  the 
ground  to  superintend  the  work. 
Owing  to  the  arrangement  of  the 
pipes  it  was  always  necessary  to 
remove  both  cages,  and  substitute  one 
of  them  by  a  hanging  scaffold.  The 
cage  on  the  top  was  unhooked,  and 
the  rope  suspending  withdrawn  into 
the  engine-drum  and  secured.  The 
cage  at  the  bottom  was  next  brought 
up  to  the  surface,  and  taken  off  as 
well.  While  this  was  being  done 
the  manager,  his  assistant,  and  the 
mechanics  arrived,  and  were  made 
acquainted  with  the  situation.  Mr. 

No.  440. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


Watt,  the  manager,  was  of  a  rather 
kindly  disposition  outside  his  duties, 
but  in  the  midst  of  them  was  apt 
to  exhibit  lively  traces  of  temper. 
He  knew  his  work,  and  saw  at  a 
glance  that  no  blame  could  be  attached 
to  any  one  for  the  accident.  Never- 
theless the  disappointment  and  loss 
of  work  caused  him  much  uneasiness, 
and  he  showed  immediate  signs  of 
testiness.  He  gave  out  the  order 
that  the  broken  pipe  must  be  re- 
placed by  a  whole  one  before  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  or  he  would 
require  to  know  the  reason  why. 
Turning  to  his  assistant  he  observed  : 
"  Now,  John,  this  is  a  simple  but 
rather  dangerous  job.  I  have  the 
utmost  confidence  in  your  caution  and 
good  judgment,  and  if  you  use  these 
well  I  have  no  fear  for  the  result. 
You  know  what  is  required  ;  every  one 
of  the  ropes  is  in  your  hand.  Proceed, 
and  pull  them  well.  Let  me  suggest 
before  I  leave,  as  I  must  go  to  the 
other  pits  and  arrange  for  our  coal- 
supply,  that,  after  you  have  with- 
drawn your  pump-rods,  you  suspend 
your  column  of  pipes  by  the  largest 
and  strongest  of  the  two  screws  we 
have,  and  raise  them  just  as  much 
as  will  allow  you  to  take  out  the 
broken  pipe.  When  that  is  done, 
have  it  taken  to  bank,  and  your  new 
one  taken  down  and  put  in  its  place. 
Be  at  hand  yourself,  and  see  it  well 
and  wisely  done." 

"  All  right,  Mr.  Watt,  I  think  we 
can  manage  it,"  replied  the  assistant. 

The  manager  had  left,  and  the 
scaffold  was  being  suspended  to  the 
rope  attached  to  the  engine,  when  the 
assistant  gave  directions  that  stronger 
chains  should  be  attached  to  the 
scaffold  and  engine  rope.  The  doctor 
observed,  "Those  chains,  Master 
John,  would  lift  a  house." 

"  No  matter :  we  have  stronger 
ones,  Robin  ;  and  as  there  are  four 
or  five  men's  lives  to  be  jeopardised, 


98 


Into  the  Jaws  of  Death. 


it  is  right  we  should  carry  out  the 
manager's  instructions,  and  make  all 
secure.  You  know  the  old  Scotch 
proverb,  Robin ;  better  tae  hand 
weel  than  mak  weel.  Besides,  this  is 
a  dangerous  job  all  round,  and  I 
confess  I  am  a  little  uneasy." 

"  Have  no  fear,  sir.  We'll  make 
all  right  and  tight  ere  we're  done 
with  it." 

"  I  have  no  fear  of  that,  Robin  , 
but  let  us  go  the  safest  way  about 
it." 

"  Ah  well,  Sir  John,  your  way  be 
it." 

The  scaffold  was  soon  brought 
forward.  It  consisted  of  a  number 
of  two-inch  planks  bound  together 
and  properly  framed,  with  three 
bars  of  the  same  thickness,  nailed 
and  bolted  to  the  bottom,  holding 
all  together.  Four  chains  from  each 
corner,  about  twenty  feet  each  in 
length,  were  brought  together  in  a 
ring  and  muzzle,  and  securely  attached 
to  the  engine-rope.  This  rope  con- 
sisted of  strands  of  steel  wire,  and 
was  about  one  inch  thick.  Small  as 
it  was,  it  was  tested  to  stand  a  strain 
of  many  tons.  When  suspended,  the 
scaffold  fitted  the  space  in  the  shaft 
exactly,  and  afforded  plenty  of  free- 
dom to  move  about  on.  Of  necessity 
there  was  no  protection  overhead, 
and  the  open  shaft  yawned  above, 
with  the  inevitable  risk  of  tools,  or 
missiles  of  some  kind,  dropping  on  the 
top  of  those  below.  Everything  was 
now  in  readiness  :  the  pump-rods 
were  withdrawn,  the  crane-chain 
ready  to  lift  out  the  broken  pipe  and 
lower  the  new  one,  the  large  screw 
in  position,  and,  everything  ready 
to  raise  the  column  of  pipes  the 
necessary  distance.  All  now  sat 
down  to  breakfast,  before  the  main 
operation  was  begun.  Just  as  the 
work  was  about  to  be  renewed,  the 
manager  came  up,  and  seemed  satisfied 
with  what  had  been  done.  He  had 


felt  very  anxious,  he  said,  after 
leaving  them,  and,  hurrying  over  his 
rounds,  was  now  free  to  join  in  the 
work. 

The  manager,  assistant,  and  doctor 
were  the  first  to  descend,  to  have  a 
joint  view  of  the  damage,  and  to  de- 
cide on  the  best  means  of  removing 
the  broken  pipe.  After  the  final  in- 
structions had  been  given,  the  scaffold 
was  raised,  and  the  manager  himself 
elected  to  superintend  operations  on 
the  surface ;  while  his  assistant,  the 
doctor,  and  three  other  men,  were  told 
off  for  the  work  in  the  shaft.  All  the 
necessary  tools  were  put  on  the  scaf- 
fold, and  the  five  men  descended  to 
their  place,  three  hundred  feet  down, 
with  a  gulf  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  more  below.  After  about  one  hour's 
hard  twisting  and  turning  and  toiling, 
the  broken  pipe  was  ready  to  be  lifted 
out.  Signals  were  sent  up  to  lower 
the  crane-chain  for  raising  the  pipe, 
and  in  due  course  the  chain  was  low- 
ered to  its  position.  The  first  stage 
of  the  really  dangerous  part  of  the 
operations  was  now  reached.  This 
danger  may  be  realised  when  we  say 
that  the  pipe,  now  swinging  above  the 
heads  of  the  five  men  in  the  open 
shaft,  weighed  a  ton  and  a  half. 

A  slip  of  a  man  at  the  crane,  a 
defective  link  in  the  chain,  and  all 
would  be  over  with  the  human  souls 
below  !  Slowly  rises  the  mass,  steadied 
by  the  watchful  hand  of  the  manager. 
Every  few  seconds  he  spoke  a  sentence 
of  encouragement  to  the  four  men  at 
the  crane,  who  were  all  as  keenly  alive 
to  the  responsibility  of  their  efforts 
as  he  was.  Up  and  up  the  mass 
came,  the  manager  ever  and  anon  gaz- 
ing down  into  the  pit,  in  quest  of  what 
seemed  the  long  looked-for  danger. 
"  Here  she  comes,"  he  gasps.  "  Keep  at 
it,  lads,  and  we  have  her  out."  Mean- 
time the  assistant-manager  and  his 
comrades,  were  staring  up  into  the 
little  speck  of  light,  none  daring  to 


Into  the  Jaws  of  Death. 


99 


speak,  until  they  saw  the  fearful 
object  drawn  out  of  the  pit.  Then 
with  a  fervent  "Thank  God!"  the 
signal  was  given  to  raise  the  scaffold 
to  the  surface,  where  opinions  could 
be  exchanged  on  the  position. 

Half  an  hour  was  spent  in  resting 
and  watching  the  preliminaries  going 
forward  for  the  lowering  of  the  new 
pump,  when  the  manager  intimated 
he  would  go  down  and  have  a  look 
at  the  arrangements  below.  A  very 
few  minutes  sufficed  to  show  him  that 
all  was  as  it  should  be  there.  On  his 
return  to  the  surface,  the  assistant 
and  his  four  men  now  prepared  to 
descend,  to  receive  the  new  pipe. 
Down  they  went  slowly,  to  enable 
them  to  examine  the  state  of  the 
supports  of  the  suspended  pumps,  and 
to  discover  if  anything  were  required 
to  ensure  absolute  safety.  Little  sup- 
ports were  added  here  and  there,  and 
ultimately  they  reached  their  position. 
After  all  the  tools  had  been  arranged, 
the  signal  was  given  by  the  assistant 
to  lower  the  new  pipe. 

Before  the  pipe  was  raised  from 
the  ground,  the  manager  enjoined  the 
four  men  at  the  crane  to  be  cool  and 
careful,  adding  that  it  was  much  more 
dangerous  to  lower  a  pipe  by  hand 
than  to  raise  one,  for  in  the  latter 
case  the  weight  got  less  as  the  chain 
came  in,  but  in  the  former  case  the 
weight  increased  as  the  chain  went 
out.  With  these  admonitions  he 
directed  them  to  prepare  to  raise  the 
pipe  for  lowering  it  into  the  shaft, 
giving  a  last  glance  at  the  fastenings. 
"  Heave  up,  boys,"  he  said  ;  and  up 
went  the  pipe,  the  manager  with  his 
own  hands  steadying  it  into  the  shaft. 
"  Lower  slowly  and  steadily  now ; 
and  for  God's  sake,  men,  keep  your 
heads." 

Not  a  word  was  spoken  in  response, 
but  each  man  planted  his  foot  firmly 
in  front  of  him,  set  his  teeth,  and  bent 
to  the  perilous  work  before  him.  Down, 


down,  went  the  ton  and  half  of  metal, 
soon  adding  to  its  weight  by  the  in- 
creasing length  of  chain.  Steady  goes 
the  crane,  every  inch  it  traverses 
making  the  strain  heavier.  To  the 
men  in  the  shaft,  four  oT  whom  were 
stationed  at  the  corners  of  the  scaffold 
grasping  the  suspending  chains,  with 
the  assistant  at  one  side,  the  huge 
object,  twisting  and  turning  far  up 
over  their  heads,  seemed  scarcely  to  be 
moving.  Nearer  and  nearer  it  came 
however,  while  an  unearthly  silence 
reigned  over  all,  broken  only  by  the 
continuous  drip  of  water  below.  When 
it  must  have  been  at  least  thirty  yards 
off,  those  looking  up  to  it  saw  it  give 
a  sudden  "plunge  downward.  There 
was  a  fearful  scream,  a  roar  as  of  ap- 
proaching thunder,  a  crash,  and  an 
upheaval, — a  catastrophe  that  no  pen 
can  hope  to  describe.  The  thunder- 
ing noise  seemed  to  last  an  age ;  but 
with  a  convulsive  sob  the  displaced 
air  rushed  back  to  fill  the  place  it  had 
been  so  rudely  forced  from,  and  all 
wafted  back  into  silence. 

How  did  it  fare  on  the  pit-head  1 
Bodies  of  men  were  lying  about  in 
confusion,  with  machinery  and  timber 
in  hopeless  disorder.  Mr  Watt,  franti- 
cally rushing  hither  and  thither,  en- 
couraged the  pale-faced  men  to  bestir 
themselves.  He  had  no  thought  that 
help  could  be  of  any  service  for  those 
below ;  they  must  surely  all  be  dead 
men:  "Help,"  he  cried,  "and  save 
those  who  can  be  saved  !  "  But  just 
as  he,  and  two  others  who  were  also 
unhurt,  had  begun  to  succour  the 
wounded,  the  engine-man,  who  had 
been  dutifully  grasping  the  lever  of 
the  engine,  yelled  out:  "There  are 
some  living  in  the  shaft.  I  found  a 
movement  on  the  hand  here  !  " 

At  this  the  manager  ran  to  the 
shaft,  and,  drawing  a  full  deep  breath 
to  fill  his  lungs,  shouted  down  de- 
spairingly, Hallo-o-o  !  To  his  aston- 
ishment he  was  immediately  answered, 
H  2 


100 


Into  the  Jaivs  of  Death. 


although  faintly,  by  more  than  one 
voice.  His  unerring  judgment  with  a 
flash  convinced  him  that  the  scaffold, 
or  some  part  of  it,  must  be  intact.  It 
would  be  impossible  for  any  one  to 
fall  to  the  bottom  and  live ;  and  even 
if  it  were  possible,  he  could  not  have 
been  heard  from  that  distance. 

"  Heave  up,  Geordie,  but  slowly  at 
first.  For  God's  sake  be  careful !  " 

On  the  instant  the  engine  began  to 
move,  and  in  the  shortest  possible  time 
the  broken  scaffold  appeared  above 
the  surface  with  a  man  clinging  to 
each  chain.  As  they  were  helped  from 
their  perilous  position,  the  manager 
eagerly  asked,  "  Where  is  John  1 " 
Each  shook  his  head ;  no  one  could 
tell.  But  every  one  of  the  four 
who  had  been  providentially  rescued 
from  the  very  jaws  of  death,  and 
whose  nerves  were  strung  to  a  state  of 
high  excitement,  bustled  about,  in- 
stinctively securing  articles  of  help, 
and,  without  exchanging  words,  mak- 
ing every  preparation  to  join  in  the 
immediate  recovery  of  their  lost  com- 
panion. No  orders  had  now  to  be 
given  ;  all  were  eager  to  assist  in  the 
rescue  of  the  young  fellow  who  was 
in  the  depths  below,  or  to  recover  his 
shattered  remains.  Where  all  are 
heroes,  no  one  need  show  the  way  of 
duty  and  humanity. 

Lamps  were  lit  by  some ;  others 
tore  the  remains  of  the  broken  scaffold 
from  the  fastenings  which  kept  it 
entangled  with  the  engine-rope. 
Meantime  helpers  were  crowding 
round,  and  the  injured  men  on  the 
surface  were  being  attended  to,  of 
whom  two,  alas,  were  already  dead. 
The  staid  and  taciturn  doctor  had 
speedily  converted  a  small  piece  of 
tough  rope  into  a  loop ;  and,  quicker 
than  it  takes  to  relate  the  incident, 
he  and  his  companion,  Will  Grieve,  a 
general  and  handy  man  (one  of  the 
four)  had  thrown  aside  their  helmets 
and  leathern  back-pieces,  and  donned 


close-fitting  cloth  caps  crushed  down, 
tightly  on  their  heads,  into  the  front 
of  which  they  stuck  their  flaming 
torches,  thus  leaving  their  hands  free 
and  their  whole  persons  totally  un- 
hampered. Both  simultaneously  grasp 
the  now  freed  engine-rope,  each  pass- 
ing a  leg  into  the  loop  the  doctor  had 
made,  from  opposite  directions  for  a 
better  balance  ;  and  then  they  swing 
themselves  free  over  the  dreadful  gulf, 
crying,  "  Down,  Geordie,  quick,  lad  !  " 
Thus  voluntarily  these  brave  men  hang 
in  the  immediate  presence  of  G  od  over 
this  chasm  of  eternity,  loyally  return- 
ing into  the  very  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  from  which  they  had  only  a 
few  seconds  before  been  delivered  as 
if  by  the  hand  of  Omnipotence,  to 
rescue,  if  possible,  a  fellow-being,  or 
to  recover  the  shattered  and  wrecked 
tenement  of  a  human  soul. 

Now,  with  a  whish  and  a  whirr 
they  descend  into  the  awful  abyss  ; 
and  with  a  fervent  God  speed  ye  ! 
from  a  number  of  pale-faced  men 
standing  'around,  they  disappear. 
Down  they  go,  and  these  two  eager 
souls  thought  the  descent  would  never 
come  to  an  end.  When  nearing  the 
spot  where  the  accident  had  happened 
the  engine  was  slowed  and  they  pro- 
ceeded more  leisurely.  The  doctor 
was  the  first  to  recover  his  breath, 
and  he  cried  downwards,  Hallo,  there  ! 
and  was  immediately  answered  by  a 
shout  from  above.  And  with  this  the 
engine  stopped. 

A  large  crowd  had  now  gathered 
round  the  mouth  of  the  pit,  the  news 
of  these  terrible  events  spreading  like 
wildfire  over  the  land  ;  and  there  was 
not,  we  make  bold  to  say,  a  man  there 
who  would  not  have  gone  as  willingly 
down  that  shaft  on  the  same  errand  as 
the  doctor  and  his  companion.  But 
their  services  were  not  yet  required, 
though  no  one  could  say  how  soon  they 
might  be.  Notwithstanding  the  ex- 
citement a  solemn  quiet  reigned  over 


Into  the  Jaws  of  Death. 


101 


all ;  nothing  could  be  heard  except 
the  muffled  and  stealthy  whirr  of  the 
machinery  and  the  regular  panting  of 
the  engine. 

And  now  the  manager,  and  some 
others  who  were  leaning  over  the  shaft, 
heard  away  down  in  the  darkness  a 
faint  sound  of  voices  hailing  some  one 
yet  afar  off.  "  Merciful  God,"  cried 
the  manager,  "  John  is  alive  !  "  The 
news  was  received  with  a  muffled  cheer 
at  once  suppressed.  Then  up  out  of 
the  depths  came  a  cry,  with  a  ring  of 
eager  joy  in  it  that  made  it  heard 
plainer  and  distincter  than  ever  cry 
was  heard  from  that  distance  before  : 
"  Down  to  the  bottom  !  "  The  cry 
was  repeated  by  Mr.  Watt,  and  down 
slipped  the  rope  again  until  it  gradu- 
ally came  to  a  standstill  altogether. 

"  What's  that  you  stop  for,  George1?" 
cried  the  manager.  "I'm  at  the  door- 
head  now,  sir."  "  Is  the  water  up, 
and  do  you  feel  them  touch  it  *? " 
"  No,  Mr.  Watt ;  but  if  I  go  farther 
with  them  I  fear  I'll  put  them  in  the 
water."  But  old  Bob  Glen,  a  worker 
in  this  pit  with  fifty-six  years'  experi- 
ence of  mining,  reassured  them  all. 
"  Never  fear,  Mr.  Watt,"  he  said.  "  If 
Geordie  has  them  at  the  door-head 
they're  safe,  for  the  water  will  have  to 
fill  up  all  the  lower  workings  in  the 
dook,  ere  it  can  rise  above  the  pave- 
ment." 

x\t  this  moment  the  bell  rang  one, 
and  then  two,  and  many  began  crying 
with  joy.  "  The  God  of  Israel  is  with 
us,"  exclaimed  an  old  Cameronian,  "  as 
she  hangs  the  third  stroke." 

"  Geordie,  lad,  that  must  be  some- 
body else  in  the  bottom  than  Robin 
or  Will,"  eagerly  observed  the 
manager. 

"  Yes,  sir ;  I  never  found  any  of 
the  two  lads  leave  the  rope,  and  I'll 
warrant  them  eight  or  ten  feet  from 
the  bottom  yet,"  observed  Geordie. 
<£  But  down  they  go  now,  sir ; "  and 
with  that  the  engine  turned,  and  the 


uplifted  hammer  struck  the  bell,  and 
the  engine  stood. 

As  each  of  the  two  men  left  the 
rope  on  reaching  the  bottom,  Geordie 
announced  the  fact  from  the  engine- 
house.  After  a  painful,  and  what 
seemed  a  most  prolonged  pause,  he 
notified  that  one  individual  was 
again  on  the  rope,  and  before  he  had 
finished  speaking  all  could  see  it  shak- 
ing. At  that  instant  one  clear  stroke 
of  the  bell,  heard  above  the  excited 
hum  of  two  hundred  hoarse  voices, 
rang  out,  and  the  engine,  after  a  pre- 
liminary snort,  bent  to  its  work  and 
proceeded  to  gather  home  the  rope 
with  swift  and  steady  motion. 

Peering  down  into  the  shaft  the 
manager  could  now  see  the  glare  of 
the  light,  but  whether  there  was 
more  than  one  lamp  he  could  not  yet 
make  out.  Soon  it  was  manifest  that 
there  was  only  one,  and  all  were  con- 
vinced that  the  other  was  keeping 
company  with  the  rescued  man  until 
further  help  was  secured.  In  the 
midst  of  hope  we  are  in  fear ;  the 
sight  of  this  solitary  lamp  created 
the  suspicion  that  the  assistant  was 
either  dead  or  so  injured  that  fresh 
help  was  needed  to  bring  him  to  the 
surface.  While  the  crowd  was  con- 
vulsed with  this  suspicion  the  ascend- 
ing cage  reached  the  surface,  and  a 
dozen  hands  clutched  the  rope  and 
the  rescuer  Grieve.  His  white  but 
joyful  face  told  the  glad  tale.  "Is 
the  lad  safe,  Will?"  asked  the 
manager.  "  He  is  safe  and  sound, 
but  a  bit  dazed,"  was  the  answer,  and 
a  great  shout  rent  the  air.  In  the 
midst  of  the  commotion  Grieve  was 
heard  asking :  "  Where's  the  big 
barrel  1 "  "  Put  on  the  cage,  Will," 
cried  the  manager.  "  No,  sir,  two  or 
three  slides  are  out  of  their  places, 
and  the  big  barrel  is  the  best.  The 
cage  wouldn't  go  down  handy." 

And  now,  while  they  get  the  barrel 
ready,  let  us  return  to  the  bottom  of 


102 


Into  the  Jaws  of  Death, 


the  pit.  The  engine,  we  know,  had 
stopped  with  the  shout  from  the  top 
of  the  shaft.  But  there  was  another 
shout  from  below,  which  made  the 
hearts  of  each  of  the  rescuers  to  leap 
with  joy.  "  Down  to  the  bottom  !  " 
shouted  the  doctor;  instantly  the 
engineman  responded  and  down  the 
two  were  lowered.  Just  immediately 
6ver  the  bottom  and  at  the  door-head 
(the  space  forming  the  gallery  off  the 
end  of  the  shaft),  the  engineman 
stopped  the  downward  movement, 
reckoning  that  the  water  (because  of 
the  stoppage  of  the  pumps)  would 
have  already  risen  to  this  point  and 
barred  their  progress.  When  in  this 
position  the  doctor  again  spoke,  and 
was  instantly  answered  by  the  assist- 
ant-manager from  immediately  beside 
them. 

"Merciful  Heaven,  Master  John, 
are  you  safe  and  all  right  1 " 

"  I  am  safe,  Robin,  thank  God ! 
What  about  the  others  ?  Are  they 
safe  1 " 

"We're  all  right.  Can  you  ring 
the  bell,  Master  John,  and  get  them 
to  lower  us  down  beside  you  ? " 

The  assistant-manager  up  till  now 
being  absolutely  bewildered,  and  hav- 
ing lost  his  direction  in  the  dark,  was 
unable  to  find  the  signal-handle.  By 
the  aid  of  his  rescuers'  lights,  how- 
ever, he  soon  recovered  his  locality, 
and  grasping  the  bell-handle  gave  two 
pulls,  which  was  the  signal  to  lower 
the  rope  further.  Down  came  the 
men  and  they  were  helped  to  the 
bottom  pavement  by  the  assistant's 
free  hand.  So  soon  as  they  reached 
this  spot  the  hammer  fell  on  the  bell 
for  the  third  time,  and  the  machinery 
came  to  an  immediate  stand-still. 
Robin  and  his  companion  were 
speedily  disentangled  from  their  loop 
of  rope  and  were  at  the  side  of  their 
companion. 

"  Are  you  hurt,  sir  ? "  asked  Robin. 
"I    don't    think    I'm    much    hurt, 


Robin  ;  but,  man,  that  was  a  terrible- 
business.      What  went  wrong  ?  " 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,  Master  John. 
But  we  needn't  talk  now  about  that. 
We  must  get  you  out  of  this,  anyway. 
You  can't  go  up  in  that  rope  I  doubt, 
sir." 

"  Right  well  enough,  Robin.  You 
came  down  in  it,  and  I  can  go  up  in 
it  all  right," 

"Ah,  sir,  but  you're  looking  ill, 
and  we'll  not  risk  it.  It  takes  a  good 
tight  hand  to  hold  on  there,  I  tell 
you.  Will,  can  you  go  up  and  get  on 
the  cage  and  come  down  with  it  1  " 

"  I  can,  and  will,  Robin ;  but  I 
doubt  the  cage  will  do,  for  as  we 
were  coming  down  I  noticed  two  or 
three  slides  knocked  out  of  their 
places.  I'll  get  the  big  sinking-barrel 
and  bring  that  down." 

"  All  right,  Will.  Go  on,  lad,  and 
come  down  with  all  speed,  and  take 
the  lad  out  of  this." 

"  But,  Robin,"  asked  the  assistant- 
manager,  "  is  there  any  one  hurt  1 
What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this  1  I 
fear  I  am  getting  bewildered  again." 

"Cheer  up,  Master  John.  We'll 
be  out  of  here  soon  now.  Will's 
ready  to  go  up  for  the  barrel." 

"  Tell  me  first,  Robin;  is  there  any 
one  hurt  1  " 

"  There  is,  I  fear,  sir ;  I  think  I 
noticed  them  looking  after  somebody 
when  I  was  on  the  pit-head ;  but  I 
was  over  hurried  to  see  about  you  to 
take  much  notice  of  anything  else." 

Meanwhile  all  was  bustle  at  the 
pit-head  getting  the  big  barrel  ready. 
"  Out  with  the  barrel,  boys,"  and  in 
the  shortest  space  of  time  a  large 
iron-bound  barrel,  weighing  over  half 
a  ton,  was  brought  from  under  the 
engine-house  and  hooked  on  to  the 
end  of  the  winding  rope.  "  Stop  you 
here,  Will.  You  have  had  enough 
excitement  and  done  nobly.  I'll  go 
down  ;  who  will  volunteer  to  help  1 " 
cried  the  manager.  A  perfect  chorus-. 


Into  the  Jaws  of  Death. 


103 


of  voices  answered.  "  Only  one  man 
can  go.  Come  you  here,  Burns. 
You're  brave  and  strong,  and  not 
likely  to  lose  your  head  with  too 
much  sentiment."  This  was  spoken 
to  a  sullen,  stolid-looking  man  who 
had  method  in  every  movement. 
"  Come  on,  Burns.  I  am  a  little  out 
of  sorts  and  your  coolness  will  help  to 
steady  me."  In  another  instant  the 
barrel  with  the  two  men  in  it  de- 
scended from  view,  while  the  crowd 
sat  quietly  down  to  wait  events. 
On  reaching  the  bottom  Mr.  Watt 
rushed  to  his  young  assistant  with  his 
eyes  full  of  tears ;  and  these  two 
staid  and  stolid  Scotchmen  blubbered 
in  each  other's  arms  like  two  affec- 
tionate children.  Robin,  honest 
fellow,  blew  his  nose  manfully ;  but 
all  to  no  purpose.  "  It's  coming  on 
me,  friends,"  he  gasped  ;  and  he  fell 
to  with  the  others.  He  was  the  first, 
however,  to  recover  himself  with  the 
shrewd  remark  :  "If  we  don't  get  out 
of  here,  we'll  have  more  and  worse  of 
it  before  long."  This  roused  the 
others,  and  a  few  minutes  brought 
the  barrel  and  its  human  freight  to 
the  surface.  Master  John  was  as- 
sisted out  by  a  score  of  hands,  while 
the  rest  crowded  round  with  streaming: 


eyes  to  congratulate  him  on  his 
providential  and  miraculous  escape, 
as  one  old  Cameronian  dame  piously 
expressed  it. 

After  some  slight  refreshment  and 
a  change  of  dry  garments  for  his  soak- 
ing wet  ones,  Master  John  was  able 
to  walk  home.  It  was  with  pain  he 
then  learned  the  sad  cause  of  the 
accident  and  its  terrible  result.  It 
seems  that  one  man  at  the  handle  of 
the  crane,  who  looked  the  picture  of 
strength  and  health,  had,  during  the 
strain  of  lowering  the  heavy  pipe, 
given  way  suddenly ;  the  rest  were 
overpowered ;  the  revolving  handle 
hit  one  man  on  the  head  killing  him 
instantly,  and  scattering  the  others  in 
all  directions.  The  chain  paid  out  to 
the  end,  snapping  the  last  link  ;  and 
flying  over  the  wheel  got  entangled  in 
the  framework,  dragging  everything 
before  it,  until  the  pipe,  reaching  the 
bottom  of  the  pit,  relieved  the  strain, 
and  it  hung  suspended  the  whole 
length  of  the  shaft.  If  the  chain  had 
not  been  thus  caught,  every  soul 
below  must  have  been  killed.  A 
fresh  relay  of  men  from  the  other  pits 
were  brought  in,  and  the  accident  was 
repaired  and  the  pumps  put  to  rights 
within  the  ne'xt  twelve  hours. 


104 


THE    FIRST    SCOTS    BRIGADE. 


AT  a  time  when  the  nations  of 
Europe  point  the  finger  of  scorn  at 
isolated  England,  and  even  English 
statesmen  are  reproved  for  rejoicing 
in  that  isolation,  it  may  be  not  un- 
instructive  to  throw  a  glance  back 
over  three  or  four  centuries  at  the 
history  of  her  alliances  and  enmi- 
ties. National  friendships  are  often 
severely  tried,  but  they  have  a 
strange  tendency  to  survive  even  the 
strongest  tests.  Once  only  have  tra- 
ditional amities  been  utterly  over- 
thrown, and  that  was  when  religious 
took  the  place  of  national  feeling  as 
the  motive  for  war.  Then  the  con- 
fusion was  strange  indeed.  The  here- 
ditary friend  of  England  was  Spain, 
the  hereditary  enemy  France.  For  a 
century,  roughly  speaking,  the  old 
feud  with  France  was  laid  aside,  and 
all  our  fighting  energy  was  concen- 
trated against  Spain.  English  and 
French  Protestants  fought  side  by 
side  in  half  a  hundred  engagements 
in  France  and  in  the  Low  Countries ; 
and  the  climax  came  when  Cromwell 
sent  his  troops  to  fight  under  Turenne 
against  the  Spaniards.  Yet  Cromwell 
himself  was  guilty  of  an  anachronism 
in  selecting  Spain  for  his  enemy ;  and 
before  he  had  been  dead  thirty  years 
the  hostility  of  English  and  French 
was  as  bitter  as  ever.  A  very  few 
years  later  England  was  working  to- 
gether with  Spain  as  though  there 
had  been  no  such  thing  as  the 
Armada,  and  attacking  France  as 
bitterly  as  though  John  Norris  had 
never  fought  under  La  Noue  at 
Rymenant,  or  Thomas  Morgan  under 
Turenne  at  Dunkirk. 

France  on  her  part  had  a  devoted 


ally  in  Scotland.  The  Scots  had 
guarded  her  kings  for  her,  had  helped 
to  drive  the  English  out  of  her  land, 
and  had  entertained,  not  indeed  alto- 
gether warmly  for  the  time  was  grow- 
ing late,  her  garrisons  at.  Leith  to 
overawe  Queen  Elizabeth.  Here, 
however,  the  Reformation  wrought  a 
final  and  decisive  change.  Scotland 
was  detached  for  ever  from  the  French 
connection,  and  France  became  thence- 
forth the  isolated  country  of  Europe. 
It  is  true  that  she  now  clasps  Russia 
in  an  hysterical  embrace  after  a  fash- 
ion which  scandalises  those  who  pro- 
fess to  admire  her  as  a  pioneer  of 
what  they  are  pleased  to  call  liberty  ; 
but  she  has  never  shrunk  from  such 
ill-assorted  alliances  since  the  days 
when  the  most  Christian  King, 
Francis  the  First,  took  the  enemy  of 
Christendom  in  desperation  to  his 
heart ;  and  it  is  probable  that  she 
never  will.  The  withdrawal  of  the 
Scots  from  her  side  to  the  English 
was  a  weightier  matter  than  it  is 
generally  reckoned  to  be  in  French 
history ;  and  its  significance  is  curi- 
ously symbolised  in  the  history  of  the 
Scots  Brigade. 

The  first  sign  of  this  great  change 
was  seen  perhaps  at  the  siege  of 
Rouen  in  1562,  when  English  and 
Scotch  volunteers  fought  side  by  side 
on  behalf  of  the  French  Huguenots 
against  Guise.  Ten  years  later  they 
again  crossed  the  water  together 
to  defend  the  Protestant  Netherlands 
against  Catholic  Spain ;  and  they 
continued  to  do  battle  in  the  cause  of 
the  United  Provinces  for  fully  sixty 
years,  till  the  great  civil  war  recalled 
many  of,  the  Scots  to  their  own  homes. 


The  First  Scots  Brigade. 


105 


But  the  Low  Countries  were  the 
special  training-ground  of  the  English 
rather  than  of  the  Scotch  soldier ; 
and  it  is  remarkable  that  in  the  two 
most  memorable  engagements  wherein 
the  Scotch  regiments  in  the  Dutch 
service  took  part,  Nieuport  and  Killie- 
crankie,  they  behaved  singularly  ill, 
while  the  English  on  the  other  hand 
covered  themselves  with  glory.  The 
school  to  which  we  shall  more  justly 
look  for  the  making  of  the  Scottish 
soldier  is  the  battle-fields  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War. 

The  Scotch  seem  to  have  found 
their  way  very  quickly  to  the  banners 
of  Gustavus  Adolphus  of  Sweden, 
and  to  have  fought  with  him  in  his 
earlier  campaigns  long  before  he  had 
established  his  fame  as  the  Lion  of 
the  North.  To  mention  but  two 
memorable  names,  Sir  John  Hepburn 
and  Alexander  Leslie  (the  Leven  of 
the  Civil  War)  had  risen  to  high  rank 
in  his  service  many  years  before  he 
crossed  the  Baltic  for  his  marvellous 
campaigns  in  Germany.  Moreovei', 
the  chief  constructor  of  artillery  was 
Alexander  Hamilton,  the  ingenious 
inventor  of  the  leathern  guns  which 
were  called  after  him  by  the  name  of 
"  Sandy's  stoups."  But  the  most 
famous  of  -the  Scotch  corps  did  not 
join  Gustavus  until  a  later  day,  and 
then  came  to  him  not  direct  but 
through  the  channel  of  Denmark. 
The  manner  of  their  coming  was  this. 
King  Charles  the  First  had  by 
promises  of  subsidy  induced  King 
Christian  of  Denmark  to  levy  an  army 
and  take  the  field  against  the  Im- 
perialists for  the  Protestant  cause. 
Christian,  perceiving  that,  if  his  men 
were  regularly  paid,  he  would  be  able 
to  fight  a  defensive  campaign,  con- 
sented to  raise  troops,  and  having 
collected  them  applied  to  Charles  for 
the  money.  Charles,  needless  to  say, 
could  not  produce  it,  and  the  unhappy 
Christian,  compelled,  in  order  to  keep 


his  army  together,  to  take  the  offen- 
sive, advanced  to  meet  the  Imperial- 
ists under  Tilly,  and  was  disastrously 
routed  at  Lutter  on  the  17th  of 
August,  1626.  In  helpless  despair 
Christian  again  appealed  to  Charles 
to  fulfil  his  engagement ;  but  Charles 
could  do  nothing  except  despatch  four 
weak,  untrained  English  regiments 
to  the  Elbe,  to  do  what  service  they 
could,  which  was  naturally  little,  to- 
wards the  salvation  of  Denmark. 

But  it  so  happened  that  a  short 
time  before  the  defeat  of  Lutter,  one 
of  the  many  gentlemen  adventurers 
of  Scotland,  Sir  Donald  Mackay,  had 
obtained  leave  to  raise  and  transport 
five  thousand  men  for  King  Christian's 
ally,  the  adventurer  Count  Ernest 
Mansfeld.  It  does  not  appear  that 
Sir  Donald  succeeded  in  recruiting 
even  half  that  number,  for  the  centre 
and  south  of  Scotland  had  already 
been  drawn  upon  heavily  for  levies  ; 
but  some  two  thousand  men  were 
raised  by  fair  means  or  foul,  and 
though  some  of  them  passed  into  the 
i^anks  from  the  Tolbooth  of  Edinburgh, 
it  was  no  more  than  fitting  that  in  so 
famous  a  corps  there  should  be  a  con- 
tingent from  the  Heart  of  Midlothian. 
It  seems,  however,  certain  that  a 
good  proportion  were  taken  from  the 
northern  counties,  and  in  particular 
from  the  district  of  the  Clan  Mackay, 
and  that  these  took  the  field  in  their 
national  costume.  The  officers,  judging 
by  their  names  and,  still  more,  by 
their  subsequent  behaviour,  seem  to 
have  been  without  exception  gentle- 
men of  birth  and  standing,  most 
worthy  representatives  of  their  nation. 
Some  of  them  had  probably  had 
experience  of  war ;  one  at  least, 
Robert  Munro,  the  historian  of  the 
corps,  had  served  in  the  old  school  of 
the  Scottish  Guard  of  France,  and 
had  learned  the  meaning  of  the  word 
discipline.  "  I  was  once,"  he  writes, 
"  made  to  stand  at  the  Louvre  gate  in 


106 


The  First  Scots  Brigade. 


Paris,  being  then  in  the  King's  regi- 
ment of  Guards  passing  my  prentice- 
ship,  for  sleeping  in  the  morning  when 
I  ought  to  have  been  at  my  exercise — 
for  punishment  I  was  made  to  stand 
from  eleven  before  noon  to  eight 
o'clock  of  the  night  sentry,  with 
corselet,  headpiece,  and  brasslets,  being 
iron  to  the  teeth,  on  a  hot  summer's 
day,  till  I  was  weary  of  my  life ; 
which  ever  after  made  me  the  more 
strict  in  punishing  those  under  my 
command."  So  that  there  was  one 
disciplinarian  at  least  to  Sir  Donald 
Mackay's  hand. 

The  regiment  sailed  in  several 
divisions  from  Cromarty  and  Aber- 
deen, and  arrived  at  Gliickstadt  on 
the  Elbe  in  October,  1626.  The  win- 
ter was  passed  in  training  the  men, 
though  not  without  riot  and  brawling. 
The  officers,  as  was  to  be  expected  of 
their  nation,  quarrelled  incessantly ; 
and  there  was  so  little  discipline 
among  the  men  that  a  sergeant 
actually  fell  out  of  the  ranks  when  at 
drill  to  beat  a  foreign  officer  who 
had  maltreated  one  of  his  comrades, 
and  cudgelled  the  luckless  man  almost 
to  death.  Meanwhile  Count  Mansfeld, 
who  had  originally  hired  the  regiment, 
was  dead ;  and  Sir  Donald  Mackay 
was  thus  enabled  in  March,  1627,  to 
offer  its  services  to  the  King  of  Den- 
mark himself.  Christian  accordingly 
reviewed  it,  and  having  first  inspected 
the  ranks  in  parade,  "  drums  beating, 
colours  flying,  horses  neighing,"  saw 
it  march  past  and  paid  it  a  handsome 
compliment.  The  men  were  then 
drawn  into  a  ring  after  the  old  fashion 
of  the  landsknechts,  when  they  took 
the  oath  and  listened  to  a  rehearsal 
of  the  articles  of  war ;  and  thus  their 
service  began.  Half  of  them  were 
despatched  to  Bremen,  while  the 
remainder  were  stationed  at  Lauen- 
burg  to  guard  the  passage  of  the 
Elbe. 

After  a  vast  deal  of  marching  and 


countermarching,  the  regiment  was  for 
a  short  time  re-united,  but  only  to  be 
presently  broken  up  again  ;  four  com- 
panies being  left  under  Major  Dunbar 
at  Boitzenburg,  at  the  junction  of  the 
Boitze  and  the  Elbe,  while  the  re- 
maining seven,  under  Mackay,  were 
moved  to  Buppin.  Three  days  after 
Mackay's  departure,  Tilly's  army,  ten 
thousand  strong,  marched  up  to  Boit- 
zenburg and  prepared  to  push  forward 
into  Holstein.  Dunbar,  V  knowing 
the  weakness  of  his  position,  had 
strengthened  his  defences  so  far  as  he 
could ;  but  his  eight  hundred  men 
were  but  a  small  garrison  against  a 
whole  army.  Nothing  daunted,  how- 
ever, he  made  a  successful  sortie 
against  the  enemy  on  the  very  first 
night ;  and  on  the  morrow  the 
irritated  Imperialists  assaulted  his 
works  simultaneously  at  all  points. 
The  first  attack  was  brilliantly  re- 
pulsed with  a  loss  to  the  assailants  of 
five  hundred  men.  Reinforcements 
were  brought  up :  the  attack  was 
renewed  and  again  beaten  off;  and 
finally  a  third  and  furious  onslaught 
was  made  upon  the  little  band  of 
Scots.  In  the  hottest  of  the  fight  the 
ammunition  of  the  garrison  failed,  its 
fire  ceased,  and  the  Imperialists, 
guessing  the  cause,  made  a  general 
rush  for  the  walls.  The  Scots  met 
them  at  first  with  showers  of  sand  torn 
from  the  ramparts ;  then  falling  on 
with  pike  and  musket-butt  they  fought 
the  enemy  hand  to  hand,  and  after  a 
desperate  struggle  at  last  drove  them 
out  with  the  loss  of  yet  another  five 
hundred  men.  Tilly  then  drew  off 
and  crossed  the  Elbe  higher  up,  while 
Dunbar,  by  Christian's  order,  marched 
proudly  out  of  Boitzenburg. 

This  was  the  first  serious  engage- 
ment of  Mackay's  regiment,  a  fitting 
prelude  to  the  work  that  was  to  come. 
But  poor  Dunbar  and  his  four  com- 
panies were  destined  to  have  little 
further  part  in  it.  Shortly  after  the 


The  First  Scots  Brigade. 


107 


evacuation  of  Boitzenburg  he  again 
defied  the  whole  of  Tilly's  army ; 
and  after  a  desperate  resistance,  the 
eight  hundred  men  with  their  gallant 
commander  were  almost  literally 
annihilated.  Seven  or  eight  alone 
escaped  to  tell  the  tale  to  their  enraged 
comrades. 

The  headquarters  of  the  regiment 
had  meanwhile  been  moved  from 
Ruppin  to  Oldenburg,  to  guard  the 
pass  against  Tilly's  advance  ;  and  here 
they  too  came  into  action.  They  were 
ill  supported  by  their  foreign  com- 
rades, for  the  Danes  gave  way,  the 
Germans  of  Christian's  army  took  to 
their  heels,  and  the  whole  brunt  of 
the  fight  fell  upon  half  the  regiment 
of  Scots.  After  two  hours  of  heavy 
fighting  the  other  half  came  to  its 
relief,  and  the  two  divisions,  taking 
turn  and  turn,  maintained  the  struggle 
against  vastly  superior  numbers  from 
seven  in  the  morning  until  four  in  the 
afternoon,  when  the  enemy  at  last  with- 
drew owing  to  the  darkness.  The 
spirit  shown  by  the  Scots  was  superb. 
Ensign  David  Ross  received  a  bullet 
in  the  chest ;  he  retired  for  a  few 
minutes  to  get  the  wound  dressed,  and 
returned  to  the  fight ;  nor  did  he  after- 
wards miss  an  hour's  duty  on  the  plea 
of  his  wound.  Hector Munro  of  Coull, 
being  shot  through  the  foot,  refused  to 
retire  until  he  had  fired  away  all  his 
ammunition,  and  before  he  could  do 
so  was  shot  in  the  other  foot  also. 
Hugh  Murray,  being  ordered  to  bring 
away  his  brother's  corpse  under  a 
heavy  fire,  swore  that  he  would  first 
empty  his  brother's  bandoleers  against 
the  enemy,  and  was  shot  in  the  eye, 
though  not  fatally,  while  fulfilling  his 
oath.  And  these  were  young  soldiers, 
so  inexperienced  that  they  left  their 
reserve  of  ammunition  exposed,  and 
suffered  heavily  from  the  explosion  of 
a  barrel  of  powder.  They  lost  sixteen 
officers  and  four  hundred  men  that 
day. 


That  night  the  Danish  army  began 
its  retreat  to  its  ships  at  Heiligen- 
haven ;  but  the  German  reiters  that 
formed  part  of  it  were  ,so  unsteady 
that  they  speedily  turned  the  retreat 
into  a  flight ;  and  when  the  harbour 
was  reached,  they  crowded  on  to  the 
mole  to  seize  all  the  transport-vessels 
for  themselves.  Sir  Donald  Mackay, 
who  was  himself  wounded,  was  not 
the  man  to  suffer  his  regiment  to  be 
sacrificed.  He  calmly  ordered  his 
pikemen  to  advance  with  charged 
pikes,  swept  the  whole  of  the  reiters 
into  the  sea,  seized  the  nearest  ship, 
brought  others  out  of  the  roadstead, 
and  proceeded  deliberately  to  the 
work  of  embarkation.  The  last  boat- 
load shoved  off  surrounded  by  the 
enemy's  cavalry,  and  the  last  of  the 
Scots,  a  gallant  boy  named  Murchison, 
though  wounded  in  the  head  and  shot 
through  the  arm,  swam  off  to  the  boat 
under  a  heavy  fire.  He  was  saved 
only  to  die  two  days  later  of  his  in- 
juries. The  rest  of  the  Danish  army, 
thirty-five  troops  of  horse  and  forty 
companies  of  foot,  surrendered  with- 
out striking  a  blow ;  and  it  is  hardly 
surprising  to  learn  that,  when  next 
the  Scots  found  themselves  in  quarters 
alongside  the  Danish  horse,  there  was 
a  furious  riot  which  could  not  be  sup- 
pressed until  eight  or  ten  lives  had 
been  lost.  But  in  truth  Mackay's 
regiment  was  so  much  weakened  by 
its  losses  that  both  Colonel  and  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel returned  perforce  to 
Scotland  to  raise  recruits. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  follow  the 
various  petty  actions  of  the  early 
campaign  of  1628  in  Holstein.  It 
must  suffice  that  Scotch  and  English, 
of  which  latter  there  was  a  fair  con- 
tingent, fought  valiantly  side  by  side 
both  against  the  Imperialists  in  the 
field  and  against  the  Danes  in  camp. 
The  reason  for  the  domestic  quarrel 
was  that  the  Danes  were  well  fur- 
nished with  dry  beef  and  bacon,  while 


108 


The  First  Scots  Brigade. 


the  English  and  Scots  received  only 
hard  biscuit  and  beer.  The  Britons, 
thinking  this  arrangement  unjust, 
devised  a  plan  of  cutting  the  Danish 
soldiers'  knapsacks  from  their  backs 
and  making  off  with  them  and  their 
contents  ;  a  trick  which  they  practised 
with  such  persistence  that  the  Danes, 
who  were  the  stronger  party,  at  last 
resolved  to  have  no  more  of  it.  One 
day  therefore  they  drew  their  swords 
upon  the  robbers ;  the  Britons,  no- 
thing loth,  drew  theirs  likewise  ;  and 
&  riotous  affray,  wherein,  many  were 
hurt,  finally  ended  in  the  expulsion 
of  the  Danes  from  the  camp  and  their 
flight  for  safety  to  the  sea.  The 
officers  at  last  appeased  the  tumult ; 
but  Major  Munro  and  Captain  Cham- 
berlain, who  commanded  the  Scotch 
and  English,  were  "mightily  chidden  " 
by  His  Majesty,  and  in  spite  of  their 
protestations  of  innocence  were  in- 
formed that  they,  and  not  the  men, 
would  be  punished  if  the  like  should 
occur  again.  They  took  the  hint, 
and  Mackay,  who  evidently  thought 
his  compatriots  perfectly  justified,  ac- 
knowledges that  reason  was  on  His 
Majesty's  side,  "  for  it  is  a  hard  time 
when  one  wolf  eats  up  another." 

In  May  the  Imperialists  moved  up 
in  force  to  occupy  Stralsund  ;  and  the 
burghers,  having  appealed  to  Christian 
for  assistance,  were  supplied  by  him 
with  the  surviving  seven  companies, 
now  reduced  to  eight  hundred  men, 
of  Mackay's  regiment.  On  their  ar- 
rival their  commander  at  once  selected, 
as  in  honour  bound,  the  most  danger- 
ous post  in  the  defences,  and  for  six 
weeks  the  regiment  was  harassed  to 
death  by  exhausting  duty.  The  men 
took  their  very  meals  at  their  posts, 
and  Munro,  who  was  now  second  in 
command,  mentions  that  he  never 
once  took  off  his  clothes.  They 
suffered  heavily,  too,  from  the  enemy's 
fire,  a  single  cannon-shot  strewing  the 
walls  with  the  brains  of  fourteen  men  ; 


but  they  held  out  always  with  indo- 
mitable resolution.  At  last,  on  June 
26th,  the  great  Wallenstein,  impatient 
at  the  long  delay,  came  up  to  the 
siege  in  person,  vowing  that  though 
the  town  were  hung  by  chains  betwixt 
heaven  and  earth,  he  would  capture 
it  in  three  nights.  But  the  Scots 
were  too  much  even  for  him ;  and  his 
first  assault  was  hurled  back  with  the 
loss  of  a  thousand  men.  Mackay's 
regiment,  however,  had  been  severely 
punished  ;  three  officers  and  two  hun- 
dred men  had  been  killed  outright, 
and  seven  more  officers,  Munro  him- 
self among  them,  were  wounded.  On 
the  following  night  Wallenstein  re- 
newed the  attack  and  was  a  second 
time  repulsed  ;  but  the  garrison  in  its 
weakness  was  now  compelled  to  open 
a  parley  in  order  to  gain  time ;  and 
the  negotiations  were  prolonged  until 
the  arrival  of  a  second  Scotch  regiment 
under  Lord  Spynie  enabled  the  defen- 
ders to  renew  their  defiance. 

Shortly  after  the  King  of  Sweden 
charged  himself  with  the  defence  of 
Stralsund.  Alexander  Leslie,  not  yet 
dreaming  of  Naseby  fight,  was  ap- 
pointed to  take  the  command ;  and 
Mackay's  and  Spynie's  regiments, 
after  a  final  sortie,  were  withdrawn 
to  Copenhagen.  Of  Mackay's,  five 
hundred  out  of  eight  hundred  men 
had  been  actually  killed  at  Stralsund, 
and  a  bare  hundred  remained  un- 
wounded ;  in  fact  the  regiment 
required  virtually  to  be  re-made. 
The  work  of  recruiting  and  reorgani- 
sation occupied  the  winter  months, 
at  the  close  of  which  the  corps,  now 
raised  to  ten  companies  and  fifteen 
hundred  men,  was  honourably  dis- 
charged from  the  service  of  Denmark 
and  free  to  join  itself  to  that  of 
Gustavus  Adolphus.  This  was  in 
February,  1630. 

Its  first  duty  was  to  learn  the  new 
drill  and  discipline  of  the  King  of 
Sweden,  the  system  which  though 


The  First  Scots  Brigade. 


109 


now  taught  for  the  first  time  to  British 
soldiers,  was  destined  later  to  be  ac- 
cepted all  over  Europe.  Without 
going  into  elaborate  detail,  we  may 
say  that  the  reforms  of  Gustavus 
rested  on  two  leading  principles  ;  the 
matching  of  mobility  against  weight, 
and  the  development  of  musketry-fire. 
First  therefore  he  lightened  the  equip- 
ment and  the  arms,  both  pike  and 
musket,  of  his  men,  and  ordained  that, 
instead  of  being  drawn  up  according 
to  the  Dutch  system  in  ten  ranks, 
they  should  never  stand  more  than 
six  deep.  Secondly,  he  improved  the 
musket  by  making  it  a  weapon  to  be 
fired  from  the  shoulder  only  instead 
of  from  a  rest,  which  enabled  the 
men  to  fire  volleys  in  three  ranks  at 
a  time,  the  front  rank  kneeling  and 
the  other  two  standing  above  them. 
Lastly,  he  created  a  new  tactical  unit 
of  musketeers  called  by  the  French 
name  of  peloton,  which  was  soon  cor- 
rupted by  the  Scots  into  plotton,  and 
at  last  took  its  place  in  our  language 
in  the  form  platoon.  A  platoon  con- 
sisted of  forty-eight  men,  eight  in 
rank  and  six  in  file,  which  being 
doubled  for  purposes  of  the  new  fire- 
tactics  into  sixteen  in  rank  and  three 
in  file,  could  discharge  such  staggering 
volleys  as  had  never  hitherto  been  seen 
on  a  battlefield. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the 
moral  force,  lost  by  such  a  reduction  in 
the  depth  of  ranks  as  that  ordered  by 
Gustavus,  needed  to  be  made  good  by 
superior  discipline ;  and  here  again 
the  Lion  of  the  North  took  a  long 
stride  ahead  of  his  contemporaries. 
The  mere  perfection  of  drill  which  he 
required  of  his  men  sufficed  to  teach 
them  the  habit  of  instinctive  obedi- 
ence, and  this  obedience  was  sternly 
upheld  on  the  march  by  the  halter 
and  the  rod.  Men,  however,  could 
take  a  great  deal  of  punishment  in 
those  days ;  and  even  the  gatloup,  a 
penalty  better  known  under  the 


corrupted  form  of  running  the 
gauntlet,  which  now  seems  intoler- 
ably barbarous,  was  so  lightly  thought 
of  that  men  could  be  found  to  submit 
to  it  again  and  again  'for  a  few 
shillings.  Under  the  rule  of  Gustavus, 
however,  the  Scots  became  marvel- 
lously proficient.  "  You  would 
think,"  writes  Munro  proudly,  "  a 
whole  regiment,  well  disciplined  as 
this  was,  were  all  but  one  body  and 
of  one  motion ;  their  ears  obeying 
the  command  all  as  one,  their  eyes 
turning  all  alike  at  the  first  sign 
given,  their  hands  going  into  execu- 
tion as  one  hand  giving  one  stroke, 
yea  many  strokes  all  alike,  ever  ready 
to  strike  or  to  hold  up  as  their  com- 
mander pleaseth."  One  thing  alone 
Gustavus  could  never  teach  the  Scots, 
namely  to  share  his  passion  for  field 
fortification.  They  always  grumbled 
when  called  upon  to  use  the  spade, 
and  in  spite  of  the  King's  reproaches 
always  made  less  progress  with  field- 
works,  in  a  given  time,  than  any 
other  corps  in  the  army. 

In  June,  1630,  Mackay's  regiment 
sailed  for  Germany  as  part  of  the 
thirteen  thousand  men  which  formed 
the  Swedish  expedition,  half  the  com- 
panies embarking  at  Elfsknaben,  the 
remainder  under  Munro  at  Pillau.  The 
latter  detachment  was  wrecked  off 
Riigenwalde,  and  was  only  saved  by 
Munro's  personal  exertions  in  con- 
structing a  raft.  They  landed  eventu- 
ally with  the  loss  of  one  man  only, 
but  of  course  without  baggage  and 
ammunition,  and  with  few  arms 
beyond  their  pikes  and  swords.  They 
were  at  once  greeted  with  the  news 
that  the  Imperialist  troops  were 
in  the  immediate  neighbourhood. 
Munro,  with  ready  resource,  sent  to 
the  Duke  of  Pomerania,  who  was  a 
secret  partisan  of  Gustavus,  at  the 
Castle  of  Riigenwalde  hard  by, 
borrowed  fifty  muskets  and  some 
ammunition,  and  without  more  ado 


110 


The  First  Scots  Brigade. 


surprised  the  town  of  Riigenwalde  at 
midnight  and  captured  it  for  the 
Swedish  King.  A  more  daring  feat 
of  arms  by  an  isolated  and  unequipped 
force  has  rarely  been  achieved  in  war. 
The  Imperialists  quickly  moved  up  to 
recapture  it ;  but  Munro  having  taken 
possession  was  not  going  to  relinquish 
it  easily  ;  and  he  held  the  town  against 
all  attacks  for  nine  weeks,  until 
relieved  by  his  countryman,  Sir  John 
Hepburn. 

After  several  brilliant  little  actions 
Munro  rejoined  the  headquarters  of 
his  regiment  at  Stettin ;  and  in 
January,  1631,  Gustavus,  who  boasted 
with  justice  that  his  army  was  as 
effective  for  a  winter  as  for  a  summer 
campaign,  invaded  Brandenburg  and 
marched  for  the  Oder.  The  Scotch 
were  now  organised  into  the  famous 
Green,  or  Scots,  Brigade,  consisting  of 
four  picked  regiments,  Hepburn's, 
Lumsden's,  Mackay's  and  Stargate's, 
the  whole  under  the  command  of  Sir 
John  Hepburn.  As  at  the  beginning 
of  its  service  Mackay's  again  dis- 
tinguished itself  by  extraordinary 
tenacity  in  maintaining  an  untenable 
position.  A  detachment,  which  had 
been  told  off  as  part  of  a  force  for  the 
defence  of  New  Brandenburg,  resisted 
the  whole  strength  of  Tilly's  army, 
and  lost  no  fewer  than  six  hundred 
men  killed.  The  remainder  took 
revenge  for  their  fallen  comrades 
at  the  storm  of  Frankfort  by  the 
slaughter  of  some  three  thousand  Im- 
perialists. 

But  the  operations  on  the  Oder 
were  interrupted  by  Tilly's  advance 
upon  Magdeburg,  which  called  Gus- 
tavus in  all  haste  to  Saxony.  Ar- 
riving too  late  to  save  the  hapless 
city,  he  entrenched  himself  at  Werben 
at  the  junction  of  the  Elbe  and  the 
Havel ;  and  Tilly,  after  losing  six 
thousand  men  in  the  vain  attempt  to 
storm  the  works,  invaded  Saxony. 
Gustavus  at  once  followed  him  and 


offered  him  battle   on  the  plains  of 
Leipsic. 

On  the  7th  September,  1631,  the 
redoubtable  Tilly  took  up  his  position, 
facing  northward,  on  a  low  line  of 
heights  running  from  the  village  of 
Breitenfeld  in  the  west  to  that  of 
Seehausen  in  the  east.  His  army  was 
formed  in  a  single  deep  massive  line, 
seven  regiments  of  cavalry  under 
Pappenheim  on  the  left,  seven  more 
under  Furstenburg  on  the  right,  all 
drawn  up  in  dense  columns  of  the  old 
fashion.  In  the  centre  was  Tilly 
himself  with  eighteen  regiments  of 
infantry,  his  famous  Walloons  among 
them ;  and  on  the  heights  above  him 
were  his  guns.  The  whole  force 
numbered  forty  thousand  men,  and 
their  general  was  a  man  who  through 
seventy  years  of  a  life  of  fighting  had 
never  lost  a  battle. 

On  the  other  side  the  armies  of  the 
Swedes  and  of  their  Saxon  allies  were 
formed  in  two  lines,  the  Saxons, 
fourteen  thousand  strong,  on  the  left, 
the  Swedes  on  the  right.  The 
Swedish  force  was  drawn  up  in  two 
lines  with  cavalry  on  the  wings  and 
infantry  in  the  centre,  Hepburn's 
brigade  being  in  the  second  line. 
There  was  considerable  difference  in 
the  appearance  of  the  two  nations 
that  composed  the  allied  army,  the 
Saxons  all  mustering  in  their  best 
apparel  and  arms  "as  if  they  were 
going  to  be  painted,"  while  the  Swedes, 
having  lain  all  through  the  previous 
night  on  ploughed  ground,  looked  like 
"  a  party  of  kitchen  servants  in  their 
uncleanly  rags."  The  difference  in 
quality  remained  presently  to  be  seen. 

The  action  opened  as  usual  with  a 
duel  of  artillery,  which  was  continued 
from  noon  until  half-past  two,  the 
Swedish  guns,  more  numerous  and 
better  served  than  Tilly's,  firing  three 
shots  to  the  enemy's  one.  At  last 
Pappenheim  on  Tilly's  left  lost 
patience,  and  setting  his  wing  of 


The  First  'Scots  Brigade. 


Ill 


horse  in  motion  without  orders, 
plunged  down  on  the  Swedish  right. 
Tilly  wrung  his  hands  in  despair 
at  this  premature  attack,  but  he  was 
helpless.  Furstenburg  on  the  other 
wing  seeing  Pappenheim's  movements, 
also  advanced,  and  charging  down  on 
the  smart  Saxons  swept  the  whole  of 
them  away  like  chaff  before  the  wind. 
He  followed  them  in  hot  pursuit ;  and 
had  Tilly  at  once  advanced  with  his 
centre  against  the  Swedish  left,  which 
stood  opposed  to  it,  he  might  have 
hoped  for  success,  for  Gustavus's  left 
flank  was  wholly  uncovered.  By  his 
faulty  disposition  of  his  guns,  how- 
ever, he  could  not  do  so  without 
putting  his  artillery  out  of  action. 
He  therefore  moved  his  troops  to  the 
right,  so  as  to  follow  on  the  track  of 
Furstenburg  and  outflank  the  Swedes; 
and  the  delay  gave  Gustavus  time  to 
alter  his  dispositions.  Hepburn's 
brigade  was  quickly  brought  up  to 
meet  the  attack  on  the  flank,  and 
after  a  single  volley  charged  Tilly's 
infantry  with  pike  and  musket-butt 
with  irresistible  force.  The  Impe- 
rialists broke,  and  Gustavus,  having 
routed  Pappenheim  on  the  Swedish 
right,  pressed  on  to  the  flank  of 
Tilly's  guns,  captured  the  whole 
battery,  and  virtually  ended  the 
battle.  The  Scots  were  practically 
the  only  infantry  engaged,  and  were 
thanked  by  Gustavus  before  the  whole 
army  for  their  good  service. 

From  Leipsic  Gustavus  marched 
for  the  Main,  the  Scots  being  as 
usual  put  forward  for  every  desperate 
service  that  was  to  be  encountered  on 
the  way,  and  went  into  winter 
quarters  at  Mayence.  In  the  spring 
of  1632  he  marched  down  the  line  of 
the  Danube  with  forty  thousand  men, 
forced  the  passage  of  the  Lech  in  the 
teeth  of  Tilly's  army,  entered  Bavaria, 
and  by  May  was  at  Munich.  Then, 
finding  the  towns  in  his  rear  to  be 
threatened,  he  doubled  back  to 


Donauwb'rth,  and  thence,  called 
towards  Saxony  by  the  appearance  of 
Wallenstein,  he  turned  away  to 
Niiruberg.  Such  marching,  if  we 
except  the  advance  of  the  English 
flying  column  to  Agincourt,  had  not 
been  seen  since  the  days  of  Zisca. 
Gustavus  now  turned  Number^, 

o" 

according   to   his  custom,  into  a  vast 
entrenched  camp.      He  had  no  more 
than  eighteen  thousand  men  against 
Wallenstein's   seventy  thousand,  and 
wished  for  nothing  better  than  that 
his  enemy  should  dash  his   force    to 
pieces    against    his   field-works.      But 
his    enemy    was    too    cunning    to    do 
anything    so    foolish.       He    took  the 
simple  course   of  entrenching  himself 
impregnably  alongside  Gustavus,  cut- 
ting off  his  supplies  from   the  Rhine 
and    Danube    and    reducing    him   by 
starvation.        Reinforcements     raised 
the   Swedish  force  to  five  and  thirty 
thousand    7iien,     Wallenstein     suffer- 
ing    them    to    pass   unmolested    that 
they    might    consume    the    provisions 
more  quickly.       The  pinch  of  hunger 
began    to    make    itself    felt    in    the 
Swedish  camp  :  pestilence  raged  among 
the    unhappy    troops ;     and    at    last 
Gustavus  in  desperation  launched  his 
army     in     a    -vain      assault     against 
Wallenstein's     entrenchments.        For 
twelve   hours    his    men    swarmed    up 
the    rugged    and    broken    hill    with 
desperate    courage,    three    times    ob- 
taining a  momentary  footing,  and  as 
often  beaten  back.    The  Scots  Brigade 
suffered    terribly ;     officers    and    men 
exposed  themselves  gallantly  only  to  be 
shot  down,  and  at  the  close  of  the  day 
nearly    all     the    musketeers    of    the 
brigade  had  fallen,  while  there  were 
hardly  pikemen  enough  to  guard  the 
colours.       Munro,    though    wounded, 
stuck  to  his  post  till  nightfall,  when 
he  had  lost  two  hundred   men   killed, 
besides  wounded.     Still  the  cannonade 
was  kept  up  all  night,  and  the  Scotch 
officer  who  had  relieved  Munro  brought 


112 


The  First  Scots  Brigade. 


back  but  thirty  out  of  five  hundred 
men  next  morning.  Gustavus,  seeing 
that  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to 
retreat,  evacuated  Niirnberg  and 
retired  to  Neustadt. 

Sir  John  Hepburn,  in  consequence 
of  some  quarrel  with  Gustavus,  now 
took  his  leave  of  him,  and  entered 
the  service  of  France  ;  and  the  Scots 
Brigade,  weakened  to  a  shadow  by  its 
losses,  was  left  behind  at  Dunkersbiihl 
to  await  reinforcements,  while  Gustavus 
marched  away  to  his  last  battle-field 
at  Lutzen.  Here,  though  the  cele- 
brated brigade  was  perforce  absent, 
there  were  many  officers  present  who 
had  formerly  served  with  it,  as  well 
as  other  regiments  of  Scots  in  the 
pay  of  Gustavus  Adolphus.  The  total 
number  of  Britons  in  the  Swedish 
service  rose  higher  and  higher  till  it 
reached  a  total  of  some  thirteen 
thousand  soldiers.  Mackay's  regiment 
also  was  recruited  to  twelve  companies 
and  fifteen  hundred  men,  and  took  the 
field  again,  though  no  longer  with 
Robert  Munro  at  its  head.  Its  last 
great  action  in  the  Swedish  service 
was  the  disastrous  battleof  Nordlingen, 
where  it  was  almost  annihilated, 
emerging  only  with  the  bare  strength 
of  a  single  company.  The  Swedish 
army  was  no  longer  the  same  since 
Gustavus  had  fallen.  A  year  later, 
in  1 635,  on  the  alliance  of  France  with 
Sweden,  the  fragments  of  the  Scotch 
regiments  were  all  blended  into  one, 
and  passed  into  the  service  of  France 
under  the  command  of  their  old  leader 
Sir  John  Hepburn. 

The  corps  was  now  known  by  its  new 
commander's  name,  as  the  Regiment 
d'Hebron,  but  in  little  more  than  a 
year  the  appellation  was  changed,  for 
Hepburn  fell  at  its  head  at  the  siege 
of  Saverne  in  1636.  It  then  passed 
to  a  colonel  whose  name  made  it  the 
Regiment  Douglas,  and  it  was  as  the 
Regiment  Douglas  that  it  fought  under 
Conde  at  Rocroi  in  1643.  Two  years 


later  found  it  still  in  the  field  under 
Turenne,  besieging  Gravelines,  in 
company  with  the  English  regiment  of 
Rokeby,  which  was  also  in  the  French 
service.  Yet  another  two  years  saw 
not  only  Rokeby  but  another  English 
regiment,  that  of  Prince  Robert  de 
Baviere,  better  known  to  us  as  Rupert 
of  the  Rhine,  distinguishing  them- 
selves extraordinarily  under  the  victor 
of  Rocroi  at  Lens  in  1648.  Then  at 
last  came  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  and 
a  season  of  rest 

But  the  troubles  of  France  were 
not  yet  over,  and  presently  Conde  and 
Turenne,  who  had  so  often  fought  side 
by  side,  were  seen  arrayed  against 
each  other.  Again  the  Regiment 
Douglas  came  into  the  field  and  dis- 
tinguished itself  at  the  capture  of 
Arras,  of  Quesnoi,  Landrecies,  and  St. 
Ghislain  in  1654;  and  four  years 
later,  on  one  memorable  day,  it  fought 
by  the  side  of  the  English  red-coats 
at  Dunkirk  Dunes.  But  the  time  was 
not  far  distant  when  it  was  itself  to 
wear  the  red  coat.  In  1659—60  the 
Regiment  Rokeby  and  the  Regiment 
of  Prince  Rupert  were  merged  in 
Douglas,  and  finally  at  the  Restoration 
the  united  corps  was  summoned  to 
England  as  the  First  Royal,  or  Scots 
Regiment.  After  two  years,  however, 
it  went  abroad  again  under  the  French 
standard,  served  in  the  campaign  of 
1672  in  the  Low  Countries,  fought  at 
Turckheim  in  1674,  at  Salzbach,  where 
it  avenged  the  death  of  Turenne,  in 
1675,  and  ended  its  French  service 
under  the  Marshal  of  Luxemburg,  at 
Kokersberg  and  Fribourg,  in  1677. 

Then  came  the  treaty  of  Nimeguen 
and  the  final  return  of  the  regiment 
to  England.  Since  1670  it  had 
ranked  as  the  twelfth  regiment  of  the 
French  line ;  it  returned  to  become 
the  first  of  the  English  line,  with  the 
title,  which  it  still  bears,  of  the  Royal 
Scots.  It  is  said  that  the  Royal 
Scots  quarrelled  with  the  Coldstream 


The  First__Scots  Brigade. 


113 


Guards  and  claimed  that  they  ought 
by  right  to  take  precedence  of  them 
as  the  older  regiment.  Nothing  can 
be  more  probable.  Even  when  first 
enrolled  in  the  French  army  Regiment 
d'Hebron  had  arrogated  precedence  of 
Picardie,  the  oldest  of  the  French 
regiments,  on  the  absurd  ground  that 
it  had  received  a  certain  number  of 
officers  from  a  corps  which  enjoyed  an 
unique  antiquity,  the  Scottish  Body- 
guard. If  an  English  regiment  were 
to  be  raised  to-morrow,  and  on  taking 
over  half  a  dozen  officers  from  the 
Grenadier  Guards  were  to  claim  the 
first  place  in  the  British  infantry,  its 
pretensions  could  not  be  more  ridi- 
culous than  those  of  d'Hebron. 
Picardie  was  by  no  means  disposed  to 
yield  to  these  upstarts,  and  avenged 
the  insult  by  calling  the  Scots  Pontius 
Pilate's  Guards,  a  nickname  which 
gave  a  Scotch  officer  the  opening  for  a 
biting  retort.  "  If  we  had  done  duty 
at  the  Holy  Sepulchre,"  he  answered, 
well  aware  that  certain  sentries  of 
Picardie  had  lately  been  caught  asleep 
at  their  posts,  "  the  Holy  Body  would 
never  have  left  it."  None  the  less, 
the  phrase  Pontius  Pilate's  Guards 
duly  crossed  the  Channel,  and  endures 


as  a  title  of  honour  to  this  day. 
Probably  it  was  preserved  by  the 
Coldstream,  who  were  proud,  and 
justly  proud,  of  authentic  descent 
from  the  New  Model  Army  of  1645. 
Nevertheless,  the  Royal  Scots, 
though  not,  as  some  writers  would 
have  us  believe,  the  oldest  or  nearly 
the  oldest  regiment  in  the  world,  have 
still  much  to  be  proud  of.  They 
represent  regiments  which  took  part 
in  the  most  brilliant  actions  of  three 
such  captains  as  Gustavus  Adolphus, 
Conde,  and  Turenne ;  and  to  these 
honours  they  have  added  distinguished 
service  under  Marlborough  and  Wel- 
lington. Is  there  another  regiment  in 
the  world  that  can  show  such  a  history 
as  this  1  We  greatly  doubt  it ;  and 
surely  this  is  sufficient  without  tracing 
an  imaginary  pedigree  to  the  Scottish 
Guards,  and  moving  the  birthday  even 
of  that  famous  corps  backward  for 
two  centuries  without  the  slightest 
warrant  from  history.  A  regiment 
need  not  disturb  itself  to  inquire 
whether  it  covered  the  retreat  of 
Saul's  army  at  the  action  of  Gil  boa, 
when  it  can  authentically  quote  such 
names  as  Leipsic,  Rocroi,  Lens, 
Dunkirk,  Blenheim,  and  Waterloo. 


No.  440. — VOL.  LXXVI. 


114 


AN    ARM-CHAIR    PHILOSOPHER. 


IT  has  been  shrewdly  said  that  we 
care  a  great  deal  for  the  outward 
aspect  of  the  eighteenth  century,  its 
fashions  in  architecture  and  dress  and 
furniture,  but  for  its  inward  life,  its 
literature  and  thought,  we  care  next 
to  nothing.  The  reason  is  not  hard  to 
discover.  The  outward  aspect  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  for  at  least  the 
greater  part  of  its  course,  is  all  that 
its  literature  and  thought  were  not, 
various,  full  of  colour,  abundant  in 
contrasts.  Its  literature,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  sober,  grey,  constrained. 
Thus  we  fix  greedily  on  the  glittering 
exterior,  and  are  utterly  careless  of 
what  lies  beneath ;  although  there  are 
many  periods  of  the  world's  history 
which  have  been  as  much  distin- 
guished by  colour  and  brilliance, 
none,  perhaps,  which  have  been  so 
remarkable  in  moral  and  intellectual 
character. 

To  a  period   of   fierce  and   ill-regu- 
lated   enthusiasm     had     succeeded     a 
period  of  cool  and  measured  common- 
sense.      Men   woke   to   the   conscious- 
ness that  they  had  been  sacrificing  life 
itself  in  a  too  fastidious  choice  of  a 
particular  kind  of  life.     They  elected 
to  live — how,  was  become  a  secondary 
consideration.      Every  ideal  was  sub- 
ordinated to  the  imperious   demands 
of  practice.      Theory  was  strictly  con- 
trolled by  utilitarian  conditions.     The 
ideals  and  the  dogma  of  a  Laud  had 
fallen  into  disrepute,  but  had  not  yet 
been    displaced    by    the    dogma    and 
the  ideals  of  a  Wesley.      The  Divine 
Right   of  Kings  was  become  a  mere 
bugbear,     and    the     Rights    of    Man 
were  as  yet  not  even  that.     This  mad 
world    of    ours    was   visited  with    an 


interval  of  sanity,  was  aware  of  it, 
proud  of  it,  and,  for  the  moment, 
resolved  to  keep  it. 

It  is  not  always  the  greatest  authors 
who  best   represent  the  tendencies  of 
their  age,  and  a  writer  who  occupies 
a  very  small  niche  in  the  Temple  of 
Fame,   prosaically  symbolised  by    the 
DICTIONARY  OF  NATIONAL  BIOGRAPHY, 
is   probably    the    most    complete   and 
satisfactory  exponent  of  the  aims  and 
aspirations  which  engaged  the  English 
mind  in  the  early  Georgian  era.     We 
know  very  little  of  the  events  of  Mat- 
thew Green's  life,  and  probably  there 
is  little  to  know.      We  picture  him  as 
a  clerk  in  the  Custom  House,  of  middle 
age,    a    confirmed   bachelor  living  by 
himself     in     lodgings,    with     bookish 
habits  and  a  quiet  humour.       We  can 
hardly    imagine    him    to    have    been 
ever  a  young  man ;  and  he  was  not 
old,    only    forty-one,    when    he    died. 
By  birth  and  education  a  Dissenter, 
not    a     sturdy    Presbyterian    or    un- 
yielding    Independent,    but    bred    in 
the  milder    tenets  of    the  Society  of 
Friends,  he  was  at  least  nominally  a 
member    of    the  Established   Church, 
in  order  to  hold  his  appointment  at 
the  Custom  House.      For  a  busy  man 
he   had   read  much,   and  he  was  not 
averse,    though    with    mock    modesty 
disclaiming   any    tincture  of  classical 
learning,  to  display  his  reading  in  an 
unhackneyed  allusion,  or  such  an  un- 
pardonable Latinism  as  nefandous  or 
fecundous.     He  seems  to  have  written 
with  only  a  remote  intention  of  print- 
ing,    but    to    have    been    prolific    in 
"occasional    effusions,"    and    "copies 
of  verses   addressed    to    his   friends," 
most  of    which    have    been    lost.      A 


An  Arm-CTiair  Philosopher. 


115 


story  runs  that  some  very  vigorous 
measures  of  retrenchment  introduced 
at  the  Custom  House  were  to  deprive 
its  numerous  tribe  of  cats  of  their 
daily  allowance  of  a  saucer  of  milk 
apiece,  and  that  a  humorous  petition 
in  verse  from  our  author  averted  their 
threatened  deprivation.  We  can  easily 
believe  the  author  of  THE  SPLEEN  to 
have  been  a  lover  of  cats. 

THE  SPLEEN  is  the  title  of  his  mag- 
num opus  ;  a  magnum  opus,  which  only 
extends  to  fifty-eight  pages  in  Doctor 
Aikin's  neatly-printed  edition.  Into 
the  quaint  couplets  of  this  little  poem 
Green  has  packed  the  whole  practical 
philosophy  of  his  day,  and  all  philo- 
sophy then  was  practical.  His  verse 
has  been  praised,  and  even  famous, 
for  other  qualities.  It  was  once  ad- 
mired by  Doctor  Aikin  and  others  for 
its  witty  and  unexpected  turns.  Now- 
adays critics  prefer,  if  they  ever  notice 
Green's  work  at  all,  to  single  it  out 
as  an  anticipation  of  the  revival  of  a 
feeling  for  nature.  Those  who  care 
to  become  intimate  with  Green  grow 
to  look  upon  him  in  quite  another 
light  than  as  a  mere  literary  land- 
mark. 

In  light  and  careless  verse,  directed 
to  an  old  acquaintance,  Green  unfolds 
in  detail  his  scheme  of  living,  and  the 
measures  he  took  to  drive  away  that 
melancholy  which  perhaps  was  not  less 
common  then  than  now,  but  which  in 
those  days  it  was  not  the  custom 
to  hug  and  dandle  with  such  affec- 
tion. To  live  healthily  and  happily 
was  the  ideal  Green  set  before  him- 
self, and  he  adjusted  all  his  conduct 
to  this  end.  To  love  one's  fellow- 
men  was  good,  but  that  was  a  condi- 
tion of  mind  most  likely  to  be  ob- 
tained through  tranquillity  and  in- 
curiousness.  An  overscrupulous  phil- 
anthropy, which  wears  the  temper 
and  jars  the  nerves,  defeats  its  own 
ends,  and  is  not  a  virtue  to  commend 
itself  to  a  thoroughly  sane  intelligence. 


"  Reforming  schemes,''  says  this  apostle 
of  common- sense, 

Reforming  schemes  are  none  of  mine  ; 
To  mend  the  world's  a  vast  design  ; 
Like  theirs,  who  tug  in  little  boat, 
To  pull  to  them  the  ship  afloat, 
While,  to  defeat  their  labour'd  end, 
At  once  both  wind  and  stream  contend  : 
Success  herein  is  seldom  seen, 
And  zeal,  when  baffled,  turns  to  spleen. 

Happy  the  man  who,  innocent, 
Grieves  not  at  ills  he  can't  prevent ; 
His  skiff  does  with  the  current  glide, 
Not  puffing  pull'd  against  the  tide. 
He,  paddling  by  the  scuffling  crowd, 
Sees  unconcern'd  life's  wager  row'd, 
And  when  he  can't  prevent  foul  play 
Enjoys  the  folly  of  the  fray. 

Every  part  of  life  is  administered  on 
the  same  plan.  Patriotism  must  not 
be  allowed  to  delude,  any  more  than 
philanthropy. 

A  prince's  cause,  a  church's  claim, 
I've  known  to  raise  a  mighty  flame, 
Ami  priest,  as  stoker,  very  free 
To  throw  in  peace  and  charity. 

That  was  a  lesson  which  England 
under  the  first  two  Georges  had 
taken  to  heart.  The  country  had 
grown  sick  of  causes,  of  calls  and 
counter-cries.  That  was  the  secret 
of  the  Hanoverian  rule,  and  of  Wai- 
pole's  long  successful  career. 

It  can  scarcely  be  concealed  that 
Green's  principles  were  essentially  such 
as  would  now  be  branded  with  the 
epithet  of  Philistine.  Not  only  in 
his  refusal  to  take  what  we  call, 
with  conviction,  elevated  views  of  the 
claims  of  the  State  and  the  obligations 
of  the  individual,  but  in  his  whole 
outlook  he  is  irredeemably  plain,  prac- 
tical, absorbed  in  utility.  Passion 
he  sedulously  excludes.  Love  is  a 
pretty  plaything,  an  amusement  to 
be  enjoyed  with  caution,  lest  one 
burn  one's  fingers  unwittingly.  The 
arts  are  mere  handmaids  to  health. 
Music  is  excellent  to  purge  away 
the  vapours,  and  the  theatre  is  pre- 

i   2 


116 


An  Arm-Chair  Philosopher. 


scribed  for  the  harassed  man  of  busi- 
ness. Poetry  is  an  agreeable  accom- 
plishment for  an  idle  hour,  but  worse 
than  hypochondria  if  taken  seriously. 
Tt  is  Thackeray's  criticism  of  life, 
without  its  bitterness  and  its  incon- 
sistent earnestness. 

Of  course  Green  is  writing  from  a 
special  point  of  view.  But  it  is  easy 
to  assure  one's  self  that  he  has  chosen 
it  because  it  appeals  to  him  (and,  for 
that  matter,  to  all  his  readers)  with  a 
special  force.  It  really  did  seem  to 
the  men  of  that  time  the  highest  aim, 
to  preserve  a  temper  of  mind  and 
body  unagitated  and  undepressed.  A 
horror  of  what  they  called  the 
spleen  entered,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, into  every  system  of  politics, 
of  theology,  and  of  ethics.  A  kind 
of  ataraxia,  an  unbroken  calm,  was 
their  ideal  good. 

The  feeling  for  nature  which  critics 
find  in  Green's  poetry  is  not  out  of  har- 
mony with  the  prevailing  tone  of  his 
philosophy.  There  is  nothing  excessive 
about  it.  No  one  could  truthfully 
describe  it  as  passion ;  it  can  scarcely 
be  classed  with  the  emotions.  He 
has  the  cit's  taste  for  country  air,  and 
a  happy  knack  at  expressing  it.  He 
finds  the  quiet  and  the  shade  soothing 
after  a  hot  and  busy  day  in  town,  but 
if  condemned  to  a  six  months'  rustica- 
tion, he  would  soon  be  pining  for  the 
good  company  at  Will's  coffee-house. 
He  appreciates  a  sunset,  if  there  is  no 
danger  from  wet  feet  in  looking  at  it. 
After  all,  there  is  some  sincerity  in 
his  pleasantly  expressed  wish  for  in- 
dependence and  ease  and  a  retreat 
among  those  rural  sights  which  the 
experience  of  many  a  pleasant  pic-nic 
and  an  occasional  jaunt  of  a  few  days' 
duration  had  taught  him  to  believe  so 
congenial. 

Forc'd  by  soft  violence  of  pray'r, 

The  blithesome  goddess  soothes  my  care, 

I  feel  the  deity  inspire, 

And  thus  she  models  my  desire. 


Two  hundred  pounds  half-yearly  paid, 

Annuity  securely  made, 

A  farm  some  twenty  miles  from  town, 

Small,  tight,  salubrious,  and  my  own  ; 

Two  maids,  that  never  saw  the  town, 

A  serving-man  not  quite  a  clown, 

A  boy  to  help  to  tread  the  mow, 

And    drive,    while    t'other    holds    the 

plough ; 

A  chief,  of  temper  formed  to  please, 
Tit  to  converse,  and  keep  the  keys  ; 
And  better  to  preserve  the  peace, 
Commission'd  by  the  name  of  niece  ; 
With  understandings  of  a  size 
To  think  their  master  very  wise. 
May  Heav'n  (it's  all  I  wish  for)  send 
One  genial  room  to  treat  a  friend, 
Where  decent  cupboard,  little  plate, 
Display  benevolence,  not  state. 
And  may  my  humble  dwelling  stand 
Upon  some  chosen  spot  of  land  ; 
A  pond  before,  full  to  the  brim, 
Where  cows  may  cool,  and  geese  may 

swim  ; 

Behind,  a  green  like  velvet  neat, 
Soft  to  the  eye,  and  to  the  feet ; 
Where  od'rous  plants  in  evening  fail- 
Breathe  all  around  ambrosial  air. 

With  op'ning  views  of  hill  and  dale, 
Which  sense  and  fancy  too  regale, 
Where    the   half-cirque,    which    vision 

bounds, 

Like  amphitheatre  surrounds  ; 
And  woods  impervious  to  the  breeze, 
Thick  phalanx  of  embodied  trees, 
From  hills  through  plains  in  dusk  array 
Extended  far,  repel  the  day. 

Those  were  less  laborious  days  than 
ours.  Men's  wishes  were  contained 
in  narrower  bounds,  and  were  more 
easily  gratified. 

Green's  views  on  questions  of  the- 
ology could  be  construed  from  the 
tendency  of  all  his  argumentation,  if  he 
had  not  stated  it  explicitly.  He  has 
spoken  somewhat  enthusiastically  of 
his  own  sect  and  their  doctrine  in 
his  lines  on  Barclay's  Apology  for  the 
Quakers.  Their  unobtrusive,  passive 
demeanour  contrasted  favourably  with 
the  aggressive  conduct  of  most  of  the 
religious.  Green  too  approved  very 
highly  of  a  system  which  made  every 
man  a  criterion  to  himself.  He  could 
not,  however,  but  feel  strongly  the 


An  Arm-Chair  Philosopher. 


117 


impracticability  of  their  creed,  and 
-can  have  been  speaking  only  in  the 
language  of  affectionate  compliment 
when  he  affirmed  that  he  would  have 
thrown  in  his  lot  with  them,  had  his 
will  and  his  courage  been  sufficient. 
Natural  bent  and  a  settled  habitude, 
quite  as  much  as  interest,  taught  him 
to  go  "  to  Mecca  with  the  caravan." 
His  real,  ultimate  convictions  he  has 
placed  on  record  in  language  more 
serious  and  dignified  than  he  generally 
cares  to  use.  He  forbears  to  vex  him- 
self with  curious  questionings  or 
subtle  interpretations.  He  leaves 
theology  to  priests,  and  asceticism  to 
the  priest-ridden.  He  orders  his  life 
as  well  as  he  can  by  the  direction  of 
common  sense,  and  has  no  fear  of 
condemnation  from  the  Being  who 
gave  him  that  sense. 

In  One,  no  object  of  our  sight, 
Immutable,  and  infinite, 
Who  can't  be  cruel  or  unjust, 
Calm  and  resign'd,  I  fix  my  trust  ; 
To  Him  my  past  and  present  state 
I  owe,  and  must  my  future  fate. 

He  for  His  creatures  must  decree 
More  happiness  than  misery, 
Or  be  supposed  to  create, 
Curious  to  try,  what  'tis  to  hate  ; 
And  do  an  act,  which  rage  infers, 
'Cause  lameness  halts,  or  blindness  errs. 

The  best  type  of  theologian  in  the 
•earlier  years  of  the  century  leaned 
more  and  more  to  such  conclusions. 
The  idea  of  the  benevolence  of  the 


Deity  pervaded  all  that  theology. 
Men's  minds  were  striving  hard  to 
shake  off  an  accumulated  burden  of 
unwholesome  thoughts.  They  would 
have  failed  entirely  if  they  had  left 
untouched  the  most  painful  thought 
of  all.  And  so  theology  too  came 
under  the  influence  of  the  prevailing 
tendency ;  a  tendency  to  aim,  in  chief, 
at  health,  comfort,  and  sanity. 

Among  the  educated  classes  there 
was  perhaps  less  superstition  and  less 
spiritual  uneasiness  than  there  has 
ever  been,  before  or  after.  Educated 
men  had  more  confidence  in  the 
capacity  of  human  reason  than  they 
had  ever  had  since  the  days  of  Plato. 
Where  they  admitted  or  felt  a  limita- 
tion, the  consciousness  was  not  a  dis- 
comfort but  an  anodyne.  It  gave 
them  rest. 

All  that  was  soon  changed.  Old 
passions  and  emotions,  and  some  new 
ones,  were  soon  to  be  aroused  by  the 
preaching  of  the  Wesleys,  the  decla- 
mation of  Rousseau,  by  all  the  forces 
which  have  made  the  modern  world. 

The  period,  while  it  lasted,  was  not 
heroic.  But,  looking  back,  one  seems 
to  discern  a  period  of  calm  and  light, 
a  period  of  tranquil  sanity,  of  comfort 
and  good  cheer.  There  may  be  much 
more  potent  elements  of  good  in  our 
own  atmosphere  of  storm  and  unrest 
and  fiery  ebullitions  of  emotion ;  but 
it  is  not  ill  to  glance  for  a  moment 
at  the  other,  on  occasion,  even  with 
regret. 


118 


THE    ROMANCE    OF    A    STALL. 


ONE  fine  April  morning,  in  the  year 
of  our  Lord,  1880,  Peter  Morero  awoke 
from  the  sound  healthy  sleep  which 
was  his  nightly  portion,  and  began 
hastily  to  dress  himself  for  first  mass. 
It  was  nearly  four  o'clock,  and  the 
bells  were  ringing  when  he  came  out 
into  the  keen  morning  air,  and  ran 
across  the  green  which  divided  his 
little  weatherbeaten  house  from  the 
great  white  church  which  invests  the 
mountain  village  of  Cavalese  with  a 
prestige  unshared  by  any  other  in 
Tyrol.  When  mass  was  over,  Peter 
left  the  church  with  the  other  wor- 
shippers, but  he  did  not  follow  them 
out  of  the  churchyard.  Instead,  he 
stood  a  moment  looking  at  the  bright- 
ening east,  then  taking  the  brush  out 
of  the  stoup  of  holy  water  attached 
to  the  outer  wall  of  the  church,  he 
bestowed  a  conscientious  aspersion 
upon  two  graves  which  lay  side  by 
side  in  the  shadow  of  the  eastern 
portico,  and  after  replacing  the  brush 
in  the  stoup,  and  laying  his  hat  be- 
side him  on  the  grass,  he  knelt  down 
and  prayed  for  the  souls  of  his  father 
and  mother. 

"  And  may  they  too  pray  for  their 
poor  orphan,"  he  murmured,  as  he 
rose  from  his  knees.  Peter  always 
thought  of  himself  as  an  orphan, 
although  he  was  forty-eight  years  old 
(a  late  hour  in  the  hard-worked  life 
of  a  Tyrolese  peasant),  and  his  parents 
had  died  only  the  year  before  at  a 
very  advanced  age.  But  he  had  never 
been  married,  or  even  betrothed, 
and  his  affection  for  his  good,  loving 
parents,  and  his  grief  at  their  loss, 
had  been  the  single  emotion  of  his 
uneventful  life.  Now  that  the  old 


couple  slept  in  the  churchyard  he 
lived  on  alone,  in  contented  bachelor- 
hood, in  the  low,  two-roomed  cottage 
they  had  bequeathed  to  him ;  and 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  it  was 
by  many  degrees  the  poorest  in  Ca- 
valese, and  let  in  the  summer  rains 
and  winter  snows,  he  felt  for  it  all 
the  pride  of  a  proprietor.  It  was  a 
very  modest  and,  so  to  speak,  humble 
pride,  however,  for  never,  even  in 
early  youth,  had  Peter  merited  the 
description  given  in  Holy  Writ  of 
certain  characters,  and  of  Jeshurun 
in  particular,  of  whom  we  are  told 
that  they  "  waxed  fat,  and  kicked," 
and  were  in  consequence  duly  dis- 
ciplined by  adverse  fate.  It  was  true, 
indeed,  that  all  opportunities  to  wax 
fat,  either  in  a  material  or  moral 
sense,  had  been  denied  him ;  but  it 
was  equally  true  that  no  amount 
of  prosperity  could  have  made  him 
aggressive  or  boastful. 

He  was  an  unobtrusive,  silent,  sym- 
pathetic little  man,  and  though  dingy 
and  wrinkled,  physically  wizened  and 
unhandsomely  hirsute,  he  was  yet  so 
honest  and  kindly  that  there  was 
something  pleasant  in  his  aspect,  not- 
withstanding his  ugliness. 

The  clock  was  striking  five  as  he 
issued  from  the  churchyard,  and  he 
made  haste  home,  for  he  had  yet  several 
things  to  do  before  his  departure  for 
the  summer.  His  green  fustian  bag 
lay  ready  strapped  beside  his  staff, 
but  it  was  still  necessary  for  him  to 
arrange  his  few  poor  sticks  of  furni- 
ture, and  to  leave  everything  in  readi- 
ness for  Anna  Morero,  his  cousin 
Paul's  widow,  who,  with  her  two  boys, 
was  to  occupy  his  cottage  during  the 


The  Romance  of  a  Stall. 


119 


summer.  When  all  was  in  order,  he 
carefully  locked  the  door,  put  the  key 
in  his  pocket,  and  began  to  water 
some  fine  carnations  which  stood  on  a 
bench  placed  against  the  outer  wall 
of  the  cottage.  Peter  was  considered 
to  have  a  lucky  hand  with  carnations, 
and  he  now  looked  lovingly  at  these, 
and  cut  off  One  really  splendid  blossom 
which  he  fastened  in  his  hat.  Then 
he  took  up  the  two  big  pots  and 
carried  them  across  the  street  to  the 
postwoman,  who  had  promised  to  care 
for  them  during  his  absence,  and  also 
to  keep  the  key  of  his  house  until 
Anna  Morero  came  to  claim  it.  It 
was  not  without  some  qualms  of  con- 
science that  he  confided  his  plants 
to  the  postwoman.  He  felt  that  he 
would  have  dealt  more  handsomely 
by  his  cousin  and  her  children  had  he 
left  the  carnations  to  their  care.  But, 
as  he  told  himself,  Anna  had  never 
been  careful  with  plants,  and  her  two 
boys,  aged  respectively  thirteen  and 
sixteen,  were  much  more  likely  to 
spoil  flowers  than  to  care  for  them. 
To  be  sure,  there  was  Luisa  Badi, 
Anna's  daughter  by  her  first  husband, 
she  who  was,  until  she  could  get  some- 
thing better,  cow-girl  at  a  farm  some 
miles  away.  But  Peter  had  never 
seen  her  since  she  was  a  baby,  and 
though  he  knew  her  to  be  twenty-one 
years  old,  he  still  considered  her  too 
young  to  be  trusted  with  his  carna- 
tions. He  fulfilled  his  errand  to  the 
postwoman  therefore,  and  after  due 
thanks  and  farewells,  went  his  way. 

He  had  a  day's  journey  before  him, 
for  he  was  bound  to  the  distant 
heights  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Adige ;  and  as  he  walked  on,  now 
casting  a  glance  at  the  mountains,  and 
now  at  the  valley  to  which  he  was 
descending,  his  thoughts  were  busy 
with  the  work  which  awaited  him, 
for  he  had  engaged  himself  to  the 
landlord  of  the  inn  at  Kloben- 
stein  as  cowherd,  and  had  afterwards 


learned  that  he  was  a  master  whom 
it  was  not  easy  to  please.  Now  Peter 
liked  his  work,  and  understood  it,  but 
it  annoyed  him  to  be  followed  up  and 
interfered  with,  because,  when  he  had 
any  spare  time  he  liked  to  rest  in  the 
quiet  stall  and  dream  his  fill.  He 
would  not  have  called  it  dreaming. 
Though  in  reality  much  given  to  day- 
dreams, he  had  never  heard  the 
phrase ;  he  called  these  long  daily 
meditations  "  remembering."  In 
truth  he  did  delight  in  remembrance. 
He  could  neither  read  nor  write,  but 
he  possessed  an  extraordinary  memory, 
and  it  was  richly  stored  with  the 
folk-lore  of  the  mountains.  To  lie  on 
the  warm  straw  in  the  cow-stall,  and 
listen  to  that  soothing  sound,  the 
chewing  of  the  cud  ;  to  feel  the  gen- 
tle, sympathetic,  but  not  importunate 
friendliness  of  the  cows  about  him ; 
to  gaze  idly  at  the  motes  dancing  in 
the  rare,  slanting  rays  of  sunshine 
which  cleft  the  shadowy  darkness  of 
the  interior,  and  through  the  slightly 
open  door  to  see  in  the  far  distance 
the  splendid  pageant  of  lights  and 
shadows  and  prismatic  colours  upon 
the  fairy  peaks  of  the  Dolomites, — all 
these  delights  were  dear  to  the  soul 
of  Peter  Morero,  who,  though  he  did 
not  know  it,  was  a  poet  and  a  sybarite 
in  his  own  humble  way. 

Poor  Peter,  stepping  steadily  down 
the  mountain,  with  all  his  personalty 
packed  into  the  green  bag  he  carried 
on  his  back,  with  his  jacket  on  his 
shoulder,  his  staff  in  his  hand,  and 
his  pipe  in  his  mouth,  his  mind  full 
of  a  gentle  modest  contentment, 
delicately  tempered  by  a  faint  anxiety 
as  to  the  well-being  of  Herr  Mair's 
cows,  and  a  slight  apprehension  as  to 
that  individual's  treatment  of  his  cow- 
herd, was  surely  too  modest  a  figure 
to  invite,  much  less  to  deserve,  a  fling 
from  Destiny.  Peter  ventured  to  hope 
for  nothing  in  the  future  that  he  had 
not  had  in  the  past,  and  feared  no- 


120 


The  Eomance  of  a  Stall. 


thing  but  the  poor-house,  and  too  long 
a  stay  in  purgatory.  Yet  his  last 
tranquil  day  lay  behind  him. 

He    had    walked   for    about    three 
hours,    when    a    turn    in    the    rough 
mountain  road  brought  into    view  a 
narrow  and  steep  path  which  branched 
off  abruptly.      Some  cows  were  slowly 
climbing  this  path,  and  making  their 
way  one  by  one  into  the  field  which 
overhung     the     road.       Peter's     eyes 
instinctively   followed  the  cows,    and 
his  ear  lent  itself  half  unconsciously 
to  the  shouts  of  the  cow-girl,  who  as 
yet  was  invisible  to   him.      Suddenly 
she  appeared  above  his  head,  follow- 
ing her  cows.     She  dropped  her  stick 
for  a  moment  to  pick  a  sprig  of   pear- 
blossom  which   she  put  between   her 
teeth,   and    taking   her    handkerchief 
from  her  head,  turned  and  shook  it, 
preparatory   to  putting   it  on    again. 
The  action  showed  to  advantage  her 
tall  youthful  figure  and  the  fine  poise 
and   beautiful    shape    of    her   head ; 
while  the  broad   sunlight  set  off  the 
rich    bloom    of    her    complexion    and 
bronzed  the  locks  on  her  temples,  now 
ruffled  up  and  waving,  although  the 
mass  of  dark  hair  was  closely  braided 
and   bound   with    the    maiden  snood. 
As   with  all   cow-girls  her  feet  were 
bare,    and     she    wore     the     ordinary 
peasant's  dress.      But  she  was  like  no 
peasant  girl  Peter  had  ever  seen ;  and 
as  he  stood  looking  up  at  her  his  staff 
slipped  out  of  his  hand,  and  fell  noisily 
on    the    stony    road.      Instantly,    the 
girl  threw  up  her   head  like  a  listen- 
ing deer  ;  then  she  came  forward  to 
the  edge   of   the    field,    and    let    her 
glance    fall    upon    him   for    the    first 
time.      Her  eyes  were  large  and  long, 
and  in  colour  like  pools  of  clear  water 
on  a  bed  of  brown  autumn  leaves.     A 
dancing  light,  a  ray,  a  laugh,  played 
for  ever  in  the  corners  of    the  eyes, 
and  produced  an  indescribably  elusive, 
puzzling,    but  fascinating   expression. 
Such   eyes  look  out  of    Mona  Lisa's 


portrait  on  the  wall  of  the  Louvre, 
and  they  have  ever  been  troubling  to 
the  sons  of  men. 

Our  poor  hero  was  no  exception  to 
the  rule,  and  he  stood  mutely  gazing 
upward,  while  the  girl  with  a  slight 
laugh,  instantly  suppressed,  resumed 
the  task  of  shaking  and  folding  her 
handkerchief,  replaced  it  on  her  head, 
and  adroitly  catching  the  ends  in  her 
teeth,  without  letting  go  her  sprig  of 
pear-blossom,  she  picked  up  her  stick 
and  turned  away,  glancing  out  of  the 
corners  of  her  eyes  as  she  did  so. 

Then  Peter  had  an  inspiration.  He 
called  aloud,  "  Are  you  Luisa  ? " 

She  turned  with  a  leisurely,  non- 
chalant grace,  and  answered,  but 
without  looking  at  him,  "  There  are  so 
many  Luisas  ;  long  Seppel's  Luisa,  and 
the  miller's  Luisa,  and  Anton  the  shoe- 
maker's Luisa,  and  many  more.  How 
do  I  know  which  Luisa  you  want  1 " 

Peter  laughed :  "I  want  Anna 
Morero's  Luisa." 

"  Well,  what  do  you  want  of  her  ?  " 
answered  the  girl,  with  a  carelessness 
which  would  have  been  wounding  but 
for  the  mysterious  smile  in  her  eyes. 

"  I  am  your  cousin,  Peter  Morero," 
said  Peter. 

"  My  brother's  cousin,  not  mine," 
returned  the  girl  promptly.  "  Where 
are  you  going  1 "  she  added. 

"  To  Klobenstein,  plenty  of  cows,  a 
good  place.  I  shall  be  there  until 
November.  If  the  landlord  wants  a 
cow-girl,  will  you  come  1  You  would 
be  better  paid  there  than  here." 

"  Who  knows  1 "  replied  the  girl 
with  a  sweet  indifference,  as  she 
turned  more  decidedly  away  and  be- 
gan to  follow  her  retreating  cows. 
She  had  not  said  good-bye  ;  it  was 
apparently  not  her  habit.  Peter,  left 
standing  in  the  road,  scarcely  knew 
what  he  did  as  he  called  aloud, 
"  Luisa  ! " 

"  Well !  "  said  Luisa,  glancing  over 
her  shoulder  as  she  retreated  slowly. 


The  Romance  of  a  Stall. 


121 


"  Will  you  have  this  ?  "  and  taking 
the  carnation  from  his  hat,  he  threw 
it  up  to  her.  Now  she  turned,  came 
back  and  picked  it  up,  still  with 
the  same  enchanting,  piquant  non- 
chalance. "  Pretty  !  "  she  said,  as  she 
turned  it  over  in  her  hand,  but  she 
did  not  thank  him.  She  pushed  back 
her  handkerchief,  placed  the  carna- 
tion over  her  right  ear,  adjusted  her 
handkerchief  again  and  prepared  to 
go  her  way. 

"Luisa!" 

"  Well  !  " 

"  Will  you  give  me  that  flower  you 
have  in  your  mouth  1 " 

Luisa's  only  answer  was  to  tighten 
her  lips  upon  the  sprig  of  pear- 
blossom,  and  to  pull  her  handkerchief 
further  over  her  head. 

"Luisa!" 

Luisa  laid  hold  of  the  cow  nearest 
her,  and  began  to  rub  its  horns  with 
her  apron. 

"  Luisa  !  " 

There  was  no  reply.  Luisa  was 
still  busy  with  the  cow's  horn. 

"  Luisa,  will  you  give  me  that 
flower  for  my  hat  1 " 

A  shake  of  the  head  was  the  only 
answer,  and  after  waiting  a  little 
Peter  went  his  way. 

He  had  been  walking  some  ten 
minutes  when  he  stopped  as  if  an 
invisible  hand  had  been  laid  upon 
him,  stood  a  moment  absorbed  in 
thought,  shook  himself  and  walked  on 
a  few  steps,  then  halted  again,  and 
unslung  the  pack  he  carried  on  his 
back,  which  was  composed  of  a  rough 
pastrano  or  cloak,  and  the  coarse 
fustian  bag  which  held  his  personal 
property.  When  the  bag  lay  before 
him  on  the  road,  he  stooped  to  open 
it,  and  then  suddenly  hesitated  ;  once 
more  he  stood  still,  looking  with  un- 
seeing eyes  at  the  distant  landscape, 
and  turning  over  a  problem  in  his 
mind.  These  vacillating  movements 
represented  a  struggle  with  the  tempta- 


tion of  improvidence,  a  temptation 
which  now  assailed  him  for  the  first 
time.  He  had  in  his  bag  an  enormous, 
rosy-cheeked,  shining  apple,  an  apple 
as  round  and  perfect  as  if  it  had  been 
made  of  wax,  and  this  treasure  was 
intended  for  his  new  master's  little 
daughter.  He  had  expatiated  upon 
its  beauty  when  he  promised  it  to  her, 
and  therefore  must  buy  another  in 
Bozen  if  he  now  gave  it  away.  The 
one  in  question  (which  had  been  given 
to  him)  was  expensive,  he  knew ;  and 
to  pay  money  for  fruit  had  always 
seemed  to  him  the  wildest  extrava- 
gance. But  even  while  combating 
these  scruples  he  had  taken  the  apple 
from  his  bag,  and  was  polishing  it  on 
his  sleeve  and  holding  it  up  to  the 
light,  the  better  to  admire  its  ex- 
quisite colour  and  smooth  perfection. 
Suddenly  he  slung  his  pack  on  his 
shoulders  again,  picked  up  his  staff, 
and  began  to  climb  the  hill  with 
feverish  energy.  He  had  feared  that 
Luisa  would  be  gone,  but  she  was 
still  in  the  field  with  her  cows.  The 
green  edge  of  the  field  made  a  long, 
grassy,  horizontal  line  against  the  sky, 
and  her  slow  walk,  as  she  followed 
her  cows  along  this  line,  had  a  certain 
rhythmic  beauty  in  it.  "  Luisa  !  " 

She  turned  her  head,  stopped,  and 
stood  looking  down  upon  him. 

"  Luisa,  look  !  "  And  he  held  up 
the  apple.  "  Catch  !  "  and  he  threw  it. 
She  caught  it  dexterously,  laughed, 
threw  it  in  the  air,  caught  it  again, 
and  put  it  in  her  pocket  with  a  smile. 
When  the  smile  had  left  her  lips,  she 
still  stood  looking  down  upon  him 
with  smiling  eyes,  but  she  did  not 
speak  ;  perhaps  because  the  sprig  of 
pear-blossom  which  she  held  between 
her  teeth  rendered  speech  impossible, 
perhaps  because  a  natural  indolence 
predisposed  her  to  silence.  Mean- 
while, Peter,  standing  on  the  stony 
road,  wished  for  the  pear-blossom,  but 
dared  not  ask  again  for  it ;  wished  to 


122 


The  Romance  of  a  Stall. 


begin  a  conversation  but  knew  not 
how  ;  and  so  after  two  or  three  uneasy 
minutes  bade  the  girl  farewell  and  re- 
sumed his  journey. 

But  after  walking  fast  for  twenty 
minutes  or  more  he  halted  at  a  certain 
turn  in  the  winding  path,  and  gazed 
upward.  He  was  far  below  Luisa  now, 
too  far  for  speech,  but  he  could  see 
her  distinctly,  as  she  sat  on  the  edge 
of  the  field  with  the  apple  in  her  hand. 
She  had  removed  her  handkerchief, 
and  her  beautiful  dark  head  and 
charming  face  stood  out  in  strong 
relief  against  the  sky.  Peter  looked 
long  at  her,  but  he  did  not  possess 
powers  of  divination,  and  the  three 
weird  sisters,  who  stood  behind  her 
and  with  grim  impassive  countenances 
twisted  his  skein  of  life,  were  invisible 
to  him.  He  only  saw  girlish  grace 
and  youthful  bloom  glowing  against 
vast  depths  of  infinite  azure  ;  and  yet 
it  was  with  a  deep  sigh  that  he  at  last 
went  his  way. 

Meanwhile  Luisa  tossed  the  sprig  of 
pear-blossom,  unasked,  to  a  passing 
swineherd,  and  turning  the  pink  apple 
in  her  hand  with  a  laugh,  set  her 
strong  white  teeth  deep  in  it. 


II. 

PETER  found  his  place  at  Kloben- 
stein  satisfactory,  and  the  work  quite 
within  his  powers ;  but  he  was  not 
happy.  Remembering  was  no  longer 
the  never-failing  source  of  delight 
which  it  had  been  hitherto.  He  lin- 
gered little  now  in  the  cow-stall,  but 
spent  all  his  spare  time  either  sit- 
ting or  lying  on  the  hill  outside,  and 
gazing  across  the  valley  to  the  moun- 
tains beyond,  where  on  fine  days  he 
could  see  Cavalese  like  a  small  white 
spot  in  the  blue  distance.  In  former 
years  memory  would  have  peopled  the 
rocks  and  hills,  the  vast  pine-forests 
which  clad  the  mountain  side,  and  also 


the  vineyards  low  down  in  the  valley, 
with  dancing  nymphs  and  satyrs,  with 
fairy  kings  and  queens  ;  but  now  he 
only  saw  a  dark-haired  girl  driving 
her  cows,  or  standing  still  and  looking 
at  him  with  the  mysterious  smile  in 
the  corners  of  her  long  brown  eyes. 

He  saw  her  again  at  night,  in  the 
troubled  dreams  which  had  taken  the 
place  of  his  former  quiet  slumber. 
What  leagues  and  leagues  he  walked 
in  those  dreams  behind  Luisa  and  her 
cows  !  Always  within  call,  yet  never 
within  reach  ;  for  ever  moving  on  be- 
fore him  through  vast  stretches  of 
green  fields,  yet  always  eluding  nearer 
approach,  until  he  would  groan  aloud 
for  very  weariness,  and  turn  on  his 
hard  pallet  and  dream  again,  more 
painfully  than  before,  for  now  he  made 
his  way  through  interminable  pine- 
forests,  following  Luisa  as  she  flitted 
in  and  out  among  the  red  tree  boles, 
playing  an  endless  game  of  hide  and 
seek  ;  for  ever  following,  but  never 
finding,  for  though  now  and  again  the 
bright  face  seemed  near,  in  an  instant 
the  vision  had  dissolved  into  the 
wavering  lights  and  shadows  of 
the  forests.  Then  with  a  sigh  Peter 
would  awake  and  toss,  and  turn  and 
dream  once  more,  the  dream  which 
always  came  just  before  the  dawn.  It 
never  changed.  In  this  dream  he  was 
with  Luisa  on  the  upper  Alp,  above 
the  forest  line,  with  the  short,  per- 
fumed grass  underfoot  and  the  limit- 
less sky  overhead.  No  one  was  near, 
nor  was  there  any  sound,  but  of  the 
cows  cropping  the  soft  grass  and  the 
summer  wind  whispering  by.  There 
was  the  round,  flat  stone,  deep  in 
heather  and  fern,  where  she  had 
spread  their  simple  meal ;  but  always, 
just  as  she  raised  her  hand  to  beckon 
him  to  a  seat  by  her  side,  the  dream 
broke,  and  he  had  to  rise,  weary  and 
aching,  and  go  about  his  daily  task. 

Now,  too,  apart  from  dreams  by  day 
and  night,  certain  grave  anxieties  per- 


The  Romance  of  a  Stall. 


123 


plexed  him.  He  wondered  perpetually 
and  uneasily  whether  Luisa  were  well- 
placed,  well-housed,  well-fed,  above 
all,  whether  she  were  well  guarded. 
She  was  so  pretty,  and  men,  especially 
boys,  were  such  rascals ;  if  he  could 
only  have  her  under  his  own  eye ! 
And  the  fat  landlord  seemed  an  angel 
in  disguise  when  he  one  day  bade  him 
seek  for  a  cow-girl,  offering  at  the 
same  time  wages  which  were  far  be- 
yond anything  paid  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Adige. 

III. 

THE  journey  back  to  Cavalese,  to 
fetch  Luisa  and  her  belongings,  to 
Klobenstein,  seemed  like  the  fulfil- 
ment of  years  of  longing.  And  yet  it 
was  but  six  weeks  since  he  first  set 
eyes  upon  her,  when  he  once  more  left 
the  village  in  the  early  morning  with 
Luisa's  bag  strapped  upon  his  back, 
and  Luisa  herself  moving  lightly  on 
beside  him. 

The  June  morning  smiled  as  never 
morning  had  smiled  before  in  Peter's 
life,  and  yet  before  the  day  was  over 
a  vague  uneasiness  had  taken  posses- 
sion of  his  soul.  It  was  not  Luisa's 
fault,  of  course,  but  all  the  way  down 
the  mountain  she  had  not  spoken  a 
word  to  him,  and  she  had  laughed  and 
joked  with  every  man  they  met.  And 
then,  when  they  reached  Atzwang  and 
prepared  to  climb  the  precipitous  hill, 
she  had  sprung  on  like  a  young  deer, 
only  now  and  then  glancing  back  and 
asking  the  way  but  never  halting  for 
an  instant,  and  only  replying  in 
monosyllables  when  addressed.  But 
ever  and  anon  her  eyes  smiled  upon 
him,  and  Peter  would  take  heart  of 
grace  and  trudge  on  patiently. 

They  reached  Klobenstein  before 
night-fall,  and  after  Ave  Maria  sat 
down,  together  with  a  dozen  other 
peasants,  at  the  round  table  upon 
which  smoked  the  evening  meal  in  a 


huge  platter.     Each   peasant  was  pro- 
vided with  a  long  iron  spoon  to  dip  in 
the  dish.    Luisa  was  quite  at  her  ease ; 
but   though  she  had  been  put  by  her 
mother  under  Peter's  care,  she  would 
not  sit    next  him,  but  slipped  into  a 
place  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  table. 
All  these  trifling  acts  distressed  and 
puzzled   him  ;  but  he  had  voluntarily 
sought  the  office  of  guardian,  an  office 
not  a  sinecure  at  any  time,  and,  as  he 
was    soon    to   discover,    fraught   with 
indescribable  misery  to  a  man  in  love. 
That    mortal   malady   was  upon  him, 
but  he  did  not  recognise  its  symptoms. 
When  he  rose  the  next  day,  an  hour 
before    the    early    summer    dawn,    in 
order  to  do  the  heavier  part  of  Luisa's 
work  before  she  should  come  over  to 
the  stall ;  when,  later  in  the  day,  the 
sun  was  hot  on  the  fields,  and  he  bade 
her  sit  still,  while  he  ran  about  col- 
lecting the  cows  for  the  return  to  the 
stall, — these     acts     would     have    en- 
lightened many  men  as  to   their  own 
feelings,  but  Peter  was   naturally  un- 
selfish, and  really  believed  that  he  only 
wished  to  save  the  girl  trouble.    Luisa 
was   apparently  devoted   to  her  work 
(it  was  not  her  fault  if  Peter  did  most 
of  it),  quiet,  taciturn  even,  and  with  a 
tranquil  indifference  and  indolence  in 
her  movements  which  was  the  reverse 
of  flaunting  ;  and  yet  she  had  not  been 
twenty-four  hours  in  the  village  before 
every  marriageable  peasant  was  aware 
of  her  presence,  and  more  or  less  agi- 
tated by  it.      Although  the  nature  of 
their     avocations     threw     Peter     and 
Luisa  constantly  together  they  were 
never    alone.      There     was    always    a 
third  and  often  more,  for  nearly  every 
young  peasant   in  or  near   the  village 
managed  to  pass  the  cow-stall  once  or 
twice  a  day ;  and  when  the  cows  were 
led  forth  to  the  upper  fields  for  their 
daily  airing,  youths  seemed  to  crop  up 
like    mushrooms,    even    in    the    most 
solitary  places,  youths  at  whom  Luisa 
would     glance    half    shyly    and    half 


The  Eomance  of  a  Stall. 


mockingly  as  she  went  by,  and  who 
ever  after  haunted  her  footsteps. 
Peter  began  to  know  the  beating  heart, 
the  throbbing  pulses,  the  ceaseless  un- 
rest, which  is  the  portion  of  those  who 
love  in  vain.  In  truth,  his  passion  for 
the  girl  raged  in  his  veins  like  a  devas- 
tating fever.  He  was  transported  by 
jealousy  too,  and  this  led  him  to  com- 
mit many  follies.  He  followed  and 
watched  Luisa  perpetually,  and  for  his 
reward  had  the  pain  of  seeing  young 
Lieutenant  von  Stendhorst  hold  his 
gold  watch  to  her  ear  that  she  might 
hear  it  tick,  and  Prince  Giovanelli's 
dignified  white-haired  valet  try  his 
respectable  cap  with  its  gold  band  on 
her  pretty  head,  while  he  submitted  to 
be  laughed  at  by  her  as  she  tied  her 
own  kerchief  under  his  chin. 

After  such  scenes  Peter  would 
heap  reproofs,  reproaches,  and  warn- 
ings upon  Luisa  ;  and  then,  when  she, 
with  undisturbed  calm,  had  let  fall 
a  few  large  bright  tears,  his  heart 
would  melt  within  him,  and  he  would 
go  to  the  shop  and  buy  her  a  present. 
It  was  in  this  way  that,  in  the  course 
of  a  few  weeks,  he  bought  her  a  fine 
white  cotton  handkerchief  with  a 
border  of  pink  roses  for  her  neck,  a 
Sunday  gown  of  black  woollen  stuff, 
and  a  blue  silk  apron.  Each  gift 
meant  repentance  on  his  part,  and 
forgiveness  on  Luisa's.  Peter  always 
felt  like  worshipping  her  when  she 
forgave  him  and  accepted  his  gifts  ; 
and  then,  she  was  always  so  calm  ; 
she  never  answered  him  angrily.  But 
if  she  did  not  show  temper,  she  still 
did  as  she  pleased,  and  the  tale  of  her 
admirers  increased  daily,  while  Peter's 
jealousy  grew  in  proportion.  When, 
after  scolding  her  because  of  the  at- 
tentions of  the  miller's  Johann  in  the 
evening,  he  found  long  Seppel,  from 
the  upper  Alp,  at  the  cow-stall  the 
very  next  morning,  he  might  have 
seen  that  it  was  best  for  him  to  let 
the  girl  alone.  But  love  laughs  at 


logic,  we  are  told,  and  Peter's  way  out 
of  the  difficulty  was  to  ask  her  to 
marry  him.  He  had  not  intended  to 
do  so,  and  did  not  know  how  he  did 
it ;  the  demand  escaped  from  him  un- 
awares, and  then  he  trembled  at  his 
own  temerity.  Luisa  said  nothing  at 
first,  but  went  on  with  her  milking ; 
then,  when  pressed  for  an  answer,  she 
murmured  her  usual,  "  Who  knows  ?  " 

"  At  any  rate,  she  did  not  say 
'  no,'  "  murmured  foolish  Peter,  and 
thereupon  he  felt  himself  betrothed. 
"  Now  I  shall  be  easy  in  my  mind," 
he  thought.  But  ease  was  not  to  be 
his  portion.  A  ray  of  sunlight  is  not 
more  quiet  or  more  elusive  than  was 
Luisa  ;  and  poor  Peter,  whose  love  for 
her  racked  him  like  a  torturing  pain, 
was  worn  away  between  uneasy  dreams 
by  night  and  fruitless  surveillance  by 
day,  till  he  grew  ill,  feverish,  and 
irritable. 

One  Sunday  morning  he  rose  before 
the  dawn  in  order  to  clean  the  stall 
betimes,  thus  leaving  Luisa  free  to 
dress  herself  for  the  procession  which 
was  to  take  place  after  ten  o'clock 
mass.  When,  at  five  o'clock,  the  girl 
came  over,  he  thought  she  looked  pale 
and  tired,  and  that  she  replied  even 
more  absently  than  usual.  He  there- 
fore offered  to  take  her  work  upon 
himself,  and  though  he  was  very  tired 
when  he  at  length  went  to  mass,  he 
was  rewarded  for  his  fatigue  by  the 
sight  of  Luisa  walking  in  the  proces- 
sion, and  clad  in  the  gown,  apron,  and 
kerchief  that  he  had  given  her.  She 
had  never  looked  so  lovely  nor  re- 
garded him  so  kindly,  and  he  enjoyed 
that  morning  a  few  moments  of  real 
happiness.  In  the  afternoon,  knowing 
her  to  have  gone  to  a  neighbouring 
village  with  the  landlady's  sister,  a 
middle-aged  and  serious  married 
woman,  he  permitted  himself  a  quiet 
rest  on  the  straw  in  the  cow-stall. 
He  had  been  sleeping  for  two  hours 
or  more  when  he  dreamed  that  he  was 


The  Romance  of  a  Stall. 


125 


stroking  Luisa's  hair,  a  privilege  never 
yet  accorded  to  him.  How  soft  it 
was,  and  how  she  was  laughing  !  No 
— he  was  stroking  the  kitten,  and  it 
was  a  man's  laugh  which  had  wakened 
him.  He  sat  up  on  the  straw  and 
listened ;  another  loud  laugh  rang 
upon  his  ear ;  then  a  voice  said  : 
"  Old  fool !  She'll  lead  him  a  pretty 
dance."  It  was  the  voice  of  the 
miller's  Johann,  and  he  heard  Rudolf 
Stein,  one  of  the  guides,  make  some 
reply.  Then  Johann  went  on  :  "  A 
cunning  fox  !  She  was  dancing  all 
night  at  Wolfsgruben,  when  the  old 
fool  thought  she  was  asleep."  Peter 
wondered  vaguely  of  whom  they  were 
talking,  but  he  did  not  care  much  ; 
and  then  the  voices  reached  him  again 
in  fragmentary  utterances.  "  Been 
to  Badseis  with  him  this  afternoon, — 
sitting  under  the  tree  behind  the  stall 
now,  billing  and  cooing."  "  Lucky 
fellow  !  I  wish  it  may  be  my  turn 
next,"  answered  Rudolf  with  a  laugh. 
Then  the  steps  and  voices  retreated, 
leaving  Peter  a  prey  to  strange  palpi- 
tations and  conjectures.  Who  was 
sitting  under  the  tree  behind  the  stall 
now  ?  Only  one  window  looked  out 
upon  that  tree,  and  that  window  was 
merely  a  pane  of  glass,  high  up  in  the 
loft.  If  he  climbed  up,  he  could  see. 
Pshaw  !  What  did  it  matter  to  him  1 
Then  suddenly  he  heard  a  kiss,  and 
then  a  little  rippling  laugh  he  knew 
well,  and  then  more  kisses ;  and  then, 
he  knew  not  how,  he  had  climbed  the 
wall  and  was  looking  out.  There 
under  the  tree  sat  Luisa,  with  long 
Seppel's  arm  round  her  waist,  and  her 
hand  in  his.  Some  sound  must  have 
disturbed  them,  for  they  sprang  apart 
with  the  adroitness  of  long  habit, 
Seppel  going  negligently  up  the  hill, 
and  Luisa  picking  up  her  milking-pail. 
When  Peter  dropped  panting  and 
gasping  to  the  ground,  she  was  stand- 
ing quietly  beside  him  in  all  her 
Sunday  bravery. 


The  passions  that  make  tragedy 
possessed  poor  Peter  then ;  and  the 
only  excuse  for  what  he  did  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  he  was  in  such 
a  whirlwind  of  emotion  that  he  lost 
consciousness  of  his  own  existence. 
It  was  a  madman  who  now  rushed 
upon  the  girl  and  struck  her,  and  then 
in  an  instant  was  on  the  ground  at 
her  feet  clasping  her  knees  and  pray- 
ing to  her  to  "  Forgive — forgive  !  " 

Luisa,  at  the  first  blow,  had  thrown 
down  her  milking-pail  and  screamed 
aloud ;  scream  followed  scream  until 
the  peasants  came  rushing  in,  and 
after  them  the  landlord  and  landlady, 
in  high  indignation  "  at  such  a  scandal, 
and  the  bells  ringing  for  the  Ave 
Maria,  and  the  Herrschaf ten  going  by 
to  church  !  " 

Peter  seemed  to  be  listening  to  a 
chorus  of  reproach  and  contempt  as 
the  sobbing  Luisa  was  led  off  by  the 
landlady,  and  he  himself  hustled  and 
kicked  out  of  the  stall.  At  nine 
o'clock  he  crept  out  of  the  hayloft, 
in  which  he  had  taken  refuge,  heart- 
broken, contrite,  and  quite  calm.  He 
went  first  to  the  stall,  but  it  was  shut 
and  locked,  and  he  knew  that  he 
should  never  tend  Herr  Mair's  cows 
again.  Then '  he  crossed  the  green 
and  looked  in  at  the  window  of  the 
inn.  Luisa  was  sitting  at  the  round 
table  with  the  other  peasants :  her 
eyes  were  swollen,  and  her  cheeks 
reddened  with  crying ;  but  she  looked 
lovelier  than  ever,  and  his  soul  melted 
within  him  as  he  gazed.  He  did  not 
dare  to  approach  her  ;  and  when,  after 
receiving,  together  with  his  dismissal,  a 
torrent  of  reprimand  and  abuse  from 
the  landlord,  he  again  looked  in  at 
the  window,  she  had  vanished. 

In  the  gray  dawn  of  the  next  morn- 
ing, impoverished  in  purse  and  injured 
in  reputation,  Peter  left  Klobenstein 
to  seek  his  fortune  elsewhere.  Luisa 
had  refused  to  see  him,  although  he 
had,  through  the  landlady,  implored 


The  Romance  of  a  Stall. 


her  forgiveness  with  bitter  tears,  and 
had  again  and  again  acknowledged 
that  she  was  too  young  for  him.  His 
tears  and  entreaties  were  vain,  how- 
ever, and  he  went  his  lonely  way  with 
bitterness  in  his  soul.  Disappointment, 
remorse,  regret,  lashed  him  on  like 
whips ;  and  under  their  stinging  im- 
pulse he  fled  down  the  mountain, 
and  reached  Bozen  at  nine  o'clock. 
Once  there,  a  new  thought  revived 
hope  and  lent  him  wings ;  the  thought 
that  Anna  Morero  would  perhaps  not 
allow  her  daughter  to  keep  her  place 
now  that  he  was  no  longer  cowherd. 

He  had  left  Klobenstein  at  four  in 
the  morning,  and  by  a  miracle  of 
walking,  difficult  and  dangerous  in 
the  hot  sun,  he  readied  Cavalese  at 
three  in  the  afternoon.  Anna  was 
knitting  at  the  door  of  the  cottage, 
and  received  him  with  much  surprise. 
She  knew  nothing  of  what  had  hap- 
pened, nor  did  Peter  tell  her  of  the 
blows  which  tortured  his  own  soul  in 
remembrance.  When  she  heard  that 
he  had  left  his  place,  however,  she 
had  nothing  but  blame  for  him,  and 
laughed  to  scorn  the  idea  of  removing 
her  daughter.  She  also  ridiculed  his 
attachment  to  Luisa  without  mercy. 
When  Peter  rose  to  go,  she  did  indeed 
offer  him  food  and  drink ;  but  she 
forgot  to  ask  him  to  step  inside  the 
doorway  of  his  own  house,  and  he  was 
too  agitated  to  notice  the  omission. 

"  You've  been  an  old  fool,  Peter, 
and  that's  the  truth,"  was  her  fare- 
well, and  in  the  depths  of  his  soul 
the  poor  fellow  knew  that  she  was 
right.  Then  the  hammers  began  to 
beat  in  his  head  again,  and  the 
thought  that  now  Luisa  could  be  with 
long  Seppel  as  much  as  she  pleased 
drove  him  on.  In  the  blazing  noon- 
tide sun  he  had  climbed  the  moun- 
tain ;  in  the  face  of  the  declining  sun 
he  again  descended  it.  Descended  ! 
that  is  hardly  the  word  for  the  way 
in  which  the  raging,  panting  maniac 


dashed  headlong  down,  bruising  him- 
self against  rocks  and  trees  but  never 
pausing  in  his  mad  flight.  Dusk  had 
fallen  when  he  reached  Bozen,  and  a 
hot,  breathless  stillness  was  in  the  air. 
Save  for  the  fever  in  his  blood  Peter 
would  have  dropped  exhausted  ;  but 
he  looked  at  the  heights  which  rose 
beyond  him,  and  the  thought  of 
Luisa  with  long  Seppel  lashed  him 
like  a  whip.  He  was  crossing  the 
railway-track  now,  and  a  loud  roar- 
ing was  in  his  ears,  but  he  had  heard 
it  all  day ;  shouts,  too,  he  heard,  but 
they  only  confused  him.  He  hastened 
on,  hearing  more  shouts  ;  then  sud- 
denly came  a  crash  and  a  grinding 
pain,  which  however  was  but  momen- 
tary, and  then  he  found  himself  lying 
on  his  back,  and  looking  up  at  the 
stars  with  a  great  calm  upon  him. 
He  was  vaguely  conscious  of  being 
surrounded  by  kindly,  compassionate 
faces,  and  of  hearing  voices  no  longer 
speaking  in  tones  of  reproach  ;  but  he 
fainted  as  he  was  being  carried  to  the 
hospital,  and  was  put  under  the  influ- 
ence of  chloroform  while  his  legs  were 
being  amputated  ;  and  it  is  doubtful 
if  he  were  ever  really  clear  in  his 
mind  after  that. 

On  the  fourth  day  after  his  accident 
gangrene  set  in,  and  on  the  fifth  he 
died.  At  nine  in  the  morning  he 
had  received  the  last  sacraments,  and 
as  the  priest  stood  beside  his  bed,  a 
ray  of  sunshine  shone  on  the  crucifix 
he  held,  and  Peter  had  a  momentary 
gleam  of  consciousness.  "  Am  I  so 
ill  as  that  1 "  he  cried,  then  relapsed 
into  unconsciousness  and  a  silence 
never  afterward  broken.  At  a  quarter 
to  eleven  he  began  to  breathe  loudly 
and  irregularly  with  frequent  halts. 
The  priest  had  gone  ;  only  the  sisters 
were  in  the  crowded  ward.  The  heat 
was  intense,  and  through  the  open 
windows  the  dust  entered  in  clouds. 
The  buzzing  of  innumerable  flies,  the 
vibration  of  the  window-panes  caused 


The  Eomance  of  a  Stall. 


127 


"by  the  continual  passing  of  heavy 
drays,  the  shriek  and  whistle  of  the 
locomotive,  as  trains  entered  and  left 
the  railway  station,  made  a  confusion 
of  coarse  sounds  which  so  filled  the  air 
that  it  was  difficult  to  hear  that  long- 
drawn,  labouring  breath.  At  twenty 
minutes  past  eleven  it  ceased  alto- 
gether, and  the  curtains  were  drawn 
about  the  bed  where  Number  Eighty- 
one  had  breathed  his  last.  No  one 
had  known  his  name. 

While  Peter  was  dying,  Luisa  was 
sitting  in  the  pine-wood  which  bor- 
dered the  upper  field,  where  her  cows 
were  grazing.  The  heat  in  the  field 
was  intense,  but  she  sat  in  deep 
shade,  dabbling  her  feet  in  a  pool  of 


water,  and  holding  up  in  a  slanting 
ray  of  sunlight  a  string  of  yellow 
beads  which  long  Seppel  had  just 
given  her.  Long  Seppel  himself  was 
lying  at  full  length  on  the  bank  beside 
her,  and,  propped  up  on  his  elbows, 
was  playing  a  tune  on  the  mouth- 
organ,  that  instrument  so  dear  to  the 
Tyrolese  peasant. 

"Pretty!"  said  Luisa,  as  she  looked 
at  the  transparent  yellow  beads. 

"  Do  you  love  me,  Luisa  ?  Will 
you  marry  me  1 "  said  long  Seppel 
abruptly,  ceasing  to  play. 

"Who  knows1?"  said  Luisa  glanc- 
ing sideways  at  him  out  of  her  long 
eyes.  But  she  leaned  her  round  cheek 
towards  him  as  she  said  it,  and  Seppel 
kissed  her,  and  knew. 


128 


A  FLORENTINE   DESPOT. 


SOME  three  hundred  years  ago  a 
certain  Florentine  citizen,  one  Ales- 
sandro  Ceccheregli,  wrote  and  pub- 
lished an  interesting  little  book.1  He 
explains  in  a  short  preface  that 
he  was  urged  to  the  composition 
of  his  work  by  the  consideration 
that  there  are  two  things  above  all 
others  which  endear  men  to  their 
fellow-creatures, — to  wit,  entertaining 
them  and  helping  them.  He  appears 
to  have  had  no  doubt  that  the  matter 
of  his  book  was  such  as  to  entitle  him 
to  gratitude  on  both  those  scores  ; 
since  it  was  a  record,  as  full  as  he 
could  make  it,  of  the  wise  sayings  and 
sagacious  actions  of  a  prince  whom  he 
represents  as  gifted  with  an  extra- 
ordinary degree  of  insight  and  of 
judgment,  and  as  possessing  every 
quality  which  could  win  the  respect 
and  love  of  his  subjects  ;  no  less  a 
person,  in  fact,  than  Alessandro  de 
Medici,  usually  known  as  the  first 
Duke  of  Florence. 

Ceccheregli  has  thrown  his  work 
into  the  form  of  a  conversation  carried 
on  by  six  grave  and  leisurely  citizens, 
who,  finding  the  weather  extremely 
hot,  have  wisely  resolved  to  sit  chat- 
ting in  the  shade  until  it  grows 
cool  again.  Three  of  them  indeed, — 
Messer  Lodovico  Domenichi,  a  much- 
respected  philosopher  and  historian, 
with  two  merchants,  Messer  Francesco 
Mannini  and  Messer  Francesco  Rico  veri 
— have  been  diverting  themselves  in 
this  agreeable  manner  for  several  days, 

1  The  full  title  of  the  book  is  DELLE  ATTIONI 

KT  SONTEUZE  DEL  S.  ALESSANDRO  DE'MEDICI, 

PRIMO  DUCA  DI  FIORENZA.  It  was  dedicated 
to  M.  Giovanettorio  Soderini,  and  was  pub- 
lished at  Venice  in  the  year  1565. 


and  have  derived  such  deep  satisfac- 
tion from  their  discourses  on  various 
subjects  that  they  can  feel  nothing  but 
sympathy  for  their  three  friends,  Messer 
Hortensio  Brusciati,  Messer  Lodovico 
del  Trevaglia,  and  Messer  Bastiano 
Saluetti,  who  have  only  just  joined 
them,  and  thus  lost  their  share  in 
these  pleasant  conversations.  How- 
ever, the  weather  is  as  hot  as  on  any  one 
of  those  past  days ;  the  delight  of 
sitting  in  the  shade  of  the  laurels  is 
no  less  than  before  ;  while  the  appe- 
tite of  the  company  for  conversation 
is  rather  whetted  than  blunted  by  their 
previous  discussions.  The  wise  course 
is,  therefore,  to  sit  down  again;  and  after 
casting  about  for  some  time  in  search 
of  a  subject,  and  much  interchange  of 
compliments,  which,  however  appro- 
priate to  a  hot  day  in  Florence,  might 
be  found  tedious  in  a  brisker  climate, 
they  light  at  last  upon  Duke  Alexander, 
whose  murder  by  his  cousin,  Lorenzo 
de  Medici,  the  unworthy  namesake  of 
a  great  ancestor,  was  fresh  in  all  their 
minds. 

Domenichi  is  the  leader  of  the  con- 
versation. His  training  and  position 
as  a  scholar  and  a  historian  have 
enabled  him  to  collect  a  mass  of  in- 
formation about  Duke  Alexander,  in 
whose  actions  he  finds  not  only 
vivacity  of  spirit,  but  also  incredible 
care  for  the  State,  inestimable  piety, 
royal  justice,  and  a  degree  of  love 
towards  his  subjects  which  was  nothing 
less  than  supernatural.  And  first 
for  his  care  concerning  the  public  wel- 
fare. 

It  was  customary  in  Florence  after 
a  bad  harvest  to  appoint  officers  whose 
duty  it  was  by  every  exertion  to  keep 


A  Florentine  Despot. 


129 


down  the  price  of  corn.  They  were 
to  make  inquisitions,  to  discover  where 
corn  was  being  hoarded,  and  to  insist 
on  the  stores  being  immediately  thrown 
on  the  market.  Nothing  enraged  the 
Duke  more  than  any  such  develop- 
ment of  self-interest  as  constitutes 
what  is  now,  in  commercial  jargon, 
known  as  "a  corner";  and  his  in- 
dignation was  therefore  extreme  when 
it  reached  his  ears  that  the  Commission 
of  Plenty  were  themselves  hoarding 
grain,  and  counting  on  the  profit  of  a 
rising  market.  The  consequence  was 
that  the  price  of  corn  was  already  half 
as  much  again  as  it  need  be ;  and  the 
Duke  sent  in  hot  haste  for  the  Com- 
missioners. "  What  is  your  duty  1  " 
he  asked  them  roughly,  when  they 
arrived  ;  and  when  they  answered  that 
it  was  to  provide  for  the  public  during 
seasons  of  scarcity,  he  asked  again  : 
"  If  so,  how  is  it  that  you  have 
allowed  the  price  of  corn  to  rise  so 
high  1  Can  you  say  you  thought  that 
my  wish  1 "  "  Signor,"  they  answered 
humbly  enough,  "  it  was  the  bad 
harvest  which  was  to  blame."  But 
the  Duke  would  have  none  of  it. 
"  Once  for  all,"  he  said,  "  I  tell  you 
thus.  The  market  must  be  fully 
supplied  at  not  more  than  four  grossi 
the  bushel.  I  will  have  it  so,"  stop- 
ping the  excuses  which  he  saw  form- 
ing themselves.  "  You  do  your  duty, 
and  be  wise."  The  Commissioners 
were  wise,  and  the  thing  was  done. 

In  the  same  season  or  in  another 
equally  bad,  the  Duke,  had  laid 
up  great  stores  of  corn  for  public 
use ;  and  being  by  no  means 
desirous  that  private  persons  should 
retain  their  stores  until  his  own  were 
spent,  he  issued  proclamations  early 
in  March  calling  upon  every  one  who 
had  grain  to  sell  it  in  that  month, 
and  ordaining  that  any  one  who  sold 
after  March  had  expired  should  forfeit 
the  grain,  and  stand  the  loss.  Now 
there  was  a  certain  favourite  of  the 
No.  40. — VOL.  LXXVI. 


Duke,  a  man  much  about  his  person, 
who  fancied  himself  able  to  influence 
his  sovereign  to  his  own  advantage. 
This  man  had  a  huge  quantity  of  corn 
lying  in  his  barns;  and, 'Seeing  that 
the  market  price  was  still  low,  he  made 
up  his  mind  to  disregard  the  proclama- 
tion, and  trust  to  escaping  the  penalty 
by  his  friendship  with  the  Duke. 
Time  passed,  and  the  price  of  corn 
rose.  But  when  May  was  near  at 
hand  the  Commissioners  of  Plenty 
swooped  down  suddenly  on  the 
courtier,  and  sequestrated  all  the  corn 
lying  in  his  barns.  Full  of  wrath, 
this  man  of  commercial  instincts  ran 
to  the  palace,  and  told  his  story  to 
the  Duke,  enforcing  it  with  a  plain 
statement  that  if  his  Highness  did 
not  allow  him  to  sell  the  corn,  it 
would  be  impossible  for  him  to  main- 
tain his  station  about  the  Court. 
The  Duke  professed  great  sorrow  at 
hearing  this.  "  But  how  has  it 
happened  1 "  he  asked.  "  Did  you 
not  see  the  proclamations'?"  "Yes, 
but  at  that  time  the  price  was 
so  low  that  I  could  do  nothing 
with  it."  "The  devil!"  exclaimed 
the  Duke.  "Pray  what  did  you 
want  to  do  1  To  besiege  Florence, 
perhaps,  or.  make  yourself  Duke  1 
But  the  matter  is  out  of  my  hands ; 
the  best  I  can  do  for  you  is,  to 
advise  you  to  do  nothing  and  wait." 
the  courtier  took  this  speech  as  a 
hint  that  the  Duke  would  interfere 
secretly  on  his  behalf,  and  said 
nothing  more,  except  to  point  out 
that  the  corn,  being  in  his  barns, 
would  be  spoiled  in  the  hot  weather 
which  was  now  near  at  hand. 
"  Don't  be  anxious  about  that ;  leave 
it  to  me,"  said  the  Duke ;  and  the 
courtier  went  away  reassured,  fully 
expecting  that  in  a  few  days  he  would 
receive  permission  to  dispose  of  his 
corn.  However,  a  month  went  by 
and  he  had  heard  nothing  from  the 
Duke.  Accordingly  one  day  he 


130 


A  Florentine  Despot. 


ventured  to  observe,  "  Signor,  that 
corn  is  spoiling."  To  which  the 
Duke  answered  cheerfully,  "  Don't  be 
uneasy ;  leave  it  in  my  hands." 
The  weather  grew  hotter,  and  the 
case  more  serious.  Still  nothing 
could  be  extracted  from  the  Duke, 
save  a  cheery  assurance  that  he  had 
not  forgotten  the  matter.  Mean- 
while the  corn  was  spoiled.  By 
degrees  the  courtier  began  to  perceive 
that  the  Duke  had  been  too  subtle 
for  him ;  and  thinking  it  more  pru- 
dent to  let  the  matter  drop,  now  that 
the  loss  had  been  sustained,  he  did 
not  revert  to  it  until  the  following 
year,  when,  the  harvest  being  at  hand, 
he  went  to  the  Duke  again,  saying  : 
"  Signor,  now  the  corn  is  spoiled,  you 
will  allow  me  to  clear  it  out  of  my 
barns,  and  throw  it  away  1 "  "  Put 
it  off  a  little  while,"  said  the  Duke. 
And  so  the  matter  went  on,  until  at 
last  the  courtier  built  him  new  barns. 
The  old  ones  were  never  emptied,  but 
fell  into  ruin,  and  the  loss  to  the 
greedy  courtier  taught  him  to  obey 
the  law  in  future. 

Thus  Domenichi  reveals  to  his 
eagerly  listening  friends  the  methods  of 
paternal  government  in  Florence  ;  and 
is  rewarded  whenever  he  pauses  by  a 
little  murmur  of  eulogy,  sometimes  of 
himself,  but  more  often  of  the  Duke. 
"  Oh  wondrous  resolution  !  "  exclaims 
Mannini,  at  the  close  of  the  last 
story.  "  Oh  wondrous  resolution, 
taking  count  of  nothing  but  the 
public  safety  !  "  And  Travaglia 
chimes  in :  "  Oh  astonishing  skill 
in  procuring  obedience !  Worthy 
stratagems  !  Subtle  devices  !  "  And 
so  forth,  until  Domenichi,  who  is  less 
interested  in  their  comments  than 
they  are  in  his  stories,  cuts  them 
short  by  saying,  "  Now  listen  !  " 

Among  the  officers  of  the  Court  was 
one  filling  the  post  of  Chamberlain  to 
whom  the  Duke  was  much  attached. 
This  man  had  run  up  a  long  account 


for  robes  with  a  poor  wool-merchant, 
who,  being  unable  to  wait  longer  for 
his  money,  solicited  payment.  The 
Chamberlain  put  him  off  time  after 
time  ;  and  at  length  told  him  he  came 
too  often,  and  was  growing  a  nuis- 
ance. Still  the  merchant,  who  really 
needed  his  money,  persevered,  and 
after  some  months  had  passed  in 
futile  efforts  to  gain  his  point,  he 
took  the  advice  of  his  friends,  and 
went  to  the  palace  to  seek  audience 
of  his  Highness.  The  Duke,  who 
was  always  accessible  to  any  one 
of  his  subjects,  listened  to  the  mer- 
chant's story,  questioned  him,  and 
convinced  himself  of  its  truth.  "  Go 
home,"  he  said  :  "  send  to  the  Cham- 
berlain once  more,  asking  for  pay- 
ment ;  and  report  the  result  to  me." 
The  merchant  did  as  he  was  bid,  but 
had  to  report  only  an  insolent  reply 
to  his  request.  "  Very  well,"  said 
the  Duke.  "  I  will  arrange  it  for 
you."  He  sent  the  man  away  and 
let  a  few  days  pass.  Then,  choosing 
a  favourable  opportunity,  when  the 
Chamberlain  was  dressing  him,  he 
began  to  caress  him,  patting  him 
gently  on  the  head,  stroking  his 
cheeks,  and  finally,  dropping  his 
hand  on  the  Chamberlain's  neck,  he 
took  off  a  chain  of  great  value,  and 
turning  to  one  of  his  pages,  said  : 
"  Take  this  chain ;  carry  it  to  the 
wool-merchant,  and  tell  him  to  keep 
it  carefully  until  our  friend  here  pays 
him  for  the  robes  he  has  had."  Then, 
in  a  meaning  tone,  he  added  to  the 
Chamberlain :  "  You  will  oblige  me 
very  much  by  redeeming  that  chain 
within  eight  days."  And  with  that 
he  went  off  hunting,  leaving  his  dis- 
honest servant  overwhelmed  with 
shame. 

"  I  am  stupefied,"  Travaglia  de- 
clares, "as  I  listen  to  the  wise 
speeches  of  the  Duke." 

"  You  will  be  more  stupefied  when 
you  hear  how  generous  he  was  towards 


A  Florentine  Despot. 


131 


his  subjects,"  says  Manniui,  and  on 
this  hint,  with  the  object  perhaps  of 
reducing  Travaglia  to  the  condition 
indicated,  Domenichi  plunges  into 
another  anecdote  of  the  Duke's  wisdom 
and  justice. 

There  was  a  certain  citizen  in 
Florence  who  had  contracted  a  good 
many  debts,  not  through  misfortune 
but  through  simple  disinclination  to 
pay.  He  was  very  rich,  but  concealed 
that  fact  as  much  as  possible ;  and 
by  representing  himself  to  the  Council 
as  a  poor  man  well-nigh  crushed  with 
misfortunes,  had  obtained  from  them 
a  letter  protecting  him  from  arrest. 
Among  his  creditors  was  a  poor 
widow,  who  had  placed  in  his  hands 
the  chief  part  of  her  small  provision 
for  life,  but  could  get  neither  interest 
nor  principal  from  him.  She  impor- 
tuned him  for  payment ;  but  he, 
emboldened  by  impunity,  began  to 
deny  that  he  had  ever  known  her. 
Then  the  widow  resorted  to  the  law- 
courts.  Her  case  was  plain  :  the  mer- 
chant made  no  defence ;  and  sentence 
was  delivered  in  the  widow's  favour. 
The  merchant  ignored  it ;  and  finding 
that  he  did  so,  the  widow  took  steps  to 
have  him  arrested.  The  officers  of  the 
law  found  him  in  his  house,  and  were 
about  to  lay  hands  on  him,  when  he 
suddenly  drew  forth  his  letter  of  pro- 
tection, flourished  it  in  their  faces, 
and  discomfited  them.  There  was  but 
one  course  left,  and  the  woman  took 
it.  She  went  to  the  Duke,  who 
listened  to  her  story  patiently,  and 
being  satisfied  of  its  truth,  sent  a 
secretary  to  the  merchant  bidding  him 
do  what  was  right.  The  secretary 
returned  with  a  plausible  answer ; 
but  nothing  was  done,  and  in  a  few 
days  the  widow  came  again  to  say 
she  was  as  far  as  ever  from  getting 
her  money.  "  Why  do  you  not  have 
him  arrested  ? "  asked  the  Duke. 
"  How  can  I,  Signor,  when  the  Council 
protects  him  1 "  "  Then  he  cannot 


have  the  means  of  paying,"  the  Duke 
argued.  "  On  the  contrary,  he  is  very 
rich ;  and  nothing  but  his  avarice  led 
him  to  seek  protection." ,.  "It  is  a 
strange  case,"  said  the  Duke.  "  Come 
back  to  me  in  six  days  more."  That 
period  Duke  Alexander  passed  in 
making  inquiries  as  to  the  real  posi- 
tion of  the  merchant ;  and  having 
fully  informed  himself  of  this,  he  sum- 
moned the  man  to  the  palace,  and 
requested  him  courteously  to  dis- 
charge his  debt,  representing  that  it 
would  be  a  pleasure  to  himself  to 
know  the  poor  woman  had  her  rights. 
The  merchant  declared  he  would  pay 
her  shortly,  but  added  that  he  was  a 
poor  man,  and  could  not  do  it  at  the 
moment.  He  left  the  Duke,  assuring 
him  that  the  money  would  be  paid  ere 
long ;  but  when  the  widow  returned 
to  the  palace  at  the  end  of  the  stipu- 
lated period,  the  Duke  found  she  had 
heard  nothing  from  her  debtor.  In- 
stantly he  called  a  page,  saying  sharply : 
"  Find  the  man  who  is  in  debt  to  this 
poor  woman,  and  bring  him  here  at 
once."  His  manner  was  so  stern  that 
the  page  lost  not  a  moment  on  the  way, 
but  brought  back  the  merchant  in  less 
time  than  one  might  have  thought 
possible.  The  Duke  was  standing  by 
the  fire,  his  cloak  thrown  about  his 
shoulders,  for  he  was  going  to  mass, 
and  waited  only  to  despatch  the  busi- 
ness which  he  had  in  hand  ;  and  as  he 
stood,  he  was  raking  among  the  coals 
and  ashes  with  a  stick.  "  So,"  said 
he,  when  he  saw  the  defaulting  citizen 
enter,  "  then  you  have  not  yet  paid 
this  poor  woman?"  "Oh,  Signor,  I 
am  too  poor,"  was  the  reply.  "  Too 
poor ! "  broke  in  the  woman,  "  too 
poor !  Then  sell  your  farms  in  this 
place,  your  stores  of  corn  in  that,  your 
olive  trees  and  all  your  other  wealth, 
and  pay  me  what  you  justly  owe  ! " 
The  Duke  listened  with  a  smile,  and, 
drawing  his  stick  out  from  the  fire,  he 
traced  a  circle  on  the  floor  with  the 
K  2 


132 


A  Florentine  Despot. 


blackened  end.  "  Get  into  that  space," 
he  said,  and  the  merchant  obeyed. 
"Now,"  said  the  Duke,  "you  shall 
not  come  outside  that  circle  until  you 
have  paid  the  widow.  If  you  do,  I 
will  cut  off  your  head."  "  Signor, 
signor  !  "  protested  the  frightened  man. 
"  I  shall  have  to  stay  here  for  ever." 
"  On  the  contrary,"  said  the  Duke 
calmly.  "I  am  now  going  to  mass; 
if  I  find  you  here  when  I  return,  be 
assured  that  I  will  hang  you."  The 
Duke  departed.  The  merchant,  half 
dead  with  fear  (for  the  Duke  was 
quite  able  to  keep  his  word),  sent  in 
post-haste  for  some  of  his  friends,  who 
succeeded  in  telling  out  the  money 
due  to  the  widow  just  before  the  Duke 
returned. 

"  Less  violence,"  observes  Mannini, 
"  would  not  have  answered  with  one 
so  pig-headed."  Mannini  is  fond  of 
dropping  pregnant  remarks,  sometimes 
couched  in  language  so  sententious  as 
to  be  a  little  over  the  heads  of  his 
companions.  Perhaps  Ricoveri  sus- 
pected him  of  some  such  design  to 
elaborate  the  present  occasion ;  for 
he  proceeded  to  suggest  that  in  the 
enjoyment  of  this  banquet  of  the  mind 
which  Domenichi  had  spread  before 
them,  it  would  be  well  not  to  forget 
that  their  bodies  too  had  needs. 
Dinner-time  was  near,  and  they  could 
finish  talking  about  the  Duke  after- 
wards. Whereupon  they  all  adjourned 
to  Ricoveri's  house,  where  they  dined 
sumptuously,  and  then  separated, 
some  to  play  at  various  gentve  games, 
others  to  sleep  away  the  hot  hours 
in  cool  silent  chambers.  Late  in  the 
afternoon  they  met  again  on  the  bal- 
cony of  the  house,  whence  there  was 
a  wide  view  over  the  valley  beyond 
Florence,  rich  with  waving  cornfields. 
There  these  incorrigible  talkers  fell 
into  an  argument  as  to  whether 
nature  or  art  were  the  mightier ; 
and  they  would  probably  have  spent 
the  whole  day  over  that  interesting 


topic  had  not  Ricoveri,  who  seemed 
to  care  little  which  view  was  cor- 
rect, recalled  them  to  the  Duke. 
Domenichi  was  again  installed  in  the 
seat  of  honour,  and  the  others  crowded 
round  him  to  listen. 

Long  ago  there  came  to  Florence 
in  his  youth  a  velvet-maker  from  Ber- 
gamo, who  opened  a  shop,  and,  aided 
by  fortune  and  his  own  good  sense, 
became  very  rich.  He  had  neither 
wife  nor  child ;  and  thus  in  his  old 
age,  being  without  any  incentive  to 
continue  his  work,  he  sold  his  shop, 
and  retired  to  a  pleasant  house  near 
Florence,  where  he  spent  his  time  in 
good  works.  The  life  which  he  had 
renounced  still  held  his  interests, 
however,  and  he  constantly  visited 
an  old  friend,  also  a  velvet-maker, 
who  still  retained  his  shop,  and  was 
glad  enough  to  keep  in  touch  with  a 
rich  man  who  had  no  pressing  claims 
upon  his  wealth.  Indeed  the  fact 
that  his  old  gossip  had  hardly  any 
use  for  his  money  so  impressed  itself 
on  this  astute  merchant,  that  he  began 
to  ponder  some  scheme  by  which  that 
money  could  be  worthily  employed ; 
and  having  at  last  thought  the  matter 
out,  he  assumed  a  very  mournful  air 
whenever  he  was  in  his  old  friend's 
society.  The  old  man  did  not  fail  to 
notice  this  melancholy,  and  was  made 
the  more  anxious  by  it,  since  all  his 
questions  as  to  its  cause  were  deftly 
turned  aside.  Days  passed,  and  the 
merchant's  gloom  increased ;  at  last 
so  deep  did  it  become  that  the  old 
man,  who  had  a  kindly  heart  and  a 
very  strong  regard  for  his  former 
fellow-tradesman,  took  him  out  to 
dinner  at  his  house  one  day,  and 
as  they  sat  at  table  in  the  garden, 
pressed  and  even  conjured  him  to 
disclose  its  cause,  professing  himself 
ready  to  do  anything  in  his  power 
to  remove  the  distress  which  was  op- 
pressing so  good  a  man.  The  mer- 
chant had  hooked  his  fish,  but  he  was 


A  Florentine  Despot. 


133 


too   clever  to  bring  him  to  land  at 
once.   So  he  returned  evasive  answers, 
assumed  a  semblance  of    gaiety,   and 
even  told  his  friend  one  or  two  point- 
less little   stories  which   the  old  man 
knew  quite  well    already.      By  these 
devices,  varied   by  occasional  relapses 
into  deep  melancholy,  he  worked  up 
his    friend's  curiosity  to    the  highest 
pitch,  and  when  he  judged  the  proper 
moment  to  have  come,  he  declared  he 
was  half  dead  with  anxiety  about  his 
business,  being  afraid  that  he  would 
have  to  close  his  shop  and  accept  dis- 
grace.     Some    time  ago,  it  appeared, 
he  had  bought  stock  worth  eight  hun- 
dred scudi.      He  had  paid  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  down  at  the  time,  and 
had  left  the  remainder  to  stand  over, 
relying   on  getting  in  moneys  which 
were  due  to   him.     But   he   had  not 
been  paid  those  moneys, — Florence  was 
full  of   dishonest  fellows  !  — the    time 
was  at  hand  when  he  must  complete 
the   payment  for   his  velvets,   and   he 
was  at  his  wits'  ends.      He  would  not 
have  distressed  his  colleague  by  telling 
him  this,  he  added,  if  he  had  not  been 
so   urgently  pressed.      The   good    old 
man  was  greatly  concerned.      "  Don't 
despair,  gossip,"  he  said.      "  God  will 
not    desert    you.        Stay   here    till    I 
return."     He  ran  off   to   the    house, 
and  came  back  with  a  bag,  in  which 
was  the  greater  part  of   the  money  he 
had  obtained  from  the  sale  of  his  shop. 
There  was  a  broken   pillar   standing 
near,  and  on  it  the  old  man  counted 
out  four  hundred  and  fifty  scudi,  say- 
ing,   "  Take    them    for    six    or    eight 
months    at    your    convenience."     He 
knew  his  old  friend  too  well   to  ask 
for  a  receipt ;   such  formalities  were 
not     necessary     where     both     parties 
trusted    each     other.      The    merchant 
overwhelmed  his  friend  with  thanks, 
and   went   home  gaily,  protesting   he 
had  never  until  that  moment  known 
the    worth    of    true    affection.      Time 
passed ;     the     six    months     or    eight 


months  for  which  the  money  had  been 
lent  sped  by,  but  nothing  was  said 
about  returning  it.  The  old  man 
wondered,  but  felt  a  delicacy  in  re- 
minding his  friend  of  the  transaction. 
Eighteen  months  slipped  away,  how- 
ever, and  at  last  he  reminded  the  other 
gently  that  the  term  fixed  for  repaying 
the  money  was  long  past.  "  Money  !  " 
answered  the  merchant,  with  a  puz- 
zled expression.  "  What  money  are 
you  talking  of?"  "What  money? 
Why  the  scudi  which  I  lent  you  in 
my  garden."  "  Upon  my  word,"  the 
man  of  velvets  protested  with  every 
appearance  of  good  faith,  "  I  think 
you  must  be  jesting.  I  have  not  the 
least  idea  what  you  are  speaking  of, 
nor  did  I  ever  accept  money  from  you 
without  failing  to  return  it  promptly." 
The  old  man  continued  with  rising 
indignation  to  assert  his  claim,  but 
without  the  least  success,  and  finally 
the  other  pushed  him  out  of  his  shop, 
saying  peevishly  :  "  There,  go  away  in 
God's  name,  before  I  do  or  say  any- 
thing I  shall  be  sorry  for." 

Thus  insulted  and  swindled,  the 
old  man  betook  himself  to  the  Duke, 
in  whose  justice  and  resource  he  felt 
that  his  last  hope  lay  of  recovering 
his  money.  The  Duke  after  listening 
to  his  story,  made  inquiries  of  those 
who  knew  the  other  party  to  the 
transaction.  Of  the  honest  old  man 
he  had  some  personal  knowledge  ;  and 
having  thoroughly  satisfied  himself 
from  their  antecedents  which  was 
likely  to  be  the  liar,  he  caused  them 
to  be  confronted  in  his  presence. 
When  he  saw  the  merchant  enter,  the 
old  man,  who  had  been  instructed 
what  to  do,  formally  demanded  his 
money,  and  was  answered  exactly  as 
before.  On  this  the  Duke  interposed, 
saying  he  knew  the  old  man  well,  and 
was  assured  he  would  not  claim  a 
debt  which  was  not  due  tohim.  "Pray, 
therefore,"  said  he  in  his  most  gra- 
cious manner,  "  pray  therefore  let  him 


134 


A  Florentine  Despot. 


have  the  money."     "  I  vow  I  never 
had  it,"  cried  the   merchant ;  and  at 
this   the  old  man  lost    patience,  and 
both  adversaries,  forgetting  the  Duke's 
presence,  raised  their  voices  at  once, 
and    began    to     dispute     loudly     and 
angrily.    "  Was  there  absolutely  no  one 
present  when  you  lent  the  money  ? " 
the  Duke  asked.   "  ISTo,  Signor,  we  were 
alone,"  the  creditor  answered  ;   "  there 
was  nothing  near  us  except  the  broken 
shaft  of  a  pillar  on  which  I  told  the  money 
out."     "  Excellent !  "  cried  the  Duke. 
"  Fetch  me  that  pillar  ;  I  will  get  the 
truth  out  of  it."     Off  ran  the  simple 
old  man,  while  the  Duke,  ordering  the 
dishonest  merchant  to  wait,  turned  to 
other  business.      After  a  little  while, 
not  looking  up  from  the  papers  he  was 
reading,  he  observed  carelessly,  "  What 
a  long  time  our  friend  takes  in  fetch- 
ing that  pillar  !  "     "  Signor,  he  could 
scarcely  be  back  yet ;  the  pillar  is  large 
and  heavy."     The  Duke  said  nothing, 
but  glanced  up  over  his  papers,  and 
fixed  a  piercing   look  upon  the  mer- 
chant, who,  being  quite  acute  enough 
to  see  that  he  had  betrayed  too  much 
knowledge  of  the  pillar,  grew  more  and 
more  uneasy.     He  felt  himself  in  the 
Duke's  power ;  he  did  not  feel  certain 
what  was  at  the  bottom  of  this  business 
of  the  pillar.      The  silence  weighed  on 
him  ;  from  time  to  time  he  found  the 
Duke's  eyes  fixed  on  his,  as  if  he  read 
the    lie    clearly    in    them.       At    last 
Duke  Alexander  spoke  again,  as  if  to 
himself  :  "  What  sort  of  men  are  these 
to  lend  money  without   any  kind  of 
receipt  or  witness  to  the  transaction  !  " 
And  then,  turning  on  the  merchant 
quickly,  he  asked  :   "  Is  it  really  the 
fact  that  no  one  was  present  but  the 
pillar  ? "      "  No  one  at  all,"  answered 
the  frightened  merchant,  terrified  into 
the  truth.      "  That   is  quite  enough," 
said  Duke  Alexander  ;  "  the  pillar  has 
made   you   tell  the  truth.      Go   now, 
and  pay  the  money.     Be  grateful  that 
I  do  not  punish  you  as  a  swindler  and 


a  thief,  as  I  most  assuredly  shall  if  I 
have  to  intervene  in  the  affair  again." 
Cowed  and  disgraced  the  fraudulent 
merchant  slunk  away  from  the  palace  ; 
and  before  the  day  was  over,  he  had 
paid  his  debt  in  full. 

In  acting  the  part  of  the  Cadi 
under  the  palm  tree  Duke  Alexander's 
quick  intelligence  served  him  well. 
Another  anecdote  shows  that  he  could 
be  magnanimous  to  those  who  had 
been  his  enemies  as  well  as  just  to 
those  who  professed  themselves  his 
subjects.  There  was  a  certain  officer 
who,  during  the  troubles  of  the  years 
preceding  the  imposition  of  Duke 
Alexander  upon  the  free  citizens  of 
Florence,  had  served  with  honour  on 
the  side  of  liberty  ;  that  is,  on  the 
side  of  the  people,  Domenichi  explains, 
his  native  republican  feeling  showing 
itself  this  once  amid  all  his  affection 
for  the  ruler  whom  the  people  had 
not  freely  chosen.  When  the  dissen- 
sions were  over,  this  officer  tendered 
his  services  to  the  Duke ;  but  more 
than  one  of  the  courtiers  advised 
against  accepting  them,  saying  that 
this  man  had  fought  more  desperately 
than  any  other  against  the  Duke's 
party,  showing  an  absolute  recklessness 
of  life.  "  Did  he  indeed  fight  so 
well  ?  "  said  the  Duke  with  interest. 
"  Then  I  would  not  lose  him  for  the 
world.  He  will  fight  as  well  for  us 
as  he  did  against  us." 

One  of  his  friends  often  told  him 
that  it  was  not  becoming  to  a  prince 
of  his  rank  to  go  dressed  so  quietly, 
and  quoted  Aristotle,  who  says  that 
princes  should  always  be  splendidly 
dressed,  so  that  they  may  be  known  at 
once  by  their  vassals.  But  the  Duke 
answered  that  it  was  more  honourable 
to  clothe  his  servants  splendidly. 
"  For,"  said  he,  "it  is  much  better  for 
me  to  dress  many  and  deprive  myself, 
than  to  deprive  many  that  I  may 
dress  myself." 

We  will  give  one  more  instance  of 


A  Florentine  Despot. 


135 


this  ready  tongue.  The  Duke  was  at 
Naples,  collecting  troops  for  the  expe- 
ditions which  the  Emperor,  his  father- 
in-law,  was  preparing  against  Tunis. 
Among  the  regiments  which  passed 
before  him,  there  was  a  cripple  march- 
ing with  the  rest.  Now  there  stood 
beside  the  Duke  a  courtier  whose 
courage  in  war  was  by  no  means  un- 
doubted, and  said  he,  pointing  to  the 
cripple,  "  There  is  a  man  who  ought 
to  be  on  horseback."  "  I  think  not," 
the  Duke  answered.  "  I  should  say 
on  foot."  "Why,  Signor  1"  "Be- 
cause in  war  men  are  wanted  to  stand 
still,  not  to  run  away." 

It  was  a  biting  remark,  which 
probably  made  an  enemy,  and  of 
enemies  Duke  Alexander  had  only  too 
many.  Imposed  on  the  Florentines 
as  their  ruler  by  the  influence  of  Pope 
Clement  the  Seventh,  whom  many 
believed  to  be  his  father,  backed  by 
the  powers  of  France  and  Germany, 
he  was  inevitably  associated  in  the 
minds  of  his  people  with  the  partial 
loss  of  their  free  institutions  and  the 
commencement  of  a  tyranny.  Political 
feelings  were  always  fierce  in  Flor- 
ence. Rome  and  the  other  chief 
cities  of  Italy  were  never  free  from 
bands  of  exiles  who  were  perpetually 
plotting  to  regain  their  homes  beside 
the  Arno,  and  whose  fiery  hatred 
towards  the  existing  government  of 
their  native  city  was  a  standing  dan- 
ger. These  men  had  partisans  within 
the  walls,  and  were  ever  on  the  watch 
for  blunders  which  might  give  them  a 
handle  against  the  Duke. 

How  far  Alexander  was  qualified 
by  his  character  and  talents  to  occupy 
a  throne  which  was  so  insecurely 
propped  is  a  question  on  which  his- 
torians do  not  thoroughly  agree. 
Some  represent  him  as  an  abominable 
tyrant ;  others  again  think  Florence 
might  have  been  happy  under  his  rule, 
had  not  the  sword  of  an  assassin  cut 
it  short.  There  is  no  ground  for  dis- 


trusting the  stories  which  Ceccheregli 
has  recorded.  They  have  the  ring  of 
truth  ;  and  they  prove  that  the  Duke 
possessed  many  qualities  of  a  great 
prince.  But  the  gossips  give  only  the 
bright  side  of  the  picture.  Of  the 
Duke's  difficulties  Domenichi  tells  us 
nothing.  He  is  silent  as  to  all  the 
circumstances  of  his  death;  and  in- 
deed there  is  not  a  word  in  Ceccher- 
egli's  book  from  which  it  could  be 
gathered  that  Alexander's  reign  was 
not  a  season  of  profound  peace,  a  sort 
of  golden  age. 

Benvenuto    Cellini,    brightest    and 
most  graphic   of  chroniclers,  gives  us 
many  glimpses  of  the  Duke.      He  tells 
us  how  Alexander  gave  him  an  order 
for  a  medal,  in  the  progress  of  which 
he  was   so   much   interested  that    he 
ordered  the  goldsmith  to  be  admitted 
to  the  palace  at  any  hour  at  which  he 
might  present  himself.     Accordingly, 
Benvenuto  saw  him  often  reclining  on 
his  couch  after  dining  with  his  cousin, 
Lorenzino  de   Medici,    a    man    whom 
Cellini  marvels  that  he  trusted.      On 
one     occasion,    when     a    subject    for 
the   reverse   of  the   medal  was  under 
discussion,  Benvenuto  said  :   "  Signor, 
be  at  ease.      The  medal  shall  be  much 
finer  than   the   one  I  made  for  Pope 
Clement,  which  was   indeed  my  first 
attempt ;  and  Messer    Lorenzo    here, 
who    is    a    very    clever    and    learned 
person,   shall  give  me   some  splendid 
reverse    for    it."     Lorenzo    answered 
quickly  :   "I  was  thinking  of  nothing 
else   than  a  reverse  which  would  be 
worthy  of  his  Excellency."     The  Duke 
smiled,     and     said :     "  Lorenzo,     you 
shall  give  him    the    reverse,  and    he 
shall    do     it    here,     without    leaving 
Florence."      "I    will    do    it    as    soon 
as  ever    I  can;    and    I   hope  it  will 
be    a  thing  to   astonish    the    world." 
The    Duke    turned    away  smiling    at 
his     cousin's     conceit ;    but    Lorenzo 
was  not  a  man  whose  words  could  be 
so    dismissed.     There    was    a   double 


130 


A  Florentine  Despot. 


meaning  in  them  ;  and  the  reverse  he 
was  preparing  was  one  of  the  blackest 
treachery  which  history  can  disclose. 
Duke  Alexander  was  extravagantly 
licentious.  Lorenzo  made  himself  the 
companion  of  his  vices,  lured  his 
prince  to  a  solitary  house,  and  stabbed 
him  with  his  own  hand  as  he  lay  in 
bed. 

That  night  Benvenuto  was  riding 
towards  Rome,  when,  having  reached 
the  summit  of  a  small  eminence,  he 
and  his  companions  cried  at  the  same 
moment :  "  God  in  heaven  !  What  is 
that  mighty  thing  in  the  sky  over 
toward  Florence  1 "  It  was,  as  Cellini 
describes  it,  a  great  mass  of  fire, 
spreading  across  the  darkened  sky  and 
throwing  out  a  light  of  extraordinary 
brilliance.  "  Certainly,"  said  Ben- 
venuto to  his  companions,  "  we  shall 
hear  to-morrow  of  some  great  event  at 
Florence." 

Late  on  the  following  day  came 
the  news  of  Lorenzo's  crime ;  and 
immediately  there  arrived  a  rush  of 
Florentine  exiles  at  Cellini's  shop. 

First  came  Francesco  Soderini, 
bumping  about  on  a  sorry  mule  of  his, 
laughing  immoderately  all  along  the 
street  like  a  madman,  and  crying  out : 
"  Here  is  the  reverse  of  the  medal 
which  Lorenzino  promised  you  for 
that  rascally  tyrant !  You  were  for 
immortalising  our  Dukes ;  but  I 
tell  you  we  will  have  no  more 
Dukes." 

And  then  came  Baccio  Bettini, 
another  of  the  Florentine  exiles  (an 
ugly  fellow,  says  Benvenuto,  with  a 
head  as  big  as  a  basket),  crying  out : 


"  We  have  unduked  him  !  And  now 
we  will  have  no  more  Dukes  !  " 

Whereupon  the  whole  crew  began 
to  jeer  at  Cellini,  as  if  he  had 
been  the  chief  supporter  of  the  Dukes. 
He  bore  their  gibes  for  some  time 
in  contemptuous  silence,  but  at  last 
he  turned.  "  You  silly  fellows,"  he 
said,  "  I  am  only  a  poor  goldsmith, 
serving  whoever  pays  me,  though  you 
jeer  at  me  as  if  I  were  at  the  head  of 
a  party  ;  but  I  tell  you,  however  loudly 
you  laugh  now,  you  will  have 
another  Duke  within  three  days,  per- 
haps much  worse  than  the  last." 

The  next  day  Bettini  came  back 
again,  saying :  "  There  is  no  use  in 
spending  money  on  couriers  when  you 
know  everything  before  it  happens." 
And  with  that  preface,  he  told  Cellini 
that  Lorenzo's  crime  had  missed  its 
aim,  and  that  Cosimo  de  Medici  had 
been  chosen  Duke,  but  only  on  strin- 
gent conditions  which  would  probably 
keep  him  within  bounds. 

At  this  hope  Benvenuto  laughed. 
"  These  men  of  Florence,"  he  said, 
"  set  a  young  man  upon  a  mettled 
horse  ;  they  give  him  spurs,  throw  the 
bridle  loose  in  his  hand,  and  lead  him 
out  upon  a  smooth  lawn,  where  are 
flowers  and  fruits  and  every  delight. 
Then  they  draw  a  line,  and  bid  him  not 
venture  to  pass  it.  Tell  me  then  who 
shall  hold  him,  if  he  will  cross  the 
line  ?  The  laws  are  not  for  those  who 
are  masters  of  them." 

These  words,  spoken  of  Duke 
Cosimo,  but  suggested  by  the  deeds  of 
Duke  Alexander,  sum  up  tersely 
enough  the  story  of  his  short  life. 


137 


IN    BIDEFORD    BAY. 


IN  the  long  summer  evenings,  when 
we  were  boys,  we  used  to  revel  in  the 
most  glorious  baths  off  that  ridge  of 
pebbles  which  protected  our  foreshore 
from  the  Atlantic  rollers.  We  chose 
the  evenings,  as  a  rule,  for  our  bath- 
ing, because  by  that  time  we  were 
well  tired  out,  whether  with  cricketing 
or  birds-nesting,  and  a  cool  bath  in 
the  brine  was  the  best  possible  re- 
freshment. Moreover  the  seaward 
outlook  at  that  hour  was  the  most 
delightful,  with  the  sun  sinking  low 
over  Lundy  Island  in  the  distance  and 
sending  to  us  a  golden  pathway  of  his 
reflected  light  across  the  waves.  We 
loved  best  of  all  to  bathe  at  the 
highest  of  the  tide,  for  then  the 
breakers  rolled  right  up  to  the  ridge 
of  pebbles.  One  could  almost  dive 
off  and  be  in  deep  water  at  once ; 
whereas  at  other  times  one  had  to  run 
out  over  many  hundred  yards,  it  might 
be,  of  level  golden  sand,  and  wade  out 
a  hundred  or  two  more  before  one 
could  trust  oneself  to  swim  without 
risk  of  rasping  some  valuable  epider- 
mis upon  the  shingle.  It  was  jolly 
diving  to  meet  the  incoming  wave, 
and  letting  the  breaking  foam  dash 
over  you  as  you  swam  beneath  it,  to 
emerge  triumphantly  beyond  it  and 
swim  on  to  meet  the  next.  But  there 
was  no  peaceful  pleasure  until  one  had 
gone  out  beyond  the  furthest  breaking 
line  and  met  the  waves,  which  nearer 
shore  curled  over  like  the  white  manes 
of  horses,  while  they  were  yet 
nothing  more  than  the  placid  swell  of 
ocean. 

Authority  had  warned  us  of  fearful 
ground-currents,  apt  to  suck  the  young 
swimmer  seaward,  but  we  never 


encountered  these  currents  in  any 
strength ;  and  indeed  on  the  days 
when  the  billows  came  in  with  any 
furious  force  it  was  work  enough  to 
fight  one's  way  out  and  stand  up  at 
all  against  half  a  dozen  of  their 
assaults  :  one  had  no  breath  or  energy 
left  for  swimming  out  beyond  their 
lines.  On  these  days,  too,  the  sea 
beyond  would  be  flecked,  as  far  as  the 
eye  could  see,  into  white  horses,  each 
of  which  would  catch  the  swimmer  an 
uncomfortable  buffet  on  the  head,  fill- 
ing his  eyes,  his  ears,  and  maybe  his 
mouth  too,  if  he  attempted  an  un- 
timely breath,  with  salt  foam. 

The  quiet  days  were  the  most  de- 
lightful, when  the  sun,  as  it  sank, 
gilded  only  the  top  of  each  successive 
swell  with  its  glory,  so  that  what  had 
a  while  before  the  likeness  of  a  golden 
pathway,  seemed  now  no  more  than  a 
ladder  of  golden  rungs  which  we 
contemplated  reverently  with  pious 
memories  of  Jacob's  dream.  The  de- 
light and  marvel  of  this  pathway  and 
this  ladder  was  that,  no  matter  where 
we  swam,  it  seemed  ever  to  reach  down 
straight  towards  us,  as  if  designed  for 
us  alone.  It  was  a  sad  disillusion 
when  some  one  explained  the  matter  to 
us  as  a  simple  example  of  the  laws  of 
reflection. 

But  that  same  sea  which  would 
sometimes  be  so  tempting  and  com- 
paratively peaceful,  in  time  of  storm 
could  be  furiously  and  cruelly  grand. 
At  those  times  the  roaring  of  the 
great  pebbles  that  it  ground  and 
churned  and  dashed  against  each  other 
was  deafening.  It  could  be  heard 
with  ease  in  the  neighbouring  country 
town  three  miles  away,  for  the  sea 


138 


In  Bideford  Say. 


beat  on  our  coast  with  all  the  fury  of 
the  open  Atlantic.  Now  and  again 
an  unfortunate  vessel  would  be  driven 
ashore  and  broken  up  in  a  Wonder- 
fully short  space  on  that  stony  ridge. 
But  this,  which  to  us  boys  was  rather 
a  pleasing  excitement  than  an  occa- 
sion of  grief,  happened  seldom,  for  the 
sailors  knew  and  dreaded  the  coast. 
The  usual  issue  of  a  severe  storm  was 
that  when  it  was  over  we  would  find 
great  stems  of  monkey-tail  seaweed,  as 
we  called  it,  on  the  shore,  together 
with  numbers  of  dead  birds,  white 
below  and  dark  above,  which  we 
termed  little  auks.  Really  they  were 
nothing  of  such  rarity,  but  merely 
razor-bills, — mers  as  the  sailors  of  the 
coast  called  them — which  had  been 
driven  in  by  the  waves  and  winds  and 
either  dashed  to  death  on  the  shore 
or  drowned  in  the  tumult  of  broken 
waters. 

Numbers  of  them,  innumerable 
multitudes,  nested,  as  we  knew,  on 
the  cliffs  of  that  Lundy  Island  which 
we  could  see,  except  when  the  distance 
was  hazy,  out  in  the  Bristol  Channel. 
We  knew  it,  for  more  than  once  it 
had  been  our  good  fortune  to  be  taken 
there  in  a  trawling  fisher-smack  owned 
by  a  great  friend  of  ours  in  the  port 
which  lay  a  mile  or  so  up  the  tidal 
river.  For  a  port  there  was,  though 
the  coast  was  so  dreaded  by  the 
sailors ;  but  it  was  a  port  that  was 
only  accessible  at  nearly  high  tide,  for 
the  mouth  of  the  river  was  blocked  by 
a  sandbar  over  which  vessels  even  of 
very  small  draught  could  pass  only 
when  the  tide  was  fairly  full. 

These  expeditions  were  a  great  joy 
to  us,  and  yet  there  was  a  measure  of 
disappointment  about  the  first  part  of 
the  voyage.  True,  there  was  always  a 
certain  excitement  in  watching  the 
ship  thread  her  way  among  the  other 
coasters  and  smacks  that  would  be 
taking  advantage  of  the  same  tide  to 
help  them  out,  passing  some,  being 


overhauled  by  others,  for  which  the 
skipper  always  had  some  plausible  ex- 
cuse at  hand.  It  was  interesting,  too, 
to  see  the  features  of  the  coast  unfold- 
ing themselves  successively  as  we  stood 
farther  and  farther  away  from  the 
land  ;  features  that  were  perfectly 
familiar,  but  which  now  acquired  the 
interest  of  novelty  from  appearing  at 
a  different  point  of  view.  They  all 
looked  so  small  from  the  sea  ;  but 
then,  we  reflected,  how  small  a  ship 
looked  from  the  shore,  and  yet  how 
large  it  really  was  ;  one  could  almost 
stand  upright,  being  a  boy,  in  the 
cabin.  But  that  which  disappointed 
us  in  the  earlier  miles  of  the  voyage 
was  the  absence  of  any  considerable 
amount  of  bird-life.  An  occasional 
wandering  seagull  came  and  looked  at 
us,  then  passed  on,  finding  us  uninter- 
esting. An  occasional  flight  of  shear- 
waters scudded  past  us  over  the  waves 
and  into  their  troughs ;  but  there  was 
nothing  to  give  us  any  continuous 
interest.  We  always  wanted  the  fish- 
ing lines  to  be  put  out  overboard, 
just  on  chance ;  and  we  would  not 
believe  it  when  told  that  there  was 
no  chance,  that  we  were  sailing  too 
fast.  Where  there  was  sea  there 
must  be  fish,  and  where  there  were 
fish,  if  you  put  out  a  hook  with  a  bait 
there  was  a  chance  of  catching  them  ; 
that  was  our  young  argument,  and  it 
was  as  sound  as  many  others  that  are 
applied  to  fishing,  which  is  perhaps 
saying  little  enough  for  its  wisdom. 
But  after  the  island  of  Lundy  had 
begun  to  look  relatively  near  at  hand, 
and  the  mainland  dim  and  distant, 
instead  of  conversely ;  that  is  to  say 
when  we  were  more  than  half  way 
across,  then  the  sea  began  to  be  dotted 
with  birds  swimming  in  pairs,  a  big 
bird  and  a  little  one  together,  a  mother 
razor-bill  and  its  baby.  They  would 
not  fly  up  at  our  approach  but  con- 
tented themselves  with  diving  as  the 
smack  came  near  them,  to  rise  again 


In  Bideford  Bay. 


139 


at  a  great  distance  on  one  side  or  the 
other.  As  we  neared  the  island  these 
pairs  became  more  frequent.  Among 
them  appeared  a  few  guillemots,  and 
after  a  while  an  immense  number  of 
puffins,  those  quaint  creatures  that 
the  natives  of  those  parts  called  dis- 
tinctively Lundy  parrots.  Overhead 
the  gannets  would  be  winging  their 
way  with  powerful  strokes  of  their 
great  wings,  poising  themselves,  now 
and  again,  before  diving  down  at 
tremendous  speed  into  the  water, 
dropping  with  closed  wings  into  its 
surface  like  a  dead  weight,  and  send- 
ing up  a  fountain  of  spray  such  as 
comes  from  a  blowing  whale.  After 
a  moment  or  two  they  would  rise 
again,  with  a  fish  in  their  bills,  and 
soar  up  into  the  air  as  they  swallowed 
the  prey  to  be  ready  for  another  deadly 
swoop  on  a  fresh  victim. 

The  sight  of  the  razor-bills,  with 
their  little  ones  on  the  water,  would 
fill  us  with  terrible  anxiety  lest  all 
the  sea-birds  should  have  left  their 
nests  ;  for  the  high  summer-tide,  when 
the  weather  was  most  to  be  relied  on, 
was  the  time  that  Authority  smiled 
on  (though  even  then  rather  grudg- 
ingly) for  these  expeditions.  Our 
friend,  the  skipper,  however,  assured 
us  that  the  wild  fowl  were  later  in 
their  date  of  nesting  than  the  small 
birds  with  which  we  were  familiar ; 
and  that  though  some  of  the  mers, 
with  their  young  ones,  were  already 
afloat,  we  should  find  plenty  more  on 
the  cliffs  of  the  island. 

He  might  well  say  plenty.  The 
smack  came  to  anchor  about  a  hun- 
dred yards  from  the  beach  on  the 
eastern  side,  and  we  went  ashore  in 
the  dinghy,  landing  on  a  very  slippery 
little  jetty  of  big  stones,  and  scramb- 
ling over  them  to  the  more  secure 
land.  Then  followed  a  winding  ascent, 
past  the  proprietor's  house,  to  the 
upper  level  of  the  island  ;  for  all  the 
island  had  steep  cliffs,  least  steep  of 


all  at  the  point  of  our  ascent  and  land- 
ing ;  but,  once  these  precipices  were 
scaled,  the  top  was  a  fairly  level 
plateau  some  three  miles  in  length 
and  a  mile  or  so  across.  It  was  in- 
habited only  by  the  people  of  the 
light-house,  and  by  the  family  and 
dependants  of  the  owner.  It  was 
seldom  that  we  saw  a  soul,  after  we 
had  once  passed  up  the  combe  in 
which  were  the  farmhouses  and  the 
store,  or  any  sign  of  cultivation,  or 
of  domestic  animals  save  a  few  sheep. 
But  rabbits  abounded,  darting  up  out 
of  every  little  bush  and  tussock  and 
making  for  their  holes  in  the  cliff- 
sides.  And  everywhere,  and  ever 
louder  as  we  went  along  to  the  north 
of  the  island,  the  air  was  full  of  a 
continuous,  unceasing  sound  of  the 
cries  of  the  sea-birds.  Where  we  had 
landed  there  had  been  few  of  them. 
We  had,  by  that  time,  passed  the 
ranks  of  the  swimming  razor-bills, 
guillemots,  and  puffins  :  the  gannets 
could  not  dive  with  safety  in  the 
shallow  water ;  and  the  only  signs  of 
bird-life  were  a  few  gulls  hovering 
around  us. 

And  yet,  to  our  anxious  enquiries 
after  the  birds,  the  skipper  had  told 
us  there  would  be  plenty.  It  was 
impossible  to  doubt  him,  as  we  heard 
the  perpetual  chorus,  and  yet  we  saw 
little  except  a  plover  or  two  flinging 
himself  about  over  our  heads,  as  we 
went  along,  and  uttering  his  plaintive 
wild  cry.  The  island  was  very  un- 
sympathetic to  us,  for,  save  in  the 
sheltered  combe  where  a  stout  elder 
bush  flourished,  there  was  nothing  in 
the  nature  of  a  tree  on  the  whole 
area  ;  and  the  bare  plateau  did  not 
appeal  to  our  boyish  need  for  secrecy 
and  concealment. 

Yet  we  kept  on.  And  now,  look- 
ing out  beyond  the  northward  limit 
of  the  island,  we  became  aware  of 
what  appeared  like  a  brown  cloud, 
obscuring  the  bright  levels  of  the  sea. 


140 


In  Bideford  Bay. 


As  we  approached,  it  appeared  that 
this  cloud  was  composed  of  minute 
moving  particles  ;  and,  drawing  nearer 
still,  it  was  seen  that  what  had  looked 
like  a  cloud  was  in  reality  a  marvel- 
lously dense  throng  of  sea-birds  coming 
and  going  from  their  nests  in  the  cliff- 
side  to  the  sea  and  back  again.  The 
brownish  aspect  of  the  cloud  had  been 
given  by  the  dark  colouring  of  their 
upper  parts,  which  alone  were  visible 
from  above.  But  among  and  through 
them  the  great  white  gannets  went  sail- 
ing and  swooping  majestically,  throw- 
ing a  fresh  note  of  colour  into  the  mass 
here  and  there.  It  was  marvellous 
when  we  came  near  enough  to  be  able 
to  take  in  the  details  of  the  scene, 
that  the  birds  could  pass  each  other 
without  collision,  swiftly  as  they  flew 
in  such  countless  numbers.  Yet  if 
that  were  marvellous,  how  much  more 
wonderful  was  it  to  see  a  bird  shoot 
up  and  perch  on  a  ledge  of  rock  which 
appeared  to  us,  looking  from  above, 
already  so  densely  crowded,  that  there 
could  not  be  room  for  a  man  to  put 
his  finger  into  the  midst  without 
edging  one  of  the  outside  sitters  off 
the  ledge  into  the  sea.  And  this, 
indeed,  over  and  over  again  happened  ; 
for  though  the  poet  of  our  childhood 
had  taught  us  that  "  birds  in  their 
little  nests  agree  "  it  scarcely  appeared 
as  if  his  studies  in  ornithology  could 
have  extended  to  this  remote  island, 
so  strangely  did  its  inhabitants  con- 
tradict his  pleasant  statement  by  the 
manner  in  which  they  fought  and 
hustled  for  their  footing  on  these  ledges 
and  terraces  of  rock. 

Of  a  truth  there  were,  as  the 
skipper  had  said,  plenty.  From  every 
rabbit-hole  that  seemed  within  feasi- 
ble reach  of  our  climbing  the  puffins 
were  coming  and  going,  and  for  their 
eggs  we  reached  down  the  longest 
arm  we  could  stretch,  yet  not  without 
trembling  and  much  clamour  at  the 
mouth  of  the  hole,  to  scare  the  mother- 


bird  away,  for  we  had  a  profound 
respect  for  that  most  useful  weapon 
of  offence  the  beak  of  the  Lundy 
parrot.  And,  after  all,  our  quest  of 
the  sea-birds'  eggs  came  to  very  little, 
for  there  were,  no  doubt,  on  the  island 
boys,  quite  as  keen  bird-nesters  as  we 
and  much  better  climbers,  to  whom 
the  eggs  were  of  value  as  articles  of 
diet.  All  the  nests  within  reach  had 
probably  been  already  harried,  and 
the  vast  majority  were  on  the  pre- 
cipitous cliffs,  inaccessible  to  any 
creature  that  had  not  wings,  or,  fail- 
ing them,  a  rope  by  which  he  might 
be  lowered  from  above. 

But  if  we  did  little  in  the  way  of 
adding  to  our  collection  of  eggs,  it 
was  a  sufficing  joy  to  lie  there  on  our 
stomachs,  with  heads  over  the  edge  of 
the  cliffs,  and  look  down  on  this  mazy 
throng  of  winged  things  coming  and 
going  or  sitting  very  straight  up,  as 
is  their  manner,  on  the  terraces.  And 
among  the  throng  of  sea-birds  we  saw, 
sailing  out  proudly  from  the  cliffs, 
creatures  that  we  had  never  seen 
before,  peregrine  falcons  to  wit,  for 
Lundy  is  a  favourite  and  unfailing 
source  for  the  supply  of  these  birds  to 
falconers  all  over  the  kingdom. 

The  while  that  we  lay  and  watched, 
the  chorus  of  shrill  voices  was  about 
us,  deafening  with  its  clamour  and 
unceasing  ;  increasing  only  to  louder 
energy  when  we  sent  down  a  stone 
to  clatter  among  the  densely  packed 
terraces  and  startle  out  a  yet  thicker 
cloud  of  bird-life.  It  was  a  wonderful 
sight,  and  we  would  make  our  way 
back  to  the  landing-place  feeling  that, 
though  we  returned  practically  empty- 
handed,  we  had  not  lived  in  vain. 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  the  land- 
ing-place we  found  means  of  making 
up  for  our  scant  success  in  nest-hunt- 
ing, for  there  would  be  boys  of  the 
island,  informed  no  doubt  by  our 
friend  the  skipper  of  our  tastes,  with 
eggs  to  sell  us  of  all  the  birds  that 


In  Bideford  Bay. 


HI 


nested  on  the  island ;  and,  though  our 
finances  were  at  perpetual  low  ebb,  a 
shilling,  by  judicious  bargaining,  would 
go  a  very  long  way  in  purchasing  quite 
as  many  specimens  as  we  were  at  all 
likely  to  be  able  to  carry  home 
unbroken. 

A  very  interesting  question  had  to 
be  asked  as  soon  as  we  reached  the 
smack,  were  we  likely  to  get  home  on 
the  next  tide,  or  should  we  have  to 
be  out  all  night  1  There  was  no  doubt 
about  the  answer  we  desired.  The 
cabin  was  dark  and  foul  and  very 
musty ;  there  was  nothing  of  which 
it  did  not  smell.  The  deck  on  the 
other  hand  was  well  enough,  on  a 
fine  night,  save  for  one  circumstance, 
that  one  of  the  several  jobs  for  which 
the  smack  had  come  to  Lundy  Island 
was  to  carry  back  a  cargo  of  the  crabs 
and  lobsters  whose  fishery  is  a  stand- 
ing industry  of  the  place.  These 
creatures  were  all  alive,  under  no 
particular  control,  and  roamed  the 
deck  irritably,  seeking  whom  they 
might  devour.  Nevertheless  it  needs 
not  to  say  that  this  diversity  of  dis- 
comfort was  infinitely  more  attractive 
to  our  fancy  than  the  cleanliness  and 
snugness  of  our  inglorious  beds.  But 
whether  we  were  destined  to  enjoy  a 
night  of  this  charming  nature  on  the 
open  sea  depended  on  a  complexity  of 
circumstances.  For  one  thing,  it  de- 
pended much  on  the  length  of  time 
we  had  taken  on  the  passage  over,  as 
well  as  on  the  probable  duration  of 
the  return  journey ;  that  is  to  say,  it 
depended  on  the  caprice  of  the  wind. 
And  next  it  depended  on  the  hour 
at  which  the  return  mail  was  ready,  for 
it  was  primarily  as  a  carrier  of  mails 
and  provisions  that  the  smack  paid 
its  fortnightly  visits  to  the  island. 
The  island  might,  indeed,  be  pro- 
visioned for  longer  than  a  fortnight 
at  a  time,  but  once  in  two  weeks  did 
not  seem  excessive  for  receiving  news 
of  the  outer  world.  Finally  there 


was  a  circumstance  which  no  doubt 
had  some  weight,  but  which  was 
not  communicated  to  us,  and  that 
was  the  estimate  formed  by  the  skip- 
per of  his  chances  of  a  good  catch 
with  his  trawl.  In  theory  his  busi- 
ness was  to  go  to  and  fro  the  island 
with  all  speed,  bearing  the  mail ;  but, 
with  a  good  steady  trawling-breeze, 
it  seemed  nothing  short  of  wicked  to 
go  piling  on  sail  over  all  the  nice 
trawling-ground  which  lay  a  little  to 
the  mainland  side  of  the  island.  It 
was  so  easy  to  explain  to  the  pro- 
prietor a  fortnight  after,  when  he 
discovered  that  his  letters  had  come 
to  hand  a  post  late,  that  the  wind 
had  fallen  light  in  the  night  and  it 
had  been  impossible  to  make  the 
estuary  of  the  river  until  the  tide 
had  so  far  ebbed  that  there  was 
practically  no  water  on  the  bar. 
Very  often  the  explanation  would 
have  all  the  merit  of  truth  ;  and  after 
all  it  could  not  matter  very  much  to 
the  bulk  of  the  English  nation  whether 
it  got  its  news  of  Lundy  Island  a  post 
earlier  or  a  post  later.  Surely  it  was 
infinitely  more  important  that  we 
should  not  forgo  the  chance  of  making 
a  nice  catch  of  fish. 

The  first  part  of  the  voyage,  after 
leaving  Lundy,  was  apt  to  be  peculiarly 
exciting,  for  then  we  would  often  sail 
right  through  the  troubled  waters  of 
Lundy  Race.  This  was  not  in  any 
way  different  from  other  reaches  of 
troubled  water,  caused  by  the  meeting 
of  conflicting  currents,  that  go  by  the 
same  name  all  round  the  coast ;  but 
it  was  the  only  race  we  knew,  and  we 
always  looked  forward  to  its  encounter 
with  a  tremulous  excitement.  The 
smack  went  larking  and  bounding 
through  the  water  which  swept  the 
deck  with  each  successive  wave, 
arousing  the  crabs  and  lobsters  to  a 
state  of  extreme  liveliness.  If  the 
waves  were  breaking  with  any  force, 
we  were  consigned  to  the  obscurity  of 


142 


In  Bideford  Bay. 


the  cabin,  whence  we  crept  up  the 
companion  way  till  our  heads  were  on 
a  level  with  the  perambulant  crus- 
taceans, and  we  could  see  the  myste- 
rious scene, — the  ship  ploughing  her 
way  over  the  dark  sea,  the  dim  figures 
of  the  men  moving  here  and  there  as 
the  skipper  shouted  his  commands, 
and  an  occasional  white  splash  of  a 
wave  on  the  deck  which  gleamed  as  a 
ray  from  the  port  or  starboard  light 
fell  on  it.  It  was  a  scene  that  made 
us  think  of  Grettir  the  Strong  and  all 
the  heroes  of  the  Sagas  that  people 
had  told  us  about ;  we  fancied  our- 
selves hardy  Norsemen  and  brave 
Vikings,  and  felt  all  the  braver  so 
soon  as  the  smack  had  made  her  way 
out  of  the  breakers  of  the  race  into 
calmer  water.  It  was  curious  that 
the  smoother  the  water  fell  the  more 
confident  we  were  that  the  heart 
of  the  storm  was  our  true  native 
element.  As  soon  as  the  trawl-net 
was  put  down  we  became  increasingly 
doubtful  of  it. 

Of  course  the  ever-moving  sea  has  a 
wonderful  variety  in  its  movements, 
and  different  movements  affect  different 
people  in  different  ways.  Some  espe- 
cially dislike  the  roll ;  to  others  the 
pitch  is  peculiarly  fatal ;  some  endure 
with  fortitude  the  motion  of  a  follow- 
ing sea,  but  succumb  to  the  tossing  of 
waves  that  meet  them  ;  with  others 
the  sensations  are  reversed.  But  none 
of  these,  which  are  as  it  were  motions 
natural  to  the  great  fluid  body  of 
ocean,  compare  at  all  with  the  dis- 
comfort of  the  uneven  motion  given  to 
the  ship  when  it  is  dragging  its  trawl- 
net  behind.  All  others  are  more  or 
less  regular,  rhythmical  motions  ;  but 
this  is  a  horrid  discord.  We  tried  our 
best  to  be  brave  ;  we  strove  bard  to 
think  of  Grettir  the  Strong,  of  whom 
it  is  never  recorded  that  he  was  sea- 
sick, and  further  endeavoured  to  sus- 
tain our  fainting  courage  by  antici- 
pating the  delight  of  seeing  the  trawl 


hauled  up.  So  the  dark  hours  sped 
on,  with  fortunes  that  it  is  not  well 
to  chronicle  too  minutely,  and  maybe 
before  the  morning  the  trawl  would 
have  been  hauled  up  several  times. 

The  delight  of  seeing  it  come  aboard 
was  glorious.  Its  possible  contents 
on  each  occasion  were  really  infinite ; 
we  could  conceive  of  nothing  that  it 
might  not  hold.  In  point  of  fact  it 
never  did  bring  up  a  sea-serpent,  but 
it  brought  creatures  that  were  quite  as 
marvellous  to  us ;  devil-fish,  whose 
very  name  (their  aspect  apart)  sug- 
gested fearfully  attractive  attributes  ; 
octopuses,  that  lay  with  many  tentacles 
and  a  kind  of  menacing  helplessness 
upon  the  deck ;  dog-fish,  that  were 
sharks  in  miniature,  with  many  rows 
of  teeth  ;  queer-shaped  thornybacks  or 
skates ;  and  many  other  curious  and 
uncouth  fishes.  Besides  these  and 
their  congeners,  in  which  we  took  an 
especial  interest,  there  was  all  the 
tribe  of  more  edible  fishes  ;  soles  of 
various  kinds  and  plaice,  John  dories, 
brill  and  turbot,  flapping  their  great 
flatnesses  on  the  boards  of  the  deck. 
It  formed  an  entrancing  scene  under 
the  fitful  gleam  of  the  ship's  lantern, 
which  scarcely  bettered  the  soft  sum- 
mer moonlight. 

And  then,  towards  morning,  we 
would  have  "  upped  trawl,"  put  the 
dinghy,  which  had  been  taken  on 
board  while  the  net  was  down,  out  to 
tow  behind  again,  and  be  bearing  into 
the  line  of  breakers  that  marked  the 
bar  at  the  river's  mouth.  But  about 
this  time  it  would  generally  happen, 
hardy  Vikings  though  we  were,  that 
all  the  excitement  we  had  gone  through 
would  prove  too  much  for  us,  and  we 
would  go  off  to  sleep  amidst  the  thou- 
sand and  one  mingled  odours  of  the 
cabin.  In  our  dreams  we  would  hear 
the  wash  of  the  waves  against  the 
vessel,  accompanying  the  shrill  chorus 
of  a  multitude  of  gulls  attracted  by 
the  rich  repast  that  the  sailors  kept 


In  Bideford  Bay. 


143 


throwing  overboard  for  them  as  they 
cleaned  the  fish.  The  gulls  waited  on 
the  vessel  in  a  clamouring  throng. 
Now  and  again  they  would  swoop, 
with  a  united  rush,  at  a  fragment  of 
waste  fish  hurtling  through  the  air. 
Sometimes  one  or  other  would  seize 
and  swallow  it  before  ever  it  came  to 
the  water's  surface  ;  or  again  it  would 
fall  on  the  water  and  at  once  a  fierce 
tug  of  war  would  begin  for  its  posses- 
sion. Sometimes  one  would  seem  to 
prove  his  title  to  a  certain  morsel,  and 
he  would  be  left  far  behind,  sitting  on 
the  waves,  discussing  it,  while  the 
rest  of  our  satellites  pursued  us  as 
before,  with  ceaseless  clamour.  And 
after  a  while  this  laggard,  having 
disposed  of  his  portion,  would  rise 
heavily  off  the  sea  and  come  labouring 
after  us. 

All  the  sounds  of  this  comedy  of 
hunger  and  the  struggle  for  existence 
would  come  to  our  dozing  ears  in  the 
stuffy  little  cabin,  forming  the  sub- 
stance of  our  dreams ;  and  the  next 
noise  to  arouse  us  would  be  the  ratt- 
ling of  the  anchor-chain,  when  we 
would  stretch  ourselves  and  open 
sleepy  eyes,  and  go  blinking  up  the 
companion-way  to  find  that  we  were 
back  in  port,  and  that  there  was 
nothing  more  for  us  to  do  than  to 
trudge  away  along  a  mile  or  two  of 
dusty  road  to  our  home. 

But  the  joy  of  that  expedition  was 
not  yet  altogether  over.  While  we 
were  actually  engaged  in  it  there  had 
been  discomforting  sensations  that 
would  intrude  themselves  no  matter 
how  we  tried  to  ignore  them ;  but 
in  the  delightful  retrospect  all  these 
completely  vanished  ;  nothing  but 
the  joys  remained,  and  there  was 
an  added  joy  in  the  triumph  of  detail- 
ing all  our  adventures  to  Authority  at 
home  ;  and  Authority,  prosaic  though 
it  was,  had  yet  some  sparks  of  enthu- 
siasm left  which  might  be  kindled 
into  genuine  fire  by  the  recital  of 


deeds  of  sea-faring  so  heroic  and  so 
remote  from  its  own  experiences. 

And  really  we  had  some  adventures 
worthy  of  record.  On  a  certain  morn- 
ing, as  the  smack  went  stealing  out 
over  the  bar,  helped  rather  by  the  tide 
beneath  her  than  by  the  breeze  which 
scarcely  filled  her  sails,  we  passed  a 
strange  coil  upon  the  water.  It  was 
one  of  those  slumbrous  summer  morn- 
ings on  which  everything  is  bathed  in 
the  heat-mist  that  rises  from  the  sea, 
and  the  few  smacks  and  coasters  that 
had  come  out  with  us  became  indis- 
tinct at  a  few  hundred  yards'  distance. 
Therefore  we  could  make  out  this  coil 
on  the  water  only  vaguely.  But,  a? 
we  slipped  quietly  along,  the  skipper 
said,  "  I'm  just  going  off  in  the  dinghy 
to  see  what  I  can  make  of  that  there." 

"  That  there,"  as  we  well  under- 
stood, referred  to  the  strange  appear- 
ance ;  but  what  we  did  not  under- 
stand, nor  did  the  skipper,  was  the 
nature  of  that  coil.  We  observed 
however,  that  he  took  off  with  him, 
in  the  dinghy,  the  gaff  with  which  we 
used  to  hook  up  into  the  boat  the  big 
whiting  pollack  that  we  sometimes 
caught  in  the  tideways,  with  a  bait  of 
a  bright  spinner  trailed  behind  the 
boat.  The  gaff  excited  our  interest 
to  a  yet  keener  pitch ;  it  looked  as  if 
business  were  intended.  The  smack 
was  headed  up  into  the  light  breeze, 
and  we  all  watched  the  skipper's 
doings  as  he  shoved  off  in  the  dinghy. 
Quietly  and  slowly  he  paddled  his 
way  to  where  we  could  still  dimly  see 
the  dark  coil  on  the  water.  He 
rowed  gently,  as  if  with  the  notion  of 
not  disturbing  the  object  of  his  quest. 
At  length  he  came  to  it,  and  leaning 
slowly  over  the  boat's  side,  struck  the 
gaff  with  a  sudden  jerk  into  the  coil, 
which  instantly,  from  an  inert,  motion- 
less thing,  wicS  transformed  into  a 
writhing,  wriggling  creature  of  intense 
vivacity.  It  was  a  conger.  Presum- 
ably it  had  been  asleep  in  the  sun,  on 


144 


In  Bideford  Bay. 


the  water's  surface.  Now,  with  the 
sudden  sting  of  the  gaff  in  its  side,  it 
was  aroused  into  the  fiercest  and 
most  aggressive  life,  lashing  this  way 
and  that  in  the  little  boat  while  the 
skipper  skipped  about  in  a  manner 
delightfully  suggestive  of  his  title, 
aiming  a  shower  of  blows  the  while 
with  the  gaff  at  the  shining  coils  that 
constantly  eluded  his  assault.  The 
skipper's  measures  were  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  offensive,  for  every- 
where that  the  creature's  head  ap- 
peared, now  under  this  thwart,  now 
over  that,  in  its  furious  wrigglings,  it 
showed  a  great  mouth  menacing  him 
with  clashing  jaws.  Presently,  how- 
ever, he  got  some  decisive  blows  home 
upon  the  creature's  head ;  its  writh- 
ings  grew  feebler,  and  soon  the  battle 
was  over  and  the  victory  rested  with 
our  friend.  He  sculled  back  in 
triumph,  with  the  body  of  the  foe  as 
the  trophy  of  the  fight.  It  is  needless 
to  say  how  tumultuously  we  greeted 
his  return,  congratulating  him  on  his 
skill,  and  sharing  his  triumph  over 
the  body  of  the  vanquished.  Truly 
it  was  a  remarkable  achievement,  thus 
to  have  gaffed  into  the  boat  the  person 
of  a  free  and  unscathed  conger.  To 
catch  a  conger  asleep  is  an  opportunity 
that  does  not  occur  to  many  in  a 
lifetime. 

And  that  same  day,  though  it  was 
a  day  of  light  winds  and  calms,  so 
that  trawling  was  not  to  be  thought 
of,  had  further  excitement  in  store 
for  us.  Towards  noon  the  wind 
altogether  died  down,  so  we,  leaving 
the  smack  with  sails  hanging  idle  and 
limp,  went  off  in  the  dinghy  to  where 


a  number  of  shear- waters  were  sitting 
quietly  on  the  calm  sea.  There  we 
got  out  the  gurnard  lines,  at  the  end 
of  short  stiff  rods,  and  had  a  fair 
catch  of  the  ugly  big-headed  fish. 
But  what  surprised  us  most  was  the 
wonderful  tameness  of  the  birds.  No 
doubt  they  had  lunched,  not  wisely 
but  too  well,  on  the  shoals  of  small 
fish,  which  must  have  been  the  at- 
traction of  the  gurnards  likewise. 
They  would  scarcely  fly  up  even  when 
the  boat  came  almost  on  them,  and 
then  did  but  flap  a  few  scuttling 
strokes  over  the  water  and  settle 
down  again.  Our  lines  they  did  not 
regard  at  all ;  and  we  hauled  into 
the  boat  no  less  than  three  of  them 
that  got  entangled  by  the  line  winding 
round  their  wings.  They  were  un- 
grateful birds,  for  while  we  were 
freeing  them  they  bit  our  fingers 
with  knife-like  bills,  leaving  scars 
that  smarted  grievously  for  many  a 
day. 

Towards  evening  a  breeze  sprang  up 
and  we  got  home  on  the  evening  tide. 
On  the  way  we  fell  in  with  a  boat 
that  had  been  dredging,  illegally  as 
we  believed,  for  oysters,  and  of  them 
we  bought  fifty-two  (being  the  whole 
of  the  catch)  each  about  the  size  of  a 
soup-plate,  for  a  shilling.  We  thought 
we  had  done  a  fine  stroke  of  house- 
keeping finance,  rating  the  value  of 
the  oyster  according  to  its  size. 
When  we  reached  home  Authority 
looked  with  distrust  upon  our  shell 
fish,  disdainfully  pronouncing  them 
cooking-oysters  and  thus  showing 
yet  again  its  persistent  disposition  to 
belittle  our  best  achievements. 


145 


THE  WHITE  ROAD. 


IP  you  were  to  travel  England  from 
end  to  end  you  would  find  no  two 
stranger  places  than  Churchsea  and 
Hillbury,  and  I  make  bold  to  say  that 
even  in  foreign  parts,  though  I  know 
them  not,  you  would  not  find  their 
match.  It  is  not  that  they  are  large 
and  have  great  trade,  for  indeed  they 
are  both  somewhat  decayed  and  fallen 
behind  the  time ;  but  rather  that 
they  are  singular  in  themselves  and 
very  beautiful.  Churchsea,  from  its 
hill-top,  looks  across  to  Hillbury  on 
its  neighbouring  height ;  and  between 
and  around  them  lie  level  lands  and 
pasture,  white  with  sheep  and  mist, 
and  intersected  by  narrow  water- 
ways. Once  the  sea  washed  the 
bases  of  both  hills,  and  even  when 
this  century  was  but  two  years  old 
and  my  blood  was  hot,  it  came  nearer 
to  us  than  now,  when  we  see  it  but 
as  a  beckoning  friend  a  mile  away. 
At  Hillbury  is  the  mouth  of  a  small 
river,  so  that  at  high  tide  little  craft 
can  sail  up  to  the  town  ;  but  we  of 
Churchsea  make  slight  account  of  this, 
for  it  is  but  a  poor  stream,  with  flat 
mud  banks  and  no  grace  of  colour ; 
yet  the  folk  of  Hillbury  take  great 
credit  to  themselves  because  of  it,  as 
though  God  had  given  it  them  for 
some  special  virtue,  of  which,  as  He 
knows,  they  have  but  little. 

I  would  have  you  understand,  then, 
that  Churchsea  looks  across  to  Hill- 
bury,  and  Hillbury  looks  across  to 
Churchsea,  year  in,  year  out  ;  and 
between  them  lie  the  pastures  and 
the  white  road.  This  road  runs  as 
straight  as  a  rapier  from  base  to  base 
of  the  two  hills,  at  the  Churchsea  end 
rising  into  the  town  under  one  of  our 

No.  440. — VOL.  LXXVI. 


great  gates,  and  at  Hillbury  turning 
by  the  river,  skirting  the  wharves, 
and  so  over  the  bridge  up  into  the 
red-tiled  town.  What  I  have  to  tell 
happened,  as  I  have  before  put  it, 
when  my  blood  was  hot,  many  years 
ago  ;  yet  you  may  see  the  road  to-day 
as  clearly  as  I  saw  it  then. 

One  morning,  an  hour  before  noon 
of  a  late  summer  day,  I  sat  idly  in  my 
father's  garden,  making  a  great  show 
of  reading  in  a  new  book  that  my 
cousin,  Margery  Meryon,  had  lent  me. 
But  I  held  it  always  open  at  the  same 
page,  and  if  by  chance  the  wind  blew 
over  a  leaf,  I  turned  it  back  again. 
Our  garden  faced  towards  the  sea, 
and  the  heavy,  shouting  winds  that 
swept  across  it  allowed  only  the 
hardiest  plants  to  live.  But  a  fur- 
long to  the  right,  and  with  a  high 
seaward  wall,  was  my  uncle's,  Roger 
Meryon's  garden,  which,  because  of 
the  protection  pf  this  wall,  was  as  full 
of  tender  flowers  as  any  place  in  the 
heart  of  England.  On  that  morning 
I  could  not  keep  my  eyes  from  my 
uncle's  garden,  because  my  cousin, 
Margery  Meryon,  was  there,  tending 
her  roses,  and  wherever  Margery  was 
both  my  eyes  and  my  heart  were  as 
well.  I  had  watched  her,  I  suppose, 
for  an  hour,  and  beyond  a  wave  of 
the  hand  when  she  came  out,  she  had 
paid  no  heed  to  me.  Yet  I  thought 
if  she  had  wished  to  be  free  of  me 
she  could  as  easily  have  kept  to  the 
south  side  of  the  house,  and  so  I 
made  no  scruple  to  delight  myself 
with  the  sight  of  her.  She  must 
have  known  then  that  I  loved  her, 
for  I  think  little  is  hidden  from  a 
girl  where  a  man's  love  is  concerned ; 

L 


146 


The  White  Eoad. 


but  she  knew  me  so  well,  and  had 
tumbled  and  played  with  me  so  often, 
that  she  desired  little  of  my  older 
kisses.  As  she  moved  slowly  from 
bed  to  bed,  with  the  sun  lighting  her 
sweet  face  and  hair,  and  her  hands, 
white  and  tiny,  flashing  from  bush  to 
bush,  my  heart  sang  and  mourned 
together ;  for  my  love  for  her  was 
made  happy  even  to  see  her  afar  off, 
yet  I  feared  that  her  love  was  out 
upon  another  quest. 

It  was  a  quiet  day,  with  little  air 
stirring,  and  presently  far  away  on 
the  white  road  I  heard  the  beat  of  a 
horse's  hoofs.  Margery  heard  at  the 
same  moment,  and  stood  balanced 
ightly  upon  her  feet,  with  open  lips 
and  eager  eyes,  listening.  I  set  my 
teeth  together,  and  turned  a  page. 
Whether  my  hand  shook,  or  whether 
it  caught  against  my  sleeve,  I  know 
not,  but  the  leaf  tore  across ;  and 
then  in  my  sorrow  I  could  have  wept 
for  hurting  Margery's  book.  I  looked 
at  her  again,  and  as  the  sound  of  the 
hoof-beats  came  nearer  she  moved 
quickly  towards  the  gate,  with  never 
a  glance  towards  me.  I  rose  and 
turned  my  back  upon  her,  the  book 
under  my  arm ;  but  the  rider  was 
still  some  distance  off,  so  I  walked 
into  the  house,  and  set  about  arrang- 
ing my  room,  which  sorely  needed  it. 
Through  the  open  window  the  sound 
still  followed  me,  and  when  at  last  it 
stopped,  as  I  well  knew  it  would,  at 
Roger  Meryon's  gate,  I  could  not 
forbear  looking  out.  I  knew  it  to  be 
unworthy,  and  I  felt  the  blood  spring 
to  my  cheek  as  I  looked ;  but  I  was 
very  young,  and  my  love  for  Margery 
like  a  leaping  fire. 

Robin  Penridd  swept  off  his  hat  to 
her  with  an  air,  and  dismounted  more 
slowly,  I  thought,  than  befitted  a 
lover  with  such  a  girl  as  my  cousin  to 
welcome  him.  He  took  both  her 
hands  and  made  as  though  he  would 
draw  her  towards  him  for  a  kiss ;  but 


she  held  back,  and  he  had  to  be  con- 
tent to  let  his  lips  touch  her  fingers. 
He  was  a  handsome  man  enough, 
and  I  knew  nought  against  him 
save  that  he  was  not  of  our  country, 
but  came  from  the  west ;  yet  it  was 
hard  to  see  him  bending  over  her, 
with  laughter  shining  in  his  eyes,  and 
an  answering,  loving  light  in  hers. 
Once  Margery  glanced  to  where  I  had 
been  sitting,  and  I  was  sure  she 
thought  it  kind  of  me  to  have  left 
her  free.  This  sent  the  blood  into 
my  face  again,  and  I  turned  resolutely 
from  the  window  and  watched  them 
no  more. 

For  the  rest  of  that  day  I  laboured 
at  setting  my  room  in  order,  and 
when  my  mother  saw  the  change  I 
think  she  wondered  what  had  come 
to  me ;  but  she  said  nothing,  and  only 
guessed  that  I  had  done  it  with  a 
fretting  heart.  I  made  myself  be- 
lieve that  if  one  of  our  own  people 
had  come  between  me  and  Margery 
I  would  have  taken  the  matter  less 
like  an  angry  child ;  but  that  Robin 
Penridd  should  come  and  rob  us  of 
our  beauty  made  me  feel  bitter  and 
unkind.  In  those  days,  too,  the  secret 
trade  in  French  brandy,  following  on 
the  heels  of  the  great  Revolution,  was 
very  boldly  carried  on ;  and  I  knew 
Robin  to  be  deep  in  that.  Not  that 
I  really  thought  the  worse  of  him  on 
that  account,  but  Margery  was  no 
girl  to  mate  with  a  man  whose  neck 
was  in  a  noose. 

Just  before  dusk,  when  the  air  was 
golden  with  sunset,  and  Hillbury 
looked  no  more  than  half  a  mile 
away,  I  took  my  hat  and  went  over 
to  my  uncle's  house.  There  was  no 
one  sitting  in  the  window  where  I 
had  half  expected  to  see  Margery,  so 
I  walked  quietly  up  the  pathway 
between  the  ranks  of  flowers  and 
lifted  the  latch  without  any  warning. 
The  door  gave  at  once  into  the  living- 
room.  It  was  empty,  but  Margery's 


The  White  Road. 


147 


•work  lay  upon  the  table  as  though 
she  had  just  laid  it  aside,  the  needle 
still  sticking  in  it.  I  took  up  the 
dainty  stuff  to  see  what  work  she  was 
spoiling  her  eyes  upon.  It  was  a  fine 
lace  handkerchief,  and  she  was  em- 
broidering the  edges  with  a  pretty 
fancy  of  red  and  golden  blossoms,  in- 
terlaced with  green  ivy  leaves.  I 
laid  it  down  again  so  hurriedly  that 
I  pricked  my  finger  with  the  needle, 
and  a  little  drop  of  blood  fell  upon 
the  lace.  Then  I  called  "  Margery." 
I  heard  her  light  footstep  cross  the 
room  above,  and  presently  her  voice 
answered  from  the  stair-head,  "  Is 
that  you,  Oliver  1" 

"Who  else,"  I  said,  "would  come 
in  without  a  knock  1  Come  down  to 
me,  Margery."  She  came  down  slowly, 
pausing  on  each  step,  and  greeted  me 
quietly,  looking  frankly  into  my  eyes. 
I  had  rather  she  had  entered  with 
down-dropping  lids  and  a  less  even 
colour.  I  am  not  sure  that  she  would 
have  resented  a  cousin's  kiss,  but  I 
had  no  wish  to  give  one.  It  is  easier 
for  a  man  to  endure  hate  than  quiet 
indifference ;  yet  I  did  my  Margery 
an  unwitting  wrong  in  that. 

She  sat  down  to  her  work,  while  I 
paced  the  room  from  end  to  end, 
scarce  knowing  why  I  had  come  or 
what  to  say,  yet  with  words  crowding 
to  my  lips.  Each  time  I  turned  she 
glanced  up  at  me,  and  the  sight  of 
her  dear  face,  shining  through  the 
growing  twilight,  filled  me  with  such 
longing  and  bitterness  at  once  that  I 
almost  cried  out  as  one  in  sudden 
pain.  I  had  a  great  passion  to  take 
her  in  my  arms  and  force  her  to  my 
love,  and  as  strong  a  hatred  of  the 
very  thought  of  such  blind  cowardice. 
Between  the  two  I  did  nothing  for  so 
long  that  at  last  I  took  the  first  words 
that  had  come  into  my  mind. 

"  Robin  Penridd  was  here  to-day," 
I  said.  "  I  saw  him  from  the  window 
of  my  room." 


"  So  you  watched,"  she  said  proudly, 
kindling  at  once  like  a  dry  leaf  in 
flame. 

"  And  if  I  did,"  I  said,.. "  who  is  to 
blame  me  ?  Remember,  Margery,  that 
we  are  of  the  same  blood." 

"/  blame  you,"  she  said;  "and, 
cousin  Oliver,  you  blame  yourself,  or 
will  when  you  are  less  angry.  It  was 
not  a  kind  or  honourable  thing." 

"  So  you  would  be  always  alone 
with  him,  Margery, — truly,  it  is  well 
that  some  one  should  be  on  guard." 

She  rose  at  this,  and  I  bit  my 
tongue  for  sheer  vexation  to  have  been 
so  unjust,  and  to  see  the  colour  burn 
in  her  face. 

"  If  you  have  nothing  better  to  say 
than  this,"  she  said,  "  I  will  bid  you 
good-night,"  and  she  turned  to  go ; 
but  I  caught  her  at  the  door  and  held 
her  there,  begging  for  her  forgiveness. 

"  Forgive  me ;  I  did  not  mean  it, 
Margery.  It  was  not  I  who  spoke, 
but  the  churl  in  me  I  thought  dead. 
I  will  never  play  the  spy  again ;  if 
you  wish  it  I  will  go  away  and  never 
see  you  or  Robin  any  more." 

"  Nay,"  she  said,  looking  at  me  very 
kindly,  "  why  should  you  go  away  1 " 
I  saw  her  love,  for  Robin  in  her  eyes, 
and  that  made  her  bold  to  keep  me. 
I  could  always  read  Margery  like  a 
book. 

"It  is  hard  for  me  to  stay,"  I  said, 
"  and  go  on  loving  you  as  I  do.  I 
have  always  loved  you,  Margery,  since 
you  were  a  little  wild  lass  who  rode 
upon  my  back.  But  my  man's  love 
is  less  happy  than  the  boy's.  If  you 
bid  me  stay,  why,  then  I  shall  be 
here,  always  at  your  call  when  danger 
comes." 

She  held  my  hand  in  both  her  warm 
young  palms,  and  smoothed  it  kindly, 
"  I  am  very  sorry  for  this,  Oliver," 
she  said.  "  For  indeed,  Oliver,  I  love 
you  very  much  when  you  are  good." 

"  But  I  do  not  want  that  love,"  I 
said.  She  was  so  much  a  child  still 


148 


The  White  Road. 


that  I  almost  wondered  whether  she 
understood ;  yet  there  was  not  five 
years  between  us. 

"  You  may  think  you  do  not  want 
it  now,  but  some  day  you  will  be  glad 
of  it.  And  as  for  danger,  Oliver, 
what  danger  can  there  be  1 "  There 
was  a  tremor  of  fear  in  her  voice,  in 
spite  of  the  quiet  words,  and  I  pitied 
her  in  all  sincerity. 

"Robin  Penridd,"  I  said,  "has 
enough  casks  of  good  French  liquor 
stowed  away  to  hang  him  ten  times 
over.  You  must  warn  him  to  be 
prudent." 

She  laughed  lightly,  for  in  these 
matters  women  have  no  conscience. 
"And  who  in  Churchsea  or  Hillbury,'' 
she  said,  "  has  not  1  Even  you,  good 
Oliver  as  you  are  sometimes,  know 
where  some  of  the  kegs  lie." 

"  Nay,"  said  I,  "  and  I  cannot  deny 
that ;  but  Robin  runs  too  boldly,  and 
the  King's  men  are  awake." 

She  thought  for  a  moment,  pulling 
at  a  fold  in  her  gown.  It  had  grown 
so  dusk  that  I  could  scarcely  see  her 
face,  and  so  quiet  that  through  the 
open  door  came  the  sound  of  the  wind 
over  the  marshes  far  below.  I  put 
my  hands  upon  her  shoulders  to  make 
her  look  at  me.  "  Bid  him  be  careful, 
Margery,"  I  said,  "  and  so  good-night." 
"  I  will,  Oliver,  I  will,"  she  said ; 
"  and  don't  be  unhappy,  Oliver.  Re- 
member, there  are  other  girls." 

"  I  think,  Cousin  Margery,"  I  said, 
my  hands  still  upon  her  shoulders, 
"  that  I  shall  remember  only  one. 
Good-night." 

When  I  reached  the  gate  I  turned 
and  saw  her  busy  lighting  the  candles; 
then  her  shadow  spread  across  the  low 
ceiling  and  danced  from  corner  to 
corner  as  the  flames  flickered  in  a  puff 
of  wind.  She  looked  grave  and  a 
little  troubled,  thinking  of  all  that  I 
had  said. 

That  night  I  went  down  into  the 
marshes,  knowing  every  foot  of  the 


way,  and  walked  six  good  miles  before 
I  climbed  the  hill  again.  The  moon 
was  riding  clear  by  that  time,  a  three 
days'  crescent,  and  the  sky  was  quiver- 
ing with  a  mist  of  stars.  The  bulk  of 
Hillbury  stood  up  black  against  the 
horizon,  pricked  out  here  and  there 
with  lights  ;  and  still  below  the  wind 
came  and  went  like  the  breath  of  a 
sleeper.  There  was  a  light,  too,  in 
Margery's  chamber,  and  the  sight  of 
it  made  me  feel  so  pitifully  alone  that 
the  tears  burned  in  my  eyes,  for  I 
knew  she  did  not  think  of  me. 

After  this,  and  until  autumn  wa& 
ripe  about  us,  I  saw  Margery  often, 
sometimes  in  my  mother's  house, 
sometimes  at  my  uncle's,  Roger 
Meryon's,  and  often,  as  I  first  described 
her,  in  her  garden.  At  times  my  love 
slept ;  then  again,  at  a  chance  turn  of 
the  head,  at  an  inclination  of  the  body, 
at  a  sudden  sweep  of  skirt  or  touch  of 
hand,  my  passion  for  her  would  awako 
to  all  the  old  yearning.  For  it  is  by 
these  things  that  love  is  fed,  and  I 
believe  that  when  women  have  ruled 
the  world  they  have  ruled  it  rather  by 
the  tender  pathos  of  reminiscence  than 
by  any  strength  of  will  or  virtue.  So 
it  was,  at  least  with  Margery,  and  for 
a  certain  smile  of  hers,  drawing  down 
the  corners  of  her  mouth  and  veiling 
her  eyes  in  a  morning  mist  of  laughter, 
I  would  at  that  time  have  sold  my 
soul.  But  along  the  white  road,  to 
and  fro,  Robin  Penridd  came  and 
went,  until  I  grew  to  consider  the 
sound  of  his  horse's  hoof-beats  the 
signal  of  my  own  humiliation. 

For  a  time  Robin  was  more  careful 
in  his  secret  dealings,  so  that  I  suppose 
Margery  must  have  given  him  my 
warning ;  but  when  the  landward 
roads  were  yellow  with  drift  of  fallen 
leaves  and  the  marshes  were  brown 
with  withered  rushes  he  grew  bold 
again.  Both  Churchsea  and  Hillbury 
are  undermined  with  great  cellars, — 
the  places,  as  it  were,  being  built  upon 


The  White  Road. 


149 


a  warren.  These  were  made  when 
the  towns  were  in  the  tide  of  their 
prosperity,  the  time  when  all  the 
French  wine  that  came  into  the 
country  passed  through  them.  But 
this  privilege  lapsed  long  ago,  and  the 
dim  ranges  of  empty  cellars  fell  into 
decay.  Still,  to  such  as  Robin,  they 
were  of  great  service ;  for  though  the 
King's  men  knew  most  of  them,  they 
did  not  know  all.  I  think  it  was  the 
spirit  of  the  work  that  drew  Robin 
into  it,  rather  than  any  common  love 
of  gain;  for  he  never  had  much  money, 
and  what  he  had  he  spent  freely.  A 
musty  cellar  drew  him  like  a  magnet : 
the  discovery  of  a  hidden  entrance 
made  him  as  happy  as  a  girl  with  a 
new  kerchief ;  and  the  scent  of  danger 
braced  his  spirits  like  wine. 

One  morning,  in  mid-November,  I 
had  business  in  Hillbury,  and,  as  my 
custom  was,  I  went  round  to  my 
cousin  Margery  to  see  whether  she 
had  any  commands  that  I  could  carry 
for  her.  She  gave  me  one  or  two 
trifling  messages,  for  a  girl  will  miss 
no  opportunity  of  service,  and  then, 
as  I  went,  called  me  back  again 
softly.  "And,  Oliver,"  she  said,  "if 
you  see  Robin,  bid  him  be  sure  to  come 
to-night."  This  faith  in  me  touched 
me  deeply  ;  I  promised,  and  set  forth 
upon  my  walk. 

It  was  a  gloomy  day,  the  sky  heavy 
with  low  clouds,  and  at  intervals 
blurred  with  flaws  of  rain.  The  sea 
was  dull  as  lead,  the  marsh  more  gray 
than  green,  and  the  air  so  heavy  that 
the  sound  of  my  own  footsteps  lingered 
long  after  it  should  have  died.  Hill- 
bury,  as  I  neared  it,  seemed  like  a 
dead  town ;  there  was  little  shipping 
at  the  river-wharves,  and  the  climbing 
streets  were  as  deserted  as  a  church 
betwixt  matins  and  evensong.  Yet 
my  fancy  overran  the  truth,  for  though 
little  was  stirring  when  I  stepped 
across  the  Market  Street,  there  were 
-a  few  scattered  townsfolk  about. 


I  did  the  business  that  I  had  with 
my  mother's  attorney  in  short  time ; 
Margery's  little  matters  took  me  longer, 
but  by  two  o'clock  I  was  ready  to  re- 
turn. I  had  not  seen  Robin,  how- 
ever, and  could  hear  no  news  of  him  ; 
so  I  turned  into  The  George,  being  in 
no  hurry  to  depart,  and  ate  and  drank 
there.  Dusk  fell  early,  bringing  a 
weeping  mist  with  it,  and  I  sat  on  in 
the  parlour,  staring  out  into  the  blind 
street,  wondering  where  Robin  Penridd 
was,  and  what  Margery  was  doing, 
and  what  turn  my  life  would  take,  as 
a  man  will  on  such  a  day.  I  took  no 
count  of  time,  but  filled  and  refilled 
my  glass  in  a  kind  of  dream.  I  had 
bade  them  bring  no  lights,  and  as  there 
were  no  others  in  the  room  and 
economy  jumped  with  my  wish,  the 
landlord  had  respected  it  and  left  me 
quietly  alone. 

Suddenly,  as  I  sat  thus,  a  great 
terror  came  upon  me,  so  that  I  could 
not  stir,  and  my  scalp  grew  cold  be- 
neath my  hair.  It  was  as  though 
invisible  hands  laid  chill  fingers  upon 
me  in  the  darkness ;  as  though  the 
silence  were  alive  with  voiceless  echoes, 
so  sad  that  my  heart  turned  upon 
itself  for  comfort  and  found  none ;  as 
though  some  appalling  menace  reached 
up  from  Hell.  Hope,  faith,  even 
memory,  died  within  me  for  a  space. 
I  stood  upon  the  borders  of  the  grave 
and  smelt  the  fume  and  clay  of  it ; 
my  body  seemed  already  slimed  with 
worms.  I  could  neither  cry  out,  nor 
pray,  nor  weep.  It  was  death  tri- 
umphant over  life  while  the  blood  still 
moved  in  my  veins;  an  awful  agony 
and  rigor  of  spirit  that,  when  it  passed, 
left  me  naked  as  a  babe. 

Then  a  horse  galloped  up  the  street, 
was  reined  in  at  the  door,  and  a 
moment  later  Robin  Penridd  was 
with  me. 

"  Oliver,"  he  said,  "  you  have  been 
searching  for  me.  Others  are  searching 
too." 


150 


The  White  Boad. 


I  was  still  dazed,  and  hardly  under- 
stood him.  "  I  have  a  message  from 
my  cousin  Margery,"  I  said ;  "  she 
bids  you  not  to  fail  to  come  to-night." 

He  swept  his  hand  across  his  brow, 
and  an  oath  slipped  between  his 
teeth.  "  Do  you  know  the  hour  1  " 
he  said.  "  I  should  be  with  her  now  ; 
but  I  cannot  go,  Oliver.  The  hunt  is 
after  me.  I  have  gone  too  far,  and  to 
ride  to  Churchsea  to-night  would  mean 
the  end  of  everything.  Oliver,"  he 
said  very  pleadingly,  "you  have  not 
always  been  my  friend,  and  indeed  I 
cannot  blame  you ;  but  be  my  friend 
and  Margery's  to-night.  Take  my 
horse  and  ride  to  Churchsea.  Even 
now  she  is  waiting  to  hear  my  step. 
Tell  her  that  I  cannot  come,  and  if 
you  are  able,  comfort  her." 

"  But  you  ?  "  I  said. 

"  Oh  !  "  he  said  laughing,  his  spirits 
leaping  at  the  danger.  "  I  must  hide. 
A  horse  could  be  no  friend  to  me 
to-night.  Will  you  go,  Oliver  ? "  We 
could  not  see  each  other's  faces  clearly, 
but  our  hands  met  on  my  unspoken 
promise.  Without  more  words  I 
slipped  into  the  street,  mounted 
Robin's  horse,  and  rode  at  a  hand-pace 
through  the  town.  When  we  came 
upon  the  high  road  I  gave  the  creature 
rein. 

For  a  time  I  was  still  half  blind 
with  the  fear  which  had  hardly  left 
me ;  but  the  wet,  flapping  wind  that 
buffeted  my  face,  the  quick  motion  of 
the  ride,  and  the  consciousness  of  my 
errand,  soon  served  to  set  the  life 
moving  in  me  again.  And  more  than 
that,  whether  from  joy  at  finding 
myself  still  sound,  or  whether  from 
some  natural  habit  of  the  body  I  can- 
not say,  I  seemed  to  have  within  me 
the-  fire,  the  passion,  the  clamorous 
exultation  of  a  double  life.  And  as 
I  was  carried  through  the  rushing 
night  my  thought  took  hold  of 
Margery,  reached  forth  to  Margery, 
fed  upon  the  savour  of  her  name  and 


beauty,  until  I  was  no  more  master  of 
myself  than  a  man  who  struggles  in 
an  ebbing  tide.  And  then  the  thought 
slipped  into  my  mind  that  at  that 
moment  she  would  be  listening  for  the 
hoof-beats  on  the  white  road,  that  her 
heart  would  leap  and  sing  at  the 
sound  of  them,  and  that  he  who  rode 
should  be  her  lover.  I  leaned  forward 
with  the  blood  beating  in  my  ears, 
urged  Robin's  horse  onward  with  a 
word  and  a  caress,  and  presently  was 
aware  of  the  black  opening  of  the 
great  gate  before  me.  We  clattered 
through  at  a  gallop.  I  did  not  stop 
to  think  or  weigh  my  course ;  I  cared 
for  nothing  but  that  Margery  was 
waiting,  and  that  night  and  the  white 
road  were  good  to  me  for  once. 

I  knew  where  she  would  wait,  just 
under  the  shadow  of  the  high  wall ; 
and  sure  enough  I  saw  the  glimmer  of 
her  light  gown.  Suddenly  reining  in 
I  stooped  out  of  the  saddle,  as  I  had 
seen  Robin  do  a  hundred  times,  and 
then  her  arms  were  about  my  neck, 
her  moist  lips  pressing  warm  kisses 
against  my  face,  her  voice  broken  in 
sweet  little  sobbing  murmurs.  For  a 
moment  I  was  mad  with  the  mere  joy 
and  touch  of  her ;  then  shame  and 
remorse  struck  together  at  my  heart, 
and  I  freed  myself. 

"  Margery  !  Margery  !  "  I  said. 

I  saw  her  shrink  back  a  step.  That 
was  her  sole  reproach  to  me,  then  or 
since.  "  Oh,  Oliver  !  "  she  said. 

"  I  have  come  from  Robin  Penridd," 
I  said,  stumbling  over  the  words. 
"He  cannot  see  you  to-night." 

She  caught  the  bridle  in  one  hand, 
and  the  steam  from  the  hard-ridden 
horse  wrapped  us  in  a  hot  mist. 
"  He  is  in  danger,"  she  panted. 
"  Oh,  Oliver !  dear  Oliver  !  tell  me 
what  it  is." 

"  He  is  being  hunted  to-night.  He 
has  played  too  deeply,  Margery ;  but 
he  is  bold  and  will  throw  them  off 
the  scent.  Now  go  in." 


The  White  Road. 


151 


"  Nay,  Oliver,"  she  said.  "  I  must 
go  back  with  you.  He  will  need  me 
sorely." 

"But  you  can  do  nothing,  child. 
Besides,  he  may  be  miles  along  the 
coast  ere  this." 

"  Nay,  Oliver,"  she  said  again  ;  "  I 
must  go  back  with  you  now." 

"  It  is  impossible ;  you  have  no 
horse.  Go  in  to  rest,  Margery." 

For  answer  I  felt  her  foot  on  mine, 
and  she  had  leapt  up  behind  me,  her 
hands  fast  about  my  waist.  J  could 
not  cross  her  wish.  My  penitence 
was  still  burning  in  my  marrow,  and 
so  I  turned  the  head  of  Robin's  horse 
towards  Hillbury  once  again.  Down 
through  the  gate  we  went  slowly,  with 
the  wind  shouldering  at  our  backs ; 
then  down  the  steep  curve  at  the 
hill's  base,  and  so  into  the  white  road 
once  more,  without  a  word  of  good  or 
evil  fortune,  without  a  sound  about 
us  but  the  wind  and  the  crying  reed- 
beds  and  the  distant  crash  of  surf. 
Margery's  arms  were  clasped  so  closely 
round  me  that  I  felt  their  warmth 
stirring  at  my  heart,  but  I  dared  not 
think  of  the  love  I  bore  her  then.  She 
was  in  my  hands  of  her  own  free  will, 
and  the  quest  on  which  we  went 
together  was  for  her  lover's  safety. 
It  was  between  her  and  him,  with  rne 
for  a  means  at  both  their  service ;  and 
that  I  had  overstepped  the  bounds  of 
my  commission  once  made  me  set  an 
iron  grip  on  my  will. 

I  was  beginning  to  consider  the 
folly  and  uselessness  of  Margery's 
wish,  and  wondering  what  we  were 
to  do  at  Hillbury,  when,  just  as  we 
turned  up  over  the  bridge,  a  signal 
rang  out  that  made  me  set  heels  to 
Robin's  horse  and  my  hands  tighten 
on  the  reins.  It  was  a  pistol-shot, 
that  struck  a  hundred  echoes  from 
the  houses  that  climbed  the  hill,  and 
before  these  had  died  two  more  shots 
snapped  into  the  darkness.  Then 
silence  fell.  I  judged  the  sound  to 


come  from  the  bottom  of  Eight  Bells 
Street,  a  kind  of  cul-de-sac  which 
could  only  be  reached  from  the  upper 
streets,  because  its  lower  end  was 
blocked  by  a  tall  house  which  gave 
upon  the  wharf.  Still  Margery  said 
nothing,  but  as  I  urged  the  sweating 
horse  up  the  last  incline,  her  hands 
gripped  me  so  hard  that  my  breath 
struggled  to  get  free.  A  shuffle  of 
running  feet  went  before  us  down 
Eight  Bells  Street,  and  at  the  end 
I  saw  a  crowd  gathered  and  heard 
the  sound  of  angry  voices  and  fierce 
oaths. 

"  Shall  we  go  on  1 "  I  whispered 
back  to  Margery.  By  this  time  I 
was  chill  and  sick  for  my  cousin's 
sake. 

"Oh,  for  the  dear  Christ's  sake," 
she  said,  "go  on,  go  on  !  " 

At  the  edge  of  the  crowd,  the 
staring  faces  fitfully  lit  by  lanterns,  I 
dropped  the  reins  and  turned  in  the 
saddle  to  help  Margery  to  her  feet. 
But  she  was  down  before  my  hand 
touched  her.  I  followed  and  glanced 
round  upon  the  group.  There  were 
King's  officers  there,  and  in  their 
midst  Robin's  friend  and  partner, 
John  Drane,  with  blood  upon  his 
face.  He  caught  my  eye,  and  cried, 
"  There's  little  good  in  bringing  a  live 
horse  to  a  dead  man."  Then  he  spat 
blood  upon  the  ground  from  his 
wounded  mouth,  and  hurled  himself 
upon  his  captors;  but  in  a  moment 
he  was  overcome. 

I  would  have  held  Margery  back 
until  I  had  had  time  to  think,  but 
she  went  straight  through  the  people, 
who  fell  back  on  either  hand,  I 
following,  and  in  the  midst  of  them  a 
man  lay  upon  the  ground  with  his 
face  to  the  black  sky.  It  was  Robin 
Penridd,  open-eyed  and  dead,  with  a 
bullet  through  the  lungs,  and  upon 
his  breast  there  lay  the  handkerchief 
which  Margery  had  wrought  for  him 
so  tenderly,  dark  with  blood. 


152 


The  White  Road. 


She  stooped  down  and  looked  into 
his  face,  and  then  she  fell  upon  her 
knees  and  fingered  at  his  bosom,  and 
then  she  looked  round  at  me  with 
such  a  hopeless,  pleading,  questioning 
terror  in  her  eyes  that  I  wished 
myself  dead  and  happy  in  Robin's 
place.  I  understood  why  death  had 
laid  a  hand  that  day  upon  my  spirit, 
and  I,  too,  fell  upon  my  knees  beside 
the  dead  man  within  the  circle  of 
that  silent  company,  and  made  the 
blessed  sign  and  prayed.  Alas,  I 
had  no  comfort  for  my  cousin 
Margery,  and  even  God  was  very  far 
away. 

I  rose  and  gained  permission  from 
Robin's  murderers,  for  they  seemed 
no  less  to  me,  to  have  the  poor  dead 
body,  that  had  been  so  blithe  and 
strong  and  loving,  carried  decently 
and  quietly  home  ;  and  then  I  touched 
Margery  on  the  shoulder  and  said, 
"  Come."  I  feared,  at  first,  that  she 
would  not  leave  him ;  but  happily 
she  let  me  guide  her  as  I  would.  I 
longed  that  she  might  weep, — her  dry 
eyes  hurt  me— but  she  only  turned 
and  gave  me  her  hand.  "  Come,"  I 
said,  "  we  must  go  home." 

"  Oh,  Oliver,  Oliver,"  she  moaned, 
"  we  were  too  late."  Then  she  turned 
fiercely,  with  bared  teeth,  upon  the 
crowd,  and  cried  :  "  Cowards,  cowards, 
why  could  you  not  save  him  1  What 
were  any  of  your  lives  to  his? 
Cowards,  and  worse  than  women  !  " 
She  kissed  him  once  upon  the  lips, 
and  after  he  had  been  carried  to  his 
lonely  house,  we  mounted  the  dead 
man's  horse  once  more  and  set  out  for 
the  last  time  that  night  upon  the  white 
road. 

The  wind  still  surged  across  the 
marshes,  the  surf  clamoured  on  the 


beach,  and  Margery's  hands  were 
round  me  again,  but  she  spoke  no 
word.  She  laid  her  head  against  my 
shoulder  after  a  time,  and  I  felt  her 
breathing ;  yet  I  had  no  joy  even  in 
that.  At  every  step  a  dead  hand 
seemed  to  pluck  at  my  skirts  to  draw 
me  back,  and  every  now  and  then  my 
mind  rose  into  a  frenzy  o£  fear  and 
pity  that  shook  me  to  the  soul.  The 
touch  of  death  seemed  to  be  in  the 
clammy,  moving  darkness  round  us ; 
we  were  shadows  flying  from  a 
presence  that  yet  kept  pace  with  us, 
and  the  night  to  me  was  full  of  this 
presence  and  a  girl's  tired  heart. 

At  last,  as  we  neared  the  gate, 
Margery's  hands  relaxed  a  little  and 
then  closed  again  passionately  as  she 
broke  into  pitiful  weeping.  At  this 
I  was  glad,  with  that  gladness  which 
is  like  a  scourge ;  I  dared  not  have 
left  her  still  dry-eyed  at  her  father's 
door. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  the  white 
road,  as  it  were,  became  the  highway 
of  my  life.  And  still  my  thoughts, 
my  memories,  and  my  fears,  and  above 
all  my  love,  go  up  and  down  upon  it ; 
and  in  my  dreams  I  see  it  bright  in 
moonlight  or  blurred  with  rain,  hear 
the  beat  of  hoofs  upon  it,  and  live 
over  again  the  piteous  tragedy  of 
that  day  and  night.  I  still  love  my 
cousin  Margery  as  I  loved  her  then, 
and  some  day  I  shall  tell  her  of  my 
love ;  but  she  has  had  such  sorrow  as 
falls  to  few  women  to  endure,  and  I 
have  learnt  the  grace  of  patience  in 
the  same  bitter  school  of  tribulation, 
so  that  I  may  be  an  old  man  before  I 
dare  to  speak.  Nay,  even  now,  my 
youth  is  far  behind  me,  and  I  think 
sometimes  it  left  me  for  ever  in  that 
wild  night  upon  the  white  road. 


153 


OLD   AND   NEW  RADICALS. 


"  THE  year  17 69, "writes  Mr.  Lecky, 
"  is  very  remarkable  in  political  his- 
tory, for  it  witnessed  the  birth  of 
English  Radicalism,  and  the  first 
serious  attempts  to  reform  and  control 
parliament  by  pressure  from  without, 
making  its  members  habitually  sub- 
servient to  their  constituents."  This 
notion  of  controlling  parliament  by 
pressure  from  without,  and  thereby 
of  enabling  the  people  to  govern  in- 
directly for  themselves,  was  one  which 
was  hitherto  strange  to  the  practical 
politics  of  England.  The  Tories,  who 
leaned  upon  the  Crown  and  desired  a 
strong  executive,  claimed  to  rule  as 
lords  and  masters  :  the  Whigs,  who 
rather  favoured  liberalism,  claimed  to 
govern  as  guardians  and  trustees  ;  but 
they  both  agreed  in  this,  that  the 
people  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
laws  but  to  obey  them.  For  about  one 
hundred  and  thirty  years,  therefore, 
English  Radicalism  has  been  an  active 
force  in  politics,  though  the  Radicals 
did  not  receive  their  distinctive 
appellation  until  some  fifty  years  after 
the  movement  had  begun.  Within 
this  space  of  time  so  many  changes 
have  occurred  that  the  Radicalism  of 
to-day  must  necessarily  differ  very 
widely  from  that  of  the  earlier  periods 
of  its  history.  A  comparison  between 
the  old  Radicalism  and  the  new  will, 
it  is  hoped,  present  some  matter  of 
interest  and  instruction. 

In  the  first  stage  of  the  movement 
there  were  few  of  the  practical  objects 
avowed  by  the  Radicals  which  they 
did  not  share  with  others  who  plainly 
regarded  them  with  abhorrence.  The 
early  Radicals  were  first  and  fore- 
most parliamentary  reformers  ;  and  by 
parliamentary  reform  they  meant  a 


widely  extended  franchise  and  short 
parliaments.  Upon  all  points  they 
were  not  themselves  agreed ;  some 
wished  for  universal  suffrage,  while 
others  would  not  go  so  far  as  this ; 
some  demanded  annual,  and  some 
triennial  parliaments ;  some  thought 
that  members  should  be  paid ;  the 
question  of  the  ballot  belongs  to  a 
rather  later  'stage,  and  upon  this  point 
too  it  was  long  before  opinion  be- 
came unanimous.  But  the  early 
Radicals  were  at  least  agreed  in  this, 
that  Parliament  was  fatally  corrupt, 
that  parliamentary  privilege  was  out- 
rageously abused,  that  representation 
was  in  the  majority  of  cases  a  mere 
travesty  and  farce ;  and  they  resolved 
that,  so  far  as  in  them  lay,  these 
things  should  no  longer  be.  But 
these  views  were  also  shared  in  a 
large  degree  by  some  who  could  in 
no  sense  be  classed  as  Radicals  at 
all.  Parliamentary  reform  was  not 
for  many  years  the  peculiar  programme 
of  one  party  rather  than  another ;  a 
Whig  or  a  Tory  might  have  ad- 
vocated it  with  equal  propriety.  We 
find,  for  instance,  Swift  remarking 
that  he  admired  "that  Gothic  in- 
stitution which  made  parliaments 
annual  "  ;  that  Bolingbroke  advocated 
triennial  or  annual  parliaments  and 
the  greater  representation  of  the 
landed  interest :  "  the  landed  men," 
he  said,  "  are  the  true  owners  of  our 
political  vessel ;  the  moneyed  men  are 
but  passengers  in  it."  Chatham  was 
perhaps  the  first  statesman  to  openly 
maintain  the  necessity  of  parliament- 
ary reform  ;  but  he  meant  something 
very  different  from  what  the  Radicals 
demanded.  It  is  true  that  he  wished 
for  shorter  parliaments  with  a  view  to 


154 


Old  and  New  Radicals. 


overcome  the  influence  of  the  Crown ; 
but  he  was  absolutely  opposed  to  the 
theory  that  the  possession  of  the 
suffrage  is  a  sort  of  personal  or  natural 
right.  Property,  and  above  all  landed 
property,  the  soil,  as  he  liked  to 
call  it,  should,  he  thought,  be  repre- 
sented. "  The  representation  of  the 
counties,"  he  said,  "  is  still  preserved 
pure  and  uncorrupted  "  ;  and  holding 
this  opinion  he  wished  that  the 
number  of  county  members  should  be 
raised,  and  that  thus  "  a  portion  of 
new  health "  should  be  infused  into 
the  constitution.  But  the  Great 
Commoner  was  enthroned  in  the 
affections  of  the  people  ;  he  derived 
his  power  from  popularity  ;  he  was,  as 
Dr.  Johnson  well  remarked,  not  like 
Walpole,  a  minister  given  by  the  King 
to  the  people,  but  a  minister  given  by 
the  people  to  the  King.  He  would  in 
these  days  perhaps  have  been  called  a 
Tory  Democrat.  It  is,  then,  evident 
that  Chatham  was  in  sympathy  with 
many  of  the  Radical  ideas,  and  even 
Burke  has  uttered  sentiments  which 
breathe  the  purest  spirit  of  democracy. 
Such  phrases  as  "I  like  a  clamour 
where  there  is  an  abuse  "  ;  the  people 
are  "  the  masters  "  ;  pai'liament  must 
not  defraud  "  its  employers  "  ;  the 
people  are  its  "  natural  lords  " ;  in  all 
disputes  between  the  people  and  their 
rulers  "  the  presumption  is  at  least 
upon  a  par  in  favour  of  the  people," 
show  him  to  have  had  popular 
sympathies  at  heart.  And  his  political 
conduct  was  in  harmony  with  these 
opinions  which  he  openly  expressed. 
He  took  the  popular  side  in  the  case 
of  the  Middlesex  election,  in  questions 
of  privilege,  in  parliamentary  reporting, 
in  the  promotion  of  financial  reform, 
in  the  diminution  of  corruption.  But 
if  there  ever  was  a  man  who  from  his 
heart  and  soul  loathed  radical  reform, 
that  man  was  surely  Burke ;  with 
him  the  hatred  almost  amounted  to  a 
mania  or  disease.  He  vehemently 


opposed  short  parliaments  and  a  wider 
extension  of  the  suffrage  ;  above  all, 
he  strove  with  all  his  power  against 
the  notion,  which  then  was  new  and 
strange,  that  a  parliamentary  repre- 
sentative is  a  mere  delegate  or  mouth- 
piece, and  ought  to  be  strictly  bound 
by  instructions  from  his  constituents. 
He  called  the  Radicals  "  a  corps  of 
schemers,"  and  "a  rotten  subdivision 
of  a  faction."  Parliamentary  reform 
was  then  by  no  means  at  first  a  Radical 
monopoly.  So  far  from  this  being  the 
case,  the  man  who  in  the  last  century 
brought  it  the  nearest  to  its  consum- 
mation was  the  younger  Pitt  himself, 
who  was  the  bitterest  foe  the  Radicals 
ever  had.  The  early  Radicals  were 
ardent  reformers,  it  is  true,  but  for 
their  distinctive  note  we  must  look  for 
something  more  than  this,  and  in  fact, 
both  in  principles  and  practice,  they 
differed  very  greatly  from  the  other 
parties  in  the  State. 

In  the  very  beginning  the  Radical 
leaders  descended  to  the  lowest  of  the 
agitator's  arts  ;  and  they  brought 
reform  into  such  disrepute  that  the 
more  liberal  of  the  Whigs,  who,  in- 
deed, were  not  a  few,  felt  a  strong 
disinclination  to  co-operate  at  all. 
Wilkes,  who  was  the  first  of  the 
Radicals  of  the  demagogue  type,  was 
invariably  in  the  right  in  his  consti- 
tutional struggles,  as  his  opponents 
were  invariably  in  the  wrong,  and  he 
became  with  some  justice  the  popular 
hero  of  the  hour.  But  the  violence 
of  his  methods,  his  audacity,  his 
vulgar  impertinences,  and  his  evil 
moral  reputation  made  him  a  by- 
word of  reproach  in  respectable 
society.  Possessing  few  principles 
and  no  profound  convictions,  he  was 
a  Radical  by  accident,  who,  by  the 
blunders  of  his  adversaries,  was 
exalted  to  the  station  of  a  hero  and  a 
martyr.  As  Horace  Walpole  well 
remarked,  "the  storm  that  saved  us 
was  raised  in  taverns  and  nisfht 


Old  and  Nciu  Radicals. 


cellars  "  ;  and  he  goes  on  to  make  the 
observation,  which  is  fortunately  not 
true,  that  "nations  are  most  commonly 
saved  by  the  worst  men  in  them." 
Wilkes  and  Liberty  was  in  truth  an 
unlucky  combination,  which  brought 
the  movement  into  unmerited  con- 
tempt ;  but  nevertheless  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  set  down  to  the  credit 
of  the  early  Radical  agitators.  They 
were  the  first  to  make  popular  meet- 
ings an  important  element  in  the  lives 
of  English  citizens.  They  struck  a 
blow  at  the  perversion  of  the  privilege 
of  parliament,  which  was  rapidly  bring- 
ing the  lower  House  into  hatred  and 
contempt.  They  did  much  to  establish 
the  legality  of  the  publication  of 
parliamentary  debates  ;  an  innovation 
which,  despite  the  forebodings  of 
George  the  Third,  has  been  justified  by 
the  happiest  results.  Lastly,  they  are 
responsible  for  what  is  probably  not 
so  beneficial,  namely,  the  introduction 
of  the  now  widely  spread  belief  that 
a  Member  of  Parliament  is  a  delegate 
and  nothing  more.  They  were  the 
first  to  insist  on  the  necessity  of 
electors  exacting  pledges  from  their 
representatives  and  giving  them 
instructions. 

But  it  is  into  their  ultimate  prin- 
ciples of  thought,  deep  down  into 
the  heart  of  their  philosophy  and 
theory,  that  we  must  look  for  the  dis- 
tinguishing marks  of  the  Radicals  at 
this  early  period  of  their  history. 
The  thinkers  of  the  party,  the  dis- 
interested theorists,  who  gave  the 
movement  its  colour  arid  direction, 
were  distinguished  by  some  well- 
marked  mental  and  moral  character- 
istics. Their  creed  was,  to  put  it 
briefly,  that  the  whole  social  order 
should  be  based  upon  a  few  univer- 
sal and  abstract  propositions.  From 
certain  axioms  and  assumptions  they 
deduced  a  scheme  of  polity  in  which 
they  believed  with  all  the  earnest- 
ness of  unshakable  conviction.  Such 


things  as  custom  or  tradition,  or  even 
expediency,  they  deemed  of  small  ac- 
count. They  began  by  assuming  that 
there  were  certain  Natural  Rights  or 
Rights  of  Man,  and  from  these  they 
concluded  that  certain  consequences, 
such  as  universal  suffrage,  must  neces- 
sarily follow.  From  among  these 
early  Radical  thinkers  and  philosophers 
we  may  take  Major  Cartwright,  Dr. 
Price,  and  Dr.  Priestley  to  represent 
the  type.  The  writings  of  the  simple- 
minded,  single-hearted  Major  Cart- 
wright,  and  who  has  been  justly 
styled  the  father  of  reform,  were 
instinct  with  the  kind  of  thought 
we  have  attempted  to  describe.  With 
him  the  problems  of  statesmanship 
were  very  simple.  He  believed  that 
it  was  only  necessary  to  comprehend 
and  to  apply  the  laws  of  nature  and 
the  maxims  of  morality,  and  that 
there  were  wanted  "  but  half  a  dozen, 
honest  men  to  save  a  city."  From  such 
premises  he  went  to  the  farthest 
logical  extremes ;  he  held  all  compro- 
mise to  be  immoral,  and  that  to  be 
moderate  in  principle  was  in  fact  to 
be  unprincipled.  Men  had,  he  thought, 
but  to  restore  the  simplicity  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  system,  and  to  remove- 
the  standing  army,  and  the  millennium 
in  England  would  speedily  arrive. 
The  writings  of  Dr.  Price  and  Dr. 
Priestley  showed  more  learning  and 
more  philosophy  than  those  of  Major 
Cartwright,  and  attracted  more  atten- 
tion, but  in  essence  they  did  not 
greatly  differ.  Both  of  these  two- 
writers  lie  in  close  association  with 
two  important  incidents  in  the  history 
of  opinion  ;  a  sermon  by  the  first  was 
the  immediate  cause  of  Burke's  im- 
mortal REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  FRENCH 
REVOLUTION,  and  an  Essay  on  Govern- 
ment by  the  latter  provided  Bentham 
with  the  germ  which  he  was  destined 
later  to  develope  into  the  utilitarian 
philosophy.  By  the  merest  accident 
the  pamphlet  fell  into  his  hands  in  a 


156 


Old  and  New  Radicals. 


coffee-house  at  Oxford,  and  the  phrase 
"  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest 
number  "  opened  to  his  delighted  vision 
a  universe  of  thought.  But  the  writ- 
ings of  both  philosophers  were  dis- 
tinguished by  the  same  violence  of 
unwarranted  assumption,  the  same 
love  of  metaphysical  abstraction,  the 
same  disregard  of  history  and  of  fact, 
which  drew  from  Burke  his  indignant 
refutation.  He  likened  abstract  rights 
to  "  the  great  Serbonian  bog "  which 
Milton  has  so  graphically  painted  ;  he 
refused  to  consider  human  actions  "  in 
all  the  nakedness  and  solitude  of  meta- 
physical abstraction  "  ;  he  thought  the 
new  philosophy  "  mechanic "  ;  that 
"  simple  governments  are  fundament- 
ally defective  "  ;  that  the  propensity 
of  the  people  to  resort  to  theories 
was  "  a  symptom  of  an  ill-conducted 
state  " ;  that  "  nothing  universal  can 
be  rationally  affirmed  on  any  moral  or 
any  political  subject '' ;  that  circum- 
stance is  all-important,  and  that  the 
foundation  of  government  is  laid,  not 
in  imaginary  Rights  of  Man,  but  in 
convenience  and  expediency.  Now  on 
all  these  points  he  differed  from  the 
metaphysical  philosophers,  who  formed 
the  brain,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Radical 
party  of  his  day.  Between  Burke, 
who  may  be  taken  as  the  spokesman 
of  the  moderate  party,  and  such  men 
as  Price  and  Priestley  the  distance  was 
immense  ;  and  though  in  some  practi- 
cal objects  they  agreed,  in  all  essential 
points  their  views  of  life  were  dia- 
metrically opposed. 

With  the  advent  of  the  French 
Revolution  the  history  of  Radicalism 
may  be  said  to  enter  on  a  second 
stage.  At  the  time  when  that  event 
began  the  hopes  of  the  reformers  were 
bright  and  full  of  promise,  but  tran- 
sient and  fallacious.  For  even  the 
House  of  Commons  seemed  inclined 
to  take  up  reform  in  earnest,  and  the 
Revolution  was  hailed  by  many  gener- 
ous natures  with  a  transport  of  de- 


light. Such  men  as  Coleridge  and 
Wordsworth  were  infected  with  the 
fever ;  to  their  rapt  vision  France 
seemed  "  standing  on  the  top  of  golden 
hours."  But  what  was  to  come  of 
acting  upon  abstract  rights  the  whole 
w  Drld  was  only  too  soon  to  understand. 
The  Revolution  was  as  the  letting  out 
of  waters,  and  as  the  tragedy  unrolled 
a  violent  revulsion  of  feeling  was  pro- 
duced. With  the  reaction  there  set 
in  a  long  period  of  oppression,  which 
only  ended  with  the  passing  of  the 
first  Reform  Act.  The  Radicals  fell 
on  evil  days  and  evil  tongues.  It 
was  the  era  of  State  prosecutions  for 
sedition,  of  coercive  legislation,  of 
muzzling  the  Press,  of  suppressing 
public  meetings.  And  for  these  re- 
sults it  must  be  said  that  the  Radicals 
themselves  were  in  a  large  degree  re- 
sponsible. The  more  violent  continued 
to  praise  the  Revolution  long  after  it 
had  lapsed  into  a  course  of  bloody 
and  insensate  crime.  Some  of  them 
openly  proclaimed  republican  ideas, 
and  Paine's  RIGHTS  OF  MAN  brought 
the  reaction  to  a  climax.  In  the  eyes 
of  moderate  people  that  pamphlet  was 
nothing  less  than  a  digest  of  anarchy  ; 
but  it  was  read  everywhere,  and 
eagerly  listened  to  by  those  who  could 
not  themselves  read  it.  During  the 
French  war  some  of  the  Radicals 
openly  advocated  the  cause  of  their 
country's  enemies,  and  it  cannot  be  a 
matter  of  surprise  that  the  Govern- 
ment was  seriously  alarmed.  But  it 
was  during  the  latter  portion  of  this 
period  that  the  school  of  what  are  called 
philosophic  Radicals  arose,  and  of  this 
important  movement  something  must 
now  be  said. 

Of  this  school  Bentham  was  the 
founder,  and  James  and  John  Stuart 
Mill  were  two  of  the  most  eminent 
disciples  ;  but  it  will  be  enough  if  we 
take  Bentham  to  represent  it  as  a 
whole.  The  political  dogma  of  the 
utilitarian  philosophers  was,  to  put 


Old  and  Neiv  Radicals. 


157 


it  briefly,  that  the  existing  social 
order  was  maintained  in  the  interest 
of  the  aristocratic  few.  Bentham,  it 
has  been  said,  was  the  first  to  speak 
disrespectfully  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution. He  called  it  "a  cover  for 
rascality "  ;  he  maintained  that  "  all 
parties  are,  in  fact,  resolvable  into 
two, — that  which  is  in  possession,  and 
that  which  is  in  expectancy  of  the 
sweets  of  government";  that  "the 
world  of  politics  is  divided  into  two 
opposite  regions,  the  world  of  major 
and  the  Avorld  of  minor  purity  "  ;  that 
if  the  lower  orders  are  the  dregs  of 
the  population,  the  higher  are  much 
more  justly  to  be  called  the  scum. 
Unlike  Price  and  Priestley,  he  had  the 
wisdom  to  perceive  the  folly  of  trying 
to  build  up  a  constitution  upon  meta- 
physical abstractions  ;  but  his  writings 
were  nevertheless  marked  by  many  of 
the  characteristic  faults  of  the  meta- 
physical philosophers.  For  his  con- 
clusions were  based  on  such  assumptions 
as  that  a  monarch  or  an  aristocracy  will 
inevitably  govern  in  the  interest  of  no 
one  but  themselves ;  that  the  people 
will  always  desire  their  own  interest 
and  will  know  it ;  and  that  to  obtain 
it  they  have  only  to  wish  it.  He  was 
almost  equally  indifferent  to  local 
custom  and  tradition.  He  offered  a 
constitution  to  Mehemet  Ali  and  a 
code  of  laws  to  the  Czar  with  the 
same  equanimity,  and  thought  it 
equally  strange  that  both  his  offers  were 
refused.  His  utilitarian  philosophy 
was  as  "  mechanic  "  as  any  at  which 
Burke  had  ever  scoffed.  He  thought 
that  morals  might  be  made  as  accurate 
a  science  as  mathematics  ;  he  treated 
mankind  as  though  they  were  ma- 
chines, without  any  regard  to  the 
possessions  of  feelings  or  affections  ; 
he  roundly  asserted  that  all  poetry 
was  a  misrepresentation,  and  could  not 
see  the  slightest  use  in  the  literature 
of  fancy  and  imagination.  His  utili- 
tarianism was  in  itself  something 


not  absolutely  new ;  the  novelty  lay 
rather  in  his  method  and  his  manner. 
In  the  sphere  of  jurisprudence  he 
achieved  some  magnificent  results,  and 
might  almost  be  said  indeed  to  have 
found  the  law  a  chaos  and  left  it  a 
science.  But  in  practical  politics  he 
cannot  be  said  to  have  done  much 
more  than  to  sow  the  seeds  which 
were  to  germinate  later.  His  disciples 
took  up  the  work  which  he  was  forced 
to  leave  unfinished,  and  the  philoso- 
phic Radicals  were  for  a  time  a  really 
powerful  political  and  intellectual 
force. 

From  this,  short  account  of  Ben- 
tham some  notion  may  be  formed  of 
the  predominant  characteristics  of 
the  type  of  Radicalism  which  affected 
English  politics  during  the  earlier 
portion  of  this  century.  With  the 
passing  of  the  first  Reform  Act 
English  Radicalism  may  be  said  to 
have  entered  upon  its  last  and  modern 
stage.  Parliamentary  reform  had 
been  the  main  object  of  the  Radicals, 
and  when  that  had  been  accomplished, 
a  large  portion  of  the  task  which  they 
had  laid  upon  themselves  was  done. 
In  the  purely  political  sphere  the 
movement  rather  fell  into  discredit 
through  the  Chartist  agitation.  But 
it  took  also  a  form  which  was  abso- 
lutely new  ;  it  threw  the  whole  of  its 
energies  into  the  discussion  of  a 
question  which  was  almost  purely 
economic.  In  the  introduction  of 
free  trade  the  Radicals  of  that  day, 
the  Manchester  School,  as  they  were 
called,  played  a  part  which  is  probably 
the  most  brilliant  portion  of  their 
history. 

We  have  now  seen  how  the  old  Radi- 
calism took  its  origin  in  the  desire  for 
parliamentary  reform  ;  how,  after 
falling  at  first  into  the  hands  of  the 
demagogue  and  the  agitator,  it  was 
subsequently  maintained  by  a  group  of 
metaphysical  philosophers,  and  later 
by  a  group  of  Benthamites  of  the 


158 


Old  and  New  Radicals. 


utilitarian  school.  We  are  therefore 
in  a  position  to  compare  the  old  type 
of  Radical  with  that  we  see  to-day. 

In  the  first  place,  there  was  an  art- 
less simplicity  about  some  of  those  old 
Radical  philosophers  which  was  re- 
freshing, because  it  was  so  obviously 
sincere.  Bentham  himself  is  said  to 
have  been  boyish  to  the  end  ;  in  his 
constitution  youth  and  age  were  by 
some  magic  touch  so  nicely  inter- 
mingled, that  he  was  in  some  respects 
never  really  young  and  never  really 
old.  There  was,  too,  a  robust  cheeri- 
ness,  a  rosy  optimism  about  their 
views  of  life,  which  stand  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  pessimism  which  it  is 
now  rather  the  fashion  to  profess. 
Godwin,  for  instance,  in  his  POLITICAL 
JUSTICE  argued  strongly  for  the  per- 
fectibility of  human  nature ;  while 
Priestley  expressed  his  belief  that 
"  the  end  will  be  glorious  and  para- 
disaical beyond  what  our  imagination 
can  now  conceive."  His  optimism  even 
verged  on  the  absurd ;  he  prophesied 
that  by  the  French  Revolution  all 
national  prejudice  would  be  extin- 
guished ;  that  there  would  be  universal 
peace  ;  that  no  civil  war  could  possibly 
occur,  not  even  in  America ;  that 
standing  armies  would  be  unknown ; 
and  that  the  expenses  of  government 
would  be  enormously  diminished.  But 
these  are  follies  which  it  is  easy  to 
forgive.  These  old  Radicals,  in  fact, 
thought  too  nobly  of  mankind.  To  be 
painfully  alive  to  the  evils  of  the  pres- 
ent and  to  be  anxious  to  remove  them, 
while  still  retaining  faith  in  human 
nature  and  a  lively  sense  of  hope,  is 
not,  perhaps,  such  a  very  easy  thing ; 
but  that  it  is  perfectly  possible  many 
of  the  old  Radicals  showed.  With 
quietness  and  confidence  they  looked 
forward  to  the  time  when  their 
own  principles  would  dominate  the 
world.  "  Twenty  years  after  I  am 
dead,"  said  Bentham,  "  I  shall  be  a 
despot."  This  is  the  kind  of  faith 


that  removes  mountains ;  and  the 
Radicalism  which  produced  it  must 
have  had  a  robust  vitality  for  which 
we  at  present  look  in  vain. 

Secondly,  these  old  Radicals  were 
men  full  of  expectation ;  the  pro- 
mised land  still  lay  before  them  ;  they 
had  all  the  victories  yet  to  gain.  But 
now  the  victories  have  been  won.  Most 
of  the  reforms  which  they  demanded 
have  long  since  been  accomplished 
facts  ;  parliamentary  reform,  the 
ballot,  the  reporting  of  debates,  the 
restriction  of  privilege,  economical 
reform,  the  abolition  of  the  taxes 
upon  knowledge,  religious  freedom 
and  equality,  and  the  introduction 
of  free  trade.  The  new  Radicals 
have  therefore  much  less  to  hope  for 
than  the  old  ;  they  are  already  in  the 
enjoyment  of  fulfilled  desire  ;  they  live 
mostly  in  the  triumphs  of  the  past. 
Short  Parliaments  and  the  payment 
of  Members  are  almost  the  only  two 
objects  which  the  old  Radicals  de- 
manded which  still  remain  to  be 
conceded.  The  abolition  of  the  House 
of  Lords  was  not,  it  should  be  noted, 
at  first  a  part  of  the  Radical  pro- 
gramme, at  least  not  until  the  time 
of  the  Benthamites.  It  was  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  not  the 
House  of  Lords,  which  was  origin- 
ally the  object  of  popular  suspicion 
and  dislike.  There  were  many  Peers 
who  were  quite  as  liberal  as,  and 
much  more  independent  than,  some  of 
the  progressive  Members  of  the  Lower 
House.  Such  were  Earl  Stanhope 
and  Earl  Grey ;  such  too  was  Lord 
Shelburne,  who  made  Priestley  his 
librarian,  who  gave  Bentham  a  home  at 
Bowood,  and,  to  use  the  philosopher's 
own  words,  raised  him  from  the  bottom- 
less pit  of  humiliation  and  made  him 
feel  himself  a  man.  It  is  therefore  diffi- 
cult to  escape  from  the  conclusion  that 
Radicalism,  at  all  events  the  Radical- 
ism of  the  old  traditional  type,  must 
be  now  a  spent  and  waning  force.  With 


Old  and  New  Radicals. 


159 


every  victory  gained  the  Radical  Party 
has  lost  one  of  the  reasons  of  its  being  ; 
and  in  truth  there  do  not  seem  to  be 
many  reasons  left. 

The  new  Radicals,  now  that  their 
legitimate  work  has  been  accomplished, 
have  taken  up  a  programme  of  which 
their  forerunners  in  their  wildest 
visions  never  dreamed.  They  would 
federalise  the  Constitution  upon  the 
lines  of  universal  Home  Rule.  They 
would  disestablish,  or  rather  disendow 
the  Church.  Their  policy  is  branded 
everywhere  with  that  odious  word 
compulsion.  It  would  compel  parents, 
whatever  their  feelings,  to  send  their 
children  to  schools  where  denomi- 
national teaching  in  religion  is  for- 
bidden ;  it  would  compel  a  large 
minority  to  go  without  the  use  of 
intoxicating  liquors  if  the  majority  in 
any  district  should  require  it,  and 
would  deprive  a  publican  of  his  means 
of  livelihood  without  a  proper  com- 
pensation ;  it  would  forbid  any  one 
to  work  more  than  eight  hours  a  day ; 
it  would  forbid  a  workman  to  make 
any  terms,  however  beneficial,  with 
his  employers  for  compensation  for 
injuries  received — or,  to  put  it  shortly, 
it  would  forbid  "  contracting  out  "  ; 
it  would  compel  every  Member  of 
Parliament,  however  much  he  might 
dislike  it,  to  receive  payment  from 
the  State.  These  would  be  some  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  Radical 
Utopia ;  and  of  course,  if  the  Inde- 
pendent Labour  Party  had  their  way, 
there  would  be  more  compulsion  still. 
Here  surely  is  something  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  creed  of  the  old 
Radicals.  Their  work,  as  they  con- 
ceived it,  was  to  strike  off  the  fetters  of 
privilege  and  prejudice,  and  to  liberate 
the  oppressed.  If  they  desired  the 
greatest  happiness,  they  believed  that 
the  surest  way  to  reach  it  was  to 
secure  to  every  man  his  freedom. 
To  take  a  single  example,  which  is 
especially  pertinent  at  the  present 


moment :  Priestley  energetically  pro- 
tested against  the  establishment  of  a 
stereotyped  form  of  education  by  the 
State )  but  Priestley's  degenerate  de- 
scendant wishes  for  nothing  so  much 
as  to  strangle  all  voluntary  effort ; 
and  he  is  up  in  arms  against  a  Bill 
which  proposes  to  render  more  elastic 
the  elementary  education  of  the 
country.  Thomas  Paine,  that  Radical 
of  Radicals,  used  to  say  that  laws 
were  a  necessary  evil,  and, like  clothes, 
a  badge  of  lost  innocence.  It  is  all 
the  other  way  now.  A  social  order 
involving  loss  of  freedom  may  possibly, 
under  the  conditions  in  which  we 
live,  be  the  best  for  human  nature  ; 
but  a  policy  which  seeks  to  frame 
society  in  this  way  is  not  liberal. 
It  is  a  bastard  form  of  liberalism 
which  trenches  upon  liberty. 

Lastly,  the  old  Radicals  had  some 
well-defined  ideas,  some  clearly  thought 
out  principles  of  action,  which  in- 
formed and  permeated  all  their  views 
of  life.  They  knew  exactly  what 
they  wanted,  and,  knowing  it,  they 
pursued  it  with  unconquerable  zeal. 
With  all  their  deficiencies  and  mental 
limitations,  there  was  much  about 
many  of  them  which  we  cannot  but 
admire.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that,  led 
away  by  the  false  lights  of  abstrac- 
tions and  assumptions,  they  lost  them- 
selves in  a  labyrinth  of  inextricable 
mazes ;  but  they  were  no  "  light  half- 
believers  of  their  casual  creeds."  The 
principles  they  held,  they  grasped 
with  hooks  of  steel.  Unpopular  as  their 
opinions  were,  they  had  the  courage 
to  express  them  ;  for  to  be  a  Radical 
at  one  time  was  no  trivial  matter. 
Wilkes,  for  instance,  was  outlawed  and 
imprisoned,  and  even  he  has  a  claim 
upon  our  sympathies.  By  a  curious 
irony  of  fate  Priestley's  house  at 
Birmingham  was  burned  and  pillaged 
by  the  mob,  and  he  himself  had  to 
take  refuge  in  America.  To  be  a 
Radical  used  to  involve  a  social 


160 


Old  and  New  Radicals. 


.stigma,  and  it  certainly  brought  with 
it  no  chance  of  advancement  or 
pecuniary  reward.  The  picture  of 
Bentham,  devoting  his  vast  talents 
and  a  long  life  of  unremitting  and 
unrewarded  toil  to  the  amelioration  of 
mankind,  is  surely  one  of  the  most 
touching  and  heroic  which  history  has 
to  show.  He  asked  only  for  the 
gratitude  of  men,  and  he  got  but 
very  little  of  it.  The  sight  of  that 
venerable  figure  in  the  old  Hermitage 
at  Queen's  Square  Place,  whether 
among  his  books  and  papers  or  pacing 
round  his  garden,  is  one  upon  which 
the  imagination  loves  to  dwell.  For 
such  firmness  of  conviction,  such  dis- 
interested zeal,  such  limitless  philan- 
thropy, we  may  seek  among  the  modern 
Radicals  in  vain. 

Upon  what  principle  the  Radical 
programme  is  now  based  it  is  difficult 
to  see.  Its  supporters,  in  fact,  are 
not  agreed  upon  any  principles  at  all. 
They  are  not  agreed  whether  they 
wish  for  Home  Rule  everywhere  or 
Home  Rule  for  Ireland  only;  they 
are  not  agreed  whether  they  wish  to 
end  the  House  of  Lords  or  only  to 
amend  it,  whether  they  wish  to 


strengthen  it  or  weaken  it,  whether 
they  wish  to  have  two  legislative 
Chambers  or  only  one  ;  some  of  them 
inveigh  furiously  against  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  in  the  end  accept  a 
peerage.  They  are  not  agreed  whether 
they  approve  of  colonial  expansion, 
and  the  strengthening  of  the  Navy. 
They  are  not  agreed  how  to  deal 
with  agricultural  distress,  or,  indeed, 
whether  such  distress  exists  at 
all.  They  insist  upon  the  principle 
of  one  man  one  vote,  but  to  that  of 
one  man  one  value  they  will  not 
listen  for  a  moment.  The  result  is 
what  we  see.  Never  before  have  the 
Radicals  presented  so  disorganised  and 
so  undisciplined  a  body.  The  reason 
is  simple  and  obvious.  The  old 
Radical  policy  was  based  on  princi- 
ples, and  was  perfectly  defined  ;  the 
new  is  based  on  none.  It  is  a  thing 
of  shreds  and  patches,  made  up  of 
the  particular  views  of  a  number  of 
separate  and  jealous  groups.  If  it 
is  ever  to  rise  again  to  usefulness 
and  power,  something  of  the  old 
unity  and  the  old  spirit  will  have  to 
be  restored. 


MACMILLAN'S    MAGAZINE. 


JULY,    1896. 


THE    SECRET    OF    SAINT    FLOREL. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

"  COME  away,  sir,  come  with  me," 
they  heard  in  a  voice  half  of  request, 
half  of  command  ;  and  in  reply  came 
quavering  tones  that  grew  nearer,  as 
shuffling  footsteps  approached  the 
door.  "  I  want  Miss  Phoebe,  I  tell 
you,  and  I  can  hear  her  in  this  room. 
She  is  not  in  the  garden,  I  know ; 
she  is  here." 

Mason  Sawbridge  had  started  at 
the  first  sound  of  this  voice,  and  a 
curious  look  gathered  on  his  face ; 
annoyance,  anger,  even  a  slight  appre- 
hension seemed  visible,  and  he  rose 
with  the  evident  intention  of  leaving 
the  room.  Before  he  had  taken  more 
than  a  single  step,  however,  the  door 
was  violently  opened  and  the  old  man 
whom  they  had  seen  on  the  preceding 
night  hurried  in.  He  wore  a  kind  of 
long  loose  coat,  above  the  wide- 
throated  collar  of  which  his  striking 
features  showed  to  the  fullest  ad- 
vantage. His  handsome  face  had 
turned  instinctively  towards  Phoebe 
on  his  entrance,  but  now  becoming 
aware  of  the  presence  of  strangers 
he  hesitated  and  paused  before 
advancing. 

"  My  dear  uncle,"  cried  the  hunch- 
back effusively,  going  towards  his 
relative  as  he  spoke,  "  allow  me  to 
assist — " 

No.  441. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


"  No,  no  ! "  cried  old  Dene,  with  a 
look  of  timid  dislike.  "  Keep  away, 
don't  come  near  me ;  don't  let  him 
touch  me,  Phoebe,"  he  added  to  the 
girl,  who  had  come  up  to  him  and 
taken  one  of  his  hands. 

"  Hush  !  "  she  said  soothingly. 
"  No  one  will  do  anything  you  don't 
like,  uncle.  Shall  I  come  into  the 
garden  with  you  ? " 

"  Who  have  I  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
here  ? "  said  the  old  man,  looking  at 
Bryant  and  his  friend,  who  stood 
awkwardly  enough  waiting  for  any 
development  of  events  which  might 
enable  them  to  make  their  escape. 
"Visitors, -I  suppose.  Wouldn't  they 
like  to  see  the  pictures,  Phoebe  ?  It's 
not  often  people  see  such  a  fine 
collection  of  family  portraits  as  mine." 

"  Really  I  cannot  allow  this  to  go 
on,"  said  Mason  Sawbridge  with  angry 
decision.  "  Phoebe,  you  must  go 
away  and  leave  my  uncle  to  me. 
He  is  not  able  to  receive  visitors,"  he 
said,  turning  apologetically  to  the  two 
friends.  "  This  scene  is  most  distress- 
ing and  unnecessary." 

But  old  Dene's  half-crazed  brain 
having  given  birth  to  an  idea  was 
slow  to  relinquish  it.  He  persisted 
like  a  self-willsd  child.  "  I'm  sure 
they  would  like  to  see  the  gallery 
now ;  wouldn't  they,  Phoebe  ?  The 
Denehurst  gallery  is  noted  in  the 

M 


162 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


county."  He  turned  with  eager  in- 
sistence to  Hugh,  who  was  standing 
nearest. 

Phoebe,  too,  threw  a  quick  look  at 
the  younger  man ;  perhaps  she  was 
trying  to  read  how  far  she  might 
reckon  upon  his  falling  in  with  her 
plans  ;  at  any  rate  the  rapid  scrutiny 
seemed  satisfactory,  for  she  spoke 
as  clearly  and  firmly  as  possible. 
"  There  need  be  no  scene,  Mason,  if 
you  will  have  a  little  patience.  The 
room  up  stairs  is  a  very  fine  one,  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  these  gentle- 
men should  not  see  it."  She  looked 
rather  defiantly  at  her  cousin  as  she 
said  this,  and  appeared  perfectly  un- 
moved by  his  scowl  of  disapproval. 
Hugh,  of  course,  was  ready  to  undergo 
any  personal  inconvenience,  provided 
it  prolonged  his  time  in  Phoebe's 
company ;  and  Bryant,  who  was  in- 
tensely interested  in  the  turn  affairs 
were  taking,  was  equally  ready  to 
assent  to  any  course  she  might  pro- 
pose. They  therefore  simultaneously 
murmured  some  polite  answer  to  the 
effect  that  they  would  be  most  happy  ; 
and  the  whole  party  thereupon  crossed 
the  hall  and  began  the  ascent  of 
the  old  carved  oak  staircase,  her 
uncle  conducting  Phoebe  with  some 
ceremony  and  a  delighted  expression 
of  triumph  on  his  venerable  face. 

Up  stairs  an  open  corridor  ran 
round  two  sides  of  the  hall,  its  high 
carved  oak  balustrades  gathering  an 
additional  richness  of  colour  and  detail 
from  their  contrast  to  the  rigid  black 
and  white  squares  of  marble  below, 
which  were  visible  between  them. 
They  all  paced  along  in  a  profound 
and  somewhat  uncomfortable  silence, 
which  no  one  seemed  inclined  to 
break.  At  the  end  of  the  corridor 
was  a  deep  archway,  also  in  oak  and 
closed  with  heavy  faded  purple  cur- 
tains. Having  passed  through  these 
they  found  themselves  in  a  room  some 
fifty  feet  long  by  twenty  wide,  lighted 


chiefly  from  the  roof,  though  at  the 
far  end  there  was  a  large  square- 
topped  window  with  heavy  stone 
mullions ;  it  contained  five  lights,  the 
upper  part  of  each  being  filled  with  a 
coat-of-arms  in  stained  glass,  while  the 
lower  was  leaded  in  tiny  diamond- 
shaped  panes.  The  sunshine  streamed 
through  these,  sending  a  radiance  into 
the  empty  place ;  and  the  waving 
framework  of  ivy,  clustering  thickly 
outside,  was  repeated  in  shadows  upon 
the  floor  along  with  ruby  and  emerald 
gleams  from  the  stained  glass.  And 
now  while  the  spectators  (two  at  least 
of  whom  began  to  fancy  themselves 
in  a  dream)  stood  waiting  for  what 
might  happen  next,  old  Denis  Dene 
cleared  his  throat,  and  pointing  to- 
wards the  right-hand  panelling  of  the 
room,  began  his  discourse. 

"  Here  is  the  gem  of  my  collection  ; 
an  undoubted  Holbein,  signed,  as  you 
will  perceive.  It  is  a  portrait  of  my 
maternal  ancestor  Jacob  von  Golds- 
berg,  a  wealthy  German  merchant  of 
the  Hanseatic  League  who  settled  in 
London  during  the  reign  of  Henry 
the  Eighth.  The  delicate  lace  upon 
the  ruff  round  the  neck  of  the  old  man 
is  most  marvellously  rendered,  and 
the  velvet  folds  of  his  cloak  are  like- 
wise very  fine.  It  is  considered  a 
magnificent  example  of  the  painter." 

The  old  gentleman  stood  pointing 
with  an  air  of  the  utmost  exultation 
to  an  empty  space  upon  the  oak  panel- 
ling. A  nail,  from  which  the  picture 
had  been  originally  suspended,  was 
still  there,  with  a  mark  of  usage 
clearly  indicating  the  dimensions  of 
the  frame ;  but  picture  there  was 
none  ;  the  wall  was  bare  and  a  spider 
crawled  slowly  across  that  part  of  it 
which  had  been  once  adorned  by 
the  old  German  merchant's  features. 
Hugh,  glancing  down  the  room, 
began  to  understand  things  a  little 
better.  With  the  exception  of  one 
portrait,  which  hung  by  the  window, 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


163 


there  was  not  a  single  picture  in  the 
gallery.  The  landlord's  gossip,  with 
the  scene  they  had  witnessed  on  the 
previous  night,  made  the  story  of  the 
dismantled  walls  clear  enough,  while 
a  merciful  hallucination  had  evidently 
fallen  upon  their  former  owner,  who 
still  saw  all  his  treasures  daily  before 
him.  The  scowl  upon  the  hunch- 
back's face  gave  place  to  a  sneer  as 
his  uncle  grew  enthusiastic  over  the 
beauties  of  Holbein's  style ;  a  sneer 
so  insolent  and  derisive  that  Hugh 
longed  to  kick  him.  But  old  Dennis 
saw  it  not,  and  crossing  the  room 
drew  attention  to  another  imaginary 
portrait. 

"  Sir  James  Dene,  or  rather  Denne 
(for  so  it  was  spelled  in  the  sixteenth 
century),  knighted  by  Queen  Elizabeth 
for  his  exertions  in  raising  funds 
towards  providing  vessels  for  Fro- 
bisher's  first  attempt  to  discover  the 
North-West  Passage.  He  was  one 
of  the  Aldermen  of  London  for  many 
years,  and  a  member  of  the  Gold- 
smiths' Company.  I  do  not  know 
the  painter  of  this  picture ;  but 
though  the  execution  is  somewhat 
rough  and  unfinished,  he  evidently 
had  a  knack  of  catching  a  man's 
habitual  expression.  There  is  some- 
thing shrewd  and  reflective  in  Sir 
James's  face  which  makes  me  sure 
that  it  is  a  good  likeness.  Indeed 
something  of  the  same  look  is  to  be 
seen  in  more  than  one  of  his  de- 
scendants. His  grandson  hangs  there," 
he  continued,  pointing  to  a  place  upon 
the  wall  a  few  feet  off,  "  in  the  small 
oval  frame.  After  Sir  James  Denne 
none  of  the  family  seem  to  have 
distinguished  themselves  for  many 
years,  in  fact  not  until  the  days 
of  the  Parliamentary  wars.  I  there- 
fore pass  over  several  portraits," — 
here  he  walked  on  and  then,  crossing 
the  room  once  more,  indicated  another 
frame  and  began  again — "until  we 
come  to  that  of  Mistress  Elizabeth 


Dene,  one  of  the  beauties  of  the 
Court  of  Charles  the  Second,  by  Sir 
Peter  Lely  ;  a  very  graceful  figure,  you 
see,  with  a  girlish  charm  that  never 
palls.  Observe  how  daintily  she  is 
advancing  one  foot  in  its  little  high- 
heeled  slipper;  a  characteristic  atti- 
tude, no  doubt.  And  how  exquisitely 
painted  is  the  string  of  pearls  round 
her  throat.  Those  pearls  had  a 
strange  fate  too,  for  I  believe  they 
are  identical  with  a  necklace  sold  by 
that  young  lady's  son, — she  married 
an  Osbaldistone,  and  lived  to  a  good 
old  age, — her  son,  I  say,  sold  the 
necklace  to  assist  in  raising  funds  for 
the  Pretender. 

"  The  small  portrait  below  hers  is 
that  of  her  son,  John  Osbaldistone, 
who  died  childless.  This  young  fellow 
in  Highland  dress  is  pretty  Elizabeth's 
great  nephew,  the  grandson  of  her 
brother  Dennis  Dene,  who  was  the 
first  of  our  family  to  own  land  in  this 
county.  That  grandson  (who  was 
also  Dennis  Dene)  was  killed  at 
Culloden,  and  the  estate  devolved 
upon  his  younger  brother  James. 
He  travelled  a  good  deal,  especially 
in  Italy,  and  married  an  Italian  lady 
of  good  birth.  Here  is  her  portrait, 
and  a  very  lovely  creature  she  must 
have  been ;  large  dark  eyes  and 
masses  of  black  hair,  an  ordinary 
Italian  type.  Her  daughter  Judith — 
Here  the  old  man  broke  off,  a  vacant 
look  crossed  his  face,  and  he  turned 
appealingly  to  Phoebe.  "  What  hap- 
pened to  Judith,  Phoebe1?  Excuse 
me,"  he  added,  turning  to  his  guests, 
"  but  among  such  a  large  collection  as 
mine,  one's  memory  sometimes  fails, 
you  know.  I  am  fortunate,  however, 
for  I  have  another  memory  close  at 
hand  here,  if  mine  plays  me  false." 
Here  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  girl's 
arm.  "What  about  Judith,  my 
dear?" 

"  Better    wait    now,    uncle,"    said 
Phoebe    gently.      "Our    visitors    will 

M  2 


164 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


scarcely  be  able  to  spare  more  time 
this  afternoon  ;  another  day,  perhaps. 
You  must  not  tire  yourself  either,  you 
know." 

"Do  you  think  so,  Phoebe?"  he 
answered  docilely.  "  Well,  perhaps  I 
had  better  not  explain  anything  more 
just  now.  I  think  I  am  a  little  tired, 
and  my  memory  is  not  as  good  as  it 
was.  We  will  take  a  turn  in  the 
garden  together,  my  love,  the  fresh 
air  will  do  me  good ;  but  first  I  must 
show  them  the  portrait  of  Lady 
Lucilla, — the  best  of  all,  the  very 
best,"  he  rambled  on,  beckoning  his 
guests  with  so  much  insistence  that 
they  felt  bound  to  follow  him  to  the 
end  of  the  room,  where,  close  to  the 
window,  hung  the  one  picture  in  the 
gallery. 

It  was  the  three-quarter-length 
portrait  of  a  dark-haired,  gentle-faced 
lady,  whose  steadfast  eyes  and  firm, 
though  smiling  mouth,  gave  the  im- 
pression that  she  must  have  exercised 
considerable  personal  influence. 

"  My  dear  wife,  gentlemen,"  said 
old  Dene,  waving  his  hand  exactly  as 
though  he  was  introducing  a  living 
woman ;  "  and  one  who  was  as  good 
as  she  was  beautiful." 

Absurd  as  it  seemed,  both  Hugh 
and  his  friend  had  some  difficulty  in 
preventing  themselves  from  bowing  to 
the  portrait,  so  strongly  did  the  old 
man's  manner  impress  them. 

"  As  good  as  she  was  beautiful,"  he 
repeated  with  eyes  fixed  upon  the 
picture ;  "  and,  Phcebe,"  he  added 
after  a  moment's  pause,  and  with  a 
pathetic  break  in  his  voice,  "  I  broke 
my  promise  to  her !  You  know  I 
did,  about  cards  and : 

"  Hush,  hush  !  "  she  interrupted 
quickly,  and  with  a  swift  sign 
towards  them  which  made  both 
strangers  turn  aside,  and  retrace  their 
steps  along  the  gallery.  "Never 
mind  about  that  now ;  come  down 
into  the  garden  with  me.  You 


me,    you 


will     like     a     walk     with 
know." 

A  door  behind  them  at  the  end  of 
the  gallery  opened  and  shut,  and  then 
they  heard  the  gentle  tones  of  Phoebe's 
voice  gradually  dying  away  as  she 
descended  the  stairs  soothing  her 
querulous  companion. 

At  the  curtained  archway  by 
which  they  had  entered  stood  Mason. 
Sawbridge,  and  the  three,  passing 
into  the  corridor,  went  down  the 
stairs  in  silence.  When  they  reached 
the  hall,  however,  the  hunchback 
spoke  as  though  nothing  remarkable 
had  happened. 

"  I  hope  then,  Mr.  Bryant,  that 
we  may  have  the  pleasure  of  fishing 
together  to-morrow.  I  have  a  spare 
rod  very  much  at  your  service,  and 
there  is  a  stretch  of  preserved  water 
in  the  woods  which  is  well  worth 
trying.  Does  Mr.  Strong  fish  also  ?  " 

"  No,  thanks  all  the  same,"  inter- 
rupted Mr.  Strong,  promptly  answer- 
ing for  himself.  "  My  friend  is  an 
enthusiastic  fisherman,  Mr.  Sawbridge, 
but  I  do  not  much  care  for  the  sport. 
I  shall  avail  myself  of  his  absence  to 
get  through  a  lot  of  writing;  my 
correspondence  was  much  neglected 
while  I  was  abroad." 

"  About  eleven  then  1 "  suggested 
Mason  to  Bryant.  "  Will  that  hour 
suit  you  to  join  me  at  the  cross-roads 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  past  the 
gates  1  There  is  a  short  cut  from 
there  to  the  river.  I'll  tell  them  to 
put  up  some  luncheon  for  us,  and 
then  we  shall  be  independent  if  the 
fish  are  rising  well  and  it  is  worth 
while  going  on.  Till  to-morrow, 
then." 

Another  moment,  and  the  door  had 
closed  behind  them,  and  they  stood 
again  in  the  weed-grown  garden. 

"  The  family  skeleton  seems  grow- 
ing," said  Bryant  briefly,  when  they 
were  well  out  of  sight  of  the  house. 

Hueh  nodded. 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


165 


"  It  has  rattled  to  some  purpose  this 
afternoon,"  continued  the  other. 

Hugh  nodded  again. 

"  I  do  trust,  Strong,  that  you'll 
think  twice  before  you  commit  your- 
self." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Consider,"  went  on  Bryant ;  "  a 
lunatic  uncle  and  a  hunchbacked 
cousin  here,  and  another  cousin,  who 
is  a  murderer  or  something  very  like 
it,  no  one  knows  where.  Do  think 
twice,  my  dear  fellow,  before  you 
begin  running  after  this  girl." 

"  I've  thought  a  good  many  times," 
answered  Hugh.  "  In  fact  lately  I've 
thought  about  very  little  else,  and 
my  mind  is  quite  made  up.  Of  course 
there  is  the  possibility  that  she  won't 
have  anything  to  say  to  me  ;  in  which 
case  there's  nothing  more  for  me  to 
say.  But  for  Heaven's  sake,  Bryant, 
don't  begin  one  of  your  sermons  just 
now.  I  won't  stand  it." 

After  this  outburst  there  was 
silence,  and  the  two  walked  mutely 
side  by  side,  until  they  were  half-way 
down  the  great  avenue.  Then  Hugh 
began  again.  "  There  is  just  one 
little  matter,  Bryant,  in  which  you 
can  oblige  me.  Don't  hurry  home 
from  fishing  to-morrow." 

"  Certainly  not,"  replied  his  friend 
promptly.  "  It  would  be  a  thousand 
pities  to  interrupt  your  writing,  and 
I'm  quite  sure  that  if  I  do  return 
quickly  there  won't  be  a  soul  to 
speak  to." 

"  You  might  also  detain  your 
hunchbacked  friend  as  long  as  you 
conveniently  can,"  continued  Hugh. 

"  Of  course,  of  course,"  answered 
the  other  satirically.  "  I  think  we'd 
better  take  a  tent  and  camp  out,  so 
that  there  can  be  no  possible  risk  of 
disturbing  your  correspondence.  Only 
pray  don't  disclose  any  of  your 
nefarious  plans  to  me.  My  ignorance 
of  your  affairs  will  serve  better  than 
knowledge,  I  fancy." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  events  of  the  next  day  seemed 
to  suggest  that  Providence*  bestirred 
itself  more  in  the  matrimonial  con- 
cerns of  man  than  James  Byrant  sup- 
posed. By  some  angelically  arranged 
combination  of  circumstances  it  oc- 
curred to  Phoebe,  after  Mason  had 
left  for  the  river,  that  she  would  go 
down  to  the  village  to  purchase  some 
watercress  of  an  old  man  who  be- 
guiled his  leisure  and  added  to  his 
income  by  the  cultivation  of  that 
useful  vegetable. 

Her  way  home  lay  past  the  Red 
Lion,  and  some  celestial  being 
prompted  Hugh  Strong,  just  before 
she  came  abreast  of  the  house,  to 
issue  forth,  with  the  intention  of 
smoking  a  quiet  pipe  along  one  of  the 
lanes. 

"  Good  morning,  Miss  Thayne,"  he 
said,  at  once  consigning  his  pipe  to  his 
pocket,  in  which  it  incontinently 
burned  a  hole.  "  Pray  allow  me  to 
take  that  basket,"  and  he  relieved  her 
of  the  watercress. 

"It  is  not  heavy,"  said  Phoebe 
smiling ;  "  and  even  if  it  were,  I 
should  not  have  far  to  carry  it. " 

"  I  hope  you  will  allow  me  to  take 
it  home  for  you,"  said  Hugh. 

"Oh,  yes,"  answered  Phoebe  simply, 
"  if  you  like." 

She  was  a  very  unsophisticated 
maiden,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  her 
that  anything  but  politeness  lay  in 
Hugh's  desire  to  accompany  her. 
Living  as  she  did  in  the  constant 
company  of  her  cousin  Mason  Saw- 
bridge,  whose  policy  it  was  to  en- 
courage her  mistaken  ideas  as  to  her 
own  lamentable  ignorance  and  lack  of 
attraction,  Phoebe  was  hardly  likely 
to  suffer  much  from  either  self-con- 
sciousness or  conceit.  The  process 
through  which  she  had  arrived  at  this 
state  of  mind  had  been  a  painful  one, 
and  had  cost  her  some  mortification  ; 


16G 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


but  its  result  was  a  charming  direct- 
ness of  simplicity  as  rare  as  it  was 
attractive. 

They  went  down  the  lane  in  a 
silence  broken  only  by  commonplace 
remarks,  until  they  turned  in  at  the 
little  wicket  that  led  into  the  shrub- 
bery. Once  so  near  home  Phoebe 
resolved  to  put  a  question  to  Hugh 
which  she  was  longing  to  ask  him, 
and  which  she  determined  not  to 
delay,  lest  such  a  favourable  oppor- 
tunity might  not  occur  again. 

They  were  walking  in  single  file 
along  the  narrow  path,  Phoebe  leading 
the  way,  when  she  suddenly  turned 
and  addressed  him.  "  Mr.  Strong," 
she  began,  "you  have  been  to  the 
University,  I  suppose,  and  are  clever 
like  other  men  1 " 

He  stopped,  rather  surprised.  "  I 
have  been  to  Oxford,  yes,  Miss 
Thayne  ;  but  I  think  the  less  we  say 
about  cleverness  the  better."  As  a 
rule  this  young  man  considered  his 
intelligence  rather  above  the  average  ; 
but  on  ;  the  present  occasion  he  felt 
somehow  indisposed  to  magnify  him- 
self. 

Phoebe's  face  fell ;  she  evidently 
believed  him.  "  I  am  so  sorry,"  she 
cried.  "  I  hoped  you  were  a  clever 
man,  and  would  be  able  to  help  me." 

"  Any  advice  or  help  that  I  can 
give  are  very  much  at  your  service," 
replied  Hugh  earnestly,  with  very 
confused  ideas  of  what  services  she 
might  require.  He  [was  conscious, 
however,  of  a  definite  desire  that  they 
might  include  a  personal  assault  upon 
Mason  Sawbridge. 

"  Well,"  she  resumed,  "  the  fact  is 
I  am  most  dreadfully  ignorant,  and 
half  educated,  and  though  I  can't 
get  any  masters  here  or  teachers  of 
any  kind,  I  can  read  and  study  by 
myself  as  much  as  I  like ;  and  I 
thought  you  might  suggest  some  books 
to  get,  and  how  to  set  about  it. 
Mason  won't." 


"  My  dear  Miss  Thayne,"  said  Hugh 
rather  dismayed,  "I  am  very  sorry  ; 
but  I  assure  you  I  have  not  the 
slightest  idea  how  a  young  lady 
should  set  about  educating  herself." 

"  Still,  perhaps  you  might  make  a 
few  suggestions,"  persisted  Phoebe. 
"I  can  do  nothing  systematic  without 
some  rules  to  go  by." 

"Well,"  said  Hugh,  "perhaps  you 
would  not  mind  telling  me  what  you 
do  know  ;  then  it  would  be  easier  to 
advise  you." 

"  You  see,  no  strangers  ever  come 
here,"  said  Phoebe  apologetically,  "and 
that  must  be  my  excuse  for  troubling 
you ;  I  am  obliged  to  take  what 
opportunities  fall  in  my  way.  As 
for  what  I  know, — I  don't  know  any- 
thing. I  can't  sing,  and  I  can't  play 
the  piano  ;  I  have  literally  no  accom- 
plishments. I  can  read  and  write 
and  do  some  arithmetic,  only  I  never 
quite  grasped  decimal  fractions ;  and 
I  know  French  fairly  well,  gram- 
matically, but  I  can't  speak  it  at  all ; 
oh,  and  I  have  a  smattering  of 
German, — and  I'm  afraid  that  is- 
all." 

"  I  am  sure  that  is  quite  enough," 
answered  Hugh  promptly. 

"  Do  you  think  so  1 "  she  said  with 
a  touch  of  disappointment.  "  Then 
I  suppose  you  are  like  a  great  many 
other  men,  and  disapprove  of  more 
than  a  certain  amount  of  education 
being  doled  out  to  a  woman." 

"  How  do  you  know  that  a  certain 
section  of  mankind  does  not  approve 
of  higher  education  for  women  1 " 

"  Oh,  I  see  the  papers,  you  know," 
she  answered,  "and  I  read  them 
nearly  all  through  ;  there  is  very  little 
else  for  me  to  do  here.  It  sometimes 
gives  me  quite  a  strange  sensation. 
I  feel  as  though  I  was  a  little  tiny 
creature  living  hundreds  of  miles  out 
of  the  world,  and  that  all  the  strange 
events  that  are  happening,  and  the 
great  discoveries  that  are  being  made, 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


167 


reached  me  like  sounds  from  a  distance. 
I  feel  as  if  Life  was  passing  me,  and 
I  did  nothing  but  stand  still,  help- 
less." 

"  That  is  only  because  you  live  very 
much  alone,"  said  Hugh.  "When 
you  have  travelled  a  little,  and  come 
more  into  contact  with  other  people, 
all  that  feeling  will  disappear." 

"  Well,"  she  answered,  "  I'm  sure  I 
hope  it  may ;  but  if  I  must  wait 
until  I  travel,  and  associate  with 
other  people,  I  am  afraid  it  will  be  a 
long  time  before  I  leave  off  feeling 
lonely." 

"Believe  me,"  said  Hugh,  "women 
are  best  alone.  I  don't  think, — if 
you  will  pardon  my  expressing  myself 
rather  brusquely — that  they  improve 
each  other.  For  one  thing,  women's 
chief  defects  become  exaggerated  when 
they  associate  much  among  themselves. 
Some  day,  when  you  know  more  of 
your  own  sex,  you  will  understand 
better  what  I  mean." 

"  That  is  rather  like  what  my  old 
nur-se  used  to  tell  me  when  I  had 
growing  pains,"  said  Phoebe  smiling. 
"  She  used  to  say  :  '  Never  mind, 
miss,  it's  all  for  your  own  good ;  by 
and  by  you'll  see  that,  when  you're  a 
young  lady  growed.' " 

"Besides,"  said  Hugh,  pursuing 
the  thread  of  his  argument,  "  look 
how  much  solitude  developes  talent 
or  genius.  Thoughts  and  feelings, 
that  would  be  crushed  and  diverted 
by  what  is  called  society,  can  grow 
and  thrive  in  loneliness." 

"  Now  there  I  don't  agree  with 
you,"  replied  the  girl  frankly.  "  You 
may  heat  your  iron  as  hot  as  you  like, 
but  it  takes  a  hammer  and  anvil  to 
make  the  sparks  fly.  It  seems  to  me 
just  the  same  thing  with  one's  intel- 
lect ;  there  must  be  contact  with 
other  people,  and  with  their  thoughts 
and  words,  before  one's  own  ideas  can 
be  roused." 

"  There  is  some  truth,  perhaps,  in 


what  you  say,"  admitted  Hugh.  "  But 
the  argument  is  an  interesting  one  ; 
and  if  you  don't  mind  sitting  down 
on  this  bench  for  a  few  injnutes,  we 
can  pursue  it  a  little  further  "  Phoebe 
sat  down  at  once,  and  her  companion 
again  took  up  the  thread  of  his  dis- 
course. "I  think  it  is  only  the 
lighter  and  less  enduring  kinds  of 
intellect  that  delight  in  the  bustle 
and  noise  of  life.  Wit  and  epigram 
and  repartee  flourish  in  those  circum- 
stances ;  but  not  the  real  depth  of 
feeling  that  manifests  itself  in  beauti- 
ful poetry,  or  prose,  or  even  music." 

"  Well,  I  suppose  my  own  feelings 
are  shallow  then,"  said  the  girl.  "  At 
any  rate  I  confess  to  very  much  wish- 
ing for  a  little  change  of  scene  and 
companionship.  Do  you  know,  Mr. 
Strong,  that  excepting  Anthony  and 
Mason,  my  cousins,  I  really  think 
you  are  the  first  man  I  have  ever 
spoken  to,  except  in  mere  common- 
places ? " 

"  I  am  very  glad,"  he  answered. 

"  Why  1 "  asked  Phoebe  with  genuine 
astonishment. 

"  Because  I  may  perhaps  have  the 
privilege  of  hearing  some  of  your 
thoughts  and  impressions  before  they 
can  become  less  original  by  being 
discussed  with  other  people." 

"  I  don't  see  why  that  should  be 
interesting,"  she  said.  "  I  should 
have  thought  you  would  find  it  most 
insipid." 

"Not  at  all,"  answered  Hugh  ;  "I 
enjoy  it,  I  assure  you.  Tell  me  some 
more  of  your  wishes.  You  have  a 
large  field  for  desire  here,  at  any 
rate." 

"  What  I  wish  !  "  she  said  with  a 
laugh.  "  If  I  were  to  begin  to  tell 
you  everything  I  wish  for,  you  would 
soon  be  tired ;  but  I'll  tell  you  some 
of  the  things  with  pleasure,  since  it 
interests  you.  First,  [here  she  began 
counting  on  her  fingers,  commencing 
at  the  thumb]  first,  I  should  like  to 


168 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


be  a  genius  ;  not  merely  clever,  you 
know,  but  a  real  genius.  I  should 
like  to  be  able  to  paint  anything  I 
liked,  and  play  exquisitely  upon  some 
instrument, — the  violin  for  preference; 
and  I  should  like  to  be  able  to  succeed 
in  any  study  I  took  up.  Next  [here 
she  passed  on  to  her  first  finger]  I 
should  like  to  make  some  great  dis- 
covery, either  in  astronomy  or 
mathematics  or  science ;  something 
that  all  the  world  would  hear  of. 
Then  [here  the  second  finger  was 
checked]  I  should  like  to  be  beautiful, 
really  beautiful,  something  queenly, 
you  know,  and  unmistakable — 

"  But,"  he  interrupted,  "  most 
people  would  think  you  already  ful- 
filled that  last  condition." 

She  looked  at  him  in  frank  and 
unembarrassed  fashion,  becoming  a 
little  confused  as  she  read  some  of 
the  admiration  he  was  trying  to  dis- 
semble. "  Oh,  no,"  she  answered 
lightly.  "  I  suppose  I  am  not  really 
ugly  or  plain ;  but  I  am  very  far 
from  being  what  I  should  like  to  be 
in  the  way  of  looks.  Mediocrity  does 
not  content  me  at  all.  Next  [here 
the  third  finger  was  reached]  next,  I 
should  like— 

"  Wait  a  moment,"  he  said,  resolved 
to  put  a  question  which  he  felt  must 
be  answered  as  soon  as  possible  for 
the  sake  of  his  own  peace  of  mind. 
"  You  have  reached  a  very  important 
finger  there,  Miss  Thayne ;  that  is 
the  finger  for  your  wedding-ring. 
Suppose  you  now  give  me  a  list  of  the 
qualities  you  would  most  admire  in  a 
man,  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  pro- 
spective husband.  But  I  forgot ;  I 
beg  your  pardon ;  you  were  engaged 
to  Mr.  Anthony  Holson,  were  you 
not  ?  " 

It  was  no  maidenly  blush,  but  a 
glow  of  anger  that  crimsoned  her 
cheek  as  she  started  up.  "  Who  told 
you  that?"  she  asked.  "Who  ven- 
tured to  say  such  a  thing  1 " 


"  Your  cousin,  Mr.  Sawbridge, 
mentioned  it,"  answered  Hugh,  think- 
ing that  her  vexation  was  very  be- 
coming, and  experiencing  a  sense  of 
relief  at  her  annoyance.  "  I  am  sorry 
if  I  vexed  you  by  repeating  it." 

"  Never  allude  to  it  again,"  she 
said  with  some  dignity.  "  I  never 
was  engaged  to  my  cousin ;  and  I 
never  should  have  been,  not  if  he  had 
gone  on  suggesting  it  for  twenty 
years."  Here  she  gave  a  very  de- 
termined little  stamp  with  her  foot, 
while  tears  of  vexation  came  into  her 
eyes. 

"  I  will  certainly  not  allude  to  the 
matter  again,"  said  Hugh.  "  Let  us 
forget  it  now,  and  go  on  talking.  I 
do  not  know  into  how  many  heads 
you  want  to  divide  your  discourse, 
Miss  Thayne,  but  you  had  reached 
the  fourth.  You  wanted  to  be  a 
genius,  and  a  beauty,  and  to  make 
some  great  discovery,  and 1 " 

"  Oh,  I  think  that  is  a  long  enough 
catalogue  for  the  present,"  she  an- 
swered, smiling  and  recovering  some 
of  her  composure.  "  Upon  second 
thoughts  the  wishes  I  have  named 
would  satisfy  even  me,  I  think." 

At  that  moment  a  great  bell  began 
to  ring  upon  the  roof  of  the  rambling 
old  house  close  at  hand.  "There 
goes  the  luncheon-bell,"  cried  Phoebe. 
"  Oh,  dear,  what  a  lot  of  time  I  have 
wasted  this  morning  !  At  least, — 
no,  I  don't  mean  that,"  she  grew  con- 
fused at  her  own  unintentional  rude- 
ness. "  I  have  been  wasting  your 
time,  Mr.  Strong." 

"  Quite  the  contrary,  I  assure  you," 
he  answered  politely.  "I  have  en- 
joyed our  conversation  very  much ; 
so  much,  that  I  hope  we  may  soon 
have  another.  I  dare  say  you  some- 
times stroll  down  here  when  you  have 
nothing  better  to  do,  don't  you? 
And  I  do  not  suppose  your  cousin 
would  mind  my  taking  an  occasional 
turn  here  either,  would  he  ? " 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


169 


"  Oh,  no  ;  I  don't  see  how  he  could," 
answered  the  girl. 

"  Then  it  is  settled,"  he  said.  "  We 
will  have  another  talk  some  day.'' 

As  Phoebe  went  home  she  began  to 
wonder  what  had  made  the  morning 
pass  so  quickly.  Generally,  in  spite 
of  her  active  mind  and  dislike  of  idle- 
ness, time  hung  much  more  heavily  on 
her  hands.  It  was  so  seldom,  so  very 
seldom,  that  any  new  event  broke  the 
monotony  of  her  days,  that  Hugh 
Strong's  arrival  seemed  to  her  to  have 
for  a  time  centred  itself  round  her 
chief  interests.  There  was  a  good 
library  at  Denehurst  which  was  rarely 
entered  save  by  herself ;  and  Phoebe 
determined  that,  luncheon  once  over, 
she  would  set  to  work  forthwith  on  her 
great  scheme  of  education.  How 
pleasant  it  would  be  to  have  one's 
energies,  that  were  burning  for  em- 
ployment, directed  into  a  beneficial 
-channel.  It  would  be  so  much  more 
interesting  to  work  in  concert  with 
some  one  else,  to  be  guided  by  a  wiser 
intelligence  ;  one's  progress  must  neces- 
sarily be  much  more  rapid  than  if 
one  felt  one's  own  slow  path  to- 
wards knowledge.  He  was  pleasant 
to  talk  with  too,  this  new  teacher  she 
had  been  fortunate  enough  to  meet. 
He  did  not  seem  in  the  least  shocked 
or  discouraged  at  the  meagreness  of 
her  accomplishments  ;  in  fact,  he  had 
(so  it  seemed  to  her)  kindly  concealed, 
or  charitably  denied,  the  vastness  of 
his  own  attainments.  Phoebe  had  a 
great  idea  of  the  mental  superiority 
of  the  sterner  sex.  Both  Anthony 
and  Mason,  with  whom  she  had  been 
brought  up,  were,  she  knew,  clever 
and  accomplished  men  ;  and  with  her 
own  sex  she  had  had  no  opportunity 
of  comparing  herself.  She  reflected, 
however,  that  Mr.  Strong  carried  his 
superiority  in  much  more  pleasing 
fashion  than  her  cousins,  especially 
Mason,  whese  chief  method  of  exhibit- 
ing it  was  by  snubbing  her,  a  process 


which  she  had  spirit  enough  not  to 
take  too  quietly.  Mr.  Strong  also 
presented  a  most  favourable  contrast 
to  Mason,  in  personal  appearances. 
She  privately  considered  that  his  fore- 
head, which  was  well-shaped  and 
intellectual,  was  the  only  portion  of 
her  cousin's  physiognomy  which  would 
bear  looking  at.  She  hated  his  thin 
delicate  nose,  and  oblique  crafty  eyes  ; 
while  the  straight  cruel  line  of  his 
mouth  seemed  to  her  more  repulsive 
than  that  of  her  watercress  merchant 
who  chanced  to  have  a  hare-lip. 
Hugh's  face,  she  remembered,  was 
very  open  and  honest,  and  his  eyes 
sincere  and  frank ;  they  had  none  of 
the  shiftiness  of  Mason's  orbs,  while 
his  nose,  though  far  from  being  such 
a  classical  organ  as  the  hunchback's, 
appeared  to  her  a  much  more  comely 
feature  in  a  man's  face.  In  conclusion 
she  thought  Mr.  Strong  rather  hand- 
some and, — here  she  abruptly  broke 
off  her  reflections  which,  as  she 
mentally  reproached  herself,  were 
beginning  to  resemble  those  of  some 
silly  school-girl.  Phoebe  had  never 
known  a  school-girl,  but  had  formu- 
lated her  own  ideas  of  the  species, 
which  were  perhaps  hardly  favourable 
to  the  youth  of  her  sex. 

Thought  travels  fast,  and  all  these 
meditations  had  ample  time  to  pass 
through  her  mind  with  various  elabor- 
ations before  she  had  traversed  the 
short  distance  between  the  wood  and 
home.  As  she  emerged  from  behind 
the  hedge  of  rhododendrons  which 
had  concealed  the  subject  of  her 
thoughts  a  few  days  before,  she  saw 
her  uncle  sitting  in  his  large  oak 
chair  under  the  shade  of  a  tree  near 
the  dining-room  window.  She  crossed 
the  lawn  towards  him,  and  as  the  old 
man  looked  for  her  coming  with  his 
usual  smile  of  welcome,  a  sudden 
surprise  crossed  his  face.  "  Where 
have  you  been,  Phoebe  1 "  he  asked. 

"In    the   wood  plantation  talking 


170 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Morel. 


to  Mr.  Strong,"  answered  the  girl ; 
"  but  why  do  you  ask,  uncle  ?  " 

"  You  look  so  pretty,  my  love ; 
your  eyes  are  bright,  and  your  hair  is 
shining  in  the  sun,  and  your  mouth 
is  smiling.  It  reminds  me  of  a  little 
song  that  Lady  Lucilla  used  to  sing, 
— it  was  in  German  but  she  trans- 
lated it — all  about  some  one  who 
went  into  a  wood  to  look  for  nothing 
and  found  something." 

"  What  did  she  find  1 "  asked  Phoebe. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  it  was  she 
or  he,"  answered  her  uncle ;  "  but  I 
seem  to  remember  that  the  person 
was  much  happier  after  being  in  the 
wood,  and  looked  so,  too." 

"  Perhaps  she  or  he  found  some- 
thing they  had  lost  and  did  not  ex- 
pect to  see  again,"  suggested  Phoebe. 

"  No,  no,"  answered  the  old  man. 
"  It  is  much  better  to  find  a  new  joy 
than  an  old  one,  I  think ;  but  lately 
my  mind  seems  to  have  grown  con- 
fused, Phoebe ;  my  memory  is  not 
what  it  was,  my  dear,  and  perhaps  I 
have  been  talking  nonsense.  Mason, 
you  know,  often  says  I  talk  nonsense. 
What  do  you  think,  child?"  And 
he  paused,  and  looked  anxiously  at 
her  while  waiting  for  a  reply. 

"  Mason  talks  a  great  deal  of  non- 
sense himself,"  said  the  girl  warmly, 
for  the  old  man's  humble  confidence 
in  her  judgment  awakened  in  even 
greater  strength  her  invariable  sense 
of  protection  over  him.  "  Don't  take 
any  notice  of  what  he  says." 

"  Still  I  fear  he  may  be  right, 
Phoebe.  I  fear  that  in  this  he  may 
be  right,"  rejoined  her  uncle  shaking 
his  head  sadly. 

"  It  is  lunch-time  now,"  said  the 
girl,  abruptly  changing  the  subject, 
for  above  all  things  she  dreaded  her 
uncle's  fits  of  despondency.  "Come 
in,  and  I'll  tell  you  all  about  Mr. 
Strong,  who  is  very  kind  and  pleasant 
indeed  ;  then  you  will  forget  Mason 
and  his  ridiculous  ideas." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

"  ARE  you  going  fishing  again  this 
morning?"  inquired  Hugh  next  day 
as  James  Bryant  appeared  at  break- 
fast. 

"I've  seen  better  sport,  perhaps," 
answered  that  gentleman;  "but  I 
caught  four  pounds  of  trout  yesterday 
in  three  hours,  and  that  is  too  good 
to  leave." 

"You  seem  to  have  got  on  well 
with  your  host,"  observed  Hugh. 

"He's  not  a  bad  little  chap," 
returned  Bryant ;  "  though  I  confess 
I  like  him  best  when  he's  out  of 
sight, — say,  round  the  next  bend  in 
the  stream.  At  any  rate  he  can  fish ; 
I  never  saw  a  fly  better  thrown  in 
my  life.  He  says  I  am  to  fish  as 
much  as  I  like,  provided  I  give  him 
notice  when  I'm  going,  so  that  he 
can  accompany  me  when  business 
permits." 

"  I  shouldn't  care  to  fish  under 
those  conditions,"  observed  Hugh. 

"  Now  there  you  go ! "  said  his 
friend,  pausing,  coffee-cup  in  hand,  to 
look  at  him.  "  There  you  go,  off  on 
one  of  your  unreasonable  dislikes  at 
once.  I  don't  want  to  pry  into  your 
affairs  :  I  don't  [here  he  raised  his 
hand  to  enjoin  the  silence  which 
Hugh  seemed  disposed  to  break]  wish 
to  know  anything  about  them ;  but  it 
does  strike  me  as  an  unfortunate 
thing  for  you  to  have  taken  this 
aversion  to  Miss  Thayne's  only  guar- 
dian. At  least  I  suppose  he's  her 
only  guardian.  In  certain  circum- 
stances he  might  make  it  unpleasant 
for  you,  I  think.  Miss  Thayne  is  not 
yet  of  age." 

"  You  are  such  a  confoundedly 
cold-blooded  fellow,"  cried  Hugh 
hastily.  "  How  can  you  talk  about 
my  unreasonable  aversion  to  a  little 
monster  like  that  1 " 

"  He  didn't  make  himself,  poor 
man,"  resumed  Bryant  imperturbably. 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


171 


"  He  can't  help  being  a  hunchback. 
Perhaps  his  nurse  dropped  him  when 
he  was  a  baby." 

"  You  saw  how  he  behaved  to  that 
poor  old  crazy  uncle  of  his  the  other 
night,"  pursued  Hugh ;  "  it  was 
simply  disgraceful.  As  for  his  con- 
duct towards  Phoebe, — er — I  mean 
Miss  Thayne,  it  won't  bear  thinking 
about ;  the  way  he  tried  to  prevent 
her  coaxing  him  away  from  his  gamb- 
ling ! " 

"  How  many  letters  did  you  write 
while  I  was  fishing,  eh  1 "  asked  his 
friend  who  had  made  a  pretty  shrewd 
guess  as  to  his  occupation.  "Was  it 
'  Phoebe  '  or  '  Miss  Thayne  '  ? " 

"  No,  we  haven't  got  to  Phoebe 
yet,"  returned  Hugh  with  much  self- 
possession,  "but — 

"  But  you  live  in  hopes,"  supplied 
Bryant. 

"Yes.  Oh,  Bryant,  if  I  could 
only  make  you  understand  what  sort 
of  a  woman  she  is,  how  simple, 
and— 

"There,  that  will  do,"  said  his 
friend  decisively,  but  not  unsym- 
pathetically.  "  Don't  waste  your 
raptures  on  an  unappreciative  soul 
like  me ;  take  'em  where  they'll  be 
valued."  And  with  this  remark  he 
rose  from  the  table  and  went  off  to 
make  ready  his  fishing-tackle. 

During  the  next  two  days  Hugh 
walked  about  the  village,  and  tramped 
for  miles  along  the  lanes  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood by  way  of  passing  the  time  ; 
for  though  he  would  fain  have  again 
explored  that  shrubbery-path,  his 
modesty  forbade,  and  it  was  only  on 
the  third  day  that  he  once  more  bent 
his  steps  in  that  direction.  This 
time  fortune  favoured  him  for,  turn- 
ing in  at  the  wicket  was  the  very 
person  he  most  wished  to  see,  and 
with  her  old  Dennis  Dene,  who  held 
open  the  gate  in  the  most  hospitable 
manner. 

"  Come  in,  pray  come  in,"  he  said. 


"  I  am  very  glad  to  have  met  you 
again.  Some  day  we  will  go  over  the 
picture  gallery  together  when  my 
memory  is  less  fatigued."  ' 

Of  course  Hugh  responded  to  this 
invitation  and  greeted  Phoebe  without 
any  fear  of  not  being  equally  wel- 
come. 

"  Good  morning,  Mr.  Strong,"  she 
said ;  "  you  are  still  here  then  ?  I 
had  begun  to  think  you  must  have 
returned  to  town." 

"  I  will  leave  you  for  a  few 
minutes,  my  love,"  said  her  uncle, 
preparing  to  walk  on. 

"  Where  are  you  going  ? "  cried  the 
girl. 

"  Only  to  fetch  my  violin,  Phoebe," 
he  answered,  like  some  docile  child. 
"You  do  not  mind,  do  you?  Mr. 
Strong  will  stay  here  till  my  return. 
I  shall  not  be  long." 

Mr.  Strong  easily  fell  in  with  this 
fortunate  arrangement,  and  seated 
himself  beside  Phoebe  with  a  com- 
fortable sense  of  anticipation.  "  I 
was  beginning  to  think  that  I  should 
not  see  you  again,  Miss  Thayne,"  he 
began. 

"  You  see  we  have  no  visitors," 
answered  the  girl  with  a  smile.  "  We 
are  like  hermits ;  so  I  do  not  very 
well  see  how  we  could  have  seen  you 
at  all  if  I  had  not  happened  to  stroll 
past  the  drawing-room  windows  the 
other  day  when  you  were  calling, 
Somehow  I  do  not  think  Mason  likes 
me  to  see  visitors.  Probably  he 
thinks  me  too  unused  to  society." 

"  I  hardly  think  that  is  the  reason," 
said  Hugh.  "  But  I  am  very  glad  we 
have  met  again,  especially  since  our 
last  conversation.  I  wanted  to  tell 
you  that  if  you  can  give  me  the  names 
of  any  books  you  want  to  read,  I  will 
have  them  sent  down  to  you  from 
London." 

"  Oh,  that  would  be  delightful  !  " 
cried  Phoebe.  "  But  unfortunately  I 
don't  know  what  to  choose.  I  always- 


172 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


read  the  reviews  of  books  in  the 
papers,  but  I  don't  think  they  help 
one  much.  If  you  could  make  a 
selection  for  me  now,  say  three  or  four 
books,  I  should  be  so  much  obliged. 
I  have  some  money  of  my  own  ;  if 
you  would  not  mind  getting  cheap 
copies,  or  second-hand  ones  would  do 
quite  well,  in  case  I  have  not 
enough — 

"  Indeed  I  could  not  dream  of  such 
a  thing,"  answered  this  wily  lover. 
"  I  hope  you  will  allow  me  to  lend 
them  to  you,  Miss  Thayne  ;  you  can 
return  them  at  your  own  con- 
venience." He  had  been  on  the 
point  of  insisting  that  he  would  make 
her  a  present  of  the  proposed  volumes, 
but  recollecting  that  a  loan  involved 
future  communication,  he,  with  much 
presence  of  mind,  made  use  of  this 
bright  idea. 

"  That  is  really  very  kind  of  you," 
said  Phoebe  gratefully  ;  "I  shall  be  so 
pleased  to  have  them.  Only  do  not 
send  me  anything  too  difficult.  When 
are  you  going  to  London  1  " 

Hugh  privately  felt  this  question  a 
little  undue,  and  wondered  if  she 
wanted  to  get  rid  of  him.  "Oh,  in  a 
few  days,  I  expect,"  he  answered. 
"My  friend  Bryant  stays  for  the  sake 
of  the  fishing  that  your  cousin  so 
kindly  gives  him,  and  I, — of  course 
I  stay  for  the  sake  of  his  company," 
he  added  mendaciously. 

"  He  is  an  old  friend  then  1  "  asked 
Phoebe. 

"  Oh,  yes,  and  one  of  the  best 
fellows  that  ever  lived.  I  use  to  fag 
for  him  at  school.  He  was  one  of  the 
big  boys  when  I  was  a  very  little  one, 
— he  is  a  good  deal  older  than  I  am — 
and  was  a  very  good  friend  to  me. 
He  never  let  any  one  lick  me  except 
himself." 

At  this  point  the  distant  sound  of 
a  violin  made  itself  audible,  and  in  a 
few  seconds  old  Dennis  Dene  re- 
appeared, playing  some  random  chords 


as  he  advanced  towards  them.  "  I 
will  sit  here,  my  love,"  he  called  to 
Phoebe,  seating  himself  at  the  same 
time  on  a  tree  stump  at  a  short  dis- 
tance. "Then  I  shall  not  disturb 
your  talking.  I  want  to  try  over  a 
tune  I  seem  to  remember." 

Never  was  a  crazy  old  man  so 
delightfully  accommodating  !  Sitting 
thus,  within  sight  but  out  of  ear- 
shot, he  presented  a  most  picturesque 
spectacle,  with  the  violin  laid  lovingly 
upon  his  shoulder,  while  the  flickering 
sunlight  through  the  branches  over- 
head touched  his  white  locks  and 
beard  with  gleams  of  silver.  His 
long  cloak  was  flung  back,  and  on  the 
middle  finger  of  the  hand  that  was 
holding  the  bow  was  an  old  oriental 
ring, — a  flat  piece  of  bloodstone  set 
heavily  in  silver.  Somehow  that 
quaint  and  uncommon  ornament 
seemed  to  give  the  finishing  touch  of 
perfection  to  his  strange  appearance. 
Upon  the  hand  of  a  commonplace 
individual  it  might  have  looked  cum- 
bersome, but  it  seemed  thoroughly 
appropriate  to  its  present  wearer. 

Hugh's  eyes  involuntarily  followed 
Phoebe's  as  she  looked  across  at  her 
uncle,  and  when  she  turned  she  noted 
the  interest  of  his  expression.  "  He 
looks  like  Zanoni,"  he  said. 

"  Who  was  Zanoni  1 " 

"  Zanoni  was — no,  I  won't  spoil 
your  pleasure  by  anticipating.  That 
shall  be  one  of  the  books  I  am  to  lend 
you,  Miss  Thayne ;  then  you  will 
know  all  about  him." 

"  It  is  sad  to  see  any  one  like  that, 
isn't  it  ?  "  she  said,  her  face  clouding 
a  little  as  she  still  looked  at  the  old 
man. 

"Very  sad.  Has  he  been  long 
so?" 

"For  some  time  he  used  to  have 
strange  moody  fits,  and  now  and  then 
get  dreadfully  impatient  and  excited  ; 
but  he  has  been  rather  childish  and 
gentle,  as  you  see  him  now,  for  about 


The  Secret  of  Saint  FloreL 


173 


two  years,  I  should  think.  It  was 
Anthony  brought  him  to  this,"  she 
added  in  an  angry  tone. 

"  Anthony  ?  Your  cousin,  do  you 
mean  1 " 

"  Yes.  I  am  glad  that  he  is  dead, 
though  it  seems  a  wicked  thing  to  say, 
for  now  he  can  do  no  more  harm." 

"  But  what  had  he  to  do  with  Mr. 
Dene's  condition  1  " 

"  I  will  tell  you,"  said  Phoebe  ;  "  it 
is  rather  a  long  story,  and  I  should 
think  a  very  strange  one.     It  happened 
in  this  way.     "When   my    uncle    was 
quite  young  he  had  a  terrible  passion 
for  gaming.     I  believe  he   lost  very 
largely ;  but  he   fell  in  love    with   a 
beautiful  girl,  the  Lady  Lucilla,  whose 
portrait    you    saw    the     other     day  ; 
and  she  had  such  influence  over  him 
that  for  many  years  he  did  not  gamble 
at    all.       She    was     very    sweet    and 
gentle,    and  I  remember  how    some- 
times, when  I  was  a  very  little  child, 
she  used  to  stroke  my  hair  and  kiss 
me,  and  say  how  she  wished   she  had 
had  a  little  girl  like  me.      She  had  no 
children,   and  when  she    died    nearly 
fifteen  years  ago,  my  uncle  was  heart- 
broken.     About  two  years  afterwards, 
when  his  sorrow  was  still  making  him 
restless  and    irritable,    Anthony    one 
day  turned  some  dice  out  of  a  little 
old  box  that  had  been  hidden  away 
and  forgotten,  and  the  sight  of  them 
seemed  to  rouse  my    uncle's    passion 
again.      He  did  not  do  anything  then, 
only  looked  at  the  hateful  little  blocks 
very  strangely ;  but  afterwards  when 
Anthony    came    of    age    he  began  to 
incite  my  uncle  to  play.      In  a  little 
while  he  succeeded,  and  nearly  always 
when  they  played  Anthony  won.      I 
believe   he   played   fairly,    but    I    am 
sure  he  acted  upon  a  settled  plan,  and 
that  plan  was  to  gradually  win   from 
my  uncle  all  he  had,  and   take  every- 
thing himself." 

"And  did  he  succeed?"  asked  Hugh 
as  the  girl  paused. 


"  Yes,  I  believe  so,"  asked  Phoebe. 
"But  Anthony  and  Mason  helped  each 
other,  and  kept  everything^very  quiet. 
Of  course  they  never  told  me  anything, 
but  I  know  that  what  I  am  saying 
is  true.  By  degrees  Anthony  won 
everything ;  all  the  money  and  the 
family  portraits  that  my  uncle  thinks 
are  still  there,  and  then,  I  believe,  the 
estate  too.  No  one  seems  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  it  now,  except 
Anthony  and  Mason.  Of  course  I 
don't  know  whether  that  is  because 
of  my  uncle  not  being  quite  able  to 
manage  his  own  affairs,  or  not ;  but 
it  may  be  because  nothing  belongs  to 
him  now." 

"  Have  you  no  other  relations, 
Miss  Thayne,  no  one  who  could  take 
charge  of  you,  for  instance,  and  give 
you  a  happier  life  than  you  lead 
now  1 " 

"  No,"  she  answered,  rather  sadly  ; 
"I  do  not  think  I  have  any  other 
relations,  certainly  none  who  would 
care  to  trouble  themselves  with  me. 
Besides,"  she  added,  "I  would  not 
leave  my  uncle  for  worlds.  I  am  the 
only  pleasure  he  has  left,  I  think, 
except  his  gaming." 

"  Does  "he  play  now,  then  1 "  asked 
Hugh,  remembering  the  curious  scene 
he  had  witnessed  when  concealed 
behind  the  rhododendron  bushes. 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  that  was  Anthony's  idea 
too,  and  Mason  has  kept  it  up  ever 
since  he  went  away  three  years  ago. 
He  had  a  lot  of  bright  brass  coins 
made,  looking  like  sovereigns,  and 
when  Mason  is  angry  with  me,  or  feels 
dull  and  wants  to  amuse  himself,  he 
sets  to  work  to  gamble  with  my  poor 
uncle.  It  is  very  dreadful,  for  I  can 
scarcely  get  him  away  from  his  dice 
sometimes,  and  he  is  always  more 
strange  and  persistent  for  several 
days  after  the  excitement.  I  think 
it  makes  him  remember  his  youth, 
and  the  day  when  his  wife  persuaded 
him  to  give  up  play.  When  I  try  to 


174 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


make  him  leave  off  he  often  calls  me 
Lucy,  and  then  I  know  he  mistakes 
me  for  her." 

"  But, — pardon  the  expression, 
Miss  Thayne — your  cousin  must  be  a 
perfect  fiend." 

"Well,"  she  said  calmly,  "I  am 
not  quite  sure.  I  do  not  think  he 
would  offer  any  real  violence  to  my 
uncle  or  even  allow  it  to  be  offered, 
and  he  has  never  done  me  any  harm. 
I  do  not  like  him,  but  I  do  not  think 
he  really  dislikes  me.  He  has  never 
refused  me  any  reasonable  request, 
except  to  go  away  somewhere  for 
change  of  air ;  and  as  I  have  no  one 
to  go  with,  he  pointed  out  that  that 
would  be  impossible." 

"  He  could  easily  find  you  a 
chaperon  surely." 

"  Only  at  some  expense,  Mr. 
Strong ;  and,  as  both  my  cousins 
have  often  told  me,  I  have  no  money 
of  my  own.  My  uncle  took  charge  of 
me  as  an  orphan ;  and  since  he  has 
become  deranged  Mason  and  Anthony 
have  looked  after  me,  in  order,  as 
they  say,  to  carry  out  my  uncle's 
wishes." 

"  You  are  very  easily  satisfied, 
Miss  Thayne,"  observed  Hugh. 

"  Satisfied,"  echoed  the  girl,  "  satis- 
fied !  Why,  Mr.  Strong,  do  yon 
imagine  that  the  life  I  lead  satisfies 
me  ?  If  I  had  not  come  to  the  con- 
clusion a  long  time  ago  that  one  was 
not  born  in  order  to  be  satisfied  and 
happy,  I  should  often  be  very  miser- 
able. As  it  is,  I  bow  to  the  inevitable. 
It  is  my  fate,  and  I  must  make  the 
best  of  it,  and  get  as  much  pleasure 
out  of  my  narrow  existence  as  I  can. 
At  any  rate  I  am  some  comfort  to 
him,"  and  she  pointed  to  the  quaint 
figure  under  the  trees. 

There  was  the  slightest  quiver  in 
her  voice  as  she  said  the  last  words, 
and  if  Hugh  had  chanced  to  look  at 
her,  he  would  have  seen  that  there 
were  bright  tears  in  her  eyes.  He 


had  fallen  to  thinking  of  the  strict 
conditions  under  which  this  bright 
and  beautiful  piece  of  womanhood 
existed.  Here  was  a  maiden  with, 
(if  he  excepted  himself)  no  chance  of 
a  lover ;  with  a  mind  longing  to 
exercise  its  powers  in  the  arena  of 
life,  with  a  heart  full  of  the  affection 
which  should  have  had  husband, 
children,  and  friends  to  cherish,  and 
which  perforce  bestowed  all  its 
generous  sweetness  and  patience  upon 
a  poor  half-crazed  old  man.  He 
shrank  a  little  from  the  picture  he 
himself  had  evoked,  but  his  reflections 
had  only  confirmed  him  in  the  diligent 
pursuit  of  his  wooing,  and  the  loving 
compassion  which  Phoebe  had  in- 
spired. 

"  You  need  not  look  so  grave,  Mr. 
Strong/'  she  began  again,  with  a  little 
laugh.  "  I  am  not  so  unhappy  as 
youmight  think, — at  least  not  always," 
she  corrected  herself  truthfully. 
"  For  instance  I  am  not  at  all  un- 
happy enough  to  despair,  or  invariably 
to  submit.  Sometimes,  I  assure  you, 
I  am  very  wicked  and  revengeful." 

"  I  don't  think  your  revenge  could 
be  a  very  fearful  affair,"  said  Hugh 
smiling. 

"Not  fearful,  perhaps,"  she  admitted 
candidly,  "  but  sufficiently  annoying. 
For  instance,  I  will  tell  you,  if  it  does 
not  bore  you — 

"  No,  no,"  interrupted  Hugh, 
hastily. 

"  What  I  did  the  other  day,  Mon- 
day, when  you  and  Mr.  Bryant  came, 
was  really  one  of  my  revenges,"  she 
continued.  "  It  was  rather  too  bad 
of  me,  I  own,  seeing  it  involved  two 
strangers,  but  I  had  good  reasons  for 
what  I  did.  On  Sunday  night  Mason 
enticed  my  uncle  into  one  of  his 
gambling  bouts.  I  entreated  him  not 
to  do  it,  as  it  always  made  him  so  ill 
afterwards,  but  he  paid  no  attention 
to  me.  The  next  day,  as  you  know, 
you  called,  and  when  I  heard  my  poor 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


175 


uncle  asking  for  me  outside  the 
drawing-room  door,  and  when  I  saw 
him  come  in,  I  determined  to  do 
something  I  knew  Mason  would  dis- 
like ;  so  I  backed  my  uncle  up  when 
he  wanted  to  take  you  into  the  picture- 
gallery,  in  spite  of  my  cousin,  who 
was  very  anxious  you  should  not  go. 
I  had  my  way,  you  see." 

"  But  what  did  your  cousin  say 
afterwards  ?  Wasn't  he  very  angry 
with  you  1 "  inquired  Hugh. 

"  No ;  he  was  just  as  suave  as 
usual,  and  behaved  with  extraordinary 
politeness.  You  don't  understand 
Mason  yet,  Mr.  Strong  ;  and  I  hope 
you  may  never  have  to  know  enough 
of  him  to  do  so.  He  may  be  as 
angry  as  it  is  possible  for  a  human 
being  to  be,  but  you  will  never 
be  quite  sure  of  it.  He  keeps  his 
rage  perfectly  quiet  till  he  gets  a 
chance  of  retaliation,  and  then  he 
revenges  himself  in  an  equally  quiet 
fashion ;  and  if  you  storm  or  get 
angry  yourself,  he  only  grows  more 
considerate  and  polite  in  his  manner. 
He  is  the  most  inhuman  creature 
you  can  conceive,  Mr.  Strong.  He 
never  betrays  himself  :  but  he  is  not 
a  man  to  play  with.  Sometimes, 
after  I  have  vexed  him,  I  feel  afraid 
of  my  own  daring,  and  wonder  what 
unpleasant  thing  will  happen  next." 

"  He  can't  be  very  nice  to  live  with, 
I  should  think,"  observed  Hugh, 
deeply  interested. 

"  I  don't  live  with  him  more  than 
I  can  help,"  said  Phoebe.  "  We  have 
our  meals  together,  but  beyond  that 
I  do  not  see  much  of  him.  I'll  tell 
you  what  he  did  once,  two  years  ago. 
I  had  made  him, — I  can't  say  very 
angry,  that  would  apply  to  an  ordinary 
being — but  extra  polite,  which  is  his 
equivalent,  about  something,  I  forget 
what,  and  then  at  dinner  that  day  my 
dog  bit  him.  I  was  very  fond  of  the 
poor  thing,  and  Mason  teased  it  till 
it  snapped.  The  bite  was  a  mere 


nothing  :  it  hardly  broke  the  skin ; 
but  it  tore  Mason's  new  coat,  and  he 
loves  his  clothes  better  than  anything 
else,  I  think.  I  had  a  sort  of  idea 
that  he  would  try  and  revenge  him- 
self on  the  poor  dog,  and  for  three 
weeks  I  never  let  him  out  of  my 
sight.  At  the  end  of  that  time,  how- 
ever, one  unlucky  morning  I  went  out 
without  him,  and  when  I  came  back 
he  had  been  shot." 

"Shot!"  echoed  Hugh.  "You 
don't  mean  to  say  he  was  such  a  brute 
as  to  shoot  your  dog  ?  " 

"  Indeed  he  was  !  "  answered  Phoebe. 
"  But  when  I  reproached  him  he 
never  even  answered  me  on  the  sub- 
ject. Being  angry  with  Mason  is  like 
dashing  one's  self  on  a  rock ;  you  get 
tired,  but  the  rock  doesn't  move.  A 
month  later  he  had  a  stone  put  up  to 
mark  the  dog's  grave,  with  its  name 
and  the  date  on  it." 

"  And  what  did  he  say  to  you 
about  that  1 "  asked  Hugh,  who  felt 
that  he  was  rapidly  obtaining  an  in- 
sight into  a  new  and  most  peculiar 
character. 

"  He  never  even  alluded  to  it,  and 
neither  did  I,"  answered  the  girl. 
"  I  am  srire  he  had  it  done  as  a  sort 
of  testimony  that  his  revenge  was 
satisfied,  and  that  he  bore  no  malice 
either  against  the  dog  or  myself." 

"  You  have  told  me  a  very  strange 
story,"  said  Hugh. 

"  It  is  quite  time  I  took  my  uncle 
home,"  said  Phcebe,  "  and  I  am  afraid 
I  have  been  boring  you  with  a  great 
deal  of  uninteresting  talk.  After  all 
you  are  a  stranger,  and  I  should  not 
have  troubled  you  in  this  way.  It  is 
because  of  my  solitary  life,  I  am 
afraid  ;  I  should  be  inclined  to  talk 
to  any  one  when  I  get  the  chance. 
You  must  forgive  me." 

"  Indeed,"  he  said  earnestly,  "  you 
owe  me  no  apology,  Miss  Thayne, 
quite  the  contrary  ;  I  have  been  in- 
tensely interested.  As  for  my  being 


176 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


a  stranger,  I  hope  you  will  dismiss 
that  idea  too  ;  surely  now  you  hardly 
consider  me  as  a  stranger,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Well,  no,"  she  said  smiling,  and 
holding  out  her  hand  to  say  good-bye. 
"  Since  you  are  so  kind  as  not  to  wish 
to  be  considered  a  stranger,  I  will  say 
an  acquaintance." 

"  Something  better  than  that,"  he 
urged,  holding  her  hand  a  little  longer 
than  was  positively  needful  for  polite- 
ness. "  You  have  honoured  me  very 
much  by  your  confidence,  Miss 
Thayne.  May  I  not  call  myself  a — 
friend  ? " 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said  brightly,  "I 
shall  be  delighted.  I  have  never  had 
a  friend."  Then  as  she  looked  into 
his  frank  and  honest  face,  her  cheeks 
flushed,  and  she  turned  away  to  seek 
her  uncle  with  some  confusion. 


Old  Dennis  Dene  stood  up  as  she 
approached,  and  putting  his  violin 
under  his  cloak,  folded  that  garment 
about  him,  and  offered  Phoebe  his 
arm.  "  Good-day,  sir,"  he  said,  ap- 
proaching Hugh,  and  gratifying  him 
with  a  most  stately  and  magnificent 
bow.  "  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  you 
for  so  kindly  entertaining  my  niece, 
and  indeed  for  helping  me,  too.  I 
have  been  rehearsing  a  most  intricate 
piece  of  composition,  sir,  and  the 
sound  of  your  voices  has  been  of  much 
assistance  to  me.  It  was  like  the 
murmur  of  bees,  soothing,  very  sooth- 
ing ;  and  my  brain,  sir, — a  great 
brain,  if  you  will  pardon  me — requires 
ease  and  rest.  I  am  extremely  obliged." 

And  with  another  bow  he  replaced 
his  hat  with  a  wide  nourish,  and 
turned  homewards  with  Phoebe. 


(To  be  continued.} 


177 


THE    ENGLISH   SETTLEMENT   OF   CANADA. 


THE  loyalists  of  the  Revolutionary 
War  have  been  treated  by  historians 
with  scant  justice.  Their  excesses 
have  been  emphasised,  their  virtues 
and  their  fidelity  ignored,  their  im- 
perishable work,  so  far  as  the  mother 
country  is  concerned,  almost  forgotten. 
Most  people  have  some  sort  of  notion 
that  the  Cavaliers  founded  Virginia, 
whereas  they  merely  stimulated  its 
development.  Comparatively  few  re- 
member that  the  loyalist  refugees  from 
the  United  States  created  Canada. 

The  British  Settlements  in  what  are 
now  Nova  Scotia,  Prince  Edward's  Is- 
land, and  New  Brunswick  were  of 
little  consideration,  and  the  great  pro- 
vince of  Ontario  an  untrodden  wilder- 
ness, at  the  period  when  so  many 
thousands  of  these  exiles  entered  into 
an  inheritance  that  seemed  to  them 
at  the  time  the  abomination  of  desola- 
tion, the  very  Ultima  Thule  of  the 
earth.  The  average  of  education,  of 
ability,  and  of  character  among  these 
fugitive  bands  was,  from  the  nature  of 
the  case,  extremely  high ;  and  while 
this  fact  accentuated  perhaps  the  hard- 
ships of  their  poverty  and  primitive 
existence,  they  possessed  at  the  same 
time  experience  and  powers  of  adapta- 
bility far  beyond  that  which  would 
belong  to  settlers  straight  from  Europe. 
It  would  be  an  interesting  reflection 
for.  those  who  concern  themselves  with 
such  questions,  as  to  the  course  of 
development  which  these  northern 
provinces  might  have  taken  had 
George  the  Third  allowed  the  thirteen 
colonies  to  pursue  the  even  tenor  of 
their  contented  way. 

Few  people,  however,  could  read 
even  the  most  partial  accounts  of  the 

No.  441. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


Revolutionary  War  without  feeling 
that  the  treatment  of  those  colonists 
who  were  not  disposed  to  change  their 
allegiance  was  the  greatest  blot  upon 
the  cause  of  independence.  Look  at 
it  how  we  will,  make  every  reasonable 
allowance  for  the  exigencies  of  civil 
war  and  self-defence,  no  sort  of  justi- 
fication remains  for  the  savage  treat- 
ment during  the  war,  and  the  relent- 
less persecution  afterwards,  of  those 
who  had  honestly  espoused  the  losing 
side.  It  is  openly  deplored  by  the 
best  American  writers ;  it  is  admitted 
by  negation,  or  by  still  feebler  apology, 
in  the  works  of  more  partial  and  less 
discriminating  authors ;  while  it  was 
condemned  at  the  time  with  outspoken 
vehemence  by  those  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary leaders  whose  memories  their 
countrymen  most  revere.  If  the  vio- 
lence with  which  the  loyalists  were 
treated  in  the  actual  heat  of  the  com- 
bat is  deplorable,  the  unrelenting  ven- 
geance with  which  they  were  pursued 
when  the  struggle  was  over  is  still 
less  creditable.  Almost  as  culpable, 
too,  seems  the  action  of  the  English 
Government  in  neglecting  to  make 
terms  at  the  Treaty  of  Paris  for  their 
American  subjects  who  had  both  dared 
and  suffered  so  much  on  their  account. 
And  this  would,  in  truth,  have  been 
no  difficult  matter.  The  British  were 
still  in  possession  of  several-  seaports 
as  well  as  the  Western  posts,  and  well 
able  to  exercise  considerable  pressure  ; 
whereas  all  they  attempted  was  per- 
suasion. 

The  property  and  the  estates  of  the 
loyalists,  both  during  and  at  the  close 
of  the  war,  were  confiscated  wholesale. 
It  was  not  those  alone  who  took  up 

N 


178 


The  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


arms,  nor  even  those  only  who  were 
known  to  sympathise  with  the  loyal 
side,  that  were  punished  and  despoiled. 
Local  committees,  steeped  in  prejudice 
and  passion,  too  often  used  their 
powers  for  the  gratification  of  private 
spite.  It  was  not  the  men  who  had 
been  foremost  in  the  field,  who  when 
the  sword  was  sheathed  cherished  this 
implacable  spirit.  It  was  not  Ameri- 
cans of  the  stamp  of  Washington  or 
Hamilton,  of  Green  or  Schuyler,  as 
will  readily  be  imagined,  who  took 
part  in  this  ignoble  work.  They  in- 
deed bitterly  denounced  it ;  and  even 
Patrick  Henry  risked  that  popularity 
which  to  a  mere  orator  is  the  very 
breath  of  life,  by  urging  moderation. 
The  party  of  independence  had,  after 
all,  not  taken  up  arms  against  tyranny 
of  a  physical  kind  or  against  a  yoke  like 
Alva's  ;  it  is  the  more  honour  to  them 
that  they  should  have  risked  their 
lives  and  fortunes  for  a  principle. 
But  for  this  very  reason  their  neigh- 
bours, who  thought  differently  or  who 
objected  to  changing  their  allegiance, 
were  surely  by  so  much  the  less  de- 
serving of  wholesale  confiscation,  ban- 
ishment, and  death ;  and  many  of 
these  unfortunate  sufferers,  it  must  be 
remembered,  belonged  to  the  most 
honoured  and  respected  families  in 
the  colonies. 

It  is  true  indeed  that  during  the 
war  the  passions  of  both  sides  rose  to 
fever  heat,  and  that  the  Tories  in 
many  districts  were  quite  numerous 
enough  to  resent  the  cruel  attacks 
upon  them  by  retaliations  of  a  like 
description.  To  quibble  about  the 
exact  proportion  of  outrage  to  be 
attributed  to  either  side  is  purpose- 
less. It  is  at  any  rate  certain  that 
the  Revolutionists  were  in  most  cases 
the  aggressors  ;  but  the  detailed  his- 
tory of  this  period  has  been  written 
almost  wholly  by  Americans,  and  the 
poor  Tory  in  their  hands  has  met, 
upon  the  whole,  with  scant  justice. 


He  was  not  only  shot,  hanged,  ruined, 
tarred  and  feathered,  but  he  has  been 
execrated  by  posterity  for  resenting 
such  treatment.  .  Even  the  most 
liberal-minded  of  American  historians 
have  represented  him  as  in  great 
measure  the  scum  of  the  population  ; 
the  good  people  in  their  pages  are  all 
Revolutionists,  the  wicked  people  all 
Tories.  But  what  one  would  really 
like  to  know,  and  what  it  is  quite 
certain  we  never  shall  know,  is  the 
proportion  of  the  three  million  colo- 
nists in  the  War  of  Independence  who 
of  their  own  free  will  took  active  part 
or  even  exhibited  active  sympathy  for 
either  side.  There  is  no  evidence 
whatever  to  show  that  it  was  a  large 
one.  Indeed,  considering  the  extent 
of  territory,  and  how  necessarily 
limited  was  the  actual  theatre  of  the 
strife,  it  was  only  natural  that  a 
majority  should  have  waited  till  the 
last  moment  to  see  which  side  success 
seemed  likely  to  favour.  The  neutral, 
or  at  least  wavering,  class  was  beyond 
doubt  immense,  particularly  in  the 
middle  and  southern  colonies.  The 
actual  combatants  throughout  these 
seven  years  were  but  a  fraction  of  the 
full  fighting  strength  ;  and  one  hardly 
knows  which  to  respect  most,  the  few 
thousand  men  who  stood  by  Washing- 
ton to  receive  only  moderate  thanks 
and  very  often  no  pay,  or  the  still 
smaller  band  that  gave  up  everything 
and  fought  with  equal  valour  for  their 
misguided  King.  The  others  whose 
active  sympathies  in  this  struggle 
were  exhibited  only  under  their  own 
roof-trees  do  not  commend  themselves 
tc\  posterity.  Of  this  sort  chiefly 
were  the  committees  who  undertook 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  all  men  who 
actually  were,  or  were  supposed  to  be, 
Torit's.  It  was  of  this  class,  too,  that 
Congress  was  latterly  composed,  and 
the  record  of  that  decadent  body 
throughout  the  war  needs  no  criticism 
of  ours  ;  it  has  been  sufficiently  dealt 


The  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


179 


with  by  every  American  writer  of 
distinction  from  that  day  to  this.  For 
the  apathy,  the  want  of  patriotism, 
the  selfishness  of  the  mass  of  the 
people  in  the  very  bitterest  hours  of 
the  strife,  Washington's  indignant, 
almost  fierce,  letters  would  be  sufficient 
evidence,  even  if  there  were  not  a 
mass  of  further  testimony  from  other 
sources. 

Few  probably  will  be  disposed  to 
deny  that  the  conduct  of  the  English 
was  no  less  stupid  than  exasperating. 
After  the  lesson  of  the  Stamp  Act  and 
its  repeal,  and  the  very  considerable 
return  to  the  good  feelings  of  former 
times,  the  blunder  of  the  tea-ships 
moves  one  almost  to  tears  as  we  read 
it.  Still  there  were  thousands  who 
regarded  the  matter  as  the  mere  vin- 
dication of  a  principle  that  would 
never  probably  be  forced  to  any  prac- 
tical conclusions ;  and,  strenuously  as 
they  denied  the  justice  or  the  equity 
of  the  contention,  they  fairly  con- 
sidered that  if  it  went  no  further  the 
occasion  was  not  one  for  armed  re- 
bellion. But  the  destruction  of  the 
charter  of  Massachusetts,  and  the 
forcible  suspension  of  popular  govern- 
ment in  a  colony  that,  above  all  others, 
had  been  the  architect  of  its  own  for- 
tunes, may  well  have  made  men,  who 
had  been  practically  independent  for 
nearly  two  hundred  years,  think  that 
life  might  be  no  longer  worth  living. 
It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that 
armed  resistance  and  independence 
were  for  some  time  very  different 
things  in  the  American  mind.  The 
former  upon  a  small  scale  had  been 
more  than  once  resorted  to ;  of  the 
latter  there  was  a  real  horror  as  of 
something  new  and  strange.  The 
change  from  this  mental  attitude, 
owing  to  various  causes  which  we 
need  not  now  stay  to  consider,  was 
singularly  sudden.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  great  numbers  of  really  patriotic 
colonists  could  not  reconcile  themselves 


to  so  rapid  a  transformation.  Some 
had  an  honest  dread  of  a  republic  ; 
others  regarded  a  permanent  confede- 
ration of  the  colonies  impossible,  and 
how  nearly  right  they  were  we  know, 
and  without  confederation  independ- 
ence would  have  been  ridiculous. 
Many,  again,  were  well  aware  that 
there  was  a  zealous  minority  in  Eng- 
land working  for  them,  while  the 
majority  was  strongly  suspected  to  be 
unrepresentative  and  was  known  to 
be  corrupt.  The  King,  too,  was  but 
mortal  and  might  die,  when  happier 
counsels  would  certainly  prevail  and 
halcyon  days  return.  The  loyalty  of 
a  colonist  is  even  in  these  days  in- 
clined, and  naturally  so,  to  be  of  a 
more  personal  kind  than  that  of  his 
fellow-subjects  at  home.  With  the 
earlier  Georges  this  difference  was  for 
obvious  reasons  still  more  accentuated. 
The  Americans  were  persuaded  for  a 
long  time  that  it  was  Parliament,  and 
not  the  King,  who  was  hostile  to  their 
liberties.  Those  notable  appeals  they 
addressed  at  the  eleventh  hour  to  the 
throne  were  not  merely  menaces  to 
the  British  people  sent  through  that 
formal  and  orthodox  channel,  as,  re- 
garding them  from  the  modern  stand- 
point, one  might  be  apt  to  suppose. 
They  were  wholly  personal  and  not 
without  some  pathetic  significance. 
When  it  was  at  last  borne  in  upon  the 
petitioners  that  it  was  the  monarch 
himself  who  was  their  arch  enemy, 
the  shock  was  considerable  and  the 
effect  immediate. 

When  Patrick  Henry  thundered 
out  in  the  Virginian  assembly,  "  Our 
petitions  have  been  spurned  from  the 
foot  of  the  throne,"  it  was  not  meta- 
phor nor  mere  oratory ;  he  meant  it 
literally,  and  it  was  taken  so.  One 
phase  of  the  struggle,  however,  gave 
special  impetus  to  the  loyalist  cause 
and  that  was  the  overtures  to  France. 
The  French  alliance  seemed  to  many 
to  mitigate  even  the  treachery  of 
N  2 


180 


The  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


Arnold,  who,  as  we  know,  pleaded  it, 
and  by  no  means  illogically,  as  his 
excuse.  Any  student  of  that  period 
can  understand  what  a  distasteful 
thing  to  most,  and  a  horrible  thing  to 
many,  must  have  been  this  joining 
hands  with  the  hereditary  foe.  The 
great  triumph  of  their  epoch  had  been 
achieved  at  his  expense  and  that,  too, 
so  recently.  He  was  only  known  and 
remembered  as  a  ceaseless  aggressor 
whose  path  was  strewn  with  scalps 
and  blood.  To  the  colonist,  who 
deplored  England's  policy  but  yet 
cherished  hopes  of  reconciliation,  the 
very  talk  of  a  French  alliance  must 
have  been  gall  indeed  ;  and  it  would 
be  a  strange  mind  that  could  not 
respect  the  consistency  which  refused 
to  join  in  a  bond  so  unnatural  against 
the  mother  country.  The  Americans, 
too,  it  must  be  remembered,  had  more 
than  once  refused  all  overtures.  Per- 
haps they  w«re  right,  but  we  are  con- 
sidering now,  not  the  verdict  of 
posterity,  but  the  standpoint  of  old- 
fashioned  people  over  a  hundred  years 
ago  who  had  to  choose  a  side  at  a 
moment's  notice.  Howe,  the  brother 
of  the  popular  nobleman  who  had 
been  the  idol  of  America  and  had 
fallen  among  their  militiamen  in  the 
woods  beside  Lake  George  twenty 
years  before,  was  commissioned  to  treat 
with  the  enemy  after  Burgoyne's 
defeat ;  but  they  would  not  even  hear 
him.  In  1778,  again,  Parliament 
were  prepared  to  grant  the  colonies 
everything  ;  but  it  was  then  too  late. 
Had  Chatham  lived  it  is  possible  he 
might  have  brought  peace ;  but  he 
fell,  and  as  strikingly  at  the  wrong 
moment  for  his  country  as  Wolfe  had 
fallen  at  the  right  moment  for  himself. 
As  it  was,  Congress  seems  to  have 
acted  hastily,  and  to  have  somewhat 
doubtfully  represented  the  true  wishes 
of  the  mass  of  the  American  people. 

We    know    what     a     minority     of 
Americans  were  thinking   and  doinsr 


during  this  protracted  struggle,  but 
of  the  great  majority  we  know  nothing ; 
there  is  no  record  of  them  ;  historians 
can  dispose  of  them  at  their  pleasure, 
as  indeed  they  do,  in  a  most  summary 
and  unconvincing  fashion.  The  situa- 
tion was  full  of  paradoxes.  Let  us 
take,  for  instance,  Virginia,  one  of  the 
most  representative  of  colonies.  Its 
population  was  large,  its  attitude  from 
the  first  bold  and  uncompromising. 
It  has  never  been  credited  with  a  large 
number  of  avowed  loyalists,  and  yet 
the  old  affection  for  the  mother  country 
was  altogether  different  from  that  of 
New  England.  It  was  given  over 
to  primogeniture  and  entail,  and  had 
been  ruled  by  an  aristocracy  for 
generations  without  protest.  This 
aristocracy  did  not  stand  for  the  King  ; 
on  the  contrary  they  were  foremost 
in  asserting  their  independence.  Yet 
in  the  war  the  proportion  of  soldiers 
to  join  Washington's  armies  was  small 
for  the  population,  and  even  this 
quota  contained  great  numbers  of 
Western  riflemen  who  were  practically 
outside  the  social  system  of  the  colony. 
"  Let  not  Congress  rely  on  Virginia 
for  soldiers,"  wrote  Patrick  Henry 
in  1778.  "They  will  get  no  more 
here  until  a  different  spirit  prevails." 
And  yet  what  happened  at  the  close 
of  the  war  to  the  cherished  usages 
of  a  powerful  and  large  upper  class 
that  to  every  appearance  took  the 
popular  side?  Primogeniture  and 
entail  were  swept  away,  though  there 
is  nothing  perhaps  so  very  peculiar  in 
this,  except  that  their  abolition  was 
proposed  and  accepted  as  if  the  revolu- 
tion had  been  a  domestic  and  social 
one.  But  the  treatment  of  the 
ancient  and  venerable  Church  of 
nearly  the  whole  educated  class  of 
the  colony  was  the  most  remarkable. 
It  was  not  merely  that  the  Church  of 
Virginia  was  disestablished ;  that 
would  have  been  perhaps  natural  and 
at  any  rate  of  small  significance ;  but 


The  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


181 


it  was  practically  destroyed,  and  for 
a  time  literally  ceased  to  exist.  To 
suppose  that  the  gentry  of  Virginia, 
because  they  had  quarrelled  with 
England,  were  anxious  to  give  up  the 
faith  of  their  fathers  and  turn  Quaker, 
Presbyterian,  or  Lutheran,  is,  of 
course,  ridiculous.  And  yet  this 
powerful  class,  who,  so  far  from  re- 
sisting the  people,  took  themselves  a 
lead  in  the  revolutionary  movement, 
^allowed  their  parish  churches  to  be 
plundered  and  even  destroyed  and 
their  creed  treated  with  sacrilegious 
contumely.  The  Episcopal  communion 
was  denied  legal  equality  with  the 
Dissenting  bodies,  and  was  not  even 
.allowed  to  form  itself  into  a  corpora- 
tion. Not  only  were  its  glebes  and 
edifices  sold,  but  its  private  legacies 
were  alienated  and  the  very  com- 
munion-plate seized  and  dissipated. 
At  this  treatment  of  their  Church  the 
great  ruling  class  of  Virginia  appar- 
ently looked  timidly  on,  and,  it  is  to  be 
presumed,  said  their  prayers  at  home, 
for  it  was  many  years  before  the  old 
Church  crept  apologetically  out  of 
holes  and  corners  to  begin  a  new 
career  which  has  never  since  been 
worthy,  either  in  intellect  or  vigour, 
of  a  commonwealth  that  was  originally 
its  chief  defender.  This  is  one  of  the 
enigmas  of  the  War  of  Independence  ; 
and  it  seems  to  suggest  a  degree  of 
apathy  and  timidity  among  the 
dominant  class  that  is  strangely  at 
variance  with  accepted  notions. 

The  young  colony  of  Georgia 
.contained  probably  the  most  loyalists, 
.as  was  natural  from  its  comparatively 
.recent  settlement.  The  Carolinas, 
too,  have  sent  down  to  us  a  much 
.more  luminous  picture  of  their  con- 
dition during  the  war  than  the  more 
middle  colonies,  though  it  is,  in  truth, 
.a  sufficiently  dismal  one.  It  was 
here,  perhaps,  alone  that  civil  war 
raged  upon  a  considerable  scale,  for 
the  loyalists,  if  not  actually  stronger 


than  elsewhere,  were  more  decided 
both  in  speech  and  action.  The 
colony  of  New  York,  also,  was  very 
strong  in  its  loyalist  sympathies,  but 
the  continuous  presence  of  British 
troops  centralised  their  strength  and 
absorbed  it  into  the  regular  forces. 
The  Jerseys,  again,  had  been  very  far 
indeed  from  united  against  the 
British ;  but  the  behaviour  of  the 
Hessian  troops,  whose  employment  at 
all  had  been  an  irritating  item  in 
the  account  against  Great  Britain, 
greatly  damaged  the  royal  cause. 

But  in  the  Carolinas  a  shocking 
state  of  things  went  on  from  the 
moment  the  royal  forces  turned  their 
faces  southwards.  Hanging,  burning, 
shooting,  robbing  became  the  normal 
attitude  towards  each  other  of  men 
who  had  hitherto  been,  not  merely 
neighbours  and  friends,  but  often  even 
kin.  There  were  no  traditional 
enmities,  no  religious  divisions  worth 
mentioning,  no  geographical  or  racial 
cleavages.  But  upon  one  side  or  the 
other,  from  choice  or  compulsion,  men 
ranged  themselves  in  bitter  and  re- 
lentless strife.  From  the  affluent 
owners  of  rice  and  indigo  plantations 
near  the  'sea-coast  to  the  homelier 
yeomen  ploughing  the  red  uplands 
of  the  inland  districts,  from  the 
outlaws  of  the  pine  forests  to  the 
backwoodsmen  beneath  the  shadow  of 
the  Alleghanies,  all  were  partisans. 
Private  hate  and  personal  feuds 
increased  the  hideous  confusion.  It 
was  not  only  in  the  track  of  the 
regular  armies,  but  on  hundreds  of 
lonely  plantations,  that  brother  fought 
with  brother,  neighbour  with  neigh- 
bour. And  yet,  strange  to  say,  it 
was  here  that,  at  the  close  of  the 
struggle,  the  only  approach  to  an  offer 
of  reconciliation  was  made  by  the 
victors  to  the  vanquished. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  the  loyalists 
were  a  difficult  problem  to  both  the 
American  and  the  British  Govern- 


182 


The  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


ments,  though  the  former  solved  it  in 
summary,  and,  for  the  most  part, 
merciless  fashion.  Many  thousands 
were  with  the  King's  troops ;  as  many 
had  fled  the  country ;  while  the 
families  of  both  were  dragging  out  a 
miserable  existence  in  garrison  towns, 
or  suffering  continuous  persecution  in 
their  own  homes.  Great  numbers, 
again,  who  had  not  actually  taken  up 
arms  were  labelled  as  Tories,  some- 
times rightly  and  sometimes  wrongly. 
All,  however,  were  treated  alike,  or 
nearly  alike,  and  sentences  passed 
upon  them  of  banishment  and  confis- 
cation. South  Carolina,  curiously 
enough,  for  the  internecine  strife  had 
there  been  fiercest,  stood  alone  in 
some  measures  of  clemency.  The 
harsh  edicts  were  from  the  first 
leniently  interpreted  and  finally 
revoked,  the  confiscated  estates  under 
certain  conditions  being,  after  many 
years,  restored  to  their  lawful  owners. 
It  is  true  that  neglect  and  rapine  had 
so  injured  them  that  they  were  often 
of  little  value  ;  but  this,  after  all,  was 
not  the  fault  of  the  South  Carolinian 
Government,  and  due  credit  should  be 
given  to  them  for  their  comparative 
magnanimity. 

All  that  the  British  Government 
had  succeeded  in  securing  from  Con- 
gress at  the  treaty  of  peace  was  a 
promise  that  they  would  urge  the 
various  States  to  deal  leniently  with 
the  loyalists.  The  denunciation  in 
Parliament  of  this  failure  to  insure 
the  better  protection  o^  these  unhappy 
people  was  fierce  and  scathing.  Lord 
Shelburne,  who  was  then  Prime 
Minister,  scarcely  attempted  to  defend 
his  Government,  but  declared  with 
real  emotion  that  there  had  been 
literally  no  choice  between  such  poor 
efforts  as  they  had  been  able  to  make 
and  a  continuation  of  the  war.  Then, 
said  their  opponents,  till  this  point 
was  gained  the  war  should,  as  a 
matter  of  national  honour  and  not 


of    material    gain,    have    been    con- 
tinued. 

Unlike  South  Carolina,  Massa- 
chusetts, New  York,  and  Virginia 
were  relentless  in  their  attitude 
towards  their  unfortunate  fellow- 
countrymen.  As  usual,  those  who 
had  done  the  fighting  were  the  most 
inclined  towards  lenity,  those  who  had 
done  the  talking  the  most  relentless. 
John  Adams,  in  Massachusetts,  had 
from  the  first  been  a  warm  advocate 
for  "  hanging,  confiscating,  and  fining 
without  fear  or  affection,"  and  has 
left  his  regrets  in  writing  that  this 
policy  was  not  even  still  more  tho- 
roughly carried  out. 

Every  one,  however,  was  agreed  that 
something  must  be  done.  The  King's 
best  side  was  shown  in  his  activity  on 
behalf  of  the  unfortunates  who  had 
lost  all  in  his  cause.  In  1783 
a  Bill  went  rapidly  through  Parlia- 
ment appointing  a  Commission  to  in- 
quire into  the  losses  of  the  loyalists. 
The  sufferers  were  scattered  all  over 
the  United  States  and  the  British 
possessions,  while  many  of  them  were 
lying  in  English  prisons  for  debts  which 
they  had  no  means  of  discharging. 
Many  years  had  passed  away  since  the 
majority  had  been  driven  from  their 
homes,  and  the  difficulties  of  inquiry 
and  assessment  of  loss  were  immense. 
It  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that  the 
Commission  took  seven  years  to  com- 
plete its  task.  Of  course,  only  a  small 
minority  of  the  loyalists  were  so 
situated  as  to  be  able  to  present  and 
prove  their  claims,  for  the  obvious 
openings  for  fraud  were  so  great  that 
the  proceedings  had  to  be  of  a  most 
thorough  and  sometimes  even  offen- 
sive description.  An  average  of  about 
forty  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  loss 
on  proved  claims  was  paid.  Con- 
fiscated estates  were  only  the  least 
difficult  of  these  assets  to  deal  with. 
A  mass  of  old  debts  were  due  by  indivi- 
dual Americans  to  the  refugees,  and 


The  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


183 


these  were  often  impossible  of  legal 
proof ;  for  the  debtor  who  had  repudi- 
ated his  private  obligation,  either  with 
the  open  or  tacit  sanction  of  his  Govern- 
ment, would  be  in  no  hurry  to  assist 
in  proclaiming  himself  a  defaulter. 
Nearly  four  millions  sterling  in  all 
was  paid  as  compensation,  repre- 
senting about  ten  millions  actually 
proved  in  Court  as  lost.  There  is 
not  the  slightest  doubt,  however,  that 
even  this  latter  figure  was  but  a  frac- 
tion of  the  total  loss  incurred. 

But  the  really  significant  result  of 
the  war  was  the  treatment  of  those 
numerous  refugees  who  could  not  wait 
for  Acts  of  Parliament  or  Commissions 
of  Inquiry.  Urgent  action  was  im- 
perative. Numbers  had  already  left 
upon  their  own  account.  Some  exiles 
from  the  extreme  South  had  even 
drifted  into  the  West  Indies  ;  but  a 
tropical  climate  had  proved  but  a  poor 
field  for  men  left  with  no  means  of 
support  but  their  own  energies. 

Great  Britain  still  held  much  of  the 
West,  and  might  have  stipulated  at 
the  peace  for  Western  territory  far 
outside  the  somewhat  narrow  concep- 
tion of  the  United  States  at  that  day 
A  great  loyalist  province  where  Ohio 
is  now  suggests  some  curious  possibi- 
lities and  strange  reflections.  But  it 
was  towards  regions  in  the  north  and 
east,  for  the  simple  fact  that  they 
were  British  and  more  or  less  known, 
that  the  thoughts  of  the  exiled  loyal- 
ists turned ;  and  these  thoughts  were 
anything  but  pleasant  ones.  All  of 
Canada  that  was  known  was  French 
in  population,  and,  in  common  with 
Nova  Scotia  and  what  is  now  New 
Brunswick,  was  regarded  as  a  dreary 
region  of  ice  and  snow  and  fog  ;  a 
land  of  nine  months'  winter  and  three 
months'  cold  weather,  as  the  soldiers 
and  militia  quartered  there  in  the  old 
wars  had  been  wont  to  tell  their 
friends  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia. 
Canada,  west  of  Montreal,  was  at  that 


time  a  mere  Indian  hunting-ground, 
erroneously  regarded  as  too  cold  to 
live  in  and  unsuspected  even  of  fer- 
tility. Nova  Scotia  had  a,,  small  popu- 
lation, but  they  were  almost  as  con- 
spicuous for  their  stagnant  poverty  as 
the  Acadians  who  had  preceded  them. 
Many  loyalists,  moreover,  particularly 
from  New  England,  had  fled  thither 
before  the  close  of  the  war,  and 
settled  on  the  spot  where  the  city 
of  Saint  John  now  stands.  This 
gave  one  objective  point,  at  any 
rate,  to  the  much  larger  band  of 
exiles  who  at  the  peace  were  forced 
to  seek  new  homes  at  short  notice  ; 
and  in  a  single  year  the  new  settle- 
ments grew  to  some  thirteen  thousand 
souls.  Men  of  all  classes  flocked  there, 
officers  and  soldiers,  clergymen  and 
lawyers,  farmers,  mechanics,  and  mer- 
chants. They  were  naturally  much 
above  the  average  of  ordinary  emi- 
grants, both  in  character,  education, 
and  intelligence ;  but  all,  or  nearly 
all,  were  equally  destitute  and  forced 
to  begin  the  battle  of  life  afresh.  A 
year  later  New  Brunswick  was  sepa- 
rated from  Nova  Scotia,  endowed  with 
a  Council  and  House  of  Assembly,  and 
the  Capitol  moved  to  its  present  site 
at  Fredericton.  The  first  Council  in- 
cluded many  well  known  New  England 
names,  such  as  Putnam,  Winslow, 
Allen,  and  Willard.  It  included,  also, 
a  late  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  New  York,  another  distinguished 
lawyer  of  that  colony,  and  several 
officers  of  the  loyal  regiments.  Both  the 
New  York  and  the  Virginian  branch 
of  the  Robinsons,  one  of  the  weal- 
thiest and  most  influential  families  in 
Colonial  America,  were  here  repre- 
sented, and  to  this  day  are  conspicuous 
in  Upper  Canada.  From  these  be- 
ginnings grew  New  Brunswick,  Nova 
Scotia,  and  Prince  Edward  Island  ; 
and  if  their  founders  began  with  little 
more  than  the  clothes  on  their  backs, 
and  the  tools  and  rations  provided  by 


184 


The  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


the  British  Government,  they  had  at 
least  the  satisfaction  of  finding  both 
soil  and  climate  much  better  than  they 
had  anticipated  and  feared. 

The  other  great  stream  of  emigration 
was  still  more  interesting,  for  it  flowed 
into  regions  hitherto  unsettled  and, 
indeed,  scarcely  known.  The  emi- 
grants to  the  maritime  province  were 
chiefly  carried  thither  in  Government 
ships,  but  those  bound  for  Canada 
had  to  force  their  way  for  the  most 
part  through  a  tangled  and  untrodden 
wilderness.  Western  Canada  seems 
first  to  have  come  into  notice  from 
the  difficulty  of  providing  sufficient 
transport  to  Nova  Scotia  during  the 
great  rush  at  the  close  of  the  war.  A 
New  York  loyalist  named  Grass,  who 
had  been  for  long  a  prisoner  among 
the  French  at  Frontenac  (now  Kings- 
ton) at  the  eastern  end  of  Lake 
Ontario,  reported  favourably  to  the 
authorities  of  both  the  soil  and  climate 
of  that  district.  This  opinion  seems 
to  have  been  received  with  as  much 
surprise  as  pleasure,  and  Grass  was 
appointed  to  conduct  a  body  of  emi- 
grants there  at  the  Government's 
expense.  Notices  were  posted  to  this 
effect  throughout  New  York,  and  the 
response  was  prompt  enough.  This 
first  expedition,  comprising  men, 
women,  and  children  with  implements 
and  provisions,  was  sent  round  by  sea. 
They  could  make  no  way  that  season 
beyond  the  foot  of  the  rapids  on  the 
Saint  Lawrence  above  Montreal,  where 
they  erected  huts  and  spent  the  winter 
in  much  hardship.  In  the  following 
spring  they  built  boats  and  toiled 
slowly  onwards  to  Frontenac,  arriving 
there  about  midsummer.  Here  they 
were  soon  joined  by  parties  who  had 
come  up  by  the  Hudson  and  the  Lakes, 
and  the  Governor  of  Canada,  Sir  Guy 
Carleton,  arrived  upon  the  scene  from 
Montreal.  The  lands  were  then  par- 
celled out  in  townships,  Grass,  though 
but  a  plain  German  yeoman,  being 


granted  the  first  choice,  as  was  right 
and  proper,  Sir  John  Johnson  the 
second,  Majors  Vanalstone  and  Rogers 
the  third  and  fourth,  and  Colonel 
McDonnell  the  fifth,  the  rest  of  the 
settlers  receiving  smaller  grants  ac- 
cording to  their  rank  and  claims.  It 
was  too  late  this  season  to  put  in 
grain  ;  a  large  patch,  in  the  very  centre 
of  the  present  site  of  the  City  of 
Kingston,  was  accordingly  sown  in  tur- 
nips, and  these  served  to  eke  out  the 
rations  supplied  by  the  Government. 
The  latter  proceeded  shortly  to  erect 
mills  at  this  spot,  and  thus  was  the 
first  stone  laid  of  the  English  settle- 
ment in  Canada. 

Almost  simultaneously,  however,  at 
other  points  the  dense  forests  of 
Upper  Canada,  growing  down  to  the 
very  shores  of  Lakes  Ontario  and  Erie 
and  stretching  northwards  for  ever, 
were  invaded  by  other  resolute  bands. 
Norfolk  County  upon  Lake  Erie, 
which  fronts  the  finest  land  in  all 
Canada,  was  one  of  the  earliest  points 
of  refuge,  and  gradually  from  there 
eastward  to  the  Niagara  river  the 
dawn  of  civilisation  spread.  The  route 
there,  however,  was  of  a  different  and 
still  more  arduous  description.  The 
settlers,  who  came  mostly  from  the 
middle  States,  followed  the  Hudson 
up  its  Mohawk  branch  and  thence  by 
stream  and  long  portages  till  they 
launched  their  boats  again  upon  Lake 
Oneida.  Following  the  river  which 
flows  thence  down  into  Lake  Ontario 
at  Oswego,  they  coasted  along  its 
shores,  and  either  carried  round  Nia- 
gara into  Lake  Erie  or  entered  Canada 
below  the  Falls.  The  other  inland 
route  was  the  old  military  trail 
through  Lakes  George  and  Champlain, 
and  thence  down  the  Richelieu  River 
to  the  Lower  Saint  Lawrence.  This 
sounds  simple  enough  in  print, 
and  in  fact  travellers  may  to-day 
breakfast  in  New  York  and  sup  in 
Canada.  But  for  the  poor  exiles  of 


The  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


185 


those  times  the  journey  occupied 
months,  and  presented  immense  diffi- 
culties. They  went  in  parties  of  from 
a  dozen  to  twenty  families,  travelling 
in  flat-bottomed  boats  built  for  the 
purpose,  which  had  to  be  dragged  for 
miles  up  rapids  and  in  many  places  to 
be  hauled  through  the  trackless  woods. 
Even  the  terrors  of  the  northern 
winter  did  not  wholly  check  the 
stream  of  these  adventurous  souls, 
who  then  substituted  sleighs  for  boats, 
and  over  the  frozen  lakes  and  through 
unbroken  forests  toiled  painfully  with 
their  household  gods  towards  that 
remote  wilderness  which  had  at  least 
the  advantage  of  being  British  soil. 
The  grants  of  land  allotted,  both  in 
Canada  and  the  maritime  provinces, 
to  the  military  exiles,  who  were  very 
numerous,  were  somewhat  upon  the 
following  scale ;  five  thousand  acres 
for  a  field-officer,  three  thousand  to  a 
captain,  two  thousand  to  a  subaltern, 
and  two  hundred  to  a  private  soldier. 
The  sufferings  of  the  emigrants  for 
the  first  year  or  two  exceeded  their 
gloomiest  anticipations.  Flies  tor- 
tured them  ;  agues  prostrated  them  ; 
their  first  meagre  crops  were  destroyed 
by  insects  and  vermin  ;  there  were  no 
mills  for  a  time  to  grind  what  little 
corn  they  could  save  ;  and,  as  a  climax, 
the  ships  bringing  the  Government 
supplies  from  Montreal  were  caught 
in  the  ice  and  frozen  up  for  the 
winter.  The  first  pioneers  of  Western 
Canada  were  perhaps  as  nearly  starved 
as  men  and  women  can  be  and  yet 
survive. 

Every  one  knows  that  these  emi- 
grants were  distinguished  by  the  name 
of  United  Empire  Loyalists,  and  that 
their  descendants  to  this  day  take  a 
justifiable  pride  in  bearing  names  that 
are  inscribed  upon  such  an  honoured 
scroll.  If  the  maritime  provinces  are 
usually  more  identified  with  their 
stock  it  is  because  the  pioneer  families 
of  Ontario  have  been  more  obscured 


by  the  immense  development  of  that 
province.  But  for  half  a  century 
British  North  America  was  in  great 
part  ruled  by  something  approaching 
an  oligarchy  drawn  from  these  sources. 
They  brought  with  them  a  fierce 
hatred  towards  the  Republic  of  the 
United  States  ;  and  this  feeling  ac- 
counted in  great  measure  for  the  ex- 
traordinary success  with  which  for 
three  years,  in  1812-14,  the  Cana- 
dians, and  particularly  the  Upper 
Canadians,  repelled  every  attempt  of 
the  Americans  to  conquer  the  country. 
The  population  of  the  States  at  that 
time  was  five  and  a  half  millions,  and 
they  had  scarcely  any  other  occupa- 
tion for  their  armies  ;  the  population 
of  French  Canada  was  two  hundred 
thousand,  that  of  Upper  Canada 
seventy  thousand.  Most  of  the  at- 
tacks were  directed  against  the  latter, 
who  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time 
had  but  a  handful  of  British  regulars 
to  assist  them.  Nor  were  they  merely 
successful  in  repelling,  with  one  ex- 
ception, their  assailants  ;  on  two  oc- 
casions they  captured  the  entire 
American  army  with  its  general. 
Englishmen  know  little  about  this 
war,  for  no  account  of  it  is  readily 
available.  American  historians,  who 
are  the  only  sources  of  information 
open  to  the  general  reader,  would  not 
be  human  if  they  failed  to  touch 
otherwise  than  lightly  on  these  mili- 
tary disasters,  and  dwell  with  empha- 
sis rather  on  the  naval  duels  which 
their  seamen  fought  with  such  credit. 
The  burning  of  Washington,  for  in- 
stance, during  that  war  is  recorded 
against  the  British  as  a  piece  of  un- 
speakable barbarism  ;  our  own  his- 
torians follow  suit  and  apologise  for 
this  excess  of  zeal.  Two  points,  how- 
ever, seem  to  be  forgotten  :  in  the 
first  place,  Washington  was  burned 
for  the  deliberate  and  wanton  viola- 
tion of  a  flag  of  truce,  in  which  the 
horse  of  the  English  general  who 


TJie  English  Settlement  of  Canada. 


accompanied  it  was  shot  under  him ; 
and  in  the  second,  unprovoked  ex- 
cesses of  a  precisely  similar  nature  had 
been  frequently  inflicted  by  the  Ameri- 
cans on  the  struggling  settlements  of 
Western  Ontario.  The  spirit  that 
prompted  the  memorable  defence  of 
the  Canadians  was,  of  course,  an  in- 
tensely strong  one.  Even  the  brief 
and  inadequate  account  of  the  Ameri- 
can loyalists  here  given  will  sufficient- 
ly indicate  how  bitter  their  feelings 
must  have  been.  And  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind,  moreover,  that  they 
regarded  the  war  as  one  of  pure  and 
unprovoked  aggression.  England  was 
struggling  single-handed  with  the 
common  t}rrant  of  the  world.  Her 
right  of  search  for  seamen,  which 
was  Madison's  casus  belli,  was 
legally  permissible.  The  whole  of 
New  England,  and  a  most  import- 
ant minority  in  the  States,  declared 
the  war  to  be  iniquitous,  and  doubly 
iniquitous  seeing  the  company  in 
which  it  was  waged.  What  wonder 
if  Canada  thought  so  too,  and  fought 
with  exasperation  as  well  as  with  the 
inherent  valour  of  a  virile  and  sol- 
dierly race  !  Strangers  often  wonder 


at  the  fever  of  excitement  into  which 
the  majority  of  Canadians  still  work 
themselves  at  any  mention  of  fusion 
with  the  United  States.  It  seems 
almost  illogical  that  people  should  be 
unable  calmly  to  discuss  the  possibility 
of  an  alliance  with  neighbours  who  in 
everything  but  the  most  trifling  details 
are  one  with  themselves.  Probably 
not  one  Canadian  in  ten  has  any 
of  the  old  loyalist  blood  in  his  veins ; 
nor  for  that  matter  has  any  larger 
proportion  of  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States  a  claim  to  revolutionary 
descent.  But  as  the  old  antagonism 
to  England  on  one  side  of  the  line  is 
adopted  by  the  sons  and  grandsons  of 
emigrants,  so  upon  the  other  the  old 
United  Empire  feeling  still  in  a  great 
measure  influences  public  opinion. 
There  is  this  curious  difference,  how- 
ever, that  while  it  is  among  the  old 
and  genuinely  American  population 
that  the  greatest  friendliness  to 
England  will  be  found  to-day ;  in 
Canada  there  are,  on  the  other  hand, 
no  such  outspoken  haters,  in  a  politi- 
cal sense,  of  the  United  States  as 
the  descendants  of  the  old  loyalist 
settlers. 


187 


A    MODERN    SINDBAD. 


SOME  men  will  sail  the  seas  for 
forty  years  and  never  once  come  even 
within  hailing  distance,  as  it  were, 
of  a  shipwreck,  and  scarcely  ever 
lose  a  sail  or  a  spar.  Obviously  these 
are  the  lucky  ones.  Among  our  sea- 
friends  we  can  claim  a  member  of  this 
extremely  limited  class  ;  and  it  has 
been  also  our  fortune  to  meet  with  two 
or  three  examples  of  the  opposite  type. 
Some  imaginative  writer  tells  the  tale 
of  a  sailor  who  was  shipwrecked  three 
times,  was  in  four  collisions  and  two 
fires  at  sea,  suffered  from  sun- 
stroke and  yellow  fever,  lost  a  finger 
or  two  by  frost-bite,  had  one  eye 
gouged  out  in  a  fight  at  San  Francisco, 
came  home,  married  a  shop-keeping 
widow  who  henpecked  him,  got  out 
of  his  course  one  foggy  day  and  walked 
into  the  river,  where  he  was  found 
next  morning  still  chewing  his  over- 
night quid  of  tobacco,  but  without  his 
glass  eye.  This  is  the  novelist's  type, 
and  is  perhaps  somewhat  highly  col- 
oured ;  but  it  may  be  compared  with 
some  actual  types.  One  of  the  men 
we  have  in  mind  fell  from  the  main- 
yard  and  broke  his  left  arm  before  he 
had  been  at  sea  a  month  on  his  first 
voyage  as  an  apprentice.  On  the  return 
voyage  from  San  Franscisco  he  fell 
from  the  same  yard  and  broke  one 
of  his  legs.  The  vessel  was  wrecked 
in  a  gale  off  the  south-west  coast  of 
Ireland,  and  this  unhappy  youth,  fato 
profugus,  was  saved  with  three  others 
out  of  a  crew  of  twenty-six ;  only, 
however,  to  find  that  his  next  ship, 
laden  with  coal,  took  fire  on  the  other 
side  of  Cape  Horn,  and  had  to  be 
abandoned  by  her  crew,  who  were  six 
days  in  their  boats  before  a  homeward- 


bound  ship  picked  them  up.  His  third 
vessel  ran  ashore  at  the  entrance  to 
Hong  Kong  harbour  in  her  hurry  to 
get  inside  before  a  Yankee  with  whom 
she  was  in  company.  When  our  friend 
found  his  fourth  ship  dismasted  in  a 
cyclone  in  the  Indian  Ocean,  he  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  sea-life,  which 
he  had  been  quite  prepared  to  like, 
was  too  exciting  for  him  ;  and  he 
decided  forthwith,  provided  he  got 
safely  out  of  that  scrape,  to  leave  it 
to  those  with  better  luck. 

We  knew  yet  another  fugitive  from 
fate,  one  of  the  nicest  young  fellows 
you  could  wish  to  meet ;  but  him  the 
malignant  demon  overtook.  He  sailed 
first  on  the  Compadre,  which  caught 
fire  on  the  voyage  from  Calcutta  to 
Valparaiso  with  a  cargo  of  gunny- 
bags,  and  had  to  be  run  ashore  on 
the  Auckland  Islands,  where  her  men 
were  forced  to  make  such  cheer  as 
they  could  for  just  one  hundred  days. 
His  second  voyage  was  again  unlucky  ; 
his  ship,  the  Charlwood,  was  run  down 
in  the  Channel,  and  he  was  one  of 
seven  saved  out  of  a  crew  of  about 
twenty.  His  third  voyage  was  un- 
eventful. On  his  fourth,  in  the  Allan- 
shaw,  to  which  he  was  transferred  at 
the  last  moment  to  take  the  place  of 
another  apprentice,  the  ship  ran  ashore 
on  Tristan  d'Acunha,  and  he  was  one 
of  three  (the  captain  was  another)  who 
were  drowned  in  the  struggle  for  land. 
He  deserved  a  better  end,  poor  fellow  ! 

A  few  weeks  ago  we  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  an  old  sailor  whom  we 
will  call  Sindbad,  and  indeed  he  could 
well  furnish  materials  for  an  eighth 
voyage  to  the  record  of  that  much-en- 
during merchant.  He  brought  the  fol- 


188 


A  Modern  Sindbad. 


lowing  introduction  from  the  writer's 
brother  in  New  Zealand  :  "  You  will 
probably  find  him  interesting  and  will 
recognise  him  from  his  name,  as 
having  been  one  of  the  Spirit's  crew 
when  she  ran  ashore  on  Antipodes 
Island.  And  I  will  say  this  for  him, 
that  had  it  not  been  for  his  murderous 
energy  in  cutting  the  lashings  of  the 
lifeboat,  every  one  of  us  would  have 
accompanied  the  skipper  from  this 
world  into  the  next.  I  never  met, 
and  scarcely  ever  heard  of,  a  more 
unlucky  sailor,  one  who  has  been 
oftener  shipwrecked  and  has  gone 
through  so  many  hardships.  If  you 
want  any  information  as  to  how  it 
feels  to  be  shipwrecked,  for  that  great 
novel  of  yours,  which  I'll  swear  is  no 
farther  advanced  to-day  than  it  was 
two  years  ago  when  I  had  the  good 
pleasure  to  see  you  all  last,  make  use 
of  him.  No  doubt  he  will  be  in  low 
water.  I  found  him  loafing  about 
Wellington,  unable  to  get  a  ship.  I 
helped  him  to  a  berth  in  the  end. 
He  has  taken  a  strange  fancy  to  go 
home,  to  find  out  if  any  of  his  rela- 
tions are  still  alive.  He  was  kind  to 
me  on  the  island,  so  be  kind  to  him 
for  the  sake  of,"  &c.,  &c. 

Sindbad  turned  out  to  be  every- 
thing that  had  been  promised  ;  in  the 
cant  phrase,  he  gave  us  plenty  of  fun 
for  our  money.  He  enumerated  as 
many  as  nine  separate  shipwrecks  in 
which  he  had  been  concerned,  not  all 
successive  shipwrecks  to  be  sure  ;  but 
on  two  occasions  he  was  shipwrecked 
twice  consecutively ;  and  although  the 
Spirit  only  went  down  in  the  autumn 
of  1893,  he  contrived  within  the  space 
of  another  twelvemonth  to  be  wrecked 
on  the  steamer  Kanahooka  which 
sank  in  the  Gulf  of  Carpentaria.  If 
diversity  of  experience  counts  for  any- 
thing, he  deserves  to  be  known  as  the 
champion  of  the  seas.  He  is  now 
growing  old,  and,  in  spite  of  the  rare 
exception  already  mentioned,  it  is 


certain  that  the  man  who  spends  a 
generation  at  sea  witnesses  much, 
experiences  much,  and  suffers  much. 
This  particular  individual  counts  it  a 
virtue  that  he  has  been  only  three 
voyages  on  a  steamer,  and  he  points 
to  the  Kanahooka  as  a  standing  warn- 
ing to  those  who  propose  to  sail  on 
other  vessels  of  that  class.  That  he 
should  be  still  before  the  mast  will 
not  appear  extraordinary  to  those  who 
know  the  average  British  sailor's 
recklessness,  ignorance,  and  lack  of 
ambition.  His  first  voyage  would 
have  killed  all  taste  for  a  seafaring 
life  in  nine  youths  out  of  ten.  Two 
days  out  from  Liverpool  his  ship,  one 
of  the  old  emigrant  clippers  that  did 
most  of  the  carrying  between  New 
York  and  this  country  before  the 
ocean  greyhounds  hunted  them  off, 
was  wrecked  near  Blackwater  on  the 
Irish  coast,  and  carried  down  with  her 
more  than  two  hundred  steerage  pas- 
sengers who  had  proposed  to  try  their 
fortunes  in  the  New  World.  Only 
twelve  were  saved,  and  of  these  only 
two  were  passengers.  He  made  three 
voyages  in  the  old  Dreadnought,  which 
once  crossed  the  Atlantic  in  less  than 
ten  days,  and  beat  the  best  steamer  of 
his  day ;  and  he  claims  to  have  been 
in  her  when  she  lost  her  rudder,  and 
had  to  be  backed  and  steered  by  her 
sails  for  a  couple  of  hundred  miles  to 
the  Azores.  A  number  of  years  later 
he  sailed  on  the  same  packet,  but  by 
this  time  she  had  fallen  from  her  high 
estate  and  was  carrying  timber  from 
North  American  ports,  a  sad  end  to 
which  other  fine  clippers  came  before 
disappearing  from  off  the  face  of  the 
waters  for  ever.  It  made  a  man  feel 
sad,  he  said,  to  think  of  what  she  had 
been  ani  what  she  was  then. 

In  the  years  that  intervened  be- 
tween these  voyages  on  the  Dread- 
nought, and  in  the  subsequent  years, 
where  had  Sindbad  not  been  1  He 
had  been  in  the  Thermopylae  when 


A  Modern  Sindbad. 


189 


she  made  the  passage  from  London  to 
Australia  in  sixty  days,  an  achieve- 
ment of  which  the  latest  steel  four- 
master  from  the  Clyde  is  not  capable  ; 
for  the  latter  is  built  for  cargo,  and 
she  was  built  for  speed.  He  claims 
to  have  been  in  the  James  Baines 
when  she  rounded  the  Horn  with  her 
royals  up  before  a  heavy  south-west- 
erly gale.  He  had  been  whaling  in 
Dundee  ships  to  the  north  seas,  and 
in  the  Pacific  with  a  Yankee  crew. 
He  had  been  drugged  in  San  Fran- 
cisco and  had  found  himself,  when  he 
awoke  to  consciousness,  well  on  his 
way  across  the  North  Pacific  to 
Canton.  He  had  raced  home  from 
that  port  with  the  new  season's  tea, 
and,  after  being  chased  by  pirates 
from  Macao,  had  seen  his  ship  beat 
her  rival  by  a  good  week.  He  had 
been  on  the  Don  Juan  when  she 
caught  fire  while  carrying  Chinese 
coolies  from  Macao  to  Peru  ;  and  next 
year  he  had  formed  one  of  the  crew  of 
the  Northfleet,  when  she  was  run 
down  off  Dungeness  by  a  Spanish 
steamer,  which  made  off  and  left  three 
hundred  people  to  drown.  Less  than 
three  years  later  the  old  teak-built 
Cospatrick  had  caught  fire  when  he  was 
making  the  voyage  on  her  for  Auck- 
land. He  had  been  kidnapping  in 
the  South  Pacific,  had  married  a 
native  woman  of  the  Pelew  Islands, 
whom  he  very  soon  left  to  her 
own  devices,  had  been  attacked, 
with  the  rest  of  the  crew,  by 
deluded  Solomon  Islanders,  and  had 
participated  (because  he  could  not 
help  himself,  so  he  said,)  in  a  whole- 
sale butchery  to  which  that  on  the 
Nora  Creina  was  a  mere  diversion. 
He  had  been  drugged  a  second  time 
in  New  York,  and  had  made  an  en- 
forced voyage  to  Santos,  where  he 
caught  the  inevitable  fever.  He  had 
(and  this  happened  within  the  past  five 
years)  seen  his  captain,  both  officers, 
and  three  men  swept  overboard  into 


the  Atlantic  by  one  of  those  abnormal 
waves  which  sometimes  appear  without 
any  very  obvious  cause,  and  had  drifted 
and  rolled  through  a  succession  of 
gales  for  a  week,  with  only  himself 
and  a  boy  to  look  after  the  ship ;  for 
the  rest  of  the  lubberly  crew  had 
locked  themselves  into  the  forecastle 
and  got  drunk  over  their  desolation. 
He  had  boarded  a  schooner  which, 
with  all  her  sails  up,  was  drifting 
aimlessly  about  the  Pacific  near  the 
Line  Islands ;  and  he  had  counted 
fourteen  islanders,  all  of  them  dead 
and  most  of  them  mutilated,  stretched 
about  her  deck.  He  had  been  castaway 
for  nearly  two  months  on  Trinidad 
Island  in  the  South  Atlantic  ;  and  he 
told  over  again  the  marvellous  story 
of  treasure  buried  there  from  the  sack 
of  Lima  with  which  Mr.  Knight  has 
made  vis  all  familiar.  One  ship  on 
which  he  sailed  had  been  dismasted 
while  carrying  coals  from  Newcastle 
in  New  South  Wales  to  Coquimbo  in 
Chili.  Another,  bound  from  the  same 
port  to  San  Francisco,  had  taken  fire ; 
her  captain  with  his  men  had  lived 
over  a  volcano  for  a  fortnight,  had 
fought  the  flames,  and,  undeterred  by 
one  explosion  after  another,  had  con- 
tinued fighting  them,  until  one  tre- 
mendous explosion  lifted  the  main 
deck  off,  when  they  thought  it  ex- 
pedient to  take  to  the  boats.  Again, 
the  Elwell,  on  which  Sindbad  sailed 
from  Cardiff  for  Valparaiso,  had 
caught  fire  on  this  side  of  Cape  Horn, 
had  been  abandoned,  and  her  crew 
had  run  in  their  two  boats  for  the 
Straits  of  Magellan  in  the  hope  of 
being  picked  up  by  some  passing- 
steamer.  The  boats  were  separated, 
and  one,  with  those  on  board,  was 
never  heard  of  again  ;  rain,  hail,  sleet, 
biting  winds,  and  frost,  with  mussels 
and  a  biscuit  a  day  for  food,  had 
done  for  most  of  those  in  the  other 
before  help  came.  She  had  made  the 
Straits  right  enough,  but  lost  herself 


190 


A  Modern  Sindbad. 


in  one  of  the  by-channels ;  which 
sufficiently  accounts  for  the  fact  that 
sixty-eight  days  passed  before  the  poor 
fellows  were  rescued. 

Such  are  the  chief  episodes  in  the 
earthly  pilgrimage  of  this  old  sailor  ; 
but  they  are  diversified  with  an  infinite 
number  of  smaller  incidents  any  one 
of  which  might  be  enough  for  most 
men.  One  vessel,  on  which  he  sailed 
some  ten  or  twelve  years  ago,  carried 
kerosene  oil  in  cases,  among  other 
cargo,  from  Philadelphia  to  the  Far 
East.  At  Manila  a  Spaniard,  named 
Salares,  was  shipped  for  the  remainder 
of  the  voyage  to  Hong  Kong,  to  take 
the  place  of  a  runaway.  Salares 
went  mad,  and  to  avoid  being  put 
in  irons,  slid  down  the  fore-hatch, 
which  happened  to  be  open  to  let  the 
fresh  air  below,  and  took  refuge  in 
the  lower  hold,  where  the  oil  was 
stowed.  Nothing  could  entice  him  on 
deck  again.  He  kept  all  intruders 
away  at  the  end  of  a  spear,  formed  by 
splicing  a  sheath-knife  on  to  the  end 
of  a  long  thin  piece  of  wood  ;  when  he 
felt  hungry  he  threatened  to  burn  the 
ship  unless  food  and  drink  were  passed 
down  to  him,  and  there  was  no  doubt 
that  he  would  have  done  so  had  his 
demands  not  been  promptly  complied 
with.  The  danger  may  be  imagined  ; 
but  probably  only  those  above,  who 
were  afraid  of  being  blown  to  glory, 
could  appraise  it  at  its  true  value. 
Several  expeditions  were  made  below, 
but  they  were  all  repulsed,  and  some 
ten  volunteers  for  the  forlorn  hope 
found  themselves  wounded  more  or 
less  severely.  At  last  the  captain, 
tired  of  the  suspense  and  fearing  for 
the  loss  of  his  ship,  in  which  he  himself 
held  shares,  decided  upon  a  concerted 
plan  of  action.  He  went  below 
at  the  head  of  all  his  men,  save 
those  whose  presence  was  necessary 
on  deck.  Each  volunteer  was  armed 
with  a  pole  like  the  madman's  own, 
but  without  the  knife  ;  and  each  one 


was  protected  by  a  shield  made  of  the 
top  of  a  packing-case.  Even  then  it 
took  four  hands  to  capture  the 
wretched  creature.  They  hunted  him 
as  they  might  have  hunted  a  vicious 
rat,  over  piles  of  cargo  and  into 
strange  corners ;  it  must  have  been 
an  experience  out  of  the  common  even 
for  Sindbad.  When  finally  taken, 
Salares  was  found  to  be  wounded  in 
the  mouth  and  left  arm,  besides  being 
badly  bruised  all  over.  He  died  ten 
minutes  after  being  brought  on  deck, 
"  and  mighty  relieved  we  felt,"  added 
our  friend,  "when  we  found  him  dead 
and  the  ship  all  right.  We  were  for 
dumping  him  overboard  then  and  there, 
but  Captain  Fitz  was  a  gentleman  and 
a  Christian,  and  buried  him  with  the 
usual  honours, — funeral  service,  ship 
hove  to,  flag  half-mast,  and  all  the 
rest.  And  he  threshed  one  Dutchman 
for  heaving  a  clump  of  firewood  at 
the  corpse  as  it  slid  off  the  rail." 

It  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  a  very 
few  men  to  take  part  within  the  space 
of  twelve  months  in  two  such  tragedies 
as  those  of  the  Don  Juan  and  the 
Northfleet.  The  latter  is  well-nigh 
forgotten  now,  but  those  whose  re- 
collection of  events  goes  back  nearly 
twenty  years  will  remember  the  thrill 
of  horror  that  went  up  from  one  end 
of  the  land  to  the  other  at  the  news 
that  an  emigrant  ship  for  New 
Zealand  had  been  run  down  off  Dun- 
geness  by  a  foreign  steamer,  which  had 
then  made  off,  heedless  of  the  terrible 
cries  of  the  four  hundred  people  on 
board  her.  The  loss  of  the  Don  Juan 
involved  an  even  greater  waste  of  hu- 
man life  ;  but  it  touched  Englishmen 
less,  for  the  poor  fellows  were  not  their 
own  countrymen,  and  besides,  the 
affair  took  place  almost  at  the  other  end 
of  the  world.  The  story  forms  an  epi- 
sode in  the  still  unwritten  history  of 
coolie-labour,  which  has  to  tell  of 
horrors  undreamed  of  by  those  who 
have  never  been  in  the  Pacific,  horrors 


A  Modern  Sindbad. 


191 


which  are  no  longer  perpetrated 
openly  only  because  of  the  tardy 
restrictions  placed  upon  the  trade  by 
a  not  too  solicitous  legislature,  and 
because  of  the  presence  up  and  down 
of  war-ships  instructed  to  protect  the 
savage  against  the  kidnappers  and 
against  himself. 

The  Don  Juan  left  Macao,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Canton  River,  with  six 
hundred  and  fifty  Chinese  coolies 
bound  under  contract  for  three  years 
to  Peru,  where  cheap  labour  is  not 
too  plentiful.  A  few  days  out  a  fire 
was  discovered,  caused  maliciously,  so 
the  crew  said,  by  one  of  the  emigrants. 
It  broke  out  in  the  cabin,  so  the 
surviving  emigrants  asserted,  though 
they  do  not  seem  to  have  been  in  a 
position  to  know  this.  The  exact 
truth  never  was  found  out,  and  never 
will  be.  Sindbad's  version,  slightly 
edited  in  accordance  with  a  landsman's 
ideas  of  the  English  language,  runs  as 
follows. 

"  An  able  seaman  named  Harker, 
who  was  on  watch  among  the  coolies, 
said  that  a  quarrel  broke  out  because, 
when  breakfast  was  sent  down,  it 
was  found  to  be  three  dishes  short ; 
that  is  to  say,  thirty  men  had 
no  breakfast,  and  nobody  wanted  to 
wait  until  the  omission  was  reme- 
died. There  was  a  scuffle  ;  one  of  the 
coolies  made  a  nasty  remark  to  the 
interpreter,  who  had  charge  of  the  lot, 
and  he  hit  the  fellow  with  his  cane. 
A  dozen  of  the  man's  cronies  began  to 
shy  wood,  and  to  shout  Ta-Ta,  which 
doesn't  mean  Good-bye  but  Strike, 
Strike  !  The  interpreter  pulled  out 
his  revolver,  and  retired  backwards  to 
the  fore-hatch.  The  coolies  dropped 
their  rice-tins  and  made  a  rush.  The 
interpreter  went  up  the  ladder  like  a 
streak  of  lightning ;  and  Harker, 
whose  station  was  at  the  foot,  and 
who  scented  danger  in  the  roar  of  the 
coolies,  followed  him  equally  fast. 
They  got  on  deck  just  in  time  to  drop 


the  iron  grating  of  the  hatch  on  to 
the  heads  of  the  three  foremost  pur- 
suers ;  it  probably  hurt  -them,  but 
there  wasn't  time  to  inquire  into  the 
matter.  I  stood  on  deck  near  that 
particular  hatch  and  helped  to  keep 
the  swarming,  howling  yellow  men 
from  pushing  it  up,  while  some  others 
put  the  padlock  on.  The  coolies  then 
got  from  under  the  hatchway  and 
seized  stanchions  from  their  bunks, 
with  which  they  tried  to  beat  up  the 
boards  of  the  deck.  They  were  in- 
duced to  desist  by  half  a  dozen  pistol- 
shots  fired  in  their  direction ;  or 
rather,  they  shifted  their  position  and 
went  aft,  where  they  sprung  two 
planks,  which,  however,  the  carpenter 
nailed  down  again  as  quickly  as  might 
be.  In  the  floor  of  the  captain's 
cabin  there  were  three  small  iron 
gratings,  through  which  the  first  and 
second  mate,  the  storeman  (a  Maltese), 
and  myself  watched  to  see  what  was 
going  on  below.  On  each  side  of  the 
rudder  were  two  small  rooms ;  one 
full  of  old  sails,  old  rope,  and  unmixed 
paint,  the  other  containing  bamboo 
hats.  I  couldn't  make  it  out  clearly 
myself,  but  the  Maltese  told  me  that 
he  saw  a  man  go  into  the  first  of 
these  two  rooms  (which  should  have 
been  locked)  and  immediately  after 
we  all  saw  smoke  coming  out  of  the 
room,  and  then  fire.  This  happened 
about  half-past  ten,  an  hour  and  a 
half  after  the  beginning  of  the  row. 
Matters  now  became  serious,  the  fire 
altogether  changing  the  complexion  of 
the  business.  Hands  were  set  to  the 
pumps,  and  a  hose  thrust  through  the 
ventilators ;  but  the  coolies,  though 
drenched  to  the  skin,  pushed  it  back 
with  boards.  It  was  then  taken  to 
the  after-hatch  ?nd  put  down  there, 
while  we  fired  pistols  to  frighten  the 
men  away.  But  most  of  them  were 
mad  by  this  time,  and  we  clearly  saw 
one  fellow,  who  had  got  hold  of  the 
hose  to  carry  it  along  to  the  seat  of 


192 


A  Modern  Sindbad. 


the  fire,  clubbed  on  the  head  and 
killed  with  half  a  dozen  stanchions. 
The  brutes  who  murdered  him  broke 
the  glass  of  the  portholes  and  stuck 
the  nozzle  through,  so  that  the  water 
went  into  the  sea,  where  it  wasn't 
wanted.  They  had  occasion  to  be 
sorry  before  long ;  that  fire  spread, 
sir,  in  the  most  astonishing  way. 
These  roaring  madmen  were  now 
trying  all  they  knew  to  get  on  deck ; 
they  even  tried  to  come  up  the  re- 
volving iron  ventilators  at  the  side  of 
the  ship ;  but  they  would  have  killed 
everybody  on  deck  had  they  once  got 
there,  and  we  had  to  look  out  for  our- 
selves. The  raving,  the  shrieking, 
the  cursing,  and  the  frantic  efforts 
to  burst  up  the  decks,  are  altogether 
beyond  my  power  to  describe.  All 
this  time  the  smoke  was  belching  up 
from  below  through  the  gratings,  the 
sides  were  cracking,  and  the  deck, 
under  our  feet  aft,  was  becoming  too 
hot  for  comfort.  Then  the  fire  burst 
out  at  the  after-end  of  the  ship,  and  I 
suppose  all  those  coolies  who  weren't 
already  dead  made  for  the  forepart. 
We  could  hear  them  praying  and 
whining,  for  they  had  changed  their 
tune  by  this  time.  Before  mid-day, 
the  main  and  mizzen  masts  went  by 
the  board,  and  we  thought  it  time  to 
get  out  the  boats.  There  were  four 
of  them,  but  only  two  were  used  ;  the 
lifeboat  sank  because  the  plug  was 


lost,  and  there  wasn't  time  to  get  the 
remaining  one  off  the  davits.  Before 
the  second  boat  sheered  off,  we  threw 
all  the  spare  spars,  hencoops,  and 
other  truck  overboard,  for  the  benefit 
of  whom  it  might  concern.  There 
were  a  few  Chinese,  about  twenty-five, 
who  had  chanced  to  be  on  deck  when 
the  scrimmage  began.  They  were 
sitting  blubbering  on  the  forecastle- 
head  when  we  got  over  the  side,  but 
they  dived  for  the  floating  wood  and 
seven  of  them  were  picked  up. 
There  chanced  to  be  a  couple  of 
junks  near  us,  for  we  had  made  only 
a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  Macao  ; 
and  in  the  end  we  got  on  board  one 
of  them." 

"  They  did  what  they  could  to  save 
life  1 "  we  asked. 

"  Not  much,"  was  the  reply.  "  The 
junk-master  wouldn't  take  us  on 
board  until  the  skipper  had  promised 
him  ten  dollars  a  head  for  every 
European  saved.  The  ruffian  wouldn't 
pick  up  a  single  one  of  his  country- 
men ;  those  who  swam  alongside  were 
pushed  back  into  the  water.  We 
heard  that  the  few  who  were  saved 
got  on  board  the  other  junk,  and 
refused  firmly  to  be  thrown  into  the 
sea  again.  When  we  saw  the  Don 
Juan  last  she  was  burning  right 
forward.  The  coolies  1  I  should 
think  they  were  all  dead  by  that 
time." 


193 


IN    THE    HOUR    OF    DEATH. 


THERE  is  a  sound  of  singing  that 
travels  on  the  road,  long,  sweet, 
monotonous  ;  the  deep  voices  of  men 
answering  the  high  flute-like  notes  of 
children,  alternating,  meeting,  and 
falling  apart  into  silence  with  a  slow 
recurrent  melancholy.  There  is  the 
glitter  of  sunshine  upon  a  silver 
crucifix,  whiteness  of  fine  linen  and 
the  pale  flicker  of  candles ;  there  is 
a  black  as  of  mourning  that  dims  even 
the  brightness  of  the  lusty  spring  ;  and 
always  the  voices  rising  and  falling, 
long-drawn,  sweet,  and  grave,  with 
the  strange  remote  sadness  of  a  prayer  : 
Oh  Lamb  of  God  who  takest  away  the 
sins  of  the  world — 

After  the  tall  silver  crucifix  follow 
the  little  choristers,  singing  shrilly 
with  the  happy  indifference  of  use  and 
childhood,  the  swing  of  silver  censers, 
the  rhythmical  twinkle  of  a  silver 
bell,  the  pale  unsteady  tapers,  and 
the  priests,  with  the  shining  of  silver 
wrought  into  the  soft  blackness  of  a 
velvet  cope.  There  are  many  that 
follow  after,  and  some  of  them  weep  ; 
they  follow,  but  at  a  little  distance, 
and  between  them  and  the  priests 
there  is  a  stretch  of  sunlit  road, 
where  the  spring  sunshine  makes  a 
riotous  glory,  and  where  there  is  one 
that  walks  alone.  The  singers  go  be- 
fore with  taper  and  bell  and  the  pale 
swaying  crucifix  ;  the  mourners  follow 
weeping  as  for  one  dead.  But  there 
is  no  coffin ;  only,  on  the  bare  patch 
of  road,  alone  in  the  midst  of  the 
sunshine  and  the  sweet  strong  spring 
air,  one  that  walks  alone. 

It  is  a  funeral  on  its  way  to  the 
church,  the  saddest  and  strangest  in 
the  world ;  the  funeral,  as  it  used  to 

No.  441. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


be  in  Brittany,  of  a  leper.  The 
scourge  had  been  found  upon  him 
and  there  was  no  escape ;  he  must 
rise  and  be  driven  forth,  and  his 
place  would  know  him  no  more.  He 
had  sat  waiting  for  the  end,  looking 
dully  from  wife  to  child,  with  eyes 
that  had  already  grown  lustreless  and 
dim ;  there'  would  be  time  enough 
afterwards  to  weep,  if  lepers  remem- 
bered how  to  weep.  He  could  not 
rebel,  he  could  not  escape,  there  was 
not  anywhere  any  hope ;  there  was 
nothing  to  be  said  or  done  but  to 
wait,  only  to  wait  till  they  came  tc 
take  him  away.  His  wife  wept,  and 
he  watched  her  with  a  curious  remote 
speculation  ;  soon,  very  soon,  when  he 
was  out  of  sight,  her  tears  would  be 
dried.  She  would  laugh  again 
presently,  when  he  was  dead  and  put 
away  ;  and  he,  he  would  not  be  so 
dead,  leper  as  he  was,  but  he  would 
hear  her-  voice  when  he  passed  and 
yearn  for  her,  or  curse  her.  Already 
he  almost  hated  her  for  her  clean 
health ;  and  a  cruel  pleasure  swept 
through  him  at  the  thought  that 
perhaps,  since  she  had  been  constantly 

with    him Only,   when  he  was 

dead, he  would  not  care;  he  would  hear 
many  feet  running  to  avoid  his  path, 
and  he  would  not  know  which  were 
the  feet  of  his  children ;  and  when 
his  wife  laughed,  it  would  be  no  more 
to  him  than  a  sound,  like  other 
sounds ;  he  would  not  know,  or  care. 
Dead  men  did  not  feel ;  and  already 
the  sting  was  surely  not  so  very 
bitter.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but 
to  sit  and  wait,  and  to  watch  his  wife 
and  his  young  children  ;  they  wept, 
but  they  sat  at  the  far  side  by  the 

o 


In  the  Hour  of  Death. 


window,  and  they  left  him  alone.  It 
would  not  be  long  now  before  those 
came  that  were  to  put  him  outside  of 
life. 

And  presently  the  priests  and  the 
choristers,  with  the  strong  smell  of 
incense  and  the  shining  crucifix,  had 
paused  upon  his  doorstep,  the  doorstep 
which  had  been  his  in  the  days  of  his 
living ;  and  he  had  looked  at  them, 
with  a  vague  indifferent  pleasure  in 
the  sight,  and  an  impersonal  interest 
in  the  matter  which  seemed  very 
slightly  to  concern  him.  It  was  a 
fine  funeral,  with  the  great  silver 
crucifix,  and  the  glitter  of  silver  on 
black,  and  the  flickering  tapers ;  it 
was  a  funeral  such  as  one  gave  only 
to  persons  of  position.  The  villagers 
were  content  with  much  less,  when 
they  had  to  pay  for  it ;  but  it  was 
the  Church  that  buried  the  lepers. 
He  had  seen  such  funerals  before,  and 
he  had  followed  in  the  crowd,  well 
behind,  with  a  careful  eye  upon  the 
way  of  the  wind.  He  had  never 
thought  very  much  about  the  one 
that  walked  after  the  priests,  alone. 

Holy  water  was  sprinkled  upon  the 
threshold,  and  a  blessing  laid  upon 
the  house  ;  and  he  was  then  bidden 
to  unclothe  himself  and  to  put  on  a 
black  gown  that  the  priest  had 
brought,  for  he  might  carry  nothing 
away  with  him  into  death  ;  all  that 
he  possessed  must  be  left  behind. 
Perhaps  he  faltered  for  a  moment  in 
departing,  and  looked  back  ;  he  was 
already  no  more  than  a  dead  man, 
but  this  had  been  his  home,  and  his 
wife  and  children  were  there,  weeping. 
He  looked  back  ;  but  they  sat  at  the 
far  side,  with  a  breadth  of  air  between 
them,  and  he  was  alone.  Hence- 
forward he  would  always  be  alone. 

The  crucifix  and  the  silver  bell  led 
the  way,  glittering  and  twinkling. 
The  choristers  swung  their  censers, 
and  the  tapers  flickered  in  the  wind  ; 
and  the  priest's  voice  spread  out 


sonorously  to  meet  the  answering 
trebles,  in  long  slow  cadences  : 
Thou  shall  ivash  me,  and  I  shall  be 
ivhiter  than  snoiv. 

The  sun  is  high  and  the  sky  pale 
and  clear  with  the  infinite  distances 
of  spring  ;  the  hedges  are  flushed  with 
the  purple  of  the  swollen  sap-filled 
branches,  and  pearled  already  with  a 
multitude  of  small  buds.  There  is 
here  and  there  blossom,  milk-white 
and  frosted,  or  the  faint  green  of 
young  leaves ;  the  bank  beneath 
breaks  into  the  yellow  of  primroses 
or  tall  slender  daffodils,  and  the  air  is 
sharp  with  a  fine  wild  fragrance  of 
gorse  bloom  and  new  growth  and 
fresh-turned  earth.  The  world  is 
lusty  and  full-blooded  and  superbly 
alive  ;  it  is  only  he  that  walks  between 
the  black-coped  priest  and  the  lagging 
crowd,  only  he  that  walks  alone,  that 
is  dead.  The  high  sky  and  the  sun- 
light upon  the  sea,  the  blue  distance 
and  the  swell  of  field  and  orchard  he  is 
to  look  upon  no  more  ;  for  him,  after 
to-day,  there  will  be  nothing  in  all 
the  world  but  the  spot  of  ground 
beneath  his  feet.  He  may  not  raise 
his  eyes  from  that  earth  to  which, 
as  a  dead  man,  the  Church  has  re- 
turned him,  and  of  which  the  law 
makes  him  part.  He  will  be  pre- 
sently no  more  than  dust ;  from  this 
life,  that  presses  so  beautifully  about 
him,  he  is  henceforward  to  be  shut 
out. 

In  the  church  all  is  made  ready  for 
a  funeral  mass.  The  chancel  is  hung 
with  black,  and  in  the  choir  the 
tressels  on  which  the  coffin  should 
stand  are  black-draped  also  ;  but  there 
is  no  coffin :  there  is  only,  between 
them,  a  black  mat  on  which  kneels 
a  man  in  a  black  gown.  On  either 
side,  at  head  and  foot,  are  set  the 
tall  funeral  tapers,  with  their  quaint 
sombre  placards  of  skull  and  cross- 
bones  ;  the  crucifix  is  reared  in  the 
face  of  the  altar ;  there  is  solemn 


In  the  Hour  of  Death. 


195 


chanting,  and  behind  the  church  is 
full  of  peasants,  the  women  with  their 
great  white-winged  coiffes  loosened 
and  hanging  upon  their  shoulders  in 
sign  of  mourning.  All  is  in  its  usual 
place  and  order ;  only  there  is  no 
coffin,  but  one  that  kneels,  listening 
and  looking  confusedly,  dully.  There 
will  be  time  enough  to-morrow  to 
think  and  weep,  if  lepers  do  either. 

The  service  comes  to  its  end ;  and 
now    the  dead    man    must  be    taken 
to  his  tomb.     Once  more  they  set  out 
in   the   same  order ;    once   more  they 
pass,  led  by  the  crucifix,  the  tinkling 
bell,   and  the    swinging    censers,   out 
of  the   church,  into  which   the  leper, 
alive  or  dead,  will  never  again  enter. 
And  between  the  priest  and  the  lag- 
ging   crowd    is    still    the    bare    space 
where    one    walks    alone.       The    sun 
shines  brightly  along  the  road  to  the 
village,  but  now  they  turn  aside  till 
they  come    to  a  hut  upon   the    edge 
of    the    wood ;    it    is    a  poor    hut,    a 
leper's  hut,   and  they  pause    a    little 
way  off;  there  is   danger  in  the  air, 
and  one  need  not  go  too  close.     The 
people  huddle  in  a  mass  up  the  wind  ; 
only  the  priest  goes  forward  even  to 
the  threshold,  where  he  throws  down 
the   little   property  that  a  leper   may 
possess.      There    is    the  black    gown, 
with  the  huge    black    hood   and    the 
terrible  red  cross  upon  the  shoulder  ; 
there  are  the  staff,  and  the  rope-girdle 
with    its     bell,    from    the     sound     of 
which  all  men   fly,   the   sack  to  hold 
his  food,  the  blanket  which  is  all  his 
bedding.      And    then    he    reads    the 
commands,   which  the  leper,   on   pain 
of  death,  must  constantly  obey  :  never 
to  leave  his   hut  save  with  his  hood 
drawn  down  so  that  none  may  see  his 
face ;  without  his  girdle  with  its  bell, 
that  at  its  sound  all  may  avoid  him ; 
without  his  staff,  that  if  he  need  food 
he  may  point  to  it,  or  his  sack  that  it 
may  be  put  therein  without  touch  or 
nearing    of    him.      Never    to    let    his 


flesh  be  seen,  so  much  even  as  his 
mouth  or  the  tip  of  his  finger  ;  never 
to  speak  wheresoever  he  may  be ; 
never  to  stand  within  ten  yards  of 
a  clean  man,  save  with  the  way  of 
the  wind ;  to  give  help  to  no  man, 
and  to  receive  none,  whether  for  life 
or  death  ;  to  look  upon  the  earth  con- 
tinually and  to  remember  that  he  is 
no  more  than  a  particle  of  it ;  to  re- 
joice in  the  mercy  of  God,  who  made 
Heaven  wide  enough  even  for  lepers 
to  enter  in ;  to  hear  mass  through  the 
leper's  window,  or  standing  "  under 
the  bells  ".;  and  to  be  buried  some 
day  in  his  hut  without  sacrament  or 
service,  for  he  was  already  a  dead 
body,  here  and  now  committed  to 
the  tomb  ;  a  dead  man  in  the  eye  of 
the  law,  a  dead  man  in  the  holding 
of  the  Church,  without  rights  over 
his  possessions,  his  children,  or  his 
wife ;  a  thing  without  name,  to  be 
henceforward  known  of  no  man,  save 
as  a  leper. 

Next  the  priest,  indifferently  piti- 
ful, but  accustomed,  and  not  unwill- 
ing to  be  done  with  it,  takes  the 
consecrated  earth  brought  from  the 
cemetery,  and  throws  it  on  the  man 
before  him,  speaking  the  usual  blessing 
on  the  tomb  ;  and  then  he  draws  back 
a  little  to  the  spot  where  the  choris- 
ters stand  beside  the  crucifix.  Grant 
them,  oh  Lord,  eternal  rest,  and  let  light 
everlasting  shine  on  them. 

From  the  threshold  of  his  hut  the 
leper  looks  once  more  abroad  for  the 
last  time.  His  wife  weeps  on  the 
near  edge  of  the  crowd,  and  his  chil- 
dren cling  to  her  skirts ;  over  her 
loosened  coiffe  she  wears  the  black 
square  of  widowhood.  They  do  not 
come  near  him ;  they  will  never  come 
near  him  again.  There  has  been  no 
kind  parting  for  him,  as  for  other 
dead  men ;  from  the  moment  the 
scourge  was  found  upon  him,  he  had 
been  outcast,  aloof.  They  are  alive, 
and  he  is  utterly  dead  ;  his  wife  may 

o  2 


196 


In  the  Hour  of  Death. 


choose  a  new  husband,  and  he, — he 
may  walk  in  the  wind  of  her  wedding, 
and  pick  up  the  alms  thrown  to  him. 
Or  he  may  take,  if  he  will,  one  to  re- 
place her,  that  like  himself  wears  the 
hood  with  the  terrible  red  cross,  and 
beneath  it  is  not  yet  grown  too  horrible. 

The  procession  moves  away,  and  the 
sunlight  glitters  on  the  white  linen 
and  the  silver  swaying  crucifix,  till  it 
shines  like  an  upheld  point  of  white 
fire.  The  sound  of  singing  travels 
down  the  road,  long,  sweet,  exultant ; 
the  men's  voices  meet  the  treble  of 
the  children,  in  an  interminable 
refrain  of  triumph  and  joy :  Blessed 
are  they  whose  iniquities  are  forgiven, 
and  whose  sins  are  covered. 

It  is  all  over,  and  they  are  going  home, 
to  the  wholesomeness  of  labour  and 
sweet  air  and  young  life ;  and  on  the 
threshold  of  his  hut  the  leper,  left 
alone,  puts  on  the  cloak  and  the 
hood  which  are  to  hide  his  corrup- 
tion, and  is  dead.  But  from  far 
along  the  road  that  winds  through 
fields  and  orchards  to  the  church, 
comes  still  the  sourd  of  singing:  Blessed 
are  they  whose  iniquities  are  forgiven. 

Leprosy  was,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, a  very  terrible  and  widespread 
scourge  in  Brittany,  as  elsewhere.  It 
was  so  present  a  dread  among  the 
people,  that  the  plague-stricken  were 
driven  out  of  the  towns  as  if  they 
were  criminals,  and  the  clean  rose  up 
in  frantic  repulsion  against  the  un- 
clean. Lest  their  dead  bodies  should 
lie  in  the  streets  and  pollute  the  air, 
they  were  given,  perforce,  a  trembling 
and  unwilling  charity  ;  they  were  per- 
mitted to  shelter  themselves  in  the 
woods,  and  portions  of  bread  and 
meat  were  laid  on  stones  beside  the 
way,  where  the  leper,  or  the  wolf, 
might  seek  them  at  night.  If  the 
leper  died, — well,  then,  no  one  was 
to  blame  ;  it  was  no  man's  fault  if  the 
wolves  grew  over-bold,  or  the  disease 


were  strong  and  quick.  Sometimes, 
as  all  the  world  knew,  it  was  very 
quick  in  doing  its  terrible  work  ;  at 
other  times  it  lingered,  and  that  was 
worse.  He  was  dead  and  there  was 
an  end  ;  to  all  who  loved  him  he  had 
been  as  a  dead  man  already  for  so 
long.  And  the  next  leper  that  suc- 
ceeded to  his  hut  of  twisted  branches 
might  clear  it  of  his  bones. 

But  reason  and  a  growing  self- 
defence  presently  compelled  a  greater 
charity.  In  the  first  place  there  were 
soon  too  many  lepers.  When  a  town 
found  its  woods  haunted  with  infection, 
when  a  troop  of  hideous  beings  hung 
half-starved  and  ravenous  about  its 
gates,  or  fought  for  the  bread  and 
meat  thrown  out  to  them  as  to  a 
pack  of  dogs,  it  was  time  to  deal 
with  this  terror  that  lay  constantly 
about  it,  and  as  constantly  broke  out 
in  its  midst.  There  were  even  those, 
fathers  and  mothers,  husbands  and 
wives,  who  at  deadly  risk  kept  their 
sick  secretly  hidden  within  their 
houses,  a  continual  infection,  rather 
than  let  them  be  cast  out  to  join  the 
hideous  band  that  herded  in  the 
woods ;  it  was  time,  and  more  than 
time,  to  meet  the  danger  and  pro- 
vide against  it  according  to  the  avail- 
able means.  So  leprosy  presently  lost 
its  worst  horrors,  and  was  treated, 
within  the  manners  of  the  day,  to 
a  systematized  but  more  consistent 
charity.  It  remained  absolutely  ne- 
cessary that  the  leper  should  be  cast 
out  from  among  clean  men,  whether 
to  herd  with  his  like  or  to  live 
alone  ;  but  at  least  his  wants  were 
reasonably  provided  for.  He  was 
fed  sufficiently,  lodged  within  four 
walls,  allowed  a  table,  a  chair,  and 
a  pallet,  clothes  to  wear  and  the 
possibility  of  hearing  mass ;  and  he 
was  treated  with  no  brutality.  On 
the  other  hand  he  was  condemned 
to  an  extremer  isolation  than  had 
yet  prevailed,  a  living  death  that 


In  the  Hour  of  Death. 


197 


made  of  him  no  more  than  a  hideous 
black  shape  to  be  avoided  by  all  men. 
He  was  shut  into  silence  :  he  was  for- 
bidden even  to  look  upon  the  world 
about  him ;  and  the  very  splendour  of 
the  funeral  mass  that  the  Church 
gave  to  a  leper,  declared  the  absolute 
death  into  which  he  had  passed.  But 
that  he  was  set  apart  in  a  never- 
ending  darkness  and  isolation,  or 
forced  to  herd  only  with  others  of  his 
kind,  was  no  more  than  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  the  ever-present  plague 
that  was  an  equal  danger  to  all  men. 

The  villages  provided  huts  for  their 
sick  in  a  remote  corner  of  the  parish, 
which  grew  presently  into  small  settle- 
ments. Near  the  large  towns  hospices 
were  built  by  the  charity  of  princes 
or  religious  foundations.  These  were 
usually  placed  within  sight  of  the 
greater  roads  on  which  there  was  the 
most  traffic  ;  for  though  the  leper  was 
isolated,  and  become  in  himself  a  dead 
man,  yet  he  was  not  to  be  forgotten ; 
he  must  be  fed,  clothed,  and  sheltered 
by  the  charity  of  those  who  passed 
by.  These  hospices  were  very  numer- 
ous about  the  greater  towns  through- 
out Brittany ;  one,  for  instance,  near 
Rennes,  kept  up  a  curious  feudal 
custom  commemorative  of  its  founda- 
tion long  after  it  had  ceased  to  shelter 
lepers  within  its  walls.  Once  a  year 
two  of  the  inmates  of  the  hospital 
were  led  solemnly  to  a  cerain  stone 
"  over  against  the  house  of  Puy- 
Mauger,  at  the  entry  of  the  Rue  de 
la  Madeleine,"  where  they  had  to 
"  say  their  song  "  before  the  officers 
of  the  town  and  of  the  viscounty. 
The  songs  are  even  quoted  in  the 
ancient  deeds  which  refer  to  this ; 
they  seem  to  have  been  mere  rhymes 
with  little  interest,  of  a  few  lines 
each  ;  and  the  proceedings  closed  with 
a  prayer  "  for  the  lepers  of  the  Made- 
leine." As  a  feudal  duty,  the  song, 
or  song  and  dance,  is  frequently  to  be 
met  with  ;  but  the  custom  is  a  curious 


one  as  connected  with  a  hospital  of 
lepers,  considering  the  absolute  se- 
clusion which  was  otherwise  enforced 
on  them. 

In  time,  however,  things  changed, 
as  things  inevitably  must   change  in 
the  passing  of   years.     The  hospices 
and    the    clusters    of     isolated     huts 
became  settlements  and  even  villages, 
where  the   lepers  lived  isolated  still, 
but  in  communities,  marrying  among 
themselves     and      giving     birth      to 
children.      Perhaps     the   disease    had 
become  already  less  frequent  and  less 
deadly;  or. perhaps  the  stern  system 
of  isolation  had  confined  the  taint  to 
the  leprous   families,  and  even  there 
in  time  it  grew  weaker.      At  any  rate 
the  leper,  if  still  set  apart  and  outside 
the  lives   of   others,   had  inherited  a 
life  of  his  own;  his  settlements  bore  a 
common    name,    and    gradually    prac- 
tised a  common  industry.     They  were 
known  as  Ladreries,  or  more  commonly 
Madeleines,  from  Saint  Madeleine  and 
her  brother  Saint  Lazarus  or  Ladre, 
who,     according     to     tradition,     had 
founded  a   great  number   of   "  lepro- 
series,"  and  were  the  especial  patrons 
of   the  plague-stricken  ;  and  through- 
out Brittany  one  may  trace  the  leper 
settlements  by  the  names  that  remain 
to-day.     There  is  the  Madeleine  near 
Saint-Servan,   the  Madeleine    outside 
Vitre  ;  the  Madeleine  at  Redon ;  the 
Madeleine    at    Dinan ;     there    is    a 
Madeleine  near  Vannes,  at  Pluvigner, 
at  the  place  called  the  Cross  of  Saint 
Ladre  near  Morlaix ;  and  others,  too 
many   to    name,    scattered    over    the 
country  and  especially  in   the   neigh- 
bourhood   of    towns,    as    they    were 
founded  long  ago  when  leprosy  was  a 
very  present    scourge   in    High    and 
Low  Brittany.     They  are  now  villages 
like  any  other,   when    they  are    not 
populous    suburbs ;    and    they  retain 
from    their   ancient  foundation    only 
their  name  and  their  industry.     For 
at  each   of   these  Madeleines  there  is 


198 


In  the  Hour  of  Death. 


still  a  rope-walk.  The  leper's  settle- 
ment was  a  Madeleine,  the  leper 
himself  was  a  ropemaker ;  and  still 
his  children's  children  live  in  the 
same  village,  keep  to  the  same  trade, 
and  bear  witness,  it  may  be,  even  in 
their  names  to  the  forgotten  horror  of 
their  origin.  There  are  names  that 
are  to-day  empty  of  all  significance, 
but  once  were  cruelly  descriptive ; 
Le  Gall,  Le  Galloux,  Le  Cacoux, 
which  are  now  no  more  than  names, 
as  the  Madeleines  are  now  villages 
like  any  other,  and  within  them  a 
people  no  longer  set  apart.  And  yet 
after  so  many  hundred  years  the 
ancient  tradition  of  ill-will  and  re- 
pulsion has  not  wholly  died  out. 
They  are  still,  these  villagers,  in  the 
popular  instinct  outcast  and  abomina- 
ble, though  the  feeling  has  weakened 
till  it  lingers  mostly  on  the  tongue 
and  as  a  vague  indefinable  aversion. 

Those  who  live  in  the  Madeleine, 
Do  not  marry  without  pain, 

is  a  proverb  still  quoted ;  and  what 
was  once  entirely  true  is  not  yet 
wholly  false.  Such  an  one,  especially 
if  he  be  a  ropemaker,  actually  does  not 
win  a  wife  at  the  first  asking.  "  There 
are  girls  good  enough  for  you  in  the 
Madeleine,"  or  "  I'll  never  marry  into 
the  Madeleine,"  are  ready  responses  ; 
and  though  now  such  scruples  are 


to  be  overcome,  they  are  yet  a  strange 
and  significant  survival  of  the  cen- 
turies. 

And  there  is  one  other  inheritance 
which  has  come  down  through  the 
years,  bearing  pitiful  witness  to  the 
ancient  scourge ;  an  inheritance  of 
ill-health  that  has  grown  into  a 
saying,  so  that  when  a  child  is  born 
sickly  or  feeble,  it  is  called  un  vrai 
enfant  de  la  Madeleine.  It  is  only, 
now,  a  saying,  and,  like  most  sayings, 
has  almost  outlived  its  truth  ;  but  it 
is  a  very  sad  and  unmistakable  testi- 
mony to  the  tainted  blood,  inherited 
from  the  days  when  leprosy  was  a 
constant  horror,  a  death  in  life,  for 
which  a  man  was  set  apart  from  his 
fellow-men,  and  stripped  of  all  that 
he  possessed  save  only  his  corrupt  and 
suffering  body.  It  was  surely  a  very 
terrible  thing  to  be  a  leper  in 
Brittany,  in  the  days  when  he  walked 
in  his  own  funeral  and  heard  mass 
said  for  his  own  soul  ;  when  he  was 
shut  out  into  a  never-ending  silence 
and  isolation,  a  black  shapeless  terror, 
heralded  by  a  tolling  bell ;  a  nameless 
unknown  thing  within  sight  and 
sound  of  all  that  he  had  loved,  so  that 
he  might  hear  the  voice  of  his  wife 
among  those  that  forgot  him  in 
laughter,  or  the  feet  of  his  children 
amid  the  feet  that  fled  from  the  path 
of  the  walking  Death. 


199 


THE  SLAVE  OF  SUMMER. 


AFTER  living  for  a  few  years  away 
from  cities,  one  begins  to  feel  for  all 
townsfolk  a  tolerant  compassion,  which 
is  too  apt  to  be  mingled  with  a  less 
worthy  sentiment.  For  as  there  are 
some  who  boast  of  their  connection 
with  personages  of  high  station,  so  we 
who  dwell  in  the  country  take  a 
boastful  pride  in  our  intimacy  with 
the  country  life.  The  infinite  air  holds 
secrets  for  us  ;  the  breezes  have  whis- 
pered them  confidentially  in  our  ear ; 
and  we  are  so  lifted  up  that  we  look 
down  upon  the  Londoner,  and  would 
like  him  to  recognise  how  we  have  been 
honoured.  Doubtless  in  our  eyes 
there  comes  the  same  expression  as 
may  be  observed  by  visitors  to  the 
seaside  in  the  eyes  of  the  chatty  shore- 
man who  has  spent  his  life  upon  the 
beach.  He  appears  to  know  all  about 
the  sea,  as  we  do  about  the  country. 
Yet  he  is  no  seaman  ;  he  lives  between 
land  and  water,  ignorant  of  the  ocean. 
And  in  just  his  way,  we,  refugees 
from  the  city,  stand  only  on  the 
margin  of  the  open-air  life,  where  its 
waves  break  ;  we  cannot  put  out  and 
voyage  away  beyond  our  first  horizon. 
On  the  deep  water  of  the  seasons  we 
have  never  been ;  it  is  all  unknown 
to  us  supercilious  persons. 

But  they  who  work  on  the  land 
know  it  well,  too  well,  perhaps. 
Summer  and  autumn,  that  are  a  kind 
of  pleasant  picture-gallery  to  us, 
dominate  the  lives  of  the  labouring 
people  in  the  country,  and  tyrannise 
over  all  their  thoughts.  The  winter 
has  no  such  control  over  them  ;  at 
best  it  is  an  interlude,  a  time  for 
burying  the  old  harvest  and  preparing 
for  the  new  ;  at  worst  it  is  a  cruel 
enemy  that  victimises  and  harasses 


them.  But  throughout  it  all  their 
tasks  show  that  their  relentless  deity 
is  the  summer,  to  whom  they  are  en- 
slaved by  an  enchantment  that  is  as 
enthralling  to  the  senses,  and  some- 
times as  full  of  dread,  as  a  sailor's 
quenchless  infatuation  for  the  sea. 

Here  is  high  summer  upon  us,  the 
silent  burning  splendour  of   the  heart 
of  the  warm  weather.      For  us  in  the 
country,  who  can    afford  to   be    idle, 
the  time  goes  gloriously,  and  we  think 
that  we  love  the  summer.     Yet  this 
love    of     ours, — this     liking,    rather, 
that     takes     and     gives     nothing    in 
return,     this     condescending    amuse- 
ment  of   an  idle  hour, — is  it  not  as 
far  from  true  love  as  the  reading  of 
a  love-tale  in  a  book  1     The  stinging 
torments  of  the  lover  do  not  touch  us, 
because  our  care  for  the  heroine  is  so 
passionless.       But    who     knows     how 
lovely  and  how   terrible  the  summer 
may  be  to  those  who  are  its  servants, 
its     creatures,     its    slaves, — to    those 
whose  fate  it  is  to  toil  in  the  daylong 
sunshine,   like  the  old  man    we  have 
been  talking   with  1     To    see   him  is 
to    recognise    that    most    of    us  have 
been  merely  flirting  with  the  summer  ; 
but  his  love  has  been  the  passion  of  a 
life.      In  his  face,  always  weather-worn 
and    now    wearing  the  rich  livery  of 
the  sun,  there  is  something  akin  to  the 
parched    hillside    across    the     valley, 
where  the  dry  grass  is  turning  brown 
and  the  land  looks  hard  and  wrinkled 
in  the  heat. 

Our  friend  is  in  his  way  a  very 
Ulysses,  although  his  travels  have 
been  confined  almost  wholly  to  the 
southern  English  counties.  From  one 
hayfield  to  another,  and  onwards 
to  the  Sussex  cornlands  as  they 


200 


The,  Slave  of  Summer. 


stretch  out  mile  after  mile ;  late  one 
night  carting  timber  home  from  the 
forest,  then  driving  with  vegetables 
into  Covent-Garden  Market ;  working 
in  hop-gardens,  road-making,  scaffold- 
ing on  new  buildings,  gravel  digging 
in  the  winter  while  his  boots  froze  on 
him,  or  again  reaping  on  cliff-sides 
by  the  blue  sea  until  he  grew  lean 
and  black  from  sweating ;  visiting 
fairs,  hawking  on  racecourses,  travel- 
ling the  road  with  gipsies, — the  man 
has  carried  his  life  through  always  on 
his  own  back,  has  carved  it  out  from 
day  to  day  by  the  strength  and  readi- 
ness of  his  own  hands.  Come  wet, 
come  shine,  either  was  met  by  him 
with  unconcern ;  for  he  knew  by 
experience  that  if  good  luck  changes, 
so  does  the  bad  with  equal  certainty. 
Few  men  of  sixty  can  have  spent 
their  years  more  eventfully  than  he. 

And  now,  if  you  catch  him  in  the 
humour,  he  will  gossip  as  long  as  you 
care  to  listen,  standing  (it  is  his 
favourite  attitude  for  a  talk)  and 
squinting  away  to  the  well-known 
hills,  until  he  has  veered  round  with 
his  back  towards  you,  and  the  talk, 
with  an  occasional  jerk  of  the  stubbly 
chin,  comes  back  over  his  shoulder  in 
sound  not  unlike  the  continuous 
droning  of  an  old  bumble-bee.  Hum- 
drum talk  it  is,  rambling  always  and 
sometimes  long-winded,  but  spiced 
with  precious  touches  of  strong  ver- 
nacular or  racy  and  picturesque 
anecdote.  As  you  listen,  observing 
the  while  his  thick  stooping  back  and 
his  bent  legs,  misshapen  in  their 
patched  corduroys  by  many  an  ugly 
wrench,  you  get  often,  from  the 
wagging  head,  from  the  hard  sun- 
burned skin,  and  from  the  dry  chuckle 
of  his  laughter,  a  consciousness  of  the 
sort  of  strength  that  grew  up  in 
English  weather  in  England's  old 
fighting  days.  This  is  Bettesworth's 
best  flavour  ;  it  is  not  a  modern  one, 
the  more  is  the  pity  for  him  now. 


For  at  last  the  force  that  has 
carried  him  through  so  far  is  be- 
ginning to  desert  him.  In  the  few 
years  since  we  have  known  him  he  has 
visibly  aged.  It  was  five  summers 
ago  that  he  first  came  to  us,  then,  as 
to-day,  looking  out  for  work,  and  found 
it  until  the  winter  set  in.  We  well 
remember  one  quiet  August  evening 
that  year,  when  half  wistfully  he  told 
us  how  numbers  of  his  neighbours 
from  this  valley  had  on  the  previous 
evening  started  off  for  harvesting  in 
Sussex.  "  I  'spects  they  be  well  into 
it  by  now,"  he  said  dreamily,  thinking 
of  the  jovial  tramp  by  moonlight,  the 
long  burning  days,  the  ale  at 
evening,  and  the  world-old  harvest 
rites,  still  perhaps  holding  something 
of  dim  pagan  superstition  for  him. 
It  had  been  his  annual  holiday,  this 
harvesting,  which  he  was  missing  then 
for  the  first  time  during  many  years. 
Seeing  the  half-sad  smile  in  his  gray 
eyes,  and  hearing  the  dry  monotonous 
voice,  you  felt  yourself  in  the  presence 
of  some  survival  from  far-off  anti- 
quity, as  though  the  intimate  know- 
ledge of  ancient  joys  and  needs  were 
still  alive  in  the  old  man's  mind, 
enriching  it  with  a  tangled  world  of 
mystery  that  grows  ever  more  and 
more  unfamiliar  in  these  days  of 
machinery  and  indoor  life. 

This  marks  really  the  commence- 
ment of  his  decline,  this  first  failure 
to  join  the  harvesters ;  for,  as  it 
happened,  he  was  to  have  no  other 
opportunity.  The  following  summer 
brought  the  terrible  drought  of  1893, 
when  the  scanty  corn,  where  it  came 
at  all,  was  cut  with  a  scythe  as  though 
it  had  been  hay.  Few  reapers 
journeyed  into  Sussex  that  year ; 
and  many  men,  who  had  hoped  to 
earn  a  few  extra  pounds  to  keep 
them  until  the  spring,  were  without 
work  at  all.  Bettesworth  was  one  of: 
these.  His  eyes  then  had  the  same 
set  glassy  look  of  endurance  which  we 


The  Slave  of  Summer. 


201 


have  seen  in  them  since,  during  bad 
winter  times.  But  he  had  weathered 
through  [ill-luck  before;  why  should 
he  not  weather  through  it  again  1 

Well,  there  was  a  short  respite  ; 
but  the  winter  held  in  store  for  him 
luck  worse  than  he  had  ever  known, — 
the  bad  luck  that  left  him  an  old 
man,  losing  his  grip  on  life.  One 
frosty  morning  he  slipped,  hurting  his 
leg ;  and  supposing  the  hurt  to  be 
a  mere  sprain,  he  managed  to  hobble 
some  two  hundred  yards  to  his  cottage, 
where  he  lay  in  agony  for  two  days 
before  the  club-doctor  arrived  to 
discover  that  both  shin-bones  were 
broken.  To  hear  him  then  moaning 
to  be  out  of  doors, — "  If  on'y  I  could 
get  a  smell  o'  the  fresh  air,  I  should  get 
stronger " — was  to  understand  how 
the  weather  had  made  the  man  its 
bond-slave.  Working  always  in  it, 
he  had  become  saturated  by  it ;  the 
air  had  wrapped  him  in  its  enchant- 
ment and  won  him,  until  blood  and 
tissue  and  the  quick-healing  bones 
yearned  passionately  for  its  caressing 
presence.  Yet  he  was  hardly  able  to 
crawl  about  again  before  influenza 
drove  him  back  to  his  bed  ;  weakening 
him  so  much  that  when  next  the 
harvesters  started,  and  an  offer  of 
work  reached  him  from  a  Sussex 
farmer,  he  was  obliged  reluctantly, 
almost  tearfully,  to  decline  it.  "I 
can't  lay  rough,  same  as  I  used  to  do," 
he  said.  So  the  world  began  to  with- 
draw from  him ;  and  his  keen  reaping- 
hook  was  degraded  to  the  trimming 
of  grassy  banks  in  our  garden. 

But  while  the  joys  of  the  outdoor 
life  are  receding  from  him,  there  re- 
main undiminished  its  exacting  tor- 
ments, looming  darker  and  gathering 
towards  the  end,  when  rain  and  sun 
and  summer  air  will  leave  him  un- 
touched. The  summer,  the  toilsome 
money-earning  season,  asks  of  him  as 
much  as  ever,  and  tantalisingly  now, 
as  a  mistress  demanding  services 


beyond  his  strength.  He  is  wearing 
out.  In  former  days  it  was  his  de- 
light to  be  at  work  with 'horses;  to- 
day he  is  too  stiff  to  go  safely  with 
the  quietest.  Again,  not  long  ago  we 
watched  him  digging  side  by  side 
with  a  younger  man.  Pluck  and  rug- 
ged obstinacy  will  achieve  much,  but 
they  cannot  enable  a  sixty-years'-old 
back  and  arms  to  keep  pace  with 
those  of  five-and-thirty.  All  this  tells 
against  him.  At  the  best,  it  is  not 
so  easy  to  get  work  as  when  he  was  a 
younger  man ;  and  now  it  is  a  month 
or  more  since  Bettesworth  has  had  a 
day's  employment.  How  he  and  his 
wife  live  is  known  only  to 
themselves  and  to  others  in  a  like 
predicament.  At  present,  however, 
he  seems  hardly  to  foresee  that  the 
recovery  from  this  spell  of  bad  luck 
may  be  less  easy  for  him  than  of 
old.  Use  and  wont  help  to  blind 
him.  Often  before,  in  the  best  season 
of  the  year,  the  same  forced  idleness 
may  have  pinched  him  as  hard.  Last 
year,  for  instance,  was  worse  than 
this,  during  that  prolonged  drought 
in  which  hundreds  of  men  suffered 
from  want,  as  if  in  winter.  One  day, 
we  remember,  he  said  to  us,  "  I've  bin 
all  round  Middlesham,  and  along  to 
the  Bull  at  Swankley.  They're  hay- 
makin'  all  along  by  the  river  there. 
1  walked  across  the  medder  wi'  Thorn- 
ley's  bailiff.  He  said  there'd  bin 
dozens  along  that  mornin'-,  workin' 
their  way  from  place  to  place  an' 
wantin'  a  job.  Then  I  looked  in  at 
Fenwick's.  Their  mangol'  'en't  come 
up ;  an'  as  for  the  grass,  why,  there 
wa'n't  a  load  to  th'  acre.  They  took 
't  up  same  night  as  'twas  cut  down  in 
the  mornin'.  He've  got  a  job  to  find 
'nough  for  his  reg'lar  'ands  to  do. 
'Tis  as  bad  up  there  at  Park  Farm. 
Ye  see,  there  'en't  no  pea-pickin'  nor 
nothin'  o'  that  this  year,  on  account 
'o  the  dryth,  to  take  any  of  'em  away 
up  country, "  and  so  on,  and 


202 


The  Slave  of  Summer. 


so  on.  The  dry  summer  had  the 
labouring  people  by  the  throat.  On 
the  following  day  Bettesworth's  tale 
was  similar.  He  had  walked  another 
round,  dinnerless.  One  farmer  "  was 
sackin'  some  of  'is  men — nothin'  for  'm 
to  do."  Another  was  "  haymakin',  but 
didn't  want  no  more'n  his  reg'lar 
'ands."  The  glassy  look  came  into 
the  old  man's  eyes,  and  his  voice 
hummed  gloomily  as  he  spoke. 

These,  and  the  like  of  these,  are 
torments  known  to  all  the  real  vo- 
taries of  the  summer.  Bettesworth 
knows  them  well.  As  his  age  in- 
creases, they  will  cloud  his  sky  com- 
pletely over. 

But,  while  his  strength  lasted,  there 
must  have  been  in  his  life  a  glory  that 
one  would  risk  much  to  experience  for 
once.  A  shining  hint  of  it,  a  patch 
of  blue  sky  not  yet  bedimmed,  startled 
us  after  that  dismal  tale  of  the  vain 
tramping  in  search  of  work.  We  bid 
him  look  round  the  garden  and  see 
what  his  hands  could  find  to  do.  He 
thanked  us,  but  without  enthusiasm, 
and  he  made  no  attempt  to  find  for 
himself  even  half  a  day's  work.  We 
watched  him  plodding  off,  and  he 
looked  neither  to  the  right  hand  nor 
to  the  left. 

Our  first  thought  was  that  he  was 
tired  of  working  here,  and  preferred 
idleness  ;  but  that  seemed  incredible 
to  us,  who  knew  him.  Besides,  for 
him  with  his  heavy  feet,  walking  is 
more  wearisome  than  work  ;  yet  that 
day  and  the  next  he  tramped  off 
again,  wherever  they  were  making 
hay.  And  then  we  perceived  what 
was  going  on  within  him.  He  had 
seen  the  summer  and  its  magnificence, 
as  he  used  to  see  it ;  the  magic  odour 
of  the  new-mown  grass  had  stirred 
his  blood,  intoxicating  him  with  a 
passion  of  longing  ;  the  hot  meadows, 


with  the  sleepy  horses  and  the  wag- 
gons and  the  old  familiar  tasks  had 
resumed  upon  him  their  ravishing- 
enchantment.  Dinner  might  go,  and 
the  chance  of  dinner ;  such  trifles 
could  not  be  regarded  then.  For,  as 
in  the  ancient  stories  of  a  mortal  who 
has  loved  a  goddess,  Bettesworth  was 
a  man  enamoured  of  the  summer  ;  the 
summer  goddess  renewing  herself  for 
ever,  holding  him  by  the  old  charm, 
calling  to  him  once  again  in  the  old 
way,  so  that  he  had  forgotten  that 
his  own  youth  was  gone.  A  victim 
he  may  have  been,  but  an  enamoured 
one :  amorous  of  the  sweetness  of 
the  summer  grass,  of  deep  continuous 
draughtsof  thesummerair ;  of  the  great 
blaze  of  sunshine  heating  all  the  long 
day ;  of  the  homely  companionship 
in  toil  ;  of  the  tired  cool  evening- 
times, — of  all  the  wooing  and  the 
worship  of  the  summer  goddess. 

That  was  a  year  ago,  and  now 
again  he  is  out  of  work ;  but  the 
same  passion  is  sleeping  in  him  still. 
Could  you  suggest  it  to  him,  he  would 
forget  his  troubles  for  a  time  ;  his  eyes 
would  brighten  and  his  face  light  up 
with  pleasure.  His  old  head  is  still 
stored  and  stirring  with  memories  of 
hay-makings  and  harvestings,  with 
pictures  of  gorgeous  weather  long 
since  past. 

Yet  in  a  few  more  years  it  must  all 
be  over  for  him.  As  a  dry  summer 
grass-hopper,  like  Tithonus,  he  might 
perhaps  be  willing  to  live  on,  could 
such  a  dubious  privilege  be  his. 
Of  course  one  knows  what  must 
happen  to  him.  He  will  pass  into 
the  workhouse,  away  from  his  goddess 
and  parted  from  his  faithful  old  wife. 
After  that,  the  sooner  he  can  escape 
the  society  of  the  unhappy  paupers 
for  "  the  grassy  barrows  of  the  happier 
dead,"  the  better  it  will  be  for  him. 


203 


HOW'S  THAT? 


How  rare  it  is  in  these  clays  to  see 
a  cricket-match  played  really  badly — 
played,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  ancient 
primitive  style,  subject  of  course  to 
the  laws  of  the  game,  but  without 
further  skill  than  is  afforded  by  a 
quick  eye  and  a  ready  arm,  or  further 
art  than  is  taught  by  simple  mother- 
wit.  It  is  almost  distressing  to  see 
the  polish  that  covers  all  our  games. 
The  English  have  long  enjoyed  the 
reputation  of  taking  their  pleasure 
sadly,  but  now  they  seem  to  do  worse 
and  take  it  seriously.  What  was 
begun  as  a  pastime  is  continued  as  a 
profession ;  what  was  designed  to  be- 
guile an  afternoon  becomes  the  study 
of  a  lifetime.  New  games,  or  old 
games  revived,  sucoeed  each  other  in 
rapid  sequence  in  the  popular  favour, 
and  are  as  rapidly  transformed  from 
sources  of  enjoyment  to  sources  of 
income.  A  few  men  gifted  with 
natural  aptitude  study  the  new  game, 
improve  their  skill  by  assiduous  prac- 
tice, and  take  possession  of  it  as  their 
own ;  the  great  majority,  turning  sor- 
rowfully aside,  look  for  something  still 
newer,  which  men  shall  not  be  able, 
at  any  rate  for  a  time,  to  play  so  well. 

The  phenomenon  is  not  easily  ex- 
plained, but  we  suspect  it  to  be  due 
in  great  part  to  that  exodus  from 
the  country  to  the  town  which  has 
been  so  marked  a  feature  of  English 
life  during  the  present  reign.  The 
greater  number  of  our  games  were 
born  on  the  village  green,  and  were 
not  designed  for  transplantation  to 
the  air  of  the  city.  They  were 
devised  for  thick-headed  rustic  sim- 
plicity, not  for  the  nimble  urban  intel- 
lect. Your  townsman  is  a  great  deal 
too  acute ;  he  seizes  too  quickly  on 


the  weak  points  of  a  game,  and  turns 
them  to  his  own  advantage.  It  is 
not  that  he  is  fonder  of  sharp  practice 
than  his  rustic  neighbour,  but  that  he 
is  swifter  to  see  where  it  may  be  profit- 
ably employed.  He  is  a  methodical 
person,  moreover,  and  requires  exact 
definitions  for  the  guidance  of  his  con- 
duct ;  a  bit  of  a  lawyer,  he  is  fond  of 
subtle  distinctions,  and  living  as  he 
does  among  a  crowd,  he  has  a  natural 
turn,  as  well  as  a  natural  facility,  for 
organisation.  And  thus  games  in  his 
hand  become  a  matter  of  written  rules, 
which  require  constantly  to  be  altered 
and  straitened  to  meet  alike  his 
scientific  skill  and  his  talent  for  eva- 
sion. They  assume  an  artificial  and 
highly  organised  form  which  is  foreign 
to  natural  amusement :  they  demand 
a  grander  environment  and  a  more  ex- 
pensive apparatus ;  and  finally  they 
imbibe  sufficient  of  the  competitive 
and  commercial  spirit  to  gain  an  un- 
pleasant flavour  of  business. 

The  influence  of  the  towns  on  sport 
has  been  not  less  marked.  Sport, 
though  it  may  seem  heresy  to  say  so, 
is  essentially  a  rustic  and  an  aristo- 
cratic thing,  not  to  be  understood  by 
an  urban  and  democratic  population. 
Look  at  the  urban  race-meetings, 
Sandown,  Kempton,  and  the  like,  and 
compare  them  with  Newmarket,  or, 
better  still,  with  Doncaster ;  could 
anything  more  plainly  show  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  townsman  and 
the  count^man's  idea  of  sport  1  Take 
shooting,  again  :  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion of  the  extraordinary  skill  shown 
in  bringing  the  game  to  the  guns,  and 
in  slaying  them  artistically  when 
brought ;  and  yet  the  trail  of  arti- 
ficiality lies  over  it  all,  and  the  spirit 


204 


Hoio's  that  ? 


of  competition,  as  distinguished  from 
simple  rivalry,  shows  itself  painfully 
in  the  ceremonious  counting  and  public 
recording  of  enormous  bags.  We  will 
cheerfully  plead  guilty  to  idiotcy,  if 
required,  but  we  prefer  Colonel 
Hawker's  exhausting  days  in  pursuit 
of  a  brace  of  cock-pheasants  to  any 
number  of  such  records.  As  to  hunting, 
we  fear  that  our  views  are  not  less 
heretical,  for  we  hold  that  there  is 
more  real  sport  in  the  account  of  the 
trencher-fed  pack  in  the  first  chapter 
of  HANDLEY  CROSS,  than  in  all  the 
columns  of  THE  FIELD  devoted  to  the 
shires  for  the  last  twenty  years. 

Cricket  is,  of  all  games,  that  which 
has  emerged  most  triumphant  from 
the  ordeal,  yet  even  cricket  has  been 
strangely  transformed.  It  is  governed 
now  by  rules  as  careful  and  scientific 
as  those  which  govern  the  playing 
of  the  violin.  No  doubt  this  has 
enormously  increased  its  interest  to 
the  spectators ;  and  indeed  men  go  to 
see  a  first-rate  cricket-match  in  much 
the  same  spirit  as  they  go  to  hear  a 
first-rate  orchestra.  The  great  major- 
ity of  such  matches  are  played  in 
towns  before  the  eyes  of  a  vast  throng 
of  townsmen  and  a  select  circle  of 
reporters,  whose  business  it  is  to  pre- 
pare a  kind  of  analytic  programme  of 
each  day's  play.  There  is  abundance 
of  keen  interest  and  generally  no  lack 
of  enthusiasm  ;  yet,  even  so,  the  more 
provincial  and  rural  the  surroundings 
the  greater  is  the  excitement  and  the 
more  genuine  the  appif/Htion.  The 
old  local  rivalry  when  th  f'nacmtry  folk 
gathered  round  the  couutf*  •  ground, 
watched  every  movement  of  their 
champions,  and  wagered  pots  of  beer 
on  their  prowess,  has  not  by  any 
means  wholly  perished ;  but  it  has 
too  often  lost  its  freshness  and  its 
simplicity.  Rivalry  has  given  way  to 
competition,  the  love  of  fight  to  the 
lust  of  victory.  Local  fame  and  the 
pride  of  local  championship  have  paled 


before  established  rank  in  the  general 
world  of  cricket.  In  old  days  a  com- 
pliment at  the  supper  was  enough. 
The  rapturous  applause  which  greeted 
such  a  sentiment  as,  "  If  I  were  not 
Dumkins  I  would  be  Luffey,  and  if  I 
were  not  Fodder  I  would  be  Struggles," 
conferred  sufficient  immortality  on  the 
illustrious  representatives  of  All  Mug- 
gleton  and  Dingley  Dell.  In  our  days 
they  would  be  ambitious  of  quite  other 
distinction,  and  would  probably  attain 
it  through  an  abominable  reproduction 
of  their  photographs.  There  would  sud- 
denly appear  in  some  ephemeral  series 
DISTINGUISHED  CRICKETERS,  No.  1002, 
Mr.  Luffey,  with  full  particulars  as 
to  his  birth,  breeding,  and  education, 
the  furniture  of  his  drawing-room,  his 
wife's  curling  tongs,  and  his  firstborn's 
perambulator.  And  so  the  hero  of 
Dingley  Dell  would  pass  for  one  week 
from  obscurity  and  contentment  into 
a  spurious  notoriety,  demoralising  alike 
to  himself  and  to  his  native  place.  All 
this  is  of  the  city,  urban.  The  urban 
mind  can  indeed  appreciate  skill,  but 
its  vulgar  curiosity  is  insatiable,  and 
the  forms  it  takes  and  the  pains  it 
will  be  at  to  gratify  it  are  as  mysteri- 
ous and  as  many  as  Wiggles's  intrigues. 
It  is  curious  to  note  the  failure  of 
cricket  to  take  strong  root  in  the  old 
Saxon  counties  ;  the  west  of  England 
does  not  naturally  take  to  it. 
Gloucestershire,  indeed,  if  that  be 
reckoned  part  of  the  West  country, 
has  of  course  made  a  great  name  in 
the  annals  of  cricket,  but  compara- 
tively recently  and  principally  owing 
to  the  rise  of  one  family.  Somerset, 
again,  has  within  the  last  few  years 
struggled  to  the  front,  and  we  are 
curious  to  see  how  long  she  will 
maintain  her  position.  But  Dorset  is 
guiltless  of  cricket,  and  still  more  so 
are  Devon  and  Cornwall.  The  explana- 
tion cannot  lie  in  the  fact  that  these 
counties  are  made  over  to  an  agri- 
cultural population  ;  for  such  a  defini- 


How's  that  ? 


205 


tion  would  exclude  Kent.  Nor  is 
there  evidence  to  show  that  they  fell 
behind  the  rest  of  England  in  respect 
of  other  rural  sports,  least  of  all  in 
those  that  had  their  root  in  self- 
defence.  There  is  not  the  least  reason 
for  supposing  that  the  archers  of 
Devon  and  Cornwall  shot  one  whit 
worse  than  the  rest  of  their  country- 
men, while  both  counties  possessed 
their  own  schools  of  wrestling,  though 
that,  to  be  sure,  has  now  ceased  as  a 
village  pastime.  There  are  not  a  few 
men  surviving  to  whom  the  picture 
of  the  village-revels  as  painted  in 
GEOFFREY  HAMLYN  is  still  full  of  life; 
and  the  two  champions  who  divided 
the  honours  of  the  Exmoor  district 
are  still  abroad,  though  past  the 
allotted  span  of  years,  to  tell  of  the 
days  when  they  wrestled  all  through 
Saturday  afternoon  and  went  to  church 
next  day,  if  victorious,  with  the  silver 
spoons  which  they  had  won  flaunting 
conspicuously  in  their  hats.  But  all 
this  has  passed  away ;  and  if  the 
wrestling  should  ever  be  revived  it 
will  almost  certainly  be  laid  hold  of 
by  the  townsmen  for  purposes  of  profit 
and  gambling,  and  will  go  the  way  of 
the  prize-ring. 

But  though  there  might  seem  to  be 
plenty  of  room  for  cricket  in  Devon, 
we  do  not  believe  that  it  will  ever 
flourish  there.  We  have  seen  it 
planted  again  and  again  by  enthu- 
siastic parsons  from  other  counties, 
encouraged  by  the  rustics  for  a  time 
with  a  certain  spasmodic  energy,  and 
incontinently  neglected  so  soon  as  the 
parson's  hand  was  withdrawn.  While 
it  lasted  it  was  primitive  cricket 
indeed.  Such  a  thing  as  a  pair  of 
flannel  trousers  was  never  seen  except 
on  the  parson's  legs,  and  the  rasping 
sound  of  the  corduroys  when,  as  fre- 
quently happened,  the  greater  part  of 
the  field  ran  wildly  after  some  great 
hit,  could  be  heard  half  a  mile  away. 
All  that  physical  strength  could  do 


was  done.  The  bowling  was  all 
underhand  of  the  most  ferocious  and, 
in  the  normal  rough  condition  of  the 
pitch,  most  dangerous  description.  If 
by  chance  some  favoured  mortal,  such 
as  the  schoolmaster's  son,  had  learned 
to  bowl  round-arm,  his  efforts,  how- 
ever feeble,  were  treated  with  the  re- 
spect due  to  superior  science.  The 
batting  was  of  two  kinds,  which 
were  never  combined  in  any  one  indi- 
vidual. The  eleven  was  distributed 
into  Itlockers  and  hitters.  It  was 
the  function  of  the  former  to  keep 
up  their  wickets  and  of  the  latter  to 
make  runs  :  in  fact  the  one  represented 
the  defensive  and  the  other  the  offen- 
sive element,  like  the  old  pikemen  and 
musketeers  ;  but  somehow  the  division 
of  labour  did  not  fit  in  well  with  the 
nature  of  the  game,  and  the  scores 
were  never  very  large.  The  hitting, 
indeed,  was  of  like  ferocity  Avith  the 
bowling,  for  there  was  no  lack  of 
quick  eyes  and  strong  arms ;  but  the 
blocker  was  generally  averse  to  hard 
running,  except  in  favour  of  some 
feeble  stroke  of  his  own,  and  the 
result  was  that  blockers  and  hitters 
generally  ran  each  other  out.  Then 
came  recrimination  and  not  unfre- 
quently  faction  ;  for  the  blocker  re- 
presented science  and  the  hitter  brute 
force,  and  these  two  are  everywhere 
and  at  all  times  antagonistic. 

The  game  never  really  took  root  in 
those  Western  hearts.  They  went 
through  it  willingly,  for  in  Devon 
they  are  a  v~~'l-,mannered,  complaisant 
folk  who  '  ,-•*  '  follow  a  keen  leader 
anywhei*  '.rom  simple  tenderness  to- 
wards his  feelings,  but  they  played 
without  real  interest  or  enthusiasm. 
If,  as  frequently  happened,  a  fisherman 
came  flogging  down  the  river  which 
bounded  one  corner  of  the  ground, 
man}'-  eyes  in  the  field  turned  wist- 
fully towards  him.  The  small  boys 
ran  straight  away  from  watching  the 
game  and  discussed  every  cast  of  thp 


206 


How's  that ! 


line  and  every  fish  that  rose  in.  awe- 
struck whispers,  begging  permission 
to  examine  every  captive  minutely 
before  he  was  put  in  the  basket. 
There  was  not  one  of  them  who  would 
not  have  preferred  an  hour's  groping 
after  trout  to  a  whole  afternoon  at 
cricket ;  and  the  men,  if  called  upon 
at  a  moment's  notice  to  draw  the 
stumps,  cut  themselves  sticks,  and  fall 
in  to  beat  a  covert,  would  have  re- 
sponded with  joyful  alacrity.  We 
would  by  no  means  imply  that  the 
sporting  instinct  is  incompatible  with  a 
love  of  cricket ;  but  it  is  certain  that  in 
Devon,  where  the  former  is  unusually 
strong,  the  latter  is  altogether  wanting. 
Whether  this  be  due  to  a  relaxing 
climate,  or  to  the  ever-present  menace 
of  rain,  we  do  not  pretend  to  decide  ; 
but  we  are  pretty  confident  that  the 
majority  of  Devonshire  boys  could  be 
lured  at  any  moment  from  cricket 
even  by  so  unattractive  a  bait  as  the 
prospect  of  taking  a  wasps'  nest. 

Nevertheless  we  think  that  the 
most  primitive  cricket-match  that  ever 
came  under  our  observation  was  one 
in  which  we  took  part  many  years  ago 
in  a  tropical  island.  Nothing  shall 
persuade  us  to  give  any  clue  as  to  the 
identity  of  the  said  island ;  it  must 
suffice  that  it  lies  within  the  tropic  of 
Cancer,  and  that  the  white  people 
therein,  being  of  English  descent,  have 
a  certain  knowledge  of  English  pas- 
times and  prosecute  them  with  as 
much  energy  as  a  high  thermometer 
may  permit.  We  must  here  confess 
to  an  uneasy  feeling  that  cricket, 
except  when  played  on  English  turf, 
is  somewhat  unreal.  Deep  down  in- 
deed in  our  heart  lurks  the  doubt 
whether  the  Briton  was  meant  to  be 
more  than  a  sojourner  and  a  pilgrim 
in  lands  where  his  native  grass  re- 
fuses to  grow.  We  are  well  aware 
that  we  are  thereby  excluding  him 
from  many  colonies  that  enjoy  a 
reputation  for  prosperity  and  a  still 


greater  reputation  for  cricket ;  but  the 
doubt  is  there,  and  we  have  never 
been  able  wholly  to  repudiate  it. 
There  is  something  about  the  eternal 
blue  sky  and  the  eternal  blazing  sun 
that  seems  ill-fitted  for  the  children 
of  these  foggy  islands ;  and  an  eternal 
hard  wicket  never  appears  to  us  quite 
in  keeping  with  the  uncertainty  of  the 
noble  game.  Even  in  seasons  of 
drought,  such  as  last  year  and  the 
present,  the  monotony  of  the  weather 
engenders  a  certain  monotony  of 
feature  in  a  harvest  of  great  scores. 

After  this,  it  will  not  surprise  our 
readers  to  learn  that  we  have,  for  our 
own  part,  and  to  our  great  misfortune, 
never  attained  to  the  least  skill  at 
cricket.  Like  all  Englishmen,  we 
played  strenuously  as  a  boy,  and  even 
now  are  never  weary  of  watching  the 
game  ;  but  we  have  only  just  sufficient 
knowledge  to  appreciate  its  difficulties, 
and  the  rest  is  awe.  We  never  thought 
even  to  have  played  a  match  in  the 
tropics,  for  we  had  a  full  sense  of  our 
own  incompetence  and  a  dread,  which 
sad  experience  had  proved  to  be  not 
unreasonable,  of  the  tropical  sun.  In 
a  strange  land  it  is  easy  to  pass  for 
one  who,  though  not  a  player,  is  a 
good  judge  of  the  game,  and  this  was 
the  reputation  which  we  sought  by 
judicious  reticence  to  establish.  But 
one  fine  day,  when  an  emissary  came 
round  to  piteously  entreat  us  to  make 
one  of  an  eleven  to  represent  the  old 
country  against  the  island,  our  resolu- 
tion began  to  waver.  The  match  was 
to  have  been  between  the  garrison  and 
the  island,  but  the  garrison  was  too 
weak  to  take  the  field  without  the 
help  of  civilians,  and  even  the  civilians 
who  could  be  depended  on  were  few. 
The  honour  of  the  old  country  was  at 
stake,  and  in  a  moment  of  weakness  we 
consented. 

The  match,  by  a  merciful  dispensa- 
tion, did  not  begin  until  the  afternoon. 
It  was  a  blazing  day  with  a  fierce  sun 


Hoiv's  that .' 


207 


and  a  cloudless  sky.  The  canes  that 
bounded  one  side  of  the  ground  were 
dense  and  high,  and  the  negroes,  who 
were  crowding  back  for  the  harvest, 
were  present  in  hundreds.  The  audi- 
ence was  distinguished  as  well  as 
large.  The  wives  of  nearly  all  the 
high  dignitaries  of  the  island  were 
there,  and  most  of  the  dignitaries  : 
the  General  with  his  aide-de-camp ; 
the  Bishop  in  holiday,  and  somewhat 
unepiscopal,  garb  ;  the  Military  Secre- 
tary with  a  blue  envelope  peeping  out 
of  his  pocket,  and  the  Colonial  Secre- 
tary in  his  best  white  hat ;  and,  for  a 
short  time,  his  Excellency  the  Governor 
himself.  Even  the  Military  Chaplain 
came  out  with  a  mob  of  white-faced 
children  hanging  on  to  both  hands, 
and  gave  the  monthly  nurse  a  chance 
of  leaving  her  patient  for  a  moment 
to  peep  at  all  these  great  personages 
from  the  verandah. 

It  was  no  easy  matter  to  make  up 
our  eleven.  Three  English  non- 
commissioned officers  in  regulation 
helmets,  grey  flannel  shirts,  very  dirty 
white  trousers,  girt  about  with  red 
belts  and  clasps  of  extremely  florid 
design,  were  ready  and,  judging  by 
their  language,  thirsting  for  the  fray. 
A  blue-eyed,  fair-haired  subaltern, 
fresh  from  England  and  not  yet  ex- 
hausted by  the  cumulative  burden  of 
the  heat,  was  also  on  the  alert,  and  a 
young  officer  of  the  Pay  Department 
with  him.  A  little  captain  with  a 
large  moustache  was  importunate  with 
every  man  he  met  to  play  for  the 
honour  of  the  British  Army ;  and  a 
young  Irish  doctor,  fresh  from  the 
hospitals,  and  apparently  not  very 
confident  of  his  prowess,  was  only 
kept  up  to  the  mark  by  two  more 
of  his  own  profession,  one  of  whom 
was  prepared  to  play  if  wanted. 
These,  together  with  ourselves,  made 
nine  ;  whence  the  other  two  were  to 
come  from  no  one  knew  and  appa- 
rently no  one  cared.  Then  came  the 


question  of  a  captain.  No  one  had 
thought  of  this  ;  but  as  all  the  work 
so  far  had  been  thrown  on  the 
subaltern,  and  as  every  fresh  problem 
that  arose  was  referred  to  him  for 
solution,  it  was  decided  that  he  should 
be  captain.  With  his  honours  fresh 
upon  him  he  called  Heads  to  the 
spin  of  the  coin,  and  amid  the  loud 
murmurs  of  his  side  was  declared  to 
have  lost.  Fortunately  the  island 
eleven  generously  sent  our  side  to  the 
wickets,  and  the  danger  of  immediate 
mutiny  was  averted. 

The  subaltern  and  the  paymaster 
went  to  the  wicket,  and  then  it  was 
discovered  that  our  umpire  was  miss- 
ing. "  Billy,"  yelled  half  a  dozen 
voices  at  the  unlucky  subaltern,  "who's 


the 


umpire 


The     Major,"     he 


yelled  back  ;  but  the  Major  was  not 
to  be  found,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
provide  a  substitute  until  he  should 
think  fit  to  appear.  Meanwhile  the 
match  began,  and  the  two  batsmen, 
both  of  whom  could  play  a  little,  were 
just  getting  set,  when,  in  an  evil  hour, 
the  Major  arrived  and  with  many 
apologies  took  his  place  as  umpire. 
He  had  been  to  the  club,  he  said,  on 
important  private  business  and  could 
not  get  away  before.  Those  who 
knew  the  gallant  officer  looked  at 
him  with  some  curiosity  as  he  made 
the  announcement ;  but  he  walked  to 
the  wicket  with  great  dignity,  and 
there  was  no  more  to  be  said.  In 
the  very  next  over  a  ball  struck  the 
top  of  the  paymaster's  pad  and  passed 
into  the  wicket-keeper's  hands. 
"  How's  that  1 "  asked  the  bowler  of 
the  Major.  "  Out,"  said  the  Major. 
"  Why,  it  hit  my  pad  !  "  protested  the 
paymaster,  who  had  a  liver  and  there- 
fore a  temper.  "  Pad  be  d d," 

retorted  the  Major,  who  disliked  the 
batsman ;  "  do  you  think  I  don't 
know  the  difference  between  a  pad 
and  a  bat  ?  If  you  had  said  it  hit 
your  head,  I  might  have  mistaken  the 


208 


Hoio's  that ! 


sound  of  that."  The  paymaster  with- 
drew scowling,  for  he  took  himself 
seriously  as  a  player. 

Next  came  the  little  captain,  who 
took  guard  with  extreme  care  and 
deliberation,  and  faced  the  bowler 
with  a  vacant  stare.  The  very  first 
ball  sent  his  bails  flying,  but  he  re- 
mained standing  in  an  expectant 
attitude  till  the  subaltern  went  up  and 
led  him  away,  seizing  the  opportunity 
to  implore  us  to  go  in  next.  We 
were  by  no  means  anxious,  but  from 
sheer  pity  for  him  we  consented.  The 
subaltern  now  had  the  ball,  and  for  a 
time  we  contrived  by  hard  running 
that  he  should  keep  it ;  but  at  last  our 
turn  came,  sedulously  though  we  had 
shirked  it.  The  glare  was  blinding, 
the  wicket  very  lumpy,  and  the  bowler 
whom  we  had  to  face  was  a  long  thin 
young  fellow,  tough  as  pin- wire,  whose 
pace  was  a  great  deal  faster  than  we 
liked.  We  inwardly  prayed  that  he 
would  put  us  out  of  our  misery  by  bowl- 
ing a  straight  ball,  but  he  was  merciless, 
and  made  us  tremble  for  our  limbs. 
The  second  ball  grazed  our  pad  and 
went  for  three.  "  Hit,"  sang  out  the 
Major  to  the  scorer,  and  down  went 
the  runs  to  our  account.  "  You'll  be 
wanting  a  drink  presently  when  you 
get  out,"  he  continued,  rightly  judging 
that  our  wicket  would  soon  fall,  "and 
you  might  tell  them  to  send  me  out  a 
little  whiskey  and  soda  at  the  same 
time."  He  became  lost  in  meditation 
at  the  prospect,  and  presently  a  ball 
bumped  high  and  struck  the  subaltern 
hard  on  the  arm.  "  How's  that  1 " 
asked  the  bowler,  who  thought  it 
time  to  rouse  the  Major  from  his 
absorption.  "  Eh  1 "  answered  the 
Major  starting.  "Out,  of  course. 
It's  no  use  rubbing  your  arm,  Billy ; 
you  won't  catch  me  with  that  old 
trick.  Out  you  go  !  "  The  subaltern, 
who  had  an  angelic  temper,  laughed 
and  retired  ;  and  in  a  minute  or  two 
a  negro  came  out  to  the  pitch  with  a 


long  glass  for  the  Major.  Meanwhile 
the  bowler,  not  a  little  disconcerted, 
ventured  feebly  to  hint  to  him  that 
his  last  decision  had  been,  quite  un- 
intentionally of  course,  a  little  unjust. 
The  Major  eyed  him  sternly  for  a 
time  in  silence.  "  Look  here,  young 
man,"  he  said  at  length,  "  I  was 
playing  cricket  before  you  were  born, 
and  I  never  saw  a  fellow  yet  who 
didn't  rub  his  arm  when  he  was  fairly 
out  leg-before.  Billy's  a  good  boy 
[here  he  took  the  glass  from  the  ser- 
vant], but  he  shouldn't  have  tried 
it  on  with  me.  I  am  here  to  see 
fair  play,  and  I  am  not  going  to 
favour  my  own  side  or  any  other  side." 
So  saying  he  stalked  majestically  as 
Achilles  to  square-leg,  and  placed  him- 
self in  the  musketry  position,  sitting 
on  his  right  heel,  with  the  long  glass 
on  the  ground  by  his  side. 

After  this  disaster  the  eleven  of 
England  went  rapidly  to  pieces.  Our 
own  fate  was  presently  decided  by  a 
straight  ball,  and  then  two  of  the 
non-commissioned  officers  were  to- 
gether. They  called  very  loud  to 
each  other  to  "  come  on,"  and  "  go 
back,"  with  the  result  that  they  were 
soon  found  both  at  the  same  wicket, 
discussing  with  extreme  indignation 
the  knotty  point  as  to  which  of  them 
was  to  blame  for  the  disaster.  In 
half  a  minute  they  were  brandishing 
their  bats  in  each  other's  faces,  and 
daring  each  other  to  mortal  combat. 
Fortunately  they  were  separated  with- 
out blows,  and  one  of  them  was  at 
last  persuaded  to  retire,  vowing  ven- 
geance as  he  went.  The  rest  of  the 
wickets  fell  quickly,  and  as  we  were 
unable  to  raise  more  than  nine  men 
the  innings  came  to  a  premature  end. 
The  little  captain  indeed  volunteered 
to  go  in  again  if  any  one  would  run 
for  him,  but  the  offer  was  rejected, 
less  on  the  ground  of  irregularity  than 
of  the  unlikelihood  of  any  addition 
to  the  score.  The  island  eleven  made 


How's  that? 


209 


haste  to  get  into  the  shade,  and  the 
Major  majestically  pocketed  the  bails 
and  made  his  way,  with  the  long  glass 
empty,  to  the  refreshment-tent. 

And  now  there  appeared  a  strange 
reluctance  among  the  eleven  of 
England  to  go  out  into  the  field. 
The  paymaster,  who  was  still  rather 
sulky,  complained  of  an  old  injury  to 
his  knee  and  doubted  if  he  should  be 
able  to  play  for  long.  The  Irish 
doctor  said  something  about  duty  in 
the  hospital,  but  was  promptly  snubbed 
by  the  offer  of  several  of  his  brethren 
to  take  that  duty  for  him.  The  little 
captain  professed  himself,  like  Wel- 
lington's army,  ready  to  go  anywhere 
and  do  anything,  but  put  in  a  saving 
clause  that  the  action  of  his  heart 
had  been  weakened  by  fever  on  the 
West  Coast  of  Africa  and  that  any 
unusual  exertion  might  lead  to  fatal 
results.  The  three  non-commissioned 
officers  one  and  all  averred  that  they 
had  received  medical  warning  against 
excessive  exercise  and  exposure  to  the 
sun.  After  some  trouble,  however, 
all  were  coaxed  out  and  disposed  with 
considerable  difficulty  in  their  places 
in  the  field.  The  Major,  after  dressing 
the  stumps  with  great  show  of  accuracy, 
put  on  the  bails  with  extraordinary 
caution,  and  in  a  stern  voice  called 
"  Play  ! " 

Once  more  the  initial  efforts  of 
England  were  successful.  The  sub- 
altern and  the  paymaster  could  both 
bowl  a  little,  and  after  a  very  few 
overs  secured  two  wickets  between 
them.  But  then  the  long  thin  man, 
who  had  bowled  with  such  ferocity, 
came  in  and  began  to  hit  with  ex- 
asperating freedom.  Presently  the 
paymaster  stopped  midway  in  the 
delivery  of  a  ball  and  declared  that 
his  knee  had  given  out  and  that  he 
could  bowl  no  longer.  He  finished 
the  over  and  limped  from  the  field 
with  suspicious  alacrity ;  and  the 
awkward  question  arose,  who  should 

No.  441. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


take  his  place]1?  The  little  captain 
volunteered  his  services,  which  were 
accepted,  although  there  was  no  small 
curiosity  as  to  the  result.  Hitherto 
he  had  stood  at  point,  with  his  mouth 
wide  open,  staring  straight  to  his 
front  and  utterly  indifferent  as  to  all 
that  passed  around  him ;  he  now  took 
his  place  at  short  slip  and  gazed 
earnestly  at  the  wicket.  His  chance 
soon  came  in  the  shape  of  a  sharp 
catch.  He  made  a  feeble  gesture 
with  both  hands ;  the  ball  struck  him 
full  in  the  chest,  and  to  the  general 
dismay  he  staggered  and  fell  to  the 
ground.  The  Major  called  loudly  for 
brandy,  which  was  quickly  brought 
and  liberally  administered  ;  the 
sufferer  opened  his  eyes,  rose  to  his 
feet,  and  refusing  all  assistance  walked 
to  a  chair,  wherein  he  settled  himself 
with  an  ineffable  smile  of  comfort  and 
relief. 

The  subaltern  with  great  readiness 
seized  the  moment  to  impress  a  couple 
of  schoolboys  as  substitutes  in  the 
field,  and  then  ran  up  and  told  us 
abruptly  that  we  must  bowl.  "  Bowl," 
we  answered,  "  we  never  have  bowled 
and  never  .could  bowl."  "  You  must 
bowl,"  he  answered,  "  for  there's  no 
one  else  to  do  it."  This  was  un- 
answerable, and  we  bowled  accordingly. 
What  havoc  these  two  batsmen  made 
of  our  feeble  efforts  we  cannot  de- 
scribe, but  they  made  a  fabulous 
number  of  runs.  The  demoralisation 
of  our  eleven  advanced  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  The  captain  was  powerless. 
The  three  non-commissioned  officers, 
forgetting  their  quarrel,  stood  in  a 
little  group  apart  and  ran  fitfully  after 
a  ball,  if  it  came  close  to  them.  The 
Irish  doctor,  still  nourishing  his  wrath, 
posted  himself  as  far  from  the  wicket 
as  the  ground  permitted ;  while  his 
elder  colleague  stood  at  point  in  an 
attitude  of  sleepless  activity,  and  did 
nothing.  The  Major  sat,  immovable 
as  Theseus,  on  his  heel  at  square-leg  : 


210 


How's  that  ? 


the  two  schoolboys  soon  grew  tired  of 
their  share  in  the  wondrous  game ; 
and  the  whole  of  the  bowling  and 
most  of  the  fielding  fell  upon  the  sub- 
altern and  ourselves. 

At  last  one  of  the  batsmen  skied  a 
ball  to  the  very  heavens  over  the 
group  of  non-commissioned  officers. 
The  centre  one  of  the  three  solemnly 
waved  his  companions  away  and  stood 
expectant.  We  can  see  him  now 
winking  and  blinking  under  his 
helmet,  with  the  brass  badge  gleaming 
like  fire  in  the  sun,  till  the  ball 
slipped  through  his  fingers  and  fell  to 
the  ground.  Then  he  covered  his 
face  with  his  hands  and  burst  into 
tears.  "  I  told  you  I  couldn't  hold 
it,  sir ! "  he  exclaimed  between  his 
sobs.  "  I  told  you  I  couldn't  hold  it," 
and,  quite  inconsolable,  he  was  led 
weeping  from  the  field.  This  inter- 
lude gave  us  a  little  rest ;  and  at  the 
very  next  ball  the  subaltern  brilliantly 
fielded  a  hard  return  off  his  own 
bowling,  and  threw  the  ball  in  beauti- 
fully to  us,  who  put  down  the  wicket 
with  a  flourish  and  a  triumphant 
"  How's  that  1 "  just  after  the  flying 
batsman  had  dashed  past  it.  "  Out," 
said  the  Major  solemnly.  "  Out !  " 
indignantly  repeated  the  batsman,  who 
had  never  made  so  many  runs  in  his 
life  before  and  had  framed  foolish 
ideas  about  his  first  century.  "  Out," 
re-echoed  the  Major  with  great  de- 


cision ;  "  both  batsmen  at  one  wicket, 
one  must  be  out."  "This is  becoming 
ridiculous,"  said  the  batsman  con- 
temptuously, after  a  little  thought  had 
explained  to  him  the  duplicity  of  the 
umpire's  vision  and  the  reasoning  that 
had  been  founded  on  it.  "  Ridiculous 

be   d d,"     retorted     the     Major; 

"  question  my  decision  and  I'll  draw 
the  stumps."  Then,  suiting  the  action 
to  the  word,  he  rose  to  his  feet, 
stepped  solemnly  forward,  and  swept 
the  stumps  out  of  the  ground.  The 
batsman  stood  aghast,  but  the  Major 
stalked  away  with  the  three  stumps 
under  his  arm,  and  never  paused 
or  looked  back  till  he  had  stowed 
them  away  safely  in  his  barrack- 
room. 

This  ended  the  match.  The  offi- 
cial portion  of  the  audience  had  long 
since  discreetly  taken  its  departure, 
and  few  remained,  fortunately,  to  see 
the  end.  We  were  fairly  exhausted 
after  our  exertions,  and  the  subaltern, 
though  still  sweet-tempered,  had  also 
had  more  than  enough.  We  laughed 
till  we  cried  as  we  talked  over  the 
day's  work  after  dinner ;  and  though 
we  saw  many  other  cricket-matches  in 
the  island  we  never  witnessed  one 
approaching  in  peculiarity  to  this. 
But  for  our  own  part  we  never  played 
again.  Except  as  a  spectator,  we 
had  had  enough  of  cricket  under  the 
tropical  sun. 


211 


AN    ITALIAN    ADVENTURER.1 

(AN    EPISODE    IX    THE    WAR    OF    THE    LEAGUE    OF    CAMBRAY.) 


A  MAN  can  so  easily  be  pleasant  if 
he  has  no  principles.  Leonardo 
Trissino  was  a  member  of  that  com- 
munity of  agreeable  scamps  who  are 
popular  with  every  one  except  their 
near  relations.  He  married  young, 
his  wife  being  his  cousin  Tommasina 
Trento.  The  Trissini  and  the  Trenti 
were  two  of  the  leading  families 
of  Vicenza,  enjoying  their  full  share 
of  the  municipal  honours  which 
the  Venetians,  most  liberal  in  the 
matter  of  local  government,  left  to 
the  discretion  of  their  mainland 
towns.  Leonardo  was  married  in 
1493,  and  before  long  he  was  fast 
in  the  grip  of  the  Jews.  His  father- 
in-law,  as  usual,  bore  the  brunt ; 
he  engaged  to  satisfy  Leonardo's 
creditors,  taking  over  the  administra- 
tion of  his  estate.  Before  long  he 
had  also  to  find  a  home,  and  make 
future  provision  for  his  daughter  and 
grand-children. 

Agreeable  as  Leonardo  was,  he  one 
night  killed  a  man.  The  victim  was 
a  knight,  a  doctor-of  law,  and  a  public 
official ;  and  Leonardo  Trissino  was 
forced  to  fly  the  country.  Several 
of  the  exile's  letters  still  exist. 
They  are  always  appeals  for  money, 
which,  curiously  enough,  he  always 
seemed  to  get.  Tommasina  is  never 
mentioned,  but  the  money  must  be 
sent  in  desperate  haste ;  it  is  almost 
unnecessary  to  add  that  the  writer  had 

1  The  writer  is  under  great  obligations  to 
an  article  in  the  Nuovo  ARCHIVIS  VENETO, 
ii*  1,  by  the  Abbate  Domenico  Bostolan. 
From  this  he  has  derived  many  details  of 
Trissino's  career  not  given  by  Da  Porto  and 
Sanuto. 


been    extremely  ill,  but  was    now   a 
little  better. 

Leonardo's  letters  were  usually 
posted  from  the  Brenner  Pass.  An 
exile  from  Vicenza  would  naturally 
make  for  Trent  and  thence  for  Inns- 
bruck. The  Emperor  Maximilian  had, 
for  political  and  pecuniary  reasons, 
married  a  Milanese  wife,  Bianca 
Maria  Sforza,  whose  household  was 
controlled  by  one  of  the  Emperor's 
chief  favourites,  the  Prince  of  Lichten- 
stein.  When  Maximilian  came,  as 
was  his  custom,  to  hunt  chamois  in 
the  Tyrol,  Prince  Lichtenstein  came 
with  him,  and  brought  in  his  train 
the  Italian  refugee  who  was,  like  many 
unsatisfactory  characters,  an  admirable 
sportsman.  Trissino  not  only  kept  up 
with  the  Emperor  in  his  venturous 
scrambles,-  but  sometimes  beat  him. 
Maximilian  was  too  true  a  sportsman 
and  too  great  a  gentlemen,  to  be 
jealous ;  he  dubbed  his  comrade  a 
Golden  Knight. 

It  is  still  a  tragedy  to  have  to  leave 
Vicenza,  even  though  no  wife  be 
deserted,  though  the  only  creditor  be 
the  landlord  of  the  comfortable  hotel, 
and  though  all  that  has  been  killed 
be  time.  The  city  is  set  upon  the 
plain,  but  the  Bacchiglione  which 
sweeps  round  it  has  still  the  swing  of 
a  mountain  torrent,  and  the  grove  of 
plane  trees  without  the  gate  gives  a 
sense  of  cool  and  comfort  unusual  to 
Italian  towns.  Northwards  stretches 
the  fruitful  plain,  broken  by  ridges 
which  are  the  outposts  of  the  Alps  ; 
Catherine  Cornaro's  classic  home  of 
Asolo  still  stands  upon  its  wooded 


212 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


height ;  the  walls  and  towers  of 
Marostica,  still  intact,  lie  like  an  out- 
spread fan  upon  the  mountain  slope  ; 
the  ramparts  of  Bassano  bar  the 
narrow  outlet  of  the  Val  Sugana  pass, 
which  leads  into  the  very  mysteries  of 
the  Alps  ;  the  northern  horizon  is  a 
broken  hazy  line  of  rock  and  snow. 
But  Vicenza,  strange  to  say,  has  a 
mountain  of  its  own.  Immediately 
outside  its  gates  to  the  south  rises 
the  steep  ridge  of  Monte  Berico,  an 
unexpected  and  eccentric  outcrop  from 
the  plain.  Hereon  are  the  summer 
houses  and  the  gardens  of  the  Vicen- 
tine  gentry.  Beyond  them  wood 
and  copse,  with  violets,  Christ- 
mas roses,  snowdrops,  and  yellow 
wood  anemones,  tempt  the  walker 
for  miles  along  the  promontory  which 
breaks  the  level  sea  of  Lombard  plain, 
whose  ripples  are  the  young  waving 
wheat  and  its  billows  the  lines  of 
mulberry  and  elm. 

Vicenza  is  a  conservative  town ; 
still  the  centre  of  a  rich  agricultural 
district  it  has  never  suffered  the  social 
and  architectural  distortions  of  active 
manufacture.  The  great  families  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  the  Da  Porto, 
the  Trissini,  the  Thieni,  the  Trenti, 
are  the  leading  gentry  still ;  they  live 
in  their  old  palaces ;  they  occupy  the 
same  seats  in  their  respective  parish 
churches  beneath  the  memorial  slabs 
of  ancestors  some  centuries  apart.  On 
the  plain  their  great  villas,  half  farm, 
half  country-house,  stand  back  from 
the  old  highroads  among  their  ricks 
and  vineyards  and  the  cottages  of 
their  hereditary  tenantry.  Life  in  the 
rural  districts  between  the  Alps  and 
the  Po  changes  only  with  the  cycle  of 
the  seasons.  The  deliberate  oxen  with 
their  creaking  carts,  the  toy  ladder  of 
the  vinedresser,  and  the  Virgilian 
plough,  the  three-cornered  spade,  and 
the  clumsy  pruning-hook  are  as  they 
were  two  thousand  years  ago. 

Vicenza  is  beautiful  to-day,  but  at 


the  moment  when  Leonardo  fled  it 
was  at  the  zenith  of  its  glory,  for  it 
never  quite  recovered  the  storm  and. 
stress  of  the  succeeding  years.  It  is 
true  that  since  then  Palladio  encased 
many  a  noble's  house  with  columned 
fronts,  at  once  pedantic  and  poetic, 
hybrids  of  severe  knowledge  and  ex- 
uberant imagination.  In  the  palaces 
of  Trissino's  friends  the  round-headed 
Romanesque  windows  relieved  by  little 
diamonds  and  cubes  of  projecting 
brick,  remnants  of  which  a  sharp  eye 
may  sometimes  even  now  detect,  had 
given  place  to  a  frontage  of  Venetian 
Gothic.  But  the  peculiar  glory  of  the 
Vicentine  palace  was  and  is  its  Gothic 
balcony,  hung  on  gala  days  with  Ori- 
ental carpets  on  which  the  ladies 
leaned  to  watch  the  horsemen  pass. 
In  the  broad  court  behind  the  house 
the  fountain  plashed  and  the  hounds 
lay  slumbering  in  the  sun.  In  the 
shade  of  the  wide  balcony  above,  or 
in  the  gardens  on  the  hill,  the  young 
Vicentine  gentry  read  their  poems  to 
each  other  or  discussed  the  philosophy 
of  love.  Among  the  cynosures  of  this 
cultivated  group  was  the  main  authority 
for  our  scapegrace  hero'sstory,  theyoung 
Luigi  da  Porto,  poet,  letter-writer,  and 
novelist,  the  author  of  the  piteous  tale 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  As  yet,  how- 
ever, he  was  still  fresh  from  his  train- 
ing in  the  court  of  Urbino,  the  nursery 
of  high  culture,  graceful  soldiery,  and 
fine  manners.  Another  ornament  was 
Leonardo's  cousin,  Gian  Giorgio  Tris- 
sino.  He  too  had  his  failings  in 
domestic  life,  but  his  spirit  of  adven- 
ture found  vent  in  literary  novelties  ; 
as  a  writer  of  Platonic  dialogues,  and 
of  the  first  real  Italian  tragedy, 
SOFONISBA,  he  found  wealth  and  fame 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  his  native 
town. 

Under  Venetian  rule  Vicenza  had 
enjoyed  peace  for  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years,  and  this  through  the 
troubled  fifteenth  century  when  other 


• 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


213 


Italian  States,  when  France  and  Eng- 
land, Spain  and  Germany  were  racked 
by  perpetual  war.  It  is  hard  to 
realise  to  the  full  the  bearings  of  such 
unbroken  rest.  What  great  conti- 
nental city  can  even  now  boast  that 
it  has  seen  no  hostile  army  since  1790? 
But  some  little  foretaste  of  trouble, 
thanks  to  Trissino,  Vicenza  had  in 
1508,  the  year  which  preceded  that 
of  wrath.  The  Venetian  armies  were 
in  the  mountains  on  the  frontiers  of 
the  distant  Friuli,  beating  back  the 
Emperor's  troops  from  Cadore,  the 
home  of  the  young  Titian.  Of  a 
sudden  the  news  reached  Vicenza  that 
some  seven  thousand  German  foot, 
with  three  hundred  horse,  had  on  a 
dark  rainy  night  scaled  the  mountains 
to  the  south  of  the  Val  Sugana,  and 
were  on  the  march  over  the  wild  table- 
land of  the  Seven  Communes.  This 
district  was  inhabited  by  a  German 
colony  which  some  two  centuries  be- 
fore had  pressed  downwards  from  the 
Alps,  and  then,  when  the  tide  of 
Teutonism  ebbed,  had  been  left 
stranded  as  on  an  Italian  Ararat.  To 
the  present  day  it  speaks  an  old  Ger- 
man dialect  and  leads  an  old  German 
life.  If  these  Imperialists  crossed  the 
table-land,  nothing  could  save  Vicenza. 
Many  families  fled  the  town,  and  in 
the  Seven  Communes  the  villagers, 
with  their  priest  and  cross  and  sacra- 
ment at  their  head,  went  out  to  pro- 
pitiate or  conjure  the  unwelcome 
apparition.  The  invaders  retreated 
as  suddenly  as  they  had  come ;  the 
country  was  probably  too  inhospitable 
for  their  maintenance,  for,  as  a  Ve- 
netian envoy  at  the  Court  of  Charles 
the  Fifth  once  wrote,  in  a  German 
army  the  horses  eat  and  the  men 
drink  so  much  that  they  are  slow  to 
move  and  difficult  to  keep.  Then 
came  the  news  that  the  leaders  of  the 
band  were  four  Venetian  exiles,  and 
that  one  of  them  was  Leonardo  Tris- 
sino. 


In  the  following  year  the  League  of 
Cainbray  had  banded  Europe  against 
the  Republic  of  Saint  Ma'rk,  and  all 
her  mainland  territory  was  in  a 
turmoil.  Her  chosen  leader,  Bar- 
tolommeo  d'Alviano,  visited  Vicenza 
and  examined  the  defensive  possibili- 
ties of  the  town.  He  began  to  draw 
a  ring  of  trenches  round  the  city ; 
suburbs  were  destroyed,  gardens 
wasted,  mulberry  trees  cut  down. 
"Worst  of  all  he  must  needs  enclose  a 
part  of  Monte  Berico  within  his  lines, 
and  the  luxurious  villas  and  gardens 
of  the  gentry  must  be  sacrificed.  The 
peasants  instead  of  gathering  their 
spring  crops  and  tending  their  vines, 
were  impressed  for  work  upon  the 
trenches  ;  others  were  driven  from 
their  homes  and  lost  their  all.  There 
was  loud  lamentation ;  the  nobles 
sullenly  complained  that  the  sacrifice 
was  vain,  that  should  the  Venetians 
be  beaten  in  the  field,  the  works 
would  not  be  ready  for  defence,  and 
that  if  they  held  their  ground  they 
would  not  be  needed.  But  Alviano, 
a  rough  swaggering  soldier,  would  take 
no  denial ;  a  Roman  Orsini  by  adop- 
tion, he  took  upon  him  the  overbearing 
manners  of  the  house  which  to  the 
gentler  Florentines  had  long  been  a 
by-word.  As  war  came  nearer,  Cre- 
monese  gentlemen  passed  eastwards 
under  Venetian  escort,  that  their  dis- 
affection might  be  damped  by  the  air 
of  the  lagoons  until  the  storm  was 
over.  Then  through  Vicenza,  west- 
wards towards  the  Adda,  poured 
Alviano's  levies,  clad  in  his  colours, 
in  tight  parti-coloured  stockings  and 
jerkins  of  red  and  white.  Mere  militia 
were  most  of  these,  men  who  had 
never  known  war,  and  were  torn  weep- 
ing from  their  homes.  They  would 
make  little  fight,  said  the  professional 
cavalry  officers  and  young  nobles  like 
Da  Porto  ;  yet  when  they  were  called 
milch-cows  by  the  regulars  they  proved 
quarrelsome.  A  month  more  and 


214 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


Alviano  was  a  prisoner  in  the  great 
rout  of  Vaila.  The  lion  of  Saint 
Mark  himself  could  not  have  fought 
more  fiercely  than  the  too  venturous 
general.  The  milch-cows  had  gone 
straight  at  the  French,  a  feat  un- 
paralleled for  Italian  infantry  of  that 
age.  They  had  beaten  back  the  foot 
and  charged  the  guns,  only  to  be  mown 
down  line  behind  line  by  the  unrivalled 
French  artillery.  Bayard,  with  his 
rear-guard  wading  to  the  waist  through 
the  flooded  meadows,  had  completed 
the  discomfiture.  But  never,  said  the 
experienced  Captain  Lattanzio  of 
Bergamo,  had  he  seen  infantry  fight 
like  these  raw  recruits. 

Nothing  could  now  stay  the  French 
advance  which  swept  forward  to  the 
Mincio.  Here  at  length  it  paused, 
content  with  hanging  the  defenders 
of  Peschiera  from  their  ramparts  for 
daring  to  resist  a  King  of  France. 
The  King  had  conquered  his  allotted 
share;  the  land  from  the  Mincio  to 
the  lagoons  was  Maximilian's  portion. 
Verona,  Vicenza,  and  Padua  shut 
their  gates  against  the  retreating 
troops.  In  the  panic,  the  Venetian 
Governors,  the  Captain  and  the  Judge, 
lost  their  customary  influence.  The 
local  gentry  once  more,  after  a  hun- 
dred years,  reassumed  the  lead.  Popu- 
lar as  Venetian  rule  was  with  peasants 
and  artisans,  the  nobles  were  seldom 
quite  content.  They  resented  their 
inferiority  to  the  Republic's  Rectors 
who  came  to  rule  them ;  they  found 
little  employment  in  the  Republic's  ser- 
vice ;  their  faction-fights  were  quelled, 
and  any  injustice  towards  the  poor 
rigorously  repressed.  Now  too  they 
were  tempted  by  the  prospect  of  Im- 
perial titles,  while  a  foreign  Emperor 
would  ride  with  a  looser  rein  "  the 
restive  Italian  steed "  of  Dante's 
verse. 

Strangely  enough  there  was  no  Em- 
peror to  take  the  magnificent  terri- 
tory left  at  his  disposal.  Maximilian 


was  hunting  in  the  Tyrol ;  he  was  no 
longer  young,  but  for  him  a  pair  of 
cities  was  never  worth  a  chamois.  In 
their  perplexity  the  Vicentine  nobles 
bethought  them  of  their  townsman, 
Leonardo  Trissino.  His  own  and  his 
wife's  relations  begged  him  to  offer  to 
the  Emperor  the  city  which  would 
give  itself  to  the  first  comer ;  they 
implored  him  to  return,  promising 
money  and  all  that  he  could  need. 
Trissino  went  joyously  to  Prince  Lich- 
tenstein  ;  with  an  Imperial  commission 
he  would  win  the  whole  Trevisan 
March,  nor  cost  the  Emperor  a  ducat 
or  a  man.  The  Prince  despatched  him 
on  his  venture,  promising  to  send  the 
commission  after  him  :  he  thought  to 
himself  that  no  German  officer  could 
go  without  a  considerable  force,  and 
he  had  not  the  money  to  raise  a 
soldier ;  should  Trissino  prosper,  well 
and  good,  if  he  should  fail,  there  was 
no  great  loss,  and  his  master  was  not 
committed. 

Trissino  crossed  the  Brenner  to 
Trent,  and  there  he  found  six  Stra- 
diots,  light  horsemen  from  Albania, 
deserters  probably  from  the  Venetian 
army.  With  these  as  a  nucleus  he 
gathered  some  ten  horsemen  and  sixty 
foot  and  went  on  his  way  to  '  Ro- 
veredo.  Meanwhile  his  extemporised 
force  began  to  dwindle,  and  he  soon 
found  himself  at  the  head  of  some 
five-and-twenty  ragamuffins,  "  bandits, 
charcoal-burners  and  vagabonds,  all 
black  and  greasy,  dirty  and  tattered." 
Of  brave  words  and  men  in  buckram, 
however,  Trissino  had  abundance.  He 
wrote  to  the  town  of  Schio,  which  had 
Imperial  sympathies,  ordering  quarters 
for  five  thousand  foot  and  four  hun- 
dred horse  ;  he  had  already  demanded 
the  submission  of  Vicenza ;  if  she 
would  not  open  her  gates  to  Caesar, 
he  would  spare  neither  life,  property, 
nor  sc~<. 

The  Venetian  governors  were  still 
in  Vicen.za,  but  they  had  sent  off  their 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


215 


artillery  and  ammunition,  their  books 
and  military  chest  to  Padua.  They 
vainly  protested  against  the  proposal 
of  the  local  Committee  of  Government 
to  surrender  to  Trissino.  Sensible  as 
all  Venetians  were  they  recognised 
defeat;  they  abandoned  the  insignia 
of  office,  closed  the  governmental 
palace,  and  refused  to  administer  jus- 
tice. A  deputation  of  nobles  and  law- 
yers, clothed  in  silk,  with  gold  chains 
round  their  necks,  rode  out  to  Malo 
to  beg  the  exile  to  re-enter  his  native 
town.  They  persuaded  him  without 
much  ado  to  abstain  from  quartering 
upon  the  city  his  numerous  phantom 
force.  Trissino  was  by  this  time  in 
condition  to  meet  his  fashionable 
friends,  for  his  ill-used  father-in-law 
had  made  him  a  present  of  ,£10, 
and  sent  him  twenty  yards  of  velvet 
with  five  yards  of  gold  braid.  Thus 
on  June  5th,  1509,  Trissino  returned 
in  splendour  after  fifteen  years  of 
exile,  escorted  by  some  eighty  horse- 
men to  the  sound  of  drums  and 
trumpets  and  clanging  bells.  The 
Committee  of  Government  gave  him 
the  keys ;  its  spokesman  made  an 
elegant  address,  to  which  he  paid  no 
attention  and  attempted  no  reply. 
Leonardo  had  in  fact  almost  forgotten 
his  native  tongue  ;  but  he  pleased 
every  one  by  his  modesty,  and  was 
equally  agreeable  to  all  comers.  The 
self-appointed  Governor  dismounted 
at  the  Captain's  palace,  where  a  mag- 
nificent dinner  awaited  him.  Hence 
the  town-crier  received  the  order  that 
no  townsman  should  bear  arms,  and 
that  fathers  should  be  responsible  for 
the  transgressions  of  their  sons  and 
masters  for  those  of  their  servants ; 
"  A  most  unheard  of  notice,"  wrote 
the  Venetian  chronicler  of  these  events, 
"  learned  by  him  from  the  barbarous 
Germans  beyond  the  mountains,  who 
are  always  studying  how  to  be  more 
cruel."  The  order  was  doubtless 
needed,  for  the  departure  of  the 


Venetian  Governors,  who  had  slipped 
from  their  houses  in  plain  clothes  and 
ridden  off  for  Padua,  was  ..the  signal 
for  disturbance.  Some  of  the  citizens 
had  marched  round  the  town  in  arms, 
crying  Empire,  Empire !  But  these 
were  met  by  the  men  of  the  poorer 
suburb  of  Saint  Piero  headed  by  one 
who  carried  a  banner  with  a  cock 
thereon,  and  these  artisans  with  shouts 
of  Saint  Mark,  Saint  Mark  !  set  upon 
the  aristocrats  and  slew  a  doctor  of 
laws  and  others.  Nevertheless  the 
classes  beat  the  masses  back  and 
hoisted  the  .banner  of  the  Empire. 
Then  in  the  great  oblong  piazza  night 
was  made  merry.  From  the  Captain's 
palace  and  the  Court  of  Justice 
torches  flared  and  huge  candles 
flickered ;  a  barrel  of  powder  was 
bought  to  pass  for  fireworks ;  a  blaz- 
ing bonfire  on  the  pavement  threw  up 
its  sparks  as  though  to  top  the  giddy 
height  of  the  ruddy  bell-tower.  Italian 
men  are  easily  made  boys ;  and  in 
nights  so  short  it  is  waste  of  time  to 
think  of  the  long  to-morrow. 

At  the  head  of  the  chief  square  in 
every  Venetian  town  stands  a  column, 
and  on  it  the  winged  lion  with  its 
paw  upon  the  open  gospel ;  it  is  the 
symbol  of  Venetian  sovereignty.  This 
lion  was  by  Trissino's  orders  dashed 
into  atoms  on  the  pavement,  and  re- 
placed by  a  trumpery  gilded  eagle. 
The  item  of  payment  to  the  de- 
structive mason  may  still  be  read. 
To  the  artistic  Da  Porto  this  was  a 
Vandal's  act;  he  cared  not  for  the 
shame  done  to  Venice,  but  for  the 
ruin  of  a  masterpiece  of  beauty,  such 
as  the  most  famous  sculptor  of  the 
ancient  world  might  well  have  carved. 
The  lesser  people  loved  their  late 
masters  and  their  lion.  They  gathered 
together  the  broken  limbs  and  hid 
them  till  better  times.  The  less 
comely  parts,  however,  were  seized 
by  some  nobles  of  Cremona  who  had 
escaped  from  Venice  and  were  passing 


A n  Italian  Adventurer. 


homewards  through  Vicenza.  As  they 
rode  through  Montcleone,  a  large 
village  towards  Yerona,  they  jested 
indecently  at  the  poor  fragments  of 
the  lion,  whereon  the  villagers  fell  on 
them  in  fury,  wounding  many  and 
killing  some.  This  was  perhaps  the 
first  symptom  of  reaction  in  favour 
of  Saint  Mark,  for  before  long  every 
strong  village  was  a  hornet's  nest  to 
German  and  French  invaders.  The 
peasants  would  cut  off  the  convoys, 
break  the  bridges,  delay  the  siege- 
trains.  Day  after  day  they  watched 
the  Marquis  of  Mantua,  a  fierce  enemy 
of  their  lords,  until  at  length  they 
pounced  upon  him  sleeping,  and  seized 
him  in  his  shirt.  The  secret  of  this 
was  the  Republic's  even-handed  justice, 
elsewhere  in  Italy,  unknown.  "  One 
thing,"  wrote  Bayard's  biographer,  no 
friendly  witness,  "must  needs  be 
noted,  that  never  on  this  earth  were 
lords  so  well  loved  by  their  subjects 
as  the  Venetians  have  always  been, 
and  this  alone  for  the  great  justice 
wherewith  they  rule  them."  One 
hundred  and  fifty  years  later  Har- 
rington bore  witness  to  Bayard.  Since 
then  English  and  French  ignoramuses 
and  idealists  have  conspired  to  blacken 
the  aristocracy,  which  knew  and  did 
its  duty  to  the  only  grateful  poor. 

Trissino,  meanwhile,  had  been  in- 
vited to  take  Padua  in  his  master's 
name.  To  make  his  entry  more  effec- 
tive he  hired  a  hundred  barefoot 
German  lanzknechts  for  the  day,  and 
pressed  into  his  procession  all  the 
nobles  of  Vicenza.  Da  Porto,  op- 
portunist beyond  his  years,  unwilling 
to  commit  himself  so  far,  pleaded  a 
bad  arm,  but  Trissino  would  take  no 
excuse.  The  Paduans  who  rode  out 
to  meet  their  new  ruler  returned 
almost  mad  with  joy  :  he  was  the  most 
generous  of  mankind ;  he  would  give 
to  the  citizens  every  imaginable  pri- 
vilege, and  would  divide  among  the 
nobles  the  wide  estates  of  the  Venetian 


gentry ;  the  Emperor  would  confirm 
his  every  act.  No  wonder  that  the 
guns  thundered  and  the  fifes  played, 
and  the  ladies  waved  a  welcome  from 
their  balconies  as  the  dandy  Governor 
rode  by.  Then  it  was  that  the  lion 
over  the  doorway  of  the  Captain's 
palace  was  blown  into  the  air  by 
bombards  thrust  into  its  belly,  while 
the  Buzzacarini  dragged  from  their 
store-room  an  Imperial  banner  hidden 
for  a  hundred  years.  As  its  moulder- 
ing folds  first  napped  in  the  unwonted 
wind,  the  Captain  alighted  at  his 
palace,  where  he  found  board  and 
lodging  to  befit  a  king. 

A  king  in  truth  Trissino  was.  For 
fear  of  offence  none  dared  to  ask  for 
his  commission.  From  the  furthest 
corners  of  the  Friuli  came  great  noble- 
men to  crave  Imperial  confirmation  of 
their  fiefs,  or  soldiers  to  beg  the  com- 
mand of  imaginary  squadrons.  Trissino 
himself  would  laugh  with  Da  Porto 
at  the  eagerness  with  which  all  who 
had  any  job  to  perpetrate,  would  turn 
to  him,  as  though  he  was  the  Emperor 
in  person.  The  Venetian  troops  were 
ordered  off  the  territory  of  the  Mag- 
nificent SPaduan  Republic.  Paduan 
nobles  were  commissioned  to  replace 
Venetians  in  the  fortresses  and  de- 
pendent townships.  All  the  irksome 
duties  upon  comestibles  were  abolished, 
and  never  was  living  so  cheap  in 
Padua  ;  wine  there  was  in  such  plenty 
that  it  cost  nothing;  a  halfpenny 
would  buy  seven  eggs  or  a  pound  of 
meat.  The  order  was  issued  that 
every  one,  under  a  penalty  of  fifty 
ducats,  should  sweep  the  front  of  his 
own  house  ;  and  every  one  obediently 
swept.  But  after  all  the  main  func- 
tion was  to  command  the  troops,  and 
of  troops  there  were  none.  Trissino, 
imitating  the  methods  of  Alviano,  at- 
tempted to  enrol  militia.  He  ordered 
all  the  peasants  of  the  territory  be- 
tween eighteen  and  forty-five  years  of 
age  to  muster  in  Padua  for  drill.  Some 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


217 


five  hundred  obeyed  the  summons, 
and  on  the  summer  days  Trissino  could 
be  seen  in  the  piazza  eating  cherries 
while  he  drilled  his  troops.  He  un- 
doubtedly dressed  his  part.  A  dandy 
by  nature,  he  could  now  satisfy  his 
vanity  at  his  country's  expense.  Very 
effective  he  looked  in  his  white  velvet 
tunic  frogged  with  gold,  his  little  gold 
cap  stuck  on  one  ear,  his  beard  worn 
in  the  German  fashion,  and  always  a 
bunch  of  flowers.  When  he  was  tired 
of  drill  he  dismissed  his  peasant 
soldiers,  each  with  a  coin  to  buy  their 
lunch ;  for  dinner  he  told  them  they 
should  have  half  a  ducat  or  more,  and 
yet  they  grumbled.  Peasants  are 
rarely  content  when  overfed  and  over- 
paid. 

Meanwhile  outside  Padua  matters 
went  none  too  well.  Trissino  had 
no  administrative  genius.  The  roads 
were  at  the  mercy  of  disbanded 
soldiers  and  loyal  peasants;  thePaduan 
merchants  could  not  travel.  Bassano, 
indeed,  and  Asolo  tendered  their  sub- 
mission. Treviso,  the  third  great 
city,  which  should  complete  the  con- 
quests promised  by  Trissino,  sent  a 
deputation  to  offer  him  the  keys.  But 
he  was  too  timid  or  too  slow ;  he 
feared  the  Venetian  forces  encamped 
at  Mestre,  and  his  delay  gave  time  to 
the  popular  party  to  memorialise  its 
Venetian  masters.  When  Trissino's 
trumpeter  arrived  he  was  well-nigh 
killed.  A  popular  tumult,  headed  by 
a  furrier,  over-awed  the  gentry.  The 
Venetians  took  heart  and  threw  in 
troops ;  the  suspected  nobles  were 
carried  off  to  Venice.  Nor  was  this 
the  only  check.  Another  luckless 
trumpeter  was  sent  to  summon  Civi- 
dale;  but  out  came  Paolo  Contarini,  the 
proveditor,  and  one  hundred  Stradiot 
horse,  and  gave  the  trumpeter  such  a 
fright  that  never  would  he  go  near 
the  town  again. 

In  decrying  the  Italian  soldiery  of 
this  age  modern  writers  too  blindly 


follow  Machiavelli,  whose  purpose  it 
was  not  to  write  history,  but  to  prove 
theories.  For  him  every  hired  captain 
was  a  coward,  a  sluggard,  and  a  traitor. 
Yet  many  soldiers  of  fortune  and 
men  of  birth,  from  all  parts  of  Italy, 
stood  firm  by  Venice  in  her  darkest 
hour,  re-organising  her  beaten  and 
disordered  troops,  until  they  once 
more  met  the  barbarians  on  no  unequal 
terms.  Such  officers  were  Mariano 
dei  Conti  from  the  Roman  Campagna, 
and  Count  Pietro  Martinengo  of  the 
richest  house  in  Brescia,  courteous 
gentlemen  and  well-knit  athletes. 
These  two,  indeed,  fell  in  the  first 
battle  near  the  Adda,  side  by  side, 
for  they  had  sworn  to  stand  together 
though  their  men  had  fled.  But 
Lattanzio  of  Bergamo  and  Zitolo  of 
Perugia  fell  one  after  the  other  at 
their  guns  when  the  Venetians,  after 
the  tide  had  turned,  strove  to  hurl 
the  Franco-Spanish-German  forces 
from  Verona.  Dionisio  da  Naldo 
throughout  the  war  kept  training  the 
fine  infantry  which  took  their  name 
from  his  little  Romagnol  village  of 
Brisighella.  From  Tuscan  Prato  came 
theKnightof  Saint  John,  Fra  Leonardo, 
who  from  hatred  to  the  French  offered 
his  services  to  Venice  in  any  capacity 
which  she  might  choose.  He  was  no 
hireling,  for  he  gave  his  whole  fortune, 
five  thousand  ducats,  to  the  Republic 
that  she  might  use  it  in  her  need. 
He  too  fell  late  in  the  war  at  the  head 
of  his  light  horse,  and  the  French 
grieved  because  they  had  not  taken 
him  alive  to  murder  him.  Another 
Tuscan  was  the  one-eyed  Baldassare 
Scipione  of  Siena,  who  fought  through 
the  war  from  end  to  end,  from  the 
western  frontier  of  the  Adda  to  the 
easternmost  corner  of  Friuli ;  who 
was  taken  fighting  at  the  Adda,  and 
again  at  the  terrible  storm  of  Brescia  ; 
and  who  performed  the  last  exploit  of 
the  war  by  saving  from  the  scoundrelly 
Swiss  allies  the  artillery  which  they 


218 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


had  sought  to  steal.  Baldassare  was 
the  fastidious  Da  Porto's  ideal  of 
a  soldier,  a  fierce  but  scientific  fighter, 
combining  a  high  character  with 
literary  culture.  The  one  chivalrous 
champion  of  Cresar  Borgia,  he  had 
posted  in  all  the  chief  squares  of 
Europe  a  challenge  to  any  Spaniard 
who  should  deny  that  their  Catholic 
Majesties  had  not  disgraced  their 
honour  and  their  crown  by  their 
treachery  towards  his  fallen  chief. 

Upon  one  of  these  men  of  ancient 
virtue,  one  otherwise  unknown  to 
fame,  the  clever  adventurer  Trissino 
chanced  to  stumble.  He  sent  a 
herald  to  the  Venetian  camp  to 
order  Bernardino  Fortebraccio,  the 
leader  of  a  thousand  horse,  to  come 
and  tender  his  submission  to  the 
Emperor,  otherwise  he  would  confis- 
cate his  patrimony  at  Lonigo,  and 
arrest  his  wife  and  children  who  were 
at  Padua.  The  old  soldier's  reply  is 
an  answer  not  only  to  Trissino  but  to 
the  Florentine  slanderer  of  Italian 
soldiery :  "I  have  no  wish  to  desert 
my  duty  to  the  Signory.  For  sixty 
years  past  I  have  been  her  servant 
and  have  eaten  her  bread,  and  if  I 
had  a  hundred  sons  I  would  give  them 
all  for  her,  and  would  take  no  heed." 
When,  too,  Trissino  sent  a  governor 
with  a  hundred  foot  to  the  walled 
township  of  Mirano,  Alvise  Dardani 
held  the  fort  with  a  handful  of  peasants 
from  the  neighbouring  villages  and  the 
official  slunk  back  to  Padua. 

In  winning  Padua  Trissino  virtually 
lost  Yicenza.  This  was  natural,  for 
in  Italy  municipal  patriotism  was  so 
strong  that  every  city  hated  its 
nearest  neighbour.  The  Committee 
of  Government  could  keep  no  order. 
As  soon  as  the  Imperial  eagles  were 
hoisted,  exiled  malefactors  flocked 
into  the  town  and  lorded  it  over  the 
citizens.  They  set  fire  to  the  palace 
and  the  town-hall,  and  burned  the 
books  wherein  the  sentences  against 


criminals  were  registered.  The  new 
government  of  Padua  was  protectionist 
and  forbade  the  people  of  Vicenza  to 
sell  their  produce  in  the  Paduan 
market.  This  infuriated  the  lower 
classes,  already  devoted  to  Saint 
Mark.  When  a  Venetian  trumpeter 
under  safe  conduct  rode  up  to  the 
walls,  the  men  of  the  suburb  of  San 
Piero  with  cries  of  Marco,  Marco ! 
escorted  him  to  the  public  square, 
thinking  that  he  had  come  to  take 
the  lordship  of  their  town  for  Venice. 
Each  country  makes  its  little  revolu- 
tions differently.  Englishmen  re- 
christen  their  Local  Board ;  French- 
men change  the  terminology  of  their 
streets  ;  Italians  would  throw  some- 
thing, or  somebody,  into  a  river  or  on 
the  pavement.  Thus  when  Charles 
the  Eighth  had  entered  Pisa,  the 
people  threw  the  Florentine  lion  from 
the  bridge  into  the  Arno  ;  and  when  a 
few  years  later  the  Emperor  appeared, 
they  served  the  statue  of  the  French 
King  as  they  had  served  the  lion. 
So  too  at  Vicenza  the  mob  threw  the 
gilded  eagle  from  his  column,  and 
finding  in  the  cathedral  some  banners 
of  the  late  Bishop  with  the  emblem 
of  Saint  Mark,  they  hoisted  them  in 
the  eagle's  place.  The  upper  classes 
barricaded  themselves  in  their  houses, 
but  the  people  sacked  the  Captain's 
palace  which  was  sumptuously  draped 
to  greet  the  arrival  of  the  Imperial 
Commissioner.  Even  Trissino  had 
now  lost  his  spell.  He  wrote  to  the 
Commune  demanding  suitable  apart- 
ments and  sufficient  funds  for  the 
entertainment  of  himself  and  his 
court.  He  was  answered  that  the 
city  could  not  undertake  the  burden ; 
and  when  he  appealed  to  the  Bene- 
dictine monks  he  received  a  similar 
refusal.  Nevertheless  he  came  by 
torchlight  with  fifes  and  drums  and  a 
company  of  Germans ;  he  wore  a 
wreath  of  ivy,  and  his  little  cap  set 
jauntily  on  one  ear  covered  but  the 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


219 


one  half  of  his  head  and  seemed  like 
to  fall.  His  sojourn  was  for  one 
night  only,  for  he  was  forced  to  lodge 
at  his  own  house  and  at  his  own 
expense.  This  visit  made  matters 
worse,  for  he  persuaded  four  hundred 
Vicentine  soldiers  to  follow  him  to 
Padua,  and  on  their  arrival  they  found 
the  gates  shut  in  their  faces.  Paduans 
were  too  proud  to  be  dependent  on 
Vicentines.  In  return  the  soldiers 
ravaged  the  surrounding  fields,  and  two 
were  caught  and  hanged  at  eventide 
with  their  faces  veiled.  Such  lynch- 
law  did  not  improve  the  feeling  be- 
tween the  neighbour  towns. 

The  Venetians  naturally  tried  to 
bribe  Trissino.  Andrea  Gritti  prom- 
ised that,  if  he  would  restore  Padua,  a 
complete  amnesty  should  be  granted 
and  Vicenza  allowed  to  choose  her  own 
master ;  Trissino  should  be  first  Baron 
of  Saint  Mark  ;  he  should  receive  a 
grant  of  a  fine  palace  in  Venice  and 
£50  a  month  for  the  expenses  of  his 
table.  In  addition  to  this  were 
offered  to  him  the  two  strong  towns 
of  Cittadella  and  Castelfranco,  which 
face  each  other,  the  one  with  its 
circle,  the  other  with  its  square  of 
walls  and  towers.  Of  these  Trissino 
should  be  Count  with  free  sovereignty, 
while  a  hundred  cuirassiers,  two 
hundred  light-horse,  and  five  hundred 
foot  were  placed  under  his  command. 
Trissino  was  an  adventurer,  but  not 
a  common  blackguard.  He  played 
the  grand  game,  and  refused  the 
bribe.  His  mother  city  of  Vicenza, 
he  replied,  would  receive  the  widest 
privileges  from  the  Emperor ;  for  him- 
self he  looked  for  nothing.  The 
Republic  did  not  despair  of  at  least 
conciliating  their  influential  foe. 
Many  Venetian  nobles  had  for  some 
time  past  withdrawn  their  capital 
from  trade  and  invested  it  in  real 
estate  upon  the  mainland.  They  had 
thought  that  in  abandoning  their 
sovereignty  they  would  still  retain 


their  private  property  ;  but  they 
found  themselves  mistaken.  Trissino 
scheduled  their  estates,  and  it  was 
reported  that  half  would  be  applied  to 
the  benefit  of  the  Paduan  municipal 
pawnbroking  office,  and  the  other 
moiety  to  the  advantage  of  the  town. 
Meanwhile  the  crops  were  ripe,  and 
their  proprietors  were  chafing  to 
gather  them.  The  Venetians  strove 
to  induce  Trissino  to  respect  the 
rights  of  private  property.  Hearing 
that  he  had  sent  to  Mestre  to  buy  a 
race-horse,  the  Government  presented 
one,  a  strange  gift  from  the  city  of 
canals.  More  than  this,  the  Secretary 
who  conducted  negotiations  was  em- 
powered to  offer  .£1,000.  It  is  not 
known  that  Trissino  took  the  bribe ; 
but  he  courteously  allowed  the  Vene- 
tian gentry  to  harvest  their  crops  for 
the  current  year. 

Encouraged  by  this  concession,  the 
Republic  sent  Francesco  Cappello  to 
renew  its  former  offers.  Trissino 
cherished  a  warm  regard  for  the 
old  man  who,  when  ambassador  in 
Germany,  had  befriended  him  in 
exile ;  and  he  had  excepted  his  pro- 
perty from  the  schedule  of  confisca- 
tion. Cappello,  under  pretext  of  an 
embassy  to  the  Emperor,  took  his 
chaplain,  his  secretary,  and  his  barber, 
and  made  Padua  the  first  stage  of  his 
fictitious  journey.  For  further  se- 
curity he  disguised  himself  in  a 
Hungarian  dress.  But  as  he  entered 
the  gate,  some  soldiers  who  had  served 
under  him  at  Trieste  recognised  the 
magnificent  old  man,  and  reverently 
saluted  him.  A  little  further  a 
woman,  looking  him  hard  in  the 
face,  cried,  "Hurrah  for  Saint 
Mark  !  "  A  secret  interview  with 
Trissino  was  contrived,  but  the  Paduan 
nobles,  very  jealous  of  these  negotia- 
tions, got  wind  of  Cappello's  presence. 
Trissino,  moreover,  was  no  longer  the 
sole  master,  for  on  the  same  evening 
as  his  friend  three  Imperial  Commis- 


,     v> 

.- 


220 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


sibners  arrived  at  Padua.  Cappello 
slipped  safely  down  the  Brenta  as  far 
as  Stra,  but  here  he  was  arrested  by 
fifty  horsemen.  It  nearly  went  hard 
with  the  old  diplomatist.  In  spite  of 
his  commission  to  the  Emperor,  in 
spite  of  his  indignant  protests  on  the 
violation  of  the  law  of  nations,  the 
provisional  Government  of  sixteen 
members  debated  a  motion  for  his 
immediate  execution.  The  turn  of  a 
single  vote  would  have  cost  his  life. 

The  great  coalition  against  Venice 
was  now  showing  signs  of  loosening. 
The    King    of     France    retired    from 
the    Mincio    to    make    his    triumphal 
entry     into     Milan.      Ferdinand     of 
Aragon    and    the    Pope    had    taken, 
almost    without    resistance,    all    that 
they  desired.     The  Ernperor  was  tim- 
idly clinging  to  the  southern  fringes 
of  the  Alps,  concentrating  his  forces 
at    Bassano     and     the     neighbouring 
walled    townlets ;    his    unpaid    troops 
were  demoralised  by  plunder.      The 
Venetians    plucked   up    courage ;  the 
nobles  had  now  realised  that  in  aban- 
doning  the  territory  of   their   State, 
they  were  losing  their  means  of  liveli- 
hood.     In  the  Senate  it  was  debated 
whether  the  Levant  or  Italy,  the  sea 
or  land,  offered   the  fairest  field  for 
Venetian  enterprise ;  the  issue  was  a 
resolution  carried  by  one  vote  only,  to 
retake  Padua.     The  town  was  weakly 
held.      Trissino    and    the     Imperial 
officials  had  but  some  three  hundred 
Germans,   a  few   Italian   lances,  and 
the    volunteer   companies  of  Paduan 
nobles ;  the   populace   was    eager    to 
welcome  Venetian  rule.      Padua  was 
so  near  Venice  that  the  fortifications 
had   been    allowed    to    crumble,   and 
Trissino,  bent  on  remitting  instead  of 
raising    taxes,    had    never   looked  to 
their  repair. 

On  the  night  of  July  16th  all 
Venice  was  astir.  Andrea  Gritti,  the 
soul  of  the  enterprise,  had  marched 
the  regulars  up  to  the  eastern  gate  of 


Padua.     Every   available  boat   from 
every  township  on  the  lagoons,  from 
Murano  and  Malamocco,  from  Torcello 
to  distant  Chioggia,  had  been  ordered 
to  the  channels  of  the  Brenta.   Thither 
passed  the   crews   and   the   workmen 
from  the  Arsenal ;  the  nobles  came  in 
their    barges,    the    citizens    in    their 
gondolas  and  pinnaces.     Some  twenty 
thousand  men    in    a  flotilla    of    four 
thousand  boats  were  gathered  on  the 
Brenta.      From    the    villages    on   the 
banks  poured  forth  the  peasants,  full 
of   fight  against  the  plundering  Ger- 
mans  and  the   Paduan    rebels.     Yet 
with    all    this    stir     the     secret    was 
strangely  kept,  and  on  that  July  night 
all  Padua  was  sleeping.      At  dawn  of 
day    on    the    17th,    the    anniversary 
of  the  day  on  which  a  little  more  than 
a  century  ago  Padua  had  first  fallen, 
three  waggons  with  loads    of   wheat 
summoned    the    guard     to    open    the 
Codalunga     gate,    where    now     there 
stands  the  monument  of  the  Venetian 
victory.     The  last  waggoner  stopped 
upon  the  bridge,  and  then  the  Venetian 
horsemen  dashed  in  from  their  ambush 
and  held  the  gate.     The  Greek  light 
horse,  the   Uhlans   of   their   day,  gal- 
loped forward  to  explore  the  streets ; 
the  gentry  were    in    their  beds,   the 
people  made  common  cause  with  the 
invaders,  and  the  main  Venetian  force 
pushed  its  way  into  the  town.     Tris- 
sino was   the  first  to  mount,  but  he 
and  his  two  hundred  followers  were 
thrust  back  to  the  market-place.    They 
barricaded  themselves  in  the  Captain's 
palace  ;  but  the  doors  were  dashed  in, 
the  lion    banner   once   more    floated 
from  the  balcony,  while  the  great  bell 
clanged    out    the  Venetian    triumph. 
Trissino,  however,  was  not  yet  caught. 
From    the  palace    he  broke    through 
the  wall  into  the  stronger  castle  ;  and 
here  he  and  his   comrades  were  safe 
for  at  least  a  night. 

Meanwhile  through  the  gates  and 
over  the  walls  of  Padua  poured  sol- 


An  Italian  Adventurer. 


"W 


221 


diers,  villagers,  and  farmers,  pillaging 
the  houses  of  the  nobles  and  the 
Jewish  money-changers.  Then  to- 
wards midday  arrived  the  great  flotilla, 
detained  for  some  hours  by  fifty  brave 
Germans  who  had  defended  the  half- 
way fort  of  Stra.  Nobles,  fishermen, 
and  boatmen  joined  indiscriminately  in 
pillage ;  in  vain  Gritti  risked  his  life, 
rushing  among  the  plunderers  sword 
in  hand,  until  at  nightfall  he  got  the 
mastery,  and  hanged  the  plunderers 
forthwith.  Next  morning  the  Vene- 
tian mortars  were  dragged  to  the 
piazza  and  opened  fire  upon  the  castle. 
Seven  shots  sufficed  to  effect  a  breach. 
Then  Trissino  called  for  a  parley  at 
the  postern.  He  bargained  for  his 
own  life  and  that  of  the  Imperial 
treasurer,  surrendering  his  other  com- 
rades at  discretion.  He  took  the  gold 
chain  from  his  neck  and  gave  it  to  a 
Venetian  officer  ;  but  Gritti,  always 
the  most  generous  of  victors,  returned 
it,  saying,  "  You  shall  wear  this  with 
honour."  Yet  Trissino  did  not  escape 
from  Padua  without  humiliation.  As 
he  passed  through  the  streets  to  the 
river-gate,  a  poor  old  woman  struck 
him  with  all  her  might  and  cursed 
him  like  a  Fury.  All  Venice  was 
waiting  to  see  the  captives  come ;  but 
their  arrival  was  purposely  delayed 
till  night,  and  only  the  nobles  were 
abroad  when  they  were  landed  in 
front  of  the  Doge's  palace.  Lorenzo 
Loredano  to  the  other  prisoners  gave 
a  courteous  greeting  ;  but  to  Trissino 
he  vouchsafed  no  word,  although  the 
adventurer  was  still  finely  dressed 
with  his  golden  cap,  his  massive  chain, 
and  his  white  velvet  tunic  frogged 
with  gold. 

The  prisoners,  ten  in  all,  Germans 
and  Italians,  were  kindly  used.  The 
Ten  examined  Trissino,  and  finding 
him  suffering  from  a  wound,  gave  him 
a  better  prison.  Maximilian  did  not 
forget  his  brother  sportsman.  Per- 


sonally,  and  through  Prince  ary 
of  Brunswick,  he  complained  of  the-  . 
treatment  of  the  captives',  and  threat-  " 
ened  reprisals.  The  Doge  replied  that 
the  Emperor  was  misinformed,  that 
the  prisoners,  including  Trissino,  were 
kindly  treated  and  were  only  pre- 
vented from  escaping.  Towards  the 
close  of  the  year  Trissino  and  others 
were  taken  from  the  prison  and 
lodged  in  the  Captain's  house,  where 
they  could  freely  hold  intercourse 
with  their  fellows.  In  February,  1510, 
the  four  chief  Germans  abused  their 
privilege,  and  while  the  guards  were 
guzzling,  broke  through  a  walled-up 
doorway  and  escaped.  Trissino  paid 
the  penalty,  for  he  was  led  back  to 
the  strong  prison,  and  here  just  one 
year  later  he  died  of  a  broken  heart. 

Thus  ended  a  remarkable  adven- 
turer, with  his  high  ambitions,  his 
winning  manners,  his  love  for  velvet 
and  gold  braid  and  flowers.  He  had 
played  for  a  high  stake  ;  that  he  lost 
was  not  all  a  fault  of  his.  Without 
a  ducat  or  a  trooper  he  had  kept  his 
word,  and  won  for  the  Emperor  a 
priceless  territory.  Had  Maximilian 
followed  •  his  friend  in  the  field  as 
keenly  as  he  followed  him  in  the 
chase,  the  quarry  might  never  have 
been  let  slip.  Yet  Maximilian  was 
a  man  of  sentiment  and  was  not 
forgetful.  When  in  the  half  light  of 
a  wet  November  morning  the  lion 
of  Saint  Mark  sprang  upon  Vicenza, 
the  house  of  Trissino  fled  from  its 
claws,  and  for  love  of  its  scapegrace 
member  found  shelter  with  the  Em- 
peror. And  when  after  seven  years 
of  fight  the  war  grew  weary,  Gian 
Giorgio  Trissino  was  chosen  to  nego- 
tiate the  peace  ;  for  Maximilian  was 
known  to  cherish  the  name  of  his  agile 
comrade  in  the  breezy  Tyrol  moun- 
tains, who  in  his  cause  had  pined  to 
death  behind  the  prison  bars  above 
the  sluggish  waters  of  the  canal. 


222 


THE    POOR    SCHOLAR. 


FEW  subjects  in  the  social  history 
of  England  are  more  curious  and 
interesting  than  the  silent  revolu- 
tion which,  in  the  course  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
transformed  into  institutions  for 
the  education  of  the  rich  the  Uni- 
versities whose  colleges  had  been, 
with  the  rarest  exceptions,  founded 
expressly  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor. 
For  the  latter  fact  is  beyond  the 
range  of  controversy.  At  Merton, 
for  example,  the  model  for  all  subse- 
quent foundations,  poverty  was  under 
the  founder's  regulations  an  absolute 
necessity  for  admission.  The  founder 
of  Corpus  Christi,  Oxford,  prescribed 
that  there  should  be  in  his  college  no 
more  than  four,  or  at  most  six,  sons  of 
lawyers  or  nobles,  the  only  two  rich 
classes  which  in  the  early  part  of  the 
sixteenth  century  would  be  likely  to 
seek  a  University  education,  and 
those  only  upon  condition  of  strict 
compliance  with  college  discipline. 
At  Exeter  again  the  twelve  fellowships 
which  Bishop  Stapledon  established 
were,  in  the  words  of  the  college 
historian,  distinctly  given  for  the 
children  of  the  poor.  The  transform- 
ation was  of  course  an  affair  of  time. 
At  the  outset  of  the  sixteenth  century 
we  find  the  poor  scholar  still  in  the 
ascendant ;  and  even  as  late  as  1616 
there  were  in  Oxford  no  less  than  four 
or  five  hundred  students  who  could  be 
described  as  poor.  But  slowly  the 
influence  of  the  growing  wealth  of  the 
country,  commercial  and  agrarian,  the 
increase  in  the  number  of  families  of 
position  which  resulted  from  the 
distribution  of  the  monastery  lands, 
began  to  break  through  not  only  the 


statutes  and  regulations  of  the 
founders,  but  their  manifest  inten- 
tions. Slowly  a  new  class,  which 
came  to  be  called  in  time  the  gentle- 
men-commoners, began  to  press  the 
poor  student  to  the  wall.  They 
profited  by  the  rooms  which  had  been 
built  for  him  and  the  kitchens  which 
had  been  endowed  to  save  his  pocket ; 
they  so  far  succeeded  in  ousting  him 
from  the  colleges,  that  Laud  was  com- 
pelled to  make  some  academical  pro- 
vision for  those  who,  like  the  un- 
attached students  of  our  own  day, 
found  themselves  for  one  reason  or 
another  debarred  from  admission  to  a 
college.  By  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  new  class  of  richer 
students  had  succeeded  in  imparting 
to  the  University,  as  a  whole,  the 
character  of  idleness  and  extravagance 
which,  aided  by  the  dread  of  innova 
tion  to  be  found  nowhere  in  such 
perfection  as  in  an  Oxford  common- 
room,  has  in  some  measure  managed 
to  survive  the  most  determined  at- 
tacks of  the  spirit  of  reform. 

In  the  more  prominent  of  the  two 
figures  there  is  little  to  interest  us. 
The  gentleman-commoner  in  his  habits 
and  tastes,  his  hunting  and  horse- 
racing,  his  cock-fighting  and  coursing, 
his  attendances  upon  the  popular 
toasts,  his  display  in  the  High  Street 
or  Merton  Walks  of  the  latest  fashion 
in  peruques  or  buckles,  differed  but 
little  from  his  counterpart  in  the 
modern  University.  But  the  poor 
student  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
were  he  scholar,  servitor,  battelar,  or 
commoner,  is  interesting  to  us  not 
only  as  a  member  of  a  class  which,  as 
a  class,  is  for  practical  purposes  a 


The  Poor  Scholar. 


223 


thing  of  the  past,  but  as  the  last 
remnant  of  the  University  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  University  where 
the  poor  were  the  rule  and  not  the 
exception.  Never  in  all  its  history 
had  Oxford  sunk  to  such  a  low  level 
of  intellectual  and  moral  stagnation 
as  in  the  forty  years  which  succeeded 
the  Restoration.  The  University  as  a 
whole,  as  well  as  the  individual  colleges, 
had  no  doubt  suffered  severely  from  the 
Civil  War.  Their  plate  had  gone  into 
the  melting-pot  to  pay  the  royal 
troops,  their  credit  had  been  deeply 
engaged  for  the  same  purpose  :  their 
estates  had  suffered  from  the  depreda- 
tions of  one  side  or  the  other ;  and  it 
was  not  only  during  the  war  that 
they  had  been  saddled  with  the 
entertainment  of  a  protracted  succes- 
sion of  expensive  guests.  The  numbers 
of  the  University  stood  in  dismal 
contrast  to  what  they  had  been  during 
the  earlier  part  of  the  century,  when 
quite  as  many  undergraduates  were  in 
residence  as  to-day,  and  the  four 
principal  colleges  could  each  show  an 
average  of  close  upon  two  hundred 
and  fifty  students.  The  two  succes- 
sive purgations  of  the  University, 
first  by  the  Parliamentary  Visitation, 
and  secondly  under  the  provisions  of 
the  Act  of  Uniformity,  had  resulted 
in  the  banishment  of  a  large  number 
of  the  abler  and  more  independent 
spirits  ;  and  the  loss  of  some,  scholars 
such  as  Conant,  for  example,  was 
irreparable.  Their  places  were  taken 
by  men  whose  character  and  attain- 
ments in  many  cases  would  in  our 
own  time  be  an  absolute  bar  to  the 
humblest  college  preferment.  A 
Rector  of  Exeter  who  was  constantly 
too  drunk  to  walk  alone  to  his 
lodgings,  a  Warden  of  Merton  whose 
morals  were  at  least  doubtful  and 
whose  greed  drove  the  college  to 
desperation,  a  President  of  Corpus 
who  regarded  the  foundation  as  a 
convenient  means  of  providing  for 


a  perennial  supply  of  great-nephews, 
would  have  found  their  counterparts 
in  at  least  the  bulk  of  'the  colleges. 
Public  lecturers  who  never  lectured, 
Fellows  whose  evil  life  was  open  and 
notorious,  Doctors  who  sat  tippling 
with  their  own  servants,  gentlemen- 
commoners  who  never  attended  a 
lecture  or  turned  the  pages  of  a  book, 
were  figures  too  ordinary  to  excite 
more  than  the  passing  notice  of  the 
satirist.  The  whole  standard  of 
University  life  and  morals  seemed  to 
have  taken  a  sudden  plunge  downhill. 
Such  was  the  society  and  such  the 
surroundings  in  which  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century  there 
was  still  to  be  found  the  poor  scholar. 
In  many  respects  circumstances  were 
in  his  favour,  at  any  rate  more  so  than 
at  the  present  day.  The  comparatively 
small  number  of  rich  men  at  the 
University  rendered  it  far  easier  for 
a  student  whose  purse  was  light  to 
obtain  admission  to  a  college  :  a  large 
proportion  of  the  scholarships  and 
emoluments  were  filled  up  by  the  old- 
fashioned  method  of  nomination,  or 
by  an  examination  little  more  than 
nominal  ;•  and  it  was  seldom  difficult 
for  a  man  of  any  influence  to  obtain 
for  a  promising  lad  who  had  been 
brought  under  his  notice,  a  footing  of 
one  kind  or  another  in  the  University. 
Even  if  no  scholarship  were  available, 
the  student  might  still  find  an  ex- 
tremely cheap  byway  to  his  degree  in 
the  duties  of  servitor  or  bible-clerk, 
functions  which  now  are  discharged 
by  the  scout  or  the  under-porter. 
And  once  the  footing  in  the  Univer- 
sity gained,  the  rest  was  simple,  far 
simpler  than  it  is  to-day.  Fellowships 
were  not  only  proportionately  far  more 
numerous  than  at  the  present  time, 
when  in  the  average  college  perhaps 
one  may  fall  vacant  in  two  years  and 
is  competed  for  by  practically  the 
whole  University,  but  far  easier  of 
attainment,  as  to  a  large  proportion 


224 


The  Poor  Scholar. 


of  the  undergraduates  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  their  small  value  (some 
£20  or  ,£30)  and  the  implied  necessity 
of  holy  orders,  offered  no  attractions. 
There  were,  moreover,  even  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a 
variety  of  advantages  to  the  poor  stu- 
dent which  to  us  are  entirely  unknown. 
The  single  room  in  which  he  slept 
.and  worked  was  almost  invariably 
shared  by  a  Fellow  or  senior  under- 
graduate. The  two  meals  which  were 
all  he  was  supposed  to  need,  early 
dinner  at  eleven  o'clock  and  supper 
at  six,  were  both  simple  and  cheap  ; 
if  he  required  more,  a  pennyworth  of 
toast  and  ale  could  be  procured  at 
the  buttery-hatch.  Still  more  in  his 
favour  was  the  deep  line  drawn  by 
social  prejudices,  by  habits  and  tastes 
and  by  means,  between  himself  and 
the  gentleman-commoner.  From  the 
Smarts  and  Bloods  for  whom  the 
University  was  no  more  than  an 
agreeable  method  of  spending  two  or 
three  years,  and  who  as  a  rule  seem  to 
have  passed  their  time  without  the 
slightest  semblance  of  study,  the  poor 
student  could  have  had  little  to  learn ; 
and  it  was  perhaps  well  for  him  that 
any  attempt  on  his  part  at  acquaint- 
ance would  have  been  scouted  as  an 
impertinence.  As  it  was,  he  found 
himself  a  member  of  a  class  that  was 
a  society  in  itself  and  all  the  members 
of  which  were  as  poor  as  he  was. 
The  chances  were  that,  whether 
scholar,  servitor,  or  commoner,  he 
entered  the  college  at  a  considerably 
earlier  age  than  is  customary  to-day, 
and  was  subject  to  a  discipline  and 
supervision  which  was  practically  that 
of  a  modern  public  school.  His  move- 
ments were  far  more  strictly  regulated 
than  those  of  the  modern  under- 
graduate :  his  tutor  kept,  or  was 
supposed  to  keep,  his  pocket-money, 
supervised  the  amusements  he  indulged 
in  and  the  company  he  kept ;  and 
breaches  of  discipline  were  punished 


by  imposition  and  the  birch.  Every- 
thing of  his  surroundings  and  life, 
the  dinners  he  ate,  the  clothes  he 
wore,  the  fees  he  paid,  his  furniture, 
his  recreations,  were  on  a  simpler, 
perhaps  on  a  rougher  scale  than  would 
be  possible  to-day.  In  his  keeping- 
room,  for  example,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  there  was  much  beyond  a 
table,  a  chair  or  two,  a  shelf  for  his 
books,  a  very  few  needful  utensils,  and 
the  beds  of  his  room-mate  and  himself, 
one  of  which  was  in  the  daytime,  to 
save  space,  pushed  beneath  the  other. 
He  and  the  other  members  of  the 
society  dined  and  supped  together  in 
hall,  doing  their  best  to  keep  up  the 
old  custom  of  conversing  in  Latin. 
His  pleasures  were  as  simple  and  in- 
expensive as  his  other  surroundings. 
A  game  of  bowls  upon  the  college- 
gi'een,  a  main  of  quoits  at  a  country 
inn,  the  shows  of  the  annual  fairs, 
an  evening's  gossip  in  the  coffee-house, 
or  the  stolen  joys  of  the  tavern,  were 
the  amusements  of  the  poorer  scholar. 
Rough  as  the  life  may  have  been,  it 
had  its  strong  points  as  a  training  for 
the  lad  of  narrow  means. 

Of  the  teaching  and  examinations 
perhaps  the  less  said  the  better.  The 
college  tutor  had  scarcely  come  to  be 
responsible  for  his  pupil's  teaching  ;  for 
that  there  were  professors  and  public 
lecturers,  who  lectured,  or  more  usually 
failed  to  lecture,  as  the  case  might  be. 
Tutors  too  are  no  more  than  human,  and 
it  is  not  surprising  if  the  critical  detected 
in  them  a  decided  inclination  to  devote 
their  attention  to  the  gentleman- 
commoner  in  preference  to  the  poor 
scholar,  who  in  the  main  had  to  rely 
upon  himself,  and  what  he  could  pick 
up  at  lectures  or  from  the  exercises  in 
the  college  hall.  Fortunately  the 
ordeal  which  he  had  to  pass  through 
was  no  very  serious  one.  The  first 
of  his  two  examinations  consisted  only 
in  the  public  repetition  of  certain 
well-worn  logical  dialogues,  so  trite 


The  Poor  Scholar. 


225 


and  stale  indeed,  that  they  were 
usually  known  by  heart.  The  second 
essential  was  a  certificate  of  attendance 
in  succession  at  the  public  lectures 
in  grammar,  rhetoric,  logic,  moral 
philosophy,  and  geometry  ;  or  in  lieu 
of  the  certificate  he  "  supplicated  a 
dispensation"  for  the  attendance,  as 
the  undergraduate  does  to-day.  The 
actual  examination  for  the  degree,  if 
we  are  to  believe  even  a  proportion  of 
the  pungent  criticisms  of  Terrse  Filius, 
ran  upon  such  hackneyed  lines,  that 
the  candidates  had  both  questions  and 
answers  at  their  fingers'  ends  before 
they  entered  the  room.  A  shrewd 
fellow  who  could  find  five  shillings  for 
the  proctor's  man,  would  have  no 
difficulty  in  appointing  one  of  his 
own  friends  examiner ;  and  the  same 
authority  avers  that  it  was  common 
enough  for  examiner  and  candidate 
to  spend  the  night  previous  to  the  ex- 
amination in  a  drinking-bout  at  the 
latter's  expense.  The  last  step  was 
the  determination,  a  public  disputa- 
tion not  less  farcical  in  its  character 
than  the  first  examination  ;  and  then 
the  undergraduate  was  a  full-fledged 
Bachelor  of  Arts. 

A  fortunate  accident,  the  discovery 
of  an  undergraduate's  account-book 
for  the  years  1682— 1688,1  enables 
us  to  trace  in  comparatively  minute 
detail  the  expenses  and  in  some 
measure  the  life  of  an  Oxford  student 
of  no  great  means  at  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  The  under- 
graduate in  question,  one  James 
Wilding,  seems  to  have  been  a 
servitor  of  Saint  Mary's  Hall,  and 
afterwards  became  a  member  of 
Merton  College.  The  total  cost  of 
his  degree,  or  rather  his  total 
expenses  up  to  the  end  of  the  term  in 
which  he  took  his  degree,  were  some- 
thing less  than  £57,  a  sum  which 

1  These  accounts  have  been  printed  by  the 
Oxford  Historical  Society,  in  Vol.  V.  of  their 
publications. 

No.  441. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


might  represent  in  modern  values 
about  three  times  as  much.  But 
even  such  an  expenditure  was  large 
compared  with  such  cases  as  that  of 
Whitfield,  whose  popularity  as  a 
servitor,  gained  by  his  previous  ex- 
perience as  a  tapster,  enabled  him  to 
take  his  degree  in  1735  at  a  cost  to 
his  friends  of  less  than  £24 ;  and 
Bishop  Wordsworth  has  recorded 
instances  where  the  entire  outlay  was 
even  less  than  that.  Board  and  lodg- 
ing, as  we  have  said,  were  extremely 
cheap.  Though  James  Wilding  seems 
to  have  lived  in  Oxford  the  whole 
year  round,  his  total  expenses  for 
chamber-rent  and  food  were  no  more 
than  £10  for  nearly  five  years.  His 
terminal  payments  were  on  a  similarly 
modest  scale.  Ten  shillings  a  term 
was  his  tutor's  fee ;  half-a-crown  to 
the  barber,  four  or  five  shillings  to 
his  bedmaker  and  laundress,  an  occa- 
sional largess  of  sixpence  to  the 
buttery-boy  and  the  cook,  seem  to 
have  included  all  of  what  we  may 
term  his  fixed  charges.  His  matricu- 
lation cost  him  seven  and  sixpence, 
his  entrance  at  Merton,  when  he 
migrated  to  that  college,  five  shillings, 
and  the  fees  upon  taking  his  degree 
something  over  £3. 

More  interesting  perhaps  are  the 
varied  lights  which  the  accounts  throw 
upon  the  surroundings  of  such  a  stu- 
dent. The  furniture  and  utensils  he 
bought  in  his  first  term  consisted  of  a 
candle-stick  and  lantern,  an  inkhorn, 
a  lead  pen,  a  trunk  and  a  glass ;  and 
the  cost  of  the  whole  was  five  shillings 
and  tenpence.  In  his  third  term 
there  are  signs  of  growing  luxury, 
curtain-rods  and  hooks,  to  say 
nothing  of  a  bed-mat.  At  other 
points  in  the  four  years  we  find 
mentioned  the  purchase  or  sale  of 
tongs  and  bellows,  a  couple  of  chairs 
and  a  bedstead,  and  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  there  was  much 
more  in  his  room,  as  the  total  value 

Q 


226 


The  Poor  Scholar. 


of  its  furniture  is  set  down  at  fifteen 
shillings. 

In   his   wardrobe   our  student  was 
certainly  of   a  thrifty  turn.      He  was 
constantly  having  his  clothes  turned, 
mended,  and   cleaned  ;  and  one  must 
suppose  that  it  was  clothes,  or  at  all 
events  cloth  from  his  home,  that  are 
the  cause  of   some  of   the  many   pay- 
ments to  the  carrier ;  for  a   new   suit 
never  appears  in  the  accounts,  though 
sometimes  we  have  an   entry  of    the 
cost  of  making  one.      But  gowns  were 
an  expensive  item.      They  needed  not 
only  frequent  mending,  but  twice  in 
five    years    our    undergraduate    buys 
new    ones,    a    taste    scarcely  compre- 
hensible to  the  modern  Oxonian  ;  and 
a  new  gown,  costing  as  it  did  a  guinea 
or  so,  was  a  serious  matter.      Once  in 
a  way  Wilding  buys  a  pair  of  gloves  ; 
more"  frequently  he  has   his   stockings 
coloured  ;  towards  the  end  of  his  time 
he  indulges  in  a  pair  of  silver  buttons  ; 
and  his  improved  position  at  Merton, 
it  seems,  leads  him  into   the  extrava- 
gance   of    a   wig  and  a  red  fur  cap. 
In  books  he  was  more  luxurious,  and 
his    library    of    close    on    a    hundred 
volumes,  mostly  classics  and  theology, 
must  have  been  an  exceptionally  large 
one  for  an  undergraduate.      But  even 
the   most    studious    of    poor    scholars 
cannot  always  be  at  his  books,  and  it 
is    plain    that    James    Wilding,    like 
some   of    his    successors,    found    time 
for  a  good  deal  which  would  probably 
have  caused  some  searchings  of  heart 
in  the  Shropshire  vicarage  from  which 
he    had  come.      We  need   not  be  too 
hard  upon  him  for  the  "  fresh  fees  and 
drink  "  to  the  amount  of   eleven  and 
sixpence,  which  signalised  his  matri- 
culation, or  the  treatings   of    "  oppo- 
nents "  demanded  by  custom  after  his 
examination  in  the  schools,  for  custom 
is  not  to  be  lightly  set  aside  in  Oxford. 
But    wine,     ale,    cider,    and     similar 
entries   appear  in  the  accounts  more 


frequently  and  in  larger  items  than, 
one  suspects,  the  undergraduate's 
reverend  father  would  have  approved. 
An  excursion  to  Abingdon,  with  its 
accompaniments  of  strawberries  and 
cream,  was  all  very  well ;  and  so 
might  be  journeys  to  London,  Cam- 
bridge, and  Worcester.  But  here  and 
there  one  regrets  to  find  memoranda 
relating  to  the  pleasures  of  the  chase, 
or  "  lost  at  cards  "  ;  while  the  attain- 
ment of  our  undergraduate's  degree, 
like  the  attainment  of  degrees  in  later 
ages,  was  celebrated  by  certain  pro- 
ceedings at  a  tavern  whose  cost 
indicates  that  they  were  of  a  protracted 
and  convivial  character.  Sometimes 
Wilding  allows  himself  such  little 
surplus  luxuries  as  herrings,  coffee, 
sugar,  a  lobster  at  twopence,  or  a 
couple  of  rabbits.  We  catch  a  glimpse 
too,  of  the  homely  doctoring  of  the 
period,  the  purges,  ointments,  and 
blood-letting.  We  see  our  friend 
among  the  shows,  paying  two- 
pence for  seeing  the  rhinoceros,  or 
for  a  view  of  a  Turk  ;  while  an  outlay 
of  a  shilling  for  a  mountebank's 
packet  seems  to  indicate  that  in  the 
seventeenth,  as  two  centuries  later, 
there  were  limits  to  the  shrewdness  of 
the  undergraduate. 

In  some  respects  no  doubt  we 
have  improved  upon  all  this.  Ex- 
aminations are  no  longer  the  pure 
farce  they  were  in  the  seventeenth 
century ;  we  have  abolished  the 
gentleman-commoner  and  induced 
lecturers  to  lecture  and  tutors  to 
teach.  But  after  all  our  exertions 
we  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  making 
the  University  as  easy  of  access  to 
the  poor  man  as  it  was  two  hundred 
years  ago.  Even  if  he  had  to  run  to 
the  tavern  for  the  beer  when  the 
buttery  was  closed,  to  wait  at  table 
and  black  the  shoes,  it  was  better  to 
be  at  the  University  even  at  that 
price  than  not  to  be  there  at  all. 


227 


SOME    THOUGHTS    ON    RACINE. 


THE  few  surviving  champions  of 
the  French  classical  school  have  suf- 
fered so  much  at  the  hands  of  the 
critics,  that  one  may  be  excused  for 
approaching  Racine  with  misgiving. 
Are  the  great  exemplars  of  this  school 
to  be  swept  away  for  ever,  and  is 
romanticism  the  last  word  of  the 
artistic  mind  1  It  is  in  any  case 
certain  that  Racine  is  no  longer 
the  idol  of  educated  Frenchmen, 
as  he  was  a  century  ago.  The 
idols  of  the  theatre,  like  those  of  the 
market-place,  are  not  always  secured 
against  rough  handling ;  but  were  it 
otherwise,  the  stage,  like  all  man's 
work,  must  suffer  change  and  old 
forms  give  place  to  new.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  Racine  was  to 
France  more  than  Shakespeare  was 
to  England  ;  in  the  meantime  the 
fame  of  the  Englishman  has  grown, 
and  is  still  growing,  while  the  French- 
man's fame  has  suffered  eclipse,  and 
is  not  likely  to  recover  its  splendour. 
But  there  is  still  in  this  chief  of  the 
French  classical  school  vitality  enough 
to  make  him  profoundly  interesting ; 
and  if  his  dramatic  method  were  as 
dead  as  that  of  his  Greek  prototype, 
Euripides,  he  would  still  be  interest- 
ing as  the  embodiment  of  a  once  great 
and  powerful  tradition. 

Englishmen  have  often  reproached 
Voltaire  for  his  depreciation  of  Shake- 
speare ;  but  have  they  on  the  whole 
been  happier  in  their  judgments  on 
Racine  1  When  a  French  company 
is  acting  one  of  Racine's  plays  in 
London,  the  work  of  the  dramatic 
critics  is  more  than  ever  diverting ;  a 
remnant  of  wise  critics  indeed  there 
always  is,  but  what  a  remnant  is 


needed  to  rescue  so  large  a  flock  ! 
We  have  seen  PHEDRE,  one  of  the 
noblest  tragedies  ever  written,  laughed 
away  as  dreary  and  monotonous  ;  it 
has  often  been  described  as  "  peri- 
wigged Hellenism,"  a  phrase  to  be 
used  again  and  again,  and  passed  on 
from  one  critic  to  another  with  the 
belief  that  all  Racine  is  distilled  into 
it.  We  will  not  stop  here  ;  let  us  go 
higher,  for  greater  men  show  them 
the  way.  Something  which  Hazlitt 
wrote  will  serve  us  ;  with  all  his 
acuteness  and  sensibility,  Hazlitt  had 
his  full  share  of  British  exclusive- 
ness,  and  in  this  matter  he  may  be 
said  to  find  expression  for  the  preju- 
dices of  his  race.  "  The  French,"  he 
says,  "  object  to  Shakespeare  for  his 
breach  of  the  Unities,  and  hold  up 
Racine  as  a  model  of  classical  pro- 
priety, who  makes  a  Greek  hero  ad- 
dress a  Grecian  heroine  as  Madame. 
Yet  this  is  not  barbarous — Why  1 
Because  it  is  French,  and  because 
nothing  that  is  French  can  be  barbar- 
ous in  the  eyes  of  this  frivolous  and 
pedantic  nation,  who  would  prefer  a 
peruke  of  the  age  of  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth to  a  simple  Greek  head-dress." 
Again  he  tells  us  that  Racine  gives  us 
"the commonplaces  of  the  human  heart 
better  than  any  one,  but  nothing  or 
very  little  more."  This  was  written 
at  a  time  when  Racine  held  a  greater 
place  in  the  minds  of  his  countrymen 
than  he  holds  to-day  ;  let  us  compare 
with  it  the  words  of  a  French  con- 
temporary of  Hazlitt,  also  a  gloomy 
spirit,  but  a  man  of  equal  intellectual 
irifts  and  of  far  wider  attainments. 

o 

Lamennais  says  :  "  Racine  is  the 
Raphael  of  the  drama.  Expression 

Q   2 


228 


Some  Thoughts  on  Racine. 


and  design,  brilliance  and  sobriety 
of  colour,  we  find  in  him  all  the 
distinctive  qualities  of  this  great 
master,  in  whom  the  antique  feeling 
for  beauty  was  combined  with  the 
Christian  genius."  This  seems  to 
re-echo  the  admiration  of  the  old 
school,  of  such  men,  for  instance,  as 
Voltaire,  who  says  of  Racine's  IPIII- 
GENIE  :  "  Oh,  very  tragedy  !  beauty  of 
every  age  and  of  every  race  !  Woe  to 
the  barbarians  who  do  not  feel  in 
their  souls  this  wonderful  merit  ! " 

To  English  ears  such  praise  sounds, 
to  say  the  least,  a  little  out  of  mea- 
sure ;  but  it  is  well  to  realise  at  the 
outset  that  Voltaire  here  speaks  the 
best  mind  of  France  ;  and  in  the  last 
resort,  as  a  fine  critic  has  said,  every 
nation  must  be  held  to  be  the  fittest 
judge  of  its  own  literature.  Great 
writers  are  not  concerned  merely  with 
literary  form,  but  are  embodiments 
also  of  the  national  genius,  a  thing  so 
infinitely  complex  that  it  is  rarely 
understood  even  by  mature  men  until 
they  are  past  forty,  if  indeed  it  is 
ever  understood  at  all  by  those  who 
are  trained  outside  its  circle.  Then 
too,  we  may  ask,  has  any  man  ever 
mastered  two  languages  1  In  the 
fullest  sense  we  do  not  know  a  lan- 
guage until  we  can  by  ear  distinguish 
in  it  the  nicest  shades  of  rhythmical 
effect ;  has  any  one  ever  done  so  with 
two  languages  ?  This  alone  would 
make  every  highly  civilised  nation 
the  only  competent  judge  of  its  own 
literature.  Certainly  with  so  pecu- 
liarly national  an  art  as  Racine's,  we 
must  waive  any  academical  concep- 
tion of  a  cosmopolitan  literature. 
But  the  art  of  Sophocles  was  quite 
as  national  as  Racine's ;  is  not  all  art 
national  or  parochial  ?  Of  all  modern 
classics  DON  QUIXOTE  is  most  uni- 
versal in  its  appeal ;  but  its  full  charm 
is  reserved  for  the  Spaniard. 

Racine  was  one  of  the  glories  of 
the  age  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  and 


in  many  ways  embodied  its  sentiment ; 
its  heroic  sentiment,  a  Frenchman  of 
the  old  school  would  have  said.  He 
was  born  on  the  21st  of  December, 
1639,  at  the  little  town  of  La  Ferte- 
Milon,  in  Aisne,  where  his  father,  who 
gave  to  the  boy  his  own  name  of 
Jean,  was  collector  of  the  salt-tax. 
His  mother  (whose  maiden  name  was 
Jeanne  Sconin)  gave  birth  about  a 
year  later  to  a  second  child,  a  daugh- 
ter, Marie,  and  died  a  few  days  after- 
wards. Widowers  may  pine,  but  not 
for  ever,  and  within  a  couple  of  years 
the  father  married  again  ;  but  his  own 
death  followed  quickly,  and  little  Jean 
was  an  orphan  before  he  had  completed 
his  fourth  year.  The  father  left  no 
provision  for  the  two  children,  who 
were  taken  in  charge  by  the  grand- 
parents, Jean  going  to  the  father's 
side,  and  Marie  to  the  mother's. 
Jean  was  treated  with  great  kind- 
ness by  his  grandmother,  and  had 
probably  a  happier  childhood  than  he 
would  have  known  at  home  with  his 
stepmother,  if  his  father  had  lived. 
His  first  schooling  was  at  the  College 
of  Beauvais,  from  about  1651  to  1655, 
after  which  he  went  to  one  of  the 
famous  schools  of  Port  Royal,  where 
he  remained  until  1658.  Jean  was 
an  apt  pupil,  and  appears  to  have 
shown  at  an  early  age  a  great  love 
of  ancient  literature,  especially  the 
Greek,  which  he  cultivated  sedulously 
all  his  days.  Few  anecdotes  of  his 
youth  are  worth  repeating ;  the  only 
one  that  remains  in  the  memory  is 
that  of  his  master  Lancelot  finding 
him  reading  a  Greek  book,  which  had 
for  its  theme  not  theology  but  earthly 
love.  The  master  was  scandalised, 
and  burned  the  book ;  Racine  pro- 
cured a  second  copy,  which  also  went 
into  the  fire  ;  still  unyielding,  the  boy 
obtained  a  third  copy,  which  he  read, 
and  afterwards  presented  to  the 
master ;  this  too,  he  said,  might  be 
burned,  for  he  knew  it  by  heart. 


Some  Thoughts  on  Racine. 


229 


The  masters  at  Port  Royal  were  per- 
haps easily  scandalised,  but  they  were 
humane  and  long-suffering  ;  if  Racine 
had  been  under  Busby  the  story  would 
not  have  been  so  smooth. 

After  Port  Royal  he  was  about  a 
year  at  the  College  of  Harcourt,  where 
the  study  of  logic  and  philosophy 
could  not  kill  his  love  of  the  Muses. 
Then  for  about  four  years  he  made 
experiments,  as  young  men  do,  in 
the  choice  of  a  career.  During  nearly 
half  this  period  he  was  with  a 
relative  of  his  mother's,  who  held  a 
respectable  if  not  a  profitable  position 
in  the  Church.  It  was  certainly  the 
wish  of  this  ecclesiastic  that  Racine 
should  take  orders ;  but  the  young 
man  wisely  refrained  from  taking  his 
uncle's  advice ;  with  all  his  gifts  and 
accomplishments,  Racine  had  not  in 
him  the  making  of  a  good  priest.  It 
was  not  quite  in  vain  that  he  had 
done  something  with  the  view  of 
entering  the  Church,  though  in  fact 
he  had  not  gone  beyond  the  vestibule. 
He  secured  a  benefice,  and  perhaps 
for  a  time  he  wore  the  ecclesiastical 
costume  ;  but  this  has  been  generally 
denied.  Voltaire,  who  knew  Louis, 
Racine's  son,  and  who  therefore  may 
be  supposed  to  speak  with  some 
authority,  says :  "  He  wore  the 
ecclesiastical  costume  when  he  wrote 
THEAGENE,  which  he  offered  to 
Moliere,  also  when  he  wrote  LA 
THEBAIDE,  the  subject  of  which 
Moliere  suggested  to  him.  In  the 
royal  license  to  publish  ANDROMAQUE, 
he  is  styled  Prior  of  Epinay."  A 
question  of  this  kind  is  not  in  itself 
important,  but  it  shows  how  un- 
certain is  the  biographer's  ground. 
Racine  was  back  in  Paris  in  1663, 
and  success  now  came  quickly.  He 
had  before  this  written  a  play,  or 
plays,  of  which  we  know  nothing,  and 
several  poems.  It  is  not  singular 
that  he  had  remained  unknown,  for 
in  that  age  the  literary  man's  chances 


were  few ;  the  patronage  of  the  king 
or  his  minister  was  worth  more  to  the 
author  than  the  good  opinion  of  the 
publishers.  It  was  not,  however, 
through  the  publishers  but  through 
the  players  that  he  at  length  became 
famous.  He  had  indeed  already 
attracted  the  royal  notice,  but  this 
was  less  than  fame ;  an  ode  which  he 
wrote  on  the  marriage  of  the  King 
secured  him  a  present  of  a  hundred 
louis,  altogether  a  suitable  beginning, 
since  the  King  and  the  poet  had  so 
much  in  common.  But  for  the  time 
it  ended  here ;  a  great  king  does 
not  allow  himself  to  be  taken  by 
storm.  Again  in  1664  he  wrote  a 
royal  ode,  inspired  this  time  by  the 
recovery  of  Louis  from  the  most 
unkingly  malady  of  the  measles ;  and 
the  result  of  this  second  compliment 
was  a  pension.  In  the  same  year  his 
tragedy  LA  THI£BAIDE  was  performed 
by  Moliere's  company,  and  as  Racine 
was  not  yet  twenty-five,  he  cannot  be 
said  to  have  waited  long  for  fame. 
Then  for  thirteen  years  he  continued 
to  write  for  the  stage  with  varying 
fortune.  All  the  plays  of  what  we 
may  call  his  secular  period  were  com- 
posed between  1663  and  1677,  in 
which  latter  year  he  was  thirty- 
eight. 

His  life  during  this  period  is 
almost  entirely  in  his  plays.  It  is 
only  necessary  to  add  that  he  was  the 
lover  of  two  charming  actresses,  and 
that  he  figured  in  more  than  one 
literary  quarrel,  which  did  much  to 
embitter  his  mind  and  to  sully  his 
reputation.  He  quarrelled  with  Port 
Royal ;  one  of  his  old  masters,  Nicole, 
had  published  a  tract  against  the 
stage,  in  which  he  described  play- 
wrights as  "  wholesale  poisoners." 
Racine  may  have  been  mistaken  in 
thinking  the  attack  directed  against 
himself,  but  in  any  case  he  had  a 
right  to  resent  it.  He  replied,  with 
much  abuse  of  Port  Royal  and  its 


230 


Some  Thoughts  on  Racine. 


teachers,  to  whom  he  owed  so  much. 
Is  such  ingratitude  altogether  beyond 
forgiveness  1  It  is  certainly  true  that 
gratitude  exists  chiefly  in  dictionaries 
and  in  the  imagination  of  young 
poets ;  but  even  in  the  noblest  minds 
it  will  hardly  stand  a  shock  like  this. 
Racine  has  also  been  charged  with 
ingratitude  towards  Moliere  by  with- 
drawing a  play  from  his  company  ;  but 
the  evidence  is  so  slender  that  we 
may  justly  refuse  to  deal  with  the 
question  at  all.  The  last  public 
quarrel  in  which  he  was  concerned 
is  one  in  which  our  sympathies  must 
go  entirely  with  him.  An  aristocratic 
clique  in  Paris,  headed  by  a  duchess, 
made  a  dead  set  against  Racine,  and 
determined  to  set  up  as  a  rival  some 
forgotten  writer,  one  of  the  medio- 
crities of  the  hour.  Their  purpose 
was  to  be  accomplished  during  the 
first  performances  of  PHEDRE  ;  for 
six  nights  the  theatre  was  to  be 
empty,  while  all  the  Parisian  world 
of  taste  was  to  be  at  the  rival  house. 
Money  was  spent  lavishly,  and  the 
plot  in  part  succeeded.  Yet  Racine, 
if  he  had  been  so  minded,  might  have 
outlived  it  in  a  few  months  ;  but  he 
was  not  made  of  the  true  fighting 
material,  and  gave  up  the  game  alto- 
gether. It  was  not  in  all  ways  a 
pleasant  game,  even  when  success  was 
unmistakable.  The  lovers  of  fine 
literature  are  always  few,  and  in 
Racine's  day  there  was  no  strong 
public  opinion  to  keep  in  order  the 
great  army  of  disappointed  spirits. 
He  now  turned  for  consolation  to 
religion,  and  had  thoughts  of  retiring 
to  the  cloister ;  his  confessor  advised 
him  to  remain  in  the  world  and  to 
marry.  The  counsel  was  good,  for 
Racine  had  above  everything  the 
temperament  of  the  artist,  which 
loves  the  sunlight  and  the  sensuous 
joys  of  life;  in  such  a  nature  the 
stern  discipline  of  the  cloister  is  apt 
to  produce  an  invincible  depression 


of  mind.  Racine  wisely  followed  the 
advice  of  his  confessor,  and  took  to 
wife,  about  the  middle  of  1677, 
Catherine  de  Romanet,  a  good  woman, 
of  whom  it  is  sufficient  to  record 
that  she  brought  happiness  to  her 
husband  and  her  children.  Henceforth 
Racine  eschewed  literary  ambition, 
though  he  never  ceased  to  write ; 
he  even  appears  to  have  looked  upon 
his  early  successes  as  subjects  for  re- 
pentance rather  than  for  gratulation. 
In  a  religious  atmosphere,  not  of 
exalted  piety,  but  certainly  of  re- 
spectable devotion,  he  passed  the  re- 
mainder of  his  days.  Between  1688 
and  1691  he  wrote  two  sacred  plays, 
ESTHER  and  ATHALIE,  the  latter  a 
sublime  performance,  and  perhaps  the 
greatest  of  all  his  works.  The  first 
was  no  doubt  suggested  to  him  by 
Madame  de  Maintenon ;  and  both 
were  written  as  works  of  piety.  They 
were  acted,  however,  only  by  school- 
girls, and  were  never  brought  on  the 
public  stage  during  the  author's  life- 
time. Happy  in  his  married  life 
and  fond  of  his  children,  in  com- 
fortable circumstances  and  at  peace 
even  with  Port  Royal,  Racine  ought 
to  have  been  happy  to  the  last.  He 
had  public  duties  which  were  not 
uncongenial :  for  about  twenty  years 
he  was  historiographer  to  the  King, 
an  office  which  he  shared  with  his 
friend  Boileau  ;  and  for  a  still  longer 
period  he  was  a  member  of  the  Academy. 
But  his  closing  days  were  clouded. 
He  had  incurred  the  royal  displeasure, 
or  believed  that  he  had  done  so,  and 
the  thought  of  this  haunting  the  too 
sensitive  man,  destroyed  his  peace  of 
mind.  Under  this  cloud  he  died  on 
the  21st  of  April,  1699,  in  his  sixtieth 
year. 

Racine  has  usually  been  called  an  un- 
amiable  man,  but  the  reproach  is  not 
quite  just.  He  was  one  of  those  men 
whose  sensibility  is  a  disease.  It  was 
a  common  fashion  among  our  grand- 


Some  Thoughts  on  Eacine. 


fathers,  and  perhaps  not  yet  wholly 
extinct,  to  regard  the  artist  as  a  being 
apart,  subject  to  none  of  the  unwritten 
laws  that  prevail  in  the  world  which 
calls  itself  respectable.  The  truth  is 
that  the  life  of  the  artist  is  calculated 
to  engender  an  unwholesome  suscepti- 
bility. All  his  days  he  is  putting  his 
heart  and  soul  into  his  work,  poetry, 
music,  painting,  whatever  it  may  be ; 
and  in  such  an  atmosphere  only  the 
greatest  men  can  harmonise  body  with 
mind.  Whether  success  comes  to  him 
early  or  late,  he  has  literally  to  make 
a  way  for  himself  in  a  world  where  we 
all  pay  so  heavily  for  experience.  In 
the  regular  callings  of  life  men  are 
helped  immensely  by  tradition  and 
usage.  But  the  true  artist  has  none 
of  this  ;  his  work  is  personal  above 
all  things,  and  he  is  the  type  of 
the  self-reliant  man.  The  man  of 
action  uses  his  fellows  ;  indeed  his 
chief  work  consists  mainly  in  making 
them  do  theirs ;  but  the  work  of  the 
artist  is  individual  and  unique.  Twenty 
men  might  have  planned  a  particular 
campaign ;  only  one  man  since  time 
began  could  have  written  MACBETH. 
And  there  were  other  things  at 
that  time  to  embitter  the  dramatic 
artist.  There  was  above  all  the  hos- 
tility of  the  Church.  Racine  had 
been  trained  by  pious  churchmen  ;  he 
was  all  his  days  a  sincere  Christian, 
and  in  later  life  a  devout  one  ;  to  him 
this  hostility  must  have  been  specially 
galling.  In  France  the  Church  has 
always  looked  askance  at  the  stage  : 
even  Christian  burial  was  at  one  time 
refused  to  the  poor  player ;  and  the 
enmity  still  lives  on,  though  in  recent 
times  the  teeth  of  the  priest  have 
been  so  closely  filed  down,  that  in  his 
biting  moods  he  has  ceased  to  be 
terrible.  One  meets  with  it  still  in 
the  most  unlikely  places  ;  we  noticed 
it  lately,  for  example,  in  an  attenuated 
form,  in  the  Abbe  Bautain's  excellent 
treatise  on  Public  Speaking.  In  the 


time  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  the 
Church  was  an  irreconcilable  foe.  The 
ecclesiastic  regarded  the  calling  of  the 
player  as  unclean,  and  classed  him 
with  the  leper  and  the  outcast,  or 
even  perhaps  a  little  lower.  He  may 
be  said  indeed  to  have  looked  with 
suspicion  on  every  form  of  art.  The 
origin  of  this  feeling  can  be  traced 
back  almost  to  the  beginning  of 
Christianity.  There  is  in  the  nature 
of  things  no  reason  why  the  greatest 
of  Christian  saints  should  not  be  also 
the  greatest  of  artists  ;  but  that  this 
is  not  so  is  shown  alike  by  the  history 
of  theology  and  of  aesthetics.  In  the 
Christian  Church  the  first  effect  of 
the  religious  idea  is  to  intensify 
the  consciousness  of  sin,  and  to  set 
the  believer  against  all  the  delights  of 
the  senses  that  do  not  centre  in  de- 
votion. It  is  an  error  to  ascribe  it  to 
superstition  or  to  loose  thinking ;  nor 
is  it  a  sufficient  explanation  to  say  that 
man  is  a  limited  creature  and  can  do 
only  one  thing  at  a  time.  The  truth 
is  that  the  Greek  ideal  is  not  in  prac- 
tice compatible  with  the  Christian 
ideal ;  Phidias  and  Paul  will  never  be 
reconciled,  and,  since  the  world  has 
need  of  both,  it  is  best  to  admit  it 
and  accept  them  as  they  are. 

Before  considering  Racine's  subjects 
and  method  it  will  be  well  to  give 
some  attention  to  his  versification,  for 
that  is  a  matter  on  which  there  exists 
among  English-speaking  people  a  great 
deal  of  misconception.  In  one  of  his 
critical  papers  Mr.  Lowell  has  quoted 
an  opinion  of  Dryden  on  this  subject : 
"  A  French  hendecasy liable  verse  [he 
is  speaking  of  the  Alexandrine]  runs 
exactly  like  our  ballad  measure  : 

A  cobbler  there  was  and  he  lived  in  a 
stall." 

This  Mr.  Lowell  confirms  by  the  fol- 
lowing passage  from  Moore's  Diary  : 
"  Attended  watchfully  to  her  recita- 
tive [Mile.  Duchesnois's],  and  find  that, 


232 


Some  Thoughts  on  Racine. 


in  nine  lines  out  of  ten,  '  A  cobbler 
there  was,'  &c.,  is  the  tune  of  the 
'  French  heroics.'  "  The  line  here 
quoted  in  English  is  certainly  a  hen- 
decasyllable,  though  Mr.  Lowell  is 
right  in  saying  that  the  line  in  French 
which  Dryden  quotes  is  not  so ;  it  is 
an  Alexandrine,  or  verse  of  twelve 
syllables.1  Dryden  and  Moore  were 
wise  in  settling  by  the  ear  this  ques- 
tion as  to  the  movement  of  French 
heroic  verse,  for  its  appeal  is  made 
above  all  things  to  the  ear,  not  in- 
directly by  means  of  the  eye,  but 
directly  through  the  speaking  voice. 
But  while  coming  near  the  truth, 
they  did  not  entirely  escape  error. 
The  hendecasyllable  is  often  found  in 
old  English  poems,  as  in  the  following 
line  from  one  of  the  Robin  Hood 
Ballads  : 

As  blithe  as  the  linnet  sings  in  the  green 
wood. 

Here  is  another  instance  of  its  use 
from  a  well-known  Irish  poem  : 

An  emerald  set  in  the  ring  of  the  sea. 

Would  any  one  trained  in  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  House  of  Moliere  say 
that  these  lines  are  in  the  measure  of 
the  Alexandrine  ?  They  are  composed 
of  three  anapaests  and  an  iambus  ;  but 
the  lines  which  struck  Dryden  as 
having  the  same  movement  are  made 
up  of  four  anapaests,  as  in  Campbell's 
line  : 

Let  him  dash  his  proud  foam  like  a  wave 
on  the  rock ! 

The  movement  in  Racine  is  not  so 
often  like  this  as  Moore  might  lead  us 
to  believe ;  some  lines  may  be  called 
spondaic,  but  many  are  really  iambic, 

1  French  writers  on  prosody  tell  us  that  the 
Alexandrine  has  thirteen  syllables  when  the 
verse  is  feminine.  Each  nation  makes  its  own 
laws,  even  in  prosody,  but  it  is  not  the  less  a 
fact  that  the  actual  number  of  spoken  syllables 
is  the  same  for  both  masculine  and  feminine 


though  of  a  rather  uncertain  kind.  It 
must  indeed  be  admitted  that  to 
English  ears  French  heroic  verse  is 
generally  monotonous,  owing  mainly  to 
its  inflexibility,  its  want  of  that  liquid 
flow  which  only  a  movable  caesura  can 
give.  In  this  respect  it  is  on  a  level 
with  the  verse  of  Pope  and  his  school, 
who  for  the  best  part  of  a  century 
determined  the  character  of  English 
poetry.  Racine,  however,  has  more 
grace,  elevation  and  refinement  than 
any  English  poet  of  this  school ;  and 
his  verse  has  greater  variety,  if  tested 
by  the  speaking  voice,  the  right  test 
as  we  have  seen  in  this  case.  For  it  is 
living  speech  addressed  to  the  ear,  and 
its  rhythm  is  that  of  speech,  not  of 
high  poetic  feeling.  The  latter,  in 
nearly  all  its  moods,  we  get  from 
Shakespeare,  and  with  a  freedom  and 
music  far  beyond  the  power  of  Racine 
or  any  Frenchman.  But  here  we  are 
concerned  not  merely  with  the  differ- 
ence between  two  temperaments  but 
with  the  genius  of  two  languages, 
almost,  one  might  say,  of  two  civilisa- 
tions. 

It  is  a  fact  worth  reflecting  upon 
that  in  any  country  where  men  have 
ceased  to  speak  in  a  hybrid  poetical 
manner,  and  have  learned  the  great 
art  of  prose,  the  number  of  persons 
born  into  the  world  with  any  sense  of 
rhythm  is  infinitely  small.  In  a 
poetical  age  like  the  Elizabethan  the 
number  no  doubt  was  greater  ;  but  as 
soon  as  the  social  instincts  have  de- 
veloped a  clear,  simple  prose  style,  the 
sense  of  rhythm  certainly  decreases. 
Yet  there  is  a  rhythm  of  speech  as 
satisfying  in  its  own  way  as  the 
rhythm  of  song.  The  Greeks  in  their 
best  days  had  probably  reduced  it  to 
a  science,  though  as  we  do  not  know 
the  actual  basis  of  their  system  of 
accents,  nor  the  exact  musical  value 
of  each,  we  cannot  profit  by  the  dis- 
coveries of  these  unrivalled  artists  in 
speech.  In  music,  by  means  of  pitch- 


Some  Thoughts  on  Racine. 


233 


fork  and  pendulum,  a  melody  may  be 
produced ;  but  for  the  rhythm  of 
poetry  the  first  is  useless,  and  the 
pendulum  will  not  go  far.  Only  the 
greatest  delicacy  of  ear  will  avail 
there,  and  few  gifts  are  rarer  than  this. 
Nor  are  the  French,  with  all  their  talk 
about  art,  any  better  than  ourselves 
in  this  regard.  A  Frenchman  with  a 
passionate  love  of  the  stage  has  usually 
to  undergo  a  laborious  training  before 
he  can  read  French  verse  even  credit- 
ably ;  he  learns  the  trick  of  it  from 
those  who  have  inherited  the  great 
traditions  of  the  French  stage.  Our 
English  actors  really  fare  worse.  The 
old  musical  style  of  reciting  blank 
verse  is  to  all  appearance  lost ;  each 
player  has  his  own  way,  and  seldom 
shows  any  feeling  for  rhythm  or  poetic 
beauty.  To  bring  out  the  rhythm  of 
verse,  one  of  them  has  obligingly  in- 
formed us,  is  to  recite  like  a  school- 
boy. 

Macaulay's  theory,  that  with  the 
advance  of  civilisation  poetry  must 
inevitably  decline  is  not  quite  true  ; 
he  should  have  said  that  it  changes 
its  character,  but  this  is  because  poetry 
has  life  for  its  subject  matter.  Art 
is  an  expression  of  something,  and  the 
greatest  art  has  always  given  body  and 
shape  to  the  genius  of  a  particular 
race  at  a  certain  point  of  its  develop- 
ment ;  to  this  Shakespeare  and  Racine 
are  not  exceptions.  Shakespeare  was 
as  highly  civilised  a  man  as  Racine, 
but  he  did  not  belong  to  a  race  in 
whom  the  social  instincts  are  so  strong 
as  in  the  French.  It  is  the  social 
genius  which  has  given  Attic  prose  to 
the  world,  and  by  the  great  examples 
of  Athens  and  Paris  we  see  how 
averse  it  is  to  high  colour.  Above  all 
things  it  loves  sobriety,  and  both  in 
prose  and  verse  demands  simplicity 
and  ease,  grace  and  quickness  of  mo- 
tion. Shakespeare  finds  expression 
for  the  brooding  imagination  of  his 
race ;  and  he  takes  the  whole  of  life 


for  his  province.  Racine,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  not  universal  sympathies  ; 
nor  does  nature  with  her  beauties  and 
her  mysteries  appeal  to  him.  He  is 
an  aristocrat  in  literature  ;  his  appeal 
is  made,  not  alike  to  palace,  market- 
place, and  hovel,  but  to  the  drawing- 
room,  and  to  that  alone.  It  is  no 
doubt  artificial,  as  all  literary  language 
must  be ;  but  it  is  artificial  in  a  noble 
sense.  The  free  life  of  man  amid 
unconventional  surroundings  other 
literatures  do  in  part  give  us,  but  not 
the  classical  literature  of  France.  Here 
the  tone  is  given  by  the  drawing- 
room  ;  nor  need  we  regret  it,  for  the 
drawing-room,  or  its  equivalent,  is  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  centre  of 
civilisation. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  the 
French  classical  drama  owes  its  ex- 
istence entirely  to  a  misinterpretation 
of  THE  POETICS  of  Aristotle ;  but  it 
is  not  always  remembered  that  errors 
do  not  grow  in  an  uncongenial  soil. 
The  theories  of  Aristotle  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  tho  other  the  dramatic 
work  of  Seneca,  had  undoubtedly  a 
great  influence  over  Cornell!  e  and 
Racine  ;  but  the  predisposition  was  in 
the  French  mind  with  its  love  of 
exact  form.  We  speak  of  Racine  as 
the  head  of  this  school,  for  Corneille, 
though  he  reaches  at  times  a  greater 
height,  is  not  by  temperament  a 
classic  ;  he  was  in  his  soul  a  romantic, 
and  should  have  been  born  in  a  later 
day.  But  Racine  is  a  classic  through 
and  through ;  not  only  does  he  work 
joyfully  within  the  prescribed  limits, 
but  he  seems  born  for  this  and  for 
this  alone.  The  theory  which  shaped 
the  French  classical  drama  has  been 
found  inadequate,  and  to-day  no  man 
whose  opinion  has  a  value  in  the 
world  of  letters,  will  uphold  the  two 
Unities  of  time  and  place ;  the  other 
Unity,  that  of  action,  is  of  course  for 
ever  true.  We  do  not  think  that 
Aristotle  had  been  seriously  misin- 


234 


Some  Thoughts  on  Eacine. 


terpreted ;  the  real  error  was  in 
attaching  to  his  writings  an  import- 
ance which  no  words,  written  or 
spoken,  can  possess.  The  work  of 
Aristotle  is  founded  on  an  examina- 
tion of  literature  actually  in  exist- 
ence ;  his  theories  are  the  result  of  a 
close  study  of  the  great  writers  of 
Greece,  not,  as  Frenchmen  used  to 
believe,  an  analysis  of  the  artistic  soul, 
and  an  enunciation  of  the  laws  which 
underlie  all  its  creations.  This  belief 
in  the  authority  of  Aristotle  was 
borrowed  from  the  theologians,  as  was 
but  natural,  since  the  men  of  letters 
were  educated  by  churchmen.  The 
Latin  Church  has  always  stood  for 
authority,  perhaps  a  little  too  rigidly ; 
the  scholastic  philosophers,  who  owed 
so  much  to  Aristotle,  had  come  to  re- 
gard him  as  an  absolute  authority  in 
the  natural  order,  as  Augustine  was 
in  the  supernatural  ;  the  one  gave 
laws  in  the  domain  of  pure  intellect, 
the  other  in  that  of  divine  truth. 

But  what  after  all  were  the  Unities, 
and  what  actual  support  can  be  found 
for  them  in  THE  POETICS  1  The  three 
Unities  prescribed  that  a  tragedy 
should  be  the  evolution  of  an  action, 
that  it  should  occur  within  the  limit 
of  a  single  day  or  thereabouts,  and 
that  the  place  throughout  should  be 
the  same.  Aristotle  insisted  upon  the 
first ;  "  Tragedy,"  he  maintains,  "  is 
the  imitation  of  an  action  which  is 
serious  and  complete,  having  a  certain 
magnitude."  This  is  beyond  dispute. 
The  unity  of  place  was  not  derived 
at  once  from  THE  POETICS,  but  fol- 
lowed from  the  unity  of  time ;  more- 
over it  was  part  of  the  Latin  tradition. 
It  was  imposed  by  the  conditions  of 
dramatic  representation  in  Greece,  but 
there  its  narrowing  effect  was  in  part 
overcome  by  means  of  the  chorus, 
which  possessed  considerable  power 
over  both  time  and  place.  As  to  the 
unity  of  time,  we  think  the  dramatists 
of  the  French  classical  school  had 


ground  enough  for  believing  that 
Aristotle  does  support  it.  Here  is 
the  passage  :  "  It  is  the  endeavour  of 
tragedy  as  far  as  possible  to  confine 
its  action  to  one  revolution  of  the 
sun,  or  to  exceed  this  but  slightly ; 
but  the  end  of  epic  action  is  in- 
definite." If  Aristotle  had  ended 
there,  no  doubt  could  exist  as  to  his 
view,  but  he  goes  on  :  "  Tragedy,  how- 
ever, had  at  first  the  same  freedom  as 
epic  poetry."  Can  these  words  be  said 
to  qualify  the  rest  so  much  as  to 
make  his  real  view  doubtful  1  At  the 
height  of  its  glory  the  Attic  stage, 
he  says,  favoured  the  unity  of  time. 
He  is  expounding  the  Greek  dramatic 
art  in  its  highest  forms,  and  might 
not  unreasonably  be  said  to  give  his 
support  only  to  what  is  highest.  But 
he  did  not  say  these  conditions  were 
essential :  he  did  not  say  to  the  stream 
of  time  that  it  should  flow  thus  for 
ever ;  and  even  if  he  had  done  so,  no 
man  is  too  great  to  be  laughed  at 
when  he  is  ridiculous. 

Under  these  conditions  Racine's 
choice  of  subjects  is  easily  understood. 
He  treads  devoutly  in  the  footsteps 
of  the  classical  authors ;  even  with 
regard  to  his  delightful  comedy  LES 
PLAIDEURS,  he  is  evidently  glad  to 
confess  his  debt  to  Aristophanes.  The 
Greek  dramatists,  especially  Sophocles 
and  Euripides,  are  his  chief  bene- 
factors, for  he  loves  to  deal  with  the 
cycle  of  legends  and  traditions  in 
which  they  worked.  The  stories  of 
Antigone  and  Iphigenia,  of  Andro- 
mache and  Phaedra,  the  love  of  Alex- 
ander for  a  princess  of  India  and  of 
Titus  for  a  queen  of  Palestine,  the 
wonderful  doings  of  Mithridates,  King 
of  Pontus,  and  the  gloomy  despotism 
of  Nero,  these  are  his  chief  though 
not  his  only  subjects.  His  comedy  is 
modern  in  sentiment  and  treatment, 
whatever  may  have  been  his  debt  to 
the  author  of  THE  WASPS.  BAJAZET 
is  Mahomedan,  and  the  scene  is  in 


Some  Thoughts  on  Racine. 


Constantinople  :  ESTHER  and  ATHALIE 
are  scriptural ;  but  when  all  is  said 
the  bulk  is  classical,  and,  setting  aside 
the  comedy,  the  method  is  much  the 
same  in  all.  There  is  perhaps  no 
modern  dramatist  whose  art  is  so 
even,  whose  diction  is  so  unfailingly 
on  the  same  high  level.  Such  an  art 
has  of  necessity  a  certain  remoteness 
from  life,  as  indeed  must  be  the  case 
with  all  art  which  is  not  a  reflection 
of  the  life  around  us.  His  men  are 
not  quite  human  characters  ;  they  are 
rather  ideas  in  action.  Such  a  de- 
scription would  also  in  part  apply  to 
his  women,  though  we  are  inclined  to 
believe  with  the  French  that  Racine 
understood  women  better  than  any 
modern  dramatist.  The  fault  is  in 
the  method,  for  in  his  comedy  he 
shows  a  genuine  capacity  for  fine  and 
clear  characterisation.  The  figures  of 
Greek  legend  were  real  to  the  men  of 
Athens,  perhaps  as  real  as  Alfred  and 
Becket  are  to  us ;  but  Iphigenia  is  no 
longer  a  reality  to  anybody,  only  a 
legendary  figure.  This  was  equally 
true  in  the  age  of  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth, though  it  was  not  perceived. 
The  genius  of  modern  civilisation  is 
different  from  the  ancient,  and  our 
heroic  figures  are  cast  in  another 
mould.  No  man,  whether  Christian 
or  not,  can  dispose  of  the  fact  that 
Christianity  has  altered  the  genius  of 
civilisation.  The  true  heart  of  man 
no  doubt  speaks  from  one  age  to 
another,  but  the  mental  attitude  of 
the  modern  civilised  man  is  widely 
different  from  that  of  the  ancient.  In 
attempting  to  vivify  the  past,  the 
writer  inevitably  makes  use  of  the 
ideas,  the  symbols,  and  the  phrases 
which  are  saturated  with  the  genius 
of  his  own  time ;  and  after  all  his 
effort,  the  genius  of  the  past  will 
elude  him. 

Yet,  severe  as  are  the  limitations 
of  the  dramatic  art  as  practised  by 
Corneille  and  Racine,  it  is  the  highest 


in  the  literature  of  their  country,  and 
is  incontestably  greater  than  that  of 
any  playwright  of  the  French  romantic 
school.  For  nearly  two  centuries  it 
gave  a  keen  intellectual  delight  to 
everybody  in  France  who  possessed  a 
cultivated  mind  or  a  refined  taste ; 
and  it  is  worthy  of  the  admiration 
which  it  has  received.  To  have 
served  so  long,  among  a  people  so 
fastidious  as  the  French,  as  a  model 
of  unerring  taste,  of  elegance,  and 
distinction,  is  glory  of  a  rare  kind. 
Like  every  true  classic,  Racine  has 
been  a  guide  and  standard  in  the 
world  of  good  taste,  such  as  the  men 
of  greatest  genius  like  Dante  and 
Shakespeare  never  are  ;  these  humanise 
and  enchant  us,  but  the}7  do  not  im- 
press upon  us,  as  the  classics  do,  those 
qualities  of  reticence  and  reserve 
which  are  the  charm  of  all  aristocratic 
art.  What  then  are  the  marks  of 
this  literature  which  is  called  classical  ? 
It  is  seldom  wise  to  give  one's  own 
definitions,  so  let  us  go  to  French 
sources  for  help  in  this  matter.  Here, 
with  a  little  expansion  and  with  great 
freedom  of  rendering,  is  the  most 
compact  definition  we  have  been  able 
to  discover.  The  literature  of  the  true 
classic  is  chaste  and  reticent,  observing 
the  law  of  measure  and  proportion ; 
everywhere,  while  it  seeks  distinction, 
it  recognises  the  sovereignty  of  taste ; 
it  deals  with  the  finer  elements  of  life, 
and  is  above  all  things  a  harmony  of 
form  and  matter,  a  fusion  of  reason 
with  imagination.  This  is,  of  course, 
inadequate,  as  every  definition  must 
be,  but  it  will  serve  ;  certainly  nobody 
would  apply  it  to  any  writer  of  the 
romantic  school,  not  even  to  Shake- 
speare, in  whom  the  imagination  runs 
riot  a  little.  Yet  is  it  really  possible, 
some  one  may  be  inclined  to  ask, 
nicely  to  distinguish  between  classic 
and  romantic  art  1  It  cannot  be  done 
with  great  exactness,  but  on  broad 
lines  something  of  the  kind  is  possible  ; 


236 


Some  Thoughts  on  Racine. 


indeed  whole  literatures  are  marked 
by  these  characteristics.  Such  are 
the  literatures  of  France  and  England, 
where  the  typical  art  of  the  one  is 
classical,  of  the  other  romantic.  The 
classic  is  faultless  in  form,  the 
romantic  is  rich  in  life  and  colour. 
The  classic  never  moves  out  of  his 
bounds ;  but  he  has  an  intellectual 
power  so  sure  as  to  be  almost  infallible 
within  its  proper  limits.  The  romantic 
on  the  other  hand  speaks  with  the 
freedom  of  the  prophets  of  old  ;  some- 
times he  soars  above  the  classic,  some- 
times he  is  trivial,  which  the  classic 
never  is.  But  whether  a  writer  shall 
be  a  classic  or  a  romantic,  is  not  a 
thing  which  he  may  decide  for  himself, 
for  to  no  man  is  it  given  utterly  to 
transform  his  nature. 

There  is  another  and  still  higher 
claim  which  is  made  on  behalf  of 
Racine  and  Corneille  by  lovers  of  the 
French  classical  drama ;  they  are 
classed  with  the  Greek  dramatists, 
and  with  the  great  teachers  who, 
whether  in  a  formal  manner  or  by  the 
entrancing  methods  of  art,  have 
sought  to  purify  the  souls  of  men, 
and  to  bring  them  in  touch  with  an 
exalted  moral  ideal.  Such  tragedies 
as  BRITANNICUS  and  POLYEUCTE,  says 
M.  Ernest  Legouve,  "  have  an  imprint 
of  moral  grandeur,  an  ideal  beauty  of 
composition  which  is  to  be  found 
nowhere  else  in  poetry."  Again,  still 
speaking  of  the  best  work  of  Racine 
and  Corneille,  he  says  :  "It  is  at 
once  the  noblest  and  most  satisfying 
sustenance  which  has  ever  been  given 


to  the  imaginations  of  men."  Such 
a  judgment  could  not  be  taken  quite 
seriously  out  of  France ;  yet  who 
could  read  PHEDRE  or  ATHALIE,  or 
witness  a  peformance  of  either,  with- 
out feeling  something  of  this  en- 
thusiasm 1  In  English  dramatic 
literature  there  is  nothing  which 
exactly  corresponds  with  the  work 
of  Racine.  Even  Shakespeare,  as  the 
same  distinguished  Frenchman  has 
pointed  out,  is  concerned  only  with 
the  delineation  of  character  ;  superbly 
and  incomparably  he  does  this,  but  he 
does  not  bring  us  in  contact  with  a 
moral  ideal.  It  is  Milton  and  not 
Shakespeare  whom  we  should  compare 
with  Racine,  for  both  have  the  high 
aim  of  the  Greek  dramatists.  Racine, 
making  an  immediate  appeal  by  the 
living  voice,  is  effectively  saved  from 
Milton's  long  excursions  into  the 
realm  of  dreariness  ;  yet  Milton,  in 
his  supreme  moments,  reaches  a  height 
far  beyond  Racine.  If  Longinus 
could  come  back  to  us,  he  would  find 
in  Racine  and  in  Milton  many 
examples  of  elevation,  of  that  flower 
of  expression  in  literary  form  which 
the  translators,  having  no  fitter  word, 
have  called  the  sublime.  He  would 
be  repelled  by  Milton's  Puritanism, 
and  would  think  that  Racine  had  not 
the  true  Greek  flavour  ;  but  he  would 
hardly  cavil  at  such  a  claim  as  M. 
Legouve's,  even  if  he  could  not  feel 
so  completely  as  the  Frenchman  that 
it  is  a  just  claim.  And  if  Longinus 
would  accept  the  companionship,  we 
would  go  with  him  in  this  matter. 


237 


HOW    HISTORY    IS    WRITTEN    IN    AMERICA. 


WE  are  told  that  some  part  of 
the  antipathy  which  Americans  are 
said  to  entertain  towards  Englishmen 
arises  from  the  extraordinary  perver- 
sions of  history  which  are  taught  in 
their  schools.  In  these,  so  the  story 
goes,  the  Englishman  habitually  figures 
as  a  monster  of  greed,  injustice,  and 
tyranny  towards  the  rest  of  the  world, 
and  especially  towards  that  part  of  it 
whose  history  begins  in  the  year  1776. 
We  do  not  know  how  this  may  be  ; 
perhaps  the  antipathy  and  the  perver- 
sions have  both  been  exaggerated. 
There  must  of  course  be  many  reasons 
why  the  great  Powers  should  enter- 
tain no  deep  or  lasting  affection  for 
each  other ;  and  it  is  not  easy  for 
Englishmen  to  see  one  why  their 
country  should  be  an  exception  to  the 
natural  rule. 

By  many  names  men  call  us, 
In  many  lands  we  dwell. 

The  nations  multiply  apace,  and  the 
globe  grows  no  larger.  Not  in  our 
time,  nor  in  the  time  of  our  children's 
children,  will  the  war-drums  cease  to 
throb  and  the  battle-flags  be  furled. 
But  for  the  perversions,  there  has 
been  lately  published  a  book  which 
certainly  seems  to  lend  some  colour  to 
the  belief  that  history  can  be  written 
rather  recklessly  in  America. 

The  book  is  called  VENEZUELA,  A 
LAND  WHERE  IT'S  ALWAYS  SUMMER,  and 
the  author  is  Mr.  William  Eleroy 
Curtis.  The  reviewers  seem  to  have 
been  unanimous  in  praising  it,  and 
as  a  description  of  that  pleasant  land 
and  of  the  habits,  manners,  and  pur- 
suits of  the  people  who  inhabit  it,  it 
is,  we  doubt  not,  a  very  good  book ; 


it  is  certainly  in  this  respect  an  en- 
tertaining one  to  read.  And  it  may 
be  found  entertaining  in  another  way 
by  those  who  find  more  amusement 
in  the  study  of  human  nature  than 
in  the  study  of  history,  in  a  way 
which  seems  to  have  escaped  the  re- 
viewers' notice.  In  the  fourth  chapter- 
Mr.  Curtis  describes  the  remarkable 
line  of  railway  which  connects  Caracas 
with  the  port  of  La  Guayra,  and  takes 
that  occasion  to  give  some  particulars 
of  the  early  history  of  the  Venezuelan 
capital.  These  particulars  are  so 
curious  that  they  can  only  be  described 
adequately  in  the  writer's  own  words; 
no  summary  or  paraphrase  of  our  own 
would  be  credited  for  an  instant. 

"  After  the  victory  of  the  English 
fleet  over  the  Spanish  Armada  in  the 
English  Channel,  Captain  Drake  sailed 
down  this  way  hunting  for  galleons 
that  carried  gold  and  silver  between 
the  South  American  colonies  and  the 
ports  of  Spain.  He  took  great  interest 
in  visiting  the  cities  along  the  coast, 
and  on  every  one  of  them  left  his 
autograph,  written  with  fire  and 
powder  and  the  sword. 

"  Arriving  at  La  Guayra,  he  de- 
stroyed the  shipping  that  lay  at  anchor 
and  then  went  ashore.  When  he  had 
stripped  the  city  of  all  that  was  valu- 
able and  destroyed  what  he  did  not 
want,  he  made  an  excursion  to 
Caracas. 

"  The  people  of  the  latter  place  had 
due  notice  of  his  arrival,  for  the  in- 
habitants of  La  Guayra  fled  into  the 
mountains.  The  governor  called  out 
every  man  capable  of  bearing  arms, 
and  fortified  himself  upon  a  cart-road 
which  had  been  constructed  between 


238 


How  History  is  Written  in  America. 


the  two  cities  some  years  before. 
This  was  the  ordinary  route  of  travel 
three  centuries  before  the  railway  was 
laid,  and  of  course  it  was  expected 
that  Drake  and  his  pirates  would  go 
up  that  way.  But  he  knew  better 
than  to  try  it,  for  his  scouts  reported 
fortifications  and  an  army  of  men  be- 
hind them  nearly  the  entire  distance. 
He  captured  a  miserable  fellow  by  the 
name  of  Villapando,  a  veritable  Judas, 
who  for  a  gift  of  gold  agreed  to  pilot 
the  Englishmen  up  the  old  Indian  path 
through  the  ravines.  Thus,  while  the 
gallant  alcalde  and  the  men  of  Caracas 
were  waiting  breathlessly  to  annihi- 
late Sir  Francis,  the  latter  crept  up 
the  mountain  and  was  looting  the  city 
they  had  gone  out  to  protect. 

"  For  three  days  Drake  remained 
at  the  capital,  plundering  the  houses, 
ravishing  the  women,  and  feasting  his 
soldiers  upon  the  wine  and  luxuries 
they  found.  There  was  but  one  man 
left  in  the  entire  place,  a  nervy  old 
knight  named  Alonzo  de  Ladoma. 
Although  he  was  too  old  to  go  out 
with  his  neighbours  to  meet  the 
Englishmen,  he  offered  to  fight  them 
one  at  a  time  as  long  as  his  strength 
lasted.  Sir  Francis  was  much  im- 
pressed with  the  old  gentleman's  val- 
our, and  would  have  spared  his  life, 
but  the  latter  became  involved  in  a 
controversy  with  a  drunken  pirate, 
who  cut  off  his  head. 

"  When  Sir  Francis  had  gathered 
all  the  valuables  in  the  city,  and 
loaded  them  upon  the  backs  of  his 
men,  he  hung  Villapando  in  the  prin- 
cipal plaza,  marched  down  the  ravine, 
and  sailed  away  with  more  than  a 
million  of  dollars  in  treasure.  He  did 
not  lose  a  single  man,  and  although 
the  city  was  practically  destroyed,  the 
only  lives  sacrificed  were  those  of  the 
brave  old  Ladoma  and  the  traitor. 
The  Spaniards  encamped  upor-  the 
wagon-road  got  news  of  the  raid  at-'ut 
the  time  Sir  Francis  was  kissing  their 


wives  and  daughters  good-bye,  and 
hurried  back  to  Caracas,  but  were  too 
late  to  do  any  good." 

In  another  chapter  may  be  read 
how  "  the  ghost  of  that  most  famous 
of  all  freebooters,  Sir  Francis  Drake," 
haunts  the  harbour  of  Puerto  Cabello 
in  the  Golfo  Triste,  a  few  leagues 
westward  of  La  Guayra.  Drake,  it 
appears,  died  of  yellow  fever  here,  and 
"  was  dropped  into  the  water  with  a 
bag  of  shot  at  his  heels." 

There  are  things,  wrote  Carlyle 
once,  in  a  burst  of  indignation  more 
reasonable  than  were  all  his  out- 
breaks, "  There  are  things  at  which 
one  stands  struck  silent,  as  at  first 
sight  of  the  Infinite."  And  really 
one  hardly  knows  what  to  say  to  such 
an  astounding  tissue  of  fable.  On 
the  question  of  taste  or  style  we  say 
nothing  ;  those  are  matters  of  opinion. 
Mr.  Curtis  may  also  call  Drake's  cha- 
racter a  matter  of  opinion,  though  the 
conduct  attributed  to  him  at  Caracas, 
if  contemporary  evidence,  Spanish  no 
less  than  English,  is  to  go  for  anything, 
constitutes  about  as  gross  a  libel  as 
perhaps  has  ever  been  perpetrated  on 
a  man  who  has  been  for  three  hundred 
years  in  his  grave.  But  where,  in 
the  name  of  Clio,  can  Mr.  Curtis 
have  found  this  marvellous  version  of 
facts  familiar  surely  to  everybody  in- 
terested in  the  history  of  those  times 
and  countries,  at  all  events  so  easily 
to  be  ascertained  by  anybody  desirous 
to  write  about  them  1  And  what, 
we  should  much  like  to  know,  has  Mr. 
John  Fiske  to  say  to  his  countryman's 
new  readings  in  that  early  history  of 
the  American  Continent  which  he  has 
told  so  well  1 

For  in  truth  it  seems  almost  an  im- 
pertinence to  remind  Americans  as 
well  as  Englishmen  that  Francis  Drake 
was  never  at  Caracas  in  his  life. 
If  he  was  ever  at  La  Guayra  it 
must  have  been  in  one  of  those  two 
mysterious  voyages  in  1570  and 


How  History  is   Written  in  America. 


239 


1571,  of  which  no  record  was  ever 
published,  and  of  which  nothing  is 
known  beyond  what  he  himself  is  re- 
ported to  have  told  his  nephew,  that 
he  got  in  them  "  certain  notices  of  the 
persons  and  places  aimed  at  as  he 
thought  requisite."  As  Drake  was 
never  off  La  Guayra  in  any  of  his 
recorded  voyages,  and  as  Caracas,  or, 
to  give  it  its  ancient  title,  Santiago 
de  Leon  de  Caracas,  was  only  founded 
in  1567,  it  is  not  likely  that  either 
the  port  or  the  capital  of  Venezuela 
was  among  the  places  aimed  at.  For 
his  death,  can  there  be  an  English 
schoolboy  who  does  not  know  that  the 
place  off  which  he  died  was  not  the 
little  modern  seaside  town  of  Puerto 
Cabello  in  the  Golfo  Triste,  but  Puerto 
Bello  on  the  coast  of  Darien,  a  very 
different  place,  many  hundred  lea- 
gues to  the  westward,  and  one  of  the 
most  ancient  and  famous  settlements 
on  the  Spanish  Main  1  His  death  may 
indeed  be  called  the  crowning  romance 
of  his  life.  It  was  off  the  coast  of 
Darien  that  he  struck  the  first  of  his 
great  blows  at  the  Spanish  power ;  it 
was  off  the  same  coast,  within  a  few 
leagues  of  the  same  place,  that  four- 
and-twenty  years  later  his  body  was 
laid  to  rest  in  the  waves  which  he  had 
ruled  so  long ;  not  pitched  overboard 
with  a  shot  at  its  heels,  but  enclosed 
in  a  leaden  coffin,  and  solemnly  com- 
mitted to  the  deep  amid  the  blare  of 
trumpets  and  the  thunder  of  cannon. 
There  and  then,  as  the  old  nameless 
rhymester  has  it, 

The  waves  became   his  winding-sheet  ; 

the  waters  were  his  tomb  ; 
But  for  his  fame  the  ocean  sea  was  not 

sufficient  room. 

One  grain  of  truth  there  is  indeed 
in  this  wondrous  tale.  Caracas  (or 
Santiago  de  Leon,  as  it  was  then 
called)  was  taken  by  the  English  in 
the  summer  of  1595,  seven  years  after 
the  defeat  of  the  Armada,  and  but  a 
few  months  before  Drake's  death, 


when  there  was,  and  had  for  some 
time  been,  open  war  between  Spain 
and  England.  The  leaders  of  the 
force  were  Amyas  Preston  and  George 
Sommers,  both  valiant  gentlemen  and 
discreet  commanders,  as  the  historian 
of  the  expedition,  Robert  Davy, 
assures  us.  His  account  of  their 
journey  over  the  mountains  by  the 
Indian's  trail,  or  the  unknown  way 
(as  they  called  it  in  distinction  to  the 
great  or  beaten  way)  forms  one  of  the 
most  stirring  narratives  in  the  delect- 
able pages  of  Hakluyt.  They  had 
taken  a  Spaniard  prisoner  on  board  a 
caravel  at  Cumana,  who  knew  this 
Indian  path  and  offered  to  guide  them 
by  it  if  they  would  give  him  his 
liberty  in  return.  If  the  traitor  was 
hanged  in  the  market-place,  it  must 
have  been  by  his  own  countrymen ; 
the  English,  as  their  habit  was,  kept 
their  word  with  him.  It  was  a  terrible 
journey,  as  this  extract  from  honest 
Davy's  narrative  will  show. 

"  We  marched  until  it  was  night 
over  such  high  mountains  as  we  never 
saw  the  like,  and  such  a  way  as  one 
man  could  scarce  pass  alone.  Our 
general,  being  in  the  forward,  at 
length  came  whereat  a  river  descended 
down  over  the  mountains,  and  there 
we  lodged  all  that  night.  Here,  in 
going  this  way,  we  found  the  Spanish 
governor's  confession  to  be  true  ;  for 
they  had  barricadoed  the  way  in 
divers  places  with  trees  and  other 
things,  in  such  sort  that  we  were 
driven  to  cut  our  way  through  the 
woods  by  carpenters,  which  we  carried 
with  us  for  that  purpose.  The  next 
day,  being  the  29th  of  May,  early  in 
the  morning  we  set  forth  to  recover 
the  tops  of  the  mountains ;  but  (God 
knoweth)  they  were  so  extreme  high 
and  so  steep-upright,  that  many  of  our 
soldiers  fainted  by  the  way  ;  and  when 
the  officers  came  unto  them,  and  first 
entreated  them  to  go,  they  answered 
they  could  go  no  further.  Then  they 


240 


How  History  is  Written  in  America. 


thought  to  make  them  go  by  compul- 
sion, but  all  was  in  vain  ;  they  would 
go  a  little,  and  then  lie  down  and  bid 
them  kill  them  if  they  would,  for  they 
could  not  and  would  not  go  any 
further.  Whereby  they  were  enforced 
to  depart,  and  to  leave  them  there 
lying  on  the  ground.  To  be  short, 
at  length  with  much  ado  we  gat  the 
top  of  the  mountains  about  noon : 
there  we  made  a  stand  till  all  the 
company  was  come  up,  and  would 
have  stayed  longer  to  have  refreshed 
our  men  ;  but  the  fog  and  rain  fell  so 
fast  that  we  durst  not  stay." 

The  city  was  not  undefended,  as  in 
Mr.  Curtis's  version  ;  but  the  defenders 
ran  at  the  first  volley,  leaving  one  man 
dead  behind  them,  and  "  not  any  one 
of  our  companies  touched  either  with 
piece  or  arrow,  God  be  thanked." 
Nor  was  it  looted,  for  the  sufficient 
reason  that  all  the  portable  treasure 
had  been  carried  off  into  the  moun- 
tains. But  it  was  burned.  For  five 
days  they  occupied  it  unmolested, 
from  May  29th  to  June  3rd,  Preston 
demanding  forty  thousand  ducats  for 
ransom,  and  the  Governor  refusing  to 
give  more  than  four  thousand.  This 
done,  the  English  marched  quietly 
back  to  their  ships  along  the  beaten 
road,  halting  for  the  night  at  the 
great  barricade  of  which  they  had 
been  warned.  Not  a  Spaniard  was 
to  be  seen  there ;  but  so  strong  it 
seemed  to  Davy,  "  that  one  hundred 
men  in  it  well  furnished  could  have 
kept  back  from  passing  that  way  one 
hundred  thousand."  On  the  next  day 
they  reached  La  Guayra,  and  serving 
that  as  they  had  served  the  capital, 
went  on  board,  without  any  treasure 
but  a  small  quantity  of  hides  and 
some  sarsaparilla,  but  also  without 
so  much  as  a  single  man  wounded. 

This  is  the  story  of  the  taking  of 
Santiago  de  Leon  by  the  English  in 


1595.  That  the  Spanish  version  may 
be  somewhat  different  is  very  pro- 
bable ;  victors  and  vanquished  rarely 
see  things  in  quite  the  same  light. 
Robert  Davy's  version  has  been  in 
print  any  time  these  three  hundred 
years.  Where  Mr.  Curtis's  version  is 
to  be  found,  outside  his  own  pages,  is 
a  secret  known,  it  must  be  presumed, 
only  to  himself.  His  book,  let  us 
add,  is  dedicated  to  his  son.  If  many 
such  books  are  written  for  the  edifi- 
cation of  the  American  youth,  one 
can  understand  that  some  very  queer 
notions  may  get  about  among  them  con- 
cerning the  part  played  by  English- 
men in  the  history  of  their  country. 

Can  any  one  suggest  an  origin  or 
an  explanation  of  this  extraordinary 
tale  ?  The  facts  are  outside  the  pale 
of  controversy.  There  are  indeed,  as 
we  all  know,  few  matters  of  history 
which  cannot  be  made  subjects  of 
controversy ;  but  it  would  have 
puzzled  the  Subtle  Doctor  himself  to 
frame  a  defence  for  Mr.  Curtis.  One 
explanation  indeed  has  occurred  to 
us.  There  is  a  passage  in  Macaulay's 
journal  which  may  conceivably  have 
something  to  do  with  it.  "  An 
American,"  it  runs,  "  has  written  to 
me  from  Arkansas,  and  sent  me  a 
copy  of  Bancroft's  History.  Very 
civil  and  kind ;  but  by  some  odd 
mistake  he  directs  to  me  at  Abbots- 
ford.  Does  he  think  that  all  Brit- 
ishers who  write  books  live  there 
together  ? "  Is  it  possible  that  in 
American  school-books  the  exploits  of 
all  the  Elizabethan  sailors  are  fathered 
on  Francis  Drake,  just  as  in  some 
histories  Claverhouse  used  to  be  made 
to  bear  the  burden  of  all  the  exploits 
of  Dalzell  and  Lag  and  the  other 
captains  of  the  Killing  Time  1  The 
explanation  is  something  inadequate, 
we  are  conscious ;  but  we  can  think 
of  no  other. 


MACMILLAN'S    MAGAZINE 


AUGUST,  1896. 


THE    SECRET    OF    SAINT    FLOREL. 


CHAPTER  X 

IT  was  all  very  well  for  the  artful 
Hugh  to   suggest   further   interesting 
conversations    with    the    lady    of    his 
heart,     and     to     insinuate     that-    the 
shrubbery     at     Denehurst     was     the 
very  place  for  such  a  purpose.   Things 
do   not    always    happen   as  we   wish, 
however    carefully   our    own   part   in 
the  future  has  been  planned  and  re- 
hearsed.    Hugh  went  of  course  next 
day,    and   strolled   up  and   down  the 
shady   road   outside  the  wicket-gate  : 
he    even    penetrated    again    into    the 
private    path,    and  followed   it  up   a 
little     way ;    bub    no     Phoebe    could 
he  see,  though  his  ears  were  keen  to 
catch     the     least    footfall    upon     the 
mossy    track,    and    his    eyes    to    spy 
the     most     distant    glimpse     of     her 
appearance.      Failing     her    presence, 
this  lover   set  himself   to   meditating 
upon  all  possible  causes  for  her   ab- 
sence.     Had   she    been  offended  yes- 
terday at  anything  he  had  said,  and 
was   his    loneliness    a    mark    of    that 
displeasure    which  she  had  been  too 
polite    to   manifest  in  person  ?      But 
though  he  racked  his  brains  he  could 
not  blame  himself  on  this  score.     Per- 
haps,— here  a  most  distressing  thought 
occurred, — perhaps  she  was  utterly  in- 
different to  him ;  or  worse  still,  there 
was    the    further   possibility    that  he 
might  be  downright  obnoxious  ! 

At  this  point  he  left  his  room  and 
went  out  for  a  stroll,  to  set  himself 
No.  442. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


steadily  to  face  the  problem.  Of 
course  if  she  really  did  not  care 
whether  he  went  or  stayed,  there  was 
an  end  of  the  matter ;  he  might  as 
well  pack  his  portmanteau  and  start 
for  London  again  then  and  there. 
But  Hugh  had  all  an  Englishman's 
dislike  to  abandoning  an  object  upon 
which  he  had  set  his  heart,  at  any 
rate  without  a  fair  trial ;  and  more- 
over he  was  (as  has  been  already  said) 
of  an  optimistic  disposition.  After 
a  short  period  of  despondency,  there- 
fore, he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
some  very  ordinary  reason  might  be 
keeping  Phoebe  away.  He  had  just 
reduced  himself  to  this  reasonable 
frame  of  mind  when  the  sound  of 
approaching  wheels  reached  his  ears, 
and  round  a  sharp  bend  in  the  lane 
came  a  low  pony-carriage.  As  it  passed 
him  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  receiv- 
ing a  bow  and  a  very  bright  smile 
from  Phoebe  herself,  together  with 
a  stately  recognition  from  the  old 
gentleman  who  sat  beside  her.  Her 
friendly  greeting  and  the  sight  of  her 
face  were  quite  sufficient  to  dispel 
his  former  melancholy  reflections,  and 
he  turned  homewards  with  increased 
cheerfulness. 

"  I  must  go  up  to  London  to-mor- 
row," announced  James  Bryant  at 
luncheon.  "There  is  some  business 
that  I  must  see  to.  Besides,  one 
can't  rusticate  for  ever.  What  are 
you  going  to  do  1  Who  is  your  letter 
from  ? " 


242 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


"  I  have  had  no  letter,"  returned 
Hugh. 

"  But  I  saw  one ;  I  know  there 
was  one  for  you,  and — by  Jove,  I 
remember  now.  The  landlord  gave 
it  to  me  for  you,  and  I  put  it  in  my 
pocket  and  quite  forgot  it,"  and  he 
handed  it  over. 

It  was  from  Hugh's  mother,  and 
contained  the  not  unreasonable  sug- 
gestion that  his  return  ought  not  to 
be  much  longer  delayed.  "  You  have 
been  away  for  a  year,"  wrote  the  poor 
lady,  "  and  now  you  are  away  again, 
after  having  remained  at  home  for 
only  a  week.  The  delivery  of  your 
parcel  cannot  be  a  very  tedious  matter, 
and  really,  my  dear  Hugh,  you  must 
not  be  surprised  if  your  father  writes 
and  expresses  himself  rather  strongly. 
You  know  he  is  quite  an  invalid  now, 
and  just  at  present  is  more  ailing  than 
usual.  Do  pray  return  as  soon  as 
possible,"  and  so  on. 

Hugh  flung  the  letter  over  to  his 
friend  with  an  ungratefully  impatient 
exclamation  :  "  Women  always  think 
that  one  can't  possibly  have  any  affairs 
of  one's  own  to  see  after  !  " 

Bryant  read  Mrs.  Strong's  effusion 
through  from  beginning  to  end,  in  his 
usual  careful  and  deliberate  fashion. 
"  Well,"  he  said,  returning  the  letter, 
"  what  are  you  going  to  do,  eh  ?  I 
think  your  mother  is  quite  right  ;  it 
is  rather  a  shame  for  you  to  be  cut- 
ting off  again  so  soon  after  such  a  long 
absence." 

"  My  mother  always  forgets  that  I 
am  out  of  leading-strings,"  pursued 
Hugh  in  an  aggrieved  tone.  "  She 
tries  to  treat  me  like  a  little  boy." 

"  What  would  you  do  if  you  stayed 
here  1 "  asked  Bryant  very  pertinently. 
"  You  can't  propose  to  Miss  Thayne 
after  a  couple  of  interviews ;  and  I 
don't  know  how  you  are  going  to  see 
very  much  of  her  if  you  do  stay. 
Absence  makes  the  heart  grow  fonder, 
my  dear  boy.  Return  to  town  with 
me,  and  by  and  by  we  will  come  back 


here  again  ;  I  have  seen  worse  fishing. 
Then  you  can  renew  your  suit,  if  you 
still  wish  it." 

"  I'm  not  likely  to  change  my  mind 
every  few  days  in  a  matter  of  that 
kind,"  said  Hugh.  "  However,  per- 
haps it  will  do  no  harm  to  go  away 
for  a  bit.  We'll  call  at  Deneburst 
this  afternoon  before  leaving,  though  ; 
it  would  only  be  civil." 

If,  however,  Hugh  had  intended  his 
parting  civility  rather  for  Phoebe  than 
for  her  cousin,  he  was  disappointed, 
for  they  saw  no  one  but  Mason  Saw- 
bridge,  who  was  politely  regretful, 
and  expressed  himself  as  usual  with 
complete  good  taste,  hoping  for  their 
return  at  no  very  distant  date.  "  You 
do  not  care  for  fishing,  I  think,  Mr. 
Strong,"  he  observed  affably.  "  But 
if  you  return  during  the  autumn  you 
might  get  a  little  mixed  shooting 
here.  We  do  not  preserve,  but  there 
are  generally  a  few  pheasants  and  a 
hare  or  two  in  the  wood." 

Strong  as  was  his  prejudice  against 
the  hunchback,  Hugh  almost  liked 
him  at  that  moment.  Here  was  a 
valid  excuse  for  his  return.  "  Thanks," 
he  said ;  "  I  shall  be  most  delighted. 
A  run  down  into  the  country  always 
does  one  good.  I  hate  town ;  London 
is  a  beastly  place." 

"Before  I  go,  Mr.  Sawbridge,  I 
have  brought  you  one  or  two  of  those 
grey  flies  for  a  pattern,"  said  Bryant. 
"  You  will  find  them  capital  as  soon 
as  the  evening  begins  to  come  on ; 
only  I  would  advise  you  to  have 
stouter  hooks.  Mine  are  hardly 
strong  enough  for  the  fish  in  your 
water,  though  they  are  just  the  thing 
for  the  trout  in  a  Scotch  burn  where 
I  last  used  them." 

"  Thanks  ;  I'm  sure  I  am  very  much 
obliged,"  answered  Mason,  and  then 
the  two  plunged  into  an  interesting 
and  intricate  conversation  concerning 
various  flies  and  their  construction. 

Hugh,  who  understood  about  as 
much  of  the  art  of  fly-fishing  as  an 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Fiord. 


243 


ordinary  domestic  cat,  and  who,  more- 
over, was  not  certain  of  the  precise 
meaning  of  a  hackle,  turned  aside, 
and  going  to  the  window  looked  out 
over  the  weedy  garden  and  broad 
green  stretch  of  the  park.  The  fusty 
room,  the  shuttered  aspect  of  the 
house,  the  neglected  grounds  struck 
him  painfully  at  the  moment,  in  com- 
parison with  the  fresh  young  life  that 
was  enshrined  in  these  melancholy 
surroundings.  As  he  gazed  out,  his 
ears  filled  with  the  meaningless  jargon 
of  terms  which  for  him  had  no  signi- 
ficance, he  saw  far  away  under  a 
group  of  great  trees  that  flung  a 
long  refreshing  shadow  on  the  grass, 
two  figures  which  he  could  not  mis- 
take, one  that  of  an  old  man  in  a 
long,  dark  cloak,  the  other  that  of  a 
tall  and  graceful  girl  in  a  white  dress. 
He  watched  them  stroll  slowly  among 
the  trees  and  then  disappear  in  the 
belt  of  thick  shrubbery  that  lay  be- 
yond. This  was  to  be  his  last  sight 
of  her  then,  and  for  how  long  1  Why 
should  Fate  have  perversely  decreed 
that,  on  this  particular  afternoon 
Phoebe  should  have  chosen  to  walk 
upon  the  furthest  bounds  of  the  park  ? 

In  a  few  moments  more  they  had 
taken  leave  of  their  irreproachable 
host,  and  were  walking  down  the 
drive  towards  the  park  gates. 

"  What  a  monster  !  "  exclaimed 
Hugh  suddenly. 

"  Who  1 "  inquired  his  friend,  rather 
startled,  for  there  had  been  no  pre- 
vious clue  to  the  subject. 

"  That  hunchbacked  fellow  !  " 

"  Oh,"  said  Bryant,  pausing  a 
moment. 

"  He  reminds  me  of  a  rattlesnake 
trying  to  be  polite,  and  delude  you 
into  the  impression  that  he  is  harm- 
less," went  on  Hugh.  "  I  hate  to 
think  he  is  near  that  girl  every  day." 

"  I  dare  say  she  can  look  after  her- 
self better  than  you  think.  Girls 
are  not  so  helpless  as  you  seem  to 
imagine." 


After  this  Hugh  preserved  an  im- 
penetrable silence,  feeling  that  his 
regretful  mood  would  get  very  little 
sympathy  out  of  his  friend ;  and 
that  afternoon  he  turned  his  back 
upon  the  green  quiet  of  the  country 
and  set  his  face  once  more  towards 
that  busy  wilderness  that  men  call 
London.  How  many  times,  I  wonder, 
during  the  next  few  weeks,  did  its 
crowded  streets  disappear  from  his 
sight  as  he  conjured  up  a  vision  of 
a  leafy  solitude,  with  irregular  patches 
of  blue  sky  seeming  like  fairy  mosaic 
among  the  topmost  branches  ?  The 
sounds  of  London  are  loud  and  pene- 
trating enough,  one  would  think,  yet 
how  many  times  were  they  hushed  for 
him,  as  he  remembered  the  clear 
girlish  tones  that  had  held  such  frank 
and  delightful  converse  ?  Love  is  a 
vigilant  master,  persistent  of  his  pre- 
sence under  ever}'-  possible  condition ; 
we  cannot  summon  him  when  we  will, 
nor  dismiss  him  at  pleasure.  We  must 
either  welcome  and  cherish  him,  or 
flee  from  the  sound  of  his  childish 
voice  and  the  touch  of  his  baby 
hands,  that  are  so  strong  to  have  and 
to  hold.  Blessed  are  the  young  and 
true-hearted,  for  to  them  shall  be 
given  the  fulness  of  his  promise. 

CHAPTER  XI 

THERE  is  no  loneliness  so  great  as 
that  which  has  known  companionship. 
Lack  of  friends  or  interests  or  diver- 
sions may  be  exceedingly  hard  to 
bear,  but  at  any  rate  they  are  easier 
to  endure  if  we  have  never  existed 
under  opposite  conditions.  It  was 
surely  some  appreciation  of  this  truth 
which  inspired  the  statement  that 
"  Absence  makes  the  heart  grow 
fonder."  There  is  no  doubt  that  it 
does,  provided  that  the  heart  has 
previously  exercised  itself  in  the  posi- 
tive degree. 

Phoebe  Thayne  was  a  very  ordinary 
English  maiden,  unsustained  by  any 

R  2 


244 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


especial  heroism  of  character  or  stern- 
ness of  conscience.  When  she  acci- 
dentally discovered  that  her  newly- 
found  friend  had  gone  (for  her  cousin 
never  alluded  to  the  matter),  it  must 
be  confessed  that  she  felt  a  real  regret, 
not  unmingled,  as  she  acknowledged 
to  herself,  with  a  warmer  feeling. 
She  performed  her  ordinary  self- 
appointed  tasks  and  duties  :  she  at- 
tended her  uncle  as  affectionately  as 
before;  but  Hugh's  visits  had  opened 
to  her  indefinite  though  attractive 
horizons,  the  exploration  of  which 
was,  she  felt,  impossible.  Their  slight 
intercourse  had  put  her  in  touch 
with  facts  of  which  she  had  hitherto 
dreamed  as  fancies.  She  had  been 
living,  as  she  told  Hugh,  the  life  of  a 
hermit.  She  read  the  papers,  and 
therefore  had  gathered  a  fair  idea  of 
what  was  going  on  in  the  world  ;  but 
a  printed  paper  does  not  appeal  to  the 
intelligence  with  half  the  force  of  a 
human  voice.  Trivial  as  his  conversa- 
tion may  seem,  she  had  listened  to  it 
eagerly  as  a  sound  from  that  outer 
life  in  whose  race  she  felt  so  keen  a 
desire  to  mingle;  and  now  that  it 
was  beyond  her  reach  her  loneliness 
was  tenfold  greater.  "  If  something 
would  happen !  If  only  something 
would  happen  !  "  she  repeated  to  her- 
self a  dozen  times  a  day,  for  she  began 
to  feel  as  though  she  was  sinking  in 
the  stagnation  of  incident  which  sur- 
rounded her.  Fortune  does  not  invari- 
ably respond  with  warmth  to  our  dearest 
wishes ;  but  in  this  instance,  and  con- 
sidering that  Phoebe  had  not  specified 
the  nature  of  the  diversion  she  desired, 
the  blind  goddess  was  kind  enough, 
though  the  suppliant  presently  re- 
pented heartily  of  her  prayer. 

One  day,  about  a  week  after  Hugh's 
departure,  Phoebe  and  her  cousin  Mason 
were  sitting  together  at  breakfast  in  a 
room  opening  on  to  the  small  plot  of 
lawn.  The  French  windows  were  wide 
open,  and  the  fresh  sweet  breath  of 
the  earlier  hours  was  fragrant  with 


the  scent  of  the  clematis  that  hung 
in  snowy  tangled  masses  among  the 
shrubs.  At  one  end  of  the  long  table 
Phoebe  presided  with  languid  interest 
over  the  silver  coffee-pot,  and  watched 
her  cousin  as  he  opened  one  after 
another  the  large  pile  of  letters  he 
had  taken  from  the  post-bag.  Would 
it  never  contain  a  line  for  her,  she 
wondered  1  Would  she  never  know 
the  delight  of  opening  an  envelope 
addressed  to  herself  and  perusing 
words  written  only  for  her  eyes  to  see  ? 

Mason  went  through  his  correspond- 
ence systematically,  tearing  up  some 
communications  as  soon  as  he  had 
mastered  their  contents,  laying  others 
aside  for  answering,  carefully  detach- 
ing all  fly-sheets  and  tearing  the  jagged 
corners  off  all  the  envelopes.  When 
he  had  arranged  several  tidy  little 
piles  of  correspondence,  Phoebe  spoke 
rather  impatiently.  "  It's  not  very 
amusing  sitting  here.  You  might 
give  me  the  paper,  I  think." 

Her  cousin  as  a  rule  reserved  The 
Times  for  his  own  perusal  before  hand- 
ing it  over  to  any  one  else.  On  this 
particular  morning,  however,  seeing 
that  he  would  not  have  much  time  to 
devote  to  it  before  answering  his  let- 
ters, he  condescended  to  pass  it  to 
Phoebe,  and  silence  reigned  afresh  as 
they  both  plunged  into  reading.  Pre- 
sently the  girl  spoke.  "  I  thought  you 
told  me  I  had  no  relations  living  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  that  you  have,  ex- 
cept that  there  exists  somewhere  in 
the  north  of  England  an  old  gentle- 
man who  was  some  distant  cousin  of 
your  father.  You  can  claim  him  if 
you  like,  but  I  don't  know  that  it 
would  do  you  much  good,  though  I 
believe  he  is  wealthy." 

"He's  dead,"  said  Phoebe. 

"  How  do  you  know  1 " 

"  Here  it  is  in  the  death-column  of 
The  Times.  On  the  fifteenth  inst.,  at 
Thorpe-Netherwood,  Yorkshire,  in  the 
sixty-six  ^i  year  of  his  age,  Josiah 
Thayne  Hetherwood.  Funeral  at 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


245 


Thorpe-Netherwood,  Tuesday,  the 
eighteenth." 

"  Yes,  that's  the  old  man  right 
enough,"  said  Mason.  "  I  remember 
the  name  perfectly  now.  He  had  a 
very  wild  son,  a  regular  scamp.  Well, 
I  suppose  he'll  have  plenty  of  money 
now  to  make  ducks  and  drakes  of." 

Then  Phoebe  resumed  her  reading 
again,  very  little  troubled  by  the  fact 
that  her  unknown  cousin  had  departed 
this  life,  though  in  reality  that  circum- 
stance was  destined  to  have  a  con- 
siderable effect  upon  her  future  career. 

When  he  retired  to  his  study  to 
answer  his  letters,  Mason  Sawbridge, 
instead  of  referring  to  those  docu- 
ments, left  them  lying  on  his  table, 
and  leaning  back  in  his  chair,  plunged 
into  a  long  series  of  meditations. 
Phoebe's  old  cousin  was  dead,  that  he 
knew ;  he  was  wealthy,  that  he  also 
knew  from  trustworthy  sources  ;  and 
he  had  a  son  (and  for  anything  he, 
Mason,  knew  to  the  contrary,  a 
grandson  also)  to  leave  his  money 
to.  And  yet  in  the  face  of  all  these 
facts,  and  in  the  face  also  of  the  fact 
that  this  old  cousin  had  probably 
never  set  eyes  on  Phoebe  in  the 
course  of  his  existence,  Mason  began 
to  wonder  whether  it  might  not  prove 
a  wise  step  if  he,  on  her  behalf,  at- 
tended this  old  man's  funeral.  No 
one  had  a  shrewder  idea  of  the  value 
of  money,  or  even  of  the  slightest 
connection  with  it,  than  Mason  Saw- 
bridge.  As  for  Phoebe  herself,  he 
would  of  course  watch  over  and  pro- 
tect her  interests ;  but  somehow  he 
did  not  think  it  needful  to  tell  her 
of  his  intentions  with  regard  to  the 
funeral. 

Accordingly  the  next  morning  he 
informed  her  that  he  should  be  absent 
for  three  or  four  days,  a  circumstance 
which  she  heard  with  much  secret 
pleasure.  A  further  and  greater  de- 
light was,  however,  in  store  for  her. 
The  wheels  of  the  carriage  which  bore 
her  cousin  to  the  station  had  hardly 


died  away  before  a  small  but  heavy 
box  arrived  directed  to  herself  con- 
taining books,  and  lying  at  the  top 
was  a  note  which  ran  thus. 

DEAR  Miss  THAYNE, — I  am  sending 
you  some  books  to  read,  which  I  hope 
will  amuse  you,  and  suit  your  tastes  in 
literature.  I  have  put  in  ZANONI,  and 
some  travels  and  a  little  science,  and 
Browning's  last  volume  which  every  one 
is  talking  of.  I  hope  I  have  not  made 
many  mistakes  in  my  selection  ;  but  if 
I  have,  you  must  forgive  me  and  set  it 
down  to  my  ignorance.  Pray  keep  all  the 
books  for  the  present  ;  later  on  I  may 
possibly  be  again  at  Coltham,  and  then  you 
can  return  them  to  rnc  if  you  have  finished 
with  them. 

"With  kind  regards,  believe  me,  very 
truly  yours,  HUGH  STRONG. 

Phoebe  had  the  books  carried  up  to 
her  own  room,  and  there  sat  down  in 
delight  to  begin  their  perusal. 

But  while  Hugh  in  London  was 
constantly  thinking  of  Phoebe  at 
Denehurst,  and  while  Phoebe  at  Dene- 
hurst  was  deep  in  the  charms  of 
ZANONI,  and  also  thinking  pretty  fre- 
quently of  Hugh  in  London,  it  would 
be  as  well  to  see  what  Mason  Saw- 
bridge  was  doing  in  Yorkshire. 

He  arrived  at  Thorpe-Netherwood, 
attired  in  a  funeral  garb  of  the 
strictest  correctness,  a  long  consul- 
tation with  his  hatter  having  re- 
sulted in  the  selection  of  a  hat- 
band whose  width  testified  to  a  hair 
the  degree  of  its  wearer's  polite  in- 
terest in  the  deceased.  It  was  not  so 
wide  as  to  be  ostentatiously  insistent 
of  the  claims  of  a  distant  young  rela- 
tion ;  but  neither  was  it  so  narrow  as 
to  signify  that  he  considered  the  rela- 
tionship of  no  account.  Rich  old  men 
like  Josiah  Netherwood,  with  only  one 
or  two  near  relatives,  are  apt  to  find 
their  remotest  connections  ready  at 
any  time  to  rally  round  their  death- 
bed, and  therefore  Mason's  presence 
at  the  funeral  (where  he  inti'oduced 
himself  with  the  utmost  tact  to  the 
lawyer  who  had  charge  of  the  affair) 
was  not  considered  at  all  wonderful 


246 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


by  the  somewhat  small  assemblage 
which  had  gathered  to  escort  a  kins- 
man to  the  tomb. 

The  funeral  of  a  wealthy  man  who 
has  been  but  little  loved  is  a  very  in- 
structive spectacle.  It  refreshes  the 
cynic,  though  upon  those  whose  minds 
are  cast  in  a  gentler  mould  it  has  a 
depressing  effect.  Here  is  the  corpse, 
coffined  probably  after  the  most  ex- 
pensive fashion ;  here  are  sable  bands, 
scarves,  and  gloves,  memorial  wreaths 
and  mutes  ;  every  detail  of  the  solemn 
programme  is  set  forth  decently  and 
in  order.  No  tears  are  shed  ;  but  the 
same  feeling  which  prompts  the  com- 
posing of  all  faces  into  an  expression 
of  decorous  gravity,  prompts  also  the 
intense  desire  of  every  spectator  to 
show  that  he  is  provided  with  a 
pocket-handkerchief.  Then  the  clergy- 
man comes,  and  the  magnificent  words 
of  the  Burial  Service  are  spoken.  A 
hard-hearted,  unforgiving,  despotic  old 
man,  who  has  for  years  tyrannised  over 
his  household,  who  has  been  the  terror 
of  his  family  and  the  abhorrence  of 
his  servants,  is  committed  to  the  dust 
as  "  our  dear  brother  "  ;  while  every 
solemn-faced  relative  standing  by,  who 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  deceased 
during  life,  is  feelingly  joining  in  the 
responses,  and  secretly  congratulating 
himself  that  at  last  the  dead  is  dead 
and  incapable  of  further  harm.  And 
so  the  show,  a  brave  show  truly, 
comes  to  its  appointed  end ;  the 
living  go  home,  hypocrisy  relaxing 
a  little  in  favour  of  the  permitted 
increase  of  cheerfulness  which  accom- 
panies the  consumption  of  the  funeral 
baked  meats  and  good  wine,  and  the 
further  lawful  interest  manifested  in 
the  reading  of  the  will.  The  dead 
remain  ;  for  them  the  play  is  done, 
the  mummery  finished.  There  is  no 
deception  in  the  awful  contact  of  dust 
and  ashes,  no  hypocrisy  in  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  grave.  Sun  and  wind  and 
rain  beat  upon  the  sod ;  moons  wax 
and  wane,  seasons  come  and  go,  but 


no  sense  thereof  may  reach  those  dis- 
solving elements  of  humanity  hidden 
away  beneath. 

Old  Josiah  Netherwood  was  buried 
on  a  wet  day.  The  heavy  rain  changed 
the  newly-turned  soil  to  mud,  and 
pitilessly  transformed  the  wreaths 
into  a  soddened  mass  of  bruised 
petals.  The  assemblage  was  a  very 
small  one.  Two  or  three  distant  re- 
lations, half-a-dozen  servants,  the 
squire  of  the  parish  (who  attended 
as  a  matter  of  formal  politeness, 
and  went  home  immediately  the 
funeral  was  over),  the  doctor,  and  the 
two  heads  of  the  legal  firm  the  old 
man  had  always  employed.  His  only 
son  was  abroad,  and  unable  to  return 
in  time  to  follow  his  father  to  the 
grave,  and  Mr.  Chesham,  the  senior 
legal  partner,  had  arranged  every- 
thing. Mason  Sawbridge,  as  repre- 
senting one  of  the  few  relatives  of 
old  Josiah  Netherwood,  was  naturally 
invited  to  share  the  funeral  feast  and 
assist  at  the  reading  of  the  will,  with 
both  of  which  suggestions  he  easily 
fell  in,  seeing  indeed  that  he  had 
undertaken  a  long  railway  journey 
for  that  very  purpose. 

After  a  handsome  cold  collation, 
the  cheerfulness  of  which  was  some- 
what marred  by  the  monotonous  drip 
of  the  persistent  rain,  the  whole  party 
adjourned  to  the  library,  an  apartment 
furnished  with  frowning  book-cases 
and  chilly  busts.  Here  Mr.  Chesham 
seated  himself  in  front  of  a  table,  and, 
drawing  forth  a  key,  requested  the 
junior  partner  to  bring  the  will  from 
a  certain  escritoire.  This  being  done 
the  lawyer  unfolded  a  document  with 
some  flourish,  as  befitted  his  important 
part  in  the  ceremony,  and  with  a  pre- 
liminary cough  proceeded  to  enlighten 
the  company  as  to  its  contents. 

"My  client,  Mr.  Thayne  Nether- 
wood,  made  two  wills,"  he  began. 
"  Both  are  recent,  and  as  he  neither 
himself  destroyed,  nor  requested  me 
to  destroy,  the  first  one,  I  will  proceed 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


247 


to  read  both,  although  as  you  will 
shortly  perceive,  only  the  last  will 
take  effect." 

The  first  will,  dated  some  ten  years 
previously,  was  short  and  simple 
enough,  and  was  to  the  effect  that, 
save  for  ten  pounds  to  be  divided 
among  his  servants  at  his  decease, 
Josiah  Thayne  Netherwood  left  every- 
thing he  died  possessed  of  to  his  only 
child,  Walter  Thayne  Netherwood, 
absolutely. 

When  he  had  finished  reading  this 
will  the  lawyer  laid  it  down.  Some 
slight  disappointment  was  visible  on 
the  faces  of  the  two  distant  cousins, 
elderly  threadbare  bachelors,  who 
had  come  by  third-class,  and  who 
were  naturally  grieved  to  find  that  all 
they  were  likely  to  get  out  of  the 
unamiable  old  relative's  estate  was 
a  pair  of  black  kid  gloves  and  a 
good  luncheon.  Mason  Sawbridge  too, 
though  his  face  was  inscrutable  as 
ever,  and  wore  its  usual  look  of  polite 
attention,  felt  some  regret  at  the 
tenor  of  the  document,  though  he  had 
hardly  expected  it  would  go  other- 
wise. 

"  The  last  will,"  began  Mr.  Chesham, 
as  soon  as  a  running  murmur  from 
those  present  had  died  away,  "  is 
dated  only  a  year  ago,  and  was  the 
last  executed  by  our  deceased  friend." 

This  second  will  was  also  very  brief, 
but  widely  different.  The  old  man 
bequeathed  everything  that  he  died 
possessed  of  to  his  son  Walter  Thayne 
Netherwood  for  his  life  only ;  after 
his  death  the  whole  property,  chiefly 
in  land,  reverted  to  his  third  cousin, 
Phoebe  Thayne,  absolutely  and  without 
any  restrictions  at  all.  The  servants 
were  to  have  twenty  pounds,  arid  the 
elderly  bachelor  cousins  fifty  pounds 
apiece,  for  which  indeed  they,  in  their 
delight,  expressed  themselves  as  truly 
thankful. 

After  this  the  company  rapidly  dis- 
persed, and  soon  only  Mr.  Chesham, 
who  had  directions  to  give  to  the 


bailiff,  and  Mason  Sawbridge,  who 
was  not  leaving  Yorkshire  till  the 
next  day,  remained.  The  latter  took 
the  opportunity  of  walking  over  part 
of  the  property  with  the  lawyer,  and 
at  the  same  time  getting  a  little  infor- 
mation out  of  him.  "  What  was  the 
reason  now,"  he  asked,  "  of  the  great 
difference  between  old  Mr.  Nether- 
wood's  two  wills  ? " 

"  About  a  year  ago  Walter  Nether- 
wood, who  was  a  very  wild  fellow, 
married  some  foreign  actress  abroad. 
He  kept  the  matter  a  secret,  at  least 
he  fancied  he  did,  but  somehow  the 
news  reached  his  father's  ears,  and  he 
sent  for  me  and  made  this  last  will." 

"  I  suppose,  however,  that  the  son 
is  still  only  a  young  man  ?  "  observed 
Mason. 

"Oh, yes,"  answered  the  lawyer  ;  "in 
years  he  is  about  five-and-thirty ;  but 
he  has  always  lived  in  a  fast,  dissi- 
pated sort  of  way.  I  should  say  his 
life  was  a  very  poor  one.  What  sort 
of  a  lady  is  Miss  Thayne  1 " 

"  Young  and  handsome,"  answered 
Mason  ;  "  and  if  by  any  chance  this 
fortune  falls  to  her,  she  will  have  a 
third  attraction  into  the  bargain." 

"  Well,  speaking  off-hand,  I  should 
say  she  would  not  have  long  to  wait. 
Walter  Netherwood  is  ill  now,  though 
not,  I  believe,  very  seriously.  In  a 
year  or  two  he  will  break  up." 

"  But  what  made  the  old  gentleman 
pitch  upon  her  to  leave  his  money  to  1 " 
inquired  the  hunchback.  "  I  don't 
fancy  he  ever  saw  her  in  his  life." 

"  That  was  exactly  the  reason,  my 
dear  sir,"  returned  the  lawyer.  "  Our 
deceased  friend,  who  was  not  exactly 
an  amiable  person,  swore  to  me  that 
as  those  of  his  relatives  whom  he  did 
know  were  most  disappointing  and 
unsatisfactory,  he  would  leave  his 
money  to  the  only  relative  whom  he 
had  never  seen.  That  is  how  she 
comes  by  it.  His  son's  marriage  was 
a  great  trouble  to  the  old  man ;  he 
had  not  seen  him  since,  and  I  do  not 


248 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


believe  that  even  now  Walter  Nether- 
wood  knows  that  his  father  was  ever 
aware  of  it." 

"  Very  good  land  this,"  observed 
Mason  changing  the  subject,  now  that 
he  had  got  all  the  information  he  re- 
quired. 

"  It  is  some  of  the  best  corn-land 
in  the  neighbourhood,"  returned  Mr. 
Chesham;  "and  in  the  next  parish 
there  are  some  excellent  pastures  that 
always  let  well." 

"  About  what  is  the  total  rental  1 " 

"  About  fifteen  hundred,  I  fancy," 
answered  the  lawyer  ;  "  and  then  there 
are  some  good  colliery  shares  worth 
about  five  hundred  a  year  more." 

As  he  journeyed  up  to  London  the 
next  day  Mason  had  enough  to 
occupy  his  thoughts.  Here  was 
Phoebe,  by  an  extraordinary  piece  of 
luck,  heiress  to  a  very  comfortable 
income,  instead  of  being,  what  he  had 
hitherto  considered  her,  rather  an 
encumbrance  upon  his  uncle's  estate. 
If  only  Anthony  could  return  now, 
his  cousin  thought,  and  marry  the 
girl !  It  seemed  a  thousand  pities 
that  the  money  should  be  allowed  to 
go  out  of  the  family.  If  he  cared  for 
any  living  creature  at  all,  Mason 
Sawbridge  cared  for  his  cousin 
Anthony.  His  own  polished  inflexi- 
bility always  yielded  to  his  cousin's 
imperiousness  ;  from  his  boyhood 
Mason  had  been  Anthony's  willing 
tool ;  he  guarded  the  other's  interests 
as  a  dog  will  guard  his  master's 
clothes.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
define  the  feeling  which  this  singular 
character  experienced  for  his  cousin ; 
it  was  something  between  fear  and 
admiration,  and  it  would  be  hard  to 
say  whether  regret  or  relief  was 
paramount  when  he  heard  of  his 
death.  He  could  hardly  persuade 
himself  even  now  that  Anthony  really 
was  dead ;  somehow  it  seemed  to  him 
impossible  that  Providence  could 
ignore  this  good  chance  for  the  Dene 
family  by  persistently  confirming  the 


news  of  Anthony's  decease.  Of 
course  he  was  perfectly  aware  that 
Phoebe  had  no  particular  liking  for 
her  cousin ;  but  Mason  had  a  wide 
contempt  for  the  inclinations  of 
women  in  general,  and  held  that  their 
manifest  inferiority  entitled  his  own 
sex  to  their  own  way.  If  Anthony 
had  lived  and  desired  it,  he  felt  sure 
that  he  would  have  married  Phcebe. 
No  one  could  resist  him  for  long. 
But  now  he  was  dead,  and  there  was 
Phoebe  !  The  fortune  must  be  kept 
in  the  family  if  possible  ;  it  would  go 
a  long  way  towards  putting  the  Dene- 
hurst  estate  into  a  more  satisfactory 
condition ;  obviously  there  was  only 
one  person  left,  and  that  was  himself. 
He  was  by  no  means  in  love  with 
Phcebe ;  but  then  the  exercise  of  the 
affections  played  little  part  in  the 
actions  of  his  life.  He  was  willing, 
considering  the  circumstances,  to 
sacrifice  himself  to  the  extent  of 
matrimony,  a  step  he  had  not  hitherto 
contemplated ;  and  he  told  himself 
that,  as  the  girl  had  seen  no  one  else 
to  fall  in  love  with,  the  offer  of  being 
made  the  mistress  of  a  large  house 
and  a  handsome  allowance  of  pin- 
money,  would  be  surely  sufficient  to 
win  her.  He  embarked  upon  this 
enterprise  with  no  idea  of  the  possi- 
bility of  failure.  He  contemplated  it 
in  exactly  the  same  way  as  he  would 
have  contemplated  the  selling  of  a 
field,  or  the  purchase  of  a  house. 
Hitherto  he  had  seen  but  little  of 
Phcebe,  considering  that  they  lived 
under  the  same  roof ;  she  had  seemed 
almost  a  child  still,  and  he  had  taken 
little  or  no  interest  in  her.  It 
certainly  never  occurred  to  him  that 
the  reason  he  seldom  saw  Phoebe, 
except  at  meals,  was  because  she 
avoided  him ;  his  unbounded  conceit 
and  self-confidence  were  sufficient  to 
preclude  the  possibility  of  such  an 
idea.  He  resolved  at  once  that  this 
state  of  affairs  must  be  altered ;  and 
he  determined  to  lay  himself  out  to 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


249 


be  really  attentive  and  agreeable  to 
his  cousin  in  order  to  pave  the  way 
for  his  proposal  of  marriage. 

CHAPTER  XII 

FOR  the  next  few  weeks  Phoebe 
felt  as  though  she  was  living  in  a 
nightmare.  Hitherto  Mason's  acqui- 
escence in  her  own  avoidance  of  him 
had  robbed  the  odium  of  his  presence, 
when  necessary,  of  some  of  its 
strength.  After  his  return  from 
Yorkshire,  however,  it  seemed  to  the 
girl  impossible  to  feel  herself  safe 
from  his  intrusion,  and  a  vague  horror 
seized  her  whenever  she  tried  to 
account  to  herself  for  his  persistence. 
Her  dislike  of  him,  though  increased, 
was,  she  could  not  but  confess,  ren- 
dered much  more  unreasonable  by  his 
imperative  kindness.  Her  twentieth 
birthday  fell  soon  after  this  altered 
state  of  things,  and  early  on  the 
morning  of  the  anniversary  her  maid 
brought  her  a  small  paper  parcel, 
which  being  opened  proved  to  contain 
a  velvet  case  holding  a  delicately 
wrought  gold  bracelet.  The  giver's 
taste  was  artistic  enough  to  insure 
the  gift  being  perfect  of  its  kind ; 
and  yet,  though  girl-like  she  felt 
pleasure  in  its  possession,  it  seemed 
somehow  to  be  an  evil  omen. 
"  Really,"  she  said  to  herself  while 
dressing,  "  I  am  getting  very  super- 
stitious, or  very  uncharitable.  It  is 
wrong  and  cruel  to  dislike  and  dis- 
trust a  man  because  he  happens  to  be 
deformed.  I  must  try  and  get  over 
my  feelings." 

Full  of  a  brave  resolution  to  thank 
her  cousin  warmly  for  his  thought  of 
her,  she  went  downstairs  to  breakfast. 
It  was  worse  and  worse.  Her  plate 
was  heaped  with  flowers,  not  such  as 
Denehurst,  or  indeed  any  place  nearer 
than  London  could  produce ;  deli- 
cately tinted  orchids,  sprays  of  rare 
fern,  waxen  masses  of  stephanotis. 
What  did  all  these  sudden  attentions 


portend  1     She  shrank  back,  in  spite 
of  herself,  as  Mason  approached. 

"  Many  happy  returns  of  the  day, 
Phoebe,"  he  said,  and  his  tone  of 
grave  politeness  partly  reassured  her. 
For  a  moment  she  feared  he  was 
going  to  kiss  her  face ;  but  he 
stopped  short  at  her  hand  which  he 
was  holding,  and  bestowed  a  courtly 
salute  upon  that  instead. 

"It  is  very  kind  of  you  to  remem- 
ber it,"  she  faltered,  "  and  to  give  me 
all  these  lovely  flowers." 

"And  your  bracelet, — why  do  you 
not  put  it  on  1  Would  you  like  a 
different  one  1  I  can  change  it  quite 
easily,"  he  said. 

"  Indeed  no  !  "  she  cried  hastily. 
"It  is  a  beautiful  thing ;  too  much 
so  for  me  to  wear,  I  think." 

"  Not  at  all,"  he  answered.  "  Wo- 
men should  wear  such  ornaments,  and 
you  are  a  woman  now,  Phoebe.  I 
had  quite  forgotten  how  old  you  were 
till  the  other  day,  and  had  been  look- 
ing upon  you  as  a  sort  of  school-girl." 

"  Some  girls  are  at  school  at  my 
age,  or  very  little  younger,"  said 
Phoebe.  "  I  wish  I  could  go  to  school 
myself  and  learn  something." 

"  Some  girls  of  your  age  are  married 
and  settled  in  life,"  observed  the 
hunchback.  "  As  for  your  going  to 
school  and  learning  something,  you 
can  learn  quite  as  much  here  ;  that  is 
if  you  need  it,  of  which  I  have  my 
doubts,"  he  added  with  a  smile  which 
was  meant  to  be  complimentary,  but 
which  so  far  failed  in  its  object  as  to 
make  Phoebe  shiver  with  repulsion. 

"  Are  you  cold  1  Let  me  shut  the 
window,"  he  said,  and  suited  the 
action  to  the  word,  thus  relieving  her 
for  a  moment  of  his  near  proximity. 

"  How  shall  we  celebrate  the  day  ?  " 
he  inquired,  taking  his  place  at  the 
end  of  the  table.  "  What  would  you 
like  to  do  1 " 

"  Oh,  I  am  quite  happy  here  at 
home,"  she  answered.  "I  have  my 
books,  and  work,  and — and  things." 


250 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


"  You  can  have  those  any  clay," 
he  answered  ;  "a  birthday  only  comes 
once  a  year.  Would  you  like  a  good 
long  drive  to  some  place  you  have  not 
seen  1  Shall  we  go  to  Snaithburn 
Castle  ?  My  uncle  can  come  too,  if 
you  like,"  he  added. 

Now  if  it  had  not  been  for  this 
last  suggestion,  Phoebe  would  have 
unhesitatingly  refused  the  drive. 
There  was,  however,  nothing  that  old 
Dennis  Dene  enjoyed  so  much  as 
driving,  and  a  day's  excursion  would 
be  the  greatest  possible  delight  to 
him.  Remembering  this,  she  had  no 
heart  to  refuse,  and  off  they  set 
accordingly  to  Snaithburn  Castle. 

The  crazed  old  man  was  probably 
the  only  member  of  the  party  who 
was  thoroughly  at  ease  or  enjoying 
himself ;  and  her  uncle's  enthusiasm 
roused  even  Phoebe  from  her  half- 
defined  fears,  and  Mason  from  his 
rather  dark  and  devious  cogitations. 
She  had  only  seen  the  old  ruined  castle 
once  before,  and  forgot  her  uneasiness 
while  admiring  the  gray  ivy-clad 
stones  that  stood  out  clear  against  the 
cloudless  blue  sky. 

"  It  is  not  such  a  very  ancient 
place  after  all,"  said  Mason,  while  old 
Dennis  Dene  was  awakening  soft 
echoes  with  his  violin.  "  It  was  only 
built  in  1550." 

"  How  did  it  get  ruined  1 ''  asked 
Phoebe. 

"I  believe  in  the  Civil  Wars," 
answered  her  cousin.  "  If  I  remember 
rightly,  Cromwell  is  responsible  for 
these  ruins,  as  he  is  for  a  good  many 
others.  That  outer  wall  down  there 
is  of  earlier  date  than  the  rest  of  the 
building,  and  was  probably  the  re- 
mains of  some  former  fortress  which, 
remodelled  and  added  to,  formed  the 
present  castle.  It  was  the  scene  of  a 
siege " 

"  Oh,  don't  trouble  about  the 
history  of  the  place,"  cried  the  girl 
with  a  movement  of  irresistible  im- 
patience. "  One  doesn't  want  to  be 


burdened  with  names  and  dates  and 
historical  facts.  The  day  is  too  fine, 
and  life  is  too  short !  " 

"  I  dare  say  you  would  like  to  be 
left  alone  for  a  bit,"  said  Mason,  who 
was  full  of  tact,  and  knew  quite  well 
when  he  was  not  wanted.  "These 
places  conduce  to  meditations,  don't 
they  1  I  think  I  will  have  a  stroll 
and  a  cigar,"  and  he  went  off  with  a 
bland  smile,  and  an  internal  resolve 
that  Phoebe  Sawbridge  would  not  be 
allowed  to  show  as  much  impatience  as 
had  been  pardoned  to  Phoebe  Thayne. 

As  she  saw  his  grotesque  figure 
disappear  round  the  angle  of  an  ivy- 
covered  buttress,  the  girl  breathed 
more  freely  and  hastened  to  hide 
herself  in  a  corner  of  the  roofless  and 
dismantled  tower.  The  ground-floor 
was  open  to  the  sky,  all  intervening 
storeys  and  the  roof  having  vanished  ; 
and  as  she  sat  down  on  a  fallen 
stone  the  sun  shone  warmly  into  the 
deserted  place,  silent  save  for  an 
occasional  chirping  of  sparrows  in  the 
ivy,  and  the  strange  sweet  modu- 
lations that  came  from  old  Dennis 
Dene's  violin. 

Phoebe  sat  there  lost  in  thought,  and 
conscious  of  a  most  helpless  position. 
The  more  she  dwelt  upon  it,  the  more 
she  wondered  what  was  going  to  be 
the  outcome  of  it  all.  What  was 
going  to  happen  1  How  was  she  to 
save  herself  from  the  vague  danger  of 
which  her  instinct  warned  her  ?  And 
slowly  as  she  pondered  over  these 
things,  there  rose  before  her  eyes  the 
vision  of  a  sunburned,  honest  face 
with  frank  eyes  that  had  looked 
straight  into  hers,  as  her  memory 
heard  again  the  tones  of  a  voice  that 
had  bidden  her  think  of  the  speaker 
as  a  friend.  Would  he  ever  return, 
she  wondered  ?  Would  the  future 
ever  bring  forth  anything  to  justify 
the  germs  of  a  hope  which  had  begun 
to  stir  within  her  1  Would  she 
always  feel  herself  so  helpless  and 
deserted  1  As  all  these  depressing 


v\ 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


251 


thoughts  crowded  into  her  mind,  the 
hot  tears  welled  slowly  into  her  eyes, 
and  an  expression  of  intense  sadness 
stole  over  her  face. 

It  is  extraordinary  how  frequently 
Fate  separates  individuals,  just  when 
they  might  be  of  the  greatest  service 
to  one  another.  If  Hugh  Strong  had 
suddenly  arrived  at  Snaithburn  Castle 
that  afternoon,  and  wandering  round 
the  tower  had  come  upon  the  Niobe- 
like  face  of  the  girl  who  was  sitting 
there,  everything  would  have  happened 
that  ought  to  have  happened,  and 
this  story  would  have  ended  here. 
But,  as  is  universally  known,  the  course 
of  true  love  never  did  run  smooth  ; 
sometimes  indeed  it  stops  short,  and 
never  runs  any  more,  or  perhaps 
protracts  its  course  along  the  most 
circuitous  channels ;  and  the  latter 
eventuality  is  the  reason  why  a 
proper  novel  should  always  be  in 
three  volumes,  for  a  less  space  of 
print  and  paper  could  not  contain  the 
wanderings  of  the  passion. 

After  she  had  indulged  her  grief 
for  some  time,  Phcebe  rose  and 
moved  to  a  less  secluded  part  of  the 
ruins,  fearing  less  Mason  should 
return  and  question  her  as  to  the 
cause  of  her  depression.  Moreover, 
her  uncle's  violin  was  silent,  and  she 
was  not  sure  if  he  had  wandered  too 
far.  Accordingly  she  began  to  search 
the  place,  without  any  result  for  a 
short  time,  when,  just  as  she  was 
becoming  anxious,  she  saw  the  old 
man,  his  head  propped  against  a 
mossy  stone,  fast  asleep,  while  his 
violin,  which  had  dropped  from  his 
hands,  lay  upon  the  turf  beside  him. 
Phoebe  sat  down  close  by,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  was  joined  by  her 
cousin.  She  lifted  her  hand  to  im- 
pose silence,  as  he  approached. 

"  Fallen  asleep,  has  he  1 "  remarked 
the  dwarf  in  a  low  tone.  "  Really, 
he  gets  more  childish  every  day.  I 
believe  he  would  be  better  off  under 
more  strict  supervision." 


"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  she  asked 
apprehensively. 

"  Well,  there  are  places,  very  com- 
fortable places  too,  where  such  irre- 
sponsible persons  as  our  uncle  can  be 
properly  taken  care  of." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  would 
send  him  to  an  asylum,"  cried  the 
girl  indignantly  ;  "a  poor,  weak, 
old  man  like  that,  who  never  does  any 
harm  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  about  not  doing  any 
harm,"  answered  Mason.  "  He  caused 
me  considerable  annoyance  the  other 
day  by  taking  two  strangers  up-stairs, 
and  romancing  to  them  for  the  best 
part  of  an  hour.  However,  I  grant 
you  he  is  not  actively  mischievous. 
You  must  remember,  though,  that  he 
quite  prevents  our  seeing  any  visitors  ; 
that  is  impossible,  with  him  wandering 
about  the  house.  His  presence  is 
your  loss,  and  I  fancy  that  lately, 
Phoebe,  you  have  been  rather  dull." 

"  If  my  seeing  visitors  depends 
upon  my  uncle's  being  sent  away 
from  his  home,  I  would  rather  live  as 
I  do  now,"  answered  Phoebe  in  a  low 
tone. 

"  That  is  quite  enough  for  me,"  said 
Mason.  "  I  am  quite  ready  to  fall  in 
with  any  views  you  may  express  upon 
the  subject.  If  you  prefer  that  my 
uncle  should  stay  at  Denehurst,  he 
shall  stay.  You  have  only  to  say 
what  you  wish  ;  I  would  rather  do  as 
you  like." 

"  Then  I  wish  him  to  stay  at  home," 
said  the  girl. 

"  Very  well,  then ;  I  will  not  sug- 
gest sending  him  away,"  replied  the 
hunchback.  "I  do  not  know  why, 
but  it  seems  to  me,  though  I  may  be 
mistaken,  that  you  are  chary  of  letting 
me  know  your  inclinations.  Is  it 
because  you  think  I  am  likely  to 
thwart  them  1 " 

Phoebe  was  silent,  partly  from 
surprise,  as  she  remembered  many 
previous  occasions  on  which  her  desires 
had  been  imperatively  pronounced 


252 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


impossible.  Here  was  a  revolution  in 
what  she  had  learned  to  consider  as 
the  natural  order  of  things. 

"  If  you  have  that  idea,"  went  on 
Mason  after  a  slight  pause,  "  pray 
disabuse  your  mind  of  it.  I  assure 
you  it  is  an  entirely  mistaken  one, 
and  I  may  add  a  state  of  affairs 
exceedingly  painful  to  myself.  If  it 
has  been  brought  about  by  any  con- 
duct of  mine,  I  apologise,  though  I 
confess  no  instance  occurs  to  me  at 
this  moment.  You  cannot,  I  hope, 
recall  any  occasion  upon  which  I  have 
treated  you  with  rudeness  or  dis- 
courtesy 1 " 

No,  she  could  not.  His  most 
crushing  comments  had  invariably 
been  uttered  in  the  most  faultless 
language,  and  his  cruellest  sarcasms 
had  been  unimpeachably  polite.  It 
was  only  when  she  interfered  between 
him  and  his  uncle  that  his  annoyance 
was  apt  to  get  the  upper  hand,  and 
some  remembrance  of  this  prompted 
her  next  words.  "  If  you  want  to 
accede  to  my  wishes,  I  do  wish  one 
thing  very  much." 

"  And  what  is  that  ? " 

"  I  wish  you  would  not  play  at  cards 
with  my  uncle,  or  dice,  or  game  at  all. 
You  know  how  it  excites  him,  and 
how  ill  he  always  is  afterwards." 

"  Very  well,"  he  answered  without 
any  hesitation.  "  I  will  destroy  the 
cards  to-night,  and  give  all  the  dice 
in  the  house  into  your  own  keeping, 
if  you  like.  Is  that  enough,  or  can 
you  suggest  anything  else  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  want  to  keep  the  dice 
myself,"  replied  the  girl ;  "as  long  as 
you  do  not  entice  my  uncle  to  play, 
it  is  all  I  want,  and  I  thank  you  very 
much  for  saying  you  won:t  do  so." 

"  I  am  delighted  to  fulfil  your 
wishes,"  said  her  companion  ;  "  and  I 
am  very  glad  to  have  had  this  chance 
of  ascertaining  them.  Now,  I  hope 
you  will  no  longer  wrong  me  by 
imagining  that  I  try  to  oppose  my 
interests  to  yours.  I  assure  you  my 


dearest  wish  is  to  make  them  iden- 
tical." 

The  latter  part  of  his  speech  was 
sincere  enough,  and  the  ring  of  truth 
in  his  voice  gave  Phoebe  a  disagreeable 
suspicion,  which,  however,  she  stifled 
as  impossible.  Luckily  too  for  her, 
her  uncle  woke  at  this  moment,  and 
thus  further  private  conversation 
between  her  cousin  and  herself  was 
for  the  time  prevented. 

But  the  day's  surprises  were  not  at  an 
end  yet  for  Phoebe.  At  dinner  Mason 
produced  champagne,  in  which  he 
gravely  and  cei'emoniously  drank  her 
health,  and  after  dessert  when  she  was 
preparing  to  leave  the  dining-room, 
he  proffered  a  most  unexpected  re- 
quest. "  Could  you  come  into  the 
library  presently,  Phcebe  ?  I  have 
something  to  show  you,  and  shall  be 
very  grateful  if  you  can  give  me  half 
an  hour  to-night." 

She  assented  with  a  feeling  of 
frightened  wonder.  The  library  was 
Mason's  especial  sanctum  now,  as  it 
had  once  been  Anthony's.  Here  he 
read,  wrote  his  letters,  held  interviews 
on  business,  and  in  general  transacted 
the  affairs  of  the  estate.  It  was  very 
seldom  that  Phcebe  entered  the  room, 
and  she  was  conscious  of  considerable 
apprehension  as  she  presented  herself 
on  this  particular  evening.  The  nights 
were  beginning  to  get  already  a  little 
chilly,  so  a  log  was  smouldering  with 
a  dim  glow  upon  the  wide  hearth. 
The  twilight  was  still  visible  at  the 
two  long  windows  that  opened  on  to 
the  garden,  but  away  from  them,  in 
the  recess  where  Mason's  writing-table 
stood,  the  darkness  was  sufficiently 
pronounced  to  render  candles  a  neces- 
sity. Two  of  these  were  lighted  upon 
the  table,  and  with  their  coloured  paper 
shades  threw  a  halo  of  dull  red  into 
the  surrounding  dusk.  Behind  these 
and  with  his  back  to  the  wall  sat  the 
hunchback,  his  grotesqueness  intensi- 
fied by  the  half-light  of  the  shaded 
candles,  which  looked  to  Phoebe  like 


\ 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


253 


two  angry  red  eyes  glaring  through 
the  obscurity. 

Her  cousin  rose  as  she  entered,  and 
remained  standing  while  she  seated 
herself  in  a  large  leather  arm-chair 
placed  ready  for  her  opposite  to  him- 
self on  the  other  side  of  the  table. 
When  she  was  fairly  established, 
Mason  laid  his  hand  upon  a  large 
blue  envelope  which  with  unbroken 
seal  lay  before  him.  "I  am  exceed- 
ingly obliged  by  your  coming,  Phoebe  ; 
I  hope  you  have  no  reason  to  hurry 
away  again,  as  I  have  one  or  two 
most  important  matters  to  speak  of." 
She  merely  made  a  gesture  of  assent 
and  waited  for  what  was  coming  next, 
too  much  puzzled  to  speculate  what  it 
might  be.  "  The  other  day  when  I 
left  home,"  he  went  on,  "  I  did  so 
to  attend  the  funeral  of  your  third 
cousin,  the  old  man  whose  death  you 
saw  in  the  paper." 

"Why  did  you  not  tell  me  where 
you  were  going  1 "  she  asked,  for  Phoebe 
was  frank  enough  herself,  and  disliked 
an  absence  of  this  quality  in  others. 

"  Pardon  me,"  he  went  on,  "  but  I 
do  not  precisely  see  why  I  should  in- 
form you  of  my  movements.  What 
difference  would  it  have  made  if  you 
had  known  1 "  This  was  unanswer- 
able, so  she  was  silent,  and  again  he 
continued  his  smooth  speech.  "  I 
thought  it  wisest  to  attend  the  funeral, 
as  representing  yourself,  and  in  case, — 
which  seemed  however  very  improbable, 
— you  had  any  interest  in  the  will." 
Here  he  paused  again  to  give  her  an 
opportunity  for  speech,  but  finding 
she  did  not  avail  herself  of  it,  he  went 
on  again  :  "  I  was  mistaken.  I  heard 
the  will  read,  and  found  that,  upon 
the  death  of  old  Mr.  Netherwood's  son, 
you  would  inherit  the  whole  of  his 
property.  This  son  is  still  a  com- 


paratively young  man,  and  it  may  be 
many  years  before  you  come  into  the 
estate  ;  on  the  other  hand,  unexpected 
things  happen,  and  it  may  be  yours 
almost  immediately." 

"  For  the  present  I  suppose  my  ex- 
pectations will  make  no  difference  to 
me,"  she  said. 

"  The  expectation,  I  may  say  the 
certainty,  of  one  day  coming  into  a 
handsome  income,  must  make  a  differ- 
ence," said  Mason  drily.  "  You  are  a 
woman  with  at  present  little  experi- 
ence of  the  world ;  when  you  have 
more  knowledge  of  things  in  general 
you  will  find  that  your  expectations  will 
make  the  greatest  possible  difference." 

"  They  do  not  make  me  any  better 
off  now,"  she  said,  a  little  wearily.  "  I 
am  still  dependent  upon  my  uncle  for 
everything  I  call  my  own.  I  am 
practically  penniless." 

"  Here  is  a  copy  of  the  will,  which 
has  been  forwarded  by  Mr.  Chesham, 
your  cousin's  lawyer,"  said  Mason, 
taking  up  the  blue  envelope.  "  It 
came  this  morning  directed  to  your- 
self ;  but  as  I  did  not  wish  business 
to  intrude  upon  the  pleasures  of  the 
earlier  part  of  the  day,  I  took  the 
liberty  of  detaining  your  letter  till 
this  evening.  I  will  now  hand  it  to 
you,  and  will  ask  you  to  be  so  kind  as 
to  glance  over  it.  It  is  very  short, 
and  quite  clearly  expressed."  He 
placed  the  stiff  blue  envelope  with 
its  shining  red  seal  in  her  hand, 
pushed  the  candles  towards  her,  re- 
moving their  shades  so  that  she  might 
see  more  clearly,  and  then  prepared  to 
leave  the  room.  "  I  have  some  orders 
to  give,"  he  observed,  "  and  will  return 
in  a  few  minutes.  In  the  meantime, 
you  can  master  this  document,"  and 
he  went  out  leaving  the  girl  to  her 
own  reflections. 


(To  be  continued.) 


254 


A    PRINCE    OF   WALES. 


THE  recent  gathering  at  Aberyst- 
wybh,  to  celebrate  the  opening  of  the 
new  University  of  Wales,  is  significant 
of  that  ardour  for  learning  which  to 
such  a  high  degree  animates  the  people 
of  the  Principality.  But  it  is  the 
more  sentimental  functions  of  the 
new  foundation,  the  preservation 
and  encouragement,  that  is  to  say,  of 
Welsh  literature  and  history,  which 
most  appeal  perhaps  to  the  alien.  It 
is  impossible  to  think  of  this  con- 
genial part  of  the  University's  duties, 
to  say  nothing  of  those  singularly 
suggestive  and  romantic  scenes  among 
which  it  is  set,  without  recalling  the 
last  great  struggle  against  the  English, 
or,  to  be  strictly  accurate,  the  Nor- 
man yoke.  And  with  that  struggle 
one  name,  a  name  in  Wales  imperish- 
able and  immortal,  is  alone  identified. 
For  among  a  host  of  kings  and  bards 
and  warriors,  whose  memory  Welsh- 
men delight  to  honour,  Owen  Glen- 
dower,  as  the  national  hero,  is  without 
a  rival. 

The  presence,  moreover,  at  Aberyst- 
wyth  of  the  gracious  personage  who 
now  bears  the  ancient  title  of  Prince 
of  Wales,  suggests  the  grim  contrast 
five  hundred  years  ago,  when  two  re- 
doubtable warriors,  the  one  in  his  first 
youth,  the  other  a  grizzled  veteran, 
contested  in  arms  the  right  to  bear 
it,  till  West  Britain  was  almost  a 
desert  from  the  Severn  to  the  sea. 
And  even  yet  more  directly  pertinent 
than  all  these  reflections  is  the  one 
that,  in  the  very  forefront  of  Glen- 
dower's  scheme  of  independence  was 
the  establishment  of  two  national 
universities  for  Wales. 

There  is  something  almost  pathetic 


in  this  enduring  gratitude,  this  canoni- 
sation of  a  personage  whom  the  Saxon 
historian  has  for  the  most  part  treated, 
with  curt  brevity,  as  an  unsuccessful 
rebel.  Most  people  are  beyond  a  doubt 
indebted  to  the  pages  of  Shakespeare 
for  their  introduction  to  the  WTelsh 
hero  ;  and  the  poet  has  touched  chiefly 
upon  those  peculiarities  which  con- 
tribute to  the  humorous  portions  of 
the  play  of  HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  If 
that  much  harried  monarch  could 
speak  to  us  from  the  grave  he  would 
have  plenty  to  say,  we  make  no  doubt, 
of  the  serious  side  of  his  indomitable 
opponent,  who,  for  nearly  the  whole 
fifteen  years  of  that  turbulent  reign, 
never  ceased  from  troubling,  and  for 
the  first  half  dozen  was  the  very 
burden  of  his  life. 

Of  the  three  parallel  lines  which 
traverse  North  Wales  from  the  marches 
to  the  sea,  the  route  over  which  the 
Great  Western  railway  runs  from 
Ruabon  to  Barmouth  is  by  far  the  love- 
liest ;  there  is,  perhaps,  no  lovelier  in 
all  Britain.  Ruabon  is,  of  course,  on 
the  main  line  from  Paddington  to 
Liverpool,  a  cosmopolitan  highway 
surely  if  there  is  one  anywhere,  and 
the  flat  plains  that  lie  along  one  side 
of  it  are  as  wholly  Saxon  as  Sussex. 
In  the  train  that  waits  for  the  express 
at  the  siding,  however,  every  third- 
class  passenger  is  talking  Welsh,  and 
in  ten  minutes  with  no  undue  velo- 
city we  are  transported  into  another 
land.  Lofty  hills  tower  upon  either 
hand,  and  plunging  down  into  the 
gorge  between  them  we  meet  the  Dee, 
as  laden  with  its  tribute  of  a  hundred 
mountain  streams  and  tarns  it  comes 
bursting  out  of  the  Yale  of  Llangollen. 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


255 


There  is  no  space  here  to  dwell 
upon  the  beauties  of  this  enchanting 
region.  Mr.  Ruskin  has  praised  it  as 
the  most  exquisite  blending  of  wood- 
land and  river  scenery  known  to  him, 
and  this  may  perhaps  suffice. 

We  pass  the  old  gray  town  that 
names  the  vale,  and  against  whose 
walls  the  broad  Dee  beats  perpetually 
with  the  fury  of  a  mountain  torrent. 
Eight  hundred  feet  above  us  the 
rugged  ruins  of  Dinas  Bran,  unsur- 
passed in  Britain  surely  for  pride  of 
place,  still  defy  the  rage  of  the  winds 
and  the  curiosity  of  the  antiquaries. 
A  few  miles  further  and  the  hills 
swell  into  mountains,  while  the  river, 
ever  near  us,  but  buried  in  groves  of 
oak  and  sycamore,  churns  upon  its 
rocks  in  yet  louder  key.  Here  ends, 
strictly  speaking,  the  Vale  of  Llan- 
gollen  ;  and  we  pause  for  a  moment 
to  take  up  a  stray  rustic  or  fisherman 
at  a  country  station  whose  name, 
written  large  upon  a  white  board 
against  an  ivied  wall,  may  fairly  strike 
terror  into  the  Saxon  tongue.  Not 
many,  we  fancy,  of  the  chattering 
travellers  who  make  merry  without 
fail  over  what  seems  to  them  so  fear- 
some an  arrangement  in  black  and 
white,  realise  the  significance  of  the 
name  Glyndyfrdwy.1  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  this  was  the  home  and  these  were 
the  lands,  the  ancestral  acres,  of  the 
great  Glendower,  of  Owain  de  Glyn- 
dyfrdwy, or  Owain  of  the  Glen  of 
the  Dee,  for  dyrfdwy  or  dwrfdwy  was 
the  old  Welsh  name  of  the  Dee,  and 
signifies  the  sacred  water.  Owen  was 
no  mere  mountain  chieftain,  no  ob- 
scure gentleman,  as  English  historians 
have  rather  led  us  to  infer  ;  he  was  in 
truth  a  powerful  noble  and  a  large 
landed  proprietor.  All  along  the  rail- 
way, and  along  the  Dee  for  the  next 
five  miles  to  Corwen,  and  far  into  the 
hills  on  either  side,  westward  to  the 
populous  Vale  of  Edeirnion,  south- 

1  The  modern  spelling  is  followed  here. 


ward  across  to  the  head-waters  of  the 
Ceiriog,  and  northward  to_  the  infant 
springs  of  the  Clwyd,  ran  the  lord- 
ship of  Glyndyfrdwy.  Nor  was  this 
by  any  means  the  whole  of  Owen's 
property ;  but  what  is  of  more  import- 
ance for  the  moment  is  a  spot  about 
a  mile  beyond  the  station,  where  the 
river,  after  hugging  the  line,  turns 
suddenly  off  at  a  right  angle.  Here  is  a 
deep  heaving  pool  beloved  by  trout  and 
grayling,  and  where  the  salmon,  travel- 
ling up  in  autumn,  pause  before  breast- 
ing the  line  of  tumbling  rapids  that 
gleam  against  the  foot  of  the  huge 
wall  of  larch  and  fern  and  heather 
that  climbs  up  into  the  sky  behind. 
High  above  both  river  and  railroad, 
so  close  indeed  to  the  latter  that  it 
might  well  pass  unobserved,  rises  a 
lofty  tumulus.  From  its  summit 
spring  a  dozen  ancient  pine-trees, 
which  perched  thus  aloft  in  the  very 
neck  of  the  valley  sing  mournful 
dirges  with  every  breeze  that  blows. 

Whatever  the  origin  of  the  mound, 
it  was  no  doubt  used  as  a  signal  station 
by  Glendower,  whose  name  it  bears. 
It  marks,  moreover,  the  actual  site  of 
his  residence,  traces  of  which  yet 
remain  in  the  meadow  that  divides 
the  railroad  from  the  old  Holyhead 
turnpike.  Beyond  this  spot  the  nar- 
row valley  widens,  and  makes  room 
for  what  in  Owen's  day  was  a  fine 
park  full  of  game,  as  testify  not  only 
the  native  chroniclers  but  Henry  the 
Fifth  himself,  who  thus  describes  it 
in  a  letter  to  his  father's  Council. 
The  village  of  Llansantffraid  just  be- 
yond clings  to  a  steep  bank  on  the 
further  side  of  the  Dee.  Within  a 
stone's  throw  of  the  station  an  ancient 
homestead  marks  the  site  of  Glen- 
dower's  stables  and  farm-buildings. 
A  neighbouring  enclosure  still  bears 
the  name  of  Parliament  Field,  while 
on  the  river  brink  a  small  stone  house 
still  stands,  within  which  for  many 
vears  Owen's  handful  of  valuable 


256 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


prisoners  was  confined.  Three  miles 
away  the  little  town  of  Corwen, 
nestling  somewhat  coldly  in  the  deep 
shadow  of  the  Berwyn  mountains, 
marks  the  old  boundary  between  the 
vales  of  Glyndyfrdwy  and  Edeirnion, 
and  the  limits  of  Glendower's  domain, 
and  here,  as  is  natural,  traditions  of 
the  hero  lie  thick  at  every  turn. 

We  have  dwelt  somewhat  at  length 
upon  this  country  of  Glendower's,  not 
merely  with  a  view  of  illustrating  as 
it  were  a  familiar  page  of  Bradshaw, 
but  because  its  very  situation  was  in 
truth  the  prime  cause  of  a  movement 
which  for  so  many  years  set  all  Great 
Britain  agog.  For  adjoining  the  lands 
of  Glyndyfrdwy  upon  the  English 
border  was  the  lordship  of  Dinas 
Bran,  already  spoken  of,  and  the  great 
castle  of  Chirk,  still  so  perfect,  then 
in  the  hands  of  the  potent  Lord 
Marcher  Warren.  Upon  the  north 
the  Greys  of  Ruthyn  had,  since  the 
days  of  the  first  Edward,  dominated 
and  terrorised  the  Vale  of  Clwyd  in 
the  interest  of  the  English  king ;  and 
it  was  a  boundary  dispute,  as  we  shall 
see,  that  lit  the  flame  of  war. 

Owen  Glendower  was  a  son  of 
Gryffydd  Vychan,  and  a  descendant 
of  Elinor  Goch  (or  the  red),  daughter 
of  the  great  Llewellyn ;  and  Glyn- 
dyfrdwy was  but  a  remnant  of  the 
family  property  which  had  formerly 
embraced  the  lordships  of  Dinas 
Bran,  of  Chirk,  Bromhead,  and  Yale, 
a  sufficiently  noble  inheritance. 
Owen  himself,  as  we  have  already 
said,  was  no  rough  borderer,  no  plain 
Welsh  squire,  but  a  polished  gentleman 
and  an  accomplished  courtier.  Like 
many  of  the  young  nobles  of  his  day 
he  had  been  a  Bencher  of  the  Temple, 
and  was  afterwards  attached  to  the 
persons  of  Bolingbroke  and  Richard, 
being  with  the  latter  till  his  final 
surrender  at  Flint  Castle.  In  ad- 
dition to  Glyndyfrdwy  and  some 
property  in  South  Wales,  he  owned 


the  fine  estate  of  Syccherth  near 
Oswestry,  and  thither,  after  the  closing 
scene  at  Flint,  he  betook  himself. 
Like  all  Welshmen  he  was  attached 
to  Richard,  no  doubt,  and  resented 
Henry's  treachery ;  but  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  Owen  then 
meditated  any  active  opposition. 
He  was  at  this  time  somewhat  past 
forty,  and  no  doubt  had  seen  much  of 
life  both  in  England,  Ireland,  and 
elsewhere.  The  exact  year  of  his 
birth  is  disputed,  but  that  he  was 
ushered  in  by  fearful  portents  came 
afterwards  to  be  universally  conceded 
by  every  good  Welshman.  Glen- 
dower's own  opinion  on  this  point  is 
of  course  matter  of  history. 

Give  me  leave 

To  tell  you  once  again  that  at  my  birth 
The  front  of  heaven  was   full  of  fiery 

shapes, 
The  goats  ran  from  the  mountains,  and 

the  herds 
Were  strangely  clamorous  to  the  frighted 

fields. 

These    signs    have    marked   me   extra- 
ordinary ; 

And  all  the  courses  of  my  life  do  show 
I  am  not  in  the  roll  of  common  men. 

But  it  was  to  be  a  year  or  two  yet  before 
he  burst  on  his  country  as  hero  and 
magician.  At  present  he  was  only 
quarrelling  with  his  great  neighbour 
on  the  north,  Lord  Grey  de  Ruthyn, 
who,  secure  in  the  support  of  the 
newly  crowned  Henry,  had  thought  it 
only  reasonable  to  seize  a  strip  of 
land  belonging  to  Owen  whose  attach- 
ment to  Richard  had  been  so  marked. 
Owen  seems  really  to  have  been  in 
favour  of  peaceful  measures,  for  he 
carried  the  case  before  the  King's 
court  of  justice.  Unhappily  for  the 
country  the  court  dismissed  his  suit 
with  contumely  and  without  a  hear- 
ing, and  this  in  spite  of  the  urgent 
warnings  of  the  Bishop  of  Saint 
Asaph,  who  not  only  knew  the  rights 
of  the  matter,  but  dreaded  the  con- 
sequences of  driving  to  extremities  a 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


257 


man  of  such  power  and  influence 
among  the  Welsh  as  Owen.  "  What 
care  we  for  the  barefoots  1 "  was  the 
scornful  reply  of  Henry's  friends. 
For  Lord  Grey  de  Ruthyn  was  a 
special  favourite  of  Henry,  and,  as 
will  be  seen,  had  before  long  good 
cause  to  be  thankful  for  it,  as  well  as 
to  rue  his  reckless  injustice.  The 
Greys,  as  Lords  of  the  Marches,  seem 
to  have  been  for  some  time  the  evil 
geniuses  of  the  English  power  in 
Wales,  and  had  earned  for  themselves 
unusual  hatred.  One  more  incident 
completed  the  breach  between  Glen- 
dower  and  Henry.  The  latter  opened 
his  reign  with  a  campaign  against  the 
Scots,  and  had  summoned  Owen  to- 
gether with  other  Welsh  barons  to 
join  his  forces.  The  summons,  how- 
ever, was  sent  through  Lord  Grey, 
who  purposely  delayed  its  trans- 
mission till  it  was  too  late  for 
his  rival  to  obey,  and  Owen's  failure 
to  appear  was  put  down  to  disaffection. 

Glendower  now  took  the  law  into 
his  own  hands,  seized  the  common  of 
Croesau  to  the  north  of  Corwen  which 
Grey  had  robbed  him  of,  and  in  due 
course,  after  some  successful  skir- 
mishing, retired,  not  to  Glyndyfrdwy, 
but  to  his  larger  mansion  at  Sycharth. 
It  seems  even  now  more  than  probable 
that  Owen  would  have  moved  no 
further  in  the  matter  if  the  impractic- 
able Ruthyn  ha,d  let  well  alone  ;  but 
this  is  just  what  he  would  not  do. 
Procuring  on  his  own  representation 
of  the  state  of  Wales  an  order  from 
Henry  to  proceed  against  Glendower, 
he  and  his  neighbouring  Lord 
Marcher,  Talbot,  surprised  him  at  his 
house  at  Sycharth.  Owen  was  sur1- 
rounded  and  very  nearly  captured, 
but  contrived  to  escape  into  the 
woods  ;  and  from  that  moment  in  the 
summer  of  1400  till  his  death  in 
1415  he  remained  an  irreconcilable 
and  unconquered  foe  of  the  English 
crown. 

No.  442 — VOL.  LXXIV. 


This  mansion  of  Sycharth  is  de- 
scribed by  the  famous  bard  lolo  Goch. 
With  characteristic  bombast  he  com- 
pares it  to  Westminster  Abbey,  and 
then,  condescending  to  details,  tells 
us  that  it  had  nine  halls  each  contain- 
ing a  wardrobe  filled  with  the  clothes 
of  its  lord's  retainers,  and  that  there 
was  a  separate  building,  roofed  with 
tiles,  for  the  accommodation  of  guests. 
There  were  a  gate-house  and  moat, 
a  church  in  the  form  of  a  cross  with 
several  chapels,  a  park,  warren,  and 
pigeon-house,  mill,  orchard,  vineyard, 
fi  shponds,  and  h  eronry .  The  hospi  tality 
here,  and  no  doubt  at  Glyndyfrdwy, 
was  boundless,  and  lolo  does  as  full 
justice  in  verse  as  he  doubtless  did  in 
person  to  the  wine  and  metheglin 
and  general  good  cheer.  Owen  married 
a  daughter  of  Sir  David  Hanmer,  a 
Knight  of  Flint  and  a  Justice  of  the 
King's  Bench,  and  had  many  children. 
The  fate  of  the  sons,  who  mostly 
followed  their  father  to  his  wars, 
seems  doubtful ;  but  his  daughters 
married  into  notable  Herefordshire 
families,  Scudamores,  Monningtons, 
and  Crofts,  and  many  descendants  of 
the  great  AVelshman  are  now  living. 

The  Lords  Marchers  had  now  let 
loose  a  whirlwind  they  were  quite 
incapable  of  stemming  unaided. 
Glendower,  renouncing  the  private 
aspect  of  his  quarrel  with  the  King's 
friends,  now  publicly  proclaimed  him- 
self leader  of  a  fresh  struggle  for 
Welsh  independence,  and  the  men  of 
Merioneth,  Carnarvon,  and  Mont- 
gomery flocked  by  thousands  to  his 
standard.  Ruthyn  was  attacked  upon 
a  fair  day,  burned  and  plundered ; 
even  Shropshire  was  so  harried  that 
the  town  of  Shrewsbury  had  for 
safety's  sake  to  take  security  from 
its  Welsh  residents.  In  September 
Owen  was  proclaimed  Prince  of  Wales, 
and  in  the  same  month  Henry,  with 
his  son,  then  a  boy  of  twelve,  and  a 
large  army,  made  his  first  invasion  of 

s 


258 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


the  Principality.  By  October  19th 
he  was  back  again  at  Evesham.  He 
had  penetrated  as  far  as  Anglesea, 
effecting  nothing  but  the  destruction 
of  a  monastery  or  two,  which  he  had 
reason  to  suspect  of  disloyalty.  Owen 
and  his  forces  had  retreated  before 
him  to  that  time-honoured  sanctuary 
of  Welsh  patriotism  the  Snowdon 
Mountains,  only  to  be  masters  of  the 
whole  country  again  the  moment  the 
King's  back  should  be  turned.  Pardons 
were  liberally  offered  to  all  Welshmen, 
Glendower  and  two  or  three  others 
excepted,  who  would  resort  to  Chester, 
where  the  young  Prince  was  left  on  duty 
throughout  the  winter  for  the  express 
purpose  of  granting  them.  But  little 
response  was  given  to  Henry's  over- 
tures. Wales  had  been  really  attached 
to  Richard,  and  the  idea  that  he  was 
still  alive  had  been  sedulously  en- 
couraged. Owen  spent  the  winter  in 
collecting  men  and  rousing  the  country. 
Five  counties  only  at  that  time  existed 
in  Wales,  Flint,  Anglesea,  Carnarvon, 
Cardigan,  and  a  part  of  the  present 
Merioneth.  These  had  been  the 
creation  of  Edward  the  First,  and 
here  only  the  King's  writ  ran,  which, 
by  the  way,  it  did  not  of  course  then 
do  in  Cheshire  or  Durham.  The  rest 
of  Wales  was  governed  from  a  multi- 
tude of  castles  whose  English  owners 
were  absolute  in  great  matters,  though 
in  ordinary  ones  the  old  Welsh  laws 
and  local  divisions  still  survived. 

The  social  state  of  Wales  indeed  at 
this  time  is  extremely  interesting  ;  but 
if,  as  we  suspect,  there  is  a  tendency 
to  think  of  the  Welsh  of  those  days  as 
a  semi-barbarous  people,  such  as  were 
the  Highlanders  and  native  Irish,  a 
brief  protest  may  here  at  once  be 
entered.  The  civilisation  of  Wales  in 
Glendower's  time  was  probably  upon  a 
par  with  all  but  the  most  favoured 
parts  of  England.  This,  to  be  sure,  is 
a  poor  and  bald  way  of  dismissing  a 
comparison  that  is  full  of  fascination 


for  those  who  care  for  such  things  ; 
but  it  is  necessary,  and  sufficiently 
accurate  for  every  practical  purpose. 

Wales  was  at  that  time  full  of  mer- 
cenary soldiers  living  as  peasant 
farmers.  The  spirit  that  had  aroused 
the  agrarian  revolt  in  England  not 
long  before,  a  spirit  of  animosity 
towards  the  lords  of  the  soil  simply 
as  such,  was  still  strong  and  had 
much  to  do  with  the  enthusiasm 
which  greeted  the  standard  of  the 
golden  dragon  which  Glendower  now 
openly  unfurled.  The  movement,  in 
short,  was  not  only  patriotic  but  in  a 
measure  democratic  also. 

Out  of  their  holes  and  corners,  too, 
now  crept  the  bards  whose  dreaded 
harps  had  for  so  long  been  silenced 
by  the  edict  of  the  English  kings.  It 
was  a  golden  age  of  Welsh  poetry. 
Love-songs  of  much  pathos  and  sweet- 
ness, odes  in  praise  of  husbandry, 
and  the  like,  remain  to  show  us  how 
the  long  peace  since  the  death  of 
Llewellyn  had  turned  the  poetic  fer- 
vour of  Wales  into  softer  channels. 
Now,  however,  the  halls  of  Glyndy- 
frdwy,  where  Owen  held  high  festival 
and  kept  open  house,  rang  with  martial 
song,  and  troops  of  bards  from  every 
quarter  of  Wales  chanted  of  his  high 
destiny  and  gallant  deeds.  "  Strike 
then  your  harps,"  sangGryffyddLlwyd, 
the  laureate  of  Owen's  court, 

Strike  then   your  harps,  ye  Cambrian 

bards ! 

The  song  of  triumph  best  rewards 
A  hero's  toils.     Let  Henry  weep 
His  warriors  wrapt  in  everlasting  sleep. 
Success  and  victory  are  thine, 
Owain  Glyndyfrdwy  divine  ! 

Through  the  following  spring  and 
summer  of  1401  Owen  was  moving 
rapidly  about  North  Wales,  hailed 
everywhere  as  prince  and  but  feebly 
opposed.  With  a  view  no  doubt  of 
attaching  the  west  he  fixed  his  head- 
quarters for  a  long  time  on  the  slopes 
of  Plinlimmon.  Here,  while  on 


> 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


259 


guard  with  only  a  hundred  and 
twenty  men,  a  body  of  fifteen  hundred 
Flemings  from  Pembroke  made  a 
dash  for  his  person  and  succeeded  in 
completely  surrounding  him.  Capture 
seemed  certain  •  there  was  nothing 
for  Owen  and  his  small  band  to  do 
but  to  cut  their  way  through  or  perish. 
They  succeeded  in  the  former,  and 
Owen's  reputation  rose  proportionately. 
Welsh  students  from  Oxford  in  large 
numbers  hastened  to  his  standard ; 
Welsh  labourers  from  all  parts  of 
England  followed  in  hot  haste. 
Parliament  grew  frightened,  and 
enacted  various  measures  against 
Welshmen  in  general  that  were  as 
exasperating  as  they  were  futile. 
France,  sore  about  the  death  of 
Richard  for  the  sake  of  his  French 
Queen,  was  threatening  war.  The 
Scots  were  openly  hostile.  The 
harvest  of  1400  had  been  a  bad  one, 
and  corn  had  risen  to  thrice  its  usual 
price.  Henry  was  desperately  in  need 
of  money,  and  had  to  risk  the  popu- 
larity upon  which  his  precarious  title 
seemed  to  depend  by  demands  as 
great  as  those  which  had  ruined 
Richard.  Henry  Percy,  the  famous 
Hotspur,  who  had  been  sent  to  the 
Northern  Marches  of  Wales,  vowed 
he  would  stay  there  no  longer  unless 
money  was  sent  him  to  oppose  the 
spreading  power  of  Glendower ;  and 
he  was  shortly  as  good  as  his  word. 
Having  fought  at  his  own  expense  an 
indecisive  engagement  with  the  Welsh 
on  the  slopes  of  Cader  Idris,  he  threw 
up  his  command  in  disgust  and 
retired  to  the  more  congenial  turmoil 
of  the  Scottish  border.  The  northern 
counties,  saving  always  the  fortified 
castles,  were  by  this  time  wholly  at 
Owen's  disposal,  and  he  now  swept 
down  the  valley  of  the  Upper  Severn, 
past  the  high-perched  stronghold  of 
Montgomery,  to  where  Powis  Castle 
looked  down  upon  the  border  town 
of  Welshpool.  Here  he  was  baffled 


by  Charlton  Lord  of  Powis,  but  not 
before  the  town  itself  had  suffered 
grievously  from  his  visit.'  It  was 
October  before  Henry,  with  the  levies 
of  one  and  twenty  counties,  could 
attempt  the  arrest  of  his  vanishing 
supremacy  in  Wales.  Again  he 
clung  to  the  sea-coast,  marching  by 
Bangor  and  Carnarvon  and  south- 
wards into  the  county  of  Cardigan, 
which  had  now  risen  almost  as  one 
man  for  Owen.  Winter  campaigns 
were  unheard  of  in  those  days,  and  in 
Wales  indeed  absolutely  impossible  ; 
and  the  Welsh  leader  retired  with  his 
forces  to  the  mountains,  well  knowing 
that  time  was  his  surest  ally.  Henry 
amused  himself  by  confiscating  estates 
in  Cardiganshire  and  bestowing  them 
on  individuals  whose  lives,  when  his 
back  was  turned,  would  not  be  worth 
an  hour's  purchase  should  they  again 
venture  into  the  neighbourhood.  He 
burned  many  churches,  too,  sacked 
the  noble  abbey  of  Strata  Florida, 
drove  out  the  monks,  and  stabled  his 
horses  at  the  high  altar.  He  put  to 
death  also  the  wealthiest  landowner 
in  the  county,  and  perhaps  justly. 
This  gentleman  had  two  sons  with 
Owen,  and,  offering  to  guide  the 
King's  army  to  the  Welsh  stronghold, 
misled  them  of  design,  and  then,  with 
heroic  cheerfulness,  laid  his  head  upon 
the  block  and  received  the  death  he 
had  courted.  In  a  fortnight,  flying 
before  the  spectre  of  winter,  Henry 
was  hurrying  homeward  along  the 
Severn  valley  with  a  thousand  children 
as  captives,  say  the  chronicles,  but 
otherwise  leaving  Wales  precisely  as 
he  had  found  it,  save  for  some  smoking 
ruins  and  a  few  homeless  monks. 

With  the  remnant  of  Welsh 
loyalty  crowded  into  a  score  or  two 
of  yet  unconquered  castles,  the 
virtual  dictator  of  Wales  spent  the 
winter  with  his  bards  and  cour- 
tiers at  Glyndyfrdwy.  The  year 
1402  broke  upon  the  troubled  land 

s  2 


260 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


of  Britain  with  portents  that  stirred 
the  imaginations  of  the  Cambrian 
bards  to  ecstasies ;  especially  a  comet 
that  stretched  its  fiery  tail  of  win- 
ter nights  above  the  dark  masses 
of  the  Berwyn  range.  Cheered  by 
such  omens,  and  by  the  wine,  no 
doubt,  which  flowed  in  such  abun- 
dance, and  by  the  successes  of  the 
past  year,  the  harps  sounded  wilder 
notes  than  ever  by  the  banks  of  the 
sacred  Dee,  and  Owen's  origin  and 
Owen's  prowess,  his  magic  and  his 
destiny,  assumed  amazing  proportions. 
But  the  chief  himself,  valuing  no 
doubt  all  this  vocal  and  musical 
incense  at  its  own  worth,  knew  that 
as  a  factor  in  his  enterprise  it  was  by 
no  means  to  be  despised.  He  did  not 
allow  it,  however,  to  interfere  with 
his  own  vigorous  action,  for  in  the 
dead  of  the  winter  he  made  a  rapid 
march  to  Ruthyn,  beat  Grey's  forces 
in  a  pitched  battle,  and  carried  off 
his  old  enemy  captive.  Nor  did  he 
let  him  go  again  till  the  enormous 
ransom  of  ten  thousand  pounds  in 
gold  had  been  paid ;  a  sum  so  great 
that  the  King  had  to  appoint  a 
commission  to  raise  it,  while  its  pay- 
ment left  the  grasping  Earl  a  poor 
man  for  the  rest  of  a  long  life  ;  which 
was  perhaps  not  less  than  his  deserts. 
During  the  spring  of  this  year 
Owen  was  moving  rapidly  with  his 
forces  over  all  North  Wales,  attacking 
the  English  castles  that  even  with 
their  small  garrisons  were  formidable 
in  their  masonry,  and  coercing  any 
wavering  patriots  there  might  still  be 
among  his  countrymen,  after  the 
fashion  of  successful  revolutionists. 
His  rancour  towards  the  Church  was 
great,  on  account,  no  doubt,  of  the 
opposition  of  all  its  orders  but  the 
Franciscans,  the  worst  of  his  many 
sacrilegious  acts  being  the  burning  of 
the  cathedrals  of  Bangor  and  Saint 
Asaph.  By  midsummer,  however,  he 
was  in  Radnor  and  fought  much  the 


most  memorable  action  he  had  yet 
engaged  in,  both  in  its  details  and  in  its 
consequences ;  it  is  with  the  arrival 
of  this  ill  news  of  course  that  Shake- 
speare's play  opens.  The  levies  of 
Herefordshire  and  part  of  Radnor 
under  Mortimer  were  crushed  under 
the  hill  of  Bryn-glas  near  Knighton  ; 
a  thousand  were  slain,  and  Mortimer 
himself,  the  uncle  of  the  rightful  heir 
to  the  throne,  the  lad,  that  is  to  say, 
whom  Henry  had  in  safe  custody,  was 
taken  prisoner.  Whether  Mortimer 
really  played  into  Owen's  hands,  or 
whether  he  was  honestly  beaten  and 
incensed  with  the  King's  refusal  to 
ransom  him,  must  ever  be  doubtful ; 
but  the  important  fact  remains  that  he 
became  from  henceforward  heart  and 
soul  Owen's  man,  married  his  daughter, 
and  carried  over  the  whole  family 
interest  in  Hereford,  Radnor,  and  the 
Vale  of  Clwyd  to  the  Welsh  cause. 
A  gleam  of  seeming  good  fortune, 
however,  had  come  to  Henry  from  the 
north,  for  the  deadly  English  arrows 
had  utterly  broken  the  Scottish 
chivalry  at  Homildon  Hill,  and  the 
victorious  Percies  were  free  once 
more  to  rally  to  Henry's  side.  But 
France  was  daily  threatening  war, 
and  Breton  privateers  were  harrying 
the  southern  coasts,  while  nearly 
all  Wales  had  slipped  from  his 
grasp.  The  Percies  were  sorely 
needed,  and  we  all  know  in  what 
fashion  they  ultimately  came. 

It  was  September  before  Henry 
had  gathered  that  great  army  with 
which  he  was  to  crush  rebellious 
Wales  at  a  blow,  and  which  Adam 
of  Usk  with  certain  exaggeration 
estimates  at  a  hundred  thousand  men. 
It  was  to  cross  the  border  in  three 
divisions  under  the  King,  Warwick, 
and  Prince  Henry  respectively.  The 
latter  indeed,  now  in  his  sixteenth 
year,  comes  down  to  us  from  these 
Welsh  wars,  not  as  the  frivolous 
libertine  of  popular  tradition,  but  as 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


261 


a  precocious  and  zealous  official  in 
whom  considerable  trust  and  no  little 
responsibility  seems  to  have  been  re- 
posed. Of  glory,  however,  either  by 
the  Prince  or  his  seniors  very  little 
was  reaped  in  this  disastrous  campaign. 
The  elements  rose  in  their  wrath  and 
fought  for  Glendower  with  a  fury  such 
as  no  man  living  had  ever  seen  in 
autumn.  Dee,  Wye,  and  Severn 
roared  bank-high  and  over,  sweeping 
the  rare  wooden  bridges  in  fragments 
to  the  sea,  and  burying  the  fords 
deep  beneath  volumes  of  brown  water. 
Rain  fell  for  days  in  torrents,  thunder 
roared,  lightning  flashed,  and  no  tents 
could  stand  against  the  gales  that 
blew  from  the  west.  Owen  was  al- 
ready accounted  a  magician  in  Wales. 
If  the  English  had  scoffed  at  his 
powers  they  now  no  longer  doubted 
them,  and  Henry's  great  host  fell  back 
to  the  Marches  disheartened  by  a  use-, 
less  conflict,  as  they  supposed,  with  a 
man  who  was  allied  with  the  Powers 
of  Evil. 

Owen  had  in  the  meantime  been 
crowned  at  Machynlleth,  and  had 
summoned  a  Parliament  from  all 
the  counties  of  Wales.  Hither 
came,  with  dark  designs  on  his  life, 
a  Welsh  gentleman  of  note,  one  David 
Gam,  who  was  attached  to  Henry's 
cause.  But  the  new-crowned  monarch 
discovered,  or  as  a  magician  perhaps 
divined,  the  plot,  and  securing  the 
person  of  his  traitorous  compatriot 
proceeded  with  him  to  Cardiganshire, 
where  he  harried  his  property  and 
burned  his  house  before  his  eyes,  up- 
braiding him  meanwhile  in  verse 
which  is  still  preserved.  Gam  was 
held  close  prisoner  for  many  years, 
probably  in  the  house  at  Llansant- 
ffraid,  in  hopes,  no  doubt,  of  a  large 
ransom  from  the  King.  He  was  ulti- 
mately released,  however,  and  fell  at 
Agincourt  amid  a  group  of  Welshmen 
who  were  fighting  valiantly  round  the 
person  of  the  English  sovereign. 

The  year    1403    was    stirring    and 


eventful.      Owen  had  been  in   treaty 
with   Scotland,   France,   and    Ireland. 
He  had  won  over  Mortimer,  and  now 
the   Percies,  offended   with  the  King, 
were   coming  over  too.      Shakespeare 
has     made    memorable    the    scene    at 
Bangor,  the  famous  triple  alliance  in 
which  Percy,  Mortimer,  and  Glendower 
were   to   divide   England   and    Wales 
between    them.      It  is  sad   to  relate, 
however,  the  historian,  as  in  the  case 
of  Prince  Henry's  frolics,  is  inclined 
to  shake  his  head  over  the  incident. 
But   whatever   the   conditions  of   the 
triple  alliance,  its  existence  was  solid 
fact  enough.   For  in  June  the  Percies, 
hastening  to  their  new  Welsh  allies, 
were  caught  by  the  King  at  Shrews- 
bury,  and    the    bloodiest    battle    was 
fought  between  Englishmen  that  had 
yet  been   seen.     Had  Owen  come  up 
in  time   with    his   ten  thousand  men 
the  issue  would  have  been  different ; 
but    Henry,   who  when  once    started 
was  a  marvel  of  celerity,  was  too  quick 
for  him.      It  was  yet  but  early  sum- 
mer.     The  Percies  were  crushed  and 
Hotspur  killed.      Henry  with  his  vic- 
torious   army    was    at    the    gates    of 
Wales.     Once  more  good  luck  served 
Owen's  turn,  and  the  harassed  King 
had  to  hurry  off  in  hot  haste  to  defend 
the  north  against  the  Scots.      When 
he  returned  again  to  the  Welsh  border 
it  was  the  ominous  season  of  autumn, 
and,   what  was  worse,   his  exchequer 
was    absolutely    empty ;     not    a    man 
could  be  moved  forward,  and  for  yet 
another    winter    Owen    was    left    the 
virtual    master    of    Wales.       He    had 
been  already  strengthened  by  a  large 
body  of  Breton  troops,  who  spent  the 
winter  in   South  Wales  ;  and  in  the 
spring  of  1405  his  chancellor,  Gryffydd 
Yong,  and  his  brother-in-law,  Jenkin 
Hanmer,   were   sent  to  Paris  to  con- 
clude a   solemn  treaty  with  Charles. 
The  latter  received  them  in  the  pres- 
ence of  his  court  with  much  ceremony, 
and  the  alliance  was  formally  declared. 
In  the  meantime  piteous  appeals  came 


262 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


to  Henry  from  his  friends  in  Shrop- 
shire and  Hereford.  The  battle  of 
Shrewsbury,  so  far  as  the  West  was 
concerned,  had  been  fought  in  vain  ; 
French  troops  were  wasting  the 
country  from  Pembroke  to  the  gates  of 
Shrewsbury,  while  Breton  rovers  were 
harrying  the  coasts  of  South  Devon, 
Cornwall,  and  the  Isle  of  Wight. 

If  want  of  space  to  touch  upon  the 
internal  condition  of  Wales  through- 
out these  eventful  years  has  conveyed 
an  impression  that  the  Principality 
was  at  peace  within  itself,  let  us  has- 
ten to  correct  it.  A  score  or  more 
centres  of  English  influence  fought 
for  existence  behind  the  castle  walls 
to  which  they  had  been  confined. 
Some  of  these  strongholds  could  be  re- 
victualled  and  re-manned  from  the 
sea,  others  by  reinforcements  thrown 
rapidly  across  from  Chester  or  the 
Marches;  but  the  great  majority  sooner 
or  later  fell  into  Owen's  hands.  There 
was  scarce  a  castle  in  all  Wales,  indeed, 
but  took  its  share  in  the  long  struggle 
of  Glendower.  Many  of  the  massive 
fragments  of  masonry  which  still  tower 
to  heaven  on  lofty  hill-tops,  or  cling 
to  wave-beaten  cliffs,  or  stand 
amid  more  peaceful  scenes  upon  the 
banks  of  rivers  whose  fords  they  once 
guarded,  date  their  decline  from  the 
rude  treatment  they  received  at  this 
tempestuous  time.  The  details  of 
these  memorable  sieges  are  copious 
for  those  who  care  to  study  them, 
even  to  the  names  very  often  of  the 
garrisons  and  the  inventories  of  their 
provisions.  One  can  only  wonder, 
what  with  the  annual  though  brief 
incursions  of  the  English  armies,  and 
the  internal  harryings  that  went  on 
continually,  that  a  bullock  or  a  barrel 
of  flour  was  left  in  Wales.  The  help- 
less state  of  the  English  Marches  after 
five  years  of  this  warfare  may  be  judged 
from  the  fact  that  the  town  of  Welsh- 
pool  in  despair  of  support  made  a 
separate  truce  with  the  formidable  foe. 
Yet  the  England  that  Glendower  so 


long  defied  was  no  decadent,  enfeebled 
country,  but  the  England  of  Cressy, 
Poictiers,  and  Agincourt,  the  scourge 
of  France,  the  best  fighting-machine 
in  Europe. 

The  early  spring  of  1405  brought 
Owen  his  first  serious  reverses.  Eight 
thousand  Welshmen  were  badly  beaten 
at  Usk  by  Talbot,  and  the  chief 
himself  was  defeated  in  Breconshire 
with  a  loss  of  fifteen  hundred  men. 
Among  the  slain  was  a  brother,  so 
like  in  form  and  feature,  it  is  said, 
that  for  some  time  the  victors  thought 
the  corpse  to  be  that  of  the  great 
Glendower  himself. 

The  latter's  fortunes  seemed  now  on 
the  wane  ;  numbers  of  his  followers 
sought  the  pardons  that  Henry  was 
always  liberal  with  ;  his  armies 
vanished  away,  and  Owen  himself 
with  a  few  adherents  was  forced  to 
hide  for  weeks  in  caves  and  on  moun- 
tains. A  ravine  on  the  slopes  of 
Moel  Hebog  is  still  connected  with 
him ;  a  cave  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Dysynni  still  bears  his  name.  Henry 
himself  records  in  a  letter  to  his 
Council,  still  extant,  how  he  burned 
Owen's  mansion  in  Glyndyfrdwy  and 
encamped  in  his  park.  The  bards, 
too,  were  scattered  and  their  harps 
silent.  The  voice  of  lolo  Goch,  how- 
ever, comes  to  us  from  this  period,  in 
wild  laments  for  Owen's  absence  and 
summoning  him  home  in  impassioned 
tones.  The  whole  story  seems  on  the 
point  of  closing,  when  suddenly,  in 
June,  ten  thousand  Frenchmen,  under 
Jean  de  Rieux,  Marshal  of  France, 
and  a  brilliant  company  of  officers, 
land  at  Milford  Haven ;  at  the 
same  time  Glendower  springs  into  life 
again  at  the  head  of  an  equal  force. 
There  was  some  skirmishing  with  the 
loyal  garrisons  of  Pembroke,  and  then 
the  united  army,  twenty  thousand 
strong,  marched  right  through  South 
Wales  and  up  to  Worcester,  where 
the  King  was  waiting  for  them.  A 
series  of  indecisive  engagements  fol- 


A  Prince  of  Wales. 


263 


lowed,  the  invaders  always  retreating, 
and  the  King  pursuing  till  the  usual 
want  of  provisions  and  money  drove 
him  back.  It  was  a  singularly  un- 
enterprising campaign  and  effected 
absolutely  nothing.  As  many  of  the 
French  as  ships  could  be  found  for 
returned  home  in  October  ;  the  re- 
mainder spent  the  winter  in  Wales. 

The  chief  events  of  Glendower's  re- 
bellion have  now  been  briefly  noted. 
The  heyday  of  his  power  was  over, 
and  his  royalty,  though  nominally 
maintained,  had  henceforward  little 
meaning.  The  French  gave  him  no 
further  help,  and  great  numbers  of 
Welshmen  sued  for  pardon  ;  the  names 
of  two  thousand  men  from  Anglesea 
alone,  the  only  county,  by  the  way,  in 
which  no  actual  fighting  had  taken 
place,  are  preserved  with  the  fines 
they  severally  paid.  Owen,  however, 
never  lost  heart.  For  five  years  more 
he  kept  Wales  practically  unconquered, 
and  more  than  once  the  old  warrior 
carried  terror  over  the  border.  Prince 
Henry,  however,  and  the  Lords  of  the 
Marches  under  him,  seemed  henceforth 
sufficient  to  keep  matters  from  getting 
worse.  The  King's  repeated  failures, 
which  are  surely  among  the  greatest 
curiosities  of  English  history,  seeing 
what  a  capable  soldier  and  alert  man 
he  was,  may  well  have  filled  him  with 
a  superstitious  dread  of  the  stormy 
hills  of  Wales.  Probably,  however, 
the  perennial  impecuniosity  under 
which  he  laboured,  and  against  which 
he  was  powerless,  kept  him  from  any 
further  attempts. 

From  this  time  forward  Owen  ceased 
to  be  a  menace  to  the  peace  of  Eng- 
land and  to  the  throne  ;  but  for  five 
years  longer  at  least  he  kept  Wales 
and  its  borders  in  a  turmoil,  and  when 
even  his  exhausted  country  had  re- 
lapsed into  comparative  peace,  the 
stubborn  patriot  in  the  mountain  fast- 
nesses he  knew  so  well  still  defied  his 


enemies.  He  was  yet  unconquered 
when  his  almost  lifelong  foe,  Henry 
the  Fourth,  was  laid  in  his  coffin.  One 
of  the  first  acts  of  the  new  King's 
reign  was  actually  a  pardon  to  the 
indomitable  Welshman  whom  his  own 
military  talents  and  energy  had  been 
taxed  to  the  utmost  in  resisting.  There 
is  something  pathetic  in  the  fact  that 
the  pardon  came  just  too  late.  The 
solitary  figure  of  Glendower  repre- 
sented alone  at  this  time  the  move- 
ment that  for  years  had  shaken  Eng- 
land. Glyndyfrdwy  and  Sycharth 
had  long  passed  by  confiscation  into 
other  hands.  Their  once  dreaded 
owner,  if  he  was  a  wanderer,  was  at 
least  not  a  hunted  outlaw  as  is  com- 
monly represented.  He  had  outlived 
the  terror  and  the  fear  he  had  once 
inspired,  and  of  the  last  two  or  three 
years  of  Glendower's  life  almost  nothing 
is  known.  We  have  no  authority  for 
supposing,  but  we  may  surely  do  so, 
that  it  was  a  generous  admiration  for 
genius  and  valour  that  made  the  young 
King  issue  to  so  unreconcilable  and 
so  undaunted  an  enemy  a  pardon 
unsolicited.  But  Owen  was  dead. 
The  actual  details  of  his  death  and 
place  of  burial  are  matters  of  dispute 
with  the  Welsh  antiquaries ;  but  it 
seems  probable  that  the  house  of  his 
son-in-law,  Monnington  of  Monnington, 
in  Herefordshire,  was  the  scene  of  his 
last  hours  ;  and  it  is  generally  sup- 
posed that  his  dust  still  lies  in  the 
churchyard  there  in  some  unrecorded 
grave.  And  if  the  paean  of  triumph 
sung  by  Gryffydd  Llwyd  in  the  heyday 
of  Owen's  glory  was  sadly  falsified  by 
events,  his  last  stanza  at  any  rate 
rings  out  to  us  over  these  five  hundred 
years  in  tones  whose  prophetic  signifi- 
cance no  one  can  gainsay  : 

And  when  thy  evening  sun  is  set 
May  grateful  Cambria  ne'er  forget 
Thy  noontide  blaze  ;  but  on  thy  tomb 
May  never-fading  laurels  bloom  ! 


264 


RAHEL    LEVIN    AND    HER    TIMES. 


THERE  exist  rare  personalities, 
principally  among  women,  which  are 
both  original  and  magnetic.  They 
can  draw  together  the  most  various 
characters,  while  at  the  same  time 
they  hold  peculiarities  in  suspension 
by  virtue  of  a  comprehensive  sym- 
pathy. A  society  thus  held  together, 
centred  round  one  person,  frequently 
meeting  and  anxious  to  meet  fre- 
quently, is  generally  known  as  a 
salon.  The  woman  who  successfully 
presides  over  a  salon  helps  to  raise 
social  life  to  a  fine  art. 

The  salon  was  Parisian  in  its  origin, 
and  its  very  name  brings  sparkling 
memories  of  fine  gentlemen  in  powder 
and  fine  ladies  in  brocade  ;  but  the 
prototype  formed  in  the  Ville-Lumiere 
gradually  found  itself  reproduced  in 
the  heavier  Germanic  circles.  Madame 
de  Stael,  when  she  came  to  Berlin 
in  1803,  found  that  all  the  most  dis- 
tinguished citizens  were  in  the  habit 
of  meeting  at  the  house  of  the  brilliant 
Jewess  who  is  the  subject  of  our  sketch. 
The  influence  of  Rahel's  salon  extended, 
with  certain  interruptions,  over  twenty 
years,  while  during  that  period  she 
may  be  fairly  said  to  have  represented 
what  Sainte-Beuve  so  aptly  calls  the 
tinctive  social  current  of  her  time. 
Rahel's  salon  differed  from  its  older 
rival  in  Paris  in  the  breadth  of  its 
interests.  Madame  de  StaeTs  visitors 
were  chiefly  politicians  and  diploma- 
tists ;  in  the  circle  which  surrounded 
Rahel  were  seen  such  ;men  as  Prince 
Louis  Ferdinand,  Prince  Radziwill, 
Von  Humboldt,  Gentz,  Heine,  Schleier- 
macher,  Schelling,  and  Jean  Paul 
Richter. 

The   circle  to  which  she    belonged 


was  to  a  certain  extent  exceptional. 
She  was  born  in  1771,  a  Jewess,  the 
daughter  of  a  well-known  and  fairly 
wealthy  Berlin  jeweller,  and  received 
the  name  of  Rahel  Antonie  Frederike. 
Her  health  was  naturally  delicate,  and 
her  home  not  a  very  happy  one.  She 
had  also  to  face  the  fact  that  in 
the  eyes  of  some  her  race  was  a  dis- 
advantage. On  her  deathbed  she 
could  say  :  "  That  which  was  during 
the  early  part  of  my  life  the  greatest 
ignominy,  the  cause  of  bitterest  sorrow, 
to  have  been  born  a  Jewess,  I  would 
not  now  have  otherwise  at  any  price." 

Wealth  and  intellect,  however,  can 
always  find  their  admirers  in  a  great 
city ;  and  the  Jews  of  Berlin,  like  so 
many  other  Jews,  possessed  a  fair 
share  of  both.  Moses  Mendelssohn, 
the  philosopher,  was  an  intimate  friend 
of  Rahel  Levin's  family  ;  his  daughters 
were  among  her  dearest  companions. 

To  associate  with  the  guests  as- 
sembled at  the  Mendelssohns'  house 
was  in  itself  an  education ;  Lessing 
was  a  lifelong  friend  and  frequent 
visitor ;  Lavater,  Von  Humboldt,  and 
the  brothers  Grimm  were  often  to  be 
met  there.  Moses  Mendelssohn  had  the 
strongest  belief  in  giving  a  solid 
education  to  girls  as  well  as  to  boys, 
and  his  own  daughters  were  accom- 
plished linguists.  The  girls  and  their 
friends  read  fiction  in  all  languages  ; 
",We  were  possessed  with  the  desire 
to  become  heroines  of  romance," 
says  Henriette  Herz.  Indeed  their 
lives  were  not  entirely  unromantic. 
Dorothea  Mendelssohn  was  to  pass 
through  half  her  existence  as  a 
Jewish  matron,  wife  of  David  Veit, 
then  to  leave  her  home  for  the  sake  of 


Haliel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


265 


that  eccentric  Christian,  Frederick 
Schlegel.  Henrietta  de  Lemos,  the 
ideal  of  a  lovely  Jewish  maiden,  after 
becoming  at  fifteen  years  old  the  bride 
of  Marcus  Herz,  had  a  long  and  toil- 
some pilgrimage  before  she  reached  the 
end'of  an  honourable  and  honoured  life. 
Rahel  was  less  highly  educated  than 
her  friends,  but  she  had  an  instinctive 
appreciation  of  intellectual  power. 
When  sixteen,  she  met  at  the  house 
of  Doctor  Marcus  Herz,  Mirabeau,  "  a 
burly  French  gentleman  in  the  in- 
evitable powder  and  pigtail  of  the 
day,  with  fierce  eyebrows,  pitted  with 
smallpox  " ;  and  the  enthusiastic  energy 
of  his  talk  made  her  forever  after  in 
love  with  the  very  thought  of  political 
freedom.  The  fiery  orator  of  the  Revo- 
lution, on  his  part,  was  sufficiently 
influenced  by  what  he  saw  of  Jewish 
society  in  Berlin  to  join  the  Abbe 
Gregoire  on  his  return  to  Paris  in  a 
movement  for  the  rehabilitation  of  the 
Jews.  About  the  age  of  twenty-one 
Rahel  became  engaged  to  a  Count  von 
Finkenstein;  but  inevitable  religious 
difficulties  separated  them,  and  the 
anxieties  of  this  affair  overshadowed 
her  life  for  a  time.  She  next  went  to 
Paris ;  and  during  a  long  stay  there 
her  animated  sketches  of  people  and 
things  in  1800  were  circulated  even 
among  strangers.  Jean  Paul  Richter 
vowed  that  they  were  worth  ten 
descriptions.  "  No  one,"  he  said,  "  has 
thus  at  a  glance  understood  and 
characterised  the  French  people. 
What  eyes  they  were  to  see  so  keenly 
and  clearly  the  truth  and  only  the 
truth  !  "  Richter  always  considered 
her  the  only  woman  in  whom  he  had 
found  a  sense  of  humour.  It  was 
during  these  years  that  Rahel  fell 
once  and  for  ever  under  the  influence 
of  Goethe,  and  was  soon  accepted  by 
her  friends  as  an  interpreter  of  his 
works.  The  master  himself  never  met 
her  till  years  later,  but  he  knew  her 
letters  and  her  talk  by  report.  "  Yes," 


he  says,  "  she  is  a  charming  girl,  strong 
in  her  emotions  and  yet  prompt  in 
their  utterance.  In  short,  she  is  what 
I  call  a  beautiful  soul."  This  admira- 
tion for  Goethe  attracted  kindred 
spirits  to  make  her  acquaintance. 
Among  them  was  Ludwig  Tieck,  the 
son  of  the  Berlin  rope-maker,  and  her 
admiration  for  his  originality  led 
Rahel  to  think  him  almost  equal  to 
her  idol. 

Already  people  in  Berlin  who  en- 
joyed brilliant  and  intellectual  talk 
were  beginning  to  break  through  the 
bonds  of  caste  and  prejudice,  and  to 
frequent  the  houses  of  such  Jews  as 
Moses  Mendelssohn,  Doctor  Herz,  and 
Madame  Levin,  Rahel's  mother ;  and 
a  kind  of  literary  society  called  the 
Tugendbund  had  been  formed  among 
them.  We  have  an  account  of  an 
evening  spent  in  the  year  1801  in 
Rahel's  house  in  the  Jagerstrasse 
written  by  a  French  gentleman  who 
had  been  introduced  to  her. 


Upon  the  sofa  beside  the  hostess  was 
seated  a  lady  of  great  beauty,  a  Countess 
Einsiedel,  ...  in  the  background  stood 
Frederick  Schlegel  in  conversation  with 
Rahel's  brother.  The  door  opened  sud- 
denly and  a  laughing,  picturesque  figure 
entered  and  rapidly  took  possession  of  the 
armchair  by  Rahel.  It  was  Madame  Un- 
zelmann,  a  well-known  actress.  "  What 
is  this,"  cried  Rahel  ;  "  is  there  no  Maria 
Stuart  ?  "  "  Iffland  has  brought  out  an- 
other piece  in  which  there  is  nothing  for 
me  to  do.  I  turn  it  therefore  to  the  best 
account,  by  coming  to  spend  the  evening 
with  you!"  "This  is  charming,"  said 
Rahel ;  "and  best  of  all  you  already  find 
here  two  special  admirers,  Schlegel  and  my 
brother."  Baron  Brinckmann  was  about 
to  step  forward,  when  Frederick  Schlegel, 
with  the  awkwardness  peculiar  to  him, 
advanced  and  said  in  a  solemn  confused 
way,  that  it  was  not  he,  but  his  brother 
August  Wilhelm,  who  was  the  enthusiastic 
admirer  of  Madame  Unzelmann.  The 
talk  became  very  animated,  ranging  over 
the  most  varied  topics.  I  heard  the  boldest 
ideas,  the  acutest  thoughts,  the  most  cap- 
ricious play  of  fancy,  all  linked  and  sug- 
gested by  the  simple  thread  of  accidental 


266 


Eahel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


chit-chat.  Most  remarkable  of  all  was 
Mademoiselle  Levin  herself.  .  .  .  About 
Goethe  she  said  some  astonishing  things, 
such  as  I  have  never  heard  equalled.  Gentz 
entered,  but  was  careful  not  to  go  near 
Schlegel,  who  thought  him  a  "  paid  scrib- 
bler, miserable  enemy  of  freedom."  Eahel, 
ever  observant,  succeeded  in  drawing  him 
into  an  animated  discussion  which  was  in- 
terrupted by  the  entrance  of  Prince  Louis 
Ferdinand.  All  rose  for  a  moment  but 
resumed  their  places  and  conversation  as 
before.  The  handsome  face  of  the  Prince 
was  clouded,  and  his  manner  uneasy  and 
pre-occupied  ;  he  entered  at  once  into  con- 
versation with  Rahel.  He  spoke  with 
angry  indignation  against  Napoleon,  and 
of  the  friendly  relations  still  maintained 
towards  him  by  the  Prussian  Court  ;  he 
accused  the  Emperor  of  undermining  the 
freedom  of  Europe.  Some  one  referred  to 
his  brother-in-law,  Prince  Radziwill,  to 
whom  he  was  strongly  attracted  by  their 
common  love  of  music.  The  Prince  in- 
quired if  he  had  not  already  been  there. 
"  No,"  was  the  reply  ;  "  he  has  probably 
gone  to  his  hunting-seat."  "  Gone  to 
hunt !  you  do  not  know  my  brother-in- 
law,"  said  the  Prince  with  a  smile.  "  He 
hunts/  of  course,  when  he  must,  but  it  is  all 
done  in  a  musical  sense.  His  love  of 
sport  is  abundantly  gratified  by  leaning, 
rifle  in  hand,  against  a  tree  and  singing 
La  Caccia  !  La  caccia."  When  the  Prince 
took  up  his  hat  to  go  the  company  followed 
his  example.  But  upon  the  staircase 
Prince  Radziwill  met  and  brought  him 
back  into  the  room.  The  departing  guests 
as  they  passed  beneath  the  windows  of  the 
house  heard  delightful  strains  of  music 
stealing  upon  the  night  air.  It  was  Prince 
Louis  improvising,  as  he  was  wont  to  do  in 
certain  moods.  Rahel  and  Prince  Radzi- 
will stood  by  the  window  listening. 

Rahel  is  described  at  this  time  as 
neither  tall  nor  handsome,  but  deli- 
cately formed  and  most  agreeable  in 
appearance ;  with  pure,  fresh  com- 
plexion and  dark  expressive  eyes. 
The  room  in  which  she  received  her 
guests  was  simply  furnished,  but  gave 
evidence  of  her  refined  taste  and  love 
of  music ;  the  refreshments  offered 
were  the  plainest.  Guests  in  such 
meetings  as  these  came  for  social 
intercourse  not  for  show,  and  hostesses 
had  the  courage  to  invite  their  friends 


when  wit  and  good-humour  were  the 
chief  attractions  they  could  offer. 

Jean  Paul  Richter  came  to  Berlin 
in  1804,  and  his  first  introduction 
was  to  Rahel.  She  was  so  surprised 
to  find  that  the  whimsical  author 
could  talk  just  like  common-place 
people  that  she  repeatedly  exclaimed, 
"  You  cannot  be  he  !  " 

When  Madame  de  Stael  came  to 
Berlin  she  was  invited  to  spend  an  even- 
ing with  Baron  Brinckmann,  Rahel's 
lifelong  admirer  and  friend,  for  the 
special  purpose  of  meeting  her.  After 
a  lively  conversation  with  Rahel, 
she  remarked  to  Brinckmann  :  "  You 
have  exaggerated  nothing ;  she  is  ex- 
traordinary. I  can  only  repeat  what 
I  have  often  said  during  my  travels, 
that  Germany  is  a  mine  of  genius 
whose  depths  are  yet  unexplored." 
Then  addressing  Rahel,  she  said  r 
"  Mademoiselle,  if  I  stayed  here,  I 
believe  I  should  become  jealous  of 
your  superiority."  "Oh,  no,  Madame," 
replied  Rahel.  "I  should  come  to  love 
you,  and  that  would  make  me  so 
happy  that  you  would  only  be  envious 
of  my  happiness." 

It  appears,  however,  that  the  bril- 
liant French  writer  retained  some 
feeling  akin  to  jealousy,  for  when  she 
received  guests  at  her  own  house, 
Rahel  was  not  among  the  few  ladies 
admitted.  To  Rahel  Madame  de 
Stael  appeared  "  like  a  disturbing 
hurricane  " ;  while  her  book,  L'ALLE- 
MAGNE,  she  characterised  as  "  one 
lyrical  sigh  that  she  can  no  longer 
lead  the  Paris  conversation."  There 
was  no  room  for  two  such  women  in 
one  capital. 

It  was  in  1803  that  Rahel,  then 
thirty-two  years  of  age,  met  the  man 
she  was  afterwards  to  marry,  Varn- 
hagen  von  Ense,  whose  memoirs  and 
letters  throw  such  a  direct  light  upon 
his  generation.  He  was  at  that  time 
acting  as  tutor  to  the  sons  of  an 
intimate  friend  of  Rahel,  the  banker 


Rahel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


267 


Cohen,  and  he  had  often  heard  her 
discussed  as  one  who  was  in  touch 
with  the  best  life  of  the  great  cen- 
tury of  German  letters,  and  was 
therefore  anxious  to  make  her  ac- 
quaintance. One  night,  when  he  was 
reading  to  the  Cohens  some  extracts 
from  Wieland,  Rahel  was  announced. 
"  From  what  I  had  heard  from 
others,"  says  Yarnhagen  in  his  Remi- 
niscences, "  I  was  prepared  to  see  a 
most  extraordinary  person ;  what  I 
did  see  was  a  light  graceful  figure, 
small  but  vigorous,  with  delicate, 
well-rounded  limbs,  and  hands  and 
feet  peculiarly  small.  The  forehead, 
which  was  shaded  by  a  profusion  of 
black  hair,  announced  intellectual 
superiority ;  the  quick,  determined 
glances  left  one  in  doubt  whether 
they  were  more  disposed  to  receive 
impressions  or  to  communicate  them, 
and  a  settled  expression  of  melancholy 
added  a  charm  to  her  clear  and  open 
face ;  while  in  the  short  conversation 
I  had  with  her  I  found  that  the  chief 
feature  and  quality  of  her  mind  was 
that  natural,  unborrowed  vivacity 
which  throws  upon  every  subject  some 
new  light  and  shadow.  Three  years 
afterwards,"  he  continues,  "  I  hap- 
pened to  meet  Rahel  one  cold  spring 
morning  under  the  lime-trees.  I  knew 
her  companion  to  whom  I  spoke,  and 
while  I  walked  a  short  distance  with 
them,  Rahel  to  my  delight  joined  in 
the  conversation,  and  asked  me  to 
visit  her  in  her  mother's  house  in  the 
Jagerstrasse.  Our  intimacy  strength- 
ened daily;  I  told  Rahel  all  my  secret 
thoughts,  and  nowhere  could  I  have 
found  truer  sympathy  or  more  useful 
advice." 

It  would  be  impossible  to  tell  the 
story  of  any  cultivated  German  of 
this  period  without  some  reference 
to  the  stirring  European  events  which 
then  affected  all  classes.  The  great 
democratic  French  Revolution  had 
developed  into  a  military  tyranny ; 


Napoleon,  as  Emperor,  aspired  to 
universal  despotism.  Th,e  Prussian 
Court  still  preserved  a  neutral  atti- 
tude towards  the  conqueror,  the  secret 
hope  of  the  acquisition  of  Hanover 
being  its  real  motive.  A  treaty  of 
alliance  was  almost  signed  between 
Prussia  and  Napoleon  in  August, 
1805.  But  French  troops  having 
forced  their  way  through  Prussian 
territory,  the  battles  of  Ulm  and 
Austerlitz  laid  all  Germany  at  the 
feet  of  France.  Prussia  then  saw 
herself  as  others  saw  her,  and  knew 
that  she  was  only  a  tool  in  Napo- 
leon's hand.  The  patriotic  Queen 
Louisa,  Prince  Louis,  and  the  war- 
like party  in  Berlin  rejoiced  that 
their  countrymen's  eyes  should  thus 
be  opened.  Pitt  had  clearly  pointed 
out  that  Prussia  was  responsible  for 
this  disastrous  campaign,  and  the  map 
of  Europe  was  rolled  up  before  his 
dying  eyes. 

Even  yet,  however,  the  attractions 
of  Hanover  overcame  the  King  of 
Prussia's  patriotism ;  a  fresh  treaty 
was  signed  with  Napoleon,  and  Count 
Schulenberg  seized  the  coveted  terri- 
tory. Great  Britain,  in  retaliation, 
swept  nearly  every  Prussian  ship 
from  the  ocean  •  Napoleon  himself 
abundantly  showed  his  contempt  for 
his  weak  ally.  Rahel  was  at  one 
with  all  her  distinguished  friends  in 
feeling  the  depth  of  degradation 
into  which  her  country  had  fallen. 
Jewess  as  she  was,  she  thought  in 
these  matters  only  as  a  Prussian. 
Her  friend  Gentz  had  published  a 
patriotic  pamphlet  which  produced  a 
great  impression  ;  and  when  it  was- 
publicly  known  that  Napoleon  was 
actually  entering  into  negotiations 
with  England  to  restore  Hanover, 
then,  indeed,  Prussia  saw  how  fruit- 
lessly she  had  sinned.  One  last 
act  of  aggression  filled  up  the  cup ; 
Palm,  the  Nuremberg  bookseller,  who 
had  circulated  Gentz's  pamphlet  and 


268 


Rahel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


the  songs  of  Arndt  and  Gleim,  was 
shot  by  order  of  a  French  court- 
martial,  and  the  magistrates  of  his 
town  were  threatened  with  the  same 
fate.  Fox  held  up  this  outrage  to 
universal  odium  before  he  descended 
to  his  grave.  Gentz  drew  up  a  noble 
manifesto  against  Napoleon ;  Prince 
Louis  was  longing  to  lead  his  country- 
men into  action ;  while  Napoleon 
answered  by  describing  Queen  Louisa 
as  an  "  Armida  in  her  madness  setting 
fire  to  her  own  palace." 

But  it  was  soon  over.  Prince  Louis 
died  bravely  in  the  action  at  Saalfeld  ; 
the  crushing  blow  of  Jena  felled  the 
resisting  nation  to  the  earth.  Henri- 
ette  Herz  tells  us  the  announcement 
which  reached  Berlin :  "  The  King 
has  lost  a  battle.  Quiet  is  the  first 
duty  of  the  citizen.  I  require  it  from 
the  inhabitants  of  Berlin."  "  Who 
thought,"  she  asks,  "  of  disturbing  its 
'  quiet '  ?  "  The  Berliners  could  even 
find  it  in  their  hearts  to  laugh  when 
the  French  troops  rode  into  their  city  : 
"  Little  fellows  in  grey  cloaks,  talking 
noisily  together,  riding  three  upon  one 
horse,  and  pour  comble  d'horreur  upon 
their  three-cornered  hats,  in  close 
proximity  to  those  tricolours  which 
had  figured  victoriously  in  two  hemi- 
spheres, was  stuck  a  leaden  spoon 
ready  for  instant  service."  At  once 
they  were  dubbed  the  Spoon 
Guards. 

Napoleon  showed  his  vengeance  in 
characteristically  petty  manner  by 
lying  bulletins  about  Gentz  and  about 
the  Queen  of  Prussia,  while  he  publicly 
declared  that  he  would  render  the 
German  aristocracy  so  poor  "  that 
they  shall  be  obliged  to  beg  their 
bread."  The  pathetic  story  of  his 
interview  with  the  Queen  of  Prussia 
at  Tilsit,  and  the  failure  of  her 
passionate  prayers  to  influence  him, 
made  a  deep  impression  on  the  minds 
of  her  devoted  and  admiring  subjects. 
Other  distinguished  women  suffered 


from  the  conqueror's  harshness  at  this 
time  ;  both  Madame  de  Stael  and 
Madame  Recamier  were  banished  from 
Paris. 

It  was  during  the  winter  of 
1807-8,  within  sound  of  the  French 
guns,  that  the  philosopher  Fichte 
delivered  his  famous  DISCOURSES  TO 
THE  GERMAN  NATION,  and  all  classes 
in  Berlin  were  inspired  by  them. 
They  gave  the  keynote  to  a  band  of 
eager  young  men,  Fouque",  Chamisso, 
Hitzig,  and  Neumann,  all  intimate 
friends  of  Bahel  and  of  Yarnhagen, 
who  became  known  as  the  North  Star 
Band,  and  who  helped  to  rouse  Berlin 
against  Napoleon. 

Rahel  and  Varnhagen  had  now 
become  betrothed  to  each  other.  "  I 
was  twenty-four  years  old,"  he  writes, 
"  Rahel  my  senior  by  more  than  half 
those  years.  This  circumstance  taken 
by  itself  might  seem  likely  to  have 
driven  our  lives  widely  asunder.  It 
was,  however,  but  an  accident ;  it  was 
essentially  of  no  account.  This  noble 
life  so  rich  in  joy  and  sorrow  retained 
all  its  youthful  vigour ;  not  only  the 
powerful  intellect  which  hovered  above 
every-day  regions,  but  the  heart,  the 
senses,  the  whole  corporeal  being  were 
as  though  bathed  in  clear  light.  A 
lasting  union  was,  however,  at  that 
time  denied  us." 

Meanwhile  Goethe,  that  serene 
Jupiter  of  the  German  Olympus, 
preserved  a  calm  unbroken  by  sight 
of  his  country's  sufferings.  When 
asked  by  Perthes  to  help  the  NA- 
TIONAL MUSEUM,  a  projected  pa 
triotic  paper,  he  declined.  He  found 
it,  he  said,  difficult  to  be  just  to  the 
passing  moment.  "  Our  interest  in  pub- 
lic events,"  he  was  wont  to  maintain, 
"  is  mostly  the  merest  Philistinism." 
Nothing  indeed  seemed  certain  but 
disgrace,  and  this,  we  are  told,  drove 
the  men  and  women  of  that  day  to  the 
solace  of  literature  and  to  the  stimu- 
lus of  intellectual  intercourse.  Their 


Rahel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


269 


habits  whether  at.  home  or  in  society 
were  of  enviable  simplicity.  Rahel, 
Henriette  Herz,  Schleiermacher,  and 
his  sister  would  have  their  rooms  and 
balconies  filled  to  overflowing  with 
evening  guests,  not  only  independent 
of  the  adjunct  of  ices  and  champagne 
but  grateful  if  the  supply  of  tea  and 
bread  and  butter  proved  adequate  to 
the  demand.  All  suffered  from  the 
same  straitened  circumstances  and  none 
were  ashamed  of  a  poverty  forced  upon 
them  from  without. 

For  two  years  the  French  occupied 
Berlin,  when  suddenly,  at  a  time  when 
all  seemed  hopeless,  the  Austrians 
won  the  glorious  victory  at  Aspern. 
This  was  Napoleon's  first  defeat,  and 
the  news  was  received  at  Berlin  with 
the  wildest  enthusiasm.  Hope  again 
revived,  and  Varnhagen  at  once  left 
to  join  the  Austrian  army  as  a 
volunteer  with  his  friend  Von  Marwitz. 
He  was  wounded  at  Wagram,  and 
taken  as  a  prisoner  of  war  to  Vienna, 
where  his  faded  and  war-worn  uniform 
procured  him  a  hearty  welcome  from 
the  Arnsteins,  Eskeles,  and  Pereiras. 
But  peace  was  a  necessity  to  Austria, 
and  the  hand  of  Maria  Louisa  was  given 
as  its  price.  Varnhagen  accompanied 
Count  Bentheim  to  Paris  and  wit- 
nessed the  fetes  in  honour  of  Napo- 
leon's marriage  with  the  Archduchess, 
his  visit  greatly  increasing  his  dislike 
for  the  French  Caesar.  Rahel  spent 
a  dreary  time  in  Berlin  during  her 
lover's  absence.  All  her  friends  were 
dispersed ;  Schlegel  and  his  brilliant 
wife  were  in  Paris,  Tieck  was  in 
Dresden,  and  Henriette  Herz  atRiigen. 
She  corresponded  much  with  Frau  von 
Fouque,  wife  of  the  creator  of  Sintram 
and  Undine,  a  quaint  unworldly  crea- 
ture, who  lived  among  his  own  medieval 
dreams  in  his  father-in-law's  ancestral 
halls  of  Neunhausen.  "  Do  not  live 
so  much  alone,  dear  Fouque/'  Rahel 
wrote  to  him.  "  Nothing  should  lie 
waste  in  us,  least  of  all  human  inter- 


course ;  we  need  the  inner  stimulus 
which  comes  of  such  contact  only." 

After  a  long  and  dreary 'separation 
Rahel  and  Varnhagen  spent  some  time 
together  at  Teplitz.  "  About  this 
time,"  he  writes,  "  I  and  Rahel  became 
acquainted  with  the  divine  musician 
who  threw  all  others  into  the  shade." 
It  was  Beethoven,  of  whose  presence 
at  Teplitz  all  had  heard,  but  whom 
none  had  yet  seen.  His  deafness 
made  him  avoid  society,  and  his  pecu- 
liar ideas,  increased  by  solitude,  ren- 
dered it  difficult  to  be  acquainted 
with  him.  He  had,  however,  occa- 
sionally seen  Rahel  in  the  Castle 
gardens,  and  had  been  struck  by 
her  countenance,  which  reminded  him 
of  some  beloved  face.  Beethoven  did 
for  her  what  he  had  obstinately  re- 
fused to  do  for  many ;  he  sat  down 
to  the  pianoforte  and  played  his  yet 
unpublished  pieces,  or  allowed  his 
fancy  to  run  wild  in  the  most  exqui- 
site improvisations. 

Varnhagen  was  asked  by  the  Prince 
de  Ligne  to  accompany  him  to  Vienna 
as  his  adjutant ;  but  he  felt  that  in  the 
present  state  of  Austria's  alliance 
with  France  such  a  position  would 
not  be  congenial  to  him.  He  meant 
to  work  both  with  sword  and  pen 
against  Napoleon,  so  he  rejoined 
Count  Bentheim  at  Prague  and  Rahel 
was  once  more  alone.  Then  came  the 
campaign  of  Russia  and  Napoleon's 
disastrous  retreat.  The  Russians 
crossed  the  Vistula  into  Germany ; 
and  early  in  1813  Count  Wittgenstein 
and  his  Cossacks  chased  the  French 
soldiers  through  the  streets  of  Berlin. 
Varnhagen  was  appointed  adjutant 
to  General  Tettenborn,  and  together 
they  started  for  that  campaign  in 
North  Germany  which  was  to  prove 
fatal  to  the  French  army.  Victory 
succeeded  victory,  till  at  last  not  a 
Frenchman  was  left  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Elbe ;  and  on  the  1 8th  of 
March  Tettenborn  made  his  entry 


270 


Rahel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


into  Hamburg  At  night,  when  he 
appeared  with  Yarnhagen  and  other 
officers  at  the  opera,  the  audience 
rose  in  a  body  and  sang  the  popular 
song  "  To  Hamburg's  Success."  Some 
play  was  improvised,  we  are  told, 
and  every  piece  of  clap-trap  was 
rapturously  applauded.  The  famous 
actress  Schroder  came  upon  the  stage 
with  a  Russian  cockade  and  was 
greeted  with  a  storm  of  applause. 
Rahel  meanwhile  was  in  Berlin  spend- 
ing her  time  and  money  in  caring  for 
the  wounded,  organising  the  hospitals, 
and  collecting  subscriptions  for  widows 
and  orphans.  "  The  Jews  give  all 
they  possess,"  she  writes.  "  It  was 
to  them  I  first  turned.  Dear  good 
August,  in  this  terrible  time  do  make 
an  effort  to  write  something  about 
the  hospitals.  My  heart  has  been  so 
oppressed  by  all  that  I  learn  about 
the  mismanagement.  You  must  tell 
people  plainly,  earnestly  that  it  is  the 
most  dreadful  of  all  sins  to  cheat  the 
sick  and  wounded.  ..."  Early  in  the 
summer  she  removed  to  Prague  and 
carried  on  the  same  good  work.  "  Each 
poor  fellow,"  she  writes  again,  "  wrings 
my  heart ;  mere  villagers,  but  they  be- 
have admirably.  Everywhere  there  is 
courage,  goodwill,  help  of  all  kinds. 
I  have  no  room  for  the  number  of 
.anecdotes  which  are  on  the  lips  of  all. 
In  Breslau  a  number  of  ladies  were  in 
consultation  about  collecting  money. 
A  young  girl  suddenly  left  them  and 
presently  returned  with  three  thalers. 
They  saw  at  once  that  she  had  parted 
with  her  hair.  A  messenger  was  sent  to 
the  hairdresser,  the  long  locks  of  hair 
were  brought  back  and  made  up  into 
rings  which  were  sold  at  high  prices 
for  the  good  cause."  And  again,  a 
few  months  later,  she  writes  of 
the  wounded  soldiers  :  "  The  unfortu- 
nate creatures  lay  last  week  in  carts, 
crowded  together  in  the  narrow  streets, 
all  under  drenching  rain.  As  in  the 
olden  times  it  is  the  townsfolk  who 


did  everything.  They  fed  and  tended 
the  sufferers  in  the  streets  or  on  the 
floors  of  the  houses.  The  Jewish 
women  distinguished  themselves  ;  one 
alone  bound  up  three  hundred  wounds 
in  one  day." 

It  was  at  Prague  that  Rahel  re- 
ceived the  news  of  Fichte's  death. 
During  the  winter  he  had  resumed 
his  stirring  lectures,  but  was  attacked 
by  nervous  fever  and  died  after  a 
few  days'  illness  on  January  27th, 
1814.  Rahel,  who  loved  him  as  a 
friend  and  always  called  him  her 
dear  master,  mourned  him  in  a  beau- 
tiful tribute:  "With  him  Germany 
loses  half  its  power  of  sight ;  we  may 
well  tremble  for  the  rest.  .  .  .  Fichte 
can  sink  and  die  !  Is  it  not  like  an 
evil  enchantment  1  Yesterday,  I  saw 
it  in  a  Berlin  paper.  I  felt  more 
ashamed  than  shocked,  ashamed  that 
I  should  be  left  alive  ;  and  then  I  felt 
a  sudden  fear  of  death.  If  Fichte 
must  die  no  one  is  safe.  I  always 
think  there  is  no  safeguard  against 
death  like  really  living ;  and  who 
lived  more  fully  than  he  1  Dead 
however  he  is  not,  cannot  be !  Is 
Fichte  not  to  see  the  country  recover- 
ing itself  from  the  war,  border-marks 
and  hedges  replaced,  the  peasantry 
improved,  the  laws  mended  .... 
thought  free  to  utter  itself  to  King 
and  people — this  alone  a  happiness 
for  all  future  !  Lessing  !  Lessing 
too  is  gone,  remembered  only  by  a 
few.  He  who  had  to  fight  for  ideas 
which  now  stand  in  every  day's  news- 
paper ;  which  have  become  so  common- 
place that  people  forget  the  originator 
and  repeat  them  time  after  time  in 
stolid  imbecility  !  .  .  .  .  Lessing, 
Fichte,  all  such  honoured  men,  may 
you  see  our  progress,  and  bless  it 
with  your  strong  spirits  !  It  is 
thus  I  think  of  the  saints,  enriched 
by  God,  loved  by  God  and  faithful 
to  Him.  Peace  be  with  our  revered 
master  !  " 


V 


Hahel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


271 


In  1814,  during  the  general  cessa- 
tion of  hostilities,  Varnhagen  and 
Rahel  returned  to  Berlin  and  their 
romance,  begun  under  the  lime-trees, 
ended  in  a  happy  marriage,  soon  after 
which  they  left  for  Vienna,  Varnhagen 
being  among  the  diplomatists  sum- 
moned to  the  Congress. 

In  the  city  of  the  blue  Danube  Varn- 
hagen and  his  wife  found  themselves  in 
a  circle  of  brilliant  personages.  The 
Emperors  of  Austria  and  Russia  were 
there,  with  Talleyrand,  Nesselrode, 
Pozzo  de  Borgo,  Prince  Hardenberg, 
Wellington,  Castlereagh,  and  Gentz, 
who  alone  is  said  to  have  seen  every 
one  else's  cards  while  skilfully  conceal- 
ing his  own.  Varnhagen  adds :  "I 
need  scarcely  say  that  the  Imperial 
Court  had  prepared  the  most  brilliant 
reception  and  kept  open  table  for  all 
its  illustrious  guests  and  their  numer- 
ous retainers  and  dependants.  .  .  . 
But  what  I  must  mention  as  remark- 
able and  what  no  one  could  have  con- 
ceived, had  he  not  witnessed  it,  was 
the  atmosphere  of  Viennese  life,  the 
element  in  which  days  slipped  away, 
the  jovial  luxury,  the  strong  out-pour- 
ing of  fun  and  laughter,  the  happy 
good-humour  .  .  .  the  half-Italian 
dolce  far  niente  and  its  concomitant 
half-Italian  humour."  Day  after  day 
festival  succeeded  festival ;  the  love  of 
display,  amusement  and  dancing  as- 
serted its  full  power  till  the  old  Prince 
de  Ligne  was  felt  to  have  summed 
up  the  situation  once  for  all  in 
his  celebrated  epigram  :  Le  Conyres 
danse  bien,  mais  il  ne  marche  pas. 
Rahel  found  at  Vienna  many  intimate 
friends  and  even  relations  among  the 
Jewish  circles  there.  Marianne  Meyer, 
her  cousin,  now  Frau  von  Eybenberg, 
the  morganatic  wife  of  Prince  Reuss, 
was  a  celebrated  beauty.  The  Schlegels, 
now  Roman  Catholics,  rejoined  her 
there.  She  was  a  welcome  guest  at  the 
Arnsteins'  brilliant  reunions,  and  it 
•was  with  them  she  stayed  when  the 


Congress  broke  up  in  confusion  on  the 
news  of  Napoleon's  flight  from  Elba. 

When  Varnhagen  was  summoned  to 
Berlin  on  diplomatic  business,  Rahel 
removed  to  Frankfort-on-Maine ;  a 
truly  memorable  visit  to  her,  for  it 
was  in  this  city  that  she  first  met 
Goethe.  Having  made  an  excursion 
with  her  friends  to  Niederrad,  the 
scene  of  the  Gretchen  -  episode  in 
Goethe's  early  days,  a  carriage 
passed  them,  and  Rahel,  looking  in, 
saw  the  poet.  "  He  too  was  making 
a  pilgrimage  back  into  the  days  of  his 
youth.  The  shock,  the  delight  makes 
me  wild.  I  cry  out,  '  There  is  Goethe  ! ' 
Goethe  laughs,  the  ladies  laugh.  I 
seize  hold  of  Vallentin,  and  run  on 
ahead  of  the  carriage  ;  then,  facing 
round,  I  see  him  once  more." 

But  better  still  was  to  come.  On 
September  8th,  1815,  she  writes: 
"This  is  a  letter  worth  having.  Now 
will  you  rejoice  that  I  am  still  here, 
good,  dear  August.  Goethe  was  with 
me  this  morning  at  a  quarter  past  ten. 
This  is  my  diploma  of  nobility.  But 
I  behaved  myself  so  badly,  like  one  to 
whom  the  stroke  of  knighthood  is  given 
before  all  the  world  by  the  wise  brave 
king  whom  he  honours  above  all.  .  .  . 
Toothbrush  in  hand,  in  a  state  of 
red  powder,  I  stood  in  my  dressing- 
room  when  the  landlord  came  up  and 
said  to  Dora,  a  gentleman  wished  to 
speak  with  me.  I  thought,  a  messen- 
ger from  Goethe.  I  ask  who  it  is,  and 
Dora  returns  with  Goethe's  card,  and 
the  message,  he  will  wait  a  little." 
Thus  like  so  many  long-looked-for 
interviews  this  one  came  inoppor- 
tunely at  last,  and  the  admirer  said 
not  all  she  wished  to  the  admired  one. 
"...  He  said,  with  a  somewhat 
Saxon,  very  flowing  accent,  that  he 
regretted  he  had  not  known  I  was  at 
his  house.  ...  I  told  him  about  the 
Congress  and  the  impression  it  had 
made  on  me.  About  that  he  was 
very  wise,  looking  at  it  as  an  affair 


272 


Bahel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


done  with  two  centuries  before,  and 
said  it  was  not  a  thing  to  be  re- 
corded as  it  had  no  form  or  outline. 
Altogether  he  was  like  the  most 
aristocratic  prince,  like  the  most 
amiable  man  ;  easy  but  dignified  and 
avoiding  personalities.  .  .  .  No 
Olympian  deity  could  make  me  more 
honourable  or  show  me  greater  honour. 
At  first  I  thought  of  sending  you  his 
card,  but  I  will  not  trust  it  to  the 
post." 

It  is  strange  to  find  the  patriotic 
Bahel's  devotion  uncooled  by  her 
idol's  philosophic  indifference,  on  ac- 
count of  which  so  many  rising  men 
of  the  day  almost  hated  him. 
Years  afterwards  she  writes  to  her 
brother  Ludwig  Robert,  on  hearing 
that  Goethe  had  been  decorated  with 
the  Black  Eagle  of  Frederick  the 
Great  :  "  Now  my  work  has  not  been 
for  nought.  I  have  the  Black  Eagle 
Order  of  Frederick  the  Great.  It 
fully  covers  my  rewarded  heart .... 
That  this  man  (Goethe)  should  thus 
experience  that  his  contemporaries 
acknowledge,  study,  comprehend, 
idolise,  love  him  with  sincerity  is  the 
summit  of  all  my  earthly  desire  and 
effort.  This  I  have  helped  forward,  I, 
a  ball  in  the  hand  of  Providence, — 
Madame  Guyon  says  she  is  that — and 
of  this  happiness  I  am  proud." 

In  1819  the  Varnhagens  again 
settled  in  Berlin,  but  to  find  every- 
thing changed.  The  angel  of  death  had 
been  abroad  in  the  land,  and  Bahel, 
writing  to  her  friend  Baron  Brinck- 
mann,  alludes  very  pathetically  to  the 
gaps  made  by  the  cruel  war.  "  Death 
upheld  by  war,  has  made  great  havoc 
among  those  friends  whom  your 
description  shows  to  have  been  deeply 
engraved  upon  your  memory.  In 
every  corner  of  our  quarter,  where  we 
used  to  see  our  dear  ones,  are  now 
strangers.  They  are  all  tombstones. 
Scattered  like  dust  is  the  whole  con- 
stellation of  beauty,  grace,  coquetry, 


wit,  preference,  cordiality,  pleasantry., 
unrestrained  intercourse,  earnest  pur- 
pose, and  spiritual  development. 
Every  house  is  becoming  a  shop ; 
every  social  meeting  a  dinner  or 
a  party  ....  Everybody  is  wise 
and  has  bought  his  wisdom  at  the 
nearest  market." 

Such  is  the  inevitable  experience  of 
all  who  live  long  enough.  Bahel's 
letters  and  diaries  were  shown  to  her 
friends,  and  by  many  were  copied  and 
admired ;  she  seems  to  have  felt  a 
kind  of  pride  in  being  a  voluminous 
unprinted  author.  It  was  not  till 
1830  that  Varnhagen  collected  pas- 
sages from  her  manuscinpts  and  pub- 
lished a  short  book  of  aphorisms 
entitled  STRAY  THOUGHTS  OP  A 
BERLINER.  She  says  of  herself  :  "  I 
am  certainly  not  unwilling  to  become 
an  author  :  I  should  not  be  ashamed 
to  write  a  work  like  Newton's  on 
astronomy  or  mathematics  ;  but  to  be 
able  to  produce  no  work  ?and  yet  to 
be  in  print,  is  a  thing  I  abhor." 

As  to  religious  belief,  Bahel  had 
ceased  to  be  a  Jewess  of  the  stricter 
sort  for  many  years ;  she  had  indeed 
been  brought  up,  as  she  herself  says, 
"as  if  I  were  in  a  wild  wood,  without 
any  religious  teaching."  We  have 
seen  that  she  regretted  her  Jewish 
birth  ;  but  as  time  went  on  her  heart 
and  intellect  led  her  to  appreciate  her 
noble  heritage  as  we  may  glean  from 
the  following  quotation  :  "  What  a 
history  is  mine  !  I,  a  fugitive  from 
Egypt  and  Palestine,  find  with  you 
help,  love  and  tender  care  !  It  was 
/God's  will,  dear  August,  to  send  me 
to  you,  and  you  to  me.  With  de- 
lighted exaltation  I  look  back  upon 
my  origin,  upon  the  link  which  my 
history  forms  between  the  oldest 
memories  of  the  human  race  and  the 
interests  of  to-day,  between  the 
broadest  interval  of  time  and  space." 

It  does  not  appear  when,  if  ever, 
she  made  a  public  profession  of  the 


Rahel  Levin  and  her  Times. 


273 


Christian  faith,  though  undoubtedly 
she  embraced  its  doctrines  in  a  broad, 
humanitarian,  perhaps  rationalistic 
spirit.  Many  mystic  works  of  Christian 
authors  were  beloved  by  her,  notably 
those  of  Angelus  Silesius.  Custine  said 
of  her  that  she  had  the  mind  of  a  phi- 
losopher with  the  heart  of  an  apostle. 
One  of  her  sayings  about  herself  will 
throw  some  light  on  her  beautiful  and 
sympathetic  nature  :  "  When  I  come 
to  die, you  may  think :  'she  knew  every- 
thing because  she  entered  into  it  all, 
because  she  never  was  or  pretended  to 
be  anything  in  herself ;  she  only  loved 
thought  and  tried  to  make  thought 
connected  and  harmonious.  She  under- 
stood Fichte,  loved  green  fields,  loved 
children,  knew  something  of  the  arts 
both  of  use  and  beauty ;  endeavoured 
to  help  God  in  His  creatures  always, 
uninterruptedly,  and  thanked  Him 
that  He  had  made  her  thus.'  " 

In  the  summer  of  1832  her  health, 
which  had  long  been  a  matter  of 
serious  anxiety  to  Varnhagen,  began 
to  fail.  In  March,  1833,  she  died; 
and  we  may  fitly  close  our  account  of 


Rahel   with   the  noble   and    touching: 

«.  ^ 

tribute  offered  to  her  memory  by  Heine, 
who  had  already  dedicated  to  her  the 
Heimkehr  poems  of  his  BOOK  OF  SOXGS. 
He  speaks  of  the  delight  with  which 
her  published  letters  were  received 
by  all  her  friends  :  "  It  was  a  great 
deed  of  August  A^arnhagen  when  he, 
setting  aside  all  petty  objections,  pub- 
lished those  letters  in  which  Rahel's 
whole  personality  is  revealed.  This 
book  came  at  the  right  time  when  it 
could  best  take  effect,  strengthen  and 
console.  It  was  as  if  Rahel  knew 
what  posthumous  mission  should  be 
hers.  She  died  quickly  that  she 
might  more  quickly  rise  again.  She 
reminds  me  of  the  legend  of  that 
other  Rachel,  who  arose  from  her 
grave  and  stood  weeping  by  the  high- 
way as  her  children  went  into  cap- 
tivity. I  cannot  think  of  her  without 
sorrow,  that  friend  so  rich  in  love,  who 
ever  offered  me  unwearied  sympathy 
and  often  felt  not  a  little  anxious  for 
me,  in  those  days  when  the  flame  of 
truth  rather  heated  than  enlightened 
me.  Alas  those  days  are  over  ! ;' 


No.  442. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


274 


THE    LONG    VACATION. 


OXFORD  has  settled  down  for  the 
Long  Vacation.  What  this  means 
only  those  who  live  there  the  year 
through  can  fully  understand.  It  is 
true  that  we  are  nowadays  much  less 
of  a  city  apart  than  we  were  sixty 
years  since,  when  our  visitors  came 
over  the  old  Magdalen  Bridge  on  the 
coach  from  London,  and  when  the 
seclusion  of  our  colleges  was  still 
guarded  by  the  statutes  enforcing 
celibacy.  Since  then,  a  new  world 
has  grown  up  in  that  region  where 
King  Charles  once  parked  his  artillery, 
while  trains,  alas  !  too  frequent  and 
too  rapid,  have  put  the  quiet  Univer- 
sity town  at  the  mercy  of  the  motley 
throng  of  visitors  who  come  pouring 
in  from  London  and  the  great  towns 
of  the  north.  Yet  even  now  the 
city  has  at  certain  happy  moments 
a  touch  of  the  old-world  tranquillity 
that  was  once  its  perpetual  charm ; 
and  the  stir  and  bustle  of  the  Long 
Vacation,  even  at  its  busiest  season, 
cannot  destroy  the  serenity  of  its 
ancient  gardens  and  beloved  byways 
for  those  who  know  how  to  avoid  the 
throng.  Perhaps  in  no  other  place  in 
England  is  the  world  so  strangely  and 
so  regularly  turned  upside  down  once  a 
year  as  in  this  most  conservative  of 
cities.  For  the  tendencies  that  shyly 
show  themselves  in  the  short  intervals 
of  Christmas  and  Easter  blossom  into 
full  assertion  and  dignity  when  the 
murmur  of  the  bees  begins  to  be 
heard  along  the  lime-trees  of  Trinity 
and  New  College,  and  when  the 
last  lingering  undergraduate  has  dis- 
appeared from  the  schools,  only  to 
return  for  a  brief  term  of  viva  voce 
in  the  depth  of  July,  to  find  himself 


almost   forgotten   by  his   landlady,   a 
stranger  in  a  strange  world. 

Now,  as  by  the  stroke  of  an  en- 
chanter's wand,  the  parts  are  reversed  ; 
the  University  retires  into  the  back- 
ground and  the  citizen  dominates  the 
scene.  Only  once  and  again  in  the 
dead  midsummer  slumber  the  Vice- 
Chan  cellor  and  Proctors  will  proceed 
to  the  Convocation  House  to  confer 
degrees ;  and  for  one  short  moment 
the  streets  will  be  sprinkled  with 
academic  figures,  college  deans  hurry- 
ing to  present  their  pupils,  or  new- 
made  graduates  hastening  to  put  off 
the  untried  and  cumbersome  honour 
of  the  bachelor's  gown.  But  the 
town  pays  little  heed  to  these  pass- 
ing ceremonies  (saving  indeed  your 
unpaid  tradesman,  who  will  still  bar 
his  debtor's  graduation,  though  no 
longer  by  the  picturesque  form  of 
plucking  the  proctor's  gown),  and 
the  waves  of  civic  society  soon  close 
again  over  the  sleeping  life  of  the 
University.  The  happy  shopkeeper 
now  finds  it  possible  to  put  up  his 
shutters  early  on  Saturday  as  well  as 
Thursday,  for  the  University  is  away 
and  his  fellow  townsmen  are  making 
holiday.  Late  into  the  summer  nights 
the  lonely  dweller  in  a  college,  as  he 
sits  high  above  the  street  at  his 
window  inhaling  the  fragrant  summer 
scents,  of  lilies  and  woodbine  and 
late-gathered  hay,  that  come  floating 
up  from  the  moonlit  gardens  and 
the  wide  Thames  valley,  may  hear 
boisterous  sounds  from  coach  or  brake, 
full  of  college  servants  or  other  city 
folk  returning  from  some  country 
festival ;  and  it  must  be  granted  that 
for  rousing  clamour  at  nights  your 


The  Long  Vacation. 


275 


townsman,  who  lives  in  no  fear  of 
the  proctors,  is  fully  the  equal  of  the 
undergraduate  whose  part  he  is  play- 
ing. For  now  is  the  people's  holiday  : 
Jack  is  as  good  as  his  master ;  and 
from  shy  shelves  and  cupboards  sud- 
denly appears  the  summer  finery  of 
wives  and  daughters,  while  the  citizen 
himself,  who  has  gravely  pursued  his 
duties  through  the  term  in  sober 
black  or  grey,  bursts  forth  in  all  the 
easy  glory  of  some  boating  or  cricket- 
ing costume  as  gay  as  any  term  could 
show.  Go  into  some  college  chapel 
where  there  is  a  choral  service  on  a 
Sunday  afternoon  in  July,  and  you 
shall  see  the  strangest  transformation 
from  the  days  of  term.  Along  the 
benches,  where  a  month  ago  you  saw 
the  boyish  faces  of  undergraduates, 
now  throng  happy  families  of  towns- 
folk beaming  in  the  bravery  of  silks 
and  muslins,  and  enjoying  vastly 
the  music  of  the  service  and  the 
anthem,  and  joining  with  a  simple 
vigour  in  some  familiar  hymn.  It  is 
a  pleasant  sight,  and  the  democratic 
rearrangement  of  the  congregation 
gives  it  a  piquant  interest  of  its  own. 
The  Warden  and  Fellows  are  allowed 
to  sit  in  their  accustomed  places ;  but 
for  the  rest,  the  college  servant  in 
charge  dispenses  his  favours  with  a 
fine  disregard  of  social  precedence. 
You  may  see  his  friend,  the  good  lady 
from  behind  a  counter  in  the  High 
Street,  throned,  half-proud,  half-bash- 
ful, in  the  stalls,  while  the  wife  of  a 
professor  or  a  principal  quietly  takes 
a  lower  place.  There  are  few  more 
simple  or  sincere  hours  of  worship 
than  those  of  Long  Vacation  Sundays, 
when  the  college  chapel  becomes  for 
a  moment  the  people's  church. 

Nor  is  the  freedom  of  the  citizen 
limited  to  one  day  in  seven.  On 
many  a  weekday  evening,  far  up  the 
reaches  of  the  Cherwell,  where  the 
white  water-lilies  are  afloat  in  full 
bloom,  and  loose-strife  and  meadow- 


sweet and  the  pink  willow-herb  line 
the  banks,  you  may  see  the  young 
clerk  or  college  scout  rowing  his 
sweetheart  in  a  dinghey  or  paddling 
with  her  in  a  trim  Canadian  canoe. 
Or  beside  some  favourite  pool  on 
the  upper  river  you  may  see  a 
proctor's  servant,  who  a  few  weeks 
ago  was  busy  as  a  bull-dog  (name 
abhorred  !),  casting  his  line  for  a  far 
other  prey,  and  disporting  himself  at 
his  ease  as  though  the  noisy  under- 
graduate would  never  return  again. 

And  the  townsman  is  not  the  only 
person  who  rejoices  in  the  end  of  term. 
The  studious  tutor  who  has  spent 
eight  weeks  of  hard  work  amid  the 
playful  throng  of  "  young  barbarians  " 
who  live  in  blissful  ignorance  that 
colleges  subsist  for  the  benefit  of 
others  than  themselves,  rejoices  in  the 
leisure  that  the  Vacation  gives  him  to 
pursue  his  special  studies  in  Bodley  or 
among  his  own  books  at  home.  Too 
many  indeed  have  escaped  the  service 
of  the  undergraduate  only  to  pass  into 
another  slavery,  for  now  is  the  season 
of  examinations.  Yet  even  such  as 
these  have  'their  compensations,  and, 
when  the  day's  task  is  done  and  the 
proper  tale  of  papers  marked  and  laid 
aside,  they  have  the  college  garden  for 
their  own.  There  they  may  watch 
the  unfolding  of  the  flowers  in  some 
old-fashioned  border  beneath  the  city 
wall,  and  trace  the  season's  changes 
from  the  first  blossoming  of  the  limes 
to  the  happy  morning  in  late  July 
or  early  August  when  from  among 
the  vivid  green  leaves  of  the  quaint 
catalpa  tree  the  white  spikes  of  blos- 
som, flecked  with  gold  and  purple, 
surprise  the  drowsy  garden,  where  all 
else  has  subsided  into  the  dark  green 
shade  of  the  falling  year.  And  here, 
in  his  own  garden,  where  thrush  and 
blackbird  and  wagtail  have  grown 
friendly  and  familiar,  or  far  away 
among  the  water-ways  where  the  shy 
kingfisher  now  makes  bold  to  show 

T  2 


276 


The  Long  Vacation. 


himself,  he  may  at  last  possess  his 
soul  in  quietness  and  taste  something 
of  the  academic  calm  of  an  earlier 
age. 

How  wide  a  range  of  interest  he 
has  at  hand  within  the  city  itself 
only  those  who  have  taken  to  explor- 
ing it  will  realise  ;  what  strange  alleys 
and  byways,  known  to  few  save  proc- 
tors and  their  men,  yet  often  carrying 
one  back  to  the  days  of  Oxford  Parlia- 
ments and  the  settlements  of  the 
Black  Friars  and  the  Grey;  how  many 
forgotten  or  buried  remnants  of  the 
earlier  age  !  How  many  even  of  Oxford 
residents  have  penetrated  to  the  old 
Norman  chapel  within  the  walls  of  the 
gaol,  and  climbed  the  historic  tower  of 
the  castle,  the  last  survivor  of  the 
towers  that  guarded  the  city  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  thought  of  the 
Empress  Maud  and  her  flight  over 
the  snow-covered  meadows  1  It  was 
a  summer  afternoon  when  we  made 
the  ascent ;  the  ragwort  and  other 
flowers  that  haunt  our  Oxford  walls 
were  in  bloom  on  the  tower-roof, 
whence  we  looked  out  over  the  spread- 
ing valley  with  its  winding  streams, 
away  to  Ferry  Hinksey  with  its  ancient 
church  and  cross,  and  Arnold's  field 
beyond  it,  named  after  Thomas  Arnold, 
for  his  memory  as  well  as  that  of  the 
writer  of  THYKSIS  is  linked  with  the 
pleasant  land  about  us.  Fewer  still 
perhaps  have  found  their  way  into 
the  mill-house,  a  bow- shot  westward 
beyond  the  castle,  where,  in  a  pointed 
roof  and  a  few  immemorial  sculptured 
stones,  are  to  be  seen  the  last  relics  of 
Oseney  Abbey,  once  the  noblest  build- 
ing about  Oxford  and  among  the 
most  splendid  of  religious  houses. 
How  gladly  would  one  trace  the 
history  of  its  scattered  stones  among 
the  buildings  of  a  later  day ;  even  as 
now  one  may  see  in  Witham  church 
the  transported  walls  of  the  vanished 
Cumnor  Hall,  or  in  a  certain  massive 
house  upon  the  Seven-bridges  road 


the  dismembered  stones  of  the  old 
front  quadrangle  of  Balliol,  which 
charmed  our  fathers'  eyes  and  still 
charms  ours  in  the  old  prints,  though 
for  thirty  years  Broad  Street  has 
known  it  no  more.  How  many  de- 
lightful places  are  within  the  compass 
of  a  summer  day's  journey  !  There 
is  Dorchester,  for  example,  with  its 
memories  of  the  ancient  see,  before 
Lincoln  was,  with  its  beautiful  church 
where  many  glories  survive  to  recall  its 
departed  greatness,  and  monuments  of 
many  generations  tell  their  tale;  among 
them  the  quaint  record  from  the  end  of 
the  last  century  of  the  young  married 
lady  "  who  sank  and  died  a  martyr 
to  excessive  sensibility."  A  fine  con- 
fused historic  sense  pervades  these 
regions,  as  is  natural  enough  where  so 
many  ages  meet.  It  is  not  long  since 
that  at  Ewelme,  not  much  further 
afield,  the  driver,  who  pointed  out  to 
us  the  fine  old  hospital  and  the  church 
with  Thomas  Chaucer's  tomb,  added, 
"  They  do  say  that  at  t>,e  time  of  the 
Roman  invasion  it  was  used  as  a 
stable."  So  completely  are  the  ages 
blent  together  that  on  another  day,  as 
we  drove  in  past  the  quaint  market- 
hall  of  Watlington  and  he  discoursed 
of  the  wonders  of  the  Roman  road 
and  the  earthworks  on  the  Chilterns, 
he  ended  with  the  information  that  it 
was  "  made  by  the  Romans,  time  of 
'Ampden,  you  know,  sir."  Even  so 
will  the  natives  of  Saint  Jean  de  Luz 
assure  the  traveller  that  their  grand- 
fathers saw  Roland  and  his  peers 
fighting  by  their  side  in  the  Peninsular 
War. 

An  easy  walk  westward  takes 
one  to  Cumnor,  where  Giles  Gosling's 
inn  has  outlived  the  Hall ;  and  only  a 
little  further  on  is  Stanton,  with  its 
memories  of  the  Harcourts  and  of 
Pope,  and  Besselsleigh,  where  the  last 
of  the  Lenthalls  keeps  alive  the  name 
of  the  famous  Speaker.  Or,  if  you 
choose  the  river  rather  than  the  road, 


The  Long  Vacation. 


277 


there  is  the  winding  voyage  past  Bab- 
lockhythe,  amid  white-starred  ranun- 
culus and  waving  flags  and  brilliant 
masses  of  golden-rod,  till  you  come,  if 
the  day  be  long  enough  and  the  river 
weeds  not  impassable,  to  the  gabled 
manor-house  of  Kelmscott,  and  so  on 
to  Lechlade,  whence,  leaving  the  river, 
you  may  look  in  on  Fairford  and  the 
painted  windows  of  its  little  church, 
that  came  there  by  so  strange  a 
chapter  of  accidents.  Further  north 
is  Burford,  on  the  Windrush  (a  tiny 
midland  river)  with  its  priory,  where 
the  Lenthalls  lived,  and  its  manor 
that  was  held  by  the  great  King- 
Maker  and  the  gentle  Falkland  before 
it  came  to  them.  And  there  are  a 
score  of  quiet  places  besides  to  last 
out  many  a  summer's  day,  when  there 
are  no  lectures  to  give  or  hear,  and 
when  dreary  delegacies  meet  no  more. 
So  the  home-keeping  Fellow,  whom  his 
restless  colleagues  pity  as  they  hurry 
away  to  towns  or  mountains  beyond 
the  seas,  may  be  well  content  to  spend 
his  summer  on  this  country-side. 

But  what  of  the  visitors  1  They  are, 
like  other  birds  of  passage,  merely 
episodes  in  the  long  summer  calm  of 
the  Vacation.  There  are  the  sudden 
inroads  of  missions  from  the  East  End 
of  London  or  country  choirs,  like  troops 
of  noisy  starlings  awakening  a  drowsy 
land.  There  is  the  more  constant 
stream  of  American  visitors,  saunter- 
ing round  the  college  with  a  defiant 
air  of  duty  or  an  ill-concealed  indiffer- 
ence ;  you  know  them  from  a  certain 
severity  of  costume  and  a  tendency  to 
wear  blue  veils.  There  are  the  rarer 
parties  of  French  or  German  or  Italian 
travellers,  wandering  with  unceasing 
amazement  in  search  of  a  University 
which  escapes  them  in  the  throng  of 
colleges.  But  these  are  not  the 
visitors  who  come  nearest  to  the 
heart  of  the  place,  though  Oxford  has 
an  unruffled  welcome  for  them  all,  and 
gives  to  each  as  he  deserves.  We 


like  to  think  rather  of  the  foreign 
students,  American,  French,  German, 
Russian,  who  choose  this  quiet  season 
to  make  acquaintance  with  our  scholars 
and  our  manuscripts ;  whereby  the 
best  of  them  make  friends  among  us, 
and  good  feeling  and  sound  learning 
are  advanced.  And,  besides,  there 
are  a  few  choice  spirits,  quiet  lovers 
of  Oxford,  men  and  women,  who  pitch 
their  tent  among  us  for  a  month,  not 
to  collate  a  manuscript  or  to  consult  a 
library,  but  to  live  their  quiet  life, 
coming  here  because  they  love  our 
city  and  find  that  here,  if  anywhere, 
they  can  pursue  with  pleasure  the 
work  of  their  choice  or  their  profession. 
Such  an  one  may  be  seen  setting  up  an 
easel  in  favourite  places,  some  loved 
corner  of  the  Physic  Garden  or  a 
quiet  coign  of  vantage  in  college 
cloister  or  quadrangle;  another  writing 
day  by  day  the  chapters  of  a  new 
novel ;  a  third  editing  the  weary 
piles  of  other  writers'  work  with  an 
impartial  dignity  attuned  by  the 
quiet  atmosphere  of  some  academic 
street,  and  enlivened  from  time  to 
time  by  converse  with  the  select 
society  of  Common-room.  For  only 
in  the  Long  Vacation  can  resident  or 
visitor  taste  the  full  flavour  of  the  old 
leisurely  college  life,  when  the  nightly 
stillness  is  not  broken  by  the  shout  of 
the  playful  undergraduate,  and  the 
evening's  freedom  is  no  longer  tram- 
melled by  the  stated  hours  of  tutorial 
duty. 

This  season  beyond  all  others  is  a 
time  of  meeting  for  Oxford  men  whose 
lives  are  spent  in  a  hundred  different 
pursuits,  scattered  in  many  lands. 
They  leave  a  pleasant  memory,  these 
summer  evenings,  when  we  have  sat 
talking  over  our  tobacco  in  some  cool 
and  fragrant  garden,  watching  the  last 
light  fade  from  the  college  windows, 
long  after  the  last  stroke  of  Tom  has 
died  away  on  the  still  air.  Then  the 
porter  has  made  all  fast  in  quadrangle 


278 


The  Long  Vacation. 


and  garden  and  retired  to  his  drowsy 
lodge,  and  the  evening's  quiet  is  ours, 
to  muse  and  talk  of  a  thousand  things  ; 
it  may  be  of  the  scholarship  and  the 
games  of  thirty  years  ago,  or  of  the 
potsherds  and  papyri  which  one  of  us 
has  just  gained  by  traffic  or  his 
own  hard  digging,  in  Cilicia  or  the 
Fayoum  or  the  Isles ;  or  perhaps 
the  talk  chances  on  Italy,  and  one 
and  another  tells  of  his  adventures  in 
old  Roman  towns  that  lie  off  the 
beaten  track,  Yolterra  or  Gubbio,  or 
Lucera,  and  we  discuss  our  plans  for 
coming  travel,  till  our  mentor  calls 
us  home  to  our  own  country  with  its 
regions  of  high  romance.  Then  some 
one,  fresh  from  India  or  Egypt, 
has  wondrous  stories  to  tell  of  the 
mysterious  East ;  and  so  we  pass  by 
way  of  Asia  and  Omar  Khayyam  into 
the  world  of  letters,  and  are  launched 
upon  a  boundless  sea,  where  we 
voyage  at  large,  until  of  a  sudden  we 
discover  that  the  hour  has  come  when 
college  porters  must  be  abed,  and  we 
sadly  say  farewell,  sadly  but  all  the 
richer  for  this  mingled  talk.  Yet 
these  memories  have  their  melancholy 
side.  One  delightful  evening  comes 
back  to  our  mind  when  we  sat,  for 


the  night  was  dark  and  cool,  in  a  high, 
wide-windowed  room  in  an  ancient 
college,  talking  of  men  and  things,  till 
our  pleasant  company  broke  up 
towards  midnight  with  laughing  fare- 
well words  about  Johnson  and  Lamb 
and  their  visits  to  their  young  college 
friends.  But  that  merry  company 
has  never  met  again,  for  a  few  weeks 
later  the  choicest  spirit  among  us  had 
died  battling  with  a  mountain  storm 
on  the  high  Alps. 

So  time  makes  sad  gaps  among  us, 
but  college  life  still  goes  on,  and 
these  gatherings  of  old  friends  and 
new  in  the  Long  Vacation  help  to 
make  the  college  still  a  living  bond 
of  fellowship.  There  are  some  of 
our  number  who  have  no  old  ties 
with  Oxford ;  she  bids  them  welcome 
as  her  true  lovers,  who  would  have 
been  her  sons  had  their  luck  been 
different.  But  her  warmest  greeting 
is  given  to  those  who  come  with 
familiar  faces  that  she  has  known 
long  years  ago,  returning  to  their 
nursing-mother  to  renew  their  youth 
amid  the  old  scenes,  and  once  again 
for  a  brief  while  "  to  fleet  the  time 
carelessly  as  they  did  in  the  golden 
world." 


279 


SHALL   WE    RETURN   TO    THE   LAND? 


THIS  was  the  title  of  a  debate  an- 
nounced to  take  place  at  a  certain 
club  in  the  West  End  of  London 
some  few  months  ago.  The  proposer 
was  to  be  a  celebrated  authoress,  and 
the  opposer  an  almost  equally  cele- 
brated barrister.  A  member  of  the 
club  offered  to  take  me  to  hear  the 
debate ;  and  we  held  an  animated 
discussion  as  to  the  probable  signifi- 
cance of  the  title.  She  was  of  opinion 
that  it  referred  to  non-resident  land- 
lords, and  was  intended  to  bring  the 
Upper  Classes  to  a  sense  of  their  duty. 
My  surmise  was  different.  In  my  early 
girlhood  there  had  been  a  great  cry 
about  our  Israelitish  origin.  A  book 
was  published  called  TWENTY-SEVEN 
REASONS  WHY  WE  ARE  THE  TEN  LOST 
TEIBES.  I  remember  hearing  my 
respected  parents  weighing  the  evi- 
dence, and  myself  being  corrected  for 
saying  that  I  did  not  care  whether  I 
were  a  Jew  or  not,  but  of  the  two 
preferred  not  to  be.  This  memory 
suggested  to  me  the  idea  that  we 
were  about  to  have  a  resuscitation  of 
the  old  subject,  with  a  recommenda- 
tion to  adjourn  immediately  to  the 
Land  of  Promise.  However,  we  were 
both  wrong,  as  we  found  when  the 
evening  arrived. 

The  great  authoress  was  introduced 
to  the  audience  by  the  chairman  with 
a  few  appropriate  words,  as  the  re- 
porters say.  I  think  he  mentioned  that 
she  wrote  A  GIRL'S  WALK  THROUGH 
THE  GREAT  PLAIN,  or  something  like 
that.  A  slight  girlish  woman,  with 
a  pleasant  face,  arose.  She  went 
straight  into  her  subject  with  very 
little  preliminary  nourish,  and  gave 
us  many  good  and  substantial  reasons 


why  the  great  Middle  Class,  with  small 
incomes,  should  cast  the  dust  of  the 
town  from  off  its  shoes  for  ever  and  a 
day,  and  settle  down  "  between  the 
purple  earth  and  the  blue  sky," — a 
phrase  which  made  me  think  of  the 
water-colour  drawings  of  my  school- 
time. 

Her  arguments  were  most  con- 
vincing. They  were,  in  brief,  that 
men  who  are  earning  incomes  from 
£600  to  £2,000  per  annum  pay  too 
dear  for  their  money ;  that  their 
personal  gain  is  merely  a  "  stuffy 
brougham  and  an  evening  paper " ; 
that  their  loss  is  every  grace  of  mind 
and  body, — everything,  in  fact,  "  that 
we  fell  in  love  with  them  for."  Their 
children  in  the  meantime  are  being- 
over  -  taught  and  under  -  educated, 
mind  and  body  suffering,  when  in  the 
country  they  could  develope  into  full 
manly  and  '  womanly  beauty.  She 
urged  them,  with  all  the  force  of 
oratory,  to  sacrifice  half  their  incomes 
and  go  and  live  on  the  land.  She  did 
not  definitely  explain  how  they  were 
to  supply  the  other  half ;  but  she  read 
copious  extracts  from  a  charming  book 
about  a  man  who  had  retired  to  the 
country,  grown  peaches,  and  made  a 
fortune, — by  writing  a  book  about 
them.  This  mode  of  earning  a  liveli- 
hood could  hardly  be  within  every 
man's  reach  in  this  uncertain  climate  ; 
but  there  are  the  wives  and  daughters  ! 
She  said  that  women  could  become 
scientific  dairymaids  ;  so  perhaps  they 
would  be  responsible  for  the  other 
half  of  the  income,  while  Papa  and 
Adolphus  regulated  the  household  ex- 
penses and  saw  that  the  furniture  was 
properly  dusted.  But  on  the  whole 


280 


Shall  ^ve  Return  to  the  Land  ? 


she  waxed,  I  think,  most  eloquent 
over  the  beautiful  food.  She  was 
positively  scathing  over  the  potatoes 
on  which  we  poor  deluded  townsfolk 
are  in  the  habit  of  feeding.  They 
bear  no  resemblance  to  the  real  thing, 
she  assured  us ;  "  they  have  been  too 
long  out  of  the  earth."  Then  she 
spoke  of  the  social  attractions  of  the 
country.  In  town  we  have  no  time 
for  our  friends.  Much  as  we  may 
wish  to  see  them,  we  pass  our  days  in 
writing  to  put  them  off.  The  village 
butcher  would  be  more  interesting  to 
her,  she  said,  than  half  the  men  that 
took  her  down  to  dinner,  because  "  he 
did  something."  I  immediately  be- 
came enamoured  of  that  ideal  butcher. 

I  cannot  pretend  to  remember  the 
whole  speech.  It  was  not  only  veiy 
practical,  but  pre-eminently  poetical, — 
a  prose  idyl.  When  she  spoke  of 
"  the  lark  embroidering  the  sky  with 
his  song,"  I  could  see  that  all  the 
highly  educated  listeners  were  much 
impressed  with  the  beauty  of  the 
thought.  Although  I  am  not  poetical 
myself,  and  prefer  ideas  in  good  sound 
prose,  still,  as  I  sat  and  listened,  I 
felt  no  doubt  that  an  embroidered  sky 
was  a  beautiful  thing. 

She  sat  down  amid  loud  cheers,  and 
with  one,  at  least,  of  her  audience 
converted. 

Then  the  great  barrister  arose  in 
his  greatness.  If  there  is  ont  thing 
I  pride  myself  on  it  is  my  strength  of 
mind  ;  therefore  I  stood,  or  sat,  care- 
fully on  my  guard  against  being  led 
by  the  last  speaker  merely  because 
he  was  the  last.  We  have  been  told 
from  our  childhood  that  a  skilful 
lawyer  can  make  black  seem  white ; 
one  could  well  believe  it  when  this 
man  spoke.  Such  a  presence  he  had, 
such  a  voice  !  Those  sonorous  rolling 
tones  were  enough  to  carry  conviction 
to  a  Burmese  idol.  I  cannot  re- 
member all  he  said,  or  how  he  put  it, 
which  is  perhaps  the  more  important 


point.  I  know  he  told  us  that  he 
had  been  born  and  brought  up  in  the 
country,  but  could  not  dream  of  a 
worse  purgatory  than  a  country  life. 
Some  one  afterwards  remarked  that 
he  did  credit  to  it ;  and  I  could  not 
but  think  one  would  put  up  with  a 
little  purgatory  to  see  one's  children 
grow  up  with  such  a  physique.  He 
was  distractingly  facetious  over  "  find- 
ing time  to  write  postcards  to  put  off 
our  friends  "  and  about  "  bringing  up 
our  eggs  and  growing  plums  "  in  the 
country.  He  said  something  which 
evoked  great  applause  about  the 
proposer  being  very  hard  on  the 
evening  paper  because  she  herself 
wrote  for  a  daily  journal  which 
"  misled  the  public,"  and  spoke  with 
pretended  rapture  of  a  certain  evening 
sheet  which  he  enjoyed  going  home 
from  the  Temple  in  a  third-class 
carriage  of  the  underground  railway. 
Also  he  went  into  statistics, — but 
there  I  really  could  not  be  expected 
to  follow  him. 

When  he  sat  down  a  lady  rose  to  tell 
us  how  she  had  ridden  down  on  her 
bicycle  to  some  gardens  lately  thrown 
open  to  the  public.  It  was  all  "  too 
lovely  for  anything " ;  the  gorgeous 
beauty  of  the  rhododendrons,  the 
waxen  hyacinths,  the  laburnums, 
"  raining  down  their  golden  showers," 
appealed  to  the  eye  on  every  side ; 

And  all  rare  blossoms  from  every  clime 
Grew  in  that  garden  iu  perfect  prime, 

while  the  air  was  laden  with  the 
scent  of  lilies  and  lilacs.  Then,  to 
enhance  the  delight,  a  cuckoo  began 
"  his  wandering  note  "  and  "  kept  on 
and  on  and  on."  "  Do  you  hear 
that  1 "  she  exclaimed  to  the  in- 
telligent young  gardener  who  was 
acting  as  her  guide.  The  young  man 
was  not  deaf ;  he  owned  to  having 
heard  it,  but  declared  "  There's  a 
good  deal  too  much  of  it  !  "  Further 
questions  elicited  the  heartrending 


Shall  we  Return  to  the  Land  ? 


281 


confession  that,  after  living  in  that 
exquisite  earthly  paradise  for  seven 
years  he  had  come  to  think  there  was 
"  a  good  deal  too  much  of  everything  "  ; 
and  he  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  there 
was  only  one  place  to  live  in,  and  that 
place  was  London. 

I  have  forgotten  the  other  speakers, 
except  the  chairman,  who  maintained 
that  there  would  soon  be  no  choice, 
and  that  we  should  all  be  obliged  to 
live  in  the  country,  for  money  was 
growing  daily  dearer,  and  living  in 
town  would  soon  be  impossible  for 
anybody  but  an  African  millionaire. 
That  capital  which  now  brings  in 
£1,000  yearly,  he  said,  will  in  ten 
years'  time  be  worth  only  £500.  At 
the  same  time  provisions  rise  in  price. 
He  always  found  that  soles  went  up 
in  a  storm,  and  that  in  calm  weather 
they  did  not  come  down  again,  but 
waited  to  rise  still  higher  in  the  next 
storm.  Provisions  seem  to  me  to 
have  grown  much  cheaper  in  the  last 
few  years ;  but  then  I  have  lived  in 
an  unfashionable  part  since  my  poor 
husband  died,  and  do  not  habitually 
regale  myself  on  soles.  But  altogether 
the  meeting  was  very  convincing.  Any- 
body with  a  grain  of  sense  could  see 
what  an  Elysium  we  were  neglecting 
by  persisting  in  living  among  bricks 
and  mortar  instead  of  green  pastures. 

The  next  day  my  rooms  in  Blooms- 
bury  felt  particularly  hot  and  airless, 
and  I  noticed  how  pale  my  little  boy 
and  girl  were  looking.  My  income 
would  be  the  same  whether  I  lived 
in  country  or  town.  It  is  a  very 
modest  one ;  and  if  in  the  country  I 
got  more  value  for  my  money,  that 
was  an  additional  reason  for  going 
there.  My  mind  was  made  up.  By 
a  diligent  search  of  the  newspapers  I 
found  exactly  what  would  suit  me. 
The  advertisement  ran  as  follows  : 
"  To  let  with  immediate  possession  a 
farm-house  furnished  with  every  con- 
venience. Large  flower  and  kitchen 


gardens  well  stocked  with  vegetables, 
a  chicken-house,  well,  and  pump."  I 
wrote  to  the  agent  and  found  that 
this  little  paradise  was  .within  my 
means,  and  a  few  days  after,  on  a 
fresh  morning  in  early  summer  I  and 
my  two  children  started  to  inspect 
Valley's  End  Farm  in  the  parish  of 
Stoke  in  the  Marshes. 

It  was  three  miles  from  the  station, 
but  the  air  was  so  invigorating  that 
we  decided  to  walk.  The  hedges  were 
covered  with  hawthorn  blossom. 
Screams  of  delight  were  every  moment 
announcing  the  discovery  of  some  new 
treasure  of  the  hedge-row  or  the  bank. 
We  found  the  farm-house  charming. 
Roses  and  jasmine  covered  the  front, 
and  the  lattice  windows  were  almost 
hidden  by  the  young  shoots.  The 
garden  was  certainly  rather  out  of 
order  and  the  fence  broken,  but  that 
could  soon  be  remedied.  A  board 
announced  that  the  key  was  kept  at 
a  neighbouring  cottage,  and  my  little 
boy  was  despatched  to  fetch  it.  The 
peasant,  whom  he  found  leaning  over 
a  pig-stye  smoking  a  short  pipe,  rose 
with  the  slosv  dignity  of  his  class,  and 
accompanied  him  to  show  us  over  the 
premises.  The  front  door  was  bolted, 
so  he  took  us  through  the  straw-yard 
to  a  door  at  the  side.  It  opened  into 
a  large  old-fashioned  kitchen ;  "  the 
House,"  he  called  it.  There  were  dog- 
irons  on  an  open  hearth  with  the  snug- 
gest of  seats  in  the  chimney-corner, 
and  a  brick  floor  so  uneven  and  so 
red  that  it  was  a  study  in  chromatics. 
There  were  almost  as  many  doors  to  the 
room  as  to  John  o 'Groat's  house.  We 
went  up  two  steps  into  the  hall,  and 
then  down  two  steps  into  the  "  setting- 
room."  This  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  chicken-house, — that  was  a  dilapi- 
dated building  in  the  back  garden,— 
it  was  a  kind  of  dining-room  covered 
with  matting  and  furnished  with 
Windsor  chairs  and  a  Pembroke  table. 
We  went  back  into  the  hall  and  tried 


282 


Shall  we  Return  to  the  Land  ? 


to  open  the  front  door  unsuccessfully. 
"  Old  master  never  did  'ave  that 
opened  'cept  for  the  funeral,  when  he 
wur  carried  out  feet  foremost,"  our 
guide  told  us.  The  best  pai'lour  was  a 
musty,  fusty  place  with  horse-hair 
furniture.  We  returned  to  the 
kitchen  and  opened  the  other  doors. 
One  led  up  stairs,  one  to  the  china- 
closet,  another  to  the  dairy,  and  a 
fourth  into  a  large  scullery.  The 
back  garden  contained  a  few  goose- 
berry bushes  and  a  patch  of  spindly- 
looking  plants.  "  Them's  taters,"  said 
the  man  in  answer  to  my  inquiries. 
Potatoes  straight  out  of  the  earth ! 
That  decided  me. 

As  we  left  the  place  we  met  the 
agent.  He  was  profuse  in  apologies 
for  not  having  met  us  at  the  station, 
and  he  drove  us  back.  I  settled 
everything  with  him  during  that  drive. 
He  undertook  to  send  in  some  servants, 
to  have  the  front  door  opened  and  the 
fence  mended ;  and  I,  on  my  part, 
covenanted  to  sign  an  agreement  for 

o  o 

six  months  so  soon  as  it  should  be 
ready. 

When  we  reached  home  my  land- 
lady met  me  at  the  door  and  begged 
me  not  to  bring  the  hawthorn  indoors, 
it  was  so  unlucky.  All  day  I  had 
dreaded  having  to  tell  her  of  my 
determination  to  return  to  the  land, 
so  I  decided  to  get  done  with  it  at 
once.  It  was  a  bad  quarter  of  an 
hour,  but  I  was  upheld  by  the  sym- 
pathy of  my  children  and  a  sense  of 
duty.  She  treated  my  announcement 
with  supercilious  pity,  for  I  had  lived 
with  her  since  I  returned  from  India, 
a  widow,  five  years  ago. 

A  week  later,  after  leaving  minute 
orders  for  the  packing  and  forwarding 
of  my  household  goods,  two  cabs 
carried  us  with  our  necessary  luggage, 
a  hamper  of  provisions,  and  my  canary 
to  Liverpool  Street  station  and  to 
Valley's  End  Farm  ! 

We  were  all  desperately  excited  at 


this  new  departure.  I  meant  to 
spend  my  life  teaching  the  children. 
They  should  put  away  dead  languages 
and  study  living  nature. 

When  we  got  out  of  the  train,  not 
finding  the  fly  I  had  ordered  waiting, 
I  went  to  the  station  inn  to  make 
inquiries.  The  landlady  told  me  that 
a  wedding  party  had  "  took  "  it  for 
the  day ;  yes,  she  had  received  my 
letter,  but  gentlefolks  from  London 
often  altered  their  minds  ;  she  was  a 
poor  woman,  etc.,  (fee.  Mr.  Hodge, 
the  butcher,  was  in  town ;  she  had 
seen  him  pass  ;  he  would  give  us  a 
lift  in  his  spring- cart  if  we  liked  to 
wait,  and  our  boxes  could  go  by 
carrier. 

Remembering  our  pleasant  walk 
on  the  former  occasion,  we  declined 
the  spring-cart.  We  were  a  long 
time  reaching  our  journey's  end,  for 
the  day  was  hot  and  there  were  many 
things  to  carry,  but  at  length  it  came 
in  sight.  The  servants  were  waiting 
at  the  door  ;  Susan,  a  pleasant-looking 
young  woman,  wearing  a  smart  hat, 
and  Susan's  mother,  a  distorted  cari- 
cature of  her  daughter.  Her  head 
was  adorned  with  a  limp  black  bonnet, 
which  had  collapsed  on  one  side  and 
fell  with  a  melancholy  droop  over  one 
ear.  I  never  saw  her  without  that 
bonnet.  She  was  loquacious  on  all 
she  had  done  for  our  comfort,  and 
finished  each  sentence  with  an  impres- 
sive sniff,  as  a  kind  of  full  stop. 

They  had  lighted  a  fire  in  the  big 
kitchen.  The  light  flickered  on  the 
face  of  the  cuckoo-clock  and  cast  a 
ruddy  tint  over  the  brick  floor  that 
made  one  think  of  an  old  Dutch 
picture.  I  ordered  tea  to  be  put  in 
the  garden  and  asked  if  the  carrier 
had  come  with  the  luggage.  "The 
carrier  !  "  they  both  exclaimed.  "  Why, 
this  ain't  his  day  ;  he  only  comes  of  a 
Saturday."  And  this  was  Tuesday  ! 

However,  we  were  disposed  to  make 
the  best  of  things,  so  Susan  was  dis- 


Shall  we  Return  to  the  Land  ? 


283 


patched  to  the  village  shop  and  soon 
returned  with  some  tea  and  butter, 
or  with  what  did  duty  for  those 
delicacies  at  Valley's  End.  Cream  and 
milk  were  unattainable  ;  they  kept  no 
cows  down  at  Valley's  End,  and  up 
at  Sloman's  they  sent  all  the  milk  to 
London. 

After  tea  the  older  woman  departed 
to  find  some  one  to  bring  up  our 
luggage,  and  we  started  out  with  a 
delightful  feeling  of  expectancy  to 
explore  our  estate.  The  children  soon 
tired  of  the  gardens.  The  other  side 
of  the  fence  was  a  small  meadow  with 
a  single  tree  in  the  centre.  We 
climbed  the  fence  to  examine  it ;  the 
lessons  in  nature  should  begin  at  once. 
It  was  either  an  elm  or  a  beech  ;  but 
my  books  had  not  arrived,  and  I  could 
not  decide  the  point  without  them. 
The  children  found  a  long  low  branch 
which  made  an  excellent  swing.  It 
gladdened  my  heart  to  hear  their 
happy  voices  as  I  stood  watching 
them  ;  but  all  around  me  it  was  grow- 
ing very  quiet,  and  a  feeling  of  in- 
cipient dulness  was  creeping  over  me, 
so  I  looked  round  for  something  to  do. 
I  caught  sight  of  the  potatoes,  and 
after  diligent  search  discovering  a 
spade,  set  to  work  on  them.  I  dug  a 
whole  row  and  blistered  my  hands 
before  I  met  with  any  reward  for  my 
exertions.  Then  a  tiny  bulb  turned 
up ;  it  was  no  bigger  than  a  nut,  but 
how  much  it  taught  !  There  it  was 
revealed  to  us,  no  root  at  all,  but  a 
tuber  growing  on  an  underground 
stem.  I  called  the  children  to  see. 
It  was  rather  disappointing  that  they 
only  glanced  cursorily  at  it,  and  ran 
back  to  their  swing ;  but  I  felt  myself 
developing,  and  was  able  to  suppress 
a  secret  misgiving  that  had  begun  to 
creep  into  my  mind. 

I  was  still  examining  it  with  satis- 
faction when  I  was  startled  by  a  loud 
shout :  "  Hi,  get  off  that  'ere  tree  ! 
What  are  ye  doing  on  1  I'll  give  ye 


a  hiding  if  I  catch  ye."  There  fol- 
lowed a  scamper  across  the  grass,  and 
my  children  tumbled  over  the  fence 
closely  pursued  by  the  irate  farmer. 
He  stopped  in  his  complaint  of  their 
trespass  to  contemplate  my  work. 
After  long  and  deep  consideration  a 
scornful  smile  passed  over  his  broad 
face,  as  he  gave  utterance  to  these 
painful  words:  "Why  them  taters 
beant  agoing  to  be  ready  for  a  month  ! 
Wotever  are  ye  digging  of  'em  up 
now  for  1 " 

After  that  we  retired  to  the  house. 
I  sent  the  children  to  the  kitchen  to 
ask  for  lights,  as  there  were  no  bells 
in  the  place.  Susan  was  not  to  be 
found.  We  explored  the  premises  in 
a  body,  and  eventually  came  upon 
her  gossiping  at  the  front  gate  with  her 
young  man.  When  she  did  come  in  she 
grumbled  audibly  about  people  who 
were  so  "  shiftless  "  that  they  could 
not  even  light  a  candle. 

I  pass  over  the  domestic  discomforts 
of  the  next  few  days,  which  no  doubt 
partly  arose  from  my  defective  house- 
keeping. I  will  not  dwell  on  my 
parasol  and  book  (from  a  circulating 
library)  being  eaten  by  cows  which 
had  entered  the  front  garden  unin- 
vited ;  nor  on  my  little  girl  nearly 
falling  down  the  well  and  my  boy 
being  chased  by  a  bull.  Nor  will  I 
complain  of  the  heavy  compensation 
I  had  to  pay  for  the  broken  branch 
of  the  beech-tree  (it  was  a  beech), 
nor  of  the  pitying  contempt  of  the 
rustics  for  "  them  furriners,"  whom 
they  looked  upon  as  lawful  prey  for 
any  little  peculations  that  entered 
into  their  simple  minds.  It  was  the 
promised  delights  of  the  country,  the 
things  we  had  come  for,  that  were  so 
disappointing. 

Where  was  the  "  beautiful  food  "  ? 
The  potatoes  were  black,  and  I 
was  told  that  it  was  ridiculous  to 
expect  anything  else  at  that  time  of 
year.  I  was  told  also  that  it  was  too 


Shall  we  Return  to  the  Land  ? 


early  for  fruit  or  "  green-meat,"  and 
that  was  self-evident.  The  butcher 
called  once  a  week.  You  ordered 
what  you  liked  two  days  before,  and 
he  brought  you  what  he  chose  with 
a  sublime  indifference  to  your  order. 
The  bread  and  butter  came  from  the 
general  shop  and  tasted  of  candles. 
If  we  took  a  walk  in  any  bye-path 
or  meadow,  in  fact,  anywhere  beyond 
the  king's  highway,  the  children,  who 
usually  ran  on  in  front,  would  come 
flying  back  with,  "We  mustn't  go 
there,  mother,  or  we  shall  be  perse- 
cuted." In  every  wood  we  were 
threatened  with  spring-guns  and  man- 
traps. 

Once  we  took  a  drive.  Under  the 
quaint  little  board  in  the  general 
shop  which  announced  that  Higgins 
was  licensed  to  sell  tea  and  tobacco, 
there  was  written  a  notice  to  the 
effect  that  Higgins  was  also  prepared 
to  let  you  a  pony  and  chaise  for  the 
day.  I  sent  Susan  down  to  engage  them, 
and  to  tell  the  man  I  would  drive 
myself.  We  had  a  mind  to  go  to 
some  hills  visible  from  our  windows, 
whose  changing  beauty  under  the 
shadows  of  the  clouds  was  a  per- 
petual delight.  A  luncheon-basket 
was  packed  and  we  started  in  good 
spirits.  The  road  was  very  dusty, 
which  perhaps  was  the  reason  why 
the  pony  (besides  shying  on  every 
conceivable  and  inconceivable  pretext) 
insisted  on  stopping  at  every  public- 
house.  On  one  of  these  occasions, 
when  the  landlord  came  to  the 
door  to  greet  a  possible  customer,  I 
asked  him  how  far  off  the  hills  were, 
and  was  told  they  might  be  about  six 
miles  as  the  crow  flies,  but  were 
twelve  round  by  the  road.  As  we 
had  already  gone  full  three  miles,  we 
turned  back.  About  a  mile  from 
home,  as  I  was  trying  to  get  by 
the  Wheat  Sheaf  without  a  halt,  a 
man  who  was  sitting  on  the  horse- 
trough  came  forward.  It  was  Hie;- 


gins.  "  You  needn't  wallop  the  poor 
brute  like  that,  marm,"  he  said  re- 
proachfully. "  They  do  say  as  ladies 
is  allays  hard  upon  the  beasts.  I 
should  think  the  little  chap's  about 
jacked  up  a-carrying  all  that  lot." 
To  me  the  little  chap  appeared  quite 
fresh,  but  my  children  jumped  out 
full  of  contrition,  and  declaring  that 
they  would  much  rather  walk  home  ; 
so  leaving  the  pony  in  charge  of  his 
tender-hearted  master,  we  finished 
our  journey  on  foot.  Happening  to 
be  in  the  post-office  an  hour  later, 
I  saw  Higgins  drive  past.  He  had 
four  other  men  with  him,  and  I  was 
surprised  to  see  what  a  pace  the 
little  chap  could  be  persuaded  to  go 
under  proper  management. 

The  summer  being  so  unusually 
warm  and  dry,  the  dust  and  heat  be- 
came intolerable  and  the  pump  dried 
up.  How  we  wished  for  rain  !  It  came, 
and  how  we  wished  it  would  go  !  For 
four  days  it  poured  without  ceasing. 
The  childi'en  missed  their  usual  occu- 
pations, and  wished  themselves  at 
school.  On  the  fifth  day  there  was  a 
temporary  lull.  We  rushed  out  of 
doors  ;  the  garden  was  a  lake,  the 
road  a  river.  Two  farmers,  sitting  in 
their  high  chaises,  were  talking  at  the 
gate.  "  Nice  little  rain,"  said  one. 
"  This  is  only  a  bucketful,  but  there's 
more  to  come,"  said  the  other,  survey- 
ing the  heavens  critically.  I  retired 
indoors  with  dismal  forebodings.  The 
children  were  splashing  about  in  the 
straw-yard,  seeing  the  pigs  fed.  An 
hour  later  they  came  in  wet  to  the  skin 
and  in  a  terrible  condition.  I  sent 
them  up  stairs  to  change  their  clothes, 
and  sat  down  to  cry. 

Mrs.  Smith  came  in  with  tea.  She 
cast  sympathetic  glances  at  me,  think- 
ing the  children  had  gone  to  bed  ill. 
When  she  had  done  her  work  she  did 
not  retire,  but  stood  in  the  doorway 
and  began  her  commiseration. 

"  This  'ave  been  an  unlucky  'ouse," 


Shall  we  Ibeturn  to  the  Land  ? 


285 


she  said,  shaking  her  head  till  a  bow 
on  the  melancholy  bonnet  gave  an 
assenting  nod.  "  Last  year,  just  this 
very  day  come  Wednesday,  old  master 
wur  took  bad.  I  mind  me  'cas  I  wur 
a  washing  my  son's  clothes  as  wur 
going  foreign.  He  wur  a  sitting  on 
that  'ere  settle"  ;  she  jerked  her  thumb 
over  her  shoulder  in  the  direction  of 
the  kitchen.  "  He  calls  out  to  me 
'  Liza '  !  I  says,  '  Just  you  wait  while 
I  put  these  things  in  rinse ' ;  and  he 
says,  '  I  can't  wait,  I'm  took  that 
awful  bad  with  pains  in  my  inside,' 
and— 

"  What  was  the  matter  with 
him  t " 

"  Well,  I  wur  a  coming  to  that. 
When  the  doctor  come,  he  says, 
'  He've  got  double  ammonia.'  He 
ordered " 

To  stop  all  gruesome  details,  I  asked, 
"  Did  any  one  else  die  here  1  " 

"  Anybody  else  1  Well,  yas  !  "  She 
held  up  her  hand  and  counted  them 
off  on  her  fingers.  "  There  wur  old 
master,  he  wur  the  first ;  then  Mrs. 
Grant's  two  twins,  what  died  of 
whooping  cough.  Mrs.  Grant,  she 
wur  teacher  at  the  school ;  not  Miss 
Greenum,  what  we've  got  now  ;  she 
rides  on  one  of  them  new-fangle 
things ;  I  see  her  agoing  by  this  arter- 
noon.  She's  a  twister,  she  is.  I  allays 
did  say  she's  got  too  much  logic  and 
gammon  for  me." 

"  Then  Mrs.  Grant  was  the  teacher 
before  ? " 

"Na-a,  not  just  afore;  that  wur 
Miss  Spankum ;  and  afore  her  was 
Miss  Grindal." 

"  So  Mrs.  Grant  left  because  her 
children  died?" 

"  Yas,  and  then  old  master's  nephy 
he  come." 

"  Did  he  die  1 "  I  gasped. 


Mrs.  Smith  was  standing  half  in 
the  room  with  her  back  against  the 
door-post.  She  could  command  a  view 
of  the  garden  path  from  the  open  front 
door.  Instead  of  answering  my  ques- 
tion, she  said  in  what  sounded  an 
awe-stricken  tone,  "  Lor  !  if  here  ain't 
the  Spectre  coming." 

My  little  girl,  who  had  crept  into 
the  room  during  the  conversation, 
jumped  up  with  a  shriek.  "  What !  " 
I  shouted.  Mrs.  Smith  looked  back 
with  a  re-assuring  nod  :  "  Oh,  it's  only 
the  School-Board." 

I  experienced  a  vague  wonder 
whether  all  the  members  of  that 
august  body  had  hanged  themselves 
out  of  remorse,  and  if  so,  why  they 
had  come  back  to  trouble  these  simple 
folk.  I  was  re- assured  by  hearing  a 
gruff  voice  with  a  very  provincial 
burr.  It  was  the  Board-School  visitor, 
come  to  demand  that  my  children 
should  be  sent  to  school.  I  explained 
that  I  taught  them  myself.  He  told 
me,  with  a  persuasive  grin,  that  the 
Board  "  wouldn't  'ave  none  of  them 
tricks."  I  grew  angry  and  ordered 
him  away.  He  threatened  me  with  a 
summons  before  the  Board. 

That  was  the  last  straw.  I  tele- 
graphed at  once  to  my  landlady  to 
know  if  she  would  take  me  back.  She 
consented  to  do  so  at  a  considerably 
advanced  rent.  The  next  afternoon 
saw  us  back  amid  the  cheerful  hum  of 
the  town,  after  an  absence  of  ten  days 
which  seemed  ten  years. 

Henceforth  Regent's  Park  will  be 
country  enough  for  me.  As  I  sit 
beneath  its  trees  listening  to  the  dis- 
tant sound  of  multitudes  astir,  I  agree 
with  the  intelligent  young  gardener 
that,  for  poor  people  at  least,  there  is 
only  one  place  to  live  in,  and  that 
place  is  London. 


286 


AN    EXECUTION    IN    INDIA. 


A  FEW  years  ago  executions  in 
India  were,  and,  I  believe,  still  are, 
public.  Hearing,  therefore,  that  a 
native  was  to  be  executed  on  a  cer- 
tain morning  outside  a  certain  prison 
in  Bengal,  I  rose  early,  mounted  my 
horse,  and  rode  off  to  the  scene  of  the 
execution,  which  was  some  way  from 
the  town  on  the  grassy  plain  just 
outside  the  prison. 

On  my  arrival  I  found  the  work- 
men completing  the  gallows,  which 
they  had  erected  under  the  high  stone 
wall  beside  the  gate.  It  was  a  scaf- 
fold, or  platform  of  planks,  nine  feet 
from  the  ground,  supported  on  four 
posts,  one  under  each  corner.  The 
two  posts  behind  arose  to  a  height  of 
several  feet  above  the  platform,  and 
were  joined  across  by  a  long  hori- 
zontal beam,  garnished  at  intervals 
with  several  thick  iron  hooks.  The 
two  front  posts  were  not  fixtures, 
but  merely  supports  standing  on  the 
ground.  A  push,  therefore,  would 
overthrow  them ;  and  that  would 
cause  the  platform  (Avhich  worked  on 
hinges  at  the  back,  like  a  trap-door,) 
to  swing  down  and  hang  vertically 
between  the  back  posts. 

A  ladder  gave  access  to  the  plat- 
form from  behind ;  and  upon  this, 
when  the  workmen  had  finished  and 
gone,  the  bareheaded  hangman  now 
mounted,  and  mechanically  commenced 
his  own  preparations.  He  was  a  tall, 
elderly,  lean  native,  clad  only  in  a 
soiled  white  cotton  tunic,  leaving  the 
lower  limbs  bare.  His  face  was  shaved 
clean,  and  his  head  nearly  bald,  save 
for  a  few  frizzled  colourless  hairs,  like 
threads  of  glass,  on  the  top.  I  watched 
him  as  he  stood  under  the  beam,  being 
curious  to  ascertain  what  look  his  face 


might  wear  on  such  an  occasion  •  as, 
for  example,  whether  there  might  be 
in  it  a  look  of  interest  in  his  task,  or 
of  dislike  to  it,  or  of  nervousness  at 
the  scrutiny  of  so  many  eyes,  for  by 
this  time  a  small  crowd  had  collected 
under  the  gallows.  But,  as  I  watched 
it,  I  became  gradually  aware,  with  a 
feeling  that  deepened  into  awe,  that 
his  countenance  differed  in  an  un- 
earthly and  horrible  way  from  that  of 
any  other  human  being.  It  was  abso- 
lutely without  expression ;  his  eyes 
were  as  the  eyes  of  one  who  seeing 
sees  not.  My  feelings  were  evidently 
shared  by  the  rest  of  the  crowd ;  for 
whenever  the  hangman's  face  hap- 
pened to  turn  towards  them,  as  he 
mechanically  went  about  his  task,  they 
seemed  plainly  disconcerted  by  it. 

He  now  put  his  hand  into  the 
breast  of  his  tunic,  and  drew  out  an 
ill-looking  piece  of  cord,  a  few  feet 
long  and  about  as  thick  as  a  man's 
finger ;  and  at  one  end  of  this  cord 
he  began  to  tie  a  noose.  When  he 
had  fashioned  the  noose,  he  reached 
up  to  the  hook  in  the  beam  above 
him,  and  tied  the  other  end  of  the 
cord  to  it.  Then  he  waited. 

A  guard  of  native  foot-police,  armed 
with  rifles,  whose  sombre  uniforms 
and  turbans  harmonised  well  with  the 
gloomy  scene  around,  now  marched 
up  to  the  gallows  under  their  of- 
ficer. They  stationed  a  sentry  be- 
side each  of  the  two  front  posts,  and 
then  withdrew  to  their  own  position 
by  the  prison-gate,  which  they  now 
flanked,  and,  facing  inwards  in  two 
lines  by  the  path,  ordered  arms  and 
waited. 

Each  sentinel  now  made  fast  a 
rope  to  the  foot  of  the  post  by  which 


An  Execution  in  India, 


287 


he  stood  ;  and  standing  thus,  with  the 
free  ends  of  the  ropes  in  their  hands, 
they  also  waited. 

The  crowd,  which  had  been  gradu- 
ally collecting  in  front  of  the  gallows, 
was  not  a  large  one,  and  was  com- 
posed mainly  of  the  poorer  class  of 
natives,  though  a  few  white  faces 
could  be  seen  among  it.  But  it  was 
the  most  quiet  crowd  imaginable ; 
no  one  spoke  to  his  neighbour,  not 
even  in  a  whisper.  As  they  stood 
there,  more  like  sheep  than  human 
beings,  on  their  dusky  upturned  faces 
expectancy  seemed  so  blended  with 
Asiatic  apathy,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
say  which  sentiment  predominated ; 
while  their  dull  eyes  wandered  in 
turn  from  one  object  to  another  of 
the  dark  scene  before  them.  From 
the  high  stern  prison  wall  opposite, 
whose  every  stone  wore  a  look  of 
doom,  those  watchful  eyes  roved  to 
its  great  gate,  barred  with  iron  and 
closely  shut,  that  admitted  no  view  of 
the  secrets  within  ;  to  the  armed  and 
silent  guard  thereby ;  to  the  scaffold 
on  which  that  dreadful  executioner 
was  standing  aloof  and  motionless  ;  to 
the  fatal  beam  above  him,  stretching 
dark  and  distinct  against  the  bright- 
ening sky ;  to  the  noosed  rope  in 
readiness  dangling  from  it,  and 
swaying  in  the  breeze.  And  watching 
thus,  they  also  waited. 

The  hour  for  the  execution  was,  I 
think,  eight,  and  already  the  mist  was 
dispersing  before  the  powerful  beams 
of  the  rising  sun,  at  whose  touch  the 
flat  roofs,  minarets,  and  domes  of  the 
walled  and  battlemented  eastern  city 
were  beginning  to  flash  and  glitter  in 
the  light ;  but  as  yet  no  sign  from 
within  the  prison  gave  notice  of  the 
last  act  of  the  tragedy  now  being 
enacted  before  it. 

At  last,  from  within  the  wall,  was 
heard  the  distant,  measured  clanking 
of  a  chain.  The  ominous  sound  came 
nearer  and  nearer,  and  approached  the 


gate,  which  now  opened  wide  and 
disclosed  three  natives  coming  out 
abreast  through  it.  Two  of  them 
wore  the  Government  uniform  and 
were  evidently  warders.  They  seemed 
to  support,  rather  than  to  hold,  the 
man  between  them,  on  whom,  as  they 
emerged  from  the  police  ranks  and 
slowly  bent  their  way  towards  the 
gallows,  every  eye  was  now  fixed. 
He  was  a  young  man  of  twenty-five 
or  thereabouts,  light-skinned  for  a 
native,  well-built,  and  handsome.  He 
was  naked,  save  for  the  usual  loin- 
cloth, and  his  head  was  shorn  close 
as  a  convict's  ;  his  two  hands  were 
bound  together  behind  his  back,  and 
his  legs  were  heavily  shackled  with  a 
thick  iron  chain,  whose  weight 
resisted  their  every  movement,  and 
which,  rising  and  falling  alternately 
with  his  steps,  clanked  dismally 
behind  him  along  the  ground. 

When  with  slow  and  halting  gait 
he  had  reached  the  ladder,  the 
warders  assisted  him  to  mount  it ;  and 
as  he  stepped  from  its  last  rung  on  to 
the  scaffold,  he  saluted  the  gazing 
crowd  below,  bidding  them  good- 
morrow  in  a  loud  voice,  in  the  orthodox 
fashion  of  Hindustan. 

The  warders  now  placed  him  under 
the  beam,  after  which  they  removed 
the  irons  from  his  legs,  having  first 
bound  his  feet  together  with  a 
cord.  They  then  descended  the 
ladder,  leaving  the  criminal  to  the 
hangman,  who  until  that  moment  had 
been  still  standing  apart  and  motion- 
less. But  now  he  moved  silently  like 
a  spirit  up  to  the  condemned  man, 
and  stood  in  front  of  him.  Then, 
perceiving  him  to  be  not  in  the 
necessary  position  under  the  beam, 
the  executioner,  with  an  indescrib- 
able and  almost  deprecating  little 
motion  of  his  hand,  automatically 
signified  the  fact  to  the  prisoner, 
who  forthwith  placed  himself  upon 
the  exact  spot.  The  executioner  then 


288 


An  Execution  in  India. 


raised  his  arms,  and  taking  hold  of 
the  rope  behind  the  man's  back,  lifted 
it  quietly,  and  lowered  the  noose 
around  his  neck.  Then  he  tightened 
it  a  little.  After  that,  he  put  his 
hand  inside  the  breast  of  his  tunic,  and 
drew  out  a  kind  of  headgear,  white 
and  shaped  somewhat  like  a  horse's 
nosebag,  which  lie  placed  on  the 
head,  and  drew  down  over  the  face  of 
the  felon  who  had  now  looked  his 
last  on  the  sun.  He  next  tightened 
the  noose  a  little  more,  and  moving 
partly  behind  the  prisoner,  appeared 
to  be  adjusting  it  at  his  ear. 

And  now,  beyond  doubt,  in  the 
minds  of  those  present  a  conflict  of 
various  opinions  must  have  been 
stirred  by  the  cold-blooded,  deadly 
scene  enacting  before  their  eyes,  which 
stood  out  with  such  ghastly  distinct- 
ness amidst  the  quietude  and  serenity 
of  the  world  around.  For  there  was 
such  a  contrast  between  it  and  those 
other  fair,  everyday  scenes  of  life 
passing  all  about  us, — the  peasant 
cheerily  wending  to  his  daily  labour, 
the  birds  flitting  amid  the  trees  so 
near  us,  the  squirrels  frisking  on  the 
bough  beside  them,  the  distant  city 
awakening  every  moment  into  louder 
life  and  stir,  the  sun  shining  on 
benevolently  in  the  heavens  over  all, 
and  the  hangman  deliberately  adjust- 
ing the  noose  at  his  victim's  ear, — 
that  the  senses  were  shocked  at  it ; 
and  an  overpowering  impulse  arose  to 
fly  from  the  place ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  a  stronger  impulse  compelled 
one  to  remain  and  watch. 

At  last  the  executioner,  having 
accomplished  all  the  niceties  of  the 
noose,  came  round  again  in  front  of 
the  prisoner,  and,  glancing  his  e  Tes 
upwards,  critically  surveyed  his 
finished  work.  Directing  his  eyes 
first  to  the  beam  above,  then  to  the 


hook,  then  down  the  rope  to  the 
noose  around  the  man's  neck,  he  lastly 
fixed  them  on  the  man  himself.  Yes, 
at  that  supreme  moment  a  look  was 
born  in  the  executioner's  impenetrable 
face.  But  it  was  such  a  look  as 
Death  gave,  when,  to  bridge  the  gulf 
from  hell  to  this  world,  and  to  fix  the 
floating  mass  which  he  had  brought 
together  for  his  bridge, 

The  aggregated  soil, 
Death  witli  his  mace  petrific,  cold  and 

thy, 
As  with  a  trident  smote,  and  fixed  as 

firm 

As  Del os  floating  once,  the  rest  his  look 
Bound   with   Gorgonian   rigour   not  to 

move. 

The  hangman  saw  that  his  work  was 
good ;  for  he  now  left  the  scaffold, 
and,  descending  the  ladder,  appeared 
no  more. 

After  an  interval  of  horrid  silence, 
during  which  the  bound  white-hooded 
wretch  on  the  scaffold  stood  erect, 
aloft  and  alone,  the  officer  in  command 
of  the  police-guard,  who  was  sitting 
on  horseback  somewhere  amid  the 
crowd,  gave  the  loud  command  in 
Hindustani,  Pull.  At  that  word  the 
two  sentries  pulled  at  the  ropes  they 
were  holding ;  the  two  supporting 
posts  instantly  fell  with  a  loud  thud 
to  the  ground ;  the  heavy  scaffold 
swung  down  after  them,  and  oscillated 
between  the  backposts ;  and  the 
murderer  fell,  as  the  plummet  falls, 
straight ;  till  suddenly  arrested  in 
mid  air  by  the  jerk  of  the  taut  cord, 
which  now  seemed  alive  and  angry, 
as  it  held  him  by  the  throat  in  a  bull- 
dog's grip.  His  head  drooped  on  to 
the  right  shoulder,  while  his  body 
slowly  turned,  now  this  way,  now 
that,  as  in  obedience  to  the  law  of 
torsion  the  rope  slowly  wound  and 
unwound  itself. 


289 


ON    THE    ANTIQUITY    OF   TOBACCO-SMOKING. 


LIKE    Horace's   Greybeard,   we  are 
all  more  or  less  prone  to  look  lovingly 
towards  the  past,  to  regard  the  days 
of    our    forefathers  as    the    good    old 
times  in  which  they  played  their  part 
in  life's  drama  on  a  larger  and  nobler 
scale  than  we  do,  or  are  capable  of  doing. 
In  this  spirit  of  admiration  for  anti- 
quity we  see  the  beginnings  of  that 
hero-worship    which  with  the  Greeks 
gradually  developed  into  their  beauti- 
ful mythology.     They,  above  all  other 
people,  delighted  to  extol  the  powers  and 
achievements  of  their  ancestors  ;  they 
clothed  them   with  the  attributes   of 
deity,  and  strove  to  emulate  and  hon- 
our them  in    all  manly  deeds ;    thus 
they  exalted  their  own  conceptions  of 
life,  and  idealised  the  course  of  their 
national  existence.     And  yet  this  in- 
nate tendency  to  magnify  and  extend 
into  the  dim,  illimitable  regions  of  an- 
tiquity whatever   of   human   effort  is 
deemed  most  worthy,  is  a  source  of 
difficulty  to  the  conscientious  student. 
Amid  the  wild  growth  of  myth  and 
marvel  the  antiquary  or  archaeologist 
warily    treads     his    way     to      surer 
ground,    and    out    of   scattered    frag- 
ments   of   a   bygone    age    constructs 
anew   an  old  order    of   existence,   or 
opens    a    vista    to     the    mind's     eye 
through  which  glimpses  may  be  gained 
of  the  habits  and  inner  life    of    our 
remote  ancestors.     Then  it  is  we  see 
the  present  linked  with   the   past  in 
one  unbroken   chain  ;  our  knowledge 
is    enlarged,    and    we    recognise    the 
unity  of  our  race.     Needless  then  to 
say  that  it  is  in  no  narrow  spirit  of 
mere  curiosity  that  the  wise  men  of 
Europe    have     devoted    much    labour 
and  learning  to  the  task  of  discover- 
No.  442. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


ing  if  the  habit  of  tobacco-smoking, 
now  so  common  all  over  the  world, 
existed  in  Eastern  countries  before 
the  discovery  of  America  by  Columbus. 
It  is  justly  claimed  for  the  subject 
that  it  possesses  interest  for  a  much 
larger  class  than  professed  ethnolo- 
gists ;  that  it  is  invested  with  an 
absorbing  fascination  for  every  earnest 
student  of  the  history  and  habits  of 
mankind.  For  it  is  maintained  that 
nothing  but  a  deep-seated  craving  in 
the  nature  of  human  beings  for  nar- 
cotics and  stimulants  can  explain  the 
immediate,  rapid,  and  over-mastering 
success  with  which  the  passion  for 
tobacco  spread  over  the  world  after 
its  introduction  into  Europe  by  the 
Spaniards.  That  this  should  have 
been  so,  seems  to  point  directly  to 
the  conclusion  that  before  the  dis- 
covery of  the  New  World  the  tobacco- 
plant  and  the  habit  of  smoking  its 
leaves  were  unknown  elsewhere.  Let 
it  be  remembered,  however,  that  we 
have  to  take  into  account  the  farther 
East,  more  particularly  China,  the 
Cathay  of  our  forefathers,  who  had 
found  every  approach  leading  into  the 
interior  jealously  guarded  against  in- 
trusion from  the  barbarian  of  the 
outer  world. 

Scattered  through  the  pages  of 
ancient  historians  and  naturalists  are 
some  curious  allusions  to  a  practice 
occasionally  indulged  in  of  inhaling 
the  fumes  of  burning  vegetable  sub- 
stances, either  for  pleasure's  sake  or 
for  medicinal  purposes.  A  few  of 
these  may  suffice  to  indicate  the  shifts 
men  were  put  to  in  remote  times  in 
order  to  appease  their  longing  for 
narcotics  of  one  kind  or  another. 


290 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco- Smoking. 


Herodotus  says  that  the  Messa- 
getse,  or  Scythians,  possessed  a  tree 
bearing  a  strange  fruit  which,  when 
they  met  together,  they  cast  into  the 
fire  and  inhaled  its  fumes  till  they 
became  intoxicated,  in  much  the  same 
way  as  the  Greeks  did  with  wine. 
What  this  strange  produce  was  we 
learn  in  book  IV.  cap.  78,  where  he 
relates  the  story  of  the  Scythians  mak- 
ing themselves  drunk  with  hemp-seed. 
They  crept  with  it  under  their 
blankets,  and  throwing  it  on  red- 
hot  stones,  inhaled  the  fumes  arising 
therefrom.  Simple  narrations  such 
as  these  fall  in  quite  naturally  with 
one's  ideas  of  primitive  man  adapting 
himself  to  his  circumstances.  The 
Father  of  History  never  indulges  in 
flights  of  fancy  or  creations  of  the 
imagination  ;  it  was  enough  for  him 
to  render  a  straightforward  account 
of  such  things  as  came  under  his  own 
eyes,  or  of  events  as  they  had  been 
related  to  him.  But  when  we  come 
to  a  modern  writer  who  tells  a  smok- 
ing-story  of  far-back  times,  relating, 
indeed,  to  none  other  than  the 
"  mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord  "  (en- 
joying, we  may  assume,  a  quiet  pipe 
after  a  day's  hard  riding  across  coun- 
try), then  doubt  begins  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  mind,  and  we  are  in 
clined  to  let  that  tale  go  I'^r  what  it 
is  worth.  Lieutenant  Walpole  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  story  that,  Vhen  he 
was  at  Mosul,  there  came  ii&o  his 
hands  a  very  old  Arabic  manuscript,  in 
the  opening  chapter  of  which  the  an- 
cient scribe  declared  that  Ninrtod 
used  tobacco.  Application  of  |he 
higher  criticism  to  this  relic  of  anti- 
quity would  be  quite  out  of  plac\; 
why,  indeed,  should  men  seek  to  bfe 
wise  above  what  is  written  ?  But  let 
us  look  a  little  farther  into  what  Mr. 
Walpole  has  to  narrate  of  the  people 
among  whom  he  sojourned,  respecting 
their  indulgence  in  the  social  pleasure 
of  the  pipe.  From  his  highly  interest- 


ing work  on  THE  ANSAYRII,  OR  THE 
ASSASSINS  (published  in  1851)  we 
gather  that  while  at  Mosul  he  was  so 
impressed  by  the  prevalence  of  the 
habit  of  smoking  among  all  classes, 
that  he  made  diligent  inquiry  of  the 
learned  of  the  land  respecting  its 
origin.  For  he  felt  convinced  that 
nothing  European,  much  less  American, 
could  possibly  have  crept  into  this 
remote  district  of  the  Old  World, 
whose  inhabitants  were  living  as  their 
fathers  had  lived  for  ages.  "  In  the 
East,"  he  writes,  "it  is  rare  to  find 
a  man  or  woman  who  does  not  smoke. 
Enter  a  house,  and  a  smoking-instru- 
ment  is  put  into  your  hand  as  naturally 
as  you  are  asked  to  sit  down."  Mr. 
Walpole  had  not  long  to  wait  before 
his  new  friends  found  means  of  satis- 
fying his  curiosity,  and  of  quickening 
the  interest  already  awakened  within 
him  as  to  the  antiquity  of  the  habit. 
A  venerable  sage  disclosed  to  his 
wondering  eyes  the  manuscript  afore- 
said. It  filled  over  a  hundred  closely- 
written  pages,  and  was  divided  into 
eight  chapters,  in  the  first  of  which 
was  related  the  story  of  Nimrod.  The 
origin  of  the  different  opinions  for  and 
against  tobacco  are  enlarged  upon  in 
its  pages ;  this,  by  the  way,  seems  to 
imply  that  the  Koran  had  not  settled 
the  disputed  point,  but  then  these 
Hashishins,  who  had  found  tobacco  a 
far  more  grateful  comforter  than  their 
fiery  hashish,  were  not  good  Moslems. 
Unfortunately  for  Mr.  Walpole  the 
happy  owner  of  the  priceless  document, 
this  inestimable  relic  of  antiquity,  was 
a  bibliomanist  whom  nothing  could 
induce  to  part  with  it ;  but  he  tells 
the  reader  that  it  was  being  copied,-  - 
a  lengthy  process.  Youthful  exuber- 
ance of  spirit  marks  Mr.  Walpole's  joy 
at  the  discovery.  "  Lovers  of  the 
weed,"  he  exclaims,  "  may  reasonably 
hope  that  the  elucidation  of  the 
A.ssyrian  history  will  show  us  Nimrod 
making  kief  over  the  chibouk,  and 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco-Smoking. 


291 


Semiramis  calling  for  her  nargilleh. 
It  would  enhance  the  grace  of  Cleo- 
patra could  we  imagine  her  reclining 
on  a  divan  of  eiderdown  toying  with 
Marc  Antony  as  she  plays  with  her 
jewelled  narpeesh."  His  enthusiasm 
is  kindled  by  glowing  tales  of  Eastern 
life,  stretching  back  to  the  remotest 
ages  ;  he  sees  the  folly  of  entertaining 
for  a  moment  the  thought  that  Asia 
could  be  indebted  to  America  for  the 
luxury  of  the  pipe.  "We  can  hardly 
suppose,"  he  writes,  "  that  in  the  com- 
paratively short  space  of  time  since 
the  continent  of  America  was  dis- 
covered by  us,  the  habit  could  have 
spread  through  Europe  to  the  very 
utmost  corners  of  Asia ;  that  the 
Burman  would  smoke  his  cigar  as  he 
does,  and  the  wild  man  of  the  forest 
of  Ceylon  would  make  his  hand  into 
a  bowl  and  smoke  out  of  it.  These 
people,  perfect  wild  beasts,  double  up 
the  hand,  curving  the  palm,  and  thus 
form  a  species  of  pipe  ;  a  green  leaf 
protects  the  hand ;  within  this  the 
weed  is  placed,  and  thus  they  smoke. 
This  is  certainly  the  youth  of  smoking. 
Adam  may  have  practised  this  method, 
even  in  the  days  of  his  innocence." 

It  is  perhaps  a  pity  Mr.  Walpole  did 
not  feel  satisfied  with  this  display  of 
youthful  gaiety.  Possibly  he  saw 
that  something  was  still  wanting  ; 
that  his  new-born  idea  of  an  Eastern 
origin  for  the  weed  he  loved  was  too 
weak  to  stand  without  support.  At 
that  very  moment  some  evil  genius 
whispered  in  his  ear  the  fun  of  send- 
ing the  reader  a  wool-gathering  to  the 
British  Museum.  Then  it  dawned 
upon  him  that  among  the  marvels  of 
antiquity  the  excavations  of  Botta  and 
Layard  were  laying  bare  to  an  as- 
tonished world  was  an  Assyrian  relic 
which  would  bear  oracular  testimony 
to  the  truth  of  the  old  Arabic  manu- 
script found  at  Mosul,  and  that  hence- 
forward Nimrod  must  be  regarded  as 
the  paladin  of  the  pipe.  So  Mr. 


Walpole    goes    on    to    say  :    "If  the 
curious   reader  will   go  to  the  British 
Museum  he  will  there  see  an  Assyrian 
cylinder,    found    at   Mosul,  F  and    pre- 
sented   to    the     Institution     by    Mr. 
Badger,  whereon  is  represented  a  king 
smoking  from  a  round  vessel,  attached 
to  which  is  a  long  reed."     Hours  have 
been  spent    in    vain    at    the    British 
Museum  in  making  careful  search  for 
this  interesting  object.    Doctor  Wallis 
Budge,  who  presides  over  the  Egyptian 
and      Assyrian      antiquities,      knows 
nothing   of   a  cylinder  bearing  an  in- 
scription of  a   king   smoking   a  pipe. 
He  has,  however,  a  record  to  the  effect 
that  Mr.    Badger   on    February    8th, 
1845,  gave  the  Museum  "the  squeeze 
of  an  inscription,  the  impression  of  a 
seal,    and   a  bronze   object."      Doctor 
Budge  warily  remarked  :   "  I  must  re- 
mind you  that  in    1845   all  sorts  of 
nonsense  was   talked  about  Assyrian 
objects ;  but  that  two  men  [a  second 
writer  had  been  mentioned  who  had 
evidently  copied,   on   faith,   from  Mr. 
Walpole]    should   state   such  a  thing 
without  verification  is  remarkable.      I 
am  sorry  for  your  wasted  time,  and 
my  own  !  "     Assyrian  cylinders  in  the 
British  Museum    are    numerous,    and 
interest    in    them    is    heightened   by 
written  explanations  in  our  own  tongue 
placed    by  the    side    of    each   of   the 
markings  upon  them,  giving  also  the 
date   or  period   to  which  the   object 
belongs.     The  student  is  thus  enabled 
to   grasp   with  his    senses    lessons  in 
history  which,  without  this  aid,  would 
be  vague  and  unreal.   Yet,  so  grotesque 
are   some   of  the    figures,    that    little 
need  for  wonder  if  the  eye  of   faith 
should  discover  what  it  seeks  for. 

The  ascetic  of  the  Greek  Church, 
however,  can  eclipse  this  story  of 
Nimrod  and  the  Assyrian  monarch 
who  loved  his  pipe,  with  a  tradition 
carefully  preserved  in  its  archives  of 
Noah  himself,  tempted  by  the  Evil 
One,  having  fallen  under  the  intoxicat- 

u   2 


292 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco-Smoking. 


ing  fumes  of  tobacco.  The  ingenuous 
scribe  relates  (though  this  may  be 
apocryphal)  that  Noah,  resting  upon 
the  summit  of  Mount  Ararat  after 
his  toils  on  the  swollen  waters,  hap- 
pened to  place  his  hand  on  a  tobacco- 
pipe  charged  with  the  comforting 
herb,  and  Satan,  envious  of  his  happi- 
ness, urged  the  patriarch  to  prolong 
the  indulgence  until  >  sleep  fell  upon 
his  eyes.  Where  the  soil  is  ready  for 
the  seed  the  merest  figment  takes  root 
and  flourishes  abundantly. 

Persons  of  a  poetic  temperament 
who  find  in  speculative  dreaming 
pleasure  more  satisfying  than  aught 
they  can  derive  from  the  study  of 
prosaic  reality,  usually  turn  their 
thoughts  towards  the  East,  to  the  land 
of  mystery  and  gorgeous  imagery, 
where  man  first  awoke  to  a  wondering 
contemplation  of  the  phenomena  of 
nature,  asking  himself  what  the  earth 
and  sky  could  be,  and  marking  out  in 
bold  outline  as  he  gazed  into  the  star- 
lit firmament  the  signs  by  which  we 
to-day  recognise  the  Zodiac.  Enter- 
ing these  regions  of  hoary  tradition, 
the  marvel-loving  wanderer  from  the 
West  finds  his  path  strewn  with 
relics  of  our  early  progenitors  ;  here 
he  may  revel  in  endless  variety  of 
legendary  lore  garnered  from  rich 
fields  of  poetic  fancy.  Does  he  wish 
to  learn  of  the  Moslem  sage  the  origin 
of  the  weed  whose  balmy  breath 

From  East  to  West 
Cheers  the  tar's  labour,  or  the  Turk- 
man's rest  1 

Let  him  listen  to  his  words  as  he 
relates  how  the  Prophet,  walking  in 
his  garden  at  early  dawn,  came  upon 
a  viper  stiff  with  cold,  lying  in  the 
grass.  "  Full  of  compassion,  he  took  it 
up  and  warmed  it  in  his  bosom ;  but 
when  the  reptile  recovered,  it  bit  him. 
'Why  art  thou  thus  ungrateful  1'  asked 
the  Prophet.  The  viper  answered  : 


'  Were  I  to  spare  thee,  another  of  thy 
race  would  kill  me,  for  there  is  no 
gratitude  on  earth.  By  Allah,  I  will 
bite  thee.'  '  Since  thou  hast  sworn 
by  Allah,  keep  thy  vow,'  said  the 
Prophet,  and  held  out  his  hand  to  be 
bitten.  But  as  the  reptile  bit  him 
the  Prophet  sucked  the  poison  from 
the  wound,  and  spat  it  on  the  ground. 
And  lo  !  there  sprang  up  a  plant  in 
which  the  serpent's  venom  is  combined 
with  the  Prophet's  mercy,  and  men 
call  it  tobacco." 

Unhappily  for  the  champions  of 
Asia's  prior  claim  to  the  weed,  those 
enchanting  mirrors  of  Arabian  social 
life,  THE  THOUSAND  AND  ONE  NIGHTS, 
reflect  no  sign,  not  the  faintest  shadow 
of  aught  resembling  circling  eddies 
from  the  tobacco-bowl.  In  the  early 
days  of  the  new  indulgence  its  lawful- 
ness was  warmly  disputed  in  Ma- 
homedan  countries.  Both  Sultan  and 
Shah  looked  with  suspicion  at  this 
new  device  of  the  Giaour,  and  in- 
flicted the  severest  punishment  upon 
all  who  ventured  to  console  their 
sorrows  with  the  pipe.  In  the  warmth 
of  conflicting  opinion  the  Koran  was 
appealed  to,  and  a  Moslem  ascetic 
was  found  who  read  to  the 
faithful  a  passage  (from  a  revised 
version,  no  doubt)  wherein  it  was 
foretold  that,  "  In  the  latter  days 
there  shall  be  men  bearing  the  name 
of  Moslem,  but  who  are  not  really 
such,  and  they  shall  smoke  a  certain 
weed  which  shall  be  called  tobacco.'' 
A  device  so  simple,  giving  the  Ameri- 
can name  of  the  plant,  could  deceive 
no  one  but  those  who  were  willing  to 
be  deceived.  It  helped,  however,  to 
smooth  the  way  towards  the  desired 
reconciliation  ;  and  then  the  Turkish 
traveller,  Eulia  EfFendi,  contributed 
towards  a  peaceful  solution  of  the 
much-vexed  question  the  best  fruits  of 
what  little  ingenuity  he  possessed. 
He  declared  that  he  had  found  deeply 
embedded  in  the  wall  of  an  old  edifice, 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco- Smoking. 


293 


so  old  that  it  must  have  been  reared 
long  before  the  birth  of  the  Prophet, 
a  tobacco-pipe  which  even  then  smelt 
of  tobacco !  The  pious  frauds  of 
Moslem  ascetics  could  not  go  beyond 
this.  Here  was  the  sanction  of  an- 
tiquity, if  not  of  the  Prophet,  for  the 
indulgence  they  all  loved,  before  which 
Sultan,  and  Shah,  and  Koran  gradu- 
ally gave  way,  yielding  to  Nicotiana 
the  mild  sway  she  holds  over  her  vota- 
ries. And  it  must  needs  be  admitted 
that  the  claim  for  a  knowledge  of  to- 
bacco in  Western  Asia  before  the  days 
of  Columbus  has  no  stronger  prop  to 
rest  upon  than  this  pipe  found  in  the 
crevice  of  an  old  wall,  and  which  still 
smelt  of  tobacco, — dropped  in  by  some 
poor  Turk  fearful  of  the  torture  in 
store  for  him  if  caught  smoking. 
Russell,  in  his  narrative  of  a  visit  to 
Aleppo  in  1603,  says  that  tobacco- 
smoking,  then  so  commonly  indulged 
in  at  home,  was  unknown  there.  And 
Sandys,  writing  of  the  Turks  as  he 
found  them  in  1610,  speaks  of  to- 
bacco as  just  introduced  into  Con- 
stantinople by  the  English.  How 
rapidly  the  taste  for  the  weed  spread 
over  the  countries  of  Western  Asia, 
and  the  hold  it  had  taken  upon  all 
classes,  is  shown  in  many  a  homely 
saying  among  the  people,  such  as, 
"A  pipe  of  tobacco  and  a  dish  of 
coffee  are  a  complete  entertainment  "  ; 
or  in  the  Persian  proverb  that,  "Coffee 
without  tobacco  is  meat  without 
salt." 

Doctor  Yates  had  gone  to  the  land 
of  the  Pharaohs  for  enlightenment  on 
things  hidden  from  the  vulgar;  and 
among  other  things  rare  and  wonderful 
which  presented  themselves  to  his 
astonished  gaze  he  gravely  assures  the 
reader  of  his  MODERN  HISTORY  AND 
CONDITION  OF  EGYPT  (published  in 
1843)  that  on  the  wall  of  an  ancient 
tomb  at  Thebes  he  saw  a  painting  in 
which  was  represented  a  smoking- 
party ;  beings  of  our  own  species 


sitting  together  enjoying,  possibly, 
social  chat  over  the  fragrant  weed. 
Here  was  indeed  one  of  those  touches 
of  nature  which  make  the  whole 
world  kin.  Standing  in  the  mystic 
glow  of  an  Egyptian  sky,  in  the  living 
presence  of  the  marvellous  works  of 
men's  hands  wrought  six  thousand 
years  ago,  his  imagination  bridges  the 
space  of  ages,  and  he  realises  the  unity 
of  our  race  in  the  familiar  scene 
before  him.  The  uplifted  Doctor  did  not 
recognise  in  the  painting  a  representa- 
tion of  the  ancient  art  of  glass-blowing. 
The  tricks  the  imagination  plays  upon 
us  at  times  would  bo  very  amusing 
were  it  not  for  the  ruffle  they  give  to 
one's  self-love.  Some  men,  rather 
than  admit  they  were,  or  could  be, 
deceived,  will  hold  to  their  error 
through  all  time  and  in  the  face  of 
every  rebuff. 

It    is    not    improbable     that    some 
varieties  of  the  tobacco-plant  may  be 
indigenous  to  the  Old  World.      There 
are  about  forty,  of  which  seldom  more 
than    three    are    cultivated    for    con- 
sumption as  tobacco  ;  Virginia  (Nico- 
tiana    tabacum),     Syrian     (Nicotiana 
rustica),  and   Shiraz   (Nicotiana  Per- 
sica).       Diligent     research,     however, 
extending  over  many  years,  has  failed 
to  bring  to  light  any  evidence  of  the 
existence  in  Europe  or  Western  Asia 
of  either  of  these  plants  before  the 
Spaniards    discovered  America.      The 
allusions  made  by  Dioscorides,  Strabo, 
and    Pliny     to    a     practice    common 
among    both    the     Greeks     and     the 
Romans     of    inhaling    the    fumes     of 
tussilago    and    other    vegetable    sub- 
stances, have  no  bearing  on  tobacco- 
smoking,   nor   on  any  general    habit. 
They  refer  rather  to  the  use  of  certain 
herbs  as  remedies  for  affections  of  the 
throat  and  chest,  used  much  in  the  same 
way  as  our  forbears  used  certain  other 
herbs  for  the  cure  of  similar  ailments. 
Most  people  condemned  to  suffer  the 
rigours    of    an    English    winter    have 


294 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco-Smoking. 


experienced  kitchen-treatment  of  the 
kind,  when  shrouded  in  a  blanket 
over  a  bowl  of  steaming  medicaments 
they  lay  siege  to  the  citadel  held  by 
the  bacteria  of  influenza.  From  Pliny 
we  learn  that  a  tribe  of  unknown 
barbarians  burned  the  roots  of  a 
species  of  cypress,  and  inhaled  the 
fumes  for  the  reduction  of  enlarged 
spleen,  a  malady  very  common  among 
the  inhabitants  of  the  plains  of 
Southern  India.  He  tells  us  also 
(xxiv.,  84)  that  the  Romans  smoked 
coltsfoot  through  a  reed  or  pipe  for 
the  relief  of  obstinate  cough  and  diffi- 
cult breathing.  Here  it  may  be  of 
interest  to  mention  the  discovery  in 
recent  years  of  a  small  description  of 
smoking-pipe,  resembling  in  size  and 
form  the  cutty  of  the  Scot,  or  the 
dhudeen  of  the  Irish  peasant,  among 
Roman  structures,  both  in  these 
islands  and  on  the  Continent.  Doctor 
Bruce,  in  his  HISTORY  OP  THE  ROMAN 
WALL,  speaking  of  these  pipes,  asks  : 
"  Shall  we  enumerate  smoking-pipes 
amongst  the  articles  belonging  to  the 
Roman  period  ?  Some  of  them  have 
indeed  a  medieval  aspect,  but  the  fact 
of  their  being  frequently  found  in 
Roman  stations,  along  with  pottery 
and  other  remains  undoubtedly  Roman, 
should  not  be  overlooked."  The  Abb£ 
Cocket  had  found  similar  clay  pipes  in 
the  Roman  Necropolis  near  Dieppe, 
and  in  his  work  on  Subterranean 
Normandy  he  says  that  he  supposed 
they  must  surely  have  belonged  to  the 
seventeenth  century.  But  on  subse- 
quently hearing  of  Doctor  Bruce's  dis- 
covery of  similar  pipes  in  his  explora- 
tions of  the  Roman  Wall,  he  reverted 
to  his  first  opinion,  that  those  he  had 
himself  found  were  indeed  Roman. 
Since  then  Baron  de  Bonstetten  has 
investigated  the  subject ;  and  in  his 
work  entitled  RECUEIL  DBS  ANTI- 
QUITES  he  gives  drawings  of  these 
pipes,  and  declares  his  opinion  to  be 
that  they  are  fair  specimens  of 


European  smoking-instruments  in  use 
before  the  days  of  Columbus,  and 
possibly  before  those  of  Julius  Caesar. 
That  smoking-pipes  have  been  found 
among  authentic  Roman  remains  is 
beyond  question.  What  use  the 
Romans  made  of  them  we  have 
already  learned  from  Pliny  ;  and 
doubtless  the  Roman  soldier  on  out- 
post duty  in  this  fog-begirt  island 
would  often  have  need  of  whatever 
little  comfort  he  could  get  out  of  his 
small  pipeful  of  coltsfoot. 

Both  in  Ireland  and  Scotland 
somewhat  similar  pipes  have  been 
picked  up  in  remote  places,  and  have 
been  attributed  by  imaginative 
country  folk  to  the  fairies  and  elves, 
to  the  Celts,  and  to  the  Danes. 
Raleigh's  sowing  the  seeds  of  Ireland's 
first  tobacco-plant  in  his  garden  at 
Youghal  is  lost  sight  of  in  a  desire 
to  yield  to  antiquity  the  credit  due  to 
modern  enterprise.  About  a  century 
ago  (to  be  exact,  in  the  year  1784), 
the  fine  Milesian  imagination  was 
afforded  an  opportunity  of  soaring 
into  the  glorious  region  of  an  in- 
definable past,  when  the  headman  of 
every  village  was  indeed  a  king.  In 
an  ancient  tomb,  far  too  old  to  bear 
the  vulgar  indication  of  a  date,  which 
had  been  opened  at  Bannockstown  in 
Kildare,  there  was  found  firmly  held 
between  the  teeth  of  the  silent  occu- 
pant a  tobacco-pipe,  small,  but  per- 
fectly formed.  Here,  then,  was 
positive  proof  of  the  antiquity  of 
smoking  in  Ireland  ages,  possibly, 
before  the  Saxon  or  Danish  barbarian 
had  invaded  her  shores.  This  import- 
ant discovery  naturally  created  a 
commotion  among  the  learned  of  the 
Emerald  Isle,  which  soon  found  melli- 
fluent expression  in  the  JOURNAL  OF 
ANTHOLOGIA  HIBERNICA.  Visions  of 
a  revivified  Celtic  history,  clothed  in 
the  poetic  vestments  which  properly 
belong  to  a  venerable,  half-forgotten 
past,  rose  to  cheer  Young  Ireland's 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco-Smoking. 


295 


aspirations  ;  and  now   could  be  sung 
with  renewed  fervour, 

Let  fate  do  her  worst,  there  are  relics  of 

joy, 
Bright  beams  of   the   past,   which   she 

cannot  destroy. 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  be  robbed  of  a 
cherished     belief.       The     awakening 
breaks  upon  the  shores  of  romance  as 
would  a  London  fog  on  a  Swiss  lake  ; 
yet  it  must  needs  be  said  that  under 
the  critical  eye  of  the  expert  the  vision 
dissolved,  and  left  but  an  Elizabethan 
pipe  behind.       For  such    indeed  was 
the  fate  that  befell  the  famous  Celtic 
tumulus  and  pipe  of  Bannockstown  in 
Kildare.      Stories   fanciful   and  fairy- 
like,  relating  to  small  pipes  found  in 
Irish  by-paths,  are  mentioned  in  Mr. 
Crofton  Croker's   FAIRY   LEGENDS  OF 
IRELAND.     The  peasant  who  picked  up 
one  of  these  always  knew  that  it  be- 
longed to  the  Cluricaunes, — "  a  set  of 
disavin'   little  divils,"   he    would    ex- 
plain, "  who  were  always  playing  their 
thricks  on  good  Christians  ; "  and  with 
a  few  words  of  choice  brogue  he  would 
break  it   and    throw   the    bits   away. 
Ireland,  however,  does  not  stand  alone 
in   that  legendary  lore  wherein  pipes 
have  played  their  little  part  in  lire's 
romance.       In    Worcestershire     there 
still  lingers,  or  did   until  the  scream 
of  the  locomotive  startled  the  woods 
out  of  their  sylvan  dream,  a  fairy  tale 
of  Queen  Mab  having  held  her  court 
at  a  spot  near  Old  Swinford,  where  a 
number    of   smoking-pipes    had    been 
found,  so  small   that  none  other  than 
fairy  fingers  could  have  made  them  for 
fairy    mouths.       So    there    grew    up 
among  the  country  folk  gifted  with  a 
light  fancy  the  belief  that  Queen  Mab 
had  presided  at  her  revels  in  the  dell, 
distributing     among    her     troop    the 
fairy    pipes     they    had    found,    while 
sighing  on  the  breeze, 

Come  away,  elves,  while  the  dew  is  sweet, 
Come  to  the  dingles  where  the  fairies 
meet. 


Leaving  the  aerial  domain  of  fairy- 
land,   our    thoughts     are    wafted     to 
Central    Asia    still    in    search    of  an 
Eastern  birthplace  for  the  weed.     In 
the  writings  of  a  Hindoo  physician, 
examined  by  Doctor  Mayer  of  Konis- 
berg   in    the     course    of    his    Eastern 
researches,   it   is   stated   that  tobacco 
was   first   brought  into  India  by  the 
Franks   in  the  year  1609,  that  is  to 
say,   nearly  half  a   century  after    its 
introduction  into  Europe.     The  date 
agrees    well    with    the    progress     the 
Portuguese  had  at  that  time  made  in 
establishing  themselves  in  India.    For 
nearly  a   century  they  had    been    in 
possession  of  Goa;  they  held  important 
seats    of    commerce   in   various  other 
parts  of  India,  and  had   command  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  Oriental  trade. 
These   earliest  of  European  explorers 
in  the  far  East,  having  about  the  close 
of     the     fifteenth     century     made     a 
successful  passage  round  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  were  not  slow  to  secure 
for  themselves  a  footing  on  the  west- 
ern shores  of  Asia,  and  onward  to  the 
Indian  Archipelago.      Wherever  they 
settled  they  introduced  the  American 
habit  of  smoking,  and  eagerly  was  it 
adopted  by  the  different  peoples  with 
whom    they    had    dealings.       In    the 
annals  of  'Java  tobacco  is   stated   to 
have  been  imported  into  that  island, 
and  the  habit  of  smoking  it  taught  to 
the  natives,  by  the  Portuguese  in  1601. 
To  the  Portuguese  and  the  Spaniards, 
fortified  later  by  the  prodigious  puff- 
ing  powers    of    the    Dutch,   may   be 
fairly  ascribed  whatever  credit  may  be 
due  for  spreading  a  knowledge  in  the 
Eastern  World  of  the  habit  which,  for 
weal  or  for  woe,  has  exercised  a  more 
potent  witchery  over  man's  life  than 
probably  any  other  indulgence,  largely 
modifying,  and  usually  soothing   and 
sobering,  his  temperament.     It  seems 
but  reasonable  to  suppose  that  if  the 
plant  and  its  use  as   a  narcotic  had 
been  known   in    the    East    generally, 


296 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco-Smoking. 


independently  of  Europe,  the  inde- 
fatigable Jesuits,  who  penetrated  into 
almost  every  nook  of  the  Old  World 
likely  to  afford  a  see  to  Rome,  would 
have  made  the  discovery  and  noted 
the  fact  with  their  usual  accuracy. 
The  illustrious  traveller  and  naturalist 
Pallas,  however,  takes  a  different  view 
of  the  question.  "  Amongst  the 
Chinese,"  he  writes,  "  and  amongst 
the  Mongolian  tribes  who  had  the 
most  intercourse  with  them,  the 
custom  of  smoking  is  so  general,  so 
frequent,  and  has  become  so  necessary 
a,  luxury,  the  form  of  the  pipes,  from 
which  the  Dutch  seem  to  have  taken 
theirs,  so  original,  and  lastly,  the 
preparation  of  the  dried  leaves,  which 
are  merely  rubbed  to  pieces,  and  thei 
put  into  the  pipe,  so  peculiar,  that 
they  could  not  possibly  have  derived 
all  this  from  America  by  way  of 
Europe,  especially  as  India,  where  the 
practice  of  smoking  is  not  so  general, 
intervenes  between  Persia  and  China." 
But  surely  this  reasoning  is  merely  an 
example  of  drawing  inference  from  in- 
sufficient data,  from  what  at  best  bears 
the  appearance  only  of  probability. 

The  learned  botanist  Meyen,  speak- 
ing of  China  in  relation  to  the  habit 
of  smoking,  deals  with  another  and 
more  pertinent  aspect  of  the  question. 
"  It  has  long  been  the  opinion,"  he 
remarks,  "  that  the  use  of  tobacco,  as 
well  as  its  culture,  was  peculiar  to 
the  people  of  America ;  but  this  is 
now  proved  to  be  incorrect  by  our 
present  more  exact  acquaintance  with 
China  and  India.  The  consumption 
of  tobacco  in  the  Chinese  Empire  is 
of  immense  extent,  and  the  practice 
seems  to  be  of  great  antiquity ;  for 
on  very  old  sculptures  I  have  observed 
the  very  same  tobacco-pipes  which 
are  still  used.  Besides,  we  know  the 
plant  which  furnishes  the  Chinese 
tobacco  ;  it  is  even  said  to  grow  wild 
in  the  East  Indies.  It  is  certain  that 
this  tobacco  plant  of  Eastern  Asia  is 


quite  different  from  the  American 
species."  The  tobacco  grown  in  China 
is  very  light  in  colour,  and  almost 
tasteless,  possessing  a  very  small 
amount  of  the  essential  oil,  one  or 
two  per  cent,  as  against  seven  and 
eight  per  cent,  yielded  by  the  Vir- 
ginian plant.  Experiment,  however, 
has  brought  to  light  the  fact  that 
climate  and  soil  are  really  answerable 
for  all  the  difference  between  the  two 
kinds ;  that  the  Nicotiana  tabacum 
of  America  for  example,  when  trans- 
planted into  Syrian  soil,  has  after  a 
few  years'  cultivation  lost  its  marked 
characteristics  and  become  a  light- 
coloured,  mild  tobacco,  like  the  Shiraz 
herb.  Meyen's  argument  would  have 
had  more  value  if  he  had  been 
able  to  assign  a  date  to  the  sculpture 
on  which  he  had  observed  representa- 
tions of  tobacco-pipes  ;  or  if  he  himself 
had  seen  and  examined  specimens  of 
the  tobacco-plant  said  to  grow  wild  in 
the  East  Indies.  As  his  statement 
lacks  the  certainty  which  authenti- 
cated facts  alone  can  give,  it  leaves 
the  question  still  unanswered.  The 
two  Lazarists,  MM.  Gabet  and  Hue, 
whose  zeal  and  heroic  enterprise 
carried  them  safely  through  the  wildest 
districts  of  Tartary  and  Thibet,  make 
no  mention  of  the  practice  of  smoking 
among  the  inhabitants  of  those 
countries  ;  though  in  China  they  had 
noticed  outside  tobacconists'  shops  an 
effigy  of  the  tobacco-plant,  which  they 
took  to  be  a  representation  of  the 
royal  insignia  of  France,  for  they 
speak  of  it  as  the  fleur-de-lis.  Doubt- 
less China  rose  in  their  estimation 
when  they  beheld  so  flattering  an 
acknowledgment  of  its  indebtedness 
to  the  Grand  Nation  for  the  blessing 
the  herb  conferred  on  an  unworthy 
people.  But  if  such  were  their  im- 
pression they  greatly  erred.  The 
inhabitants  of  the  Celestial  Empire 
(Tin-shan)  entertained  notions  of  a 
very  different  character.  Their 


On  the  Antiquity  °f  Tobacco- Smoking. 


297 


country  (Chung-tow)  occupied  the 
centre  of  the  earth,  and  all  beings 
outside  their  borders  they  regarded  as 
Fan-qui,  barbarian  wanderers,  or  out- 
landish demons.  The  exalted  ideas 
they  had  formed  of  themselves  led 
them  into  the  happy  delusion  that 
they  were  the  lower  empire  of  the 
celestial  universe.  "  In  the  heavens," 
says  M.  Pingre,  "  they  beheld  a  vast 
republic,  an  immense  empire,  composed 
of  kingdoms  and  provinces ;  these 
provinces  were  the  constellations ; 
there  was  supremely  decided  all  that 
should  happen,  whether  favourable  or 
unfavourable,  to  the  great  terrestrial 
empire,  the  empire  of  China."  Their 
historians  carry  back  the  traditions  of 
their  country  to  a  period  so  remote 
(millions  of  years)  that  Europe  can 
only  be  conceived  of  as  primeval 
forest,  and  its  inhabitants  as  barely 
emerging  from  their  protoplasmic 
swamps.  It  is,  moreover,  a  country 
of  fantastic  oddities,  of  topsy-turvy 
notions  of  the  proprieties  of  everyday 
life  ;  where  you  are  constantly  meeting 
with  gentlemen  in  petticoats  and 
ladies  in  trousers,  the  ladies  smoking 
and  the  gentlemen  fanning  themselves  ; 
where  ladies  of  quality  may  be  seen 
toddling  like  animated  walking-sticks, 
while  stout  fellows  sit  indoors,  trim- 
ming dainty  head-dresses  for  them. 
Go  outside  the  city  and  you  find 
greybeards  playing  shuttlecock  with 
their  feet  or  flying  curious  kites,  and 
others  chirruping  and  chuckling  to 
their  pet  birds,  which  they  have 
brought  out  to  take  the  air,  while 
groups  of  youths  gravely  look  on 
regarding  these  juvenile  pastimes  of 
their  elders  with  becoming  approval. 

Early  in  the  course  of  European 
adventure  in  the  far  East  travellers, 
who  under  various  disguises  had  suc- 
ceeded in  penetrating  into  the  interior 
of  China,  found  in  some  provinces  the 
cultivation  of  tobacco  ranking  among 
the  foremost  of  their  agricultural  pro- 


ductions. Bell,  in  his  TRAVELS  IN 
ASIA  (Pinkerton's  Edition,  1811), 
speaking  of  China,  says  :  "I  also  saw 
great  plantations  of  tobacco  which 
they  call  'Tharr,'  and  which  yield 
considerable  profits.  It  is  universally 
used  in  smoking  in  China  by  persons 
of  all  ranks  and  both  sexes ;  and 
besides  great  quantities  are  sent  to 
the  Mongols,  who  prefer  the  Chinese 
method  of  preparing  it  before  any 
other.  They  make  it  into  gross  pow- 
der like  sawdust,  which  they  keep  in 
a  small  bag,  and  fill  their  little  brass 
pipes  out  of  it  without  touching  it 
with  their  fingers.  The  smoke  is  very 
mild,  and  has  a  different  smell  from 
ours.  It  is  reported  that  the  Chinese 
have  had  the  use  of  it  for  many  ages." 
Tobacco  and  the  habit  of  smoking  it 
are  mentioned  in  the  annals  of  the 
Yuen  dynasty,  about  two  centuries 
before  Columbus  had  discovered 
America.  Those  who  cry  down  every 
other  than  an  American  origin  for 
the  weed,  assert  that  the  Chinese  pro- 
duct is  not  tobacco,  but  some  other 
herb  used  in  the  same  way.  Botanists, 
however,  have  shown  this  opinion  to 
be  erroneous.  The  great  plain  of 
Ching-too  Foo  is  noted  as  the  region 
where  the  culture  and  manufacture  of 
tobacco  are  conducted  on  a  more  ex- 
tensive scale  than  in  any  other  part 
of  the  empire.  In  this  plain  the 
district  of  Sze-Chuen  stands  out 
prominently  as  the  great  centre  and 
mart  of  the  industry ;  from  its  plan- 
tations are  exported  large  quantities 
of  tobacco  to  other  parts  of  China,  to 
Yun-nan,  Hoo-nan,  Han-Kow,  and 
also  to  Se-fan  in  Thibet.  To  Han- 
Kow  alone  are  annually  exported 
about  fifty  thousand  piciils, — say, 
about  three  thousand  tons.  The  best 
is  grown  in  the  district  of  Pe-Heen  : 
the  next  quality  is  the  product  of 
Kin-lang  Heen  ;  and  an  inferior  kind 
is  grown  in  the  plantations  of  She- 
fan"  Heen. 


298 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco- Smoking. 


Europeans  who  have  visited  this 
tobacco-producing  district  speak  of  a 
practice  common  among  the  inhabit- 
ants of  rolling  up  tobacco  for  smoking 
in  a  separate  leaf  into  cylindrical 
form,  of  the  size  of  a  large  cigar.  This 
simple  circumstance  is  suggestive  ;  it 
recalls  to  the  memory  what  the  first 
European  adventurers  in  the  New 
World  have  told  us  of  the  way  the 
natives  made  up  their  herb  for  smoking. 
The  Spaniards  had  observed  the  na- 
tives of  Cuba  and  of  Central  America 
doing  precisely  the  same  thing  ;  roll- 
ing up  tobacco  in  a  leaf  of  maize,  or 
of  the  tobacco-plant,  for  smoking  in 
the  same  way  as  do  these  denizens  of 
the  Flowery  Land.  And  our  country- 
man, Thomas  Hariot,  the  historian  of 
Raleigh's  first  colonists,  in  his  BRIEF 
AND  TRUE  REPORT  OF  THE  NEW 
FOUND  LAND  OF  VIRGINIA,  says : 
"  Soon  after  we  made  our  peace  with 
the  natives  we  found  them  making  a 
fume  of  a  dried  leaf,  which  they  rolled 
up  in  a  leaf  of  maize,  of  the  bigness 
of  a  man's  finger  ....  putting  a  light 
to  the  leaf  they  smoked  it,  as  is  done 
by  all  men  in  these  days."  This 
identity  of  practice  and  habit  points 
to  a  new  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence, 
connecting  the  inhabitants  of  the  New 
World  with  the  nations  of  Eastern 
Asia,  more  particularly  with  China. 

Bearing  on  the  ethnological  aspect  of 
the  subject  is  the  fact  that  pipes  have 
been  found  on  many  different  occa- 
sions in  the  ancient  earth-mounds  of 
Ohio,  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  in  Mexico,  some  of  which  are 
carved  in  the  form  of  human  heads  of 
an  unmistakably  Mongolian  type.  Soon 
after  the  discovery  of  America  the 
question  of  the  origin  of  its  inhabitants 
became  a  fertile  source  of  conjecture 
among  speculative  thinkers.  Probably 
Gregorio  Garcia,  a  missionary  who 
had  for  twenty  years  lived  in  South 
America,  was  the  first  to  reject  the 
general  opinion  that  they  were  a  new 


race  of  beings  sprung  from  the  soil 
they  inhabited,  and  to  suggest  for 
them  an  Asiatic  source.  He  published 
his  views  on  the  question  in  a  work 
entitled  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  INDIANS 
OF  THE  NEW  WORLD  (Valencia,  1G07), 
wherein  he  expresses  himself  as 
opposed  to  the  autochthonous  charac- 
ter of  the  inhabitants,  and  points  out 
reasons  for  thinking  that  the  country 
had  been  peopled  by  Tartars  and 
Chinese.  Brerewood  also,  in  his 
DIVERSITIES  OF  LANGUAGES  AND  RELI- 
GIONS (1632-5),  assigned  the  American 
people  an  Eastern,  and  chiefly  Tartar, 
origin.  But  Hugh  Grotius  argued 
that  North  America  was  peopled  from 
a  Scandinavian  stock,  though  prob- 
ably the  Peruvians  were  from  China. 
Coming  to  more  recent  times  may  be 
mentioned  Professor  Smith  Barton  of 
Pennsylvania,  who,  in  his  NEW  VIEWS 
OF  THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  TRIBES  AND 
NATIONS  OF  AMERICA,  contends  that 
they  are  descended  from  Asiatic 
nations,  though  he  is  unable  to  point 
to  any  particular  source  from  which 
they  have  emanated.  And  John 
Delafield's  ENQUIRIES  INTO  THE  ORIGIN 
OF  THE  ANTIQUITIES  OF  AMERICA  lead 
him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Mexi- 
cans were  from  the  riper  nations  of 
Hindustan  and  Egypt,  and  that  the 
more  barbarous  red  men  were  from 
the  Mongol  stock.  Alexander  von 
Humboldt  during  his  travels  in  South 
America  gave  the  weight  of  his  vast 
knowledge  and  shrewd  observation  to 
a  consideration  of  the  subject.  In 
their  habits  of  life,  in  their  arts  and 
leading  ideas,  and  in  their  form  of 
government,  in  their  personal  appear- 
ance, as  the  yellowish  hue  of  their 
complexions  and  the  Chinese  cast  of 
features,  more  particularly  as  noticed 
among  the  tribes  of  Peru  and  Brazil, 
he  saw  indubious  evidence  of  an 
Asiatic  origin.  Everywhere  he  dis- 
cerned indications,  not  of  a  primitive 
race,  but  of  the  scattered  remnants  of 


. 


On  the  Antiquity  of  Tobacco-Smoking. 


299 


a  civilisation  early  lost.  It  is  to  be 
earnestly  hoped  that  an  inquiry  so  full 
of  deep  interest  may  not  be  allowed  to 
die  out  for  want  of  organised  effort 
to  examine  and  establish  the  pre- 
historic connection  of  these  early 
inhabitants  of  America  with  the  Old 
World,  possibly  with  the  earliest 
dynasties  of  Egypt,  before  the  ravages 
of  time  and  advancing  civilisation 
have  effaced  all  traces.  These  traces 
are  still  visible  and  within  reach  ;  they 
are  revealed  in  the  buried  cities  of 
Central  America,  in  elaborate  inscrip- 
tions on  the  massive  stonework  of 
Mexico  and  Guatemala,  and  in  other 
decorative  masonry  of  a  people  who 
have  left  behind  no  other  vestige  of 
their  existence,  saving  the  outcast 
wanderers  who  still  haunt  the  forest 
and  the  prairie. 

The  question,  then,  naturally  arises, 
may  not  the  Chinese  and  other  half 
civilised  nations  of  Asia,  in  their  pre- 
historic migrations  to  the  shores  of 
America,  have  carried  with  them  not 
only  a  knowledge  of  the  tobacco-plant 
and  its  use,  but  also  the  seed  of  the 
plant  1  Certainly  they  would  do  so  at 
one  period  or  another  with  such  things 
as  could  be  conveniently  darned  for 
the  supply  of  their  immediate  wants. 
A  knowledge  and  use  of  the  tobacco- 
plant  in  China  before  the  days  of 
Columbus  is  established ;  incidental 
mention  is  made  of  tobacco  in  their 


national  records  of  the  year  1300.  It 
has  been  the  custom  of  every  writer 
on  the  subject  to  decry  all  attempts 
to  seek  for  the  origin  of  the  habit  in 
any  part  of  the  Old  World.  Doctor 
Cleland,  in  his  learned  treatise  on  THE 
HISTORY  AND  PROPERTIES  OP  TOBACCO 
(Glasgow,  1840),  dismisses  the  inquiry 
as  the  growth  of  wild  assertions  by 
Eastern  travellers,  or,  at  best,  a  mere 
tradition  of  the  people  among  whom 
they  travelled,  and  "  obviously  of  no 
conceivable  weight,  from  the  love  of 
antiquity  which  is  so  well  known  a 
mania  of  the  inhabitants  of  Oriental 
countries."  This  summary  treatment 
may  be  convenient,  but  it  is  not 
convincing  ;  nor  is  it  consistent  with 
the  open  spirit  of  fair  inquiry  which 
should  characterise  all  endeavour  to 
arrive  at  truth,  or  to  extend  the 
sphere  of  knowledge.  After  all,  then, 
we  find  ourselves  in  presence  of  the 
not  improbable  hypothesis  of  an 
Eastern  origin  for  the  tobacco-plant 
and  the  habit  of  smoking  its  leaves. 
Let  it  be  conceded  that  in  this  we 
have  an  instance,  among  many  other, 
of  the  Chinaman's  way  of  forestalling 
the  rest  of  mankind ;  that  it  was  he 
who  long  ages  ago  first  planted  in 
American  soil  the  perennial  weed 
which  Europe  to-day  presents  to  him 
as  a  new  indulgence  discovered  by 
Western  enterprise. 


300 


THE    STORY  OF    HIS    LIFE. 


WHEN  I  first  met  Marshall  Bellows 
he  was  a  member  of  the  American 
colony  of  Florence.  He  was  perhaps 
forty  years  old,  with  clean-cut  features, 
a  smooth-shaven  face,  and  dark-brown 
hair  turning  gray  at  the  temples ; 
and  he  was  always  well  dressed.  I 
met  him  at  the  English  club,  where 
he  was  well-known  and  liked  for  his 
pleasant  manners  and  sociable  tem- 
per. He  was  also  more  properly  a 
member  of  an  unnamed  club  which 
meets  at  a  certain  well-known  Flo- 
rentine cafe.  There  is  a  bar  in  front, 
where  the  Italians  buy  their  ver- 
mouth, and  at  the  back  of  the  room 
there  are  a  number  of  tables  at  which 
every  day  about  noon,  and  again 
later  on  at  four  o'clock,  you  may  see 
the  same  men,  principally  Americans 
and  English.  These  are  the  men  who 
were.  They  are  generally  past  their 
prime  of  life,  certainly  past  their 
prime  of  usefulness.  There  are  both 
rich  and  poor  among  them,  and  for 
the  most  part  they  are  intellectual. 
The  past  is  the  topic  of  their  talk, 
and  their  every  word  spells  failure. 
Sometimes,  very  late  in  the  afternoon, 
there  are  regrets  for  the  days  that  are 
gone ;  the  present  and  the  future  are 
by  tacit  understanding  forbidden  sub- 
jects. Where  these  men  live  when 
they  are  not  at  the  cafe  I  do  not 
know.  Their  hours  of  meeting  are  to 
them  the  hours  of  the  day.  It  is  then 
that  they  are  at  their  best,  and  it  is 
by  them  that  I  believe  they  would 
prefer  to  be  judged. 

Marshall  Bellows  was  the  newest 
member  of  this  club.  He  had  come 
to  Florence  because  the  life  of  leisure 
seemed  to  flow  so  freely  and  uninter- 


ruptedly there.  One  day  seemed  so 
much  like  the  other,  and  the  sunlight 
so  good  for  thoughts  of  the  past,  and 
the  still  quiet  nights  for  perfect  rest, 
and  both  day  and  night  so  free  from 
the  noise  and  turmoil  of  the  great 
cities. 

Bellows  had  spun  the  yarn  which 
he  called  the  story  of  his  life  some 
years  before,  when  he  was  about  to 
start  on  his  real  career.  She  was  a 
pretty  girl,  with  a  nice  small  figure ; 
and  like  Bellows  she  had  fine  ideals. 
He  had  first  met  her  at  a  country- 
house  and  had  lived  under  the  same 
roof  with  her  for  one  week ;  and  in 
consequence  for  months  afterwards  he 
had  followed  in  her  wake  thankful  for 
any  odd  moments  she  could  spare  to 
him.  She  smiled  on  him  till  the  time 
came  when  she  met  the  man  who, 
she  thought,  fulfilled  all  the  ideals  of 
her  twenty  years.  It  may  be  ob- 
served in,  passing  that  he  fulfilled 
none  of  them ;  but  he  has  nothing  to 
do  with  this  story.  He  became  a 
most  placid  member  of  society,  and 
his  wife  lost  her  pretty  figure  and 
forgot  the  fine  schemes  she  had  laid 
out  for  herself  and  society.  She 
tried  to  devote  them  all  to  him  in  the 
first  few  weeks  of  her  married  life ; 
but  they  fell  on  stony  places,  and  she 
gave  them  up  about  the  time  that  she 
closed  for  ever  the  volume  of  Beet- 
hoven's symphonies  on  the  drawing- 
room  piano.  The  result  was  a  mild, 
full-faced  husband  and  a  plump 
mother,  too  well-bred  to  speak  of  her 
own  children's  virtues  but  full  of 
unpleasant  information  about  the  off- 
spring of  her  intimate  friends. 

But  to  return  to  Bellows.    He  took 


The  Rtory  of  Ms  Life. 


301 


what  seemed  to  him  the  sensible 
course.  He  left  the  country  with  a 
good  photograph  of  a  fine  lithe  ex- 
ample of  the  best  type  of  American 
girl  in  his  portmanteau  ;  and  a  fine 
lithe  American  girl  she  remained  to 
him  always.  He  at  first  lived  quietly 
at  boarding-houses  in  Switzerland, 
because  the  scenery  seemed  very  grand 
and  it  was  generally  lonely ;  after- 
wards he  spent  the  money  he  had 
thus  saved  at  Monte  Carlo.  He  be- 
came an  incident  in  the  life  of  the 
American  colony  at  Paris,  and  learned 
to  drive  a  coach  up  the  Champs 
Elysees  ;  and  afterwards,  through  his 
gains  at  Longchamps  and  Auteuil,  he 
became  a  conspicuous  figure  for  all 
the  women  who  came  to  Paris  to 
wonder  at.  And  yet  he  was  not  happy. 
Somewhere  in  the  country  that  he 
had  denied  there  was  that  delicate 
framework,  that  high  type  of  woman- 
hood who  had  cast  in  her  lot  with 
another.  He  never  climbed  a  moun- 
tain in  Switzerland  that  he  did  not 
secretly  hope  to  find  her  sitting  dis- 
consolate on  the  peak,  and  liable  to  be 
blown  off  at  any  moment  but  for  his 
timely  appearance.  At  Monte  Carlo 
he  wanted  to  break  the  bank,  not  so 
much  to  revenge  mankind  or  to  win 
the  money,  as  to  have  the  fact  tele- 
graphed to  America  and  make  her 
think  that  he  was  a  much  finer  fellow 
than  she  had  originally  supposed,  or 
that  he  was  going  to  the  devil  very 
quickly  and  for  all  time.  When  he 
moved  from  the  Riviera  to  Paris  he 
studied  the  papers  to  learn  what 
Americans  had  arrived  at  what  hotels  ; 
and  he  drove  his  coach  with  the  sole 
purpose  that  she  might  see  him  perched 
up  so  very  high  and  looking  so  very 
fine.  Whether  she  did  or  not  he 
never  knew,  as  he  failed  to  reach  a 
point  where  the  four  horses  were  not 
sufficient  to  occupy  his  entire  atten- 
tion. 

After  a  few  years  of  unproductive 


travelling,  always  accompanied  by  her 
photograph  and  a  dog,  which  animal 
his  reading  and  knowledge  of  the 
drama  had  taught  him  to  be  always 
necessary  to  a  man  crossed  in  love,  he 
returned  to  America  and  the  home 
that  he  knew  before  he  met  her.  But 
he  found  that  these  years  of  travel 
had  unloosed  most  of  his  old  acquaint- 
ances, and  even  his  friends.  It  was 
not,  after  all,  much  to  wonder  at. 
He  had  brought  back  nothing  to 
tell,  and  he  had  thought  so  much  of 
his  own  story  that  it  had  to  a  certain 
extent  affected  at  least  his  value  as  a 
companion.  And  so,  after  a  half- 
hearted welcome  and  three  months  of 
indifference,  he  called  on  his  lawyer 
and  his  banker,  and  having  confided 
his  chief  difficulties  to  his  dog,  he 
turned  his  back  for  ever  on  the  land 
which  he  really  loved  and  for  which  a 
few  years  since  he  had  hoped  to  do  so 
many  and  such  noble  things.  All  of 
which  was  of  course  a  pity,  and 
happened  simply  because  the  man 
needed  one  noble  passion  for  one 
woman  or  one  thing  instead  of  doling 
out  his  sentiment  and  his  fine  ambi- 
tions on  a  romance  which  was  not  a 
romance  at  all,  but  only  a  very  youthful 
imitation  of  one. 

When  Bellows  returned  to  his  exile 
abroad  he  decided  to  forget  the  past 
at  his  easel.  He  had  a  pretty  talent 
for  drawing ;  even  now  there  are  two 
prints  from  his  sketches  in  a  window 
on  the  Via  dei  Pucci,  and  although 
they  are  of  a  rather  modern  girl,  and 
although  they  are  hung  among  the 
rough  sketches  of  some  old  masters, 
yet  there  is  something  in  them, — that 
something  which  for  lack  of  a  better 
name  critics  call  promise.  He  also 
did  a  little  modelling,  but  he  got  no 
further  than  the  copying  period,  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  believe,  never 
had  anything  cast.  But  music  was 
the  rack  upon  which  Bellows's  friends 
pinned  their  faith  and  their  apolo- 


302 


The  Story  of  his  Life. 


gies  for  his  other  failures.  He 
certainly  had  a  good  knowledge  of 
technique  and  played  with  a  deal 
of  feeling ;  but  his  music  always  left 
his  listeners  in  such  a  dreary  frame 
of  mind  that  even  that  accomplish- 
ment was  not  entirely  successful. 
He  had  rooms  very  near  the  Cascine, 
and  he  had  made  them  beautiful 
with  old  furniture  and  brocades  and 
good  pictures  and  glass  and  silver  and 
tapestries, — in  fact  all  the  things  on 
which  the  last  few  hundred  years  of 
Italy  have  placed  their  stamp  of 
approval.  In  one  corner  of  the 
drawing-room  there  was  an  old  carved 
desk  with  a  great  flat  top  and  drawers 
down  either  side.  In  one  of  these 
Bellows  had  packed  away  the  practi- 
cal story  of  his  life.  This  to  him  was 
the  one  thing  that  he  had  done,  and 
he  believed  that  he  had  done  it  well. 
Every  man,  they  say,  can  write  one 
story,  and  Bellows  had  written  his. 
He  had  worked  on  it  for  a  long  time, 
and  from  a  mere  sketch  it  had  grown 
into  a  fairly  long  story,  full,  so  Bellows 
thought,  of  fine  ideas  and  pricking 
sarcasms.  When  he  was  gone  the 
world  was  to  have  it,  and  find  regret 
in  it  for  the  past  and  a  little  warning 
for  the  future.  Bellows  laid  no  claims 
to  any  unusual  ability  as  an  author, 
but  there  was  one  thing  he  thought  he 
did  know,  and  that  was  woman ;  and 
while  he  had  been  in  his  opinion  fair 
and  just  to  her,  he  had  at  least  been 
conscientiously  truthful.  He  believed 
that  he  had  combined  the  wit  of  a 
Sydney  Smith,  the  cynicism  of  a 
Gilbert,  and  the  analysis  of  a  Bourget 
in  that  one  short  story.  Perhaps  it  was 
all  that  he  claimed  for  it ;  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  no  one  was  ever  allowed 
to  read  it.  It  was  a  very  sacred  thing 
to  Bellows,  and  it  was  only  very  late 
in  the  afternoon,  when  the  talk  at  the 
club  grew  confidential,  that  it  was 
even  mentioned. 

It  must  be  said  for  Bellows  that  he 


complained  to  no  one,  and  doled  out 
the  sentiment  and  the  passion  of  his 
life  alone.  He  took  long  drives  through 
the  Cascine,  and  if  there  was  a  crowd 
he  would  leave  his  carriage  and  walk 
down  through  the  narrow  shaded  walks 
or  out  on  the  little  gravel  path  that 
runs  along  the  Arno.  It  was  a 
pathetic  sight  to  see  him  standing 
there  alone,  late  in  the  afternoon, 
leaning  over  the  railing  with  the 
little  river  running  at  his  feet,  and 
across  the  stream  the  green  banks, 
and  beyond  and  above  all  the  faint 
pink  sky  shading  into  the  first  gray 
shades  of  the  coming  evening.  It 
was  pathetic  because  it  all  meant  so 
little  to  one  to  whom  it  might  and 
should  have  meant  so  much.  He  was 
not  looking  at,  but  through  one  of 
the  greatest  pictures  nature  ever 
painted.  He  did  not  see  the  green 
grass  and  the  last  glow  from  the 
hot  crimson  sun  that  had  sunk  be- 
hind the  hills;  he  saw  nothing  but 
a  waste  of  years,  a  waste  of  his 
own  life  scorched  of  its  noble  ideals, 
a  succession  of  petty  triumphs  and 
great  failures. 

He  could  be  seen  almost  any  night 
at  the  opera  sitting  alone  in  the  pit, 
intent  as  any  master  could  have  been, 
but  after  all  it  was  only  an  accom- 
paniment to  his  own  thoughts.  He 
was  setting  the  music  of  Gounod  and 
Verdi  to  his  own  words,  to  the  story 
of  his  life  lying  in  the  desk  at  home. 
The  heroine  was  always  the  same. 
Many  years  had  passed  since  he  had 
seen  her,  and  she  had  grown  stout 
and  somewhat  careless  in  her  dress, 
as  even  the  best  of  women  will  some- 
times forget  themselves  in  their  chil- 
dren ;  but  to  him  she  was  always  the 
same,  pretty  and  graceful  and  young ; 
and  he,  as  he  listened  to  the  music, 
became  young  too  and  forgot  the  gray 
temples  and  the  sharp  lines  cutting 
into  his  forehead. 

But  in  time  Bellows  was  no  longer 


The  Sttwy  of  his  Life. 


303 


to  be  seen  on  the  banks  of  the  Arno 
and  ceased  to  frequent  the  opera.  He 
spent  more  of  his  time  at  the  cafe, 
and  the  club  often  broke  up  in  the 
late  afternoon  and  left  him  sitting 
alone  before  the  marble  table  and  the 
empty  glasses.  Men  who  stepped  in 
for  a  glass  of  vermouth  before  a  late 
dinner  would  find  him  still  sitting- 
there  in  the  deserted  room  looking 
intently  across  it  at  the  gray-painted 
wall. 

Men  who  live  in  Tuscany,  and  are 
not  content  with  the  wine  of  the 
country,  are  well  enough  when  the 
tramontanes  winds  blow  down  from 
the  snow-covered  mountains  and 
bluster  and  scream  through  the  high, 
narrow  streets,  and  again  when  the 
rain  and  snow-storms  drive  the  men 
and  horses  into  shelter  ;  but  it  is  very 
different  when  the  sun  blazes  out  and 
turns  its  hot  rays  into  every  narrow 
lane  and  makes  the  Lung' Arno  fit 
only  for  dogs.  Then  the  man  who  is 
not  content  with  the  wine  of  the 
country  finds,  after  he  crosses  a  piazza, 
that  the  merciless  sun  has  turned  the 
streets  into  avenues  of  white  chalk, 
and  the  gray-green  tops  of  the  olive 
trees  on  the  hills  form  themselves 
into  a  crooked  black  line  against  a 
milk-white  sky. 

Bellows  turned  on  his  pillow 
and  looked  sleepily  at  the  clock  on 
the  mantel-piece.  It  was  just  seven 
and  the  April  sun  fell  in  a  long  un- 
broken shaft  across  the  bed.  There 
was  something  about  the  flood  of  the 
early  morning  sunshine  that  made 
him  think  of  a  room  he  had  had  in 
a  little  cottage  at  home.  He  used  to 
spend  his  summers  there,  and  every 
fine  morning  the  sun  used  to  awaken 
him  from  a  long  fresh  sleep  and  he 
would  lie  there  in  the  yellow  light 
and  listen  to  the  hens  cackling  and 
the  cocks  crowing  just  outside  his 
door.  Bellows  always  used  to  say 


that  these  were  the  happiest  days  of 
his  life.  Things  that  he  had  done  in 
those  early  days  seemed  to  come  back 
to  him  this  morning  very  clearly  ;  he 
recalled  certain  games  he  had  played, 
and  long  days  when  he  had  sat  silently 
in  his  boat  with  a  rod  in  his  hand,  or 
had  tramped  over  the  marshes  with  a 
gun  under  his  arm.  And  then  quite 
unconsciously  he  began  to  whistle 
softly  a  song  he  used  to  sing  a  very 
long  time  before. 

"  That's  funny,"  he  said  half  aloud  ; 
"  everything  seems  so  clear  this  morn- 
ing." 

There  was  no  headache  and  no  pain, 
nothing  but  a  little  weakness  in  his 
arms  and  lips.  His  head  was  so  very 
clear,  and  everything  in  the  room 
seemed  to  stand  out  so  much  more 
sharply,  and  to  mean  so  much  more 
than  it  ever  had  meant  before.  For  a 
moment  he  thought  he  would  ring  for 
his  servant,  but  he  changed  his  mind 
and  tossed  the  clothes  off  his  bed.  He 
put  on  his  slippers  and  his  dressing- 
gown  and  walked  out  into  the  drawing- 
room.  It  was  still  cold,  so  he  lit  the 
fire  and  then  walked  out  into  the 
sunshine  of  the  balcony.  The  sky 
was  the  light  blue  of  the  clear  Italian 
morning,  and  the  stony  street  lay 
very  white  and  clean  and  almost  de- 
serted in  the  early  sun.  He  looked 
down  at  the  entrance  of  the  Cascine 
and  saw,  through  the  mist  floating 
from  off  the  river,  two  men  leisurely 
crossing  the  piazza  on  their  way  to 
work.  Across  the  street  in  front  of 
the  theatre  a  man  was  pasting  up  the 
bills  for  the  opera  that  night.  He  tried 
to  read  the  letters  of  the  name,  and 
then  it  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that 
it  did  not  make  much  difference  after 
all,  at  least  to  him.  He  shrugged  his 
shoulders  slightly,  and  stepped  back 
into  the  room.  The  fire  was  crack- 
ling on  the  hearth,  and  the  room 
looked  very  bright  and  snug  with  its 
red  curtains  and  the  deep  brown  walls. 


304 


The  Story  of  his  Life 


He  stood  quite  still  for  some  moments 
looking  curiously  round  at  the  beauti- 
ful things  he  had  gathered  about  him. 
And  then  he  suddenly  remembered 
that  probably  he  would  not  see  them 
again.  They  would  be  stripped  from 
their  places  and  scattered  broadcast 
over  the  world.  In  a  short  time  there 
would  be  another  master  here,  and 
the  individuality  and  the  atmosphere 
which  he  had  given  to  the  place 
through  these  material  things  would 
have  passed  away.  Surely  there  was 
something  he  would  leave  behind  ?  It 
was  true  the  pictures  were  not  of  his 
brush  ;  some  were  by  great  men  of 
this  time  whom  he  had  known,  and 
others  were  the  work  of  men  who 
died  when  men  knew  really  how  to 
paint.  On  the  shelves  there  was  no 
book  that  bore  his  name  ;  the  music 
on  the  rack  was  the  inspiration  of 
masters  who  had  died  and  left 
humanity  their  debtor  for  all  time. 
Even  the  tapestry  and  the  china,  even 
the  very  silk  of  the  curtains  had  been 
made  by  a  people  who  were  great  in 
their  own  way,  and  who  had  been 
buried  with  the  secret  of  their  know- 
ledge. 

Bellows  pulled  the  girdle  of  his 
dressing-gown  tightly  about  him. 
Surely  there  must  be  something  1  The 
photographs  scattered  about  were  the 
likenesses  of  pretty  women  whom  he 
had  not  known  for  years,  or  of  singers 
from  the  cafes  chantants,  whose  names 
and  good  wishes  written  across  the  face 
he  had  bought  with  bank-notes.  He 
turned  slowly  from  one  wall  to  another, 
from  the  eastern  rugs  under  his  feet 
to  the  old  frescoes  of  the  cupids  on 
the  ceiling.  And  then  for  a  moment 
his  eyes  rested  on  the  desk. 

Yes,  there  was  something ;  that 
manuscript,  his  own  story.  He  took 
it  from  the  drawer,  and  began  to  read 
it,  although  he  knew  every  word  by 


heart.  He  turned  the  first  few  pages 
over  very  slowly  and  read  what  he 
had  written  with  much  care.  His 
brain  seemed  so  much  stronger  this 
morning,  and  everything  so  much 
clearer  and  so  much  more  as  it  used 
to  be  when  he  was  younger  and  gave 
things  the  value  they  deserved,  the 
value  the  world  put  upon  them.  Half 
sitting  on  the  desk  he  turned  the 
leaves  of  the  manuscript  slowly  until 
he  had  read  the  story  through.  For 
a  moment  he  still  rested  against  the 
desk  and  looked  across  the  room  to 
the  long,  high  window  and  the  old 
lace  curtains  moving  slowly  about  in 
the  first  breeze  of  the  morning.  He 
pressed  his  lips  tightly  together,  and 
then  his  face  relaxed  into  a  smile ; 
but  it  was  a  face  in  which  there  was 
no  gladness,  a  smile  that  men  wear  who 
are  called  by  the  world  good  losers. 

"It  is  very  strange,"  he  said  to  the 
long  window  and  the  fluttering  cur- 
tains, "  but  I  really  thought  the  story 
was  new  and  good ;  this  morning  it 
seems  that  it  is  very  old.  It's  the 
story  that  every  man  and  every 
woman  could  write,  did  they  wish  to 
tell  of  one  happy  or  unhappy  time  in 
their  own  life.  It  has  been  told  a 
thousand  times,  and  very  much  better 
than  I  have  told  it." 

He  carried  the  bundle  of  paper  to 
the  open  hearth  and  let  it  fall  from 
his  hand  among  the  burning  coals. 
For  a  moment  they  divided  it  into  two 
high  points,  and  then  a  tiny  blue  flame 
caught  the  corner  of  the  package  and 
curled  the  pages  one  by  one  until  a 
chance  flame  turned  the  whole  into  a 
blazing  mass. 

Bellows  stood  with  his  arm  on  the 
shelf  above  the  fire  and  his  head  rest- 
ing on  the  back  of  his  hand.  He 
watched  the  flames  rise  and  fall  and 
leave  his  story  a  charred,  black,  useless 
mass  in  the  red  embers. 


\   305 


THE  RED  DEER  OF  NEW  ZEALAND. 


"  August  2'2nd.—I  sent  out  my 
"  keepers  into  Windsor  forest  to  har- 
"  bour  a  stag  to  be  hunted  to-morrow 
"  morning,  but  I  persuaded  Colonel 
"  Ludlow  that  it  would  be  hard  to 
"  shew  him  any  sport,  the  best  stags 
"  being  all  destroyed  ;  but  he  was  very 
"  earnest  to  have  some  sport  and  I 
"  thought  not  fit  to  deny  him. 

"August  23rd. — My  keepers  did 
"  harbour  a  stag.  Colonel  Ludlow 
"  and  other  gentlemen  met  me  by 
"  daybreak.  It  was  a  young  stag,  but 
"  very  lusty  and  in  good  case.  The 
"first  ring  which  the  stag  led  the 
"gallants  was  above  twenty  miles." 

So  wrote  Bulstrode  Whitelocke 
in  the  year  1649,  six  months  after  the 
execution  of  King  Charles  the  First. 
In  February,  1645,  royal  Windsor 
had  seen  the  making  of  the  famous 
army  which  was  to  crush  the  Royalists 
and  bring  the  King  to  the  block ; 
and  in  June,  Windsor,  no  longer 
royal,  was  with  certain  other  palaces 
reserved  from  the  sale  of  the  kingly 
possessions,  for  the  use  of  the  State. 
A  month  later  Mr.  Whitelocke  was 
housed  in  the  manor-lodge  of  the  park 
"  to  retire  himself  from  business,"  for 
he  was  an  extremely  busy  person,  and 
in  those  days  busier  than  ever.  He 
was  a  Member  of  Parliament,  of  the 
Council  of  State,  and  a  Commissioner, 
labour  enough  for  one  man,  as  he 
observes  with  pathetic  self-conscious- 
ness ;  and  as  if  this  were  not  enough, 
he  had  taken  over  the  charge  of  the 
famous  and  precious  collection  of  books 
and  medals  at  Saint  James's.  A  dull, 
solid  lawyer  with  a  taste  for  literature 
and  art  is  not  exactly  the  type  of 

No.  442. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


man  which  one  would  have  selected  to 
install  in  the  manor-lodge  of  Windsor 
Park,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  conjec- 
ture that  he  was  not  too  well  pleased 
when  Colonel  Ludlow  came  down  and 
insisted  on  a  day's  stag-hunting. 
Ludlow  again,  the  sour,  stubborn  re- 
publican, is  hardly  the  man  whom  one 
would  have  chosen  to  disturb  the 
repose  of  his  colleague  by  a  demand 
for  sport ;  but  it  is  evident,  since 
Whitelocke  did  not  see  fit  to  deny 
him,  that  his  keenness  bore  down  all 
hesitation  and  all  objections. 

So  Whitelocke's  keepers  went  out 
to  harbour  a  stag,  and  Whitelocke 
himself  probably  thanked  Heaven  that 
he  needed  not  rise  with  them  before 
dawn  and  go  out  through  the  dripping 
dewy  grass,  to  look  for  the  slot  of  a 
great  hart  and  find  none.  And  that 
morning  the  harboured  deer  must,  un- 
less we  are  mistaken,  have  led  Ludlow 
and  his  friends  a  dance  from  which 
their  horses  did  not  recover  for  a  fort- 
night nor  their  hounds  for  a  month. 
It  was  a  young  stag,  says  Whitelocke 
sagely,  but  very  lusty  and  in  good  case. 
The  honest  man  was  no  sportsman,  or 
he  would  have  known  that  the  masters 
of  venery,  even  to  the  opening  of  the 
present  century,  confined  themselves 
to  the  chase  of  old  deer  for  the  simple 
reason  that  they  are  more  easily 
caught  than  the  young.  Harts  of  a 
lively  red  colour,  says  the  old  French 
authority,  should  not  greatly  delight 
the  heart  of  the  hunter ;  and  the  ex- 
planation is  that  a  lively  red  betokens 
such  a  deer  as  Ludlow  hunted  in  vain 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  In 
these  days  when  the  breeding  and 
training  of  hounds  for  speed  have  been. 


306 


The  Bed  Deer  of  New  Zealand. 


carried  to  perfection,  such  deer  may  be 
raced  to  death  in  a  couple  of  hours ; 
and  before  this  present  August  is 
closed  this  will  have  been  the  fate  of 
more  than  one  on  wild  Exmoor. 

Surely,  it  will  be  said,  it  is  a  far 
cry  from  the  Windsor  deer  of  White- 
locke's  day  to  the  red  deer  in  New 
Zealand.  It  is,  and  yet  it  is  not. 
Whitelocke  apologised  for  the  prospect 
of  a  poor  day's  sport  on  the  ground 
that  all  the  best  stags  had  been 
destroyed ;  and  indeed  it  should  seem 
that  the  English  poacher  enjoyed  a 
regular  carnival  during  the  Great 
Rebellion.  The  love  which  the  Nor- 
mans had  taught  the  English  kings 
for  the  tall  red  deer  had  clothed  the 
poor  animals  with  an  unfortunate  and 
a  precarious  sanctity.  For  their  sake 
the  military  efficiency  of  England  had 
twice  been  seriously  impaired ;  first 
when  King  Edward  the  First  forbade 
to  his  lieges  in  the  forest  the  use  of 
the  clothyard  shaft,  and  next  when 
King  Henry  the  Eighth  discounten- 
anced the  newly-invented  hand-guns 
in  favour  of  the  old-fashioned  bow. 
When,  therefore,  the  confusion  of  the 
Civil  War  opened  the  door  to  lawless- 
ness, the  onslaught  on  the  deer  seems 
to  have  been  universal.  There  is  in 
the  State  Papers  a  pathetic  appeal 
from  King  Charles  the  Second  to  the 
gentlemen  living  round  his  forests  to 
allow  his  sadly  thinned  herds  to  re- 
cover themselves,  so  as  to  afford  him 
some  little  sport.  Windsor,  from 
whatever  cause,  seems  especially  to 
have  suffered  in  this  respect.  The 
English  soldier  has  always  re- 
quired good  feeding,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  there  were  cunning 
poachers  in  the  ranks  of  the  New 
Model  Army  who  kept  it  well  pro- 
vided with  venison.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
the  herd  of  deer  was  so  far  reduced 
that  the  King  was  fain  to  restock  the 
forest  by  importing  deer  from  Germany. 

Thus  then  the    German   deer  first, 


so  far  as  we  know,  found  his  way  to 
England  ;  and  if  any  one  is  surprised 
to  find  the  stags  at  Windsor  larger 
and  finer  than  any  that  he  has  seen 
in  Scotland  or  on  Exmoor,  this  is  the 
explanation.  The  German  deer  is  a 
much  grander  animal  to  the  eye  than 
the  English  ;  and  if  any  Englishman  or 
Scotchman  boasts  himself  of  a  fine 
collection  of  native  antlers,  he  has 
only  to  visit  such  a  rival  collection 
as  that  of  the  Kings  of  Saxony  at 
Moritzburg  to  find  himself  humbled 
even  to  the  dust. 

Now  rather  more  than  fifty  years 
ago  the  English  entered  into  posses- 
sion of  a  new,  strange,  and  beautiful 
country,  a  kind  of  insular  Italy,  con- 
sisting of  a  great  central  mountain 
range,  broken  indeed  in  the  centre  by 
about  twenty  miles  of  salt  water,  but 
with  that  exception  continuous,  with 
a  broad  margin,  as  usual,  to  the  east 
and  a  narrow  margin  to  the  west. 
Vast  tracts  of  magnificent  forest 
covered  and  still  cover  much  both  of 
the  mountainous  and  the  lower  land ; 
and  yet  when  the  white  man  first 
visited  it  he  found  therein  no  four- 
footed  thing,  but  only  birds,  many  of 
which  had  lost  the  habit  of  flight,  and 
some  even  the  possession '  of  wings, 
through  long  immunity  from  creep- 
ing enemies.  The  first  visitors  that 
the  white  men  left  behind  them 
were  rats  and  swine ;  the  former  of 
course  soon  spread  all  over  the 
country,  while  the  latter,  reverting  to 
their  primitive  wildness,  are  still 
plentiful  in  many  forest-districts  and 
bear  tusks  such  as  many  an  Indian 
sportsman  would  covet  for  a  trophy. 
Sheep,  oxen,  horses,  dogs,  and  cats 
have  also  seized  the  opportunity  to 
escape  into  the  bush  and  run  wild; 
but  a  far  nobler  colonist  for  the  New 
Zealand  forest  was  found  in  the  red 
deer. 

The  ancestors  of  the  New  Zealand 
deer  were  a  present  from  the  late 


The  Red  De$r  of  New  Zealand. 


307 


Prince  Consort,  and  were  themselves 
descended  from  the  Germans  imported 
by  King  Charles  the  Second.  In  1861 
two  stags  and  four  hinds  were  caught 
in  Windsor  Park  and  shipped  off  to 
the  Antipodes.  One  stag  and  two 
hinds  took  passage  in  the  ship  Triton, 
and  after  a  passage  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty-seven  days,  in  the  course 
of  which  one  hind  died  at  sea,  the 
two  survivors  were  landed  at  Wel- 
lington on  June  6th,  1862.  Of  the 
remaining  three,  which  were  designed 
for  the  province  of  Canterbury  in  the 
South  Island,  but  a  single  hind 
reached  her  destination  alive  ;  so  she 
was  presently  reshipped  to  join  the 
pair  at  Wellington. 

It   is  pathetic   to  think  of   the  be- 
wilderment    to     which     these     poor 
animals  must   have  been  subjected  in 
that  first  year   1862.      Caught  up   in 
the  middle  of  the  English  winter  they 
found  themselves  in  a  few  weeks  in 
the  tropics.     The  stag  would  naturally 
expect    his  new  head  to  be  growing 
instead    of    an    old    one  to    be  stuck 
immovably  on   his   forehead,  and  the 
hinds  must   have  thought  that    they 
had  made  a  serious  miscalculation  as 
to   the    establishment    of    a    nursery. 
Then,    the    tropics    passed,   came  the 
long  dreary  run  through  the  Southern 
Ocean.      The  stag  had  probably  shed 
what  horns  were  left  to  him,  and  now 
found  himself   at  midwinter  defence- 
less,   while    the    hinds    congratulated 
themselves  that  there  was  no  occasion 
for  a  nursery  after  all.     Finally,  when 
landed  at  Wellington  within   a  fort- 
night of  English  midsummer  day,  they 
discovered  that  in  the  Southern  hemi- 
sphere   they    were    within    the    same 
distance    of    the     shortest     day,    and 
probably  had  the  fact  brought  home 
to  them  by  the  bitter  blast  of  what 
in  those  parts  is  known  by  the  elegant 
name  of  a  southerly  buster. 

Their    first    months     ashore     were 
anything    but    enviable.      They   were 


kept    for    a    considerable    time    in    a 
stable    of    the    principal    street,    and 
no    doubt    exposed    to    frequent    and 
irritating    visits.      Then    the    novelty 
of  their  appearance  wore  o'ff,  and  the 
bills  for  forage  began  to   grow  heavy. 
New  Zealand  was  at  that  time  divided 
into  provinces  under  provincial  govern- 
ments.     The  Colony  was  not  yet  rich, 
the  Maoris  were  not   yet  conquered, 
and   every  additional   expense  was  a 
burden.       So    there    the    three     poor 
animals  remained,  pent  up  in  a  stable 
with     the    hot    north    wind    roaring 
round  them,  while  public  and   politi- 
cians grumbled  loudly  at   the  cost  of 
their  keep,  and  asked  who  was  to  blame 
for  their  untimely  arrival  in  the  Colony. 
At    last,    to    the    general    relief,   a 
patriotic  member  of  Assembly  offered 
to  carry  them  off  at  his  own   expense 
to   his   station   up  the  country.      The 
Government  gladly  agreed.     The  deer, 
by  this   time  inured  to  all  surprises, 
were    replaced   in    the    box    wherein 
they    had     travelled    from    England, 
packed   on    a    waggon,   and    off   they 
went.      Far  away  at  the  head  of  the 
grand    inland    lake    which    is    called 
Wellington     Harbour     and     of     the 
valley   that  runs  down  to  it,  stands  a 
noble  range  of  forest-clad  mountains 
six    thousand    feet    in    height ;     and 
beyond  them  again  is  a  plain  such  as 
Claude   would   have    loved   to    paint, 
watered  by  rivers  whereof   the  like  is 
not  to  be  seen  in  England.      Thither 
the  deer  were  slowly  tugged,  over  the 
ranges  which  a  mountain  railway  now 
climbs  at  a  gradient  of  one  in  fifteen, 
and    down    into    the    valley,    to    the 
patriotic  politician's  homestead.   There 
at    last,     after    yet     some    weeks     of 
detention,  they  were  liberated  in  the 
spring  of  1863.      They  at  once  crossed 
the  greatest  river   in   the   valley  and 
took  refuge  in  some  limestone  ranges, 
which  are  now  well  sown  with  English 
grasses,  and   so  recall   to  them  their 
former  home. 

x  2 


308 


The  Red  Deer  of  New  Zealand. 


It  was  not  a  great  stock  wherewith 
to  found  a  herd  in  a  new  and  heavily 
wooded  country,  and  it  is  probable 
that  some  little  time  was  necessary  for 
the  deer  to  accommodate  themselves  to 
changes  of  climate  and  season.  On 
Exmoor,  which  would  be  nearer  akin 
in  climate  to  New  Zealand  than  Scot- 
land, stags  shed  their  horns  between 
the  middle  of  April  and  the  middle 
of  May,  and  fray  the  velvet  of  the 
newly-grown  head  in  the  last  week 
of  August  and  the  first  fortnight  or 
thereabouts  of  September.  In  Devon- 
shire the  rutting  season  begins  in  the 
first  week  of  October,  and  the  calves 
are  dropped  in  the  middle  weeks  of 
June.  In  New  Zealand  July  corre- 
ponds  to  January.  The  deer  shed 
their  horns  in  September,  which 
corresponds  to  March,  and  have  clean 
heads  at  the  end  of  January.  The 
rutting  season  opens  about  the  20th 
of  March,  and  the  calves  are  dropped 
towards  the  end  of  November.  Thus 
it  should  seem  that  in  every  point, 
except  the  actual  time  of  birth,  the 
deer  of  New  Zealand  are  a  month 
ahead  of  their  fellows  in  Devon  or 
Somerset. 

But  their  precocity  in  other  respects 
is  still  more  astonishing.  In  Devon 
the  second  head  of  a  young  male  deer 
rarely  carries  more  than  at  most  four 
branches,  and  generally  brow  antlers 
alone.  In  New  Zealand  there  is  an 
authentic  case  of  a  young  stag,  not 
yet  three  years  old,  with  ten  full 
points.  It  is  true  that  the  animal 
was  caught  up  as  a  calf  and  fed  by 
hand  until  his  second  head  was  grown  ; 
but  something  more  than  mere  feeding 
by  hand  is  necessary  to  produce  in 
two  years  what  would  be  considered 
even  in  punctilious  France  to  be  a 
fair  growth  for  five.  In  truth  the 
red  deer  of  New  Zealand  bids  fair  to 
become  a  gigantic  animal.  Thore  is 
now  before  us  a  photograph,  with 
measurements  of  four  heads  of  New 


Zealand  stags  ;  and  we  confess,  though 
we  have  seen  something  of  antlers 
in  our  time,  that  we  are  fairly 
amazed  by  their  size.  To  give  but  one 
item,  the  heaviest  of  them  measures 
close  on  ten  inches  round  the  beam 
between  the  bay  and  trey  antlers, 
that  is  to  say,  about  a  third  of  the  way 
up  the  horn  from  the  skull.  The  rest 
of  the  heads,  though  less  massive  than 
this,  are  magnificent  in  beam  and 
spread  and  length  of  tine,  and  more- 
over, so  far  as  we  can  judge,  are  not 
the  largest  which  the  deer  would 
have  grown  had  they  been  left  alive 
for  a  year  or  two  longer. 

For  this  superb  growth  of  horn 
there  are  plenty  of  reasons  to  account. 
In  the  first  place,  the  original  breed  of 
the  deer  was,  as  has  been  said, 
German,  and  therefore  larger  than 
the  English.  Next,  the  animals  have 
an  immense  range  of  forest  wherein 
to  roam  at  large,  plenty  of  good  food, 
and  freedom  at  their  will  both  from  the 
hand  of  man  and  from  the  hardships 
of  winter.  Again,  it  is  significant 
that  the  finest  heads  always  come 
from  the  limestone  country,  which 
is  so  favourable  to  the  formation  of 
bone.  Lastly,  there  seems  to  be  some- 
thing magical  about  New  Zealand  which 
makes  every  imported  creature  grow 
and  thrive,  at  any  rate  for  a  time, 
with  amazing  vigour.  The  English 
brook -trout,  which  in  a  similar  stream 
in  England  would  weigh  from  four 
ounces  to  a  pound,  average  in  New 
Zealand  from  one  pound  to  five  or 
even  eight ;  while  in  the  larger  rivers 
and  lakes  they  increase  without  an 
effort  to  ten,  fifteen,  and  even  to  five- 
and-thirty  pounds.  Moreover,  now 
that  they  have  taken  to  the  salmonic 
habit  of  going  down  annually  to  the 
sea,  they  bid  fair  to  convert  themselves 
in  due  time  into  salmon,  and  then 
there  is  no  saying  to  what  monstrous 
proportions  they  may  attain. 

But,  to  return  to  our   deer ;   grand 


The  Red  Debr  of  New  Zealand. 


309 


though  the  trophies  are  that  have 
already  been  secured,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  they  are  the  grandest 
in  the  New  Zealand  forest.  For  the 
stock  sprung  from  the  ancestors  of 
Windsor  is  now  increasing  apace,  and 
is  spreading  further  arid  further  over 
the  North  Island.  This  of  course  does 
not  imply  that  they  are  in  any  place 
unduly  thick  on  the  ground.  Anyone 
familiar  with  the  habits  of  deer  is 
aware  of  the  secret  of  the  red  deer's 
wanderings.  Some  young  stag  grows 
weary  during  the  love-season  of  being 
ousted  from  all  opportunities  of  court- 
ship by  his  more  powerful  seniors,  so 
denying  himself  the  luxury  of  a 
harem,  he  elopes  with  a  single  hind  as 
young  as  himself,  and  takes  her  away 
into  a  far  country  where  they  may 
enjoy  connubial  felicity  undisturbed. 
Young  couples  in  this  way  wander 
away  from  Exmoor  to  Dartmoor,  to 
the  Blackmoor  vale,  and  even  to  the 
New  Forest ;  and  in  New  Zealand 
they  have  probably  stolen  afield  to 
districts  where  their  presence  is  un- 
suspected, and  will  remain  unsuspected 
until  betrayed  by  the  increase  of  their 
numbers. 

Nor  has  the  hand  of  man  been 
idle.  That  most  meritorious  institu- 
tion, the  Wellington  Acclimatization 
Society,  which  still  indefatigably  stocks 
the  innumerable  rivers  and  streams  of 
the  province  with  half  a  million  trout 
every  year,  has  taken  the  red  deer 
into  its  more  particular  charge,  and 
is  establishing  new  colonies,  according 
to  its  resources,  in  every  likely  spot. 
As  the  original  herd  grows,  enthusiasts 
watch  for  the  calves,  steal  them  away, 
rear  them,  and  turn  them  out  when  of 
discreet  age  into  the  land  of  some 
friendly  squatter,  who  will  keep  a 
careful  eye  on  them  until  they  are 
able  to  take  care  of  themselves.  The 
process  is  the  easier  inasmuch  as  the 
hinds  appear  to  leave  the  higher  for 
the  lower  lands  when  the  time  for 


calving  comes.  When  we  ourselves 
some  years  ago  enjoyed  the  benefit 
of  the  Acclimatization  Society's 
labours,  there  was  not  a  great  deal 
said  about  the  deer.  They  were  known 
to  be  on  the  increase ;  they  were 
frequently  seen  by  those  that  lived  near 
them,  and  they  were  occasionally  shot. 
Those  who  knew  them  best  would 
report  that  they  had  seen  what  they 
called  a  mob  of  them  at  various 
times,  and  would  give  a  rough  de- 
scription of  them.  But  latterly  the 
New  Zealanders  have  taken  to  watch- 
ing the  deer  carefully  and  studying 
their  habits  and  seasons,  curiously  and 
lovingly  after  the  manner  of  Gaston 
de  Foix  and  his  disciple  Jacques  du 
Fouilloux.  Already  some  interesting 
facts  have  crept  into  the  Annual 
Report  of  the  Society  for  1896,  and 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  all  who  have 
the  opportunity  may  continue  to 
collect  and  to  set  down  such  facts 
as  come  under  their  notice.  The 
number  of  sportsmen  who  take  out 
licenses  to  shoot  deer  grows  as  steadily 
as  the  numbers  of  the  deer  themselves  ; 
and  they,  too,  should  be  able  to  record 
matters  of  interest,  not  only  in  the 
little  studied  province  of  acclimatiza- 
tion but  in  the  wider  field  of  natural 
history. 

It  is  true  that  sport  is  not  a  plant 
that  thrives  in  a  democratic  soil,  and 
that  the  mere  word  game  has  an 
unpleasant  sound  to  those  who,  be- 
cause they  work  less  with  their  heads 
than  their  hands,  claim  that  there  is 
no  labour  in  the  world  but  theirs. 
One  could  hardly  conceive  of  an 
animal  less  obnoxious  to  the  working 
man  than  the  common  brook-trout ; 
and  yet  he  has  before  now  been 
assaulted  in  New  Zealand  with 
dynamite,  for  no  apparent  reason 
except  vindication  of  the  dignity  of 
labour.  The  deer  cannot  hope  to 
go  unscathed,  the  less  so  since  it 
appears  that  the  old  stags  cannot 


310 


The  Bed  Deer  of  New  Zealand. 


shake  off  a  pursuing  sheep-dog.  On  Ex- 
moor  so  tardy  a  description  of  deer  is 
unknown  ;  but  it  may  well  be  that  the 
German  is  a  heavier  and  more  unwieldy 
animal,  being  unaccustomed  to  run 
before  hounds.  However,  if  a  few  slow 
and  incautious  victims  should  fall 
in  New  Zealand,  their  fate  will  only 
quicken  the  wariness  of  the  survivors  ; 
and  as  the  sport  of  stalking  becomes 
more  common,  the  native  sportsmen 
will  find  it  increasingly  difficult  to 
outwit  the  most  cunning  and  cir- 
cumspect of  quarries. 

We  speak   of   stalking,  for  we  can- 
not think  that  stag-hunting  will  ever 
cross    the    ocean     to    the    Antipodes. 
Much    of    the    country    also    is    too 
rugged    and    steep    to   permit    riding 
to    hounds,    and     forest  -  hunting     is 
not  an  art  in  which  the  English  as  a 
rule  excel.    But  even  to  shoot  the  deer 
with   any    success    the    sportsmen    of 
New   Zealand   must  needs   evolve  for 
themselves  a  complete  new  system  of 
woodcraft.      To     the     shame     of     our 
nation  there  is  no  adequate  treatise  on 
woodcraft   in  our   language  excepting 
Turberville's  translation  of  du  Fouil- 
loux,  which  the  troublesome  freaks  of 
bibliomania  have   raised  to   the  price 
of,   say,  six  good  New  Zealand  horses. 
But  not  all  the  wisdom  and  experience 
of  Gaston  de   Foix  himself  will   avail 
for  a   forest   of   strange   flora.      It  is 
useless    to    allude    to    the  passion  of 
young  male  deer  for  the  young  sprouts 
of  the  ash,  or  to  the  fondness  of  all 
descriptions  of  deer  for  ivy,  in  a  country 
where   ash  and  ivy  are  unknown.      It 
is  beside  the  mark  to  discourse  of  the 
lessons  to  be   learned   of    "  pies    and 
jays  marvelling  "  in   the  land  of  the 
kea    and    the    kiwi.      The    New   Zea- 
landers  have  already  discovered  that 
the  delicacy  which  takes  the  place  of 
the  ash  is  a  species  of  wild  fuchsia ; 
but  the  deer's   favourite  food   in  the 
country  is  a  subject  which  will  occupy 
many  observers  before  it  is  exhausted. 


The  sportsmen  of  New  Zealand  have 
in  fact  the  whole  field  of  a  new 
woodcraft  before  them  ;  and  if  they 
will  but  copy  the  careful  precision 
of  the  old  masters  they  may  add 
many  new  and  strange  things  to 
the  precepts  of  ancient  venery,  and 
set  the  jugemens,  or  tokens,  of  the 
supple-jack  and  of  the  tree-fern,  in 
their  place  on  the  old  lists  drawn  up 
by  the  old  French  woodcraftsmen. 

At  the  same  time  they  will  have  the 
unique  opportunity  of  studying  two 
totally  distinct  kinds  of  deer,  and,  it 
may  be,  of  watching,  in  the  course  of 
generations,  their  gradual  approxima- 
tion to  a  single  type.  For  the  colony 
is  eclectic  in  its  tastes,  gathers  in  deer 
from  the  east  and  from  the  west,  and 
has  found  room  for  the  Indian  sambur 
as  well  as  the  German  red  deer.  The 
two  herds  have  not  yet  met,  and  it  is 
possible  that  they  may  keep  them- 
selves always  apart ;  but  in  any  case 
the  comparative  study  of  their  pro- 
gress will  be  of  uncommon  interest. 
The  times  and  seasons  of  the  imported 
sambur  have  not  yet,  apparently,  been 
ascertained,  but  the  Eastern  animal 
is  reported  to  thrive  and  increase  as 
steadily  as  the  Western.  When  with 
the  growth  of  the  herd  observation 
becomes  easier,  we  may  expect  to  hear 
something  of  them  ;  and  we  hope  that 
the  experts  in  both  descriptions  of 
deer  will  from  time  to  time  exchange 
districts  and  experiences,  and  record 
their  observations  for  the  benefit  of 
others. 

Meanwhile  the  Acclimatization 
Society  is  not  yet  satisfied,  and  con- 
templates the  introduction  of  fallow 
deer  and  roe  in  addition  to  the  emi- 
grants already  settled  in  the  forest. 
At  this  rate  New  Zealand  will  become 
the  playground  not  only  of  Australasia 
but  of  Europe,  and  eclipse,  if  a  new 
country  can  ever  eclipse  an  old  one, 
even  the  venerable  Switzerland.  The 
Colony  will  profit  by  such  a  consumma- 


The  Bed  Devr  of  New  Zealand. 


311 


tion,  but  we  question  whether  even  the 
influx  of  foreign  tourists  can  benefit  it 
so  much  as  the  growth  of  a  healthy 
sporting  instinct.  The  word  sport  is 
so  miserably  misapplied  in  these 
days  to  the  mere  pursuit  of  gambling 
and  gate-money  that  we  hesitate  to 
use  it.  But  the  sport  which  we  mean 
has  nothing  to  do  with  mere  slaughter, 
still  less  with  paragraphs  in  news- 
papers. Townsmen  may  turn  up  their 
noses  at  the  killing  of  wild  animals, 
but  they  forget  that  the  first  step  to- 
wards killing  them  is  to  get  near  them  ; 
and  to  get  near  them  their  habits 
and  caprices,  their  instincts  and  their 
wiles,  their  subtleties  and  their  foibles 
must  be  studied  with  assiduous  and 
unconquerable  patience.  Thus  in  the 
true  sportsman  slaughter  is  swallowed 
up  in  observation,  the  slayer  in  the 


naturalist.  Xenophon  grows  more 
eloquent  over  a  hare  in  her  form  than 
over  even  the  prowess  of  his  hounds  ; 
du  Fouilloux,  with  all  his  passion  for 
the  chase,  would  sit  in  a  tree  for  hours 
to  watch  an  old  stag.  There  are  such 
men  in  New  Zealand,  and  we  hope 
that  their  influence  may  increase  and 
teach  the  much-needed  lesson,  that 
country  life  is  worth  living  for  some- 
thing more  than  the  weighing  of  wool 
bales,  the  freezing  of  half-bred  mutton, 
and  the  eternal  making  of  money. 
There  is  no  greater  fallacy  than  the 
foolish  creed  that  sportsmen  are  brutal 
and  unintelligent.  The  greatest  of 
all  poets  was  a  good  sportsman  and 
an  excellent  woodcraftsman  ;  and 
those  who  sneer  at  sport  and  wood- 
craft are  sneering  at  William  Shake- 
speare. 


312 


IN    LORD'S    PAVILION. 


IT  is  a  common  reproach  against 
Englishmen  that  they  can  talk  of 
nothing  but  their  weather  and  their 
politics.  Perhaps  the  charge  holds 
no  better  against  them  than  against 
other  nations ;  but  it  is  no  doubt  true 
that  they  are  always  ready  to  talk  on 
either  subject.  For  the  latter  there 
is  no  excuse.  Politics  are  the  same 
all  the  world  over.  Those  who 
are  in  office  want  to  stay  there ; 
those  who  are  out  of  office  want 
to  be  in ;  that  begins  and  ends  it. 
But  our  English  weather  I  main- 
tain to  be  a  curious  and  interesting 
subject  of  conversation.  When  we 
reflect  to  what  a  large  part  of  our 
countrymen  it  is  infinitely  more  im- 
portant than  all  the  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment that  ever  were  or  will  be  passed, 
it  is  surely  not  to  be  dismissed  as 
mere  babble.  I  do  not,  however,  my- 
self, profess  to  consider  it  with  an 
agricultural  mind,  being  no  more  of  a 
farmer  than  a  politician,  and  regard- 
ing the  changes  and  chances  of  the 
seasons  only  with  that  unintelligent 
interest  in  the  production  of  straw- 
berries, green  peas,  and  new  potatoes 
which  is  shared  by  all  men  who  are 
apt  rather  in  consuming  than  in  pro- 
ducing the  fruits  of  the  earth.  I 
regard  the  English  weather  solely  as 
a  curious  and  interesting  phenomenon, 
one  which,  like  Mistress  Quickly,  you 
know  not  where  to  have.  Such  it 
must  surely  be  to  every  inquiring 
mind ;  such  it  assuredly  will  be  to 
one  who  has  not  experienced  its  in- 
finite and  incalculable  variety  for 
many  years. 

This  was  my   position   at    the    be- 


ginning of  the  present  summer.  I 
had  been  absent  from  England  for 
many  years,  a  wanderer  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and,  as  fortune  willed 
it,  mainly  in  those  parts  whereon  the 
sun  shines  through  most  months  of 
the  year,  and  rain,  hail,  snow,  and 
tempest  are  infrequent  things.  I  need 
not  further  define  my  wanderings ; 
they  would  be  of  no  interest  to  others, 
and  were  of  little  to  myself.  At  in- 
tervals I  heard  from  my  friends,  in 
the  summer-time  mostly,  and  they 
had  generally  something  to  tell  me 
about  cricket.  Keen  cricketers  all, 
yet  like  myself  not  so  young  as  they 
had  once  been,  they  now  pursued  the 
game  vicariously  from  the  serene 
elevation  of  the  pavilion.  The  better 
correspondents  they  were  on  that 
account,  and  I  was  kept  pretty  well 
informed  of  all  the  most  important 
news  from  headquarters.  They  used 
to  complain  sadly  of  the  weather. 
Year  after  year  it  was  the  same  cry, 
"  The  rain,  it  raineth  every  day." 
The  summer  of  1887,  the  summer  of 
our  Queen's  jubilee,  seems  to  have 
been  a  superb  exception,  a  solitary 
beacon,  as  it  were,  rising  out  of  a 
watery  waste  of  memory.  Latterly 
their  tone  changed,  of  course ;  but 
for,  a  time  they  wrote  of  that  golden 
season  as  a  man  talks  of  his  youth  or 
a  woman  thinks  of  her  beauty,  as  of 
a  thing  that  the  years  have  taken 
and  will  return  no  more.  And  yet 
I  remember — or  do  I  only  think  that 
I  remensber  ? — a  time  when  such 
summers  \\  ere  the  common  lot ;  when 
day  after  day  the  sun  shone  in  a 
cloudless  sky,  when  the  breeze  blew 


In  Lorcfrs  Pavilion. 


313 


for  ever  from  the  south,  soft  and  low 
as  a  maiden's  voice  should  be;  an 
endless  time  of 

II: '  Koses  that  down  the  alleys  shine  afar, 
And  open,  jasmine-muffled  lattices, 
And  groups  under  the  dreaming  gar- 
den-trees, 

And  the  full  moon,  and  the  white  even- 
ing-star. 

Perhaps  it  is  only  fancy,  but  it  is  a  harm- 
less and  a  pleasant  one.      There  is  no 
.proper  man   but  Joves  in   his  heart  to 
think   that  the    peaches  grew    larger 
and  sweeter  when  he  was  young.    But 
this  at  least  is  certain ;  rare  though  a 
fine  day  may   be    in    England,   it    is 
a    perfect    day,    a   very  gift   of   God, 
when  it  comes,  such  as   those  lands  of 
everlasting  sunshine  can   never  show. 
No  man  loves   the  sun  better  than  I 
do,   not  a  West    Indian    negro    or    a 
Neapolitan  beggar.       But    yet,   when 
day  after  day,  week  after  week,  month 
after  month,  the  heavens  are  as  brass 
overhead   and    the    earth    is    as    iron 
underfoot,  the   northern    soul   revolts. 
The   body   may   bear  it  well  enough 
with  common  precautions,  may   even 
flourish  under  it,  but  the  soul  revolts. 
Few,  I  think,  who  have  known  what 
life  is  under  such  conditions,  but  will 
sympathise    with    the    British    sailor 
who,  after  a  long  spell   on   the  Medi- 
terranean Station,  turned,  as  the  good 
ship  rolled  into  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  to 
his  mate  with  the  hearty  ejaculation, 
"  Thank    God,    Jack,    we're    quit    of 
that  beastly   blue    sky  !  "     Beastly  is 
not,  I  believe,  a  common  word  among 
sailors  ;  those  who  are  familiar  with 
the  conversation  of  our  jolly  sons  of 
Neptune    will    doubtless    be    able    to 
supply  the  proper  term.    No,  a  fair  day 
in  England  is  a  gracious  thing  indeed. 
There  is  a  freshness,  a  buoyancy  in  the 
air,  such  as  may  hardly,  I  think,  be  felt 
elsewhere  ;  it  is  like  the  first  draught 
of  iced  champagne,  exalting  the  spirits 
and  making  the  veins  to  tingle  with  a 


new  sense  of  life.  The  sun's  heat 
warms  and  cheers  ;  it  does  not  scorch 
the  eyes  out  of  one's  head  or  the  sap 
out  of  one's  body ;  not  with  the  blast 
from  a  furnace,  but  with  the  nourish- 
ing warmth  of  a  wood  fire,  does 
Phoebus  Apollo  smile  upon  his  northern 
children.  I  have  felt  something  of 
this  exhilaration  during  the  winter 
months  in  Egypt  and  in  Australia; 
but  only  in  an  English  June  can  it  be 
tasted  to  perfection. 

All   the    way  home     I     had     been 
hugging  myself  in  the  thought  that  I 
should  be  in  time  for    the  University 
match.      I  had  seen  it  last  in   1875  ; 
Ridley's  year,  they  call  it.      How  well 
I  remember  it !     The   third  day  was 
wearing  to  its  close,  with  a  dull  grey 
sky  overhead  and  sodden  turf  under- 
foot ;  six  more  runs  were  needed  for 
victory,  and  the  last  Cambridge  bats- 
man was  walking  to  the  wicket.      The 
Oxford  captain  was  bowling  lobs;  I 
doubt  whether  any  man  ever  bowled 
them    better;    certainly   no  man   has 
bowled  them  so  well  since.     He  had 
only  to  bowl   two  to   the  newcomer. 
The  first  ball  morally  bowled  him,  as 
they  say ;    the    second     accomplished 
the    feat    literally.      I    can    see    Mr. 
Ridley  spring'  into    the    air   like    a 
rocket, — Nature  had  already  designed 
him  some  way  in   that  direction  above 
his   fellows.      I    can   hear    the   shout 
that    proclaimed    our    victory.      And 
the     poor    victim, — I    can    pity    him 
now  ;  but   pity  had   no  place  in   my 
breast  then,  only  a  savage  exultation. 
He  must  have  felt,  I  think,  something 
as  the  Dacian  gladiator  felt  when  the 
circus  swam  before  his  dying  eyes,  and 
in  his  dying  ears  he  heard 

The   inhuman  shout  which  hailed  the 
wretch  who  won. 

Five  years  earlier  it  had  been  the 
hour  of  Cambridge;  but  from  that 
scene  of  humiliation  'and  disaster  I 
was  mercifully  absent. 


In  Lord's  Pavilion. 


I  forget  for  how  many  years  a 
candidate's  name  must  be  down  on  the 
books  of  the  Marylebone  Cricket 
Club  before  he  has  any  chance  of 
becoming  a  member  of  that  august 
society.  No  man,  I  think,  rightly 
knows.  For  my  own  part,  it  was  my 
good  fortune  to  be  elected  in  the  old 
days  of  patronage  and  those  other 
sweet  influences  which  used  to  make 
life  so  easy  and  pleasant  before  these 
ridiculous  democratic  notions  of  uni- 
versal equality  came  in.  Two  kind 
friends  wrote  my  name  down  at  the 
beginning  of  a  week,  and  at  the  end 
of  it,  or  thereabouts,  my  election  was 
announced  to  me.  How  it  was 
managed  I  do  not  care  to  know,  nor 
have  ever  cared  to  ask.  It  was  enough 
for  me  to  be  a  member  of  the  pleas- 
antest  club  in  London,  or  for  that 
matter  probably  in  the  world.  How 
long  these  railway  men  will  allow 
it  to  retain  that  proud  pre-eminence 
is  another  story  which  only  the  future 
can  tell.  Those  who  have  it  in  charge 
to  see  that  the  club  takes  no  harm 
profess  themselves  satisfied ;  we,  the 
rank  and  file,  can  only  pray  that  it 
may  be  so,  and  meanwhile  enjoy  the 
goods  with  which  the  gods  have  so 
bounteously  provided  us  for  so  long  a 
time  as  they  may  vouchsafe.  Con- 
spicuous among  them  is  of  course 
our  new  pavilion,  a  most  lordly  plea- 
sure-house from  whose  soaring  roof 
our  banner, 

Yellow,  glorious,  golden, 
Seems  to  float  and  flow. 

over  half  London  in  proud  defiance 
of  a  whole  tunnel-full  of  Directors. 
Personally  I  regret  the  old  building, 
which  had  a  pleasing  flavour  of 
antiquity  about  it  such  as  its  successor 
will  hardly  acquire  in  my  time.  But 
it  was  small,  no  doubt,  for  the 
necessities  of  the  club,  and  they  say 
it  was  not  safe.  If  it  was  to  come 
down,  better  that  it  should  come  at 


our  own  choice,  than  suddenly,  with- 
out warning,  some  fine  day,  with  all 
the  benches  crowded,  half  Her 
Majesty's  Government  on  the  roof 
above,  and  the  Committee-room  full 
below.  The  great  slaughter  of  the 
Philistine  lords,  when  Samson  bowed 
himself  between  the  middle  pillars, 
had  been  but  a  circumstance  to  that. 
I  could  wish  that  it  had  been  possible 
to  rebuild  it  on  the  same  size  and 
pattern,  and  to  add  another  like  to  it 
at  the  opposite  end  of  the  playing- 
ground.  There  we  chilly  mortals 
could  sit  and  warm  ourselves  in  the 
afternoon  sun.  Except  in  the  morning 
hours  we  get  no  sun  in  our  new 
pavilion.  We  sit,  as  the  British 
soldier  used  to  fight,  in  the  cool  shade  of 
the  aristocracy  ;  and  uncommonly  cool 
that  shade  is  apt  to  be  on  an  afternoon 
in  May,  or  for  that  matter  in  June. 
This  summer  has,  as  a  rule,  been  warm 
enough  to  satisfy  even  me  ;  yet  within 
the  compass  of  one  week  I  have 
watched  cricket  shivering  beneath  a 
great-coat  and  panting  beneath  as 
little  raiment  as  respect  for  decency 
(and  my  figure)  would  permit.  And 
yet  there  are  folk  who  hold  that  to 
talk  of  the  weather  is  the  mark  of  a 
weak  mind  ! 

Large  as  the  building  is,  however, 
it  might  be  larger  still,  and  yet  none 
too  large,  on  the  days  when  the  Aus- 
tralians are  playing,  or  even  more 
notably  when  Oxford  is  matched 
against  Cambridge  or  Eton  against 
Harrow.  Perhaps  the  Universities 
draw  the  largest  crowd,  certainly  the 
keenest,  and  one  moreover  touched 
with  a  vein  of  sentiment  very  pleasant 
and  wholesome.  The  feeling  is,  of 
course,  not  peculiar  to  the  Univer- 
sities ;  some  schools,  for  instance,  know 
it,  Eton  especially ;  but  on  the  banks  of 
the  Isis  and  the  Cam  it  seems  to  strike 
its  roots  deepest ;  and  I  mean  no  dis- 
respect to  the  latter  stream  in  hazard- 
ing the  fancy  that  her  waters  are 


In  Lord's  Pavilion. 


315 


something  less  favourable  to  this  par- 
ticular growth  than  those  of  her  more 
voluminous  sister.  Some  fifteen  years 
or  so  ago  one  of  my  friends  (who  has 
long  since  left  off  such  follies)  wrote 
some  verses  on  the  University  match 
which  were  granted  the  dignity  of 
print  by  a  good-natured  editor.  Not 
many,  I  dare  say,  read  them  at  the 
time,  and  nobody  is  likely  to  remem- 
ber them  now.  I  shall  therefore  take 
the  liberty  of  borrowing  them  for 
these  prosaic  pages.  Their  poetical 
value  is  not  high,  but  they  express 
the  sentiment  I  speak  of  not  inaptly. 

AT    LORD'S. 

'Mid  this  great  city's  grim  embrace 

The  Fates  have  spread  one  green  oasis  ; 
To  me  'tis  the  most  pleasant  place 

Of  all  her  not  too  pleasant  places; 
For  here  one  may  awhile  forget 

The  smoke  and  roar  of  cruel  London, 
The  ceaseless  stir,  the  strain  and  fret, 

Of  those  who  do  and  those  are  undone. 

From  the  pavilion's  breezy  top 

I  watch  the  lads  at  play  below  me, 
And  find  e'en  in  the  longest  hop 

A  charm  not  Egypt's  self  could  show 

me  j1 
The  while  with  thankful  heart  I  feel 

That  not  to  me  the  kindly  heavens 
Have  given  to  touch  that  sharp  young 
Steel, 

Or  face  the  furious  arm  of  Evans.2 

A  soft  breeze  whispers  from  the  west 

Sweet  music  thro'  the  grateful  awning  ; 
Care  leaves  awhile  one  hunted  breast ; 

One  clouded  life  resumes  its  morning. 
Old  days  return,  the  golden  days 

Of  youth  with  all  its  rare  devices  ; 
Once  more  a  young  barbarian  plays 

Beside  the  pleasant  stream  of  Isis. 

1  That   famous    Egyptian,    Cleopatra,    was 
according  to  Shakespeare  the  heroine  of  the 
longest  hop  on  record. 

I  saw  her  once 
Hop  forty  paces  through  the  public  streets. 

I  have  _  myself  bowled  a  tolerable  quantity 
in  my  time,  and  pretty  long  ones,  but  never 
aught  like  this. 

2  Mr.   A.    H.   Evans  and  Mr.  A.   G.  Steel 
were  the  respective  captains  of  the  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  elevens   in  the    year  when  these 
verses  were  written. 


What  jolly  shapes  around  me  throng, 

And  take  their  old  accustomed  places  ? 
Long  parted,  but  remembered  long, 

Come  back  the  old  familiar  faces  ; 
Less  full  of  strange  oaths  than  they  were, 

But  very  pards  in  beard  and  whisker, 
And  something  more  sedate  of  air, 

If  intellectually  brisker. 

Illustrious  imps  of  various  fame, 

Wigged     Counsellors    and    reverend 

Doctors, 
Poets  whose  prose  was  very  tame, 

And    Heroes    who    have    run    from 

Proctors — 
And  you,  lost  friend,  where'er  you  stray, 

On  this  or  that  side  the  Equator, 
Ah,  would  we  were  again  at  play 

In  the  dear  lap  of  Alma  Mater  ! 

The  pranks  we  cut,  the  feasts  we  made, 

With  spirits  yet  untouched  by  sadness, 
The  hours  we  sported  in  the  shade, 

And  all  the  sweet  midsummer  mad- 
ness ! 
As  down  life's  dusty  road  we  ride, 

With    Care    fast    perched   upon  the 

pillion, 
How  good  it  is  a  while  to  bide 

And  dream  an  hour  in  Lord's  pavilion. 

Well,  it  was  a  great  game,  and  a  great 
victory  for  Oxford.  There  has  been 
nothing  like  it  before  in  a  University 
match ;  and  it  can  hardly  have  been 
often  in  any  match  of  first-rate  im- 
portance that  a  side  set  to  make 
330  runs  in  the  last  innings  has 
succeeded  in  making  them,  and  with 
four  wickets  to  spare.  To  be  sure, 
in  point  of  runs,  a  more  remarkable 
feat  still  was  performed  by  the  Cam- 
bridge eleven  on  the  same  ground 
only  a  few  days  earlier,  when,  playing 
against  the  Marylebone  Club,  they 
went  in  to  make  507  runs  in  their 
last  innings  and  made  them  with  three 
wickets  to  spare,  and  against  pretty 
good  bowling  into  the  bargain.  This 
makes  their  performance  in  the  great 
match  still  more  puzzling ;  and  to 
this  moment  I  cannot  quite  under- 
stand it.  Though  Cambridge  was 
fairly  and  handsomely  beaten,  there 
was  really  very  little  to  choose  be- 
tween the  two  elevens  ;  if  the  match 


In  Lord's  Pavilion. 


were  played  over  again  I  should  not 
be  one  whit  surprised  to  see  the  issue 
reversed.  Certainly  Cambridge  should 
have  been  strong  enough  to  keep 
the  advantage  gained  at  the  close  of 
the  second  day's  play ;  and  though 
it  was  obvious  that  the  Oxford 
batsmen  did  themselves  scanty  justice 
in  the  first  innings,  their  most 
thorough-paced  supporter  can  hardly 
in  his  heart  have  believed  victory 
possible  when  three  good  wickets 
were  down  in  the  second  innings  and 
270  runs  still  to  be  made.  But  made 
and  well  made  they  wei^e,  without 
any  undue  favouring  of  fortune.  One 
or  two  catches  were  dropped,  no  doubt, 
as  will  always  happen  in  a  long  inn- 
ings even  among  the  smartest  fields- 
men ;  such  things  will  sometimes 
indeed  happen  in  a  short  innings  ;  but 
the  bowling  and  fielding  were  both 
as  good  as  Cambridge  knew  how  to 
make  them.  There  was  no  tiring, 
no  slackness,  till  just  at  the  close 
when  Mr.  Bardswell  came  in,  with 
half  the  wickets  down  and  89  runs  still 
wanting.  Up  to  that  moment  the 
issue  was  still  in  the  balance  :  it  was 
uncertain,  indeed,  whether  time  would 
permit  of  victory,  even  were  other 
things  convenient  for  it ;  but  when 
the  newcomer  began  to  hit,  and 
Mr.  Smith,  recognising  that  the  hour 
had  come  and  the  man,  followed  suit, 
the  game  changed.  The  hitting  during 
the  last  hour  was  fast  and  brilliant, 
and  Cambridge,  to  use  the  vernacular, 
went  palpably  to  pieces.  It  was  in- 
deed a  strange  game,  full  of  that  un- 
certainty which  men  call  glorious. 
And  glorious  enough  it  is,  no  doubt, 
when  it  goes  for  your  own  side ;  but 

otherwise .      A  friend  of  mine,   a 

mighty  cricketer  in  his  day  (which 
was  not  yesterday),  used  to  tell  a 
story  that  always  comes  into  my  mind 
when  people  talk  of  the  glorious  un- 
certainty of  cricket.  In  the  fulness 
of  his  fame  young  Brownsmith  (I 


can  think  of  no  name  more  unlike 
his  proper  patronymic)  was  taken  one 
summer  evening,  after  a  long  and 
triumphant  day  at  Lord's,  by  a  com- 
rade much  older  than  himself  to  see 
a  match  at  billiards  in  some  public 
rooms.  Arriving  early  they  found  a 
couple  of  amateurs  knocking  the  balls 
about.  One  of  these,  who  shall  be 
called  Jerry  Stumps  (and  who  was  a 
celebrated  person  too  for  many  things, 
but  not  for  cricket),  was  known  to 
Brownsmith's  friend.  "  Mr.  Stumps," 
said  he,  "  let  me  present  to  you  my 
friend  Mr.  Brownsmith,  the  celebrated 
cricketer."  The  gratified  Brownsmith 
executed  his  best  bow,  but  Mr.  Stumps 
neither  moved  nor  spoke.  He  was 
elaborately  chalking  his  cue  with  his 
back  to  the  newcomers,  and  took  no 
more  notice  of  them  than  the  Duke 
of  York  on  his  column  takes  of  Lord 
Napier  on  his  pedestal,  till  the  cue 
was  to  his  liking.  Then  he  jerked 
his  head  over  his  shoulder  and  glanced 
at  the  young  man.  "  Ah,"  said  he, 
"  rotten  game,  cricket,"  and  so  ad- 
dressed himself  to  his  stroke.  The 
word  was  not  rotten,  but  rotten  must 
serve.  There  have  been,  I  must  confess 
it,  times  of  that  glorious  uncertainty 
when  cricket  has  seemed  to  me  the 
rottenest  game  ever  played  by  man 
upon  this  daedal  earth. 

But  though  the  victory  of  Oxford 
was,  for  an  Oxonian,  as  superb  as  it 
was  surprising,  the  match  had  some 
long  intervals  of  dulness.  On  the 
first  two  days  the  batting  was  de- 
cidedly disappointing  for  two  elevens 
with  such  great  repute  as  bats- 
men. The  Oxford  fielding  was  bril- 
liant in  the  extreme,  and  though 
Cambridge  was  not  quite  so  taking 
in  that  department,  there  was  little 
fault  to  find  with  them.  In  the  first 
hour  of  Cambridge's  second  innings 
Mr.  Cunliffe's  bowling  was  as  fine  as 
any  I  have  seen  in  these  matches  since 
Mr.  Kenney's  great  day  nigh  thirty 


In  Lord's  Pavilion. 


317 


years  ago.  Mr.  Druce,  perhaps  the 
strongest  batsman  on  either  side, 
played  a  finished  second  innings ;  and 
Mr.  Bray  and  Mr.  Hartley  put,  each 
in  his  turn,  some  life  into  a  dull  game. 
But  it  was  not  till  the  last  innings  of 
Oxford  that  the  batting  at  all  justi- 
fied its  reputation.  It  is  curious  that 
Mr.  Smith,  who  must  be  called  the  hero 
of  the  match,  should  only  have  won 
his  place  in  the  Oxford  team  at  the 
eleventh  hour.  He  played  last  year, 
and  played  well ;  but  this  year  the  vir- 
tue seemed  to  have  gone  out  of  him.  It 
came  back,  however,  with  a  vengeance 
at  the  appointed  time.  These  things 
have  happened  before.  In  1887  the 
highest  scorers  on  the  two  sides  were 
Lord  George  Scott  for  Oxford  with 
100  and  66,  and  Mr.  Eustace  Crawley 
with  a  second  innings  for  Cambridge 
of  103  (not  out) ;  both  men  were 
chosen  only  on  the  day  before  the 
match.  Another  instance  of  the 
glorious  uncertainty  ! 

But  the  match  will  be  remembered 
for  other  things  than  the  surprising- 
change  in  its  fortunes,  and  for  things, 
as  one  may  truly  say,  not  convenient. 
Those  who  consider  such  matters 
curiously  may  see  in  the  defeat  of 
Cambridge  the  hand  of  fate  ;  a  just 
retribution  for  the  shabby  trick  by 
which  they  hoped  to  win  an  advantage 
outside  the  natural  course  of  the 
game.  I  have  heard  it  said,  and  have 
read  in  the  papers,  that  the  policy 
adopted  by  the  Cambridge  captain,  of 
ordering  no-balls  and  wide  balls  to  be 
bowled  to  prevent  his  opponents  from 
following  their  innings,  was  approved 
by  many  good  judges  of  the  game.  I 
am  willing  to  be  called  a  bad  judge  of 
the  game ;  but  to  my  old-fashioned 
notions  the  word  policy  has  no  proper 
place  in  the  economy  of  the  cricket- 
field.  I  am  told  also  that  the  Oxford 
men  were  the  real  originators  of  this 
most  questionable  innovation,  when 
in  1893  their  captain  ordered  his  last 


two  batsmen  to  lose  their  wickets  at  a 
similar  crisis  of  the  game,  thereby 
forcing  Cambridge  to  adopt  the  same 
tactics  which  roused  the  anger  of  the 
spectators  this  year.  If  this  were  so 
the  Oxford  captain  was  equally  to 
blame  with  him  of  Cambridge  ;  but  I 
fail  to  see  how  that  mitigates  the 
discredit  of  the  action  this  year.  How 
could  Cambridge  tell,  I  have  heard  it 
asked,  that  Oxford  was  not  going  to 
pursue  the  same  tactics  this  year  in 
the  same  circumstances  ?  What  has 
that  to  do  with  it  ?  If  I,  suspecting 
my  opponent  of  an  intention  to  play 
foul  at  cards,  anticipate  him  therein, 
shall  I  be  held  blameless  1  Incident- 
ally I  may  here  observe  that  I  fail  to 
understand  what  advantage  Cambridge 
would  have  lost  had  Oxford  followed 
their  innings.  To  field  out  for  a 
couple  of  hundred  runs,  especially 
when  the  bowling  had  never  been 
really  mastered,  can  surely  not  reduce 
young  men  in  the  prime  of  health  and 
strength  to  such  a  pitch  of  weariness 
that  they  can  keep  their  feet  no  more. 
They  would  have  put  Oxford  in  again 
with  all  the  prestige  that  belongs  to 
such  an  action ;  while  Oxford  would 
have  been  correspondently  dispirited, 
and  moreover  would  have  had  to 
begin  batting  again  011  a  wicket  which 
had  apparently  lost  some  of  its  early 
virtue,  and  on  which  Mr.  Jessop's 
furious  bowling  would  certainly  not 
have  been  very  pleasant  to  face. 
However,  the  Cambridge  captain 
thought  differently.  He  gave  his 
orders,  obviously  not  to  the  taste  of 
all  his  men,  and  he  lost  the  match. 
Never  was  a  losing  side  more  right- 
eously served  ! 

Pallas  te  hos  vulnere,  Pallas 
Immolat  ! 

It  is  a  point  that  uannot  be  argued. 
It  is  in  truth,  as  one  may  say,  a 
question  of  taste,  of  right  feeling ; 
and  to  argue  on  such  matters  is  to 


318 


In  Lord's  Pavilion. 


beat  the  wind.  Like  the  grand  style, 
they  must  be  spiritually  discerned. 
No  letter  of  cricketing  law  was 
violated  of  course ;  but  there  is  an 
unwritten  code  of  honour  which  must 
be  kept  as  inviolate  as  the  laws  if  the 
games  of  their  country  are  to  be  any 
longer  fit  pastime  for  English  gentle- 
men. Cricket  is  above  all  others  our 
national  game.  Above  all  others  it 
has  been  kept  clear  of  any  suspicion 
of  foul  play  or  sharp  practices.  There 
was  a  time,  a  century  or  so  ago,  when 
matches  were  made  for  money ;  the 
inevitable  taint  crept  in,  and  cricket 
threatened  to  go  the  way  of  horse- 
racing  and  prize-fighting.  But  the 
mischief  was  stopped  in  time,  and 
stopped,  as  one  hoped,  for  all  time. 
Even  the  sternest  Puritan,  who  sets  his 
face  against  all  field-sports  as  snares 
of  the  Evil  One,  relaxes  his  grim  code 
in  favour  of  cricket.  It  was  by  the 
example  and  through  the  influence 
of  English  gentlemen  that  this  good 
state  of  things  came  about.  Is  it  to 
be  by  the  example  and  through  the 
influence  of  English  gentlemen  that 
the  game  is  to  degenerate  into  a  petti- 
fogging trial  of  wits,  where  honesty 
is  avowedly  not  the  best  policy,  and 
where  not  the  best  but  the  cunningest 
men  will  win  1  If  once  the  door  is 
opened  to  such  practices  as  those 
we  saw  this  year  who  can  say  where 
they  will  stop  ?  Who  is  to  draw  the 
line  and  say  Thus  far  and  no  farther  ; 
and  where  is  he  to  draw  it  ?  It  is 
curious,  and  to  my  old-World  notions 
not  pleasant,  to  find  English  gentle- 
men, good  cricketers  once  themselves 
and  nursed  in  the  best  traditions 
of  the  game,  openly  approving  these 
tricks  as  not  only  fair  in  themselves, 
but  a  legitimate  part  of  the  game. 
One  has  found  an  analogy  to  then, 
in  the  license  granted  to  the  billiard- 
player  to  give  his  opponent  a  miss 
when  he  conceives  it  his  best  policy  to 
do  so.  There  is  no  analogy.  The  option 


of  giving  a  miss  is  part  of  the  recog- 
nised etiquette  of  the  billiard-room. 
It  is  in  the  fact  that  the  trick  played  by 
the  Cambridge  captain  is  not  part  of 
the  recognised  etiquette  of  the  cricket- 
field  that  the  root  of  the  matter  lies. 
I  would  sooner  trust  the  national 
instinct  of  fair  play  than  all  the 
subtleties  of  all  the  sophists  ;  and  that 
has  been  unmistakably  shown.  Twice 
within  the  last  four  years  has  a 
University  eleven  been  publicly  hooted 
at  the  headquarters  of  cricket  for 
conduct  unbecoming  the  spirit  of  the 
game  and  the  obligations  of  English 
gentlemen.  If  that  is  a  spectacle 
these  ingenious  sophists  can  witness 
with  equanimity  I  do  not  envy  them 
the  feeling. 

I  am,  I  say  again,  and  as  will  doubt- 
less by  this  time  be  apparent,  an  old- 
fashioned  man,  and  have  doubtless  long 
since  grown  out  of  touch  with  the 
spirit  of  English  games.  Certainly  it  is 
in  many  ways  a  different  spirit  from 
that  which  animated  them  when  I 
took  part  in  them.  Whether  we  played 
them  better  I  am  not  competent  to 
judge,  nor  concerned  to  inquire.  We 
did  not  I  think  play  them  less  keenly  ; 
but  we  recognised  them  as  games,  as 
agreeable  ways  of  passing  our  leisure 
hours,  not  as  the  beginning  and  end 
of  human  existence.  The  passion  for 
them  which  seems  now  to  animate 
the  youthful  breast  is  something 
almost  bloodthirsty.  When  it  sur- 
vives in  the  mature  breast  it  becomes 
something  more  than  ridiculous. 
Consider  a  match  at  football  for 
instance,  as  it  may  now  so  often  be 
seen.  Is  the  spectacle  of  a  score  or 
so  of  grown-up  men  tumbling  over 
each  other  in  a  muddy  field  a 
very  edifying  spectacle?  What 
sporting  instincts  does  it  gratify  ? 
Are  these  the  last  enchantments  of 
the  middle  age  we  have  heard  so  much 
about  1  What  would  one  not  give 
for  the  pencil  of  John  Leech  to  show 


In  Lord^  Pavilion. 


319 


these  foolish  creatures  to  themselves 
as  others  see  them,  to  "  tell  them  they 
are  men  !  " 

The  Spectator,  honest  man,   has,  I 
observe,     been     discoursing     on     this 
phase    of   our    existence,    but    hardly 
with  his  wonted  acuteness.      On  one 
point  indeed  he  has   been   suggestive 
(as  the  reviewers  say  of  a  writer  in 
whom  they  wish   to   find   some   good 
quality  but  are  puzzled  what  to  find), 
if  not  exactly  luminous.      Education, 
the  steady   if  imperfect    teaching    of 
one    generation,    has    had,    he    justly 
says,    many  effects,   and    not    always 
good  ones  ;  but  one  of  them  has  un- 
questionably been,  in   his  opinion,   to 
increase  the  national  cheerfulness.      A 
sort  of  dull  cloud  has  been  lifted  from 
the  national  mind;  the  dull  moroseness, 
once  so  characteristic, has  passed  away; 
the  old  sullenness  has  been  immensely 
softened  and  decreased.     "  Naturally," 
he    goes  on,    "  with  that  change    has 
come     an    impatience    of     monotony, 
a  wish  for  interests  that  are  discon- 
nected with  the  daily  work,   and    as 
the  mass  of  men  are  not  intellectual 
and  never  will  be,  that  means  a  new 
and  keen  interest  in  all  excitements, 
and    especially   the   excitements  that 
have  in  them  the  elements  of  contest. 
Doctor  Grace  might  play  for  a  twelve- 
month by  himself  tvithout  anybody  re- 
cording his  most  wonderful  hits."    It  al- 
ways vexes  me  to  find  my  self  at  variance 
with  the  Spectator,  for  whose  faculty 
of  seeing  all  that  is  on  the  other  side 
of    a   stone  wall,   and   so  very  much 
that  is  not,  I  entertain  the  profoundest 
respect ;  but  at  this  point  I  am  com- 
pelled to  disagree  with  him.    The  spec- 
tacle of  Doctor  Grace  hitting  his  own 
bowling  about  (which  is,  we  must  pre- 
sume, what  the   Spectator  means   by 
that  distinguished  individual  "  playing 
by  himself  " )  would,  I  am  convinced, 
attract  the  largest  crowd  of  the  season. 
An  impatience  of  monotony  is,  in  our 
friend's  estimation,  a  characteristic  of 


the  present  hour ;  and  probably  nobody 
will  be  inclined  to  gainsay  him.  A 
certain  measure  of  monotony  there 
must  always  be  in  cricket  as  com- 
monly played  ;  but  the  spectacle  of  a 
man  playing  by  himself  would  be  new 
indeed.  Conceive  it !  Conceive  this 
great  preeminent  captain  hitting  his 
own  bowling  about  to  all  parts  of  the 
field  (and  how  he  would  hit  it ! ) 
missing  himself  at  point  off  it  (and 
that  he  might  do,  too),  anon  stumping 
himself  off  it,  or,  perhaps,  retiring 
after  another  century,  l-b-w.  b.  Grace, 
senr.  !  It  would  be  magnificent ;  for 
pure  imagination  there  is  nothing  like 
the  idea  in  all  the  literature  of  fiction. 

Give  Sir  Lancelot  Threlkeld  praise  !     . 
Hear  it,  good  man,  old  in  days  ! 

But  fresh  and  entertaining  as  the 
conception  is,  it  does  not  help. us  very 
far  to  an  explanation  of  this  phase  of 
our  national  growth.      Perhaps  it  sig- 
nifies the  senility  of  the  nation ;  the 
shadow  of  our  days  is  running  back- 
ward, and,  as  is  the  wont  of  graybeards, 
we   are  becoming  again  even  as  little 
children.     However,  these  high  specu- 
lations are  beyond  me.      I  leave  them 
to  the  Spectator,  venturing  only,  if  I 
may,  to  agree  with  him  that  there  is 
not  likely  to  be  any  serious  mischief 
in  the  matter,  only  much  foolishness, 
and  perhaps  a  little  touch  of  something 
ignominious.     Indeed,  when  it  comes 
to  masters  being  selected  for  our  great 
public  schools,  not  for  their  intellectual 
attainments,  or  for  their  educational 
capacities,    but    for  their  prowess   at 
games,    we  shall   be  lucky  if  we    are 
doing  no  more  than  making  ourselves 
ridiculous. 

I  must  confess  also  to  being  somewhat 
sceptical  as  to  the  amount  of  charity 
and  brotherly  love  promoted  by  these 
international  contests  on  the  cricket- 
field,  the  river,  or  the  running-path. 
They  seem  to  me  calculated  to  promote 


320 


In  Lord's  Pavilion. 


bad  blood  quite  as  much  as  good 
fellowship  ;  and  certainly  in  more  than 
one  recent  instance  they  have  pro- 
moted it.  For  one  thing,  if  for  no 
other,  every  nation  has  its  own  code 
of  etiquette  in  these  matters,  as  it  has 
its  own  code  of  social  etiquette  ;  and 
it  is  not  in  reason  to  expect  men, 
heated  with  the  struggle  for  victory 
and  bearing,  as  they  conceive,  the 
honour  of  their  country  on  their 
shoulders,  to  submit  without  prepara- 
tion to  a  number  of  unwritten  rules, 
the  spirit  of  which  is  probably  un- 
intelligible to  them  save  when  it 
deprives  them  of  certain  advantages 
which  the  spirit  of  their  own  rules, 
written  or  unwritten,  would  have 
justified  them  in  taking.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  pursue  this  subject 
further ;  the  incident  which  occurred 
at  Henley  Regatta  last  year  will  be 
fresh  in  every  man's  memory  as  an 
illustration  of  my  meaning.  And 
here  I  may  revert  to  a  message  sent 
from  New  York  to  THE  TIMES  by  its 
American  correspondent  on  July  8th, 
the  day  after  Yale  University  had 
been  beaten  by  the  Leander  Rowing 
Club  at  Henley.  "  The  American 
comments  on  the  defeat  of  Yale  at 
Henley,"  we  are  told,  "  are  all  con- 
ceived in  a  kindly  spirit.  No  re- 
proaches are  mingled  with  the  general 
regrets.  .  .  .  The  Press  pays  a  due 
tribute  to  their  courage,  and  freely 
acknowledges  that  Leander  won  by 
better  rowing.  .  .  .  Such  is  the 
general  tone  of  the  Press  and  of  row- 
ing men.  The  cordiality  of  the 
English  Press  and  public  to  the 
defeated  Americans  has  made  an  ex- 
cellent impression,  and  the  whole 
state  of  feeling  is  as  different  as 
possible  from  that  of  lact  year." 
What  ignoble  foolishness  is  this  !  I 
know  not  whether  such  a  message  is 
more  insulting  to  the  good  sense  of 
Americans  or  of  Englishmen.  Is  it 


the  habit  of  Americans  to  slay  their 
defeated  champions  as  the  French 
Revolutionists  used  to  do  ?  Or  does 
this  strange  man  suppose  that  it 
is  our  custom  to  slay  our  defeated 
opponents  as  the  Sphinx  slew  those 
who  could  not  guess  her  riddle  ? 
Leander  won  by  better  rowing, — in 
what  other  way  should  they  have  won  ; 
by  fouling  their  opponents  or  by  play- 
ing some  trick  upon  their  boat  ?  For 
what  purpose  has  this  monstrous 
piece  of  nonsense  been  sent  across  the 
Atlantic  1  Is  it  to  bid  us  not  to  be 
frightened  at  the  prospect  of  another 
Presidential  message  because  eight 
young  English  gentlemen  have  pulled 
a  boat  along  faster  than  eight  young 
American  gentlemen  ?  With  what 
feelings  the  Americans  will  receive 
this  ludicrous  tribute  to  their  capacity 
for  behaving  like  reasoning  beings 
remains  to  be  seen  ;  but  it  is  at  least 
consoling  to  reflect  that  it  is  one  of 
their  own  countrymen  who  is  respon- 
sible for  it. 

I  know  not  whether  the  unseemly 
episode  in  the  University  match  may 
be  traced  to  the  absorbing  passion  for 
games  which  I  have  noticed,  and  to  a 
certain  gladiatorial  instinct  arising 
from  it  and  confusing  all  ancient 
notions  of  right  and  wrong.  Five- 
and-twenty  years  ago  at  least  such 
practices  would  never,  I  am  confident, 
have  been  dreamed  of  among  gentle- 
men. It  must  be  the  business  of  the 
Marylebone  Committee  to  take  care 
that  there  is  no  possibility  of  their 
repetition.  Once  already  they  have 
been  obliged  to  change  their  rules  in 
consequence  of  the  indecorous  beha- 
viour of  a  University  Eleven.  Should 
they  find  it  necessary  to  make  a  further 
change,  it  must  be  of  such  a  drastic 
nature  that  the  player  from  whom  the 
offence  comes  will  be  allowed  no 
opportunity  of  repeating  it  on  an 
English  cricket-field. 


MACMILLAN'S    MAGAZINE. 


SEPTEMBER,  1896. 


THE  SECRET   OF   SAINT   FLOREL. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

LEFT  to  herself  Phoebe  unfolded  the 
blue  paper,  and  in  a  very  short  time 
had  made  herself  acquainted  with  its 
contents.  She  found  that  the  pro- 
perty, in  default  of  her  marrying  and 
having  children,  returned  to  other 
distant  relatives  of  her  cousin  after 
her  death ;  otherwise  it  remained  hers 
for  life,  and  her  children's  after  her. 

She  laid  the  copy  of  the  will  back 
upon  Mason's  table,  and  folding  her 
arms,  gave  herself  up  to  reflection. 
She  was  by  no  means  deficient  in  wit, 
and  it  began  to  occur  to  her  that 
Mason's  change  of  conduct  dated  from 
exactly  the  period  when  he  must  have 
become  acquainted  with  the  contents 
of  this  will.  She  had  just  been  told 
that  a  penniless  Phoebe  Thayne  was  a 
very  different  person  from  Phoebe 
Thayne  with  expectations.  What 
was  going  to  come  of  it  all,  she 
vaguely  wondered ;  and  she  could  not 
help  feeling  that,  if  the  first-fruits  of 
her  future  fortune  were  to  be  found 
in  Mason's  altered  demeanour,  she 
would  much  rather  the  fortune  was 
not  hers.  Her  experience  of  life  was 
certainly,  as  Mason  had  said,  small, 
and  she  had  little  idea  of  the  advan- 
tages money  can  bring.  Here  she  was 
interrupted  by  the  return  of  her 
cousin,  to  whom  she  prepared  to  say 
good-night. 

No.  443. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


"  If  you  are  not  tired,  Phoebe,"  he 
said  with  gentle  consideration,  "  there 
is  another  matter  I  should  like  to 
discuss  with  you.  But  if  you  feel 
disinclined  for  further  talk  to-night, 
I  will  postpone  it  for  a  future 
occasion." 

"  Oh,  no,  I  am  not  tired,"  .she  said. 
"  I  can  hear  anything  you  have  to  say 
now."  The  truth  was  that,  though 
longing  to  get  away,  she  dreaded  any 
idea  of  again  finding  herself  in  a 
similar  position  with  Mason,  and 
therefore  bravely  resolved  to  hoar  all 
he  wanted  to  say  at  once. 

"  Has  it  occurred  to  you,  Phoebe, 
how  you  are  going  to  manage  this 
property  1 " 

"  Surely  there  will  be  time  to  con- 
sider that  when  it  is  mine,"  she 
answered. 

"That  time  may  not  be  so  far  off 
as  you  think,"  said  Mason.  "It  is 
only  very  foolish  people  who  put  off 
making  such  arrangements  to  the  last 
moment." 

She  thought  he  was  about  to  sug- 
gest that  she  should  appoint  him  as 
her  manager,  and  tried  to  avoid  any 
definite  answer.  "  I  see  by  the  will 
there  are  trustees  for  the  estate,"  she 
said.  "No  doubt  they  will  be  able 
to  instruct  me  and  keep  me  from 
doing  anything  very  foolish." 

u  A  young  woman  needs  a  protector 
at  any  time,  and  especially  an  attrac- 

Y 


322 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


tive  young  woman,"  answered  the 
hunchback,  who  was  watching  her 
closely  during  this  dialogue,  and  noted 
her  uneasiness.  "But  a  young  and 
beautiful  Avoman  with  property  is  indeed 
a  helpless  person,  Phoebe."  She  did 
not  answer.  "  She  must  be  on  her 
guard  against  a  thousand  contingencies 
which  will  probably  never  occur  to 
her,"  went  on  Mason  quietly.  "  She 
labours  under  a  thousand  disadvan- 
tages. She  may  fall  a  prey  to 
unscrupulous  and  intriguing  female 
friends,  or  to  needy  and  designing 
relatives,  or  most  likely  of  all,  to  a 
fortune-hunter,  who  takes  advantage 
of  her  beauty  and  innocence  to  line 
his  pockets  with  her  fortune,  and 
very  likely  break  her  heart  into  the 
bargain." 

"  You  don't  draw  a  very  attractive 
picture,"  said  the  girl. 

"  Unfortunately  I  draw  a  very  true 
one,"  answered  her  cousin  gravely. 
"  Many  a  girl,  under  the  conditions  I 
have  described,  has  thrown  herself 
away  upon  some  scoundrel  who  was 
not  fit  to  black  her  shoes." 

"  I  hope  if  ever  the  condition  should 
arise,  that  I  shall  show  more  dis- 
crimination," said  Phoebe.  The  words 
were  bravely  spoken,  but  it  was  with 
trembling  lips,  and  an  almost  irre- 
sistible desire  to  escape  from  the  room 
and  her  cousin's  presence.  A.  woman, 
uneasy  from  some  cause  she  cannot 
understand,  is  a  woman  easily  fright- 
ened and  often  easily  persuaded. 
Mason  was  no  bad  judge  of  human 
nature,  and  felt  quite  satisfied  at  the 
effect  he  was  producing. 

"  It  would  be  a  very  great  grief  to 
me,  Phcebe,"  he  said,  "to  see  you  in 
such  a  position,  and  it  is  for  the  very 
purpose  of  averting  the  possibility  of 
future  misery  for  you,  that  I  am 
speaking  to  you  now.  If  you  were  a 
silly  sentimental  girl,  or  even  if  you 
had  had  the  slightest  opportunity  of 
bestowing  your  inclinations,  I  should 


not  be  talking  to  you  in  this  way. 
Believing,  however,  that  you  are  a 
woman  with  much  common  sense,  and 
no  foolish  or  romantic  ideas,  I  am 
going  to  ask  you,  my  dear  cousin,  if 
you  will  confide  yourself  to  the  care  of 
one  who  has  always  entertained  for 
you  a  most  sincere  affection,  and  who 
has  had  your  interests  greatly  at  heart 
ever  since  you  were  a  child.  I  must 
beg  you  will  not  fancy  that  it  is  on 
account  of  your  possible  fortune  I 
make  this  proposal,  though  I  have 
certainly  been  induced  to  hasten  my 
declaration  owing  to  that  circum- 
stance, for  I  feared  your  helplessness 
under  such  changed  conditions.  I  am 
well  aware  of  the  terms  of  our  cousin 
Anthony's  will,  and  I  know  that  in 
case  of  his  death  I  am  left  sole  legatee 
and  executor.  This  fact  will  be  quite 
sufficient  to  prove,  if  you  need  proof, 
that  my  proposal  is  a  disinterested 
one,  for  you  see  I  am  amply  provided 
for,  although  the  will  can,  in  all 
probability,  not  take  effect  for  some 
time,  as  the  death  has  not  been 
proved.  Pardon  this  long  digression, 
my  dear  cousin,  and  believe  in  the 
sincerity  of  the  man  who  will,  I 
assure  you,  do  his  best  to  prove  a 
good  and  kind  husband." 

Phoebe  was  silent ;  she  sat  with 
averted  face  and  hands  nervously  and 
unconsciously  plucking  at  her  dress. 
The  dull  glare  of  the  shaded  candles 
in  the  dark  room  threw  the  head  and 
shoulders  of  the  hunchback,  as  he  sat 
behind  them,  into  such  strong  relief 
that  he  looked  almost  like  an  appari- 
tion from  the  surrounding  gloom. 
His  pale,  intellectual  face,  with  its 
oblique  gleaming  eyes  and  straight 
thin-lipped  mouth,  was  instinct  with 
eager  expectation,  as  he  leaned  hun- 
grily forward  waiting  for  his  answer 
from  the  girl  who  sat  so  mutely  in  the 
great  chair  opposite.  The  clock  on 
the  mantelpiece  ticked  loudly  through 
the  silence,  and  the  logs  on  the  hearth 


The  Secret,  of  Saint  FloreL 


323 


fell  asunder  with  a  gentle  sound  and 
a  shower  of  sparks. 

"  Silence  gives  consent,  they  say," 
observed  Mason  rising.  "  Am  I  right, 
my  dear  Phoebe  1  I  am  indeed  a 
fortunate  and  happy  suitor  !  " 

He  took  one  step  in  her  direction 
when  she  suddenly  sprang  to  her  feet 
and  faced  him.  Her  cousin  was  no 
coward,  but  he  shrank  back  from  the 
wrath  and  scorn  in  her  eyes  as  she 
looked  at  him. 

"  Stay  where  you  are  !  "  she  cried, 
in  clear  decisive  tones.  "  Don't  dare 
to  come  near  me  !  I  wonder  if  I  can 
ever  forget  this  degradation.  You, 
who  have  always  done  your  best  to 
make  me  remember  my  dependence 
and  inferiority,  are  ready,  now  there 
is  a  chance  of  my  having  property  of 
my  own,  to  do  all  in  your  power  to 
steal  it  from  me  in  the  only  way 
possible.  And  worse  than  that,  you 
have  not  even  the  decency  to  ac- 
knowledge your  motive.  I  could  have 
forgiven  you  more  easily  if  you  had 
done  so,  but  you  try  to  conceal  it, 
and  smooth  it  over  with  fine  words. 
You  are  a  coward,  Mason,  ready  to 
bully  an  old  man  and  insult  a  girl. 
I  despise  you  more  than  I  can  say  ;  I 
think  you  are  the  most  contemptible 
creature  I  know." 

Her  cousin,  who  had  been  genuinely 
surprised  and  taken  aback  by  her 
unexpected  self-assertion,  had  now 
found  time  to  recover  himself  a  little. 
"  Your  circle  of  acquaintance  being  at 
present  very  small,  you  may  possibly 
in  the  future  meet  some  one  even  more 
contemptible,"  he  answered  in  his 
usual  cool,  satirical  tone.  "  My  hum- 
ble person  is  a  very  small  focus  for 
such  a  concentration  of  evil.  In  the 
meantime,  perhaps  you  will  oblige  me 
with  an  answer." 

"  I  have  answered,"  she  said,  firmly. 

"  Pardon  me.  I  have  been  told  to 
keep  my  distance,  and  I  have  been 
accused  of  attempts  to  degrade,  insult, 


and  rob  you ;  but  I  have  had  no 
answer  to  my  proposal,  which  I 
think  you  must  admit  was  couched  in 
more  seemly  language  than  your 
tirade." 

"  Then  no,"  she  cried,  "  ten  thousand 
times  no  !  Do  not  venture  to  ask  me 
again.  It  is  wrong  and  wicked,  and 


"  And  why  1  "  he  interrupted. 
"  Why  so  wrong,  and  so  very  im- 
possible 1 "  he  asked  calmly. 

"  I  have  given  you  my  answer,"  she 
said,  "  and  that  must  be  sufficient." 

"But,  pardon  me,  my  dear  Phoebe, 
this  fiery  style  of  conversation  is  very 
little  to  my  taste,  and  quite  unlike 
your  usual  manner  of  speaking  ;  more- 
over it  is  so  very  unnecessary.  Let 
us  discuss  the  matter  more  quietly. 
There  is  not  the  least  need  for  heroics, 
though  I  am  quite  aware  that  they 
are  the  usual  refuge  of  a  woman 
whose  emotions  are  roused.  I  do  not 
consider  that  a  plain  no  is  quite 
sufficient  for  me.  I  must  have 
reasons,  adequate  reasons,  before  the 
subject  can  be  finally  dismissed." 

"  I  do  not  love  you,"  she  answered; 
and  her  tone,  as  her  cousin  was  fully 
aware,  meant  also,  "I  do  not  even 
like  you." 

"  That  difficulty  is  surely  not  so 
utterly  insurmountable,"  said  Mason  in 
a  particularly  gentle  voice.  "Many  well 
assorted  unions  have  begun  without 
much  attempt  at  love,  and  yet  proved 
extremely  successful.  Nay,  I  have 
even  heard  those  in  a  position  to 
judge  assert  that  a  little  dislike  before 
marriage  is  no  omen  of  future  unhap- 
piness,  but  rather  the  contrary.  Give 
me  some  other  reason,  for,  without 
presumption,  I  can  justifiably  hope  to 
overcome  this  obstacle."  She  did  not 
answer.  "  You  accused  me,  if  I  re- 
member rightly,  of  self-interest  in  this 
project,  which  I  do  not  mind  admitting 
is  a  very  dear  one  to  me.  I  have 
given  you  ample  proofs  that  this  is 

Y  2 


324 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel 


impossible.  What  now  remains  for 
me  to  disprove  1  " 

There  was  a  moment's  silence, 
while  the  thoughts  rushed  through 
Phoebe's  mind.  Mason's  matter-of- 
fact  analysis  of  the  situation  reminded 
her  of  a  feat  of  surgical  skill  in  which 
the  value  of  sensation  can  play  no 
part.  His  position  was  correct,  his 
method  masterly,  his  self-confidence 
so  boundless  that  she  almost  felt  that 
the  finely-tempered  chain  of  his 
reasoning  was  already  beginning  to 
shackle  her  liberty.  Vanity  in  man 
is  far  rarer  than  in  woman ;  but  in 
the  former  it  is  usually  not  a  fitful 
and  varying  quality,  but  a  faculty, 
perennial  and  obtuse.  In  spite  of 
her  first  cause  for  indignation  Phoebe 
shrank  from  the  position  into  which 
he  was  thrusting  her.  She  had  no 
wish  to  be  brutal.  Mason,  watching 
her  closely,  fancied  himself  near 
securing  his  desire. 

"  Come,  Phoebe,"  he  said  with  the 
gentle  patience  one  might  use  towards 
an  obstinate  child,  "  I  have  amply  dis- 
posed of  two  of  your  objections  to  my 
proposal.  Your  love  I  feel  assured  of 
winning ;  your  property,  if  you  will 
allow  a  portion  of  it  to  go  towards 
assisting  the  embarrassments  of  this 
estate,  can  otherwise  remain  entirely 
at  your  own  disposal  if  you  prefer 'it. 
I  am  amply  provided  for,  as  I  told  you 
before.  Give  me  some  reason  for 
your  refusal  that  I  cannot  combat." 

Still  there  was  silence.  In  Phoebe's 
mind,  confused  as  it  was  by  stress  of 
feeling,  there  lingered  yet  a  wonder  at 
the  egregiousness  of  this  man's 
vanity.  He  could  not  grasp  the  idea 
of  his  being  absolutely  repugnant  to 
any  one.  Her  appeals  to  his  pity  and 
his  pride  had  been  equally  in  vain  ; 
their  utter  futility  indeed  taught  her 
that  his  ruling  passion  was  still  un- 
touched, and  pointed  out  to  her  clearly 
what  that  passion  was.  Angry  as  she 
felt,  her  womanly  compassion  had 


prevented  her  hitherto  from  touching 
upon  a  truth  as  cruel  as  it  must  be 
effectual. 

"  Give  me  some  reason  for  your 
refusal  I  cannot  combat,"  he  re- 
peated. 

He  had  risen  as  he  spoke  and  now 
stood  beside  her,  though  not  very 
close.  As  she  raised  her  head  in 
proud  desperation  to  answer  him, 
seeking  words  for  a  reply,  her  eyes 
fell  half  unconsciously  on  a  long  old- 
fashioned  mirror  hanging  opposite. 
In  a  flash  her  woman's  wit  had 
availed  itself  of  the  sudden  chance. 
Words  were  needless ;  she  pointed  to 
the  mirror.  "  Look  !  "  she  said 
quietly. 

Following  the  direction  of  her  hand 
his  gaze  met  her  own  in  the  sheet  of 
glass,  full  of  hints  and  shadows  and 
half-lit  depths.  From  its  confused 
background  the  reflection  of  their  two 
figures  shone  clear  and  distinct.  At 
first  his  eyes  were  meaningless ;  then 
she  saw  the  look  of  startled  horror 
that  crept  into  them  as  he  saw  himself 
beside  her.  He  did  not  move  for  an 
instant,  though  their  eyes  were  meeting 
in  the  mirror  and  hers  shrank  from 
the  unutterable  misery  in  his  own. 
Then  his  head  drooped  in  a  way  which 
in  him  was  pathetic.  "  True,"  he 
said.  "  I  had  forgotten  that  I  am  as 
God  made  me." 

She  could  not  touch  his  heart,  nor 
sting  his  conscience ;  but  the  arrow 
rankled  sorely  in  that  which  was 
neither,  and  without  another  word 
she  left  him. 

By  himself,  Mason  Sawbridge  had 
ample  food  for  reflection,  and  as  his 
hurrying  thoughts  pressed  upon  him, 
he  suited  a  restlessness  of  bodily 
nerves  to  the  same  condition  of  mental 
ones,  and  rising  from  his  chair,  began 
an  uneasy  progress  up  and  down  the 
half-lit  room.  The  flame  of  the  logs 
upon  the  hearth  leaped  up,  accentuating 
his  misshapen  and  quivering  shadow 


The  Secret^/  Saint  Florel. 


325 


upon  the  opposite  wall,  and  as  he 
passed  within  the  halo  of  the  candle- 
light, it  brought  his  expressive  coun- 
tenance into  a  prominence  that  was 
disagreeably  startling.  His  mouth 
was  set  in  its  ordinary  straight  line, 
save  that  being  more  compressed  than 
usual,  the  thin  dark  beard  that  fringed 
his  lower  lip  gave  a  doubly  inflexible 
appearance  to  that  feature.  To  and 
fro,  and  up  and  down  he  went  with 
an  uneasy  angular  motion,  and  as  he 
flitted  from  light  to  shadow,  and  from 
shadow  to  light,  he  had  the  seeming 
of  some  gnome  or  goblin  rather  than  of 
a  human  being. 

Things  had  not  turned  out  quite  as 
he  had  expected.  A  ready  and  cheerful 
assent  to  his  proposal  he  had  hardly 
hoped  for  ;  but  he  had  by  no  means 
reckoned  on  receiving  a  refusal  so 
unqualified  as  to  preclude  the  chance 
of  future  discussion.  Look  at  the 
matter  in  what  light  he  would,  he  was 
fain  to  acknowledge  it  was  hopeless ; 
and  with  reluctant  energy  he  turned 
his  back  upon  a  project  that  had 
proved  such  a  signal  failure.  Revenge 
is  sweet,  they  say,  and  as  he  walked 
up  and  down  Mason  resolved  that 
Phcebe  should  not  go  unpunished  for 
having  thus  thwarted  his  desires. 
He  had  been  animated  by  a  very 
lively  resolve  that  the  future  Mrs. 
Sawbridge  should  dance  most  obedi- 
ently to  any  tune  her  husband  chose 
to  play,  and  to  find  that  such  con- 
genial intentions  were  completely 
frustrated  annoyed  him  extremely. 
As  Phoebe  had  told  Hugh  Strong,  no 
one  ever  offended  Mason  with  im- 
punity ;  though  his  revenge  might  be 
long  delayed,  he  kept  the  idea  of  it 
before  him,  and  took  advantage  of  the 
first  convenient  combination  of  cir- 
cumstances to  execute  it.  Any  other 
method  of  action  he  considered  clumsy 
and  inartistic,  and  his  cold,  calculating 
nature  and  extraordinary  self-control 


generally  produced  the  most  satis- 
factory results. 

He  presently  threw  himself  into  an 
arm-chair  by  the  hearth,  and  gloomily 
watched  the  flickering  of  the  flame 
among  the  logs.  He  had  seldom  been 
so  completely  worsted  as  to-night,  and 
the  sensation  of  failure  depressed  him. 
By  and  by  his  thoughts  wandered  to 
other  matters.  Was  Anthony  dead, 
he  wondered,  really  and  truly  buried 
under  the  landslip  which  had  over- 
whelmed his  plantation  1  Was  that 
ugly  story  of  the  murder  true  ?  For 
his  own  part  Mason  disbelieved  it. 
Anthony  was  hasty  and  hot-tempered, 
but  was  hardly  likely  to  have  been 
tempted  into  a  crime  of  such  peculiar 
brutality.  The  hunchback  himself 
was  not  perhaps  exactly  a  scrupulous 
person,  but  the  idea  of  Anthony's 
supposed  transgression  filled  him  with 
repugnance.  Household  tyranny,  men- 
tal persecution,  the  arrows  of  satire, 
and  the  abstract  bludgeon  of  bullying, 
these  were  permissible ;  but  he  shrank 
in  horror  from  the  idea  of  depriving  a 
fellow-creature  of  life.  If  Anthony 
would  only  return,  some  way  out  of 
the  present  difficulty  might  easily  be 
found,  and  Phoebe's  money  secured  to 
the  family.  -To  Mason  Anthony's 
death  had  never  seemed  a  certainty. 
He  had  heard  all  the  facts  and  cir- 
cumstances connected  with  the  case, 
of  course  ;  but,  though  fain  to  acknow- 
ledge that  there  could  be  little  room 
for  doubt  as  to  the  issue,  he  could  not 
help  feeling  that  the  necessity  for 
Anthony's  existence  was  too  great  to 
admit  of  that  individual's  decease. 

Providence,  however,  has  an  awk- 
ward way  of  interfering  with  the 
personal  convenience  of  humanity, 
and  it  was  some  sense  of  this  truth 
which  led  him  to  sigh  and  shake  his 
head  with  real  regret  as  he  lighted 
his  candle  and  moved  slowly  up  the 
creaking  stairs  to  bed. 


326 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

IT  was  October.  Summer's  proces- 
sion of  dancing  boughs  and  crowning 
blossoms  had  passed  by  and  yielded  to 
the  graver  and  more  stately  march  of 
autumn,  with  its  pendent  fruits  and 
ruddy  withering  foliage.  Apple- 
gathering  was  over,  and  the  empty 
orchards  with  their  leaf-strewn  grass 
lay  silent  under  the  low  mellow  sun  of 
a  Saint  Martin's  summer.  The  corn 
was  reaped,  and  dozens  of  noisy  red- 
billed  geese  were  disporting  themselves 
upon  the  crisp  shining  stubble.  Over 
the  rural  solitudes  where  the  un- 
hasting  pulse  of  agriculture  throbbed 
in  its  leisurely  immemorial  fashion, 
there  brooded  a  sense  of  completion, 
almost  of  welcome  for  the  long  and 
barren  weeks  of  winter. 

There  were  few  wild  flowers  now 
in  the  hedgerows,  although  tawny 
nuts  and  great  purple  blackberries 
still  hung  there  to  tempt  the  wayfarer. 
In  the  gardens  the  lawns  were  heavy 
with  dew  that  drenched,  too,  the 
brilliant  clusters  of  rowan  berries, 
making  their  scarlet  yet  more  intense. 
Here  and  there  in  a  favourable  corner 
some  late  pears  still  clung  to  the  bare 
bough,  and  the  robins  sang  blithely 
amid  the  falling  leaves.  Overgrown 
sunflowers  and  straggling  dahlias 
made  bright  spots  of  colour  in  the 
universal  fading,  and  the  Quaker-like 
grace  of  the  Michaelmas  daisy  vied 
successfully  enough  with  its  gaudier 
rivals. 

A  strange  and  undefinable  sadness 
mingles  with  the  bright  sunshine  of 
this  season.  It  strikes  one  as  a  last 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  dying  year, 
that  must  so  soon  and  so  inevitably 
sink  into  its  grave.  When  it  is  young 
one  may  be  prodigal  of  its  radiant 
hours;  one  does  not  mind  wasting 
some  of  them  indoors  ;  there  are  many 
fine  days  coming,  one  says.  JBut 
when  Saint  Martin's  summer  begins, 


one  realises  only  too  surely  that  every 
ray  of  sun  and  warmth  is  precious,  for 
the  time  is  coming  when  both  will  be 
lacking.  Wherefore,  oh  friend,  be 
warned,  and  while  the  fair  yellow 
light  lies  over  lawn  and  meadow,  walk 
forth  and  enjoy  it  to  the  utmost. 
Any  day  may  be  the  last  of  that  brief 
sweet  season,  and  winter  perchance  be 
with  us  to-morrow. 

The  atmosphere  of  Denehurst  was 
not  at  any  time  an  especially  cheerful 
one  ;  it  was  hardly  surprising  therefore 
that  Phoebe  felt  the  gentle  melancholy 
of  those  October  days  to  the  fullest 
extent.  And  yet  she  could  hardly 
satisfy  herself  with  any  reasonable 
clue  to  her  sadness.  Mason  Sawbridge 
had  remained  absolutely  silent  on  the 
subject  of  his  proposal ;  and  though 
his  attempts  at  ingratiating  himself 
still  in  a  certain  measure  continued, 
they  were  less  actively  objectionable 
to  the  girl,  for  they  took  the  form  of 
deference  to  her  wishes  and  abstention 
from  satire  at  her  expense.  Her  self- 
assertion  during  that  memorable  inter- 
view had  doubtless  something  to  do 
with  this  changed  state  of  affairs,  for 
on  that  occasion  she  had  summoned 
up  all  her  courage  and  struck  boldly 
at  a  dreaded  enemy  with  the  reward 
of  finding  him  not  so  dreadful  after 
all.  There  is  nothing  so  inspiriting 
as  a  discovery  of  this  sort,  and  Phoebe 
had  taken  the  fullest  advantage  of  it. 
She  could  really  find  no  cause  for 
increased  melancholy  in  her  present 
circumstances,  and  yet  the  melancholy 
was  undoubtedly  there.  For  one 
thing,  Mason's  attitude  struck  her  as 
suspicious,  although  her  woman's 
charity  bade  her  dismiss  the  idea  as 
absurd  and  unworthy.  Perhaps  Hugh 
Strong  had  not  been  so  far  wrong 
when  he  told  James  Bryant  that  the 
hunchback's  politeness  reminded  him 
of  a  rattlesnake  trying  to  delude  you 
into  the  impression  that  he  was  harm- 
less. Mason,  harsh,  dogmatic,  satiri- 


The  Secret\of  Saint  Florel. 


327 


cal,  was  disagreeable,  but  natural ; 
Mason  suave,  considerate,  and  obliging- 
seemed  less  pleasant  because  unnatural. 
As  usual,  poor  old  Dennis  Dene,  whose 
life  was  now  composed  of  harmless 
imaginings,  dim  memories,  and  im- 
perfect apprehensions,  was  the  happiest 
of  the  little  party,  which  state  of 
things  seems  rather  a  satire  upon  the 
advantages  of  human  reason  and 
sanity. 

Late  in  October  the  hunchback 
received  a  note  from  James  Bryant, 
reminding  him  of  his  suggestion  that 
he  and  his  friend  Strong  should  run 
down  for  a  little  shooting,  and  in- 
timating that  they  would  have  much 
pleasure  in  again  paying  a  visit  to 
Coltham  if  the  idea  seemed  equally 
agreeable  to  Mr.  Sawbridge,  &c.,  &c. 

Mr.  Sawbridge  himself,  although 
mentally  sustained  by  interest  in  the 
multitudinous  small  plots  and  con- 
trivings  with  which  he  carried  on  his 
various  business  affairs,  was  also  con- 
scious of  a  vague  feeling  of  dulness  and 
desire  for  change.  He  remembered,  too, 
how  enthusiastic  a  fisherman  James 
Bryant  was,  and  that  rather  cold  com- 
plex organ  which  served  him  for  a 
heart  warmed  towards  his  companion 
of  the  summer.  He  therefore  answered 
the  letter  cordially  enough,  bidding 
Mr.  Bryant  and  his  friend  welcome,  and 
regretting  that  circumstances  rendered 
it  beyond  his  power  to  put  them  up 
at  the  house ;  and  thus  it  came  to 
pass  that  the  last  days  of  peaceful 
Saint  Martin's  summer  found  the  two 
friends  once  more  established  at  the 
Red  Lion  at  Coltham. 

The  shooting  at  Denehurst  was  not 
preserved,  but  though  it  afforded  very 
fair  sport,  and  although  the  host  did 
all  in  his  power  to  render  things  as 
pleasant  as  possible,  it  is  much  to  be 
feared  that  one,  at  any  rate,  of  the 
guests,  did  not  find  it  the  chief  attrac- 
tion, nor,  if  the  truth  were  known, 
even  the  object  of  his  visit.  It  is 


melancholy  to  reflect  how  much  effort 
is  wasted  in  this  life.  Here  was 
Mason  Sawbridge,  exercising  even 
more  than  his  ordinary  urbanity, 
fatiguing  himself  greatly,  for  he  was 
not  a  robust  person,  by  tramping 
through  covers  and  getting  wet  among 
turnips ;  and  one  at  least  of  the 
individuals  upon  whose  behalf  all  this 
exertion  was  undertaken  could  have 
done  quite  well  without  it,  and  was 
indeed  conscious  that  powder  and 
shot,  game,  coverts,  dogs,  guns,  and 
his  host,  were  all  utterly  and  entirely 
unnecessary,  were  in  truth  superfluities 
to  be  endured  rather  than  pleasures 
to  be  enjoyed.  Hugh  Strong  felt 
himself  at  the  time  to  be  in  a  state  of 
unpleasing  ignorance  concerning  the 
lady  on  whom  he  had  placed  his 
affections.  Half  an  hour's  quiet  con- 
versation with  her  might  have  set  his 
mind  at  rest,  and  for  this-  boon  he 
would  willingly  have  exchanged  a 
good  day's  shooting.  Of  course  he  was 
young,  or  such  a  terrible  incapacity 
for  weighing  advantages  could  hardly 
have  been  imputed  to  him.  And,  of 
course,  also,  he  was  very  much  in 
earnest ;  a  consequence  of  his  youth, 
for  it  is  the  time  of  all  others  for 
earnestness,  grave  determination,  pas- 
sionate hope,  and  daring  impulse. 
In  later  life  we  become  more  catholic, 
tasting  our  pleasures  to  see  which  is 
likely  to  yield  the  best  return,  and 
transferring  our  allegiance  accordingly ; 
but  in  youth  we  are  more  loyal  and 
less  transitory, — less  reasonable,  older 
folks  say,  yet  few  among  them  will 
not  confess  to  a  regret  for  their  own 
past  days  of  sweet  unreason. 

"  Phoebe,"  said  Mason  Sawbridge, 
suddenly  one  morning  at  breakfast 
when  the  second  day's  sport  was  about 
to  begin,  "  do  you  think  we  could  con- 
trive to  ask  Mr.  Bryant  and  his  friend 
to  dinner  within  the  next  day  or  two  ?  " 

His  cousin  started.  It  was  several 
years  since  a  guest  had  sat  at  that 


328 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


board,  and  the  proposal  rather  over- 
whelmed her.  "  Well,"  she  answered 
doubtfully,  "  of  course  we  could  give 
them  something  to  eat,  but  I  don't 
suppose  Mrs.  Carroll  could  manage 
anything  very  elaborate." 

"  You  see,"  pursued  Mason,  "  it 
seems  rather  inhospitable  to  close 
one's  doors  upon  them  entirely, 
especially  as  my  uncle  has  been  so 
much  quieter  lately.  And  besides,  I 
like  Mr.  Bryant ;  he  is  very  pleasant, 
don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

In  her  heart  of  hearts  Phoebe 
applied  that  adjective  to  somebody 
else,  and  it  was  probably  a  desire 
to  conceal  her  real  feelings  that  im- 
parted a  deceptive  warmth  to  her 
reply.  "  Yes,"  she  answered  with 
some  interest.  "  I  think  he  is  very 
pleasant  indeed  ;  but  then,  you  know, 
I  have  only  seen  him  once." 

"  Only  once ! "  cried  Mason,  who  had 
begun  to  forget  what  a  secluded  life 
she  had  hitherto  led,  and  who,  be- 
sides, had  no  idea  of  the  extent  to 
which  she  had  cultivated  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Hugh  Strong. 

"  Yes,  only  once.  The  day  my 
uncle  took  Mr.  Bryant  and  his  friend 
over  the  picture-gallery." 

"  Well,  the  sooner  you  see  some- 
thing of  other  people  when  you  can 
get  the  chance,  the  better,"  returned 
Mason.  "  Come  up  to  the  High 
Wood  to-day  when  Carroll  brings  the 
luncheon  then  you  can  ask  Mr. 
Bryant  to  dinner  yourself,  and  explain 
that  it  is  quite  an  informal  affair. 
You  will  be  hostess,  you  know." 

"Very  well,"  returned  the  girl, 
secretly  delighted  ;  "  but  suppose 
Uncle  Dennis  wishes  to  come  ? " 

"I  don't  suppose  it  matters  if  he 
does,"  said  Mason.  "  Mr.  Bryant 
must  have  got  a  very  fair  inkling  of 
how  it  stands  with  the  old  man.  He 
can  come  too,  if  he  wishes." 

The  day  was  bright  and  still,  with 
scarcely  a  cloud  in  the  clear  blue  sky. 


The  russet  leaves  fell  to  the  ground 
in  a  gentle,  leisurely  fashion,  unhind- 
ered by  any  breath  of  wind.  There 
was  a  crispness  as  of  frost  in  the  air, 
a  pleasant  tinge  of  freshness  which 
imparted  a  great  sense  of  exhilaration. 
The  polished  hazel  stems  and  the 
silver  bark  of  the  birches  shone  clear 
and  distinct  in  the  hot  sunshine  that 
bathed  field  and  coppice  and  hedge- 
row in  its  liberal  radiance.  The 
squirrels  were  enjoying  a  final  gambol 
among  the  highest  .branches  of  the 
trees,  and  the  field-mice  rustled  timidly 
among  the  dry  leaves  that  strewed 
the  ground.  The  crack  of  the  guns 
sounded  sharp  and  abrupt  in  the  hush 
of  the  country-side,  from  which  nearly 
all  sounds  of  toil,  save  the  hum  of 
the  threshing-machines,  had  disap- 
peared. 

When  she  reached  the  shooting- 
party  it  must  be  confessed  that  Phoebe 
Thayne  presented  a  sufficiently  pleasing 
spectacle.  The  quick  walk  had  given 
her  delicate  complexion  a  deeper  tinge, 
and  her  eyes  were  bright  with  pleasur- 
able excitement.  In  virtue  of  the 
sudden  diversion  which  he  had  sug- 
gested to  her,  Mason  Sawbridge  seemed 
just  then  less  repugnant  than  he  had 
been  since  the  night  on  which  he  had 
proposed.  Her  state  of  satisfaction 
was  of  course  a  result  of  feminine 
inconsequence  in  mental  argument,  for 
if  she  had  adhered  to  her  theory  of 
suspicion  whenever  he  tried  to  make 
himself  pleasant,  the  present  occasion 
would  have  presented  a  favourable 
opportunity  for  remaining  at  home, 
and  declaring  the  invitation  to  dinner 
to  be  impracticable.  As  we  have 
seen,  she  did  not  follow  either  of  these 
courses,  being  after  all  only  a  woman, 
and  therefore  prone  to  mould  her 
logic  upon  her  pleasure.  As  she  stood 
among  them,  her  fair  hair  crisp  and 
curled  against  the  dark  outline  of  her 
hat,  her  face  bright  with  pleasure  and 
animation,  all  three  men  were  simul- 


The  Secret  "of  Saint  Florel. 


329 


taneously  smitten  with  varying  feelings 
of  admiration.  Mason  wondered  to 
himself  at  her  undoubted  beauty  which 
impressed  him  more  now  there  were 
others  to  admire  it  also.  Hugh 
Strong  experienced  sensations  impos- 
sible to  describe,  and  difficult  to 
imagine  save  by  those  who  have  been 
in  a  similar  predicament.  Even 
James  Bryant,  confirmed  old  bachelor 
that  he  was,  became  sensible  of 
unwonted  stirrings  in  a  manly  bosom 
which  had  deemed  itself  proof  against 
such  weakness,  and  inwardly  called 
Hugh  a  lucky  dog. 

"  Here  you  are  at  last,  Phoebe," 
cried  Mason.  "  I  have  been  won- 
dering what  on  earth  could  have 
become  of  you.  Mr.  Bryant  is  nearly 
dead  of  hunger." 

"Not  quite,"  said  that  gentleman, 
smiling ;  "  but  I  confess  myself  ready 
for  luncheon." 

"  How  many  creatures  have  you 
killed  1 "  inquired  Phoebe  of  the  col- 
lective party.  "  It  seems  a  shame  to 
set  out  to  kill  things  on  such  a  glorious 
day." 

"  Still  you  know,  Miss  Thayne,  the 
result  upon  a  wet  day  would  be  exactly 
the  same  for  the  '  things,' "  observed 
Hugh  Strong. 

He  had  not  seen  her  since  their  last 
interview  in  the  Denehurst  plantation 
some  months  before,  and  he  greatly 
wondered  to  himself  whether  he  had 
any  chance  with  her.  Just  now  her 
own  knowledge  of  the  light  in  which 
she  regarded  him  made  her  shy  of 
talking  to  him,  and  gave  this  anxious 
lover  an  unfavourable  idea  of  his 
luck. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  "I  suppose 
the  creatures  would  feel  dying  just  the 
same  in  bad  weather ;  but  it  seems 
more  appropriate  to  wet  gloomy  days. 
Don't  you  think  so,  Mr.  Bryant  1 " 

"  Well,  since  you  ask  me,"  answered 
James  Bryant  candidly,  "  I  must  say 
that  I  prefer  dry  weather  for  shoot- 


ing. It's  infinitely  pleasanter ;  one 
doesn't  get  so  damp,  you  know."  The 
good  Bryant  was  not  a  man  to  ap- 
preciate the  sentimental  side  of  the 
question. 

"  Now  you  have  killed  so  many 
birds  and  beasts,  Mr.  Bryant,"  said 
Phoebe,  "  my  cousin  and  I  would  be 
very  glad  if  you  and  Mr.  Strong  [here 
she  favoured  Hugh  with  a  rather 
distant  little  bow]  would  come  and 
dine  at  Denehurst  to-morrow  or  the 
next  day,  whichever  will  be  the  most 
convenient,  and  taste  your  prey." 

The  two  invited  guests  glanced  at 
each  other  and  then  made  a  simul- 
taneous sound  of  assent.  "  We  shall 
be  delighted,"  answered  James  Bryant. 

"  We  are  very  quiet  people,  as  you 
know,"  said  Mason,  "  so  you  must 
excuse  a  simple  dinner ;  but  you  will 
be  most  welcome." 

"  To-morrow,  then,  I  think  would 
suit  us  very  well,"  said  Bryant,  "  since 
Miss  Thayne  has  given  us  a  choice ; 
and  I  must  go  to  London  the  day 
after." 

Thus  the  matter  was  settled,  and 
they  all  proceeded  to  their  luncheon 
with  great  content. 

"  By  the  way,  Miss  Thayne,"  said 
Bryant,  who  •  was  sitting  near  her, 
"  there  is  an  odd  woodcock  in  the  bag ; 
some  misguided  bird  that  has  arrived 
too  early.  Wouldn't  you  like  the 
painters  for  your  hat  1 " 

"  Yes,  very  much,"  she  answered 
smiling.  "  But  really  and  truly  the 
person  who  shot  the  bird  ought  to 
wear  them,  oughtn't  he  ? " 

"  I  shot  it,"  answered  Bryant, 
getting  up  to  fetch  the  bird,  "  and  I 
shall  have  much  pleasure  in  giving 
the  painters  to  you,  since  you  are 
never  likely  to  shoot  a  snipe  yourself, 
I  suppose." 

"  No,  indeed  ! "  cried  the  girl 
warmly.  "  I  think  women  who  go 
out  shooting  behave  very  unbecom- 
ingly. I  can't  imagine  how  they  can 


330 


The  Secret  of  Saint  FloreL 


find  any  pleasure  in  killing  birds,  or 
seeing  them  killed." 

"  Phoebe,"  said  Mason,  "  Mr.  Bryant 
has  never  seen  the  view  from  the 
cairn  in  the  East  Wood.  Suppose 
you  show  him  the  way,  while  Mr. 
Strong  and  I  go  along  the  stream  on 
the  chance  of  getting  a  duck  or  two ; 
we  can  work  our  way  round  and  join 
you.  There  is  a  very  fine  view  from 
the  cairn,  Mr.  Bryant,"  he  added,  "  if 
you  would  like  to  see  it  1 " 

Now  James  Bryant  had  reached 
the  age  when  any  one,  not  an  en- 
thusiastic sportsman,  has  a  certain 
regard  for  his  digestion  which  pre- 
vents him  from  scrambling  about  too 
soon  after  lunch.  He  would  have 
much  preferred  to  sit  still  and  talk  to 
Phoebe,  or  even  to  have  seen  her  con- 
duct Hugh  to  this  noted  cairn,  but  in 
the  circumstances  there  was  nothing 
left  for  him  to  do  save  to  give  his 
assent.  "I  shall  be  very  pleased," 
he  said  rising,  "  if  Miss  Thayne  will 
undertake  to  guide  me.  A  good  view 
is  always  worth  looking  at." 

So  Hugh,  inwardly  anathematising 
his  host's  awkward  arrangements,  to- 
gether with  his  friend's  luck,  was 
obliged  to  follow  Mason  in  pursuit  of 
imaginary  duck,  which  he  felt  the 
greatest  disinclination  to  search  for ; 
and  Bryant,  who  would  much  rather 
have  sat  still  for  half  an  hour,  set 
forth  obediently  at  Phoebe's  side. 
Such  are  the  whimsical  arrangements 
of  Fate  ! 

CHAPTER  XV. 

"I  DO  hope,  old  fellow,  that  to- 
night you  won't  go  shoving  your  oar 
in  as  you  did  yesterday." 

This  rather  unjust  accusation  was 
spoken  by  Hugh  Strong  as  he  passed 
between  his  own  room  and  Bryant's, 
peripatetically  brushing  his  hair,  on 
the  night  they  were  dining  at  Dene- 
hurst. 


"  It  wasn't  any  fault  of  mine,"  said 
Bryant.  "  I  couldn't  well  refuse  to 
fall  in  with  our  host's  plans.  Besides, 
I  assure  you,  Miss  Thayne  was  safe 
enough  with  me.  No  doubt  she's  a 
charming  young  lady,  but  you  know 
I'm  not  matrimonially  inclined." 

"  It  wasn't  that,"  answered  Hugh  ; 
"  only  it's  so  aggravating  to  be  dragged 
off  shooting  duck  when  you  want  to 
talk  to  a  girl  that  you've  scarcely  any 
chance  of  meeting." 

"  No  doubt  it's  aggravating,"  replied 
Bryant ;  "  but  at  the  same  time  I 
repeat  I  was  not  responsible.  To- 
night I  shall  probably  be  requested, 
being  the  older  man,  to  take  Miss 
Thayne  in  to  dinner  and  entertain 
her  during  the  courses  I  distinctly  fore- 
see this,  but  I  beg  you  will  understand 
that  it  can't  be  helped.  You  must 
make  the  best  of  it,  and  go  in  and  win 
afterwards,  if  you  get  the  chance." 

"  That's  just  where  it  is,"  groaned 
Hugh.  "  I  never  shall  get  the  chance." 
And  it  was  in  this  despairing  mood 
that  he  set  off  to  Denehurst. 

Fortune,  however,  aided  by  his 
friend,  favoured  him  after  dinner, 
when  the  gentlemen  having  joined 
Phoebe  in  the  drawing-room,  Bryant 
suddenly  said :  "  By  the  way,  Mr. 
Sawbridge,  I  wish  you  would  show 
me  those  new  flies  you  were  speaking 
of  just  now ;  if  they  are  really  good  I 
should  like  to  copy  them." 

"  They  are  in  my  study ;  I'll  fetch 
them,"  said  the  hunchback  rising. 

"  No,  no,"  said  Bryant.  "  Let  me 
go  and  see  them  if  you  will ;  it  is 
never  wise  to  bring  fish-hooks  into  a 
drawing-room.  I  once  had  a  lesson 
that  way.  I  was  showing  some  flies 
one  night,  and  unfortunately  one  got 
caught  in  a  lady's  lace  dress  and  had 
to  be  cut  out.  It  was  priceless  lace, 
I  was  told  afterwards,  but  not  by  the 
lady ;  she  never  spoke  to  me  again. 
I've  been  careful  ever  since." 

So    the    two    anglers    disappeared 


The  Secret  bf  Saint  Floret. 


331 


for  a  time  from  the  room,  and 
Hugh  promptly  saw,  and  seized,  his 
opportunity. 

"  How  did  you  like  your  books, 
Miss  Thayne  1 "  he  inquired. 

"  Oh,  I  have  never  thanked  you  for 
them  yet !  "  she  cried.  "  They  were 
the  greatest  possible  treat.  I  enjoyed 
them  very  much,  except  some  pieces 
of  Browning." 

"  Ah,  Browning's  poems  always 
remind  me  of  searching  in  hay  for  a 
needle.  There  seems  always  such  a 
lot  of  waste  stuff  about  them,  though 
the  needle  is  always  there  too.  But 
then  I  am  not  an  enthusiastic  wor- 
shipper of  him." 

"I  like  ZANONI  very  much  though," 
said  Phoebe.  "  In  some  ways  my 
uncle  is  rather  like  him,  I  think." 

"  It's  a  pretty  story,"  answered 
Hugh.  "  How  is  he  now — your  uncle 
I  mean  ? " 

"  Much  quieter,"  answered  Phoebe, 
"  and  very  gentle  and  kind ;  but 
lately  he  has  had  nothing  to  excite 
him.  My  cousin  has  given  up  play- 
ing with  him." 

"I  am  very  glad  of  that,"  answered 
Hugh  earnestly.  "  It  must  make  you 
feel  so  much  happier." 

"  Yes,  I  am  less  anxious  in  some 
ways,"  she  said. 

"  And  more  in  others  ? "  he  asked 
quickly.  "  Please  remember,  Miss 
Thayne,  that  when  I  was  last  here 
you  were  kind  enough  to  say  you 
would  look  upon  rne  as  a  friend." 

"  Yes,"  she  acknowledged,  a  little 
timidly. 

"  It  is  always  wisest  to  tell  one's 
troubles  to  one's  friends,"  pursued  the 
young  man,  waxing  bolder,  as  he 
remembered  how  few  such  chances 
were  likely  to  occur.  "  Very  often 
they  are  considerably  lightened  by  the 
process ;  sometimes  they  disappear 
altogether." 

"  I'm  afraid  I  can  hardly  hope  that," 
she  said  with  rather  a  sad  smile. 


"  Well,  at  any  rate  it  is  worth  trying 
such  a  simple  remedy,"  said  Hugh  en- 
couragingly. "  What  are  you  anxious 
about  now  1  " 

"  Myself,"  she  said,  feeling  herself 
compelled  to  answer  by  his  stronger 
will,  and  feeling  moreover  that  such 
compulsion  was  very  sweet. 

"  About  yourself  1 "  he  said.  "  You 
are  not  ill,  are  you  1 " 

"  Oh  dear  no,"  she  shook  her  head. 
"  I  am  quite  well  and  strong.  But  I 
am  always  afraid  now  of  something 
terrible  happening  to  me.  I  feel  as 
though  I  was  living  in  a  net,  and  that 
some  day  it  will  be  drawn  close,  and 
I  shall  be  caught." 

"  You  have  lived  so  much  alone 
that  your  imagination  is  playing  you 
tricks,  Miss  Thayne.  You  do  not  get 
change  enough ;  you  fancy  things." 

"  No,  I  am  not  fancying  anything," 
she  answered.  "  Besides,  it  does  not 
do  to  talk  about  these  fears ;  they 
grow  larger  if  one  does.  There  is  no 
need  for  you  to  be  troubled  with  any 
ideas  of  mine." 

"Troubled!"  he  echoed.  "I  am 
not  troubled,  except  by  sharing  your 
anxieties  when  you  are  kind  enough 
to  impart  them  to  me.  If  you  only 
knew,  Miss  Thayne,  if  you  could  only 

guess "  then  came  a  second's  pause. 

"  It's  of  no  use  trying  to  wait,"  he 
went  on  desperately,  "  I  may  never 
get  a  chance  of  seeing  you  like  this 
again.  I  haven't  known  you  very 
long,  Miss  Thayne,  but  I've  cared  for 
you  ever  since  I  first  saw " 

That  sentence  was  never  finished ; 
it  was  interrupted  by  a  remark  in 
Mason  Sawbridge's  voice  as  he  entered 
the  room  with  Bryant  at  that  moment. 
"  On  the  whole  I  incline  to  a  gray 
body,  with  just  a  couple  of  twists  of 
tinsel.  Perhaps  that  is  really  more 
killing  than  an  altogether  dark  fly." 

"Thanks,"  returned  Bryant,  who 
saw  at  once  from  Hugh's  face  that 
their  entrance  had  been  made  at  a 


332 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


very  inopportune  moment.  The 
hunchback  had  stopped  with  his  back 
to  them  to  turn  down  a  lamp,  and  by 
the  time  he  came  up  the  others  had  a 
perfectly  composed  and  ordinary  ap- 
pearance. 

"  You  should  take  a  property  some- 
where in  this  neighbourhood,  Mr. 
Bryant,  and  preserve  some  water. 
There  are  plenty  of  likely  streams," 
said  Mason. 

"  Ah,  I'm  afraid  I  shall  never  be 
able  to  bring  myself  to  that,"  returned 
Bryant.  "  I  am  a  confirmed  wanderer, 
Mr.  Sawbridge ;  I  never  know  when 
or  where  to  settle ;  I  fancy  I  shall  go 
on  wandering  to  the  end.  Besides, 
though  I  like  the  country  occasionally, 
for  the  sake  of  the  fishing,  still,  on  the 
whole,  I  prefer  London  to  any  other 
place." 

"Ah,  well,  I  was  brought  up  here 
and  have  always  lived  here,  and  I 
suppose  I  shall  very  likely  die  here. 
I  should  be  sorry  to  leave  the  place, 
wouldn't  you,  Phoebe  1 " 

"  No,"  she  answered  with  a  certain 
cold  emphasis.  "  I  should  be  very 
glad  to  leave  Denehurst.  I  do  not 
find  it  particularly  amusing." 

Since  the  night  he  had  proposed 
Phoebe  had  assumed  quite  a  new 
manner  of  independence  and  self- 
assertion.  Her  present  difference  of 
opinion  was  one  of  those  inconvenient 
manifestations  which  Mason  had  lately 
found  far  too  frequent. 

"  Perhaps  you  agree  with  Bryant, 
Miss  Thayne,"  said  Hugh.  "You 
would  prefer  London  1 " 

"  I  think  it  is  very  probable,"  she 
answered  laughing.  "  I  don't  think 
I  care  for  the  quiet  and  repose  of  the 
country  always.  It  wearies  me  and 
bores  me  ;  it  becomes  uninteresting." 

"  Possibly  you  may  change  your 
mind  in  the  future,  Miss  Thayne,' 
said  Bryant,  "  and  be  glad  of  the  quiet 
you  despise.  Sometimes  it  produces 
the  most  charming  results.  Believe 


me,"  he  added  with  a  little  bow, 
actually  essaying  a  compliment,,  "  to 
me  a  young  lady  in  the  country  is 
infinitely  more  attractive  than  one  in 
town." 

She  smiled  a  little  in  answer,  while 
Mason  Sawbridge  watched  the  pair 
with  infinite  satisfaction  which  was 
by  no  means  shared  by  Hugh. 

"  I  do  not  think,"  said  the  hunch- 
back to  Phoebe  when  their  guests  had 
departed,  "  that  I  was  ever  more 
favourably  impressed  by  any  one  than 
by  Mr.  Bryant ;  he  is  a  most  delightful 
acquaintance." 

"  Very,"  acquiesced  Phoebe,  without 
the  slightest  enthusiasm. 

"  You  don't  seem  to  share  my 
views,"  said  Mason,  rather  nettled  by 
her  cool  tones. 

"Oh,  I  think  Mr.  Bryant  is  very 
nice  and  all  that,"  returned  the  girl ; 
'  but  one  can't  be  very  enthusiastic 
about  a  man  who  is  stout  and  elderly." 

"Stout  and  elderly,"  echoed  Mason. 
"  What  can  you  mean  1  Why,  I  don't 
suppose  Mr.  Bryant  is  any  older  than 
I  am  myself." 

"  Well,  his  stoutness  makes  him 
look  older,"  persisted  the  girl. 

"  The  only  drawback  to  his  society 
is  that  one  is  compelled  to  share  it 
with  that  puppy  Strong,"  pursued  her 
cousin.  "  What  Bryant  can  see  in 
him  to  like,  I  can't  conceive."  Phoebe 
did  not  answer,  and  Mason  construed 
her  silence  with  suspicion.  "  Perhaps 
you  can  appreciate  his  society,"  he 
said,  srieeringly.  "  You  may  observe 
charms  in  him  which  are  not  apparent 
to  me." 

She  laughed  a  little,  coldly  and 
without  amusement  ;  but  if  Mason 
had  been  keener  sighted  he  would 
have  noticed  a  species  of  triumph  in 
her  look  as  she  answered  :  "  I  am 
not  accustomed  to  discussing  the 
rival  merits  of  young  gentlemen ; 
but  if  we  were  to  do  so,  Mason,  we 
might  very  likely  not  agree."  And 


The  Secret  v/  Saint  Florel. 


333 


with  that  she  took  her  bedroom  candle 
and  vanished  up  the  staircase.  There 
could  be  no  doubt  about  it !  She, 
Phoebe  Thayne,  had  that  evening  been 
on  the  point  of  receiving  a  proposal ; 
the  words  had  been  all  but  spoken, 
only  the  opening  door  had  interrupted 
them.  Did  he,  that  stalwart,  frank- 
faced,  sun-burned  young  Englishman 
really  care  for  her"?  What  had  he 
seen  in  her  to  attract  him  ?  Phoebe 
had  but  a  small  opinion  of  her  own 
-charms,  though  an  exaggerated  one  of 
those  of  her  lover.  With  him  the 
case  had  been  the  same,  for  love 
makes  us  diffident  of  ourselves,  yet 
supremely  confident  in  the  attractions 
of  our  beloved.  Hugh  Strong  was, 
after  all,  only  an  ordinary  young  man, 
and  Phoebe  had  no  pretension  to  the 
extraordinary.  Nevertheless,  on  that 
particular  night  each  had  looked  upon 
the  other  as  the  most  desirable  of  their 
kind,  and  all  on  account  of  the  sight- 
less little  god.  For  he  blinds  our 
eyes  to  imperfections  or  deficiencies, 
bidding  us  see  only  what  is  best  and 
purest  and  noblest  in  each  other.  He 
bids  us  hearken  to  the  music  of  one 
voice,  and  the  sound  of  one  footstep ; 
he  bids  us  kiss  one  face  and  claim 
one  heart ;  and  presently  when  we 
wake  from  the  first  glamour  of  satisfied 
possession,  some  of  that  blessed  blind- 
ness still  lingers,  making  life's  path 
less  toilsome,  and  the  world  easier 
to  the  twain  who  must  walk  therein 
together. 

So  Phoebe  said  her  prayers  that 
night  with  a  thankful  heart,  and  laid 
her  head  on  her  pillow  with  a  greater 
sense  of  happiness  than  she  had 
believed  herself  capable  of  experi- 
encing. True,  he  had  not  yet  spoken 
fully,  the  delicate  edge  of  expectation 
was  not  yet  dulled ;  but  she  could 
wait,  serene  and  secure  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  that  splendid  faith  which 
love  alone  can  evoke. 

"  Let's    have    a    pipe,    old    fellow," 


said  Hugh  to  his  friend  when  they 
reached  the  Red  Lion,  "  and  a  yarn 
before  we  turn  in ;  "  and  Bryant  knew 
that  this  was  a  preface  to  the  confi- 
dences which  followed.  "  And  I  had 
barely  begun  to  speak,  I  don't  know 
if  she  even  understood  what  I  was 
driving  at,  when  you  came  in,"  con- 
cluded Hugh.  "  It  makes  the  whole 
matter  rather  awkward.  I  don't 
really  know  in  what  light  she  looks  at 
it,  or  how  I  am  to  polish  things  off." 

"  I  can't  help  you  in  the  matter," 
said  Bryant,  "  for  I  shall  have  to  go 
to  town  to-morrow  morning  ;  but  you 
had  better  walk  up  to  Denehurst  to- 
morrow, ring  the  bell,  and  ask  for 
Miss  Thayne,"  answered  Bryant. 
"  Then  you  can  polish  things  off  easily 
enough." 

"  Yes,  but  it  strikes  me  that  it  will 
be  rather  difficult  to  secure  a  private 
interview  with  her,"  objected  Hugh. 
"  I've  half  a  fancy  that  I  am  not  a 
particularly  acceptable  suitor  in  the 
eyes  of  your  crooked  friend." 

"  Fortune  favours  the  brave,"  re- 
turned Bryant.  "  Perhaps  the  fellow 
will  be  out,  or  busy,  or  something." 

The  next  morning's  events  proved 
that  Bryant  was  right,  though  For- 
tune's favours,  were  not  bestowed  in 
precisely  the  manner  he  had  indicated. 
He  left  to  drive  to  the  station  just  as 
Hugh  started  for  Denehurst,  conscious 
of  a  certain  excited  trepidation  which 
did  not  tend  to  make  his  task  the 
easier.  He  felt  diffident  somehow, 
more  fearful  of  failure.  On  the  pre- 
vious evening,  when  he  and  Phoebe 
had  been  alone  together,  he  had  been 
sure  of  himself,  and  almost,  yes,  almost 
sure  of  her  too.  Now,  in  the  clear 
light  of  the  morning  (not  a  romantic 
time),  and  with  his  judgment  cooled 
by  a  few  hours'  separation,  the  outlook 
seemed  so  very  different.  However, 
as  has  been  already  said,  he  was  a 
young  man  of  cheerful  disposition,  and 
therefore,  plucking  up  heart  of  grace, 


334 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


walked  swiftly  forward  to  meet  his 
fate.  He  resolved  to  go  to  Denehurst 
through  the  plantation  instead  of 
round  by  the  big  entrance-gates.  A 
certain  nook,  among  the  now  nearly 
leafless  trees,  contained  a  crazy  bench, 
hallowed  to  him  by  recollections  of 
converse  highly  attractive  and  confi- 
dential. It  is  to  be  presumed  that 
this  same  spot  was  haunted  with 
memories  upon  which  some  one  else 
also  loved  to  dwell,  for  as  he  ap- 
proached it  he  became  at  once  aware 
that  Phoebe  herself  was  sitting  there. 
Her  back  was  towards  him,  and  she 
did  not  move  as  he  came  up,  though 
he  saw  her  give  a  little  start  at  the 
first  sound  of  his  footstep.  He  did 
not  speak,  but  his  suspense  made  a 
few  seconds  of  time  seem  interminable, 
— the  few  seconds  it  took  him  to  get 
up  to  her.  As  he  did  so  she  drooped 
her  head,  so  that  he  could  see  nothing 
but  the  bright  little  rings  of  hair  that 
curled  beyond  the  brim  of  her  hat, 
and — or  was  it  his  fancy  1 — a  glimpse 
of  a  very  becoming  blush. 

"  Miss  Thayne,"  he  began,  "  you 
can  guess  why  I  am  here."  There 
was  no  answer.  "  I  want  to  finish 
saying  what  I  began  last  night. 
Phoebe,  you  must  understand  !  I've 
loved  you  ever  since  I  first  saw  your 
miniature  among  your  cousin's  things 
in  Reunion.  Tell  me  you  can  care 
for  me  too  !  "  Still  no  answer  came. 
"Phoebe  !  "  —  growing  desperate — 
"  Answer  me  ;  say  yes  ! " 

Still  she  did  not  speak,  but  her 
nands  lying  in  her  lap  were  suddenly 
clasped  together  with  nervous  energy. 
The  movement  caught  Hugh's  eye,  he 
saw  the  slender  ringless  fingers,  the 
tracery  of  veins  showing  a  delicate 
blue  upon  the  white  skin,  and  the 
sight  of  those  rather  helpless  hands 
decided  him.  He  sat  down  upon  the 
bench  beside  the  girl,  and  taking  them 
in  his  own  held  them  firmly,  as  he 
brought  his  own  face  to  the  level  of 


hers.  "  Tell  me  now,  dear ! "  he 
whispered  softly,  and  at  that  instant 
her  downcast  eyes  were  compelled  to 
look  into  the  others  that  were  gazing 
at  her  so  earnestly. 

There  was  no  need  for  more  ;  no 
word  to  break  the  sacred  silence  that 
sealed  each  to  the  other ;  only  for  a 
little  space,  the  world,  and  life,  and 
things  present  and  to  come,  seemed  to 
shrink  back,  and  fold  their  rushing 
wings,  and  stand  with  bowed  heads 
round  the  mystic  oasis  in  which  those 
two  had  found  their  refuge. 

Few  owners  of  estates  knew  their 
possessions  as  thoroughly  as  Mason 
and  his  cousin  Anthony.  From  boy- 
hood they  had  roamed  over  Denehurst 
in  every  direction.  They  could  almost 
have  reckoned  up  the  large  trees  from 
memory  ;  they  knew  exactly  where  to 
set  night-lines  in  the  river,  and  the 
best  spots  for  traps  in  the  woods. 

Since  their  accession  to  manhood, 
when  popular  report  said  that  their 
personal  interest  in  the  place  had 
considerably  increased,  the  habits  of 
their  more  juvenile  days  had  clung  to 
them,  and  any  spare  time  they  had 
was  spent  in  various  walks  of  in- 
spection. True  the  strict  keeping  up 
of  pleasure-grounds  and  the  weeding 
of  garden-paths  had  not  been  con- 
sidered by  Mason  worth  the  cost  of 
the  labour  it  involved ;  but  he  was 
the  last  man  to  allow  the  real  value 
of  an  estate  to  diminish  from  neglect. 
So  plantations  were  thinned  and 
planted,  fences  mended,  ditches 
cleaned,  and  a  general  routine  of 
superintendence  carried  out,  which 
involved  considerable  personal  exertion 
to  himself,  for  he  was  a  restless,  sus- 
picious sort  of  individual  who  never 
thoroughly  trusted  any  underling. 
On  this  particular  morning  he  was 
prowling  about  a  small  patch  of  wood 
adjoining  the  plantation  through  which 
the  path  led  to  the  house.  For  a 


The  Secret  q/  Saint  Florel. 


335 


short  distance  a  hedge  of  yew  ran  be- 
tween the  wood  and  the  plantation  ; 
and  it  was  on  the  other  side  of  this 
hedge,  among  the  leafless  shrubs  and 
bushes,  that  the  bench  was  situated 
which  had  formed  such  a  convenient 
trysting  spot  for  Hugh  and  Phoebe. 
Mason  had  been  inspecting  some  trees 
marked  for  felling,  and  as  he  was  re- 
turning down  the  narrow  grassy 
path  which  skirted  the  hedge  on  the 
side  of  the  wood,  he  was  somewhat 
astonished  to  hear  the  sound  of  voices 
at  no  great  distance.  As  he  drew 
nearer,  his  approach  being  perfectly 
noiseless,  astonishment  changed  to  an- 
noyance as  he  recognised  the  voices  ; 
and  annoyance  was  succeeded  by  a 
much  stronger  feeling  when  he  arrived 
abreast  of  the  speakers  on  the  other 
side  of  the  hedge,  just  in  time  to  catch 
the  following  sentences  as  they  began 
to  move  away  from  him. 

"  There  is  one  thing  I  should  like 
to  tell  you  before  you  go,"  said  Phcebe. 
"  Do  you  know  you  are  not  the  first 
man  who  has  proposed  to  me  1  " 

"  Have  you  been  engaged  before  1 ' 
demanded  Hugh  rather  fiercely. 

"  No,  hardly,"  answered  Phcebe. 
"  Would  you  like  to  know  who  the 
gentleman  was  1 " 

"  It's  no  concern  of  mine,"  he 
answered  rather  sulkily,  feeling 
honestly  disappointed  at  the  infor- 
mation she  had  just  given. 

"  I  do  believe  you  are  trying  to  be 
jealous,"  she  said  with  a  little  laugh. 
"  There  is  not  the  slightest  occasion. 
The  man  was  my  cousin." 

"What,  Anthony  Holson  ?  The 
man  who  was  killed  in  Reunion  ?  " 

"  No,  the  other  !  " 

"  What  other  1 " 

"  Why,  Mason,  of  course." 

"  What  !     The  hunchback  1 " 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  tone 
of  the  last  word.  Incredulity,  amaze- 
ment, disgust,  and  anger  were  all 
apparent ;  and  the  man  best  capable 


of  realising  its  full  effect  stood  not 
more  than  half  a  dozen  yards  from 
the  speaker. 

"  Yes  ;  he  really  proposed  to  me. 
He  found  out  that  some  time  in  the 
future  there  was  a  possibility  of  some 
property  coming  to  me,  and  I'm  sure 
that  was  why  he  did  it." 

"  And  what  did  you  say  1 " 

"  I  said  no,  of  course,"  answered 
Phoebe  rather  indignantly.  "  I  could 
not  have  said  anything  else." 

"  No,"  said  Hugh.  "  I  don't  think 
you  could.  To  tell  you  the  honest 
truth,  Phcebe,  I  don't  like  your  cousin 
Mason.  In  fact,  I  dislike  him  ;  and 
somehow,  though  he  is  always  very 
polite  to  me,  I  don't  think  his  own 
feelings  for  me  are  exactly  friendly. 
However,  I  must  see  him  about  this 
affair  and " 

"  What  affair  1  "  interrupted  the 
girl. 

"  Why,  our  engagement.  I  don't 
want  to  conceal  it.  He'd  better  know 
at  once." 

"  Oh,  Hugh  !  "  she  cried  clinging  to 
his  arm.  "  If  only  he  need  not  know  !  " 

"  But  why  1 "  cried  her  amazed 
lover.  "  We  are  engaged  and  we  are 
going  to  be  married ;  and  I  don't  see 
that  it  would  be  exactly  straight- 
forward to  conceal  the  fact.  I  don't 
see  any  object  in  it." 

"  Somehow,"  she  said,  "  I  feel  as 
though  he  would  do  us  harm  if  he 
could.  I  am  sure  he  will  not  like  my 
engagement." 

"  It's  no  real  concern  of  his  whom 
you  marry,  I  suppose.  He  can't  pre- 
vent you  from  marrying  me  if  you 
choose.  You  will  be  of  age  in  a  few 
months,  and  then  you  can  do  as  you 
please ;  even  now  I  have  sufficient  in- 
come to  keep  a  wife  if  we  can  marry 
at  once." 

"  When  are  you  going  to  tell  him  ?" 
inquired  Phoebe. 

"  Oh,  at  once  I  think,"  answered 
Hugh  looking  at  his  watch.  "  I  can 


336 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


say  all  I  want  to  say  in  ten  minutes. 
I  have  plenty  of  time  before  lunch. 
It's  of  no  use  delaying  this  kind  of 
thing  ;  much  better  get  it  over." 

"Mason  is  out  this  morning,  I 
know,"  answered  Phcebe  ;  "  and  I 
heard  him  tell  uncle  he  might  be  late 
for  lunch.  Wait  till  to-morrow,  Hugh, 
only  just  till  to-morrow.  Let  me  feel 
that  no  one  knows  of  this  for  at  any 
rate  one  day,  except  our  two  selves. 
I  have  a  presentiment  that  Mason  will 
bring  us  bad  luck  when  he  knows 
and— 

"  I'll  tell  you  what,  Phcebe,"  inter- 
rupted Hugh  with  that  little  assump- 
tion of  authority  which  is  so  charming 
in  a  lover,  and  so  objectionable  in  a 
husband,  "you  have  lived  so  long 
alone  here  brooding  over  all  sorts  of 
ideas  and  imaginings,  that  you  have 
grown  quite  superstitious ;  it's  high 
time  you  were  married  and  had  a 
husband  to  look  after  you.  If  you 
think  that  your  cousin's  knowledge  of 
our  engagement  will  bring  us  harm, — 
why  it  must  bring  us  harm  any  way, 
for  sooner  or  later  he  must  know. 
However,  as  you  say  he  is  out  now,  I 
won't  trouble  about  it  just  for  to-day. 
Look  here,  suppose  you  come  for  a 
walk  with  me  this  afternoon,  there  are 
plenty  of  nice  lanes  round  here.  Where 
shall  we  meet  1 " 

Phoebe  reflected  for  a  moment.  "  I 
will  come  to  the  big  oak  in  the  plan- 
tation where  I  came  the  other  day 
with  the  luncheon  when  you  were 
shooting.  I  will  be  there  about  half- 
past  two." 

"Very  well,"  said  Hugh.  "Only 
to-morrow  afternoon  I  shall  come  up 
to  Denehurst  directly  after  luncheon 
and  see  your  cousin.  After  that  we 
can  go  for  another  walk." 

"  Yes,  perhaps,"  said  Phcebe.  "  And 
now  I  must  go." 

"  So  must  I,  but  I'll  walk  part  of 
your  way  first,"  he  answered.  And 
then  they  went  off  together. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

IN  the  meantime  Mason's  feelings, 
as  he  listened  Avith  varying  shades  of 
emotion  to  the  preceding  conversation, 
may  be  imagined.  He  was  not,  of 
course,  an  individual  of  essentially 
scrupulous  conduct,  or  he  would  hardly 
have  played  the  eavesdropper ;  but 
having  played  it,  what  he  heard 
afforded  him  much  food  for  reflection. 
He  was  a  man  almost  incapable  of 
relieving  strong  feelings  by  outward 
expression  ;  he  did  not  indulge  in 
private  soliloquy,  he  seldom  raised  his 
voice,  he  never  swore.  Nature,  how- 
ever, must  have  a  safety-valve  of  some 
kind,  and  as  she  could  not  find  it  in 
Mason  by  the  ordinary  method  of 
voice,  she  availed  herself  of  facial  ex- 
pression. When  in  company  with 
any  one  else  the  hunchback's  caution 
and  reserve  retained  a  considerable 
control  over  his  features  ;  but  when 
alone  he  abandoned  that  reserve  ;  it 
was  his  one  concession  to  the  weak- 
ness of  demonstration,  and  the  result 
was  emphatically  unpleasing. 

His  brow  darkened ;  his  small  ob- 
lique eyes  glistened  with  a  cold  wicked 
expression  like  that  of  some  reptile ; 
his  thin  wiry  beard  seemed  to  bristle, 
and  his  delicate  nostrils  quivered  as 
the  breath  came  hard  through  them. 
As  he  walked  on  through  the  wood, 
his  head  held  a  little  backward,  he 
bore  a  strong  resemblance  to  some 
angry  snake  about  to  strike.  Nor  was 
his  anger  an  unmixed  feeling ;  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  jealousy  in  it.  It 
was  annoying  to  find  that  Phcebe  had 
made  up  her  mind  to  marry  any  one, 
since  he  designed  to  prevent  her  doing 
so,  at  any  rate,  till  Holson's  death  was 
proved.  It  was  also  very  annoying 
to  find  that  she  had  made  up  her 
mind  to  marry  some  one  altogether  re- 
pugnant to  himself ;  but  he  was  not 
long  in  coming  to  the  conclusion  that 
somehow  Phoebe  had  managed  to  see 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


337 


a  good  deal  more  of  Hugh  Strong  than 
he  had  any  idea  of.  He  did  not  for 
one  moment  fancy  that  the  last  few 
days  only  had  produced  this  engage- 
ment ;  and  his  vanity  forced  him  to 
the  conclusion  that  a  decided  leaning 
towards  this  young  man  had  played 
a  considerable  part  in  Phoebe's  refusal 
of  himself.  He  could  not  persuade 
his  judgment  that,  had  her  mind  been 
entirely  unbiassed,  she  would  have 
been  so  persistently  blind  to  all  the 
advantages  of  a  union  with  him. 

One  thing  he  speedily  resolved  on. 
In  some  way  or  other,  and  at  some 
time  or  other, — Mason  was  far  too 
clever  to  limit  himself  in  either  means 
or  time, — he  would  have  his  revenge 
He  was  not  going  to  allow  a  girl  like 
that,  who  hitherto  had  been  perhaps 
rather  afraid  of  him,  to  defy  him  in 
this  way ;  and  after  half  an  hour's 
quick  walking  among  the  woodland 
paths  Mason  felt  his  agitation  suffi- 
ciently under  control  to  admit  of  his 
returning  to  the  house. 

During  luncheon  he  was  exceed- 
ingly polite  and  observant,  but  even 
his  vigilance  could  detect  no  sign  in 
Phoebe  that  any  change  had  taken 
place  in  her  hopes  for  the  future. 
She  was,  as  she  had  always  been  since 
the  night  she  had  so  clearly  spoken 
her  mind,  studiously  civil,  a  little 
satirical,  and  very  independent.  In 
her  heart  of  hearts  she  disliked 
and  distrusted  Mason  as  much 
as  she  had  ever  done ;  but  now 
their  positions  were  such  that  she 
felt  propitiation  unnecessary.  As 
soon  as  luncheon  was  over  she  disap- 
peared, and  it  was  not  long  after- 
wards that  she  found  herself  near  the 
large  oak  in  the  plantation  which  she 
had  suggested  as  a  trysting-place. 
Hugh  was  not  there,  but  as  she  found 
she  was  ten  minutes  too  soon,  she  sat 
down  in  the  sunshine  upon  some  dry 
leaves,  and  listened  to  the  sudden 
bursts  of  song  which  the  robins  were 

No.  443. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


pouring  forth  among  the  nearly  naked 
trees.  Then  she  began  to  think  upon 
the  perfections  of  her  lover,  and  the 
wide  strong  current  of  change  that 
had  appeared  in  the  placid  stream 
of  her  life  ;  and  these  streams  opened 
up  vistas  and  possibilities  so  absorbing 
that  she  fell  into  a  reverie  from  which 
she  only  woke  at  the  touch  of  Hugh's 
hand  on  her  shoulder. 

"  Were  you  asleep,  dear  ?  "  he  asked 
smiling,  "  I've  been  watching  you 
from  behind  the  tree  for  at  least  five 
minutes,  and  I  don't  believe  you  have 
moved  a  hair's  breadth.  What  have 
you  been  dreaming  about  1 " 

"  Guess,"  she  answered. 

"  I  was  never  good  at  guessing," 
said  Hugh  ;  "  tiresome,  useless  work  I 
call  it.  But  I  will  try  and  guess  what 
you  were  meditating  about  upon  one 
condition." 

"  What  is  that  ? " 

"  You  are  to  sit  quite  still  and  think 
about  what  you  were  thinking  about 
before,  so  that  I  can  look  at  you  while 
I  am  guessing.  Your  thoughtfulness 
is  most  becoming." 

"  I'm  afraid,  Hugh,"  she  said  with 
roguish  gravity,  "  that  your  ideas 
would  wander-  from  the  riddle,  and 
then  I  might  get  tired  of  sitting  still 
and  posing  for  you.  I'll  spare  you 
the  trouble  of  guessing ;  I  was  think- 
ing of  you." 

"  What  were  you  thinking  about 
me  ? "  he  demanded.  "  Not  beginning 
to  consider  my  shortcomings,  I 
hope  !  " 

"I  don't  know  of  any,  Hugh,"  she 
said  with  sweet  conviction. 

Of  all  the  ennobling  influences 
which  may  touch  the  heart  of  a  man, 
even  of  a  rake,  there  is  none  so  potent 
as  a  woman's  unquestioning  faith  in 
himself  and  his  superiority.  Hugh 
was  no  rake,  but  an  unusually  honest 
individual ;  yet  at  her  answer  a  flood 
of  self-reproach  for  various  sins  and 
shortcomings,  which  became  imme 

z 


338 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


diately  and  terribly  clear  in  his 
memory,  overwhelmed  him,  and  he 
felt  awed  and  humiliated,  almost  dis- 
tressed. He  took  her  hand  as  they 
sat  together  in  the  transient  sunshine 
at  the  foot  of  the  gnarled  old  oak. 
"  My  darling,  you  must  not  say 
that.  You  are  not  right,  and  what 
you  think  is  not  true.  I  have  com- 
mitted faults  and  follies  enough, 
Heaven  knows  ;  and  if  you  begin  by 
thinking  me  perfection,  our  life  to- 
gether may  bring  us  much  sadness, 
for  sooner  or  later  you  will  be  disen- 
chanted. Don't  try  to  think  that  I 
have  no  faults.  Men  are  different 
from  women,  stronger,  perhaps,  but 
rougher,  and  not  so  sensitive  to  shades 
of  evil.  Try  and  think  me  only  an 
ordinary  man,  as  liable  to  err  as  other 
men, — perhaps  more  so.  Only  try 
and  believe  also,  Phcebe,  that  I  love 
you  with  my  whole  heart,  and  will 
shield  and  protect  you  all  my  life. 
Let  that  be  the  curtain  to  cover  my 
sins,  past  or  future,  and  then  I  shall 
be  content." 

His  voice  shook  a  little  as  he  said 
the  last  words,  for  he  was  a  man  of 
simple  nature  who  did  nothing  by 
halves.  When  he  sinned,  he  did  it 
with  all  his  might  ;  but  when  he  re- 
pented, it  was  with  equal  fervour. 
Just  now  his  nature  was  very  deeply 
stirred  by  his  love's  artless  confession 
of  her  creed.  He  drew  her  closer, 
closer  still,  till  her  head  rested  on 
his  breast,  and  he  stroked  her  shining 
hair  with  gentle  fingers.  And  then 
there  fell  silence  between  them,  for 
how  long  who  could  tell  1  No  earthly 
division  of  time  can  measure  such 
moments,  though  perchance  the  sun- 
dial in  the  garden  of  Paradise  may 
take  some  heed  thereof.  It  was  a 
silence  full  of  the  meaning  of  a  thou- 
sand words,  brooded  over  by  an  all- 
pervading  sense  of  entire  contentment 
and  the  passionate  absorption  of  one 
life  in  another. 


At  length  Phoebe  stirred  a  little 
and  sighed ;  then  she  raised  her  head, 
and  looking  Hugh  straight  in  the 
eyes,  gravely  kissed  him.  "It  al- 
most frightens  me  all  this  happiness," 
she  said.  "  It  seems  too  wonderful 
to  be  true.  It  is  like  a  fairy-story ; 
and  now  I  can  hardly  believe  that 
I  ever  felt  dull  or  lonely  or  neglected." 

"  Please  God  you  never  will  feel  so 
again,"  he  answered. 

And  then  they  set  off  to  wander 
among  the  leaf-strewn  paths  where 
the  brambles  had  turned  red  and 
yellow  and  rusty,  and  the  bracken 
lay  in  withered  tawny  plumes.  There 
is  no  need  to  chronicle  their  talk. 
Let  any  imaginative  reader  fancy  to 
himself  how  Adam  and  Eve  talked  as 
they  wandered  hand  in  hand  for  the 
first  time  among  the  flowers  and  foun- 
tains of  the  garden  of  Eden.  It  will 
do  duty.  For  though  Love's  speech 
hath  a  thousand  graces,  though  his 
voice  is  sweet  and  melodious,  and  his 
subject  enchanting  and  absorbing,  yet 
the  uninitiated  are  wont  to  grumble 
at  its  detail.  His  graces,  they  say, 
are  repetitions,  his  voice  monotonous, 
and  his  absorption  tedious.  Let  us, 
therefore,  run  no  such  risks  by  trying 
to  reproduce  the  discourse  of  this  pair 
of  lovers.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Time 
fled  with  incredible  swiftness  while 
they  were  together,  and  that  their 
parting  was  as  full  of  regret  as  their 
meeting  had  been  full  of  joy. 

On  that  evening  Mason,  making 
his  usual  silent  observation,  became 
for  the  first  time  conscious  that  Phoebe 
was  in  her  way  a  beautiful  woman. 
Her  great  happiness  had  made  her 
charms  blossom  forth,  as  a  mild  day 
of  autumn  sunshine  will  suddenly  open 
buds  that  have  for  weeks  been  per- 
sistently closed  against  inclement 
weather.  Only  a  few  days  before  the 
horizon  of  her  life  had  seemed  change- 
less and  hopeless ;  now,  how  different 
everything  seemed  !  It  was  the  old 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


339 


fairy-tale  over  again,  they  were  to  be 
married  and  live  happily  ever  after. 
Her  natural  faith  in  her  lover  assured 
her  that  everything  would  come  right, 
and  the  consciousness  of  happiness 
made  her  feel  at  peace  with  all  the 
world.  It  was  not  even  worth  while, 
she  felt,  to  maintain  the  cold  and  half 
satirical  tone  of  intercourse  which  she 
had  adopted  towards  Mason.  So  she 
relaxed  somewhat  her  position  of 
armed  neutrality  and  condescended  to 
'  dally  amicably  with  the  enemy's  forces, 
with  the  immediate  result  of  making 
him  still  more  eager  for  victory.  He 
realised,  as  she  sat  talking  to  him, 
how  lovely  and  desirable  she  was, 
her  large  eyes  glowing  with  in- 
ward pleasure  and  hope,  her  usually 
rather  pale  cheeks  flushed  with 
the  little  excitement  of  her  secret. 
Mason's  disappointment  grew  keener 
as  he  looked  and  listened,  and  his 
anger  waxed  great  against  the  man 
who  was  to  steal  away  this  treasure. 
He  would  not  have  been  mortal  if  her 
grace  and  beauty  had  not  for  the 
moment  ensnared  him  still  further ; 
but  amid  all  his  sentimental  regrets 
there  was  mingled  the  very  solid  one 
for  her  almost  certain  fortune  in  the 
future.  The  grace  and  beauty  were 
to  go  out  of  the  family,  and  not  only 
that,  but  the  money  also  was  to  depart 
in  their  train.  The  idea  made  him  feel 
very  bitter  ;  but  no  trace  of  the  feeling 
was  visible  in  his  manner,  and  Phoebe 
went  to  bed  in  that  state  of  complete 
happiness  to  which  mortals  never 
attain  more  than  once  or  twice  in  the 
course  of  an  average  existence. 

Did  it  ever  occur,  we  wonder,  to 
any  philosopher  to  write  an  exhaustive 
essay  upon  the  very  slight  causes  which 
contribute  to  impair  human  happiness, 
or  rather,  the  innocent  guises  under 
which  these  distressing  conditions 
present  themselves1?  The  dawn  of 
despair  may  lie  hidden  in  the  daintiest 
little  note  that  ever  was  penned,  and 


the  regret  of  a  lifetime  may  be  in- 
augurated in  the  sweetest  tones  of 
the  sweetest  woman  in  all  the  world. 
The  tie  between  Hugh  and  Phccbe 
being  one  of  eminently  true  love,  its 
course  was  necessarily  fated  not  to 
run  smooth ;  and  its  first  interruption, 
though  apparently  innocent  enough, 
was  conveyed  to  Hugh  in  the  yellow 
envelope  of  a  telegram. 

He  found  time  hanging  very  heavily 
on  his  hands  the  next  morning.  He 
tried  to  read,  and  could  not ;  he  tried 
to  write  with  no  better  success ;  he 
lit  his  pipe  and  strolled  up  that 
memorable  lane  which  had  conducted 
him  to  such  happiness  ;  but  all  his 
efforts  were  unavailing  to  make  the 
hours  pass.  In  these  circumstances 
it  was  no  wonder  he  hailed  the  sight 
of  the  postman  approaching  with  some 
relief ;  a  letter  or  two  would,  he  felt, 
break  the  long-drawn  monotony  of 
the  time. 

"  Beg  pardon,  sir,"  said  the  man, 
touching  his  hat,  "  but  I  believe  there's 
a  telegram  coming  for  you,  sir.  I 
met  the  boy  as  I  came  along,  and  he 
said  he  had  a  telegram  for  one  of  the 
gentlemen  at  the  Red  Lion." 

"  How  far  off  is  he  1  "  inquired 
Hugh,  thinking  he  would  walk  to 
meet  him. 

"  Oh,  not  far,  sir.  He'll  be  here 
in  twenty  minutes  or  so.  maybe 
sooner." 

Now  Hugh  was  expecting  a  message 
from  his  tailor  to  announce  the  de- 
spatch of  a  certain  suit  of  clothes 
which  he  had  sent  for  in  a  hurry,  and 
therefore  in  the  most  buoyant  of 
moods  he  set  out  to  meet  the  messen- 
ger. Ten  minutes  brought  him  in 
sight  of  the  boy,  and  he  took  the 
yellow  envelope  and  unfolded  its  rose- 
coloured  enclosure  with  no  misgivings. 
The  message  was  a  very  short  one  : 
"  Father  dying — Come  at  once" 

For  a  few  seconds  Hugh  stood  still, 
trying  to  realise  this  shock  which  had 

z  2 


The  Secret  of  Saint  F  lor  el. 


so  suddenly  and  rudely  intruded  itself 
upon  his  happiness.  Then  he  hastily 
and  absently  paid  the  boy,  and 
turning,  retraced  his  steps  and  tried 
to  arrange  his  scattered  thoughts. 

"  Come  at  once  ! "  He  looked  at 
his  watch.  There  was  just  an  hour 
before  the  main  line  train  passed 
through  the  nearest  station.  If  the 
fat  old  landlord  of  the  Red  Lion 
could  be  induced  to  hurry  himself  a 
little,  he  could  just  catch  that  train ; 
and  hastening  back  to  the  inn  told 
the  old  man  what  was  needed.  Then 
he  huddled  a  few  things  into  his  port- 
manteau, and  carrying  it  down  to  the 
yard  himself,  put  it  in  the  cart,  to 
which  the  boy  had  nearly  finished 
harnessing  a  venerable  white  horse. 

"  How  long  will  it  take  to  get  to 
the  station,"  he  asked,  "if  you  go  as 
hard  as  you  can  1 " 

"  Maybe  an  hour,  maybe  half  an 
hour,"  said  the  lad. 

"Well,  which?"  asked  Hugh  im- 
patiently. "  Can  you  do  it  in  thirty- 
five  minutes  1 " 

"  I  think  I  might,"  said  the  rustic. 
"  Th'  owd  'oss  can  go  if  he's  pressed 
a  bit." 

"  Then  go,  go  as  hard  as  you  can, 
and  if  you  do  just  as  I  tell  you,  I'll 
give  you  half-a-crown  if  I  catch  the 
train."  And  then  off  they  went, 
bump,  bump,  bump,  down  the  rutty 
yard  and  on  to  the  high  road.  When 
they  reached  the  turning  down  the 
lane,  Hugh  stopped  the  cart. 

"Now,"  he  said  to  the  boy,  "you 
stop  here.  In  ten  minutes  I  shall  be 
back  again ;  and  then  do  you  pelt  on 
to  the  station  as  hard  as  ever  you 
can,"  and  with  these  words  he  disap- 
peared up  the  shrubbery  path.  There 
was  only  one  chance,  and  that  but  a 
slender  one,  of  his  being  able  to  see 
Phoebe  before  he  left.  There  had  been 
no  time  to  write  a  message,  even 
had  there  been  any  one  to  whom  he 
could  entrust  it ;  but  if  he  could  see 


her,  only  for  two  minutes,  he  could 
say  all  that  was  needful.  He  soon 
gained  the  small  lawn  at  the  side  of 
the  house,  and  pushing  his  way  through 
the  laurel  hedge,  reached  the  front 
door,  and  impatiently  pulled  the  bell. 
The  answer  was  not  long  in  coming, 
although  to  Hugh,  whose  thoughts  tra- 
velled like  lightning,  the  time  seemed 
very  slow.  No,  Miss  Phoebe  was  out ; 
she  had  gone  to  Handsford  with  Mr, 
Sawbridge ;  and  there  was  nothing 
left  to  do  but  to  hurry  back  again. 
"Tell  Mr.  Sawbridge,"  said  Hugh, 
"  that  I  am  leaving  very  suddenly  on 
account  of  illness  in  my  family."  And 
then,  with  a  heavy  sense  of  disap- 
pointment, he  turned  away  and  re- 
traced his  steps.  He  would  have 
given  anything  to  see  Phoebe  again, 
to  speak  only  a  few  words,  to  kiss  her 
once  more.  Still,  he  reflected,  it 
would  be  easy  to  write  a  letter,  and 
as  soon  as  possible  she  should  have  one. 

Just  as  he  was  striding  down  the 
plantation  he  caught  the  faint  and 
confused  melodies  of  Dennis  Dene's 
violin.  An  idea  struck  him,  and  he 
hastened  in  the  direction  of  the  sound. 
It  did  not  take  him  far  out  of  his 
way,  and  he  soon  stood  beside  the  old 
musician,  who  stared  at  his  sudden 
appearance  with  vague  surprise. 

"  Listen,  Mr.  Dene,"  he  began  ;  "  I 
am  going  away  and  I  want  to  give 
you  a  message." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  other  confusedly. 

"  You  must  tell  Phoebe  when  you 
see  her  that  I  gave  you  a  message  for 
her.  Can  you  understand  1  You  must 
tell  her  when  you  are  alone'  with  her, 
you  know  ;  will  you  do  it  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  old  man  again. 

"Tell  her  just  this,  then;  tell  her 
I  love  her." 

"  Tell  her  you  love  her  1 "  repeated 
the  old  man. 

"  Yes,  and  I  must  go.  Good-bye, 
Mr.  Dene,"  and  with  a  hasty  shake  of 
the  hand  Hugh  hurried  off. 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


341 


Left  alone,  Dennis  Dene  wrapped 
his  cloak  round  him,  and  sitting  down 
upon  the  bench  close  at  hand,  began 
to  wonder  to  himself  what  this  strange 
message  might  mean.  Why  was  the 
young  man  running  away  like  this  1 
If  he  loved  Phoebe,  why  then  not  stay 
with  her1?  Dennis  liked  the  young 
fellow  •  indeed  in  his  confused  and 
wandering  way  he  had  almost  con- 
ceived an  affection  for  him,  and  felt 
vexed  at  his  departure.  "  But  perhaps 
he  will  come  back  to-morrow,"  he  con- 
cluded to  himself,  "  and  then  we  shall 
be  happy  again."  For  in  his  childish 
mind  the  duration  of  time  became 
difficult  to  reckon,  and  his  weakened 
brain  fell  back  always  upon  the  com- 
fortable theory  of  everything  being  as 
he  wished  it  "to-morrow." 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE  old  white  horse  did  its  duty 
nobly,  and  reached  the  station  in  time 
for  the  train,  in  spite  of  delay  and 
decrepitude.  Almost  before  Hugh 
had  recovered  from  the  disappointment 
of  not  seeing  Phoebe,  he  found  himself 
in  an  empty  first-class  compartment, 
looking  idly  out  of  the  window  at  the 
fields  and  hedges  whirling  by  without 
really  noticing  them.  When  would 
he  see  them  again,  he  wondered,  and 
how  would  Phoebe  look  by  the  time 
those  bare  stems  were  shooting  into 
life  and  verdure  1  Would  it  be  spring 
before  he  could  return  to  these  pleasant 
country  haunts  where  he  had  won  so 
great  a  treasure  1  Or  would  Fate  be 
kinder,  and  speed  him  once  more  on 
his  wooing  before  the  stubbles  had 
been  ploughed,  or  the  hawthorn  and 
wild  roses  had  lost  their  wealth  of 
gleaming  scarlet  fruit  1 

Then  for  a  while  he  fell  to  thinking 
of  Bryant.  What  a  pity  the  latter 
had  been  away  these  two  days,  and 
knew  nothing  of  his  happiness.  Not 
that  it  really  signified ;  a  letter  would 


soon  tell  him  all  about  it ;  and  having 
reached  this  stage  in  his  reflections, 
Hugh  determined  to  write  at  once  to 
Phoebe  herself,  and  tell  her  the  cause 
of  his  abrupt  disappearance.  Having 
this  in  prospect  as  pleasure,  he  resolved 
to  postpone  writing  to  Mason  by  way 
of  business  till  Phoebe's  missive  should 
be  completed,  and  drawing  his  bag 
towards  him,  he  pulled  out  his  writing- 
case  and  began  his  letter.  But  at 
the  very  beginning  he  paused  in  doubt. 
How  should  he  begin  1  What  term 
of  endearment  would  please  her  best  1 
It  was  a  sweet  unfamiliar  sensation 
that  of  addressing  her  as  his  promised 
wife.  He  had  not,  of  course,  reached 
his  present  age  without  sundry  en- 
counters with  the  gentler  sex,  some  of 
which  had  impressed  him  sufficiently 
to  result  in  a  flirtation  of  greater  or 
less  intensity.  But  hitherto,  as  Hugh 
was  able  to  assure  himself  with  a 
rapid  retrospective  glance,  he  had 
never  fallen  really  in  love  with  any 
woman.  Never  before  had  he  seen 
the  most  desirable  feminine  graces 
united  to  such  advantage  in  one 
charming  individual.  How  it  came 
to  pass  that  no  one  had  anticipated 
him  seemed  a  mystery,  till  he  remem- 
bered how  few  chances  had  fallen  to 
any  other  man  of  appreciating  the 
maid  in  question.  Then  it  occurred 
to  him  that  one  man,  at  any  rate,  had 
been  anxious  to  marry  her ;  and  the 
thought  of  Mason's  crafty  intellectual 
face  and  crooked  person  made  him 
frown  involuntarily.  Finally,  to  chase 
away  such  disagreeable  ideas,  he  began 
his  letter. 

It  does  not  much  signify  what  term 
of  endearment  he  finally  selected  to 
begin  with ;  it  was  never  seen  by  the 
eyes  for  which  it  was  destined,  never 
indeed  seen  by  any  eyas  at  all.  While 
Hugh  was  trying  to  steady  the  sheet 
of  notepaper  on  his  knee,  and  won- 
dering at  the  rapidly  increasing  oscil- 
lation of  the  carriage,  he  becam 


342 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


conscious  of  a  sudden  grinding  shock, 
a  sickening  jar,  which  made  him 
spring  to  his  feet  and  try  to  seize  the 
handle  of  the  door.  But  his  hands 
closed  tightly  upon  the  empty  air,  as 
an  unseen  force  sent  him  staggering 
forward,  while  the  carriage  rocked 
like  a  ship  in  a  heavy  sea.  He  was 
aware  of  the  crash  of  wood  and  the 
deafening  hiss  of  escaping  steam  close 
at  hand,  and  then  came  darkness.  .  .  . 
After  a  while  he  felt  a  breath  of  cold 
wind  upon  his  face,  a  consciousness  of 
light  which  he  could  not  see,  of  a 
terrible  weight  upon  his  brain ;  every- 
thing seemed  to  have  happened  long 
ago,  though  every  nerve  of  his  body 
was  quivering  in  response  to  the  rever- 
berating sound  of  rushing  iron  wheels 
as  they  thundered  eternally  past  him 
down  a  pitiless  iron  track.  He  called 
out  to  them  in  his  torture  to  be  still ; 
but  no  heed  was  taken,  till  suddenly 
Phoebe  stood  near  him,  smiling  a 
gentle  reassuring  smile,  and  raising 
her  hand  enjoined  silence  upon  the 
ceaseless  sound.  For  a  time  all  was 
still,  and  then  the  girl's  image  slowly 
melted  away,  still  smiling  upon  him, 
and  the  cruel  sound  began  again. 
And  somehow,  do  what  he  would,  he 
could  not  remember  her  name,  could 
not  recall  one  beloved  feature  of  her 
face ;  he  felt  memory  reeling,  slipping 
away,  like  some  tangible  treasure  that 

he  could  not  grasp  nor  overtake 

Then  he  was  sinking,  sinking  away 
into  darkness  and  nothingness 

Being  somewhat  at  a  loss  for  occu- 
pation during  the  morning  of  the  day 
upon  which  Hugh  was  to  have  his 
interview  with  Mason  Sawbridge, 
Phoebe  resolved  to  occupy  it  by  doing 
various  duties  which  she  had  latterly 
neglected.  One  of  these  was  the 
purchase  of  sundry  feminine  neces- 
saries in  the  neighbouring  town,  to 
which  she  asked  Mason  to  drive  her, 
as  he  had  business  there ;  and  her 


request  had  another  meaning  apart 
from  her  own  convenience.  She  re- 
solved to  be  diplomatically  agreeable 
and  conversational  in  order  to  reduce 
her  cousin  to  a  pleasant  and  contented 
frame  of  mind  for  her  lover's  visit. 

The  day  was  bright  and  clear,  the 
horse  fresh,  and  Mason  a  skilful 
driver  ;  all  these  circumstances  com- 
bined with  the  rush  of  the  keen  fresh 
air  past  her,  as  they  drove  rapidly 
over  the  hard  road,  imbued  Phoebe 
with  a  strong  sense  of  exhilaration. 
She  felt  that  it  was  good  to  be  alive  : 
and  to  that  intoxicating  sense  of  the 
joys  of  mere  existence,  which  comes 
to  us  all  sometimes,  was  joined  a 
deeper  rejoicing  in  the  love  with 
which  she  now  felt  herself  crowned. 
Xo  wonder  that  Mason,  glancing 
occasionally  at  her,  was  struck  with 
the  vivifying  change  which  had  come 
over  her  appearance,  and  for  which, 
since  he  had  played  the  eavesdropper, 
he  was  at  no  loss  to  account.  Lovelier 
than  ever  she  was,  and  yet  further 
than  ever  from  him ;  and  Mason 
groaned  in  spirit,  not  only  at  the 
apparent  impossibility  of  winning 
these  personal  charms  for  himself, 
but  at  the  thought  of  those  broad 
acres  in  Yorkshire  which  were  cer- 
tainly also  lost  to  him.  He  was  an 
eminently  sensible  person,  whose  mind 
was  always  balanced  with  the  greatest 
nicety  between  the  practical  and  the 
sentimental. 

After  luncheon  Phoebe  retired  to 
her  own  rooms  to  wait  in  some  per- 
turbation for  the  arrival  of  her  lover. 
She  tried  to  read, but  it  was  impossible  ; 
to  work,  but  the  needle  slipped  through 
her  fingers,  as  she  strained  her  ears 
for  the  sound  of  the  opening  door; 
she  tried  to  think,  but  systematic  re- 
flection seemed  equally  out  of  the 
question.  An  appalling  time  seemed 
already  to  have  passed  when  the  clock 
in  the  great  empty  hall  chimed  three, 
then  half-past,  then  four.  By  that 


The  Secret  of  St.  Florel 


343 


time  she  could  no  longer  contain  her- 
self, and  hastily  throwing  on  her  hat 
and  cloak  she  hurried  down  stairs  to 
calm  herself  in  the  cool  air  of  the 
garden.  Crossing  the  passage  she  met 
the  old  man-servant. 

"Has  any  one  called  this  afternoon 
to  see  Mr.  Mason  1  "  she  asked. 

"  No,  Miss  Phoebe  ;  no  one  has  been 
here,"  was  the  answer,  and  with  a 
sinking  heart  she  passed  out  into  the 
fast  gathering  twilight. 

What  could  have  happened  1  Was 
Hugh  ill  1  Could  he  have  forgotten  1 
But  this  last  thought  she  quickly  dis- 
missed as  absurd.  The  wind  grew 
chiller,  and  the  shrubbery  seemed  gray 
and  deserted.  She  made  her  way  to 
the  crazy  old  bench  where,  but  a  short 
while  ago,  so  much  happiness  had 
come  to  her,  and  standing  there  lived 
over  again  every  second  of  that  bliss- 
ful hour,  with  its  crowding  rapture 
and  full  content.  She  felt  in  some 
degree  soothed  and  comforted  by  this 
little  mental  indulgence.  It  would 
all  come  right.  Hugh  had  some  ex- 
cellent reason  for  not  keeping  his 
appointment ;  and  trying  to  shake  off 
her  uncomfortable  doubts,  Phoebe  re- 
turned to  the  house.  That  night, 
however,  it  must  be  confessed  she  slept 
but  little,  and  woke  in  the  morning 
so  weak  and  unref  reshed  that  she  sent 
down  word  to  her  cousin  she  intended 
to  keep  her  room  till  lunch-time. 

"  You  look  very  pale,  Phoebe,"  ob- 
served Mason,  when  they  did  meet, 
with  what  might  have  appeared  a 
malicious  look  in  his  eyes,  if  Phoebe  had 
noticed  it,  "  What's  the  matter  ? " 

"  I  didn't  sleep  well,"  she  answered, 
"  and  I  have  a  headache,  too.  I  think 
I  must  have  got  it  driving  in  that 
cold  wind  yesterday." 

"  Well,  you  must  be  more  careful 
another  time,"  said  her  cousin.  "  Put 
on  a  veil  or  something." 

After  this  there  was  silence  till, 
seeing  she  would  learn  nothing  with- 


out asking,  Phoebe  hazarded  a  fib. 
"  Mr.  Strong  was  here  this  morning, 
wasn't  he  1 " 

"  No  ;  what  makes  you  think  so  1 " 
answered  Mason. 

"  Oh,  nothing  j  has  he  returned  to 
town  then  1 " 

Before  he  answered  Mason  shot  a 
swift  glance  at  her.  She  was  sitting 
with  downcast  eyes  and  a  tinge  of 
colour  on  her  face,  waiting  for  the 
reply.  He  thought  that  he  understood 
everything  perfectly,  and  was  glad.  It 
pleased  him  to  be  able  for  a  while  to 
torture  her.  He  felt  that  he  was  thus 
revenging  himself  on  the  woman  who 
had  wounded  and  defied  him  not  so 
long  ago,  and  made  a  deliberate  pause 
before  speaking.  "  You  seem  anxious 
for  news  of  those  young  men,"  he  said 
with  a  nasty  touch  of  satire.  "  Mr. 
Bryant,  you  remember,  told  me  at 
dinner  that  he  was  returning  to  town 
to-day,  and  I  am  sorry  to  lose  his 
society  for  he  was  very  pleasant. 
Mr.  Strong,  as  you  know,  I  don't  like, 
and  I  know  nothing  about  him.  I 
believe,  however,  now  I  come  to  think 
of  it,  that  the  boy  from  the  Red 
Lion,  whom  I  met  just  now,  mentioned 
that  he  also  had  been  suddenly  called 
away  to  town  upon  urgent  family 
business."  He  was  watching  her  face 
closely  all  the  time,  and  seeing  the 
change  of  relief  spreading  itself  over 
her  features,  he  thought  it  time  to 
deal  another  little  thrust.  "  To  tell 
you  the  truth,  my  dear  Phoebe,  I  don't 
fancy  your  friend  Mr.  Strong  is  a 
particularly  steady  young  gentleman. 
If  my  judgment  is  not  at  fault  he  is 
sowing  a  very  fine  crop  of  wild  oats ; 
and  if  you  will  take  my  advice  as  a 
man  of  the  world,  you  will  not  make 
too  close  inquiries  after  him." 

The  taunt  gave  the  girl  fresh  courage 
instead  of  startling  or  angering  her, 
as  the  speaker  had  intended.  "  I 
wonder,"  she  said  quietly,  raising  her 
eyes  to  his  face  with  a  look  of  steady 


344 


The  Secret  of  St.  Morel. 


contempt,  "  I  wonder,  Mason,  why  you 
should  take  so  much  trouble  to  try 
and  put  unpleasant  ideas  into  my  head 
concerning  Mr.  Strong.  I  suppose  it 
is  because  you  dislike  him  yourself  ; 
but  it  strikes  me  that  you  are  acting 
rather  meanly." 

And  with  this  parting  shot  she 
swept  out  of  the  room,  with  her  head 
well  up,  and  her  features  so  composed 
that  they  betrayed  nothing  of  the 
pain  she  was  feeling.  That  last  inu- 
endo  had  acted  upon  her  as  a  kind  of 
mental  tonic,  even  while  it  left  behind 
a  tiny  wound  which,  in  spite  of  her- 
self, began  to  rankle.  As  she  walked 
up  stairs  the  hot  tears  started  to  her 
eyes.  How  could  he  be  so  cruel  as  to 
slander  her  lover  to  her1?  Why  had 
she  not  spoken  out  straightforwardly 
and  at  once,  and  avowed  the  relation 
between  Hugh  and  herself  1  Why  1 
And  then  came  a  swift  piercing 
thought.  What,  after  all,  what  if 
there  were  any  least  shadow  of  truth 
in  her  cousin's  insinuations  1  What 
if  she  had  unwittingly  laid  herself 
open  to  his  pity  1  His  cruel  y  was 
bad  enough,  but  his  pity, — that  would 


be  worst  of  all  to  bear  !  And  then 
she  sot  to  work  to  rebuke  herself  for 
doubting  at  all.  The  morning's  post 
would  certainly  bring  her  news,  and 
then  the  present  would  seem  like  some 
bad  dream.  She  set  herself  to  recall 
a  hundred  loving  words  and  tender 
hopes  that  he  had  spoken,  and  while 
so  thinking  grew  ashamed  of  her 
former  suspicions,  and  blamed  herself 
for  one  moment's  doubt  of  her  lover's 
truth  and  loyalty. 

After  two  days,  however,  unmarked 
by  word  or  sign  from  Hugh,  Phoebe's 
pride  broke  down,  and  she  resolved  to 
make  an  appeal  to  her  lover.  She 
wrote  and  re-wrote  a  poor  sad  little 
note,  half  stiff,  half  loving,  and 
when  it  was  finished,  what  an  in- 
visible halo  of  devotion  and  pain  sur- 
rounded it !  How  that  little  sheet 
of  paper  had  been  kissed  and  cried 
over,  dreamed  over,  prayed  over ! 
With  what  dawning  hopes  and  fears 
did  she  not  herself  drop  it  into  the 
letter-box  opposite  the  Red  Lion,  and 
as  she  turned  away,  how  her  heart 
envied  the  letter  that  his  hands  were 
to  touch  and  his  eyes  to  see  ! 


(To  be  continued.) 


345 
V 

THE  MAN  PEPYS. 


THE  perennial  attractiveness  of  fic- 
tion is  due  in  no  small  degree  to  the 
gratification  we  all  derive  from  being 
able  to  view  the  private  actions  of 
others,  while  ourselves  unobserved.  In 
the  ordinary  way  of  existence  we  see 
men  and  women  only  in  part.  We  know 
they  are  not  quite  what  they  seem, 
and  certainly  not  what  they  wish  us 
to  think  them.  Offer  to  the  normal 
man  the  chance  of  seeing  another  in 
his  most  intimate  privacy,  and  he  will 
seize  it  with  alacrity,  experiencing 
more  genuine  delight  in  the  revelation 
than  if  he  were  unearthing  an  unsus- 
pected treasure  in  his  garden.  Some- 
thing of  this  pleasure  we  find  in  read- 
ing fiction ;  the  amount  of  it  is  a 
measure  of  the  writer's  skill  in  his 
craft.  For,  so  far  as  an  author  in 
describing  what  his  personages  do  can 
convey  simultaneously  a  clear  idea  of 
why  they  do  it,  to  that  extent  they 
become  real  and  engage  our  interest. 
Wherever  the  description  of  actions 
is  not  informed  by  their  essential  mo- 
tive the  characters  may  in  a  way  be 
interesting,  but  they  are  not  real ;  or 
if  by  supplementary  disquisition  it  is 
sought  to  prove  them  real,  they  are 
not  interesting.  This  imbuing  of  the 
deed  with  the  motive  is  the  true  secret 
of  story-telling  ;  it  natters  the  careful 
reader  with  a  sense  of  his  powers  of 
apprehension,  and  pleasurably  sur- 
prises the  cursory  reader  by  the  ab- 
sence of  anything  to  skip. 

And  if  this  be  the  highest  achieve- 
ment of  a  writer  of  stories,  what  shall 
be  said  of  a  man  who  has  attained  to  it 
in  regard  to  himself,  who  has  set  down 
in  a  book  the  actions  of  his  own  life, 
without  morbid  reflection  or  analytic 


apology,  clear,  simple,  essential  1  The 
thing  would  appear  impossible  if  it 
were  not  here  before  us  in  the  dia  ry 
of  Samuel  Pepys,  now  that  the  docu- 
ment is  printed  for  the  first  time  in 
its  entirety.  That  it  is  here  there 
can  be  no  manner  of  doubt,  and  it  is 
perfectly  certain  that  the  thing  is 
unique  and  convincing.  The  world 
is  not  poor  in  the  matter  of  auto- 
biographical writings.  Montaigne,  Cel- 
lini, Rousseau,  and  in  a  sense  Goethe, 
are  all  notable  men  who  have 
taken  us  into  their  privacy  and  dis- 
coursed to  us  of  their  deeds.  But, 
however  distinct  their  methods,  they 
have  this  in  common  ;  to  us  who  read, 
and  upon  whom  their  eye  was  set 
while  they  wrote,  they  are  construct- 
ing rather  than  revealing  themselves. 
The  essential  truth  of  what  they 
choose  to  tell  us  is  adulterated  by  the 
consideration  that  they  are  producing 
a  set  of  impressions ;  they  select  and 
adjust ;  their  actions  and  motives  are 
placed  in  fanciful,  or  at  least  artistic, 
relations  with  -other  motives  and  ac- 
tions. Further,  they  consciously  carry 
along  with  them  a  set  of  moral  pro- 
blems ;  in  greater  or  less  degree  the 
immensities  cloud  their  narratives ; 
and  they  are  all  the  time  performing, 
as  by  anticipation,  the  work  of  final 
judgment.  If  Samuel  Pepys  had  not 
kept  a  diary,  or,  having  kept  it,  if  he 
had  burned  it  before  he  died,  as  seems 
to  have  been  his  intention,  it  might 
have  been  contended  that  no  man 
could  write  of  himself  save  in  this 
compound  way.  The  complete  diary 
comes  with  proof  to  the  contrary. 
The  historical  matter  remains  valuable 
as  before ;  the  official  records  and  per- 


346 


The  Man  Pepys. 


sonages  are  as  curious  as  ever,  but  by 
virtue  of  the  additional  matter  the 
centre  of  interest  is  changed,  and 
for  the  first  time  Pepys  himself  stands 
forth  as  the  principal  topic,  clear,  un- 
mistakable, true.  As  we  read  there  is 
forced  upon  us  the  conviction  of  a 
man  painted  as  never  man  was  painted 
before,  by  a  method  the  very  simpli- 
city of  which  conceals  its  almost  mira- 
culous success. 

Pepys's  official  position  was  that  of 
Clerk  of  the  Acts  on  the  Navy  Board  ; 
when  he  commenced  this  diary  he 
made  himself  clerk  of  quite  another 
set  of  acts, — his  own.  The  qualities 
of  precision,  orderliness,  and  perspi- 
cacity which  made  him  a  successful 
administrator  also  made  him  a  more 
than  successful  diarist ;  but  what  is 
chiefly  remarkable  is  that  the  method 
which  served  him  so  well  for  his  office 
is  made  by  him  to  suffice  for  his  own 
deeds.  So  far  as  the  accuracy  of  the 
record  is  concerned  he,  speaking  of 
himself,  might  have  been  an  official 
abstraction,  an  impersonal  item  of 
humanity  represented  as  /.  For 
the  first  and  only  time  in  a  printed 
book  the  genuine  /  may  be  looked 
upon  as  merely  a  cognomen,  carrying 
with  it  no  apologetic  or  judicial  func- 
tion. It  simply  equals  Samuel  Pepys, 
whom  you  may  have  heard  of  as  of 
anybody  else.  He  speaks  of  himself, 
what  he  does,  and  sometimes  what  he 
thinks,  as  if  he  were  a  disinterested 
observer,  without  distortion  or  com- 
plication ;  there  you  have  him,  the 
whole  of  him,  nothing  omitted — the 
entire  gamut  of  a  living  man  from  his 
stomach  to  what  he  i\nagined  to  be 
his  conscience.  By  this  diary  Pepys 
has  recommended  himself  variously  as 
vivacious,  artless,  a  delightful  gossip, 
and  so  forth ;  but  these  terms  are 
altogether  misapplied,  for  they  assume 
the  relations  of  an  author  and  his 
readers  between  Pepys  and  those 
who  now  peruse  his  diary.  They 


take    for    granted    the    self-conscious- 
ness   of    a    writer    with    his    eye    on 
a    public,    the    selection    of    phrases, 
the    adjustment    of    incidents.       But 
there  is  in  fact  nothing  such.     It  is 
abundantly  evident  that  Pepys  wrote 
this  daily  record  for  himself  only.    He 
had  a   purpose,   though   what   it   was 
must  remain   doubtful ;    and  he   was 
impelled  by  a  motive,  which  is  to  be 
found  in  the  nature  of  the  man  him- 
self, if  we  could  but  correlate  it  there- 
with, and  realise  it  clearly.     To  do  so 
fully  would  be  to  accomplish  the  most 
difficult  thing  in  heaven  or  earth  ;  but 
Pepys  has  supplied  us  more  amply  and 
more  intelligently  with  the   means  of 
doing  so  than  any  other  man  who  has 
written  of  himself.     The  diary  is  the 
work  of  one  who  evidently  conceived 
that   just  as   he  was    accustomed    to 
record    in    succinct    memoranda    the 
day's  transactions  at  the  Navy  Board, 
so  he  could  set  down  in  a  brief  essen- 
tial abstract  the  act  and  spirit  of  his 
particular   life.      Here    in    short  you 
have  a  precis  of  existence  as  it  was  to 
one  human  being,  a  precis  of  such  sur- 
passing  clearness  and  simplicity  that 
it  seems  strange  its  wonderful  success 
should  not  earlier  have  brought  about 
the   publication    of  the   entire  diary. 
But  now  if  there  be  any  readers,  as 
there  must  be  many,  to  whom  the  un- 
feigned   disclosure    of    one    authentic 
human  being  is  of  more  interest  than 
the   dubious   operations  of  masses  of 
men  called  history,  here  indeed  they 
have  spread    for  them  a  regal   feast. 
Doubtless  such  readers   will  have   to 
bring  with  them  both  sympathy  and 
imagination.     Read  currently  a  page 
of  the  diary  seems  the   barest  recital 
of  facts  ;  but  it  is  far  more  ;  it  is  a 
revelation    of    self    that    makes    the 
sympathetic    reader    shrink    as    from 
his    own    ghost.       The    shorthand    in 
which  he  wrote  his  journal  is  as  nothing 
to  the  rapid  condensed  stenography  of 
his  self -exposition.     Let  any  one  who 


The  Man  Pepys. 


347 


thinks  the  method  easy  attempt  to  do 
the  like  by  himself.  He  will  take  x 
four  pages  to  Pepys's  one,  and  cumber 
the  narrative  with  such  explanations 
and  apologies,  allowing  that  he  has 
the  courage  to  deal  with  himself  as 
Pepys  did,  which  is  allowing  much, 
that  the  result  will  be  mere  mental 
fog.  It  is  nothing  to  the  point  to  say 
that  Pepys  was  not  a  complex  man. 
He  was  a  man  like  the  rest  of  us ;  he 
did  the  things  we  do,  thought  many 
of  the  things  we  think,  and  in  dealing 
with  what  to  him  was  real  he  con- 
veys with  inevitable  force  the  measure 
of  truth  which  that  repr-esents.  Many 
lives  are  not  so  complex  as  they  are 
confused ;  there  was  no  confusion  in 
Mr.  Pepys's  vision,  and  none  in  his 
ideas. 

He  owed  his  official  position  to  Sir 
Edward  Montagu,  afterwards  Earl  of 
Sandwich.  In  time  he  proved  emi- 
nently fitted  for  it ;  but  observe  how 
he  sets  forth  his  own  qualifications  : 
"  This  place  I  got  by  chance,  and  my 
Lord  did  give  it  me  by  chance,  neither 
he  nor  I  thinking  it  to  be  of  the 
worth  that  he  and  I  find  it  to  be. 
Never  since  I  was  a  man  in  the  world 
was  I  ever  so  great  a  stranger  to 
public  affairs  as  I  now  am,  having 
not  read  a  new  book  or  anything  like 
it,  or  enquiring  after  any  news,  or 
what  the  Parliament  do,  or  in  any 
wise  how  things  go."  If  any  one  had 
written  this  of  Mr.  Pepys  it  would  be 
held  to  be  a  severe  indictment ;  that 
he  should  write  it  of  himself,  volun- 
tarily, for  nothing,  is  a  thing  as  re- 
markable as  it  is  rare.  Humanity 
does  not  care  to  sum  itself  up  in  this 
way.  This  is  the  kind  of  considera- 
tion it  puts  out  of  sight  and  willingly 
forgets.  Samuel  Pepys  sets  it  down 
with  quite  unfeeling  precision.  He 
has  no  weakness  on  his  own  account ; 
it  is  a  fact,  that  is  all.  Had  he  pro- 
ceeded by  way  of  cheap  moralising, 
we  might  have  had  something  like 


this :  "  What  a  strange  thing  is 
chance,  how  inscrutable  is  fate.  Here 
am  I  placed  in  an  office  deemed  of 
little  worth,  which  turns  out  to  be 
of  value.  I  read  not,  enquire  not, 
yet  do  I  possess  this  office.  How 
strange  a  thing  is  life.  The  earnest 
man  labouring  hai'd  obtains  but  little  ; 
I  ignorant  and  almost  idle  am  set  in 
the  way  of  much  profit."  Written 
after  this  fashion  the  diary  would 
appeal  to  a  far  greater  number  of 
readers  who  like  the  bread  of  life 
and  literature  well  buttered  with  re- 
flections and  processes  of  thought. 
Samuel  Pepys  provides  only  bread, 
but  what  bread  ! 

On  this  matter  of  profit  from  his 
office,  observe  how  clearly  he  puts  the 
matter.  August  16th,  1660,  is  the 
date  of  the  following  :  "  This  morning 
my  Lord  (all  things  being  ready) 
carried  me  by  coach  to  Mr.  Crew's, 
in  the  way  talking  how  good  he  did 
hope  my  place  would  be  to  me,  and 
in  general  speaking  that  it  was  not 
the  salary  of  any  place  that  did  make 
a  man  rich,  but  the  opportunity  of 
getting  money  while  he  is  in  the  place." 
Could  anything  be  more  admirably 
put  1  Could  clearness  of  mind  in 
regard  to  one's  own  iniquity  go  fur- 
ther 1  For  although  Pepys  puts  the 
axiom  in  "  my  Lord's  "  mouth,  "  my 
Lord  "  merely  hinted  it ;  it  was  Pepys 
who  gave  it  the  admirable  expression 
just  quoted ;  his  unmistakable  hall- 
mark is  on  it.  And  why  should  he 
write  it  down  with  such  placid  lucidity 
of  condemnation  1  It  is  so  easy  not 
to  write,  even  to  think,  such  things 
about  oneself  ;  yet  the  diary  is  full  of 
them.  If  it  be  argued  that  the  custom 
of  the  times  gave  countenance  to  this 
form  of  peculation  and  took  the  colour 
of  venality  from  it,  there  are  abundant 
evidences  to  be  found  that  Pepys 
himself  did  not  think  so.  Take  the 
following,  for  instance  ;  it  will  serve  to 
illustrate  other  things  besides  :  "  This 


348 


The  Man  Pepys. 


day  was  left  at  my  house  a  very  neat 
silver  watch  by  one  Briggs  a  scrivener 
and  solicitor,  at  which  I  was  very 
angry  at  my  wife  for  receiving,  or  at 
least  for  opening  the  box  wherein 
it  was,  and  so  far  witnessing  our 
receipt  of  it  as  to  give  the  messenger 
five  shillings  for  bringing  it,  but  it 
can't  be  helped  and  I  will  endeavour 
to  do  the  man  a  kindness,  he  being  a 
friend  of  my  uncle  Wright's."  There 
is  a  notable  absence  here  of  any  hypo- 
critical compounding  with  conscience. 
On  the  contrary,  there  is  a  beautiful 
fastidiousness  of  mere  fact.  The  watch 
is  "  very  neat  "  ;  notwithstanding  his 
wife's  technical  fault  in  witnessing 
the  receipt  of  it,  he  will  keep  it ;  not 
by  any  means  will  he  send  it  back 
with  protestations  of  wounded  virtue, 
rather  will  he  do  the  man  a  service 
(out  of  the  public  money),  for,  what- 
ever Heaven  may  think  of  the  trans- 
action, the  man  was  a  friend  of  his 
uncle  Wright's.  It  were  much  to  be 
desired  that  the  world  had  a  quantity 
of  personal  memoirs  written  on  this 
plan.  They  would  most  effectually 
clear  our  minds  of  cant.  But,  un- 
fortunately, there  has  only  been  one 
Pepys,  and  it  is  a  most  fascinating 
puzzle  how  a  man  of  his  nature  came 
by  this  splendid  gift  of  plain,  unflinch- 
ing, perhaps  unconscious,  self-reve- 
lation. Here  is  an  even  better  in- 
stance under  date  April  3rd,  1663  : 
"  Thence  going  out  of  White  Hall, 
I  met  Captain  Grove,  who  did  give 
me  a  letter  directed  to  myself  from 
himself.  I  discerned  money  to  be  in 
it,  and  took  it,  knowing  it  to  be, 
as  I  found  it,  the  proceed  of  the  place 
I  have  got  him,  the  taking  up  of  vessels 
for  Tangier.  But  I  did  not  open 
it  till  I  came  home  to  my  office,  and 
there  I  broke  it  open,  not  looking  into 
it  till  all  the  money  was  out,  that 
I  might  say  I  saw  no  money  in  the 
paper,  if  ever  I  should  be  questioned 
-about  it.  There  was  a  piece  of  gold 


and  <£4  in  silver.  So  home  to  dinner 
with  my  father  and  wife  .  .  .  ." 
When  an  ordinary  man  sets  about 
a  transaction  of  this  sort  he  creates 
a  cloud  of  dust  for  his  conscience  : 
he  half  shuts  his  mind's  eye  so 
that  he  may  not  observe,  save  in  a 
dim  unreal  way,  what  he  is  doing ; 
and  when  he  has  done  it  he  tries  to 
forget  it,  or  feigns  f orgetfulness.  Not 
so  Mr.  Pepys.  He  carefully  sets  it 
all  down ;  sets  it  down  so  explicitly 
in  a  few  incisive  sentences,  that  you 
positively  see  him  tumbling  out  the 
money,  perpetrating  the  ruse  on  truth 
"  that  I  might  say  I  saw  no  money  in 
the  paper,"  and  making,  as  if  for  the 
recording  angel,  an  admirable  precis 
of  his  own  misdeeds.  The  amazing 
nature  of  the  achievement  is  made 
very  evident  when  one  considers  that 
the  principal  condition  precedent  of 
remorse  is  a  clear  idea  of  wrong- 
doing ;  we  repent  when  we  see  (usually 
by  the  aid  of  another's  vision)  the 
exact  nature  and  conditions  of  our 
actions.  Mr.  Pepys  does  not  repent ; 
he  merely  records.  Had  he  felt  re- 
pentance he  would  have  recorded  that 
also.  He  does  repent  of  various 
things  in  the  course  of  his  diary, 
but  a  few  pages  further  on  you  will 
find  he  does  them  again.  Most  men 
in  these  circumstances  would  turn 
back  and  cancel  the  entry  of  repent- 
ance, or  more  probably  would  omit 
the  instances  of  infraction.  That 
seems  the  only  self-respecting  way  of 
keeping  a  diary  of  personal  morals. 
Whatever  Mr.  Pepys's  opinion  of  him- 
self in  this  respect  may  have  been 
does  not  clearly  appear  ;  but  one  thing 
is  past  doubt,  the  materials  he  pre- 
served for  forming  one  are  ample  and 
true.  There  is  nothing  to  show,  how- 
ever, that  he  had  any  such  purpose ; 
that  is  left  for  us  who  do  not  keep 
diai'ies.  He  simply  records,  passing 
quite  placidly  from  peculation  to 
"dinner  with  my  father  and  wife." 


The  Man  Pepys. 


349 


It  seems  a  strange  freak  of  the  un- 
seen   to    endow    this    unimaginative, 
unreflective  man  with  the  faculty  of 
observing  his  proper  self  as  a  detached 
object,  and  of  setting  down  his  deeds 
and  thoughts  as  if  he,  the  writer,  were 
not  the  doer.     The  more  we  read  the 
more  it  looks  like  a  practical  joke  on 
humanity,  as  if  some  coterie  of  spirits 
had  conspired  and  said  :  Let  us  pro- 
vide this  man  with  the  power  of  seeing 
himself   precisely  as    he    is,   and    the 
desire  to   write   down   what  he   sees. 
He  will  take  it  seriously,  and  it  will 
be  sport  to  observe  the  precision  with 
which  he  will  set  forth  what  he  be- 
lieves   he    comprehends.     Some    such 
supposition  seems  necessary  to  account 
for    the    marvellous    fidelity    of    the 
record  and   the   absence  of  all   sense 
of  moral  contrast  or  humour.   Towards 
Christmas-time   of   1664   there  comes 
bunched  together  a  number  of  entries 
of  such  ludicrous  incongruity  that  it 
does  not  appear  possible  a  man  could 
calmly  write  them,  or  allow  them  to 
remain.      "  Going  to  bed  betimes  last 
night    we    waked    betimes   and    from 
our  people's  being  forced  to  take  the 
key  to  go  out  to  light  a  candle,  I  was 
very  angry  and  begun  to   find  fault 
with  my  wife  for  not  commanding  her 
servants    as    she    ought.      Thereupon 
she  giving  me  some   cross  answer   I 
did  strike  her  over  her  left  eye  such  a 
blow  as  the  poor  wretch  did  cry  out 
and  was  in  great  pain,   but  yet  her 
spirit   was    such   as  to   endeavour  to 
bite  and   scratch  me.      But  I  coying 
with  her  made  her  cease  crying,  and 
sent    for    butter     and     parsley,     and 
friends   presently   with    one    another, 
and  I  up,  vexed  at  my  heart  to  think 
what  I  had  done,  for  she  was  forced 
to  lay  a  poultice  to  her  eye  all  day, 
and  is  black,  and  the  people  of  the 
house     observed     it."     What     should 
impel  a  man  to  write  out  in  full  an 
incident  like  this  is  a  mystery  on  any 
ordinary   estimate  of  humanity ;    but 


when,  having  dealt  so  by  his  own 
wife,  he  proceeds  to  relate  how  later 
in  the  day  he  keeps  a  disgraceful 
tryst  with  the  wife  of  one  Bagwell, 
an  underling  in  the  Deptford  yard, 
and  how  he  fares  therein,  the  reader 
is  impelled  to  fall  back  on  the  assump- 
tion of  the  unseen  powers.  For  there 
is,  and  can  be,  no  reason  why  a  man 
should  wish  to  remember  such  things  ; 
if  some  jocular  spirits  did  not  impel 
him  for  their  amusement  to  do  so,  it 
is  clear  he  would  choose  to  forget. 
But  Samuel  records  faithfully.  Next 
day  (his  wife's  eye  being  bad,  though 
she  in  good  temper  with  him,  poor 
thing  !)  he  has  further  deeds  of  iniquity 
to  record  with  Bagwell's  wife.  Look- 
ing out  for  the  comet  which  was  then 
surprising  England,  he  reaches  Christ- 
mas Day.  "  Up  (my  wife's  eye  being 
ill  still  of  the  blow  I  did  in  a  passion 
give  her  on  Monday  last)  to  church 
alone,  where  Mr.  Mills,  a  good  ser- 
mon." After  dinner,  "  To  the  French 
Church,  but  coming  too  late  I  re- 
turned, and  to  Mr.  Rawlinson's  church 
where  I  heard  a  good  sermon  of  one 
that  I  remember  was  at  Paul's  with 
me,  his  name  Maggett ;  and  very 
great  store  of  fine  women  there  is  in 
this  church,  more  than  I  know  any- 
where else  about  us."  There  is  really 
no  conscious,  humour  in  the  juxta- 
position of  sermons  and  fine  women ; 
it  is  merely  the  extraordinary  man's 
way  of  recording  what  he  saw,  what 
appealed  to  him.  He  holds  on  his 
even  path,  impelled  by  the  mysterious 
necessity  of  writing  himself  down, 
until  he  comes  to  the  last  day  of  the 
year,  when  piety  and  precision  dictate 
to  him  the  following  towards  the 
solemn  hour  of  midnight :  "  Well 
satisfied  with  my  work,  and  above  all, 
to  find  myself,  by  the  great  blessing  of 
God,  worth  £1349,  by  which,  as  I 
have  spent  very  largely,  so  I  have 
laid  up  above  ,£500  this  year  above 
what  I  was  worth  this  day  twelve- 


350 


The  Man  Pepys. 


month.     The  Lord  make  me  for  ever 
thankful   to   his   holy  name  for  it  !  " 
Remember    the    methods     by    which 
Samuel  Pepys  accumulated  this  sum, 
how  his  wife's  eye  is  still  black  from 
his  cowardly  blow,  what  other  wrongs 
he  has  done  to  her,   the  fine  women 
in    church,    and    then    ask    by    what 
strange  freak  he  can  add  expressions 
of  piety  to  such  a  jumble  of  living, 
and  put  the  whole  thing  down  in  a 
diary  in  language  of  most  admirable 
vividness,  without  the   slightest   sign 
of  consciousness  that  he  is  doing  any- 
thing unusual.      The  much-praised  art 
of    Fielding    in    painting    a    man,    a 
whole  man,  is  as  nothing  to  this,  for 
here  we  have  Samuel  Pepys  painting 
himself    in    a    way  that    makes  Tom 
Jones     pale     by     comparison.       One 
glimpse    of    self,    such    as    those    one 
finds  so  plentifully    strewn  over    the 
diary,     drives     many     a      man       to 
abject  remorse.      Mr.  Pepys  the  chro- 
nicler sits  calm    in    the    midst   of    it 
all,   apparently  quite  heedless   of  the 
picture  of  Pep}7s  the  man.      Nowhere 
else  in  literature  will  you  find  a  man 
who  to  the  same  extent  possessed  the 
faculty  to    see    what    he    lacked    the 
faculty  to  appreciate,  and  from   that 
point  of    view  he    remains   a   puzzle. 
Shakespeare  himself  has  left  nothing 
which    can    compare    in     truth     and 
vividness  with  the  revelation  of  the 
jealousy     caused     to    Pepys    by    the 
dancing-master's    attendances   on    his 
wife.     It  is  a  comedy  of  the  highest 
order,   every  touch  perfect  and  con- 
vincing.     Pepys  himself   surpasses  it 
in  the   tragi-comedy  of    his  relations 
with    Deb,    his  wife's    maid.       Here 
is  no  invention,  no  laboured  ingenuity, 
but  a  succession  of  scenes  of  absolute 
truth,   set    forth  in    language   of    re- 
markable force,  wherein  there  is  not 
a  superfluous  phrase. 

Pepys  does  not  speak  with  great 
appreciation  of  such  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  as  he  saw  performed  ;  but 


it  is  almost  certain  that  could   Shake- 
speare    have      seen     this     diary     he 
Avould  have  paid  it  the   true   tribute 
of  dramatising  portions  of  it,  taking 
from  it,   as  he   never   scrupled   to  do 
where     his    source    was    worthy,    ex- 
pressions which  he  could  not  hope  to 
improve.      Of  such  it  is  a  rich  mine. 
The  simple  directness  which  the  trans- 
lators of  the  English  Bible  wielded  to 
so   glorious   purpose    hangs   about  it. 
"  After  we  had  filled  our  bellies  with 
cream  we  took  our  leaves  and  away," 
he    says    of     a     country     feast.       A 
friend  invites  him   to   dinner,   which 
he   enjoys,    "  only   the   venison    pasty 
was    palpable    beef,    which    was    not 
handsome."     He  can  sketch  a  country 
idyll  in  a  few  words  :   "  To-day  I  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  my  uncle  to  beg 
an    old    fiddle    of  me   for  my   cousin 
Perkin,    the    miller,    whose    mill    the 
wind    hath    lately    broke    down,    and 
now  he  hath  nothing  to  live  by  but 
fiddling,   and  he  must  needs  have  it 
against   Whitsuntide   to   play  to  the 
country  girls."     We  seem  to  have  lost 
this  delightful  knack  of  language  now- 
a-days ;  it  is  as  rhythmic  as  a  song, 
and    as    sufficient.     What  follows    is 
pure  Pepys  :  "  But  it  vexed  me  to  see 
how  my  uncle  writes  to  me,  as  if  he 
were  not  able  to  send  him  one.      But 
I  intend  to-morrow  to  send  him  one." 
"  Put     in     at     my     Lord's     lodgings 
where  we  staid  late,  eating  of  part  of 
his  turkey-pie  and  reading  of  Quarles' 
EMBLEMS."    There  you  have  Mr.  Pepys 
in  short,  the  proportion  being   seven 
parts  pie  to  one  part  Emblems.     He 
imbibed     enough     of     Emblems     and 
divinity  to  enable  him  to  moralise  a 
little,   as   when   he   says  :   "So  I   see 
that  religion,  be  it  what  it  will,  is  but 
a  humour,   and    so  the  esteem  of  it 
passeth   as   other   things   do " ;  where 
the  beauty  of  the  language  seems  to 
convey    a  deeper    sense   than  was  in 
his  mind.      This  is  a  rare  mood  with 
him,  however,  and  never  in  the  least 


The  Man  Pepys. 


351 


diverts  him  from  his  mysterious  ta^sk 
of  laying  bare  himself.     Of  a  certain 
Captain    Holmes    he    says    he    is   "a 
cunning  fellow,  and  one  (by  his  own 
confession  to  me)  that  can  put  on  two 
several  faces,  and  look  his  enemies  in 
the    face    with    as   much  love  as  his 
friends.     But,    good    God  !  what    an 
age  is  this  !  that  a   man  cannot  live 
without   playing  the  knave    and  dis- 
simulation."    The  age  was  not  peculiar 
in  respect  of  this  fancied  necessity  to 
dissimulate  ;  so  many  mere  tricks  in 
personal  morality  are  put  down  to  the 
compulsion   of  the   age.      When  Mr. 
Pepys  dons  his   heaven-sent   diarist's 
robe  and   takes   himself   in  hand,   he 
shows   with    his   customary    clearness 
exactly  how  the  matter  stands,  age  or 
no   age  :   "I   told  him  (Mr.  Starling) 
how  I  would  have  him  speak  to  my 
uncle  Robert,  when  he  comes  thither 
concerning  my  buying  of  land,  that  I 
could  pay  ready  money  £600  and  the 
rest  by  £150  per  annum,  to  make  up 
as  much  as  will  buy  £50  per  annum, 
which   I   do,    although    I    not    worth 
above  £500  ready  money,  that  he  may 
think  me  to  be  a  greater  saver  than  I 
am."    And  again:  "  It  is  a  great  plea- 
sure to   me   to   talk  with  persons  of 
quality  and  to  be  in  command  [at  his 
office],  and  I  give  it  out  among  them 
that  the  estate  left  me  is  £200  a  year 
in    land,    besides    moneys,    because  I 
would  put  an  esteem    upon   myself." 
He  succeeded  to  admiration  in  creating 
an   esteem    for  himself  :  he   even  ac- 
quired  a   reputation   as    a   highly  re- 
spectable, pious,  and  God-fearing  man  ; 
but  he  also   kept  a   diary  in   a  way 
absolute!}7  inimical  to  this  repute,  and 
yet  never  once  will  you   detect   any 
evidence   of  his   tongue  being  in  his 
cheek. 

Was  he  morally  blind  1  Mentally 
blind  he  was  not ;  rather  in  this 
respect  he  had  one  of  the  most  splen- 
did gifts  of  vision  man  was  ever 
dowered  with.  The  mere  external 


aspect  of  a  thing  or  act  appealed  to 
him  in  his  fullest  extent ;  but  of 
moral  vision,  contrast,  perspective,  in 
a  word,  humour,  he  appears  to  have 
had  nought.  Possessing  all  the  follies 
of  a  Falstaff,  he  sees  them  as  facts 
merely.  They  have  no  colour  either 
of  heaven  or  earth  in  them.  There 
they  are,  preserved  in  spirits  of  wine, 
with  labels  on  the  bottles.  A  word 
suffices  him  often  for  his  effects,  as 
when  after  a  hot  dispute  with  relatives 
over  money  matters,  he  adds  :  "  and 
with  great  seeming  love  parted."  Or 
a  phrase  thus  :  "  And  I  would  fain 
have  stolen  a  pretty  dog  that  followed 
me,  but  I  could  not ;  which  troubled 
me."  WThen  he  does  steal  he  says  so 
plainly  :  "  So  I  to  the  Park,  and  there 
walk  an  hour  or  two ;  and  in  the 
King's  garden,  and  saw  the  Queen 
and  ladies  walk ;  and  I  did  steal 
some  apples  off  the  trees."  He  might 
have  said  "  take,"  or  amplified  it  into, 
"  thought  no  harm  in  plucking  "  ;  but 
no :  he  did  steal  them,  therefore 
"  steal  "  is  the  word.  How  absolute 
the  knave  is  !  He  is  capable  of  a 
little  complex  reflection  now  and 
again,  as  witness  his  way  of  painting 
a  Mr.  Povy,  whom  he  found  it  neces- 
sary, or  politic,  to  oppose.  "  For  of 
all  the  men  in  the  world,  I  never 
knew  any  man  in  his  degree  so  great 
a  coxcomb  in  such  employments.  I 
see  I  have  lost  him  for  ever,  but  I 
value  it  not ;  for  he  is  a  coxcomb,  and, 
I  doubt,  not  over  honest,  by  some 
things  which  I  see  ;  and  yet,  for  all 
his  folly,  he  hath  the  good  luck,  now 
and  then,  to  speak  his  follies  in  as 
good  words,  and  with  as  good  a  show, 
as  if  it  were  reason,  and  to  the  pur- 
pose, which  is  really  one  of  the 
wonders  of  my  life."  This  is  most 
admirably  expressed,  but  in  writing  it 
Mr.  Pepys  does  not  seem  to  have 
thought  he  was  describing  himself. 

What     a     subject    for     an     Imagi- 
nary   Conversation,    Shakespeare  and 


352 


The  Man  Pepys. 


Samuel  Pepys  !  To  Shakespeare  the 
world  was  "  full  of  strange  noises  ;  " 
men  and  women  were  on  a  journey 
from  eternity  to  eternity,  and  their 
loves  and  hates,  ambitions  and  failures 
were  imbued  with  the  enchantment  of 
destiny,  so  that,  while  all  they  do  or 
say  seems  proper  to  them  as  indi- 
viduals, it  is  but  the  manifestation  of 
a  power  or  process  of  which  they  are 
the  unwitting  mediums.  To  Pepys 
they  are  comprehensible  men  and 
women,  with  no  other  matter  of 
destiny  about  them  than  birth  and 
death.  These  mysteries  he  makes  no 
pretence  to  solve,  or  dilate  upon  ;  they 
are  mere  memoranda  for  him,  like  the 
pickled  herrings  he  dines  off  at 
Greenwich.  The  world  for  Pepys  is 
most  effectually  real :  he  has  an  un- 
hesitating persuasion  of  himself  and 
why  he  exists ;  and  in  this  diary  he 
reverses  the  Eastern  magic  that  made 
a  Genius  spread  cloud-like  out  of  an 
urn,  by  industriously  stuffing  a  Genius 
into  one.  In  his  observation  of  the 
crude  matter  that  makes  up  living,  the 
succedaneum  of  spirit,  he  reveals  an 


unmatchable  exactitude.  Page  after 
page  is  blindly  filled  with  the  stuff 
of  comedy,  lying  there  as  mere  facts, 
dockets  of  the  conveyance  of  existence 
from  the  Eternal  lessor  to  Samuel 
Pepys,  tenant  for  life. 

He  lived  to  the  age  of  seventy,  and 
an  after-death  examination  revealed  a 
nest  of  seven  stones  in  one  of  his 
kidneys,  any  one  of  which  might  have 
proved  mortal  to  an  ordinary  man. 
But  they  were  Pepysian  stones,  and 
had  arranged  themselves  so  conveni- 
ently as  not  seriously  to  derange  his 
bodily  functions.  The  State  owed 
him  £28,000  which  it  never  paid,  in 
which  counterpoise  of  dishonesty  the 
operation  of  moral  justice  may  be 
visible.  Pepys 's  observation  on  the 
point  is  necessarily  wanting  :  he  had 
gone  where  diaries  were  no  longer 
requisite  ;  and  yet,  but  for  irreverence, 
one  might  imagine  him  calmly  re- 
suming his  notes  in  Eternity:  "This 
day  did  blow  the  last  trump.  Gabriel 
a  fine  figure.  The  trumpet  somewhat 
out  of  tune." 


353 


AN  OLD  PAGE  OF  DANISH  HISTORY. 

(HOW  THE  GUILD  AVENGED  THE  DEATH  OF  THE  GUILD-BEOTHEE.) 


KING  SVEND  of  Denmark,  sister's 
son  to  the  Great  Canute,  died  in  the 
year  1076,  and  five  of  his  sons,  Harold, 
Canute,  Olaf,  Eric,  and  Niels  wore 
the  Danish  crown  after  him,  each  in 
his  turn.  But  for  Niels,  the  youngest 
of  them,  the  beginning  of  rule  was  the 
beginning  of  sorrow,  for  in  his  time 
the  house  of  Svend  Estridsen  was 
divided  against  itself,  to  its  own  un- 
doing and  to  the  undoing  of  Denmark. 

Three  of  Svend's  sons  had  died 
childless ;  the  fourth,  King  Eric,  who 
died  at  Paphos  on  his  way  to  the 
Holy  Sepulchre,  left  three  sons 
behind  him.  Of  these,  Harold,  the 
eldest,  had  already  governed  for  a 
while  in  his  father's  absence,  and  had 
proved  himself  unfit  to  reign,  and 
Eric  and  Canute  were  still  young ; 
therefore  the  Thing l  rejected  all  three 
and,  in  the  year  1104,  set  Niels  in  his 
brother's  place.  So  far  as  Harold  and 
Eric  were  concerned  the  Thing  did  well, 
for  Harold  was  vicious  and  cruel  and 
Eric's  ambition  always  more  than  his 
talent.  But  the  boy  Canute  was  bred 
at  the  court  of  Duke  Lothair  of  Saxony 
who  was  afterwards  Emperor,  and  he 
grew  up  valiant  and  wise  and  stately, 
the  flower  of  his  race ;  and  if,  while 
in  the  foreign  court,  he  learned  many 
things  that  a  prince  should  know, 
he  never  unlearned  his  love  for  his 
own  country.  He  was  still  young 
when  he  sold  a  part  of  his  inheritance 
and  bought  from  his  uncle  the  life- 
long governorship  of  Slesvig,  a  task  so 
difficult  and  so  dangerous  that  no 
1  The  National  Assembly. 

No.  443. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


other  man  could  be  found  to  under- 
take it.  The  condition  of  the  province 
at  this  time  was  indeed  grievous. 
The  sea  swarmed  with  pirates,  of  whom 
Canute's  brother  Harold,  perched  like 
a  bird  of  prey  on  his  Haroldsburg, 
bore  the  most  evil  name  :  the  Pagan 
Tends,  who  dwelt  along  the  southern 
coast  of  the  Baltic,  continually  ravaged 
the  peninsula  from  Eyder  to  Schlei, 
and  Canute's  cousin  Henry  was  their 
king ;  while  robbers  of  every  rank 
infested  the  inland  ways,  and  the 
peasant  grew  weary  of  tilling  the 
fields  he  might  never  reap.  Canute 
set  resolutely  to  work,  and  made 
himself  by  degrees  master  in  his 
own  house.  He  built  two  strongholds 
on  the  Schlei,  and  one  not  far  from 
Kiel,  and  carried  the  war  with  the 
Vends  across  the  frontier  into  their 
own  land.  But  in  the  end  he  per- 
suaded Henry  the  Vend  to  make 
peace  with  King  Niels,  so  ending  the 
devastating  forays  of  the  Slavs.  To 
robbers  and  'thieves  he  showed  no 
mercy ;  when  he  took  prisoner  a 
pirate  who  boasted  of  royal  descent, 
he  acknowledged  the  kinship  by  hang- 
ing him  alone  at  the  masthead.  In 
the  city  of  Slesvig  he  strengthened 
the  Guild  of  Canute  the  Saint,  the 
foremost  Guild  in  the  country,  that  it 
might  be  strong  enough  to  do  justice 
and  to  uphold  the  townsmen's  cause  ; 
and  in  the  days  when  the  Prince  was 
their  Elder  the  word  of  a  Guildsman 
weighed  as  much  as  the  word  of  three 
others  at  every  tribunal  in  the  land. 
Thus  the  whole  province  became  pros- 


354 


An  Old  Page  of  Danish  History. 


perous  and  quiet  under  the  just  rule 
of  the  Lavard,1  as  the  men  of  Slesvig 
called  him,  the  Duke  of  South  Jutland, 
as  the  Saxons  used  to  say. 

King  Niels,  left  to  himself,  would 
have  been  well  pleased  with  his  ne- 
phew's achievements,  but  there  were 
others  who  watched  with  mistrust  and 
aversion  the  ever-growing  love  that  the 
people  bore  to  their  Duke.  King 
Niels  and  Queen  Margaret  had  one 
son,  Magnus,  much  younger  than 
Canute,  and  as  he  grew  up  it  seemed 
to  him  that  Canute  held  the  place  in 
the  heart  of  the  Danes  that  might 
otherwise  have  been  his  own.  And 
behind  Magnus  stood  his  cousin  Henry 
Haltfoot,  for  ever  whispering  jealous 
words  into  his  ear.  Henry's  wife, 
who  was  niece  to  the  Queen,  did  not 
love  him,  and  one  night  she  fled  from 
his  house  in  a  page's  dress.  To  his 
last  -  hour  Henry  believed,  though 
without  reason,  that  the  Lavard  had 
counselled  her  flight,  and  this  was 
why  he  hated  Canute  and  stirred 
Magnus  continually  to  hate  him  too. 
On  the  day  that  Magnus  was  married 
to  the  Polish  Princess  Rikissa,  the  La- 
vard came  to  the  wedding  clad  in  crim- 
son, more  splendid  than  any  of  his  kins- 
folk, and  Henry  called  to  him  wickedly 
across  the  table,  "  Crimson  does  not 
ward  off  steel."  "Nor  sheepskin  either," 
answered  his  cousin  lightly.  On  the 
death  of  Henry  the  Vend,  Canute 
obtained  from  the  Emperor  the  Obo- 
trite  kingdom,  which  was  an  imperial 
fief ;  and  when  a  little  later  the  King 
held  an  Assembly  at  Slesvig,  Canute 
for  once  forgot  to  be  wise,  for  he  came 
to  the  meeting  with  the  crown  of  the 
Obotrites  on  his  head,  and  went  no 
more  than  half-way  to  offer  his 
uncle  the  kiss  of  greeting,  as  though 
he  were  the  equal  of  the  King.  This 
angered  the  Queen,  who  had  been  till 
now  his  friend,  so  that  she  cried 
passionately  to  her  son  that  crown  and 
1  Anglo-Saxon  ;  Hlaford,  Lord. 


life  alike  were  lost  to  him  if  his  cousin 
lived  ;  and  Magnus  complained  to  his 
father  that  since  Canute  was  now  the 
Emperor's  man,  and  had  for  wife  the 
Russian  Ingeborg,  he  had  both  Ger- 
mans arid  Slavs  behind  him  and  could 
take  the  kingdom  when  he  would. 
They  went  home  nevertheless  with 
Canute  to  his  house  in  Slesvig,  where 
the  Lavard  entertained  them  royally. 
And  before  parting  Canute  made 
Magnus  a  gift  of  a  costly  outlandish 
dress  which  Henry  the  Yend  had 
given  him,  and  Magnus  put  it  on  and 
all  agreed  that  he  was  the  handsomest 
man  in  Denmark ;  so  that  he  went 
away  seemingly  well  content. 

Before  long,  however,  urged  by 
Magnus  and  Henry,  King  Niels  called 
another  Assembly  at  Ripen  and 
accused  Canute  before  it  of  tr^ason- 
able  designs.  This  time  the  Lavard 
was  first  at  the  meeting-place,  and  on 
the  King's  arrival  he  laid  aside  his 
mantle  in  his  fine  Saxon  fashion,  as 
one  of  the  chroniclers  says,  and  held 
the  King's  stirrup  as  he  dismounted. 

"  Svend  Estridsen's  sons,"  said  the 
King,  "  all  paid  respect  to  age  and  the 
younger  was  never  in  haste  to  supplant 
the  elder  ;  but  Canute,  it  seems,  cannot 
wait  for  his  King's  death  before 
snatching  at  the  King's  title  and 
place." 

To  this  accusation  Canute  listened 
with  his  eyes  on  the  ground,  leaning, 
as  was  his  habit,  on  his  sword.  When 
Niels  had  ended  the  charge,  his  nephew 
protested  his  innocence  and  declared 
that  he  had  been  maliciously  slandered. 
He  called  to  mind  the  services  he  had 
rendered  his  country.  "  At  sea,"  he 
said,  "  we  have  now  no  foe  but  wind 
and  wave  ;  the  King  may  sleep  sound 
in  Slesvig  without  a  watchman  on  the 
frontier  wall.  It  is  meet  that  the 
King  should  reap  the  fruit  of  his 
vassal's  service,  but  surely  the  harvest 
of  wounds  and  toil  should  not  be  mis- 
trust and  hate."  As  to  the  title : 


An  Old  Page  of  Danish  History. 


355 


Among  my  own  people,"  said  Canute", 
"  I  am  known  only  as  Lavard.  Among 
the  Slavs  certainly  I  bear  the  name  of 
king,  but  that  your  Magnus  does  too 
in  West-Gothland.  So  you  have  two 
kings  for  servants,  and  our  good  for- 
tune you  may  count  your  own." 

This  soft  answer  turned  away  the 
King's  wrath,  for  Niels  loved  peace 
and  was  never  slow  to  forgive ;  but 
suspicion  burned  all  the  more  in  the 
heart  of  Magnus,  and  Henry  Haltfoot 
constantly  fanned  the  flame.  In  this 
same  year,  1130,  Queen  Margaret  died, 
•and  sending  for  Canute  on  her  death- 
bed, she  prayed  him  to  guard  the 
peace  of  Denmark  and  the  unity  of 
his  house,  and  to  show  himself  as 
great  at  home  as  he  had  done  abroad. 
Canute  answered  earnestly  that  he 
had  himself  no  dearer  wish  ;  so  the 
Queen's  misgivings  were  calmed,  and 
she  died  resting  upon  his  word.  But 
had  she  known  what  was  in  her  son's 
mind,  she  would  not  have  fallen  so 
quietly  asleep,  for  by  this  time  Magnus 
had  already  resolved  to  rid  himself 
once  for  all  of  the  Lavard. 

To  this  end  he  invited  Henry  and 
Ubbo  his  brother-in-law  and  Ubbo's 
son  Hagen  to  meet  with  him,  and 
lying  on  the  chamber-floor  that  they 
might  swear,  if  need  be,  with  a  good 
conscience,  according  to  the  common 
formula,  that  neither  standing  nor 
sitting  had  they  plotted  against  the 
Duke,  they  made  their  plan  and  took 
an  oath  of  secrecy. 

King  Niels  had  invited  all  his  kins- 
folk to  keep  Christmas  with  him  at 
his  palace  of  Roeskilde  in  Zealand, 
and  to  this  gathering  the  Lavard  was 
specially  bidden,  because  Magnus  was 
going  on  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land, 
and  had  chosen  Canute  to  be  the 
guardian  of  his  wife  and  child  during 
his  absence.  For  some  days  there  was 
feasting  in  Roeskilde  castle,  and  out- 
wardly all  was  joy  and  goodwill ;  but 
the  hearts  of  Magnus  and  his  friends 


were  steadfastly   set   against   Canute, 
and  they  only  awaited  their  chance. 
Once  Magnus  would  have  killed  him 
as  they  sat  at  supper  together ;  and 
again  one  night  when  the  townspeople 
were  brawling  in  the  street ;  and  again 
he  would  have  fired  the  house  where 
the  Duke  lay  ;  but  each  time  he  was 
baulked  in  his  purpose.     At  last,  as 
Canute  was  on  the  eve  of  departure, 
Magnus  sent  a  Saxon  minstrel  to  him 
with    a    request    to    meet  his    cousin 
alone    in    a   neighbouring    wood    for 
private  talk,  as  there  was  much  to  be 
said  between  them  before  Magnus  set 
out  for  the  East.     The  Lavard   con- 
sented   willingly,    and    rode    to    the 
trysting-place  with  only  two  knights 
and  two  grooms  and  the  messenger  as 
guide,    almost   forgetting,    so   careless 
was    he,    to   buckle  on  his  sword  at 
starting.      The  Saxon,  who  was  in  the 
plot,  now   regretted  his  errand,   and 
sought  how  he  might  warn  the  Duke 
without  betraying  his  master.      So,  as 
they  rode  together  at  sunrise  into  the 
forest,    he    sang    the    song    that    the 
Lavard    had    learned    of    old    in    the 
Saxon  Court,  of  Kriemhilde  and  her 
brothers     and     the     treachery     that 
wrought  their  death  ;  but  Canute  took 
no  heed  of  his  singing.      Then  Siward 
unclasped  his  doublet  that  the  Lavard 
might  see  the  gleam  of  the  steel  be- 
neath it ;  but  Canute  took  no  heed  of 
the    glitter.       So    they    came    to  the 
place    where   Magnus  was  sitting  on 
the  stump  of  a  tree,  and  he  embraced 
Canute  warmly,  and  beneath  his  dress 
the  Lavard  felt  the  cold  mail.      "  Why, 
cousin,"  said  he,  "do  you  come  clad  in 
armour  to  meet  me  1 "     And  Magnus 
answered  that  he  had  been  injured  by 
the  farmers  of  a  neighbouring  village 
and  was  about  to  make  a  raid  upon 
them,  for  all  it  was  the  holy  Christ- 
mas-tide.    Then  he  sat   down    again 
and  the  Duke  threw  himself  on  the 
grass   beside   him ;  and  as  he  lay  a 
drowsiness  fell  upon  him,    and    half- 

A  A  2 


356 


An  Old  Page  of  Danish  History. 


sleeping  and  half-waking  he  saw  a 
man  who  ran  out  of  the  bushes  and 
tore  the  sleeve  from  his  mantle  and 
ran  in  again.  "  Cousin,"  said  he  to 
Magnus,  "  I  think  we  have  seen  a 
sign." 

Magnus  answered  that  he  neither 
knew  nor  cared  anything  about  it. 
"  But  do  you  deem,"  he  added,  "that 
there  is  evil  behind  it  ? " 

"Surely,"  answered  the  Lavard,  "I 
deem  there  is  evil  behind." 

Then  out  of  the  trees  on  all  sides 
armed  men  came  stealing,  and  Canute 
asked,  "  Whose  men  are  these,  cousin, 
and  what  do  they  here  ?  " 

"  They  are  friends  of  mine,"  replied 
Magnus,  "  and  we  are  here  to-day  to 
speak  of  him  who  shall  sit  hereafter 
in  my  father's  seat." 

"  May  the  King  live  long,"  said 
Canute  ;  "  but  of  what  shall  be  here- 
after this  is  no  time  to  talk." 

"  Nay,"  said  Magnus,  "  but  already 
you  are  drawing  the  hearts  of  all  the 
nation  to  yourself." 

He  spoke  as  in  anger,  but  the  Duke 
answered  gently  that  he  had  no  cause 
to  be  displeased.  "For  He  who 
knows  all  things  knows  that  in  all  my 
life  I  have  never  been  other  than 
friend  to  you  and  yours ;  and  He  who 
is  the  judge  of  all  men  shall  be 
judge  between  you  and  me." 

At  that  Magnus  rose,  and  Canute 
rising  also  would  have  drawn  his 
sword,  but  it  was  only  half  out  of  its 
sheath  when  Magnus  struck  him  a 
mortal  blow,  and  the  friends  of  Mag- 
nus pressing  in  stabbed  the  dead  man 
through  and  through. 

Magnus  went  home  triumphant,  but 
the  people,  horror-struck  at  the  news 
of  the  crime,  broke  off  their  Christmas 
rejoicings  to  mourn  for  the  murdered 
prince.  They  would  have  buried  him 
with  great  pomp  in  Roeskilde  cathedral 
but  the  King  was  afraid  to  allow  it, 
and  his  grave  was  made  quietly  before 
the  high  altar  in  Saint  Mary's  church 


at  Ringsted  in  January,  1131.  But  it 
was  not  possible  to  still  the  emotion 
of  a  whole  people,  deepened  as  it  was 
by  the  sight  of  the  torn  and  blood- 
stained cloak  openly  displayed  by 
Canute's  brothers.  The  assassin  was 
formally  accused  by  Eric  before  the 
Ringsted  Tribunal,  and  to  Ringsted 
King  Niels  went,  but  without  Magnus. 
At  first  the  King  hardly  dared  to  face 
the  assembly,  and  when  he  did  he  was 
forced  to  pass  a  sentence  of  perpetual 
banishment  on  his  son,  solemnly  swear- 
ing to  see  Magnus  no  more  until  the 
nation  itself  chose  to  recall  him. 
Magnus  departed  forthwith  to  his 
estates  in  Gothland,  but  before  long 
his  friends  tempted  his  father  to  break 
his  oath.  It  were  better,  they  said, 
for  the  King  to  renounce  the  crown 
than,  wearing  it,  to  be  at  the  bidding 
of  his  own  subjects. 

So  Magnus  came  home,  and  then, 
for  many  a  long  year,  was  an  end  of 
Denmark's  peace.  For  Zealand  and 
Skaania  rose  up  and  called  Eric  to 
rule  over  them  in  the  place  of  Niels 
the  forsworn ;  and  Eric  gathered  an 
army,  and  the  Emperor  joined  him 
because  Canute  had  been  his  man. 
At  first  it  seemed  as  if  Niels  and  his 
son  were  to  fare  very  badly ;  but 
Magnus  paid  four  thousand  silver 
marks  to  the  Emperor  and  did  homage 
to  him  in  his  father's  name  for  the 
kingdom,  whereupon  Lothair  went  home 
leaving  Eric  to  make  war  alone.  And 
then  Harold  the  pirate  took  sides  with 
his  brother's  murderer,  and  brought  a 
fleet  to  the  King's  aid.  For  over 
three  years  the  war  lasted,  first  one 
party  gaining  the  advantage  and  then 
the  other,  till  Eric  was  driven  at  last 
to  take  refuge  wherever  it  might  be 
found.  Then  Magnus  resolved  to  end 
the  struggle  with  one  crushing  blow, 
and  all  the  King's  vassals,  small  and 
great,  were  summoned  to  follow  his 
banner  at  Whitsuntide  to  Skaania, 
where  Eric  was  making  his  last  stand. 


An  Old  Page  of  Danish  History. 


357 


For  the  last  time  the  King's  call  wate 
obeyed,  and  he  took  ship  and  sailed 
to  Fodvig,  an  inlet  on  the  coast  of 
Skaania  south  of  Malmo,  with  a  follow- 
ing of,  some  say,  twenty  thousand  men. 
The  blood  of  his  Gothic  forefathers 
was  hot  in  Magnus's  veins.  "  With  an 
army  like  this,"  he  cried,  "  we  could 
conquer  Rome " ;  but  his  men  had 
misgivings  because  it  was  Whit  Mon- 
day and  although  their  bishops  were 
with  them,  they  feared  mischief  might 
come  of  fighting  on  the  feast-day. 

Magnus  landed  his  troops  in  good 
order,  hoping  to  take  the  enemy  by 
surprise,  but  Eric  had  been  warned. 
The  Danes  had  only  begun  their 
march  when  they  saw  before  them 
a  whirling  cloud  of  dust  and  heard 
the  thunder  of  Eric's  German  horse- 
men. The  Jutlanders  were  as  brave 
as  men  need  be,  but  they  had  never 
fought  save  on  foot,  and  the  unwonted 
form  of  attack  filled  them  with  terror. 
With  one  accord  they  turned  and  fled 
panic-stricken  back  to  their  ships,  the 
fierce  Zealanders  in  hot  pursuit,  and 
were  cut  down  by  scores  unresisting 
as  they  ran.  The  Prince  and  some  of 
his  companions  made  a  gallant  stand, 
but  they  were  too  few  to  save  any- 
thing but  their  own  honour.  Within 
an  hour  or  two  of  the  landing  it  was 
all  over.  Magnus  lay  among  the  slain 
and  by  him  Henry  Haltf  oot,  his  bitter 
tongue  silenced  at  last  for  ever ;  and 
among  the  brave  men  who  had  died 
at  their  prince's  feet  were  four  bishops 
and  sixty  priests  who  had  kept  the 
Whitsun  Feast  on  that  bloody  field. 
There  were  shepherds  watching  their 
flocks  that  day  in  Iceland  who  beheld 
a  great  cloud  of  kites  and  crows 
darken  the  slopes  of  Hecla  and  vanish 
with  lamentable  cries  down  the  crater  • 
and  they  knew  afterwards  that  they 
had  seen  the  souls  of  the  vanquished 
thus  visibly  thrust  into  the  throat  of 
hell. 

The     King,     bewildered     by     the 


calamity  that  had  fallen  upon  him, 
was  hurried  by  Harold  on  board  a 
vessel  which  set  sail  for  Jutland  ;  and 
they  landed  on  the  coast  where  the 
King  had  no  choice  but  to  appoint 
Harold  his  heir  and  successor.  No 
turn  of  Fortune's  wheel  could  make 
much  difference  to  King  Niels,  old  as 
he  was  and  childless,  now  that  Magnus 
was  dead ;  he  asked  only  a  corner 
where  he  might  die  in  peace  while  the 
brothers  Harold  and  Eric  fought  out 
their  quarrel.  But  where  to  look  for 
even  this  small  boon  he  did  not  know  ; 
and  while  his  adherents  debated  the 
matter  in  sad  perplexity,  there  came 
a  rumour  of  welcome  from  Slesvig 
itself,  the  strong  southern  city  that 
might  even  now  hold  the  fate  of  Svend 
Estridsen's  house  in  her  hand.  If 
Slesvig  stood  by  the  King,  the  royal 
cause  was  not  yet  lost ;  and  the  Church 
was  powerful  in  Slesvig,  and  to  the 
Church  at  least  Niels  had  been  a  good 
friend.  The  fugitives  were  not  satis- 
fied, but  what  was  to  be  done  1  They 
were  in  a  desperate  strait  and  no 
better  counsel  offered.  With  doubt- 
ing hearts  the  forlorn  little  band 
turned  southward. 

But  in  Slesvig,  when  the  Guild  of 
Saint  Canute  learned  the  King's  re- 
solve, there  was  deep  and  bitter  joy ; 
for  some  such 'day  as  this  the  Guilds- 
men  had  long  been  waiting.  All 
Denmark  had  wished  well  to  Canute 
the  wise  ruler,  the  brave  leader,  the 
frank  and  faithful  comrade;  but  no- 
where had  he  been  loved  so  well  as  in 
Slesvig  where  eight  days  after  the 
murder  his  son1  was  born.  Through- 
out the  whole  country  the  deed  had 
aroused  a  storm  of  indignation ;  but 
nowhere  was  deeper  wrath  than  among 
the  men  of  the  Guild,  for  the  Lavard 
himself  was  a  Guildsman,  and  it  is 
written  in  their  statutes  that  the  wrong- 
done  to  one  is  done  to  all.  Wonder- 

1  Afterwards  the   Danish  hero,  Valdemar 

the  A7ictorious. 


358 


An  Old  Page  of  Danish  History. 


ing,  the  peasants  saw  the  grass  grow 
green  in  winter  as  in  summer  on  the 
spot  where  the  Lavard  fell  ;  and 
month  by  month  the  desire  for  venge- 
ance still  sprang  living  and  fresh  in 
the  heart  of  the  Guild-brothers.  More- 
over they  reckoned  the  King,  who  had 
shielded  the  criminal,  a  partaker  in  his 
guilt  and  rejoiced  greatly  at  his  coming. 
This  the  King  knew ;  but  perhaps 
he  held  that  Magnus,  dead  in  the 
Skaanian  meadow,  had  expiated  his 
own  sin ;  or  perhaps  he  judged  the 
priests'  power  more  than  it  was  ;  or 
perhaps  that  blindness  which  falls 
sometimes  upon  doomed  men  had  come 
upon  him.  However  that  might  be,  he 
rode  to  the  gates  of  the  city,  and 
found  them  flung  open  to  admit  him, 
and  a  sound  of  music  in  the  air.  His 
followers  slackened  their  pace  ;  a  warn- 
ing murmur  ran  through  them  ;  they 
looked  uneasily  about  them,  and  were 
reluctant  to  enter. 

"  Hearken,"  said  the  King,  "  I  hear 
music ;  the  townsmen  are  making 
holiday  in  welcome  of  us.': 

But  his  friends  hung  back,  and 
Harold,  who  had  still  something  to 
lose,  turned  his  horse's  head  and  rode 
away  alone. 

"  Come,"  said  King  Niels,  "  are  you 
afraid  of  weavers  and  cobblers  1 "  And 
with  that  he  passed  in,  his  companions 
following,  and  the  gates  clanged 
heavily  behind  them.  Then  towards 
them  came  winding  a  procession  of 


white-robed    priests ;     but     breaking 
across    the    melodious    chant    of   the 
choir,  another  voice  rose  on  the  June 
air,  the  deep  insistent  note  of  the  bell 
of  the  Guild-hall  warning  the  Brothers 
that    the   judgment   hour    was    come. 
From  one  side  advanced  the  surpliced 
clergy  to  bid  their  sovereign  welcome ; 
from  the  other  came  rank  upon  rank 
of   armed  men.      There  was   no  mis- 
reading their  purpose,  and  the  King's 
friends    called    on    him    to    fly.      The 
gates    were     shut    behind    them,    and 
that  way  there  was   no   retreat  :  the 
Church's  right  of    sanctuary    was  no 
certain   defence  ;    but  the  castle  was 
strong,  and  thither  up  the  steep  and 
narrow  streets  they  fled  in  haste,  with 
the  avengers  of  blood  at  their  heels. 
They  reached  the  stronghold,  but  the 
Guildsmen    swarmed    in    after    them, 
forcing  their  way  past  every  barrier, 
hunting  their  prey  from  room  to  room, 
till  all  the  King's  friends  had  fallen 
one    by    one.       Then     the     old     man 
turned  and  faced  his  pursuers,  asking 
no   mercy  but  demanding  as  a  right 
that    he    should     not    die    unshriven. 
They   sent    in  haste  for  a  priest,  and 
stood  silently  by  while  the  King  made 
his     confession ;     and     then,     in     his 
father's     house,    the    last    of     Svend 
Estridsen's    sons   paid    his    forfeit    to 
the   Guild.1 

1  Where  the  older  chroniclers  differ,  as  they 
do,  about  some  of  the  details  of  this  story,  we 
have  in  the  main  followed  Suhm. 


| 

\ 


359 


THE    SONGS    OF    YESTERDAY. 


THE  sun  is  near  its  setting,  and  lies 
above  the  long  blue  line  of  Cape 
Frehel,  sending  level  rays  of  light 
across  the  undulations  of  shore  and 
pasturage,  of  thick  woodland  and 
dotted  field,  and  spreading  a  saffron 
glory  over  the  wide  calm  water.  The 
air  is  very  still,  with  that  round,  ripe 
stillness  of  autumn  before  the  damp 
of  November  has  brought  decay ;  the 
earth,  the  trees,  even  the  sky,  are 
softly  golden  with  a  clear  glowing 
brightness  that  is  yet  the  hither  edge 
of  twilight.  And  through  the  still- 
ness every  sound  is  carried,  so  that 
one  perceives,  as  if  with  a  magic 
hearing,  the  life  that  lies  about  one ; 
but  the  sound  that  is  sweetest  and 
loudest  is  the  sound  of  singing. 

Yonder,  where  the  three  horses 
harnessed  in  line  pull  the  clumsy 
plough  through  the  red  buckwheat 
stubble,  the  driver  as  he  walks  beside 
them  sings  an  old  ditty  that  his 
fathers  before  him  have  sung  on  just 
such  evenings  as  this,  as  they  too 
followed  the  plough.  His  voice  rises 
into  the  air  sonorously,  monotonously, 
in  a  quaint  cadence  that  drops  into  a 
minor,  and  ends  without  any  end  at 
all: 

I  ha'  slept  from  home, 
I  ha'  slept  from  home 

His  fathers  have  sung  it  before  him, 
that,  or  another,  as  he  sings  now ; 
their  voices  also  have  gone  out  into 
the  stillness  of  the  evening,  when  the 
sun  lay  above  Cape  Frehel,  and  the 
sea  and  the  sky  were  painted  with 
gold ;  it  has  all  been  the  same  for  so 
long,  that  one  forgets  that  there  can 
ever  have  been  a  beginning.  And 


from  the  other  side  where  the  children 
are  driving  home  the  cows  from  the 
seaward  pastures,  there  comes  the 
clear  high  sweetness  of  young  voices 
singing  a  canticle  to  the  Virgin  :  Ave, 
ave,  Maria !  The  two  songs  blend 
and  clash  and  blend  again  in  a  strange 
harmony  of  discord.  They  belong  to 
each  other,  these  two,  different  as 
they  are ;  they  have  come  down  the 
centuries  together  in  amity  and  good 
fellowship.  These,  and  such  as  these, 
are  the  Songs  of  Yesterday. 

Elsewhere    there    is    singing    also ; 
indeed  the  love  of  song  is  perhaps  the 
most  marked  characteristic  of  every- 
day   life    in    a    small     French     town. 
Everywhere    and    at    all    times    the 
people   sing ;   the  masons   working  in 
the  new  houses,  the  cobblers  bending 
over    half-made     shoes,     the     carters 
plodding    beside     their     horses,      the 
women  at  the  ironing-boards  or  beating 
the  wet  linen  at  the  edge  of  washing- 
pools,   the   children   on   their  way  to 
and  from  school, — men   and    women, 
young  and  old,  at  all  hours  of  the  day 
they  sing  with  enthusiasm.      It  is  their 
principal  pleasure.      They  go  to  church 
to  sing,    they  sing    at    marriages,    at 
baptisms,   on   their   way   to  the    con- 
scription, on  their  return  home ;  there 
is  no  one  so  popular  among  them  as  a 
good  singer,  and  nothing  they  love  so 
much  as  a  good  song.     And  it  must 
be  acknowledged  that  they  sing  well, 
with  an  inherited  taste  and  ease,  the 
men  in  a  rich  sonorous  baritone,  and 
the  women  in  a  strange  sweet  treble, 
unnaturally  high  and  small,  but  bird- 
like  in  its  flexibility  and  plaintiveness. 
Every  one  sings  ;  only,  unfortunately, 
in  the  towns  the  music  is  too  often 


360 


The  Songs  of  Yesterday. 


imported  and  smacks  hideously  of 
Paris  or  London,  and  the  popular  tune 
of  the  year  before  last.  The  streets 
are  vocal  with  Saint  Nazaire,  or  the 
Czarine,  or,  worse,  with  Daisy  Bell. 
Every  one  sings  here,  as  in  the  coun- 
try;  but  in  the  towns  they  sing  the 
Songs  of  To-Day. 

It  is  in  the  further  corners  and 
byeways  where  there  is  nothing  to 
tempt  tourists,  where  life  changes  so 
slowly  that  it  scarcely  seems  to  change 
at  all,  that  a  music  lingers  which  is 
neither  vulgar  nor  commonplace,  a 
music  which  has  a  history  behind  it 
and  which  to-morrow  will  be  dead. 
For  it  is  dying  fast  even  among  the 
peasants  who  are  so  tenacious  of  old 
use  and  habit  that  one  asks  oneself 
continually  how  France  has  ever  come 
to  be  Republican.  Soon  the  old  songs 
will  be  forgotten,  and  the  change 
which  has  been  so  long  on  the  way 
will  at  last  have  arrived.  Then  at 
the  tobacco-threading  and  at  the  cider- 
making,  when  the  red  buckwheat  is 
tied,  and  on  the  long  Christmas  nights, 
even  the  peasants  will  sing  the 
Czarine  or  Daisy  Bell  or  their  like, 
and  yesterday  will  be  so  utterly  for- 
gotten that  it  will  seem  as  if  it  had 
never  existed. 

And  yet  the  old  songs  are  worthy 

of  a  little  notice  before  they  are  quite 

gone  from  among  us ;  if  they  are  not 

beautiful,  they  have  at  least  the  charm 

of  all  things   ancient   and   primitive, 

and    they    have    stories    to  tell  from 

which  one  may  build  up  history.      For 

if    singing    is    a    popular    amusement 

now,  it  was  infinitely  mbre  than  that 

in  those  earlier  days  whon    life    was 

simpler  and    pleasures  moi'.e    homely. 

Whenever  the  people  came    together 

they  fell  to  singing,  whether  tihey  met 

for    merry-making    or    mourning,    in 

labour  or   in   idleness ;  and  when  one 

asks   what  these  occasions  were  that 

called  them  together,  one  finds  th\at 

they  were  very  many,  for  the  circum\- 

\ 


stances  of  their  time  and  condition 
constrained  them  greatly  to  a  common 
life.  It  is  a  mere  truism  to  say  that 
from  oppression  grows  independence ; 
but  one  is  apt  not  to  realise  that  the 
excessive  strength  of  the  feudal  nobles, 
while  crushing  the  poor  into  servitude, 
bred  and  fostered  the  very  self- 
sufficiency  and  unity  that  was  some 
day  to  become  a  power.  Cut  off  from 
their  lords  by  birth,  and  from  the 
fighting-men  by  fear,  and  from  the 
townsmen  by  poverty  and  ignorance, 
the  peasant  in  those  days  was  all  in  all 
to  the  peasant.  He  was  compelled  to 
a  life  which  he  shared  with  his  neigh- 
bour in  all  its  aspects ;  he  was  con- 
strained into  doing  whatever  he  must 
do,  for  himself,  and  by  himself.  His 
peculiar  isolation  in  a  class  apart  from 
all  others  nourished  an  individuality 
so  distinct  that  it  is  still  existent. 
He  and  his  fellows  gave  each  other  a 
mutual  help  in  labour,  and  in  need  ; 
they  made  their  own  amusements  and 
arranged  their  own  festivals  ;  they  not 
only  inter-married,  but  they  raised  up 
a  curious  hereditary  relation  of  god- 
parent and  god-child,  which  was  as 
close  a  link  as  kinship,  and  bound 
whole  districts  together;  above  all 
they  spread  news  about  among  them- 
selves, for  they  often  dwelt  on  lonely 
farms  where  strangers  seldom  passed, 
and  they  came  into  touch  with  the 
outer  world  only  at  the  nearest  yearly 
fair  or  pardon.  In  one  direction  only 
were  they  largely  influenced  from 
without,  and  that  was  through  the 
Church.  Wherefore  one  finds,  as  one 
would  expect,  that  their  songs  can  be 
divided  into  two  great  classes,  that 
yet  continually  meet  and  mingle ;  the 
religious,  which  had  its  birth  in  the 
Church  or  in  its  teaching,  and  the 
secular,  which  was  the  natural  out- 
come of  a  common  gaiety  and  a  com- 
mon life. 

A     very    little     consideration    will 
show  how   strong    a    hold     upon    the 


\ 


The  Songs  of  Yesterday. 


361 


people  such  music  must  have  obtain&l. 
The  Church  was,  and  is  still,  in  spite 
of  State-encouragement  to  unbelief,  a 
very  intimate  thing  to  the  peasants. 
It  has  continually  played  a  large  part 
in  their  lives,  and  they  look  upon  it 
with  a  complete  familiarity  which  to 
the  stranger  borders  on  the  profane. 
It  has  given  them  encouragement  and 
a  benediction  for  their  labour,  and  has 
provided  them  with  a  better  share  of 
all  their  gaieties,  their  assemblies,  their 
pardons,  their  missions  and  their  fairs  ; 
it  prepared  for  them  throughout  the 
recurring  seasons  a  succession  of  pa- 
geants in  which  they  all  might  share. 
Pastorals  at  Christmas,  Passion-plays 
in  Lent,  the  splendid  summer  festivals 
of  the  Corpus  Christi  and  the  As- 
sumption, and  the  funeral  dirges  of 
All  Souls.  It  baptised  their  children, 
taught  them  at  school,  married  their 
young  people,  and  buried  their  dead  ; 
it  was  among  them  at  all  times,  guard- 
ing, consoling,  rewarding,  one  with 
them,  a  very  partner  of  their  lives. 
The  first  music  that  the  peasant  heard 
was  in  the  church,  the  first  tune  he 
learnt  to  sing  was  that  of  a  canticle ; 
one  need  not  wonder  that  the  religious 
songs  are  so  many,  the  songs  which, 
if  not  perhaps  taught  by  the  priests, 
yet  rose  directly  from  their  teaching. 
It  was  the  custom,  for  instance,  to 
spend  Christmas  Eve  in  keeping  vigil 
in  the  parish  church  till  it  was  time 
for  the  midnight  mass ;  and  during 
the  long  cold  hours  the  villagers  so 
assembled  sang  their  ancient  tradi- 
tional songs,  unwritten,  unauthorised, 
but  familiar  to  all.  Some  of  these 
popular  canticles  were  indeed  com- 
posed by  the  clergy,  but  these  are  at 
once  distinguishable  by  their  extreme 
stiffness  and  propriety.  For  the  most 
part  they  were  of  homelier  growth, 
and  often  were  strictly  local,  differing 
in  every  district ;  while  both  Noels 
and  pastorals,  the  latter  introducing 
the  shepherds  and  generally  more 


dramatic  in  character,  were  sung  by 
the  young  men  and  by  the  children 
from  door  to  door  and  farm  to  farm. 
Such  a  song  as  this  that  follows,  for 
instance,  has  been  sung  in  this  way 
for  not  less  than  four  or  five  hundred 
years  ;  it  is  included  in  a  rough  manu- 
script collection  of  similar  pieces,  dat- 
ing from  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century  and  found  in  an  old  church 
of  the  district. 

NOEL. 

"  Shepherdess,  whence  come  you, 

Whence  come  you,  say  1 " 
"  I  came  from  yonder  stable, 

Where  God  is  born  to-day, 
Between  the  ox  and  the  ass, 

Lying  in  the  hay." 

"  Shepherdess,  is  He  fine, 

Is  He  pure  and  white  1 " 
"  Finer  than  the  fine  moon 

Giving  her  light. 
Nothing  in  all  the  world, 

Is  so  fair  and  bright." 

"  Shepherdess,  is  there  naught, 

Naught  more  to  see  1 '' 
"Saint  Joseph  who  looks  on  Him, 

Adoringly  ; 
And  sweet  Mary  who  holds  the  Child 

Upon  her  knee." 

"  Shepherdess,  is  there  naught, 

Naught  more  to  tell  1 " 
"Four  little  white  angels, 

That  sing  with  good  will, 
Crying  to  tlie  King  of  Kings, 

Noel,  Noel !  " 

And  it  was  not  at  Christmas  only 
that  such  songs  were  sung  :  in  Lent 
there  were  Complaints  of  the  Passion, 
at  Easter  there  were  Allelujahs,  dur- 
ing the  month  of  Mary  there  were 
Mays  ;  and  every  saint  that  was  be- 
loved of  the  people  had  a  special  can- 
ticle in  his  honour.  They  are  still  to 
be  bought,  these  canticles,  or  at  least 
modern  versions  of  them,  for  the  sum 
of  one  halfpenny  each,  with  a  won- 
derful picture  of  the  saint  in  the 
midst  of  clouds  and  angels  ;  and  there 
are  few  houses  about  the  country  that 
have  not  at  least  one  such  pinned 


362 


The  Songs  of  Yesterday. 


upon  their  walls.  There  is  Great- 
Saint- Yves-of-Truth,  whose  hymn  de- 
scribes him  as  a  "handsome  lawyer 
(un  joli  avocat)."  There  is  Saint 
Comely,  the  patron  of  cattle,  and  Saint 
Eloi,  the  protector  of  horses,  whose 
litanies  must  be  said  and  whose  can- 
ticles must  be  sung  when  the  farm 
stock  does  not  thrive.  There  is  Saint 
Roch,  preserver  of  public  health  and 
cleanser  of  the  skin,  as  he  is  quaintly 
called  in  his  hymn,  and  one  cannot 
say  how  many  more ;  but  the  saints 
are  not  more  innumerable  than  the 
canticles.  The  Church,  at  least,  will 
see  that  her  music  is  not  forgotten ; 
and  if  some  of  the  more  ancient  songs 
slip  daily  out  of  mind,  there  are  still 
so  many  left  that  they  are  scarcely 
missed. 

As  to  the  secular  songs,  even  these 
were  not  always  wholly  secular  in 
their  employ.  They  too  on  occasions 
were  closely  connected  with  the  clergy, 
and  the  manner  of  this  connection  is 
interesting,  for  it  throws  light  upon 
the  life  of  the  people,  and  upon  the  civil 
and  feudal  dues  of  the  Church.  To 
quote  one  or  two  instances  from  this 
district  alone ;  the  Prior  of  Hede"  had 
the  right  of  the  wedding-song,  due 
from  the  newly-married  of  Hed£  on 
the  first  Sunday  after  the  wedding. 
It  was  to  be  sung  at  the  churchyard 
gate  on  the  coming  out  from  High 
Mass,  under  a  penalty  of  sixty  sols. 
The  Priory  also  of  Saint  Georges  de 
Grehaignes,  not  far  from  Saint  Malo, 
possessed  until  the  seventeenth  century 
a  feudal  right  called  the  Duty  of  Brides, 
who  were  obliged,  on  the  first  Sunday 
after  their  marriage,  to  sing  and  dance 
upon  a  flat  stone  at  the  churchyard 
gate.  At  Combourg  also,  at  Loheac, 
and  at  many  other  places,  the  same 
rights  and  customs  existed  ;  the  bride 
must  sing,  or  sing  and  dance,  upon  a 
specified  spot  near  the  church,  and  in 
some  cases  she  had  to  declare  that  she 
owed  a  kiss  to  the  seigneurie.  A 


more  curious  and  complicated  custom 
obtained  in  very  early  times  at  the 
Benedictine  Priory  of  Saint-Sauveur- 
des-Landes,  as  it  is  described  by  one  of 
the  same  community,  writing  in  the  six- 
teenth century.  Here  the  bride  had  to 
go  straight  from  the  church,  when  the 
marriage  mass  had  been  said,  and  to 
present  to  the  Prior  a  kiss  and  a 
nosegay  tied  with  green  or  blue  rib- 
bons ;  she  had  then  to  sing  nine  songs, 
and  while  singing  to  dance  up  and 
down  the  hall  with  the  Prior,  or  with 
one  of  the  community  representing 
him,  if  he  himself  was  too  old,  fat,  or 
infirm ;  after  which  she  and  her  com- 
pany were  served  with  good  wine, 
honestly,  as  the  old  phrase  ran, 
meaning  without  stint.  In  default  of 
this,  the  manuscript  goes  on  to  say, 
upon  the  following  Sunday,  after  High 
Mass  at  the  church  of  Saint  Sauveur, 
the  Prior  shall  strip  shoe  and  hose 
from  the  bride's  left  foot  (which  may 
sometimes  have  been  a  not  unpleasant 
duty),  "  and  she  shall  thus  go  home 
without  covering  upon  her  skin,  and 
further  shall  pay  sixty  sols  in  fine." 
The  individual  character  of  the 
ancient  songs  is  as  interesting  as  the 
place  that  they  held  in  the  life  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  They  were  the 
peasant's  books ;  they  stood  to  him  in 
the  place  of  newspapers  ;  by  means  of 
them  the  old  traditions  were  handed 
on  from  father  to  son,  the  old  stories 
of  by-gone  days  that  were  passing 
into  legend.  And  by  means  of  them 
also  local  history  and  current  news 
were  carried  from  place  to  place : 
that  strange  force  which  is  public 
opinion  and  which  underlay  even  the 
peasant's  servitude,  was  nourished  ; 
and  a  link  was  made  that  joined  the 
most  isolated  farms  and  the  remotest 
districts  together.  The  practice  of 
what  one  may  call  professional  min- 
strelsy was  more  or  less  confined  to  a 
class  of  singers  that  frequented  the 
castles  and  towns  ;  but  the  habit 


The  Songs  of  Yesterday. 


363 


of  singing  was  universal,  and,  with 
the  splendid  memories  of  those  who 
can  neither  read  nor  write,  to  hear 
a  song  once,  however  innumerable  its 
verses,  was  all  that  was  necessary. 
True,  it  might  be  repeated  with  some 
variations  and  an  occasional  lack  of 
sense,  but  that  mattered  little  ;  even 
to-day,  when  the  repetition  of  centuries 
has  left  many  ballads  absolutely  devoid 
of  either  rhyme  or  meaning,  the 
peasant  is  amply  content  with  them 
and  sees  nothing  lacking.  Strangers 
journeying  from  place  to  place,  fight- 
ing-men riding  in  companies  across 
the  country,  were  naturally  the  great 
spreaders  of  songs  in  the  more  central 
districts  bordering  the  great  roads ; 
as,  since  then,  French  soldiers  have 
carried  French  music  so  far  abroad 
that  an  ancient  Poitevin  Noel  has 
been  found  among  an  Indian  tribe  in 
the  depths  of  Canada,  and  a  ballad 
of  Provence  is  sung  by  the  Annamites 
far  inland  from  Saigon.  But  from 
farm  to  farm  in  the  byeways  of  High 
Brittany  where  there  was  little  of 
passing  traffic,  songs  were  mostly 
carried,  as  was  everything  else,  in- 
deed, by  the  packman,  the  travelling 
hawker  of  all  sorts  of  wares,  the 
Little  Merchant  or  gentil  Mercelot  as 
he  is  called  in  many  a  ballad  in  which 
he  plays  a  part.  He,  who  went  every- 
where and  saw  every  one,  who  was  as 
welcome  to  castle  as  to  cottage,  and 
most  welcome  where  fewest  came  and 
least  was  known  of  the  outer  world, 
was  the  minstrel  of  the  country-side, 
the  singer  of  songs,  the  teller  of  tales, 
the  newsmonger  and  the  messenger 
from  parish  to  parish  from  the  inland 
hills  to  the  flats  and  pastures  of  the 
coast.  And  so  the  songs  he  sang 
were  something  more  than  a  pastime ; 
they  spread  no  doubt  a  world  of  mis- 
information and  credulity,  but  without 
them  the  peasant  would  have  been 
perhaps  more  ignorant,  and  certainly 
more  isolated  than  he  was,  and  the 


history  which  later  he  helped  to 
make  might  never  have  come  to  be 
history. 

What  the  songs  were  that  were 
sung  by  the  Little  Merchant  one  can 
judge  by  such  as  remain,  and  they  are 
many.  It  is  true  that  the  ballads 
which  once  treated  of  current  news 
are  now  a  little  out  of  date,  and 
by  dint  of  long  corruption  are  as  misty 
and  as  mythical  as  the  remotest 
legends  ;  but  one  can  imagine  what 
they  may  have  been  by  considering 
the  Complaint  which  is  to-day  as 
popular  as  it  can  ever  have  been. 
It  is  a  doleful  ballad  which  recounts 
in  the  plainest  language  and  in  very 
great,  and  generally  quite  incorrect, 
detail,  some  crime  committed  in  the 
neighbourhood.  It  generally  follows 
a  stereotyped  course,  the  culprit  being 
described  in  certain  conventional  terms 
that  never  change,  and  always  being 
discovered  and  caught  in  the  last 
verse  but  one.  Nevertheless  it  not  only 
reaches  peasants  who,  even  in  these 
days,  never  read  or  even  see  a  news- 
paper, but  it  is  vividly  appreciated 
even  by  such  as  live  within  reach  of 
towns,  and  lingers  word  for  word  in 
their  minds  through  all  its  many 
verses,  long  after  the  whole  affair  has 
been  forgotten  by  every  one  else,  and, 
as  often  occurs,  after  succeeding  events 
have  proved  the  Complaint  to  be 
wholly  wrong.  Wherefore  even  to- 
day local  news  is  best  remembered 
when  it  is  put  into  the  old  traditional 
form  of  rhymned  verse.  The  ballads, 
which  are  still  sung  among  the  people, 
resemble  their  English  kin,  but  with 
a  difference ;  they  have  characteristics 
of  their  own.  They  are  shorter  in 
general  than  are  most  of  our  old 
ballads  ;  they  incline  to  the  chanson  ; 
they  are  frequently  set  to  a  single 
rhyme  all  through,  and  the  refrain, 
which  with  us  is  often  absent  and 
always  subordinate,  is  sometimes 
nearly  as  long  as  the  actual  verse. 


364 


The  Songs  of  Yesterday. 


Such  an  one  as  follows,  which  is  still 
very  popular,  may  be  taken  as  fairly 
typical. 

THE  PRISONER  OF  HOLLAND. 

Within  my  father's  garden 
There  grows  a  tall  green  tree, 
And  all  the  birds  from  all  the  world 
Sing  there  so  merrily. 

And  it's  oh,  beside  my  sweetheart, 

Oh,  beside  my  dear, 
It's  oh,  beside  my  sweetheart, 
How  gladly  would  I  be  ! 

The  quail  and  the  turtledove, 
The  blackbird  bold  and  free, 
And  the  kind  nightingale 
Sit  singing  on  the  tree. 
And  it's  oh,  &c. 

They  sing  unto  the  maidens 
That  still  are  fancy  free  ; 
But  I  have  a  true  lover 
And  they  do  not  sing  to  me. 
And  it's  oh,  &c. 

My  heart  has  gone  a-wandering, 
My  heart  has  gone  from  me  ; 
It's  with  my  love  in  Holland, 
Under  lock  and  key. 
And  it's  oh,  &c. 

And  if  I  sought  him,  lady, 
And  if  I  set  him  free  ? 
Oh,  I'd  give  you  Rennes  and  Paris, 
Paris  and  St.  Denys. 
And  it's  oh,  &c. 

I'd  give  you  a  broad  river 
That  runs  into  the  sea, 
And  turns  the  while  'tis  running 
Mill-wheels  three. 

And  it's  oh,  beside  my  sweetheart, 

Oh,  beside  my  dear, 
It's  oh,  beside  my  sweetheart, 
How  gladly  would  I  be  ! 

It  is  a  noticeable  fact  that  the  more 
deeply  one  penetrates  into  the  country, 
the  more  distinctly  do  the  ballads 
divide  into  two  classes,  the  melan- 
choly, which  are  nearly  always  con- 
cerned with  death,  and  the  gay  or 
comic,  which  are  much  too  freespoken 
to  bear  translation.  Such  songs  as 
are  to  be  heard  round  Dinard,  for  in- 
stance, are  infinitely  more  decent  than 
those  that  are  popular  in  the  farms 
that  border  on  the  Hunaudaye  forest, 


where  there  are  ditties  so  Rabelaisian 
that  one  is  grateful  for  the  mixture  of 
patois  and  old  French  that,  though 
sometimes  insufficiently,  obscures  their 
meaning.  An  occasion  that  here,  as 
elsewhere,  gives  rise  to  many  such 
songs  is  a  marriage  ;  and  a  curious 
custom  is  that  of  the  marriage-walk. 
On  the  day  after  the  wedding,  which 
for  this  reason  is  generally  on  a  Satur- 
day, the  bride  and  groom  and  all  their 
company  set  out  two  and  two,  to  walk 
either  into  the  nearest  large  village  or 
town,  or,  if  they  already  live  in  one, 
to  traverse  all  its  principal  streets  ; 
in  this  latter  case,  the  walk  takes 
place  in  the  evening.  Two  and  two 
the  couples  follow  each  other,  arm  in 
arm,  or  hand  in  hand,  dancing  a 
curious  running  step  with  a  long 
swing  of  the  leg  to  alternate  sides, 
and  singing  traditional  songs  that  are 
known  as  marriage -verses  (couplets 
de  noce) ;  some  of  which  are  so  old 
that  they  are  little  more  than  non- 
sense after  centuries  of  mis-repetition. 
Every  inn  passed  upon  the  walk  must 
be  entered  and  the  bride's  health 
drunk ;  and  at  every  inn  the  bride 
must  sing  a  song, —  not  such  a 
simple  matter  as  it  sounds,  as  no  mar- 
riage-walk worthy  of  the  name  will 
choose  a  route  that  passes  less  than 
six  or  eight  drinking-houses.  But 
however  many  songs  the  bride  may  be 
called  upon  to  sing,  the  traditional 
couplets  remain  the  same  that  they 
have  always  been  through  more  years 
than  one  can  hope  to  count. 

Another  kind  of  song  must  be 
mentioned,  as  it  is  very  characteristic  ; 
the  Long  Song  (chanson  -  longue), 
which  is  something  on  the  principle  of 
the  English  rhyme,  The  House  that 
Jack  built,  save  that  as  a  rule  when  it 
has  reached  its  greatest  length  of 
verse  it  gradually  decreases  again  and 
ends  only  when  it  has  once  more 
reached  the  beginning.  This  kind  of 
song  is  essentially  a  pastime  in  the 


The  Songs  of  Yesterday. 


365 


most  literal  sense  of  the  word,  andMs 
generally  sung  to  help  over  a  time  of 
labour  or  enforced  idleness.  There 
are  Long  Songs  for  the  harvest,  when 
the  crimson  buckwheat  stubble  is  cut 
and  tied  and  set  up  in  interminable 
lines  of  small  red  stooks  ;  there  are 
others  for  the  conscripts  when  they 
march  in  to  the  nearest  centre  to 
draw  their  numbers  ;  others  again  for 
the  drinker  with  a  verse  for  every 
inn  he  stops  at,  or  for  every  mug  of 
cider  that  he  empties.  Till  recently, 
too,  there  were  Long  Songs  for  the 
maidens  to  sing  as  they  span  ;  but  it 
is  only  the  old  women  who  spin  nowa- 
days, and  the  ancient  rhymes  are  full 
of  words  that  have  become  meaning- 
less and  obsolete,  now  that  the  old 
practices  have  died  out  and  the  very 
methods  of  treating  the  wool  are 
almost  forgotten. 

An  example  of  a  song  may  be 
given  that  is  sung  generally  to  chil- 
dren, with  whom,  in  the  remote 
byeways  of  the  country,  it  is  as  well- 
beloved  as  our  own  Red-Riding-Hood. 
Indeed  a  mother  sometimes  quotes 
from  it  much  as  English  mothers  may 
quote,  "  The  better  to  eat  you  with, 
my  dear  " ;  and  the  end,  if  more  cheer- 
ful, is  at  least  delightfully  vague. 
MAITEE  D'AZILIOU  is  very  old,  and 
people  of  the  country-side  are  apt  to 
declare  that  the  King  in  it  is  the  first 
King  of  Brittany,  and  the  wood,  the 
neighbouring  forest  of  La  Hunaudaye, 
on  the  borders  of  which  the  ballad 
still  lingers. 

MASTER  D'AZILIOU. 

It  was  Master  D'Aziliou 
Who  went  the  King's  young  daughter  to 
woo. 

A  hundred  leagues  he  took  her  away, 
And  there  was  none  to  say  him  nay. 

When  they  came  to  the  forest  rim, 
"  Give  me  to  eat !  "  she  begged  of  him. 

"  If  thou  art  hungry,  eat  thy  head  ; 
For  never  more  shalt  tliou  eat  bread." 


And  when  they  came  to  the  forest  side, 
"  Give  me  to  drink  !  "  again  she  cried. 

"  If  thou  would'st  drink,  then  drink  thy 

pain  ; 
For  never  shalt  thou  drink  again. 

"  Here  is  a  river  wide  and  deep, 
And  three  ladies  within  it  sleep  ; 

"  And  thou,  my  love,  hast  followed  me, 
To  add  a  fourth  to  the  other  three." 

"  Oh,  turn  at  least  thy  face,"  she  said, 
"  And  look  not  on  an  uncloth'd  maid." 

The  lady,  she  caught  him  unaware, 
And  into  the  river  tossed  him  fair. 

"  Now  help  me,  help,  my  dear,"  lie  cried, 
"And   thou    to-morrow    shalt    be    my 
bride." 

"  Dive  down,  my  master,  dive  down  deep, 
And  wed  the  ladies  that  yonder  sleep." 

"  How  canst  thou  find  thy  father's  town, 
If  thou  dost  leave  me  here  to  drown/?  " 

"  Thy  little  gray  horse  I'll  surely  ride, 
And  he  shall  be  my  homeward  guide." 

"And  what  will  the  King,  thy  father,  say, 
Who  saw  thee  ride  with  a  lover  away  ?" 

"  He'll  laugh  with  joy,  that  I  have  done 

to  thee 
That  which  thou  would'st  have   done 

to  me." 

Formerly  every  trade  had  its  dis- 
tinctive song,  but  few  of  these  are 
even  dimly  remembered.  Only  the 
Guild  of  Saint  Joseph,  the  carpenters, 
cabinet-makers,  and  ship-builders,  walk 
in  company  to  mass  every  year  as  their 
patron's  day  comes  round,  bearing 
their  ancient  green  banner  and  the 
great  nosegays  of  flowers  that,  after  a 
benediction  at  the  altar,  will  be  hung 
up  at  their  doors  ;  and  singing  as  they 
have  sung  it,  all  these  three  hundred 
years  that  the  guild  has  existed,  their 
quaint  canticle  with  its  stamping  re- 
frain that  mimics  the  sound  of  ham- 
mering. But  once  for  every  trade,  as 
has  been  said,  these  songs  existed ; 
and  now  they  are  so  nearly  forgotten 
that  only  a  stray  one  may  be  met 
with  rarely,  and  as  it  were  by  acci- 


366 


The  Songs  of  Yesterday. 


dent ;  as  in  a  little  drinking-house  of 
Saint  Enogat  was  recently  heard  the 
Song  of  the  Sawyers.  It  is  a  fine 
rollicking  ditty,  with  an  odd  refrain 
made  up  of  picturesque  oaths,  accom- 
panied by  drawing  the  moistened 
thumb-tip  sharply  down  the  door- 
panel,  and  thereby  producing  a  loud 
vibrating  noise  that  sufficiently  recalls 
the  whirring  roar  of  the  hand-saws. 
It  is  a  pity  indeed  that  these  trade- 
songs  are  so  few,  for,  to  judge  by  the 
rare  examples  that  remain,  they  were 
curious  and  individual  beyond  most 
others  ;  and  with  them  have  died  a 
host  of  ancient  customs.  In  nearly 
every  trade  the  apprentice  on  becom- 
ing a  journeyman  had  to  sing  his  song, 
though  one  does  not  know  whether 
this  was  the  trade-song  or  another  of 
his  choice  ;  and  the  same  was  exacted 
from  every  member  of  the  fraternity 
when  he  married.  All  this  is  gone ; 
yet  still  the  journeyman  pays,  when 
his  apprenticeship  is  finished,  a  small 
fee  which  is  called  the  song-penny  ; 
and  still,  when  a  workman  marries  he 
treats  some  of  his  fellows  to  cider  or 
absinthe,  and  calls  it  paying  the  song. 
The  words  linger  though  the  use  is 
dead  ;  and  to-morrow,  or  next  day,  the 
grass  will  be  green  upon  the  graves 
and  the  very  meaning  will  be  for- 
gotten. 

And  these,  with  all  the  rest  of  the 
ancient  songs,  would  have  been  for- 
gotten long  ago,  but  for  one  thing 
that  has  saved  them  till  now ;  the 
mothers  who  sing  to  their  children 
have  been  the  great  guardians  of  tra- 
ditional literature.  It  is  they  who 
have  handed  down  the  old  ballads 
and  rhymes,  who  have  sung  them  as 


lullabies  to  the  babies,  and  told  them 
as  stories  to  the  elder  ones,  who  in 
their  turn  will  hand  them  on  and  on 
again ;  it  is  from  mother  to  child  that 
the  legends  have  come  down  to  us 
across  the  ages,  so  strangely  un- 
changed in  all  the  changing  years. 
The  songs  that  die  out  are  the  songs  the 
mother  more  seldom  sings  ;  and  those 
that  live  are  the  ones  that  she  loves 
best,  and  that  the  children  about  her 
love  best.  So  MASTER  D'AZILIOU  has 
come  to  us  while  many  a  graver  ballad 
is  gone ;  and  there  are  a  hundred 
foolish  rhymes  with  jingling  refrains 
where  not  one  of  the  season-plays, 
that  were  so  popular  about  the  country- 
side, is  to  be  found  complete.  Tra- 
ditional literature  has  come  down  to 
us  through  the  children ;  it  is  worth 
while  to  be  grateful  for  it,  but  one 
wishes  that  they  had  not  exercised  so 
stern  a  right  of  selection. 

And  very  soon  even  they  will  turn 
their  backs  definitely  on  the  old  songs 
that  are  out  of  date,  and  foolishly, 
hopelessly,  shockingly  ancient  and  un- 
interesting to  those  that  have  out- 
grown them ;  and  they  will  give  up 
the  simple-minded  litanies  and  can- 
ticles, as  their  mothers  are  giving  up 
their  local  caps  and  distinctive  dresses  ; 
and  there  will  be  no  music  in  High 
Brittany  that  does  not  come  from  the 
music-halls  of  Paris  or  London.  The 
old  songs,  that  have  lived  so  many 
hundred  years,  will  be  utterly  dead 
and  done  with ;  and  granted  that 
they  are  rude,  uncouth,  and  unlovely, 
one  remembers  only  that  there  is  a 
charm  that  lingers  about  them  always. 
They  are  the  Songs  of  Yesterday,  and 
to-morrow  they  will  be  forgotten. 


367 


AN    EXAMINER'S    DREAM. 


I  SAT  in  the  Prior's  chamber  at 
Shelbrede  Priory,  a  magnificent 
vaulted  room,  still  decorated  with 
the  remains  of  clumsy  monkish  fres- 
coes, with  the  arms  of  King  James 
the  First,  and  several  ladies  in  far- 
thingales of  portentous  size  painted 
over  some  of  the  said  frescoes.  There 
was  a  heap  of  papers  to  my  right,  and 
a  heap  of  papers  to  my  left.  As  the 
grim  heap  to  the  right  diminished, 
the  smiling  heap  to  the  left  grew. 
The  book  of  fate  was  on  my  knees. 
When  I  had  read  the  seventy-fourth 
answer  to  the  question,  whether  Henry 
the  Eighth  grossly  misgoverned  Eng- 
land or  not,  I  tossed  the  paper  to 
the  left  with  a  sigh,  and  incontinently 
fell  asleep. 

Then  there  appeared  to  me  a  middle- 
aged  man  in  a  long  black  cloak,  deeply 
furred  with  minever ;  a  collar  of  SS 
was  round  his  neck,  and  several  very 
large  rings  on  his  hands.  A  coarse 
plebeian  type  of  man  he  was,  with  a 
look  of  low  cunning  about  him. 

"  Good  morrow,  Master  Crummle," 
I  said,  for  I  knew  him  at  once  ;  "  what 
is  the  news  from  Court  1  " 

"  'Tis  said  the  Queen  is  with  child ; 
grant  it  may  prove  true,  and  an  heir," 
he  replied.  "  But  the  King's  Grace 
will  be  here  anon  in  his  own  royal 
person,  being  somewhat  desirous  to 
hold  private  speech  with  yourself." 

"  Tis  an  honour  to  which  I  count 
myself  unworthy  to  aspire,  Master 
Crummle;  but  in  the  meantime  will 
it  please  you  to  taste  Father  Prior's 
sherris  1 " 

"  I  am  even  now  come,"  said  Crom- 
well, "  from  visiting  his  reverence ; 


there  is  matter  between  us  other  than 
sherris,  though  of  that  too  in  its  own 
time.  To  be  plain  with  you,  Master 
Fletcher,  it  hath  been  noised  that  you 
are  under  grave  suspicion  of  treason. 
Master  Prior  (whose  own  courses  are 
nothing  of  the  straightest)  hath  heard 
you,  late  and  early,  chuckling  and 
shouting  with  laughter,  a  feat  un- 
seemly in  itself  for  to  hear  within 
the  walls  of  a  house  of  religion,  yet 
the  more  noyous  and  beastly,  when, 
as  it  appears,  the  cause  of  these  your 
mirths  is  certain  slanders  upon  the 
King's  Grace  contained  in  these  same 
papers,  writ  by  the  students  of  that 
pernicious  Antient  of  the  Roman 
Church,  the  University  of  Oxford. 
Now  herein  it  is  marvellous  to  me 
that  you  had  not  rather  at  once  de- 
lated to  me,  or  to  some  other  discreet 
servant  of  his  Highness,  the  names  of 
these  vile  slanderers.  '  But  no,'  says 
Master  Prior,  '  he  rather  shouted  with 
seeming  delight '  A  fat  bad  man  !  Ho, 
ho,  ho  !  '  '  A  gory  tyrant  I  Ha,  ha, 
ha  !  '" 

"  But,  good  Master  Crummle,  how 
knoweth  Father  Prior  that  these  lewd 
expressions  have  reference  to  his  High- 
ness 1  Thanks  be  to  God,  his  Highness 
is  not  the  only  fat  man  in  this  his 
domain  royal ;  and  it  were  for  the  Prior 
to  cast  himself,  yea,  and  yourself  also, 
under  the  like  suspicion,  to  believe 
that  any  could  couple  with  his  Grace  the 
appellation  of  tyrant.  May  it  not  be 
that  the  gory  tyrant  (over  which 
words  it  is  like  I  have  chuckled,  yea, 
and  may  again  chuckle)  referreth  not 
rather  to  that  purpureiim  scortum, 
quod  septem  collibus  sedet  ? — though 


368 


An  Examiner's  Dream. 


such  words  must  indeed  be  spoke  with 
bated  breath  within  these  walls,  Mas- 
ter Crummle." 

"  As  for  that,"  he  replied,  "  you 
may  ease  yourself.  The  scortum  is 
somewhat  unpurpled  by  now.  And 
Master  Prior  and  Father  Antony  are 
at  this  moment  packing  to  be  off  to 
the  Council,  which  will,  I  trust,  deal 
sharply  with  them  as  known  fautors 
of  the  imposture  of  Elizabeth  Barton, 
the  traitor  Moore,  and  the  rest  of  the 
brood." 

I  ran  to  the  window  and  saw  in- 
deed our  good  father  bound  upon  a 
pack-horse,  with  his  legs  tied  under 
the  animal's  belly,  and  the  cellarer 
undergoing  the  same  ignominious  pro- 
cess of  ligature  at  the  hands  of  two 
stout  serving-men.  A  string  of  pack- 
horses  was  at  the  same  time  being 
laden  with  the  furniture  and  hangings 
of  the  chapel,  and  two  of  Cromwell's 
attendants  were  plying  pickaxes  with 
all  their  might  at  a  newly-made  hole 
in  the  flagstone  of  the  court,  where  it 
is  not  improbable  that  the  monks  had 
bestowed  their  choicest  plate  and  trea- 
sure-chest. My  own  case,  however, 
was  likely  to  prove  so  serious,  that  I 
felt  but  little  interest  in  the  fate  of 
my  late  hosts,  as  I  supposed  I  must 
now  call  them. 

I  returned  to  my  chair  therefore, 
and  sat  in  dejection,  while  Cromwell 
ferreted  round  the  room  and  tapped 
at  the  panels  of  Sussex  oak,  in  the 
hope  of  discovering  a  hollow  or  sliding 
one.  He  then  turned  to  the  piles  of 
examination  papers  and  began  to  read 
detached  sentences.  "  King  Henry  was 
like  the  present  Emperor  of  Germany. 
Oh,  the  villain,  that  is  a  premunire  at 
least ;  but  I  know  of  no  potentate 
who  bears  such  a  title.  An  my  late 
master  the  Cardinal  (of  blessed  me- 
mory) had  had  his  will,  King  Harry 
had  been  Emperor  of  Rome  and  more. 
The  army  was  put  by  King  Henry 
into  a  regular  uniform  of  blue  and  red  ; 


that  is  a  valiant  knave,  to  say  such 
things.  Yea,  the  Tower  Guard  shall 
be  new  drest  this  very  month,  and 
Master  What-do-you-call-him  shall 
trail  a  halbert  for  his  reward.  In 
spite  of  the  King's  occasional  exhibi- 
tions of  temper,  says  another.  Well, 
Master  Fletcher,  between  you  and  me 
I  am  somewhat  of  this  man's  mind  ; 
hard  it  is  to  tame  the  Royal  Lion 
when  his  mane  is  bristling.  Here  is 
one  who  will  slander  his  Highness  for 
the  few  paltry  ducats  he  loses  at  the 
play-table,  and  yet  values  him  not  for 
giving  13s.  4c/.  to  the  collection  in 
church  the  next  day.  Here  another 
says,  His  Majesty  used  to  jmrchase 
sentences  of  illegality  of  his  marriage 
from  the  Pope  or  any  one  that  would 
give  it  him ;  he  hath  forgotten  his 
grammar,  as  well  as  his  liegance ;  the 
Council  shall  speak  with  him.  In 
short,  it  seemeth  to  me,  Master 
Fletcher,  that  there  is  little  here  but 
rank  treason  and  heresies,  such  as 
your  University  hath  ever  taught. 
There  is  matter  here  which  may  swell 
his  Highness'  coffers  with  much  of 
the  fat  manors  of  these  colleges  of 
yours ;  ay,  and  decorate  Bocardo 
with  a  fair  sprinkling  of  heads  and 
arms." 

His  speech  was  interrupted  by  the 
notes  of  a  trumpet  in  the  courtyard  ; 
and  in  a  few  moments  we  were  on  our 
knees  in  the  presence  of  bluff  King 
Hal  himself.  He  had  been  hunting 
in  Wolmer  Forest,  and  was  somewhat 
travel-stained.  I  noticed  that  he  had 
already  a  slight  limp,  and  had  ac- 
quired a  bloody  ferocity  of  countenance 
in  addition  to  the  deep  sensual  jowl 
which  he  had  inherited  from  his  grand- 
father King  Edward  the  Fourth. 

"Well,  what  have  you  found?" 
was  his  only  greeting  hurled  at  Crom- 
well. 

"  The  rats  had  warning  of  our 
coming,  so  please  your  Grace,"  replied 
the  Minister ;  "  and  it's  thought  have 


An  Examiner's  Dream. 


369 


hid  the  best  of  their  treasure ;  but 
Simon  Welland  and  Dick  Croft  are 
even  now  digging  it  out.  I  have  by 
me  an  inventorium  of  such  tapestries 
and  jewels  as  it  hath  pleased  the  Lord 
to  direct  us  to."  With  this  he  began 
to  read  :  "  Item,  two  pyxes  richly  set 
with  onyx,  six  copes  with  the  history 
of  the  eleven  thousand  virgins  of 
Cullen  broidered  on  them  :  item,  a  bed 
of  state  for  such  as  visit  the  monastery, 
in  which  it  seemeth  this  lewd  person 
here  [the  King  scowled  fiercely  at 
me]  hath  been  reposing  for  some 
weeks  plotting  treason  against  your 
Highness'  Grace ;  item,  one  golden 

cross  with " 

"  Peace,  man,"  said  the  King 
savagely.  "  Where  is  the  coin,  where 
are  the  ingots'?  These  things  will 
take  weeks  to  convert  into  moneys, 
and  it  is  moneys  I  must  have,  and 
that  presently,  or  I'll  hang  Father 
Prior  and  you  too,  Crummle,  to  his 
own  rood-loft." 

"So  please  your  Majesty,"  said 
Cromwell  who  was  evidently  prepared 
for  this  outburst,  "  I  have  by  me  here 
a  bag  of  fifty  nobles,  which,  if  your 
Grace  would  deign  to  accept  them 
from  a  faithful  servitor,  may  suffice 
for  present  necessities,  till  Master 
Prior  be  taught  by  your  Highness's 
Council  that  the  property  of  a  subject 
in  his  goods  excludeth  from  them  all 

persons  save  that  of  his  Prince " 

Here  I  ventured  to  interrupt, 
though  in  a  low  voice  and  with  much 
trembling  :  "  An  it  please  you,  Master 
Crummle,  you  can't  quote  Hobbes  yet. 
He  is  not  in  your  period." 

The  Minister  would  have  replied, 
but  that  Henry  with  a  wave  of  the 
hand,  to  indicate  that  he  was  molli- 
fied, exclaimed  :  "  Well,  'tis  well,  and 
now  whom  have  we  here  1 " 

"  'Tis    one  Master    Fletcher,   your 

Majesty,  a  Regent  in  the  University 

of  Oxon,  who  hath  come  hither  with 

vast   piles    of    papers    writ    by    the 

No.  443. — VOL.    LXXIV. 


scholars  of  the  schools  in  that  city. 
I  have  somewhat  examined  them  and 
find  that  they  stink  most  putridly  of 
treason ;  and  this  fellow,  albeit  he 
will  doubtless  pretend  himself  to  be  a 
corregidor  of  such  vile  opinions,  hath 
been  heard  by  Father  Prior  (whom  I 
have  despatched  but  an  hour  agone 
upon  the  London  road,  to  answer 
before  the  Council),  to  laugh  in  un- 
seemly guise  when  reading  of  sundry 
slanders  against  your  Highness  con- 
tained in  these  presents.  It  seemed 
me  good  therefore  to  detain  him  until 
your  Highness's  arrival,  that  he  be 
presently  examined  with  torments,  an 
he  knoweth  aught  of  the  machinations 
of  the  Doctors,  Proctors,  and  Masters 
Regent  of  that  his  University,  whom 
it  may  at  this  time  be  mighty 
convenient  for  your  Highness's  affairs, 
if  we  can  discover  them  to  be  deeply 
confounded  with  the  religions  of  your 
realm,  in  a  premunire,  if  not  under 
one  of  the  late  Acts  of  your  faithful 
Parliament  for  the  security  of  your 
royal  person  whom  God  long  pre- 
serve." Cromwell's  own  grammar  was 
none  of  the  best,  it  will  be  noticed, 
but  everyone  was  apt  to  get  tangled 
in  relative  sentences  in  those  days. 

"Ha  !  very  good,"  replied  the  King, 
"  very  good  !  He  looketh  a  likely 
knave.  There  needeth  no  form  of 
law  where  I  am  present ;  for  an  I  be 
virtually  present  in  all  my  High 
Courts  of  Law  and  Equity,  how  much 
more  are  all  those  said  courts  em- 
bodied wherever  I  am  carnally  present. 
Is't  not  so,  Crummle  1  " 

"  'Tis  so  in  truth,  your  Highness  ; 
and  albeit  it  is  not  convenient  at  this 
time  to  carry  with  us,  on  these  our 
journey  ings,  a  portable  rack  (though  I 
hope  in  brief  to  be  able  to  devise 
such  a  wished  for  conclusion),  yet  we 
may  without  ill  convenience  kindle  a 
fire  upon  the  hearth,  and  so  place  the 
knave  with  the  soles  of  his  feet  there- 
to, that  in  a  little  he  will  be  con- 

B  B 


370 


An  Examiner's  Dream. 


strained  to  say  that  which  is  in  his 
heart,  or  indeed  to  say  what  your 
Grace  listeth  shall  be  in  his  heart. 
Or  if  that  should  seem  a  tedious 
method,  I  have  here  in  my  wallet  two 
little  engines  which  being  applied  to 
his  thumbs,  or  toe- thumbs,  may  extract 
such  confession  with  less  pains  of 
attention,  your  Highness." 

"  No,  good  Crummle,"  said  the  King 
rising,  and  now  in  high  good  humour 
he  leaned  on  his  faithful  servitor's 
neck.  "I  have  it,  man,  I  have  it  ! 
He  shall  be  put  to  the  peine  forte  et 
diire.  He  shall  refuse  to  plead, 
Crummle  ;  he  shall ;  he  must  be  made 
to  refuse  to  plead ;  and  then  he  shall 
be  pressed  to  death  with  these  same 
scurvy  papers.  There  is  weight  enough 
here  to  press  to  death  half  a  dozen  of 
these  examining  fellows.  Ha,  ha ! 
We'll  examine  the  examiner  !  "  And 
he  laughed  hugely  at  his  own  excellent 
royal  joke.  "  Ho,  knave  without 
there,  bring  me  a  flask  of  canary  from 
Master  Prior's  private  bin,  and  send 
two  stout  knaves  here  to  bind  the 
prisoner." 

"  But  I  don't  refuse  to  plead,  your 
Majesty,"  I  replied.  "  I  plead  not 
guilty  at  once." 

"Peace,  fool,"  said  the  King;  "you 
can't  traverse  the  indictment." 

"  I  will  not  peace,"  I  replied,  for 
my  blood  was  up.  "  In  the  first  place 
there  is  no  indictment  drawn.  In 
the  second  place  that  statute  about 
not  traversing  the  indictment  won't 
be  made  for  nearly  three  hundred 
years,  and  has  been  repealed  since 
then  ;  and  when  it  did  exist,  it  only 
applied  to  libel,  which  is  an  offence 
not  yet  known  to  the  law." 

"How  absolute  the  knave  is,"  ex- 
claimed the  King,  somewhat  puzzled. 
"  I  am  the  law,  fool,  and  it  is  treason 
to  say  that  anything  is  not  known  to 
me  ;  for  that  were  to  write  me  down 
an  unlearned  man,  whereas  it  is  well 
known  I  speak  four  languages,  and 


am  the  most  learned  prince  in 
Christendom." 

"  In  theology,  so  please  your 
Majesty,  none  can  deny  it ;  but  in 
law,  no.  Moreover,  it  is  too  early 
for  you  to  say  Rex  est  Lex ;  your 
Majesty  is  travelling  out  of  your 
period.  Not  till  your  dynasty  has 
gone  to  its  last  account  shall  another 
learned  prince  put  forth  that  claim." 

"  Quod  principi  placuit  leyis  habet 
vigor  em"  retorted  Henry,  now  begin- 
ning to  be  anxious  to  display  his 
learning  before  putting  me  to  the 
torture. 

"  Pardon,  your  Majesty,"  I  replied  ; 
"  again  you  are  travelling  out  of  your 
period.  That  was  for  your  Majesty's 
ancestor  and  namesake,  King  Henry 
the  Second,  to  say,  not  for  you. 
Your  Majesty  cannot  be  ignorant 
that  both  Bracton  and  Sir  John 
Fortescue  have  since  defined  the  limits 
of  your  prerogative  royal  to  be — 

"  Ah,  le  Court-Mantel,  God  sain 
him  !  "  exclaimed  Henry.  "  And  he 
had  a  quick  way  of  dealing  with  a 
shaveling  priest,  too.  Of  all  my 
ancestors  'tis  he  whom  I  most  revere ; 
and  I  will  avenge  him  upon  the  traitor 
Thomas  Becket  too,  shall  I  not,  good 
Crummle  1  Mark  you,  Crummle,  we'll 
to  Canterbury,  and  pull  down  that 
shrine  one  of  these  days  ;  and  this 
fellow,  that  prateth  of  indictments 
and  statutes  and  prerogatives,  shall  go 
with  us  and  draw  up  a  swingeing  in- 
dictment against  the  person  of  Thomas, 
sometime  Archbishop  of  Canterbury." 

This  fortunate  turn  of  the  conver- 
sation kindled  my  wits  somewhat, 
and  I  hastened  to  make  answer : 
'""  That  will  I,  your  Highness,  and 
right  willingly ;  in  good  sooth  he  was 
the  scurviest  knave  in  Christendom, 
though  there  be  of  our  Masters 
Regent,  yea,  and  of  our  Doctors,  too, 
at  this  present,  who  would  write  him 
down  martyr." 

"Martyr!"  cried   the   King,    "I'll 


An  Examiner's  Dream. 


371 


martyr  him  and  stick  his  rotting  boites 
on  every  gargoyle  of  his  own  cathe- 
dral !  And  that  great  opal,  mark 
you,  Crummle,  the  opal  that  King 
Sigismund  presented  to  the  shrine 
when  he  came  to  visit  my  goodsire 
Henry  the  Fifth  of  our  name,  shall 
shine  on  the  neck  of  my  pretty  Jane." 

"  'Twould  be  well  if  your  Highness 
consulted  Master  Taverner,  your  royal 
jeweller,  before  so  dealing  with  the 
Queen's  grace  ;  for  I  cannot  hide  from 
your  Highness  that  Master  Leighton 
sayeth  he  hath  been  grievously  dis- 
-  appointed  in  the  jewels  which  he  is 
about  removing  from  the  several 
monkish  shrines.  He  findeth  ever 
that  these  knaves  have  melted  the 
original  jewels  into  rich  canary  wine, 
or  given  them  to  their  lemans,  and 
that  those  which  appear  veritably  to 
gleam  in  these  shrines  are  nothing  but 
base  glass." 

"  Should  that  indeed  prove  so,"  said 
the  King,  "  and  I  have  heard  the 
same  noised  by  Master  Aprice,  'twill 
be  enough  to  bring  all  the  monks  of 
Christ  Church  under  a  felony,  and  a 
felony  that  smacketh  of  a  treason  too  ; 
for  corporation  can  never  die,  eh, 
Master  Pragmatic  [turning  to  me],  and 
must  ever  respond  for  their  actions  as 
ultimum  quadrcmtem  1 "  I  did  not 
think  it  prudent  to  refute  this  novel 
doctrine,  so  I  merely  bowed  assent. 
"  But  tell  me,"  went  on  Henry,  "  Sir 
Lawyer,  why  hate  ye  so  this  blessed 
martyr,  Thomas  1 " 

"  If  your  Majesty  had  had  to  over- 
look," I  replied,  "  such  screeds  of 
learning,  and  such  screeds  of  ignor- 
ance, on  the  subject  of  the  same 
martyr,  as  hath  fallen  to  my  lot  of 
late,  'twould  be  of  small  wonder  to 
you  that  I  should  hate  him.  I  could 
make  your  Grace  merry." 

Henry  sighed.  "  Ah,  good  sir, 
I  am  but  seldom  merry  now,  save 
at  a  strapado,  or  good  batch  of 
heretics  at  Smiffel.  The  wives  and 


the  gout  have  played  the  devil  with 
me,  I  tell  you." 

"As  I  was  saying,  I  could  make 
your  Grace  merry  with  an  answer 
which  was  once  delivered  to  me,  when 
I  had  propounded  to  one  to  write  a 
life  of  your  Highness's  late  minister, 
the  Cardinal  of  blessed  memory." 

Henry  had  an  awkward  knack 
of  interruption.  "  Ah,  the  Cardinal 
[and  he  sighed  again] !  I  tell  thee, 
Crummle,  man,  I  find  thee  but  a 
sorry  knave,  when  I  think  on  the  good 
peace  of  rnind  I  enjoyed  when  the 
Cardinal  was  at  my  elbow.  He  may 
have  loved  Home  well,  but  he  loved 
England  better,  and  me  best  of  all ; 
and  he  gave  me  ever  such  comfortable 
absolutions.  But  thou,  Crummle,  art 
little  better  than  a  heathen.  Well, 
Master  Examiner,  continue  thine 
history." 

"  '  Before,'  writes  me  this  innocent, 
'  Thomas  Wolsey  was  made  a  Cardinal, 
he  was  equal  to  the  King  in  grandeur ; 
but  afterwards  he  was  very  much  the 
reverse.  He  used  to  wash  the  feet  of 
thirteen  poor  beggars  daily,  and  was 
always  very  dirty  himself.  One  day 
the  King  said  to  those  who  sat  at 
meat  with  him,  "  Is  there  none  of  you 
who  will  rid  me  of  this  turbulent 
priest  1 "  Four  knights  who  heard 
him  took  an  oath  to  kill  him.  They 
crossed  the  sea  and  killed  him,  scat- 
tering his  brains  on  the  steps.'  Your 
Majesty  will  perceive  how  the  memory 
of  the  accursed  Thomas  leaveneth  the 
minds  of  the  young,  who  cannot  but 
confound  him  with  the  blessed  Thomas ; 
though  which  were  the  accursed  and 
which  the  blessed  it  ill  beseemeth  me 
to  speak  in  your  Majesty's  presence, 
seeing  your  Majesty  of  late  brought 
the  one  under  a  premunire  and  now 
designeth  to  indict  the  other  of 
treason." 

"A    curse    on    all     cardinals     and 
ministers  and    monks    and   martyrs," 
cried  Henry.      "  More  canary,  fellow, 
B  B  2 


372 


An  Examiner's  Dream. 


I  tell  thee,  bring  me  more  canaryj 
Dirty  was  a'  1  I'll  warrant  it  !  "  The 
King  himself  had  his  magnificent 
doublet  and  trunk  hose  splashed  with 
deer's  blood,  and  smelt  most  vilely  of 
civet.  "  They're  all  a  dirty  crew  ;  but 
there  sha'n't  be  one  of  'em  left  in 
England  when  I  die.  I'll  be  Pope 
and  Emperor  and  King  in  one,  ay, 
and  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  too. 
Knowest  thou,  Master  Examiner,  that 
my  good  sire  designed  me  for  that 
office,  and  ever  entrained  me  in  sound 
theology  that  I  might  fill  it  worthily  1 
Am  I  not  the  mighty  lord  that  broke 
the  bonds  of  Rome  1 " 

"  Concerning  the  Archbishopric, 
your  Grace,"  I  replied,  "  it  is  of  great 
moment  to  me  to  have  heard  the  same 
from  your  royal  lips,  for  anon  I  shall 
be  able  to  write  against  one  Master 
Froude,  who  holdeth  that  supposed 
design  of  your  royal  father  to  be 
untrue.  But  I  must  again  protest 
against  your  Majesty  travelling  out 
of  your  period  and  quoting  a  poet  of 
the  eighteenth  century ;  and  indeed 
were  your  Majesty  of  that  learning 
that  you  profess  you  would  at  least 
quote  him  rightly,  though  to  your 
Majesty's  excusation  'tis  but  honest  to 
say  that  not  one  of  these  your  subjects, 
whose  writings  Master  Crummle  but 
now  so  closely  scrutinised,  have  got  as 
near  the  right  reading  as  your  royal 
self,  though  some  twenty  have  at- 
tempted to  give  the  passage." 


Here  Henry  interrupted  again. 
"  But  this  Master  Froude,  sir,  hath 
he  indeed  dared  to  impugn  my  archi- 
episcopal  dignity  1  'Tis  clean  treason, 
sir,  against  the  Act  of  Supremacy ;  he 
shall  suffer  this  week  !  Is  he,  too,  of 
your  treasonous  University "?  " 

"  Indeed,  your  Majesty  would  do  a 
grievous  wrong  to  a  subject  than 
whom  you  have  none  more  faithful 
and  loving ;  though  Master  Froude 

O    -7  O 

hath  but  lately  passed  beyond  the 
range  of  your  royal  wrath,  leaving 
behind  him  a  name  that  the  English 
folk  will  not  willingly  let  die  ;  howbeit 
some  snarling  dogs  will  have  it  he  was 
no  good  chronicler.  And  where  Master 
Froude's  name  is  spoken  in  the  world 
of  letters  your  own  will  not  be  utterly 
forgotten.  Indeed  methinks,  oh  King, 
'tis  your  best  chance  of  immortality. 
For  after  all,  your  Majesty,  I  can  but 
abide  by  the  former  words,  which  I  do 
now  avow ;  you  are  but  a  fat  bad 
man  ;  if  indeed  you  are  King  Henry 
at  all.  I  believe  now  [rubbing  my 
eyes]  you're  nothing  but  Father  Tony 
the  cellarer,  playing  a  scurvy  trick  on 
me,  and  have  but  brought  my  after- 
noon draught  of  sack."  With  this  I 
jumped  up  and  dug  him  in  the 
ribs — 

But  it  was  neither  the  King  nor 
Father  Antony.  It  was  Mrs. 
Aylwin  bringing  in  my  tea,  and 
another  enormous  packet  of  papers 
from  Professor  L. 


373 


THE  BEST  SNAKE  STORY  IN  THE  WORLD. 


THE  beauty  of  the  best  snake  story 
in  the  world  is  that  there  was  really 
no  snake  in  it,  which  is  more  than 
can  be  said  even  of  the  Garden  of 
Eden. 

It  had  been  very  hot  that  summer 
on  the  ranehe.  Men  work  in  the 
fields  in  California  with  the  thermo- 
meter at  1 1 0°,  while  they  fall  down  of 
heat  apoplexy  in  the  streets  of  New 
York  and  Chicago  at  90°.  That  is 
the  maxim  they  preach  to  the  stranger 
in  the  West,  and  it  has  truth  in  it ; 
but  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
even  in  California  men  work  in  the 
fields  in  comfort  in  such  a  tempera- 
ture :  and  that  summer  the  thermo- 
meter had  gone  very  near  115°.  So 
we  were  grateful  enough  to  get 
away  into  the  hills  for  a  spell,  with  a 
wagon  and  a  tent  and  the  usual  outfit 
of  pots  and  pans,  three  of  us,  white 
men,  with  Louie,  the  Mexican  (whom 
we  called,  in  the  vernacular,  the 
Greaser),  to  mind  the  horses  and 
make  himself  generally  useful.  Our 
programme  was  to  fish  the  rivers, 
shoot  deer,  and  possibly  a  grizzly-bear, 
discover  a  gold-mine,  and  go  back  to 
the  ranehe  with  a  prospective  fortune. 

We  had  just  pitched  our  tent. 
Down  on  the  plain  for  weeks  before 
we  had  been  sleeping  out  on  our 
verandahs,  but  the  air  of  the  hills  had 
a  nip  in  it  by  contrast.  It  was  late 
in  the  afternoon,  but  there  was  still 
plenty  of  sunshine.  I  followed  Louie 
round  a  shoulder  of  the  hill,  going  to 
fetch  water  at  a  little  stream  tumbling 
from  somewhere  among  the  snowy 
peaks  that  capped  the  zone  of  firs  on 
the  great  mountains  above  us.  These 
mountains  had,  at  some  time  or  other, 


sent  down  a  little  avalanche  of  small 
rocks  that  lay  heaped  on  our  left  as 
we  walked.  The  scene  was  the  most 
peaceful  imaginable. 

In  an  instant  a  succession  of  small 
incidents  sent  the  peace  to  limbo. 
Louie  dropped  his  pannikin  with  a 
tinkling  clatter,  crying  "  Sancta 
Maria  !  "  in  a  voice  of  terror.  At  the 
same  moment  I  heard  the  dread  rattle 
of  a  snake,  and  saw  its  length  gleam 
under  Louie's  feet  and  vanish  among 
the  rocks. 

"  Sancta  Maria  !  "  he  tottered  back 
into  my  arms,  his  dark  face  livid  with 
fear. 

"What  is  it,  Louie?  Did  the 
snake  strike  you  1  " 

"  In  the  foot,"  he  said,  "  yes." 
"  Let  us  get  back  to  camp.     Quick, 
lean  on  me." 

"  What's  the  good,  boss  ?  "  he  asked. 
"I'm  a  dead  man."  Nevertheless  he 
came  with  me,  leaning  on  my  shoulder, 
and  making  a  lame  walk  of  it. 

Down  in  the  plain  we  had  no  rattle- 
snakes. For.  miles  about  the  ranehe 
there  were  no  rocks  for  them,  and 
though  there  were  plenty  of  ground- 
squirrel  holes  we  never  saw  snakes 
about  them.  The  thought  of  such 
things  did  not  enter  our  heads,  and 
Louie,  weary  of  his  boots,  had  kicked 
them  off,  with  the  long  spurs,  and 
come  with  me  in  his  stocking-feet  on 
this  quest  for  water. 

A  word  explained  to  the  boys  what 
had  happened. 

"  Strychnine's  the  best,"  said  Jock 
Peters,  who  was  our  authority  on  the 
question  of  snake-bites,  which  he  had 
studied  in  Australia  ;  "  but  we  haven't 
got  it ;  so  we  must  do  what  we  can 


374 


The  Best  Snake  Story  in  the  World. 


with  this.  But  it's  a  poor  chance,"  he 
added  in  a  whisper,  as,  to  save  time, 
he  knocked  the  neck  off  a  bottle  of 
brandy.  "  Drink  it,  Louie,"  he  said  ; 
"  never  mind  cutting  your  lip  ;  get  it 
down, — that's  the  chief  thing." 

The  Mexican's  teeth  chattered  as 
we  forced  in  the  neck  of  the  bottle ; 
but  he  drank  a  great  gulp  without 
winking.  The  liquor,  or  pickle  either, 
to  scorch  the  throat  of  a  Mexican  has 
yet  to  be  found. 

Jim  Kelly,  the  Irishman,  was 
saddling  the  freshest  of  our  horses,  to 
ride  at  best  speed  into  Lindsay,  eleven 
miles  away  in  the  haze  of  the  plains, 
for  the  doctor.  In  a  minute  he  was 
pounding  away  among  the  hills.  "  Fix 
up  a  light  as  high  as  you  can  put  it 
if  it's  dark  before  we  get  back,"  he 
shouted  as  he  went. 

We  pulled  the  sock  off  the  Mexican's 
foot.  Already  it  was  swelling  fast, 
with  a  purplish  tinge  round  a  tiny 
blue  spot,  from  which  the  smallest 
imaginable  drop  of  blood  had  welled. 

"  Any  good  cauterising  it  ?  "  I  sug- 
gested. 

"  Not  a  mag,"  Jock  said  shortly. 
"  Go  on  with  the  brandy  and  keep 
him  moving  ;  that's  his  only  chance." 
The  Mexican's  face  was  dreadful  to 
see  ;  he  called,  in  his  terror,  on  every 
saint  in  the  Church ;  but  he  declared 
he  suffered  no  pain.  Jock,  improving 
the  occasion,  began  relating  in  a  low 
voice  to  me  anecdotes  of  all  the 
snake-bites  he  had  known.  "  One 
boy  I've  seen  that  did  recover,"  he 
said ;  "  and  that  was  from  the  bite  of 
a  brown  snake,  and  a  brown  snake's 
as  bad,  they  say,  as  a  rattler, — an 
Australian  brown  snake,  that  is  ;  a 
rattler  can't  be  worse.  But  this  boy 
was  stupid  all  his  life  after ;  not  as 
quick-witted  as  the  average,  which  is 
not  much  to  say.  And  at  times,  just 
at  the  time  of  year  at  which  he'd  been 
bitten,  the  wound  got  red  again  and 
swelled,  and  he  was  stupider  than 


ever.  Louie  had  on  a  sock  ;  the 
rattler'd  have  had  to  go  through  that ; 
he  might  have  spent  a  bit  of  his 
poison  there ;  that  gives  Louie  a  sort 
of  a  chance.  Does  it  hurt  you  now, 
Louie  1 " 

"  No,  boss,  no,  not  hurt." 

The  swelling  was  spreading  ;  going 
up  the  ankle  and  right  up  the  leg,  and 
the  man  began  to  talk  slowly  and 
painfully. 

"I  remember,"  said  Jock,  "going 
along  a  ridge  of  a  terrace  on  a  steep 
river-bank.  The  river  was  full  of 
sharks,  and  I  met  a  brown  snake 
coming  along  the  ridge  towards  me. 
There  wasn't  room  to  turn,  and  I 
couldn't  take  to  the  river  for  the 
sharks,  and  I  hadn't  a  gun.  But  my 
pal  coming  behind  had  a  gun,  and  he 
poked  the  barrel  in  between  ray  legs 
and  blew  the  brute  to  bits." 

"  Is  that  true,  Jock  1  "  I  asked. 

"  My  heaven,  d'you  think  I'd  lie  at 
such  a  time  as  this  ?  "  with  a  glance 
at  Louie's  face. 

"  Are  you  getting  sleepy,  man  1 " 
he  said ;  then,  as  Louie  did  not 
answer,  he  took  him  under  the  arm, 
and  signalling  me  to  do  the  same  on 
the  other  side,  we  kept  him  moving 
between  us  up  and  down  and  round 
the  tent.  From  time  to  time  we 
made  him  drink  more  brandy.  He 
had  taken  half  a  bottle,  but  it  seemed 
to  have  no  effect  on  him. 

"  It  stimulates  the  heart's  action, 
you  know,"  Jock  explained,  "just  as 
the  poison  goes  to  stop  it ;  but 
strychnine's  the  best,  acts  as  nerve- 
tonic.  It's  a  deal  to  do  with  the 
nerves,  this  snake-bite  business." 

We  heard  the  little  ground-owls 
begin  whistling  to  each  other  from 
the  mouths  of  the  squirrel-holes  away 
down  in  the  plain,  and  the  bats  and 
moths  began  to  come  out  as  the  sun 
sank  out  of  sight.  They  brushed  our 
faces  as  we  continued  to  march  the 
Mexican  to  and  fro.  Presently  I  left 


The  Best  Snake  Story  in  the  World. 


375 


the  work  to  Jock,  and  rigged  up  a 
pine-torch  for  a  signal-light  on  the 
pole  which  I  took  from  the  wagon. 
The  job  took  some  while,  but  at  length 
I  got  the  light  fairly  flaring. 

"  Look  at  his  face,"  Jock  whis- 
pered to  me  as  I  came  back  to  him. 

It  was  a  shocking  sight  under  the 
flickering  rays,  swollen,  distorted, 
livid.  The  man's  arm  was  swollen 
too,  as  I  felt  when  I  took  my  place  to 
support  him.  His  movements  were 
lethargic  and  heavy,  so  that  I  won- 
dered that  Jock,  unaided,  could  have 
kept  him  moving  so  long. 

"  Give  him  more  brandy,"  Jock 
directed,  "  more  ;  that's  it, — he's  had 
nearly  all  the  bottle.  There's  a 
chance,"  he  went  on  presently ;  "I 
really  believe  there  is.  I  thought 
he'd  have  been  dead  before  now. 
Maybe  he  don't  mean  dying  after  all. 
A  white  man'd  have  been  dead  half 
an  hour  ago." 

"  I  wish  the  doctor'd  come." 

"  Mighty  little  good  wishing." 

The  weary  tramp  went  on.  Twice 
I  had  to  replenish  the  beacon-torch, 
and  once  more  we  gave  the  Mexican 
a  gulp  of  the  brandy,  which  finished 
the  bottle.  As  I  was  fixing  the  torch 
for  the  third  time,  I  heard  a  shout 
down  the  canon.  I  answered  with 
all  my  might,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
Jim  Kelly  and  the  doctor  rode  into 
the  circle  of  the  flaring  light. 

"  Alive  ? "  the  doctor  asked. 

"  Alive,  yes,"  said  Jock  ;  "  alive 
and  that's  about  all.  He  can't  speak." 

"  What  have  you  given  him, — 
brandy  1 — that's  right.  How  much  1 " 

"  A  bottle-ful." 

"Right,  and  you've  kept  him 
awake?  That's  it.  He  won't  die 
now.  Wonderful  fellows,  these 
Greasers.  He'd  have  died  before 
this,  if  he  meant  dying.  Let's  see 
the  wound." 

The  candle  burned  as  quietly  in  the 
still  air  as  in  a  room.  The  Mexican's 


foot  was  swollen,  so  that  it  scarcely 
looked  like  a  human  member  ;  but  in 
the  midst  of  the  purple  swelling  was 
a  white  circle  with  the  little  blue 
mark,  plainly  evident,  for  its  centre. 
The  Mexican  seemed  to  feel  no  pain, 
even  when  the  doctor  handled  the 
wound  and  pressed  it  upward  with 
his  fingers. 

"  Hold  the  candle  close,"  he  said. 
"It's  blamed  strange,"  he  added, 
"  blamed  strange,"  pecking  at  the 
little  blue  mark  with  his  forceps ; 
"  the  fang's  in  the  wound  yet.  I 
never  heard  of  that  happening  before. 
Shake  him  a  bit ;  don't  let  him  go 
drowsy." 

His  swollen  limbs  wobbled  like 
jelly  under  the  treatment.  It  was 
horrid. 

The  doctor  gave  a  little  dig,  and 
then  a  little  tug  with  his  forceps. 
Presently  he  held  up  to  the  candle,  in 
the  clutch  of  the  forceps,  a  long  white 
spine,  and  regarded  it  curiously. 
Then  he  said  in  a  hollow  voice  :  "  Do 
you  know  what  it  is  1  It's  not  a  fang 
at  all  ;  it's  a  cactus-spike." 

"  What !  " 

A  strangely  perplexed  little  group 
of  men  gazed  into  each  other's  faces 
with  questioning  eyes,  under  the  stars 
that  twinkled  out  over  the  snow-topped 
edges  of  the  Sierras. 

"  Only  a  thorn  !  " 

"  Look  at  it,"  the  doctor  said. 
"  You  can  see  the  thing  for  your- 
selves." 

One  after  the  other  we  examined 
the  spine,  feeling  its  point  with  a 
finger  that  we  certainly  should  not 
have  ventured  near  it  had  it  been  a 
poison-fang.  "  And  there's  nothing 
else  in  the  wound  1 "  Jock  asked. 

"Not  a  thing  else." 

"  And  you  mean  to  tell  me  that 
I've  wasted  two  hours  of  my  time,  to 
say  nothing  of  a  bottle  of  our  best 
brandy,  in  walking  about  a  Greaser 
that  has  nothing  the  matter  but  a 


376 


The  Best  Snake  Story  in  the  World. 


thorn  in  his  foot1?  Well,  I  am 
darned." 

"  That's  about  what  you've  been 
doing,"  the  doctor  said  quietly. 

"Well,  I  am  darned."  Jock  turned 
with  a  look  of  righteous  wrath  to  the 
wretched  Mexican,  who  was  lying  in 
a  comatose  heap  in  my  arms  ;  but  the 
first  sight  of  his  face  checked  the 
words  unspoken. 

"  Shake  him  up  ;  keep  him  waking," 
the  doctor  cried. 

£%"  But  you  don't  mean  to  tell  me," 
Jock  began  again,  when  we  had  suc- 
ceeded in  arousing  some  sign  of  life 
in  Louie,  "  that  all  that,"  pointing  at 
his  distended  features,  "  is  the  cactus- 
thorn  ? " 

"  There's  not  a    mite    else    in   the 
wound." 
».:j.  "  Well,  I  am  darned." 

"  All  the  same,"  the  doctor  added 
quietly,  "  he'd  have  died  if  you  hadn't 
kept  him  going." 

"  Died  !     What  of  ?  " 
"  Snake-bite, — shake  him  up  there  ; 
don't  let  him  go  drowsy.'' 

"  Snake-bite  !  Heavens  and  earth, 
I  thought  you  said  there  was  nothing 
in  his  foot  beyond  the  thorn." 

Then  the  doctor  went  up  to  Jock 
and  laid  a  hand  on  each  of  his  shoul- 
ders, and  said,  very  slowly  and  dis- 
tinctly :  "  You  mark  me,  Jock  Peters, 
we're  in  face  of  a  bigger  thing  to-night 
than  snake-bite.  We're  in  face  of 
one  of  the  biggest  and  ultimatest 
facts  of  human  nature,  and  one  of 
its  biggest  mysteries, — the  influence 
of  the  mind  upon  the  body.  I've 
heard  of  something  like  this  case  be- 
fore, although  I've  never  seen  it,  nor 
ever  thought  I  should  ;  and  that  in 
connection  with  a  coolie  and  a  cobra 
in  India.  In  that  case,  too,  there 
was  no  snake-bite,  although  there  was 
a  snake.  The  coolie  saw  the  snake ; 
it  darted  from  beneath  his  feet,  and 
at  the  moment  (likely  from  the  start 
he  gave)  a  thorn  pierced  his  foot, — 


just  as  it  happened  to  the  Greaser. 
And  that  man  too,  the  same  as  this 
man  here,  swelled  up,  showed  all  the 
symptoms  of  snake-poisoning,  and  died. 
This  man  we'll  save.  You,  Jock,  have 
practically  saved  him,  by  keeping  him 
moving,  and  counteracting  the  poison 
by  the  brandy.  Look  at  the  man ; 
isn't  jhe  snake-poisoned  1  " 

"  By  all  that's  blue  he  looks  it," 
Jock  admitted. 

"  And  all  the  hurt  he's  got, — the 
physical  hurt, — is  just  the  pin  prick 
of  that  thorn.  The  rest's  all  mental, 
— all  the  swelling,  the  surcharging  of 
the  vessels,  mental.  Now,  tell  me, 
how  do  you  think  that  man  would  be, 
but  for  his  morbid  mental  state,  with 
all  that  brandy  that  you've  given 
him  ? " 

"  Dead,  I  suppose." 
"You're  right, — dead;   as  dead  as 
you  or  I  would  be,  if  we  set  to  drink 
the   same   just    now.      But    he, — he's 
hardly  drunk ;  he's  sober.     And  he's 
better    now, — heart    acting    better." 
He  bent  and  listened  to  its  beating 
as  he  spoke.      "  You've  seen  a  strange 
thing  to-night,  gentlemen,"  he  added, 
rising  again,  and  addressing  us  collec- 
tively ;   "  such  a  thing  as  neither  you 
nor  I   are  likely  ever   to  see  again. 
And  I'll  tell  you  another  thing  about 
it,  gentlemen  ;   it's  a  thing  that  you 
won't  find  you  get  a  deal  of  credence 
for  when  you  come  to  tell  it  to  the 
boys.     There's  a  fashion  in  this  world 
for  men  to  believe  they  know  the  way 
things   happen ;    and   the   thing  that 
happens  in   a   way   they  don't   know 
they  put  aside  as  a  thing  that  didn't 
happen.     So  of  this,"  the  doctor  added 
simply,  "  I  should  only  speak,  as  among 
gentlemen,  with  a  hand  on  the  pistol- 
pocket  at  the  hip." 

After  a  while  the  awful  distortion 
of  Louie's  face  began  to  go  down : 
"  You  can  almost  see  it  settling,  like 
a  batter  pudding,"  as  Jim  Kelly  said ; 
and  the  fearful  purple  tinge  died  out 


The  Best  Snake  Story  in  the  World. 


377 


of  it.  His  heart  was  beating  natur- 
ally again,  and  the  doctor  said  we 
might  let  him  go  to  sleep. 

In  the  morning  he  was  difficult  to 
rouse,  as  he  might  be  after  so  heavy  a 
night,  but  the  doctor  said  he  would  do 
right  enough  if  we  gave  him  rest  for  a 
day  or  two.  And  so  he  did,  though 
his  nerve  was  so  shaken  that  we  had 
to  send  him  back  to  the  plain  again, 
where  there  are  no  rattlesnakes.  It 
appeared  later  that  Louie  had  cher- 
ished a  morbid  dread  of  snakes  for  a 
long  while,  ever  since  he  had  had  a 
hand  in  the  killing  of  one  six  feet 
long  down  in  the  Republic  of  Mexico  ; 


though  after  a  couple  of  years  on  the 
ranche  he  had  almost  forgotten  that 
there  were  such  things.  A  man  that 
is  nervous  about  snakes  should  never 
go  barefoot  in  the  hills. 

"  It  only  shows  what  I  told  you," 
Jock  Peters  commented.  "  Strychnine 
is  the  thing  for  snake-bite,  because  it 
is  such  a  nerve-tonic.  If  a  man  could 
make  believe  he  had  not  been  bitten 
he  need  never  die  of  snake-bite.  If 
ever  I'm  bitten  I  shall  make  believe 
it  was  a  cactus-spine." 

This  is  a  true  story,  although  it's 
such  a  good  one.  If  any  one  doubts 
it,  he  can  see  the  thorn. 


378 


BRIGANDAGE    IN  SICILY. 


POPULAR  songs  and  legends  treating 
of  the  deeds  of  famous  bandits  have 
been  known  in  Sicily  from  very  early 
times ;  many  have  existed  for  years 
in  a  purely  oral  form,  others  forming 
motives  for  the  work  of  national 
poets.  Vanity  is  always  a  strongly 
developed  feeling  in  criminals,  and 
the  modern  brigands  of  the  islands 
love  to  listen  to  the  acts  of  their 
predecessors,  confident  that  their  own 
deeds  will  hereafter  be  enshrined  in 
popular  song.  There  exists  an  epic 
in  the  Sicilian  dialect,  recounting  the 
exploits  of  a  famous  brigand,  nick- 
named Longhead,  which  glorifies  that 
individual  at  the  expense  of  the 
soldiers  and  police.  In  another 
ballad  two  brigands,  each  of  whom 
has  served  as  the  model  of  Fra 
Diavolo  (who,  by  the  way,  is  claimed 
as  a  native  by  the  continental  pro- 
vince of  Terra  di  Lavoro)  are 
celebrated  by  a  national  poet  who 
does  not  conceal  his  predilection  for 
the  bandits. 

Criminals  of  this  sort,  when 
executed,  become  objects  of  worship 
to  the  Sicilians.  On  the  banks  of 
the  little  river  Oreto,  near  Palermo, 
stands  a  small  church  dedicated  to 
the  souls  of  executed  persons,  whose 
graves  are  covered  with  flowers  even 
in  winter.  The  people,  as  they  pass 
by,  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  and 
kiss  their  hands.  They  pray  also  to 
a  tablet  within  the  church,  believed 
to  be  guarded  by  the  soul  of  a  dead 
criminal ;  and  when  a  worshipper  has 
ended  his  prayer,  he  lays  his  ear  to 
the  stone,  believing  that  he  will 
receive  an  answer;  and  such  is  the 
strength  of  his  belief  that  he  actually 


hears  a  reply,  and  departs  with 
gestures  of  delight  or  despair.  Girls, 
who  have  quarrelled  with  their  lovers, 
repair  to  the  stone  with  a  prayer  that 
the  guardian  angel  will  bring  the 
recalcitrant  back  to  them.  A  native 
of  Pececo,  one  Francesco  Frustere, 
brutally  murdered  his  mother ;  and 
no  sooner  had  he  been  executed,  than 
the  inhabitants  of  Pececo  commenced 
to  revere  his  memory  and  pray  beside 
his  grave. 

At  the  bottom  of  such  perverted 
worship  lies  the  Mafia,  whose  business 
it  is  to  glorify  criminals,  and,  under 
the  pretence  of  religion,  gather  into 
its  net  the  superstitious  population  of 
the  island.  "The  Mafia,"  says  a 
Sicilian  author,  from  a  series  of 
whose  articles  we  gather  our  facts, 
"  is  a  thief,  a  brigand,  and  an 
assassin."  This  society  is  the  root  of 
almost  all  the  crime  committed  in 
Sicily.  In  the  mountains  it  appears 
in  the  form  of  brigandage,  in  the 
cities  as  criminal  associations.  Its 
meeting-places  are  the  fairs  and 
cattle-markets  where  all  the  bad 
subjects  from  the  country  round 
collect  together,  plan  their  vile  pro- 
jects, strengthen  each  other's  hands, 
and  sow  the  evil  seed  among  the 
rural  population.  In  the  month  of 
May,  whjen  horses  are  wildest,  an 
animal  is  •often  stolen  from  the  herd 
by  means/  of  the  lasso.  The  owner's 
mark  on/  the  skin  is  changed  or 
obliterated,  and  the  beast  is  taken  off 
to  be  so/Id  at  some  distant  market. 
The  authorities  of  the  town  are  in  the 
secret ;  but  if  they  betrayed  it,  they 
would  be  dubbed  "  infamous  "  by  the 
Mafia,  arid  after  that  their  lives 


Brigandage  in  Sicily. 


379 


would  not  be  worth  an  hour's  pur- 
chase. 

All  brigands  need  the  protection 
of  the  Mafia,  for,  when  all  is  said, 
they  are  poor  devils,  leading  a 
wretched  life  in  the  woods,  continu- 
ally pursued  by  the  law  and  in 
constant  danger  of  their  lives.  With- 
out the  help  of  the  Mafia  brigandage 
could  not  exist  for  a  month.  The 
brigands  equally  need  the  manuten- 
goli,  or  go-betweens.  These  are 
generally  goat-herds,  shepherds,  or 
small  farmers,  who  act  as  postmen  for 
the  brigands,  as  messengers,  and  as 
sentinels  to  give  warning  of  the 
approach  of  the  soldiers.  But  there 
are  also  manutengoli  of  a  higher 
class,  land-proprietors  on  a  large 
scale,  who  furnish  the  brigands  with 
arms  and  ammunition,  act  as  their 
agents,  and,  in  return,  demand 
various  services ;  and  these  cannot 
afford  to  let  their  clients  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  police. 

No  sooner  has  some  famous  brigand 
been  arrested,  than  the  Mafia  (which, 
in  its  turn,  has  need  of  the  chief 
manutengoli  for  the  purpose  of  specu- 
lation) seeks  to  fill  his  place ;  and  no 
long  time  elapses  before  one  sufficiently 
celebrated  for  bold  cattle-stealing  is 
found,  established,  and  made  the  tool 
of  the  society. 

Not  infrequently  the  brigands 
have  acted  as  political  agents,  writing- 
threatening  letters  to  the  candidates 
opposed  to  the  party  favoured  by  the 
Mafia,  bribing  voters,  and  practising 
other  electioneering  tricks.  If  the 
authorities  do  their  duty,  there  is 
always  some  one  to  be  found,  even  in 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  who  will 
take  up  his  cause,  and  protest  against 
the  "violation  of  liberty." 

The  Mafia  is  equally  powerful  in 
the  large  towns  and  small  villages. 
In  the  former  it  is  represented  by  a 
society  of  malefactors,  with  fixed 
statutes,  ceremonies,  and  language ;  a 


society  which  tries,  condemns,  or 
acquits  its  own  members  for  breach 
of  faith  or  other  misdeeds,  and  exer- 
cises a  very  wide  authority.  In  1885 
Signor  Calacita  made  a  careful  study 
of  one  such  society,  the  Mano  Fraterno, 
or  Brotherly  Hand,  of  Girgenti. 

The  Mafia,  in  all  its  ramifications, 
tyrannises  over  the  rural  proprietors, 
who  dare  neither  sell  nor  let  any  part  of 
their  estates  without  first  consulting 
it.  Should  a  proprietor  be  in  want 
of  a  factor  or  a  keeper,  the  Mafia 
imposes  upon  him  one  of  its  members, 
who,  besides  his  salary,  receives  a  per- 
centage on  the  wages  of  the  labourers 
employed  on  the  estate.  No  one  will 
enter  a  proprietor's  service  unless 
authorised  to  do  so  by  the  Mafia, 
which  demands  and  receives,  in  like 
manner,  a  percentage  on  his  salary. 
Should  a  landlord  attempt  to  resist 
this  tyranny,  he  runs  the  risk  of 
being  shot  or  made  prisoner  by  the 
brigands.  On  the  other  hand  the 
society  is  for  a  certain  consideration 
equally  ready  to  protect  the  landlord 
from  the  bi'igands.  The  consequence 
of  all  this  is  that  criminals  of  the 
worst  kind  are  fed  and  sheltered  by 
landed  proprietors  and  small  farmers 
in  all  manner  of  unlawful  ways. 

There  is  scarcely  a  trade  or  industry 
which  does  not  suffer  under  the 
tyranny  of  the  Mafia.  On  the  quays, 
at  the  railway-stations,  in  the  custom- 
houses and  public  markets,  even  in 
the  committee-room  of  the  town- 
councils,  and  everywhere  where  things 
are  bought  and  sold,  the  Mafia  has  a 
crowd  of  agents  (often  no  better  than 
common  thieves)  who  impose  terms 
on  the  commerce  which  is  the  life  of 
the  country. 

Long  before  scientific  or  working 
men  thought  of  Congresses,  the 
Sicilian  Mafia  had  instituted  its 
own,  the  most  important  being  held  at 
the  fairs  in  April,  August,  September, 
and  October.  At  these  the  graziers 


380 


Brigandage  in  Sicily. 


and  herdsmen  are  distinguished  by 
their  rakish  costumes ;  they  wear 
knee-breeches,  and  what  is  called  the 
Paduan  cap.  The  rural  factor,  known 
at  once  by  his  broad-brimmed  white 
felt  hat,  makes  all  the  bargains  and 
fixes  the  prices,  even  when  his  em- 
ployer is  present.  The  keepers  on 
the  large  estates  wear  velveteen 
shooting-costumes  and  go  always 
armed,  ever  ready  to  support  the 
factors  in  the  event  of  any  dispute. 
It  is  at  these  fairs  that  the  cattle- 
thieves  lay  their  plans,  for  only  the 
graziers  and  herdsmen  know  how  to 
change  the  appearance  of  an  animal 
and  convey  it  by  secret  paths  to  a 
safe  market.  In  Sicily  cattle  are  not 
kept  in  stalls,  but  rove  the  fields, 
wandering  half  wild  over  the  vast 
estates.  The  thieves  have  little  fear 
of  the  police ;  they  dread  far  more 
the  gun  of  some  honest  keeper  who 
will  not  suffer  his  employer  to  be 
robbed.  But  should  the  keepers 
themselves  connive  at  the  theft,  either 
from  cowardice  or  from  'Complicity 
with  the  Mafia,  it  is  next  to  impossible 
to  bring  the  thieves  to  justice. 

All  the  criminal  classes  in  Sicily 
speak  a  jargon  of  their  own ;  even 
the  ambulant  musicians  have  one. 
It  is  not  very  difficult,  but  when 
rapidly  spoken  cannot  be  understood 
by  any  one  unpractised  in  it.  To 
words  of  one  syllable  ni  is  added,  and 
the  vowels  of  the  word  thus  composed 
are  reversed.  We  will  give  one 
example  in  English ;  ni  added  to  no 
makes  noni,  and,  reversed,  nino. 
Words  of  two  syllables  are  simply 
inverted ;  lancet,  for  instance,  would 
become  cetlan.  In  words  of  three 
syllables  the  middle  one  is  pronounced 
first,  then  the  last  syllable  and  finally 
the  first ;  competent  would  thus  be 
petentcom.  Words  of  four  syllables 
are  divided  into  two,  and  each  of  the 
parts  dealt  with  as  in  simple  words 
of  two  syllables.  Lastly,  words  of 


five  syllables  are  divided  into  a  word 
of  two  and  a  word  of  three  syllables, 
and  treated  accordingly.  Of  course 
in  the  Italian  language,  so  full  of 
vowels,  the  combinations  thus  formed 
are  much  more  fluent  and  musical 
than  they  could  be  in  English. 

In  Sicily  the  language  of  signs  is 
universal.  It  is  perfectly  possible  for  a 
Sicilian  to  carry  on  a  long  conversation 
from  a  distance  with  hands,  eyebrows, 
lips,  and  even  nostrils.  In  courts  of 
justice  the  accused  communicate  with 
witnesses  and  advocates  in  this  way. 
Girls  in  convent-schools,  little  children 
in  orphan-asylums,  speak  by  signs, 
and  even  when  using  ordinary  speech 
assist  their  talk  by  expressive  ges- 
tures. No  wonder,  then,  that  the 
criminal  classes  develope  and  carry 
to  perfection  a  system  so  useful. 

The  young  members  of  the  Mafia  go 
through  a  regular  course  of  lessons 
with  the  knife,  their  peculiar  weapon. 
Matches  take  place  in  some  obscure 
locality,  generally  a  low  dancing-room, 
under  the  superintendence  of  veterans 
of  the  society.  Should  warning  be 
given  of  the  approach  of  the  police, 
the  knives  are  quickly  hidden,  and 
the  company  is  found  enjoying  an 
innocent  dance.  The  chief  qualities 
needed  in  a  good  fighter  are  a  quick 
eye  and  nimble  limbs.  The  only 
parry  to  a  knife-thrust  is  with  the 
left  hand ;  and  should  one  of  the 
parties  have  a  longer  knife  than  the 
other,  the  latter  tries  to  close;  but 
the  trick  is  very  difficult.  Being  so 
habituated  to  the  use  of  the  knife,  it 
follows  that  duels  are  incessant  among 
the  members  of  the  Mafia.  No 
seconds  are  employed,  each  being  con- 
fident of  fair  play.  On  meeting  at 
the  appointed  spot,  they  first  argue 
on  the  reason  of  their  quarrel,  and  it 
is  a  point  of  etiquette  that,  during 
the  argument,  no  injurious  terms  shall 
be  used.  Should  one  of  the  duellists 
be  convinced  that  he  was  in  the  wrong, 


Brigandage  in  Sicily. 


381 


he  apologises,  and  there  is  an  end  of  the 
matter ;    otherwise,    one    invites    the 
other  to  draw  and  the  duel  proceeds. 
Formerly  it  was  the  custom  for  one 
of  the  combatants  to  bring  a  pair  of 
knives,    which    were     stuck    in    the 
ground,  and  each  man,  bending  at  the 
same  moment,  seized  a  knife  at  hap- 
hazard.    But  now  the  trusting  chival- 
rous spirit  is  disappearing,   and  each 
man  brings  his  own  knife.      Then  the 
combat  commences,  the  men  advancing, 
retreating,  leaping,  and  twisting  like 
•cats,  till  one  is  wounded.     The  victor 
immediately  cries,  "  Throw  down  your 
weapon ;  "  and  when  he  sees  that  this 
is  done  he  pockets  his  own  knife  and 
runs  to  help  the  wounded  man,  or,  if  the 
latter  is  mortally  hurt,  to  receive  his 
last  words.  Not  seldom,  in  this  extreme 
case,  a  kiss  of  reconciliation  is  asked 
and  granted  ;  but  it  is  rarely  that  a 
man    is    killed    on  the    spot.     When 
seconds  are  employed  a  fifth   man  is 
chosen  as  umpire ;    in  this  case  also 
the   preliminary  discussion  invariably 
takes  place.      If  a  duel  ends  in  imme- 
diate death,  the  High  Mafia  proceeds 
to     the     spot     to     hold    an     inquiry. 
Should  they  find  that  there  has  been 
treachery,  they  pass   sentence  on  the 
murderer,  and  very  often  the  sentence 
is  death.     If  the  duel  has  been  fairly 
fought,   a    ceremony    takes   place    in 
some  church  to  make  peace  between 
the  survivor    and  the   family   of  the 
dead     man ;     and    if     the     affair    is 
arranged,     it    is    impossible    for    the 
police  to  obtain  any  information  from 
the  relations  of  the  victim.      When  a 
wounded  man  is  taken   to  a   hospital 
the   Mafia   finds  means  to   have  him 
watched  and  prevented  from  betraying 
the  name  of  his  adversary.      Members 
of  the  Mafia  are  proud  of  leaving  a  hos- 
pital without  having  denounced  their 
enemy ;  and  when  a  man  has  died  in 
hospital  without  betraying  his  murderer, 
the  Mafia   pronounces   him  to  be  "a 
man";    in   the   contrary    case,    he    is 


dubbed  as  "  one  who  commenced  like 
a  man  and  ended  like  a  traitor." 

It  will  surprise  no  one  who  has 
heard  anything  of  the  prevalence  of 
the  art  of  tattooing  among  Italians, 
to  learn  that  it  is  a  favourite  fashion 
with  the  Sicilian  Mafia.  The  mem- 
bers of  that  association  adorn  their 
bodies  with  emblems  of  their  loves, 
their  hatreds,  their  scorn,  and  their 
religion.  Above  the  heart  of  the 
notorious  brigand  Botindari  was 
tattooed  the  figure  of  a  woman  sur- 
rounded by  a  frame,  and  the  words 
Holy  Mary,  pray  for  me  !  Another 
man  tattooed  on  his  side  the  boast 
that  he  had  killed  his  enemy  without 
assistance.  A  symbol  of  revenge  was 
tattooed  on  the  body  of  a  young  man 
whose  father  had  been  murdered ;  it 
was  in  the  shape  of  a  heart,  with  the 
motto,  This  thou  must  eat,  the  heart, 
of  course,  representing  that  of  the 
murderer. 

The  members  of  the  Mafia  rather 
despise  fire-arms,  thinking  it  cowardly 
to  kill  a  man  from  a  distance ;  and 
the  weapons  tattooed  on  their  bodies 
are  generally  daggers  and  knives. 
One  old  convict  in  a  Sicilian  prison 
had  tattooed  on  his  person  a  pyramid 
of  skulls,  the  symbol  of  a  church 
dedicated  to  .executed  persons.  A 
frequent  figure  is  the  head  of  Saint 
John,  whom  the  Mafia  consider  to  be 
the  especial  protector  of  convicts. 
The  figures  of  the  patron  saints  of 
the  various  towns  are  often  found  : 
Saint  Agatha  for  the  Catanians,  the 
Madonna  for  the  people  of  Trapani, 
Saint  Rosalie  for  inhabitants  of 
Palermo,  while  the  Infant  Jesus  or 
the  Cross  is  used  by  the  inhabitants 
of  Monreale.  A  list  of  the  sacred 
emblems  thus  employed  would  be  a 
list  of  all  the  saints. 

Signs  of  contempt  are  also  common, 
and  should  a  spy  be  found  out  in 
prison  he  is  forcibly  branded  by  his 
fellow -prisoners  with  ignominious 


382 


Brigandage  in  Sicily. 


marks.  Sicilian  criminals  have  a 
very  vague  notion  of  politics ;  they 
have  no  sense  of  patriotism  and  no 
ideals.  They  sometimes  help  a  revo- 
lution, because  they  believe  it  will 
give  them  an  opportunity  of  breaking 
open  the  prisons ;  and  of  course  they 
always  hate  the  existing  government. 
Some  time  ago  the  national  flag  and 
the  cross  of  Savoy  were  found  tattooed 
on  prisoners  ;  but  lately  those  symbols 
have  given  place  to  a  flag  with  the 
Phrygian  cap,  and  the  words  Long 
live  the  Republic !  or  Long  live 
Socialism  ! 

Magic  signs  are  also  used.  A 
fisherman,  a  member  of  the  Mafia, 
had  tattooed  on  his  arm  a  sort  of 
cushion  stuck  full  of  pins  and  bound 
with  string.  It  alluded  to  the 
witches'  charm  of  an  orange  or  pear 
thus  treated  and  thrown  into  the  sea, 
with  the  wish  that  the  person,  against 
whom  the  spell  is  directed,  may  be 
stabbed  as  many  times  as  there  are 
pins  in  the  fruit. 

A  mouse  means  the  police,  and 
symbolises  the  wearer's  scorn  of  the 
law.  A  star  is  the  emblem  of  fate ; 
while  a  frog  is  a  sign  of  contempt, 
and  a  rabbit  of  fear.  When  a  man 
is  unable  to  explain  the  meaning  of 
the  figures  marked  on  his  skin,  it  is 
certain  that  he  has  been  forcibly 
tattooed,  and  thereby  branded  to 
everlasting  contempt. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  not  be 
out  of  place  to  briefly  relate 
the  story  of  the  Maurino  band  of 
brigands,  which  not  long  ago  gave  so 
much  trouble  to  the  Sicilian  au- 
thorities. 

In  the  year  1870,  in  the  territory 
of  Santo  Mauro,  the  members  of  a 
group  of  the  Mafia  having  some  cause 
of  quarrel  with  another  group,  deter- 
mined on  revenge.  Led  by  a  man 
named  Mico  Verga,  they  carried  off 
a  lady  whose  family  was  on  friendly 
terms  with  their  enemies.  It  wast  an 


affair    of    only  a   few   hours,    for   the 
lady  was  soon  released ;  but   in  their 
turn    her   friends    vowed    vengeance. 
Before     this     there     had     been     no 
brigands  in  that  part  of  the  country, 
but  the  time  of  peace  was  now  past. 
A  certain  Angelo  Caudio  made  it  his 
business     to     recommence     the     war. 
The    first    to    fall    by   his    hand   was 
Mico     Verga,    a    tall,    strong,    hand- 
some   young   fellow,   the   model   of  a 
chief    of    the    Mafia.      He    was    shot 
dead  at  night  in   a  house   where  he 
was    sleeping.      Time    went    on,    and 
the  hatred  between   the   two   groups 
became  more  bitter.      In  consequence 
of     .some     crime     a     certain     Angelo 
Einaldi  was  obliged  to  fly,  and   took 
to  the  open  country,  as  they  say,  or 
in    other   words,    became    a    brigand. 
He  was  joined  by  a  deserter   named 
Vincenzo   Rocca ;   but  the  pair   soon 
grew   tired    of    their   wandering   life, 
and,  being  as  yet  innocent  of  blood, 
were    on  the  point  of   giving  them- 
selves  up   to    the    authorities,   when, 
having  conceived  some  grudge  against 
the  syndic  of  their  native  place,  they 
one  day  killed  him  while  he  was  out 
shooting.     After  this    there    was    no 
thought  of  surrender ;  crime  followed 
crime,  and  the  two  men  soon  became 
famous  throughout   the   country-side. 
Angelo    Caudio,   who    still    cherished 
his    old    feud    of    revenge,    employed 
them  as  assassins,  and  no  fewer  than 
six  men  fell  victims   to  his  revenge. 
In  time  they  were  joined  by  Botindari 
and  others,  making  a  formidable  band 
which   kept   the  neighbourhood  they 
haunted    in    alarm    for    seven    years, 
during   which    some   of   the   brigands 
were    shot    by    the   carabineers,    two 
committed   suicide,   and  a  nephew  of 
Botindarj.  was  captured. 

There  was  now  peace  for  ten  years, 
during  which  Angelo  Caudio  took 
service  with  a  landed  proprietor  as 
keeper.  But  two  descendants  of  the 
murdered  Mico  Verga  happened  to  be 


Brigandage  in  Sicily. 


employed  in  a  similar  capacity  on  the 
neighbouring  estate,  and,  faithful  to 
the  old  feud,  they  began  to  annoy 
and  insult  Caudio,  letting  the  animals 
under  their  care  stray  on  to  his 
master's  ground,  "  to  spoil  the  seed," 
as  they  said.  Caudio  understood 
their  motive  and  impounded  the 
animals ;  but  he  was  induced  to 
return  them,  and  the  affair  ended  for 
the  time.  Not  long  after  he  found 
his  own  horse  and  that  of  the  factor 
hamstrung.  This  was  too  much,  and 
accordingly,  a  few  months  later,  in 
March,  1888,  the  two  descendants  of 
Mico  Verga,  and  two  of  their  relations, 
were  found  murdered  in  the  fields.  The 
law  was  now  aroused,  and  Caudio  was 
arrested.  It  being  scarcely  possible 


that  he  could  have  killed  all  four 
men  with  his  own  hand,  two  other 
persons  were  arrested  on  suspicion, 
one  being  the  now  celebrated  brigand 
Melchiorre  Caudio,  who  was  then  an 
innocent  man.  Melchiorre  made  his 
escape  from  prison  and  fled  to  the 
woods ;  and  the  year  after,  hearing 
that  he  had  been  condemned,  together 
with  Angelo  Caudio  and  another,  he 
adopted  brigandage  as  a  profession, 
and  soon  formed  the  famous  and 
terrible  Maurino  band,  of  which  he  is 
now  the  sole  survivor.  At  present 
brigandage  may  be  said  to  be  scotched, 
but  probably  not  killed ;  and  want, 
poverty,  or  the  commission  of  some 
crime,  may  cause  it  to  raise  its  head 
again  at  any  moment. 


384 


NOTES   FROM   A  SPORTSMAN'S    JOURNAL. 


THERE  lies  before  us  a  bulky  and 
much-worn  manuscript  book,  which 
is,  we  fancy,  a  work  well-nigh  unique 
among  annals  of  its  kind.  It  is  in- 
deed no  more  than  the  sporting  diary 
of  a  deceased  and  lamented  friend ; 
and  in  claiming  any  distinction  for  a 
record  such  as  in  one  way  or  another 
scores  of  sportsmen  keep,  we  may  be 
accused  of  being  unduly  influenced  by 
personal  associations.  Yet  we  honestly 
take  leave  to  doubt  if  there  is  to  be 
found  elsewhere,  within  a  single  cover, 
such  a  monument  of  unflinching  reso- 
lution in  the  way  of  diary-keeping  or 
such  an  extraordinarily  complete  re- 
cord of  a  sportsman's  doings  as  the 
one  in  question.  It  is  the  work  of  an 
Irishman  who,  with  the  exception  of 
an  occasional  year  or  two  before  begin- 
ning life's  responsibilities,  scarcely  ever 
set  foot  out  of  Ireland ;  of  a  man,  too. 
who,  as  an  active  and  a  fearless  magis- 
trate, through  troublous  as  well  as 
peaceful  times,  won  within  his  own 
sphere  the  respect  of  every  party  and 
every  creed,  an  achievement  that 
many,  even  with  fat  purses  and 
the  best  intentions,  have  found  to 
their  cost  no  easy  one.  A  practical 
knowledge  of  land  and  farming 
called  him  for  a  time  on  to  Mr.  Bal- 
four's  Land  Commission  and  made 
terrible  gaps  in  his  sporting  entries ; 
but  these  were  almost  the  only  ab- 
sences of  any  moment  over  a  quarter 
of  a  century.  There  is  a  growing  ten- 
dency to  regard  these  home-keeping 
folk,  to  whom  the  duties  and  the 
pleasures  of  a  remote  country-side 
are  all-sufficient,  as  objects  of  pity 
and  almost  of  contempt.  South  Ken- 
sington with  an  annual  course  of  Swiss 


hotels  may  seem  to  some  a  more  ele- 
vated and  stimulating  life.  It  is  a  satis- 
faction, no  doubt,  to  feel  that  you  are 
very  much  like  everybody  else,  nor 
does  it  greatly  signify  that  your  place 
is  so  much  the  more  easily  filled  when 
you  die  ;  for  it  is  in  death  that  the 
countryman  who  is  on  speaking  terms 
with  everybody  for  twenty  miles 
round,  and  with  few  perhaps  outside 
that  circle,  seems  so  much  the  bigger 
man  and  to  leave  a  gap  so  much 
harder  to  fill. 

But  to  return  to  our  old  manuscript 
book  :  it  is  at  any  rate  sufficiently  re- 
markable in  its  opening  pages,  for 
upon  the  inside  of  the  cover  is  indi 
cated,  in  round  schoolboy  hand  and  in 
ink  long  grown  yellow,  that  the  owner, 
C.  D.,  purports  therein  to  enter  his 
sporting  performances  of  all  kinds ; 
and  this  he  does  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  thirty  years  later.  It  is  fortu- 
nate that  the  book,  purchased  in  the 
year  1866  while  at  an  Irish  grammar- 
school,  contained  over  five  hundred 
leaves,  for,  as  may  be  well  imagined 
by  the  time  the  last  entry  is  reached, 
January  30th,  1896,  there  is  little 
space  left.  Think,  dear  reader,  of 
the  numbers  of  note-books  you  and 
I,  with  possibly  some  turn  too  for 
scribbling,  acquired  in  our  boyhood, 
and  how  we  decorated  their  title- 
pages  with  our  resolves.  And  what 
became  of  the  resolutions  and  the 
books  1  But  here  was  a  man  who 
hated  writing  much  more  than  most 
of  us  do,  who  was,  moreover,  wholly 
of  an  outdoor  type,  zealous  in  rural 
business,  and  at  every  kind  of 
sport,  with  scarcely  an  equal  in  his 
county.  His  work  that  lies  before 


Notes  from  a  Sportsman' 's  Journal. 


385 


us  is  absolutely  complete.  Not  a 
single  day  spent  in  the  field  since  that 
boyish  declaration  in  1866  but  has 
been  duly  chronicled  with  astound- 
ing method.  Every  bird  killed, 
from  a  wild  goose  to  a  jack  snipe, 
is  there  set  down,  every  fox,  or 
hare,  or  otter  hunted ;  every  fish 
basketed,  every  fish  even  returned  to 
the  water,  is  faithfully  recorded,  as 
indeed  is  each  covert  drawn,  each 
beat  shot  over,  each  river  and  its 
particular  stretch  fished.  Nor  are 
the  horses  and  dogs,  whose  faithful 
services  helped  to  make  this  thirty 
years'  record  of  sport,  forgotten.  Some- 
thing like  six  hundred  days  with 
hounds  are  found  in  the  first  two- 
thirds  of  the  journal  only,  every  day 
carefully  noted  in  a  few  lines  which, 
read  by  the  light  of  local  knowledge, 
would  be  all-sufficient.  Generations 
of  foxes  fly  for  safety  over  the  same 
familiar  grounds,  and  generations  of 
hounds  from  puppyhood  to  stiffening 
age  follow  them  across  the  closely- 
written  pages  bristling  with  the 
musical  names  in  which  Irish  topo- 
graphy is  so  singularly  rich.  And  as 
with  hunting,  so  it  is  with  shooting ; 
year  after  year  the  red  setters  and 
their  children  and  their  children's 
children  come  and  go  upon  the  scene. 
In  the  hot  days  of  August  bog  and 
mountain  yield  their  annual  tribute 
of  grouse,  and  in  late  September 
tillage-land  and  ragged  pasture  their 
quota  of  partridge,  greatly  varying 
from  year  to  year.  The  wild  pheasant, 
shot  chiefly  over  setters  in  pine 
woods  waist-high  in  heather,  marks 
the  October  days,  and  with  each  suc- 
ceeding winter  the  entries  bring  before 
our  vision  vast  stretches  of  russet 
snipe-bog,  almost  sublime  in  their 
dreary  and  silent  solitude,  and  hill- 
side brakes  of  ash  and  oak  and  larch, 
where  the  woodcock  springs  before  the 
beater's  cheery  voice.  Nor  is  it  only 
dogs  and  horses  whose  companionship 
No.  443. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


is  so  sedulously  recorded ;  a  handful 
of  familiar  names,  with  marvellously 
little  variation  throughout  the  thirty 
years,  tells  a  tale  of  sporting  fellowship, 
which  in  these  days  of  change  and 
bustle  is  surely  an  uncommon  one. 
Many,  indeed,  of  those  who  figure  here 
are  dead  ;  they  have  long  since  shot 
their  last  grouse  and  ridden  their  last 
run ;  some  are  laid  upon  the  shelf  ; 
others  are  left  with  something  gone 
out  of  their  lives  that  would  be  un- 
seemly here  to  dwell  upon,  leaving  a 
blank  not  felt  in  towns  or  in  the  more 
thickly  peopled  places  of  the  earth. 

Among  these  latter  is  the  present 
writer,  and  it  was  more  particularly 
the  earlier  pages  of  the  journal  that 
suggested  to  him  to  recall  some  scenes 
and  places  that  are  a  little  out  of  the 
beaten  track,  and  might  possibly  have 
a  passing  interest  to  some  readers. 

The  period  referred  to  is  the  year 
1871  and  the  locality  the  Scottish 
borderland.  The  statistics  of  the 
journal  would  be  of  little  general 
interest.  In  anglers'  eyes,  however, 
they  might  do  something  to  justify  the 
general  complaint  that  accessible  trout- 
fishing  has  wofully  deteriorated. 
Here,  for  instance,  is  an  entry  of 
a  hundred  and  twenty-five  trout 
basketed  upon  the  first  day  of  June 
in  the  Whittadder,  which  was  then 
public  fishing.  The  following  day's 
record  makes  the  survivor  wonder  of 
what  material  we  could  have  been 
made  in  those  halcyon  days  of  youth. 
There  is  a  run  with  otterhounds  far 
into  the  Merse  of  Berwickshire,  in- 
volving a  round  of  thirty  miles  ;  then, 
not  satisfied  with  this  prodigious  ex- 
penditure of  energy,  a  catch  of  sixty 
trout  before  sunset  is  recorded  to  our 
joint  exertions,  and  we  can  well  re- 
member the  unusual  size  of  the  fish 
that  evening,  and  how  a  very  early 
rise  of  drake  had  brought  all  the  big 
ones  on  the  feed.  One  hesitates  to 
talk  about  such  catches  in  open  waters 

c  c 


386 


Notes  from  a  Sportsman's  Journal. 


now  lest  our  angling  readers  should 
forget  the  five  and  twenty  years  that 
have  elapsed  since  those  golden  days, 
and  hurry  northwards  with  anticipa- 
tions that  are  little  likely,  we  fear,  to 
be  realised.  And  yet  even  then  men 
used  to  lament  the  degeneration  of 
their  favourite  streams.  But  if  we 
young  fellows  at  that  time  considered 
ourselves  tough,  that  famous  old 
sportsman  Mr.  Hill,  who  at  nearly 
seventy  years  of  age  was  still  hunting 
otters  between  the  Forth  and  the 
Tweed,  was  the  marvel  of  his  time. 
Otter-hunting  in  those  days  was  a  less 
common,  and  at  the  same  time  per- 
haps a  more  serious  pastime  than  now. 
It  had  not  become  fashionable. 
Young  ladies  were  not  greatly  ad- 
dicted to  it,  nor  had  their  journals 
begun  to  discuss  the  costume  that 
their  readers  should  adopt  when  on 
the  track  of  the  amphibious  beast. 
The  hounds  met  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  not  at  nine.  No  elaborate 
meals  were  served  by  the  river-side  to 
a  herd  of  folks  whose  social  instincts 
were  unfortunately  stronger  than 
their  sporting  ones.  This  Mr.  Hill 
of  the  Border,  by  the  way,  must 
not  be  confused  with  the  still 
more  celebrated  Geoffrey  Hill  of 
Hawkestone,  who  was  one  of  the 
few  other  masters  of  otter-hounds 
at  that  time.  But  as  a  physical  wonder 
the  North  Country  representative  of 
the  name  had  no  rival.  He  lived  at 
that  time  near  Haddington,  and  to 
keep  his  six  o'clock  appointments  upon 
distant  streams  it  was  a  common  thing 
for  this  gallant  old  gentleman  with 
his  van  full  of  hounds  to  be  rumbling 
along  the  road  before  the  longest  of 
June  days  had  dawned.  For  more 
distant  expeditions  he  did  not  of 
course  disdain  the  railroad.  The 
journal  recalls  a  famous  occasion  when 
the  North  British  Company  having 
failed  to  provide  him  with  his  usual 
van,  our  old  friend,  without  any  cere- 


mony, turned  his  twenty  couple  of 
hounds  into  an  open  third-class 
carriage,  and  a  very  lively  hour  we 
can  remember  spending  upon  the  road 
to  Berwick.  Those  were  indeed  palmy 
days  in  the  Scottish  Lothians.  The 
red  lands  of  Dunbar  were  worth  as 
much  as  £5  an  acre,  and  £4  was  quite 
a  common  rent  between  the  Lammer- 
moors  and  the  Firth.  The  uplands  of 
the  former  were  then  heavily  stocked 
with  black-faced  sheep,  while  great 
flocks  of  Cheviots  and  Border  Leices- 
ters,  worth  sixty  to  seventy  shillings 
apiece  and  carrying  wool  worth  two 
shillings  and  fourpence  the  pound, 
nibbled  at  the  heaviest  crops  of 
turnips  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  The  yearly  shearings  on  the 
slopes  of  the  Lammermoors  had 
good  reason  then  to  be  merry 
gatherings. 

All  our  lives  we  have  been  trying 
to  find  a  reasonable  excuse  for  saying 
something  about  the  topography  of 
THE  BRIDE  OF  LAMMERMOOR,  and  this 
journal  seems  to  afford  one.  At  any 
rate  we  propose,  at  this  point,  to  offer 
a  few  remarks  about  the  site  which 
Scott,  in  our  humble  opinion,  un- 
doubtedly selected  for  his  tale.  In 
those  editions  of  the  Waver!  ey  Novels 
in  which  Fast  Castle,  the  fictitious 
"Wolf's  Crag,  has  been  represented  in 
the  frontispiece  of  THE  BRIDE  OF 
LAMMERMOOR,  there  has  rarely  been 
the  faintest  attempt  at  pictorial 
fidelity.  Every  suggestion  that  we 
have  ever  seen  made  as  to  the  original 
of  Ravenswood  House,  the  home  of 
Lucy  Ashton,  seems  equally  wide  of 
the  truth.  We  all  know,  of  course, 
that  the  incidents  on  which  the  tale 
was  founded  occurred  on  the  West 
Coast  and  were  transferred  by  Scott 
to  the  Lammermoors  ;  but  because  the 
author  occasionally  stayed  with  Lady 
Ruthven  several  miles  to  the  north- 
west of  Haddington,  his  interpreters 
have  for  the  most  part  assumed  that 


Notes  from  a  Sportsman's  Journal. 


387 


he  had  her  mansion  in  his  mind  wheJa 
he  depicted  the  home  of  Lord  Keeper 
Ash  ton.  No  one  familiar  with  the 
East  Lothian  slope  of  the  Lammer- 
moors  would  have  many  doubts,  after 
reading  the  first  paragraph  of  the 
novel,  as  to  the  spot  the  author  was 
thinking  of.  Still  there  is  nothing 
absolutely  conclusive  till  the  twenty- 
first  chapter,  where  Scott,  through  the 
mouth  of  Craigengelt,  disposes  of  the 
whole  matter  in  a  single  sentence. 
That  worthy,  in  a  conversation  with 
his  patron  Bucklaw,  is  made  to  say 
•that  the  rumour  of  Lucy's  devotion  to 
Bavenswood  is  the  subject  of  gossip 
from  Lammerlaw  to  Traprain.  It 
does  not,  of  course,  follow  that  a 
Scotchman  must  know  Scotland,  any 
more  than  an  Englishman  must  know 
England.  But  a  most  superficial 
acquaintance  with  East  Lothian  would 
recognise  at  once  that  this  remark  of 
Craigengelt's  fixes  the  scene  of  THE 
BRIDE  OF  LAMMERMOOR  in  a  fashion 
that  admits  of  no  further  discussion. 
There  is  only  one  pass  from  the  Merse 
through  the  Lammermoors  in  this 
region ;  and  where  the  road  drops 
clown  under  Lammerlaw  into  East 
Lothian  there  is  only  one  mansion 
whose  situation  corresponds  in  any 
way  to  that  of  Bavenswood  House  as 
described  by  Scott.  This  is  the  old 
seat  of  Nunraw,  rebuilt  some  thirty 
years  ago  and  at  that  time  the  home 
of  one  of  the  Hay  family.  The  only 
other  place  that  could  possibly  have 
any  claim  at  all  would  be  Mr.  Arthur 
Balfour's  house  at  Whittingham,  and 
this  would  be  barely  admissible  on 
account  of  the  distance  from  the 
Lammermoors. 

It  is  a  little  illogical,  perhaps,  this 
desire  to  localise  the  scenes  of  fiction ; 
and  it  is  only  fiction  of  a  preeminent 
kind  surely  which  should  thus  appeal 
to  our  topographical  instincts,  fiction 
on  which  time  has  set  the  stamp  of 
its  approval,  and  which  has  taken  its 


place  in  the  literature  of  the  country. 
Yet  there  is  a  village  in  Wales,  with 
not  much  else  to  recommend  it,  that 
advertises  itself  as  being  the  scene  of 
one  of  Miss  Braddon's  innumerable 
stories.  Capital  stories  they  are.  no 
doubt ;  yet  with  something  of  a  sym- 
pathy that  way,  this  seems  to  us,  to 
say  the  least  of  it,  a  little  premature. 
We  can  give  a  still  more  flagrant 
instance.  An  elaborate  map  of 
several  counties,  studded  with  fictitious 
names  and  entitled  WESSEX,  is  pub- 
lished with  one  of  Mr.  Hardy's  later 
novels.  Now  a  man  may  be  allowed 
to  be  a  prophet  in  his  own  county  as 
regards  the  manners  and  customs  of 
its  aborigines,  though  sometimes  his 
county  will  have  none  of  him  so  far  as 
his  interpretations  of  their  vernacular 
and  peculiarities  go ;  but  it  is  surely 
going  a  little  too  far  when  a  specialist 
of  this  kind  stands  spokesman  for  a 
third  of  England.  This  particular 
map,  which  is  called  the  Wessex  of 
the  Novels,  embraces  all  England 
from  Berkshire  to  Cornwall  inclusive, 
with  an  unmistakable  air  of  literary 
proprietorship.  Has  Mr.  Blackmore 
then,  never  written,  or  Mr.  Baring- 
Gould,  to  say  nothing  of  Charles 
Kingsley,  Anthony  Trollope,  and 
Thomas  Hughes'?  Exeter  and  Salisbury 
in  this  singular  production  figure  with 
much  superfluous  mystery  under  fic- 
titious names.  However,  it  is  not 
likely  that  our  dear  old  friends  in 
and  around  Barchester  will  be  greatly 
injured  by  this  quiet  annexation  of 
their  creator's  territory.  Even  Ex- 
moor  (shade  of  Jack  Bussell  !)  is  in- 
cluded in  this  Wessex  Wonderland, 
re-christened,  and  once  at  least 
has  been  re-peopled  by  Mr.  Hardy 
with  strange  folks  presumably  from 
the  neighbourhood  of  Swanage  and 
Bournemouth.  But  Scott  is  another 
matter  altogether,  and  there  are  several 
entries  in  the  journal  which  recall  odd 
hours  spent  by  the  brook-side  in  the 
6  c  2 


388 


Notes  from  a  Sportsman's  Journal. 


wooded  dell  where  Lucy  Ashton  and 
Edgar  Ravenswood  plighted  their 
troths.  It  was  an  insignificant,  name- 
less burn,  born  but  a  mile  or  two 
above  in  the  Lammermoors  to  be 
soon  hidden  amid  the  groves  and 
thickets  of  what  it  delighted  us 
to  picture  as  the  scene  of  the  im- 
mortal tragedy.  When  the  larger 
streams  were  swollen  with  the 
peaty  tributes  of  the  moors,  or  ran 
red  with  the  washings  of  East  Lothian 
roads,  this  little  rivulet  offered  an 
excuse  for  wandering  up  its  leafy 
banks  and  dropping  a  fly  or  worm 
between  the  boughs  on  to  the  rare 
pools  that  might  seem  large  enough 
to  hold  a  sizable  trout.  Nor  is  the 
Master  of  Ravenswood  the  only  one 
of  Scott's  heroes  associated  with 
this  youthful  record  of  sport.  Here 
is  entry  of  a  night  spent  in  the 
old  village  inn  at  Gifford,  where 
the  landlord's  tale  spurred  Lord 
Marmion  on  to  his  mysterious 
combat  with  the  goblin  in  the 
glen  at  Yester ;  and  a  day  spent 
upon  the  stream  that  issues  from 
those  haunted  glades  is  noted  as 
yielding  but  a  slender  tribute  of 
trout.  Of  Hailes  Castle  also  there 
is  much  mention,  not  because  Mar- 
mion rode  beneath  its  walls,  nor  yet 
because  of  its  renown  in  Border  story, 
but  only  that  its  now  crumbling 
towers  reflect  their  shadows  upon  that 
beautiful  trouting  stream,  the  East 
Lothian  Tyne.  Man  has  done  his 
utmost  to  materialise  the  banks  of 
this  romantic  river  so  rich  in  story 
and  so  full  of  trout.  The  steam- 
plough  throbs  and  pants  on  either 
hand  ;  and  the  great  square  fields,  clean 
as  gardens  and  reeking  in  spring-time 
of  the  stimulants  with  which  they  are 
fed,  press  in  curious  contrast  upon  the 
fringe  of  tangled  woodland  through 
which  the  restless  river,  refusing  to 
forget  the  nature  of  its  birth,  leaps 
and  sparkles  to  the  sea. 


The  country  inns  upon  the  Scottish 
Border  were  primitive  though  not 
unhomely  places  in  those  days. 
Be}Tond  the  local  consumer  of  whisky 
and  Preston  Pans  ale,  their  patrons 
consisted  almost  wholly  even  then  of 
wandering  anglers,  who  submitted 
with  much  rough  good  humour  to  the 
tyranny  of  some  conscientious  and 
harsh-featured  Meg  Dodds.  If  there 
was  some  bickering  and  contention  for 
precedence  in  the  matter  of  eggs  and 
bacon  or  the  drying  of  boots,  anglers 
were,  upon  the  whole,  a  simple  and 
more  easily  contented  race  in  those 
days  than  in  these.  At  any  rate, 
when  the  lights  were  lit  and  the 
materials  for  toddy  made  their  ap- 
pearances, all  grievances  and  short- 
comings were  soon  forgotten.  Scotch- 
men, as  we  all  know,  are  among  the 
most  truthful  of  British  types,  but  in 
fishing  stories  they  are  not  one  whit 
better  than  their  neighbours.  Still 
the  Scottish  angler's  love  of  song  was 
at  least  as  great  as  his  love  of  remin- 
iscence, so  it  Avas  never  long  on  these 
occasions  before  Northern  ballads  in 
rich  Doric  vibrated  through  the  thick 
clouds  of  tobacco  smoke.  And  if  the 
music  was  not  first-rate,  it  was  racy 
and  of  the  soil,  and  effectually  disposed 
for  a  time  of  the  familiar  bore  of  the 
inn  parlour. 

There  are  many  references  here  to  a 
fine  reach  of  water  in  the  heart  of  the 
Lammermoors  that  was  too  remote  to 
support  even  an  inn.  If  there  had 
been  nothing  upon  its  banks  but,  let 
us  say,  a  shepherd's  cot,  the  matter 
would  have  been  a  simple  one  but 
there  lay  the  rub.  For  on  the  very 
banks  of  the  liver,  the  centre  of  an 
immense  area  untenanted  by  anything 
but  grouse  and  curlews  and  black- 
faced  sheep,  was  the  homestead  of  a 
veritable  patriarch  and  monarch 
among  farmers.  There  was  a  full 
seven  mile  ride  after  we  had  climbed 
from  the  busy  plain  of  Lothian  to  the 


Notes  from  a  Sportsman's  Journal. 


389 


silent  upland  of  Lammermoor  before 
we  drew  rein  at  this  hospitable  and 
impassable  oasis.  The  fishing  was  free 
enough,  it  is  true ;  but  there  was  an 
unwritten  law  that,  if  you  fished,  you 
dined.  It  may  have  been  physically 
possible  to  have  fished  there  and  not 
dined ;  but  by  any  one  even  tempo- 
rarily connected  with  Berwickshire  or 
East  Lothian  such  a  daring  feat  would 
scarcely  have  been  contemplated.  No 
man  is  so  despotic  in  his  hospitality 
as  the  great  yeoman  farmer  of  ancient 
•stock  and  broad  acres ;  and  no  type 
after  his  own  fashion  perhaps  quite  so 
proud.  And  when,  moreover,  a  patri- 
arch of  this  kind  lives  in  what  for  a  civi- 
lised country  is  exceptional  isolation,  he 
would  be  a  bold  man  who  refused  his 
hospitality  on  such  excuses  as  pass 
muster  in  society.  Our  old  friend  on 
the  Lammermoors  was  a  superb  sur- 
vival of  a  class  almost  extinct,  though, 
if  truth  be  told,  we  did  not  always 
bless  him.  Snobbishness  of  every 
kind  would  have  fled  like  an  evil 
spirit  from  his  presence.  He  could 
sit  at  his  own  table  with  a  marquis  or 
a  country  salesman  (for  all  sorts  sat 
there)  and  treat  both  with  equal  con- 
sideration. We  were,  however,  neither 
marquises  nor  commercial  travellers, 
but  young  fellows  who  regarded  every 
hour  of  daylight  spent  off  the  best  bit 
of  water  on  Lammermoor  as  wasted, 
and  the  trouble  was  that  dinner  was 
at  the  primitive  hour  of  four  o'clock. 
To  do  ourselves  justice,  too,  we  mis- 
trusted our  somewhat  immature 
powers  of  facing,  not  the  dinner,  but 
the  more  serious  ceremony  that  fol- 
lowed it,  and  from  which  there  was  no 
escape.  He  was  extraordinarily  well 
situated,  was  this  old  gentleman,  for 
the  indulgence  of  his  favourite  virtue 
of  hospitality,  for  his  place  lay  upon  a 
road  which,  though  very  lonely  and  very 
long,  had  to  be  travelled  upon  certain 
fair  days  by  numbers  of  farmers  going 
and  coming  from  the  Merse  to  the 


Lothians.  Then  he  was  in  his  glory, 
and  his  roomy  stable-yard  was  as  full 
of  vehicles  as  the  Black  Bull  itself  or 
the  George  at  Haddington,  and  his 
dining-room  as  thick  with  the  smoke 
and  fumes  of  conviviality  as  eVer  were 
the  parlours  of  those  famous  hostelries. 
It  must  not  for  a  moment  be  sup- 
posed that  this  dignified  old  Scotch- 
man, with  his  swallow-tailed  coat 
of  Melton  cloth,  black  stock,  ruddy 
face,  and  clear  blue  eye,  ever 
indulged  in  unseemly  or  indecorous 
proceedings.  But  it  was  his  misfor- 
tune (surely  not  his  fault)  that  he 
could  not  realise  that  three  tumblers 
was  really  as  much  as  he  ought  to 
have  demanded  from  such  callow 
striplings  in  the  art  of  mixing  as  we 
were  and  who  had  to  ride  over  half  a 
county.  He  never  rightly  understood 
that  what  was  play  to  him,  as  the 
frogs  said,  was  death  to  us.  But  we 
understood  it  fully,  and  never  contri 
buted  any  material  to  the  tales  told  on 
market-days  in  Lothian  of  the  strange 
adventures  that  befel  so  many  mid 
night  fugitives  from  that  too  hospitable 
solitude.  And  it  is  sad  to  think  how 
often  perhaps  it  was  just  the  stirrup- 
cup,  which  was  here  no  figure  of 
speech,  that  did  the  mischief  and  gave 
a  moonless  night  on  Lammermoor  and 
the  dangerous  unfenced  road  that 
crossed  it  so  many  terrors. 

These  daily  notes  of  sport,  so  pa- 
tiently and  methodically  entered 
throughout  a  lifetime,  were  meant  to 
be  filled  in  by  the  memory  of  their 
author,  and  were  partly  intended,  no 
doubt,  to  be  the  solace  of  an  old  age 
he  might  fairly  have  expected.  They 
were  written  for  no  other  eye,  and 
contain  in  consequence  few  comments 
or  opinions.  But  here  and  there  are 
some  remarks,  jotted  down  almost  as 
passing  thoughts,  that  are  not  without 
general  interest.  The  confidential 
opinion,  for  instance,  of  a  young  Irish- 
man, steeped  to  the  lips  in  the  lore  of 


390 


Notes  from  a  Sportsman's  Journal. 


hounds  and  horses,  who  finds  himself 
for  the  first  time  in  the  English 
hunting-fields  of  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago,  is  instructive.  The  contrast  is 
not  between  Meath  and  Leicestershire, 
but  between  average  provincial  hunts 
in  either  country,  and  any  one  who  has 
seen  even  a  little  of  hunting  in  both 
islands  would  guess  without  much 
difficulty  the  great  point  of  contrast. 
To  put  it  briefly,  the  number  of  people 
who  hunt  for  other  reasons  than  love 
of  sport, — for  their  health,  or  their 
social  advancement,  or  because  it  is 
the  fashion,— is  incomparably  greater 
in  England  than  in  Ireland.  The 
number  of  mounted  men  at  the  covert- 
side  who,  to  such  critical  eyes  as  the 
ones  in  question,  soon  discovered 
themselves  as  knowing  very  little 
about  riding  and  absolutely  nothing 
about  hounds,  filled  this  simple  Irish 
Nimrod  with  astonishment  that  came 
out  as  if  irresistibly  at  the  tip  of  his 
pen.  This  style  of  sportsman,  by  the 
nature  of  things,  was  scarcely  to  be 

o     '  *J 

found  in  an  Irish  provincial  gathering. 
There  everybody  meant  business,  went 
in  hearty  fashion  to  the  best  of  their 
abilities,  and  knew  too  much  about 
sport  to  be  able  to  forget  that  they 
were  hunting  a  fox  with  hounds  and 
not  riding  a  paper-chase.  If  an  Irish 
field,  however,  was  more  generally 
alert  and  serious  when  foxes  were 
afoot,  and  contained  fewer  impostors 
than  elsewhere,  there  was  another  side 
to  it.  For.  in  its  hours  of  ease  it 
could  be  frivolous  to  a  degree  that  the 
m9re  matter-of-fact  Saxon  would  not 
perhaps  wholly  relish.  We  are  our- 
selves able  to  recall  a  certain  March 
day  some  twenty  years  ago  that  is 
simply  recorded  here  as  producing  a 
chopped  fox,  another  run  to  ground 
from  want  of  earth-stopping,  and 
several  distant  coverts  drawu.  blank, 
with  an  endless  ride  home,  and  ,so  on. 
But  it  was  not  within  the  scope  of  the 
journal  to  relate  how  a  tired  tvnd 


hungry  crew  of  some  half-dozen  horse- 
men were  jogging  home  to  supper  with 
its  author,  when  a  brilliant  notion 
struck  the  fertile  imagination  of  some 
one  present  whereby  a  certain  aggres- 
sive and  imperious  member  of  the 
company  might  be  yet  made  to  afford 
some  evening  sport  as  the  day  had 
produced  none.  For  when  nearing 
home  in  the  growing  dusk  it  was  sug- 
gested by  one  of  the  plotters,  who  had 
passed  the  word  quietly  around  to  all 
but  the  intended  victim,  that,  by 
leaping  a  harmless-looking  fence  out 
of  the  road,  a  great  saving  of  time 
and  distance  could  be  effected.  There 
was  great  parade  of  riding  at  the 
fence  by  the  instigators  of  the  scheme, 
and  much  rating  of  horses  who  seemed 
to  refuse  the  leap  in  the  most  natural 
way  possible.  As  was  hoped  and  ex- 
pected, the  object  of  these  wily  move- 
ments fell  easily  into  the  trap.  He 
was  a  big  man  riding  a  big  horse,  and 
with  many  jeers  at  his  companions' 
discomfiture  he  sent  his  nag  at  the 
fence  and  topping  it  neatly,  dis- 
appeared into  the  field  beyond.  There 
he  was  as  hopeless  a  prisoner  as  the 
unhappy  Bonmvard  himself.  The 
only  outlet  from  the  field  was  a  big 
iron  gate  heavily  padlocked,  for  the 
fence  from  the  inside  was  nowhere 
within  the  bounds  of  negotiation  even 
for  an  Irishman.  It  was  a  lonely  lane 
too,  and  rarely  travelled,  and  supper 
was  long  over  before  the  victim, 
having  effected  his  escape,  looked  in 
for  just  long  enough  to  shake  his 
fist  at  the  delighted  company  and, 
absolutely  refusing  to  break  bread, 
to  call  down  the  vengeance  of  heaven 
upon  their  heads. 

But  times  were  coming  in  Ireland 
when  there  was  not  much  heart  for 
practical  joking  among  hunting  men 
or  any  others ;  and  as  we  turn  the 
pages  over  to  1881  and  1882  there 
are  constant  allusions  to  poisoned 
hounds,  hostile  messages,  and  trouble 


Notes  from  a  Sportsman's  Journal. 


391 


of  all  sorts.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a 
characteristic  entry  at  a  time  when 
the  writer  was  temporarily  acting  as 
master.  "November  19th,  1891: 

Met  at  ,  drew  -  —  which  was 

surrounded  by  a  mob  hooting  and 
shouting,  all  the  gateways  built  up 
with  stone  and  brush  barricades.  Cut 
my  horse  badly  at  one  of  the  barri- 
cades. Had  to  ride  home  through  a 
hooting  and  yelling  mob." 

Turning  once  more  to  the  shooting 
chapters  of  the  journal,  there  are 
surely  very  few  sportsmen  in  Great 
Britain,  not  yet  past  middle-age,  who 
could  say  that  almost  every  head  of 
game  killed  since  boyhood  had  been 
shot  over  dogs,  and  dogs,  too,  for  the 
most  part  of  their  own,  not  their 
keeper's,  breaking.  The  accomplished 
slayer  of  driven  grouse  and  partridge, 
or  rocketing  pheasants,  will  have  much 
to  say,  and  that,  from  his  point  of 
view,  not  all  illogically,  against  such 
a  programme.  But  it  is  idle  to 
compare  two  schools  of  sport  that  are 
each  the  outcome  of  circumstances.  It 
is  only  in  wild  countries,  where  game 
is  scarce  and  distances  great,  that  the 
science  of  the  old-fashioned  sportsman 
is  really  seen.  Shooting  driven  birds, 
skilful  and  beautiful  work  though  it 
be  of  its  kind,  always  seems  suggestive 
rather  of  some  game  or  competition 
than  of  actual  sport ;  and  certainly  it 
is  entirely  devoid  of  those  innumerable 
incidents  that  belong  to  the  pursuit 
of  game  as  our  fathers  followed  it. 

There  is  a  tendency  among  modern 
sportsmen,  conscious  of  some  merit  in 


marksmanship,  and  conscious  also  of  a 
profound  ignorance,  not  only  of  dog- 
work,  but  of  the  tactics  of  the  field, 
to  assume  that  the  old-fashioned  shot 
would  be  unequal  to  the  posts  they  so 
skilfully  occupy  in  the  butt,,  or  behind 
the  fence.  So  far  as  our  experience 
goes,  this  poor  consolation  is  entirely 
out  of  place.  The  experienced  sports- 
man of  the  older  school  has  no  diffi- 
culty whatever  in  adapting  his  hand 
and  eye  to  other  conditions  when 
called  upon  to  do  so.  But  it  would 
be  a  different  matter  altogether  with 
the  man  whose  whole  business  is  to 
stand  and  shoot,  or  to  march  and  shoot, 
if  he  were  thrown  upon  his  own  re- 
sources, and  if  his  day's  sport  de- 
pended on  his  knowledge  of  venery, 
of  which  he  is  from  circumstances  as 
ignoi^ant  as  he  is  by  nature  contemp- 
tuous. The  writer  of  this  journal,  for 
instance,  used  to  enjoy  working  out 
the  trail,  with  a  young  setter,  of  a 
wild  hill-side  pheasant,  with  a  zest 
that  would  find  no  echo  in  the  breast 
of  what  may  be  called,  for  brevity's 
sake,  the  machine-shooter.  When  the 
bird,  after  five  or  ten  minutes'  patient 
hunting  over  as  many  acres  of  bracken, 
heather,  and  copse,  would  finally  rise 
at  the  edge  of  the  bog  to  a  staunch 
point,  the  matter  of  knocking  him 
down,  it  is  true,  was  as  nothing.  The 
satisfaction  lay  in  the  hunting ;  and 
it  was  a  satisfaction  infinitely  more 
complete  than  that  caused  by  the 
most  brilliant  shot  that  ever  tumbled 
its  brace  of  birds  over  a  Norfolk  fence 
or  a  Yorkshire  butt. 


392 


THE   RISE   OF   THE   BUFFS. 


IN  all  that  has  been  written  of  the 
quarrel  between  the  English  and 
Dutch  colonists  in  South  Africa  little, 
if  any,  allusion  has  been  made  to  the 
long  rivalry  between  the  two  nations. 
The  relative  positions  of  the  two  com- 
batants have  of  course  completely 
changed  since  the  beginning  ;  but  if 
we  coiild  probe  to  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts  we  should  probably  find  the 
same  motive,  the  old  insatiable  greed 
of  gain,  still  dictating  the  thoughts 
and  actions  of  both.  The  two  races 
are  very  near  of  kin,  and  resemble 
each  other  too  strongly  in  their  aims 
and  their  ideals  ever  to  remain  good 
friends  for  long. 

Our  quarrels  with  the  Dutch  have 
therefore  been  principally  on  account 
of  trade.  The  strength  of  the  com- 
mercial spirit  in  Holland  was  a  pro- 
verb in  Europe  two  centuries  ago,  and 
provoked  in  no  country  such  ready 
jealousy,  or  so  unwilling  admiration, 
as  in  England.  The  English  delighted 
to  quote  a  proverb  which,  justly  or 
unjustly,  was  supposed  to  be  in  the 
mouth  of  every  Hollander,  "Jesus 
Christ  is  good,  but  trade  is  better  " ; 
but,  though,  with  true  puritanic 
Pharisaism,  they  thanked  Heaven  that 
they  were  not  as  these  Dutchmen, 
they  grudged  them  every  market  which 
brought  a  penny  to  the  capacious 
pockets  of  Amsterdam.  It  is  likely 
that  the  Dutch  traders  were  on  the 
whole  more  utterly  brutal  in  their 
treatment  of  barbaric  people  than  any 
other  nation,  and  more  unscrupulous 
than  the  English  in  the  ruthless  ex- 
tirpation of  rival  settlements.  The 
massacre  of  Amboyna  was  an  ugly 
story ;  and  it  is  probable  that  it  gave 
a  colour  of  vengeance  to  the  terrible 


naval  battles  whereby  the  Dutch  were 
brought  to  their  knees  in  the  days  of 
the  Commonwealth.  But  the  thought 
which  rankled  deepest  in  the  hearts 
of  the  English  was  that  it  was  their 
own  right  hands  that  had  fought  and 
won  the  battle  of  Dutch  independence, 
and  had  raised  up  this  insolent  power 
which  threatened  to  drive  them  from 
their  heritage  of  the  sea.  Gratitude 
is  not  a  virtue  of  nations,  though  the 
statesmen  of  the  Long  Parliament 
seem  to  have  thought  that  it  was ; 
and  110  one  therefore  can  blame  the 
Dutch  for  not  possessing  it.  More- 
over, the  English  have  long  since  taken 
satisfaction  for  past  injuries  in  the 
shape  of  Ceylon,  South  Africa,  and  a 
few  more  important  possessions.  All 
resentment  against  the  Dutch  would 
therefore  be  out  of  place,  and  we  can 
recall  the  fact  that  we  won  the  free- 
dom of  the  United  Provinces  without 
any  bitter  sense  of  unrequited  obliga- 
tion. But  we  ought  not  wholly  to 
forget  it,  for  it  was  the  war  of  Dutch 
Independence  that  made  the  modern 
English  soldier,  and  was  in  fact  the 
school  of  the  modern  British  army. 
Moreover,  there  is  still  with  us  a 
famous  corps  which  dates  its  birth 
from  those  stirring  times,  and  is  in- 
deed a  standing  memorial  of  the 
army's  prentice  years. 

Sir  Roger  Williams,  a  famous 
soldier,  tells  us  the  story  of  the  rise 
of  the  English  regiments  in  the  Low 
Countries.  On  Mayday,  1572,  four 
years  after  the  first  insurrection 
of  the  Dutch  against  the  rule  of 
Spain,  Queen  Elizabeth  held  a  review 
of  London  citizens  at  Greenwich.  In 
the  ranks  that  day  were  many  veteran 
captains  and  soldiers  who  had  served 


The  Rise  of  the  Buffs. 


393 


in  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  France,  and 
were  now  turned  adrift  without  em- 
ployment in  the  world.  Subscriptions 
were  raised  by  patriotic  Protestants 
in  the  city,  and  three  hundred  of  them 
were  organised  into  a  company  and 
sent  over  sea  to  fight  for  the  Dutch 
under  Captain  Thomas  Morgan.  They 
arrived  in  the  very  nick  of  time  to 
save  the  revolted  port  of  Flushing 
from  the  hands  of  Alva,  and  there,  in 
a  sally  which  first  brought  them  face 
to  face  with  the  famous  troops  of 
•Spain,  they  made  a  brilliant  beginning 
for  the  new  British  army.  Fifty  of 
the  three  hundred  were  killed  out- 
right in  this  action,  the  first  of  many 
tens  of  thousands  of  English  who 
were  to  lay  their  bones  in  Holland 
during  the  next  seventy  years. 

After  the  rescue  of  Flushing  Mor- 
gan at  once  wrote  home  for  reinforce- 
ments ;  and  accordinglv  in  the  autumn 

O    »/ 

there  came  one  whose  name  is  chiefly 
remembered  for  service  of  a  different 
kind,  Colonel  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert, 
with  a  full  regiment  of  ten  companies 
and  fourteen  hundred  men,  raw  men 
under  a  raw  leader.  Morgan  was  the 
better  officer  and  would  have  been  the 
better  commander,  but  he  was  a 
modest,  retiring  man.  Gilbert,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  ambitious,  and  fatally 
ignorant  of  his  own  incapacity.  He 
launched  at  once  into  complicated 
operations  which  he  was  utterly  in- 
competent to  direct,  was  outwitted 
and  outmanoeuvred,  fell  back  on  swear- 
ing when  things  went  amiss,  and  not 
only  lost  his  own  head  but  completely 
broke  the  spirit  of  his  men.  The  new 
regiment  indeed  behaved  far  from 
well.  "  I  am  to  blame  to  judge  their 
minds,"  wrote  Roger  Williams,  the 
ablest  of  Morgan's  lieutenants,  "  but 
let  me  speak  truth  :  I  believe  they 
were  afraid."  And  he  added  with  a 
gentle  sarcasm,  which  shows  that  he 
knew  where  the  true  fault  lay  :  "  A 
commander  that  enters  the  enemies' 


countries  ought  to  know  the  places 
that  he  doth  attempt ;  if  not  he  ought 
to  be  furnished  with  guides."  So 
Gilbert  returned  home  a  sadder  and  a 
wiser  man,  having  learned  the  lesson 
that  the  most  reckless  of  undisciplined 
bravery  was  of  little  avail  against  the 
best-trained  troops  in  the  world,  how- 
ever inferior  in  natural  courage,  espe- 
cially when  they  were  handled  by  so 
consummate  a  general  as  Alva. 

Morgan  also  about  this  time  dis- 
appeared from  the  scene,  owing  to  a 
quarrel  with  William  of  Nassau.  He 
had  the  reputation  of  being  the  first 
man  to  make  "  perfect  arquebusiers  of 
the  English,"  the  first  to  make  them 
love  the  musket  as  the  Spanish  had 
loved  it  and  practised  for  fifty  years. 
Roger  Williams,  finding  his  occupation 
gone,  entered  the  Spanish  service  in 
order  more  thoroughly  to  master  his 
profession,  and  having  learned  it,  re- 
turned to  fight  against  them  bitterly 
for  twenty  years  longer.  So  it  was 
that  the  English  gradually  learned 
the  new  art  of  war  from  its  greatest 
living  masters.  How  many  of  us  reflect 
that  Spain  was  saved  by  her  own  pupils 
in  the  Peninsular  War  1 

Year  after  year  the  English  volun- 
teers continued  to  cross  the  North  Sea 
to  help  the  struggling  Dutch,  and  in 
July,  1577,  there  came  a  really  great 
soldier,  John  Norris,  the  Moore  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  He  had  learned 
his  work  in  the  austere  school  of 
Coligny,  and  he  fought  his  first  great 
action  in  the  Low  Countries  under 
the  austerest  pupil  of  that  school, 
and  perhaps  the  finest  exponent  of 
militant  Puritanism,  Frangois  de  La 
None.  The  day  of  Rymenant  was  in 
truth  the  first  great  day  of  the  infant 
British  army.  The  Spaniards  were 
flushed,  not  only  with  long  conscious- 
ness of  superior  training,  but  with  the 
glory  of  recent  victory  over  the  Dutch 
at  Gemblours,  and  it  was  the  flower 
of  their  magnificent  army  that  at- 


394 


The  Bise  of  the  Buffs. 


tacked  the  position  of  Rymenant. 
But  storm  as  they  might,  the  English 
and  the  Scots,  who  fought  by  their 
side,  would  not  be  beaten  and  would 
not  be  broken.  The  day  was  so  hot 
that  the  British  fought  in  their  shirt- 
sleeves, a  rare  thing  in  those  days  of 
defensive  armour ;  but  they  were 
drilled  and  disciplined  men,  and  with 
John  Norris  at  their  head  they  were 
invincible.  So  the  Spanish  battalions 
drew  back  in  sullen  rage,  and  the  first 
blow  at  their  prestige  in  the  Low 
Countries  was  dealt  by  the  British. 

For  many  years  later  Norris  con- 
tinued to  fight  with  his  English,  some- 
times defeated,  more  often  victorious, 
till  he  crowned  his  own  glory  and  the 
training  of  his  men  by  beating  off 
Alexander  of  Parma  himself,  the 
greatest  soldier  of  his  day,  in  a  long 
and  most  trying  rearguard-action. 
Then,  after  the  assassination  of  William 
the  Silent,  Elizabeth  openly  espoused 
the  cause  of  the  rebel  Dutch,  and 
sent  over  her  own  generals  to  com- 
mand. They  were  but  amateurs,  and 
they  returned  to  amateur  methods. 
Their  most  brilliant  exploit  was  the 
attack  of  the  English  cavalry  on  the 
Spanish  convoy,  which  is  known  as 
the  battle  of  Zutphen,  and  is  most 
memorable  probably  in  the  general 
mind  for  the  death  of  Philip  Sidney. 
As  a  display  of  individual  gallantry 
it  has  never  been  excelled  by  the  most 
dashing  exploits  of  the  English  horse, 
and  it  scared  the  Spanish  cavalry  at 
the  time  far  more  than  the  Spaniards 
liked  to  admit ;  but  it  was  none  the 
less  a  failure.  Strike  as  they  might 
with  sword  and  curtel-axe,  and  they 
struck  like  demons,  the  English  cava- 
liers could  not  break  the  disciplined 
Spanish  infantry,  and  the  convoy 
crept  on  to  its  destination  into  Zut- 
phen, a  little  shaken,  no  doubt,  but 
in  perfect  order  and  safety.  A  few 
days  later  the  body  of  Philip  Sidney 
was  borne  to  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral 


and  buried  under  the  smoke  of  the 
volleys  of  the  London  Train-Bands. 

We  have  no  space  to  dwell  on  the 
abominable  treatment  of  her  soldiers 
by  Elizabeth.  She  would  neither  pay 
them  nor  feed  them.  Leicester  wrote 
letter  after  letter,  pressing  in  pas- 
sionate terms  for  some  consideration 
for  his  poor  men,  but  Elizabeth  would 
not  send  a  farthing.  When  the  poor 
fellows  struggled  home,  maimed  and 
starving,  she  only  asked  to  be  delivered 
from  the  importunity  of  the  miserable 
creatures,  as  she  called  them.  Bloody 
Mary  had  left  a  bequest  for  the  benefit 
of  old  soldiers  ;  none  such  could  be 
expected  from  good  Queen  Bess. 

And  now  the  plot  of  the  Armada 
began  to  thicken,  and  the  majority  of 
the  English  hastened  home  to  Tilbury 
camp  to  witness  a  scene  of  helpless  con- 
fusion such  as  has  rarely  been  equalled 
even  in  the  military  annals  of  England. 
The  danger  passed  away,  with  small 
thanks  to  Elizabeth  :  the  English  ama- 
teurs stayed  on  their  own  side  of  the 
water;  and  in  1589  the  supreme  mili- 
tary command  in  the  Low  Countries 
passed  into  the  hands  of  a  master, 
Maurice  of  Nassau.  Though  merely 
a  lad  of  twenty,  he  for  the  first  time 
turned  the  motley  defenders  of  Dutch 
liberty  into  an  army,  supervising  every 
detail  and  organising  every  depart- 
ment with  a  thoroughness,  a  skill, 
and  a  patience  rare  in  men  even  of 
twice  his  years.  The  training  in  the 
school  of  Spain  was  complete ;  it  was 
now  time  for  the  Dutch,  as  for  every 
nation  that  will  be  successful  in  the 
battle-field,  to  evolve  their  own 
system  of  war.  This  was  the  work 
of  Maurice ;  and  from  him,  rather 
than  from  his  successor  in  fame, 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  the  English  took 
their  pattern  when  they  built  up 
that  New  Model  which  was  the  parent 
of  our  present  army.  Foreign  critics 
sneered  at  the  minute  accuracy  of  his 
drill  and  manoeuvres,  but  Maurice 


The  Rise*  of  the  Buffs. 


395 


knew  his  own  mind  and  followed  his 
own  bent. 

At  the  same  time  there  rose  to  the 
front  another  Englishman,  Francis 
Vere,  sprung  from  a  stock  that  had 
fought  hard  at  Crecy  and  Poitiers 
and  in  the  furious  battles  of  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses.  He  had  early 
begun  to  prove  himself  a  better  man 
than  the  bulk  of  the  English  volun- 
teers, had  presently  shown  profes- 
sional skill,  and  in  1589  was  made 
Sergeant-Major-General  of  the  Queen's 
forces  in  the  Low  Countries.  He 
too  had  his  difficulties  with  Elizabeth. 
His  force  was  but  small,  and  when  he 
applied  for  reinforcements  the  Queen 
answered  by  emptying  the  gaols  and 
taverns  and  sending  him,  as  he  said, 
"  the  very  scum  of  the  world."  He 
took  care,  however,  to  procure  better 
material,  and  in  1591  had  no  fewer 
than  eight  thousand  men  under  his 
command.  Then  Elizabeth  discovered 
that  it  was  very  cheap  to  withdraw 
the  trained  troops  of  Vere  for  her 
petty  and  futile  operations  in  France, 
and  to  send  him  some  fresh  scum  to 
be  moulded  into  soldiers.  Vere  pro- 
tested after  a  time,  and  was  of  course 
soundly  abused  for  his  pains.  Then 
came  additional  friction  owing  to  the 
peculation  of  the  treasurer  of  the 
forces  in  England  ;  and  in  good  truth 
it  was  a  relief  to  every  one  when  in 
1598  the  United  Provinces  took  the 
English  troops  into  their  own  pay 
and  shook  off  for  ever  the  interference 
of  the  inconstant  Queen. 

Then  the  reputation  of  the  English 
began  to  grow  apace.  Good  men  were 
already  grouping  themselves  round 
Vere  ;  two  of  his  brothers  had  joined 
him  years  before,  and  now  came 
among  others  a  Fairfax,  a  Holies, 
and  an  excellent  cavalry  officer, 
Edward  Cecil.  At  last  in  the  year 
1600,  on  a  hot  July  day,  the  English 
and  the  Spaniards  met  on  the  field  of 
Nieuport.  Things  had  gone  ill  with 


Maurice  before  the  battle.  A  portion 
of  his  force  had  been  cut  off  and 
utterly  defeated,  and  a  fine  regiment 
of  Scots,  seized  with  sudden  panic, 
had  rushed  into  the  sea  ^nd  been 
annihilated.  Vere  led  the  advanced 
guard  or  first  division  of  the  army 
in  the  action  and  resolved,  if  he  could, 
to  make  the  Spaniards  spend  all  their 
strength  upon  him,  before  they  should 
penetrate  to  Maurice's  main  body. 
His  march  lay  across  a  ford  in  Nieu- 
port  harbour,  and  his  men  would  fain 
have  stripped  to  cross  it  dry-clad. 
"  No  stripping,"  said  Vere  ;  "  you  will 
have  diy  clothes  to-night,  or  want 
none."  Then,  marching  into  the  sand 
dunes  by  which  the  Spanish  army 
was  advancing,  he  posted  his  men 
with  his  utmost  skill,  for  stubborn 
defence  and  for  mutual  support,  at  the 
narrowest  point  among  the  sandhills. 
Maurice's  formation  was  an  echelon 
of  three  lines,  Vere's  division  forming 
the  first  and  leftmost  line.  At  half- 
past  two  the  Spanish  infantry  opened 
the  attack,  five  hundred  of  them 
advancing  to  dislodge  two  hundred 
and  fifty  English  and  fifty  Frisians. 
They  were  repulsed,  but  being  rein- 
forced they  advanced  once  more ;  and 
then,  as  round  the  two-gun  battery  at 
Inkerman,  a  desperate  struggle  was 
waged  for  the  conquest  of  a  position, 
in  this  case  an  isolated  sandhill,  which 
was  conspicuous  indeed,  but  except  as 
a  rallying  point  of  no  special  value. 
Gradually  more  and  more  of  the 
Spaniards  were  thrown  into  the  fight, 
and  Vere  on  his  side  doled  out  his 
supports  skilfully  and  sparingly  to 
meet  them.  As  the  numbers  against 
him  became  more  overwhelming,  he 
sent  for  his  reserve.  Messenger  after 
messenger  was  despatched,  but  no 
reinforcements  came.  Vere,  with  one 
musket  ball  in  his  leg  and  another  in 
his  thigh,  concealed  his  wounds  and 
went  down  among  his  men  to  encourage 
them ;  but  still  the  reinforcements 


396 


The  Else  of  the  Buffs. 


came  not,  and  gradually  the  English, 
still  showing  their  teeth,  were  forced 
out  of  the  dunes  to  the  sea-shore. 
Vere's  horse  was  shot  under  him  as 
he  directed  the  retreat,  and  he  was  with 
difficulty  rescued  by  two  of  his  officers. 
A  troop  of  English  horse,  which 
had  received  no  orders  to  advance, 
covered  the  retreating  infantry  on  the 
beach,  and  charging  the  Spaniards, 
drove  them  back  into  the  sandhills, 
where  their  officers  quickly  re-formed 
them  and  massed  two  thousand  of  them 
together  for  a  further  advance.  The 
English  officers  also  rallied  their  men 
on  a  reinforcement  of  two  hundred 
English  under  Vere's  brother  Horace. 
They  then  decided  that  the  only  hope 
was,  weak  as  they  were,  to  fall  forth- 
with upon  the  Spanish  column. 
"  Look  at  the  Englishmen,  how  they 
are  charging  now ! "  cried  Maurice 
with  delight,  as  at  this  crisis 
of  the  battle  he  saw  their  gallant 
bearing.  They  came  down  de- 
sperately upon  the  enemy,  and  the 
Spaniards,  worn  out  with  marching 
and  fighting,  broke  and  gave  way. 
Maurice,  catching  the  supreme 
moment,  launched  his  cavalry  into 
the  disordered  masses,  and  the  battle 
was  won.  Vere  had  gone  into  action 
Avith  but  sixteen  hundred  English- 
men in  his  division ;  of  these  eight 
hundred  went  down,  while  of  their 
captains  eight  were  killed,  and 
but  two  escaped  unhurt.  They, 
though  but  a  third  of  the  division, 
had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  action, 
and  Maurice  willingly  gave  them 
credit  for  it. 

Next  year  came  the  memorable 
siege  of  Ostend,  the  one  stronghold 
of  the  Dutch  in  Flanders,  and  a 
pestilent  little  fortress  which  the 
Spaniards  were  determined  to  make 
an  end  of  once  for  all.  The  Arch- 
duke Albert  marched  against  it  with 
twenty-five  thousand  men,  and  Vere 
prepared  to  defend  it  with  six 


thousand,  half  Dutch,  half  English, 
fifteen  hundred  of  whom,  all  dressed 
in  red  cassocks,  were  just  arrived 
from  England.  The  town  measured 
but  five  hundred  yards  across ; 
the  Spanish  batteries  were  built 
within  musket-shot,  and  the  fire  was 
terrible.  In  three  weeks  Vere  was 
dangerously  wounded  in  the  head 
and  compelled  to  throw  up  the 
command,  and  at  the  close  of  a  month 
hardly  a  red  cassock  of  the  fifteen 
hundred  was  to  be  seen,  every 
man  being  wounded  or  dead.  Never- 
theless, the  sea  being  always  open  to 
the  besieged,  fresh  reinforcements 
were  poured  in  to  make  good  the 
waste.  Two  thousand  English,  well 
equipped  and  clad,  were  the  first  to 
arrive,  and  were  followed  by  Hugue- 
nots and  Scots.  These  too  went 
down  with  terrible  rapidity.  Every 
building  was  reduced  to  ruins,  and  the 
besieged  could  find  shelter  only  by 
burrowing  underground.  The  winter 
set  in  with  frightful  severity,  and  the 
garrison  dwindled  to  a  bare  nine 
hundred  men. 

On  January  7th,  1602,  the 
Spaniards  made  preparations  for  a 
grand  assault.  Vere,  who  was  re- 
covered of  his  wound,  determined  on 
a  desperate  resistance.  He  had  not 
nearly  men  enough  to  man  the 
defences,  but  he  knew  that  on  one 
side  the  Spaniards  must  advance  over 
an  estuary,  and  that  the  attack  must 
succeed  or  fail  during  the  short  hours 
when  the  tide  was  at  its  lowest.  At 
nightfall  the  Spaniards  fell  on  the 
devoted  town  at  all  points.  They 
were  met  by  every  description  of 
missile.  Flaming  hoops  were  cast 
round  their  necks,  ashes  flung  in  their 
eyes,  brickbats  hurled  in  their  faces, 
heavy  barrels  bristling  with  tenter- 
hooks rolled  down  into  their  ranks. 
Thrice  they  rushed  forward  furiously 
to  the  attack,  and  thrice  they  were 
beaten  back.  The  precious  moments 


The  Rise  o/  ike  Buffs. 


397 


flew  fast,  the  tide  began  to  rise,  anct 
the  Spaniards  reluctantly  beat  a 
retreat.  But  cunning  Yere  had  filled 
his  ditches  full  at  high  water,  and  as 
the  retiring  columns  reached  the  estu- 
ary, he  opened  his  sluices,  and  the  rush 
of  water  swept  hundreds  of  hapless 
Spaniards  into  the  sea.  The  Spanish 
loss  was  two  thousand  men ;  that  of 
the  English  did  not  exceed  one 
hundred  and  thirty. 

Still  the  siege  dragged  on.  Francis 
Vere  and  his  brother  Horace  left  the 
town  more  dead  than  alive  in  March, 
and  a  succession  of  gallant  Dutchmen 
filled  their  places.  Reinforcements 
came  in  from  England  by  hundreds 
and  thousands.  Rogues,  vagabonds, 
and  masterless  persons  were  im- 
partially impressed,  together  with  men 
of  honesty  and  reputation,  clapped 
into  red  or  blue  cassocks,  and  shipped 
off  to  Ostend.  Every  man  whose  life 
was  broken  or  whose  appetite  for 
excitement  was  unsated  hurried  off  to 
the  siege,  and  the  leaguer  of  Ostend 
became  one  of  the  sights  of  Europe. 
At  last,  in  September,  1G04,  the  heap 
of  ruins  which  marked  the  site  of  the 
little  fortress  was  surrendered  into 
the  generous  hands  of  Spinola.  The 
siege  had  lasted  three  years  and  ten 
weeks,  and  had  cost  the  lives  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  men. 
Before  it  closed  the  campaigns  of 
Francis  Vere  were  ended.  He  retired 
worn  out  with  work  and  wounds  to 
London,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1609 
the  shattered  body  was  borne  to  its 
rest  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Most  of 
us  know  the  four  noble  kneeling 
figures  that  support  the  canopy  above 
the  recumbent  marble  effigy  ;  but  few 
of  us  reflect  that  they  are  genuine 
types  of  the  English  officers  who 
founded  the  traditions  of  our  present 
army. 

And  now  the  twelve  years' 
truce  gave  the  English  regiments  a 
rest  which,  though  not  wholly  un- 


broken, left  some  of  the  more  restless 
spirits  free  to  fight  for  the  Winter 
Queen  in  the  Palatinate.  But  in 
1621  the  war  began  again,  and  a 
large  contingent  of  English  under 
Edward  Cecil  flocked  joyfully  to  the 
banners  of  Maurice.  By  1624  the 
final  breach  of  England  with  Spain 
had  swelled  its  numbers  to  twelve 
thousand,  and  the  succeeding  year 
saw  them  raised  to  seventeen  thou- 
sand men.  About  this  time  we  begin 
to  encounter  familiar  names,  Philip 
Skippon  and  John  Cromwell,  a  kins- 
man of  the  famous  Oliver,  who 
were  both  wounded  at  the  siege  of 
Breda  in  1625.  Passing  next  to  the 
siege  of  Bois-le-Duc  in  1629,  we  find 
Lord  Doncaster  and  Lord  Fielding 
each  trailing  a  pike  in  Cecil's  regiment, 
Lord  Craven,  a  Luttrell,  a  Bridgman, 
a  Basset,  a  Throgmorton,  a  Fleet- 
wood,  a  Lambert,  a  second  Cromwell, 
Thomas  Fairfax,  Philip  Skippon, 
Jacob  Astley,  Thomas  Culpeper,  and 
from  north  of  the  Tweed,  two  veterans 
grown  grey  in  the  Dutch  service, 
Balfour  and  Sandilands.  Later  on 
at  the  siege  of  Breda  in  1637  we 
see  Prince  Rupert  and  Prince 
Maurice,  sons  of  the  Winter  King, 

J  o" 

as  forward  in  the  trenches  as 
any  needy  cadet  could  be,  working 
side  by  side  with  Philip  Skippon  and 
Robert  Rich,  Earl  of  Warwick,  and 
George  Goring.  Skippon  and  Goring 
divided  the  honours  of  the  siege. 
The  former  at  a  post  of  extreme 
danger  drove  off  two  hundred 
Spaniards  with  thirty  English ;  he 
was  struck  by  five  bullets  in  helmet 
and  corselet  and  at  last  shot  through 
the  neck,  but  he  merely  sat  down  for 
ten  minutes  till  he  had  recovered  from 
the  shock  and  then  returned  to  his 
post  to  remain  there  until  recalled  by 
the  Prince  of  Orange.  Goring,  in 
the  extreme  advanced  sap,  paid  extra 
wages  from  his  own  pocket  to  any 
one  who  would  work  with  him,  toiled 


398 


The  Rise  of  the  Buffs. 


on  while  two  and  twenty  men  were 
shot  down  by  his  side,  and  retired 
only  when  a  bullet  through  the  ankle 
rendered  him  unable  to  stand.  And 
still  fresh  English  volunteers  kept 
pouring  in  to  learn  their  profession, 
Herbert,  son  of  Lord  Herbert  of 
Cherbury,  Sir  Faithful  Forte.scue  of 
the  King's  cavalry  in  Ireland,  Sir 
Charles  Slingsby,  and  lastly  Captain 
George  Monk,  of  Potheridge  in  Devon, 
one  clay  to  be  the  first  colonel  of  the 
Colclstream  Guards,  and  even  now 
distinguished  by  uncommon  bravery. 

There  they  were,  gallant  English 
gentlemen,  all  wearing  the  blue  and 
orange  scarf,  fighting  side  by  side 
under  the  pupils  of  Francis  Vere, 
learning  their  work  against  the  day, 
not  far  distant,  when  they  should  be 
called  Cavaliers  and  Roundheads  and 
be  flying  at  each  others'  throats.  It 
was  a  merry  life  enough,  though  with 
plenty  of  grim  earnest.  Before  each 
relief  marched  off  to  the  trenches  for 
the  night,  it  drew  off  in  parado  x  to 
the  quarters  of  the  colonel  in  com- 
mand, heard  prayers,  sang  a  psalm, 
and  so  was  despatched  to  work  ;  but 
though  there  was  a  preacher  to  every 
regiment,  and  a  sermon  in  the  colonel's 
tent,  there  were  few  listeners  except  a 
handful  of  well-disposed  persons.  It 
was  to  be  a  very  different  matter  with 
some  of  them  a  few  years  later ;  but 
that  they  could  not  foresee,  for  Oliver 
Cromwell  was  still  living  in  compara- 
tive obscurity  at  Huntingdon,  and 
was  not  yet  turned  soldier.  In  truth 
we  find  among  the  gentlemen  volun- 
teers some  very  familiar  types.  One 
gentleman  arrived  with  eighteen  suits 
of  clothes,  got  drank  immediately  on 
landing,  and  remained  drunk,  hiccough- 
ing "  thy  pot  or  mine  "  for  the  rest  of 
his  stay.  It  is  not  difficult  to  under- 

1  This  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  first  in- 
stance of  the  use  of  this  word  which  is  now 
so  familiar.  It  is,  of  course,  derived  from  the 
Spanish. 


stand  why  this  specimen  was  sent 
off  to  the  wars  ;  nowadays  he  would 
be  shipped  off  to  Australia  or 
Mashonaland  as  a  remittance  man. 
Another,  Ensign  Duncombe,  came  for 
a  different  reason  ;  he  had  fallen  in 
love  with  a  girl  who,  though  worthy 
enough  of  him,  was  disapproved  by 
his  parents.  So  he  too  was  sent 
away,  as  such  foolish  boys  must  be, 
to  the  wars  to  for-get  her ;  and  he  did 
well  and  became  a  great  favourite. 
But  unluckily  he  could  not  forget  the 
lady ;  and  so  one  day  he  sat  him 
down  and  wrote  two  letters,  one  full 
of  duty  to  his  father,  the  other  full  of 
passion  to  his  beloved,  and  having 
done  so  he  addressed  the  passionate 
epistle,  as  such  poor  blundering  boys 
will,  to  his  father,  and  the  dutiful 
one  to  the  lady.  And  so  it  came 
about  that  several  weeks  later  the 
regiment  was  horrified  one  day  to 
hear  that  young  Duncombe  had  shot 
himself  ;  and  there  was  an  ensign  the 
less  in  the  Low  Countries  and  a 
broken  heart  the  more  in  England. 

O 

For  these  soldiers  of  old  times  were  of 
the  same  flesh  and  blood  as  their 
descendants  to-day. 

And  the  English  private  soldier  had 
also  learned  his  lesson  in  the  course 
of  sixty  years.  They  were  no  longer 
the  raw  louts  at  whom  the  Spaniards 
had  laughed  for  emptying  the  whole 
of  their  bandoliers  at  once  into  their 
muskets,  and  firing  all  their  ammuni- 
tion away  at  one  shot.  They  had  now 
won  back  the  old  English  reputation 
for  fine  mai-ksmanship,  and  an  eye- 
witness records  with  delight  how  the 
musketeers  under  the  heaviest  fire 
would  lean  on  their  rests,  after  firing 
each  shot,  and  watch  for  the  result  as 
coolly  as  if  they  had  been  so  many 
fowlers  watching  for  the  fall  of  their 
bird.  They  learned  also  of  course  all 
the  niceties  of  the  exercise  of  pike  and 
musket,  and  could  stand  with  a  full 
body  in  a  comely  posture  against  any 


The  Rise  of  the  Buffs. 


399 


soldiers  in  the  world.  Lastly,  theyx 
even  developed  a  passion,  rare  in  their 
nation,  for  the  use  of  the  spade. 
Rivalry  with  other  nations  in  the 
Dutch  camp,  and  notably  with  the 
French,  was  the  stimulus  that  en- 
couraged them  to  this  distasteful  work. 
In  truth  they  never  quite  forgot  their 
old  antipathy  to  their  neighbours 
across  the  Channel,  and  once  they 
revived  it  so  far  as  to  break  out  into 
a  furious  riot.  The  original  quarrel 
was  about  some  firewood  to  which 
certain  English  and  French  soldiers 
preferred  rival  claims.  The  dispute 
grew  hot ;  words  soon  turned  to 
blows,  comrades  hurried  up  on 
both  sides,  and  presently  the  two 
regiments  were  fighting  desperately. 
The  French  colonel  hastened  up  to 
restore  order,  but  the  English  were 
no  respecters  of  persons  and  quickly 
made  an  end  of  him.  Finally  the 
French  fled  to  their  ships,  leaving  their 
colonel  and  sixteen  more  dead  on  the 
ground,  while  the  English  followed  in 
hot  pursuit,  vowing  that  they  would 
board  the  ships  and  sweep  every  man 
into  the  sea.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted 
that  they  would  have  done  so,  had  not 
the  colonel  of  a  Scotch  regiment 
drawn  out  his  men  in  battle  order 
and  so  stopped  them. 

But  now  the  Civil  "War  broke  out 
in  England,  and  most  of  the  volunteers 
and  many  of  the  men  went  home  to 
take  part  in  it :  many,  but  not  all, 
for  there  were  not  a  few  who  preferred 
not  to  take  the  life  of  their  country- 
men. Even  after  the  peace  of  West- 
phalia the  English  element  in  the 
Dutch  army  was  singularly  strong,  for 
when  that  army  was  remodelled  in 
January,  1654,  twenty  out  of  twenty- 
five  regimental  commanders  still  bore 
English  names.  It  is  generally  as- 
sumed, and  has  constantly  been  re- 
peated l  that  at  some  period,  supposed 

1  Apparently  on  the  authority  of  Cannon's 
Records  of  the  Third  Buffs.  As,  so  far  as  we 


to  be  1655,  the  English  and  Scotch  in 
the  Dutch  service  were  reduced  to 
two  regiments,  one  of  each  nationality. 
This  is  not  so ;  there  were  up  to  the 
year  1665  three  English  regiments 
and  four  Scotch,  numbering  ^between 
them  fifty-three  companies.  Now  in 
February  of  that  year  England  de- 
clared war  against  Holland,  and  the 
position  of  this  British  corps  became 
extremely  ambiguous.  With  the 
prestige  of  nearly  a  century  of  hard 
fighting  and  faithful  service  upon  them, 
it  was  thought  in  England  that  they 
would  obtain  generous  treatment  from 
their  masters,  but  the  English  in  the 
embassy  at  the  Hague  were  by  no 
means  so  sanguine.  In  January,  when 
war  seemed  certain,  the  Dutch  autho- 
rities began  to  speak  of  disbandment, 
and  one  of  Charles  the  Second's  in- 
telligencers wrote  urgently  begging 
that,  to  spare  the  troops  this  affront, 
the  King  would  take  them  into  his 
own  service.  The  English  ambassador, 
Sir  George  Downing,  also  pressed  the 
King  to  accept  this  advice  and  send  a 
ship  to  transport  them  to  England; 
but  still  the  weeks  passed  and  nothing 
was  done.  Then  war  was  declared, 
and  De  Witt  at  once  forced  upon  the 
United  Provinces  a  resolution  that 
the  British  regiments  must  either  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  States- 
General  and  promise  to  fight  against 
England  if  necessary,  or  be  at  once 
cashiered.  It  was  not  worthy  be- 
haviour towards  men  who,  with  their 
predecessors,  had  done  more  for  the 
Dutch  Republic  than  she  could  ever 
repay.  Dismissal  from  the  service 
simply  spelled  ruin  to  the  unfortunate 
officers,  whether  they  had  purchased 
their  commissions  or  otherwise,  and 
want  and  misery  to  the  men.  Never- 
theless, the  resolution  was  passed, 

know,  the  statements  that  follow  are  new,  we 
may  mention  that  the  authorities  are  to  be 
found  in  the  Record  Office,  Holland  Papers, 
1665,  bundles  233-235. 


400 


The  Eise  of  the  Buffs. 


and  it  remained  to  be  seen  whether 
the  loyalty  of  the  officers  to  their 
sovereign  could  stand  the  test. 

The  result  was  instructive.  The 
disbandment  was  effected  by  com- 
panies. Twelve  English  company-com- 
manders, that  is  to  say,  so  far  as  can 
be  judged  from  Downing's  language, 
the  whole  of  them,  together  with  their 
subalterns,  refused  point-blank  to 
swear  fealty  to  Holland,  and  were 
discharged.  Of  the  Scots,  although 
Charles  was  a  Stuart  and  a  Scotchman, 
only  two  had  the  spirit  to  follow  the 
English  example.  The  rest,  who  at 
first  had  made  great  protestations  of 
loyalty,  remained  with  their  Dutch 
masters,  and,  like  all  shame-faced 
converts,  professed  exaggerated  love  for 
the  Dutch  service  and  extravagant 
willingness  to  invade  Great  Britain  if 
required. 

Downing  was  very  angry  with  the 
Scots,  somewhat  annoyed  with  the 
King,  and  genuinely  distressed  for 
the  English.  He  did  what  he  could 
to  help  them  by  procuring  passages 
home  for  the  disbanded  men, — English 
ship-masters  probably  did  not  grudge 
them — and  provided  the  officers  with 
letters  of  recommendation  to  men  of 
high  station  in  England.  Several  of 
these  letters  are  still  extant,  and  show 
that  the  ensigns  had  most  of  them 
served  from  twenty  to  thirty  years. 
Then  at  last  Charles  was  roused.  On 
the  arrival  of  the  officers  in  England 
he  kept  them  for  a  few  weeks  on 
rather  higher  than  half-pay,  and  then 
grouped  them  together  again  with 
their  men  as  the  Holland  Regiment. 
This  is  the  famous  corps  which  now 
ranks  as  Third  of  the  Line  and  is 
called,  from  the  facings  which  it  has 
worn  for  more  than  two  centuries, 


by  the  honoured  name  of  the 
Buffs. 

A  word  must  be  said  of  the  Scotch 
regiments  that  they  left  behind  them 
in  Holland.  They  too  came  over  to 
England  in  due  time  with  William  of 
Orange,  but  returned  to  Holland  after 
three  years'  stay.  They  continued 
there  till  in  1763  they  begged  to  be 
taken  into  the  British  service,  but 
were  refused.  In  1779  the  request 
was  repeated  and  again  refused.  In 
1782  the  government  of  the  United 
Provinces  altered  their  scarlet  uniform 
to  blue,  and  incorporated  them  with 
the  Dutch  troops.  Thereupon  fifty  of 
the  officers  at  once  left  the  service, 
refusing  an  oath  which  cut  them 
off  from  their  country.  It  was 
a  pity  that  their  predecessors  had  not 
taken  the  same  view  a  century  before. 
They  were,  however,  at  last  received 
into  the  British  service,  and  the  corps 
served  with  distinction  as  the  Scots 
Brigade,  or  Ninety-Fourth  regiment, 
in  India  and  the  Peninsula.  In  1818, 
however,  it  was  disbanded  and  so 
came  to  an  end.  Endless  lamenta- 
tions have  been  uttered  over  its  fate, 
for  there  is  always  more  fuss  over 
Scotch  regiments  than  over  English, 
just  as  there  is  more  fuss  over  Burns 
than  over  Milton  ;  but  the  corps  was 
pursued  by  the  nemesis  of  the  rene- 
gade, and  in  our  judgment  it  was 
rightly  served. 

And  so  the  Buffs  remain  the  unique 
relic  of  the  British  Volunteers  in  the 
Low  Countries.  Though  not  the 
oldest  of  our  national  regiments,  for 
that  honour  belongs  to  the  Coldstream 
Guards,  it  has  the  longest  pedigree  of 
any  corps  in  the  service,  and  repre- 
sents the  original  model  of  that  sorely 
tried  institution,  the  British  Army. 


MACMILLAN'S    MAGAZINE 


OCTOBER,  1896. 


OUR    YEOMANRY. 


•  WHAT  is  a  yeoman  1  Heisjemand, 
anybody,  answer  the  old  etymologists, 
or  it  may  be  gemein,  a  common  man  ; 
in  any  case,  an  individual  of  every 
day.  But,  adds  Doctor  Johnson,  the 
word  seems  to  have  been  used  as  a 
ceremonious  title  for  soldiers,  whence 
the  phrase  Yeoman  of  the  Guard.  A 
ceremonious  title  !  Then  is  the  prefix 
private  a  ceremonious  title,  and  can 
every  soldier  boast  that  he  has  a 
handle  to  his  name  1  With  all  defer- 
ence to  the  great  lexicographer,  we 
imagine  not ;  and  indeed  we  can  trace 
from  the  chronicles  of  the  old  wars 
that  soldiers  were  of  two  kinds,  gentle- 
men soldiers  and  yeomen  soldiers, 
which  gives  rather  more  than  a  cere- 
monious significance  to  the  title  chosen 
in  1485  for  the  bodyguard  of  King 
Henry  the  Seventh.  The  distinction 
is  accentuated  by  the  fact  that  his 
more  extravagant  son,  Henry  the 
Eighth,  instituted  a  bodyguard  of 
gentlemen,  which,  as  might  have  been 
expected  under  the  best  -  dressed 
sovereign  in  Europe,  soon  perished 
under  the  cost  of  its  clothes  and 
equipment.  Nevertheless  Henry's 
experiment  was  renewed  by  Edward 
the  Sixth,  and  the  new  guard  created 
by  him  still  survives  as  the  Corps  of 
Gentlemen-at-Arms.  Nor  has  the 
navy  been  behindhand  in  preserving 
the  old  hierarchy,  for  it  still  boasts  of 
signal-men,  yeomen  of  the  signals, 
and  officers  of  the  signals. 

These,    however,    are    refinements. 

No.  444. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


The  word  yeoman,  despite  the  hu- 
mility of  its  Teutonic  origin,  still  sig- 
nifies somebody,  at  any  rate  in  the 
more  primitive  parts  of  England, 
namely  a  freeholder  or,  as  he  is  gene- 
rally designated  by  a  curious  contra- 
diction in  terms,  a  farmer  who  farms 
his  own  land.  This,  of  course,  is  the 
class,  small  enough  now,  but  still  in 
possession  of  social  precedence 
wherever  it  exists,  which  gave  to 
England  her  famous  archers  in  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries, 
and  which  still  enjoys  the  credit  of 
having  gained  our  early  victories  over 
the  French. 

You  good  yeomen 
Whose   limbs   were   made  in  England, 

show  us  here 
The  mettle  of  your  pasture. 

The  ascription  of  all  the  glory  of 
these  actions  to  the  yeomen  is  de- 
cidedly unfair  to  the  gentlemen,  for 
the  archers  could  no  more  have  won 
Cregy  and  Agincourt  without  the 
men-at-arms  than  the  men-at-arms 
could  have  won  them  without  the 
archers ;  but  the  two  classes  fought 
side  by  side  without  jealousy  then, 
and  there  is  no  object  in  setting  their 
ghosts  at  loggerheads  now.  Each  did 
its  best,  each  understood  the  value  of 
the  other :  both  worked  together 
heart  and  soul ;  and  this  was  the 
secret  of  their  success. 

On  the  next  occasion  when  we 
encounter  the  yeoman  prominent  on 
the  battle-field  we  find  him  promoted 

D  D 


402 


Our  Yeomanry. 


to  the  mounted  service.  In  the  midst 
of  the  confusion  wrought  by  the  sub- 
stitution of  pike  and  caliver  for  the 
old-fashioned  bow  there  emerged  a 
body  of  irregular  cavalry,  drawn  from 
the  small  freeholders  of  the  extreme 
north  of  England,  which  was  known 
as  the  Northern  Light  Horse.  It  is 
too  little  that  we  know  of  this  force. 
By  intense  study  of  ancient  Acts  of 
Parliament  we  have  discovered  that 
they  rode  ponies  of  from  twelve  to  thir- 
teen hands  in  height;  and  from 
abundant  evidence  it  is  plain  that 
they  were  the  very  best  light  horse- 
men in  Europe.  The  Emperor  Charles 
the  Fifth  himself  cried  out  with 
honest  delight  when  he  saw  them  at 
work  ;  and  Charles  was  not  only  a  good 
judge  of  a  soldier,  but  had  peculiar 
knowledge  of  the  Hungarian  light- 
horse  which  was  just  beginning  to 
spread  the  name  of  hussar  from  the 
Danube  to  the  Thames. 

The  Northern  Light  Horse  died  out, 
and  the  yeomen  had  to  wait  till  the 
Civil  War  for  another  chance  of  a 
step  upward.  They  had  begun  as 
foot-men,  and  advanced  themselves  to 
be  mounted  infantry,  and  now  the 
time  came  when  they  should  appear 
as  regular  horse.  The  cavalry  of  the 
Parliament  was  confronted  with  the 
problem  of  beating  royalist  gentlemen 
who  had  courage,  honour,  and  resolu- 
tion in  them,  and  for  the  time  com- 
pletely failed  to  solve  it.  A  country 
gentleman,  Oliver  Cromwell,  offered 
to  his  kinsman,  John  Hampden,  a 
new  and  original  solution.  "  We 
must  enlist,"  he  said,  "  a  better  class 
of  man  than  we  have  taken  hitherto. 
We  must  get  men  who  make  some 
conscience  of  what  they  do,  and  teach 
them  discipline."  Hampden  shook 
his  head.  "A  good  idea,"  he  said, 
but  impracticable,"  and  he  went  his 
way,  to  be  killed  in  a  skirmish  of 
cavalry.  Cromwell  likewise  went  his 
way,  formed  two  regiments  of  yeo- 
men, trained  them,  disciplined  them, 


and  made  them,  and  the  other  regi- 
ments of  the  New  Model  after  them, 
into  the  finest  horse  in  Europe.  This 
was  the  finishing  touch.  The  old 
feudal  organisation  which  had  re- 
served the  mounted  service  for  gentle- 
men only  received  its  final  deathblow, 
and  the  principle  was  established  that 
the  English  yeoman's  place  as  a  fight- 
ing man  is  among  the  horse. 

The  famous  army  of  the  Common- 
wealth was  disbanded,  and  our  pre- 
sent standing  army  came  silently  and 
stealthily  into  being.  The  gentlemen 
of  the  Life  Guards  took  the  first 
place  in  the  cavalry,  and  the  yeoman 
dropped  out.  The  status  of  the  Eng- 
lish soldier  sank  steadily  lower  and 
lower.  He  was  crushed  between  the 
hammer  of  the  Parliament  and  the 
anvil  of  the  Monarchy.  He  was  good 
enough  to  be  shot  in  time  of  war, 
and  good  enough  to  be  insulted  in 
time  of  peace,  good  enough  to  be 
starved  and  swindled  at  all  times, 
good  enough  to  be  cheered  and  en- 
couraged at  none.  The  country  de- 
liberately threw  the  military  profes- 
sion into  the  kennel,  and  then  com- 
forted itself  by  saying  that  the  worst 
men  made  the  best  soldiers.  Recently 
the  nation  has  awakened  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  desirable  to  attract  a  better  class 
of  recruit  to  the  army.  It  has  dis- 
covered that  the  army  is  not  popular, 
and  its  innocent  heart  is  wrung  with 
injured  amazement ;  for  it  is  a  logical 
nation,  and  can  think  of  nothing 
better  fitted  to  popularise  a  calling 
than  two  centuries  of  deliberate  de- 
gradation and  neglect. 

But  our  present  business  is  not  with 
the  army  but  with  the  yeomen,  who 
have  cast  off  all  connection  with  it. 
As  a  class  yeomen,  properly  so  called, 
are  so  few  as  to  be,  for  practical  pur- 
poses, extinct,  and  the  title  of  Yeo- 
manry is  applied  to  the  men  who  now 
fill  their  places,  farmers,  and  the  sons 
of  farmers.  By  Englishmen  the  name 
of  the  Yeomanry  as  signifying  a  mili- 


Our  Yeomanry. 


403 


tary  force  is  generally  received  with 
not  unreasonable  amusement.  There 
is  a  vast  store  of  venerable  jests  at  the 
expense  of  the  force,  and  these  are  the 
antiquities  which  the  English  people 
does  not  willingly  let  die.  Moreover, 
the  rustic  is  always  fair  game  for  the 
witticisms  of  the  townsman ;  and  it 
must  be  confessed  that  so  excellent  a 
butt  as  the  old-fashioned  yeoman  does 
not  often  present  himself. 

The  oldest  of  the  eight-and-thirty 
regiments  of  Yeomanry  dates  its  birth- 
day two  centuries  back,  but  the  ma- 
jority, unless  we  are  mistaken,  were 
raised  for  defence  against  invasion  in 
the  course  of  the  last  great  war  with 
France.  The  process  was  probably 
much  the  same  as  it  was  at  the  time 
of  the  Civil  War.  The  great  land- 
owners undertook  to  raise  regiments,  the 
squires  around  them  to  raise  troops, 
and  the  lesser  gentry  and  the  squires' 
sons  became  subalterns.  The  only 
drawback  was  that  as  each  squire 
naturally  enlisted  his  own  neighbours 
and  tenants,  the  regiment  resembled 
rather  a  congeries  of  troops  than  a 
homogeneous  corps. 

The  war  over,  the  Yeomanry  sur- 
vived as  an  ornamental  force,  orna- 
mental, that  is  to  say,  in  respect  of 
the  dress  of  the  officers,  for  as  much 
can  hardly  be  said  of  the  men.  In 
the  wealthy  Midlands  during  the 
palmy  days  of  agriculture,  the  Yeo- 
manry were  so  well  mounted  that  the 
horses  alone  would  have  redeemed  their 
appearance,  while  the  gentlemen  whom 
they  met  in  the  hunting-field  gave  the 
young  farmers  a  standing  pattern  of 
smartness ;  but  in  the  more  primitive 
and  bucolic  districts,  which  are  those 
with  which  we  are  best  acquainted, 
matters  were  very  different.  There 
are  still  wonderful  stories  of  the 
annual  training  of  old  times.  The 
day's  work  began  by  a  perambulation 
of  the  billets  by  certain  old  yeomen, 
who  held  the  rank  of  serjeant-major, 
a  solemn  function  which  they  executed 


in  an  easy  undress  of  stable  jacket, 
overalls,  and  carpet  slippers.  By  this 
means  the  men  were  got  on  parade, 
and  marched  away  to  the  drill-ground 
some  three  miles'  distant.  Arrived 
there  the  word  was  given,  -"  Prepare 
to  dismount  !  "  "  Dismount  !  " 
"  Milk  your  mares ! "  And  this 
homely  but  necessary  duty  ful- 
filled, the  regiment  remounted  and 
proceeded  to  the  execution  of  the 
prescribed  field-movements. 

These  again  were  performed  with 
considerable  deliberation.  Each  officer 
had  been  furnished  beforehand  with  a 
card,1  on  which  were  printed  the 
various  items  in  the  programme,  to- 
gether with  the  word  to  be  given  by 
the  squadron  and  troop-leaders ;  but 
as  even  this  precaution  was  deemed  in- 
sufficient, the  colonel  before  each  evo- 
lution sounded  the  officers'  call,  ex- 
pounded the  nature  of  the  coming 
manoeuvre,  instructed  leaders  of 
squadrons  and  troops  anew  in  their 
words  of  command,  and  dismissed 
them  to  their  several  places.  Then 
came  the  word  "  March  "  ;  the  regi- 
ment shuffled  leisurely  through  the 
movement  amid  a  babel  of  tongues  and 
contradictory  orders,  and  halted.  Then 
the  call  for  the  officers  sounded  again, 
and  away  they  galloped  to  the  colonel, 
saluting  as  they  reached  him  ;  the  last 
evolution  was  mildly  criticised,  the 
next  carefully  rehearsed,  and  back  they 
galloped  to  their  troops  for  the  per- 
formance. Five  such  field-days,  inter- 
rupted by  Sunday  and  a  great  church- 
parade,  brought  the  training  to  a  close  ; 
and  on  the  sixth  day  the  inspecting 
officer  came  down  and  told  the  yeomen 
that  they  were  the  finest  fellows  that 
ever  were  seen.  On  the  seventh  (or 
rather  the  eighth,  for  the  first  was 
taken  up  by  the  business  of  assem- 
bling), the  men  were  paid,  the  troop- 

1  These  cards  were  not  unknown  in  the 
regular  cavalry  in  the  reign  of  King  William 
the  Fourth,  at  any  rate,  and  probably  both 
before  and  after  him. 

D    D    2 


404 


Our  Yeomanry. 


horses  were  put  into  the  shafts  of  the 
market-carts,  and  the  regiment  dis- 
persed, fully  convinced  that  the  in- 
specting officer  had  spoken  his  real 
conviction,  and  that  he  was  an  ex- 
tremely sensible  gentleman. 

We  are  old  enough  to  remember  this 
ancient  stamp  of  yeoman,  and  the 
curious  appearance  that  he  presented 
on  parade.  His  figure  was,  as  a  rule, 
a  great  deal  too  full  for  a  stable-jacket, 
and  miserably  adapted  for  a  hussar's 
tunic ;  his  overalls  strained  them- 
selves in  vain  to  meet  his  boots, 
and  those  boots  were  not  always 
his  best.  He  wore  a  great  deal  of 
hair  on  his  face,  and  as  much  as 
possible  on  his  head,  and  by  some 
extraordinary  fatality  his  busby  could 
never  be  induced  to  sit  straight  or 
kindly  on  that  head.  His  sword-belt 
always  hung  four  or  five  inches  below 
his  stable-jacket,  and  the  weapon  con- 
sequently dangled  dangerously  close  to 
the  ground,  while  the  empty  scabbard 
danced  merrily  under  the  horse's  belly 
in  a  way  that  drove  a  ticklish  animal 
mad.  It  was  useless  bo  suggest  that 
the  belt  should  be  tightened,  for  men 
of  a  certain  girth  object  to  such  re- 
straint ;  and  if  a  shoulder-sling  were 
provided  it  was  generally  let  out  to 
such  a  length  that  the  sword  hung  as 
low  as  before.  Moreover,  the  yeomen 
of  that  day  were  men  of  mature  age 
and  of  respectable  station,  church- 
wardens and  guardians  of  the  poor, 
and  not  to  be  cavalierly  treated. 

The  horses  again  were  curiously 
assorted.  The  older  men  (and  we 
remember  old  fellows  of  more  than 
forty  years'  service)  naturally  pre- 
ferred some  quiet  confidential  animal 
of  an  easy  height  for  purposes  of  mount- 
ing and  dismounting,  which,  according 
to  the  standard  of  the  primitive  West, 
would  be  a  trifle  over  fourteen  hands. 
Some  of  the  few  young  men  would 
bring  weedy  thoroughbreds  of  sixteen 
hands  (we  remember  one  of  seventeen), 
which  they  had  picked  up  for  a  few 


sovereigns  in  the  hope  of  winning  some 
miserable  country  race.  A  certain 
number  brought  cart- colts  pure  and 
simple,  generally  three  or  four  years 
old ;  many  more  rode  animals  but  one 
degree  removed  from  cart-colts ;  while 
about  half  produced  the  best  that  they 
had  in  their  stable,  equal  and  often 
much  superior  to  the  best  stamp  of 
troop-horse. 

Few  men,  however,  took  the  trouble 
ever  to  train  their  horses  in  the  slightest 
degree,  even  to  the  extent  of  accus- 
toming them  to  carry  a  sword.  The 
great  double  bridle  prescribed  by 
regulation  was  also  a  sore  trial  to 
many  of  the  troopers,  and  the  crupper 
(now  abolished)  a  terrible  provocation 
to  kicking.  The  confusion  on  the  first 
day  of  drill  with  a  mob  of  raw  horses 
was,  and  still  is,  appalling,  though  it 
is  surprising  to  see  how  quickly  im- 
provement comes.  One  great  stum- 
bling block  in  the  West  is  the  local 
habit  of  always  riding  with  a  loose 
rein  ;  the  people  cannot  bear  to  catch 
hold  of  a  horse's  head.  This  is  all 
very  well  for  riding  after  hounds  over 
the  moor,  but  it  will  not  do  in  the 
ranks.  Moreover,  they  are  never 
very  comfortable  in  a  military  saddle. 
It  is  not  that  they  are  bad  horsemen, 
for  they  will  cheerfully  ride  on  a  bare- 
backed horse,  or,  what  is  more  remark- 
able, on  a  hunting  -  saddle  without 
girths ;  but  they  feel  (and  we  confess 
to  a  genuine  sympathy  with  them)  that 
with  a  military  saddle  there  is  too 
much  leather  between  them  and  their 
horse. 

The  result  is  that  they  have  not 
their  horses  under  such  control  as  is 
desirable,  more  particularly  when  one 
hand  is  fully  occupied  with  a  drawn 
sword.  The  movements  of  Yeomanry, 
as  of  all  half-trained  men,  are  spas- 
modic, normally  very  slow,  but  subject 
to  sudden  and  abrupt  bursts  of  speed. 
These  moments  of  energy  are  always 
more  or  less  critical.  The  men  receive 
the  order,  say,  to  trot,  and  after  some 


Our  Yeomanry. 


405 


little  delay  in  getting  under  way  ad- 
vance gently  and  leisurely,  till  suddenly 
roused  by  an  angry  voice  ordering  an 
increase  of  speed.  Then  every  spur,  and 
a  much  sharper  spur  than  the  horses  are 
accustomed  to,  strikes  in,  every  tail 
gives  a  whisk,  a  certain  number  of  im- 
patient noses  bound  into  the  air  in 
front,  a  certain  number  of  indignant 
heels  fly  up  viciously  in  the  rear,  the 
whole  mass  surges  impetuously  forward, 
and  the  troop-leader  had  better  be  awake 
or  his  troop  will  be  on  the  top  of  him. 
For  our  own  part  we  found,  after  many 
experiments,  that  we  could  lead  our 
troop  best  when  mounted  on  a  mare 
which,  though  quiet  and  handy  to  ride, 
was  singularly  active  and  ready  with  her 
heels.  The  men  were  duly  warned  of 
her  proclivities,  and  kept  a  sharp  eye 
on  the  said  heels,  which  was  the  next 
best  thing  to  keeping  a  sharp  eye  on 
their  troop-leader. 

We  remember  once  heading  a  column 
of  troops  at  the  trot  down  a  grassy 
hill-side,  which  was  soaked  with  rain 
and  consequently  presented  somewhat 
treacherous  foothold.  Our  own  atten- 
tion was  wholly  occupied  by  the  en- 
deavour to  lead  the  column  straight, 
and  the  troop,  finding  itself  comfort- 
able in  the  front  with  plenty  of  room, 
at  once  checked  its  speed  and  began 
to  lag  behind.  They  were  twenty  or 
thirty  yards  in  rear  when  they  were 
bidden  to  move  up  to  their  leader,  and 
then,  as  usual,  they  plunged  forward 
with  precipitation.  In  the  slippery 
state  of  the  ground  they  could  not 
easily  pull  up,  and  presently  a  half- 
bred,  boring  brute  took  the  bit  into 
his  teeth  and  bolted  out  of  the  ranks 
at  the  top  of  his  speed,  slipped  up,  re- 
covered himself,  plunged  and  slid  for 
another  twenty  yards,  and  finally  came 
down  with  a  thud  that  sent  his  rider 
flying  several  yards  over  his  head.  The 
rest  of  the  troop  followed  hard  after 
him,  and  then  our  mare,  whose  ears 
had  for  some  seconds  been  glued  back 
on  her  head,  lashed  out  both  heels 


with  a  vicious  energy  such  as  we  never 
felt  before  nor  since.  No  harm  was 
done,  and  our  attention  was  presently 
claimed  by  the  unhorsed  man,  who, 
flustered,  as  well  he  might  be,  by  the 
violence  of  his  fall,  jumped  *  up,  and 
seizing  our  stirrup,  ran  alongside  for 
some  yards,  with  his  busby  trailing  on 
the  ground  behind  him,  uttering  abject 
apologies  for  his  mishap.  We  had 
hardly  persuaded  him  to  leave  us  when 
the  order  came  for  the  head  of  the 
column  to  change  direction,  and  as  we 
wheeled  we  caught  sight  of  the  frag- 
ments of  the  troop.  The  greater  part 
were  still  in  full  career  down  the  hill ; 
three  were  turning  back  to  look  after 
the  fallen  man ;  three  more  were 
galloping  madly  after  the  loose  horse  ; 
one  or  two  were  going  at  top  speed 
wherever  their  horses  chose  to  take 
them ;  and  the  leading  troop  was  reduced 
to  its  leader  only.  But  presently  our 
mare's  ears  were  flat  on  her  head 
again;  the  whole  troop,  fallen  man 
and  all,  came  galloping  up  from  all 
sides,  and  before  the  next  halt  they 
had  sorted  themselves  into  their  places 
and  were  smiling  with  the  keenest  en- 
joyment of  the  fun. 

In  these  later  days,  however,  a  great 
change  has  come  over  the  Yeomanry. 
In  the  first  place,  owing  to  the  con- 
tinual aggregation  of  the  people  into 
the  towns  they  have  in  many  districts 
almost  lost  their  rustic  character.  The 
troopers  are  not  countrymen  but 
townsmen,  and  their  horses  are  not 
their  own,  but  simply  hired  for  the 
occasion.  Moreover  this  practice  of 
hiring  horses  is  on  the  increase.  There 
is  always  a  certain  risk  in  putting 
horse  into  the  ranks  of  the  Yeomanry, 
and  the  Government,  not  altogether 
unreasonably  in  the  light  of  past 
history,1  is  not  complaisant  in  the 

1  It  was  a  common  trick  among  the  old 
men-at-arms  to  take  a  worthless  horse  to  a 
campaign  and  to  claim  the  price  of  a  good  one 
in  compensation  when  he  perished.  Edward 
the  Third  made  special  regulations  to  meet 


406 


Our  Yeomanry. 


matter  of  compensation.  A  man  of 
any  self-respect  does  not  like  to  bring 
out  his  worst  horse ;  he  is  afraid  to 
bring  out  his  best ;  so  he  compromises 
matters  by  producing  a  more  or  less 
showy  hireling.  The  result  is  that 
the  Yeomanry  has  to  a  great  extent 
become  urbanised ;  indeed,  we  have 
heard  an  inspecting  officer  say  that, 
whatever  might  be  their  shortcomings, 
the  few  remaining  regiments  in  the 
primitive  districts  alone  were  of  real 
interest  to  him,  inasmuch  as  their 
troopers  were  not  mounted  shopkeepers 
but  genuine  yeomanry. 

Moreover  the  Yeomanry  has  shared 
in  the  general  rousing  of  the  military 
service  since  the  Franco-German  war. 
The  introduction  of  young  adjutants 
and  serjeant-majors  from  the  regular 
cavalry,  and  a  compulsory  course 
of  instruction  for  officers,  were 
the  first  improvements,  whereof  the 
result  was  to  purge  away  a  vast 
number  of  venerable  inutilities.  The 
change  rapidly  extended  to  the  ranks. 
The  fat,  grey-bearded  hirsute  old 
farmers  disappeared  and  sent  their 
sons  in  their  place,  strong,  active 
boys  from  nineteen  and  upwards, 
quicker,  keener,  and  more  teachable 
than  themselves.  The  transformation 
that  has  been  accomplished  in  twenty 
years  (we  speak  always  of  the  primi- 
tive regiment  of  genuine  yeomanry) 
is  marvellous. 

Recently  the  War  Office  has  made 
yet  greater  demands  on  the  force. 
It  has  abolished  the  antique  organisa- 
tion by  troops,  and  substituted  that 
by  squadrons,  and  diminished  the 
allowance  of  non-commissioned  officers 
from  the  regular  army  from  one  per 
troop  to  one  per  squadron,  that  is  to 
say  by  one  half.  It  has  further  grouped 
the  regiments  into  brigades,  and  cut 
down  the  proportion  of  adjutants  from 

this  kind  of  fraud,  which  never  has  died  out 
and  never  will.  Horses  were  marked  long 
before  arms  and  equipment,  possibly  with  the 
broad  arrow. 


one  for  every  regiment  to  one  for  every 
brigade.  The  object  seems  to  have 
been  gradually  to  squeeze  the  Yeo- 
manry out  of  existence  by  increasing 
the  demand  for  bricks  and  curtailing 
the  supply  of  straw  ;  but  the  force,  so 
far  as  can  be  judged  at  present,  has 
responded  to  this  as  to  former  calls, 
and  the  authorities  are  beginning  to 
wonder  whether  it  may  not  after  all 
be  worthy  of  preservation. 

The  question  is  indeed  not  easily 
answered.  On  the  other  hand  the 
Yeomanry  (we  speak  always  of  the 
genuine  article)  contains  the  finest 
military  material  in  England,  abund- 
ance of  young  men  in  the  prime  of 
life,  brought  up  in  the  pure  air  of  the 
country,  their  muscles  strengthened 
by  every  variety  of  manual  work,  and 
their  frames  kept  in  fine  condition  by 
constant  hard  exercise.  They  are 
superior  men  mentally,  morally,  and 
by  education,  and  their  wits,  though 
they  have  not  the  burnish  which  the 
townsman  acquires  by  constant  rubbing 
against  a  multitude,  are  forged  of 
heavier  and  better  metal  than  the 
townsman  is  willing  to  admit.  Then 
every  man  is  familiar  with  horse  and 
gun.  There  is  not  one  but  has  ridden 
the  cart-horses  barebacked  from  farm- 
yard to  field  and  from  field  to  farm- 
yard ever  since  he  could  articulate 
their  names  ;  not  one  but  knows  not 
only  how  to  sit  on  a  horse's  back,  but 
how  to  keep  him,  take  care  of  him 
and  make  the  most  of  him,  and  how 
to  cure  him  of  small  injuries  or  ail- 
ments. 

As  to  fire-arms,  ever  since  the 
passing  of  the  Ground  Game  Act, 
young  farmers  are,  if  anything,  rather 
too  fond  of  them  ;  but  though  a  cheap 
breech-loader  may  seem  but  a  poor 
training  for  a  carbine,  it  is  far  better 
than  none  at  all.  We  have  more  than 
once  seen  young  yeomen  who  have 
never  seen  a  carbine  in  their  lives 
take  up  the  unfamiliar  weapon,  find 
the  target  at  the  very  first  shot,  and 


Our  Yeomanry. 


407 


never  lose  it  again.  Indeed  con- 
sidering how  many  of  the  carbines 
issued  to  the  Yeomanry  bear,  or  at 
any  rate  bore,  the  ominous  mark  that 
confesses  them  unserviceable,  it  is 
surprising  what  practice  is  made  with 
them. 

Lastly  we  come  to  the  great  gift 
which  is  so  invaluable  to  the  cavalry- 
man, the  eye  for  country  as  it  is 
called,  which  is  only  to  be  gained  by 
life  in  the  country.  Sharp  though 
the  townsman  is  and  much  though  he 
-has  undoubtedly  learned  on  his  bicycle, 
the  countryman  is  naturally  his  master 
here.  The  one  place  where  a  fence 
will  certainly  be  weak,  the  one  spot 
where  a  river  may  be  forded,  a  deep 
valley  crossed,  or  boggy  ground  tra- 
versed, the  one  track  that  surely 
leads  to  water,  the  signs  that 
distinguish  a  blind  from  an  open  road, 
the  manifold  tokens  of  birds  and 
cattle  and  sheep  when  anything  un- 
usual is  going  forward,  all  these  things 
are  known  to  the  countryman  without 
instruction,  but  are  sadly  difficult  for 
a  townsman  to  learn.  A  field  full  of 
bullocks  is  a  field  full  of  bullocks  to 
him ;  it  is  nothing  that  they  are  all 
standing  up  and  gazing  in  the  same 
direction  when  they  ought  to  be  lying 
down  and  chewing  the  cud. 

So  much  for  the  raw  material,  the 
finest,  as  we  have  said,  that  there  is  in 
England.  What  do  we  do  towards 
making  it  up  1  The  annual  training 
of  the  Yeomanry  lasts  for  eight  days, 
which  together  with  two  more  that  are 
appointed  for  squadron-drills  but  are 
now  generally  added  to  the  remaining 
eight,  makes  a  total  of  ten  days. 
Deduct  the  day  of  assembly,  on  which 
as  a  rule  little  can  be  done,  the  day 
of  departure,  the  day  of  inspection, 
and  one  Sunday,  and  there  remain  six 
working  days,  weather  permitting. 
Two  of  them  are  generally  taken  up 
with  the  elements  of  cavalry  drill,  and 
the  remainder  with  regimental  field- 
movements.  The  quickness  with  which 


men  and  horses  settle  down  to  the 
work  is  astonishing.  On  the  second  or 
third  day  of  the  field-movements  they 
generally  reach  their  best,  and  though 
they  may  or  may'not  equal  this  perform- 
ance before  the  inspecting  officer,  they 
generally  rather  surprise  a  stranger  by 
their  proficiency.  But  the  standard 
varies  as  a  rule  little  if  at  all  from 
year  to  year.  In  the  matter  of 
dress  and  general  smartness  a 
change  of  colonels  may  sometimes 
produce  great  results ;  but  as  to 
knowledge  of  their  work,  the  attain- 
ments of  the  Yeomanry  remain  a 
pretty  constant  quantity. 

Of  other  instruction,  as  for  instance 
in  the  duties  of  reconnaissance,  they 
receive  little  or  none,  nor  is  it  easy  to 
see  how  they  should.  If  ever  they 
were  called  upon  for  actual  service  the 
work  of  reconnaissance  is  exactly  that 
which  would  be  most  fitting  for  them 
and  most  reasonably  to  be  expected  of 
them,  but  it  is  also  exactly  that  of 
which  they  know  least.  Nor  is  this 
to  be  wondered  at.  In  the  first  place 
a  colonel  who  only  sees  his  men  for 
six  days  in  the  year  likes  to  keep  them 
together  as  long  as  possible  under  his 
own  eye ;  he  finds  it  also  far  more 
interesting  for  himself,  and  he  justly 
conceives  it  to  be  more  interesting  to 
the  men,  to  manoeuvre  them  as  a  com- 
plete body  in  a  field,  than  to  disperse 
them  along  parallel  roads  over  a 
frontage  of  miles.  Reconnaissance  in 
search  of  an  imaginary  enemy  very 
easily  becomes  tedious  and  tiresome, 
and  requires  sounder  knowledge  than 
is  possessed  by  most  officers  of 
Yeomanry  to  render  it  profitable.  It 
is  important  too,  unless  regiments  are 
to  become  simply  congeries  of  squad- 
rons, that  they  should  be  kept  together 
as  much  as  possible  during  the  short 
week  of  training.  Field-movements, 
therefore,  constitute  the  work  to  which 
that  week  is  devoted  ;  they  are  the 
least  troublesome,  the  most  showy, 
and  the  most  amusing. 


408 


Our  Yeomanry. 


But  are  they  of  the  least  profit  as 
practical  military  training  1  It  is  to  be 
feared  that  they  are  of  singularly  little. 
Drill  of  some  kind  the  men  must  be 
taught,  or  it  would  be  impossible  to 
take  them  without  confusion  from  a 
field  into  a  road  or  from  a  road  into  a 
field ;  but  whether  it  is  worth  while 
for  them,  in  the  present  circum- 
stances, to  go  through  more  elabo- 
rate evolutions  than  increasing  and 
diminishing  the  front  of  a  squadron 
is  extremely  doubtful.  There  are 
few  open  spaces  in  England  large 
enough  for  manoeuvres  of  cavalry 
on  any  great  scale,  even  if  an  enemy 
should  succeed  in  throwing  a  large 
force  of  cavalry  on  to  our  shores  ;  and 
it  is  not  likely  that  an  English  com- 
mander would  trust  undisciplined  and 
half-trained  troops  like  the  Yeomanry 
for  such  critical  work.  Excepting  the 
regiments  that  live  in  the  vicinity  of 
these  open  spaces,  such  as  the  Hamp- 
shire, which  might  receive  distinct 
training  in  virtue  of  their  position, 
the  probability  is  that  few  of  the 
Yeomanry  would  work  on  actual 
service  in  any  larger  unit  than  the 
squadron.  Their  function  would  be 
to  hang  like  a  cloud  of  wasps  round 
an  advancing  enemy,  seeing,  hearing, 
and  stinging,  as  their  superior  know- 
ledge of  a  strongly  enclosed  country 
gave  them  opportunity. 

The  natural  corollary  is  that  the 
Yeomanry  as  it  exists  at  present  is 
practically  useless,  and  this  we  believe 
to  be  the  melancholy  fact.  The  cry 
for  its  abolition  has  swelled  louder  of 
late,  and  has  only  been  checked  by  the 
ready  response  of  the  various  corps  to 
the  increased  demands  made  upon 
them.  Moreover  the  authorities  are 
naturally  unwilling  to  relax  their  hold, 
however  slender,  on  such  magnificent 
material.  Some,  indeed,  look  upon 
the  Yeomanry  as  a  kind  of  reserve  of 
horses,  but  in  view  of  the  increase  of 
the  practice  of  hiring  this  opinion  is 
hardly  sound.  By  the  time  that  the 


gaps  in  the  stables  of  the  regular 
army  had  been  filled,  it  would  be 
found  that  half  the  Yeomanry  was 
already  dismounted.  Moreover  the 
existing  system  of  registration  of 
horses  has  superseded  this  casual 
reserve.  It  would  seem  therefore 
that  the  last  reason  for  the  Yeomanry's 
existence  had  perished. 

Yet  always  the  material  remains, 
and  it  is  useless  not  so  much  because 
nothing  can  be  made  of  it,  as  because 
nothing  is  made  of  it.  Nor  must  it 
be  forgotten  that  in  case  of  war  the 
Yeomanry,  in  the  absence  of  regular 
cavalry,  would  be  indispensable  as  an 
aid  to  the  civil  power  in  the  mainten- 
ance of  order.  The  distress  that  would 
be  caused  by  the  mere  declaration  of 
war  would  be  sufficient  to  cause  great 
risk  of  disturbance,  with  which  the 
county  and  municipal  police  would  be 
powerless  to  cope.  It  is  futile  to 
speak  of  the  Volunteers  for  such 
service  :  mounted  men  strike  far  more 
terror  into  a  mob  than  men  afoot ; 
and  judging  from  the  riots  in  Wales 
a  year  or  two  ago,  when  it  was  found 
necessary  to  disarm  some  of  the  Volun- 
teers, it  is  not  impossible  that  some 
of  these  citizen  soldiers  would  be 
found  a  danger  rather  than  an  assist- 
ance. But,  passing  over  this  important 
matter,  let  us  see  what  can  be  done 
without  extraordinary  effort  for  the 
improvement  of  the  Yeomanry.  We 
do  not  believe  that  the  problem  can 
be  really  effectively  wrestled  with, 
except  as  part  of  a  general  scheme  for 
the  remodelling  of  the  reserve-forces, 
and  for  the  utilisation  of  the  large 
number  of  officers  who  consume  the 
non-effective  vote  in  the  army- 
estimates.  We  may,  however,  in  the 
short  space  that  is  left  to  us,  put  for- 
ward one  or  two  crude  suggestions. 

First  and  foremost  the  period  of 
training  must  be  extended.  It  will 
be  asked  if  farmers  can  spare  more 
time  than  they  at  present  sacrifice. 
Judging  from  the  number  of  days  that 


Our  Yeomanry. 


409 


they  devote  to  markets  and  to  rabbit- 
shooting  we  believe  emphatically 
that  they  can,  at  any  rate  with  occa- 
sional leave  of  absence  for  one  day. 
And  this  training  must  be  carried  out 
not  by  squadrons  but  by  regiments,  or 
better  still,  by  brigades.  Half  the  at- 
traction of  the  service  consists  in  the 
gatherings  at  the  county  town ;  in 
rustic  districts  it  is  the  equivalent  of 
university  education  to  the  young 
farmers,  and  not  only  gives  them  a 
deal  of  pleasure  but  does  them  a  deal 
of  good.  For  purposes  of  military 
teaching  also  the  spirit  of  competition 
is  wholesome  and  the  comparison  of 
notes  instructive.  The  time  devoted 
to  field-days  would  not  be  wholly 
thrown  away  if  it  were  varied  by  the 
devotion  of  as  much  time  to  recon- 
naissance ;  and  the  men  could  be 
brought  to  see,  what  at  present  is 
hidden  from  them,  that  reconnaissance 
is  the  more  important  of  their  duties. 
But  this  of  course  will  cost  money, 
and  it  is  not  likely  that  an  increase 
of  the  vote  for  the  Yeomanry  would 
be  sanctioned  by  Parliament.  The 
existing  sum  must  therefore  be  differ- 
ently applied.  It  is  well  to  ask  in 
such  circumstances  what  we  really 
want,  what  we  can  afford  to  keep, 
and  what  we  can  afford  to  dispense 
with.  Do  we  want  and  can  we  afford 
to  keep  a  number  of  townsmen,  doubt- 
less excellent  people  in  themselves, 
who  are  neither  good  horsemen  nor 
accustomed  to  horses,  and  who  have 
none  of  the  experience  or  natural 
aptitude  for  observation  which  make 
the  country  farmer  a  born  recon- 
noitrer  1  We  should  say  that  we 
cannot  afford  to  keep  such  when  we 
can  get  better.  Let  then  the  first 
qualification  of  a  yeoman  be  that  he 
shall  be  able  to  ride;  and  let  every 
recruit,  as  a  preliminary  test,  be  re- 
quired to  ride  a  horse  bare-backed  at 
the  walk,  trot,  and  gallop,  taking  him 
through  a  gate  (unless  he  prefers  to 
take  him  over)  which  he  shall  open  for 


himself  without  a  whip  and  without 
dismounting.  Such  a  trial  would 
barely  touch  some  regiments,  but  there 
are  others  which  it  would  purge  pretty 
freely. 

Another  necessary  change,  for  which 
the  way  has  already  been  paved  by 
the  organisation  in  brigades,  is  the 
raising  of  the  regimental  establish- 
ments to  a  far  higher  strength  in 
men  than  at  present,  and  cutting 
down  the  number  of  regiments  by  at 
least  one-half.  At  present  we  have 
eight-and-thirty  distinct  corps,  some  of 
four  squadrons,  some  of  three,  some  of 
two,  and  one,  we  believe,  of  one,  each 
with  costly  paraphernalia  of  field- 
officers  and  regimental  staff.  There 
is  no  reason  because  we  keep  in  the 
regular  cavalry  an  officer  to  every 
twelve  men,  that  we  should  apply  the 
same  absurd  and  expensive  principle 
to  the  Yeomanry.  Moreover,  in  some 
counties  there  are  men  enough  for  two 
or  three  regiments  of  the  present 
strength  and  officers  for  but  one  and 
a  half,  while  in  others  there  is  no  lack 
of  officers  but  a  sad  dearth  of  men. 
Having  a  weakness  for  historical 
precedent,  we  should  like  to  see  every 
regimental  establishment  fixed  at  six 
squadrons  of  one  hundred  men  apiece, 
as  it  was  in  Cromwell's  time  when  the 
yeomanry  cavalry  reached  its  zenith. 
This  would  give  to  each  squadron  in 
the  field  four  troops  of  twelve  or  three 
troops  of  sixteen  files.  Regiments 
that  fall  below  this  strength  should 
be  amalgamated  or  disbanded. 

Next,  a  real  economy  could  be 
effected  in  the  matter  of  dress.  The 
uniforms  of  the  Yeomanry  include 
the  most  gorgeous  in  the  British 
service,  and  this  is  not  only  absurd 
but  mischievous.  The  false  notion 
that  a  smartly  dressed  man  is  a  soldier 
has  encouraged  the  enlistment  of  dap- 
per townsmen  to  the  prejudice  of  the 
homely  countryman.  The  subject  is  a 
delicate  one,  for  not  a  few  officers  join 
the  Yeomanry  for  the  sake  of  the 


410 


Our  Yeomanry. 


uniform,  while  the  yeomen  themselves, 
like  all  soldiers  from  the  beginning  of 
time,  are  as  vain  as  peacocks.  We 
have  seen  a  letter  from  a  yeoman  of 
the  old  rustic  type  to  his  colonel,  com- 
plaining bitterly  of  the  abolition  of  the 
old  cloth  stable- jacket  in  favour  of  the 
new-fashioned  serge  ;  the  bare  material, 
so  he  averred,  degraded  the  yeoman  to 
the  level  of  the  militiaman.  But  the 
frippery  of  lace  and  fur  is  utterly  out 
of  place  in  a  force  which  should  pride 
itself  above  all  on  being  rural.  The 
distinction  of  dragoons  and  hussars, 
once  very  real,  is  now  a  matter  only 
of  coats  and  hats.  By  all  means  let  a 
county  spirit  be  fostered  by  means  of 
facings  and  badges,  and  let  old  privi- 
leges be  called  to  mind  by  a  scrap  of 
gold  lace  in  this  regiment  and  welting 
of  the  seams  in  that ;  but  let  the  main 
distinctions  in  the  Yeomanry  fee  simply 
those  of  light  and  heavy  cavalry. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  dress 
should  not  be  smart  because  it  is 
simple.  Simplification  is  the  great 
reform  needed  in  the  Yeomanry,  and 
there  is  no  surer  road  to  economy. 

Concurrently  we  should  like  to  see 
a  different  standard  set  up  for  the 
guidance  of  the  Yeomanry.  A  certain 
theatrical  element  seems,  in  the  light 
of  history,  to  be  inseparable  from  the 
military  calling,  and  the  ideals  of 
military  men  seem  to  fall  into  two 
main  divisions,  the  exquisite  and  the 
rough  and  ready.  For  our  regular 
cavalry  the  exquisite  has  long  been  the 
accepted  pattern ;  but  for  the  Yeo- 
manry, the  rough  and  ready  would,  in 
some  cases,  at  any  rate,  be  decidedly 
preferable,  and  this  latter  type  has 
already  been  popularised  in  England 
by  the  colonial  troops  of  Australia 
and  South  Africa.  Both  types  of 
course  meet  when  pushed  to  extremes, 
but  they  start,  at  any  rate,  from  points 
wide  asunder.  Excessive  rigidity 
must  of  course  be  avoided  in  applying 
the  principle  ;  and  indeed  the  authori- 
ties might  be  worse  guided  in  the  re- 


organisation of  the  Yeomanry  than  by 
mapping  out  England  in  groups  of 
hunting  countries,  and  distributing  it 
into  light  or  heavy,  rough  and  ready 
or  exquisite  cavalry  according  to  the 
stamp  of  horse  that  is  bred  and  pre- 
ferred therein.  But  let  us  have  no 
more  inspecting  officers  who  come 
down,  say  from  Leicestershire  to 
Devonshire,  and  complain  that  the 
horses  of  Devon  are  small.  Leicester- 
shire horses  are  as  much  out  of  place 
in  Devonshire  as  Devonshire  horses 
are  in  Leicestershire. 

We  have  no  space  left  for  the   all- 
important  question  of  officers.    We  be- 
lieve that  they  would  best  be  supplied 
by    country    gentlemen    as    hitherto. 
If     their    business    were    made    more 
serious  they  would  be   the  readier  to 
learn  it,  while  even  retired  officers  of 
the  regular  cavalry  might  be   willing 
to    enter    a    service    which  would  be 
useful     and     interesting     instead     of 
merely  an  expensive   amusement.      It 
would  be  a  new  sensation  to  many  to 
command    a    squadron    of  a  hundred 
men    in    a  regiment   of  six  hundred, 
even  if  only  for  one  month  in  the  year. 
But  this  is  a  subject  which  we  leave 
to  others.      As  to  the  attractions  that 
might    be  offered  to    men,    we    shall 
conclude   with    a  brief   anecdote.      A 
captain  of  yeomanry  was  asked  by  an 
inspecting  officer  what  temptations  he 
held  out  to  recruits  to  join  his  troop. 
He  replied  with  great  gravity  but  a 
twinkling   eye,   "  I   keep  a  short-horn 
bull  and   let  them  send  a   heifer    to 
him."      We     will     just     remind    the 
authorities  of  the  existence  of  shire- 
stallions    and    leave    them    to    inter- 
pret the  hint.      Any  little  privilege  of 
this   kind  is  valued,  and  the  yeomen 
as  a  rule  are   so  keen  that  they   rate 
any  small  advantage  to  themselves  far 
above  its   cost   to  the  country.     The 
pride  of  belonging  to  a  peculiar  class, 
and    the  Yeomanry   are    not    only    a 
peculiar,  but  a  peculiarly  fine    class, 
is  sufficient  compensation  for  sacrifice. 


411 
V 


APOLLO  IN  THE  LATIN  QUARTER. 


PARIS  was  ever  the  paradise  of 
Youth.  Since  time  began  the  left 
bank  of  her  gracious  river  has  been 
consecrate  to  Chattertons,  who  have 
dreamed  under  the  shadow  of  Saint 
Etienne  du  Mont  their  immortal 
dreams  of  glory,  and  who  have  won  from 
the  wine-bowl  a  generous  intelligence 
or  a  solitary  death.  To  be  young 
and  a  poet,  and  to  look  out  upon  the 
world  from  a  garret  in  the  Latin 
Quarter,  is  not  that  as  valiant  an 
experience  as  the  world  has  to  offer  1 
Doubtless  the  patient,  blunt-headed 
spade  of  Realism  might  discover  a 
squalid  misery  in  this  golden  ambition 
of  reckless  Youth;  but  Realism  has 
raked  filth  from  beneath  a  throne, 
and  the  figures  of  imperishable 
romance,  whom  Balzac  bade  to 
wander  in  the  avenues  of  the  Lux- 
embourg, are  more  true  than  Truth 
itself. 

It  is  Youth,  then,  insolent,  irrespon- 
sible, adventurous  Youth,  which  in 
France  would  always  control  the  des- 
tinies of  the  arts  ;  and  if  the  sentences, 
passed  nightly  in  the  courts  of  dis- 
course and  of  beer,  were  pitilessly 
carried  out,  it  would  be  death  for  a 
poet  to  reach  the  sobriety  of  thirty 
years.  The  domination  of  the  beard- 
less, indeed,  has  been  constant,  but 
the  fashion  of  its  display  has  changed 
with  the  changing  times.  When 
Lucien  de  Rubempre  fled  from 
Angouleme  with  Madame  de  Bargeton 
to  conquer  Paris,  his  head  packed 
with  fancies  and  his  heart  full  of  love, 
there  was  a  proud  magnificence  in  his 
courage.  Besides,  did  not  his  pocket 
bulge  with  his  precious  Marguerites, 
and  was  not  his  trunk  the  heavier  for 


a  finished  romance  ?  So,  while  he 
wandered,  in  enthusiastic  converse 
with  D'Arthez,  under  the  gallery  of 
the  Odeon,  the  world  chattered  of 
Byron  and  was  eager  to  applaud  the 
revolution  of  Hugo.  But  it  was  not 
until  the  famous  night,  whereon 
Gautier  and  his  friends  welcomed  the 
triumph  of  HEENANI,  that  Youth  came 
into  full  possession  of  his  kingdom. 
What  though  he  was  extravagant  at 
the  moment  of  victory,  what  though 
his  taste  fell  sometimes  below  his 
aspiration,  there  was  a  splendour 
even  in  his  confusion  of  colours  and 
his  reckless  squandering  of  adjectives. 
Then  it  was  that  the  young  poets, 
taking  courage  from  Theophile's  red 
waistcoat,  arrayed  themselves  in  gar- 
ments of  wondrous  shape  and  hue ; 
then  it  was  that  they  drank  their 
wine  from  skulls,  and  believed  that 
the  cross-bones  were  a  symbol  of 
devilry.  Their  garrets  they  packed 
with  the  pilferings  of  every  land,  and 
recked  not  if  their  treasures  were  the 
shameless  forgeries  of  an  old-clothes- 
man. In  the  wantonness  of  their 
taste  they  adored  whatever  was 
Gothic,  and  they  shrank  in  horror 
from  the  lightest  suspicion  of  class- 
ical austerity.  Before  all  they  believed 
that  romance  lurked  in  strange  places 
and  under  foreign  skies.  The  noble 
mystery  of  their  own  Paris,  deepened 
ten-fold  by  the  invention  of  Balzac, 
appeared  common  to  these  visionaries 
enamoured  of  crude  colours  and  the 
ineffable  East.  Nothing  this  side  the 
Alps  seemed  desirable,  and  he  who 
could  reach  Italy  hoped  that  he  would 
find  on  Lake  Como  the  inspiration 
which  Paris  denied  him.  Even  the 


412 


Apollo  in  the  Latin  Quarter. 


grisette  was  shocking  in  her  familiar- 
ity, and  the  young  poet  would  hire  a 
coat,  that  he  might  go  into  the  world 
and  throw  himself  at  the  feet  of  some 
great  lady.  But  the  folly  was  fresh, 
magnanimous,  romantic ;  and  it  be- 
queathed to  the  fortunate  youth  who 
conquered  the  world  a  memory  of 
foaming  beakers  and  the  warm  South. 

Then  came  the  Realists,  who  would 
have  destroyed  imagination  with  the 
pop-gun  of  science,  and  one  shudders 
to  think  how  their  youth  was  mis- 
spent. Not,  surely,  in  gaiety  and 
freedom,  not  in  the  joyous  discussion  of 
some  irrelevant  absurdity,  but  in  the 
trivial  comparison  of  unimportant 
facts.  The  youthful  seeker  after 
truth,  in  brief,  went  up  and  down  the 
earth,  earnest,  blind-eyed,  and  armed 
with  a  notebook.  Arrogant  he  was, 
but  arrogant  in  contempt  of  those 
qualities  of  fancy  and  divination  to 
which  he  might  never  attain.  And 
when  he  snatched  a  brief  release  from 
the  patient  amassing  of  the  details 
that  doomed  him  to  falsehood,  he  drank 
his  beer  with  no  jollity  of  heart,  being 
only  eager  to  note  the  foam  as  it  over- 
flowed the  brim,  and  the  gesture 
wherewith  the  waiter  flung  the  glasses 
hurriedly  upon  the  table.  And  thus 
he  grew  through  a  witless  manhood  to 
a  stern  old  age,  believing  only  in  the 
reality  of  money,  and  deploring,  alas, 
that  posthumous  fame  cannot  be 
built  upon  an  everlasting  foundation 
of  Naturalism. 

The  clash  of  the  schools,  which  tore 
French  literature  in  pieces  ten  years 
since,  was  a  brilliant  opportunity 
for  Youth.  There  was  scarce  a 
tavern  in  the  Latin  Quarter  which 
did  not  lead  a  movement,  and  to  all 
who  held  a  pen  the  headship  of  a 
school  was  possible.  If  Decadence, 
or  Symbolism,  or  Neo-Latinism  palled 
upon  the  poet's  boyish  fancy,  then  he 
might  turn  Romanesque  or  Mage,  or 
even  come  forth,  after  the  excesses  of 


the  Rosicrucians,  a  full-fledged  Deli- 
quescent, like  the  immortal  Floupette. 
His  duties  were  trivial  and  delightful ; 
to  abuse  the  school,  whose  tenets  he 
had  just  discarded,  and  to  publish  on 
the  Quai  Saint  Michel  a  quarto  pam- 
phlet containing  a  dozen  exercises  in 
verse.  Then  he  became  famous,  for 
a  week ;  then  he  clothed  himself  after 
the  fashion  of  a  man  about  town,  was 
pointed  out  to  country  cousins  as  he 
sat  at  breakfast,  and  admired  his 
friends,  and  by  them  was  admired,  in 
the  journals  which  died  with  an 
empty  pocket.  He  might  change  his 
allegiance  with  his  coat ;  but  for  the 
moment  he  was  loyal,  and  he  would 
willingly  have  endured  a  broken  head 
in  defence  of  the  cult  which  engrossed 
him.  His  most  poignant  anxiety  was 
the  choice  of  a  flag  under  which  to 
fight.  After  a  night's  debauch  he 
would  wake  up,  scourged  with  doubt 
and  repentance.  "  Am  I  a  Sym- 
bolist," he  would  ask  eagerly,  testing 
meanwhile  a  new  necktie  in  the 
mirror,  "  or  am  I  a  Decadent  1  "  And 
when  hesitancy  withheld  an  answer, 
he  had  made  an  excuse  for  another 
day's  inaction.  But  so  long  as  he 
kept  within  the  movement  he  was 
saved  from  contempt,  and  his  most 
serious  danger  was  an  ignorance  of 
catch-words.  One  aspirant  there  was 
who  came  from  the  Western  Wilds  of 
America  to  throw  himself  and  his 
fortune  into  the  whirlpool  of  literature. 
He  would  win  glory,  thought  he,  in  a 
larger  field  than  was  open  in  his 
savage  home.  So  he  set  forth, 
with  M.  Zola's  masterpiece  in  his 
hand,  and  a  childish  faith  that  a 
knowledge  of  Maupassant  would 
procure  him  an  honourable  position  in 
the  modern  school.  An  introduction 
to  a  famous  Realist  had  jostled  Bel 
Ami  in  his  well-worn  pocket,  and  he 
set  forth  with  the  pride  of  a  discover- 
er to  visit  the  hero  who  should  prove 
his  patron.  The  Realist  received  him 


Apollo  in  the  Latin  Quarter. 


413 


with  all  the  deference  due  to  a  col- 
league, warned  him  brusquely  against 
the  follies  of  the  schools,  and  criticised 
indulgently  an  early  attempt  "to  fix 
the  accent  of  a  Boston  parlour." 
Julius  P.  Hartman  was  triumphant. 
He  sat  him  down  forthwith  to  master 
French,  that  his  future  experiments  in 
Naturalism  might  be  revealed  to  the 
world  of  Paris  which  would  know 
best  how  to  appreciate  him.  He  paid 
assiduous  court  to  his  patron,  of 
whose  school  he  vowed  himself  a 
member,  and  to  whom  he  rendered  the 
honour  of  a  facile  imitation.  Hence- 
forth prosperity  and  fame  seemed 
assured  to  him ;  he  even  hoped  that 
some  day  he  might  visit  Medan,  and  lay 
a  floral  tribute  at  the  feet  of  M.  Zola. 
But  alas,  for  human  aspiration  !  One 
night, — it  was  May,  and  Julius  never 
forgot  it — he  had  dined  with  the 
Realist,  and  as  he  walked  home  from 
the  Avenue  du  Bois  under  the  scent 
of  the  lilacs,  he  dreamed  of  the  day 
when  he  should  publish  the  scientific 
novel  of  Paris,  in  which  every  tone 
and  gesture  should  be  observed  to  the 
life,  and  no  page  defiled  by  invention. 
Even  as  he  walked  the  mood  seized 
him,  and  his  note-book  was  enriched 
with  a  dozen  false  generalisations 
concerning  the  diner-out,  and  the  way- 
ward habit  of  his  return. 

As  he  entered  the  tavern  of  his 
choice  in  the  Latin  Quarter  his  face 
wore  a  smile  of  anticipated  victory ; 
and  when  a  friend  invited  him  to  a 
table  thronged  with  Symbolists  and 
Decadents,  he  gently  condescended  to 
a  seat.  "  I  have  been  dining  with 
Chauvel,"  he  began,  proudly  naming 
his  master.  The  table  roared  at  him. 
"  With  Chauvel  !  "  screamed  an  ele- 
gant Symbolist.  "Why,  Chauvel 
dines  with  Zola  once  a  week  and 
publishes  with  Charpentier."  The 
others  swelled  the  chorus  of  ridicule, 
and  Julius  P.  Hartman  was  only 
too  happy  when  the  discussion 


rolled  back  into  its  ancient  channel. 
That  night  he  learned  many  things  ; 
that,  for  instance,  literature  is  born 
again  of  the  new  catch- words,  that 
genius  begins  with  the  championship 
of  a  clique,  that  production'  is  the 
best  proof  of  incompetence.  And  he 
went  to  bed  with  his  brain  in  a  whirl, 
and  woke  in  the  morning  to  a  desper- 
ate resolve.  No  longer  could  he  sit 
at  the  feet  of  Chauvel, — so  much  was 
certain.  But  how  to  break  with  his 
benefactor,  and  escape  the  charge  of 
ingratitude  1  For  Julius,  though  a 
new-born  Symbolist,  was  still  a 
courageous  gentleman.  At  last  he 
determined  upon  an  inteview,  and  he 
went  straightway  to  confute  his 
patron,  hoping  with  the  effrontery  of 
youth  that  his  arguments  might  even 
prevail  against  the  novelist  who 
boasted  a  vast  circulation.  Chauvel 
listened  in  silence,  deplored  the  boy's 
defection,  and  bitterly  condemned  the 
folly  of  his  new  companions.  Julius, 
thereon,  loftily  took  his  leave.  "  M. 
Chauvel,"  he  said  with  the  stern 
conviction  of  yesterday's  proselyte, 
"  I  am  grateful  for  your  kindness  :  I 
esteem  your  friendship  ;  but  I  no 
longer  regard  you  as  a  man  of  letters." 
Chauvel  performed  the  only  duty  left 
him :  he  kicked  the  youth  into  the 
street ;  and  Hartman  is  still  trying 
to  live  down  a  miserable  experience 
of  Realism. 

But  the  poets  of  ten  years  since 
were  amiable  despite  their  folly. 
Their  courage  was  equal  to  their 
intelligence ;  they  feared  no  man, 
and  their  love  of  extravagance  did 
not  rob  them  of  wit.  Moreover  they 
looked  and  dressed  like  gentlemen, 
though  now  and  again  the  support  of 
Decadence  or  Symbolism  drove  them  to 
strange  straits.  For  these  causes, 
now  lost,  could  not  live  upon  air,  and 
one  disciple  there  was,  more  cunning 
than  the  rest,  who  earned  as  a 
waiter  enough  to  support  the  journal 


414 


Apollo  in  the  Latin  Quarter. 


of  his  clique.  Divided  in  all  else, 
the  tiny  schools  combined  in  an 
admiration  of  Arthur  Rimbaud, 
who  still  remains  the  prize-youth  of 
French  Poetry.  Described  by  Victor 
Hugo  as  a  "  Shakespeare  of  fourteen," 
he  finished  his  career  before  he  was 
twenty,  and  died  at  thirty-five,  a 
respectable  dealer  in  ivory  and 
ostrich-feathers,  rich,  honoured,  and 
devout.  The  tribes  of  Central 
Africa,  among  whom  he  plied  his 
trade,  christened  him  the  Just 
Balance  ;  and  had  he  returned 
triumphant  to  Paris,  he  would  have 
enriched  French  literature  not  with 
more  specimens  of  the  poetry  which 
he  helped  to  create,  but  with  a 
learned  dissertation  upon  geography. 
An  age  rich  in  surprises  can  show 
few  more  violent  contrasts  than  this 
one. 

As  Rimbaud  was  the  god  of  the 
Decadents,  so  he  still  retains  the 
worship  of  to-day.  And  it  is  his 
youth  which  commends  him  more 
strongly  than  his  genius,  for  the 
beardless  poets  of  France  are  weary 
of  banners  and  battle-cries.  Seventy 
years  ago,  as  Lousteau  told  Lucien 
de  Rubempre,  a  poet's  first  duty 
was  to  champion  a  cause  ;  and  Lucien 
blushed,  for,  believing  only  in  poetry, 
he  knew  not  that  the  Conservative 
and  the  Romantic  were  fighting  tooth 
and  nail  against  the  superstitions  of 
the  Liberal  and  the  Classical.  But 
to-day  literature  is  free  and  untram- 
melled. Paris,  once  the  home  of 
causes,  is  now  the  resort  of  men,  or 
boys.  Never  were  her  streets  so 
crowded  with  poets ;  but  each  is  for 
himself,  and  each  is  young.  To  be 
mute  and  inglorious  at  nineteen  is  to 
have  failed  in  life;  to  have  passed  twen- 
ty is  to  have  crossed  the  Rubicon  of 
middle-age  and  despair.  And,  to  tell 
truth,  however  many  may  be  inglor- 
ious, there  are  few  indeed  who  con- 
sent to  be  mute.  They  criticise  in 


reviews,  they  sing  in  pamphlets,  they 
chatter  in  their  taverns.  But  they 
must  be  young,  young,  young,  for 
definitions  are  shifting,  and  a  man  is 
old,  they  say,  at  twenty.  Nineteen, 
then,  is  the  silver  (or  the  golden)  age, 
and  a  poet  must  win  distinction  so 
soon  as  he  escapes  from  the  rod  of 
his  school-master.  Genius  flourishes 
easily,  until  the  weeds  of  talent  and 
common  sense  grow  up  to  choke  it ; 
and,  while  genius  is  the  boy's  inherit- 
ance, talent  may  be  born  at  twenty- 
two,  and  there  is  an  end  of  endeavour. 
Thus  Paris  is  the  playground  of 
genius,  of  genius  at  nineteen ;  and 
the  Boulevard  Saint  Michel  is,  for  the 
moment,  the  home  of  more  gifted 
boys  than  have  smiled  upon  the 
world  since  the  beginning  of  time. 

They  are  young,  but  oh,  how  old 
they  are  !  Never  again,  though  they 
live  to  be  eighty,  will  they  know  this 
intolerable  burden  of  years.  They 
are  weighted  with  the  sins  of  unnum- 
bered generations,  and  they  accept  the 
stupidity  of  M.  Coppee,  for  instance, 
as  a  reproach  to  themselves.  Their 
predecessors,  who  began  their  career  at 
twenty-five,  were  as  insolent  as  you 
please,  but  they  slew  their  foes  with 
a  light  heart  and  a  joyful  countenance, 
knowing  that  the  feat  was  not  serious. 
But  the  youth  of  to-day  knows  neither 
merriment  nor  joy.  He  is  grimly 
habited  in  black,  and  commonly  ad- 
vertises his  marvellous  intelligence 
with  a  broom-like  head  of  hair.  Thus 
he  strides,  dour  and  forbidding,  through 
the  Latin  Quarter,  conscious  that  his 
life's  work  must  be  accomplished  in 
twelve  months,  since  twenty  years  and 
fogeydom  are  hastening  to  overtake 
him.  His  maturity  is  no  less  remark- 
able than  his  age.  Whatever  be  his 
indiscretions,  however  fatuous  his 
opinions,  he  apes  the  style  of  his 
master  (whoever  he  be)  with  a  perfec- 
tion of  effrontery,  and  proves  by  his 
very  lack  of  hesitancy  that,  though 


Apollo  in  the  Latin  Quarter. 


415 


he  may  be  every  one  else  efficiently, 
he  is  never  likely  to  be  himself. 
Meanwhile  his  hand  is  ever  lifted 
against  his  only  begetters,  and  thus 
has  he  reversed  the  legend  of  Thyestes. 
That  unhappy  monarch  devoured  his 
children  ;  the  poet  of  the  Boulevard 
Saint  Michel  would  dedicate  his  literary 
father  to  a  solitary  and  triumphant 
meal. 

Though  he  cannot  escape  the  imita- 
tion which  is  the  instinct  of  his  age, 
he  professes  to  obey  no  rules,  to  know 
no  discipline.      His  ambition  is  to  do 
something  else,  to  burst  the  trammels 
which   still  bind  his   nineteen   years, 
to  push    the  penny  of  literature   (if 
one  may  borrow  a  metaphor   from  a 
childish  sport)   a   little    further  over 
the  line.     That  is   to  say,   he  is  an 
anarchist   in  life  as   in  art ;  he   still 
agrees  with  those  fogeys  of  two  years 
ago    (they  must   be    twenty- three    at 
least),  who  found  a  certain  elegance  in 
the  throwing  of  a  bomb.      One  amiable 
youth,  indeed,  declares  that  it  is  only 
the   fear  of  the  law  which  prevents 
him  from  hurling  paving-stones  from 
his  garret  upon  the  passers  beneath. 
And  if  you  believed  him  you  would 
have  another  reason  for  respecting  the 
law.      As   they  profess  an  open,  in- 
sincere contempt  for  conduct,  so  these 
enthusiasts  affect  to  despise  grammar ; 
and  no  wonder,  since  they  are  so  lately 
escaped  from  its  thrall.      They  would 
cheerfully  remove  the  boundaries  which 
divide  the   verb  from   the  noun,  and 
twist  words    into   any  strange    sense 
that    suits    them.       And,    when    this 
artifice  fails,  they  invent  new  symbols 
of  a  meaningless  barbarity,  until  each 
believes  himself  a  Columbus    of    the 
infinitely    wise.      But    despite    their 
parade  of  anarchy,  they  are  still  pedants 
after  the  unvarying  fashion  of  youth. 
They  are  too  near  an  enforced  smat- 
tering of  Greek  and  Latin  not  to  profit 
by  their  purgatory,  and   thus  you  will 


erudition.  They  mimic  the  Classics, 
and  translate  the  obscurer  writers 
through  the  medium,  doubtless,  of  an 
ancient  crib.  To  pretend  a  knowledge 
of  English  is  their  greatest  pride.  At 
the  Cafe  d'Harcourt  they  have  met 
two  or  three  poeticules  from  London 
older  and  sillier  than  themselves. 
With  these  indiscreet  worshippers  of 
Verlaine  they  have  drunk  and  talked 
till  the  morning  ;  they  have  failed  in 
the  pronunciation  of  Mr.  Meredith's 
name ;  they  have  convinced  them- 
selves that  Pater  was  a  pre-Raphaelite 
painter ;  and  so  often  have  they  dis- 
cussed "the  Great  Will"  that  they 
believe  (with  the  journalists  of  France) 
that  they  know  all  about  him.  But 
these  errors  arise  from  the  sanguine 
temper  of  youth  and  are  easily  con- 
doned. 

The  youthful  poet,  when  he  arrives 
in  Paris,  carries  but  a  light  load. 
Half-a-dozen  copies  of  verses,  enough 
to  plump  an  imperishable  pamphlet, 
a  treatise  upon  Narcissus,  and  a  list 
of  those  complete  works  which  shall 
one  day  appear, — these  are  his  heaviest 
impediments.  And  in  no  wise  does 
he  show  his  serene  hopefulness,  his  com- 
plete lack  of  humour  more  surely  than 
in  the  industry  wherewith  he  contrives 
the  programme  of  his  life.  One  hero 
of  nineteen,  who  some  months  since 
conquered  the  world  by  a  book  of 
parodies,  has  announced  his  intention 
of  publishing,  in  the  future,  near  or 
remote,  some  twelve  volumes.  Among 
them  are  novels,  poems,  comedies, 
theses,  memoirs,  and  excursions  into 
literary  history.  It  is  plain  that  this 
youth  knows  neither  fear  nor  modesty ; 
but  it  would  be  safe  to  wager  that, 
should  God  grant  him  at  eighty  the 
childhood  he  has  never  known,  his 
twelve  volumes  will  be  yet  unwritten. 
Meanwhile  he  has  become  a  journalist, 
and  his  newspaper,  together  with  the 
necessary  discussion  of  future  projects, 


find  in  their  works  a  fine  parade   of     should    keep    him    occupied    until    a 


416 


Apollo  in  the  Latin  Quarter. 


ripe  old  age.  When  once  he 
has  launched  his  pamphlet  (one 
hundred  copies,  of  which  fifty-five  are 
for  sale),  and  foreshadowed  his  life's 
achievement,  he  looks  round  for  a 
review,  in  which  he  may  praise  his 
friends  and  receive  the  loyal  en- 
couragement that  is  his  due.  He 
should  have  no  difficulty  in  discovering 
a  sympathetic  hostelry  where  he  may 
lodge  his  master-pieces,  and  henceforth 
his  position  is  assured ;  intellectually 
assured  that  is,  for  he  would  disdain 
to  receive  payment  for  his  toil,  as 
though  he  were  a  mere  Coppee.  The 
reviews  that  welcome  him  are  count- 
less as  the  sand.  The  Dawn,  The 
Break  of  Day,  The  Trumpet-Call 
are  as  famous  in  Belgium  as  in  the 
Latin  Quarter  ;  and  one  at  least  is 
fortunate  enough  to  count  "  Walt 
Wittmann "  among  its  contributors. 
Henceforth  no  month  passes  without 
a  laudatory  paragraph  from  the  poet's 
pen.  He  praises  the  men  of  genius 
who  frequent  his  tavern  with  an  in- 
terestedness  worthy  of  the  miscreants 
who  hunger  after  a  large  circulation. 
But  with  the  writing  of  paragraphs 
the  poet's  labour  is  finished.  His 
pamphlet  (in  a  limited  edition)  exists 
as  a  proof  of  his  poetic  faith ;  and  for 
the  rest  he  believes  reticence  the  whole 
duty  of  man.  In  his  own  circle  he  is 
voluble  as  a  torrent,  restless  as  the 
changing  sea ;  but  he  prefers  to 
exhaust  his  energies  with  talk,  and  he 
writes  his  books  in  dreams. 

Meanwhile  he  cultivates  for  the 
harsh  stranger  an  air  of  mystery  and 
disdain.  His  pamphlet  has  set  him 
so  high  above  all  the  world,  save  his 
chosen  colleagues,  that  at  the  sight  of 
an  unfamiliar  face  he  shrinks  within 
himself,  and  turns  aside  with  a  fine 
irony.  And  it  is  this  admirable  con- 
viction of  superiority  which  persuades 
him  to  inaction.  Why  should  he 
reveal  his  soul  even  to  the  misunder- 
standing of  those  who  hunt  after 


limited  editions  (one  hundred  copies, 
of  which  fifty-five  are  for  sale)  ? 
Hence,  in  spite  of  his  numbers,  his 
production  is  but  small.  Even  to 
catalogue  the  beardless  poets  of  France 
would  be  a  vast  undertaking,  and  one 
is  not  certain  that  the  most  limited 
edition  of  this  arduous  work  would 
find  purchasers.  But  their  books, 
with  their  strange  maturity,  their  vain 
eclecticism,  their  constant  echoes  of 
Maeterlinck,  Walt  Whitman,  and  the 
Greek,  are  less  than  themselves  in 
number,  and  moreover  resemble  one 
another  so  closely  that  it  is  difficult 
to  separate  them.  A  poor  half-dozen 
emerge  :  here,  for  instance,  is  M. 
Andre  Lebey,  who  translates  Sappho 
with  the  sound  scholarship  of  nine- 
teen years,  and  composes  sonnets  like 
a  master  ;  there  is  M.  Jean  de  Tinan, 
who  in  Erythree  turns  the  Greek 
of  his  school-days  to  good  account, 
and  who  assures  you  that  he  wrote 
one  of  his  stories  in  "  the  sad  park  of 
an  aged  abbey."  Here  again  is  M.  Saint 
Georges  de  Bouhelier  expressing  his 
aged  youth  now  in  deathless  prose, 
now  in  immaculate  verse.  M.  de 
Bouhelier,  in  truth,  if  you  may  believe 
his  friends,  is  the  prime  hero  of 
modern  times.  He  was  "  an  influence  " 
at  seventeen,  and  though  no  more 
than  twenty  (he  was  born  in  1876) 
he  has  already  won  the  settled  honour 
of  a  biography.  Happily,  says  his 
panegyrist,  he  came  into  the  world 
when  the  fripperies  of  the  Second 
Empire  were  forgotten,  and  so  he 
escaped  the  contamination  of  the  three 
mediocrities,  Gounod,  Offenbach,  and 
Baudelaire.  He  has  already  performed 
those  preliminary  feats  which  are 
expected  of  his  calling ;  he  has  edited 
a  review,  he  has  published  poems,  he 
has  written  the  customary  treatise  upon 
Narcissus.  Above  all  he  despises  Sym- 
bolism, and  that  style  of  writing  which 
has  been  called  artistic.  Naturism  is 
his  creed,  and  Katurism,  says  his  friend 


Apollo  in  thq  Latin  Quarter. 


417 


and  biographer,  is  not  only  an  aesthetic 
conception  but  a  doctrine  of  life.  So 
that  M.  de  Bouhelier  need  fear  no 
intellectual  uncertainty  between  this 
and  the  grave.  Moreover,  "  he  has 
the  blood  of  Orpheus  in  his  veins," 
exclaims  a  writer  young  as  himself, 
and  future  ages  shall  know  him  as  a 
Pagan  prophet,  or  even  as  an  heroical 
Jean-Jacques. 

But  despite  the  elemental  grandeur 
of  M.  Saint-Georges  de  Bouhelier,  he  is 
not  truly  the  greatest  of  his  kind. 
One  other  among  them  has  dis- 
played a  genuine  freshness  and  origin- 
ality, and  if  M.  Alfred  Jarry  alone 
comes  forth  from  the  beardless  mob, 
the  beer  of  the  Boulevard  Saint 
Michel  has  not  been  spilled  in  vain. 
The  two  volumes  which  he  has  pub- 
lished are  fantastically  absurd.  They 
are  embellished  with  woodcuts  (by  the 
author),  which  in  a  year  even  M.  Jarry 
will  regard  as  a  bad  joke ;  in  their 
pages  Caesar  and  Anti-Christ  are 
enwrapped  in  a  cloud  of  senseless 
heraldry ;  there  are  Acts  Prologal 
and  Acts  Terrestrial ;  there  are 
entr'actes,  in  which  stars  fall  from  the 
heaven,  or  whales  appear  in  the  sea, 
or  the  sky  is  rolled  up  like  a  book. 
And  all  this  folly,  the  small  change  of 
mysticism,  is  of  no  effect.  The  ma- 
chinery is  the  machinery  of  childhood, 
and,  since  it  meant  little  to  the 
author,  it  conveys  little  enough  to  the 
reader.  But  hidden  away  in  this 
mass  of  ambitious  irrelevancy  there 
lurks  Ubu  the  King,  Monarch  of 
Poland  and  of  Aragon,  who,  after  his 
fashion,  is  a  creation  in  pure  farce. 
He  is  a  fantastic  combination  of 
Falstaff  and  the  British  tourist  of 
Comic  Opera.  His  poltroonery  is  only 
surpassed  by  his  invincible  avarice. 
When  he  seizes  the  throne  of  Poland 
after  the  murder  of  King  Wenceslas, 
he  centres  in  himself,  for  the  sake  of 
economy,  all  the  offices  of  State.  The 
nobles  are  killed  that  their  titles  and 
No.  444. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


fortunes  may  be  lavished  on  their 
King.  His  view  of  taxation  is  simple 
and  generous ;  all  the  old  taxes, 
says  he,  shall  be  paid  twice,  and 
all  the  new  taxes  thrice.  With  this 
system  he  murmurs,  "  I  shall  soon 
make  my  fortune,  and  then  I  shall 
kill  everybody  and  be  off."  But  when 
he  is  driven  into  a  war  with  Russia, 
his  parsimony  is  his  undoing.  He 
will  fight,  says  he  in  a  moment  of 
false  courage,  but  he  will  not  spend  a 
penny ;  his  horse,  which  he  has  fed  at 
sixpence  a  day,  is  so  infirm,  that, 
unable  to  carry  the  monarch,  it  must 
be  led  on  to  the  field  of  battle.  When 
a  shot  is  fired  in  his  neighbourhood, 
he  cries  out  in  the  true  Falstaff 
manner  :  "  I  am  wounded,  I  am  pierced 
through  and  through,  I  am  perforated, 
I  am  dead  and  buried."  But  the 
great  moment  of  his  life  arrives  when 
he  is  attacked  by  a  bear  in  a  cave. 
Immediately  he  climbs  a  rock,  and, 
bidding  his  henchman  slay  the  monster, 
he  lifts  up  his  voice  in  prayer.  The 
bear  is  slain,  and  Ubu  the  King  with 
a  splendid  magnanimity  takes  the 
achievement  upon  himself.  "  It  is  to 
my  courage,"  says  he  in  effect,  "  that 
you  owe  your  lives.  It  was  I  who 
drew  the  spiritual  sword  of  prayer, 
and  slew  the '  beast  with  a  pater- 
noster ;  nay,  more,  I  proved  my 
devotion  by  climbing  this  rock  at  the 
risk  of  my  life,  that  my  prayers  should 
not  have  so  far  to  travel  on  the  road 
to  heaven."  Now  there  is  not  much 
in  all  this  fooling ;  yet  it  seduces  you 
from  page  to  page,  and  it  is  worth 
countless  volumes  of  the  New  Humour. 
Moreover,  though  it  is  manifestly 
unfit  for  publication  on  our  side  the 
Channel,  it  has  a  style  and  savour  of 
its  own,  and  it  is  M.  Alfred  Jarry, 
who,  alone  of  all  the  youth,  has 
cultivated  a  personal  and  distinguish- 
able style. 

And  what  becomes  of  the  cherished 
Youth  of  France?      What  future  do 

E  E 


418 


Apollo  in  the  Latin  Quarter. 


the  melancholy  and  beardless  poets 
prepare  for  themselves  ?  Some  forget 
their  folly,  and  find  a  pursuit  more 
lucrative  and  less  romantic  than  the 
editing  of  reviews.  Others,  cured  of 
their  fantasy,  condescend  to  that 
trade  of  Letters,  which  brings  to  its 
professors  the  money  and  the  praise 
of  the  middle-class.  And  these  look 
back,  maybe,  to  the  noble  dreams 
and  well-meant  accomplishment  of 
youth  with  a  sigh  that  is  half  shame 
and  half  regret.  But  in  less  than  a 
lustre  all  shall  be  fogeys.  Two  years 
since  was  published  a  book,  Portraits 
of  the  next  Century,  and  of  those 
who  sat  for  their  portraits  then 
there  is  not  one  who  is  not 
to-day  as  old  as  Sully  Prudhomme, 
or  as  Father  Hugo  himself.  Mean- 


while there  is  in  this  extravagance  of 
contemptuous  youth  a  sense  of  arro- 
gance and  amusement  of  which  we,  in 
sober,  practical  England,  catch  but  a 
furtive  glimpse.  The  worst  is,  the 
extravagance  is  short-lived  even  in 
Paris.  The  wiseacres  of  nineteen 
shake  off  their  years  as  the  time 
passes,  and  even  they,  if  they  reach 
the  despised  age  of  thirty,  may  know 
the  fleeting  joys  of  youth.  Yet  they 
must  hasten  to  enjoy  the  fruit  of  their 
genius.  The  rising  generation  is 
knocking  at  the  door :  the  schools  of 
France  are  crammed  with  Shake- 
speares  of  fourteen ;  and  presently 
there  will  come  one,  bolder  than  the 
rest,  who  shall  stand  up  before  the 
beardless  master  of  to-day  and  call 
him — Coppee. 


419 


HOW  KING  SHAILLU  WAS  PUNISHED. 


AMONG  the  many  negro  nations, 
differing  widely  from  one  another  in 
speech  and  physique,  who  obey  the 
rule  of  the  White  Queen,  as  she  is 
termed  throughout  the  West  African 
littoral,  there  are  none  more  remark- 
•  able  in  their  manners  and  customs, 
nor  harder  to  manage,  than  the  tribes 
who  inhabit  the  limitless  swamps  and 
little  known  forests  of  the  Niger  delta. 
They  are  all  men  of  huge  stature,  with 
arms  and  chests  splendidly  developed 
by  constant  labour  at  the  paddle,  for 
they  practically  live  in  their  dug-out 
canoes,  but  with  the  usual  weak  lower 
limbs  of  the  negro.  The  characteristic 
dress  consists  of  a  yard  or  two  of 
cotton  cloth  wound  loosely  round  the 
waist,  though  many  dispense  even 
with  this ;  and  every  man  wears  his 
hair  knitted  up  into  fantastic  plaits, 
and  is  decorated  with  quaint  devices 
in  blue  tattoo  standing  out  in  relief 
upon  his  ebony  skin.  There  are  three 
powers  known  to  the  naked  river- 
men  ;  the  first  two  of  which  are 
alternately  respected  and  mocked  at, 
while  the  third  is  always  obeyed  and 
feared.  The  first  is  the  British 
Government,  represented  by  a  few 
sickly  Consuls  and  Vice-Consuls  of 
the  Niger  Coast  Protectorate,  who, 
suffering  much  from  heat  and  fever, 
do  what  they  can  to  maintain  some 
kind  of  order  by  force  of  arms  :  next 
comes  the  Royal  Niger  Company 
whose  officers  attempt  to  rule,  more 
or  less  wisely,  many  millions  of  sable 
subjects  ;  and  lastly,  but  all-powerful, 
Amalaku  the  River  God  and  his 
legions  of  Ju-Ju  devils. 

In  every  rotting  mangrove  swamp, 
steamy   forest,    or    waste    of    rolling 


plume  grass  from  Gambia  to  Congo, 
the  influence  of  the  Ju-Ju  man, 
Feddah,  or  Fetich  Priest,  is  supreme, 
and  wherever  there  is  trouble  in 
West  Africa  he  is  generally  at  the 
bottom  of  it.  Probably  his  power  is 
nowhere  greater  than  in  the  watery 
forests  of  the  Niger  delta,  in  which 
inter-tribal  warfare,  skull-hunting, 
and  human  sacrifice  are  matters  of 
everyday  occurrence,  and  things  are 
done  which  seem  strangely  out  of 
place,  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

A  little  while  ago,  King  Shaillu  of 
Hioba,  not  having  the  fear  of  the 
Government  before  his  eyes,  and  dis- 
regarding what  had  happened  when 
the  stronghold  of  the  river-pirate 
Nana  went  down  before  the  wrath  of 
the  Protectorate,  built  himself  a 
strong  stockade  around  his  city  of 
mud-walled  huts,  and  took  counsel 
with  his  Ju-Ju  men  as  to  how  he 
might  most  easily  acquire  power  and 
riches,  and  make  a  name  for  himself, 
as  did  his  fathers  before  the  coming 
of  the  white  men.  Soon  afterwards, 
mutilated  corpses  of  unfortunate 
slaves  commenced  to  drift  down  the 
rivers  with  every  freshet,  and  inland 
traders,  arriving  at  the  scattered 
coast-factories,  told  strange  tales  of 
men  buried  alive  among  the  founda- 
tions of  new  houses  or  stockades. 
Consul  and  Vice-Consul  frowned 
as  they  listened.  But  Shaillu  dwelt 
among  a  wilderness  of  swamps,  where 
the  white  stems  and  olive-green  foliage 
of  the  mangroves  rise  out  of  fathomless 
depths  of  bubbling  slime,  intersected 
by  a  maze  of  tunnel-like  waterways 
and  wide-spreading  tracts  of  putres- 

E  E  2 


420 


How  King  Shaillu  was  Punished. 


cent  mud,  a  district  almost  impossible 
of  access  to  white  men,  where  even 
the  hardy  Yoruba  soldiers  of  the 
Protectorate  might  scarcely  venture, 
so  many  kinds  of  sudden  death  lurked 
in  every  breath  of  the  pestilential  air. 
So  the  white  officials  hesitated  to 
despatch  an  expedition  against  the 
offender,  and  instead  sent  messengers 
to  Shaillu,  each  bearing  a  carved  staff 
in  token  of  authority,  to  say  that  the 
Protectorate  really  could  not  tolerate 
such  behaviour,  and  that  the  British 
Government  set  its  face  against 
human  sacrifice.  But  few  of  the 
messengers  ever  returned,  and  those 
who  did  brought  back  only  insulting 
replies,  and  reports  of  honeycombed 
cast-iron  guns  being  mounted  to 
command  the  waterways,  and  of  the 
gathering  of  large  bodies  of  naked 
warriors  armed  with  keen  matchets 
and  flintlock  guns. 

Then  for  a  time  things  went  on  as 
before,  until  at  last  the  merchants,  both 
white  and  black,  of  many  coast-factories 
rose  up  in  wrath,  for  after  diminish- 
ing by  degrees  the  trade  of  the  district 
ceased  altogether.  For  many  years 
flotillas  of  huge  dug-out  canoes  had 
come  down  the  rivers  from  the 
unknown  land  beyond,  bearing  valu- 
able cargoes  of  thick  yellow  palm-oil, 
greasy  kernels,  and  evil-smelling 
viscous  green  rubber ;  and  the  owners 
thereof  had  paid  a  moderate  blackmail 
to  Shaillu  and  his  neighbours  for  the 
doubtful  privilege  of  passing  through 
his  dominions.  Latterly,  however, 
not  content  with  ten  per  cent  or  so, 
he  had  seized  one  third,  and  then  one 
half ;  till  finally  many  canoes  entered 
his  domains  on  the  north  which  never 
came  out  again  at  all.  This  was  hard 
upon  the  merchants,  for  much  of  the 
oil  had  been  sent  down  in  payment  of 
salt  and  gin  supplied,  and  they 
clamoured  that  the  Government  should 
put  an  end  to  Shaillu  and  his  doings. 
Now  British  Consuls  and  Vice-Consuls 


suffer  many  things  at  the  hands 
of  the  powerful  inland  chiefs  with 
patience,  but  there  is  one  offence  un- 
pardonable in  their  eyes,  and  that  is 
the  closing  of  the  trade-routes ;  so,  at 
last,  it  was  determined  that  Shaillu 
should  be  made  an  example  of. 

The  early  sunlight  filtered  through 
the  delicate  tracery  of  palm-fronds 
rising  sharp  and  clear  against  the 
morning  sky,  and  lay  in  shimmering 
golden  patches  across  the  sandy  com- 
pound, as  the  force,  which  was  to 
teach  the  pirates  of  the  swamps  that 
there  was  a  power  greater  than  that 
of  Shaillu  on  the  oil-rivers,  fell  in 
before  the  British  Consulate.  One 
hundred  Yoruba  soldiers,  negroes  with 
a  trace  of  Arab  blood  in  their  veins, 
who  had  come  south  to  serve  the 
White  Queen  from  a  little  known  land 
between  Lagos  Colony  and  the  Soudan, 
were  drawn  up  in  line,  the  sun-rays 
sparkling  along  their  Snider  barrels 
and  the  bright  buttons  on  the  yellow 
karki  uniform  of  the  Niger  Protec- 
torate. Beyond  the  fringe  of  oil- 
palms,  the  dark  cottonwoods  rose 
like  a  wall,  sombre  and  black ;  a 
chasm  split  through  the  heart  of  the 
shadowy  forest  down  which  fleecy 
masses  of  rolling  vapour  drifted  before 
a  faint  hot  breeze,  marking  the  course 
of  the  Hioba  river,  the  only  route  to 
the  north. 

"A  bad  beginning;  mist  unusually 
heavy  this  morning ;  more  fever  and 
dysentery,  I  suppose.  Got  all  your 
drugs,  Doctor  1 "  said  Captain  Cranton 
in  command  of  the  expedition,  as  he 
descended  the  verandah  stairway, 
buckling  on  his  heavy  revolver. 

Surgeon  Marsland,  a  thin,  yellow- 
faced  man  wasted  by  heat  and  many 
fevers,  wiped  the  perspiration  from  his 
streaming  forehead  and  leaned  feebly 
over  the  balustrade.  "  Yes,"  he 
answered,  gazing  at  the  mist,  which, 
gathering  itself  together  into  fairy 


How  King  Shaillu  was  Punished. 


421 


wreaths,  slowly  melted  into  thin  air 
and  drifted  away  between  the  colon- 
nades of  stately  cottonwood  trunks  to 
lurk  among  the  pestilential  swamps 
until  it  crawled  forth  again  at  night- 
fall. "  Seven  kinds  of  sudden  death 
in  those  silvery  folds,  pretty  as  they 
seem.  However,  no  one  comes  here 
for  his  health,  and  we  must  make 
the  best  of  it." 

The  third  white  officer,  young  Lieu- 
tenant Liscombe,  said  nothing,  but 
hurried  across  the  parade-ground  to 
inspect  his  men.  This  was  his  first 
experience  of  frontier  warfare,  and  he 
was  full  of  impatience  to  show  what 
he  could  do,  and  to  penetrate  that 
region  of  romance  and  mystery,  the 
great  African  forest.  Captain  Cranton, 
smiling  grimly  as  he  watched  his 
subaltern  passing  down  the  ranks, 
examining  the  arms  and  accoutre- 
ments, observed  quietly  to  the  Doctor  : 
"  The  climate  will  soon  take  the  eager- 
ness out  of  him.  When  he  has  seen 
dysentery  wipe  out  half  the  troops,  or 
has  lain  for  weeks  burning  with  fever 
in  a  stifling  hut,  with  only  a  few 
Yorubas  to  tend  him,  he'll  learn  to 
take  things  quietly.  No  white  man 
can  work  hard  in  this  climate." 

As  he  spoke,  a  roar  of  escaping 
steam,  followed  by  the  scream  of  a 
whistle  to  show  that  the  Consulate 
launch  was  ready,  rose  from  the  misty 
river.  Then  the  bugles  rang  out ; 
the  orders  Company  right  turn,  Form 
fours,  Quick  march,  rose  on  the  listless 
air;  a  group  of  white-faced  traders 
raised  a  feeble  cheer,  and  the  lines  of 
Snider  barrels  and  karki  uniforms 
swung  out  of  the  compound  and  dis- 
appeared beneath  the  feathery  palms 
which  fringed  the  river  banks. 

Towing  a  flotilla  of  canoes,  the  little 
launch  churned  her  way  up  the  yellow 
current  through  the  heart  of  the 
forest,  until  the  last  of  the  mist- 
wreaths  melted  away  and  the  sun 
shone  down  out  of  a  sky  of  brass 


with  the  pitiless  heat  of  Africa.  The 
yellow  water  and  the  bright  metal- 
work  of  the  launch  flashed  back  a 
dazzling  glare,  and  the  white  men 
were  glad  to  turn  their  eyes  away 
from  the  quivering  haze  over 'the  river 
to  the  cool  shade  of  the  forest  on 
either  hand,  where  the  raw  green  of 
curving  palm-fronds  contrasted  sharply 
with  the  sombre  foliage  of  the  cotton- 
wood  ;  while  out  of  each  steamy 
avenue,  festooned  with  titi  creepers 
and  carpeted  with  flowers,  drifted  the 
fragrance  of  lilies  and  many  spices. 

On  they  went,  past  mile  after  mile 
of  shadowy  forest,  across  broad  la- 
goons gleaming  in  the  sun  like  sheets 
of  polished  silver,  down  narrow  tun- 
nels beneath  the  olive-green  foliage 
of  the  mangroves,  winding  in  and  out 
among  a  network  of  arched  roots 
which  rose  like  the  tentacles  of  a 
giant  octopus  from  many  feet  of  foul 
water  and  bubbling  slime.  As  the 
launch  passed  every  revolution  of  the 
screw  stirred  up  sickening  exhalations, 
and  the  air  was  heavy  and  rank  with 
the  sour  odours  of  putrescent  mud  and 
rotting  vegetation.  Flocks  of  parrots 
and  huge  leather-winged  bats  flew 
screaming  through  the  white  mangrove 
branches ;  alligators  floundered  and 
splashed  amid  the  twisted  roots,  or 
stiffened  themselves  into  the  semblance 
of  a  cottonwood  log  as  the  canoes 
went  by ;  while  the  fetid  ooze  heaved 
and  bubbled  with  the  crawling  of 
countless  crabs  and  slimy  water-lizards 
flying  before  the  gurgling  wash  of 
the  bows. 

"  The  niggers  say  these  swamps  are 
peopled  with  lost  souls  and  evil  spirits, 
only  they  paint  their  worst  devils 
white,  out  of  compliment  to  us.  The 
place  is  dismal  enough  and  deadly 
enough,  anyway ;  that  fellow  looks  as 
wicked  as  the  prince  of  darkness 
himself,"  said  the  Captain,  pointing  to 
a  loathsome  crab,  with  great  hairy 
legs  and  a  body  like  a  bloated  spider, 


422 


How  King  Shaillu  was  Punished. 


which  hung  on  to  a  mangrove  stem 
and  regarded  the  launch  with  its  pro- 
truding eyes,  holding  up  a  big  mandible 
threateningly. 

So  they  journeyed,  day  after  day, 
until  at  last  the  twisting  creeks  be- 
came so  shallow  that  even  the  light- 
drafted  launch  might  not  pass,  and 
the  Yorubas  took  up  their  paddles 
and  drove  the  canoes  against  the 
stream.  Then  they  reached  a  large 
island-like  tract  of  firm  earth  on  the 
outskirts  of  King  Shaillu's  dominions, 
and  here  the  black  soldiers  disem- 
barked. 

"  Of  course  he  knows  we're  coming, 
knew  it  as  soon  as  we  did  ourselves  ; 
the  way  those  bushmen  learn  Govern- 
ment secrets  is  extraordinary,"  said 
Captain  Cranton  ;  "  and  he'll  probably 
have  a  crowd  of  black  rascals  crouch- 
ing round  the  breech  of  a  honey- 
combed old  gun  loaded  up  with  bottles, 
on  the  look-out  for  us  at  some  narrow 
bend  of  the  river.  Now  it  would  not 
be  nice  to  have  splintered  glass  or 
broken  cast-iron  fired  into  one  ;  so, 
while  he  watches  the  river,  we'll  go 
overland — kind  of  surprise-party,  you 
see." 

Then  the  canoes  were  left  behind  ; 
and  after  winding  down  misty  avenues 
of  oil-palms  and  among  the  great 
buttress  roots  of  the  dripping  cotton- 
woods  all  day  long,  soon  after  sunset 
the  expedition  marched  silently,  file 
by  file,  out  of  the  forest,  and  sank 
down  among  the  wet  bushes  on  the 
banks  of  the  broad  Hioba  river,  on 
the  opposite  bank  of  which  lay 
Shaillu's  town. 

It  was,  as  young  Lieutenant  Lis- 
combe  said,  a  ghastly  place.  Behind 
them  the  dark  cottonwood  forest  rose 
like  a  wall  of  blackness ;  at  their  feet 
lay  a  wide  belt  of  fetid  bubbling  mud, 
seamed  by  wallowing  alligators  s-nd 
tunnelled  by  boring  crabs.  Beyond 
this,  partly  veiled  in  darkest  shadow 
and  in  part  glimmering  in  the  last  of 


the  moonlight,  the  broad  river  flowed 
with  a  sleepy  murmur,  while  beneath 
the  tufted  fronds  of  the  palms  on  the 
further  bank  could  be  seen  the  dim 
outline  of  stockade  and  clustering 
huts. 

With  the  darkness  the  temperature 
had  risen,  as  it  often  does  in  Africa. 
Between  the  heat  and  the  dense 
atmosphere,  heavy  with  steam  and 
the  noisome  odours  of  the  river-mud, 
it  was  scarcely  possible  to  breathe ; 
and  the  worn-out  soldiers  lay  about 
in  listless  silence,  for  there  is  that  in 
the  air  of  the  river-swamps,  before 
which  a  strong  man's  vigour  melts 
away  like  water. 

"  Nice  sort  of  spot  for  a  picnic," 
observed  the  Captain  half  aloud,  as  he 
vainly  attempted  to  light  a  moist  cigar 
with  a  spluttering  match  ;  everything 
is  damp  in  Africa.  "  How  many 
different  kinds  of  poison  in  each  breath, 
Doctor  1  However,  we  won't  stay 
here  longer  than  we  can  help.  About 
midnight  the  moon  will  be  gone.  The 
only  thing  that  troubles  me  is  the 
river  ;  there  seems  much  more  water 
coming  down  than  there  used  to  be." 

"  Why  do  you  consider  it  desirable 
to  make  the  attack  at  night  1 "  asked 
the  young  Lieutenant. 

"  Well,"  was  the  quiet  answer, 
"  there  are  various  good  reasons. 
Most  Africans  lie  fast  in  their  huts  at 
night ;  first  because  there  are  many 
kinds  of  Ju-Ju  devils  abroad,  includ- 
ing the  great  Amalaku  who  breathes 
the  fever  upon  the  palms  in  the  dark 
hours ;  and  again  because  it  is  then 
the  Feddah  priest  and  the  King's 
murderers  look  out  for  any  headman 
with  revolutionary  fancies.  When 
they  hear  a  few  smothered  cries,  and 
at  sunrise  find  a  hut  empty,  they 
tremble,  and  thank  their  fetich  they 
were  out  of  harm's  way.  So  you  see, 
few  men  are  armed,  or  if  they  are, 
they  have  very  little  fight  in  them. 
Isn't  that  about  it,  Doctor  1 " 


How  King  Sliaillu  was  Punished. 


423 


But  the  Doctor  said  nothing.  He 
was  leaning  his  throbbing  head  against 
the  cool  bark  of  a  cottonwood,  half 
delirious  with  fever,  and  only  desiring 
to  be  left  alone. 

Then  there  was  silence  for  a  while, 
though  the  forest  seemed  filled  with 
mysterious  rustlings,  and  the  river 
gurgled  hoarsely  beneath  the  drifting 
vapour,  which  crept  out  further  and 
further  across  the  muddy  water  as  the 
shadow  of  the  cotton  woods  lengthened 
upon  the  stream.  Countless  fireflies 
shimmered  with  a  faint  phosphorescent 
gleam  amid  the  wet  bushes,  and  here 
and  there  a  star  sparkled  with  the 
clear  radiance  of  the  tropics  through 
the  interlacing  palm-fronds.  So  the 
minutes  went  slowly  by,  until  the 
waiting  and  suspense  jarred  upon  the 
nerves  of  the  watchers.  The  }7oung 
Lieutenant  fidgeted  with  his  revolver, 
and  from  time  to  time  a  soft  rustling 
of  brushwood,  or  the  clank  of  a  swivel 
against  the  Snider  stocks,  told  that 
the  black  soldiers  were  stirring  un- 
easily in  their  lairs  beneath  the  wet 
bushes.  At  last,  from  the  opposite 
bank  of  the  river  came  a  sound  as  of 
a  body  of  men  moving  through  the 
forest,  and  the  hoarse  challenge  of  a 
sentry  echoed  faintly  through  the 
gloom. 

"  Must  be  on  the  look-out  for  us," 
whispered  the  Captain  ;  "  watchmen 
above  the  gate.  Those  fellows  have 
been  after  some  negro  devilry,  slave- 
stealing  or  waylaying  oil-canoes.  Any- 
way the  moonlight  will  be  gone  in  ten 
minutes,  and  we'll  move  as  soon  as 
they  settle  down  again."  Then  he 
called  softly,  "  Here,  Sergeant 
Koffee." 

There  was  a  rustling  and  swaying 
amid  the  undergrowth ;  the  Lieu- 
tenant sprang  to  his  feet  as  a  dark 
figure  rose  up  beside  him  out  of  the 
shadow,  and  then  fumed  at  his  own 
nervousness  as  he  heard  the  Captain's 
voice  say  :  "  Listen  too  much,  Koffee  ; 


savvy  what  riverman  say  1 "  Pre- 
sently the  black  soldier  translated  the 
second  challenge,  "  "Who  comes  by 
night  through  the  forest  1 "  and  the 
answer,  "  The  word  of  the  King." 
Then  there  was  a  creaking  of  cotton- 
wood  logs,  the  trampling  of  many  feet 
and  a  jingle  of  arms,  as  the  emissaries 
of  Shaillu  marched  into  the  town. 
Afterwards,  a  deep  silence  settled 
down  over  steamy  forest  and  misty 
river,  and  Lieutenant  Liscombe 
gnawed  his  moustache  and  tightened 
his  grasp  round  the  chased  grip  of  his 
revolver  to  still  his  quivering  nerves. 

Presently,  the  Captain  gathered  his 
men  together,  and,  speaking  softly  in 
English,  said  :  "  Lieutenant  Liscombe, 
you  will  take  thirty  Yorubas  and  ford 
the  river.  Pass  through  the  forest  to 
the  rear  of  the  town  and  force  the 
gate  there  ;  it  is  not  strong.  If  there 
is  resistance,  fight  your  way  in  towards 
the  trade-square.  Look  out  for  any 
trap,  and  consult  with  Sergeant  Koffee; 
he  was  brought  up  to  this  kind  of 
thing.  And  now,  good-bye  and  good 
luck."  The  two  white  men  shook 
hands,  and  then,  turning  to  the 
Yorubas,  the  Captain  addressed  them 
in  the  vernacular  :  "  The  officer  man 
is  young,  and  knows  little  of  the  ways 
of  the  forest,  but  his  word  is  law,  even 
as  mine.  Sergeant  Koffee,  see  to  it 
that  your  eyes  and  ears  are  open  for 
any  wile  of  the  bushmen.  Show  that 
one  Yoruba  is  a  match  for  many 
heathen.  Palaver  set, — march  !  " 

Silently,  file  by  file,  with  scarcely 
the  crackling  of  a  twig  or  the  rustling 
of  a  leaf  to  mark  their  passage,  the 
Yorubas  moved  down  the  steep  bank, 
for  they  had  been  trained  in  forest 
warfare  from  childhood,  and  had  held 
their  wild  land  with  spear-blade  and 
flintlock  gun  against  the  fierce  tribes 
of  the  Western  Soudan  and  Arab 
raiders  from  the  northern  desert. 

Captain  Cranton  watched  them  flit- 
ting like  ghosts  through  the  shadows, 


424 


How  King  Shaillu  was  Punished. 


and  abused  the  clumsiness  of  his 
subaltern  who  tore  his  way  noisily 
with  nervous  haste  through  every 
obstacle,  until  he  heard  their  feet 
sucking  in  the  soft  mire.  Presently, 
there  was  a  splashing  by  the  edge  of 
the  ford ;  then  the  sound  melted  into 
the  gurgle  of  the  river,  and  the  last 
dim  figure  disappeared  into  a  drifting 
cloud  of  mist. 

Minute  followed  minute,  and  there 
was  no  sound  from  the  further  shore, 
nothing  but  the  palm-fronds  rustling 
in  the  hot  breeze  and  the  sighing  of 
the  cottonwood  tops,  until  the  Captain 
gave  the  order  to  march;  and  the 
surgeon,  pulling  himself  together  with 
a  desperate  effort,  went  wearily  for- 
ward with  throbbing  head  and  burning 
skin,  leaning  heavily  on  the  shoulder 
of  a  stalwart  Yoruba. 

In  spite  of  much  hard  service  in  the 
African  forest,  Captain  Crantori  set 
his  teeth  hard  as  he  felt  his  feet  sink- 
ing deep  in  the  clinging  mire,  and  the 
muddy  current  rippling  round  his 
knee,  then  slowly  rising  towards  his 
waist.  There  seemed  much  more  water 
than  when  he  had  last  crossed  the  ford 
on  a  diplomatic  visit  to  Shaillu,  and  he 
devoutly  hoped  no  sudden  deepening 
would  stop  the  expedition.  Neither 
was  the  Doctor's  remark  consoling,  as 
he  said  feebly  :  "  Hope  the  alligators 
will  leave  us  alone.  The  canoe  men 
say  the  river  swarms  with  them,  and  I 
once  saw  a  woman  seized  at  Brass.  A 
big  scaly  head  came  up  out  of  an 
eddy ;  there  was  a  glimmer  of  yellow 
teeth,  and  down  she  went,  twitching 
face,  smothered  scream,  and  blood 
rising  behind — ugh,  I  can  see  it  now  !  " 

"  Tut,  tut,  man,"  was  the  Captain's 
answer  half  aloud,  "  you  have  been 
doing  too  much.  Take  antipyrin 
and  a  month  at  Lagos  Sanatorium ; 
that's  what  you  prescribe  for  us. 
Hallo,  they  have  commenced  already  !  " 

A  streak  of  red  fire  blazed  out  of 
the  forest  ahead,  lighting  up  for  a 


second  a  long  line  of  dark  stockade  ; 
then  a  crash  of  flintlock  guns  rang  out 
and  echoed  through  the  trees,  followed 
by  a  great  blowing  of  horns  and 
the  beating  of  monkey-skin  drums. 
"  Hurry  there,"  said  the  Captain, 
"  fast  plenty  too  much  !  Yoruba  man 
live  for  beach  one  time ; "  and  the 
troops  pressed  eagerly  forwards,  their 
black  fingers  tightening  on  the  Snider 
stocks  as  they  held  the  brown  barrels 
clear  of  the  water,  which  rose  rapidly 
from  knee  to  waist,  and  from  waist  to 
shoulder.  The  stockade  became  plainer 
and  plainer,  a  shadowy  mass  beneath 
the  palms ;  and  presently  a  sentry 
above  the  gate  lifted  up  his  voice  and 
sent  a  loud  challenge  out  into  the 
night. 

"  Get  on  there,  this  is  no  time  for 
rest,"  said  the  Captain  as  the  leading 
files  halted  ;  and  he  hurried  forward 
only  to  sink  breast  deep  in  a  steep- 
sided  hollow,  and  to  wonder  if  they 
had  blundered  and  lost  the  track  across 
the  ford.  While  he  hesitated  there 
was  another  roar  of  flintlock  guns  and 
a  shower  of  jagged  potleg  sang  past 
overhead  and  splashed  along  the  sur- 
face of  the  river.  A  Yoruba  dropped 
his  rifle  with  a  splash,  and  clutching 
at  his  side  collapsed,  a  limp  heap,  into 
the  stream.  A  comrade  dashed  for- 
ward, but  it  was  too  late  ;  there  was 
a  choking  gasp,  and  with  an  oily 
gurgle  the  muddy  current  closed  above 
a  ghastly  face,  and  the  Yoruba  was 
gone. 

The  soldiers  stared  at  one  another 
for  a  moment,  and  a  few  of  the  Snider 
butts  came  home  to  the  shoulder  with 
a  rattle,  but  Captain  Cranton  said 
sternly  :  "  The  man  is  dead  ;  the  first 
who  fires  without  my  order  dies  also. 
Forward  there  ! "  Then,  with  set 
teeth,  the  Yorubas  went  ahead, 
floundering  and  splashing,  struggling 
shoulder  deep  against  the  power  of 
the  stream  with  uplifted  rifles,  while- 
the  sickly  Doctor  gasped  for  breath 


\ 


How  King  Shaillu  loas  Punished. 


425 


as  he  was  half  carried,  half  dragged, 
wildly  through  the  water. 

Just  as  they  came  dripping  out  of 
the  river,  a  long  trail  of  fire  streamed 
upwards  across  the  midnight  sky,  and 
a  detonating  rocket  burst  into  a  cloud 
of  crimson  stars  far  overhead,  to  show 
that  the  landward  gate  had  gone  down 
before  the  attack  of  the  flanking  party. 
For  a  moment  or  two  there  was  a 
sharp  clicking  of  locking  rings  as  the 
bayonet  sockets  slid  over  the  Snider 
muzzles,  while  flintlock  guns  sputtered 
•and  flashed  along  the  face  of  the 
stockade,  and  the  air  was  heavy  with 
the  acrid  odours  of  villainous  trade- 
posvder.  But  it  is  all  a  West  African 
can  do  with  his  long-barrelled  gas-pipe 
gun  to  hit  a  mark  at  a  few  yards' 
distance  in  broad  daylight ;  and,  thanks 
to  the  gloom,  no  one  was  touched  by 
more  than  a  stray  fragment  of  potleg, 
though  the  ragged  cast-iron  tore  up 
the  damp  earth  all  around,  and  shivered 
the  branches  overhead.  The  Captain's 
voice  rang  out  above  the  din,  "  Open 
in  the  name  of  the  White  Queen  !  " 
but  there  was  only  a  fresh  ci'ash  of 
firing  in  answer,  and  the  Yorubas 
stamped  and  fumed  at  the  delay,  for 
they  had  a  comrade's  blood  to  account 
for.  "  Steady,  men,  steady  !  "  shouted 
the  officer.  "  Bring  up  lil'  bokus  one 
time."  Then  taking  a  white  deal  case, 
marked  extra  giant  powder ;  from  the 
head  of  a  negro,  he  snatched  out  three 
plastic  rolls,  resembling  thick  candles 
of  yellow  wax,  and  waving  back  the 
men  who  would  have  followed  him, 
ran  at  full  speed  towards  the  gate  of 
the  stockade.  A  blaze  of  fire  crackled 
here  and  there  from  between  the  solid 
logs,  and  Surgeon  Marsland,  grasping 
the  shoulder  of  a  Yoruba,  held  his 
breath  as  he  watched  the  lonely  figure 
making  straight  for  the  stockade, 
regardless  of  heavy  stones,  hurtling 
spears,  and  the  crashing  of  guns. 

A  few  moments  later,  the  Captain 
was  back  gasping  for  breath,  his  face 


blackened  with  smoke  and  his  pith 
helmet  flattened  into  a  shapeless  mass, 
while  three  fiery  serpents  crept  slowly 
through  the  wet  grasses  towards  the 
stockade,  hissing  as  they  went.  Then 
a  great  blaze  of  yellow  flame  shot  up 
into  the  air,  followed  by  a  roar  and  a 
whirling  cloud  of  smoke,  and  the 
ground  trembled  as  the  heavy  cotton- 
wood  logs  of  the  gate  melted  away 
into  a  mass  of  splintered  fragments. 

While  the  evil-smelling  vapour  was 
still  eddying  and  drifting  along  the 
face  of  the  stockade,  with  a  yell  the 
Yorubas  rushed  forward,  stumbling 
and  blundering  over  shattered  logs 
and  glowing  cinders,  half  choked  by 
the  sickening  odours  of  the  explosive, 
and  swept  down  the  main  street  of 
the  village,  driving  the  river-men 
before  them  at  the  bayonet-point  like 
a  flock  of  frightened  sheep.  Some 
one  had  hurled  a  blazing  torch  into 
a  hut,  and  the  roaring  flame 
leaped  from  thatch  to  thatch,  throw- 
ing a  lurid  light  on  the  crowd  of 
naked  figures  flying  for  their  lives 
between  the  lines  of  mud-walled  huts, 
or  scaling  the  palisade  and  flinging 
themselves  over  into  the  darkness 
outside.  Dripping  with  perspiration, 
and  scarcely  visible  through  the  stifling 
smoke-wreaths,  Captain  Cranton 
dashed  along  at  the  head  of  his  men, 
swinging  his  revolver  and  threatening, 
in  hoarse  breathless  gasps,  all  kinds 
of  penalties  on  the  man  who  fired 
without  his  order ;  for  he  knew  if  the 
Yorubas  once  got  beyond  control 
there  would  be  no  human  being  left 
alive  in  the  town.  Meantime,  Surgeon 
Marsland  and  the  few  soldiers  who. 
formed  his  guard,  followed  as  best 
they  might  in  the  rear,  and  strug- 
gling, scorched  and  nearly  blinded,  out 
of  an  arch  of  flame,  uniting  overhead 
from  two  burning  huts,  they  saw  the 
last  of  their  comrades  disappear  down 
an  avenue  of  palms  and  paw -paw 
trees.  While  the  Doctor  wondered 


426 


How  King  Shaillu  was  Punished. 


what  he  should  do,  a  chorus  of  yells, 
hisses,  and  whistles  rose  from  behind 
a  cluster  of  huts,  and  presently  a 
handful  of  black  soldiers  came  into 
sight,  giving  way  slowly  before  a  wild 
mob  of  naked  river-men.  There  was 
no  time  to  load  or  fire.  Spear-heads 
and  the  brass-bound  butts  of  the  trade- 
guns  rattled  and  crashed  among 
gleaming  bayonets  and  brown  Snider 
barrels,  for  the  Yorubas  were  fighting 
desperately  as  they  went,  four  of 
them  bearing  what  appeared  to  be  a 
shapeless  heap  of  tattered  karki  uni- 
form upon  a  layer  of  woven  palm 
fibre,  torn  out  from  the  side  of  some 
headman's  house. 

"  Stop  them,  —  stop  them,  —  one 
time  ! "  shouted  the  Doctor,  but  his 
men  needed  no  telling.  With  the 
wild  shout  of  the  northern  raiders 
ringing  out  above  the  clash  of  spear 
and  rattle  of  Snider  butts,  they  drove 
forward,  and  as  the  bright  steel  filled 
up  the  narrow  way  the  foe  were  held 
in  check  for  a  few  moments.  Stag- 
gering up  to  the  side  of  the  rough 
litter  Surgeon  Marsland  felt  the  grasp 
of  the  big  Yoruba  Sergeant  on  his 
shoulder  and  heard  a  voice  in  his  ear : 
"  Officer  man  live  for  die,  Sah  ;  river- 
man  chop  him  with  spear.  Say,  carry 
me  first  through  stockade,  alive  or 
dead." 

"  Never  mind  what  he  said,  let  me 
get  at  him.  For  heaven's  sake  keep 
those  brutes  back,  he's  bleeding  to 
death,"  shouted  the  Doctor,  shaking 
off  the  grasp  and  bending  down  over 
the  still  form. 

Young  Liscombe  feebly  raised  his 
head.  "  Good-bye,  I'm  about  finished  ; 
but  I  was  first  man  in,"  he  gasped. 

"Without  a  word,  the  Doctor  slit 
the  tunic  from  the  arm,  and  wrenched 
open  his  instrument  case  as  be  saw 
the  bright  blood  pulsing  in  jets  from 
a  severed  artery.  "  Oh  for  two 
minutes,  just  two  minutes,"  Ae 
groaned,  as  he  slipped  a  rubber  tourniv 


quet  around  the  white  skin ;  but 
even  as  he  did  so,  the  crowd  of  river- 
men  surged  madly  forward ;  there 
was  a  clash  of  bayonets  and  spear- 
heads, and  though  the'  Yorubas 
parried  and  lunged  desperately  they 
staggered  and  yielded  ground  before 
the  dead  weight  of  numbers. 

Never  turning  his  eyes,  the  Doctor 
went  quietly  on  with  his  work,  in  a 
grim  race  against  time  to  save  his 
comrade's  life.  Just  as  the  thick 
rubber,  biting  into  the  firm  flesh, 
choked  down  the  spurting  blood,  the 
Yorubas  broke  away  and  a  huge 
naked  river-man  swung  a  gleaming 
matchet  back  to  the  full  sweep  of  his 
right  arm,  to  deliver  the  resistless  cut 
the  West  African  knows  so  well  at 
the  Doctor's  head.  Almost  instinc- 
tively Surgeon  Marsland  closed  his 
eyes.  Then  he  felt  himself  hurled  on 
one  side  as  something  rushed  past 
him,  and,  glancing  round  again,  saw 
the  red  bayonet  of  Sergeant  Koffee 
shoot  past  at  the  point  from  behind 
the  shoulder  and  slide  into  the  negro's 
naked  flesh,  until  the  socket  clashed 
against  the  breast-bone.  Almost  sim- 
ultaneously he  heard  the  Yorubas' 
shout  and  the  swarming  foe  split  up 
and  melted  away  into  flying  groups  as 
swinging  his  spitting  revolver  right 
and  left,  Captain  Cranton  swept  past 
at  the  head  of  his  men.  Then  his 
overtaxed  strength  gave  way,  and  he 
collapsed  a  limp  unconscious  heap 
across  the  foot  of  the  litter. 

Before  morning  Hioba  was  a  heap 
of  smoking  ruins  and  Shaillu  a 
prisoner  fast  bound  with  titi  creepers. 
Thanks  to  the  darkness,  and  the  usual 
wild  aim  of  the  river-pirates,  the  ex- 
pedition lost  very  few  men ;  in  fact, 
so  far  as  could  be  ascertained,  very 
little  blood  was  shed  in  the  whole 
affair.  A  few  weeks  in  the  Sanatorium 
among  the  breezy  sandhills  by  the 
thundering  Laaos  bar  was  sufficient 


How  King  Shaillu  was  Punished. 


427 


to  fit  Lieutenant  and  Surgeon  for 
work  again ;  and  Shaillu  now  cuts 
grass  with  club  and  matchet  at 
Calabar.  This  is  a  diversion  he  is  by 
no  means  fond  of ;  but  the  armed 
warders,  who,  being  Mussulmans, 
cherish  a  fierce  hatred  against  all  the 
heathen  of  the  coast,  see  that  he  does 
it  thoroughly  and  well.  And  so, 
from  being  a  famous  robber  of  the 
trade-routes,  Shaillu  has  come  down 
in  his  latter  days  to  the  doing  of 
useful  work,  which  every  West 
African,  save  the  woolly-haired  Kroo- 
boy,  regards  as  the  lowest  depth  to 
which  a  man  can  fall.  For  the  time 
being  there  is  peace  on  the  Hioba 
river.  No  more  bodies  of  murdered 


slaves  drift  seawards  with  the  ebb  : 
the  oil-carriers  bring  down  their 
greasy  cargoes  in  safety ;  and  the 
fever-stricken  traders  look  forward  to 
twenty  per  cent,  dividends  and  a 
general  increase  of  salary. 

So  every  one  concerned  was  satisfied, 
and  the  expedition  was  justified  by 
its  results.  It  was  but  one  of  many, 
for  from  the  Gambia  to  the  Niger  our 
Colonies  are  practically  held  by  force 
of  arms ;  and  men,  who  are  qualified 
to  speak,  say  that  were  the  troops 
withdrawn  for  a  short  twelve  months 
the  whole  would  sink  back  again  into 
a  chaos  of  cruelty  and  bloodshed,  for 
civilisation  touches  the  West  African 
but  lightly. 


428 


THE    BURNING    OF    MEIRON. 


PROBABLY  not  many  of  our  readers 
have  heard  of  Rabbi  Shimeon  ben 
Jochai,  the  reputed  author  of  the 
book  Zohar,  the  source  of  the 
Cabbala.  Outside  the  narrow  circle 
of  Judaism  very  little  indeed  is 
known  about  the  Cabbala,  yet  within 
that  circle  it  has  many  followers.  If 
a  traveller  in  Russia  has  the  curiosity 
to  drop  into  some  dismal  little  syna- 
gogue in  any  of  the  obscure  towns 
which  the  Jews  affect,  he  may  find 
not  a  few  blear-eyed,  long-bearded 
students  poring  over  a  sorely  battered 
volume  in  crabbed  Rashi  characters. 
This  is  the  book  Zohar  with  its  mar- 
vellous account  of  the  hierarchy  of 
heaven,  the  ten  Sephiroth  and  Adam 
Kadmon,  and  giving  yet  more  mar- 
vellous reasons  for  its  statements. 
The  reverence  with  which  the  author 
of  this  book  is  regarded  by  a  large 
number  of  Jews  is  only  excelled  by 
the  reverence  which  an  Irish  peasant 
pays  to  the  Virgin.  The  centre  of 
this  worship,  for  so  it  must  be  called, 
is  the  sacred  city  of  Safed  in  Upper 
Galilee,  for  at  Meiron  in  its  immediate 
neighbourhood  is  the  tomb  of  Rabbi 
Shimeon.  The  Burning  at  Meiron,  as 
the  festival  in  his  honour  is  called,  is 
more  important  actually  to  the  Jew  of 
Safed  than  the  feast  of  Passover  or  of 
Purim. 

When  we  came  to  reside  in  Safed 
it  was  not  long  before  we  learned 
something  of  this,  all  past  events  be- 
ing dated  from  Meiron,  and  future 
events  discussed  in  relation  to  it.  It 
seemed  imperative  that  if  \.-e  would  un- 
derstand Jewish  life  in  Safed  we,  too, 
should  see  the  Burning  at  Meiron. 
The  place  is  not  far  distant  from  our 


gate  ;  its  square  block-like  shape  can 
be  seen  clear  against  the  slope  of 
Jebel  Jarmuk,  at  most  four  miles  off 
in  a  direct  line.  We  began  to  hesitate 
on  learning  that  the  Burning  began 
two  hours  or  so  after  sunset  and  con- 
tinued all  night ;  but  despite  all  these 
difficulties,  the  more  we  heard  of  the 
ceremony  made  us  only  the  more  eager 
to  see  it. 

A  week  before  the  thirty-third  day 
after  Passover,  the  date  on  which  the 
Burning  is  held,  we  paid  a  preliminary 
visit  to  Meiron  in  full  daylight. 

A  ride  in  spring  among  the  hills  of 
Galilee  is  always  delightful  from  the 
wealth  of  flowers  everywhere  to  be 
seen,  even  if  the  exhilarating  air  did 
not  tend  to  make  exercise  pleasant. 
The  road  curves  round  to  avoid  the 
deep  ravine  that  separates  the  city  of 
Safed  from  Jebel  Jarmuk.  We  passeSd 
through  groves  of  ancient  olive  trees, 
planted,  some  of  them,  before  the  Ma- 
homedans  conquered  the  country,  and 
twisted  and  rent  into  the  most  fantas- 
tic shapes.  After  winding  along  a 
narrow  path  encumbered  with  boul- 
ders, we  reached  a  level  green  plot  in 
front  of  the  building  which  is  called 
specially  Meiron.  It  looked  very 
much  like  a  khan,  the  Eastern  apo- 
logy for  an  inn,  standing  square  and 
solitary,  if  not  exactly  in  the  midst 
of  ruins,  yet  with  ruins  not  far  off. 
We  passed  through  the  narrow  door- 
way and  found  ourselves  in  a  court- 
yard surrounded  by  arches  so  strongly 
suggesting  the  stalls  in  the  khans  that 
our  horses  and  donkeys  instinctively 
made  for  them.  After  passing  through 
other  doorways  under  the  guidance  of 
the  keeper,  we  entered  a  miserable 


\ 


The  Burning  of  Meiron. 


429 


little    synagogue,    dirty    to    the    last 
degree. 

At    the    one    side    of    this    syna- 
gogue   was    the    tomb    of     the    re- 
nowned   Shimeon    ben    Jochai,     the 
white   limestone    of    which    had    be- 
come nearly  coal-black  with  the  smoke 
of  lamps  and  the   grime  of  countless 
worshippers,   save  where  their  clothes 
had    rubbed    the     corners   and  edges 
comparatively  clean.     Opening  out  of 
this  was  a  large  domed  apartment  in 
.which  is  the  tomb  of  Eliezer  the  son 
of  Shimeon.       We  then   returned  to 
the  courtyard  and  mounted  by  a  stair 
of  rough  steps  to   an  upper  platform 
through  which  rose  the  dome  over  the 
tomb  of  Rabbi  Eliezer.     At  the  top 
of  the    stair,    right    in    front    of  the 
dome,  stood  the  altar,  if  we  may  call 
it    so,  dedicated    to    Rabbi  Shimeon, 
about  five  feet  high  and  much  resem- 
bling a  baptismal  font.    On  the  side  of 
the  dome  was  a  similar  altar  in  honour 
of  Rabbi  Eliezer,  while  over  the  outer 
door  was  yet  another  to  Rabbi  Ezra 
the    Smith.      Outside    was    a    fourth 
burning-place,  sacred  to  the  memory  of 
Rabbi    Johanan      has-Sandalar     (the 
Shoemaker),  standing   beside  a  spring 
issuing  from  a  cave,   in  which  the  re- 
nowned cobbler  had  been  wont  to  dip 
his  leather.      Nob  far  off,  but  a  little 
higher  up  the  slope  of  Jarmuk,   are 
the  ruins  of  a  synagogue  dating  from 
Roman  times.     The  main  part  of  the 
ruin  is  a  richly  ornamented   doorway. 
Beside  it  is   a  ruinous  village,  partly 
Jewish,    and  partly  Moslem.       Down 
the  slope  of  Jarmuk,  a  little  way  from 
Meiron,  we  came  upon  a  cave  said  to 
be  the  tomb  of  the   Beth  Hillel.     As 
the  rainy  season  was  just  over,  a  pool 
occupied   the  whole  entrance   to   the 
cave,  and  we  were  compelled  to  con- 
tent ourselves  with  a   peep  into  the 
darkness,   which   revealed  only  sarco- 
phagi piled  over  each  other  near  the 
doorway. 

Safed  is  remarkable,  among   other 


things,  for  the  number  of  donkeys  to 
be  seen  in  its  streets,  and  for  the 
power  and  persistency  of  their  bray ; 
but  on  the  day  before  the  Burning,  ex- 
cept in  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of  the  gate  towards  Meiron,  the 
town  was  unusually  quiet.  Our 
donkey  had  been  borrowed  from  a 
friend,  who  sent  along  with  it  a  stout 
Moslem  lad  for  groom.  Doctor  Emin 
Fulleichan  joined  us  on  horseback, 
desirous  to  see  that  his  friends  the 
Qassees  got  into  no  scrape.  We 
started  from  his  dispensary  about  an 
hour  before  sunset,  to  get  the  benefit 
of  the  daylight  in  crossing  the  plain, 
over  which  we  had  to  pass  if  we  wished 
to  avoid  the  ravine.  All  through  the 
streets  of  the  Jewish  quarter  were 
signs  of  unwonted  excitement ;  mules 
and  donkeys,  and  sometimes  horses, 
standing  before  every  other  door,  their 
Arab  saddles  heaped  high  with  the 
variegated  cushions  on  which  the  Jews 
delight  to  ride.  Under  such  condi- 
tions it  was  no  easy  matter  to  pilot 
one's  way  through  the  narrow  streets. 
At  the  point  where  the  road  to  Meiron 
leaves  Safed,  there  was  such  a  crowd 
of  animals  that  a  stranger  might  have 
thought  himself  in  the  midst  of  a 
horse  or  donkey  fair.  As  the  road 
at  this  point  is  only  a  series  of  rough 
steep  steps,  varied  with  plentiful  gaps, 
not  to  speak  of  a  declivity  at  one  side 
which  it  would  be  scarcely  an  exag- 
geration to  call  precipitous,  riding  is 
difficult  enough  at  any  time,  and 
doubly  so  when  every  stage  in  the 
descent  was  gained  by  Uzad's  broad 
shoulders  and  stout  stick.  One  youth 
seemed  to  be  inclined  to  resent  on  our 
donkey  the  treatment  he  had  received 
from  Uzad,  but  refrained,  partly  be- 
cause his  own  donkey  stood  in  the 
way,  and  partly  because  he  saw  that 
his  purpose  had  been  detected.  These 
donkeys  and  their  drivers  were  wait- 
ing to  be  hired  to  take  travellers  to 
Meiron. 


430 


The  Burning  of  Meiron. 


When  we  got  fairly  out  into  the 
regular  road  we  had  to  thread  our 
way  through  strings  of  animals,  usually 
led  or  driven  by  a  couple  of  muleteers, 
or,  to  give  them  their  local  name, 
mokarris,  each  armed  with  a  stout 
stick.  On  each  animal  was  at  least 
one  Jew  or  Jewess ;  most  of  the  latter 
had  with  them  a  child  paying  its  first 
visit  to  Meiron.  Sometimes  we  saw  a 
couple  of  boys  or  girls,  or  a  boy  and  a 
girl,  astride  the  same  donkey,  acceler- 
ating its  progress  by  a  pin  after  a 
fashion  not  unknown  in  Western 
countries.  All  were  in  a  prodigious 
hurry,  though  it  was  still  three  or 
four  hours  to  the  time  of  lighting  the 
sacred  fire.  Many  of  the  Ashkenaz 
Jews  were  gorgeously  dressed  in  enor- 
mous hairy  caps,  the  heritage  of 
Russian  ancestors,  and  long  garments 
of  striped  silk,  forming  a  striking 
contrast  to  the  roughly  clad  Arabs 
and  Arabian  Jews  to  which  classes 
most  of  the  muleteers  belonged. 

As  the  day  had  clouded  over  by  the 
afternoon,  we  were  not  surprised  to 
find  the  drizzle  we  had  felt  before 
starting  turn  into  rain  at  times  on  the 
plain.  Perhaps  it  did  not  comfort  us 
so  much  as  it  ought  to  learn  that  it 
was  particularly  good  for  the  country  ; 
it  did  not  at  least  damp  the  ardour  of 
the  worshippers  who  were  trooping 
to  Meiron  from  every  part  of  the 
Levant.  One  result  of  the  cloudy  sky 
was  that  evening  came  down  upon  us 
soon ;  and  more  rapidly  than  usual 
the  evening  deepened  into  night.  It 
was  well  that  the  Syrian  horses  and 
mules  are  very  sure-footed,  for  road, 
in  the  European  sense  of  the  word, 
there  was  none;  only  a  vaguely 
marked  bridle-path  now  winding  round 
boulders,  now  clambering  over  them. 
At  times  the  path  passed  over  rocks 
where  the  mules  and  donkeys  had  to 
imitate  the  goats  in  making  use  of  the 
slightest  crevices  to  help  them  in  their 
ascent,  or  to  hinder  them  from  sliding 


down.  We  had  soon  to  trust  our- 
selves wholly  to  the  sense  of  the 
animals. 

When  we  reached  the  rocks  near 
the  synagogue  we  gave  our  steeds 
into  the  care  of  Uzad.  Every- 
where were  hobbled  horses  or  mules 
and  people  with  them.  We  made 
up  the  rocks  on  foot  to  the  bit  of 
green  sward  in  front  of  Meiron.  The 
whole  inside  of  the  khan-like  building 
was  aglow.  From  where  we  were 
standing  we  could  distinguish  one 
flaring  cresset  that  seemed  to  be 
beside  the  altar  of  Rabbi  Shimeon  ben 
Jochai.  Every  now  and  then  small 
rockets  rose  from  the  courtyard  and 
flashed  a  little  way  up  into  the 
heavens.  Again  a  blue  light,  or  it 
might  be  pink,  would  overpower  every 
other  light,  and  reflected  on  the  rocks 
and  grass  around  gave  a  strange 
unearthly  aspect  to  the  scene. 

On  the  green  plot  there  was  a  large 
moving  crowd  of  men,  women  and 
children,  all  jabbering  vigorously  in 
Yiddish,  or  Jews'  German.  We  pushed 
our  way  through  the  crowd  towards  the 
door  of  the  khan.  Immediately  round 
it  was  a  group  of  Jewish  youths  shout- 
ing and  singing  to  the  accompaniment 
of  a  shrill  pipe  that  sounded  much 
like  a  tin-whistle.  One  of  them  was 
hopping  and  dancing  in  time  with  the 
music,  holding  in  each  hand  the  long 
slender  curls  that  the  Ashkenaz  Jews 
cultivate  on  either  side  of  their  face, 
in  deference  to  the  command,  "Ye 
shall  not  round  the  corners  of  your 
head ; "  to  make  sure  that  no  one 
shall  accuse  them  of  rounding  the 
corners  they  prolong  them  into  attenu- 
ated ringlets.  There  was  a  suitability 
in  this  youth  dancing  thus  in  front  of 
Meiron,  for  most  likely  his  hair  had 
been  cut  here  when  he  was  a  boy  so 
as  to  leave  these  cherished  curls. 

When  we  pressed  into  the  court- 
yard it  was  full  of  people  shouting, 
singing,  talking,  while  from  every 


The  Burning  of  Meiron. 


431 


corner  rose  a  confused  sound  of  drum- 
ming and  piping.  In  the  centre  were 
some  stalls  adorned  with  branches  of 
trees,  for  the  sale  of  lemonade,  oil  and 
goods  for  burning,  and  sweets  for  the 
children.  The  side  arches  also  were 
thronged  with  a  noisy  crowd,  now 
and  again  enlivening  the  proceedings 
by  letting  off  squibs  and  kindling  blue 
and  pink  lights.  They  had  most 
likely  hired  these  arches  for  a  couple 
of  napoleons  each,  or  perhaps  had 
purchased  from  the  hirer  for  three  or 
four  bisliks 1  the  right  to  use  them  for 
the  night.  There  was  abundance  of 
light  from  the  naphtha  lamps  swing- 
ing about  the  stalls  in  the  middle  of 
the  court,  from  those  burning  in  the 
arches,  and  from  the  cresset  that  was 
held  aloft  near  the  altar  of  Rabbi 
Shimeon ;  yet  all  did  not  dispel  the 
feeling  of  present  darkness  due  to  the 
solemn  vault  of  black  sky  that  bent 
overhead. 

"VVe  pressed  on  up  the  stairway  in 
front  of  us  to  the  platform  round  the 
main  dome,  where  the  blazing  cresset 
was  upheld  by  a  stalwart  youth  whose 
bare  arms  were  shining  with  the  drip- 
ping oil.  On  the  altar  of  Rabbi 
Shimeon  were  lying  a  few  shawls 
steeped  in  oil ;  and  immediately  be- 
side it,  raised  on  a  small  box,  stood  a 
man  with  a  long  beard  clothed  in  a 
blue  robe  reaching  to  his  heels.  This 
man  was  a  shopkeeper  in  Safed  who 
had  paid  ten  napoleons  for  the  right 
of  presiding  at  the  altar.  The  reader 
must  not  think  that  these  napoleons 
were  paid  purely  in  honour  of  Rabbi 
Shimeon.  It  was  a  strictly  mercantile 
transaction.  Every  worshipper  who 
wished  to  place  any  offering  on  the 
altar,  or  desired  to  pour  oil  upon  the 
offerings  already  lying  there,  had  to 
pay  at  least  a  couple  of  bisliks  to 
this  mercantile  High  Priest  before 
he  could  execute  his  pious  wish. 

1  A  lislik  is  equivalent  to  sixpence  of  Eng- 
lish money. 


Along  the  sides  of  the  platform 
were  rooms,  those  on  one  side  sur- 
mounted by  small  domes.  These 
rooms  were  rented  like  the  arches  in 
the  courtyard,  at  a  high  price.  Tents 
also  had  been  pitched  on  the' part  of 
the  platform  behind  the  main  dome 
and  occupied  by  a  number  of  merry 
worshippers  who  had  hung  up  lamps 
of  coloured  glass  which  made  a  pretty 
light  through  the  canvas.  Here,  how- 
ever, close  beside  the  altar,  we  felt  that 
we  should  see  less  of  the  spectacle,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  crowds  which 
would  press  to  this  point  when  the- 
time  of  the  Burning  arrived.  We 
mounted  accordingly  by  another  stair- 
way to  a  higher  platform  over  the 
chambers  on  the  right  side  of  the 
dome,  and  here  we  were  glad  to 
observe  a  considerable  number  of 
stalwart  Turkish  policemen  to  keep 
order.  At  the  edge  of  the  flat  roof 
on  which  we  were  standing  next  the 
courtyard  a  large  number  of  men, 
women,  and  children  were  sitting  or 
lying,  while  further  from  the  edge 
were  several  rows  of  spectators  stand- 
ing or  moving  about.  We  planted 
ourselves  in  a  favourable  position  just 
behind  the  recumbents,  and  set  our- 
selves to  observe. 

Whole  families  were  gathered  here, 
a  Jewish  family  usually  involving  three 
generations.  One  man,  who  had 
reached  the  affectionate  stage  of 
inebriety,  was  pressing  offers  of  arrack 
or  brandy  on  his  kinsfolk,  or  fetching- 
water  for  the  numerous  children,  his 
own  or  his  brothers'  and  sisters'  that 
completed  the  family.  Jewish  children 
in  Safed  seem  continually  thirsty  for 
water,  and  their  seniors  are  as  con- 
tinually thirsty  for  something  stronger. 
We  saw  one  man  pouring  something 
on  the  heap  upon  the  altar  from  what 
appeared  to  be  a  wine-bottle.  "  Do 
they  pour  wine  on  the  sacrifice,"  we 
asked,  "  as  they  did  of  old  in  the 
Temple  ? "  "  No,"  answered  the  Jew 


432 


The  Burning  of  Meiron. 


to  whom  we  put  the  question,  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  eye,  "they  pour  the 
wine  into  their  mouths."  As  we 
looked  around  we  could  not  but  be 
struck  with  the  extreme  beauty  of 
many  of  the  countenances.  The  young 
men  had  almost  a  feminine  delicacy 
of  feature  and  complexion.  One  young 
matron  who  stood  beside  us  for  a 
while,  with  a  lively  little  infant  in 
her  arms,  was  lovely  enough  to  have 
stood  as  a  model  for  the  Madonna. 
Another  thing  that  impressed  us  was 
the  motley  character  of  the  crowd. 
Every  portion  of  the  globe  seemed  to 
be  represented.  One  man  in  our  im- 
mediate neighbourhood  had  all  the 
look  of  a  Hindoo,  but  he  came,  we 
suspect,  from  the  Persian  Gulf.  Not 
a  few  had  come  from  Mosul  and  even 
from  Ispahan.  Several  Russians  and 
Poles  were  there,  who  could  afford  to 
get  away  from  Kiev  or  Warsaw  and 
to  hire  rooms  in  the  synagogue. 
France,  Austria  and  Germany  were 
liberally  represented  among  the  Euro- 
pean countries,  not  to  speak  of  Egypt 
and  Tunis  in  Africa.  Later  on  a 
voice  behind  me  said  in  English  : 
"  What  do  you  think  of  that,  my 
friend  1  It's  better  than  any  theatre 
in  New  York  or  Chicago."  The  speaker 
was  a  young  American  Jew  who  some- 
times borrowed  books  from  us.  No 
doubt  there  were  representatives  from 
many  other  lands  ;  we  speak  only  of 
those  whose  origin  we  knew. 

Meantime  the  crowd  was  gathering 
round  the  altar,  and  the  heap  of 
offerings  on  it  rising  higher  and 
higher,  not  without  r-ome  occasional 
bickering  over  the  number  of  bisliks 
due  from  the  worshippers.  One  man 
succeeded  in  surreptitiously  pouring 
oil  upon  the  heap  without  paying  any- 
thing ;  for  which  it  looked  as  though 
the  man  in  the  blue  robe  was  about  to 
take  summary  vengeance  on  him  with 
his  stick,  but  the  presence  of  the 
Turkish  policemen  had  a  soothing 


effect.  Every  now  and  then  the 
cresset  was  replenished  from  the  heap 
on  the  altar,  and  the  light  damped 
down  only  to  blaze  out  more  fiercely. 
Two  other  cressets  had  by  this  time 
been  lit,  one  beside  the  altar  of  Rabbi 
Eliezer  and  the  other  beside  that  of 
Rabbi  Ezra  the  Smith ;  while  casting 
a  ruddy  glow  on  the  green  outside 
was  a  third  by  the  altar  of  Johanan 
the  Shoemaker.  It  was  now  past  ten 
o'clock,  and  away  across  the  valley  the 
lights  of  Safed  began  to  twinkle. 
From  every  one  of  its  many  synagogues 
there  rose  a  little  tongue  of  fire,  the 
largest  rising  from  the  burning-place 
before  the  synagogue  of  Luria,  which 
bears  on  it,  painted  in  blue  letters, 
the  words,  Rabbi,  Shimeon  ben  Jokhai. 
About  eleven  o'clock  Schmiel 
(Samuel)  Toister,  Doctor  Fulleichan's 
Jewish  dispenser,  came  to  me  and  said 
very  impressively,  "  Rabbi  Raphael 
has  gone  to  wash  himself."  This 
Raphael  is  the  Chief  Rabbi  of  the  Ash- 
kenazim  of  Safed.  Dirt  and  the  study 
of  the  Talmud  being  closely  associated 
among  the  Jews,  this  struck  us  as  a 
salutary  act  on  the  part  of  Rabbi 
Raphael,  but  as  not  calling  for  any 
particular  expression  of  opinion  on  our 
own  part.  Seeing,  however,  that  we 
did  not  appreciate  the  importance  of 
the  announcement,  Schmiel  added : 
"  He  washes  himself  to  light  the  fire  ; 
it  will  be  in  half-an-hour  from  now." 
To  pass  the  interval  we  decided  to 
make  a  tour  of  observation  among  the 
crowds  on  the  roof.  Some  were  walk- 
ing about  and  talking ;  others  were 
squatting  in  circles,  drinking  and  play- 
ing cards  by  the  help  of  an  inch  or 
two  of  candle  set  in  a  bottle.  Men, 
women  and  children  were  huddled 
about  in  every  direction,  reclining  on 
the  grass  that  covered  the  flat  roof 
like  a  green  sward.  It  is  said  that  a 
great  deal  of  immorality  takes  place 
at  Meiron.  Certainly  opportunity  is 
not  wantinar. 


The  Burning  of  Meiron. 


433 


The  crowd  on  the  lower  platform  now 
began  singing  a  peculiar  chant,  keep- 
ing time  by  clapping  their  hands. 
This  drew  us  again  to  our  old  point  of 
vantage.  The  sight  was  indeed  a 
striking  one ;  the  whole  platform 
surged  with  a  struggling,  elbowing 
mass  of  humanity  shouting  and  clap- 
ping hands.  The  flaring  yellow  light 
of  the  three  cressets  falling  upon  the 
bright  garments  of  the  men  and 
women,  and  especially  on  the  blue 
robes  of  the  High  Priest,  and  flickering 
on  the  white  domes  of  the  building 
and  on  the  strange  faces  of  the  wor- 
shippers, formed  a  spectacle  never  to 
be  forgotten.  The  Rembrandtesque 
effect  of  the  scene  was  deepened  by 
the  starless  vault  of  black  sky  over- 
head. An  eager  altercation  was  going 
on  between  some  of  the  crowd  and 
the  commercial  High  Priest.  They 
were  eager  that  Raphael  should  be 
summoned  to  light  the  pile ;  on  the 
other  hand  the  priest,  if  we  may  call 
him  so,  objected  to  shortening  the 
harvest  of  bisliks.  A  little  before 
the  chanting  began  he  had  added  to 
the  picturesque  dignity  of  his  appear- 
ance by  wrapping  a  bright  pink  hand- 
kerchief round  his  head.  This  he  now 
reluctantly  removed  and  placed  it  in 
the  cresset.  At  this  point  the  bent 
form  of  Rabbi  Raphael  was  seen  mak- 
ing his  way  through  the  crowd.  He 
motioned  with  his  stick  for  the  lad 
who  held  the  cresset  to  incline  it  down 
towards  the  huge  heap  of  oil-saturated 
garments,  in  the  name  of  some  Rabbi 
in  Russian  who  paid  thirty  napoleons 
for  the  honour  of  having  his  name 
associated  with  the  Burning.  It  is 
said  that  sometimes  as  much  as  fifty 
napoleons  has  been  given  for  this 
honour. 

When  the  burning  cresset  ap- 
proached the  pile  the  excitement  be- 
came intense.  Sticks  were  stretched 
out  to  pull  the  flaming  clouts  from  the 
cresset  down  upon  the  precious  pile 
that  rose,  various  in  colour  and  satu- 
No.  444. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


rated  with  oil,  from  the  altar.  It  soon 
took  fire ;  the  flames  shot  up  from 
every  corner  of  the  heap,  and  streams 
of  burning  oil  ran  down  from  it  to 
the  pavement  in  beads  of  flame.  At 
the  same  time  a  couple  of  youths  with 
pipes,  and  one  with  a  drum,  who  had 
come  up  from  the  courtyard,  began  to 
give  a  little  more  definition  to  the 
music ;  and  dancing  was  added  to  the 
singing  and  clapping  of  hands.  Old 
grey -bearded  Rabbis  clasped  each  other 
and  waltzed  about  to  the  inspiriting 
strains,  their  long  robes  and  long 
beards  grotesquely  keeping  time  to 
their  movements.  One  figure  drew 
our  attention  by  the  particular  vigour 
of  his  solitary  gyrations.  He  was 
dressed  completely  in  European  cos- 
tume, a  wide-awake  hat,  blue  jacket, 
and  tweed  trousers.  By  his  height 
one  would  have  judged  him  a  mere 
boy  ;  but  when  the  light  fell  on  his 
face  one  saw  that  it  was  the  withered 
face  of  an  old  man. 

More  and  more  importunate  be- 
came the  chant,  the  words  of  which 
we  could  now  make  out :  "  Bar  Yoko* 
nimshachta  asheri  Sason  mayhabayrek- 
ka  (Son  of  Yohoi  (lochai)  blessed  art 
thou,  anointed  with  the  oil  of  joy 
above  thy  fellows)."  The  burden  of 
the  song  was  the  first  two  words,  Bar 
Yohoi,  sometimes  rising  to  tones  of 
impassioned  entreaty,  and  again  sink- 
ing into  a  wail.  A  spectator  could 
not  help  thinking  of  the  prophets  of 
Baal  shouting,  nearly  three  thousand 
years  ago,  on  another  place  of  burning 
only  thirty  miles  away,  "  Oh,  Baal, 
hear  us  !  "  or  of  the  citizens  of  Ephesus 
crying  out  for  the  space  of  two  hours, 
"  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  !  " 

As  the  flame  mounted  into  the  air 
the  heat  compelled  the  worshippers 
to  fall  back,  and  we  could  now  see 
more  clearly  who  placed  their  offer- 
ings on  the  blazing  pile.  In  some 
instances  there  was  a  touch  of  pathos 
obvious  even  to  the  spectator.  Every 
one  knows  how  keen  is  the  desire  on 


434 


The  Burning  of  Meiron. 


the  part  of  Jewish  women  to  bear 
children.  To  those  who  have  been 
denied  this  blessing  the  Burning  at 
Meiron  is  eagerly  longed  for,  as  an 
offering  on  the  altar  of  Rabbi  Shimeon 
accompanied  with  prayer  (not  a  re- 
quest to  God,  but  some  liturgic  phrase) 
is  believed  to  be  an  infallible  specific. 
We  saw  one  comely  woman,  of  ap- 
parently thirty-five,  take  from  out  her 
bosom  what  seemed  to  be  a  silk  shawl, 
and,  after  drenching  it  in  oil,  throw  it 
on  the  pile  of  blazing  cloth.  The  pile 
was  high  and  the  flame  fierce,  so  that, 
though  she  threw  the  shawl  with  all 
her  strength,  it  did  not  quite  reach 
the  top.  She  rushed  forward,  despite 
the  heat,  and  caught  it  as  it  fell.  Again, 
and  yet  again,  she  essayed  to  throw  it 
to  the  top  of  the  pile,  but  each  time 
unsuccessfully.  At  length,  when  she 
had  a  fourth  time  thrown  it  up,  some 
men  with  their  sticks  prevented  it 
falling  back,  and  thrust  the  shawl  well 
into  the  blazing  mass.  Her  face  was 
radiant  as  she  turned  away.  Others, 
as  we  learned  from  the  remarks  of  the 
bystanders,  were  offering  on  behalf  of 
sick  children. 

The  altars  of  Ezra  and  Eliezer  had 
now  also  been  kindled ;  they  had  not 
so  many  offerings  to  boast  of,  but  the 
oil  was  plentiful.  The  pile  on  the 
altar  of  Rabbi  Shimeon  was  burning 
somewhat  low,  and  the  chant  of  Bar 
Yohoi  was  becoming  less  tumultuously 
strong,  when  a  youth  stepped  forth  and 
pronounced  a  panegyric  on  the  munifi- 
cence of  the  Russian  Rabbi  whose 
name  was  associated  with  this  Burn- 
ing. 

At  this  point  we  determined  to 
leave,  and  make  our  way  across  the 
valley  to  Safed.  It  was  difficult  to 
get  safely  down  the  rough  narrow 
stairs,  all  innocent  of  hand-rails, 
against  one  crowd  pressing  up,  and 
amid  another  elbowing  its  way  down. 
All  about  the  passages  lay  men  and 
women  stretched  out  on  the  pavement. 
From  these  passages  opened  the  rooms 


aforesaid,  and  in  passing  we  could  not 
avoid  seeing  into  them,  as  door  there 
was  none.  The  floor  of  each  one  was 
covered  with  sleepers  of  all  ages  and 
of  both  sexes  beneath  the  light  of  a 
great  lamp  suspended  from  the  roof. 
Others  had  made  arrangements  to  be 
accommodated  in  the  village  at  the 
rate  of  a  bislik  for  a  room  to  lie  down 
in  ;  while  many  contented  themselves 
with  the  grass  for  a  bed,  and  the 
bushes  for  a  roof. 

It  was  after  midnight  when  we  left 
Meiron.  We  had  expected  to  have 
the  light  of  the  moon,  but  the  clouds 
were  too  thick  for  the  first  half  of  our 
ride.  By  and  by,  however,  they 
rolled  away,  and  the  moon  shone  out 
with  all  the  brilliance  of  a  Syrian 
night.  We  reached  home  about  two 
in  the  morning,  and  as  we  turned  in 
we  looked  across  the  valley  and  saw 
that  the  fires  of  Meiron  were  still 
burning.  Some  of  the  worshippers 
must  never  have  gone  to  bed. 

The  following  day  saw  a  new  series 
of  ceremonies,  the  most  interesting 
perhaps  of  which  is  the  hair-cutting  to 
which  we  have  already  referred.  After 
the  father  has  paid  a  Rabbi  to  cut  the 
hair  so  as  to  leave  those  much-valued 
curls,  he  mounts  his  little  son  on  his 
shoulders  arid  goes  prancing  about  the 
fire  of  Rabbi  Shimeon.  Of  course  an 
offering  is  burned  for  every  victim  who 
gets  his  hair  cropped,  and  equally  of 
course  there  are  more  arrack  and 
brandy  consumed. 

When  we  remarked  to  one  of  the 
Jews  that  we  thought  Meiron  a  most 
melancholy  spectacle,  we  were  an- 
swered that  Abraham  and  Isaac, 
David  and  Solomon  had  all  frequented 
Meiron.  On  asking  for  authority  we 
were  told  that  Luria  said  so.  This 
Luria  died  some  three  years  ago  ;  he 
was  a  great  Cabbalist,  who  seems  to 
have  said  many  things  hard  to  be  be- 
lieved. Surely  it  is  sad  to  see  the  de- 
scendants of  the  great  patriarchs  re- 
duced to  the  level  of  heathens. 


435 


A    FRIENDLY   CRITIC. 


LEONORA  CAMPBELL  was  not  what 
you  would  call  a  clever  woman ; 
nevertheless  in  the  temporary  insanity 
of  Ormond  Brownrigg,  it  was  she  who 
brought  the  poor  afflicted  gentleman 
to  reason.  She  never  could  think 
what  Horace  Gibson  saw  in  him ; 
and  certainly  that  stringent  editor 
and  austere  critic  must  have  had  a 
weak  side  to  his  nature  somewhere. 
At  all  events  it  was  not  very  long 
after  he  had  become  engaged  to 
Gibson's  cousin  that  Brownrigg  burst 
into  the  office  of  the  Piccadilly 
Review  with  his  pockets  bulging  with 
manuscripts.  He  took  up  a  firm 
position  in  front  of  the  fire-place, 
leaning  against  the  chimney-piece. 
and  poured  out  his  soul,  while  he 
passionately  prodded  the  hearth-rug 
with  the  point  of  his  umbrella. 

"Well,  my  boy,"  said  Gibson  at 
last,  "  I  admire  your  genial  pessimism, 
but  I  can't  see  what  you've  got  to 
grumble  at.  You're  young,  exces- 
sively young,  in  your  case  an  obvious 
advantage :  you're  a  Government 
clerk,  and  therefore  an  irresponsible 
person ;  and  you're  engaged  to  my 
small  cousin,  Janie  Morris.  What 
more  do  you  want  ? "  The  editor- 
swung  round  in  his  revolving  chair, 
and  looked  at  his  friend  with  critical 
interest.  Brownrigg  was  a  callow 
youth,  with  a  prosaic  body  much  too 
long  for  its  clothes,  and  a  poetic  soul 
also  absurdly  overgrown.  He  winced 
nervously  under  the  editorial  gaze, 
and  shifted  his  position. 

"By  the  by,"  continued  Gibson, 
"  what  on  earth  brought  you  two 
together  1 " 


"  Fate,"  said  Brownrigg,  with  sulky 
solemnity. 

"  Ah  !  Fate's  a  matchmaker  who 
won't  be  cut  by  any  man,  let  alone  a 
boy  of  your  age.  I  congratulate  you 
on  your  good  luck." 

"  It's  all  very  well  for  you  to  grin 
when  you're  at  the  top  of  the  tree  I 
want  to  climb ;  but  how  would  you 
like  to  sit  on  a  high  stool  (with  your 
head,  mind  you,  bursting  with 
original  ideas)  and  have  to  copy  piles 
of  official  letters  all  day  1  " 

"That  kind  of  literature's  not 
remarkable  for  imaginative  thought, 
or  for  charm  and  dignity  of  style  ;  all 
the  same — 

"  All  the  same  it's  ruin  to  a  man's 
English.  Besides,  it's  the  injustice  of 
the  thing  I  can't  stand.  If  I'd  con- 
descended to  prose,  if  I'd  pandered  to 
the  popular  taste,  written,  say  a 
disgusting  novel  or  a  frantic  romance, 
I'd  have  been  all  right ;  being  a  poet, 
of  course  I'm  stuck  into  an  office  to 
find  my  bread  and  butter." 

"And  then  you  find  it  buttered 
side  down.  My  dear  fellow,  you're 
too  young  to  appreciate  the  artistic 
irony  of  the  situation." 

"  Look  here,  Gibson,  if  you  can't 
help  me,  say  so.  I  sent  you  all  my 
manuscripts  under  a  pseudonym,  so 
that  you  mightn't  be  embarrassed  by 
any  feeling  of  friendship — 

"  Thanks  ;  it  was  most  considerate 
of  you." 

"Yes,  but  honestly,  did  you 
suspect  me  of  having  written  those 
verses  you  sent  back  ?  " 

"No,  my  dear  boy,  to  do  you 
justice,  I  did  not." 

"  Would  you  mind  telling  me  what 
fault  you  found  with  A  Soul's 
p  F  2 


436 


A  Friendly  Critic. 


Epic  ?  Really,  it's  the  most  sustained 
effort  I've  made  yet,"  and  Brownrigg 
produced  the  manuscript  of  a  long 
autobiographical  poem  in  blank  verse. 
Gibson  feigned  extreme  embarrass- 
ment at  the  sight.  "I — I  hardly 
know — I  may  have  thought  it  a  little 
too  sustained.  You  see  the  Review 
is  limited  as  to  space,  and  A  Soul's 
Epic  would  have  swamped  it  for  the 
next  three  months."  He  wheeled  his 
chair  back  to  the  table  and  began  to 
look  over  a  pile  of  papers.  Suddenly 
he  uttered  an  amused  exclamation. 
"  I  say,  you  young  puppy  !  You 
don't  mean  to  say  you  wrote  these 
studies  of  Swinburne  1  " 
"  Well,  yes,  I  did—but— 
"They're  confoundedly  well  done. 
Have  you  any  more  of  the  same  sort 
handy  1 " 

"  Loads, — all  idiotic.  I've  hacked 
and  polished  them  till  they  made  me 
ill.  You  see,  the  poet  is  born,  but 
the  essayist  is  a  manufactured  article. 
Those  things  you  admire  are  purely 
mechanical ;  but  this  little  epic  was 
struck  out  at  a  white  heat ;  it's 

charged  with 

"  I've  no  doubt  it  is  ;  but  don't  let 
it  off  just  now.  I  can't  read  and 
listen  at  the  same  time." 

There  was  silence  in  the  office  for 
a  quarter  of  an  hour,  broken  only  by 
the  creaking  of  Brownrigg's  boots  as 
he  roamed  from  chair  to  chair. 
Presently  Gibson  turned  round. 
"Yes,  that'll  do.  I'll  take  this,  and 
if  you  choose  you  can  send  me  some 
more  like  it;  not  any  poetry,  please." 
"Oh,"  said  Brownrigg  a  little 
stiffly,  "  don't  take  the  things  because 
I  happen  to  be  a  friend  and  engaged 
to  your  cousin.  I  prefer  to  stand  or 
fall  by  my  own  merits." 

"  I  assure  you  I'm  not  influenced 
by  personal  affection.  I'm  merely 
pandering,  in  an  editorial  capacity,  to 
the  popular  taste.  By  the  by,  does 
my  cousin  admire  A  Soul's  Epic  ?  " 


"  Yes,"  said  Brownrigg,  with  some 
emotion,  "  she  says  it's  a  noble  poem, 
— rates  it  as  high  as  anything  in 
Byron,  Milton,  or  Mrs.  Browning." 

"  If  you'll  take  my  advice,  you'll 
keep  your  verse  for  Janie,  and  your 
prose  for  the  public.  I  really  think 
you  may  do  something  by  and  by,  if 
you'll  condescend  to  stick  to  jour- 
nalism. And  now,  would  you  very 
much  mind  saying  good-morning  1  " 

The  poet  went  away  more  cast 
down  than  otherwise  by  the  prospect 
of  success,  for  it  wjis  not  the  success 
of  which  he  had  dreamed.  As  a 
writer  of  mere  prose  he  had  risen  in 
Gibson's  eyes,  but  he  had  fallen  in 
his  own.  At  the  same  time  he  was 
quite  aware  that  he  had  fallen  on  his 
feet,  for  Gibson  was  one  of  those 
people  who  are  always  rather  better 
than  their  word,  and  to  be  taken  up 
by  him  was  to  be  more  or  less  certain 
of  a  career. 

In  due  time  Brownrigg  made  his 
triumphal  entry  into  the  world  of 
literature  through  the  classic  pages 
of  the  Piccadilly  Review.  He 
wrote  to  Janie  and  told  her  all  about 
it,  saying,  and  indeed  believing,  that 
it  was  for  her  sake  that  he  had  made 
this  sacrifice  of  his  supreme  ambition, 
and  had  consented  to  work  on  a  lower 
level  for  a  while ;  adding  that  it 
would  not  be  long  now  before  they 
could  afford  to  be  married.  For  the 
rest,  he  took  Gibson's  advice,  and  no 
longer  sent  his  poems  to  publishers ; 
he  sent  them  to  Janie,  enclosed  in 
long  melancholy,  autobiographical 
letters.  Janie  soothed  him  by  return 
of  post,  praised  the  poems,  and 
prophesied  fame  for  their  author. 

Janie  had  alwa}-s  soothed  him 
inexpressibly.  She  was  easily  moved 
to  mirth,  yet  she  never  smiled  at  his 
little  solecisms ;  she  never  laughed 
when  he  tried  to  play  lawn-tennis, 
and  slipped  and  fell  about  the  grass  in 


A  Friendly  Critic. 


437 


a  variety  of  curious  attitudes.  When 
Brownrigg  blushed  and  looked  un- 
comfortable, as  he  did  a  dozen  times 
a  day,  Janie  suffered  sympathetic 
agonies.  And  yet,  when  he  was 
made  sub-editor  of  the  Piccadilly 
Review  a  year  later,  and  gave  up  his 
Government  appointment  on  the 
strength  of  it,  Miss  Janie  was  by  no 
means  overjoyed  at  his  good  fortune. 
To  be  sure  he  had  told  her  that  they 
could  not  be  married  now  for  another 
four  years,  and  she  was  disappointed. 
Women  are  .so  selfish,  he  reflected : 
they  take  everything  personally ;  and 
if  Janie  was  going  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  his  career, — he  did  not  follow 
up  that  train  of  thought,  but  went 
down  to  Janie  and  explained  the 
situation.  He  spoke  nobly  of  self- 
sa.crifice,  and  of  her  woman's  part  in 
the  glorious  agony  of  the  artist's  life. 
And  when  Janie  heard  that,  she 
tossed  back  her  head  to  keep  the 
tears  from  falling,  and  made  her  soft 
little  mouth  look  firm  and  resolute. 
This  gave  Brownrigg  a  kind  of 
confused  idea  that  it  was  he  who  had 
been  resolute,  he  who  had  been 
making  sacrifices,  and  he  went  back 
to  town  feeling  greater  and  nobler 
than  ever. 


II. 

A  state  of  peculiar  mental  exaltation 
is  often  the  prologue  to  the  great 
psychical  tragedies  of  life,  and  though 
Brownrigg  knew  nothing  about  it, 
such  a  tragedy  was  even  now  being- 
prepared  for  him. 

His  connection  with  the  Picca- 
dilly Review  meant  more  to  him 
than  literary  success ;  it  brought  also 
some  social  advancement.  Gibson 
combined  a  good-humoured  contempt 
for  Brownrigg's  character  with  a 
subdued  admiration  of  his  talents, 
and  he  had  drawn  him  into  his  own 
set,  among  whom  the  callow  youth 


posed  in  an  engaging  manner  as  the 
spoiled  child  of  literature.  He 
appealed  irresistibly  to  the  soft  side 
of  society ;  he  was  as  sensitive  and 
impressionable  as  a  woman,  and  had 
a  charming  way  of  blushing'  at  little 
compliments  like  a  young  girl. 
When  people  were  not  laughing  at 
him,  they  were  always  soothing  and 
making  much  of  him.  And  all  the 
time  he  had  an  uneasy  consciousness 
that  his  success  was  entirely  owing  to 
Gibson's  patronage,  a  thought  which 
sadly  embittered  his  enjoyment, 
although  his  egotism  had  led  him  to 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  his 
friend's  action.  For  the  great  editor 
was  an  unconscious  tool  in  the  hands 
of  fate  when,  in  an  evil  moment,  he 
introduced  Brownrigg  to  Miss  Leo- 
nora Campbell. 

Often,  too  often,  Brownrigg  tried 
to  recall  the  sensations  of  that  hour ; 
they  lent  themselves  to  no  language, 
and  were  not  to  be  grasped  by 
thought.  He  knew  now  that  hitherto 
he  had  but  been  sitting  before  the 
curtain,  waiting  for  the  play  to 
begin ;  he  had  heard  whispers  from 
the  stage ;  he  had  seen  a  shadow 
move  across  the  curtain,  the  shadow 
of  Janie,  obtruding  her  insignificant 
little  person  between  him  and — 
Never  mind  !  The  curtain  had  risen 
at  last,  life  had  begun  suddenly  with 
a  great  light  and  music,  and  he  found 
himself  no  longer  a  spectator,  but  an 
actor  in  a  superb  play  called  Leonora. 

She  herself,  what  was  she  1  He 
did  not  know.  He  had  begun  by 
trying  to  fathom  her,  and  floundered 
helplessly  from  deep  to  deep.  Then 
he  found  out  that  she  was  divine 
intelligence  clothed  in  mortal  form ; 
which  meant  that  Brownrigg  had 
gone  through  life  trading  on  people's 
sympathy,  and,  whereas  other  women 
gave  him  sympathy  in  abundance, 
this  woman  did  more,  she  actually 
understood  him. 


438 


A  Friendly  Critic. 


When  a  man  meets  his  incarnate 
ideal,  what  is  he  to  do  ?  Brownrigg 
did  nothing ;  he  had  no  head  for 
problems ;  he  simply  collapsed  under 
the  hand  of  Fate. 

He  was  supremely  happy,  drinking 
deep  of  the  poetry  of  existence,  and 
living  in  a  divine  delirium,  unshackled 
by  ordinary  conditions  of  space  and 
time.  It  seemed  to  him  ages  since 
the  days  when  to  go  for  a  walk  with 
Janie  was  a  new  joy,  when  to  play 
lawn-tennis  with  her  was  a  wild 
delight,  while  to  sit  together  under 

O          '  <-> 

the  elms  and  read  A  Soul's  Epic 
aloud  was  a  transcendent  intellectual 
rapture.  The  rolling  nights  and  days 
seized  him  and  hurried  him  along  a 
dim  and  perilous  way.  He  was 
everywhere  where  Miss  Campbell  was, 
— in  the  theatre,  the  concert-hall,  the 
ball-room ;  following  her  with  a 
reckless  persistency,  and  doing  all 
sorts  of  mean  things  in  order  to  get 
introductions  to  people  whom  she 
knew.  He  succeeded  in  most  cases, 
for  by  this  time  his  eccentricity  had 
become  so  marked  that  for  one  season 
he  was  all  the  fashion.  People 
acquired  a  taste  for  Brownrigg  as  for 
some  curious  foreign  thing.  He 
might  have  founded  a  new  school  of 
poetry  if  they  had  only  given  him 
time,  for  under  this  new  stimulus  his 
lyric  nature  had  re-asserted  itself ; 
his  works  became  the  property  of  a 
select  coterie,  and  he  enjoyed  a 
certain  mystic  and  esoteric  fame. 

Meanwhile  his  ideal  went  on  her 
way,  serenely  unconscious  of  the 
drama  that  was  being  acted  in 
Brownrigg's  soul.  Not  that  he  made 
any  secret  of  his  state  of  mind ;  the 
artist's  impulse  towards  self-revelation 
was  too  strong  in  him  for  that.  All 
his  finest  feelings  centred  round  the 
new  imperious  passion,  and  what  on 
earth  is  the  use  of  having  fine 
feelings  if  you  are  not  to  display 
them1?  With  his  peculiar  lack  of 


humorous  discernment  it  was  to 
Horace  Gibson  that  he  turned  at  this 
crisis  of  his  fate.  In  spite  of  his 
growing  dislike  and  jealousy  of  the 
editor,  he  still  grudgingly  respected 
and  blindly  trusted  him.  It  was 
the  homage  which  the  aspirant  in- 
stinctively pays  to  all  assured 
greatness ;  and  next  to  Miss  Camp- 
bell, Gibson  was  the  audience  for 
whom  Brownrigg  reserved  his  most 
effective  parts. 

Midnight,  when  the  day's  platitudes 
are  over,  is  the  proper  time  for 
revelations ;  and  at  midnight  Brown- 
rigg sought  out  his  benefactor  in  his 
rooms,  and  poured  forth  his  extra- 
ordinary confidences  in  an  eddying 
flood.  Gibson  lay  back  in  his  arm- 
chair enjoying  a  cigarette,  while  he 
gazed  quietly  at  Brownrigg  through 
the  curling  wreaths  of  smoke.  The 
boy  interested  him,  and  when  he 
ceased  to  be  interesting  he  was 
always  amusing.  Some  pity  mingled 
with  his  intense  amusement  now,  as 
Brownrigg,  in  evening  dress,  ramped 
about  the  room,  thrusting  his  feverish 
fingers  through  his  hair  (which  had 
grown  from  flaxen  stubble  to  a  long 
hay-coloured  aftermath),  while  his 
cravat  slowly  worked  its  way  round 
under  his  left  ear. 

Brownrigg  had  told  his  tale  before 
he  realised  that  some  explanation  was 
due.  Then  he  brought  himself  up 
suddenly  before  the  fireplace,  and 
assumed  as  calm  an  expression  as  his 
dishevelled  appearance  allowed. 

"It's  not,"  he  declared  solemnly, 
"  because  she's  beautiful,  and  has  a 
complexion  like  a  tuberose —  " 

"  Good  !  "  murmured  Gibson  in  a 
parenthesis.  "A  less  hackneyed 
comparison  than  any  other  sort  of 
rose." 

" — I  don't  even  know  whether  her 
hair's  red,  or  brown,  or  golden — 
"  It's  all  three." 
"  Her  beauty  has  nothing  whatever 


A  Friendly  Critic. 


439 


to  do  with  it.  I've  seen  beautiful 
women  before.  Nor  does  the  fact 
that  she  plays  and  sings  divinely 
weigh  with  me  for  an  instant — 

"  No,  my  boy ;  you  never  had  any 
ear  for  music,  barring  your  own 
voice." 

"  And  it's  not  because  she's  good 
and  gentle.  Lots  of  women  can  be 
that  too." 

"  Janie,  for  instance." 

"  Don't,  Gibson,  you'll  drive  me 
mad  !  Janie's  a  sweet  little  thing  ; 
but  you  can't  idealise  her,  you  can't 
fall  down  and  worship  her." 

"  She  wouldn't  like  it  much  if  you 
did.  She  couldn't  sit  still  on  a  pedestal 
for  five  minutes  together.  All  the 
same  she's  not  a  bad  little  latter-day 
saint,  with  a  straw  hat  for  a  halo.  By 
the  by,  do  you  ever  write  to  her 
now  1 " 

"I  believe  I've  answered  all  her 
letters, — I  don't  know.  Anyhow  it 
doesn't  matter, — more  than  anything 
else  matters."  He  sat  down  and 
stared  gloomily  at  the  carpet ;  then 
he  got  up  and  began  to  ramp  about 
again.  "  Ah,  Gibson,  you  can  imagine 
the  pain,  but  you  can't  conceive  the 
ecstasy,  the  rapture  of  it  !  " 

At  this  point  Gibson  so  far  forgot 
himself  as  to  throw  away  his  cigarette, 
and  put  his  hand  up  to  his  forehead. 
"Brownrigg,  don't  haunt  me  in  this 
way,  there's  a  good  fellow  ;  for  it's  my 
firm  belief  you're  dead  and  gone  to 
Paradise, — a  fool's  paradise,  of  course." 

"A  fool's  inferno,  you  mean.  I 
dreamed  last  night  I'd  lost  her — I 
made  a  sonnet  on  that." 

Gibson  sat  silent  for  a  moment, 
studying  the  curious  specimen  before 
him.  Then  he  rose  to  his  feet,  laugh- 
ing, and  patted  Brownrigg  cheerfully 
on  the  back.  "  It  strikes  me  we're 
both  rather  out  of  it,  and  that  at 
present  you're  enjoying  a  most  benefi- 
cent purgatory.  I  can't  give  you  a 
hand  out,  but  I  don't  mind  putting  up 


a  prayer  for  your  poor  soul  whenever 
I've  a  minute  to  spare." 

So  saying  he  turned  down  his  study- 
lamp  carefully,  and  Brownrigg  went 
away  under  cover  of  the  darkness. 

III. 

Gibson  had  washed  his  hands  of  the 
matter,  but  only  for  the  moment. 
Weeks  passed  by,  and  Brownrigg  grew 
paler  and  thinner,  longer-haired  and 
wilder-eyed  than  ever ;  he  developed 
a  passion  for  strange  forms  of  dress, 
and  neglected  his  sub-editorial  duties, 
while  his  jaded  brain  went  to  sleep 
every  night  on  the  wrecks  of  three 
sonnets  and  an  ode.  Then  Gibson 
considered  it  was  about  time  to  inter- 
fere. He  was  sorry  for  Brownrigg  : 
he  was  very  sorry  for  Janie ;  and  he 
was  sorry  most  of  all  for  Miss  Camp- 
bell. Clearly  Brownrigg  was  not  in  a 
state  to  listen  to  reason ;  so  he  re- 
solved to  go  to  Miss  Campbell  and 
open  her  eyes.  It  would  be  a  very 
delicate  operation,  and  he  doubted 
whether  he  had  the  necessary  skill ; 
it  would  also  be  slightly  impertinent, 
and  she  might  very  properly  resent  it ; 
and  if  she  did  so,  he  would  feel  more 
or  less  of  a  fool ;  besides,  he  had 
called  there  three  times  in  the  last 
fortnight.  Much  to  his  own  amuse- 
ment the  man  of  prompt  and  decisive 
action  found  himself  shaken  by  a 
thousand  doubts  and  scruples.  So  he 
made  up  his  mind  not  to  go,  and 
went. 

Miss  Campbell  was  at  home  and 
alone.  He  found  her  seated  by  the 
window,  reading  the  last  number  of 
the  Piccadilly  Review.  It  must  have 
proved  either  very  suggestive  or  very 
dull,  for  she  had  let  the  magazine  drop 
on  to  her  lap,  and  was  leaning  forward, 
frowning  a  little,  as  if  lost  in  her  own 
reflections.  She  started  as  he  came 
in,  and  the  faint  blush  which  had 
spread  over  Gibson's  forehead  was  re- 


440 


A  Friendly  Critic. 


peated  on  her  own.  She  was  so  beau- 
tiful that  he  admitted  that  Brownrigg 
might  be  forgiven,  and  yet  he  did  not 
feel  in  the  least  inclined  to  forgive 
him.  That  absurd  parody  of  a  passion 
was  a  profanation  of  its  object. 

The  editor's  task  was  easier  than  he 
expected.  Miss  Campbell  began  to 
talk  about  Brownrigg  of  her  own 
accord.  She  had  been  reading  his 
last  article, — had  thought  there  was 
a  slight  falling  off, — his  style  was 
usually  so  good,  wasn't  it  ?  She  paused, 
steadying  her  voice  a  little  :  "  May  I 
say  how  much  this  poem  of  yours — 

It  was  really  noble  of  Gibson  to 
strike  in  at  this  interesting  point,  and 
explain  gently  that  his  wretched  sub- 
editor was  "  falling  off,"  and  that  he 
ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  cultivate 
her  society  to  the  injury  of  his  intel- 
lect and  the  detriment  of  his  affairs. 

There  was  something  about  Brown- 
rigg that  appealed  to  the  most  chas- 
tened sense  of  humour,  and  at  first 
Miss  Campbell  would  do  nothing  but 
laugh.  All  at  once  she  became  serious. 
"  It  was  you  who  told  me  to  be  kind 
to  Mr.  Brownrigg.  What  am  I  to 
do?" 

Gibson  suggested  that  it  might  be 
as  well  to  be  a  little  unkind  to  him 
for  the  future.  Then  he  told  her 
of  Brownrigg's  engagement  to  Janie 
Morris.  He  never  quite  knew  why 
he  thought  it  necessary  to  break  this 
news  to  her  piecemeal :  it  was  ridicu- 
lous to  suppose  that  she  could  care; 
and  yet,  he  felt  unspeakable  relief 
when  he  saw  her  delicate  dark  eye- 
brows contract,  and  her  eyes  flash  with 
generous  indignation.  "  Personally," 
he  added,  "  I  should  like  to  punch  his 
head;  but  you  can't  possibly  punch 
a  man's  head  when  his  legs  are  so 
thin." 

"  No,  and  if  you  did,  it  wouldn't  do 
Miss  Morris  any  good.  Leave  him  to 
me ;  I  think  I  can  cure  him  without 
violence." 


As  she  spoke  the  door  opened,  and 
Mr.  Ormond  Brownrigg  was  shown 
in. 

Miss  Campbell's  nerve  was  equal  to 
the  occasion.  She  received  Brownrigg 
with  a  careless,  unconscious  cordiality 
that  excited  Gibson's  deep  admira- 
tion. For  the  first  time  he  became 
aware  of  something  strange  about  her, 
a  vivid,  unnatural  charm,  unlike  her 
usual  reserved  and  stately  grace.  Gra- 
dually the  strangeness  of  it  jarred  on 
him,  and  he  felt  constrained  and  ner- 
vous, and  began  to  wonder  whether  he 
looked  as  foolish  as  Brownrigg.  He 
tried  to  get  Brownrigg  to  talk  about  a 
book  which  had  just  appeared.  The 
poet  made  incoherent  answers,  and 
kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  graceful 
figure  in  the  deep  arm-chair  by  the 
window.  Miss  Campbell  showed  no 
sign  of  interest,  but  lay  back  fanning 
herself,  and  looking  at  the  points  of 
her  shoes  with  lazy  half-shut  eyes. 
Then  she  folded  her  fan  sharply  with 
a  click,  and  raised  her  eyes  to  Gibson's 
appealingly.  "  Please  don't  let's  have 
any  more  intellectual  conversation ;  I 
can't  understand  it  a  bit.  I've  been 
trying  hard  to  be  intellectual  for  three 
months,  and  I  can't  keep  it  up  any 
longer ;  it's  much  too  fatiguing." 
Brownrigg  looked  puzzled  and  framed 
his  lips  for  a  speech  which  never 
came.  She  spread  out  the  pink  little 
palms  of  her  hands  with  a  helpless 
gesture.  "  Really,  the  demands  made 
on  women's  intelligence  nowadays  are 
something  appalling.  There's  only 
one  horrid  alternative ;  either  you 
must  know  something  about  every- 
thing, and  then  you're  a  prig,  or  you 
must  know  e\ery thing  about  some- 
thing, when  you're  a  bore." 

Gibson  laughed  and  turned  away ; 
he  was  beginning  to  see  it.  As 
Brownrigg  dropped  into  the  low  chair 
beside  her,  she  made  a  little  face  of 
depreciation, 
talk  books,  are  you  1 " 


"  You're  not  going  to 


A  Friendly  Critic. 


441 


"  ]ST-no,  not  exactly.  I — I  was 
only  going  to  tell  you  that  I'm — er — 
bringing  out  a  small  volume  of  poems 
shortly.  I  thought  it  might  interest 
you." 

"  So  it  does,  immensely.  Of  course 
you'll  be  interviewed  ?  And  of  course 
you'll  set  booby-traps  for  the  inter- 
viewers, and  supply  them  with  ficti- 
tious information  1  That's  what  poets 
always  do,  isn't  it  1  How  amused 
you'll  be  to  read  the  accounts  of  your- 
•self  afterwards  in  the  papers.  But 
we  must  have  tea  before  we  discuss 
anything  serious." 

They  had  tea.  And  after  tea  she 
talked  pure  abstract  nonsense  for  a 
whole  hour,  and  uttered  commonplaces 
with  an  air  of  intense  and  passionate 
conviction.  As  they  got  up  to  go,  she 
sighed  ever  so  slightly.  "  And  now, 
Mr.  Brownrigg,  you  know  the  terrible 
truth.  I  am  really  nothing  but  an 
empty-headed,  frivolous  woman." 

"  You  think  7  shall  believe  that  1  " 
said  Brownrigg  in  a  low  mumbling 
voice.  "  You  may  choose  to  seem  so 
to  others ;  you  forget  that  I  have 
seen  your  soul." 

:'Oh,  no,  you  haven't.  You've 
made  a  mistake  ;  it  must  have  been 
somebody  else's  ;  my  soul's  never  at 
home  at  tea-time." 

Leonora  had  to  confess  that  she  had 
failed.  That  one  look  from  Brown- 
rigg showed  that  he  thought  her  more 
adorable  than  ever.  He  sent  her  a 
large  quantity  of  flowers  that  evening, 
and  they  came  in  beautifully  for  her 
flower-mission  in  the  East  End.  She 
wrote  him  a  nice  little  note  and  told 
him  so. 

IV. 

When  Brownrigg  next  found  him- 
self in  Miss  Campbell's  drawing- 
room,  his  book  had  been  published, 
and  a  copy,  the  gift  of  the  author, 
was  on  the  table  before  him.  It  was 
very  pretty  to  look  at,  printed  on 


rough  paper,  bound  in  white  parch- 
ment with  gold  lettering,  Poems  by 
Ormond  Brownrigg,  amid  a  device 
of  passion-flowers.  Within,  A  Soul's 
Epic  formed  the  piece  de  resistance,  to 
use  his  own  well- chosen  words.  In  a 
modest  preface  he  had  forestalled 
obvious  criticism  by  an  apology  for 
youthful  immaturity.  On  the  dedi- 
cation page  there  appeared  this  islet 
of  verse  in  a  sea  of  margin. 

TO  L.  C. 

Lady,  if  ever  in  these  listless  days 
A  singer's  voice  be  welcome  to  thine  ear, 
It  may  be  thou  wilt  turn  aside  to  hear 
The   music   wrought   in   these   enchanted 
lays. 

For  tins  thy  poet  turns  each  golden  phrase, 
And  love's  own  lyric  voice  doth,  silence 

fear  — 

If  such  dim  hope  can  make  a  song  so  dear, 
Shall  it  not  be  thrice  dearer  for  thy  praise  ? 

The  poet  sat  in  a  state  of  feverish 
anxiety,  awaiting  Miss  Campbell's 
verdict.  He  had  led  up  to  it  by 
devious  paths,  as  thus  for  instance  : 
"  You  have  shown  me  many  aspects 
of  your  marvellous  mind,  and  one 
indeed  which  I  had  not  suspected. 
It  seems  I  make  some  new  discovery 
in  you  every  day." 

And  she  had  answered  :  "  Indeed  ? 
You  are  quite  a  natural  philosopher. 
The  worst  of  the  natural  sciences  is 
that  they  are  so  fatiguingly  pro- 
gressive ;  you  never  know  when  you 
have  got  to  the  end  of  them." 

He  saw  his  opening  and  dashed  into 
it  headlong.  He  said  that  there  was 
one  further  discovery  he  would  like 
to  make.  He  felt  that  he  stood  at 
the  bar  of  her  mercy,  convicted  of  a 
heavy  offence  (here  he  laid  his  hand 
lightly  on  the  Poems),  and  he  had  yet 
to  know  her  in  the  character  of  an 
impartial  judge. 

And  now  the  verdict  was  being 
given. 

"  I  would  rather  not  criticise  your 


442 


A  Friendly  Critic. 


pretty  book,  which  I  value  as  your 
gift ;  but,  as  you  have  asked  for  my 
honest  opinion,  I  must  say  I  think 
you've  hardly  done  yourself  justice  in 
publishing  such  very  minor  poetry, 
you  who  can  write  so  delightfully  in 
prose.  A  man  with  a  career,  a  de- 
finite goal,  before  him  really  ought 
not  to  indulge  in  these  superfluous 
gambols  by  the  way."  Here  she  took 
up  the  book  and  began  turning  over 
the  leaves.  "  Yes,  you  have  great 
metrical  felicity, — facility,  I  mean, 
but  your  verse  lacks  the  true  quality 
of  poetry,  charm  and  distinction." 
She  picked  out  a  sonnet  at  random, 
and  read  it  aloud  to  him.  He  lis- 
tened shudderingly  ;  it  did  lack  charm 
and  distinction.  "You  see  what  I 
mean  1 "  she  continued  cheerfully. 
"  Your  melodies  are  sweet,  but  remi- 
niscent ;  one  seems  to  have  met  with 
most  of  your  ideas  before,  and  you 
have  found  no  new  setting  for  them. 
Forgive  me ;  this  is  only  a  friend's 
criticism ;  and  there's  nothing  new 
under  the  sun,  if  it  comes  to  that ; 
everybody  must  plagiarise  from  some- 
body, you  know.  What  I  mean  is  that, 
when  you  have  achieved  distinction 
in  prose,  it  seems  a  pity  to  waste 
your  really  admirable  powers  in  pur- 
suit of  the  unattainable." 

Brownrigg  had  sat  pulling  his 
moustache  during  this  speech.  He 
now  rose  stiffly,  and  held  out  his 
hand  without  speaking. 

"  I've  not  offended  you  1 "  she  asked 
innocently. 

"No.  You  have  only  condemned 
my  life-work,  that  is,  me.  You  may 
not  know  it,  but  I  have  put  myself, 
the  divine  part  of  me,  into  that 
book,  which  you  have  read  in  twenty 
minutes  and  appraised  in  three." 

"I'm  sorry;  but  you  told  me  to 
be  honest,  and  my  opinion's  not  final.  !\ 

"  Far  from  it ;  it  is  the  opinion  of 
the  average  light  reader  who  can  only 
grasp  one  idea  at  a  time,  and  can't  be 


expected  to  understand  versatility. 
I  am  cursed  by  my  many-sidedness. 
Because  I  have  succeeded  in  prose, 
I'm  not  permitted  to  be  a  poet." 

"So  it  would  seem." 

He  drew  himself  up  proudly.  "  This 
is  a  woman's  judgment  on  a  man's 
work." 

She  saw  his  suffering  and  hated  her- 
self for  inflicting  it.  But  the  thought 
of  Janie  Morris  (his  cousin^  hardened 
her  heart  for  the  final  blow.  "  Not 
altogether  a  woman's  opinion.  It  is 
shared  at  least  by  Mr.  Horace  Gibson." 

He  turned  a  sickly  green.  He  had 
always  cherished  the  belief  that  Gib- 
son privately  recognised  his  genius  as 
a  poet,  while  condemning  it  from  an 
editorial  point  of  view.  If  she  were 
right,  the  doom  of  his  book  was  sealed. 
"  Gibson  is  a  literary  specialist.  But 
you  did  well  to  quote  him." 

With  this  Parthian  shaft  he  covered 
his  retreat.  He  met  Gibson  on  the 
stairs,  and  passed  him  without  a  word. 

"  Yes,"  she  said  in  answer  to  the 
editor's  inquiring  eyebrows ;  "  after 
three  attempts  I've  succeeded  at  last." 

"  May  I  ask  how ?" 

She  glanced  significantly  at  the 
Poems.  "  I  merely  ventured  on  a 
little  friendly  criticism." 

Brownrigg's  passion  was  dead ;  he 
had  awakened  as  from  a  delirious 
dream.  Leonora  had  laboured  to  de- 
face his  ideal  of  her,  with  apparent 
failure ;  now  she  had  shattered  his 
ideal  of  himself ;  and,  having  done 
this,  her  former  experiments  justified 
themselves  at  once,  a  result  which 
shows  that  no  honest,  conscientious 
labour  is  in  vain.  He  felt  deeply  the 
passing  away  of  that  great  love.  It 
roused  unpleasing  questions.  He  had 
loved  Janie  and  forgotten  her ;  he 
had  adored  Leonora  and, — he  adored 
v  her  no  longer.  Could  it  be  possible 
\that  he  was  fickle  1  He  remembered 
iXow  in  his  boyhood  he  had  once  made 


\ 


A  Friendly  Critic. 


443 


a  friend  of  a  man  called  Haynes ; 
how  he  wrote  a  sonnet  To  a  Young 
Friend  (Haynes  being  five  years  his 
elder)  in  which  he  spoke  of  holding 

High  converse  with  a  spirit  mild  and 
wise  ; 

and  how  he  excused  himself  afterwards 
on  the  grounds  that  these  epithets 
were  wrung  from  him  by  the  exigencies 
of  rhythm  and  rhyme.  For  an  ab- 
surd quarrel  had  brought  that  friend- 
ship to  an  abrupt  end.  He  remem- 
bered the  disenchantment  and  disgust, 
and  also  the  satisfaction  he  derived 
from  the  discovery  he  made  after  a 
brief  interval  that  Haynes  was  a  vulgar 
fellow  with  no  certain  control  of  his 
aspirates.  In  like  manner  he  now 
found  out  that  Leonora  was  a  frivolous 
doll  and  an  unsexed  virago.  He  made 
no  attempt  to  reconcile  these  two  ideas, 
he  had  received  both  impressions 
distinctly. 

The  question  remained,  was  he 
fickle  ?  After  much  anxious  delibera- 
tion he  decided  that  he  was  not  fickle, 
but  versatile.  Versatility  was  an  in- 
tellectual quality,  not  a  moral  one,  and 
it  was  the  character  of  his  genius. 
Having  settled  that  problem  to  his 
satisfaction,  he  went  back  to  Leonora's 
judgment  of  his  poems.  After  all,  he 
reflected,  what  was  such  a  woman's 
verdict  worth,  the  verdict  of  a  frivolous 
fool  ?  To  assert  his  independence,  he 
wrote  a  sonnet  that  night,  and  called 
it  De  Profundis. 

Now  it  was  that  he  remembered 
Janie.  Janie  had  soothed  him  ;  Janie 
had  admired  A  Soul's  Epic;  he  yearned 
afresh  for  her  healing  love  and  sym- 
pathy. He  had  behaved  like  a  brute 
to  her ;  and  that  thought  was  agony, 
because  it  lowered  him  still  further 
in  his  own  opinion. 

All  bruised  and  suffering  he  went 


down  to  Janie  to  be  comforted.  He 
could  not  rest  till  he  had  raised  his 
own  fallen  image  by  the  noble  can- 
dour of  confession.  He  told  the  whole 
story  of  the  last  six  months, ,  in  his 
own  manner,  without  reservation.  "  I 
don't  know  how  it  happened,  but  it 
must  have  been  Fate.  I  seemed  to 
be  in  the  hands  of  some  beautiful, 
demoniacal,  remorseless  cosmic  power. 
My  will  wasn't  my  own  ;  it  was  hers." 

Janie  shuddered,  but  she  did  not 
drop  the  hand  she  held.  "It's  all 
over  now ;  let  us  forget  that  it  has 
ever  been."  Thus  she  forgave  him ; 
but  she  never  forgave  Leonora,  not 
even  when  that  dreadful  woman  be- 
came Mrs.  Horace  Gibson. 

Brownrigg  married  Janie.  Some 
people  prophesied  that  their  marriage 
would  furnish  a  problem.  Others  re- 
garded it  as  a  beautiful  illustration  of 
the  ingenious  law  of  compensation  by 
which  Nature  settles  most  problems, 
Nature  being  economical  and  evidently 
intending  that  woman's  office  of  re- 
deeming love  shall  be  no  sinecure. 
As  Gibson  observed  to  his  wife :  "  If 
people  like  Brownrigg  didn't  marry, 
what  would  become  of  the  domestic 
virtues  1 " 

As  for  Brownrigg,  he  had  his  hair 
cut  and  resumed  the  ordinary  garb  of 
masculine  civilisation.  He  sank  from 
the  lyric  heights  of  passion  to  make 
himself  a  master  of  the  prose  of  love ; 
and,  after  all,  it  is  not  every  one  who 
can  achieve  distinction  in  prose.  Janie 
alone  cherishes  the  innocent  belief 
that  her  husband  is  a  great  poet ;  she 
even  reads  his  verses  and  admires 
them  all, — with  one  exception.  She 
cannot  see  the  point  of  the  dedicatory 
quatrains  to  L.  C.,  which  is  a  strange 
thing,  for,  bad  as  those  verses  un- 
doubtedly are,  they  are  beyond  all 
question  the  best  in  the  book. 


444 


A  SCHOOLMASTER    AT    HOME. 


EVERYBODY  has  heard  of  the  School- 
master Abroad,  and  most  of  us  have 
met  him  in  one  shape  or  another ; 
but  the  Schoolmaster  at  Home  is 
another  matter.  He  is  not  so  much 
in  evidence,  except,  indeed,  when 
evidence  is  given  against  him  in 
Police  Courts  for  causing  deafness 
by  misplaced  activity.  The  particular 
Schoolmaster  of  whom  we  love  to 
think  and  wish  to  speak,  lived  far 
away  from  magistrates,  metropolitan 
or  otherwise,  and  did  pretty  much 
what  was  right  in  his  own  eyes  with 
regard  to  his  young  pupils.  If  he 
told  how  some  neighbour  "  trirnbled 
afore  the  jistices,"  it  was  of  the  Poor 
Law  Guardians  that  he  spoke.  He 
lived  in  days  when  Board  Schools 
were  not,  but  he  lived  too  long.  He 
lived  long  enough  to  be  crushed  by 
the  Car  of  Education,  that  threatens 
to  roll  out  all  bodies  and  all  minds  to 
one  pattern,  and  to  make  all  people  in 
England  as  dull  as  some  of  us  already 
are. 

The  mention  of  bodies  reminds  us 
of  the  fact  that  Nature  had  not  been 
kind  to  our  friend.  She  began  him 
well  with  a  fine  head,  a  good  brain, 
and  splendid  shoulders,  but  she  tired 
too  soon.  He  had  no  arms  to  speak 
of,  and  less  legs.  The  ends  of  his 
arms  were  somewhat  porcine ;  it  was 
whispered  that  the  ends  of  his  legs 
were  equally  rudimentary  or  embryotic, 
but  to  the  eyes  of  even  the  oldest 
inhabitant  these  had  been  eked  out  by, 
or  merged  into,  a  pair  of  legs  that  we 
should  call  wooden,  but  which  he  in 
his  Devonian  dialect  would  have 
called  timbern.  Yet  he  was  such 
a  splendid  torso  that  a  stranger, 
passing  through  the  hamlet  and  seeing 


him  reared  up  against  a  wall  by  the 
aid  of  crutches  (his  favourite  attitude), 
mistook  him  for  some  hero  of  a  hundred 
fights  who  had  left  parts  of  himself 
at  Waterloo  ;  but  so  far  as  any  acci- 
dent had  happened,  it  was  pre-natal. 
Tradition  said  that  his  mother,  before 
his  birth,  had  suddenly  met  some 
afflicted  human  curiosity,  and  had 
laughed.  The  pious  among  her  neigh- 
bours descried  a  "judgment"  in  the 
peculiar  proportions  of  her  son.  If 
so,  the  penalty  was  vicarious ;  she 
laughed,  her  son  had  cause  to  weep. 
He  did  not  weep,  however,  but  made 
the  best  of  a  bad  business.  He  had 
a  healthy  body  and  a  happy  mind  :  up 
to  the  age  of  sixty  he  never  had  a 
day's  illness ;  and  he  might  have  gone 
on  so  to  the  end  had  he  been  allowed 
to  live  his  life  out  in  the  open  air,  for 
his  was  a  sunny  nature  and  he  loved 
the  sun.  When  School  Boards  and 
Guardian  Boards  combined  to  bully 
him,  he  had  to  retire  to  the  place 
facetiously  called  a  Workhouse  ;  they 
did  not  starve  him  out,  but  starved 
him  in. 

But  we  are  ending  his  poor  little 
history  before  we  have  begun  it.  He 
was  born  in  days  before  compulsory 
education,  with  all  its  complicated 
machinery  of  inquisitors,  fines,  and  so 
forth,  had  combined  to  make  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge  seem  a  lovely 
thing.  There  was  a  lack  of  method, 
therefore,  in  his  particular  pursuit. 
The  village  school  was  too  far  off  for 
him  to  reach  it,  nor  would  he  have 
been  welcome,  had  he  gone.  Luckily, 
a  lady  living  near  took  pity  on  the 
poor  creature.  Having  no  wooden 
legs  as  yet,  he  was  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  a  quadruped ;  at  any  rate  he 


A  Schoolmaster  at  Home. 


wore  three  things  like  shoes  and 
donned  a  sort  of  petticoat.  Devon- 
shire lanes  being  then  pretty  much 
what  they  are  now,  he  used  to  arrive 
for  his  lessons  in  a  peculiar  condition, 
being  either  a  mass  of  mud  or  of  dust. 
If  his  state  was  such  as  to  make  his 
presence  in  the  house  impossible,  the 
lesson  was  given  in  the  garden.  This 
he  much  preferred,  as  he  could  (and 
did)  dash  off  at  any  moment  in  his  odd 
three-footed  way  after  a  butterfly  or 
anything  else  that  caught  his  truant 
eyes ;  and  thus  his  education  in 
Natural  History  was  carried  on,  or 
rather  carried  itself  on,  together  with 
his  training  in  humaner  letters.  The 
word  letters  recalls  the  fact  that  his 
were  delightful ;  the  expressions  were 
so  quaint,  the  spelling  so  erratic,  and 
the  writing  so  remarkably  good.  His 
caligraphy  was  a  standing  reproach  to 
those  of  us  who  have  the  usual  com- 
plement of  fingers  ;  if  one  had  never 
seen  him  at  the  work  one  could  not 
have  imagined  that  a  thing  so  like  a 
pig's  foot  could  have  formed  such 
characters. 

As  he  grew  up  he  received  many 
tempting  offers  from  showmen,  local 
Barnums ;  but  all  these  he  steadily 
withstood,  partly  from  some  spark 
of  proper  pride,  partly  from  his 
love  of  fresh  air  and  life  out  of  doors. 
Yet  the  offers  might  well  have  tempted 
him,  for  he  was  poor  enough.  Fortu- 
nately he  belonged  to  a  Union  where 
out-door  relief  was  granted.  On  that 
he  lived,  for  though  he  did  odd  jobs 
such  as  naturally  fell  to  the  literary 
man  of  his  hamlet,  he  did  not  thereby 
gain  wealth.  He  conducted  the  local 
correspondence, — or,  in  simpler  lan- 
guage, wrote  letters  for  his  neighbours  ; 
and  he  was  also  accountant-general, 
that  is  to  say  he  kept  the  crab- 
accounts,  which  was  the  main  industry 
of  that  part,  and  in  case  of  a  heavy 
catch  of  mackerel  or  herrings,  such  as 
sometimes  happened,  would  keep  care- 


ful record  of  the  maunds  and  sales. 
We  remember  finding  him  busily  occu- 
pied at  such  a  task  many  years  ago  at 
three  in  the  afternoon,  the  net  having 
been  drawn  about  five  in  the  morning 
and  the  task  of  collecting  and  carrying 
the  herrings  being  yet  unfinished. 
He  was  at  the  height  of  happiness, 
reared  up  against  a  boat ;  he  neither 
sat  nor  stood,  his  attitude  on  that 
occasion,  and  on  others,  being,  as  it 
were,  a  combination  of  those  positions. 
By  the  way,  that  great  catch  of  many 
thousands  brought  little  gain,  most  of 
it  being  taken  by  a  fraudulent  smack 
that  never  paid.  In  spite  of  our 
friend's  warning  the  fishers  consulted 
a  lawyer,  recovered  nothing  from  the 
smack,  and  had  to  pay  the  man  of 
law.  This  may  have  embittered  him 
against  the  whole  legal  profession,  for 
we  remember  that  once,  being  incensed 
with  his  neighbours,  he  spoke  of  them 
as  "  a  passil  of  lawyers  and  doctors," 
having  just  likened  them  in  their 
ignorance  to  asses.  The  cause  of  his 
dislike  to  doctors  remains  obscure,  as 
he  had  no  occasion  for  their  services. 

As  the  educated  man  of  the  hamlet 
he  voiced,  or  rather  penned,  its  griev- 
ances. Thinking  that  on  a  surf- 
beaten  shore  dogs  that  would  swim 
out  and  bring  to  land  a  rope  from  the 
boats  were  a  necessity  rather  than  a 
luxury,  he  set  himself  to  get  them 
freed  from  tax.  Failing  in  local  effort 
he  approached  as  near  the  throne  as  he 
could  by  writing  to  the  Duke  of  Edin- 
burgh ;  and  it  is  whispered  that  among 
the  archives  of  the  Admiralty  is  still 
preserved  the  letter  wherein,  with  the 
friendly  confidence  of  genius,  he  ad- 
dressed his  Royal  Highness  as  My 
dear  Duk. 

But  we  have  called  our  friend  a 
schoolmaster,  yet  have  written  all 
these  lines  without  a  word  to  justify 
the  superscription. 

These  useful  and  varied  occupations 
did  not  suffice  to  fill  his  time,  and 


446 


A  Schoolmaster  at  Home. 


some  of  it  hung  heavy  on  his  hands, 
so  far  as  he  might  be  said  to  have 
such  things,  when  it  occurred  to  him 
to  teach.  He  passed  no  examination, 
received  no  certificate,  and  thought  as 
little  about  school-desks  as  about  cubic 
feet  of  air ;  but  he  threw  open  the 
door  of  his  aunt's  cottage,  which  was 
then  his  home,  and  in  the  children 
came.  They  liked  it,  because  the 
village  school  was  two  miles  off,  and 
the  parents  liked  it  because  the  fee 
was  nominal ;  if  they  paid  at  all,  they 
paid  in  kind  ;  few  places  boast  such 
crabs  and  lobsters  as  are  to  be  found 
hard  by.  We  are  staying  in  the 
neighbourhood ;  let  us  launch  the 
little  blue  boat  and  row  across  the 
pretty  little  bay  to  the  school.  Arrived 
at  the  hamlet,  we  run  the  boat  up  on 
the  shingly  beach,  and  through  frag- 
rant bowers  of  dogfish  arid  skate, 
hung  out  on  lines  to  dry  for  baiting 
crab-pots,  we  make  our  way  to  the 
little  thatched  cottage. 

There  is  the  Master  posted  up 
against  the  wall  at  the  end  of  a  table. 
We  give  our  greeting,  and  account  for 
our  presence  by  saying  that  we  try  to 
teach  elsewhere  and  would  be  glad  of 
some  hints.  The  great  man  smiles 
pleasantly,  and  bids  us  be  seated  if  we 
can  find  a  chair.  We  prefer  to  stand 
and  keep  near  the  door  and  the  sweet 
sea-breeze,  the  weather  being  warm 
and  the  room  rather  close.  In  one 
of  his  extremities  (you  cannot  call 
them  hands)  the  Master  holds  a  slate 
pencil  wherewith  he  corrects  sums  and 
other  amusements  that  adorn  the 
slates  brought  to  him  by  his  pupils ; 
in  the  other  he  holds  a  cane  of  such  a 
length  that  it  can  reach  any  corner  of 
the  cottage,  which  fact  is  "ealised  by 
the  head  of  any  boy  who  fancies  that 
he  may  safely  idle  because  a  visitor  is 
present  or  because  the  Master  is  cor- 
recting sums.  While  all  the  elders, 
girls  and  boys,  are  busy  round  the 
table,  some  very  small  children  are 


reciting,  in  the  dismal  monotone  dear 
to  them  and  curates  of  a  certain  type, 
the  letters  on  a  cardboard  alphabet 
hung  to  the  back  of  a  chair.  They 
seem  to  find  a  mystic  joy  in  droning 
the  symbol  which  follows  Z  and 
which  they  call  oosetteroo  ;  it  is  their 
Mesopotamia,  a  blessed  word.  In  the 
window-seat  is  one  boy  all  alone  re- 
citing poetry  aloud  to  himself.  His 
orders  are  (and  he  faithfully  follows 
them)  to  go  on  until  he  meets  with  a 
check ;  when  he  meets  this  check  he 
begins  the  lines  again ;  the  poor  child 
is  a  stammerer,  and  by  this  wise  plan 
he  gets  accustomed  to  his  own  voice, 
finds  that  he  can  say  most  words,  and 
is  not  troubled  by  the  thought  that  he 
is  stopping  all  the  class  and  being 
stared  at. 

On  another  occasion,  perhaps,  one 
may  light  upon  a  spelling-lesson.  The 
Master's  practice  was,  as  has  been 
allowed,  defective.  Guided  by  the 
book  he  was  correctness  itself ;  but 
even  then  his  provincial  pronunciation 
introduced  fresh  difficulties.  The  word 
chamber  chanced  to  occur  one  day ; 
each  letter  was  monotoned  in  unison, 
and  the  whole  word  pronounced  as 
though  the  first  syllable  rhymed  with 
ham.  "  Tidden  chamber  ;  'tischimber," 
sternly  said  the  Master.  The  children, 
if  they  thought  at  all,  must  have 
thought  pronunciation  a  strange  and 
arbitrary  thing.  At  another  time, 
independent  of  the  book,  he  called  for 
the  word  awl,  a  shoemaker's  awl.  His 
pupils  followed  the  usual  fashion ;  he 
objected,  and  in  his  zeal  added  an 
aspirate.  They  then  tried  every 
variety  of  awl  and  hall ;  he  accepted 
none,  and  what  method  of  spelling  the 
word  would  have  found  favour  in  his 
sight  remains  a  dark  secret  still. 
Once  he  was  heard  to  glide  from  spell- 
ing to  religion  in  a  delightful  way. 
In  truth  he  was  no  worshipper  of  the 
natural  man,  but  stated  his  belief 
that  "  men  gets  wiser  and  wiser,  and 


A  Schoolmaster  at  Home. 


447 


wickeder  and  wickeder."  He  would 
have  sympathised  with  the  Great  Duke 
in  his  view  as  to  the  production  of 
"  clever  devils,"  and  casually  observed 
one  day,  "  I  don't  hold  with  Voltaire." 
But  to  return  to  the  lesson :  "  Spell 
me  God,"  he  bade  his  class ;  it  was 
spelled  in  loud  chorus.  "  What  is 
God  1 "  he  asked,  and  the  answer  was, 
"A  sperrit."  "Kin  you  see  Him?" 
"  No."  "  Kin  He  see  you  1 "  "  Eess." 
"Well,  then,  don't  ee  michie."  Thus 
he  not  only  taught  practical  religion 
to  his  pupils  but  helped  to  preserve  a 
fine  old  word  for  shirking  school, 
which,  as  we  all  know,  is  to  be  found 
in  Shakespeare :  "  Shall  the  blessed 
sun  of  heaven  prove  a  micher  and  eat 
blackberries  1 " 

He  did  best  when  left  to  his  own 
methods.  A  well-meaning  parson 
provided  a  good  store  of  Bibles  on  the 
condition  that  he  would  make  his 
class  read  from  them  so  many  days  in 
each  week.  One  day  we  found  him 
ploughing  his  way  bravely  through  a 
Pauline  letter ;  the  monotone  was 
very  dismal  as  sanctify  succeeded 
justify,  both  being  connected  with 
praydestinate ;  the  poor  little  man 
was  cumbered  with  Saul's  armour. 
Though  no  friend  to  Voltaire,  he  had 
apparently  heard  some  whisper  of 
scepticism,  or  at  least  of  freeish  hand- 
ling of  the  Bible,  for  he  one  day 
remarked,  "  Plenty  folks  says  there 
niver  was  no  sich  man  as  Job." 

It  has  been  seen  that  he  was  a  foe 
to  miching :  indeed,  his  reading-book 
told  sad  tales  of  a  boy  who  started 
towards  Avernus  by  "  idlin'  down 
upon  the  bache,  where  he  larned 
varous  mauds  of  chatin  "  ;  and  one  of 
his  grounds  of  quarrel  with  his  fishing 
neighbours  was  that  they  were  so  idle 
in  the  summer.  "  I  tell  'em,"  he  said 
one  day,  "  they'm  like  the  coko  (they 
fellers  call  it  the  gookoo) ;  they'm 
hollerin'  three  months."  Another 
time,  seemingly  as  a  synonym  for  this, 


he  spoke  of  their  talking  a  "  passil  of 
old  logic " ;  so  logicians  must  stand 
side  by  side  with  lawyers  and  doctors 
in  our  Schoolmaster's  esteem. 

Stern  in  theory  he  sometimes  un- 
bent in  practice.  A  lady  walking  one 
day  near  the  hamlet  met  many  chil- 
dren miching.  "  Why  are  you  not  at 
school?"  she  asked  them.  "Please, 
mum,  Taycher's  drunk."  "I  won't 
have  you  say  such  things,"  replied 
she,  though  fearing  the  charge  might 
be  true.  Going  to  his  aunt's  cottage 
she  asked  for  the  master.  "  He's 
just  gone  out,"  was  the  answer.  "  No, 
he  is  not,"  said  the  lady,  "for  I  see 
his  crutches " ;  her  quick  eye  caught 
sight  of  them  ill-hidden.  "Well, 
mum,"  answered  his  relative  all  un- 
abashed, "he  did  say  that  if  you  did 
call  and  ask,  I  was  to  be  sure  and  tell 
no  lies ;  he's  drunk  and  gone  to  bed." 
Leaving  his  crutches  he  had  gone 
upstairs  on  all  fours, — a  second  child- 
hood. This  was  his  weakness.  His 
pleasures  were  few,  his  possibilities 
scanty ;  we  might  not  all  be  as  sober 
as  we  are,  were  we  as  ill-endowed  as 
he  by  nature.  He  was  good  company, 
and  men  who  might  have  done  better 
work  loved  to  make  him  drunk.  Con- 
cealment was  impossible,  for  his 
balance  was  soon  gone.  Once  upon  a 
scorching  day  in  August  he  was  to  be 
seen  supine  upon  the  beach  with  face 
aflame  from  drink  and  sun ;  and  into 
his  wide-open  mouth  boys  were  pitch- 
ing pebbles ;  yet  he  took  no  harm. 
Drinking-booths  used  to  be  set  up 
upon  the  beach  at  the  time  of  regattas. 
One  year,  when  men  came  the  next 
morning  to  remove  them,  beneath  a 
fold  of  one  that  had  fallen  was  found 
the  queer  body  of  the  Schoolmaster, — 
quite  at  home.  Yet  he  was  no  drunk- 
ard, nor  did  he  like  to  be  thought  one. 
"  Me  a  drunkard  ! "  he  exclaimed  in 
wrath.  "Look  at.  my  faiis  (face): 
it's  as  clane  as  a  rish  (rush)."  Nor 
was  he  without  a  sense  of  shame,  for 


448 


A  Schoolmaster  at  Home. 


as  he  told  the  present  writer  (who 
might  have  been  his  grandson)  while 
speaking  of  something  that  he  had 
seen,  "  It  was  enough  to  make  young 
folks  like  you  and  me  fairly  blish." 

There  was  a  touch  of  the  Puritan 
element  in  him.  Board  Schools,  which 
he  lived  to  see,  were  "a  passil  of 
moosic  an'  dansin'  :  no  sound  doctrine, 
no  sound  scullership."  And  again  : 
"  I  never  read  novels ;  I  hate 
'em."  Scullership  is  at  first  sight 
more  suggestive  of  boats  than  of 
books,  and  indeed  his  thoughts  and 
words  always  smacked,  so  to  say, 
of  the  sea.  Wishing  to  announce  a 
domestic  disaster  at  a  great  house 
where  a  little  stranger  was  unwelcome, 
he  said,  "  There's  a  ship  ashore  up 
to  W.,"  which  was  inland.  So  in  his 
correspondence  he  would  use  inshore 
for  assure.  Thanking  some  one  for 
spiritual  aid,  which  he  preferred  to 
call  spiritly,  he  spoke  of  the  helper  as 
"  casting  the  roap  of  salvation  when  I 
was  fast  sinking  in  the  pond  of 
dispair."  In  his  middle  age  he  had 
leanings  towards  a  clerical  career. 
Conscious  of  latent  power  he  once 
averred  his  conviction  that  if  he 
had  had  a  "  proper  educating "  he 
might  have  been  a  great  parson 
or  a  great  general ;  remembering 
perhaps  that  his  figure  was  ill-adapted 
to  long  hours  on  horseback,  he  added 
(he  was  speaking  to  a  parson), 
"  I  should  have  preferred  your  trade." 
He  might  have  been  able  to  ride,  for 
he  was  certainly  able  to  swim,  though 
he  looked  as  ill-fitted  for  that  pastime 
as  the  Knave  of  Hearts.  The  oldest 
inhabitant  remembered  that  the 
Schoolmaster  in  his  youth  knew  no 
greater  treat  than  to  be  taken  far  out 
to  sea  and  flung  overboard ;  he  would 
revel  in  the  waves,  but  that  was 
before  the  time  of  wooden  legs  and 
crutches.  In  later  days  he  turned 
his  mind  to  politics.  "  I  don't  like  that 
feller  Gledstone,"  he  would  say.  "  I 


don't  know  whether  you  hold  by  him. 
Old  Mr.  Beaconsfield's  the  man  for 
me."  At  another  time  he  described 
his  political  position  thus :  "  I'm  a 
moderate  Consarvitude."  He  lived 
to  hear  of  the  earlier  troubles  in  the 
Transvaal  some  years  ago,  and  had  no 
doubt  of  England's  duty.  "  We  must 
annix  the  Transvil.  It's  just  as  if 
Dartmouth  and  Kingswear  belonged 
to  different  nations ;  there  'ud  always 
be  rubbin'  and  strubbin."  By  rubbin 
he  of  course  meant  robbing.  An 
ignoramus  might  suppose  that  strubbin 
was  only  poetical  and  otiose ;  but  no 
doubt  it  is  a  fine  old  word,  an  off- 
relation,  as  they  would  say  in  Devon, 
to  the  verb  strip.  These  words 
remind  one  that  his  notions  about 
property  and  political  economy  were 
sensible  and  sound.  Hearing  that 
some  one  while  bathing  had  lost  a 
half-sovereign  from  his  pocket,  he 
warned  the  careless  youth  not  to 
carry  such  coins  in  "  his  naked  pukket, 
but  in  a  long  pus."  As  to  political 
economy,  experience  had  taught  him 
that  "it  isn't  them  that  complains 
the  most  that  wants  the  most." 

His  own  wants  were  few,  his 
complaints  yet  fewer.  He  loved 
teaching,  but  when  the  guardians  and 
school-books  combined  against  him, 
he  had  to  give  it  up.  For  a  while 
a  sister  took  him  in  and  tended  him, 
getting  only  his  parish  pay ;  but  as  a 
lodger  he  must  have  tried  her  temper 
sometimes,  poor  woman.  In  his 
festive  moods  he  would  be  wheeled 
home  tipsy  and  tipped  out  at  the 
cottage-door.  When  in  a  pious  frame 
of  mind,  and  his  sister  was  busy 
washing,  he  would  retire  to  another 
room  and  read  the  Bible  in  tones 
unmusical  or  pray  aloud.  His  notion 
of  confession  was  to  report  his  sister's 
sins. 

So  at  last  he  went  to  the  Work- 
house. Such  a  sun-fish  could  not 
Jive  long  there. 


449 
\ 


LADY  MARGARET  TUDOR. 


IN  the  days  of  transition  from  me- 
dieval to  modern  history  while  men 
battled,  women  built ;  and  as  the  old 
baronage  tottered  to  its  fall  before  the 
growing  strength  of  the  Crown,  the 
new  learning  felt  its  way  upwards  and 
outwards  from  homes  of  thought  and 
reading  which  owed  their  origin,  if 
not  always  their  names,  to  the  wives 
and  widows  of  the  rival  Roses.  "  By 
the  way,"  writes  old  Fuller,  "be  it 
observed  that  Cambridge  hath  been 
much  beholden  to  the  strength  of 
bounty  in  the  weaker  sex.  Of  the 
four  halls  therein  two,  viz.,  Clare 
and  Pembroke,  were  (as  I  may  say) 
feminine  foundations  ;  and  of  the 
twelve  colleges  one-third,  Queens', 
Christ's,  Saint  John's,  and  Sidney, 
owe  their  original  to  women  ;  whereas 
no  female  ever  founded  a  college  in 
Oxford,  though  bountiful  benefactors 

to  many And  Cambridge  is 

so  far  from  being  ashamed  of,  she  is 
joyful  at  and  thankful  for  such  charity, 
having  read  of  our  Saviour  Himself 
that  '  Mary  Magdalen  and  Joanna 
and  Susanna  and  many  other  women 
ministered  unto  Him  of  their  sub- 
stance.' " 

To  the  Glory  of  God  and  Lady 
Margaret,  runs  the  inscription  be- 
neath the  great  west  window  of  the 
chapel  of  Saint  John's  :  the  boat-club 
that  gave  the  window  bears  the  name 
not  of  the  college,  but  of  the  foundress  ; 
and  the  building  which  has  crowned 
the  efforts  of  the  College  Mission  in 
Walworth  is  known  as  the  church  of 
the  Lady  Margaret.  But  the  briefest 
sketch  of  Lady  Margaret  Tudor  is 
more  than  a  record  of  judicious  en- 
dowments that  have  borne  fruit  a 

No.  444. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


hundredfold  in  the  course  of  four 
centuries.  It  gives  a  glimpse  into  the 
social  and  religious  life  of  a  woman  of 
rank  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury ;  and  it  is  a  signal  instance  of 
the  way  in  which  the  life  of  medita- 
tion and  the  life  of  action  may  be 
blended  into  one  harmonious  whole. 

Laborare  est  orare  ran  the  old 
plea  for  the  workday  element  in  the 
monastic  life.  With  Lady  Margaret 
it  was  laborare  et  orare.  Hers  was  an 
eventful  career.  Born  in  1441,  the 
child  of  John  Beaufort,  Duke  of 
Somerset  (the  grandson  of  old  John 
of  Gaunt)  and  Margaret,  daughter  of 
Sir  John  Beauchamp  of  Bletsoe  ;  left 
an  orphan  by  her  father's  death  in 
1444;  entrusted  as  a  ward  to  the 
ill-fated  William  de  la  Pole,  Earl  of 
Suffolk ;  betrothed,  if  not  married,  at 
the  age  of  nine  to  his  son  John ; 
married  certainly  a  few  years  later 
to  Edmund  Tudor,  Earl  of  Richmond, 
the  son  of  Owen  Tudor  and  Catharine 
of  Valois,  widow  of  Henry  the  Fifth ; 
left  a  widow  and  a  mother  at  the  age  of 
fifteen,  with  a  little  boy  born  after  his 
father's  death;  married  again  in  1459 
to  Lord  Henry  Stanley,  son  of  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham  ;  separated  from 
her  boy,  whose  only  safety  from  the 
pitiless  schemes  of  Edward  the  Fourth 
lay  in  exile  in  Brittany ;  widowed 
again  and  married  again  to  Thomas, 
Lord  Stanley,  a  widower  and  a  father 
and  a  favourite  of  Edward  ;  just  toler- 
ated in  a  position  of  honour  as  the 
wife  of  Stanley,  then  Lord  High  Con- 
stable, at  the  coronation  of  Richard 
the  Third ;  implicated  in  Bucking- 
ham's conspiracy  to  place  her  boy  on 
the  throne;  attainted  but  spared  in 


450 


Lady  Margaret  Tudor. 


semi-confinement  under  her  hus- 
band's control ;  gladdened  at  last  by 
the  decisive  support  which  he  trans- 
ferred to  his  stepson's  cause  on  the 
eve  of  Bosworth, — Margaret  lived  to 
see  her  only  child  crowned  King  of 
England  in  1485.  Even  at  that 
proud  moment  she  wept  "marvel- 
lously," says  her  chaplain,  for  "she 
never  yet  was  in  that  prosperity,  but 
the  greater  it  was,  the  more  alway 
she  dreaded  the  adversity."  Twenty- 
four  years  later  she  wept  again  over 
his  funeral  sermon  at  Saint  Paul's. 
Among  the  list  of  executors  in  his 
will  came  his  "  dearest  and  most 
entirely  beloved  mother,  Margaret, 
Countess  of  Richmond."  But  her 
own  end  was  near.  Her  grandson 
had  reigned  only  two  months  as 
Henry  the  Eighth,  when  the  aged 
Countess  was  buried  with  her  son  in 
his  own  stately  chapel  at  Westminster 
in  July,  1509. 

For  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
she  had  wielded  the  influence,  if  she 
had  not  borne  the  title,  of  a  dowager- 
queen  at  court.  Her  letters  to  the 
King  are  a  quaint  blending  of  respect 
for  her  sovereign  and  love  for  her  son  ; 
and  his  letters  to  her  prove  that 
neither  absence  nor  royalty  had  weak- 
ened his  affection  or  his  reverence  for 
the  mother  to  whose  efforts  in  part  he 
owed  his  crown.  Her  word  was  law 
in  the  details  of  court  formalities. 
From  her  hand  came  in  1486  the 
ordinances  prescribing  the  ceremonial 
at  the  baptism  of  the  infant  Prince 
Arthur,  and  the  diet  and  supervision 
of  nurse  and  child  ;  and  in  1493  at  the 
King's  request,  she  issued  a  series  of 
mourning  regulations,  specifying  with 
minute  exactness  the  size,  shape,  ma- 
terial and  trimmings  of  the  hoods, 
trains,  tippets,  and  mantles  of  gentle- 
women of  various  ranks.  She  was 
herself  godmother  to  more  than  one 
grandchild,  to  the  little  Prince  Ed- 
mund, so  named  in  memory  of  her 


husband  but  doomed  to  an  early 
death,  and  to  Margaret,  afterwards  the 
bride  of  James,  King  of  Scots, 
and  the  ancestress  of  our  later  En- 
glish sovereigns.  There  was  of  course 
another  side  to  this  picture.  The  best 
of  women  often  make  life  hard  for  a 
son's  wife ;  and  the  Spanish  diploma- 
tists, writing  home  to  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella  in  1498,  took  that  view  of 
the  situation.  "  The  Queen  is  a  very 
noble  woman  and  much  beloved.  She 
is  kept  in  subjection  by  the  mother  of 
the  King.  It  would  be  a  good  thing 
to  write  often  to  her  and  show  her  a 
little  love."  And  again  :  "  The  King 
is  much  influenced  by  his  mother  and 
his  followers  in  affairs  of  personal  in- 
terest and  in  others.  The  Queen,  as 
is  generally  the  case,  does  not  like  it." 
As  with  the  son,  so  it  was  with  the 
grandson.  Henry  the  Eighth  was 
guided  by  the  Lady  Margaret  in  the 
formation  of  his  first  Privy  Council  ; 
and  it  is  tempting  to  speculate  what 
might  have  been  the  gain  to  England 
if  the  old  Countess  had  been  spared  to 
leave  a  deeper  mark  upon  his  cha- 
racter. 

But  the  court  had  no  monopoly  of 
her  care.  The  many  estates  that 
were  hers  by  birth  or  marriage  or 
royal  grant  brought  local  claims  that 
she  was  not  slow  to  recognise.  The 
beautiful  little  Gothic  building  over 
Saint  Winifred's  well  at  Holywell  is 
said  to  be  her  gift ;  and  she  is 
credited  with  more  than  one  attempt 
to  reclaim  by  drainage  the  fen-lands 
known  as  the  Bedford  Level.  Her 
seal  is  affixed  to  the  commission  of 
inquiry  which  she  procured  to  settle 
the  territorial  dispute  between  the 
people  of  Kesteven  and  their  neigh- 
bours of  Holland  in  Lincolnshire.  In 
1502  the  University  and  the  Cor- 
poration of  Cambridge  placed  their 
rival  claims  of  jurisdiction  in  her 
hands  :  the  conflict  between  Town  and 
Gown  was  allayed  for  a  time  by  the 


Lady  Margaret  Tudor, 


451 


arbitrators  selected  at  her  request  ; 
and  their  award,  stamped  with  her 
seal  in  1503,  provided  that  all  similar 
disputes  during  her  lifetime  should  be 
referred  to  herself  and  her  assessors. 
Other  proofs  are  not  wanting  of  the 
keen  interest  that  she  felt  and 
showed  in  the  environment  of  her 
many  manors.  Her  name  appears  on 
the  list  of  members  of  two  Lincoln- 
shire guilds,  partly  religious,  partly 
social  in  character,  Saint  Katharine's 
at  Stamford,  and  Corpus  Christi  at 
Boston ;  and  there  is  still  extant  a 
letter  that  she  wrote  to  the  mayor 
of  Coventry,  requiring  him  in  the 
King's  name  and  in  her  own  to  give 
prompt  hearing  to  the  case  of  a 
burgess  who  had  been  kept  waiting 
vainly  for  legal  satisfaction.  "  For 
the  suitors,"  writes  Bishop  Fisher, 
"it  is  not  unknown  how  studiously 
she  procured  justice  to  be  administered 
by  a  long  season,  so  long  as  she  was 
suffered,  %  and  of  her  own  charges 
provided  men  for  the  same  purpose." 
She  went  further.  In  one  respect 
at  least  she  anticipated  and  surpassed 
the  triumphs  of  the  lady-guardian. 
She  was  herself  an  active  justice  of 
the  peace.  Noy,  the  famous  attorney- 
general  of  Charles  the  First,  searched 
in  vain  for  her  letters  of  commission  ; 
but  he  says  that  he  came  across  more 
than  one  of  her  findings. 

Her  name,  however,  is  best  known 
as  a  patroness  of  literature  and 
religion,  the  scholar's  friend  and  the 
Church's  benefactress.  Scarcely  a 
county  in  England  but  owed  some 
religious  endowment  to  the  Lady 
Margaret,  from  Westminster  Abbey 
to  the  humblest  parish  on  her  domains. 
Two  of  her  minor  gifts  may  serve  as 
typical  of  her  thoughtful  generosity. 
At  Torrington  in  Devon  pity  for  the 
parson's  long  walk  from  home  to 
church  prompted  her  to  convert  the 
manor-house  into  a  parsonage ;  and 
she  opened  her  purse-strings  twice  to 


help  forward  the  completion  of  Great 
Saint  Mary's,  the  University  church 
at  Cambridge.  Her  rights  as  patron- 
ess of  various  livings,  and  her  in- 
fluence in  recommending  men  for 
promotion  to  high  dignity  in  the 
Church,  were  almost  invariably  exer- 
cised as  a  sacred  trust.  It  is  true 
that  it  was  Henry  the  Seventh 
himself  who  proposed  to  elevate  her 
chaplain,  Fisher,  to  the  see  of 
Rochester ;  but  Hugh  Oldham,  the 
Lancashire  scholar,  afterwards  the 
benefactor  of  Corpus  Christi  College, 
Oxford,  and  the  founder  of  Manchester 
Grammar  School,  owed  his  first 
benefices  and  eventually  the  bishopric 
of  Exeter  to  her  advocacy  of  his 
merits.  The  worst  thing  she  ever 
did,  says  an  early  biographer,  was  to 
secure  the  promotion  of  her  stepson 
James  Stanley,  by  no  means  a  model 
priest  in  life  and  aims,  to  the  see  of 
Ely  in  1506. 

Her  beneficence  was  no  compromise 
with  conscience,  no  tai'dy  satisfaction 
to  an  injured  Church  and  a  neglected 
God.  It  was  continuous  and  con- 
sistent. Margaret  Tudor  was  a  real 
Christian,  a  faithful  churchwoman 
according  to  her  light.  It  is  true 
that  she  prayed  to  Saint  Nicholas, 
told  her  beads  to  the  Blessed  Virgin, 
confessed  regularly,  heard  mass  daily, 
was  an  honorary  sister  entitled  in  life 
and  death  to  the  prayers  of  five  great 
monastic  houses,  and  bequeathed 
funds  to  maintain  chantry-priests  at 
Westminster  and  elsewhere  to  pray 
for  her  departed  soul.  But  the  pious 
Protestant  who  allows  these  practices 
to  rob  a  great  and  good  woman  of  the 
respect  and  praise  that  are  her  due 
would  do  well  to  remember  that  such 
practices  were  the  natural  expression 
of  a  devotional  temperament  in  those 
days.  Margaret  was  but  a  true 
daughter  of  the  Church  of  England 
before  its  reformation.  Her  piety 
was  reflected  in  the  character  of  her 
G  a  2 


452 


Lady  Margaret  Tudor. 


household.  It  was  a  place  of  order 
and  discipline,  a  place  of  attentive 
hospitality.  The  servants  were  the 
friends  of  their  mistress  during  her 
lifetime,  and  were  protected  against 
want  and  separation  after  her  death 
by  the  loving  precautions  of  her  last 
will  and  testament.  It  was  also  a 
household  religious  in  tone  and  habit. 
It  had  its  chancellor,  its  chamberlain, 
its  controller,  even  its  poet  and  its 
minstrels,  as  became  an  almost  royal 
mistress  ;  it  had  also  its  own  clergy. 
Divine  service,  says  Fisher,  "  daily  was 
kept  in  her  chapel  with  great  number 
of  priests,  clerks,  and  children  to  her 
great  charge  and  cost."  Besides  her 
almshouse  at  Westminster,  she  kept 
twelve  poor  folk  under  her  roof  at 
Hatfield,  where  she  tended  them 
herself  in  sickness  and  fed  them  in 
health.  Her  own  daily  round  of 
religious  exercises  is  recorded  in  de- 
tail by  her  faithful  chaplain  in  his 
Mourning  Remembrance,  the  sermon 
preached  at  her  monetli  minde,  that  is 
to  say  at  the  commemoration  service 
held  a  month  after  her  death.  To 
the  reader  her  life  lives  again  in  the 
simple  eloquence  with  which  Fisher 
compares  her  to  the  Martha  of  the 
gospel  story  "  in  nobleness  of  person, 
in  discipline  of  their  bodies,  in  order- 
ing of  their  souls  to  God,  in  hospitali- 
ties keeping  and  charitable  dealing  to 
their  neighbours."  He  dwells  on  each 
feature  of  her  piety  in  turn  :  on  her 
patient  endurance  of  the  recurring 
fasts  of  the  Church  ;  her  daily  prayers 
or  services  at  intervals  from  five  in 
the  morning  until  the  dinner  hour 
(ten  o'clock  on  ordinary  days,  eleven 
on  fast  days),  and  again  in  the  after- 
noon and  evening,  ending  with  a 
quiet  quarter  of  an  hour  in  her  chapel 
before  bedtime ;  her  books  of  medita- 
tion, mostly  French,  "  wherewith  she 
would  occupy  herself  when  she  was 
weary  of  prayer."  The  asceticism  so 
dear  to  the  medieval  seekers  after 


sanctity,  who  strove  to  discipline  the 
body  for  the  sake  of  the  soul,  found 
expression  in  a  hair  cloth  next  her 
skin.  In  the  mass  as  it  was  before 
the  Reformation  the  idea  of  sacrifice 
was  exalted  at  the  expense  of  the 
idea  of  communion,  which  was  sadly 
neglected ;  but  Fisher  tells  us  that 
Margaret  was  houshylde,  that  is,  she 
received  the  sacrament,  about  twelve 
times  a  year.  Hers  was  a  militant 
faith,  and  its  zeal  burst  into  flame  at 
the  suggestion  of  a  general  crusade  in 
1500.  More  than  once  in  Fisher's 
presence  she  declared  "  that  if  the 
Christian  princes  would  have  warred 
upon  the  enemies  of  the  faith,  she 
would  be  glad  yet  [she  was  in  her 
sixtieth  year]  to  go  follow  the  host 
and  help  to  wash  their  clothes  for  the 
love  of  Jesu."  But  Fuller  quaintly 
remarks :  "I  believe  she  performed 
a  work  more  acceptable  to  God  in 
founding  a  professor's  place  in  either 
university  and  in  building  Christ's 
and  Saint  John's  Colleges  in  Cambridge 
(the  seminaries  of  so  many  great 
scholars  and  grave  divines)  than  if  she 
had  visited  either  Christ's  sepulchre 
or  Saint  John's  church  at  Jerusalem." 
There  is  no  trace  in  contemporary 
authorities  of  the  early  discipline  that 
stored  the  memory  and  trained  the 
mind  of  the  young  Countess,  who  had 
borne  the  responsibilities  of  wife  and 
mother  at  a  time  of  life  when  the 
girls  of  our  day  have  scarcely  begun 
to  think  of  leaving  the  school-room. 
But,  judged  by  its  fruits,  the  education 
that  she  received  from  others  or  won 
for  herself  was  higher  far  than  fell  to 
the  lot  of  most  women  of  rank  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  Born  "in  an  age 
when  few  of  her  sex  mastered  the  mere 
mechanic  drudgery  of  writing,"  notes 
Professor  Mayor,  she  was  herself  "  a 
painful  student  and  translator,"  and, 
it  is  even  more  important  to  add,  an 
appreciative  friend  and  patron  of  our 
earliest  printers,  men  who  were  often 


Lady  Margaret  Tudor. 


453 


scholar  and  craftsman  in  one.  With 
French  she  was  quite  familiar ;  of 
Latin  she  knew  less.  "Full  often 
she  complained  [to  Fisher]  that  in  her 
youth  she  had  not  given  herself  to 
the  understanding  of  Latin,  wherein 
she  had  a  little  perceiving,  specially 
of  the  rubrics  of  the  ordinal  for  the 
saying  of  her  service,  which  she  did 
well  understand."  Her  library  was 
large  for  those  times,  and  indeed 
unique  for  a  woman.  In  1480  her 
mother-in-law  the  Duchess  of  Bucking- 
ham bequeathed  to  "  her  daughter  of 
Richmond  a  book  of  English  called 
Legenda  Sanctorum  [Legends  of  the 
Saints],  a  book  of  French  called 
Lucun  [probably  a  translation  of  the 
Latin  poet  Lucan],  another  book  of 
French  of  the  epistles  and  gospels, 
and  a  primer  [a  book  of  prayers]  with 
clasps  of  silver  gilt  covered  with  purple 
velvet."  Her  own  will  gives  a  further 
glimpse  into  her  library.  Here  she 
bequeaths  to  her  son  four  volumes  in 
vellum ;  one  a  collection  of  divers 
stories  in  French  headed  by  "  the 
book  of  Genesis  with  pictures  limned," 
the  other  three  being  Froissart's 
Chronicles,  Boccaccio's  Romances,  and 
Lydgate's  8ieye  of  Troy ;  and  sets 
aside  for  various  friends  a  copy  of 
Gower,  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales, 
and  a  French  version  of  Magna  Carta. 
More  than  one  book  came  from  her 
own  pen.  In  1504  she  translated 
from  French  into  English  part  of  an 
anonymous  Imitation  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  in  1507  The  Mirror  of  Gold 
for  the  /Sinful  Soul,  divided  into 
seven  chapters  for  the  seven  days  of 
the  week,  "  to  the  intent  that  the 
sinful  soul  soiled  and  defouled  by  sin 
may  in  every  chapter  have  a  new 
mirror  where  he  may  behold  and  con- 
sider the  face  of  his  soul."  It  is  a 
quaint  book,  illustrated  with  engrav- 
ings of  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  the 
evangelists  Saint  Matthew  and  Saint 
John,  a  figure  of  Death  striking  a 


man  with  a  dart,  and  last  of  all  the 
Son  of  God  sitting  with  uplifted 
hands  amid  the  holy  angels, — a  strange 
scene  in  which  one  of  the  two  angels 
on  His  right  is  awakening  the  dead 
with  a  trumpet,  while  one  of  the  two 
on  His  left  is  playing  on  a  violin,  and 
four  others  at  His  feet  are  gathering 
the  elect  and  conveying  them  to 
heaven  in  a  sheet. 

But  Lady  Margaret  was  even  more 
famous  as  a  patron  of  the  press  than 
as  a  contributor  to  it.  Under  her 
auspices  the  printers  of  London  were 
kept  busy.  In  1489  the  great  Caxton 
himself  translated  from  the  French  at 
her  command,  and  dedicated  to  her,  a 
romance  called  The  History  of  King 
Rlancliardyne  and  Queen  Eglan- 
tine his  Wife.  In  1494  Wynkyn 
de  Worde,  then  Caxton's  right-hand 
man  and  afterwards  her  own  special 
printer,  issued  from  the  same  house 
Walter  Hylton's  Scala  Perfectionis 
Englished,  the  Ladder  of  Perfec- 
tion, a  popular  book  of  a  religious 
character  which  was  re-edited  four 
times  before  1533.  About  1502  came 
a  book  of  prayers  printed  by  order  of 
the  Queen  and  the  Countess  ;  next  a 
Sarum  breviary  issued  at  the  Lady 
Margaret's,  expense;  and  in  1502-3 
Doctor  William  Atkynson's  English 
version  of  the  famous  Imitatio  Christi, 
which  he  attributed  not  to  Thomas  a 
Kempis  but  to  John  Gerson,  chancel- 
lor of  the  University  of  Paris.  It 
was  at  her  special  request  that  Bishop 
Fisher  published  in  1505  his  addresses 
on  the  seven  penitential  psalms,  which 
ran  through  four  editions  in  the  next 
five  years,  and  in  1509  his  funeral 
sermon  in  memory  of  Henry  the 
Seventh.  This  was  perhaps  the  last 
thing  that  she  read  in  print.  Henry 
Watson's  prose  translation  of  The 
Great  Shi])  of  Fools  of  this  World, 
done  at  her  bidding,  was  not  published 
until  after  her  death. 

But  Lady  Margaret  Tudor  was  no- 


454 


Lady  Margaret  Tudor. 


bookworm.  She  could  ply  the  needle 
as  skilfully  as  the  pen.  A  specimen 
of  her  handiwork,  a  carpet  adorned 
with  the  arms  of  her  mother's  first 
husband,  Sir  Oliver  St.  John,  remained 
at  Bletsoe,  the  home  of  her  childhood, 
as  late  as  the  time  of  James  the  First, 
who  always  called  for  the  famous 
tapestry  when  he  passed  that  way. 
She  had  a  touch  of  humour,  too,  and 
could  make  merry  over  the  size  of  a 
French  lady's  hand.  "My  Lord 
Chamberlain,"  she  writes  in  acknow- 
ledgment of  a  present  of  gloves  from 
the  Earl  of  Ormond,  then  apparently 
on  an  embassy  in  France,  "  I  thank 
you  heartily  that  ye  so  soon  remember 
me  with  my  gloves,  the  which  were 
right  good,  save  they  were  too  much 
for  my  hand.  I  think  the  ladies  in 
that  parts  be  great  ladies  all,  and  ac- 
cording to  their  great  estate  they  have 
great  personages." 

There  is  no  record  of  any  definite 
attempt  on  the  part  of  Lady  Margaret 
to  secure  systematic  education  for  girls 
of  her  own  class  ;  perhaps  the  time 
was  not  ripe  for  any  schooling  but 
that  of  the  home,  though  as  a  matter 
of  fact  few  mothers  of  rank  had  any- 
thing beyond  the  merest  rudiments,  if 
they  had  so  much,  to  impart  to  their 
children.  There  is  but  one  reference 
of  any  kind  to  the  education  of  women 
in  the  extant  authorities  for  her  life, 
and  that  is  simply  the  mention  of  her 
request  that  the  Spanish  princess 
betrothed  to  the  young  Prince  of 
Wales  might  be  allowed  to  learn  and 
speak  French  with  his  sister  Margaret, 
who  was  then  in  Spain.  "  This  is 
necessary,"  adds  the  Spanish  agent 
who  conveyed  the  request  in  his 
letter  home  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
"  because  these  ladies  [the  ladies  of 
England]  do  not  understand  Latin 
and  much  less  Spanish." 

But  every  stage  in  the  growth  of 
the  masculine  mind  provided  Lady 
Margaret  with  a  field  for  work.  The 


private  tutor,  the  school,  the  college, 
all  in  turn  found  a  place  on  her  list 
of  benefactions.  As  early  as  1492 
she  requested  the  University  of  Oxford 
to  dispense  with  the  residence  of 
Maurice  Westbury,  a  Master  of  Arts, 
whom  she  had  retained  as  tutor  at 
her  own  cost  to  certain  young  gentle- 
men, among  them  the  eldest  son  of 
the  Earl  of  Northumberland.  This 
was  perhaps  only  an  extension  of  the 
custom  which  had  for  centuries  placed 
the  sons  of  the  nobility  as  pages  under 
the  roof  of  a  bishop  or  an  archbishop 
for  the  purpose  of  education  rather 
than  service.  Still  it  was  a  significant 
innovation,  and  it  was  the  precursor 
of  greater  things.  Three  years  later 
the  Countess  obtained  a  royal  licence 
to  endow  at  Wimborne  Minster,  the 
burial-place  of  her  own  parents,  a 
perpetual  chantry-priest  to  pray  for 
her  soul  and  theirs,  and  "  to  teach 
grammar  freely,"  as  she  says  in  her 
will,  "  to  all  them  that  will  come 
thereunto  perpetually  while  the  world 
shall  endure."  The  Reformation  swept 
the  chantry  out  of  existence  a  genera- 
tion later  ;  but  the  endowment  helped 
before  long  to  found  the  new  school 
of  Wimborne,  where  the  teacher  of 
Lady  Margaret's  original  design,  shorn 
of  his  medieval  characteristics,  has 
developed  and  expanded  into  a  gram- 
mar-school staft. 

The  Universities  owed  still  more  to 
Lady  Margaret ;  at  first  in  their  cor- 
porate capacity,  for  it  was  not  until 
her  last  few  years  that  she  turned  to 
help  the  struggling  units  of  university 
life,  the  separate  colleges  that  sprang 
into  being  at  sundry  times  and  in 
divers  manners,  as  the  old  monas- 
ticism  of  religion  passed  into  the  new 
monasticism  of  learning.  Two  per- 
petual readerships  (now  called  pro- 
fessorships) in  theology,  one  at  Cam- 
bridge and  one  at  Oxford,  founded  by 
her  in  1496-7  and  endowed  in  1503 
under  minute  regulations  drawn  up  by 


Lady  Margaret  Tudor. 


455 


her  own  hand,  one  perpetual  preacher 
endowed  at  Cambridge  in  150-4  to 
deliver  at  least  six  sermons  a  year  at 
various  churches  in  the  dioceses  of 
London,  Ely,  and  Lincoln  (now 
altered  by  royal  dispensation  to  one 
sermon  before  the  University  in  the 
Easter  term),  still  bear  the  name  and 
fulfil  in  the  spirit,  if  not  in  the  letter, 
the  designs  of  Lady  Margaret. 

It  was  upon  Cambridge  that  her 
fostering  care  for  religion  and  learning 
.  spent  itself  most  generously.  Her 
arbitration  between  Town  and  Gown 
is  a  signal  proof  of  her  interest  in  the 
place  and  her  influence  over  its  rival 
elements.  When  the  University  went 
out  in  procession  to  meet  her  at 
Caxtcn  in  1505,  they  went  to  meet  an 
old  and  tried  friend,  who  had  been 
their  guest  more  than  once  already, 
as  the  proctors'  accounts  indicate 
clearly  enough.  But  further  and 
greater  proofs  of  her  bounty  were  yet 
to  follow.  It  is  perhaps  scarcely  safe 
to  infer  that  she  had  any  share  in  the 
conversion  of  the  dissolute  nunnery  of 
Saitt  Rhadegund  into  Jesus  College 
by  the  efforts  of  John  Alcock,  Bishop 
of  Ely,  in  1496,  though  a  place  is  ex- 
pressly provided  for  her  name  in  the 
prayers  of  the  Masters  and  Fellows. 
But  it  is  certain  that  Queens'  College, 
the  college  of  more  than  one  royal 
consort,  founded  by  the  ill-fated  Mar- 
garet of  Anjou,  and  helped  to  its  com- 
pletion by  her  successor  Elizabeth  of 
York,  won  in  Lady  Margaret  after 
their  death  a  friend  who  interested 
herself  even  in  the  changes  of  its 
Masters  and  secured  for  it  one  grant  of 
land  at  least  from  her  kinsman  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham.  And  to  cut 
short  a  long  story  which  would  tempt 
the  pen  of  a  Johnian  to  stray  beyond 
all  limits,  two  colleges,  Christ's  and 
Saint  John's,  owe  to  her  their  founda- 
tion. 

Christ's  College,  with  its  endow- 
ment and  its  scheme  of  rules  for  a 


Master,  twelve  Scholars  Fellows  and 
forty  -  seven  Scholars  Disciples,  re- 
placed in  1505  a  decayed  foundation 
of  Henry  the  Sixth's,  a  grammar 
school  called  God's  House.  The  fore- 
thought of  the  Countess  added  the 
manor  of  Malton  as  a  refuge  for 
masters  and  scholars  "to  tarry  there 
in  time  of  contagious  sickness  at 
Cambridge,  and  exercise  their  learn- 
ing and  studies "  ;  and  her  keen  in- 
terest in  the  new  college  which  she 
had  founded  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  she  had  chambers  reserved  within 
its  walls  for  her  own  occasional  use. 
One  of  Fuller's  quaintest  anecdotes 
tells  how  the  Lady  Margaret  came  to 
the  college  "  to  behold  it  when  partly 
built,  and  looking  out  of  a  window  saw 
the  dean  call  a  faulty  scholar  to  cor- 
rection ;  to  whom  she  said  lente,  lente, 
as  counting  it  better  to  mitigate  his 
punishment  than  procure  his  pardon." 
It  was  the  advice  of  her  friend  and 
confessor  Bishop  Fisher,  that  guided 
the  Countess.  Fisher  was  a  Cambridge 
man,  formerly  Master  of  Michael 
House,  which  was  afterwards  ab- 
sorbed into  Trinity  College.  He  had 
already  pointed  out  to  her  that  West- 
minster Abbey,  which  she  intended  to 
enrich,  was  too  wealthy  to  need  the 
help  for  which  the  schools  of  learning 
were  silently  craving  ;  and  after  the 
foundation  of  Christ's  College,  when 
doctors  from  Oxford  pleaded  the 
claims  of  Saint  Frideswide's  priory 
(afterwards  reconstituted  as  a  college 
by  Wolsey),  it  was  Fisher  who  con- 
centrated her  last  efforts  upon  his 
own  University  by  drawing  her  atten- 
tion to  the  distress  into  which  the  old 
Hospital  of  Saint  John  at  Cambridge 
had  by  this  time  sunk  deep.  At  the 
close  of  her  will  is  appended  the  fol- 
lowing notice  of  her  plans  for  its 
restoration.  "  Be  it  remembered  that 
it  was  also  the  last  will  of  the  said 
princess  to  dissolve  the  hospital  of 
Saint  John  in  Cambridge,  and  to  alter 


456 


•Lady  Margaret  Tudor. 


and  to  found  thereof  a  college  of  secu- 
lar persons ;  that  is  to  say,  a  master 
and    fifty   scholars,    with    divers    ser- 
vants ;    and    new   to    build    the    said 
college,     and     sufficiently     to    endow 
the     same    with     lands     and       tene- 
ments   after    the    manner    and    form 
of  other  colleges  in  Cambridge ;    and 
to   furnish  the   same    as   well  in   the 
chapel,    library,    pantry   and  kitchen, 
with  books  and  all  other  things  neces- 
sary for  the  same."     It  was  to  be  a 
college  of  secular  persons,  but  only  in 
the  technical  sense  of  the  word  secu- 
lar ;  they  were  not  to  be  members  of 
a  monastic  order  ;  for  the  old  ideal  of 
education    was    in    the    fullest    sense 
religious  in  its  origin  and  in  its  realisa- 
tion.    From  the  statutes  of   the  col- 
lege we  learn  that  it  was  Lad}'  Mar- 
garet's earnest  desire  that  her  fellows 
and  scholars  should  keep  a  threefold 
purpose    in    view,     "  the    worship    of 
God,  innocency  of  life,  and  the  estab- 
lishment   of    Christian    faith."       The 
preacher   of  the  Commemoration  ser- 
mon  at   Saint  John's  in   1891   inter- 
preted the  idea  of  the  foundress  aright 
when  he  added,   "  a  college  may  be, 
and  is  in  design,    a    family    meeting 
around  the  family  altar  to  begin  and 
end  the  day  with  prayer  and  praise." 
Death    prevented    her    doing    any- 
thing beyond  procuring  the  sanction 
of  her  son  the  King  and  her  son-in- 
law  the  Bishop  of  Ely  to  the  founda- 
tion of  the  new  college.     The  Bishop 
and  her  grandson  Henry  the  Eighth 
afterwards  blocked   the  execution   of 
the  plan ;  but  Fisher  at  the  head  of 
her  executors  fought  his  way  through 
all  the  difficulties   that  were   created 
by    "an    imperious    pope,    a    forbid- 
ding prince,  and  a  mercenary  prelate," 
and  won  for  himself  the  name  of  sec- 
ondary   founder,    until    in    a    famous 
letter  to  Richard  Croke,  then  professor 


of  Greek  at  Cambridge,  he  had  to 
protest,  like  the  faithful  unselfish  soul 
that  he  was,  against  his  own  exalta- 
tion at  the  expense  of  the  Lady  Mar- 
garet, whose  designs  it  had  been  his 
privilege  to  shape  and  whose  will  it 
was  now  his  sacred  duty  to  carry  to 
its  completion. 

No  words  can  close  the  story  and 
sum  the  life  of  Lady  Margaret  Tudor 
like  Fisher's  own  tribute  to  her  mem- 
ory in  his    Mourning   Remembrance. 
When  it  was  known  to  her  servants 
that  her  last  hour  was  at  hand,  then, 
he    tells  us,  wept  they  marvellously. 
"  Wept  her  ladies  and  kinswomen  to 
whom  she  was  full  kind  ;     wept  her 
poor     gentlewomen     whom     she    had 
loved  so  tenderly  before ;    wept  her 
chamberers,    to    whom    she    was    full 
dear  ;  wept  her  chaplains  and  priests  ; 
wept  her  other  true  and  faithful  ser- 
vants.      And    who  would     not    have 
wept    that    had    been   present  1      All 
England  for  her  death  had   cause  of 
weeping.       The    poor    creatures   that 
were   wont    to   receive    her   alms,    to 
whom    she    was    always    piteous   and 
merciful ;     the  students    of  both  the 
Universities,   to   whom   she  was  is  a 
mother  ;  all  the  learned  men  of  Eng- 
land,    to     whom     she     was    a    very 
patroness  ;    all   the  virtuous   and  de- 
vout persons,  to  whom  she  was  as  a 
loving  sister;    all   the   good  religious 
men  and  women,  whom  she  so  oiten 
was   wont    to   visit  and  comfort ;  all 
good  priests  and  clerks,  to  whom  she 
was  a  true  defendress ;  all  the  noble- 
men and  women,  to  whom  she  was  a 
mirror  and  exampler   of   honour ;    all 
the  common  people  of  this  realm,  for 
whom  she  was  in  their  causes  a  com- 
mon mediatrice,  and  took  right  great 
displeasure   for   them ;   and  generally 
the  whole  realm  hath  cause  to  com- 
plain and  to  mourn  her  death." 


N457 


THE    FRENCH    ROYALISTS. 


NEARLY  fifty  years  have  passed 
since  a  king  has  occupied  the  throne 
of  France,  and  from  that  day  to  this 
the  princes  of  the  Royal  House  have 
never  allowed  their  claims  to  slumber. 
In  the  case  of  any  other  country, 
after  so  long  a  lapse  of  time,  their 
hopes  of  restoration  might  well  be 
considered  as  the  wildest  of  chimseras. 
But  France  is  a  country  of  surprises, 
where  the  improbable  often  happens  ; 
and  so  long  as  this  instability  exists, 
the  fortunes  and  the  characters  of  the 
Royal  Princes  can  never  entirely  cease 
to  interest.  A  resourceful  and  ener- 
getic prince  might,  in  certain  contin- 
gencies, be  a  fact  of  capital  importance 
in  the  history  of  France.  It  is,  in- 
deed, hardly  possible  to  doubt  that, 
if  such  a  man  had  been  forthcoming, 
the  monarchy  would  in  all  probability 
have  by  this  time  been  restored.  So 
much,  at  least,  seems  apparent  from 
the  facts. 

The  past  history  of  the  French 
Royalists  has  not  been  of  a  kind  to 
encourage  many  hopes  of  their  future 
restoration.  Since  the  ignominious 
flight  of  Louis  Philippe  two  claimants 
have  already  passed  away,  and  all 
that  they  have  done  has  been  to 
leave  their  cause  in  a  more  hopeless 
state  than  that  in  which  they  found 
it.  Of  these  the  Comte  de  Chambord, 
who  died  in  1883,  was  the  first.  The 
son  of  the  murdered  Duke  de  Berry, 
and  the  grandson  of  Charles  the  Tenth, 
he  went  in  the  year  1830  with  that 
monarch  into  exile.  Not  often  has 
fortune  bestowed  upon  an  exiled 
prince  so  many  favours  as  she  did 
upon  the  Comte  de  Chambord.  The 
scion  of  a  great  dynasty  of  the  grandest 
historical  traditions,  he  had  in  his 


very  name  a  power  to  conjure  with. 
He  was  a  man  of  courtly  manners 
and  of  a  disposition  which  was  natu- 
rally devout,  and  not  even  his  detrac- 
tors could  deny  him  the  possession  of 
good  looks ;  to  an  admirer  who  re- 
marked on  the  fineness  of  his  head 
the  malicious  reply  is  said  to  have 
been  made,  that  it  was  a  palace  with 
no  room  in  it  furnished  but  the  chapel. 
But  all  these  advantages  were  marred 
by  a  want  of  force  of  character  and  a 
narrow  education.  It  is  said  that  an 
exile  never  forgets  and  never  learns. 
The  young  Prince  was,  however,  only 
ten  years  old  when  he  left  his  native 
land  ;  and  he  therefore  had  but  little 
to  forget  and  very  much  to  learn. 
But  unfortunately  the  learning  he 
received  was  of  a  very  useless  kind. 
He  was  schooled  in  the  dogmas  of  the 
strictest  Legitimist  belief,  and  was 
nourished  on  the  ultramontane  teach- 
ing of  De  Maistre  and  Lamennais,  so 
that,  when  he  came  to  man's  estate,  he 
was  turned  out  a  fervent  Catholic  and 
a  firm  believer  in  the  divine  right  of 
kings.  But  even  his  defects  helped 
to  make  him  dear  to  many ;  for 
he  had,  as  the  phrase  goes,  some 
"  pleasant  social  vices,"  and  as  La 
Rochefoucauld  has  laid  down  in  his 
maxims,  our  weaknesses  are  often  in 
the  intercourse  of  life  more  pleasing 
than  our  virtues.  His  defects  in- 
deed might  have  proved  a  source  of 
strength,  if  he  had  had  behind  them  a 
sufficient  power  of  will.  Twice  the 
crown  of  France  was  almost  placed 
within  his  grasp  ;  he  had  but  to  stretch 
out  his  hand  to  seize  it.  The  first 
occasion  happened  when  the  short- 
lived Republic  of  1848  was  replaced 
by  the  Napoleonic  rule.  But  while 


458 


The  French  Royalists. 


the  Corate  de  Chambord  feebly  halted 
and  issued  sentimental  manifestoes, 
Louis  Napoleon,  who  had  not  nearly 
so  many  prepossessions  in  his  favour, 
set  to  work,  and  by  sheer  dint  of 
impudent  audacity  created  the  Empire 
for  himself.  He  did  not  hesitate  to 
use  the  fusillade  which  the  Count  de 
Morny  said  was  the  proper  accom- 
paniment of  a  despot  who  sings  a 
solo.  In  a  word  he  established  a 
despotism  and  called  it  a  democracy, 
and,  what  is  more,  he  persuaded  many 
to  believe  him ;  while  those  who 
refused  to  be  persuaded  he  drove 
into  exile  or  deported  to  Cayenne. 
But  time  brought  with  it  its  revenge, 
and  fortune,  as  though  fulsome  in 
her  favours,  once  more  offered  to 
the  Comte  de  Chambord  the  oppor- 
tunity which  he  had  already  once 
lost.  This  second  chance  occurred  at 
the  close  of  the  war  in  1871  when 
France  was  hesitating  what  form  of 
government  to  adopt.  It  was  a 
glorious  opportunity  ;  Imperialism 
had  failed,  and  failing,  was  loathed  ; 
the  pent-up  feelings  of  twenty  years, 
all  the  hates  and  fears  and  hopes, 
rushed  out  as  in  a  cataract.  France 
was  asking  for  a  saviour,  and  looked 
about  to  find  one.  But  the  Comte  de 
Chambord  showed  once  more  his  fatal 
indecision.  How  far  he  or  his  sup- 
porters are  to  be  held  responsible  for 
the  abortive  issue  of  their  plans  we 
need  not  be  careful  to  inquire.  But 
it  is  certain  that  neither  he  nor  they 
had  quite  made  up  their  minds  as  to 
whether  he  was  to  come  forward  as  a 
Legitimist  or  as  Constitutional  king. 
Having  expressed  his  willingness  to 
accept  a  mandate  from  the  people,  he 
vowed  that  he  would  ne/er  reign  as 
"  the  King  of  the  Revolution."  He 
could  not  even  decide  what  flag  he 
would  adopt ;  though  at  first  he  was 
willing  to  accept  the  tricolour  which 
was  "stained  by  the  blood  of  many 
Frenchmen,"  he  ended  by  declaring 


that  he  would  never  give  up  the 
Bourbon  flag.  The  white  flag,  he 
said,  which  had  waved  over  his  cradle, 
should  also  float  upon  his  tomb.  In 
the  result  the  Republic  was  established 
for  want  of  something  better. 

Such  was  the  Comte  de  Chambord, 
the  last  descendant  of  the  Kings  of 
France,  Henry  the  Fifth  as  he  loved 
to  call  himself,  and  the  last  repre- 
sentative of  the  Legitimist  or  the 
elder  Bourbon  line.  The  Comte  de 
Paris,  who  in  1883  became  the  royal 
heir,  was  a  very  different  kind  of 
man,  and  put  forward  his  pretensions 
on  very  different  grounds.  He  was 
the  grandson  of  Louis  Philippe,  who 
belonged  to  the  younger  House  of  Or- 
leans and  had  avowedly  reigned  as  the 
King  of  the  French  on  a  constitutional 
basis.  The  young  Count  was  prepared 
to  follow  in  his  steps.  Fortune,  how- 
ever, never  favoured  him  as  she  did 
the  Comte  de  Chambord ;  at  no  time 
did  she  ever  offer  him  the  crown.  He 
was  a  man  of  energy  and  courage, 
with  talents  which  would  have  brought 
distinction  to  a  man  of  private  station. 
The  elder  Bourbon  line,  it  must  be 
candidly  admitted,  was  not  a  very 
virile  race  ;  at  least  the  first  Napoleon 
thought  so  when  he  said  that  the 
Duchesse  d'Angouleme,  who  was  the 
Comte  de  Chambord's  aunt  and  ruled 
the  fortunes  of  his  house,  was  the 
only  man  among  the  Bourbons.  But 
the  Orleanist  Princes  were  never  open 
to  such  a  taunt  as  this ;  they  have 
always  shown  that  at  least  they  had 
no  lack  of  courage.  They  would  have 
raised  a  special  corps  for  the  war  of 
1870  if  M.  Thiers  had  allowed  them; 
and  two  of  them  enrolled  themselves 
vmder  false  names  in  the  French  army. 
Moreover,  when  the  Civil  War  in 
America  broke  out,  the  Comte  de 
Paris  and  the  Due  de  Chartres  offered 
to  serve  upon  the  staff  of  the  Federal 
army ;  but  in  deference  to  the  wishes 
of  Napoleon  their  offers  were  refused. 


The  Fretich  Eoyalists. 


459 


But  the  Comte  de  Paris  was  not  the 
sort  of  man  to  lounge  away  a  life, 
and  he  used  his  pen  when  he  could 
not  use  his  sword.  His  History  of 
the  American  Civil  War  is  a  recog- 
nised authority,  while  his  work  on 
English  Trade  Unions  attracted  con- 
siderable notice,  and  was  translated 
into  French  and  German.  But  with 
all  his  good  qualities  he  marred  his 
chances  of  the  crown  by  two  fatal  in- 
discretions. The  first  was  when  in 
1873  he  went  to  pay  homage  to  the 
Comte  de  Chambord  at  his  mimic 
court  at  Frohsdorf .  Between  the  two 
men  irreconcilable  differences  existed 
which  no  outward  show  of  union  could 
possibly  abridge.  Legitimism  is  one 
thing  and  Orleanism  is  another. 
Legitimism,  though  it  may  be  a  fool- 
ish, is  a  simple  and  intelligible  creed ; 
it  is  absolutism,  it  is  kingship  founded 
upon  the  divine  right  of  kings.  But 
Orleanism  is  constitutional  kingship, 
and  avowedly  professes  to  rule  by 
virtue  of  a  mandate  from  the  people. 
Such  a  mandate  the  Legitimists  dis- 
dain as  a  sort  of  degradation ;  they 
contemn  it  with  the  feeling  of  con- 
tempt which  must  have  filled  De 
Maistre  when  he  described  the  British 
form  of  government  as  an  "insular 
peculiarity  utterly  unworthy  of  imita- 
tion." So  that  when  the  Comte  de 
Paris  went  to  Frohsdorf  he  tried  to 
reconcile  two  principles  which  were 
frankly  and  eternally  irreconcilable ; 
he  wished  to  admit  the  one  without 
giving  up  the  other.  So  the  Legitim- 
ists were  offended,  for  they  disliked 
the  Orleanists  and  all  their  ways,  and 
regarded  the  proffered  homage  with 
suspicion  •  while  the  Orleanists  were 
annoyed  that  he  should  have  admitted 
the  Comte  de  Chambord's  claims  at 
all.  Thus  the  Comte  de  Paris  partially 
lost  the  favour  of  the  one  party,  while 
he  entirely  failed  to  secure  the  favour 
of  the  other.  The  second  indiscretion 
was  infinitely  greater ;  he  made  some 


kind  of  compact  with  Boulanger,  who 
at  the  very  time  he  was  intriguing 
held  a  commission  in  the  army  and 
was  nothing  better  than  a  traitor. 
From  that  day  the  Comt£  de  Paris 
was  politically  dead,  for  his  connection 
with  Boulanger  it  was  impossible  to 
condone. 

Such  in  brief  were  the  characters 
of  these  two  Royalist  Princes,  and  for 
their  failures  it  is  evident  that  they 
were  themselves  alone  to  blame.  They 
were  not  the  sort  of  men  either  to 
appeal  to  the  reason  or  to  the  imagina- 
tion. The  Comte  de  Chambord  by 
his  sentimentalism  and  weak  irre- 
solution made  himself  ridiculous, 
almost  killed  the  cause  which  he 
declared  was  nearest  to  his  heart. 
The  Comte  de  Paris  deserved  better 
to  succeed,  but  he  ruined  his  chances 
by  a  curious  lack  of  judgment.  And 
when  Leo  the  Thirteenth,  the  oppor- 
tuniste  sacre,  as  Gambetta  finely 
called  him,  bestowed  his  benediction 
upon  the  Republic,  he  gave  a  blow 
to  the  Royalists  from  which  they  will 
not  easily  recover.  At  every  general 
election  the  number  of  Royalist  votes 
cast  and  the  number  of  Royalist 
Deputies  returned  grow  less  and  less ; 
day  by  day  the  cause  seems  to  wane 
before  our  very  eyes,  as  though  vanish- 
ing like  the  wreck  of  some  dissolving 
dream.  If  the  process  is  continued, 
the  time  cannot  be  far  distant  when 
the  adherents  of  the  monarchy  will 
be  reduced  to  a  sorrowful  and  silent 
remnant  still  clinging  to  the  ancient 
faith,  and  ever  hoping  against  hope. 
And  indeed  to  all  appearances  the 
cause  seems  already  lost  beyond  recall. 

It  is,  however,  perfectly  conceivable 
that  if  a  prince  with  a  genius  for 
governing  arose,  the  Royalist  cause 
might  experience  a  revival  which 
would  surpass  all  expectation.  Even 
a  prince  who  was  merely  active  and 
courageous,  or  possessed  that  personal 
magnetism  which  plucks  allegiance 


460 


The  French  Royalists. 


from  men's  hearts,  might  become  a 
mighty  power.  And  why,  it  is  not 
very  difficult  to  see. 

The  Republic,  it  is  true,  seems  to- 
day to  stand  as  firm  as  ever,  and  no 
one  would  dare  to  speak  of  its  de- 
struction as  a  probable  event.  For  it 
has  been  successful  to  a  degree  that 
its  heartiest  well-wishers  could  have 
hardly  hoped  for,  and  much  more  than 
iljs  enemies  desired.  For,  as  history 
unfolds  itself,  it  is  becoming  more  and 
more  apparent  that  Prince  Bismarck 
wished  France  to  be  republican  because 
he  wished  her  to  be  weak.  M.  Thiers 
once  remarked  that  a  Republic  was  the 
form  of  government  which  divided 
Frenchmen  least,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  he  was  right.  His  words 
were  true  when  they  were  spoken,  and 
they  have  not  lost  their  truth  to-day. 
That  is  the  prime  reason  why  the 
Republic  has  succeeded ;  for  beneath 
its  rule  political  asperities  have  been 
wonderfully  softened.  Even  Jules 
Ferry,  once  the  best  hated  man  in 
France,  has  his  statue.  The  Republic 
is  no  longer  regarded  on  the  one 
band  as  a  heresy,  or  on  the  other  hand 
as  a  creed,  and  if  it  has  awakened  no 
enthusiasm,  it  has  at  least  been  quietly 
accepted.  It  has  preserved  peace,  es- 
tablished order,  and  combated 
Boulangism ;  and  if  the  people  have 
not  grown  rich,  they  have  at  least 
been  able  to  prove  their  wonderful 
recuperative  power.  It  has  thrown 
open  careers  to  clever  men  in  a  way 
which  was  never  known  in  France 
before.  The  President,  M.  Faure,  is 
a  living  example  of  the  fact  that  in 
France  there  is  no  place  to  which  the 
humblest  may  not  rise  ;  and  so,  while 
he  lived,  was  the  lamented  M.  Burdeau, 
who  was  born  in  the  cottage  of  a 
lowly  artisan,  and  rising  step  by  step, 
died  in  office  as  the  President  of  the 
Chamber.  These  are  facts  of  which 
the  Republic  may  be  proud.  On  the 
other  hand  it  has  shown  some  grievous 


faults.  It  has  been  unjust,  not 
to  say  cruelly  oppressive,  to  the 
Church  and  all  religious  orders  ;  it  has 
been  terribly  expensive  ;  by  its  absurd 
commercial  regulations  it  has  made  its 
great  colonies  a  burden  to  the  coun- 
try ;  it  has  been  deeply  tainted  with 
corruption,  and  it  has  used  up  its 
public  men  at  such  a  pace  that  one 
can  only  wonder  that  men  of  the 
calibre  of  which  Ministers  are  made 
can  so  easily  be  found.  It  has  been 
said  that  in  politics  there  is  no  resur- 
rection, and  in  France  certainly  many 
sink  to  rise  no  more.  Ministerial 
changes  have  been  so  rapid  that  any- 
thing like  continuity  of  policy  has 
been  a  sheer  impossibility.  It  is  said 
that,  since  the  fall  of  M.  Freycinet  in 
1893,  no  less  than  fifty  men  have  held 
offices  of  ministerial  rank.  In  conse- 
quence the  pessimists  have  warned  us 
almost  yearly  that  the  Republic  has 
showed  signs  of  tottering  to  its  fall ; 
but  it  has  withstood  so  many  shocks 
that  it  seems  as  if  there  was  hardly 
anything  which  it  is  not  able  to 
survive.  There  are  however  elements 
of  disturbance  which  may  some  day 
bring  about  the  result  so  long  deferred. 
If  M.  Thiers  has  been  reported  truly, 
he  must  have  been  one  of  the  most 
sagacious  Frenchmen  of  his  day,  and 
of  all  his  wise  remarks,  the  saying 
that  the  Republic  would  be  con- 
servative or  cease  to  exist,  was  perhaps 
the  wisest  of  them  all.  In  media 
tutissimus  ibis,  that  was  the  advice 
which  he  gave  to  the  Republic ;  and 
if  there  is  one  thing  more  certain  than 
another  it  is  this,  that  from  the  day 
when  the  Republic  begins  to  seriously 
alarm  the  conservative  feelings  of  the 
country,  the  end  will  be  in  sight. 
Nobody  can  doubt  that  the  Republic 
is  growing  less  conservative.  The 
Radicals  and  Socialists  are  sensibly 
increasing  ;  at  every  general  election 
they  win  more  votes,  and  return  more 
successful  candidates  to  the  Chamber, 


The  Frerteh  Eoyalists. 


461 


where  the  Moderates,  who  have  lost 
many  of  their  leaders,  are  growing 
proportionately  weaker.  Moreover 
within  the  last  twelve  months  for 
the  first  time  within  the  history 
of  the  Republic  the  system 
upon  which  Ministries  have  been 
formed  has  broken  down  ;  the  system, 
that  is  to  say,  of  Republican  concen- 
tration, under  which  moderate 
Liberals  and  Conservatives  were 
enabled  to  combine.  Both  in  theory 
and  practice  the  plan  was  opportunist, 
and  though  it  was  not  very  brilliant, 
it  worked  tolerably  well.  At  last, 
however,  the  President  was  compelled 
to  form  a  purely  Radical  Ministry, 
with  M.  Bourgeois  at  its  head  ;  and  the 
result  has  been  what  might  have  been 
foreseen.  The  new  Ministers  by  their 
financial  proposals  raised  such  a  storm 
of  opposition,  that  a  grave  crisis  was 
believed  to  be  impending.  The 
Senate  refused  to  give  the  Ministers 
the  votes  of  credit  they  demanded, 
and  as  M.  Bourgeois  was  supported 
by  the  Chamber,  he  saw  no  reason 
to  resign.  A  solution  was  ultimately 
found  in  an  unexpected  and  some- 
what humiliating  way.  The  Foreign 
Minister,  M.  Berthelot,  annoyed  the 
Russian  Government  by  some  in- 
discreet disclosures,  and  the  Russian 
Chancellor,  with  his  instinctive  dread 
of  Radicalism,  politely  conveyed  an 
intimation  that  the  Bourgeois  Cabinet 
must  go.  An  alliance  with  a  Radical 
Republic  was  more  than  Russia  could 
endure  :  and  as  France  valued  the 
alliance,  M.  Bourgeois  had  no  option 
but  to  yield.  There  is  no  other  ex- 
planation to  account  for  his  precipitate 
retreat  from  a  position  which  he  had 
so  stubbornly  maintained.  The  op- 
portunist plan  is  now  being  tried 
again,  but  how  long  it  will  last  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  Russian  interven- 
tion cannot  be  always  looked  for,  and 
the  next  Radical  Ministry  may  be  a 
serious  source  of  trouble. 


Moreover  the  Radicals  have  at- 
tacked the  moderate  Republicans  in 
the  very  quarter  where  they  are  most 
easily  alarmed.  Property,  which  to 
the  thrifty  Frenchman  is  -almost  a 
sacred  institution,  is  being  threatened. 
The  Republic  must  have  money  to 
defray  its  ever  growing  charges,  and 
to  find  money  it  must  enlarge  the 
area  of  taxation.  Of  all  domes- 
tic questions,  therefore,  the  ques- 
tion of  finance  is  the  one  which 
iri  France  most  presses  for  solution. 
The  Radical  party  propose  to  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  in  a  somewhat  drastic 
fashion  ;  that  is  to  say  by  the  impo- 
sition of  a  graduated  income-tax  upon 
a  sliding  scale.  This  proposal  (the 
impot  global  or  progressif,  to  give  it 
its  proper  designation)  is  regarded  by 
the  Moderates  with  horror  and  alarm  ; 
and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they 
have  reason  for  their  fears.  Such  a 
tax  would  be  inquisitorial,  and  that  is 
a  thing  which  the  ordinary  Frenchman 
regards  with  a  kind  of  righteous  in- 
dignation. But  this  is  by  no  means 
the  chief  objection ;  it  is  thought 
that  the  tax  very  easily  might  be, 
and  with  the  Radicals  in  power  cer- 
tainly would  be,  turned  into  an  engine 
of  oppression.  Nor  can  we  be  sur- 
prised at  this  belief  when  we  remember 
that  the  Socialists  have  stigmatised 
property  as  theft,  and  have  promised, 
so  soon  as  they  are  able,  to  tax  all 
unearned  incomes  to  extinction.  They 
might  indeed  stop  short  of  this,  but 
in  their  hands  a  progressive  income- 
tax  would  probably  be  cruelly  op- 
pressive. Here,  then,  is  the  issue 
clearly  cut  and  well  defined,  between 
the  Moderates  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  Radicals  on  the  other  ;  the  little 
rift  which  may  in  time  become  the 
yawning  chasm,  the  rock  on  which 
the  Republic  may  ultimately  split 
It  is  no  wonder  that  the  Moderates 
are  becoming  uneasy  in  their  minds, 
and  are  openly  debating  how  to  meet 


462 


The  French  Royalists. 


the  indisputable   fact  that    they    are 
losing    strength,    while    the    Radicals 
are     gaining     it.        It     is    becoming 
daily    more     apparent,    as    the    more 
thoughtful  of   the  moderate  Republi- 
cans are   careful    to   point   out,    that 
their    policy    must     be    not    merely 
negative   and  critical,  but  positive  as 
well.     And  that  a  large  field  of  useful 
legislation  is  still   open   to    the    con- 
servative   Republic,   an    able    French 
writer    has   very   clearly  shown.      To 
begin  with,  an  alternative  measure  of 
taxation,  instead  of  the  dreaded  impot 
global,   must     somehow     be    devised. 
Then,  among  other  things,  it   is   sug- 
gested that   some  enlargement  of   the 
law    of    association    is    urgently    re- 
quired.  In  this  matter  the  French  have 
not  the   freedom  which  we  possess  in 
England.     Up    till    the    year    1867 
liberty  of   association  did  not  exist  in 
France    at    all.      In    that    year    com- 
mercial companies  were  permitted  to 
be  formed  without  permission,  and  by 
a  law   of   1884  members  of  the  same 
profession   or   trade  are  free  to  form 
any    union    or     society    they    please. 
But   with   these   two  exceptions  such 
liberty  is  not  allowed,  as  the  religious 
orders   have   discovered  to  their  cost. 
Then   again  it  is  suggested,  and  with 
very  good  reason,  that  some  decentral- 
isation  of  government  might    advan- 
tageously   be    made.     The    power    of 
the  central  French  executive  is  enor- 
mous, and  is  a  fact  which,  in  consider- 
ing  French   affairs,   is  of  capital  im- 
portance, and  gives  to  Paris  a  position 
out  of   all   proportion  to  her  size  and 
population.       It    is    in     Paris     that 
plots   are    planned  and  hatched,  and 
when  she   is  bent   on  revolution  the 
rest  of  France  is  bound  to  follow.     We 
know,  for  instance,  from  De  Tocque- 
ville  that  in  1848  Paris  was  absolutely 
hated    by    the    provinces ;     and     the 
single    fact    that    the    streets  of    the 
capital  were  illuminated  on  the  news 
of    the    disaster    of    Sedan,    in    itself 


contains  a  world  of  meaning.  To 
give  the  provinces  the  weight  and 
position  they  deserve  would,  therefore, 
be  a  conservative  measure  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  term.  We  have  alluded 
to  these  suggestions,  not  so  much 
because  they  are  important  in  them- 
selves, but  because  of  the  significance 
of  the  motives  with  which  they  have 
been  made.  They  are  signs  and 
symptoms  of  the  fact  that  the  Moder- 
ates have  reluctantly  acknowledged 
that  their  cause  is  not  progressing, 
and  that  they  will  have  to  make  a 
serious  effort  if  affairs  are  not  to  tend 
down  the  revolutionary  plane.  That 
such  a  descent  in  France  is  easy, 
no  one  with  the  slightest  knowledge 
of  her  history  will  need  to  be  told. 

But  though   the   hour  has  not  yet 
come,   it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
the  man  has  not  arrived.      The  Duke 
of   Orleans  (Philippe   the  Seventh,  as 
he  claims  of   right  to  be)  is  a  man  of 
whom  not  much  is  known ;  but  from 
what   is  known   it  is  evident  that  he 
is     a    man    of    vigorous    personality. 
He   made,  as   one  may  say,  his  first 
appearance    on    the    public    stage   by 
entering   France,   in   defiance   of    the 
law,     to     claim     enrolment     in     the 
army ;  and  as  a  piece  of  self-advertise- 
ment the  venture  was  most  successful. 
Again,   he    has    recently   acted    in    a 
manner  which  has  perhaps  hardly  re- 
ceived the  attention  it  deserves.     It  so 
happened  that  a  seat  in  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  fell  vacant.   The  constituency 
was  rural,  and  Royalist  in  sympathy, 
and  the   Duke  conceived   the    notion 
of    offering    himself    as    a    candidate. 
As   he   was  an   exile   the   votes    cast 
for  him  would  of  course  be  null  and 
void,   but    the    incident   would    serve 
as  a  Royalist  demonstration.     At  this 
proposal  the  Royalist  Committee  were 
exceedingly  indignant ;  it  appeared  to 
them  to  be  an  unworthy  degradation. 
Thereupon  the  Duke  addressed  to  the 
President  of  the  Committee  a  letter 


The  Freiich  Eoyalists. 


463 


which  is  not  only  very  striking  in  itself, 
but  may  turn  out  some  day  to  be  of  con- 
siderable historical  importance.  "  If 
you  think,"  he  wrote,  "  that  the  French 
Monarchy  was  constructed  in  the  past, 
and  can  be  reconstructed  in  the  future, 
by  the  affectation  of  inert  and  ex- 
pectant dignity  standing  motionless 
on  distant  shores  because  of  the  great- 
ness of  its  traditions,  and  deeming 
itself  too  lofty  to  mix  with  men  and 
.things,  we  are  not  of  one  mind. 
Those  from  whom  I  descend  con- 
fronted many  struggles  and  many 
risks  other  than  those  at  which  your 
zeal  takes  alarm.  I  remain  the  judge 
of  royal  dignity,  and  I  hold  that  it 
would  not  be  impaired,  far  from  it, 
if,  in  some  French  village,  even  were 
it  the  humblest,  for  all  alike  are  dear 
to  me,  the  voice  of  the  electors  chose 
me  to  serve  my  country  in  accordance 
with  the  example  set  by  my  an- 
cestors." Then  in  the  same  strain  he 
goes  on  to  declare  his  conviction  that, 
if  he  thought  otherwise,  he  would 
display  "  a  vain  distrust  of  universal 
suffrage,"  and  "  justify  the  absurd 
legend  of  an  alleged  incompatibility 
between  monarchical  and  elective 
right."  In  conclusion  he  commends 
the  action  of  his  cousin,  Prince  Henry 
of  Orleans,  the  distinguished  traveller 
and  geographer,  who  did  not  disdain 
to  receive  from  the  hands  of  the 
Republic  the  decoration  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour ;  and,  indeed,  the 
distinction  was  as  graciously  offered 
on  the  one  side  as  it  was  graciously 
accepted  on  the  other.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  Duke  is  in  the 
right.  Legitimism  is  a  dead  and 
buried  creed,  and  the  Comte  de  Cham- 
bord  helped  to  heap  the  earth  upon 
its  coffin.  The  time  has  long  gone 
by  when  thousands  of  swords  would 
have  leaped  from  their  scabbards  out 
of  a  sentimental  preference  for  a 
family  or  a  man.  Some  of  the  Le- 
gitimists, it  is  true,  now  support  the 


claim  of  the  Spanish  Bourbons ;  but 
the  party,  though  as  fanatical  as  all 
champions  of  impossible  loyalties,  is 
too  insignificant  in  numbers  to  be 
taken  seriously.  Nor  did  the  Duke 
confine  himself  to  words.  He  per- 
severed in  his  opinion  in  the  face  of 
the  determined  opposition  of  the 
Royalist  Committee,  and  the  conflict 
was  so  violent  that  the  President  of 
the  Committee,  the  Duke  d'Audriffret- 
Pasquier,  sent  in  his  resignation.  It 
is  evident  that  the  Duke  can  act  as 
well  as  think,  and,  if  need  be,  exert 
some  strength  of  will.  His  character 
and  quality  are  now  known  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  France,  and 
if  he  continues  by  his  bearing  to  con- 
firm a  good  impression,  he  may  some 
day  be  summoned  to  the  throne.  But 
he  will  be  sent  for  so  soon  as  he  is 
wanted,  and  not  a  moment  sooner ; 
and  only  then,  because  he  has  shown 
himself  to  be  worthy  of  the  call. 
He  must  at  least  be  believed  to 
be,  as  the  Emperor  Galba  was  be- 
lieved to  be,  a  man  capable  of  ruling, 
capnx  imperii.  It  will  be  in  this 
way,  and  not,  as  some  Royalists 
seem  to  think,  by  sentimental  vapour- 
ing about  the  white  flag  and  the 
lilies,  that  the  Monarchy  will  be 
restored.  If  France  should  want  a 
saviour  she  will  take  one,  whether 
he  is  of  royal  birth  or  not ;  even 
Boulanger,  who  was  a  man  of  no 
great  talents,  was  within  measurable 
distance  of  overturning  the  Republic. 
But  other  things  being  equal,  an 
Orleanist  Prince  would  be  preferred, 
for  the  Orleanists  have  been  patriotic 
Frenchmen,  and  their  services  to 
France  have  been  neither  few  nor 
small.  Nor  would  the  transition  from 
the  Republic  to  Orleanism  be  so  abrupt 
as  might  appear  ;  for  a  Constitutional 
king  is  but  a  hereditary  president, 
and  a  Republic  is  only  constitutional 
kingship  put  into  commission.  The 
Orleanists,  indeed,  have  accepted  the 


464 


The  French  Eoyalists. 


spirit  of  the  Revolution  to  the  full ; 
as  King  Louis  Philippe  showed,  when 
he  sent  his  sons  to  school  at  the 
College  Henri  Quatre,  to  be  brought 
up  with  the  children  of  the  bourgeois. 
Therefore  in  exchanging  the  Republic 
for  an  Orleanist  king,  there  would 
be  little  breach  of  continuity  with  the 
spirit  of  the  past.  Yet  if  such  a 
change  be  made,  it  will  almost  cer- 
tainly come  on  the  morrow  of  some 
great  domestic  trouble  or  some  great 
defeat  in  arms,  and  those  are  events 
which  no  friend  to  France,  whatever 
his  political  opinions,  can  contemplate 
unmoved.  It  will  probably  be  an  un- 
happy day  for  Europe  when  Philippe 
the  Seventh  mounts  the  throne  of 
France ;  but  his  restoration  is  not  the 
impossible  event  that  many  might 
suppose.  Should  he  prove  himself  a 
really  strong  man,  and  should  the 
revolutionary  party  some  day,  as  it 
might,  gain  the  upper  hand,  then 
the  restoration  may  be  looked  for. 
M.  Guizot  used  to  say  that  there 
was  no  folly  for  which  his  country- 
men were  not  ready,  provided  only 
it  was  a  military  folly.  It  is  to  be 
feared  that  they  are  sometimes  ready 
for  other  follies  as  well,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  experience  of  the  past. 
Deep  down  in  every  Frenchman's 


heart  is  a  love  of  pageantry  and  show  ; 
and  when,  to  use  Lamartine's  phrase, 
France  becomes  intensely  bored,  then 
prudence  is  thrown  wildly  to  the 
winds.  It  is  whispered  that  the  state 
of  boredom  has  once  again  been 
reached,  and  that  there  are  symptoms 
of  disquiet  and  restlessness  abroad, 
though  whether  they  arise  from  sheer 
weariness  of  the  rule  of  the  Respect- 
ables, or  from  restricted  trade,  or 
from  the  very  serious  evil  of  a 
dwindling  population,  probably  no 
man  would  pretend  to  say.  It  will 
be  when  folly  turns  into  disaster 
that  the  Duke  of  Orleans  will  have 
his  chance.  But  lie  will  have  to 
convince  France  that  lie  is  the  man 
she  wants ;  a  thing  which,  for  an 
exile  precluded  from  active  interests 
at  home,  is  very  hard  to  do.  That 
is  a  fact  which  will  tell  heavily 
against  him,  but  in  a  country  where 
everything  is  possible,  it  may  be 
overcome.  Louis  Napoleon  escaped 
as  a  prisoner  from  a  fortress,  yet 
he  lived  to  found  the  Second  Em- 
pire ;  and  Louis  Philippe  once  taught 
French  as  an  usher  in  a  school. 
When  the  Duke  of  Orleans  recalls 
to  mind  such  freaks  of  fate  as  these, 
he  need  not  utterly  despair. 


465 


THE  SECRET  OF  SAINT  FLOREL. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

CHRISTMAS  had  come  and  gone ;  a 
new  year   had   dawned,  Saint  Valen- 
tine's day  was   past,  and   the   earliest 
'March    violets    had    begun    to     open 
their  tender  purple  folds  and  to  shed 
their    delicate     fragrance     upon     the 
more  genial  air,  when  Phoebe  fell  ill. 
No  active   malady  had  attacked  her, 
and  the  doctor  could  give  no  actual 
name     to     the     complaint,      though, 
practical  man  that  he  was,  he  called 
it    heart-ache,  when    he   was   driving 
away  and   had  time   to   reflect    upon 
the  case.      He  had  prescribed  change 
of    air  and  tonics  ;  every   one  knows 
the  formula  pursued  when  the  mental 
powers  have  for  a  time  impaired  the 
physical.      The  girl  worked  and  read 
and  walked  as  usual  ;  that  is  to  say, 
she  passed  the  accustomed  number  of 
hours  in  those  occupations,  but  little 
seemed    to    come    of    it    all.      Never, 
since  the  day  she  had  parted  with  her 
lover  after  their  meeting  in  the  wood 
under   the   great  oak,  had  she  heard 
any  tidings  whatever  of  him,  neither 
word,  nor  letter,  nor  sign.      She  bore 
herself  bravely,  talked  as  usual  to  her 
cousin  during  their  daily  intercourse, 
and,     except     involuntarily     by    her 
changed  appearance,  betrayed  no  sign 
of  her  suffering.     Mason,  for  his  part, 
was     gentle,     courteous,      decorously 
attentive,     unobtrusively    thoughtful. 
He   had    learned    a    lesson    from    his 
former    failure    at    propitiation,    and 
now     proceeded     very     slowly     and 
cautiously   to    put   himself  into  more 
favour  with  the  girl. 

And    Phoebe,   though   at    first    she 
hardened  her  heart,  could  not  but  be 
No.  444. — VOL.  LXXIV. 


touched,  as  clay  after  day,  and  week 
after  week,  some  trifling  circumstance 
that  might  add  to  her  pleasure  or  com- 
fort was  brought  about  in  such  a  way 
that  she  hardly  was  sure  to  whom  to 
ascribe  it,  although  she  had  strong 
suspicions.  Her  original  attitude 
with  regard  to  the  possibility  of 
Mason  as  a  husband  had  undergone 
no  modification  whatever,  although 
his  strange  self-confidence  and  conceit 
pi-evented  him  from  recognising  this ; 
but  nevertheless,  during  those  dreary 
days  and  weeks  of  anxiety  and  sus- 
pense, she  began  to  look  upon  her 
cousin  as  anxious,  while  suspecting 
her  secret,  to  testify  his  sympathy  in 
as  unobtrusive  a  manner  as  possible. 
If  she  had  only  known  that  safely 
locked  away  in  Mason's  despatch-box 
was  a  certain  newspaper  cutting 
bearing  date  two  days  after  her 
lover's  departure,  her  feelings  would 
have  undergone  some  modification. 
The  paragraph  ran  as  follows  : — 

This  morning  an  accident  occurred,  on 
the  London  Brighton  and  South  Coast 
Railway,  at  Stopford  Junction,  where  the 
daily  express  to  town  came  into  collision 
with  the  down  train  to  Hardingbridge, 
both  trains  running  at  the  time  at  a  high 
rate  of  speed.  The  driver  of  the  express, 
together  with  three  third-class  passengers, 
was  killed  on  the  spot,  while  the  stoker 
and  several  others  received  severe  injuries. 
Some  of  the  travellers,  however,  escaped 
with  a  considerable  shaking,  and  these 
were  shortly  able  to  proceed  on  their  way 
in  the  relief  train,  which  was  at  once  for- 
warded to  the  scene  of  the  disaster.  The 
same  train  also  conveyed  the  injured  to  the 
Hardingbridge  hospital,  where  skilled 
surgeons  were  waiting  their  arrival.  It  is 
feared  that  there  is  little  chance  of  the 
survival  of  one,  at  any  rate,  among  the 
sufferers — a  first-class  passenger,  whose 

H    H 


466 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


name  has  since  been  ascertained  to  be 
Strong.  This  gentlemen  has  received  such 
severe  injuries  to  the  head,  that  only 
vague  hopes  are  entertained  of  his  re- 
covery. 

This  paragraph,  which  he  had  care- 
fully cut  out  of  such  papers  as  were 
taken  at  Denehurst,  afforded  Mason 
much  food  for  reflection  during  the 
winter.  The  game,  he  felt,  was  in  his 
hands ;  if  he  only  played  it  skilfully 
enough  he  must  win.  The  man  would 
probably  die,  although  he  was  fain 
to  acknowledge  that  he  had  seen  no 
report  of  his  decease ;  or,  if  he  did  not 
die,  his  recovery  must  in  any  case  be 
slow,  and  in  all  probability  would  be 
imperfect.  He,  Mason,  must  therefore 
watch  carefully  lest  anything  should 
mar  Anthony's  chances,  or  rather  his 
own  scheme  for  revenge  upon  the 
woman  who  had  scorned  him.  One 
thing,  however,  puzzled  him.  Phoebe, 
he  was  sure,  could  not  well  receive 
any  letters  without  his  knowledge,  and 
yet  he  felt  unable  to  account  for  the 
fact  that  no  attempt  to  communicate 
with  her  had  been  made.  Had  Hugh 
Strong  really  died,  or  was  he  ridding 
himself  of  the  girl  by  persistent  silence  ? 
That  Phoebe  felt  her  position  acutely 
there  was  no  manner  of  doubt ;  but, 
though  he  had  a  shrewd  suspicion  that 
the  contents  of  that  newspaper  slip 
would  have  given  her  great  relief, 
Mason  was  not  the  sort  of  man  to 
show  it.  His  own  will  had  become 
to  him  a  dominating  influence,  to  which 
every  one  who  stood  in  the  way  of  his 
desires  must  sooner  or  later  be  made 
to  yield  if  possible.  Pale  cheeks, 
weary  eyes,  and  listlessness  had  no 
other  effect  upon  him  than  a  sensation 
that  they  were  not  so  pleasing  as  their 
reverse,  but  would  probably  shortly 
disappear  with  the  soothing  effects  of 
time. 

As  they  remained  obstinately  per- 
sistent, however,  he  thought  fit  to  call 
in  a  doctor,  whose  counsel  concerning 


change  of  air  he  determined  to  follow. 
Phoebe  made  no  objection ;  all  places 
seemed  alike  to  her  now,  and  submis- 
sion to  advice  was,  she  felt,  preferable 
to  stating  an  opinion  of  her  own. 
The  end  of  March,  therefore,  saw  her 
safely  established  for  a  month  in  a 
tiny  fishing-village  on  the  south  coast, 
with  the  rigid  old  housekeeper  for 
companion  and  chaperone. 

Three  days  after  her  departure 
Mason  received  a  letter,  which  made 
him  congratulate  himself  upon  her 
absence.  It  was  from  James  Bryant, 
and  to  the  following  effect :  — 

DEAR  MR.  SAWBRIDGE, — Circumstances 
which  have  arisen  since  I  last  saw  you, 
make  it  imperative  that  I  should  have  an 
interview  with  you  without  delay.  May 
I  count  upon  being  able  to  see  you  some 
day  early  next  week,  if  I  run  down  for 
a  night  ?  Very  truly  yours, 

JAMES  BRYANT. 

When  he  read  this  Mason  reflected  for 
awhile.  He  could  easily  frame  a  civil  ex- 
cuse for  putting  off  the  proposed  visit, 
or  suggesting  that  it  would  be  more 
advisable  to  communicate  by  letter ; 
but,  after  all,  what  would  be  gained 
by  such  a  course  1  He  guessed  that 
Bryant  wished  to  speak  of  his  friend's 
relation  to  Phoebe  ;  but  that  young 
lady  was  safely  away  and  need  know 
nothing  of  the  matter.  Besides,  the 
more  a  mariner  knows  of  the  dangerous 
region  through  which  he  is  steering, 
the  more  chance  there  is  of  his  reach- 
ing his  ultimate  haven.  Mason  was 
obliged  to  acknowledge  a  certain  un- 
welcome ignorance  of  details  in  the 
present  matter,  which  he  would  fain 
have  dispelled.  He  therefore  wrote 
to  James  Bryant,  cordially  inviting 
him  to  the  proposed  interview,  and 
offering  him  the  hospitality  of  Dene- 
hurst  during  his  visit,  an  offer  which 
was  accepted. 

"  I  should  preface  what  I  am  going 
to  say,  Mr.  Sawbridge,"  observed 
Bryant,  after  dinner,  on  the  night  of 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


467 


his  arrival,  "  by  telling  you  that  I  am 
here  entirely  upon  my  own  responsi- 
bility, to  do  justice  to  my  poor  friend, 
Hugh  Strong." 

"  Is  he  still  unwell,  then  1 "  inquired 
Mason.  "  I  was  sorry  to  see  he  had 
been  injured  in  a  railway  accident." 

"  For  several  weeks  his  recovery  was 
very  doubtful,"  said  Bryant,  "but  he 
gradually  struggled  back  to  life  and, 
I  am  glad  to  say,  almost  complete 
physical  health.  His  accident,  how- 
ever, has  had  one  very  sad  result ;  all 
memory  of  a  certain  period  of  his  life 
has  completely  gone.  From  the  time 
he  and  I  left  England,  on  that  tour 
which  ended  at  Reunion,  up  to  the 
moment  of  the  accident  his  mind  is 
a  complete  blank." 

"  I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  it,  I  am 
sure,"  observed  Mason,  politely,  reflect- 
ing at  the  same  time  that,  for  himself, 
it  was  about  the*  luckiest  thing  that 
could  have  happened.  "  But  I  don't 
exactly  see  what  that  has  to  do  with 
me,  or  with  your  doing  Mr.  Strong 
justice." 

' '  Strictly  speaking, "  returned  Bryant, 
"  it  has  not  so  much  to  do  with  you  as 
with  Miss  Thayne,  who  I  notice  did 
not  join  us  at  dinner." 

"  My  cousin  is  away  from  home  just 
at  present." 

"  Ah  !  I  am  sorry,  though  perhaps 
she  might  have  rather  resented  the 
interference  of  a  stranger  in  such  a 
delicate  matter." 

"  But,  my  dear  sir,  what  is  the 
point  in  question?  Pray,  enlighten 
me.  I  assure  you,  you  raise  my 
curiosity  in  no  small  degree,"  said 
Mason,  with  an  eager  interest  which 
was  not  altogether  assumed. 

"The  truth  is,  I  have  reason  to 
believe, — in  fact  I  was  sufficiently  in 
my  friend's  confidence  to  be  made 
aware — that  he  greatly  admired  your 
ward,  Miss  Thayne."  Mason  bowed, 
and  remained  silent,  in  order  that  the 
other  might  proceed.  "  I  know  that 


he  had  every  intention  of  proposing  to 
her,"  went  on  Bryant. 

"  Did  he  do  so  1 "  asked  Mason  non- 
chalantly. 

"  Unfortunately,  that  is  a  question 
I  cannot  answer,"  answered  the  other. 
"  I  went  away  myself  on  the  day 
before  my  friend's  sudden  departure, 
and  heard  from  his  people  in  town 
that  he  had  been  summoned  home  by 
telegram.  What  may  have  happened 
during  my  absence  I  do  not  know ; 
but  I  do  know  that  when  last  I  saw 
Mr.  Strong,  the  day  before  the  acci- 
dent, he  told  me  he  intended  to  make 
an  opportunity  of  speaking  to  Miss 
Thayne  as  soon  as  possible." 

"  He  certainly  did  not  make  any 
opportunity  of  speaking  to  me  about 
it,"  observed  Mason.  "  Neither  have 
I  been  honoured  by  my  cousin  with 
any  confidence  on  the  subject.  If  Mr. 
Strong  had  proposed  to  Miss  Thayne, 
I  presume  he  would,  so  soon  as  pos- 
sible, have  communicated  with  me 
also." 

"  He  probably  intended  to  do  so, 
but  was  prevented  by  the  unexpected 
telegram,"  said  Bryant.  "  He  was 
not  at  all  the  sort  of  man  to  do  any- 
thing in  a  hole  and  corner  fashion." 

"  Quite  so,  quite  so,  "returned  Mason; 
"  I  understand  you  perfectly.  Had 
Mr.  Strong  any  idea  of  Miss  Thayne's 
feelings  towards  himself  1  I,  per- 
sonally," he  continued,  with  a  cynical 
smile  upon  his  thin-lipped  mouth,  "  I, 
personally,  have  had  little  experience 
in  such  matters,  but  I  have  been  led 
to  believe  that  they  are  frequently 
attended  with  some  degree  of  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  lady's  answer.  Even 
admitting  that  Mr.  Strong  had  pro- 
posed to  my  cousin,  supposing  that  her 
answer  had  been  in  the  negative, 
neither  of  them  would  have  been 
inclined  to  mention  the  matter.  And 
I  may  add  that  I  consider  their  silence 
the  strongest  possible  proof  in  support 
of  my  theory." 

H   H    2 


468 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


Now  it  happened  that  James  Bryant 
had  in  his  pocket  a  silent  witness 
which  testified  eloquently  enough  to 
the  fact  that  the  speaker  was  either 
trying  to  deceive  or  being  deceived 
himself.  Not  being  a  suspicious 
person,  and  having  naturally  enough 
no  idea  that  his  host  had  any  motive 
for  deception,  he  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  Sawbridge  was  quite  as  much 
in  the  dark  as  he  pretended  to  be. 

"Miss  Thayne, — pray  excuse  my 
referring  to  such  a  thing — but  Miss 
Thayne  was,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  last 
person  who  would  have  made  ad- 
vances again  after  such  a  refusal  1  " 

"  Most  certainly,  sir,"  replied  the 
hunchback  angrily ;  "  the  very  last 
person." 

"  And  yet,  since  the  accident,  she 
has  written  to  Mr.  Strong  at  his  club," 
observed  Bryant,  looking  closely  at 
the  other  as  he  spoke,  to  note  the 
effect  of  his  words.  "That  hardly 
seems  to  fit  in  with  your  theory  of 
rejection,  Mr.  Sawbridge." 

Mason  was  genuinely  surprised, 
that  was  certain;  but  Bryant  felt 
puzzled  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
strange  look  which  crossed  his  face 
for  an  instant.  Was  it  fright  or 
triumph  1 

"Are  you  sure1?"  he  questioned 
with  suppressed  eagerness.  "  Have 
you  seen  the  letter  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  have,"  answered  Bryant 
shortly,  changing  his  intention  of  be- 
traying the  fact  that  it  was  in  his 
pocket. 

"  Ah,  and  the  contents  1 "  asked 
Mason. 

"  My  dear  sir,"  answered  the  other 
somewhat  stiffly,  "  I  have,  as  I  told 
you,  seen  the  letter,  but  not  being  the 
person  for  whom  it  is  intended,  it  did 
not  enter  my  head  to  read  it.  The 
seal  is  still  unbroken,  and,  I  may  add, 
will  remain  so." 

"  But  surely,  my  dear  Mr.  Bryant, 
in  such  painful  circumstances  it  would 


be  the  best  course  to  return  the  letter 
to  my  cousin." 

"  No,"  answered  Bryant  decidedly  ; 
"  no,  I  do  not  think  so.  Although 
the  concussion  of  the  brain  from 
which  my  friend  suffered  was  very 
severe,  still  the  doctors  tell  me  that 
in  similar  cases  men  have  been  known 
to  recover  all  their  powers  of  memory, 
though  at  an  uncertain  interval. 
Grave  fears  must  be  entertained,  yet 
there  is  still  hope.  Up  to  the  present 
all  attempts  to  recall  the  lost  period 
to  Mr.  Strong  have  been  strictly  for- 
bidden ;  but  after  a  time,  when  travel 
and  change  have  restored  him  some- 
what, such  attempts  may  be  made,  or 
remembrance  may  re-assert  itself  spon- 
taneously and  gradually.  When  that 
time  comes  he  will  open  the  letter 
himself." 

"  But — excuse  me,  I  am  quite  taken 
by  surprise,"  said  Mason;  "are  you 
sure  that  the  letter  in  question  was 
written  by  my  cousin  1 " 

"  It  is  in  a  lady's  hand,  and  posted 
from  here,"  answered  Bryant. 

"  There  are,  however,  other  females 
in  this  neighbourhood,"  insinuated 
Mason,  "  and  your  friend  was  a  most 
attractive  young  fellow — 

"  Moreover  the  envelope  bears  your 
crest,"  continued  Bryant  quietly. 

"  Ah,  that  puts  the  matter  beyond 
a  doubt,"  answered  Mason.  "Well, 
you  may  possibly  be  wise  in  retaining 
the  document,  though  a  sealed  letter 
can  prove  nothing.  After  all  it  may 
have  been  some  trifling  matter  of 
books, — I  believe  Mr.  Strong  has 
previously  lent  books  to  my  cousin — 
or  something  of  that  kind  about  which 
she  was  writing ;  some  merely  formal 
matter,  you  understand.  But  now, 
my  dear  Mr.  Bryant,  that  all  this  has 
been  said  or  guessed,  may  I  ask  why 
you  found  it  necessary  or  at  any  rate, 
expedient,  to  come  and  discuss  the 
matter  with  me  1 " 

At  this  juncture  James  Bryant  felt 


The  Secret  of  Saint  FloreL 


469 


inclined  to  anathematise  a  rarely  in- 
dulged and  almost  Quixotic  vein  in 
his  character  which  had  impelled  him 
to  undertake  his  errand.  All  through 
the  anxious  and  critical  period  of 
Hugh's  illness  he  had  dwelt  upon  what 
Phoebe  must  be  thinking.  In  his  own 
mind  there  existed  little  doubt  that 
the  pair  were  engaged,  for  he  hardly 
thought  Hugh  in  any  danger  of  a 
refusal.  Unfortunately,  however, 
there  was  absolutely  nothing  to  prove 
that  this  was  the  case,  and  hence  a 
rather  delicate  point  arose.  If  Phoebe 
and  Hugh  were  affianced,  what  must 
she  not  think  of  the  long  silence 
during  his  illness  ?  If  not,  the  matter 
would  hardly  interest  her.  Either 
she  must  think  him  utterly  faithless 
and  heartless,  or  she  had  probably 
thought  little  or  nothing  about  him. 
The  letter  Bryant  considered  strong 
proof  in  favour  of  his  theory  of  an  en- 
gagement, but  on  the  other  hand,  as 
Sawbridge  had  suggested,  it  might  be 
merely  formal.  Twenty  times  he  had 
been  on  the  point  of  deciding  that  he 
had  better  open  it,  but  the  doctor's 
permission  to  speak  to  Hugh  of  recent 
events  so  soon  as  some  change  and 
travel  had  restored  him  to  health,  led 
him  to  defer  the  operation  till  his 
friend  could  open  the  letter  himself. 
It  might  prove  the  means  of  restoring 
the  missing  links  in  his  memory.  He 
was  anxious  that  Hugh's  reputation 
with  this  girl  should  not  suffer  un- 
justly, and  yet  he  hardly  knew  how 
to  bring  this  about. 

"Has  Miss  Thayne  talked  much 
of  this  accident  to  Mr.  Strong,  since 
his  departure  1  "  he  inquired  at  last. 
He  took  it  for  granted  that  Mason 
and  his  cousin  had  spoken  of  it 
together. 

"  I  have  not  heard  her  allude  to  it 
at  all,"  said  Mason,  with  the  strictest 
adherence  to  truth.  He  always  pre- 
ferred to  avoid  a  lie,  if  the  truth  could 
be  made  to  do  duty  instead. 


"  That  certainly  seems  strange," 
said  Bryant  thoughtfully. 

"  My  dear  sir,"  answered  the  hunch- 
back in  his  most  cordially  effusive 
manner,  "  I  am  beginning  to  appre- 
hend the  object  of  your  coming.  You 
feared,  no  doubt,  that  your  friend  was 
being  unjustly  thought  of.  The 
motive  does  your  kindliness  the  greatest 
credit,  but  I  assure  you,  it  is  needless. 
As  you  can  well  see,  the  subject  is  a 
somewhat  delicate  one  to  enter  upon 
with  a  young  girl ;  even  I,  I  confess, 
who  have  known  my  cousin  from 
childhood,  should  hesitate  before  al- 
luding to  it.  Any  allusion  to  it  by 
yourself  would  most  certainly,  as  you 
suggest,  be  unwelcome  to  Miss  Thayne 
from  a  comparative  stranger.  Per- 
haps we  had  better  leave  the  matter 
thus ;  indeed  I  do  not  at  present  see 
that  there  is  anything  else  to  do.  Of 
one  thing,  however,  I  trust  you  will 
remain  assured  ;  I  will  mention  this 
matter  to  my  cousin  the  moment  it 
appears  to  me  expedient  to  do  so." 

Bryant's  reflections  during  his 
journey  to  town  next  morning  were 
not  altogether  satisfactory,  for  they 
were  pervaded  by  the  possibility  that 
he  had  made  rather  a  fool  of  himself. 
"But  after  all,"  he  thought,  "I've 
done  all  I  can  do  now,  and  my  con- 
science is  clear.  I  only  hope  the  poor 
chap  will  soon  be  able  to  look  after 
his  own  affairs  again." 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

IT  is  curious  to  a  reflective  mind, 
if  it  chances  to  consider  the  matter, 
how  much  really  genuine  pity  and 
compassion  are  wasted  in  this  world 
not  only  by  the  gentle  and  humane, 
but  even  by  those  in  whose  mental 
soil  the  plant  called  charity  finds  but 
poor  nourishment.  A  man  dies  and 
we  straightway  cry  Poor  fellow ! 
oblivious  of  the  fact  that  his  earthly 


470 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


troubles  are  at  any  rate  over,  while 
those  of  his  weeping  relatives  are 
increased.  Perhaps  on  second 
thoughts  we  pity  them  too,  but  it 
is  usually  on  second  thoughts.  We 
read,  The  unfortunate  gentleman  was 
discovered  to  be  insane,  and  was  im- 
mediately removed  to  the  asylum,  and 
at  once  the  pulses  of  our  pity  are 
deeply  stirred  for  him.  Yet  it  is 
much  more  painful  to  his  friends  than 
to  himself,  for  he  probably,  all  un- 
conscious of  his  calamity,  is  en- 
joying an  imaginary  existence  in  some 
self-created  and  fantastic  atmosphere. 
His  relatives  must  hear  of  and  endure 
vagaries  that  afford  him  the  greatest 
pleasure ;  yet,  unless  he  was  the 
bread-winner,  we  do  not  pity  them 
nearly  so  much. 

In  the  same  way  those  who  had 
been  informed  of  the  unfortunate  gap 
in  memory  which  his  accident  had 
caused  to  Hugh  Strong,  felt  sincere, 
but  quite  needless  pity  for  that  young 
man,  when  once  more  re-established 
in  health  and  able  to  enjoy  life.  He 
was  utterly  and  serenely  unconscious 
of  his  own  deficiency,  and  his  family 
found  it  exceedingly  difficult  not 
to  overtax  his  recovering  brain 
by  allusion  to  events  which  had  passed 
during  his  period  of  oblivion.  His 
mother  despaired  of  ever  being  able 
to  speak  without  a  degree  of  hesitancy 
which  was  almost  a  stammer  ;  and  his 
six  sisters,  although,  like  English- 
women, they  fought  bravely  against 
feeling  their  unique  brother  in  any 
sense  a  burden,  were  yet  fain  to  con- 
fess to  a  feeling  of  relief  when  the 
doctor  ordered  foreign  travel  to  com- 
plete the  cure. 

Oddly  enough,  Hugh  himself,  when 
questioned  as  to  the  place  which  most 
attracted  him,  announced  his  intention 
of  visiting  the  island  of  Reunion  as 
being  new  ground ;  a  little  later  how- 
ever he  relinquished  this  project  in 
favour  of  inspecting  Madagascar  as 


less  explored.  Mrs.  Strong  felt  that 
this  resolve  on  her  son's  part  was  a 
direct  interposition  of  Providence. 
She  subscribed  to  a  mission  in  the 
African  island,  and  occasionally  read 
reports  on  the  subject  in  a  magazine. 
From  due  perusal  of  these  she  knew 
there  was  no  lack  of  churches  in 
Madagascar,  which  she  understood  to 
be  a  rather  populous  town,  and  after 
exhorting  Hugh  not  to  miss  at  any 
rate  one  service  every  Sunday,  she 
felt  resigned  and  even  joyful  at  his 
departure.  As  she  confided  to  a  lady 
of  her  acquaintance  on  the  afternoon 
he  left  home  :  "  If  a  young  man 
sticks  to  church  once  a  week,  my  dear, 
I  feel  that  he  can  never  go  far  wrong  ; 
and  as  Mr.  Bryant  is  not  accompanying 
Hugh,  I  should  have  felt  otherwise 
very  anxious  ;  "  which  reasoning,  how- 
ever creditable  to  the  maternal  in- 
stinct, was  perhaps  faulty  from  any 
other  point  of  view. 

On  a  certain  day,  then,  in  the  late 
summer  after  his  accident  Hugh 
Strong  found  himself  pacing  up  and 
down  the  platform  at  Victoria  Station, 
smoking  a  final  cigar  with  James 
Bryant,  who  had  declined  on  this  occa- 
sion to  be  allured  from  the  comforts  of 
Jermyn  Street  in  order  to  encounter 
the  horrors  of  barbarism  in  Mada 
gascar.  The  two  friends  walked  up 
and  down,  indulging  in  such  desultory 
conversation  as  smoking  would  admit 
of,  saying  little  and  meaning  a  good 
deal,  as  is  the  wont  of  Englishmen 
when  taking  leave  of  each  other. 
Bryant  was  the  more  pre-occupied  of 
the  two,  for  his  mind  was  much 
exercised  in  speculations  as  to  the 
probable  mental  effect  of  this  journey 
upon  his  friend.  He  wondered  also 
what  was  the  real  state  of  affairs 
between  him  and  Phoebe,  and  when  he 
might  safely  deliver  to  Hugh  that 
sealed  letter  addressed  in  a  feminine 
handwriting,  which  was  at  that 
moment  safely  locked  away  in  his  own 


The  Secret  o/  Saint  Florel. 


471 


despatch-box.  Once  or  twice  he  half 
wished  that  he  had  consented  to  join 
this  expedition,  and  yet  what  purpose 
could  that  have  served  1 

Time  and  tide,  however,  as  we 
know,  wait  for  no  man,  and  the 
Dover  train  being  dependent  on  the 
latter  did  not  wait  either.  After  due 
bustling  and  whistling  it  moved  slowly 
out  of  the  station  with  its  living 
freight,  some  members  of  which  would 
probably  be  shortly  dispersed  to  the 
four  corners  of  the  earth.  Hugh, 
with  a  light  heart  and  an  easy  con- 
science, put  on  a  travelling-cap  and 
settled  himself  in  a  corner  seat  to 
enjoy  the  perusal  of  the  evening 
papers,  which,  still  smelling  of  printer's 
ink,  lay  ready  by  his  side.  For  a  few 
minutes  he  watched  the  flying  houses 
and  hedges,  feeling  a  sense  of  exhilara- 
tion in  the  rapid  forward  motion  of 
the  train,  and  tke  consciousness  that 
he  was  fairly  off  to  fresh  woods  and 
pastures  new. 

And  how  different  it  might  all 
have  been  but  for  some  fatal  flaw  in 
the  delicate  mechanism  of  what  we 
call  the  brain  !  It  is  rather  alarming 
to  reflect  that  modern  surgery  can 
accurately  place  its  finger  upon  that 
particular  fraction  of  the  brain  which 
regulates  the  movement  of  the  thumb 
let  us  say,  or  the  left  great  toe.  What 
will  it  be  when  the  more  abstract 
qualities  are  mapped  out  as  accurately 
upon  the  under  surface  of  the  cranium  ; 
when  the  surgeon  says  with  the  dog- 
matism of  truth,  "  With  so  many 
grains'  weight  of  this  gray  brain- 
matter  situated  in  such  and  such  a 
region,  a  man  hates  his  enemy,  with 
so  many  more  grains  in  another  region 
he  loves  his  friend,"  and  so  forth  1 
It  would  be  easy,  and  is  rather 
tempting,  to  pursue  the  subject  still 
further,  and  imagine  surgical  opera- 
tions replacing  prisons,  refuges,  and 
reformatories,  in  dealing  with  mur- 
derers, thieves,  perjurers,  and  other 


dishonest  folk.  "The  abstraction  of 
four  grains  of  the  brain-matter  regu- 
lating the  acquisitive  qualities  of 
Giles  Hausbreaker  has  had  the  desired 
effect,  and  he  is  now  discharged  from 
the  State  Hospital  for  criminals,  with 
a  warranty  of  honesty  from  the  chief 
surgeon."  The  police  reports  of  the 
twentieth  century  will  run  something 
in  this  style  ;  the  surgeons  of  Swift's 
Laputa  will  be  accomplished  facts, 
and  that  rather  scandalous  divine  will 
be  universally  acknowledged  as  an 
unsuspected  prophet.  In  fact  the 
Millennium  will  have  arrived  ;  at  any 
rate  no  reasonable  people  ought  to 
expect  more.  Will  not  a  trifling  play 
of  the  knife  enable  the  lion  to  lie 
down  with  a  perfectly  fearless  lamb  ? 

That  era,  however,  had  not  yet 
arrived,  or  the  man  who  had  given 
his  whole  heart  into  Phcebe  Thayne's 
keeping  would  hardly  have  rejoiced 
at  the  increasing  distance  between 
himself  and  the  girl  he  loved. 

He  travelled  by  way  of  Paris  and 
Marseilles,  there  taking  a  French 
mail-boat  that  connected  at  Reunion 
with  a  steamer  for  Madagascar.  He 
had  plenty  of  time  to  amuse  himself 
in  the  busy  old  southern  town  with 
its  ancient  commercial  associations ; 
and  on  the  appointed  day  he  went  on 
board  the  steamer,  very  early  in  order 
to  enjoy  the  fun  and  distraction  of 
seeing  his  fellow-passengers  arrive. 
He  was  almost  the  first  to  take 
possession  of  his  cabin,  a  roomy 
apartment  which,  as  he  learned  by 
sundry  luggage,  he  was  to  share  with 
another  Englishman  rejoicing  in  the 
truly  British  name  of  John  Smith. 

John  Smith's  luggage  was  strong 
and  compact,  showing  signs  of  consid- 
erable travel,  though  it  was  not 
shabby.  His  handwriting,  to  judge 
from  the  labels,  was  like  his  name, 
clear,  common,  and  ugly.  Hugh 
arranged  his  own  baggage,  and  then 
fell  to  speculating  on  the  manner  of 


472 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


companion  he  was  likely  to  have,  till 
infant  screams  in  an  adjoining  cabin 
drove  him  up  on  deck. 

He  sat  down  not  far  from  the 
gangway  and  lit  a  cigar.  One  or 
two  pale  Creole  ladies  with  shining 
black  hair  arrived,  attired  in  bright- 
checked  cotton  dresses.  A  well-bred 
looking  Englishman  with  a  rather 
supercilious  manner,  addressed  as 
Milor  by  the  bustling  little  steward, 
entered  upon  his  journey  with  an  air 
of  frigid  boredom,  which  his  valet's 
perfect  serving  failed  to  dissipate. 
Then  two  or  three  foreign  nonentities 
of  both  sexes  came  on  board,  and 
presently  a  quaint  and  rather  pleasing 
procession  of  black- robed,  white-coifed 
Sisters  of  Charity  introduced  a  fresh 
element  into  this  modern  Noah's  Ark. 
Just  at  this  juncture  Hugh  Strong's 
attention  was  attracted  by  a  thin, 
wiry,  excitable-looking  young  man, 
apparently  French,  who  rather  obtru- 
sively elbowed  his  way  along  the 
gangway  and  through  the  crowd 
towards  himself.  He  wore  white 
trousers,  no  waistcoat,  a  black  alpaca 
coat,  a  red-silk  scarf  tied  in  an 
enormous  untidy  bow  round  a  limp 
and  soiled  shirt-collar,  and  a  wide- 
brimmed  straw  hat.  He  came  up  to 
where  the  other  sat  smoking,  nourished 
his  hat  in  a  sweeping  bow,  and 
thumping  himself  emphatically  upon 
the  breast  exclaimed,  "Meester  Smeet." 

Hugh  rose  aghast.  This  Mr. 
Smith  !  What  an  upset  of  all  his 
preconceived  notions  ! 

"  Meester  Smeet,  Ingleesh,"  pursued 
the  young  man  with  another  excited 
thump. 

Hugh  bowed  stiffly.  "Pleased  to 
make  your  acquaintance,  I'm  sure," 
he  began  with  a  civility  he  was  far 
from  feeling,  when  the  young  man, 
who  evidently  did  not  understand 
English,  drew  forth  a  fat  letter  from 
that  region  of  his  clothing  which  had 
endured  the  thumping,  and  presented 


it  to  the  speaker.  It  was  addressed 
to  John  Smith,  Esquire,  on  board  the 
Messageries  Steamer  Cochin  Chine. 

Hugh  glanced  at  the  envelope. 
"  You  have  made  some  mistake,"  he 
said,  much  relieved  to  find  that  the 
bearer  of  this  missive  was  not  after 
all  his  travelling  companion.  "  I  am 
not  Mr.  Smith.  He  is — 

"Here, "said  an  exceedingly  deep 
voice  behind  them,  which  made  them 
both  jump,  and  from  behind  Hugh  an 
enormous  bronzed  muscular  hand  was 
put  forth  and  grasped  its  property. 

The  startled  clerk  stood  aside  to  wait 
the  perusal  deferentially,  and  Hugh 
Strong  studied  the  man  who  was 
breaking  the  seal. 

John  Smith  was  very  tall,  standing 
some  six  feet  four  in  his  stockings,  but 
his  great  width  of  shoulder  and  extra- 
ordinarily powerful  build  made  the 
height  less  noticeable.  He  possessed 
a  massive,  clean-shaven  face,  with 
heavy  jaw,  broad  brow,  and  dark 
deep-set  eyes.  Though  apparently 
barely  forty  his  hair  was  plentifully 
streaked  with  gray  and  his  forehead 
deeply  lined.  He  read  the  letter 
twice  through  from  beginning  to  end, 
returned  it  to  its  envelope,  and  noted 
something  thereon  in  pencil ;  then  he 
put  the  letter  in  his  inner  breast-pocket, 
gave  a  slow  nod  of  dismissal  to  the 
clerk,  and  uttered  in  the  same  deep 
voice  the  mystic  monosyllable  Bong. 

"  Mais  pardon,  Monsieur  !  "  began 
the  messenger,  whose  excitability  had 
been  literally  overwhelmed  by  Mr. 
Smith's  personal  proportions.  "  Je 
dois — " 

"Bong,"  repeated  Mr.  Smith,  with 
whom  French  was  evidently  not  a 
strong  point.  "  Go  !  "  he  added  with 
a  gesture  towards  the  shore,  and  then 
he  turned  on  his  heel  and  went 
below. 

The  man  in  the  alpaca  coat 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  threw  up  his 
arms  and  eye-brows  and  returned  on 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Fiord. 


473 


shore  with  a  half-audible  remark  in 
his  native  tongue  about  a  human 
elephant. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  John 
Smith  again  appeared,  and  making 
his  way  to  where  Hugh  still  stood  by 
the  taffrail,  said  tentatively,  having 
evidently  studied  the  other  labels 
below,  "  Mr.  Strong  1  " 

"That  is  my  name,"  said  Hugh, 
whose  hand  was  immediately  subjected 
to  a  cordial  but  somewhat  painful 
salute. 

"  Same  cabin,"  observed  Mr.  Smith, 
the  brevity  of  whose  remarks,  com- 
bined with  the  deep  tone  in  which 
they  were  uttered,  made  them  very 
impressive. 

"  Yes,  I  believe  so,"  answered 
Strong. 

"  Going  far  ?  " 

"  To  Madagascar." 

"  So  am  I,"  said  John  Smith,  and 
then  he  proceeded  to  disengage  a  re- 
markably strongly  made  deck-chair 
from  a  pile  of  similar  furniture,  and 
ensconcing  himself  therein  was  soon 
busy  with  a  pipe  and  his  own 
thoughts. 

And  now  the  time  for  starting  had 
come.  The  bell  ordering  passengers' 
friends  ashore  rang  its  harsh  inflexible 
summons,  and  final  leave-takings  took 
place.  Men  of  business  shook  hands 
with  each  other,  with  no  more  emotion 
than  would  have  been  evoked  by 
crossing  a  street.  A  pair  of  lovers 
kissed  and  cried  unreservedly ;  and 
there  was  an  even  sadder  parting,  less 
demonstrative  to  view,  but  which  sent 
the  wife  ashore  with  veiled  face  and 
bowed  head,  and  left  the  husband 
with  clouded  eyes  and  a  trembling 
lip.  Neither  had  dared  say  all  to 
the  other ;  each  had  been  silent  to 
spare  the  beloved ;  each  had  hoped 
that  the  other  had  not  fathomed  the 
mutual  secret  dread.  The  man,  thin 
and  pale  with  bright  eyes  and  a  tell- 
tale cough,  had  bade  his  wife  farewell 


till  he  should  return  hale  and  strong 
from  a  warmer  country ;  and  she  had 
feigned  to  believe  it  all,  and  had  made 
a  brave  show  of  smiling,  till  the  real 
parting  came,  and  she  clung  to  him  in 
an  agony  of  doubt  that  this  might 
indeed  be  the  last  parting  of  all. 

The  little  tragedy  was  played  within 
elbow's  length  of  a  group  of  keen- 
eyed,  long-nosed  Jews  going  to  India, 
whose  harsh  voices  rose  in  a  noisy 
chatter  that  drowned  every  one  else's 
speech  in  their  immediate  neighbour- 
hood. A  Turk  in  a  red  fez  was  also 
discoursing  to  an  olive- skinned  Italian; 
and  amid  all  this  Babel,  the  vessel 
thrilled  through  with  the  first  flutter- 
ings  of  the  screw,  that  began  to 
whiten  the  water  as  the  steamer 
moved  slowly  and  majestically  for- 
ward. 

So  they  were  off,  a  ship-load  of 
hopes,  fears,  expectations,  anxieties, 
prayers,  tears,  laughter,  and  curses  ;  a 
chance  society  bound  together  for 
some  three  or  four  weeks,  by  that 
slenderest  and  yet  strongest  of  ties 
which  men  call  chance.  Hugh,  lean- 
ing still  against  the  rail,  idly  wondered 
what  would  be  the  outcome  of  this 
expedition,  what  sort  of  fellow-passen- 
gers they  were  likely  to  prove,  and 
why  his  memory  upon  certain  points 
seemed  condemned  to  wander  in  a  dim 
haze  of  suspicion  and  speculation  that 
led  nowhere. 

CHAPTER   XX. 

THERE  is  no  need  to  chronicle  the 
voyage  to  Madagascar,  which  was 
perfectly  straightforward  and  un- 
eventful. The  days  succeeded  each 
other  with  the  same  regularity  as  on 
shore,  and  men  hailed  meal-times  as  a 
relief  to  the  monotony  of  flirting, 
reading,  smoking,  and  taking  that 
general  service  under  Satan  which 
has  become  crystallised  into  something 
very  like  a  proverb. 


474 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Floret. 


The  one  excitement  of  the  twenty- 
four  hours  was  the  declaration  by  the 
captain  of  the  precise  distance  tra- 
versed by  the  ship  during  the  pre- 
ceding day,  upon  which  mileage  the 
passengers  had  most  of  them  betted, 
and  for  the  half  hour  succeeding  the 
posting-up  of  this  distance,  there  was 
much  gesticulation  and  vociferation 
on  deck.  Hugh  Strong  and  John 
Smith  were  the  only  English  on  board, 
though  there  were  several  Mauritians 
and  some  Indian  merchants  bound  for 
Aden.  Being  thus  somewhat  solitary, 
necessity  if  not  inclination  would  have 
led  our  hero  to  fraternise  with  his 
big  compatriot.  Upon  close  acquaint- 
ance, however,  Mr.  Smith  proved  an 
excellent  companion,  and  Hugh  passed 
many  hours  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
conversation,  which,  if  not  exactly 
eloquent,  was  always  worth  listening 
to.  Mr.  Smith  had  travelled  much 
and  been  a  keen  observer  of  men  and 
manners.  He  was  from  the  north  of 
England ;  so  much  Hugh  gathered, 
but  the  man  was  not  communicative 
about  himself.  His  speech  was  slow, 
and  his  language  quaint;  indeed  he 
had  a  habit  of  occasionally  relapsing 
into  impromptu  proverbs,  during  the 
pronunciation  of  which  his  accent 
would  betray  his  northern  origin. 

All  things  considered,  Hugh  did 
not  find  the  time  pass  slowly,  and  if  it 
had  not  been  for  a  tiresome  sensation 
of  obscurity  in  his  mind  and  memory, 
a  certain  irritating  sense  of  mental 
confusion  when  he  attempted  to  recall 
or  account  for  certain  circumstances,  he 
would  have  been  perfectly  at  his  ease. 

The  Mediterranean  was  smooth 
enough,  and  the  Red  Sea  offered  no 
obstacle  to  comfort  save  its  intense 
heat ;  but  once  past  Bab-el-Mandeb, 
the  Cochin-Chine  scudded  swiftly  and 
rapidly  ahead  with  the  trade-wind, 
and  such  passengers  as  ventured  on 
deck  at  all,  presented  the  appearance 
of  a  crowd  of  depressed  invalids. 


At  length  one  welcome  afternoon  the 
steamer  stayed  her  unsteady  motion 
a  while  off  the  Seychelles.  The  lovely 
peaked  islands  rose  sheer  out  of  the 
blue  ocean,  rearing  their  thickly  wooded 
heights  towards  the  cloudless  sky.  A 
strip  of  bright  yellow  colour  lying 
round  the  foot  of  the  mountains 
showed  where  the  ocean  had  wedded 
them  with  a  ring  of  his  native  gold. 
The  houses  and  huts  of  the  town  were 
visible  as  spots  of  white  and  red  amid 
the  vivid  green  tropical  foliage  and 
feathery  palms  whose  graceful  plumes 
stood  out  distinctly  against  the  more 
distant  verdure  of  the  mountains  be- 
hind. The  steamer  was  soon  sur- 
I'ounded  by  a  whole  fleet  of  boats  and 
canoes  manned  by  men  and  women  of 
all  shades  of  colour,  chattering  like 
monkeys  over  their  fruit  and  fish  and 
shells  and  strings  of  native  seeds  and 
nuts.  Every  one  took  a  pleasure  in 
viewing  existence  once  more  from  a 
steady  standpoint,  and  the  women's 
faces  lost  their  paleness  in  the  tinge  of 
returning  animation. 

The  wonderful  tropical  night  was 
impending  as  the  steamer  again 
weighed  anchor, — the  night  that  fol- 
lows so  fast  upon  the  heels  of  day, 
that  light  has  barely  time  to  wave  her 
hand  to  darkness  before  the  veil  falls. 
As  the  Cochin-Chine  forged  forward 
again,  Hugh  vent  aft  and  watched 
the  mountain  sides  all  purple  in  the 
twilight  fade  and  fall  away  in  the 
gathering  dusk.  There  was  a  heavy 
scent  of  tropical  flowers  borne  off  the 
land  by  the  evening  breeze  ;  and  as 
Hugh  gazed  he  felt  that  strange  im- 
pression of  having  seen  something  like 
it  before,  at  some  vague  period  of  time 
\\hereof  he  could  not  satisfy  himself. 
Where  and  when  before  had  he  en- 
joyed that  subtle  fragrance,  while 
watching  dim  mountain  spurs  and 
peaks  fantastic  in  the  mists  of  twi- 
light 1  Whence  came  the  vague  im- 
pression of  a  sudden  heavy  thunder- 


The  Secret  b/  Saint  Florel. 


475 


ous  surge  of  sound,  that  echoed  and 
died  away  again?  Was  his  hearing 
playing  some  trick  with  the  throbbing 
sound  of  the  steady  screw  ? 

"  You  had  better  come  ashore  with 
me  and  put  up  at  my  place,"  said  Mr. 
Smith  in  a  matter-of-fact  sort  of  way 
to  Hugh  when,  the  voyage  ended,  the 
steamer  lay  waiting  at  Tamatave  for 
the  boats  to  put  off  from  the  shore  for 
passengers. 

"  Is  there  no  hotel  1  "  asked  the 
other.  "  It  seems  rather  too  much  of 
a  good  thing  to  cumber  up  a  man's 
house  with  such  a  lot  of  gear,  and  a 
visitor  into  the  bargain.  It's  uncom- 
monly kind  of  you  to  suggest  it." 

"  There  is  a  hotel,"  returned  John 
Smith.  "  I  know  it  well,  and  it  is 
my  profound  compassion  for  any  one 
obliged  to  go  there,  which  makes  me 
offer  to  put  you  up.  The  bedrooms 
are  full  of  cockroaches  and  other  un- 
speakable beasts,  and  the  cooking  is 
vile." 

"  Well,  then,  if  you  are  really  sin- 
cere in  your  offer,"  returned  Hugh,  "I 
will  gladly  accept  it.  You  must  not 
put  yourself  out  for  me,  you  know  ;  I 
can  rough  it  well  enough." 

"  I  have  excellent  servants,"  replied 
Smith  with  the  faintest  shade  of  as- 
perity in  his  tone  ;  "no one  is  obliged 
to  rough  it  in  my  house." 

When  he  was  introduced  into  the 
said  house,  Hugh  understood  that  he 
had  unwittingly  ruffled  his  friend's 
susceptibilities  by  offering  to  rough  it, 
for  it  was  evident  that,  whatever 
might  be  his  business  capacities  (and 
they  seemed  profound  enough),  Mr. 
Smith  was  justly  proud  of  his  house- 
keeping. His  dwelling  was  cool,  with 
beautifully  waxed  and  polished  floors, 
their  darkness  relieved  by  mats  of 
pale  golden  straw  disposed  regularly 
over  them.  There  was  an  air  of  trim, 
almost  conventual  neatness  and  order 
pervading  the  place,  a  primness  of 
arrangement  which  would  have  re- 


vealed the  owner's  bachelorhood  to  the 
most  superficial  observer.  Two  native 
servants  in  white  suits  with  red  sashes 
waited  upon  their  master  .with  great 
deftness,  and  Hugh  experienced  an  odd 
impression  of  civilisation  which  hardly 
seemed  to  accord  with  the  unfamiliar 
surroundings.  They  had  landed  at 
three,  and  an  hour  later  Mr.  Smith 
ordered  coffee,  which  was  promptly 
served. 

"  Ziervala,"  he  exclaimed,  to  the 
head-servant,  an  elderly  grizzled  native, 
"  the  wrong  cup  ! "  With  a  mute 
apology  the  man  removed  the  offend- 
ing article,  which  was  white,  and 
produced  a  blue  one.  "  I  have  been 
absent  only  six  months,"  continued 
his  master  reproachfully,  "  and  you 
have  actually  forgotten  that  I  always 
use  the  white  cup  in  the  morning 
and  the  other  in  the  afternoon.  Do 
not  make  this  mistake  again."  He 
was  evidently  not  altogether  an  easy 
master ;  rather  one  of  the  exacting 
species,  who  are  invariably  better 
served  by  their  subordinates  than 
those  who  show  them  some  little  con- 
sideration. Yet  he  was  also  evidently 
liked. 

"  If  you  have  finished  your  coffee," 
he  said,  presently,  "  we  will  stroll 
round  the  garden.  It  is  rather  a 
hobby  of  mine,"  he  continued,  as  they 
descended  the  verandah  steps  ;  "  there 
are  all  sorts  of  plants  and  things  here 
that  I  have  raised  or  collected  myself 
from  all  sorts  of  places.  Ah,  Rasua, 
how  are  you  1 "  he  exclaimed,  seeing  a 
very  clean  and  tidy  native  woman 
evidently  waiting  to  bid  him  welcome. 
As  he  approached  she  opened  her  arms 
to  display  a  naked  and  extremely 
diminutive  black  baby. 

"  Dear  me  !  "  cried  Mr.  Smith,  care- 
fully adjusting  his  glasses  upon  his 
nose,  and  bending  to  inspect  the  little 
creature.  "  Very  interesting  ;  Zier- 
vala did  not  mention  it.  Take  it  away 
when  you  go,  Rasua ;  don't  leave  it 


476 


The,  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


about  anywhere."  And  with  this 
caution  he  turned  away.  "  A  dread- 
ful thing  nearly  happened  once,"  he 
went  on,  his  return  home  seeming  to 
have  made  him  more  communicative 
and  less  brief  in  speech.  "  That 
woman  is  the  butler's  wife,  and  she 
always  has  a  baby  on  hand.  She  sews 
and  so  forth  in  the  house,  and  once 
when  she  was  busy  she  left  the  baby 
in  my  special  armchair.  I  am  short- 
sighted, and  never  saw  it ;  it  was 
asleep  and  quiet ;  I  should  have 
flattened  it  in  another  moment  if  its 
mother  hadn't  come  in  in  the  nick  of 
time.  I  have  felt  nervous  ever  since 
about  children." 

"  No  wonder,"  said  Hugh,  sympa- 
thetically, and  then  they  began  a  tour 
of  inspection  round  the  garden.  It 
was  evident  that  the  servants  had 
done  their  best  for  its  welfare  during 
their  master's  absence,  for  he  seemed 
well  content.  The  verandah  was  fes- 
tooned with  heavy  garlands  of  a 
creeper  bearing  trumpet-shaped  blooms 
that  hung  together  in  dense  clusters 
of  a  brilliant  orange  colour,  making  a 
vivid  contrast  to  the  delicate  starch- 
blue  flowers  of  the  plumbago.  The 
wax-like  stephanotis  was  here  too,  and 
the  golden  velvet  of  alamandars,  not 
growing  stiffly  round  a  wire  globe  as 
in  England,  but  pushing  forth  branch 
and  blossom  with  the  perfect  grace  of 
nature  untrained.  A  half  dead  tree 
had  its  nakedness  concealed  in  a  mass 
of  bougainvillea,  that  trailed  about  it 
in  great  festoons,  whose  vivid  magenta 
colour  made  a  glowing  spot  of  strange 
beauty  against  the  empty  blue  sky. 

"  It  almost  hurts  one's  eyes  to  look 
at  it,"  said  Hugh,  fairly  dazzled  by 
the  blaze  of  orange  and  blue  and 
yellow. 

"  This,  however,  is  my  triumph," 
said  the  owner  of  the  garden  walking 
down  a  path  that  ended  beneath  the 
shade  of  a  couple  of  fine  mango  trees. 
Here,  half  concealed  by  creepers  and 


raised  upon  a  stand  about  two  feet 
high,  stood  an  old  worn  cask  full  of 
water  with  a  couple  of  gimlet  holes 
bored  near  the  bottom ;  close  by,  and 
so  placed  as  to  receive  the  two  tiny 
trickles  of  water,  was  an  old  native 
canoe,  half  full  of  earth,  in  a  most 
refreshingly  moist  condition,  and  pro- 
ducing a  fine  crop  of  watercress. 
"  There,"  said  Mr.  Smith,  complacently, 
"  there  is  the  only  watercress  bed  in 
Tamatave.  I  brought  the  seed  out 
from  England,  and  devised  the  plan  of 
raising  it  myself." 

Here  was  an  individual  with  tropical 
flora  enough  to  drive  a  Scotch  head 
gardener  wild  with  envy,  turning  his 
back  upon  their  gorgeousness  to  exult 
over  a  homely  weed.  Yet  the  circum- 
stance -told  its  tale.  This  essentially 
practical  man  of  business  had  his  weak 
point,  or  rather,  his  softer  side.  As  he 
stood  gloating  over  his  watercress  bed 
under  an  African  sky,  his  mind  wan- 
dered away  to  the  clear  mountain 
streams  where  he  had  waded  as  a  boy, 
gathering  bulrushes  and  water-soldier 
and  forget-me-nots  with  his  sisters, 
and  stoning  inoffensive  frogs  with  his 
brothers.  He  heard  once  more  the 
blackbirds  whistle  through  the  even- 
ing stillness,  and  smelt  the  fragrance 
of  new-mown  hay  that  floated  through 
the  garden.  There  was  the  old  gray 
house  with  its  mullioned  windows,  and 
the  big  stone  porch  that  was  such  an 
ideal  though  forbidden  place  to  whittle 
sticks  in  on  a  rainy  day 

"  The  man  fills  the  tub  every  morn- 
ing," he  said,  after  a  short  pause,  "  and 
that  lasts  for  twenty-four  hours.  But 
for  four  months  in  the  year  I  have 
watercress,  and  that  in  the  tropics,  let 
me  tell  you,  is  something  to  be  proud 
of." 

One  day,  when  the  afternoon  heat 
was  over,  his  host  took  Hugh  for  a 
walk,  in  order,  as  he  suggested,  that 
he  might  get  some  idea  of  Tamatave 
and  its  scenery.  They  first  walked 


The  Secret  bf  Saint  Floret. 


477 


deai*  of  the  town,  and  then,  turning 
to  the  left,  struck  across  the  open  land 
towards  the  line  of  dunes  that  marked 
the  shore.  On  their  landward  side 
they  were  covered  with  a  thick  growth 
of  scrub  that  stood  out  very  green 
against  the  pale  sun-bleached  yellow 
of  the  sand.  A  low  thorny  bush, 
with  small  glossy  leaves,  bearing  a 
species  of  wild  plum,  was  very  abun- 
dant, as  was  also  the  strychnine,  with 
its  fruit  like  a  round  deal  ball.  Aloes, 
with  their  tough  leaves  ending  in  a 
strong  thorny  poisonous  point,  and  the 
cactus,  with  its  repulsive  tufts  of  hair, 
were  here  in  plenty,  and  a  creeper, 
that  lay  upon  the  sand  like  a  long 
green  string  with  leaves  at  absolutely 
regular  intervals  and  pink  convolvulus- 
like  flowers,  coiled  about  everywhere 
in  interminable  lengths  that  shot  forth 
roots  at  intervals  ;  and  strangest,  yet 
most  familiar  oj:  all,  the  common 
bracken  grew  alongside  this  alien  pro- 
fusion, its  tough  hardy  leaves  green 
beneath  this  foreign  sky. 

"  Is  there  any  society  here  ?  "  asked 
Hugh,  following  his  companion  and 
treading  warily  along  a  narrow  path 
for  fear  of  the  aloe  points. 

"  Well,  yes,  after  a  fashion  ;  there 
are,  of  course,  some  decent  people  in 
the  place,  but  not  many,"  answered 
Mr.  Smith. 

"  Then  of  what  is  the  staple  of  the 
population  composed?"  inquired  Hugh. 
"  There  seem  plenty  of  white  people 
about." 

"  Mostly  black  and  tan,"  returned 
Smith  drily  ;  "  and  mostly, — don't  be 
startled — criminals." 

"  What !  "  cried  his  astonished 
hearer ;  "  this  isn't  a  convict-place, 
is  it  1  " 

"  No,  "answered  his  companion;  "but 
it  is  one  of  the  few  spots  left  in  the 
world  without  an  extradition  treaty. 
The  populations  of  Mauritius  and 
Reunion  are  not  particularly  virtuous 
and  law-abiding,  and  when  they  have 


made  those  islands  too  hot  to  hold 
them  they  take  a  little  trip  over  here 
to  settle  till  the  thing  has  blown  over, 
or  to  stay  for  good  if  the  ..crime  has 
been  too  serious." 

"  Do  you  really  mean  it  1  " 

"  Certainly, "answered  Smith.  "That 
man  who  took  off  his  hat  to  me  as  we 
came  up  the  street  is  my  chemist.  A 
very  intelligent  man  he  is,  and  does 
not  adulterate  his  drugs  so  much  as 
the  others  do ;  he  can  make  up  an 
English  prescription  too.  He  is  a 
Mauritian,  and  came  here  about  ten 
years  ago  in  a  violent  hurry.  One 
day  he  had  taken  a  sudden  fit  of 
jealousy  about  his  wife  and  cut  her 
throat.  She  died  in  five  minutes,  I 
believe." 

"  And  what  will  become  of  him  1 " 

"  Oh,  he  will  remain  here  in  peace 
and  security.  No  one  can  interfere 
with  him  ;  he  is  quite  a  respected  in- 
habitant of  our  town.  Then  there's 
the  man  who  sometimes  does  copying 
for  me." 

"  Why  is  he  here  ? " 

"  He  discovered  a  trifling  discre- 
pancy in  his  private  accounts,  and 
tried  to  put  it  right  by  writing  some- 
one else's  name.  There  are  perjurers 
and  thieves,  too,  here  by  the  score, 
and  I  can  point  out  to  you  the  house 
of  an  engraver  of  false  Bank  of  Eng- 
land notes.  He  is  a  German  by  birth, 
but  a  naturalised  Englishman.  Na- 
turally the  police  wanted  an  inter- 
view, which  the  other  was  far  from 
desiring ;  so  he  quitted  the  land  of  his 
adoption,  and  got  the  start  by  put- 
ting the  detectives  on  a  wrong  scent. 
Clever  dog,  very ;  that's  his  place." 
He  indicated  a  pretty  little  wooden 
house  under  some  mango  trees  at  a 
distance.  "  Snug  little  box,  isn't 
it?" 

For  a  few  seconds  Hugh  walked  on 
aghast,  and  Smith  noticed  his  silence. 
"  Thinking  what  a  fearful  state  of 
things  it  is,  eh  ?  "  he  inquired.  "  My 


478 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel 


dear  Mr.  Strong,  people  are  very 
much  the  same  in  general  habits  and 
personal  appearance,  whether  they  are 
felons  or  honest  men.  Here,  in  some 
ways,  things  are  easier  than  in  strictly 
civilised  countries.  A  man,  you  see, 
knows  that  his  sin  can't  be  visited  on 
him,  so  he  doesn't  mind  its  being  known. 
In  England,  now,  a  felon  always  tries 
to  conceal  his  crime ;  you  are  much 
more  likely  to  associate  with  him  by 
accident.  Here  we  know  pretty  well 
about  him,  and  can  avoid  him  if  we 
wish  to  do  so.  Somewhere  in  Madagas- 
car at  this  moment  there  is  living  one 
of  the  biggest  criminals  unhanged." 

"  Who  is  he1?  "  asked  Hugh,  slowly 
beginning  to  assimilate  these  rather 
original  views  of  society. 

"  His  name  is  Louis  Lozier,  at  least 
his  reputed  father's  name  was  Lozier, 
and  he  was  supposed  to  be  the  son  of 
a  half-caste,  Mauritian  born,  and  a 
very  handsome  Creole  woman.  The 
father  was  a  middle-aged  man  when 
the  son  was  born,  and  well  on  in 
years,  of  course,  by  the  time  Louis 
was  turned  twenty.  Old  Lozier  had 
begun  saving  early,  and  by  avarice  and 
sharp  practice  had  soon  acquired  a  tidy 
sum,  enough  to  buy  some  land  cheap, 
which  the  Government  afterwards 
stood  in  need  of  and  paid  him  hand- 
somely for.  One  day  his  son  ran  into 
the  police-office  to  say  that  his  father 
had  been  murdered,  and,  upon  inspec- 
tion, so  it  proved.  Louis  was  arrest- 
ed, but  brought  forward  witnesses 
who  swore  to  his  having  been  up  at  a 
village  beyond  Curepipe  when  the 
crime  must  have  been  committed ;  so 
he  got  off  scot  free;  but  he  was 
already  so  well  known  as  a  card- 
sharper  and  general  rascal,  that  a 
great  many  people  thought  the  devil 
was  looking  after  his  own  when  he 
walked  scatheless  away  after  the  trial. 
Old  Lozier's  will  was  found  deposited 
with  a  lawyer,  and  his  precious  son 
>came  in  for  a  comfortable  little  for- 


tune. He  dissipated  a  certain  amount  of 
it  at  once,  and  then  temporarily  disap- 
peared, I  think  to  Reunion.  I  don't 
quite  know  what  became  of  him  there, 
but  he  was  implicated  in  some  fraud  or 
other,  and  escaped  again  as  usual.  He 
used  to  drive  about  in  a  carriage  and 
pair  with  a  Creole  girl,  a  lovely  crea- 
ture, called  Julie  something-or-other ; 
I  forget  her  name,  but  she  was  a  well- 
known  character.  Then  another  ugly 
story  cropped  up  about  him.  He  played 
the  Don  Juan  pretty  freely,  and  one  of 
his  conquests  died,  apparently  natur- 
ally, but  owing  to  suspicions  being 
aroused  an  inquiry  was  instituted, 
and  it  was  discovered  that  the  death 
was  probably  due  to  poisoning  by 
stramonium.  No  one  could  prove 
that  Louis  Lozier  had  ever  tried  to 
administer  the  drug,  or  caused  any 
one  else  to  do  so.  It  was  whispered, 
however,  that  the  dead  girl  had  been 
greatly  in  the  rascal's  confidence,  and 
that  possibly  she  might  have  divulged 
awkward  matters.  That  was  the 
theory  of  the  prosecution  when  Lozier 
was  tried  ;  but  he  got  off  again,  and 
returned  triumphant  to  his  Julie,  who 
seems  to  have  overlooked  all  his  little 
peccadilloes.  This  occurred  only  two 
or  three  years  ago,  and  very  shortly 
after  he  tempted  his  luck  again,  this 
time  in  gambling.  He  played  with 
an  Englishman,  who  happened  to  find 
himself  on  the  island,  and  who  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  over  particular 
about  his  associates.  Lozier  won  very 
largely  from  him,  whether  fairly  or  not 
I  don't  know  ;  but  just  about  the  same 
time  some  more  rather  incriminating 
evidence  came  to  light  about  the 
poisoning-case,  and  Lozier  packed  up 
his  dollars  and  came  to  Tamatave  in  a 
tremendous  hurry.  Once  here,  of 
course,  nothing  mattered.  He  enjoyed 
himself  for  a  week  or  so,  and  then 
bought  a  lot  of  things  for  a  journey  up 
into  the  interior.  He  vanished  a  week 
before  the  next  Reunion  boat  came  in, 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel 


479 


and  I  don't  think  any  one  has  heard  of 
him  since." 

"What  a  fiend  !"  observed  Hugh. 
"  What  do  you  suppose  he  is  doing 
now  1  " 

"  Very  probably  intriguing  for  con- 
cessions from  the  native  government, 
or  currying  favour  with  the  mission- 
aries. But  the  sun  is  beginning  to 
get  rather  low,  and  the  night  comes 
on  very  quickly  you  know,  in  these 
regions.  We  must  turn  back." 

So  they  retraced  their  steps  from 
the  quiet  precincts  of  the  dunes,  where 
the  varied  growths  that  covered  their 
landward  flanks  and  hollows  were  al- 
ready beginning  to  lose  distinct- 
ness, though  their  blanched  summits 
showed  pale  in  the  sunset.  To  the 
left  the  hundred  peaked  roofs  of  the 
native  town  lay,  beyond  a  wide  flat 
strip  of  unenclosed  country,  out- 
lined against  a  clear  apple-green  sky  ; 
straight  in  front  of  them  the  sea,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  landspit  that 
holds  Tamatave,  lay  glassy  and  un- 
ruffled, save  when  the  reef  reared  an 
inky  black  spur  to  break  its  opal- 
escence  in  a  curve  of  creamy  foam, 
that  sent  a  distant  sullen  thunder  of 
sound  eel  loing  far  inland  ;  and  between 
them  and  the  sea  lay  the  glossy  man- 
go trees  and  plumy  cayenne  palms 
that  half  hid  the  wooden  houses  of  the 
strangers'  quarter  of  Tamatave. 

A  few  days  afterwards  there  was  an 
eager  jabbering  group  of  natives  clus- 
tered round  John  Smith's  garden-gate, 
which  opened  into  the  main  street,  or 
rather  sandy  track,  of  Tamatave.  Two 
or  three  tamarind  trees,  a  fine  mul- 
berry, and  a  few  palms  reared  their 
moving  green  above  the  close  palisade 
that  shut  in  the  garden.  They  made 
a  refreshing  patch  of  shade  and  cool- 
ness over  the  bare  burning  sand,  a 
coolness  which  tempted  several  idle 
persons  by  to  fold  around  them  the 
cotton  sheets  in  which  they  were 
draped,  and  to  squat,  like  white 


bundles,  within  full  view  of  the  closed 
wooden  door.  It  was  clear  that  some- 
thing was  going  on  inside,  by  the  sound 
of  voices  and  lifting  of  baggage.  Tama- 
tave is  not  such  a  hot-bed  of  excite- 
ment that  its  inhabitants  are  at  all 
fastidious  in  the  matter  of  amuse- 
ment, which  conduces  greatly  to  a 
necessary  simplicity  of  taste  in  the 
matter,  and  accounted  for  the  present 
interest.  Even  an  impassive  Malabar, 
who  owned  a  store  opposite,  kept  his 
cunning  burnished  countenance  stead- 
fastly fixed  on  the  garden-door,  while 
he  leaned  idly  against  his  door-post 
amid  a  display  of  iron  cooking  uten- 
sils, rice-bags,  and  rolls  of  red  cotton 
stuff. 

After  a  while  the  gesticulating 
crowd  was  suddenly  scattered  by  the 
opening  door,  and  the  natives  dis- 
persed right  and  left,  as  four  porters 
emerged,  carrying  a  filanzahan.  This 
article  is  a  very  comfortable  chair, 
made  of  a  strong  coarse  kind  of  linen 
tightly  stretched  over  an  iron  frame- 
work, supported  upon  the  bearers' 
shoulders  by  a  couple  of  stout  poles, 
something  after  the  fashion  of  the 
old  sedan-chair.  Hugh  Strong  was 
its  occupant,  attired  in  the  correct 
karki  clothing,  with  a  pith  helmet 
and  a  large  green-lined  umbrella. 
Four  spare  bearers  walked  behind,  and 
then  came  another  filanzahan  in  which 
four  specially  selected  bearers  sup- 
ported the  enormous  form  of  Mr. 
John  Smith  similarly  clothed  ;  behind 
again  came  a  dozen  baggage-carriers 
with  various  burdens  slung  from  bam- 
boo poles,  conspicuous  among  which 
was  a  canteen  in  a  neat  waterproof 
cover,  which  had  not  seen  the  light 
since  it  had  been  purchased  at  the 
Army  and  Navy  Stores.  All  the 
men  wore  straw  hats  of  various 
shapes,  some  of  which,  of  the  form 
and  dimensions  of  skull-caps,  seemed 
little  calculated  to  resist  the  heat. 
However,  a  native  skull  is  an  abnorm- 


480 


The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel. 


ally  thick  article,  and  the  rest  of  their 
scanty  attire  was  appropriate  enough, 
consisting  as  it  did  of  a  short  sleeve- 
less shirt,  reaching  barely  to  the  knee, 
made  of  the  stuff  woven  from  the 
fibre  of  the  rofia  plant.  This  left  the 
arms  and  legs  free,  and  the  bearers 
stepped  out  manfully  as  they  set  off 
up  the  sandy  street,  followed  for  about 
half  a  mile  by  a  howling,  chattering, 
inquisitive,  odoriferous  mob,  pressing- 
very  close  to  satisfy  its  curiosity,  and 
pervaded  by  a  dozen  small  black  chil- 
dren, who  dodged  in  and  out  and 
round  and  round  their  elders,  after 
a  fashion  calculated  to  make  the 
head  swim,  and  more  resembling 
the  antics  of  monkeys  than  anything 
else. 

After  a  while  the  crowd  dropped 
off,  and  the  bearers  made  quicker  way, 
for,  so  soon  as  the  more  frequented 
track  was  passed,  the  heavy  loose  sand 
became  firmer,  being  matted  together 
by  the  thousand-rooted  twitch  grass. 
Thus  they  sped  onward  for  three  miles 
until  the  river  Ivondru  was  reached, 
and  here  Mr.  John  Smith  took  a 
cordial  leave  of  his  companion.  Then 
he  beckoned  to  one  of  the  two  servants 
accompanying  this  expedition. 

"  Rainkettaka,"  he  said,  speaking 
the  liquid  melodious  Malagasy  lan- 
guage as  fluently  as  the  natives,  "  I 
have  given  my  friend  into  your  keep- 
ing. See  that  you  guard  him  well, 
and  that  no  evil  befall  him.  When 
you  speak  for  him,  see  that  your 
tongue  be  as  the  tongue  of  me,  your 
master,  and  beware  lest  you  deceive 
the  stranger  or  allow  others  to  do  so. 
Let  your  eyes  be  swift  to  spy  out  his 


desires,  and  your  feet  to  run  upon  his 
commands." 

Rainkettaka  had  been  in  service 
with  a  French  Creole  from  Reunion, 
and  having  thus  gleaned  a  smattering 
of  a  language  which  dimly  resembled 
French,  had  been  selected  as  the  most 
useful  servant  Hugh  could  take  with 
him.  In  answer  to  this  solemn  charge 
he  poured  forth  a  flood  of  native 
eloquence  to  the  effect  that  the  vazaha 
(European)  should  be  more  to  him  than 
his  own  right  hand,  that  his  feet  should 
never  tire,  and  his  eyes  should  never 
wink  in  the  said  vazaha's  service,  that 
where  the  white  stranger  led  Rainket- 
taka would  follow,  that, — and  here  he 
was  abruptly  pulled  up  by  John  Smith, 
who  merely  answered  his  enthusiasm 
by  remarking  that  if  anything  un- 
pleasant did  happen  to  the  vazaha, 
Rainkettaka  might  unfailingly  reckon 
upon  something  equally  unpleasant 
happening  to  himself. 

"  And  now,  good-bye  again,"  he 
said,  turning  to  Hugh.  "  I  think  you 
will  find  yourself  fairly  comfortable. 
The  natives  on  this  side  of  the  island 
are  quite  friendly  and  you  are  not 
likely  to  come  to  any  harm.  As  for 
sport,  you  won't  get  much  of  that ; 
you  see  there  is  nothing  to  shoot  except 
lemurs  and  crocodiles  and  a  coast  crow 
or  two,  till  you  strike  inland.  Still, 
you  won't  find  the  place  quite  devoid 
of  interest.  Come  straight  to  my 
house  when  you  return  ;  you  will  find 
the  room  ready  for  you."  With  this 
kindly  speech  Mr.  Smith  gripped  his 
friend's  hand  again,  and  then,  settling 
himself  into  his  chair,  returned  to- 
Tamatave  and  his  ledgers. 


(To  be  continued.} 


No.  440J 


[One  Shilling 


MACMILLAN  S 


JUNE,   1896 
Contents 

PAGE 

I. -»-THE  SECRET  OF  SAINT  FLOREL.     Chapters  IV.- -VI.     81 

II. — INTO  THE  JAWS  OF  DEATH 93 

III.— THE  FIRST  SCOTS  BRIGADE 104 

IV. — AN  ARM-CHAIR  PHILOSOPHER 114 

V. — THE  ROMANCE  OF  A  STALL 118 

VI. — A  FLORENTINE  DESPOT      . • 128 

VII.— IN  BIDEFORD  BAY 137 

VIII.— THE  WHITE  ROAD 145 

IX. — OLD  AND  NEW  RADICALS  .  .  153 


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30 


MAOMILLAN'S  MAGAZIN K.— A DVERTISEMEN'JLU 


THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY, 

A  Monthly  Review.    Edited  by  JAMES  KNOWLES. 


Contributions  by  the  following  eminent  writers  have  appeared  in  its  columns  : 

John  Fowler. 

Rev.  W.  Martiueau. 

Frederick  Wedmore. 


Lord  Tennyson. 

Rt.  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone. 

Cardinal  Manning. 

Vet.  Stratford  de  Redcliffe. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll. 

The  Bishop  of   Gloucester 

and  Bristol. 
The  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 
Archibald  Forbes. 
Matthew  Arnold. 
Professor  Huxley. 
James  Anthony  P^roude. 
fir  J.  Lubbock,  Bart.,  M.P. 
Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter. 
Hev.  J.  Baldwin  Brown. 
Rt.  Hon.  J.  Stansfeld,  M.P. 
Rev.  A.  H.  Mackonochie. 
Canon  T.  T.  Carter. 
Canon  Barry. 
Lord  Selborne. 
Hon.  Mr.  Justice  Stephen. 
M.  B.  Grant  Duff. 
Lord  Brassey. 
Sir  T.  Bazley,  M.P. 
Rt.  Hon.  Lyon  Playfair. 
Sir  Julius  Vogel,  K.C.M.G. 
Henry  Irving. 
SirThos.  Watson,  Bart  ,  M  .D. 
Lady  Pollock. 
George  von  Bunsen. 
George  PercyBadger.D.C.L. 
Professor  Colvin. 
Lt.-Gen.  Sir  Geo.  Chesney. 
Sir  Erskine  Perry. 
Bir  Henry  Suinner  Maine. 
Rev.  Malcolm  MacColl. 
General  Lord  Wolseley. 
Professor  Tyndall. 
Captain  Ganibier,  R.N. 
John  Holms. 
Dr.  Doran. 
Professor  Rnskin. 
Alfred  Wills,  Q.C. 
The  Dean  of  Westminster. 
The  Abbe  Martin. 
Sir  R.  Spencer  Robinson. 
Professor  Fleeming  Jenkin. 
Dr.  Humphrey  Sandwith. 
The  Hon.  Roden  Noel. 
The    Right    Rev.    Charles 

Wordsworth. 
Mons.  John  Lemoinne. 
Rabbi  H°rmaun  Adler. 
General  Sir  E.  B.  Hamley. 
Professor  Goldwin  Smith. 
Professor  St.  George  Mivart. 
Mons.  Raoul  Pictet. 
His  Highness  Midhat  Pasha. 
Lord  Arthur  Russell,  M.  P. 
Colonel  C.  B.  Brackenbury. 
Dr.  G.  Vance  Smith. 
Bir  D.  Wedderburn,  Bart. 
Miss  Florence  Nightingale. 
Mrs.  Fawcett. 
Professor  W.  Knight. 
H.  M.  Hyndman. 
The  Rev.  W.  L.  Blackley. 
Viscount  Sherbrooke. 
Major-General    Sir    H.    C. 
Rawlinson. 


Sir  Henry  W.  Tyler,  M.P. 
Anthony  Trollope. 
Rt.  Hon.  Henry  Fawcett. 
Sir  Wilfrid  Lawsoa,  Bart. 
W.  Ilolman  Hunt. 
Dr.  J.  Mortimev-Granville. 
Henry  R.  Grenfell. 
Earl  Grey. 

Montague  Cookson,  Q.C. 
James  Payn. 
Viscountess  Strangford. 
Sir  Henry  Thompson. 
The  Earl  of  Diniraven. 
Sir  F.  W.  Heygate,  Bart. 
James  Caird,  C.B. 
Leonard  Courtney,  M.P. 
Rt.  Hon.  Lord  Norton. 
Lady  Stanley  of  Alderley. 
Lt-Gen.  Sir  John  Adye. 
Edmond  About. 
Rt.  Hon.  H.  C.  Raikes,M.P. 
Rt.  Hon.  Viscount  Midleton. 
Sir  Edmund  F.  du  Cane. 
The  Bishop  of  Carlisle. 
J.  O'Connor  Power. 
SirF.  Leighton,  P.R.A. 
The  Earl  of  Redesdale. 
Sir  James  Paget,  Bart. 
Hon.  Edward  Lyttelton. 
G.  F.  Watts,  R.A. 
Pere  Hyacintho. 
SirTheodore  Martin,  K.C.B. 
Monsignor  Cupel. 
Justin  McCarthy,  M.P. 
Viscount  Melgund. 
Dr.  Charles  Mackay, 
C.  Kegan  Paul. 
Mons.  Ernest  Renan. 
Sir  Win.  Gull,  Bart.,  M.D. 
Professor  A.  Vambery. 
Syed  Ameer  Ali. 
Sir  Robert  Collier. 
Samuel  Laing,  M.P. 
Lt.-Gen.  R.  Strachey,  R.E. 
Dr.  Octavius  Sturges. 
Dr.  Seymour  Sharkey. 
E.  Raoul  Duval. 
H.  Seymour  Tremenheere, 
Earl  of  Carnarvon.      [C.B. 
Lord  Lymington,  M.P. 
Major  Hallett. 
W.  M.  Torrens,  M.P. 
Lady  Marian  Alford. 
Rt.  Hon.  Earl  Fortescue. 
William  Fowler,  M.P. 
Thos.  Burt,  M.P. 
Admiral  Lord  Dunsany. 
Rt.  Hon.A.  J.  B.  Beresford- 

Hope,  M.P. 
Hon.  Maude  Stanley. 
Professor  Edward  Dowden. 
Rt.  Hon.  G.  Shaw-Lefevre. 
Lord  Heath. 
Rt.  Hon.  Earl  Nelson. 
Sir  Edward  Sullivan,  Bart. 
The  Duke  of  Manchester. 
A.  J.  Balfour,  M.P. 
H.  Stafford  Northcote,  C.B. 
Professor  Max  Miiller. 
Mrs.  Algernon  Kingsford. 


Rev.  Dr.  Wright. 

James  W.  Barclay,  M.P. 

W.  Bence  Jones. 

Sir  Alex.  J.  Arbuthnot. 

Lord  Colin  Campbell,  M.P. 

Dr.  T.  Lauder  Brunton. 

Dr.  Siemens,  F.R.S. 

Hamilton  Aide. 

C.  F.  Gordon  dimming. 

Lord  Stanley  of  Alderley. 

His  Excellency  Count    de 

Falbe. 

Ahmed  Arabi. 
Prince  Krapotkine. 
Maria  Trench. 
Hon.W.St.J.Brodrick.M.P. 
C.  E.  Lewis,  M.P. 
Win.  Rathbone,  M.P. 
Rev.  Canon  Gregory. 
Lady  Paget. 

SirLintornSimmons.G.C.B. 
Sydney  C.  Buxton,  M.P. 
Rt.  Hon.  Lord  LifTord. 
Samuel  Plimsoll. 
Hallam  Tennyson. 
Right  Hon.  Lord  de  Vesci. 
Rt.  Hon.  J.  G.  Hubbard. 
Prof.MonierWilliams,C.I.E. 
Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Bartle  Frere. 
Marquis  of  Blandford. 
Rt.  Hon.  the  Earl  of  Airlie. 
Rt.  Hon.  Lord  Monteagle. 
Sir  R.  Loyd  Lindsay,  V.C. 
M.  Joseph  Reiuach. 
Rt.  Hon.  Earl  De  la  Warr. 
M.  Emile  de  Lavelaye. 
Rt.  Hon.  Earl  Derby. 
W.  Farrer  Ecroyd,  M.P. 
Sir  John  Pope  Hennessy. 
Rev.  Dr.  F.  G.  Lee. 
The  Earl  of  Lytton. 
Bir  Rutherford  Alcock. 
Principal  Tulloch,  D.D. 
Charles  Millies  Gaskell. 
Hon.  E.  Lyulph  Stanley. 
Prof.  Owen.C.B.,  F.R.S. 
M.  le  Baron  D'Estournelles. 
F.  C.  Burnand. 
Rev.  Stopford  A.  Brooke. 
Peter  Taylor,  M.P. 
Algernon  B.  Mitford. 
W.  T.  Marriott.  M.P. 
Sir  Julius  Benedict. 
The  Earl  of  Belmore. 
Professor  Donkin. 
Rt.  Hon.  Sir  R.  A.  Cross. 
Professor  G.  A.  Macfarren. 
Hon.  George  C.  Brodrick. 
J.  Seymour  Keay. 
Octavia  Hill. 
W.  S.  Blunt. 

Sir  Henry Parkes,  K.C.M.G. 
Sir  Fredk.  Roberts,  G.C.B. 
Sir  Samuel  Baker. 
Edward  Dicey. 
The  Duke  of  St.  Albans. 
Rev.  J.  Guinness  Rogers. 
R.  W.  Dale. 
H.  O.  Arnold  Forster. 
W.  R.  S.  Ralston. 


Rev.  Dr.  Jessopp. 

Frederic  Harrison. 

Theodore  Watts. 

Edmund  Gurney. 

Leslie  Stephen. 

Rev.  Sam.  A.  Barnett. 

Earl  Cowper. 

Sir  Julian  Goldsmid. 

Aubrey  de  Vere. 

Samuel  Smith,  M.P. 

Geo.  W.  E.  Russell,  M.P. 

George  Ho  well. 

Count  Conestabile. 

F.  W.  Rowsell,  G.B. 

W.  S.  Lilly. 

Lord  Bury. 

Oapt.  Hozier. 

Rt.  Hon.  Lord  Lamington. 

Marchese  Nobili  Vitellesch. 

Dr.  W.  H.  Russell. 

Lord  Justice  Fry. 

Lt.-Gen.    Sir  P.    L.    Mao- 

Dougall,  K.C.M.G. 
Sir  Evelyn  Baring. 
H.  D.  Traill. 
Sir  Henry  Taylor. 
Rt.  Hon.  Earl  of  Shaftes- 
Herbert  Spencer.        [bury. 
C.  Magniac,  M.P. 
Rt.Hon.  Earl  Camperdown. 
Cardinal  Newman. 
Miss  Lonsdale. 
Algernon  C.  Swinburne. 
F.  W.  H.  Myers. 
J.  Henry  Bhorthouse. 
Edith  Simcox. 
C.  S.  Moberley  Bell. 
Agnes  Lambert. 
Henry  George. 
Rev.  J.  N.  Dalton. 
Geo.  J .  Romanes. 
Lady  C.  Milnes  Gaskell. 
Lord  Brabourne. 
Nina  Kennard. 
W.  Fraser  Rae. 
Lawrence  Oliphant. 
James  Fergusson. 
Sir  Ed.  Clarke,  M.7\ 
Lady  George  Hamilton. 
Albert  Grey,  M.P. 
J.  H.Tuke. 
Earl  of  Pembroke. 
Marquis  of  Lome. 
Lord  Napier  and  Ettrick. 
Lord  Acton. 
Lord  Darnley. 
Hobart  Pasha. 
Major-Gen.Hon  .W.  Feildiug. 
Prof.  John  Stuart  Blackie. 
Dr.  Chas.  Cameron,  M.P. 
H.  Schutz  Wilson. 
George  Jacob  Holyoake. 
Rev.  G.  R.  Gleig. 
Capt.   E.   A.    de  Cosson, 

F.R.G.8. 
H.  H.  Champion. 


CONTENTS  for  MAY,  1896.— Mr.  Lncky  on  Democracy.  By  the  Right  Hon.  John  Morley,  M.P.— Why 
South  Africa  cannot  wait.  By  Edward  Dicey,  C.B.— The  Truth  of  the  Dongola  Adventure.  By  Wilfrid  Scawen 
Blunt. — If  Ireland  sent  her  M" P. 's  to  Washington?  By  William  O'Brien. — The  Irish  Land  Question  To-day.  By 
the  Right  Hon.  Lord  Mouteagle.— Portrait  Painting  in  its  Historical  Aspects.  By  the  Hon.  John  Collier.— The 
New  Education  Bill :  (1)  A  Radical  Commentary.  By  T.  J.  Macnamara.  (2)  The  Nonconformist  Case.  By  the  Rev. 
J.  Guinness  Rogers,  D.D. —A  Medical  View  of  Cycling  for  Ladies.  By  W.  H.  Fenton,  M.A.,  M.D. —European 
Coalitions  against  England.  By  T.  E.  Kebbel.— A  Bill  for  the  Protection  of  Innocent  Prisoners  (in  reply  to  Sir 
Herbert  Stephen).  By  G.  Pitt-Lewis,  Q.C. —Co-operation  in  Agriculture.  By  the  Right  Hon.  Lord  Egerton  of 
Tatton.— Hungary  at  the  Close  of  her  First  Millennium.  By  Dr.  Emil  Reich.— The  Reunion  of  Christendom.  By 
the  Right  Hon.  Viscount  Halifax.  A  Note  on  "  Scenes  in  a  Barrack  School,"  by  Catherine  Scott. 

London:  SAMPSON  LOW,  MARSTON  &  COMPANY,  LIMITED. 


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MACMILLAN'S     MAGAZINE 

No.   440  June  1896 

Contents 


PAGE 


i.— The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel.     Chapters  IV.— VI.    .     .  81 

2. — Into  the  Jaws  of  Death 93 

3. — The  First  Scots  Brigade 104 

4.— An  Arm-Chair  Philosopher 114 

5. — The  Romance  of  a  Stall 118 

6. — A  Florentine  Despot 128 

7. — In  Bideford  Bay 137 

8.— The  White  Road 145 

9. — Old  and  New  Radicals 153 

,          MACMILLAN'S    MAGAZINE 

For  MAY,   1896,  contains — 

I.— The  Secret  of  Saint  Florel.     Chapters  I.— III. 

2. — The  New  Mosaics  at  St.  Paul's. 

3.  — Newfoundland. 

4.— The  Old  Packet-Service. 

5. — Mary  Stuart  at  Saint  Germains. 

6. — The  Living  of  East  Wispers. 

7. — The  Centenary  of  Ossian. 

8. — The  Spanish  Main. 

9. — Thomas  Hughes. 

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MORE  THAN  ONE  HALF  OF  THE  MEMBERS  WHO 

DIED  WERE  ENTITLED  TO  BONUSES  WHICH,  NOT- 
WITHSTANDING THE  LOW  PREMIUMS,  WERE  ON  AN 
AVERAGE  EQUAL  TO  AN  ADDITION  OF  ABOUT 
50  PER  CENT  TO  POLICIES  WHICH  PARTICIPATED. 


THE  ARRANGEMENTS  AS  TO  SURRENDER,  NON-FORFEITURE,  FREE 
RESIDENCE,  LOANS  ON  POLICIES,  IMMEDIATE  PAYMENT  OF 
CLAIMS,  AND  ALL  OTHER  POINTS  OF  PRACTICE,  ARE  CONCEIVED 
ENTIRELY  FOR  THE  BENEFIT  OF  THE  MEMBERS,  THFRE  BEING 
NO  OPPOSING  INTERESTS  IN  A  MUTUAL  SOCIETY. 

HEAD  OFFICE  I  6  ST.  ANDREW  SQUARE,  EDINBURGH 


Scottish  Provident  Institution. 

TABLE 

OF  PREMIUMS,  BY  DIFFERENT   MODES  OF  PAYMENT, 
For  Assurance  of  £100  at  Death—  With  Profits. 

Age 

Annual 

AKNUAL 

PREMIUM    LIMITED   TO 

Age 

ne\t 

Premium  pay- 

Sintrlo 

next 

Birth- 

able during 

Twenty-one 

Fourteen 

Seven                 Payment. 

Birth- 

day. 

Life. 

Payments. 

Payments. 

Payments. 

day. 

21 

£1   1C     3 

£2  10     6 

£       4  11 

£5   10     0        £33     0     1 

21 

22 

1  16     y 

2  11     0 

5     9 

5   11     0 

33     5  10 

22 

23 

1  17     2 

2  11     0 

6     5 

5  12     1           33  11     2 

23 

24 

1  17     7 

2  12     1 

6  11                13     1 

33  16     5 

24 

25 

1  18     0 

2  12     6 

73;           14     0 

34     2     0 

25 

26 

1  18     6 

2   13     0 

7  10                14  11 

34     8     2 

26 

27 

1  19     2 

2  13     6 

8     7 

15  11 

34  16     1 

27 

28 

1  19  11 

2  14     1 

9     5 

17     1           35     4     9 

28 

29 

•2     0     8 

2  14     8 

i      10        3 

5  18     6 

35  14     1 

29 

*30 

216 

2  15     4 

11     2 

6     0     1 

36     4     0          *30 

31 

226 

2  16     2 

12     1 

6     1   10 

36  14     6 

31 

32 

2     3     5 

2  17     1 

'    13     2 

638 

37     5     5 

32 

33 

246 

2  18     0 

14     4 

6     5     8 

37  17     2 

33 

34 

2     5     7 

2  19     0 

15     7 

679 

38     9     7 

34 

35 

2     6  10 

302 

16  11 

6  10     0           39     2     9 

35 

36 

282 

3     1     5 

18     4           6  12     5           39  16  11 

36 

37 

298 

329 

19  11 

6  15     0 

40  12     4 

37 

38 

2  11     3 

343 

4     1     7 

6  17     9 

41     8     7 

38 

39 

2  12  11 

359 

434 

707 

42     5     4 

39 

t40 

2  1-1     9 

375 

452 

737 

43     2  10          t40 

41 

2  16     S 

392 

472 

768 

44     0  11             41 

42 

2  18     8 

3  11     1 

493 

7     9  11 

44  19     9            42 

43 

yon 

3  13     1 

4  11     5 

7  13     3 

45  19     3            43 

44 

333 

3  15     3 

4  13  10 

7  16     9 

46  19     7       '44 

45 

359 

3  17     6 

4  16     4 

807 

48     0     8            45 

1 

46 

3     8     5 

400 

4  19     1            846 

49     2     8 

46 

47 

3  11    r> 

428 

521            888 

50     5     8 

47 

48 

3  14     8 

458 

5     5     4 

8  13     2 

51     97            48 

49 

3  18     1 

489 

589 

8  17  11 

52  14     1             49 

50 

417 

4  12     1 

5  12     4           9     2  10           53  19     3      i       50 

51 

456 

4  15     5 

5  16     1           9     7  11          55     4     5 

51 

52 

495 

4  18  10 

5  19  11 

9  13     1           56     9     0 

52 

53 

4  13     5 

5     2     5 

6     3  11            9  18     3           57  12  11 

53 

54 

4  17     8 

5     6     3 

680 

10     3     5           58  17     2 

54 

55 

5     1  11 

5  10     2 

6  12     1          10     8     6           60     0     8 

i 

55 

[The  usual  non-participating  Kates  of  other  Offices  differ  little  from  these  Premiums.] 

*  A  person  of  30  may  secure  £1000  at  death,  by  a  yearly  payment,  during  life,  of  £20  :  15s. 

This  Premium  would  generally  e  sewhere  secure  £800  only,  instead  of  £1000. 

OR,  he  may  secure  £1000  by  21  yearly  payments  of  £27  :  13  :  4—  being  thus  free  of  payment  after  age  50. 

t  At  age  40,  the  Premium  ceasing  at  a 

7«  60  is,  for  £1000,  £33  :  14  :  2,—  about  the  same  as  most  Oflices 

require  during  the  whole  term  of  life.    Before  the  Premiums  have  ceased,  the  Policy  will  have  shared  in 

at  least  one  division  of  surplus.     To  Professional  Men  and  others,  whose  income  is  dependent  on  continu- 

ance of  health,  the  limited  payment  system  is  specially  recommended. 

BRANCH    OFFICES: 

GLASGOW 

29  St.  Vincent  PL          BRISTOL,  31  Clare  Street.              MANCHESTER,  10  Albert  Sq. 

ABERDEEN,  166  Union  Street.        CARDIFF,  19  High  Street.              NEWCASTLE,  1  Queen  Street. 

DUNDEE,  12  Victoria  Chambers.      LEEDS,  35  Park  Row.                     NOTTINGHAM,  27  Victoria  St. 

BIRMINGHAM,  95  Colmore  Row.      LIVERPOOL,  25  Castle  Street.      BELFAST,  10  Donegall  Sq.  ,  N. 

DUBLIN 

.     .     .     36  COLLEGE  GREEN 

LONDON  OFFICE  : 

17  KING  WILLIAM  STREET,  E.G. 

HEAD  OFFICE:    6  ST. 

ANDREW  SQUARE,  EDINBURG-H. 

Printed  by  R.  &  R.  CLARK.  LIMITED,  Edinburgh. 


29  &  3°>  BEDFORD  STREET,  COVENT  GARDEN, 
,  May,   1896. 


•     MA  CHILIAN'S  Monthly 
List  of  New  Books  and 

*X 

New  Editions,  with  Notes 
on  New  and  Forthcoming 

o 

Books,  etc.  '.'"=.- 

flotes  on  flew  Books.       ' 

At  this  time  of  year  all  lovers  of  gardening  are  busy  with  their  gardens, 
and  to  those  of  them  who  may  be  inclined  to  try  new  experiments,  the 
charming  volume  on  The  Bamboo  Garden,  by  Mr.  A.  B.  Freeman- 
Mitford,  enriched  by  drawings  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Alfred  Parsons, 
may  be  safely  recommended.  It  contains  a  detailed  account  of  the 
various  kinds  of  bamboos,  and  of  the  methods  of  cultivating  them.  In 
describing  the  species  the  author  has  had  the  help  of  the  highest 


Macmi Han's  Monthly  List  of 


scientific  authorities,  but  on  the  practical  side  he  can  himself  speak 
with  authority,  as  a  successful  grower  of  bamboos.  The  delightful 
Apologia  pro  meis  Bambmis  which  closes  the  volume  should  go  far  to 
disarm  criticism  from  those  who  are  disposed  to  resent  the  introduction 
of  foreign  plants  and  trees  into  our  gardens.  Although  in  a  sense  a 
practical  handbook,  all  readers  of  the  Tales  of  Old  Japan  will  understand 
the  present  volume  may  claim  also  to  be  recognised  as  an  addition 
to  literature.  Its  dainty  form  and  pleasant  style  will  attract  many 
purchasers  who  may  never  think  of  carrying  its  precepts  into  practice. 

***** 

Dr.  Andrew  White,  formerly  President  of  Cornell  University,  and 
American  Minister  at  Berlin  and  St.  Petersburg,  is  well  known  in  this 
country  as  a  man  of  the  highest  culture  and  of  distinguished  ability. 
It  may  be  remembered  that  he  was  recently  appointed  by  the  American 
Senate  to  serve  on  the  Venezuelan  Commission.  His  History  of  the 
Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology  in  Christendom  is  sure  therefore  to  be 
regarded  as  a  serious  contribution  to  a  question  of  perennial  interest 
and  importance.  In  the  preface  Dr.  White  explains  that  the  present 
work  has  gradually  grown  out  of  lectures,  and  then  a  little  book  called 
The  Warfare  of  Science,  published  many  years  ago,  and  to  the  English 
edition  of  which  a  preface  was  written  by  Professor  Tyndall.  It  is 
difficult  to  give  an  adequate  idea  of  a  work  covering  so  large  a  field, 
but  the  titles  of  the  chapters  may  serve  to  throw  light  upon  the  way  in 
which  the  subject  is  treated.  Vol.  I.  From  Creation  to  Evolution, 
•Geography,  Astronomy  ;  from  "  Signs  and  Wonders "  to  Law  in  the 
Heavens  ;  from  Genesis  to  Geology  ;  the  Antiquity  of  Man,  Egyptology, 
and  Assyriology  ;  the  Antiquity  of  Man  and  Prehistoric  Archaeology ; 
the  '  Fall  of  Man  '  and  Anthropology  ;  the  '  Fall  of  Man'  and  Ethnology; 
the  '  Fall  of  Man '  and  History ;  from  '  The  Prince  of  the  Power  of  the 
Air'  to  Meteorology;  from  Magic  to  Chemistry  and  Physics — Vol.  II. 
From  Miracles  to  Medicine  ;  from  Fetich  to  Hygiene  ;  from  Demoniacal 
Possession  to  Insanity ;  from  Diabolism  to  Hysteria ;  from  Babel  to 
Comparative  Philology ;  from  the  Dead  Sea  Legends  to  Comparative 
Mythology ;  from  Leviticus  to  Political  Economy ;  from  the  Divine 
Oracles  to  the  Higher  Criticism.  The  closing  paragraph  will  enable 
readers  to  form  an  idea  of  the  temperate  and  philosophical  spirit  in 
which  so  great  a  task  has  been  carried  out :  "  Thus,  at  last,  out  of  the 
old  conception  of  our  Bible  as  a  collection  of  oracles — a  mass  of 
entangling  utterances,  fruitful  in  wrangling  interpretations,  which  have 
given  to  the  world  long  and  weary  ages  of  'hatred,  malice,  and  all 


New  Books  and  New  Editions.  3 

uncharitableness'j  of  fetichism,  subtlety,  and  pomp;  of  tyranny,  blood- 
shed, and  solemnly  constituted  imposture ;  of  everything  which  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  most  abhorred — has  been  gradually  developed  through 
the  centuries  by  the  labours,  sacrifices,  and  even  the  martyrdom  of  a 
long  succession  of  men  of  God,  the  conception  of  it  as  a  sacred 
literature — a  growth  only  possible  under  that  divine  light  which  the 
various  orbs  of  science  have  done  so  much  to  bring  into  the  mind  and 
heart  and  soul  of  man — a  revelation,  not  of  the  Fall  of  Man,  but  of  the 
Ascent  of  Man  ;  an  exposition,  not  of  temporary  dogmas  and  obser- 
vances, but  of  the  Eternal  Law  of  Righteousness  ;  the  one  upward 
path  for  individuals  and  for  nations.  No  longer  an  oracle,  good  for 
the  '  lower  orders '  to  accept  but  to  be  quietly  sneered  at  by  '  the 
enlightened';  no  longer  a  fetich,  whose  defenders  must  become 
persecutors,  or  reconcilers,  or  apologists,  but  a  most  fruitful  fact, 
which  religion  and  science  may  accept  as  a  source  of  strength  to  both." 

The  collected  edition  of  the  hymns  and  poems  of  the  late  Mrs. 
Alexander,  edited,  with  a  biographical  preface,  by  her  husband,  the 
Archbishop  of  Armagh,  has  a  pathetic  interest,  and  will  doubtless 
appeal  to  a  large  circle  of  readers  who  are  already  familiar  with  her 
work  but  will  be  glad  to  possess  it  in  this  convenient  form. 
***** 

Mr.  George  Leslie's  Letters  to  Marco  were  so  much  appreciated  by 
lovers  of  Gardening  and  of  Natural  History,  that  he.  has  felt  tempted  to 
issue  under  the  title  Riverside  Letters  a  further  instalment  of  his  familiar 
correspondence  with  his  fellow  academician,  Mr.  Stacey  Marks.  At 
this  time  of  year  the  volume  will  doubtless  find  many  readers. 
***** 

The  novels  of  the  month  include  a  new  story  from  the  practised  pen 
of  Mr.  Marion  Crawford  entitled  Adam  Johnstone's  Son,  and  an  Anglo- 
Indian  story,  His  Honor  and  a  Lady,  by  Sarah  Jeannette  Duncan 
(Mrs.  Everard  Cotes),  whose  charming  little  tale  Sonny  Sahib  was  so 
well  received  last  year.  Mr.  Mason's  Courtship  of  Morrice  Buckler  has 
passed  into  a  second  edition,  and  has  been  generally  recognised  as  a 
notable  addition  to  romantic  fiction. 


In  Richelieu,  by  Professor  R.  Lodge  of  Glasgow,  we  have  the  first 
instalment  of  a  new  series  of  "  Foreign  Statesmen  "  which  is  being  pro- 
duced under  the  general  editorship  of  Professor  Bury  of  Dublin.  It  is 


Macmillan's  Monthly  List  of 


hoped  that  the  biographies  will  be  found  useful  to  historical  students  as 
well  as  to  the  general  reader.  The  series  does  not  aim  at  including 
every  statesman  who  has  made  his  mark  in  the  history  of  his  country, 
but  only  such  as  have  exercised  a  commanding  influence  on  the  general 
course  of  European  affairs,  and  impressed  their  memory  deeply  on  the 
minds  of  men.  A  volume  on  Philip  Augustus,  by  the  Rev.  A.  W. 
Hutton,  will  be  published  very  shortly,  and  others  will  follow  in  due 

course. 

«  *  *  *  * 

To  the  ever  growing  army  of  golfers,  the  little  volume  in  which 
Mr.  Norman  Lockyer,  F.R.S.,  and  Mr.  Rutherford,  the  popular 
Secretary  of  the  St.  George's  Golf  Club,  have  codified  and  annotated 
the  Rules  of  Golf  should  be  generally  acceptable.  It  is  issued  in  a 
handy  form  for  the  pocket,  and  contains  useful  appendices,  giving  inter 
alia  suggestions  as  to  Match  Play  Tournaments. 


In  their  Exercises  for  the  Study  of  French,  Mr.  E.  E.  Brandon  and 
Mademoiselle  Duriaux  have  endeavoured  to  supply  a  logical  method  of 
teaching  the  subject.  Its  nature  is  fully  explained  in  a  preface  addressed 
to  teachers,  but  briefly  it  is  based  upon  the  principle  that  a  living 
language  should  be  taught  in  a  living  manner,  that  is,  by  hearing  and 
speaking,  rather  than  by  reading.  The  exercises  which  deal  syste- 
matically with  the  events  and  interests  of  our  every-day  life  are  issued 
in  two  forms  (i)  in  a  volume  with  the  Introduction  for  the  Teacher, 
(2)  in  separate  booklets  for  the  use  of  the  pupils. 


Messrs.  MAC.MILLAN  &  Co.  hope  to  publish  the  following, 
among  other  books,  during  the  month  of  May. 

Sir  John  Lubbock's  volume  on  the  Scenery  of  Switzerland  will  come 
out  appropriately  at  a  time  when  some  English  travellers  are  already 
beginning  to  think  of  seeking  the  invigorating  air  of  the  high  Alps.  It 
will  no  doubt  become  a  favourite  companion  to  thousands  of  travellers 
during  the  season,  and  be  hardly  less  welcome  at  other  times  of  the 
year  as  a  reminder  of  past  pleasures,  or  to  those  who  have  not  yet 
visited  Switzerland — as  a  delightful  foretaste  of  what  is  to  come.  The 


New  Books  and  New  Editions.  5 

book  is  largely  scientific  in  character,  but  the  subjects  are  handled  in  the 
popular  style  which  so  many  readers  have  learned  to  associate  will? 
Sir  John  Lubbock's  name.  The  titles  of  a  few  chapters  will  give  ar 
idea  of  the  contents :  The  Geology  of  Switzerland,  The  Origin  ot 
Mountains,  Snow  and  Ice  Glaciers,  Valleys,  Lakes,  Action  of  Rivers, 
Influence  of  Strata  upon  Scenery,  The  Valais,  Jura,  Bernese  Ober- 
land,  etc. 


So  many  of  us  are  called  upon  at  one  time  or  another  to  act  as 
Trustees,  that  the  popular  lectures  lately  delivered  by  Mr.  Augustine 
Birrell,  Q.C.,  M.P.,  upon  the  Duties  and  Liabilities  of  Trustees  are  likely 
to  meet  with  a  hearty  welcome  in  book  form.  The  author's  object  is 
to  ascertain  and  explain  the  present  legal  position  of  persons  who  have 
accepted  an  express  executed  private  Trust  either  under  a  Will  or  Deed. 


Under  the  title  Denis:  a  Study  in  Black  and  While,  Mrs.  E.  M. 
Field  has  nearly  ready  an  Irish  novel  dedicated  to  her  kinsfolk  friends 
the  landowners  of  Ireland,  and  written  with  the  object  of  throwing  light, 
by  the  relation  of  actual  incidents,  on  circumstances  and  characteristics 
of  Irish  life  which  are  too  often  unknown  or  ignored,  but  which  are  yet 
in  her  judgment  vital  factors  in  the  Irish  Question.  It  must  not,  how- 
ever, be  supposed  that  Mrs.  Field  has  written  a  political  pamphlet  in 
the  guise  of  her  novel ;  on  the  contrary,  she  takes  no  side  either  for 
proprietor  or  peasant,  and  her  pages  are  enlivened  by  plenty  of  stirring 
incident  and  humorous  dialogue. 


God's  Garden:  Sunday  Talks  with  Boys,  by  Rev.  W.  J.  Foxell, 
Minor  Canon  of  Canterbury  Cathedral,  is  an  attempt  to  set  forth  in 
plain  and  interesting  language  some  of  the  essential  truths  of  religion 
and  morals.  The  author  has  had  much  experience  in  dealing  with 
boys,  and  Dean  Farrar,  who  introduces  the  little  volume  to  the  public, 
expresses  his  conviction  that  in  these  little  addresses  the  forcible 
simplicity,  the  real  knowledge  of  what  boys  need,  the  freshness  and 
vivacity  of  statement  are  such  as  should  really  be  helpful  to  boys. 
"  Boys,"  he  writes,  "  can  hardly  fail  to  gain  some  strength,  courage,  and 
wisdom  from  such  sermons,  and  I  shall  rejoice  to  sec  them  widely 
disseminated  and  warmly  welcomed." 


Macmillan's  Monthly  List. 


Mr.  Murcht'-'s  "Object  Lessons  in  Elementary  Science  and  Science 
Readers"  have  been  so  warmly  welcomed  by  teachers  in  elementary 
schools  that  the  announcement  of  a  companion  "  Series  of  Readers  in 
Domestic  Science  "  will  no  doubt  be  equally  welcome.  They  will  be 
followed  in  due  course  by  a  "Series  of  Object  Lessons  for  the  Use  of 
Teachers." 


Man  and  His  Markets,  by  Mr.  Leonard  W.  Lyde,  is  intended  as  a 
reading  book  in  geography,  dealing  with  man  in  relation  to  the  chief 
necessaries  of  his  life  on  earth.  Every  effort  has  been  made  to  give 
life  and  interest  to  the  subject,  both  in  the  selection  and  treatment  of 
topics  and  by  providing  abundant  illustrations.  As  in  the  case  of  a 
previous  volume — Man  on  the  Earth — by  the  same  author,  the  book  is 
the  result  of  his  own  practical  experience  as  a  teacher,  being  based  upon 
lessons  which  have  already  been  given  with  encouraging  results  to  his 
own  pupils.  The  titles  of  a  few  sections  will  give  some  idea  of  the 
scope  of  the  book:  Environment;  The  Birth  of  a  City;  Bread  and 
Milk  ;  Flesh  and  Fish  ;  Coal  and  Iron  ;  Cotton  and  Wool,  etc. 


Other  educational  books  which  are  likely  to  be  welcome  are  Physics 
for  Students  of  Medicine,  by  Dr.  Alfred  Daniell,  author  of  the  well-known 
"Text-Book  of  Physics,"  and  an  Intermediate  Course  of  Practical  Physics, 
by  Professor  Arthur  Schuster,  F.R.S.,  and  Dr.  Charles  H.  Lees,  of  the 
Owens  College,  Manchester.  It  is  expected  that  the  latter  work  will  be 
particularly  useful  in  Technical  and  Higher  Grade  Science  Schools.  A 
Text-book  of  Physical  Exercises,  by  Dr.  Alfred  Carter  and  Mr.  Samuel 
Bott,  comes  with  all  the  authority  of  the  Birmingham  School  Board, 
under  whose  auspices  the  Exercises  have  been  put  into  practice  with 
excellent  results. 


During  May  will  appear  in  the  "  Eversley  Series  "  Vol.  IV.  of  Prof. 
Knight's  new  standard  edition  of  the  Works  of  Wordsworth,  and 
Vol.  VII.  of  Green's  History  of  the  English  People.  The  new  addition 
to  the  "Illustrated  Standard  Novels"  is  Jane  Austen's  Sense  and 
Sensibility,  illustrated  by  Hugh  Thomson,  with  an  introduction  by 
Austin  Dobson. 


The  following   is   a    Classified   List    of 
Messrs.  MACMILLAN  &  Co:s  Forth- 
coming Books. 


Memoirs  of  Frederick  A.  P.  Barnard. 

By  JOHN  FULTON.    Svo. 

Foreign  Statesmen. 

A  Series  of  Lives  of  Eminent  Statesmen,  on  the  same  plan 
as  the  Series  of  "  Twelve  English  Statesmen."  Edited  by 
Prof.  BURY,  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  Cr.  Svo.  2s.  6d.  each. 

Philip  Augustus. 

By  Rev.  W.  H.  HUTTON,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  St.  John's 
College,  Oxford. 

Brt  anfc  (Beneral  ^literature. 
Old  Melbourne  Memories. 

By  ROLF  BOLDREWOOD.     Crown  Svo.     6s. 

Riverside  Letters. 

A  Continuation  of  "  Letters  to  Marco."  By  GEORGE  D, 
LESLIE,  R.A.  With  Illustrations  by  the  Author.  Extra 
crown  Svo.  Js.  6d.  [Ready. 

Studies    in    the    Art    Anatomy    of 

Animals. 

Being  a  Brief  Analysis  of  the  Visible  Forms  of  the  more 
familiar  Mammals  and  Birds.  Designed  for  the  Use  of 
Sculptors,  Painters,  Illustrators,  Naturalists,  and  Taxider- 
mists. By  ERNEST  E.  THOMPSON.  Illustrated.  4to. 

God's  Garden  :   Sunday  Talks  with 

Boys. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  FOXELL,  M.A.,  B.Mus.  (Lond.),  Minor 
Canon  of  Canterbury  Cathedral,  with  an  Introduction  by 
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The  Scenery  of  Switzerland. 

By  the  Right  Hon.  Sir  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  Bart,  M.P.  With 
numerous  Plans  and  Illustrations.  Crown  8vo. 

A  Birthday  Book. 

With  Selections  from  the  Writings  of  RuDYARD  KlPLING, 
and  12  Illustrations  by  J.  LOCKWOOD  KlPLING.  i6mo. 
2s.  6d. 

j£versle\>  Series. 

New   Volumes.     Globe  8vo.     $s.  each  volume. 

History  of  the  English  People. 

By  J.  R.  GREEN.     Vol.  VII.     (To  be  completed  in  8  vols.) 

Complete  Edition  of  the  Works  of 

Wordsworth. 

Edited  by  Professor  KNIGHT.     In  Sixteen  Volumes. 
POETICAL  WORKS.    8  vols.  LETTERS    OF    THE    WORDSWORTH 

PROSE  WORKS.    2  vols.  FAMILY.     3  vols. 

JOURNALS     OF    WILLIAM     AND    LIFE  OF   WILLIAM   WORDSWORTH 
DOROTHY  WORDSWORTH.    2  i  vol. 

vols. 
Each  Volume  contains  a  Portrait  and  Vignette  etched  by 

H.  MANESSE. 

POETICAL   WORKS,  vols.   i,  2,  and  3   now  ready.     To  be 
continued,  one  volume  monthly. 


3Uu0tratefc  Stanfcart)  IRovele. 

New   Volumes.     Crown  <&vo.     35.  6d.  each  volume. 

Sense  and  Sensibility. 

By  JANE   AUSTEN.      Illustrated  by  HUGH    THOMSON. 
With  an  Introduction  by  AUSTIN    DOBSON.         [May  26. 

Melincourt,  or  Sir  Oran  Haut-ton. 

By  THOMAS  LOVE  PEACOCK.    Illustrated  by  F.  H.  TOWN- 
SEND.     With  an  Introduction  by  GEORGE  SAINTSBURY. 

fiction. 
A  Bride  Elect. 

By  THEO.  DOUGLAS.     Crown  8vo.     u.  [Ready. 


New  and  Forthcoming  Books. 


Denis. 

By  Mrs.  E.  M.  FIELD.     Crown  8vo.     6s. 

A  Gentleman  Vagabond. 

By  F.  HOPKINSON  SMITH.     Crown  8vo.     is. 

Tom  Grogan. 

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The  People  s  Edition. 

Tennyson's  Poems. 

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With  a  few  explanatory  notes  and  a  new  memoir  of  the 
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i6mo.  2s.  6d. 

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io  Macmillan's  Monthly  List  of 


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Cowper's  Shorter  Poems. 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  W.  T.  WEBB,  M.A., 
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Exercises  for  the  Study  of  French. 

By  E.  E.  BRANDON,  B.A.,  Instructor  of  French  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan,  U.S.A.,  and  H.  E.  DURIAUX.  Crown  8vo. 
3>y.  6d.  [Ready. 

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[Ready. 

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L—  III. 

Macmillan's  Geography  Readers. 

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Illustrated. 

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garten Schools. 

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Intermediate  Class  Book  in  Physics. 

By  Professor  ARTHUR  SCHUSTER,  F.R.S.,  and  Dr.  CHARLES 
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Miscellaneous  Papers. 

By  HEINRICH  HERTZ,  late  Professor  of  Physics  in  the 
University  of  Bonn.  With  an  Introduction  by  Professor 
PHILIPP  LENARD.  Authorised  English  Translation  by 
D.  E.  JONES,  B.Sc.,late  Professor  of  Physics  in  the  University 
College  of  Wales,  Aberystwyth  ;  and  G.  A.  ScilOLT,  B.A., 
B.Sc.,  Demonstrator  and  Assistant  Lecturer  in  the  Univer- 
sity College  of  Wales,  Aberystwyth. 

The  Gases  of  the  Atmosphere. 

By  Prof.  WM.  RAMSAY,  F.R.S.    With  Portraits.    Ext.  cr.  Svo. 

Physics  for.  Medical  Students. 

By  A.  DAN  I  ELL,  M.A.     Fcap.  Svo.        {Science  Class  Books. 

Science  anfc  flDeMcine. 
A  System  of  Medicine. 

By  Many  Writers.  Edited  by  T.  CLIFFORD  ALLBUTT, 
M.D.,  F.R.S.,  Regius  Professor  of  Medicine  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge.  5  vols.  Demy  Svo.  Vol.  I.  PROLEGO- 
MENA, AND  INFECTIOUS  DISEASES.  25.$-.  net.  [Immediately. 

A  System  of  Gynaecology. 

Edited  by  T.  CLIFFORD  ALLBUTT,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  and 
W.  S.  PLAYFAIR,  M.D.,  F.R.C.P.  2  vols!  Medium  Svo. 

Xaw. 
The  Duties  and  Liabilities  of  Trustees 

By  AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL,  Q.C.,  M.P.    Globe  Svo. 

A  First  Book  of  Jurisprudence. 

By  Sir  FREDERICK  POLLOCK,  Bart.     Crown  Svo. 


The  Bible  for  Home  Reading. 

Edited,  with  Comments  and  Reflections  for  the  use  of  Jewish 
parents  and  children,  by  C.  G.  MoNTEFIORE.  First  Part. 
To  the  Second  Visit  of  Nehemiah  to  Jerusalem.  Extra 
crown  Svo.  6s.  net. 


12  Macmillan's  Monthly  List  of 

The  Modern  Reader's  Bible. 

A  Series  of  Works  from  the  Sacred  Scriptures  presented  in 
Modern  Literary  Form. 

Ecclesiastes  and  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon. 

Edited,  with  an  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  RICHARD  G. 
MOULTON,  M.A.  (Camb.),  Ph.D.  (Penn.),  Professor  of  Litera- 
ture in  English  in  the  University  of  Chicago.  i6mo.  2s.  6d. 

\Ready. 


The  following  Publications  were  issued 
by  MACMILLAN  &  Co.  during  the 
month  of  April,  1896. 

flew  Books, 

BENHAM.— HENRY  CALLAWAY,  M.D.,  D.D.,  First  Bishop  for 
Kaffraria.  His  Life-History  and  Work.  A  Memoir  by 
MARIAN  S.  BENHAM,  Edited  by  the  Rev.  Canon  BENHAM, 
Author  of  "  Catharine  and  Craufurd  Tait,"  etc.,  and  Joint- 
Author  of  "  The  Life  of  Archbishop  Tait."  pp.  xx  (inc.  2 
blank),  368,  2  page  plates,  2  folded  maps  (i  in  colours). 
Crown  8vo.  6s. 

TIMES. — "An  account,  kept  within  reasonable  limits,  of  a  remarkable 
career. " 

GLOBE.— "Miss  Benham  has  handled  her  ample  materials  with  judgment, 
and  the  result  is  a  compact  memoir,  which  will  at  once  take  a  definite  and  last- 
ing place  in  religious  biography." 

ROCK. — "  An  interesting  volume." 

SCOTSMAN. — "It  is  so  thoroughly  done  that  it  has  an  interest  as  a  spiritual 
biography,  and  one  scarcely  less  noticeable  as  a  contribution  towards  the  history 
of  the  evangelisation  of  South  Africa." 

YORKSHIRE  POST.—"  Miss  Benham  has  done  her  work  well,  and  made 
a  book  strong  both  on  its  personal  and  on  its  missionary  side." 

LEEDS  MERCURY. — "The  personal  characteristics  and  public  services 
of  Bishop  Callaway  are  described  with  a  vigour  which  never  lacks  delicacy." 

COMEY. — A  DICTIONARY  OF  CHEMICAL  SOLUBILITIES,  IN- 
ORGANIC. By  ARTHUR  MESSINGER  COMEY,  Ph.D.,  formerly 
Professor  of  Chemistry,  Tufts  College,  pp.  xx  (inc.  5  blank), 
516.  Demy  8vo.  i5J.net 

SCOTSMAN.  —  "It  is  a  work  which  no  laboratory  should  be  without." 


New  Books  and  New  Editions.  13 

CORSON.— THE  VOICE  AND  SPIRITUAL  EDUCATION.  By 
HlRAM  CORSON,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in 
the  Cornell  University,  pp.  198  (inc.  I  blank).  32010.  3^. 

CRAWFORD. — ADAM  JOHNSTONE'S  SON.  By  F.  MARION 
CRAWFORD,  pp.  viii  (inc.  2  blank),  310.  Crown  8vo.  6s. 

SPEAKER. — "A  book  to  be  enjoyed  by  everybody." 

GLASGOW  HERALD.- — •"  He  has  written  nothing  more  genuinely  whole- 
some or  more  true  to  nature,  while  from  first  to  last  the  workmanship  is  of  the 
most  finished  and  skilful  kind." 

DAILY  NEWS. — "  Mr.  Crawford  has  written  stories  richer  in  incident  and 
more  powerful  in  intention,  but  we  do  not  think  that  he  has  handled  more  deftly 
or  shown  a  more  delicate  insight  into  tendencies  that  go  towards  making  some 
of  the  more  spiritual  tragedies  of  life." 

SCOTSMAN. — "It  shows  him  always  at  his  best,  and  will  be  heartily 
enjoyed  by  all  who  read  it." 

DUNCAN. — His  HONOR  AND  A  LADY.  By  SARA  JEANNETTE 
DUNCAN  (Mrs.  EVERARD  COTES).  Illustrated  by  A.  D. 
McCORMlCK.  pp.  2  blank,  vi  (inc.  I  blank),  frontispiece, 
298,  15  page  plates,  2  adv.  Crown  8vo.  6s. 

PALL  MALL  GAZETTE.  —  "This  is  a  fascinating  story  of  Anglo-Indian 
life,  accurate  in  detail  and  true  to  nature.  The  authoress  has  not  only  main- 
tained the  high  standard  of  her  Simple  Adventures  of  a  Mem-Sahib,  but  surpassed 
it.  This  is  praise,  but  truth." 

DAILY  TELEGRAPH.— " The  story  is  full  of  admirable  character-draw- 
ing. .  .  .  Sara  Jeannette  Duncan's  brilliant  story." 

SCOTSMAN. — "It  is  a  very  clever  and  amusing  story.  .  .  .  The  story 
sparkles  with  wit,  and  has  more  than  a  little  dramatic  life  and  movement." 

DAILY  CHRONICLE.  — "Viz  are  inclined  to  place  it  as  the  best  book 
that  Mrs.  Everard  Cotes  has  yet  written.  The  story  js  exceedingly  well  told, 
is  everywhere  witty.  It  has  that  charm  of  atmosphere  which  India  yields  so 
readily  for  the  canvass  of  a  consummate  artist. " 

LEEDS  MERCURY.  —  "Calcutta  has  often  been  described,  but  we  do  not 
remember  to  have  encountered  anywhere  so  vivid  and  cynical  a  picture  of  its 
social  life.  .  .  .  The  humour  is  often  delicious,  and  the  scorn  is  gay  rather  than 
bitter. " 

ENGLISH  CLASSICS— NEW  VOLUME: 

CHOSEN  ENGLISH.  Selections  from  Wordsworth,  Byron, 
Shelley,  Lamb,  Scott.  Prepared  with  short  Biographies  and 
Notes  for  the  use  of  Schools  by  A.  ELLIS,  B.A.  pp.  205,  i 
blank,  2  adv.  Globe  8vo.  2s.  6d. 

EDUCATIONAL  NEWS.—  "te  specimens  of  how  to  make  English 
Reading  an  'educative  subject'  in  secondary  schools,  no  book  has  come  under 
our  notice  better  furnished  forth  than  this.  The  editor  has  enriched  the  extracts 
with  fresh  charm,  and  fitted  them  for  acceptance  with  regard. " 

GLASGOW  HERALD.  —  "Instead  of  devoting  her  notes  exclusively  to 
grammatical  and  etymological  observations,  Miss  Ellis  has  drawn  them  up  with 
the  view  of  making  the  text  thoroughly  intelligible  to  the  reader,  and  of  direct- 
ing his  attention  to  the  beauty  of  the  thoughts,  the  exactness  of  the  insight,  the 
art  and  force  and  delicacy  of  the  expressions." 


14  Macmillan's  Monthly  List  of 


EVERSLEY  SERIES— NEW  VOLUMES: 

WORDSWORTH.  —  THE    POETICAL    WORKS    OF    WILLIAM 

WORDSWORTH.      Edited  by  WILLIAM   KNIGHT.     To  be 

completed   in    16  volumes.      Vols.    I.   II.  and    III.      Vol.   I. 

pp.  Ixiv  (inc.  2  blank),  frontispiece,  illustrated  title  page,  337, 

1  blank,  2  adv. — Vol.  II.  pp.  x  (inc.  I   blank),  frontispiece, 
illustrated  title  page,  438,  2  adv. — Vol.   III.    pp.  vi   (inc.    I 
blank),  frontispiece,  illustrated  title  page,  406,  2  adv.     Globe 
8vo.     5-y.  each. 

GLOBE. — "There  appears  to  be  no  doubt  that,  when  finished,  the  issue  of 
the  works  of  Wordsworth  will,  for  fulness  and  accuracy,  hold  the  field." 

TIMES.  —  "It  may  safely  be  said  that  to  students  these  volumes  will  be 
indispensable,  while  they  are  likely  to  find  a  place  in  the  libraries  of  all  whose 
interest  in  the  works  and  life  of  Wordsworth  is  sufficiently  deep  to  make  them 
prize  an  edition  '  intended  to  bring  together '  all  he  left  that  is  '  worthy  of 
preservation  for  posterity. ' " 

GUARDIAN. — "This  new  edition  will  for  a  long  time  to  come  be  for  all 
serious  students  the  definite  edition  of  Wordsworth — the  most  complete,  the 
best  equipped  with  critical  apparatus,  and  the  most  convenient  for  use  and 
reference." 

SCOTSMAN.  —  "Promises  to  be  the  best  all  round  edition  that  a  reader  of 
Wordsworth  could  possess." 

FREEMAN'S  JOURNAL.  —  "The  edition  should  become  the  standard 
one." 

ILLUSTRATED  LONDON  NEWS.  — "  Must  be  counted  indispensable 
for  every  good  library." 

GLASGOW  HERALD.  —  "With  these  sixteen  volumes  even  the  most 
enthusiastic  and  exacting  Wordsworthian  ought  to  be  satisfied." 

LEEDS  MERCURY.  —  "The  book  represents  scholarly  care,  critical  dis- 
cernment, and  almost  unique  knowledge." 

INQUIRER. — "It  is  already  obvious  that  his  labours  are  providing  a 
priceless  gift  alike  to  the  special  student  of  Wordsworth  and  to  the  '  disinte- 
rested lover  of  poetry.'" 

FOREIGN  STATESMEN  SERIES: 

RICHELIEU.  By  RICHARD  LODGE,  M.A.,  formerly  Fellow 
and  Tutor  of  Brasenose  College,  Oxford,  Professor  of  History 
in  the  University  of  Glasgow,  pp.  2  blank,  x  (inc.  2  blank), 
235  (inc.  i  blank),  i  blank.  Crown  8vo.  2s.  6d. 

TIMES. — "Professor  Lodge  reveals  throughout  his  narrative  a  sound  his- 
torical judgment.  .  .  .  The  career  of  a  great  political  genius  is  here  sketched 
with  accuracy  and  ability." 

LEEDS  MERCURY.  —  "Marked  by  scholarly  care,  wise  discrimination, 
and  a  certain  distinction  of  style." 

FREEMAN- MITFORD.— THE  BAMBOO  GARDEN.  By  A.  B. 
FREEMAN-MITFORD,  C.B.  Illustrated  by  ALFRED  PARSONS. 
pp.  xii  (inc.  I  blank),  frontispiece,  224,  9  page  plates,  2  adv., 

2  blank.     8vo,  buckram,      los.  6d. 

GARDENER'S  CHRONICLE.— "Those  who  have  read  Mr.  Mitford's 
contributions  to  the  Garden,  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society,  and 
to  these  columns,  will  welcome  the  publication  in  a  revised  and  orderly  form  of 


New  Books  and  New  Editions.  15 

the   valuable  information   which   he   has   got    together,  and    will   admire  the 

judgment,   skill,   and  literary  facility  he  has  shown." 

SCOTSMAN.  — "  He  writes  most  fascinatingly  of  his  favourites." 
LEEDS    MERCURY. — "Around    the   practical    information   concerning 

them,  Mr.  Freeman- Mitford  has  interwoven  much  that  is  curious  and  interesting 

concerning  the  bamboo  in  the  East,  and  the  traditions,  fantastic  and  poetical, 

which  have  gathered  round  it." 

GEE — HARDY. — DOCUMENTS  ILLUSTRATIVE  OF  ENGLISH 
CHURCH  HISTORY.  Compiled  from  Original  Sources  by 
HENRY  GEE,  B.D.,  F.S.A.,  and  WILLIAM  JOHN  HARDY, 
F.S.A.  pp.  xii  (inc.  i  blank),  670,  2  adv.  Cr.  8vo.  los.  6d. 

DAILY  CHRONICLE.—  "'  Students  of  the  English  Constitution  as  well  as 
students  of  Church  History  will  find  this  volume  a  valuable  aid  to  their 
researches." 

GLASGOW  HERALD.  —  "Ought  to  prove  of  great  value  to  readers  of 
history." 

SCOTSMAN.  —  "The  method  adopted  is  one  that  commends  itself  for  its 
carefulness,  convenience,  and  usefulness." 

SCOTTISH  GUARDIAN.  —  "There  is  no  book  in  existence  that  contains 
so  much  original  material  likely  to  prove  valuable  to  those  who  wish  to  investi- 
gate ritual  or  historical  questions  affecting  the  English  Church." 

ILLUSTRATED  STANDARD  NOVELS— NEW  VOLUME  : 
LOVER.— HANDY  ANDY.  A  Tale  of  Irish  Life.  By  SAMUEL 
LOVER,  Esq.  Illustrated  by  H.  M.  BROCK.  With  an 
Introduction  by  CHARLES  WHIBLEY.  pp.  2  blank,  xviii 
(inc.  2  blank  and  frontispiece),  523  (inc.  I  blank),  i  blank. 
Crown  8vo.  3^.  6d. 

LAWTON. — ART  AND  HUMANITY  IN  HOMER.  By  WILLIAM 
CRANSTON  LAWTON.  pp.  xviii  (inc.  3  blank),  285,  i  blank. 
32mo.  3-s1. 

SPEAKER. — "It  is  written  with  a  happy  absence  of  pedantry,  and  with 

real,  though  never  paraded,  knowledge This  wise  and  vigorous  brief 

exposition." 

LOCKYER  — RUTHERFORD.  — THE  RULES  OF  GOLF. 
Being  the  St.  Andrews'  Rules  for  the  Game,  Codified  and 
Annotated  by  J.  NORMAN  LOCKYER,  C.B.,  F.R.S.,  and 
W.  RUTHERFORD,  Barrister-at-Law,  Honorary  Secretary, 
St.  George's  Golf  Club.  pp.  118,  2  adv.  32mo.  Cloth, 
is.  6d.  ;  roan,  2s. 

GOLF.  —  "A  close  examination  of  the  book  leads  us  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  work  could  not  have  been  better  done  in  point  of  literary  merit  or  complete- 
ness of  golfing  knowledge.  The  book  contains  a  systematic  analysis  of  each 
rule,  with  valuable  notes,  giving  a  clear  interpretation  on  doubtful  points,  or 
embodying  the  general  practice  in  connection  with  them  on  the  part  of  the  older 
and  best  informed  school  of  players." 

TIMES. — All  golf- players  will  appreciate  the  labours  of  these  two  commen- 
tators, who  combine  scientific  precision  and  legal  training  with  a  sound 
knowledge  of  the  game." 

SCOTSMAN.  —  "The  book  has  been  prepared  with  a  care  which  one 
recognises  on- every  page.  .  .  .  There  is  no  question  as  to  the  knowledge  and 
experience  by  which  Mr.  Rutherford  and  his  coadjutor  have  been  guided." 


16  Macmillan's  Monthly  List  of 

M'LENNAN.— STUDIES  IN  ANCIENT  HISTORY.  The  Second 
Series.  Comprising  an  Inquiry  into  the  Origin  of  Exogamy. 
By  the  late  JOHN  FERGUSON  M'LENNAN.  Edited  by  His 
WIDOW  and  ARTHUR  PLATT.  pp.  xvi  (inc.  3  blank),  605 
(inc.  i  blank),  3  blank.  Demy  8vo.  2  is. 

MACMILLAN'S  NEW  WORD-BUILDING  AND  READ- 
ING SHEETS.  Seventeen  Sheets  on  the  Word-Building 
Principle,  embracing  the  short  and  long  Vowels.  Mounted 
on  Roller.  \2s. 

PATERSON. — THE  MAN  FROM  SNOWY  RIVER,  AND  OTHER 
VERSES.  By  A.  B.  PATERSON.  With  a  Prefatory  Note  by 
ROLF  BOLDREWOOD.  pp.  xvi  (inc.  4  blank),  184  (inc.  I 
blank).  Crown  8vo.  6s. 

TIMES. — "Anyone  giving  a  fair  hearing  to  the  Australian  poet  will  derive 
pleasure  from  much  of  his  work,  and  will  look  out  with  interest  for  his  future 
writings." 

BLACK  A  AD  WHITE.  —  "Few  lovers  of  verse  are  without  Lindsay 
Gordon's  book,  and  all  who  have  it  ought  to  place  this  one  beside  it." 

LAND  AND  WA  TER.  — "  His  verse  displays  genuine  humour,  with  pathos 
equally  true  in  its  ring." 

GLASGOW  HEA'ALD.—"Ea.ch  piece  bears  the  mark  of  special  local 
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DUNDEE  ADVERTISER.  —  "These  poems  of  camp  and  bush  are 
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RATZEL.— A  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND.  By  Prof.  FRIEDRICH 
RATZEL.  Translated  from  the  Second  German  Edition  by 
A.  J.  BUTLER,  M.A.  With  Preface  by  E.  B.  TYLOR,  D.C.L. 
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NA  TURAL  SCIENCE. — "It  is  an  indispensable  book  of  reference  to  every 
student  of  ethnology,  and  it  has  long  been  a  regret  that  the  absence  of  an  English 
translation  rendered  it  inaccessible  to  a  large  proportion  of  English  travellers. 
.  .  .  The  illustrations,  which  are  an  important  feature  in  the  original,  are  being 
admirably  produced." 

ROTHSCHILD.-PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  FROM  FRENCH 
HISTORY.  By  Baron  FERDINAND  ROTHSCHILD,  M.P.  With 
Portraits,  pp.  viii  (inc.  i  blank),  frontispiece,  269,  3  blank, 
1 6  page  plates.  8vo.  los.  6d.  net. 

DAILY  TELEGRAPH.  —  "Can  be  confidently  recommended  to  those  who 
feel  an  interest  in  the  inner  life  of  France  and  the  social  characteristics  of  some 
of  her  most  famous  children." 

DAILY  CHRONICLE.  —  "His  'biographical  sketches' are  in  fact  'charac- 
ter sketches'  that  would  do  honour  to  a  practical  litterateur.  His  portraitures 
of  Louis  XIV.  and  XV.  are  masterly." 


New  Books  and  New  Editions.  17 

TIMES. — "  Baron  Ferdinand  Rothschild  has  made  a  study  of  the  leading  per- 
sonages in  French  History,  and  he  has  produced  in  Personal  Characteristics  from 
French  History  an  extremely  entertaining  collection  of  their  more  famous  utter- 
ances and  ban  mots  ;  or,  as  he  prefers  to  call  them,  their  '  replies '.  .  .  There  is 
not  a  dull  paragraph  in  the  entire  book." 

MORNING  POST.— "The  book  is  a  veritable  tithe-barn  of  good  things, 
supposed,  and  in  many  cases  certainly  known,  to  have  been  said  by  kings  and 
queens,  politicians  and  men  of  letters,  courtiers  and  ladies,  who  flourished  during 
the  eight  centuries  covered  by  the  volume  in  question." 

DAILY  NEWS.  —  "The  book  is  most  pleasantly  written,  and  the  author's 
skill  is  to  be  measured  as  much  by  what  he  omits  as  by  what  he  uses.  He  must 
have  been  overwhelmed  with  material,  and  for  his  purpose  he  has  made  a 
judicious  and  effective  choice." 

SCOTSMAN.  — "  It  is  in  the  skill  with  which  the  anecdotal  character  of  the 
work  has  been  preserved  without  letting  the  book  assume  a  formal  aspect  that  its 
essential  met  it  and  charm  lie." 

LIVERPOOL  POST.  — "It  affords  a  really  delightful  expedient  for  whiling 
away  a  leisure  hour." 

GLOBE.  —  "A  book  of  much  interest  and  utility The  author  has 

evidently  read  deeply  as  well  as  widely,  and  has  formed  a  clear  conception  of  the 
personages  he  describes.  His  choice  of  illustrative  story  is  invariably  judicious 
and  effective. " 

GLASGOW  HERALD.  —  "  Baron  Rothschild  has  gathered  a  store  of  good 
things — bon  mots,  traits  of  character,  -ind  the  records  of  memorable  deeds — into 
which  one  may  dip  with  unabated  interest  again  and  again." 

WEEKLY  SUN. — "It  is  a  charming  volume,  with  not  a  page  from  be- 
ginning to  end  that  does  not  interest  and  attract." 


Bew  JEbftfons. 


ENGLISH  CITIZEN  SERIES: 

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188  (inc.  I  blank).  Crown  8vo.  2s.  6d. 

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important  changes  in  the  relation  of  the  State  to  education  are  under  considera- 
tion." 

EVERSLEY  SERIES— NEW  VOLUME  : 
GREEN. — HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.    By  JOHN 
RICHARD   GREEN,   M.A.     In   Eight  Volumes.     Vol.  VI. 
PURITAN  ENGLAND,   1642 — 1660.     pp.  viii  (inc.   i  blank), 
337,  i  blank,  6  adv.     Globe  Svo.     5^. 

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that  can  be  desired  for  any  library,  while  the  size  and  weight  of  the  volumes 
make  it  a  pleasure  to  handle  them. " 

RAYLEIGH.— THE  THEORY  OF  SOUND.  By  JOHN  WILLIAM 
STRUTT,  Baron  RAYLEIGH,  Sc.D.,  F.R.S.,  Honorary  Fellow 
of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  In  two  vols.  Vol.  II. 
Second  Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged,  pp.  2  blank,  xvi 
(inc.  2  blank),  504.  Demy  Svo.  12s.  net. 


i8  Macmillan's  Monthly  List  of 


People's  Edition  of  Lord  Tennyson's  Poems. 

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IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING,  PARTS  II.  and  III.  Part  II.  pp.  84 
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ILLUSTRATED  LONDON  NEWS.  —  "They  come  caressingly  to  the 
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Books  Reduced  in  Price. 

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trations. Extra  crown  8vo.  Reduced  from  6s.  net  to  $s.  6d. 
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sound  judgment,  accurate  learning,  and  keen  but  tempered  enthusiasm  applied 
to  the  study  and  elucidation  of  the  many  problems,  historical,  social,  archaeological, 
and  architectural,  which  local  history  always  presents  to  the  writer  who  under- 
stands his  business. " 

ATKINSON. — FORTY  YEARS  IN  A  MOORLAND  PARISH. 
Reminiscences  and  Researches  in  Danby-in-Cleveland.  By 
Rev.  J.  C.  ATKINSON,  D.C.L.,  Canon  of  York.  With  Maps 
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MACMILLAN  &  CO.  beg  to  draw  attention 
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THE    BAMBOO    GARDEN 


BY 


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Author  of  "  Tales  of  Old  Japan:' 


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N 


the  cultivation  of  Bamboos  as 
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gardens,  considerable  impetus 
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of  the  experiments  made  as  to 
those  most  adapted  for  growth 
in  English  gardens.  Their  grace- 
fulness all  admit,  and  the  charm- 
ing shades  of  green  in  the  young 
leaves  is  not  the  least  of  their 
beauties. 

Mr.  Mitford  has  endeavoured 
in  this  volume  to  set  forth  the 
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nished by  Mr.  Alfred  Parsons, 
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where witty.  It  has  that  charm  of  atmosphere  which  India  yields  so  readily  for  the 
canvas  of  a  consummate  artist." 

PALL  MALL  GAZ£TT£.—  "This  is  a  fascinating  story  of  Anglo-Indian  life, 
accurate  in  detail  and  true  to  nature.  The  authoress  has  not  only  maintained  the  high 
standard  of  her  Simple  Adventures  of  a  Mem-Sahib,  but  surpassed  it.  This  is  praise, 
but  true." 

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shown  a  more  delicate  insight  into  tendencies  that  go  towards  making  some  of  the 
more  spiritual  tragedies  of  life." 

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or  more  true  to  nature,  while  from  first  to  last  the  workmanship  is  of  the  most  finished 
and  skilful  kind." 

SCOTSMAN. — "It  shows  him  always  at  his  best,  and  will  be  heartily  enjoyed 
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A  Bride  Elect. 

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SELECTED    LIST 


OF 


WORKS  ON  GARDENING 

Published  by  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  ROSE.     By  the  Rev.  A.  FOSTER-MELLIAR, 

M.A.,  Rector  of  Sproughton,  Suffolk.     Illust.     Ex.  cr.  8vo.     8s.  6d.  net. 

GARDEN-CRAFT  SERIES. 

PLANT  BREEDING.  Being  Five  Lectures  upon  the  Amelioration 
of  Domestic  Plants.  By  L.  H.  BAILEY.  Globe  8vo.  4-r.  net. 

THE   HORTICULTURIST'S   RULE   BOOK.     A  Compendium  of 

Useful  Information  for  Fruit  Growers,  Truck-Gardeners,  Florists,  and 
others.  By  L.  H.  BAILEY.  Third  Edition,  Revised  and  Extended. 
Fcap.  Svo.  y.  net. 

RURAL    SCIENCE    SERIES. 

THE  SOIL:  ITS  NATURE,  RELATIONS,  AND  FUNDAMENTAL 
PRINCIPLES  OF  MANAGEMENT.  By  F.  H.  KING,  Professor  of  Agri- 
cultural Physics  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin.  Fcap.  Svo.  y.  net. 

THE   SPRAYING  OF   PLANTS.      A   Succinct  Account  of  the 

History,  Principles,  and  Practice  of  the  Application  of  Liquids  and 
Powders  to  Plants  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  Insects  and  Fungi. 
By  E.  G.  LODEMAN,  Instructor  in  Horticulture  in  the  Cornell  Univer- 
sity. With  a  Preface  by  B.  T.  GALLOWAY,  Chief  of  the  Division  of 
Vegetable  Pathology,  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture.  -Globe 
Svo.  4J.  net. 

GREENHOUSE  AND  WINDOW  PLANTS.  A  Primer  for  Amateurs. 
By  CHARLES  COLLINS.  Edit,  by  J.  WRIGHT,  F.R.H.S.  With  Thirty- 
Eight  Illustrations.  Pott  Svo.  is. 

VEGETABLE  CULTURE.  A  Primer  for  Amateurs,  Cottagers,  and 
Allotment  Holders.  By  ALEXANDER  DEAN,  F.R.H.S.,  Member  of  the 
Fruit  and  Vegetable  Committee  of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society. 
Edited  by  J.  WRIGHT.  With  Thirty-Eight  Illustrations.  Pott  Svo.  is. 

GARDEN  FLOWERS  AND  PLANTS.    A  Primer  for  Amateurs.    By 

J.  WRIGHT,  F.R.H.S.,  Assistant  Editor  of  the  "Journal  of  Horticulture," 
Editor  of  "  Garden  Work,"  Chief  Instructor  on  Horticulture  for  the 
Surrey  County  Council,  etc.  With  Fifty  Illustrations.  Pott  Svo.  is. 

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8vo.     is. 

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CONTENTS  FOR  JUNE,  1898. 

IMPRESSIONS    OF    SOUTH    AFRICA.     II.     By  JAMES'  BRYCE 

With  Map  by  J.  HART. 

LIGHTS  AND  SHADOWS  OF  THE  ALHAMBRA     By  ELIZABETH 
ROBINS  PtiNNELL.     With  Pictures  by  JOSEPH  PENNKLL. 

SIR  GEORGE  TRESSADY.    VIIL     By  Mrs.  HUMPHRY  WARD. 

Frontispiece,  Joseph  Jefferson  as  "Dr.  PanglOSS."  Engraved  by  Henry  Wolf,  after  the  painting  by  John  S. 
Sargent— Sargent  and  his  Painting.  With  special  refera,ic«  to  his  Derations  in  the  Boston  Public  Library. 
By  William  .  Coffin.  vVith  ni  >e  matures  by  J  >ha  S.  Sargint  arid  sketch-portraits  by  Carroll  Beckwith  and 
Augustus  St  Gaudens.— The  Return.  By  L.  Fraik  Toaker-Mr.  Keejan's  Elopemant.  By  Winston 
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Kallock  Foote.  With  picture,  by  the  Auth  >r— Absence.  By  .vlelville  Upton— Notes  on  City  Government  in 
St.  Louis.  By  Albert  Shaw— Judith.  By  \Viliiam  Youn?— The  "  Bronco  Buster."  (American  Artists 
Series.)  Modeled  by  Frederic  Rs  ningion  —  Life  Of  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  The  Struggle  for  Maintenance: 
Thj  Austrian  Marriage— The  Consolidation  of  Napoleonic  E  npire — The  Inheritance  and  the  Heir — The  Array 
of  Nations— The  Congress  of  Kings— Tha  Invasion  of  Russia.  By  William  M.  Sloane.  With  pictures  and 
portraits  by  L'Allemand,  Eric  Pape,  Realier-Dumis,  K..)sti.  K.ou*at,  Billaa^e  and  Dauzats,  Berthon, 
Prud'hon,  Gerard,  H.  A.  Ogden.  Map  by  J.  Hart—  Sayings  and  Doings  Of  the  Todds.  By  Viola  Rosebaro' 
—Humour  aid  Patho?  of  Presidential  CDivantioas.  By  Joseph  B.  Bishop— Topics  of  the  Tima— Open 
Letters  —In  Lighter  Vein. 


THE  ST.  NICHOLAS  MAGAZINE. 

Illus')\itct.     Price  is. 

CONTENTS  FOR  JUNE,  1898 

Frontispiece,  "The  Wood  Dove."  Dravi  by  H;urv  Ailchin— Tin  Mistar's  Lesson.  Poe.n.  By  Alice. 
M.  Lovett.  Illustrated  by  R.  B.  Birch  -What  the  Bugle  tells  on  a  War-Ship.  By  Lieut.  John  M. 
Ellicott,  U.S.N.  Illustrated  by  W.  Taber— Grizzly  Phil.  By  Sidford  F.  Ha  np.  Illustrated  by  G.  Varian. 
—Old  Heads  on  Young  Shoulders.  By  Arthur  Hoeber— The  Elephant  and  the  Giraffe.  Jingle.  By 
Charlotte  Osgood  Carter.  Illustrated  by  R.  B.  Birch  -Pictures,  "Jack's  and  Jill's  Dream  "—Drawn  by  Edith 
Francis  Foster — In  June.  Poem.  By  Annie  Isabel  Willis  -A  Hungry  Customer.  Jingle.  By  Benjamin 
Webster.  Illustrated  by  O.  Herford— The  Story  of  MarCO  Polo.  Chapters  I.,  II.  By  Noah  Brooks.  Illus- 
trated by  W.  H.  Drake — When  the  Cows  come  Home.  Poem.  By  Duncan  Campbell  Scott.  Illustrated  by 
C.  T.  Hill  -Talks  with  Boys  and  Girls  about  Themselves.  I.  What  Your  Bodies  Are  Made  Of.  By  Mrs.  M. 
Bernard-Out  of  Season.  Verse.  By  A.  L.  Bunner— Sindbad,  Smith  &  Co.  Chapters  XL,  XII.  By 
Albert  Stearns.  Illustrated  by  R.  B.  Birch  -Said  the  Rose  to  the  Pink.  Poem.  By  Louis  Chandler  Moulton 
—Picture,  "  The  Artist  s  Daughter."  From  a  painting  by  WilUm  M.  Chase— New  Mother  Goose  Jingles. 
I.  Little  Miss  Crewe.  2.  Finish  your  Meal.  By  Dor  ithy  G.  Rice.  Illustrated  by  Albertine  Randall  Wheelan 
—A  Curious  Stairway.  By  Rev.  G.  Hubbard.  Illustrated  by  H.  Fenn.— Picture,"  Tommy's  Idea."  Drawn 
by  E.  W.  Kemble— The  Lost  Princess.  I.  By  Tudor  Jenks.  Illustrated  by  Oliver  Herford  and  Alice  Archer 
Sewell— A  Weather  Receipt.  Verse.  By  Anna  M.  Pratt— The  Swordmaker's  Son.  Chapters  XVII., 
XVIII.,  XIX.  By  William  O.  Stoddard.  Illustrated  by  G.  Varian— Rain  Song  Poem.  By  A.  I.  W.— 
Uncle  Ted's  Mascot.  By  Virginia  Van  de  Water.  Illustrated  by  C.  T.  Hill— Picture  "No  Fishing  allowed  on 
these  Premises."  Drawn  by  Tappan  Adney— The  Fairies'  Trolley.  Poem.  By  Anna  K.  Almy.  Illustrated 
and  Engrossed  by  Albertine  Kandall  Wheelsn— To  Cloverly.  Verse.  By  Margaret  Johnson.  Illustrated  and 
Engrossed  by  the  Author— About  Grandmama  Gray.  Jingle.  By  Margaret  Johnson.  Illustrated  and  En- 
grossed  by  the  Author— Make-Belief  Tom.  Verse.  By  Claudia  Tharin— Clarissy  Ann  and  the  Flood.  By 
L.  E.  Chittenden.  Illustrated  by  C.  T.  Kill— Spring  has  come  Across  the  Farm.  Verse.  By  Isaac  A.  Pool 
—Pictures,  "  Baseball ;  Grasshoppers  v.  Cricketsville."  Drawn  by  I.  W.  Taber -Paper-Doll  Poems.  The 
Adventures  of  Peter  and  Patty.  By  Pauline  King.  Illustrated  by  the  Author— Rhymes  Of  the  States. 
XLVII.,  Alaska.  By  Garrett  Newkirk.  Illustrated  by  H.  Fenn— "The  Fairy  Godmother."  Report  concern- 
ing the  Puzzle  Prize— The  Letter  Box— The  Riddle  Box. 

MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTD.,  LONDON. 


Delicious.    Nutritive.    Digestible. 


FOOD  FOR 
INFANTS 


"  Retained  when  all 
other  Foods  are  rejected.      It 

is  invaluable."— LONDON  MEDICAL  RECORD. 


EXCELLENT   ALSO  FOR 

INVALIDS  AND  THE 

AGED. 


Banger's  Food  was  awarded  the  GOLD  MEDAL 

of  the  International  rl5a.th  £xnioition    London. 


In  Tins,  of  Chemists, 
&e.,   everywhere. 


"41%+        t+  " 

ttnnwra 

FOR  ITCHING,  FACE  SPOTS,  SUNBURN,  INSECT  BITES,  &c. 

1/14  and  1/9  per  Box. 


OBSERVE  THAT  THE  SIGNATURE 


Is  now 
printed  in 
Blue  Ink 
diagonally 
across  the 
Outside  Wrapper 

of  every 

Bottle  of  the  Original 
Worcestershire    Sauce. 


LEA  I PERRINS'  SAUCE. 

THE    ORIGINAL    WORCESTERSHIRE. 


I  Wholesale  and  for  Export  by  the 
Proprietors,  Worcester ; 

/  Crosse  &  Blackwell,  Ltd.,  London  ; 

]     and  Export  Oilmen  generally. 
RETAIL    EVERYWHERE. 


Invested  Funds    - 
Paid  in  Claims 


NATIONAL 

PROVIDENT 


£4,800,000 
£9,500,000 


FOR 

MUTUAL 

LIFE 
ASSURANCE. 


Established  1835. 


INSTITUTION. 

PROFITS.— The  whole  are  divided  amongst  the  Assured.    Already  divided,  £4,600,000. 

At  the  division  in  1892  there  were  nearly  Eight  Hundred  Policies,  in  respect  of  which  not  only  were  the 
Premiums  entirely  extinguished,  bnt  also  Annuities  were  granted  or  Cash  Bonuses  paid,  whilst  in  the  case 
of  many  Policies  the  original  sums  assured  are  now  more  than  doubled  by  the  Bonus  Additions. 

ENDOWMENT-ASSURANCE  POLICIES  ARE  ISSUED,  COMBINING  LIFE  ASSURANCE  AT  MINIMUM  COST,  WITH  PROVISION 

FOR  OLD  ACE. 

48  Graceehureh  St.,  London,  E.G.  ARTHUR  SMITHER,  Actuary  and  secretary. 

Applications  for  Agencies  invited. 


LAZENBY'S     LAZENBYS  PICKLES 

LAZENBY'S  SOUPS 
LAZENBY'S  SOUP  SQUARES 
LAZENBY'S  TABLE  JELLIES 


HARVEY'S 
-i  SAUCE 


PREPARED    FROM 

THE    ORIGINAL    RECIPE 

BEARS  THE  WELL  KNOWN    LABEL       LAZENBY'S      POTTED       MEATS 

Signed 


LAZENBY'S  BAKING  POWDER 


AP 
4 
M2 
v.74 


Macmillan1 s  magazine 


PLEASE  DO  NOT  REMOVE 
CARDS  OR  SLIPS  FROM  THIS  POCKET 


UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO  LIBRARY 


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